Violent crime involving firearms down five per cent: Statistics Canada

Monday

OTTAWA — Newly released statistics show that violent crime involving firearms dropped five per cent in Canada between 2020 and 2021.

Violent crime involving firearms down five per cent: Statistics Canada© Provided by The Canadian Press

According to Statistics Canada, violent crime in general went up four per cent, but a decrease in firearm-related crime in urban areas, including Toronto, led to the drop in violent crime with guns.

In Toronto, the rate of firearm-related crime — meaning that a firearm is present during an offence and police decide that its presence is relevant to the crime — was 22 per cent lower in 2021 than the year before.

However, across the country, the rate of gun-related violent crime was still 25 per cent higher than 10 years earlier.

Toronto police seize 62 guns, make several arrests including 1 linked to ‘reckless shooting’ in 2021

Last year, physical assault, robbery and firearm-specific Criminal Code violations, such as pointing a firearm, accounted for 80 per cent of offences involving firearms.

Just over 8,000 people were victims of crimes that involved the use of a firearm, representing 2.6 per cent of all victims of violent crime.

And handguns were involved in 54 per cent of violent crime with firearms, the agency says.

MPs are studying legislation to further restrict the availability of what the government considers assault-style firearms, and federal regulations aimed at capping the number of handguns in Canada are already in effect.

Weapons that were more commonly used during violent offences in 2021 included knives, burning liquid or caustic agents and blunt instruments.

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

The Canadian Press

COACHING IS ABUSE

Former Olympian Waneek Horn-Miller calls for inquiry to address abuse in sport

Story by Peter Zimonjic • Monday

A former Olympic athlete with a history of fighting against abuse in sport says she wants an inquiry into amateur sport in Canada to address systemic sexual, physical and verbal abuse of athletes.


Waneek Horn-Miller, shown here after her induction into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2019, told a parliamentary committee Monday that she wants an inquiry with teeth to examine abuse and harassment in sport.© Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

Waneek Horn-Miller is the former co-captain of Canada's Olympic women's water polo team. She was removed from the team in 2003 over what Water Polo Canada claimed were "team cohesion" issues. She said Canada's amateur athletes need help.

"We cannot rely on current competing athletes to fight within their sports. You can't, because that means the end of their career. And that is why I have been so vocal as a retired athlete to do something about it," Horn-Miller — the first Mohawk woman from Canada to compete in the Olympics — told a parliamentary committee of MPs on Monday.

"I would like an inquiry, but we can't have another inquiry that has no teeth. We have to do something."

Horn-Miller first rose to national attention during the Oka Crisis when, aged 14, she was stabbed in the chest by a soldier's bayonet while holding her four-year-old sister.

Horn-Miller, who now coaches water polo, joined Water Polo Canada's diversity task force in June of 2020 to help the organization's efforts to fight systemic racism in sport.

In announcing Horn-Miller's appointment, Water Polo Canada issued a public apology to her, acknowledging that she was compelled to leave the team before the end of her athletic career.

"We sincerely apologize to her, and others who we have hurt and excluded," the statement read. "We are reaching out to our current and retired athletes to hear their stories so we can learn from them."

Horn-Miller told the committee that in the wake of Oka, water polo became her "suicide preventer ... stress reliever.

"It became much more important to me as my life kind of spun out of control in the political sense. I became more focused on my Olympic dreams."

She said that, like many other athletes, she let the goal of getting to the Olympics and winning a medal convince her to accept racial and verbal abuse she would not otherwise have tolerated.

Related video: Elite athletes are "basically employees" of federal government: An Olympian discusses Sport Canada (cbc.ca)   Duration 0:50    View on Watch

"It was well known the abuse that took place, that the coaches held the power. The rumours that existed were of sexual abuse, verbal abuse, abuse of power all the time," she said.

Horn-Miller said that she was told by the former captain of the team that she should brace herself for the abuse to come. She said she struggled with the atmosphere at first but remained "laser focused" on getting to the Olympics.

"You have a dream of becoming an Olympian and you are extraordinarily vulnerable. The power is held within the coach's hand. You will do anything, anything to get your Olympic dream. It is an obsession that makes you vulnerable to all kinds of abuse," she said.

After she failed to medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Horn-Miller said, the abuse within the organization increased and she made a complaint.

Sport Canada and Water Polo Canada brought in York University to investigate, which found that abuse that was not sexual in nature had taken place. Coaches were fired and a new regime was brought in.

Shortly after that report was published, Horn-Miller was removed from the team. She told MPs Monday that she felt she had been labelled "the problem Native."

"I realized that there was no desire within Water Polo Canada to resolve our conflict, our issues, there was no resolution, there was no reconciliation after," she said.

The next generation

In October, four former members of the national water polo team filed a $5.5-million lawsuit against Water Polo Canada.

In their statement of claim, which has not been tested in court, the former athletes alleged that several former coaches and staffers working for Water Polo Canada subjected athletes to physical, psychological and emotional abuse and sexual harassment.

One of the coaches mentioned in the statement of claim coached the women's senior team from 1985 to 2001 but was removed from his post after complaints about verbal abuse.

The statement of claim says that same coach was rehired two years later before being removed from his position again in 2011.

"They rehired this coach. I lost my career trying to stop it," Horn-Miller told MPs, becoming visibly emotional.

"I was depressed and suicidal and I cannot tell you. If I wasn't Native, and my community didn't take me and say, 'We love you, we honour you and we care for you,' I don't know what I would have done.

"I'm so angry that Sport Canada continued to fund an organization that went and rehired one of these coaches who continued to function without oversight, to ruin the lives of another generation of women. How can that happen?"
If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.

If you or someone you know is struggling, here's where to get help:

BC

Coastal GasLink protesters sentenced after pleading guilty to criminal contempt

Story by Jason Proctor, Betsy Trumpener • Monday


A  B.C. Supreme Court judge sentenced five protesters Monday who pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of court for ignoring a court order forbidding them from blocking access to a controversial northern B.C. pipeline.

Justice Michael Tammen accepted a joint submission from the Crown and the lawyer for all five Coastal GasLink opponents, which resulted in a $500 fine for three of the accused and 25 hours of community service for two others.

After laying out the individual details of each of her clients' lives, defence lawyer Frances Mahon told the judge he should consider the circumstances that drew them to a blockade of the natural gas pipeline in the first place.

A portion of the project is being built across territory to which Mahon said Canada's top court has acknowledged the Wet'suwet'en have "unextinguished aboriginal rights" — leading their allies to call themselves "land defenders."

"We are dealing with a unique situation involving people who have had unextinguished title over their land since time immemorial. It is largely that issue that motivated the five individuals before you today," she said

"This is not to approve what has been done — but to answer the question of why."

Public defiance of a court's order

Tammen delivered his verdict Monday afternoon in a courtroom in Smithers, which is 65 kilometres north of the section of forestry road where RCMP arrested the five accused in November 2021.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Amanda Wong, Joshua Goskey, Nina Sylvestor, Layla Staats and Skyler Williams were part of a larger group of protesters who blocked access to the camp where Coastal GasLink employees were building the 670-kilometre-long pipeline.

Coastal GasLink has said that more than 500 pipeline workers were stranded behind the blockades as their food, water, and medical supplies ran low, and construction was halted.



The Coastal GasLink pipeline is being constructed along a 670-kilometre stretch from the Dawson Creek, B.C. area to Kitimat. A portion of the line is being built through Wet'suwet'en traditional territory.© CBC

If completed, the pipeline will stretch from near Dawson Creek in the east to Kitimat on the Pacific Ocean. It's currently more than 75 per cent complete and scheduled to be finished by late 2024, according to Coastal GasLink.

The company has signed benefit agreements with 20 band councils along the project's route. But Wet'suwet'en hereditary leadership says band councils do not have authority over land beyond reserve boundaries.

The cause has garnered international attention and drawn protesters from across Canada — resulting in the injunction that the five defendants were accused of violating.

Two Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs — Woos (Frank Alec) and Namoks (John Risdale) — were in the small Smithers courtroom Monday to watch the proceeding. It was the first time anyone has been convicted of criminal contempt in relation to the protests.

Previous arrests have resulted in citations for civil contempt, but it wasn't until last spring that the Crown decided to move ahead with criminal proceedings — which arises from public defiance of a court's order.

As he outlined an agreed statement of facts, Crown prosecutor Tyler Bauman said the protests were accompanied by widely shared social media posts indicating that Coastal GasLink had been "evicted" from the area.

Bauman said the five accused "knowingly breached the injunction ... in a public way" by refusing to move after an RCMP officer read them a short script detailing the terms of the court's order.

An 'enormously principled person'

The joint submission recommended that Tammen allow each of the defendants to either opt for a fine or community service. Williams, Staats and Sylvestor all chose to pay the fine, while Goskey and Wong opted for service.

Goskey, Wong and Sylvestor were all in the courtroom.


Graffiti spray-painted on an electrical box near Prince George city hall in support of Wet'suwet'en opponents of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.© CBC/Betsy Trumpener

Williams and Staats — who are a couple — appeared through video links from Ontario, where Mahon said Staats is expecting their first child "any minute now — hopefully not during these court proceedings but very, very soon."

Only Williams had a previous criminal record — in part for non-violent charges over land conflicts involving the people of his Haudenosaunee community of Six Nations, where he is a leader of the 1492 Land Back movement.

Williams and Staats are both Indigenous; Mahon said Staats is a filmmaker whose work includes a reckoning with the impacts of being an intergenerational survivor of residential schools.

Mahon described Sylvestor as an "enormously principled person" who has dedicated herself to both environmental and Indigenous causes — currently working as a supervisor for a group monitoring invasive plant species in the Kootenays.

The defence lawyer said Wong is from Ontario and is not working at the moment. She said Goskey has held a variety of jobs in recent years, one of which was a stint with Disney on Ice.

She said a close relative believed Goskey "made a poor decision … and was feeling overwhelmed in their life at that time."

Tammen noted the time all of the defendants spent in custody immediately after their arrests — pointing out that judges often give people a day in jail for criminal contempt, so they experience the "short, sharp shock" that comes with the loss of liberty.

Sylvestor spent four days in jail, in circumstances Mahon described as "very challenging."

Another 13 protesters are also facing criminal contempt proceedings in relation to the arrests. At previous hearings, Mahon has indicated that they plan to contest the charges on grounds related to alleged breaches of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Plastic threatens our environment; what governments need to do

Since the 1950s, the production and use of plastic has increased faster than any other material, transforming the way we think and feel about everyday items. It is in our electronics, our vehicles, our food and drink containers, computers and phones, throughout our homes and even our clothes. Imagine a world without plastic. It’s impossible.

In our pandemic world, plastic became even more popular.

The international organization Oceana, which is dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans, reported last month that the Coca-Cola company increased its plastic packaging by almost nine percent, or 579 million pounds, from 2020 to 2021.

This is the opposite direction companies need to move in, to reduce carbon emissions (plastic is made from oil or natural gas) and to prevent more and more plastic from entering into our oceans, which are being decimated due to the chemical alteration caused by mass plastic pollution as small particles constantly enter our water systems (there are 51 trillion microscopic pieces of plastic in our oceans, which weigh 269,000 tons).

Many people take items like plastic food containers and utensils for granted—easy to grab, convenient to store and then tossed away when the food is finished. Plastic containers used for storage, according to a study by the National Zero Waste Council based in Vancouver, can reduce food loss and waste by over 30 percent. We all know the benefits of plastic, but finding a balance is what advocates are asking governments and the private sector to do.

For example, in hospitals and medical offices instruments are packaged in plastic to remain sterilized. Without plastic in these crucial settings, routine medical and dental procedures could result in the spread of bacteria, triggering more emergency procedures alongside expensive medical treatments.

The Global Commitment Progress Report 2022 was released earlier in the year by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in association with the UN Environment Programme. It monitors international progress on the reduction of plastic use.

“Driven by the goal of tackling plastic pollution at its source, through the Global Commitment and Plastic Pact network, more than 1,000 businesses, governments, and other organisations have united behind a common vision of a circular economy for plastic, in which it never becomes waste,” the report declares.

“Signatories to the Global Commitment, which together account for more than 20% of the plastic packaging market, have set ambitious 2025 targets to help realise that common vision. This fourth annual progress report looks at how the signatories are faring against these targets.”

There was good news… and bad.

“As a group, brands and retailers have significantly increased their total plastic packaging use (+4.3%) in 2021 vs 2020. This increase has outpaced progress on recycled content, leading to a 2.5% increase in their use of virgin plastic compared to 2020, which is back to similar levels as 2018.”

The pandemic has played a big part in this troubling trend.

“Signatories that were most hit by the pandemic restrictions in 2020, such as some fashion brands and on-the-go restaurants, had significantly higher sales — and therefore increased use of plastic packaging — in 2021. This increase also contributed, to a small extent, to the lack of virgin plastic use reduction in 2021.”

Viral videos have circulated of turtles with plastic straws caught in their noses or birds caught in plastic soda casings. In Canada, about 29,000 tonnes of plastic end up in sensitive spaces such as the Great Lakes each year. Another 3.3 million tonnes is thrown out. Less than one tenth of the plastic discarded is actually recycled. According to the Rochester Institute of Technology, approximately 22 million pounds of plastic pollution end up in the Great Lakes every year. Surface water concentration of plastics in the Great Lakes, currently sitting at 1.2 million particles per kilometer, are some of the highest in the world, higher than the concentration in the North Pacific “garbage patch”, a notorious collection of plastic pollution floating in the world’s largest ocean.

“Carbon dioxide is listed as a toxic substance, obviously, because it's a greenhouse gas and lots of other chemicals,” Karen Wirsig, Plastics Program Manager at Environmental Defence, said. “And so the federal government did a science assessment and said, ‘Yes, plastic pollution is killing wildlife and harming habitats,’ and so it does rise to the level of assessment that needs to be listed as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.”

In 2018, it was decided that provincial governments should extend producer responsibility programs in order to deal with plastic waste since they are the level of government responsible for waste management. In the meantime, the federal government announced that it would follow other nations, including Kenya, Rwanda, several countries in Latin America and many countries across the European Union, in banning single use plastics.

The first part of Canada’s single use plastics ban will come into effect at the end of this year and will include the manufacture and import for sale in Canada of checkout bags, cutlery, foodservice ware, stir sticks and some types of straws. But, according to the prohibition timeline, it will take until December of 2025 for all bans to be in place.

New data from Statistics Canada show that some progress has been made prior to the implementation of the bans. The survey on households from 2019 to 2021, taken every two years, found the number of Canadians using plastic straws is decreasing and those using their own reusable grocery bags is increasing.

In 2019, 23 percent of Canadians reported using a plastic straw at least once a week. In 2021, that number decreased slightly to 20 percent. Three years ago 43 percent of Canadians said they always used their reusable grocery bags when shopping, a number that climbed to 51 percent last year.

But according to Wirsig, the incoming bans do not go far enough toward solving the plastic problem.

“You can't deal with plastic pollution just by addressing the waste problem, you actually have to confront the beginning of the lifecycle of plastic,” she said. “We have to have more reduction strategies. The bans are good to start for reduction, but we need more reduction of harmful plastics and we need a focus on reuse. This is really a place where all of Canada has fallen down on any requirements for reuse of packaging and products.”

Canada has declared the target of achieving zero plastic waste by 2030. Wirsig said this is not possible.

The impact of the bans put in place by the federal government will be relatively small. With all bans in place by 2025, Wirsig said this will only decrease plastic waste by about five percent. Environmental Defence estimates that if the only bans put in place are the ones that have already been announced, Canada will still have up to two million tonnes of plastic packaging waste alone in 2030.

In September, the organization published a scathing report, entitled Recycling Failure, along with a report card that shows the federal government cannot rely on provincial waste management policy to solve the plastic pollution problem. Only two provinces received a passing grade; British Columbia (C) and Prince Edward Island (D+). The remaining provinces and all the territories received failing grades.

The report card is based on six categories: residential waste, non-residential waste, beverage containers, residual product containers, farm and large film, and transparency and reliability. Ontario received an A for residual product containers. Its next highest grade was a C and it received two Fs, a D and a D+ for a total failing grade.

Related video: WION Climate Tracker | Global brands fail to tackle plastic waste? (WION)   Duration 3:22   View on Watch



Globally, about 17 billion pounds of plastic leaks into oceans, lakes and other bodies of water and systems each year from land-based sources, much of it from landfills. It’s the equivalent of about one garbage truck of plastic every minute.

In Ontario, the waste sector is currently responsible for six percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. It is forecasted that Ontario will need 16 new or expanded landfills by 2050 if no progress is made in resource recovery and waste reduction, further increasing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

But even if all provinces upgraded to the most ambitious waste management systems, Environmental Defence predicts Canada would still miss its overall target by about 1 million tonnes of plastic waste.

“The federal government can't leave it at the bans and a recycled content requirement and think it's done, this will not get us to zero plastic waste,” Wirsig said.

One of the major gaps highlighted by Environmental Defence is the lack of policy surrounding waste from businesses. Quebec is the only province that plans to put forward a mandate that requires businesses to recycle their waste by 2030. It is also the only jurisdiction that has proposed recycling targets.

“That’s a huge gap,” Wirsig said. “The waste generated at and by businesses directly is more than half of plastic waste in Canada.”

Another problem at the provincial level is the lack of reliable information and targets when it comes to plastic waste. British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario are the only provinces that have plans in place to measure their recycling systems and determine the amount that is collected, sorted and sent for recycling.

Wirsig said there is still much the federal government also needs to do.

“The first very concrete step is to create the fund that was promised in the [federal] election, a $100 million fund, and devote it to scaling up existing local reuse services and building new local reused services where they don't exist,” she said. “The low hanging fruit is obviously takeout containers. There, all kinds of interesting things are happening with refilling and pre-filling grocery containers, for example. So there's lots of room for the federal government to move on this.”

At the local level, Toronto has shown what other municipalities can do. Early in the year the municipality reported 85 million takeaway food containers and 39 million single-use cups are being used by households each year. A group of restaurant owners became part of a pilot program that uses the Inwit app, which allows customers to order food using reusable containers, including non-plastics that can be returned to the restaurant.

Inwit describes itself on its website: “Seven years ago, we were not aware of the adverse effects of our own choices. We became environmentalists by accident, and it was because of single-use plastics that we started to understand and take action. We know firsthand that people who are not taking climate action today are not evil or don’t care. They are just like us seven years ago; waiting for their moment of inspiration.

We believe that reusing in the takeout industry can become the gateway to inspire more people to embark on their own sustainability journey.”

The company calls on citizens, businesses and governments to take action.

“The Inwit community is on the front lines of tackling climate change, inspiring more people, more companies, and our government to put people and the planet first beyond profit and convenience — not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because the stakes are high, we want to leave the world [in which we] lived in better conditions to our kids, our nephews, nieces — and their kids’ kids.”

In other consumer areas, people can transition to goods made from other materials such as wood, silicone or metal, but the solution to plastic pollution is not the elimination of plastic entirely, experts acknowledge. Plastic will continue to play a crucial role in our society and will continue to drive technological advancements. For example, plastic is increasingly being used in cars and other vehicles as a lightweight alternative to metals, helping drive the production of lower emissions vehicles.

“I think what it really means is we use plastic where it is socially useful and necessary,” Wirsig said. “But so the question is, what happens to that plastic at the end of life? When you’re wanting to decommission the vehicle, what happens to the plastic?”

In recognition of this need for a shift in the way we think about plastic, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada (CIAC) launched the Save Plastic campaign.

“You may not realize just how important plastics are in our daily life, from life-saving medical materials, to the playgrounds that populate our parks. When produced and used responsibly, plastic becomes a fundamental resource in a modern and sustainable future,” reads the campaign website.

The CIAC represents plastic industry leaders and proposes an advancement to their circular economy targets set in 2018. By 2030, the industry is expected to recycle or recover 100 percent of plastic packaging. By 2040, 100 percent of plastic packaging is to be reused, recycled or recovered.

In order to help keep plastic waste out of the natural environment, the CIAC promotes a circular economic approach. A circular economy goes beyond recycling. The goal is not just to design for better end-of-life recovery, but to minimize the use of raw materials and energy through a restorative system.

All levels of government have a role to play in this type of economy. Wirsig alluded to municipalities in British Columbia that have taken a lead on best practices for common plastic items.

Most of the initiatives are focussed on the food industry. Vancouver has implemented a 25 cent fee on takeout cups and Edmonton has passed a bylaw that as of next year will require reusable cups for dine-in at all food establishments.

“I think that's going to spur those restaurants to consider how they can set up systems, because what we're seeing is you need these systems to be widely accessible, convenient and affordable,” Wirsig said.

In working toward a circular economy, the Region of Peel has set the target of a 75 percent waste divergence rate by 2034. This will see 75 percent of waste rerouted away from landfills and reused or recycled in any way possible. Currently the Region has a divergence rate of 50 percent, 14 percent of which is diverted by blue box recycling alone.

The Region is faring better than Ontario which had few policies put in place to meet its divergence goals. In 2004, the province set a goal of a 60 percent waste diversion rate by 2008. It fell far short; as of 2018 (most recent data available), the diversion rate of waste in Ontario was 29 percent, just shy of half of the goal, ten years after the target date.

Since the utter failure, the province has set three interim goals: a 30 percent diversion rate by 2020, 50 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.

The Region of Peel has its own ambitious plan.

Erwin Pascual, Manager of Waste Planning at the Region of Peel, said the Region supports the federal target of zero plastic waste by 2030. He emphasized the Region’s work in advocating for extended producer responsibility, support for single-use plastic bans and recycled content targets.

The Region has implemented several pilot programs to reduce waste of all kinds such as curbside and residential, building, clothing and textile collection services, a pick up service for household hazardous waste and electronics waste, as well as trials for various methods of enforcing proper participation in Peel’s blue bin recycling and green organics collection programs.

“A key focus of Peel Region’s promotion and education efforts is to create awareness and inform residents of all ages the benefits of practicing the 3Rs,” Pascual wrote in an email. “This includes reducing how much waste is generated in the first place (which often includes plastic), reusing and repurposing items, and recycling where and when we can.”

The responsibility to end the plastic problem is on all levels of government, business and industry… and, ultimately, all of us.

Email: rachel.morgan@thepointer.com
Twitter: @rachelnadia_
Rachel Morgan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

Humans became their prey: Disquieting new theory on Canada’s only fatal coyote attack

A team of biologists believe they have solved the enduring mystery as to why a pack of Cape Breton coyotes attacked and killed a Canadian singer-songwriter in 2009.


Taylor Mitchell of Toronto died after being attacked by a pack of coyotes in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in 2009

Story by Tristin Hopper •  National Post

After harsh conditions deprived the coyotes of their usual food sources of small mammals, the animals appear to have developed a taste for moose — which ultimately led them to begin seeing humans as food.

“They were actually killing moose when they could,” lead author Stan Gehrt, an ecologist at Ohio State University, said in a Monday statement . Once the Nova Scotia coyotes got confident that they could take down unconventional prey, it led “to conflicts with people that you wouldn’t normally see,” added Gehrt.

Taylor Mitchell, 19, was in the midst of a concert tour of the Atlantic Provinces when she was set upon by a group of coyotes during a solo hike through Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Although nearby hikers saw the unprovoked attack and were able to summon medical help, Mitchell died of blood loss 12 hours later. The Toronto singer remains the only documented adult North American fatality from a coyote attack.

Every year yields a reliable tally of North American bear attacks, and even wolves are known to kill a human roughly every five to 10 years .

But before Mitchells death, the only documented North American case of a coyote killing someone was when a three-year-old was attacked in California in 1981.

This is despite the fact that humans live in close proximity to coyotes all across the continent, and will semi-regularly be nipped by the animals.



A coyote travels through an industrial park in Edmonton in April 2021.© Provided by National Post

But even before the Oct. 2009 attack on Mitchell, coyotes in the Cape Breton Highlands had developed a reputation for being particularly aggressive.

The park has had 32 recent examples of “coyote-human incidents,” including seven where coyotes bit people.

In 2010, another teenager would be attacked just 30 kilometres from where Mitchell had been killed. A 16-year-old girl was sleeping outside when she was awoken in the early dawn hours by a coyote biting her twice on the top of her scalp.

At the time of Mitchell’s death, wildlife experts guessed that the coyotes had become emboldened by exposure to human food and had “lost their fear” of people.

That’s usually the explanation when humans are attacked by a bear or wolf.

Parks Canada, for instance, will routinely euthanize bears that display what they call “food conditioning.” The animals get accustomed to sourcing their meals from campsites and garbage cans, which leads to potentially deadly encounters with humans.

In 2016, grey wolves began stalking and attacking workers at Saskatchewan’s Cigar Lake uranium mine. In one case, a wolf managed to get its jaws around the neck of a 26-year-old before being scared off by security.

The diagnosis in that case was “habituation”; wolves had gotten used to scrounging for human food around the mine without incident, and had decided to take their predation to the next level. “If a person gets attacked, it is likely that it is being tested by the wolf, to see if it might serve as prey,” was how conservation biologist Dennis Murray explained the behaviour of the Cigar Lake wolves to the National Post at the time.

But in the case of the Cape Breton coyotes, the Ohio State paper found that very few of them had any history of scrounging for human garbage.

“We found little evidence that anthropogenic (human) foods were an important part of coyote diets in Cape Breton Highlands National Park,” reads the paper, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Rather, it appeared to be a case of wild animals choosing to eat humans even before they had gotten accustomed to eating human garbage. As the paper put it, the coyotes were able to “circumvent the habituation process altogether and view people as alternative prey.”

The paper — a joint effort by Ohio State, Parks Canada, the Nova Scotia government, and the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation — spent months between 2011 and 2013 diligently tracking the movements and diets of Cape Breton coyotes.

This included chemical analysis of fur from five coyotes believed to have been involved in Mitchell’s death, and which were euthanized shortly afterwards by park staff.

The typical diet of a Canadian coyote is a selection of small mammals, such as squirrels, mice, snowshoe hares or even juvenile deer. But these animals were in short supply within the “extreme environmental conditions and topography” of Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Meanwhile, those same harsh conditions were also yielding some particularly colossal snow drifts in the winter.

Moose that became trapped in these drifts likely became the first victims of the coyotes’ switch to taking down larger prey.

By the time of the Mitchell attack, Cape Breton coyotes were routinely taking down moose, which average 1,000 pounds apiece in that part of Nova Scotia. Analysis of two coyotes known to have attacked Mitchell (known as CBH-25 and CBH-26) found that they’d been mostly eating moose meat in the preceding months.

“We suggest that the unprovoked, severe attacks on people in Cape Breton Highlands National Park are at least partially the result of prey-switching by coyotes that had specialized on a very large prey species in the absence of alternative smaller prey,” the paper concluded.

Adding to the coyotes’ boldness was the fact that hunting or trapping is forbidden in the park. “Without these negative stimuli they may not view humans with the fear that typifies the coyote–human relationship elsewhere,” wrote researchers.

The research points towards the Cape Breton coyotes being members of a vanishingly small cohort of wild animals that have actively decided to treat modern humans as just another large prey animal.

When researchers tried to think of a similar example, the closest analogue they could think of was the infamous Man-Eaters of Tsavo, a pair of Kenyan lions that in 1898 hunted and killed more than 100 railway workers.

Oregon governor calls death penalty 'immoral,' commutes sentences for all 17 inmates on death row

Story by Paradise Afshar • Yesterday 

Outgoing Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is commuting the sentences of all 17 people on death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, according to a news release Tuesday from her office.

“Since taking office in 2015, I have continued Oregon’s moratorium on executions because the death penalty is both dysfunctional and immoral. Today I am commuting Oregon’s death row so that we will no longer have anyone serving a sentence of death and facing execution in this state,” Brown, a Democrat, said.

Brown also talked about the long wait for victims and their families.

“I also recognize the pain and uncertainty victims experience as they wait for decades while individuals sit on death row – especially in states with moratoriums on executions – without resolution,” she said. “My hope is that this commutation will bring us a significant step closer to finality in these cases.”

The governor will use executive clemency powers to commute the sentences, and the order is set to take effect Wednesday.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Oregon has executed two people since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 and the state reinstated the penalty in 1984. The most recent was in May 1997 when double murderer Harry Moore was put to death by lethal injection.

Brown succeeded Gov. John Kitzhaber, who in November 2011 granted a reprieve to a death row inmate and said no more executions would take place in Oregon. Kitzhaber resigned in February 2015. Brown, who was term-limited, will be replaced by Tina Kotek, a Democrat.

Young gypsy shot by Greek police dies after a week in hospital

The 16-year-old Greek teenager from the Roma community who had been shot by a policeman during a chase for robbing a gas station died Tuesday in a hospital in the Greek city of Thessaloniki.

Clashes between police and protesters in Athens, Greece - 

NIKOLAS GEORGIOU / ZUMA PRESS / CONTACTOPHOTO

 News 360

The victim was seriously wounded in the early morning of December 5 by a police officer on a motorcycle who was chasing him as he fled after allegedly leaving a gas station without paying the bill for 20 euros, according to the Greek newspaper 'Kathimeriní'.

Greek authorities claim that the young man tried to ram the motorcycle-riding officers during the chase. In turn, last week the accused policeman stated during an initial court appearance that he shot the young man because there was a real risk to him and his companions.

The 34-year-old officer has been suspended and has been under house arrest since last Friday on charges of intentional homicide.

Since the day of the shooting, numerous riots against police violence have taken place in the cities of Thessaloniki, Athens and other parts of Greece. These gatherings have often been violent, with members of the Roma community accused of throwing stones, setting fire to garbage cans and opening fire on authorities in a suburb of the Greek capital.

The demonstrations have taken place on the 14th anniversary of the fatal shooting that ended the life of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos during a police operation in 2008. The officer involved was convicted of murder and, since then, annual altercations on that date are usual in the Greek streets against police abuses.

UK
Royal Mail strikes: Workers to stage fresh 48-hour strike with final dates for Christmas brought forward

Story by Hannah Cottrell • Yesterday

Royal Mail workers are set to stage a fresh 48-hour strike on Wednesday, December 14, bringing postal services to a halt in the run-up to Christmas. Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are set to walk out in an increasingly bitter dispute over pay, jobs and conditions, with picket lines mounted outside sorting and delivery offices.

Workers are set to strike on December 14 and 15 and on the few days before Christmas on December 23 and 24. A Royal Mail spokesperson said the CWU striking at the busiest time of year is 'deliberately holding Christmas to ransom for customers, businesses and families'.

Meanwhile, the CWU general secretary accused Royal Mail bosses of 'risking a Christmas meltdown because of their stubborn refusal to treat their employees with respect'. The two sides have held talks in recent weeks but the row remains deadlocked. As a result, Royal Mail has brought forward the final posting dates for Christmas cards due to the industrial action.

READ MORE: Police asked to drive ambulances as paramedics walkout in strike action


CWU general secretary Dave Ward during a protest in Central London© PA

The Royal Mail spokesperson continued, saying: "We are doing everything we can to deliver Christmas for our customers, and would like to thank the increasing number of posties returning to work each strike day, temporary workers and managers from across the business who are helping to keep the mail moving.

"However, this task becomes more challenging as Christmas nears", they said. "Three weeks ago, we made a best and final pay offer worth up to 9 per cent over 18 months. Instead of working with us to agree on changes required to fund that offer and get pay into our posties’ pockets, the CWU has announced plans to ballot in the New Year for further strike action.

"Their misguided belief that further industrial action, in a business already losing more than £1 million a day, will result in an improved pay offer is misleading its members and risking their long-term job security."

Related video: Rail strikes to continue over Christmas after pay offer is rejected (PA Media)
Duration 1:22
View on Watch



Meanwhile, the CWU said it had offered 'simple solutions' to end the dispute, including a back-dated pay deal of 9 per cent over 18 months, a long-term job security commitment from Royal Mail’s chief executive and a period of calm for negotiations on the future direction of the company.

The union said Royal Mail did not offer to meet with the CWU, adding that planned strikes on Wednesday December 14, Thursday December 15, Friday December 23 and Saturday December 24 are set to go ahead.



Members of the CWU carried a coffin reading 'Royal Fail' during their latest protest in a procession from Parliament Square to Buckingham Palace on December 9© PA

CWU general secretary Dave Ward said: "Royal Mail bosses are risking a Christmas meltdown because of their stubborn refusal to treat their employees with respect. Postal workers want to get on with serving the communities they belong to, delivering Christmas gifts and tackling the backlog from recent weeks.

"But they know their value, and they will not meekly accept the casualisation of their jobs, the destruction of their conditions and the impoverishment of their families. This can be resolved if Royal Mail begin treating their workers with respect, and meet with the union to resolve this dispute."

As the last posting dates for arrival for Christmas are brought forward, Post Office branches across the country are set for a busy few days ahead as customers race to ensure cards and gifts arrive on time, with some branches opening for longer hours.

Laura Joseph, Post Office customer experience director said: "As soon as you’ve got your parcels ready to go get them in the post – many Post Office branches are open long hours, and some are open seven days a week so pop into your local branch and get your gifts sent in time for Christmas."The last posting dates for arrival for Christmas Day:

– 1st Class, 1st Class Signed For – December 16

– Special Delivery Guaranteed – December 21

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Musk's Twitter disbands its Trust and Safety advisory group

Yesterday 



Elon Musk's Twitter has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the advisory group of around 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform.

The council had been scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives Monday night. But Twitter informed the group via email that it was disbanding it shortly before the meeting was to take place, according to multiple members.

The council members, who provided images of the email from Twitter to The Associated Press, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation. The email said Twitter was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights” and the council is “not the best structure to do this.”

“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” said the email, which was signed “Twitter.”

The volunteer group provided expertise and guidance on how Twitter could better combat hate, harassment and other harms but didn’t have any decision-making authority and didn’t review specific content disputes. Shortly after buying Twitter for $44 billion in late October, Musk said he would form a new “content moderation council” to help make major decisions but later changed his mind.

“Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council was a group of volunteers who over many years gave up their time when consulted by Twitter staff to offer advice on a wide range of online harms and safety issues," tweeted council member Alex Holmes. “At no point was it a governing body or decision making.”

Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, had confirmed the meeting with the council Thursday in an email in which it promised an “open conversation and Q&A” with Twitter staff, including the new head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin.

Related video: Musk to Ban Bot Accounts on Twitter (Cheddar News)
Duration 0:25   View on Watch

That came on the same day that three council members announced they were resigning in a public statement posted on Twitter that said that “contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”

Those former council members soon became the target of online attacks after Musk amplified criticism of them and Twitter’s past leadership for allegedly not doing enough to stop child sexual exploitation on the platform.

“It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” Musk tweeted.

A growing number of attacks on the council led to concerns from some remaining members who sent an email to Twitter earlier on Monday demanding the company stop misrepresenting the council's role.

Those false accusations by Twitter leaders were “endangering current and former Council members,” the email said.

The Trust and Safety Council, in fact, had as one of its advisory groups one that focused on child exploitation. This included the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Rati Foundation and YAKIN, or Youth Adult Survivors & Kin in Need.

Former Twitter employee Patricia Cartes, whose job it was to form the council in 2016, said Monday its dissolution “means there’s no more checks and balances." Cartes said the company sought to bring a global outlook to the council, with experts from around the world who could relay concerns about how new Twitter policies or products might affect their communities.

She contrasted that with Musk’s current practice of surveying his Twitter followers before making a policy change affecting how content gets moderated.

“He doesn’t really care as much about what experts think,” she said.

Matt O'brien And Barbara Ortutay, The Associated Press

Andrea Mitchell Asks Fauci If He Ever Found Out Why Trump Pushed False Covid-19 Cure: ‘Was There A Financial Interest In It?’

Story by Tommy Christopher • Yesterday 

MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell asked retiring infectious disease honcho Dr. Anthony Fauci if he ever found out why then-President Donald Trump pushed false Covid-19 “cure” hydroxychloroquine, asking “was there a financial interest?”

ABOUT HIS LONG CAREER. THE TRIUMPHS AND THE CHALLENGES.
Dr. Fauci: Twitter has become ‘almost a cesspool of misinformation’
View on Watch    Duration 7:52

Fauci has been on something of a weird bookless-book-tour lately, hitting all sorts of media outlets to reminisce about his decades of public service, his years as a reluctant member of the Trump Covid Improv Troupe, his current effort to ignore Elon Musk, and his future getting yelled at by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his friends.

On Tuesday’s edition of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, the veteran NBC News journalist found some different ground to go over, asking Fauci if he thought Trump pimped a fake cure because of a financial stake, and if misinformation cost lives:

ANDREA MITCHELL: So when you hear the president of the United States promoting hydroxychloroquine for COVID.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Right.

ANDREA MITCHELL: And listening to advisors like a doctor from California and his trade advisor, and the government, the federal government spending, according to some reports, $20 million to buy that, stockpile other for COVID. What– what can you do in your role?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Speak up like I did. And it didn’t help much, because he just kept on doing what he wanted to do. But it had the result of creating a phenomenal amount of hostility against me among the people around him, which has spilled over into the people who are very much listening to everything that he has said. And that has made it very uncomfortable, the reason why I’m getting so many threats against me.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Did you ever figure out why they were pushing that hydroxychloroquine?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: You know–

ANDREA MITCHELL: Was there a financial interest in it?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: No. I don’t think it had anything to do with financial, it had to do with just listening to some friend of yours that tells you something, which is completely out of the line of the normal scientific process. The normal scientific process, you look at the data and the data will tell you that either something works or it doesn’t work. And because somebody whispers in your ear– “You know, I gave it to somebody and they did well.” You know, N equals one. It doesn’t– that’s not a scientific study.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Do you think that lives were lost because of the way all of this became so polarized?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, if– you know, I– when I say things like that, it gets thrown out of proportion in sound bites. The but fact is vaccines save lives. If you say something or do something to dissuade people from getting vaccinated, then lives will unnecessarily be lost. That’s just a fact.

ANDREA MITCHELL: And masks.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Same thing. You know, masks, physical distancing, all the things that are good public health principles.

Watch above via MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports.The post Andrea Mitchell Asks Fauci If He Ever Found Out Why Trump Pushed False Covid-19 Cure: ‘Was There A Financial Interest In It?’ first appeared on Mediaite.