Media, Holocaust bills test Poland's ties with US, Israel

VANESSA GERA
Thu, August 12, 2021

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland is looking at a more difficult relationship with two allies, the United States and Israel, after lawmakers passed separate bills — one dealing with foreign ownership of media and the other affecting the property rights of the families of Holocaust survivors — which the Polish government had been warned to drop.

The European Union also slammed the media bill on Thursday as undermining media freedom, adding to pre-existing strains between Warsaw and Brussels from the EU's perception of democratic backsliding in member nation Poland.

The bills passed the lower house of the Polish parliament on Wednesday, and still require Senate approval and the signature of the president, who supports the right-wing party that has governed the country since 2015.


The two proposals threaten to further isolate Poland, whose geographic position in Central Europe has often left it at the mercy of stronger neighbors, and whose membership in EU and NATO and relationship with the U.S. are considered key guarantees of the country's future security.

One of the bills that passed would push Discovery Inc., the U.S. owner of Poland’s largest private television network, to sell its large and popular Polish network, TVN. The other would prevent former property owners, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, from regaining property expropriated by the country’s communist regime.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement late Wednesday about what he called the “troubling legislation,” saying that the NATO alliance to which Poland belongs “is based on mutual commitments to shared democratic values and prosperity.”

“These pieces of legislation run counter to the principles and values for which modern, democratic nations stand,” Blinken said.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki responded Thursday by suggesting the U.S. officials do not understand the Polish bills and should analyze them more closely.

On the media bill, Morawiecki said: “We do not have any intentions regarding a specific television channel. It is just about tightening the regulations so that there is no situation in which companies from outside the European Union would freely buy media in Poland.”

In anticipation of a parliamentary vote, the bill triggered nationwide protests Tuesday. Among the participants expressing fear that their right to independent information was under attack were older Poles who remember the censorship of the communist era.

By contrast, the law which would affect the former property owners — both Jewish and non-Jewish — got almost no media coverage in Poland. But it sparked a fast and angry response from Israel, with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid saying it “damages both the memory of the Holocaust and the rights of its victims.”

The EU Commission, which polices EU law, said it will follow the media issue very closely while the EU's top watchdog for democratic values, Vera Jourova, tweeted that the foreign ownership bill sends a negative signal.

“Media pluralism and diversity of opinions are what strong democracies welcome, not fight against," Jourova wrote. “We need a #MediaFreedomAct in the whole EU to uphold media freedom and support the rule of law.”

European Parliament President David Sassoli also weighed in on the media vote, calling it “very worrying.”

“If the law comes into force, it will seriously threaten independent television in the country. There can be no freedom without a free media," he said.

The development looked to many like a crucial move in a step-by-step dismantling of the democratic standards that Poland embraced when it threw off communism in 1989.

Hungary had already set the trail for such an illiberal political direction, and the EU has shown little ability so far to do much to ensure adherence to its values either there or in Poland, both previously models of democratic transformation.

After communism ended more than three decades ago, many foreign investors entered Poland's media market. Poland's ruling party, led by the country's de facto leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has long seen this as a problem and sought to “repolonize” the media. The party argues that keeping Polish entities in control of the media is a matter of national security and that such regulations are in line with Western European standards.

However, the party's critics see the efforts to nationalize media as a pretext for silencing independent voices. The effort is well on its way. Soon after winning power in 2015, Law and Justice transformed tax-funded public media into a party mouthpiece. Last year the state oil company bought a large private media group that owned newspapers, magazines and internet portals, and has since moved to changing the editors.

Some fear the internet could be next after Kaczynski said in July that “the other side” has the advantage there and “we will still have to strive to change this situation.”

On Thursday, TVP Info, the public broadcaster's all-news station, declared that the parliament had defended “Polish sovereignty” with its media bill.

Independent journalists have a different view. A letter in defense of TVN had gathered the signatures of over 1,000 Polish journalists on Thursday.

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Raf Casert in Brussels contributed.

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Poland Media LawPeople protest outside the Polish Parliament after lawmakers passed a bill seen as harmful to media freedom in Warsaw, Poland, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021. Poland's parliament voted Wednesday in favor of a bill that would force Discovery Inc., the U.S. owner of Poland's largest private television network, to sell its Polish holdings and is widely viewed as an attack on media independence in Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)More

Polish PM rejects U.S. criticism of media and property restitution bills


First day of the European Union summit in Brussels


Thu, August 12, 2021

WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland's prime minister on Thursday rejected criticism of bills on media ownership and property restitution passed by parliament, after the United States, one of Warsaw's most important allies, denounced the legislation.

In a tumultuous sitting of parliament on Wednesday, Polish lawmakers passed a bill that would strengthen a ban on firms from outside the European Economic Area controlling Polish broadcasters.

The opposition says the bill aims to gag the news channel TVN24, which is owned by U.S.-based media group Discovery Inc and is critical of Poland's right-wing nationalist government.


Late on Thursday Discovery said it has notified the Polish government that it will take legal action under the bilateral investment treaty between the United States and Poland, branding Poland's failure to renew the TVN24 broadcasting license and yesterday's vote as "discriminatory".

"The legislation is the latest assault on independent media and freedom of the press, and takes direct aim at Discovery’s TVN," the company said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was "deeply troubled" by the passage of the bill, which he said targeted the most-watched independent news station in Poland and one of the largest U.S. investments in the country.

Vera Jourova, European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency, said the bill sent a "negative signal".

"We need a #MediaFreedomAct in the whole EU to uphold media freedom and support the rule of law," she tweeted.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki denied the bill was aimed at TVN.

"We do not have any intentions regarding a specific TV channel. It is just about tightening the regulations, so that there is no situation in which companies from outside the European Union would buy media in Poland," he told a news conference.

The bills must clear both houses of parliament and be signed by President Andrzej Duda to become law. Duda is close to the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and is not expected to veto the legislation.

PROPERTY RESTITUTION

Morawiecki later on Thursday also defended parliament's decision not to exempt NATO member countries from the ban.

"A military alliance is one thing, a common legislation and a common economic area is another," he said.

The United States is a founding member of the North Atlantic alliance.

Blinken had also called on Poland not to proceed with legislation that is expected to make it harder for Jews to recover property seized by Nazi German occupiers during the Holocaust and kept by postwar Communist rulers.

Morawiecki said the law would implement a 2015 ruling by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal that a deadline must be set after which faulty administrative decisions can no longer be challenged.

"This has nothing to do with the fears expressed by our American friends about us," he said.

A European Commission spokesperson said the EU executive would continue following all issues in Poland, including the restitution bill, and would "take any action necessary within the powers conferred to it by the treaties".

(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw; Additional reporting Sabine Siebold in Berlin, Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru and Alicja Ptak in Warsaw; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Gareth Jones and Chizu Nomiyama)

Polish lawmakers pass bill seen as limiting media freedom

By VANESSA GERA

1 of 10
People demonstrate in defense of media freedom in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. Poland’s ruling right-wing party has lost its parliamentary majority after a coalition partner announced it was leaving the government, Wednesday Aug. 11, 2021, amid a rift over a bill which the junior partner party views as an attack on media freedom.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s parliament voted Wednesday in favor of a bill that would force Discovery Inc., the U.S. owner of Poland’s largest private television network, to sell its Polish holdings and is widely viewed as an attack on media independence in Poland.

The draft legislation would prevent non-European owners from having controlling stakes in Polish media companies. In practice, it only affects TVN, which includes TVN24, an all-news station that is critical of the nationalist right-wing government and has exposed wrongdoing by Polish authorities.

Lawmakers voted 228-216 to pass the legislation, with 10 abstentions.

The bill must still go to the Senate, where the opposition has a slim majority. The upper house can suggest changes and delay the bill’s passage, but the lower house can ultimately pass it as it wishes. It would then go to President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the right-wing government.

Discovery said it was “extremely concerned” and appealed to the Senate and Duda to oppose the project. “Poland’s future as a democratic country in the international arena and its credibility in the eyes of investors depend on this,” it said.

The vote in parliament followed two days of political upheaval that saw the prime minister on Tuesday fire a deputy prime minister who opposed the media bill.

The ruling party appeared earlier Wednesday not to have the votes, but found them after all.

There was also tension on the street after the vote, with protesters gathering in front of parliament. Some clashed with police and were detained.

The media bill is viewed as a crucial test for the survival of independent news outlets in the former communist nation, coming six years into the rule of a populist government that has chipped away at media and judicial independence.

The ruling party has long sought to nationalize media in foreign hands, arguing it is necessary for national security. Ejecting TVN’s American owner from Poland’s media market would be a huge victory for the government, coming after the state oil company last year bought a large private media group.

Its political opponents, however, believe that TVN’s independence is tantamount to saving media freedom and see the survival of Poland’s democracy as being on the line.

TVN’s all-news station TVN24 is a key source of news for many Poles but it is also a thorn in the government’s side. It is often critical and exposes wrongdoing by officials. The government’s supporters consider it biased and unfairly critical.

Government critics have long feared that Poland was following a path set by Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban has gained near-total control over the media as private outlets have either folded or come under the control of the leader’s allies.

TVN represents the largest ever U.S. investment in Poland. The company was bought for $2 billion by another U.S. company, Scripps Networks Interactive, which was later acquired by Discovery.

The draft bill was adding to strain between Poland and the United States.

On Wednesday, the parliament also passed another bill opposed by the U.S. and Israel — a law that would prevent former Polish property owners, among them Holocaust survivors and their heirs, from regaining property expropriated by the country’s communist regime.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday that the United States was “deeply troubled” by the legislation targeting TVM.

“Poland has worked for decades to foster a vibrant and free media,” Blinken said. “This draft legislation would significantly weaken the media environment the Polish people have worked so long to build.”

___

AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Poles protest bill that would silence US-owned TV network

By VANESSA GERA

August 10, 2021

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People demonstrate in defense of media freedom in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. Poles demonstrated nationwide Tuesday against a bill widely viewed as a effort by the country's nationalist ruling party to silence an independent, U.S.-owned television broadcaster that is critical of the government.(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)


WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poles demonstrated nationwide Tuesday against a bill widely viewed as a effort by the country’s nationalist ruling party to silence an independent, U.S.-owned television broadcaster that is critical of the government.

Technically, the bill would prevent non-European owners from having controlling stakes in Polish media companies. In practice, it would push American company Discovery Inc. to sell its controlling stake in TVN, a network with many channels that operates the all-news station TVN24 and has a flagship evening news program watched daily by millions.

At stake in the bill’s passage is Poland’s reputation for media freedom and as a place for foreign companies to do business. The proposal is already straining relations with the United States, a key ally.

Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice, has long sought to nationalize the media, claiming it is for national security reasons. It says the law would bring Poland into line with other European countries, including France and Germany, which limit foreign ownership in the media. It cites the risk of media being controlled by hostile powers like Russia and China.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday the law isn’t directed against anyone but seeks to protect Polish society, alleging that foreign entities are trying to influence Poland’s debate on COVID-19 vaccinations.

“It is through the media that other countries influence our social life,” he said at a news conference.

Large crowds chanted “Free media!” in dozens of cities and towns in support of TVN. In front of parliament in the capital of Warsaw, Donald Tusk, a former top European Union official who is now the leader of the opposition party Civic Platform, described free media as a pillar of democracy worth fighting for and accused the government of trying to “return to communist patterns.”

On Wednesday parliament is set to debate and vote on the bill.

The bill was introduced last month and appears to have a high chance of passing. Jaroslaw Gowin, who heads a small party in Poland’s right-wing coalition government, opposed the bill and was dismissed from the government just as the protests started Tuesday.

Reporters Without Borders urged Polish lawmakers to reject the legislation, accusing the ruling party of targeting the independent broadcaster “to enable government allies to acquire TVN.”

Poland fell this year to 64th of 180 countries in the group’s World Press Freedom Index, its lowest-ever ranking. It was in 18th place in 2015, the year Law and Justice took power.

TVN24 is the leading source of independent broadcast news for many Poles. Discovery had already felt endangered as the National Broadcasting Council, a Polish state body, has so far failed to renew the broadcast license for TVN24, which expires in September.

The bill’s fate is being watched as a key test of media freedom and democracy.

Critics fear it would be a large step bringing Poland closer to the situation in Hungary, where authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gained near-total control over the media as private outlets have either folded or come under the control of his allies.

Poland’s ruling party has already turned tax-funded public TV into a party mouthpiece. Lately it has been seeking greater control over private media, with the state oil company buying a large private media group last year.

TVN represents the largest-ever U.S. investment in Poland. The company was bought for $2 billion by another U.S. company, Scripps Networks Interactive, which was later acquired by Discovery.

Last week a bipartisan Congressional group expressed its increasing concern “about the ongoing attacks on the free press, independent judiciary and the rule of law in Poland.”

Former Polish foreign and defense ministers wrote an open letter to the Polish government last week expressing fears the proposed legislation could weaken ties with the U.S., which has troops stationed in Poland and sells Poland military equipment.

Jean-Briac Perrette, president and CEO of Discovery International, called the planned vote on the bill concerning, warning that “an unpredictable regulatory framework should be very concerning for all potential investors in the market.”

The development comes as Discovery is set to merge next year into a mega-company with AT&T’s WarnerMedia.

Poland passes law that would cut off property claims

By VANESSA GERA

August 11, 2021

FILE - In this Dec. 5, 2016, file photo is Prozna Street, in the heart of what was Warsaw's Jewish quarter before World War II, in Warsaw, Poland. Poland's parliament passed a law on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021, that would prevent former Polish property owners, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, from regaining property expropriated by the country's communist regime. 

(AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)


WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s parliament passed a law on Wednesday that would prevent former Polish property owners, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, from regaining property expropriated by the country’s communist regime.

Israel condemned the legislation, with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid saying it “damages both the memory of the Holocaust and the rights of its victims.”

Meanwhile, Gideon Taylor, the chair of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, or WJRO, an advocate for property restitution, said the group was “outraged,” and and called the bill “equally unfair for both Jews and non-Jews.”

The adopted amendment to Poland’s administrative law would prevent property ownership and other administrative decisions from being declared void after 30 years. It affects Jewish and non-Jewish owners who had properties seized in the communist era.

In the case of the former Jewish owners, at stake in many cases are the homes or business of families who were wiped out in the Holocaust and whose properties were later seized by Poland’s communist-era authorities.

When communism fell in 1989, it opened up the possibility for former owners to try to regain lost properties. Some cases have made their way through the courts, but Poland has never passed a comprehensive law that would regulate restituting or compensating seized properties.

Poland says the new legislation is a response to fraud and irregularities that have emerged in the restitution process, leading to evictions or giving real estate to property dealers in a process called “wild re-privatization.”

Michael Bazyler, an expert in international law and restitution at Chapman University School of Law in California, argues that it is the wrong tool to fight the problem, and that cutting off claims of former owners forever amounts to “perpetuating injustice by the communists.”

“The way you stop wild re-privatization and corruption is to go against corruption,” he told The Associated Press. “You don’t do it by taking the claims of legitimate heirs.”

Taylor, from the WJRO, called on President Andrzej Duda to veto the bill and urged the Polish government to work with it to “once and for all settle the issue of private property restitution.”

He argued that more than 30 years after the fall of communism, Poland was still benefitting from wrongfully acquired property.

“Property restitution is about more than money – for many Holocaust survivors and their families, a home is the last remaining physical connection to the lives they once led, to the countries where they were born, and to the towns where they grew up, before their lives were shattered,” Taylor said.

In Israel, Speaker of the Knesset Mickey Levy decided not to re-establish the Israeli-Polish parliamentary friendship group.

“The anti-restitution law restricting property claims by victims of the Holocaust is a daylight robbery that desecrates the memory of the Holocaust,” he said. “Poland’s decision to pass this immoral law harms the friendship and bilateral relations between Israel and Poland.”

The United States had been pressuring Poland in hopes of stopping the legislation.

“We are deeply concerned that Poland’s parliament passed legislation today severely restricting the process for Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as other Jewish and non-Jewish property owners, to obtain restitution for property wrongfully confiscated during Poland’s communist era,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. He urged Duda to not sign the bill into law or to refer it to Poland’s constitutional tribunal.

___

Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem, Israel, and AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed.

Documents: FDR pressured Hitler to meet with his oil buddies

RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY UNCOVERS US PRESIDENT PROMOTES CAPITALISM

Paul Bedard
Fri, August 13, 2021, 

Newly unveiled memos from Adolf Hitler’s chancellery and Foreign Ministry portray a cozy pre-World War II relationship between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the German madman.

Several going up for auction Aug. 24-27 at Alexander Historical Auctions show that FDR pressured Hitler’s aides to have the fuhrer grant a meeting with three pals, top officials from Standard Oil and Texaco, around the time of the 1936 Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg.

In one, an aide wrote to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop that “in view of Roosevelt's personal interest ... I recommend very strongly that his request should be granted.”

Hitler eventually blew them off, but the memos show the president’s efforts to help his personal friends in their businesses, something that today would be impeachable at the least.

“All three were wealthy oilmen and were very likely considering business arrangements with Hitler — not unlike that made by Standard Oil of New Jersey, which had secret arrangements with the Nazis selling oil through a series of shell companies and third-party traders,” said Alexander President Bill Panagopulos, the nation’s leading auctioneer of historical artifacts.

More Democratic voters favor socialism than capitalism in major shift: Poll

Zachary Halaschak

WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Thu, August 12, 2021,


Democrats have grown considerably more accepting of socialism since the coronavirus pandemic began, according to a new poll.

A survey by Fox News conducted this week found that 59% of Democratic voters hold a favorable opinion of socialism, compared to 49% who said the same of capitalism. Furthermore, 44% of Democrats hold an unfavorable view of capitalism, compared to 31% who view socialism negatively.

The new results are a marked shift from February 2020, when 40% of Democratic voters said they held a favorable view of socialism, compared to half who said the same about capitalism.

Among Republicans, the difference in ideology was stark. Some 67% of GOP voters said they hold a favorable opinion of capitalism, and a mere 8% said they viewed socialism in a positive light.

The poll comes as the House has become imbued with a vocal contingent of socialists and those who support socialist priorities. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York was elected in 2018 after a shocking primary upset and has since championed policies such as "Medicare for All" and the Green New Deal.

Ocasio-Cortez and Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts made waves after entering office, with the self-proclaimed “Squad” having outsize influence within the party and attracting much media attention, at times to the chagrin of party leadership.

Reps. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri, both members of the Democratic Socialists of America, were sworn into Congress after last year’s election.

Republicans have seized on the growing appetite for further-left positions within the Democratic Party and have used it as a cudgel against Democrats more generally and to gin up support for the GOP through anti-socialist messaging.

'Cheering for the mammoth': Scientists retrace the steps of 17,000 year-old animal

More than 17,000 years ago, a woolly mammoth roamed enough of the Alaskan landscape to circle the Earth twice.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

That's according to a new paper from an international team of researchers who retraced the lifetime of one of the extinct ancient Arctic creatures.

The mammoth's story is written in its tusk through tiny isotopes, which are tiny atoms, said Mat Wooller, a paleoecologist at the University of Alaska.

"Isotopes are like a little chemical GPS (global positioning system) recorder," Wooller said.

Looking at the isotopes, researchers analyzed 400,000 microscopic data points in a two-metre long woolly mammoth tusk found in Alaska in 2018. They were able to determine the animal was a male who lived to be 28 years old, he said.

The way the tusk grows makes it easier to analyze, said Clement Bataille, a University of Ottawa researcher who also worked on the project.

Each year, new layers grow on the mammoth's tusk, "as if we you were stacking a bunch of ice cream cones on top of each other," he said.

The isotopes found in the mammoth's tusk were matched with maps created by analyzing the teeth of hundreds of small rodents across Alaska. That data set was then used as a baseline to trace the mammoth's movements across Alaska.

"It's like a video game that helps us reconstruct the possible paths of the mammoth," said Bataille.

"When the mammoth drinks water, the oxygen from this water is transmitted to its tissue and preserved because the tusk is constantly growing and reporting its diet and movements," he added.

Bataille said his team was surprised to learn the mammoth's movements shifted abruptly around the age of 15. Researchers think that's likely when the animal was kicked out of its herd to head out on its own, the same way elephants treat their young.

During that time, the mammoth would sometimes travel 500 or more kilometres over a few months, Bataille said.

"There were some moments where he would just take off."

The researchers learned that the mammoth had a much larger range than expected, covering most of Alaska in its lifetime. They also determined the mammoth had some favourite spots where he would stay put, such as river valleys and tundra plains where food was plentiful, said Bataille.

"At the end, you're just staring at your computer, cheering for the mammoth," he said. "It's almost like being there with him on the landscape."

The mammoth's death at 28 is also a bit of a tragedy, Bataille said, because the animals were known to live into their 80s.

Battaille said its nitrogen isotopes spiked during the final winter of its life, which points to starvation.

Researchers still know very little about woolly mammoths, but the new data provides a baseline for the mammal to be studied more.

"We don't know anything about mammoths. I had all this bias from my kids watching 'Ice Age,'" Bataille said.

"Up until this point, we had very little information about how mammoths moved over the landscape," added Wooller. "It's a big technical leap forward."

He said it's only the beginning of the research into the life history of mammoths. He also wants to find out exactly why the creatures went extinct, a mystery that has puzzled scientists for a long time.

"That is a detective story that scientists have argued about for many years," said Wooller.

The disappearance of mammoths in the past also raises questions about what other species are at risk of extinction now and in the future.

"The climate is changing very rapidly. The Arctic is changing. What in the ecology will influence extinction?" Bataille said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 12, 2021.

---

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

Emma Tranter, The Canadian Press

Alberta keeping COVID-19 measures for another six weeks as cases spike


The Alberta government is walking back its decision to eliminate isolation requirements for people who test positive for COVID-19 after weeks of pressure from local leaders, physicians and families.

NO, SHE IS NOT KENNEY IN DRAG 

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province's chief medical officer of health, said the government will also extend a masking mandate for public transit and continue testing and tracing as cases spike.

All public health restrictions were scheduled to lift on Monday, but will now stay in place for another six weeks.

"We are not going backwards. We are pausing to monitor and assess before taking a step forward,” Hinshaw said Friday.

"If monitoring confirms our original expectations that a rise in cases will not lead to high levels of hospitalizations and we do not see evidence of increased risk for severe disease for children, we will proceed with implementing this next set of changes after Sept. 27."

Hinshaw said an unexpected rise in hospitalizations and emerging data from the United States on pediatric cases linked to the highly contagious Delta variant are reasons for the pause.

Based on internal modelling, Hinshaw said they expected 90 cases in hospital at this time compared with the 143 people currently in hospital — an increase of 62 per cent.

Hinshaw said the initial plan to remove all public health restriction was partly based on evidence from the United Kingdom on the Delta variant, but emerging evidence from the United States shows different outcomes.

"In the U.S., unfortunately, hospitalizations in children have started to rise, most significantly in states with lower overall immunization rates," said Hinshaw, comparing the rates in the United States with the U.K.

"It seems most likely that the reason for the difference between these two settings is the level of adult immunization, which is protective for children by reduced household and other community transmission."

Alberta's adult vaccination rate falls between that of the United Kingdom and poorly performing U.S. states, she said.

Many in the province have expressed concerns about children returning to classrooms in September, especially since those under the age of 12 are not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccines.

"I want to further monitor these trends," said Hinshaw. "I do not share this information to cause alarm.

"To date, we have not seen a similar rise in severe cases in youth here in Alberta. Since July 1, we have only had seven cases in hospital under the age of 18."

Critics of the province's plan have drawn attention to Alberta's limited number of pediatric intensive care beds and the potential for young Albertans to develop serious illnesses such as multisystem inflammatory syndrome, severe COVID-19 pneumonia and long-haul COVID-19 effects.

Alberta currently has the highest active COVID-19 case count in Canada.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 13, 2021.

Alanna Smith, The Canadian Pres

Will the pandemic change Albertans' federal voting habits?

© Canadian Press photos

 Political watchers are wondering if the unpopularity of Premier Jason Kenney and his UCP government will help the election prospects of Justin Trudeau and his federal Liberal party.

With Canadians expected to head to the polls next month, political watchers are wondering if several factors, including the pandemic, will jolt Albertans out of their usual pattern of electing electing federal conservative candidates.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected announce an election for Sept. 20 on Sunday in a bid to secure his Liberals a majority in Parliament. The October 2019 election resulted in a Liberal minority government.

Alberta typically elects MPs on the conservative side of the spectrum. In 2019, all but one of the province's 34 electoral districts were won by candidates from the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).

The Liberals lost their two Alberta seats in Edmonton Centre and Edmonton Mill Woods. The lone outlier was Edmonton Strathcona which elected Heather McPherson from the NDP.

However, several factors may shake up that dynamic in 2021, particularly in Calgary and Edmonton.

The unpopularity of Alberta's United Conservative Party (UCP) government and Premier Jason Kenney may hurt the chances of CPC Leader Erin O'Toole. Kenney has angered people on all sides for doing too much — or not enough — to curb COVID-19 cases in Alberta.

People are frustrated at his government's battle with physicians in rural areas, the controversial K-to-6 curriculum, the loss of $1.3 billion over the Keystone XL pipeline and the ongoing negotiations with Ottawa on an agreement to provide $10-a-day daycare.

The UCP government was caught off-guard by the intense backlash over a since-rescinded decision to open up parts of the Rocky Mountain foothills to coal mining.

Lisa Young, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, is watching to see if the UCP's unpopularity will take votes away from the CPC.

"If the federal Liberals are able to tap into the visceral anger at the provincial government and convert that into people being willing to go out and vote Liberal, then they're potentially able to have some cheap seats change hands," Young said.

The fledgling Maverick Party could also siphon away Conservative votes in rural parts of Alberta.

Then there's the COVID-19 pandemic, arguably the most significant factor of all. The federal government took a prominent role in procuring vaccines and providing economic relief for businesses and individuals whose livelihoods were affected by the pandemic.

© Submitted by United Conservative Party of Alberta Conservative Party of Canada Leader Erin O'Toole joined Alberta Premier Jason Kenney for a session at the UCP's virtual AGM in October 2020.

Young wonders if the stresses of the last 17 months of COVID-19 have inspired a shift in people's attitudes and priorities.

"We have been through such a weird time over the last year and a half," she said.

"Maybe it's a predictable campaign, but there's a lot of simmering anger in different directions ... I think this is potentially one of those elections where the campaign really matters."

The pending election means every party besides the CPC still needs to nominate more than half of its candidates in Alberta.

The Liberals have 13 nominated candidates so far; the NDP have 14 in place.

The Maverick Party has 17 candidates in Alberta. The People's Party of Canada, another party on the right, has 16 candidates so far. The Green Party has five Alberta candidates.

The CPC, Liberals and NDP plan to run candidates in all 34 ridings.
New party targets CPC

The Maverick Party could be a wild card, especially in rural Alberta which consistently elects right-of-centre candidates.

The party is running candidates only in the four Western provinces; 25 are in place now.

Jay Hill, the former CPC MP who is leading the party on an interim basis, says the focus is on ridings where conservative support is large enough to prevent a Liberal or NDP candidate benefiting from vote-splitting on the right.

The 17 Alberta candidates are primarily in rural areas, with a handful in Calgary, Fort McMurray, Red Deer, Grande-Prairie and Medicine Hat.

Hill likens Maverick's regional focus to the role the Bloc Quebecois plays in Parliament.

The party advocates for what it calls a "twin-track" approach to giving Alberta more power. If elected, its MPs would push for a more independent Alberta within the Canadian federation. If that doesn't work, they would advocate separation.

Hill said his party is targeting people who traditionally support the CPC but are frustrated by O'Toole's need to appeal to voters in seat-rich Ontario and Quebec.

"We think that we have a pretty good chance of ... convincing westerners that continuing to vote Conservative or for that matter, any of the federal parties that have to appease and appeal to voters in central Canada, is not the way to go," he said.

"The West has to change and this is a way to constructively change either within Canada or to look at future independence."

Political scientist Young isn't bullish on the Maverick Party's prospects. She said the party wouldn't likely take away enough votes to defeat CPC candidates in the electoral districts they're running in.

"When the Conservatives are getting 70 or 75 or 80 per cent of the popular vote in an electoral district, to lose five or 10 per cent to the Maverick Party really doesn't make any meaningful difference," she said.

Young said the party will also be competing against candidates from the People's Party of Canada, whose leader Maxime Bernier has opposed vaccinations and COVID-19 restrictions.

Calgary in play?

Young is watching whether high-profile candidates can flip two Calgary ridings from Conservative to Liberal.

Calgary city councillor George Chahal is the Liberal candidate in Calgary Skyview, which is currently represented by Conservative Jag Sahota. Calgary Confederation was a close race in 2015 with Conservative Len Webber holding off his Liberal challenger, Matt Grant, by just under 1,600 votes.

Webber, a former Progressive Conservative MLA, is facing Liberal candidate Murray Sigler, a former president of Canadian Airlines and CEO of Sport Calgary.

Calgary Centre is currently held by Conservative Greg McLean. The riding was previously represented by Liberal Kent Hehr but Young is surprised the party isn't running a higher profile candidate this time. Sabrina Grover, a policy and advocacy officer with Nutrition International, was acclaimed by the Liberals in June.

In Edmonton, two ridings lost by the Liberals in 2019 could be in play. Edmonton Centre has regularly flipped between Conservative and Liberal MPs. Former Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault is back for a rematch against Conservative James Cumming, who came out on top two years ago.

Ben Henderson, a 14-year veteran of Edmonton city council, is running for the Liberals in Edmonton Mill Woods against Conservative Tim Uppal. Uppal defeated Liberal cabinet minister Amarjeet Sohi in 2019.

Sohi is running to become Edmonton's mayor in the Oct. 18 municipal election.

#ABOLISHSECONDAMENDMENT 

Florida mom shot, killed by toddler during work Zoom call

A toddler in Altamonte Springs, Fla., shot and killed their mother after getting a hold of an unsecured loaded gun, said local police.

© Global News The outside of a building in Altamonte Springs, Florida is pictured.

The 21-year-old woman, identified as Shamaya Lynn, was engaging in a Zoom work call at the time and the other participants on the call saw the whole incident unfold.

Lynn was on the conference call Wednesday when a loud bang rang out. According to Altamonte Springs police, Lynn fell backward in her chair and a toddler stood in the background.

When Lynn never returned to the Zoom call, a participant called 911.

"Officers and paramedics did their best in rendering aid to Mrs. Lynn, but she was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head," read the police statement. "Investigators determined that the injury was caused by a toddler who found a loaded handgun, which was left unsecured by an adult in the apartment."

While the police didn't clarify the relationship between the child and adult, NBC affiliate WESH reported that the victim was the child's mother. WESH said the gun belonged to the child's father, who also lived in the home.

The toddler who shot the gun was one of Lynn and the man's two young children, reported WESH, and neither child was hurt in the incident. Both of them are now under the care of close relatives.

An investigation is ongoing, and detectives are trying to discern if any charges will be laid against the man who owned the firearm.

"If you own a firearm, please keep it locked and secured," local police officer Roberto Ruiz Jr. said. "Incidents like this could be avoided."

West Kootenay forests may never be the same, says ecologist


Those forests now burning south of Fauquier and Edgewood, and northeast of Winlaw? They’re not coming back.

That’s the stark assessment of Greg Utzig, a Kootenay-based conservation ecologist who has studied how climate change affects forest regeneration for 20 years.

“The forest in some places won’t be back at all, and in other places it will be very different from what is there today,” he told the Valley Voice.

Utzig says the temperate forests of the Arrow, Slocan and Kootenay Lakes areas that locals love are going to be replaced in the next few decades by rock, scrub grass and dust, as a result of human-driven climate change.

It won’t happen all at once, and not everywhere. But by 2080, it will be a very different looking Kootenays.

That’s because the fires burning this year aren’t part of a usual cycle of destruction and forest regrowth, but the signal of a wholesale change in the ecosystem. A change to a climate likely much dryer, and certainly much hotter, he says. One that will far more closely resemble the southwest US, rather than our familiar temperate rainforest.

After the fire

We’re taught that fire is good for a forest. But that’s not completely true, all the time. Fire is certainly a regular part of the natural order, and in places like the East Kootenay the forest has adapted to thrive with fire every few decades.

But Utzig has also studied forests near Revelstoke where there’s no evidence of fire affecting the ecosystem for hundreds of years. So when climate change-driven fires hit those areas, the forest isn’t adapted to it – and that ecosystem doesn’t recover.

The size, frequency and intensity of the fires is also increasing. Trees may not have a chance to regrow to full size before being wiped out again.

That is, if there are seedlings to replace the burned trees in the first place.

“If they’re high intensity fires – which many of them are – because it’s so hot, it kills all the trees so there’s no seed source,” he says. “And so the forest doesn’t come back because there’s no seed.”

With the canopy gone, and hotter-than-usual fires burning deep into the soil, the next generation of trees is being decimated, says Utzig. Those that do survive will wither away in the heat and parched conditions as average temperatures slowly climb 5-7°C in the coming decades.

“They all need water to survive. So there’s incredible competition for water in a year like this, and the ones that don’t make it die,” he says.

Other problems are complicating and reinforcing the destruction. Drought-weakened trees are prey to beetle infestation, killing them and increasing fire fuels; clearcutting reduces ecosystems’ resiliency; extreme weather events mean more blowdowns and lightning to spark fires in the dying woods.

The cycle of destruction continues until there’s nothing left. And all that is happening so fast that traditional forest recovery is impossible.

“So I’m not going to say all these areas are not going to re-forest,” says Utzig. “Some of them will, but the ones that are in the driest sites won’t.”

And the species that do come back won’t be the familiar pine, cottonwood, birch and hemlock either, but ones more adapted to drought conditions and fire.

“It won’t slowly transition,” he says. “A major burn will happen, then we may get two to three years of dry, and those areas won’t come back. Or, if the next two or three years are wet, well, they will come back for a while – until they burn next time.”

Knapweed

So are we looking at an Okanagan-style landscape in the future?

“No, that’s too easy,” says Utzig. “Our models had to go much farther than that to find a similar climate match to where the Interior is heading. And it’s more like southern Idaho, Wyoming, even Nevada.”

So what vegetation will likely replace the fires in those burn areas this year?

“Knapweed,” says Utzig. It doesn’t sound like he’s joking.

Hope

It pays to have a gallows humour if you’re a climate scientist these days. But Utzig bristles at the suggestion there’s nothing that can be done to avoid the climate catastrophe.

“There’s lots of things that could be done,” he says. “The first thing is, we can stop making it worse.

“To say there’s nothing we can be doing is ridiculous. But finding the will to do it: that is the problem.”

Utzig points to the sale of coal from our region for industry as our biggest ‘contribution’ to the greenhouse gas problem. That has to end for the sake of the planet, he says, as do new pipelines and fossil fuel development.

And Utzig says the Province has to change its entire approach to logging to keep ecosystem resiliency at the forefront.

“We could be redirecting forestry harvesting to increase resilience to ecosystems to climate change. We know what kind of treatments need to be done… those came out of our work 10 years ago and nothing has been done.”

The FireSmart program, he says, has to be reimagined to try to save more than homes and infrastructure.

“What I’m talking about is saving ecosystems,” he says. “Its basically changing the way we log to help ecosystems adapt to the changing environment. And that means stopping clearcutting, treating stands to increase the resilience to change – change that has already begun.”

It’s a different kind of logging, and a different kind of forest management that he says is facing stiff opposition from government and industry.

“People worry about people, but the fact is every living thing is being affected by this,” he says of climate change. “And it’s going to come back to bite us.”

Utzig’s theories on managing fire in a changing climate are being tested this summer. SIFCo, the Slocan Valley’s community forest, has been following his recommendations for FireSmarting with an eye to forest regeneration. In several blocks near Winlaw, they’ve been leaving Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir spaced well apart on south slopes that are most prone to fire and the first to convert into grasslands.

The theory is now being tested by the 5,200-hectare Trozzo Creek fire that’s been burning for the last month.

“It’ll be interesting to see how well they did,” he says. “Those areas may have been able to carry the fire without killing the trees.”

But it will take much more work, on many fronts, if Kootenay forests will have a chance of surviving past the next couple of decades.

“The hope is we do what we need to do,” says Utzig. “We need to get on with it, we need to wake up. Change is coming. We have elections coming, we need to put people on the spot and vote accordingly.”

John Boivin, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Valley Voice

#UNIONIZEGOOGLE     #GIGWORKERSUNION

Some Google employees reportedly face a pay cut of up to 25% if they work from home permanently, according to a leaked salary calculator

mcoulter@businessinsider.com (Martin Coulter)

© Provided by Business Insider Details of a new salary calculator has exposed Google's plans to alter pay based on location. Alex Tai/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Google employees who opt to work from home indefinitely could face pay cuts of up to 25%.
An internal salary calculator shared with Reuters showed those with long commutes faced losses.
A spokesperson said the Google's compensation packages had always been 'determined by location.'

Google employees may face a pay cut if they decide to work from home indefinitely, according to a leaked internal salary calculator obtained by Reuters.

The tech giant has appeared broadly supportive of remote workers since the outbreak of COVID-19, and just last week approved almost 10,000 employee requests to work from home. The firm pushed back its planned return-to-office date in light of the rising number of Delta variant cases, from September to October 18.

But according to an internal pay calculator seen by Reuters, some remote employees - particularly those with long commutes - could face pay cuts without changing their addresses.

In one example, Reuters found that an employee living in Stamford, Connecticut - which is an hour's commute from Google's New York office - would be paid 15% less if they worked from home. Meanwhile, a colleague living in New York City would see no cut. In some cases reductions as high as 25% could come from a move away from San Francisco, Reuters reported.

One employee who spoke to the publication said they commuted into Google's Seattle's office from a nearby county and that they faced a pay cut of 10% if they worked from home full time.


They said: "It's as high of a pay cut as I got for my most recent promotion." They added: "I didn't do all that hard work to get promoted to then take a pay cut."

A Google spokesperson told Reuters: "Our compensation packages have always been determined by location, and we always pay at the top of the local market based on where an employee works from."

Insider approached Google for further comment.

In April, Facebook warned some staff may face a pay cut to continue working remotely in more affordable areas.

Jack Dorsey's Twitter has also adopted a similar stance.

Location-based pay is the newest conflict between workers and employers, as remote Googlers face a 25% salary cut

sjones@insider.com (Stephen Jones) 

© Provided by Business Insider Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Employers are mulling pay cuts for remote workers with reduced living costs.

Google, Facebook, and UK government departments have all suggested cutting pay for remote workers.

But with a labor shortage and more workers willing to change jobs, it's not clear many firms will really risk it.

Workers who permanently choose not to commute into the office face a new sting: A pay cut from employers who argue their living costs are lower.

This latest conflict comes after white-collar workers took on employers over returning to the office and (mostly) won, and as employers gear up to mandate vaccines for returning workers.

The pay debate centers on whether those no longer commuting into city centers or other expensive hubs deserve to receive their current wages.

On Wednesday, news emerged that Google employees who work remotely full-time might face a salary haircut of as much as 25%.

And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has indicated that employees looking to "flee to lower-cost cities" could expect to have their compensation adjusted.

In the UK, The Guardian reported that several government departments were mulling whether to remove an approximately £4,000 ($5,500) top-up for civil servants who live in London and faced higher living costs.

The news came the same week UK chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak said working from home could hurt the career of younger workers.

The FDA Union, which represents the UK's civil servants, said the "insulting and cowardly attacks" had caused anger, and underappreciated the roles played by its members - 81% of whom already live and work outside of London.
Is this really the start of a new battle between firms and staff?

There are two sides to every story, and each argument holds its merits.


Video: Google Employees Could Face Pay Cut if They Work Full Time from Home (CBS SF Bay Area)

Companies such as Google and Facebook have invested vast sums in large, fancy campuses and want to see a return on their investment by having employees in the building.

It's also not uncommon for companies to vary pay, with 49% of UK employers already determining salaries by location, according to the Chartered Institute of Professional Development (CIPD).

But workers argue that they shouldn't be penalized for cutting their living costs, and that their employers may make savings in the long term.

It isn't clear how many businesses will risk the fight right now.

More workers are open to reassessing their careers and purpose than ever. During a tight labor market, employers attempting to reassess pay could drive away talent.

Given that it's still early in the days of hybrid work, it would be a rash action to take right now, a CIPD spokeswoman told Insider.

It could also lead to "an employment law minefield for businesses", said Malcolm Gregory, employment lawyer and partner at UK firm Royds Withy King.

"If they want all staff to work from an office, they may face an increase in formal requests to work from home that cannot be ignored. If they offer fully remote working and wish to reduce salaries, they will need to gain consent. That may not always be given."

British staff with protected characteristics under UK employment law - such as age, disability, and pregnancy - who find it difficult to commute could be able to bring claims against their employer.

However Gregory added that US workers could face more aggressive workforce strategies from their employers, due to the fact that most employment is at will.

Legal or HR headaches may be why few companies have cut pay so far.

Neither Google, nor Facebook have actually cut workers' pay. And a spokesperson for UK prime minister Boris Johnson said civil servants would not be punished for continuing to work remotely.

According to CIPD data, just 7% of companies are changing pay to reflect home working or have plans to.

In reality, decisions around pay and location will vary between sectors and businesses - but it will stay a point of public discussion for the foreseeable future.

‘It implies that those who work from home have less value’: How employees feel about salary cuts for not commuting to the office

Kate Ng 

© Provided by The Independent

The government has now lifted its pandemic requirement for people to work from home where possible, instead advising that employees may begin to return to office life. But in recent weeks the push for workers to gradually return to their desks is starting to feel like more of a shove.

According to screenshots seen by Reuters, Google employees could see differences in pay going forward if they work from home long-term. The brand has reportedly introduced an internal pay calculation tool that lets staff work out how their location might affect their wages.

But this isn’t just Silicon Valley. An unnamed senior cabinet minister suggested on Tuesday that civil servants who work at home have had a “de facto pay rise” because they don’t pay commuting costs, adding that this was “unfair” to those who have returned to the office.

Dragon Den’s Touker Suleyman also wrote this week that there was “no excuse” for people without health exemptions to “not to join the march back” as around 75 per cent of UK adults have now been fully vaccinated. He wrote: “If the only way to bring this about is to set one salary for people who work from home, and a higher one for those who come into the office and spend – in some cases – thousands of pounds a year commuting, then so be it."

Employees have hardly rushed back to the office. In fact, data has shown that the number of staff in the office since 19 July has risen marginally to 11.7 per cent, from 11.1 per cent before official guidance changed. But over the course of the pandemic, priorities among office workers have shifted. Research by networking firm Future Strategy Club found that 57 per cent still do not want to return to their 9-5 role, whilst 58 per cent want flexibility in their current role.

People who are forced back to the office will feel like they’ve lost hours with their family each week

Now, employees are questioning the motive behind suggesting pay disparities going forward between people working from home versus working in the office, with many arguing that wages should be determined by the value of one’s work, not their location. And others questioning the legality of changing salaries if job descriptions and workloads stay the same.

Jo Marie O’Reilly, a PR strategist who is currently based in Chester, said it is starting to feel as though some companies are trying to “bully” staff to return to the office. She told The Independent: “Suggesting those who commute into the office should be paid more feels like an attempt to divide the workforce, and imply that those working from home are somehow doing less work or that their work has less value.

“I don’t know a single person who, like me, was plunged into working from home unexpectedly in March 2020, that is desperate to get back to the 9-5 presenteeism of office life,” she said. “I think this pandemic has shown us that another way is possible and that we can and should be judged on the quality of our work and not the hours we spend sitting in a chair.”

Nicole Kow, a marketing consultant who has worked remotely all her working life, agreed: “Some companies [do] make a very good case for why they have pay discrepancies and cost of living is always a big thing, but what if someone decides to move from a rural area to a city? Will companies bump up wages then? What will this conversation look like?

“And I don’t understand this idea of paying someone less because they don’t want to go into an office. If your output and the value you bring to the company doesn’t change regardless of where you work, why should your compensation be impacted?”

Others pointed out that if employers want to strong-arm workers back into the office, the cost of commuting should be taken into account. In pre-pandemic times, London commuters spent an average of £5,114 in travel costs, equivalent to 18 per cent of an average annual London net salary after tax.

I don’t know a single person who is desperate to get back to the 9-5 presenteeism of office life

However, remote workers argue that it isn’t cheaper to be at home because the cost of commuting has been largely redistributed into utilities in the home, such as electricity, heating, water and internet access. As well as any potential adjustments needed to working spaces.

Writer and researcher Chloë Maughan said: “People who work from home are doing the same job and arguably they’re saving their employer money by using their own utilities. I do think there’s another question to ask about whether employers should pay where they’re forcing people to commute.

“The past year has really made the time and cost penalty of commuting feel even more stark. People who are forced back to the office will feel like they’ve lost hours with their family each week.

“This will be on contracts where employees are told their salaries are for 37.5 hours a week, or more, and yet in reality they might be losing an additional five hours plus each week just to get to and from the office at no benefit to them.”

Employers who are considering paying staff differently according to their location have been advised not to by some experts, as this could throw up a myriad of legal issues. Alan Price, CEO of BrightHR, told The Independent: “It is not advisable that employers pay staff less for working from home permanently, even on a hybrid basis, if their role will remain the same as when they were fully office-based – unless the employee agrees to it or their employment contract stipulates that such a thing can be done.”

It is important that employers check their employees’ contracts before making any changes

He explained that a change in pay may be classed as an unlawful deduction in wages if the employee is working the same number of hours and has the same workload, and is held under the same obligations as when they were in the office. Employers may also receive “indirect sex discrimination claims”, given the fact that more women work from home than men, as well as claims of constructive dismissal if an employee is forced to resign due to a pay cut.

"It is important that employers check their employees’ contracts before making any changes,” said Price. “For example, if a person works in a London based office but lives outside of the city, can an employer reduce or remove London weighting?

“If the contract stipulates that the employer can change pay if the employee is living outside of London, then perhaps removing London weighting could be possible. Even then, employers should be careful.

“If staff normally based out of London are paid the same as those in London doing the same work, it wouldn’t be advisable for an employer to enforce a pay reduction.

“On a similar note, if employers give some contractual perks with a financial value to those working in the office which are then removed because of homeworking, they may need to think about offering some compensation for this,” he added

UK

Right-wing columnist says working from home should mean a wage cut – and it hasn’t gone down well

'You are paid for the time you work. You are not paid to commute."

 Have you ever had a job?', wrote one person in response.

 by Joe Mellor
2021-08-12 11:34
in News



Tim Montgomerie has waded into the remote working debate after an unnamed minister suggested people working from home should see their salary docked.

Yesterday it was announced that Google employees could see their pay cut if they switched to working from home permanently in the wake of the pandemic.

It comes after the UK government got itself into another mess over its own policy.

Number 10 was forced to step in after a Cabinet minister suggested officials who insisted on working from home could see their salaries docked.

The reported comments to the Daily Mail provoked fury from trade unions who warned of strike action if the government tried to go down that route.

One person who seems to be very much on the ‘cut their pay’ side of the argument is right-wing columnist Tim Montgomerie.


When the civil servant story broke he tweeted: ” This minister is 100% right. If you want the continued benefit of working from home then don’t expect a salary that was designed for staffers commuting into the office.”

Reactions

Not everyone was thrilled with his comments and made their feelings heard on social media.

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Related: Ministers labelled ‘dinosaurs’ for wanting full-blown return to office

Hydrogen-powered vehicles: A realistic path to clean energy?


CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Each morning at a transit facility in Canton, Ohio, more than a dozen buses pull up to a fueling station before fanning out to their routes in this city south of Cleveland.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The buses — made by El Dorado National and owned by the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority — look like any others. Yet collectively, they reflect the cutting edge of a technology that could play a key role in producing cleaner inter-city transportation. In place of pollution-belching diesel fuel, one-fourth of the agency’s buses run on hydrogen. They emit nothing but harmless water vapor.

Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, is increasingly viewed, along with electric vehicles, as one way to slow the environmentally destructive impact of the planet’s 1.2 billion vehicles, most of which burn gasoline and diesel fuel. Manufacturers of large trucks and commercial vehicles are beginning to embrace hydrogen fuel cell technologies as a way forward. So are makers of planes, trains and passenger vehicles.

Transportation is the single biggest U.S. contributor to climate change, which is why hydrogen power, in the long run, is seen as a potentially important way to help reduce carbon emissions.

To be sure, hydrogen remains far from a magic solution. For now, the hydrogen that is produced globally each year, mainly for refineries and fertilizer manufacturing, is made using natural gas or coal. That process pollutes the air, warming the planet rather than saving it. Indeed, a new study by researchers from Cornell and Stanford universities found that most hydrogen production emits carbon dioxide, which means that hydrogen-fueled transportation cannot yet be considered clean energy.

Yet proponents of hydrogen-powered transportation say that in the long run, hydrogen production is destined to become more environmentally safe. They envision a growing use of electricity from wind and solar energy, which can separate hydrogen and oxygen in water. As such renewable forms of energy gain broader use, hydrogen production should become a cleaner and less expensive process.

Within three years, General Motors, Navistar and the trucking firm J.B. Hunt plan to build fueling stations and run hydrogen trucks on several U.S. freeways. Toyota, Kenworth and the Port of Los Angeles have begun testing hydrogen trucks to haul goods from ships to warehouses.

Volvo Trucks, Daimler Trucks AG and other manufacturers have announced partnerships, too. The companies hope to commercialize their research, offering zero-emissions trucks that save money and meet stricter pollution regulations.

In Germany, a hydrogen-powered train began operating in 2018, and more are coming. French-based Airbus, the world’s largest manufacturer of airliners, is considering hydrogen as well.

“This is about the closest I've seen us get so far to that real turning point,” said Shawn Litster, a professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied hydrogen fuel cells for nearly two decades.

Hydrogen has long been a feedstock for the production of fertilizer, steel, petroleum, concrete and chemicals. It's also been running vehicles for years: Around 35,000 forklifts in the United States, about 4% of the nation's total, are powered by hydrogen. Its eventual use on roadways, to haul heavy loads of cargo, could begin to replace diesel-burning polluters.

No one knows when, or even whether, hydrogen will be adopted for widespread use. Craig Scott, Toyota’s head of advanced technology in North America, says the company is perhaps two years from having a hydrogen truck ready for sale. Building more fueling stations will be crucial to widespread adoption.

Kirt Conrad, CEO of Canton’s transit authority since 2009, says other transit systems have shown so much interest in the technology that SARTA takes its buses around the country for demonstrations. Canton's system, which bought its first three hydrogen buses in 2016, has since added 11. It's also built a fueling station. Two California transit systems, in Oakland and Riverside County, have hydrogen buses in their fleets.

“We've demonstrated that our buses are reliable and cost-efficient, and as a result, we're breaking down barriers that have slowed wider adoption of the technology,” Conrad said.

The test at the Port of Los Angeles started in April, when the first of five semis with Toyota hydrogen powertrains began hauling freight to warehouses in Ontario, California, about 60 miles away. The $82.5 million public-private project eventually will have 10 semis.

Hydrogen fuel is included in President Joe Biden's plans to cut emissions in half by 2030. The infrastructure bill the Senate approved passed this week includes $9 billion for research to reduce the cost of making clean hydrogen, and for regional hydrogen manufacturing hubs.

The long-haul trucking industry appears to be the best bet for early adoption of hydrogen. Fuel cells, which convert hydrogen gas into electricity, provide a longer range than battery-electric trucks, fare better in cold weather and can be refueled much faster than electric batteries can be recharged. Proponents say the short refueling time for hydrogen vehicles gives them an edge over electric vehicles for use in taxis or delivery trucks, which are in constant use.

That advantage was important for London-based Green Tomato Cars, which uses 60 hydrogen fuel cell-powered Toyota Mirai cars in its 500-car zero emission fleet to transport corporate customers. Co-founder Jonny Goldstone said his drivers can travel over 300 miles (500 kilometers) on a tank and refuel in three minutes.

Because drivers' earnings depend on fares, Goldstone said, “if they have to spend 40, 50 minutes, an hour, two hours plugging a car in in in the middle of the working day, that for them is just not acceptable.”

For now, Green Tomato is among the largest operators of hydrogen vehicles in what is still a tiny market in Europe, with about 2,000 fuel cell cars, garbage trucks and delivery vans on the roads.

About 7,500 hydrogen fuel cell cars are on the road in the U.S., mostly in California. Toyota, Honda and Hyundai produce the cars, which are priced thousands more than gasoline-powered vehicles. California has 45 public fueling stations, with more planned or under construction.

Unlike with buses and heavy trucks, experts say the future of passenger vehicles in the U.S. lies mainly with electric battery power, not hydrogen. Fully electric vehicles can travel farther than most people need to go on a relatively small battery.

And for now, hydrogen production is adding to rather than reducing pollution. The world produces about 75 million tons a year, most of it in a carbon emission-creating processes involving steam reformation of natural gas. China uses higher-polluting coal.

So-called “blue” hydrogen, made from natural gas, requires an additional step. Carbon dioxide emitted in the process is sent below the earth's surface for storage. The Cornell and Stanford study found that manufacturing blue hydrogen emitted 20% more carbon than burning natural gas or coal for heat.

That's why industry researchers are focused on electrolysis, which uses electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen in water. Hydrogen mixes with oxygen in a vehicle’s fuel cell to produce power. The amount of electricity generated by wind and solar is growing worldwide, making electrolysis cleaner and cheaper, said Joe Cargnelli, director of hydrogen technologies for Cummins, which makes electrolyzers and fuel cell power systems.

Currently, it costs more to make a hydrogen truck and produce the fuel than to put a diesel-powered truck on the road. Hydrogen costs about $13 per kilogram in California, and 1 kilogram can deliver slightly more energy than a gallon of diesel fuel. By contrast, diesel fuel is only about $3.25 per gallon in the U.S.

But experts say that disparity will narrow.

“As they scale up the technology for production, the hydrogen should come down,” said Carnegie Mellon's Litster.

While a diesel semi can cost around $150,000 depending on how it’s equipped, it's unclear how much fuel cell trucks would cost. Nikola, a startup electric and hydrogen fuel cell truck maker, estimated last year that it would receive about $235,000 for each hydrogen semi it sells.

Clean electricity might eventually be used to make and store hydrogen at a rail yard, where it could refuel locomotives and semis, all with zero emissions.

Cummins foresees the widespread use of hydrogen in the U.S. by 2030, sped by stricter diesel emissions regulations and government zero-emissions vehicle requirements. Already, Europe has set ambitious green hydrogen targets designed to accelerate its use.

“That's just going to blow the market open and kind of drive it,” Cargnelli said. “Then you'll see other places like North America kind of follow suit.”

____

Krisher reported from Detroit. AP Business Writer David McHugh contributed from Frankfurt, Germany.

Mark Gillispie And Tom Krisher, The Associated Press