Friday, April 01, 2022

Two alleged Lapsus$ teens appear in London court

Written by AJ Vicens
APR 1, 2022 | CYBERSCOOP

Two of the teenagers arrested last week for their alleged role in the Lapsus$ cyber extortion group appeared in a London court Friday to formally face multiple charges.

The unidentified teens, aged 16 and 17, are both charged with three counts of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to impair the reliability of the data, one count of fraud by false representation and one count of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to hinder access to data. The 16-year-old faces an additional count of causing a computer to perform a function to secure unauthorized access to a program, according to a statement from City of London Police Detective Inspector Michael O’Sullivan.

The pair were released on bail, the BBC reported.

The court appearance comes about a week after the City of London Police arrested seven people aged 16 to 21 in connection with an investigation into Lapsus$, a prolific cybercrime group that successfully breached major companies such as Microsoft, Okta, Ubisoft, Nvidia and others in recent months.

Just before the arrests, Bloomberg reported that a 16-year-old living in his mother’s house in Oxford, England was involved with some of the group’s major hacks. The group had also posted a message to its Telegram channel a day before the arrests that “a few of our members has (sic) a vacation until 30/3/2022.”

On March 29 the group posted another message to the channel saying “we are officially back,” and posted a screenshot that appeared to data that appeared to be associated with Globant, an Argentina-based international IT and software development firm. The group claimed to have roughly 70 gigabytes of files.

On March 31 the company admitted it had suffered a data breach affecting a “limited section of our company’s code repository.”

V FOR VICTORY

Amazon workers at New York warehouse vote to form company's first US union

By Sara Ashley O'Brien,

CNN Business
April 1, 2022

(CNN Business)Amazon (AMZN) warehouse workers at a facility in New York City have voted to form the first US union in the tech giant's 27-year history, marking a stunning victory for a bootstrapped effort led by a fired employee.

In a closely watched election, workers at a Staten Island, New York, facility known as JFK8 voted in favor of forming a union with a newly-established organization called Amazon Labor Union (ALU), which was started by current and former warehouse employees.

There were 2,654 votes in favor of unionizing and 2,131 votes against it by the end of the second and final day of public vote counting on Friday. Out of approximately 8,325 eligible voters, 4,785 votes were counted and another 67 were challenged. Seventeen ballots were voided.

The parties have five business days to file any objections.

Amazon union vote in Alabama is too close to call

In a statement after the vote, Amazon indicated that it is exploring various legal channels to fight the results. "We're disappointed with the outcome of the election in Staten Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees," Amazon said in the statement. "We're evaluating our options."

The staggering result could prove to be a milestone moment for Amazon and the broader labor movement in the United States. The union vote has the potential to upend how Amazon, the country's second largest private employer, engages with some members of its vast workforce. It could also add fuel to organizing both within the company's own sprawling empire, where some efforts are already underway such as at an Amazon Fresh store in Seattle, as well as at other companies across the country.

The outcome was hailed by advocacy groups, large labor unions and the White House, with press secretary Jen Psaki telling reporters Friday that President Joe Biden was "glad to see workers ensure that their voices were heard." John Logan, professor of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, called the ALU win a "jaw-dropping result." He added: "There really is no bigger prize for unions than winning at Amazon."

Shortly after the tally was complete, Christian Smalls, the president of ALU who is largely the face of the organization, joined a crowd of other ALU organizers and members of other labor groups that had gathered in downtown Brooklyn to celebrate the win. Sipping from a bottle of champagne and wearing pants emblazoned with the brand name "Billionaire Boys Club," Smalls gave a brief history of his contentious relationship with the company.

"Two years ago, my life changed forever," said Smalls, who was fired from his job at the facility in March 2020 after leading a walkout to protest pandemic related health and safety concerns. (Smalls says he was retaliated against; Amazon says he was terminated for violating its policy that required him to quarantine after being notified of a possible Covid-19 exposure.) "I only wanted to do the right thing and speak up for workers behind me," he said

In his speech, he also mentioned a widely reported suggestion by an Amazon executive in 2020 to disparage Smalls as "not smart or articulate." At the time, the executive said his comments were "personal and emotional," and that he'd allowed his emotions to "get the better of me."

"It's not about me. Amazon tried to make it about me from day one," Smalls said. "It's always going to be Amazon versus the people and today, the people said they wanted a union."

At the gathering, some handed out fliers that read, "Vote Yes For The Union. Despite what Amazon tells you, the union isn't some outside organization. It's a legal recognition of our right to have a say at work — as a group instead." Members of another pro-labor group held a large sign that read: "Amazon and Starbucks: Stop Union Busting! Recognize the union and negotiate now!"

The results of a separate do-over election at a facility in Bessemer, Alabama were too close to call. A total of 875 workers at the facility voted for joining a union and 993 voted against it, according to the tally, which was also conducted on Thursday. But another 416 ballots were challenged. The National Labor Relations Board expects to hold a hearing on the matter in the next few weeks to determine whether any of the challenged ballots will be opened and counted.

A bootstrapped push succeeds while an established union stumbled

Both union efforts were borne out of worker frustrations with Amazon's treatment of workers amid the pandemic and were also motivated in part by increased national attention to racial justice issues and labor rights. But there are key differences between the two.

The Alabama effort was done in coordination with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), an 85-year-old labor union, which has organized tens of thousands of workers. By contrast, the Staten Island push is not aligned with an existing labor union but rather is trying to create its own.

A demonstrator during the vote count to unionize Amazon workers outside the National Labor Relations Board offices in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., on Friday, April 1, 2022.

Smalls previously told CNN Business that ALU is running on "pennies compared to other campaigns," garnering $100,000 in donations raised through pages on GoFundMe, a crowdfunding platform.

He has sought to differentiate his organizing effort from the one in Bessemer, stating that having an independent union led by current and former employees of the facility "was working and resonated with the workers." (ALU has also garnered enough signatures for an NLRB election at a nearby Amazon facility in Staten Island later this month.)

The two union pushes are also unfolding in two very different parts of the country. The RWDSU drive occurred in Alabama, a right-to-work state, where union membership is low. New York, on the other hand, has the second highest union membership in the nation. Amazon's starting wage for workers of at least $15 an hour also fares differently in Alabama where the minimum wage is $7.25, compared to New York City's $15.

"They're enormously important elections. [Amazon] is a company that is not just retail, it is not just logistics, it cuts across almost every sector of the economy," Logan said.

"I think lots of pro-union Amazon workers will take inspiration from this. There's nothing exceptional about Staten Island to suggest that you can win at Amazon there but not somewhere else," Logan said, "All of a sudden, organizing at Amazon no longer seems futile."

Logan credits the initial RWDSU Bessemer drive one year ago, which was celebrated by a number of celebrities and politicians alike, with broadly creating "energy and enthusiasm amongst young people interested in organizing themselves." While the results of that election favored Amazon, a do-over was called for after the company was deemed to have illegally interfered. (An Amazon spokesperson called the decision "disappointing" at the time.)

Labor experts have repeatedly said that organizing Amazon workers is an incredibly difficult task given current labor law and the company's opposition to such efforts. Amazon's anti-union campaigns included signage inside its warehouses, text messages, and meetings that workers were required to attend before the election periods kicked off.

"In both cases, it's a David and Goliath situation. They're up against a very powerful, determined opponent," Ruth Milkman, a labor sociologist at City University of New York, previously told CNN Business. "In both cases, it's a very heavy lift because of Amazon's resources and determination to stamp out any unionization efforts."

Amazon has previously said its "employees have always had the choice of whether or not to join a union" and that it is focused on "working directly with our team to make Amazon a great place to work."

For more on the biggest and most important technology companies of our time, watch Land of the Giants: Titans of Tech on CNN+. This exclusive new series investigates the complicated history and meteoric rise of Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google.

Catherine Thorbecke and Clare Duffy contributed to this report

Amazon Union Scores Unexpected Win in New York Election, a First in the US

In a six-day election, warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York, voted to join the Amazon Labor Union.

Laura Hautala

CNET
April 1, 2022

Amazon Labor Union organizer Chris Smalls at an Amazon facility in Staten Island, New York. The union became the first to win an election at a US Amazon facility on Friday.

Getty Images

In a first for the Amazon's US facilities, warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York, have voted in favor of joining a union. The union's win, if certified by the federal labor board, adds momentum to an organizing movement that's been gaining steam around the country.

The tally of 2,654 yes votes to 2,131 no votes came after six days of in-person voting at the warehouse and an intense campaign. In the leadup to the vote, the union filed complaints to the National Labor Relations Board alleging that Amazon engaged in unfair labor practices.

The Amazon Labor Union, a new group that was formed by current and former Amazon workers, emerged from workers' efforts to demand better COVID-19 protections in 2020. The group eventually began an organizing bid after some workers involved in planning walkouts were disciplined or fired. That included fired worker Chris Smalls, who caught the attention of Amazon's top leadership. In a memo that was later leaked, Amazon's general counsel, David Zapolsky, said the company should try to make him the face of the movement because he's "not smart or articulate."

In a tweet Friday, Smalls said Amazon got what it hoped for. "Amazon wanted to make me the face of the whole unionizing efforts against them.... welp there you go!" he wrote, addressing the comments to Zapolsky and Jeff Bezos.

Separately, a vote on unionization at an Amazon facility in Alabama failed on Thursday, though the result could be affected when hundreds of challenged ballots are resolved.

Amazon said in a statement that it's disappointed with the results of the Staten Island vote: "We believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees."

The statement went on to say that Amazon would evaluate its options for filing objections to the election based on "inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB." Amazon didn't respond to a follow-up question from CNET about what that alleged influence involved.

"The NLRB is an independent federal agency that Congress has charged with enforcing the National Labor Relations Act," said NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado in a statement. "All NLRB enforcement actions against Amazon have been consistent with that Congressional mandate."

At a briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden "was glad to see workers ensure their voices are heard with respect to important workplace decisions." She added, "He believes that every worker in every state must have a free and fair choice to join a union and the right to bargain collectively with their employer."

The Staten Island victory defied predictions of labor experts, who noted before the election that the union only secured support from 30% of workers when they formally requested a union election. Amazon expressed skepticism that the workers' group had even achieved that benchmark but agreed to move ahead with the election. ALU also won in the face of Amazon's extensive campaign urging workers to vote no, including mandatory meetings with consultants describing downsides to unions and messages sent to phones and posted around work spaces.

"It's very, very difficult to win in any circumstances, and especially against an employer with unlimited resources," said Rebecca Givan, an associate professor of labor relations at Rutgers University.

A new union strategy

Connor Spence, vice president of membership at ALU, said turning in signatures from just over 30% of workers was a strategic move. By the time organizers got 50% of signatures, many of the people who signed on would likely have stopped working at the facility because turnover is so high. Instead, the union's team of about 20 core organizers worked to file for an election as quickly as possible and focus on the existing group of workers while they were still employed at the warehouse.

"That's the only strategy that will work at Amazon," Spence said, adding it was especially true for a union with limited resources.

A single unionized warehouse is unlikely to have an effect on customer experience or Amazon's bottom line. Still, it could inspire further organizing, said Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester, which is one reason for Amazon's aggressive approach.

"It's been something that Amazon has been advocating against for a long time," she said.

The company is also facing higher labor and logistics costs at a time of rising wages, after having spent the pandemic growing its capacities with new facilities that need staffing.

Amazon has said it thinks unions will get in the way of communication between managers and workers, slowing things down. The company spent $4.3 million on anti-union consultants in 2021, according to a report Thursday from HuffPost. It's not known how much the company has spent so far this year fighting organizing drives at Staten Island as well as in Bessemer, Alabama, where a separate union drive culminated in a vote that was also counted Thursday.

In the Alabama election, workers voted not to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. However, the results can't be finalized until more than 400 challenged ballots are resolved.

ALU secured an early lead when counting began Thursday at the NLRB office in Brooklyn, New York, widening to more than 300 votes by the end of the day. Counting resumed Friday morning. A separate warehouse in Staten Island has also petitioned for a union vote.

Spence, ALU's vice president of membership, said the union is still getting used to the feeling of victory.

Still, he said, "Failure was never an option."

First published on April 1, 2022

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out after Amazon workers win historic first union vote
Jon Skolnik, Salon
April 01, 2022

Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez speak about the importance of a Green New Deal at a town hall organized by the Sunrise Movement.

(Rachael Warriner / Shutterstock.com)

Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, R-N.Y., is in hot water for promoting an employee-led organizing effort at Amazon after critics noted that she backed out of a speaking engagement with those same employees during a union rally last summer.

The spat played out over Twitter on Thursday, when the Amazon Labor Union, which recently held a successful union vote at an Amazon facility in New York City's Staten Island, revealed that it was winning by 400-vote margin.

About an hour later, Ocasio-Cortez expressed solidarity with the union. But that comment did not sit well with some leftist commentators, including most notably, Krystal Ball, a host of the "Breaking Points" podcast.

"Here's the guy who organized the union drive talking about how you left them high and dry," Ball responded, tweeting a video of her interview with Amazon labor organizer Christian Smalls. "These are your constituents and you couldn't be bothered to show up until they're on the cusp of victory."

For his part, Smalls also piled on Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of Queens and the Bronx.

"So what exactly is the insinuation here?" the progressive lawmaker shot back. "That we are secretly in the tank for Amazon? That we're 'sellouts' despite leading congressional investigations into Amazon, taking huge blowback to call out the scam HQ2 deal, meeting with workers in our district warehouses? It's reaching."

RELATED: Biden just backed a union drive in Alabama but didn't mention Amazon. Here's why that's a good thing

The exchange appears to stem from an incident last August when Ocasio-Cortez was slated to appear for a speech at a rally held by the Amazon Labor Union. Before the event, however, the progressive lawmaker unexpectedly canceled her appearance over "scheduling conflicts" and "security concerns."

"Security was an issue as well. 2021 included a lot of high level threats on my life, which limited what activities I was able to do, especially those outside," as Ocasio-Cortez explained over Twitter. "The combination of that + when we are able to get resources/time to secure them creates scheduling + logistical conflicts."

On Friday, the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island officially voted to unionize, marking one of the biggest labor victories in modern American history. According to the National Labor Relations Board, the union vote won by more than 10 percentage points with 2,654 votes for the Amazon Labor Union and 2,131 against. The Staten Island facility, which employs roughly 6,000 workers, is now the first Amazon facility in the company's history to join a union.

During the leadup to the union drive, Amazon aggressively fought to stamp out the organizing effort, posting anti-union signage in its facility, holding mandatory weekly meetings about the alleged ills of unionization, and hiring a Democratic consultancy to advise them on various union avoidance tactics.

RELATED: Amazon election: Why union votes are so tough for labor to win

The Amazon Labor Union was led by Smalls, a former Stand Island Amazon worker who alleges he was fired back in 2020 for organizing protests against the company's non-observance of social distancing amid the spread of COVID-19.

"I say what I say and that's what got me here," Smalls told Bloomberg before the election. "The same thing with the union: It represents what the workers want to say."

On Friday, the House of Representatives opened a federal probe into Amazon's unfair labor practices. Leaders of the inquiry, which includes Ocasio-Cortez, have demanded that the company hand over documents related to its labor policies and procedures, particularly when it comes to severe weather events like the Illinois tornado that ripped through an Amazon warehouse back in January, killing six workers who were told to stay despite fearing for their safety. She also joined Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., in a letter to Amazon demanding more information about its worker safety protocols.

CAPITALIST CRIES CROCODILE TEARS

'Dreadful!' CNBC's Jim Cramer bitterly complains about historic union win at Amazon warehouse
Brad Reed
April 01, 2022

Jim Cramer (CNBC/screen grab)

CNBC host Jim Cramer does not appear enthused about the historic win for organized labor that occurred on Friday when an Amazon warehouse in State Island voted to unionize.

While discussing the victory on CNBC, Cramer complained that Amazon will no longer be allowed to order their workers at the State Island warehouse to show up whenever they're needed.

"If you can't tell your employees when they work, then you're really not able to have much of an ability to move product," he said. “The unions will be in charge of time that you need to work, and that would be dreadful!"

Cramer did acknowledge unions do exist in other companies and that those companies are still profitable, but he then pivoted back to griping about unions being able to set schedules for workers.

"No one wants to work certain shifts," he said. "So you can just say, 'Listen I'm not going to work that shift.' And Amazon would not be able to say, 'Yes you must work it!' So that's what's at stake with unions."

Cramer also added that "one reason why Amazon works so well is that people must work when Amazon says you must work."

Watch the video below.

PROGRESSIVES NEED TO PRIMARY THEM
Vulnerable Democrats warn Biden about reopening asylum

Fri, April 1, 2022,

PHOENIX (AP) — The Biden administration's decision to end sweeping asylum limits at the border this May satisfied demands by prominent Democrats eagerly awaiting the end of a program created by Donald Trump in the name of public health.

But it creates thorny political challenges for border-region Democrats who face the likely prospect of an increase in migrants who have for two years been denied the chance to seek asylum in the United States.

In unusually harsh critiques of a president from their own party, some of the congressional Democrats with the toughest reelection prospects are warning that the administration is woefully unprepared to handle the situation. Previous rises in migration have strained law enforcement agencies and nonprofits on the border trying to provide security and shelter.

“This is a crisis, and in my estimation, because of a lack of planning from the administration, it’s about to get worse,” said Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

Kelly and fellow Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema met Wednesday with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to press their case for the administration to better plan and coordinate a response. Last week, they wrote to President Joe Biden urging him to delay ending the pandemic rules until his administration is “completely ready to execute and coordinate a comprehensive plan that ensures a secure, orderly, and humane process at the border.”

Sinema and Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn sent a similar letter to Mayorkas on Thursday. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, another top target for Republicans, were critical of the decision Friday.

Migrants have been expelled from the U.S. more than 1.7 million times under public health powers invoked in March 2020 that are designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The Biden administration announced plans Friday to end Title 42 authority — named for a 1944 public health law — by May 23. Near the height of the omicron variant in late January, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had extended the order to this week.

The announcement comes after mounting pressure from many prominent Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to end a Trump-era program they cast as an excuse to wriggle out of obligations under U.S. law and international treaty to protect anyone fleeing persecution.

Kelly, Sinema and other skeptical Democrats say the emergency powers must go away eventually, but they say the federal government has failed to develop and share plans to minimize the impact on communities near the border and the local religious and nonprofit groups that help migrants there.

“I’ve worked really hard to make it very clear to them that this situation is unacceptable, and they seem to get the message,” Kelly added. “It’s more challenging to get them to turn this into an actionable plan.”

Kelly, elected from once-solidly conservative Arizona, is among the most vulnerable Democrats in the Senate. He’s aggressively targeted by Republicans in what is already a tough year for Democrats who are fighting to hold onto their razor-thin majority in the Senate.

Kelly declined to discuss the impact of the decision on his tough reelection campaign, saying he’s focused on his job as senator.

“They know the realities of Arizona and its history, especially as a border state,” Mike Noble, a Phoenix-based pollster who used to consult for Republican campaigns but now focuses on nonpartisan polling, said of Arizona's senators. “If they want to maintain their seats, they have to be tough on immigration, and if not, they could find themselves out of a job.”

Republicans see rising numbers of migrants as a winning issue with swing voters, particularly in border states like Arizona. An AP-NORC poll conducted in January found just 39% of Americans approve of how Biden is handling immigration. Eighty-seven percent of Republicans said they disapprove, but so did 34% of Democrats.

“The entire country sees the failure of the Biden administration and the laughing matter that this is to Kamala Harris, the self-appointed czar,” said Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, the co-chair of the Republican Governors Association, which raises money to elect GOP governors. “They’re gonna pay a hell of a price at the ballot box in November. In every state.”

In Texas, Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, both of whom represent border districts, joined Republicans in the Texas congressional delegation this week in expressing concern about ending Title 42.

“I did tell the White House, you understand that there will be vulnerable Democrats,” Cuellar said. “They acknowledge those concerns. But I think the White House has been under tremendous pressure by the immigration activists. They’re very vocal.”

Encapsulating internal divisions among Democrats, Cuellar’s primary opponent, immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros, said on Twitter that Cuellar’s support for keeping Title 42 amounts to “cruel and inhuman treatment of people whose stories and families resemble our own.”

Advocates for immigrants and refugees in Arizona say it’s long past time for the Biden administration to stop using public health rules to prevent people from claiming asylum.

Arizona’s senators seem to be looking at the border issue through a national political lens, said Joanna Williams, executive director of the Kino Border Initiative, which works in the twin border towns of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico.

“They are underestimating Arizonans,” Williams said. “We really have a community of hospitality that can arise to the occasion and help people. The senators need to listen to what people here are saying. This isn’t Texas.”

Alex Miller, director of asylum seekers and families for the International Rescue Committee in Arizona, said with coronavirus positivity rates among new arrivals now at less than 1% “the justification for closing the border is gone.”

“There is just no excuse for denying people fleeing from terrible abuse from getting asylum,” she said. “We have a moral responsibility to help these people.”

___

Associated Press writers Emily Swanson and Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed.

Jonathan J. Cooper And Anita Snow, The Associated Press

Migrant caravan clashes with authorities in southern Mexico

Online News EditorApril 1, 2022

By Juan Manuel Blanco

Mexico City, Apr 1 (EFE).- Hundreds of migrants set off on foot from the southeastern Mexican border city of Tapachula on Friday with the goal of reaching this capital and regularizing their status, but they clashed with federal authorities soon after embarking on their trek.

That new contingent of men, women and children, dubbed the “Migrant Way of the Cross” since the date of their departure was just days before the start of Easter Week, started off at around 7 am from that city in Chiapas state near the Guatemalan border, where thousands of migrants have been stranded for weeks or even months.

TIRED OF WAITING

Carlos Riquelme, a Salvadoran man, told Efe he is fed up with trying to obtain a residency permit through the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) or the National Institute of Migration (INM).

He said he has spent three years in Tapachula – denounced by migrant activists as a “city-prison” – and that when Comar finally ruled on his asylum request the response was negative.

The Central American said he had joined an earlier migrant caravan but was detained by immigration authorities.

“They didn’t even deport me back to my country. They left me in Mexico,” Riquelme said, adding that he wants to reach a region of Mexico with more job opportunities but that this will be his final attempt.

Venezuela’s Ivel Antonio Martinez said for his part that the economic situation in Tapachula is challenging.

He added that the migrants would welcome the protection of federal authorities along the route. “We don’t want violence or confrontation. We want peace and free passage.”

CLASHES WITH AUTHORITIES

On the first stretch of their planned 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) journey, the migrants walked from Tapachula to the village of Viva Mexico some 8 kilometers (5 miles) away.

The members of the migrant caravan clashed with INM and National Guard personnel at the first checkpoint they came upon in Viva Mexico, but they managed to break through the security barricade set up by those federal authorities.

Some 150 National Guard members were present during that initial confrontation.

The INM’s delegate in Chiapas, Paola Lopez Rodas, urged migrants to return and regularize their status but her petition was ignored.

Many of the migrants were knocked to the ground during the clash, some of them women and children, but no arrests were made and they continued to make their way along Chiapas’s coastal highway.

Some 7 km further along, the migrants encountered a veritable wall of federal agents and some even hurled rocks in their direction.

Several migrants were arrested at that juncture, although the caravan continued on with a reduced contingent, Efe observed.

MIGRANT WAVE

The region is experiencing a record flow of migrants trying to make their way to the US, whose Customs and Border Protection agency intercepted a record 1.7 million undocumented migrants trying to enter the country illegally in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2021.

Birds may be laying eggs earlier due to Climate change

Roughly a third of bird species around Chicago are laying their eggs earlier, one study found.

By Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech | April 1, 2022

David McNew/Getty Images

Story at a glance

About a third of Chicago-area bird species are laying their eggs earlier than normal, a study recently published in the Journal of Animal Ecology found.

Researchers believe the change in nesting is the result of earlier springs caused by climate change.

Birds typically lay their eggs in the spring when food is plentiful but laying their eggs too early could threaten the survival of their young.

Climate change is causing some species of birds to lay their eggs a month earlier than normal.

A study recently published in the Journal of Animal Ecology reports that roughly a third of all bird species around the Chicago area are nesting an average of 25 days earlier than usual.

The altered nesting dates are the result of warmer and earlier springs, which is the start of the breeding season for most North American bird species, according to the study.

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

“They have evolved to try and mate at a certain period of time because that is when food is most abundant to feed their babies,” said Jeremy Kirchman, curator of birds at the New York State Museum, who was not involved in the study. “Now, they’re nesting earlier because the cues that they are following in order to know when to breed are climate related.”

Researchers, including Kirman, worry that birds laying eggs in “false springs” run the risk of “mismatching” between their lay dates and when there is enough food. Cold snaps that occur in the springtime as a result of climate change also pose a threat to birds as food supplies are likely to perish during a sudden drop in temperature.

Bird populations in the United States are in decline, with the overall population of birds in North America having dropped by 3 billion since the 1970s. And climate change threatens to make the population decrease even more drastic.

“If we don’t do anything about climate change it’s not only that we are going to see these cold snaps, but there are other things that we are going to have to deal with, like heat waves, in the spring that could be detrimental to breeding,” said Brooke Bateman, director of climate science at the Audubon Society.

Researchers made the conclusion after comparing recent nesting dates of 72 species of bird that live in the Upper Midwest to old nest records archived in Chicago’s Field Museum as well as specimens at the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology and the Chicago Academy of Sciences.

The Field Museum has one of the largest egg collections in the world with hollowed out egg relics most of which were collected by lay egg collectors over 100 years ago, when the pastime was more popular.

“These early egg people were incredible natural historians, in order to do what they did. You really have to know the birds in order to go out and find the nests and do the collecting,” said John Bates, curator of birds at the Field Museum and lead author of the study.

“They were very attuned to when the birds were starting to lay, and that leads to, in my opinion, very accurate dates for when the eggs were laid.”

Two egg collections were analyzed for the study, the first included data from 1880 to 1920 and the second from 1990 to 2015.

In order to address the gap in data, one researcher, Mason Fidino, a quantitative ecologist at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, created a model that incorporated the change in nesting time during the gap years and changes to atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperatures.

Apocalyptic price of Ukraine’s victory in Irpin

By AFP
Published April 1, 2022

Irpin used to be a smart commuter town in the pine forests on Kyiv's northwestern edge - Copyright AFP Ishara S. KODIKARA

Danny KEMP

The last survivors in the ruins of Irpin have just one word to describe the Russians who have retreated after one of the pivotal battles of the war in Ukraine.

“Fascists!” rages Bogdan, 58, as he and his friends walk a dog through a deserted town centre that is free of shelling for the first time in a month.

His friends nod in agreement.

“Every 20 to 30 seconds we heard mortar shots. And so all day long. Just destruction,” the tent construction worker told AFP journalists who reached Irpin on Friday.

It used to be a smart commuter town in the pine forests on Kyiv’s northwestern edge.

But Irpin held off the full force of Russia’s invasion, becoming the closest Moscow’s forces got to the centre of the capital some 20 kilometres (12 miles) away.

The town whose once leafy parks were left strewn with bodies is now back under Ukrainian control, as Russian troops hastily pull back from outside Kyiv.

Victory came at a terrible price that has left it looking more like Aleppo or Grozny than an affluent satellite town in Ukraine.

Barely a building has escaped the fighting unscathed. Shelling has blasted huge chunks out of modern, pastel-coloured apartment blocks.

The foggy streets are eerily empty, littered with cars with bullet-scarred windscreens, and echoing with the sound of stray dogs.

“It’s the apocalypse,” says a Ukrainian soldier who hitches a ride across the empty town.

– ‘I love Irpin’ –

Irpin embodied the horrors of war in the early days of the invasion that Russian President Vladimir Putin said he launched to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine.

Images of a family wiped out by a shell as they tried to flee, and of thousands of people sheltering under a destroyed bridge, were seen around the world.

For the past three weeks it has been closed off to the media since the death of a US journalist, with Ukrainian authorities saying it was too dangerous to enter.

Now, near a sign in the town centre that says “I love Irpin” with a red heart, the handful of the town’s residents who stayed tell how they survived more than a month of relentless shelling.

“We hid in the basement. They fired Grad rockets, mortars and tank shells,” says Bogdan, asking to be identified only by his first name.

“My wife and I came under mortar fire twice. But that’s okay, we are alive and well.”

Wandering through a street blocked by a burned-out cement mixer, resident Viktor Kucheruk begs for cigarettes.

“As soon as we hear a shot, we immediately scatter to our burrows,” the 51-year-old says.

“The lamps in the chandeliers.. fell down from the explosions. We sat at home in the corner during the shelling, where the walls are the thickest.”

A new housing development with a large sign saying “Irpin, Rich Town” is pockmarked by shelling, with two apartments totally destroyed.

Playgrounds with abandoned children’s scooters lie covered in rubble.

Rescue workers are still retrieving the dead from Irpin and placing them in body bags, before taking them to the blown-up bridge that links the town with Kyiv.

The bridge is covered with dozens of burned, bullet-ridden and abandoned cars, which rescue workers are now trying to clear.

– Russian tank graveyard –

Ukrainian forces have “liberated” a string of Russian-occupied towns and villages near the capital in recent days after Russia said it would scale back attacks on Kyiv.

Russia’s pullback now appears to be gathering pace, even as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow was consolidating for an assault in the country’s east and south.

AFP journalists counted at least 13 destroyed Russian armoured vehicles around the village of Dmytrivka, five kilometres (three miles) southwest of Irpin.

At least three charred corpses of Russian soldiers could be seen in the burned-out wreckage of a single wiped-out convoy of eight tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

A severed lower leg lay next to one vehicle.

Russian military uniforms and personal belongings lay scattered on the ground, including a red-leather bound Russian translation of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”.

Villager Oksana Furman, 47, shows where Moscow’s military might had left a shell hole in her kitchen during the tank battle two days ago.

A Russian tank had also reversed into her garden wall, causing it to collapse.

“There was a crazy rumble, the noise of the vehicles, everything was shaking. And then it was shell after shell,” said Furman, who hid in a neighbour’s basement.

Back in Irpin, where authorities say at least 200 civilians were killed, residents are keeping Ukraine’s success in this battle in perspective.

“We recaptured Irpin, we recaptured a lot of things, but the war is not over,” says Bogdan.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/apocalyptic-price-of-ukraines-victory-in-irpin/article#ixzz7PFq9qNj6

Ramadan 2022: Turkey's Erdogan says Palestinians must enter Israel during holy month

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan also stresses shared energy interests between two Turkey and Israel

Israeli President Isaac Herzog (L) and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan met in Ankara in early March. AFP

Tim Kiek

Apr 01, 2022

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday told his Israeli counterpart Palestinians must be allowed to enter Israel during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In a phone call with President Isaac Herzog, President Erdogan also welcomed recent Israeli and Palestinian statements calling for easing tensions.

Tensions have eased in recent months between Turkey and Israel, too, with energy a conciliatory force.

Australia’s Largest Bank to Allow Workers to Discuss Pay: AFR

Georgina Mckay, Bloomberg News

Signage for Commonwealth Bank of Australia is displayed outside a branch in Sydney, Australia, on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019. Commonwealth Bank reported a slight increase in first-half profit as Chief Executive Officer Matt Comyn steadies the ship after the turmoil of a yearlong inquiry into financial industry misconduct. Photographer David Moir/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s largest bank removed secrecy clauses on salaries in its contracts, just days after a similar move by its rival.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia told employees they would be free to discuss their pay starting April 11 to boost pay equity, though they shouldn’t pressure co-workers to discuss the topic, the Australian Financial Review reported.

“As part of our commitment to identify and address any perceived or actual pay inequity, we have decided to remove the pay confidentiality clauses from new contracts and waive the obligation for confidentiality in all current ones,” the AFR cited a bank spokesman as saying.

The bank added that it has publicly disclosed “gender pay equity outcomes” for the past five years, including the latest figures in its 2021 annual report.

Australian men are twice as likely to be highly paid than women, according to a report from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. While the pay gap narrowed to 22.8% in the year through March 2021, the drop was just half a percentage point, as calls grow louder for stronger visibility and treatment of women in the country’s labor force.

Read more: Men Twice as Likely to Be Well Paid as Women in Australia

The change came after union concerns that managers were disciplining workers for discussing pay, the AFR reported. The bank had rejected the claims, it added.

Smaller rival Westpac Banking Corp. said earlier in the week it will no longer stop employees from openly discussing their salaries as part of an initiative to help narrow the gender pay gap.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Friday, April 01, 2022

Ramadan 2022: Turkey's Erdogan says Palestinians must enter Israel during holy month

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan also stresses shared energy interests between two Turkey and Israel

Australia’s Largest Bank to Allow Workers to Discuss Pay: AFR

About Me