Drag queens are out, proud and loud in a string of coal towns, from a bingo hall to blue-collar bars

The Canadian Press
Mon, July 3, 2023 


SHAMOKIN, Pa. (AP) — Deep in Pennsylvania coal country, the Daniels drag family is up to some sort of exuberance almost every weekend.

They're hosting sold-out bingo fundraisers at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Co.'s social hall, packed with people of all ages howling with laughter and singing along. Or they're lighting up local blue-collar bars and restaurants with Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunches for bridal parties, members of the military, families and friends.

Or they're reading in gardens to children dressed in their Sunday best — Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” is a favorite book for performers and kids alike.

In a string of towns running along a coal seam, the sparkle of small-town drag queens and kings colors a way of life rooted in soot, family and a conservative understanding of the world.

Here two very old traditions mingle — and mostly happily, it seems, in contrast to the fierce political winds ripping at drag performances and the broader rights of LGBTQ+ people in red states from Utah and Texas to Tennessee and Florida.

One tradition is the view of family as mom, dad and kids, plain and simple.

The other, back to before Shakespearian times, is drag, a loud, proud and seismically flamboyant artistic expression of gender fluidity. Not plain, not simple, but also bedrock, rising above ground only in culturally adventurous cities.

Yet the Daniels drag family is firmly woven in the fabric of the larger community in this area, where voters went solidly for Donald Trump, a Republican, in the last election. Their trouble is more apt to come from politicians who are increasingly passing laws restricting what they can do.

Alexus Daniels, the matriarch, was the child of a coal miner and a textile worker who was “born with a female spirit." She works at the local hospital as an MRI aide tech.

Jacob Kelley, who performs as drag queen Trixy Valentine, is an LGBTQ+ activist and educator with a master's in human sexuality.

Harpy Daniels, Trixy's twin, is a U.S. Navy sailor who’s had three deployments on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. Soon that seaman, Petty Officer 1st Class Joshua Kelley, who just reenlisted, moves from a base in Norfolk, Virginia, to one in Spain, with plans to pack a wig “and maybe one or two cute outfits but nothing over the top” for Harpy-style shore leave.

Apart from the twins, the drag performers in this circle are family by choice, not genes. Theirs is an oasis of belonging.

“I never had a person like me growing up,” Trixy said, “and now I get to be that for everyone else.

“There was a curse being a queer person in a rural town — the curse is that we’ll move ... because there’s no one like us here, there’s no one that can understand us.

“And drag now can be a place or a thing to show people like you that you don’t have to go to the cities. It’s here in your backyard.”

The Associated Press followed the Daniels family for more than a year. Among them:

Alexus Daniels, drag queen

Daniels’ first memory is of her great-grandmother’s jewelry box. With Cyndi Lauper and the Pointer Sisters blasting, she would wrap herself in knitted blankets to lip-sync and dance for her family. “I had no idea that it was drag or gay,” she says. “I was just having a day!”

Alexus hit high school and upped her Halloween game. She soon entered her first drag performance in the small Pennsylvania coal town of Weishample.

“I still was not out at this point,” Alexus says. “I wasn’t even sure if I was gay. I knew I was attracted to boys and loved all things feminine! I kept this side of me to myself and my best friends growing up, who really didn’t see anything strange about it.”

Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley

In their teens, Joshua was the first to turn to drag. Jacob started about six months later, in a white Marilyn Monroe dress at an amateur pageant in 2014.

Trixy’s drag style is eclectic, but whether silly or fierce, there’s glitter: “I just want to shine when the light hits me."

“I came out as non-binary a few years ago because I started learning, like, what do I love so much about drag?" Kelley says. "It’s that femininity, that so-simple touch.”

“I’m not a man,” Kelley says. “I never will see myself as a man. And I don’t see myself as a woman, either. But I see myself as beyond that.”

In March, the Daniels drag family hosted bingo at the Nescopeck fire hall, packed with more than 300 people in a fund-raiser for a nearby theater.

A small group of protesters could be watched on social media from the bingo hall, holding signs and praying the rosary across from the theater. Trixy addressed the bingo crowd.

“There’s hundreds of us in this room and only nine of them on that street," Trixy said. “So all I have to say is I don’t care what you believe in. But do not force it down my throat and tell me I shouldn’t be here because you think I’m wrong.

“The Lord gave birth to me, too."

Trixy was in a long blue wig and Morgan Wells catsuit with an overskirt, a raised fist in the colors of the Pride flag on the chest.

“Alright, let’s call some numbers!” Trixy said. “Let’s play some bingo!” The crowd cheered.

Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, U.S. Navy petty officer first class, drag queen

Until 2011, the armed forces applied the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which accepted LGBTQ+ people only if they stayed mum about their sexual orientation.

But after Kelley enlisted in 2016, he encountered the opposite — call it “ask and tell.” A commander asked what pronoun they prefer. Joshua, relieved by the acceptance implied by the question, told him any pronoun will do.

Now, the sailor is a social media sensation who was named a “digital ambassador” by the Navy, doing outreach to the LGBTQ+ community and others who have been marginalized: “I’m very proud to wear this uniform.”

Kitty DeVil, aka Emily Poliniak, drag queen

Kitty, a trans woman, describes her drag style as “punk and a lot of storytelling.” Her inspiration: Adore Delano, a 2014 finalist on “RuPaul’s Drag Race."

“She was what I wanted to be — this badass punker chick looking gorgeous without sacrificing her style,” Kitty says.

Kitty says her performances are high-energy fun but also “a lighthouse."

“Because even in our LGBTQ community, there are outcasts and people who don’t feel like they’re like anybody else," Kitty says. "So I wanted to make a beacon for all those people who feel weird and feel different and can’t really find their place in society.”

Xander Valentine, aka Gwen Bobbie, drag king

More than a decade after she was transfixed by seeing her first drag show, Xander was invited by Trixy to join the drag family.

Xander has an energetic, family-friendly side as well as a sexy, sultry side. Confusing people about gender is intentional, a barrier-breaker.

“I try to create a consistent theme of masculinity in my performances," Xander says. "Although I paint my face, wear wigs and adorn myself with rhinestones, I usually perform to songs sung by men and tailor my costumes more toward suits and ties.

“My personal goal as a king is to have the audience question my off-stage gender identity."

Why? It's to convey the message, Xander says, that "it's OK to not immediately know how a person identifies or who they are attracted to, and still be kind to them.

"It’s OK to accept someone as different, even if you don’t fully understand it.”

___

Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Lynn Berry contributed to this report from Washington.

Carolyn Kaster And Calvin Woodward, The Associated Press

RACIST MEDICINE U$A

Maternal deaths in the US more than doubled over two decades. Black mothers died at the highest rate

The Canadian Press
Mon, July 3, 2023 



Maternal deaths across the U.S. more than doubled over the course of two decades, and the tragedy unfolded unequally.

Black mothers died at the nation’s highest rates, while the largest increases in deaths were found in American Indian and Native Alaskan mothers. And some states — and racial or ethnic groups within them – fared worse than others.

The findings were laid out in a new study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers looked at maternal deaths between 1999 and 2019 — but not the pandemic spike — for every state and five racial and ethnic groups.

“It’s a call to action to all of us to understand the root causes — to understand that some of it is about health care and access to health care, but a lot of it is about structural racism and the policies and procedures and things that we have in place that may keep people from being healthy,” said Dr. Allison Bryant, one of the study's authors and a senior medical director for health equity at Mass General Brigham.

Among wealthy nations, the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality, which is defined as a death during pregnancy or up to a year afterward. Common causes include excessive bleeding, infection, heart disease, suicide and drug overdose.

Bryant and her colleagues at Mass General Brigham and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington started with national vital statistics data on deaths and live births. They then used a modeling process to estimate maternal mortality out of every 100,000 live births.

Overall, they found rampant, widening disparities. The study showed high rates of maternal mortality aren't confined to the South but also extend to regions like the Midwest and states such as Wyoming and Montana, which had high rates for multiple racial and ethnic groups in 2019.

Researchers also found dramatic jumps when they compared maternal mortality in the first decade of the study to the second, and identified the five states with the largest increases between those decades. Those increases exceeded:

— 162% for American Indian and Alaska Native mothers in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Rhode Island and Wisconsin;

— 135% for white mothers in Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri and Tennessee;

— 105% for Hispanic mothers in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Tennessee;

— 93% for Black mothers in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and Texas;

— 83% for Asian and Pacific Islander mothers in Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan and Missouri.

“I hate to say it, but I was not surprised by the findings. We’ve certainly seen enough anecdotal evidence in a single state or a group of states to suggest that maternal mortality is rising,” said Dr. Karen Joynt Maddox, a health services and policy researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who wasn’t involved in the study. “It’s certainly alarming, and just more evidence we have got to figure out what’s going on and try to find ways to do something about this.”

Maddox pointed to how, compared with other wealthy nations, the U.S. underinvests in things like social services, primary care and mental health. She also said Missouri hasn't funded public health adequately and, during the years of the study, hadn't expanded Medicaid. They've since expanded Medicaid — and lawmakers passed a bill giving new mothers a full year of Medicaid health coverage. Last week, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed budget bills that included $4.4 million for a maternal mortality prevention plan.

In neighboring Arkansas, Black women are twice as likely to have pregnancy-associated deaths as white women, according to a 2021 state report.

Dr. William Greenfield, the medical director for family health at the Arkansas Department of Health, said the disparity is significant and has “persisted over time,” and that it's hard to pinpoint exactly why there was an increase in the state's maternal mortality rate for Black mothers.

Rates among Black women have long been the worst in the nation, and the problem affects people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. For example, U.S. Olympic champion sprinter Tori Bowie, 32, died from complications of childbirth in May.

The pandemic likely exacerbated all of the demographic and geographic trends, Bryant said, and “that’s absolutely an area for future study.” According to preliminary federal data, maternal mortality fell in 2022 after rising to a six-decade high in 2021 — a spike experts attributed mainly to COVID-19. Officials said the final 2022 rate is on track to get close to the pre-pandemic level, which was still the highest in decades.

Bryant said it’s crucial to understand more about these disparities to help focus on community-based solutions and understand what resources are needed to tackle the problem.

Arkansas already is using telemedicine and is working on several other ways to increase access to care, said Greenfield, who is also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Arkansas Medical Center in Little Rock and was not involved in the study.

The state also has a “perinatal quality collaborative,” a network to help health care providers understand best practices for things like reducing cesarean sections, managing complications with hypertensive disorders and curbing injuries or severe complications related to childbirth.

“Most of the deaths we reviewed and other places have reviewed … were preventable,” Greenfield said.

___

AP Public Health Collaborations Editor Erica Hunzinger contributed to this report

——

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Laura Ungar, The Associated Press

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/07/us-infant-mortality-declined-but-low.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/07/ua-black-and-native-women-had-highest.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/07/us-maternal-deaths-doubled-in-last-20.html

CANADA
Study authorization extended for work permit holders


Local Journalism Initiative
Sun, July 2, 2023 

The Canadian government recognizes the significant contributions of temporary foreign workers to the country's economy. It acknowledges the barriers they sometimes face in pursuing their educational aspirations. To address these challenges and unlock new opportunities, the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, has unveiled a groundbreaking temporary measure.

Effective immediately, the new measure eliminates the time limit on study programs that temporary foreign workers can undertake without requiring a study permit. This progressive step empowers foreign workers to pursue additional training and education that aligns with their career goals. By removing this restriction, the measure aims to enhance job prospects for foreign workers and expand their potential pathways to permanent residency.

Previously, foreign workers were permitted to study only in programs lasting six months or less. They were obligated to apply for a separate study permit for more extended programs, presenting a significant barrier for those seeking to advance their education, acquire additional skills, or validate their foreign credentials.

Under the newly implemented three-year temporary measure, foreign workers can now engage in full-time or part-time studies throughout the validity of their work permits or until the policy's expiration, with no limitations on the duration of the program.

This temporary measure specifically applies to individuals holding valid work permits or those who have submitted work permit renewal applications on or before June 7, 2023, and have received authorization to work. However, it is essential to note that if foreign workers intend to pursue a study program longer than their work permit, they will still need to apply for a separate study permit.

By enabling temporary foreign workers to access educational opportunities without the burden of time restrictions, the Canadian government aims to support their personal growth, professional development, and successful integration into the country's workforce. This forward-thinking measure demonstrates Canada's commitment to nurturing talent, fostering inclusivity, and harnessing the diverse skills of its temporary foreign worker community.

Concerning the temporary policy, Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, said, "Temporary foreign workers are incredibly important for the Canadian economy, and many have aspirations that go far beyond the work that initially brings them to Canada."

"With this policy in place, we hope to empower foreign nationals to improve their skills in order to meet their career goals and achieve their dreams, while providing a future potential source of talent for our labour market. We also provide a path for construction labourers to become tradespersons, and strengthen our communities and build new homes. This immigration measure helps employers, workers, and our economy by addressing critical labour shortages," the Minister added.

Saeed Akhtar, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Milton Reporter, Milton Reporter

"A preoccupation with failure." Why the Titan submersible was doomed from the start

The Canadian Press
Mon, July 3, 2023



HALIFAX — The company behind the submersible that imploded during a recent dive to the Titanic ignored key principles that guide organizations working in high-risk environments, experts in emergency management say.

Jack Rozdilsky, a professor at York University in Toronto, says OceanGate's business — ferrying paying passengers to the floor of the North Atlantic — could be compared to the immensely risky work of companies that launch space flights, drill for offshore oil, fight wildfires or operate nuclear power plants.

"These are high-reliability organizations (HROs) that operate in complex, high-hazard domains for extended periods of time without serious accidents or catastrophic failures," Rozdilsky, a professor of disaster and emergency management, said in a recent interview. "OceanGate does not appear to have functioned as a high-reliability organization."

The professor cited three key attributes shared by HROs:

-- They are reluctant to simplify. They accept that tasks they are involved in are complex and have the potential to fail in unexpected ways.

-- They are preoccupied with failure. They do not view near-misses as proof of success.

-- They practise resilience. They provide backups for backups, or as Rozdilsky put it: "Suspenders for the suspenders."

There is evidence to suggest OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — one of five people killed June 18 when the submersible Titan ruptured near the ocean floor — emphasized simplicity over complexity when it came to Titan's engineering. During an interview last year with CBS News, Rush showed off Titan's basic interior, which included one power button, two video screens and a gaming controller for steering the 6.7-metre vessel.

"This is to other submersibles what the iPhone was to the Blackberry," Rush said at the time, suggesting the simplicity of the vessel was a strength. "There's a lot of rules out there that didn't make engineering sense."

Rozdilsky questioned Rush's decision to simplify an otherwise complex deep-sea craft.

"It's not something we can make like an elevator," he said. "A high-reliability organization refuses to simplify to that extent. They welcome the complexity and realize that by attempting to interact with that complexity, it gives them routes to safety."

On another front, Rozdilsky said lessons learned from the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 — a mid-air explosion that killed all seven astronauts aboard — remind us that organizations operating in high-risk environments can fall prey to risk-management errors and erosion of safety protocols.

In the case of Challenger, a presidential commission determined that NASA officials had responded to early warnings about design flaws by increasing levels of acceptable damage during flights. The commission concluded NASA justified the changes by saying, "We got away with it the last time."

Similarly, there have been multiple reports of problems and near-misses with Titan.

"One way to view those mishaps is proof of success," Rozdilsky said. "But successful, high-risk organizations look at that from a different perspective: they ... see these near misses as opportunities to improve .... There's a preoccupation with failure, not a preoccupation with success."

As for OceanGate, it has become clear in recent weeks that Titan experienced many problems before and during its 3,800-metre dives to the Titanic wreck site over the past three years.

Last month, German adventurer Arthur Loibl told The Canadian Press that his 2021 voyage to the doomed ocean liner was beset by snafus. The 60-year-old retired businessman said the submersible had problems with its battery and balancing weights, which led to a 90-minute repair job. But the trip went ahead anyway.

YouTube celebrity Jake Koehler also released a video describing how his trip aboard Titan was scrubbed earlier this year because of persistent computer problems. In the video released last month, Rush can be heard saying the computer's role was "up there with life support," but it was "not consistently communicating."

"Long story short: every day they did have some problems," Koehler added.

Even as Titan was being built in Everett, Wash., red flags were being raised. In January 2018, then-director of marine operations David Lochridge filed a report identifying serious safety concerns including improper testing of its carbon-fibre hull, according to court documents filed in Washington state.

Lochridge told Rush the vessel should be certified by a classification agency, such as the American Bureau of Shipping, but that never happened, the documents say. Instead, Lochridge was fired.

Meanwhile, a search and rescue expert says it appears Rush's company was not prepared to deal with emergencies.

Merv Wiseman, a retired search-and-rescue co-ordinator, said it remains unclear whether OceanGate filed a preparedness plan with the Marine Rescue Sub-Centre in St. John's, which is where Wiseman worked for 35 years.

"This is the highest of the high-risk areas we can think of," he said in an interview, adding that offshore operations like drilling platforms are required to submit detailed preparedness manuals to the Canadian Coast Guard. "If something were to happen at the Hibernia (offshore oil platform), I would go to their manual. They have a volume with alerting matrixes and all the technical items."

Wiseman said Transport Canada should have had jurisdiction over the OceanGate operation. The federal department said last week it would respond to a request for comment, but did not.

"I think this may have slipped through the cracks," Wiseman said.

Meanwhile, deep-diving experts have been issuing warnings about Titan's shoddy construction an lack of certification for years. And in 2018, a group of engineers wrote a letter warning that the company's "experimental" approach could have catastrophic consequences.

There were also warnings about Titan's lack of backup systems — another worrisome trait that stands in sharp contrast to the practices of high-reliability organizations.

"If you put one vehicle (into the deep ocean), you have a backup vehicle down there to help rescue the first vehicle in case it fails," Rozdilsky said.

That's what happened in 1991 when two Russian submersibles, known as Mir I and Mir II, were used to bring a camera crew to film Titanic. At one point, one of the vessels was snared on wires on Titanic's deck. But the pilot managed to free the craft once he received guidance from the pilot on the other submersible.

Wiseman said Titan should not have dived on its own.

"It is reasonable to expect that if this kind of voyage is going to be undertaken, with people's lives at stake, that there be a duplicate (submersible) available," Wiseman said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2023.

Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press

AOC proposes subpoenas and impeachment to limit SCOTUS justices’ power following landmark decisions


Dem Squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed the U.S. Supreme Court and its "abuse of power" Sunday.


Haley Chi-Sing

FOX
Sun, July 2, 2023

Democratic "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., slammed the U.S. Supreme Court for what she called an "abuse of power" Sunday, following landmark decisions this past week rejecting affirmative action and Biden's student loan debt plan. She proposed impeachment and subpoenas be put into play in order to limit the justices' power.

"The Supreme Court is far overreaching their authority," Ocasio-Cortez said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"And I believe, frankly, that we really need to be having conversations about judicial review as a check on the courts as well," she added.

The Supreme Court issued the last decisions of its term this past week, among them rejecting the use of race as a factor in admissions, ruling in favor of a Christian web designer who refuses to make a same-sex wedding websites, and striking down President Biden’s student loan debt cancellation plan. Democrats have considered the rulings to be attacks on the left, denouncing the court as "illegitimate."

"These are the types of rulings that signal a dangerous creep toward authoritarianism and centralization of power in the courts," Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday. "In fact, we have members of the court themselves with Justice Elena Kagan saying that the court is beginning to assume the power of a legislature."

Ocasio-Cortez has been a vocal proponent for court-packing and limiting the court's power, going as far as to tell CNN's Dana Bash that subpoenas and impeachment should be placed on the table for consideration.

"And so I believe that if Chief Justice Roberts will not come before Congress for an investigation voluntarily, I believe that we should be considering subpoenas," the Democrat representative said. "We should be considering investigations. We must pass much more binding and stringent ethics guidelines where we see members of the Supreme Court potentially breaking the law, as we saw in the refusal with Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases implicating his wife in Jan. 6."

"There also must be impeachment on the table. We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach and abuse of power, and the Supreme Court has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy," she continued. "And in the process, they themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy."

President Biden recently clarified his position against expanding the Supreme Court during an interview on MSNBC on Thursday.

Unlike Ocasio-Cortez, the president recently clarified his position against expanding the court during an interview on MSNBC on Thursday. Biden said progressive efforts to expand the Supreme Court would "politicize it maybe forever in a way that is not healthy."

"And I think, look, I think maybe it's just the optimist in me. I think that some of the court are beginning to realize their legitimacy is being questioned in ways that had not been questioned in the past," he continued.

AOC did, however, make headlines shortly after the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling, after she suggested the high court isn't serious about its "ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims" or else it would have "abolished" legacy admissions.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the Supreme Court isn't serious about its "ludicrous ‘colorblindness’ claims."

Ocasio-Cortez shared her thoughts on the ruling on Twitter, noting that "70% of Harvard’s legacy applicants are white" and that the Supreme Court "didn’t touch that – which would have impacted them and their patrons."

Many social media users were quick to call the congresswoman out, saying that the issue of legacy admissions – the practice of giving preference to children of alumni. - was not before the court.

Fox News' Brianna Herlihy and Kyle Morris contributed to this report.

China is lining up a Harvard-trained economist as its next central bank chief



Laura He
Mon, July 3, 2023

China has named an economist who studied at Cambridge University and Harvard University to a key political post at its central bank that could position him to eventually replace governor Yi Gang.

Pan Gongsheng was appointed Saturday as the new Communist Party chief at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), in a surprise move as Beijing bolsters its drive to arrest the country’s economic slowdown and stem a slide in its currency.

The announcement came just days before US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to visit Beijing, and follows a series of downbeat economic data that has sent the yuan tumbling towards levels last seen 15 years ago.

Pan, who will turn 60 this week, is likely to be named governor of the PBOC following his promotion to the top party post at the bank, state-owned Securities Times reported, citing anonymous analysts.

If that happens, he will replace Yi, 65, who has been serving as the central bank’s governor for five years and is still in post.

CNN has reached out to the PBOC for comment, but didn’t immediately receive a response.

Pan currently serves as the deputy governor of the PBOC. He also holds a concurrent post as head of China’s foreign exchange regulator, managing the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves worth $3.18 trillion.

Pan speaks during an event in Shanghai in December 2017. - Imaginechina/AP

He replaced Guo Shuqing, who had been been the party boss at the central bank since 2018 and oversaw a regulatory crackdown on fintech conglomerates like Ant Group.

Neil Thomas, a fellow of Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, described Pan’s elevation as a “shock,” as he wasn’t appointed to the Communist Party’s Central Committee, its top decision-making body, at the last congress in October.

In China’s political system, the Communist Party boss is usually the top official in the relevant organization, be it a level of government or a public institution. That person usually holds the ultimate decision making power on any major issue.

“My initial reaction is this suggests Xi [Jinping] is more concerned about China’s economy than before the 20th Party Congress,” Thomas said.

During the party congress last year, Xi secured a historic third term in power and stacked his top team with loyalists in a clean sweep not seen since the Mao Zedong era decades before.

A seasoned technocrat

Pan is a financial technocrat, not a Xi loyalist, Thomas said, which contributed to the surprise surrounding his promotion.

Following the party congress, China’s top leader strengthened the party’s control over the country’s economic institutions. Several of his loyalists had been tipped to take key positions running the economy, even though they are perceived to have little experience dealing with international financial organizations.

But as the country’s economic recovery began to lose steam in recent months, calls for more stimulus measures have intensified.

Top leaders eventually chose to promote Pan for his international background and expectations that he would have an easier time working with other central bank governors, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.

Yellen will travel to Beijing later this week as part of ongoing efforts by the Biden administration to deepen communication between the United States and China, the Treasury Department announced Sunday evening.

A seasoned financial regulator with some training in the West, Pan received his doctorate in economics from the Renmin University of China in 1993. Since then, he has spent nearly two decades working at large state-owned banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC).

Pan was known in China’s financial world as the key person behind the stock market listings of ICBC and ABC in 2006 and 2010, which separately set records as the world’s largest IPOs at the time.

From 1997 to 1998, he was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University. In the first half of 2011, he studied at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

After returning to China, he was promoted to deputy governor at the PBOC in 2012. Three years later, he added the role of party head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Pan was well regarded for voicing prescient concerns about China’s real estate bubble years before the sector took a dive in 2021.

“If citizens store their wealth by buying houses, it may cause the real estate bubble to burst or even [cause] an economic crisis,” he told an economic forum in June 2014.

He also repeatedly pledged to maintain the stability of the Chinese yuan, warning speculators against shorting the currency.

If Pan is also named PBOC governor, he would have the tough job of boosting the economy amid an uncertain global outlook, managing financial risks derived from a persistently weak housing market and preventing the yuan from sliding further.
Economic slowdown

China’s economy has taken a deep hit from three years of draconian Covid restrictions, which hammered consumer spending and disrupted factory production.

After Beijing ended its zero-Covid policy in December, the economy experienced an initial burst of activity, with GDP growing 4.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier. But momentum has since slowed.

On Monday, the Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI), a private sector survey, dropped to 50.5 in June from 50.9 in May, below market expectations. The index is a key indicator of factory activity among smaller, private firms.

That came on the heels of the official government PMI released on Friday, which showed the manufacturing sector was still contracting. The non-manufacturing PMI, an indicator of activity in the services and construction sectors, dropped to its weakest level since December.

The Chinese currency has also declined rapidly.

The yuan hit its lowest level in seven months on Friday, taking its losses this year to 5%. The currency is now a touch away from the 15-year low seen in November, just after Xi consolidated power and before the removal of Covid restrictions.

On Saturday, the PBOC vowed to stabilize the yuan at “a reasonable and balanced level.”

“[We will] resolutely prevent the risk of sharp fluctations in the exchange rate,” it said in its quarterly monetary policy report.

CNN.com

Attaching Massive Kites to Boats Will Help Slash Shipping Emissions

Angely Mercado
Mon, July 3, 2023 

The Seawing seen in action, towing a boat along.

French company Airseas, has promised to help cargo ships reduce their fuel consumption, and cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 20%. And they’re doing this with the Seawing—a 1,000 square meter kite that will fly 300 meters (984 feet) above the water’s surface. So the global shipping industry is apparently rediscovering the joy (and efficiency) of sails.

The large, ship-sized kite is currently being developed, and the company plans to open a factory to produce the Seawing in 2026. Once manufactured, Airseas has promised that launching and operating a Seawing on a cargo vessel will be automated, making it easy to use for crews. The kite and the equipment that launches it is mounted on a boat’s deck, and the crew can simply press some buttons and a large kite will ascend into the sky. That’s not to say that the cargo ships won’t use their engines at all, but the kite will take some pressure off of those engines and will reduce the need for fuel. The wind will move the ship, just like it did for hundreds of years in the ye olden days before industrialization

Lowering emissions by 20% may not seem like a big deal, but moving vast amounts of goods to and fro on the high seas creates 3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than the airline industry, which produced about 2% of the world’s emissions in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency. Shipping is also a massive industry, and one worth focusing on for lowering emissions. About 90% of the world’s traded goods are moved around via shipping vessels, according to the International Chamber of Shipping.

Some companies are betting that this new version of sails. Japanese shipping company, “K” Line has placed orders for the Seawing kite, and the European Union has also invested more than $2 million in funding, CNN reported.

Check out this very dramatic video of the large kite in action:

Thai opposition party struggles to take power after stunning election victory

 In this May 17, 2023 photo, leader of Pheu Thai party Chonlanan Srikaew, left gestures with the leader of Move Forward Party Pita Limjaroenrat, in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand Politics Newly elected lawmakers in Thailand gathered Monday for the opening session of Parliament, which is tasked with selecting a new prime minister after May's general election saw the country's progressive Move Forward Party unexpectedly come out on top. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)


JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI and GRANT PECK
Mon, July 3, 2023 

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's new Parliament convened Monday nearly two months after a progressive opposition party won a stunning election victory, but there was still no clear sign that its leader will be able to become prime minister and end nine years of military-dominated rule.

To form a government, a party must have the backing of a combined majority of the elected House of Representatives and the military-appointed Senate, which represents the country's traditional conservative ruling class.

The Move Forward Party's unexpected election victory alarmed the ruling establishment, which regards it as a threat to the status quo and the monarchy. Some senators have already announced their opposition to party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated businessman.

Pita has formed an eight-party coalition holding 312 seats in the 500-seat lower house, which leaves it short of an overall majority without the support of a significant number of the 250 senators.

The election results showed that Move Forward’s progressive agenda resonated with a public weary of nine years of military-controlled rule under Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who as army commander seized power in a 2014 coup and returned as prime minister after a 2019 general election.

But what made Move Forward popular with many voters was what alarmed royalist conservatives. The party pledged to reform many powerful institutions, including the monarchy and the military, which retain power and influence under a constitution written during Prayuth’s administration.

While the threats from Move Forward’s ideological foes are clear, what was less expected are the tensions between it and the biggest partner in its coalition, the Pheu Thai party.

Pheu Thai and its predecessor parties have won all national elections since 2001 until this past May. It is the latest in a string of parties linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a military coup in 2006.

Royalist power holders have harbored enmity toward Thaksin — a billionaire populist now in exile — for a long time. Prayuth’s 2014 coup ousted a government formed by Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.

Move Forward and Pheu Thai have been squabbling over which will get the post of House speaker, which is supposed to be chosen by Parliament on Tuesday.

“The position of the House speaker is essential because he will determine the agenda of Parliament, and so therefore the degree of political transformation,” said Tyrell Haberkorn, a Thai studies scholar at the University of Wisconsin.

The two parties announced a compromise after a meeting on Monday. The coalition will nominate Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, a veteran leader of the Prachachat Party, to be House speaker, and Move Forward and Pheu Thai will each have one deputy speaker. Pita said the decision was reached to strengthen unity among the coalition's allies to support his bid to be prime minister.

Attachak Sattayanurak, a professor of history at Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand, suggested that the apparent distrust between the two parties is potentially the biggest threat to Pita's possible prime ministership.

Pheu Thai leaders, almost as a matter of pride, could not be seen as ceding too much to their Move Forward partner, he said.

“The feelings of people in the Pheu Thai party, that it used to be a heavyweight, that had won many elections and was able to be an agenda setter," drove many of them to insist that Move Forward make the speaker's post part of Pheu Thai's share of the pie, he said.

However, if Pheu Thai fails to show an unbreakable bond with Move Forward, it “reduces the power of the group that calls itself a democracy bloc” and gives the senators and their conservative allies “more grounds not to choose Pita," Attachak said.

Aside from Move Forward's problems with the Senate and Pheu Thai, there are serious fears that Pita and his party will be blocked by legal challenges, a fate that has brought down previous parties that ran afoul of the conservative establishment.

Several Thaksin-backed governments and a party that was Move Forward's predecessor were victims of rulings by the Election Commission and the National Anti-Corruption Commission, both nominally independent agencies that are often seen as favoring the ruling elite, along with the Constitutional Court.

Pita has been accused of violating a constitutional prohibition on politicians holding shares in a media company. The media company is no longer operating, and Pita says the shares are part of his father's estate and don't belong to him. The prospect that he could be banned from politics and even jailed for what is widely seen at most as a minor technical violation has triggered fears that the political instability that has wracked Thailand on and off since 2006 could return with a vengeance.

Thai Coalition Settles Speaker Row as Prime Minister Vote Looms

Patpicha Tanakasempipat, Pathom Sangwongwanich and Napat Kongsawad
Mon, July 3, 2023 




(Bloomberg) -- A coalition of Thai pro-democracy parties settled a dispute over the powerful parliament speaker’s position, edging closer to forming a new government as the parliament met for the first time after the May election.

Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, 79, a former speaker and leader of the Prachachat Party, was chosen as consensus candidate for the speaker’s job after Move Forward and Pheu Thai, the largest parties in the coalition, wrangled over the issue for weeks. The stage is now set for the first sitting of the 500-member lower chamber on Tuesday, where lawmakers are scheduled to elect the speaker and two deputies.

The coalition’s prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat said the bloc was confident of securing enough support from lawmakers in a joint sitting of the parliament to be convened by the new speaker for the premier’s election. Talks with members of the 250-member Senate — stacked with allies of the pro-military royalist establishment — have progressed well, he said.

“The people’s mandate expressed on May 14 has a high possibility of becoming reality,” he told reporters late on Monday.

Although Pita’s coalition has the support of about 312 lawmakers, it’s still short of the 376 votes needed to ensure his win. Doubts remain over how the Senate will vote, with many opposing Pita’s bid as he has stuck to a campaign pledge to seek amendments to Article 112 of the criminal code. That law punishes criticism of the king and other top royals by as much as 15 years in prison.

Investors are counting on the premier appointment to end a political impasse that has unnerved markets and prompted foreign funds to dump the nation’s stocks and bonds since the May 14 polls.

The 42-year-old Pita is also facing a probe by the election body that may lead to his disqualification.

Earlier, King Maha Vajiralongkorn urged the newly elected lawmakers to maintain integrity and to accord top priority to national interests as he presided over the traditional opening ceremony at the parliament on Monday. The event was also attended by Queen Suthida, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha and his cabinet, members of the military-appointed Senate and other dignitaries.

“How the nation will prosper depends on your intellect, capability and integrity as you perform your duties while holding the country’s and the people’s interests paramount,” King Vajiralongkorn said in a televised address.

Thailand’s benchmark stock index is the worst performer in Asia this year. with foreign investors offloading a net $3.1 billion since the end of 2022, the most among Asia’s emerging markets. The baht is the second-biggest loser in Southeast Asia since the May vote.

Most businesses have temporarily frozen new investment decisions until clearer directions from the new government emerge and as exports remain weak, Kriengkrai Thiennukul, chairman of the the Federation of Thai Industries, said last month.

The May polls saw a defeat of the military-backed, pro-royalist establishment in a country that has seen at least a dozen successful coups since 1932, when a revolution ended centuries of absolute monarchy. Prayuth, a former military chief, has ruled Southeast Asia’s second largest economy since he seized power in a coup in 2014.

Amazon Indigenous are leaving rainforest for cities, and finding urban poverty

 

Scores of Indigenous families have left their territory in the Javari Valley, for the impoverished city of Atalaia do Norte, some in pursuit of a better education and drawn by a federal benefit that can ensnare them in the city.

(AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)

FABIANO MAISONNAVE
Mon, July 3, 2023 

ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil (AP) — In 1976, Binan Tuku ventured to meet a Brazilian government's expedition on the banks of the Itui River in a remote area of the western Amazon rainforest. After some initial suspicion, he and his father accepted machetes and soap in what was the beginning of the Matis tribe's contact with the non-Indigenous world.

Nearly 50 years later, Tuku's own son Tumi is trying to carve out a living in the impoverished city of Atalaia do Norte. Instead of the traditional blowgun, Tumi held a pastry bag in his hands while working in a bakery, and his face bore none of the tattoos or piercings characteristic of the Matis.

“In the village, the quality of education is not as good as in the city,” said Tumi, 24, who hopes to go to college to study medicine or journalism. “I want to engage with non-Indigenous people, learn from the challenges I face, and perhaps one day return to my village to share my understanding of how the city functions with the elders.”

Thousands of Indigenous like Tumi are migrating to cities like Atalaia do Norte, some in pursuit of a better education and some drawn by a federal welfare benefit that can ensnare them in urban poverty. Their exodus is leaving villages to wither and raising concern that the world’s largest tropical rainforest — crucial to stemming the worst of climate change — will be left without its most effective guardians.
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About half of the 6,200 Indigenous people in the Javari Valley now live in urban centers, according to estimates by anthropologist Almério Alves Wadick. The Matis, one of several Indigenous peoples in the region, say almost half their 600 people now live in that city.

That number is likely to grow, said Binin Matis, who leads the Matis Indigenous Association and takes the name of his people as his surname. Binin Matis said he fears the loss of his people's language and their exposure to drugs.

“In the village, there are few people; it’s the older leaders. The youngsters are in the city,” he said. “No young Matis knows how to make a blowgun, an arrow. When the students go to the village for vacation, they don’t want to learn from the elders. They want to play soccer, have fun, and do things of the white man.”

Bushe Matis, president of Univaja, the main association for Indigenous peoples in the Javari Valley, worries that the migration will lead to cuts in health and education programs and the potential revocation of Indigenous territories that might then be opened for mining and drilling.

The Amazon came under heavy pressure under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who favored development. His single term saw a surge in illegal mining and deforestation hit a 15-year high.

Univaja recently established its own surveillance team to guard against illegal fishermen, miners and loggers — a duty previously carried out by the villages. The initiative is crucial to protect isolated Indigenous who could be imperiled by something as simple as flu carried by invaders, Bushe said.

Such tension appears to be behind last year’s killings of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips. Pereira was in the Javari Valley assisting the creation of Univaja's surveillance system. Four fishermen and a businessman are under arrest in the killings.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has sought to lessen pressure on the Amazon since defeating Bolsonaro in last year's election. He established a Ministry of Indigenous Affairs in part to safeguard Indigenous communities. A crucial part of that is improving education, a significant challenge in remote areas of the Amazon.

Indigenous families also face hostility from non-Indigenous residents who see them as competition for limited resources, especially fish.

“The Indians come here, the government doesn’t give them food, and they fish on our side,” said fisherman Antonio Alves, 46. “When one of us mistreats someone, it’s for our survival.”

The Indigenous migration is being driven in part by a federal program created 20 years ago in Lula's first term. The Bolsa Familia program was launched to provide cash to families if they immunize their children and keep them in school. Tens of thousands of Indigenous families started frequenting cities to withdraw the benefit from state bank branches.

There were dire consequences.

Indigenous people unaccustomed to handling money sometimes pay more than they should for long boat trips or have their debit cards illegally retained by unscrupulous merchants as collateral for installment or credit purchases. In the city, they stay in precarious conditions, vulnerable to alcohol and disease. Often, the Bolsa Familia payout isn't enough to get them back home.

“They conclude that it’s better to stay in the city, receiving this amount and putting it towards studying since there isn’t even a complete primary education in the village,” said Wadick, the anthropologist. Indigenous leaders say village schools are in shambles from poor maintenance and lack of oversight by governments. Many Indigenous teachers have been spending long periods in the city, neglecting their work.

But the money isn't enough to cover life in the city, either. The minimum payment is $125 per month, plus small additions for pregnant women and for children depending on age. Indigenous people often compete against each other for poorly paying jobs like collecting garbage or sweeping streets. Many endure hunger.

“We need clothing, to eat every day, to pay for electricity, and water bills. If all of that were free, we could sustain ourselves with $125,” said Tumi, who recently left the bakery to work for Univaja.

The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples is seeking to rework parts of the program so Indigenous peoples don't have to travel as often to collect payment. Proposals include extending the withdrawal period for the money and flexible payment dates.

Another major ministry goal is to improve education in Indigenous territories to reduce the incentive to leave. That's a daunting task with high costs for huge, remote and impoverished areas.

Nelly Marubo, an anthropologist who is Indigenous, said her ideal is culturally adapted village schools where students have access to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge without needing to be in the city. But she was shocked by what she found when, after a five-year absence, she recently visited her native region deep in the Javari Valley to film a documentary about her life.

“I always have in my mind lots of children and young people, but unfortunately, this time the visit was very sad," she said. "I found an abandoned village with only four elderly women.”

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Unraveling the Mind of the Consumer

WHEN WE EARN WE ARE WORKERS, WHEN WE SPEND WE ARE CONSUMERS

Vicki M. Young

Sourcing Journal
Mon, July 3, 2023 


One size does not fit all.

Data from Deloitte Service LP’s global consumer tracker indicates that the consumer is transforming to a complex mosaic of unique needs, wants and preferences.


An aging population, declining birth rates and increased diversity are contributing to the transformation of the consumer base. And these changes could present adaptation challenges for a retail industry that’s been “built for mass production, distribution and marketing,” according to Lupine Skelly, research leader for the retail, wholesale and distribution sector at Deloitte’s Consumer Industry Center.

The tracker surveys U.S. consumers every month and people in 23 countries every other month. Currently, there are indications that many consumers believe the worst economic uncertainty could be in the rearview mirror. But inflation remains top of mind, with 75 percent of global consumers concerned about rising prices, Skelly said.

Once consumers realized that inflation was going to be here for a while, discretionary spending took a nosedive as people focused on building up their savings and spending only on necessities.

“What’s encouraging today is that the [data] is indicating some stability in the last few months,” Skelly said, noting that discretionary spend is catching up. Even so, inflation is impacting how consumers spend their money.

Skelly noted that in September 2021, 56 percent of global respondents said they purchased sustainable goods. That number fell to 46 percent as inflation hung around. Even sentiment on climate change has seen a decline, with 68 percent now indicating that climate change is an emergency versus 72 percent last September.

“This tells us that people associate sustainable goods as being more expensive, and people are really having to do right by their wallet rather than what’s right for the planet,” Skelly said. “One way to look at this is that when push comes to shove, sustainability kind of goes out the window. I think you can also spin a story that despite record inflation, we still have four in 10 say that they’re prioritizing sustainable purchases.”

The tracker also found that despite the strain of inflationary pressures, consumers are figuring out ways to splurge on themselves. Seventy-seven percent of global consumers spend on some kind of indulgence in the past month. That amount is even higher—closer to 80 percent—across the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Australia. The trend is “pervasive across income groups and generations,” Skelly said, noting that the median spend is $32. Food and beverage is the most common treat, followed by apparel and footwear.

In addition, men and women splurge at about the same rate, but “globally, men spend almost 40 percent more on items compared to women when they splurge,” she said. Millennial men spend $20 more than their female counterparts.

Skelly pointed to “interesting opportunities for retailers who can tap into this need to treat ourselves to escape our economic realities.”

She noted that not all countries experienced strong inflation, although in the U.S., the consumer was hit pretty hard and hasn’t quite recovered.

Last year U.S. consumers burned through their savings at a rapid clip, and in December focused on saving money while cutting back on across-the-board spending. “Since February, U.S. consumers are having to make more trade offs and economize more to be able to purchase the groceries they need,” Skelly said, adding that one-third are purchasing lower-cost needs. In addition, private-label purchases rose 3 percent last month.

This summer, leisure and travel is taking a bigger share of wallet, which Skelly said could be good news for apparel and footwear spend. Of the respondents who plan to spend on travel, 69 percent said they were likely to spend on clothing and footwear, versus just 42 percent of those who didn’t plan to travel. “Leisure travelers tend to spend almost four times more than those not planning vacations. That’s averaging $169,” she said.

Data shows that the top 1 percent of Americans is wealthier than the entire U.S. middle class, while 30 percent of the nation’s wealth is held by 0.25 percent of U.S. households. In addition, the back-to-school market is shrinking, mostly because there are fewer students enrolled in schools thanks to falling birth rates.

And with more people spending at least part of their time working from home, consumers have also shifted how they do their shopping and where they eat as they move to digital from physical. “While we were stuck at home during the pandemic, many people were spending a lot of time online or trying to explore new technologies and looking for ways to entertain themselves,” Skelly said, concluding that as many of these behaviors and preferences stick, those producing goods are now competing with the increasing “threat” from digital enticements.