Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman explains why he's more left-wing than the Modern Monetary Theory crowd

bwinck@businessinsider.com (Ben Winck) 

MMT supporters are right to call for more spending, but they can still be more progressive, Paul Krugman said.

Where MMT sees taxes as the best way to slow inflation, Krugman argued the Fed can do the same.

You can lean on the Fed to slow inflation and also allow the government to spend more and keep taxes low, he said.

Modern Monetary Theory economists are the trailblazing left-wingers in the field.  SAYS THE BOURGEOIS PRESS

 Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says he's farther left than them. 

AND MARXISTS ARE ALWAYS FARTHER LEFT

https://gruppegrundrisse.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/marx-beyond-marx-lessons-on-the-grundrisse1.pdf

Both schools are inspired by the great 2oth-century English economist John Maynard Keynes, whose theory of fiscal stimulus influenced not only FDR's response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, but $5 trillion of federal spending amid the coronavirus recession.

Krugman was one of the "neo-Keynesians" who worked to integrate his theories with neoclassical economics of the 1950s and onward. But in recent years, MMT has taken that legacy forward, arguing that, since the US is the only power that can print US dollars, the government can spend first without raising cash through taxes.

Where the prevailing policy strategy sees budget deficits as the primary obstacle to spending, MMT asserts that inflation is the biggest risk. Taxes can then be used to slow inflation by reining in the money supply, according to the theory. 

THIS IS BASICALLY SOCIAL  CREDIT THEORY, NOT LEFT WING AT ALL;

MORE LIKE POST WWI 'NEW AGE' ECONOMICS

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Social Credit And Western Canadian Radicalism 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Populism and Producerism 

Krugman says policymakers can also rely on the Fed to handle inflation, and that's actually a more progressive economic policy.

"MMTers, at least if they're consistent with their own doctrine, are substantially to the right of people like me," Krugman told Insider earlier this month. "The MMTers don't seem to believe that monetary policy can ever be used for anything useful."

The MMT framework existed on the fringes of economic policy before the COVID-19 crisis, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that, so long as interest rates stay at historic lows, the government should spend what's necessary to power the economic recovery. That's a sharp reversal from the Obama administration's approach, which was hindered by fears of deficit spending and the growing national debt pile.

If deficit worries took center stage in 2009, inflation is the biggest risk looming over the pandemic-era recovery. One camp, led by conservatives and moderate Democrats, is concerned that unprecedented spending and the Federal Reserve's low rates can spark the worst inflation crisis since the 1970s.

The other, which Krugman resides in, sees inflation cooling once reopening ends and the country settles into a new normal. But while MMT supporters view taxes as the key weapon for curbing inflation, Krugman believes policymakers can rely on the Fed to keep price growth in check.

Followers of MMT, then, can be "more cautious and less willing to go wholeheartedly into progressive policies" than those who appreciate the Fed's power, he added.

While the economy hasn't fully rebounded yet, Krugman sees a repeat of Obama-era concerns potentially being the biggest mistake policymakers make during the recovery.

President Joe Biden has teed up another $4.1 trillion in spending on infrastructure and care programs in recent weeks, as well as several tax increases set to pay for most of the plans. Such pay-fors are appealing for those who worry about the budget deficit, but in practice, they could keep the recovery from reaching its full potential, Krugman said.

Passing more spending packages while leaving taxes untouched could keep the US from entering a demand-starved recovery like that seen after the Great Recession, he added.

"What the doctor ordered is some sustained moderate deficit spending," he said. "That's what worries me a little bit. That we're still too worried about fiscal responsibility and not sufficiently worried about persistent weakness of demand."

Read the original article on Business Insider

A workplace resignation boom may be looming. Here’s why
Anne Gaviola
GLOBAL NEWS

After burning the candle at both ends before the COVID-19 pandemic and for months during the lockdown and restrictions, Karen Gladden Barre decided that enough was enough. The North Vancouver mother of three stepped back from her job running operations and marketing at her husband’s technology company to spend more time with family and reassess her options.
© Getty Images As workplaces transition to the next normal, employment experts predict a flurry of resignations

“I was so tired and burnt out but I probably wouldn't have used that language until after I started the break. I thought I was doing fine,” she told Global News.

“When you’re used to being really busy and then you stop, a lot of things come to the surface -- things that you haven't dealt with in a long time, emotions, curiosities, new interests that you have, passions that you had, but you forgot about.”

In the fall as her timeout from the workforce solidified, Gladden Barre dubbed her hiatus a “midlife gap year,” similar to gap years taken by students after secondary school but “with less parties.” She says the idea had been at the back of her mind for a while, but the lockdowns and changes at work “nudged” it to the forefront.

Labour market experts warn of a looming resignation boom because employees in Canada (and the U.S.) who have been contemplating an exit have largely held off. But as workplaces shift and there’s a better sense of what the next phase of work looks like, that pent-up attrition is set to begin and build.

During the pandemic, 130,000 people have left the workforce, according to Statistics Canada, meaning they have opted to stop working and are no longer seeking employment.

According to Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives senior economist David Macdonald, there have been two “huge spikes” of people leaving the labour pool: one in March 2020 and another in September 2020, which coincides with the return to school.

“In 2021, women have been leaving in higher numbers than men, except in April where the situation reverses,” he said in an email to Global News.

Whether it’s because of burnout, the need to care for family members or a desire to reskill and make a career change, a wave of resignations is in the mail, according to employment lawyer and HR consultant Laura Williams.

“The pandemic has caused a lot of individuals to really become introspective with respect to all aspects of their lives and certainly to work,” Williams told Global News.

Her advice to employers who will need to manage an increase in the number of people who wish to leave is to clearly communicate how conditions at work are going to change as well as how expectations will shift in the “next normal.”

“Right now, business leaders aren’t doing as effective a job, in my observation, of giving the workforce a sense of where things will land with respect to flexibility,” she said. “A lot of employees feel they’re in the dark.”

Williams says employers should make clear the potential for hybrid work arrangements, if that’s possible, as well as what work arrangements and safety considerations will be in place. For example, if there are plans for a staggered return to the office, how will that be executed? She says continued flexibility in how and where they work will be crucial for employees juggling the demands of home life and a greater burden of caring for family members during rolling lockdowns and restrictions.

And after more than a year of “neglecting” or changing workplace culture, Williams points to a need to help employees feel more connected, especially if they suddenly shifted to remote work. By focusing on communication, flexibility and repairing company culture, she says employers may stem some of the attrition.

For employees who have made up their mind to resign or quit their jobs, Williams says that how you leave is just as important as why you’re leaving.

She recommends giving notice in person or via video as opposed to simply sending a text or email. You may encounter your boss and colleagues in the future throughout your career, she notes, so it’s best to “leave on the best terms possible.” Williams says simple and positive messaging to explain why you’re leaving goes a long way to avoid “burning bridges.”

Meanwhile, Gladden Barre is figuring out her next career move, though her hiatus has convinced her that flexibility is something she can’t give up.

She says the time spent with her children has been invaluable.

“By being more available to my kids and family I was able to find little pockets of time to really get to know them and for them to get to know me that weren’t planned or orchestrated,” she said.

“That was probably the biggest reward.”

Long working hours are a killer, WHO study shows
By Emma Farge 

© Reuters/Eddie Keogh Workers walk to work during the morning rush hour in the financial district of Canary Wharf in London

GENEVA (Reuters) - Working long hours is killing hundreds of thousands of people a year in a worsening trend that may accelerate further due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

In the first global study of the loss of life associated with longer working hours, the paper in the journal Environment International showed that 745,000 people died from stroke and heart disease associated with long working hours in 2016.

That was an increase of nearly 30% from 2000.

"Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard," said Maria Neira, director of the WHO's Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health.

"What we want to do with this information is promote more action, more protection of workers," she said.

The joint study, produced by the WHO and the International Labour Organization, showed that most victims (72%) were men and were middle-aged or older. Often, the deaths occurred much later in life, sometimes decades later, than the shifts worked.

It also showed that people living in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific region -- a WHO-defined region which includes China, Japan and Australia -- were the most affected.

Overall, the study - drawing on data from 194 countries - said that working 55 hours or more a week is associated with a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease compared with a 35-40 hour working week.


JACK MA'S STALINIST 996 IDEOLOGY AT ANT/ALIBABA

The study covered the period 2000-2016, and so did not include the COVID-19 pandemic, but WHO officials said the surge in remote working and the global economic slowdown resulting from the coronavirus emergency may have increased the risks.

"The pandemic is accelerating developments that could feed the trend towards increased working time," the WHO said, estimating that at least 9% of people work long hours.

WHO staff, including its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, say they have been working long hours during the pandemic and Neira said the U.N. agency would seek to improve its policy in light of the study.

Capping hours would be beneficial for employers since that has been shown to increase worker productivity, WHO technical officer Frank Pega said.

"It's really a smart choice not to increase long working hours in an economic crisis."

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Masaru Tange says the strategy that turned his company into one of Japan’s best-performing stocks may be surprising:

He buys smaller firms and boosts their workers’ pay.

Tange’s Shift Inc., a software tester, acquires other businesses near the bottom of the industry supply chain and raises their engineers’ salaries. He says he’s able to do this and still charge competitive prices by cutting out layers of companies that serve as middlemen in the outsourcing process. And having more workers leads to higher sales.

© Bloomberg Shift Inc. CEO Masaru Tange Portrait
Photographer: Shoko Takayasu/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- 

Shift’s shares have risen more than 5,300% since it went public in 2014, the second-best performance on Tokyo’s benchmark stock index. The company’s market capitalization has surged to about $2.3 billion, pushing the value of Tange’s 33% stake to about $745 million.

Tange, 46, says his business model is an attempt to remove inefficiencies in Japan’s software industry, where layers of subcontractors take cuts on orders before passing the work to another company below. It’s also, he says, a break from the M&A strategy of buying a business and looking to reduce costs.

“I have a strong urge to rescue these young employees,” Tange, Shift’s founder, president and chief executive officer, said in an interview. “I want to create a fair working environment through M&A.”

Japan’s Wages Gain as Proportion of Part-Timers Falls

Tange grew up in what he describes as an ordinary family in Hiroshima in southwestern Japan, where both his parents were civil servants. He established Shift in 2005 after majoring in mechanical engineering and spending more than five years working for a consulting firm.

Shift started out advising companies on how to improve profits. In 2009, it entered the software testing business.

Tange said he wanted to change engineers’ perception that software testing was a second-rate job, including by paying them more money.

For example, for a service where the market price was 2 million yen ($18,320), Shift would charge 1.5 million yen. This would enable it to win customers. At the same time, it would raise the amount paid to the engineer to about 800,000 yen from 500,000 yen. It could do so, Tange said, by getting rid of middlemen.

Shift acquired Yusuke Sato’s company in 2016. Since then, the software developer says his salary has jumped by more than 70%.

“Joining Shift was a huge turning point in my career,” Sato said.

Shift has 3,308 engineers as permanent employees as of the end of February, up more than 14-fold from 228 at the end of November 2015. The company acquired at least 14 firms during that period.

Increasing engineers leads directly to revenue growth because it enables the company to do more business, according to Go Saito, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG who initiated coverage on the stock in February with an outperform rating.

“Sales can be derived by multiplying the number of engineers and the unit price for engineers,” Saito wrote in a report that month. “The company has already created a framework for the skills development of engineers, enabling it to cultivate high-quality human resources.”

Revenue rose to 28.7 billion yen in the 12 months ended August 2020, more than triple the level three years earlier. Profit increased to 1.6 billion yen, compared to 208 million yen three years before. Shift forecasts that sales will jump to a record 45 billion yen this fiscal year.

Software engineers are underpaid in Japan compared to the U.S. and there’s a shortage of them, according to Saito. That’s one reason why Shift’s model of outsourcing software testing works, he said.

“We’re the biggest in Japan in this area,” Tange said. “I do see revenue reaching 100 billion yen,” he said, referring to the company’s goal for the fiscal year ending August 2025.

Shift’s soaring shares haven’t been immune to pullbacks. They’ve fallen about 22% from a record in October as investors sold high-growth technology stocks. Even after the drop, the company trades at about 87 times estimated earnings.

For veteran investor Mitsushige Akino, the stock may see more volatility in coming months and could fall in market downturns. But its “fundamentals are solid and Shift is making progress on the vision it laid out,” the senior executive officer at Ichiyoshi Asset Management Co. said. “It won’t be strange to see more buying of these types of shares if investors focus once more on growth stocks.”

Credit Suisse’s Saito says the key will be whether Shift is able to continue to increase its number of engineers.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen, but Tange, at least, isn’t short of confidence.

“We’re just getting started,” he said.

(Updates numbers throughout)

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Read more on worker salaries:

McDonald’s, Amazon Accelerate Push Toward Higher Minimum Wage

UBS Dangles $40,000 Bonuses to Slow Junior Banker Defections

Restaurant and retail owners have 2 options nowadays: stop treating their workers like garbage or stop having workers at all

But now that many of these workers have been able to step back from an industry where low pay and abusive practices were the norm these businesses face a challenge: improve working conditions or shut down.

insider@insider.com (Eoin Higgins) 

 "I made more money on unemployment than I did working at the bar because they only gave me lunch shifts and I was part time," said Mark, a former bartender in New York. iStock; Joe Raedle/Getty; Skye Gould/Insider

Restaurant and retail staff have been underpaid and overworked for decades.

Government aid during the economic crisis has allowed workers in the industry to reassess going back to work.

Employer claims that people won't come back out of laziness are increasingly laughable.

Eoin Higgins is a journalist based in New England and Contributing Opinion Writer.

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

Sean Earl is a 10-year veteran of the restaurant business who was out of a job when the coronavirus pandemic hit. He still doesn't know if he'll return to the industry - especially without the promise of worker protections and better conditions on the job.

"If I returned it would have to be somewhere with union representation or at least a co-op situation," Earl said. "Some way of having better control over what happens in the workplace

I talked to Earl this week for a story highlighting the voices of service industry workers at my newsletter The Flashpoint. The piece pushed back against a number of recent articles featuring business owners blaming unemployment insurance and government aid for contributing to laziness on the part of staff to not return to their jobs.."

Over and over again, the people I talked to told me that while the aid provided security and support at a crucial time, they weren't passing up work just to sit around. Rather, they were looking at other options because of the service industry's terrible working conditions and low pay.

"The pandemic kind of stripped away the illusion of fairness and equity in the industry," said Sarah, a restaurant professional who is on her way out of the business and off to grad school.

Reassessing things

One of the first casualties of the pandemic last year was the service industry. With businesses forced to shut down due to health restrictions and few people willing to risk going out anyway, restaurants shuttered around the country and prepared to wait out the disease.

Stimulus and aid packages passed by the federal government under both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden delivered relief. In addition to aid for businesses, programs like the $600 weekly bonus COVID unemployment payments that came with the first stimulus were a huge help to workers forced out of their jobs by the shutdown.

It is true that for some service industry workers, what they made staying home was more than what they made at work. Indeed, that was part of the point of the pandemic aid; to keep people whole after losing their jobs to public health orders that were no fault of their own.

And now, as things begin to open back up, people are pushing for these benefits to be cut off - despite lingering health concerns and ongoing aid.

"There's no reason for workers to come back to their old jobs earning the same poverty wages, especially since more than 100 million Americans remain unvaccinated, and there's still a stable safety net in place until autumn," writer and former restaurant worker Carl Gibson wrote for Insider on May 2. "It's not that unemployed restaurant workers don't want jobs - we just have more options now."

The time off prompted a reevaluation of not only their role in the business but industry practices in general. The service industry is a notoriously harsh and unforgiving business that makes intense demands on staff for low pay and anarchic schedules.

"I made more money on unemployment than I did working at the bar because they only gave me lunch shifts and I was part time," said Mark, a former bartender in New York. "They also over-staffed so there were fewer tips per person, I went from making $250-ish a week to a solid $600 a week from unemployment."

But now that many of these workers have been able to step back from an industry where low pay and abusive practices were the norm these businesses face a challenge: improve working conditions or shut down.

Tall Tales

As the country has begun to reopen, some politicians and pundits are claiming that staff are uninterested in returning to work because they're lazy. Signs on windows of shuttered businesses or temporarily closed outlets claim that people aren't willing to come back because they'd rather sit back and do nothing.

The media has helped spread this narrative, too. Articles from NPR, Fox News, and others have portrayed business owners as hard on their luck victims of circumstance who just can't catch a break. Workers - if they're included in the stories at all - are presented as shiftless, careless louts who aren't thinking of what's best for the company's bottom line.

The reality is different, Lucas, a former Uber Eats driver, told me.

"We're sick of being called lazy bums because we're sick of thankless, s----paying jobs," Lucas said.

Rather, Lucas and other workers I spoke to said they are finally asserting themselves after years of mistreatment and becoming more selective and holding out for incentives-or even considering leaving altogether if things don't change. That's what happened two weeks ago at a Dollar General store in Eliot, Maine. Three out of four of the store's employees walked off the job and quit over the weekend due to their pay and the company's disrespectful mistreatment. Two of them, Brendt Erikson and Hannah Barr, put signs up on the store's door explaining why they quit, putting the blame squarely on Dollar General for the company's disrespectful treatment of employees and low wages.

Erikson told me he wanted people to know that he and his comrades didn't leave their jobs because they were lazy.

"You've probably seen on Twitter those signs on businesses that are closing due to understaffing because people don't want to work," Erikson said. "I have been thinking about those signs a lot lately. And I wanted to make a retort to those signs that actually told the truth of why people weren't going to work there anymore."

Best practices?

Despite claims that businesses are scrambling to attract workers, in many cases owners simply aren't offering incentives for employees to return to customer-facing positions - as Ary Reich, a floor member at the National Museum of Mathematica in New York, told me.

"Less than a month after lockdown, after keeping us on to help them fix their broken website, they laid all eight of us off," Reich said. "Since then we've received emails letting us know we all can have our jobs back if we want them, but they are not interested in raising our pay."

That shows a misunderstanding of the power dynamic at play now - workers are able to decline offers to come back to their jobs without losing income for the first time in decades. Bosses who expected new workers to crawl back begging for jobs no longer indisputably have the upper hand in negotiations. So their attempts to strong arm staff back into the poor conditions and insufficient pay are falling flat.

Given this dynamic some restaurant owners are deciding to try and bring in newer, less experienced staff rather than rehire seasoned professionals - leading to more instability.

"A lot of folks I know in the fine dining world are struggling because many places closed during the pandemic and some are re-opening but instead of hiring back their old staff they are trying to hire new staff for less money or less front-of-house staff," said Earl. "Which means more front-of-house will do more work for the same or less money."

How well that's working for the owners varies, but it seems clear from their complaints that staffing remains a concern.

Lessons learned…. maybe

But not everyone in the industry is willfully ignoring the new reality. Joseph Tiedmann, who works as an executive chef in New Orleans, told Eater's Gaby del Valle this month that restaurants need to figure out how to change the business to pay people better and make the business a more desirable destination for workers.

"We need to make this an attractive business to work in," said Tiedmann. "At the end of the day, it's all about being able to do more for your employees."

It still remains to be seen whether or not the owners of restaurants and other service industry businesses will end what's effectively a capital strike and invest in their workforce.

But there is one simple trick to getting people to want to come and work for you, as Pittsburgh's Klavon's Ice Cream Parlor discovered: offer people more money. The outlet more than doubled its starting pay from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour and saw immediate results.

"It was instant, overnight," the parlor's general manager Maya Johnson told the Pittsburgh Business Times. "We got thousands of applications that poured in."

Restaurant owners have a choice to make. They can provide incentives for people to return to work in what's still a dangerous, fraught time for staff to be in forward facing roles - or they can continue to try to shame workers into returning to their jobs. The former works, the latter doesn't. Owners should take heed of that lesson and pay their staff more, not only because it's the right thing to do but because it's the path forward for the industry's survival.

Wave of anti-trans bills is 'really alarming,' says transgender motorsport star

By Christina Macfarlane and Sana Noor Haq, CNN 

Anorexia. Depression. Loneliness. If motor racing requires a high level of endurance, then Charlie Martin is well versed in navigating life's twists and turns -- on and off the track.

 Paola Depalmas Charlie Martin is aiming to become the first transgender driver to race at Le Mans

It was in 2012 that Martin transitioned. Two years later, she won her first event in France at Saint-Gouéno at the wheel of a Westfield SEiW, breaking the class record by two seconds. Now, she's intent on becoming the first transgender driver to compete in the Le Mans 24 Hour race.

Alongside her commitment to supporting LGBT communities -- which she signifies with a distinctive blue butterfly logo -- Martin is the only elite transgender driver in motorsport and one of the few athletes defending the right for trans girls to take part in women's sports.

In light of the recent increase in anti-transgender legislation and policies across the US, her activism feels increasingly significant.

Changing sport through activism

Martin says that sharing her story has allowed her to change the course of her career for the better, a trajectory she hopes to mirror through her work as a Stonewall Sport Champion.

"When you have an opportunity like this, it feels too important, especially at a time like now where there is so much discrimination happening against the trans community," she says. "It's really alarming to see."

She's not wrong. Activists have already called 2021 a record-breaking year for anti-transgender legislation in the US, with 31 states introducing bills that ban transgender girls from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identities. The bills are also seeking to limit access to gender affirming health care.

Likewise, according to a survey from LGBT+ anti-violence charity Galop, 81% of 227 respondents in the UK reported experiencing a form of transphobic hate crime in the 12 months leading up to October 2019.

"This is about kids striving to better themselves, their self-esteem, their vision of what they can achieve ... sport is a big part of that," Martin adds. "Denying that ... it blows my mind."


'I felt very alone'

By the age of seven, she was thinking about her gender when she spotted a magazine article about Caroline Cossey, an 80s model and Bond girl who challenged the British government in the European Court of Human Rights in an effort to change discriminatory laws.

"I felt very alone," Martin tells CNN Sport's Christina Macfarlane. "When I saw Caroline Cossey, I was like, at least I'm not the only person in the world that feels this way."

She says that, as a child, she was grappling with feelings of loneliness and anxiety, while she also suffered anorexia and depression.

"I was always struggling with the way I felt because when you're not living authentically as your true self ... you're effectively using physical energy to suppress who you are."

Martin was introduced to motor racing through her friend's father, who would take them driving on the weekends. The sport helped give her life a new direction.

"Having things that you're passionate about ... is hugely important for anyone," she says. "To have things that you identify with as an individual that inspire you and give you a lot of your drive in life."

A leap of faith

By the age of 30, Martin was an established endurance racing driver, and that was the year she transitioned.

It wasn't an easy decision and she temporarily stepped away from the track.

"I just thought I would be facing massive rejection, which is a horrible thing for anybody to contemplate," she says. "I had to choose transition over everything else, just to carry on living."

In 2012, Martin started to document her journey on YouTube. She posted candid updates and Q&As on everything from surgery-related updates, hormonal and facial feminization treatment and the emotional challenges that can come with transitioning.

She has amassed over 50,000 followers across social media and garnered messages of support from people who she says subsequently found the courage to transition themselves.

Martin has since been praised for her unwavering honesty and sincerity.

"Keep pushing to be the person that you want to be because there's no better thing in life than to live as your true, authentic self," she says.

Returning to the race track

In 2013, Martin decided she wanted to race again.

"It was, to this day, probably one of the scariest things I've ever had to do," she says. "I remember sitting in my car, shaking, thinking I don't want to do this, but I have to because it's the only way forward."

Her father died from cancer when she was a child and her mother passed away when she was 23. Without parental support, she says the support of friends was key to helping her resume racing.

"I wouldn't have gone back to racing if they hadn't been there that day," she says. "They came over all smiles, gave me a big hug and just engaged with me."

But Martin took her time in making her return.

In 2014, she was hill climbing in France, using the cloak of anonymity to develop her own racing skills without the pressure of having to explain her identity.

As she told Influx Magazine, she was able to apply the mental preparation required for hill climbing to circuit racing, finishing third place at her first ever endurance event at Le Mans on the Bugatti circuit in 2017. That same year, she was recruited by a French team, moving to the Ginetta GT5 Challenge in the UK in 2018.


From a caterpillar to a butterfly

After transitioning, Martin says she was able to unlock her full potential, coming out as transgender within motorsport on International Transgender Day of Visibility to improve trans visibility and acceptance.

"You start believing in yourself," she says. "On top of that, you're able to focus and concentrate because you're not living in denial."

She's already written herself into history by becoming the first transgender racing driver to race at the Nürburgring 24 Hours race in Germany, bringing her one step closer to Le Mans.

It seems that her boundless sense of optimism has led her to where she is today, a motif encompassed by her blue butterfly logo.

"If a caterpillar can turn into a butterfly, then to me, it symbolizes possibility ... incredible things can happen in life if you believe in them."


Martin is the only elite transgender driver in motorsport, using her platform to advocate for trans visibility and acceptance.

Myanmar's Miss Universe contestant leads political protests alongside Singapore, Uruguay

Megan C. Hills, CNN 

The Miss Universe stage was lit up with colorful protests as contestants from Singapore, Uruguay and Myanmar used the limelight to unveil messages about political and social issues.

© Getty Images Left to right: Miss Universe Bernadette Belle Ong, Miss Universe Myanmar Ma Thuzar Wint Lwin, Miss Universe Uruguay Lola de los Santos during the National Costume segment of Miss Universe 2021.

During the "national costume" segment of the annual competition, which concluded Sunday in Florida, the three contestants revealed messages alluding to anti-Asian hate, discrimination against LGBTQ communities and the ongoing political crisis in Myanmar.

In a one of the pageant's most dramatic moments, Miss Universe Singapore, Bernadette Belle Ong, strode down the runway wearing an outfit inspired by the colors of Singapore's national flag before turning to unveil a call to "Stop Asian Hate."

Miss Universe Uruguay, Lola de los Santos, meanwhile showed support for LGBTQ communities with a rainbow outfit and skirt reading, "No more hate, violence, rejection, discrimination."

SHE WON FOR BEST ETHNIC DRESS

© Rodrigo Varela/Getty Images Miss Universe Myanmar holding up a "Pray for Myanmar" sign at the 2021 Miss Universe competition.

Rather than using a costume to carry her message, Miss Universe Myanmar, Thuzar Wint Lwin, unveiled hers on a small scroll. Taking to the stage in an intricately beaded and embroidered outfit, she bowed to the audience before revealing a call for viewers to "pray" for her country.

It is not the first time that Thuzar Wint Lwin has expressed solidarity with protesters opposed to Myanmar's military junta, which seized power in a February coup.

With violence erupting across the country, more than 700 demonstrators have been killed and thousands more arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. In March, the beauty queen took to Instagram to honor protestors as "heroes that sacrificed their lives in the fight for the freedom of our people," having previously accused the Myanmar military of human rights abuses.

Following the "national costume" segment, which she went on to win, Thuzar Wint Lwin posted an image of herself holding the protest sign alongside the caption "Fearless Empress."

Singapore's contestant Ong also posted a series of images of her outfit to Instagram, saying it was her responsibility to "send a strong message of resistance against prejudice and violence" targeted at Asians.

The protest comes amid a surge in anti-Asian sentiment around the world, with researchers at California State University, San Bernardino, recently reporting a 164% spike in hate crimes against Asians in 16 of America's largest cities and counties.

Ong's glittery bodysuit, complete with puffed sleeves and thigh-high boots, was made by Filipino designers Arwin Meriales and Paulo Pilapil Espinosa in just two days, she wrote on Instagram.

© Rodrigo Varela/Getty Images Miss Universe Uruguay Lola de los Santos holds up her rainbow skirt in support of the LGBTQ+ community at Miss Universe 2021.

Uruguay's De los Santos, who paired her bold rainbow outfit with a floral crown and black boots, has long been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights. As well as frequently posting messages of solidarity on social media, she was a judge at Miss Trans Star Uruguay, a beauty pageant for transgender women.

Mexico's contestant, Andrea Meza, was crowned as the overall winner of this year's Miss Universe, which was held in Hollywood, Florida.

Undocumented migrants rally in Montreal for permanent status

Duration: 02:07 


About one hundred demonstrators marched from Montreal’s Jarry Park and gathered in front of the Prime Minister’s office in Park-Extension Sunday afternoon to denounce a new program offering permanent residency to about 90,000 foreign workers in health care and some essential jobs, but critics say it leaves too many vulnerable workers out. Elizabeth Zogalis reports.
Global News

Israel's Canadian supporters rally, more pro-Palestinian demonstrations held as violence continues in Gaza

CBC/Radio-Canada 

© Krystalle Ramlakhan/CBC Pro-Israel demonstrators held an outdoor rally, followed by a car convoy, in Ottawa on Sunday. Cities across Canada have seen demonstrations amid the ongoing violence between Israeli forces and Palestinians.

A prominent Canadian Jewish advocacy group hosted a virtual event in solidarity with Israel on Sunday, and pro-Palestinian demonstrations continued in Canadian cities, amid ongoing violence between Israeli forces and Palestinians in Gaza.

"Even the remarkable Iron Dome defence system cannot protect Israeli citizens — young and old, Jew and Arab — from the trauma of an endless barrage of alerts and rockets," Andrea Freedman said at the beginning of the pro-Israel virtual event, which was organized by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

"Jewish Canadians want peace, and we are very concerned that antisemitic violence is taking root here in Canada," said Freedman, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

CIJA said almost 1,000 people attended the event, which featured prayers from students and Holocaust survivors as well as remarks from Ohad Kaynar, the deputy head of mission at Israel's embassy in Canada.

The virtual event came amid a weekend that saw pro-Palestinian demonstrations in cities across Canada, with particularly large crowds in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver on Saturday.

"People are tired. People want to see justice. People want to see the Canadian government help Palestinians in their fight for justice," Shahed Helmy, a Canadian-Palestinian student at the University of Ottawa who assisted with Saturday's demonstration in the capital, told Radio-Canada's Nafi Alibert.

On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City flattened three buildings and killed at least 42 people, Palestinian medics said — the deadliest single attack in the latest round of violence.

Hamas also pressed on, launching rockets from civilian areas in Gaza toward civilian areas in Israel. One slammed into a synagogue in the southern city of Ashkelon hours before evening services for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, Israeli emergency services said; no injuries were reported.
'Don't give up'

On Sunday in , about 200 people attended a pro-Palestinian rally in front of the Colonial Building. Among the speakers was St. John's East NDP MP Jack Harris, the federal NDP's foreign affairs critic, who said Canada hasn't done enough to advance peace and justice in the Middle East.

Harris said the protest against ongoing violence might be part of a broader awakening that could result in progress. "Let's fight for it, don't give up, we have people on your side around the world," he told the crowd.

 Heather Gillis/CBC About 200 people attended a pro-Palestinian rally outside the Colonial Building in St. John's on Sunday.

Pro-Israel demonstrations were also held in person in Canadian cities on Sunday.

In , a few hundred people gathered at a pro-Israel rally in the parking lot at Tom Brown Arena west of the city's downtown calling for peace in the region. Organizers said the purpose of the rally was to show support for people in Israel and their right to live in peace.

Video: Tensions flare in Winnipeg between pro-Israeli, Palestinian protesters (cbc.ca)

Following the rally, a car convoy drove through downtown past Parliament Hill, as car horns honked and Israeli flags flew outside vehicles. Ottawa police estimated that about 100 vehicles took part in the convoy.

In , police deployed tear gas after pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations were held just a few blocks apart downtown, leading to clashes.

Jewish organizations in Montreal said a group of pro-Palestinian protesters attacked the pro-Israel demonstrators with rocks.

Police intervened with tear gas to disperse the crowds, according to Radio-Canada. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was injured in the clashes or whether police had made arrests. Police didn't say who was responsible for starting the violence.

In , a few hundred pro-Israel demonstrators marched from city hall to the Vancouver Art Gallery downtown, calling for peace in the region.

"Every single one of my children have trauma from living there," Amanda Malul, who raised her children in Israel before moving to Canada, told CBC's Joel Ballard. "And I know Palestinian children have trauma, too. It's terrible on all sides. It shouldn't be this way.

"There's no reason we can't come to some sort of agreement where we can all live together."

In , a car convoy with hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanded an end to Israeli airstrikes targeting the Gaza Strip.

"It's really important that we stand here and we educate the world about what's going on," said Maha Al-ghoul, one of the rally's organizers. "Because as far as the average Canadian person … they need to know what's going on because as Canadians we are peace-loving people — this is against what we believe in."

Allegations of assault at Saturday rally in Toronto

In , several Canadian Jewish organizations published a statement early Sunday alleging that pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who gathered for a rally in Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday, assaulted pro-Israeli demonstrators.

"We condemn in the strongest terms these brazen acts of assault, intimidation, and hate targeting members of Toronto's Jewish community and supporters of Israel," said the statement from CIJA, B'nai Brith Canada, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies and the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.

"There is absolutely no justification for political violence in the streets of Toronto, whatever one's cause may be."

Toronto police said in a news release Sunday they are aware of a video circulating online that shows a man being assaulted. Police said the incident happened outside of Nathan Phillips Square and officers are investigating.

The statement from the Canadian Jewish organizations was shared on Twitter by Conservative Sen. Linda Frum, while federal Conservative Party Leader Erin O'Toole retweeted her and commented: "acts of violence and antisemitism on the streets of Toronto and elsewhere in Canada are disturbing and unacceptable."

Toronto Mayor John Tory also posted a similar statement, adding that he's been in contact with interim police chief James Ramer and asked to be informed of the steps police are taking to investigate "a particularly disturbing incident" from Saturday.

"Discrimination or hatred of any kind against any community in our province should never be tolerated," Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in a series of tweets posted Sunday evening.

Toronto police announced on Sunday that they arrested and charged two people following Saturday's demonstrations at Nathan Phillips Square, as well as one person at an unrelated event at Queen's Park.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau weighed in on the weekend's demonstrations. "Everyone has the right to assemble peacefully and express themselves freely in Canada — but we cannot and will not tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia, or hate of any kind," he wrote on Twitter.

At least one arrest was made and several fights broke out between Israeli and Palestinian supporters at a pro-Israel demonstration in Montreal on Sunday. Dozens of riot police were dispatched to get the crowds under control at the rally, which police declared illegal. This comes after thousands of Montrealers took to the streets of Montreal in support of Palestinians on Saturday.

ITS US POLICY TO SUPPORT ITS 51ST STATE

Biden has yet to reverse many of Trump's pro-Israel policies he labeled 'destructive'

"If the United States isn't putting up a clear red light, then it's by default a green light for Israel" 

Deirdre Shesgreen and Courtney Subramanian, USA TODAY 

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden never promised a wholesale reversal of his predecessor’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But he blasted many of the Trump administration’s decisions as “destructive” and “short-sighted.” Yet four months into his term, Biden has left many of President Donald Trump’s pro-Israel policies in place – leading to frustration in Washington and the Middle East.

During his four years in office, Trump broke with long-standing U.S. positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – offering full-throated support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line agenda, greenlighting Jewish settlement expansion and severing diplomatic channels with the Palestinians, among other steps. © Nicholas Kamm, AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sept. 26, 2018, in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Biden has been clear he supports a two-state solution to the intransigent conflict, but he has punted on some of the most contentious issues, even as the worst violence in years grips the region.

The spark that ignited the conflict was an effort by Jewish settlers to evict Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. It has spiraled into a deadly military confrontation between Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza, and Israeli military forces.

Saturday, an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp killed at least 10 Palestinians from an extended family, mostly children, the deadliest single strike of the current conflict, according to The Associated Press. In less than a week of fighting, more than 120 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and at least seven Israelis.

Hitting Gaza: Israeli airstrikes in Gaza kill 10, destroy media offices for AP, Al-Jazeera

Associated Press CEO on strike: 'The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza'

“The current violent escalation shows that this is not an issue that can be left on the back burner. It's not a sustainable status quo,” said Logan Bayroff, vice president of communication for J Street, a left-leaning advocacy group that describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace.”

Here's a look and what Trump did and how Biden's position differs – or not. 

© MAHMUD HAMS, AFP via Getty Images Palestinians assess the damage from an Israeli airstrike to a building in Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip on May 14.

Embassy moved to Jerusalem and hasn't moved back

BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN US POLICY BUT UNTIL TRUMP NEVER APPLIED

Fulfilling a campaign promise, Trump broke with decades of Washington policy and moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018, backing Israel’s claim on the disputed capital and holy city for Jews, Muslims and Christians. The decision thrilled his base of conservative and right-wing Israel supporters and evangelical Christians but brought a wave of criticism from the international community and the Palestinians.

Trump’s decision followed through on a 1995 law that recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which Biden voted for as a senator. Successive presidents delayed the move, aligning with the international view that the holy city's status should be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinians as part of a broader peace deal that would establish a Palestinian state.

The Biden administration signaled it has no intention of moving the American embassy back to Tel Aviv. Biden, as a presidential candidate, said he would keep the embassy in Jerusalem despite calling Trump's decision "short-sighted and frivolous." 

© Pool, Getty Images As vice president, Joe Biden visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 9, 2010, in Jerusalem.

The administration has been silent about what it defines as Jerusalem's boundaries, part of a larger U.S. policy vacuum feeding into the situation on the ground, said Khaled Elgindy, director of the program on Palestinian-Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute.

Though Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. The United States is one of a handful of countries to recognize Israel's claim to the entirety of the city.

East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied along with the West Bank, Gaza, most of the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai peninsula in 1967, has become a flashpoint for unrest and protests, where the threat of eviction of Palestinian families exacerbated the violence.

"There's no credible way to have a Palestinian state without a sovereign capital in East Jerusalem," Elgindy said. "It changes the way that you address the expulsions. If you do recognize it, then what's happening is not a property dispute, it's settlement activity, and it's illegal under international law." 

© GIL COHEN-MAGEN, AFP via Getty Images A Palestinian man argues with Itamar Ben-Gvir, right, a member of the Israeli Knesset and head of the far-right Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of the Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem on May 10.

More: Biden speaks with Netanyahu, Abbas as Mideast conflict escalates

White House press secretary Jen Psaki sidestepped a question about the president's position on East Jerusalem as part of a two-state solution.

"That is an issue that has long been and will always be for discussion between two parties in a negotiation about the path forward, so I don't have an additional position," she said Friday.

The administration has been evasive about whether it plans to reopen the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, which had served as the White House’s main channel of communication to the Palestinians.

The Trump administration shuttered the consulate in 2019 and merged it with the embassy to serve as one diplomatic mission. Psaki did not answer questions Wednesday on whether the administration would reopen that diplomatic facility.
'Deal of the century'

Like his predecessors, Trump said he wanted to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, and he tasked his son-in-law, Jared Kusher, to tackle one of the world's longest-running and most intractable disputes.

Trump initially waffled on whether he supported a "two-state solution," a cornerstone of U.S. policy for decades. The two-state solution envisions a negotiated settlement leading to an independent Palestinian nation alongside Israel and sharing a capital of East Jerusalem.

In an early meeting with Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he was neutral on the issue.

"So I'm looking at two-state or the one-state," Trump said in 2017. "I'm happy with the one they like best," he said, referring to the Israelis and Palestinians.

When Kushner unveiled his much-delayed peace proposal – the "deal of the century" – it endorsed a two-state solution, though critics said the plan was definitively pro-Israel. The plan was developed without any Palestinian input; Palestinian leaders refused to deal with the Trump administration because they viewed him and his advisers as biased toward Israel.

The proposal – which went nowhere – would have more than doubled territory under Palestinian control, but it also would have recognized Israeli sovereignty over major settlement blocs in the West Bank, a scenario many Palestinians would find difficult to accept. It would have limited Palestinians to specific parts of East Jerusalem, leaving Israel in sole charge of holy sites that are sacred to both religions.

© Debbi Hill/ Pool Photo via AP Palestinians accused White House adviser Jared Kushner of favoring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and the Israelis in the U.S. peace plan for the Middle East.

The Biden administration supports a two-state solution, though Biden has not made solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a priority.

Though many presidents named high-wattage special envoys to jump-start the peace process, Biden has not done so. Amid the current conflagration, the State Department dispatched a deputy assistant secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs, Hady Amr, to the region to help mediate.
Golan Heights policy left in place

In March 2019, Trump overturned decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a disputed territory that Israel seized from Syrian control during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Previous U.S. administrations labeled the territory as "occupied" and refused to recognize Israel's forcible annexation. Trump's move prompted a rebuke from the United Nations Security Council and put the United States at odds with allies such as France and the United Kingdom, which see Israel's annexation as illegal.

Trump argued the territory is critical to Israel's security, and Netanyahu welcomed the move as historic.

© Oded Balilty, AP An election campaign billboard promotes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with President Donald Trump in Tel Aviv on Sept 15, 2019. In Hebrew, the billboard reads, "Netanyahu, in another league."

Trump-Netanyahu: How two leaders reap political rewards from their cozy relationship

From friendly to frosty: Biden and Netanyahu's decadeslong relationship tested by crisis

In February, Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested Biden would leave the Trump-era policy in place, though he did not fully endorse the annexation either.

“As a practical matter, the control of the Golan in that situation, I think, remains of real importance to Israel’s security,” Blinken told CNN in February. “Legal questions are something else, and over time if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we look at, but we are nowhere near that.”

Biden restores aid for Palestinian refugees

In 2018, the Trump administration moved to zero out funding for the U.N. aid program for Palestinian refugees, part of a broader policy restricting assistance to the West Bank and Gaza.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency provides health care to more than 3 million Palestinians, education assistance to 500,000 children, micro-loans to 400,000 beneficiaries and other aid.

Trump's State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, said that the United States shouldered a "very disproportionate share" of the cost for UNRWA and that the group classified too many Palestinians as refugees.

A ball of fire erupts from a building in Gaza City's Rimal residential district on May 16, 2021, during massive Israeli bombardment on the Hamas-controlled enclave.

In April, the Biden administration announced it would restore funding for the relief agency and other programs, sending $75 million in economic and development assistance to the West Bank and Gaza, $10 million for peace-building programs through the U.S. Agency for International Development, and $150 million for UNRWA.

Abraham Accords

The Trump administration trumpeted the so-called Abraham Accords, a series of agreements that formalized diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab countries – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – as one of its greatest foreign policy achievements and a step toward peace in the region.

The accords marked a major geopolitical shift in the Middle East as Arab nations once unified behind a push for Palestinian statehood solidified their ties with Israel. But the UAE and Bahrain were never at war with Israel, and their leaders had been quietly inching toward closer relations with the Jewish state for years. Though Trump and Netanyahu billed the accords as a “peace deal,” the agreements largely sidelined the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“That was always somewhere between spin and wishful thinking. They were about bilateral relations of the parties that signed them. They’re not peace agreements,” Elgindy said. “To the contrary, I think they were designed by Netanyahu and Trump to marginalize the Palestinians as both a people and as an issue.”

Blinken told CNN in February the administration applauded the accords, calling them "an important step forward" but hardly a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Whenever we see Israel and its neighbors normalizing relations, improving relations, that’s good for Israel, it’s good for the other countries in question, it’s good for overall peace and security," Blinken said. "That doesn’t mean that the challenges of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians go away. ... They’re not going to miraculously disappear. And so we need to engage on that."

As part of a deal with the UAE, Israel agreed to temporarily halt its controversial plan to annex parts of the West Bank, land that Palestinians see as vital to their hopes of a future state. Less than a year later, the signatory nations find themselves in an uncomfortable position as the notion that the accords would give them leverage over Israel to aid in the Palestinian push ring hollow.

“The pretense that this was ever going to facilitate or help the Israeli-Palestinian peace track has now fallen away,” Elgindy said.

The Arab world has watched Israeli ground troops mass on the border with Gaza, rockets fired indiscriminately at Israeli towns and raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem during the holiest time of the Muslim calendar.

The Biden administration has taken a back-seat approach to the spate of violence, emphasizing its traditional position of de-escalation, but the language is inconsistent with the president's promise of prioritizing human rights and restoring international rules-based order, Elgindy said.

"If the United States isn't putting up a clear red light, then it's by default a green light for Israel," he said.

Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden has yet to reverse many of Trump's pro-Israel policies he labeled 'destructive'