ARYAN NATION RISING REDUX

Nazi flag on Alberta property triggers complaint to RCMP: A ‘slap in the face to Canada

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Karen Bartko 

GLOBAL NEWS

6/5/2021

A formal complaint has been made to Alberta RCMP after a version of the Nazi flag was flown at a property northeast of Edmonton.

© Supplied A Nazi Hitler Youth flag flying on a property near Boyle, Alta. in May 2021.

The Hitler Youth flag was spotted on a flagpole south of Boyle, at a rural property along Highway 831, with a sign out front saying "Licenced Vehicle Inspections Station."

"The swastika is a symbol, for the Jewish community, of terror and of genocide," said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, the director of policy for Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC).

"I can't think of any other symbol that is so dark and frightening to our community as the swastika."

Read more: After taxi was spray-painted with swastikas, northern Alberta community rallied to help owner

The Flag of the Nazi Party is red with a black swastika on a white circle; whereas the modified Hitler Youth flag has a white horizontal stripe through the middle and narrow border around the universally recognized symbol of racist hatred

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© Provided by Global News

The Hitler Youth was a mandatory indoctrination organization for 14- to 18-year-old Aryan boys under the Nazi Party in Germany. It appropriated many Boy Scouts activities while also teaching military practices, with the intent of shaping future soldiers and pushing the party's racist views among younger generations.

News of the flag reached FSWC — a Jewish human rights organization based in Toronto — on Thursday. Kirzner-Roberts said a post containing images of the flag were sent to her in the morning.

"I was immediately concerned. And the first step that I took was to see whether the details were accurate," she said, explaining she contacted Boyle RCMP, who she said confirmed it was a Nazi flag.

She asked if a criminal investigation had been launched and was told no, because a formal complaint hadn't been file. So she did just that.

"Our position is that flying a Nazi flag is clearly hate motivated. And according to the Criminal Code of Canada, it is illegal to promote hatred.

"So we certainly urge the RCMP to investigate the matter as a hate-motivated crime," she said to Global News.

Read more: Montreal mayor shocked after Nazi flag displayed during May Day protest

The property is in Athabasca County. A statement said council and administration are aware of an inappropriate flag.

"Athabasca County prides itself on being a warm and welcoming region," said a statement from Reeve Larry Armfelt.

"This type of display, and the messages it sends, has no place in our communities."

The county said the matter has been referred to the RCMP.

Alberta RCMP said officers spoke to the property owner on Wednesday night.

"The flag was taken down voluntarily, and our investigation continues as to whether this is criminal or not," a statement from Const. Chantelle Kelly with RCMP media relations said.

Play Video
Vehicles vandalized with racist graffiti in southwest Edmonton

Since the Second World War, the possession of swastika flags and other Nazi symbolism is forbidden in Germany.

Canada doesn't have any laws on the books restricting ownership or display of Nazi flags, but hate laws give police the right to intervene if they are used in the communication of hatred. In modern times, the Nazi flag has been embraced by neo-Nazi supporters and sympathizers.

Read more: Hate crime in Canada: do our laws allow a white nationalist rally?

Kirzner-Roberts said the flag represents more than just hatred towards Judaism.

"People that fly this flag often hate the Black community and other communities in our country. And I would say that they hate Canada as a whole - you know, our country fought a world war to defeat the Nazis," she said.

"We lost many of our soldiers, many, many were injured. This is such a profound slap in the face to Canada and Canada's values.

"So we are really hoping that the RCMP will conduct a thorough investigation into this matter."




Read more: ‘This is Nazi f****** America!’: North Carolina woman confronts her neighbour over Swastika flag

Global News attempted to reach the property owner several times on Thursday, but was unsuccessful.

— With files from The Canadian Pres

 Alberta temporarily tweaks environmental liability for oil sands mines

© Reuters/Todd Korol FILE PHOTO: 

A truck drives down a street at Syncrude's oil sands operation

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - The Canadian province of Alberta said on Thursday it will allow oil sands mining companies to change how they calculate environmental liabilities this year, to take into account the wild swings of 2020, when oil prices turned negative.

Producers would be on the hook for billions of dollars in extra security payments if they calculated liabilities under the old formula, Alberta government officials told a news conference. However, that cash would likely have to be repaid to companies next year because oil prices have recovered.

Canada's oil sands hold the third-largest crude reserves in the world. Around 50% of oil sands output, roughly 1.5 million barrels per day, comes from seven huge strip-mining operations in northern Alberta owned by Imperial Oil, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd and Suncor Energy.

The province requires companies to pay security to cover the cost of environmental clean-up at the end of the mines' lives. If the value of a company's assets drop too low compared with its liabilities, it is required to pay extra security.

The crude price collapse last year dragged down the value of oil sands mining assets, which would have triggered billions of dollars in additional payments.

"This is meant to be a more accurate calculation of the actual asset value," said Lisa Sadownik, an official with Alberta Environment and Parks. "It is a short-term blip in the price of oil that has caused this impact to their assets."

Additional security payments have never been triggered before and the companies did not ask for the one-off change to the formula, she added. Producers will be able to base asset value on a formula known as "deemed netback," which is revenue, minus operating costs, divided by sales volume.

In 2015 Alberta's auditor general said the calculation for liability payments should be reviewed. Sadownik said a longer-term solution will be in place next year.

Alberta holds just under C$1 billion ($822.37 million) in security for oil sands mines.

($1 = 1.2160 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Possible shutdown of Line 5 not a threat to Canada's energy security: ambassador

Peter Zimonjic, David Common  CBC NEWS 6/5/2021

Dale G Young/The Detroit News/The Associated Press Fresh nuts, bolts and fittings are ready to be added to the east leg of the Line 5 pipeline near St. Ignace, Mich.

Canada's ambassador to the United States says that while the potential shutdown of Line 5 is a serious issue, it's not a threat to Canada's national energy security.

"It is not a threat to Canada's national economic or energy security," Kristen Hillman told CBC News Network's Power & Politics on Thursday.

"I think that it is an important dispute or disagreement that exists between Enbridge and the state of Michigan that needs to be taken very seriously. And we are taking it very seriously."


Line 5, which runs through Michigan from the Wisconsin city of Superior to Sarnia, Ont., crosses the Great Lakes beneath the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac, which link Lake Michigan to Lake Huron.

The pipeline carries petroleum east from Western Canada. Once it hits Ontario, most of the crude oil is turned into fuels that meet almost 50 per cent of the province's fuel demands. The remainder of the supply is sent on to Quebec refineries through Line 9, where it provides 40 to 50 per cent of that province's fuel supply.

The threat to the pipeline's viability kicked off in November when Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer revoked the 1953 easement — which has allowed the pipeline to operate without incident for more than 65 years — over fears of an oil spill.

Enbridge was granted approval to replace the underwater line with a tunnel, but Whitmer's election in 2019 put a stop to those plans.

The notification that the easement was being withdrawn said the pipeline should be shut down by May 12, prompting concerns on both sides of the border that shortages of essential fuels would follow.

"One of the governor's top priorities is to protect and defend the Great Lakes, which are vital to Michigan's economy. The Great Lakes ... 350,000 jobs in Michigan. We cannot risk the devastating economic, environmental and public health impacts of a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes," said Whitmer's spokesperson Chelsea Lewis-Parisio.

Enbridge took Michigan to U.S. federal court over the dispute and both parties were ordered to find a resolution through mediation last month.

Hillman says finding a compromise between Enbridge and the state of Michigan is the only way the impasse will be resolved. She said she remains optimistic that, despite the firm date in the notice, the oil will continue to flow, at least in the short term.

"We understand from the advice that we have received that there's a good chance that the pipeline ... will continue operating during the course of the litigation and mediation," she told guest host David Common.

Fuel for Pearson

All the jet fuel produced at Pearson International Airport in Toronto is made with crude supplied by the pipeline. Enbridge, which owns Line 5, says that Ontario's fuel supply would be cut in half if the pipeline is shut down. But its closure would not only affect Quebec and Ontario.

Enbridge says shutting down the pipeline would also harm Michigan, which gets 55 per cent of its propane needs from the more than 540,000 barrels of light crude oil, light synthetic crude and natural gas liquids that travel through Line 5 before being refined into propane in the state.

Enbridge senior vice president Mike Fernandez said that he's also confident the pipeline will continue to operate beyond May 12, but the passing of the deadline will likely prompt protests from anti-pipeline activists.

"The reason I say that is because the matter right now is situated in a U.S. federal district court that has prompted both parties, that is the state and Enbridge, to work through a mediator," Fernandez told Common.

"If the state took actions, they would be acting outside the standard of good faith that's normally required in such mediation."

The Conservative Opposition has been harshly critical of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government, saying its inaction on the energy file will result in the pipeline being shut down.

The Tories blamed the killing of another pipeline, Keystone XL, by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, as evidence the Trudeau government did not fight hard enough to keep it alive.

The party were granted an emergency debate in the House of Commons to discuss the issue, which is taking place tonight.

"Line 5 is not a new project, it is not a diversification, it is a line that has been a consistent and critical supply for Canada for decades," Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole said in the House. "Now because of the inaction on behalf of the Liberal government this critical piece of energy infrastructure is at risk."

Green MP Elizabeth May told O'Toole that the people of Michigan were keen to shut down Line 5 because of the Kalamazoo River oil spill in July 2010, when an Enbridge pipeline burst.

"This is about pipeline pollution … we need to find an alternative to get those goods to market and allow the government of Michigan to keep a campaign promise to protect the Great Lakes," May said.

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan dismissed the Conservative attacks, saying accusations that the Liberals failed to act and are willing to let the pipeline die are totally false.

"You can't solve this issue with false bravado, by beating your chest while simultaneously sticking your head in the sand like members so often do, by calling people who disagree with you 'brain dead,'" O'Regan said referencing the insult levied against Michigan's governor by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

"That bombastic approach does a great disservice to our oil and gas workers and it does nothing to advance their cause."

You can watch full episodes of Power & Politics on CBC Gem,

TC Energy posts C$1 billion quarterly loss on Keystone XL suspension

KENNEY'S LOSS OF ALBERTA'S TAXPAYER MONEY 

EXACTLY WHAT WAS INVESTED 

(Reuters) -Canadian pipeline operator TC Energy on Friday swung to a loss in the first quarter, hit by C$2.2 billion ($1.81 billion) impairment charges related to the suspension of its Keystone XL pipeline project.

© Reuters/TODD KOROL A TC Energy pump station sits behind mounds of dirt from the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline as it lies idle near Oyen

The pipeline was planned to carry 830,000 barrels per day of heavy crude from Canada's Alberta province to Nebraska in the United States.

The company said the charge was related to halting work on the Keystone XL pipeline and a reassessment of related projects like the Heartland Pipeline, after U.S. President Joe Biden revoked a key permit for the project in January.

TC Energy, whose new Chief Executive Francois Poirier took the helm in January, owns the largest network of natural gas pipelines in North America as well as the existing Keystone oil pipeline and power and storage assets.

The company posted a C$2.51 billion loss from its oil pipelines, of which Keystone is the biggest contributor, compared with a C$411 million profit in the same period last year.

It reported net loss attributable to shareholders of C$1.1 billion, or C$1.11 per share, in the three months ended March 31 compared with a profit of C$1.1 billion a year earlier.

Excluding items, the Calgary, Alberta-based company earned C$1.16 per share, slightly better than analysts' average estimate of C$1.10, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

($1 = 1.2176 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru and Nia Williams in Calgary; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

PEAT FIRE

UPDATE: Evacuation order in Parkland County as wildfire rages west of Edmonton

the area where the fire is burning is full of peat moss, which  creates a lot of smoke and can be difficult to extinguish.

© Courtesy: Chantel Cook A wildfire that flared up Thursday near the hamlet of Tomahawk, south of Wabamun Lake in Parkland County, grew overnight in the rural area west of Edmonton. May 7, 2021.

Karen Bartko 9 hrs ago

GLOBAL NEWS 


UPDATE: Parkland County issued a mandatory wildfire evacuation order early Friday morning for the following areas of the municipality west of Edmonton:

Highway 22 to the west

Township Road 524 to the north (Updated at 1:45 a.m. from Township Road 520)

Range Road 63 to the east

Township Road 510 to the south

A look at COVID-19 vaccinations in Canada on Friday, May 7, 2021

Carbon emissions from energy dropped 10% in the EU last year

© Alberta Emergency Alert An emergency alert states there is a rapidly moving wildfire near the hamlet of Tomahawk in the area of Range Road 62 and Range Road 70, and Township Roads 510 and 514.

Residents in those areas must evacuate immediately. Bring identification, medication, blankets, sleeping bags, personal items, important documents, household pets and pet care items if possible.

All evacuees are required to register at the reception center, either in person or by phone at the Tomahawk and District Sports Arena (51122 AB-759, Tomahawk, AB T0E 2H0.) Phone: 780-203-3258

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Previous story below:

Emergency officials are battling a wildfire near the rural community of Tomahawk in Parkland County.

An Alberta Emergency Alert said the wildfire was west of Tomahawk in the area of Range Road 62 and Range Road 70, and Township Roads 510 and 514. It is moving rapidly in a northwest direction, the alert at 9 p.m. said.

The fire flared up late Thursday afternoon near the hamlet south of Wabamun Lake. Photos and videos from area residents showed trees burning and a huge plume of black smoke in the air.

The smoke could be seen from as far away as Drayton Valley and Seba Beach.

Video: Tomahawk wildfire rages into the night west of Edmonton in Parkland County

It was windy across Alberta on Thursday, with the Edmonton region seeing sustained winds of around 30 km/h with guts of 52 km/h, according to Environment Canada.

The winds out of the southeast are expected to stay in the 25 to 50 km/h range overnight, possibly gusting to 60 in that area.

Fire growth is expected due to windy conditions, the alert said, adding crews will be working overnight to try and get it under control.

"Please take all necessary precautions, including leaving the area. Residents who live west of Range Road 62 to the western border of Parkland County should be prepared for possible immediate evacuation."

A Global News crew at the scene was able to see that dozens of properties had been evacuated from Highway 624 and Range Road 63 all the way past Highway 22 up to Moon Lake.

County fire crews were too busy responding to the fire to speak with Global News on Thursday, and a command post could be seen set up on Range Road 63, north of Highway 624.

A government spokesperson said Alberta Wildfire crews were providing mutual aid support.

Read more: 

Wildfire burning in Lac La Biche County, nearby residents told to prepare for ‘possible evacuation’

Air tankers were working in the area with more on way, the province said. At least two tanker planes were seen dropping fire retardant, and a helicopter was dumping water over the blaze.

Video: Crews battle wildfire flares up west of Edmonton near Tomahawk

RCMP have many roads blocked off in the area and Global News saw residents along some roads, ready to evacuate just in case. The wind was observed blowing away from the community.

One resident told Global News the area where the fire was burning is full of peat moss, which the Government of Canada says creates a lot of smoke and can be difficult to extinguish.

The county west of Edmonton had been under a fire bans and restrictions since mid-April, however they were lifted on Tuesday of this week.

BELOW: Photos from the Tomahawk wildfire

KPMG WERE ENRON'S ACCOUNTANTS
Canada Revenue agency auditors are being outgunned by tax giants: union

Elizabeth Thompson 
CBC 6/5/2021

© Ashley Burke/CBC News Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, says professionals who work for the Canada Revenue Agency need better organization and the right tools to crack down on offshore tax evasion.

Canada Revenue Agency officials are being "outgunned" by "tax giants" when it comes to cracking down on offshore tax cheats, the head of the union representing CRA auditors told members of Parliament Thursday.

Debi Daviau, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), said her members are passionate about their jobs but they need a better structure and the right tools to do their jobs.

"Our CRA professionals are amongst the best in the world at what they do but they face great challenges," Daviau told member of the House of Commons finance committee. "Their job is to go after individuals and entities that, in effect, have unlimited resources and can aggressively exploit legal and international grey areas for their own gain.

"The CRA employees, by comparison, often feel outgunned by those trying hardest to avoid tax

Daviau said the CRA unit that specialized in highly complicated international tax avoidance and evasion structures was broken up several years ago and its members were reassigned to other, more generalized groups.

"That has reduced the capacity of employees at the CRA to be able to deliver on getting international tax avoiders to pay their fair share," she said.

As a result, Daviau said, CRA has better resources for catching tax cheats within Canada than for pursuing those who have set up elaborate international tax avoidance schemes.
'Precarious positions'

"Employees at the Canada Revenue Agency are up against tax giants," she told MPs. "These are people who have immense skill, technology, expertise and other big companies on their side, so they need to be on a level playing field."

Daviau said an important step in improving the situation would be to enshrine better protection for whistleblowers.

"CRA officials are frequently put in precarious situations where they are asked to hold powerful players to account in a high-stakes setting," she said. "Whistleblower protection is crucial to ensuring professional integrity is paramount during the tax assessment process."

The government should curtail practices such as transfer pricing — which sees companies declare the profit on products in low-tax jurisdictions that had little to do with production — and implement the beneficial ownership registry promised in the recent budget, Daviau added.

Thursday's hearing came after CBC's the Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada's Enquete reported earlier this year that shell companies set up in the Isle of Man are suspected of involvement in a massive fraud scheme. The scheme cost some investors — like Quebec resident Janet Watson, who recounted her story to the committee — much of their life savings.© Radio-Canada Janet Watson, who lost money in the Mount Real fraud, wants politicians to reopen an inquiry into Isle of Man shell companies after a Fifth Estate/Enquête investigation exposed links to the massive offshore fraud.

Some experts believe KPMG may have had a hand in creating those companies — something the company denied repeatedly Thursday.

"Any implication that KPMG had anything to do with the CINAR fraud is false," Lucia Iacovelli, Canadian managing partner for tax and legal for KPMG, told the committee. "Any implication that KPMG was in any way involved with the sword companies is also false."

Iacovelli said corporate services companies often supply the names of directors and officers for companies they set up for different clients.

Iacovelli said repeatedly that KPMG has not set up any new Isle of Man offshore structures since 2003 and has turned over information about its offshore structure, and the clients for which it was set up, to the CRA.

MPs like NDP MP Peter Julian and Bloc Québécois MP Gabriel Ste-Marie made it clear, however, that they have a long list of questions they will be asking KPMG to answer in writing.

Senator Percy Downe, who has doggedly followed the question of offshore tax avoidance and evasion over the years, said other countries are doing a better job than Canada in investigating the tax evasion revealed by leaks like the Panama Papers.

Downe recommended the parliamentary budget officer be empowered to measure the tax gap between what is actually being collected and what taxes should be paid. He said the government should make it a criminal offence to fail to declare an overseas bank account, implement plans for a public registry of beneficial owners behind companies, and boost the salaries of CRA experts to reduce the number being recruited to work for companies aiding tax avoidance.

Thursday's hearing was the first step in what Julian said will be a renewed push to look at the impact of offshore tax avoidance on Canada and to come up with recommendations.

The finance committee will now turn its attention over the next few weeks to the omnibus budget implementation bill — but Julian said he expects the committee to return after that to the probe of tax avoidance and evasion.

Julian said he did not know how far the committee will get before Parliament is scheduled to rise for the summer the week of June 21.

Dinosaur skull scans reveal clues about flight—and communication

Riley Black 

NAT GEO

6/5/2021

It’s a golden age for paleontology: In recent years, scientists have gathered all kinds of clues about the way dinosaurs looked and lived, from awe-inspiring fossil reconstructions to preserved footprints and bite marks on bones. Now, paleontologists are showing that some of the most tantalizing indications of how these extinct animals behaved are enclosed inside their skulls.

© Illustration by Viktor Radermaker Shuvuuia deserti reconstruction

A pair of studies published today in the journal Science details a technique using x-ray imaging to study the preserved inner ears and eye sockets of dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles. These scans are allowing paleontologists to learn about aspects of dinosaurs’ lives that might otherwise have been lost to time.

“Inner ear shape has always been linked to the lifestyle and behavior of an animal,” says University of Edinburgh paleontologist Julia Schwab, who was not involved with the research. For instance, human inner ears allow us to hear sounds within a specific range of frequencies, from a leaf falling on a sidewalk to a thunderclap, and the inner ear shape is linked to our bipedal species' sense of balance.

Dinosaur skulls evolved to be thick and protect the brain and associated structures, like the tubular canals of the inner ear, keeping those precious clues intact for tens of millions of years. But those protective bones make it difficult to see the structures encased within. So in one of the studies, led by Yale University paleobiologist Bhart-Anjan Bhullar, the team created a set of scans from 124 archosaurs—a group that includes dinosaurs, other ancient reptiles, crocodilians, and living birds—spanning 252 million years ago through today.

The results offered more detail than the paleontologists hoped. By identifying patterns in the structures of the animals’ inner ears and eyes, the researchers were able to glean new information about what the dinosaurs could see, and what kind of movement their inner ears were tuned for. This provides another way of tracking the evolution of flight in dinosaurs and, by extension, their modern descendants: birds.

What’s more, the results from both studies offer exceedingly rare clues to what dinosaurs might have sounded like. Dinosaur vocalization is notoriously difficult to reconstruct. The sound-producing organs of their bodies generally decay soon after death, and relatively few species had bony features related to sound. But the anatomy of a dinosaur’s inner ear offers some insight into what the animals could hear, and therefore what sounds they might have made.

“Honestly, I never thought that we’d be taking a crack at dinosaur noises,” Bhullar says.
A skull hardwired for flight

For their research, Bhullar and his team examined scans from a wide array of species, including theropods such as Velociraptor and a stubby-armed animal called Shuvuuia; non-dinosaur reptiles, such as pterosaurs; extinct toothed birds, such as Hesperornis; and living birds and crocodiles for comparison.

When the paleontologists looked at scans of sickle-clawed dinosaurs called troodontids that thrived during the Cretaceous period 145 to 66 million years ago, they found that these dinosaurs had similar inner ears to early, flying birds from the preceding Jurassic period, which began 201 million years ago. That was something of a surprise, given most known troodontids were terrestrial dinosaurs that didn’t fly.

But the similarities in the inner ear reveal an evolutionary trait necessary for airborne creatures, raising new questions about how flight evolved.

Bhullar hypothesizes that troodontids, which were about the size of turkeys, inherited ears suited to flight from a more ancient common ancestor with birds—perhaps a flying dinosaur, similar to feathered species such as Anchiornis, that lived 165 million years ago. And an inner ear adapted to the complex movements of flight, helping animals balance while in the air, could have had other uses on the ground.

“I do think that even non-flighted dinosaurs that were closely related to birds were moving around in complex ways,” Bhullar says, such as climbing trees or running up inclines. In dinosaurs closely related to birds, these behaviors may have helped the inner ear develop in such a way that allowed for flight—an activity that requires complex movements and limb control.

Nighttime stalkers

Not all bird-like dinosaurs moved like their avian relations, however. Some dinosaurs, the researchers found, moved and likely hunted in ways that run counter to paleontological expectations.

The turkey-size dinosaur Shuvuuia, for example, has long been a mystery to paleontologists. Known for its short arms tipped with large, single claws and toothless or nearly toothless jaws, this genus belongs to a group of bipedal theropods called alvarezsaurs. Bhullar and colleagues were surprised to find that Shuvuuia has an inner ear similar to that in four-legged animals with relatively simple locomotion.

The second Science study may offer insight into Shuvuuia’s odd inner ear. This study looked at both the inner ears and the eyes of dinosaurs to gain insight into the behavior of the extinct animals.

“Both studies complement each other,” says study author and Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History biologist Lars Schmitz—and together they indicate that Shuvuuia truly was an odd dinosaur.

Shuvuuia had long inner ear canals, broadening the range of the dinosaur’s hearing. Schmitz and colleagues propose this dinosaur had excellent hearing, comparable to the auditory ability of modern barn owls. Such precise hearing, combined with Shuvuuia’s large eyes, suggest this dinosaur was active at night.

Precisely what Shuvuuia was hunting is unclear—perhaps small mammals, or social insects like ants. But Schmitz notes that there are many reasons a dinosaur might have evolved to prefer the darker hours. “Body size, foraging style, climate, competition,” all matter, Schmitz notes.

Dinosaur song

The new analyses also led to a greater understanding of how these animals may have communicated with one another. The researchers found that ancestors and early relatives of dinosaurs evolved a longer region of the inner ear called the cochlea, which is associated with hearing high-frequency sounds.

The most likely reason, the paleontologists propose, is that this adaptation allowed adult animals to hear the squeaks and chirps of their hatchlings, similar to the attentive parenting of modern-day alligators and crocodiles. The singing birds of today therefore may trace their vocal abilities to the squeaks that tiny, scaly reptiles made as they hatched over 200 million years ago.

“We gently suggest that modern bird song, in all its mellifluous glory, is a retention in adults of juvenile high-pitched chirps,” Bhullar says.

This wealth of information about dinosaur behavior, gleaned by peering into fossilized skulls, represents the rapidly progressing technologies used to study the prehistoric past.

“I think the availability of modern imaging and rendering techniques is a big factor,” Schmitz says, adding that discoveries about the sensory systems of modern animals can also help paleontologists better examine and understand the anatomy and behavior of long-extinct species, which means even as living animals inform what we know about dinosaurs, the dinosaurs are changing how we see the creatures around us.

Pint-sized Mongolian menace shows dinosaurs loved the nightlife, too

By Will Dunham 

REUTERS 6/4/2021

 Reuters/HANDOUT The fossilized skeleton of the small bird-like dinosaur Shuvuuia deserti

(Reuters) - Under the cover of darkness in desert habitats about 70 million years ago, in what is today Mongolia and northern China, a gangly looking dinosaur employed excellent night vision and superb hearing to thrive as a menacing pint-sized nocturnal predator.

Scientists said on Thursday an examination of a ring of bones surrounding the pupil and a bony tube inside the skull that houses the hearing organ showed that this dinosaur, called Shuvuuia deserti, boasted visual and auditory capabilities akin to a barn owl, indicating it could it hunt in total darkness.

Their study, published in the journal Science, showed that predatory dinosaurs overall generally possessed better-than-average hearing - helpful for hunters - but had vision optimized for daytime. In contrast, Shuvuuia (pronounced shu-VOO-ee-ah) loved the nightlife.

© Reuters/HANDOUT The small bird-like dinosaur Shuvuuia deserti is seen in this 2021 artist's reconstruction

Shuvuuia was a pheasant-sized, two-legged Cretaceous Period dinosaur weighing about as much as a small house cat. Lacking the strong jaws and sharp teeth of many carnivorous dinosaurs, it had a remarkably bird-like and lightly built skull and many tiny teeth like grains of rice.


Its mid-length neck and small head, coupled with very long legs, made it resemble an awkward chicken. Unlike birds, it had short but powerful arms ending in a single large claw, good for digging.

"Shuvuuia might have run across the desert floor under cover of night, using its incredible hearing and night vision to track small prey such as nocturnal mammals, lizards and insects. With its long legs it could have rapidly run down such prey, and used its digging forelimbs to pry prey loose from any cover such as a burrow," said paleontologist Jonah Choiniere of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, the study's lead author

.

© Reuters/HANDOUT Professor Jonah Choiniere of the University of the Witwatersrand is seen holding a 3D printed model of the lagena

"It's such a strange animal that paleontologists have long wondered what it was actually doing," added paleontologist Roger Benson of the University of Oxford in England, who helped lead the study.

The researchers looked at a structure called the lagena, a curving and finger-like sac that sits in a cavity in the bones surrounding the brain and is connected to the part of the ear that lets reptiles and birds keep balance and move their heads while walking. Acute hearing helps nocturnal predators locate prey. The longer the lagena, the better hearing an animal has.

The barn owl, a proficient nocturnal predator even in pitch-black conditions, has the proportionally longest lagena of any living bird. Shuvuuia is unique among predatory dinosaurs with a hyper-elongated lagena, almost identical in relative size to a barn owl's.

The researchers also looked at a series of tiny bones called the scleral ring that encircle the pupil of the eye. It exists in birds and lizards and was present in the ancestors of today's mammals. Shuvuuia had a very wide scleral ring, indicating an extra-large pupil size that made its eye a specialized light-capture device.

The study found that nocturnality was uncommon among dinosaurs, aside from a group called alvarezsaurs to which Shuvuuia belonged. Alvarezsaurs had nocturnal vision very early in their lineage, but super-hearing took more time to evolve.

"Like many paleontologists, I once considered that nighttime in the age of dinosaurs was when the mammals came out of hiding to avoid predation and competition. The importance of these findings is that it forces us to imagine dinosaurs like Shuvuuia evolving to take advantage of these nocturnal communities," Choiniere said.

Benson added, "This really shows that dinosaurs had a wide range of skills and adaptations that are only just coming to light now. We find evidence that there was a thriving 'nightlife' during the time of dinosaurs."

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

2,000-year-old marble head of Rome's first emperor discovered

Livia Borghese and Eoin McSweeney, 

CNN

6/5/2021

A 2,000-year-old marble head of Augustus, Rome's first emperor, has been discovered in Isernia, an Italian town in the south central region of Molise.

© MIBACTmolise/Facebook Archaeologists in central Italy have uncovered a marble head of Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of the Roman empire. The sculpture was discovered while renovating Isernia's historic city walls - built during the imperial Rome period.

Archaeologist Francesco Giancola made the exceptional discovery during restoration works to repair a medieval wall that collapsed due to strong rains in 2013.


Giancola was following the works on behalf of the municipality of Isernia, but told CNN Thursday he didn't expect such a major find.

"While we were digging behind the wall, I saw that the earth changed color," he said.

"So we continued digging with precision trowels and a block of marble has come out. I immediately saw that it was a head that I recognized as belonging to a statue of Augustus due to the hair and the shape and cut of the eyes."

Giancola said he immediately called the authorities, the mayor, and the cultural heritage ministry.

The 35-centimeter (13.78-inch) high head can be dated to between 20 BC and 10 AD, according to Maria Diletta Colombo, an archaeologist at the regional department of the ministry.

"It was an important statue, but we do not know why it was here," she told CNN. "It could have been placed in a temple dedicated to the cult of the imperial family, or in the forum. But these are just hypotheses, since we don't know where the forum was."

Some of her colleagues cried with joy when they made the discovery, Colombo added, and it was a moment she said she will remember forever.

The head is likely to have been detached from a statue that was more than 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches), Colombo said. It is made from the same Lunigiana marble used by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo, and it depicts a young Augustus Octavian, who became Rome's first emperor in 27 BC.

Isernia, known as Aesernia in the ancient world, was the home of an Italic people named the Samnites. It later became a Roman colony. The town was partially destroyed during World War II but was rebuilt.

"Isernia has a very ancient history... there are archaeological remains underneath the whole city," the town's mayor Giacomo D'Apollonio told CNN. "It is a very important find for Isernia because it demonstrates the presence of buildings of a certain importance."

The excavation also revealed empty medieval tombs and terracotta artifacts, said the mayor.

The head is currently being studied and both D'Apollonio and Colombo would like to see it stay in the town's Santa Maria delle Monache museum, where they believe it would attract more tourists.

"Even Isernia, although it is not among the main tourist destinations, is an area rich in history since the Palaeolithic [era]," said D'Apollonio.

Augustus built an empire that would eventually stretch from the UK to Egypt, and boasted on his death bed that he "found Rome built of bricks and left it marble."

Elle UK Debuts Olly Eley As Its First-Ever Non-Binary Cover Star

I’ve accepted that I’m a non-binary person living in a binary world (that I have every intention of disrupting!)

Brent Furdyk 

ET CANADA

6/5/2021

Elle UK is making history with its June issue, featuring its first-ever non-binary model on the cover, Olly Eley.

© ELLE UK/ DAMON BAKER Olly Eley

In the accompanying feature, Eley writes a powerful essay explaining their gender.

"After years of despising the body that I was born with, unable to relate in any way to the gender I was assigned at birth, I had at last found a way of existing in the world that made sense to me," Eley writes. "I’ve never felt female, but then neither have I felt male. If there was a thin line that connected the two genders, I would be a dot floating somewhere between the two, but untethered to the line altogether. It’s the only way I can describe it."

The Australian-British model also describes how they felt to hear someone referred to by the pronouns "they/them" for the first time.

"Before I moved to Sydney, I didn’t have the language or the role models to understand how I felt. I’d never really had the chance to consider that ‘gender’ could be something I could control if I wanted to. Once I moved to the city, that all changed. My mind opened and was flooded with light — there was this whole queer community that I had no idea existed. When someone first introduced themselves to me with their name and the pronouns ‘they/them’, it felt so safe to me. Whoa, that’s the answer to everything right now, I thought," they write.

RELATED: ‘Feel Good’ Star Mae Martin Comes Out As Non-Binary: ‘I’m Still Figuring It Out’

Eley also addresses their decision not to undergo a surgical transformation. "There are countless different surgeries that some trans people choose to have to feel more comfortable in their bodies; for me I feel so disconnected from any gender that no body will ever feel perfect. I chose not to have full ‘top surgery’ [a mastectomy], as that body wouldn’t have served me either. Instead, I wanted the option to bind [a method of compressing the chest to give a flatter appearance] and the size of my chest previously meant that I wasn’t able to do so effectively. So I had a reduction to give me that control over my appearance," they write.

RELATED: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Star Sara Ramirez Comes Out As Non-Binary

"I bind not because I’m ashamed of my body but because the autonomy of doing so makes me feel safe," they continue. "I’m not ‘fluid’ where I shift between genders and pronouns. I am agender [devoid of gender altogether] and what I do with my body, whether I’m naked or in a full snowsuit, doesn’t change it. I’ve accepted that I’m a non-binary person living in a binary world (that I have every intention of disrupting!)."

Eley also ruminates on becoming a role model for trans and non-binary kids. "When someone is neither, both or all of the above in terms of their gender — like I am — people can be defensive and reluctant to accept that such a grey area exists," they explain. "I wish I’d known that it was okay to exist in this ‘in-between’ place when I was growing up. I wish someone had told me that I could be whoever I wanted to be, do whatever I wanted to do and that I was so valid and important. Trans and non-binary kids need to hear that they are beautiful and worthy of love and a fulfilling life.’

The June issue of Elle UK is on sale starting May 6.

German priests to defy the Vatican, bless gay couples

Caitlin O'Kane 6/5/2021

Dozens of Catholic priests in Germany plan defy the Vatican and bless homosexual partnerships, with many set to live-stream the blessings online.

© Gregorio Borgia / AP Vatican Gay Unions

In March, the Vatican decreed that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex marriages. In response, more than 230 professors of Catholic theology in Germany – and other countries where German is spoken – signed a statement protesting the decision, the Associated Press reports.

In a statement, the group declared that the decree "is marked by a paternalistic air of superiority and discriminates against homosexual people and their life plans."

Now, dozens of priests in Germany have vowed to defy the Vatican. "In view of the refusal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to bless homosexual partnerships, we raise our voices and say: We will continue to accompany people who enter into a binding partnership in the future and bless their relationship," the group said in a statement.

A group of dissenting priests has also compiled a list of church services that will take place nationwide on or around May 10, where priests will publicly bless gay couples.

 Many of the services will be live-streamed.

St. Marien-KircheNordstraße said they will hang a banner above the main entrance of the church: "You love each other? We bless you!"

"This is how it should be: We would like to celebrate and bless the gift of love with everyone 'who love each other,' all couples, friendships, love relationships. All who reflect the colorfulness of God's love in their lives!" the church said in the description for their event, which will be held on May 9.

St. Gertrud Bochum Wattenscheid will hold an online church service via Zoom. The topic of the youth service: "Love is love ... in all its diversity. And we celebrate."

"A blessing service for all lovers - we don't exclude anyone!" reads the description for the event at St. AntoniusHolsteiner Straße.

While the Vatican holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect and can be blessed, gay sex is "intrinsically disordered."

Catholic teaching holds that marriage, a lifelong union between a man and woman, is part of God's plan and is intended for the sake of creating new life.

Same-sex marriage is a sin, and God "does not and cannot bless sin: He blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him," the Vatican said in a statement in March.

In their statement, the group of dissenting priests said they do not refuse blessing ceremonies. "We do this in our responsibility as pastors, who promise people at important moments in their lives the blessings that God alone gives," the statement rads. "We respect and value their love, and we also believe that God's blessings are on them."

The group said they "do not accept that an exclusive and outdated sexual morality is carried out on the back of people and undermines our work in pastoral care."

Birgit Mock, who is on the Central Committee of German Catholics, thanked the pastors who have signed the statement. "It shows how deeply you feel rooted in our church," Mock said, adding that the group understands "sexuality as a positive force" and they "want to anchor this in church teaching."

"Stop signs from Rome don't help," said Mock. "On the contrary: We need an honest theological discussion; we have to — finally — recognize as a church that sexuality is part of life. And not only in the marriage as man and woman, but in all loyal, dignified and respectful love relationships. Everything else is no longer up to date. And also does not correspond to our image of God."

"We can trust that God loves us as we are created. And that he has long been 'there' in love relationships," Mock said.

In March, a group of Austrian priests who have distanced themselves from the Catholic Church also criticized the Vatican's decree.

The Austrian Priests' Initiative, a group of priests leading a campaign of disobedience against the Vatican, vowed to continue to bless same-sex couples.

The initiative, also known as Pfarrer-Initiative, said in a statement its members "are deeply appalled by the new Roman decree that wants to prohibit the blessing of same-sex loving couples."

"This is a relapse into times that we had hoped to be overcome with Pope Francis," the group's statement continues. "In solidarity with so many, we will not reject any loving couple in the future who wants to celebrate God's blessing, which they experience every day, in a church-service."