Alberta premier speeding up restriction easing timeline amid convoy protest raises questions

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has made a significant shift over the past few days – going from saying COVID-19 restrictions would be lifted in late March, to much sooner. As Tom Vernon explains, Kenney and his caucus are being accused of using the Restrictions Exemption Program as a bargaining chip with trucker convoy protesters in the province.

First Nation in Alberta acquires Edmonton-based Internet company

Internet and DSL lights are illuminated on a modem in Chelsea, Que., Monday July 11, 2011.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Sam Laskaris
Windspeaker.com
The Local Journalism Initiative
Published Feb. 5, 2022 10:08 a.m. MST

A First Nation in Alberta is now in the business of providing high speed Internet.

Actually, the Bearspaw First Nation built and has been managing its own company, Stoney Nakoda Telecom, since 2015.

But on Feb. 1, officials from the First Nation announced they had acquired a 20-year-old company called Clearwave Broadband Networks, based out of Edmonton.

Clearwave hasbeen providing high speed Internet to both homes and businesses in and surrounding Edmonton.

With Bearspaw First Nation now purchasing the company, the goal is to expand upon the success the First Nation has had with its own company. With its Clearwave acquisition, Bearspaw reps hope to not only share their knowledge and improve the connectivity on other First Nations but also provide a revenue boost to its own economic development portfolio.

Rob Shotclose, the CEO of the Bearspaw First Nation, said the work of Stoney Nakoda Telecom had essentially reached a plateau.

That company was founded to bring better Internet service to Stoney Nakoda First Nation, which is comprised of not only Bearspaw First Nation but also includes Chiniki First Nation and Wesley First Nation.

When it was launched seven years ago, less than 10 per cent of the 1,200 Stoney Nakoda First Nation homes had Internet service. And now today, more than 95 per cent of them do.

Shotclose believes the time is right for Bearspaw officials to expand.

“I think we've got some experience,” said Shotclose, who is a Bearspaw First Nation member. “We've built our own network on reserve.”

Jim Sand, who is Metis and has been working as the chief financial officer for Bearspaw First Nation for the past two years, also thinks it's an ideal time to expand its Internet providing services.

“Since I've been here, we've engaged with other First Nations,” Sand said. “They've seen what we're doing and they're impressed and want the same.”

Bearspaw First Nation spent $4 million to buy Clearwave Broadband Networks.

“It's a good opportunity for us to step in and see how we can grow it,” Shotclose said. “It's a small company. They've got a good niche though around here in Edmonton.”

Shotclose said it won't be too long before Bearspaw officials announce which First Nations and communities they will start providing Internet services to, either by building up new networks or starting to manage existing ones.

Most of those are expected to be within the province.


“I think there's some opportunities outside of Alberta too,” Shotclose said, adding he believes officials from his First Nations can provide a more customer-friendly service than some current Internet giants.

“With the big companies now, they don't listen to the little guy,” he said. “You're not exactly Number 1 on their list for your problems that you have in your community.”

Sergei Lutzak founded Clearwave Broadband Networks and had operated the company out of Edmonton.

Though Bearspaw First Nation is located about 340 kilometres south of the Alberta capital, the company will continue to be based in Edmonton.

“It simply gives us a platform to grow this business off reserve,” Sand said.

He's looking forward to doing his part to make the business prosper.

“I'm a finance guy,” he said. “And I've spent my whole career building up companies.”

The creation of Stoney Nakoda Telecom resulted in five full-time on reserve jobs for members of Bearspaw and Chiniki First Nations.

Non-band members will have to be hired to take over Edmonton operations since it is believed that no members from that First Nation suitable for the jobs are currently living in the city.

Besides Alberta, Sand said First Nations located in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have been in touch with Bearspaw officials in the last couple of years to inquire about Internet services.

“Could it be Canada-wide? Could it be worldwide? I think so,” Sand said.

Bearspaw First Nation had received funding via the Alberta government and its Final Mile Rural Connectivity Initiative, as well as the Treaty 7 Economic Development Fund to launch Stoney Nakoda Telecom.

Shotclose said the COVID-19 pandemic has further raised awareness about the importance of having reliable Internet.

“It's so vital now with COVID, especially with online learning and working online,” he said.

‘Trump is not my God’: how the former president’s only vaccine victory turned sour

A rigid anti-vaccine stance among Trump’s supporters means Republicans can’t reap the benefits of Operation Warp Speed

Trump speaks during the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine summit. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

David Smith in Washington
@smithinamerica
Sat 5 Feb 2022 07.00 GMT

She is fiercely loyal to Donald Trump. But when the former US president came to her home city and praised coronavirus vaccines, Flora Moore did something she never thought possible. She booed him.


Trump booed after telling supporters to get Covid vaccine

“He said take the vaccine but we all booed and said no,” she recalled of Trump’s event with broadcaster Bill O’Reilly in Orlando, Florida. “He heard us loud and clear because the Amway Center was packed. We let him know ‘no’ and a couple of us even hollered out, ‘It’s killing people!’”

There is no scientific basis to the claim that the vaccines are killing people. In fact, they have demonstrably saved thousands of lives. But Moore is indicative of the extreme anti-vaccine sentiment consuming the base of the Republican party – a monster that Trump himself can no longer control.

America is exhausted by a pandemic still killing more than 2,400 people a day, the overwhelming majority of whom are unvaccinated, bringing the total death toll to 900,000.

In more conventional times, Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which developed vaccines in record time, would be a source of pride for his voters. Even his successor, Joe Biden, has praised the initiative, stating: “Thanks to the prior administration and our scientific community, America was one of the first countries to get the vaccine.”

But Trump’s eagerness to claim credit has been undone by conservatives’ backlash against Biden’s efforts to legally require worker vaccinations, which they cast as a threat to individual freedom. The ex-president’s customary applause turned to jeers when he encouraged supporters to get vaccinated and told O’Reilly that he received a booster himself.

What was arguably Trump’s most important legacy from an otherwise disastrous pandemic response, and a divisive four-year presidency, has turned into a political liability, threatening to turn his own fans against him. Laurie Garrett, an award-winning science writer, observed: “It’s probably the only time his base has ever booed him about anything. If he can no longer brag about Operation Warp Speed, what can he brag about regarding how he handled Covid?”

Trump supporters gathered at the World Wide Rally for Freedom, an anti-mask and anti-vaccine rally in New Hampshire on 15 May 2021. 

Photograph: Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images

The anti-vaccine fervor has been stoked by some Republican politicians as well as rightwing media. Last month, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a notorious sceptic, gave writer Alex Berenson a platform to baselessly proclaim, “The mRNA Covid vaccines need to be withdrawn from the market now. No one should get them. No one should get boosted. No one should get double-boosted.”

The web has also become a place for unscientific conspiracy theories to thrive. Moore, the Trump supporter in Florida, said she gets her information from her 30,000 followers on Facebook as well as Telegram, Twitter and YouTube.

She said: “I don’t trust the government. I don’t trust the pharmaceutical companies. I’m active in politics here and found out lots of people were having complications and dropping dead. There’s a lot of jobs I wont’t even take because they want me to get a vaccine.”

The commercial analyst, who is in her 40s, refuses to wear a face mask in restaurants or at work. Her radical views on the issue outweigh even her faith in Trump.

“I trust him on certain things, but he’s not my God,” she said.

Trump appears to have heeded the shift and recalibrated. At a rally in Conroe, Texas, last Saturday, where anti-vaccine views were again rampant, he channeled the crowd’s anger towards Biden’s mandate for federal government workers (a similar mandate for businesses was rejected by the supreme court).

“It is time for the American people to declare independence from every last Covid mandate,” Trump said to cheers. “We have to tell this band of hypocrites, tyrants and racists that we’re done with having them control our lives, mess with our children and close our businesses. We’re moving on from Covid.”

He then added briskly: “We did a great job. Operation Warp Speed has been praised by everybody but it’s now time to move on.” Notably in the remarks he did not use the word “vaccines” at all. It was a pivot that appeared to acknowledge the political threat and it is enough to satisfy voters such as Moore.
The one thing Republicans could claim as a great benefit that was saving lives, they’re now being compelled by their own base to renounceLaurie Garrett

She commented: “I think he’s gotten the message that he can say he took the vaccine and nothing happened to him and if you desire to take it, take it, but if you don’t want to, leave it alone.”

The number of anti-vaxxers in the Republican base is hard to estimate. The Guardian interviewed half a dozen Trump rally attendees last week and found that most had got the shots. They included Jered Pettis, from Phoenix, Arizona, who had changed his mind on the topic.

“We were totally anti-vaccine, didn’t really believe in it, didn’t want to get it,” he said. “Then a friend got it pretty severe: he could hardly breathe and felt like his head was going to explode. He didn’t go to the hospital but he was very, very sick to the point where he told me, ‘Hey, Jered. I’m very thankful for every breath of air that I get now’. After I had seen and heard one of my best friends go through that, I changed my mind in a heartbeat.”

Pettis received two Pfizer doses, then caught the virus just over a month ago. “So thank God, because I would have been a lot sicker than I was. It was almost like a mild cold. I could just imagine if I was not vaccinated.”

The 50-year-old exterior designer describes the recent booing as “absolutely ridiculous” and believes that Trump deserves credit, not criticism, for the vaccines. “Even though you may be anti-vaccine, you’ll change your mind if you get sick or you get somebody around you that dies.”

Even so, deep-seated suspicion of the vaccines could deprive Republicans of what might have been a powerful boast going into November’s midterm elections. Garrett, author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, points out that counties that voted for Trump in 2020 have a far higher mortality rate than counties that voted for Biden.

Trump was booed in Alabama when he urged fans to get the vaccine. Photograph: Marvin Gentry/Reuters

“The Republicans are in a bind,” she said. “They are experiencing a higher death rate in their ranks and it is directly linked to their positions on Covid. The one thing they could claim as a great benefit that was saving lives, vaccination, they’re now being compelled by their own base to renounce.”

Vaccine scepticism has never been a solely rightwing stance. Some libertarians on the left have opposed profit-driven big pharma and championed holistic alternatives. But on Covid-19, at least, this group appears to be significantly smaller than the conservative holdouts.

Garrett said: “All the polls are showing tremendous partisan differential in everything to do with vaccines and it has been increasing steadily for the last two years. It’s very much driven by the rightwing myths and narratives around Covid.

“There still are some of those ex-hippie types that don’t want to get vaccinated, but if you look at the breakdown on political sentiment about vaccination, willingness to get a third booster or even a fourth if it becomes available, it’s so Democrat. It’s incredible” Garrett said. “I never thought in my life I would see something like this. It is an absolute partisan divide and it’s widening.”

About nine in 10 Democrats and six in 10 Republicans have been vaccinated, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, while 62% of Democrats and just 32% of Republicans have been both vaccinated and boosted. The trend suggests that Republican candidates for the midterm elections are likely to follow Trump’s lead in attacking Biden’s mandates rather than celebrating Trump’s vaccines.
Giving up on Trump is like giving up on their dreams. Trump was their savior.Monika McDermott

But if any Republican can outflank Trump on the issue ahead of the 2024 presidential election, it may be the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who has refused to say whether he received a booster. The New York Times reported that Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster, found Trump’s lead over DeSantis closing to just nine points among party members who like both men.

Monika McDermott, a political science professor at Fordham University in New York, said: “They can get disgruntled with Trump, certainly, and DeSantis is the obvious choice for people who are anti-vax. But giving up on Trump is like giving up on their dreams at this point. Trump was their savior. Trump brought about the wholesale remasculization of that portion of the American psyche.”

Indeed, despite the possible split with his Make America Great Again movement on vaccines, Trump remains by far the biggest beast in the Republican jungle and this week announced that he is entering 2022 with a staggering $122m in campaign funds.

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman active on social media, said: “I talk to the extremists all the time and I agree with Trump’s people that they’re locked with him. They’re not going to anybody else.”

Walsh finds that 90% of the base are anti-vaccine, do not believe Biden won and either have no problem with the 6 January insurrection or regard it as a patriotic day.

“You could not as a Republican candidate run for office if you told people to get vaccinated or if you said Joe Biden won fair and square,” he added. “If you said either one of those two things, you couldn’t win a Republican primary.”

Canadians spared from Amazon Prime price increase

Michelle Zadikian, BNN Bloomberg

Amazon.com Inc. is hiking the price of its Prime membership, but in an email to BNN Bloomberg, the company confirmed the increases will only apply to Americans.

In a press release on Thursday, the e-commerce giant announced it will raise the price of its monthly Prime membership in the U.S. to US$14.99, from US$12.99; and the annual fee is going up to US$139, from US$119.

The changes take effect on Feb. 18 for new Prime subscribers in the U.S. and at the time of renewal after March 25 for existing members. 

Amazon said the Prime price increase, the first hike since 2018, is due to higher wages and shipping costs. 

Those inflationary pressures were apparent in the company’s fourth-quarter results. 

Operating income was halved to US$3.5 billion from US$6.9 billion a year earlier, and it swung from US$31 billion in free cash flow a year ago to an outflow of US$9.1 billion in the most recent quarter. 

“As expected over the holidays, we saw higher costs driven by labor supply shortages and inflationary pressures, and these issues persisted into the first quarter due to Omicron. Despite these short-term challenges, we continue to feel optimistic and excited about the business as we emerge from the pandemic,” said Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon, in a release. 

In April 2021, Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos said in his annual letter to shareholders that the company had surpassed 200 million Prime members.

Amazon Prime annual fee hikes to $180, not $139, for many members

The company introduced the monthly subscription in 2016 to attract more middle- and low-income shoppers.

By Spencer Soper and Michael TobinBloomberg

Published On 4 Feb 20224 Feb 2022

When Amazon.com Inc. announced it was raising the price of its Prime program, the company said an annual subscription would climb $20 to $139. But slightly more than half of Prime members will end up forking over almost $180 a year.

That’s because they pay each month, a fee that’s rising to $14.99 from $12.99. The company introduced the monthly subscription in 2016 to attract more middle- and low-income shoppers. The strategy worked, and 52% of subscribers now pay each month, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners

Even though they pay more, monthly subscribers are almost as loyal as annual members, with about 97% of them likely to renew compared with 99% for their counterparts, said the Chicago research firm, which conducts quarterly surveys.

“Even though monthly members pay somewhat more on an annual basis, members like that they have a smaller cash outlay and the perceived flexibility,” said Josh Lowitz, CIRP’s co-founder. “Despite the option to pause and re-start monthly membership, our data suggests that only a very small percentage truly cherry-pick their Amazon Prime months.

The increase announced Thursday is the first since 2018. Amazon has invested billions of dollars to ensure packages get to customers on time amid an acute labor shortage and supply-chain bottlenecks. Prime subscribers also get access to movies, sports programming and photo storage, among other perks.

The company added millions of new subscribers after previous price increases, and analysts say Amazon probably won’t lose many customers once the latest hike goes into effect. Investors welcomed the increase and sent the shares soaring after the company reported robust results, fueled in part by a strong showing from its cloud-services division.

“Amazon has historically sold the increase in Prime to consumers by saying ‘we have much more and much more items,’” said Tom Forte, a senior research analyst at D.A. Davidson & Co. “They’re spending billions more on content than they were four years ago. I think there’s a strong case to make for price increases. I think there’s a compelling case that the retention rate will still be high.”

Morgan Stanley analysts led by Brian Nowak wrote in a note on Friday that Amazon attracted a large number of households averaging $55,000 to $70,000 in annual income over the last two years. “The growing and aging of Amazon’s Prime sub base continues to be a key enabler of Amazon’s retail business,” the analysts wrote.

Amazon shares rose almost 15% at 1:15 p.m. in New York.

The price change goes into effect on Feb. 18 for new Prime subscribers; it will apply to current members who renew after March 25.

The Seattle-based company signed up a combined 60 million U.S. Prime members in 2020 and 2021, according to CIRP, bringing the total number to 172 million. The firm tallies Prime members, not subscriptions. One Prime subscription can have multiple members since many households share one account. CIRP attributes the surge in sign-ups to consumers’ stampede online during the pandemic.

Prime helps Amazon convert occasional shoppers into loyal customers. Prime subscribers typically spend more on Amazon than non-members.

The price increase struck Evercore ISI retail analyst Greg Melich “as a bit early,” but he said it should “prove effective” given strong renewal rates and expand        ed benefits.

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG

US: Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car Sales Rebounded In 2021
It was a record year, but the volume remains marginal.


Feb 05, 2022 
By: Mark Kane


Hydrogen fuel cell cars, an alternative zero-emission solution for battery-electric cars, made us skeptical since the early beginning due to a variety of issues (price of the car, overall energy efficiency, and lack of refueling infrastructure to name the three major ones).

As years pass by, let's take a look at the sales results of hydrogen fuel cell cars (aka FCV or FCEV) in the U.S. (actually in California, where the few available models are sold). Is there any progress?

The year 2020 was pretty weak for FCVs as only 937 were sold (down 55%), according to the California Fuel Cell Partnership.

In 2021, things got better and not only did FCVs return to growth, but achieved a new record level of 3,341 (up 257% year-over-year).

The California Fuel Cell Partnership's FCVs sales data comes from Baum and Associates. "Sales data is based on car sales sold by a dealer to a retail or fleet customer".

The growth rate is high, but it's always easy from a low base. The volume, although at a record high, remains very low. It's now more than 100 times behind battery-electric cars, which are sold at a rate of several hundred thousand per year in the U.S.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle Sales In U.S. - 2021

The growth in 2021 is associated mostly with the push from Toyota and also Hyundai. Toyota Mirai specifically noted 2,629 sales in the U.S. which is 427% more than a year ago. It's also nearly 79% of the total FCV segment.

Sales in 2021 (Mirai and NEXO sales as reported by the manufacturers):
Toyota Mirai - 2,629 (up 427% from 499)
Hyundai NEXO - 430 (up 107% from 208)
other models - 282 (up 23% from 230)
Total: about 3,341 (up 257%, from 937)

As we can see, over a decade now, the few Japanese and South Korean manufacturers are fighting the hydrogen battle alone and still only on a very limited scale in California (only selected dealers, single model per brand).


Cumulatively, hydrogen fuel cell car sales in the U.S. reached 12,272 as of the end of 2021 (37% more than a year ago).

As of January 31, 2022, the number of open retail hydrogen stations in California stood at 48, which is just 5 (or 12%) more than a year ago on January 20, 2021. 12 new stations are under construction. See the full list of hydrogen infrastructure here.

A quick calculation reveals that there are 256 cars per single station (cumulative sales divided by the number of stations). Although, it might be much less if some of the early cars were removed from service.

The viability of FCVs remains doubtful, and with the tremendous progress of the mainstream battery electric vehicles, the race might already be over. In the early days, at least there were concerns about BEVs range (100 miles), charging times or fast charging infrastructure, but today, with many 200- or 300-mile BEVs and thousands of charging stations, those issues are gradually being solved

 First ever free-floating black hole found roaming through interstellar space

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

HST image in the F814W (I-band) filter of an 800 ×800 region centered on 

MOA-11-191/OGLE-11-0462, obtained at our final epoch in 2017 August. 

North is at the top, east on the left. Encircled in green is the source star, now returned to 

baseline luminosity. The site is resolved into the source, a much brighter neighboring star 

0.004 to the WNW, and several nearby fainter stars. The inner cyan circle has a diameter 

of 100, corresponding to the typical best seeing in ground-based microlensing survey 

images; the outer cyan circle’s diameter is 200, which is not unusual seeing. The source, 

bright neighbor, and several fainter stars are generally blended in ground-based frames,

 and the blending increases with seeing. Credit: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2201.13296.pdf

An international team of researchers has confirmed that a possible microlensing event witnessed in 2011 was due to the presence of a free-floating black hole roaming through interstellar space—the first of its kind ever observed. The group has published a paper describing their findings on the arXiv preprint server.

Scientists have assumed for some time that there are many black holes wandering around in interstellar space, but until now they had not found one. This is due to the very nature of a black hole—they are difficult to spot against the black backdrop of space. Still, the evidence for their existence was strong. Prior research has shown that black holes are often formed when stars reach the end of their lives and their cores collapse, generally producing a supernova. And because many such supernova have been observed, it seemed clear that many black holes must have been created as a result.

But finding them has meant looking for lensing effects, when light from stars is bent by the pull of the black hole. Given the great distances, the lensing effect is slight, making it nearly impossible to detect using even the best modern telescopes. But luck prevailed in 2011 when two project teams looking for such lensing spotted a star that appeared to brighten for no apparent reason. Intrigued, the researchers with this new effort began analyzing the data from Hubble. For six years, they watched as the light changed, hoping that the change was due to magnification from a black hole. Then, they found something else—the position of the star appeared to change. The researchers suggest the change could only be due to an unseen moving object exerting a force that was pulling on the light as it passed by—an interstellar black hole. The researchers continued to study the star and its light, and eventually ruled out the possibility of any light coming from the lensing and also confirmed that the magnification had a long duration, both of which are prerequisites to confirming the existence of a black hole.

Taken altogether, the evidence is strong enough to confirm the sighting of a free-floating black hole. The researchers were even able to measure its size, at seven solar masses. They also found that it is traveling at approximately 45 km/second.Lack of massive black holes in telescope data is caused by bias

More information: Kailash C. Sahu et al, An Isolated Stellar-Mass Black Hole Detected Through Astrometric Microlensing. arXiv:2201.13296v1 [astro-ph.SR], arxiv.org/abs/2201.13296

© 2022 Science X Network

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.

__

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.”

__

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.

__

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