More than 4,000 Salesforce employees have signed an open letter demanding the company cut ties with the NRA

wsoon@insider.com (Weilun Soon) - 

Salesforce co-founder and co-CEO Marc Benioff. 

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images

Salesforce employees signed an open letter urging company leadership to drop the NRA as a customer.

It's "unconscionable" that the NRA can use their software for marketing and fundraising, the employees said.

Marc Benioff, the co-CEO of Salesforce, has previously voiced support for gun control.

More than 4,000 Salesforce employees have urged their company's leadership to drop the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a customer.

The employees made their request in an open letter addressed to company leaders including co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor, SFGate first reported, citing a copy of the letter it viewed. The employees delivered the letter a day after a teenager went on a shooting rampage in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, killing at least 19 students and two adults.

"It's not in our power to get background checks or other gun control measures passed by Congress — but we can effect change by ending our commercial relationship with our customer, the National Rifle Association," the Salesforce employees wrote in their letter.

The letter's signatories expressed concern the NRA would rely on Marketing Cloud even more after the Uvalde massacre, according to a copy of the letter published by Protocol. Marketing Cloud is a Salesforce software that helps users plan and analyze digital marketing campaigns.

The signatories said the NRA would ramp up its marketing efforts "not to prevent future tragedies from happening, but to sow fear, sell guns, and abet future atrocities," the letter continued.

"It is unconscionable to consider their use of Marketing Cloud to capitalize on mass shootings," the letter continued.

The NRA has continued its advertising activity in the aftermath of the shooting. It started running Facebook ads about two weeks ago that urged gun owners to not let Congress limit gun ownership, and those remained active after the Uvalde shooting, per CNBC. The weekend after the massacre, the NRA held its annual convention in Houston, just 300 miles from Uvalde. The group showcased "14 acres" of guns and gear at the convention.

Some Salesforce employees, however, were cautious about urging the company to end its commercial relationship with the NRA, especially if what it was doing was not illegal, SFGate reported.

Salesforce has taken action against gun ownership before. In 2019, it banned customers from using its software to sell certain types of firearms. After the Uvalde massacre, Benioff showed his support for gun control. In a May 25 CNBC interview, he said "we need to take direct action" against gun violence.

Salesforce hasn't responded to the open letter, an unnamed employee told Protocol. Employees are expected to attend an all-hands meeting with leadership next week, per Protocol.

Salesforce did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Brazil facing more deadly storms: expert

AFP - 

Tragedies like the floods and landslides that killed more than 100 people in northeastern Brazil will likely keep happening as climate change advances unless authorities act to protect poor communities in high-risk areas, an expert said.

Torrential rains over the weekend wrought havoc on the city of Recife and surrounding areas, the latest in a series of deadly storms to hit Brazil in recent months.

Jose Marengo, research coordinator at the National Monitoring and Alert Center for Natural Disasters (CEMADEN), told AFP climate change will continue fueling ever heavier rains -- and that "if cities aren't prepared, we'll be mourning more and more deaths."


© SERGIO MARANHAOA woman greets firefighters working to rescue and recover victims of a landslide in the Barro neighbourhood of Recife, Brazil, where the strom death toll in the country's northeast has risen past 100

- Is latest disaster related to climate change? -

"Climate change is a long-term process that is advancing slowly. No one isolated, extreme event can be attributed to it. Rain and disaster are different things.

"In Recife, very intense rains fell on areas near rivers and hills. Any intense rain in places like that will cause similar tragedies in these circumstances, with rivers sweeping away houses and avalanches of mud taking out everything in their path.

"Climate change could be responsible for the rise in extreme, violent rain that is being detected not only in Brazil but around the world. But it can't be blamed for the fact that governments allow people to build in high-risk areas, or that the poor have nowhere to go and have to live in vulnerable areas. Those are urban planning problems."


- What do Brazil's recent storms have in common? -

"In Bahia state (northeast), where 33 people were killed in December, there is a phenomenon called the South Atlantic Convergence Zone that produces rain in the (southern hemisphere) summer. It's always present in southeastern Brazil, but in December it reached Bahia and caused deadly floods.

"In Petropolis (southeast, where 233 people were killed in February), there was an intense meteorological phenomenon, unusual but not impossible, more similar to what happened now in Recife. In both cases, the rain had been correctly forecast, but the problem was vulnerable populations living in high-risk areas.

"If you look at videos of landslides and flash floods from both Petropolis and Recife, it's impossible to tell which is which, because they were very similar disasters."

- How can Brazil, other governments prepare better? -

"Rain is only part of the problem. In Brazil, we're good at forecasting rain. The problem is the weak link in the chain: the vulnerability of the population.

"It's a common mistake to say, 'The rain killed X number of people.' Rain doesn't kill people, except when it combines with the problem of people living in high-risk areas.

"Governments need to prevent people from building on areas such as hillsides and evacuate people from existing houses to safer areas -- every year, not just when there are disasters.

"And cities need to be better-organized, because we can see looking at the climate that phenomena like these rains are getting more intense and violent.

"If people and cities aren't prepared, we'll be mourning more and more deaths. The rainy season is just starting in the northeast, and we may see a lot more such phenomena this year."

msi/jhb/mlm

Gabon takes grassroots approach in anti-poaching drive

by Adrien Marotte

Success story: The number of forest elephants in Gabon has doubled in the past decade.

A whistle blows. The car stops, and the driver is politely asked to turn off the engine and get out.

A team from Gabon's anti-poaching brigade then searches the vehicle from top to bottom, looking in every cranny for guns or game. Nothing is found, and the driver is allowed to move on.

The unit's task is to help guard Gabon's rich biodiversity.

Forests cover 88 percent of the surface of this small central African nation, providing a haven—and a tourism magnet—for species ranging from tropical hardwoods and plants to panthers, elephants and chimps.

The team was on patrol close to a small village called Lastourville, 500 kilometres (300 miles) southeast of the capital Libreville.

The area has been badly hit by poaching, and tracks dug into the forest floor by logging vehicles are also used by illegal hunters to enter and shoot game.

'Everyone poaches'

"There's no standard profile of a poacher. Everyone poaches—from the villager who is looking for something to eat to some big guy in the city who has an international network," the brigade's commander, Jerry Ibala Mayombo, told AFP.

The unarmed unit sees its role as "educating, awareness-building and, as a last resort, punishing," he said. The heaviest sentences are for ivory smuggling, which can carry a 10-year jail term.

Money-spinner: A motorised canoe carrying tourists in Louango National Park, whose 

lagoon is a treasure trove of elephants, hippos and fish.

The two-year-old service was created by a partnership between Gabon's ministry for water and forests, a Belgian NGO called Conservation Justice and a Swiss-Gabonese sustainable forestry firm, Precious Woods CEB.

"At the start, the overall feeling towards us was mistrust. But that's not the case today, because we have got the message across to people about what we do," said Ibala Mayombo.

"We sometimes face violent poachers who threaten us, sometimes with their guns," he said. The team can be given a police escort when necessary.

Last year, the unit seized 26 weapons, several dozen items of game and arrested eight individuals for ivory smuggling.

"The trend is downward," said Ibala Mayombo.

Daily challenges

Gabon, an oil-rich former French colony, is putting itself forward as a major advocate for conservation in central Africa, where wildlife has been battered by wars, habitat destruction and the bushmeat trade.

In 2002, Gabon set up a network of 13 national parks covering 11 percent of its territory.

Conflict: Elephants have ravaged crops planted in a field near the village of Baposso.

In 2017, it created 20 marine sanctuaries covering 53,000 square kilometres (20,500 square miles)—the biggest ocean haven in Africa, and equivalent to more than a quarter of its territorial waters.

These initiatives have helped to place Gabon firmly on the map for lucrative eco-tourism.

But beneath the applause, there is the daily challenge of managing problems when humans and animals collide.

Gabon has a huge success story in its conservation of African forest elephants.

Across Africa, numbers of this species have fallen by 86 percent in 30 years—the animal is now in the Critically Endangered category on the Red List compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

But in Gabon, the forest elephant population has doubled in a decade to 90,000 animals—although this has also come at a cost of frequent conflict between animals and farmers.

In one of the villages, Helene Benga, 67, was in tears over what to do.

"You go into the field in the morning and you see he's eaten a bit (of the crop). You go the following day, and he's eaten another bit. Within a few days, all the crop will be gone. I've got no money and nothing left to eat. What am I going to do?" she asked.

Gabon.

'We hunt to live'

In the village of Bouma, around 30 local people attended a meeting to promote awareness about hunting restrictions—which species could be hunted and at what dates, areas where hunting was banned, how to obtain a permit, and so on.

The mood was tense.

"What can we do when animals invade our fields?" asked one person. "How can you tell the difference between a protected species and a (non-protected) one when you're hunting at night?" said another.

"I do understand that we have to protect wildlife," said Leon Ndjanganoye, a man in his 50s.

"But here, in the village, what do we do to live? We hunt. The laws are a vexation."

UNESCO awards Gabon's Ivindo park World Heritage status

© 2022 AFP

Trans Rohingya refugee fights prejudice with beauty

Tanbirul MIRAJ, Sam JAHAN
Tue, May 31, 2022, 


A minority in a minority, transgender Rohingya beautician Tanya has faced discrimination on even more fronts than most other residents of the world's biggest refugee camp.

Five years ago, Myanmar's military launched a brutal crackdown on the Rohingya, forcing an estimated 750,000 of them -- including Tanya and her family -- to flee and take shelter in squalid settlements across the Bangladesh border.

Since then, Tanya's skills with mascara and foundation have earned her a reputation as one of the best make-up artists in Cox's Bazar -- and better earnings than most other Rohingya.

But she still has to contend with harassment from fellow members of the often socially conservative Muslim ethnic group, as well as recriminations from her own family.


"My soul says I'm a woman," the 22-year-old told AFP. "I don't understand why other people have a problem with that.

"I liked to dress up and do make-up like girls from a very young age. My family didn't like it. My brothers used to hit me. They were ashamed of me."

She came out as trans in her early teens and said she had been subjected to violence and abuse ever since.

"I was called a curse of the devils and a punishment from Allah," she said.

Since her arrival, she has found work at a salon, where dyeing the hair and painting the lashes of excited brides is a welcome respite from life in the camp, a sprawling patchwork of overcrowded shanty homes fashioned from tarpaulin and bamboo.

Tanya is "the best beautician in the entire district", according to her client Salma Akter.

"She is a hijra, but she is very good," Akter told AFP, using a common South Asian term for a "third gender".

"People come here from all over the region to get their face done by her."

Tanya is now one of a lucky few bringing a steady income into her community.

But the around 300 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who openly identify as transgender are routinely subjected to discrimination, taunts and physical attacks from other members of their community.

"There are many instances of Rohingya transgender being brutally beaten and left on the roads in pool of blood," said Dil Afrose Chaity, who works with transgender Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

"During the pandemic, one of them was beaten for sporting bigger hair. They were accused of carrying coronavirus to the camp with their hair," Chaity said.
- New horizons -

Myanmar's Rohingya had already laboured under decades of discrimination when the military attacked in 2017.

An international tribunal in The Hague is investigating the violence, which has been designated by the United States as an act of genocide.

Despite the trauma of the crackdown, arriving in Bangladesh opened new horizons for Tanya, who found a much larger transgender community that welcomed her with open arms and gave her the female name she now uses.

She began offering beauty services from her shelter in Kutupalong before her talents were discovered by a Bangladeshi businessman, who set up a salon for her at a market outside the camp.

Her earnings have helped her win some respect from her family, with whom she shares a home.

But they have not accepted her identity.

Elder sister Gul Bahar, who still refers to Tanya by her birth name and gender, says she hopes her sibling "would start being like my older brothers again".

"Whenever he is out on the road, people laugh at him. Sometimes they follow him to our door and mock him," she told AFP.
- 'Man or woman' -

The taunts and abuse have hardened Tanya's resolve and cast her in the role of mentor to other members of her community, some of whom she has invited into the salon to learn the beauty trade.

"People call us boy whores even when we'd simply walk on the road minding our own business," Farhana, a fellow transgender refugee, told AFP while working in the salon as a trainee.

"If we react, they'd group up and start beating us. Tanya shows us how to ignore these taunts."

Tanya plans to eventually set up her own salon and hire other transgender women to work alongside her, offering them the same respite from the rejection and insults of other refugees.

"There are more hijra in the camps than you see. Most are afraid to come out," she said.

"I dream of a time when it will never occur to anyone here whether I have a body of a man or woman."

str-sam/sa/gle/oho/ser/lb

Turkey black rose producers chase sweet smell of success

AFP - Yesterday
© Ozan KOSE

To the naked eye, the delicate velvet roses in southeastern Turkey appear black and overwhelm the senses with their irresistible sweet smell.

The rosebuds are just as dark, and when fully developed, the flower takes on the colour of an intensely rich red wine.

These black roses, known as "Karagul" in Turkish and thornier than others, can only grow in the town of Halfeti with soil that has distinctive features including a special PH level.

The unique colour cannot be preserved elsewhere, experts say.


© Ozan KOSEBy the shores of the dam, a few amateur gardeners promote the black rose to tourists alongside boat tours to see the caves

Now Halfeti's residents want to transform the rose into a brand since Turkey's rose sector is a blooming business.

The industry is currently dominated by the western province of Isparta, known as Turkey's "rose garden".

Today, Turkey and Bulgaria make up around 80 percent of the world's rose oil production.

But Halfeti resident Devrim Tutus, 28, has already seen business flourish.

After coming up with a business plan to promote the black roses, he now supplies Istanbul with petals for colognes, Turkish delight and ice cream.


© Ozan KOSE

Halfeti's residents want to transform the black rose into a brand since Turkey's rose sector is a blooming business

Demand is already outgrowing supply.

That doesn't stop Tutus who already has his next plan: Karagul wine.

"There's a huge market out there in Istanbul. It's all about Isparta roses. Why not the same here?" he said.

- Roses rescued -

The black rose's fortunes were not always so sweet.

It once aroused only indifference among residents, said a local official in charge of preserving the roses.

"They were everywhere in the gardens but nobody paid attention to them," said his friend who only gave his name as Bulent.

"Locals had no idea the roses were unique. We transported some to higher ground and started production in greenhouses," said the official, who did not wish to be named.


© Ozan KOSE

Halfeti is also home to the peculiar green rose that has the appearance of a weed

In upper Halfeti, one greenhouse operated by the town's agriculture department is home to 1,000 roses.

But the town's residents rallied to rescue the rose after a dam on the Euphrates River flooded the region in the early 2000s, threatening to bury the flower like dozens of archaeological sites from ancient Mesopotamia.


© Ozan KOSE

Today, Turkey and Bulgaria make up around 80 percent of the world's rose oil production

The construction of the Birecik dam in 2000 was part of a series of controversial development projects in southeast Turkey.

Today, 20 variants of black roses have been identified worldwide -- including sixteen in Turkey, said botanist Ali Ikinci.

"Karagul is not an endemic species in Halfeti," Ikinci, a professor at Harran University in Sanliurfa province, said.

"But the particular ecology, climate and soil cause it to bloom darker there. If you plant that rose somewhere else, it won't be as dark or black."

- A French connection? -

The professor insisted Halfeti's rose was "unique".

The colour of the rose darkens, becoming more black and the scent is stronger as one moves from Sanliurfa -- where Halfeti is -- towards Syria, which is 60 kilometres (38 miles) to the south, Ikinci said.

The Halfeti official explained the rose blossoms on higher ground because the soil close to the dam is more acidic because of the Euphrates' waters.

Ikinci believes the origins of Karagul could be the "Louis XIV" black rose, grown in France in 1859 and named after the French king.

But for Frederic Achille, deputy director of the Botanical Gardens of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, it's much ado about nothing.

"'Louis XIV' could really be transformed by the waters of the Euphrates... and bogus communication," he said with a smile.

- Green rose -

Halfeti is also home to the peculiar green rose that has the appearance of a weed, but it is real and not just photoshopped by avid Instagram users.

"It remains mysterious. Some locals had it in their gardens. But because it's odourless, it failed to attract attention," Ikinci said.

Achille was blunter about why: "It's quite ugly."

The green flower was "just a curiosity in rose gardens" after it was introduced in Europe in 1856 by British nurseries, he added.

But that won't stop Halfeti taking advantage of its real, hidden treasures.

By the shores of the dam, a few amateur gardeners promote the black rose to tourists alongside boat tours to see the caves, now underwater.

ach/fo/raz

Workers recall rape, beatings at VW Brazil unit: prosecutor

Tue, 31 May 2022, 



Victims forced to work in slave-like conditions at a Brazilian property owned by Volkswagen during the country's dictatorship recount "grave and systematic" abuses, including rapes, beatings and being tied to trees, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The German carmaker is facing legal action in Brazil over allegations of rampant human-rights violations at a large farm it ran in the Amazon rainforest basin in the 1970s and '80s under the country's then military regime, media in Germany reported Sunday.

The lead prosecutor on the case, Rafael Garcia, told AFP that investigators had collected depositions from victims who were lured to the farm with false promises of lucrative jobs, then forced to cut down the jungle under grueling conditions against their will to make way for Volkswagen's cattle ranch, which became the biggest in the northern state of Para.

"Workers who tried to escape were beaten, tied to trees and left there for days," he said.

"Those who tried to slip into the forest never came back -- there were simply stories that they had been killed. Workers were systematically, physically abused."

Garcia said a task force of investigators had spent three years assembling evidence in the case, after a local Catholic priest came forward with horrifying accounts of abuse at the property he had compiled over the years.

The task force's report contains a chilling series of allegations from former workers at the farm in southern Para, known as Fazenda Vale do Rio Cristalino, where armed guards reportedly kept violent watch over a workforce that prosecutors estimate numbered in the hundreds.

"One worker tried to escape, but the gunmen caught him. As punishment, they kidnapped his wife and raped her," it says, citing three witness' testimony.

"Another worker tried to flee and was shot in the leg. Yet another was left bound and naked."

The workers were kept in "debt-slavery" by being forced to buy food and supplies from the farm store at exorbitant prices, and some died of malaria with no access to medical care, Garcia said.

Prosecutors have summoned Volkswagen for an initial audience on June 14, where they will attempt to reach a settlement, he said.

If that fails, the company could face charges.

In 2020, Volkswagen agreed to pay 36 million reais ($6.4 million at the time) in compensation for collaborating with Brazil's secret police during the dictatorship (1964-1985) to identify suspected leftist opponents and union leaders, who were then detained and tortured.

jhb/bfm

Vocal critic of Liberals' online streaming bill partly funded by YouTube and TikTok


OTTAWA — An outspoken critic of the Liberal government's online streaming bill received funding from two of the biggest digital platforms in the world.

Scott Benzie, founder of Digital First Canada, told a parliamentary committee on Monday that his organization, which advocates for online creators, is partly funded by YouTube and TikTok.

The revelation prompted Liberal MP Chris Bittle, parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, to accuse Benzie of having an "extreme conflict of interest."

The MP said representing digital first creators while taking money from the platforms was "almost like starting a union and taking money from management."

Bittle also accused Benzie of concealing that he was funded by the platforms when he appeared before the committee previously.

Benzie, also the executive director of Digital First Canada, told the committee he had informed the Heritage Department he had received funding from platforms.

In an interview on Tuesday, Benzie said he had not tried to conceal that his organization received private funding. He said the money came from a store and the two platforms and totalled "less than $100,000."

"Mr Bittle took that time to attack the organization for something that he already knew and wasn't a secret," Benzie said in an interview. "It's not something that we were trying to hide."

He argued that the MP could have spent the time asking about the content of the bill instead.

Benzie said he set up Digital First Canada before receiving funding earlier this year from the platforms and was "going to do it anyway" and would be "doing this without them."

The advocate has been one of the most vocal critics of Bill C-11, which aims to modernize the Canadian Broadcasting Act to include streaming platforms such as Netflix and YouTube.

He has expressed concerns that the bill and its predecessor, known as C-10 and which failed to pass before the 2021 election, could apply to user-generated content, such as amateur videos posted on YouTube.

His opinions have been cited in the House of Commons by MPs, and the issue of user-generated content has become a central issue in debates about the bill, including in the heritage committee, which is currently scrutinizing C-11.

Benzie is registered to lobby the Heritage Department on legislation that would affect online content creators.

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canada's online creators are "incredibly talented."

"Most of them are self-employed independent workers. Sadly, their livelihoods are in the hands of tech giants, who can deplatform, demonetize, demote or censor their content at will."

Benzie told the committee that most of the advocacy group's funding comes from the Toronto-based Buffer Festival, an annual event showcasing online video creators.

He said he disagreed with tech giants on various issues, including on the topic of more transparency of platforms' algorithms.

Both YouTube and TikTok said Digital First Canada has given a voice to online content creators.

"In both the C-11 and C-10 debate, digital creator voices were barely consulted or considered. Digital First Canada provided a forum to defend and raise their voices," said Lauren Skelly, YouTube spokesperson. "We support their efforts in defending Canadian creators during this critical time."

A spokesperson for TikTok said: "We're proud to support Digital First Canada's advocacy on behalf of independent online creators whose interests aren't otherwise represented by existing guilds or associations."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2022.

Marie Woolf, The Canadian Press

Jury finds Alberta men guilty of murder, manslaughter in shootings of Métis hunters

EDMONTON — The family of two Métis hunters who were shot to death on a rural road in Alberta say they would have liked harsher convictions for the men who killed their loved ones but are satisfied those responsible will be behind bars.




A jury found Anthony Bilodeau, 33, guilty of manslaughter in the death of Jacob Sansom on Tuesday and guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Maurice Cardinal, who was Sansom's uncle.

Anthony Bilodeau's father, 58-year-old Roger Bilodeau, was found guilty of two counts of manslaughter.

"It's time to heal," Sarah Sansom, wife of Jacob Sansom, said outside the Court of Queen's Bench in Edmonton.

She said the family was hurt throughout the court process when defence lawyers and media reports focused on her husband and Cardinal's drinking.

"Are we back in the 1800s? Is this cowboys against Indians?" Sarah Sansom said. "The things that they were saying and the lies, for us, it was frustrating because we know them so well and we're like, 'they would never say things like that.'"

She said her husband didn't have a drinking problem when they were married and it didn't cause problems in their marriage.

"He has never been violent, he has always been a wonderful man, he has always treated me and my kids with love and respect," Sarah Sansom said. "He is the love of my life."

Anthony and Roger Bilodeau were charged with two counts of second-degree murder and pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers had argued the shooting was in self-defence.

The Crown argued the father and son took the law into their own hands when they chased down Sansom and Cardinal because they believed the hunters had been at the family's farm earlier and were trying to steal.

Jurors heard that Sansom, 39, and Cardinal, 57, had been moose hunting before they were found dead on the side of a road near Glendon, Alta., on March 28, 2020.

Sansom was shot once in the chest and Cardinal was hit three times in the shoulder.

Court heard that on the night of March 27, 2020, Anthony Bilodeau got a call from his father and younger brother, who were pursuing a white Dodge pickup they suspected had been on the family farm earlier in the day.

Roger Bilodeau told his older son to meet up with them and to bring a gun for protection, court was told.

Anthony Bilodeau testified that his phone was still connected to his father's Bluetooth speaker when he heard thuds and cracking glass before his brother screamed for someone not to kill or hurt his father.

Court heard that Sansom smashed the passenger window of Roger Bilodeau's Ford F-150 with his bare fists and then allegedly attacked Joseph and Roger Bilodeau in the truck.

When he arrived, Anthony Bilodeau said, he shot Sansom because the man had charged toward him. He also said he heard Sansom call out to Cardinal to get a gun so they could kill him.

Anthony Bilodeau said he shot Cardinal after the hunter came at him with a large gun. He said Cardinal told him he was going to kill him in retaliation for shooting Sansom.

Anthony Bilodeau testified he could see Cardinal's gun had a magazine attached and he feared for everyone's safety. He said he shot Cardinal another two times in the back of the shoulder.

Showing surveillance footage from a nearby gas plant the night of the shooting, prosecutors argued that Anthony Bilodeau did not need to shoot Cardinal another two times because he was injured and a distance away by the side of the Dodge pickup.

Prosecutors said Roger Bilodeau had turned his truck around at that point and Anthony Bilodeau could have left the scene, but instead went over with the intention to kill Cardinal.

Court also heard that after the shooting, Anthony Bilodeau cut up his gun and threw it in a dump. He also disposed of lights from his bumper at another dump. He testified that he did it because he was in shock and didn't want to go to jail for protecting his family.

Court heard that a toxicology report showed Sansom's blood-alcohol level was nearly three times over the legal driving limit, while Cardinal's was nearly twice over the limit.

Brian Beresh, Anthony Bilodeau's lawyer, said outside court Tuesday that he always asks witnesses about alcohol, regardless of their background.

"We know that alcohol affects a whole bunch of issues that are important in a trial, like perception, judgment and response," Beresh said.

He said he and his client were disappointed with the verdict and that the shooting was not racially motivated.

"I think that this was a misunderstanding in rural Alberta," he said. "It wasn't about vigilantism at all, there was no suggestion of that and I think some people blew that out of proportion."

Andrea Sandmaier of the Métis Nation of Alberta said Sansom and Cardinal were important members of the Métis community and their deaths were "a huge loss."

"You can't even imagine the strength this family has and what they have endured — the ugly, ugly, ugliness of the keyboard warriors out there," Sandmaier said Tuesday outside court. "Shame, shame, shame on you."

Debbie Baptiste, the mother of Colten Boushie, was also outside the courthouse in support of Sansom and Cardinal's family.

Boushie, a young Cree man, was killed in 2016 after an SUV he was in went onto a Saskatchewan farm. Gerald Stanley testified that he thought the people in the SUV were trying to steal his all-terrain vehicle and that his gun accidentally went off. He was acquitted of second-degree murder.

A date for a sentencing hearing for Anthony and Roger Bilodeau is expected to be set on June 17.

The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years. Sentences can be as long as life in prison without parole eligibility for 25 years.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2022.

Daniela Germano, The Canadian Press

Conservatives blame everything but guns for mass shootings

Tom Mockaitis, opinion contributor - The Hill

As shock and grief over the Robb Elementary School massacre give way to anger, people are demanding that something be done to curb the gun violence plaguing the country. While most Americans want reasonable gun control laws, conservative politicians have touted a range of explanations to deflect attention from that demand.

They blame a lack of mental healthcare, absent fathers, poor school security and the decline of religion — anything but unfettered access to firearms.

Governor Greg Abbott (R) of Texas offered the most disingenuous explanation for the tragedy.

At his May 25 press conference, Abbott stated: “There is no known mental-health history of the gunman.” In the next breath, however, he declared, “We, as a state, we, as a society, need to do a better job with mental health,” adding, “Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental-health challenge, period.”

So, the perpetrator wasn’t mentally ill, but lack of mental healthcare caused him to shoot up a school? Abbott also fails to realize that the vast majority of people who suffer from mental illness never become violent. Stigmatizing them as potential mass murders is hurtful and unjust.

Not to be outdone, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) focused on doors. He wants schools to have only one point of entrance protected by an armed guard. Using only one door could make it even easier for an active shooter to kill children. It would create a bottleneck for students entering the building each morning and leaving each afternoon. The concentrated mass of people would be an easy target.

Armed guards will not guarantee the safety of children any more than locked doors. The guard at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., did not engage the gunmen who killed 17 students in 2018. An armed security guard (a retired police officer) at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo did exchange fire with the assailant, hitting him in the chest, but his bullet failed to penetrate the shooter’s body army. In Uvalde, police have come under increasing criticism for their hour-long delay in entering the classroom where the shooter was killing children.

Other Republicans have offered even more far-fetched explanations for the massacre. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) suggested that “fatherless” families might contribute to gun violence. The 15-year-old who killed four students in Oxford, Mich., lived with both of his parents, who bought him the gun used in the attack. The 15.3 million children being raised by single mothers are no more likely to engage in violence than anyone else.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) also jumped on the mental health bandwagon but added her own bizarre twist to the debate. “We don’t need more gun control,” Greene tweeted after the shooting. “We need to return to God.” Apparently, no one told her that Texas is one of the most religiously observant states in the country with 69 percent of its residents professing belief in God “with absolute certainty” and 63 percent saying they pray daily.

These responses to the Robb Elementary School massacre make clear that Republican politicians will do anything to avoid confronting the real cause of mass shootings: unfettered access to firearms. They ignore one glaring, incontrovertible fact: our country leads the world in school shootings and gun ownership (120.5 firearms per 100 people). From 2009 to 2018, there were 288 school shootings in the United States. Mexico came second with just 8; Canada and France had 2; Germany 1; the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, 0. There have been 27 school shootings in the United States so far this year.

Every country with low rates of gun violence has people who suffer from mental illness, alienation and social pathology. They also have stringent gun control laws that make it far more difficult for unstable people to obtain firearms.

The 2014 attack on the Canadian War Memorial illustrates how reasonable restrictions can save lives. Canadian law banned the shooter from purchasing a gun because of his criminal background. It also restricted magazine capacity and imposed a stiff penalty for illegally providing someone with a gun. As a result, he could only get a Winchester hunting rifle holding eight rounds. Its lever-action reloading mechanism restricted its rate of fire, so he killed only one person. In 2020, Canada went a step further banning 1,500 assault-style firearms (including the AR-15) after just one mass shooting in Nova Scotia, even though some of the guns used in that attack were purchased in Maine. In contrast, the assault weapon ban passed by the U.S. Congress in 1994 lapsed in 2004. Mass shootings have been on the rise ever since.

Everyone wants better healthcare for those suffering from mental illness, although the same politicians who call for such care refuse to fund it. We all support making school buildings more secure. However, these measures are not a substitute for reasonable restrictions on the right to bear arms.

Polling data on support for stricter gun laws has varied over time, increasing in the aftermath of mass shootings but declining as the emotional impact of those events fades. According to Gallup polls, 67 percent of Americans surveyed in 2018 following the Parkland shooting favored stricter gun control laws, but support fell to 52 percent in 2021.

However, polling data on specific measures paint a very different picture. Quinnipiac University polls found that 89 percent of Americans support required background checks for all gun buyers; 74 percent agree with “red flag” laws allowing police and family members to petition judges to confiscate guns from individuals at elevated risk of violent behavior and 52 percent want to ban assault rifles. Another survey found that 85 percent of non-gun owners and 74 percent of gun owners support a waiting period for firearm purchases.

Any of these reasonable measures could save the lives not only of school children but of murder and suicide victims. In aggregate, they might prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook Elementary, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Robb Elementary. We should also ban the sale of body armor to anyone without a professional need for it (such as police security guards). The Second Amendment says nothing about Kevlar vests, which did not exist when it was adopted in 1791.

Staunch gun-rights activists oppose any regulation of firearms, insisting that even reasonable measures the vast majority of Americans want are a slippery slope to a complete ban. Some politicians, like Gov. Kay Ivey (R-Alabama), call the Second Amendment “sacred.”

What is sacred are the lives of our children. Until we put their safety ahead of the right to bear arms, we can expect more massacres like the one that befell the innocent victims of Robb Elementary.

Tom Mockaitis is a professor of history at DePaul University and author of “Violent Extremists: Understanding the Domestic and International Terrorist Threat.”

Teachers union plans gun control protests at GOP senators' offices

Jeremiah Poff - WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The American Federation of Teachers has organized protests to demand more gun control legislation outside the state offices of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) and says more protests are coming.


© Provided by Washington ExaminerTeachers union plans gun control protests at GOP senators' offices

The first rallies are slated to take place Tuesday afternoon and come in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last week, in which a lone gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.

The shooting has renewed calls for Congress to pass legislation curtailing gun ownership and expanding background check requirements for firearm purchases. Toomey, who backed expanded background checks for gun purchases in 2013, has reiterated his support for the measure in recent days.

PROPOSAL TO ARM SCHOOL STAFF RECEIVES HOSTILE RESPONSE FROM TEACHERS UNIONS

"The school shootings in Uvalde, Texas, have laid bare the crisis we’re facing here in America — again. We can’t allow these preventable mass murders to keep happening," the American Federation of Teachers said in the announcement of the two Tuesday rallies.

"Students deserve safe and welcoming schools, and parents need to know their children are safe," the announcement continued. "Educators deserve to be able to teach; they should not be forced to be human shields to protect their students. Community members deserve to know their schools, stores and places of worship are safe; and they must not be scared to live their values. This is a public health crisis."

The protests are planned to take place outside the Pittsburgh office of Toomey, who is retiring at the end of the year, and outside the Austin office of Cruz.

But the AFT says it is also planning protests at other senators' offices as well as events for the weekend.

David Hogg, a gun control activist and former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a school shooting took place in 2018, promoted the protests on Twitter and called on educators to join the union's protests.

"Attention educators," Hogg wrote. "I told you I would have a direct way you can help us fight for gun safety. March For Our Lives worked with the president of NEA and AFT your marching orders are below. Let’s get to work."

Hogg's tweet came in response to AFT President Randi Weingarten, who expressed support for the Pittsburgh rally, saying, "We need Senator Toomey to do the right thing."