AP investigation: US Women’s prison fostered culture of abuse
By MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK

FILE - The Federal Correctional Institution is shown in Dublin, Calif., July 20, 2006. An Associated Press investigation has uncovered a permissive and toxic culture at at FCI Dublin, a Northern California federal prison for women. The prison enabled years of sexual misconduct by predatory employees and cover-ups that kept the accusations out of the public eye. The AP obtained internal Bureau of Prisons documents, statements and recordings from inmates, interviewed current and former prison employees and reviewed thousands of pages of court records.

 (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Inside one of the only federal women’s prisons in the United States, inmates say they have been subjected to rampant sexual abuse by correctional officers and even the warden, and were often threatened or punished when they tried to speak up.

Prisoners and workers at the federal correctional institution in Dublin, California, even have a name for it: “The rape club.”

An Associated Press investigation has found a permissive and toxic culture at the Bay Area lockup, enabling years of sexual misconduct by predatory employees and cover-ups that have largely kept the abuse out of the public eye.

The AP obtained internal federal Bureau of Prisons documents, statements and recordings from inmates, interviewed current and former prison employees and inmates and reviewed thousands of pages of court records from criminal and civil cases involving Dublin prison staff.

Together, they detail how inmates’ allegations against members of the mostly male staff were ignored or set aside, how prisoners could be sent to solitary confinement for reporting abuse and how officials in charge of preventing and investigating sexual misconduct were themselves accused of abusing inmates or neglecting their concerns.

In one instance, a female inmate said a man, who was her prison work supervisor, taunted her by remarking “let the games begin” when he assigned her to work with a maintenance foreman she accused of rape. Another worker claimed he wanted to get inmates pregnant. The warden — the man in charge at Dublin — kept nude photos on his government-issued cellphone of a woman he is accused of assaulting.

One inmate said she was “overwhelmed with fear, anxiety, and anger, and cried uncontrollably” after enduring abuse and retaliation at Dublin. Another said she contemplated suicide when her cries for help went unheeded and now suffers from severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees enjoy substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.

The allegations at Dublin, which so far have resulted in four arrests, are endemic of a larger problem within the beleaguered Bureau of Prisons. In 2020, the same year some of the women at Dublin complained, there were 422 complaints of staff-on-inmate sexual abuse across the system of 122 prisons and 153,000 inmates. The agency said it substantiated only four of those complaints and that 290 are still being investigated. It would not say whether the allegations were concentrated in women’s prisons or spread throughout the system.

A hotbed of corruption and misconduct, the federal prison system has been plagued by myriad crises in recent years, including widespread criminal activity among employees, critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies, the rapid spread of COVID-19, a failed response to the pandemic and dozens of escapes. Last month, the embattled director, Michael Carvajal, announced he was resigning. On Monday, two inmates were killed in a gang clash at a federal penitentiary in Texas, prompting a nationwide lockdown.

The AP contacted lawyers for every Dublin prison employee charged with sexual abuse or named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging abuse, and tried reaching the men directly through available phone numbers and email addresses. None responded to interview requests. A government lawyer representing one of the men being sued declined comment.

Thahesha Jusino, taking over as Dublin’s warden at the end of the month, promised to “work tirelessly to reaffirm the Bureau of Prisons’ zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual harassment.”

She said the agency is fully cooperating with the Justice Department’s inspector general on active investigations and noted that a “vast majority” of these cases were referred for investigation by the Bureau of Prisons itself.

“I am committed to ensuring the safety of our inmates, staff, and the public,” Jusino said in a statement to the AP. “A culture of misconduct, or actions not representative of the BOP’s Core Values will not be tolerated.”

The Justice Department said in a statement that “Zero tolerance means exactly that. The Justice Department is committed to both holding accountable any staff who violate their position of trust and to preventing these crimes from happening in the first place.”

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FCI Dublin, about 21 miles (34 kilometers) east of Oakland, was opened in 1974. It was converted in 2012 to one of six women-only facilities in the federal prison system. Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman both served time there for their involvement in a college admissions bribery scandal.

As of Feb. 1, it had about 750 inmates, many serving sentences for drug crimes. There are increasingly more women behind bars but they are still a minority — only about 6.5% of the overall federal inmate population.

Union officials say the vast majority of Dublin employees are honest and hardworking, and are upset that the allegations and actions of some workers have tarnished the prison’s reputation.

“We have a diversified staff. We have veterans. We have ex-law enforcement. We have good people, and they’re very traumatized,” Dublin union president Ed Canales said.

Inmates and prison workers who spoke to the AP did not want their names published for fear of retaliation. The AP also does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission.

Women made the first internal complaints to staff members about five years ago, court records and internal agency documents show, but it’s not clear whether those complaints ever went anywhere. The women say they were largely ignored, and the abuse continued.

One inmate who reported a 2017 sexual assault said she was told nothing would be done about her complaint because it was a “he said-she said.” The woman, who is now suing the Bureau of Prisons over her treatment, said she was fired from her prison commissary job as retaliation. When she went to report her firing, she said a Dublin counselor took her abuser’s side, responding: “Child, do you want him to lose his job?” The woman was moved to a different prison a week later.

In 2019, another Dublin inmate sued — first on her own with handwritten papers, then with the backing of a powerful San Francisco law firm — alleging that a maintenance foreman repeatedly raped her and that other workers facilitated the abuse and mocked her for it. When an internal prison investigator finally caught wind of what was happening, the woman said she was the one who got punished with three months in solitary confinement and a transfer to a federal prison in Alabama.

Then, in 2020, another inmate’s report that Dublin workers were abusing inmates broke through to the Justice Department’s inspector general and the FBI, triggering a criminal investigation that has led to the arrest of four employees, including former warden Ray J. Garcia, in the past seven months. They each face up to 15 years in prison, though in other recent cases, sentences have ranged from three months to two years.

Two of the men are expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks in federal court to charges of sexual abuse of a ward. None of the men accused in civil suits has been charged with crimes. Several Dublin workers are under investigation, though it’s not clear whether the men accused in the civil suits are among them.

The FBI said Friday that it is continuing to investigate and is looking for anyone who may have been victimized to come forward and speak with agents.

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The former warden, arrested last September, is accused of molesting an inmate as she tried to push him away. Garcia made her and another inmate strip naked as he did rounds and took pictures that were found on his personal laptop computer and government-issued cell phone when the FBI raided his office and home last summer, prosecutors said. The abuse ended when the pandemic exploded and women were locked in their cells, they said. Garcia was later promoted; the Bureau of Prisons said it didn’t know about the abuse until later.

“If they’re undressing, I’ve already looked,” Garcia, 54, told the FBI in July 2021, according to court records. “I don’t, like, schedule a time like ‘you be undressed, and I’ll be there.’”

Garcia, who was placed on leave after the raid and retired a month after his arrest, is also accused of using his authority to intimidate one of his victims, telling her that he was “close friends” with the person responsible for investigating staff misconduct and boasting that he could not be fired, prosecutors said.

Ross Klinger, 36, a Dublin prison recycling technician, is scheduled to plead guilty on Thursday to charges he sexually abused at least two inmates between March and September 2020, including inside a warehouse and in a shipping container on prison grounds while another inmate acted as a lookout.

Klinger told the women he wanted to marry them and father their children, even proposing to one of them with a diamond ring after she was discharged to a halfway house, prosecutors said. Another prisoner aware of the abuse reported Klinger to the Bureau of Prisons in June 2020, according to the FBI, but he was still allowed to transfer to a federal jail in San Diego months later.

Despite the move, prosecutors said, Klinger kept contacting one of victim through an email address he created with a phony name, sometimes sending lewd messages referencing sexual acts, and messaged the other woman on Snapchat, saying he loved her and was “willing to do anything” for her.

Interviewed by investigators in April 2021, Klinger denied any wrongdoing, but said that because of the allegations his life was over and that he was concerned about going to prison and being labeled as a sex offender. He was in handcuffs two months later.

“Sexual misconduct of a ward, you can’t come back from that,” Klinger told investigators in the interview, according to court documents.

John Russell Bellhouse, 39, a prison safety administrator, is scheduled to be arraigned this month on charges he sexually abused an inmate he called his “girlfriend” from February to December 2020. He was placed on leave in March and arrested in December.

James Theodore Highhouse, 49, a prison chaplain, has already signed a plea agreement and is scheduled to plead guilty Feb. 23 to charges he put his penis on an inmate’s genitals, mouth and hand and masturbated in front of her in 2018 and 2019, and that he lied to investigators when questioned about the abuse. He was arrested last month.

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Garcia, the highest-ranking federal prison official arrested in more than 10 years, had an outsize influence as warden over how Dublin handled employee sexual misconduct. He led staff and inmate training on reporting abuse and complying with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, known as PREA, and had control over staff discipline, including in cases of sexual abuse. In his prior role as associate warden, he had had disciplinary authority over all inmates, but not staff.

He was also in charge of the legally required “rape elimination” compliance audit, first scheduled for early 2020 but not completed until last September — about the time he was arrested. The Bureau of Prisons blamed the pandemic for the delay and said the audit, Dublin’s first since 2017, is not yet finalized and cannot be made public.

In private, Garcia was flouting measures put in place to protect inmates from sexual abuse and he later panicked that he would get caught for his own alleged misbehavior, court records show. The woman Garcia is accused of assaulting told investigators that one instance of abuse happened while PREA officials were visiting the prison. Garcia assaulted her in a changing stall designed for PREA-compliant searches, she said.

Publicly, Garcia appeared to take a hard line on abuse. In one of his first acts after he was named warden in November 2020, he recommended firing the maintenance foreman William Martinez, accused of rape in the 2019 suit — albeit for what the staff disciplinary process narrowed to a finding of an “appearance of an inappropriate relationship with an inmate.”

Martinez has denied the allegations and has filed a discrimination complaint against the Bureau of Prisons with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He has not been charged with a crime.

Garcia tasked another official with making a final decision on punishment and that person reduced the penalty to a 15-day suspension, but even that was later overturned. Internal documents obtained by the AP show that prison officials failed to look into the allegations against Martinez for nearly two years and then, after the investigation finished, waited another year to propose discipline.

An administrative judge wrote in June that the prison’s protracted investigation “strains credulity” on a matter as serious as alleged sexual abuse.

But the judge also found that prison officials cherry-picked evidence to bolster their case, only to end up unraveling it. He reversed the suspension and ordered the Bureau of Prisons to provide back pay.

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Sisak reported from New York.

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On Twitter, follow Michael Balsamo at twitter.com/mikebalsamo1 and Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips

Moroccans in mourning after trapped boy’s death

By MOSA'AB ELSHAMY and TARIK EL-BARAKAH


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A view of the village of Ighran and the hill in which the rescue mission of 5-year-old Rayan had been taking place after he was stuck for several days, in Morocco's Chefchaouen province, Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022. Morocco's king says a 5-year-old boy has died after rescuers pulled him out of a deep well where he was trapped for four days. Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents in a statement released by the palace. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

IGHRAN, Morocco (AP) — An eerie silence fell on a Moroccan village on Sunday after the death of a 5-year-old boy who had been trapped in a well for four days.

For days — and nights — the community of Ighran, a village in a mountainous area in northern Morocco, had gathered along the edges of the well, cheering on the rescue workers and volunteers digging deep into difficult terrain to reach the hole where the boy, Rayan, was trapped. They offered support to Rayan’s parents. Millions watched the rescue operation on state TV.

The boy was pulled out Saturday night by rescuers after a lengthy operation that captivated global attention. Convinced that Rayan was alive, the crowd was cheering as the child was rushed to an ambulance where his parents had been waiting.

Just minutes after the ambulance pulled away, a statement from the royal palace said the boy has died. Moroccan King Mohammed VI expressed his condolences to the boy’s parents, Khaled Oram and Wassima Khersheesh.

Messages of support, concern and grief for the boy and his family poured in from around the world as the news of Rayan’s death spread overnight Saturday.

Pope Francis on Sunday described as “beautiful” how people had rallied around efforts to save Rayan’s life. Francis expressed thanks to the Moroccan people as he greeted the public in St. Peter’s Square. He praised people for “putting their all” into trying to save the child.

The palace statement said Morocco’s king had been closely following the frantic rescue efforts by locals authorities, “instructing officials to use all means necessary to dig the boy out of the well and return him alive to his parents.” The king hailed the rescuers for their relentless work and the community for lending support to Rayan’s family.

Rayan fell into a 32-meter (105-feet) well located outside his home on Tuesday evening. The exact circumstances of how he fell are unclear.

For three days, search crews used bulldozers to dig a parallel ditch. Then on Friday, they started excavating a horizontal tunnel to reach the trapped boy. Morocco’s MAP news agency said that experts in topographical engineering were called upon for help.

Rescuers used a rope to send oxygen and water down to the boy as well as a camera to monitor him. By Saturday morning, the head of the rescue committee, Abdelhadi Temrani, said: “It is not possible to determine the child’s condition at all at this time. But we hope to God that the child is alive.”

The work had been especially difficult because of fears that the soil surrounding the well could collapse on the boy.

The village of about 500 people is dotted with deep wells, many used for irrigating the cannabis crop that is the main source of income for many in the poor, remote and arid region of Morocco’s Rif Mountains. Most of the wells have protective covers.

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El-Barakah reported from Rabat.

Black worker at Confederate site raises race complaint

By KIM CHANDLER

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Evelyn England gives a tour of the First White House of the Confederacy to school students on April 27, 2018 in Montgomery, Ala. (Mickey Welsh/The Montgomery Advertiser via AP)


MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama welcomes visitors at the “First White House of the Confederacy,” a historic home next to the state Capitol where Confederate President Jefferson Davis lived with his family in the early months of the Civil War.

The museum managed by the state’s Department of Finance says it hosts nearly 100,000 people a year, many of them school children on field trips to see such things as the “relic room” where Davis’ slippers and pocket watch are preserved. Near the gift shop, a framed article describes Davis as an American patriot who accomplished “one of the most amazing feats in history” by keeping the “north at bay for four long years.”

Evelyn England, an African-American woman who worked for 12 years as a receptionist at the historic site, said some visitors, both Black and white, were surprised to see her there.

“I’m in a unique position because whites don’t really want me here, and Blacks don’t want to come here,” England told The Associated Press.

England, 62, retired this week from the $34,700 state job, and it wasn’t the friendliest of departures: State records show she was suspended for three days last month for refusing to sign a performance review, and she said she filed a racial discrimination complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A spokeswoman said the Department of Finance declined to comment on the personnel matter.

After all those years working among the Davis family’s furniture and belongings, England wishes the museum would take a broader view of history. That slavery was a catalyst for the Civil War “is sort of stated around,” she said.

“Tell it like it is. Just tell it like it is. This happened. This is what is known to have happened. Give it as absolute truth as you can..... Until that, you are painting a false narrative that this was a gala — no, there were some ugly things that happened,” she said.

Explanatory displays at the museum, where the first Confederate flag still flies outside, mostly discuss the furnishings and how rooms were used, and make little to no mention of slavery, which Davis promoted as “a moral, a social and a political blessing.”

The residence was salvaged over a century ago by The White House Association, a state-chartered women’s organization that still owns its contents and remains involved, even as Finance Department employees staff the site. The legislature mandated in a 1923 law that the state-owned building serve as a “reminder for all time of how pure and great were southern statesmen and southern valor.”

It would be better, England believes, if the historic site was managed by the Department of Archives and History.

The museum’s curator, Bob Wieland, said Friday that he would ask the board to respond to questions about how the museum is run, but he doesn’t think the museum depicts an overly rosy view of Davis.

“Jefferson Davis has never been called great in the house. He was the president of the Confederate States of America. We would say no more, no less than that,” Wieland said.

England, who would sometimes give tours, said guides only gave information such as the dates (February-May 1861) when Montgomery served as the Confederacy’s capital.

The museum has made some changes over the years. She said there once was an area called a “shrine” to Davis. The gift shop stopped selling Confederate flags, except for stickers of the design that was used when the Confederate capital was in Montgomery.

“They have taken steps. It might be baby steps,” she said.

England, who lives in Marion, said she is a distant cousin of Jimmie Lee Jackson, a civil rights activist shot and killed by a state trooper in 1965. His death helped inspire the voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act. England was a young child at the time, but still recalls the commotion and pain.

In conversations with visitors, England said she would sometimes use questions and humor to try to get them to see a different point of view.

When one person maintained that secession was only about preserving states’ rights — a view that had long been taught to southerners as the root cause of the Civil War instead of slavery — she responded, “But did everyone have the same rights?”

“You love the Confederacy for what you think it stood for: Your rights,” she would think. “What were they fighting about? Some would say states’ rights. I have a problem with your solution of states’ rights because all individuals in that state didn’t have the same rights.”

One day, an older white woman said “Oh, the South will rise!” to no one in particular as she browsed in the gift shop, where the merchandise includes books, stickers of the first Confederate flag and children’s toys including teddy bears in Confederate and Union uniforms. When the woman turned around to put more items on the counter, England asked her, “What are you rising from?”

She said the woman didn’t reply. “If looks could kill I’d be a dead woman,” England said.

But many interactions have been positive, she said, recalling good conversations, even with people who — a supervisor warned — could be prejudiced against her.

She’s been “chewed out” by some African Americans for working there, she added. “It came at me from both sides,” she said.

Many visitors — Black and white — found her race a point of curiosity.

“How do you work here?” one white woman asked her.

“Ma’am, if you pay every last one of my bills, I’ll quit today,” she jokingly replied.

England hopes her presence helped open minds.

“Just open up what you are thinking. That’s where the real change is going to occur, in your heart. You can take down monuments. But if what they are still harboring is there, at an inopportune time it will resurface.”

Reports of spyware use on key witness roil Netanyahu trial

By TIA GOLDENBERG

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves a Jerusalem courthouse, Nov. 16, 2021. Israeli media reports say police have used sophisticated spyware against a key witness in the corruption trial of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The revelations have jolted the trial and shine a light on a contentious Israeli-developed surveillance tool. 

(Jack Guez/Pool Photo via AP, File)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli police allegedly used sophisticated spyware against a key witness in the corruption trial of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli media reported, jolting the trial and shining a light on a contentious Israeli-developed surveillance tool.

Netanyahu is in the midst of a lengthy corruption trial over charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. In the initial report by Israeli Channel 13 last week, police were said to have used spyware to collect information off the witness’ phone without first obtaining authorization, sparking an uproar.

Netanyahu’s lawyers have demanded answers from the state about what was gathered and how. The report has reenergized Netanyahu’s supporters, who have long seen the trial as part of a conspiracy to topple the polarizing former leader. Even Netanyahu’s political opponents are outraged.

“This is an earthquake that would justify a governmental commission of inquiry,” Cabinet Minister Tamar Zandberg, who sits in the coalition that ousted Netanyahu last year, told Israeli Army Radio Sunday. That the spyware was likely Israeli-developed was a “point of shame,” she said.

Amnon Lord, a columnist at the pro-Netanyahu Israel Hayom daily, called for a mistrial.

The witness whose phone was reportedly hacked, Shlomo Filber, is expected to testify in the coming days and Netanyahu’s lawyers are expected to request a delay to his testimony. It remains unclear whether any of the evidence allegedly gathered was used against Netanyahu.

Police, as well as a lawyer for Netanyahu, did not respond to a request for comment. But last week, Netanyahu, who was ousted last June by a new coalition government, accused police in a Twitter post of illegally hacking into a phone “to topple a strong, right-wing prime minister.”

Israel’s Justice Ministry declined to comment.

State prosecutors have told Netanyahu’s lawyers that they are “thoroughly examining” the reports, according to internal communications seen by The Associated Press.

The report comes after Israeli newspaper Calcalist reported that Israeli police tracked targets without proper authorization. Last week, Israel’s national police force said it had found evidence pointing to improper use of the spyware by its own investigators to snoop on Israeli citizens’ phones. The revelations shocked Israelis and prompted condemnations from across the political spectrum.

Authorities have not said which spyware might have been improperly used.

But the Calcalist report said at least some of the cases involved the Israeli company NSO.

NSO is Israel’s best-known maker of offensive cyberware, but it is far from the only one. Its flagship product, Pegasus, allows operators to seamlessly infiltrate a target’s mobile phone and gain access to the device’s contents, including messages and contacts, as well as location history.

NSO has faced mounting scrutiny over Pegasus, which has been linked to snooping on human rights activists, journalists and politicians across the globe in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

NSO says all of its sales are approved by Israel’s Defense Ministry. Such sales have reportedly played a key role in Israel’s development of ties with Arab states in the Gulf.

Aluf Benn, editor of the Haaretz daily, said it was a surprising twist that Netanyahu was now portraying himself as a victim.

“What an irony: The man who leveraged Pegasus for foreign-policy gains now believes he lost his domestic power on account of the spyware,” he wrote.

New report alleges widespread Pegasus spying by Israel police

A smartphone with the website of Israel's NSO Group which features the Pegasus spyware.

Police used Pegasus spyware to hack phones of dozens of prominent Israelis, including a son of former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, activists and senior government officials, an Israeli newspaper reported Monday.

The bombshell revelation is the latest from the business daily Calcalist, which had previously reported that police used Pegasus without court authorisation against leaders of an anti-Netanyahu protest movement.

Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said that "following the recent publications" he had asked Public Security Minister Omer Barlev to establish "an external and independent commission of inquiry, headed by a judge," to probe the allegations.

"To the extent that the commission finds irregularities and failures, they will be dealt with in accordance with the law," Shabtai said in a statement.

Pegasus is a malware product made by the Israeli firm NSO at the centre of a months-long international scandal following revelations that it was used by governments worldwide to spy on activists, politicians, journalists and even heads of state.

Israel had come under fire for allowing the export of the invasive technology to states with poor human rights records, but the Calcalist revelations have triggered a domestic scandal and multiple state investigations.

Prior to Monday's report, the attorney general, state comptroller and the justice ministry's privacy watchdog have all announced probes into the potential use of Pegasus on Israelis.

In its latest report, Calcalist said dozens of people were targeted who were not suspected of any criminal conduct, and without police receiving the necessary court approval.

They include senior leaders of the finance, justice and communication ministries, mayors, and Ethiopian-Israelis who led protests against alleged police misconduct.

In another revelation set to rock Netanyahu's ongoing corruption trial, Calcalist also reported that key witness Ilan Yeshua, former chief executive of the Walla news site, was also target.

Avner Netanyahu, one of the premier's sons, was also on the list. "I truly am shocked," he wrote on Facebook.

Netanyahu is accused of seeking to trade regulatory favours with media moguls in exchange for favourable coverage, including on Walla. He denies the charges.

His lawyers on Monday demanded the trial be halted until the latest revelations were probed.

The trial also suffered a blow last week when multiple Israeli broadcasters reported that police may have used spyware on Shlomo Filber, a former Netanyahu ally turned state witness.

Those reports, which Netanyhau described as an "earthquake", did not mention Pegasus.

Pegasus is a surveillance program that can switch on a phone's camera or microphone and harvest its data.

NSO has consistently denied wrongdoing throughout the multi-stranded Pegasus scandal, stressing that it does not operate the system once sold to clients and has no access to any of the data collected.

Israel probes alleged Pegasus use to spy on citizens

© 2022 AFP

Ottawa declares state of emergency over COVID-19 protests

By ROB GILLIES

yesterday


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People gather in protest against COVID-19 mandates and in support of a protest against COVID-19 restrictions taking place in Ottawa, in Edmonton, Alberta, Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022.

 (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)


TORONTO (AP) — The mayor of Canada’s capital declared a state of emergency Sunday and a former U.S. ambassador to Canada said groups in the U.S. must stop interfering in the domestic affairs of America’s neighbor as protesters opposed to COVID-19 restrictions continued to paralyze Ottawa’s downtown.

Mayor Jim Watson said the declaration highlights the need for support from other jurisdictions and levels of government. It gives the city some additional powers around procurement and how it delivers services, which could help purchase equipment required by frontline workers and first responders.

Thousands of protesters descended in Ottawa again on the weekend, joining a hundred who remained since last weekend. Residents of Ottawa are furious at the nonstop blaring of horns, traffic disruption and harassment and fear no end is in sight after the police chief called it a “siege” that he could not manage.

The “freedom truck convoy” has attracted support from many U.S. Republicans including former President Donald Trump, who called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “far left lunatic” who has “destroyed Canada with insane Covid mandates.”

“Canada US relations used to be mainly about solving technical issues. Today Canada is unfortunately experiencing radical US politicians involving themselves in Canadian domestic issues. Trump and his followers are a threat not just to the US but to all democracies,” Bruce Heyman, a former U.S. ambassador under President Barack Obama, tweeted.

Heyman said “under no circumstances should any group in the USA fund disruptive activities in Canada. Period. Full stop.”

After crowdfunding site GoFundMe said it would refund or redirect to charities the vast majority of the millions raised by demonstrators protesting in the Canadian capital, prominent U.S. Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis complained.

But GoFundMe had already changed its mind and said it would be issuing refunds to all. The site said it cut off funding for the organizers because it had determined the effort violated the site’s terms of service due to unlawful activity.

RIGHT WING AMERICAN ATTACK ON BIDEN "LETS GO BRANDON"
APPLIED TO TRUDEAU

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has called it an occupation.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxon tweeted: “Patriotic Texans donated to Canadian truckers’ worthy cause.” and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said on Fox News “government doesn’t have the right to force you to comply to their arbitrary mandates.”

“For some senior American politicians, patriotism means renting a mob to put a G-7 capital under siege,” tweeted Gerald Butts, a former senior adviser to Trudeau.

In Canada’s largest city, Toronto, police controlled and later ended a much smaller protest by setting up road blocks and preventing any trucks or cars from getting near the provincial legislature. Police also moved in to clear a key intersection in the city.

Many Canadians have been outraged over the crude behavior of the demonstrators. Some protesters set fireworks off on the grounds of the National War Memorial late Friday. A number have carried signs and flags with swastikas last weekend and compared vaccine mandates to fascism.

Protesters have said they won’t leave until all mandates and COVID-19 restrictions are gone. They are also calling for the removal of Trudeau’s government, though it is responsible for few of the measures, most of which were put in place by provincial governments.

Closed steel mill sends Olympic skiers - not smoke - skyward

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Matej Svancer of Austria trains ahead of the men's freestyle skiing big air qualification round of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Monday, Feb. 7, 2022, in Beijing.

 (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

BEIJING (AP) — Alex Hall is accustomed to a grand mountain vista. The American freestyle skier could get used to the view atop Big Air Shougang, though.

“The like, crazy smokestack things in the back are pretty cool,” he said. “You get to see some of the mountains in the background, you got this temple here, the city’s that way, the steel factory. You get to see a lot of stuff.”

Anytime he and his fellow big air competitors come back to China, plenty of people will get to see them, too.

Freeski big air opened its Olympic competition Monday at the world’s first permanent, city-based big air facility, a repurposed steel mill on the west side of Beijing that’s made a stunning backdrop for one of the Games’ newest sports. Freeskiing is taking on big air for the first time as a Winter Games discipline, while the snowboarders will be here next week after debuting the event in Pyeongchang four years ago.



The 200-foot big air structure was built on the site of the former Shougang Group steel mill, China’s first state-owned plant that helped the country become a world leader in steel production. Its billowing smokestacks provided work for thousands but also darkened the sky over Beijing’s Shijingshan District, contributing to the city’s air pollution problem.

China closed the factory in conjunction with the 2008 Summer Games, seeking to clean up its image, well as its air.

The sprawling campus has been converted into bizarre, yet beautiful, city oasis.

Rusting factories and machinery remain, but the space between has been filled by grassy lawns, glassy ponds and a good deal of greenery. One of the blast furnaces was given a face lift and turned into a steampunk-style event space with shops, commercial offices and a museum. The yards host dance showcases in the summer, and architects plan to transform one of the massive cooling towers hovering over the big air jump into a wedding venue.

“This feels like it was created in a virtual world, in a video game,” American freeskiier Nick Goepper said.

It’s also central to China’s efforts to encourage 300 million people to participate in winter sports in conjunction with these Games. Facilities were carved into the complex’s infrastructure to help Chinese athletes train in short track speedskating, figure skating, ice hockey and curling. The Beijing Organizing Committee is even based out of the park’s offices.

The eye-catcher, though, is big air.

The discipline is a sort of high-risk home run derby for snowboarding and freestyle skiing, taking one element of the sport and pushing it to its extreme. Because the jumps span only a couple of hundred feet — compared to several thousand on slopestyle courses — they’re a strong fit for live audiences.

Even better, you don’t need a mountain to put on a big air event. Temporary jumps have been erected at Boston’s Fenway Park and Atlanta’s Truist Park in recent years, bringing the mountain sport to metropolitan areas instead of asking the masses to trek up to ski and snowboarding’s native slopes.

“When we went to Atlanta, lots of those people don’t get to see snow that often,” American snowboarder Chris Corning said. “I’m not sure they have snowplows there.”

The freeskiers have noticed an enormous uptick in quality at the permanent Big Air Shougang. As American Colby Stevenson said, scaffolding jumps like the one in Atlanta can be “pretty sketchy.”

“It’s a little bit scary just because you can like, feel it out there swaying,” teammate Mac Forehand said.

With narrow runways and shorter, flatter landings, those temporary setups aren’t conducive to going big. The spacious Shougang setup doesn’t have those restrictions.

“It feels like we’re up in the mountains,” Swedish freeskier Oliwer Magnusson said.

That’s shown during practice runs, when several skiers have thrown down previously unfinished tricks. The men’s freeskiers expect their rivals to break new ground in the finals Wednesday, and that’s only possible because of the jump’s quality.

It has athletes drooling over the possibility of other permanent venues cropping up elsewhere, but it’s not clear that’s going to happen. China invested aggressively in its push to get citizens involved in winter sports, which is what made Big Air Shougang possible.

“I think that the direction is the correct one to be going in,” said American-born Eileen Gu, who is competing for China in part because she wants to inspire Chinese girls to take up skiing.

Such a venue might not get enough use to justify in another city, though. The Shougang jump was laid out so the seats can also be used for concerts and shows in summer, but the ramp itself has limited utility. After all, there are only so many skiers and snowboarders who can handle being thrust 20-plus feet in the air.

“If something like this was sustainable enough to repeat all over the world, I think that would be super-duper cool,” Goepper said. “This just brings the sport closer to the public.”

Either way, there’s appreciation for the peculiarity of what’s happening here, where the yards that once poured pillars of black smoke into smoggy Beijing are shooting Olympians skyward instead.

“One of the coolest things I’ve gotten to see,” Forehand said.

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Follow Jake Seiner: https://twitter.com/Jake_Seiner

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

A Mining Rig That Boasts 440 TH/s? Miners Question the Legitimacy of New Bitcoin Mining Device


The cryptocurrency community has been discussing a newly announced bitcoin miner called the Numiner NM440 that claims to produce speeds of up to 440 terahash per second (TH/s). Furthermore, a publicly-listed company called Sphere 3D has detailed that it purchased 60,000 Numiner NM440 mining rigs and aims to deploy 32 exahash per second (EH/s) of SHA256 hashpower. Furthermore, there’s been some disbelief among members of the crypto community on whether or not the hashrate speed claims are legitimate.

Numiner NM440 Revealed, Manufacturer Claims Device Boasts Speeds Up to 440 TH/s

A number of crypto supporters have been talking about a new bitcoin (BTC) miner that claims to process speeds that are higher than any mining rig on the market today. Furthermore, the machine called the Numiner NM440 series, allegedly processes at higher hashrate speeds than Bitmain’s upcoming models. That’s because the Numiner NM440s reportedly produces 440 TH/s, in comparison to the Bitmain Antminer S19 XP (140 TH/s) and the Antminer S19 Pro+ Hyd. (198 TH/s).

In addition to the newly announced mining rigs, a publicly-listed firm called Sphere 3D (Nasdaq: ANY) has announced it has purchased 60,000 Numiner NM440s. According to the press release, Sphere 3D will “receive 12 pre-production NM440s for final evaluation and testing to [be] completed on or before June 1, 2022.”

After a final evaluation, more batches will be shipped to Sphere 3D with the option to purchase an additional 26.4 EH/s of machines. The current deal of 60,000 NM440s cost Sphere 3D $1.7 billion, according to the company. Sphere 3D’s stocks saw a rise after the announcement, jumping 30% higher.

According to Numiner’s website, the firm says the flagship NM440 is “the world’s most powerful and environmentally friendly miner.” In addition to the massive 440 TH/s, the specifications claim a single NM440 gets an efficiency rating of 20.2 joules per terahash (J/TH). The web portal claims the machines give a 75% reduction in energy consumption and the firm further insists if “all bitcoin miners deployed the NM440, global bitcoin mining energy consumption in 2021 would drop from ~121 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity1 to ~30 TWh.”

Luxor Mining Says ‘Reported Specs Are Highly Dubious’

While the specifications are better than most machines on the market, people are wondering if the machines are legitimate and individuals are curious about the new company. Poolin’s Alejandro De La Torre tweeted about the new miner and said: “Never heard of these guys before.” Luxor Mining tweeted about the announcement as well and on Twitter it asked its followers if people thought it was legit.

“Numiner came out of nowhere and announced a 444 TH/s miner with an efficiency of 20.2 J/TH,” Luxor Mining said. “These specs would make it an industry-leading ASIC. What do we think fam, is this thing legit?”

Screenshot from the Numiner website.

Luxor Mining continued to be skeptical and further said: “Jokes aside regarding the Numiner NM440: When we saw Gryphon’s preorder yesterday, we were highly skeptical but gave the rig the benefit of the doubt due to Gryphon’s press release. That said, there are too many red flags for us to regard the NM440 as a legitimate product,” the mining operation added. Luxor Mining further remarked:


The NM440’s reported specs are highly dubious, as are NuMiner’s marketing materials. Further, there’s very little information on NuMiner’s development and team. As such, we cannot attest to the validity of the product and would caution our followers against it at this time.

The Chinese journalist known as Wu Blockchain discussed the Numiner project as well on February 3. “Numiner announced its new bitcoin mining machine NM440, uses TSMC chips and cooperates with Foxconn and Xilinx, the highest 440T in history and 20.2 J/T. Sphere 3D has committed to buy 60,000 NM440 for $1.7 [billion]. (The authenticity of the data is questionable),” Wu Blockchain said.

Screenshot from the Numiner website.

The website does say that the Numiner models are being produced in coordination with TSMC, Foxconn and Xilinx. While many questioned the legitimacy of the project, others made jokes about the pictured unit’s Mountain Dew colors, aesthetics and features.

Meanwhile, the bitcoin miner Gryphon Digital Mining’s special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal was reported on by Coindesk in mid-November 2021. The publication further covered Sphere 3D’s acquisition of 60,000 mining rigs from Numiner on Thursday. Gryphon tweeted on February 3, and said that the mining operation was “excited at the prospect of working with Numiner as our pending merger partner, Sphere 3D.” Interestingly, Sphere 3D hasn’t tweeted since February 14, 2019.



Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.

Israeli, Palestinian figures propose 2-state confederation

By JOSEPH KRAUSS

1 of 3

Yossi Beilin, a former senior Israeli official and peace negotiator who co-founded the Geneva Initiative, poses for a photo at his house in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022. Israeli and Palestinian public figures, including Beilin and Hiba Husseini, a former legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team who hails from a prominent Jerusalem family, have drawn up a new proposal for a two-state confederation that they hope will offer a way forward after a decade-long stalemate in Mideast peace efforts. 

(AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)


JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli and Palestinian public figures have drawn up a new proposal for a two-state confederation that they hope will offer a way forward after a decade-long stalemate in Mideast peace efforts.

The plan includes several controversial proposals, and it’s unclear if it has any support among leaders on either side. But it could help shape the debate over the conflict and will be presented to a senior U.S. official and the U.N. secretary general this week.

The plan calls for an independent state of Palestine in most of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel and Palestine would have separate governments but coordinate at a very high level on security, infrastructure and other issues that affect both populations.

The plan would allow the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to remain there, with large settlements near the border annexed to Israel in a one-to-one land swap.

Settlers living deep inside the West Bank would be given the option of relocating or becoming permanent residents in the state of Palestine. The same number of Palestinians — likely refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation — would be allowed to relocate to Israel as citizens of Palestine with permanent residency in Israel.

The initiative is largely based on the Geneva Accord, a detailed, comprehensive peace plan drawn up in 2003 by prominent Israelis and Palestinians, including former officials. The nearly 100-page confederation plan includes new, detailed recommendations for how to address core issues.

Yossi Beilin, a former senior Israeli official and peace negotiator who co-founded the Geneva Initiative, said that by taking the mass evacuation of settlers off the table, the plan could be more amenable to them.

Israel’s political system is dominated by the settlers and their supporters, who view the West Bank as the biblical and historical heartland of the Jewish people and an integral part of Israel.

The Palestinians view the settlements as the main obstacle to peace, and most of the international community considers them illegal. The settlers living deep inside the West Bank — who would likely end up within the borders of a future Palestinian state — are among the most radical and tend to oppose any territorial partition.

“We believe that if there is no threat of confrontations with the settlers it would be much easier for those who want to have a two-state solution,” Beilin said. The idea has been discussed before, but he said a confederation would make it more “feasible.”

Numerous other sticking points re

Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Palestinian Authority declined to comment.

The main Palestinian figure behind the initiative is Hiba Husseini, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team going back to 1994 who hails from a prominent Jerusalem family.

She acknowledged that the proposal regarding the settlers is “very controversial” but said the overall plan would fulfill the Palestinians’ core aspiration for a state of their own.

“It’s not going to be easy,” she added. “To achieve statehood and to achieve the desired right of self-determination that we have been working on — since 1948, really — we have to make some compromises.”

Thorny issues like the conflicting claims to Jerusalem, final borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees could be easier to address by two states in the context of a confederation, rather than the traditional approach of trying to work out all the details ahead of a final agreement.

“We’re reversing the process and starting with recognition,” Husseini said.

It’s been nearly three decades since Israeli and Palestinian leaders gathered on the White House lawn to sign the Oslo accords, launching the peace process.

Several rounds of talks over the years, punctuated by outbursts of violence, failed to yield a final agreement, and there have been no serious or substantive negotiations in more than a decade.

Israel’s current prime minister, Naftali Bennett, is a former settler leader opposed to Palestinian statehood. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, who is set to take over as prime minister in 2023 under a rotation agreement, supports an eventual two-state solution.

But neither is likely to be able to launch any major initiatives because they head a narrow coalition spanning the political spectrum from hard-line nationalist factions to a small Arab party.

On the Palestinian side, President Mahmoud Abbas’ authority is confined to parts of the occupied West Bank, with the Islamic militant group Hamas — which doesn’t accept Israel’s existence — ruling Gaza. Abbas’ presidential term expired in 2009 and his popularity has plummeted in recent years, meaning he is unlikely to be able to make any historic compromises.

The idea of the two-state solution was to give the Palestinians an independent state, while allowing Israel to exist as a democracy with a strong Jewish majority. Israel’s continued expansion of settlements, the absence of any peace process and repeated rounds of violence, however, have greatly complicated hopes of partitioning the land.

The international community still views a two-state solution as the only realistic way to resolve the conflict.

But the ground is shifting, particularly among young Palestinians, who increasingly view the conflict as a struggle for equal rights under what they — and three prominent human rights groups — say is an apartheid regime.

Israel vehemently rejects those allegations, viewing them as an antisemitic attack on its right to exist. Lapid has suggested that reviving a political process with the Palestinians would help Israel resist any efforts to brand it an apartheid state in world bodies.

Next week, Beilin and Husseini will present their plan to U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Beilin says they have already shared drafts with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Beilin said he sent it to people who he knew would not reject it out of hand. “Nobody rejected it. It doesn’t mean that they embrace it.”

“I didn’t send it to Hamas,” he added, joking. “I don’t know their address.”

Tensions rise in Haiti amid fears that outside groups could make play for power

Haitian President Jovenel Moise was assassinated on July 7, 2021, when a group of armed attackers stormed his official residence in Port-au-Prince. His presidential term officially expires on Monday. 

File Photo by Jean Marc Herve Abelard/EPA-EFE


Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Exactly seven months after its president was assassinated, the Caribbean island of Haiti faces renewed political upheaval on Monday as President Jovenel Moise's term officially ends and there are fears about who will try to take power next.

Moise was assassinated last July 7 when armed attackers stormed his home in Port-au-Prince. The gunmen shot and killed Moise and wounded his wife, Martine Moise. Since then, Prime Minister Ariel Henry has led the country to fill out the remainder of Moise's term.

Now, that's over. And observers and political experts know that there's no shortage of groups who want to take the reins of the often-troubled island in the Caribbean.

An opposition group known as the Montana Accord has called for the United States to withdraw its support for Henry, stating that the present ruling government will be rendered unconstitutional with the end of Moise's term.

Claude Joseph, a rival of Henry's, served as prime minister of Haiti for about two weeks before stepping down to allow Henry, who Moise had selected as prime minister just two days before he was killed, to take power.

The Montana Accord has called for the creation of a transitional government, to be helmed by its leader Fritz Alphonse Jean, to restore security before holding new elections.

"Insecurity is rampant, fear of kidnapping and rape are the everyday situation of the average Haitian," Jean said on Friday, according to The New York Times. "This is a state of disarray and the Henry government is just sitting there unable to address those challenges."


Haiti has been rocked by more than just political upheaval. A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck the island in August 2021 and a group of Christian missionaries were kidnapped for weeks in October. File Photo by Orlando Barria/EPA-EFE

But Haiti's recent troubles are not limited to the political arena.

In addition to losing its leader, Haiti has also had to face a deadly 7.2-magnitude earthquake in August and a rising gang presence that further destabilized the country in October when it set off a fuel crisis by blocking the country's main roads and ports and holding a group of Christian missionaries hostage.

Armed gangs, who control more than half of Haiti and half of the capital of Port-au-Prince, have called for Henry's resignation, Brain Concannon, founder of the U.S.-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, told Al Jazeera.

RELATED More than 50 dead, dozens injured after gas truck explosion in Haiti

"People live in daily fear that going to work or to school or getting some food at the store will be a lethal decision," Concannon told the outlet. "People don't even leave their houses for days and hospitals are closing because it is too violent for staff to get there."

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has faced criticism for not doing enough to support the country, including returning Haitian refugees that gathered at the U.S.-Mexico border and video that showed agents on horseback charging and herding migrants attempting to cross the Rio Grande.

At the same time, the United States and other international observers have been accused of being too involved in Haiti's politics.

Former U.S. special envoy, Daniel Foote, who resigned following the U.S. treatment of the refugees, said the U.S. administration has displayed "stubborn arrogance" in its attempts to "strong-arm Haitians" to accept an unelected prime minister and rush into elections.

Foote has also said that Henry has "impeded investigations" into Moise's assassination for six months, adding that the "nonexistent assassination investigation is led by [the] key suspect."

Port-au-Prince's top prosecutor, Bed-Ford Claude, sought charges against Henry last September, citing phone records that show he spoke shortly after Moise's death with former Haitian Justice Ministry official Joseph Felix Badio, who's a suspect in the assassination.

A street is seen in the gang-controlled Martissant neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Some fear that the gang sector could seek to make a play for power with the expiration of Moise's term. File Photo by Orlando Barria/EPA-EFE

Henry has repeatedly denied involvement in the assassination, saying that the masterminds of the killing have not yet been captured.

In the wake of the killing, Haitian police detained more than a dozen possible suspects and U.S. officials have so far charged two suspects. Several were also killed in gunfights with police. U.S. officials fear that these threats -- and Henry's tenuous grip on power -- could lead to sustained violence and political collapse.

"How the government of Haiti moves forward after Feb. 7, the official end of assassinated President Jovenel Moise's term, will be an important inflection point for Ariel Henry's government and its ability to bring some measure of political stability to Haiti," one U.S. intelligence official told McClatchy.

Amid the uncertainty, some migrants have fled Haiti since Moise's death and headed for the United States. Dozens arrived in northern Florida last fall and almost 200 arrived in the Florida Keys and were detained by the U.S. Coast Guard a week ago.

North Baffin hunters call for 10-year freeze on Baffinland mine expansion

Pond Inlet latest hamlet to express support for proposal to expand Mary River iron mine

By David Venn
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Three north Baffin hunters and trappers associations are calling for a ban on increased ore production at Baffinland Iron Mines Corp.’s Mary River mine.

The hunters and trappers associations for Hall Beach, Igloolik and Arctic Bay want the Nunavut Impact Review Board to stop the mine from increasing its ore production for 10 years. They also want the review board to recommend against allowing the mining company’s expansion proposal. NIRB is responsible for evaluating the social and economic impacts of developments projects, such as a mine expansion, and making a recommendation to the federal government about whether a proposal should be approved.

The Hall Beach and Igloolik HTAs also want the company to be barred from building and operating a port at Steensby Inlet. The company was granted a project certificate to do so in 2012.

The hunters and trappers associations spelled out these positions in closing statements sent to the review board on Monday.

As it stands, Baffinland is permitted to ship six million tonnes of iron ore a year from Milne Inlet. The company wants to double its shipments and to build a 110-km railroad between the mine and Milne Inlet and a dock at the port.

More than two years after the board’s public hearings on the proposed mine expansion began, hunter representatives continue to raise a range of concerns about the environmental impact of the mine’s operations.

Arctic Bay’s Ikajutit HTA chairperson Qaumajuq Oyukuluk said the impacts of the expansion could be “devastating.”

“We must be cautious and fully understand the impacts of the existing operation and steps needed to mitigate negative impacts before rushing forward and expanding this development,” Oyukuluk wrote in the association’s statement.

Clyde River Mayor Alan Cormack and Nangmautaq HTA chairperson Apiusie Apak, in a joint closing statement, did not specifically call for a moratorium.

But they said affected communities need time to determine if decreases to narwhal stock and other environmental problems are due to mining, before any increase in shipping is allowed.

Under the Nunavut Planning and Project Assessment Act, the review board has the ability to recommend a condition, such as a moratorium, to the federal northern affairs minister, who can then approve the new condition even if a project is already approved.

Karen Costello, executive director of the review board, said the last time she can recall the board receiving submissions for a moratorium was for Areva’s Kiggavik uranium mining project, which didn’t get approved.

Costello, who would not comment directly on Baffinland’s ongoing proposal, said the board has never issued a project certificate containing a moratorium.

The Qikiqtani Inuit Association does not support the expansion, either, and referred to the ongoing impacts brought up by HTAs.

The mine is slowly building its way up to a 30-million-tonne project and Inuit are still figuring out what the six-million-tonne project is doing to the environment, read the association’s closing statement.

“Inuit are only beginning to experience the scope of impacts of the initial project,” the statement reads, adding that there are increasing concerns that the plans Baffinland has in place to mitigate impacts are not working.

Some organizations and hamlets involved are starting to support the expansion, however.

Pond Inlet Mayor Joshua Arreak, in the hamlet’s final statement, listed a number of benefits the mine has brought or will bring to the community, including more than $16 million paid in wages to residents since 2015 and the commitment to a $10-million Inuit training centre if the expansion is approved.

The deadline for Baffinland’s final submission is Jan. 24. The board will then decide if it has enough information to make its recommendation and close the hearing.

It’s up to Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal to approve or reject the project after he receives the board’s recommendation.