New Linux Foundation project takes blockchain and the open source approach to the insurance industry

Veronica Combs 

TECHREPUBLIC

4/12/2021

© Provided by TechRepublic Image: uriz, Getty Images/iStockphoto

Two working groups are using a blockchain and a new collaboration platform to introduce the insurance industry to the idea of sharing data to develop new solutions. The Linux Foundation is developing this service in partnership with the American Association of Insurance Services.

The Open Insurance Data Link platform will reduce the cost of regulatory reporting for insurance carriers, provide a standardized data repository for analytics and a connection point for third parties to deliver new applications to members, according to the foundation. The foundation announced the new project on Monday, April 12 and describes the project as the "first open blockchain platform that enables the efficient, secure and permissioned-based collection and sharing of statistical data."

"From the very beginning, we recognized the enormous transformative potential for openIDL and distributed ledger technology," AIS CEO Ed Kelly said in a press release. "We are happy to work with the Linux Foundation to help affect meaningful, positive change for the insurance ecosystem."

SEE: A new Linux Foundation open source signing tool could make secure software supply chains universal (TechRepublic)

openIDL is also collaborating on joint software development including Hyperledger Fabric, Hadoop, Node.js, MongoDB and other open technologies to implement a "harmonized data store," that will allow data privacy and accountable operations.

openIDL is part of the foundation's open governance network which includes nodes run by numerous organizations and connected by a shared distributed ledger that provides a platform for recording transactions and automating business processes. The network uses open source code and community governance for objective transparency and accountability among participants.

Mike Dolan, senior vice president and general manager of projects at the Linux Foundation, said in a press release that the organization is excited to host this work.

"Open governance networks like openIDL can now accelerate innovation and development of new product and service offerings for insurance providers and their customers," he said.

Other partners include The Hanover Insurance Group, Travelers, The Hartford and technology and service providers Chainyard, KatRisk and MOBI.

Two working groups are using the platform: one focused on floods and the other on property and casualty regulatory reporting. The flood group is developing solutions to evaluate and respond to the U.S. flood risk while the other group is developing solutions to make regulatory reporting more transparent while still protecting proprietary information.

According to the press release, all software source code developed will be licensed under an OSI-approved open source license, and all interface specifications developed will be published under an open specification license. Also, technical discussions between participants will take place publicly with the goal of expanding the network to include other participants.

'Children will die': Transgender advocates warn about risks as more states consider banning gender-affirming care for kids

Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY 

Willow Breshears knew she was different for as long as she can remember. Growing up in rural Arkansas, she said she often felt depressed, her discoveries about herself quashed by social norms and Baptist teachings.


How the LGBTQ community is still fighting for rights years after Stonewall

Now 18 and living in Little Rock, the transgender activist testified before lawmakers as part of an effort to try to stop the passage of a proposed state law that, among other things, would ban doctors from providing gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to youths under 18. She and others protesting the measure were unsuccessful.

The mostly Republican Legislature overrode Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto last week to make Arkansas the first state to enact such a law. About 30 states are mulling similar legislation – a development advocates say endangers the lives of young transgender people, places ideology over science and disrupts the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship by preventing doctors from providing best-practice care

© Rick Bowmer, AP Robyn and Clay Rumsey's child Dex, 15, of Roy, Utah, came out as transgender at age 12. In consultation with a counselor and doctors, he began wearing short hair and boy's clothes, then used puberty blockers and testosterone. He says he could become depressed and suicidal if a ban on hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery for minors passes.

“The only people who should have that say is that transgender person, their family and their doctors,” Breshears said. “This is not a place for legislators to step into.”

Arkansas’ Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act prohibits physicians from referring patients to other providers and, in what some call a particularly heinous move, includes no grandfather clause for youth under treatment.

“That means that if you’re already taking puberty blockers prescribed by a doctor, the state of Arkansas has just gone into your doctor’s office and told them, ‘You cannot prescribe this or do any bloodwork to monitor your levels,’” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “This is truly a phenomenal level of government overreach.”

Critics compare lawmakers to bullies picking on a small but vulnerable population, using transgender youth as pawns in a cultural war while placing their emotional and physical well-being in jeopardy. Such legislation, they say, plays on fear and misinformation and places doctors in an ethically difficult position of providing care at the risk of losing their medical license.

These measures raise the risk of mental health issues among transgender youth already prone to higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts, opponents say.

“There’s only so many people taking puberty blockers in Arkansas,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “But every single transgender person is feeling the effect of this attack. It’s the government, pure and simple, saying, 'You don’t belong.' It’s such an antagonistic and heartless message to send.”

Such fears are not unfounded: Arkansas state Rep. Deborah Ferguson, a Democrat who spoke out against the bill, said that after the law passed, an Arkansas Children's Hospital physician testified that several of the approximately four dozen youth receiving hormonal therapy have tried to commit suicide.

“It is unfortunate that the makeup of our Legislature has changed to the extent that we are weaponizing religion to discriminate against this small minority,” Ferguson said.

Advocates said access to gender-affirming medical care is linked with better mental health, including a lower incidence of suicidal thoughts. Bills denying such care have been condemned by major medical groups around the country, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.

“This legislation throws away decades of medical progress,” said Jack Turban, a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, calling it “dangerous and anti-science.”

For Breshears, the Little Rock activist, her gender-affirming care was “life-changing and lifesaving,” she said. “I started hormones at age 13, and I can say that without that, I might not be here today.”

Breshears came out as gay when she was 12, even as she knew the label didn’t really fit. It wasn’t until after her family moved to Little Rock, where she began attending youth programs at an LGBT rights organization, that she learned the language that could describe who she was.

“I had heard the word ‘transgender’ a couple times before that but never really in a positive way,” said Breshears, who leads those same youth programs. “That’s what really helped me flourish. I was a woman, but I never really knew the words to describe that.”

Though her declaration splintered her extended family, her mom and grandmother “have been super supportive,” she said.

Breshears scoffed at notions pushed by lawmakers that those under 18 are too young to decide for themselves.

“It’s not something where you just wake up and decide you’re trans,” she said. “Any parent of a trans child is going to tell you they knew from a very young age. The first thing my mom said when I told her was, ‘You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for you to tell me that.’”
'Explicit attempts at erasing trans youth'

Arkansas’ SAFE Act, though citing the relatively low population of people it describes as having struggled with “distress at identifying with their biological sex,” says gender-affirming treatments prescribed by doctors haven’t been fully proved safe and claims without citation that the majority of individuals come to identify with their birth gender in adulthood, making such care unnecessary.

State Rep. Robin Lundstrum, a Republican who was the bill's primary sponsor, quoted a Swedish study saying transgender individuals who'd undergone gender reassignment surgery were more likely than the general population to suffer mental health issues and far more likely to commit suicide. That 2011 study also said such surgeries eased gender dysphoria and improved care afterward.

Though Arkansas' is the first of its kind to become law, the Human Rights Campaign says nearly 60 such bills have been introduced nationwide in the past two years despite no evidence of any youth receiving inappropriate care.

Thirty of those bills, the group said, would likewise deny gender-affirming care and medical services to transgender youth. They’re part of a larger tally of nearly 200 anti-LGBTQ bills considered in state legislatures, the organization said.

Twenty-nine states are debating bills that would prohibit transgender girls and women from girls' and women's sports. Trans athletes and their advocates say groups that support such bans use harmful traditional definitions of gender.

Such legislation has been on the rise in the past two years, despite surveys showing that most Americans support transgender rights overall, including the right of transgender youth to participate on sports teams that feel most comfortable to them, and that a majority of parents would support their teen’s request to transition to another gender.

In a statement, CEO Kevin Jennings of LGBT civil rights organization Lambda Legal, said such measures “are rooted in animus and ignorance about what it means to be transgender. They disregard medical science, standards of treatment for transgender youth and basic human dignity.”

Lambda Legal, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, promised legal challenges against the Arkansas law.

“These states are truly heading in the wrong direction and straight to the courts,” said Avatara Smith-Carrington of Lambda Legal’s south central regional office. “These bills are explicit attempts at erasing trans youth from public life.”

Clair Farley, executive director of San Francisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives, said the escalation of such bills is a result of Trump administration rhetoric and rollbacks of transgender protections in housing, health care, employment and public accommodations.

Farley, whose upbringing as a trans youth in Montana inspired her to pursue advocacy work, said that such bills are even being discussed is upsetting for youth fearful society won’t accept them for who they are.

“Growing up is hard enough for anyone and can be particularly difficult for transgender youth, especially those living in conservative and rural environments,” Farley said.

Sam Brinton, vice president of advocacy and public affairs for The Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ suicide prevention organization, said survey results, to be published next month, found that 90% of LGBTQ youth said politics negatively affected their well-being.

“If your state legislator is debating whether you should exist or have rights, you can imagine that that is basically destroying your sense of self,” Brinton said.

Transgender youth face higher levels of anxiety and depression, especially if they lack family support or experience bullying at school and mistreatment from teachers and officials. In The Trevor Project’s survey on mental health of LGBTQ youth in 2020, more than half of transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents said they had seriously considered suicide.

“Being transgender in and of itself does not lead to these risks,” said Paula Neira, board secretary for GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality and clinical director for the Johns Hopkins Center for Transgender Health. “What increases it is how you are treated and whether you are able to receive care.”

Denying gender-affirming care to these youth is a form of discrimination, advocates say, that will increase the stigma they probably feel in society.

Hannah Willard, vice president of government affairs for Freedom For All Americans, a national LGBTQ advocacy organization, said the human cost of these bills “cannot be overstated. This is causing unparalleled levels of despair and heartbreak, and it sends a terrible message to kids that they are broken and damaged and don’t deserve access to the care we all deserve.”

In a statement issued by the Human Rights Campaign, Arkansas State Manager Eric Reece called the law “a cruel and shameful way for legislators to score political points by targeting transgender youth, who are simply trying to navigate their adolescence.”

Parents of trans youth fear harm of removing gender-affirming care

For parents, the possibility of seeing their children’s support systems ripped apart is devastating. Among the states considering similar bills is Alabama, where parents Christa and Jeff White worry about the effect passage could have on their 12-year-old transgender daughter, a middle schooler they chose not to name to protect her privacy.

“The idea that this could put my daughter in danger is not OK with me,” said Christa White, a stay-at-home mom and women’s rights activist. "This is potentially devastating, not just to our child, but to all transgender children undergoing these treatments. Children will die."

The family, including two older teenage sons, lives in northern Alabama, near Huntsville. In addition to seeing a pediatric endocrinologist who prescribes hormone blockers, they said, their daughter receives regular counseling.

“We’re covering all angles to try to do what’s best for her,” Christa said.

Her path began unremarkably, they said, and at first, her parents figured she was “just being a kid,” Christa said. “Nothing extreme. She was dressing gender-neutral, and she liked strong female leads in movies.”

Then came a series of conversations that progressed as their daughter became exposed to terminology her parents used with LGBT friends.

“She always prompted the conversations,” Christa said. “I’d just say, you let me know and we’ll talk about it. And finally, it clicked. She knew what she was before, but she didn’t know the wording. And she blossomed. There was no looking back. It was just, like, ‘This is me.’”

Jeff White, a software engineer, said although they’ve lost a few friends and family members along the way, he and his wife feel lucky their daughter’s path was not as challenging as it could have been.

“Her confidence has really grown,” he said. “And her relationships with her friends as well. Her whole life experience has been changed.”

She’s a happy, regular kid, into Star Wars, anime, video games and long phone chats with her friends.

That’s why the thought that her gender-affirming care could be ripped away is so upsetting.

“We don’t want to go backwards,” Jeff said. “We’ve seen the positive effect that transitioning has had in her life. We don’t need the government coming in and deciding for us what innate qualities of a person are acceptable. We want her to be free to be herself.”

Though they haven’t discussed the legislation with their daughter in major detail “because we don’t want to scare her,” he said, she knows something is up.

“We don’t know what our plan is,” Christa said. “We’re going to fight it in some way. If we’re allowed to go out of state, we will. We will do all we are able to do to help her down this path.”

0Trans athletes are speaking out against bills that would ban trans kids from competing

For doctors treating transgender youth, Arkansas law creates 'an impossible situation'

Advocates note that decisions about such care are made only after a methodical series of discussions among the patient, parents and physicians.

“It really is very careful and thoughtful and deliberate,” said Lee Savio Beers, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “There’s often a misconception that it’s something people rush into. But it takes place over a long time, and the path for one patient may be different than for another, and it heavily involves the family.”

When a child’s identity doesn’t match the gender assigned at birth, it can be agonizing, especially as the changes of puberty begin to set in. Treatments such as hormone therapy, Arkansas Rep. Ferguson said, give youth a chance to pause development while they come to terms with who they are.

Turban, the Stanford School of Medicine fellow, said he’s seen patients “so distressed by their chests developing that they bind their chests tightly despite medical issues like trouble breathing and skin infections,” he said. “Some kids will even have rib fractures.”

Legislation that bans doctors from providing gender-affirming care would put them “in an impossible position,” Beers said. “We take an oath that we’re going to provide the best possible care, and bills like this tell us you can’t provide that care. We’re being forced to have to decide.”

One aftereffect of the law, she said, may be that if doctors can no longer make referrals, patients will seek help on their own, even if it’s out of state. Without guidance, they could end up with lower quality or substandard care.

“This completely violates the physician-patient relationship,” Beers said. “It’s an incredibly dangerous precedent.”

Arkansas pediatrician Susan Averitt, who runs a private practice north of Fayetteville, said she and her colleagues find the law frustrating.

“We feel like it’s legislating what we can discuss with our patients in our clinics and the way we provide care,” Averitt said. “Our role is to help guide them and either provide care ourselves or refer them to specialty care, and this limits my ability to provide good guidance and care within my own office.”

Such decisions “are being made by people who don’t have medical training and don’t understand the science and medicine taking place,” Averitt said. “But for some reason, they feel like they’re protecting children. It’s based on fear and misinformation. We don’t do surgeries on patients under 18, so they’re not receiving experimental treatment – just support, and in some cases, hormonal care.”

If the law stands, the hospital clinic to which she would normally refer patients, set up to meet the needs of transgender youth, would probably cease to exist. It breaks her heart, she said, to think about how it will disrupt the relationships doctors built with young transgender patients, and she worries those youths will suffer mental health issues and suicidal ideation as a result.

“They will feel like society doesn’t accept them,” she said.

Brinton of The Trevor Project said the law will make trans youth less likely to come out as such or to talk to someone about their experience, even as research shows that having an understanding adult in a youth’s life reduces suicidal ideation by 40%.

Willard of Freedom For All Americans said the law will exacerbate Arkansas' pandemic-related economic problems, making it hard to recruit and retain medical talent, especially in the state’s rural areas.

“Doctors are not going to want to relocate to a state that threatens to revoke their license for just doing their jobs,” Willard said. “There will be a massive medical fallout.”

Advocates hope science and time will be on their side, noting the generational divides in terms of how the public views transgender issues.

Heng-Lehtinen of the National Center for Transgender Equality said that as Americans become more aware of trans individuals in their communities, attitudes will come around.

Though that might sound Pollyannaish, he said, the same thing happened with same-sex marriage equality.

“More and more trans people are coming out at a younger age,” he said. “That’s why younger generations are more supportive. They see their friends. They see that trans people are in their neighborhoods and schools. That does fill me with hope that at the end of the day, people will see that we’re on the right side, but there’s a lot of urgency to do that as fast as possible so that we save lives.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Children will die': Transgender advocates warn about risks as more states consider banning gender-affirming care for kids

Nick Lees: Statue in Edmonton to honour Anne Frank back on track

Nick Lees, Edmonton Journal 

4/12/2021

Teenager Anne Frank has been called the symbol of Second World War horrors and Nazi tyranny by historians

.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Anne Frank

Now, Edmonton’s Dutch community is back on track to erect a copy of the first Anne Frank statue made by famous artist Pieter d’Hont.

“This bronze statue is our way of thanking the many Canadian soldiers who were crucial in liberating the Netherlands from the Nazis in 1945,” says realtor John Stobbe, who has worked on the project with Dutch Hon. Consul Jerry Bouma and Edmonton Dutch Canadian Club president Frank Stolk.

“We had planned to place our Anne Frank statue in Old Strathcona’s Light Horse Park last year and launched our $75,000 campaign in January 2020 to cover the cost of the statue, transportation, installation and maintenance.”

The ceremony was planned for May 4 to mark the 75th anniversary of the Canadian Liberation of the Netherlands, which cost some 7,600 Canadian lives during a nine-month campaign.

“The COVID-19 pandemic saw the ceremony postponed,” says Stobbe. “And renovations to Light Horse Park saw it postponed again in the fall.

“Now our statue, poured from the original 1960 Anne Frank mould and only the second in the world to be placed in a public space, will be unveiled Aug. 8 this year.”

There is more good news, reports Stobbe.

“An Edmonton Journal column significantly helped launch our fundraising campaign in February 2020,” he says. “Word about the campaign spread and cash and cheques came from many places with letters of support.

“Donors included 2,500 Euros from the Dutch city of Steenbergen and $2,000 from the Edmonton Jewish Federation.”

Last week, the campaign was pushed well over the top with an Alberta government Community Initiatives Program grant of $30,000.

Anne Frank’s diary was first published in 1947 and has sold more than 40-million copies in 70 languages.

Frank’s Jewish family, says Stobbe, fled to Amsterdam from Frankfurt, Germany, in 1933 when she was four years old and Adolf Hitler’s persecution of Jews was gathering speed.

“Hitler invaded neutral Holland in 1940 and Jews were soon required to wear a yellow star, forbidden to use streetcars, ride in their own cars, and go to theatres and movies,” says the realtor.

“On June 12, 1942, Anne’s 13th birthday, it was announced all sport was prohibited to Jews, who later also had to hand over their bicycles and walk in the gutters.”

On her birthday, Anne was presented with a colourful autograph book she had spotted a week before and it became her diary. But 23 days later, her entire family went into hiding in an annex belonging to her businessman father and lived there for two years.

On Aug. 4, 1944, the Gestapo raided the annex and Frank’s family was sent to a Nazi transit camp.

One month later, records show Frank was among 1,019 prisoners jammed into box-cars with no room to sit. They travelled in near total darkness for days, enduring stench from a corner waste bucket and from people unable to reach it.

The prisoners disembarked at Auschwitz, a complex of more than 40 concentration and extermination camps where some 1.1 million people were killed between 1940 to 1945.

Frank, later covered by lice, mites and bedbugs, was sent to a scabies ward where rats and mice scampered over patients at night.

On. Oct. 28, 1944, she was sent to the disease-ridden Bergen-Belson camp in Germany and became one of 35,000 prisoners who died during a typhus outbreak in early 1945.

Her father Otto Frank survived the camps and, on return to the Netherlands, was handed his daughter’s diary, found on the annex floor.

“Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness,” reads one of Anne’s diary musings. She advises: “Be kind and have courage.”

MUSK THE MERCILESS

Imperator Meaning As Elon Musk Changes Twitter Bio to 'Imperator of Mars'

EMPEROR OF MARS

Elon Musk has changed his Twitter bio to include the phrase "Imperator of Mars." As of Monday morning, Musk's full Twitter bio read: "Technoking of Tesla, Imperator of Mars." In addition, the bio included a single winking emoji.

© Maja Hitij/Getty Images Tesla head Elon Musk arrives to have a look at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on September 03, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany.

It is unclear what sparked the update to his social media account, which has more than 50 million followers. The term imperator is defined as "a commander in chief or emperor of the ancient Romans," according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

The Merriam-Webster website also provided a brief history of the term, which explained that it was borrowed from the Latin word "imperātor."

It said the word imperātor is defined as a: "person giving orders, commanding officer, title of honor bestowed on a victorious general by his troops, title conferred by the Roman senate on Julius Caesar and Augustus and adopted by later successors."

In its guide, Dictionary.com noted that the origin of the word imperator dates to between 1570 and 1580. It lists three meanings: absolute or supreme ruler, (in Imperial Rome) emperor, (in Republican Rome) a temporary title accorded a victorious general.

Outside of the literal definitions, Imperator: Rome is the name of a strategy video game released in April 2019 and developed by Paradox Development Studio.

A description on the Steam marketplace, where it is sold for Windows, Mac and Linux devices, reads: "Set in the tumultuous centuries from Alexander's Successor Empires in the East to the foundation of the Roman Empire, Imperator: Rome invites you to relive the pageantry and challenges of empire building in the classical era. Manage your population, keep an eye out for treachery, and keep faith with your gods."

The SpaceX and Tesla boss is currently overseeing test flights of the Starship project, a reusable rocket system with Mars as a future destination, and has long spoken about his ambitions of reaching, exploring and even colonizing the distant red planet.

In January Musk changed his Twitter bio to "#bitcoin." His electric car company Tesla now lets customers based in the United States pay for some of its vehicles using the volatile token, he confirmed last month.

On March 15 this year, it emerged via a U.S. regulatory filing that Musk's official title in the car company would be updated to include the term "Technoking of Tesla." Its chief financial officer, Zach Kirkhorn, would hold the position of "Master of Coin."

"Elon and Zach will also maintain their respective positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer," the filing said at the time.

Scientists unearth ancient SKUNK fossil from 74 million years ago


Ian Randall For Mailonline

© Provided by Daily Mail MailOnline logo

The remains of an ancient, skunk-like mammal, dubbed Orretherium tzen, the 'Beast of Five Teeth', has been unearthed in Chilean Patagonia.

Palaeontologists uncovered part of the creature's fossilised jawbone, complete with five attached teeth, in the 'Mammal Quarry' of the Río de Las Chinas Valley.

O. tzen is thought to been a herbivore and lived around 72–74 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous, making it a contemporary of the dinosaurs.




Palaeontologists uncovered part of the creature's fossilised jawbone, complete with five attached teeth (pictured), in the 'Mammal Quarry' of the Río de Las Chinas 
3 SLIDES © Provided by Daily Mail

Palaeontologists uncovered part of the creature's fossilised jawbone, complete with five attached teeth (pictured), in the 'Mammal Quarry' of the Río de Las Chinas Valley

The discovery of O. tzen adds to mounting evidence that mammals were roaming the area we know today as South America a lot earlier than was previously thought.

With the exception of Magallanodon baikashkenke — a rodent-like creature who was also found in the Río de Las Chinas Valley last year — mammals from 46–38 million years ago had only previously been found at the southernmost tip of the Americas.

The team believe that O. tzen and M. baikashkenke likely lived at the same time.

According to University of Chile palaeontologist Sergio Soto, such discoveries are critical to completing the evolutionary puzzle of the group of long-extinct early mammals called 'Gondwanatheria'.

'This and other discoveries that we are going to make known in the future are revealing that there is enormous potential in terms of palaeontology in the southern tip of Chile,' said Dr Soto.

'We are finding things that we did not expect to find and that are going to help us answer a lot of questions that we had for a long time about dinosaurs, mammals and other groups.

'

© Provided by Daily Mail O. tzen is thought to been a herbivore and lived around 72–74 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous — making it a contemporary of the dinosaurs. Pictured: the mammal's teeth© Provided by Daily Mail The discovery of O. tzen (pictured in an artist's impression) adds to mounting evidence that mammals were roaming the area we know today as South America a earlier than once thought

'Findings of new fossiliferous sites, not only in Patagonia but also in the Antarctic Peninsula and the rest of South America are needed,' the researchers concluded.

This, they added, will allow us to determine 'if Patagonia summarizes the fossil record of the continent, or even of [the supercontinent] Gondwana, or if it is only a small piece of a marvellous history at the dusk of the Mesozoic Era.'

'Certainly, Patagonia was an evolutionary laboratory in which disparate body sizes and craniodental morphologies appeared.'

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

© Provided by Daily Mail 'This and other discoveries that we are going to make known in the future are revealing that there is enormous potential in terms of palaeontology in the southern tip of Chile,' said Dr Soto. Pictured: Three-dimensional renderings of O. tzen's jaw and teeth

© Provided by Daily Mail Palaeontologists uncovered part of the creature's fossilised jawbone, complete with five attached teeth, in the 'Mammal Quarry' of the Río de Las Chinas Valley

POACHED FOR RABBIT STEW?

‘World’s biggest rabbit’ stolen from home in Worcestershire

Owner Annette Edwards offers £1,000 reward for return of Guinness World Record-holding giant rabbit

Annette Edwards with Darius, her continental giant rabbit – she has offered a £1,000 reward for his return. Photograph: Mcfadden/ANL/Rex/Shutterstock

PA Media
Mon 12 Apr 2021 

A rabbit proclaimed the biggest in the world has been stolen from its home in Worcestershire, police have said.

West Mercia police believe the 129cm-long continental giant rabbit, named Darius, was taken from its enclosure in the garden of the property in Stoulton overnight on Saturday.

The rabbit was awarded a Guinness World Record in 2010 for being the biggest of its kind.

His owner, Annette Edwards, has offered a £1,000 reward for his return, saying it was a “very sad day”.

Edwards asked on Twitter for those who took Darius to “please bring him back”, saying he was too old to breed now.

A West Mercia police spokesperson said: “We are appealing for information following the theft of an award-winning rabbit from its home in Stoulton, Worcestershire.

“It is believed the continental giant rabbit was stolen from its enclosure in the garden of the property of its owners overnight on Saturday 10 April to 11 April.”

The force have asked for those with information about the incident to contact PC Daren Riley via 101 quoting reference 00286-I-11042021.

ALL CAPITALI$M IS STATE CAPITALISM

Air Canada agrees to $5.9-billion aid package, giving Ottawa equity stake in airline

LIBERAL'S PRIVATIZED CROWN CORPORATION

AIR CANADA TO AVOID TAXPAYER BAIL OUTS

OTTAWA — After months of negotiations, Ottawa has reached a multibillion-dollar rescue deal with Air Canada that will give the government an equity stake in the pandemic-battered airline.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Under the agreement, Air Canada can access up to $5.9 billion from the public purse but must refund passengers whose flights were cancelled due to COVID-19, cap executive compensation at $1 million and restore service to regional airports.

The package, which will see the federal government pay $500 million for a six-per-cent stake in the country's biggest airline, also requires the carrier to maintain employment at current levels or higher.

“Taxpayers aren't footing the bill. This is a loan facility, and the government of Canada fully expects to be paid back," Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday night, referring to the $5.4-billion credit facility.

Some $1.4 billion of that is earmarked to help reimburse the thousands of customers who paid for tickets but remained in the lurch at the end of 2020.

“We have agreed with Air Canada that refunds should be issued as soon as possible, beginning in the coming weeks and months," said Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, though Air Canada has up to seven years to draw on the low-interest loan.

Both Goldy Hyder, chief executive officer of the Business Council of Canada, and Canadian Labour Congress president Hassan Yussuff expressed approval of a rescue package tailored to a devastated industry.

But the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants, decried the deal, saying it "betrays the government’s commitment to support airline workers affected by the pandemic."

"We had a commitment from the Trudeau government that any relief money for the airline sector would flow directly to support workers, and that commitment is not reflected in this agreement,” CUPE president Mark Hancock said in a statement.

"This deal is exactly what we feared a deal cooked up behind closed doors would look like: it’s a year late, no transparency, and not nearly enough to support the thousands of flight attendants still reeling from the impacts of the pandemic."

Travel restrictions introduced through the beginning of the pandemic have been catastrophic for the airline sector.

Air Canada's passenger numbers declined 73 per cent in 2020 following several years of record growth for the airline. During 2020, it reduced staff by more than 20,000, more than half of the pre-COVID total, then cut another 1,700 employees in January.

The Montreal-based company posted a staggering $1.16-billion loss in the fourth quarter of last year, a result that caps off what the carrier's then-CEO called the bleakest year in aviation history.

Freeland, asked whether the package could provide a framework for a deal with WestJet, stressed the importance of two national airlines and characterized negotiations with the Calgary-based No. 2 carrier as "constructive."

The deal was hashed out under the watch of Michael Sabia, who was named deputy finance minister in December following decades in senior roles in both the corporate world and public service. He stepped down as CEO of the Caisse de depot et placement in February 2020 after 11 years at the helm.

Video: Air Canada aid package gives government equity stake in airline: Freeland (Global News)

The deal he helped hammered out bars dividend payments and share buybacks by Air Canada, on top of capping executive compensation for as long as the loans play out, Freeland said.

The company has also committed to resume service at 13 regional airports as well as seven others through "interline agreements" with regional carriers.

It has further pledged to complete the purchase of 33 Airbus A220 aircraft, manufactured at the Mirabel facility in Quebec, guaranteeing continued employment for factory workers.

Refunds will be available for flights purchased on or before March 22, 2020, for travel after Feb. 1 of last year, regardless of whether they were cancelled by the passenger or the airline, Freeland said.

Tickets purchased after March 22, 2020, where the flight was subsequently cancelled by the airline will also be refundable, she said.

Air Canada confirmed that customers who accepted flight credit or Aeroplan points as well as those who declined both will be eligible for reimbursement.

Ottawa's half-million-dollar purchase of 21.6 million shares at $23.18 per share leaves it with a small ownership stake and the right to buy 14 million more. Its voting interest in the company is capped at just under 20 per cent.

Jacques Roy, a professor of transport management at HEC Montreal business school, deemed the equity stake "a little bit of a surprise."

Canadian airlines had been resisting that tool, though it's been deployed elsewhere. Last week the French government announced it would up its stake in Air France-KLM to about 30 per cent with a $6-billion investment. Germany unveiled a 20 per cent stake in Lufthansa last May as part of a $13.7-billion bailout.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ottawa can buy millions of shares at $27 per share — Air Canada's closing price Monday — over 10 years, if Air Canada chooses to trigger that option.

"Assuming that Air Canada does well and that two, three, five years from now the company shares are back to $40, $50, then the Canadian government can actually make a good deal out of this," Roy said.

More than $2.3 billion of the $5.4 billion in available loans have an interest rate below two per cent, a "cheap" rate that would be enviable to other Canadian carriers, he added.

On top of the massive loan under Canada's Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility (LEEFF) program, the company has raised $6.8 billion in liquidity to stay afloat during the pandemic.

"This program provides additional liquidity, if required, to rebuild our business to the benefit of all stakeholders and to remain a significant contributor to the Canadian economy through its recovery and for the long term," CEO Michael Rousseau said in a statement.

Air Canada collected $554 million from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy in 2020 and said it would continue to access the program in 2021.

The company lost $4.6-billion in 2020, compared with a profit of $1.5 billion the year before.

In early April, Air Canada pulled the plug on its planned $190-million takeover of Montreal-based tour operator Transat AT, citing Europe's unwillingness to approve the deal, thus triggering a $12.5-million termination fee.

Organizations supporting Air Canada's calls for a bailout have included unions such as Unifor and the Canadian Air Traffic Control Association, as well as the National Airlines Council of Canada industry group.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:AC, TSX:TRZ)

— With files from Dan Healing

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

Let users carry certain amounts of drugs without criminal sanctions: Vancouver mayor


VANCOUVER — The City of Vancouver has outlined the amounts of various drugs people should be allowed to carry as it seeks a federal exemption to decriminalize possession for personal use.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Its proposal to combat the overdose crisis is part of an application to Health Canada. It lists possession thresholds for four main drugs: opioids, cocaine, crack cocaine and amphetamines.

The recommended amounts for opioids, such as heroin and fentanyl, are listed as two grams; three grams are proposed for cocaine; one gram or 10 rocks for crack cocaine; and 1.5 grams for amphetamines. The amounts are based on long-term studies of drug users.

Mayor Kennedy Stewart said Monday the city has worked with police, the health authority's chief medical health officer, drug users and experts to determine the three-day supply that would prevent people from seeking substances on a daily basis.

The goal is to remove criminal sanctions and reduce stigma by using a health-focused approach to addiction, Stewart said.

The broad framework of the proposal was submitted to Health Canada in March. The final phase of the proposal is expected to be forwarded in May with more drugs added to the list for consideration.

Drugs that are part of the proposal are recorded as some of the top culprits in overdose deaths by the B.C. Coroners Service, which reported a record 1,716 deaths last year from illicit drugs.

"All you have to do is watch in horror as the next coroners report comes out and we just see the numbers increasing and increasing and increasing. All options have to be on the table and not just talked about," Stewart said.

Mayors in Canada's other big cities are facing similar challenges on overdose deaths without action from all levels of government, Stewart said.

"It's one of the biggest public health policy disasters that we've had in the history of the country. It's just astounding that year after year things don't get better, they get worse. And it shows the level of change that's needed to save lives."

Stewart said policies so far have discriminated against drug users, but Vancouver is trying to take measures that will help, such as providing permanent funding last week for a project that follows up with overdose survivors and offers services including health care, housing and income assistance.

"What I'm hoping is once we get out of COVID we have decriminalization, we have safe supply, we have more housing for folks, for example, and other programs that will be able to turn this around. But we've absolutely failed. All of us have to this point."

In February, British Columbia also requested a similar provincial exemption from Canada's drug laws.

Vancouver city council voted unanimously in November to ask for an exemption.

On Monday, Health Minister Patty Hajdu said substance use has affected thousands of families in communities across Canada and the federal government would work on options to respond to the needs of various jurisdictions.

"Health Canada is working with officials from the province of British Columbia, City of Vancouver and Vancouver Coastal Health to work through the details of these requests, and identify options that will respond to their needs," she said in a statement.

Vancouver's proposal is based on findings from two ongoing studies: one that began in 1996 and involves injection drug users, and another of people between the ages of 14 and 25 whose use includes those drugs listed in the proposal.

Kora DeBeck, a research scientist at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use and one of the expert consultants on the proposal, said the two studies total 1,190 people who reported their drug use patterns, interactions with police and challenges accessing health-care services.

"I think it will be a very important change for some people who use drugs, particularly those who are on the street and quite vulnerable because they are still at risk now of having their drugs seized. Although they're not getting arrested and prosecuted, which is good, it still can be quite a devastating encounter."

Some drug users could resort to sex work while others may be pushed into committing property crime to make money for drugs, she said.

However, DeBeck said that while decriminalization would chip away at some of the stigma of drug use, it will not, on its own, have a large impact on the overdose crisis.

"What this does not do is address the toxic drug supply that people are continuing to rely on," she said.

British Columbia declared a public health emergency because of overdose deaths in April 2016, and over 7,000 people have fatally overdosed since then.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2021.

Camille Bains, The Canadian Press

New Mexico becomes latest state to legalize marijuana, a rebuttal to America's 'failed war on drugs'

cdavis@insider.com (Charles Davis) 4/12/2021

New Mexico has joined 17 other states and the District of Colombia in legalization the recreational use of marijuana, with retail sales to begin by April 2022. David McNew/Getty Images

Adults in New Mexico will soon be able to possess and grow marijuana.

The state legalized recreational use of cannabis this year, with retail sales to begin by April 2022.

"We're going to start righting past wrongs of this country's failed war on drugs," Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham said.

Beginning this summer, New Mexicans 21 and older will be able to both possess and grow marijuana. The state on Monday became the latest to legalize the recreational use of cannabis - with retail sales to begin by early 2022.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who in March convened a special session of the legislature to reform the state's drug laws, signed a legalization bill into law. 

She also put her signature on a companion bill that will give many with past marijuana convictions a clean record.

"We're going to start righting past wrongs of this country's failed war on drugs," Lujan-Grisham said in a statement. "And we're going to break new ground in an industry that may well transform New Mexico's economic future for the better."

One of the country's most impoverished states, a legal cannabis industry could spawn a $318 million market and more than 11,000 jobs, according to an economic analysis trumpeted by the governor.

Although New Mexico's political scene has long been dominated by Democrats, the state for years struggled to move forward with marijuana legalization, with reform efforts thwarted by more conservative members of the party. In 2020, however, several of those conservative Democrats lost primary races to more progressive challengers who went on to win in November, shifting the state Senate to the left.

While marijuana will become legal on June 29, New Mexico residents will, for a time, need to grow their own (under the new law, they are allowed up to six plants each). That's because the state will first need to develop both a regulatory infrastructure and sufficient commercial supply before allowing retail sales, which could begin as late as April 2022.

The upside for marijuana consumers is that, unlike in California and some other states that have legalized cannabis, local governments will not be able to issue blanket prohibitions on sales within their jurisdiction, the Albuquerque Journal reported. And anyone whose past offense would now be legal, or would have resulted in a lower sentence, will have their criminal record automatically expunged, per the Las Cruces Sun News.

Although New Mexico is known for its libertarian streak, the state's Republicans are displeased.

"Recreational marijuana is hardly a pressing issue," the New Mexico GOP said in a statement on Monday, arguing that cannabis legalization "will lead to even more crime, underage use, and impaired driving."

In fact, surveys have found that the rate of marijuana use by young people has either remained the same or declined in states that have legalized its recreational use. Studies have also failed to detect a clear connection between road safety and the legal status of cannabis. And researchers have found little to no impact on crime.

Eighteen states and the District of Colombia have now either voted or passed legislation to legalize recreational marijuana. Colorado, in 2012, was the first.

NEW MEXICO LEGALIZES RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA USE

SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation Monday legalizing recreational marijuana use within months and kicking off sales next year, making it the seventh state since November to put an end to pot prohibition.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The governor, a Democrat, has supported marijuana reform as a way to create jobs and shore up state revenue.

On Monday, she also touched on concerns about the harm inflicted on racial and ethnic minorities by drug criminalization and tough policing, noting that the new law could free about 100 from prison and expunge criminal records for thousands of residents.

“It is good for workers. It is good for entrepreneurs. It is good for consumers," she said of legalization. “And it brings about social justice in ways in which we have been talking about and advocating for, for decades.”

The signed bill gives the governor a strong hand in oversight of recreational marijuana through her appointed superintendent of the Regulation and Licensing Department.

Agency Superintendent Linda Trujillo said people age 21 and over will be allowed start growing marijuana at home and possess up to 2 ounces (56 grams) of cannabis outside their homes starting on June 29.

Recreational cannabis sales start next year by April 1 at state-licensed dispensaries.

Lujan Grisham highlighted that licensed cannabis farmers can begin scaling up cultivation several months ahead of opening day in efforts to keep pace with demands when sales begin.

New Mexico voters ousted ardent opponents of legalization from the state Senate in the 2020 Democratic primary, opening the way for recreational marijuana.

The governor called a special legislative session to tackle the issue in late March after legalization efforts faltered.

Legislators rallied behind a legalization framework from state Rep. Javier Martínez of Albuquerque that provides automated procedures for expunging past pot convictions.

Martinez said he hopes that a spate of legalization efforts by states will spur the federal government to follow suit, linking tides of immigration from Central America to drug-cartel violence and related corruption.

“I grew up along the border. I’ve seen what the war on drugs has done,” Martinez said. “I’m proud that New Mexico — little old New Mexico — has done its part to tell the federal government once and for all to legalize cannabis for the people.”

Republican lawmakers were notably absent from the signing ceremony, though GOP state Sen. Cliff Pirtle was credited with influencing the outcome through a competing bill that emphasized free markets and public safety.

Regulators in early legalization states have been whipsawed by initial fluctuations in marijuana supplies and prices, amid concerns about child access and workplace and roadway safety.

In New Mexico, regulators will be able to put a cap on marijuana cultivation quantities for years to come and impose a per-plant state fee of up to $50 a year. The new law mandates child-proof packaging and defers to employers on whether workers can indulge in marijuana.

At the same time, home marijuana growers will be allowed to grow up to six plants per person, or 12 per household. The scent of marijuana will no longer be grounds for police searches.

Local governments can’t prohibit marijuana businesses from setting up shop. They can have a say through zoning about the location and hours of operation.

Medical marijuana dispensaries already are staking out territory in small towns near the border with Texas — a major potential market for marijuana tourism. It remains illegal to transport marijuana across state lines.

Challenges await state regulators as they prepare to accept applications for a variety of marijuana business licenses as soon as September. The state will license product testing labs, industrial operations that grow, refine, package and sell cannabis products and craft marijuana “microbusiness” that grow only up to 200 plants.

Rules also are due by the start of 2022 on product safety, minimum qualifications for a marijuana business license and standards for vetting and training “cannabis servers” — who must hold a state permit and be 21 or older.

The state will levy an excise tax on recreational pot sales that starts at 12% and rises over time to 18%, on top of current taxes on sales.

All taxes will be waived on medical marijuana. Decisions are still pending about exactly how much marijuana the industry must set aside for qualified medical cannabis patients.

Enrolment in the state’s existing medical marijuana program climbed in March to more than 112,000 patients -- about 5% of the state’s population of 2.1 million residents.

The approved legislation allows the state to forge agreements with Native American tribal governments that could open the marijuana industry to tribal enterprises.

Morgan Lee, The Associated Press

Hackers want millions in ransom. American schools are considering the cost.

The ransomware attack on her daughter's school was the last thing Glynnis Sanders needed.  

© Provided by NBC News

Like most parents, Sanders has been performing a daily juggling act. When she's not teaching special education classes at Buffalo Public Schools, she and her husband are usually making sure their three kids are attending their remote classes.


So it hit hard when hackers struck the school of her youngest daughter in early March, the Friday before she was supposed to finally return to in-person learning twice a week.

“It’s very frustrating. You think, how could this happen? You wonder if your information is secure,” Sanders said. “It’s just the headache of Covid as it is, and it’s adding to the stress of the school year. Like what else could happen?”

The hackers infected Buffalo’s schools with malicious code that spidered through their networks, freezing computers and making it impossible for teachers to reach their students who were working remotely because of the pandemic. They demanded a ransom to make it go away.

School officials canceled remote classes for the day while they figured out what to do. They would end up needing more than a week to resume their planned class schedule. A single infection of a school district can affect dozens or hundreds of schools: Buffalo counts 63 individual schools and learning systems.

In public statements, Buffalo Public Schools referred to what happened broadly as a “cybersecurity attack.” But it wasn’t a mindless act of internet vandalism. Buffalo had become the latest in a long spree of ransomware attacks, a type of hack where malicious software locks as many related computers as possible, rendering files inaccessible in an attempt to coerce victims to pay up.

© Libby March Image: Libby March for NBC News Glynnis Sanders, a parent with children in the Buffalo school system, on April 2, 2021. (Libby March / NBC News)

The attack underscores how a once obscure form of cybercrime now preys on Americans almost daily. While some ransomware gangs spend months targeting large businesses in hopes of a giant payday, many also go after institutions that don’t have dedicated cybersecurity staff or expensive cybersecurity contracts to better protect them from hackers, like hospitals and city and county governments, which are often wide open to attack.

Schools are soft targets, too — and during a pandemic, particularly soft ones. Cybercriminals have recently ramped up attacks against American public school districts, with at least 44 of them this school year alone, according to a count by Allan Liska, a ransomware analyst at the cybersecurity company Recorded Future. The FBI issued a warning in mid-March that ransomware attacks against schools were spiking, but the U.S. federal government has limited power to stop ransomware attacks. As recently as Thursday, schools in Haverhill, Massachusetts, had to close.

Cybersecurity company Emsisoft has estimated that ransomware attacks cost the U.S. more than $1.3 billion in 2020. The FBI often is the primary agency responding to ransomware attacks in the U.S., but as the agency focuses more on arrests than on disruption, and most ransomware gangs operate in countries where it's hard or impossible to get cybercriminals extradited, it’s rare for the criminals to face serious repercussions.

A spokesperson for Buffalo schools declined to comment, citing an ongoing FBI investigation, and the agency also declined to comment. But school officials were clearly caught off guard by the severity of the hack, as they spent the next week issuing last-minute class cancellations.

After calling off all remote classes for the day that first Friday, they announced Sunday evening that there would be no class whatsoever on Monday. Then Monday evening, they cancelled in-person learning through Wednesday, then Wednesday evening extended that ban for the rest of the week.

“Tuesday night we found out late," said Gary Cartwright, a father of four kids in the district. "Monday night we found out late there was no school. Sunday night, late."
To pay or not to pay

The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, the federal agencies that respond to ransomware victims, officially don’t recommend paying a ransom to hackers, both because doing so can encourage them to target more victims and there’s no guarantee that the hackers will honor the agreement. Paying isn’t illegal in most cases, but it’s still a risky prospect: A recent survey by the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky found that just over half of ransomware victims chose to pay, but 17 percent of those who did still never recovered their files.

But sometimes a school will try to pay, only to find it impossible to negotiate with the hackers. In March, after negotiations broke down between one gang and Broward County, Florida, school system — one of the largest school districts in the country, with more than 260,000 students — the hackers published the transcript of their conversation on their website. The conversation shows the gang initially asked for $40 million in ransom, to the school official’s bafflement.

Excerpts of a conversation between a Broward County Public Schools official and a member of a criminal ransomware gang posted to the gang's blog.

A Broward spokesperson for the school declined to comment on the published negotiations but said in a statement, “We have no intention of paying a ransom.”

Even when a school catches the attack early and chooses to not pay the hackers, the costs can be severe, as was the case when the Affton, Missouri, school district was hit in February. The district’s director of technology, Adam Jasinski, received an early morning text message from a teacher that showed a picture of a computer with a picture of a ransom note.

"Hi Company, Every byte on any types of your devices was encrypted," the hackers wrote. "Don't try to use backups because it were encrypted too."

Excerpts of a conversation between a Broward County Public Schools official and a member of a criminal ransomware gang posted to the gang's blog.

Recognizing the potential for ransomware to spread quickly from computer to computer, Jasinski quickly ordered them all shut down and began examining computers individually to see which ones were infected. Only 30 were, and the school was able to replace them and resume classes the next day.

But the hackers weren’t done. As retaliation, they published files they were able to exfiltrate from the infected computers, which included scores of tax and human resource documents like notes on teachers and their pay and the school’s tax documents since 2018.

Jasinski said despite that hassle, he’s still confident he made the right decision.

"One thing I hope people take away from experiences like ours is don’t pay the ransom, because it only encourages them," he said.

'A matter of national security'

Most of the damage is done by a dozen or so hacker groups, which effectively run as organized crime rings. Their members’ identities are largely known to the FBI and U.S. Secret Service, officials at those agencies say, but they tend to live in Russia or other Eastern European countries that don’t extradite their citizens to the U.S.

The Biden White House has a plan to deal with ransomware hackers, but such a plan is still several weeks away, said Anne Neuberger, a top White House cybersecurity adviser.

"Ransomware is a matter of national security because it affects so many Americans, including our small businesses, and state and local governments," Neuberger said in an emailed statement. "Making progress to address ransomware will require cooperation with international partners."

In some cases, hackers make remote learning nearly impossible. Huntsville City Schools in Alabama, which allows parents to choose whether their kids go to in-person classes or learn remotely through the Huntsville Virtual Academy, sent everyone home on Monday, Nov. 30, the first day back after Thanksgiving break, because of a ransomware attack.

It took a week for in-person classes to resume. But because of lingering issues with school devices, HVA students for weeks learned purely through “paper packets,” with no interactions with their teachers. Every Sunday, parents dropped off their students' previous week of paperwork and picked up a new week’s worth.

Brooke Abney-Stratton, a mother to an elementary school student and a middle school student in the district, saw her mother hospitalized with Covid-19 in July and didn’t hesitate to enroll her kids in HVA at the beginning of the school year. While she had mixed feelings about the program’s deployment before the cyberattack, she said her children had no direct interactions with their teachers in December — just packets of paper she shuffled back and forth.

"The virtual academy kids — my kids — had no access to email their teachers. No administrators. Nothing," Abney-Stratton said in a phone interview. "They were handed a paper packet, told to do the work and turn it back in, while the other students who were traditional in-person students were in a classroom every day."

"It took until after New Year’s to get my son logged back in," she said. "It’s been the worst experience. I never could have imagined."