Sex workers gain foothold in Congress
BY CHRIS MILLS RODRIGO - 05/30/21 0

Sex workers have gained the backing of a small group of Democratic lawmakers after largely being shut out of the policymaking process.

The turning point was the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), also referred to as SESTA after the original Senate bill, which was framed as a way to punish online platforms facilitating trafficking and abuse but was broadly opposed by the very industry it was meant to help.

Despite the best efforts of sex workers to dissuade lawmakers, the bill passed through both chambers easily and was signed by then-President Trump in 2018.

“It was not just that their perspective was discarded. Their perspective wasn't even heard. They were considered almost untouchable in the Capitol,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is pushing a bill designed to study the effects of FOSTA-SESTA.

Sex worker advocate organizations and congressional staffers who spoke with The Hill said that stigma was one of the primary factors keeping those voices sidelined.

“No politician wants to or until very recently wanted to be seen as facilitating sex work or encouraging sex work,” said Mike Stabile, director of public affairs at the Free Speech Coalition, an adult industry trade association.

Khanna told The Hill that his colleagues “didn't even want to take meetings because of the possible images or pictures” with sex workers that could have been taken.

Stigma also hurts organizations’ funding because consumers of pornography are “embarrassed” to publicly back them, says sex worker and writer Cathy Reisenwitz.

Tight funds have left sex worker organizations with minimal capacity to put pressure on lawmakers on the ground in Washington.

“There are no lobbyists. ... There's more people who are engaging in federal legislation, but we're all still kind of working on spit and duct tape here,” Kate D’Adamo, a sex worker rights activist and partner at Reframe Health and Justice, told The Hill.

Some organizations have narrowed their efforts to sympathetic lawmakers to make up for the lack of resources.

Mary Moody, a founding board member at the Adult Industry Laborers & Artists Association, met with Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) office earlier this year. The Massachusetts lawmaker is the Senate lead on the FOSTA-SESTA study bill and has met with sex worker groups in the past.

“We were able to discuss issues impacting workers, how legislation around Section 230 and like SESTA-FOSTA can cause harm and ask them to commit to keeping an open line of communication on future issues,” Moody told The Hill, referring to the 1996 law that protects online platforms from liability for content posted by third parties.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) also became more aware of sex worker concerns during the debate over FOSTA-SESTA and has kept in touch with the organizations since.

“Sex workers sit at the intersection of a lot of important, but exceedingly difficult, issues surrounding law enforcement, gender, race and speech,” he said in a statement. “When Congress makes policy that affects any of those concerns, it would be malpractice not to take their voices into consideration.”

The sex worker community has been particularly vocal on internet regulation proposals, especially as many of them have had to rely on online revenue streams during the pandemic. FOSTA-SESTA’s carved out an exception in Section 230, a mechanism that several recent bills have borrowed.

Advocates did hours of outreach last year to try to slow down the EARN IT Act, a bill championed by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that would make exceptions under Section 230 protections for child sexual abuse material.

Concerned that the threat of lawsuits would dissuade platforms from hosting any adult content at all, they worked to get lawmakers and experts to address the root causes of exploitation such as insufficient health services and excessive criminalization, according to D’Adamo.

Sex workers also organized earlier this year against Sen. Mark Warner’s (D-Va.) SAFE TECH Act over fear that it would lead platforms to censor their content.

Adult industry organizations are also active at the state level and have had some recent successes.

Maxine Doogan, a working prostitute, launched the Sex Workers and Erotic Service Providers Legal, Educational and Research Project in California in 2008 after a San Francisco ballot measure to decriminalize prostitution failed.

The group has since successfully blocked multiple ballot initiatives in California and pushed for reforms in other states such as Alaska, which passed a measure in 2017 that gives immunity to sex workers who report dangerous crimes from being cited for prostitution.

One of the roadblocks for sex workers both in states and at the federal level has been a collection organizations including the anti-trafficking group Exodus Cry and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), formerly known as Morality in Media.

These groups, according to sex workers who spoke with The Hill, overstate the risk of trafficking and weaponize that sentiment to demonize and threaten the porn industry.

“Their approach, which has been very successful, has been to oversimplify and exaggerate the extent of the problem,” added Jeremy Malcolm, the executive director of the Prostasia Foundation, which seeks to take an evidence-based approach to reducing the harms of sex trafficking.

The groups have also been successful at pulling in funding — the Justice Department gave NCOSE a $240,000 grant in 2020 to research the sex trade — and influencing Congress.

For example, Laila Mickelwait, the founder of the Exodus Cry-backed campaign to shut down Pornhub, Traffickinghub, appeared before the House Financial Services Committee earlier this year.

Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) cited reporting relying heavily on the campaign when introducing the Stop Internet Sexual Exploitation Act, which sex workers have said could be the death knell of their industry.

Counteracting those forces and stabilizing the adult industry’s foothold in Congress will take more time and work from sex workers, their organizations and the small cadre of lawmakers in their corner.

Khanna told The Hill that one step in that process is passing the FOSTA-SESTA study bill, which those lawmakers are working to persuade key colleagues on before reintroducing this Congress.

“We need the study in the bill,” he said. “But the issue is about overcoming the stigma, it's about getting people who are on the margins of society a voice. The legislation is just a vehicle towards trying to accomplish that.”

Instagram alters algorithm after complaints it censored Palestinian content during Gaza conflict
BY JOSEPH CHOI - 05/31/21 

THE HILL


© Getty Images

Instagram has changed its algorithm after a group of employees complained that pro-Palestinian content was being hidden from other users in the midst of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that culminated in an 11-day conflict in Gaza.

The Verge reports that Instagram will now surface original and reposted content at the same rate, as it had previously surfaced original content before reposted.

As BuzzFeed News reported last week, employees at Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, complained that content featuring Arabic or pro-Palestinian content was often flagged or received a label warning.

“I fear we are at a point where the next mistake will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and we could see our communities migrating to other platforms,” one unnamed Facebook employee wrote to his co-workers.

A Facebook spokesperson told the Verge that the change in its algorithm was not entirely about pro-Palestinian content. According to the spokesperson, Facebook realized that bubbling content that it believes its users care about the most had made it appear as though the company was suppressing certain viewpoints.

“We want to be really clear— this isn’t the case,” the spokesperson told the Verge. “This applied to any post that’s re-shared in stories, no matter what it’s about.”

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, who is Israeli, acknowledged users in early May who complained they were unable to post pro-Palestinian content for several hours, tweeting, “Many people thought we were removing their content because of what they posted or what hashtag they used, but this bug wasn’t related to the content itself, but rather a widespread issue that has now been fixed.”

The Facebook spokesperson said the original algorithm had been designed to show original content first because of users who said they were interested in seeing content from their friends first.

“But there’s been an increase— not just now but in the past as well — in how many people are resharing posts, and we’ve seen a bigger impact than expected on the reach of these posts,” the Facebook spokesperson explained. “Stories that reshare feed posts aren’t getting the reach people expect them to, and that’s not a good experience.”

The company will be looking into new tools to allow for original content to be seen as it still believes users wish to see original stories more.

USA Pride Month organizers to draw attention to anti-transgender laws
BY MARINA PITOFSKY - 05/31/21
THE HILL

© Getty Images

Tuesday marks the beginning of Pride Month, and LGBTQ groups say they plan on drawing attention this year to the anti-transgender bills making their way through state legislatures across the country.

GOP-backed measures targeting transgender people have picked up steam in recent months, ranging from bills banning transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports to legislation prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.

“Those bills are damaging, those bills are dehumanizing," Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Executive Director Alphonso David told The Hill.

By HRC's tally, 250 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures this year, including at least 35 blocking transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care.

HRC will be using Pride Month "as a platform to really amplify the importance of advocacy and engagement," David said.

“We need to make sure that the community understands and appreciates the current climate that we live in, in the United States, where state legislators are looking to take away legal protections that we have,” David added. “We have members of the trans and non-binary community that are living in a state of fear.”

Cathy Renna, communications director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said transgender individuals will likely be “front and center” at Pride Month events in response to the state-level efforts.

“In some ways, Pride will be very different, but it will also not be that different in that we are using Pride as a platform to elevate and amplify these issues and get people talking about them,” Renna told The Hill.

“You're going to see a tremendous amount of visibility of both trans youth and adolescents, and also their allies, and their families. That's not something we've seen as much of until really the last few years,” she continued.

Pride Month organizers and LGBTQ groups said Pride Month this year will also reflect the new administration in the White House.

David touted President Biden’s support for the Equality Act, House-passed legislation that would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, education and other areas. Biden also reversed former President Trump’s ban on most transgender people serving in the military.

“We're looking forward to having an administration that actually celebrates pride, as opposed to an administration that is looking to denounce LGBTQ equality,” he added.

Renna said that compared to last year, the Biden administration will create a “different mood” and a “sense of hope” among Pride participants.

But LGBTQ activists are keeping up the pressure on Biden.

Dan Dimant, a media director for NYC Pride, said the administration needs to make a slate of LGBTQ protections a reality, adding that “the issues for our communities don’t just disappear overnight.”

“Part of what I think activists in our community are really making sure to do is to hold this administration accountable,” Dimant said. “I think a lot of promises have been made. And I think, they're only a few months in, but we want to know that at the end of this term, that there has been follow through on those promises.”

More immediately, many Pride Month organizers are focused on holding either in-person or hybrid events during June after last year's gatherings were largely online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As more cities and states scale back their COVID-19 restrictions, many Pride celebrations are taking on a more familiar look compared with 2020.

In Washington, D.C., organizers with the Capital Pride Alliance are planning to hold a few scaled-back in-person events, as well as several virtual events.

Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance, praised DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) announcement earlier this month that most capacity limits on bars, restaurants other venues will be lifted by June 11, around the time of Pride weekend.

“We are excited that we will be able to scale up some of our initially planned programs for this June because of the reopening guidelines,” Bos said.


In New York City, organizers announced a digital rally that will raise awareness about violence against the LGBTQ community, along with a smaller version of the city’s annual in-person march. The event will be streamed since there won't be the normal amount of participants.

In Los Angeles, LA Pride will stream a free concert from singer Charli XCX and an event that will include “trans profiles, celebrity shout-outs” and performances, according to its website.

Organizers are offering in-person events as well.

“Because we’ll be having events throughout the month of June and throughout the year, folks should anticipate in-person events, some like we’ve been traditionally known for, but also many innovative, broader reaching, and more diverse experiences,” Gerald Garth, board treasurer for LA Pride, told The Hill.


In San Francisco, Pride Executive Director Fred Lopez said they are skipping virtual events this year after moving Pride Month online in 2020.

“I think what we found we missed with virtual programming solely is just that sense of connection that folks really experience from Pride and a sense of visibility in terms of being around those folks that we see ourselves in,” Lopez said.

Johnson & Johnson ask Supreme Court to review $2B talc product verdict
BY JOSEPH CHOI - 05/31/21 

THE HILL



Johnson & Johnson is asking the Supreme Court to review a $2 billion verdict in favor of women who claim its talc powder products caused them to develop ovarian cancer, The Associated Press reports.

The multinational corporation is arguing that it did not get a fair trial in Missouri where it lost a case that resulted in an initial $4.7 billion payout to 22 women who developed ovarian cancer. A state appeals court later cut the amount down to less than half, though it upheld the outcome of the trial.

Judge Rex M. Burlison wrote in his ruling that the evidence displayed “particularly reprehensible conduct on the part of Defendants.”

According to Burlison, J&J “misrepresented the safety of these products for decades,” as it knew its products aimed toward mothers and babies contained asbestos.

J&J has maintained that its products don’t cause cancer, saying the verdict in the trial is “at odds with decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming Johnson’s Baby Powder is safe, is not contaminated by asbestos and does not cause cancer,” the AP reports.

The company is not seeking to rehash whether its products caused cancer, but is instead arguing that it should not have been made to defend itself in one trial against claims made by women living in 12 different states, who had different backgrounds and varying histories of using J&J talc products.

Asbestos is a known carcinogen and its structure is similar to that of talc. J&J had agreed in 1976 to make sure its products did not contain detectable amounts of asbestos, the AP notes.

An analysis of 250,000 women led by the U.S. government failed to find strong evidence connecting baby powder to ovarian cancer, the AP reports, though the lead author of the study called the results “very ambiguous.”

The largest business groups in the country are backing J&J, the AP reports. The father of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, E. Edward Kavanaugh, is also mentioned in court documents due to his long association with the trade group for cosmetic and personal care products.

The elder Kavanaugh's group, the Personal Care Products Council, fought against efforts to list talc as a carcinogen, the AP reports. Experts who spoke to the AP said they saw no reason that Justice Kavanaugh should recuse himself, should the Supreme Court decide to hear the case.

However, the AP notes that one justice will most likely recuse himself. Justice Samuel Alito reported that he owns $15,000 to $50,000 in J&J stock last year, with federal law preventing judges from sitting on cases in which they have a financial interest.

RED SCARE 2.0

Biden shows little desire to reverse Trump's Cuba policies

“They’ve continued the Trump policy without public debate, without 

evidence, and without the normal government processes of looking at the facts.”

BY REBECCA BEITSCH - 05/31/21 
THE HILL

The Biden administration’s first major move on Cuba is the strongest signal yet it has little appetite to reverse Trump-era policies toward the island nation.

The State Department this past week listed Cuba as among those “not cooperating fully with United States antiterrorism efforts,” renewing a determination first made in 2020.

For those in favor of normalizing U.S. ties with Cuba, the move was seen as a purely political decision, but one that suggests the Biden administration may continue with the hardline approach taken by former President Trump.

“It’s a political determination, and a signal they’re trying to give the right wing that they’re going to stick with the status quo,” said Fulton Armstrong, an American University professor and director of Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.

“These determinations are B-O-G-U-S,” he added, criticizing the State Department for offering little insight into what factored into its decision.

The determination was made under the Arms Export Control Act, which requires a report every May listing countries barred from defense exports and sales with the U.S. Obama had removed Cuba from the list in 2015.

But the statute is also one of the three laws weighed when adding countries to the state sponsors of terrorism list — something Trump added Cuba to in the final days of his presidency.

While the Biden team has pledged to review Trump’s state sponsor of terror listing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in March that “a Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities.”

To Cubans, the latest determination looks like a continuation of the Trump era.

“The U.S. changed presidents, but it’s more of the same,” Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuba’s deputy prime minister and top economic policy minister, wrote on Twitter.


The State Department said the decision was made after “a review of a country's overall level of cooperation in our efforts to fight terrorism, taking into account our counterterrorism objectives with that country, and a realistic assessment of its capabilities.”

Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela are among the other countries on the list.

The decision earned praise from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has blasted Cuba for remaining close with Venezuela. He called the move “a positive step that follows four productive years of the Trump Administration’s efforts to end Havana’s destructive and destabilizing efforts.”

But others see little fodder for the determination beyond Cuba agreeing to let Colombian National Liberation Army members stay in the country after negotiations it hosted on behalf of the nation in 2018 fell apart, and the Colombian government refused safe passage for the group to return.

“It's hard to have cooperation on counterterrorism or anything else if you're not talking with one another,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) a longtime proponent of normalizing ties with Cuba, told The Hill, noting the limited diplomatic relations between the two countries.

“And it's hard to get cooperation when the United States has not moved forward with any kind of genuine reengagement with Cuba,” he added.

The hesitancy to do anything similar to the Obama-era thawing of Cuban relations follows significant losses for Democrats in Florida. Trump won the state in November, while Democrats also lost two South Florida districts in an election that underscored the party’s struggles to win over more Latino voters.

The designation is the latest move from an administration that has publicly sought to distance itself from the Obama administration — not its predecessor — when it comes to Cuba.

“Joe Biden is not Barack Obama on policy toward Cuba,” Juan Gonzalez, senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council, told CNN en Español in April.

Geoff Thale, president of the Washington Office on Latin America, described Cuba and Venezuela as the center of the GOP’s successful messaging in Florida before they gained the two House seats in November, including the district encompassing Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.

“It wasn't really saying, ‘You don't want to end the embargo on Cuba,’ it was a campaign that said ‘Democrats are all socialists and socialism will ruin your life.’ And is that a wild distortion of Democrats’ policies and the Democratic party? Yes, it is. But as a media hit it was fairly effective,” he said.

“The easy answer is to say, ‘We won't do anything about Cuba or Venezuela, and if we do, we’ll do it as quietly as possible,’ ” he said.

But Thale doesn’t think that’s the smart strategy.

“Say ‘We are making challenges in Cuba policy, and those changes actually benefit Cubans in America and their families in Cuba that will overtime lead to greater freedom in Cuba,’ ” he said.

“[Democrats] will probably get painted as socialists no matter what they do, so it seems to me they need to think smarter about what they can do on strategy,” he added.

But some see Biden’s approach toward Cuba as part of a broader strategy of taking a tough stance on other communist countries.

“They are returning to the Cold War with practically everyone — with Russia, with China, with Cuba — and I don’t know that that is very smart right now,” said Carlos Alzugaray, a former Cuban diplomat and ambassador.

“But he won’t admit the Obama option is the only option. Because what other option is there? Continue pressuring the government of Cuba? First, that doesn't get done what you think it gets done,” he said, arguing that Cubans are not going to overthrow their government because of the U.S. embargo, which has been in place in some form since 1958.

“But secondly, it makes the United States look bad. It makes the U.S. look mean and vindictive with a small neighbor.”

Still, not all proponents of normalizing ties are worried the carryover determination means the U.S. policy toward Cuba has been settled.

“I’m choosing to look at this as not that big of a deal,” McGovern said. “My understanding is there is a review going on in the administration of what our Cuba policy should be. And my hope is that if it is done objectively and rationally, he will conclude that we need to reengage.”

But Armstrong said the lack of an appetite to reverse even on the Arms Control Export Act list doesn’t signal an administration seriously considering sweeping change.

At the Cuba Communist Party’s eighth party congress in April, the nation for the first time established a government without a single Castro on its roster. Still, the theme was “continuidad,” a nod to continuity of its plans to slowly loosen the government’s grip on the economy as Raúl Castro stepped down from his post.

“There is more continuidad on Cuba policy in Washington than there is in Havana,” Armstrong said.

“They’ve continued the Trump policy without public debate, without evidence, and without the normal government processes of looking at the facts.”

Five things to know about the new spotlight on UFOs
BY ALEX GANGITANO - 05/31/21 

THE HILL

The Biden administration is taking a more serious look into unidentified flying objects (UFOs), publicly acknowledging what had previously been considered the realm of conspiracy theories and science fiction.

Congress and the public are expected to hear more soon from intelligence agencies on what they are calling “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

CBS New recently reported on what they called the regular sightings of such phenomena, which led to President Biden's top spokesperson answering questions from the White House podium this week about the government's investigations into them.

And lawmakers are also taking an interest.

Here are five things to know about the recent UFO news.

An intelligence report is coming

A report on UFO sightings expected to be released next month could be, well, out of this world.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the secretary of Defense are set to deliver an unclassified report to Congress, which was commissioned by a provision in the coronavirus relief package then-President Trump signed last year.

The report will likely include information about how the government plans to investigate situations in which UFOs are spotted and how data from such encounters is analyzed. It will also outline who is responsible for gathering and analyzing data on UFOs, including specific agencies, personnel and systems.

It’s unclear if the administration will release the report in full or how much the public will be privy to. White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the extent of public knowledge last week and said that those decisions are in the hands of the ODNI.

The White House considers UFOs a concern

Psaki was also questioned about the level of Biden’s concern over UFOs, and she pointed to the fact that a team is actively working on a report.

“Certainly, the safety of our personnel, security of our operations, our airspace are of paramount concern, whether that is identified or unidentified aircraft. And we don't discuss that publicly for a range of reasons, but certainly the president supports the ODNI putting together a report and following through on that commitment,” she told reporters.

Psaki noted that the president is taking the unidentified aerial phenomenon very seriously.

“We’re aware of the report requirement, and our team at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is, of course, actively working on that report. And we take reports of incursions into our airspace by any aircraft identified or unidentified very seriously and investigate each one,” she said.

Military members are speaking out

Two former Navy pilots spoke to CBS News last week about the unidentified aerial phenomenon, claiming they saw a UFO in 2004 over the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has also recently been more open about other cases, notably when the Defense Department last year declassified three videos of objects in the airspace that were filmed by Navy pilots.

Another leaked video, filmed from a Navy aircraft in 2019, showed an object flying above the ocean and diving into water.

The uptick in interest stems in part from former Pentagon official Lue Elizondo, who has been open about his reports of UFOs. He worked with a formerly secret team that investigated reports of unmanned aerial phenomena, the Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program.

Elizondo this week filed a complaint with the Pentagon’s inspector general, alleging that there was a coordinated effort to discredit him and label him as crazy while he was speaking out.

There is growing pressure to act

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is leading calls for a deeper investigation by the U.S. government into UFOs. He said in a recent interview that anything in the U.S. airspace that shouldn’t be there is a threat.

Senate colleagues are “very interested in this topic and some kinda, you know, giggle when you bring it up,” he said. “But I don’t think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answer to a very fundamental question.”

Rubio called for a mechanism to catalogue and analyze UFO data.

Others who have given legitimacy to reports of unidentified aircraft include John Ratcliffe, Trump’s director of national intelligence, and John Brennan, former President Obama’s CIA director. Ratcliffe said that “there are a lot more sightings than have been made public” and Brennan recently speculated that these unidentified objects “constitute a different form of life.”

Obama himself indicated earlier this month that the government is aware of more reports of UFOs.

“What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don't know exactly what they are,” he said on "The Late Late Show with James Corden" on CBS.

There are possible national security implications

The Pentagon in August set up the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force to investigate such objects, including the nature of where they come from.

The Navy also has guidelines for pilots to report aircrafts that are unidentified and could be considered UFOs in an effort to formalize the investigation process.

The U.S. military’s attention and focus on UFOs is a serious shift towards legitimizing reports that they exist and could be a threat to national security.

Christopher Mellon, a top defense official under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, told NBC News that reporting UFO sightings should be destigmatized within the military.

“My hope is that this administration will provide our military people the support they deserve,” Mellon told NBC News. “On this issue, that means determining ASAP what threat if any is posed by the unidentified vehicles that are brazenly and repeatedly violating restricted U.S. airspace over hovering around our warships.”

The best dark matter map to date raises questions about the universe

The cosmos is smoother than you think.

N. Jeffrey et. al/Dark Energy Survey Collaboration

J. Fingas
@jonfingas
May 30th, 2021

Scientists in the Dark Energy Survey have just released the best dark matter map yet, but it's not answering every question — if anything, the cosmos may be more mysterious than ever. As BBC News, Nature and Fermilab report, the survey of 5,000 square degrees used weak gravitational lensing (in this case, how gravity from nearby galaxies affects views of distant ones) to look for large patches of dark matter in relatively close sections of the universe.

The data also helped studies into dark energy, the as yet unexplained force that seems to be accelerating the universe's expansion. The team produced a 3D map thanks to redshifting, or the tendency of objects to appear increasingly red with distance.

Team members conducted observations using the 570-megapixel camera of the Victor M. Blanco telescope, at Chile's Cerro Tololo observatory, between 2013 and 2019.

While the high detail is helpful, it also validated concerns that have been floating for years. The DES results indicate that the universe is slightly smoother and more uniform than expected. While that largely supports current theories that dark energy is a constant, the discrepancy is enough that researchers might have to rethink existing ideas. The universe may not behave quite like scientists thought, and the dark matter map could lead to new models that challenge previous assumptions.

OF COURSE THEY DID

Air Canada paid $10M in COVID-19 bonuses to top execs while negotiating gov’t rescue plan

Sean Boynton 

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mark Blinch The tail of the newly revealed Air Canada Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft is seen at a hangar at the Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ont., Thursday, February 9, 2017.

Air Canada paid its top executives and managers a combined $10 million in bonuses tied to the COVID-19 pandemic late last year, despite the airline losing billions of dollars and cutting thousands of jobs in 2020.

The bonuses, which were outlined in the airline's annual proxy circular to shareholders, came with special stock rewards that were meant to compensate those executives for salary cuts they took as the pandemic wreaked havoc on the travel industry. Yet they also came as Air Canada was negotiating a multibillion-dollar rescue package with the federal government — one that caps future executive compensation.

Trudeau calls Air Canada aid package a ‘good and fair deal’

The airline justified the bonuses and stock awards to shareholders by saying the senior executive team "reacted urgently, decisively and skillfully to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company."

Read more: Feds announce $5.9B aid package to Air Canada to help customer refunds, jobs

Those actions included slashing over 20,000 employees from Air Canada's workforce, a reduction of more than 50 per cent. The airline also received $656 million through the government's Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program last year to keep some remaining employees on the payroll.

"And with equal vigor, the leadership team played offence," the airline continued in its message to shareholders, highlighting the safety and business measures it undertook to ensure the company can bounce back from the pandemic.

"We believe we must retain and motivate our senior leaders to help Air Canada recover as quickly as possible," the airline said, adding its "compensation decisions" would help with that goal.

Wesley Lesosky, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees' Air Canada component, said in a statement to Global News that his members that were laid off have not benefited from the CEWS, and criticized the airline for continuing to pay out bonuses amid the pandemic.

“We’re disappointed the company was finding ways to keep paying bonuses to executives, while at the same time cutting off a lifeline for thousands of my members by denying them access to the federal wage subsidy," he said.

"Our members were left out to dry, and the federal government stood by and let it happen.”

Air Canada aid package gives government equity stake in airline: Freeland

In April, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Transport Canada announced a $5.9-billion federal bailout plan for Air Canada, largely built on repayable loans to the airline in order to rescue it from pandemic-related financial collapse.

By the end of 2020, Air Canada's operating revenue had plummeted 70 per cent to $5.8 billion, from $19.1 billion in 2019. Air Canada shares also lost more than 50 per cent of their market value over the course of last year.

Last spring, the airline announced that its then-chief executive Calin Rovinescu and deputy CEO Michael Rousseau would waive 100 per cent of their salaries for April, May and June of 2020, and cut their salaries in half for the remainder of the year. Three other top named executives took 50 per cent salary cuts for three months, then 20 per cent cuts for the rest of 2020.

The cuts amounted to combined losses of $766,723 for the five executives, including $490,000 for Rovinescu.

On the eve of those executive salaries being fully restored at the start of 2021, Air Canada gave those same five executives special "stock appreciation units" that would serve as an "opportunity to recuperate their foregone salary," the company told shareholders.

Rovinescu received 21,398 stock appreciation units, which Air Canada estimated to be worth $168,396 on a payout based on the increase of Air Canada's share price over the next two years. A payout will not occur if the price dips below the average set at the end of 2020.

Read more: Smaller airlines call on feds for financial support after Air Canada relief deal

The $10 million in "COVID-19 Pandemic Mitigation" bonuses, meanwhile, were based on a new executive compensation program centred on pandemic-era goals of customer service and cost-cutting, among other criteria. That program replaced the existing compensation guidelines that heavily valued profitability to determine bonuses.

Because of "management's exceptional performance" in meeting the new goals, Air Canada's board approved a $20-million bonus package for management and executives, down from the $45 million that would have been approved under the previous program.

Only $10 million was paid out, however, including $723,000 to Rovinescu and a combined $1.116 million to the other four named executives.

Air Canada also determined that losses from the pandemic would impact its long-term incentive plan for executives, eliminating payouts for the past three years of performance-based share units and stock options. As a result, 2020's results were dropped from the formula to ensure payouts would still move forward.

The company justified this move to shareholders by arguing that losing the payouts "could potentially create an important 'retention' issue thereby putting the organization at risk at a time when we most need our key talents to ensure our survival and future recovery for the benefits of our shareholders."

Overall, Rovinescu earned a reported $9.26 million in total compensation last year, down from $12.87 million in 2019.

Rovinescu has since retired and officially stepped down on Feb. 15 of this year, getting replaced by deputy CEO Rousseau.

All airlines eligible for loan to help refund customers impacted by COVID-19 pandemic: Freeland

Over the course of pandemic-hit 2020, Air Canada dramatically reduced its domestic and international flight network and pulled out of several smaller and regional airports across Canada. It also shed 79 older planes from its fleet and cancelled orders for 22 aircraft.

The airline stayed afloat through a series of financing and liquidation moves that the company says totalled $6.780 billion in 2020.

The federal rescue package announced in April saw Ottawa provide Air Canada $5.37 billion in repayable loans, including a $1.4 billion credit facility that the airline can draw from to refund customers whose flights were impacted by the pandemic. The government also purchased a $500-million equity investment in the airline.

As part of the package, executive compensation will be capped at $1 million until those loans are fully paid back with interest.

The airline has also promised to not cut any more jobs from its workforce as it continues to recover from the pandemic.

In an email, Katherine Cuplinskas, a spokesperson for Freeland's office, said questions about executive compensation prior to the agreement being signed should be directed to Air Canada.

The government says the cap on executive compensation is in place from when the deal was announced in April until 12 months after all loans are repaid.

Florida Supreme Court rejects challenge to medical-marijuana law from Tampa's Florigrown

Medical marijuana in Florida --- the nation’s third most-populous state --- has exploded in the few short years since its legalization.

DARA KAMNEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

 MAY 28, 2021 

The court’s 42-page ruling came in a drawn-out legal battle launched by Tampa-based Florigrown LLC, which, in part, challenged the state’s system of requiring licensed medical-marijuana operators to handle all aspects of the cannabis business, including, growing, processing, distributing and selling products.The challenge argued that the state law ran afoul of the 2016 constitutional amendment. Lower courts sided with Florigrown and, in a rare move, the Supreme Court ordered two sets of arguments in the case.

But Thursday’s 6-1 decision found that Florigrown, owned in part by prominent Tampa strip-club operator Joe Redner, “has not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of any of its constitutional claims.” 

The 2017 law’s requirement that marijuana operators handle all aspects of the cannabis business involves what is known as “vertical integration.” In arguing that the requirement is unconstitutional, Florigrown contended that it limits the number of companies that can participate in the industry.

But the Supreme Court reversed a temporary injunction imposed by then-Leon County Circuit Judge Charles Dodson, saying that the vertical-integration requirement “is within the Legislature’s specific authority.”

The court also rejected arguments that the law’s cap on the number of medical-marijuana licenses that the Florida Department of Health can issue is contrary to the constitutional amendment.

Previous court rulings that the license limits were unconstitutional “are based solely on a factual finding that the statutory caps have made medical marijuana unavailable, or insufficiently available, in this state and partly on a legal conclusion that the statutory caps are unreasonable in light of the amendment’s purpose,” the majority opinion, shared by Chief Justice Charles Canady and Justices John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, Jorge Labarga, Carlos Muñiz and Ricky Polston, said.

“We disapprove of these rulings because competent, substantial evidence does not support a finding that the statute has made medical marijuana unavailable, and the amendment does not preclude a limit on the number of MMTCs that can be licensed,” the majority said, using an acronym for medical marijuana treatment centers, the term the state uses for marijuana operators.

Medical marijuana in Florida --- the nation’s third most-populous state --- has exploded in the few short years since its legalization. But the industry and investors have been leery about investing or expanding in Florida until the Supreme Court resolved the Florigrown case.

“This ruling is welcomed for this industry because it affirms the regulatory scheme that a lot of participants have already built their business models around. And for some of the more recent entrants into the market, it allows them to ramp up their spending in Florida with confidence in the regulatory scheme,” John Lockwood, a lawyer who represents several marijuana license holders, told The News Service of Florida on Thursday.

But state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a major cannabis proponent, blasted the Supreme Court decision, saying the medical-marijuana market will “remain closed-off, restricting freedom of opportunity, weakening the free market and leading to ever-higher prices for patients.”

“This ruling by our Republican-dominated Supreme Court further entrenches Florida's unfair, unconstitutional medical marijuana system put in place by our Republican-dominated Legislature,” Fried, the only statewide elected Democrat, said in a prepared statement. “This status quo helps absolutely no one except the 22 medical marijuana companies in Florida at the expense of patients.”

Under the 2017 law, the number of medical marijuana licenses grows as the number of qualified patients increases. With more than 561,000 patients, at least a dozen new licenses are available. But the Department of Health has not opened the license application process while the Florigrown lawsuit was awaiting a Supreme  Court ruling.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case last spring, but ordered a new round of arguments focused on whether the statute equates to an unconstitutional “special law.” The Florida Constitution bars “special” laws, which, generally, are intended to benefit specific entities.

During arguments on Oct. 7, Florigrown attorney Katherine Giddings pointed to the 22 marijuana operators, each of which had applied for licensure under a 2014 law authorizing non-euphoric cannabis, which preceded the passage of the constitutional amendment.

“This is definitely a closed class because no one can ever receive the same privileges that these have had,” she said. “This is everything but a free market. It has created a monopoly for a few entities. That is why the licensing scheme is inappropriate and arbitrary.”

But Thursday’s majority opinion said that “the statute as a whole” does not limit licensure to the applicants that were granted licenses under the 2014 law.

“In addition, any other entity that wishes to apply for a license in the future may do so, and may potentially receive one, as the number of available licenses expands … to meet the needs of the state,” the opinion said. “All future licensees will receive licenses equal to the ones initially issued during this early stage of Florida’s medical marijuana industry. The fact that other entities may join the class of licensed MMTCs in the future as circumstances in the state change means that the class is open and the law general.”

But in a 10-page opinion that concurred in part and dissented in part with the majority decision, Justice Alan Lawson disagreed.

A special law violates the Florida Constitution if it “grants a privilege to a private corporation,” Lawson wrote.

Provisions in the 2017 law “grant certain private corporations --- described so precisely that they might as well be named in the statute --- the right to MMTC licensure without entering the competition that others must enter for a statutorily capped number of licenses,” Lawson wrote.

“Because the law grants this clear benefit to these private corporations, it violates the Florida Constitution unless it can be properly construed as a general law,” he wrote, adding, “I am aware of no case in which this court has held that a statute using a closed class of private entities can be saved from a determination that it is a special law simply because the classification scheme is reasonable in relation to the statute’s purpose.”

Ari Gerstin, a lawyer who represents Florigrown, said in an email Thursday that Redner and his team are  “disappointed with the decision and are currently evaluating our options.”

But medical marijuana operators currently in Florida --- where licenses sell for between $35 million and $45 million --- and companies seeking to establish a footprint in the state celebrated the ruling.

“The long-awaited decision is well-reasoned and maintains the status quo, which will help preserve stability in the state’s medical marijuana market,” Jim McKee, an attorney who represents numerous operators, told the News Service. “We can expect an increase in investment in the Florida medical marijuana market.”

Homeland Security unveils new cybersecurity requirements for pipeline operators

by Lance Whitney in Security on May 27, 2021, 10:24 AM PST

Owners and operators will have to identify any gaps in their security and report new incidents to key federal agencies because of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.

Image: Bloomberg/Getty Images

In the wake of the ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has revealed new requirements aimed at all pipeline owners and operators in the U.S. Announced by DHS' Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Thursday, the security directives are designed to better detect and combat cyber threats against companies in the pipeline industry.

First, owners and operators of critical pipeline facilities will have to report both confirmed and potential cybersecurity incidents to DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Further, pipeline operators must select someone to act as a cybersecurity coordinator, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Next, pipeline owners and operators will be required to review their current cybersecurity practices, identify gaps and detail measures required to mitigate any risks. They'll also have to report these results to both the TSA and CISA within the next 30 days.

The TSA said it's looking into additional requirements to help the pipeline industry improve its cybersecurity and enhance the public-private partnership that's key to the country's security.

Both the TSA and CISA have an active part to play in these new security requirements. Along with DHS, the TSA was established shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Since then, the agency has worked with pipeline operators and partners on the physical security of hazardous liquid and natural gas pipeline systems.

Responsible for defending the country's critical infrastructure against security attacks, CISA hosts a Cyber Resource Hub with details on potential threats and recommendations for organizations on how to defend themselves against ransomware attacks. Last December, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 that gave CISA more power to secure federal civilian government networks and critical infrastructure from physical and cyber threats.

"The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving and we must adapt to address new and emerging threats," Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a press release. "The recent ransomware attack on a major petroleum pipeline demonstrates that the cybersecurity of pipeline systems is critical to our homeland security. DHS will continue to work closely with our private sector partners to support their operations and increase the resilience of our nation's critical infrastructure."

Though the recent ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline wasn't the first to affect critical infrastructure, the incident raised alarm bells around the world, especially in the U.S. government. The apparent ease at which Colonial Pipeline was compromised showed how key resources are vulnerable. The energy sector in particular has long been susceptible to cyberattack.

"Cybersecurity risk management can be particularly challenging for energy companies," said Anthony Pillitiere, co-founder and CTO at Horizon3.AI. "With a primary objective of reducing outages, they often have to adopt an 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality where software/hardware component patches are not installed to avoid the possibility of service disruptions. Any new regulation to secure critical infrastructure is going to require funding to have any hope of implementation by an industry already under stress."

The cybercriminal groups that target critical infrastructure also have ample skills and resources to carry out their attacks.

"Attacks targeting critical national infrastructure (CNI) tend to be the work of advanced persistent threat (APT) groups working on behalf of nation states with specific goals," said Joseph Carson, chief security scientist at ThycoticCentrify. "Such high-level adversaries are difficult to defend against as they have the time and resources required to repeatedly test security measures and find gaps, whereas more opportunist criminals in search of profits will opt for soft targets."

The new cybersecurity requirements sound like steps in the right direction, but some analysts believe energy companies will have difficulty following them.

"This is a start, but there is a lot of ambiguity in what will constitute confirmed and potential cybersecurity incidents," said John Hellickson, CXO adviser for cyber strategy at Coalfire. "Depending on the interpretation, would a phish attempt in itself be a potential incident?"

Further, the 30-day deadline imposed on identifying and remediating potential security gaps is too short, according to Hellickson. As such, organizations will likely have internal staffers conduct the reviews, which could leaded to missed data.

"Ideally, the organizations would be required to have a third party perform an assessment based on a defined cybersecurity standard, and results provided in say 90 days to give time to perform the assessment and integrate it into their overall cybersecurity strategy," Hellickson. "Once a remediation strategy and roadmap is defined, check-ins by TSA/CISA demonstrating measurable improvements will be key."