President Joe Biden orders end of privately-run federal prisons
26 Jan, 2021

President Joe Biden on Tuesday ordered the Department of Justice to end its reliance on private prisons and for government to acknowledge the role it has played in implementing discriminatory housing policies.

In remarks before signing the order, Biden said the US government needs to change "its whole approach" on the issue of racial equity. He added that the nation is less prosperous and secure because of the scourge of systemic racism.

"We must change now," the President said. "I know it's going to take time, but I know we can do it. And I firmly believe the nation is ready to change. But government has to change as well."

Biden rose to the presidency during a year of intense reckoning on institutional racism in the US. The moves announced on Tuesday reflect his efforts to follow through with campaign pledges to combat racial injustice.

Beyond calling on the Justice Department to curb the use of private prisons and address housing discrimination, the new orders will recommit the federal government to respect tribal sovereignty and disavow discrimination against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community over the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development in a memorandum to take steps to promote equitable housing policy. The memorandum calls for HUD to examine the effects of Trump regulatory actions that may have undermined fair housing policies and laws.

Months before the November election, the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era rule that required communities that wanted to receive HUD funding to document and report patterns of racial bias.

The order to end the reliance on privately-run prisons directs the attorney general not to renew Justice Department contracts with privately operated criminal detention facilities. The move will effectively revert the Justice Department to the same posture it held at the end of the Obama administration.

"This is a first step to stop corporations from profiting off of incarceration," Biden said.

The more than 14,000 federal inmates housed at privately-managed facilities represent a fraction of the nearly 152,000 federal inmates currently incarcerated.

The federal Bureau of Prisons had already opted not to renew some private prison contracts in recent months as the number of inmates dwindled and thousands were released to home confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic.

President Joe Biden speaks during an event on American manufacturing, in the White House complex in Washington. Photo / AP

GEO Group, a private company that operates federal prisons, called the Biden order "a solution in search of a problem".

"Given the steps the BOP had already announced, today's Executive Order merely represents a political statement, which could carry serious negative unintended consequences, including the loss of hundreds of jobs and negative economic impact for the communities where our facilities are located, which are already struggling economically due to the Covid pandemic," a GEO Group spokesperson said in a statement.

David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project, noted that the order does not end the federal government's reliance on privately-run immigration detention centers.

"The order signed today is an important first step toward acknowledging the harm that has been caused and taking actions to repair it, but President Biden has an obligation to do more, especially given his history and promises."

The memorandum highlighting xenophobia against Asian Americans is in large part a reaction to what White House officials say was offensive and dangerous rhetoric from the Trump administration. Trump, throughout the pandemic, repeatedly used xenophobic language in public comments when referring to the coronavirus.

This memorandum will direct Health and Human Services officials to consider issuing guidance describing best practices to advance cultural competency and sensitivity toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the federal government's Covid-19 response. It also directs the Department of Justice to partner with AAPI communities to prevent hate crimes and harassment.

The latest executive actions come after Biden signed an order Monday reversing a Trump-era Pentagon policy that largely barred transgender people from serving in the military. Last week, he signed an order reversing Trump's ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim and African countries.


Biden last week also directed law enforcement and intelligence officials in his administration to study the threat of domestic violent extremism in the United States, an undertaking launched weeks after a mob of insurgents loyal to Trump, including some connected to white supremacist groups, stormed the US Capitol.

White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said Biden sees addressing equity issues as also good for the nation's bottom line. She cited a Citigroup study from last year that US gross domestic product lost $16 trillion over the last 20 years as a result of discriminatory practices in a range of areas, including in education and access to business loans. The same study finds the U.S. economy would be boosted by $5 trillion over the next five years if it addressed issues of discrimination in areas such as education and access to business loans.

White House Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice speaks during a press briefing at the White House. Photo / AP

"Building a more equitable economy is essential if Americans are going to compete and thrive in the 21st century," Rice added.

Biden's victory over Trump in several battleground states, including Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, was fueled by strong Black voter turnout.

Throughout his campaign and transition, Biden promised that his administration would keep issues of equity — as well as climate change, another issue he views as an existential crisis — in the shaping of all policy considerations.

Biden, who followed through on early promise to pick a woman to serve as vice-president, has also sought to spotlight the diversity of his Cabinet selections.

On Monday, the Senate confirmed Biden's pick for treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, who is the first woman to lead the department. Last week, the Senate confirmed Lloyd Austin as the nation's first Black defense secretary.

EU to force pharmaceutical companies to fulfill Covid-19 vaccine contracts


Issued on: 24/01/2021 - 14:32

Text by:NEWS WIRES|

Video by: Catherine CLIFFORD


The European Union will make pharmaceutical companies respect contracts they have signed for the supply of Covid-19 vaccines, European Council President Charles Michel said on Sunday.

Pfizer Inc last week said it was temporarily slowing supplies to Europe to make manufacturing changes that would boost output. On Friday, AstraZeneca also said that initial deliveries to the region will fall short because of a production glitch.

"We plan to make the pharmaceutical companies respect the contracts they have signed... by using the legal means at our disposal," Michel said on Europe 1 radio.it

Charles Michel says drug-makers will have to fulfill vaccine contracts

He did not mention possible sanctions but said that the EU would insist on transparency about the reasons for the delays.

He said that after Pfizer's first warnings about delays of several weeks, the EU had managed to reduce these delays by taking a tough stance.

"We banged our fist on the table and finally announced delays of several weeks turned into a slowdown of deliveries," he said.

(REUTERS)

UK doctors want review of Pfizer shot timetable

British doctors’ group wants to “urgently review” its decision to give people a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.

Associated Press London January 24, 2021


In a statement, the UK's association said there was “growing concern from the medical profession regarding the delay of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine". (Photo: Reuters)

A major British doctors’ group says the U.K. government should “urgently review” its decision to give people a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine up to 12 weeks after the first, rather than the shorter gap recommended by the manufacturer and the World Health Organization.

The U.K., which has Europe’s deadliest coronavirus outbreak, adopted the policy in order to give as many people as possible a first dose of vaccine quickly. So far almost 5.9 million people in Britain have received a shot of either a vaccine made by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech or one developed by U.K.-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

AstraZeneca has said it believes a first dose of its vaccine offers protection after 12 weeks, but Pfizer says it has not tested the efficacy of its jab after such a long gap.

The British Medical Association on Saturday urged England’s chief medical officer to “urgently review the U.K.’s current position of second doses after 12 weeks.”

In a statement, the association said there was “growing concern from the medical profession regarding the delay of the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as Britain’s strategy has become increasingly isolated from many other countries.”

“No other nation has adopted the U.K.’s approach,” Dr. Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the BMA council, told the BBC.

He said the WHO had recommended that the second Pfizer vaccine shot could be given up to six weeks after the first but only “in exceptional circumstances.”

“I do understand the trade-off and the rationale, but if that was the right thing to do then we would see other nations following suit,” Nagpaul said.

Yvonne Doyle, medical director of Public Health England, defended the decision as “a reasonable scientific balance on the basis of both supply and also protecting the most people.”

Researchers in Britain have begun collecting blood samples from newly vaccinated people in order to study how many antibodies they are producing at different intervals, from 3 weeks to 24 months, to get an answer to the question of what timing is best for the shots.

The doctors’ concerns came a day after government medical advisers said there was evidence that a new variant of the virus first identified in southeast England carries a greater risk of death than the original strain.

Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance said Friday “that there is evidence that there is an increased risk for those who have the new variant,” which is also more transmissible than the original virus. He said the new strain might be about 30% more deadly, but stressed that “the evidence is not yet strong” and more research is needed.

Research by British scientists advising the government said although initial analyses suggested that the strain did not cause more severe disease, several more recent ones suggest it might. However, the number of deaths is relatively small, and fatality rates are affected by many things, including the care that patients get and their age and health, beyond having COVID-19.

Britain has recorded 97,329 deaths among people who tested positive, the highest confirmed virus toll in Europe and the fifth-highest in the world.

The U.K. is in a lockdown to try to slow the latest surge of the virus, and the government says an end to the restrictions will not come soon. Pubs, restaurants, gyms, entertainment venues and many shops are closed, and people are required to stay largely at home.

The British government is considering tightening quarantine requirements for people arriving from abroad. Already travelers must self-isolate for 10 days, but enforcement is patchy. Authorities are considering requiring arrivals to stay in quarantine hotels, a practice adopted in other countries including Australia.

“We may need to go further to protect our borders,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday.

Rich donors will be the only winners in Boris Johnson's race to the bottom

By Peter Geoghegan

NEWS 24th January


Boris Johnson speaks during a virtual press conference inside 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Getty

BORIS Johnson does not like confrontation. As the prime minister’s former lover Petronella Wyatt recalled a couple of years ago, here is a man who will “do anything to avoid an argument”. Even if it means telling bare-faced lies.

Wyatt’s words were ringing in my ears when I watched Johnson present his Brexit deal at a press conference on Christmas Eve. While the prime minister was winning plaudits in the press for securing any sort of agreement at all with the European ­Union, I found myself constantly struck by the ­cognitive dissonance of what he was ­actually saying.

British exporters, Johnson declared, would “do even more business with our ­European friends” – by, eh, leaving the ­single market and customs union. Our ­fishermen would see a “prodigious” ­increase in catches. Post-Brexit Britain would “spread opportunity” and free trade in equal measure.

You don’t need to be a philosophy ­professor to see the logical inconsistency in all this. “Global Britain” and “levelling up” aren’t two sides of the same coin, they aren’t even the same currency.

READ MORE: Lord Ashcroft: Tory donor's firm lands £350m test and trace deal

So how would Johnson square the Brexit circle, I wondered as I watched his Yuletide address? How would he avoid making some people who had trusted him very angry? Barely a month later, we can start to see the answer. He isn’t even going to try.

In a contest between “the left behind” and “buccaneering Britain”, there will only be one winner. And it won’t be the former steel towns and pit villages.

Politics is essentially the art of reallocating scarce resources. You can have your cake or you can eat it. You can’t do both. The defining feature of Johnson’s character, of course, is a refusal to admit this. He will say whatever it takes to get what he want, and to avoid a row.

Already the reality of Johnson’s fluid ­relationship with the truth is coming home to roost. Scottish fishermen, mired in red tape in Britain, are sailing to Denmark to land their catch. Having given the Democratic Unionists his word that there would be no border in the Irish Sea, the prime minister has delivered just that.

Johnson is a buffoon, but he is not a fool. He knows that the bromides about free trade and economic redistribution are just that, empty words. What matters is what his government does. That’s why the moves Westminster has made since the turn of the year are so significant – and these point to where post-Brexit Britain is really headed.



This week the prime minister was reported to be holding talks with business leaders about “cutting red tape” and turning Britain outside the EU into “the Singapore of Europe”. By conjuring up Singapore, you can be sure that Johnson does not mean that in the future 80% of Britain’s housing will be publicly owned – although he is probably envious of the city-state’s political system, where the same party always wins.

Singapore for Johnson means one thing: deregulation. As a former member of the European Research Group told me in an interview for my latest book, Brexit, for hardline Eurosceptic Tories, was always about cutting regulations and standards.

As the transition came to an end in December, Johnson was promising that Britain would uphold the highest global standards. Indeed, the prime minister made a point of saying that there could be disputes with the EU on the horizon as Britain wanted to raise the bar in areas such as animal welfare.

What a difference a few weeks makes. Now British ministers are ­considering ­“reform” of workers’ protections ­enshrined in EU law, including the ­48-hour working week. Hands up who thinks this reform will mean stronger rights for workers?

Reports suggest that we could soon see changes to our statutory entitlements on rest breaks, overtime pay and the ­requirement on businesses to log daily working hours. That’s a curious ­definition of “levelling up”.

You can tell a lot about a politician by who he surrounds himself with. Among the sycophants and no-names that ­populate Johnson’s cabinet are some of the most fervent advocates for slashing workers’ rights.

Dominic Raab, Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss were co-authors of a 2012 anthology entitled Britannia Unchained that declared that government regulation had left the British “among the worst idlers in the world”. Now this quartet are foreign, home, business international trade secretary, respectively.

Kwarteng was only appointed earlier this month, in what could be read as a clear signal for the direction of Brexit Britain’s direction of travel. The new business secretary has previously ­written that any company’s first 12 staff should be treated as self-employed “with no ­questions” asked and that firms with up to three employees should be exempt from the minimum wage, maternity leave and unfair dismissal claims.


WORKERS’ rights are not the only area that Johnson seems keen to race to the bottom. Westminster has moved fast to dismantle environmental protections.

Pesticides are a case in point. When the EU introduced ban on neonicotinoids – which have proved deadly to bees and aquatic life – three years ago, Britain supported the move and said it would keep these standards after Brexit. But on January 8, just a week after the Brexit deal came into force, the Department for ­Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ­issued a statement approving the use of the pesticide in the UK.

Then there are the various crony ­capitalist projects that Johnson – and ­particularly chancellor Rishi Sunak – has given his imprimatur to. The most glaring is the establishment of a series of “free ports”.

The EU is phasing out these ­customs-free zones amid long-running concerns about money laundering and tax avoidance in them. (Curiously, this week the Scottish government announced that it too would be jumping on the free port bandwagon, albeit rebranded as “green ports”.)

READ MORE: SNP demand inquiry into 'rampant cronyism' at heart of Tory Government

ALL of this will be music to the ears of Brexit’s financial backers. While the vote to leave the EU in 2016 could not have been won without considerable working-class support, the money driving Brexit has long come from those with most to gain from turning the country into “Singapore on Thames”.

Hedge fund managers such as Jeremy Hosking, former Conservative party treasurer Peter Cruddas and Tory donors Michael Hintze, Crispin Odey and David Lilley all spent big on Brexit. A bonfire of regulation is overwhelmingly supported by the tiny number of super-rich donors who bankroll the Conservatives.

The irony in all this is that Johnson owes his “stonking” majority in Westminster to the former Labour voters in so-called “red wall” seats who will be ­hardest hit by a free market Brexit.

Having promised to level up, Johnson will deliver poorer living standards and less protection. But then again when did this prime minister ever care about ­ having lied to the people he claims to cherish?

Peter Geoghegan is investigations editor at openDemocracy. The paperback edition of his latest book Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics was published earlier this month by Head of Zeus.

The bill for Boris Johnson’s Brexit is coming in and it’s punishingly steep

Ministers say it is just teething trouble. To many businesses it feels more like root canal surgery without the benefit of anesthetic

All those acquainted with Mr Johnson and his casual relationship with the truth will have taken that with a juggernaut of salt.’ Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

Andrew Rawnsley

 ‘Sun 24 Jan 2021 

You would have to possess a heart of stone not to weep with laughter at some of those who are now suddenly complaining about Brexit. It is a bit late for Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party, those lusty sponsors of the great experiment with the UK’s prosperity, to be wailing that they have been betrayed. I smiled to see that Roger Daltrey, the Leave-supporting lead singer of the Who, has joined the chorus of rock stars furious that the post-Brexit visa rules will ruin their prospects of touring across the Channel. Mr Daltrey will have to sing Won’t Get Fooled Again to himself before moving on to Boris the Spider and I Can’t Explain.

It is particularly rending for the soul to witness the rightwing press discovering that the cause they so noisily championed is not the nirvana that they sold to their readers. They were cheering when Boris Johnson flourished the Brexit deal that he concluded on Christmas Eve and proclaimed: “This is a cakeist treaty.” The UK would be having the sweet stuff and eating it by gaining lots of shiny new benefits from being outside the EU while still enjoying the historical advantages of frictionless trade with its closest neighbours.

All those acquainted with Mr Johnson and his casual relationship with the truth will have taken that with a juggernaut of salt. Consider the prime minister’s specialist subject of cake. Anyone trying to take a fresh cream cake across the Channel now does so at the risk of having it impounded at customs because it is a dairy product. A Dutch TV report, which has since gone viral, shows border officials confiscating sandwiches from motorists arriving in the Netherlands from the UK. One driver agrees to surrender the meat in his sandwich, but pleads to be allowed to hang on to the bread. The frontier guard responds: “No, everything will be confiscated. Welcome to the Brexit, sir.”

Comedic tales of travellers being deprived of their snacks are the funnier side of an otherwise deadly serious story. The bill for Mr Johnson’s Brexit is coming in and that bill is a punishingly steep one. It is being paid by the fishing fleets in Scotland and the West Country that are tied up because they are unable to export their catch. It is being paid in a slump in activity at Welsh ports because the trade they used to handle is being diverted to France and Spain. It is being paid in billions of pounds worth of transactions disappearing from the City of London, which may not be much loved by all that many Britons but employs a million people, because the deal was so threadbare for the financial sector. It is being paid in car manufacturers shutting down some production because they can’t get parts across borders in time. It is being paid in tonnes of British meat exports rotting at European harbours. It is being paid by many UK businesses, especially the kind of smaller, exporting enterprises that the Tories always profess to love, which are being overwhelmed by the heavy burdens and high costs of the thin deal the prime minister rushed through parliament at the turn of the year.
British companies are being told by the British government that the way to survive is to lay off British workers and transfer their jobs to folk across the Channel

You will recall that it was one of the Brexiters’ signature promises that departure from the EU would be a liberating moment. A buccaneering free trade Britain would flourish as wealth creators were unshackled from the stifling regulatory chains of Brussels. What Brexit has actually done is impose a vast amount of cumbersome and costly new bureaucracy on exporters and importers. British companies have been put in a chokehold of regulations, customs declarations, conformity assessments, health and rules-of-origin certifications, VAT demands and inflated shipping charges. While some ministers talk about reducing worker protections in the name of “cutting red tape”, a move for which there is little demand even from employers, Brexit is ensnaring British businesses in writhing snakes of the stuff. I guess Jacob Rees-Mogg, he who thinks that fish unable to reach EU markets are “happier” knowing they are British, will claim that struggling British exporters should be patriotically proud to be throttled by red, white and blue tape.

Multinationals are not complaining so much because they are often wary of picking a fight with government and have resources, staff and facilities that make them better able to cope. The greatest burdens of Brexit are falling on smaller enterprises, collectively employing a lot of people, who trade with Europe. As my colleague Toby Helm reports in this newspaper, they are hurting badly. The post-Brexit world is so tough for many that the government’s own trade specialists are advising afflicted British entrepreneurs to relocate some of their operations out of the UK and to the EU. This has to be one of the greater absurdities of Brexit. British companies are being told by the British government that the way to survive is to lay off British workers and transfer their jobs to folk across the Channel.

Ministers like to insist that we’re experiencing nothing worse than “teething problems” as exporters and importers come to terms with the most radical change to the way we have traded with our neighbours since Margaret Thatcher pioneered the creation of the single market more than 30 years ago. For sure, snafus and bottlenecks at borders caused by faulty documentation may be smoothed out over time as companies become accustomed to dealing with so many complex new procedures. But a lot of these problems are not temporary rites of passage into a brave new world – these are permanent liabilities. A massive increase in border friction and all the expense that comes with it are baked-in consequences of Mr Johnson’s Brexit. The thicket of bureaucracy imposed on companies means enduring and added costs for their businesses. It does not feel like “teething problems” to them. It is more like root canal surgery performed without any benefit of anaesthetic. This was a predictable – and predicted – result of wrenching the UK out of the single market and the customs union. Thinktanks, some politicians, some business leaders and some newspapers, including this one, warned about the job-costing and investment-sapping consequences of erecting high new barriers to trade. But it is fair to say that this issue was never front and centre of the arguments that raged about Brexit. Evangelists for the adventure tended to dismiss the impacts on companies as mere minutiae compared with immigration levels or the meaning of sovereignty. Remainers struggled to find ways to make technical-sounding issues matter to the public. Among many voters and many politicians, the great benefits of being inside the single market were taken for granted right up until the moment when they vanished.

Some did understand that there would be a price to be paid. One of them was Boris Johnson. He knew enough about the importance of this issue to fib about it. On Christmas Eve, when he was hailing his agreement with the EU as a fantastic new chapter in our island story, he claimed that “there will be no non-tariff barriers to trade”.

This was self-evidently untrue even at the time that he said it. His government accepts that companies will collectively need to employ 50,000 additional customs agents in a post-Brexit world. Industry figures suggest that less than a quarter of that number had been trained by the time Britain left the single market.

The HMRC estimates that Brexit demands that British companies complete 215m additional, often highly complex, documents a year with a mirroring amount of extra paperwork also being generated by EU counter-parties. The cost of that alone on British businesses is thought to be around £7bn a year. If you make exporting and importing more difficult and more sluggish, at the same time as making cross-border transactions a great deal more costly, then it stands to reason that there will be less trade.

Faced with the heavy burdens imposed by Brexit, some companies will stop exporting to the EU because they can no longer find any profit in it. Other companies will move elements of their operations – and, in some cases, all of their business – out of the UK to inside the EU. Investment, jobs and tax revenues that would have benefited the UK will in future go to countries in the EU instead. This is already happening. Other companies will simply find that Brexit has left them unviable. Overwhelmed by the new costs, they will go to the wall. That will be especially so for those who were already struggling to survive because of the coronavirus crisis.

British business lost to European competitors. British entrepreneurs crushed. British jobs exported abroad. Welcome to the Brexit.

• Andrew Rawnsley is Chief Political Commentator of the Observer

The ObserverDogs
Who’s a good boy? The unbreakable bond between humans and dogs

‘He looks particularly attractive on a plush bed in a centrally heated house very far from the Newfoundland home of his ancestors’: writer Simon Garfield with his beloved Ludo. 

Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Observer


Our centuries old love of dogs has never been stronger. So what does a study of ‘man’s best friend’ say about us?


Simon Garfield
Sun 24 Jan 2021 13.00 GMT


Why is he here? Why is my dog lying at my feet in the shape of a croissant as I write this? How have I come to cherish his warm but lightly offensive pungency? How has his fish breath become a topic of humour when friends call round for dinner? Why do I shell out more than £1,000 each year to pay for his insurance? And why do I love him so much?

Ludo is not a special dog. He’s just another labrador retriever, one of approximately 500,000 in the UK (he’d be one in a million in the United States, the most popular breed in both countries). Ludo has a lot in common with all these dogs. He loves to play ball; obviously he’s an expert retriever. He could eat all the food in the universe and leave nothing for the other dogs. He is prone to hip dysplasia. He looks particularly attractive on a plush bed in a centrally heated house very far from the Newfoundland home of his ancestors.

But, of course, Ludo is a unique animal to me and the rest of his human family. He is now an elderly gentleman aged 12 and a half, and we would do almost anything to ensure his continued happiness. We willingly get drenched as he tries to detect every smell on Hampstead Heath. We schedule our days around his needs – his mealtimes, his walks, the delivery of his life-saving medication (he has epilepsy, poor love). We spend a bizarrely large amount of our disposable income on him, and he never sends a card of thanks. When he’s not with us for a few days (when our children take him for a weekend, say), then the house feels extraordinarily empty. I feel so fortunate to know him. Goodness knows how we’ll cope when he dies.

This strongest of bonds has manifested itself over the centuries, and transformed so many millions of lives, human and canine. If it is at least partially true, as Nietzsche claims, that “The world exists through the understanding of dogs,” then perhaps it is also partially true that a study of dogs may provide a valuable insight into ourselves.

Why is he here? Why is this man doing something that involves a repeated tapping noise and the occasional loving sigh? How many hot drinks can he make to interrupt this tapping? Why is his timekeeping so bad when it comes to my luncheon? Why can’t this so-called memory-foam bed he bought me remember how I curled up so snugly last night? Why do I feel so fortunate to know him?

The anthropomorphism of dogs is not a new phenomenon. I have a photo on my desk of a black Labrador from the 19th century dressed as a lord in a suit and top hat (and smoking a pipe).

Talking dogs have been a mainstay of the movies almost from the birth of talking movies. But the collusion of dog and human has never been so abundant, imaginative and unnerving as it is today. The nature of our bond – our commitment to each other – appears to have deepened markedly in the past 50 years, not least because our scientific understanding of the dog has been enabled by advances in genetics, and our sociological interpretation of a dog’s behaviour has led to more avenues for joint engagement. Like dancers emboldened by drink and tenacity, we are entwined with our best friends in an ecstatic embrace.

Such passion does not always end well, alas. Alongside my Victorian lord I have a photo of a dog in a flat Kangol cap and glasses who looks like Samuel L Jackson. On my computer I have pictures of dogs reading, sailing and riding bicycles. I know there is something morally wrong with these images, but I find it hard to resist adding more to the folder, given their wholly irresistible paws-to-the-floor adorableness.

Every week I get an email from the American magazine, Bark, with the subject line “Smiling Dogs”. Each message contains at least two pictures of beautiful grinning hounds, most recently Baxter (“Baxter has a bubbly personality, loves food, lounging in the sun, hiking outdoors and cuddling”) and Chad (“This handsome boy might come across as a little aloof at first, but that’s what makes him mysterious and charming!”) Appealing as these dogs are, they are not, of course, actually grinning. But the people at Bark know well that the photogenic often get a head start: most of the dogs in the emails are looking for new homes after a harsh beginning.

‘He remembers who has paid particular attention to him in the past and will make sure to greet them with gladness in his heart’: Simon with his dog, Ludo. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Observer

The names we give our dogs are increasingly names we would give to our children. For every old Fido we have a new Florence, for every old Major we have a new Max. This was not the case 30 years ago. Today the new names are the names of human heroes. Nelson is still popular; soon we will see a lot of Gretas. You have a female dog called Taylor, you will have a male one called Swift. Lawyers like to call their dogs Shyster, and architects favour Zaha, and there are an awful lot of young Fleabags in the parks these days. Only in rap music does it work the other way: Snoop Dogg, Phife Dawg, Nate Dogg, Bow Wow.

We increasingly use dogs to describe ourselves. A tough radio interviewer is a rottweiler, a soft one a poodle (or a puppy). Friendly, faithful characters in novels are cuddly labradors. Venal men in the city are pit bulls. A person who won’t let go fights like a terrier, while a detective pursues her prey like a bloodhound. You get the idea. You get the idea because you are as fleet as a whippet and smart as a sheepdog.

We have long used our canine friends to describe our actions and emotions. After working like a dog we are dog-tired. We get drunk as a skunk, but we drink the hair of the dog. Books containing doggerel get dog-eared. We root for the underdog, we bark up the wrong tree and then we’re in the doghouse. A depression is a black dog, and we’ll sport a hangdog countenance. A dog’s breakfast is followed by a dog’s dinner, but the dog ate my homework so I’ve gone to the dogs. These kinds of lists used to be the cat’s pyjamas, but now they’re the dog’s bollocks. And we have sex in a position so popular among dogs that they have officially trademarked the style.

In lockdown, Ludo is the only presence in our house not looking anxious. Instead, he is exhausted. It has already become a cliché to observe that the pandemic has been perversely kind to dogs: they are seldom home alone now, and they are walked almost more than they can bear. Their companionship is a boost to mental health. Friends and neighbours want to borrow them: if you have a dog, you have a reason to be out. Rescue shelters report a surge in enquiries, and the cost of a pure-bred dog has tripled. And social media is awash with Covid-19 dog videos and cartoons: the sports commentator Andrew Cotter has made stars of his lovely labradors Olive and Mabel as they battle for lockdown supremacy, and the outpouring of grief when Monty Don announced the passing of his golden retriever Nigel was comparable with the death of Princess Diana. But a genuine concern has spawned the “dog is not just for Covid” headlines – many inexperienced buyers are finding the challenges of ownership unexpectedly demanding.

Even if you have never owned a dog, and even if you have only watched Crufts on television, you will know that our relationship with dogs is a rich, diverse, perplexing and complicated one – as rich, diverse, perplexing and complicated indeed as the relationship we have with other humans. Dogs are increasingly not just part of the home but part of the family, the closest connection we dare have with a species not our own.

In lockdown,

 the dog is the only being in our house

 not looking anxious

In many ways dogs have become an extension of ourselves. Albert Einstein once observed that Chico, his wire-haired fox terrier, was possessed of both great intelligence and an ability to hold a grudge. “He feels sorry for me because I receive so much mail; that’s why he tries to bite the mailman.” This approach – only the social scientists persistently call it anthropomorphism; dog lovers tend to regard it as entirely acceptable behaviour – is widely frowned upon by most animal behaviourists as inhumane. But still we do it. In fact, we now do it with such conviction and sense of normality that not to treat our dogs to a diet involving turmeric may come to seem like neglect.

You cannot know a well-mannered dog for any length of time – more than, say, about an hour – and not wonder a little about what he or she is thinking, what makes him or her fearful or happy, and how the two of you may have fun together.

 A dog resides superbly within what the German biologist Jakob von Uexküll called its own self-centred world, or Umwelt. Or, as the primatologist Frans de Waal put it in the title of his book, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? If a dog cannot fully comprehend systems of time and money it is not because they are unintelligent; it is because these things are not significant components of their world.

The average dog brain is about one-third the size of an average human brain. But the dog nose has more than 200m smell- sensitive receptors, compared to 5m in a human nose, and these suggest a quite different set of priorities. About a third of the dog’s brain mass is devoted to olfactory duties, compared to 5% in humans.

I can’t help but notice how my own dog, with his proud leathery snout, views the world around him. His exacting sense of smell makes him a very good judge not only of his environment and other dogs, but also of people: he can judge who may be frightened of dogs and keep away; he remembers who has paid particular attention to him in the past and will make sure to greet them with gladness in his heart and a special toy in his mouth; and he knows when his human companions are low and need comforting. I sometimes wonder whether we are treating him and his many friends with a similar level of sagacity and respect.

One of the many things that attracts us to a puppy – beyond their all-round damn helpless cuteness – is their inquisitiveness. Puppies like poking around in things, any thing. This inquisitiveness matures, but it doesn’t depart: older dogs hear an irregular noise and they still want to investigate. Their investigative nature makes us dog-owners curious, too, acting at our most puppy-ish, we want to discover with increasingly forensic precision just what it is that makes a dog a dog, and makes them such mutually enriching companions. And we are strangers only to ourselves: as dog owners and dog lovers we are part of a huge community, and the bond we have with our dog is something that binds us equally to millions of others; a shared humanity. As for Ludo, he is still best at being the thing he was 10,000 years ago, despite everything we have done to make him more like us. He is best at being a dog. He gets very excited about the prospect of lunch, or any food really, and he usually comes running when I call him, and we’re always impossibly happy when we’re together.

This is an edited extract from Dog’s Best Friend: A Brief History of an Unbreakable Bond by Simon Garfield. It is published on 4 February by W&N

Post-pandemic apocalypse

Statistic after statistic points to the debilitating state of commerce in Canada. But what exactly do all those pandemic-fuelled business closures mean for cities like Winnipeg, Vancouver or Toronto?

Data released this week by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business shows the situation is dire. More than one in six businesses — at least 239,000 across Canada and 5,601 in Manitoba — are at the risk of permanently disappearing because of COVID-19, or have already closed.

Economists, public policy stakeholders and municipal planners are split on how exactly this will affect the future of downtown cores and surrounding areas.

In interviews with the Free Press, experts described how jarring shifts in local economies will cause hypercompetition in some sectors, while others might completely disappear. It could also cause fewer jobs overall, less walkable areas, limited shopping options, and a rapid loss of the “biz village” concept, they said, along with severe population declines.

If there’s one thing they can all agree on, however, it’s that Canadians cities will likely never look the same again. And if governments plan on bringing things back to a sustainable “new normal,” analysts believe preparation for it should begin as soon as possible.

“I think there’s an implicit assumption that we’re in a sort of snow globe right now and that everything’s suspended so that one day soon we’ll all go back to normal,” said Vass Bednar, a policy expert who’s held several public and private sector leadership roles, including at Airbnb and Queen’s Park in Toronto.

“Those assumptions are almost certainly wrong,” she said. “The fact is, everyone will quickly notice how different things already are when they go on a walk around their cities to see not just closed signs, but also the larger store or restaurant signs taken off to indicate permanent closures for so many of their favourite places. And it will only get more severe.”

CFIB’s latest figures suggest that at least 58,000 businesses have already permanently closed their doors following pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions in 2020.

Based on a survey of its members done between Jan. 12 and Jan. 16, the organization now says a mid-range of at least 181,000 small business owners are also considering to close down or declare bankruptcy on top of last year’s numbers, adding up to 239,000 in total. 

But should things remain unchanged, by the end of this year, closures could rise up to 280,117 across Canada. In Manitoba, that’s roughly 6,645 storefronts — with even the lowest estimates suggesting at least six per cent (5,601 businesses) will be lost.

That means more than 2.4 million people will likely be out of work — a staggering 20 per cent of private sector jobs, or just about one in seven of all employment in Canada.

“They’re all very scary figures,” said Jonathan Alward, Prairies director for CFIB. “I really, truly hope we’re wrong on this. But it just doesn’t seem like we are, at least not right now.

“In an ordinary time, businesses would never want to be rescued with help from the government. But right now, I think creating pathways for safe openings by tax breaks, subsidies and other strategies to provide easier access is just as important for communities themselves than the business owners.”

Fletcher Baragar is an economics professor at the University of Manitoba who’s extensively researched how bankruptcies and bailouts affect societies and communities. He said he’s never seen more closures than this past year — not during the 2008-09 financial crisis, or even in his studies of recessions that occurred before the turn of the millennium.

“It’s a common thing to see exits and entries all the time in the market — healthy changes are the whole point of an entrepreneurial marketplace,” said Baragar. “But when that business change happens so rapidly, it certainly affects everything else... and it’s incredibly uneven in the type of areas and sectors it affects when some benefit from it and others die out of it.”

Hospitality and arts are two of the hardest-hit sectors, CFIB data indicates, with 33 per cent and 28 per cent of businesses in those sectors expected to close up shop. In the retail sector, it’s 15 per cent of companies.

At the other end of the spectrum, agriculture and natural resources are the lowest-impacted of any sector — still, with six per cent of businesses expected to close. Next is construction, at nine per cent, and manufacturing, at 12 per cent.

Provincial breakdowns show Newfoundland and Labrador will see the most severe impact, with a high-end estimate of 28 per cent of all businesses to close. That’s followed by Alberta at 25 per cent and Ontario at 24. Manitoba is right in the middle at 18 per cent, and Nova Scotia is least-impacted at 14 per cent.

That’s why business owners have begun to ask themselves tough questions, said Baragar, about whether it’s even worth opening up when they’re allowed to and if it’s something they can afford financially.

“Of the ones remaining, I think there’s going to be a lot more consolidation and amalgamation internationally and from one side of the country to the next,” he said. “And that means fewer buying and service options for quite literally everything — restaurants, clothing, you name it.”

Sylvain Charlebois, a leading supply chain expert, said these shifts will also cause city demographics themselves to change. Pointing to recent Starbucks coffee shop closures, he said food companies are making note of this, and will “always go where the money is” — which he doesn’t believe is in urban centres anymore.

“Of course, the cost of city dwelling is a cruel barrier anyway,” said Charlebois, who’s a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “More than that, there’s other reasons that are also important. When businesses close in areas where they were supposed to be forming villages or walkable communities, it impacts the kind of people that want to live in those cities and how much they actually spend. It’s a cycle.”

Loren Remillard, president and CEO of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, said that’s something he’s already seen with Osborne Village in Winnipeg before, when storefronts began to abruptly shut down a few years ago.

“We realized during that time, just how much businesses are more than businesses for livable communities — they’re really the fabric of what binds them together,” he said. “You couldn’t have Little Italy or Little India or even Sage Creek without the actual biz village concept thriving for those ethnographic neighbourhoods.”

Remillard said a continuous push is being made to get larger companies to headquarter in Winnipeg, “so that if and when acquisitions or mergers happen during devastating economic periods, we risk little when their main office is here.”

But as a policy expert, Bednar believes messaging from government has been a crucial part of what makes the future for urban business so frazzled. “It was so much easier just to tell everyone to move online and give them some subsidies to string along,” she said.

“Eventually, when this is finally over, what happens when we’re offline again? Can you actually market or promote tourism if you don’t have physical stores? It might be time to start changing how we’re thinking and talking about these things.”

Temur Durrani, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

Trudeau government considers legislative changes to make public service more diverse

OTTAWA — The Trudeau Liberals are eyeing changes to the law governing public service hiring to help make federal departments and agencies more diverse.

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

They also plan to do further research on the makeup of the federal public service and will try to hire more senior leaders with varied backgrounds.

Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos and his parliamentary secretary, Greg Fergus, are spelled out the priorities Tuesday to foster greater diversity, inclusion and accessibility in the public service.

The government says while there has been some progress for Black Canadians, Indigenous Peoples and others who face racial discrimination in the workplace, too many public servants continue to face obstacles.

The Treasury Board Secretariat has begun discussions about the framework for recruitment in the public service and is specifically looking at "possible amendments" to the Public Service Employment Act.

The act is intended to ensure federal hiring is fair, transparent and representative.

But Chris Aylward, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, says he hears complaints from members about how it works.

"It sounds like everything is there," Aylward said Tuesday. "But in practical terms, the way that it's applied, the way that managers go about doing staffing … it's far, far from perfect."

The examination of the Public Service Employment Act would complement Labour Minister Filomena Tassi's planned review of the Employment Equity Act, a law aimed at protecting workers from discrimination and other unfair treatment.

The government recently released data that provides more detail about the composition of the public service.

Duclos and Fergus say the annual public service employee survey will help the government identify more precisely where gaps remain and what is needed to improve representation.

The government plans to increase diversity through promotion and recruitment, including introduction of the Mentorship Plus Program to allow departments to offer mentoring and sponsorship opportunities to high-potential employees who might currently face barriers.

The government says although progress will take time, the public service can be a model of inclusion for employers across the country and around the world.

"In time, we will build a public service that is the true reflection of our pluralism and diversity," Duclos said in a statement.

Just last week, Privy Council Clerk Ian Shugart issued a call to action on anti-racism, equity and inclusion in the public service, setting out federal expectations for current leaders.

"We must encourage and support the voices that have long been marginalized in our organizations," Shugart wrote.

"We must create opportunities where they have long been absent. We must take direct, practical actions to invoke change. This is a true test of leadership, and one we must meet head on. Now."

The government has also launched the Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, supported by a budget of $12 million, to create an ongoing discussion about change.

"There is much to do before all public servants can feel they truly belong in a public service that values inclusiveness and differences," Fergus said.

"Outlining these key areas of focus is a key step in taking concrete action."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2021.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

Bernie Sanders in new push for $15 minimum wage under Biden: 'For me, it's morally imperative'

Bernie Sanders: ‘For me, it’s morally imperative that we raise the minimum wage to a living wage that’s at least $15 an hour.’

 Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images


Leftwing senator tells Guardian the chances of raising the federal minimum are better than ever with new president in White House


Steven Greenhouse
Tue 26 Jan 2021 

Senator Bernie Sanders says the widespread suffering caused by the pandemic-induced economic crisis has made it “morally imperative” to increase the US’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. And in an interview with the Guardian, Sanders and other lawmakers pushing for a higher minimum wage say the chances of enacting a $15 minimum are better than ever before now that President Joe Biden has called for a $15 federal minimum as part of his emergency Covid legislative package.

Raising the minimum to $15 would more than double the current $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, but many Republicans oppose the move, saying it would hurt business.

In an interview, Sanders, who championed a $15 minimum wage as a presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020, voiced excitement about the prospects of raising the minimum wage, which hasn’t increased since 2009, the longest stretch without an increase since Congress first enacted a minimum wage in 1938.

“This country faces an enormous economic crisis that is aggravated by the pandemic,” Sanders said. “We’re looking at terrible levels of unemployment. We’re looking at growing income and wealth inequality. What concerns me as much as anything is that half our people are living paycheck to paycheck. Millions of people are trying to survive on starvation wages. For me, it’s morally imperative that we raise the minimum wage to a living wage that’s at least $15 an hour.”

The House voted last July to raise the minimum wage to $15 in steps through 2025, but then Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell blocked a vote on it. With the White House, Senate and House under Democratic control, Sanders said the chances are good to enact a $15 minimum, although he said it would be hard to attract 10 Republican Senators to support it, making it hard to overcome a filibuster.

Sanders, the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, sees another route to passage, saying it could be done under the “budget reconciliation” – a process where measures deemed to have budgetary impact can be approved by simple majority vote.

“It clearly has to be done by reconciliation. That’s something I’m working very hard on,” said Sanders.

Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which played a pivotal role in backing the Fight for $15, sees considerable momentum behind a $15 minimum.

That push has come a long way since the Fight for $15 began in 2012, when 200 fast-food workers in New York went on a one-day strike. “We are incredibly proud that the momentum around $15 solidified as part of the presidential campaign, and that the Biden-Harris administration is so committed to get it done that they’ve put it in the first action of Congress for Covid emergency relief,” Henry said. “There is wind at our backs.”

Rita Blalock: ‘I feel if it doesn’t pass in [Biden’s] first 100 days, it’s going to be swept under the rug.’ Photograph: Fight for $15 and a Union/NC Raise Up for $15

Henry noted that Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff campaigned for a $15 minimum in their successful Senate races in Georgia. Moreover, Florida voters, while backing Donald Trump, voted overwhelmingly – 61% to 39% – to raise that state’s minimum to $15 by 2026.

“A $15 minimum is the single most concrete way to reduce racial inequality, put money in people’s pockets and make material change in people’s lives,” Henry said. The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank, found that raising the minimum to $15 would help 25% of Black workers, 19.1% of Hispanic workers, 13.1% of White workers and 10.8% of Asian workers.

A Pew poll found that Americans favor increasing the minimum to $15, by 67% to 33%. Henry warned that “any elected official in Congress who dares to stand against us on this is going to pay a big political price”.

Rita Blalock, a McDonald’s cook in Raleigh, North Carolina, prays for a $15 minimum. Blalock, who earns $10 an hour after nearly 10 years at McDonald’s, said she often relies on food pantries and can’t afford her $200 rent every two weeks at a rooming house. “Fortunately, I can eat free at work,” said Blalock, whose work schedule has been cut to 20 hours many weeks.

Asked what a $15 minimum would mean, Blalock, 54, said: “Oh my God, I could afford rent. I could eat a little better. I could finally buy me some clothes.”

Blalock has participated in many of the Fight for $15’s one-day strikes. “I feel if it doesn’t pass in [Biden’s] first 100 days, it’s going to be swept under the rug,” she said.

A $15 minimum faces strong Republican opposition from senators including Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who has said that “if the federal government mandates a universal $15 minimum wage, many low-income Americans will lose their current jobs and find fewer job opportunities in the future.”

Michael Saltsman, managing director of the Employment Policies Institute, a corporate-backed research group, also said it would be a bad time to enact a $15 minimum.

“You’ve got a lot of businesses hanging from a thread,” he said. “A $15 minimum is an irresponsible proposal at any time, and it’s particularly so right now.”

Saltsman said the Senate should not vote on a $15 minimum via reconciliation, arguing that its budgetary effect would be minimal. With the Senate divided 50-50, he questioned whether Democrats could muster 50 votes for a $15 minimum, suggesting that centrist Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia might balk at it.

Bill Dauster, a top aide to former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, wrote in a recent editorial that raising the minimum would have clear budgetary effects and could be voted on through reconciliation.

Many Republicans say the federal minimum should remain at $7.25, leaving any increases to individual states. Walmart chief Doug McMillon says that if there is a minimum wage increase, it should take “geographic differences” into account, considering the differing costs of living in, say, California and Mississippi.

Noji Olaigbe, left, from the Fight for $15 movement, speaks during a workers’ strike at a McDonald’s in Fort Lauderdale in May 2019. Photograph: Miami Herald/TNS/Getty Images

The Congressional Budget Office forecast that 1.3 million workers would become jobless due to an increase to $15. That study also forecast that 27 million workers would receive pay increases thanks to a $15 minimum, and the number of people in poverty would decline by 1.3 million.

Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said a review of economic studies shows that “more ambitious minimum wage policies have yet to produce any clear impact on jobs, even though it has certainly raised wages and reduced inequality”.

“Overall, the body of literature shows it has very little effect on low-wage jobs,” Dube said. “My work shows it leads to a reduction in poverty and increased family earnings, and maybe 35¢ on the dollar goes back to the government through reduced public assistance.”

Differing with Dube, economists David Neumark and Peter Shirley, in a newly released review of minimum wage research, conclude that “most of the evidence indicates the opposite – that minimum wages reduce low-skilled employment,” with the strongest effects on teens, young adults and the less-educated.

Senator Sanders said it’s outrageous that the purchasing power of the minimum wage has declined 30% since the late 1960s. “The fact that President Biden moved aggressively on this is important to the workers who will benefit,” Sanders said.

“It signals to the entire country that workers cannot continue to live on starvation wages, and I hope that message gets out to employers all across the country.”

Biden signs more executive orders in effort to advance US racial equity

Joe Biden signed four more executive orders on Tuesday, as he aimed to fulfill a campaign promise to increase racial equity in the US

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© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Getty Images

The orders were the latest in a volley since Biden’s inauguration as president last week, meant to undo the legacy of Donald Trump’s time in the White House. The new orders related to housing and criminal justice reform. Broadly, Biden and his aides framed it as a step in their broader hopes to heal racial tensions across the country. In a speech before he signed the orders Biden recalled the death of George Floyd, who was Black, at the hands of police.

“What many Americans didn’t see or simply refused to see couldn’t be ignored any longer,” Biden said. “Those eight minutes and 46 seconds that took George Floyd’s life opened the eyes to millions of Americans and millions of people all over the world. It was the knee on the neck of justice and it wouldn’t be forgotten. It stirred the consciousness in millions of Americans and in my view it marked a turning point in this country’s view toward racial justice.”© Photograph: Getty Images Joe Biden at the White House with Kamala Harris and the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Monday. Biden has issued a run of executive orders in the first days of his presidency.

He also noted that the mob attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol was just a few weeks ago.

“It’s just been weeks since all of America witnessed a group of thugs, insurrectionists, political extremists and white supremacists violently attack the Capitol of our democracy,” Biden said. “So now – now’s the time to act. It’s time to act because that’s what faith and morality calls us to do.”

“We’ll hold the federal government accountable for advancing racial equity for families across America,” said Susan Rice, Biden’s domestic policy council director.

Speaking at the White House daily briefing, the former Obama national security adviser and UN ambassador said Biden was looking to address some of the intractable problems facing US society. Throughout his campaign for the presidency, Biden promised to help Americans of color.

“Every agency will place equity at the core of their public engagement, their policy design and delivery,” Rice said, “to ensure that government resources are reaching Americans of color in all marginalized communities – rural, urban, disabled, LGBTQ+, religious minorities and so many others.

“The president has put equity at the center of his response to the Covid-19 and economic crises.”

Biden has issued a run of executive orders in the first days of his presidency, while Congress sorts out the balance of power and settles into its new configuration. On Monday night, Senate leaders announced an agreement over the filibuster, the voting threshold which protects minority rights. The deal allowed the new Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer to move ahead with preparations for handling Biden’s legislative agenda.

That agenda will compete for time and space with Trump’s second impeachment trial, sparked by his incitement of the attack on the Capitol on 6 January, which left five people dead. The trial is due to start after 8 February but senators were sworn in as jurors on Tuesday.

Conviction, and with it the possible barring of Trump from running for office again, will require a two-thirds majority, a high bar for a set of Republicans who have mostly voiced opposition to impeaching the former Republican president a second time.

Biden has said impeachment “has to happen”, despite worries it could hinder his push for legislation to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic crisis and other issues.

On Tuesday, the Senate followed its confirmations of defense secretary Lloyd Austin and treasury secretary Janet Yellen – who were both sworn in to office by the vice-president, Kamala Harris – by confirming Antony Blinken as Biden’s secretary of state.

As part of his attempt to reinvigorate the federal government after the Trump years, Biden picked Rice to run the domestic policy council – an obscure organization the new administration is looking to elevate in visibility as it handles issues like racial equity and immigration reform.

“These [orders] are a continuation of our initial steps to advance racial justice and equity through early executive action,” Rice told reporters on Tuesday. “Beyond this, the president is committed to working with Congress to advance equity in our economy, our criminal justice systems, our healthcare systems, and in our schools.”

One executive order directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to look at the effects of Trump administration actions on housing. Any actions that “undermined fair housing policies and laws” will prompt the implementation of new requirements set by the Fair Housing Act.

Another order planned to end the use of private prisons. Specifically, it directed the federal government not to renew contracts with such companies. A third order was concerned with “tribal sovereignty and consultation”, according to an administration handout. It will order the federal government to retain a dialogue with tribal governments.

The fourth Biden order was aimed at fighting xenophobia against Asian Americans and Pacific islanders. The order acknowledged the history of discrimination and harassment against those groups, and said the federal government would recognize “the harm that these actions have caused” and condemn xenophobic actions against those groups.

Biden also ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to weigh whether to issue guidance “to advance cultural competency” for these groups as part of the administration’s efforts to battle Covid-19. The executive order also directed the justice department to work with Asian American and Pacific island communities to fight harassment and hate crimes.

“These are desperate times for so many Americans and all Americans need urgent federal action to meet this moment,” Rice said.

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TELUS International prices public offering in bid to expand digital business

Telus Corp. will hit the road on Monday to try and woo investors for its public offering of subsidiary Telus International, as it spins off its customer experience business from its telecom offerings.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The US$958.3 million public offering for the subsidiary will bring on outside investors to boost its digital and artificial intelligence business, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Telus Corp. is the largest client and controlling shareholder of Telus International, and would own about two-thirds of Telus International after the public offering.

Telus International expects to price its shares between US$23 and US$25 each on the New York Stock Exchange, and the company will keep $493.9 million in proceeds. The IPO money will help it pay down debt, including debt raised to acquire other companies.

Investors would be buying into Telus' business for games, communications, media, e-commerce, fintech, health care and hospitality, as well as recently acquired data annotation company Lionbridge AI.

By opening the business to the public stock market, Telus is drawing back the curtain on a fast-growing part of its business.

Telus says that last year, the Telus International businesses made between US$95 million and US$102 million in net income. Telus International's revenue has grown to more than $1 billion in 2019 from $573.2 million in 2017. (Parent company Telus Corp. has $15.3 billion in annual revenue.)

The Telus International companies have about 600 clients, including Uber, TikTok, PayPal, MasterCard, Wix Fitbit, TransUnion and Zara. Social games company Zynga, initially worked with Telus to do customer support for the game Farmville, and now works with Telus on its current portfolio of games, which includes Words with Friends.

Two of Telus International's biggest customers are Telus Corp. itself, which represented 26 per cent of revenue in 2019, and Google, which was about 12 per cent of sales. Another client, a "leading social media company," represented about 16 per cent of sales in the first nine months of last year.

Telus International lists its competitors as consulting services and IT companies as well as "traditional" contact centre and outsourcing companies.

Lionbridge AI labels text, images, videos and audio in more than 300 languages for social media, search, retail and mobile. In its prospectus, Telus International describes building bots, an engineer-to-engineer support system for Google, moderating social media sites and using "gamer culture" in its customer support for video game players.

"Customers are increasingly choosing experience over product and price, and are willing to pay more for positive customer service experiences," the company says in its filings for prospective investors.

The company, which operates in 20 countries and 50 languages, says it has also bet that some of its services can be provided between "offshore" and "nearshore" businesses. The filings warn potential investors, for example, that it could pose a risk to the business if Lionbridge's crowdsourcing work requires hiring independent contractors as employees.

While the "work from anywhere" model could benefit Telus International, as companies restructure, the filings also warned that clients' outsourcing demands "might be lower in the future, as some of our clients might decide to refrain from offshore / nearshore outsourcing due to the pressures they face from increased domestic unemployment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic."

The stock would trade on both the New York and Toronto stock exchanges under the symbol TIXT. After the IPO, Baring Private Equity Asia will hold about 31.5 per cent of voting power in Telus International.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 25, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:T)

Anita Balakrishnan, The Canadian Press