WestJet pilots vote in favour of strike mandate, could walk before May long weekend

The Canadian Press
Tue, April 18, 2023 


CALGARY — The union representing WestJet pilots says they have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike mandate.

The Air Line Pilots Association says the 1,600 WestJet pilots it represents can launch a strike as early as the week leading up to the May long weekend, which typically kicks off the summer travel season for thousands of Canadians whose plans could now be upended.

Bernard Lewall, who heads the union's WestJet contingent, says the workers' issues revolve around job protection, pay and scheduling at the airline as well as at WestJet Encore and discount subsidiary Swoop.

He says 95 per cent of pilots voted, with 93 per cent of them in favour of the strike mandate.

WestJet said last month the threat of a strike is a common tactic in negotiations.

Talks continue through the federal conciliation process, which will end April 24 followed by a three-week break, unless the parties agree to extend negotiations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 18, 2023.

The Canadian Press

CANADA

Singh proposes corporate tax hike tied to CEO-worker pay gap

CBC
Tue, April 18, 2023

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh has proposed a corporate income tax hike tied to pay gaps between workers and CEOs. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press - image credit)

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh pitched a plan Tuesday to increase corporate taxes based on the size of the gap between worker and CEO pay — but the legislation may run afoul of House of Commons rules on who can bring forward tax measures.

Singh said he was inspired by legislation United States Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders put forward in Congress two years ago.

"Right now, when we're experiencing unprecedented inflation, we're seeing people that are feeling squeezed. They can't afford their groceries, they can't afford their bills," Singh told a news conference Tuesday.

"At the very same time, the CEOs of the companies they work for are making more salary, making more compensation than they've ever made before."

The plan would raise the corporate income tax on a sliding scale, depending on the ratio between the pay of a company's CEO and the median pay of the company's workers. According to an NDP news release, the tax increase would be 0.5 per cent if a CEO makes 50 to 100 times the median income of workers, and would rise to a five per cent increase if a CEO makes a salary 500 times or more higher than the median income of workers.

House of Commons rules forbid private members' bills from making changes to taxation, with an exception for bills that create exemptions from new taxes or new tax increases.

"A private member's bill cannot impose, increase or extend the application of a tax," says the House of Commons guide on practice and procedure.

Singh did not say how he would get around the rule, adding he hasn't drafted the bill yet.

Singh has attacked grocery companies and executives repeatedly, saying that greed is responsible for a rise in food prices. Grocery chain representatives, including top executives, have told a House of Commons committee that higher supplier costs and other factors are responsible for the rising price of food, and that other products, such as pharmaceuticals and hygiene products, have a higher profit margin.

Loblaw president Galen Weston Jr. has been the most frequent target of Singh's criticism; the two traded barbs at a House of Commons committee meeting last month. Loblaw announced Tuesday that Weston will step down as president — a move that comes just weeks after news broke that he'd received a $3 million raise in 2022.

Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press

Statistics Canada reported Tuesday that food prices are up 9.7 per cent compared to last year. The overall inflation rate was 4.3 per cent.

Singh called on other parties to support his proposal.

"This is to decrease inequality. This is to force companies to stop the inequality that continues to grow," he said.

"This is a concrete way, a measure, that's going to lift up workers and tell companies a clear message that the inequality that exists in those companies is wrong, and that we're going to incentivize having less inequality."

The NDP's plan would increase the corporate income tax according to this scale:

0.5 per cent if CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is between 50 and 100


1 per cent if CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is between 100 and 200


2 per cent if CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is between 200 and 300


3 per cent if CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is between 300 and 400


4 per cent if CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is between 400 and 500


5 per cent if CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is 500 or more

Weston to step back from Loblaw's day-to-day operations as company announces new CEO

The Canadian Press
Tue, April 18, 2023 


Galen Weston is stepping back from day-to-day operations of Loblaw Companies Ltd. in a senior leadership shuffle that will see a European retail executive take over as president and CEO.

Canada's largest grocer and drugstore chain said Tuesday the chief executive of Denmark’s leading grocery retailer Salling Group A/S, Per Bank, will join the company in early 2024.

The hiring will see Weston step aside from the president role, which he took on in 2021 when Sarah Davis retired from the job. He will remain chairman of Loblaw and chairman and CEO of holding company George Weston Ltd.

"I'm not leaving. I'm stepping back into what I consider to be my natural role as the controlling shareholder," Weston said during a call with analysts.

"The takeaway here is this is not a sharp left turn," he said. "This is about evolution and building on the platform that's been established."

Weston took on the role of president just as Canada entered a sustained period of high inflation. Food costs have risen at the fastest rate in decades.

Higher grocery prices have largely been attributed to supply chain disruptions, extreme weather, soaring input costs and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But some Canadians have questioned whether competition factors or so-called greedflation by grocers have also played a role.

It’s an accusation most often levelled at Loblaw, as the country’s biggest operator, and more specifically at Weston.

Industry experts have noted that while the claims may be unfounded, having the wealthy scion of a powerful family empire as the face of the grocer — as some Canadians struggle to buy food — is part of the perception problem.

Meanwhile, Bank worked his way up through the retail sector ranks over the last three decades.

He started in supply chain operations and eventually became CEO of Scandinavian retail chain Coop Norden.

In 2012, Bank became the fourth CEO of the more than century-old Salling Group, which operates department stores, supermarkets and discount stores.

Under his tenure, the company has grown its market share by more than 20 per cent, Loblaw said.

"We needed somebody who had deep retail knowledge, retail pedigree and retail excellence," Weston said. "That's what we built the success of Loblaw's performance over the last few years on, and (Bank) rang the bell in every way on that."

The global search for a new president and CEO was launched last August, which resulted in a shortlist of five candidates, he said.

"We took our time with this process ... and (Bank) was the clear standout," Weston said, noting that the parallels between Loblaw and Salling Group are "quite remarkable."

"He has extensive experience working for a controlling family, and understands what that relationship needs to be in order for a partnership to be successful," he said.

"He has been leading an organization that has an outsized cultural and financial place inside his country and that's the case for Loblaw," Weston said. "We're a big company in a small country."

RBC Dominion Securities Inc. analyst Irene Nattel said Bank is "a strong operator with a deep background in multi-channel food retail across geographies."

"Bank will be taking the helm of a Loblaw enjoying strong momentum and results, well-positioned against the backdrop of high prices and value-seeking, cash-squeezed consumers," she said.

Meanwhile, Loblaw chief operating officer Robert Sawyer — who came out of retirement to take on the role in 2021 — plans to retire at the end of the year.

Sawyer worked for grocer Metro Inc. for more than 30 years, including in the role of executive vice-president and chief operating officer, before becoming president and chief executive of Quebec-based home improvement retailer Rona in 2013.

"With Robert's deserved retirement approaching, his shoes were always going to be hard to fill," Loblaw chief financial officer Richard Dufresne told analysts.

"However, having spent some time with (Bank), it's clear that he is a seasoned grocery retailer with a broad and deep skill set, much like a slightly younger version of Robert."

Weston added: "If you could find a Robert Sawyer who was 55, that would be an ideal combination for us and here with (Bank) we think we found that."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 18, 2023.

Companies in this story: (TSX:L, TSX:WN)

Brett Bundale, The Canadian Press

'Nothing will change': Canadians react to Loblaw CEO Galen Weston stepping down, amidst soaring grocery prices

The news of the Loblaw CEO's exit from his role isn't impressing shoppers who feel betrayed by soaring costs

Loblaw CEO earned an additional $1.2M as grocery prices rise

Abhya Adlakha
·Editor, Yahoo News Canada
Tue, April 18, 2023 

Many Canadians have taken to social media to celebrate, lament after Loblaw announced that their current CEO Galen Weston will be replaced by a Danish retail executive Per Bank starting next year.

In a press release on Tuesday morning, the company announced that Bank will join the company by 2024 followed by a "global talent search initiated" by the company in August 2022.

"It comes after two years of superb performance at the company as it executed against a strategy anchored in retail excellence," Loblaw said.

This news comes after it was revealed that Weston received a 55 per cent raise in 2022 after consultants thought he was "underpaid".

Weston will remain chairman of Loblaw and chairman and CEO of holding company George Weston Ltd.

"I'm not leaving. I'm stepping back into what I consider to be my natural role as the controlling shareholder," Weston said during a call with analysts.

"The takeaway here is this is not a sharp left turn," he said. "This is about evolution and building on the platform that's been established."

In 2012, Bank became the fourth CEO of the more than century-old Salling Group, which operates department stores, supermarkets and discount stores. Under his tenure, the company has grown its market share by more than 20 per cent, Loblaw said.

RELATED from Yahoo Finance Canada: Here's how much grocery prices went up in March 2023

Not long after the news, many Canadians took to social media to express their feelings about the controversial executive leaving the company—while some were overjoyed, others feel that this is a PR move by the company after months of outrage over rising grocery prices, and there will be no substantial changes in the future.

"Buh bye Galen Weston": Twitter reacts to the news

  

Rat ambassadors try to counter bad press amid NYC's rat war

As an ambassador for rats, it’s never easy to win over the public

ByJULIE WATSON Associated Press
April 17, 2023, 


SAN DIEGO -- As an ambassador for rats, it's never easy to win over the public. There's that hairless tail after all.

But Runa at the San Diego Zoo is doing her best to counter the bad press. She is one of a handful of such so-called ambassadors showing off the virtues of rats at three U.S. zoos. The rats were provided by a Tanzania-based organization that is training African giant pouched rats to combat wildlife trafficking, detect diseases and perform other useful tasks.

At least twice the size of the common brown rats found in cities, African giant pouched rats like Runa are best known for ferreting out landmines and other explosive material on old battlefields in Angola, Mozambique and Cambodia, earning them the nickname “hero-rats.” Efforts are underway to expand the use of their keen sense of smell to finding people trapped in collapsed buildings, detecting diseases in laboratory samples and alerting officials to illegal goods at ports and airports.

Six African rats completed their first trial working in the field in March, spending a month at a port in Tanzania where they were tasked with detecting smuggled goods, including Pangolins. The scaly anteater is coveted by poachers and is among the most trafficked animals in the world. Its meat is considered a delicacy in Vietnam and some parts of China, and its scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Wildlife contraband is concealed among vast numbers of shipping containers that annually leave Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and other African ports.

Runa initially was trained to find landmines, but she often got distracted on the job. She has been excelling, however, as an ambassador, said Cari Inserra, lead wildlife care specialist at the San Diego Zoo.

On a recent day, her trainers hid small vessels of chamomile tea under the dirt in a box. As soon as she was released from her cage, Runa's tiny nose was abuzz with twitching as she set out to work. Within seconds she had found all the vessels, and was racing over to suck on a syringe filled with a pellet-and-banana smoothie.

“One of the most fun things to see is how she changes the perceptions of people,” Inserra said.

Nicki Boyd, of the San Diego Zoo and Wildlife Alliance, said rats offer an important tool to combat wildlife trafficking, which the zoo wants to highlight since the illegal animal trade "is very destructive to the species that we are actively trying to save and protect in the wild."

“I do think there is the ability to scale this up,” she said.

But rats still have a ways to go in winning over everyone. Last week, New York Mayor Eric Adams introduced Kathleen Corradi, a former elementary school teacher and anti-rat activist, as his new “rat czar" whose job is to battle potentially millions of rats lurking about the city.

The city's help-wanted ad for the post stated it was seeking applicants who are “bloodthirsty,” possess “killer instincts” and could commit to the “wholesale slaughter” of rats. At her first news conference in her job, Corradi, standing next to Adams, stated her hatred of rats and vowed to use “science” to rid the city of them.

Rats can spread disease like leptospirosis, which on rare occasions can lead to meningitis and cause the kidneys and liver to fail.

Izzy Szott, a behavioral research scientist at the Tanzania-based organization APOPO, which is training the rats to work for governments, said she was not surprised to hear rats had been named enemy No. 1, but she wants people to know the full picture. Her hope is having ambassador rats at renowned zoos, like San Diego's, will lead to more understanding and support for rat research.

New York City spokesman Fabien Levy called his city’s rats “dirty, diseased” and a public health risk that the city is intent on ridding itself of using humane techniques where possible. But he added: “Our priority remains our city’s residents, not its rodents.”

Rats in general, Szott said, “actually are quite clean animals," adding that they groom themselves constantly and often affectionately lick their trainers' arms after getting a good scratching.

Szott said rats often “get a bad rap," but that it's important to “consider our responsibility towards the wildlife around us and that we share the planet with.”

“We need to understand the capabilities that these animals have and see them in a humane way and treat them in a humane way,” she added.

African giant pouched rats have sniffed out more than 150,000 landmines to date, according to her organization. They've also helped health clinics in Africa diagnose people with tuberculosis, detecting the bacteria in the sputum samples of 25,000 patients.

At their facility in Morogoro, Tanzania, Szott and the other researchers are also working on training the rats to someday aid in the detection of contaminated soil or help rescuers in finding people trapped under the rubble after earthquakes and explosions. The rats, which can be dispatched into hard-to-reach areas, have been outfitted with tiny vests with a pendant they can pull to send an alert to their handlers when they find a person. So far they have succeeded in alerting their handler when given such a task in a mock disaster setting, Szott said.

And Szott said she believes someday they could be a regular fixture at some ports and airports, offering a cheaper option to drug-and-explosive-sniffing dogs. One of her program's rats has already shown they can sniff out multiple species, she said, adding that they could be used to stop the trafficking of elephant ivory and rhino horn.

New York City's common brown rats share the same traits, but their shorter lifespan makes them unlikely candidates for such trainings, Szott said. African rats can live up to a decade whereas small brown rats only live for a few years.

“We think they make great zoo additions,” she said of the African rats, adding that the ambassadors will broaden people's understanding of “just how smart they are and how we can co-exist with them.”

 

  

 

NOT A STEVE

Odd spiral appears amid northern lights in Alaska night sky

By MARK THIESSEN

yesterday

In this photo provided by Christopher Hayden, a light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appears amid the aurora for a few minutes in the Alaska skies near Fairbanks, Saturday, April 15, 2023. The spiral was formed when excess fuel that had been released from a SpaceX rocket that launched from California about three hours earlier turned to ice, and then the water vapor reflected the sunlight in the upper atmosphere.

 (Christopher Hayden via AP)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Northern light enthusiasts got a surprise mixed in with the green bands of light dancing in the Alaska skies: A light baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy appeared amid the aurora for a few minutes.

The cause early Saturday morning was a little more mundane than an alien invasion or the appearance of a portal to the far reaches of the universe. It was simply excess fuel that had been released from a SpaceX rocket that launched from California about three hours before the spiral appeared.

Sometimes rockets have fuel that needs to be jettisoned, said space physicist Don Hampton, a research associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute.

“When they do that at high altitudes, that fuel turns into ice,” he said. “And if it happens to be in the sunlight, when you’re in the darkness on the ground, you can see it as a sort of big cloud, and sometimes it’s swirly.”

While not a common sight, Hampton said he’s seen such occurrences about three times.

The appearance of the swirl was caught in time-lapse on the Geophysical Institute’s all-sky camera and shared widely. “It created a bit of an Internet storm with that spiral,” Hampton said.

Photographers out for the northern lights show also posted their photos on social media.

The rocket took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Friday night with about 25 satellites as its payload.

It was a polar launch, which made it visible over a large swath of Alaska.

The timing of the fuel dump was timed correctly for visibility over Alaska. “And we got that really cool looking spiral thing,” he said.

While it looked like a galaxy going over Alaska, he assures it wasn’t.

“I can tell you it’s not a galaxy,” he said. “It’s just water vapor reflecting sunlight.”

In January, another spiral was seen, this time over Hawaii’s Big Island. A camera at the summit of Mauna Kea, outside the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan’s Subaru telescope, captured a spiral swirling through the night sky.

Researchers have said it was from the launch of a military GPS satellite that lifted off earlier on a SpaceX rocket in Florida.

Why are US teen girls in crisis? It's not just social media

Anxiety over academics. Post-lockdown malaise. Social media angst.

By LINDSEY TANNER and ANGIE WANG

yesterday

AP

Study after study says American youth are in crisis, facing unprecedented mental health challenges that are burdening teen girls in particular. Among the most glaring data: A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showed almost 60% of U.S. girls reported persistent sadness and hopelessness. Rates are up in boys, too, but about half as many are affected.

Adults offer theories about what is going on, but what do teens themselves say? Is social media the root of their woes? Are their male peers somehow immune, or part of the problem?

The Associated Press interviewed five girls in four states and agreed to publish only their first names because of the sensitive nature of the topics they discussed. The teens offered sobering — and sometimes surprising — insight.

“We are so strong and we go through so, so much,” said Amelia, a 16-year-old Illinois girl who loves to sing and wants to be a surgeon.

She also has depression and anxiety. Like 13% of U.S. high school girls surveyed in the government report, she is a suicide attempt survivor. Hospitalization after the 2020 attempt and therapy helped. But Amelia has also faced bullying, toxic friendships, and menacing threats from a boy at school who said she “deserved to be raped.”

Amelia, 16, sits for a portrait in a park near her home in Illinois on Friday, March 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Amelia, 16, holds her phone as she sits for a portrait in a park near her home in Illinois, on Friday, March 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

Amelia, 16, sits for a portrait in a park near her home in Illinois on Friday, March 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)


More than 1 in 10 girls said they’d been forced to have sex, according to the CDC report, the first increase noted in the government’s periodic survey. Sexual threats are just one of the burdens teen girls say they face.

“We are trying to survive in a world that is out to get us,” Amelia said.

Emma, an 18-year-old aspiring artist in Georgia with attention deficit disorder and occasional depression, says worries about academics and college are a huge source of stress.

“Lately in myself and my friends, I realize how exhausted everyone is with the pressures of the world and the social issues and where they’re going to go in the future,” Emma added. ”All of these things pile up and crash down.”

Emma, 18, sits for a portrait in Georgia on Thursday, March 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Zoey, 15, was raised in Mississippi by a strict but loving single mother who pressures her to be a success in school and life. She echoes those feelings.

“School can be nerve racking and impact your mental health so much that you don’t even ... recognize it, until you’re in this space where you don’t know what to do,” Zoey said. She’s also had friendship struggles that ended in deep depression and felt the discomfort of being the only Black kid in class.

Several girls said they face added pressure from society’s standards that put too much focus on how they look.

“A lot of people view women’s bodies and girls’ bodies as sexual,” Emma said. “It’s overwhelming to have all these things pushed on us.”

The #MeToo movement began when these girls were quite young, but it intensified during the pandemic and they’re hyperaware of uninvited sexual advances.

Boys are less aware, they suggest. The girls cite crass jokes, inappropriate touching, sexual threats or actual violence. Girls say the unwanted attention can feel overwhelming.

“We deserve to not be sexualized or catcalled, because we are kids,” Amelia said.

Siya, an 18-year-old in New Jersey, said almost every girl she knows has dealt with sexual harassment. “That’s just been the normal for me,” she said.

“When you’re walking alone as girl, you’re automatically put in this vulnerable situation,” Siya said. “I think that’s so sad. I don’t know what it feels like to not have that fear.”

Makena, a high school senior in Mississippi, said she and her friends sometimes wear baggy clothes to hide their shapes but boys “comment, no matter what.”

She has had depression and therapy, and said she has grown up in a community where mental health is still sometimes stigmatized.

Makena, a high school senior in Mississippi, pulls at her hair as she speaks during a visit to a community park, a place that brings back happy memories to the 18-year-old, Tuesday, April 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

“Often in the Black community we aren’t as encouraged to express emotion” because of what previous generations endured, said Makena, who works with a teen health advocacy group. “We’re expected to have hearts of steel,” she said. “But sometimes it’s OK to not be OK.”

Social media platforms contribute, with their focus on superficial appearances and making perfectionism seem attainable. Girls say they’re just part of the problem.

“Social media has completely shifted the way we think and feel about ourselves” in good and bad ways, Makena said.

She’s felt pressure to be perfect when comparing herself with others online. But she also follows social media influencers who talk about their own mental health challenges and who make it seem “OK for me to feel sad and vulnerable,” she said.

Girls have historically been disproportionately affected by depression and anxiety. But those statistics at least partly reflect the fact that girls are often more likely than boys to talk about feelings and emotions, said Dr. Hina Talib, an adolescent medicine specialist and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Zoey, the Mississippi 15-year-old, says boys have to keep up a “macho facade” and are less likely to admit their angst.

“I feel like they might feel that way, we just don’t see it,” she said.

A study published in March in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that in 2019, before the pandemic, about 60% of children hospitalized for mental health reasons were girls. A decade earlier, the difference was only slight.

COVID-19 lockdowns added another dimension, thrusting academic and social lives online, Talib said. Some kids entered the pandemic as youngsters and emerged with more mature bodies, socially awkward, uncertain how to navigate friendships and relationships. They live in a world beset with school shootings, a rapidly changing climate, social and political unrest, and restrictions on reproductive care and transgender rights.

The CDC report released in February included teens queried in fall 2021, when U.S. COVID-19 cases and deaths were still high. Other data and anecdotal reports suggest many teens continue to struggle
“The pandemic as a percentage of their lives is huge,” said Talib.

Expecting kids to be unscathed may be unrealistic
“It’s going to change a generation,” she said.

___

Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at LindseyTannerltanner@ap.org

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
AD

Russell Crowe stars as Vatican’s ‘James Bond of exorcists’

By DEEPA BHARATH

April 14, 2023

1 of 7
This image released by Sony Pictures shows Russell Crowe as Father Gabriele Amorth in a scene from Screen Gems' "The Pope's Exorcist." (Jonathan Hession/Sony Pictures via AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Rev. Edward Siebert’s journey with “The Pope’s Exorcist,” a film about arguably the most famous exorcist in the Catholic Church, began with an adventuresome visit to Milan about six years ago.

The Jesuit priest recalls sitting at a restaurant sipping wine and mulling the costly airline ticket he had purchased a day earlier. He also worried about the deal he had just closed with the Society of St. Paul to purchase the rights to the life story of the Rev. Gabriele Amorth — the late Pauline priest known as “the James Bond of exorcists.”

Siebert, who teaches film at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and runs the college’s film production company, had no motion picture credits to his name and wondered at the time: “What have I gone and done?”

Today, he heaves a sigh of relief as a version of Amorth’s life unfurls on the big screen as “The Pope’s Exorcist,” starring Oscar-winner Russell Crowe in the titular role. It opens in U.S. theaters Friday.

Amorth was appointed chief exorcist of the Diocese of Rome in 1986 and remained there until 2016, when he died at age 91. In those three decades, Amorth claimed to have conducted over 60,000 exorcisms. The first of his books, “An Exorcist Tells His Story,” came out in 1990 and was an instant bestseller, translated into 30 languages. That same year, Amorth, who named “The Exorcist” as his favorite film, founded the International Association of Exorcists.

Siebert, one of the film’s executive producers, says he was an unlikely candidate to take on this project. But Michael Patrick Kaczmarek, a New Mexico-based filmmaker he had worked with previously, convinced him of the power of Amorth’s stories, he said.

Kaczmarek, one of the film’s producers, said he reached out to Amorth through his religious order’s publishing company in 2015 and was told by their executives that many had tried to secure film and television rights to the exorcist’s books, “but they were always denied.” But Kaczmarek’s persistence paid off.

“Through the use of translators, I sent Father Amorth detailed correspondence where I assured him of my religious devotion and sincere desire to respect his exorcism ministry,” Kaczmarek said, adding that his partnership with Siebert helped convince Amorth of his intent to preserve the story’s religious integrity.

VIDEO The real story behind 'The Pope's Exorcist'

Six years after Father Eddie Siebert bought the rights to the life story of the Diocese of Rome's longtime chief exorcist, Russell Crowe is playing the titular role in "The Pope's Exorcist." (April 13)

Siebert said Amorth’s stories initially “frightened him,” but he was touched by the priest’s faith and determination to help people.

Amorth said 98% of the people who came to him needed a psychiatrist, not an exorcist, a detail Crowe’s Amorth clarifies in the film. When a cardinal asks him about the remaining 2%, he says: “Ah, the other 2% — this is something that has confounded all of science and all of medicine for a very long time.” He adds after a dramatic pause: “I call it evil.”

Like Siebert, Crowe has said during various media interviews that he is no horror movie fan, preferring “to sleep deeply at night.” But he said Amorth’s character fascinated him; he read the priest’s first two books and spoke with people who had watched him perform exorcisms. Crowe said two aspects of Amorth’s character hooked him — his “unshakable purity of faith and his wicked sense of humor.”

In the 2017 documentary “The Devil and Father Amorth,” the priest — before beginning an exorcism — can be seen thumbing his nose in the direction of the woman said to have been possessed. It was a gesture he made before each exorcism to let the demon know he wasn’t afraid.

In the “The Pope’s Exorcist,” set in 1987, Crowe’s Amorth heads to Spain with his apprentice, a younger priest, tasked with investigating a young boy’s possession. There he uncovers a “centuries-old conspiracy” that the Vatican has tried to cover up in a plot that appears to channel The Da Vinci Code, Indiana Jones and numerous buddy-cop movies.

Crowe and the film’s creators have taken liberal creative license with Amorth’s character and his stories. Crowe looks nothing like the priest, who was bald-headed, bespectacled and clean-shaven. On screen, Crowe knocks back double espressos and rides a Lambretta scooter through Rome, his cassock billowing in the breeze to the music of Faith No More. His scooter has a Ferrari sticker — a nod to Amorth’s hometown, Modena, where the luxury automaker is based.

Amorth’s convoluted road to the priesthood included fighting as a partisan in World War II, getting a law degree and working as a journalist. He didn’t become an exorcist until he was 61. He was no stranger to controversy, claiming Hitler and Stalin were possessed, that pedophile cults operated within the Vatican, and that yoga and Harry Potter were gateways to the demonic.

Amorth’s work as an exorcist has influenced and inspired many in the Catholic Church who came after him, said Monsignor Stephen J. Rossetti, a psychologist and exorcist in the Archdiocese of Washington who has over 76,000 followers on an Instagram account he started six months ago. Rossetti says there is an increasing and renewed appetite for information about demonic possession and exorcism.

“All of us owe a debt of gratitude to Father Amorth,” Rossetti said. “He kept this ministry alive when the church and society had pretty much ignored it.”

Though exorcism was a recurring part of Jesus Christ’s ministry, Catholic seminarians and priests are not being trained to do it, he said, adding that films like “The Exorcist” have raised awareness about the phenomenon of demonic possessions. Rossetti, like Amorth, maintains that “demonic influences” have increased amid declining faith, a surge in sinning and the practice of occult.

Exorcism when practiced correctly is “an act of healing and faith,” Rossetti said, adding that he has witnessed “darkness and evil” in 15 years as an exorcist.

“Demons do manifest in a session and the exorcist faces an incredibly evil visage that no human can mimic,” he said. “Things do fly across the room. Demons engage in antics like immature 12-year-olds trying to scare you.”

But with faith and God on his side, this has always been a “joyful ministry,” Rossetti said.

The International Association of Exorcists posted a statement on its website criticizing “The Pope’s Exorcist” based on the trailer. The association called it “a show aimed at arousing strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects … to arouse only anxiety, restlessness and fear in the spectator.”

Joseph Laycock, associate professor of religious studies at Texas State University, said that despite protests from religious circles after the release of such films or television shows, “exorcists do benefit from media even when their portrayal is sensationalized.”

Laycock’s latest book, “The Exorcist Effect,” looks into the demand the 1973 film created for exorcism; he says the film had a role in shifting the Catholic Church’s attitude toward the practice. He describes Amorth as “the single most important priest in the revival of exorcism” after “The Exorcist” and predicts the rising interest in exorcism will continue.

“The kind of Christianity we had in America during the mid-20th century, emphasizing ethics over the supernatural, was an anomaly,” Laycock said. “Most of Christian history has emphasized the supernatural and spiritual warfare. This is Christianity returning to its supernatural roots.”

Siebert, who worked for nearly eight years to bring Amorth’s story to the big screen, says “The Pope’s Exorcist” has not changed his views about horror films or exorcism; both give him the chills. But it warms his heart to see a priest shown in a positive light after so many films and TV shows have vilified or belittled them.

“It’s good to see a priest talking about prayer, forgiveness, God’s love, and on top of all that, vanquishing demons,” he said. “It feels good to finally see a priest as a hero.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

PAZUZU SUMERIAN DIETY FROM THE 'EXORCIST' MOVIE

NIMBY

Burning Man cheers county’s overturning geothermal permit

By SCOTT SONNER

April 14, 2023

 People walk toward the temple at Burning Man near Gerlach, Nev., on the Black Rock Desert. A county commission has rescinded a permit an energy company needs to drill exploratory wells for a geothermal project in the Nevada desert near the site of the annual Burning Man counter-culture festival about 100 miles north of Reno. Officials for the Burning Man organization and others who have filed suit in U.S. District Court to block the geothermal development in the Black Rock Desert say the move puts the project on hold indefinitely and could scuttle it all together.

 (Andy Barron/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, File)


RENO, Nev. (AP) — County commissioners have rescinded an energy company’s permit to drill exploratory wells for a geothermal project in the Nevada desert near the site of the annual Burning Man counterculture festival about 110 miles (177 kilometers) north of Reno.

Officials for the Burning Man organization and others who have filed suit in U.S. District Court to block Ormat Technologies’ exploration in the Black Rock Desert say the move puts the project on hold indefinitely and could scuttle it all together.

The Washoe County Commission voted 3-2 this week to overturn the permit that the county’s Board of Adjustment approved in January to allow for the drilling of up to 13 geothermal test wells in the area near Gerlach, a town of about 130.

Opponents of the project say it could jeopardize the town’s water supply and detract from the remote area’s natural beauty.

“Gerlach’s very existence is threatened by the Ormat geothermal development,” Allen Nash, vice president of the Gerlach Volunteer Fire Department and member of a county citizens advisory board, told the commission before Tuesday night’s vote.

The project “runs the risk of changing a spectacular mountain vista into a spectacular vista of an industrial plant,” said Seth Schrenzel, a local business owner and trustee for the Gerlach General Improvement District.

RENO

Judge affirms stricter interpretation of federal mining law

Geothermal developer wants to delist endangered Nevada toad

 A portion of the huge Black Rock Desert in Nevada is seen from a hot air balloon. A county commission has rescinded a permit an energy company needs to drill exploratory wells for a geothermal project in the Nevada desert near the site of the annual Burning Man counter-culture festival about 100 miles north of Reno. Officials for the Burning Man organization and others who have filed suit in U.S. District Court to block the geothermal development in the Black Rock Desert say the move puts the project on hold indefinitely and could scuttle it all together.

 (Marilyn Newton/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, File)

The nonprofit Burning Man Project based in San Francisco said in a statement that the commission’s decision delays the project “for a substantial period of time and could result in it never moving forward.”

“This community stood up and and made a difference. Burning Man is pleased to have played a role in protecting the town and this special wilderness we call home,” said Marnee Benson, the organization’s director of government affairs.

Ormat Technologies didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Reno-based company is already involved in a lengthy federal court battle over a geothermal power plant it wants to build about 100 miles east of Reno adjacent to wetlands where an endangered toad lives and are fed by hot springs that tribal leaders say are sacred.

In the desert north of Reno, Ormat initially proposed a pair of geothermal power plants with overhead power lines and several miles of pipelines but withdrew that proposal in 2020 and replaced it with a smaller exploratory project to determine whether such development was commercially feasible.

The Bureau of Land Management approved the exploratory project with the test wells last October. All exploration wells and equipment would be placed on BLM-managed land.

Ormat said in court filings in March in response to the opponents’ lawsuit that the exploratory project “does not include — and the (BLM’s) decision does not approve — construction of a power plant or development of electric transmission lines.”

“Ormat would seek BLM permission for further development if, and only if, the project proves the commercial viability of the geothermal resources,” it said.

But the opponents’ lawsuit accuses Ormat of attempting to evade analysis of the geothermal power plants’ potential negative effects on the environment by segmenting the project, which limits BLM’s review to only the exploratory stage of its plans.

“This first stage merely confirms where the resources are located to inform future industrial scale geothermal energy development,” the lawsuit said. “Once the exploration project begins, it will be impossible to stop the effects of the entire geothermal production project.”

Local residents joined the Burning Man Project in January in appealing the permit. They argue that the timing of the public notice of a meeting to gather community input just after the Christmas holidays prevented anyone from attending. They also said the proposed project fails to comply with the county’s “High Desert Area Plan” intended to protect scenic vistas and natural resources.

Clara Andriola, the commission’s newest member who was appointed last week by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo to fill a vacancy, joined Commissioners Jeanne Herman and Mike Clark in voting to rescind the permit, according to the Reno Gazette Journal, which first reported the decision.

Chairwoman Alexis Hill and Commissioner Mariluz Garcia voted in support of the permit.

Rutgers, unions announce agreement, classes to resume

Strikers march in front of Rutgers' buildings in New Brunswick, N.J., Monday, April 10, 2023. Thousands of professors, part-time lecturers and graduate student workers at New Jersey's flagship university have gone on strike — the first such job action in the school's 257-year history. 

(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

April 15, 2023

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — Rutgers University and union representatives have announced an agreement on a framework for new contracts with several faculty unions, allowing a halt to a five-day strike that was the first such job action in the 257-year history of New Jersey’s flagship university,

Rutgers said early Saturday that the agreement on the framework on economic issues was reached late Friday night with the aid of Gov. Phil Murphy, and closure on that framework “will allow our 67,000 students to resume their studies and pursue their academic degrees.”

“Nothing we do is as important as living up to the expectations that our students and their families have of us to be fully supportive of them and nurturing of their academic ambitions and dreams,” the school said in a statement.

The unions representing professors, part-time lecturers and graduate student workers told members that they had agreed to suspend the strike and return to work, but more issues need to be resolved before members would have a tentative agreement to vote on.

“Our historic strike got us to this point. And let us be clear, a suspension of our strike is not a cancellation. If we do not secure the gains we need on the open issues through bargaining in the coming days, we can and will resume our work stoppage,” they said, also vowing informational pickets as classes resume next week.

Three unions, which represent about 9,000 Rutgers staff members, have been involved in the strike: the Rutgers AAUP-AFT, which represents full-time faculty, graduate workers, postdoctoral associates and some counselors; the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, which represents part-time lecturers; and the AAUP-BHSNJ, which includes faculty in the biomedical and health sciences at Rutgers’ medical, dental, nursing and public health schools.

The unions said the framework included “significant” pay increases for adjuncts and substantial raises for graduate student workers, as well as more job security for adjunct and nontenure-track faculty, union representation for graduate fellows, and other improvements.

Rutgers said the pact, retroactive to July, will increase salaries across the board for full-time faculty and EOF counselors by at least 14 percent by July 2025. It will also provide a 43.8 percent increase in the per-credit salary rate for part-time lecturers and strengthen their job security, increase minimum salaries for postdoctoral fellows and associates and substantially increase wages and other support for teaching assistants and graduate assistants.

Picket lines went up Monday at the New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden campuses as students were finishing their spring semester and preparing for finals and commencement. NJ.com reports that some said they went to classes as usual because some professors were still teaching or handing out assignments, while others said classes were called off or they decided to stay away or even walk picket lines in support of the walkout.

Report finds democracy for Black Americans is under attack

By GARY FIELDS

April 15, 2023

Marc Morial, center, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League, talks with reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, July 8, 2021, following a meeting with President Joe Biden and leadership of top civil rights organizations. Extreme views adopted by some local, state and federal political leaders who try to limit what history can be taught and undermine how Black leaders perform their jobs are among the leading threats to democracy for Black Americans, according to a National Urban League report to be released Saturday, April 15. 

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Extreme views adopted by some local, state and federal political leaders who try to limit what history can be taught in schools and seek to undermine how Black officials perform their jobs are among the top threats to democracy for Black Americans, the National Urban League says.

Marc Morial, the former New Orleans mayor who leads the civil rights and urban advocacy organization, cited the most recent example: the vote this month by the Republican-controlled Tennessee House to oust two Black representatives for violating a legislative rule. The pair had participated in a gun control protest inside the chamber after the shooting that killed three students and three staff members at a Nashville school.

“We have censorship and Black history suppression, and now this,” Morial said in an interview. “It’s another piece of fruit of the same poisonous tree, the effort to suppress and contain.”

Both Tennessee lawmakers were quickly reinstated by leaders in their districts and were back at work in the House after an uproar that spread well beyond the state.

The Urban League’s annual State of Black America report released Saturday draws on data and surveys from a number of organizations, including the UCLA Law School, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. The collective findings reveal an increase in recent years in hate crimes and efforts to change classroom curriculums, attempts to make voting more difficult and extremist views being normalized in politics, the military and law enforcement.

One of the most prominent areas examined is so-called critical race theory. Scholars developed it as an academic framework during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. The theory centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.

Director Taifha Alexander said the Forward Tracking Project, part of the UCLA Law School, began in response to the backlash that followed the protests of the George Floyd killing in 2020 and an executive order that year from then-President Donald Trump restricting diversity training.

The project’s website shows that 209 local, state and federal government entities have introduced more than 670 bills, resolutions, executive orders, opinion letters, statements and other measures against critical race theory since September 2020.

Anti-critical race theory is “a living organism in and of itself. It’s always evolving. There are always new targets of attack,” Alexander said.

She said the expanded scope of some of those laws, which are having a chilling effect on teaching certain aspects of the country’s racial conflicts, will lead to major gaps in understanding history and social justice.

“This anti-CRT campaign is going to frustrate our ability to reach our full potential as a multiracial democracy” because future leaders will be missing information they could use to tackle problems, Alexander said.

She said one example is the rewriting of Florida elementary school material about civil rights figure Rosa Parks and her refusal to give up her seat to a white rider on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus in 1955 — an incident that sparked the bus boycott there. Mention of race was omitted entirely in one revision, a change first reported by The New York Times.

Florida has been the epicenter of many of the steps, including opposing AP African American studies, but it’s not alone.

“The things that have been happening in Florida have been replicated, or governors in similarly situated states have claimed they will do the same thing,” Alexander said.

In Alabama, a proposal to ban “divisive” concepts passed out of legislative committee this past week. Last year, the administration of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, rescinded a series of policies, memos and other resources related to diversity, equity and inclusion that it characterized as “discriminatory and divisive concepts” in the state’s public education system.

Oklahoma public school teachers are prohibited from teaching certain concepts of race and racism under a bill Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law in 2021.

On Thursday, the Llano County Commissioners Court in Texas held a special meeting to consider shutting down the entire public library system rather than follow a federal judge’s order to return a slate of books to the shelves on topics ranging from teenage sexuality to bigotry.

After listening to public comments in favor and against the shutdown, the commissioners decided to remove the item from the agenda.

“We will suppress your books. We will suppress the conversation about race and racism, and we will suppress your history, your AP course,” Morial said. “It is singular in its effort to suppress Blacks.”

Other issues in his group’s report address extremism in the military and law enforcement, energy and climate change, and how current attitudes can affect public policy. Predominantly white legislatures in Missouri and Mississippi have proposals that would shift certain government authority from some majority Black cities to the states.

In many ways, the report mirrors concerns evident in recent years in a country deeply divided over everything from how much K-12 students should be taught about racism and sexuality to the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Forty percent of voters in last year’s elections said their local K-12 public schools were not teaching enough about racism in the United States, while 34% said it already was too much, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the American electorate. Twenty-three percent said the current curriculum was about right.

About two-thirds of Black voters said more should be taught on the subject, compared with about half of Latino voters and about one-third of white voters.

Violence is one of the major areas of concern covered in the Urban League report, especially in light of the 2022 mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The accused shooter left a manifesto raising the “great replacement theory ” as a motive in the killings.

Data released this year by the FBI indicated that hate crimes rose between 2020 and 2021. African Americans were disproportionately represented, accounting for 30% of the incidents in which the bias was known.

By comparison, the second largest racial group targeted in the single incident category was white victims, who made up 10%.

Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, said when all the activities are tabulated, including hate crimes, rhetoric, incidents of discrimination and online disinformation, “we see a very clear and concerning threat to America and a disproportionate impact on Black Americans.”

___

Associated Press writers Julie Wright in Kansas City, Missouri, and Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.

UGANDA'S NEIGHBOUR
Anglican conservatives meet in Rwanda amid rift over LGBTQ

By IGNATIUS SSUUNA

TODAY

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — Hundreds of Anglican conservative leaders from 52 countries are meeting in Rwanda amid a rift over support within the church for same-sex unions.

The conference in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, has been convened under the auspices of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, or GAFCON, a group formed in 2008 that advocates orthodoxy in the global Anglican communion.

The meeting comes two months after the decision of the Church of England to bless civil marriages of same-sex couples. Clerics from Africa are among those who continue to express concern.

“We are here to bring the Bible to be at the center of everything,” Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of Rwanda told the AP Tuesday.

The decision by the Church of England to bless same-sex unions created “enormous confusion” and could be the “final nail in the coffin in the already divided legacy of the Anglican Church,” Mbanda said.

The divisions have widened in recent years as conservative bishops, notably from Africa and Asia, affirmed their opposition to LGBTQ inclusion and demanded “repentance” by the more liberal provinces with inclusive policies.

The general secretary of GAFCON, Archbishop Ben Kwashi of Nigeria, said in a statement that the Church of England’s new stance on civil marriages is “troubling for many Anglicans.”

“We do not seek division, but rather we want to move the mission of God in the world,” the statement said.

The GAFCON conference, which features Bible studies and other seminars, will end on April 21.

GAFCON’s chairman, American primate Foley Beach, said during Monday’s opening that his group “can no longer recognize” Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, as the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion.

“Will you join us in praying for Justin Welby and the bishops he leads?” he said. “You and I must repent and we become Christians again and we follow Jesus Christ.”

Welby has previously acknowledged “deep disagreement” among the provinces, while urging them to try to “walk together.”