I'm a UPS driver. I'm paid well and like the solitude, but management still makes me want to quit most days.

insider@insider.com (Jenny Powers) -

© Robert Alexander/Getty ImagesA UPS truck in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Robert Alexander/Getty Images

Insider recently spoke to a longtime UPS driver about their job. They requested anonymity to protect it.

The driver said the job has its perks — solitude, pay, and sometimes scenic routes — but can also be unpredictable.

This is their story, as told to writer Jenny Powers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with a longtime UPS driver. They spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their job, but their employment has been verified by Insider. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

As a UPS delivery driver for many years, I've experienced everything from the good and the bad to the downright ugly.

The delivery job itself is an ideal fit for me because I tend to be a loner

With the exception of the 20 minutes in the morning when I'm inside the building to pick up my truck filled to the brim with packages, I'm on my own all day without any supervisors or co-workers, and that's how I prefer it.

Seniority, which is solely based on your start date, is literally everything to drivers. As a member of the Teamster's union and a full-time driver averaging a 50-hour workweek, I gained enough seniority last year to bid on and win a dedicated route, which is a pretty big deal.

I have the same route, vehicle, and truck loader every day

Having the same route every day — instead of picking up routes as they're available — makes a major difference as far as quality of life goes.

A route only becomes available when a driver retires, gets fired or transitions to the tractor-trailer division, so they're hard to come by. When one does open up, management posts a physical notice outlining all the route details and it stays posted in the office for two weeks.

During that time, drivers are able to bid on the route by adding their name and seniority date to the list. The person with the most seniority automatically wins.

After two weeks, the driver with the most seniority is offered that particular route which they have the right to accept or deny. If they turn it down, it goes to the next person in line in terms of seniority. If they accept and they already have a dedicated route, then their route opens up and bids are taken on that route. At times, it's like a domino effect and can affect multiple drivers and routes.

Bidding on a route is a huge decision. If you bid on one and accept it and wind up hating it, you could be stuck on it for years. I even declined some routes before finally bidding on the one I have.

Like most UPS drivers, I was a 'cover' driver before I locked in a regular route

Being a cover driver meant I would show up for my shift and pretty much be at the mercy of management, who would assign me a different route and truck every single day. It's kind of an unnerving experience, because it's like starting from scratch each morning and working out of someone else's workspace.

My route involves a lot more driving than actual delivering, which suits me just fine because I enjoy driving. On average, I drive around 125 miles a day and deliver 225 or more packages.

Most days, I brown-bag it and spend my lunch hour eating inside my truck. But since my route takes me along the Atlantic Ocean during the warmer months, I pack my swim trunks and hit the beach, which is a great way to break up an otherwise monotonous workday. It's one of the primary reasons I wanted this route in the first place.
But even with a regular route, there's no telling when your workday will end

Until you get to work, you don't have any idea how many stops you'll have or what traffic conditions will be like.

Every morning when I leave the house, my wife asks what time I'll be home. All I can do is shrug my shoulders because it's definitely not a 9-to-5 job. Some days you can get everything done in nine hours; other times it can take 14 hours. That kind of inconsistency makes it difficult to have a life outside of work, especially when you have a family like I do.

For the most part, I enjoy my work and get paid well

It's an hourly position with overtime kicking in after eight hours on the job. We get paid time off, medical benefits, and a pension, which one day I hope to be able to retire on. But when it comes to management, I'm pretty bitter.

For example, despite our contract stipulating that we are entitled to sick and personal days — as well as bereavement time — trying to take it is a whole other story.

I've been grilled and made to feel guilty about taking off the very time I earn, and I'm not the only one who has experienced this. There's always pushback because if there aren't enough drivers, it means a supervisor or manager would have to cover the route, which is the absolute last thing they want to do.

If it wasn't for the union, this job wouldn't be worth it

While the day-to-day hassles can be frustrating, there's way more serious stuff. For example, our local union recently won a class-action suit against UPS. The lawsuit centered on UPS routinely deducting money from 6,000 employee paychecks without their consent and donating the funds to the United Way to pad the company's charitable giving.

We won a $1.3 million settlement in the lawsuit, and UPS agreed to refund the money along with a 40% penalty.

There's been a lot of talk in the news about unfair practices and treatment of Amazon and FedEx drivers, and I speak from personal experience when I say UPS is no better. Somehow, they just do a better job keeping it under wraps. Although it's years away, every day I countdown how many I have left until I can get the hell out.

Drivers are the reason UPS is able to run, and sometimes our bosses forget that. We show up every day to deliver packages and make people happy — well, most people.

For some spouses, they see us pulling up their driveway and their mind immediately starts racing to try and calculate how much whatever is in the box is going to cost them.

Ian McDonald, Founding Member of Foreigner and King Crimson, Dies at 75

Chris Willman - Yesterday 

Variety
© Courtesy Kayos Productions



Ian McDonald, a multi-instrumentalist who was part of the founding lineups of the art-rock group King Crimson in the late 1960s and the more commercial Foreigner in the mid-’70s, died Wednesday at age 75. No cause of death was immediately given but a spokesperson said he “passed away peacefully” surrounded by family at his home in New York City.

Among the hits he played on were such platinum Foreigner radio staples as “Hot Blooded,” “Cold as Ice,” “Feels Like the First Time” and “Double Vision.”
More from Variety

Bill Rieflin, Drummer for King Crimson, Ministry, R.E.M., Dies at 59

“I’m quite proud of the fact that the two bands I was a founding member of, King Crimson and Foreigner, are still out there playing,” McDonald said in a 2020 interview with Sound & Vision, even though he had little interest in reunions or rejoining the current iterations of those groups. McDonald, original Foreigner singer Lou Gramm and some other original members did come back together to play some 40th anniversary shows commemorating the 40th anniversary of that band’s 1977 debut.

With King Crimson, McDonald played keyboard and woodwinds, and added guitar to his performing repertoire when he was part of the startup lineup for Foreigner’s first three albums. “Because I didn’t play guitar at all on the ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’ album, sometimes, people are surprised that I do play guitar,” he told Sound & Vision. “Songs like ‘The Court of the Crimson King’ and ‘I Talk to the Wind’ were actually composed on guitar, but I don’t have a guitar credit on the album since I didn’t play guitar on the album.”

McDonald only stayed with King Crimson for one album, the group’s 1969 debut “In the Court of the Crimson King,” but was considered instrumental in establishing the prog-rock sound that still had iterations of the band surviving a half-century later.

“I used to have regrets about that, and that I should have stayed at least through the second album,” McDonald said about leaving the group in a 2019 interview with thelosangelesbeat.com. “But now I don’t regret it because had I stayed, things would have turned out very differently for me up until this moment… I’m very happy with the way things have played out since then.” Of the band’s serious image, McDonald said, “It was fun! It was done with a tremendous amount of humor. The image of King Crimson is sort of this monstrous band, but it was so much fun! We were just having a laugh.”

Talking about that debut album’s endurance, he said, “Without sounding conceited… in one sense it doesn’t surprise me because one thing I tried to do as the main producer was be very careful to have every moment be able to be listened to hundreds of times, so that hopefully the album would withstand the test of time. Here we are 50 years later, and people are still talking about it.”

McDonald also served as a session musician, appearing on T. Rex’s “Get It On (Bang a Gong)” in between his Crimson and Foreigner stints, among other recordings.

In recent years, McDonald had played with the straight-ahead New York rock band Honey West, with frontman Ted Zurkowski.

McDonald is survived by his son, Maxwell McDonald.

Black History Month should be time for celebration, reflection: organizers

Black History Month doesn’t have to be just a time to reflect upon trailblazers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the fight for racial justice and equity, it should be a time to celebrate people young and old who are still fighting the fight and achieving significant milestones, according to Phiona Durrant, founder of the Aurora Black Community (ABC) Association.

This was a message Ms. Durrant delivered alongside colleagues from the Aurora Black Caucus and the Town’s Anti-Black Racism and Anti-Racism Task Force at Town Hall last Tuesday to mark the start of Black History Month and the raising of the Pan-African flag outside the municipal offices.

“We know there is oppression involved [in Black History] but that does not define who we are,” she said. “Black is awesome, Black is beautiful, courageous, intelligent. We are authors, presidents, teachers, lawyers, house cleaners (and I love to clean a good house!), we’re everything! So, today, when we celebrate Black History month, I hope you don’t remember just the ones who were killed; just remember we’re excellent [and] we’re filled with potential.

“No matter what you’re fighting for, someone is going to stand against it. ‘What’s the difference between raising this flag and everything else? What will change? The flag will be raised, everybody will get their photos, and we will go back to our beds, roll over, and nothing happens.’ I am telling you what will change. What will change is you finding the courage to speak up. I don’t care if you’re White – don’t tell me you’re White so you can’t speak – this flag is not just raised for Black people. Jean Augustine (the first Black Canadian woman to serve in Federal Cabinet) says, ‘Black history is Canadian history, not only Black people.’ When you make excuses, for your colour, for why you don’t speak and show up, I forgive you.”

Dozens of people from all different backgrounds attended last week’s ceremony, including MP Leah Taylor Roy, MPP Michael Parsa, Mayor Tom Mrakas, and Councillors Wendy Gaertner, John Gallo, Rachel Gilliland, Sandra Humfryes, Harold Kim, and Michael Thompson.

Taking her chance to speak up, Taylor Roy said that as proud as Canadians are of their history, “there are things about our history we’re not as proud of.”

“I think acknowledging that and moving forward to make sure that those things don’t happen again, that we really fight hard to ensure there is no more discrimination, that we all work together, and that those of us who are allies realize that the work that has to be done is not for the Black community alone – it is for all of us,” she said.

Added Parsa: “All forms of racial injustice and inequality should never be tolerated anywhere. This should be the focus of not just the month of February but every single day of the year. I encourage all of you to reflect and learn about the contributions Black Ontarians have and continue to have in our Province. We must all find ways to contribute and make our communities free from racism, inequality and discrimination.”

Stories of contributions made by everyday Black Ontarians were shared by Mark Lewis, Chair of the Town’s Anti-Black Racism and Anti-Racism Task Force. He shared poignant stories of the pioneers in his own family, including his educator father, mother, and grandfather.

“Black History Month is a time to reflect upon and celebrate the accomplishments of our ancestors,” said Lewis. “While we push forward and build upon their legacy, it is important to recognize not only the pioneers in our struggles to achieve equality in society but our hometown heroes.”

His grandfather was a teacher and principal in The Grenadines prior to coming to Canada. His father followed in his footsteps as a high school teacher after achieving his Engineering degree from McGill University.

“An engineering degree from McGill carries a lot of clout in this country, but for a Black man in the sixties, it did not guarantee employability due to racism,” he shared. “It was at this point my dad followed in their footsteps and taught in the North York Board of Education for two years before going back to school to earn a Masters Degree in Education from Queen’s University.

“His hard work, coupled with the drive of my hard-working mother, who was a middle school English teacher and librarian in East York, one of the most diverse and low-income neighbourhoods in the GTA – their work afforded my sister and I the privilege of growing up in Markham in the 80s, a town at the time not unlike Aurora, about to experience exponential growth and struggle.

“I am proud to be an Aurora resident. I am also proud of the struggles of my parents that shaped my development. It is important for us to take time and reflect upon the legacies of our forefathers and mothers. As Nelson Mandela once elegantly stated, ‘The history of struggle is rich with the stories of heroes and heroines. Some of them leaders, some of them followers, all of them deserve to be remembered.’”

For Milton Hart, head of the Aurora Black Caucus, these leaders include Durrant as well as Jerisha Grant-Hall, Chair of the Newmarket African Caribbean Canadian Association.

“These women are doing a fantastic job and will go down as part of Canadian history,” said Hart. “It should be Black History Year. It should also be a situation where Black history is woven into our curriculum. It should be woven into every facet of our media. There is a very simple truth I want to convey here: Black history is indeed Canadian history. Yes, we can talk about racism. We should indeed talk about the atrocities of the past. But we cannot forget Viola Desmond. We should talk about societal ills, but we can’t forget about someone like Garrett Morgan, whose work gave us the three-light stoplight. We can talk about the atrocities of the past, but we should never forget Lewis Latimer, whose work gave us the electric bulb.

“I’m here because some folks, White, Black, people from every race decided not to settle. I am here because people from ever race decided to stand up so that I could run. They decided to sit so I could move around. Let’s learn from Black history in order to bring honour to the stalwarts on whose shoulders we stand on. Indeed, we stand on the shoulders of giants. Indeed, we stand on the shoulders of people who just wouldn’t settle, people who resisted. Every single civil rights movement that we have come to know only gained traction because people from every single race decided to stand up.”

Brock Weir, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Auroran

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CRIMINAL CAPITALI$T STATE

Failed coup puts spotlight back on Guinea-Bissau's role in cocaine trade


By Aaron Ross

BISSAU (Reuters) - In October, President Umaro Sissoco Embalo told French radio that drug trafficking and corruption were over in Guinea-Bissau, a country that has struggled to shake off its reputation as a "narco state" of West Africa.


© Reuters/AARON ROSSA view of the government palace in the capital city of Bissau

Those words rang hollow a few months later. Fierce gunfire interrupted a cabinet meeting Embalo was presiding over, and within hours of the deadly Feb. 1 attack he described it as a failed coup attempt possibly linked to the drugs trade.


© Reuters/AARON ROSSA RPG is stuck in a tree after last week coup attempt in the capital Bissau

At a news conference on Thursday, Embalo said three soldiers who were arrested by U.S. drug authorities in a 2013 sting operation and pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking had been detained in connection with the attack.

Embalo said he personally saw two - Captain Tchamy Yala and Lieutenant Papis Djeme - during the assault and that ex-navy commander Bubo Na Tchuto was coordinating the coup attempt from navy headquarters.

"When the shots were being fired in the Government Palace, Bubo was at the navy headquarters ... and I heard the assailants say we are going to call him to send us reinforcements.

"Bubo was arrested in uniform - someone who is not on active duty ... That shows the intention," Embalo said.

Reuters has not been able to reach the three men for comment.

Embalo suggested the attack, in which the government said seven security personnel defending the president, three government workers and one assailant were killed, was retaliation for his efforts to crack down on drug trafficking.

"When I committed to this fight against corruption and narco-trafficking, I think that I signed my death warrant," he said.

But some politicians and regional analysts have questioned this, saying drug smuggling has persisted under Embalo's watch and the attack was more likely related to trafficking groups and their political backers competing for the spoils.

"I think it's a conflict between all the factions that participate in the government or some of the factions," said Manuel dos Santos, a senior member of the main opposition African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde.

"And it is probably related to drug trafficking."

The president's uncle Mussa Embalo, until recently an adviser, said Embalo had shaken up the leadership of the navy and judicial police to better combat drug trafficking.

"There are successes and setbacks. We need (the) assistance of our international partners," he told Reuters.

COCAINE HUB

Most people in the capital believe the intense, five-hour gun battle was, in one way or another, tied to narcotics.

It is an indication that, despite false dawns in recent years, Guinea-Bissau remains vulnerable to instability that some top officials blame on the illicit trade.

Embalo said at the news conference that many military officers and politicians continue to be involved in the drugs trade.

Asked how he reconciled that position with his remarks in October that trafficking was no longer a problem, he did not directly answer.

Defence Minister Sandji Fati declined to be interviewed for this article. An armed forces spokesman did not respond to questions on whether officers were involved in the cocaine trade.

The country of two million people emerged as a major cocaine trafficking hub in the 2000s, according to experts.

Guinea-Bissau's location on West Africa's Atlantic coast and lax law enforcement made it attractive to cartels, they said.

By sending their product first to Guinea-Bissau or neighbouring countries and then on a separate ship or plane to Europe or the United States, they could avoid scrutiny typically reserved for cargoes originating in South America.

There were no major cocaine busts in West Africa from 2014 to 2018, leading some to question whether the region had fallen out of favour with traffickers or managed to clean up its act.

But a spate of record seizures in 2019 from Guinea-Bissau to Senegal and Cape Verde put paid to those hopes, and some experts believe the region's current role is substantial at a time of record global cocaine production.

"Guinea-Bissau is one of the rapidly rising West African countries used as a point of transit for drug trafficking on the route to Europe," the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime's regional representative for West and Central Africa, Amado Philip de Andrés, told Reuters.

While he noted some positive developments in recent years, most of which pre-dated Embalo, he said more needed to be done.

"There are still grounds for improvement in Guinea-Bissau, particularly in terms of bringing perpetrators to justice."

For Guinea-Bissau, the repercussions from the trade are serious.

Residents of Bissau, which has experienced around a dozen coups or attempted coups since independence from Portugal in 1974, said in the wake of the Feb. 1 bloodshed that they could not recall an incident of such intense violence.

When Reuters reporters visited the Government Palace three days after the attack, hundreds of shell casings lay strewn on the ground near dried pools of blood, and bullet holes pockmarked all four sides of the main building.

An unexploded rocket-propelled grenade was wedged between the branches of a palm tree. Another was lodged in a wall.

Witnesses in the neighbourhood said ministers had fled the compound on foot into the dirt roads behind the compound, seeking refuge in surrounding buildings.

Embalo said he hid in a side office for five hours with his justice minister and two guards.

"I said: 'we stay here but you leave the door open ... because when the door is open, people think that there is no one inside.'"

TACKLING THE PROBLEM

Two law enforcement sources said that they detected an uptick in activity related to cocaine smuggling in Guinea-Bissau throughout 2020, the year that Embalo took office.

A Western diplomat said he thought Embalo was sincere about wanting to crack down on trafficking but that he was constrained by the military's influence.

Embalo, a former army general, has refused to hand over former armed forces chief Antonio Indjai to U.S. authorities, who last year offered up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest. Indjai was indicted in U.S. court in 2013 on narcotics trafficking charges.

Indjai denies the allegations, and Embalo said he is prevented by national law from extraditing a Guinea-Bissau citizen.

The two men appeared in a photograph at the presidency that was published in local news reports and shared on social media shortly after Embalo's inauguration in February 2020.

Musso Embalo, the uncle, said the photo with Indjai and other senior officers was taken to show the support of the Balanta, Guinea-Bissau's largest ethnic group, for Embalo, who is Fulani.

Indjai is Balanta and the group dominates Guinea-Bissau's military.

The government spokesman did not respond to requests for comment about the photo or the government's actions on drug trafficking.

The president's account of seeing Yala and Djeme during the attack is consistent with a leaked army report that said the two soldiers were at the scene.

The president said there had been a number of other arrests but declined to say how many, pending the outcome of an official investigation.

Na Tchuto, Yala and Djeme were detained in 2013 by U.S. authorities on a luxury yacht after offering to import narcotics into the United States on behalf of informants they thought were South American traffickers.

The three men pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a U.S. court and were later released after serving their sentences.

The case cemented Guinea-Bissau's reputation as a stopover of choice for Latin American drugs en route to Europe and the United States. Even before that, Guinea-Bissau had been described as a "narco state" by the United Nations.

President João Bernardo Vieira was assassinated by soldiers in 2009, a killing widely believed to have been connected to trafficking networks. In 2012, army officers eyeing control of the drug trade seized power in the so-called "cocaine coup".

(Additional reporting by Alberto Dabo in Bissau, Nate Raymond in New York and David Lewis in Nairobi; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Alexandra Zavis)

UN science report to sound deafening alarm on climate

AFP - 8h ago

Nearly 200 nations kick off a virtual meeting Monday to finalise what promises to be a harrowing scientific overview of accelerating climate impacts that will highlight the urgent need to cut emissions -- and prepare for the challenges ahead.

The world is already feeling the effects of global warming, driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels, with last year seeing a cascade of deadly floods, heatwaves and wildfires across four continents.

The upcoming update from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is set to outline in stark detail what the best available science tells us are the impacts of the changing climate -- past, present and future.

During a two-week gathering, diplomats and scientists will vet, line-by-line, an all-important Summary for Policymakers, boiling down an underlying report thousands of pages long.

An early draft of the IPCC review seen by AFP in 2021 makes clear the extent to which devastating climate impacts are a here-and-now reality.

In some cases this means that adapting to intolerably hot days, flash flooding and storm surges has become a matter of life and death.

"Even if we find solutions for reducing carbon emissions, we will still need solutions to help us adapt," said Alexandre Magnan, a researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris and a co-author of the report, without commenting on the report's findings.

Species extinction, ecosystem collapse, crippling health impacts from disease and heat, water shortages -- all will accelerate in the coming decades even if the carbon emissions that drive global warming are drawn down, the report is likely to find.

"This is a real moment of reckoning," said Rachel Cleetus, Climate and energy policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"This not just more scientific projections about the future," she told AFP. "This is about extreme events and slow-onset disasters that people are experience right now."

- Planning ahead -

The report comes three months after pledges at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow to halt deforestation, curb methane emissions, phase down coal-fired power and boost financial aid to developing countries.

IPCC assessments are divided into three sections, each with its own volunteer "working group" of hundreds of scientists.

In August 2021, the first instalment on physical science found that global heating is virtually certain to pass 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), probably within a decade.

That is the heating limit envisioned in the Paris Agreement, beyond which impacts become more severe.

This second report on impacts and adaptation, due for release after the two-week meeting, is likely to underscore that vulnerability to extreme weather events -- even when they are made worse by global warming -- can be reduced by better planning.

This is not only true in the developing world, noted Imperial College professor Friederike Otto, pointing to massive flooding in Germany last year that killed scores and caused billions in damage.

"Even without global warming there would have been a huge rainfall event in a densely populated geography where the rivers flood very easily," said Otto, a pioneer in the science of quantifying the extent to which climate change makes extreme weather events more likely or intense.

- Hard choices -

The latest report will also likely zero in on how climate change is widening already yawning gaps in inequality, both between regions and within nations.

This means that the people least responsible for climate change are the ones suffering the most from its impacts.

Not only is this unjust, experts and advocates say, it is a barrier to tackling the problem.

"I do not think there are pathways to sustainable development that do not substantively address equity issues," said Clark University professor Edward Clark, a lead author of one of the reports chapters.

Earth's surface has warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century.

The 2015 Paris deal calls for capping global warming at "well below" 2C, and ideally the more ambitious limit of 1.5C.

This report is sure to reinforce that goal.

"There are limits -- for ecosystems and human systems -- to adaptation," said Cleetus. "We cannot adjust to runaway climate change."

Indeed, the report will probably emphasise more than ever before dangerous "tipping points", invisible temperature trip wires in the climate system for irreversible and potentially catastrophic change.

Some of them -- such as the melting of permafrost housing twice as much carbon as in the atmosphere -- could fuel global warming all on their own.

At the same time, scientists are only just beginning to get a handle on so-called cascading and compound impacts -- how Greenland's melting ice sheet, for example, affects ocean currents across the globe.

"There is a finite set of choices we can make that would move us productively into the future," said Carr. "Every day we wait and delay, some of those choices get harder or go away."

mh/klm/spm

Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge reports higher profit as transport volumes rise

(Reuters) -Enbridge Inc reported a 3.7% jump in fourth-quarter profit on Friday, as a recovery in fuel demand boosted the Canadian pipeline operator's transportation volumes.

Pipeline operators have benefited from a pick-up in volumes with energy prices trading at multi-year highs on a sustained recovery in fuel demand from the pandemic-driven lows.

Enbridge said it transported 3.01 million barrels per day (bpd) on its Mainline system in the fourth quarter, compared with 2.65 million bpd a year earlier.

The Calgary-based company's earnings rose to C$1.84 billion ($1.45 billion), or 91 Canadian cents per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from C$1.78 billion, or 88 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier.

($1 = 1.2724 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru;Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)

Canadian oil barrels head out of the U.S. Gulf in record numbers

By Stephanie Kelly and Nia Williams - Yesterday 

NEW YORK/CALGARY (Reuters) - Canadian oil companies exported a record amount of crude out of the U.S. Gulf Coast at the end of 2021, a trend that should continue in coming months, as tight international oil markets are in need of the nation's heavy, sour crude.

These barrels are hitting the Gulf thanks to new pipeline connections and expansions that just came online last year, and are meeting surging global demand that has pushed oil prices to seven-year highs. Major producers, including the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, are struggling to raise output, along with traditional providers of heavy crude like Venezuela and Mexico.

By contrast, Canada's oil sands production is at a record 3.5 million barrels a day. Most of that is exported to use in the United States, but a growing number of barrels are transiting the country to the U.S. Gulf Coast, where it is then re-exported.

In 2021, Canadian exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast averaged more than 180,000 bpd, reaching nearly 300,000 bpd in December, a record, according to Matt Smith, Kpler's lead oil analyst for the Americas. That's up from roughly 70,000 bpd in 2019 and 2020. The accelerated pace is expected to continue in 2022.

Those barrels are primarily going to big importers India, China and South Korea - in part to offset for the loss of Venezuelan barrels, which is under U.S. sanctions and dealing with years of underinvestment.

Canadian producers have benefited from changes in pipeline infrastructure that make it easier to ship to the Gulf Coast, the largest U.S. export hub, where more than 3 million barrels ship out every day.

The Capline Pipeline, whose owners include Plains All American Pipeline and Marathon Petroleum Corporation, reversed flows in 2021, sending more oil from Patoka, Illinois, to terminals in St. James, Louisiana.

In October, Enbridge Inc doubled the capacity of its Line 3 pipeline, which carries oil from Edmonton, Alberta, to the U.S. Midwest.

The demand is helping support prices in Alberta, where benchmark Canadian heavy crude is currently trading around C$13.50 a barrel, said Tudor Pickering Holt analyst Matt Murphy.

"As we get more exposure to global markets that's backing up into western Canada," Murphy said. "The industry as a whole benefits."

Companies benefiting from increased Gulf exports are those that have dedicated capacity on pipelines carrying Canadian crude, including MEG Energy, Cenovus Energy and to a lesser extent Suncor Energy, Murphy said. MEG expects to sell about two-thirds of its estimated 2022 production of 95,000 bpd, into the Gulf Coast.

GRAPHIC: Canadian oil exports from the U.S. Gulf 

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-OIL/CANADA-EXPORTS/akveznyjapr

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York and Nia Williams in Calgary, Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

KENNEY'S BASE
As Omicron wave declines, COVID-19 spread remains high in parts of rural Alberta

Jason Herring - Yesterday 

© Provided by Calgary Herald

Dr. Jon Meddings, Dean of the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, on Wednesday, May 22, 2019.

Wastewater and active case data show COVID-19 spread is on the downslope in Calgary and Edmonton.

But it’s a different story in parts of rural Alberta, where infections continue to surge as the province moves to ditch public health measures.

The best indicator of community transmission of the virus currently available in Alberta is wastewater data, according to Dr. Jon Meddings, Dean of the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.

He said Alberta’s two big cities, as well as other communities including Banff, saw virus spread peak in early January. Medium-sized cities such as Lethbridge and Red Deer saw a peak around the end of January, while rural municipalities such as Lacombe continue to see an increase in virus spread.

That’s not surprising, Meddings said, as the ultra-contagious Omicron variant likely entered Alberta first through Calgary and Edmonton, both of which are home to international airports.

“To me, the pattern is that this is coming from the largest centres. It reached the peak there in early January, and two or three weeks later that peak is in the smaller rural centres, and some of them are still going through it. This is unsurprising,” Meddings said.

Meddings also said wastewater data indicate the Omicron wave is declining more slowly than it took to climb in Calgary and Edmonton.


© Provided by Calgary Herald

As Omicron wave declines, COVID-19 spread remains high in parts of rural Alberta

Though Alberta’s official case counts have become less reliable during the fifth wave amid limited access to PCR testing, active case data also reflect a surge in infections in rural areas even as urban hubs pass their peak.

Active case counts increased in most rural municipalities since mid-January, near the Omicron wave’s peak, while decreasing in Calgary, Edmonton and those cities’ bedroom communities. Currently, case rates are highest in Vulcan County and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, where more than one in 50 residents have active, lab-confirmed COVID-19 infections.

Despite the regional variance, Alberta is moving to scrap COVID-19 restrictions in all parts of the province at the same time, with Alberta’s vaccine passport already cancelled and nearly all remaining restrictions to be removed March 1, as long as hospitalization rates from the virus are declining.

High River physician Dr. Adam Vyse said his community, like elsewhere in Alberta, saw far higher infection rates and patients in ER in recent weeks due to Omicron than in previous waves.

“With that being said, my sense is we haven’t had any significant burden of people getting sick and needing hospitalizations,” Vyse said, adding he believes the High River area is past the peak for this wave.


© Azin Ghaffari

Dr. Adam Vyse poses for a photo in Highwood Health Centre in High River on March 10, 2021.

Vyse said members of his community have done their part by getting immunized against COVID-19 and following public health measures. He said he believes residents are ready to leave behind measures such as the vaccine passport, a decision he also agrees with.

“Vaccination has an impact on serious disease, hospitalization and ICU, but we’re not preventing transmission by excluding non-vaccinated people from restaurants and bars and hampering businesses,” he said.

Mount Royal University political scientist Lori Williams said rural businesses have broadly had a more difficult time navigating policies such as the vaccine passport than their urban counterparts, as business owners worry about alienating customers.

But she stressed rural Alberta isn’t a monolith, with a wide range of opinions and behaviours.

“I think there are a lot of people in rural Alberta who have concerns about (the removal of public health measures),” Williams said. “But there are lots of people in rural Alberta who are also annoyed about their restrictions, who feel their freedoms are being limited.”

jherring@postmedia.com

Twitter: @jasonfherring

 A Highway In BC Is Closed After A Giant Avalanche Crashes Across It (PHOTOS)

Daniel Milligan - Yesterday 11:22 a.m.
© Provided by Narcity

One of B.C.'s major highways has been closed after an avalanche tore across it, blocking both lanes of traffic.

Photos from B.C.'s Ministry of Transportation show the huge amount of debris left following the avalanche on Highway 37A near Stewart.

A DriveBC alert said the incident happened on Wednesday morning between Pearly Gates and Surprise Pullout/Windy Chain Up. An update on whether the road will reopen is expected at 12 p.m. local time Thursday.

Road maintenance teams and avalanche technicians were taken to the site of the avalanche to assess the damage and help with the clean-up operation.

There have been no reported injuries connected with this latest avalanche.

B.C. has experienced several large earthquakes in recent weeks. Last weekend, two people were seriously injured and one died after three separate avalanches hit the Whistler area.

Pemberton RCMP, local Search and Rescue teams, Whistler RCMP, Whistler SAR, Blackcomb Helicopters, and BCEHS ground and air ambulances were all called out to respond to reports that multiple skiers and a snowmobiler got caught up in the avalanches.

In January, Avalanche Canada and Parks Canada issued a special public avalanche warning for North and South Columbias, Purcells, Kootenay Boundary, and Glacier, Banff, Yoho, and Kootenay National Parks.

This particular event was caused by a sudden switch to above seasonal temperatures alongside what the agency described as a "problematic" snowpack.

Subway and Burger King franchisees in South Carolina violated child-labor laws by letting minors work late shifts or too many hours, the labor department says

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean) - 

Subway and Burger King operators were among those investigated by the DOL. 

The DOL has fined restaurant operators in South Carolina for violating child-labor laws.

They let minors work late shifts or too many hours or undertake tasks that they're not allowed to.

These include the operators of some Subway, Burger King, and Popeyes restaurants.

Some operators of fast-food restaurants in South Carolina have been fined by the labor department for allegedly violating child-labor laws.

The Department of Labor (DOL) said Wednesday that operators of some Subway, Burger King, and Popeyes restaurants had broken the law by letting minors work late shifts or too many hours a week, or undertake tasks that they're not allowed to.

The restaurants "illegally employed workers under the age of 18 at hours and in occupations that jeopardized their safety," the DOL said.

An operator of four Subway stores in South Carolina had let 13 employees aged 14 and 15 work past 9 p.m. during summer months. Another Subway operator in the state allowed five 15-year-olds to work past 7 p.m. in non-summer months, per the DOL. This breaches laws on how late minors are allowed to work.

Four of these minors at the latter operator were also employed in "prohibited baking activities," the DOL said. Workers aged 14 and 15 can prepare food as part of their job, but can't bake, remove items from ovens, or place products on cooling trays under federal labor law.

A large Burger King franchise operator allowed two 15-year-old employees in South Carolina to break a law that caps the number of hours they can work per week during school weeks at 18, the DOL said. Three 15-year-old workers at an operator of Popeyes restaurants in South Carolina were also allowed to work more than 18 hours per week during school weeks, per the DOL.

PLC Dev Group, the Popeyes operator, which has nine locations in South Carolina and one in North Carolina, also "clocked out some employees automatically while they continued to perform work," the DOL said. It added that it had recovered $2,031 in overtime back wages and liquidated damages for nine workers across the operator's locations.

And three 16-year-old employees who were allowed to work as delivery drivers at Frodo's Pizza in Greenville, South Carolina, violating a federal law that prevents employees aged 16 and under from driving vehicles as part of their job.

Subway, Burger King, Popeyes, and Frodo's did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside of normal working hours.

"Restaurant industry employers must understand and comply with child labor laws concerning hours and occupations," Jamie Benefiel, district director of the DOL's Wage and Hour Division in Columbia, South Carolina.

"Industry employers, workers and their parents should contact us with their questions about youth employment laws. The kinds of violations found in these South Carolina investigations – and the penalties associated with them – could have been avoided."

The Wage and Hour Division's Southeast region found child-labor violations at more than 190 food-service employers in fiscal years 2020 and 2021, and assessed penalties of more than $1 million.

The DOL didn't say when the above-mentioned offences were committed but restaurants have been struggling to hire and retain staff during the pandemic. This means existing employees are working longer hours.

In October, Wisconsin's Senate approved a bill that would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work until 11 p.m. during the summer, and supporters said it could help plug the state's labor shortage.

 

CPPIB commits to net-zero portfolio by 2050 but says no blanket divestment

TORONTO — The fund manager for the Canada Pension Plan has committed to make its portfolio net zero by 2050 but said it would not be making any blanket divestments.

Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press

a day ago

A flare stack lights the sky from an oil refinery in Edmonton on December 28, 2018. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has committed to make its portfolio net zero by 2050 as it reports its net assets grew 1.6 per cent in its third quarter. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

TORONTO — The fund manager for the Canada Pension Plan has committed to make its portfolio net zero by 2050 but said it would not be making any blanket divestments. 

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, operating as CPP Investments, said Thursday it plans to achieve the goal while continuing to invest in the whole economy, and will push for an economic transition to a lower carbon economy as an active investor.

"As a capital provider and partner, and with our experience, expertise and financial resources, we recognize the valuable contribution we can make to this challenge,” said chief executive John Graham in a statement. 

CPPIB said it has also committed to increasing its investments in green and transition assets from $67 billion to at least $130 billion by 2030, and aims to be carbon neutral in its operations by the end of fiscal 2023.

Advocacy group Shift Action for Pension Wealth & Planet Health said in a release that while the net-zero commitment comes as a relief, Canada's largest pension fund doesn't have a credible plan for achieving it. 

It said that many companies, in particular those in the fossil fuel industry, do not have a credible path to zero emissions and that holding those assets in the long-term is not in the best interest of CPP's beneficiaries.

CPPIB said in December that investing is critical to help decarbonize high emitting sectors like agriculture, chemicals, cement, conventional power, oil and gas, steel and heavy transportation.

It said at the time that decarbonizing those sectors was needed for emission reductions as well as to sustain economic growth, stability and a responsible energy transition. 

The strategy contrasts somewhat with the more aggressive stance taken by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Canada’s second-largest pension fund manager, which committed last September to phase out investments in oil production by the end of 2022 as part of its updated climate strategy. 

In October, Dutch pension giant ABP said it would sell off all of its fossil fuel assets, worth some 15 billion euros, because it didn’t see enough opportunity to push those companies towards sustainable practices fast enough. The pension fund said it would instead work to influence companies that use fossil fuels such as utilities, the auto industry and aviation.

CPPIB also reported Thursday that it ended the Dec. 31 quarter with net assets of $550.4 billion, up from $541.5 billion at the end of the last quarter.

It says the $8.9-billion increase in net assets includes $13 billion in net income and $4.1 billion in net Canada Pension Plan outflows.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 10, 2022.

Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press