Floods leave Yellowstone landscape 'dramatically changed'



RED LODGE, Mont. (AP) — The forces of fire and ice shaped Yellowstone National Park over thousands of years. It took decades longer for humans to tame it enough for tourists to visit, often from the comfort of their cars.

In just days, heavy rain and rapid snowmelt caused a dramatic flood that may forever alter the human footprint on the park's terrain and the communities that have grown around it.

The historic floodwaters that raged through Yellowstone this week, tearing out bridges and pouring into nearby homes, pushed a popular fishing river off course — possibly permanently — and may force roadways nearly torn away by torrents of water to be rebuilt in new places.

“The landscape literally and figuratively has changed dramatically in the last 36 hours,” said Bill Berg, a commissioner in nearby Park County. “A little bit ironic that this spectacular landscape was created by violent geologic and hydrologic events, and it’s just not very handy when it happens while we’re all here settled on it.”

The unprecedented flooding drove more than 10,000 visitors out of the nation’s oldest national park and damaged hundreds of homes in nearby communities, though remarkably no was reported hurt or killed. The only visitors left in the massive park straddling three states were a dozen campers still making their way out of the backcountry.

The park could remain closed as long as a week, and northern entrances may not reopen this summer, Superintendent Cam Sholly said.

“I’ve heard this is a 1,000-year event, whatever that means these days. They seem to be happening more and more frequently,” he said.

Sholly noted some weather forecasts include the possibility of additional flooding this weekend.

A house falls into the Yellowstone River in Gardiner, Montana after record flooding and rockslides in the area (June 14)

Days of rain and rapid snowmelt wrought havoc across parts of southern Montana and northern Wyoming, where it washed away cabins, swamped small towns and knocked out power. It hit the park as a summer tourist season that draws millions of visitors was ramping up during its 150th anniversary year.

Businesses in hard-hit Gardiner had just started really recovering from the tourism contraction brought by the coronavirus pandemic, and were hoping for a good year, Berg said.

“It’s a Yellowstone town, and it lives and dies by tourism, and this is going to be a pretty big hit,” he said. “They’re looking to try to figure out how to hold things together.”

Some of the worst damage happened in the northern part of the park and Yellowstone’s gateway communities in southern Montana. National Park Service photos of northern Yellowstone showed a mudslide, washed out bridges and roads undercut by churning floodwaters of the Gardner and Lamar rivers.

In Red Lodge, a town of 2,100 that’s a popular jumping-off point for a scenic route into the Yellowstone high country, a creek running through town jumped its banks and swamped the main thoroughfare, leaving trout swimming in the street a day later under sunny skies.

Residents described a harrowing scene where the water went from a trickle to a torrent over just a few hours.

The water toppled telephone poles, knocked over fences and carved deep fissures in the ground through a neighborhood of hundreds of houses. Electricity was restored by Tuesday, but there was still no running water in the affected neighborhood.


Heidi Hoffman left early Monday to buy a sump pump in Billings, but by the time she returned her basement was full of water.

“We lost all our belongings in the basement,” Hoffman said as the pump removed a steady stream of water into her muddy backyard. “Yearbooks, pictures, clothes, furniture. Were going to be cleaning up for a long time.”

At least 200 homes were flooded in Red Lodge and the town of Fromberg.

The flooding came as the Midwest and East Coast sizzle from a heat wave and other parts of the West burn from an early wildfire season amid a persistent drought that has increased the frequency and intensity of fires. Smoke from a fire in the mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona, could be seen in Colorado.

While the flooding hasn't been directly attributed to climate change, Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said a warming environment makes extreme weather events more likely than they would have been "without the warming that human activity has caused.”

“Will Yellowstone have a repeat of this in five or even 50 years? Maybe not, but somewhere will have something equivalent or even more extreme,” he said.

Heavy rain on top of melting mountain snow pushed the Yellowstone, Stillwater and Clarks Fork rivers to record levels Monday and triggered rock and mudslides, according to the National Weather Service. The Yellowstone River at Corwin Springs topped a record set in 1918.

Yellowstone's northern roads may remain impassable for a substantial length of time. The flooding affected the rest of the park, too, with park officials warning of yet higher flooding and potential problems with water supplies and wastewater systems at developed areas.

Major flooding swept away at least one bridge, washed away roads and set off mudslides in Yellowstone National Park on Monday, prompting officials to close the entrances to the popular tourist attraction and evacuate visitors. (June 13)

The rains hit just as area hotels filled up in recent weeks with summer tourists. More than 4 million visitors were tallied by the park last year. The wave of tourists doesn’t abate until fall, and June is typically one of Yellowstone’s busiest months.

Mark Taylor, owner and chief pilot of Rocky Mountain Rotors, said his company had airlifted about 40 paying customers over the past two days from Gardiner, including two women who were “very pregnant.”

Taylor spoke as he ferried a family of four adults from Texas, who wanted to do some more sightseeing before heading home.

“I imagine they’re going to rent a car and they’re going to go check out some other parts of Montana — somewhere drier,” he said.

At a cabin in Gardiner, Parker Manning of Terre Haute, Indiana, got an up-close view of the roiling Yellowstone River floodwaters just outside his door. Entire trees and even a lone kayaker streamed by.

In early evening, he shot video as the waters ate away at the opposite bank where a large brown house that had been home to park employees before they were evacuated was precariously perched.

In a large cracking sound heard over the river's roar, the house tipped into the waters and was pulled into the current. Sholly said it floated 5 miles (8 kilometers) before sinking.

The towns of Cooke City and Silvergate, just east of the park, were also isolated by floodwaters, which also made drinking water unsafe. People left a hospital and low-lying areas in Livingston.

In south-central Montana, 68 people at a campground were rescued by raft after flooding on the Stillwater River. Some roads in the area were closed and residents were evacuated.

In the hamlet of Nye, at least four cabins washed into the Stillwater River, said Shelley Blazina, including one she owned.

“It was my sanctuary,” she said Tuesday. “Yesterday I was in shock. Today I’m just in intense sadness.”

___

Whitehurst reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press writers Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, R.J. Rico in Atlanta, and Brian Melley in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Matthew Brown And Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press

Italy creates new museum for trafficked ancient artifacts


ROME (AP) — Italy has been so successful in recovering ancient artworks and artifacts that were illegally exported from the country it has created a museum for them.



The Museum of Rescued Art was inaugurated Wednesday in a cavernous structure that is part of Rome's ancient Baths of Diocletian. The Octagonal Hall exhibition space was designed to showcase Italy’s efforts, through patient diplomacy and court challenges, to get valuable antiquities repatriated, often after decades in foreign museums or private collections.

Exhibits in the new museum will change every few months as the objects on display return to what experts consider their territory of origin, many of them places that were part of ancient Etruscan or Magna Grecia civilizations in central or southern Italy.

The inaugural exhibit revolves around some 100 of 260 artifacts recovered by the nation's paramilitary Carabinieri art squad from the United States and brought back to Italy in December 2021.

The pieces on display, which were found during clandestine digs and illegally exported, include exquisitely carved Etruscan figurines and imposing painted jars from several centuries B.C. The items previously were held by museums, auction houses and private collections.

The new Rome museum is exhibiting objects "never before seen in Italy,'' said Massimo Osanna, director general of Italy's state museums. In his previous role, Osanna had long been in charge of reviving the fortunes of Pompeii, the ancient Roman city near Naples, one of the world's most famed archaeological cites that itself was heavily looted by antiquities thieves of past generations.

The recently recovered antiquities are from before the Roman era, dating back to the 8th to 4th centuries B.C. Many of them came from the area near modern-day Cerveteri, which is awash with remnants of the flourishing Etruscan civilization in west-central Italy.

One particularly striking piece, from the 7th century B.C., is a ceramic jar, painted red on white and towering more than a meter (40 inches) high. Decorated with images of horses and cats, it depicts the mythological scene of the blinding of Polyphemus, a man-eating one-eyed creature.

The choice of the jar's decoration probably indicates that the Etruscan elite were bilingual and “fascinated with Greek myth,'' Osanna told The Associated Press in an interview. They were ”Etruscan heroes that identified with Greek heroes," he said.

Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini explained the decision to opt for a series of rotating exhibits in the new museum instead of establishing a permanent collection of rescued art.

"We thought it's right to have the pieces return to the places where they were stolen from,'' Franceschini said.

In some cases, experts don't know the exact original location of the antiquities, underlining the irreparable damage done when archaeological treasures are clandestinely snatched away. Pieces with unknown origins will be returned to the general geographic area.

The exhibition space is part of the National Roman Museum. Its current exhibit runs until October 15, then the museum will display a different batch of recovered antiquities.

Among the show-stoppers at the current exhibit of “rescued art” are two terra cotta heads, sliced vertically in half, part of a group of Etruscan votive pieces from the 4th-to-3rd centuries B.C.

Another striking piece is a well-preserved, intricately decorated Etruscan funeral box, decorated with images of a warrior, horse and a cat.

While Italy proudly boasts of regaining some 3 million artifacts and artworks since a special Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage unit of the Carabinieri was established in 1969, it is also trying to inspire countries to give back ancient pieces that are identified with other cultures.

Earlier this month, Italy returned to Athens a frieze fragment of the Parthenon that had been in an archaeological museum in Sicily. Franceschini, Italy's culture minister, contended that the so-called “Fagan fragment” was in Italy legitimately but said his country wanted to “affirm the principle of the restitution of cultural wealth to reconnect artistic historical patrimony with the places and peoples of origin.”

Some treasures have so far eluded Italy's efforts to obtain them.

Carabinieri Commanding Gen. Teo Luzi spoke wistfully at the new museum's debut of hopes that Italy's would one day reclaim “Victorious Youth,” a footless bronze statue that was found by an Italian fishing boat in the Adriatic Sea in 1964. It was eventually purchased by the J. Paul Getty Museum in California.

In 2018, Italy's highest court ruled that the museum had to surrender the statue to Italy. But the museum, insisting that the statue was fished out of international waters, has challenged the order.

__

Francesco Sportelli contributed from Rome.

Frances D'emilio, The Associated Press

Canada, California sign memorandum of understanding on climate action, nature protection | FULL
 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau signed a memorandum of understanding on Thursday with California Gov. Gavin Newsom on day two of the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.

The partnership on climate action and nature protection goes further than a 2019 agreement between the two jurisdictions on reducing vehicle emissions, and will work to “deliver clean air and water, good jobs, and healthy communities,” said a joint statement.

The two leaders cite similarities in current policies, including efforts to ban harmful single-use plastics, commitments to clean electricity and oceans, and nature preservation plans.

The deal will encourage sharing of information and best practices as the world deals with a narrowing window to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

 Trudeau meets with Biden, California governor at Summit of the Americas - National | Globalnews.ca

California, Canada partner in fight against climate change


Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (L) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday at the California Science Center in Los Angeles signed a memorandum of cooperation centered on tackling climate change-related issues. 

Photo courtesy of Office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom/Release

June 10 (UPI) -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have entered into a partnership to fight climate change at the Summit of the Americas.

Newsom and Trudeau signed a memorandum of cooperation Thursday during a press conference at the California Science Center in Los Angeles that outlines shared objectives of the partnership on emissions reduction, nature protection, zero-emission vehicles, climate adaption and circular economy.

"We can't fight the climate crisis on our own -- we need to work together with partners all across the globe to achieve humanity's most important task: saving our planet," Newsom said. "This partnership with Canada is a vital step on California's path to a cleaner, greener future and is the latest expression of our shared values."

The objectives of the partnership include collaborating on their zero-emission transport goals, such as having all new light-duty vehicle sales by 2035 be electric, reducing overall emissions and eliminating emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and off-road engines.

Promoting the use of clean technologies as well as sharing information, lessons learned and best practices on a slew of areas from climate adaptation to plastic reductions are also outlined as objectives of the agreement, and they will also cooperate in the sectors of clean transportation and technology, biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and others.

The two sides also agreed to co-host an expert roundtable during U.N. Climate Week in September on forest resilience and wildfires, issues both Canada and California face.

Trudeau told the crowd Canadians have watched as Californias struggle with wildfires and drought but said that many north of the border suffer from the same issues caused by climate change.

"We've seen extreme weather events across the country and we know that, yes, there's a lot we can in Canada, but Canada alone cannot solve this problem for Canadians -- we need to work with everyone to solve the problems of the world," he said.

The MOC follows similar partnerships that California has recently inked with New Zealand, Japan and China.

New poll suggests Liberal, NDP voters prefer Charest and Brown over Poilievre



OTTAWA — New polling suggests Liberal and New Democrat voters think Jean Charest or Patrick Brown would make the best leader of the federal Conservative party.


Jean Charest 

The data released by the research firm Leger is based on an online survey it did of 1,528 Canadian adults last weekend using computer-assisted web interviewing technology.

It cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based polls are not considered random samples.

The survey asked respondents which of the six candidates in the running they believe would make the best leader of the party, which will unveil its new leader Sept. 10.

Leger executive vice-president Christian Bourque says one of the issues they come across when they poll Canadians about a party leadership race is that roughly one-third appear indifferent.

The data suggests 58 per cent of respondents answered they didn't know or picked none of the above when questioned on which candidate would make the best Conservative leader.

When it came to Conservative voters, the polling suggests 23 per cent of respondents said they didn't know and only eight per cent selected none of the above.

Of Tory voters who responded to the survey, data suggests 44 per cent of them believe Pierre Poilievre, the longtime Ottawa-area MP known for his attacks on the government and Bank of Canada over inflation, would make the best party leader.

Charest, Quebec's former premier, came in a distant second at 14 per cent among Conservative voters, according to the survey's findings, while the four other remaining candidates ranked much lower.

Looking at respondents who back other political parties, Leger's data suggests 25 per cent of both federal Liberal and NDP voters feel Charest would make the best Conservative leader.

It also suggests 11 per cent of both Liberal and NDP would select Brown, who is mayor of Brampton, Ont., and formerly led Ontario's Progressive Conservatives.

By contrast, the data suggests only six per cent of Liberal and NDP supporters feel Poilievre would be the best pick.

The findings come as one of the main tasks facing Conservative leadership contenders, if they win, will be to grow support for the party ahead of the next federal election, particularly in seat-rich Ontario.

"The only way they can win back Ontario and do better in Quebec is to actually move voters away from the Liberal party and away from the NDP," Bourque said.

Leger's data also suggests 57 per cent of respondents who support the more right-wing People's Party of Canada feel Poilievre should be the next Conservative leader.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2022

WHITE SUPREMACIST COPS

Toronto police use more force against Black people with little explanation, data shows

CBC/Radio-Canada - TODAY

An expansive Toronto police report released Wednesday confirms what many racialized people in the city have long said: Black, Indigenous and other diverse groups are disproportionately affected by use of force and strip searches by officers.


© Evan Mitsui/CBCNewly released internal data from Toronto police shows that officers used force more often against Black people than white people, even when factors like types of arrest, the presence of a weapon and local demographics are accounted for.

At a morning news conference, interim Toronto Police Chief James Ramer said the force needs to do better.

"As an organization, we have not done enough to ensure that every person in our city receives fair and unbiased policing," he said.

"For this, as chief of police and on behalf of the police, I am sorry and I apologize unreservedly," Ramer continued.

"The release of this data will cause pain for many. We must improve and we will do better."

The apology was not welcomed by Beverly Bain from the group No Pride in Policing, which describes itself as a coalition of queer and trans people formed in support of Black Lives Matter Toronto and focused on defunding police.

In a tense moment during the news conference, Bain slammed Ramer's response to the data.

"Chief Ramer, we do not accept your apology," she said, putting a point on an impassioned speech about how Black, Indigenous and other racialized groups have had to deal with police in the city.

Bain called Ramer's apology a "public relations stunt" that is "insulting" to Black and Indigenous people.

"This is not about saving our lives. What we have asked for you to do is stop. To stop brutalizing us. To stop killing us," she said.
Police used more force against Black people more often: data

The never-before-seen statistics released today were drawn from records of 949 use of force incidents and 7,114 strip searches over the course of 2020. The granular analysis, compiled by the force's Equity, Inclusion and Human Rights Unit alongside outside data experts in concert with a 12-member community panel, examines a wide range of questions.

Among its findings was that Black, Indigenous and Middle Eastern people were all overrepresented in the number of "enforcement actions'' taken against them relative to their total population in Toronto. For Black residents, it was by a factor of 2.2 times.

Similarly, Black, Latino, East/Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern people were overrepresented by factors of 1.6 times, 1.5 times, 1.2 times and 1.2 times, respectively, when it came to use of force.

Police also tended to use a higher degree of force against racialized groups compared to white people, especially when it came to officers drawing their firearms.

Black, South Asian and East/South Asian people were considerably more likely than white people -- 1.5 times, 1.6 times and two times, respectively -- to have an officer point a firearm at them during an interaction.

Ontario requires the public sector to collect race-based data as part of the Anti-Racism Act, and in 2019 the Toronto Police Services Board approved a data policy that would start with use of force and later extend to other police processes such as stops, searches, questioning and the laying of charges.

The use of force data was taken in part from reports that officers submit to the Ministry of the Solicitor General after interactions that necessitate medical attention for community members, as well as any time an officer draws or uses a firearm or Taser, or uses another weapon such as their baton or pepper spray.

The 949 use of force instances reported in 2020 account for 0.2 per cent of the 692,937 recorded police interactions with the public. Firearms were pointed in 371 of those encounters and used in four, two of which were fatal, according to police.
TPS concedes it has 'misused' race-based data before

The release of the data comes in the wake of several recent reports from human rights and police complaint watchdogs that called for major reforms within Toronto police.

In 2018, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) concluded that Black people were "grossly overrepresented" in several types of violent police interactions, including use-of-force cases, shootings, deadly encounters and fatal shootings.

The OHRC reported that between 2013 and 2017 in Toronto, a Black person was nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be shot and killed by police.

A follow-up analysis by the OHRC released in 2020 found that Black people are also more likely than others to be arrested and charged during interactions with Toronto police.

In its new report, the force acknowledged that it has "misused" race-based data in the past. That's an apparent reference to carding -- the practice of collecting identifying information during random street checks -- which the province moved to significantly restrict in 2017.

Any identifying information for both members of the public and officers was stripped from the data used in the use of force and strip search analysis, police said.
Reforms led to dramatic fall in strip searches

The research released Wednesday also looked at whether any racial groups were disproportionately represented in strip searches.

The results show Indigenous people were 1.3 times overrepresented relative to their presence in arrests. Meanwhile, Black and white people were 1.1 times overrepresented.

Toronto police overhauled their procedures for strip searches in October 2020, leading to a dramatic decline in how many were conducted from that point onward.

Before the changes, about 27 per cent of all arrests in that year included a strip search. That fell to four roughly five per cent afterward.

The policy modifications included that all strip searches be authorized by a supervisor and audited by upper-level management.

The reforms helped to end overrepresentation of Indigenous people in strip searches in 2021, the analysis concluded. But racial discrepancies remained for Black and white residents who were arrested.

The changes were introduced after a 2019 report from the Office of the Independent Police Review Director found that unnecessary and illegal strip searches had become commonplace practice among police forces in Ontario.

The report released this morning also includes 38 actions the force says will help to address racial discrepancies in use of force incidents and strip searches. During a briefing for the media on Tuesday, a police official said a public-facing online dashboard will keep track of the force's progress in implementing the actions in coming months and years.

Black people greatly over-represented in Toronto enforcement population, use of force and strip search data

 

Toronto police apologize for disproportionate use of force against racialized communities | FULL

Streamed live 3 hours ago

Global News

Toronto Police Interim Chief James Ramer apologized on Wednesday to the city’s racialized residents after the release of Toronto police statistics that showed racialized groups were disproportionately affected by enforcement actions and use of force by police officers.

New statistics released by Toronto police show Black people faced a disproportionate amount of police enforcement and use of force in 2020 in comparison to their representation in the overall population, and were more likely to have an officer point a gun at them than white people in the same situation, according to police data.

Middle Eastern people were also overrepresented when it came to enforcement action and use of force, while other groups — such as Latino and East and Southeast Asian residents — experienced less enforcement in comparison to their representation in the overall population but saw more use of force when they did interact with police.

Indigenous people faced more enforcement, but proportionately slightly less use of force in those interactions, according to the same data.

Police statistics show white people faced proportionately less enforcement and less use of force in comparison to their representation in the overall population. 

Congressional subcommittee: EPA must cancel popular Seresto collar over link to pet deaths

Johnathan Hettinger - USA TODAY



One of the most popular flea and tick collars in America poses “too great a risk to animals and humans” and should be removed from the market, a congressional subcommittee recommended in a report released Wednesday ahead of its hearing titled “Seresto Flea and Tick Collars: Examining Why a Product Linked to More than 2,500 Pet Deaths Remains on the Market.”


© Colin Smith Getty Images

Since it entered the U.S. market in 2012, Seresto has been linked to at least 98,000 adverse incidents and 2,500 pet deaths – the most of any such product regulated by the EPA.

The House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, which is a part of the House Oversight Committee, the main investigative body in the U.S. House of Representatives, said the hearing will probe the Environmental Protection Agency’s “failure to regulate the Seresto collar as well as Elanco’s refusal to take action to protect pets and their owners from the collar’s harm.”

Owners of deceased pets are scheduled to testify at the hearing, which is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Eastern today, as well as a former EPA staffer and other experts. Jeffrey Simmons, the president and CEO of Elanco, which manufactures Seresto, is also expected to testify, the committee announced.

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Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-ILL., launched an investigation into the collar in March 2021, after reporting by Investigate Midwest and USA TODAY revealed the high number of incidents related to the collar, as well as the EPA’s inaction despite knowing about the issue for nearly a decade.

“It is unacceptable that the EPA has been aware of the Seresto collar’s safety concerns for years and has continued to allow Americans to unknowingly put their pets in danger by using a product they have been led to believe is safe,” Krishnamoorthi told Investigate Midwest and USA TODAY in a statement.


Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-ILL., launched an investigation into the collar in March 2021.

Since it entered the U.S. market in 2012, Seresto has been linked to at least 98,000 adverse incidents and 2,500 pet deaths – the most of any such product regulated by the EPA and the source of internal alarm among some agency employees, records previously obtained by USA TODAY and Investigate Midwest show.

Elanco said it “unequivocally” stood behind the safety of the collar.

“Numerous studies and the incident report data for Seresto demonstrate the product does not pose an unreasonable risk and has a strong safety profile, which is why the American Veterinary Medical Association opposed canceling Seresto’s EPA registration,” said company spokeswoman Keri McGrath Happe in a statement Wednesday.

In its own emailed statement, EPA spokeswoman Melissa Sullivan said that the EPA is conducting a review of the product, with assistance from the Food and Drug Administration, which it expects to wrap up in fall 2022.

“Upon completing its analysis and assessment, EPA will determine whether these pet collar registrations can still be used safely according to the instructions on the label or if additional safety measures or cancellations are needed for these products,” she said.

The EPA did not answer a question about why it does not have anyone scheduled to speak at today’s hearing.

Elanco has repeatedly defended the collar, which is its top product, accounting for 8% of revenue annually. The company said the rate of complaints is a fraction of the overall sales – which have surpassed 33 million in the past decade – and that the rate has declined over the years. It also said that most incidents are classified as “minor” or “moderate” and that the pet did not suffer “any significant or permanent harm.”

Elanco – which bought the entire Bayer Animal Health unit, including Seresto, from the German pharmaceutical giant in 2020 for $7.6 billion – has said its own extensive studies into the product show that the incidents of harm reported by pet owners are likely related to other factors and not the collar itself.

But the subcommittee’s investigation casts doubts on those claims. In a 22-page report that heavily cites reporting and documents published by Investigate Midwest and USA TODAY, as well as never-before-released information, the subcommittee reveals new details about how Seresto “may be the most dangerous flea and tick product on the market” and that the EPA has known it for years.

For example, as early as 2015, EPA discovered that Seresto had the highest rate of total incidents as well as death or major incidents of any such product the agency regulates. “Compared to the second most dangerous product, Seresto had nearly three times the rate of total incidents, and nearly five times the rate of ‘Death’ or ‘Major’ incidents," the report said. "Compared to the third most dangerous product, the Seresto collar had nearly 21 times the rate of total incidents, and over 35 times the rate of ‘Death’ or ‘Major’ incidents."

The report also details how, in determining whether to approve the sale of Seresto in its own country, Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) reviewed data on roughly 1,000 of the most serious death and major pet incidents linked to the collar and found that it “probably or possibly caused 77% of these incidents.” This led the agency in 2016 to deem the collar too dangerous to sell, and PMRA rejected the product’s application even as sales of Seresto continued in the United States.

Among the cases that PMRA linked to Seresto, the congressional report noted, pets experienced symptoms including skin problems, “lethargy, abnormal behavior, excessive grooming and vocalization, vomiting, diarrhea, and anorexia.” More than a third involved problems in “multiple organ systems,” with some experiencing “convulsions, muscle tremors, and loss of control of bodily movements.” Ten percent of those pets died or were euthanized after wearing the collar.


© Tanya BreenRhonda Bomwell of Somerset holds a photograph as she talks about her 9-year-old Papillon, Pierre, who died June 1 due to side effects from wearing a popular flea and tick collar for pets, at Colonial Park in Somerset, N.J., on Monday, March 1, 2021.

Pet owners, too, experienced adverse effects after coming into contact with the collar, according to the congressional report. Symptoms included hives and dermatitis, but also more serious problems like “respiratory, neurological, and digestive effects, with throat irritation, breathing difficulty, dizziness, and nausea.”

“Notably, these observed effects on humans were consistent with clinical studies into Imidacloprid –one of the collar’s main active ingredients,” the congressional report said.

The Canadian agency also factored in Seresto’s sales data and found that its collars had an incident rate of 36 to 65 incidents per 10,000 collars sold. PMRA considers one incident per 10,000 collars sold as indicative of a potential problem, the report stated. By comparison, 15 pet collars sold in Canada at the time averaged 0.07 incidents per 10,000 collars sold.

“Seresto’s incident numbers were also trending in the wrong direction: PMRA expressed ‘additional concern’ over the fact that Seresto’s total incident numbers had nearly doubled every year since 2013,” according to the congressional report.

The EPA’s own peer review of Canada’s analysis “found an even stronger connection between Seresto collar use and deaths,” the report said. The Canadian agency had examined 251 pet deaths linked to Seresto and determined that 33% of them were “probably or possibly” caused by the collar. When the EPA independently reviewed the same 251 pet deaths, it “concluded that 45% – or 113 – of the deaths were probably or possibly caused by the collar.”

Yet the EPA did nothing to warn the public and did not require Bayer — and later Elanco — to do anything differently to make its product safer or place a warning label on the packaging as countries like Colombia and Australia had required, the congressional report noted.

For example, the EPA proposed in 2019 that Bayer separate its registrations for the collar so that there was one for cats and one for dogs. The rationale being that the EPA could better analyze incident data for the different products. Bayer rejected this proposal, citing the administrative burden it would cause. The EPA thanked the company for its consideration and backed down, according to the congressional report.

The EPA also asked Bayer to update Seresto’s warning label as it had done in other countries. Germany’s label, for example, notes the collar poses neurological risks; Colombia’s label calls it highly toxic; Australia’s label simply says “POISON.” Bayer, and later Elanco, refused this proposal, and the label remained unchanged, the report said.

The congressional report also states that documents obtained by the subcommittee “show that Bayer and Elanco relied on dubious justifications to explain adverse incidents caused by the Seresto collar” and called into question its claim about the “Weber effect.”

The Weber Effect is a theory that “the number of incidents linked to a product will peak at the end of the second year after regulatory approval, followed by a steady decline as the market becomes familiar with the product,” the report states. But when Bayer continued to use this justification during a July 2019 meeting between the company and the EPA, reported animal deaths had continued to climb each of the seven years the collar had been on the market.

But Elanco said in a statement to USA TODAY and Investigate Midwest that the rate of incident reports has been decreasing. According to the company's own numbers, McGrath Happe said, the rate was was 17.26 per 10,000 collars sold in 2021.

"That’s less than a fifth of 1% reporting rate across-the-board," she said. "More than 93% of incident reports received for Seresto pet collars in the U.S. from January 2013 to December 2021 are classified after careful analysis as 'minor' (70.65%) or 'moderate' (22.59%), with the vast majority being redness or irritation at the site of the collar. In analyzing all reports, the data show no established link between the active ingredients in Seresto and pet death."

In addition to its demands that Elanco voluntarily recall its collar and the EPA cancel the product’s registration, the subcommittee also recommends that the EPA change the way it collects incident data and allocates necessary resources to investigate these incidents.

“Following the Subcommittee’s disturbing findings,” Krishnamoorthi said, “I believe the EPA must expand its data collection standards and more strictly follow its scientific review process to ensure that dangerous products are not permitted to stay on the market and threaten the welfare of pets that so many Americans view as family.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Congressional subcommittee: EPA must cancel popular Seresto collar over link to pet deaths

Helium-filled airships to carry passengers as soon as 2026 in $600 million deal with British Airways' sister airline

awallace@insider.com (Abby Wallace) - 


© HAVThe Airlander on a test flight in England in 2019. HAV

A sister airline of British Airways struck a deal to buy 10 helium airships.

Air Nostrum signed the deal with a British company called Hybrid Air Vehicles.

The helium-filled airships could be transporting passengers in Spain as soon as 2026, the firm said.

Passengers in Spain could soon be boarding airships instead of jets for short-haul flights.

Air Nostrum, an airline owned by the same company as British Airways, ordered 10 helium airships to be used for regional travel.

It is the first order for the Airlander airships that will be made by Hybrid Air Vehicles, a British company part-backed by Iron Maiden frontman and qualified commercial pilot Bruce Dickinson.

Production of the 100-seat Airlander 10, which can spend up to five days aloft, is due to start in northern England later this year.

The airships could start flying passengers on routes such as Barcelona to the Mediterranean island of Mallorca as soon as 2026.

The deal is estimated to be worth more than $600 million, The Telegraph newspaper reported, citing internal sources.

The Airlander 10 has a helium-filled hull and uses combustion engines that burn jet fuel, but the company said it planned to switch to electric engines to reduce carbon emissions by 2030.

Trips on the airships would be considerably slower than on passenger jets, but be much greener.

Air Nostrum's president, Carlos Bertomeu, said the deal was struck on the basis that the airships would "drastically reduce emissions."

Planes have been slower to become electrified than cars. One of the reasons is that the technology to create powerful batteries needed to get planes airborne is not as developed.

A prototype of the Airlander has flown on six test flights, but it crashed in 2016 on its second outing and two people were hurt when it broke free from its moorings the following year.

However, its design has been approved by European regulators.

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Teslas using driver-assist systems were involved in 273 crashes over the past 9 months, according to NHTSA

Matt McFarland - CNN

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released on Wednesday nine months of crash data from vehicles using driver-assist technologies like Tesla Autopilot as well as fully autonomous vehicles like Waymo’s robotaxis.

NHTSA broke crash data into two categories based on the level of the autonomous systems: driver-assist systems – which offer speed and steering input – and fully autonomous technologies, which are intended to one day safely function without human intervention. NHTSA found that there have been 367 crashes in the last nine months involving vehicles that were using these driver-assist technologies. 273 of the incidents involved a Tesla system, either its “full self-driving” software or its precursor, Tesla Autopilot.

There were 130 crashes involving fully automated driving systems, 62 of which were Waymo crashes. Transdev, a shuttle operator, reported 34 crashes, and Cruise, which offers robotaxis for General Motors in San Francisco, reported 23.

The data lacks critical context like fleet size or the number of miles traveled, making it impossible to fairly compare the safety of the different technologies. Not all relevant crashes may be included in the data set, NHTSA said, because crash data recording may vary widely among manufacturers.

“I would advise caution before attempting to draw conclusions based only on the data we’re releasing. In fact, the data alone may raise more questions than they answer,” NHTSA administrator Steven Cliff told reporters in a briefing Tuesday.

Two of the technologies with the most reported crashes are also two of the most commonly used systems. Tesla Autopilot, for example, comes standard on all of its vehicles, unlike competing driver-assist systems from other automakers. Drivers describe using Autopilot regularly because they say it can make them feel less fatigued after long drives. Waymo, the other company with the most total crashes, operates the most extensive robotaxi service in the country, with operations in much of metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona and San Francisco.

For the first time, automakers and robotaxi operators have had to report to NHTSA data about crashes involving these vehicles. NHTSA says it will use the data to identify safety issues and intervene as necessary. Pony.ai, which is testing robotaxis in California, recalled three of its vehicles this year following data NHTSA gathered from this process.

Of the 497 crashes total, 43% occurred in California. The state is home to Silicon Valley, making it a hotspot for testing new technologies.

NHTSA found that of the 367 driver-assist crashes reported, there were six fatalities and five serious injuries.

The safety risks of these new technologies have drawn the attention of safety advocates for years. There are not specific regulations for driver-assist systems, leaving automakers to market and describe the systems as they so choose.

Tesla’s Autopilot and “full self-driving” software have been especially controversial. NHTSA’s investigation into Teslas rear-ending first responders’ vehicles was expanded last week and could lead to a recall.

The National Transportation Safety Board has investigated fatal crashes involving Autopilot and called for the automaker to make changes, such as developing technology to more effectively sense the driver’s level of engagement and alert them when their engagement is lacking.

Tesla has released data since 2018 claiming that Autopilot has a lower crash rate per mile than typical driving. But safety experts caution that Tesla’s analysis compares apples to oranges, as most Autopilot driving takes place on highways, where crash rates per mile are much lower than all driving.

Tesla states that drivers using Autopilot must remain alert and be prepared to take full control of the vehicle at a moment’s notice. However, drivers using technologies like Autopilot risk becoming distracted, experts say.

A 2021 MIT study found that Tesla drivers looked away from the road more frequently while using Autopilot than when driving without the driver-assist system.

NHTSA said that its investigation into Teslas rear-ending emergency vehicles while using Autopilot found that in 37 of 43 crashes with detailed car log data available, drivers had their hands on the wheel in the last second prior to the collision.

For years, Tesla detected torque on the wheel to determine if a driver was engaged. It’s begun to use an in-car camera for detecting distraction, which many safety experts say is a superior method, as cameras can track eye movement.

“We see value in having nationally standardized and uniform crash reporting during this early stage of the development and deployment of autonomous driving technology, and there’s public benefit in NHTSA sharing its findings,” Waymo said in response to the data. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Why we may never stop getting COVID: What we know about reinfections and immunity

Sharon Kirkey -NATIONAL POST

Many Canadians are wondering if we will ever see an end to COVID-19. Experts say there are various factors that keep the virus coming back.

“I feel okay,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assured Canadians Monday while sharing his second COVID-19 positive test since January, joining growing numbers reporting repeated tangles with COVID. “He’s not alone,” said Dr. Catherine Hankins, co-chair of Canada’s Immunity Task Force. Nearly nine million adults in Canada had been infected with “parental” Omicron, BA.1, by mid-March, according to task force-funded research published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “Most people who got BA.1 might have thought, ‘I’m good now for a bit.’ But it depends on what the virus throws at us,” Hankins said, and SARS-CoV-2 has proven gifted at reinfecting people by mutating and darting around immunity from vaccines and previous infections. COVID infections also don’t always jog the immune system. Another study funded by Hankins’ group found that one in eight people with COVID did not develop detectable antibodies. The only predictor of an inability to create antibodies? No fever or chills. “We will probably never stop getting COVID,” said Matthew Miller, holder of the Canada Research Chair in viral pandemics at Hamilton’s McMaster University. How often we get reinfected will depend how quickly SARS-CoV-2 mutates in the future and how long immunity lasts, he said. “Both issues are a little bit uncertain at the moment,” though it’s possible to make some reasonable predictions, he said. The National Post’s Sharon Kirkey spoke with Miller, Hankins and London, Ont., infectious diseases physician Dr. Sameer Elsayed about how long reinfections are expected to keep happening.

Why are people reporting second, third, even fourth COVID infections?

“Viruses like smallpox and polio (which can be eliminated) do not generate ‘variants’ capable of escaping immunity in the same way as coronaviruses,” said Miller.

Alpha, Beta, Delta and then the remarkably contagious Omicron. The rapid-fire emergence of new variants has largely been driven by the “massive number of infections that have happened globally over the past couple of years,” Miller said.

Heavily mutated Omicron was more transmissible than Delta, and its subvariants BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5, appear more efficient spreaders still. The recent sixth wave was propelled by the BA.2 subvariant, and BA.1 infections didn’t entirely prevent people from getting reinfected with BA.2. “When BA.2 came around, it did evade immunity in some people,” Hankins said, including hybrid immunity — a past infection, along with two or three shots. “That’s why you have these one-after-the-other infections.” (Trudeau has received three vaccine doses.)

Unlike the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine that tends to be durable for life, antibodies induced by COVID-19 vaccines drop off. “There’s not a magic number; people round things up to three months, six months,” said Elsayed, a professor at Western University and a physician with London Health Sciences Centre. “You need more boosters to get your immune system strong and able to fight some of these variants that the vaccines weren’t initially made for.”

“We’re not necessarily recommending that everyone get fourth boosters or fourth doses,” he said. We’re hitting the tail end of Omicron, and, theoretically, too many boosters could over activate the immune system. “I don’t want people to misinterpret what I’m saying — we 100 per cent support vaccination,” Elsayed said. “But there’s a limit to how many boosters one should get.”

Evidence from South Africa suggests the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants, the fastest growing strains in the United States, the United Kingdom and other parts of the world, are able to dodge immunity from BA.2 infections. “We’re not seeing a lot of it yet (in Canada), so we’ve got our fingers crossed,” said Hankins, an epidemiologist and professor of public and population health at McGill University. “But for people who think, ‘It’s a done deal now, I’m giving up.’ This is not the time to give up. We still have quite a lot of the population that hasn’t been infected,” Hankins said. “You do not want to get an infection.” Statistics Canada reported a jump in excess deaths in January, and nobody wants to get long COVID if they can avoid it. “And every infection means the potential to transmit to other people who may be potentially more vulnerable than you to develop a severe outcome,” she said.

Are repeat infections less severe?

“People are trying to get a feel for that,” Hankins said. Reinfections “only rarely land people in hospital, but the experience can nonetheless be miserable and disruptive,” University of Arizona immunologist Dr. Deepta Bhattacharya wrote in The New York Times this week. Omicron and its subvariants tend to infect the upper respiratory tract, rather than deeper in the lungs, making symptoms less severe, and less serious still, even “nonexistent,” for the vaccinated and boosted.

“I think it’s reasonable to expect that, in general, infections will be much less severe than we observed early in the pandemic, because even if our immune responses do not provide perfect protection against reinfection, they do protect very well against severe illness,” Miller said. “As more people are vaccinated, infected, or combinations thereof, we will be increasingly protected as a population.” During the Omicron wave, the unvaccinated with a previous infection had a higher chance of getting reinfected, compared to the vaccinated.

There are still questions to be answered about long COVID and whether repeat infections increase the risk. It likely depends more on the severity of the infections rather than necessarily how many, Elsayed said. Whether re-infection can cause a rebound of long COVID in some people also isn’t entirely clear.

“Trudeau is isolating himself appropriately, and he sent the proper messaging, from an infection control point of view,” Elsayed said. “He has a mild illness not requiring hospitalizations.” Reinfections tend to feel like a mild cold, he said. “Now, I know people who’ve been triple vaccinated who have been much sicker than Trudeau who had to stay home. But in terms of people coming to hospital, being admitted to hospital, that’s very, very rare for an otherwise healthy person who is fully vaccinated. It’s not uncommon for someone who isn’t vaccinated.”

Could some people keep getting infected every few months?

“It depends on the exposure. There’s not a lot of Omicron circulating around now compared to before,” Elsayed said. Omicron, which is transmitted through the air, is 100 times more contagious than the other virus everyone is talking about, monkeypox, which is not thought to be airborne. Hankins said it’s about living with COVID smartly: Assess the situation you’re in, decide when to wear a mask, when to avoid a crowded, poorly ventilated place. “Use your own judgment, and when you’re eligible for a dose of vaccine, get that vaccine because it will boost your immunity.”

“I think we should expect that evolution of new variants to slow down as the virus becomes endemic,” Miller said. “As rates of infection decline, the opportunity for new variants to emerge will also decline, which should prolong protection our immune system offers from re-infection.”

COACHING IS ABUSE

Minister St-Onge announces creation of Sport Canada athletes commission

Yesterday 
The Canadian Press

Canada's sport minister Pascale St-Onge emphasized once again that the athlete voice is critical in changing the sports culture in this country.

St-Onge announced a couple of safe-sport initiatives on Sunday, including the creation of an athlete advisory committee within Sport Canada to amplify athlete voices.

The minister said participation with the new Office of the Integrity Commissioner (OSIC), which will become operational on Monday, will gradually become mandatory for all national sport organizations.

St-Onge also plans to review Sport Canada's funding agreements with NSO's to "ensure that the standards in matters of governance, accountability and security are reached."

"We're all working towards breaking that culture of silence," St-Onge said. "So let's make sure that the athletes can speak out and feel free to do it. There's no reason to keep them from talking about their situation and what they're going through."

St-Onge spoke at the culmination of the Canadian Olympic Committee's annual session in Montreal. The COC announced a day earlier that it's investing $10 million into safe sport initiatives amid what St-Onge has called a safe sport "crisis" in Canada.

Hundreds of athletes in gymnastics, boxing, and bobsled and skeleton have called for independent investigations into their sports in recent weeks.

"The biggest theme is that athletes feel unheard and unseen. And so even as a starting point being asked what our experiences are, what our perspectives are, what our ideas are for change is critically important," said Rosie MacLennan, a two-time Olympic trampoline champion and chair of the COC's athletes commission.

"None of us want to see this system fail. We're all truly passionate about the sport system. We all truly love it … but, the theme has been that athletes feel unheard and unseen. And I'm excited that that is now shifting."

Earlier in the week, bobsled and skeleton athletes raised the issue of non-disparagement clauses in the athlete agreements they're required to sign. St-Onge had told The Canadian Press that NDAs are contrary to the very principles of safe sport.

She said Sunday that NDAs will be part of the conversation ahead of the next funding agreement with NSOs, and that they are "a preoccupation by the athletes that I heard quite clearly."

Asked about athletes who are required to sign NDAs before then — Canada's bobsled and skeleton athletes must sign athlete agreements to report for training camps in early July — St-Onge said "it's time that athletes and the NSOs have conversations about this and that they can clear the air. If some are signing new contracts right now, let's try to change that."

"We shouldn't be afraid of what athletes have to say," the minister said. "Because every time that (athletes speak out), it's an opportunity to make changes and to be better, and to ensure the safety and bring the trust back in the system, and making sure that parents trust us to send their kids to practise sport.

"Because it's so important in one person's development, whether it's for a psychological reason or physical health. We need sport in life. So we can't fail (in) this."

The Canadian gymnasts who requested an independent investigation in late-March — an original group of 70 that has grown to more than 400 in recent weeks — said Sunday's announcements don't go far enough in addressing their concerns.

"Everything discussed today means that abuse will have already happened and the burden rests with the athletes to see a complaint through a difficult process," the group, operating as Gymnasts for Change Canada, said in a statement. "We still have 1,000-plus Canadian athletes waiting for resolution to existing problems that won't and can't be address by a process that is only looking forward.

"If we don't examine the past, there is no opportunity to make amends, assist with healing, and … be very clear on how to recognize the signs so the culture of abuse that so many of us have experienced does not re-emerge. Ever."

While Sport Canada only oversees national organizations that receive federal funding, St-Onge plans to hold discussions about safe sport with provincial and territorial federations at the Canada Summer Games in August.

David Shoemaker, the COC's CEO and secretary-general, said Canadian sport has never been about winning at all costs.

"For the Canadian Olympic Committee, it's always been about winning the right way," he said. "We believe that we can relentlessly pursue Olympic and Paralympic performance, to get athletes and Canadian teams on podiums and, at the same time, relentlessly pursue a safe and healthy sport culture in Canada.

"What's at stake for us here is a country that can be proud of the athletes that represent it on the world stage."

Erin Willson, the president of AthletesCAN, the association representing Canadian athletes, called the weekend's meetings an "encouraging step."

She acknowledged there's concerns about the backlog of cases OSIC could face once it starts receiving complaints later this month. But she thought the creation of the athletes commission was a positive step.

"It really signifies this idea that athletes are having a more formalized voice in the system," she said. I think that has been something that we've learned this weekend, it's really, really been missing."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 12, 2022.

Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said national sport organizations will have to participate in OSIC by April 1, 2023. In fact, participation will become mandatory on a gradual basis and not by an April 1, 2023 deadline.