NO FOOLING

US jobless claims rise to 719K as virus still forces layoffs


WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose by 61,000 last week to 719,000, signalling that many employers are still cutting jobs even as more businesses reopen, vaccines are increasingly administered and federal aid spreads through the economy.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of claims increased from 658,000 the week before. Though the pace of applications has dropped sharply since early this year, they remain high by historical standards: Before the pandemic flattened the economy a year ago, jobless claims typically ran below 220,000 a week.

Still, the four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week gyrations, fell by 10,500 to 719,000 — the fewest since mid-March 2020, just before the pandemic began to cause widespread layoffs.

All told, 3.8 million people were collecting traditional state benefits during the week ending March 20. If you include federal programs that are meant to help the unemployed through the health crisis, 18.2 million people were receiving some type of jobless aid in the week that ended March 13. That's down from 19.7 million in the previous week.

Economists monitor weekly applications for unemployment aid for early signs of where the job market is headed. Applications generally reflect the rate of layoffs, which normally fall steadily as a job market strengthens. During the pandemic, though, the numbers have become less reliable as states have struggled with application backlogs and allegations of fraud have clouded the actual volume of job cuts.

Even so, measures of the overall economy show clear improvement from the collapse last spring, with the rising number of vaccinations encouraging people to return to airports, shopping centres, restaurants and bars. The number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases has dropped from an average of about 250,000 a day in early January to below 70,000, though it has begun to rise again in recent days.

Last month, consumer confidence reached a post-pandemic peak. And the $1,400 checks in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief plan have sharply lifted consumer spending, according to Bank of America’s tracking of its debit and credit cards. Spending jumped 23% in the third week of March compared with pre-pandemic levels, the bank said.

And even with the pace of layoffs still relatively high, hiring has begun to accelerate. In February, employers added a robust 379,000 jobs across the country. Last month, they are believed to have added even more: According to the data firm FactSet, economists expect the March jobs report being released Friday to show that the economy added a sizable 614,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate fell from 6.2% to 6%. Less than a year ago, the jobless rate had hit 14.8%.

Some economists are even more optimistic: Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the tax advisory firm RSM, is predicting 1 million added jobs for March.

The Federal Reserve’s policymakers have substantially boosted their forecast for the economy this year, anticipating growth of 6.5% for 2021, up from an estimate in December of just 4.2%. That would be the fastest rate of expansion in any year since 1984.

“With vaccination efforts increasing seemingly by the day, hope may finally be on the horizon," said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “Getting the public health situation back to normal is the only way to stop coronavirus’ economic damage. A robust recovery will only be able to flourish once the virus is under control.”

Still, the economic impact of the pandemic lingers. The data firm Womply reports that 63% of movie theatres and other entertainment venues were closed last week, as were 39% of bars and 39% of hair salons and other beauty shops.

Paul Wiseman, The Associated Press

Proposed Canadian gun bill will create U.S.-style patchwork of firearms laws

Noah S. Schwartz, PhD Candidate, Political Science, Carleton University


Canadians have a lot to be proud of. A vast wilderness to protect and explore, universal health care, a historical record of peacekeeping and diplomacy, and most of all, according to many of us: not being American.

© (Logan Weaver/Unsplash)

 Canadian gun laws should not replicate the chaotic system in the United States.

That last point seems to form the bedrock of our national identity. Canadians go to great lengths to distinguish ourselves from our southern neighbour. That’s why it seems odd that the federal government is trying to bring American-style gun politics to Canada.

I am talking about Bill C-21, the government’s latest gun control foray. It’s managed to unite proponents of gun control and gun rights in their condemnation while even simultaneously politicizing the largely apolitical airsoft community, made up of those who enjoy participating in the paintball-like game and whose toy firearms will be banned by the bill.

The strangest thing about the bill, however, is its attempt to copy and paste failed American-style gun laws into the Canadian context.

If the phrase “American-style” gun laws seems like an oxymoron, I don’t blame anyone for thinking so, especially in the aftermath of two recent, horrifying mass shootings south of the border. The popular perception is that America has no gun laws. While that’s not true, federal gun laws in the United States are modest when compared to Canada.

Constitutional and political considerations have made it difficult for American legislators to institute national gun control measures, leaving states, counties and municipalities to create their own confusing patchwork of stop-gap measures. This results in a legal mess, makes gun control a polarizing issue at all levels of government and does little in the way of dissuading criminals from driving to the next state or county to acquire firearms.

So far, Canada has avoided this sort of legislative quagmire; most of our gun laws are housed in the Firearms Act. This means they are largely consistent across all Canadian provinces and territories.

Confusion to ensue

This will change if Bill C-21 passes and gives the municipalities the power to ban handguns. Assuming — and this is a big if — these laws survive a constitutional challenge, they could result in an American-style snafu, creating confusion not only for licensed gun owners but police forces, courts and lawyers.

Given that most guns involved in crime in Canada are already being smuggled across the U.S. border, it is highly questionable to think that the “Welcome to Toronto” sign would deter gang members who rely on unlicensed firearms to conduct illicit business.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette Police officers from different agencies arrive for a news conference on an investigation into trafficking of illegal firearms and illegal drugs in the Greater Toronto and Golden Horseshoe areas of Ontario in December 2018.

The law also puts in place American-style Red Flag Laws by expanding the conditions under which a licensed gun owner can be subject to an Emergency Prohibition Order. This might make sense in the American context, since the U.S. doesn’t have a national gun licensing system and it can be difficult to remove guns from the hands of those who pose a risk to public safety.

But Canada already has provisions in place that allow police to conduct searches of gun owners’ homes without a warrant to respond to public complaints, and remove guns from the hands of people in crisis.

Frivolous complaints

The provisions contained in Bill C-21 will make it easier for frivolous complaints to be brought against gun owners, dragging harmless people into the court system at a personal cost of thousands of dollars.

While Red Flag Laws implemented in some American states may be a necessary workaround in the absence of better gun laws, they have had mixed success in reducing gun crime and preventing mass killings. Worse still, these laws create an alarming number of false positives and have hauled people into the legal system for posting internet memes or making childish statements.

Canada already has strict gun laws. The gun problem in Canada stems from sharing the world’s longest undefended border with the country that has the largest number of guns in civilian hands. There is no need to replicate American stop-gap gun laws here.

Lawmakers should instead focus on tackling the social determinants of crime, invest money in chronically underfunded programs to trace guns used in crimes and increase funding for community-based organizations like the One by One Movement, an advocacy group founded by former gang members to fight gun and gang violence.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Noah S. Schwartz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

CLOSING BARN DOOR 

Taiwan chip maker TSMC to invest $100B

 to grow capacity



TAIPEI, Taiwan — Major Taiwan computer chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plans to invest $100 billion in the next three years in expanding its manufacturing capacity and supporting research and development, the company said Thursday

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The world’s biggest contract producer of semiconductors, TSMC said it anticipates faster growth thanks to long-term trends like the introduction of next-generation telecommunications and high-performance computing. The coronavirus pandemic, meanwhile is revving up demand for electronic devices as the world relies increasingly on digitalization.

“TSMC is working closely with our customers to address their needs in a sustainable manner," the company said in an emailed statement. It did not give further details about planned investments.

TSMC makes processor chips for major brands like Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. Surging demand pushed its revenue 18% higher in January-February from a year earlier, it reported earlier.

Intel, South Korea's Samsung Electronics and other chip makers also have been boosting investments to meet rising demand and joust for market share in advanced semiconductors.

Most semiconductors used in smartphones, medical equipment, computers and other products are made in Taiwan, South Korea and China.

Last week, Intel announced plans to pour $20 billion into expanding production, building two new factories in Arizona. The company is building up its foundry business but lags behind TSMC in developing a next-generation chip-making process.

TSMC operates a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility in Camas, Washington, and design centres in San Jose, California, and Austin, Texas.

It has announced plans to invest $3.5 billion in a second U.S. manufacturing site, in North Phoenix, Arizona, as concern grows over heavy American reliance on sources in Asia for high-tech components.

The Associated Pres

U.S. trade war pushing China to steal tech, talent, Taiwan says

TAIPEI (Reuters) - The China-U.S. trade war is pushing Beijing to step up its efforts to steal technology and poach talent from Taiwan to boost China's semiconductor industry's self-sufficiency, the government of the tech-powerhouse island said on Wednesday.

Washington has taken aim at China's tech industry during the bitter trade dispute, putting sanctions on firms including telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies Ltd, saying they are a threat to national security, angering Beijing.

Chinese-claimed Taiwan is home to a thriving and world-leading chip industry, and the government has long worried about China's efforts to copy that success, through fair means or foul.

Speaking at a parliamentary committee meeting on how to respond to the "red supply chain" - a reference to the colour of China's ruling Communist Party - Taiwan Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua said the trade war had created new risks.

"Affected by the U.S.-China technology war, the development of mainland China's semiconductor industry has been obstructed, but they are still committed to the industry's development," she said.

"In order to achieve self-sufficiency in the supply chain, poaching and infiltration are the quickest way for mainland China to do this," Wang added.

Taiwan's chip workers have deep experience and speak the same language, meaning they are a "natural target for poaching China has latched onto", she added.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hu Mu-yuan, deputy head of Taiwan's National Security Bureau, said China's efforts were a threat to not just Taiwan, but also Japan and South Korea, threatening global trade and fair competition.

"Moreover, the Chinese communists are stealing other countries intellectual property to boost their own power," he added.

Taiwan has strict laws to try and prevent this from happening, but officials have warned China tries to skirt them by setting up front companies on the island, using Taiwanese headhunters and other methods.

"Preventing Taiwan's key technology and high-tech personnel from being infiltrated by the 'red supply chain' has become an important task to protect our industry's competitiveness and ensure our economic security," Hu said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

MEET THE NEW BOSS SAME AS THE OLD BOSS, SERIOUSLY

From the bottom up: CP Rail's Keith Creel steps out from Hunter Harrison's shadow to cement his own legacy

AS YOU WILL READ HARDLY BOTTOM UP

Joe O'Connor

POSTMEDIA

APRIL 1,2021

Keith Creel was just a relatively raw kid from Alabama when Hunter Harrison summoned him to the 21st floor of the NBC Tower in Chicago for a meeting in 1996. It’s a day vividly imprinted on his memory 26 years later, because days like that were not supposed to happen to people like him

A GUY IN A REALLY BAD SUIT, 

BUT NOT DON CHERRY BAD

.

© Provided by Financial Post 

Keith Creel, chief executive of Canadian Pacific Railway.

Harrison, a brash southerner, with a rich baritone voice, a taste for Marlboro Red cigarettes and stiff drinks, and a reputation as a master storyteller, was chief executive of Illinois Central Railroad and already a legend in railroad circles.

Creel was a nobody. A new frontline hire, soon bound for Memphis, Tenn., and a job as trainmaster. He couldn’t really fathom why the boss would want to meet him. His nerves were hopping all over the place as he walked into an office anteroom with bookshelves and a couch, comfy chairs and a million-dollar view of Lake Michigan. He found himself thinking, “Somebody must live here.”

Around a corner sat Harrison. He told the kid to “sit down,” and he started telling stories of growing up in the South, of sports and railroading.

“I spent three hours with Hunter,” Creel, now 52 years old, said. “And I heard a lot and I learned a lot, and I realized then that this wasn’t just a CEO in a suit, and no disrespect to CEOs in suits, but this was a guy who understood the business from top to bottom.”

Harrison also recognized, for whatever reason, something in Creel, and would pull him along from railroad to railroad, dispatching him to towns along the way to sort out operational kinks and learn the business just as he had: from the bottom up.

© Chris Goodney/Bloomberg files

 Hunter Harrison in 2015. RAN BOTH CN & CP

Until, that is, the protege appeared at the top, and succeeded Harrison as chief executive at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. in January 2017. Harrison died later that same year, but were he alive today, Creel could tell him a story of his own, about that kid from Alabama being the driving force behind CP’s US$25.2-billion deal to purchase Kansas City Southern.

The merger is a whopper in an industry where whoppers rarely happen, and it positions a Canadian railway, one started in 1881 that now connects the country from coast to coast, to drive a stake into an expansive network stretching from northern Alberta deep into the Mexican industrial heartland.

Regulators will have their say, no doubt, but most everybody else — the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commission, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Alberta’s premier, Kansas City Southern’s board, analysts and the stock market, where CP is trading at record highs — are cheering the purchase.

Should it ultimately go through, Creel’s name, as Harrison’s typically is, may never again appear without the word “legend” practically affixed to it.

“This has been a transaction that has been talked about for the last 15 years.” Steve Hansen, an analyst at Raymond James Ltd., said of the deal. “It is massive.”

Chances are, though, it never would have happened were it not for another guy named Steve, who worked at Food World in Atlanta in the early 1980s. That Steve, whose last name has been lost to time, worked alongside Creel, a high school sophomore, wrestler and impressionable teen with car payments to make.

Steve had been to U.S. Army boot camp. He had a brush cut. He could talk.

“What he told me inspired me,” Creel said.

No one in Creel’s family had a military background. (No one in his family worked for the railroad, either). But he heard enough to enrol in an officer’s training program while pursuing a marketing degree at Jacksonville State University in Alabama.

Midway through university, Creel was called up for active duty during the Persian Gulf War, and the wet-behind-the-ears 21-year-old lieutenant got his first taste of leading others while stationed in Saudi Arabia.

The army was about teamwork, order, logistics, troubleshooting problems, following rules and believing in a mission greater than oneself. It was also about motivating people to do their best.

“I learned that I had a huge love for leadership in the military,” Creel said. “When I came back, the military opportunity was what led to the railroad.”

NEO LIBERALISM, CONTIENTALISM, JUST IN TIME DELIVERY

And the railroad led to that first meeting with Hunter Harrison in Chicago. Before Harrison came along, railroads were notoriously unreliable. Major delays were the industry norm. Punctuality was but a rumour.

Harrison set out to fix things, evolving his philosophy of “precision scheduled railroading” along the way. In short: his trains were going to leave on time and they were going to arrive on time. Locomotives would pull more cars to maximize loads and boost profits. Reducing transit times between point A and point B was paramount. Providing fast and reliable service would attract more customers, and more customers would mean more profitable railroads. A culture of slow and inefficient would become a culture of quick.

© Peter J. Thompson/National Post files Keith Creel, left, 

and Hunter Harrison at a CP Rail annual meeting in 2016.

“PSR is basically doing what you say you are going to do for your customers,” Hansen said. “If you say you are going to leave at 2 p.m., then you leave at 2 p.m., where, historically, it was always, ‘Let’s just wait a little bit longer before we leave.’”

Canadian National Railway Co. bought Illinois Central in 1998, and brought in Harrison as its chief operating officer, later promoting him to CEO. Now running a Canadian railroad, he would send Creel to Winnipeg, in -40 C weather, among other stops, to implement his precision-guided philosophy.

“Keith and Hunter were a lot alike in that they were both extremely focused,” said Andy Reardon, former chair of CP’s board and a 40-year industry veteran. “They strove for perfection.”

Reardon first met Harrison in the 1970s. He describes Creel as having a softer touch, and an uncanny talent for soaking up the best parts of the best people he has ever worked for and applying them to his own leadership style. As another person phrased it: no one finds Keith Creel “intimidating.”

Creel likens Harrison to a coach, or a father figure, someone who could be tough but caring, someone you hated to disappoint.

“When you needed it, Hunter would knock you down in the dirt,” he said from his home in Florida. “But he would also stick out his hand and dust you off, and tell you to go get them again.”

The question for Creel always seemed to be: go where? In learning the business from the bottom up, he uprooted his family 13 times in 14 years to live in places such as Battle Creek, Mich., Wichita Falls, Texas, and Edmonton.

“I became a fix-it guy,” he said. “Hunter put me in some very challenging locations and terminals. I would parachute in, stay for a year, get things turned around and going the right way, and then he would have another project to send me to.”

Living out of a suitcase wasn’t easy. Harrison may have been the boss, but Creel’s most “trusted adviser” was his wife, Ginger. Somewhere along the way, the former high school wrestler also became that most Canadian of things: a hockey parent.

Creel’s son, Tanner, was a goaltender at the University of Connecticut, while their daughter, Caitlin, competed in equestrian at Auburn University in Alabama.

“Often, I was by myself,” Creel said of watching Tanner’s games from the stands. “I sort of internalize, because that was the only healthy way to do it, or maybe it wasn’t healthy. But the stress of (watching Tanner) was more than the stress of work.”

Harrison retired from CN at the end of 2009, but came out of retirement to run CP in 2012. A year later, he poached Creel from CN under cantankerous circumstances to sign on as president and chief operating officer.

As close as the two men were, they didn’t agree on everything. The CP beaver is a case in point.

© Courtesy Library and Archives Canada The Last Spike, 1895.

Canadians may recall a black-and-white photograph of a small man with a white beard driving home the last spike of CP’s railway in November 1885. For a young country just finding its way, post-Confederation, the railway proved transformational. Goods and people could get around, as could a budding narrative of a nation, from sea to shining sea, united by a feat of engineering know-how.

The small man with the beard in the “Last Spike” photograph was a financier, political arm twister and philanthropist named Donald Alexander Smith, a Scotsman. More than a century later, it was an Alabaman, Creel, who twigged onto the idea that there was an opportunity to rebrand the company by reconnecting it to its roots.

CP first adopted the industrious beaver as a logo when it began running transcontinental trains out of Montreal and Toronto in 1886. The critter was tossed onto the metaphorical tracks in 1968, revived for a spell in the late 1990s, and then sidelined again. Harrison had no use for the beaver. The past was the past.

But Creel brought it back almost immediately after taking over as CEO, incorporating it into a snazzy new company logo — albeit one with a retro feel — and painting it in gold on CP trains. He even helped sketch out the logo.

“I literally sat at my desk in Calgary with a colleague and started scratching out some thoughts,” he said. “And I said, ‘This is it, we will just combine the past and the present, and it will carry us into the future.’”

The logo overhaul was a small touch, a clever bit of marketing from a guy with a marketing degree. To customers and the world outside, it was a nod to the past, sure, but it also pointed directly at the future.

© Alex Ramadan/Bloomberg files A Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive painted with the company logo at a rail yard in Calgary.

Here was a fresh look for a new CP: a railway that leaves and arrives on time, gets goods to where they need to go, has a strong safety record and happy shareholders, and one that was still looking to grow.

But Creel hoped an internal shift in tone, even more than the external messaging, would resonate with employees. The Harrison era at CP, with Creel as chief lieutenant, was a painful exercise in righting a business that had a weak bottom line and was teetering toward potential bankruptcy and break-up.

Hundreds of locomotives were parked, railyards were closed and about 8,000 jobs were chopped from the payroll during Harrison’s five years at the helm.

“PSR is a cultural, financial and operational principle, and it can be wrenching for some people, particularly for those accustomed to doing things one way, and who don’t want to change,” former chair Reardon said.

Harrison may have invented PSR, but Creel, in his role as implementer-in-chief, perfected it. Travel times between Toronto and Calgary were reduced by 22.5 hours. Another 12 hours was cut from the Calgary-to-Vancouver leg. The culture of fast won out, though not without friction.

In February 2015, 3,000 conductors and engineers walked off the job, protesting poor working conditions such as extreme fatigue and unreliable schedules. Harrison’s response to the two-day strike was to keep the trains running by putting white-collar executives on the rails.

“I can tell you that when a train comes running by at 60 miles per hour, pulling 20,000 tonnes with the manager blowing the whistle at them, their eyes get awful big,” Harrison reportedly said of the striking workers.

© Crystal Schick/Calgary Herald files A CP Rail train passes as dozens of employees wear signs and walk the edge of the Ogden rail yard as they strike in Calgary, on February 15, 2015.

By the time Creel officially took over, the mandate was growth, not more cuts, and the logo refresh was, in part, his way of extending an “olive branch” to employees. He describes the company’s 13,000 employees as “family.” It probably doesn’t hurt that the family generates about $8 billion a year in revenue.

The kinder approach has mostly paid off. A source among the CP rank and file, who requested anonymity, said there are some guys who “come to work with a smile on their face,” while others are “constantly looking over their shoulders, and feel as though they are being watched.”

Things are not perfect, Creel allowed, but no family is. What is beyond dispute is CP’s and Creel’s reputation for getting the job done.

“CP are unmatched, they are the gold standard,” Hansen, the analyst, said.

Now, it is poised to get a whole lot bigger.

But the merger with KCS was another thing that Creel and Harrison could never quite agree upon. Harrison disliked the idea; Creel had long been intrigued by it.

The younger man visited his mentor several times as he lay dying in a Florida hospital. Harrison was on oxygen, vulnerable — human — and it was tough to see. But two days before he died, he was back to being Hunter Harrison: lucid, funny and eager to tell stories with his protégé.

They thanked one another for “doing right” by one another. Harrison held forth, just like in the old days, coaching Creel on whom he could trust and who he couldn’t. They talked for three hours.

Creel knows just what Harrison would say, if he could see him now.

“He would be proud,” he said. “He would be extremely proud. I know that he would.”

Financial Post

CP’s ‘historic and transformational’ merger could be the last of the big rail deals

CP deal could be easier sell in wake of continental trade deal and pandemic’s economic shifts

Some 136 years after the Last Spike, CP Rail aims to connect north and south

CP Rail to buy Kansas City Southern to create first rail network connecting Canada, the United States and Mexico

Coca-Cola CEO wants Congress to act after Georgia's voting law

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business 

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey is escalating his criticism against recently passed voting laws in Georgia, saying he wants to be "crystal clear and state unambiguously that we are disappointed" in the legislation.

© Fabrice Coffini/AFP/Getty Images Coca-Cola President and CEO James Quincey attends a press conference with International Olympic Committee (IOC) president and China Mengniu Dairy CEO and Executive Director, as part of the 134th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the SwissTech Convention Centre in Lausanne, on June 24, 2019.

In a new statement released Thursday, Quincey said that Coke, which is headquartered in Atlanta, has "long championed efforts to make it easier to vote" and has previously opposed legislation that "would diminish or deter access to voting."

"Our focus is now on supporting federal legislation that protects voting access and addresses voter suppression across the country," Quincey said. "We all have a duty to protect everyone's right to vote, and we will continue to stand up for what is right in Georgia and across the US." 

The federal legislation that Quincey appears to be alluding to is HR 1, a sweeping government ethics and election bill that, among other things, would counter state-level Republican efforts to restrict voting access. The Democratic-led House approved the legislation earlier this month.

Wells Fargo also issued a public statement Thursday echoing the need for Congress to "establish Federal Election Day as a national holiday, thereby establishing the importance of this right."

Business leaders have been under growing pressure to denounce Georgia's voting law and similar measures in other states. Quincey's new statement follows his prior criticism, calling the law "unacceptable" and "a step backwards."

"This legislation is wrong and needs to be remedied," Quincey said in an interview on CNBC Wednesday. "We will continue to advocate for [changes], both in private and now even more clearly in public."

Republicans who passed the law say the measure is needed to prevent fraud and stop illegal voting, playing on discredited claims of widespread fraud in last year's presidential election. Opponents say the legislation amounts to voter suppression efforts that will reduce minority voting.

Several leaders of Georgia-based companies have criticized the law, including Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian. After facing a backlash over his initial statement, Bastian issued a more forceful criticism Wednesday, saying the measure was based on "a lie" about voter fraud.

"I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta's values," Bastian said in a statement to employees. "After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it's evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives. That is wrong."

That prompted a response from Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, accusing Bastian of spreading misinformation and not recognizing the upsides for voting security included in the bill.

The "statement by Delta CEO Ed Bastian stands in stark contrast to our conversations with the company, ignores the content of the new law, and unfortunately continues to spread the same false attacks being repeated by partisan activists," Kemp said in a statement.

--CNN Business' Chris Isidore contributed to this report.

‘You’ll become Hindu’: Yoga remains banned in Alabama schools after senate vote

Alabama’s senate has rejected a bill that would have reversed a 28-year ban on practising yoga in public schools.

© Provided by National Post Alabama state legislator Jeremy Gray's bill preserved the ban on the Hindu greeting 'namaste' and made the practise of yoga in public schools voluntary. It was still defeated

Alabama State Rep. Jeremy Gray’s bill was defeated in committee on Wednesday night, despite a provision that would have made bringing yoga back to Alabama public schools voluntary. Yoga was forbidden by the Alabama Board of Education in 1993 after opposition by conservative groups over its Hindu roots.

The committee vote in effect continues a ban believed unique in the United States: “School personnel shall be prohibited from using any techniques that involve the induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, meditation or yoga” (in addition to banning “namaste,” which means “I bow to you”).

At issue is whether yoga promotes Hinduism.

Groups who argued against the Alabama bill believe it violates the separation of church and state. The act of meditation is spiritual, argues constitutional lawyer Eric Johnston, who works with Christian advocacy groups that have spoken out against the measure.
THEY WANT PRAYER IN SCHOOL

HENCE THEIR PERVERSION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT

“If you pass a law that says you can do stretches and sit in positions and so forth, that’s fine,” Johnston said. “But to say you can teach yoga is an entirely different thing because yoga is an exercise of the Hindu religion.”

Johnston and others say they don’t object to adults participating in yoga but they feel children are impressionable.

“Children at that age are very tech-savvy and if they are taught yoga, all they have to do is Google it and they will immediately find information on the spiritual aspects of it and look at it,” he said. “And if they look at it, it might lead them to believe that’s something they should be involved in.”

Gray, who began practising yoga in college as a football player at the end of his workouts, said yoga is everywhere in the state — there’s even a yoga program available to the state’s prison inmates.

He didn’t realize it wasn’t permitted at schools until he visited a class to speak about politics and lawmaking and told students he meditated to help himself focus. The students and faculty in the room appeared uncomfortable at the mention, he said, and teachers later told him they became certified to teach a course but were not allowed to because a group of parents complained.

No other state has a similar ban, Gray said.

Gray’s proposal tried to mollify his critics: His bill stipulated that “chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, and 11 namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited.”

The state legislator told reporters, “This whole notion that if you do yoga, you’ll become Hindu — I’ve been doing yoga for 10 years and I go to church and I’m very much a Christian.”

With additional reporting from The Washington Post

Bright lights, bug city: Study explains why 45 million grasshoppers swarmed Las Vegas

Las Vegas is all about excess and July 2019 was no different when some 45 million grasshoppers descended on its dazzling skyline, a horde of insects that appeared on weather radar like a thunderstorm.

© Provided by National Post 

Grasshoppers swarm a light a few blocks off the Strip on July 26, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Now, new research published in Biology Letters sheds light on the insect invasion. Rather than a biblical plague visited upon the city of sin in the Nevada desert, scientists see a convergence of more common phenomena.

By mapping vegetation and weather surveillance data, researchers found the insects scattered to forage for vegetation at dusk and swarmed Vegas after dark.

The study counted more grasshoppers in a single day than the city gets visitors in an entire year.

“I think that’s one of the cool aspects of this paper — to be able to quantify the number of grasshoppers in those ‘hordes’, and show that their movement is correlated with bright lights and the landscape below,” the study’s lead scientist, Elske Tielens, wrote in an email.

Footage from 2019 show teeming masses of insects painting the Vegas sky and littered throughout roads and parking lots in a deluge that lasted from June until mid-August. The radar picked up more than 45 million grasshoppers when the swarm peaked on July 27, adding up to around 30 metric tons in weight.

Interestingly, the authors found the grasshoppers congregated more around the Vegas strip, flocking to the brightest lit regions of the night sky.

The scale of this influx depends on the coming together of two things: “large grasshopper populations because of favourable conditions, wet winter and spring [with] lots of green vegetation … and the proximity of a large urban ‘light trap,’” Tielens said.

The study newly examines the effect that artificial lights at night have on the behaviour of insects at this scale. Their interactions with man-made environments could help with conserving insect diversity and managing pest species, according to the authors.

Invertebrates that are drawn to light may be “trapped” in unsuitable areas, hindering their ability to forage and mate, they write, adding certain moths drawn to light-polluted areas are known to show greater population declines.

Outbreaks of the very same pallid-winged grasshoppers were found in Arizona in the fifties, sixties and 1998, Tielens points out, including in Phoenix, Casa Grande, Tucson, and surroundings.

“It is likely this kind of event could happen again.”

The day of the locust : West, Nathanael, 1903-1940 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

'Mystery and milieu:' Survey says Canadians have seen more UFOs during pandemic

WINNIPEG — It was a clear afternoon when a man driving down a rural road in Alberta with his son saw a pie-shaped object levitating in the sky just before the thing rotated, turned black and suddenly disappeared.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"There were no windows, lights, lines or markings on the object's surface and the edges were all rounded," says a transcript of the man's report made to Winnipeg's Ufology Research.

"Within (one minute) of us seeing the object, we witnessed a military plane flying in the direction of our sighting."

The report of the unidentified flying object was one of hundreds counted during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, says a report released Tuesday.

Chris Rutkowski with Ufology Research said sightings of UFOs across Canada — levitating discs, erratic spaceships and floating triangular objects — increased by 46 per cent in 2020.

He said the total of 1,243 sightings last year is one of the highest recorded in a single year. Roughly 30 per cent of the sightings were in Ontario and 24 per cent came from Quebec.

The high number of reports suggests an average of three UFO sightings every day, he said.

"Anything that is seen in the sky that a person doesn't think is a star, planet or plane is (a) UFO," said Rutkowski, who has been collecting unusual sightings in the sky since 1989.

"That's strictly an unidentified flying object by the definition."

One person in Toronto reported seeing a UFO levitating 1 1/2 metres away from his balcony before it folded in on itself. A pilot flying from Thunder Bay, Ont., reported an object about a metre in diameter passing over the plane's right wing even though his radar reported zero traffic in the airway.

Some sightings turned out to be a satellite, a plane flying at an awkward angle or light playing tricks, Rutkowski said. But 13 per cent were classified as unexplained.

"There's a persistent phenomenon that won't go away," he said.

"It certainly is very, very impressive and causes (people) to report them to various agencies from police, RCMP, to national defence and other agencies."

The astronomer said he doubts UFOs are being operated by an extraterrestrial being.

"As an astronomer, my background suggests there probably is alien life out there, but travelling between stars is very, very difficult."

But, Rutkowski said, once in a while a police officer or a pilot, who are considered credible observers, report a UFO sighting and researchers have to take their sightings seriously.

"What do you do with those cases? Do you just chalk them up to one of those things? Or does that make you think there is something behind all the mystery and milieu?"

He suggested there could be two reasons why more Canadians saw objects that seemed out of this world.

Early in the pandemic, the U.S. government released videos of unidentified aerial phenomena recorded by the navy.

"That (drove) some people to look a little more carefully in the sky and believe that UFOs are a little more popular and frequent than one believes."

It's also possible the pandemic has caused people to think a bit more about their lives and to wonder if we're alone in the universe.

"People were spending more time with their families, in their own backyards, and were ... appreciating nature and what's surrounding them (and) UFOs are a part of human culture.

"This is probably a way of just imagining what life is like in the universe, beyond the borders of our little blue speck in space."

Rutkowski encourages Canadians to continue reporting UFOs.

"We really have no information about what aliens might be like."

He adds that any being intelligent enough to travel between stars should have figured out some of the problems that exist on Earth, such as wars, famine and climate change.

"So, if you've seen a UFO, you're in very good company."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 30, 2021

— By Fakiha Baig in Edmonton

___

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

The Canadian Press

Bright lights in the sky: A look at some of the UFO sightings in Canada last year

WINNIPEG — A recent survey posted by Ufology Research in Winnipeg says there was a jump in UFO sightings in Canada last year. Here are some of the 1,243 sightings:

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Jan. 23, 2020 — Someone shovelling snow off their Toronto balcony reported seeing a two-metre long object silently levitating about 1.5 metres away. As the person continued staring at the black and silver object, one side folded and disappeared.

Jan. 23, 2020 — On the same day near Guelph, Ont., a person reported seeing two bright lights following a plane. As the plane went in another direction, the lights continued moving forward at a fast speed and a massive circular object appeared behind the lights. The observer said it appeared the lights were escorting the UFO.

Feb. 3, 2020 — It was a clear day when a man driving down a rural road in Alberta with his son saw a grey pie-shaped object levitating in the sky just before it rotated, turned black and suddenly disappeared. Within the next minute, they saw a military plane flying towards the mysterious object. They said the round UFO had no windows or markings.

Video: Rocket debris from satellite launch puts on light show over southern B.C. (cbc.ca)

July 24, 2020 — A pilot of a North Star Air Ltd. plane heading to Sachigo Lake, Ont., from Thunder Bay, Ont., saw an object pass over the plane's right wing. The pilot said the UFO was about one-metre in diameter. The plane's radar indicated there was no object in the vicinity.

Aug. 30, 2020 — A man in Ottawa pulled out his binoculars after observing an object with flashing lights hovering in the clear sky. He described the chevron-shaped UFO as black with green, blue and purple with flashing lights underneath. He also said his wife confirmed that the object levitated in the sky for about 20 minutes before it moved west.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 30, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Sierra Nevada Corp. unveils space station plans

Sierra Nevada Corporation held a news conference Wednesday to reveal its vision for an integrated, free-flying commercial space station, building on key elements of the "Life" habitat and "Dream Chaser" spaceplane design. (March 31)

Duration: 01:04