BOURGEOIS BULLSHIT
Exorbitant growth in tech wages could be the factor that bursts the tech bubble
Bianca Bharti 

© Provided by Financial Post A pedestrian crosses Bay Street in the financial district of Toronto.


Wages at some of Canada’s fastest growing technology companies have increased 20 per cent over the past year, adding to the evidence that the industry is headed for a new, more challenging phase that some might not survive.

The Canadian Council of Innovators, a trade association that represents companies such as Lightspeed Commerce Inc. and SkipTheDishes Restaurant Services Inc., surveyed its members at the beginning of the year and found that businesses are seeing wage expectations for skilled talent ring in 20 per cent above 2021 levels.

“It’s hard to quantify but I would say that this is probably the biggest concern that is keeping CEOs up at night,” said CCI president Ben Bergen. “Having a product or a service delayed by months because you weren’t able to find engineers or salespeople that are required to get it to commercialization, it’s really challenging for companies.”

Salaries are taking up additional space on the balance sheets just as technology companies are about to find it more difficult to raise money to finance their rapid — and often unprofitable — growth strategies. The industry has seen a great run, as private and public capital threw cash at companies built for the digital economy. But that boom of enthusiasm could soon crash, as the central banks in the United States, Canada and elsewhere have made clear they intend to raise interest rates.

As borrowing costs rise, the “risk-on” attitude to investing that favoured technology companies will change. The tech-heavy NASDAQ so far this year has dropped more than 14 per cent, while the S&P/TSX, heavy with banks and energy companies, has dropped only about one per cent.

“The point at which we are in the business cycle is certainly a high point. It might well be a peak,” said Ambrus Kecskés, a finance professor at York University’s Schulich School of Business. “How long this can continue is a matter of debate but it’s probably not going to go on at this rate without interruption for another decade.”

Still, growth strategies require lots of hiring to keep up with orders. Even though companies are spending more on wages, appetites to hire remain strong. The CCI survey found that tech firms are planning to expand their workforce by more than 20 per cent in 2022. The trade organization set out to see what challenges its members are facing with economic and industry conditions and received 50 responses back from 150 companies.

“I sit on boards of companies where our estimate is that engineers salaries have gone up 30 to 40 per cent in the last year,” said Damien Steel, global managing partner at OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Canadian pension fund.

The reasons salaries have risen for software developers or product specialists vary. Some founders and CEOs pin it on U.S. tech giants setting up shop in Canada and luring talent away. Others say it’s because the work-from-anywhere trend is forcing Canadian firms to compete with wages offered by some of the most profitable companies in the world

But, a long-time issue has been a chronic undersupply of software developers and engineers. The number of companies seeking such talent surged during the pandemic, and firms with long capital runways simply opted to pay top dollar rather than disappoint investors who expected aggressive growth, Steel said.

“You have Series As that are being done now at $50 to $80 million. Financings like that never happened five years ago,” he said. “You know, $20 million used to be a massive Series A three or four years ago.”

© Leddartech Charles Boulanger, CEO of LeddarTech Inc.

Charles Boulanger, CEO of LeddarTech Inc., which makes sensors used in vehicles, raised US$140-million in a Series D round in February. The Quebec-City-based company wants to grow its staff of 240 to 300 within 12 months, and it’s proving a difficult target.

To help it ensure its keeping pace with market rates, LeddarTech hired a third-party company to research and benchmark salaries for all of its employees. Typically, the company does this for senior management every three years, but with fierce competition for talent, it felt compelled to do it for the entire staff, Boulanger said. LeddarTech decided to craft pay packages where salaries were slightly below the average but instead beefed up options packages to incentivize workers.

But the economic road ahead looks bumpy with inflation at 30-year highs and central banks around the world set to raise key rates. “It certainly becomes more expensive to do all sorts of development and the competition becomes international as well with people working remote more,” Boulanger said.

At Coveo Solutions Inc., which makes software for use in the cloud, CEO Louis Têtu has seen wages climb 20 per cent over the last year. Têtu had to readjust the budget every few months because wages kept accelerating.

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“When your R&D line, your talent expenses, increases by 20 per cent, frankly, your headcount plans diminish by a number as well because you can’t just spend 20 per cent more unless you back it up with 20 per cent more revenue, and that doesn’t happen as quickly,” Têtu said.

To compensate for rising pay, subscription prices at the company have gone up five to 10 per cent in the last few years, he said.

In November, the company closed a $215-million initial public offering, one of the largest in Canadian tech last year. The money it raised through public markets was designated to help it grow and hire more talent, however current market volatility makes it unclear investors will pour more money into stocks. On Tuesday, Coveo shares closed at $9.58, more than 40 per cent below it’s initial offer price of $15.

As with other markets, venture capital is cyclical, said Steel, and it’s been on an abnormally long tear for the last eight years which has meant an abnormal amount of companies received cash to burn.

“I would argue in three to four years, you’re going to have an unusual amount of companies that are shutting down. And so that (talent) shortage right now is going to lead to an abundance later, at a time when all the wages have been marked up. You can see how you get into this really, really difficult position down the line,” he said.

• Email: bbharti@postmedia.com | Twitter: biancabharti

New satellite launches to track Earth's wild weather and dangerous space storms

By Ashley Strickland, CNN 

Whether it's wildfires that sweep across the West Coast, storms rolling in from the Pacific Ocean, or dense fog that blankets the Pacific Northwest, a new weather satellite will be able to track them all.

© NOAA/Lockheed Martin This is an artist's rendering of geostationary weather satellites that monitor Earth.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched GOES-T, the third in its series of advanced geostationary weather satellites, at 4:38 p.m. ET on March 1 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Once the satellite is in orbit, it will be renamed GOES-18 and monitor weather that impacts the western United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America and the Pacific Ocean.

The satellite will provide our most sophisticated and sharpest look yet at what Earth's Western Hemisphere looks like from 22,236 miles (35,785 kilometers) above the planet.

GOES-T is equipped with a suite of instruments that can provide measurements of the atmosphere, map lightning in real time and send back stunning ultra high-definition images. Its continuous collection of data will improve weather forecasting on Earth.

Together with the GOES-16 satellite, which launched in 2016, the two will actively monitor more than half the globe, spanning from the west coast of Africa to New Zealand.

"The observations from these satellites are even more critical now, when the US is experiencing a record number of billion-dollar disasters," said Pam Sullivan, director of NOAA's GOES-R program, during a press conference. "Compared to the previous generation, GOES-R satellites deliver 60 times more imagery, and they have a new lightning camera to track severe storms that spawn tornadoes and damaging winds."

The northeastern part of the Pacific Ocean is where many of the storms that impact the US begin.

"Since many of the weather systems of the United States move from west to east, GOES-T will improve model forecasts for the entire country," said James Yoe, chief administrative officer for the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, during a press conference on Tuesday.

And it's not just reporting back weather on Earth -- GOES-18 will also keep an eye on solar storms and space weather, providing early warnings ahead of any possible disruptions to our power grid on Earth.

Tracking dangerous conditions

Flooding and mudslides in coastal areas can often be traced to a type of weather phenomena called atmospheric rivers. These "rivers in the sky" deliver columns of water vapor from the tropics and release rain or snow when they make landfall, according to NOAA. Hurricanes that form in the Pacific can spin toward Hawaii or Mexico.

The GOES-T satellite will provide better monitoring of both types of weather events.

Warm ocean surface temperatures can contribute to the formation of hurricanes, so the satellite's monitoring of these increases could provide early warning about hurricane formation.

The satellite's capabilities will also help weather forecasters track and monitor tropical storms and hurricanes practically in real time, sharing data about the storm's structure and features, wind speeds, and lightning. All of these factors can be used to calculate the intensity of a storm.

Tracking rising ocean temperatures can also allow for better monitoring of marine heat waves that cause coral bleaching events en masse and alter entire marine ecosystems.

Wildfires are another hazard for those living in much of the western US, and GOES-18 is armed with a multitude of ways to spot and peer inside the destructive nature of these extreme events.

The satellite will be able to find wildfire hot spots, detect changes in the behavior of the fire, and predict its motion, as well as estimate the intensity, smoke output and air quality. It will also have the accuracy to identify the lightning strikes most likely to cause these fires and detect the pyrocumulonimbus clouds that form over wildfires.

These massive clouds can stretch for miles. A dangerous combination of their size and heat allows the clouds to create their own weather and threaten firefighters trapped beneath them.

"The Advanced Baseline Imager, or ABI, is ideal for detecting the thermal signature, or the hot spots, from the fires," said Dan Lindsey, NOAA's GOES-R program scientist, during the press conference. "Sometimes, it's even able to detect the fires before they're reported from the public. This is really critical information to get to firefighters so that they can take care of the fires before they can become out of control."

The satellite's ABI can scan our planet five times faster with four times the resolution of previous geostationary satellites. And the instrument recently surprised NOAA scientists with another previously unknown capability: detecting pressure waves from volcanic eruptions, which they were able to do after the recent Tonga eruption.

And the GOES satellites don't just monitor Earth. They have specialized instruments that image the sun and spot solar flares and monitor incoming space radiation particles. Without proper tracking or early warnings, this space weather can damage satellites that provide the basis for our communications and GPS, as well as spacecraft like the International Space Station.

Once GOES-18 is operational, it will replace the current GOES-17 satellite, which will remain in orbit as a spare. Post-launch testing of GOES-17 in 2018 revealed an issue with the cooling system on the satellite's imager, leading to a loss of imagery from time to time. This issue was corrected in the ABI for GOES-18, which will effectively replace GOES-17's monitoring of the western hemisphere.

The agency anticipates that the first imagery and data from GOES-18 will be available in the summer of 2023.

© NOAA This artist's rendering shows a GOES spacecraft in orbit around Earth.

PRESENT TENSE

RCMP inappropriately shares personal information on thousands of individuals with other federal agencies

MobileSyrup 

The RCMP disclosed the personal information of thousands of foreign individuals based on incomplete information to the Department of Defence – Canadian Armed Forces (DND-CAF)

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© VANCOUVER, CANADA – JANUARY 26, 2015: A sign for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in English and Fr... RCMP inappropriately shares personal information on thousands of individuals with other federal agencies

This was revealed after the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) took part in a joint review examining disclosures federal institutions made under the Security of Canada Information Disclosure Act (SCIDA).

Approved in 2019, SCIDA allows 17 federal institutions to share information with each other to protect security. This includes sharing personal information.

A two-part test, known as the disclosure test, must be satisfied before any information can be shared under this act. The first is the institution sharing the information is satisfied the information they’re sharing will help the institution that’s receiving the information. The second is personal privacy won’t be impacted “more than is reasonably necessary.”

The review examined 215 disclosures from 2020, 212 of which passed both parts of the test. The three that didn’t were all disclosure made by the RCMP.
The specifics

The first part of the test was not satisfied in two of the disclosures. Made on a proactive basis, one went to Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and the other to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). The review notes the RCMP failed to show they considered how each disclosure would help the recipient deliver on national security.

The information was shared “based on a mistaken belief that disclosed information fell within the recipient’s jurisdiction.” The review notes the RCMP acknowledged to the NSIRA the information they shared was not compliant under SCIDA. The RCMP said it was also in the process of updating its SCIDA policy.

In its third disclosure, the RCMP failed to meet the second part of the disclosure test.

According to the review, the RCMP received information on thousands of men, women, and children who an unknown third party detained for their alleged involvement in terrorist organizations. The information was sent by a “trusted foreign partner,” along with detailed notes indicating how the information was obtained.

The RCMP shared the initial data set with the DND – CAF because of its counter-terrorism mandate and their operations in the regions where the named individuals were detained. But the RCMP failed to share the additional detailed information on how the information was collected. It also didn’t have any record of receiving this information.

DND – CAF said the information was not integrated into its system but the information has to be held onto for “force protection and to rapidly identify threats.”
Recommendations

The review led to two recommendations relevant to this case. The first asks the RCMP to finish updating its SCIDA policy, update decision-makers on the requirements of the disclosure test, and make sure all information is appropriately documented.

The second is that the RCMP provides the remaining information to the armed forces, and DND-CAF assesses whether or not keeping the personal information they have on hand is necessary.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: National Security and Intelligence Review Agency/Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

BUCKET LIST

This Tennessee Town Is Home to America's Largest Underground Lake — and You Can Sail a Glass-bottomed Boat on It

Stacey Leasca 

© Provided by Travel + Leisure Trey Sullins/Courtesy of The Lost Sea Adventure

So, you've traveled the globe and reached corners far and wide. You've seen and done it all — or, so you think. But there are still places even the most well-trodden travelers have yet to discover. You just have to go under the Earth's surface to get to them.

Those looking for a unique getaway that will certainly add to their already stellar travel repertoire can head to the town of Sweetwater, Tennessee. There, travelers will find America's largest underground lake, known as The Lost Sea.

The Lost Sea is located inside the greater Craighead Caverns, an extensive cave network that extends from Sweetwater to Madisonville, Tennessee. The sea is calm, still, and clear, and you can tour it on a glass-bottomed boat to see what lurks beneath the surface.

As TheLostSea.com explains, the cave has likely been used by animals for thousands of years. As for humans, it notes that the "caverns have been known and used since the days of the Cherokee Indians. From the tiny natural opening on the side of the mountain, the cave expands into a series of huge rooms. Nearly a mile from the entrance, in a room now known as 'The Council Room,' a wide range of Indian artifacts including pottery, arrowheads, weapons, and jewelry have been found, testifying to the use of the cave by the Cherokees."

Though the lake has been widely visited since the early 1900s, Lake Scientist reports, there has been very little research or scientific exploration into the waters. Though one diver noted on the website, "We had no way of knowing what depths we would encounter, but we all suspected that the depths would be in excess of 100 feet very shortly after beginning the exploration. We were correct. The underwater section of the cave angled down just as sharply as the dry cave did."

Though you cannot readily go diving in the cave, you can very easily hop aboard one of those aforementioned glass-bottomed boats for a 75-minute tour, which begins with a .75-mile walk to the lake, then a ride around nearly four acres of water. On the tour, guides will even point out a few gorgeous formations known as anthodites, or cave flowers. Admission to the cave starts at $13.95. Learn more about the caves and book your visit here.

Scientist uses tiny trackers to keep tabs on funnel-web spiders

By Jill Gralow

© Reuters/JILL GRALOW Caitlin Creak, PhD candidate from the School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales, holds an antenna as she searches for a male Sydney funnel-web spider with a telemetry tracker attached, in Sydney

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Some Sydney funnel-web spiders are scrambling into the Australian brush carrying special cargo: a telemetry tracker to study how far a mature male can travel at night and whether their movements are affected by the environment and weather.

Caitlin Creak, a PhD candidate at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences of the University of New South Wales, has been tracking the male Sydney funnel-web, one of the world's deadliest spiders, for two summers. The nocturnal arachnid lives within around 100km (62 miles) of Australia's largest city, and is mostly active between November and April.© Reuters/JILL GRALOW Caitlin Creak, PhD candidate from the School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales, holds an antenna as she searches for a male Sydney funnel-web spider with a telemetry tracker attached, in Sydney

Having grown up in Australia's bushland, the 27-year-old is no stranger to spiders, but her love for them grew after she learned about them during her biology degree, and interacted with the creatures she thinks are wonderful.

© Reuters/JILL GRALOW Caitlin Creak, PhD candidate from the School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales, holds a male Sydney funnel-web spider with a telemetry tracker attached, in a container, in Sydney

Most studies on the Sydney funnel-web spider are about its venom and taxonomy, but Creak's study focuses on its behaviour and ecology.

"The Sydney funnel-web has a human-lethal venom, which is just a bit of an evolutionary coincidence, as we suspect at this stage," she said. "That's kind of all we know about them to be honest. We don't actually really know anything else in terms of their behaviour, their biology or their ecology."

© Reuters/JILL GRALOW A male Sydney funnel-web spider with a telemetry tracker attached waits in a container to be released back into the bushland by Caitlin Creak, PhD candidate from the School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales

To be able to attach the tracker, the spider must first be knocked out with carbon dioxide, a standard practice for sedating invertebrates, Creak said.

As the spider dozes for a couple of minutes on a wet sponge that keeps it hydrated, Creak places a second sponge around its head to safely glue the small tracking device, slightly bigger than a grain of rice, to its fused head and thorax, called the cephalothorax.

Creak is extremely cautious when handling the spider, never touching them with her hands. Instead, she uses 30cm-long forceps and when awake, the spider is kept in a thick plastic container.

Weather permitting, Creak tracks the spider daily for as long as the trackers stay functional. They can sometimes become dislodged, and the tiny batteries last about a month.

"In the morning, I'll come back, and I'll be able to see how far he's gone overnight," said Creak. "Once they're used to having a tracker on, they're off. They can go, God, anywhere between a metre to 60 metres in a night, that I've recorded."

It is no easy task to track the arachnids. With a receiver and antenna, Creak must tread carefully over vegetation, logs and leaf litter. The telemetry tracker on the spider sends beeps to the receiver as Creaks gets close.

Australia has many species of funnel-webs but only the male Sydney funnel-web is responsible for human deaths. Only 13 deaths have been recorded but more than 30 people are bitten by the spider each year, according to the Australian Museum.

"We're with them all the time, we might as well try and coexist and to do that, we need to know more about them," Creak said of spiders during a recent tracking expedition.

(Reporting by Jill Gralow. Editing by Gerry Doyle and Karishma Singh)

Grassy Narrows First Nation looking at next options to protect land from mining activity in Ontario

Logan Turner 

Members of a First Nation in northwestern Ontario are back to the drawing board in their attempts to protect traditional lands from continued impacts of industrial activity.

Most recently, leadership from Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows) asked Ontario to inform companies and prospectors about the risks of staking a mineral claim in Grassy Narrows's traditional territory.

Thanks to Ontario's switch to a digital staking system in 2018, mining companies and prospectors can register a mineral claim in the territory from anywhere in the province without ever stepping foot in the area, and without knowing about the First Nation's ongoing efforts to protect their lands.

The community sent a letter to the provincial mining recorder on Feb. 7, asking for a notice of caution to be placed on the online staking system to notify parties thinking of staking a mineral claim in the area.

"We believe that there is a considerable risk to companies that are staking, or that have staked claims in the subject area, because they are operating in a social conflict zone subject to ongoing litigation," said the letter, which was obtained by CBC News.

In November 2021, Grassy Narrows took Ontario to court over nine mineral exploration permits they say the province granted in the First Nation's traditional territory without consulting them.

Grassy Narrows has also been asking Ontario to withdraw the land from forest management planning and mineral staking since 2018, and they declared a moratorium on all industrial activity in the area since 2007.

"It appears that Ontario is not currently disclosing these risks to companies," the letter said.

"It also fails to alert these companies that their claims are encumbered by Grassy Narrows' rights and interests and that their ability to access and operate within their claims may be impeded by the social conflict arising from the Crown's failure to respect our rights and interests."

© CBC Grassy Narrows First Nation is located about 90 kilometres northwest of Kenora, Ont.

But Ontario's provincial mining recorder disagreed with Grassy Narrows, responding in a Feb. 18 letter that denied the First Nation's request to have a notice of caution issued.

"While there have been a few instances in which the Ministry has considered it appropriate to issue cautionary statements … regarding claims asserted by Indigenous communities, the underlying circumstances were materially different," said mining recorder James Schweyer in the Feb. 18 letter.

The ministry did not provide additional details on why they refused the request in an emailed statement to CBC News. They also did not respond to questions asking how many notices of caution are currently approved in Ontario nor where they are located.
Growing legal uncertainty in northern Ontario

Dayna Scott said it was a missed opportunity to improve clarity and relationships between government, First Nations and industry in the mining sector, especially in the lands around Grassy Narrows. Scott is an associate professor at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School and an expert in environmental law and justice.

Since Ontario Premier Doug Ford was elected in 2018 and vowed to "hop on a bulldozer" himself to build roads to the Ring of Fire and open northern Ontario to more resource development, there has been a growing number of legal challenges claiming the government has failed to adequately consult First Nations.

It's led to more legal uncertainty in the mining industry in northern Ontario, Scott said, which is a concern given the Progressive Conservatives priority to expand mining in the north to boost the economy and facilitate a coming transition to electric vehicles and clean steel.

If the province placed more notices of caution on contested lands from the beginning, "companies would be warned of these risks in advance, and they would maybe think twice about staking claims within that territory," Scott told CBC News.

"Or alternatively, the companies would be aware of those risks, they would stake there anyway, and then Ontario would have arguments in some future litigation that the company might bring, saying that the company should have been aware of those risks and the uncertainty related to the lands in question from the beginning."
Land protection 'for our children and grandchildren'

Joseph Fobister of Grassy Narrows has been involved in the work to protect the First Nation's lands from industrial activity for more than two decades.

For him, it's quite simple. He wants mining companies and prospectors to know about and respect the laws of Grassy Narrows, and he doesn't want to see anymore logging or mining.

The people and the lands have already been through so much, he told CBC News, they need to heal from the decades of clear-cut logging, mining activity and mercury poisoning.

"We need to have something for our children and grandchildren, so this fight is important not for myself, but for the community."

Since the government won't apply a notice of caution, Grassy Narrows staff has taken it upon themselves to inform mining companies about their laws and the outstanding litigation.

Most of the companies have been "open to dialogue with Grassy," said Fobister.

He added, "ultimately, they have to accept that we won't accept any more resource extraction from our territory ... and we're not ready to make any deals until the community changes their mind."

Something’s in the air: Tech company looks to sound waves to filter potentially harmful particles

Since the start of the pandemic, air filtration in schools, hospitals, and homes has been front of mind for people, and a talking point for provincial governments.

© Provided by National Post Just like sand can block water in a river, large particles can block the flow of air through filters.

Often, the filters that go in buildings catch air contaminants such as dust or viruses just fine, but it’s possible that these particles can be too small and slip through the high-efficiency particulate air — or HEPA — filters.

Oliver Centner, CEO of tech company Atmofizer, says the solution lies in soundwaves.

“Essentially, what we’re doing is making snowballs out of the particles that are too fine to be caught by regular filters,” Centner says. “Our solution is to make things bigger; this helps the filter catch more particles.”

Atmofizer developed devices that sit in front of air filters and blast air currents, like sound waves, in front of the filters to clump the small particles together.

HEPA filters, commonly found in homes and businesses, are advertised as being able to filter 99.7 per cent of contaminants in the air. But of those 0.3 per cent that make it through when it comes to the air we breathe, every bit can make a difference, depending on just how harmful the particular particles that make it through the filter are.

People really should pay the same attention to what they breathe as they do to what they drink or eat, Centner says.

“Water had its turn. People are aware of food and focus on organic. It’s time we put as much emphasis and time into thinking about air,” Centner says. “As many as 12 million people each year die from air pollution, five million from indoor air quality and seven from outdoor air quality.”

Atmofizer devices are not designed to replace filters, but to enhance them and make them last longer. Because the air pressure produced by the devices clumps particles together, traditional filters catch larger bits of debris from the air less often. This can actually extend the life of a standard filter, Centner says, likening airflow through a filter to the flow of a river. Just as a pile of sand can block the flow of a river, billions of small particles can clog a filter and wear it out. So, less sand — or particles — means less of a chance of clogging up the works.

The company, based out of Vancouver, plans to sell four types of devices for different applications. A movable device fits into a standard wall outlet and purifies the air in the room. A dual-purpose, portable laptop stand-purifier hybrid is designed for office spaces. For houses and buildings, Atmofizer designed two front-of-filter devices to work alongside existing equipment. The larger devices are not yet available, but plans include technician-installed filters for buildings.

The prices for the two smaller devices range from about $500 to $1,200. Centner said he can’t yet give a dollar figure for the cost of installing the larger system in a home, but these costs may be recouped, since the actual filters will not need to be replaced as often.

Air filters and purification have been discussed a lot, thanks to COVID-19. Brands such as Dyson advertise their purifiers as being developed with COVID in mind, although not specifically to filter out the virus.

In the future, Centner hopes to develop a recyclable, reusable home filter that could be cleaned, potentially in the dishwasher, and quickly put back in place.

Home HEPA filters are available for most air purifiers available on the market, although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggests the use of a filter alone is not enough to protect against COVID. These portable units can be easily moved into most rooms.

Many schools across Canada are seeking funding to get these filters installed, and provinces such as Ontario continually make talking points regarding the installation of HEPA and other systems in classrooms.

Last month, Ontario childcare operators called for more HEPA filters in their facilities.

Austin Air Systems, an air purifier manufacturer based out of Buffalo, New York, suggests it could cost between USD$600 and $700 per year to run HEPA filter systems in a classroom.

Progressive favorite Casar wins primary for redrawn Texas district

Tal Axelrod 

Greg Casar, progressive groups' favored candidate in a Democratic Texas House primary, emerged victorious Tuesday, handing the party's left-flank a high-profile win.

© Associated Press/Eric Gay

 Progressive favorite Casar wins primary for redrawn Texas district

Casar, an Austin City Council member, beat state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez in the primary for the 35th Congressional District, a newly created, deep blue House seat that includes parts of Austin and stretches to San Antonio.

He is expected to coast to victory in November.

Both candidates cast themselves as progressives, but Rodriguez ran with the support of the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund, a group that backs moderate candidates.

While on the city council, Casar advocated for allowing tent encampments for the homeless population and cutting funding to Austin police.

Casar's win is a badly-needed victory for the progressive flank of the Democratic Party. Liberals were downtrodden after recent high-profile losses, including failing to get a more progressive candidate nominated for president in 2020 and for the House in a Cleveland-area House race last year.

MURDER MOST FOUL
Montana Gov. Gianforte hunts, kills National Park Service-tracked mountain lion

#STOPKILLINGPREDATORS

Tim Fitzsimons 

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte shot and killed a mountain lion that was being tracked by the National Park Service in December, his second such hunt of a monitored animal that ventured outside the protected areas of Yellowstone National Park.

© Provided by NBC News

The Republican governor “had a valid mountain lion license, treed a lion on public land in Park County and harvested it,” his spokesperson, Brooke Stroyke, said, adding that dogs were used in the hunt and drove the lion up the tree.

“As the group got closer to the lion, members of the group, who have a hound training license, used four hounds to tree the lion once the track was discovered in a creek bottom on public land," Stroyke said. "After the lion was treed, the governor confirmed the mountain lion was a [male], harvested it and put his tag on it. He immediately called to report the legal harvest and then the [Fish, Wildlife & Parks] game warden.”

The Dec. 28 hunt was legal, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks spokesperson Greg Lemon said in an email.

"Mountain lion hunting has a strong history in Montana, and mountain lion hunters are some of the elusive predators’ strongest advocates and those most engaged in how lions are managed across the state," Lemon wrote.

News of the governor's hunt broke on the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone, the 2.2 million-acre park that was the first in the National Park System.

Federal law prohibits hunting and the discharging of firearms in Yellowstone. However, animals leaving the park are routinely hunted on non-protected lands in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. Nearly 190 bison were killed during the 2020-21 winter after migrating out of the park into Montana.

In 2021, Gianforte told the Helena Independent Record that he "made a mistake" after he trapped and killed a Montana black wolf that was also tagged in Yellowstone before he completed the required state certification.

Gianforte told the paper at that time that he probably had spent "over 40 days invested over five years attempting to harvest a wolf."

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Malaysian financier said he discussed 1MDB probe with Trump allies -testimony

By Luc Cohen 

© Reuters/Olivia Harris FILE PHOTO: Traffic passes a 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) billboard at the Tun Razak Exchange development in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A fugitive Malaysian financier said he won support from allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump for a possible settlement of a probe into the looting of funds from the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, a former Goldman Sachs banker testified on Tuesday.

Tim Leissner offered a glimpse of what he had heard from financier Jho Low about the attempted deal, on the sixth day of his testimony at the trial of Roger Ng, another former Goldman banker. Ng, 49, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to launder money and violate an anti-bribery law.

Leissner, a former Goldman partner, said he had no independent verification of the information.

Leissner testified that Low, whom he described as the mastermind of the scheme, told him at a 2017 meeting that Low and his lawyers were in talks with the Trump administration about the potential for a multi-billion dollar deal that would spare several people from U.S. charges.

Low told Leissner he had met with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, in Beijing and had hired Chris Christie, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, as his lawyer with the promise of a $10 million fee if the settlement was successful, Leissner said.

Christie said he represented Low in civil forfeiture actions in California that resulted in Low surrendering $700 million to the U.S. Department of Justice. He said he never entered into an agreement to receive a fee if charges were dropped in exchange for payment to the U.S. government.

"There were never any discussions between me and any members of the Trump administration that the criminal investigation would be dropped or any charges against Mr. Low or anyone else dismissed in exchange for payment to the government," Christie said in a statement. "Nor was there any agreement for a legal success fee to me to negotiate such a result."

Kushner could not be reached for comment.

Low, who was indicted by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn in 2018, has not been arrested by U.S. or Malaysian authorities. Malaysia says Low is in China, which Beijing denies.

Prosecutors say Goldman helped 1MDB raise $6.5 billion, but that $4.5 billion of those funds were diverted to government officials, bankers and their associates. The bank in 2020 agreed to pay a $3 billion fine and have its Malaysia subsidiary plead guilty in U.S. court.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Richard Chang)

Ex-Goldman bankers consulted Feng Shui master on 1MDB probe -testimony

By Luc Cohen

 

© Reuters/EDUARDO MUNOZ FILE PHOTO: 

Ex-Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng exits the United States Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two former Goldman Sachs bankers sought advice from a feng shui master in 2016 on how to handle a U.S. investigation into the looting of funds from Malaysia's 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, one of the bankers, Tim Leissner, testified on Tuesday.

Leissner is the prosecutors' star witness at the Brooklyn federal court trial of Roger Ng, 49, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to launder money and violate an anti-bribery law. Leissner, 52, pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2018 and agreed to cooperate with the government.

Leissner testified that after the FBI served him with a subpoena in February 2016, Ng and his wife, Hwee Bin Lim, suggested he consult a feng shui master they trusted to ask whether they "would be in trouble."

Ng had left Goldman in 2014, Leissner said.

The charges stem from one of the biggest financial scandals in history. Prosecutors say Goldman from 2009 to 2014 raised $6.5 billion for 1MDB through bond sales and earned $600 million in fees, but that $4.5 billion was diverted to officials, bankers and their associates through bribes and kickbacks.

Leissner testified that he and Ng played a key role in that scheme and that he personally transferred $35 million in kickbacks to Ng, Goldman's top banker for Malaysia. Leissner oversaw the firm's Southeast Asia team.

He said on Tuesday that Ng and Lim attended his meeting with the feng shui master at a Hong Kong hotel, where the master said he would have trouble with authorities over the next five years but that the problems would later resolve themselves.

"I was in a panic," Leissner said. "They felt this would give me comfort and they wanted to show their support."

At the end of the meeting, Leissner said he, Ng and Lim concocted a "cover story" involving Lim and Leissner's then-wife, Judy Chan, to justify the $35 million in funds.

The testimony could prove problematic for Ng, who argued that the money prosecutors call ill-gotten gains was actually derived from a legitimate business venture between the two men's wives.

Ng's lawyer has said he played no role in the scheme beyond introducing Leissner to an intermediary close to the Malaysian government, and says Ng later warned Goldman not to trust the intermediary.

Lawyers for Ng are expected to call Lim to testify in her husband's defense. They began cross examining Leissner, who has already testified for five full days, on Thursday morning.

Goldman in 2020 paid a nearly $3 billion fine and arranged for its Malaysian unit to plead guilty in U.S. court.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Richard Chang)