Saudi Arabia: Pioneering female car mechanics flout gender stereotypes

Only four years ago, women in Saudi Arabia were banned from driving. But now, a handful of pioneering women have gone from behind the wheel to under the hood, taking on jobs as trainee mechanics and challenging gender stereotypes in the still deeply conservative country.

 

Carbon dioxide peak for 2022 more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels

by NOAA Headquarters

The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii is a benchmark site for measuring carbon dioxide, 

or CO2. NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography make independent 

measurements from this station on the slopes of Mauna Loa volcano. Credit: NOAA

Carbon dioxide measured at NOAA's Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory peaked for 2022 at 421 parts per million in May, pushing the atmosphere further into territory not seen for millions of years, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced today.

NOAA's measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) at the mountaintop observatory on Hawaii's Big Island averaged 420.99 parts per million (ppm), an increase of 1.8 ppm over 2021. Scientists at Scripps, which maintains an independent record, calculated a monthly average of 420.78 ppm.

"The science is irrefutable: humans are altering our climate in ways that our economy and our infrastructure must adapt to," said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. "We can see the impacts of climate change around us every day. The relentless increase of carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa is a stark reminder that we need to take urgent, serious steps to become a more Climate Ready Nation."

CO2 pollution is generated by burning fossil fuels for transportation and electrical generation, by cement manufacturing, deforestation, agriculture and many other practices. Along with other greenhouse gases, CO2 traps heat radiating from the planet's surface that would otherwise escape into space, causing the planet's atmosphere to warm steadily, which unleashes a cascade of weather impacts, including episodes of extreme heat, drought and wildfire activity, as well as heavier precipitation, flooding and tropical storm activity.

Impacts to the world's oceans from greenhouse gas pollution include increasing sea surface temperatures, rising sea levels, and an increased absorption of carbon, which makes sea water more acidic, leads to ocean deoxygenation, and makes it more difficult for some marine organisms to survive.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, CO2 levels were consistently around 280 ppm for almost 6,000 years of human civilization. Since then, humans have generated an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 pollution, much of which will continue to warm the atmosphere for thousands of years.

CO2 levels are now comparable to the Pliocene Climatic Optimum, between 4.1 and 4.5 million years ago, when they were close to, or above 400 ppm. During that time, sea levels were between 5 and 25 meters higher than today —high enough to drown many of the world's largest modern cities. Temperatures then averaged 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times, and studies indicate that large forests occupied today's Arctic tundra.

Mauna Loa ideally located to monitor global pollution

NOAA's observatory, situated high on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano, is the global benchmark location for monitoring atmospheric CO2. At an elevation of 11,141 feet above sea level, the observatory samples air undisturbed by the influence of local pollution or vegetation, and produces measurements that represent the average state of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere.

Charles David Keeling, a scientist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, initiated on-site measurements of CO2 at NOAA's weather station on Mauna Loa in 1958. Keeling was the first to recognize that CO2 levels in the Northern Hemisphere fell during the growing season, and rose as plants died back in the fall, and he documented these CO2 fluctuations in a record that came to be known as the Keeling Curve. He was also the first to recognize that, despite the seasonal fluctuation, CO2 levels were rising every year.

NOAA began measurements in 1974, and the two research institutions have made complementary, independent observations ever since. Keeling's son, geochemist Ralph Keeling, runs the Scripps program at Mauna Loa.

"It's depressing that we've lacked the collective will power to slow the relentless rise in CO2," said Keeling. "Fossil-fuel use may no longer be accelerating, but we are still racing at top speed towards a global catastrophe."

The Mauna Loa data, together with measurements from sampling stations around the world, are incorporated by NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory into the Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, a foundational research dataset for international climate scientists and a benchmark for policymakers attempting to address the causes and impacts of climate change.

Despite decades of negotiation, the global community has been unable to significantly slow, let alone reverse, annual increases in atmospheric CO2 levels.

"Carbon dioxide is at levels our species has never experienced before—this is not new," said Pieter Tans, senior scientist with the Global Monitoring Laboratory. "We have known about this for half a century, and have failed to do anything meaningful about it. What's it going to take for us to wake up?

Coronavirus response barely slows rising carbon dioxide

More information: To visualize how sea level rise may affect your community, visit NOAA's sea level rise viewer, at: coast.noaa.gov/slr/

Provided by NOAA Headquarters 

French diplomats strike over plan for their 'extinction'

Issued on: 02/06/2022 

French diplomats staged a one-day strike Thursday to protest a plan by President Emmanuel Macron to strip foreign envoys of their distinct status, a move they say will weaken Paris's influence abroad.

 

Angry French diplomats drop discretion to strike over reform

By ELAINE GANLEY

June 2, 2022

1 of 6

A usher looks through the key hole at the French foreign ministry in Paris, Friday March 4, 2016 during international ministerial discussions about Syria. Members of the French diplomatic corps, a mostly invisible force that guides the nation's conduct of international affairs, are dropping their traditional reserve to go on strike Thursday, angered by a planned reform they fear will hurt their careers and France's standing in the world. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, File)

PARIS (AP) — Members of the French diplomatic corps dropped their traditional reserve on Thursday to go on a rare strike, angered by a planned reform they worry will hurt their careers and France’s standing in the world. It was the second such strike in nearly 20 years.

About 100 diplomats dropped the veil of invisibility that often defines their work to demonstrate in full view of the imposing Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the home base for the foreign service. In overseas posts, ranging from Tokyo to the Middle East and Washington, numerous diplomats, including some ambassadors, honored the day-long strike.

They want President Emmanuel Macron to scrap a plan to merge career diplomats with a larger body of civil servants, starting in January, or at least hold a dialogue.

The plan, announced by Macron in an April decree, will reportedly affect about 800 diplomats. Opponents claim that’s just the beginning.

“We risk the disappearance of our professional diplomacy,” a group of 500 diplomats, wrote in a commentary published last week in Le Monde newspaper. “Today, (diplomatic) agents ... are convinced it is the very existence of the ministry that is now being put into question.”

The planned change comes amid the war in Ukraine and complex negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, and while France holds the European Union’s rotating presidency.

Newly-appointed Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, herself a career diplomat, has not commented. However, she will meet Tuesday with unions and representatives of the protest movement for an initial “listening” session, the ministry said.

Demonstrators held a large banner reading “Professional Diplomats on Strike” during the protest across from the ministry, known as the Quai d’Orsay for its location by the River Seine.

“To say that diplomacy is in danger, that word may be too strong,” said Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, a former ambassador to China, Japan and Britain, who was taking part in the public protest near the ministry. But, he added, “diplomacy will be weakened,” at a time when those skills are especially needed.

“To become an ambassador, before getting to the top of the ladder, it is necessary to actually tick some boxes,” said another demonstrating diplomat, identifying himself only as Benjamin. “And this reform supports the idea that there is no need for such skills.” Like others not yet at the top rung, he declined to give his full name.

The government reform is meant to modernize and diversify France’s diplomatic corps, created in the 16th century, and to bring down the walls of what some in the government see as an elite institution turned in on itself.

It will put diplomats into a large pool from all branches of public service, encouraging switches to other ministries and forcing personnel to compete with outsiders for prized diplomatic posts.

Diplomats contend their job requires specialization and expertise acquired over years in posts around the world — and has no room for amateurs.

“Today, I am on strike,” Deputy Ambassador to the United States Aurelie Bonal tweeted. “Diplomats negotiate, talk, compromise. They generally do not go on strike.”

Bonal raised yet another worry that protesting diplomats contend the change could generate: cronyism. “Without a diplomatic corps, it will be much easier for the (government) to appoint friends at all levels of diplomatic jobs,” she tweeted.

Dominique de Villepin, a former prime minister and foreign minister known for an eloquent 2003 speech at the United Nations in which he declared French opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, labeled the pending reform in a tweet last month “A historic fault.”

For France, the loss of diplomats’ separate status in the civil service means “a loss of independence, a loss of competence, a loss of memory that will weigh heavily on the years ahead,” Villepin tweeted.

Even before Macron’s decree, frustration had festered in the Foreign Ministry’s halls over cuts in funding, personnel and outsourcing. The group commentary in Le Monde deplored “decades of marginalization of the ministry’s role within the (French) state” as well as “a vertiginous reduction” in personnel — down by 30% in 10 years, the diplomats claim. Funding, they said, is but 0.7% of the state budget.

The Twitter hashtag, #diplo2metier, shows a number of ambassadors around the world joining in or supporting Thursday’s strike.

“I will be on strike ... to protest the reform of the diplomatic corps and the continued reduction of means for our diplomacy,“ French Ambassador to Kuwait Claire Le Flecher tweeted on her personal account.

Bonal, the deputy ambassador to the United States, said the job of diplomat is more than “gorging on Ferreros in touristic countries. The truth is we also visit morgues & jails; we work very late hours, not always in safe countries,” she tweeted. “It’s a vocation, not a 3-year experience.”

Bonal said she was among those who went on the first such strike in 2003, a protest over budget cuts.

___

Nicolas Garriga in Paris contributed.

'Justice for Genivaldo': Outrage in Brazil after Black man suffocates in police car

Outraged protesters took to the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on June 1 to demand justice in a case of alleged police brutality in which a Black man suffocated after being shut inside the trunk of a police car with an open gas canister.

AFP

Seen from space, the snow-capped Alps are going green

AFP - Yesterday 

The famous snow-capped peaks of the Alps are fading fast and being replaced by vegetation cover -- a process called "greening" that is expected to accelerate climate change, a study said Thursday.


© Sabine RumpfA view of Piz Bernina

The research, published in Science, was based on 38 years of satellite imagery across the entirety of the iconic European mountain range.

"We were very surprised, honestly, to find such a huge trend in greening," first author Sabine Rumpf, an ecologist at the University of Basel, told AFP.

Greening is a well-recognized phenomenon in the Arctic, but until now hadn't been well established over a large scale in mountainous areas.

However, since both the poles and mountains are warming faster than the rest of the planet, researchers suspected comparable effects.

For their analysis, the team examined regions at 1,700 meters above sea level, to exclude areas used for agriculture. They also excluded forested areas and glaciers.

According to the findings, which covered 1984-2021, snow cover was no longer present in summer on nearly 10 percent of the area studied.

Rumpf pointed out that satellite images can only verify the presence or absence of snow -- but the first effect of warming is to reduce the depth of the snowpack, which can't be seen from space.

Secondly, the researchers compared the amount of vegetation using wavelength analysis to detect the amount of chlorophyll present, and found plant growth increased across 77 percent of the zone studied.

- Vicious cycle -

Greening happens in three different ways: plants begin growing in areas they previously weren't present, they grow taller and more densely due to favorable conditions, and finally particular species growing normally at lower altitudes move into higher areas.

"It is climate change that is driving these changes," said Rumpf.


"Warming means that we have longer vegetation periods, we have more benign conditions that foster plant growth, so plants can just grow more and faster," she added.

The effect is additive: "The warmer it gets, the more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow."

And there are several harmful consequences.

First, a large part of drinking water comes from melting snow. If water is not stored as snow, it disappears faster via rivers.

Next, the habitat species adapted specifically to the alpine environment is disrupted.

The snow's disappearance also harms the tourism industry, a key economic driver for the region.

"What we kind of tend to forget is the emotional aspects of these processes that the Alps are like a very iconic symbol and when people think about Switzerland, it's usually the Alps that they think about," stressed Rumpf.

While alpine greening could increase carbon sequestration, feedback loops are more likely to cause a net result of amplified warming, and thawing of permafrost, the researchers argue.

Snow reflects about 90 percent of solar radiation, vegetation absorbs much more, and radiates the energy back in the form of heat -- which in turn further accelerates warming, snow melt, and more vegetation: a vicious cycle.

- From green to brown? -

The future of the Alps can't be predicted with certainty.

"In terms of snow, it's pretty straightforward," said Rumpf. "I would expect the snow cover to disappear more and more, especially at lower elevations."

For the time being, another phenomenon known as "browning" -- in which the ground is no longer covered with either snow or vegetation -- has only been detected in less than one percent of the area studied.

This is much less than what has been observed in the Arctic, or in the mountains of Central Asia.

It is fueled by two factors: the increase in episodes of extreme rain followed by droughts, and a reduction in water available to plants that was produced by annual snowmelt.

"We do not know for the future whether browning is going to occur more and more," concluded Rumpf, who hopes to repeat the observations in a few years' time.

la/ia/md

DYING BUT NOT FAST ENOUGH

The state of the NRA: Membership, revenue in decline, legal struggles abound

Kathryn Mannie - Tuesday

On Friday, the National Rifle Association (NRA) held its annual convention in Houston to "celebrate Freedom, Firearms and the Second Amendment!"


People walk outside the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston Friday as the NRA Convention is held a few days after the Robb Elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

Just three days earlier, and 300 miles away, 19 students and two teachers were killed during a school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. A week before that, 10 people were shot and killed at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y.

The NRA's last annual convention in 2019, before the pandemic, drew more than 80,000 attendees. The last time the convention was held in Houston, the fourth most populous city in the U.S., the NRA drew a crowd of 86,000.

Video: Anger grows as NRA convention opens days after Texas school shooting

On Monday, the NRA said that 61,000 people came to this year's meeting, but a reporter from The Trace said that more than a quarter of the seats in the main hall (which seats 3,600) of the convention space were empty.

While attendance for an annual meeting doesn't necessarily say much, it does signal the waning influence of the 151-year-old organization that has come to represent the face of pro-gun lobbying in the U.S. The recent tragedies may have soured the convention, but even before that, warning signs of the NRA's decline were cropping up.
Declining revenue and membership

Citing IRS tax filings, CBS reported that the NRA's revenue has decreased 23 per cent between 2016 and 2020, when the most recent filings were available. In 2016, at the peak of the NRA's membership, the organization pulled in US$367 million. That declined to $282 million in 2020.

Contributions and grants from members and corporations have declined by 15 per cent in the same time period.

"The NRA relies on revenue from members, and they seem to be losing members," said Frank Smyth, an NRA member who penned The NRA: An Unauthorized History. "They are doing their best to cover that up. It's a trend that is probably going to continue."

An internal financial report that was leaked to The Reload found that the number of NRA members has been steadily declining since 2018. In that year, the NRA proudly announced that its ranks had swelled to 6 million members, though the leaked document shows that its membership wasn't even cracking 5.5 million. The financial report also showed that 2021 membership figure was just above 4.5 million people.

Read more:

Here are 4 gun reform policies U.S. advocates say could reduce violence

In an email to CBS, the NRA said that it has "approximately 5 million members." In a 2021 deposition, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said that membership was "under 4.9 million."

The NRA has disputed the legitimacy of the leaked internal document, called it "outdated" and "unaudited."

Amy Hunter, director of NRA media relations, blames the pandemic for the NRA's recent woes.

“With respect to questions comparing figures from a pre-pandemic 2018 to (figures in) 2020, the NRA, like many others, continues to confront this global pandemic that forced the cancellation of many events and impacted revenue streams,” Hunter said. “The safety and well-being of our staff and members is paramount. Through it all, the NRA has emerged stronger — better positioned to fight for its members and their freedoms. The Association and its patriotic members deserve an enormous amount of credit.”

Video: ‘NRA go away’: Protesters gather outside gun convention held days after Texas school shooting

Scandal has rocked the NRA's foundation

Experts point to recent allegations and a lawsuit concerning fraud and financial mismanagement as one of the main reasons why support for the NRA is waning.

In 2020, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the organization, claiming that top executives had been diverting the NRA's funds for "years of illegal self-dealings," enriching themselves and loved ones, and using the corporation as a "personal piggy bank."

Specifically, LaPierre is accused of spending at least $500,000 on eight trips to the Bahamas over three years, paying for professional hair and makeup services for his wife, and obtaining a $17-million post-employment contract from the NRA.

The NRA soon filed for bankruptcy — but a Texas judge struck down the petition in 2021, saying that the NRA was seeking to gain an "unfair litigation advantage," against James' lawsuit.

In March, a New York judged blocked James' attempt to shutter the NRA's doors entirely for corruption, but allowed the lawsuit to continue. The judge recommended less intrusive remedies to the NRA's problem and left the door open for one possible solution: the ousting of LaPierre as chief executive.

At the Houston annual meeting this year, the NRA's board voted to re-elect LaPierre as CEO — showing no change of course in the midst of rising mass shootings and its internal upheavals.

Smyth predicts that James' lawsuit will "eviscerate the NRA," and bring about imposed financial reforms and sanctions against the organization. The NRA has called James' suit an "unhinged and political attack."

Speaking to CBS, the organization says that it is "fully engaged — as usual."

Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA's managing director of public affairs, pointed to recent political wins as evidence of the NRA's continued strength.

"As an example of its winning advocacy, Georgia recently became the 25th state in the nation to pass constitutional carry."

Constitutional carry means that legal gun owners can carry their handguns with them without a permit or licence.
Political influence

Even in the midst of their worsening financial and internal state, the NRA still commands considerable political clout. Its 2022 Houston meeting had guest speakers including former president Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

According to OpenSecrets.org, a group that tracks political donations, more than a dozen Republican politicians received at least $1 million in campaign contributions from the NRA over their careers.

Since 1989, the NRA has spent $171 million lobbying the U.S. government, of which $70 million has been dispersed to Republican politicians currently serving in Congress.

Gun rights advocates have long claimed that political attitudes about gun control do not mirror the desires of the American people.

According to a recent survey from Morning Consult and Politico, 73 per cent of respondents "strongly support" and 15 per cent "somewhat support" universal background checks for gun purchases in the U.S.

H.R. 8 is a bill that would require a federal background check for all gun purchases, closing the loophole for unlicensed gun show sellers and gun transfers. The bill was passed in the U.S. Congress in March 2021, but has been stalled in the Senate for over a year. Ten Republican votes are needed to end the filibuster.

Read more:
Republicans shut down domestic terrorism bill, gun policy debate in Senate

Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun control advocacy group that started in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, told CBS that politicians need to be more aware of the NRA's declining status.

"Dismantling the power that the gun lobby accumulated over the years was never going to happen overnight, but it's clear that this NRA consumed by chaos and mismanagement is in a weakened position," Watts said.

"It's on senators now to realize that this isn't the NRA of years past, and actually do something because we can't wait another minute."

Manitoba bill would let people get information on partner's violent past


WINNIPEG — Manitoba may be the next province to let people learn whether their partner has a history of domestic or sexual violence.



Families Minister Rochelle Squires introduced a bill in the legislature Monday that is similar to what is commonly called Clare's Law.

First enacted in the United Kingdom where a woman named Clare Wood was killed by her partner — and later adopted in Saskatchewan and Alberta — the law is aimed at preventing violence before it starts.

It allows people to find out whether their partner has a history or abuse or violence, even if some information might normally be deemed personal and beyond publicly available court records.

"We ... are working in conjunction with privacy experts to ensure that we are doing the right thing, creating that path forward for people to access the information that they need in a way that is conducive," Squires said.

The government has not yet worked out what level of detail would be provided. Squires said the law would only come into effect one year after it is approved in the legislature, in order to have time to strike the right balance.

The bill would let a person apply online for information about their partner. If police and a director in the Families Department jointly believe there is information that warrants sharing, they could disclose it to the individual, who would be required to keep it confidential except in some circumstances.

The Manitoba bill, if it becomes law, would go further than those in other provinces, Squires said, because it would allow for the disclosure of more types of prior violence. It would also require authorities to develop a safety plan for the person at risk and provide information on help available to them.

One important aspect of the plan is a fast turnaround time so that people are not waiting for information that could protect them, said Diane Redsky, executive director of Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, an Indigenous-led family resource centre in Winnipeg.

"We all know that knowledge is power," Redsky said.

"It needs to be easy and timely ... and I'm really glad to hear that there will be efforts made to ensure that that is quick and timely."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2022.

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press

BACKGROUNDER

Gun control advocates applaud Ottawa’s handgun freeze, but some owners are angry

Ottawa tables tougher firearm laws freezing handgun ownership, targets gun trafficking

Police display guns seized during a series of raids at a press conference in Toronto on Friday, June 14, 2013. Ottawa has revised draft firearm regulations to ensure someone buying a gun actually has a valid licence.

Sean Boynton - Monday

Gun control advocates and the mayors of several large Canadian cities are welcoming the federal government's proposed freeze on the sale and transfer of handguns, a central feature of new firearm legislation that is also angering some gun owners.

The freeze was an unexpected addition to the new Bill C-21, which also seeks to take away guns and firearm licences from domestic abusers and crack down on gun smuggling and trafficking.

"These are substantial, effective, popular and historical measures that will take Canada in the right direction," Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the 1989 mass shooting at Polytechnique, said in a statement shared by prominent advocacy group PolySeSouvient.

Read more:

Ottawa is moving to freeze handgun sales nationwide. Here’s what that means

The legislation tabled in Parliament on Monday replaces a previous version of Bill C-21 that expired when last year's election was called, and did not include the nationwide freeze on selling, buying, importing and transferring handguns.

The Liberals had previously promised to support provinces and territories that wanted to pursue a full ban, which gun control advocates argued would create a patchwork of ineffective rules across the country.

Under the new legislation, existing handgun owners would be allowed to keep their firearms but would only be allowed to sell or transfer to businesses and exempt individuals, chiefly valuable goods carriers and sport shooters.

The bill would not ban handguns, but rather seek to cap the number already in Canada.

Video: National handgun ‘freeze’ among new firearm regulations proposed by Trudeau government

Provost, who attended Monday's announcement along with other gun violence victims, survivors and advocates, said the inclusion of the nationwide freeze shows the government is listening to those groups.

However, she and other members of PolySeSouvient said they were hopeful the final version of the bill will include a complete ban on assault-style weapons like the one used in the Polytechnique massacre.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino promised Monday to make sure such firearms are automatically prohibited when they enter the market in future. A mandatory buyback program for those weapons is set to begin by the end of this year.

"Given today's extremely positive announcements, I'm very much inclined to believe (Mendicino's promise)," Suzanne Laplante-Edward, whose daughter Anne-Marie was killed at Polytechnique, said in a statement. "We will just have to wait a few more months."

Read more:

National handgun ‘freeze’ among new firearm regulations proposed by Ottawa

For now, advocates say the national handgun freeze is a welcome start.

"It will have a measurable impact to our ER," Dr. Brett Mador, a trauma and general surgeon at the University of Alberta Hospital and a member of Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns, told Global News.

"As health-care providers, we are trying to treat disease but also trying to prevent it, and every gunshot is preventable."

The number of registered handguns in Canada increased by 71 per cent between 2010 and 2020, reaching approximately 1.1 million, according to federal statistics. Handguns were the most serious weapon present in the majority of firearm-related violent crimes between 2009 and 2020.

NDP public safety critic Alistair MacGregor said his party wants to believe the announcement is an urgent priority and not just another political stunt.

``If the Liberals are finally serious this time, New Democrats are here to get this done,'' he said in a statement. ``We are committed to addressing gun violence and making our communities safer.''

Mayors of Canada's largest cities said they were thankful the federal government moved to effectively ban handguns on a national level, rather than leaving it up to provinces and municipalities.

Toronto Mayor John Tory welcomed the proposed handgun freeze as a ``step in the right direction.''

``Gun violence is a national problem requiring national solutions,'' he said. ``Toronto city council has been clear that it supports a national handgun ban.''

Read more:

Canada needs countrywide handgun ban, advocates tell federal minister

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart called the freeze "an important first step in making our communities safer by curbing gun violence."

"As I have said before, guns have no place in our cities," he said in a statement, adding he will continue to pursue actions that crack down on other sources of gun violence including untraceable "ghost" guns and illegally imported weapons.

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante also expressed hope that the freeze will lead to a national handgun ban, while also applauding the steps laid out in the new legislation.


Prior to the announcement, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said Monday she was hopeful such restrictions would not be "shoved" to municipalities to deal with.

"They need to take care of us here," she told reporters.

The bill would also allow for the automatic removal of gun licences from people who commit domestic violence or engage in criminal harassment, such as stalking.

In addition, it would create a new ``red flag'' law allowing courts to require that people considered a danger to themselves or others surrender their firearms to police.

The government says the measure would guard the safety of those applying through the court process, often women in danger of domestic abuse, by protecting their identities. The decision to shield those identities would be up to a judge's discretion.

"We love to see it," said Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women's Support Services in Vancouver, when asked in an interview about the new legislation.

"We think that gun control is just one part of an effective strategy in preventing femicide."

Statistics Canada found in 2019 that a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner about once every six days.

"Rates of murder and domestic violence increases when there's a firearm in the home, and the sheer presence of them is a leading risk factor in lethal domestic violence incidents," Pamela Di Pinto of the Canadian Women's Foundation told Global News.

Video: Government committed to tougher gun laws, upholding constitution: Lametti

Yet some firearm owners are expressing frustration, arguing the new law, if passed, will do little to target criminals and the gun violence they unleash.

"I'm angry and frustrated," J.R. Cox, owner of the Shooting Edge gun range in Calgary, told Global News.

"We follow the rules and abide by the laws and look after our firearms and we are scapegoats. They are on the attack."

A Global News investigation found many guns used by criminals in Canada came from the U.S. through illegal trafficking.

The new Bill C-21 includes new measures meant to crack down on trafficking and smuggling by increasing criminal penalties, providing more tools to investigate firearm crimes and strengthening border measures.

Read more:

Handguns present in most firearm-related violent crimes in Canada: report

While the Conservative Party said it welcomes those measures, which give new authority to border agents to deny entry to criminally-involved foreign nationals and to investigate transborder crime, it said the full bill will not make Canadians safer.

"Today's announcement once again proves Liberals are focused on headlines, not on safety," public safety critic Raquel Dancho said in a statement.

Cox agrees, saying only law-abiding gun owners will be targeted. He's also worried that the proposed laws will cause his business and other shooting ranges to suffer.

"The problems associated with bullets flying in the streets of our urban and rural communities have virtually nothing to do with legal, law-abiding gun owners taking their firearms to and from shooting ranges," said Rod Giltaca, CEO and executive director of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, in an interview.

"This looks to be a lot more political than it is about public safety."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted repeatedly on Monday that the legislation will not go after the "vast majority" of gun owners, who he said "are responsible and follow the law."

"We are, however, facing a level of gun violence in our communities that is unacceptable, which is why we are acting" though this latest legislation, he told reporters.

--With files from Adam Toy, Abigail Bimman and the Canadian Press

Scientists receive mysterious signals from space: Israel's Uri Geller says aliens

By AARON REICH - Yesterday 

Are alien civilizations reaching out to us on Earth, sending perplexing seemingly gibberish messages in order to establish contact with humanity

According to Israeli mystic Uri Geller, that is exactly the case.

The famous spoon-bender was specifically referring to the curious case of Voyager 1, a space probe launched by NASA in 1977. Since then, it has continued to operate nearly 45 years later, having actually exited the solar system and traveled into interstellar space.

But recently, the signals NASA has been receiving from this probe are strange, seemingly confused about its location.

As far as NASA is concerned, this isn’t a cause for alarm.

“A mystery like this is sort of par for the course at this stage of the Voyager mission,” Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager 1 and 2 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement on May 18. “The spacecraft are both almost 45 years old, which is far beyond what the mission planners anticipated. We’re also in interstellar space – a high-radiation environment that no spacecraft have flown in before. So there are some big challenges for the engineering team. But I think if there’s a way to solve this issue with the AACS, our team will find it.”

Geller, however, has a different idea. To him, it’s no glitch. It’s a targeted message from an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, albeit one NASA is evidently struggling to decipher.

“That’s what I believe,” he explained. “I truly believe they are so advanced that they can easily create these glitches and send messages that are difficult for NASA to decipher.”

While Geller may be the first to propose that the Voyager 1 signals are alien communication, the idea that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are trying to communicate with us on Earth isn’t new, with researchers like those in the Breakthrough Listen project founded by Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner, who specialize in comprehensive search efforts for alien transmission.

In fact, the idea of aliens trying to communicate with Earth via signals is something that has been part of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) efforts for decades.
Wow! And mysterious malicious civilizations

While there have been many different efforts to track down alien signals, there is none more famous than the Wow! Signal.

The signal itself is a strong narrowband radio signal and was recorded on August 15, 1977, at the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University. However, the signal, or any other like it, has yet to be detected again.

Consequently, it is seen as the strongest candidate for a genuine extraterrestrial transmission.
But where did it come from?

Well, a recent peer-reviewed academic study by a PhD student in Spain named Alberto Caballero managed to supposedly pinpoint from which star it originated.

But Caballero hasn’t just been trying to track down the Wow! Signal. In recent days, the PhD student has also authored another academic article. This one, published on the pre-print website arXiv and which has not been peer-reviewed, is titled “Estimating the Prevalence of Malicious Extraterrestrial Civilizations” and proposes that there are maybe four advanced alien civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy that are hostile and could pose a danger to Earth.

This article relied on many assumptions, of which it freely admits, and thus it functions more as a thought experiment rather than a genuine piece of empirical evidence. But it does still propose an interesting point: Efforts to try and contact aliens, should such a thing be possible, is dangerous as they could possibly even provoke them.

But Geller has a different approach. Rather than fearing the dangers of these possible hostile civilizations, he thinks that the ones that are trying to contact us through Voyager 1, the ones that are closest to us, are friendly. As such, contacting them isn’t risky. In fact, according to him, it might just be for the best.

“Climate change is melting the ice caps,” he explained. “There might be a huge comet or asteroid coming to Earth. And sure, we have a lot of nuclear bombs, but we don’t have a way to stop global warming or cure cancer or AIDS or even COVID-19. We only live around 85 years. We think we’re so advanced but in the grand scheme of things, we’re really backward. I have a feeling they’ll land here one day because they know we need their help.”

Of course, many people claim to have had close encounters with the third kind already, and Geller is no exception. He claims to have had an alien encounter when he was a child in Tel Aviv, and later to have touched a fragment of a UFO while on a trip to NASA to meet with Dr. Werner von Braun in the 1970s.

“Climate change is melting the ice caps. There might be a huge comet or asteroid coming to Earth. And sure, we have a lot of nuclear bombs, but we don’t have a way to stop global warming or cure cancer or AIDS or even COVID-19."Uri Geller

And he is far from the only person to think so.

The truth is out there!

A Pew Research Center survey from June 2021 found that a majority of Americans believe that alien life exists in the universe. Further, an overwhelming majority of these Americans also thought that alien UFOs were either a minor threat or no threat at all.

Indeed, as ridiculous as the idea of aliens may seem, there is one thing that empirical evidence doesn’t deny: That the idea of aliens has a captivating hold on the general public. It isn’t just some fringe conspiracy idea, but rather it is something we as a society are becoming increasingly interested in.

This is why people who have played pivotal roles in getting humanity to space, such as von Braun or NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell, claimed that they believed in aliens, Geller claimed.

And they aren’t alone either.

The spoon-bender recounted a recent story of a group of scientists from a leading Israeli university who visited the Uri Geller Museum in Jaffa. There, he showed them his videos and presentations on aliens, UFOs and his own first- and second-hand accounts of them. And according to Geller, these scientists were watching with rapt attention.

“It’s a fascinating subject,” Geller explained, “because in the back of their minds, they know there’s something real there, and they don’t yet know what.”

And that is emblematic of the classic phrase that has embodied the search for UFOs and SETI for years: The truth is out there.

Jerusalem celebrates Pride under heavy security

Agence France-Presse 

Jerusalem, Undefined: Thousands paraded through the streets of Jerusalem waving rainbow flags on Thursday (Friday in Manila), taking part in colorful celebrations for the Pride March against a backdrop of heavy security.

Mickey Levy, the speaker of the Israeli parliament, said he would join the march for the first time because it was necessary "to support the fight of LGBTQ people for equal rights".

Jerusalem has held an annual celebration of LGBTQ+ rights since 2002, often contending against protests from ultra-Orthodox Jews and far-right extremists.

"No one should live in a closet", read one sign, carried during the parade.

"No one is free until everyone is free", read another.

Thousands of police were mobilized "to ensure the safety of the participants and to ensure public order", the force said.

Three people were arrested, one for making social media threats against a march organizer, and two others near the parade route when found in possession of tear gas in their vehicle, police said.

On July 30, 2015, an ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed to death teenager Shira Banki during the parade and wounded six others, since when the annual event has been heavily protected.

The attacker had been released from prison a few weeks before the murder, having served a sentence for wounding three people during the Pride March in 2005. He was sentenced to life in prison for the 2015 attack.

Israel is considered a pioneer in the Middle East in terms of gay rights.

But in Jerusalem, a holy city for Jews, Muslims and Christians, the gay community faces far greater challenges in acceptance than the coastal city of Tel Aviv.

Several dozen protesters against the march gathered along the route.