Electrify America Plans a Fully Renewable 75-Megawatt Facility


Emmet White
Wed, May 18, 2022, 

Photo credit: ElectrifyAmerica

The Volkswagen-owned EV developer teams up with wind and solar energy company Terra-Gen to meet its goal of a net zero carbon footprint.

In addition to increasing renewability, the new solar facility will enable Electrify America to increase its annual output by 225,000 MWh.

Electrify America is in cycle three of a four cycle plan, with current electrification strategies divided between a massive California market and the rest of the nation.

The future is here! At least that’s what Electrify America’s new 100% renewable energy-sourced EV charging network looks like. Teaming up with energy provider Terra-Gen, Electrify America has announced plans to build a solar powered energy generation project in San Bernardino County, California.

“The new solar project is expected to generate 75 Megawatts (MW) per hour at peak solar capacity or an estimated annual production of 225,000 Megawatt hours,” Electrify America said. “It is projected to produce enough 100% renewable energy annually to more than offset the energy currently delivered on an annualized basis to Electrify America’s customers charging on its extensive network.”


Photo credit: FREDERIC J. BROWN - Getty Images

The plan, named Electrify America Solar Glow 1, is set to be in use by mid-2023 and projects big changes for the charging market. Not only does the plan aim to have a net-zero carbon footprint, but it aims to become the largest open EV fast-charging network in North America to enter into a virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA).

How exactly does this deal work? Electrify America and Terra-Gen have struck a 15-year VPPA, in which Electrify America is paid a fixed price for developing and ultimately selling Terra-Gen’s energy to customers. Should market rates for electricity fall, Terra-Gen is still required to pay the agreed take-off price. Similarly, the energy provider will be obligated to share portions of revenue if the energy is sold above the agreed rate.

Electrify America is not taking a business-as-usual approach with its new goal. The company plans on buying and retiring all government bundled environmental certifications linked to the new solar project, in a move that shies away from unbundled and third-party supplied certificates. One supplier of bundled certificates will be Solar Energy Generating Systems IX plant, the world's longest-running solar thermal energy facility.

“In aggregate, these 100% renewable energy commitments address Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions for all energy delivered to our customers, and amount to an estimated 2 million metric tons in avoided CO2 emissions over 15 years—comparable to the carbon sequestered by planting nearly 40 million trees,” said Jigar Shah, head of energy services at Electrify America.

As a part of the overarching four-cycle plan, Electrify American is currently in cycle three, which will run through 2024 and has a primary goal of nationally expanding a DC fast charging network. Though the new facilities are a year out, Electrify America is leading the way in creating North America’s largest charging network, something we’re already seeing the benefits of.

This is how much money Americans think they need to be considered wealthy

Alicia Adamczyk
Tue, May 17, 2022, 

Can you put a dollar amount on what it means to be wealthy in the U.S.? An annual survey asks Americans to do just that, and this year, $2.2 million is the magic number.

That's according to the annual Modern Wealth Survey from Charles Schwab, which also finds people believe that an average net worth of $774,000 is what it takes to be financially comfortable.

The report, which surveyed 1,000 Americans ages 21 to 75 in February 2022, asked respondents a range of questions about their personal finances, including the factors influencing their savings and investment decisions.

The average net worth needed to be considered wealthy and to be financially comfortable both rose from last year's survey. In 2021, Americans said they needed $624,000 in net assets to live comfortably, while it would take $1.9 million to be rich. That said, the averages are still lower than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, likely because many people are focusing less on hitting a specific number and more on their overall goals, financial and otherwise, says Rob Williams, managing director of financial planning, retirement income, and wealth management at Charles Schwab.

"People are concerned about other things besides the balance in their portfolio and in their investment account," says Williams, including their physical health and overall stability.

The average net worth of U.S. households actually isn't so far off from Schwab's survey: It stood at $748,800 in 2019, according to the most recent Survey of Consumer Finances by the Federal Reserve. But that's skewed by the richest households. The median net worth for U.S. households is $121,700, per the Fed. And as other reports have found, many U.S. households have very little or no savings at all.

 

Build your savings momentum

With little saved for emergencies or retirement, a number like $2.2 million—or even $774,000—might seem like an impossible benchmark to reach. But Williams says this doesn't have to be the case. Ultimately, each household should calculate its own wealth target and make an individualized savings plan. What one person or family needs isn't the same as another.

“A plan is really just saying, ‘This is what’s important to me, this is what I need to save and invest for next year, in five years, 10 years from now,’” says Williams.

Once you have some idea of a target, the most important thing you can do is start saving—regardless of the amount you put away. Five dollars is better than nothing, even if it doesn't seem at first like it will add up to much. Putting even a little bit of money away consistently is especially important when building a retirement account, as most Americans will be on their own to fund their golden years, says Williams.

"No matter how much money you have, get started and stay disciplined," he says. "You’ll look back and say, ‘Goodness, those small steps really built up over time.’ You’ll find yourself in a position where you can make a lot more choices than you could before."

Once you start saving, make it an automatic ritual. Oftentimes, watching your savings accrue will provide the momentum to keep saving more and more, even if you're just starting out or well below your target number, says Williams.

Keeping the long game in mind is critical, especially in a rocky market like we're seeing right now. Building wealth, for most people, takes decades of dedicated investments. Though investing money in assets that are on a losing streak can seem self-defeating, a down market is "an opportunity to be saving and investing more," says Williams—and getting more for your money.

"If you’re investing for net worth, it takes time to get there," he says. "It's good to be aspirational, but get started and don’t get overwhelmed by trying to get to a certain number in a day or a week."

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Orban tells CPAC conservatives in Europe, U.S. must align "troops" for 2024 votes
 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban

Matt Schlapp

Thu, May 19, 2022
By Krisztina Than

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Conservatives in Europe and the United States must fight together to "reconquer" institutions in Washington and Brussels from liberals who threaten Western civilisation ahead of votes in 2024, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday.

Nationalist Orban said the next U.S. presidential election, when Donald Trump suggests he may seek a second term in the White House, and the vote for the European Parliament would make that a vital year.

He was addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the United States' most prominent conservative gathering, in Budapest, the first such CPAC event in Europe.

"Progressive liberals, neo-Marxists dazed by the woke dream, people financed by George Soros and promoters of open societies ... want to annihilate the Western way of life that you and us love so much," Orban told the conference.

"We must coordinate the movement of our troops as we face a big test, 2024 will be a decisive year," he said.

His comments were a familiar swipe at Budapest-born billionaire Soros, who he accuses of trying to undermine Europe's cultural identity by supporting immigration. Soros has promoted liberalism since before the 1989 fall of communism, funding education and scholarships.

Orban, who was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term after a landslide election victory in April, is seen by many on the American hard right as a model for his tough policies on immigration and support for families and Christian conservatism.

The EU has accused Orban of curbing media and judicial independence and enriching associates with public funds. He denies any corruption.

Orban laid out 12 points which he said were key to ensuring a dominance of conservativism, including playing by their own rules, standing up for national interests in foreign policy and gaining control over the media.

"We must reconquer the institutions in Washington D.C. and Brussels," Orban said.

Launched in 1974, the annual CPAC conference has grown from a confab of conservative thinkers and politicians to a jamboree of right-wing celebrities and activists.

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union that runs CPAC, told the conference that Budapest was the right place to start a conversation about what is going on in Europe, working with "freedom fighters".

(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Alison Williams)

I study the Bible, LGBTQ kids deserve more empathy than Christian Academy provides: Opinion

Chris Keith, PhD
Thu, May 19, 2022

The Courier Journal

The first time I felt sorry for a gay person was when two guys beat Matthew Shepard within an inch of his life while he was tied to a fence post and left him to die in a Wyoming field. He was discovered in a coma eighteen hours later—still tied to the fence post—and eventually succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. It was 1998 and I was an 18-year-old freshman in college at Bellarmine College.

Although I never remember being told or directly taught this, prior to Matthew Shepard, I thought that whatever harassment LGBTQ people (though we did not yet have this term) received, they brought on themselves. I grew up in the midst of the AIDS epidemic when homosexuals were dying in droves and I do not ever remember feeling sorry for them, much to my present shame.

For Subscribers: Homophobic homework? For some Christian Academy alums, assignment is par for the course

It took Matthew Shepard dying a brutal death for me even to start a rethinking process. Whatever he had done, he did not deserve that. Twenty-four years later, as a 42-year-old man, I look back at that first bit of sympathy that I felt and stand ashamed of the preceding callousness. How was I raised in a thoroughly loving, Christian home and church context that screamed about how much Jesus loves everybody and how nothing can keep anyone from that love and had been so personally unconcerned about extending that concern to such a vulnerable population?


I thought about Matthew Shepard, and the impact of his death on me, recently because of the Christian Academy of Louisville middle-school assignment that asked students to talk a hypothetical gay friend out of their homosexuality in favor of “God’s design” of heterosexuality.

A screenshot of a homework assigment given to a number of students at Christian Academy of Louisville. May 13, 2022

The responses have been typical and as polarized as every other issue in our society. One side decries the abuse of this homework assignment, which primes students for a real-world conversation with real-world effects. They note, rightly, that a private school founded as a reaction against desegregation, which Christian Academy of Louisville was, is once again segregating itself from particular minorities. The school system’s defenders point out that they are only what they ever said they were—an evangelical private Christian school with a “biblical” worldview. They have a right, they say—and they are not wrong on this point—to teach their religious commitments.

Opinion: Christian Academy of Louisville homework shows indoctrination happening in private schools

They do have that right, but one problem with such a response is that neither the Bible nor Jesus solves this situation, for either side, really. To the extent that the Bible speaks about homosexuality, it is against it, and clearly so, in both testaments. As a New Testament scholar, I am fairly confident that the idea that Jesus or Paul would have been completely embracing of homosexuality runs aground. I wish that were not true, but it is. Jesus and Paul were Second Temple Jewish men and would almost certainly have thought what other Second Temple Jews thought, which is that, based on the pattern of creation, marriage was between one man and one woman (each repeats Gen 2:24 in his teachings) and therefore homosexuality was wrong.

Yet the kind of homosexuality that the Bible specifically condemns is not typically what is happening in middle schools today. The Bible condemns specific sex acts, not same-sex affinity or other gender- and sexuality-related issues like non-binarism. Asking what the Bible says about a teenager who is attracted to someone of their own sex, or even what the Bible says about state-sanctioned marriages between two people of the same sex is like asking what the Bible says about Ford versus Chevy; these are not categories in the biblical authors’ brains.

Scenes from the Louisville Pride Festival on Sept. 21, 2019.

Those of us who cherish biblical texts on some level or another also need to exercise the important and necessary right to disagree with the text. The texts come to us today from worlds different from our own in time, culture and distance. I saw a different claim in a social media post defending CAL earlier this week. It said, “Either you believe the Bible or you don’t. Period. You can’t pick and choose which parts are true and which are false for the sake of your moral relativism.” Nonsense. Believers or not, we recognize the distance between the biblical texts and ourselves all the time. Here are some matters that the Bible is pretty clear about:

God’s people cannot eat lobster (Lev 11:9–12) 

(SOMETIMES GENERALIZED TO BE ALL SHELL FISH)

Polygamy and concubinage are alright (Abraham, Jacob, Saul, David, Solomon, et al.)

When a man’s life may be in danger, he can offer his wife or concubine to strangers to save his own neck (Gen 12:10–20; Gen 20:1–18; Judges 19)

Genocide is alright as long as they are your enemies (Deut 20:16), and when conquering your enemies, dashing their babies’ heads against a rock is a blessed thing (Ps 137:9).

Let us not forget the apostle Paul’s upholding of the institution of slavery: he twice tells slaves to obey their masters (Eph 6:5; Col 3:22); sends a runaway slave back to his owner (Philemon); and when he encounters a slave girl being exploited by her owner, he sets her free from a demon but not her owner (Acts 16:16–19).

I have been going to church all my life, but I cannot remember a single anti-lobster, pro-polygamy, pro-spousal sexual sacrifice, pro-genocide, pro-slavery sermon. Just think of all the sinners pouring into Red Lobster on Sundays, after worship no less.

More: Homework at Christian Academy of Louisville: Persuade your friend to stop being gay

Observing the complexity of applying ancient texts to today is not to suggest that Jesus is irrelevant, however, especially for those who care about his teachings. Jesus is particularly clear about his followers’ needs to love others as themselves, love even their enemies, and the need to take care of the marginalized and outcast in God’s kingdom.

He is also particularly clear about whether the precepts of Scripture or human beings take precedence. Addressing several issues related to food, Jesus teaches that “the Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Observance of the Sabbath day was required by the law of Moses, enshrined in the fourth of the ten commandments (Exod 20:8). Without ever saying that the law is unimportant—because he did not think it was unimportant—Jesus says that people are more important.

Jesus’s teaching that human beings and their wellbeing supersede scriptural requirements brings us back to the issue that the to-and-fro about the school’s “right” to make this assignment misses—the real, live children exposed to this conversational conversion therapy. I hope the church culture surrounding the Christian Academy of Louisville can recover an empathy for the LGBTQ children in their midst, the ones who are out and the ones who are closeted. This demographic is already traversing the wild social terrain that is middle school and is substantially more at risk for suicide and self-harm than heterosexual children.

They deserve greater care and consideration, not ostracization. I think of all the friends and acquaintances of mine from Bullitt County Public Schools and then Bellarmine, who have come out of the closet since we were classmates, what they might remember of the me who had yet to come to affirm them. To any of them reading this, I am so sorry for my earlier callousness and I am sorry that it took Matthew Shepard’s death for me to start to see you in the light you deserve. I hope that the Christian Academy of Louisville can make its way to a biblically informed affirmation of LGBTQ students. Even if it doesn’t, however, I hope it can find a way to privilege caring for them and recover an empathy for these amazing children.

Chris Keith (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary's University, Twickenham (London, UK) and Research Professor of Theology at The University of Notre Dame Australia. He is a born-and-raised Louisvillian and lives there now with his family.

He is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity. His most recent book is The Gospel as Manuscript: An Early History of the Jesus Tradition as Material Artifact (Oxford University Press, 2020). Find him on Twitter @chriskeith7.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: I study the Bible and it is clear. LGBTQ kids deserve our empathy

UK
Royal Mint unveils 50p Pride coin to celebrate 50 years of LGBTQ+ legacy

Kalila Sangster
Wed, May 18, 2022

The new 50p marks the first time Britain’s LGBTQ+ community has been recognised on official UK coinage. Photo: Royal Mint

The Royal Mint has revealed a commemorative 50p coin celebrating the 50th anniversary of Pride UK.

The new 50p features a design of Pride in London’s values of protest, visibility, unity, and equality in rainbows.

The coin was designed by east London artist, writer, and LGBTQ+ activist Dominique Holmes and will be made using state-of-the-art colour printing technology to create the iconic colours of the Pride progression flag on special-edition colour versions of the coins.

This is the first time Britain’s LGBTQ+ community has been recognised on official UK coinage.

The 50p will not enter general circulation but will be available to buy through The Royal Mint website this summer. The coin will be available in gold, silver, and brilliant uncirculated versions.

Representatives from Pride in London visited The Royal Mint to strike their own coins as part of the launch.

Asad Shaykh, director of M=marketing and communications at Pride in London said, “It was a privilege to visit The Royal Mint as part of our partnership and see our coin being made.

“It humbles me greatly that the words that I coined for the brand, PROTEST, VISIBILITY, UNITY & EQUALITY – will be on an actual coin, opposite the Queen.

“This queer brown immigrant has come a long way, powered by hope, love and this city. Nowhere in the world had this been possible, except the UK. Pride in London feels very proud today.”

Clare Maclennan, director of commemorative coin at The Royal Mint said, “The 50th Anniversary of Pride UK is a milestone celebration, and it is a privilege to mark 50 years of progress with this 50p coin. This is the first ever UK coin dedicated to Britain’s LGBTQ+ community, with colour printing technology capturing the spirit of Pride UK with its iconic rainbow colours.

The Royal Mint will also make a financial contribution to London LGBT Community Pride as part of the launch of the new coin.

The Royal Mint said: "The new LGBTQ+ coin forms part of The Royal Mint’s wider commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion."

Disney labels rainbow merchandise 'Pride Collection' for the first time: 'This is how it's done!'

Hugo Martín
Wed, May 18, 2022

For years, Walt Disney Co. has courted LGBTQ+ visitors to its theme parks, selling rainbow-colored souvenirs and hosting groups that organize annual "Gay Days" celebrations.

But Disney this week started marketing and promoting merchandise under the name Pride Collection for the first time, a big branding move for a company that has become a conservative target for its support of LGBTQ+ rights.

Profits from sales of T-shirts, Mickey Mouse ears, plush toys and other souvenirs in the newly branded collection will be donated to a select group of LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations through the end of June, the company said.

The move comes as Disney faces mounting criticism and scorn from conservative lawmakers and others who say the company has oversize influence on children, and American culture at large, and is pushing a progressive agenda they oppose.


"The Disney Pride Collection was created by LGBTQIA+ employees and allies at The Walt Disney Company and is a reflection of their incredible contributions and place at the heart of the company," the company said on its website. "We stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ community everywhere."

Disney began to feel the wrath of conservative lawmakers several months ago when Chief Executive Bob Chapek voiced opposition to Florida's Parental Rights in Education law, legislation more commonly known by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. It has since been cast by conservatives as a cultural force to be stopped.

A Disney representative said the decision to market the Pride Collection did not come in response to the recent outcry from conservative critics. The manufacture of Disney merchandise takes months to design, produce and ship, and the Pride Collection was conceived months ago, as part of the company's "ongoing evolution," the representative said.

In 1985, Disneyland quietly reversed a long-held policy of prohibiting partners of the same sex from dancing together at the "Happiest Place on Earth." Ten years later, Disney began offering health benefits to same-sex couples, after many other Hollywood companies took the step.

The company began to sell rainbow-themed merchandise in 2018.

Disney executives declined to comment publicly about the Pride Collection but referred to a blog post published Monday by Lisa Becket, senior vice president for global marketing, who described herself as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.

In the post titled "Share Your Pride," Becket said she is proud to work for a "company that supports inclusion as a core value and provides a welcoming environment which allows me to bring my true authentic self to work."

She said the collection was "dreamed up and designed by members and allies of the community, for members and allies of the community," adding that the Pride Collection shows the company is "further deepening our support" for the LGBTQIA+ community.

Disney employees Carlos Lopez Estrada, left, and Juan Pablo Reyes hold a rainbow Mickey Mouse doll during a walkout in March in Burbank as part of a protest against the company's initial response to Florida's Parental Rights in Education legislation. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

People who commented on the public post were enthusiastic. "THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE! And the merch is FIERCE! Bravo, Disney. Legacy is [on] your side. Thank you," one comment reads.

On social media, news of the Pride Collection drew praise and scorn.

A Twitter post on an account described as a Disneyland food blog that showed a picture of a Pride Collection marketing sign generated a range of responses, from "Step in the right direction Disney" to "Sorry, but we will be no longer supporting WOKE Disney world. Disney should stick to entertainment and out of politics. We traditional families MATTER, too."

One of Disney's largest sources of revenue is merchandise licensing and retail sales, which generated about $4.2 billion in 2021, according to the company's latest annual report.

And there may be a business case in supporting LGBTQ+ park visitors, according to the findings of a recent survey of Grindr dating app users that said LGBTQ+ travelers spend $100 billion a year in the U.S. alone. A 2019 survey of LGBTQ travelers found that 11% visited theme parks in the previous 12 months.

Other theme parks have moved in recent years to publicly support their LGBTQ+ visitors.

Universal Studios Hollywood is the annual site of a gay pride celebration known as "Pride Is Universal." It's not listed on the park's calendar, but in 2019 the park posted its first Twitter announcement about the event.

That year, the park also sold for the first time T-shirts and other merchandise emblazoned with the “Love Is Universal” logo during the event. Proceeds from ticket sales helped support housing programs for people with AIDS and scholarships for students studying LGBTQ+ issues.

For years, Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Florida have been the site of "Gay Days" celebrations that have drawn thousands of members of the LGBTQ+ community.

The events take place in the parks but are organized by outside groups. "Gay Days" events attract about 30,000 visitors each year to Anaheim’s Disneyland Resort, according to organizers. This year the event is scheduled for Sept. 16-18 at Disneyland.

Eddie Shapiro, who launched "Gay Days Anaheim" with his friend Jeffrey Epstein, called the Pride Collection a "step in the right direction" and said he expects to see Disney continue to support the LGBTQ+ community and stop contributing to the campaign coffers of conservatives who demonize the acceptance of gay and lesbian couples.

"The world has evolved and so too has the Walt Disney Co.," Shapiro said.

Daan Colijn, who runs a gay travel blog with his partner, Karl Krause, applauded Disney's move, calling the company an LGBTQ+ ally.

"With rebranding the rainbow merchandise into the new Disney Pride Collection, and donating 100% of the profits during Pride Month, Disney is sending out a clearer message about supporting the LGBTQ+ community which we take as a win," he said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Chevron, Schlumberger withdraw request for California carbon-capture permit



Wed, May 18, 2022
By Liz Hampton and Sabrina Valle

(Reuters) - Top U.S. energy companies Chevron and Schlumberger have withdrawn an application to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them deep underground in central California, spokespeople said on Wednesday, putting the clean-energy project on hold after U.S. environmental regulators questioned it.

Burying industrial gases has become a focus for energy companies seeking to show investors they are willing to reduce emissions and help fight climate change. Their permit was one of more than a dozen filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which requested the application be withdrawn.

In a March 25 letter, the EPA said the application was "substantially incomplete," citing changes to the application and the failure to supply financial assurances.

The companies had formed a venture to revive an idled biomass-fueled power plant and generate "carbon negative power" in Mendota, near Fresno, California. The project included an underground carbon sequestration site and would remove about 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.

“The EPA did the right thing by hitting the brakes on the Mendota carbon capture project," said Victoria Bogdan Tejeda, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Carbon capture is risky, expensive, and incompatible with environmental justice."

Chevron and Schlumberger said they elected to withdraw the permit application and the group would continue "to gather and evaluate project information."

"The team remains committed to developing lower carbon solutions and doing so in an environmentally and socially responsible manner," spokespeople said.

Separately, Chevron on Wednesday said it was launching a carbon-capture and storage project in the San Joaquin Valley aimed at reducing emissions from its own operations in California.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver and Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by David Gregorio)

Captive medic’s bodycam shows firsthand horror of Mariupol



Yuliia Paievska, known as Taira, and her driver Serhiy sit in a vehicle in Mariupol, Ukraine on March 9, 2022. She last appeared on March 21 on Russian television as a captive, handcuffed and with bruises on her face. Using a body camera, she recorded her team's frantic efforts to bring people back from the brink of death. (Yuliia Paievska via AP)

VASILISA STEPANENKO and LORI HINNANT
Thu, May 19, 2022

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — A celebrated Ukrainian medic recorded her time in Mariupol on a data card no bigger than a thumbnail, smuggled out to the world in a tampon. Now she is in Russian hands, at a time when Mariupol itself is on the verge of falling.

Yuliia Paievska is known in Ukraine as Taira, a moniker from the nickname she chose in the World of Warcraft video game. Using a body camera, she recorded 256 gigabytes of her team’s frantic efforts over two weeks to bring people back from the brink of death. She got the harrowing clips to an Associated Press team, the last international journalists in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, as they left in a rare humanitarian convoy.

Russian soldiers captured Taira and her driver the next day, March 16, one of many forced disappearances in areas of Ukraine now held by Russia. Russia has portrayed Taira as working for the nationalist Azov Battalion, in line with Moscow's narrative that it is attempting to “denazify” Ukraine. But the AP found no such evidence, and friends and colleagues said she had no links to Azov.

The military hospital where she led evacuations of the wounded is not affiliated with the battalion, whose members have spent weeks defending a sprawling steel plant in Mariupol. The footage Taira recorded itself testifies to the fact that she tried to save wounded Russian soldiers as well as Ukrainian civilians.

A clip recorded on March 10 shows two Russian soldiers taken roughly out of an ambulance by a Ukrainian soldier. One is in a wheelchair. The other is on his knees, hands bound behind his back, with an obvious leg injury. Their eyes are covered by winter hats, and they wear white armbands.

A Ukrainian soldier curses at one of them. “Calm down, calm down,” Taira tells him.

A woman asks her, “Are you going to treat the Russians?”

“They will not be as kind to us,” she replies. “But I couldn’t do otherwise. They are prisoners of war.”

Taira is now a prisoner of the Russians, one of hundreds of prominent Ukrainians who have been kidnapped or captured, including local officials, journalists, activists and human rights defenders.

The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded 204 cases of enforced disappearances. It said some victims may have been tortured, and five were later found dead. The office of Ukraine’s ombudswoman said it had received reports of thousands of missing people by late April, 528 of whom had probably been captured.

The Russians also are targeting medics and hospitals even though the Geneva Conventions single out both military and civilian medics for protection “in all circumstance.” The World Health Organization has verified more than 100 attacks on health care since the war began, a number likely to rise.

More recently, Russian soldiers pulled a woman off a convoy from Mariupol on May 8, accused her of being a military medic and forced her to choose between letting her 4-year-old daughter accompany her to an unknown fate or continuing on to Ukrainian-controlled territory. The mother and child ended up separated, and the little girl made it to the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, U.N. officials said.

“This is not about saving one particular woman,” said Oleksandra Chudna, who volunteered as a medic with Taira in 2014. “Taira will represent those medics and women who went to the front.”

Taira’s situation takes on a new significance as the last defenders in Mariupol are evacuated into Russian territories, in what Russia calls a mass surrender and Ukraine calls a mission accomplished. Russia says more than 1,700 Ukrainian fighters have surrendered this week in Mariupol, bringing new attention to the treatment of prisoners. Ukraine has expressed hope that the fighters can be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war, but a Russian official has said without evidence that they should be not exchanged but put on trial.

Ukraine’s government has said it tried to add Taira’s name to a prisoner exchange weeks ago. However, Russia denies holding her, despite her appearance on television networks in the separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine and on the Russian NTV network, handcuffed and with her face bruised. The Ukrainian government declined to speak about the case when asked by the AP.

Taira, 53, is known in Ukraine as a star athlete and the person who trained the country’s volunteer medic force. What comes across in her video and in descriptions from her friends is a big, exuberant personality with a telegenic presence, the kind of person to revel in swimming with dolphins.

The video is an intimate record from Feb. 6 to March 10 of a city under siege that has now become a worldwide symbol of the Russian invasion and Ukrainian resistance. In it, Taira is a whirlwind of energy and grief, recording the death of a child and the treatment of wounded soldiers from both sides.

On Feb. 24, the first day of the war, Taira chronicled efforts to bandage a Ukrainian soldier’s open head wound.

Two days later, she ordered colleagues to wrap an injured Russian soldier in a blanket. “Cover him because he is shaking,” she says in the video. She calls the young man “Sunshine” — a favorite nickname for the many soldiers who passed through her hands — and asks why he came to Ukraine.

“You’re taking care of me,” he tells her, almost in wonder. Her response: “We treat everyone equally.”

Later that night, two children — a brother and sister — arrive gravely wounded from a shootout at a checkpoint. Their parents are dead. By the end of the night, despite Taira's entreaties to “stay with me, little one,” so is the little boy.

Taira turns away from his lifeless body and cries. “I hate (this),” she says. She closes his eyes.

Talking to someone in the dark outside as she smokes, she says, “The boy is gone. The boy has died. They are still giving CPR to the girl. Maybe she will survive.”

At one point, she stares into a bathroom mirror, a shock of blond hair falling over her forehead in stark contrast to the shaved sides of her head. She cuts the camera.

Throughout the video, she complains about chronic pain from back and hip injuries that left her partially disabled. She embraces doctors. She cracks jokes to cheer up discouraged ambulance drivers and patients alike. And always, she wears a stuffed animal attached to her vest to hand to any children she might treat.

With a husband and teenage daughter, she knew what war can do to a family. At one point, an injured Ukrainian soldier asks her to call his mother. She tells him he’ll be able to call her himself, “so don’t make her nervous.”

On March 15, a police officer handed over the small data card to a team of Associated Press journalists who had been documenting atrocities in Mariupol, including a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital. The office contacted Taira on a walkie-talkie, and she asked the journalists to take the card safely out of the city. The card was hidden inside a tampon, and the team passed through 15 Russian checkpoints before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory.

The next day, Taira disappeared with her driver Serhiy. On the same day, a Russian airstrike shattered the Mariupol theater and killed close to 600 people.

A video aired during a March 21 Russian news broadcast announced her capture, accusing her of trying to flee the city in disguise. Taira looks groggy and haggard as she reads a statement positioned below the camera, calling for an end to the fighting. As she talks, a voiceover derides her colleagues as Nazis, using language echoed this week by Russia as it described the fighters from Mariupol.

The broadcast was the last time she was seen.

Both the Russian and Ukrainian governments have publicized interviews with prisoners of war, despite international humanitarian law that describes the practice as inhumane and degrading treatment.

Taira’s husband, Vadim Puzanov, said he has received little news about his wife since her disappearance. Choosing his words carefully, he described a constant worry as well as outrage at how she has been portrayed by Russia.

“Accusing a volunteer medic of all mortal sins, including organ trafficking, is already outrageous propaganda — I don’t even know who it’s for,” he said.

Raed Saleh, the head of Syria’s White Helmets, compared Taira’s situation to what volunteers with his group faced and continue to face in Syria. He said his group also has been accused of organ trafficking and dealing with terrorist groups.

“Tomorrow, they may ask her to make statements and pressure her to say things,” Saleh said.

Taira has outsize importance in Ukraine because of her reputation. She taught aikido martial arts and worked as a medic as a sideline.

She took on her name in 2013, when she joined first aid volunteers at the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that drove out a Russia-backed government. In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.

Taira went to the eastern Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists fought Ukrainian forces. There, she taught tactical medicine and started a group of medics called Taira’s Angels. She also worked as a liaison between the military and civilians in front-line towns where few doctors and hospitals dared operate. In 2019, she left for the Mariupol region, and her medical unit was based there.

Taira was a member of the Ukraine Invictus Games for military veterans, where she was set to compete in archery and swimming. Invictus said she was a military medic from 2018 to 2020 but had since been demobilized.

She received the body camera in 2021 to film for a Netflix documentary series on inspirational figures being produced by Britain's Prince Harry, who founded the Invictus Games. But when Russian forces invaded, she used it to shoot scenes of injured civilians and soldiers instead.

That footage is now especially poignant, with Mariupol on the brink. In one of the last videos Taira shot, she is seated next to the driver who would disappear with her. It is March 9.

“Two weeks of war. Besieged Mariupol,” she says quietly. Then she curses at no one in particular, and the screen goes dark.

___

Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut, Mstyslav Chernov from Kharkiv, Inna Varenytsia from Kyiv; Elena Becatoros from Zaporizhzhia; and Erika Kinetz from Brussels. Lori Hinnant reported from Paris.

Alberta premier says Canada could boost oil export to U.S., calls for major new pipeline


Alberta Premier Kenney addresses delegates at the annual

 UPC convention in Calgary

Tue, May 17, 2022,
By Nia Williams

(Reuters) -Canada could add over a million barrels per day (bpd) of oil export capacity to the United States over the next two years, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney told a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday, while also calling for a new cross-border oil pipeline.

However, federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said there was little discussion in Ottawa or Washington about a new oil pipeline, and warned that narrowly focusing on fossil fuel security risked hindering climate goals.

Kenney and Wilkinson were in Washington addressing a Senate energy and natural resources committee on the issue of energy security, as countries around the world face rising crude prices and tight supply following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Their contrasting remarks illustrate how the federal Liberal government is often at odds with conservative politicians like Kenney over how best to manage Canada's vast oil and gas wealth while also reducing climate-warming carbon emissions.

"With political will from Washington we could also get another major pipeline built that would forever allow the United States to free itself from imports from hostile regimes," Kenney told the committee, adding Alberta is the largest source of U.S. energy imports.

The Canadian government has previously said Canada could increase oil pipeline exports by 300,000 bpd this year.

Kenney said an extra 200,000 bpd could be shipped south by rail, while technical improvements from midstream companies could add as much as 400,000 bpd of pipeline capacity by next year. The Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project is expected to be finished late next year, and will add another 600,000 bpd, he said.

Wilkinson told Reuters after the Senate hearing that this was the first he had heard of a potential increase in rail capacity or technical improvements, and any increase in oil exports to help offset lost Russian supply would need to be consistent with Canada's climate goals.

"The discussions I was having with White House were more forward-looking, about hydrogen, about critical minerals, about clean technologies," he said.

Canada exports around 3.8 million bpd of oil to the United States and until recently faced pipeline constraints that left crude bottlenecked in Alberta. U.S. President Joe Biden revoked a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline in early 2021, infuriating the Canadian energy industry.

However with the start-up of Enbridge's Line 3 replacement project last year, Canadian export capacity is now broadly in line with production.

Energy analyst Rory Johnston, founder of the Commodity Context newsletter, said oil production is expected to only grow about 100,000 bpd a year going forward, meaning more export capacity would not necessarily mean more barrels crossing the border.

(Reporting by Nia WilliamsEditing by Bernadette Baum, Marguerita Choy and Nick Zieminski)

Roll Up Your Sleeves, Canada: The World Needs Our Energy

Speaking at the Canadian Club Toronto, Enbridge’s Al Monaco calls for a ‘fresh look’ at how Canada can lead the global energy transition

Wed, May 18, 2022
Northampton, MA --News Direct-- Enbridge


The post-pandemic “return to normal” many imagined did not include an incomprehensible conflict in Ukraine and global energy crisis.

Yet here we are. Decades-high inflation, major supply-chain issues, pain at the pump and rising home heating and electricity costs, and all the while questions about what it all means for climate objectives and the pace of the energy transition.

These remarkable energy challenges now in play were the focus of a “fireside chat” discussion today for an audience at the Canadian Club Toronto. Principals having the conversation were Al Monaco, President and CEO of Enbridge Inc., and Brian Tobin, the former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, federal cabinet minister and currently Vice-Chair of BMO Financial Group.

Mr. Monaco and Mr. Tobin examined energy security, reliability and affordability, and the important roles that Canada—and North America overall—need to play moving forward.

“We have just crossed a major inflection point for energy markets and we are for sure in an energy crisis—and even if the war ends tomorrow, this is going to be a different energy market going forward,” said Mr. Monaco, who leads North America’s leading energy infrastructure company. “We’re going to need more energy than we thought, pre-Ukraine . . . to manage that security risk issue.”

Mr. Monaco called for a “fresh look” at the opportunity and responsibility Canada has in leading the energy transition globally. To be a true global leader, the country must reduce the 1.5% of global emissions created within its borders—“and we’re focused on that”—but also set its sights higher towards the 98.5 per cent of global emissions created outside of Canada. “The opportunity and responsibility are right in front of us.”

It will mean continued emphasis on natural gas and renewables.

“The single biggest factor in the U.S. reducing its emissions by 20% since 2005 has been natural gas. It’s a similar story here in Ontario—where we’ve replaced coal-fired generation with renewables and hydro,” Mr. Monaco said.

“This formula can be replicated with success in China, where there are 1,100 coal plants.”

Click here to listen to the full discussion between the two prominent Canadian business leaders.

AG Perarivalan: India top court frees killer of ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi

Wed, May 18, 2022

AG Perarivalan was in prison for more than 30 years

India's Supreme Court has ordered the release of one of the men convicted of involvement in the 1991 murder of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

AG Perarivalan had spent over 30 years in jail. In 1998, he was given a death sentence, but it was later commuted.

Arrested aged 19, Perarivalan was convicted of procuring batteries that were used in the bomb to kill Gandhi.

The ex-PM was assassinated by a female suicide bomber as he addressed an election rally in Tamil Nadu state.

Gandhi's killing was widely seen as retaliation for his having sent Indian peacekeepers to Sri Lanka in 1987 when he was prime minister.

Perarivalan was a supporter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a rebel group fighting for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka. The rebels were finally defeated by Sri Lankan troops in 2009.



On Wednesday, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court invoked a section of the Indian constitution that grants it extraordinary powers "for doing complete justice in any cause" to release Perarivalan, one of seven people convicted in the case, considering that he had been in jail for more than 30 years.

Over the years, governments in Tamil Nadu state had asked for those found guilty over the killing to be released.

In 2000, the state governor had commuted the death sentence of Nalini, the only woman convicted in the case, and in 2014, the Supreme Court had commuted the death sentences of all the others on account of an 11-year delay in deciding their mercy petitions.