It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
The active-duty 388th and Reserve 419th Fighter Wings conducted an F-35A Combat Power Exercise at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, in January 2020. Photo by R. Nial Bradshaw/U.S. Air Force | License Photo
April 22 (UPI) -- The Pentagon should develop a plan to ensure it can afford to sustain the future F-35 fleet, said a Government Accountability Office report release Thursday.
According to the report, the Defense Department plans to acquire nearly 2,500 F-35 aircraft for a cost of $400 billion, but the costs of sustainment are far higher -- and have climbed steadily upward over the last decade
Estimated sustainment costs for the jet over its 66-year service life have increased steadily, from $1.11 trillion to $1.27 trillion since 2012, according to the GAO.
The Air Force will need to reduce estimated annual per-plane costs by $3.7 million -- or 47% -- by 2036, or costs will be $4.4 billion more than it can afford.
The cost per aircraft per year would total $6 billion in 2036 alone, the GAO said -- meaning the services "will collectively be confronted with tens of billions of dollars in sustainment costs that they project as unaffordable during the program."
The report recommended Congress should consider requiring the Defense Department to report annually on its effort to contain costs for the fighter jet -- making F-35 aircraft procurement decisions contingent on the department's progress in containing costs.
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft, and currently regarded as the world's superior fighter plane -- but the F-35 program has also come under fire for operating problems and spiraling costs.
Renewable energy: Inside Alberta’s wind and solar boom
By Kieron O'Dea Global News Posted April 24, 2021
A renewable energy boom is underway in the heart of oil country, as vast new projects harness Alberta’s bounty of wind and sun, drawing an increasingly eager and adaptable workforce.
Drew Mair feels fortunate to be so busy. For the owner of Ridgeline Power Solutions, an Edmonton solar installation company, business has never been better. “I’ve been swamped… People are excited about putting [solar] on their houses, putting it on their businesses and putting it on government buildings. So there’s a general enthusiasm about it.”
Like many Albertans, Mair’s career path has been shaped in the boom and bust cycle of the oil and gas sector. An electrician by trade, he spent ten years working in several oil installations in and around Fort MacMurray. Then came the downturn of 2015. STORY CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT
“You could see the writing was kind of on the wall. There weren’t as many jobs. There weren’t as many new projects on the books. And I was kind of disillusioned with working in oil and gas,” Mair tells Global News.
Mair had always harboured a keen interest in renewable energy, an interest he traces back to a grade school science project where he designed and built a solar-powered model boat.
“It’s part science, part magic… I think it’s just amazing — the fact that you can use the energy from the sun to turn it into the power that you use in your house every day.”
Drew Mair, owner of Ridgeline Power Solutions, an Edmonton solar installation company.
Despite Mair’s electrical skillset, there was no easy path into the solar business.
“I basically had to create my own job at the beginning because there weren’t enough companies that were hiring people to do solar,” Mair says.
Over a few short years, Mair networked and researched, started and grew his own company, and has seen the industry grow in leaps and bounds to the point where it is today.
He jokes about the adaptability that got him this far. “I’m part electrician, part roofer, part carpenter, but definitely heavy on the electrical. And, you know, that’s what we’re dealing with at the end of the day is power generation.” “We’re the Sunshine State of the North”
The growing enthusiasm for renewable energy runs across the spectrum of scale. Many recent wind and solar power projects in the province stand out for their sheer size.
The Claresholm solar farm in southern Alberta recently went online. Producing 132 MW of electricity, it is now Canada’s largest solar project. But that won’t last long.
When the Travers solar farm near Vulcan goes online, it will be nearly three times the size, capable of powering 100,000 homes. Construction is set to begin later this year.
Greengate Power CEO Dan Balaban says the farm will be among the largest in the world, one of many massive renewable projects drawing on Alberta’s workforce.
‘We’re going to see a renewable construction boom in this province and all over the world over the next decade and beyond. And we have a lot of skilled labour here in Alberta,” Balaban says. “I believe a lot of those skills are easily transferable to renewable energy projects, which at the end of the day are really just large construction projects.”
Ideal market conditions are coming together with the region’s natural wealth in the wind and solar resource, says Balaban.
“We have some of the best onshore wind resources in North America. We’re the Sunshine State of the North. Our solar resource in Alberta is as good as the solar resource in Florida for the purposes of producing electricity.”
Canada’s Energy Regulator (CER) recently released a report forecasting that Alberta and Saskatchewan will lead the nation in the growth of renewable energy in the coming years, powered mostly by wind and solar.
Darren Christie, chief economist for CER notes the technology has become more affordable. “It is a really remarkable thing how quickly costs have fallen for wind and solar over the last number of years.”
Christie notes that Alberta and Saskatchewan have long lagged far behind hydro-rich provinces like Quebec, B.C., Manitoba and Newfoundland, where upwards of 90 per cent of power is generated from renewable sources. Closing the gap is driving much of the growth in wind and solar.
“In both Alberta and Saskatchewan, with the phase-out of coal, it certainly creates an opportunity for that growth of renewables as they look to lower the carbon intensity of their power systems,” Christie says. Montana First Nation: A small community making a big solar impact
While his crew manages the demand for solar installation in Edmonton, Drew Mair has shifted his focus to the utility side of green energy, working for Akamihk Energy.
Under the leadership of Chief Leonard Standingontheroad of the Montana First Nation, Mair is busy managing the largest solar farm in any Indigenous community in Canada.
With more than 36,000 modules and capable of powering more than 1,000 homes, the solar farm is a realization of Montana’s ambition to be a leader in green energy. It’s been seven years in the making according to Chief Standingontheroad and is the culmination of an effort that arrayed so many of the nation’s buildings with solar of their own. All the electricity produced feeds the grid through the nation’s own renewable energy company, Akamihk Energy.
Most of all, the renewable journey has opened up new career paths for many First Nation members.
“It’s made a big difference in the attitude of our nation members,” Chief Leonard Standingontheroad says.
“They’re really looking at it as an opportunity for careers. And we’ve had a lot of training during the planning of the solar farm. There are people that trained as installers and in different categories of tech, and that’s really been successful.”
The solar farm on Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alta.
For Mair, the chance to work with a community so heavily invested in green energy is a reward in itself. And it’s a far cry from his days in oil and gas.
“It’s amazing. I don’t feel like I have to get up and go to work. I don’t have work dread anymore. I like what I do, and I’m very grateful for that. I get to do what I like to do with like-minded people in a community that is really important to me,” Mair says.
De-polarizing the energy discussion
As renewable energy takes flight in Alberta, there’s a growing awareness among advocates of the need to depolarize the discourse in the sector.
“I believe we can be developing our oil and gas ‘and’ our renewable energy resources. The world is accelerating its transition to net zero.”
“But for the foreseeable future, we’re still going to need oil and gas in the mix. And I think it’s important that we invest in both so that we can continue to be prosperous today and ensure that we can be prosperous for generations to come.”
Mair sees his work as part of a larger trend that is opening new space in the long transition of the energy sector.
“I don’t begrudge anyone for going to work in oil and gas. How could I? Because that would make me a hypocrite,” he says.
“But there are alternatives and they’re very satisfying. And you can make a living out of them… So if by me not working in oil and gas, that frees up a position for somebody else, then that’s fantastic. “
UK Ex-Post Office chief should be stripped of CBE over Horizon scandal, union says Paula Vennells, who was chief executive of the Post Office until 2019, was awarded a CBE for ‘services to the Post Office and to charity’.
Post Office stock / PA Media
By Sam Tobin 4/23/2021 The former CEO of the Post Office should be stripped of her CBE over the Horizon scandal, a trade union said, after dozens of subpostmasters had their convictions overturned at the Court of Appeal.
Paula Vennells, who became the organisation’s chief executive in 2012, was awarded a CBE in 2019 for “services to the Post Office and to charity”.
Ms Vennells left the company in 2019, months before a damning High Court judgment in a civil claim brought against the Post Office by hundreds of former subpostmasters.
Speaking in the House of Commons last year, Labour MP Kevan Jones said awarding Ms Vennells a CBE was “rubbing salt in the wounds of these innocent people” and called for her honour to be removed.
On Friday, after 39 former subpostmasters had their names cleared, the Communication Workers Union called for Ms Vennells to be stripped of her CBE for “her part in this scandal”.
Andy Furey, CWU’s national officer for postmasters, said: “Our union is demanding that Paula Vennells, the former CEO, be stripped of her CBE – which was awarded to her for services to the Post Office in 2019 – for her part in this scandal.
“We also demand a criminal investigation against those who put loyal, decent workers in this diabolical situation.
“Many senior figures who are complicit in this scandal will now want to run from this situation, but we must not let that happen.
“Heads must roll for the humiliation and misery inflicted on decent, upstanding people who were simply providing much-needed local services and were pillars of their local communities.
“It will be only when justice is done that the suffering of so many can be mended and these decent, loyal postmasters can get real closure.”
At the appeal hearing last month, Sam Stein QC, representing five of the former subpostmasters, told the Court of Appeal: “The Post Office has turned itself into the nation’s most untrustworthy brand … through its own behaviour and its own fault over many years.”
The Post Office failed in its simplest of duties – to act honestly and reliably
He said the Post Office’s “appalling and shameful behaviour” in prosecuting subpostmasters was “the longest and most extensive affront to the justice system in living memory”.
Mr Stein added: “The fall from grace by the Post Office cannot be ignored.
“It has gone from valued friend to devalued villain.
“Those responsible within the Post Office had the duty to maintain not only the high standards of those responsible for any prosecution, but also to maintain the high faith and trust we had for the Post Office.
“Instead, the Post Office failed in its simplest of duties – to act honestly and reliably.”
Tim Moloney QC, representing 30 of the appellants, told the court that the Post Office’s failure to investigate issues with the Fujitsu-developed Horizon accounting system was “shameful and culpable”.
He said there was “an institutional imperative” within the Post Office “of acquitting Horizon and convicting subpostmasters … in order to protect Horizon and to protect their own commercial reputation”.
The Court of Appeal also heard the Post Office “shredded” potentially incriminating documents relating to its defective Horizon IT system in a bid to “hide the truth”.
The Post Office was “firmly aware that they were going to be exposed” by 2013, but nonetheless deliberately tried to “keep back material” which undermined Horizon’s credibility, the court was told.
A barrister called Simon Clarke gave legal advice to the Post Office’s criminal law team about the disclosure and retention of material about “all Horizon-related issues” in around 2013.
In the advice, Mr Clarke said that, at one weekly conference call at the Post Office’s head office, he was told that minutes of a previous call “should be, and have been, destroyed”, adding that “the word ‘shredded’ was conveyed to me”.
Mr Stein argued this showed the Post Office may have been involved in the “destruction of documents”, which he said “may well amount to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice”.
He added: “There is evidence that this knowledge and this reason for obscuring the truth and hiding the truth went to the very heart of the Post Office.”
In a statement after the ruling, Post Office chairman Tim Parker said the Post Office “continues to reform its operations and culture to ensure such events can never happen again”.
The Post Office’s current chief executive Nick Read said the Court of Appeal’s ruling was “a vital milestone in fully and properly addressing the past”.
1 day ago · When the Rev Paula Vennells stepped down as chief executive of the Post Office in February 2019, she walked away nearly £5m richer.. As Vennells made for the exit, hundreds of loyal employees ...
Paula Anne Vennells, CBE, FRSA (born 1959) is a British businesswoman and Anglican priest. She was Chief Executive Officer of the Post Office Limited from 2012 to 2019. The Post Office under her leadership pursued court cases against hundreds of subpostmasters for fraud, due to financial discrepancies that in reality arose from computer errors for which her own company wa
THE ANARCHY OF CAPITALISM Seeking "driving seat" for EU, Breton to meet chipmaker execs
GLOBAL SHORTAGE OF CHIPS By Michel Rose and Douglas Busvine
4/23/2021
PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) -European industry chief Thierry Breton will hold discussions with the chief executive of chipmaker Intel and a top executive of Taiwanese competitor TMSC on April 30, as the EU seeks to shield itself from shocks in the global supply chain.
Breton will meet Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger in Brussels next Friday and will also hold a video conference with Maria Marced, President of TMSC Europe, on the same day, the European Commissioner said.
"Increasing our autonomy does not mean isolating ourselves in a world where supply chains are global," Breton told Reuters.
"In parallel to exploring how we can increase Europe's capacity...we will continue to build bridges with international partners - but with us in the driving seat," he added, confirming the meetings.
Breton is seeking to persuade a leading chipmaker to site a major fabrication plant in the EU that would help realise the Commission's strategic goal of securing the most advanced chip production technology over the next decade.
The ambition, contained in the Commission's Digital Compass strategy, foresees doubling Europe's share of global semiconductor production to 20% and producing the most advanced 2 nanometer chips by 2030.
Breton's push for technology 'sovereignty' comes as a surge in demand for everything from consumer electronics to cars has disrupted global supply chains and exposed the continent's reliance on chips made in Asia.
FLYING IN
Gelsinger, new in the job, has announced his intent to build a 'fab' in Europe as part of a strategy reset in which Intel would launch a foundry - or contract manufacturing - division and invest billions in new production capacity.
Yet, say sources in Brussels, Breton is keener to reel in TSMC, which is widely regarded as the undisputed industry leader and has a better command of the most advanced manufacturing processes. TSMC declined to comment.
Analysts caution that siting a major plant in Europe could prove to be a strategic blunder because the continent - which neither makes high-end electronics nor has a modern chip-design industry - lacks a viable market.
Local chipmakers such as Infineon, STM and NXP gave up their aspirations to stay at the leading edge years ago and are now niche players focusing on segments like automotive.
Still, with Breton setting his sights on a major investment, speculation is circulating about where a future 'eurofab' might be sited, with his native France, Germany's Dresden cluster and nearby Poland mentioned as potential locations.
Gelsinger is also expected to travel to Germany during his visit to Europe next week, Politico cited an Intel official as saying.
An Intel spokesperson based in Munich did not confirm this and the German Economy Ministry declined to comment, saying it did not confirm or deny meetings as a matter of policy.
(Writing by Michel Rose; additional reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Toby Chopra, Kirsten Donovan)
MODI'S MASSACRE ‘It’s over’: India COVID-19 patients suffocate as cases surge during oxygen shortage
Indian authorities scrambled Saturday to get oxygen tanks to hospitals where COVID-19 patients were suffocating amid the world’s worst coronavirus surge, as the government came under increasing criticism for what doctors said was its negligence in the face of a foreseeable public health disaster.
For the third day in a row, India set a global daily record of new infections. The 346,786 confirmed cases over the past day brought India’s total to more than 16 million, behind only the United States. The Health Ministry reported another 2,624 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing India’s COVID-19 fatalities to 189,544. Experts say even those figures are likely an undercount.
The government ramped up its efforts to get medical oxygen to hospitals using special Oxygen Express trains, air force planes and trucks to transport tankers, and took measures to exempt critical oxygen supplies from customs taxes. But the crisis in the country of nearly 1.4 billion people was only deepening as overburdened hospitals shut admissions and ran out of beds and oxygen supplies. READ MORE: India marks one COVID-19 death every 5 minutes as country hits new case record
“Every hospital is running out (of oxygen). We are running out,” Dr. Sudhanshu Bankata, executive director of Batra Hospital, a leading hospital in the capital, told New Delhi Television channel. In a sign of the desperation unfolding over the shortages, a high court in Delhi warned Saturday it would “hang” anyone who tries to obstruct the delivery of emergency oxygen supplies, amid evidence that some local authorities were diverting tanks to hospitals in their areas. The court, which was hearing submissions by a group of hospitals over the oxygen shortages, termed the devastating rise in infections a “tsunami.”
At least 20 COVID-19 patients at the critical care unit of New Delhi’s Jaipur Golden Hospital died overnight as “oxygen pressure was low,” the Indian Express newspaper reported.
“Our supply was delayed by seven-eight hours on Friday night and the stock we received last night is only 40 per cent of the required supply,” the newspaper quoted the hospital’s medical superintendent, Dr. D.K. Baluja, as saying.
On Thursday, 25 COVID-19 patients died at the capital’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital amid suggestions that low oxygen supplies were to blame.
India’s infection surge, blamed on a highly contagious variant first detected here, came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared victory over the coronavirus in January, telling the virtual gathering of the World Economic Forum that India’s success couldn’t be compared with anywhere else.
“In a country which is home to 18 per cent of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively,” Modi said.
But health experts and critics say a downward trend in infections late last year lulled authorities into complacency, as they failed to plug the holes in the ailing health care system that had become evident during the first wave. They also blame politicians and government authorities for allowing super-spreader events, including religious festivals and election rallies, to take place as recently as this month.
“It’s not the virus variants and mutations which are a key cause of the current rise in infections,” Dr. Anant Bhan, a bioethics and global health expert, tweeted this week. “It’s the variants of ineptitude and abdication of public health thinking by our decision makers.”
Dr. Vineeta Bal, who studies immune systems at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Pune city, said that at the heart of India’s “paralyzing” oxygen shortage was the sense of complacency that took hold as cases declined.
When the virus first erupted in India last year, Modi imposed a harsh, nationwide lockdown for months to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. But the government relaxed restrictions in the face of widespread financial hardship and Modi has refrained from ordering a new lockdown.
But a pandemic doesn’t just end, Bal noted. Summing up the authorities’ response, she said: “Failure of governance, failure of anticipation, failure of planning, compounded by this sense that we’ve conquered (the virus).”
Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah as well as opposition politicians this month took part in mass election rallies in five populous states with tens of thousands of supporters who were not wearing masks or social distancing.
In addition, religious leaders and hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus descended on the banks of the Ganges River in the northern Indian city of Haridwar last month for a major Kumbh festival. Experts have described these as super-spreader events.
“Political and religious leaders have been exemplary on television for not following the restriction that they’re saying ordinary people should follow,” Bal said.
Last week, the Supreme Court told Modi’s government to produce a national plan for the supply of oxygen and essential drugs for the treatment of coronavirus patients.
The government said Saturday it would exempt vaccines, oxygen and other oxygen-related equipment from customs duty for three months, in a bid to boost availability.
In addition, Modi’s emergency assistance fund, dubbed PM CARES, in January allocated some $27 million for setting up 162 oxygen generation plants inside public health facilities in the country. Three months on, only 33 have been created, according to the federal Health Ministry.
But the Defence Ministry is set to fly 23 mobile oxygen generating plants within a week from Germany to be deployed at army-run hospitals catering to COVID patients. Each plant will be able to produce 2,400 litres of oxygen per hour, a government statement said Friday.
That’s coming too late for hospitals in the capital and hard-hit states such as Maharashtra, which have turned to social media to plead with authorities to replenish their oxygen supplies. Early Saturday, Bankata’s Batra hospital reported severe shortage of oxygen for its 190 admitted patients.
When the news anchor asked Bankata what happens when a hospital issues an SOS call as his had done, Bankata replied: “Nothing. It’s over. It’s over.”
Hours later, the hospital received supplies to run for few hours.
Fortis Healthcare, a chain of hospitals across India, said Saturday that one of its hospitals in New Delhi “is running out of oxygen” and was suspending admissions. In a tweet, it said it had been waiting for fresh supplies since the morning.
As the oxygen scarcity deepened, local officials in several states disrupted movement of tankers and diverted supplies to their areas.
On Friday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported that a tanker-truck carrying oxygen supplies in Delhi’s neighbouring state of Haryana went missing. Days before, the news agency reported, a minister in Haryana blamed Delhi authorities for looting an oxygen tanker when it was crossing their territory.
“Unfortunately, many such incidents have occurred and have dire effect on hospitals in need of oxygen supplies,” said Saket Tiku, president of the All India Industrial Gases Manufacturers Association.
India is a major vaccine producer, but even after halting large exports of vaccines in March to divert them to domestic use, there are still questions of whether manufactures can produce them fast enough to bring down infections in time in the world’s second most populous country. India said this week it would soon expand its vaccination program from people aged 45 to include all adults, some 900 million people — well more than the entire population of the entire European Union and United States combined.
LGBT activists not excited by Jenner's campaign for governor
MEMBER OF 1% TRANSISTIONS GENDER BUT NOT CLASS
Though Caitlyn Jenner is one of the most famous transgender people in America, the announcement of her candidacy for California governor was greeted hostilely by one of the state’s largest LGBTQ-rights groups and by many trans activists around the country.
“Make no mistake: we can’t wait to elect a #trans governor of California,” tweeted the group, Equality California. “But @Caitlyn_Jenner spent years telling the #LGBTQ+ community to trust Donald Trump. We saw how that turned out. Now she wants us to trust her? Hard pass.”
Jenner – the former Olympic gold medallist and reality TV personality -- is a Republican and supported Trump in 2016. She later criticized his administration for some discriminatory actions against transgender people, but has failed to convince many trans-rights advocates that she is a major asset to their cause.
“Caitlyn Jenner is a deeply unqualified hack who doesn’t care about anyone but herself,” tweeted trans activist Charlotte Clymer. “Her views are terrible. She is a horrible candidate.”
Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender writer and professor at Barnard College, appeared on multiple episodes of Jenner’s TV show, “I Am Cait” and considers her a friend. But she’s not an admirer of Jenner’s politics.
“I wish her well personally,” Boylan said via email. “But I can’t see how the conservative policies she is likely to embrace will help Californians.”
Wyatt Ronan of the Human Rights Campaign, a major national LGBTQ-rights organization, said Jenner “is not the leader California needs.”
“Her support of Donald Trump, the most virulent and vocal anti-LGBTQ president in American history, and her decision to hire Trump’s inner circle for her campaign are just two examples why,” he said.
David Badash, editor of an LGBTQ-oriented news and opinion site called The New Civil Rights Movement, noted that Jenner’s campaign website outlined no policy positions and offered two options to those visiting the site: “Shop” and “Donate.”
Badash questioned why Jenner would run as a Republican at a time when GOP legislators in more than 20 states have been pushing bills aimed at curtailing transgender youths’ ability to play school sports and receive gender-affirming medical care.
Some activists found reason to welcome Jenner’s announcement, saying it was further evidence that transgender Americans are running for office more frequently.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen of the National Center for Transgender Equality Action Fund noted that in the 2020 election, Sarah McBride of Maryland became the first openly trans person elected to a state Senate seat and Stephanie Byers of Kansas became the first openly trans Native American elected to a state legislature.
In Vermont, Christine Hallquist won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2018, but lost the general election to incumbent Republican Phil Scott.
“Voters want leaders who will deliver results for their communities, no matter who they are,” Heng-Lehtinen said.
Attorney Sasha Buchert, co-director of the Transgender Rights Project at the LGBTQ-rights group Lambda Legal, said when the public sees transgender people in public life it “serves to expand public awareness of the reality and diversity of trans lives."
“It matters to us what policies candidates support — and what their track record might be — on a full range of issues, not just trans rights and inclusion,” Buchert added. "That is the lens one should always use in evaluating any candidate, including Caitlyn Jenner.”
David Crary, The Associated Press
JENNER'S PARTY
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signs anti-trans sports bill
By Caroline Kelly and Kelsie Smith, CNN
4/23/2021
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, signed a bill into law on Friday requiring all Alabama athletes in K-12 public school to compete in sports based on the gender they were assigned at birth -- joining a growing trend among Republican-controlled legislatures around the country that have been moving in recent weeks to impose restrictions on the lives of transgender Americans.
Ivey's office confirmed to CNN in an email that the governor signed the bill into law Friday afternoon.
The bill states that no K-12 public school is allowed to "participate in, sponsor, or provide coaching staff for interscholastic athletic events at which athletes are allowed to participate in competition against athletes who are of a different biological gender, unless the event specifically includes both biological genders."
While proponents of the bill say sex-specific sports teams have given biological female athletes more equal opportunities to compete, those against it say the bill is discriminatory and harmful to transgender athletes.
Alphonso David -- president of the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation's largest LGBTQ advocacy groups -- slammed the legislation as "nothing more than a politically motivated bill designed to discriminate against an already vulnerable population."
"By signing this legislation, Gov. Ivey is forcefully excluding transgender children. Let's be clear here: Transgender children are children. They deserve the same opportunity to learn valuable skills of teamwork, sportsmanship, and healthy competition with their peers," David said in a statement. "Simply put, Alabamans deserve better than lawmakers who legislate against the health and safety of all kids for cheap political gain."
Alabama Republican Rep. Scott Stadthagen, who sponsored the bill, praised Ivey for her support.
"I want thank Governor Ivey for her leadership and for protecting the rights of Alabama's female athletes," he tweeted Friday. "Standing up for what is right is not always easy, but it is always the right thing to do."
So far this year, South Dakota, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee have enacted similar sports bans, with Arkansas also approving a measure earlier this month that prohibits physicians in the state from providing gender-affirming treatments to trans youth. At least 30 states have introduced similar bans this year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union's anti-trans bill tracker.
According to data from the Human Rights Campaign, at least 117 bills have been introduced in the current legislative session that target the transgender community, the highest number the organization has recorded since it began tracking anti-LGBTQ legislation more than 15 years ago. The majority of bills would affect transgender youth, a group that researchers and medical professionals warn is already susceptible to high rates of suicide and depression.
CANADA Here are the key players in the military's sexual misconduct scandal
FIRE THE BRASS OTTAWA — Two House of Commons committees continue to probe the Liberal government's handling of sexual misconduct allegations against senior military officers. Here are the key players involved in the scandal:
Admiral Art McDonald: Vance's successor who stepped aside six weeks after taking the top job. A former commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, McDonald voluntarily gave up his new post when the defence minister announced on Feb. 24 that military police were looking into an allegation, which hasn't been detailed publicly. McDonald has not responded to requests for comment from The Canadian Press. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan: Sajjan has come under fire from opposition MPs and the one-time Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman over his handling of misconduct allegations. A former army lieutenant-colonel and Vancouver police detective, Sajjan has argued he was right to pass off responsibility for a report of misconduct against Vance in March 2018 to the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic operation that supports the Prime Minister's Office. He told the House defence committee last month that drawing an elected official into a probe would be "wrong and dangerous, politicizing any investigation."
Video: Sajjan repeats claim that immediate action was taken following Gen. Vance misconduct allegations (Global News) Gary Walbourne: Former military ombudsman who first raised misconduct allegations against Vance to Sajjan in a meeting on March 1, 2018. Walbourne has expressed frustration over the defence minister's referring him to the Privy Council, but the government has said senior civil servants could not launch an investigation because the ombudsman refused to provide them with more information. Global News has reported the allegation Walbourne raised involved a lewd email sent to a female corporal in 2012, three years before Vance became defence chief. Vice-admiral Haydn Edmundson: A top-ranking military officer who temporarily left his job following media reports of an allegation of sexual assault. The head of military personnel in Ottawa stepped aside last month as he faces a military police investigation. He has denied the allegations.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2021.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M German prosecutors charge more VW managers in emissions scandal
BERLIN (Reuters) -German prosecutors have charged 15 executives from Volkswagen AG and a car supplier in connection with the diesel emissions scandal that emerged in 2015, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said on Saturday.
A logo of German carmaker Volkswagen is seen on a car parked on a street in Paris
The suspects are accused of aiding and abetting fraud in combination with tax evasion, indirect false certification and criminal advertising, said Klaus Ziehe from the prosecutor's office in the northern city of Braunschweig.
The scandal saw more than nine million vehicles of the VW, Audi, Seat and Skoda brands sold to consumers with a so-called defeat device which helped to circumvent environmental tests of diesel engines.
The prosecutor's office did not name any of the charged executives, who are accused of bringing cars onto the market in a condition that was not officially approved, meaning they were illegal and advertised misleadingly, Ziehe said.
He added the indictment had now reached 1554 pages.
The prosecutions were earlier reported by news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).
A Volkswagen spokesman said a criminal investigation against the company was dropped in 2018 after it paid a fine, adding that the company was not involved in the upcoming trail against individual suspects.
"Against this background, we do not comment on the other charges that have come to light...," the spokesman added.
Volkswagen said last month that it would claim damages from its former CEO Martin Winterkorn and former Audi boss Rupert Stadler over the diesel emissions scandal, which was discovered in 2015, as it looks to draw a line under its biggest-ever crisis.
The trial of Winterkorn and the other managers has been postponed until September due to the pandemic.
(Reporting by Michael Nienaber and Jan Schwartz, editing by Jason Neely and Alexandra Hudson)
Harvard career coach: We're teaching the wrong math for financial success
CNBC 4/23/2021
Bad financial decisions, just like good financial decisions, can compound, making it harder to achieve financial success, yet many students across the U.S. receive too little financial education to understand core financial literacy concepts. A Junior Achievement survey revealed that 46% of teens said a general lack of understanding of money, investing and the economy negatively impact their ability to be financially successful. And 51% said they don't believe everyone is presented with equal opportunities to achieve financial success.
Students are worried.
For 16-year-old Jorge Sanchez from Riverview, Florida, lack of student financial literacy leads to worries about preparing for a career and life in general.
Former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and CNBC contributor Jay Clayton told Jorge he is right to be concerned and education is a big part of the solution.
"It's all about making decisions. If you are not educated about our financial system, and in particular credit, how much credit costs, the value of investing – you're likely to make bad decisions," Clayton said as part of a CNBC + Acorns Invest in You: Ready. Set. Grow and Junior Achievement event for high school students from across the nation.
One way to avoid making the wrong decisions, according to Clayton, is to educate yourself: "The earlier you're educated the better your decisions the better your outcomes."
"It blows my mind we spent more time talking about the quadratic equation in school than we do about compound interest," said Gorick Ng, a Harvard College career advisor and author of The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right.
Ng said financial literacy classes should aim to answer three questions: How do you use what you have to make more money? How do you spend less money than you earn? How do you make good decisions given multiple conflicting priorities?
The right way to structure financial education was on the minds of students.
Zoe McCall from Brandywine, Maryland, was among the student activists who testified before the Prince George's County Board of Education last year about the importance of financial education. The board passed a resolution requiring a personal finance course for all high school students in the region. Statewide, Maryland may follow suit, along with 25 other states and the District of Columbia that have introduced bills in their 2021 legislative sessions to increase access to financial education.
As more students like McCall spur action, Dr. Lisa Cook, professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University, advised during the event that curriculum include budgeting classes that give students the tools to build multi-year budgets, and basic knowledge about investing, including terms like present and future value.
Students advocate for more financial education in schools
AMELIORATING CAPITALI$M
Cook also said it is key to teach students at a young age about starting a business. "This is a traditional way to the middle class and everybody ought to be encouraged to do so even if they may not wind up doing so."
A focus on business formation crosses over to student interest in pushing for societal changes that create a more equitable financial system.
NO DISCUSSION OF WORKER COOPERATIVES, WORKER SELF MANAGEMENT OR EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP, THESE FINANCES OPERATE DIFFERENTLY
Nathalie Molina Niño, managing director of Known Holdings, and author of Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs, noted that most businesses are founded by women. "Women are starting businesses at twice the rate of men in the United State. Of those businesses, 8.9 out of 10 are started by women of color." Molina Niño said that older generations, including investors, have to do their part to help younger generations hold financial institutions accountable, for example, in areas such as ending financing for the prison industry. Barclays recently pulled out of a deal to provide debt financing to a mega prison in Alabama.
A report from November 2020 found that 1 in every 3 dollars under institutional management is under some kind of social screen, with investment managers seeking financial returns that are correlated with broader societal themes rather than focused on financial metrics.
ON THE ROAD TO ECONOMIC DEM OCRAY& SOCIALISM
YODA TAO OF
Fred Hampton's son and widow, on 'Judas and the Black Messiah,' the Oscars and preserving Black Panther legacy
By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN 4/24/2021
The real Deborah Johnson hasn't watched the scene in "Judas and the Black Messiah" where a cop puts a gun to her pregnant belly after a predawn raid that killed Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.
The 70-year-old now goes by Akua Njeri. She remains a revolutionary, as well as the mother of Hampton's namesake. She's seen the Oscar-nominated movie at least 10 times, she told CNN, but she has yet to sit through that scene.
"I'll get up and pretend I have to go to the bathroom because it impacts me so, and I cannot sit all the way through it," she said. "So many emotions that come and ... seeing this scene triggers other things that I may have forgot over the years."
She and Fred Hampton Jr. -- who shares his father's honorific, Chairman Fred -- have a deep appreciation for the movie, as well as the attention it has drawn to Hampton Sr.'s legacy and the work Njeri and Hampton Jr. have continued with the Black Panther Party Cubs.
Hours after a jury announced three guilty verdicts in the trial of an ex-Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd, the pair spoke to CNN via videoconference. Njeri's framed-and-enlarged mugshot, taken following the December 4, 1969, raid depicted in the movie, served as a backdrop.
It's lost on neither Njeri nor Hampton Jr. that no one was brought to justice in the raid that killed the 21-year-old Hampton Sr., head of the Panthers' Illinois chapter, and his defense captain, Mark Clark. The Black Panthers say the men were targeted and murdered by Chicago police serving a warrant for illegal weapons. A grand jury found Hampton was shot in the head twice and that police had found two guns next to him.
Initially, seven Panthers were charged with attempted murder and other counts; the charges were later dropped. A prosecutor and 13 others were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice and were acquitted in 1972. A decade later, the city of Chicago, Cook County and the federal government agreed to a $1.85 million settlement with the raid's survivors and Clark's and Hampton's families.
While Hampton Jr. and his mother are pleased with Derek Chauvin's conviction in the Floyd case, they said, they know better than to be too optimistic. "Guarded," is how Hampton Jr. described his reaction, explaining he has one fist up in celebration but, mimicking a boxer, his other fist remains in front of his face because "we've got to have our guards up for that sucker punch."
Njeri elaborated, saying she remains wary Chauvin might get a light sentence or be remanded to "one of those luxurious federal prisons."
"I'm not dancing in the street yet. ... I'm kind of pessimistic about it, but I'm glad he's convicted, and then we'll see what happens with the other pigs," she said, using the Panther pejorative for the three police officers charged along with Chauvin.
'Don't stumble and don't cry'
"Judas and the Black Messiah" is up for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Daniel Kaluuya, who plays Hampton Sr. (the Black messiah), and LaKeith Stanfield, who plays FBI informant William O'Neal (Judas), are both up for Best Supporting Actor. It was released by Warner Bros., which like CNN is a unit of WarnerMedia.
The film tells the story of Hampton's activism in Chicago as O'Neal reports his movements to the FBI.
The movie closes with the 1969 raid, in which police storm an apartment, killing Clark. In the scene, upon finding Hampton in his bed, an officer shoots him at point-blank range as a pregnant Njeri stands outside the room.
"I remember in my head saying, 'Don't stumble and don't cry. Just keep walking, handcuffed, like you're doing and don't give no expression,'" Njeri recounted of the incident that inspired the scene. "I just wanted to remain conscious of everything that was going on that I could remember. Focus. Matter of fact, when I was coming out the rear bedroom with my hands up, I said in my head, 'Make sure to remember what every one of these pigs looks like, remember badge numbers, remember any kind of facial things, mustaches or moles, all of that,' because I would have to be able to tell it later."
As the mugshot behind her indicates, Njeri was one of the seven Panthers who faced attempted murder counts, charges that were dropped in 1970 after the police account painting the Panthers as instigators unraveled. Authorities claimed they had opened fire in self-defense, but a grand jury found the overwhelming number of bullet casings came from police.
Njeri and Hampton Jr. served as consultants on the movie. While Hampton Jr. believes there are holes in the narrative -- he's appeared on film critic Elvis Mitchell's podcast to expand on his father's legacy and address elements of Hampton Sr.'s story that the movie missed -- he's thankful the "dream team" behind the movie reached out to his family.
For him, consulting was a continuation of the resistance -- another fight for justice, to ensure his father's story was told, as was the story of the Black Panther Party, which he says is under continuous attack. "Whether it be (via) nefarious intent or naivete," people would tell him to let a certain anecdote slide or that an element of the history was insignificant -- something they would never do with religion or even a cooking recipe, he said.
The Black Panther Party emerged from the Black Power era and the global political upheaval of the 1960s. Inspired by Malcolm X's revolutionary Black nationalism, it borrowed rhetoric from radical movements in Cuba, Africa and the developing world and demanded decent housing for Black people and an end to police brutality, even patrolling Black neighborhoods to protect residents.
Hampton Jr., 51, was regularly on the set and lent his expertise on multiple matters, down to the minutiae of wardrobe, body language and even background pictures and posters. He still wakes up at night, saying, "Cut!" At one point, he became ill during the shooting, his mother said. Hampton Jr. blamed it on "battle fatigue" and the "continuous struggle with regard to crossing the Ts and dotting the Is."
"He called me and said, 'You've got to come up here,' and so I did," Njeri recalled. "He didn't even go into detail. He didn't say he was sick. He just said, 'You need to come on the set.' I said, 'OK.'"
"This is my A-1 from Day One," Hampton Jr. said of his mother. "The connection you're seeing is my comrade. ... A thousand horses or a million pigs couldn't stop her from being here. She's right there in that tour of duty. The war continues, and so does the resistance."
Njeri wowed by actors' performances
Despite his qualms with the movie, Hampton Jr. said his time "being in that kitchen" left him in admiration of the storytelling and the finished product.
Njeri thanks the cast and crew for doing their homework. Many who've told Hampton Sr.'s story did not, she said. She called the cast magnificent, the movie excellent and powerful. She's especially grateful for the team's willingness "to sit down with us and really learn about the Black Panther Party because there's so many bogus books and bogus things written about the party," she said.
She was most impressed when she first met Kaluuya at a roundtable discussion with her son, and Hampton Jr. asked the cast and crew why they wanted to make the movie and what they were thinking.
"I watched (Kaluuya) processing and learning, although I couldn't get a feel from him what he was really thinking, but I could see he was absorbing it all in. Didn't come in with an arrogance like, 'I know about the Black Panthers; I can do this,' but really just sucking up all the information he could," she said. "To see Daniel do the speeches and kind of do the walk and the talk and the mannerisms of Chairman Fred, it was really amazing."
Hampton Jr. was relieved when Kaluuya told him, "You have to see also who Chairman Fred was not, to appreciate who Chairman Fred was," he recounted, spurring a "Right on!" from his mother.
"We're not dealing with a conventional cat. Chairman Fred was not your average individual. We had to first start with that premise," the son of the famed revolutionary said.
Kaluuya told CNN earlier this year, "It's not like I became him. I felt like he was there. ... I felt like he was coming through me, like he was in the room."
Njeri also found herself moved by the performances of Stanfield and Dominique Fishback, who plays a teen Njeri. Stanfield reminded her so much of the informant she loathed that she couldn't embrace him, she said.
"I told Lakeith Stanfield on the set one time, 'You did the damned thing, but I can't hug you, O'Neal,'" she said with a big laugh.
While she enjoyed Fishback's performance, she said she questioned Fishback a great deal, prompting the actress to ask Njeri if she was giving her a hard time.
"Yeah, I'm going to do that anyway," Njeri responded. "Don't worry about it. You got it. I know you got it. You got my little side-eye look I give people, so she had that down pat."
The response has been astounding, she said, if only because people are talking about the Panthers and their history.
"I appreciate so much the discussion that's going on," she said. "They're not afraid to say Chairman Fred's name now. People are saying it. They're not whispering, 'Yeah I knew some Black Panthers.' It's out there and on the table, and it's good debate, good discussion, and it's even motivating some people to do some work."
Saving Hampton Sr.'s childhood home
It's also shone a light on Njeri's and Hampton Jr.'s work -- which long preceded the movie -- to carry on the Panthers' legacy through the Black Panther Party Cubs, composed in part of sons and daughters of the original Panthers. The group organizes a free breakfast program, publishes an intercommunity newspaper and broadcasts a weekly "Free Em All Radio" program.
"We attempt our best to not walk in the footsteps but in their Black Panther Party paw steps, and not just in theory, not in a romanticized type of way (but) with our programs, with our criticisms, with our self-criticisms, with our struggles, our politics of internationalism, with the present-day Rainbow Coalition, with the Triple Cs -- the children, community and Cubs -- supplying services for the people, not in a charity type of way but where people themselves can get involved and fight for their own self-determination," Hampton Jr. said.
Njeri, who sits on the Cubs' advisory board, has also helped spearhead an effort to save Hampton Sr.'s childhood home in Maywood, Illinois. It's where a 12-year-old Hampton Sr. got an early taste of revolution, organizing demonstrations against police and demanding recreational facilities for Black children, she said.
Njeri and Hampton Jr. would like to see the house, which is owned by Hampton's relatives, granted historic landmark status. More importantly, she wants it to serve as a community center and de facto museum, "where people can go and get accurate information and learn about a revolutionary organization, not through some he said-she said but from people that were actually involved in it."
Supporters bring posters and books (even Hampton Sr.'s yearbooks) to the house. They volunteer to help paint and spruce up the property. A craftsman donated a table emblazoned with the Cubs' logo. Locals drop off clothes and jackets for distribution in the community, and neighbors are invited to pick fresh vegetables from the garden on the grounds, Njeri said.
"People say those greens, those tomatoes taste different," Hampton Jr. said.
On Saturdays, the Cubs gather local children to engage in games and activities that teach them about working "in the group's interests, not just them individually but working collectively for the improvement or the win of the group" -- a key tenet of the original Panthers' philosophy, Njeri said.
"It also serves as a political education piece, just as the breakfast program did, where the children go home and tell the parents about the Cubs helping them with their homework, talking to them about issues that they experience, whether it's at school, whether it's on the street with the pigs stopping them, so on and so forth. Then the parents come and they start participating in various programs," she said.
A lot of people didn't know the Panthers were still working in the community, Njeri said. Now that the movie has created such tremendous buzz, people are invigorated and encouraged by the Panthers' work. Njeri couldn't be more delighted, she said.
"I'm just bubbling over with happiness, to have been able to fight in that period of struggle and to be able to fight in this period of struggle for self-determination in our own interest, and it can't get no better than that. You know what I'm saying?"
Ivy League colleges urged to apologise for using bones of Black children in teaching
OBSCENE; BONES OF VICTIMS OF PHILLY COP BOMBING OF MOVE HOUSE
Ed Pilkington
THE GUARDIAN
4/23/2021
Two Ivy League institutions, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton, are facing mounting demands to apologise and make restitution for their handling over decades of the bones of African American children killed by Philadelphia police in 1985.
As calls pour in for action to be taken over the use of the children’s remains as props in an online Princeton anthropology course – without permission from parents of the dead children – there is also rising concern about the whereabouts of the bones.
Fragments belonging to one or possibly two Black children have been held by the universities for 36 years, but now appear to have gone missing.
They are currently in use as a “case study” in an online forensic anthropology course fronted by Princeton that is openly available on the internet. The bones are shown on camera as teaching tools – without the blessing of relatives who were unaware their loved ones’ remains were harboured in academic collections.
The course, Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology, is presented by Prof Janet Monge, an expert on bone collections who is on faculty at both Princeton and Penn. On video, she holds up the pelvis and femur of a girl whose remains were collected from the ashes of the 13 May 1985 police bombing of the headquarters of Move, a Philadelphia-based black liberation and back-to-nature group.
Eleven group members died in the fire, including five children.
As calls grew from present-day Move members, Philadelphia politicians and academics for the institutions to be held accountable, Princeton eventually responded. It said that it had only become aware of the controversy surrounding the class, distributed on the platform Coursera, on Wednesday but late on Friday the institution announced that it had decided to suspend the course.
“We are in the process of gathering and understanding all of the related facts, and out of respect for the victims of the Move bombing and their families we have suspended the online course,” Michael Hotchkiss, a Princeton spokesperson said.
But that is unlikely to satisfy those impacted by the revelations. “There needs to be a full investigation and disclosure from all parties involved,” said Michael Africa Jr, a Move member who was six at the time of the bombing.
“We want a formal and public apology from Penn, Princeton and any of the anthropologists involved, and we want reparations – there has got to be some kind of restitution for this insanity.”
Move, in alliance with the Philadelphia branch of Black Lives Matter, will stage a rally on 28 April outside Penn Museum, the part of University of Pennsylvania where the children’s bones were kept for years in a cardboard box. A number of demands will be made, including that the bones are returned to relatives.
That might be easier said than done, given that the location of the fragments is a mystery. The University of Pennsylvania told the Guardian the bones had been handed to Princeton. Princeton told the Guardian it did not have any such remains.
“We need the bones to be returned so that we can lay them to rest,” Africa Jr said.
Jamie Gauthier, the Democratic council member who represents the area of Philadelphia devastated by the bombing, said the inability to find the remains was unacceptable.
“We need to find them and give them back so that they can be properly buried,” she said.
Gauthier played a key role in moving the city council last year to make a formal apology for the 1985 bombing, in which C4 plastic explosives were dropped by police helicopter on the Move house, igniting a massive fire. As part of the apology, 13 May has been declared a day of remembrance.
The council member said she was “disgusted” to learn the two Ivy League colleges had held the bones for decades without permission.
“It shows enormous disrespect for Black life and for a child or children who were murdered by their own government,” she said. “They suffered such trauma in life, and then even in death these institutions couldn’t find it within themselves to see them as human. That’s the only way I can understand this, because you only treat someone’s remains like this if you see them as ‘other’.”
Among the growing calls are demands for reparations or restitution for the Move family. The idea was floated this week by Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, an organiser from West Philadelphia writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Gauthier backed the demand.
“The universities used the remains of the Move children to grow their own research and platform,” she said, “and they need to compensate the family for that.”
The furore comes at a sensitive time for academic institutions, especially Penn, which last week apologised for its museum’s “unethical possession of human remains” in its Samuel Morton Cranial collection. The 19th-century collection, used by Morton to justify theories of white supremacy, included the remains of Black Philadelphians and 53 crania of enslaved people from Cuba and the US which will now be repatriated or reburied.
Paul Wolff Mitchell, a PhD candidate in anthropology at Penn who has researched the Morton collection and who participates in student activism around redressing the historical harm inflicted on Black communities by scientific practices, pointed out that the first public protest outside Penn Museum was organised as recently as 8 April in relation to the Morton collection.
“As a result of the discovery of the retention of these Move remains, and their use as a case study in an anthropology course, I’m certain that this first ever protest will not be the last,” Mitchell said.
