Republicans spread the conspiracy theory that Trump supporter Ray Epps was an undercover FBI agent who incited the Capitol riot. Epps says it ruined his life.

kvlamis@insider.com (Kelsey Vlamis) - Yesterday 

In this Jan. 6, 2021 file photo rioters supporting President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington. John Minchillo/AP

Ray Epps traveled to Washington D.C. to support President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.

He was later pegged to a conspiracy theory alleging the feds incited the Capitol riot.

He told The New York Times in an interview he had to sell his business and home and go into hiding.

Ray Epps, a Marine veteran and business owner from Arizona, traveled to Washington D.C. to show his support for former President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.

And although he's not among the hundreds of Capitol rioters who were arrested and charged, the events that followed ruined his life, he said.

Epps, 61, became the center of a conspiracy theory, pushed by the former president himself, that would cause him to sell his business and his home and go into hiding, according to an interview he gave to The New York Times that was published Wednesday.

"And for what — lies?" Epps told The Times. "All of this, it's just been hell."

The baseless theory stemmed from attempts by some on the right to blame the Capitol riot on federal agents, who they claimed wanted a reason to provoke a crackdown on conservatives.

A video of Epps taken on January 5 showed him telling other Trump supporters they needed to go into the Capitol the following day. Epps was never arrested, prompting right-wing internet sleuths to accuse him of being an undercover FBI agent or informant trying to stir up violence — despite videos that show Epps urging others to be peaceful and trying to deescalate confrontations between police and the rioters on January 6.

The theory was eventually picked up by right-wing media and Republican politicians, including Rep. Thomas Massie and Sens. Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, among others. Trump himself mentioned Epps's name at a rally in January, suggesting he may have been working for the feds.

Epps told The Times he and his wife began receiving death threats via email and had people trespassing on their property starting in October, when right-wing site Revolver News first published a story about it. The attacks intensified after Fox News host Tucker Carlson and lawmakers promoted the claims.

Epps eventually found shell casings on his property and received a letter, potentially a hoax, saying Mexican cartel members were planning to kill him. He ended up selling his business and home, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and moving into a mobile home somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. He agreed to The Times interview as long as his current location was not disclosed.

"I am at the center of this thing, and it's the biggest farce that's ever been," he said. "It's just not right. The American people are being led down a path. I think it should be criminal."

The FBI has not publicly commented on allegations that Epps was working with them or why he was not charged.

Epps said he never entered the Capitol and told The Times he immediately contacted the FBI's National Threat Operations Center two days after the Capitol riot, when he found out they had flagged him in a be-on-the-lookout alert. The outlet confirmed his phone records showed he spoke to the FBI and obtained transcripts from additional interviews.

Epps was also questioned by the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot in November and told them he was not connected to the FBI, Politico reported.

A student-loan forgiveness program was 'run by greedy loan servicers' under Betsy DeVos, Elizabeth Warren says — and Biden can fix 'the mess' by canceling debt

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) - 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Sen. Warren slammed Betsy DeVos' handling of a student-loan forgiveness program for public servants.

She said the best first step Biden can take to fixing growing debt burdens is canceling it.

When Biden took office, 98% of public servants were being denied relief to the program.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren isn't too upset that a former education secretary is no longer in office.

On Friday, Warren joined the American Federation of Teachers convention in Massachusetts to discuss higher education reform and the student debt crisis. She addressed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which is intended to forgive student debt for public servants, like teachers, after ten years of qualifying payments. While the first group of borrowers should have become eligible for forgiveness in 2017, the program ran up a high denial rate under former President Donald Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

"Less than 3% of the public servants that applied to have their loans forgiven under the PSLF program actually got the relief they were promised," Warren said. "More than 97% were denied. And by the way, this is why math education is so important. You can keep track of when Betsy DeVos is cheating you. The good news: Betsy DeVos is gone."

In 2019, the American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten sued DeVos over the high PSLF denial rate, and in October, the organization reached a settlement with President Joe Biden's Education Department that required the department to reconsider any denied PSLF applications upon request and give denied borrowers a detailed response as to why they were denied, among other things. It also discharged $400,000 in student debt for the eight plaintiffs in the case, which Weingarten said at the time was "a day of vindication for the millions of borrowers who took the government at its word but were cruelly denied through no fault of their own."

Biden is teasing a coming decision on student-loan forgiveness. Here's everything we know about how it could look.

Pressure has been mounting for Biden to cancel student debt, as he pledged during his campaign.

Last month, he said his decision on relief would come in a matter of weeks.

While Republican opposition mounts, a few developments hint at the kind of relief borrowers might see.

Despite President Joe Biden's campaign pledge to cancel $10,000 in debt per borrower, he's been largely silent on the issue through his presidency.

But there may be a light at the end of tunnel for more than 40 million Americans with federal student loans.

In late April, Biden said he'd "have an answer" on relief in the coming weeks. That was a year after Biden asked the Department of Education to prepare a memo outlining his legal power to cancel student debt. Insider found that the Education Department created and circulated the memo, but Biden has not revealed its contents.

Instead of relief for all borrowers, so far, Biden has focused on targeted groups like borrowers with disabilities and those defrauded by for-profit schools, who have seen more than $9 billion in collective debt relief. He also extended the pandemic pause on student loan payments four times since taking office, following two from former President Donald Trump.

Democrats are pressuring him to relieve borrowers in fear of low midterm turnout, with some progressives urging him to cancel at least $50,000 for those in debt. Meanwhile, Republicans senators have introduced bills intended to prohibit cancellation.

Biden's approval rating among the young people who helped get him elected is tanking. With the payment pause set to expire after August 31, Americans are on pins and needles to find out what Biden will do.

Here's everything we know so far.

Following the high PSLF denial rate under DeVos, Biden's Education Department announced a series of reforms to the program last year, including a waiver that runs through October 31, 2022, that allows any past payments, including those previously deemed ineligible, to count toward forgiveness progress. Warren said she's "all in favor of this relief, but it's not enough."

Student Loan Forgiveness and the Future of Paying for College

"We need to deal with the mess we're in right now," Warren said. "Mr. President, our educators and our firefighters and everyone who is struggling with a mountain of student loan debt, it is time to cancel $50,000 of student loan debt."

Warren has long called for $50,000 in relief for federal borrowers, even though it's an amount Biden previously said he is not considering. Instead, recent reports have suggested he is mulling $10,000 in relief for borrowers making under $150,000 a year. It'll likely be announced in July or August, closer to when the pause on student-loan payments expires after August 31.

While Democrats like Warren want the president to go big on relief, many Republican lawmakers have slammed the idea of forgiving student debt broadly. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, for example, wrote on Twitter that canceling debt will "have a significant inflationary impact, so the working poor and seniors will be the hardest hit."

"Biden wants to raid the treasury to bribe his progressive base to turn out for the midterms," Cotton wrote.

The White House has not publicly confirmed how it plans to act on student debt, but with payments resuming in less than two months, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are waiting for the final decision.

EV BATTERIES ARE DANGEROUS
Lucid Reports Multiple Battery-Related Fires At Factory In Arizona
Steven Loveday -

© InsideEVsLucid Air Dream Edition

In both cases, the batteries were submerged in water, the factory reportedly had to be evacuated, and workers were injured.

According to a recent report published by Drive Tesla Canada, Lucid has dealt with two reported fire incidents over the course of just four months. The fires broke out at the electric automaker's factory in Arizona.

Lucid is slowly but surely increasing its production speed at its first factory in Casa Grande. Arizona. Since the factory first officially opened, the local fire department has been dispatched to the location on at least two occasions. Drive Tesla Canada notes that according to fire department records obtained by Business Insider, both incidents involved fires related to electric car batteries.

Based on the information in the fire department's reports, one fire happened on March 14, 2022, at 10:30 PM local time. The fire broke out at Lucid's powertrain center, and thermal runaway was noted. This basically means that even if the fire is extinguished, it can continue to reignite long after the initial incident as the rising heat continues to impact additional battery cells. This is one of the reasons EV battery fires are harder to deal with than other fires.

The fire department responded to the battery-related fire incident, which firefighters learned was upgraded to a "hazardous situation” while they were headed to the site. By the time the first responders arrived, the battery had already been put in a tank of water. One person ended up with burns and needed to be treated at a local hospital.

A second fire occurred around the same time in the evening, on June 19, 2022. The fire department was dispatched to respond to an active vehicle battery fire inside the Arizona factory. Once again, when the units arrived, the battery had already been partially submerged in water outside the facility. Drive Tesla Canada writes that four Lucid workers had to have medical treatment for possible smoke inhalation, and another needed to visit a local medical facility.

Check Out These Lucid Stories:
Apple CarPlay Seen Running On Lucid Air Screen At Test Drive Event

Elon Musk Says Lucid And Rivian Are "Tracking Toward Bankruptcy"

Anonymous sources reported that Lucid was forced to evacuate the factory during both incidents. Hopefully, the EV maker has figured out what caused the issues, and there won't be any continued concerns going forward.

ASSASSINATED

Ripudaman Singh Malik, acquitted in Air India bombing, had many enemies

Kim Bolan - July 15.2022- VANCOUVER SUN

When retired RCMP deputy commissioner Gary Bass was in charge of the terrorism investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing, he saw just how many enemies Ripudaman Singh Malik had.


© Provided by Vancouver Sun

Ripudaman Singh Malik (centre) leaves B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, B.C. with his supporters after he was found not guilty in the bombing of an Air India flight 182 in 1985, Wednesday March 16, 2005. Malikl won't be getting back $9.2 million in legal fees. Malik had admitted in a B.C. Supreme Court case that it would be difficult for him to convince the government to cover his legal bills.

“I’m not privy to the ongoing investigations on Malik right now, but I can say that from years when I was that he was involved in a number of activities that might bring him into conflict with other people.”

Malik, who was acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges in 2005, was shot to death as he sat inside his car about 9:30 a.m. Thursday outside an industrial plaza where he has a business office in the 8200-block of 128th Street.

Bass said it would be speculative to suggest who might be behind the fatal shooting of the 75-year former Sikh separatist leader.


© Jason Payne

Various police agencies investigate the shooting death of Ripudaman Singh Malik at 8236 128th Street in Surrey, B.C. Thursday morning July 14, 2022. Malik, a well-known Surrey businessman, was acquitted in 2005 in the Air India Bombing, which killed hundreds of people in 1985.

“I just think there’s so many potential motives.”

Bass recalled monitoring a seven-hour interview Malik gave to the Air India investigators after his October 2000 arrest.

“I watched that interview. And he was a different person than he portrays in public for sure. He was cocky. He took his turban off, and he had his feet up on the desk, and really playing games,” Bass recalled. “And coming very close to confessing and then kind of backing away … not the pious religious guy that he’d like everyone to think for sure.”

Homicide investigators are now trying to figure out who killed the controversial community leader, one-time terror suspect, wealthy businessman and founder of both the Khalsa Credit Union and Khalsa Schools.


© Jeff Vinnick

Accused Air India bombers Ajaib Singh Bagri (left) and Ripudaman Singh Malik walk together through the exercise yard at the jail where they were in custody Nov. 1, 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Was someone angry over Malik’s recent support for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, thanking him for work he had done on behalf of Sikhs in a letter he sent in January?

“I am writing you this to express my deer heartfelt gratitude for the unprecedented positive steps taken by yourself to redress long-reading Sikh demands and grievances,” Malik wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Postmedia.

Malik cited the elimination of blacklists like the one he was once on and the reopening of criminal cases for suspects in murders during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as well as a declaration that the riots were in fact a genocide.


A door from the Air India jumbo jet floats off the Irish coast after a bomb exploded causing the plane to crash in 1985.

The Surrey senior had also attracted recent controversy for his links to printing the Sikh holy book — the Guru Granth Sahib — outside of India in contravention of a religious edict.

But several sources also said Malik has had a number of personal disputes with individuals over the years.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team issued a release later Thursday, confirming Malik was the victim and that the murder was targeted. And police believe a burned vehicle found near 82 Avenue and 122a Street is associated to the shooting.

“We are aware of Mr. Malik’s background, though at this time we are still working to determine the motive,” Sgt.Timothy Pierotti said. “Having occurred in a residential area, we are confident that witnesses exist that could help us further this investigation. We urge them to come forward immediately and without delay.”

In March 2005, Malik and his Babbar Khalsa associate Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted by a B.C. Supreme Court judge of murder and conspiracy charges in Canada’s deadliest terror attack.

Air India — then the country’s national airline — was bombed to retaliate against the Indian government for its attack on Amritsar’s Golden Temple a year earlier, which left hundreds of Sikh pilgrims dead.


Malik and Bagri were alleged to be part of a conspiracy of a small group of B.C. militants who placed suitcase bombs on two connecting flights leaving Vancouver airport. The deadly bags were tagged for Air India flights heading in opposite directions.

One blew up aboard Air India Flight 182 off the coast of Ireland on June 23, 1985, killing all 329 people aboard, most of them Canadian citizens. The other exploded in Tokyo’s Narita Airport as it was being transferred. Two baggage handlers were killed.

Inderjit Reyat, a former Vancouver Island man, was convicted of manslaughter in both bombings.


© Handout

Ripudaman Singh Malik serves up something at Khalsa school in this 1995 file picture.

After Malik’s acquittal, he resumed his leadership roles at the Khalsa Credit Union and Satnam Education Society which operates several Khalsa schools. And he moved from Vancouver to South Surrey. He continued to run a number of businesses including Papillon Eastern Imports — the clothing company based in the building where Malik was killed Thursday.

Malik also travelled to India for the first time since his acquittal in 2019 after the India government granted him a visa.

Former B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh first met Malik in the 1970s when the local South Asian community in Vancouver was very small.

Malik had started a clothing store, Papillon, in Gastown. The two men and their wives socialized. Malik was not yet a supporter of the Sikh separatist Khalistan movement, Dosanjh said Thursday.

Dosanjh did the legal work pro bono to help Malik set up his first two charities — the Satnam Trust and the Satnam Education Society.

“He was a ganja-smoking hippie who had a ponytail and then he turned into an extremist warrior. It’s hard to explain,” Dosanjh said. “Something happened to him.”

Dosanjh thinks that it’s possible Malik’s recent support of the Indian government he once reviled could be a motive in the murder.

“Whenever somebody is felled by violence, one is saddened,” Dosanjh said. “Mr. Malik ostensibly played with violence in his life and it has likely come back to haunt him.”


© Jason Payne

Various police agencies investigate the shooting death of Ripudaman Singh Malik at 8236 128th Street in Surrey, B.C. Thursday morning July 14, 2022. Malik, a well-known Surrey businessman, was acquitted in 2005 in the Air India Bombing, which killed hundreds of people in 1985. Pictured is an unknown woman, identity shielded, at the crime scene.

Kash Heed, a longtime Vancouver police officer and former B.C. solicitor general, said the Malik murder bore similarities to recent gangland murders, where a masked shooter blasts away, escapes and a getaway car is later found burning.

“This has the earmarkings of a paid hit against an individual. We know of several of these hits on the Lower Mainland related to gang violence,” he said.

And he also said Malik’s recent support for the government of India might be the motive in the shooting.

“This has been such a prolonged event, I am actually surprised that he has survived so many years,” Heed said. “My belief that it is related to his political advocacy.”

Several people who testified against Malik in the Air India prosecution declined to comment Thursday though they privately expressed shock at his murder.


© Gerry KahrmannMar. 16, 2005. The judge in the Air India bombing trial found Ripudaman Singh Malik (left) not guilty of bombing Air India flight 182. He is escorted by a court sheriff and an unidentified man to a waiting car.

Malik lived in a waterfront house on Crescent Road in South Surrey with his wife Raminder, who is the only one on the land title.

Assessed at $6.8 million, the house is also listed as the home of some of Malik’s adult children on corporate records related to family businesses.

When a Vancouver Sun reporter visited Malik’s family in India in 2003 on the eve of the Air India trial, his elderly aunts said he was born in Lahore — now in Pakistan — on Feb. 5, 1947 — just before the partition of India. He was still a baby when his father Ranjit Singh moved the family to Ferozpur, Punjab — on the Indian side of the new border.


Tenants on the Malik family estate in Ferozpur, Punjab enter the front gate.

The family bought a gas station and opened a drugstore and later moved into a large home. Ripudaman Malik emigrated to England in the early 70s before arriving in Vancouver where he settled and raised his family — three sons and a daughter.

He ran and expanded Papillon, then started Khalsa Development and some numbered companies, though he was not listed as a director of any of them on current corporate records. And he was a founder of the Khalsa Credit Union and the two charities, Satnam Trust, which had its charitable status revoked in 2012, and the Satnam Education Society, of which Malik is still listed as a director.

Punjab MP Simranjit Singh Mann, a longtime pro-Khalistani leader told The Vancouver Sun in 2003 that he had been a friend of Malik’s family when he was in the police in Ferozpur.

“They were very law-abiding people and very devout Sikhs,” recalled Mann. “He comes from a very, very good family. I should know that because I used to call on them.”

kbolan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kbolan

Putin fires head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, and appointed deputy prime minister Yuri Borisov to head the organization.


© Provided by News 360Archive - Former Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin - EUROPA PRESS

Although the reasons for the dismissal have not been specified, sources of the Russian opposition portal Meduza, including one close to Rogozin himself, pointed out this week that the former head of Roscosmos will soon join the presidential administration, possibly as the Kremlin's new chief of staff.

Again according to the same sources, it is also not ruled out that Rogozin will eventually become one of the Kremlin's supervisors for the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.

Rogozin had been at the helm of Roscosmos for the past four years, since May 24, 2018, while Borisov had previously served as deputy defense minister of the Russian Federation.

What Dmitry Rogozin’s Firing Could Mean for Russia's Approach to Space

George Dvorsky - Yesterday -GIZMODO

The Kremlin has abruptly ended Dmitry Rogozin’s tenure as the head of Russia’s space agency, forcing us to wonder if the introduction of a new space chief might change Roscosmos and the way it handles other space agencies. Sadly, there’s good reason for pessimism.


© Photo: NASAThe Nauka and Prichal modules and the Soyuz MS-21 crew ship.

As British rockers The Who once sang: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” This could well be the case at the Russian space agency, where earlier today the Kremlin announced the firing of Rogozin, who was replaced by former Russian deputy prime minister Yury Borisov. It’s hard to know how Borisov might alter the complexion of Roscosmos or the agency’s relationship with its International Space Station partners, but given Russia’s waning interest in space and ongoing focus on the war in Ukraine, it’s a safe bet that things aren’t going to change too dramatically.

Rogozin’s departure is undoubtably a relief for NASA and other Roscosmos partners, as his four-year tenure as director general of Roscosmos was fiery and turbulent. Rogozin rarely hesitated to lash out publicly when things rubbed him the wrong way—and there was no shortage of things that got him agitated.

Back in 2014, when still deputy prime minister of Russia, Rogozin responded to newly imposed U.S. sanctions by saying NASA will soon require trampolines to send its astronauts to the ISS (NASA was dependent on Russia for crewed access to space at the time). As Roscosmos chief, he once again railed against sanctions while continually threatening to abandon the space station. Consistently crass, Rogozin said that people who impose sanctions against Russia should be checked for Alzheimer’s and that Russia’s departure from the ISS would result in the space station making an uncontrolled deorbit.

Last year, an anonymous high-ranking official in the Russian space industry blamed a “mentally unstable” NASA astronaut for drilling a hole in a Soyuz capsule docked to the ISS, in an unfounded accusation that smacked of Rogozin’s involvement. Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Roscosmos put out a fabricated video showing cosmonauts entering into a module and leaving the ISS for good, raising fears that Roscosmos would abandon NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei in low Earth orbit. And as early as this week, Rogozin threatened to withhold access to Europe’s new ISS robotic arm—a response to the European Space Agency terminating its relationship with Roscosmos on the ExoMars mission.

You get the picture. But despite these bleak episodes, Rogozin’s histrionics never really amounted to much. “Rogozin’s bluster was rarely translated into actual practical action,” Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote to me in an email. “But it did contribute a sense of Trumpian instability to the Russian space effort, and distracted space workers are not a good thing for safety.” Indeed, it was under Rogozin’s tenure that one of the most serious incidents in the 25-year history of the ISS took place. In August 2021, a newly docked Russian module inadvertently fired its thrusters, causing the space station to backflip out of control.

Rogozin couldn’t act on his threats or do anything to revamp Russia’s deteriorating space program on account of Russian President Vladimir Putin not really caring that much about space exploration. Putin slashed Russia’s space budgets and instead prioritized his build-up of Russia’s military. As a substitute for building cool things in space, Russia changed its focus to destroying things in space, as witnessed by the country’s reckless anti-satellite weapons test in November of last year.

The new guy, Yury Borisov, will likely face the same challenges as his predecessor. How he will approach them remains to be seen.

Keith Cowing, editor of NASAWatch.com and a former rocket scientist at NASA, doesn’t know if Borisov will be any better than Rogozin, but he said the new space chief “needs to fall back to basic problems” and deal with the “cash-strapped Roscosmos,” he told me over the phone. Cowing said the departure of Rogozin may represent a good thing for Roscosmos, as his continual antics “were causing people to step away.” His advice to Borisov is to “defer to people who are doing the work and actually running the place,” because the one thing that Roscosmos most needs right now is “institutional stability.”

That Roscosmos will start to exhibit signs of positive change is possible, even if it is unlikely. A newly brokered agreement between the U.S. and Russia for a crew swap on upcoming flights of SpaceX Crew Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz likely has nothing to do with the firing of Rogozin, according to Cowing, but he said there is something that Borisov could do in good faith: return OneWeb’s satellites. Roscosmos was supposed to launch 36 of OneWeb’s internet satellites in March but is instead holding them hostage. The London-based OneWeb is currently seeking to build an internet constellation in low Earth orbit, though one smaller than SpaceX’s Starlink. Returning the satellites to OneWeb “is an easy thing that Borisov can do,” Cowing told me, and it could “restore confidence in Roscosmos” or be a “positive sign that things might change.”

McDowell doesn’t expect Russian space policy to change, but he hopes it will be less noisy. Borisov, given his military and defense background, will likely “support Putin’s Ukraine invasion just as much as Rogozin, but perhaps he won’t push that support in NASA’s face quite as much,” he said.

Speaking of NASA, I reached out to the space agency for comment on Rogozin’s departure but have yet to hear back. I asked Cowing how NASA ought to respond.

“Don’t gloat,” he replied.

CANADA
No new equipment or land for a few years, say farmers hit by interest rate hike

CBC, Thu, July 14, 2022


Farmers are used to keeping an eye on the weather and their fields, but now they're also watching the Bank of Canada after it raised its benchmark interest rate by a full percentage point in an attempt to fight runaway inflation.

"It's made for a challenging year, especially with paying off credit lines and making sure that bills are paid on time," said Rauri Qually, who farms with his wife, Pam Bailey, on land west of Winnipeg.

"We've been managing, but there are a lot of farmers across Manitoba and many different aspects of agriculture, from grains and oilseeds to livestock to specialty crops to fruit that are struggling."

Most farmers carry a lot of debt, buying seed, fertilizer and equipment upfront every year, then hoping for a bumper crop and high returns many months later. The rising interest rates call into question the sustainability of some farms, which could directly affect consumers as well as the one in nine Canadian jobs involved in the country's agriculture and agri-food sector.

For Qually and Bailey, drought hurt their harvest last fall. This spring, inflation drove up seed and fertilizer costs. Spring flooding meant a late start to their planting season.

They're about a month behind where they should be.

Increased risk of borrowing

All of that, combined with this increased cost of borrowing, means they'll hold off on major purchases such as a new combine, which can cost half a million dollars. The bank's interest rate impacts what Canadians get from their lenders on products like mortgages and lines of credit.

"That ship has sailed," Bailey said, laughing.

"New tractors aren't exactly in our scope at this point in time," Qually added. " Maybe in a few years."

Toban Dyck

At an agriculture conference in Winnipeg, farmer Toban Dyck was also keeping an eye on interest rates.

He saw his parents struggle with interest rates in the double digits in the 1980s, so he's always been careful not to take on too much debt when the money has been "cheap."

Still, "in order to increase our farm size, we've had to invest in more land, which means loans," he said. "It'll affect us.… Lots of people will be way more saddled with debt."

And while farmers are resilient, "there are lots of deep sighs and just kind of one foot in front of the other," he said.

Toban Dyck

One of the big concerns is that this may just be the beginning of increasingly high interest rates.

A central bank cuts the lending rate when it wants to stimulate the economy by encouraging people to borrow and invest. It raises rates when it wants to cool down an overheated economy.

"The big question is where interest rates are going in the future," said Richard Gray, an agricultural economist at the University of Saskatchewan. He also farms with his son near Saskatoon.

"Fundamentally, you have to see interest rates higher than the expected rate of inflation. Right now, inflation expectations are six or seven per cent and interest rates are not nearly that high yet so there may be more interest rate hikes to come."

Livestock producers most vulnerable, expert says

Gray sees livestock producers as the most vulnerable in the sector. The cost of buying and feeding cattle are up, but the final price at market is not keeping pace.

"So they're in a little bit of an income squeeze, and you add higher interest rates to that group, you can bet there's some farmers that are hurting," he said.

David Laughlin/CBC

High commodity prices are helping some farmers right now, but that could change as the economy slows, said Sylvain Charlebois. He teaches food distribution policy at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

"This year's seeding season was the most expensive in history because of costs, but the return is likely going to be there as well. Commodity prices are are much higher than average, so farmers should do well this year," he said.

"The concern with higher rates is probably next year ... because commodity prices will likely drop as a result of a slower global economy. That's why central banks want a slower economy. Demand for commodities will drop and prices will drop as well. But if costs don't drop, then farmers will be in trouble.

"For next year there is a lot of uncertainty," Charlebois said.

Back in the field, the most immediate concern for Qually and Bailey is getting this crop to harvest.

Kneeling in the soil as they check out their canola plants, they know they're at the mercy of the markets and nature.

"You have to plan for the worst in agriculture," Qually said.

"You know, try to live within your means, farm within your means," Bailey added. "As farmers you gotta have hope. Just keep going."

Nunavut reviewers under pressure to speed up Baffinland review

CBC, Thu, July 14, 2022

Minister of Northern Affairs Dan Vandal, seen here last month, has asked that Nunavut's review board make a recommendation by Aug. 26 about Baffinland Iron Mines' request to continue producing up to 6 million tonnes of ore this year from its Mary River mine. 'It is imperative that the assessment ... is prioritized and conducted in an efficient and expeditious manner,' he wrote. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press - image credit)More

A Nunavut board is being urged to make a prompt decision on whether Baffinland Iron Mines should continue to ship up to six million tonnes ore from its Mary River mine this year.

In a letter to the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) on Monday, Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal asks for a recommendation from the board by Aug. 26 — a little more than six weeks away.

"While I am aware of other ongoing assessments before the Board, given the time-sensitive nature of this process, it is imperative that the assessment ... is prioritized and conducted in an efficient and expeditious manner," Vandal wrote.

"This timeline, while ambitious, still allows for maintaining the integrity of the process as envisioned under the Nunavut Agreement and the Act."

CBC

Baffinland is asking to continue shipping ore at the same rate as it has in the last few years. In 2018, the company was given temporary approval to up its production from 4.2 million tonnes to six million tonnes, and that approval expired at the end of 2021.

The company wants it extended into 2022, and has threatened mass lay-offs starting at the end of August if it's denied.

"As we have stated previously, without this approval, Baffinland will be forced to drastically reduce our workforce in the fall," said Baffinland spokesperson Peter Akman, in an email to CBC on Wednesday.

Minister Vandal rejected an earlier request from Baffinland for an emergency order to produce more ore this year, and instead encouraged the company to go through the NIRB with its proposal.

Baffinland Iron Mines Corp.

Now Vandal is urging speed, saying the potential job losses mean the proposal before NIRB "should receive priority over other ongoing review processes."

He suggests forgoing extensive public hearings in favour of written submissions from stakeholders, including local communities and Inuit organizations. Vandal also refers to a suggestion from the Qikiqtani Inuit Association (QIA), for a "hybrid process," involving some oral testimony along with written submissions.

In a letter earlier this month to the NIRB, QIA suggests such oral testimony might be collected "through means such as teleconferences or video conferences upon the request of individual community organizations."

The timeline suggested by Vandal this week is also "fair in the context all parties are working under," QIA president Olayuk Akesuk told CBC News in an email on Thursday.

More hearings

The spectre of more Baffinland-related hearings may not be a welcome one to some Nunavummiut — a prolonged and sometimes contentious four-year review of the company's proposed expansion plan just wrapped up this year, with the NIRB recommending against that project.

Federal officials are still considering that recommendation and Vandal has said he needs an additional 90 days to issue a decision. His letter to the NIRB on Tuesday suggests that extra time means people can focus on one Baffinland review at a time, and prioritize the immediate production increase and the threat of imminent lay-offs.

That's something QIA pushed for, and Akesuk's email says the minister's actions are "in direct response to QIA's advocacy."

Nick Murray/CBC News

Vandal's letter also tacitly acknowledges that another review of Baffinland's operations at Mary River — this one about the continued production increase in 2022 — could quickly balloon.

"I encourage all parties to focus their interventions on the narrow scope of the Production Increase Proposal Renewal currently under consideration," he wrote.

He cites the "vast amount of information already submitted to the public record" from the reviews of Baffinland's expansion project, and its earlier production increase proposals.

Speaking to CBC News on Wednesday, Karen Costello, executive director of the NIRB, said the board had not yet made any decisions about how the review will be done, or how quickly.

"[Vandal's letter] has been advanced to the board to inform their decision-making, on not only the process but the timing of the process," she said.

'Lack of respect for the regulatory process,' HTO says

Other organizations, along with QIA, have already weighed in on what the process might look like.

David Ningeongan of Nunavut Tunngavik wrote to NIRB last week to say the review process could proceed "in writing with appropriate accommodations and support for community intervenors to ensure their full participation."

The Mittimatalik Hunters and Trappers Organization (MHTO), meanwhile, argues that Baffinland's proposed production increase again this year warrants a "full review process." The organization, based in nearby Pond Inlet, Nunavut, argues in a letter to NIRB that the mine is having a devastating impact on local wildlife populations and that amounts to "an emergency for Inuit."

The MHTO also argues that Baffinland knew its production increase to six million tonnes per year was temporary and due to expire last year. The company should have shown better foresight, it says.

"This lack of respect for the regulatory process is not an emergency that warrants the Board accelerating its reconsideration," the MHTO letter states.

"It is a dangerous precedent to set to allow proponents to not plan for the expiry of authorizations and then claim that the impacts to its workforce as a result of that lack of a plan are an emergency that warrants accelerating regulatory reviews."

Environmental group Oceans North echoes those sentiments in its own letter to the NIRB last week, saying Baffinland's request does not constitute an "emergency," and the livelihoods of Nunavummiut should not be on the line.

"This situation is a foreseeable consequence of poor management and planning," Oceans North vice president Christopher Debicki wrote.

Beth Brown/CBC

"Our concern is that Baffinland will continue to use threats of layoffs and mine closure to pressure the NIRB and other stakeholders to approve current and future expansion of the mine."

Oceans North argues that Baffinland's production increase proposal warrants "in-person or videoconference proceedings," and says reviews and hearings should be televised and recorded.

"It is also very important that parties hear each other's concerns. This is difficult to do when each party writes a separate (and at times untranslated) letter," Debicki wrote.

Debicki's letter says the Mary River project has had a significant impact on narwhal populations in the area, and that's not been adequately addressed in earlier reviews.

Sri Lanka's political, economic turmoil leaves millions facing a food crisis

July 14, 2022 

Sri Lankan protesters stand on top of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's office, demanding he resign after president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country amid economic crisis in the capital Colombo on Wednesday. (Eranga Jayawardena/The Associated Press - image credit)

Aid agencies are warning the health and well-being of six million Sri Lankans could be in peril as the country contends with extraordinary political upheaval and a punishing economic collapse.

Ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country Wednesday, the day he was set to resign under intense public pressure to step down because of his handling of the country's finances.

Several factors have caused Sri Lanka's foreign currency reserves to dry up, leaving the government unable to pay for vital imports of food, cooking gas, fuel and medicine — all of which are in short supply.

Observers are warning that if the situation doesn't improve soon, one-third of the country's of almost 22 million people could plunge further into food insecurity as the country endures its worst financial crisis since gaining independence in 1948.

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned some 62,000 Sri Lankans are in such a dire situation they require urgent help.

Food insecurity is defined by the United Nations as the "lack [of] regular access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy life." Severe insecurity means a person has "run out of food" and may go a day or more with nothing to eat.

WATCH | Sri Lanka's embattled president leaves country amid economic collapse:

Hunger in Sri Lanka by the numbers

Food inflation rose 80 per cent in June, compared to a year earlier, according to Sri Lanka's Central Bank, while the economy tumbled and food and fuel supplies continued to dwindle.

The UN said more than 60 per cent of Sri Lankans were already choosing to limit meals to stretch their food budgets. In one dire example of the lengths some vulnerable people need to go in order to eat, Britain's Sky News reported some families travel nearly 10 kilometres on foot to get free meal from a community kitchen in Colombo.

In an appeal to donors, the charity Save the Children estimated last week 12 per cent of the country's poorest households are taking "crisis level" steps to survive the food shortages and economic collapse. These measures include borrowing money, taking children out of school or selling belongings, the organization said, citing its own survey of more than 2,300 families.

There's an acute concern for pregnant or breastfeeding women, and children, according to the WFP. The agency said a national school meal program that "provides nutritious meals to one-in-four schoolchildren" has faced disruptions, and a nutritional support program for nursing mothers and young children "has been cut."

"Coupled with income losses, this could lead to higher rates of malnutrition among women and their children," WFP said.

Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images

Domestic food production drops

Domestic food production also took a hit by the Rajapaksa government's April 2021 decision to ban the importation of chemical fertilizers and agrichemicals, including herbicides and pesticides, in an apparent shift to organic agriculture. But the move was abrupt, with no plan to import organic fertilizers and no boost in domestic production.

By the time the ban was partially reversed in November, farmers reported a 40 to 50 per cent loss in rice paddy crops, the UN's Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Hanaa Singer-Hamdy, told the Daily Mirror last month. Fruit, vegetable and tea crops also suffered.

"Low-income households are the hardest hit and [are] adopting negative coping strategies," she said.

The cost of chemical fertilizer has also risen dramatically since that time, amid a global shortage, leaving farmers in the lurch.

Impact of war in Ukraine

Russia has been accused of weaponizing food exports in its war on Ukraine to middle and lower income countries, and Sri Lanka appears to be one of the casualties.

Ukraine is a principal exporter of grain to lower income countries; it's the fifth largest source of food products imported to Sri Lanka, according to the World Bank.

The Observatory of Economic Complexity, an open-source data visualization website, shows grains accounted for more than one-third of Sri Lanka's total imports from Ukraine; other imports included vegetables, legumes, cooking oils and various spice seeds.

Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky placed blame for the crisis in Sri Lanka on Russia, in a video address to the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul, saying it should serve as a warning about the global implications of Russia's invasion and blockade of Ukrainian grain and food shipments.

"The shocking rise in food and fuel prices caused a social explosion. No one knows now how it will end. However, you all know that the same outbursts are possible in other countries affected by food and energy crises," Zelensky told the conference.

Is there any relief in sight?

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, appointed acting president by Rajapaksa before he fled, informed parliament of the government's intention to host an international donor conference that will include major Asian donors like India, China and Japan. According to the Economic Times, that won't happen until Sri Lanka can reach a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund, though the Central Bank's governor cautioned the current political instability may delay talks further.

Sri Lanka's parliament is poised to elect a new president on July 20.

Last month, the United Nations made an appeal for $47 million US in humanitarian aid funding, to assist 1.7 million Sri Lankans in need until September.

CANADIAN RESPONSE IS PATHETIC
in a statement to CBC News last week, Global Affairs Canada said the federal government provided an initial $50,000 in humanitarian assistance in May through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Yosemite wildfire moving east into Sierra National Forest

Wed, July 13, 2022 



YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire that threatened a grove of California's giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park was burning eastward into the Sierra National Forest on Wednesday.

The Washburn Fire is one of dozens of blazes chewing through drought-parched terrain in the Western U.S. It had increased in size to more than 6.6 square miles (17 square kilometers) and was just 23% contained.

The fire will continue to grow over the next few days, according to a fire update Wednesday night.

“The combination of continued warm and dry weather conditions along with the heavy accumulation of large fuels is creating the perfect recipe for the very active fire behavior we are seeing," the update said.

Meanwhile, firefighting preparations had already been underway in the national forest.

“We've brought in Sierra National Forest folks from the get-go, kind of anticipating that this may happen,” said Nancy Philippe, a fire information spokesperson.

Containment lines within the park, including along the edge of the grove, were holding, firefighting operations official Matt Ahearn said in a video briefing earlier in the day.

The fire had been entirely within the national park since breaking out July 7, when visitors to the Mariposa Grove of ancient sequoias reported smoke.

Authorities have not said how the fire started and whether it involved a crime or some type of accident.

Park Superintendent Cicely Muldoon told a community meeting this week that it was considered a “human-start fire” because there was no lightning that day.

Philippe said a park ranger who is a trained investigator was on the scene almost immediately when the fire was reported, and a law enforcement team continues to investigate.

Philippe said she believed they had found the point of ignition, but declined to release further information, citing the active investigation.

The fire in the southern portion of Yosemite forced evacuation of hundreds of visitors and residents from the small community of Wawona, but the rest of the park has remained open to summer crowds.

One firefighter suffered a heat injury and recovered, but no structures have been damaged.

Flames mostly skirted the Mariposa Grove, though it did leave its mark on some of the trees.

The Galen Clark tree, named for the park's first custodian, and three trees that greet visitors when they arrive at the popular destination, were partly charred but none were expected to die because their canopy didn't burn, said Garrett Dickman, a park forest ecologist who toured the site.

Dickman credited periodic intentional burns in the undergrowth beneath the towering trees with helping the grove survive its first wildfire in more than a century.

Small, targeted fires lit over the past 50 years essentially stopped the fire in its tracks when it hit the Mariposa Grove and allowed firefighters to stand their ground and set up sprinklers to further protect the world's largest trees, Dickman said.

“We’ve been preparing for the Washburn Fire for decades,” said Dickman, who works for the park. “It really just died as soon as it hit the grove.”

The sequoias are adapted to fire — and rely on it to survive. But more than a century of aggressive fire suppression has left forests choked with dense vegetation and downed timber that has provided fuel for massive wildfires that have grown more intense during an ongoing drought and exacerbated by climate change.

So-called prescribed burns — most recently conducted in the grove in 2018 — mimic low intensity fires that help sequoias by clearing out downed branches, flammable needles and smaller trees that could compete with them for light and water. The heat from fires also helps cones open up to spread their seeds.

While intentional burns have been conducted in sequoias since the 1960s, they are increasingly being seen as a necessity to the save the massive trees. Once thought to be almost fireproof, up to 20% of all giant sequoias — native only in the Sierra Nevada range — have been killed in the past two years during intense wildfires.

Fighting fire with fire, which is used in limited applications to reduce threats to property or landmarks, is a risky endeavor and has occasionally gotten out of control.

In New Mexico, firefighters were working Tuesday to restore mountainsides turned to ash by the largest wildfire in the state’s recorded history that broke out in early April when prescribed burns by the U.S. Forest Service escaped containment following missteps and miscalculations.

The Santa Fe County Commission in an afternoon meeting blasted federal officials and unanimously passed a resolution calling on the Forest Service to conduct a more comprehensive environmental review as it looks to reduce the threat of wildfire in the mountains that border the capital city.

So far in 2022, over 35,000 wildfires have burned nearly 4.7 million acres (1.9 million hectares) in the U.S., according to the National Interagency Fire Center, well above average for both wildfires and acres burned.

The Associated Press

Work at African Nova Scotian Justice Institute 'something to celebrate'

Thu, July 14, 2022 

The African Nova Scotian Justice Institute held a meet and greet Tuesday with representatives from a number of government departments and the African Nova Scotian Decade for People of African Descent Coalition (ANSDPAD) to talk about the next steps in the institute's work.

Tuesday marked one year since the former Liberal government announced $4.8 million in spending on the institute that will support African Nova Scotians in contact with the law. The institute's work is also meant to help address overrepresentation and anti-Black racism in the justice system.

“The Justice Institute was alive and well long before a year ago,” said Robert Wright, the African Nova Scotian Justice Institute’s acting director. “But a year ago we really marked the formal partnership that has existed between the Institute and the provincial government. And that’s exciting and something to celebrate.”

Justice Minister Brad Johns was at the event on Tuesday. After he was appointed as minister, the Department of Justice reviewed programs, including the institute, which were started under the former government.

“And one of the things that staff at DOJ, myself, and the premier came on side with was recognizing that the Justice Institute was one of the programs that needed to remain, that it was beneficial for the community and Nova Scotians at large."

Members of the institute said they are still in the process of hiring lawyers and staff and getting office space. They're still working on a date for an official launch.

Brandon Rolle, a lawyer who works for the institute, said the institute will have a law firm with full-time lawyers on staff, a justice strategy working group implementation team, and a forensic assessment treatment unit.

He said the law firm will operate a bit differently than legal aid.

“We’re not going to inquire about people’s financial eligibility," Rolle said. "If you’re of African descent, living in Nova Scotia, dealing with the criminal justice system, we’ll do our best to assist you and represent you.”

The justice working group predates the institution itself and was first founded as a working group under the umbrella of ANSDPAD. Rolle is member of the justice working group. Through ANSDPAD, the justice working group was able to lobby government to implement the Wortley Report, which was the catalyst for the province legally banning police street checks.

The justice working group then lobbied and worked with both the Liberal and PC governments to have the ban amended making “reasonable suspicion” the legal standard in justifying police officers being able to detain citizens and/or record their information into police databases. That change essentially closed the "loophole" in the ban on street checks.

“So when the minister earlier was talking about programs: What does African Nova Scotian restorative justice look like? Can we get African Nova Scotian court support workers? What would a bail supervision team look like?” said Rolle, with respect to the justice strategy working group implementation team.

“What does a transition worker for African Nova Scotians for people transitioning out of custody back into community. What does that look like? All of those programs would really be housed in that justice strategy pillar.”

“And then the third pillar being the forensic assessment treatment unit, which is currently responsible for Impact of Race and Culture Assessments [IRCAs]. So those IRCAs are all being done under that umbrella.”

Last year, Rolle successfully argued and upheld the sentencing of a Black man who received a community sentence for a gun charge after receiving an IRCA upon his sentencing.

ANSDPAD hired Rolle to argue the case in the province’s highest court, which made a precedent setting decision by upholding the sentence and also making IRCAs mandatory in the province when sentencing a person of African descent for a criminal offence.

Cecil Boutilier, a formerly incarcerated Black Nova Scotian, credits the IRCA and social worker Robert Wright for helping him get a better understanding of his life experiences and for helping him turn his life around.

Wright testified last year in support of IRCAs at the appeal hearing over the community sentence for the gun conviction.

Wright said IRCAs will soon be mandatory for Black people, not just in Nova Scotia but across Canada.

“The federal government announced at the end of 2019 that they were going to make [IRCAs] national," Wright said. "They’ve charged the federal legal aid secretariat to do that work nationally, and there are three projects underway.”

“Here in Nova Scotia we have been tasked with creating the training for the assessors. The Sentencing and Parole Project in Ontario has been charged with creating the training for lawyers. And the national judicial institute has been charged with creating the training for judges on IRCAs.”

“So that work is underway and will probably end in 2024. When I say end, I mean all of the training will be in place and all the policies should be in place by 2024. And by the end of 2024 we should see IRCAs being implemented in every jurisdiction in the country.”

Though between now and 2024, Wright admits that there are Black Canadians who could be at risk of “significant harm” when being sentenced.

“Until this becomes standard, the people who are in the system now, I guess the question is, ‘Are their lawyers informed enough?’” said Wright. “It’s going to be non-uniform for a long time to come until we’ve educated the entire national system to the new reality, to the new standard. But that’s really always the challenge.”

“For example, when weed became legal there were people in jail for a crime on a Thursday that is no longer a crime on a Tuesday.”

“There’s clearly a need to look backwards retroactively and say, ‘OK, let’s right the injustices that did occur before we saw the light,' if you will. In terms of pardons, in terms of restitution, because if you go to jail a significant harm has been done to you.”

Michelle Williams is a law professor at the Dalhousie Schulich School of Law and is the former director of the Indigenous Blacks and Mi'kmaq Initiative at the school. Wright described her as “the keeper of the brain trust of the African Nova Scotian Justice Institute.”

Williams said no one organization can undo centuries of structural racist oppression, but they can take collective action and use the law.

“White supremacy is intransigent, it will be there," Williams said. "And we won’t be able to eradicate it ever fully … But you still do it anyway. You still do the work anyway because it’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to work toward justice. You might not see it, but what other choice do you have?”

Wright said there are people alive today who worked to advance policies we see today as being racist.

“We need to advance the change and convince a living generation of people that the way we were going was the wrong direction," Wright said.

Matthew Byard, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Halifax Examiner