Workers say employers have been guilty of ghosting them for years

dreuter@insider.com (Dominick Reuter) 

People walk by a Help Wanted sign in the Queens borough of New York City on June 04, 2021 in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Workers have increasingly been "ghosting" employers during the pandemic, according to the Fed

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One reason, they tell Insider, is because employers have been guilty of doing it for years.

While ghosting mostly happens in the hiring process, some employees also have had it happen to them.

For Scott Margot, the promised phone call never came.

For Paul Scherwin, the hiring manager never showed up.

For Matt Murphy, the hours just evaporated from his schedule.

Each was looking to work during the pandemic in industries that have complained about a shortage of workers and an increase in the trend of "ghosting coasting," where new hires simply vanish without notice. Now, these workers say, businesses are getting a taste of their own medicine.

By his telling, Margot did everything right: he schmoozed with a sales and marketing director at a hotel-industry networking event, landed a follow-up interview, and received an invitation to tour the property. He had 20 years' experience in the industry and was told a job was opening soon that he'd be perfect for.

"I thought everything was fine," he told Insider.

At the sales director's instruction, he waited for the job to be listed online and submitted his application as soon as it was posted. A week later he checked the website to find that his application was rejected, and subsequent attempts to understand why were met with voicemail boxes and no reply.

"I'm still looking for a job," he said. "It's scary, this is my career not a job just to get by."

After Scherwin was laid off from his management job last year due to COVID, he told Insider he began delivering packages for FedEx all while applying for five to 10 jobs each month.

"I've been looking for a year now," he said. "I have applied for way too many management jobs for me to count. I still haven't found anything."

In November, he completed two interviews with a company before the listing was pulled without explanation. For another, he called in sick to work in order to make it to an interview, but said the hiring manager never showed up. And two weeks ago, he says he was told that he would hear back within a week about the next interview.

"I'm tired of hearing about the poor companies being ghosted," Scherwin said. "That's far from my real-world experience. It's me, the candidate, that is who's been ghosted."

There are myriad reasons that ghosting is on the rise in the hiring process, not least of which is the expanded use of algorithmically powered screening decisions, as recently documented by Harvard Business School.

An overwhelming majority of employers told the researchers that strict screening criteria in applicant-tracking systems vets out otherwise qualified applicants for high- and middle-skills jobs. And that's before all manner of human factors enter into the hiring process.

But it's not only in the hiring process where workers feel - and are - ghosted. Several workers in industries that have irregular schedules told Insider that it is common for someone to be gradually taken off the calendar without explanation.

Restaurant worker Matt Murphy told Insider that happened to him when he caught COVID-19 and needed several days to recover.

"When I told [my managers] I was ready to go back to work, I didn't get a response," he said.

Like many jobs in the US, restaurant work generally falls under at-will employment, which means that employers can terminate an employee for any reason and at any time.

"A lot of times employees just get their hours cut back, and then eventually just get kind of removed from the schedules," Murphy said.

The phenomenon of workers ghosting on jobs is very real and causing serious disruption in the labor market, but Margot, Scherwin, Murphy, and many more like them view it as a turning of the tables on HR practices that businesses have been guilty of for years.

Expanded Coverage Module: what-is-the-labor-shortage-and-how-long-will-it-last

Read the original article on Business Insider

Service workers saying 'I quit' are pushing up wages and shutting down the tradition of tipping your waiter

insider@insider.com (Juliana Kaplan) 1 hour ago

© Provided by Business Insider Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

More restaurants are forgoing tips and upping wages to attract workers, according to the New York Times.

It's the latest iteration of the labor crunch felt across the economy as workers quit in droves.

It's also bringing tipped wages over the federal minimum wage of $7.25, something Democrats failed to pass.

Nex time you go out to eat, you may pay a service charge instead of a tip. That's because there's a huge labor crunch in the service industry, and employers can't risk the chance their workers get stiffed.

The New York Times' Jane Black reports that, as service workers leave the restaurant industry in droves, and employers attempt to lure them back, some restaurants are doing away with tips altogether. It's yet another way the labor shortage is changing how much - and now, how - workers are paid, as some either take advantage of a hot labor market to switch roles or quit due to burnout and compensation concerns.

One chef interviewed, Jason Hammel of Lula Cafe in Chicago, said that he raised his hourly wages to come in between $18 and $24 - which would be offset by a 20% service charge on all checks. At Hammel's restaurant, any tips that came in on top of that service charge would be split by employees. And, unlike many other anecdotal restaurateurs, Hammel hasn't had issues with hiring new staff.

In the majority of states, service workers can be paid a "tipped wage" - essentially a lower minimum wage meant to take tips into account and bring workers up to the minimum wage through those tips. That rate is just $2.13 an hour, over $5 below the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Seven states are what some activists call "one fair wage" states, meaning that the minimum wage for tipped workers is the same as the minimum wage for all other workers

A February analysis from the National Women's Law Center found that female tipped workers were more likely to be in poverty. In those one fair wage states, the poverty rate for Black tipped female workers was 34% lower than states with the $2.13 wage. And a March report from advocacy group One Fair Wage found that, during the pandemic, tips were down for female tipped workers - but harassment was up.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has been one advocate for ending the subminimum tipped wage. In a March press call for Equal Pay Day, Sanders said: "I know there's a lot of talk about equal pay for equal work. If that's the case, maybe we want to raise the tipped wage."

Sanders led the charge on the Raise the Wage Act, which would have brought the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 and would phase out the subminimum tipped wage. While Democrats failed to advance the measure through President Joe Biden's first stimulus package, the current labor shortage seems to be tackling the restaurant industry's lower minimum wage on its own.

A new analysis from One Fair Wage looks at how wages have changed in restaurants across the country. The report comes as workers quit in record-breaking droves for the fourth month in a row, and employers find themselves hiking pay to try and lure in prospective employees. A recent survey by job site Joblist found that 45% of the respondents leaving the industry were switching out for higher pay.

The One Fair Wage analysis, which spans two weeks, found over 1,600 restaurants with wages at the full - not tipped - minimum wage, with tips on top of that. Those restaurants are in 41 states where, earlier in the year, the "vast majority" of restaurants paid $5 or less.

Now, the average wage is $13.50 - a rate just below the $14 minimum Democrats hoped to set by 2024.

Expanded Coverage Module: what-is-the-labor-shortage-and-how-long-will-it-last

Haaland embraces 'indigenous knowledge' in confronting historic climate change impact

A relentless drought and wildfire season in America's West and a tense standoff over federal leases for oil and gas drilling have been early tests for the Biden administration's climate policy and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold the job and first indigenous member of a White House Cabinet.

"I can't speak for every tribe or even my tribe, but I can make sure that tribal leaders have a seat at the table," Haaland said in an interview with ABC News Live Prime. "Certainly, in this time of climate change bearing down upon us, that indigenous knowledge about our natural world will be extremely valuable and important to all of us."MORE: Tribe member Haaland now heads agency that once oppressed Native Americans

"Indian tribes have been on this continent for millennia, for tens of thousands of years," she added. "They know how to take care of the land … that's knowledge that's been passed down for generations and generations."

WATCH: One-on-one with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. ABC News Live Prime 7 p.m. ET/9 p.m. ET, Wednesday Sept. 22.

© ABC News Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks with ABC News at the Vietnam Women's Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Haaland, a former U.S. representative from New Mexico and one of the first two native women to serve in Congress, is leaning in on her experience as a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe to confront the historic impacts of climate change on communities nationwide.

She leads the agency which manages more than 480 million acres of public lands and a government leasing program that has allowed private energy businesses to tap into valuable natural resources situated on federal property

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© Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and governors about the nation's wildfires, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, June 30, 2021.

Early in his term, President Joe Biden ordered a moratorium of new leases -- with an eye toward discontinuing the program altogether -- in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. The move has made Haaland, who's now conducting a formal review of the program, a target of criticism from the energy industry and Republican lawmakers from states dependent on oil and gas production

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© Leigh Vogel/Pool via Getty Images, FILE

"You said that if you had it your way, and I quote, you'd stop oil and gas leasing on public lands. As secretary, you will get to have it your way," Sen. Steve Daines of Montana charged during Haaland's confirmation hearing earlier this year. The Republican later voted against her nomination.

"It's a pause on just new leases, not existing, valid leases," Haaland responded, explaining the moratorium. Last month, a federal court ordered the Interior Department to resume the leasing program while legal challenges continue.MORE: Haaland makes history as Department of the Interior nominee

"It has the potential to cost jobs here in the United States, good-paying energy jobs," Frank Macchiarola, an energy industry lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute told ABC News. "It has the potential to increase costs for consumers."

Most U.S. oil and gas production occurs on private land, according to the Congressional Research Service. Roughly 9% of American output came from federal lands in 2019, the agency said.

© Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE Chevron signage is displayed in front of a horizontal drilling rig on federal land in Lea County, N.M., Sept. 10, 2020.

Haaland is also helping to lead the federal government's response to historic drought and wildfires fueled by climate change.

Ninety percent of the American West is experiencing "severe" or "exceptional" drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The conditions have ravaged the agricultural industry in nearly a dozen states and forced several to enact mandatory water cutbacks for residents. California, Arizona and New Mexico have also been battling some of the largest and most destructive wildfires in years.

“Drought doesn't just impact one community. It affects all of us, from farmers and ranchers to city dwellers and Indian tribes," Haaland said on a visit to Denver in July. "We all have a role to use water wisely, manage our resources with every community in mind, work collaboratively and respect each other during this challenging time.”

The Interior Department has deployed millions of dollars in federal relief funds and sped recruitment of government firefighters. Last month, Haaland announced a pay raise for those on the front lines.

"We need to think about, you know, does that come down to management? Is that something that we need to reinvestigate how some of these forested lands are being managed? And is there a better way to prepare those forested lands for the next fire season?" said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center, who hopes the worsening drought will lead to a greater review of how federal lands are managed and can best combat drought.MORE: 'Megadrought' in West directly linked to climate change, experts say

Haaland is also overseeing a multi-billion dollar renovation plan for the National Park System; a renewed campaign to improve access to the parks for communities of color; and steps to address longstanding protests by some tribal groups demanding greater control over federal parklands.

© Noah Berger/AP A firefighter lays hose around the Foothills Visitor Center while battling the KNP Complex Fire in Sequoia National Park, Calif., Sept. 14, 2021.

"You have to understand that for there to be any justice or repair on these lands, it has to go back to the roots. And for indigenous peoples on these lands -- it goes back to land theft," said Krystal Two Bulls, director of the Landback movement, which calls for all federal lands to be returned to their original tribes. "This entire so-called country was built on top of -- stolen land by stolen people."

Two Bulls and other Landback organizers argue that tribes are best suited to care for these lands given their deep history and knowledge of the natural world.MORE: To Native Americans, reparations can vary from having sovereignty to just being heard

"Whoever's currently in charge is not protecting these lands, indigenous peoples, that's not what we're about, we're about that relationship to the land," Two Bulls told ABC News. "Native peoples knew how to manage and work with the fire, as a natural element, we knew how to do that."

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland speaks at an event to draw attention and action to sacred sites and Indigenous rights in the U.S., in Washington, D.C., July 29, 2021.

Haaland has said she wants to use that knowledge in her tenure at the Interior Department and to make clear that "those voices are heard."

"Well, we absolutely are listening," she said.

During official travel, she regularly pays homage to her roots; she was known to wear traditional moccasins in the House and donned ceremonial tribal garb for her swearing in with Vice President Kamala Harris. She even addressed senators in the native language of the Laguna Pueblo during her confirmation hearing in the spring.

Debra Haaland testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resource, at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 24, 2021, in Washington.

She also brings a legacy of service to her country; her father served as a Marine for three decades and her mother served in the Navy. Haaland said that she has always had a connection with the outdoors, and recalls spending time outside often with her father, who was an avid fisherman.

"I worked hard, and you know I followed a path, but I also stand on the shoulders of … so many tribal leaders who have come before me," Haaland said. "And so I feel very confident that if it weren't for those people that I wouldn't have had that path to follow."

Deb Haaland, U.S. secretary of the interior, center, sworn in during a ceremony in Washington, D.C., March 18, 2021.

Haaland was confirmed as secretary of the interior by a 51-40 vote in the Senate in March. Once sworn in, she took over the reins at an agency that less than two centuries earlier had a mission to "civilize or exterminate" indigenous people and led the oppressive relocation of Native Americans.

She says that history gave her no hesitation.

"This is our ancestral homeland, this is Native Americans', this is our ancestral homeland. We're not going anywhere," Haaland said. "This is land we love and care about."

INCLUDING CARBON TAX TORIES
Environment groups say all parties now firmly behind strong action on climate change

OTTAWA — Two years ago environment groups applauded the federal election results as a win after almost two in every three voters picked a party with a clear commitment to combating climate change.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Monday's election may have returned almost the same seat counts as the last vote, but environment leaders say from where they sit there is one big distinction.


"Now 95% of Canadians voted for climate action," said Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence.

Only the People's Party of Canada had no climate action in their plan, he said.

The Conservative climate plan in 2019 was widely panned as lacking in both detail and ambition, something Erin O'Toole acknowledged was a weakness. He made a climate plan a priority after he took over the leadership in 2020, releasing a climate plan months ahead of the election that included a form of carbon pricing, reversing more than a decade of Conservative policy that carbon pricing was "a tax on everything."

O'Toole's plan was still less ambitious than the other parties, but it was still a commitment to act, said Isabelle Turcotte, director of federal policy at the clean energy thinktank Pembina Institute.

"Even if we have different benchmarks for progress in different parties and in different groups of Canadians, we do have parties across the board that have proposed stronger climate platforms than 2019," she said.. "And climate action, the path forward was not used as as a wedge issue for political gain. And that is, to me, a win."

Both Gray and Turcotte said there is now zero time to waste, no more time for legal battles over federal jurisdiction, no more time for endless consultations that ultimately drag ambition backwards.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Associated Press before this week's UN general assembly meetings in New York, that the world was "on the verge of the abyss and we cannot afford a step in the wrong direction."

"Hmmm, sounds fairly urgent, no?" Gray said. "We don't have any time."

The next UN climate meeting is scheduled for early November in Scotland, and pressure is mounting for wealthy countries like Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, to amp up both domestic action and global financing to help poorer nations keep up.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to attend that meeting, which was delayed a year by COVID-19.

Gray said Canada is now behind many of its peers on climate action. That includes the U.S., which under President Joe Biden now has higher emission reduction targets than Canada and is spending three times as much per capita on climate initiatives.

In 2015, when Trudeau participated in the Paris climate agreement talks just weeks after his first electoral win, he and his new government's climate policies were viewed quite favourably both inside and outside of Canada. Fast forward six years, and that reputation is tarnished, with Canada's emissions actually higher than they were in 2015, and frustration over the lack of action to curb emissions from the oil and gas sector.

Gray said the Liberal climate platform is finally promising that will change. The biggest ticket promise in the 2021 plan is to cap emissions from oil and gas industries, and then set five year targets to keep lowering those caps, until they get to net zero emissions by 2050.

Net zero means no emissions are added to the atmosphere, with anything produced captured by nature or technology.

But that promise is loose, with no actual caps or targets set, and a vague promise to establish the caps in consultation with the industry. Trudeau has an advantage in that most oil companies in Canada have already promised to get to net zero by 2050.

Gray said there cannot be endless consultations to set those targets.

The Liberals are also promising much stronger regulations to push electric vehicles onto Canada's roads, mandating that by 2030, half of all passenger cars sold will be electric, and by 2035, all of them must be.

Transportation and fossil fuel production were the two biggest drivers of Canada's emissions growth between 2015 and 2019, offsetting the significant gains made by closing coal-fired power plants.

The Liberals submitted stronger targets to the UN in July, moving emissions cuts from 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, to 40 to 45 per cent.

Hitting Canada's new targets, means cutting between 292 million tonnes and 328.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually. That's approximately what would be produced by between 64 million and 71 million passenger vehicles over the course of one year. Canada, for the record, only has 23 million passenger cars on the road currently.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2021.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

Candidates of Colour Dominate New Immigrant-Heavy Ridings

Voters in ridings heavily populated by new immigrants and visible minorities overwhelmingly chose candidates of colour to represent them in the next Canadian Parliament.


An early analysis of yesterday’s election results by NCM showed 19 of the 23 ridings where one visible minority group is dominant either returned or elected MPs whose cultural heritage and origins reflected that of the majority of voters in their area.

In Ontario’s Brampton area, which has the largest South Asian population in the country, all four federal ridings went to the Liberal Party of Canada, which is projected to form a minority government.

Brampton Centre went to Liberal incumbent Shafqat Ali, who won 46 per cent of the vote in the tightest race in the city, beating Conservative candidate Jagdeep Singh.

Liberal MP Maninder Sidhu held onto his Brampton East seat, Liberal MP Ruby Sahota has been re-elected for the third time in Brampton North, while Brampton West was retained by Liberal Kamal Khera.

In B.C.’s Surrey-Newton riding, home to about 60,000 people where more than 60 per cent are South Asian New Canadians, all five candidates for the seat have South Asian heritage.

Liberal incumbent Sukh Dhaliwal beat Conservative Syed Mohsin, New Democrat Avneet Johal, Pamela Singh of the People’s Party of Canada and Independent Parveer Hundal.

Except for Dhaliwal, all the others were first-time candidates for this riding of just 30 square kilometres but among the most diverse in the country.

Markham-Unionville in Ontario and Richmond Centre in B.C are listed by Statistics Canada as having the biggest Chinese-Canadian voting blocs.

The Richmond Centre riding, which has the second-highest population of Chinese-Canadians, has recorded some of the lowest voter turnout in British Columbia over the past decade.

Liberal Wilson Miao, who immigrated from Hong Kong as a child, beat Conservative candidate Alice Wong, who was running for re-election.

In Alberta’s Calgary Skyview, another area with a heavy new immigrant population, Liberal candidate George Chahal defeated Conservative Jag Sahota.

More than 40 of 338 federal ridings in Parliament have populations where visible minorities are the largest voting bloc.

Elections Canada and Statistics Canada records show that compared with established immigrants (those who have lived in the country for 10 years or more) and non-immigrants, new Canadians (those who’ve immigrated to Canada in the previous 10 years) were less likely to vote in general elections.

Many reasons have been put forward to explain this, including the lack of democratic traditions in some regions of the world, the lack of trust in institutions, or differences in political culture. Immigrants from Eastern Europe and East Asia had the lowest voter turnout rates.

In a pre-election interview, Andrew Griffith, a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Environics Institute, said polling data suggests that new Canadians of South Asian heritage have a general tendency to vote for the Liberals or the NDP, while the Conservatives have fairly strong support from Chinese-Canadians.

He said candidates who can address issues pertaining to the homelands of new Canadians will resonate better with ethnic communities.

“Political parties have always taken demographic realities into account when selecting candidates,” he said.

Based on early results, here is how the top 23 ridings where a visible minority group and new Canadians are dominant, voted:

Fabian Dawson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

ECO COLONIALISM



Fighting to Save Coral Reef in One of the World's Most Beautiful Beach Destinations:

 'Let's Go Together' Season 2, Episode 21
Stacey Leasca 5 hrs ago

Travel is not only where we go, but a representation of who we are as people

Though the idea of travel has changed a bit over the last year and a half, it hasn't changed our outlook on how important it is to get out and celebrate both humanity and the greater good.

We're honoring the return of travel — whatever that may look like to you — with new episodes of our podcast, Let's Go Together, which highlights how travel changes the way we see ourselves and the world.

In the first season, our pilot and adventurer host, Kellee Edwards, introduced listeners to diverse globe-trotters who showed us that travelers come in all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life. From the first Black woman to travel to every country on Earth to a man who trekked to Machu Picchu in a wheelchair, we met some incredible folks. And now, in our second season, we are back to introduce you to new people, new places, and new perspectives.

© Courtesy of Cliona O’Flaherty Marine biologist Cliona O'Flaherty is making a huge difference in the waters surrounding Fiji. Here's how you can help.

On this episode of Let's Go Together, Edwards sits down with Cliona O'Flaherty, part of the marine biology team at Kokomo Private Island Resort in Fiji.

"I think eco-travel is the new way to go now," O'Flaherty said. "With everything that's been going on in the world, I think it's made people realize, it's time that everyone needs to do something to give back and there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do that while you're taking a vacation or going on a holiday."

As part of the Kokomo marine biology team, which is based at Kokomo Private Island Resort in the Fiji Islands in the South of Fiji, O'Flaherty works on sustainability projects for the island and helps teach guests about ways they can make a difference.

"Sustainability is a key pillar of Kokomo's operation and it's not just the marine environment and the forest environment per se. It's actually in all corners of the resort," O'Flaherty said. "You can see it in the architecture, in the farm system that we have, in how we have our fishing systems. It's throughout the whole resort and we play a big role in the marine side and what we do there."

Key projects for the resort, O'Flaherty noted, include a massive Kokomo manta conservation project that focuses on conserving and protecting reef manta rays in Fiji. There's also the Kokomo Coral Restoration Project, which aims to protect corals around the shores of Kokomo.

"We also have a mangrove reforestation project and a new turtle project that we just launched, which is working in collaboration with the University of the South Pacific, which is beside us," O'Flaherty said, adding, "the kids club love joining us on those ones helping us water and weed the mangroves."

Ready to hear more about the projects and how you can get involved during a visit, too? Listen to it all on Let's Go Together, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Player.FM, and everywhere podcasts are available.

WHO reiterates warning against Covid boosters for healthy people as U.S. weighs wide distribution of third shots

The WHO strongly opposes the widespread rollout of booster shots, asking that wealthier nations instead give extra doses to countries with minimal vaccination rates.

The U.S. has already administered over 2 million boosters nationwide, according to the CDC.

An advisory panel to the FDA unanimously recommended boosters on Friday for anyone 65 and older.

© Provided by CNBC World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference in Geneva Switzerland July 3, 2020.

Robert Towey 18 hrs ago

World Health Organization officials repeated their protests Tuesday against Covid-19 booster shots for the general public, even as the U.S. readies this week to authorize their distribution across a wide swath of America.

The WHO strongly opposes the widespread rollout of booster shots, asking that wealthier nations instead give extra doses to countries with minimal vaccination rates. The U.S. has already administered over 2 million third doses nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended boosters on Friday for anyone 65 and older.

"What WHO is arguing is that booster doses in the general population, who had wide access to vaccines, who have already been vaccinated, is not the best bet right now," Dr. Mike Ryan, director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said during a live Q&A aired Tuesday on the organization's social media channels.

Ryan reiterated the WHO's support for third doses administered to the elderly, medically vulnerable people and anyone needing an immune system boost after a full Covid vaccine regimen. He reiterated the organization's calls for a moratorium on booster shots through the end of the year to give nations enough time to immunize at least 40% of their populations against Covid.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sept. 14 that most countries with under 2% vaccination coverage are in Africa, where less than 3.5% of the continent's eligible population is fully inoculated against Covid. Africa will likely miss the WHO's target of a 10% vaccination rate by the end of the year, Tedros added.

But in the U.S., where almost 55% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, the FDA is expected to issue formal guidance on Pfizer's boosters before the CDC holds its two-day meeting on the shots on Wednesday and Thursday.

An FDA advisory committee rejected a proposal Friday to recommend boosters for all Americans over 16, citing concerns about insufficient data and the potential for myocarditis. The group, instead, narrowed that plan, endorsing third doses for people 65 and over and other medically vulnerable people.

World leaders further discussed the global vaccination effort at a meeting Tuesday of the United Nations General Assembly. President Joe Biden will hold a Covid summit Wednesday to encourage international dignitaries to help improve global vaccine distribution, noting in a speech to the General Assembly that the U.S. had donated more than 160 million Covid vaccine doses to the cause.

"It's a real moment of truth," Ryan said. "We, as a world, are getting another chance, chances we haven't taken before, to focus on vaccine equity."

DENOUEMENT

‘Anti-vax’ billboard on ‘funeral home’ truck goes viral

Apparent anti-vax billboard on the side of a truck in Charlotte, North Carolina. Credit: AP

Published :September 22, 2021 8:57 AM EDT

CHARLOTTE, NC (CBS)

An apparent anti-COVID-19 vaccine digital billboard had Charlotte residents and social media buzzing Sunday afternoon. But it wasn’t anti-vaccine at all. Quite the opposite.

The billboard was on the side of a truck being driven around uptown Charlotte as thousands walked the streets during Sunday’s Carolina Panthers game at Bank of America Stadium.

The message featured simple white lettering on a black background and read, “Don’t get vaccinated.” Under it was the name “Wilmore Funeral Home.” It also included a web address for WilmoreFuneralHome.com. But the funeral home doesn’t exist.

The billboard was the brainchild of David Oakley, owner of the BooneOakley advertising agency, which went public about it in a tweet:


He spoke to CBS Charlotte affiliate WBTV about why he wanted to have the provocative message on people’s lips.

While at first glance, the billboard may have appeared to be an anti-vaccination plug, Oakley maintains it was meant to carry a pro-vaccine message.

“A lot of the advertisements that you see right now for pro-vaccine are very simple like, ‘get the shot’, ‘get vaccinated’. It’s very simple. We wanted to do something that saw things from a different perspective,” he said.

“The idea came about when we thought about who would really benefit from people not getting the shot and you kind of go back to the simple fact that people are dying that aren’t vaccinated, so who benefits from people dying? A funeral home!” Oakley explained.

He said the faux funeral home is named for the neighborhood where his business is located.

But while the Wilmore Funeral Home isn’t real, WilmoreFuneralHome.com is very much a real website. It features the same black background with white lettering. The website’s message reads, “Get vaccinated now. If not, see you soon.”David Oakley, owner of BooneOakley ad agency in Charlotte.
Credit: WBTV

The message links to the website for StarMED Healthcare, a company that’s helped to vaccinate thousands of people in Charlotte.

Chris Dobbins, Chief Relations and Response Officer for StarMED, sent WBTV a statement about the company’s website being linked to the digital billboard:

“StarMED Health has and will continue to administer and support COVID Testing, Vaccinations, and Antibody Therapy in response to this ongoing Pandemic. While we recognize there are varying opinions and different types of media messages, we support all efforts to educate and motivate our community to prevent and stop the spread of this virus.”

WBTV asked Oakley if he was worried his edgy messaging might rub some people the wrong way.

“I was a little bit worried before we started, but when I really think about it, if this advertisement gets one person vaccinated, it was worth it,” he replied.

A photo of the billboard truck went viral on Twitter Sunday. Thousands of people retweeted the image.

Garrett Crenshaw, owner of Crenshaw Visions, owns the digital billboard truck Oakley paid to use. Crenshaw’s business’s phone number is displayed on the vehicle. He said he’s received nearly 200 phone calls because of the vaccination message on the truck.

“(Oakley) told me that it might cause some attention. I was like, “You know, as long as it doesn’t go against our morals as a company then we’re fine,” and I knew the underlying messages of it that he was trying to get so we were good to go with it,” said Crenshaw.

Oakley said he and his team are proud of the billboard and he hopes it will ultimately lead to more people getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

“I think any advertisement that is provocative is going to create a dialogue and when you get people talking, people have action and I’m hoping that the action is people will get the shot because of this,” he remarked to WBTV.

Elvira's Cassandra Peterson Reveals 19-Year Relationship With a Woman: 'I've Got to Be Truthful'

Cassandra Peterson — known to most as horror hostess Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, since the early 1980s — is finally coming out into the light.

© Provided by People John Sciulli/Getty

Dan Heching 13 hrs ago

Peterson released her first memoir on Tuesday, and in it, she discusses her 19-year relationship with another woman named Teresa "T" Wierson, who started off as her gym trainer.

Titled Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark, the book recounts how Peterson, now 70, first noticed a "dark and brooding" trainer years ago at Gold's Gym in Hollywood — someone she thought was male.

RELATED: Cassandra Peterson Brings Back Elvira in New Music Video for 'Don't Cancel Halloween'

"Often, when I was doing my preworkout warm-up on the treadmill, I couldn't help noticing one particular trainer — tan, tattooed, and muscular — stalking across the gym floor, knit cap pulled so low over his long brown hair that it nearly covered his eyes," she wrote.© John Sciulli/Getty Cassandra Peterson — aka Elvira, Mistress of the Dark — is opening up about her almost two-decade romance in her new memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark

"A typical sexy bad boy, he was unaware he was so charismatic that he'd garnered his own unofficial fan club. Watching him from the safety of my treadmill made my heart beat faster and the time pass much more quickly."

Soon, however, the Elvira's Movie Macabre hostess discovered that the charismatic trainer was indeed a woman after running into her in the ladies' room. From there, she said a friendship began.

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RELATED: It's Elvira! The Mistress of the Dark Reveals Her Favorite Horror Movies

"A former body-builder, track runner, and cyclist, she was an incredibly sweet person, despite her tough exterior," Peterson wrote of Wierson. "She had the ability to make something even as mundane as working out fun, and we trained together three times a week for the next six years, striking up a close friendship along the way."

Years later, however, things evolved when Wierson showed up on Peterson's doorstep during a tough time and ended up moving in.

After Peterson divorced her husband Mark Pierson and embarked on raising their daughter Sadie on her own, she found that "instead of being a burden, having [Teresa] around was a huge relief."


"Evenings were spent with all of us laughing, cooking, singing, and dancing around the kitchen while she helped me prep dinner," Peterson added, going on to detail how they took their relationship to the next level.


"...After coming home from a movie, I told her goodnight and suddenly felt compelled to kiss her — on the mouth. As shocked as she was, I think I was even more surprised," Peterson recalled.

"What the hell was I doing? I'd never been interested in women as anything other than friends. I felt so confused. This just wasn't me! I was stunned that I'd been friends with her for so many years and never noticed our chemistry. How could I have missed it? Was it the male energy she exuded that attracted me? Her intense green eyes? Or just my own loneliness?"

Nevertheless, Peterson "soon discovered that we connected sexually in a way I'd never experienced, and after a while it became clear I was falling in love with this beautiful, androgynous creature who'd appeared on my doorstep, like an angel, just when I needed someone most."

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Now, decades later, the woman behind Elvira is happy to tell the story of her longtime love out in the open.

"As Cassandra, it wouldn't have mattered to me that people knew about our relationship, but I felt the need to protect Elvira in order to keep my career alive. Elvira has always had a thing for men, and men have a thing for her, so I worried that if I announced I was no longer living the 'straight life,' my fans would feel lied to, call me a hypocrite, and abandon me," she reasoned.

"Would my fans hate me for not being what they expected me to be? I'm very aware that there will be some who will be disappointed and maybe even angry, but I have to live with myself, and at this point in my life, I've got to be truthful about who I am."

Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark is out on bookstands now from Hachette Books.

  

Watch Brian and Stewie from ‘Family Guy’ Explain the Vaccine
Philip Ellis 2 hrs ago

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is doing his part to raise vaccine awareness by having his famous characters do the talking in a new PSA. The short film, released on Monday, begins with Peter Griffin visiting the doctor's office accompanied by Brian and Stewie, and expressing some uncertainty over whether or not to take the Covid vaccine.

Stewie then whips out his teleportation device and transports himself and Brian directly into Peter's bloodstream, where he launches into an explanation of exactly how vaccines work, both in general, and in relation to Covid, using some in-universe humor (for instance, the Covid spike protein resembles the frequently maligned Meg Griffin).

The PSA was created in partnership with The Ad Council's It's Up To You initiative, which aims to educate viewers about the virus.

"With millions of Americans still unsure about getting vaccinated against COVID-19, it's more important than ever that we have smart, informative and entertaining messages like this that will boost confidence in the vaccines," said Ad Council CEO Lisa Sherman. "This new work from Seth MacFarlane and the team at Family Guy is bringing critical vaccine information to audiences in a fresh and hilarious way that will surely inspire people to take the next step in slowing the pandemic. We are grateful to our partners at Disney and Fox for their passion and collaboration at this pivotal moment in time."

© Fox Seth MacFarlane wrote a short 'Family Guy' episode in which Stewie and Brian explain how the Covid vaccines work and why it's important to get vaccinated.

Richard Appel and Alec Sulkin, executive producers on the long-running animated sitcom, stated: "We were proud to work with some of the nation’s leading immunologists and epidemiologists on this PSA. And while we never understood a single note they gave us, we took them all."