Heads up, Canada: Colorado wants your drugs

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Becomes latest U.S. state to look north to deal with high medicine prices

Alexander Panetta · CBC News · Posted: Dec 08, 2022 

Gov. Jared Polis seen earlier this year celebrating the Colorado Avalanche's Stanley Cup win. That trophy isn't the only thing he hopes to import from Canada. (David Zalubowski/The Associated Press)

What's new?

Colorado is the latest state to apply for a licence to import medicines from Canada, the most recent development in a politically sensitive cross-border issue.

This week the state announced that it asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for permission to import 112 medicines from Canada including EpiPens and drugs for cancer, asthma, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and other ailments.

Because those drugs are cheaper in Canada, the state projects that importing them would save Coloradans an average of 65 per cent per drug.

"This exciting step means we are closer to savings for Coloradans," Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement.

What's the context?

The context is sky-high drug prices. Americans pay more than residents of other countries for medicine, in some cases multiple times more. 

That's in part due to national regulations: Other countries have stricter rules for setting maximum prices and negotiating those with drug companies.

The U.S. has taken limited steps to address this; Years ago it introduced an optional coverage plan for seniors that allowed price negotiations, and the just-passed Inflation Reduction Act includes several cost-saving measures.

The pharmaceutical sector lobbied hard against price controls. The health sector outspent every other U.S. industry in lobbying last year, with drug companies especially funding lawmakers who voted against such reforms.

Americans pay more for medicine, in some cases many times more, due in part to looser national regulations on maximum prices and negotiations those with drug companies. (iStock)

Some U.S. states have taken up another idea: free trade in medicine. Why not just import drugs from abroad?

Six U.S. states have passed laws allowing imports of medicine from abroad, particularly from Canada, and now Colorado is the second of those, after Florida, to have formally requested authorization from the FDA.

It's applying under a process established by the FDA in 2020. But no state has received an approval yet, as the process is complicated. To help explain the rules, the FDA issued a compliance guide this year.

The reason this matters to Canadians can be summed up in nine letters: shortages.

It's already a problem: shortages occur constantly and, particularly, at present, scores of drugs are in short supply in both Canada and the U.S.

Ottawa has intermittently voiced fears for years about the potential for the gargantuan U.S. market gobbling up Canadian supplies and clearing out pharmacy shelves.

The Paul Martin government introduced a bill in Parliament in 2005 to bolster the health minister's ability to freeze exports in the case of a shortage. That government fell soon thereafter, the bill never passed, and the issue remained mostly dormant for years.

But talk of importation has resurfaced in U.S. states lately. And Ottawa resumed its talk of export bans: the Trudeau government, in 2020, drafted regulations to better monitor potential shortages and restrict foreign sales of affected products.

Patty Hajdu, seen here in 2020, was the federal health minister when her department wrote stricter rules for exporting medicine that year. (Blair Gable/Reuters)

What's next?

The issue now rests with the FDA. It must approve import requests. That's in addition to complicated requirements that would have to be fulfilled by the businesses importing and exporting.

There are complex rules for industry in both countries.

On the export side — the Canadian government says Canada's laws require companies to retain records proving that cross-border drug sales won't cause shortages.

Federal regulations, as well as Canadian food and drug law, allow the government to then intervene to prevent shortages.

On the import side: the current U.S. import process, introduced in 2020, contains numerous hoops American buyers must jump through.

To be eligible for import, a product requires the necessary Canadian labelling; the seller must be licensed to sell drugs wholesale by Health Canada; the seller must also be registered with the FDA as a foreign seller; and the U.S. importer must be a wholesale distributor or pharmacist licensed in the U.S.

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Then there are various testing and security requirements for shipments.

The Canadian government says it's still working with the U.S. to understand the FDA's plans for implement drug importation.

To date, says the Canadian Embassy in Washington, no state plans have been approved by the FDA.

Americans Shouldn’t Accept Erdogan’s Cynical Stance On The PKK

By Michael Rubin

19fortyfive.com

December 08, 2022

“We are determined to root out this terrorist organization,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared shortly after a bomb exploded on an Istanbul pedestrian mall, calling the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) “enemies of Islam and humanity.”

For NATO leaders, diplomats, and those in Washington prone to accept and amplify Turkish talking points, Erdogan’s concerns were “legitimate.” Many repeated Turkey’s charge that PKK affiliates in Syria were responsible for the attack, something both Syrian Kurds and the PKK deny.

Such deference to Erdogan has a cost.

Turkey today uses the Istanbul bomb both as a reason to conduct a preplanned operation to eradicate Kurdish self-governance across northern and eastern Syria, and to incite the Turkish public against the United States. “We know the identity, location and track record of the terrorists. We also know very well who patronizes, arms and encourages terrorists,” Erdogan declared, trying to incite anger toward the United States, which has supported the Syrian Defense Forces’ fight against the Islamic State.

While there are legitimate arguments for close U.S.-Turkish ties, it is a mistake to both conflate Turkey with Erdogan and to assume principle rather than politics shapes the Turkish position toward the PKK.

From the very formation of modern Turkey, the country’s leaders discriminated against the country’s Kurds. For Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his successor İsmet İnönü, the problem was the Kurds’ religiosity and resistance to laicism. Subsequently, Turks sought to repress Kurdish ethnic and cultural identity. It was against this milieu and outright racism that Abdullah Öcalan broke with Turkish leftists and founded the PKK on ethnic grounds.

At first, the PKK did engage in terrorism against fellow Kurds and Turks, and embraced Marxist ideology. In August 1984 PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan launched an insurgency and terror campaign, seizing towns in southeastern Turkey and using loudspeakers to declare separatist goals. Over the following decade, fighting between the PKK and the Turkish army resulted in perhaps 20,000 deaths. While Turkey engaged in systematic human rights abuses both before and after the PKK insurgency, PKK attacks on civilians were a tactical mistake as the Turkish public began to see the Kurds as an enemy group rather than a victimized minority, a fact that set the Kurdish cause back decades.

With the end of the Cold War, the PKK liberalized its economic philosophy and shed its separatist demands. With time, PKK evolved first into a more traditional insurgency, and then a far more dormant one. This is the major reason why the United States did not initially designate the PKK to be a terror group; it did so only in 1997 not on the merits of the group’s actions but rather because Ankara demanded it as a condition of a multi-billion dollar arms sale.

None other than Turgut Özal, prime minister and then president during the height of the PKK’s violent campaign, recognized the change in the PKK. Özal repeatedly stood up to Turkey’s ossified elite and broke the taboo surrounding liberalization of Turkey’s Kurdish policies to include allowing the Kurdish language, Kurdish education and television broadcasts. Özal also first proposed establishment of the Kurdish safe-haven in Iraq, albeit to avoid a refugee influx into Turkey. As the Turkish military gained the upper hand over the PKK in the early 1990s, Özal even pushed the Turkish government to address the economic discrimination that fueled separatist fire. Had a heart attack not felled Özal in his prime, it is possible if not even likely the PKK and Turkish state would have begun formal negotiations to end the insurgency.

Özal was not the only leader who sought to end the conflict with the PKK, although he was in hindsight the most sincere. Öcalan welcomed talks and shed doctrinaire inflexibility. Indeed, the PKK evolved with time just as Turkey had. Erdogan repeatedly reached out to the group and its proxies in the belief that his brand of Islamism might form a common bond and that Kurds might offer him electoral support. PKK members even agreed to lay down arms and move to Syria, where, with very few resources, they established a successful and progressive government. For Erdogan to complain that PKK members live in northern Syria is disingenuous since he sent them there as part of a peace deal.

Erdogan’s cynicism and dishonesty run deep. He made myriad promises to Turkish Kurds prior to each election, only to renege on them after. Ultimately, Turkey’s Kurds saw through his cynicism. They voted in earnest for the predominantly Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (or its earlier iteration), breaking through the ten percent threshold to loosen Erdogan’s grip on parliament. Erdogan responded not by respecting the democratic will, but by arresting its leadership.

This brings us back to the present. Diplomats might appease the Turkish government in the mistaken belief they can appease Erdogan. They err in the belief that short-term appeasement will discourage further violence. Academics and think tank analysts should not be constrained by existing government policy, however. To substitute volume and repetition of Erdogan statements for research is both dishonest and poor research methodology. It is also anachronistic given developments in Turkish-Kurdish relations from the 1990s to the present. Here, there is a parallel to South Africa. Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress was both Marxist and engaged in terrorism in its origin, but both Mandela and the group he led evolved to seek compromise and peace.

There is something very wrong when Americans who have never interacted with or confronted the Syrian Kurdish leadership with their concerns, let alone bothered to visit the region to see whether Erdogan’s characterizations are accurate, seek to be more Turkish than the most ardent, intolerant, and extreme Turkish political groupings. The tragedy is that such academic malpractice can lead to very real consequence with the furtherance of conflict and the murder of even more innocents.

To resolve youth violence, Canada must move beyond policing and prison

by Ardavan Eizadirad, The Conversation

Rates of violence in TDSB schools have increased in recent years. Credit: TDSB, Author provided

The most recent shooting involving a Toronto high school student this October highlighted a rising problem with gun violence in North American schools. In Canada's largest city, it raised alarms about how the crisis is getting worse and skewing younger.

The recent tragedy is reminiscent of other high-profile shootings within Toronto high schools. In 2007, 15-year-old high school student Jordan Manners was fatally shot at school. In the years since Manners's death, numerous recommendations on gun violence came out of reports and committees. However, little has been done to improve the danger of gun violence for Toronto teens.

To make things better, policy conversations about gun violence need to shift. They need to expand beyond the person behind the gun and gun regulation and move towards trauma-informed community programming that dismantles systemic barriers and inequities.

Risk factors that lead young people to violence

Many studies indicate that problems like poverty and unemployment are major risk factors that increase the likelihood of an individual gravitating towards gun violence.

In Canada, only one in five children who need mental health services receive them. A 2018 report by People for Education found that in Ontario there was on average only one in-school guidance counselor for every 396 students. Trauma and a lack of attention to it also leads to having intergenerational impacts.

Last year, there were 277 firearm homicides in Canada. According to a recent report by The Centre for Research & Innovation for Black Survivors of Homicide Victims (CRIB), racialized Ontarians account for 75 percent of Canadian gun homicide victims; 44 percent of those victims belong to African, Caribbean or other Black communities.

If we do not improve standards of living and create genuine opportunities in communities, the cycle of poverty, violence and crime will continue.

Disrupting the school to prison pipeline

Education is one of the most effective protective factors in aiding reintegration and mitigating recidivism after release from prison.

There needs to be an ideological shift about the purpose of prisons. They should not be places that punish people by incarcerating them, but spaces that promote their rehabilitation.

As outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, education is a human right that should be upheld for everyone. That right extends to individuals who are incarcerated.

To see where we are with this, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association conducted 50 interviews with youth (ages 12-17), staff and teachers at detention facilities and justice system professionals to explore education for youth in detention and the barriers they face.

They found that "facilities were treating youth as security threats to be managed, rather than students deserving of rehabilitation through educational opportunities".

It costs the Correctional Service of Canada an average of $111,202 per year to incarcerate one man (and twice as much to incarcerate one woman), with only $2950 of that money spent on education per prisoner.

There is a lack of capacity within incarceration institutions to meet educational demands. And there is a lack of partnerships with school boards and post-secondary institutions to offer education in prisons.

That lack of access to education is highly problematic given that the majority of people incarcerated do not have a high school diploma or its equivalent.

Harm reduction

A lack of mentorship and culturally relevant, responsive and sustaining education leads to many minoritized identities being pushed out of schools due to the content, policies, and teaching of schools not being reflective of their identities, histories or lived experiences.

For example, 80 percent of school suspensions in Toronto are given to male students. Indigenous, Black, Middle Eastern and mixed-race students are over-represented in the suspensions and expulsions relative to their overall representation within the TDSB student population.

To counter this, there needs to be culturally relevant and responsive curriculum content and teaching to support learners and their families in relation to larger unmet needs at the community level.

Police and prevention

If Canada is going to become the egalitarian role model it aims to be on the world stage, the over-policing of racialized communities across the country must end.

Instead, more resources and emphasis on community-based intervention and prevention projects must be adopted such as Toronto's TO Wards Peace and Public Safety Canada's Peace Core New Narrative.

Both initiatives propose a public health approach rooted in supporting access to opportunities across different sectors. The projects were spearheaded via collaboration between different levels of government, community agencies and non-profits including Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education (YAAACE) in Jane and Finch and Think 2wice in Rexdale in Toronto. These are projects I am also involved in. In fact, I started as a youth counselor at YAAACE when I was 17.

TO Wards Peace (TWP) is a community-centric interruption model that features frontline "violence disruption workers." These folks have lived experience and deep community connections which strengthens their capacity to build rapport with communities. In this way, they may be able to intervene peacefully and constructively, even in seriously violent or escalating situations.

At YAAACE, another initiative features "Community Resource Engagement Workers" supporting those impacted by the justice system (people who have been released from incarceration or are incarcerated) to use their strengths in pursuing healthy lifestyle choices and building life skills. This involves access to programming and connecting people with needed social support services in a timely manner.

A recent pledge by the Canadian government to fund community programs such as those mentioned above is a step in the right direction.

Canada needs to start putting the "human" back into the way it treats, responds to and serves marginalized communities.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Former employees suing Twitter speak out on Elon Musk’s ‘clumsy and inhumane’ layoffs

By Clare Duffy, CNN
Published  Thu December 8, 2022

New York CNN —

A group of former Twitter employees who are suing the company spoke out Thursday, alleging that new owner Elon Musk’s mass layoffs at the company have triggered multiple labor rights violations.

“Real people were affected by this, I have a family, I have kids to support,” former Twitter engineer Wren Turkal said during a press conference in San Francisco. “All that we’re looking for is fairness.”

Another former Twitter engineer, Emmanuel Cornet, said during the event: “It seems like the layoffs have been done in a way that’s really clumsy and inhumane and potentially illegal … and this is the aftermath.”

Twitter, which recently laid off much of its communications department, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuits or former employee comments.

The employees who spoke during the Thursday press conference are each plaintiffs in lawsuits filed by attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan against Twitter on behalf of former employees who were affected by Musk’s takeover of the company.

The four suits, all of which are seeking class action status, include claims that Twitter reneged on promises to allow remote work and consistent severance benefits after the Musk acquisition, as well as complaints related to alleged disability and gender-based discrimination, and another suit on behalf of Twitter contractors who were laid off.

Layoffs, ultimatums, and an ongoing saga over blue check marks: Elon Musk's first month at Twitter

The press conference was held ahead of the first hearing in the initial case, in which a group of five former employees allege that Musk has violated promises the company made to employees prior to his takeover.

The suit alleges that employees were assured they could continue to work remotely for at least a year following the acquisition and were promised that any workers laid off under Musk would receive the same benefits and severance that employees had been entitled to prior to the takeover.

The lawsuit also claims that in the case of at least one employee terminated as part of the mass layoffs on November 1, Twitter did not provide sufficient notice required by federal and California laws, nor was he offered additional pay in lieu of the notice.

The attorney said Thursday she has also filed three claims against Twitter with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of former employees.

The lawsuits were filed after Musk laid off around half of Twitter’s staff last month, in an effort to slash costs following his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company. The company hadn’t previously filed notice to state or local officials of the layoff plans, immediately raising questions about whether the terminations might violate California and federal WARN Acts, although at least some employees reportedly received sufficient pay to negate the need for such notice.

During Thursday’s hearing, lawyers for the former employees were set to ask a federal court for an order barring Twitter from seeking separation agreements with laid off employees without informing them of the lawsuit and their associated rights. As part of the requested order, they are also seeking to bar Twitter from communicating with employees in any way that could undermine their rights as part of the litigation.

“Plaintiffs are very concerned that employees will be asked to sign away their rights without notice that they have legal claims to additional benefits and severance and that these legal claims have already been filed on their behalf,” the former employees said in their lawsuit.

Liss-Riordan added during the press conference that, “the richest man in the world is not above the law. The employees have rights here.”

Weeks after the initial Twitter layoffs, hundreds more Twitter employees exited after Musk gave them an ultimatum to work “extremely hardcore” or leave the company.

“Of all the issues Elon Musk is facing right now, this feels like the easiest one to fix … treat your workers with respect,” Liss-Riordan said.

(9 Dec 2022) Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter when billionaire Elon Musk took over are suing the company in federal court, claiming that last month's abrupt mass layoffs disproportionately affected female employees.(Dec 8) (AP video by Haven Daley)

 

SPACE

SpaceX Unveils “Starshield” for Military Use

Written By: Heidi

Published Date: December 8, 2022

Earlier this week, SpaceX unvieled “Starshield,” a Starlink derivative for military use. Starshield can be used to “support national security efforts,” including spying on Earthbound targets and hosting government and military payloads.

SpaceX already beefed up Starlink’s ability to resist attacks by enemy governments in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although it refused to block Russian propaganda websites. SpaceX’s Starlink helps provide critical communications for Ukraine’s defense forces.

Starshield will likely have improved security as well. SpaceX hasn’t revealed many details about what the satellites will look like. However, it says the communications capacity will include “additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads and process data securely.” It will also include laser communications between satellites that may be similar to the proposed lasers on the Starlink v2 satellites.

Although Starshield was criticized as a way for SpaceX to entrench itself as a defense contractor, it already launches military satellites, many of them classified payloads. It also launched unclassified payloads like GPS satellites and a laser communications experiment.

SpaceX may simply regard the U.S. military as just another customer, like NASA and civilian satellite owners like OneWeb. SpaceX plans to launch some OneWeb satellites today (December 8, 2022) despite some previous back-and-forth sniping between OneWeb and SpaceX. It also plans to launch a lunar lander and rover for Japan and the United Arab Emirates over the weekend.

Starshield wouldn’t be the first proposed “alternative” use for Starlink satellites. Researchers also found a way to use Starlink satellites as an alternative to the GPS constellation. The Air Force funded the research. Some SpaceX executives showed interest in the work and may have cited GPS-enabled technologies’ $146.4-billion-per-year market, but Musk passed on the opportunity, saying that “we can’t afford any distractions.” Despite Musk’s lack of support, the researchers found ways to reverse-engineer Starlink’s beacon signals.

Starshield may be a response to the Pentagon’s previous interest in Starlink’s improved security, which can now fend off military-style jamming attacks. The Air Force backed that up by awarding SpaceX a $1.9 million contract to provide Starlink access in Europe and Africa.

It’s good, but it’s expensive. Elon Musk previously complained about spending $20 million a month on providing Starlink-based communications to Ukraine, most of which probably goes toward its high-end cybersecurity defenses.

If Starshield becomes a reality, it will provide an alternative to using Starlink, which was meant for civilian use, for military purposes.

REST IN POWER

Stranglers drummer Jet Black dies at 84 after 'years of ill health'

Formed in Guildford in 1974, The Stranglers emerged through the punk rock scene, becoming known for songs including No More Heroes, Golden Brown, Always The Sun and Peaches.

Thursday 8 December 2022 

Image:Jet Black suffered 'years of ill health'

Jet Black, drummer of new-wave rock band The Stranglers, has died at the age of 84.

Bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel described him as a "force of nature", the "most erudite of men" and a "rebel with many causes".

He had suffered "years of ill health", Burnel added, and passed away "peacefully" on Tuesday, his representative confirmed.

Formed in Guildford in 1974, The Stranglers emerged through the punk rock scene, becoming known for songs including No More Heroes, Golden Brown, Always The Sun and Peaches, achieving 23 top 40 singles and 19 top 40 albums.

Black also wrote books and made furniture

Before joining the band, Black, whose real name was Brian John Duffy, was in business, owning a fleet of ice cream vans which were later used to tour the UK.

He also owned an off licence, the upstairs flat doubling as Stranglers HQ in their early days.

In 1980, in Nice in the south of France, the Stranglers were arrested after allegedly inciting a riot, and Black wrote two books documenting what happened.

He also crafted bespoke furniture and designed a patented bass drum pedal.

Black retired from performing live with The Stranglers in 2015 after suffering respiratory health issues since he was a child.

Black (right) retired from performing in 2015

Baz Warne, The Stranglers' guitarist, said: "I loved Jet. He took me under his wing over two decades ago and I never really came out from under it. I'm so very sad he's gone."

Sil Willcox, the band's manager, said: "He was the Jet force that launched The Stranglers. He was the Jet force that powered the band's determination to get heard and get noticed. Jet Black was the real deal."

Dave Greenfield, The Stranglers' keyboard player, died in May 2020 after testing positive for coronavirus.

"The welcoming committee has doubled," Burnel said.

Black leaves wife Ava and children Charlotte and Anthony.

UK
NHS faces ‘crisis of the government’s making’

Austerity-hit services are ‘bursting at the seams’ as waiting lists balloon to record high of over seven million


THE NHS is facing a “crisis of the government’s making,” the labour movement stressed yesterday after official figures showed treatment waiting lists have ballooned to a record high of more than seven million people.

The shocking figure, which refers to England alone, shows austerity-hit health services are “bursting at the seams,” unions and campaigners warned.

October’s total of 7.2 million — up from 7.1m on the previous month — was published alongside A&E data, which reveals that just 68.9 per cent of patients were seen within four hours — the worst performance ever recorded.

An estimated 410,983 people in England had been waiting more than a year for treatment, up from 404,851, at the end of September, and equivalent to about one in 18 people on the entire waiting list.

There were some improvements in cancer services, but only around six in 10 of the 14,425 patients in this category started life-saving treatment within two months – the second-lowest percentage on record.

National clinical director for urgent and emergency care Professor Julian Redhead described “ongoing pressures on services which are exacerbated by flu hospitalisations, issues in social care meaning we cannot discharge patients who are ready and record numbers needing A&E.”

He argued that new “hubs dedicated to respiratory infections, a falls response service to free up ambulance capacity and an expansion of mental health crisis services” would help.

But Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Sadly these figures are no surprise. Our ambulance members who once dealt with 10 patients a shift are now lucky if three are discharged into hospital.

“They are in despair and feel strike action is the only way to shake some sense into this government and to save our ambulance service.”

More than 10,000 paramedics, emergency care assistants, call handlers and others across England and Wales — represented by Unite, Unison and GMB — are set to down tools on December 21.

The walkouts start just days after the Royal College of Nursing launches its first ever national strike over real-terms pay cuts and declining patient safety next Thursday.

Ms Graham added: “Let’s be absolutely clear — this is a crisis made by this government.

“It is their responsibility to sort this. Creating a stable pay structure based on a decent pay deal would be a start.”

Unison slammed the numbers, saying they “paint a bleak picture of the state of the NHS.

“There are too few staff to provide safe patient care, and as more leave for better paid work, so waiting times and delays worsen,” head of health Sara Gorton stressed.

“The government must get a grip and start talking to unions about pay.”

GMB national secretary Rachel Harrison accused the government of being “tin eared” and demanded Health Secretary Steve Barclay “talk to us about pay now.”

The former Brexit secretary has claimed his “door is always open,” despite insisting the government will not budge on its latest pay offer, about three times smaller than 40-year high inflation.

His Labour counterpart Wes Streeting said that public health services are “heading into this winter with more people waiting for treatment than at any time in history, and they are waiting longer than ever before.

"The government should be doing everything it can to bring down waiting lists.”

A Labour government would tackle the problem by abolishing tax-dodging “non-dom” status to fund a doubling in the number of medical school places and 10,000 extra nurses and midwives a year, the IIford North MP claimed.

MORNINGSTAR

SCOTLAND

What is the ‘Troll of Trondheim’, how could it affect Yorkshire and where is Trondheim?



A big winter chill is expected to reach Yorkshire, with parts of the coast already being blanketed with snow. We’ve explained how the Troll of Trondheim will impact the region.

By Liana Jacob

Severe cold weather is set to hit areas across England as the Met Office issues an alert for the country, warning that temperatures will plummet this week and this could increase health risks for vulnerable people and disrupt services. Many areas in Yorkshire are already seeing temperatures drop to lower numbers and even into minus numbers overnight.

The weather service has warned of severe conditions in England between 6pm on Wednesday, December 7 and 9am on Monday, December 12. The alert advises social and healthcare services to take action to protect high-risk groups.

Temperatures are set to drop even more across most of the UK throughout the day today (December 8). Yorkshire is expected to see temperatures in the minus numbers today, as the Met Office said: “Wintry showers gradually clearing by evening.

Snow covered hills of the North York Moors National Park. (Pic credit: James Hardisty)

“Becoming largely dry with clear skies developing overnight, leading to a widespread frost and risk of icy surfaces. Chances of isolated freezing fog patches. Minimum temperature -4C.”

When talking about Friday, December 9, the Met Office said: “A chilly start, with a widespread sharp frost and risk of icy surfaces.

“Otherwise largely dry with sunny spells. Feeling rather cold. Chance of some coastal wintry showers. Light winds. Maximum temperature 3C.”

What is the Troll of Trondheim?

With temperatures dropping across the UK in the coming days, this weather has come from Scandinavian countries in a weather phenomenon called Troll of Trondheim.

The mixture of high pressure over Greenland and an area of low pressure over Scandinavia results in the cold Arctic air spreading southwards across the UK.

This weather is predicted to be very severe and the cold period is likely to be quite lengthy with a risk of snow.

How could the Troll of Trondheim affect Yorkshire?

This cold Arctic air is expected to cross the UK, particularly in the northern region as the Met Office has already issued yellow ice alerts for parts of the Yorkshire coast and North Yorkshire.

These low temperatures could see the region being hit with snow as we get closer to Christmas.

Met Office chief meteorologist, Steve Willington, said: “As an Arctic maritime airmass settles across the UK temperatures will fall with widespread overnight frosts, severe in places, and daytime temperatures only a few degrees above freezing. However, the cold air from the Arctic will also bring brighter conditions, with some dry, sunny spells, particularly away from the coast and where winds are light it could feel pleasant in the sunshine. Some patchy freezing fog is also likely.

“Yellow National Severe Weather Warnings for ice and snow have been issued for parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and the east coast and South West England. Showers will turn more wintry with an increasing risk of snow as the week progresses, particularly in coastal areas or over higher ground. There will be widespread frosts with temperatures falling to as low as -10C overnight in isolated spots by the end of the week. More severe weather warnings may be needed as we head through the week.”

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has also issued a Level 3 Cold Weather Alert covering England from Wednesday, December 7 to Monday, December 12.

There are some uncertainties around how long this cold period will last, but it is predicted to remain cold into next week with temperatures staying well below average for this time of year.

Throughout the weekend and into next week, sleet, snow and ice is possible, especially along the east coast, while inland will mainly be dry, hard frosts and patchy freezing fog is expected.

Met Office deputy chief meteorologist, Jason Kelly, said: “Through the weekend and into next week cold weather will continue, with an ongoing chance of wintry showers, mainly for coasts, and freezing fog patches inland.

“An area of low pressure may then threaten southern and southwestern parts of the UK through mid-week. Confidence in the exact track of this system is low, but should it push precipitation into the UK, then this would readily turn to snow, with a lower chance of freezing rain. How far north the milder air gets is also open to a lot of uncertainty, but for now, many central and northern areas are likely to remain in the Arctic airmass.”

Where is Trondheim?

Trondheim, historically known as Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in the Trondelag county of Norway.

Trondheim has a mild climate for its northerly latitude, which leads to moderate summers and winters that regularly remain above the freezing point in seaside areas


It is situated where the River Nidelva meets Trondheim Fjord with a harbour and sheltered condition.

Keystone pipeline shut after 14,000-barrel oil spill in Kansas

Thu, December 8, 2022

By Brijesh Patel and Rod Nickel

(Reuters) -Canada's TC Energy shut its Keystone pipeline in the United States after more than 14,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into a creek in Kansas, making it one of the largest crude spills in the United States in nearly a decade.

The cause of the leak, which occurred in Kansas about 20 miles south of a key junction in Steele City, Nebraska, is unknown. It is the third spill of several thousand barrels of crude on the pipeline since it first opened in 2010.

The 622,000 barrel-per-day Keystone line is a critical artery shipping heavy Canadian crude from Alberta to refiners in the U.S. Midwest and the Gulf Coast. It is unclear how long the closure will last.

There have been no effects on drinking water wells or the public, the U.S Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement, though surface water of Mill Creek was affected. It sent two coordinators to the site to oversee TC Energy's response and evaluate the cause of the spill.

Keystone shut the line at about 8 p.m. CT Wednesday (0200 GMT Thursday) after alarms went off and system pressure dropped, TC said in a release. It said booms were being used to contain the spill.

"The system remains shut down as our crews actively respond and work to contain and recover the oil," the release said.

According to U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) data, this would be the largest crude oil leak since a Tesoro pipeline leaked more than 20,000 barrels of oil in North Dakota in October 2013.

The PHMSA is also investigating the leak, which occurred near Washington, Kansas, a town of about 1,000 people.

There have been seven Keystone spills since it became operational in June 2010, according to PHMSA data. The largest were in December 2017, when more than 6,600 barrels spilled in South Dakota, and in November 2019, when more than 4,500 barrels spilled in North Dakota, according to PHMSA figures.

TC declared force majeure over the outage, according to a source with direct knowledge, which refers to unexpected external circumstances that prevent a party to a contract from meeting its obligations. TC did not respond to a request for comment.

Two Keystone shippers said TC had not yet notified them how long the pipeline may be shut.

Keystone's shutdown will hamper deliveries of Canadian crude both to the U.S. storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma and to the Gulf, where it is processed by refiners or exported.

The shutdown is expected to increase the discount on Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy oil from Alberta to U.S. crude, which was already high due to lackluster demand for heavy, sour Canadian oil.

WCS for December delivery traded at $33.50 a barrel below WTI, a bigger discount than Wednesday's settle of $27.50 a barrel below the benchmark, according to one broker.

"It's really a worst-case scenario if this outage is long-lasting," said Rory Johnston, founder of energy newsletter Commodity Context, noting that if the price falls further, shippers may opt to move crude by rail.

The Hardisty, Alberta, hub has sufficient storage space until the pipeline is back online, said BMO analyst Randy Ollenberger.

Steele City is roughly the junction where Keystone splits, with one segment moving crude to Illinois refineries and the other carrying oil south to Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast.

If the spill is located south of the junction, TC may be able to quickly restart the segment to Illinois, RBC analyst Robert Kwan said in a note.

Past shutdowns have generally lasted about two weeks, but this could last longer as it involves a water body, Kwan said.

On Nov. 15, TC announced it would curtail volumes on the pipeline due to some severe weather-related incidents, without specifying the size or duration of the curbs.

TC shares ended down 0.1% in Toronto.

(Reporting by Arpan Varghese, Brijesh Patel and Deep Vakil in Bengaluru, Rod Nickel, Nia Williams and Arathy Somasekhar; Editing by Alexander Smith, Andrea Ricci and Josie Kao)

"PIPELINES RARELY LEAK"

A trail of oil: Keystone pipeline's history of oil spills


(Reuters) - Canada's TC Energy Corp shut its Keystone pipeline in the United States after more than 14,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into a creek in Kansas, making it one of the largest crude spills in the United States in nearly a decade.


Illustration shows smartphone with TC Energy's logo displayed© Thomson Reuters

The 622,000 barrel-per-day pipeline is a critical artery shipping heavy Canadian crude from Alberta to refiners in the U.S. Midwest and the Gulf Coast. It is unclear how long the closure will last.

There have been several spills on the line since it began operating in 2010. The following is a timeline of some of Keystone's biggest oil spills, based on data from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

2011

May: TC shut the pipeline for six days after a spill of about 500 barrels of oil due to a failed fitting at a North Dakota pumping station. (https://reut.rs/3iKr5JC)


2016

April: TC shut down the pipeline after about 400 barrels of oil leaked in Hutchinson County, South Dakota. (https://reut.rs/3W2FjUx)

2017

November: TC shut part of the Keystone pipeline system after a leak in South Dakota, caused by mechanical damage from original construction. Originally pegged at 5,000 barrels, a TC spokesperson later put the estimate at about 9,700 barrels. (https://reut.rs/3P9J6Nu)

2019

February: Portions of the Keystone pipeline were shut down after 42 barrels of oil leaked on land in rural St. Charles County, Missouri. (https://reut.rs/3HkTBLZ)

October: An estimated 9,120 barrels of oil spilled in North Dakota. The spill was one of the biggest onshore crude spills in the last decade and the largest for Keystone, according to PHMSA. (https://reut.rs/3Hq4zjH)

(Reporting by Ruhi Soni, Arshreet Singh and Sourasis Bose in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

Murderous 1600s pirate hid out in US colonies with impunity

By WILLIAM J. KOLE

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Metal detectorist Denise Schoener, of Hanson, Mass., searches for historic coins and artifacts in a farm field in Little Compton, R.I., Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. One coin at a time, the ground is yielding new evidence that in the late 1600s, Henry Every, one of the world's most ruthless pirates, wandered the American colonies with impunity. Schoener found a 17th century silver coin with Arabic inscriptions in 2019 in a field in Little Compton. 

(AP Photo/Steven Senne)

WARWICK, R.I. (AP) — One tarnished silver coin at a time, the ground is yielding new evidence that in the late 1600s, one of the world’s most ruthless pirates wandered the American colonies with impunity.

Newly surfaced documents also strengthen the case that English buccaneer Henry Every — the target of the first worldwide manhunt — hid out in New England before sailing for Ireland and vanishing into the wind.

“At this point, the amount of evidence is overwhelming and indisputable,” historian and metal detectorist Jim Bailey, who’s devoted years to solving the mystery, told The Associated Press. “Every was undoubtedly on the run in the colonies.”

In 2014, after unearthing an unusual coin engraved with an Arabic inscription at a pick-your-own-fruit orchard in Middletown, Rhode Island, Bailey began retracing Every’s steps.

Research confirmed that the exotic coin was minted in 1693 in Yemen. Bailey then discovered that it was consistent with millions of dollars’ worth of coins and other valuables seized by Every and his men in their brazen Sept. 7, 1695, sacking of the Ganj-i-Sawai, an armed royal vessel owned by Indian emperor Aurangzeb.

Historical accounts say Every’s band tortured and killed passengers aboard the Indian ship and raped many of the women before escaping to the Bahamas, a haven for pirates. But word quickly spread of their crimes, and English King William III — under enormous pressure from a scandalized India and the influential East India Company trading giant — put a large bounty on their heads.

Detectorists and archaeologists have since located 26 similar coins stretching from Maine to the Carolinas. All but three coins turned up in New England, and none can be dated later than when the Indian ship was captured.

“When I first heard about it, I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this can’t be true,’” said Steve Album, a rare coin specialist based in Santa Rosa, California, who helped identify all of the silver Arabic coins found in New England.

“But these coins have been found legitimately and in a few instances archaeologically, and every single one predates the sacking of the ship,” said Album, who has lived in Iran and has traveled widely in the Middle East.

Detectorists have also unearthed a gold nugget weighing 3 grams (a tenth of an ounce) — slightly heavier than a U.S. penny — from a potato field perched on a hilltop in seaside Little Compton, Rhode Island.

There’s no documented evidence that naturally occurring gold has ever been found in the state. Bailey and other experts believe that the nugget likely originated somewhere along Africa’s Gold Coast, a center for the slave trade in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Adding to the intrigue, two silver Arabic coins were recovered not far from the nugget, and Every is known to have seized a considerable amount of gold while sailing off the coast of West Africa.

The latest evidence putting Every on American soil isn’t just metallic — it includes paper and pixels.

Bailey had already found records showing that the Sea Flower, a ship used by Every and his men after they ditched the vessel they’d used in their murderous raid, arrived in 1696 in Newport, Rhode Island. He’s since surfaced documents that show that the pirate captain was accompanied by three Rhode Islanders he took aboard from another pirate vessel when he fled India. All three came ashore with Every in the Bahamas on March 30, 1696, and Bailey said that they essentially served as getaway drivers in exchange for plunder.

Captured pirates William Phillips and Edward Savill testified on Aug. 27, 1696, that one of two ships that left the Bahamas went to Virginia and New England before reaching Ireland. Critically, Bailey said, the records clarify a muddy timeline that long has been misinterpreted by historians to suggest Every lingered two months on the Caribbean island — something he’d never have done as a fugitive.

“There’s no way he stayed in the Bahamas to sit on the beach and work on his tan while waiting to be captured,” Bailey said. “Indeed, Every was in New England for over a month weighing his options for starting his life anew in the colonies or going back home to England.”

Every’s exploits have inspired Steven Johnson’s book “Enemy of All Mankind,” and the final installment of PlayStation’s popular “Uncharted” video game franchise. Earlier this year, Sony Pictures released a movie adaptation starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas.

Bailey’s next challenge: figuring out what happened to Every after the trail ran cold following his arrival in Ireland on June 20, 1696. It’s the mystery’s elusive final chapter — one he hopes to detail in a forthcoming book about the cold case.

“We’re chasing down the lost history behind one of the greatest crimes of the 17th century,” he said.