CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
German prosecutors charge more VW managers in emissions scandal

BERLIN (Reuters) -German prosecutors have charged 15 executives from Volkswagen AG and a car supplier in connection with the diesel emissions scandal that emerged in 2015, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said on Saturday.

© Reuters/Christian Hartmann 

 A logo of German carmaker Volkswagen is seen on a car parked on a street in Paris

The suspects are accused of aiding and abetting fraud in combination with tax evasion, indirect false certification and criminal advertising, said Klaus Ziehe from the prosecutor's office in the northern city of Braunschweig.

The scandal saw more than nine million vehicles of the VW, Audi, Seat and Skoda brands sold to consumers with a so-called defeat device which helped to circumvent environmental tests of diesel engines.

The prosecutor's office did not name any of the charged executives, who are accused of bringing cars onto the market in a condition that was not officially approved, meaning they were illegal and advertised misleadingly, Ziehe said.

He added the indictment had now reached 1554 pages.

The prosecutions were earlier reported by news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

A Volkswagen spokesman said a criminal investigation against the company was dropped in 2018 after it paid a fine, adding that the company was not involved in the upcoming trail against individual suspects.

"Against this background, we do not comment on the other charges that have come to light...," the spokesman added.

Volkswagen said last month that it would claim damages from its former CEO Martin Winterkorn and former Audi boss Rupert Stadler over the diesel emissions scandal, which was discovered in 2015, as it looks to draw a line under its biggest-ever crisis.

The trial of Winterkorn and the other managers has been postponed until September due to the pandemic.

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber and Jan Schwartz, editing by Jason Neely and Alexandra Hudson)

Harvard career coach: We're teaching the wrong math for financial success

CNBC 4/23/2021

Bad financial decisions, just like good financial decisions, can compound, making it harder to achieve financial success, yet many students across the U.S. receive too little financial education to understand core financial literacy concepts.

A Junior Achievement survey revealed that 46% of teens said a general lack of understanding of money, investing and the economy negatively impact their ability to be financially successful. And 51% said they don't believe everyone is presented with equal opportunities to achieve financial success.

Students are worried.

For 16-year-old Jorge Sanchez from Riverview, Florida, lack of student financial literacy leads to worries about preparing for a career and life in general.

Former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman and CNBC contributor Jay Clayton told Jorge he is right to be concerned and education is a big part of the solution.

"It's all about making decisions. If you are not educated about our financial system, and in particular credit, how much credit costs, the value of investing – you're likely to make bad decisions," Clayton said as part of a CNBC + Acorns Invest in You: Ready. Set. Grow and Junior Achievement event for high school students from across the nation.

One way to avoid making the wrong decisions, according to Clayton, is to educate yourself: "The earlier you're educated the better your decisions the better your outcomes."

© Provided by CNBC

"It blows my mind we spent more time talking about the quadratic equation in school than we do about compound interest," said Gorick Ng, a Harvard College career advisor and author of The Unspoken Rules: Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right.

Ng said financial literacy classes should aim to answer three questions: How do you use what you have to make more money? How do you spend less money than you earn? How do you make good decisions given multiple conflicting priorities?

More from Invest in You:

College costs and lack of money knowledge weigh heavily on U.S. teens

Students take up the cause to push for more financial education

Suze Orman: Here's the best way to get rid of your loans

The right way to structure financial education was on the minds of students.

Zoe McCall from Brandywine, Maryland, was among the student activists who testified before the Prince George's County Board of Education last year about the importance of financial education. The board passed a resolution requiring a personal finance course for all high school students in the region. Statewide, Maryland may follow suit, along with 25 other states and the District of Columbia that have introduced bills in their 2021 legislative sessions to increase access to financial education.

As more students like McCall spur action, Dr. Lisa Cook, professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University, advised during the event that curriculum include budgeting classes that give students the tools to build multi-year budgets, and basic knowledge about investing, including terms like present and future value.



Students advocate for more financial education in schools



AMELIORATING CAPITALI$M

Cook also said it is key to teach students at a young age about starting a business. "This is a traditional way to the middle class and everybody ought to be encouraged to do so even if they may not wind up doing so."

A focus on business formation crosses over to student interest in pushing for societal changes that create a more equitable financial system.

NO DISCUSSION OF WORKER COOPERATIVES, WORKER SELF MANAGEMENT OR EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP, THESE FINANCES OPERATE DIFFERENTLY

SEE MONDRAGON

Nathalie Molina Niño, managing director of Known Holdings, and author of Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs, noted that most businesses are founded by women. "Women are starting businesses at twice the rate of men in the United State. Of those businesses, 8.9 out of 10 are started by women of color."

Molina Niño said that older generations, including investors, have to do their part to help younger generations hold financial institutions accountable, for example, in areas such as ending financing for the prison industry. Barclays recently pulled out of a deal to provide debt financing to a mega prison in Alabama.

A report from November 2020 found that 1 in every 3 dollars under institutional management is under some kind of social screen, with investment managers seeking financial returns that are correlated with broader societal themes rather than focused on financial metrics.

ON THE ROAD TO ECONOMIC DEM OCRAY& SOCIALISM

YODA TAO OF

Fred Hampton's son and widow, on 'Judas and the Black Messiah,' the Oscars and preserving Black Panther legacy

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN 4/24/2021

The real Deborah Johnson hasn't watched the scene in "Judas and the Black Messiah" where a cop puts a gun to her pregnant belly after a predawn raid that killed Black Panther leader Fred Hampton.

© Brandon Bell/Getty Images Fred Hampton Jr. on April 5 walks through the community where George Floyd was shot.

The 70-year-old now goes by Akua Njeri. She remains a revolutionary, as well as the mother of Hampton's namesake. She's seen the Oscar-nominated movie at least 10 times, she told CNN, but she has yet to sit through that scene.

"I'll get up and pretend I have to go to the bathroom because it impacts me so, and I cannot sit all the way through it," she said. "So many emotions that come and ... seeing this scene triggers other things that I may have forgot over the years."

She and Fred Hampton Jr. -- who shares his father's honorific, Chairman Fred -- have a deep appreciation for the movie, as well as the attention it has drawn to Hampton Sr.'s legacy and the work Njeri and Hampton Jr. have continued with the Black Panther Party Cubs.

Hours after a jury announced three guilty verdicts in the trial of an ex-Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd, the pair spoke to CNN via videoconference. Njeri's framed-and-enlarged mugshot, taken following the December 4, 1969, raid depicted in the movie, served as a backdrop.

It's lost on neither Njeri nor Hampton Jr. that no one was brought to justice in the raid that killed the 21-year-old Hampton Sr., head of the Panthers' Illinois chapter, and his defense captain, Mark Clark. The Black Panthers say the men were targeted and murdered by Chicago police serving a warrant for illegal weapons. A grand jury found Hampton was shot in the head twice and that police had found two guns next to him.

Initially, seven Panthers were charged with attempted murder and other counts; the charges were later dropped. A prosecutor and 13 others were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice and were acquitted in 1972. A decade later, the city of Chicago, Cook County and the federal government agreed to a $1.85 million settlement with the raid's survivors and Clark's and Hampton's families.

While Hampton Jr. and his mother are pleased with Derek Chauvin's conviction in the Floyd case, they said, they know better than to be too optimistic. "Guarded," is how Hampton Jr. described his reaction, explaining he has one fist up in celebration but, mimicking a boxer, his other fist remains in front of his face because "we've got to have our guards up for that sucker punch."

Njeri elaborated, saying she remains wary Chauvin might get a light sentence or be remanded to "one of those luxurious federal prisons."

"I'm not dancing in the street yet. ... I'm kind of pessimistic about it, but I'm glad he's convicted, and then we'll see what happens with the other pigs," she said, using the Panther pejorative for the three police officers charged along with Chauvin.

'Don't stumble and don't cry'

"Judas and the Black Messiah" is up for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Daniel Kaluuya, who plays Hampton Sr. (the Black messiah), and LaKeith Stanfield, who plays FBI informant William O'Neal (Judas), are both up for Best Supporting Actor. It was released by Warner Bros., which like CNN is a unit of WarnerMedia.

The film tells the story of Hampton's activism in Chicago as O'Neal reports his movements to the FBI.

The movie closes with the 1969 raid, in which police storm an apartment, killing Clark. In the scene, upon finding Hampton in his bed, an officer shoots him at point-blank range as a pregnant Njeri stands outside the room.

"I remember in my head saying, 'Don't stumble and don't cry. Just keep walking, handcuffed, like you're doing and don't give no expression,'" Njeri recounted of the incident that inspired the scene. "I just wanted to remain conscious of everything that was going on that I could remember. Focus. Matter of fact, when I was coming out the rear bedroom with my hands up, I said in my head, 'Make sure to remember what every one of these pigs looks like, remember badge numbers, remember any kind of facial things, mustaches or moles, all of that,' because I would have to be able to tell it later."

As the mugshot behind her indicates, Njeri was one of the seven Panthers who faced attempted murder counts, charges that were dropped in 1970 after the police account painting the Panthers as instigators unraveled. Authorities claimed they had opened fire in self-defense, but a grand jury found the overwhelming number of bullet casings came from police.

Njeri and Hampton Jr. served as consultants on the movie. While Hampton Jr. believes there are holes in the narrative -- he's appeared on film critic Elvis Mitchell's podcast to expand on his father's legacy and address elements of Hampton Sr.'s story that the movie missed -- he's thankful the "dream team" behind the movie reached out to his family.

For him, consulting was a continuation of the resistance -- another fight for justice, to ensure his father's story was told, as was the story of the Black Panther Party, which he says is under continuous attack. "Whether it be (via) nefarious intent or naivete," people would tell him to let a certain anecdote slide or that an element of the history was insignificant -- something they would never do with religion or even a cooking recipe, he said.

The Black Panther Party emerged from the Black Power era and the global political upheaval of the 1960s. Inspired by Malcolm X's revolutionary Black nationalism, it borrowed rhetoric from radical movements in Cuba, Africa and the developing world and demanded decent housing for Black people and an end to police brutality, even patrolling Black neighborhoods to protect residents.

Hampton Jr., 51, was regularly on the set and lent his expertise on multiple matters, down to the minutiae of wardrobe, body language and even background pictures and posters. He still wakes up at night, saying, "Cut!" At one point, he became ill during the shooting, his mother said. Hampton Jr. blamed it on "battle fatigue" and the "continuous struggle with regard to crossing the Ts and dotting the Is."

"He called me and said, 'You've got to come up here,' and so I did," Njeri recalled. "He didn't even go into detail. He didn't say he was sick. He just said, 'You need to come on the set.' I said, 'OK.'"

"This is my A-1 from Day One," Hampton Jr. said of his mother. "The connection you're seeing is my comrade. ... A thousand horses or a million pigs couldn't stop her from being here. She's right there in that tour of duty. The war continues, and so does the resistance."

Njeri wowed by actors' performances

Despite his qualms with the movie, Hampton Jr. said his time "being in that kitchen" left him in admiration of the storytelling and the finished product.

Njeri thanks the cast and crew for doing their homework. Many who've told Hampton Sr.'s story did not, she said. She called the cast magnificent, the movie excellent and powerful. She's especially grateful for the team's willingness "to sit down with us and really learn about the Black Panther Party because there's so many bogus books and bogus things written about the party," she said.

She was most impressed when she first met Kaluuya at a roundtable discussion with her son, and Hampton Jr. asked the cast and crew why they wanted to make the movie and what they were thinking.

"I watched (Kaluuya) processing and learning, although I couldn't get a feel from him what he was really thinking, but I could see he was absorbing it all in. Didn't come in with an arrogance like, 'I know about the Black Panthers; I can do this,' but really just sucking up all the information he could," she said. "To see Daniel do the speeches and kind of do the walk and the talk and the mannerisms of Chairman Fred, it was really amazing."

Hampton Jr. was relieved when Kaluuya told him, "You have to see also who Chairman Fred was not, to appreciate who Chairman Fred was," he recounted, spurring a "Right on!" from his mother.

"We're not dealing with a conventional cat. Chairman Fred was not your average individual. We had to first start with that premise," the son of the famed revolutionary said.

Kaluuya told CNN earlier this year, "It's not like I became him. I felt like he was there. ... I felt like he was coming through me, like he was in the room."

Njeri also found herself moved by the performances of Stanfield and Dominique Fishback, who plays a teen Njeri. Stanfield reminded her so much of the informant she loathed that she couldn't embrace him, she said.

"I told Lakeith Stanfield on the set one time, 'You did the damned thing, but I can't hug you, O'Neal,'" she said with a big laugh.

While she enjoyed Fishback's performance, she said she questioned Fishback a great deal, prompting the actress to ask Njeri if she was giving her a hard time.

"Yeah, I'm going to do that anyway," Njeri responded. "Don't worry about it. You got it. I know you got it. You got my little side-eye look I give people, so she had that down pat."

The response has been astounding, she said, if only because people are talking about the Panthers and their history.

"I appreciate so much the discussion that's going on," she said. "They're not afraid to say Chairman Fred's name now. People are saying it. They're not whispering, 'Yeah I knew some Black Panthers.' It's out there and on the table, and it's good debate, good discussion, and it's even motivating some people to do some work."




Saving Hampton Sr.'s childhood home

It's also shone a light on Njeri's and Hampton Jr.'s work -- which long preceded the movie -- to carry on the Panthers' legacy through the Black Panther Party Cubs, composed in part of sons and daughters of the original Panthers. The group organizes a free breakfast program, publishes an intercommunity newspaper and broadcasts a weekly "Free Em All Radio" program.

"We attempt our best to not walk in the footsteps but in their Black Panther Party paw steps, and not just in theory, not in a romanticized type of way (but) with our programs, with our criticisms, with our self-criticisms, with our struggles, our politics of internationalism, with the present-day Rainbow Coalition, with the Triple Cs -- the children, community and Cubs -- supplying services for the people, not in a charity type of way but where people themselves can get involved and fight for their own self-determination," Hampton Jr. said.

Njeri, who sits on the Cubs' advisory board, has also helped spearhead an effort to save Hampton Sr.'s childhood home in Maywood, Illinois. It's where a 12-year-old Hampton Sr. got an early taste of revolution, organizing demonstrations against police and demanding recreational facilities for Black children, she said.

Njeri and Hampton Jr. would like to see the house, which is owned by Hampton's relatives, granted historic landmark status. More importantly, she wants it to serve as a community center and de facto museum, "where people can go and get accurate information and learn about a revolutionary organization, not through some he said-she said but from people that were actually involved in it."

Supporters bring posters and books (even Hampton Sr.'s yearbooks) to the house. They volunteer to help paint and spruce up the property. A craftsman donated a table emblazoned with the Cubs' logo. Locals drop off clothes and jackets for distribution in the community, and neighbors are invited to pick fresh vegetables from the garden on the grounds, Njeri said.

"People say those greens, those tomatoes taste different," Hampton Jr. said.

On Saturdays, the Cubs gather local children to engage in games and activities that teach them about working "in the group's interests, not just them individually but working collectively for the improvement or the win of the group" -- a key tenet of the original Panthers' philosophy, Njeri said.

"It also serves as a political education piece, just as the breakfast program did, where the children go home and tell the parents about the Cubs helping them with their homework, talking to them about issues that they experience, whether it's at school, whether it's on the street with the pigs stopping them, so on and so forth. Then the parents come and they start participating in various programs," she said.

Following the movie, the GoFundMe campaign set up to save the Hampton house shot past its $350,000 goal and was closed, prompting would-be donors to plead that the fundraising page be reopened.

A lot of people didn't know the Panthers were still working in the community, Njeri said. Now that the movie has created such tremendous buzz, people are invigorated and encouraged by the Panthers' work. Njeri couldn't be more delighted, she said.

"I'm just bubbling over with happiness, to have been able to fight in that period of struggle and to be able to fight in this period of struggle for self-determination in our own interest, and it can't get no better than that. You know what I'm saying?"







6 SLIDES © Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images

Ivy League colleges urged to apologise for using bones of Black children in teaching

OBSCENE; BONES OF VICTIMS OF PHILLY COP BOMBING OF MOVE HOUSE

Ed Pilkington 

THE GUARDIAN

4/23/2021

Two Ivy League institutions, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton, are facing mounting demands to apologise and make restitution for their handling over decades of the bones of African American children killed by Philadelphia police in 1985.

Related: Bones of Black children killed in police bombing used in Ivy League anthropology course

As calls pour in for action to be taken over the use of the children’s remains as props in an online Princeton anthropology course – without permission from parents of the dead children – there is also rising concern about the whereabouts of the bones.

Fragments belonging to one or possibly two Black children have been held by the universities for 36 years, but now appear to have gone missing.

They are currently in use as a “case study” in an online forensic anthropology course fronted by Princeton that is openly available on the internet. The bones are shown on camera as teaching tools – without the blessing of relatives who were unaware their loved ones’ remains were harboured in academic collections.

The course, Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology, is presented by Prof Janet Monge, an expert on bone collections who is on faculty at both Princeton and Penn. On video, she holds up the pelvis and femur of a girl whose remains were collected from the ashes of the 13 May 1985 police bombing of the headquarters of Move, a Philadelphia-based black liberation and back-to-nature group.

Eleven group members died in the fire, including five children.

As calls grew from present-day Move members, Philadelphia politicians and academics for the institutions to be held accountable, Princeton eventually responded. It said that it had only become aware of the controversy surrounding the class, distributed on the platform Coursera, on Wednesday but late on Friday the institution announced that it had decided to suspend the course.

“We are in the process of gathering and understanding all of the related facts, and out of respect for the victims of the Move bombing and their families we have suspended the online course,” Michael Hotchkiss, a Princeton spokesperson said.

But that is unlikely to satisfy those impacted by the revelations. “There needs to be a full investigation and disclosure from all parties involved,” said Michael Africa Jr, a Move member who was six at the time of the bombing.

“We want a formal and public apology from Penn, Princeton and any of the anthropologists involved, and we want reparations – there has got to be some kind of restitution for this insanity.”


Move, in alliance with the Philadelphia branch of Black Lives Matter, will stage a rally on 28 April outside Penn Museum, the part of University of Pennsylvania where the children’s bones were kept for years in a cardboard box. A number of demands will be made, including that the bones are returned to relatives.

That might be easier said than done, given that the location of the fragments is a mystery. The University of Pennsylvania told the Guardian the bones had been handed to Princeton. Princeton told the Guardian it did not have any such remains.

“We need the bones to be returned so that we can lay them to rest,” Africa Jr said.

Jamie Gauthier, the Democratic council member who represents the area of Philadelphia devastated by the bombing, said the inability to find the remains was unacceptable.

“We need to find them and give them back so that they can be properly buried,” she said.

Gauthier played a key role in moving the city council last year to make a formal apology for the 1985 bombing, in which C4 plastic explosives were dropped by police helicopter on the Move house, igniting a massive fire. As part of the apology, 13 May has been declared a day of remembrance.

The council member said she was “disgusted” to learn the two Ivy League colleges had held the bones for decades without permission.

“It shows enormous disrespect for Black life and for a child or children who were murdered by their own government,” she said. “They suffered such trauma in life, and then even in death these institutions couldn’t find it within themselves to see them as human. That’s the only way I can understand this, because you only treat someone’s remains like this if you see them as ‘other’.”

Among the growing calls are demands for reparations or restitution for the Move family. The idea was floated this week by Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, an organiser from West Philadelphia writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Gauthier backed the demand.

“The universities used the remains of the Move children to grow their own research and platform,” she said, “and they need to compensate the family for that.”

Related: The day police bombed a city street: can scars of 1985 Move atrocity be healed?

The furore comes at a sensitive time for academic institutions, especially Penn, which last week apologised for its museum’s “unethical possession of human remains” in its Samuel Morton Cranial collection. The 19th-century collection, used by Morton to justify theories of white supremacy, included the remains of Black Philadelphians and 53 crania of enslaved people from Cuba and the US which will now be repatriated or reburied.

Paul Wolff Mitchell, a PhD candidate in anthropology at Penn who has researched the Morton collection and who participates in student activism around redressing the historical harm inflicted on Black communities by scientific practices, pointed out that the first public protest outside Penn Museum was organised as recently as 8 April in relation to the Morton collection.

“As a result of the discovery of the retention of these Move remains, and their use as a case study in an anthropology course, I’m certain that this first ever protest will not be the last,” Mitchell said.

Fellas, Is It Gay To Be Immune From A Deadly Virus?

CAN WE GIVE THE DARWIN AWARD TO   AMERICAN MEN

 white Republican men are the largest anti-vax group in the country, with 49% of those surveyed saying that they will not get the vaccine. 

Britni de la Cretaz

REFINERY29 

4/23/2021

New statistics about the rates at which Americans are getting vaccinated for COVID-19 reinforce something we already know: toxic masculinity is literally killing people. As it turns out (to little surprise), women are getting vaccinated at far higher rates than men — about 10 percentage points — despite the fact that there are roughly the same number of men and women in the U.S.

© Provided by Refinery29 Editorial Use Only Mandatory Credit: Photo by Álex Cámara/NurPhoto/Shutterstock (11785718j) Three old men smoke with no face masks amid the coronavirus pandemic on March 04, 2021 in Granada, Spain. Daily Life in Granada amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Spain – 04 Mar 2021

In some places, like Los Angeles County, the divide is even starker: The New York Times reports that while 44% of women over 16 have received the vaccine, just 30% of men in the same age group have. There are a few factors that partially explain this gap. The first group of people to be vaccinated were people over 70, and there are more women in that age group than men in the U.S. Not only that, more than three-quarters of health care workers are women, as are over 75% of teachers — two more demographics that were prioritized for the earliest rounds of vaccines.

But there’s another factor at play, one that has more to do with cultural gender norms. “This avoidance has been linked to masculinity ideals of men being strong, invincible and not asking for help,” Kristen W. Springer, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told The Times.

This vaccine reluctance among men echoes other patterns we’ve seen throughout the pandemic. Men are also less likely to wear masks, which one study found was related to perceived “illusions of vulnerability” created by the act of masking up. They are also less likely to adhere to social distancing recommendations.

Research from last month found that white Republican men are the largest anti-vax group in the country, with 49% of those surveyed saying that they will not get the vaccine. But as these newest numbers show, it’s not just white men who are resistant to receiving the vaccine. In Los Angeles County, while 35% of Asian men and 32% of white men have received the COVID-19 vaccine, only 19% of Black men and 17% of Latino men have. There could be other factors at play, like access, and Dr. Paul Simon, the chief science officer at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, told The Times they were planning to do outreach specifically targeting men.

One message they are hoping might speak to men who hold traditional ideas about what it means to be “a man” is the idea that vaccinating yourself can protect your family from the virus, appealing to the trope of men being “protectors.” This might counteract the trend of men being less likely to pursue preventative healthcare, which is impacted by ideas of being too “macho” to go to the doctor.

And one of the biggest concerns if large numbers of men refuse to get vaccinated is that the country might not reach herd immunity, which is when enough people have been inoculated against a virus to prevent community spread of it. “If we’re below 60% to 70% vaccination for COVID when we enter the fall respiratory season, that could easily tip us into an emergency situation,” Samuel Scarpino, who models the coronavirus outbreak at Northeastern University, told NPR.

Either way, it might be hard to reach some men who think they don’t need the vaccine. “Some men have a sense that they are not necessarily susceptible,” Simon told The Times. “They have weathered this for more than a year and have a sense of omnipotence.”

Made-in-Canada werewolf tale is bloody, good
LUPE DE GAROU GENRE POPULAR WITH CANADIAN WOMEN DIRECTORS*
Bloody and sleek, Bloodthirsty is a clever, pared-down take on the werewolf genre, and made in Canada to boot.

© Provided by National Post Lauren Beatty stars as Grey in Bloodthirsty.

Lauren Beatty stars as Grey, an up-and-coming musician looking for a new manager. She makes a connection with producer Vaughn Daniels (Greg Bryk), who invites her out to his secluded rural home, where they can make beautiful music together.

Grey’s girlfriend Charlie (Katharine King So) isn’t as enthusiastic, especially when a quick Google turns up that Vaughn was once tried for murder. Unconcerned, Grey counters that he was acquitted, and so off they go.

Bryk gives a great, unsettling and intense performance that had me wondering whether the 48-year-old might some day morph into this country’s next Stephen McHattie. (Though I don’t recommend anyone get so gaunt without a doctor’s supervision.)

Vaughn explains how his wife died by her own hand, then creepily hands over her last, unfinished song, with the suggestion that Grey see what she can make of it. This between plying her with absinthe and trying to get her to give up her vegetarian lifestyle. And we already know from an early scene that Grey is taking medication for some kind of issue that includes hallucinations and disturbing dreams.

It’s worth pointing out that Bloodthirsty is a female-led horror, directed by Amelia Moses – she and Beatty also shot a similarly themed horror, Bleed With Me , currently on the festival circuit – and written by Wendy Hill-Tout and singer-songwriter Lowell, who also created some of Grey’s music.

But it doesn’t wear its female sensibility on its sleeve. This is a straight-up horror any way you slice it (and any way it slices). You’d have to be a misanthrope not to appreciate these lycanthropes.

Bloodthirsty is available April 23 on demand.
Chris Knight 
4 stars out of 5

*GINGER SNAPS 1 AND 2, FEMALE WEREWOLVES

 NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES FOR KENNEY

Premier Jason Kenney faces growing unrest inside the UCP with letter calling for his resignation

Duration: 02:08 

A letter is circulating amongst grassroots members of the United Conservative Party, demanding Premier jason Kenney immediately resign as party leader over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and personal unpopularity. Tom Vernon reports.

Global News

Letter by UCP members calls on Jason Kenney to resign as premier and party leader

On Friday, first quarter fundraising numbers were released in Alberta, showing that the New Democrats, led by former premier Rachel Notley, took in nearly $1.2 million between January and end of March. The UCP, on the other hand, took in just shy of $600,000.

Tyler Dawson 

POSTMEDIA

4/23/2021
 

© Provided by National Post Premier Jason Kenney posted this photo to his Twitter account of him receiving his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Edmonton.

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who’s been grappling with internal party dissent over his government’s COVID-19 restrictions, is now facing a letter campaign among the party’s grassroots calling for him to abandon the premier’s office.

The letter, which began circulating a few weeks ago, demands Kenney resign as premier and leader of the United Conservative Party. It’s the latest in a series of challenges Kenney has faced since he swept to power in 2019 on promises to take on the federal government and restore Alberta’s economic prosperity.

Instead, he’s had to grapple with a devastating pandemic and a troublesome caucus that has undermined his ability to sell the government’s pandemic message.

Several members of his caucus drew rebuke for travelling out-of-province around Christmas at the height of the pandemic’s second wave. Since then, multiple MLAs have publicly opposed Kenney’s COVID measures, he’s faced calls for a review of his leadership, and now, a call to step aside entirely.

The new letter hasn’t been officially released. It’s not known how many people have signed, will sign, or who they might be. Postmedia received a copy of the template, with no signatories. It says, while requesting Kenney’s “immediate resignation as leader of the party and as Premier of Alberta,” that the signatories are members of UCP constituency association boards or recent members.

“Furthermore, we do not believe you have the moral authority or trustworthiness to lead this party into the next election or to continue to deliver on important conservative priorities,” the letter says.

JUST THE FACTS MA'AM

10/3 podcast: Can Jason Kenney turn things around in Alberta?

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to face United Conservative Party leadership review in 2022

On Friday, first quarter fundraising numbers were released in Alberta, showing that the New Democrats, led by former premier Rachel Notley, took in nearly $1.2 million between January and end of March. The UCP, on the other hand, took in just shy of $600,000.

“Conservative parties should always lead on fundraising and so, if you’ve got the NDP either close to or tieing or slightly ahead, that’s significant,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University. “But having a lead of this size? That’s just another data point of the problems that are going on with the UCP.”

The Calgary Herald, quoting a Kenney spokesman, reported, “the premier isn’t going anywhere.”

Ryan Becker, president of the UCP, said in a statement that tens of thousands of party members supported Kenney for leadership and millions voted for him to become premier.

“Signatures on a piece of paper from a largely anonymous small few with their own agendas does not and will not supersede the rules and procedures that govern our party and the will of tens of thousands of our members and Alberta voters,” Becker said.

The letter comes just weeks after the latest round of public health restrictions, which included the closure of gyms, and tighter restrictions on shopping, indoor dining, and gatherings. These measures, announced on April 6, prompted 17 members of the legislature — about one-quarter of Kenney’s 63 MLAs — to speak out against them, saying further lockdowns were not the best policy.

If the letter currently circulating gets several dozen signatures — 90 is one of the numbers floating around — it’s a question of how many ridings are represented, Bratt said. “Is that widespread discontent?” he asked.

The health restrictions are unpopular in some parts of Alberta, particularly rural and small-town Alberta, where the crush of COVID cases is less visible, and the political culture skews more conservative than in the cities.

ThinkHQ polling from November 2020, done as newer restrictions were coming in to address the pandemic’s second wave, showed only nine per cent of Albertans in Edmonton and Calgary felt the restrictions went too far.

In north, central and southern Alberta — areas the UCP generally dominates — about 20 per cent felt they went too far.

As of Thursday, there were more than 19,000 active COVID-19 cases in the province, with more than 500 people in hospital, including 116 in intensive care. More than 2,000 Albertans have died over the course of the pandemic.

But there has been outright defiance of public health measures in Alberta, with some restaurants, such as the Whistle Stop Café in Mirror, Alta., or the the GraceLife Church near Edmonton, refusing to close their doors.

The Alberta legislature, on April 12, saw a protest that brought together right-wing protestors, and those with genuine angst over the economic damage caused by ongoing restrictions, demanding the province be re-opened.

Kenney will likely face a leadership review in 2022, at the party’s annual general meeting, some six months before the next provincial election. The latest letter, though, said “it has become increasingly clear to us that you will not allow a proper review of your leadership in a timely manner.”

“Therefore, we realize the time for discussing your leadership has come to an end,” the letter says.

But if enough constituency associations climb on the bandwagon, that review could happen any time. “Just the fact that you’re having one, even if you win it, you’re already damaged,” said Bratt.

With files from the Calgary Herald

• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson

OFFER BETTER PAY AND BENEFITS 

American companies are struggling to hire workers, but BofA sees that fading by early 2022

bwinck@businessinsider.com (Ben Winck)

4/23/24

©  Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Many US businesses are facing worker shortages as the economy starts to reopen.

The unusual dynamic will fade by early 2022 as the labor market rebounds, BofA economists said.

Expanded unemployment benefits and COVID-19 fears are likely keeping many from seeking work, they added.

A McDonald's paying people to interview for jobs. Uber drivers holding off on rides in hopes of higher pay. Millions of payrolls possibly vanishing altogether.

The US economy is still down roughly 8.4 million jobs since the pandemic first fueled massive layoffs. That suggests hiring would quickly bounce back as the country reopens and Americans get back to spending as usual. But the opposite effect is taking place. Instead of an oversupply of workers meeting weaker demand, businesses looking to hire are coming up against a shortage of Americans seeking employment.

That shortfall is presenting an unusual and unexpected challenge to the broader recovery. Without a return to pre-pandemic employment, consumer spending will trend below its potential and leave less money flowing through the economy.

Bank of America economists aren't particularly concerned. The shortage is likely driven by expanded unemployment benefits included in the latest stimulus package, concern around catching the coronavirus, and home-schooling demands for working couples, the team led by Michelle Meyer said in a Friday note. The bank expects that dynamic to fade by early 2022 as stimulus expires and more Americans are vaccinated.



Video: There is scope for U.S. yield curve to steepen further: AllianceBernstein (CNBC)



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"Therefore by early next year, COVID-related labor shortages will likely be replaced by 'traditional' shortages because of a hot labor market," the economists added.

The team reiterated its expectation for the unemployment rate to fall to 4% by the end of 2021. The rate currently sits at 6%, but the government's latest payrolls report suggests monthly job additions will average about 1 million in the near term.

Still, the "traditional" labor shortages expected to emerge next year will present new constraints, according to the bank. The red-hot labor market could "make it difficult" for ports to reach pre-pandemic employment levels even after the health crisis ends, the team said. Such setbacks could further increase factory backorders, which already swelled in recent months due to supply chain disruptions.

The amount of time Americans spend disengaged from the labor force could also slow the recovery. The post-pandemic economy won't be the same as the one seen before the outbreak, and those changes will make the return to work difficult for millions of Americans, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in March.

"The real concern is that longer-term unemployment can allow people's skills to atrophy, their connections to the labor market to dwindle, and they have a hard time getting back to work," he said, adding the central bank needs to "keep supporting them" as the labor market creeps toward a full recovery.

CANADA

Super competitive': Warehouse demand soars amid shift to online shopping

TORONTO — A boom in online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic is making it tough to find warehouse space in many provinces, industry insiders say.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Industrial space is being gobbled up at a dizzying rate as companies expand their storage and fulfilment centres to cope with the demands of e-commerce.


"We're seeing multiple offers on any space that's available, especially anything that's existing and you can occupy this year," said Jason Kiselbach, senior vice-president and managing director of CBRE Vancouver.

"It's super competitive."

At the start of April, the commercial real estate company said Canada's industrial markets are the tightest in North America and the country can’t build space fast enough to satisfy the "voracious" demand.

In the first quarter of 2021, CBRE found the industrial real estate availability rate across Canada sat at 2.9 per cent, down from 3.1 per cent in the same quarter last year and 3.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year.

Toronto, Vancouver and Ontario's Waterloo region had the lowest availability rates at 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8 per cent, respectively. Halifax, Calgary and Edmonton had the highest rates at 4.3, 7.8 and 9.1 per cent, respectively.

Average net asking lease rates increased by $0.20 per sq. ft. quarter-over-quarter in Toronto alone, reaching an all-time high of $10.45 per sq. ft. That increase set a record because it was the 16th consecutive quarter of growth and came as rental rates rose 90.8 per cent over the last five years.

Demand for warehouse space, Kiselbach said, was already high before the pandemic, but it accelerated even more, when stores temporarily closed and people staying home had little choice but to shop online for many items.

On an unadjusted basis, Statistics Canada said retail e-commerce sales were up 110.7 per cent year over year to $3.5 billion in January.

With storefronts closed intermittently during the pandemic, retailers rushed to offer online shopping to keep sales going. Those companies needed additional space to store inventory and process orders for delivery.

But there were few properties to pick from.

"For Vancouver, we only have one space available over 100,000 square feet and it will get leased fairly quickly," Kiselbach said this week.

"We're seeing anything under construction or planned, people are putting offers on it well ahead of it being delivered."

With almost no warehouses available in some regions like the Greater Toronto Area, Mike Croza says some companies are starting to revamp their operations and logistics for this new reality.

"A lot of companies may not have been prepared for such a disruption," said the founder and managing partner of Supply Chain Alliance.

He's noticed companies are repurposing space they already had or could quickly obtain for distribution and fulfilment and even turning to dark stores — retail spaces that are closed but are being used to hold or prepare goods.

There's also a wave of companies hiring people to handle logistics and figure out how to squeeze out more space and better efficiency to meet pandemic demands, he said.

"It's a good place to be right now," Croza said. "Supply chain was never seen as sexy, but it's now seen as sexy."

Other companies are handling the lack of space by looking farther than they planned for property, said Marshall Toner, the executive vice-president and managing director of JLL's industrial Canada business.

"There's no magic bullet or silver bullet that I'm aware of that guys have got up their sleeve to solve this other than being open to having their fulfilment centre or distribution centre in a place that maybe they didn't exactly want," he said.

However, by using secondary or satellite facilities further from a desired location, he said some companies can make it work.

Toner doesn't expect the interest in such properties in warehouses to dissipate much, even if COVID-19 lockdowns are lifted and people return to shopping in-person, because e-commerce is still poised to become more popular.

"There's still going to be a significant amount of growth in the industrial space," he said.

"The temperature might cool down on it, but I think the demand is still going to be there.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2021.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

Will this be the emissions target Canadians can take seriously?

Aaron Wherry

CBC

OTTAWA PRESS GALLERY

4/23/2021

© Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press A person walks past a climate change-themed nature mural on Earth Day in Toronto on Thursday, April 22, 2021.

Canada has never had a hard time setting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge has been to actually meet those targets.

So you would be forgiven for casting a skeptical eye at the Liberal government's pledge to now aim for a reduction in Canada's emissions of 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 — a deeper cut than the 30 per cent reduction Canada has been promising to achieve since 2015.

But after 30 years of making international commitments and failing to live up to them, this country now has a plausible path to get to that previous target.


Climate change is a challenge that demands ambition. Some argue that Canada should be shooting for an even steeper decrease in emissions. But ambition needs to be matched with action and accountability.

"I come from the business world. I used to be a CEO. And what you do is you set out a plan and you actually deliver on the plan and then you set out new targets," Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told CBC News ahead of Thursday's announcement.

"And then at the beginning of the year, sometimes you don't know fully how you're going to achieve those targets, but part of the target-setting exercise is to ensure that you're actually stretching. If you've ever read Jim Collins' book Built to Last, that's how successful companies often run their businesses, because if you actually are setting targets that you know can achieve from day one, you're probably not pushing yourself enough."

Collins is a proponent of companies setting what he calls "big, hairy, audacious goals."

A large part of the government's argument for setting a new target rests on its claim that it already has delivered a plan that would get Canada past the old 2030 target — and that this new target comes at a moment of rising ambitions for climate policy in Canada and abroad.

In 2015, when Justin Trudeau's government came to power, Canada's emissions were on track to increase by 12 per cent through 2030.

By the time the 2019 election rolled around, projections showed that — thanks to federal and provincial policies — Canada was on track to reduce emissions by 21 per cent below 2005 levels.

Last December, when the Trudeau government released an updated plan that included future increases to the federal carbon price, it projected that it could achieve a 32 per cent reduction by 2030. With this week's budget, it increased that projection to 36 per cent.

Video: Canada lacks plan on meeting new emissions reduction goal (Global News)

Policies still have to be implemented and it would be naive to imagine the next nine years will go perfectly smoothly. Plotting a path is easier than following it. But at least it's now possible to see a path.

What's more, the ground floor for Canadian climate policy may have been raised last week when Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole tabled a plan that — while debatable in its details and perhaps its commitment — both accepts the wisdom of pricing carbon and offers a realistic strategy to achieve a 30 per cent emissions reduction.
Not ambitious enough?

The fact that there is no solid plan yet to get to 40 or 45 per cent is no small detail, though the same could be said of every country that announced a new target this week. Skepticism might be warranted. Domestic or international politics might be at play here — though politics that leads to more ambitious action should be welcomed.

But there's a clear case for more ambition. And one way to make sure the new target isn't just another big number written down on a piece of paper is to ensure that someone is held accountable for pursuing it.

The Trudeau government has said that Canada, like other countries, should aim for net-zero emissions by 2050 but there are good reasons to move sooner rather than later — both in terms of avoiding emissions and in mitigating the cost of taking action.

Some will say that the Liberal target is not big, hairy or audacious enough. The Biden administration is promising a 50 per cent reduction, though any comparison between Canada and the United States must account for differences in both the source of emissions and the cost of reductions, not to mention the stringency of current policy.

And there's disagreement over what constitutes Canada's "fair share" of the emissions cuts required to keep further global warming close to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Climate Action Network says that, based on Canada's situation and the circumstances of other countries, a fair share would be 60 per cent.
Holding the feds' feet to the fire

But even hitting the Trudeau government's new target range will be difficult. Climate experts described it on Thursday as a "very tall order" and a "big lift."

Either way, there is a real need for accountability this time. Catherine Abreu, executive director of the Climate Action Network, said the problem with past targets was a lack of accountability

.

© Sam Nar/CBC A youth climate protester holds a sign in downtown Toronto on Friday, March 19, 2021.

"For me, a huge takeaway from this whole conversation … is that Canada's failure in the past is not just a failure of ambition. It's a failure of climate governance," she said.

"And that's why improving or passing Bill C-12 [the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act] is so essential because it will set up that regular, formal process that not just this government, but all future governments will have to follow to set climate targets and set plans to meet them."

Abreu notes that Bill C-12, the government's climate accountability legislation, would require the government to produce a plan for meeting its 2030 target within six months of the bill's passage — and a review process would evaluate the country's progress toward that target.

Abreu said the bill should be amended to require that the government meet a 2030 target.

Climate change is a threat that imposes a moral imperative — and the political imperative may have become more urgent in recent years. But building out the reporting and accountability rules on those targets might ensure that no government is ever again able to set a target and then forget it.