Inspiration for the movie 'The Exorcist' has been identified as former NASA engineer

The boy who provided inspiration for the movie ‘The Exorcist’ has been identified as a former NASA engineer who died last year at the age of 85.

Ronald Hunkeler and William Bowdern.

Relatives say Ronald Edwin Hunkeler, who was previously known only as Ronald Doe, underwent exorcisms in Cottage City, Maryland, and in St. Louis, Missouri in 1949, as a 14-year-old.

A NASA engineer for 40 years, Hunkeler contributed to the the Apollo missions in 1960s and even patented a technology that allowed space shuttle panels to tolerate excessive heat.

PUBERTY PRODUCES POLTERGEIST PHENOMENA

When he was a teenager, family members reported noticing strange phenomenon in Hunkeler’s wake, according to the magazine Skeptical Inquirer. As he moved across a room, chairs around him scattered, Hunkeler’s family minster wrote to the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University. His bed, claimed Rev. Luther Schulze, rattled when he lay down on it.

The family floor was “scarred from the sliding of heavy furniture” and, at one point, a chair “threw him out,” the letter said.

Schulze’s letter describes seeing a framed picture of Jesus Christ on the wall tremble in Hunkeler’s presence.

Priests carry out exorcisms via cellphone thanks to internet access and booming demand

World's top exorcist saw the Devil in Harry Potter, yoga, and thousands of middle-aged, middle-class women

The boy’s mother worried the frightening spells were related to his recently deceased Aunt Tillie, a spiritualist who showed him how to used an Ouija board to communicate with otherworldly spirits, according to the podcast The Devil in the Details.

Hunkeler would live his life in fear that his NASA colleagues may discover the movie ‘The Exorcist’ was based, in part, on his life, a companion told the New York Post.

“On Halloween, we always left the house because he figured someone would come to his residence and know where he lived and never let him have peace,” she said. “He had a terrible life from worry, worry, worry,” she added.

After a series of medical and psychological tests failed to find anything out of the ordinary, his family appealed to religious elders.

“The family was Lutheran and they went through all the stages you see in the film: They went to doctors, clinics and finally went back to their own pastor in the Lutheran church, who recommended they see a priest,” William Friedkin, director of the Exorcist, told Entertainment Weekly in 2012.

Eventually, they sought the help of William Bowdern, a Jesuit who would perform at least 20 exorcisms on the teen in a span of three months. Bowdern’s diary describes the boy entering a trance-like state in front of more than dozen witnesses during one exorcism.

It says his mattress started shaking while there was the sound of a “scratching which beat out a rhythm as of marching soldiers.

“(A) second class relic of St. Margaret Mary was thrown on the floor,” it goes on to say. “The safety pin was opened but no human hand had touched the relic. R. started up in fright when the relic was thrown down.”

© Wikimedia Alexian Brothers Hospital. Wikimedia

Hunkeler was eventually taken to St. Louis, to expel the evil spirits said to inhabit him.

“On one evening the word ‘Louis’ was written on the boy’s ribs in deep red [scratches]. Next, when there was some question of the time of departure, the word ‘Saturday’ was written plainly on the boy’s hip,” wrote Bowdern. “As to the length of time the mother and boy should stay in St. Louis, another message was printed on the boy’s chest, ‘3 1/2 weeks.’ The printing always appeared without any motion on the part of the boy’s hands. The mother was keeping him under close supervision.”

In March 1949, Hunkleler was admitted to the Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis, where, consumed in one of his fitful spasms, he broke a priest’s nose.

Less than a month later, according to the podcast The Devil in the Details, Hunkeler claimed he saw St. Michael holding a flaming sword in a vision and that he was free of the devil.

© File The Exorcist.

“In all except the last of these (exorcisms), the boy broke into a violent tantrum of screaming, cursing and voicing of Latin phrases – a language he had never studied – whenever the priest reached the climactic point of the ritual, ‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I cast thee (the devil) out,’” a 1999 Washington Post article quotes Father Raymond Bishop, a Catholic priest, as saying.

The priest kept a diary of events on which the author William Peter Blatty would base his 1971 horror novel.

Hunkeler’s companion told the Post he was not religious and had later admitted to her that he was never actually demented.

“He said he wasn’t possessed, it was all concocted,” said the companion. “He said, ‘I was just a bad boy’.”

But, she said, something occurred shortly before his death last year that she couldn’t account for.

A Catholic priest arrived at Hunkeler’s door to perform last rites, she told the Post, adding that she hadn’t called for him.

“I have no idea how the Father knew to come,” she said, “but he got Ron to heaven. Ron’s in heaven and he’s with God now.”

Scientists discover microplastics in 'pristine' Pyrenees mountain air

Amanda Kooser

Humanity's obsession with plastics has consequences. Microplastics -- tiny plastic fragments that often come from products like packaging, clothing or cosmetics -- have been found everywhere from the deepest ocean to near the top of Mount Everest. Microplastics have now been discovered in what was thought to be "pristine" mountain air in the French Pyrenees

.

This is the intake for a fine particle pump located at the Pic Du Midi Observatory in the French Pyrenees. Jeroen Sonke

"While posing no direct threat, its presence far from sources of pollution is nonetheless surprising," the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said in a statement on Tuesday.

An international team of researchers analyzed air samples gathered at the Pic du Midi Observatory, which sits perched atop a mountain at an altitude of 9,440 feet (2,877 meters). They found microplastics -- mostly polystyrene or polyethylene -- that likely originated from packaging that's broken down. Polyethylene, for example, is often used for plastic wrap, bags and bottles.

The team published a paper on the findings in the journal Nature Communications this week. The study seeks to understand how airborne microplastics travel.

It seems the Pic du Midi plastics weren't coming from close by. "Mathematical models of air mass trajectories used by the scientists indicate that the particles originated in Africa, North America, or the Atlantic Ocean, which indicates intercontinental atmospheric transport of microplastic," CNRS said. The science team called for more research into how the plastic particles are reaching remote areas.

From the Mariana Trench to the highest mountains, it may be there are no more truly pristine places left.

KENTUCKY

9 days after tornado, cat found in rubble of building

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Nine days after a tornado demolished his three-story office building in downtown Mayfield, Kentucky, Sonny “Hoot” Gibson was standing in the rubble when he thought he heard a faint meow.

It instantly gave him hope that his office cat, Madix, who hadn't been seen since before the storms hit, was alive. Gibson said he had tried to find the solid black cat with yellow eyes that liked to greet customers of his rental business, but had given up after a few days.

“I don't know how anything could’ve survived not just the tornado but the destruction that came along with it,” he said.

Gibson was standing in the rubble Sunday afternoon when he heard the faint noise.

“I thought I heard a meow, and I thought my mind’s playing tricks on me so I hollered his name out, and he meowed again,” Gibson said.

The noise was stifled and he couldn't locate Madix immediately so he called some employees who came to help search. Soon after, they found the cat in a hole beneath the rubble.

“It was just an incredible feeling to put him in my arms," Gibson said. “If cats actually have nine lives, he probably used up about eight of them in that nine-day period.”

Other than being very hungry and thirsty, Madix was unscathed. Gibson said he took Madix home, where he will live out the rest of his days as a house cat.

Gibson said the story of Madix the survivor is becoming popular around the town of Mayfield, where a long-track tornado demolished huge parts of the community.

“It’s a blessing for people to hear the story so they can take that and realize that great things can come out of terrible situations. If it's uplifting to one person, then Madix has served his purpose on this planet.”

Rebecca Reynolds, The Associated Press

SHOOTING THE MESSANGER

Google CEO blames employee leaks to the press for reduced 'trust and candor' at the company

insider@insider.com (Isobel Asher Hamilton) 
\

 Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet. 

REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

Google's CEO addressed a staff concern that the company has become less honest with employees.
Pichai said trust has to go both ways, referring to employees leaking information to the press.

The pandemic and the Google's size resulted in answers from management feeling "canned" he added.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai was confronted with an employee question earlier this month asking whether Google plans to more honest and direct with its staff.

CNBC obtained audio from an end-of-year all-hands meeting hosted by Google CEO Sundar Pichai earlier this month. During the meeting Pichai read out an employee question which had been submitted via the company's internal system Dory.

The question was: "It seems like responses to Dory have gotten increasingly more lawyer-like with canned phrases or platitudes, which seem to ignore the questions being ask [sic]. Are we planning on bringing candor, honesty, humility and frankness back to Dory answers or continuing down a bureaucratic path?"

Google employees are able to vote on questions submitted through Dory, and per CNBC the question received 673 votes.

Pichai appeared to blame leaks to the press as one reason why speakers' answers at meetings might seem artificial.

"Sometimes, I do think that people are unforgiving for small mistakes. I do think people realize that answers can be quoted anywhere, including outside the company. I think that makes people very careful," he said.

"Trust and candor has to go both ways," Pichai added.

Pichai also said the company's massive size and the pandemic forcing meetings to be held virtually were contributing factors.

"I've noticed more people reading off screens during the pandemic and so I think some of it contributes to answers feeling canned," Pichai said. "I think people are always nervous to answer in this setting," he added.

Per CNBC, Pichai said the concern raised was "good feedback."

Google has faced widespread employee discontent before the pandemic. In 2018 over 20,000 Google employees staged a walkout in protest against the company's handling of sexual harassment.

Google employees formed their first-ever union in January of this year. The union called on the company to change how it handles sexual misconduct claims in July.

Sri Lanka will use tea to pay off its $251 million oil debt to Iran
insider@insider.com (Carla Mozée) 

Tamil women pick tea leaves in the highlands of Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka.

 Getty Images

Sri Lanka reached an agreement to send tea to Iran to settle a $251 million oil debt, according to reports.

Sri Lanka wasn't able to pay the debt via other means as US sanctions prohibit dealings with Iranian banks.

But Sri Lanka said its tea-barter plan does not violate UN or US sanctions against Iran.

Sri Lanka will send tea to Iran to clear its debt for past oil imports, with the south Asian country turning to the commodity as a payment method in the face of shrinking foreign reserves and sanctions on Iran, according to news reports Wednesday.

Representatives from the two countries on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding that stipulates Sri Lanka will settle $251 million in oil import dues to Iran by bartering tea, the Tehran Times reported, citing Iran's Trade Promotion Organization.

Sri Lanka plans to send $5 million worth of tea to Iran each month until the debt is settled, said Ramesh Pathirana, head of Sri Lanka's plantation ministry, according to a BBC News report.

State-run Ceylon Petroleum Corp. has a $250.9 million debt to the National Iranian Oil Co. Sri Lanka wasn't able to settle the debt through other means as US sanctions prohibit dealings with Iranian banks, but the country said the new arrangement will not violate US or UN sanctions,

Tea "has been categorized as a food item under humanitarian grounds while none of the black-listed Iranian Banks will be involved in the equation," said Pathirana, according to the news site EconomyNext.

The barter agreement also comes as Sri Lanka is undergoing severe financial stress. It's facing a fall in foreign-exchange reserves against high external debt payments and limited financing inflows, Fitch Ratings said last week in downgrading Sri Lanka's sovereign rating to CC from CCC. The downgrade reflects Fitch's view that Sri Lanka, which is among the world's top tea producers, has an increased probability of a default event in the coming months.

The country's foreign exchange reserves have dropped by roughly $2 billion since August, to $1.6 billion at end of November, or the equivalent to less than one month of current external payments, said Fitch. The ratings group said Sri Lanka faces foreign-currency debt service payments of $6.9 billion in 2022.

The country's external finances are also challenged in part by a slide in remittances and the blow dealt by the coronavirus pandemic to the economy, as tourism is a key driver, said Fitch.
Read the original article on Business Insider

DOESN'T REPLACE SEX ED & FREE BIRTH CONTROL

After SCOTUS hearing, a new look at baby 'safe haven' laws

PHOENIX (AP) — For years, Nicole Olson had longed for a baby and gone through a rigorous and emotional adoption process. Then Olson and her husband got a call asking if they'd like to adopt a newborn. That day. As soon as possible

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The baby had been relinquished through what’s known as a safe haven law. Such laws, which exist in every state, allow parents to leave a baby at a safe location without criminal consequences. The laws began to pass in state legislatures in the early 2000s in response to reports of gruesome baby killings and abandonments, which received copious media attention. Infants are at the highest risk of being killed in their first day of life, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Olson rushed to a Target, filled four carts with baby stuff and was home with the newborn boy by dinnertime. Ten years later, the baby Olson and her husband, Michael, named Porter is thriving. He's athletic, funny and has adjusted well after a rough time during the pandemic, Olson said.

Safe haven laws drew attention this month when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised the role they play in the debate around abortion rights. Barrett made the comments during a hearing this month on a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy — and possibly upend abortion rights established by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion throughout the United States, and upheld by the court's 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Barrett, with a long record of personal opposition to abortion, zeroed in on a key argument against forcing women into parenthood, suggesting safe haven laws address those concerns. “Why don’t the safe haven laws take care of that problem?” she asked.

Julie Rikelman, the attorney arguing against the Mississippi law, rebutted that argument, saying abortion rights are not just about forced motherhood but about forced pregnancy.

“It imposes unique physical demands and risks on women and, in fact, has impact on all of their lives, on their ability to care for other children, other family members, on their ability to work. And, in particular, in Mississippi, those risks are alarmingly high,” said Rikelman, of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

In a traditional adoption, a family knows who the mother is. They have her medical history and often keep a relationship with her.

That’s what Olson, a Phoenix-area high school teacher, was expecting when she and her husband worked with a private agency after years of trying other routes. Their son, Paul, who was 7 years old at the time, was also eager for a sibling.

But when they met their newborn, the couple didn’t know his exact date of birth, his race, or any pertinent medical information.

“We didn’t really know what we were walking into. It’s just one of those things where it’s a total leap of faith,” Olson said. “But I feel like that’s true of any child, whether it’s your biological or adopted.”

It’s hard to find critics of safe haven laws, and advocates say if they save even one baby from being killed, they are worthwhile.

But some question their efficacy.

Adam Pertman, president and CEO of The National Center on Adoption and Permanency, said the laws' effectiveness, including in preventing death, aren’t studied enough.

“It’s flawed from the get-go because a woman who would put her kid in a trash can is not instead going to see a sign and say ‘Oh I’ll go to the police station instead,’” he said, adding that a woman in that situation is “not cogent enough to make a decision, or she wouldn’t put her kid in the trash can.”

Pertman said safe haven laws don’t address the needs a woman might have if she were in such a crisis that she’d hurt her child, nor do they provide resources for someone in need.

Pertman says further restricting abortion access, or overturning Roe v. Wade altogether, could result in more children being left at safe havens and not adopted the traditional way — with medical background and thorough health information.

There isn’t a national database that tracks the number of babies turned over through safe haven laws, but the National Safe Haven Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes the laws and provides resources to parents in need, collects figures from most states each year.

Slightly over 4,000 babies have been surrendered since the first law took effect in 1999, according to both the organization and the CDC, which put out a report in 2020.

The CDC found that a majority of infant homicides that take place on the day of birth are committed by young, unmarried mothers with lower education levels who had not sought prenatal care, and that they’re often associated with a hidden, unplanned pregnancy and with giving birth at home.

The study found that the overall infant homicide rate was 13% lower in the years since safe haven laws were adopted nationwide. The study compared data from 1989 to 1998 to data from 2008 to 2017. Every state had adopted safe haven laws by 2008.

The number of babies killed during their first day of life dropped by nearly 67%, according to the study. But most homicide victims were too old to have been relinquished under safe haven laws at the time of their deaths. In 11 states and Puerto Rico, only infants who are 72 hours old or younger can be relinquished to a designated safe haven, while 19 states accept infants up to 1 month old, and other states have varying age limits in their statutes.

The CDC recommends that states “evaluate the effectiveness of their Safe Haven Laws and other prevention strategies to ensure they are achieving the intended benefits of preventing infant homicides.”

A vast majority of child welfare advocates praise safe haven laws, saying they keep babies alive and safe when a birth parent isn’t able to care for them. The babies are adopted quickly, rarely going through foster care.

But many caution that safe haven placement as an alternative to abortion is flawed: It doesn’t consider the health and economic risks a woman faces in pregnancy, nor does it account for the risks of childbirth in the nation with the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries.

Olson helps with an organization that advocates for safe haven laws and hopes more people learn about them.

“The biggest message I’ve been trying to send out is when you have a desperate situation, somebody will be there to help," Olson said.

___

Galván writes about issues impacting Latinos in the U.S. for the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter.

Astrid Galvan , The Associated Press

Chile's tattooed president-elect honors homeland in ink

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — When Gabriel Boric is sworn in as Chile's president he'll not only be the youngest to lead the South American country but also the first in Latin America to sport several tattoos.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The question is whether he'll openly display them.

One person hoping he does is Yumbel Góngora, the self-proclaimed “tattoo dissident” who inked the three elaborate designs that fill Boric's arms and back with sweeping imagery from his native Patagonia region.

“It's important that a person never forgets their roots. That always keeps you focused on where you are and what’s important ... not get lost in the fame,” Gongora told The Associated Press while taking a break at her parlor in downtown Santiago decorated with artwork containing feminist slogans.

Boric, 35, scored a historic victory in Sunday's runoff over a one-time admirer of Donald Trump after campaigning on a promise to attack the nagging poverty and inequality that he and leftist supporters argue is the unacceptable underbelly of a free market model imposed decades ago by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Since his days as a student protest leader, Boric has made a career of flouting conventions. He shunned the traditional suit and tie when he was elected to congress in 2014 and instead wore rock band T-shirts, jeans and once even a Mohawk, all the while drawing the ire of traditionalists.

“I couldn't care less,” he said at the time, dismissing the conventions as “a tool of the elites to distinguish themselves from the low people.”

But he adopted a decidedly more conformist look in the run up to Sunday's runoff election — still no tie, but a dark sport coat, dress shirts and well-groomed beard — to court more conservative Chileans on edge about voting for an untested millennial who counts among his supporters Chile's Communist Party.

Góngora said she studied old maps of Chile for months in coming up with the first tattoo she designed for Boric nearly a decade ago: a map of the ice-capped islands and labyrinthine fjords near where both grew up in Punta Arenas, at the tip of the South American continent.

Later, she designed two more: a lenga tree twisted into knots by the strong southern winds and an end-of-world lighthouse shining into emptiness that Boric had carved into his left arm during a battle with depression.

“A lonely Magellan lighthouse among the stormy and mysterious seas of southern Patagonia,” Boric said in a 2018 social media post showcasing Góngora's body art. “I'm going to live there one day but in the meantime it lives with me.”

Góngora, whose dyed green hair, piercings and tattoos are something of a walking advertisement for her university-trained artistry, said Boric always stood out among her urban hipster clientele because of his humility — something she attributes to his upbringing far from the capital.

But she felt betrayed by her fellow activist when in November 2019 he negotiated a deal with allies of President Sebastian Pinera to put an end to nationwide protests in exchange for a commitment to hold a plebiscite on rewriting the Pinochet-era constitution. It was a risky political decision that at the time cost Boric the support of hardliners like Góngora, who identifies as a “anarchist-feminist.”

Like huge numbers of often apathetic Chilean youth, she nonetheless voted for Boric in the runoff, fearing his conservative opponent — José Antonio Kast — would be a major setback for women, indigenous rights and Chile's LGBTQ community.

In her binder sits the sketch for yet another tattoo for Boric — its design a secret — that the two discussed a while ago. With the demands of his new job and the future of Chile riding on his shoulders, she doesn't know if she get to ink it, though.

“I'd hope he doesn't stop being a rocker,” Góngora said. “But I don't know if that will fly in politics. Then again, nobody ever expected such a young president.”

___

Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed to this report.

Patricia Luna, The Associated Press

H1 IS AVIAN FLU

High pathogenic Avian Influenza on N.L. exhibition farm, area under quarantine: CFIA

Canada's food safety watchdog says it has confirmed cases of high pathogenic Avian Influenza at an exhibition farm in Newfoundland and Labrador.© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says in a release Wednesday that the farm on the Avalon Peninsula does not produce birds for sale.

The agency says as the birds infected with H5N1 were located on an exhibition farm, and no other cases have been reported in the vicinity, Canada's status as 'free from Avian Influenza' remains in place.

It says no trade restrictions are expected as a result of this detection and the outbreak has been reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health.

As a precaution, the agency says it has placed the farm under quarantine and established a 10 kilometre zone with movement control measures and enhanced biosecurity to limit the potential spread of the disease.

It says Avian Influenza circulates naturally in birds and recent detections in Europe indicate an even higher risk of the disease in North American poultry flocks this year.

"This makes it more important than ever for anyone raising poultry to remain vigilant against AI and ensure they have effective biosecurity measures in place," the agency said Wednesday. "Biosecurity is a key tool for preventing the transmission of this disease to North American farm birds."

The agency says Avian Influenza, often called "bird flu," can affect several species of food-producing birds including chickens, turkeys, quails, and guinea fowl, as well as pet and wild birds.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza can cause severe illness and death in birds.

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

The Canadian Press

Multiple Salad Kits Have Been Recalled In Canada Due To 'Microbial Contamination'

If you recently purchased a salad kit from the grocery store, you'll definitely want to double-check your items since 

Health Canada has just issued a slew of recalls.

© Provided by Narcity

On Tuesday, December 21, Health Canada issued a recall for various salads from the brand Fresh Express due to possible listeria contamination.

According to the government department, food contaminated with listeria may not look or smell like it's gone bad, but could still make you sick.

"Symptoms can include vomiting, nausea, persistent fever, muscle aches, severe headache and neck stiffness," it said. "Although infected pregnant women may experience only mild, flu-like symptoms, the infection can lead to premature delivery, infection of the newborn or even stillbirth. In severe cases of illness, people may die."

The affected Fresh Express products are:
Organic Salad Kit Organic Sweet Dijon Onion (215 grams)
Organic Salad Kit Organic Classic Caesar (278 grams)
Iceberg Garden Salad (340 grams)
Kit Caesar Supreme (298 grams)
Kit Caesar Salad (278 grams)
3 Color Deli Coleslaw - Garden (397 grams)
Kit Bacon Caesar (283 grams)
Iceberg Garden Salad (680 grams)
Spinach (454 grams)
Twisted Caesar Chopped Salad Kit Asian Caesar (272 grams)
Chopped Kit Sunflower Crisp (320 grams)
Chopped Kit Southwest (326 grams)
Chopped Kit Asian (349 grams)
Sweet Butter Salad (170 grams)
Garden Shreds Iceberg (227 grams)
Twisted Caesar Chopped Salad Kit Classic Caesar (266 grams)
Veggie Lover's Salad (312 grams)
Green & Crisp Salad (312 grams)
Spinach (227 grams)
Hearts of Romaine (255 grams)
American Salad (312 grams)
Twisted Caesar Chopped Salad Kit Avocado Caesar (275 grams)
Baby Spinach (142 grams)

All affected products have a lot code beginning with "Z324" through "Z350." They were sold in Ontario and Manitoba but may have been sold in other parts of the country as well.

Health Canada advises that you throw the items out ASAP if you have them in your fridge or return them to where you bought them.

If you think you've become sick from consuming the product, Health Canada recommends you call your doctor immediately.

Canada Is Set To Update Its Definition Of A 'Lockdown' So More People Can Get COVID Benefits

Canada Edition (EN) 10 hrs ago

The federal government has announced its plan to update its definition of a "lockdown" in Canada, which will enable more workers and businesses to apply for and receive COVID-19 benefits.

© Provided by Narcity

Speaking on Wednesday, December 22, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland joined Justin Trudeau, Dr. Theresa Tam and other federal officials to share the update.

"Today, through regulatory authorities that were approved with the passage of Bill C-2, we are announcing our decision to temporarily expand the definition of a 'lockdown,'" Freeland confirmed.

She said the change will enable businesses to access wage and rent support programs if they have faced capacity restrictions of 50% or more.

Previously, a region was required to be under an official lockdown for local businesses and workers to be able to access certain COVID-19 benefits.

It meant that — despite strict restrictions in some parts of the country — Canadians were unable to access support like the Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit (CWLB).

"For workers, our decision means that if you are working in a region where the provincial or territorial government has introduced capacity restrictions of 50% or more, and if you have lost 50% or more of your income as a direct result of those restrictions, you can qualify for the Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit," Freeland continued.

The CWLB offers $300 per week to workers to supplement lost wages as a result of pandemic-related closures.

According to the federal government's website, the easiest way for Canadians to apply for the CWLB is online via the CRA's My Account portal.

The changes are set to be effective as of last Sunday, December 19 and will run through until February 12, 2022.

Freeland concluded by reassuring Canadians that they can be "confident in the knowledge that the federal government will be there to financially support workers and businesses as we finish this fight."

This article’s cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.