Federal law on municipal gun bans could take precedence over Alberta bill, expert says
Michelle Bellefontaine 

© Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press A restricted gun licence holder carries an AR-15 at his home in Langley, B.C., on May 1, 2020. The federal government introduced new gun control legislation Tuesday that would allow municipalities to ban handguns. It may take…

New gun control legislation proposed by the federal government would likely take precedence over a private member's bill that aims to prevent Alberta municipalities from passing municipal gun bans, according to a constitutional law expert.

The federal government introduced Bill C-21 on Tuesday. The proposed legislation would give municipalities the power to ban handguns by passing bylaws on their storage and transportation.

Michaela Glasgo, the UCP MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat, introduced Bill 211 the Municipal Government (Firearms) Amendment Act on Dec. 8.

MORMON AND DUTCH REFORM CHURCH REACTIONARIES

The existence of the two bills dealing with a similar issue raises a question about which would take precedence.

"Our system of constitutional law says that in those cases of conflict, the federal law will prevail," Eric Adams, a professor at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Law, said in an interview with CBC News on Tuesday.

Adams said the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments is set in the constitution. Usually the province has power over municipalities. But on the issue of firearms, he said the question is complicated.

"Is that valid for a province to deny the ability of the municipality to do that thing that the federal government or the Parliament of Canada specifically authorizes?" he asked.

"I can't think of a scenario that I'd seen that play out in terms of cases in the Supreme Court or other levels. So I do think we've got ourselves a reasonably novel federalism Rubik's Cube."

EVERY TIME ALBERTA REACTIONARIES CHALLENGE THE FEDS IN COURT THEY LOSE
Alberta Justice Minister Kaycee Madu thinks the law is on Alberta's side.

In a written statement issued late Tuesday afternoon, he challenged the constitutionality of the federal bill, which also introduced a buy-back program for prohibited weapons and increased penaities for gun smuggling and trafficking.

"The constitution is clear that municipalities fall under the jurisdiction of the provinces," Madu said.

"In fact, municipalities in Alberta are a creation of the provincial government. The federal bill has just been introduced, but should it pass, Alberta would vigilantly defend its jurisdiction."

Madu said passage of Glasgo's bill would be expedited by the Alberta legislature.

 
City-by-city approach panned by mayors

The federal legislation is aimed at larger cities that grapple with gun violence, but the mayors of Alberta's two largest cities were opposed to the measure.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson said their preference was for a consistent regional or national approach on firearms as opposed to city-by-city prohibitions.

"It's not the direction we would go in to pursue a city-specific ban when the issue of the flow of these weapons and their ties to particularly drugs and organized crime is much more than a municipality-by-municipality issue," Iveson said in a news conference Tuesday.

"I prefer one law for the country," Nenshi told reporters on Tuesday. "Even though I generally like municipalities to have more powers, I've never been in favour of this approach."

Nenshi said the recommendations of the city's public safety task force could determine whether Calgary city council was interested in municipal firearm restrictions.

In his statement, Madu said municipal gun bylaws would be be "futile" and easily ignored by criminals.

"A patchwork approach of policy varying by invisible municipal boundaries would create obvious confusion in enforcement, and the federal government clearly knows that," he said.
Alberta bill could be signal to UCP base

Adams, from the University of Alberta, said Glasgo's bill may just be a signal to the UCP base.

"Is this just another piece of a narrative that allows the UCP and their members to say we fight Ottawa at every turn? Maybe it's simply that," he said.

"And so whether or not it is ultimately effective or is upheld as constitutional or not is maybe not the most important part of that political side of why they may be interested in the existence of this prohibition."

Glasgo's bill was introduced for first reading on Dec. 8, the last day of the fall sitting. Private member's bills are reviewed by the Standing Committee on Private Bills and Private Members' Public Bills before they return to the legislature for additional debate.

The UCP majority on both the committee and in the Alberta legislature means the bill will likely become law.

The legislature resumes on Feb. 25.

A cloud of dust blows over the beach as a crowd watches an implosion of the former 

Trump Plaza Casino 

© Joe Lamberti, USA TODAY Network

Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021 in Atlantic City, N.J.

GOING GOING GONE 

Billionaires’ Favorite Climate Solution Is a Dangerous Distraction

Brian Kahn 

An Elon Musk tweet can do everything from moving the stock market to convincing people to invest in a joke cryptocurrency. So when the richest man on Earth tweeted in late January about kicking $100 million to whoever could come up with the best technology to capture carbon from the air, the world took notice

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© Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP (Getty Images)

The cryptic tweet was followed by details that the billionaire donated $100 million to XPRIZE for a carbon capture competition that will last four years. It’s a neoliberal meets techno-optimist wet dream. Here is the world’s richest man teaming up with a group founded by a futurist and with board members including Larry Page and James Cameron, all in the service of creating technology that doesn’t exist anywhere near scale to address a problem our broken political system hasn’t been able to solve.

The prize is part of a growing movement by the billionaire class to make carbon dioxide removal, known as CDR in science and policy circles, a reality. But the narrative fit for a sci-fi movie obscures the fact that CDR comes with real issues as does the fact that a few incredibly wealthy (largely) men and industries are trying to define the scope of climate solutions. The more the hype cycles builds, the more we risk ignoring the solutions sitting in front of us, setting up future generations for needless suffering.

Musk is hardly the only billionaire interested in sucking carbon from the sky. In his new book, Bill Gates writes about it extensively and said in a recent Atlantic interview cutting the cost of new no-carbon technology is better than investing in implement the no-carbon solutions we already have. He notes in the intro of his book that he won’t be naming any specific companies working on it, though, because he’s already invested in a few via his $2 billion Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund. The Climate Pledge Fund, Jeff Bezos’ $2 billion venture capital endeavor, is also pouring money into carbon capture and removal companies. Startup accelerator Y Combinator put out an RFP in late 2018 for companies in the early stages of hoovering carbon up.

“Is the amount of buzz proportional?” Jonathan Foley, the executive director of Project Drawdown, a group focused on climate solutions already in existence, said. “Absolutely not. We have to stop worshipping high tech and tech bros.”

The concept of carbon removal is deceptively simple. We have spent every minute since the Industrial Revolution started treating the atmosphere like a toxic waste dump for greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. The accumulation has led to radical shifts in the climate, pushing it to the edges of what has allowed civilization to thrive. Removing the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and stashing it underground or making stuff from it is a form of remediation to make up for decades of waste mismanagement.

“Do you know how hard it is to remove CO2 from the air using the machine? It’s really, really hard. It’s a lot easier just not to put it in there.”

It’s one of those solutions we will likely need to turn to to help deal with pesky sources of emissions like air travel for which there is no easy fix. But focusing on it as the solution is completely out of touch with reality.

“There’s no viable path to stopping climate change that doesn’t begin with stopping emissions as quickly as we can,” Foley said. “Do you know how hard it is to remove CO2 from the air using the machine? It’s really, really hard. It’s a lot easier just not to put it in there.”

It’s not just tech billionaires investing massive sums of money into it. Major oil companies are plunging billions into research to preserve the status quo that they’ve benefitted from. By promising they’re investing in a far off solution, oil companies are essentially trying to buy license to pollute more now. A ton of carbon emitted today will do real damage to the climate and society for decades to come that the all the R&D into carbon removal will do nothing to abate. There’s also a very real risk that CDR never comes to fruition, that it’s essentially a waiting for Godot scenario that ends in climate ruin. It also will do nothing to deal with the other dangerous greenhouse gases ranging from methane to HFCs.

“As long as we’re giving out trophies for effort, we’re going to get people showing up to practice who haven’t been doing their homework,” Olufemi Taiwo, a philosopher at Georgetown who has written extensively on CDR, said. “We need to start making demands that are focused on results.”

In that regard, Musk’s prize is good at least. It will require the winners to prove they’ve created a solution that can suck up a ton of carbon dioxide per day, is scalable to remove 10 billion tons per year by 2050, and store it for at least 100 years. But while Taiwo noted tons of carbon is a key metric, “if it’s the only result that we’re interested in, then we could see lots of authoritarian, anti-Indigenous, anti-low income strategies employed to get those results.” That’s because removing carbon will inevitably come with societal costs and impacts.

One form of carbon removal is relying on so-called natural solutions like planting trees or tending to forests. Marc Benioff, another billionaire, has advocated for planting 1 trillion trees to address climate change. But that strategy can obscure what trees get planted, where, and how. Foisting tree planting programs on developing countries can reduce access to cropland or result in dispossessing Indigenous groups of their land. Or it can lead to mono crop plantations of trees that are essentially toothpicks of carbon rather than intact ecosystems that provide other services.

Or consider machines that suck up carbon. Right now, there are only a few test sites around the world that do it because it’s expensive and energy-intensive. None work at the scale needed; Climeworks and Carbfix, two of the few companies doing CDR in the wild, inked a deal last year to build a plant that remove up to 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Let’s say, though, that costs come down thanks to Musk’s prize and Gates’ and Bezos’ investments, and the world starts deploying carbon removal plants. If the past is any indication, those plants are unlikely to be sited in the Hamptons, instead appearing in fenceline communities in Houston or strewn across the Global South. If CDR becomes so widespread that it allows oil and gas companies to continue to exist, then communities living in the shadows of refineries and pipelines will still have to deal with the other toxic air and noise pollution that comes with living there.

“Imagine a world where we have a bunch of power plants in poor neighborhoods, but then we have these magic machines and other places in the world to suck out the CO2 so rich people can still go skiing and enjoy their mansions on the ocean or something. You took care of one problem, but you perpetuated another one.”

“If we just perpetuate that system one day longer. Of course, it’s a massive injustice,” Foley said. “Imagine a world where we have a bunch of power plants in poor neighborhoods, but then we have these magic machines and other places in the world to suck out the CO2 so rich people can still go skiing and enjoy their mansions on the ocean or something. You took care of one problem, but you perpetuated another one.”

Alex Guerrero, a philosopher at Rutgers, said all the focus on CDR could be “crowding out other directions or ideas” to deal with climate change in our popular discourse. Rich white guys giving out prizes for science and investing venture capital in CDR also subverts democratic input on the one of the most consequential issues humanity has faced and cements rising inequality.

“A lot of efforts at international aid have undermined local democratic institutions,” Guerrero said. “One worry is that this is the next version.”

They may not have the sci-fi draw of carbon-sucking machines, but the real climate solutions at our disposal right now are our best shot at saving ourselves. Project Drawdown, Foley’s group, has identified 76 avenues to address the climate crisis at the scale needed. We don’t need an XPRIZE for them, either, since they already exist. They include things like installing more wind power, reducing food waste, restoring wetlands, and improving women’s access to education. Many, if implemented properly, have the power to improve people’s lives in other ways as well, whether its giving communities more control over their energy system or reducing energy bills. They would also cut our reliance on fossil fuels, reducing the need to rely more heavily on CDR in the first place.

“In the ideal world, we’d focus on the important here and now things,” Foley said. “Let’s get the low hanging fruit today, then the next fruit and the next fruit. And while we’re at it, maybe somebody in the corner should be investing in a ladder to get the last fruit on the top of the tree when we picked all the others.”

That last fruit is the hard-to-decarbonize sectors like aviation or steel, and that’s where CDR could come in most handy. But there, there’s a better approach than letting rich guys drive the bus. Foley noted that the Trump administration kicked $200 million into CDR research over its last 18 months, one of the only climate-forward things it did. The National Academies of Science also recently put out a research plan for approaching CDR, and Taiwo said that could be a good place to start putting the money so that it’s publicly accountable R&D.

But letting the U.S. alone drive the bus is hardly better than the rich guys at the wheel. The U.S. is the largest historical emitter, has vested interests in continuing fossil fuel production, and has been at absolute best a mixed bag when it comes international climate diplomacy. Taiwo said the country along with the EU and growing emitters like China have an outsize moral obligation to fund R&D in climate solutions and their deployment, but that doesn’t mean it should set the terms of engagement on how to do so.

“Based historically on what the relevant levels of emissions were and what the relevant political relationships were between, say, the former colonizers of the world and formerly colonized countries should inform how we decide to divvy up benefits and burdens in different places,” he said.

Guerrero has argued for a “lottocracy” approach to governance, where random citizens are put in charge. It’s an intriguing option to think about in the context of CDR and whether a representational global citizens’ assembly come up with an equitable R&D and deployment plan. While that may seem like a radical idea, is it any more radical than, say, letting a handful of people who have a net worth greater than most countries decide the course of humanity?

Biden faces 1st test with Egypt over human rights, weapon sales


President Joe Biden's administration expressed concern about the Egyptian government's human rights record Tuesday, especially after family members of a U.S. citizen and human rights activist were detained. But hours later, the State Department announced the sale of nearly $200 million of weapons to Cairo -- the first substantial arms transfer to the Middle East in Biden's young term.

© Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images,FILE

The case has become a test of how Biden will approach the government of President Abdel Fattah el Sisi, the former military commander who seized power in 2014 and ousted Egypt's elected Islamist government.

Egypt has long been a key U.S. partner in the region and the recipient of substantial U.S. military assistance. But Sisi's increasingly authoritarian rule has provoked vocal criticism from human rights advocates, some U.S. lawmakers and Egyptians, who at times have taken to the streets to protest despite Sisi's brutal crackdowns on dissent.MORE: US-based Egyptian activist says brother 'kidnapped' by government in Cairo

Three cousins of American-Egyptian activist Mohamed Soltan, a former political prisoner who was detained by Sisi's government, were arrested Sunday in what the U.S.-based activist's group said was a "reprisal for his human rights advocacy." Two have since been released, Soltan told ABC News on Thursday.

In total, the homes of six of Soltan's relatives were raided, according to his group, the Freedom Initiative.

© The Washington Post via Getty Images Mohamed Soltan, 32, a U.S. citizen who became a prominent Egyptian political prisoner, at his home on Sunday, May 31, 2020, in Fairfax, Va.

"The arrests are part of an intensified campaign of transnational repression by the Egyptian military regime designed to silence critics outside Egypt," the group said Tuesday.

Other relatives of Soltan were arrested last year in apparent retaliation to Soltan's lawsuit against former Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi in a U.S. court, in which the Soltan accused the former prime minister of having him tortured while he was a political prisoner in Egypt.

MORE: As Biden reviews US-Saudi relations, pressure rises to remake ties over Khashoggi killing, Yemen war

They were released in November, shortly after Biden's election win.

Egypt's State Information Service did not immediately respond to questions seeking comment, but the country has regularly denied holding any political prisoners.

The families of other human rights activists have also been reportedly targeted. In 2019, Egyptian police arrested the brother of Wael Ghonim, one of the most prominent leaders of the 2011 revolution that toppled longtime U.S.-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Soltan was arrested during Sisi's crackdown after the former defense minister toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Soltan spent nearly two years in prison -- during which time he went on hunger strike and claims he was tortured -- before he was forced to give up his Egyptian citizenship in exchange for his release in 2015.

The Biden administration said Sunday that it was looking into the latest arrests and raised the cases with Egypt.

MORE: Hunger-striking American citizen released from Egyptian prison

"We won't tolerate assaults or threats by foreign governments against American citizens or their family members. Such behavior is against our values, it's against our interests, and it very much undermines our bilateral partnerships around the world," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Wednesday

 

Just one day prior, however, the State Department announced it had approved the $197 million sale of naval surface-to-air missiles to Egypt's military, saying the sale "will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a Major Non-NATO Ally country that continues to be an important strategic partner in the Middle East."

Asked what message the sale sends Cairo, Price said it's "a routine replenishment of defensive weapons that in no way prevents us from continuing to uphold our focus on democracy and human rights."

"This is an unfortunate misstep by the Biden administration. Spokesman Price's comments about this being a 'routine replenishment' is called into question by the sale notification, which explicitly states that it will 'significantly enhance' Egypt's capabilities," Todd Ruffner, the advocacy director of Freedom Initiative group, which Soltan heads, told ABC News.

"While the timing is terrible, the substance of the announcement has also given the rights community serious pause about whether this administration is serious about making human rights a priority. At a time when the Egyptian government is escalating reprisals against rights advocates and their families, the United States must demand better from its apparent allies," Ruffner added.

Egypt has been one of the highest recipients of U.S. military aid for decades, receiving over $84 billon in foreign aid since 1946, according to the congressional research service. In his final budget, former President Trump requested $1.4 billion for Egypt, the vast majority of which was military aid.

MORE: Egypt's wave of censorship takes aim at street music

Trump was accused of pulling U.S. punches amid Egyptian demonstrations against Sisi, but Trump remained largely silent on the issue, and once reportedly praised Sisi as his "favorite dictator." Amid their warm personal relationship, Sisi's government grew more oppressive at home, while supporting Trump's anti-Iran and counterterror campaigns.

Former President Barack Obama also at times looked the other way in favor of stability after the Arab Spring in 2011, Mubarak's ouster, and the tumultuous years that ensued. His administration declined to label Sisi's power-grab a coup, although it froze military and economic aid to Sisi's government for two years.

"This is about protecting my rights and freedoms, so I do everything in my power. I will work around the clock and turn every stone to have those rights protected," Soltan told ABC News.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the number of Soltan's cousins taken away by plainclothes officers.

Biden to announce US will donate $4 billion for COVID-19 vaccines for poor countries

"This pandemic is not going to end unless we end it globally," 

President Joe Biden plans to announce on Friday that the United States will contribute $2 billion to a U.N.-backed program seeking to distribute COVID-19 vaccine doses to people in the poorest countries in the world, according to senior Biden administration officials.

Congress had already allocated the money in December for the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide to Gavi, an international vaccine distribution alliance. Congress provided a total of $4 billion and the officials said that the U.S. would give the rest to Gavi over the course of this year and 2022.

The move, which the White House said Biden intends to announce during a virtual meeting of the Group of Seven leaders, comes as the United States grapples with not yet having enough doses to vaccinate its own population, although the situation in poorer nations is far worse.

© Guillermo Legaria/Getty Images A health worker holds a dose during a vaccination drill before the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine at Patio Bonito Tintal hospital on Jan. 26, 2021, in Bogota, Colombia.

To date, 10 countries have administered 75% of all COVID-19 vaccines, while more than 130 countries have not yet received a single dose, the United Nations said Wednesday.MORE: How COVID-19 vaccinations are going, on a global scale

Many countries are unable to compete with wealthier ones like the U.S. to purchase the limited amounts of vaccine doses available from manufacturers. In conjunction with the World Health Organization and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations foundation, Gavi runs a worldwide vaccination initiative called COVAX that aims to address that disparity by more equitably distributing doses

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© Rahmat Gul/AP, FILE Afghan health ministry workers unload boxes of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine donated by the Indian government to Afghanistan, at the customs area of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Even though then-President Donald Trump signed into law a December bill that allocated the $4 billion to Gavi, he had previously refused to back COVAX and his administration also moved to cut ties with the World Health Organization.

Biden has dramatically reversed that approach, keeping the U.S. in the WHO and making battling the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide a national security priority.

But bringing the global outbreak to an end has proved complicated with limited availability of vaccine doses.

The United States has so far purchased 600 million vaccine doses, but it does not intend to give any of them to other countries until -- as Biden directed in a Jan. 21 memorandum -- "there is sufficient supply in the United States."

© AFP via Getty Images A nurse gets ready to make injections of Russian made Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik-V at a vaccination center in Banja Luka, on Feb. 12, 2021.

A senior administration official said Thursday that "this pledge to COVAX does not impact the vaccination program in the United States at all."

"While we're not able to share vaccine doses at this time while we're focused on American vaccinations and getting shots into arms," the official said, "we're working hard to support COVAX, strengthen global vaccination around the world and determining the timeline for when we will have a sufficient supply in the United States and be able to donate surplus vaccines."

MORE: Biden's 1st 100 days live updates: Harris calls pandemic 'perfect storm for women'

China and Russia, meanwhile, have donated doses of their homegrown COVID-19 vaccines to partners and developing countries as a form of "vaccine diplomacy." The United States has not yet followed suit.

The administration officials argued that vaccinating people abroad protected the health of Americans domestically.

© Rahat Dar/EPA via Shutterstock Women hold placards to demand fair distribution of vaccines to developing countries during a protest in Lahore, Pakistan, Jan. 29, 2021.

"Decreasing the burden of disease decreases the risk to everyone in the world, including Americans," the official said. "It also decreases the risk of variants occurring, like those that we're seeing now. So it's critically important to surge vaccination globally, while we're, of course, prioritizing vaccinations here at home."

The official said the first $2 billion tranche would be donated "within days to weeks" and "ideally by the end of this month." Of the additional $2 billion, the U.S. plans to contribute the first $500 million of it "rather quickly" to "spur some of those initial doses to be out there," but it intends to at least initially hold back the rest to encourage other countries to make pledges of their own, the official said.

"This pandemic is not going to end unless we end it globally," the official added.

ABC News' Conor Finnegan contributed reporting.

THIRD WORLD USA

Animals freeze to death in Texas sanctuary

By Maria Morava and Scottie Andrew, CNN 

The Texas deep freeze is causing casualties among humans and animals alike.

© Eric Gay/AP A capuchin monkey is seen at Primarily Primates, Inc. in 2010 in San Antonio, Texas.

After rolling power outages plunged much of the state into darkness early this week, animals at the San Antonio Primarily Primates sanctuary froze to death in the winter weather.

Among the casualties were a chimpanzee, many monkeys, some lemurs and countless birds.

"I never, ever thought my office would turn into a morgue, but it has," Brooke Chavez, executive director of Primarily Primates, told the San Antonio Express-News.

Chavez said she won't know how many animals have died until the storm subsides -- and forecasts have predicted more winter weather through Friday.

The sanctuary must decide which animals it can save

After the power went out early Monday, Chavez and her team of 12 sprang to action.

They began gathering generators, space heaters, propane tanks and blankets to keep their 400 animals warm, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

But as temperatures plummeted further, the plan moved from preservation to evacuation.

"I've never faced a decision like this," Chavez told the newspaper. "Having to decide who we can save, depending on the predictability of which animals we can catch."

Video: Winter storms hammer Texas leaving millions without power (CNN)

It was while mobilizing for transport that the team began to find dead animals.

"Someone asked me how many animals have died. I don't know yet," Chavez said. "I know we lost lots of monkeys, lemurs and tropical birds."

Still, many of the sanctuary's residents were evacuated.

Some went to the San Antonio Zoo and a sanctuary near the Oklahoma border. Others went to the homes of volunteers.

Chimpanzees remain at the sanctuary -- 33 of them -- after proving difficult to transport, according to the Express-News.

Primarily Primates continues to ask for donations on its Facebook page.

The freeze, and the tragedies, continue

Texas' deep freeze is not over.

The electric grid for most of the state has ordered more power cuts to maintain the grid, and Austin Energy has notified its customers of outages through Wednesday -- possibly even longer.

The storm sweeping Texas is dangerous not only for its cold temperatures, but for the length of the cold without reprieve.

Continuous freezing temperatures don't allow houses and buildings to warm up naturally, and without power, Texans are forced to improvise for warmth.

Many have turned to heating sources like stoves, generators, and even their cars -- causing carbon monoxide poisonings to spike, CNN affiliate KTRK-TV reported.

Tragedies continue and death tolls rise as the state braces for more extreme weather.

More than 3 million Texans remained without power on Wednesday.

WHO WAS TOPLESS?

Rihanna sparks new India outrage with topless Hindu god photo

Pop icon Rihanna has been accused of mocking a Hindu god after she was pictured topless with a pendant of Ganesha around her neck, sparking a furore in India

.

© Martin BUREAU Rihanna's latest photoshoot has landed her in hot water in India

Images of the lingerie photoshoot come just weeks after she upset the Indian government by commenting on huge farmers' protests that pose a major challenge to New Delhi.

The latest offending tweet to the superstar's more than 100 million Twitter followers is part of promotions for Rihanna's lingerie line Savage X Fenty.

The photo was also shared on her Instagram account, which has 91.4 million followers.

Social media users and politicians in India on Wednesday said her post was "derogatory", accusing her of disrespecting Hindu gods and hurting local sentiment.

"It's appalling to see how @Rihanna shamefully mocks our beloved Hindu God #Ganesha," tweeted Ram Kadam, a state legislator from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist party.

"This exposes how #Rihanna has no idea or respect for Indian culture, tradition and our issues here," he added.

The right-wing World Hindu Council said it had filed police complaints against Facebook and Twitter for hosting the picture and demanded action against Rihanna's social media accounts.

Earlier this month tweets from Rihanna and other celebrities on protests in India by farmers against new agriculture laws sparked anger at India's foreign ministry, which called their comments "sensationalist".

Critics say Hindu nationalism has been on the rise in officially secular India under Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.

ja/grk/axn

DESPITE THE FAUX OUTRAGE OF THESE 

ARYAN SUPREMACIST PATRIARCHS

 AS THE GOD OF SENSUALITY AND MATERIALISM 

THE DIAMOND IDOL OF GANESH IS QUITE HAPPY TO BE WORSHIPPED BY RHIANNA

Edmonton's Bitcoin Well relocating to massive downtown office by end of the year

An Edmonton-based Bitcoin broker is spending $4 million to move its headquarters from Whyte Avenue to the Downtown core.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Adam O'Brien, founder and CEO of Bitcoin Well, outside the company's new offices in downtown Edmonton on February 17, 2021.

Bitcoin Well, a company that buys and sells digital currency, announced on Tuesday it had secured 35,000 square feet of office space spanning across two floors at the corner of 104 Street and Jasper Avenue. The company plans to move from its current location along 82 Avenue to the new space by the end of the year.

The move comes as the city’s Downtown reports the highest office vacancy rate in decades. By the end of 2020, the rate had climbed to nearly 18 per cent, according to Colliers International’s year-end report.

Bitcoin Well founder Adam O’Brien said the new space will allow the company to grow as the location along Whyte Avenue was getting too small. He said he did get a favourable rate for the new location but believes it was because the landlord saw the potential of the company.

“We made a conscious choice to stay in Edmonton,” O’Brien said. “We started designing this in the (COVID-19) pandemic so it didn’t change anything for us, but we did go away from a completely open-concept and move towards being team-focused. We’ve made a decision to kind of make little cohorts, or smaller offices, inside the big office. The flip side is we’re going to have a giant eating area (with) individual nap pods (and) a kitchen.”

Bitcoin Well began operations in 2013 in order to give customers more convenient access to cryptocurrency. The company brought in some of the first Bitcoin ATMs to Alberta and Saskatchewan and now has more than 100 machines across Canada. Bitcoin Well employs about 40 people but O’Brien said he plans to expand that to roughly 150 within the new space.

© Larry Wong 

Adam O’Brien, founder and CEO of Bitcoin Well, inside the company’s new offices in downtown Edmonton, which were under renovation, on February 17, 2021.

The move also comes as more people have shifted to working at home because of the pandemic. O’Brien said he found that productivity had increased while people were working at home but innovative ideas were down.

“When we were together, having what I’ve kind of deemed like the accidental conversations, those have been yielding products or product features that we haven’t seen coming from Zoom calls or Google Meets,” he said. “We’re setting up (the new space to be) more inviting and more collaborative.”
Tech sector small but growing

While small, Edmonton’s tech sector has been growing over the past few years and was ranked among the top 10 markets to watch by CBRE Limited’s 2020 ranking on U.S. and Canadian cities The city had more than 25,200 jobs in the tech sector in 2019, a 17 per cent increase over the last five years, according to the ranking.

O’Brien said the University of Alberta provides great talent for the tech industry, which normally turns to places such as Vancouver and Toronto.

“There are some great organizations that are calling Edmonton home,” he said. “We love working with the (U of A) and other colleges around town to have summer students or internships, get them used to the organization. We’re all about cultivating talent and I think Edmonton has done a great job.”

'Incredible': Canadian scientist eager to begin work after NASA Mars probe lands


EDMONTON — For seven long minutes, as NASA's latest Mars probe hurtled in radio silence through the red planet's atmosphere to its surface, Chris Herd held his breath. 

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The University of Alberta planetary geologist, one of a select team of scientists working on the Perseverance project, says he felt every tick.

"It's hard to describe," he said Thursday.

"There were so many steps in those seven minutes of terror. Step after step, it was, 'OK, it's gone well. It's gone well.' And then the applause.

"We went from zipping through space to being gently on the ground and everything worked flawlessly.

"It's incredible."

Ground controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., jumped to their feet, thrust their arms in the air and cheered in triumph and relief on receiving confirmation that the six-wheeled Perseverance had touched down.

The car-sized, plutonium-powered vehicle landed at Jezero Crater, a small and tricky target with a strip of ancient river delta full of pits, cliffs and fields of rock.

The landing marks the third visit to Mars in just over a week. Two spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates and China swung into orbit around Mars on successive days last week. All three missions lifted off in July to take advantage of the close alignment of Earth and Mars. They journeyed some 300 million miles in nearly seven months.

Perseverance, the biggest, most advanced rover ever sent out by NASA, became the ninth spacecraft since the 1970s to successfully land on Mars.

Video: NASA's Perseverance rover lands on Mars today (cbc.ca)

Over the next two years, the probe — nicknamed Percy — will use its two-metre arm to drill down and collect rock samples that might contain signs of bygone microscopic life. Three to four dozen chalk-sized samples will be sealed in tubes and set aside to be retrieved by a fetch rover and brought homeward by another rocket ship.

The goal is to get them back to Earth as early as 2031.

Percy has 23 cameras to record everything about the landscape. It also has ground-penetrating radar and an on-board laser that can vaporize rocks and analyze their makeup. It will be able to detect organic matter in the rocks and reveal evidence of environments that could have been habitable.

Scientists believe that if life ever flourished on Mars, it would have happened three billion to four billion years ago when water still flowed on the planet.

Perseverance has already sent a grainy, black-and-white photo of the planet's pockmarked surface, the rover's shadow visible in the frame.

Herd's job, together with his colleagues, will be to monitor the rover and tell it when to sample. That work won't begin for weeks as other pieces of equipment, including a robotic helicopter, are tested and put through their paces.

He watched the landing on TV, linked in online with several of his colleagues.

"It was just awesome to see everybody cheer when we were down on the ground."

Celebrations, though, were muted.

Herd said scientists were already planning to meet Thursday night to discuss their next moves. Perseverance landed so accurately, he said, that they know exactly where it is.

"We have a starting point now. We can start to say, 'We're in this particular area that was mapped out. What are our priorities? Where are we going next?'

"It's going to be an incredible period of exploration on Mars."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 18, 2021

— With files from The Associated Press. Follow @row1960 on Twitter

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

 

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