Alberta's famous 'wage premium' rapidly eroding, experts say

CALGARY — Experts say Alberta businesses are poised to face a reckoning on wages next year because the province has not kept up with the rest of the country when it comes to wage increases.


Alberta's famous 'wage premium' rapidly eroding, experts say© Provided by The Canadian Press

For years, Alberta workers have been the highest paid in the country thanks to the province's lucrative oil and gas sector.

That hasn't changed, with the most recent data from Statistics Canada showing that workers in Alberta still enjoy the highest average weekly earnings in Canada by a small margin.

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But despite tight labour markets, Alberta has seen the weakest wage growth of any province over the last two years.

Nationally, wages are up seven per cent over the last two years, while in Alberta, they’re up less than one per cent. In some industry sectors, Alberta's wages are actually falling, while they're rising in other countries.

Experts say flat wages mean Alberta households are feeling the impact of inflation more than other regions of the country.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2022.

Economic challenges and goals similar for Lethbridge and Great Falls, Montana

Story by Quinn Campbell • Yesterday 

Global News

Vehicles lined up at the Coutts border crossing as travelers flock to the border on November 8, 2021.

Economic challenges and goals similar for Lethbridge and Great Falls

Duration 1:57   View on Watch

Trevor Lewington with Economic Development Lethbridge was the only Canadian speaker at this year's Montana Economic Developers Association Conference in Great Falls. Lewington said it was a chance to share, listen and learn.

"Most of Montana's focus areas are very similar to what we are working on. Agri-food plays big, looking at clean tech and renewables plays big, value-added manufacturing and other sectors.

"So, sometimes we think we are special and unique but our neighbours are actually working on similar opportunities as we are," added Lewington.

He said on average, Alberta exports just over $2 billion a year in goods to Montana, with the majority comprised of oil- and natural gas-related products.

"Of the $1.6-ish-billon worth of goods that Montana exported, almost $700 million of that came to Canada, and of course Lethbridge is a big destination for that, and likewise the U.S. in general is Alberta's largest trading partner."

COVID-19 border rules end ‘too little, too late’ for southern Alberta tourist season

Jolene Schalper with the Great Falls Development Authority said Lethbridge is Great Falls' sister city with important ties.

"We have a lot of Lethbridge companies, Lethbridge has a lot of Great Falls companies and we just want to make sure that we are very intentional these days about that relationship," added Schalper.

Transportation and shipping logistics are also key focuses.

"If they can get closer to the border and then if it makes more sense to ship to the port from Canada or if it makes more sense to ship to the port from the U.S., we want to make sure Albertan and Montanan companies have that option," she added.

While the goals are similar, Lewington says so are the economic challenges.

"Loud and clear: work force. The availability of talent is the number one concern in the business community in Montana, no different than here. In fact, in the state of Montana, across the whole state, they're forecasting about 45,000 job vacancies and that's on a state-wide population of a million people," he added.

Lewington cites tourism as one collaborative success, adding he hopes to see that sector continue to grow.

Fossil Discovery Suggests Nessie, the 'Mythical' Creature, Could Have Existed

NESSIE IS NOT A PLESIOSAUR SHE IS A GIANT EEL

Story by Rosemary Giles 

One of the most famous mythical creatures in the world is the Loch Ness Monster. Spurred on by alleged sightings of the beast, along with occasional photographic evidence, amateur investigators constantly visit the Scottish loch with hopes of capturing proof of their own. While many of the photographs of Nessie have been revealed as fakes, people haven't stopped their searches. Many are still trying to find an explanation for what the monster could be.

Historically, one of the assumptions was that Nessie could be a plesiosaur, an extinct marine reptile. This theory was dismissed for a number of reasons, including the fact that this creature was only found in saltwater. A discovery by scientists in Morocco might just change this belief, however. Nessie could have indeed been a plesiosaur.

Descriptions of the Loch Ness Monster

There are many varied descriptions from people claiming to have seen the Loch Ness Monster. In 1933, a couple said they saw a "dragon or prehistoric monster" cross the road and go into the water. Then, in 1934, the famous "surgeon's photograph" was taken, showing a creature with a small head and long neck peeking out of the water. It was this photograph that led people to believe Nessie could be a plesiosaur.


An alleged photograph of the Loch Ness Monster, near Inverness, Scotland, April 19, 1934. (Photo Credit: Keystone/ Getty Images)

The idea of the surviving plesiosaur was bolstered in 1975 when Boston's Academy of Applied Science used underwater photography and sonar to capture an image they believed to be Nessie. It seemed to show a flipper similar to that of a plesiosaur. Other images surfaced as well, one of which appeared to show the head, neck, and torso of the same type of creature.

Plesiosaurs could live in freshwater

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In a joint discovery, scientists from the University of Portsmouth, the University of Bath, and the Université Hassan II found fossils of small plesiosaurs located in a 100 million year old river system in Morocco. The fossils included neck, back, and tail vertebrae, as well as teeth and a piece of forelimb. They were found in different locations, meaning that they were from many animals, and not one single skeleton.


Rupert van der Werff puts the final touches on a Plesiosaur skeleton. 

(Photo Credit: Gareth Fuller/ PA Images/ Getty Images)

This discovery raised a lot of questions, as it was initially thought that plesiosaurs only lived in saltwater environments. It is unclear whether they lived temporarily in these freshwater environments, or permanently. However, the heavy wear on the teeth indicates that they likely ate the same type of food as the spinosaurus, fossils of which have also been found in riverbeds.

The scientists felt that their theory of plesiosaurs spending lots of time in freshwater environments was also backed up by the sheer number of fossils that they found, meaning that they weren't just traveling to the river to feed.

Could it be Nessie?

The scientists were, of course, asked about the connection between this discovery and the Loch Ness Monster. They said that given the new evidence that plesiosaurs could live in fresh water, there is a chance that Nessie might have existed in Loch Ness. However, they also said that other evidence indicates that the last of the species died roughly 65 million years ago, along with the dinosaurs.



Former Royal Air Force pilot Tom Dinsdale displays a model he made of the Loch Ness Monster which he claimed he saw. (Photo Credit: Bettmann/ Getty Images)


Nick Longrich, one of the researchers, also expressed that the environment in Loch Ness was not conducive to supporting the animal, as it is much too small. He squashed the theory, saying it would be difficult for a plesiosaur to exist undetected by humans. "Something like a plesiosaur, it's large. It's conspicuous. It has to surface and breathe air. If they existed, people would see them come up for air. One would die and wash up on-shore like whales."

Loch Ness Monster Probably A Giant Eel, According To ...

Sep. 5, 2019 — Water samples analyzed for DNA are actually referred to as “environmental DNA” by scientists. After analyzing the samples, scientists determined ...

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184 years ago, an American poet created a Thanksgiving myth we still believe today

Story by Troy Bickham, and ,The Conversation • Yesterday .

Have you ever wondered why Thanksgiving revolves around turkey and not ham, chicken, venison, beef, or corn?


184 years ago, an American poet created a Thanksgiving myth we still believe today© Provided by Inverse

Almost 9 in 10 Americans eat turkey during this festive meal, whether it’s roasted, deep-fried, grilled, or cooked in any other way for the occasion.

You might believe it’s because of what the Pilgrims, a year after they landed in what’s now the state of Massachusetts, and their Indigenous Wampanoag guests ate during their first thanksgiving feast in 1621. Or that it’s because turkey is originally from the Americas.

But it has more to do with how Americans observed the holiday in the late 1800s than which poultry the Pilgrims ate while celebrating their bounty in 1621.
Did they or didn’t they eat it?


184 years ago, an American poet created a Thanksgiving myth we still believe today© Provided by Inverse

The only firsthand record of what the Pilgrims ate at the first Thanksgiving feast comes from Edward Winslow. He noted that the Wampanoag leader, Massasoit, arrived with 90 men, and the two communities feasted together for three days.

Winslow wrote little about the menu, aside from mentioning five deer that the Wampanoag brought and that the meal included “fowle,” which could have been any number of wild birds found in the area, including ducks, geese, and turkeys.

Historians do know that important ingredients of today’s traditional dishes were not available during that first Thanksgiving.

That includes potatoes and green beans. The likely absence of wheat flour and the scarcity of sugar in New England at the time ruled out pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. Some sort of squash, a staple of Native American diets, was almost certainly served, along with corn and shellfish.

A resurrected tradition

Historians like me who have studied the history of food have found that most modern Thanksgiving traditions began in the mid-19th century, more than two centuries after the Pilgrims’ first harvest celebration.

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The reinvention of the Pilgrims’ celebration as a national holiday was largely the work of Sarah Hale. Born in New Hampshire in 1784, as a young widow, she published poetry to earn a living. Most notably, she wrote the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

In 1837, Hale became the editor of the popular magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book. Fiercely religious and family-focused, it crusaded for the creation of an annual national holiday of “Thanksgiving and Praise,” commemorating the Pilgrims’ thanksgiving feast.

Hale and her colleagues leaned on 1621 lore for historical justification. Like many of her contemporaries, she assumed the Pilgrims ate turkey at their first feast because of the abundance of edible wild turkeys in New England.

This campaign took decades, partly due to a lack of enthusiasm among white Southerners. Many of them considered an earlier celebration among Virginia colonists in honor of supply ships that arrived at Jamestown in 1610 to be the more important precedent.

The absence of Southerners serving in Congress during the Civil War enabled President Abraham Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863.

Turkey marketing campaign


184 years ago, an American poet created a Thanksgiving myth we still believe today© Provided by Inverse

Godey’s, along with other media, embraced the holiday, packing their pages with recipes from New England and menus that prominently featured turkey.

“We dare say most of the Thanksgiving will take the form of gastronomic pleasure,” Georgia’s Augusta Chronicle predicted in 1882. “Every person who can afford turkey or procure it will sacrifice the noble American fowl to-day.”

One reason for this is: A roasted turkey makes a perfect celebratory centerpiece.

A second one is that turkey is also practical for serving a large crowd. Turkeys are bigger than other birds raised or hunted for their meat, and it’s cheaper to produce a turkey than a cow or pig. The bird’s attributes led Europeans to incorporate turkeys into their diets following their colonization of the Americas. In England, King Henry VIII regularly enjoyed turkey on Christmas day, a century before the Pilgrims’ feast.

Christmas Connection


184 years ago, an American poet created a Thanksgiving myth we still believe today© Provided by Inverse

The bird cemented its position as the favored Christmas dish in England in the mid-19th century.

One reason for this was that Ebenezer Scrooge, in Charles Dickens's “A Christmas Carol,” sought redemption by replacing the impoverished Cratchit family’s meager goose with an enormous turkey.

Published in 1843, Dickens’ instantly best-selling depiction of the prayerful family meal would soon inspire Hale’s idealized Thanksgiving.

Although the historical record is hazy, I do think it’s possible that the Pilgrims ate turkey in 1621. It certainly was served at celebrations in New England throughout the colonial period.

This article was originally published on The Conversation by Troy Bickham at Texas A&M University. Read the original article here.

Canada unveils new climate adaptation strategy with more than $1-billion commitment

Story by David Thurton, Kate McKenna • Yesterday CBC

Canada's first climate adaptation strategy, unveiled today, commits the federal government to new targets for preventing extreme heat deaths, reversing species loss and protecting homes in flood- and wildfire-prone areas.


Weeks after post-tropical storm Fiona ripped through the Hebrides cottage community on New London Bay near Stanley Bridge, P.E.I., buildings and debris still littered the countryside and shoreline.© Shane Hennessey/CBC

Environment and Climate Change Canada released the strategy — which has been almost two years in the making — in Prince Edward Island, one of the Atlantic provinces that felt the brunt of Hurricane Fiona in September.

The strategy envisions a country prepared to deal with the worst impacts of climate change. The high-level document talks about multiple targets but doesn't provide any hard numbers. The government says its goal is to set the stage for more detailed implementation plans to be rolled out later.

The government also announced $1.6 billion over five years in new funding to help jump-start the work that needs to be done. The money is meant to improve disaster response, protect Canadians from extreme heat and health effects and top up the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund.

The funding required from the public and private sectors to address the impacts of climate change in Canada is estimated at $5.3 billion per year, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, a trade association that represents the industry.

A federal official speaking on background told reporters Thursday the new funding is a "down payment" and acknowledged more will be required to achieve the strategy's goals. Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair seemed to acknowledge this at the announcement.

"Clearly, there will need to be significant investments by all orders of governments and all Canadians across the country," Blair told reporters.

The NDP says it's not enough.

"This is a step in the right direction," said New Democrat emergency preparedness critic Richard Cannings. "It's just it's taken a long time.

"It's too little. We need much more ambition here to really do some meaningful things [to] prepare Canadians and communities for climate change."

While governments and communities have been anticipating and planning for the effects of climate change — which range from droughts and floods to permafrost loss, failing infrastructure and pressure on ecosystems — more needs to be achieved, says the strategy document.

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"Our collective actions have often been insufficient or disjointed, and have not resulted in the swiftness and scale of adaptation that communities in Canada require," the document states.

Embedding climate change in all decision-making

In the hope of resetting the country's approach, the strategy rests on several pillars: disaster resilience, health and well-being, nature and infrastructure.

Without going into specifics, the strategy outlines several targets — such as reducing the number of people affected or killed by floods, wildfires and extreme heat.

On the infrastructure front, the strategy calls for embedding "climate change in all decisions to locate, plan, design, manage, adapt, operate and maintain infrastructure systems across their lifecycle."

The strategy commits Canada to new construction guidelines and standards, especially in areas prone to wildfires, flooding and other climate-related threats.

It sets broad targets for stopping and reversing nature and biodiversity loss. Indigenous communities, it says, must have opportunities to protect their traditional lands.

The strategy calls for expanding urban forests and wetlands in city landscapes. These nature-based solutions have been proven to reduce emissions and minimize the impacts of flooding and heat waves on urban populations.

The most significant aspect of Thursday's plan is that it outlines these priorities, said Sarah Miller, an adaptation research associate at the Canadian Climate Institute. She added that some may be tempted to focus on how much money is needed.

"That's essential because without [setting priorities], no amount of money is going to make a real difference," she said.

The strategy is meant to be a living document. The government promises to update it every five years and to start issuing progress reports as soon as 2025.

Feeling the effects of climate change

Climate change has had devastating impacts on Canadians already. In June 2021, Western Canada experienced a historic heat dome which set a record temperature of 49.6 degrees C in Lytton, B.C. A forest first would later tear through the community.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault called Hurricane Fiona in September "the most severe hurricane in the history of Canada. We've never seen anything like this."

"Lives were lost, and this is because of climate change," he added.

Economic analysis shows the impacts of climate change will be severe, even if the world does not exceed the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C. A recent United Nations report warned that the failure of individual nations to cut their emissions is "leading our planet to at least 2.5 degrees warming, a level deemed catastrophic by scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that by 2025, the impact of climate change could cut economic growth by $25 billion annually. More recently, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated that even if the world meets its emissions reduction commitments, Canada's real GDP will take a 5.8 per cent hit in 2100.

Independent agency probing CSIS following claim that operative smuggled teenage girls into Syria

Story by Ashley Burke • Yesterday CBC

An independent government agency is reviewing how Canada's spy agency handles human sources after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised in August to follow up on claims that a CSIS operative smuggled three British teenagers into Syria in 2015.

The three teens — Shamima Begum, Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16 — left east London for Syria in 2015. Sultana and Abase are believed to be dead. Begum is at a detention camp in northeastern Syria.

The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) has confirmed that it agreed to undertake a review of the case in response to a written request in September from Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.

The Prime Minister's Office said Trudeau asked Mendicino to look into the matter.

NSIRA said the review is looking into how the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) handles "human source operations" and is "following up on earlier … studies related to how risks are managed and the minister is informed."

Mendicino also asked for the review to probe CSIS's risk assessment process to ensure the agency is following the law and "upholding the values Canadians expect," according to his office.

The review is taking place as Begum's appeal of former U.K. home secretary Sajid Javid's decision to revoke her citizenship plays out in hearings in Britain this week — putting the spotlight back on CSIS's alleged involvement in the case.

CBC News attended the hearing when Begum's legal team argued the U.K. has failed to investigate whether authorities did enough to prevent the minor from being trafficked to Syria when she was 15 years old for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

Begum was married while a minor to an ISIS fighter and went on to have three children who died young, according to media reports.

Her legal team said in its written argument that an investigation should have looked at whether adequate steps were taken by "U.K. authorities to liaise with the intelligence/security services of the U.K.'s allies operating in Turkey (including Canada and their agent Mohammed al-Rashed)."

Testifying behind a curtain to conceal his identity, an MI5 agent told the court that Begum, now 23, was an intelligent student in high school who "knew what she was doing" when she travelled to Syria to join ISIS in 2015 and didn't express regret or remorse during media interviews in 2019.

MI5 maintains that Begum poses a national security risk.

Trudeau defended CSIS in August, saying that "the fight against terrorism requires our intelligence services to continue to be flexible and to be creative in their approaches." He said he would follow up on claims connected to U.K.-based writer Richard Kerbaj's book The Secret History of the Five Eyes.

The book claims Mohammed al-Rashed, a Syrian-born CSIS operative who was also working for ISIS, smuggled the teenagers into northern Syria.

The book also said it was only after CSIS learned al-Rashed had been arrested in Turkey — and the case would go public as a result — that two CSIS officers travelled to London to reveal the agency's involvement in the case to local police investigating the teens' disappearance.

Kerbaj's book claims the meeting was for "self-serving purposes" and that CSIS "hoped the police force's investigation would not force CSIS to be questioned or be held accountable."

When asked about the allegations, CSIS told CBC News in a statement that it cannot comment on "investigations, methodologies or activities in order to maintain the operations and to protect the safety and security of Canadians."

Oversight regime not in place at time of allegations

The Prime Minister's Office told CBC News on Tuesday that "CSIS must abide by Canadian law and is subject to rigorous review by oversight bodies." But the PMO also said that "any activities that occurred prior to 2017 would not have benefited from this oversight regime."

That year, roughly two years after Begum travelled to Syria, the government introduced the National Security Act, which led to the introduction of an intelligence commissioner to oversee the spy agency's sensitive activities, Mendicino's office said.

The Globe and Mail has reported that al-Rashed broke a CSIS rule that bans paid agents from engaging in illegal activity, including human trafficking.

Steven Blaney, the Conservative public safety minister at the time, wasn't aware of the operation and did not approve it, the Globe and Mail reported.

Former senior CSIS intelligence officer Huda Mukbil calls CSIS's alleged handling of Begum's case "shameful."

"The buck stops at trafficking minors," said Mukbil, who worked for CSIS for 15 years, including a stint as a CSIS agent in the U.K. from 2005 to 2006. "The moment that the source was aware these were minors … he had every obligation to ensure they are not trafficked into that territory."

She's now calling on the U.K. to reinstate Begum's citizenship and said Canada must launch a public inquiry into CSIS's handling of the case.

"We need to ensure this doesn't happen again," said Mukbil, who left CSIS in 2017, was part of a discrimination lawsuit against the agency and ran in the last federal election for the NDP.

Joshua Baker, an investigative journalist at the BBC, has travelled to the detention camp multiple times to speak directly with Begum for his podcast I'm Not a Monster.

Baker said Begum told him she had no idea that the man who smuggled her from Turkey to Syria in 2015 was an asset for Canadian intelligence.

"But what she has said is that she feels it would have been impossible for her, and indeed others like her, to reach Syria without the help of smugglers like Mohammed al-Rashed," he said.



CCTV footage issued by the Metropolitan Police in London shows Abase, left, Sultana, center, and Begum going through Gatwick airport to catch a flight to Turkey on Feb 17, 2015.© Metropolitan Police/The Associated Press

Baker said he obtained documents that show al-Rashed was part of a network moving men, women and children to Syria for ISIS long before Begum left the U.K. Two CSIS handlers at the embassy in Jordan were dealing with al-Rashed, but it's "difficult to know" if CSIS knew he was going to transport the teenage girls to Syria, said Baker.

The Globe and Mail reported that two sources said CSIS learned about the teens' whereabouts four days after they crossed the Turkish border and informed British intelligence within 48 hours.

Maya Foa is the executive director of London-based Reprieve, a non-profit association of international human rights lawyers and investigators. She said Canadian and U.K. authorities failed the teens.

"This is classic trafficking, grooming, and we did fail," said Foa. "The British authorities failed and the Canadian authorities who were involved through the double agent failed. This is a 15-year-old."

Foa said she has been travelling to northeastern Syria for three years, interviewing women and families in detention camps. She met again with Begum last month, she said.

"I know from my conversations with Shamima Begum that she wishes her school and others had behaved differently around that time," she said.

Has al-Rashed asked for asylum?

One of Begum's friends at school had already travelled to Syria before Begum left the country, according to written arguments from her legal team. Police spoke to Begum at school and gave her a letter to share with her parents, the document said.

But that letter was never delivered, nor did police inform Begum's parents that their daughter might be at risk because her friend had already travelled to Syria, Begum's legal team argues.

Al-Rashed was arrested in Turkey in 2015 and jailed for smuggling and terrorism offences. He was released from a Turkish jail in August, sources told the Globe and Mail and Britain's Daily Telegraph.

CBC News asked Mendicino's office if al-Rashed is in Canada and if the minister signed off on a request for political asylum. Mendicino's office said "it would be inappropriate to comment on specific cases."

Kerbaj's book claims al-Rashed applied for political asylum in Canada in the past — and that's how CSIS first became aware of him and brought him on as an operative.

Fish ‘capable of killing 30 people' and 1,200 times deadlier than cyanide hits UK shores

Story by Charles Harrison • Yesterday 

An incredibly dangerous fish full of poison and capable of killing 30 people was discovered on a British beach. Loaded up with poison that can be up to 1,200 times more deadly than cyanide, the killer fish was found on a beach in Cornwall by a visiting marine animal investigator. Constance Morris was on a family holiday to Newquay when she discovered the dangerous creature.

Her work took her to Towan Beach, where she spotted something unusual. She approached a fish being pecked at by seagulls, and soon realised it was not any ordinary swimmer.

The oceanic puffer is loaded up with tetrodotoxin, an extremely deadly poison. It carries enough to kill 30 adult humans within its skin and flesh - and there is no antidote for it.

Experts state the fish are a rarity on British shores, with even Constance, who collects specimens for the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, didn't clock it.


Cornwall beach sees puffer fish 'capable of killing 30 people'© Constance Morris/Pen News

Luckily Ms Morris was wearing gloves when she discovered the creature.

She said: "While waiting for all the family to gather, I was just looking out over the beach when I noticed some black back gulls having a peck at a fish. I record dead marine animals for the trust's Marine Strandings Network and couldn't not go down to see what it was.

"As I walked up to the fish I instantly knew it was an unusual find."

She added: "It's been identified by a few people as a Lagocephalus lagocephalus, the oceanic pufferfish, which can be highly toxic.


Beautiful Towan beach in Newquay , Cornwall© Getty

"So it's advised you leave them alone and certainly don't touch. I didn't know what this fish was, but I've found odd fish before and know these animals can be important and of interest to scientists.

"So, being ever ready to scoop something unpleasant off the beach, I bagged it up and put it in my backpack. I am just lucky I carry a kit with me at all times for just this sort of thing."

She added: "Good job I keep marigolds in my kit."

Tetrodotoxin poisoning causes numbness and paralysis which spreads throughout the body - eventually leading to death by respiratory failure.


Selective focus on eyes and head of puffer fish. (Lagocephalus sceleratus, silver-cheeked toadfish, or Sennin-fugu is an extremely poisonous marine bo© Getty

Ms Morris said the fish was roughly 12 inches long, with a flabby white underside and a stubby face. It has just four teeth - two at the top, two at the bottom - which resemble a beak, and is used to crack open hard-shelled clams, mussels, and shellfish.

The fish's biological name, "lagocephalus lagocephalus", literally translates to "rabbit head."

Matt Slater, a marine conservation officer the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, said he only had a handful of records of the oceanic puffer apparing.

He said: "It is definitely Lagocephalus lagocephalus - the Atlantic oceanic puffer. They can produce toxic slime so they're best to handle with gloves."

Despite the high toxicity of the fish, Pufferfish is a delicacy called fugu in Japan. However, only licensed chefs who have undergone three years of training can prepare Pufferfish meat.

Texas 'Anti-Woke' Bank Goes Bust In 3 Months

Story by Mary Papenfuss • Yesterday 

HUFFPOST
‎

Abank startup backed by billionaire Donald Trumpsupporter Peter Thiel and pitched as “anti woke” for “pro-freedom” Americans is closing up shop after less than three months.

The bank, GloriFi, burned through $50 million in investment money, laid off most of its staff on Monday, and informed workers it was shutting down, The Wall Street Journal was the first to report. Hoped-for funding to keep the operation running fell through last Friday.

“We will be closing all accounts opened to date,” GloriFi’s website informed consumers. Checking accounts were being shut down Friday, and savings accounts on Dec. 6.

GloriFi had been touted as an alternative conservative banking system for consumers who find Wall Street too liberal.

Entrepreneur and major GOP donor Toby Neugebauer and business partner Nick Ayers — the chief of staff for former Vice President Mike Pence — said that a huge market of plumbers, electricians and police officers were fed up with big banks that didn’t share their values, according to a Journal profile of the operation earlier this year.

GloriFi offered bank accounts and credit cards, and planned to provide mortgages and insurance while also touting capitalism, family, law enforcement and the freedom to “love of God and country,” according to the Journal.

Neugebauer also pitched plans to offer gun owners discounts on home insurance, credit cards made of shell casing material, and assistance paying legal bills if customers shot someone in self-defense, Rolling Stone reported.

Right-wing commentator Candace Owens was the spokesperson for the brand.

Besides Thiel, the operation also lured investors including former Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loefflerand Citadel founder Ken Griffin.
But within months, GloriFi has missed launch dates, blaming faulty technology and vendor problems, and investors’ money was nearly gone, according to news reports.

The “financial challenges related to startup mistakes, the failing economy, reputational attacks, and multiple negative stories took their toll,” said a statement on the company’s website.

HIERARCHY IS A PARASITE

Wolves emboldened by parasite more likely to lead pack: study

Story by AFP • 

Wolves infected with a common parasite are far more likely to become the leader of their pack, according to a new study, suggesting that the brain-dwelling intruder emboldens its host to take more risks.


Leader of the pack? A parasite may make grey wolves in Yellowstone National Park take more risks, research suggests© -

The single-celled parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, only sexually reproduces in cats but can infect all warm-blooded animals.

Between 30-50 percent of people worldwide are estimated to be infected with the parasite, which remains for life as dormant tissue cysts. However people with a healthy immune system rarely have any symptoms.

While some studies have reported an association between people having the parasite in their brain and increased risk-taking, other research has disputed these findings and no definitive link has been proven.

The new study, published in the journal Communications Biology on Thursday, took advantage of 26 years' worth of data on grey wolves living in the Yellowstone National Park in the United States to investigate how the parasite could affect their behaviour.

The researchers from the Yellowstone Wolf Project analysed the blood samples of nearly 230 wolves and 62 cougars -- the big cats are known spreaders of the parasite.

They found that infected wolves were more likely to foray deeper into cougar territory than uninfected wolves.

Infected wolves were also 11 times more likely to leave their pack than wolves without the parasite, the study said, indicating a higher rate of risk-taking.

And an infected wolf is up to 46 times more likely to become pack leader, the researchers estimated, adding that the role is normally won by more aggressive animals.

Study co-author Kira Cassidy told AFP that while "being bolder is not necessarily a bad thing," it can "lower survival for the most bold animals as they might make decisions that put them in danger more often."

"Wolves do not have the survival space to take too many more risks than they already do."

Cassidy said it was only the second study on T. gondii's effect on a wild animal, after research last year found increased boldness in infected hyena cubs made them more likely to get closer to -- and killed by -- lions in Kenya.

Laboratory research has also found that rodents with the parasite lose their instinctual fear of cats -- driving them into the hands of the only host where T. gondii can reproduce.

William Sullivan, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Indiana University School of Medicine who has been studying T.gondii for more than 25 years, called the wolf paper "a rare gem".

However he warned that such an observational study could not show causation.

"A wolf that is a born risk-taker may simply be more likely to venture into cougar territory and contract Toxoplasma," he said.

But "if the findings are correct, they suggest we may be underestimating the impact Toxoplasma has on ecosystems around the world," he added.

- What about humans? -

"That's the million-dollar question," Sullivan said, adding that "no one knows for sure and the literature is mixed".

Ajai Vyas, a T. gondii expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, warned against inferring that infection could increase risk-taking in people.

"There is a lot about human behaviour that is different from other animals," he told AFP.

People often get infected by T. gondii from eating undercooked meat -- or via their pet cat, particularly when cleaning out their litter boxes.

In some cases, especially in people with weakened immune systems, T. gondii can lead to toxoplasmosis, a disease that can cause brain and eye damage.

A Mind-Controlling Parasite Is Making Yellowstone Wolves Foolhardy

Story by Maddie Bender • The Daily Beast

Yesterday 

When a common parasite infects wolves, it changes their behavior and turns them into risk-taking animals that could help them become leaders of their pack—or get them killed. A new study published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology found that a wolf infected by Toxoplasma gondii, a single-celled parasite that invades warm-blooded animals, was over 46 times more likely to take over its pack’s leadership than an uninfected wolf, thanks to the parasite’s ability to induce more risk-taking behavior.


Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty

“We focus so much on vertebrate dynamics—wolves and elk, and how they affect each other—and for a long time, it seems like we have generally ignored the fact that parasites might play a role in those relationships,” Connor Meyer, an ecology researcher at the University of Montana and the lead author of the new study, told The Daily Beast. “With something like Toxo, it seems like we should be giving parasites a little more credit.”

Host behavior modification—the buttoned-up, scientific way of saying “mind control”—is a common yet devious tactic that infectious diseases have evolved over time. Just look at “zombie ants,” which either describes ants infected with a fungus that takes over their brains; or a parasitic worm that causes ants to walk up blades of grass and lock their jaws, increasing the chance that a cow consumes them. Elsewhere in nature, parasitic worms can also zombify snails and cause their eye stalks to take on the appearance of maggots, which predacious birds find appealing.

Behavior modification that causes a host to be eaten by a predator usually means that the underlying parasite infects multiple host species as part of its full life cycle, and the same is true for Toxoplasma. The parasite can infect many different species, including humans—which is why pregnant women are advised to keep from scooping their cat’s litter. Some research suggests toxoplasmosis might modify our behavior by causing hormones like dopamine and testosterone to increase, but the only known host that allows it to sexually reproduce is the feline family that includes domestic cats—which means having a pet cat does raise the odds you might have Toxoplasma swimming around in your body. And once the parasite’s there, it might stick around for a lifetime, though people rarely display symptoms following the acute phase of infection.

But the spikes in dopamine and testosterone caused by Toxoplasma are especially important to pay attention to in other intermediate host species, since they can induce a phenomenon that scientists really call “fatal attraction.” Toxoplasma-infected animals like rats and hyenas become bolder around felines, increasing the odds that they’ll be eaten and the parasite can reproduce.

In other words, it would seem the parasite is trying to put its intermediate host in more dangerous positions where it's likely to be snatched up by a potential true host.

At Yellowstone National Park, it was a mystery how Toxoplasma was spreading to wolves, since they must ingest a form of the parasite called an oocyst, spread from a cat, to be infected. That is, until Meyer made the connection that a species of big cat roams the park: cougars. He and his co-authors believe that one aspect of wolves’ relationship to these cougars might look a lot like a dog’s household relationship to a cat.

“Some dogs really like raiding the litter box if you don’t get to it fast enough,” he said. “We would expect that wolves are very similar where when they come across cougar scat on the landscape, they very well might eat it and become infected that way.”

For the study, Meyer and his team tested blood samples from 62 different cougars and 229 wolves that lived in Yellowstone between 1995 and 2020. The highest proportions of infected wolves occurred in areas with high cougar overlap, in line with Meyer’s predictions.

Wolves’ infection statuses were also charted alongside their observed behavior, such as becoming leader of a pack or leaving the pack.

The team found that Toxoplasma-infected wolves were more likely to become leaders of their pack and on average left the pack earlier than uninfected wolves—an apparent contradiction that could be interpreted as the parasite increasing risk-taking and aggressive behaviors across the board, Meyer said.

But host behavior modification isn’t all bad. There’s a key advantage to the wolves of becoming pack leaders: “leaders become breeders” is the adage when it comes to the dominant male and female in a pack, Meyer said. Even though the wolves most likely cannot pass the parasite to their offspring, they may teach the pack to engage in riskier behaviors and spend more time near cougars, causing other members to pick up the infection.

Researching this wacky example of mind control may have lasting implications when it comes to monitoring the careful balance of Yellowstone’s ecosystem. The reintroduction of wolves to the park is “one of the greatest conservation success stories in North America,” Meyer said, and understanding infected wolves’ behavior can inform further conservation of the animals. A tiny parasite that can influence an entire ecosystem—now that’s proof that size doesn’t matter.

 

India’s Supreme Court considers legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide

India's Supreme Court has agreed to consider a petition to legalize same-sex marriage across the country by taking advantage of the benefits offered by the interfaith marriage law, the declaration of privacy as a fundamental right and the decriminalization of same-sex relationships in 2018.

Pride Parade in Kolkata (India) - 

All these laws have been evoked by a homosexual couple to raise their case before the country's Supreme Court, whose magistrates, the petitioners recall, have already expressed on more than one occasion that members of the LGBTQ+ community have the same fundamental and constitutional rights as other citizens.

However, the legal framework regulating the institution of marriage in India does not allow for the marriage of members of the LGBTQ+ community, in what the petitioners consider a violation of the national Constitution.

The two petitioners have been a couple for 17 years and are raising two children together, but the inability to legalize their relationship in marriage has rendered them unable to maintain any kind of legal relationship with their children, reports NDTV.

The chief justice of the Supreme Court, D.Y. Chandrachud, known for his openness towards the LGBTQ+ community, has so far given the Indian government four weeks to take an official position on the petition before proceeding further.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has already opposed legal recognition of same-sex marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act in a separate case. According to government lawyers, any permission for same-sex marriages would go against the cultural values of Indian society.

In 2018, however, the Government avoided ruling on the decriminalization of sexual relations and left the decision to the Supreme Court, which has been increasingly receptive to hearing such cases.

For example, earlier this year, a group of judges, including Chandrachud, ruled that non-traditional families are entitled to protection. The ruling, while not specifically aimed at the LGBTQ community, created a space for these households to receive benefits under social welfare legislation.