U.S. CDC’s zombie apocalypse tips rise again for pandemic times

Josh K. Elliott 

© CDC A depiction of a zombie is shown in this promotional image from the CDC's website.

If there's one lesson that horror movies can teach, it's that you should always be prepared for a zombie outbreak — especially during a pandemic.

A decade-old guide to preparing for a zombie apocalypse has resurfaced on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, amid fresh paranoia caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Social media and Google traffic surged around the topic on Wednesday and Thursday, after a handful of news outlets recirculated the CDC tips alongside a zombie-related "prophecy" supposedly attributed to Nostradamus, the 16th-century French astrology. The prophecy mentions "half-dead" people and "great evils" leading to the end of the world.

Read more: Iran sentences ‘Zombie Angelina Jolie’ to 10 years in jail for photos

The reports quickly prompted people to make tongue-in-cheek plans for a real-life World War Z, the book and film in which zombies rise up against all the nations of the world.



There are no signs of a zombie apocalypse on the immediate horizon (yet). Nevertheless, the CDC's advice is useful with or without a horde of brain-hungry corpses hammering at your door.

The CDC has used zombie preparedness to teach people about disaster preparedness for nearly a decade, according to its website. It also appears to be making occasional tweaks to the plan, including an update on Feb. 23 of this year, according to its site.

"What first began as a tongue-in-cheek campaign to engage new audiences with preparedness messages has proven to be a very effective platform," the CDC says.

Video: A zombie apocalypse live action role playing game invades St. Laurent

The CDC campaign encourages everyone to set up a zombie apocalypse kit consisting of all the supplies you'd need in the event of a global catastrophe, a localized outbreak of brain-eaters or something more pedestrian, such as an earthquake or blackout.

Recommended supplies include food, water, tools, clothing, a radio, personal hygiene products and medications, important documents and first aid supplies.

Read more: Toilet paper panic: Fear, fights and memes spreading faster than coronavirus

"Although you're a goner if a zombie bites you, you can use these supplies to treat basic cuts and lacerations that you might get during a tornado or hurricane," the CDC says.

The preparedness blog also recommends setting up an emergency plan with your loved ones, so that everyone knows who to call and where to go "if zombies start appearing outside your doorstep."

"You can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake or other emergency."

Video: How would public health officials deal with a zombie apocalypse?

The zombie (and everything else) survival plan has become a popular messaging tool for many public health agencies over the last decade. British Columbia has run its own zombie survival campaign in the past, and the Canadian Red Cross has also adapted the CDC plan to fit its needs.

Read more: Amazon’s terms of service won’t apply in the event of a zombie apocalypse

There have been no zombie uprisings since the original tips were issued in 2011, though Denmark came close with its COVID-19-related "zombie mink" crisis last year. There have also been plenty of natural disasters in the intervening years, proving that it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

Because you never know when a flood, an earthquake or a flesh-eating monster will smash down your door.

Russia, China and India's new weapon for global supremacy? Vaccines

Ryan Tumilty 1 day ago

OTTAWA – In Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates vaccines are flowing quickly into arms. The tiny island nation of the Seychelles, with just 100,000 residents, has given more than half its population its first dose, and in Serbia they are handing out nearly 25,000 doses per day.

© Provided by National Post Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visits the Statchnology, Vector, which develops EpiVacCorona vaccie Research Centre of Virology and Biotene against COVID-19 in Novosibirsk, Russia March 5, 2021.

None of those countries have significant vaccine manufacturing or a major pharmaceutical industry, but what they do have is a regular supply of Chinese and Russian-made vaccines, in some cases supplementing the vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca.


Of the top 10 countries in the world on a doses per capita basis, six of them are using vaccines from Russia, China or India. Canada is 42nd in the world on a doses per capita basis according to Bloomberg News Service’s vaccine tracker. News reports and information from government websites show 16 of the countries ahead of Canada are using shots from one of those three countries.

While Western nations, including Canada, scramble to get doses for their citizens, the governments in Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi are shipping vaccine abroad to make new friends, even as their own national vaccination efforts lag behind the rest of the world

© STR/AFP via Getty Images A medical worker administers a dose of Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine to a man at a community health center in Nantong, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on March 2, 2021.


This week, China’s ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, said his country always planned to help the world.

“China stated in the early stages that once vaccines were developed and deployed they will become a global public good, so we are just honouring our commitment to help people, especially in developing countries,” he said. “We know the virus knows no borders.”

He said China is providing vaccine assistance to more than 50 countries and insists it comes with no strings attached.

“We are doing things so we make sure we are together in fighting this horrible pandemic.”

Guy Saint-Jacques, a senior fellow at the University of Alberta’s China Institute and a former Canadian ambassador to Beijing, said China is clearly using the vaccines to help its image.

“This is part of their efforts to burnish their reputation abroad because they know that it has been tarnished with all the mistakes they made handling the pandemic and also they want to contrast themselves with Western countries,” he said.

Several new outlets and human rights groups have condemned China’s apparent genocide of the Uyghur people and it has also faced criticism for the ongoing crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong. He said those issues could come to a head through votes at the United Nations or with a push to have the International Olympic Committee move the 2022 Beijing games. Saint-Jacques said Beijing will need more allies on the world stage and this is one way to get them.

“We have to understand that there’s a bigger game at play.”

David Mulroney, another of Canada’s former ambassadors to China, said much like with its belt and road initiative, China looks to garner favour wherever it can.

“It’s not at all surprising that China is seizing the initiative to conduct vaccine diplomacy. China makes use of carrots as well as sticks in its global influence campaign.”

Most Western countries have not sought out China or Russia’s vaccines. Canada has approved four vaccines as of Friday, from Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Johnson and Johnson, with a fifth from Novavax, still under review. Canada is receiving a version of AstraZencea’s vaccine made in India, but the Russian and Chinese candidates are not being considered.

The two vaccines are now showing positive real-world results, but early on there was limited data about their effectiveness. They didn’t follow the same clinical trial approach that vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna went through. Neither Health Canada or the American Food and Drug Administration are considering the two vaccines as viable candidates.

Russia’s vaccine, named Sputnik V, was more than 90 per cent effective in a recent study released in the British medical journal the Lancet. China has two vaccines shipping to other countries, one from a company named Sinovac and another from a firm called Sinopharm. Some studies have shown they are more than 80 per cent effective, but a trial in Brazil showed Sinovac’s vaccine was only 50.4 per cent effective.

In addition to developing nations and Gulf states, Russia has shipped its vaccine to countries like Hungary and Slovakia that were once more firmly inside the Russian orbit

© MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP via Getty Images A health worker inoculates a senior citizen with a Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine at a government hospital in Bangalore on March 5, 2021 as India continues its vaccination program for people above 45 year-old with co-morbidities and for those above 60 year-old.

Hungary, which is using both the Chinese and Russian vaccine, placed its orders last month as the European Union’s vaccine program ground down due to manufacturing delays.

Marcus Kolga, a senior fellow at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, said Russia is fully prepared to use its vaccine shipments to win new allies.

“I have no doubt that this is a strategic push to promote and increase Russia’s influence in those parts of the world,” he said.

He said former members of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact, like Hungary, that have drifted into the European Union are key targets for that influence and have been for decades.

“Ever since Vladimir Putin came into power he’s been trying to pull them back into Russia’s sphere,” he said.

But Russia has also spread its vaccine wider, with Mexico taking the shot and several states in the Middle East and Africa also taking doses.

Kolga said Russians themselves aren’t interested in the vaccine. Polling there has shown as many as 60 per cent of Riussians don’t plan to take it. He said that gives Russia even more latitude to ship doses around the world. He said a lack of pressure at home means Russia and China can push vaccines to the world.

“When it comes to a country like Russia, but especially China, they will just pour resources into mass producing these vaccinations because they see the opportunity here to win friends and new clients in Africa.”

The West’s answer to this vaccine diplomacy is supposed to come through COVAX, the international alliance that is expected to ship two billion vaccines this year.

The program is structured to have rich countries buy doses for themselves alongside vaccines for developing countries. Many wealthier countries opted to skip or at least delay their doses, but Canada is taking at least 1.9 million doses from the alliance.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended that decision after it was announced. “Our contribution was always intended to access vaccine doses for Canadians as well as to support lower-income countries,” he said.

But there have been vaccine disputes, even among Western nations. On Thursday Italy halted the shipment of 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to Australia, citing AstraZeneca’s inability to meet delivery targets in Europe, a move supported by the European Union and France.

When Canada’s first shipment of its newest vaccine, AstraZeneca, arrived in Canada this week, India’s High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria was on hand. AstraZeneca is making its own doses, but also has a license agreement with India’s Serum Institute to make billions of doses for India and for countries around the world.

Canada’s deal for two million doses from India was a commercial arrangement, but India has also donated thousands of vaccines to countries like the Barbados and the Maldives. In all, Bisaria said his country has shipped 40 million doses to 14 different countries, either through donations or commercial deals.

Bisaria said the country is “very aware of a global responsibility of being the pharmacy of the world and the vaccine-makers of the world.”

He said they do view the vaccine as a diplomatic tool to build stronger ties between nations and commercial links for its industry. The Serum Institute is the world’s largest vaccine maker, but they also feel they have a responsibility to help.

“We attempt to give it to countries which have made requests, which didn’t have any program of their own. So, it is certainly one aspect of diplomacy, but it is also a consciousness of an international responsibility,” he said.

COVID cases in India have been in decline for weeks, after growing to as many as 100,000 new cases a day. Its own vaccine rollout has been slow, with only one per cent of the population currently vaccinated. While still much lower than it was at the start of the year, cases have begun to creep up again in the country.

Bisaria said that steep decline in cases gives India the room to share its doses to countries in need.

Kanta Murali, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, said she sees India vaccine shipments in part as a counter on China, especially among India’s neighbours — countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

“In fact, that is a little bit of a geopolitically strategic move — it’s a counter to China’s growing influence in the region,” she said.

Murali said for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has faced criticisms on a variety of fronts, it is also a chance to do some reputational repair . The country has been criticized for violent crackdowns on farmers protesting new legislation and the Modi government has arrested dozens of journalists.

“In some ways, this is also an attempt to improve its image in the midst of what is what has been significantly declining democratic trends,” she said.

She said Western governments will have to deal with the consequences of this vaccine diplomacy in the long term, but in the short term it is hard to see them diverting supplies for their own citizens.

“The hands of Western governments are tied at this point in time, given their need to get their own populations vaccinated very quickly.”

Twitter: RyanTumilty

Email: rtumilty@postmedia.com

Jobless French culture workers occupy theatre to demand aid

SEND IN THE CLOWNS   TO GIVE VACCINATIONS

PARIS — Out-of-work French culture and tourism workers are occupying an iconic theatre on Paris’ Left Bank to demand more government support after a year of pandemic that has devastated their incomes and put their livelihoods on indefinite hold.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

With sleeping bags and food, they've set up inside the ornate lobby and velveted balconies of the 19th century Odeon Theater for as long as it takes to call attention to their demands.

About 50 people occupied the theatre starting Thursday and unfurled union banners from atop its columned facade reading “Culture Sacrificed” and “Six unemployed workers out of 10 not compensated – Scandal!”

Among their demands is another year of special government aid for seasonal theatre workers, who often struggle to make ends meet but have been particularly crippled since the virus hit. French theatres, cinemas, museums and tourist sites have been closed for much of the past year as part of government virus protection measures, and no reopening plans have been announced.

The Associated Press

WALL STREET DEMOCRAT

Biden's associate attorney general pick would be wealthiest member of administration

With assets worth tens of millions of dollars, associate attorney general nominee Vanita Gupta is thus far the Biden administration's wealthiest political nominee that has publicly released a financial disclosure form.


The disclosure of Gupta's financial interests comes as she faces a potentially rocky confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming week.

Gupta, a civil rights attorney-turned Justice Department nominee, has reported owning between $42 million and $187 million in assets and properties with her spouse in her disclosure report filed to the Office of Government Ethics. She reported earning between $902,000 and $3 million in the past year, the filing shows

.

© Susan Walsh/AP, FILE In this Jan. 7, 2021, file photo, Associate Attorney General nominee Vanita Gupta speaks during an event with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del.

The biggest chunks of her assets come from her shares in companies linked to her father, Raj Gupta, a corporate chairman and Wall Street financier with vast corporate interests.

According to the filing, Vanita Gupta owns between $11 million and $55 million in shares of Avantor, a chemicals and materials company headquartered in Pennsylvania, for which Raj Gupta is the chairman of the board.

MORE: As Biden’s son-in-law invests in COVID-19 response, questions of family and ethics could resurface

She also reported owning between $500,000 and $1 million in shares of Aptiv, an American-Irish-British auto parts company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, for which Raj Gupta also serves as chairman.

According to the report, Gupta also owns between $950,000 and $2 million in entities connected to the private equity firm New Mountain Capital, for which her father has served as a senior adviser. Raj Gupta has also served on the board of the Vanguard Group, one of the biggest index fund companies, and Vanita Gupta owns between $11 million and $49 million worth of Vanguard index funds, which are commonly owned by other political appointees.

She holds much of those assets through family trusts she controls, except for $5 million to $25 million in Avantor, $500,000 to $1 million in Aptiv and six-figures in New Mountain Finance Co., which are under a brokerage account.

In her ethics agreement provided by the Biden transition team, Vanita Gupta wrote that she would retain her financial interests in those companies but would resign from her position as co-trustee of her family trust.

She would also not participate "personally or substantially" in matters related to companies in which she or her family hold a financial interest.

She also wrote that she would not participate in matters related to companies in which her father holds leadership roles, including Avantor and Aptiv.

MORE: As Biden enters White House, some allies, former staffers thrive as lobbyists

A spokesperson for Biden's transition team, when questioned about Gupta's financial interests, referred ABC News to her ethics agreement. The Department of Justice, when asked for comment, also referred to the same agreement.

Gupta's plan to recuse herself from matters involving the financial interests of her family and herself is typically required by conflict of interest laws, said Delaney Marsco, senior legal counsel of ethics at Washington-based good government group Campaign Legal Center.

Gary Gensler, Biden's pick to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, is the second wealthiest Biden appointee to disclose their financial interests to this point. Gensler reported owning between $41 million and $119 million in various assets, comprised mostly of investment funds and brokerage accounts, along with some real estate properties in Baltimore.

© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, FILE In this May 22, 2012, file photo, Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler answers questions from senators while testifying before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee about derivatives reform on Capitol Hill.

With the approach of Gupta's confirmation hearing, she's recently been the subject of attacks from some far-right Republicans accusing her of being radically progressive and anti-police.

The Judicial Crisis Network has opposed Gupta's confirmation with an $800,000 ad campaign titled, "Dangerous Appointee," which accuses Gupta of supporting the "defund the police" movement.

Gupta, who says that she has never endorsed such policies, has had multiple police advocacy groups rally around her. Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee last month expressing support for Gupta's nomination.

"She always worked with us to find common ground even when that seemed impossible," Yoes said. "Although in some instances our disagreements remain, her open and candid approach has created a working relationship that is grounded in mutual respect and understanding."

And a separate GOP-led group has launched a $1 million "Confirm Gupta" campaign, highlighting Gupta's bipartisan support in TV ads running in Maine, Alaska, West Virginia and other states whose senators could be key to her confirmation.

Lauren Boebert, who once expressed support for QAnon, (JUST LAST WEEK) accused Democrats of being 'obsessed with conspiracy theories'

sankel@businessinsider.com (Sophia Ankel) 

© Joe Raedle/Getty Images Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) attends the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 27, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert told Fox News that the Democrats are "obsessed with conspiracy theories."

Boebert was complaining about the heightened security measures in the Capitol this week.

The congresswoman once said she hopes the QAnon conspiracy theory was real but denied being a follower.

Freshman GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who has previously expressed support for QAnon, accused Democratic of being "obsessed with conspiracy theories."

Boebert was speaking to Fox News on Saturday about the ongoing security measures that have been implemented around the Capitol following the insurrection on January 6, which led to five people's deaths.

This week, measures were ramped up even more amid fears of potential violence from QAnon followers on March 4 - the day they believed would be Former President Trump's second inauguration.

"No one on the outside can get into the Capitol, it is only staffers and members of Congress who are allowed at the people's house," Boebert said, according to Newsweek. "At our nation's Capital. This is complete bonkers that we are keeping people out of the US Capitol. There's clearly not a threat. There was nothing that happened on March 4."

"The Democrats are obsessed with conspiracy theories and they won't let them go," she continued. "We have a border fence around the People's house, with miles of razor wire. And Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi wants to keep it up."

Watch the moment below:

Her comments come amid reports that around 4,900 National Guard troops are set to stay in the DC until March 12 because of threats of far-right violence, energized by the QAnon conspiracy theorists.

While a handful of QAnon followers traveled across the country this week in the hope of watching Trump return to power, not much ended up transpiring and DC was largely quiet.

But with swaths of America's far-right refusing to accept Biden as legitimate president and a hardcore of extremists determined to provoke a violent insurrection, it's a threat security officials believe is unlikely to recede any time soon.

Boebert herself has previously expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory but denied that she is a follower of it, the Guardian reported.

"Everything that I've heard of Q, I hope that this is real because it only means that America is getting stronger and better, and people are returning to conservative values," she said last year, according to the Guardian.

QAnon began in 2017 as an online myth that claimed that the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would soon be arrested, based on an unfounded allegation that she was involved in child sex trafficking.

The GOP congresswoman has previously also made headlines for being a vocal and provocative defender of gun rights, including the release of an ad where she said she would carry her handgun on the Capitol grounds. She also owns her own restaurant called Shooter's Grill, where customers can openly carry guns.

Last month, Boebert was criticized by her Democratic colleagues for displaying a gun "shrine" as her Zoom background.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Kyrsten Sinema Knocked by Ohio Democrat Nina Turner:

 'Denying Women a Living Wage Is Sexist'

Nicole Fallert 

A thumbs-down gesture by a U.S. senator has ignited a debate about feminism.

© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona was met with backlash for giving a thumbs-down gesture when she voted against raising the federal minimum wage, sparking a debate about feminism. Senate Aviation and Space Subcommittee ranking Sinema questions witnesses during a hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on May 14, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Senator Krysten Sinema (D-Ariz.) made a thumbs-down motion on Friday when she voted against a provision in President Joe Biden's COVID-19 relief package that would have incrementally raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Did Sinema really have vote against a $15 minimum wage for 24 million people like this? pic.twitter.com/Jv0UXLKLHI— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) March 5, 2021

Sinema's action prompted a firestorm of reactions from lawmakers who saw the gesture as flippant or an expression of joy in reaction to knocking down the wage hike. Her thumbs-down angered other Democrats and progressives, who have championed that a minimum amendment would lift millions of Americans out of poverty and reduce annual government expenditures.

Sinema responded that backlash to the gesture in the Senate chamber was "sexist," her spokesperson told HuffPost, arguing she shouldn't be held to a different standard when male senators also use body language as a form of expression, too.

"Commentary about a female senator's body language, clothing, or physical demeanor does not belong in a serious media outlet," the spokesperson for the senator said.

Sinema voted with Republicans and seven fellow Democrats against the amendment to the American Rescue Plan, which the Senate passed on Saturday morning without the minimum wage provision.

"No person who works full time should live in poverty," Sinema said in a statement Friday, adding that the Senate should "hold an open debate" on raising the minimum wage "separate" from discussion of the American Rescue Plan.

pic.twitter.com/a2VkwKcY8r— Kyrsten Sinema (@SenatorSinema) March 5, 2021

The raise for low-wage workers had to be considered as an amendment to the budget reconciliation bill, after the Senate parliamentarian ruled the minimum wage was an "extraneous issue" to the the COVID-19 relief package.

"Denying women a living wage is sexist," retorted Ohio Democratic congressional candidate Nina Turner in a tweet Friday evening.

Denying women a living wage is sexist. https://t.co/uPKysT2C12— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) March 6, 2021

Turner's response brings to light how the federal minimum wage is as much of a feminist issue as ridiculing a woman's body language.

Raising the minimum wage would be a direct benefit to 19 million women, according to the Center for American Progress (CAP). The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted women, forcing them to choose between paid work and unpaid domestic labor, such as homeschooling children.

Increasingly, women have been forced to leave the workforce as a result of that choice, according to a report released Thursday by the International Monetary Fund.

CAP argues that a $15 minimum wage would bolster women in the workforce. Twenty-three percent of women who would get a raise are Black and Latina women who have been significantly affected by the pandemic, holding a large portion of low-wage jobs that pay either $7.25 an hour or above. This would translate to an annual raise of $3,700 in wages for Black and Latina women and $3,500 on average for women.

If Congress had passed the amendment, 1 in 4 women would have gotten a raise. Seven million women who are essential workers would also experience a hike in pay.

Sinema's home state could have also seen the benefits. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Black and Latina make up 5 and 31 percent of Arizona's population, respectively. Advocates also pointed out on social media that amendment would have given raises for 839,000 people in Arizona, according to the Brookings Institution, and shared a 2014 Twitter post by Sinema in which she expressed raising the minimum wage was a "no-brainer."

Here are the numbers of people who make under $15 per hour in states of senators who voted no on the hike, as of 2019:

Sinema: 839K

Manchin: 229K

Carper: 106K

Coons: 106K

Hassan: 146K

Shaheen: 146K

King: 158K

Tester: 126K

From this study I reported on:

 https://t.coVn/JTq3SuRN 

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 5, 2021

Newsweek has reached out to Sinema for comment.

Pandemic puts 1 in 3 nonprofits in financial jeopardy

NGO'S ARE PART OF THE INFORMAL STATE

NEW YORK — More than one-third of U.S. nonprofits are in jeopardy of closing within two years because of the financial harm inflicted by the viral pandemic, according to a study being released Wednesday by the philanthropy research group Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy.

(99+) (PDF) Naomi Klein - The shock doctrine. The rise of disaster capitalism (2007) | Črt Tavš - Academia.edu

Murder of the Dead by Amadeo Bordiga 1951

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The study's findings underscore the perils for nonprofits and charities whose financial needs have escalated over the past year, well in excess of the donations that most have received from individuals and foundations. The researchers analyzed how roughly 300,000 nonprofits would fare under 20 scenarios of varying severity. The worst-case scenario led to the closings of 38% of the nonprofits. Even the scenarios seen as more realistic resulted in closures well into double digit percentages.

Officials of Candid, which includes the philanthropic information resources GuideStar and Foundation Center, and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, which analyzes charitable giving during crises, said the most dire scenarios could be avoided if donations were to increase substantially — from the government as well as from private contributors.

“If you are a donor who cares about an organization that is rooted in place and relies on revenue from in-person services, now is the time probably to give more,” said Jacob Harold, Candid’s executive vice-president.

Among the most vulnerable nonprofits, the study said, are those involved in arts and entertainment, which depend on ticket sales for most of their revenue, cannot significantly their reduce expenses and don’t typically hold much cash.

Other studies have concluded that smaller arts and culture groups, in particular, are at serious risk. Californians for the Arts, for example, surveyed arts and culture nonprofits in the state and found that about 64% had shrunk their workforces. Roughly 25% of them had slashed 90% or more of their staffs. And a report last week from New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found that employment in New York City’s arts, entertainment and recreation sector tumbled 66% during 2020.

“It really has been devastating,” said Kristina Newman-Scott, president of BRIC, a Brooklyn arts institution best-known for its community TV channel and Celebrate Brooklyn! concert series. “We have a lot of empathy for our colleagues and friends in the arts space who, based on their model, see things that are just not going to be the same for them. They will be navigating a very different financial pathway.”

Newman-Scott said BRIC has been helping sustain smaller arts nonprofits and offering artists unrestricted $10,000 grants through its Colene Brown Art Prize.

“We are anxious to get back to in-person events,” she said. “But we want to do it as part of a community. We don’t want to be the only one. We want other organizations that are and have been doing extraordinary work, especially the smaller folks who have it harder because they just don’t have as many resources. We want them to be around us also.”

Harold, the Candid executive, said that while arts and entertainment groups may be at particular risk, nonprofits from all sectors are in danger. According to the study, the District of Columbia was expected to lose the most nonprofits per capita, followed by Vermont and North Dakota.

The most vulnerable nonprofits may try to reduce costs this year by narrowing their focus or by furloughing workers. Some may seek a merger or an acquisition to bolster their financial viability, Harold noted, although doing so would still mean that fewer nonprofits would survive.

“A lot of non-profit boards were able to say, ‘Oh, this is going to end soon’ and ‘We’re fine for a year,’” Harold said. “But they might not be fine for two years. So if they dragged their feet last year, they may find themselves really having to scramble this year to make the structural changes now.”

The perils that nonprofits face are similar to the economic damage from the pandemic that forced so many restaurants to either close or operate at deep losses over the past year. An estimated 110,000 restaurants — roughly one in six — closed in 2020 and, according to the National Restaurant Association, the pandemic could force 500,000 more to shut down.

President Joe Biden last week ordered the Small Business Administration to prioritize businesses and nonprofits with fewer than 20 employees in the awarding of loans through the Paycheck Protection Program.

“Since the beginning of this pandemic, 400,000 small businesses have closed — 400,000 — and millions more are hanging by a thread,” Biden said. “It’s hurting black, Latino and Asian American communities the hardest.”

Harold said that while the federal government's focus on small businesses and small nonprofits will help some of them survive, “it’s not going to have a huge impact.”

The Candid/Center for Disaster Philanthropy study found that $20.2 billion was donated to combat COVID-19 in 2020, with 44% of it coming from corporations. It was one of many notable shifts in philanthropy during the pandemic.

“We were definitely seeing more grants for flexible operating expenses and general support,” said Grace Sato, Candid’s director of research. “More grants were explicitly designated for vulnerable communities, communities most impacted by the pandemic.”

The pandemic also made some major foundations recognize how burdensome their grant process has been and finally took steps to simplify it, Harold said.

“One of the dominant emotional dynamics is guilt,” he said. “They finally crossed the threshold. We saw that with hundreds and hundreds of foundations.”

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Lilly Endowment for coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Glenn Gamboa, The As

Berlinale film highlights Belarus protesters' courage to carry on


BERLIN (Reuters) - The director of "Courage," a documentary about three actors who threw themselves into the protests that erupted after Belarus's contested presidential elections last summer, hopes the film will help highlight the plight of political prisoners in the country.

The film, which is showing at this year's Berlin Film Festival, follows the lives of a trio of actors who 15 years ago quit the Minsk State Theatre in protest against repression to set up their own underground theatre group.

Last year, their time came when thousands took to the streets across the East European country of 10 million, saying that the election victory claimed by President Alexander Lukashenko was fraudulent.

"We knew from the very beginning that it could get real serious," said director Aliaksei Paluyan. "When a person who has been exploiting your country for 26 years says they are going to shoot... to me and to my camera-woman it was clear: They are going to shoot."

The protests that have racked the country since August have seen opposition candidate Svetlana Tichankovskaya driven into exile, while her husband and many close allies are in prison alongside many others who have been arrested in police crackdowns of a brutality unprecedented in the country.

Paluyan, a Belarusian who left for Germany in 2012, said that while he was hoping the film would reach a big audience, he was afraid, both for his country and for his film's three protagonists, thrust into the centre of attention by his film.

"Courage and audacity is when you say 'I'm afraid, I'm horribly afraid, but I'm still going to continue'," he said.

The film festival began on Monday in a low-key, private fashion, being streamed to a select audience of journalists and industry professionals rather than playing to packed cinemas. The public will be invited to screenings from the festival in June, when authorities hope vaccinations will enable cinemas to reopen.

U of A scientist co-leads expert U.S. panel on removing carbon from atmosphere

Author of the article: Lisa Johnson, EDMONTON JOURNAL

Publishing date:Mar 07, 2021 • 

Associate professor Siobhan A. (Sasha) Wilson, a biogeochemist whose work focuses on environmental aspects of economic geology, at the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences building on Sept. 18, 2018. PHOTO BY JOHN ULAN /University of Alberta

A University of Alberta scientist is sharing her expertise with policy-makers in the United States in hopes of removing atmospheric carbon dioxide on a mass scale.

Associate professor Sasha Wilson and her colleagues, working with the American non-profit Energy Futures Initiative, co-led a panel in December for U.S. congressional staff on how the American government could speed up the use of what are known as mineral carbonation technologies.

“Carbon dioxide removal could become a billion-tonne industry on this continent in the next few decades,” said Wilson in a Saturday interview.

As an associate professor in Earth and atmospheric sciences and Canada Research Chair in biogeochemistry of sustainable mineral resources, Wilson looks at how we can use the natural interaction between minerals and carbon dioxide to make the minerals industry more sustainable.

“Canada’s economy relies on natural resources, and a lot of our CO2 emissions come from that sector. So this gives me an opportunity to help make our natural resources industries greener and cleaner,” said Wilson.

She added Canada is at the forefront of carbon dioxide removal with mineral carbonation, which is one of the reasons so many Canadians were invited to participate on the expert panel.

“There’s a huge hub for innovation here,” she said.

Wilson said capturing carbon from the atmosphere will be essential, because getting to carbon neutral alone won’t be enough to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

“We need to go net negative rather than net zero, but net zero — it’s a great place to start,” said Wilson.

Mineral carbonation is the process of permanently capturing carbon dioxide in minerals that are rich in magnesium and calcium. The process occurs naturally, but scientists have also developed methods of mineral carbonation that use waste materials, like mine tailings.

“They’re just speeding up the natural processes,” Wilson said.

One type of mineral carbonation technology uses finely crushed minerals to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide using their natural reactivity, like replacing some fertilizers with pulverized rock to help draw down carbon, Wilson said.

Another method involves injected carbon dioxide gathered from the atmospheric or industrial waste into minerals beneath Earth’s surface.

“It’s really similar to what we already do here in Alberta with carbon capture and storage,” said Wilson, adding that the CO2 will react more quickly and turn into minerals if you utilize the right mineral materials.

lijohnson@postmedia.com

As debate rages over cross-border pipelines, U.S. analysts brace for more oil by rail

AND TRUCK

"The rail industry overall — but hazardous-materials transportation specifically — is more dangerous than it was before."

WASHINGTON — The fierce debate over cross-border pipelines is putting more Canadian oil and gas on trains destined for the United States — a country experts fear is ill-equipped for the potential consequences.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

It would take an oil-by-rail calamity of a scale comparable to the 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster in Quebec before Americans wake up to the dangers, U.S. rail safety analysts say.

"There's a bullet whizzing past our head," said Eric de Place, an energy policy expert and director at the Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based think tank focused on sustainability issues in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

On average, more than a million barrels of crude oil travel through Washington state each week, most of it from North Dakota but about 13 per cent from Alberta and Saskatchewan, according to the state's Department of Ecology.

The risks were punctuated late last year when seven tanker cars carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire just outside Bellingham, Wash., a city of nearly 90,000 people not far from the Canada-U.S. border.

"The only thing I can imagine is that there will have to be a significant loss of life before we get the regulatory attention that the industry deserves, in my opinion, and that's a tragedy that's just waiting to unfold," de Place said.

"We're talking about 300-foot tall fireballs — this is cinematic, when accidents happen. I mean, it looks like a James Cameron movie."

It's a real-life image Canadians know all too well.

In July 2013, an oil-laden train derailed and exploded in the heart of Lac-Mégantic in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec, killing 47 and levelling half of downtown — the deadliest non-passenger train accident in Canadian history.

The tragedy put a laser-sharp focus on oil-by-rail in Canada, resulting in a number of regulatory changes, including an end to single-person train crews and the phaseout of DOT-111 or TC-111 tanker cars for crude oil.

In the U.S., however, new rules that took effect in 2016 didn't explicitly prohibit the use of DOT-111s for flammable cargo, said Fred Millar, an independent rail industry analyst and safety expert in Alexandria, Va.

A Bureau of Transportation report submitted to Congress in September found that while DOT-111s stopped carrying crude oil in 2018, the cars still carry some flammable liquids such as ethanol, and won't be completely gone until 2029.

In 2019, the report said, 73 per cent of the tank car fleet carrying crude oil in the U.S. comprised DOT-117 cars — a heavier, "jacketed" tanker with more robust valves and reinforced shields at either end.

"More than 99.99 per cent of all haz-mat moved by rail reaches its destination without a release caused by an accident," Jessica Kahanek of the Association of American Railroads said in a statement.

"Railroads also long advocated for tougher tank car standards and fully endorsed rules that are now in place requiring these cars have higher grade steel, improved thermal protection, thicker shells, and enhanced valves."

Developed after Lac-Mégantic, DOT-117s are only "marginally safer" than their predecessors, said Millar, noting that Congress has consistently refused to impose limits on train length or speed, or require that dangerous cargo be rerouted away from population centres.

"The thing about rail car safety is there's a trade-off between the weight of the car and how much product you can carry — there's a conflict between safety and profit," he said.

"If you put on more steel to protect from puncture, that means you have to put in less product."

Oil and gas exports from Canada depend heavily on commodity prices; crude shipments by rail plunged last summer as the price of oil collapsed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, well off the dramatic peaks they posted at the beginning of the year.

But those exports are ticking back up: Canada exported more than 190,000 barrels a day in December 2020, twice the level posted just four months earlier, according to data from the federal energy regulator.

Environmentalists have long opposed pipeline projects like TC Energy's Keystone XL and Enbridge Inc.'s Line 3 and Line 5 for fear of an expansion of Alberta's oilsands operations as well as further North American dependence on fossil fuels.

President Joe Biden cancelled the Keystone XL expansion on his first day in office, while Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants to shut down Line 5, which links Wisconsin and Sarnia, Ont., via the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan has vowed to defend Line 5, which he called a vital source of energy and jobs in Michigan and Ohio, as well as Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec.

That energy is going to get to market by any means available, all of them less reliable "and with regard to oil by rail … far less safe" than pipelines, O'Regan told a House of Commons committee Thursday.

"Just so that we all understand what's at stake … that energy, those molecules, are going to have to be transported either by rail, by truck, or by marine transportation," O'Regan said.

"They will have to get sourced, because people will not be kept cold — that's for sure."

Millar said the Trump administration tried to make it easier to ship energy by rail in the U.S., including authorizing the transport of liquefied natural gas throughout the country and trying to block efforts to require two-person train crews.

An appeals court in Nebraska last month rejected the Trump-era decision to abandon the two-person rule, which the Obama administration introduced in 2016 in response, in part, to Lac-Mégantic.

"We've passed through a very dangerous phase," Millar said.

"The rail industry overall — but hazardous-materials transportation specifically — is more dangerous than it was before."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2021.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press