PEAT FIRE

UPDATE: Evacuation order in Parkland County as wildfire rages west of Edmonton

the area where the fire is burning is full of peat moss, which  creates a lot of smoke and can be difficult to extinguish.

© Courtesy: Chantel Cook A wildfire that flared up Thursday near the hamlet of Tomahawk, south of Wabamun Lake in Parkland County, grew overnight in the rural area west of Edmonton. May 7, 2021.

Karen Bartko 9 hrs ago

GLOBAL NEWS 


UPDATE: Parkland County issued a mandatory wildfire evacuation order early Friday morning for the following areas of the municipality west of Edmonton:

Highway 22 to the west

Township Road 524 to the north (Updated at 1:45 a.m. from Township Road 520)

Range Road 63 to the east

Township Road 510 to the south

A look at COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada on Friday, May 7, 2021

Carbon emissions from energy dropped 10% in the EU last year

© Alberta Emergency Alert An emergency alert states there is a rapidly moving wildfire near the hamlet of Tomahawk in the area of Range Road 62 and Range Road 70, and Township Roads 510 and 514.

Residents in those areas must evacuate immediately. Bring identification, medication, blankets, sleeping bags, personal items, important documents, household pets and pet care items if possible.

All evacuees are required to register at the reception center, either in person or by phone at the Tomahawk and District Sports Arena (51122 AB-759, Tomahawk, AB T0E 2H0.) Phone: 780-203-3258

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Previous story below:

Emergency officials are battling a wildfire near the rural community of Tomahawk in Parkland County.

An Alberta Emergency Alert said the wildfire was west of Tomahawk in the area of Range Road 62 and Range Road 70, and Township Roads 510 and 514. It is moving rapidly in a northwest direction, the alert at 9 p.m. said.

The fire flared up late Thursday afternoon near the hamlet south of Wabamun Lake. Photos and videos from area residents showed trees burning and a huge plume of black smoke in the air.

The smoke could be seen from as far away as Drayton Valley and Seba Beach.

Video: Tomahawk wildfire rages into the night west of Edmonton in Parkland County

It was windy across Alberta on Thursday, with the Edmonton region seeing sustained winds of around 30 km/h with guts of 52 km/h, according to Environment Canada.

The winds out of the southeast are expected to stay in the 25 to 50 km/h range overnight, possibly gusting to 60 in that area.

Fire growth is expected due to windy conditions, the alert said, adding crews will be working overnight to try and get it under control.

"Please take all necessary precautions, including leaving the area. Residents who live west of Range Road 62 to the western border of Parkland County should be prepared for possible immediate evacuation."

A Global News crew at the scene was able to see that dozens of properties had been evacuated from Highway 624 and Range Road 63 all the way past Highway 22 up to Moon Lake.

County fire crews were too busy responding to the fire to speak with Global News on Thursday, and a command post could be seen set up on Range Road 63, north of Highway 624.

A government spokesperson said Alberta Wildfire crews were providing mutual aid support.

Read more: 

Wildfire burning in Lac La Biche County, nearby residents told to prepare for ‘possible evacuation’

Air tankers were working in the area with more on way, the province said. At least two tanker planes were seen dropping fire retardant, and a helicopter was dumping water over the blaze.

Video: Crews battle wildfire flares up west of Edmonton near Tomahawk

RCMP have many roads blocked off in the area and Global News saw residents along some roads, ready to evacuate just in case. The wind was observed blowing away from the community.

One resident told Global News the area where the fire was burning is full of peat moss, which the Government of Canada says creates a lot of smoke and can be difficult to extinguish.

The county west of Edmonton had been under a fire bans and restrictions since mid-April, however they were lifted on Tuesday of this week.

BELOW: Photos from the Tomahawk wildfire

KPMG WERE ENRON'S ACCOUNTANTS
Canada Revenue agency auditors are being outgunned by tax giants: union

Elizabeth Thompson 
CBC 6/5/2021

© Ashley Burke/CBC News Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, says professionals who work for the Canada Revenue Agency need better organization and the right tools to crack down on offshore tax evasion.

Canada Revenue Agency officials are being "outgunned" by "tax giants" when it comes to cracking down on offshore tax cheats, the head of the union representing CRA auditors told members of Parliament Thursday.

Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), said her members are passionate about their jobs but they need a better structure and the right tools to do their jobs.

"Our CRA professionals are amongst the best in the world at what they do but they face great challenges," Daviau told member of the House of Commons finance committee. "Their job is to go after individuals and entities that, in effect, have unlimited resources and can aggressively exploit legal and international grey areas for their own gain.

"The CRA employees, by comparison, often feel outgunned by those trying hardest to avoid tax

Daviau said the CRA unit that specialized in highly complicated international tax avoidance and evasion structures was broken up several years ago and its members were reassigned to other, more generalized groups.

"That has reduced the capacity of employees at the CRA to be able to deliver on getting international tax avoiders to pay their fair share," she said.

As a result, Daviau said, CRA has better resources for catching tax cheats within Canada than for pursuing those who have set up elaborate international tax avoidance schemes.
'Precarious positions'

"Employees at the Canada Revenue Agency are up against tax giants," she told MPs. "These are people who have immense skill, technology, expertise and other big companies on their side, so they need to be on a level playing field."

Daviau said an important step in improving the situation would be to enshrine better protection for whistleblowers.

"CRA officials are frequently put in precarious situations where they are asked to hold powerful players to account in a high-stakes setting," she said. "Whistleblower protection is crucial to ensuring professional integrity is paramount during the tax assessment process."

The government should curtail practices such as transfer pricing — which sees companies declare the profit on products in low-tax jurisdictions that had little to do with production — and implement the beneficial ownership registry promised in the recent budget, Daviau added.

Thursday's hearing came after CBC's the Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada's Enquete reported earlier this year that shell companies set up in the Isle of Man are suspected of involvement in a massive fraud scheme. The scheme cost some investors — like Quebec resident Janet Watson, who recounted her story to the committee — much of their life savings.© Radio-Canada Janet Watson, who lost money in the Mount Real fraud, wants politicians to reopen an inquiry into Isle of Man shell companies after a Fifth Estate/Enquête investigation exposed links to the massive offshore fraud.

Some experts believe KPMG may have had a hand in creating those companies — something the company denied repeatedly Thursday.

"Any implication that KPMG had anything to do with the CINAR fraud is false," Lucia Iacovelli, Canadian managing partner for tax and legal for KPMG, told the committee. "Any implication that KPMG was in any way involved with the sword companies is also false."

Iacovelli said corporate services companies often supply the names of directors and officers for companies they set up for different clients.

Iacovelli said repeatedly that KPMG has not set up any new Isle of Man offshore structures since 2003 and has turned over information about its offshore structure, and the clients for which it was set up, to the CRA.

MPs like NDP MP Peter Julian and Bloc Québécois MP Gabriel Ste-Marie made it clear, however, that they have a long list of questions they will be asking KPMG to answer in writing.

Senator Percy Downe, who has doggedly followed the question of offshore tax avoidance and evasion over the years, said other countries are doing a better job than Canada in investigating the tax evasion revealed by leaks like the Panama Papers.

Downe recommended the parliamentary budget officer be empowered to measure the tax gap between what is actually being collected and what taxes should be paid. He said the government should make it a criminal offence to fail to declare an overseas bank account, implement plans for a public registry of beneficial owners behind companies, and boost the salaries of CRA experts to reduce the number being recruited to work for companies aiding tax avoidance.

Thursday's hearing was the first step in what Julian said will be a renewed push to look at the impact of offshore tax avoidance on Canada and to come up with recommendations.

The finance committee will now turn its attention over the next few weeks to the omnibus budget implementation bill — but Julian said he expects the committee to return after that to the probe of tax avoidance and evasion.

Julian said he did not know how far the committee will get before Parliament is scheduled to rise for the summer the week of June 21.

Dinosaur skull scans reveal clues about flight—and communication

Riley Black 

NAT GEO

6/5/2021

It’s a golden age for paleontology: In recent years, scientists have gathered all kinds of clues about the way dinosaurs looked and lived, from awe-inspiring fossil reconstructions to preserved footprints and bite marks on bones. Now, paleontologists are showing that some of the most tantalizing indications of how these extinct animals behaved are enclosed inside their skulls.

© Illustration by Viktor Radermaker Shuvuuia deserti reconstruction

A pair of studies published today in the journal Science details a technique using x-ray imaging to study the preserved inner ears and eye sockets of dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles. These scans are allowing paleontologists to learn about aspects of dinosaurs’ lives that might otherwise have been lost to time.

“Inner ear shape has always been linked to the lifestyle and behavior of an animal,” says University of Edinburgh paleontologist Julia Schwab, who was not involved with the research. For instance, human inner ears allow us to hear sounds within a specific range of frequencies, from a leaf falling on a sidewalk to a thunderclap, and the inner ear shape is linked to our bipedal species' sense of balance.

Dinosaur skulls evolved to be thick and protect the brain and associated structures, like the tubular canals of the inner ear, keeping those precious clues intact for tens of millions of years. But those protective bones make it difficult to see the structures encased within. So in one of the studies, led by Yale University paleobiologist Bhart-Anjan Bhullar, the team created a set of scans from 124 archosaurs—a group that includes dinosaurs, other ancient reptiles, crocodilians, and living birds—spanning 252 million years ago through today.

The results offered more detail than the paleontologists hoped. By identifying patterns in the structures of the animals’ inner ears and eyes, the researchers were able to glean new information about what the dinosaurs could see, and what kind of movement their inner ears were tuned for. This provides another way of tracking the evolution of flight in dinosaurs and, by extension, their modern descendants: birds.

What’s more, the results from both studies offer exceedingly rare clues to what dinosaurs might have sounded like. Dinosaur vocalization is notoriously difficult to reconstruct. The sound-producing organs of their bodies generally decay soon after death, and relatively few species had bony features related to sound. But the anatomy of a dinosaur’s inner ear offers some insight into what the animals could hear, and therefore what sounds they might have made.

“Honestly, I never thought that we’d be taking a crack at dinosaur noises,” Bhullar says.
A skull hardwired for flight

For their research, Bhullar and his team examined scans from a wide array of species, including theropods such as Velociraptor and a stubby-armed animal called Shuvuuia; non-dinosaur reptiles, such as pterosaurs; extinct toothed birds, such as Hesperornis; and living birds and crocodiles for comparison.

When the paleontologists looked at scans of sickle-clawed dinosaurs called troodontids that thrived during the Cretaceous period 145 to 66 million years ago, they found that these dinosaurs had similar inner ears to early, flying birds from the preceding Jurassic period, which began 201 million years ago. That was something of a surprise, given most known troodontids were terrestrial dinosaurs that didn’t fly.

But the similarities in the inner ear reveal an evolutionary trait necessary for airborne creatures, raising new questions about how flight evolved.

Bhullar hypothesizes that troodontids, which were about the size of turkeys, inherited ears suited to flight from a more ancient common ancestor with birds—perhaps a flying dinosaur, similar to feathered species such as Anchiornis, that lived 165 million years ago. And an inner ear adapted to the complex movements of flight, helping animals balance while in the air, could have had other uses on the ground.

“I do think that even non-flighted dinosaurs that were closely related to birds were moving around in complex ways,” Bhullar says, such as climbing trees or running up inclines. In dinosaurs closely related to birds, these behaviors may have helped the inner ear develop in such a way that allowed for flight—an activity that requires complex movements and limb control.

Nighttime stalkers

Not all bird-like dinosaurs moved like their avian relations, however. Some dinosaurs, the researchers found, moved and likely hunted in ways that run counter to paleontological expectations.

The turkey-size dinosaur Shuvuuia, for example, has long been a mystery to paleontologists. Known for its short arms tipped with large, single claws and toothless or nearly toothless jaws, this genus belongs to a group of bipedal theropods called alvarezsaurs. Bhullar and colleagues were surprised to find that Shuvuuia has an inner ear similar to that in four-legged animals with relatively simple locomotion.

The second Science study may offer insight into Shuvuuia’s odd inner ear. This study looked at both the inner ears and the eyes of dinosaurs to gain insight into the behavior of the extinct animals.

“Both studies complement each other,” says study author and Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History biologist Lars Schmitz—and together they indicate that Shuvuuia truly was an odd dinosaur.

Shuvuuia had long inner ear canals, broadening the range of the dinosaur’s hearing. Schmitz and colleagues propose this dinosaur had excellent hearing, comparable to the auditory ability of modern barn owls. Such precise hearing, combined with Shuvuuia’s large eyes, suggest this dinosaur was active at night.

Precisely what Shuvuuia was hunting is unclear—perhaps small mammals, or social insects like ants. But Schmitz notes that there are many reasons a dinosaur might have evolved to prefer the darker hours. “Body size, foraging style, climate, competition,” all matter, Schmitz notes.

Dinosaur song

The new analyses also led to a greater understanding of how these animals may have communicated with one another. The researchers found that ancestors and early relatives of dinosaurs evolved a longer region of the inner ear called the cochlea, which is associated with hearing high-frequency sounds.

The most likely reason, the paleontologists propose, is that this adaptation allowed adult animals to hear the squeaks and chirps of their hatchlings, similar to the attentive parenting of modern-day alligators and crocodiles. The singing birds of today therefore may trace their vocal abilities to the squeaks that tiny, scaly reptiles made as they hatched over 200 million years ago.

“We gently suggest that modern bird song, in all its mellifluous glory, is a retention in adults of juvenile high-pitched chirps,” Bhullar says.

This wealth of information about dinosaur behavior, gleaned by peering into fossilized skulls, represents the rapidly progressing technologies used to study the prehistoric past.

“I think the availability of modern imaging and rendering techniques is a big factor,” Schmitz says, adding that discoveries about the sensory systems of modern animals can also help paleontologists better examine and understand the anatomy and behavior of long-extinct species, which means even as living animals inform what we know about dinosaurs, the dinosaurs are changing how we see the creatures around us.

Pint-sized Mongolian menace shows dinosaurs loved the nightlife, too

By Will Dunham 

REUTERS 6/4/2021

 Reuters/HANDOUT The fossilized skeleton of the small bird-like dinosaur Shuvuuia deserti

(Reuters) - Under the cover of darkness in desert habitats about 70 million years ago, in what is today Mongolia and northern China, a gangly looking dinosaur employed excellent night vision and superb hearing to thrive as a menacing pint-sized nocturnal predator.

Scientists said on Thursday an examination of a ring of bones surrounding the pupil and a bony tube inside the skull that houses the hearing organ showed that this dinosaur, called Shuvuuia deserti, boasted visual and auditory capabilities akin to a barn owl, indicating it could it hunt in total darkness.

Their study, published in the journal Science, showed that predatory dinosaurs overall generally possessed better-than-average hearing - helpful for hunters - but had vision optimized for daytime. In contrast, Shuvuuia (pronounced shu-VOO-ee-ah) loved the nightlife.

© Reuters/HANDOUT The small bird-like dinosaur Shuvuuia deserti is seen in this 2021 artist's reconstruction

Shuvuuia was a pheasant-sized, two-legged Cretaceous Period dinosaur weighing about as much as a small house cat. Lacking the strong jaws and sharp teeth of many carnivorous dinosaurs, it had a remarkably bird-like and lightly built skull and many tiny teeth like grains of rice.


Its mid-length neck and small head, coupled with very long legs, made it resemble an awkward chicken. Unlike birds, it had short but powerful arms ending in a single large claw, good for digging.

"Shuvuuia might have run across the desert floor under cover of night, using its incredible hearing and night vision to track small prey such as nocturnal mammals, lizards and insects. With its long legs it could have rapidly run down such prey, and used its digging forelimbs to pry prey loose from any cover such as a burrow," said paleontologist Jonah Choiniere of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, the study's lead author

.

© Reuters/HANDOUT Professor Jonah Choiniere of the University of the Witwatersrand is seen holding a 3D printed model of the lagena

"It's such a strange animal that paleontologists have long wondered what it was actually doing," added paleontologist Roger Benson of the University of Oxford in England, who helped lead the study.

The researchers looked at a structure called the lagena, a curving and finger-like sac that sits in a cavity in the bones surrounding the brain and is connected to the part of the ear that lets reptiles and birds keep balance and move their heads while walking. Acute hearing helps nocturnal predators locate prey. The longer the lagena, the better hearing an animal has.

The barn owl, a proficient nocturnal predator even in pitch-black conditions, has the proportionally longest lagena of any living bird. Shuvuuia is unique among predatory dinosaurs with a hyper-elongated lagena, almost identical in relative size to a barn owl's.

The researchers also looked at a series of tiny bones called the scleral ring that encircle the pupil of the eye. It exists in birds and lizards and was present in the ancestors of today's mammals. Shuvuuia had a very wide scleral ring, indicating an extra-large pupil size that made its eye a specialized light-capture device.

The study found that nocturnality was uncommon among dinosaurs, aside from a group called alvarezsaurs to which Shuvuuia belonged. Alvarezsaurs had nocturnal vision very early in their lineage, but super-hearing took more time to evolve.

"Like many paleontologists, I once considered that nighttime in the age of dinosaurs was when the mammals came out of hiding to avoid predation and competition. The importance of these findings is that it forces us to imagine dinosaurs like Shuvuuia evolving to take advantage of these nocturnal communities," Choiniere said.

Benson added, "This really shows that dinosaurs had a wide range of skills and adaptations that are only just coming to light now. We find evidence that there was a thriving 'nightlife' during the time of dinosaurs."

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

2,000-year-old marble head of Rome's first emperor discovered

Livia Borghese and Eoin McSweeney, 

CNN

6/5/2021

A 2,000-year-old marble head of Augustus, Rome's first emperor, has been discovered in Isernia, an Italian town in the south central region of Molise.

© MIBACTmolise/Facebook Archaeologists in central Italy have uncovered a marble head of Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of the Roman empire. The sculpture was discovered while renovating Isernia's historic city walls - built during the imperial Rome period.

Archaeologist Francesco Giancola made the exceptional discovery during restoration works to repair a medieval wall that collapsed due to strong rains in 2013.


Giancola was following the works on behalf of the municipality of Isernia, but told CNN Thursday he didn't expect such a major find.

"While we were digging behind the wall, I saw that the earth changed color," he said.

"So we continued digging with precision trowels and a block of marble has come out. I immediately saw that it was a head that I recognized as belonging to a statue of Augustus due to the hair and the shape and cut of the eyes."

Giancola said he immediately called the authorities, the mayor, and the cultural heritage ministry.

The 35-centimeter (13.78-inch) high head can be dated to between 20 BC and 10 AD, according to Maria Diletta Colombo, an archaeologist at the regional department of the ministry.

"It was an important statue, but we do not know why it was here," she told CNN. "It could have been placed in a temple dedicated to the cult of the imperial family, or in the forum. But these are just hypotheses, since we don't know where the forum was."

Some of her colleagues cried with joy when they made the discovery, Colombo added, and it was a moment she said she will remember forever.

The head is likely to have been detached from a statue that was more than 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches), Colombo said. It is made from the same Lunigiana marble used by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo, and it depicts a young Augustus Octavian, who became Rome's first emperor in 27 BC.

Isernia, known as Aesernia in the ancient world, was the home of an Italic people named the Samnites. It later became a Roman colony. The town was partially destroyed during World War II but was rebuilt.

"Isernia has a very ancient history... there are archaeological remains underneath the whole city," the town's mayor Giacomo D'Apollonio told CNN. "It is a very important find for Isernia because it demonstrates the presence of buildings of a certain importance."

The excavation also revealed empty medieval tombs and terracotta artifacts, said the mayor.

The head is currently being studied and both D'Apollonio and Colombo would like to see it stay in the town's Santa Maria delle Monache museum, where they believe it would attract more tourists.

"Even Isernia, although it is not among the main tourist destinations, is an area rich in history since the Palaeolithic [era]," said D'Apollonio.

Augustus built an empire that would eventually stretch from the UK to Egypt, and boasted on his death bed that he "found Rome built of bricks and left it marble."

Elle UK Debuts Olly Eley As Its First-Ever Non-Binary Cover Star

I’ve accepted that I’m a non-binary person living in a binary world (that I have every intention of disrupting!)

Brent Furdyk 

ET CANADA

6/5/2021

Elle UK is making history with its June issue, featuring its first-ever non-binary model on the cover, Olly Eley.

© ELLE UK/ DAMON BAKER Olly Eley

In the accompanying feature, Eley writes a powerful essay explaining their gender.

"After years of despising the body that I was born with, unable to relate in any way to the gender I was assigned at birth, I had at last found a way of existing in the world that made sense to me," Eley writes. "I’ve never felt female, but then neither have I felt male. If there was a thin line that connected the two genders, I would be a dot floating somewhere between the two, but untethered to the line altogether. It’s the only way I can describe it."

The Australian-British model also describes how they felt to hear someone referred to by the pronouns "they/them" for the first time.

"Before I moved to Sydney, I didn’t have the language or the role models to understand how I felt. I’d never really had the chance to consider that ‘gender’ could be something I could control if I wanted to. Once I moved to the city, that all changed. My mind opened and was flooded with light — there was this whole queer community that I had no idea existed. When someone first introduced themselves to me with their name and the pronouns ‘they/them’, it felt so safe to me. Whoa, that’s the answer to everything right now, I thought," they write.

RELATED: ‘Feel Good’ Star Mae Martin Comes Out As Non-Binary: ‘I’m Still Figuring It Out’

Eley also addresses their decision not to undergo a surgical transformation. "There are countless different surgeries that some trans people choose to have to feel more comfortable in their bodies; for me I feel so disconnected from any gender that no body will ever feel perfect. I chose not to have full ‘top surgery’ [a mastectomy], as that body wouldn’t have served me either. Instead, I wanted the option to bind [a method of compressing the chest to give a flatter appearance] and the size of my chest previously meant that I wasn’t able to do so effectively. So I had a reduction to give me that control over my appearance," they write.

RELATED: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Sara Ramirez Comes Out As Non-Binary

"I bind not because I’m ashamed of my body but because the autonomy of doing so makes me feel safe," they continue. "I’m not ‘fluid’ where I shift between genders and pronouns. I am agender [devoid of gender altogether] and what I do with my body, whether I’m naked or in a full snowsuit, doesn’t change it. I’ve accepted that I’m a non-binary person living in a binary world (that I have every intention of disrupting!)."

Eley also ruminates on becoming a role model for trans and non-binary kids. "When someone is neither, both or all of the above in terms of their gender — like I am — people can be defensive and reluctant to accept that such a grey area exists," they explain. "I wish I’d known that it was okay to exist in this ‘in-between’ place when I was growing up. I wish someone had told me that I could be whoever I wanted to be, do whatever I wanted to do and that I was so valid and important. Trans and non-binary kids need to hear that they are beautiful and worthy of love and a fulfilling life.’

The June issue of Elle UK is on sale starting May 6.

German priests to defy the Vatican, bless gay couples

Caitlin O'Kane 6/5/2021

Dozens of Catholic priests in Germany plan defy the Vatican and bless homosexual partnerships, with many set to live-stream the blessings online.

© Gregorio Borgia / AP Vatican Gay Unions

In March, the Vatican decreed that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex marriages. In response, more than 230 professors of Catholic theology in Germany – and other countries where German is spoken – signed a statement protesting the decision, the Associated Press reports.

In a statement, the group declared that the decree "is marked by a paternalistic air of superiority and discriminates against homosexual people and their life plans."

Now, dozens of priests in Germany have vowed to defy the Vatican. "In view of the refusal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to bless homosexual partnerships, we raise our voices and say: We will continue to accompany people who enter into a binding partnership in the future and bless their relationship," the group said in a statement.

A group of dissenting priests has also compiled a list of church services that will take place nationwide on or around May 10, where priests will publicly bless gay couples.

 Many of the services will be live-streamed.

St. Marien-KircheNordstraße said they will hang a banner above the main entrance of the church: "You love each other? We bless you!"

"This is how it should be: We would like to celebrate and bless the gift of love with everyone 'who love each other,' all couples, friendships, love relationships. All who reflect the colorfulness of God's love in their lives!" the church said in the description for their event, which will be held on May 9.

St. Gertrud Bochum Wattenscheid will hold an online church service via Zoom. The topic of the youth service: "Love is love ... in all its diversity. And we celebrate."

"A blessing service for all lovers - we don't exclude anyone!" reads the description for the event at St. AntoniusHolsteiner Straße.

While the Vatican holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect and can be blessed, gay sex is "intrinsically disordered."

Catholic teaching holds that marriage, a lifelong union between a man and woman, is part of God's plan and is intended for the sake of creating new life.

Same-sex marriage is a sin, and God "does not and cannot bless sin: He blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him," the Vatican said in a statement in March.

In their statement, the group of dissenting priests said they do not refuse blessing ceremonies. "We do this in our responsibility as pastors, who promise people at important moments in their lives the blessings that God alone gives," the statement rads. "We respect and value their love, and we also believe that God's blessings are on them."

The group said they "do not accept that an exclusive and outdated sexual morality is carried out on the back of people and undermines our work in pastoral care."

Birgit Mock, who is on the Central Committee of German Catholics, thanked the pastors who have signed the statement. "It shows how deeply you feel rooted in our church," Mock said, adding that the group understands "sexuality as a positive force" and they "want to anchor this in church teaching."

"Stop signs from Rome don't help," said Mock. "On the contrary: We need an honest theological discussion; we have to — finally — recognize as a church that sexuality is part of life. And not only in the marriage as man and woman, but in all loyal, dignified and respectful love relationships. Everything else is no longer up to date. And also does not correspond to our image of God."

"We can trust that God loves us as we are created. And that he has long been 'there' in love relationships," Mock said.

In March, a group of Austrian priests who have distanced themselves from the Catholic Church also criticized the Vatican's decree.

The Austrian Priests' Initiative, a group of priests leading a campaign of disobedience against the Vatican, vowed to continue to bless same-sex couples.

The initiative, also known as Pfarrer-Initiative, said in a statement its members "are deeply appalled by the new Roman decree that wants to prohibit the blessing of same-sex loving couples."

"This is a relapse into times that we had hoped to be overcome with Pope Francis," the group's statement continues. "In solidarity with so many, we will not reject any loving couple in the future who wants to celebrate God's blessing, which they experience every day, in a church-service."

CANADA #BLM

Black man's jaywalking ticket in Halifax was racial discrimination: rights board

HALIFAX — A human rights board of inquiry has found that a Black man was discriminated against by Halifax police when he was ticketed for jaywalking.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Board chairman Benjamin Perryman released a decision Wednesday that finds Gyasi Symonds faced discrimination based on his race when he was stopped by two officers and later received a $410 ticket in the lobby of the downtown building where he works.

In his ruling, the board chairman describes two encounters between Symonds and constables Paul Cadieux and Steve Logan that started when the provincial civil servant was observed crossing Gottingen Street on Jan. 24, 2017 to get a coffee.

The decision says the officers first stopped Symonds as he headed for the Nook Espresso Bar across from his office without using a crosswalk at the corner. They warned him about jaywalking and told him he was free to go.

Perryman said that first encounter was "brief and cordial."

The decision says the facts of what happened next were disputed, with Symonds telling the board he crossed at the intersection when he returned to his office and the two police officers saying they observed him again crossing in the middle of the block and that he didn't yield to a bus. The officers followed him into his office building and gave him a ticket.

Under the province's Motor Vehicle Act, it's an offence if someone crosses a road at a place where there's not a regular crossing for pedestrians and doesn't "yield the right of way to vehicles on the roadway."

However, Perryman found in his ruling that it was "more likely than not" that Symonds didn't jaywalk on his return trip and concluded the officers' decision to wait and observe the man was based in part on race.

Perryman has ordered the Halifax Regional Police to pay Symonds $15,232 and give him a written apology. He also suggests all new hires complete training in policing without bias.

The board of inquiry chairman noted inconsistencies in the constables' recollection of what they saw when they testified that Symonds crossed in front of a bus on his return to the office, while finding the complainant’s recollections to be more credible.

“I do not go so far as to find that the Halifax Regional Police officers constructed their evidence .... However, on the evidence before me, I am not satisfied that there was a good basis for issuing such a ticket and there was certainly no basis whatsoever to be targeting the complainant in the first place,” he wrote.

Perryman noted that he was concerned about the decision of the officers to remain and observe Symonds after the first encounter, as the man exited the coffee shop to return to work.

His decision says the officers told the board of inquiry they kept watching Symonds because they had some time available and that it was a so-called “de-escalating tactic,” where they believed police presence would deter law-breaking.

Perryman said he found those explanations inadequate.

“It subjected the complainant to policing that was different from other Nova Scotians going about their day. It was disproportionate to the circumstances of an individual crossing in the middle of the road to get a coffee and receiving informal education about jaywalking” he concluded.

"I find that race was a factor in the police officers' decision to target the complainant for surveillance and investigation."

Perryman said the encounter between the officers and Symonds in the lobby of the office building was "not a cordial interaction." However, he concluded the treatment of Symonds at that point may have been rude, but it wasn't racial discrimination.

He noted the two officers were relatively new on the job, and Cadieux had only been on patrol for a few weeks. The ruling also finds the training provided to Cadieux and Logan was inadequate and contributed to their discriminatory behaviour.

The ruling notes a Halifax police course on "legitimate and bias-free policing" was offered in 2009 but was not offered again until 2018, some time after the incident.

Perryman suggests that all new police hires "successfully complete training in legitimate and bias-free policing before they commence active duty, and all current police officers should be required to retake and successfully complete such training periodically."

The decision dated April 29 also says this training should be well-documented and access to statistics should be publicly available.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 5, 2021.

Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press

'I feel like I was meant to do this': Asian American activists reflect on their work in the last year

Jennifer Liu CNBC

Manjusha Kulkarni describes the March 16 Atlanta-area shooting of eight people, including the killing of six Asian women, as "beyond our worst nightmares."

© Provided by CNBC A man holds a sign that reads

Kulkarni, 51, is South Asian American and executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. In February 2020, she co-founded Stop AAPI Hate, the national coalition working to document and address rising anti-Asian hate incidents during the coronavirus pandemic.

Though she's spent her career advocating on behalf of Asian American and Pacific Islander, AAPI, communities, the mass shooting targeting Asian women and law enforcement's handling of it afterward were a low point for Kulkarni.

"It was very hard that week," she says, adding that being in community with other AAPI justice leaders that week was crucial for her to remain resilient. She remembers being on a call with the Asian American Leaders Table and processing what an Atlanta-area sheriff's office said was the result of one man having a "bad day," instead of what many advocates say was an act fueled by racism and sexism.

"The fact that we could be together right after what happened was really important," Kulkarni says.

Though anti-Asian racism in the U.S. has gained more attention in the last few months, coinciding with the reporting of increasingly violent attacks, advocates say it's crucial to remember that Asians have experienced discrimination from the time they arrived in the country in waves throughout the 1800s — but that also, throughout American history, AAPI activists have been working to fight injustices in the name of advancing the civil rights and humanity of Asians in the U.S.
A lifetime of activism

Many in the community, like Kulkarni, have committed their life's work to the cause.

She was still young when she moved to the U.S. from India with her parents, both physicians, following the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 that encouraged highly skilled professionals to start a new life in America. After spending several years in Montgomery, Alabama, her mom applied to be a doctor at a hospital, but the panel of white male interviewers told her that foreigners like her were "coming here and stealing our jobs."

Kulkarni's parents sued, and with the help of the Southern Policy Law Center, successfully settled a class-action lawsuit that led to redress and policy change against discrimination.

© Provided by CNBC Manjusha Kulkarni, Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council Executive Director, speaks against the hate and recent violence against Asian Americans at a rally held on the steps of County Hall of Administration on Wednesday, March 17, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA.

That experience led Kulkarni down her path to activism through her chosen career: "I thought, I want to be a lawyer, because that means enabling people to do and be what they are. America has these laws that protect all of us. It was an experience of seeing racial discrimination and knowing there are avenues for redress for our communities."

It's also been an intense year for young activists getting their start in grassroots organizing. Brian Jon, 19, from Tenafly, N.J., began his activism work several years ago. When he was a high school freshman, he learned of an incident in which a teacher from a nearby school allegedly made racist remarks against Koreans. As a second-generation Korean American, Jon felt compelled to speak up and started a petition drive that, along with larger community feedback, led to the teacher being reassigned outside the classroom.

That experience led him to launch the Asian American Youth Council in 2017, through which he hopes to encourage fellow AAPI students to be politically engaged. For several years, that involved efforts to register young AAPIs to vote, and at the start of the pandemic, his focus broadened to include addressing anti-Asian hate incidents.

"I feel like I was meant to do this," Jon says. "We're doing everything to prevent one death of a relative or friend, but every day we're seeing at least two to three hate crimes [reported] in New York City alone, and that's not acceptable. Even when a 61-year-old man was beaten and had his head stepped on, no one did anything to stop it. We're voicing our opinions, but where are the physical actions, bills? What are our politicians doing? Those questions made me realize advocacy is needed."

Through his work, Jon hopes to encourage fellow youth activists to speak up and raise the issue with policymakers to improve incident reporting, community outreach and assistance to victims.

For John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - AAJC in Washington, D.C., his work is grounded in the mission to advance the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and promote a fair and equitable society for all. Yang is Chinese American, and though he's always considered himself an advocate for AAPI issues and done volunteer or pro bono work for vulnerable communities, he says increasing anti-immigration rhetoric and policies of the last presidential administration fueled the activism work that he does today.

"One rewarding thing is how deeply this resonates with me," Yang, 52, says. "The last four to five years really changed my way of thinking, and I've found a comfort level in my own voice to represent our community."

Working toward systemic change

While many activists say their work to center AAPIs hasn't changed during the pandemic, the demand for their appearances at rallies and fundraisers, in media, and on the frontlines of continued advocacy has been more urgent in the last 14 months.

Sung Yeon Choimorrow, 39, immigrated from South Korea to the Chicago area for college and is currently the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, or NAPAWF. Following the Atlanta shootings, she made dozens of media appearance to stress that the attack was based in both racial and sexual violence — advocacy that's made her organization's work more visible overall.

 Provided by CNBC Sung Yeon Choimorrow is the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, or NAPAWF.

Kulkarni has also noticed a shift: Early in the pandemic, white journalists would ask her why people should care about the incidents behind the data. As more people have acknowledged the problem, she doesn't have to answer that question and can focus instead on proposing solutions.

"Caring is about finding a human level of...commonality," Kulkarni says. "If you can't find it within you to care, I can't make you."

Now, more than ever, leaders are pushing for systemic change.

For example, Kulkarni says Stop AAPI Hate has worked closely with the Biden administration, and their data has informed policy changes at the national level. In March, the White House announced several initiatives to address anti-Asian violence, including reinstating and expanding the White House Initiative on AAPIs; improving data-collection efforts to study national hate crimes statistics; and funding training for state and local law enforcement agencies to promote accurate reporting of hate crimes.

Choimorrow wants to make sure awareness and advocacy continues for long-standing issues among marginalized AAPIs.

For example, she says, the health crisis of the pandemic made her work advocating for the HEAL for Immigrant Women and Families Act more urgent, as it would remove the five-year bar for immigrants to be able to access the health-care exchange and public aid, like Medicaid.

"We've been working on this law for the last 10 years," Choimorrow says. "We picked up the most number of sponsors on this bill right at the beginning of the pandemic, because we were able to make the case as to why affordable health care is so important."

 Provided by CNBC Asian Americans Advancing Justice Executive Director John Yang, center, testifies before the House Oversight and Reform Committee about the 2020 census in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill January 09, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Yang agrees that the next steps to discussing the inequities of Asians in America are continued awareness, greater education and inclusive policy: "I do want to make sure we maintain momentum toward positive change."

This includes the ongoing work to debunk the model minority myth, a set of assumptions that AAPIs are all successful and erases many of the structural barriers they continue to face in education, employment, health care, housing, policy and more.
Finding resilience in community

Long-term change for AAPIs must also consider the work of allies in social justice overall, Yang adds, recognizing leaders like Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Marc H. Morial of the National Urban League.

These figures have "made sure our different vulnerable communities continue to work with each other and amplify each others' efforts," Yang says. "It's so important to make the progress we want to see."

This AAPI Heritage Month, celebrated in May, Yang also hopes communities can come together to celebrate the many cultures, successes and resilience of Asians in America in the last year and throughout history.

Kulkarni and Choimorrow also point to being in community with other AAPIs, family members and loved ones as ways they've practiced resilience over the last year. Kulkarni says having colleagues reach out and express support for AAPIs has been big help.

Further, Choimorrow says, her resilience comes from "having the perspective that I don't need to and cannot do all of this on my own, and that I stand on the shoulders of amazing women that have gone ahead of me, including women in my own family who have paved the way. What I'm doing is paving the way for the next generation of folks."

Yang keeps his focus on the progress, no matter how incremental: "As long as I can reflect back and think that our work has moved the needle forward, so there's a little less discrimination and racism, and a little greater access to resources for our vulnerable communities, I feel like progress is being made. Ending racism doesn't happen overnight. It's a battle that needs to be continually fought."

© Provided by CNBC Brian Jon, 19, established the Asian American Youth Council in 2017 to encourage activism among AAPI students.

As for Jon, the high school student, he says the Asian American Youth Council serves as a support group to empower young AAPIs to be vocal and active, and to know that they're not alone in their fight for justice.

He's already done advocacy work with politicians including Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and considers himself politically active, but he's not sure if running for office is part of his future. With that said, he says activism will remain core to whatever he pursues professionally and personally: "Community service is a lifetime commitment. I want to be a bridge so people think it's OK to raise our voices and feel there's always backup."

Additional reporting by Courtney Connley.

Colombia's bloody protests could be a warning to the region

Analysis by Stefano Pozzebon, CNN 

Tensions have hardly dissipated in Colombia after President Ivan Duque withdrew a controversial fiscal reform proposal this weekend. More than a week of violent protests have seen at least 24 people killed, the country's Ombudsman Office reported Wednesday, and the demonstrations have evolved into a broader popular show of anger.

TOPSHOT - Demonstrators clash with riot police during a protest against a tax reform bill launched by Colombian President Ivan Duque, in Bogota, on April 28, 2021. - Workers' unions, teachers, civil organizations, indigenous people and other sectors reject the project that is underway in the Congress, considering that it punishes the middle class and is inappropriate in the midst of the crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Juan BARRETO / AFP) (Photo by JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images)

Thousands of people are still taking to the streets to protest against police brutality and the economic cost of the pandemic amid Colombia's extreme inequality. And with both issues common across South America -- and exacerbated by the pandemic -- many international observers are watching Colombia's cycle of protest closely for signs of deeper regional effects.

An economic cautionary tale

Duque was the first president in the region to launch a tax overhaul to help his country's pandemic-ravaged economy get back in shape. But rigid opposition from Colombia's workers' unions and social movements is a cautionary tale for any other president who plans to follow a similar route.

While both the European Union and the United States have pursued enormous investment plans to rebuild their economies post-pandemic, many countries like Colombia, where the economy is dependent on exports and already burdened by a ballooning foreign debt, do not have the capacity to undertake a similar expansion plan.

Such countries need to increase revenues through taxes in order to be able to spend -- and even to maintain vital social programs like cash support for the unemployed and credit lines to businesses struggling with the pandemic.

Before he withdrew his tax reform plan, Duque stressed it was of pivotal importance for the state to increase its fiscal revenues. "The reform is not a whim, it's a necessity to keep the social programs going," he said.

But critics argued the tax hikes -- like a proposed VAT increase on everyday goods -- would disproportionally impact middle and working classes and escalate inequality even more.

Their concerns took root in an economy already decimated by Covid-19, where frustration has been mounting as record increases in cases and deaths prompt authorities to impose new lockdowns, stifling the country's vast informal labor market. More than 3.6 million Colombians fell back into poverty during the pandemic according to recent figures released by the country's statistics authority, while the number of families that cannot afford to eat three times a day tripled in the same period of time.

But the now-withdrawn tax hike will leave a big hole in the state finances, and Duque's government will have to look for alternatives to try and pass reforms to repair the very inequality that currently fuels much discontent.




Human rights concerns

Colombia's ongoing protests have also prompted fear and outrage at law enforcement's handling of demonstrators -- a concern echoed by rights organizations and foreign observers.

"We're here because it may seem a paradox, but in the middle of a pandemic our government is literally attacking our lives," Joana Ivanazca Salgado, a 43-year-old artist who took part in Bogota's protests last week, told CNN.

Ivanazca was referring to the spiraling death toll that the protests have left behind: according to Colombia's ombudsman on Monday, at least 19 people -- including a policeman -- have been killed since the start of the protests and at least 89 people have disappeared.

Videos of anti-riot policemen using teargas and batons against protesters have gone viral on social media, spreading beyond big cities and across the country. Far from curbing the protests, alleged police brutality has become a focal point for the demonstrators, who, after putting the fiscal reform plan to rest, are now calling for a thorough inquiry into the deaths.

Human rights NGOs say the real death toll could be much higher and have called for the president to restrain police from using any excessive use of force.

But the Colombian government has so far defended the actions of the police and blamed the violence on groups of rioters and organized crime. In particular, the military has been deployed to the city of Cali, which has seen the worst of the violence so far and where a team of the UN Human Rights Committee said they encountered police fire, although they did not believe they were directly targeted. The Cali police department says they are investigating claims of excessive force.

Multilateral organizations, foreign ambassadors and even Colombian pop star Shakira have issued statements of concern over law enforcement's response -- on Tuesday, the US State Department publicly urged "the utmost restraint by public forces to prevent additional loss of life."

In the early hours of Wednesday, Bogota's mayor, Claudia Lopez, made a tearful plea to all sides to abandon violence: "I beg Bogota and Colombia to stop. It's been eight days of frankly, by miracle, that we don't have a death [in Bogota] so far," said Lopez.

At least 30 civilians and 16 policemen were injured late Tuesday, she said, in an ugly escalation of violence on both sides. According to Lopez, rioters set fire to one police station, where 15 policemen managed to escape.

Major General Oscar Antonio Gomez Heredia, the chief of police in Bogota, said during the same briefing that a total of 25 police stations had been attacked.

The political fallout

By late Tuesday, Duque called for a "national dialogue initiative" and while he said police forces are guaranteeing the right to protest, he pledged a thorough investigation into any possible abuse.

Should Duque cede to public pressure and open up an independent inquiry into police practices, it could give momentum to protest movements demanding police accountability across the region. Police brutality is a hot button issue in several Latin American countries: Colombia's own National Police, which answers to the Defense Ministry, have previously come under fire for its response to protests in 2019 and 2020. In Chile in 2019, carabineros were accused of deliberately shooting rubber bullets at the eyes of protesters resulting in hundreds of injuries. And in Peru, at least two men died in a recent wave of protests in November of last year.

Looming over all these political calculations for the Colombian government are next year's presidential elections: While Duque himself is barred from running, the conservative coalition that brought him the presidency is keen to project strength and control, capable of dealing with both the pandemic and the wave of protests. After withdrawing the fiscal reform plan, further concessions to demonstrators could weaken that image.

But Ivan Briscoe, Latin America program director for the International Crisis Group, believes it would be misguided not to learn from protesters' outrage. "The government must look beyond other parties and other political forces with which it has been negotiating its tax reform and take into account the demands of the Colombians in the streets," said Briscoe.

For now, Duque is resisting calls from his own party to impose a state of emergency to curb the protests -- but at the same time, he is standing by the police accused of escalating the violence. All of which has contributed to the image of a president disconnected from many of his citizens.

Top U.S. fund leader wants voluntary climate disclosure rules

© Reuters/Kacper Pempel FILE PHOTO: Smoke and steam billow from Belchatow Power Station, Europe's largest coal-fired power plant, near Belchatow

(Reuters) -A top fund industry leader on Thursday urged U.S. regulators to adopt only voluntary climate-related disclosure standards for public companies rather than the stricter rules sought by some activists and investment firms.


Eric Pan, CEO of the Investment Company Institute, which represents asset managers and other big U.S. investors, said the softer approach would give companies time to adjust to new technologies and scientific evidence, during his speech at the trade group's virtual conference on Thursday.

Pan said companies should "not be hampered by prescriptive, 'hard-wired' disclosure requirements - which would be nearly impossible to set today to successfully govern disclosure between now and 2050," the date set by U.S. President Joe Biden for the nation to reach net-zero emissions.

Leaders of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are taking public input on how they might direct companies to report more about the environmental and social impact of their operations.

Investors have poured money into funds using sustainability criteria, allowing portfolio managers to push companies to take steps like disclosing more about their emissions. Larry Fink, CEO of top fund firm BlackRock Inc, last month called for mandatory disclosures for both public and private companies worldwide.

The head of JPMorgan Chase & Co, Jamie Dimon, who also spoke at the conference, said required disclosures could be onerous, expensive and would not help fight climate change.

"Reporting won't solve the problem," Dimon said, adding he is concerned about multiple agencies proposing different disclosure requirements. "If we just impose rule after rule, we’re going to not accomplish anything (and it will come) at a huge cost."

Currently many large U.S. companies produce "sustainability reports" but using a dizzying array of non-common standards, making them hard to prepare and to compare.

On April 21 the European Union said it plans to raise the number of companies required to report ESG data amid criticism the current rules are ineffective.

Pan noted his trade group's board has previously backed two widely used voluntary disclosure standards, those of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures and from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board.

The SEC should encourage the use of both standards, Pan said, and work toward getting companies to provide detailed climate risk information rather than "bland, boilerplate disclosure that is geared mainly at minimizing legal liability."

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in BostonAdditional reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall in New YorkEditing by Matthew Lewis)