Closure of 3 Southern California power plants likely to be postponed, state energy officials decide




SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Temperatures in many California cities are cooling down this week, but a debate is simmering on how to generate enough electricity to power the state through extreme weather events while transitioning away from a reliance on fossil fuels.

The California Energy Commission voted Wednesday to extend the life of three gas power plants along the state's southern coast through 2026, postponing a shutoff deadline previously set for the end of this year. The vote would keep the decades-old facilities — Ormond Beach Generating Station, AES Alamitos and AES Huntington Beach — open so they can run during emergencies.

The state is at a greater risk of blackouts during major events when many Californians simultaneously crank up their air conditioning, such as a blistering heat wave.

“We need to move faster in incorporating renewable energy. We need to move faster at incorporating battery storage. We need to build out chargers faster,” commissioner Patricia Monahan said. “We're working with all the energy institutions to do that, but we are not there yet.”

The plan, put together by the state’s Department of Water Resources, still needs final approval from the State Water Resources Control Board, which may vote on the issue next week. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation last year creating an energy reserve the state could use as a last resort if there is likely to be an energy shortage. The law allowed the Department of Water Resources to fund or secure power sources in those instances.

The commission acknowledged it was a difficult decision. Environmentalists say the state needs to transition to more short- and long-term solutions that will help it move away from fossil fuels and to rely more on renewable energy sources like solar and wind. They’re also concerned about the health impacts associated with pollution from gas plants.

Few people spoke in support of keeping the plants open during about three hours of public comment.

Neither GenOn, the company running the Ormond Beach plant, nor AES, which runs the Alamitos and Huntington Beach plants, responded to email requests for comment on the vote.

At Wednesday's meeting, activists said residents cannot be sure the state will not decide to again extend the life of these plants in another three years. Siva Gunda, the commission's vice-chair, said the state should better prepare a strategy for ending operations of the plants by 2026.

The three plants were originally set to shut down in 2020 under state regulations aimed at power plants that suck up ocean water to cool down their equipment. Many similar power plants have already shut down to comply with those rules.

The Ormond Beach plant is located in a largely Latino, low-income part of Oxnard, a city about 54 miles (87 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, next to agricultural fields that border homes. Oxnard residents who testified at the meeting said they are concerned about respiratory illnesses associated with pollution from gas facilities, as well as odors and noises coming from the plant.

“We are tired of fighting for our human right to breathe clean air,” said Oxnard resident and activist Sofi Magallon.

Newsom said earlier this year that the state would have enough water in its reservoirs from intense periods of snow and rain this past winter to revive hydroelectric plants, which reduces the chances of electricity outages during heat waves.

Emissions from the three plants dramatically increased during a record-breaking September heat wave, according to a report released by Regenerate California, a coalition of environmental groups. That included pollution from carbon and smog-forming nitrogen oxides. The report also cites data from the state showing that several gas plants didn't generate as much electricity as expected during the heat wave.

“They're not providing the energy that we're relying on them for. They're overpromising and underdelivering,” said Ari Eisenstadt, an energy equity manager with the California Environmental Justice Alliance. “That makes them a pretty bad investment.”

California has made strides in recent years to move toward renewables. In 2021, more than 37% of the state’s electricity came from renewable sources, up nearly 3% from the previous year, according to the Energy Commission. The state has set out to remove as many carbon emissions from the atmosphere as it emits by 2045.

But environmentalists still want California to speed up its transition toward renewables like solar and wind. In the meantime, the state should spend “much more ambitiously” to fund programs incentivizing people to reduce their energy use, so resources are not strained during extreme heat, said Teresa Cheng, a campaigner with Sierra Club.

That includes a statewide program to pay people to conserve energy during peak electricity times.

During last September's heat wave, Newsom issued something called a Flex Alert, which asked Californians to use less energy during the evenings in part by setting their thermostats to 78 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius) or higher. The result was a dramatic reduction in reliance on the grid, Cheng said.

“There's always this crux of being able to extend the life of gas plants,” Cheng said. “As long as we have these gas plants online, we never really have to invest in clean energy solutions.”

___

Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @sophieadanna.

Sophie Austin, The Associated Press

Wed, August 9, 2023 

Space tourists will probably have sex up there, but they shouldn't get pregnant, researchers warn


Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Wed, August 9, 2023

Space sex could be on the horizon.Crystal Cox/Morgan McFall-Johnsen/Insider; NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Space tourism is blasting off, increasing the odds that space-vacationers will have sex up there.


If someone gets pregnant in space, the radiation could harm them or their embryo, scientists say.


Space companies could end up with lawsuits and bad press if they don't talk to tourists about this.

Let's talk about space sex.

So far there have been no reports of cosmic coitus, but more and more people are taking a pleasure cruise in Earth's orbit. It may just be a matter of time until somebody starts the 250-mile-high club.

Since billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson raced to the edge of space two years ago, orbital tourism has taken off.

Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital rocket launches toward space.Blue Origin

Branson's company, Virgin Galactic, is set to launch its first space tourists on Thursday, with plans to conduct similar flights every month.

SpaceX launched its third batch of people who aren't professional astronauts into space in May. Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has booked a trip around the moon on the company's Starship mega-rocket, which made its first attempt at launching to orbit in April. Entrepreneur Dennis Tito has booked two seats on a similar Starship lunar flight — one for himself, and one for his wife.

If they can shell up enough cash, wealthy people around the world can book a vacation beyond it, lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks. Some companies even aim to build hotels in Earth's orbit.

"It is unrealistic to assume that all space tourism participants will abstain from sexual activities," researchers wrote in a green paper on the subject earlier this year.

Sharon and Marc Hagle kiss in front of Blue Origin's space capsule after a short spaceflight.Blue Origin

That's why, they argue, spaceflight companies should be proactive and talk to their customers about cosmic coupling and its risks.

If somebody gets pregnant — on purpose or otherwise — there's a chance that the background radiation of space would harm a freshly fertilized egg cell, even if they're only in space for a day or two after the act, two space researchers told Insider. There's no telling how that would affect the rest of the pregnancy.

"These high-energy deep-space-radiation particles, some of them pass right through the vehicle and right through people. And so in theory, if one of them is coming through and it just so happens to hit a developing embryo, what effect would it have on that?" Dr. Kris Lehnhardt, who leads NASA research on medical systems for deep-space exploration, told Insider.

That's an open question, Lehnhardt said, but "the consequence of someone becoming pregnant in space could be very high."
The dangers of unfettered space fornication

A Starship prototype launches from SpaceX's facilities in Boca Chica, Texas.SpaceX

It may not even be possible to get pregnant in space, but it's probably not worth taking the chance.

There has been very little research on the effects the space environment might have on reproductive systems. That's partly because space research has long been dominated by government agencies.

"In general, NASA stays away from sex and reproduction questions," Lehnhardt said. "It's not truly relevant to the work that we're doing at NASA right now on a day-to-day basis."

Even when it has been relevant, reproductive health hasn't been one of NASA's strong suits. Engineers there famously asked astronaut Sally Ride if 100 tampons would be enough for a one-week spaceflight.

Most of the space reproduction studies that do exist are focused on rodents. Their findings may not be applicable to humans at all, but they offer hints that reproductive functions could be affected by space radiation and microgravity.

Colonel Walter Villadei floats in microgravity during a Virgin Galactic flight.Virgin Galactic

In one study, researchers put mouse embryos in an incubator on board a satellite. The embryos developed in space but sustained "severe" DNA damage and had developmental defects.

In other research, exposure to microgravity decreased testosterone levels and sperm production in male rats. Some female rats have mated during spaceflight but then shown signs of early pregnancy loss.

Some forms of radiation on Earth are known to have negative effects on human pregnancy. But "the galactic cosmic radiation that we experience in space doesn't have a good comparison on the ground," Lehnhardt said.

It may even be risky to conceive within a few months of returning from spaceflight, the green paper authors argue. Again, research is lacking. The uncertainty is enough for some astronauts to freeze their eggs before they launch into orbit, according to Lehnhardt.
Have you talked to your spaceflight customers about sex?

Elon Musk at the "Choose France" Summit at the Chateau de Versailles, outside Paris.Ludovic Marin/Reuters

If someone does get pregnant up there, that person or their fetus could face complications. Failure to address this possibility puts space-tourism companies at risk of reputational damage or litigation, the green paper argues.

"We're definitely not trying to say you should ban sex in space," David Cullen, the lead author of the paper and a professor of space biotechnology at Cranfield University, told Insider.

Instead, he continued, companies should "put in place procedures and mitigations to minimize the chance of any sexual interactions leading to human conception."

Cullen and his co-authors argue that space-tourism leaders should talk about the risks of acting on orbital arousal. Companies could require that their customers undergo medical and reproductive counseling, or sign waivers about sex and reproduction before flying.
To build cities on other planets, we have to learn how to make babies out there

Those are just the first steps. If humans are to settle on other planets to become a "multiplanetary species" — a goal that Elon Musk has often touted over the years — someone will need to figure out the feasibility and risks of space sex, pregnancy, and birth.

As far as we know, SpaceX is not discussing sex with its spaceflight customers.Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

That's why Cullen and other authors of the paper are working on an initiative called SpaceBorn United, to research in vitro fertilization (IVF) in space. The company plans to try space IVF first using mouse embryos, in 2024, but eventually aims to test on human embyros.

"Those are the stepping stones of research that would be needed to see how viable pregnancy could be in the space environment," Lehnhardt said.

But, he was sure to note, "NASA has absolutely nothing to do with that."

WORKERS CAPITAL

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan board defeat shareholders' Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit

SHAREHOLDERS ARE:  City of Miami General Employees & Sanitation Employees Retirement Trust 

Jonathan Stempel
Wed, August 9, 2023 a

 JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge has dismissed a shareholder lawsuit accusing JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and his board of directors of ignoring red flags surrounding disgraced former client Jeffrey Epstein.

In a Wednesday evening decision, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said shareholders led by Miami and Pittsburgh pension funds failed to first ask the bank's board directly to address their concerns, or show it would be futile to do so, before suing.

The Manhattan-based judge said he will explain his reasoning in due course. Rakoff did not address specific accusations about the largest U.S. bank's relationship with Epstein.

Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

Lawyers for the shareholders did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shareholders had accused Dimon, seven other directors and Jes Staley, a former private banking and investment banking chief, of having "put their heads in the sand" as Epstein used his accounts to further abuses of young women and girls.

The so-called derivative lawsuit sought to have the defendants or their insurers pay damages to JPMorgan, for the benefit of shareholders.

Rakoff is also overseeing two Epstein-related lawsuits against JPMorgan by the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the financier owned two neighboring islands, and by Epstein victims.

The U.S. Virgin Islands is seeking at least $190 million in damages, while a $290 million settlement with victims awaits final court approval.

JPMorgan is suing Staley, who has expressed regret for his friendship with Epstein and denied knowing about his sex trafficking, to cover its losses in both lawsuits.

Staley was also Barclays' chief executive from 2015 to 2021.

The case is City of Miami General Employees & Sanitation Employees Retirement Trust et al v Dimon et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 23-03903.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Bank of Canada rate hikes hitting young adults hardest: Yahoo/Maru poll

Reported annual incomes for these respondents mainly spanned between $50,000 and $99,000

THE WORKING CLASS

Jeff Lagerquist
Wed, August 9, 2023 

Canadians between 18 and 34 years old were most likely to admit the Bank of Canada's string of rate hikes is causing them stress, a new poll shows.

Young adults outside Canada's most populous provinces are feeling the pinch from the Bank of Canada's rate hikes more than older age groups, and those in Ontario and Quebec, a new poll suggests.

The latest Yahoo/Maru Public Opinion poll reached 1,527 Canadian adults between July 21 and 24. More than half (52 per cent) say higher borrowing costs are either causing anxiety due to money pressures (36 per cent), or making them "worried sick" about their financial futures (16 per cent).

Among those citing money pressures, 51 per cent were 18-to-34 years old, the youngest cohort in the poll. The most common regions for this group were Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Atlantic Canada, Alberta, and British Columbia. Reported annual incomes for these respondents mainly spanned between $50,000 and $99,000.

“Despite the significant rise in interest rates since last October to today, many Canadians have made an adjustment in their lives to manage or accommodate what has occurred,” Maru executive vice-president John Wright said.

“Those most likely to do so are primarily women, those with both the lowest and the highest incomes, and the oldest Canadians. Regionally, those in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, and Quebec have fared better than those in the west.”

A Yahoo/Maru Public Opinion poll conducted in October 2022 found 57 per cent of respondents say they are personally feeling the impact of rising interest rates, with 39 per cent suggesting ever-higher rates are causing some anxiety over the impact on their finances.

Back then, 43 per cent of respondents said rising interest rates are not a problem for either themselves or their family. In the latest poll, that figure rose to 48 per cent.

Last month, Canada's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to five per cent, a level not seen since April 2001. Eighteen months ago, the overnight rate was 0.25 per cent.

“For that group in dire straits, and for those about to renew their mortgage, there will be great anticipation of what the Bank of Canada will do in September following a pause for two months, Wright said. "The next Consumer Price Index release on August 15, may well portend whether their may be a continued reprieve in store.”

The Bank of Canada's next rate decision is scheduled for Sept. 6.

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

Canadians divided over retailers' anti-theft measures, poll finds

THEFT IS CONSUMPTION 

BY OTHER MEANS

BIG RETAILERS ARE INSURED

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 9, 2023 



Less than half of Canadians believe retail stores are implementing the right amount of security measures to prevent shoplifting but the majority say they would feel safe working in one, a new Leger poll found.

The survey on retail security indicated that a wide majority of people support retailers implementing measures to prevent theft such as installing security cameras or electronic anti-theft alarms attached to items, hiring security guards or locking certain products in display cases.

But respondents were split on whether they would support measures such as store employees checking receipts when customers exit or eliminating self-checkout machines. Support dipped to 17 per cent for requiring customers to scan their IDs to make a purchase.

The survey was completed online by more than 1,500 Canadians at least 18 years old between Aug. 4-6 and results were weighted according to age, gender, mother tongue, region, education and presence of children in the household.

When it comes to retailers implementing security measures to prevent shoplifting, 45 per cent of respondents said companies are putting in place the right level.

Around 27 per cent said they are not implementing enough measures, while 10 per cent said stores are doing too much to prevent shoplifting.

Asked about the level of shoplifting where they live relative to the rest of Canada, just 14 per cent of respondents said their province sees more theft than other parts of the country.

The sentiment was felt most strongly in B.C., where one-quarter of respondents said they felt their province sees more store theft than others.

But two-thirds of Canadians would or do feel safe working in a retail store, according to the survey, compared with 18 per cent who said they do not. Measured by gender, 70 per cent of male respondents said they would feel safe, compared with 63 per cent of female respondents.

Store theft and break-ins continue to be top issues for Canadian businesses, according to a separate survey conducted in May by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

The organization found theft or shoplifting was the most common community safety issue recently experienced by its members, followed by vandalism or breaking and entering.

Three-in-four small business owners said they were concerned about their own safety or that of their staff and customers. Around 65 per cent said they had recently spent more on security, including on cameras or guards, to address safety issues.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023.

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press

RIP

Robbie Robertson, Master Storyteller Who Led the Band, Dead at 80

Andy Greene

ROLLING STONE

Wed, August 9, 2023
robbie-robertson

Credit: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns/Getty Images

Robbie Robertson, the Band’s guitarist and primary songwriter who penned “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and many other beloved classics, died Wednesday at age 80.

Robertson’s management company confirmed the musician’s death. “Robbie was surrounded by his family at the time of his death, including his wife, Janet, his ex-wife, Dominique, her partner Nicholas, and his children Alexandra, Sebastian, Delphine, and Delphine’s partner Kenny,” his longtime manager Jared Levine said in a statement. “In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the Six Nations of the Grand River to support the building of their new cultural center.”

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The Band only lasted eight years after the release of their 1968 debut LP, Music From Big Pink, but during that time they forever changed the pop-culture landscape by releasing brilliant Americana music at the peak of the psychedelic movement. Their first album sent shockwaves through the industry, inspiring Eric Clapton to break up Cream, the Beatles to attempt their own stripped-back project with Let It Be, and a pair of young British songwriters named Elton John and Bernie Taupin to begin writing and recording their own material.

Robertson took on the role as the group’s leader, writing the majority of their songs and pushing them forward when substance abuse issues and infighting threatened their existence. It was also his decision to pull the plug on the group in 1976 when he couldn’t take it anymore, setting the stage for their legendary farewell concert The Last Waltz.

“The road has taken a lot of the great ones,” he said at the time. “Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Janis, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis. It’s a goddamn impossible way of life.”

Bob Dylan and Robertson perform onstage for the Band’s ‘The Last Waltz’ concert at the Winterland Ballroom on Nov. 25, 1976, in San Francisco.

Before the Band began making their own music, Robertson was one of Bob Dylan’s key collaborators, playing guitar on Blonde on Blonde and convincing the songwriter to hire the other members of his group as his backing band. They toured the world in 1965 and 1966, facing a torrent of boos by enraged folk purists. “His friends, his advisors, and everyone told him to blow us off and start from scratch,” Robertson said in 1987. “And it took a tremendous amount of courage for him not to do that.”

Born in Toronto on July 5, 1943, to a Native American mother and Jewish father, Robertson was fascinated by music from a young age. “I’ve been playing guitar for so long I can’t remember when I started,” he told Rolling Stone in 1968. “I guess I got into rock & roll like everybody else.”

He left high school long before graduation to tour Canada with a series of rock bands, joining rockbabilly icon Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band when he was 16. “We played everywhere,” Robertson said, “from Molasses, Texas, to Timmins, Canada, which is a mining town about 100 miles from the tree line.”

The Band’s Garth Hudson, Robertson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko (from left) in 1971

It was in Hawkins’ band where he first played with drummer Levon Helm, keyboardist Richard Manuel, organist Garth Hudson, and bassist Rick Danko. They formed a tight musical bond, which continued when they hit the road with Dylan in 1965. “I had never seen anything like it,” Robertson said in 2004. “How much Dylan could deliver with a guitar and a harmonica, and how people would just take the ride.”

In early 1966, during a break from the tour, Dylan brought Robertson down to Nashville to play guitar on his landmark double album Blonde on Blonde. “We’d go into the studio, and he’d be finishing up the lyrics to the songs we were going to do,” Robertson said. “I could hear his typewriter — click, click, click, ring, really fast. There was so much to be said.”

The tour came to a sudden end in the summer of 1966 when Dylan crashed his motorcycle in Woodstock, New York. But a few months later, Dylan summoned Robertson and company to Woodstock to begin work on a series of home recordings later known as The Basement Tapes. “We thought nobody was ever going to hear this thing,” Robertson said decades later. “In their own way, they were like field recordings.”

Dylan resumed his own career in 1968. Around that time, the group redubbed themselves the Band. “There aren’t many bands around Woodstock and our friends and neighbors just call us the Band, and that’s the way we think of ourselves,” Robertson said in 1968. “We just don’t think a name means anything. It’s gotten out of hand, the name thing. We don’t want to get into a fixed bag like that.”


When they began writing songs for their first LP, Robertson stepped forward as the leader in the process. In a 1969 interview with Rolling Stone, the guitarist attempted to explain how he wrote “The Weight.” “I thought of a couple of words that led to a couple more,” he said. “The next thing I know I wrote the song. We just figured it was a simple song, and when it came up, we gave it a try and recorded it three or four times. We didn’t even know if we were going to use it.”

Needless to say, the song wound up on Music From Big Pink and generated radio play all over the world, generating cover versions by the Staple Singers, Joe Cocker, the Grateful Dead, Aretha Franklin, and countless others.

Over the next eight years, the Band scored more Robertson-penned hits (“Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Stage Fright,” “The Shape I’m In”), played Woodstock, toured the world many times over, and reunited with Dylan for a hugely successful stadium tour.




By 1976, Danko and Manuel developed severe substance-abuse issues, and Robertson — who had effectively been on the road since 1959 — was burned out. “The road turns you into a meaningless piece of dribble that will complain about shit that doesn’t mean anything to anybody,” he said in 1987. “It got to the point where I couldn’t see the upside.”

Robertson decided that the Band should go out with a bang, so he organized a massive farewell gig at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom and invited everyone from Dylan to Neil Young to Muddy Waters and Hawkins to guest. Martin Scorsese filmed the event, which was released in 1978 under the title The Last Waltz.

It’s widely seen as one of the greatest concert films of all time, even though Helm felt it focused way too much attention on Robertson at the expense of other members of the group. It was the beginning of a long feud with Helm over credit and songwriting royalties that was never fully resolved, though Robertson did visit his old friend in the hospital during the final days of his life in 2012.


The Last Waltz was also the beginning of a tight bond between Robertson and filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who hired the songwriter as the musical supervisor for his movies The King of Comedy, Casino, Gangs of New York, Shutter Island, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Robertson had a role in the 1980 film Carny, and the documentaries Dakota Exile (1996) and Wolves (1999). In 1967, Robertson married Canadian journalist Dominique Bourgeois, with whom he had three children. They later divorced. In 2014, Robertson’s son Sebastian published a children’s book, Rock and Roll Highway: The Robbie Robertson Story, about his father’s life and legacy.

“Robbie Robertson was one of my closest friends, a constant in my life and my work. I could always go to him as a confidante. A collaborator. An advisor. I tried to be the same for him,” Scorsese said in a statement. “Long before we ever met, his music played a central role in my life — me and millions and millions of other people all over this world. The Band’s music, and Robbie’s own later solo music, seemed to come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys. It goes without saying that he was a giant, that his effect on the art form was profound and lasting. There’s never enough time with anyone you love. And I loved Robbie.”

Neil Diamond, who appeared onstage in The Last Waltz and whose 1976 album Beautiful Noise was produced by Robertson, said in a statement to Rolling Stone, “I am crushed by the news of Robbie Robertson’s passing. Robbie played an important role in my career. He was a gifted producer and artist and a good friend. I will miss him greatly.”

Keeping the promise of The Last Waltz, Robertson never returned to touring, though he did release five solo albums beginning with 1987’s critically acclaimed Robbie Robertson. In 2011, he collaborated with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails on the blues-steeped How to Become Clairvoyant.

His most recent solo release was 2019’s Sinematic, which featured guest appearances by Van Morrison, Derek Trucks, and Citizen Cope. He also oversaw the music for Scorsese’s Silence, The Irishman, and the upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon, capping off a five-decade relationship with the director that stretched back to The Last Waltz.

In 2016, he published the memoir Testimony, following it up in 2019 with the documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band. At the time of his death, he was working on a second volume of his memoir series. That work ethic was consistent with his life, says Jonathan Taplin, who road managed the Band and was in touch with Robertson in recent months. “Robbie was disciplined, and he didn’t indulge the way others did,” says Taplin. “On the Festival Express in 1970, there was a bar car with all those all-night drunken jams. Robbie was not a stay-up-late-at-night guy. That’s why he was so efficient as a songwriter. In Woodstock I’d go over to his house at 9:30 in the morning and he’d already be in his little studio at the piano, writing. He would tell you it was his upbringing. He watched Bob Dylan go a little crazy in 1966 taking lot of speed and staying up all night.”

“There is something blatantly honest about this period I’m in now, what I’m drawn to,” he told Rolling Stone in 2019. “I guess I’m at an age now — a place in my journey — where I don’t care what you think. I’ll tell you anyway!”

Toronto doc director Daniel Roher remembers Robbie Robertson as risk-taker and artist

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 9, 2023 



TORONTO — An Oscar-winning Toronto director who credits Robbie Robertson with helping to launch his career remembered the legendary singer-songwriter as a risk-taker and musical talent who “created a bridge across time.”

Daniel Roher says he felt a great loss upon learning the gravelly voiced rocker died Wednesday in Los Angeles. Robertson was 80.

Before he won an Oscar in March for “Navalny,” a portrait of Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny, Roher wrote and directed "Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson And The Band.”

The documentary, which opened the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019, traces the formation of one of the most enduring groups in popular music, including interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Martin Scorsese and Peter Gabriel.

Roher says he was an unknown filmmaker when Robertson gave him his big shot, mirroring the way rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins gave Robertson his big shot at age 16 and unleashed a musical talent whose blended influences would help reshape Americana.

Roher says those influences included strong ties to the Indigenous community of Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ont., where Robertson's mother was raised and where Robertson learned to play guitar.

"The first chords he ever learned were his relatives on Six Nations and it clearly had a long-lasting impression on his life," Roher said Wednesday.

In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be made to the southern Ontario community to support a new Woodland Cultural Centre.

Roher said Robertson was a champion of Indigenous communities across North America.

“When no one was interested in talking about Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous rights, Indigenous sovereignty, Robbie Robertson was beating that drum. He was someone who was sort of on the forefront, who always took on projects that he found interesting, that had some sort of Indigenous slant or perspective," he said, noting that includes Scorsese's upcoming film, "Killers of the Flower Moon," for which Robertson worked on the soundtrack.

Roher described Robertson’s music and artistry as universal, with timeless appeal.

“It's like you've never heard anything like them before and they sounded completely brand new but yet familiar. He had that quality. His sound created a bridge across time."

He said he'll forever be grateful that Robertson entrusted him with making the documentary, inspired by Robertson's 2016 memoir, “Testimony.”

“He gave me a chance and opportunity and took a risk on me," Roher said.

“I owe him a great debt and I'm thinking about him tonight. And I'm going to be listening to 'Music From Big Pink' all evening."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023.

Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press

Martin Scorsese Pays Tribute to Robbie Robertson: ‘He Was a Giant’

Scott Mendelson
Wed, August 9, 2023 



Filmmaker Martin Scorsese paid tribute Wednesday to Robbie Robertson, calling the musician “one of my closest friends, a constant in my life and my work.”

Robertson, a guitarist, bandleader, producer and composer who also wrote film scores for Martin Scorsese and served as a record executive, died on Wednesday at the age of 80 after a long illness.

Robertson was best known for his stint in The Band, a group of four Canadians (including Ontario native Robertson) and one American who first met while playing backup for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. Their final concert was chronicled in Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz” in 1976, with the film released in 1978.

“I could always go to him as a confidante,” Scorsese continued. “A collaborator. An advisor. I tried to be the same for him.”

Following the breakup of the band, Robertson wrote scores for several Scorsese pictures, beginning with “Raging Bull” in 1980 all the way through to “The Irishman” in 2019 and the upcoming “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Long before we ever met, his music played a central role in my life—me and millions and millions of other people all over this world. The Band’s music, and Robbie’s own later solo music, seemed to come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys.

“It goes without saying that he was a giant, that his effect on the art form was profound and lasting. There’s never enough time with anyone you love. And I loved Robbie.”

Steve Pond contributed to this report.

The post  appeared first on TheWrap.

Biden wants to compensate New Mexico residents sickened by radiation during 1945 nuclear testing

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 9, 2023 


BELEN, N.M. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he’s open to granting assistance for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing, including in New Mexico, where the world’s first atomic bomb was tested in 1945.

Biden brought up the issue while speaking Wednesday in Belen at a factory that produces wind towers.

“I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,” he said.

The state's place in American history as a testing ground has gotten more attention recently with the release of “Oppenheimer,” a movie about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the top-secret Manhattan Project.

Biden watched the film last week while on vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico spoke of how the first bomb was tested on soil just south of where the event was. The senator also discussed getting an amendment into the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which gives payments to people who become ill from nuclear weapons tests or uranium mining during the Cold War.

“And those families did not get the help that they deserved. They were left out of the original legislation,” Lujan added. “We’re fighting with everything that we have” to keep the amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act.

Last month, the U.S. Senate voted to expand compensation. The provisions would extend health care coverage and compensation to so-called downwinders exposed to radiation during weapons testing to several new regions stretching from New Mexico to Guam.

Biden said he told Lujan that he’s “prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of.”

The Associated Press

Minister launches review of B.C. port strike case to uncover 'structural issues'

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 9, 2023 



VANCOUVER — Federal Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan is launching an examination of the recently resolved British Columbia port dispute to see if "structural issues" in negotiations led to a 13-day work stoppage last month.

In a written statement released Wednesday through social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, O'Regan said officials will immediately begin by reviewing reports on previous, similar disputes.

O'Regan said the goal is to create "a harmonious working environment" between unions and employers in future collective bargaining, in order to prevent future stoppages similar to the port strike from happening.

"Another dispute and disruption on that scale is still possible, and that's not good enough," O'Regan said in the statement. "The workers and businesses that depend on our ports deserve long-term solutions. They deserve answers."

The port labour dispute between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada representing about 7,400 workers and the BC Maritime Employers Association came to an end last Friday, when the union announced its members voted almost 75 per cent in favour of ratifying a new deal.

But the unrest had been tumultuous.

Workers went on strike from July 1 to July 13, freezing the movement of billions of dollars worth of cargo at some of the country's busiest ports.

A tentative deal halted that strike action, but when the union caucus said it wanted to reject the contract, there was a brief return to pickets on July 18.

The Canada Industrial Relations Board ruled that move illegal without notice, forcing employees back to work the next day.

A full union membership vote rejected the tentative agreement on July 28, and O'Regan directed the industrial relations board to consider imposing a deal or binding arbitration on the two sides.

The union and employers announced they had reached a new deal with the help of the board on July 30, and it was ratified by last week's union vote.

In a written statement, BCMEA president and CEO Mike Leonard indicated employers may be interested in taking part in O'Regan's efforts to improve "port labour relations structure," saying the association welcomed the government review as an "opportunity to modernize" the process.

Groups such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce have called for "new tools" to settle labour disputes in critical supply-chain sectors, with the federation asking for the designation of ports as essential services.

Labour experts, however, said the federal government may have limited options to prevent similar strikes from happening when talks hit an impasse, as was the case with the B.C. port dispute.

University of Manitoba associate professor of Labour Studies David Camfield said workers' right to strike in Canada is already "very narrowly circumscribed," with only unionized workers eligible to take job action at a specific time after a collective agreement has expired.

Camfield said a push by the government to further limit strike action during collective negotiations — an act protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — may end up triggering legal challenges and getting bogged down in courts.

"I can understand why there are business groups putting pressure on the federal government to further restrict it, particularly for some kinds of workers," Camfield said. "But this is already a pretty restricted right."

Camfield said the number of strikes in Canada has not grown as fast as those in other countries such as the United States, and pales in comparison to the frequency of job action between the 1960s and the 1980s.

"The relative impact of strikes on the economy is actually really low compared to what it once was," he said. "But the tolerance level for inconvenience and disruption also has dropped, and so when workers like these port workers exercised their legal right, some people act like the sky is falling."

University of British Columbia professor emeritus Mark Thompson said a post-mortem of the port strike by someone not involved in the negotiations would likely show that "all of the parties were rather inept" in causing the work stoppage, and structural changes to labour relations are not warranted.

"Longshoring strikes cause economic damage, which is usually made up rather quickly," he said. "Stories of economic losses are greatly exaggerated … more skilled negotiators on both sides, plus the mediator, might well have ended this strike more quickly without direct intervention by the government."

Thompson said the strike may have been avoided if the employers addressed the union's non-wage concerns such as contracting out and job protection earlier in the negotiations.

Terms of the deal ratified by both the union and the BC Maritime Employers Association released by the CIRB this week included a commitment by employers to train workers to perform maintenance on new equipment.

Contracting out maintenance work to third parties had been one of the most contentious issues during the dispute.

The four-year agreement also contains several terms about workers' compensation, including boosts to hourly wages to a base rate of $57.51 by 2026.

There are also increases in the "Modernization and Mechanization retirement lump sum," bringing that payout to $96,250 in 2026 for eligible retirees, over and above normal pension entitlements.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023.

Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press

LOW PAID TEMP WORKERS
Census workers logged hundreds of cases of violence, harassment by public: documents

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 9, 2023



OTTAWA — Statistics Canada documents show workers who went door-to-door to collect data for the 2021 census logged hundreds of workplace injuries and at least 15 assaults by members of the public.

The data tables obtained by The Canadian Press through access-to-information law list 680 injury reports, including more than 280 cases of harassment or violence.

In some of the most extreme examples, employees were punched, threatened with firearms, spat on or sexually assaulted.

In one case, a census interviewer was assaulted by a resident using a "pellet gun," while another had a "gun pointed at her from another vehicle," the documents say.

One worker was knocked down stairs after being punched in the face by a resident, and had to go to the hospital.

Another census employee was unwillingly detained in the home of an angry resident, the documents say. The event was reported to the RCMP.

In at least three separate instances, people collecting data for Statistics Canada reported that they were sexually assaulted by members of the public.

The majority of the census workplace safety complaints were traced to western and central provinces.

The Canadian government collects national population data every five years, and Statistics Canada representatives are sent to visit households that are late to submit their census questionnaires.

The injury reports from staffers showed there were 137 cases of people's dogs being aggressive or biting them, along with 158 slips, trips or falls.

Details about the total number of assaults and psychological injuries are redacted in the documents, as is information about any workplace fatalities.

Other categories of injuries included vehicle accidents, "potential contamination" and other "emergency" situations. The total number of incidents for each is also redacted.

The Canadian Press has contacted Statistics Canada and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who is responsible for Statistics Canada matters, for comment, but neither responded by deadline.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023.

Liam Fox, The Canadian Press

National Steel Car workers ratify new deal, end 41-day strike

CBC
Wed, August 9, 2023 

Frank Crowder, United Steelworkers Local 7135 president, stands outside National Steel Car, workers picketed since June 29. (Samantha Beattie/CBC - image credit)

A new deal between National Steel Car and its workers has been ratified, officially marking the end of a 41-day strike at the rail car maker.

A press release from the Local 7135 of the United Steelworkers union (USW) says workers voted for a new contract that will include a 13 per cent wage increase over three years, with six per cent in the first year and a $1,000 signing bonus.

Members in the skilled trades will also get an extra one dollar per hour wage increase in each of the first and third years of the contract, the union says.

The new collective agreement will also add another health and safety representative at the workplace and will improve other health and safety provisions.

Other improvements, the union says, includes changes to the defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension plans, and increases in shift premiums, dental care, vision care and safety boots allowances.

"We believe that we achieved what we were looking for," Frank Crowder, president of USW Local 7135, said.

"We went out with only a 52 per cent majority in favour of a strike, but our presence on the picket line was 100 per cent."

Some 1,475 workers went on strike on June 29, calling on higher wages and improved safety, Crowder previously said.

The union said maintenance workers will head back to work immediately to conduct inspections of the plant, while the remainder of union members will return to work on Monday, Aug. 14.