Walmart getting rid of cashiers at B.C. store as part of test


Walmart is replacing cashiers at its Terrace store in northwest B.C., with self-serve checkouts this summer, making it a test project along with a select number of other outlets in Canada.

In an emailed statement to The Terrace Standard, Walmart Canada said its Terrace store was selected as a test location because a large number of customers were using self-checkouts.

“Our business is transforming and we’re relentlessly focused on making our stores simpler and faster for our customers. That’s why we’re constantly innovating and trying new initiatives so we can be the very best retailer,” said spokesperson Felicia Fefer.

“Our customers have embraced self-checkouts as they’ve rolled out across the country over the past few years,” she added.

But while Walmart will eliminate cashier positions here that don’t necessarily mean an overall job loss, the corporation said.

“Over the years we’ve heard concerns that self-checkouts will impact jobs but that’s simply not the case. The self-checkout area will be staffed by dedicated associates to help our customers and there will be no job loss as a result of this change,” said Fefer.

She said 40 more people will be hired in the coming months in the Terrace branch as it prepares to launch an online grocery purchase option.

Binny Paul, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Terrace Standard

Reality Winner, NSA contractor in leak case, out of prison


WASHINGTON (AP) — A former government contractor who was given the longest federal prison sentence imposed for leaks to the news media has been released from prison to home confinement, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Reality Winner, 29, has been moved to home confinement and remains in the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons, the person said. The person could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.


She pleaded guilty in 2018 to a single count of transmitting national security information. Winner was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, which prosecutors said at the time was the longest ever imposed for leaking government information to the news media.

Her release was hailed as a cause for celebration after advocates had spent years fighting for her release or a pardon. Her lawyer, Alison Grinter Allen, said in a statement that Winner and her family are working to “heal the trauma of incarceration and build back the years lost.”

She said they are “relieved and hopeful” after her release from prison.

The former Air Force translator worked as a contractor at a National Security Agency office in Augusta, Georgia, when she printed a classified report and left the building with it tucked into her pantyhose. Winner told the FBI she mailed the document to an online news outlet.

Authorities never identified the news organization. But the Justice Department announced Winner’s June 2017 arrest the same day The Intercept reported on a secret NSA document. It detailed Russian government efforts to penetrate a Florida-based supplier of voting software and the accounts of election officials ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner had leaked.

At the time of her sentencing, Winner was given credit for more than a year she spent in jail while the case was pending in U.S. District Court. She was sent to home confinement just a few months ahead of her release date of Nov. 23, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

"My actions were a cruel betrayal of my nation’s trust in me,” Winner told the judge at her sentencing in August, 2018.

Previously, Winner had unsuccessfully tried to shorten her sentence by seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump — whom she had once mocked on social media as a “soulless ginger orangutan” — and by arguing she had health conditions that made her more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. Her sister said last July that Winner tested positive for the coronavirus but didn't show symptoms.

Michael Balsamo, The Associated Press

#FREECHELSEA

JAPANESE STATE MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M
Mizuho's system failures caused by corporate culture, third-party probe says

TOKYO (Reuters) - Mizuho Financial Group Inc's corporate culture has been responsible for repeated system failures as it is not able to respond well to crises, lacks technological expertise and is not able to show improvement, a third-party investigation found.

© Reuters/Toru Hanai FILE PHOTO: Mizuho Financial Group logo is seen at the company's headquarters in Tokyo

Japan's third-largest lender commissioned the report after having had four system breakdowns despite spending more than 400 billion yen ($3.6 billion) to revamp its banking system in 2019.

One of the glitches affected most of its ATMS, leaving thousands of bank cards and passbooks stuck inside.

"The atmosphere within the company is one where managers believe the best course is to take the stance that they have done what they are supposed do rather than taking the risk of actively expressing their opinion. This contributes to a lack of positive and proactive action on their part," the report said.

A Mizuho spokesperson said the bank would announce business improvement measures as soon as they were decided.

The report was compiled by a four member team led by lawyer Shuji Iwamura and included another lawyer, a former Fair Trade Commission official and a former NTT DoCoMo executive.

Asked about the report, Finance Minister Taro Aso told a regular press briefing that the government planned to form an appropriate response but did not elaborate.

Mizuho's shares were up 0.5% in morning trade in line with the broader market.

($1 = 110.0700 yen)

(Reporting by Takashi Umekawa; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

New Book ‘Blackface’ Examines Hollywood’s Painful, Enduring Ties to Racist Performances

Matt Donnelly 

VARIETY

© Courtesy Images


Conversations about Blackface, when white people darken their skin to perform exaggerated versions of nonwhite characters, often centers on the historical when it comes to the media’s role in perpetuating the racist act.

In some cases, historical means the minstrels of 19th century theater, silent films, or the more recent history of satire like Robert Downey Jr.’s 2008 film “Tropic Thunder,” which has aged horribly in a Hollywood landscape that demands sensitive and authentic portrayals, regardless of genre.

More from Variety

New 'Borat' Film Opens with Blackface Content Warning from Amazon

But it’s not always about decades or centuries ago. In the past seven days, however, at least three headlines directly or indirectly involved the damaging tradition have run — from the aesthetics of the Kardashian-Jenner family, to the astonishing rebound of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, to the crisis team helping fashion label Prada recover from scandal.

In short, says academic and author Ayanna Thompson, the continued prevalence of Blackface — both in content and old images of prominent figures — is not so easily explained away by heartfelt apologies and warning labels on classic movies.

In her new book “Blackface,” Thompson calls it “the ultimate zombie performance mode,” a practice that will not die despite the numerous icons and world leaders taken down by backlash, and countless think pieces about the stereotypes it feeds. Last summer, comedians and entertainers seemed to reach some resolve around the issue following the murder of George Floyd, with power players like Tina Fey and Jimmy Kimmel decrying past works and disappearing images of Blackface from their libraries.

Thompson recently discussed her new book with Variety, on a topic she finds increasingly relevant for creators and executives in show business who may lack deeper context around this issue.

This topic is sadly evergreen, but what specifically got you thinking about exploring this topic in book form?

In 2012, when my son was in the third grade, he had to do a research project where the students had to pick a famous person from history and present as that person. My son was William Shakespeare, and my little brown son was not in white face. That would never have occurred to him or to me. There were three [white] 8-year-olds in Blackface, performing their heroes Martin Luther King, Serena Williams and Arthur Ashe. I could not believe it.

These were little kids. Whose idea was it to put the makeup on? Whose idea was it that this was a form of celebration? Whose idea was that, to fully inhabit your hero, you had to employ racial prosthetics? When I asked teachers and other parents, no one though it was an issue. When I approached the principal, he thought I was insane. I could see through his eyes that I was in irrationally angry Black woman. It dawned on me that white privilege meant this principal didn’t feel he had to know this history. He didn’t feel this was something we shared collectively. It’s taken me 10 years to write this book. I had to write something that people could hand to their teachers, their friends, their colleagues, students, to say ‘Here’s why this is problematic.’ Why don’t Black and brown kids think that they should put white face on when they’re doing Halloween costumes? What is it that white people think when they’re putting on Halloween costumes, doing special projects, that Black makeup is part of what they should do? The book is an exploration on that. And I take it seriously that this is our shared American history. The onus can’t be on people of color to carry this history forward. We’ve killed Blackface several times in our history, but it keeps coming back to life because of this unwillingness to have it be our collective history. I hope this book is the last book about this.

One of the most interesting things in the book is a concept you introduce called “white innocence,” can you unpack that?

Before I get there — the history of performing Black and brown people on English-speaking stages has always been a white property. Since the middle ages, when there have been devilish characters in religious plays, and then non-religious works in Shakespeare’s time where they had tons of Africans and Moors and Turks all performed with racial prosthetics. This includes makeup, fake noses, wigs, and so on. We’ve got hundreds of years of Black characters in performance being a white property. That’s important as a foundation for what allows people to believe in their own white innocence.

For example, when you’re Megyn Kelly defending Luann de Lesseps’ doing Blackface as Diana Ross in 2018 saying, “But who doesn’t want to be Diana Ross for a day?” White innocence is, “I love Black people, I love Black culture.” This was also Governor Ralph Northam, when he performed as Michael Jackson [in 1984]. Same for Justin Trudeau. This idea that you can celebrate Black culture, Black heroes, identities by putting on Black makeup. On some weird unconscious level, that patches into some hundreds of years old history, that to be a Black character in a play or a film is actually to be a white person performing that. That’s where white innocence stems from. I do ask, are Black and brown people not as innocent because we don’t presume that this is a performance mode that is open to us?

Comedy specifically seems to be a big problem area over the past few decades, why is that?

I feel like the birth of Blackface minstrelsy as a genre is the 19th century. It lives a long time well into the 20th century — even the BBC had a minstrel show that was on primetime until 1978. In the Black arts movement in the late 1960s, there was an attempt by BIPOC artists to say, “We’re going to create our own art where we can represent ourselves fully.” That helped kill Blackface minstrelsy.

Weirdly, by the time we get to the ’80s, it comes back. It’s the birth of the neo-conservative and the Reagan presidency. “The Cosby Show” was huge and there was a feeling of, “We’re so over all the problems.” This was also when neo-cons had started celebrating that they embraced a colorblind approach to the world — which was, “We no longer have to see, talk or think about race because we’re all equal.” Then you see this flare up of Blackface. You really saw it hugely right before and right after Barack Obama’s election. I think it had the same ethos of “We are post racial and racist.”

Let’s talk about all of the comedians: Jimmy Fallon doing Chris Rock on “SNL,” Jimmy Kimmel doing Oprah Winfrey and Carl Malone on “The Man Show,” Sarah Silverman doing a whole Blackface routine on “The Sarah Silverman Program,” four episodes of “30 Rock,” and five years of Fred Armisen as Obama on “SNL”. All of this happened in the 21st century. And let’s not even to get into “Tropic Thunder” and “Zoolander.”

There was a desire by comedians. Not explicitly in their ideological thinking, but a feeling of “I’m post-racial, I can’t be a racist.” So all of these things I have studied and noticed is that all of those people are students of comedy. They’re all interested in pushing the boundaries of comedy and thinking about what’s taboo. This was something that had been taboo, and now they’re like, “We want to see if we can do it!’ Since it’s clear that I’m not racist, I can do it!”

Your hope is that this book will be resonant within the walls of show business, why?

Because that’s a hard climb. I don’t think people in the industry are reading anything other than what they create. It would be nice if there was someone to say, “We should talk about this.” Perhaps the Academy could sponsor a book club or something. I think about the way that television and film has moved dramatically away from something simple like depictions of people smoking. They recognized that that was a harm, something actively harming the public because it was creating perceptions of smoking as either sexy or something you do when you need self care. We’ve moved away from that pretty hard, to the benefit of society. This was obviously a collective decision. They could all come to the collective decision that Blackface is a public harm and we can play a role in stopping it. That would be the ultimate goal.

“Blackface,” published by Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons label, is currently for sale.

Comics and graphic novels are examining refugee border-crossing experiences

Elizabeth "Biz" Nijdam, Assistant Professor (without review) of German, University of British Columbia 

Comics about refugee experiences are not new. After all, even the superhero created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman, is a refugee who landed on Earth after his flight from Krypton.

© Detail from Reinhard Kleist's 'An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar/SelfMadeHero 'An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar' recounts how the Somali Olympic runner drowned while trying to reach Italy in 2012.

However, recently there has been renewed interest in comics representing migrant experience — namely, that of refugees and asylum-seekers. Since 2011, in particular, and the start of the civil war in Syria, comics and graphic novels have become an important forum for examining global forced migration.

These so-called “refugee comics” range from newspaper comic strips to webcomics and graphic novels that combine eyewitness reportage or journalistic collaboration with comic-book storytelling. These stories are written with the aim of incorporating the points of views of refugees, artists, volunteers or journalists working on-the-ground in displaced communities, war zones and along the migrant journey. They sometimes emerge in collaboration with human rights organizations.

In light of their subject matter, these comic artists contend with complex and distressing themes that are otherwise difficult to represent.

They draw on the traditional comics format, including the medium’s sequential nature, the use of panel walls and a combination of text and image to foster empathy and compassion for the migration journey. In so doing, they aim to give voice to asylum-seekers and refugees, part of 80 million individuals and families forcibly displaced worldwide, whose anonymous images often appear in western media.
Complex issues, narrator’s perspective

These comics are typically drawn by western cartoonists, based on direct testimonies by migrants and refugees or those who have worked with them or encountered them. They are typically not by refugees but about refugees. Scholar Candida Rifkind, who studies alternative comics and graphic narratives, explores how comics about migrant experience often emerge when witnesses to migrant stories grapple with feelings of “shame, guilt and responsibility” to make western society at large more aware of and responsive to refugee realities.

These narratives prompt ethical questions about what it means to tell a story and who has the right or responsibility to do so. While questions about the power relations embedded in how these texts are produced remain, comics on global forced migration are still an important avenue for interrogating the representation of migrants and the socio-political circumstances surrounding their journeys.

These comics also challenge what may otherwise be relayed in mainstream media as the story of a global migrant crisis that has no human face, with perilous effects for migrants who face xenophobia and hate. In Rifkind’s words, they are a kind of intervention into “the photographic regime of the migrant as Other that has emerged as the dominant visual record” of contemporary globalization.

In comics about forced migrant experiences, people experiencing life as refugees become centred as the subjects of their own stories. But cartooning can allow storytellers to represent individuals anonymously, making it easier for people “to give testimony fully and candidly,” while affording them the specificity of their humanity.

There can be consequences for refugees who testify about their circumstances and the oppression and violence they encounter. Photographic evidence of unlawful or undocumented residence in migrant encampments or someone’s journey to seek asylum could in fact jeopardize a person’s safety and end goal.

© (HMH Books) The violence encountered by the refugees depicted in ‘The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees,’ by Don Brown is the only graphic element that breaks through the panel frame.

New visual strategies

Notably, comics on forced migration are also inventing new visual strategies to recount refugee experiences. Artists use panel borders to add a layer of storytelling that typically vacillates between the creators’ ability to represent a specific experience, emotion or event and the very inability to portray some forms of trauma and lived experience.

In The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees (2018), American author and illustrator Don Brown depicts moments of hardships and hope in the lives of the refugees that Brown met in three Greek refugee camps in Ritsona, in Thessaloniki and on Leros.

The violence encountered by the refugees of Brown’s graphic novel is the only graphic element that breaks through panels. Bullets fracture the panel edges, bombs explode out of the picture planes and toxic smoke rises through the frames.

Brown draws on the convention of exceeding and playing with borders in comics to demonstrate a relationship between violence and transgressing borders. Not only did violence in Syria force many of its citizens to journey in search of safety and freedom; fleeing Syrians also also faced violence and hostility beyond the borders of their homeland on their journeys and where they landed.

© (Verso) Detail of a page shows how lace is used as a panel border in ‘Threads,’ by Kate Evans.

The panel borders in Threads: From the Refugee Crisis (2016) by British cartoonist, non-fiction author and graphic novelist Kate Evans are comprised of clippings of delicate lace. Threads is a socio-political and cultural critique rooted in the author’s experience volunteering in the largest though unofficial refugee encampment in Calais, France, which operated from January 2015 to October 2016.

My research has examined how this lace integrated into the comic is more than simply an analogy for the intertwining factors and complex relationships that emerged in Calais. The lacework is a fundamental structuring principle in Evans’ text that engages with the region’s history of lacemaking, Calais’ most essential industry and refugee experience simultaneously.
Frames within stories

The aesthetics of the smartphone have also begun to play a role in the representation of refugee experiences in comics. Smartphone screens and social media platforms function as frames within some stories.

German graphic designer and cartoonist Reinhard Kleist embeds social media into the comics grid in An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar (2016). The story recounts how Omar, the Somali Olympic runner, died by drowning en route to Italy in 2012.

Some of the story is narrated through Facebook posts based on interviews conducted on that platform with Omar’s sister and a journalist who had interviewed and known Omar.

© (SelfMadeHero) Panel from ‘An Olympic Dream: The Story of Samia Yusuf Omar,’ by Richard Kleist.

Somalian athletes lifted up Omar’s story to draw attention to the Olympics as a venue to promote awareness about global conflict and peace. In Kleist’s introduction, he writes that too often, “abstract numbers represent human lives.”

This comic and others joins several examples of new media, such as viral videos, mobile games and documentary film that are highlighting the role mobile devices can play during the migration journey.

Through their personal stories, comics on forced migration humanize refugee experience. This category of graphic narrative also offers opportunities for articulating the complexity of refugee experience through the narrative techniques and visual strategies of comic art.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Elizabeth "Biz" Nijdam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

SEE
Full article: Migration, Exile, and Diaspora in Graphic Life Narratives (tandfonline.com)

Tailoring of climate change messaging could shift conservative views on crisis: Study

The key to easing partisanship on the topic of global warming may be in the way the messages are conveyed, according to new research.

Tailoring online messaging and advertising toward Republican voters could shift their views on climate change, a new study published Monday in Nature Climate Change suggests.MORE: This is how climate change may alter 10 of the world's natural wonders

As of 2020, 73% of Americans believed that global warming was happening, and 62% think that it was caused by human activities. In 2010, only 57% of Americans thought that global warming was happening, researchers said.

But, the shift in public opinion on climate change has largely been driven by Democrats. In previous research, when asked how high of a priority global warming should be, just 22% of Republicans said it should be a "high" or "very high" priority, compared to 83% of Democrats, according to the study.

© Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images, FILE A worker from Kimball & Sons Logging and Trucking swings a crane in a small woodlot in Mechanic Falls, Maine, July 16, 2020.

However, altering the messages to appeal to conservative ideals can increase Republicans' opinions of climate change, new research found.

The study was conducted through a one-month advertising campaign field experiment that tailored climate change-themed online messaging for conservative voters in two competitive districts -- Missouri-02 and Georgia-07. Those areas were chosen for their "purple" status, a "solid" mix of both Democrats and Republicans, Matthew Goldberg, associate research scientist at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and author of the study, told ABC News.

© Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

MORE: Republicans ask why White House removed climate scientist

The campaign presented a series of videos called "New Climate Voices," which used social identity theory, elite cues and theories of persuasion presented by spokespersons who were likely to resonate with conservatives, Goldberg said.

For example, one video features a retired Air Force General who explains that climate change poses a national security threat and creates challenges for the U.S. military. In another video, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and evangelical Christian, speaks about the consistency between her faith and caring about climate change. In another, former Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., describes how his conservative values motivate his drive for political action on climate change.

© Smith Collection/gado/Getty Images, FILE Close-up of cellphone displaying alert from utility Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE) warning of an unprecedented Public Safety Power Shutoff, or planned power outage to reduce wildfire risk, San Ramon, California, October 8, 2019.

The researchers targeted people on Facebook, YouTube and other online advertisements and made sure the people were exposed to the videos often, Goldberg said.

After the campaign, the researchers compared 1,600 surveys administered before and after the campaign, which revealed that the videos increased understanding among Republicans in the two districts on two topics: that global warming is happening and that it's being "caused mostly by human activities." The understanding increased by several percentage points, according to the study.MORE: House Republicans roll out 'realistic' platform to tackle climate change, including planting trees

The belief that climate change is "somewhat," "very" or "extremely" personally important and that it would cause "moderated" to a "great deal" of harm to future generations also increased among those surveyed, researchers said.

The results of the study show that it's possible to design messaging interventions that are both persuasive and scalable, and that climate change communication is more likely to persuade people when the message and messenger resonate with the audience’s values and identities, Goldberg said.

© Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE A U.S. flag flies outside the Marathon Petroleum Corp. Los Angeles Refinery in Wilmington, California, April 21, 2021.

The tricky part is getting the messaging through in a competitive environment where people are fielding messages across multiple platforms, Goldberg said.

"You can imagine seeing an advertisement in your Facebook newsfeed or in a video that we're passing by on YouTube, it's often hard to persuade people, especially to do so durably, because you have you have you have more of that shallow engagement," Goldberg said. "So we usually have that worry that it's hard to, to compellingly move people's beliefs through these kinds of ads."

In addition, since the study was conducted in only two congressional districts, it is unclear how much results might vary depending on geographic location or cultural context, the researchers said.

A TAX CUT FOR THOSE IN NEED OF ONE

Biden's budget would cut taxes for all low-income households but especially parents, analysis shows

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) 

© Provided by Business Insider President Joe Biden. AP

A Tax Policy Center report found Biden's budget would cut taxes for parents by $3,200 in 2022.

This is a result of Biden's expanded child tax credit, which gives parents $300 monthly benefits.

Democrats are pushing to make the credit expansion permanent beyond Biden's 2025 extension.

President Joe Biden's recent budget proposal included changes in the tax code that would hike taxes for corporations while expanding tax credits for families.

A recent analysis found these changes would dramatically cut taxes for families with children in 2022 - and for all low-income Americans.

The Tax Policy Center's Howard Gleckman released an analysis on June 9 studying the impact of Biden's budget on American households. He found that Biden's proposals to expand the child tax credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, along with a corporate tax hike to fund infrastructure, would increase taxes for the top 1% by an average of $213,000 in 2022, while those in the top 0.1% would pay an average of $1.6 million more.

However, low- and middle-income households would see their taxes reduced under Biden's plans. Gleckman wrote that low-income households would get an average $620 tax cut in 2022, while taxes for families with children would be cut by an average of $3,200, thanks to the child tax credit.

Gleckman noted, though, that those households would see lower tax cuts in 2031 than in 2022.

Video: Big Companies Can Afford to Pay Higher Taxes, Says Biden Economist (Bloomberg)

"For example, taxes for middle-income households would fall by only about $90 in 2031, compared to $640 in 2022," he wrote. "For the most part, those more modest 2031 tax cuts are because Biden's CTC [child tax credit] expansion is scheduled to expire in 2025."

About three-quarters of middle-income families would see their taxes increase by an average of $300 as a result of Biden's proposed corporate tax hike, Gleckman added, but the majority of tax increases would fall on those making over $200,000.

Biden's coronavirus relief package revamped the $2,000 child tax credit, increasing the amount to $3,600 per child 5 and under and to $3,000 for every kid between 6 and 17 per year. It also gave households the option to receive a monthly payment of a one-time sum for the year, and expanded it to include low-income families with no tax obligations.

But while Biden plans to expand the credit through 2025, some Democrats want the payment to be permanent. In March, 41 Democratic senators sent a letter to Biden urging him to make the monthly payments permanent, saying that "no recovery will be complete unless our tax code provides a sustained pathway to economic prosperity for working adults and families."

However, Insider reported last week that moderate Democrats may be more reluctant to throw their support behind a permanent expansion. Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware said he still hadn't made up his mind.

"I was a big supporter of enlarging it and extending it," he told Insider, referring to bulking up the credit. "I thought it was the right thing to do as part of a package in a pandemic and I'm open to it, but I've not come to any conclusions."

Other moderate Democrats, like Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, expressed the same sentiment. But the Democratic architects of the child tax credit, including Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, echoed the Tax Policy Center's analysis in that the credit would significantly benefit families with children.

"It's going to be an amazing moment in modern America where people actually see themselves and their families benefiting dramatically from something that we've done in Washington DC," Bennet told Insider. "It's going to make a huge difference to people."

Embattled electric-vehicle startup Lordstown Motors loses its CEO and CFO

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean,Grace Kay) 

 Lordstown Motors ' Endurance truck.

Lordstown Motors' CEO and CFO have resigned, the company announced on Monday.

The electric-vehicle startup said it had already started the search for permanent replacements.

It said last week that it didn't have enough cash to begin commercial production.

Two key Lordstown Motors executives, CEO Steve Burns and Chief Financial Officer Julio Rodriguez, have resigned, the company said on Monday.

The electric-vehicle startup didn't give reasons for their resignations. But their departure came on the same day Lordstown released the results of an internal investigation into the short-selling firm Hindenburg Research's claims that the company had misled investors by overstating the demand for its product.

Lordstown's special committee said that while it didn't find any issues with the vehicle or its technology, the company had caused confusion about the demand for its electric truck; Lordstown had repeatedly said it had over 100,000 preorders for its $52,500 Endurance pickup truck.

"Lordstown Motors made periodic disclosures regarding pre-orders which were, in certain respects, inaccurate," the report said.

The internal investigation found that some preorders - letters of intent that require only a signature - had been secured from companies that did not intend to purchase the vehicle, while other companies that had signed letters of intent did not have enough capital to purchase it.

Video: Lordstown Motors CEO and CFO resign — Here's what to know (CNBC)

The release of the pickup truck has been delayed five times since Lordstown's predecessor, Workhorse Group, introduced the concept.

Read more: A 2017 lawsuit shows how electric-car startup Lordstown paid outside workers to gin up 10,000 preorders a year

Lordstown's stock price plunged more than 17% in trading on Monday following the announcements.

Last week, the startup told investors it would not be able to start commercial production of its truck without additional funding.

That going-concern notice raised doubts about whether Lordstown would be able to stay in business without more funding. A spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that it was securing more funding and that it did not expect to delay production.

The company said on Monday that it was looking for permanent replacements for the two executives. In the meantime, Angela Strand will serve as its executive chairwoman and Becky Roof as its interim CFO. Strand has worked with Burns since 2017: She was the vice president of Workhorse Group, Burns' former startup, according to her LinkedIn.

Lordstown, founded in 2018, plans to manufacture the Endurance at a former General Motors plant. Last year, President Donald Trump showed off the electric pickup truck at the White House while celebrating Lordstown and Burns for reopening the plant.

In October, the company went public through a blank-check merger in a deal that valued the firm at $1.6 billion.

We may be underestimating just how much the shipping crisis will raise prices of consumer goods, a leading economist says

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean) 

High shipping costs are spurring shortages of products ranging from semiconductors and fireworks to chicken and Starbucks drinks. Thomas Pallini/Insider

Rising shipping costs could make Starbucks drinks, fireworks, and lumber harder to come by.

The impact of this on product prices could be underestimated, an economist told Bloomberg.

Some companies are already hiking up the prices of goods like burritos and groceries.

People might not be aware of the full impact the current shipping crisis will have on higher prices for consumer goods, a leading economist told Bloomberg.

Even if companies pass the cost of rising shipping fares straight to customers, this will only have a slight effect on headline inflation - but its full impact might be being overlooked, Volker Wieland, economics professor at Frankfurt's Goethe University in Frankfurt and a member of the German government's council of economic advisers, said.

"Even if the order of magnitude is smaller than estimated, the dynamic builds over a year and has significant effects," he told Bloomberg.

"That means there's a danger we're underestimating the impact."

A shortage of workers, lack of shipping containers, and massive port traffic jams caused by growing demand for imported goods are all causing shipping costs to soar, Insider's Rachel Premack reported. According to the Drewry World Container Index, shipping containers cost nearly four times as much as they did this time last year.

Ports face other problems, too. Authorities introduced stricter COVID-19 measures after a recent coronavirus outbreak in Guangdong, South China, causing congestion at four major ports.

The shipping problems, in turn, are spurring shortages of products ranging from semiconductors and fireworks to chicken and Starbucks drinks. Prices hikes could follow, too, as some companies, including Costco and Chipotle, have already warned that they may pass some of the the higher freights costs to their customers, while analysts told Bloomberg that the prices of low-cost and bulky goods, like toys and cheap furniture, could soar in the coming months.

The shipping crisis means that customers could also have less access to international products, too.

Jordi Espin, strategic relations manager at the European Shippers' Council, told Bloomberg that olive growers in Europe could no longer afford to export to the US.

And Europe has stopped most anchovy imports from Peru because they're no longer competitive compared to local products, he said.

HSBC trade economist Shanella Rajanayagam told Bloomberg that he expects consumer demand to shift from goods to services as the global economies reopens.

But Rajanayagam warned that the higher shipping costs could stay post-pandemic, and that producers could become more willing to pass these higher costs on to consumers.

Insider's Kate Duffy reported that the shipping disruptions could lead to a shortage of goods for the holiday season.

Read the original article on Business Insider

'So unfair': Métis take Alberta to court over refusal to discuss consultation policy

EDMONTON — The Métis Nation of Alberta is taking the provincial government to court over what it says is negotiating in bad faith on a consultation agreement.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"We feel we have no option," said Audrey Poitras of the Métis Nation of Alberta, which filed a request Monday for a judicial review.

"The government of Alberta does not recognize we have rights in this country."

The Métis are seeking an overall agreement on how they should be consulted over resource development or government plans that could affect their traditional land and practices. Poitras said the Métis Nation nearly had one after five years of talks with the province under two different governments.

But that all came to an end shortly after the election of the United Conservative Party. On Sept. 5, 2019, Poitras received a letter from provincial Indigenous Relations Minister Rick Wilson stating "Alberta will not be moving forward with the draft consultation policy."

Court documents say the Métis were never provided with the rationale for that decision.

Government briefing notes referred to in the Métis application suggest bureaucrats, saying it would be expensive and time-consuming, decided an overall consultation policy wasn't needed. The court documents quote a handwritten note to a senior official saying, "Adding more (Indigenous) communities to consult with is burdening industry."

The notes suggest continuing the current policy, which forces Métis people seeking to have a voice in development to go through an onerous "credible assertion" process. That's proven so difficult that the Métis Nation still hasn't been able to complete it, Poitras said.

Alberta does have agreements with Métis settlements, but fewer than about five per cent of the province's 114,000 Métis live in them. The Métis Nation has about 47,000 registered members, Poitras said.

"It is so unfair that the majority of Métis don't live on those (settlements) and yet we're not even talking anymore."

Poitras points out her group has a consultation agreement with the federal government. The provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario all have such agreements with Métis living there.

Alberta has one with First Nations, so why not Métis? asked Poitras.

"It's totally wrong for the government to just decide to stop talking to us," she said. "This is systemic racism in action."

Poitras said the government has ignored the group's repeated calls to resume talks.

Adrienne South, spokeswoman for Wilson, said the department couldn't comment on a matter before the courts.

“Alberta’s government values its relationship with the Metis as shown by our support of affordable housing projects, cultural outreach for Metis Crossing, ongoing supports during the pandemic and continuous engagement with Alberta’s Metis peoples," she said.

The Métis Nation's court filing says the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that Métis have Indigenous rights under the Constitution. The court has also said Canada has both a duty to consult and a duty to negotiate.

NDP Opposition Leader Rachel Notley, who appeared with Poitras at a news conference, said walking away from the nearly complete consultation agreement as the government did in 2019 creates more uncertainty, risk and red tape for everyone, including industry.

"A formal policy would help us to enshrine a process for new projects. It would allow the government to bring willing partners to the table and it would provide industry with transparency and predictability," Notley said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 14, 2021.

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Bob Weber, The Canadian Press