MARKET CAPITALISM
California ports, key to U.S. supply chain, among world's least efficient

Wed, October 20, 2021
By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Southern California's Los Angeles and Long Beach ports handle the most ocean cargo of any ports in the United States, but are some of the least efficient in the world, according to a ranking by the World Bank and IHS Markit.

In a review of 351 container ports around the globe, Los Angeles was ranked 328, behind Tanzania's Dar es Salaam and Alaska's Dutch Harbor. The adjacent port of Long Beach came in even lower, at 333, behind Turkey's Nemrut Bay and Kenya's Mombasa, the groups said in their inaugural Container Port Performance Index published in May.

The total number of ships waiting to unload outside the two adjacent ports hit a new all-time record of 100 on Monday. Americans' purchases of imported goods have jumped to levels the U.S. supply chain infrastructure can't handle, causing delivery delays and snarls.

Top port honors went to Japan's Yokohama and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on the ranking. Finishing out the top five were Chiwan, part of Shenzhen's port in Guangdong Province; South China's Guangzhou port; and Taiwan's Kaoshiung port.

Ports in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa dominated the top 50 spots, while just four U.S. ports cracked the top 100 - Philadelphia (83), the Port of Virginia (85), New York & New Jersey (89) and Charleston, South Carolina (95).

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted trade around the globe, snarling trade and exposing the frailty of a supply chain built for predictable, just-in-time movement of goods.

The United States is the world's biggest consumer, importing goods valued at roughly $2.5 trillion a year. President Joe Biden is fighting for massive federal funding to modernize crumbling infrastructure - including seaports. Government control, 24/7 operations and automation help make many non-U.S. ports more efficient.

Biden is pushing port executives, labor union leaders and major retailers like Walmart to attack shipping hurdles that are driving up the price of goods and raising the risk of product shortages during the all-important holiday season.

Southern California port executives are coaxing terminal operators, importers, truckers, railroads, dock workers and warehouse owners to adopt 24/7 operations in a bid to clear clogs that have backed up dozens of ships offshore and delayed deliveries to stores and e-commerce fulfillment centers.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Heather Timmons and Diane Craft)

Exxon plans to increase carbon capture at Wyoming facility


Thu, October 21, 2021,

Oct 21 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil said on Thursday it plans to expand carbon capture and storage (CCS) at its LaBarge, Wyoming facility and had started the process for engineering, procurement and construction contracts for the project.

The expanded project will capture up to 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, in addition to the 6-7 million metric tons already being captured at LaBarge.

The oil major added that a final decision on the proposed $400 million investment, the latest in multiple expansions of carbon capture at LaBarge, is expected in 2022 and operations could start as early as 2025.

Earlier this year, Exxon had created a division to commercialize its technology that helps reduce carbon emissions. The company had said it would invest $3 billion on lower emission solutions through 2025, by which time it plans to reduce the intensity of its oilfield greenhouse gas emissions by 15%-20% from 2016 levels.

(Reporting by Sahil Shaw in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)

USED FOR FRACKING OLD WELLS

RECYCLE & REUSE
China shows off drones recycled from Soviet-era fighter jets



Mike Yeo
Wed, October 20, 2021


MELBOURNE, Australia – China has for the first time showed off retired 1950s era fighter jets that have been converted to unmanned drones, with satellite photos of two of its east coast bases near Taiwan showing a large number of the jets on site.

The People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command published the photos of two Shenyang J-6s on its Weibo social media account during a post about the ceremony marking the start of the training cycle for the second half of 2021 for a training brigade.

The photos were taken at an unknown airfield, with the ceremony also including a banner for the occasion that was digitally altered to remove the identity of the training brigade. The five-digit serial numbers on the J-6s that would identify the unit they belong to have also been digitally blurred.

This practice of blurring the serial numbers, which could be used to identify the unit the aircraft is assigned to, is common to officially released images of People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft, suggesting that the J-6s are still in active service.

Both aircraft were otherwise left unpainted, although both carried three hardpoints for external stores on each wing.

The J-6 is a Chinese copy of the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 interceptor, whose manned version was officially retired from PLAAF service in 2010. By that time, the type was regarded as obsolete by all measures, with the basic J-6 not even equipped with a radar.

Since then, numerous J-6s have been seen on satellite imagery of two airbases in China’s coastal provinces opposite Taiwan. The airframes on these bases, Liancheng in Fujian province and Yangtang-li, which is also known as Xingning, in neighbouring Guangdong province, are parked in neat rows at the airbases.

Reports emerged from 2013 that China had converted the type into unmanned aircraft, for use either as a decoy to overwhelm adversary air defences by their sheer numbers or as a rudimentary unmanned combat aircraft.

A satellite photo of Liancheng, taken on Sept. 15 and provided to Defense News by Planet Labs, showed 50 J-6s on the group, with nine of these pictured next to the base’s 7,830-foot runway.

Updated imagery for Xingning is not available, however satellite imagery taken in April 2020 showed 29 J-6s at the base, with older satellite imagery of the base published on Google Earth showing aircraft taxiing on the ground in March 2013, October 2014, and as recently as December 2018.

They have also been seen at different parts of the bases in satellite photos taken over the years, further suggesting that these aircraft are active and have not been mothballed.

Liancheng and Xingning are some 275 miles away from Taiwan, putting the self-governing island that China sees as a rogue province well within range of the J-6. China has yet to officially acknowledge the existence of the conversion of the J-6 into unmanned aircraft.

Elephant Makes Rare Fatal Attack To Protect Her Baby


Ron Dicker
Thu, October 21, 2021

This mama elephant put her foot down when a predator got too close to her calf at a watering spot in Zambia.

In a YouTube clip posted Tuesday, the protective pachyderm stomped a crocodile to death in a rare attack recorded on a cellphone. (Watch the clip below.)

Nadav Ossendryver, founder of Latest Sightings, which posted the footage, told HuffPost that in his 10 years of sharing wildlife moments, he had never seen an elephant pounce on a croc.

But the proximity of the reptile put the mother on high alert. She began trampling it and even coiled her trunk around the croc’s tail. Elephants can lift up to 770 pounds with their trunks, according to FactAnimal.com, so the croc proved to be no problem.

The tons of crushing pressure from the elephant “resulted in the inevitable death” of the crocodile, Latest Sightings wrote in the video description.

Hans Henrik Haahr, the videographer on safari who captured the moment, told Latest Sightings the attack was “shocking.”

Vikings were in North America in 1021, well before Columbus, researchers say


Tom Metcalfe
Wed, October 20, 202

Vikings from Greenland — the first Europeans to arrive in the Americas — lived in a village in Canada’s Newfoundland exactly 1,000 years ago, according to research published Wednesday.

Scientists have known for many years that Vikings — a name given to the Norse by the English they raided — built a village at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the turn of the millennium. But a study published in Nature is the first to pinpoint the date of the Norse occupation.

The explorers — up to 100 people, both women and men — felled trees to build the village and to repair their ships, and the new study fixes a date they were there by showing they cut down at least three trees in the year 1021 — at least 470 years before Christopher Columbus reached the Bahamas in 1492.

“This is the first time the date has been scientifically established,” said archaeologist Margot Kuitems, a researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the study’s lead author.

“Previously the date was based only on sagas — oral histories that were only written down in the 13th century, at least 200 years after the events they described took place,” she said.

The first Norse settlers in Greenland were from Iceland and Scandinavia, and the arrival of the explorers in Newfoundland marks the first time that humanity circled the entire globe.

But their stay didn’t last long. The research suggests the Norse lived at L’Anse aux Meadows for three to 13 years before they abandoned the village and returned to Greenland.

Image: reconstructed Norse buildings (Glenn Nagel Photography / Shutterstock)

The archaeological remains are now protected as a historic landmark and Parks Canada has built an interpretive center nearby. It’s listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The scientific key to the exact date that the Norse were there is a spike in a naturally radioactive form of carbon detected in ancient pieces of wood from the site: some cast-off sticks, part of a tree trunk and what looks to be a piece of a plank.

Indigenous people occupied L’Anse aux Meadows both before and after the Norse, so the researchers made sure each piece had distinctive marks showing it was cut with metal tools — something the indigenous people did not have.

Archaeologists have long relied on radiocarbon dating to find an approximate date for organic materials such as wood, bones and charcoal, but the latest study uses a technique based on a global “cosmic ray event” — probably caused by massive solar flares — to determine an exact date.

Three pieces of wood in the Norse layers of the site had been cut with metal tools – something the indigenous people did not have – and showed distinctive radiocarbon traces of a cosmic ray event in A.D. 993. (Petra Doeve)

Previous studies have established there was such a cosmic ray event in the year 993 that for a few months caused greater than usual levels of radioactive carbon-14 in the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere.

Trees “breathe” carbon dioxide as they grow, and so the researchers used that radioactive carbon signature to determine which of the annual growth rings seen in cross-sections of the wood was from 993, Kuitems said.

They then used a microscope to count the later growth rings until the bark of the wood, which gave them the exact year the tree had stopped growing — in other words, when it had been felled by the Norse.

To their surprise, each of the three pieces of wood they tested was from a tree cut down in 1021, although they were from three different trees — two firs and probably one juniper.

The researchers can’t tell if the date of 1021 was near the beginning or the end of the Norse occupation, but they expect further research on other wood from the site will expand the range of dates, Kuitems said.

The Norse voyages to Newfoundland are mentioned in two Icelandic sagas, which indicate L’Anse aux Meadows was a temporary home for explorers who arrived in up to six expeditions.

The first was led by Leif Erikson, known as Leif the Lucky — a son of Erik the Red, the founder of the first Norse settlement in Greenland.

L’Anse aux Meadows, too, was expected to be a permanent settlement, but the sagas indicate it was abandoned due to infighting and conflicts with indigenous people, whom the Norse called skræling — a word that probably means “wearers of animal skins.”

The sagas refer to the entire region as Vinland, which means “wineland” — supposedly because it was warm enough for grapes used for wine to grow.

Since Newfoundland itself was then too cold for grapes, the name suggests the Norse also explored warmer regions further south, and pieces of exotic wood found at the site also indicate that, Kuitems said.

The use of an ancient cosmic ray event to exactly date pieces of wood is a relatively new development, and similar techniques are being used to establish firm dates at other sites, said Sturt Manning, a professor of archaeology at Cornell University, who was not involved in the new study.

“It’s a clever application,” he said. “This is the first clear evidence of Europeans arriving in North America.”

Vikings settled in North America in 1021AD, study says

Thu, October 21, 2021

Replica Viking homes and other items at L'Anse aux Meadows, a Unesco world heritage site in Newfoundland, Canada

Vikings had a settlement in North America exactly one thousand years ago, centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, a study says.

Scientists say a new dating technique analysing tree rings has provided evidence that Vikings occupied a site in Newfoundland, Canada, in 1021AD.

It has long been known that Europeans reached the Americas before Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492.

But this is the first time researchers have suggested an exact date.

Writing in the journal Nature, scientists said they had analysed the tree rings of three pieces of wood cut for the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows.

They said that using an atmospheric radiocarbon signal produced by a dated solar storm as a reference, they were able to pin the "exact felling year of the tree" to 1021.

Such a solar storm - a huge blast of radiation from the Sun that hits Earth - was known to have taken place in the year 992AD, the scientists said. This enabled them to determine a more accurate date than previous estimates for the camp of about 1000AD.

"The association of these pieces with the Norse is based on detailed research previously conducted by Parks Canada," the study says, adding that there was clear evidence the sampled wood had been modified by metal tools.

It adds that the L'Anse aux Meadows camp was a base from which other locations, including regions further south, were explored.

The authors say the discovery represents a definitive point for future research into the initial consequences of transatlantic activity, such as the transfer of knowledge and the potential exchange of genetic information and pathologies.

Dr Colleen Batey, a Viking specialist associated with Institute for Northern Studies in Scotland, says the study does not necessarily suggest Vikings were not in the area in 1000AD.

"It suggests that the short-lived settlement was active in about 1021 when wood was being worked at the site, probably related to either building or ship repair," she says.

"As an archaeologist, I might interpret this as one stage of the occupation activity, not necessarily the first or indeed the last."

L'Anse aux Meadows, a Unesco world heritage site on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland, is the first and only known site established by Vikings in North America and the earliest evidence of European settlement in the New World.

Radiocarbon dating is a technique that measures residual concentrations of a radioactive isotope of carbon (carbon-14) present in an object.

Carbon-14 decays over time and measuring how much is left tells you the age of a sample.

Goodbye, Columbus: Vikings crossed the Atlantic 1,000 years ago


Will Dunham
Wed, October 20, 2021

(Reuters) - Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, eight timber-framed buildings covered in sod stood on a terrace above a peat bog and stream at the northern tip of Canada's island of Newfoundland, evidence that the Vikings had reached the New World first.

But precisely when the Vikings journeyed to establish the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement had remained unclear - until now.

Scientists on Wednesday said a new type of dating technique using a long-ago solar storm as a reference point revealed that the settlement was occupied in 1021 AD, exactly a millennium ago and 471 years before the first voyage of Columbus. The technique was used on three pieces of wood cut for the settlement, all pointing to the same year.

The Viking voyage represents multiple milestones for humankind. The settlement offers the earliest-known evidence of a transatlantic crossing. It also marks the place where the globe was finally encircled by humans, who thousands of years earlier had trekked into North America over a land bridge that once connected Siberia to Alaska.

"Much kudos should go to these northern Europeans for being the first human society to traverse the Atlantic," said geoscientist Michael Dee of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, who led the study published in the journal Nature.

The Vikings, or Norse people, were seafarers with Scandinavian homelands: Norway, Sweden and Denmark. They ventured through Europe, sometimes colonizing and other times trading or raiding. They possessed extraordinary boat-building and navigation skills and established settlements on Iceland and Greenland.

"I think it is fair to describe the trip as both a voyage of discovery and a search for new sources of raw materials," Dee said. "Many archaeologists believe the principal motivation for them seeking out these new territories was to uncover new sources of timber, in particular. It is generally believed they left from Greenland, where wood suitable for construction is extremely rare."

Their wooden vessels, called longboats, were propelled by sail and oars. One surviving example, called the Oseberg ship, is roughly 70 feet (21.6 meters long).

The Viking Age is traditionally defined as 793-1066 AD, presenting a wide range for the timing of the transatlantic crossing. Ordinary radiocarbon dating - determining the age of organic materials by measuring their content of a particular radioactive isotope of carbon - proved too imprecise to date L'Anse aux Meadows, which was discovered in 1960, although there was a general belief it was the 11th century.

The new dating method relies on the fact that solar storms produce a distinctive radiocarbon signal in a tree's annual growth rings. It was known there was a significant solar storm - a burst of high-energy cosmic rays from the sun - in 992 AD.

In all three pieces of wood examined, from three different trees, 29 growth rings were formed after the one that bore evidence of the solar storm, meaning the wood was cut in 1021, said University of Groningen archaeologist Margot Kuitems, the study's first author.

It was not local indigenous people who cut the wood because there is evidence of metal blades, which they did not possess, Dee said.

The length of the occupation remains unclear, though it may have been a decade or less, and perhaps 100 Norse people were present at any given time, Dee said. Their structures resembled Norse buildings on Greenland and Iceland.

Oral histories called the Icelandic Sagas depict a Viking presence in the Americas. Written down centuries later, they describe a leader named Leif Erikson and a settlement called Vinland, as well as violent and peaceful interactions with the local peoples, including capturing slaves.

The 1021 date roughly corresponds to the saga accounts, Dee said, adding: "Thus it begs the question, how much of the rest of the saga adventures are true?"

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

Tiny wrists in cuffs: How police use force against children

By HELEN WIEFFERING, COLLEEN LONG and CAMILLE FASSETTyesterday

CHICAGO (AP) — Royal Smart remembers every detail: the feeling of the handcuffs on his wrists. The panic as he was led outside into the cold March darkness, arms raised, to face a wall of police officers pointing their guns.

He was 8 years old.

Neither he nor anyone else at his family’s home on Chicago’s South Side was arrested on that night two years ago, and police wielding a warrant to look for illegal weapons found none. But even now, in nightmares and in waking moments, he is tormented by visions of officers bursting through houses and tearing rooms apart, ordering people to lie down on the floor.

“I can’t go to sleep,” he said. “I keep thinking about the police coming.”



AP Video/Serginho Roosblad

Children like Royal were not the focus after George Floyd died at the hands of police in 2020, prompting a raging debate on the disproportionate use of force by law enforcement, especially on adults of color. Kids are still an afterthought in reforms championed by lawmakers and pushed by police departments. But in case after case, an Associated Press investigation has found that children as young as 6 have been treated harshly — even brutally — by officers of the law.


They have been handcuffed, felled by stun guns, taken down and pinned to the ground by officers often far larger than they were. Departments nationwide have few or no guardrails to prevent such incidents.

The AP analyzed data on approximately 3,000 instances of police use of force against children under 16 over the past 11 years. The data, provided to the AP by Accountable Now, a project of The Leadership Conference Education Fund aiming to create a comprehensive use-of-force database, includes incidents from 25 police departments in 17 states.

It’s a small representation of the 18,000 overall police agencies nationwide and the millions of daily encounters police have with the public.

But the information gleaned is troubling.

Black children made up more than 50% of those who were handled forcibly, though they are only 15% of the U.S. child population. They and other minority kids are often perceived by police as being older than they are. The most common types of force were takedowns, strikes and muscling, followed by firearms pointed at or used on children. Less often, children faced other tactics, like the use of pepper spray or police K-9s.

In Minneapolis, officers pinned children with their bodyweight at least 190 times. In Indianapolis, more than 160 kids were handcuffed; in Wichita, Kansas, police officers drew or used their Tasers on kids at least 45 times. Most children in the dataset are teenagers, but the data included dozens of cases of children ages 10 or younger who were also subject to police force.

Force is occasionally necessary to subdue children, some of whom are accused of serious crimes.

Police reports obtained for a sample of incidents show that some kids who were stunned or restrained were armed; others were undergoing mental health crises and were at risk of harming themselves. Still other reports showed police force escalating after kids fled from police questioning. In St. Petersburg, Florida, for instance, officers chased a Black boy on suspicion of attempted car theft after he pulled the handle of a car door. He was 13 years old and 80 pounds (36 kilograms), and his flight ended with his thigh caught in a police K-9′s jaw.

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Tiny wrists in cuffs: How police use force against children (apnews.com)

In Ghana, Rastafarian high schooler fights to keep his hair

By KWASI GYAMFI ASIEDU

October 19, 2021

Tyrone Iras Marhguy, 17, pose for a photograph at his home in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021. An official at the academically elite Achimota School in Ghana told the teen he would have to cut his dreadlocks before enrolling. For Marhguy, who is a Rastafarian, cutting his dreadlocks is non-negotiable so he and his family asked the courts to intervene. (AP Photo/Nipah Dennis)


Tyrone Iras Marhguy had to make a difficult decision after being accepted to the high school of his choice: his faith or his education.

An official at the academically elite Achimota School in Ghana told the teen he would have to cut his dreadlocks before enrolling. For Marhguy, who is a Rastafarian, cutting his dreadlocks is non-negotiable so he and his family asked the courts to intervene.

“I manifest my faith through my hair,” Marguy, 17, told The Associated Press. “I assume it to be like telling a Christian not to read the Bible or go to church.”

Hair is an important part of the Rastafarian faith; believers grow their hair out naturally in locks in obedience to Biblical commandments. It is a public symbol “that we have made a vow,” said Tereo Kwame Marhguy, who is Tyrone’s father.

Although many Rastafarians believe in the Bible, it is a distinct religion guided by unique practices including the adherence to a strict Ital vegetarian diet, the use of cannabis for spiritual purposes and the avoidance of alcohol.

Short hair is a requirement at the Achimota School, a co-ed public institution in the northern outskirts of Ghana’s capital, Accra. The school did not respond to the AP’s repeated requests for comment, but argued in court documents that all boys, regardless of their religion, must “keep hair low and neatly trimmed.”

The school was founded nearly a century ago during British colonial rule. Among its alumni are many of Ghana’s social and political elite, including four former presidents, as well as the former presidents of Zimbabwe and Gambia.

Unhappy about the school’s reluctance to accommodate their son’s beliefs, the Marhguys sued Achimota School and the government in March. A separate suit was filed by another Rastafarian student, Oheneba Kwaku Nkrabea, who was also denied admission to the school.

The Marhguys’ ongoing case is one of many instances in which Ghana’s public high schools, mostly started by Christian missionaries during and after European colonization, have become a battleground for the fight for religious tolerance. In a separate incident earlier this year, a Muslim student was prevented by school authorities from fasting during Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month.

Ghana, a majority-Christian country, prides itself as democratic and religiously tolerant in a region plagued by interreligious conflicts. Government and faith leaders have signaled their commitment to religious harmony, including recent financial donations by top officials, who are Muslim, to church building projects.

For the Marhguys, the case highlights the discrimination Rastafarians face in Ghana, where they are a small but visible minority. They hope that with the attention the case has received, local attitudes will become more tolerant.

  

From left, Tereo Awareness Marhguy, Nikita Hive Marhguy, 17, Tyrone Iras Marhguy, 17, and Amrita Sheeba Marhguy poses for a photograph at their home in Accra, Ghana, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021. An official at the academically elite Achimota School in Ghana told Tyrone he would have to cut his dreadlocks before enrolling. For Marhguy, who is a Rastafarian, cutting his dreadlocks is non-negotiable so he and his family asked the courts to intervene. (AP Photo/Nipah Dennis)

A high court judge ruled in May that the school’s ultimatum “amounts to an illegal and unconstitutional attempt to suspend the manifestation of the applicant’s constitutionally guaranteed freedom to practice and manifest his religion,” according to court documents viewed by the AP.

While the school has admitted Tyrone with his uncut hair into its science program, the school and Ghana’s attorney general have commenced legal proceedings in the Court of Appeal to reverse the earlier ruling.

The attorney general and the information ministry did not respond to repeated attempts by the AP for an interview.

The legal standoff, fronted by the attorney general, has raised questions about the country’s self-image as the region’s most stable democracy.

“Inter-religious tolerance in Ghana is very fragile,” said John Azumah, visiting professor of interfaith dialogue at Yale Divinity School and executive director of The Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana. “It looks like religious minorities have the heavier burden to sustain inter-religious tolerance. It has to be inter-religious tolerance on the terms of the Christian majority.”

Despite being offered a scholarship to study at a private school where he wouldn’t be required to cut his hair, Tyrone, with the support of his family, has chosen to stay at Achimota School. Nkrabea, the other student -- who also won his suit against the school -- has however taken the scholarship.

The Marhguys believe they have been divinely chosen to keep fighting the school so no other student has to pick between their faith and their education again.

“They have done it to other people before and they just kept quiet and walked away,” said Tereo Marhguy. “Jah, the Most High has given us the authority and the strength to do it.”

__

Associated Press writer Francis Kokutse in Accra, Ghana contributed to this report.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Workers fed up with nights, weekends seek flexible schedules

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

yesterday

1 of 5

Balsam Hill Outlet sales associate Rickey Haynes, right, listens to manager Kelly Bratt during training in Allen, Texas, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. Retailers, restaurants and others are grappling with increasing demands in the last few months from hourly workers for more flexible schedules, going beyond a better salary and bonuses. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

NEW YORK (AP) — After struggling to hire workers for its outlet store in Dallas, Balsam Hill finally opened on Sept. 1. But the very next day, the online purveyor of high-end artificial holiday trees was forced to close after four of its five workers quit.

The main gripe for three of them? Working on weekends. So they found jobs elsewhere with better hours.

Balsam Hill reopened weeks later with nine workers, hiking the hourly pay by $3 to $18 per hour. But more importantly, it changed its approach: Instead of only focusing on the needs of the business, it’s now closely working with each employee to tailor their schedules based on when they want to work.

“We’re working against people who have the choice of wherever they want to work,” said Kendra Gould, senior retail strategist at Balsam Hill. “Now, it’s more about what do you need as an employee and how can we make you happy?”

Companies are confronting demands by hourly workers on terms that often used to be non-negotiable: scheduling. Taking a page from their white-collar peers who are restructuring their workdays to accommodate their lifestyles, hourly workers are similarly seeking flexibility in how — and when — they do their jobs. That means pushing back on weekend, late night or holiday shifts.

Job openings are plentiful, so workers can afford to be picky. There were 10.4 million job openings at the end of August and 11.1 million openings the month before, the highest on record since at least December 2000, when the government started recording that figure. At the same time, the Labor Department said that the number of people quitting their jobs jumped to 4.3 million in August from 4 million in July.

Among the new workers Balsam Hill hired was Rickey Haynes, 62, a pastor for a local Baptist church. He retired in July but still preaches in the community. He said he was looking for part-time work in retail, but didn’t want to work Sundays because of his preaching. Balsam Hill was willing to work around his schedule.

“They were accommodating,” he said. “If I could, I could work with them until I am done.”

A recent study from ManpowerGroup revealed that nearly 40% of job candidates worldwide said schedule flexibility is one of their top three factors in career decisions.

The shifting mindset is showing up in data from job site platforms.

SnagAJob.com, an online marketplace for hourly workers, says the word “flexibility” now accounts for roughly 11% of the more than 7 million job postings on its site compared with 8% earlier in the year. But overnight shifts at restaurants have also increased significantly since January.

Instawork, a staffing marketplace that connects local businesses with skilled hourly workers, says the rate at which employers were able to fill weekend shifts dropped significantly from January through August compared with weekday shifts.

Such challenges are happening as companies struggle to hire holiday workers. Target Corp. said this month it will pay $2 an hour more to employees who pick up shifts during peak days of the holiday season, including Saturday and Sunday, as well as on Christmas Eve or on the day after Christmas. That’s on top of companies already dangling bonuses and loosening requirements for drug testing and educational minimums that have kept some people out of the workforce.

Sumir Meghani, co-founder and CEO and founder of Instawork, says such perks don’t solve the root of the problem.

“It’s about flexibility,” said Meghani, noting that available shifts on Instawork have surged eightfold from right before the pandemic to August 2021. “It’s about workers saying ‘I don’t want to work weekends’ or ‘I can’t work Mondays, Tuesday and Wednesdays because I don’t have child care or schools haven’t reopened’ or ‘I am worried about COVID.’”

Meghani says hourly workers are asking how can they get the same work-life balance as their peers who can work remotely.

“The challenge is, if you are a bartender you have to work until 2 a.m.,” he says.

Employers of such jobs are limited in what they can do given the nature of how they operate, especially with customers having grown accustomed to getting what they want when they want it.

Radial, which fills online orders for retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods and PetSmart, says it’s working to align its schedules with candidate expectations at each location. Increasingly, it’s accommodating popular shifts such as Monday through Friday only, or Saturday and Sunday only.

But Sabrina Wnorowski, Radial’s vice president of human resources, says it’s difficult to address everyone’s needs given the unpredictable nature of spending during the holidays.

On the flipside, the working poor have long struggled with erratic work schedules, particularly in the food service and retail sectors, says Daniel Schneider, professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government whose Shift Project focuses on inequality of low-income workers.

“The problem isn’t new, and we’ve shown that the consequences for workers and their families are dire,” said Schneider, noting day-to-day instability of work schedules is inextricably linked to job instability. That leads to high job turnover for workers, which in turn imposes costs on individuals and on firms.

During the pandemic, hourly workers were hit especially hard when non-essential businesses like department stores and restaurants were forced to close for a few months during the spring of 2020. Those who remained employed at essential businesses like grocery stores found themselves overworked under the crush of shoppers’ purchases for basic items.

When demand for dining and shopping rebounded as more people got vaccinated this past spring, businesses couldn’t hire workers fast enough. And many of the hourly employees found new jobs as they redefined their priorities. That contributed to a labor shortage, forcing employers to look for ways to make their jobs seem more attractive while also cutting back on hours of operation.

The National Restaurant Association says that 68% of the 4,000 operators it polled in a September survey say their restaurants reduced hours of operation on days it was open for business from June through August. The survey also found that 45% of the operators polled said they closed their restaurant on the days that it would normally be open during that time frame.

Donald Minerva is the owner of a restaurant called Scottadito Osteria Toscana in Brooklyn, New York. He says that right before the pandemic he had 16 workers who worked various shifts at his restaurant, which was open six days a week. Now, Minerva has 14 workers but a good chunk of them don’t want to work double-shifts and so the restaurant is now open just five days a week with limited hours.

Minerva says 70% of his staff are from the pre-pandemic days and want to work 40 hours a week. But the new workers want more flexibility.

For Minerva, that means he has to spend more time working on their schedules and less time on priorities like coming up with new strategies to bring in customers.

“It’s a juggle to find them, and a juggle to keep them,” he said.

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Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

THEY NEED TO BE A CONFEDERATION
New airstrikes hit capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region


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People run next to black smoke and flames in the aftermath at the scene of an airstrike in Mekele, the capital of the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021. New airstrikes have hit Mekele, residents said Wednesday, as Ethiopia's government said it was targeting facilities to make and repair weapons, which a spokesman for the rival Tigray forces denied. (AP Photo)


NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — New airstrikes hit the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region and another community on Wednesday, as video from Mekele showed injured people with bloodied faces being rushed to vehicles and thick black smoke rising in the sky. Ethiopia’s government said it targeted facilities to make and repair weapons, which a spokesman for the rival Tigray forces denied.

Meanwhile, the United Nations told The Associated Press it is slashing by more than half its Tigray presence as an Ethiopian government blockade halts humanitarian aid efforts and people die from lack of food.

The war in Africa’s second-most populous country has ground on for nearly a year between Ethiopian and allied forces and the Tigray ones who long dominated the national government before a falling-out with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

At least 14 people were injured in the airstrikes in Mekele and three were in critical condition, Hayelom Kebede, the former director of Tigray’s flagship Ayder Referral Hospital, told the AP.

“Indeed there have been airstrikes in Mekele today,” Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu told the AP, saying they targeted facilities at the Mesfin Industrial Engineering site that Tigray forces use to make and repair heavy weapons. Legesse said the airstrikes had “no intended harm to civilians.”

Another airstrike hours later hit Agbe between the communities of Hagere Selam and Tembien, he said, describing the site as a “center of military training and heavy artillery depot.”

A Tigray spokesman denied the Mekele site was related to weapons. “Not at all,” Kindeya Gebrehiwot told the AP, calling it a garage “with many old tires. That is why it is still blazing.”

Amit Abrha, who said she was a worker at the site, said she didn’t hear the airstrike coming and collapsed when the attack occurred. “People picked me up. And when the explosions continued, I went out and saw a person that I know injured and on the ground,” she said in video footage obtained by the AP, as the smoke billowed behind her and fellow residents tried to control the flames.

The attack came two days after Ethiopia’s air force confirmed airstrikes in Mekele that a witness said killed three children. The air force said communications towers and equipment were attacked. Mekele hadn’t seen fighting since June, when Tigray forces retook much of the region in a dramatic turn in the war.

The airstrikes have caused fresh panic in a city under siege, where doctors and others have described running out of medicines and other basic needs.

Despite pleas from the U.N. and others to allow basic services and humanitarian aid to Tigray’s 6 million people, Ethiopia’s government this week called those expectations “absurd” while the Tigray forces now fight in the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced there, widening the deadly crisis.

“Although not all movements have yet taken place, there will probably be a reduction from nearly 530 to around 220 U.N. staff on the ground in Tigray,” U.N. humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu told the AP. The decision is “directly linked to the operation constraints we have been faced with over the last months” along with the volatile security situation, he said.

The lack of fuel and cash because of the government’s blockade on Tigray “has made it extremely challenging for humanitarians to sustain life-saving activities” at the time they’re needed most, Abreu added.

Some 1,200 humanitarian workers including the reduced U.N. presence will remain in Tigray, he said.

The AP in recent weeks has confirmed the first starvation deaths in Tigray under the government blockade.

Humanitarian workers are also trying to reach the displaced and often hungry people in the Amhara and Afar regions, where communications blackouts and active fighting challenge efforts to confirm claims by the warring sides. Witnesses have told the AP that some Tigray forces are killing civilians, the latest abuses in a war marked by gang-rapes, mass expulsions and widespread detentions of ethnic Tigrayans.

This week’s airstrikes in the Tigray capital “appear to be part of efforts to weaken Tigray’s armed resistance, which has recently made further gains in the eastern Amhara region, with fighting ongoing in some areas. Along with superior manpower, control of the skies is one of the few remaining areas of military advantage for the federal government,” International Crisis Group analyst William Davison said in a statement. “The bombing of urban areas, however, reinforces the impression that Addis Ababa is willing to risk civilian lives in Tigray as part of its military efforts.”

Arbitrator: Official wrongly fired in Flint water scandal


- In this Feb. 5, 2018, file photo, defendant Liane Shekter Smith listens during a preliminary examination in the cases of four defendants, all former or current officials from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, in Flint, Mich. Shekter Smith, the only Michigan official fired in the Flint water disaster, was likely a “public scapegoat” who lost her job because of politics, an arbitrator said in ordering $191,880 in back pay and other compensation. (Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP, File)


DETROIT (AP) — The only Michigan official fired in the Flint water catastrophe likely was a “public scapegoat” who lost her job because of politics, an arbitrator said in ordering $191,880 in back pay and other compensation.

It’s a remarkable victory for Liane Shekter Smith, who served as head of the state’s drinking water office when Flint’s water system was contaminated with lead. She was removed and then fired in 2016 and subsequently faced criminal charges in one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

Shekter Smith was dismissed while engineers in her department — the “boots on the ground” in Flint — were suspended with pay before ultimately returning to work, the arbitrator said in a 22-page report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Sheldon Stark said the state had failed to offer enough evidence to justify the firing of Shekter Smith, who had an “exemplary” record in government.

The arbitrator noted that Keith Creagh, director of the Department of Environmental Quality, fired Shekter Smith without even speaking to her about Flint or waiting for a state police investigation that exonerated her.

“No one ever asked (Shekter Smith) for her story,” Stark said.

“Politics and the need for a public scapegoat helps explain why Shekter Smith might have been terminated when so many others who were directly involved and actually did make” decisions in Flint were not fired, Stark said in his September report.

He ordered $166,053 in lost wages before a likely spring 2017 retirement and $25,827 in 401(k) retirement compensation. The state agency, which now is known as the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, declined to comment on the arbitrator’s decision but said an appeal was being considered.

A message seeking comment was left for Shekter Smith’s attorney.

“I’m dumbfounded. She was their boss,” said LeeAnne Walters, a Flint resident who is credited with exposing the lead contamination. “The system just spit in the face of every resident who died or was harmed. She should not be compensated for harming people.”

Walters took her concerns to Shekter Smith in 2015 but felt “an air of untouchability.”

The department defended the firing in a legal brief.

“Part of accepting a high-level position in government is also to accept responsibility for oneself and for the actions of those one supervises and accountability for results,” the agency told the arbitrator.

In 2014-15, Flint’s water was pulled from the Flint River, a money-saving decision that was made by state-appointed managers who were running the ailing city. The highly corrosive water wasn’t properly treated before it flowed through aging pipes to roughly 100,000 residents, causing lead to leach from old pipes.

The disaster in majority-Black Flint has been described as environmental racism. In 2016, a task force appointed by then-Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, said his environmental agency misapplied lead-and-copper rules and “caused this crisis to happen.”

The arbitrator’s report reveals behind-the-scenes moves by Snyder’s influential fix-it man, Rich Baird, who asked Creagh to take control of the department after a director quit amid the scandal.

Creagh testified that Baird “encouraged Shekter Smith’s termination.”

Richard Benzie, who supervised the state engineers making key decisions in Flint, was not disciplined but “promoted and given more responsibility!” the arbitrator said in highlighting different treatment.

After her discharge, Shekter Smith was charged with misconduct in office and neglect of duty, and put on notice that an involuntary manslaughter case would be pursued because bacteria in the water were linked to a fatal outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.

But charges were dropped in 2019 in exchange for a no-contest plea to an obscure misdemeanor. The case was erased after a year, under a deal with special prosecutor Todd Flood.

Flint’s water quality greatly improved after it returned to a regional water supplier and replaced thousands of lead or steel service lines. Meanwhile, nine people, including Snyder and Baird, were charged with crimes in January after a new investigation. Their cases are pending.

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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez