Dracula's Castle in Romania Is Now Offering Free Vaccinations to Visitors

It's not quite the kind of bite that visitors to Bran Castle — better known as Dracula's castle — in Romania might expect, but it does come with a profound effect. On Friday, the castle announced that it's kicking off a COVID-19 vaccination marathon, offering visitors free doses every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in May without an appointment.

© Jeremy Woodhouse/Getty Images 

Admission to the castle is not required to receive the vaccine.

The castle, located in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania, hopes to lure more travelers with shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, calling it "another kind of sting." Admission to the castle is not required to receive a shot, and those who get it will earn a "diploma" saying that they were vaccinated at Bran Castle. Visitors who do also pay for castle admission will gain free access to the special exhibit on medieval torture tools, the attraction described on its Facebook page.

Further leaning into the location's theme, the campaign's imagery features a photo of fangs replaced by needles and a nurse with fangs ready to inject a dose. Plus, the on-site medics administering the shots have fang stickers on their scrubs, according to the BBC.

Video: Dracula's Castle in Romania Is Now Offering Free Vaccinations to Visitors (Travel + Leisure)

Visitors are required to follow all coronavirus safety measures, including using hand sanitizer, wearing a mask, and keeping a distance of two meters (about six and a half feet) from others, according to the castle's site.

The medieval castle, which was completed in 1388, is thought to be the inspiration for Irish author Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula," though Stoker never actually visited the Romanian landmark himself. The fictional title character is often mixed up with the real Vlad Tepes — better known as Vlad the Impaler — who ruled in the 1400s and is often depicted as a "blood-thirsty ruthless despot."

The vaccines are being doled out in the Medieval Custom building on Fridays from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m, Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sundays from 10 a.m to 6 p.m. this month. It's all part of the government's effort to get more Romanians vaccinated, since it's one of the nations with the highest rates of hesitancy in Central and Eastern Europe, according to a study by Globsec. As of today, 2,314,812 people — or 11.96% of the country's population — is fully vaccinated, with 5,891,855 doses having been administered, per data from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

The CDC currently has Romania at a Level 4 "Very High Level of COVID-19" advisory, with the nation having had 1,066,111 cases and 28,966 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

Football Fish: A monstrous-looking fish normally found thousands of feet deep in the ocean washed up on a California beach

By Amanda Jackson, CNN 

An unusual fish with teeth as sharp as glass and a body shaped like a football washed ashore on a California beach last week

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© Crystal Cove State Park The angler fish washed ashore at the Crystal Cove State Park in California.

The black colored creature with it's gaping mouth laid on the sand on the shore of Crystal Cove State Park's Marine Protected Area in Laguna Beach last Friday. The park shared images of the fish on social media and identified it as being most likely the Pacific Football Fish.

"To see an actual angler fish intact is very rare and it is unknown how or why the fish ended up on the shore," reads the Facebook post.

The Pacific Football Fish is one of more than 200 species of anglerfish worldwide, according to California State Parks, and is normally found in the dark depths of the ocean. The creature's teeth are sharp and pointy like shards of glass and their "large mouth is capable of sucking up and swallowing prey the size of their own body."

Due to the creature's size and the protruding stalk on the top of the head, California State Parks said this is a female.

"Only females possess a long stalk on the head with bioluminescent tips used as a lure to entice prey in the darkness of waters as deep as 3,000 feet!," according to the Crystal Cove State Park post.

They added that females can grow to lengths of 24 inches while males only grow to be about an inch long. The sole purpose of the male fish is to help a female reproduce, reads the post.

"Males latch onto the female with their teeth and become 'sexual parasites,' eventually coalescing with the female until nothing is left of their form but their testes for reproduction," reads the post.

The body of the fish is being held by the California Department of Fish & Wildlife, according to CNN affiliate KFSN. It is expected to be studied for research and educational purposes.

"Seeing this strange and fascinating fish is a testament to the diversity of marine life lurking below the water's surface ...," reads the Crystal Cove State Park post. ".. and as scientists continue to learn more about these deep sea creatures it's important to reflect on how much is still to be learned from our wonderful ocean."

© Crystal Cove State Park The stalk on the fish's head is used to lure prey.

Animal shelter releases 1,000 feral cats onto Chicago streets to solve rat problem

National Post Staff 

One Chicago animal shelter thinks it has an answer to the city’s rat problem — 1,000 feral cats

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© Provided by National Post A picture of a cat a part of the Tree House Humane Society's

Since 2012, the Tree House Humane Society has released 1,000 cats onto Chicago’s streets as a part of their “ Cats at Work ” program.

In pairs of two or three, the feral cats are placed into residential or commercial settings to provide “environmentally friendly rodent control.” In exchange, property and business owners provide the furry pest-controllers with food, water and shelter.

“In most cases, our Cats at Work become beloved members of the family or team and some even have their own Instagram pages,” the shelter’s website says.

Chicago’s problem with rats stretches to 1977, when the city offered a $1 bounty for each rat killed by residents, in a so-called “war on rats.”

Toronto reports spike in raccoon attacks and sightings, warns people not to pet them

How Alberta completely eradicated rats from the province by declaring war on rodent hordes

Within two weeks, The New York Times reported that about 550 rats had been killed, with one family killing more than 40 in their own backyard.

In this century, Chicago topped Orkin’s list of “rattiest” U.S. cities for the sixth consecutive time in October.

According to the pest control company, Chicago had the highest number of rodent treatments performed in a year, followed by Los Angeles and New York.

Tree House Humane Society first started the Cats at Work program as an alternative to poisoning rats, reports WGN.

“We’ve had a lot of our clients tell us that before they had cats, they would step outside their house and rats would actually run across their feet,” Sarah Liss, Tree House Humane Society’s program manager, operations and community cats, told WGN .

The cats involved in the program are feral, meaning they aren’t able to thrive in a home or animal shelter. Usually, the shelter safely traps such outdoor cats and spays and neuters them, before returning them to one of their over 1,000 “feral cat colonies.”

However, sometimes the cats cannot be re-integrated into a feral cat colony, like when an abandoned building housing them is demolished. So, they’re put to work.

According to Liss, the cats a part of the program don’t typically eat a lot of rats, but they will kill some rats when they first arrive at a new location. Over time, much less effort is required on the cat’s part.

“They are actually deterring them with their pheromones. That’s enough to keep the rats away,” Liss said to WGN.

'Bucktooth bandits': Police trace stolen lumber to beaver dam

PORCUPINE PLAIN, Sask. — Mounties in east-central Saskatchewan have cracked what they are calling an "extremely Canadian case."

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

RCMP officers from the Porcupine Plain detachment were called to a rural area on Friday to investigate a theft of posts that had been piled on a property for fencing.

The thief was soon revealed to have sharp teeth, fur, and a broad tail.

Const. Conrad Rickards says the posts were found in a nearby waterway and it appears a beaver helped himself to the lumber to build a dam — perhaps with the help of some buddies.

Rickards says there was no sign of the culprit.

He says no charges will be laid.

“Who could really blame these little bucktooth bandits, considering the price of wood these days?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Police commission reverses course, orders hearing into case of Edmonton officer 'pressured' into dropping complaint

Jonny Wakefield 

The Edmonton Police Commission has reversed course in the case of an ex-city police constable who claims she was pressured into dropping a complaint against a fellow officer.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Former EPS constable Katherine Nelson, seen in an undated photo.

In 2018, Katherine Nelson filed a complaint against an Edmonton Police Service (EPS) detective who was assisting another agency in investigating Nelson’s sexual assault complaint against a colleague.


Nelson claims she was convinced to drop the complaint against the detective during an interview with the EPS Professional Standards Branch (PSB).

She later tried to have the complaint reinstated but was shot down by Police Chief Dale McFee and the Edmonton Police Commission, who deemed her attempts “vexatious.”


The independent Law Enforcement Review Board (LERB) reviewed the police commission’s decision and in a February decision ordered commissioners to reconsider.

“Having now had the opportunity to review the entirety of Ms. Nelson’s PSB interview, including the audio/video recordings, the commission concludes that Ms. Nelson was not capable of providing valid informed consent to withdraw her complaint given her mental state at the time of the interview,” the commission wrote in a decision dated April 22.

“She was too emotionally distraught to make the decision to withdraw her complaint, and her verbal withdrawal was therefore not valid.”

Nelson claims she was groped in her hotel room by a fellow officer during a 2016 training session in Green Bay, Wis.

In early 2018, she filed a complaint against EPS Det. Marci Koshowski, who was assisting Green Bay police in the investigation from Edmonton. Nelson claims Koshowski shared text messages from her work phone with investigators in Wisconsin, and that Koshowski suggested those messages were evidence Nelson and the colleague were romantically involved.

On May 23, 2018, Nelson sat for an interview with a PSB detective, during which she agreed to withdraw her complaint against Koshowski. During the interview, Det. Darren Smith became concerned about Nelson’s mental health and asked the EPS crisis team to assess her for committal under the Mental Health Act .

Nelson later said she felt “very pressured and upset and agreed, in some way, to drop the complaint as she felt it was futile.” In December 2018 Nelson wrote to the police service, asking that the complaint be revived because she was in a fragile mental state and never signed an official complaint withdrawal form.

In March, the LERB found Smith did not commit misconduct during the interview. It found Nelson’s claim comparing the interview to an “interrogation” lacked “an air of reality.”

“The evidence in the record … was clear that the appellant stated without prompting that she wished to withdraw her complaint and repeated words to that effect during the interview,” the board wrote.
‘Sniffling, quietly crying, sobbing’

McFee decided Nelson’s complaint against Koshowski had been properly closed, and treated Nelson’s December 2018 letter as a duplication of a previous complaint and thus “vexatious.” He recommended the police commission sign off on the decision — which it did in July 2020.

Nelson appealed to the LERB, which found in her favour.

In particular, the review board noted the commission had not independently reviewed video of the May 2018 interview, which showed Nelson “sniffling, quietly crying, sobbing, sighing, and wiping her face with a tissue.”

“The commission … accepted without question the chief’s conclusion that the first complaint was properly withdrawn,” the review board wrote.

After reviewing the record, commissioners concluded the complaint was not vexatious and should proceed to a disciplinary hearing.

Commissioners added that they found no evidence Smith pressured or coerced Nelson into dropping the complaint. “She simply wasn’t in the proper state of mind that day to be able to validly withdraw her complaint.”

Police commission vice-chair John McDougall dissented, saying there is no evidence Nelson was incapable of consenting to withdrawing her complaint.

“The fact that someone may be emotional, depressed or even contemplating self-harm does not necessarily impact their capacity to provide valid, informed consent,” he wrote, adding there is no requirement that a complaint withdrawal form be signed.

He added it was unfair to Koshowski to have to defend herself against a complaint she believed was withdrawn three years ago.

It is now up to McFee to reinvestigate the complaint and determine whether Koshowski should face a disciplinary hearing.

jwakefield@postmedia.com

twitter.com/jonnywakefield

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with details of a March LERB decision dismissing Katherine Nelson’s complaint against Det. Smith.

Whitmer threatens profit seizure if pipeline keeps operating

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer threatened Tuesday to go after Enbridge's profits from a Great Lakes oil pipeline if the company defies her order to shut it down.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Democratic governor issued the warning in a letter to the Canadian energy transport company on the eve of a state-imposed deadline to halt operation of Line 5, which moves oil through northern Wisconsin and Michigan to refineries in Ontario. Enbridge repeated its intention to defy Whitmer's demand.

A nearly 4-mile-long (6.4-kilometer-long) section of Line 5 divides into two pipes that cross the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Whitmer, backed by environmentalists and native tribes, says the segment is vulnerable to a catastrophic spill in the cold, swirling channel. She revoked an easement last November that Michigan had granted in 1953 for the pipes to occupy the lake bottom and ordered them closed by May 12.

Enbridge insists the segment is in good condition and says its loss would cause economic damage in both countries, a position shared by the Canadian government, which filed a legal brief Tuesday in support of the company.

In her letter to Vern Yu, Enbridge's executive vice president for liquids pipelines, Whitmer said continued operation of the line after Wednesday “constitutes an intentional trespass" and that the company would do so “at its own risk.”

“If the state prevails in the underlying litigation, Enbridge will face the prospect of having to disgorge to the state all profits it derives from its wrongful use of the easement lands following that date,” Whitmer said.

Enbridge argues that the state has no authority to order the shutdown because the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration oversees interstate pipelines.

“We will not stop operating the pipeline unless we are ordered by a court or our regulator, which we view as highly unlikely,” spokesman Ryan Duffy said. "Line 5 is operating safely, reliably and is in compliance with the law.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a lawsuit last fall in support of Whitmer's order, while Enbridge countersued in federal court and wants the matter decided there. A federal judge is considering which court should have jurisdiction.

Nessel’s office said it will continue seeking a shutdown order.

“We are reviewing other remedies that may be available to the state if Enbridge continues to operate the pipelines after the deadline,” spokeswoman Lynsey Mukomel said.

Although U.S. District Judge Janet Neff has ordered mediation, the latest developments suggested the two sides remained deeply entrenched.

Canada's brief, filed in federal court, urged further efforts to reach a settlement.

“Line 5 is essential to our energy security,” said Seamus O'Regan Jr., minister of natural resources. “It heats both Canadian and American homes. It supports both Canadian and American jobs.”

Advocacy groups stepped up the pressure.

In Lansing, labor organizers spread 1,200 hard hats across the grounds of the Michigan Capitol, saying they represented jobs that would be lost without the pipeline. Among them were members of a union representing workers at a refinery in Toledo, Ohio.

“If Line 5 were to shut down, we don’t have alternatives to get our crude oil to the refinery because of where we are and the infrastructure that we have,” said Justin Donley, president of Local 912. "So our refinery would likely shut down.”

The Consumer Energy Alliance, a business coalition, said a shutdown would imperil 33,000 jobs and cause at least $20.8 billion in economic losses in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Environmentalists said a spill in the straits would be far more costly.

“The decrepit, deteriorating and dangerous Line 5 pipeline is an ecological and public health tragedy waiting to happen in the world’s largest freshwater lakes,” said Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation.

The Bay Mills Indian Community, which has treaty-recognized fishing rights in the Straits of Mackinac, approved a resolution Monday that “banishes” the underwater pipelines from its territory.

“Enbridge’s continued harm to our treaty rights, our environment, our history, our citizens, and our culture, is a prime example of how banishment should be used,” said Whitney Gravelle, president of the tribe's Executive Council. “Banishment is a permanent and final action that is used to protect all that we hold dear.”

Enbridge is seeking state and federal permits to drill a $500 million tunnel beneath the straits to house a new pipeline, which supporters say would remove any threat of a leak. Opponents say the project carries its own environmental risks.

___

Flesher reported from Traverse City, Michigan. AP correspondent Rob Gillies contributed from Toronto. Nichols is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

John Flesher And Anna Liz Nichols, The Associated Press

U.S. border guards regularly engage in racial profiling, 3 Black officers allege in lawsuit

Alexander Panetta 
CBC

© Paul Sancya/The Associated Press Three U.S. border officers stationed at the Blue Water Bridge crossing between Ontario and Michigan have sued the U.S. government alleging racial discrimination at the border. At the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union has…

Allegations of racial profiling at the U.S. border are nothing new: A number of reported incidents have made headlines, including last year's flood of detentions of Iranian-born travellers.

What's more unusual is how those allegations are now coming from inside the agency that oversees the U.S. border — and they're from border officers themselves.

They're contained in a lawsuit against the U.S. government from three officers stationed at a Michigan-Ontario border crossing.


The officers are all Black men, all U.S. military veterans and they're all employed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency at the Blue Water Bridge crossing between Port Huron, Mich., and Sarnia, Ont.

Their lawsuit coincides with the release of data on thousands of apprehension records that the American Civil Liberties Union says proves blatant racial profiling at the border in Michigan.

"I've seen it with my own two eyes," said Mikal Williams, one of the three officers who filed the lawsuit several weeks ago in the U.S. District Court in eastern Michigan's southern division.

"Travellers of colour [are] receiving more scrutiny."

What the lawsuit alleges

The three officers filed the legal action against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the border agency, and will ask a court to grant exemplary and punitive damages in a dollar amount not yet specified.

Their allegations have not yet been tested in court.

The border agency has not yet filed its response to the lawsuit, and a spokesperson said its policy is not to comment on matters of pending litigation.

The legal complaint recounts several anecdotes in which, the plaintiffs say, their white colleagues were harsher on people of colour entering from Canada than on whites.

One example in the court filing involves 17 U.S. citizens, all Black men, returning home from Toronto in SUVs who were pulled over. "[They] were treated without respect and were insulted ... only because of their race," the lawsuit claims.

Another alleged episode involves a Black family from Texas that accidentally turned onto the bridge toward Canada and was stopped after turning around the car to head back south.

The lawsuit says border officers called the local police department when they noticed the driver lacked a valid licence, which, it says, is not the way similar incidents are handled involving white drivers.

A supervisor then threatened the driver with arrest unless he had someone come to the border to drive his vehicle home — which, again, the lawsuit calls unusual.

"Management went above and beyond in trying to get this person arrested. He had no warrants, no criminal history," Jermaine Broderick, one of the plaintiffs, said in an interview with CBC News.

"There was no reason to try to put this person in jail."

'Stop that Black guy'

Another family was stopped on their way out of the United States. It was an American family on the bridge, leaving the country and heading north toward Canada.

The lawsuit alleges that a supervisor called the family suspicious-looking and says that opinion was based entirely on the fact they were Black people in a luxury vehicle.

"I was directed by a senior officer to 'Stop that Black guy,'" Johnny Grays, a 13-year veteran of the agency with eight years' experience at the Port Huron crossing, said in an interview.

"[He was] referring to a family crossing the border."

Grays said stopping a Black family for no reason traumatized him because he thought of his own children as he saw the frightened kids in the vehicle.

The lawsuit alleges that after that incident, a top-level supervisor at the border told the officers they did a good job.

Asked whether he's seen Canadians being treated unfairly, Grays told CBC News: "Absolutely." He said dark-skinned people, from a wide array of nationalities, tend to get more scrutiny.

"Unjust scrutiny ... whether they be Canadian citizens or U.S. citizens. Brown people in general."

Plaintiff's request to leave border crossing was refused

The legal complaint alleges that the Black employees felt discriminated against at work themselves.

Grays said senior officers kept asking to touch his hair, even after he objected. He said a senior staffer repeatedly asked how he had a job in Port Huron instead of Detroit — which has a much higher Black population.

During Black Lives Matter protests last year, the suit alleges, a colleague joked that Grays could wear civilian clothes and infiltrate the protests.

It alleges that the colleague told Grays: "Tell the protesters your name is Indike Mfufu," using an African-sounding name.

Jermaine Broderick said that as an immigrant from Jamaica who spent 14 years serving in the U.S. military, it bothers him to see this discrimination.

"That [service] is [apparently] not good enough," he said in an interview.

© Rebecca Cook/Reuters Vehicles enter Port Huron, Mich., from Sarnia, Ont., on the Blue Water Bridge, as seen from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Blackhawk helicopter.

"The shade of my skin colour has subjected me to undue scrutiny."

Broderick said he asked to leave the border crossing but was refused. Grays, after feuding with a supervisor mentioned in the lawsuit, filed a union grievance last year and was subsequently sidelined from his regular work.

"Placed on desk duty," he said in an interview.
Data from a study on Michigan

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan says it has statistical evidence that travellers are treated differently on the basis of race.

It sued to obtain, and has now released, thousands of federal documents spanning seven years — including more than 13,000 CBP apprehension log records from 2012 to 2019 in Michigan.

A report based on racial data on people detained by the CBP's law enforcement arm, which was released by the ACLU, found that 96.5 per cent of those stopped are listed as having a dark, dark brown, light brown, medium brown, medium or black complexion.

Just 3.5 per cent are listed as having a light or fair complexion.

© Todd Korol/Reuters U.S. Border Patrol, the law enforcement unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is accused in a new ACLU report of stopping people of colour in disproportionate numbers in Michigan.

Those numbers are wildly disproportionate, the ACLU report says, not only to the demographics of the state of Michigan but also to the demographics of people ultimately arrested for crossing illegally.

People of Latin American origin comprise less than 20 per cent of the state's foreign-born population, but 85 per cent of non-citizens apprehended in Michigan were from Latin America, the report says.

Because U.S. border officials exercise jurisdiction within 160 kilometres (100 miles) of any international waterway, they can stop travellers anywhere from the Canadian border to the farthest points in the state.

The ACLU report begins with the story of a lawful U.S. resident, Arnulfo Gomez, who was pulled over for his vehicle's loud exhaust system.

Despite having a valid Michigan driver's licence, he was forced to sit on the side of the road for half an hour while he and his wife were questioned, the report says.

"There was no reason for him to pull us over," the report quotes Gomez as saying. "As soon as he saw we are brown, he was after us."

He was never ticketed for the loud exhaust.

VANCOUVER
Coalition says users were shut out of drug decriminalization proposal, demands redo


OTTAWA — Advocates are calling on the federal government and the City of Vancouver to halt the march toward possible drug decriminalization in the city, saying the process excludes users and demands a do-over.

 Provided by The Canadian Press

In a letter to federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu and the Vancouver and British Columbia working groups on decriminalization, a coalition of 15 organizations said the current proposal must be scrapped immediately or risks reproducing the harms of prohibition.

"We cannot abide by the phony 'Vancouver Model' of decriminalization and refuse to be tokenized in petty political bids," reads the letter from groups representing users.

"We want decriminalization — but on our terms, not the terms of the police and politicians."

The group says police have an oversized role in developing the so-called Vancouver model and that the thresholds that define simple possession are too low in the latest submission to Ottawa.

The letter comes after the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users' (VANDU) board of directors resigned from the city's decriminalization working group Monday. A morning meeting between the working group and Health Canada officials confirmed that the board's input "is not being taken seriously," VANDU said in a statement.

The open letter also comes ahead of a planned submission on decriminalization to the federal Health Department this Friday.

Health Canada is currently working with Vancouver on the city's request for exemption from criminal provisions on simple possession of small amounts of drugs.

Vancouver has been the epicentre of an opioid crisis that saw B.C. record 1,176 illicit drug overdose deaths in 2020 — the highest ever in a single year — and more than 7,000 deaths since a public health emergency was declared in April 2016.

Mayor Kennedy Stewart said officials "respect the views of VANDU and other groups."

"The proposed thresholds are a starting point and will be monitored and evaluated as more data become available," Stewart said in a statement.

He said the city's application to Health Canada is grounded in local data — though VANDU argues the figures are outdated — and aimed at reducing stigma to achieve a "fully health-focused approach to substance use."

"As with many pioneering projects, efforts must be made to find consensus between a variety of groups with often vastly differing opinions," Stewart added.

In an emailed statement, Hajdu stressed that "substance use is a health issue, not a moral one." Police are among the "relevant stakeholders," along with Vancouver Coastal Health, the city and the province, she said.

The coalition is demanding the Vancouver Police Department take a backseat in discussions and asking the city to raise the proposed drug thresholds from a supposed three-day supply.

"The police and city officials and health officials go off into a room and prepare something and then they show it to us as they’re about to send it to Health Canada," said VANDU representative Garth Mullins in a news conference Tuesday.

"That is a focus group ... That is not co-design," he said. "That is a decriminalization regime designed by and for police, and it is a Trojan horse to recriminalize us on the other side of its implementation."

Caitlin Shane, a lawyer at the Vancouver-based Pivot Legal Society, worries that a defective decriminalization model could set a harmful precedent for jurisdictions across the country.

Lower thresholds on what constitutes simple possession — rather than possession for the purpose of trafficking — mean users cannot buy multiple days’ supply in one purchase without violating the Criminal Code.

It could also necessitate more frequent interaction with dealers, along with the attendant danger, Shane said.

"These thresholds mean that we are actually incentivizing people to engage with that criminal system more frequently because they are unable to purchase in larger amounts."

Drug users also face greater dangers as the third wave of COVID-19 forces harm reduction sites and outreach programs to curtail their services, leaving at-risk communities out in the cold.

In B.C., deaths linked to the synthetic opioid fentanyl had been on the decline for more than a year until April 2020, when monthly numbers routinely began to double those of 2019.

Opioid-related deaths countrywide could climb as high as 2,000 per quarter in the first half of 2021, far surpassing the peak of nearly 1,200 in the last three months of 2018, according to modelling from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Canada's ongoing border restrictions have disrupted the flow of illicit drugs, and dealers looking to stretch their limited supplies are more apt to add potentially toxic adulterants.

Benzodiazepines have been detected in drugs circulating in parts of several provinces. Users can be difficult to rouse and slow to respond to naloxone — the drug that reverses opioid overdoses — and more likely to overdose when fentanyl or other opioids are also in the mix.

Richard Elliott, executive director of the HIV Legal Network, said decriminalization helps to remove stigma and barriers to services. But safe supply and treatment programs also make up a key part of the equation, "especially if people's use patterns are being affected by restrictions and by changes in the drug market," he said in an interview.

The B.C. government have made several commitments to helping drug users — Vancouver is also pushing to enhance safe supply — with some supervised consumption sites in the province as well as overdose prevention sites in many cities.

Hajdu said the federal government's focus on harm reduction includes its support for the 2017 Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act, which exempts people from charges after they call 911 during an overdose. The Liberal government has also funded programs that seek to divert users from the criminal justice system and enhance access to safe consumption sites and treatment options, she noted.

Ottawa's work on the decriminalization file is "guided by the health needs of people who use substances" as well as recommendations from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and federal prosecutors, she added.

B.C. is preparing its own provincewide application for exclusion from the rules around simple possession — illegal under the Criminal Code, but open to exemption along with other provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances "if, in the opinion of the minister, the exemption is ... in the public interest," the legislation reads.

"Our approach will seek input from many different groups including people with lived/living experience, frontline service workers and health care professionals, and chiefs of police," the B.C. Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions said in an email.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2021.

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

MANITOBA
'Health officials, Pallister lied to us for weeks'


Business owner Jeremy Regan woke up angry and dejected Monday — yet another day when his barbershop had been forced to shutter again by the Manitoba government without any evidence about why it needed to happen, more than 14 months into the COVID-19 pandemic.

This time, Regan is frustrated for his storefront not even because it had to close. “But I’m just absolutely confused and irritated that public-health officials and Premier Brian Pallister lied to us for weeks leading up to this,” the Hunter & Gunn owner told the Free Press.

“We would’ve all been OK with these type of circuit-breaker closures, but it’s completely ruthless that they get a free pass on doing this, when all they did was tell us that the virus wasn’t coming from businesses and that we were doing a good job... When Pallister said the same things about us today, while telling us we still had to close, I just sighed so loudly. I literally wanted to yell.”

Regan is not the only such business owner expressing this kind of discontent.

In fact, stakeholders like the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce insist the provincial government has “completely flip-flopped” on its messaging leading up to new restrictions that came into effect Sunday, just before further measures were announced for schools and educators.

“We simply don’t have the rationale, data or any such evidence provided to us right now for why this happened,” said Chuck Davidson, president and chief executive officer for the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce.

“It seems businesses are bearing that brunt certainly, not because they’re the cause of the soaring cases, but because they’re lumped into helping turn down the dial on transmission overall at other places — mostly gatherings which the province isn’t enforcing to its full capacity,” said Loren Remillard of the Winnipeg Chamber.

On Monday, Premier Pallister announced new grants, after a weekend of outrage from the business community. Pallister failed to provide such supports earlier at a press conference announcing the restrictions, which he also did not attend.

The Manitoba Bridge Grant, which will dole out $5,000 a pop, is expected to be automatically provided to small- and medium-sized business owners who had qualified for its previous three iterations by the end of this week.

“We’re grateful for this grant because, yes, we’d been asking for this for weeks,” said Davidson. “Is it going to be enough? I don’t think $20,000 will ever be enough when you’ve been basically closed for well over a year.”

Pressed Monday, Pallister would not answer why the Tory government changed its tune about imposing new restrictions that required these grants in the first place. And Pallister also refused to say how this “tough decision” was made without any modelling or contact tracing data showing they were needed.



“I’m not going to apologize. We had to act. We chose to act,” Pallister told reporters at a news conference, about his “unapologetic” demeanour for imposing restrictions that he admitted were “done out of a sense of urgency without a lot of advance notice.”

The premier acknowledged restaurants, in particular, were “caught off guard” by the Mother’s Day measure. “So, this is a thank-you to them,” he said of a new top-up for eateries on top of the bridge grant for their plight.

“We continue to offer the most generous programs and supports in the country,” said Pallister inaccurately, when asked about assistance for workers, who will lose hours or be stuck without pay altogether due to the new provincial measures. He touted a new provincial pandemic sick leave program that provides workers $600 for up to five full days, but only if it’s related to COVID-19 and if they’re taking time off completely — not if they lose hours because of the new measures.

Last week, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin announced more than a dozen new measures, as coronavirus infections reached a level not seen since the peak of the second wave in November. The new orders will last at least until May 30.

“I think it’s a valid question to ask why businesses are being closed when all we’ve heard is cases are coming from elsewhere,” said Jonathan Alward, Prairies director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, on Monday. “That said, I know for a lot of people this grant extension will definitely be very helpful as they deal with that.”

The CFIB, Retail Council of Canada (Prairies), and the Winnipeg and Manitoba Chambers of Commerce all expect future closures and layoffs as a result of the new restrictions.

Temur Durrani, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

Alberta justice minister sorry for saying feds, others rooting for COVID disaster


EDMONTON — Alberta’s justice minister says he was wrong to accuse Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, Alberta’s Opposition NDP, and the media of rooting for COVID-19 to buckle his province’s health system.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"I would like to offer an apology for my recent comments on my personal Facebook account," Kaycee Madu wrote on Twitter Tuesday night.

"Alberta is facing an unprecedented public health crisis. My comments were wrong, as all Canadians want this global pandemic to end as soon as possible.

"I fully support the premier’s recent call to avoid the divisive political rhetoric during what we all hope is the final period of this pandemic and will continue the important work of government in protecting Albertans from this virus."

The apology came a day after Madu’s spokesman, Blaise Boehmer, told reporters in a statement that Madu was standing by his accusations, adding, "The minister won’t apologize for stating the obvious."

Earlier Tuesday, prior to Madu’s apology, Trudeau rejected the accusations.

"It’s a shame to see people pointing fingers and laying blame and suggesting that anyone in Canada wants anything else than to get through this pandemic as safely as possible everywhere," Trudeau said in Ottawa.

Premier Jason Kenney, also asked about Madu’s comments prior to the apology, said he hadn’t seen them but said, "COVID has caused us a lot of us at various times to say things we regret, and I just encourage everybody — whatever side of the political spectrum they’re on — to give each other a break right now."

Trudeau noted he reached out to Kenney and Alberta's big city mayors last week to offer further support if called upon. Kenney declined the offer.

"Every step of the way the federal government has been there to support Canadians, with $8 out of every $10 in pandemic support coming from the federal government," said Trudeau.

The issues of blame and responsibility have recently been at the centre of debate in Alberta. Kenney’s government has been criticized for waiting weeks to respond with tighter health restrictions to the current third wave that now threatens to overrun the health system if left unchecked.



Alberta has recently had COVID-19 case rates that are the highest in North America.

Kenney acted with renewed rules a week ago, closing schools and introducing sharper limits on businesses and worship services.

He also stressed now is not the time to lay blame. Prior to that, Kenney and his ministers had repeatedly accused Trudeau's government of hamstringing the relief effort with a slow vaccine rollout. As late as April 29, Kenney blamed Alberta's entire third wave on Ottawa.

Last Friday, Madu, in a Facebook post, wrote that the province couldn’t risk giving the COVID-19 virus a chance to "overwhelm our health-care system.

"That's what the NDP, the media and the federal Liberals were looking for and want," he wrote.

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said her caucus has done its job as the Official Opposition.

She said they’ve pushed Kenney’s government to enact rules to reduce the spread of the virus, while giving businesses financial aid to survive and workers support to allow them to isolate but still provide for their families.

Notley added, "You don’t tend to see that sort of incendiary, thoughtless messaging or tone from someone who takes on the role of justice minister."

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the chief medical officer of health, reported 24,998 active COVID-19 cases Tuesday. There are 705 people in hospital with the illness, 163 of them in intensive care — the highest since the pandemic began.

Hinshaw confirmed the province won't give out more first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for the time being.

“Based on global supply challenges, we do not know when Canada, and in turn Alberta, will receive additional doses,” said Hinshaw.

There are 8,400 doses left, which will be used for second shots.

Hinshaw also said they will wait at least 12 weeks between AstraZeneca doses, given current research is showing that the interval delivers the best protection.

Alberta has administered more than 255,000 first doses of AstraZeneca.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2021.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Organizers of 'anti-lockdown' rodeo charged with breaking Alberta health act

CBC/Radio-Canada

© Justin Pennell/CBC Hundreds attended a rodeo near Bowden, Alta., on May 1 and 2 in defiance of public health restrictions and despite surging COVID-19 cases.

The organizers of a rodeo held earlier this month near Bowden, Alta., to protest provincial COVID-19 restrictions have been summoned to make a court appearance for putting on the event.

Ty Northcott posted on his Facebook page Tuesday that officials served him papers on Monday for his role in May 1-2 event, which he dubbed "No more lockdowns rodeo rally."

RCMP confirmed to CBC News that Mounties on behalf of Alberta Health Services served papers to Ty and Gail Northcott requiring them to appear in Red Deer provincial court on May 17.

They were charged with a violation under Section 73(1) of the Public Health Act.

In a statement to CBC News, AHS said its officials worked with the Bowden Agriculture Society, Red Deer County and the Olds RCMP to confirm the rodeo event was in violation of orders issued by Alberta's chief medical officer of health.

So far, no cases of COVID-19 have arisen from the event. AHS noted that symptoms may take up to 14 days to appear after exposure.

"In some cases, symptoms may be mild and individuals may not seek out COVID-19 testing. COVID-19 can also be spread asymptomatically, and an individual may not know they are spreading the virus," said AHS spokesperson Kerry Williamson in the statement.

The "anti-lockdown" event held on private land along Highway 2A about 30 kilometres south of Red Deer drew hundreds of spectators, most of whom were not wearing masks.
Rodeo draws harsh rebuke from premier

Attendees at the event told CBC News they believe the pandemic is a "scamdemic" and that COVID-19 is a "flu" that is not serious.

The rodeo drew a harsh rebuke from Premier Jason Kenney, who said he was angered by the participants' selfish behaviour.

"Rodeo celebrates Alberta's western heritage, a key part of which is our community spirit and looking out for others, especially the vulnerable," Kenney said.

"That's the opposite of what these folks are doing."

Robb Stuart, the mayor of Bowden, said those who flouted health restrictions at the rodeo outside his town should be held accountable.

No further charges stemming from the rodeo are being considered at this time, said RCMP media liaison Kelly Chantelle.

As of Monday, Alberta had25,438 active cases, giving it the highest active-case rate, per capita, of all provinces and territories. The province reported1,597 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and seven more deaths from the illness.

There were690 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 158 people in intensive care.

Alberta takes legal action against pastor, rodeo organizers for gatherings


CALGARY — A court date has been set for a Calgary pastor and two rodeo organizers have been ordered to appear in court after they were all accused of violating public health orders in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

RCMP say in a news release that a court summons has been served in relation to a pre-advertised, maskless "No More Lockdowns" protest rodeo held in early May.

Police allege Ty Northcott and Gail Northcott, who are both from Bowden, Alta., contravened the province's Public Health Act.

It comes a day after Calgary police released pastor Artur Pawlowski and his brother Dawid Pawlowski from custody.

The pair were arrested Saturday and charged with organizing an illegal in-person gathering and promoting and attending an illegal gathering.

Artur Pawlowski is to appear in court May 17.

The charges come after a court order was granted allowing Alberta Health Services and police to arrest and charge those who advertise illegal gatherings that breach COVID-19 health restrictions.

The health agency says there is an urgent need to minimize spread to protect all Albertans as COVID-19 cases surge in the province.

Rallies and protests against lockdowns, masks and other COVID-19 regulations have been occurring regularly in Alberta.

Police also ticketed protesters leaving another anti-restriction rally Saturday. It was held outside a central Alberta café, after the establishment was closed by health officials earlier in the week.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Criminal complaint filed after 2nd Nazi flag spotted in rural Alberta

Janice Johnston

CBC

© Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center Hitler Youth and Confederate flags fly on a property outside Breton in Brazeau County, Alta.

A woman living in central Alberta says she nearly crashed her vehicle when she saw a Nazi flag and Confederate flag flying side-by-side at a rural property.

For at least the past five years, a rural property owner who lives outside of Breton, southwest of Edmonton, has displayed a Confederate flag at the entrance. On May 1, he added a Hitler Youth Nazi flag on the other side of his driveway.

When a neighbour drove past his property on Mother's Day, she said she couldn't believe her eyes, so she took a photo.

CBC News has agreed to protect her identity.

"I nearly drove off the road," she said. "It shocked me because that's not the community. That's why I lost my biscuit and started contacting people."

She said she called the local RCMP detachment, Brazeau County and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies(FSWC) in Toronto.

The FSWC contacted RCMP immediately and filed a criminal complaint.

RCMP said officers went to the property the same day and confirmed the existence of the flags. An RCMP spokesperson said they asked the landowner to take the flags down and he refused.

"Unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me," Jaime Kirzner-Roberts with FSWC said. "I think you can imagine that anybody that's motivated to put up a Confederate or a Nazi flag has some kind of agenda."

Const. Chantelle Kelly told CBC news that flying a flag is not in itself a criminal offence.

Investigators are now trying to determine if flying those particular flags is enough to be charged with wilfully promoting hatred or inciting the public.

She said RCMP would likely consult with the Crown to see if there's the necessary intent to file hate crime criminal charges. She was not able to provide a timeline on how long it would take to make a decision.

The FSWC is encouraging RCMP to lay criminal charges.

"These symbols are promoting hatred," Kirzner-Roberts said. "Here in Canada, the wilful promotion of hatred is illegal. It is a criminal act."
Politician calls for removal of flags

The reeve of Brazeau County said he doesn't know the homeowner, but hopes he'll decide to take down the flags he described as disturbing.

"There's no time for this type of symbol of hatred and racism to be displayed anywhere, let alone in Brazeau County," Bart Guyon said. "People are pretty stressed these days from all the different things going on and the last thing we need is one more thing to worry about."

Last week, a Hitler Youth flag was also spotted on a flagpole south of Boyle. That property owner agreed to take it down when asked to do so by RCMP.

The woman who blew the whistle on the flags flying outside Breton hopes the property owner will have a change of heart.

"I hope there's enough pressure that it makes it uncomfortable for him," she said.

The whole incident has made the Brazeau County Reeve very uncomfortable.

"The world is changing," Guyon said. "I hope this isn't the direction it's going."

'It is extremely disturbing': Nazi flag seen flying on second rural Alberta property in a week

Jonny Wakefield
EDMONTON JOURNAL

A Hitler Youth flag has been spotted flying over a second rural Alberta property in the span of a week.

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies says it was alerted Sunday to a Nazi and a Confederate flag on a property near Breton, Alta.

On Tuesday, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) said they contacted police after learning Nazi and Confederate flags were on display at a property near Breton.

A nearby resident spotted the flags Sunday and reported them to the Toronto-based centre, which monitors racism and antisemitism.

In a news release, the FSWC said the property owner refused to remove the flags after being approached by Breton RCMP. An RCMP spokesman confirmed they are investigating but declined to provide further details.

“It is extremely disturbing and quite disheartening to once again see a Hitler Youth flag, as well as the Confederate flag, on display,” said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, the centre’s director of policy.

“These displays of hate go against the values that Canada stands for and are an attack on not only the Jewish and Black communities, but also on our veterans and fallen soldiers who made unspeakable sacrifices to defeat the Nazis and preserve our freedoms.”

The news comes less than a week after RCMP asked a property owner near the northern Alberta village of Boyle to remove a similar flag. The latest property is located on Township Road 484 in Brazeau County, southwest of Edmonton.

The FSWC filed criminal complaints in relation to both flags, arguing the property owners are wilfully promoting hatred and demanding police conduct a hate crimes investigation.

County Reeve Bart Guyon called the flags “disturbing” in a phone interview Tuesday.

In a followup statement, he added: “There is no place in Brazeau County for symbols of hatred and racism. These flags are disturbing, inappropriate, and do not represent the values of the people of Brazeau County. We call upon the landowner to remove them immediately.”

Breton’s chief administrative officer said the property is not within the boundaries of the village, which she noted was founded by Black settlers and features a museum with one of the few exhibits on Black settlement in Alberta .

Steve Shafir, president of the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, said the flags are proof that “antisemitism, unfortunately, is alive and well in Canada.”

“It’s disgusting,” he said. “It’s disconcerting, and it is downright scary.”

Shafir added the Jewish community has been “pleased with the outpouring of support from the general community when these things do come to light.”

“We know that the vast majority of Canadians are disgusted with the views that come with a symbol like that.”

Efforts to contact the property owner have been unsucc

ARYAN SUPREMACISTS EXPLOIT DALITS IN USA
Suit: Workers lured from India paid $1.20 per hour for years

FBI agents were at a large Hindu temple in New Jersey on Tuesday as a new lawsuit claimed it was built by workers from marginalized communities in India who were lured to the U.S. and forced to work long hours for just a few dollars per day.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The lawsuit accuses the leaders of the Hindu organization known as Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, of human trafficking and wage law violations.

An FBI spokesperson confirmed that agents were at the temple on “court-authorized law enforcement activity,” but wouldn't elaborate. One of the attorneys who filed the suit said some workers had been removed from the site Tuesday.

The lawsuit says more than 200 workers — many or all of whom don't speak English — were coerced into signing employment agreements in India. They traveled to New Jersey under R-1 visas, which are meant for “those who minister, or work in religious vocations or occupations,” according to the lawsuit.

When they arrived, the lawsuit says, their passports were taken away and they were forced to work at the temple from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. with few days off, for about $450 per month a rate that the suit said came out to around $1.20 per hour. Of that, the workers allegedly only received $50 in cash per month, with the rest deposited into their accounts in India.

According to the lawsuit, the exploited workers were Dalits — members of the lowest step of South Asia's caste hierarchy.

An attorney representing several of the workers, Daniel Werner, called it “shocking that this happens in our backyard.”

“It is even more disturbing that it has gone on for years in New Jersey behind the temple’s walls,” Werner, of Decatur, Georgia, said Tuesday outside the gates of the complex. He said some workers were on the site for a year, two years or even longer, and were not allowed to leave unless accompanied by somebody from BAPS.

BAPS CEO Kanu Patel, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, told The New York Times, “I respectfully disagree with the wage claim.”

A spokesperson for the organization, Matthew Frankel, told The Associated Press that BAPS was first made aware of the accusations early Tuesday morning.

“We are taking them very seriously and thoroughly reviewing the issues raised,” he said.

The ornate temple, known as a mandir, is made of Italian and Indian marble, and sits on 162 acres (65 hectares) in Robbinsville, outside Trenton.

The lawsuit said workers lived in a fenced-in compound where their movements were monitored by cameras and guards. They were told that if they left, police would arrest them because they didn't have their passports, the suit said.

The lawsuit names Patel and several individuals described as having supervised the workers. It seeks unpaid wages and unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

D.B. Sagar, president of the Washington-based International Commission for Dalit Rights, told The Associated Press that Dalits are an easy target for exploitation because they’re the poorest people in India.

“They need something to survive, to protect their family,” Sagar — a Dalit himself — said, adding that if the allegations in the lawsuit are true, they amount to “modern-day slavery.”

BAPS is a global sect of Hinduism founded in the early 20th century and aims to “preserve Indian culture and the Hindu ideals of faith, unity, and selfless service,” according to its website. The organization says it has built more than 1,100 mandirs — often large complexes that essentially function as community centers.

BAPS is known for community service and philanthropy, taking an active role in the diaspora’s initiative to help India amid the current COVID-19 surge. But it also is linked to contentious issues in India, publicly supporting and funding the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, built on the site of a mosque demolished by Hindu nationalists.

India’s right-wing prime minister, Narendra Modi, has close ties to the organization and one of its transformative leaders, Pramukh Swami Maharaj, who died in 2016.

The ongoing construction on the mandir in Robbinsville began in 2010, and the site has caught the attention of state and federal authorities in recent years.

Last month, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development issued a stop-work order against a Newark-based construction company whose projects included the BAPS temple in Robbinsville.

An investigation found the company, Cunha Construction, was paying workers in cash off the books and didn’t have workers’ compensation insurance, according to a release. A phone listed for the company rang unanswered Tuesday. It’s not named in the lawsuit.

In 2017, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated after a Pennsylvania teenager was killed in a fall while volunteering at the site.

According to the website for the Robbinsville mandir, its construction “is the epitome of volunteerism.”

“Volunteers of all ages have devoted their time and resources from the beginning: assisting in the construction work, cleaning up around the site, preparing food for all the artisans on a daily basis and helping with other tasks,” the website says. “A total of 4.7 million man hours were required by craftsman and volunteers to complete the Mandir.”

___

Associated Press writer Mike Catalini contributed to this report.

David Porter And Mallika Sen, The Associated Press

SEE HINDUISM IS FASCISM

Mexico scraps tainted GM union vote, U.S. lawmakers warn of labor abuses

By Daina Beth Solomon and David Shepardson 

  

© Reuters/REBECCA COOK FILE PHOTO: Logo of GM atop the company headquarters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexican authorities on Tuesday ordered the General Motors Co union in the city of Silao to repeat a worker vote following pressure from U.S. lawmakers for the automaker to address alleged abuses that could potentially violate a new trade deal.

Mexico's labor ministry said it found "serious irregularities" in last month's vote, which is required under a Mexican labor reform to ensure workers are not bound to contracts that are signed behind their backs and keep wages low.

Such votes are part of Mexico's broader effort to uphold worker rights as part of a new free trade pact that replaces NAFTA.

The concerns over GM come amid various complaints in recent days regarding Mexican workplace abuses, just as U.S. activists and politicians begin to flex new powers to enforce labor standards south of the border enshrined in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

The largest U.S. labor federation, the AFL-CIO, on Monday urged the U.S. government to file a complaint under USMCA against Tridonex, an auto-parts plant in the Mexican border city of Matamoros where it said workers have been blocked from electing an independent union.

In the GM case, some ballots were destroyed during the union-led vote, Mexico's labor ministry found. It also said the union, which is part of the powerful Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), refused to give labor inspectors documentation of the vote tally.

U.S. representatives Dan Kildee, Bill Pascrell and Earl Blumenauer, all Democrats, called on GM to answer questions about potential abuses.

The largest U.S. automaker "has a responsibility to speak out against violations of labor and human rights abuses at the Silao GM plant," they said in a letter to GM Chief Executive Mary Barra.

The lawmakers also cited news reports indicating that GM officials had removed independent inspectors, among other intimidation tactics targeting workers.

GM has denied wrongdoing, and said government-approved inspectors were not prevented from entering the voting site. It also said it condemned labor rights violations and had hired a third-party firm to review the matter.

GM's union must hold a new vote within 30 days, the ministry said, after the initial vote "violated principles of safety and certainty."

Hugo Varela, head of the CTM in Guanajuato state, where the Silao plant is located, did not respond to a request for comment on the labor ministry's order.

He previously said that CTM was committed to complying with the law and keeping jobs in Mexico.

A spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office declined to comment on GM.

The disputed vote at Silao, which employs some 6,000 people, came several days before GM said it would invest $1 billion in an electric vehicle manufacturing complex in Mexico, triggering criticism from the United Auto Workers.

UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg told Reuters separately this week that it was "concerned and is having appropriate discussions" about the Mexico vote.

In addition, Geneva-based IndustriALL Global Unions and Toronto-based Unifor said in letters to GM President Mark Reuss last week that the incident appeared to violate the USMCA and urged GM to protect workers.

Unifor's president, Jerry Dias, expressed his "outrage" at the situation and said he would explore "all available avenues" to uphold worker rights in Mexico, including dispute resolution tools under the USMCA.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico CityAdditional reporting by Sharay Angulo and Anthony Esposito in Mexico City, Ben Klayman in Detroit and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool and Stephen Coates)

Gig-economy riders in Spain must become staff within 90 days under new rule

© Reuters/Albert Gea FILE PHOTO: Glovo deliver rider passes by a pedestrian area in Barcelona

MADRID (Reuters) -Food delivery companies based in Spain have three months to employ their couriers as staff under new rules approved on Tuesday by the government, one of the first laws in Europe regarding gig-economy workers' rights.

The decree aims to clarify the legal situation of thousands of riders after Spain's Supreme Court ruled last year that companies must hire them as employees.

"The regulation approved today ... places us at the forefront of a technological change that cannot leave labour rights behind," Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz said.

A debate on how to regulate workers' rights in the gig economy is unfolding globally. The European Commission has opened a public consultation period on potential EU-wide rules.

The new Spanish rules came into force immediately, with companies being given 90 days to comply. According to the labour ministry's calculations, nearly 17,000 riders without a contract have already been identified.

Uber criticised the new regulation

"This regulation will directly hurt thousands of couriers who use food delivery apps for much-needed flexible earnings opportunities and made it clear they do not want to be classified as employees," a spokesman said.

"The decree approved today by the cabinet is a hard blow for the future of the digital economy in Spain", according to Adigital, a business industry association that represent gig economy companies including Spanish start-up Glovo and Deliveroo.

Although the legislation makes it harder for companies to have freelance couriers, closing the door on a common practice, several riders' associations and labour experts have said it does not completely resolve their legal situation, anticipating further potential court battles.

In any case, most delivery companies have already started preparing for the change, looking for new business models that will allow them to be profitable.

Just-Eat, the Spanish branch of Take Away, has already hired some of its workers and covers peak demand with workers from transport companies.

Others, such as Glovo, have opted to hire some riders through temporary employment agencies, according to riders.

The government also approved new rules obliging companies to explain to their staff how their workload-sharing algorithms work.

This transparency requirement will affect all platforms, not just food delivery companies.

"Workers have the right to know what motivates business decisions," said Diaz. "Algorithms are going to be put at the service of the majority."

(Reporting by Belén Carreño and Joan FausWriting by Belén CarreñoEditing by Ingrid Melander and Estelle Shirbon)

Spain adopts landmark law to protect 'gig' delivery workers

MADRID (AP) — Spain approved a pioneering law Tuesday that gives delivery platforms a mid-August deadline to hire workers currently freelancing for them and that requires transparency of artificial intelligence used to manage workforces.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The royal decree passed by the center-left ruling coalition immediately affects some 30,000 couriers. It comes in the wake of a ruling by Spain’s top court last year and at a time when other countries in Europe and elsewhere are deciding on a labor model for the so-called gig economy, which is often blamed for precarious jobs and low salaries.

That's because, until now, gig and other contractor workers had to pay social security fees from their own pockets if they wanted to receive benefits including unemployment subsidies and a public pension.

App-based food delivery businesses say that the law threatens a 700-million-euro ($851 million) industry in Spain, and some of the couriers took to the streets on Tuesday in different cities because they say that remaining self-employed benefits them.

Francisco López, 37, said he was making 2,400 euros ($2,900) per month working an average of seven hours every seven days of the week, more than he could have made at his previous job at Barcelona.

“A lot of us have families and children. By working for more than one company we can adjust our schedule. The rates are currently not the best, but they do offer us an economic cushion,” said López, who has managed to send remittances to his relatives in Colombia during the pandemic.

But Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz said Spain was “at the vanguard” in taking legislation on the relationship between delivery platforms and their workforce.

“The world is looking at us,” Díaz told reporters following a weekly Cabinet meeting and adding that it reflected the “new winds” that, across the world, deliver welfare to citizens.

In the United States, Joe Biden’s government has rolled back on a rule from his predecessor’s administration that would have made it easier to classify workers as independent contractors, blocking a change supported by delivery and ride-hailing services. The executive branch of the European Union is also currently consulting with the public on potential rules that could be applied across the bloc.

The Spanish government’s decree doesn't need parliamentary approval and is the result of an agreement with the country’s main workers’ unions and industry associations, although smaller groups representing the interests of the food delivery platforms claim they have been sidelined in the negotiations.

APS, which groups on-demand service providers Deliveroo, Stuart, Glovo and Uber Eats, the main players in the food delivery market, condemned the government's move.

“While Spain claims to be a start-up nation, this is the first law in Europe that forces a technological company to disclose its algorithms,” said APS in a statement.

During negotiations, the government agreed to initially restrict the need for work contracts to delivery companies operating digital platforms. That leaves out the domestic care and cleaning services industries where the gig work model is also spreading.

The law makes mandatory for all businesses the ground-breaking requirement of having to hand over to the workers’ legal representatives information about how algorithms and artificial intelligence systems function in assigning jobs and assessing performance, among other aspects.

“Workers cannot lose their soul on the keyboard of our laptops or on electronic gadgets,” Díaz said.

Uber said that the regulation would hurt the couriers "who use food delivery apps for much-needed flexible earning opportunities” and also the restaurant industry in Spain which, amid the coronavirus pandemic, is increasingly relying on delivery to make ends meet.

“We want to be a long-term partner to Spain and are exploring different options to adapt our delivery business to the new regulation,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.

Some of the associations representing “independent couriers” wrote to the European Union’s Job Commissioner Nicolas Schmit calling for the Spanish law to be paused until the bloc has come up with a standardized framework.

Four of the associations said that a model that requires companies to give them contracts could lead to the loss of 23,000 of some 30,000 existing jobs.

But the general secretary of UGT, one of Spain’s main workers’ unions, said the riders protesting against the law were controlled by the platforms and that the law was meant to protect labor rights across the board.

With the law, Pepe Álvarez told public broadcaster TVE, “workers are going to win, the social security system is going to win and the country is going to win."

Díaz also dismissed the criticism: “Just as workers shouldn't fear advances in technology, companies shouldn't fear labor rights," the minister said when asked at a press briefing following the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Spain’s Supreme Court ruling last year said that there was a “presumed work relationship” between a delivery worker and Glovo. The ruling sent ripples across the industry, with the judges concluding that the platform couldn’t be deemed just as an intermediary.

Dani Gutiérrez, a 29-year-old member of the “Ridersxrights” association who has failed to receive work from food delivery platforms after striking and protesting against their labor conditions, welcomed the new law but said that it lacked ambition.

“It should have gone much further, beyond the riders, because the working class is being pushed to precarious conditions through this type of collaborative economy, with fake freelancers and so on," Gutiérrez said.

__

AP journalist Renata Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain.

Aritz Parra And Renata Brito, The Associated Press

TODAY IN WEATHER HISTORY
How improper farming methodology and drought caused the catastrophic Dust Bowl

Randi Mann 

On Friday, May 11, 1934, tons of topsoil blew from the Great Plains region of the United States all the way to New York, Boston, and Atlanta.

This was an event associated with the Dust Bowl.

© Provided by The Weather Network"A farmer and his two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, April 1936. Iconic photo taken by Arthur Rothstein." Courtesy of Wikipedia

The Dust Bowl was a series of severe dust storms during the 1930s. It was caused by the combination of drought and inaccurate farming methodology. Farmers deeply plowed the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains, which displaced the native grass that usually traps soil and moisture during droughts and heavy winds.

Farmers were able to widely convert arid grassland to cropland with new technologies like gasoline-powered tractors.

© Provided by The Weather Network"A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935." Courtesy of Wikipedia

During the 1930s drought, the plowed soil turned to dust. Winds blew that dust that created large blackout clouds. The dust clouds were nicknamed "black blizzards" and "black rollers."

The black blizzards travelled as far east as New York City. The dust plumes reduced visibility to one meter.

Edward Stanley, an editor for the Associated Press, was rewriting another reporter's coverage of the storm and coined the term "Dust Bowl".

© Provided by The Weather Network"Buried machinery in a barn lot; Dallas, South Dakota, May 1936." Courtesy of Wikipedia

The impacts of the catastrophic conditions were exasperated by the Great Depression. In 1935, the drought caused families to leave their farms and move to other areas to seek work. Areas in Texas, Oklahoma and other areas in the region were deserted because of the Dust Bowl conditions.

The dust storms left more than 500,000 Americans homeless. Some residents in the Great Plains areas died from dust pneumonia or malnutrition.

The Dust Bowl has been featured in cultural work such as the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck.

Thumbnail: "A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935." Courtesy of NOAA

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This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by The Weather Network that features stories about people, communities, and events and how weather impacted them.

Opposition right to be wary of Liberals withholding details about fired Canadian scientists with Wuhan links: expert

OTTAWA — Opposition parties are right to be suspicious of the Liberal government’s efforts to withhold details around the firing of two scientists from a high-security infectious disease lab earlier this year, according to one expert on Parliamentary accountability.

© Provided by National Post The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg where scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng worked until they were escorted out in July 2019, and finally fired in January 2021.

For months, the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada has resisted calls to provide information to a Parliamentary committee around why the two Canadian scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng, were fired in January. The committee’s latest efforts on Monday to view documents related to the firings have also been resisted by the government, who says it would breach the Privacy Act and jeopardize national security.

Kathy Brock, professor at Queen’s University and an expert on issues of Parliamentary process and accountability, said the legal argument presented by the federal government could potentially be valid, but nonetheless appears to follow a trend of lacking transparency by the Trudeau government.

The Liberals, she said, have refused to release documents related to everything from the SNC-Lavalin scandal, to calls for a partial disclosure of contracts signed with COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers, citing cabinet confidences and the need to protect commercial sensitivity, respectively. Government has also redacted documents tied to the WE Charity scandal as well as recent calls for more details around the procurement practices of Shared Services Canada.

“Given the reluctance of the federal government to respond to a lot of fairly reasonable requests that have come up, and the way it’s controlled any communications and messaging on issues that are sensitive to the government, the opposition parties have a legitimate basis for being suspicious,” Brock said.

Her comments come as members of a special committee on Canada-China relations passed a motion on Monday evening that gives PHAC no more than 10 days to provide un-redacted documents around the firings, which would be passed along to the House of Commons law clerk. Members of the committee would review the documents privately to ensure against a leak of potentially sensitive information, the motion says.

The two scientists were escorted out of Canada’s only level-4 security lab in Winnipeg in July 2019, four months after the facility shipped Ebola and Henipah viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. They were fired in January 2021, and were stripped of their security clearances by authorities.

Canadian officials have said the shipments are not related to the outbreak of COVID-19, which was first detected in Wuhan. The federal health agency said the shipments and Qiu’s firing are also not connected.

Opposition members and even some Liberals, have say PHAC should nonetheless provide documentation on the matter, saying it could be of extremely high public interest.

Still, at least part of the Liberal government’s aversion to provide documents might be a result of the increasingly partisan nature of discourse in the House of Commons, Brock said, which has intensified during the pandemic.

“Because of the ramped up partisan nature of discussions between the opposition parties and the government, and the fact that we’re approaching election, partisanship has emerged much more strongly,” she said. “That means that some of the compromises that you traditionally have are broken down.”

Opposition requests for documents, she said, have also been very broad in nature, and could weigh down the public service as it seeks to locate the relevant records. Several observers have said that requests made by the Canada-China committee are very similar to when Liberal opposition members called for documents in 2010 related to the abusive treatment of Afghan detainees by Canadian armed forces. The former Harper government had resisted efforts to have those documents provided to Parliament.

Members of the committee have been full throated in their calls for the release of documents, saying it is a matter of Parliamentary privilege.

Liberal MP Rob Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the Foreign Affairs minister, had said the documents should be provided to the committee on a private basis. Oliphant Monday evening questioned the legal opinion provided by Christian Roy, senior legal counsel within the Justice Department, who said committees have never had the right to compel documents that could violate the Privacy Act.

“Lawyers are not always right and Justice lawyers are particularly, in my mind, not always right,” he said.

One former senior government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, agreed with Oliphant, saying Parliamentary privilege often takes precedence over specific legal statutes.

Other observers sided with the Liberals. Michael Wernick, former Clerk of the Privy Council, said the committee’s latest demands for documents could set a “really dangerous” precedent, potentially allowing opposition parties to expose sensitive information.

“Imagine the scope for a partisan majority harassing political opponents and dissenting stakeholders, demanding journalist sources, medical records, psychiatrists’ records, tax filings, adoption records, sealed court records, cabinet papers of their predecessors,” Wernick wrote on LinkedIn on Tuesday.

Conservative members of Parliament have been particularly critical of the Liberal government’s proclivity to redact or withhold documents.

On Tuesday, the party released a statement criticizing a lack of transparency about $655 million in funding that it said was awarded by the Canada Infrastructure Bank to ITC Holdings, a subsidiary of Fortis. Conservative members on the House transport committee put forward a motion on Tuesday calling for more details to be provided around the deal, which it said Liberal members blocked.

“These stalling tactics and the blocking of important reports raise serious questions about what the Liberals are working so hard to keep hidden.”

THIS SAME LAB HAD AN EARLIER INCIDENT OF A CHINESE HONEY POT TRAP OF A CANADIAN SCIENTIST AND HIS CHINESE ASSISTANT AND HER THEFT OF ANTHRAX FROM THE LAB

Public health agency ordered to hand over documents on two scientists fired from microbiology lab

In mystery investigation of two Canadian scientists, a request for Ebola, henipavirus from the Wuhan lab

Bio-warfare experts question why Canada was sending lethal viruses to China