RIP

2 Canadians killed in Ukraine's bloodiest battle in Bakhmut

"It was a meat grinder the first time and I'm not expecting it any better this time round," 

Story by Chris Brown • Yesterday CBC

Two Canadians have been killed in action around the fiercely contested Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, with one of them telling CBC News before his death that the conditions on the front line were like a "meat grinder."

Kyle Porter, 27, of Calgary, and Cole Zelenco, 21, of St. Catharines, Ont., were both serving with Ukraine's International Legion, which was attached to the 92nd Mechanised Brigade.

The unit has been bearing the brunt of a ferocious Ukrainian effort to hold Bakhmut against a determined Russian attack.

The city in the eastern Donbas region has been the site of the longest running and bloodiest battle of the war, with thousands — if not tens of thousands — of casualties on both sides.

Porter had been in contact with CBC News in the days leading up to his death. He had exchanged several text messages and shared his anxiety about the difficult conditions at the front.

"Let me figure out how I am going to survive the next few days…" he wrote three days before he was killed.

"It was a meat grinder the first time and I'm not expecting it any better this time round," he texted.

In an interview their commanding officer, the foreign legion fighter known as "the dentist," said that on April 26 at around 6 p.m., the two Canadians were part of a larger group of soldiers tasked with holding an important supply route into Bakhmut.

The commander told CBC News that the unit came under intense artillery fire from Russian troops. Porter, Zelenco and at least three other Ukrainian soldiers sought shelter in a reinforced bunker, he said, but the bunker took a direct hit.

All were killed.

"They both were very proud of what they were doing," said the commander. "We were like a family. It is like I have lost my brothers."

Global Affairs Canada said in a statement that it is "aware of reports" about two Canadians being killed and is "following up with authorities for more information."

Both men had previously served in the Canadian Armed Forces but had left the army before signing up to fight in Ukraine. Their commander said the two had become close friends.

Related video: War at Ukraine: Ukraine readies for counter-offensive in the absence of Western fighter jets (WION)   Duration 8:24

View on Watch

WIONRussia Ukraine War: Both sides endure heavy casualties, Bakhmut remains focal point

2:52

EuronewsAnalysts say Ukraine counter-offensive 'unlikely' unless more combat vehicles supplied

2:13

ReutersUkraine clings to Bakhmut as Russia pounds front lines

2:25

A photo given to CBC News showed them standing together dressed in combat fatigues.

An unofficial count by CBC News would make them the fourth and fifth Canadians to be killed in the war since Russia's invasion in February 2022.

In Porter's texts to CBC News, he referred to having braved the terrible conditions in Bakhmut once before.

"During his missions, [Porter] saved the lives of wounded soldiers despite often being under Russian small arms and artillery fire while doing so," said a statement released on behalf of Porter's friends and family.

It went on to note that Ukrainian commanders had recommended him for a medal for his "gallant actions" near Bakhmut.

A statement by Zelenco's friends posted on a GoFundMe page said Zelenco was "intensely passionate" about serving in Ukraine and had served two tours there.

Porter had previously worked in Ukraine as a member of an urban search and rescue team based in Kharkiv last spring, which is where CBC News initially met him.

At the time, he was acting as the team's medic and described several close calls where he escaped Russian shelling.

"War is cruelty," he said at the time, even while noting he hoped to return to Ukraine "in a different role."


Ukrainian service members from a third separate assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine prepare to fire a howitzer D30 at a front line, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the city of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on April 23.© Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters

The family statement said Porter felt a "strong need to do more" and once back in Ukraine, his skills and military experience earned him a promotion to the rank of junior sergeant.

Ukraine's army is thought to be just days away from launching a major counter-offensive against Russian troops and the battle to hold Bakhmut is seen as decisive.

Zelenco's body was recovered from the battlefield and is now in Kharkiv. The GoFundMe page indicates $30,000 has been raised to cover funeral and transportation expenses.

Porter's body was not immediately recovered but his commander indicated members of his unit were hoping to do so shortly.

Paul Hughes, a long-time Calgary community volunteer, now based in Kharkiv, where he runs several charities, says he plans to help transport Porter's body away from the front line to Kharkiv.

"There are people around the world who have been motivated to come over here and do humanitarian work, or, like Kyle and Cole, who've come over and lost their lives," said Hughes.

"They are doing everything they possibly can to defend Ukraine, which is a very, very beautiful and amazing country."

The White House estimated on Monday that Russia's military has suffered 100,000 casualties in the last five months in fighting against Ukraine in the Bakhmut region.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the figure, based on U.S. intelligence estimates, included more than 20,000 dead, half of them from the Wagner Group. The Bakhmut offensive has stalled and failed, he said.

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More green investment hasn’t softened red resistance on climate

Story by Ronald Brownstein • Yesterday - CNBC

Even as billions of dollars in new clean energy investments surge into Republican leaning communities around the country, state and federal GOP officials are hardening their resistance to efforts to reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.

That stark contrast has dashed a central hope and expectation among environmentalists: the belief that more economic opportunity in red places would mean less political opposition from Republicans to the transition toward a clean energy economy that scientists say is necessary to reduce the risk of catastrophic global climate change. The persistence of GOP opposition to that transition underscores the limits of economic incentives to overcome ideological inclinations – and points toward years of pitched partisan conflict that could make it virtually impossible for the US to set a consistent course on climate policy.

This dynamic was encapsulated last week when virtually every House Republican voted, in the party’s debt ceiling plan, to repeal the clean energy incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act Democrats passed last year, even though those incentives have already triggered investments in 72 Republican-held districts, including over two dozen districts that have received massive investments of $1 billion or more in new plants or expansions of existing facilities. It’s also apparent in decisions by Republican state attorneys general from states that are among the top beneficiaries of new clean energy investments and jobs to launch a flurry of lawsuits and other legal proceedings against proposals from President Joe Biden’s administration to speed the transition toward a low-carbon economy.

This opposition contravenes the traditional assumption that politicians almost always support the economic interests creating opportunity for their constituents. With growing boldness, Republicans and conservative activists are framing defense of fossil fuels and skepticism of clean energy alternatives as a form of culture war – with the transition to wind, solar and electric vehicles taking its place alongside transgender rights, “woke” indoctrination in the classroom or restrictions on gun ownership as an example of “coastal elites” trying to erase traditional American values.

In opposing measures to promote clean energy even in places benefiting from new investments to produce it, “Republicans believe – and the next election will help us see whether this is a good strategy or not – that culture war is going to be better to help them win than talking about jobs and the economy,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Program on Climate Change Communication at Yale University.

In all these ways, climate change has become another fissure along the central fault line in modern American politics. Like attitudes toward demographic and cultural change, perspectives on shifting the nation’s energy mix from its historic reliance on fossil fuels toward low-carbon alternatives now pit the Democratic “coalition of transformation” that largely embraces the way America is changing on every front against the Republican “coalition of restoration” that resists it.

For many Republicans, the Inflation Reduction Act’s sweeping provisions to encourage carbon-free energy sources aren’t “a bipartisan domestic energy agenda,” even though those incentives are channeling substantial jobs and investment to red places, said Robert McNally, a Republican energy consultant and former White House energy adviser for President George W. Bush. “This is a left wing, coastal ‘let’s change the world by having the federal government intervene at a time of high inflation kind of thing.’ When a Republican member does the pros and cons, it’s not like they don’t see the pros, but they see a lot of cons.”

Republican-leaning states, as I’ve written, are generally more integrated into the existing fossil fuel economy than blue-leaning places. Trump won 20 of the 21 states that emit the most carbon from their energy sector per each dollar of economic activity, mostly states between the coasts that are either big producers of fossil fuels (Wyoming, West Virginia, Texas) or big consumers of it to power robust agricultural and manufacturing sectors (Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, Indiana). Biden in turn won 19 of the 21 states with the least emissions, most of them coastal states that produce little oil, gas or coal and have transitioned more rapidly into the post-industrial economy of services and high-tech jobs, such as Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and California. Representation in the House and Senate, and control of state governments, follow these same tracks, with Republicans dominating the high-emitting states and Democrats dominating those with lower emissions. Oil and gas companies now routinely direct about four-fifths of their campaign contributions toward Republicans in Congress.

But the energy transition now underway is remaking this picture. Red places are among the clear winners in the emerging clean energy economy. Of the five states that produced the most wind-generated electricity in 2022, according to federal statistics, four are solidly red: Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas; Illinois is the sole exception. Big solar generating states include Texas and Florida, as well as Arizona, Georgia and Nevada – places where Republicans control the state legislature, the governorship or both.

The Inflation Reduction Act that passed last year on a party line vote is further diffusing these opportunities, though no Republican legislators in either the House or the Senate voted for it.

Overall, as of March 31, companies have announced “191 new clean energy projects in small towns and bigger cities nationwide totaling $242.81 billion in new investments,” according to a recent report by the environmental advocacy group Climate Power. Those investments are projected to create some 142,000 jobs, the group calculated. Of the 10 states that have received the most announced clean energy projects, the group found, only two are safely Democratic (New York and California.) The rest are either battleground states (Michigan, Arizona and Georgia) or Republican-leaning (Texas, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee).

The red tilt on investment is similarly pronounced at the congressional district level. In another study, Climate Power found that over half of all the new clean energy projects announced since the bill’s passage have been located in Republican-held congressional districts. The Republican district projects account, stunningly, for nearly four-fifths of the total clean energy investments that have been announced. The group found that two dozen House Republicans hold seats where clean energy companies have committed to investments of $1 billion or more since the passage of the IRA. The district that has received the most investment is held by New York Republican Rep. Brandon Williams (whose New York seat is the site of a massive plant that will manufacture semiconductors for EVs) and the district projected to receive the most jobs is held by Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei (which has attracted four separate projects). A South Korean company is building a $2.5 billion solar panel manufacturing facility in the Georgia district of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Many reasons may explain why so much of the new clean energy investment has flowed into red places. Most important may be that Republican states and districts tilt more toward rural areas where space for large manufacturing facilities is easier to acquire. In those states, taxes are typically lower and state regulations more lenient as well. Some companies are also attracted to the non-union environment in most red states.


Whatever the motivation for the companies, environmentalists have hoped that channeling more economic benefits from the energy transition into red places would soften the opposition of Republicans toward deemphasizing fossil fuels. The model some cite is how the spread of defense contracts across virtually every congressional district maximizes support for the Pentagon budget.

Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, sees that precedent as critical to sustaining a long-term federal effort behind promoting clean energy. “What we need it to become is the defense authorization act, where every single congressional district has a piece of it – and it can’t be undone and we are set on this path of reaching our goals because of how diffuse it is,” she says.

But establishing those political roots, she acknowledges, will take time, and in the near term, the torrent of new investment has not diminished Republican resistance. If anything, as Biden leans into measures to accelerate the energy transition, Republicans are stiffening their opposition.

“The harder one side pushes, the harder the other way the other side wants to push back,” said Heather Reams, president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a conservative group that supports action on climate change.

Last week, almost every House Republican voted for the sweeping bill to raise the debt ceiling that included the repeal of the extensive incentives in the IRA for both producers and consumers to shift to clean energy sources. Earlier this year, every House and Senate Republican, under an act allowing Congress to challenge federal regulations, voted to overturn a Department of Labor rule that would allow pension fund managers to consider so-called ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) goals in making investment decisions – which is considered one important way to encourage more investment in green industries.

Biden vetoed that change, but a coalition of Republican state attorneys general are still seeking to block the regulation in court. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely 2024 GOP presidential candidate, recently organized a coalition of 19 Republican governors to fight such ESG measures, which he derides as “woke capitalism.”

West Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has hinted that when the federal Environmental Protection Agency completes its proposed fuel economy regulations requiring a rapid shift toward electric vehicles, GOP AGs will sue to overturn that, too. No one would be surprised if such a coalition of Republican-controlled states sues as well to block the regulations the Biden EPA is developing to reduce carbon emissions from power plants. (Such a coalition successfully sued to block former President Barack Obama’s regulations on the same topic.) And it seems inevitable that whenever the EPA completes both its fuel economy and power plant regulations that congressional Republicans will attempt to override them as well. From Republicans, predicts McNally, there will be “complete and total opposition on all fronts” to the coming Biden climate regulations. “It will be kitchen sink – everything will be going at it.”

Reams is cautiously optimistic that if Republicans obtained unified control of the White House and Congress in 2025, they would preserve at least some of the IRA’s clean energy incentives as part of an “all of the above” strategy to encourage more domestic production of both fossil fuels and low-carbon sources. But McNally, in a view shared from across the political spectrum by Lodes, predicts that if Republicans win unified control, they will “gut” the IRA clean energy incentives that they voted to eliminate last week. “Ninety-eight percent of this is going to go,” he says.

When I reached out to several House Republicans last week to ask why they voted to rescind the IRA incentives although their districts have received big clean energy investments, most either did not respond or refused to comment. (In the latter camp was Utah Rep. John Curtis, who chairs the Conservative Climate Caucus and whose district has received $11 billion in clean energy investments, according to Climate Power.)

One who did respond was Amodei, the Nevada Republican. He exemplifies the depth of Republican skepticism to the Democratic agenda to combat climate change. His northern Nevada district contains not only a massive (and expanding) Tesla plant, but also a factory being built by another battery company, Redwood Materials. Between them, the Redwood plant and Tesla expansion are expected to create 4,600 permanent manufacturing jobs as well as many construction jobs, according to news accounts.

Yet Amodei voted last week to repeal all the IRA’s incentives to encourage more production and consumption of electric vehicles. In an interview, he said the pace at which Biden and Democrats want to transition transportation toward EVs was unrealistic. “Do I think electricity is the future? Absolutely,” Amodei said. But he added, “even with all these billions of dollars being poured into these things in the form of subsidies and penalties” the rate at which Biden hopes to shift Americans into electric vehicles “borders on suicidal.”

Moreover, he asserted that Nevada companies are largely being excluded from the construction jobs generated by the big plant expansions in his district, and that the bigger concern for most constituents he represents is the risk that the IRA’s increased spending will fuel inflation. “The benefits” of the bill, he says, “I don’t think outweigh the negative stuff in terms of debt, inflation and oh, by the way, how much really came to Nevada?”

Amodei is one of the Republican members that Climate Power and the League of Conservation Voters have already targeted with ads criticizing their votes. Lodes says his claim that Nevada residents aren’t benefiting from the new jobs in his district “just doesn’t hold water.” She says the group’s challenge is to make clear to voters in the Republican districts benefiting from clean energy investments that their Representatives voted to repeal the incentives encouraging that spending. “The case we will have to make to voters is that every single one of these MAGA extremists put their agenda ahead of their constituents,” she says.

That argument could prove effective in some swing districts, particularly those with a large number of college-educated voters. But most House Republicans represent solidly GOP-leaning areas. And demand for action against climate change has remained minimal inside the GOP coalition. Leiserowitz says that in Yale’s polling, only a very small percentage of even moderate Republicans cite climate as an important issue for government to address and that the share of all Republicans who support developing more clean energy sources is actually dropping. Republican voters are far more likely to say they support more domestic drilling for oil and gas. The vast majority of Republican voters even say they will never consider buying an electric vehicle, according to a recent Gallup poll. Democrats mostly take the opposite positions, placing far greater priority on climate change as a problem and expressing much more interest in changing not only public policy but also their personal behavior to combat it.

Reams says that disparity has created a striking dynamic, with Republican-leaning communities producing the clean energy favored by Democratic-leaning consumers: “You have a phenomenon of red supply for blue demand,” she says.

Like many environmentalists to her left, Reams believes that as the clean energy industries become more “ingrained” in GOP-leaning areas, “more Republicans will say ‘I can’t repeal that.’” The historical behavior of members of Congress says she’s right; but those precedents may no longer apply.

Over time, more clean energy investments and jobs in Republican-leaning places should make the case for transition more compelling. Likewise, even in those red areas, more consumers may also experience benefits from renewable power sources or the cost savings of operating electric vehicles. “Clean energy, electric vehicles, all the things associated with these things are going to become part of normal life in America,” says Leiserowitz. The result is that people “will ask, ‘How can you be against something when everybody is doing it?’”

But all these traditional dynamics could be offset if clean energy continues to get pulled into the right’s culture war case against “woke” elites. Across a panoramic range of issues – from abortion, LGBTQ rights and guns to classroom censorship and book bans – Republicans, especially in red states, are looking to impose the cultural values of their predominantly conservative electoral coalition against what they consider liberal efforts to uproot the US from its traditions. So long as Republican voters are convinced to see the clean energy transition as part of that threat, even gleaming new factories and fat new paychecks may not much soften the party’s sweeping resistance to climate action.

Bosch buys US semiconductor foundry to expand EV chip output

Story by By Joseph White and Stephen Nellis • 

The Bosch logo is seen in Reutlingen© Thomson Reuters

By Joseph White and Stephen Nellis

DETROIT (Reuters) - Germany's Bosch Group has agreed to buy key assets of California chip manufacturer TSI Semiconductors and invest $1.5 billion to expand U.S. production of silicon carbide chips for electric vehicles.

Bosch and TSI did not disclose a purchase price. Bosch said it plans to invest $1.5 billion to retool TSI's chip production facilities in Roseville, California to start producing silicon carbide chips by 2026.

The investment "will be heavily dependent on federal funding opportunities" through the CHIPS act as well as state subsidies, Bosch said in a statement.

Bosch said the TSI facility would become the "third pillar" of in-house semiconductor production, along with two sites in Germany.

Related video: Decoding Geopolitics Of Semiconductors, Its Impact On Global Supply Chain |The Global Eye |CNBC-TV18   Duration 11:42   View on Watch

Like other automotive manufacturers, Bosch was hit hard over the past two years by disruptions to semiconductor production in Asia, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those shortages have eased but not gone away. Bosch's automaker customers have continued to push for more secure, diversified sources of chips.

The silicon carbide chips Bosch said it will manufacture at the TSI Roseville site are increasingly in demand by electric vehicle manufacturers. The silicon carbide chemistry enables greater driving range and faster recharging, Bosch said.

Demand for silicon carbide semiconductors is growing by 30% annually, Bosch said.

That demand has led to a surge in investment in the chips. U.S-based Wolfspeed Inc is building new plants to make silicon carbide chips in New York State and in Germany. Onsemi Corp is also investing heavily in silicon carbide and has signed a strategic agreement with Volkswagen AG to supply chips to the automaker.

The TSI site currently is a foundry for application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs used in various industries, Bosch said.

Bosch plans to acquire the buildings, machines and infrastructure of TSI as well as well as its commercial semiconductor business. After re-tooling the factory, Bosch said it plans to start producing silicon carbide chips on 200-milimeter wafers - the discs of silicon that chips are produced upon - in 2026 in 10,000 feet of clean room space.

(This story has been refiled to correct the spelling of TSI Semiconductors in paragraph 10)

(Reporting By Joe White, Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Baby-wearing, beverage-holding man catches foul ball with bare hand at Dodger-Cardinals game

Story by Eddie Chau •
Toronto Sun

A sunglasses-wearing man with a baby strapped to his chest and beverage in hand catches a fly ball at a Los Angeles Dodgers game on April 30, 2023.

© Provided by Toronto Sun

Now that’s multitasking!

Parents are the true masters of juggling many things at once. And one father proved just that at a Los Angeles Dodgers game on Sunday afternoon.

With the Dodgers in the field, St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Tommy Edman was up at bat. With a swing, Edman knocked a foul ball down the first baseline.

The ball travelled through the air and into the stands where a Dodgers fan, who had a baby strapped to his chest and a drink held in his left hand, caught the ball with his right hand.

The orange-sunglasses-wearing dad then proudly hoisted the ball in the air as spectators around him cheered his amazing, highlight reel-worthy feat.

The Dodgers shared a 12-second clip of the catch on social media and many responders were impressed.

“Dad power at dodger stadium is insane,” one person tweeted.

“Talk about dad energy,” another proclaimed.

“This is the trifecta of baseball and what we all as fathers aspire to. It’s the pinnacle. Triple BBB Baby beer baseball,” one stated.

It’s safe to say this Dodgers fan will have a wild story to tell his offspring for years to come.

Barbie unveils Anna May Wong doll for AAPI Heritage Month



Six months after she was immortalized with a U.S. quarter, Asian American Hollywood trailblazer Anna May Wong has received another accolade affirming her icon status — her own Barbie.

Mattel announced Monday the release of an Anna May Wong doll for Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month.

The figure has her trademark bangs, eyebrows and well-manicured nails. The doll is dressed in a red gown with a shiny golden dragon design and cape, inspired by her appearance in the 1934 movie “Limehouse Blues.”

Wong's niece, Anna Wong, gave her blessing and worked closely with the brand to develop the Barbie's look.

“I did not hesitate at all. It was such an honor and so exciting,” Wong told The Associated Press in an email. “I wanted to make sure they got her facial features and clothing correct. And they did!"

As a child, Anna Wong owned a Barbie and Skipper doll (Barbie's little sister) and a Barbie dream house and car. She loves the idea that Asian children will now have a doll who looks like them.

The doll is part of the Barbie “Inspiring Women” series, which features dolls in the likeness of pioneering women. Past inspirations include aviator Amelia Earhart and artist Frida Kahlo.

“As the first Asian American actor to lead a U.S. television show, whose perseverance broke down barriers for her gender and AAPI community in film and TV, Anna May Wong is the perfect fit for our Barbie Inspiring Women Series," Lisa McKnight, an executive vice president at Mattel, said in a statement.

Born in Los Angeles, the Chinese American actor is considered the first major Asian American movie star. She started out during the silent movie era in the 1920s and gained international notice in films like “The Thief of Bagdad” as well as for her fashion sense. In the '30s, Anna May Wong was acting opposite actors like Marlene Dietrich in “Shanghai Express.” But in 1937, she lost the lead role of a Chinese villager in “The Good Earth” to Luise Rainer, a white actor who went on to win a best actress Oscar.

In the ensuing decades, Anna May Wong went to Europe to act. But she later returned to the U.S. In In 1951, she led her own television show, “The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong." The short-lived mystery series was believed to be the first with an Asian American lead.

In another first, she was the first Asian American woman to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for acting in 1960. She died a year later at age 56.

Terry Tang, The Associated Press

Chita Rivera introduces us to her alter ego in new memoir



It’s hard to imagine Anita, Rose Alvarez and Velma Kelly without Chita Rivera, who first breathed life into these beloved Broadway characters.

At a time when there was limited Latino representation on stage, this young woman of Puerto Rican, Scottish and Irish descent was taking Broadway by storm and ensuring everyone knew her name.

The dancer-turned-Broadway legend reminisces in her new book, “Chita: A Memoir.” Written with arts journalist Patrick Pacheco, it's an inside look at Rivera’s journey from a spunky girl jumping on furniture in her family’s Washington, D.C., home to a professional dancer and then a three-time Tony Award-winning performer.

Each chapter feels like a personal diary entry as Rivera, now 90, also talks about motherhood, and loves lost and found.

“It was the next stage for me to write it down. And it was God’s way of reminding me this is the life I had or have. I got so busy that I didn’t remember that I had a wonderful, wonderful life,” she told the Associated Press.

While Rivera is the memoir's main character, another woman steals scene after scene: her self-proclaimed alter ego, Dolores. Dolores is unapologetic and fiery. She is the unfiltered version of Chita and serves as motivation in times of self-doubt. In one chapter, Rivera writes that she doesn’t read reviews “or Dolores just might invest in a dozen voodoo dolls.”

“I consist of — and I think we all do — I consist of two people: Dolores and Conchita,” said Rivera with a chuckle. “Conchita, she’s the one that has been taking all the glory, you know. She’s been doing all the shows, but Dolores is the one that’s pushed her into it. And she’s been keeping me on track, so I listen to Dolores. I listen to her. She’s growing in my head now as we speak.”

Rivera was born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero. Friends knew her as Chita, but it wasn’t until someone recommended that she shorten her name to fit on a show poster that she became Chita Rivera. It was a name that she felt respected her heritage.

“If I was going to lose some parts because directors or agents thought my name sounded too south of the border, well, that was their problem,” she writes in the memoir.

Related video: Chita Rivera reflects on her career in new memoir (The Canadian Press)  Duration 1:52  View on Watch

Rivera dedicates a chapter to the late Sammy Davis Jr., whom she met while working on the Broadway musical “Mr. Wonderful” early in her career. She talks about their romantic relationship, and the legendary rat pack member’s inner struggles. Rivera says she decided to go into more detail about their relationship because “it was time to,” and she wanted readers to know her and Sammy better.

“He was an extraordinary human being who had the same problems as everybody else, but he dealt with them in a different way. And I cherish the time that I had with Sammy because he was an amazing person,” she said.

For Rivera, vulnerability in love isn't something to hide. “The loves of my life enabled me to explore myself even more,” she said.

“And I always said, you know, we should have two lives, one to try out and one you’re judged by. But we don’t. We have one life, and we have to live it as best we can,” said Rivera.

Hers became that of a theatre icon, best known for her roles in “West Side Story” (Anita), “Bye Bye Birdie” (Rose) and “Chicago” (Velma). Accolades include a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009; Tony Awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre; Kennedy Center Honors and more, filling up pages and pages at the end of her memoir. She also appeared in film and on television.

Her book includes memories of other Broadway legends like Fred Ebb, John Kander, Liza Minnelli, Leonard Bernstein and more.

“And I’m very, very lucky that I met all these people that made up my life,” said Rivera. “They are responsible for me being who I am.”

In the very first chapters of the book, she writes, Gwen Verdon gave her life-altering words of affirmation.

“Be more confident. Go out and create your own roles. Forge your own path,” Verdon told her.

Similar encouragement came from other mentors and colleagues, including Davis, who told her not to “sell herself short.” Those shows of support, she recalls, ”were a shock at the beginning because it was such a surprise.”

Rivera was married once, to fellow dancer Tony Mordente, and has a daughter.

Above all, she says, she hopes those reading her memoir will live their lives fearlessly.

“If I can do it, so can you. So if there are any kids out there that have any questions at all, I hope that I answer some of the questions for them and give them courage," she says. "To go on with their lives, with their own lives and not be afraid of what life has for them.”

Leslie Ambriz, The Associated Press

Paris exhibit celebrates 'first celebrity' Sarah Bernhardt

Paris exhibit celebrates 'first celebrity' Sarah Bernhardt© Provided by The Canadian Press

PARIS (AP) — The pioneering French stage star Sarah Bernhardt was one of the world’s most famous women by the time of her death in 1923 — a status she owed not just to acting talent but her modern instinct for self-publicizing and using the press to brand her image.

A century later, a French museum opened an exhibit on the eccentric, scandalous and multihyphenate performer known as “La Divine,” whom many consider the world’s first celebrity.

At the Petit Palais museum in Paris, the public is now discovering the madcap jigsaw puzzle of Gothic stories, costumes, recordings, films, photos, jewels, sculptures, and personal objects for the first time together–-- that made Bernhardt an object of fascination from Berlin to London and New York.

“Sarah Bernhardt was more than a famous actress. She was one of the first celebrities. She was a businesswoman, a fashion icon, a sculptor, theater director, a visionary, a courtesan. She pushed gender boundaries. By self-publicizing, she paved the way for many, including Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, Madonna, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé,” said Stephanie Cantarutti, curator of the exhibit “Sarah Bernhardt: And the woman created the star.”

The show marking the centenary of her death brings together around 400 exhibits that delve well beyond her life on stage.

It starts at the dawn of her career: A handwritten log in the official Parisian Register of Courtesans from the 1860s with a photograph of her and descriptions of the activities of this young “courtesan.” Bernhardt was after all born into her life’s first role: her mother was also a courtesan, and the mistress of Napoleon III’s half-brother.

The exhibit snakes loosely through the chronology of her life: from her beginnings on stage after Alexandre Dumas took her to the Comedie Francaise, to her most famous roles such as Joan of Arc, Phaedra and Cleopatra — showcasing the dazzling costumes worn at the Theater Sarah Bernhardt that were for Americans then an emblem of Paris at the dawn of the modern fashion industry. The Theater Sarah Bernhardt at Chatelet has since been renamed the Theater de la Ville, while all that remains in the building bearing her name is a cafe-restaurant.

She was one of France’s most prolific gender-benders, famously quoted as saying that she needed to play male characters to feel less restricted. A photo in the exhibit shows Bernhardt in men’s costume, playing Hamlet in a French version of the play.

“She said that roles given to women were not interesting enough and she could not demonstrate all of her talent playing them, so she played many male roles. Importantly. She was ahead of her time,” Cantarutti said, adding that Bernhardt was bisexual and was often photographed wearing pants — when it was illegal for a woman to do so — decades before stars such as Marlene Dietrich.

She was an early influencer, dazzling Oscar Wilde, who wrote the play Salome in French for her and called her “the incomparable one." She inspired Marcel Proust. She was visited in her dressing room by Gustave Flaubert, while Mark Twain wrote: “There are five kinds of actresses: bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses, and Sarah Bernhardt.”

Her intuition for using emerging media and staging stories for the press was key to the actress’ particular mystique.

She made a name for herself during the Universal Exhibition of 1878, escaping in a hot air balloon over the Tuileries garden, where she sliced the neck off a bottle of champagne with a sword and tasted foie gras, she said, to escape the bad smell of Paris.

Not all was rosy — she suffered from having one lung, one kidney and later in life only one leg, but was never downtrodden.

Because of her penchant for tragic roles, rumors spread that Bernhardt slept in a coffin at night. She saw the potential of playing to the gossip: She paid for a padded coffin to be installed in her home and hired a photographer to snap her sleeping in it.

“That photo went everywhere; it became very famous. She also had a hat made of bats,” Cantarutti said.

The Gothic then became her brand when she acquired a pet baby alligator at home, whom she named Ali Gaga. Ali Gaga died of liver failure because Bernhardt nourished it only on champagne, according to Cantarutti.

Bernhardt later went on to take the United States by storm. She was greeted as a celebrity there during her 1912-13 American tour, even though few could understand anything from her French language performances.

The tour was hot off the heels of the success of her groundbreaking 1912 silent movie Queen Elizabeth. The man who secured the U.S. rights to broadcast it during her tour, Adolph Zukor, became so rich that he used the profits from the film to found the Paramount Pictures movie studio — then the Famous Players Film company — according to the museum.

Yet it was sculpture that was her inexhaustible life’s great passion, spawning remarkable works in marble and bronze — some of which were feted and shown at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. Several of her sculptures are permanently shown at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

“It seemed to me now that I was born to be a sculptor and I had begun to see my theater in an ill light,” Bernhardt said in her autobiography “My Double Life.”

“Despite it all” was her mantra and the phrase she identified with, the exhibit says.

"Despite the difficulties in her life, starting as a courtesan, trying to break out in a man’s world. Despite all that, and then being an amputee, she continued on,” Cantarutti said.

“Sarah Bernhardt: And the woman created the star” runs until Aug. 27.

Thomas Adamson, The Associated Press

‘Mischievous’ Canadian recalls making Queen‘giggle’ with moose-themed art

Story by Harry Stedman • Yesterday 

 Evening Standard

King Charles III Moose Artwork

An artist renowned for depicting royals with moose as a form of “affectionate mischief” has recalled the “giggling” response he received from the King when he presented him with a postcard of Queen Elizabeth II riding one of the long-antlered mammals.

Canadian Charles Pachter, 80, who lives in Toronto, has produced an entire collection featuring moose alongside royalty over the course of five decades and even presented his creations to the late Queen and King Charles.

His most famous creation, depicting Elizabeth riding a moose, was warmly received by Charles – whose coronation takes place on May 6 – when the pair met in 1999.

Mr Pachter told the PA news agency: “He [Charles] was on a Canadian tour and he was in Toronto because he had particular interests in historical architecture that he believed should be maintained.

“A huge whisky distillery was restored in the early 90s and Prince Charles was there to see it.

“For whatever reason I was invited, and I had a couple of postcards in my pocket. I approached him – he was very approachable and quite charming – and gave him a postcard of his mummy on a moose, and he giggled.

“He was very pleasant about it.”

Mr Pachter’s love for the animal started aged four, when he petted a moose at the Canadian National Exhibition.

“In school, we were taught that the moose was the ‘monarch of the north’,” he said.


“It’s awkward and majestic, and when you see it in the woods you feel like you’ve had a very privileged moment.

“I did for the moose what Andy Warhol did for Marilyn Monroe – I made the moose glamorous.”

Mr Pachter began producing the pieces in 1973 – some of which involves inkjet printing – after hearing that Queen Elizabeth II was coming to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, to open the Shaw Festival Theatre.

“I had begun these images of the Queen sitting on a moose because I couldn’t understand why our head of state didn’t live here”, he said.

“I turned it into a visual pun – by putting the Queen on a moose, I sat her in a Canadian setting.”

He added that at the time, reaction by critics and the public was “pretty dismal and negative”.

However, the artwork has since grown in popularity and recognition and Mr Pachter said the late Queen “chuckled” when he showed it to her in 2015, adding: “She wasn’t offended – she thought it was cute.”

“I’ve had fun with the image and it really has become something of a watermark in my career, and now with the new royals, I’m going to start to have some fun.

“My work does have a quality of affectionate mischief but it’s not malevolent or mean-spirited.”

“I do believe in many ways that they [the royal family] are our version of Hollywood, that we just enjoy seeing them and following their foibles and ups and downs.”

Mr Pachter said he thought the King’s coronation “will go off magnificently”, and talked up the prospect of a reunion with Charles and the Queen Consort as he gets to work on more royal-moose artwork.

“If and when they come back to Canada, I’d love to meet them again,” he said.

“I’m Prints Charles!”

Opinion: We want a choice instead of Charles

When King Charles rumbles up the road from Buckingham Palace in his horse drawn carriage on May 6, off to his coronation, I will be nearby, protesting for the abolition of the British monarchy.


Graham Smith - Courtesy Graham Smith

I will be joined by many other protesters, each of us determined to do two things: show the world Britain isn’t a nation of royalists and tell the British people it’s time we brought this nonsense to an end.

The monarchy is always wrong in principle and is no good in practice. The support it has had until recently was sustained by the Queen, by media deference and by official secrecy (the Royal Household is exempt from Freedom of Information requests).

That support is now falling. According to a recent Savanta poll, support for abolition – that is, Britain having an elected head of state – is close to a third. Even more so for young people under 35 years, where it’s almost half.

Importantly, most people simply aren’t interested in the coronation. After a string of scandals – from accusations of racism (the Royal Household maintains that it complies with the provisions of the Equality Act) to the ongoing saga of Prince Andrew (who has continually denied allegations of sexual abuse) – the monarchy is now reduced to an uninspiring quartet: Charles and Camilla, William and Kate. These are not people to turn around those falling polls.

But while it is almost certainly the case that in Charles we have a head of state who would lose a free and fair election, opposition to the monarchy isn’t about the royals. Yes, in my view the monarchy is corrupt, guilty of systematic abuses of public office and public money, albeit legitimized by the government.

But more profound concerns lie behind the growing push for a republic. It is about recognizing the strength of democratic ideals and the failures of Britain’s own democracy. It’s about democratic reform that leaves no room for hereditary power and privilege.

The monarchy not only forces us to compromise our values, to make intellectual room for hereditary public office and for an institution steeped in the crimes of slavery and empire – it fails to deliver or defend a democratic culture or constitution.

Quite the opposite, the monarchy is the wellspring of so much that’s wrong with our politics. The Crown is the source of all political and legal power. The courts exercise their power in the name of the Crown, as do government ministers.

Over the past 300 years the powers of the monarch have simply been passed on to the government, allowing them to declare war, sign treaties and control parliament. Power is highly centralized, the government largely free to do as it pleases with few checks and balances in place to obstruct it.



Protesters hold signs reading "Not My King" behind well wishers gathered for the arrival of King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla at the Liverpool Central Library on April 26, 2023. 

- Jon Super/AFP/Getty Images

It is telling that royalists so often reduce the argument to economic costs and benefits, as more serious arguments never favor the monarchy. They may say monarchy defends us against tyranny, but this is palpably false. Yet so are claims of economic gain which have been debunked. According to research by my organization, there is no profit from the monarchy, only cost.

Cost to our nation’s finances, certainly, but also to our democratic values and how our democracy plays out in practice.

A parliamentary republic by contrast would give us checks and balances, disperse power between government, parliament and people and an accountable head of state – one of us who can genuinely represent us.

Not running the government but guarding our constitution. It’s a model which works well across Europe, most notably in Ireland.

So, when we shout “Not My King!” at Charles, it is a proud statement of democratic principle – that we recognise no person’s claim to be above us because of birth. Instead, we demand a democracy that celebrates our noblest principles and greatest endeavours.

On May 6 it’s about saying very clearly, we want an election instead of a coronation, and a choice instead of Charles.

Mutual bond endures but Canada at a crossroads as king’s coronation looms

Story by Leyland Cecco in Toronto • 
The Guardian

Photograph: Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty© Provided by The Guardian

More than 800 dives beneath metres-thick ice were not enough to prepare Joe MacInnis for the stress of bringing a member of the British royal family deep into the blisteringly cold depths of the Arctic Ocean. Especially a future king.

“This is one of the most hostile places on the planet and hazards are everywhere,” he said of the waters near Qausuittuq, an Inuit hamlet on the north shore of the Northwest Passage, where the royal dive took place in 1975. “So yes, I was nervous.”

MacInnis, the famed Canadian scientist and explorer, guided then-Prince Charles through a two-metre deep shaft cut through the ice to give access to the ocean.

As they moved through the water, Charles seemed enraptured by ice stalactites and tiny amphipods, later commenting on his love for the “sacred qualities” of the natural world.

Half a century later, MacInnis sees that moment under the ice as a reflection of the broader challenges the new king will face.

“With Charles, you have a set of eyes that have seen a world under the ice as well as on the surface – and are less able than he’d like to make the changes that are needed to fix things,” said MacInnis.

“As a scientist, I’ve watched as this world slowly cascades into a different kind of place. And there’s a real feeling of helplessness.”

As the coronation of King Charles III approaches, the monarchy is at a crossroads in Canada, with the country increasingly apathetic towards a new head of state.

But Charles’s ascension comes at a time when the causes he has long championed –combatting the climate crisis and repairing the damaged relationship with Indigenous peoples – are central to Canada’s national conversation.



Joe MacInnis and the then Prince of Wales prepare to dive below thick ice in 1975. Photograph: Anwar Hussein/Getty© Provided by The Guardian

As a commonwealth country, Canada will formally commemorate the king’s coronation with a series of speeches, performances and artistic events planned in the nation’s capital.

The solemn ceremony will be broadcast on televisions across the country, but – unlike Elizabeth’s coronation 70 years ago, when many students were given the day off – school boards across the country have made no special plans to mark the occasion.

“This is very much about Canadians considering whether they wish to have somebody born and raised in another country, who got their job through hereditary title, continuing to be Canada’s king and Canada’s head of state,” said Shachi Kurl, president of the non-profit Angus Reid Institute.

Kurl points out that demographic shifts have dramatically reshaped the country’s makeup since the last coronation.

“Culturally, linguistically, ethnically, Canada [today] is not the Canada of 1953,” she said. “The last bastions of monarchic support in this country tend to be among older, more conservative people.”

Less than 10% of the population consider the coronation an important event. “Forget it being the most important event of the decade or century or of their lifetime – only 9% say it’s the most important day of the year,” she said.

Charles has made 18 official visits to Canada since 1970 and has expressed a deep love of the country, the second-oldest Commonwealth realm.

“Every time I come to Canada … a little more of Canada seeps into my bloodstream and from there, straight to my heart,” he told a crowd of supporters in Newfoundland in 2009.

Related: Canada’s ties to crown are loosening but cutting them could be tall order

And yet, the monarchy has increasingly fallen out of favour with Canadians, a majority of whom would prefer to see it abolished.

For some, the pomp surrounding the upcoming coronation – the orbs, sceptres and holy oils – feels like a relic of the past. For others, the crown bears both the weight of history, and the responsibility for centuries of injustice against Indigenous peoples, who were dispossessed from their lands through broken treaties and failed promises.

John Geiger, chief executive officer of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, said Canada’s unique constitution meant severing ties with the monarchy would be a near-impossible task that few politicians would want to take on.

He sees the coronation on 6 May as a moment to help Canadians better understand the structure of the country’s government.

“The crown is central to our constitution. And that’s not about to change. Charles might not be a young man and he’s had some personal baggage,” said Geiger.

“But while he represents a role that is ancient, his views are somewhat visionary, especially his concerns over climate change and the environment. In a way, he’s the right guy for the moment we’re in.”

In his visits to Canada, Charles has prioritised visiting Indigenous communities, which have borne the brunt of racist colonial policies and, more recently, the effects of a changing climate.

On a recent trip to Canada, Charles endorsed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action, as well as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, but has stopped short of formally apologising for the crown’s complicity in Canada’s residential school system.

The relationship between Indigenous peoples and the British royal family is also complex: the arc of Canadian history is one of broken promises, dispossession and overt attempts to erase Indigenous cultures. But the relationship predates Canada itself, and was founded in treaties signed in the 1700s.

Related: UK faces reckoning after unmarked Indigenous graves discovered in Canada

“Nations make treaties, treaties do not make nations … the sanctity of this covenant was made between not just [the] crown of Great Britain, but with the creator and all of our grandmothers’ and grandfathers’ spirits bearing witness,” said Perry Bellegarde, the former national chief for the Assembly of First Nations. “That’s why we say there’s a sacred covenant that cannot ever be broken.”

Many Indigenous people feel that when the crown devolved responsibilities of governance to Canada’s federal government, the spirit of those treaties was damaged and the government put in place overtly racist policies, like the Indian Act, which Indigenous leaders have been trying for decades to abolish.

Despite waning public support for the monarchy and a career spent advocating for Indigenous self-determination, Bellegarde nonetheless sees Charles as a key ally and friend.

“The power of the monarchy is a modern one – because he has the ability and the power to bring people together.

“He can convene CEOs, prime ministers and presidents and Indigenous leaders to work on the issues that really bind us together: climate change and biodiversity loss.”

In 2001, alongside the late Elder Gordon Oakes, Bellegard gave Charles the Cree name Kīsikāwipīsimwa miyo ōhcikanawāpamik, meaning “the sun watches over him in a good way” and draped him in a star blanket, a nod to the importance of the relationship between the crown and Indigenous nations.

“What a fitting name, because of his commitment to the environment. It even speaks to the nature of the treaties, that they will last as long as the sun shines, the rivers flow and the grass grows.”

“These treaties will remain in effect for generations now and those yet unborn.

“And at his coronation, he will carry that name too – and the relationship that we have with him.”