U$ Politicians Who Voted to Ban TikTok May Own as Much as $126 Million in Tech Stocks

Story by Thomas Germain • 3h •Gizmodo

Speaker Nancy Pelosi© Photo: Bloomberg / Contributor (Getty Images)

Financial disclosures show that members of Congress who voted for the so-called “TikTok ban” last week may own between $29 million and $126 million worth of stock in competing tech companies, according to data from Quiver Quantitative, a company that tracks congressional investments. Among the 352 members of the House of Representatives who voted “yes” on the bill, 44 reported they own shares of companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Snap—all corporations that could stand to benefit if TikTok is forced into a sale or a full-on ban.

Because Congress scuttled an effort to make their financial disclosures easily searchable, the details on these investments are hard to come by. Quiver Quantitative can only parse online filings. Some members file their financial disclosures by hand, and that information isn’t present in the data set. There are several other caveats to consider. Members of Congress have to report stock transactions within 45 days and disclose their overall stock holdings annually. Because there’s a grace period in both cases, the most recent information dates back to earlier this year, before the TikTok vote. Officials also don’t have to report the exact value of these investments, but instead have to disclose a range ($15,001 to $50,000 of Microsoft stock, for example). The value of the stocks has also changed since reports were filed.

Still, the data gives a useful indication of Congress’s finances. “Even if members of Congress are able to make completely unbiased decisions without any consideration of their personal stake, I think that even just the possibility of conflict of interest is harmful enough,” said Christopher Kardatzke, co-founder of Quiver Quantitative.

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The list of representatives with tech investments who voted for the bill covers 21 Democrats and 23 Republicans, including some big names such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., CA.) and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R., TX.).

Pelosi tops the list with disclosures of $15 million to $76 million of worth tech investments. Other top congressional tech investors include Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D., N.J.) who reported holding $6 million to $31 million of tech stocks and Rep. Daniel Goldman (D., N.Y.) with $2 million to $8 million. The top Republican investors include Rep. Kevin Hern (R., OK.), who disclosed over $500,000 to $1 million of tech stock, and Rep. David Kustoff (R. TN.), with about $300,00 to $800,000 worth of reported shares.

“Your insinuation is completely ridiculous and lacks basic research. In October of 2022, Rep. Crenshaw bought 20 shares of Google for a whopping $2,082, he bought 10 shares of META for a whopping $1,349 and he bought 15 shares of Amazon for a whopping $1,807,” said Corry Schiermeyer, spokesperson for Rep. Crenshaw. “He has not traded any of these stocks since that time. The insinuation that he is insider trading is borderline libelous as you are accusing him of a crime without any facts to back it up.” It’s worth noting that Crenshaw’s self-reported stock holdings are relatively minimal compared to some of his colleagues.

The other congress members mentioned in this story did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The fact that members of Congress own tech stocks isn’t proof of corruption or bias. According to Debra Perlin, Policy Director at the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the problem is the mere fact that Americans even have to ask questions about whether or not politicians’ financial interests factor into their decisions in the first place.

“Today’s news that members of Congress who voted to ban TikTok own millions of dollars in stock in companies that would benefit financially if TikTok were forced to sell or leave the country builds on a pattern of conduct across industries—including in the pharmaceutical industry, airline industry, and defense industry,” Perlin said. “Constituents are left to wonder if their elected representatives are voting in the best interests of their constituents or in the best interests of their financial bottom line.”


Since 2020, politicians on both sides of the aisle have banged the drum against TikTok, accusing the company of siphoning user data to the Chinese Communist Party. The government has also accused TikTok of manipulating its algorithm in order to advance China’s geopolitical agenda.

A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment for this article.

“The reality is, that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has direct ties to and is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party which harvests data from the American people and can use it against us,” Schiermeyer said. “It is a national security threat for TikTok to be Chinese owned and operated full stop.”

Like most large Chinese companies, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has ties to the Chinese Communist Party. However, there has never been any concrete evidence presented to the public that TikTok has shared data with the Chinese government, nor has it been demonstrated that China has interfered with content on the American version of the TikTok app.

Some elected officials, such as Senator Rand Paul, (R., K.Y.) have said that’s because these concerns are hypothetical, and that evidence doesn’t exist. Reporting has also demonstrated that American apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, X/Twitter, and YouTube have all partnered with Chinese advertising technology companies, meaning they’ve sent American user data to servers in China. That means American apps expose sensitive information to similar risks.

It would be a massive boon to Meta and Snap if the government successfully kneecaps TikTok, but experts and analysts agree that other major players in the tech industry may benefit as well.

TikTok doesn’t just make money on advertising. It also has a growing e-commerce business that sells directly to consumers, and it’s a prime venue for consumers to discover products in the first place

“Meta and Snap would be obvious beneficiaries, and people are discovering products to buy on TikTok all the time. If that stops, the odds they might find products on Amazon instead go up,” said Brad Ericson, a stock analyst at RBC Capital. “The volume TikTok is producing may not have a significant impact on Amazon’s business, but it helps directionally. YouTube would absolutely benefit as well.”

TikTok is the only real threat to Google’s YouTube, and recent reports suggest that a growing contingent of young people use TikTok as a search engine rather than Google. Amazon, TikTok, and Google are all competitors in the digital advertising market as well, particularly when it comes to retail advertising, though Google is a clear leader. In general, Microsoft and TikTok aren’t direct competitors. However, Microsoft was a top contender to buy TikTok when former President Trump attempted to force a sale of the app back in 2020. If the app went back on sale, Microsoft could be a suitor.

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Snap did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The bill doesn’t directly call for a ban on TikTok. Instead, it would force TikTok’s Chinese Parent company ByteDance to sell the app. There are countless companies and investors who would jump at the chance to buy TikTok. However, TikTok maintains that the bill is just a thinly veiled ban. It would only allow six months for a sale, which is a short period of time for such a massive, complex business deal.

However, there’s no guarantee the bill will pass. The House of Representatives mobilized swiftly to get its TikTok legislation out the door, introducing and passing the legislation in just 8 days with an overwhelming majority. But there’s far more opposition to interfering with TikTok’s business in the Senate, and Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer indicated he’s unsure whether he’ll even bring the bill up for a vote. However, several prominent Senators are calling for the government to declassify information shared at a recent intelligence briefing about the influence and reach of TikTok.

Content creators worry about miseducation in a world without TikTok

Giovanna Gonzalez of Chicago demonstrates outside the U.S. Capitol following a press conference by TikTok creators to voice their opposition to the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act," pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 12, 2024.

 REUTERS/Craig Hudson/File Photo© Thomson Reuters

By Danielle Broadway

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It was December 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when "Ms. James", a public school teacher in a small rural Southern town, realized that her virtual students were not watching the grammar lessons she assigned them. That is, until she posted them on TikTok.


U.S. flag and TikTok logo are seen through broken glass in this illustration taken March 20, 2024. 

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration© Thomson Reuters

Everything changed when she learned about the social media platform and created her profile as @iamthatenglishteacher.

"In a day, I had one thousand followers, in a week I had ten thousand, and in six weeks I had one hundred thousand followers," she told Reuters.

"Within six months, I had a million and a half," added the teacher of fifteen years, who asked not to use her full name for privacy

Now, she has 5.8 million followers on TikTok, but her educational content now faces a threat.

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill last week that will give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the U.S. assets of the short-video app, or face a ban. It's the greatest threat since the Trump administration to the app, and to the content creators who reach wide audiences and often earn their living on it.

"When you talk about the ban, you are talking about taking access to high quality educational videos away from people who have used it to enhance their education," Ms. James said.

While her TikTok lessons are used by students ranging from elementary school to college, most of her followers are English as a Second Language students(ESL)students from the Phillipines as well as homeschooled students.

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From videos on subject-verb agreement to vocabulary, Ms. James believes that her legacy is to help the world through education and fears a ban would be detrimental.

"I think that TikTok is a wealth of knowledge," NaomiHearts, a content creator known by her 1.1 million followers for her TikTok videos about fatphobia and trans Chicana identity, told Reuters.

She also fears that the ban will silence diverse, informative content, including her own.

However, University of Southern California professor Karen North warns her students that personal data is in danger on TikTok.

"My concern with TikTok is less about what information is provided or manipulated or whether it's skewed toward one message or another," North, the founder and former director of USC Annenberg’s Digital Social Media program told Reuters.

"It's more toward what kind of personal information are people voluntarily giving up to an entity that does not have the same standards for privacy that we (the United States) do. That's the big issue with TikTok," she added.

North, a former White House employee for the Clinton administration at Capitol Hill, worries the Chinese company’s use of functions like facial recognition and location tracking creates threats that outweigh the engaging benefits of the app, including in academia.

Content creator Dr. Anthony Youn, known for his educational TikTok videos exploring his profession as a plastic surgeon, believes the ban would have significant drawbacks on information accessibility.

"There's a huge segment of TikTok where you get your news, so it's about being educated," Dr. Youn, who has 8.4 million followers, told Reuters.

Similarly, NaomiHearts feels the ban is less about protecting data, as other apps also collect personal information, and more about denying consumers informative content.

(Reporting by Danielle Broadway and David Shepardson; Editing by Peter Graff)

Higher temperatures mean higher food and other prices. A new study links climate shocks to inflation

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Food prices and overall inflation will rise as temperatures climb with climate change, a new study by an environmental scientist and the European Central Bank found.

Looking at monthly price tags of food and other goods, temperatures and other climate factors in 121 nations since 1996, researchers calculate that “weather and climate shocks” will cause the cost of food to rise 1.5 to 1.8 percentage points annually within a decade or so, even higher in already hot places like the Middle East, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Communications, Earth and the Environment.

And that translates to an increase in overall inflation of 0.8 to 0.9 percentage points by 2035, just caused by climate change extreme weather, the study said.

Those numbers may look small, but to banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve that fight inflation, they are significant, said study lead author Max Kotz, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany

“The physical impacts of climate change are going to have a persistent effect on inflation,” Kotz said. “This is really from my perspective another example of one of the ways in which climate change can undermine human welfare, economic welfare.”

And by 2060, the climate-triggered part of inflation should grow, with global food prices predicted to increase 2.2 to 4.3 percentage points annually, the study said. That translates to a 1.1 to 2.2 percentage point increase in overall inflation.

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Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia University's business school who wasn't part of the research, said what he calls “climateflation” is “all too real and the numbers are rather striking.”

Kotz and European Bank economists looked at 20,000 data points to find a real world causal link between extreme weather, especially heat, and rising prices. They then looked at what's projected in the future for climate change and saw sticker shock.

Usually when economists talk inflation and climate change, it's about rising energy prices in response to efforts to curb warming, but that's only part of the problem, Kotz said.

“There are these productivity shocks that we know about from climate change, from the weather phenomena caused by climate change, from heat waves and so forth to reduce agricultural productivity,” Kotz said. “Those also then have a knock-on effect on food inflation, on headline inflation.”

The study points to 2022’s European heat wave as a good example. The high heat cut food supplies, causing food prices to rise two-thirds of a percentage point and overall inflation to jump about one-third of a percentage point, Kotz said. Prices rose even higher in Romania, Hungary and parts of southern Europe.

“I find the main result on the historic relationship between regional temperature anomalies and national inflation to be credible,” said Frances Moore, an environmental economist at the University of California, Davis who wasn't part of the study. “The findings are important. Price variability in essential goods like food is very painful to consumers.”

Kotz said the analysis found the inflationary pressure on food and other prices is worse in areas and seasons that are hotter. So Europe and North America may not be hit as hard as the Global South, which could afford it less, he said.

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press

Unpasteurised milk and the American right

Story by Harriet Marsden, The Week UK • 3d 

Although still a niche product, raw milk has dramatically increased in popularity among right-wing Americans amid a wider rise in scepticism© Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images

Once a "fringe health food for new-age hippies and fad-chasing liberal foodies", raw milk has "won over the hearts and minds" of the US right-wing.

Selling unpasteurised milk – straight from the cow, without heating to kill bacteria – directly to consumers was largely illegal in the US before 2008. The bacteria can be fatal, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). John Sheehan, the former director of the FDA's plant and dairy food safety division, famously compared drinking raw milk to "playing Russian roulette with your health".

Its proponents, however, have long claimed that raw milk boasts a range of health benefits, and contains enzymes vitamins lost in the pasteurisation process – among other misconceptions debunked by the FDA. Now, although still a "niche product", raw milk is increasingly popular among Republicans, said Marc Novicoff, associate editor of The Washington Monthly, for Politico: a "conservative culture-war signal that is a sweetheart of deep-red state legislatures".

'A larger upheaval in American politics'

During the 2000s, after decades of highly processed food and skyrocketing obesity rates, consumers began to favour natural, organic food, said Novicoff. Raw milk began to grow in popularity among subsets of liberals, alongside a wider farm-to-table movement and the popularity of Whole Foods.

"The appeal of raw milk is that it's an unprocessed and natural food," David Gumpert, author of "The Raw Milk Revolution" told The Free Press. "Milk is the first nurturing food that mammals have, including humans, so it has a lot of symbolism in that way."

In 2008, Iowa's Republican Senator Jason Schultz was "stunned to learn dairy farmers could get in trouble for selling" raw milk and introduced a bill to legalise it, said Novicoff. The bill initially "went nowhere", but slowly Schultz attracted supporters. Last May the bill finally passed – with nearly all Republicans in favour.

Since 2020, five other Rebublican-leaning states have passed laws or changed regulations to legalise the sale of raw milk in farms or supermarkets, while liberal elites "gave up on it". The trend is "a vivid example of a larger upheaval in American politics", said Novicoff, mirroring the rise of Donald Trump and a GOP electorate that is "more rural, more working class, less ideological and generally more distrustful" of experts.

The Iowa law evoked "the ghost" of a "rugged ethos" from America's iconoclastic past, according to The American Conservative.

A 'giant middle finger to experts'

The past few years has seen "a dramatic uptick in raw-milk consumption", wrote Suzy Weiss for The Free Press. It "represents a time before everything got screwed up" – a "halcyon era". And since it's unpasteurised, it's "a little bit dangerous – as the medical establishment has warned". "It's forbidden," wrote Weiss. "And when you don't trust the institutions forbidding it, the draw is all the greater."

Most states still don't allow it to be sold in supermarkets – but most have "loopholes for the determined and savvy", while more are moving to legalise it. For now, to drink (and, especially, to produce) raw milk "is a way of breaking with convention and raging against the machine", said Weiss, "while engaging in caveman-inspired biohacking".


"Raw milkers want control over their lives", said Weiss, and that includes their food.

More than the deregulatory appeal, conservatives discovered that raw milk fits "neatly inside a world view that was increasingly sceptical", said Novicoff. On average, American conservatives "trust everything less", from experts to politicians to the media, and this loss of trust rapidly accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Raw milk has "taken on a new tone" since then, one dairy farmer told Weiss. A lot of people lost faith in the national health institutions, and more broadly in scientific and health advice.

Drinking raw milk is a "giant middle finger to the experts", said Novicoff.

Covid had a lot to do with it, Sally Fallon Morell, the president of the pro-raw milk Weston A. Price Foundation, told Politico. "A lot of people don't believe everything the government says any more."

Atlantic Canada's insolvent SaltWire Network hoping to survive restructuring process

© Provided by The Canadian Press

HALIFAX — A Nova Scotia judge will be asked on Friday to approve a plan to restructure or seek bidders to buy or invest in SaltWire Network Inc., the insolvent Halifax-based media company recently granted protection from creditors.

SaltWire, the largest newspaper publisher in Atlantic Canada, is hoping to survive by restructuring its operations and finances under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), but it will need investors to accomplish that goal. In the meantime, the business will continue as usual.

The potential restructuring could include the reorganization of some or all of the companies that are part of the SaltWire group, including The Halifax Herald Ltd., Titan Security and Investigation Inc., Brace Capital Ltd., and Brace Holdings Ltd.

In a motion filed this week with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, lawyers representing SaltWire's principal lender, Fiera Private Debt, are also proposing a so-called sale and investment solicitation process (SISP), which they want overseen by FTI Capital Advisors Canada.

The SISP involves canvassing the market for investors willing to put money into the deeply indebted companies or purchase their assets. If the court agrees, the deadline for formal bids will be July 31.

"The principal purpose of the CCAA proceedings is to create a stabilized environment to enable the companies … to secure financing to continue to operate while the media companies pursue a restructuring or sale of their businesses and assets through a court-supervised SISP," court documents say.

Fiera, as senior secured creditor, is asking Justice John Keith to extend SaltWire's protection from its creditors until May 3, and increase the amount it can borrow from Fiera to $1.5 million, up from the $500,000 it borrowed last week.

Fiera's lawyers are also asking Keith to expand the powers of the court-appointed monitor overseeing the CCAA proceedings, which was supposed to be Toronto-based KSV Restructuring Inc. But an amended notice filed this week indicates the monitor, subject to court approval, could be Toronto-based law firm Chaitons LLP.

As well, Fiera wants increased powers for David Boyd of Resolve Advisory Services Ltd., whom the court appointed last week as chief restructuring officer.

Meanwhile, Fiera's director of special situations, Russell French, filed an affidavit saying these expanded powers are necessary because the lenders want to ensure the integrity of the sale/investment process. He indicated there is concern about SaltWire Network president and CEO Mark Lever, who has said he plans to resign and submit some sort of bid.

"Given the concerns expressed by the lenders in their faith in (SaltWire) management, such powers will provide the lenders with the confidence required to continue to fund these proceedings," French's affidavit says.

French confirmed that, as of last fall, the SaltWire companies, with the help of FTI Capital Advisors, had encouraged interested bidders to take part in a recapitalization process, but that led nowhere.

"The lenders remain hopeful that a third-party buyer for a going concern transaction can be found," French said in his affidavit.

In documents filed with the court March 11, Fiera Private Debt said SaltWire and The Halifax Herald Ltd. together owe it $32.7 million, plus almost $600,000 in accrued interest.

About three-quarters of that debt is owed by SaltWire, which owns daily newspapers in Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador, including Halifax's Chronicle Herald, the Cape Breton Post in Sydney, N.S., the Telegram in St. John's and the Guardian in Charlottetown. It also owns 14 weekly publications.

SaltWire and its affiliates employ about 390 people, including more than 100 unionized staff and 800 independent contractors.

Fiera alleges the companies were mismanaged over the years, and the lender has also accused senior managers of failing to make payments on employee pensions or remit HST payments to the federal government.

The documents note that The Herald was recently ordered to pay more than $2.6 million in outstanding pension liabilities. And as of Jan. 2, Fiera says SaltWire and The Herald owed the Canada Revenue Agency more than $7 million combined in collected and unremitted HST.

In its filings, Fiera has said it loaned money to SaltWire to help it pay for its 2017 acquisition of almost two dozen newspapers from Transcontinental Nova Scotia Media Group Inc. SaltWire was recently ordered to post $500,000 as security for costs in litigation over its Transcontinental acquisition.

SaltWire has said the companies have struggled to cope with "the pressures created by multinational social media networks."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 22, 2024.

Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press

As India's election nears, some Bollywood films promote Modi politics by embracing Hindu nationalism

NEW DELHI (AP) — The movie trailer begins with an outline of the iconic glasses worn by Mohandas Gandhi, the leader who helped India win independence from the British colonialists in 1947. In the backdrop of a devotional song that Gandhi loved, the outline slowly morphs into what appears like his face.

Then, a raucous beat drops, followed by a rap song. A face is finally revealed: not Gandhi, but an actor who plays the independence leader’s ideological nemesis, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar — the man considered the fountainhead of Hindu nationalism in India.

It is the same ideology Prime Minister Narendra Modi has harnessed to cement his power as his ruling party makes strides in its quest to turn the secular country into a Hindu nation.

The glorified biopic on the early 20th-century Hindu nationalist ideologue — called “Swatantra Veer Savarkar,” or “Independent Warrior Savarkar” — hits Indian theatres Friday, just weeks ahead of a national vote that is set to determine the political direction of the country for the next five years. The movie coincides with a cluster of upcoming Bollywood releases based on polarizing issues, which either promote Modi and his government’s political agenda, or lambast his critics.

Related video: No democracy in India, it is a complete lie: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (India Today NE)   Duration 1:25  View on Watch

Analysts say the use of popular cinema as a campaign tool to promote Hindu nationalism feeds into a divisive narrative that risks exacerbating the already widespread political and religious rifts in the country.

Raja Sen, a film critic and Bollywood screenwriter, said movies used to represent a mix of nationalistic cinema and films promoting national integration.

"That appears to be fast changing,” Sen said. “The scary part is that these films are being accepted now. It is truly frightening.”

For more than a century, Bollywood has unified India, a country riven with religious, caste and political divide. It's been a rare industry where religion has been least influential in deciding the success of filmmakers and actors. Bollywood films have also championed political diversity and religious harmony.

That culture, however, appears to be under threat.

Under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, many filmmakers have made movies on bygone Hindu kings extolling their bravery. Boisterous and action-packed movies valorizing the Indian Army have become box office successes. Political dramas and biopics that eulogize Hindu nationalists are the norm.

In most of these films, the stock villains are medieval Muslim rulers, leftist or opposition leaders, free thinkers or rights activists — and neighboring Pakistan, India’s arch rival.

The biopic on Sarvarkar, who advocated for India’s future as a Hindu nation, is emblematic of this broader trend.

Two more upcoming films claim to reveal a conspiracy about a 2002 train fire in western Gujarat state that ignited one of the worst anti-Muslim riots in India. More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in riots. It was a hugely controversial episode in Modi’s political career, as he was the chief minister of Gujarat at the time.

Another film claims to expose the "anti-national agenda” of a university in the capital, New Delhi. The film is loosely based on Jawaharlal Nehru University, one of the country’s premier liberal institutions that has become a target of Hindu nationalists and leaders from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

Many past films with similar themes became box office successes. Modi’s party often publicly endorsed them despite criticism of his government for stifling dissent.

In February, Modi himself praised “Article 370,” a film that celebrated his government’s controversial decision to strip Indian-controlled Kashmir of its special status and statehood in 2019. Some film reviewers called the movie “factually incorrect” and a “thinly veiled propaganda film” favoring the government.

“The Kerala Story," the ninth-highest grossing Hindi film of 2023, was widely panned for inaccuracies in depicting Christian and Hindu girls from India’s southern Kerala state who were lured to join the Islamic State. The film was banned in two states ruled by opposition parties, who said it was Islamophobic and would destroy religious harmony.

At the same time, at least three states ruled by Modi’s party made tickets to see the film tax-free and held mass screenings. Modi himself endorsed viewing the film during a state election rally.

Sudipto Sen, the film’s director, said the movie exposed the "nexus between religious fundamentalism and terrorism” through a human story, and did not vilify Muslims.

“You can’t ignore the emotional appeal of these films. In fact, every state government should endorse them,” Sen said.

Another of Sen’s films, based on Maoist insurgency in central Indian jungles, was released March 15. Its primary villains, apart from the insurgents, were rights activists and left-leaning intellectuals. One critic called it “two hours of diatribe against communism.”

While such films have been applauded by India's right, other Bollywood movies have fallen into the crosshairs of Hindu nationalists.

Right-wing groups have frequently threatened to block the release of films they deem offensive to Hinduism. Hindu activists often make calls on social media to boycott such films.

Some filmmakers caught up in India’s increasingly restrictive political environment say they're resorting to self-censorship.

“People like me feel disempowered,” said Onir, a National Award-winning filmmaker who goes by just one name.

Onir has made widely acclaimed films highlighting LGBTQ+ rights. In 2022, Onir wanted to make a movie inspired by a former Indian army major who falls in love with a local man in disputed Kashmir, where armed rebels seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan have fought Indian rule for decades. The film’s script was rejected by India’s defense ministry because it was “distorting the image of Indian army,” the filmmaker said.

“Look at the films that are getting released now. Any film that goes against the government’s narrative is called anti-national. There is no fair ground. In fact, there is an atmosphere of fear,” Onir said.

Polarizing films — which Onir noted constitute most of the recent releases, while movies focusing on discrimination against minorities face hurdles — tend to make big money, signaling the appetite for such content.

Some say the rise in divisive films reflects opportunism among filmmakers.

“The idea that this is the way to success has permeated into Bollywood,” said Raja Sen, the critic and screenwriter.

He said such films make good business sense because of the noise they generate, even though they serve as the cinematic equivalent of "WhatsApp forwards" — a reference to misinformation and propaganda spread on the social messaging platform.

“Indian films need an artistic rebellion. I hope we can start seeing that,” Sen said.

Sheikh Saaliq, The Associated Press

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Why an Alabama bay has seen an increase in bull sharks in the last 2 decades

Not all animal species are experiencing a detrimental effect due to warming global temperatures.

The number of bull sharks -- one of the most aggressive species of shark in the world -- increased significantly in a 20-year period, and researchers say warmer seawater is to blame

Bull sharks are among the shark species most likely to have a negative interaction with humans, along with the great white shark and the tiger shark.


Sunset on Mobile Bay in Daphne, AL.© George Dodd/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Researchers measured changes in the distribution and abundance of bull sharks in Mobile Bay using data from 440 bull sharks captured and released during surveys conducted between 2003 and 2020 by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which has been conducting a gill net survey of the Alabama coastline, Lindsay Mullins, a Ph.D. student at Mississippi State University's wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture department and lead author of the study, told ABC News.

Environmental factors associated with these changes during the same period were collected using remote sensing data, according to the paper.MORE: 10 people killed in unprovoked shark attacks last year, report finds

The number of individual sharks captured per hour of surveying increased five-fold between 2003 and 2020, the data showed. In addition, all of the bull sharks surveyed during the study period were juveniles.

The uptick in population coincided with an increase in the mean sea surface temperature in Mobile Bay from 22.3 degrees Celsius -- 72.1 degrees Fahrenheit -- in 2001 to 23 degrees Celsius -- 73.4 degrees Fahrenheit -- in 2020, according to the paper.


A lone Bull Shark swims just below the ocean's surface, offshore West Palm Beach, FL.© Julian Gunther/Getty Images

Sea surface temperatures above 22.5 degrees Celsius were associated with an increased likelihood of bull shark presence, the researchers found in data produced by computer modeling.MORE: Bahamas shark experience temporarily closes after 10-year-old boy bitten by shark

The study also revealed that the average probability of capturing a bull shark during surveys increased throughout Mobile Bay between 2003 and 2020, despite increases in coastal urbanization since 2000. The likelihood of tagging a bull shark was highest near the city of Daphne and along the western shoreline of the bay, according to the researchers.

The species is typically found in warm, shallow coastal waters in both fresh and saltwater environments, which is why they are thriving in the warmer waters while other animal species are beginning to decline, Mullins said.


Group of Bull Sharks, underwater view, Playa del Carmen, Mexico© Ken Kiefer 2/Getty Images/Image Source

The findings highlight the resilience of the species in response to climate change and coastal urbanization, a "surprising" result, Mullins said.

"It is, sort of, contrary to that narrative that we normally think, which is that for many species, warming water is a detriment," she said.
MORE: Scientists have an explanation why there is an increase of shark attacks off East Coast

While sharks near U.S. waters have benefitted from aggressive coastal conservation efforts, overall, the global outlook for sharks is still relatively grim due to overfishing or being caught as bycatch, Mullins said.

However, it's unclear how the bull shark population could respond to even more increases in sea surface temperature. It is also unclear how a continued uptick in populations will affect the local ecosystem.


Side view of Bull shark in shallow water.© Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty

While bull sharks are known for their ability to help balance and maintain the health of coastal ecosystems by regulating prey populations, the scientists speculate that increased numbers could affect fishing opportunities in the region and could potentially lead to increases in interactions with humans, according to the paper.

People who recreate along the Mobile Bay Coast don't have much to worry about, Mullins said, adding she wouldn't hesitate to continue to take her family.

"This increase in abundance is not going to lead to an increase in shark bites," she said.

Italy sees tens of thousands take part in anti-Mafia demonstrations

Story by DPA International • 21h • 


People take part in a rally honouring the people killed in Italy by the Mafia. Valentina Stefanelli/Zuma Press/dpa© DPA International

Italy commemorated the victims of organized crime on Thursday with a series of anti-Mafia events being held in different cities across the country.

One of the largest demonstrations took place in the capital Rome, where people marched through the city centre with banners and placards and gathered in front of the Colosseum.

The protest was initiated by Luigi Ciotto - also known as Don Ciotto - a priest and well-known opponent of the Mafia in Italy.

The demonstration was attended by relatives of people killed by the Mafia as well as schoolchildren and students. The names of the 1,081 innocent victims were read out.

The mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, was joined by the social democratic opposition leader Elly Schlein and former head of government Giuseppe Conte from the Five Star Movement. "We must remind everyone that the mafia exists and that we, the institutions and civil society, must be united," said Gualtieri.

Many people also took to the streets in other Italian cities to mark the day of remembrance, which takes place every year on March 21. Events were held in Palermo in Sicily, and Naples, where the notorious Mafia organizations Cosa Nostra and Camorra are active.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni promised that the fight against the Mafia will continue and intensify. "The memory of those who have paid such a high price and the example of those who have sacrificed their lives in defence of the law must be the beacon that guides all our actions and deeds," she wrote on the X platform, formerly Twitter.


People take part in a rally honouring the people killed in Italy by the Mafia. Valentina Stefanelli/Zuma Press/dpa© DPA International

Why we need to reuse waste energy to achieve net-zero heating systems

Story by James (Jim) S. Cotton, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, McMaster University

THE CONVERSATION

Just generating heat is not enough. We must also capture, store, and utilize waste heat.

We’re already pushing the system on the hottest days of the year to keep our electric air conditioning running, mainly by supplementing with inefficient carbon-producing natural gas or coal power plants during peak demand periods.

If we were all relying on electrical forms of heating, electricity demand would be substantially higher on the coldest days of the year and overwhelm the grid. The solution to this problem, however, lies not in the heat we generate but the heat we reuse.
The importance of heating

Heating systems keep many of us alive.

In a cold-climate country such as Canada it takes far, far more energy to heat homes in winter than to cool them in summer. To compare the overall energy required for heating and cooling buildings we look at heating degree days (HDD) versus cooling degree days (CDD).

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In Toronto, for example, heating degree days outnumber cooling degree days about 7-1. Consumers may not be aware of this huge disparity, since most home heating comes from burning natural gas, while most cooling comes from electricity, but if we moved all that demand to the grid, it would become apparent all too quickly.

Chart representing heating degree days and cooling degree days by various key urban areas.© (James S. Cotton)

Air conditioning already pushes the electrical grid when cooling indoor spaces to 23 C when it is above 35 C outside, but warming our indoor spaces to 20 C when it is -40 C outside means covering a 60-degree gap.

If we were to move all our heating demands to the electrical grid, even with the most modern, efficient air-source heat pumps, peak demand would be about four to five times what it is today, and that’s not a problem anyone can solve quickly.

Utilize everything

Fortunately, there is another option that can keep us warm without burning additional fuel. By storing the heat generated from all sources, including waste heat, and drawing from it through the coldest months of the year, our research shows we can use discarded waste heat.

A huge amount of heat generated today is simply dissipated into our surroundings and wasted, and when it’s cold outside, we use new energy to make fresh heat. That doesn’t make sense.

A typical pizza restaurant produces enough leftover heat every year to heat seven family homes. A hockey arena creates huge amounts of heat in the process of making ice and keeping it frozen.


A chart showing the different demands of heating versus cooling systems at peak demand.© (James S. Cotton)

Same for a grocery store and its many freezers and refrigerators, a factory running industrial-scale production equipment, and any large building running commercial air-conditioners. Today we dump all that heat into the air instead of holding onto it for when we need it, leading to unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions.


We need to start seeing the heat we make as a readily recoverable, carbon-free resource and do much more to harness it. There is already technology that can harvest and store such heat for months in underground thermal batteries until it is needed.
Integrated heat harvesting systems

We can recover the heat by piping water through hot underground batteries and running those pipes into nearby buildings, like a big boiler-and-radiator system, except the boiler is actually an underground battery charged not with electricity, but with heat.

Read more: A 21st-century reinvention of the electric grid is crucial for solving the climate change crisis

McMaster University is preparing to put replacement back-up generators into play through peak-shaving programs.

When demand is critical on the hottest days of the year, the gas-powered generators will create the extra electricity needed to operate the campus—including sensitive labs and research facilities. If we were to capture and store the waste heat produced and tie into it in the winter, we could halve their net carbon emissions into the atmosphere.



The Modular Integrated Community Energy and Harvesting System has the potential to provide winter-long heat at considerable carbon savings.© (James S.Cotton)

McMaster leads a wider research co-operative demonstration project called Integrated Community Energy and Harvesting, or ICE-Harvest, with 30 municipalities and 19 industrial partners taking part.

In a new paper in the journal Applied Energy, we show how such localized systems use the same energy twice.

Heat batteries already exist

Capturing, saving and using leftover heat is an efficient solution that can be managed by localized microthermal networks. Think of it this way: the Canadian chain Pizza Pizza is piloting a system that uses heat recovered from its ovens to heat its own hot water. The chain can then sell what is left over. In the same way an arena can sell its heat to a retirement home across the street; a grocery store to a neighbouring school, and so on.

Read more: A tenth of all electricity is lost in the grid. Superconducting cables can help

This solution would require new infrastructure, including buried pipes to circulate heat from source to storage and from storage to user. That would be expensive to set up, but such costs could readily be spread out over decades, as previous generations did to build highways, hydro lines and gas pipelines.

Existing and emerging technology can measure and regulate the gathering, sharing and distribution of heat in a system where the accounts of heat producers are credited as they add to the supply and end users are charged when they draw from the supply. It is just a matter of time before industrial, commercial and institutional players realize there is value in their cooling towers.

These are not far-fetched ideas. They are practical and available to be implemented now and are a realistic climate action strategy. Here in the northern hemisphere, heat is a valuable resource that’s already there waiting to be tapped, and we can no longer afford to waste it.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
Extreme heat is particularly hard on older adults – an aging population and climate change put ever more people at risk
Keen to get off gas in your home, but struggling to make the switch? Research shows you’re not alone

James (Jim) S. Cotton works for and owns shares in Harvest Systems Inc. He receives funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (CRDPJ 401203143 - 2018) and the Ministry of Research and Innovation and Science administered by Ontario Centre of Innovation (27851-2018), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and Ontario Research Fund - Research Infrastructure. The author would also like to acknowledge the McMaster Energy Research Cooperative partners for their contributions: HCE Energy Inc., GridSmartCity LDC Cooperative (Brantford Power, Burlington Hydro, Energy+, ENWIN, ERTH Power, Essex Power Lines, Halton Hills Hydro, Kingston Hydro, Kitchener Wilmot Hydro, Milton Hydro, Niagara Peninsula Energy, Oakville Enterprises Corp., Waterloo North Hydro, Welland Hydro Electric Systems Corp.), Alectra Utilities, Enbridge Gas, S2e Technologies, Geosource Energy and Siemens Canada Limited

CANADA

Federal minimum wage rising to $17.30 an hour on April 1

OTTAWA — The federal minimum wage is rising to $17.30 per hour on April 1.

The increase from $16.65 reflects the increase in the annual average consumer price index for 2023.

The government says about 30,000 employees in the federally regulated private sector will benefit from the increase.

Ottawa introduced the federal minimum wage in 2021.

It is adjusted annually based on Canada's annual average consumer price index from the previous calendar year.

If the provincial or territorial minimum wage rate exceeds the federal rate, employers must pay the higher of the two.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 21, 2024.

Women Finally Have a Pro Hockey League, but Pay Equity Is Still a Work in Progress

© Getty / Troy Parla Vaughn Ridley Icon Sportswire

On Jan. 1, 2024, hockey history was made. On that day, about halfway through the first period, forward Alex Carpenter, a two-time Olympic silver medalist for Team USA Hockey, slid the puck over to her Canadian-born teammate Ella Shelton, who promptly snuck it past the goalie and into the net, all in front of a sold-out crowd in Toronto's Mattamy Athletic Centre.

What's so history-making about a simple goal? This was the first goal scored during the first-ever game of the brand-new Professional Women's Hockey League, the first professional women's hockey league that gives women athletes a way to make a full-time living doing what they love and do best.

Comprised of six teams from the northeastern U.S. and Canada - New York, Boston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto - the PWHL has been a long time coming. The first professional women's hockey league, called the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), was formed in Canada in 1999. Though the U.S. and Canada have a storied ice hockey rivalry, the NWHL eventually incorporated U.S. teams. But in 2021, the since-rebranded league (now called the Professional Hockey Federation, PHF) folded, leaving a gap in opportunities for women to play professional ice hockey

"When the league first folded, I was still in college, and some of those girls were only making $7,500 a year," Shelton tells PS. "A lot of them had side jobs or had a full-time job and the league paid just enough for them to play hockey after their day jobs." Shelton herself worked on her family's farm in Ingersoll, Ontario whenever she heads home from her team's home base in New York. Saroya Tinker, a retired player who now works as a women's hockey analyst and broadcaster, says that she only made $5,000 her first year in the NWHL in 2020 (before it became the PHF).

As is the case with many women's sports, players were advocating for fair pay. There were signs of progress, but it was incremental. Tinker made $15,000 her second season. "We were on the right track, but still not making a living wage," Tinker says.

One of the main goals of the PWHL was to change that. "We've been at this battle for a very long time. We play very heated matches, but we've banded together to create a professional environment that women's hockey has never seen, and that has created a mutual respect for each other," says PWHL Toronto's Canadian superstar center Sarah Nurse, who recently was named the PWHL's First Star of the Week after her game-winning overtime goal against Minnesota on Feb. 27.

The league is currently striving to pay its members a full-time salary, and some players can make up to $80,000 per season. That said, CBS reports that the average salary PWHL players make is just $55,000 and the league minimum is $35,000. And even the high earners are making nowhere near men's ice hockey salaries. The minimum wage for the NHL was $775,000 in 2023, according to The Athletic, and the cap for teams is $83.5 million.

When you consider that the six teams in the PWHL are made up of the best women's hockey players in the world, including Olympic gold and silver medalists, that huge wage gap is especially infuriating. But the word PWHL players use to describe the new league is "sustainable." They want to create a league that lasts, and to do that, they're starting conservatively.

Another step in the PWHL's plan is to increase players' exposure, says Nurse. Boston's Megan Keller - who, as a child, insisted on wearing full hockey gear to her first skating lessons - hosts a podcast, The Keller and Kess show, with her Team USA teammate Amanda Kessel. The show aims to get hockey personalities and other female athletes out in front of an audience and shares their untold narratives. "You don't normally get to hear these stories from players," Keller says. More exposure can help translate into higher viewership, which allows women's leagues to secure more funding - all essential as the PWHL strives to pay its members the full-time salaries they deserve.

Another goal of the PWHL is to make hockey more culturally and economically diverse, Nurse says. "Hockey culture as a whole needs to change in regard to how inclusive we are culture-wise, people being welcome in the arena, and the words that are being used in locker rooms," Tinker says.

In 2022, Tinker, who's also the PWHL's manager of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives and Community Engagement, co-founded Black Girl Hockey Club Canada. The non-profit outfits Black girls in full hockey gear, which can cost upwards of $3,000, and gives young Black hockey players a safe space to fully participate in the game. Tinker had formerly volunteered as a mentor with the U.S. arm of Black Girls Hockey Club, and used the platform she built after kneeling during the national anthem in protest of the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor during the 2020 season to raise money to allow her to open a Canadian arm.

Players hope that the PWHL's commitments to fair pay and a more inclusive hockey culture will contribute to the league's longevity.

For now, there are two months left of the league's 2024 regular season, during which the six teams will battle it out for a spot in the playoffs, and the players are enjoying the chance to whole-heartedly pursue their passion.

For Keller, that means playing for what she now considers her hometown team. "Boston has felt like home for a while. After I played at Boston College and graduated, I didn't want to leave the city - so I was lucky that I was drafted to the Boston PWHL team, which was my number one choice," Keller says. She shares her hopes to take PWHL Boston to the playoffs for the league's inaugural trophy. In the off season, she'll train for Team USA with the goal of making the roster for the 2026 Milan Olympics, where she'd face off against players like Nurse and Shelton on Team Canada.

While Keller is trying to focus on enjoying the present moment, she can't help but think about what lies ahead for PWHL and, by extension, for women hockey players who hope to go pro. Thanks to the level of talent and the degree of support within the league, she's optimistic. "I think a lot of us would say it just feels different," Keller says. "This feels like the one that's going to last."Mara Santilli is a POPSUGAR contributor, freelance writer and editor specializing in reproductive health, wellness, politics, and the intersection between them, whose print and digital work has appeared in Marie Claire, Glamour, Women's Health, SELF, Cosmopolitan, and more.