Uber ordered to pay $1.1 million to blind passenger who was denied rides 14 separate times

Uber, Lyft, and other ride-hailing and food-delivery companies have aggressively fought efforts in multiple states and countries to reclassify drivers as employees, which would add significant additional costs to their already unprofitable business models.

tsonnemaker@insider.com (Tyler Sonnemaker)

4/2/2021

© RJ Sangosti/Getty Images A blind passenger gets into an Uber in Denver, Colorado (Lisa Irving is not pictured). RJ Sangosti/Getty Images

Uber must pay a blind passenger $1.1 million for illegally denying her rides, an arbitrator ruled.
Uber drivers denied Lisa Irving rides 14 times because of her blindness and guide dog, Bernie.
Uber unsuccessfully argued it wasn't responsible because its drivers are contractors.

An independent arbitrator on Thursday ordered Uber to pay $1.1 million to a blind passenger for illegally discriminating against her after its drivers refused her rides on 14 occasions.

The arbitrator also rejected Uber's argument that it wasn't liable for discrimination by its drivers because they're contractors.

Uber said it strongly disagreed with the ruling.

Lisa Irving, a San Francisco Bay Area resident who is blind and relies on her guide dog, Bernie, to help her get around, brought the claim against Uber in 2018 after "she was either denied a ride altogether or harassed by Uber drivers not wanting to transport her with her guide dog," the arbitrator's ruling said.

Uber drivers left Irving stranded late at night, caused her to be late to work (which eventually contributed to her being fired), and on two occasions, verbally abused and intimidated her - and that discrimination didn't stop even after she complained to Uber, her lawyers told Insider in a statement.

"Of all Americans who should be liberated by the rideshare revolution, the blind and visually impaired are among those who stand to benefit the most. However, the track record of major rideshare services has been spotty at best and openly discriminatory at worst," Catherine Cabalo, one of Irving's attorneys, said in the statement.

"The bottom line is that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a guide dog should be able to go anywhere that a blind person can go," Cabalo added.

"We are proud Uber's technology has helped people who are blind locate and obtain rides. Drivers using the Uber app are expected to serve riders with service animals and comply with accessibility and other laws, and we regularly provide education to drivers on that responsibility. Our dedicated team looks into each complaint and takes appropriate action," Andrew Hasbun, a spokesperson for Uber, said in a statement.

But the arbitrator found that Uber employees who investigated possible incidents of discrimination were "trained, in some instances, to coach drivers to find non-discriminatory reasons for ride denials," and even to "'advocate' to keep drivers on the platform despite discrimination complaints."

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, it's illegal for transportation businesses that are subject to the law to refuse to transport people with guide dogs, but Uber tried to shift the blame to its drivers, arguing that it wasn't responsible for any ADA violations because its drivers are independent contractors.

The arbitrator disagreed, ruling that Uber was also liable for ADA violations because of its "contractual supervision over its drivers and for its failure to prevent discrimination by properly training its workers."

But classifying drivers as contractors is a strategy that has allowed Uber to avoid legal liability in other contexts, such as when a pedestrian alleged that she nearly lost her leg after being struck by an Uber.

The strategy has also allowed Uber to avoid paying drivers' health insurance, sick pay, and unemployment insurance, shifting those costs to taxpayers - who paid $80 million last year to keep Uber and Lyft drivers afloat during the pandemic, making the companies two of the larger beneficiaries of a subsidy program aimed at small businesses.

Uber, Lyft, and other ride-hailing and food-delivery companies have aggressively fought efforts in multiple states and countries to reclassify drivers as employees, which would add significant additional costs to their already unprofitable business models.

Earlier this week, UK food-delivery company Deliveroo's initial public offering tanked by 30% after investors expressed concerned about how it had exploited its drivers.

Read the original article on Business Insider

FORWARD TO THE PAST

Edmonton Public Schools will not pilot Alberta’s new K-6 curriculum

WHERE IS THE HISTORY OF

CHILDREN IN COAL MINES IN ALBERTA

[PICTURE OF SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER WHO IS UCP MINISTER OF EDUCATION WLL NOT BE SHOWN HERE SHE IS NOT QUALIFIED ON THE OTHER HAND ANY SCHOOOL CUSTODIAN WOULD BE QUALIFIED IN COMPARISON]

GLOBAL NEWS

4/1/2021

The Edmonton Public School Division will not be taking part in piloting the UCP government's draft kindergarten to Grade 6 curriculum this September.

CURRICULUM PDF'S Programs of study | Alberta.ca

The decision was based on concerns around continuity for students learning online due to COVID-19, as well as a barrage of feedback trustees have received from parents about the content of the curriculum.

"It's one of those moments where we have to speak up and share what our constituents are sharing with us," said Edmonton Public School Board Chair Trisha Estabrooks.

Read more: Métis Nation of Alberta has ‘monumental concerns’ with proposed curriculum

According to Estabrooks, the feedback includes concerns around the age-appropriateness of the curriculum, that it doesn't uphold the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and even has an "us-versus-them" mentality in social studies.

Cree Elder who reviewed Alberta’s new K-6 curriculum says she can’t endorse it

Read more: Social studies, religion, Indigenous history sections of proposed Alberta curriculum under fire

"When we are receiving so many emails and phone calls from people who are sharing their concerns -- even though we don't have direct control over curriculum -- we do represent an important voice in public education," she said.

Elk Island Public Schools has also announced it won't be taking part in the pilot, while Edmonton Catholic Schools says it plans to consult with its teachers, administrators, Council of Elders and other community members before it makes a final decision.

The Calgary Board of Education, the largest school division in the province, says it needs to learn more about the rollout before it makes a decision as well.

Video: Alberta’s revamped curriculum raises questions over history, religion and equal representation

Piloting the curriculum in the classroom is the next step before it is fully rolled out in September 2022.

"The entire point of a pilot for the draft curriculum is to provide in-classrooms feedback to affect potential changes for the final documents," Justin Marshall, the press secretary for Education Minister Adriana LaGrange, said in a statement.

"If some school divisions do not wish to pilot, they simply will not be able to provide direct in-classroom feedback."

READ MORE: Alberta’s proposed K-6 school curriculum focuses on basics, practical skills

Education advocates hope divisions opting out will send a clear message to the government.

"This needs to be a province-wide movement," said Wing Li, the communications director with SOS Alberta.

The group is working with parent councils across Alberta to pressure school boards to opt out, and force the government to go back to the drawing board.

"School boards have an obligation to maintain the integrity of the school system and what is being taught, and we have seen such a barrage of concerns from community members."

Video: Alberta government releases revamped K-6 school curriculum

St. Albert Public Schools also said it will not participate in the pilot to implement the proposed Alberta curriculum in the 2021-2022 school year.

The district wrote a letter outlining its concerns -- and concerns expressed by parents and staff -- to Minister LaGrange on Jan. 21.

It described the guiding framework of the curriculum as "distressing" and said the document indicates the programs of study will "be a significant departure from the evidence-based curriculum that has made education in Alberta a world leader."

Some of St. Albert Public Schools' concerns include:

A highly prescriptive scope and sequence within each subject and grade

An emphasis on rote learning and memorization

The framework maintains a Euro-centric narrative of knowledge and progress.

The construction of First Nations, Métis and lnuit histories and communities as historical entities, without acknowledging their roles and contributions to present day Alberta.

In addition to the style and content, St. Albert Public Schools also has concerns with the pilot project's timeline -- specifically implementing a new curriculum in the midst of a pandemic.

-- With files from Emily Mertz, Global News

Ottawa stopped in bid to block creation of detailed residential school statistics

SO MUCH FOR LIBERAL'S KUMBAYA PR 

THE REALITY IS THE DELIBERATE MISUSE OF FOIP

Jorge Barrera 

CBC

444/2/2021

© Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan Thunderchild Indian Residential School near Delmas, Sask., had 117 students when it burned down in 1948. The Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat proposed creating 'static reports' from its database that…

The Ontario Court of Appeal on Thursday overturned a decision the federal government won last year to prevent the creation of detailed statistical reports that would reveal which residential schools had the highest rates of abuse.

The appeal court found that the lower Ontario court judge did not have enough evidence to determine the proposed reports — known as static reports — would violate the privacy of residential school survivors, according to a written ruling released Thursday.

The ruling ordered the matter be reheard with appropriate evidence before Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Perell, who initially sided with the federal government in his now-overturned January 2020 decision.

"There was no evidence before the … judge in support of his belief … that 'it might be possible to deduce confidential personal information from some of the proposed status reports," the appeal court said in its decision.

"Nor has Canada submitted any concrete privacy or confidentiality concerns about specific identifiable information."

The appeal court's ruling gives a temporary, partial win to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), which challenged the January 2020 decision.

"We are pleased that this vital part of the history of residential schools will be preserved," said a statement from the centre.

"This is a victory on behalf of survivors and their families affected by the residential school system and legacy."

The proposed static reports would provide breakdowns of residential school compensation claim statistics, including how many and what types of claims each residential school was linked to and broad profiles of survivors who filed claims, along with other categories, according to court records.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett's department said in an emailed statement that it "wishes to ensure the privacy" promised to survivors throughout the compensation process.

"Canada is analyzing the decision to determine appropriate next steps," said the statement.

The federal government was the only party that fought the creation of the detailed reports for transfer to the NCTR, which was created as a residential school archive and repository for testimony gathered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Database contains nearly 2 decades of records

The Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat, which administered the residential school compensation process, proposed creating the static reports from its database.

The database contains nearly two decades of records from every compensation claim filed since 2007 under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement's independent assessment process (IAP), as well as under its precursor, the alternative dispute resolution process, which began in 2003.

The secretariat argued that the reports would help historians understand the scale and scope of abuse at residential schools, according to affidavits from secretariat officials filed in court.

The secretariat was not a party to the appeal.

Justice Canada, under the direction of Bennett's department, argued the reports would violate the privacy of residential school claimants, which is protected by a 2017 Supreme Court ruling that forbade the archiving of individual claim information held by the secretariat.

© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett's department fought against the creation of the statistical reports on privacy grounds. 

 DR.BENNETT CAN PRODUCE CROCIDILE TEARS AT THE MERE MENTION OF THE WORD INDIGENOUS, IN EITHER FRENCH OR ENGLISH

Compensation claim information will be destroyed in 2027 unless a claimant indicates they would like their files retained.

Perell said in his January 2020 decision that the information would do nothing to help Canadians understand the history of residential schools or help advance reconciliation.

"And just as the history of the Holocaust will not be different for not knowing which was worse, Auschwitz or Treblinka, I do not see how truth and reconciliation will be advanced by reports identifying which school was the worst of the worst," the judge said in his decision.

Secretariat no longer exists

The Ontario Court of Appeal, in overturning that decision, ordered the production of the static reports and that they be placed under seal before Perell so he could make a determination based on real evidence.

The appeal court ruling also ordered a stop to any destruction of data in the secretariat's database known by its acronym SADRE — single access to dispute resolution enterprise.

It remains unclear how the appeal court's order can be implemented.

The secretariat ended its operations on Wednesday. No one remains to comment on the matter.

Only the federal government and the secretariat had access to the database.

The appeal court ruling said the parties could return to the court if the secretariat couldn't produce the reports.

The appeal court also dismissed a challenge from the NCTR to another section of Perell's January 2020 ruling blocking the transfer of separate records to the archive.

The NCTR was seeking records of complaints against the IAP process, personnel records of IAP adjudicators and other files related to the compensation process.

The federal government, which retains the files, opposed the transfer arguing it owned the records.

TAXPAYERS FUND TRUMP'S TREATMENT

United States spent $162 million on Remdesivir development but holds no patents, review finds

Critics complained the cost was excessive for a pandemic-related drug developed with such a large government role. The GAO released its findings Wednesday.

Christopher Rowland 

WASHINGTON POST

4/2/2021

OR WORSE PAID FOR WALL ST. HYPE FOR GILEAD
A new government report says the United States spent $162 million getting Gilead’s covid-19 drug remdesivir to market but opted against seeking government patents because Gilead invented the experimental medicine years earlier.

A dose of the drug remdesivir sits on a table in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on Feb. 18. (Juan Carlos Torrejon/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

The drug sells for $3,120 for a five-day course of treatment for covid 19. It brought in $2.8 billion in revenue for Gilead last year and the company expects to make a similar amount in 2020.

The Government Accountability Office documented government spending and its role in developing remdesivir — which won full Food and Drug Administration approval last year and is now sold under the brand name Veklury — at the request of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, after Gilead set its price.

Critics complained the cost was excessive for a pandemic-related drug developed with such a large government role. The GAO released its findings Wednesday.

Remdesivir was initially invented as a hepatitis C drug a decade ago but was shelved by Gilead. It then was tested again by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Army as an antiviral drug against other infectious diseases including Ebola. The drug fizzled against Ebola in a clinical trial in Africa but showed promise against coronaviruses.

The largest share of the $162 million was for clinical trials after the coronavirus outbreak began last year, when the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases sponsored a nationwide clinical trial, the GAO report said.

Remdesivir does not significantly prevent covid-19 deaths, but it has shortened hospital stays to 11 days from 15, according to clinical trial findings.

``Federally supported remdesivir research conducted by CDC, DOD, NIH, and NIH-funded universities has not resulted in government patent rights, because, according to agency and university officials, federal contributions to the research did not generate new inventions,'' the GAO report said.

‘Roe v. Wade’ Review: Dreadful Anti-Abortion Drama Has No Use for Facts or Filmmaking Basics

Tomris Laffly 

    4/1/2021

© Courtesy of Vendian Entertainment

Click here to read the full article.

To seriously consider “Roe v. Wade” — that is, writer-directors Cathy Allyn and Nick Loeb’s atrocious anti-abortion propaganda piece and not the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in favor of abortion rights — it is helpful to remember a 2017 quote by journalist Chuck Todd. “Alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods,” Todd succinctly said when confronting Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway on her use of the term. While the Trump era that Conway’s expression sums up is behind us, “Roe v. Wade” has reportedly been in the works for the past three years, so it’s fair to reflect on the baffling film as a product of that period, when right-wing fabrications were routinely presented as truth.

Targeting politically simpatico viewers and anyone they can convert on the other side of the aisle — while perhaps taking a page out of the former administration’s playbook — Allyn and Loeb present their own “alternative facts” as a definitive account of the famous court case, asserting that what we have been told about Roe v. Wade is a big lie. Far from impartial, their revisionist telling amounts to a sometimes sexist smear campaign, executed with roughly the competence of a cheaply assembled infomercial as it exploits religious guilt to disgrace a legal medical procedure.

Here is how the duo’s version of the historic ruling goes: Future anti-abortion activist and NARAL co-founder Dr. Bernard Nathanson (played by Loeb, as inept at acting as he is at directing) started out as a money-crazed opportunist, raking in cash by performing abortions. In poorly paced chronological segments and flashbacks, punctuated by overdone freeze-frames, his dull voiceover narrates the sequence of events that introduce us to attorneys Sarah Weddington (Greer Grammer) and Linda Coffee (Justine Wachsberger).

These two are portrayed as gullible, hungry pawns who are made to use the vulnerable, pregnant small-town girl Norma “Jane Roe” McCorvey (Summer Joy Campbell) for their agenda. The unsuspecting pair are baited by Nathanson and his fellow abortion backer Larry Lader (Jamie Kennedy) in a moneymaking conspiracy that turns abortions into a cash cow, a ploy that also involves activist and “The Feminine Mystique” author Betty Friedan (Lucy Davenport), presented here as a naive villain with limited smarts. Meanwhile, to amplify the credibility of their mission, Lader and Nathanson systematically fabricate abortion-favoring stats and feed them to the media in order to sway the public. Hollywood eats it all up and offers its precious backing. Per the filmmakers, everyone was in on the scam.

In short, the film claims that the abortion-rights movement was a well-funded and rigged branding campaign. And some Supreme Court justices (played by Jon Voight and Steve Guttenberg, among others), the directors allege, were consequently pressured both by the media and their families to rule in favor of abortion. In court, one judge — namely Sarah T. Hughes of Texas — is apparently so biased that she can’t help winking at Weddington and Coffee to indicate they’ve got the verdict in the bag. Meanwhile, God-fearing wholesome people on the anti-abortion end stand their ground with courage, including Harvard-educated Christian doctor Mildred Jefferson (Stacy Dash, agonizingly unimaginative) and law professor Robert Byrn (Joey Lawrence), who speaks in manipulative conservative-bumper-sticker messages and dares to ask his students whether they’d abort Beethoven due to his deafness.

Throughout, Allyn and Loeb use cheap tricks and insinuation to prop up their swelling piles of falsities, as when they defame Planned Parenthood’s mission by associating it with its founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in racial eugenics, despite the fact that the organization had already distanced itself from Sanger. At times, the filmmakers attempt to outrage the audience by shock, such as a police raid in which cops carry buckets of bloody baby parts out of an abortion clinic, or a shot of crusty cheese peeling off a slice of pizza intended to represent what an abortion looks like. But these unfortunate scenes feel more insensitive than eye-opening.

It doesn’t help the movie’s case that Allyn and Loeb’s impassioned “we’re going to blow the lid off this thing” attitude isn’t matched by professional filmmaking, but spectacular incompetence. The amateur-hour acting features too many hilarious emotional outbursts by Loeb, plus short appearances by such far-right figures as Tomi Lahren, Milo Yiannopoulos (in an especially tasteless scene sketched to dehumanize abortion-rights doctors) and even “My Pillow Guy” Mike Lindell. The cinematography lacks compositional intuition or original ideas, beyond “well, the ’70s looked very orange,” while haphazard editing interrupts the narrative rhythm.

Like-minded audiences may look past all that, while others will find themselves wondering if “Roe v. Wade,” which can be inadvertently amusing at times, might have been intended as a political satire in the “Borat” vein. This suspicion only intensifies when a bunch of characters, led by Loeb, break into a song that goes, “There’s a fortune in abortion. Just a twist of the wrist, and you’re through. There’s a gold mine in the sex line. Not only rabbits have those habits.” Ideologically scheming and visually inelegant, this is truly tacky stuff.

BARBARA BUSH BIO BY SUSAN PAGE

#ENDFEMICIDE  #ENDMISOGYNY

Protests across Quebec after eight women killed in eight weeks

MONTREAL — Protesters marched through Montreal's Plateau borough Friday afternoon to denounce what many described as a "pandemic" of violence against women, after a slate of recent killings.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Eight women have been killed by current or former intimate partners in Quebec over the past eight weeks.

The Montreal protest, which stretched more than six city blocks at times, was one of 20 scheduled to take place across Quebec today.

"Enough! Not one more!" the protesters chanted as they made their way through the city.

Manon Monastesse, the executive director of the Quebec federation of women's shelters, said the number of deaths in recent weeks is disturbing, noting the province tends to record 12 femicides over the course of a normal full year.

"In Canada, a woman is killed every two days by their intimate partner or ex-partner," she said before the protest. "We're also facing a pandemic, but it's a shadow pandemic. We're not addressing it directly and openly."

Monastesse, one of the organizers of the event in Montreal, said the 36 shelters in her organization are at 97 per cent of their capacity.

She said the effort to fight violence against women will need serious action from the provincial government, pointing to several government reports that outline steps that need to be taken to fight violence against women.

"We need a clear response and not just talking," she said.

Fighting violence against women will also take broader social change, she said, adding that she was pleased to see many men in attendance at the protest.


Video: Feminist advocates hope public inquiry will bring change (Global News)


Catherine-Sophie Paquette, who was among the protesters, said she's tired of women being killed and wants people to realize how serious the situation is.

"I'm tired of women getting degraded and people saying that we're exaggerating, because we're not," she said.

Paquette, a high school student, said solving the problem starts at a young age, with education.

Alexandra Pierre, the president of civil liberties group the Ligue des droits et libertes, said Quebec still doesn't have adequate sexual education classes -- classes that she said she believes could be used to teach about equality in relationships.

But Pierre, who spoke at the protest, said violence against women doesn't happen in isolation, it's a reflection of broader social issues.

"There's still systemic discrimination against women in Quebec," Pierre said in an interview after the protest.

Selma Kouidri, the executive director of the ‎Institut National pour l'equite, l'egalite et l'inclsuion, a group that works with people who have disabilities, said it can be more difficult for women who have disabilities, immigrant women and racialized women to leave violent situations.

Kouidri, who spoke at the protest, said shelter services are often not adapted for women with disabilities.

"Many women with disabilities, especially immigrant women, are afraid of the system," she said in an interview after the protest.

She said abusers will often tell women with disabilities that they will lose their children if they leave -- a fear that can be exacerbated if they are also immigrants.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 2, 2021.

———

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

Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press

US workers more desperate to be digitized than Germans

It's easy to have an impression of a country before you visit.

© Provided by ZDNet American workers are desperate for more software? Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto

© ZDNet

American workers are desperate for more software?

Why, some of my European friends worry that every American has a gun and will happily wield it whenever they get annoyed.

Equally, some of my American friends worry that every European has socialism in their hearts and will happily pay 60% in taxes.

Please, I don't want to get into (too much of) a debate that may turn into an international incident.

I was, however, somewhat moved by a new survey that suggests a certain -- perhaps surprising -- difference between US manufacturing workers and their German counterparts.

Conducted by the low-code crusaders at Mendix, the survey results offered a bracing conclusion: "US workers are more willing to welcome and contribute to workplace digitalization than their counterparts in Germany."

So American workers welcome robot-level software more readily than those in the alleged home of engineering, Germany -- by a score of 78% versus 61%?

Mendix called this "a surprising result, given that German manufacturing workers enjoy a reputation as some of the most skilled in the world."

I have to believe that this survey was conducted without favoritism, as Mendix is owned by the upstanding German conglomerate, Siemens.

I was, then, perfectly prepared to hail the American worker's future focus as opposed to the German worker's resistance to change.

Oh, but then my emotions paused for a cocktail and my rational faculties screeched into first gear.

Could it be that American workers are tired of working in deeply stressful, imperfect conditions and would welcome anything that would make their lives more productive -- or just plain easier?

Could it also be that German workers are far more secure in their jobs and don't feel the need for too much of that digital nonsense?

It's hard when you begin to impose your own personal impressions on data, isn't it?

I asked a high-falutin' friend in tech what he thought of the results. He said: "Germany? Nanny state."

I asked a high-falutin' German friend in tech what he thought, too. "America? Ja. Many problems," was his considered view.

Yes, perhaps I should find better friends, but I wonder which of these countries will benefit the most from being swallowed by software.

Mendix offered a painfully poetic attempt at the importance of low-code software: "In a pandemic-disrupted world, software is the new lifeblood of our daily lives and the connective tissue holding together the global economy. However, traditional software development takes far too long and very often fails to deliver the results business needs and users love."

Perhaps there will, indeed, be a great movement on the part of US workers to learn low-code skills in order to make their own lives better.

Let's not leave the impression, though, that German workers are so insular. 77% did confess they'd happily learn some new digital skills. Who knows, perhaps it's to help their kids with their homework.

But let's not use the German results to paint such a dire picture of Europe as being deeply insular.

Why, Mendix also performed a simultaneous survey in the UK. There, a mere 60 percent of all workers, not just manufacturing -- perhaps because there's so little manufacturing left there -- said they were "willing to welcome and contribute to workplace digitalization."

The UK's not in Europe, is it?

GOOD INFLATION 

Manufacturing boom brings more signs that inflation is building rapidly

Manufacturing expanded at the fastest pace since December 1983, according to a survey released Thursday.

The survey served as a reminder of how quickly inflation pressures are building in the expanding economy.

Multiple respondents spoke of supply chain issues and pricing pressures that may be more than just transitory, as Fed officials have said.

© Provided by CNBC An operator stacks heavy gauge steel brace 

used for industrial workbench leg at Tennsco's factory in Dickson,

 Tennessee, U.S. February 17, 2021.

March brought the strongest manufacturing growth in more than 37 years, and with it increasing indications about inflation pressures in the months ahead.

The Institute for Supply Management's monthly manufacturing survey registered a 64.7% reading, representing the level of companies reporting expansion against contraction. That translated to a 3.9 percentage point increase from February, and the highest level since December 1983.

Moreover, responses to various subcategories within the readings, as well as the written summations from survey participants, showed how tight conditions are in the sector.

"Widespread supply chain issues. Suppliers are struggling to manage demand and capacity in the face of chronic logistics and labor issues. No end in sight," wrote a respondent in the machinery field.

"Business bottomed out in February; we are expecting steady improvement through the end of the year. Inflation and material availability, along with logistics, are major concerns," said another executive in the furniture and related products industry.

Their comments reflect subcomponents within the ISM survey.

While the prices paid component edged lower, it remained elevated at 85.6%. Backlogs registered 67.5%, while inventories tumbled further to just 29.9%, which the survey classifies as "too low." Low levels of goods often translate into higher costs.

Survey respondents said "their companies and suppliers continue to struggle to meet increasing rates of demand due to coronavirus ... impacts limiting availability of parts and materials," ISM Chair Timothy Fiore said.

"Extended lead times, wide-scale shortages of critical basic materials, rising commodities prices and difficulties in transporting products are affecting all segments of the manufacturing economy," he added.

Pressures may not be temporary

For many economists, the survey simply reinforced a message that other data points have shown lately, namely that inflationary pressures continue to build and perhaps not on simply a transitory basis as Federal Reserve officials have indicated.

The last time the ISM manufacturing reading was that high was just before a year when gross domestic product grew at a 7.2% pace and inflation was at 3.8%.

Supply chain issues, including but not limited to the bottleneck in the Suez Canal, along with trillions in cascading government stimulus and rising prices for real estate, food and gasoline all point to more inflation ahead.

"The bigger picture is that fiscal policy remains highly expansionary and is only one of several factors that point to a sustained rise in inflation," Jonathan Peterson, an economist at Capital Economics, said in a note.

The Fed has been aggressive in its push for higher inflation, with officials repeatedly saying they want a level of at least 2% and are determined to keep interest rates low until that goal is achieved.

Chairman Jerome Powell has said he anticipates the next several months to show substantially higher readings, but attributes that to "base effects," or comparisons to readings a year ago that were unusually subdued in the early days of the Covid-19 crisis.

However, that narrative is not universally shared by those seeing pressures building on a longer-term basis.

"While supply chain issues should eventually be resolved, in coming months we expect supply of inputs to remain a constraint on production and a source of upward pressure on prices," Citigroup economist Andrew Hollenhorst wrote.

"Input prices are clearly rising across manufacturing sectors with most firms reporting higher prices paid for raw materials," he added. "Some of this may be absorbed by firms compressing profit margins, but we expect some higher input costs to be passed through to consumer resulting in higher consumer goods inflation."

Implications for the Fed

The supply chain issue in particular is vexing officials now.

The White House is weighing whether to conduct regular "stress tests" for key industries when it comes to supply chains, and even is considering stockpiling key materials and goods, according to reporting from CNBC's Kayla Tausche.

Specifically, the administration is looking at four key supply chains: active pharmaceutical ingredients, critical minerals, high-capacity batteries and semiconductors, according to Tausche, who cited administration officials familiar with the issue.

Hollenhorst said he expects the Fed to watch data on prices and employment closely for how close the economy is to the central bank's standards for full and inclusive employment as well as inflation around 2%. Fed officials have indicated they expect to keep short-term borrowing rates close to zero for several years, though they have backtracked before when the data contradicted their forecasts.

Recent data on labor and pricing "suggest rapid rehiring and prospects for higher inflation, at least in the manufactured goods sector, which should ultimately lead to 'substantial further progress' toward the Fed's dual objectives," Hollenhorst wrote.

The Fed is unlikely to act anytime soon to head off inflation, but markets have gotten impatient, with bond yields rising significantly this year on expectations of higher inflation and a rapid economic recovery.

Government stimulus has fueled large bursts in consumer spending, both in January and March. For the seven-day period ended March 27, credit and debit card spending was up 40% over a two-year period for people receiving stimulus payments, according to Bank of America.

"Bottom line, we know manufacturing has certainly been the source of economic strength but along with the headaches of delivering enough products cost effectively and on time," said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. "The key to whether inflation is transitory or not will be in part dictated by how soon those headaches get resolved."

Could high-tech farming be the future of food?


Robots, blockchain, and high-tech plankton might soon be producing food for British Columbians.

The B.C. government last week announced $7.5 million in funding to support 21 agritech companies in the province. Agritech — a suite of technologies that includes robotics, artificial intelligence, and vertical farms — is a fast-growing sector, with analysts expecting it to reach about US$18 billion globally by 2022.

The province’s so-called “concierge” program will help connect these businesses to investment capital, navigate government funding programs, and find land — including protected agricultural land.

“The pandemic has reinforced the importance of food security and the role of the B.C. agricultural sector,” said B.C.'s Jobs, Economic Recovery, and Innovation Minister Ravi Kahlon. “The food system was feeling extreme pressure, and for us as a government, we want to ensure we’re pandemic-proof (and) able to produce the food we need to shorten the supply chain, so we don’t need to feel that pressure again.”

The recent announcement follows a controversial January 2020 report written by a provincial food security task force that argued B.C.’s future food security lies in agritech. Food advocates and academics in the province were unconvinced: By March 2020, they had issued a rebuttal noting social, economic, and sustainability issues with the approach.

Many B.C. farmers already struggle to make ends meet, in part because of the high costs of farmland. Few farmers have affordable access to arable land, and the rebuttal’s authors noted that allowing labs, manufacturing facilities, or other agritech infrastructure on the province’s limited and legally protected farmland could further push up these prices, making farmland primarily accessible to companies or wealthy individuals.

Beyond the farmland issue, the authors said that prioritizing expensive, energy-intensive agritech projects without offering equivalent supports for farmers using less tech-heavy sustainable farming techniques like agroecology would do little for B.C. food security or sustainability.

It’s a debate that goes beyond B.C.

Food is responsible for between 21 per cent and 37 per cent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and is driving biodiversity loss. With the global population expected to exceed 10 billion by 2100, change is needed; whether agritech, agroecology — or a combination of both — is the solution remains unclear.

“There are places we can … create more sustainable agriculture and food systems using new technologies. We just want to approach them with caution and not assume they are solutions in and of themselves,” said Michael Bomford, professor of sustainable agriculture and food systems at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and co-author on the March 2020 rebuttal.

“I would far rather identify the problems and look at the best way to solve those problems then critically evaluate our success … I think it’s a mistake to identify a particular (agritech) solution and then get excited about that rather than figuring out what’s the best way to solve that problem. It might be new tech, it might be old tech, it might be ancient knowledge.”

For instance, some farming practices can boost carbon sequestration and biodiversity, he noted, while new research suggests smaller farms with a diversity of crops have higher yields per acre than industrial agriculture. Technology that can bolster these approaches — instead of inventing new ones — would have more benefits for less cost, he said.

“As we start to explore growing things in shipping containers, or in vertical farms — situations that a lot of people seem to get very excited about — (we need to) look at the full cost of supporting those systems,” he said.

“It’s important that we consider the entire picture of all the inputs going into a system rather than allowing ourselves to be blinded by what appears to be a massive increase in one type of efficiency.”

Others doubt a lower-tech approach can work.

“The technologies we’re developing will be able to drastically cut climate change (and) the impact on the sector … I think the future is going to be high-tech, fairly local, and plant-based, (and) I have no doubt agritech is the future,” said Lenore Newman, director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley and one of the authors of the January 2020 report in support of agritech.

While she acknowledged many of the technological leaps in agriculture that define our industrialized food system — artificial fertilizers and pesticides, or monocropping, for instance — have driven GHG emissions and biodiversity loss, developing new technologies isn’t the issue. Until recently, new agricultural technologies hadn’t been evaluated for their overall environmental impacts — but that is changing, she said.

“You have to look at what technologies make sense when you put sustainability into the mix … I think there’s a fear (of technology) from people who have never done hard labour (and) who romanticize a past that never existed,” where people had long-lasting and healthy lives on farms. That wasn’t the case, she said, with farm labour often brutal on people’s bodies.

“Any future that says a great portion of the population must go back on the farm, I’m not down for that.”

The rapid technological developments in agriculture over the past 50 years that have greatly contributed to the sector’s sustainability issues were created by bad policy, she said. Not bad technology.

“Looking at (agritech) as someone who studies futures, technology always wins,” she said. “The question then is we must … build sustainability in at every stage, because that’s what we did wrong over the last 50 years. It wasn’t the technology — it’s the lack of policies to guide outcomes.”

Still, Bomford remains unconvinced that policy safeguards to ensure new technologies reduce their environmental harm will do much. They may help to safely implement technological approaches to specific problems, but the agritech approach isn’t a “silver bullet” to our food system woes, he said.

“It’s (a question of) approaching problems with a variety of possible solutions as opposed to simply targeting new and exciting agritech,” he said.

Marc Fawcett-Atkinson / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada's National Observer

UV VS NUDE SUNBATHING

Sunlight Inactivates Coronavirus 8 Times Faster Than Predicted. We Need to Know Why

Tessa Koumoundouros 

4/1/2021

A team of scientists is calling for greater research into how sunlight inactivates SARS-CoV-2 after realizing there's a glaring discrepancy between the most recent theory and experimental results.

© S&B Vonlanthen/Unsplash

UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz and colleagues noticed the virus was inactivated as much as eight times faster in experiments than the most recent theoretical model predicted.

"The theory assumes that inactivation works by having UVB hit the RNA of the virus, damaging it," explained Luzzatto-Fegiz.

But the discrepancy suggests there's something more going on than that, and figuring out what this is may be helpful for managing the virus.

UV light, or the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, is easily absorbed by certain nucleic acid bases in DNA and RNA, which can cause them to bond in ways that are hard to fix.

But not all UV light is the same. Longer UV waves, called UVA, don't have quite enough energy to cause problems. It's the mid-range UVB waves in sunlight that are primarily responsible for killing microbes and putting our own cells at risk of Sun damage.

Short-wave UVC radiation has been shown to be effective against viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, even while it's still safely enveloped in human fluids.

But this type of UV doesn't usually come into contact with Earth's surface, thanks to the ozone layer.

"UVC is great for hospitals," said co-author and Oregon State University toxicologist Julie McMurry. "But in other environments – for instance, kitchens or subways – UVC would interact with the particulates to produce harmful ozone."

In July 2020, an experimental study tested the effects of UV light on SARS-CoV-2 in simulated saliva. They recorded the virus was inactivated when exposed to simulated sunlight for between 10-20 minutes.

"Natural sunlight may be effective as a disinfectant for contaminated nonporous materials," Wood and colleagues concluded in the paper.

Luzzatto-Feigiz and team compared those results with a theory about how sunlight achieved this, which was published just a month later, and saw the math didn't add up.

This study found the SARS-CoV-2 virus was three times more sensitive to the UV in sunlight than influenza A, with 90 percent of the coronavirus's particles being inactivated after just half an hour of exposure to midday sunlight in summer.

By comparison, in winter light infectious particles could remain intact for days.

Environmental calculations made by a separate team of researchers concluded the virus's RNA molecules are being photochemically damaged directly by light rays.

This is more powerfully achieved by shorter wavelengths of light, like UVC and UVB. As UVC doesn't reach Earth's surface, they based their environmental light exposure calculations on the medium-wave UVB part of the UV spectrum.

"The experimentally observed inactivation in simulated saliva is over eight times faster than would have been expected from the theory," wrote Luzzatto-Feigiz and colleagues.

"So, scientists don't yet know what's going on," Luzzatto-Fegiz said.

The researchers suspect it's possible that instead of affecting the RNA directly, long-wave UVA may be interacting with molecules in the testing medium (simulated saliva) in a way that hastens the inactivation of the virus.

Something similar is seen in wastewater treatment – where UVA reacts with other substances to create molecules that damage viruses.

If UVA can be harnessed to combat SARS-CoV-2, cheap and energy-efficient wavelength-specific light sources might be useful in augmenting air filtration systems at relatively low risk for human health.

"Our analysis points to the need for additional experiments to separately test the effects of specific light wavelengths and medium composition," Luzzatto-Fegiz concludes.

With the ability of this virus to remain suspended in the air for extended periods of time, the safest means to avoid it in countries where it's running rampant is still social distancing and wearing masks where distancing isn't possible. But it's nice to know that sunlight may be helping us out during the warmer months.

Their analysis was published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.