Haiti: Retired soldier claims 26 Colombians accused in assassination were actually hired to protect the President

After 26 Colombians were accused of assassinating Haitian President Jovenel Moise, a retired special forces soldier in Colombia has told CNN that they were actually hired to provide the leader security, and that he himself was approached for the job by a US-based company

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© Joseph Odelyn/AP The police chief described the men presented at a news conference as attackers who were apprehended in the assassination of Haiti's President, in Port-au-Prince, on July 8.

By Stefano Pozzebon, CNN 5 hrs ago

Matias Gutierrez, 45, told CNN he was contacted in early June by a fellow veteran named Mendivelso Gersain, who put him in touch with another man -- retired Sgt. Duberney Capador -- recruiting a group of private security guards to travel to Haiti.

Capador told the men he was working for a US-based company and created a WhatsApp group to coordinate the recruitment effort, Gutierrez alleged. The logo of Florida-based firm CTU Security was added as the icon of the WhatsApp group, which, Gutierrez said, at some point had more than 250 people in it.

"They only mentioned a company based in the US, and a job as private security in Haiti. Security for the President of Haiti, who was believed to be under death threat," Gutierrez told CNN.

Colombian police had already named CTU Security as the recruiter for the Haiti operation, but their Haitian counterparts believe a Haitian-born American, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, had hired CTU to recruit the 26 Colombians, characterizing them as mercenaries, as well as two Haitian-Americans.

When asked about the 26 Colombians and two other Haitian-Americans who are suspects in the investigation, Sanon emphasized that "he doesn't know anything at all," according to a source close to the investigation, who cannot be named because they are not authorized to discuss the affair. "He doesn't know. He doesn't know. This is what he said since the day authorities interviewed him," the source said.

CTU Security is headquartered in the Miami area and run by a Venezuelan man, Antonio "Tony" Intriago.

CNN has tried repeatedly to contact CTU Security since Saturday and has been unable to identify contact information for Intriago. Colombian police say they are working with Interpol to provide information on Intriago.

On Monday, Colombian police also claimed that the airfares for 19 the Colombian men were paid with a credit card linked to a company based in Miami.

About a month after the first recruitment approach was made, according to Gutierrez, Moise was killed in his private residence in the early hours of July 7. Capador was gunned down in an operation by Haiti police shortly afterward, on the same day, and Gersain remains detained as one of 20 Colombians captured after the assassination.

Gutierrez told CNN he had been in contact with the recruited Colombian guards several times while they were in Haiti. They told him the job was to supplement the Haitian presidential guard.

"They were not working in the inner circle," Gutierrez said. "A country would never put the safety of a president in the hands of a stranger. The inner circle is always a group of presidential guards or secret service in civil clothes. Our group was uniformed and working in support of the inner circle."

According to the Colombian police, Capador travelled to Port-au-Prince on May 10 with another Colombian man, retired Capt. German Rivera. A group of 11 retired Colombian soldiers followed them on June 4. It's unclear when Gersain arrived in Haiti.

At the end of May, Dimitri Herard, the Haitian chief of the General Security Unit at the presidential palace, also traveled to Ecuador through Bogota, according to the Colombian National Police. The force said July 12 that it is investigating whether Herard, while in Colombia, met with any of the Colombian nationals allegedly involved in the assassination.

Herard is currently under disciplinary measures in Haiti and was due to appear in court Wednesday, but he missed his appearance, citing "a precautionary measure ordered by the General Inspector of the Haitian Police," according to a letter from Herard that CNN has seen.

Gutierrez questions Colombians' involvement

Gutierrez, who works as a security guard for an oil company in Bogota, says he was attracted to the job by the good pay and the possibility to travel: "In Colombia, any job would pay you some three hundred USD, while this offer was for $2,700 per month, with food and accommodation included. I know people who are working right now in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, people in Kabul or Yemen, or even Syria. It was a similar job offer to those ones."

Gutierrez told CNN he is part of a wide network of retired special forces and commandos who work as private security at home and abroad. Colombian veterans are highly sought by private security companies because of their combat experience garnered from sustained warfare among the Colombian state, left-wing guerrillas and paramilitary groups.

Capador's sister told CNN her brother was also looking for a better salary abroad, saying he was struggling to get by on the state pension he received after 20 years of service in the Colombian army.

Gutierrez, as well as several relatives of other Colombians who traveled to Haiti, told CNN the accusations against the men do not add up.

"It was all a plot. How can you have this type of assassination and not have a single dead but the President himself? If my fellows had done the job, they would have had to enter the residence and kill the guards before killing the President. You would have seen a combat scene," Gutierrez said.

Capador's sister also told CNN she spoke with her brother in the morning on the day of the President's assassination, and that he told her they had arrived too late and could not save the target they had been hired to protect.

She said she last heard from her brother on the afternoon of July 7, when he told her he was negotiating the Colombians' surrender to the Haitian police, Capador told CNN, a claim CNN has not been able to independently verify.

After the news broke from Haiti, everything turned quiet on the WhatsApp group created to coordinate the recruitment effort, Gutierrez claims.

"Our group was called 'First Flight.' They created other groups because there were more than 250 people in that group, and they could not add more. Then everyone left. There's less than 50 people in it now."

Gutierrez said he felt the fact that there were so many people on the WhatsApp group suggested that the operation was nothing untoward.

"You don't do that if you need to kill somebody," he said.

"I've done those operations when I was in the military, and they would send a commando to kill a guerrilla leader or something similar. You're never more than eight people. Eight is the maximum, because otherwise too many people make the operation harder. This time they were adding more and more people."

His thoughts, he says, are for the families of the detained guards: "They didn't even receive their first salary, they had just got there. Now this happened, and probably the Colombians are going to be charged. Who knows when they'll see them again."

Miami security firm faces questions in Haiti assassination

By GISELA SALOMON and ANDREW SELSKY

today

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MIAMI (AP) — For the owner of a small private security company with a history of avoiding paying debts and declaring bankruptcy, it looked like a good opportunity: Find people with military experience for a job in Haiti.

Antonio “Tony” Intriago, owner of Miami-based CTU Security, seems to have jumped at the chance, hiring more than 20 former soldiers from Colombia for the mission. Now the Colombians have been killed or captured in the aftermath of the July 7 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, and Intriago’s business faces questions about its role in the killing.

On Wednesday evening, Léon Charles, head of the Haiti’s National Police, accused Intriago of traveling to Haiti numerous times as part of the assassination plot and of signing a contract while there, but provided no other details and offered no evidence.

“The investigation is very advanced,” Charles said.

A Miami security professional believes Intriago was too eager to take the job and did not push to learn details, leaving his contractors in the lurch. Some of their family members back in Colombia have said the men understood the mission was to provide protection for VIPs.

Three Colombians were killed and 18 are behind bars in Haiti, Colombia’s national police chief, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, told reporters in Bogota. Colombian diplomats in Haiti have not had access to them.

Vargas has said that CTU Security used its company credit card to buy 19 plane tickets from Bogota to Santo Domingo for the Colombian suspects allegedly involved in the killing. One of the Colombians who was killed, Duberney Capador, photographed himself wearing a black CTU Security polo shirt.

Nelson Romero Velasquez, an ex-soldier and attorney who is advising 16 families of the Colombians held in Haiti, said Wednesday that the men had all served in the Colombian military’s elite special forces and could operate without being detected, if they had desired. He said their behavior made it clear they did not go to Haiti to assassinate the president.

“They have the ability to be like shadows,” Romero Velasquez said.

The predawn attack took place at the president’s private home. He was shot to death and his wife wounded. It’s not clear who pulled the trigger. The latest suspects identified in the sweeping investigation included a former Haitian senator, a fired government official and an informant for the U.S. government.

Miami has become a focus of the probe. The city has long been a nest of intrigue, from being a CIA recruitment center for the failed Bay of Pigs operation to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to being a key shipment point for Colombian cocaine in the 1980s. Its palm-fringed shores have also been a place of exile for people from Latin American and Caribbean countries when political winds blew against them at home, and where some plotted their returns.

Homeland Security Investigations, a U.S. agency responsible for investigating crimes that cross international borders, is also investigating the assassination, said a Department of Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the case. He declined to provide details.

The FBI says it is “providing investigative assistance” to Haitian authorities.

Intriago, who immigrated from Venezuela over a decade ago and participated in activities in Miami opposing the leftist regime in his homeland, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

He likes to be around powerful people and has posted photos on social media showing himself with them, including Colombian President Ivan Duque.

Duque’s office on Monday disavowed any knowledge of Intriago, saying Duque was in Miami while campaigning for the presidency in February 2018. He posed for photographs with some of those in attendance, but Duque did not have any meeting or any ties with Intriago, the Colombian president’s office said.

Florida state records show Intriago’s company has changed names in the past dozen years: CTU Security to CS Security Solutions to Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy LLC.

CTU lists two Miami addresses on its website. One is a shuttered warehouse with no signage. The other is a small office suite under a different name. A receptionist said the CTU owner stops by once a week to collect mail.

The company website says it offers “first-class personalized products and services to law enforcement and military units, as well as industrial customers.”

But it ducked paying some of those wholesale companies for their products. Florida records show Intriago’s company was ordered by a court to pay a $64,791 debt in 2018 to a weapons and tactical gear supply company, RSR Group. Propper, a military apparel manufacturer, also sued for nonpayment.

Alexis Ortiz, a writer who worked with Intriago organizing meetings of expatriate Venezuelans in the United States, described him as a “very active, skilled collaborator.”

“He seemed nice,” Ortiz said.

Richard Noriega, who runs International Security Consulting in Miami, said he does not know Intriago personally but has been observing the developing situation. Noriega, who is also originally from Venezuela, believes Intriago was lured by the prospect of fast money and did not perform due diligence.

Putting himself in Intriago’s shoes, Noriega said: “I’m coming out of a complicated situation — of work, of income, of money. An opportunity arises. I don’t want to lose it.”

Normally, a security company would seek all the details of an operation, to determine how many people to use and what level of insurance they would need. A priority would be to plan an escape route in case things go awry, he said.

“The first thing we (security professionals) have to take into account is the evacuation. Where will they exit? That’s the first thing I do,” Noriega said.

But apparently that planning never happened, perhaps because the Colombians, or at least some of them, thought their mission was benign.

He said it does not seem logical that if the highly trained Colombians were there to kill the president, that they would not have had an escape route. Instead they were caught, some hiding in bushes, by the local population and police.

“It is very murky,” Noriega said.

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Selsky, a former Associated Press bureau chief in the Caribbean and Colombia, reported from Salem, Oregon. AP writers Joshua Goodman in Miami, Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and Manuel Rueda and Astrid Suarez in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.

Defense Secretary Austin calls for ethical AI development

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking on Wednesday to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, said that ethics is a key to military AI development. Photo courtesy of Defense Department/Twitter

July 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. military must develop artificial intelligence ethically and responsibly, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in remarks on Wednesday.

In remarks to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, he noted that while China intends to be the world's AI leader by 2030, the United States has the same goal but a different approach.

"Beijing already talks about using AI for a range of missions, from surveillance to cyberattacks to autonomous weapons," Austin said.

"We're going to compete to win, but we're going to do it the right way. We're not going to cut corners on safety, security or ethics, and our watchwords are 'responsibility' and 'results,' and we don't believe for a minute that we have to sacrifice one for the other," he said.

"Our use of AI must reinforce our democratic values, protect our rights, ensure our safety and defend our privacy," Austin added.

In March, commission vice chair Robert Work said that the United States lacks an AI strategy in its competition with China.

Work said that the United States is currently the world leader in AI, but noted that China has structured its army, private sector and academia to overtake the United States.

He urged the Pentagon to dedicate 3.4 percent of its budget to AI development.

In his address on Wednesday, Austin noted that over 600 AI projects are in progress within the Defense Department, "significantly more than just a year ago, and that includes the Artificial Intelligence and Data Acceleration initiative, which brings AI to bear on operational data."

Austin also identified Project Salus, a project with the National Guard which uses AI to predict shortages of water, medicine and COVID-19 supplies.

He also noted the Pathfinder Project, which uses AI-derived algorithms to better detect airborne threats from military sensors and available data.

To accomplish the military's AI goals, Austin referred to recruitment and retention of talented people, typically young and not inclined to military service.

"We need to more vigorously recruit talented people and not scare them away," Austin said. "In today's world, in today's department, innovation cannot be an afterthought. It is the ballgame.''

Farm robots could bring utopia or disaster, scientist warns


An illustration shows what a utopian farm run by a variety of intelligent robots might look like. Photo by Natalis Lorenz


July 13 (UPI) -- Agriculture is already highly mechanized, and in the not too distant future, agricultural economist Thomas Daum predicts entire farms will be run by robots.

In fact, robots are already being deployed on farms.

As Daum sees it, robotization has the potential to transform the agricultural sector and usher in one of two realities: one utopian, the other dystopian.

Daum described these two opposing realities in a new paper, published Tuesday in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

Daum's utopia features swarms of small robots working around the clock on small- and medium-sized farms.

These farms feature a diverse rotation of crops interwoven seamlessly with the natural environment, including healthy habitat for a rich variety of native flora and fauna -- organically raised crops buffered by grasslands, streams and woodlands.

"It's like a Garden of Eden," Daum, a research fellow at the University of Hohenheim in Germany, said in a press release.

"Small robots could help conserve biodiversity and combat climate change in ways that were not possible before," Daum said.

Utopian farming, according to Daum, would be too labor intensive, but swarms of small, intelligent robots working in synchronicity 24-7 could make it work.

These robots would be able to deploy biopesticides more precisely and zap individual weeds with lasers, limiting the farm's impact on the surrounding environment.

Crop yields would be high, while the farm's environmental footprint would be minimal, Daum said.

Conversely, large but less sophisticated robots could be used to bulldoze the land and further expand modern, monoculture agriculture.

With humans out of the way, these robots could spray pesticides and deploy fertilizers with greater intensities and at broader scales.

Though reality is unlikely to resemble a pure utopia or dystopia, Daum hopes his paper will inspire scientists, engineers and policy makers to start thinking about how agricultural robots can be used for sustainably.

"The utopia and dystopia are both possible from a technological perspective," he said. "But without the right guardrails on policy, we may end up in the dystopia without wanting to if we don't discuss this now."

Daum's utopian farm would benefit more than just the environment.

Farms that grow a diversity of crops, not just high yield grains, are more likely to supply consumers with the full range of fruits and vegetables that healthy diet requires.

Because small swarms of intelligent robots can be more easily adopted by small farmers, places like Asia and Africa may be better positioned for utopian agriculture.

Conversely, agriculture in the places like the United States, Russia and Brazil are already dominated by large-scale farms growing low-value grains and oilseeds -- places where big, crude robots are more likely to be introduced.

"While it is true that the preconditions for small robots are more challenging in these areas, even with large robots -- or a mix between small and large -- we can take steps toward the utopia with practices such as intercropping, having hedgerows, agroforestry and moving away from larger farms to smaller plots of land owned by large farmers," Daum said.

"Some such practices may even pay off for farmers once robots can do the job, as previously uneconomic practices become profitable," Daum said.

To ensure agricultural robots are engineered for sustainable ends and deployed in eco-friendly ways, Daum said policy makers must use a combination of incentives, including subsidies, regulations and taxes.

"I think the utopia is achievable," Daum said. "It won't be as easy as the dystopia, but it's very much possible."

US Judge rules against landlords seeking end to eviction moratorium


A court in Georgia has ruled against a group of landlords seeking to lift the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's eviction ban. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

July 15 (UPI) -- An appeals court in Georgia has ruled against a group of landlords seeking a preliminary injunction against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's temporary moratorium on evictions as they failed to prove that the measure imposed amid the coronavirus pandemic will cause them irreparable harm.

"We fail to see how the temporary inability to reclaim rental properties constitutes an irreparable injury," the three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said in their ruling on Wednesday.

The judges ruled 2-1 against the National Apartment Association and several landlords who had requested the court to lift the CDC's measure preventing them from evicting non-paying tenants.

The moratorium was first put in place under the CARES Act at the end of March of last year, which the CDC extended in September, attracting the lawsuit filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the landlords days later.

The moratorium has been extended several times since, with the White House in June keeping it in place until July 31, saying it was extending the ban "for one final month."

The landlords had been earlier denied the injunction by a district court and had filed an appeal.

The CDC's order does not relieve tenants from their rent-paying obligations but only denies the landlords for evicting them while the order is in place. However, the plaintiffs had sought the injunction on the grounds that the order was unconstitutional, that they were being denied access to their property and that they would never recover the rent owed to them as the tenants were insolvent.

The court ruled that none of these injuries satisfy the strict irreparable harm standard.

Concerning the measure being unconstitutional, the court said there is no precedent for that finding but there is precedent to support the government's position.

The court also said ejecting someone from a property is irreparable harm but "we fail to see how the temporary inability to reclaim rental properties constitutes irreparable injury."

On the third claim, the plaintiffs offered as evidence documents signed by their tenants that said they couldn't afford their rent due to substantial loss of household income caused by a reduction in hours, layoffs and medical expenses.

The court said the plaintiffs' evidence was "flimsy" as the documents only speak to their tenants' current situation and not about their ability to pay in the future.

"These attestations certainly show that the tenants could not afford their rent at the time they were signed. But they paint a hazy picture -- at best -- of any given tenant's ability to pay later," the court said in its 97-page opinion. "The declaration sheds little light on, among other things, a tenant's educational background, employment history, criminal history, credit history or rental payment history -- factors that would be probative of a tenant's ability to pay after the moratorium is lifted."

The New Civil Liberties Alliance rejected the court's decision as a denial of justice and was setting a dangerous precedent.

"It is unfathomable that the harm suffered by NCLA's landlord clients and caused by CDC's unlawful actions does not count as 'irreparable,' especially when at least a majority of the court appears to believe CDC lacked statutory authority to do what it did," Mark Chenoweth, executive director and general counsel at NCLA, said in a statement.

In a dissenting opinion, former President Donald Trump-appointee Judge Elizabeth Branch said there is nothing to support that Congress had intended to give the CDC "sweeping authority" over the national rental market.

She also disagreed with the majority's opinion concerning the landlords' stance that they will not receive rent owed to them in the future.

"Because the landlords have demonstrated that their tenants are insolvent and that a future money judgement is not likely to be collectable, the landlords have demonstrated that they face an irreparable injury absent an injunction," she said.

She also said the government has failed to show "that allowing a handful of evictions to go forward would cause any loss of life, let alone the massive loss of life it has claimed could happen if the order is invalidate nationwide."

Several similar lawsuit have been filed throughout the nation, with the Supreme Court ruling late last month against the Alabama Association of Realtors who had petitioned to lift the CDC eviction ban.

US Newsroom Staffing Has Dropped 26% in 12 Years, Research Shows
Aarohi Sheth

The number of digital newsroom employees rose 144% from 2008 to 2020, helping offset a drop in newspaper newsrooms of 57%, Pew Research Center data analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

© TheWrap newsroom employment 2008-2020

According to the analysis, overall newsroom employment in the U.S. has dropped by 26% since 2008, as digital-native news organizations experienced "considerable gains."

Despite the 144% increase, the number of newsroom employees in the digital-native sector remained at "about 13,000 below the number in the newspaper sector in 2020," as the number of newspaper newsroom employees went from roughly 71,000 to about 31,000 between 2008 and 2020, while the number of Digital-native newsroom employees went from 7,400 workers to roughly 18,000.

Due to the decline in newspaper jobs, the sector now accounts for an overall smaller portion of overall newsroom employment than it once did. According to the data analysis, newspaper employees made up about 62% of newsroom jobs overall, but by 2020, the share had dropped to about 36%.

As of 2020, television broadcasting employees account for 10% more of the overall newsroom employees than they did in 2008. Similarly, digital-native news outlets increased from 6% of all newsroom employees to 21% from 2008 to 2020.

Fossil fuel workers ready for a just transition, poll finds


A majority of Canadians working in fossil fuels are interested in switching to jobs in the net-zero economy, but are worried about being left behind, according to a new poll.


The poll, released Wednesday morning, was done by an oilpatch worker-led organization, Iron & Earth, in partnership with Abacus Data, and surveyed 300 fossil fuel workers across Canada from May 24 to June 11.

Ninety per cent of workers surveyed believe they could transition to at least one type of net-zero technology with 12 months or less of training, according to the poll results.

Edmonton-based machinist Stephen Buhler has worked in oil and gas for over 12 years and says we can’t afford to delay the transition away from fossil fuels any longer.

“Not making the transition means that a lot of workers like myself are going to be stuck with jobs that aren't in demand the way that they were before,” he said.

Buhler is confident he can transition with little training. Because “whether it's building a part for a pipeline or building a part for a wind turbine, it's really no different for me,” he said, but acknowledged that for many workers, it won’t be so easy.

The poll also showed 61 per cent of workers worried about having to invest money into retraining, and 64 per cent were concerned with the time commitment involved.

Nearly 85 per cent of workers said they would participate in a paid training program of 10 days or less, with that number dropping to 70 per cent if they had to pay out of pocket.

“For the vast majority of other workers, taking on the financial burden of a year's training, or even four years’ training … that's a pretty tough pill to swallow,” said Buhler, adding the government should step up to help alleviate the financial burden of retraining.

Luisa Da Silva, executive director of Iron & Earth, agrees.

“The key here, really, is paid, rapid upskilling training for fossil fuel workers,” she said.

According to Iron & Earth’s calculations, Da Silva said, it would cost approximately $10,000 on average to rapidly upskill one worker, and to do the entire fossil fuel industry workforce would cost upwards of $5.5 billion.

Because many workers live in rural communities, Da Silva said it’s also vital to bring the training directly to those workers, so it is inclusive and accessible.

The data showed workers in the 45-plus age category were less confident in their ability to thrive in a net-zero economy than younger workers.

“It is definitely a little terrifying to be close to the end of your career, thinking about retirement, and all of a sudden, the entire world around you is going to be changing, and you’re told that the thing you were doing before is no longer needed or wanted,” said Buhler.

As a younger worker, Buhler said older workers should be given supports and noted they will be valuable for the short-term work needed to decommission and refurbish existing infrastructure.

Despite an overall high desire to switch to net zero and broad recognition of the threat of climate change, the poll found 60 per cent of workers worry they’ll be left behind in this transition without further training or career support.

“Until there is action by the government, which includes a just transition plan with paid training for fossil fuel workers, it's understandable that a lot of workers may be hesitant,” said Da Silva.

Ultimately, it all boils down to jobs, said Ed Brost, who worked for Shell for 30 years before retiring to start his own consulting company.

“People need jobs, they need income, they have to take care of their families and their needs, and people are talking about changing your job … of course, it's going to be apprehensive. I would be,” said Brost.

He said no one has to be left behind, but it’s up to our governments to show there is a path forward.

Iron & Earth is pushing for the federal government to support a national upskilling initiative so workers can be confident they won’t have to pay out of pocket for training, and it will be quick to make the switch.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL), said coal transition policies the AFL helped create when Alberta began phasing out coal-fired power plants will serve as a valuable blueprint for the much larger transition away from oil and gas.

Wage top-ups for unemployment insurance, training vouchers for $12,000 and pension-bridging packages were all part of a transition package negotiated with the Alberta government, but McGowan said one thing missing from the coal transition package was a guarantee of employment.

Despite any shortcomings, he said the coal transition has been successful and much quicker than anticipated, lending hope to the idea that an oil and gas transition can follow suit.

“The thing is, the number of workers in coal is tiny compared to the number of people working in oil and gas,” said McGowan. “So scaling up this approach is going to be much more challenging.”

With over 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, Brost said transitioning will provide some immunity from boom-and-bust cycles, which, for younger workers especially, should be something to get excited about.

“I've been in the sector during good times and the bad, and it's really scary when you know that the company you're working for is going to cut the workforce by two or three or five per cent,” he said.

But workers need a just transition plan if they are to benefit from the long-term growth promised by renewable energy and green infrastructure, and McGowan said the Alberta government will continue to bury its head in the sand until “our federal government actually starts implementing policies instead of just talking about them.”

Natural Resources Canada spokesperson Ian Cameron said the government remains fully committed to helping workers “build the clean energy future we need.”

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer

The average CEO made nearly 300 times the median employee pay last year, and that gap is only growing, a new AFL-CIO analysis finds

sjackson@insider.com (Sarah Jackson) 10 hrs ago

© Provided by Business Insider Alistair Berg/Getty Images

The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio at S&P 500 companies was 299-to-1 in 2020, the AFL-CIO says.

Its report says S&P 500 CEOs saw their pay increase by $712,720 on average over the year prior.

The findings come as many companies scramble to find workers to fill jobs at existing wages.

The gap between the salaries of CEOs and their workers grew wider in 2020, according to a new analysis from the AFL-CIO.

The average CEO of an S&P 500 company made 299 times more money than the median employee last year, the union federation said in a press release issued Wednesday. This is greater than the CEO-to-worker ratio of 264 to 1 in 2019, Reuters reports.

"2020's growth in pay inequity between workers and CEOs confirms the 'executive base salary reductions' touted during the COVID-19 crisis were just lip service," the AFL-CIO said in the release.

Video: New survey shows businesses still struggle to find workers (CNBC)

The greatest chasm between CEOs' and workers' pay emerged in the consumer discretionary sector, where the average pay ratio was 741-to-1. This sector includes Amazon and retail companies like Starbucks, McDonald's, and Chipotle, whose workers are often paid lower wages.

The AFL-CIO also found that CEOs of S&P 500 companies received $15.5 million in total compensation on average last year. The average S&P 500 CEO's pay grew $712,720 last year, according to the analysis.

In the past 10 years, the average S&P 500 CEO's pay has grown by $2.6 million, representing an increase of $260,000 per year. The average wage for production and nonsupervisory workers only rose $957 per year in the same period, the AFL-CIO says.

News of the growing pay gap comes as the US grapples with a shortage of workers to fill jobs at current wages as the economy reopens from the coronavirus pandemic. Some companies are responding by hiking up wages, offering additional benefits, and even offering cash to show up for an interview. Staff fed up with working conditions are also walking off their jobs en masse at some stores.

Read the original article on Business Insider

THIRD WORLD USA

Bay Area renters have to make between $31 and $68 an hour in order to afford an apartment

htowey@insider.com (Hannah Towey) 

Resident does yoga on the roof of his apartment building in San Francisco, California. (Gabrielle Lurie/The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images)

Bay Area renters have the most expensive housing in the country, according to a new report.

To afford a one-bedroom apartment, Bay Area renters have to work 2.2 full-time jobs at minimum wage.

San Francisco's high cost of living is due to its booming tech industry and proximity to Silicon Valley.

San Francisco Bay Area renters have the most expensive housing in the US, according to a new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The high cost of living in San Francisco and surrounding counties is nothing new, and it's due to its booming tech industry and proximity to Silicon Valley. Despite the recent outflow of tech talent from the Bay Area to places like Lake Tahoe and Austin, it is still one of the most expensive places to live in the US.

The pandemic caused San Francisco rent prices to plummet 30% year-over-year, Insider's Katie Canales reported in October. Even with rent declines, workers have to make between $31 and $68 an hour in order to rent a two-bedroom apartment.

That means minimum-wage employees have to work 2.8 full-time jobs, or 112 hours per week, to pay for rent and still have enough left over for living expenses. The minimum wage in California is $14 per hour, and the average renter's hourly wage is $24.89.

Affordable housing has long been an issue for America's technology capital - one that Mayor London Breed has tried solving. With 45% of California's population being renters, the impact of the crisis is widespread.

"I think the problem we have, and why we are seeing even more homeless people than we have in the past, has a lot to do with the fact that we have not kept up pace with building more housing," Mayor Breed said on a Freakonomics podcast last October.

The counties with the most expensive housing in the Bay Area are San Mateo County and Marin County. Lower rent prices can be found in Solano, Napa, and Sonoma counties, the three northernmost Bay Area neighborhoods.

Living further from the city center comes with a cost though, as commuting to San Francisco is notoriously expensive due to high gas prices. The city's average price for regular unleaded gas is currently $4.46 per gallon, CBS SF reported. In comparison, New York City gas costs around $3 per gallon, as of this week.

The affordable housing crisis is rarely fought neatly across partisan lines. Research shows that voters on both the right and the left tend to oppose new developments in their own neighborhoods, Insider's Taylor Borden reported.

"San Francisco has become more popular as more people were working here," Breed said. "The tech giants like Google and Facebook that revitalized the area were also key drivers behind the city's climbing cost of living and widening wealth gap."

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THIRD WORLD USA
The average person earning minimum wage has to work 79 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment

insider@insider.com (Heather Schlitz) 11 hrs ago

© Provided by Business Insider An employee of McDonald's protests outside a branch restaurant for a raise in their minimum wage to $15 an hour, in Fort Lauderdale on May 19, 2021. Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images

Rent is unaffordable for the average minimum-wage earner in the US, according to a recent report.

Though the Fight for $15 has gained traction, $15 an hour often isn't enough to afford housing.

Low-wage workers will continue to struggle after the pandemic ends.

For the nation's minimum-wage workers, even working two full-time jobs sometimes isn't enough to afford rent, according to a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The average minimum-wage worker would have to work 79 hours a week to afford a modest one-bedroom rental and 97 hours a week to afford a modest two-bedroom rental, hours that would be difficult for a single person and nearly impossible for single parents.

"People who work 97 hours per week and need 8 hours per day of sleep have around 2 hours per day left over for everything else - commuting, cooking, cleaning, self-care, caring for children and family, and serving their community," the report stated. "Even for a one-bedroom rental, it is unreasonable to expect individuals to work 79 hours per week to afford their housing. For people who can work, one full-time job should be enough."


The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and hasn't increased in over a decade. Though the Fight for $15 - a nationwide campaign to raise the minimum wage - has gained momentum with some major companies and states instituting $15 minimum wages, even a $15 hourly wage isn't enough to lead a comfortable life.

According to the report, an individual would have to earn $20.40 an hour to afford the average modestly priced one-bedroom rental and $24.90 for a two-bedroom apartment, without spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

"Stable, affordable housing is a prerequisite for basic well-being, and no family should live in danger of losing their home," the report stated.

In more expensive housing markets, workers must earn even more to afford rent. In New York state, where the average housing wage is $34.03 an hour, an Amazon employee making $19.30 an hour in New York City has lived in her car since 2019 because she can't find affordable permanent housing.

Although wages overall jumped during the pandemic as businesses struggled to fill open positions, salaries for people already in the workforce didn't go up. Even pre-pandemic economic conditions were difficult for low-wage workers, and the report predicts that workers will struggle even more now to pay off debt accumulated during the pandemic.

"Even if economic recovery is robust and sustained, low-wage workers will continue to struggle."

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