PROPERTY IS THEFT 
Howard Jarvis group, apartment owners sue to block L.A.'s new housing tax

Benjamin Oreskes
Fri, December 23, 2022

A lawsuit has been filed to block Measure ULA, which voters approved in November. Proceeds of the measure are supposed to go toward addressing homelessness. 

rfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

A coalition of real estate and antitax groups is seeking to prevent the city of Los Angeles from implementing a recently passed tax on the sales of properties over $5 million.

The proceeds of Measure ULA, which passed with nearly 58% of the vote in the November election, would go toward a range of efforts to prevent people from becoming homeless. In addition, tens of millions of dollars would go to the construction of new housing and tenant defense.

City officials estimate that this tax on the transfer of properties could bring in between $600 million to $1.1 billion a year.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, lawyers representing the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles argue that the documentary transfer tax, which is slated to go into effect in April, violates the California Constitution.

The groups' attorneys argue that "great and irreparable harm will result to plaintiffs, and to all Los Angeles property owners in being required to pay unconstitutionally imposed taxes."

"Similar harm will occur to all Los Angeles residents in the form of increased rent and consumer prices resulting from the tax increase on all property sold (or value transferred) above $5 million," the lawsuit says.

The groups are asking a judge "for a declaration of the invalidity of Measure ULA, according to the state constitution, statutes, and Los Angeles City Charter."

The passage of this measure was in part a reflection of voters' frustration with homelessness and the housing crisis, and their apparent recognition that the city needed to invest more in solutions. Sales of property over $5 million would get hit with a one-time 4% tax and that would rise to 5.5% on transactions above $10 million. A $5-million sale would generate a $200,000 tax bill.

The city already has a similar tax that sends revenue into the general fund, though at a much lower rate than what is proposed for the ballot measure. (The current tax — $4.50 per $1,000 — amounts to $22,500 on a $5-million transaction.)

Proponents saw this new tax as needed to keep the city from lagging behind in the construction of new affordable housing.

"Los Angeles is in a homelessness state of emergency. The voters who overwhelmingly passed Measure ULA just delivered a comprehensive set of solutions to address this crisis," said Laura Raymond, director of the Alliance for Community Transit–Los Angeles, who served as ULA's campaign co-chair.

"We are disappointed — but not surprised — that real estate and corporate interests are fighting to preserve the status quo and perpetuate our homelessness and housing crisis, after unsuccessfully spending about $8 million to scare city voters," Raymond said.

Since its passage, The Times reported that wealthy homeowners were already beginning to strategize on how to avoid paying the levy if they ended up selling their homes. Some homeowners were looking into splitting up their properties into smaller parcels with different ownership entities to avoid the tax altogether.

Neither mayoral candidate this year supported the tax measure. Now in office, Mayor Karen Bass' advisers have been planning how to use the money to help deal with the crises she ran on addressing. Behind the scenes, some city officials have said this money could be transformative because it would provide such a large, continuing revenue stream with no end date, allowing for more construction of affordable housing at a larger scale.

A recent executive directive from Bass rolling out her initiative to address street encampments asks her staff and general managers to "develop a comprehensive funding strategy that includes consideration of measure ULA."

The question now is whether that money will be available to her in the immediate term depending on how a judge might rule. In a similar situation in San Francisco several years ago, the proceeds from a tax seeking to remedy homelessness were collected but placed in an escrow account while the issue was litigated.

Before this lawsuit, tax increases couldn't go through without the approval of two-thirds of local voters. The ruling said that since the measure was placed on the ballot via outside groups through the signature-collection process, it needed only a simple majority to prevail.

Once the state Supreme Court declined to take up that case, nearly half a billion dollars was released to the city to fight homelessness.

The outcome of the San Francisco case laid the groundwork for ULA's backers to get the measure on the ballot and win voters' approval.

"The California Supreme Court has made it clear that our power as citizens to place the measure on the ballot is broad, and we’re confident that will ultimately be true for Measure ULA as it has for other similar measures," Raymond said.

Depending on how this lawsuit goes, it's not clear yet if the city will start administering the tax come the spring. Representatives for Bass and City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto did not respond or declined to comment.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Most House members didn't show up in person to vote on a $1.7 trillion government funding bill

Bryan Metzger
Fri, December 23, 2022 

An unusually-full House chamber during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Congress on Wednesday.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

• The House passed a $1.7 trillion government funding bill Friday, sending it to President Biden's desk.

• But a majority of House members were not physically present for the vote due to proxy voting.

• The practice began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but lawmakers have since used it for other reasons.

The House of Representatives voted by a 225-201-1 margin to pass a nearly $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill on Friday that will fund the government through most of 2023, send billions in new funding to Ukraine, and institute reforms to the Electoral Count Act in response to the January 6 Capitol riot.

But most members of the House weren't there for the vote — at least in person. More than half of them — 226 — voted by proxy.

As of Friday afternoon, 235 members of Congress had signed proxy letters designating other members of Congress to cast votes on their behalf, attesting that they were "unable to physically attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing public health emergency."

It is likely the most poorly-attended vote since the Democratic-led House instituted the procedure in May 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, members have used the procedure for a litany of non-pandemic related reasons.

Among the no-shows was Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has been vacationing in Costa Rica since Sunday, Insider first reported.

Other lawmakers likely left town to avoid travel days caused by historic winter weather, or had already made plans to be out of town ahead of the holidays — the votes held this week were only added to the calendar recently, as lawmakers took longer than expected to reach an agreement on funding the government.

Below is a list of the members who voted by proxy, acccording to the the House Clerk. The member who cast the vote on each members' behalf is in parentheses.

 

Republicans have vowed to end the practice in the next Congress, when they will hold the majority. However, many have frequently used the practice anyway.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy noted that the majority of the chamber was absent in a statement following the vote on Friday.

"For the first time in history, a bill in the House was passed without a physical quorum present – meaning more people voted from home than in the House Chamber," said McCarthy. "The fact that [the bill] was allowed to pass with blatant disregard to Article I, Section 5 of our Constitution will forever stain this body."

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a major critic of proxy voting, spoke on the House floor after the omnibus vote on Friday to note that 226 members — a majority of the chamber — had voted by proxy and suggested that a quorum was not present under the US Constitution.

He also teased a potential challenge to the legitimacy of the vote.

"Can the speaker advise whether there is a physical quorum present as required under the Constitution, and whether there is any recourse for any member under our rules to challenge a ruling that there is a quorum?" asked Roy.

"The Chair would just note that a quorum was indeed present," replied Democratic Rep. G.K Butterfield, who was presiding over the chamber at the time. He also said that members "recording their presence by proxy are counted for the purpose of establishing a quorum under the rules of the House."

McCarthy also said in his statement that House Republicans would be "pursuing legitimate challenges to the legality in which the Democrat Congress distorted the business and institutional precedents of the House" when they assume the majority.

'Living here isn't easy to begin with.' How an earthquake brought people together

Mackenzie Mays
Sat, December 24, 2022 

A staffer at the library in Rio Dell, Calif., spent hours reorganizing books after Tuesday's magnitude 6.4 earthquake. (Mackenzie Mays / Los Angeles Times)

I woke Tuesday morning to a phone call from my editor before 8 a.m. — earlier than usual — with the kind of assignment you can't plan for.

There had been an earthquake. A big one. Could I drive five hours north from my home in Sacramento to Humboldt County? Now?

I rushed to pack a bag, shoveling in phone and laptop chargers, a notebook and pens and business cards to prove I am who I say I am. I opened my map app and typed in Fortuna — a historic logging town, population 12,000 — that I hadn't been to in my eight years of living in California.

I didn't have time to do much research but knew it was a magnitude 6.4 quake that led to two deaths, 11 injuries and the closure of a bridge over the Eel River. I knew that people had gone to bed the night before with a very different life than they woke up to.

What I didn't know was that a new place would feel so familiar and that the reporting would be easy because of that sense of community. This coastal county, about 55 miles from the Oregon border, surrounded by giant redwoods, reminded me of my hometown in West Virginia, at the heart of Appalachia.

Both are regions defined by a connection to nature, fading 20th century industries and people who are resilient as hell.

When I arrived in Fortuna just before 2 p.m. — after a long, winding drive that included a snowy detour through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest that only God and my GPS can explain — I pulled into the first restaurant I saw. Double D Steak & Seafood was closed but full of people cleaning up broken bottles of liquor and wine — the smell hit you in the face.

Most of the folks helping weren't employees but volunteers: The owner's son had gotten his buddies to help sweep and take out the trash. The owner, wearing a camouflage Santa hat despite being awake since 3 a.m., welcomed me in and showed me the dining room that days prior had been readied for holiday cheer, now filled with shattered ornaments, crooked photos and a toppled Christmas tree.

It was my first glimpse of a town that had been wrecked by nature but was full of people helping one another get through the crisis while grasping for a shred of normalcy.

At a vintage shop down the street, I felt my first aftershock, which made an antique chandelier sway. I've never experienced a big earthquake and wondered what we should do. I was struck by the owner's nonchalance.

"Oh, that's a tremor. We should probably go outside," said Heather Herrick, owner of the Haute Hoarder boutique, taking a break from cleaning up shards of glass.

By the end of my first day there, though, I understood being underwhelmed by an aftershock. I was exhausted, at one of the few hotels in town that had power restored but was still without water. I was too tired to care about the slight swaying in the middle of the night. I let the tremor rock me to sleep.

I'm always surprised by people who are willing to let journalists into their lives on the worst days. People were without sleep, power or water. They couldn't stay warm or charge their phones. They didn't know if insurance would cover the damages. Motorists lined up to panic-buy gas. All of the grocery stores were closed.

Yet no one turned me away or scolded me for intruding, even as I was questioning people who'd been left homeless in an instant. One person always led me to another.

"Is this Mackenzie with the L.A. Times?" a text read. It was Kevin Mcniece, a friend of Herrick, who had told him I was in town, and he wanted to show me his house that had been split into three pieces, caught fire and condemned by local officials. He had lost most of his belongings and was staying in a hotel. For free.

"Riding on the coattails of generosity," as he put it. He wanted to share his story.

A family who'd been sleeping in their car introduced me to their pit bull, Sarah, when I ran into them at at a pop-up food bank. A woman who'd taken refuge at the fire department started crying while telling me that someone had offered to buy her family a hotel room for the night.

Volunteer firefighters and food-bank workers assembled. It made me think of that quote attributed to Mister Rogers that doubles as good reporting advice. In times of disaster, he said, "look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Parts of Humboldt County that were hit hardest, including the towns of Scotia, Ferndale and Rio Dell, seemed much like where I grew up.

In West Virginia, we don't have earthquakes, but we have floods. Instead of old lumber-company towns, we have remnants of a once-booming coal mining industry.

Both places have immense natural beauty and are home to people who struggle with poverty but are proud of where they're from. They are places rightfully leery of outsiders but astoundingly welcoming.

In this part of California, like West Virginia, communities are tight-knit in part because they believe no one else is coming to help them. I sensed a relatable frustration with feeling overlooked and misunderstood.

But I knew I wasn't one of them. I was there for only two days. All I could do was listen. I always asked about more than the earthquake: What's this place usually like? What do people get wrong about it?

"The more densely populated areas tend to speak for all of us,” Mcniece told me. “The Bay Area and Los Angeles and Sacramento — they get to be the face of what California has on its mind, but over here behind the redwood curtain, we have different needs."

Whether they lost a few dishes or entire homes, people tended to stay positive. This wasn't their first earthquake, and it probably won't be their last.

"Living here isn't easy to begin with," Rio Dell resident John Ireland said. "When something bad does happen, people come together. You get to see the best sides of people.”

It wasn't an easy place to file a news story. I didn't have power to charge my laptop. Cellphone service is spotty on a good day. When the sun set, the already quiet town of Fortuna was silent, pitch-black and difficult to navigate.

Lacking a reliable internet connection, I had to file a story the old-fashioned way, calling from my car a co-writer who transcribed my notes and plugged them in. I filed another story from the McDonald's in Eureka. (Great WiFi.) On the drive home Wednesday evening, I pulled over in dark and foggy Lake County and pleaded with the initially reluctant owners of a hotel to let me use their internet despite not being a guest. (Shout-out to the Lodge at Blue Lakes.)

When I got back to Sacramento, where I normally cover state government and policy, I was thankful for seeing a part of California that reminded me of my hometown nearly 2,500 miles away.

I was thinking about the Scotia Lodge, a 100-year-old hotel that was somehow mostly unscathed by the earthquake, even as destruction was visible all around it. The owners of the lodge rushed to take in the displaced. By the end of the week, they were back up and running, and the rooms were filled with both paying tourists and community members staying for free, nowhere else to go.

Aaron Sweat, the lodge's chief executive, told me about a family visiting from Europe who were so alarmed by the earthquake that they fled Scotia in a rush. When a gas station wouldn't accept their international credit card, a local stepped in to pay and refused to take cash in return.

"I guess in times of tragedy, Humboldt, and all these small, rural towns everywhere, just come together and say, 'Let's figure this out,'" Sweat said.

On Facebook, the lodge let concerned locals know that the place was still standing.

“This isn't the first time, nor the last, that this old gal will be put to the test by Mother Nature,” the post read.

The historic building, sturdy and welcoming, was a surprising sight. But it gave me a feeling that was achingly familiar.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

During earthquake blackouts, this Humboldt tribe was an island of clean power

Ari Plachta
Fri, December 23, 2022 

When a powerful earthquake jolted Humboldt County early Tuesday, tens of thousands of homes immediately lost power. Just as instantaneously, a mini-power grid of solar panels and batteries turned a nearby Native American reservation into an island of electricity in the sea of darkness.

The Blue Lake Rancheria served some 10,000 people over the day-long outage, by some estimates, becoming an emergency resource center for roughly 8% of the region’s population. The scene demonstrated how microgrids, though expensive investments, can preserve critical services during California natural disasters.

“Fortunately or unfortunately, we have tested these micro grids in real world situations,” said Jana Ganion, the tribe’s director of sustainability and government affairs. “We’re facing more emergencies even as we try to make our infrastructure more resilient.”

The magnitude 6.4 earthquake that occurred just after 2 a.m. left two dead and at least 12 injured, damaged bridges and shook homes off their foundations in the Rio Dell and Ferndale communities. Some 72,000 homes and businesses across the county lost power supplied by PG&E. Service was near fully restored Wednesday evening.

By utilizing microgrids, two public places preserved power all of Tuesday and Wednesday following the quake: Redwood Coast-Humboldt County Airport and Blue Lake Rancheria. Holiday travel went undisrupted and the local tribe’s facilities became a vital part of emergency response — again.

By 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, tribal police opened an emergency center in the reservation’s hotel and dozens of cars arrived to use Wi-Fi after losing internet connectivity. A line started to form at the reservation’s gas station by sunrise, and people poured into casino restaurants. Many charged their devices at the community center, and displaced people booked rooms at the hotel.

The operation unfolded much the same as in October 2019, when PG&E cut power to more than 2 million people across Northern California as a safety measure during a period of high wildfire risk. The tribe was credited with saving four lives with emergency medical equipment and even transformed a hotel conference room into a newsroom so the local paper could publish.

Humboldt County residents line up for gas at the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe reservation after a powerful earthquake Tuesday led to widespread electricity blackouts in the region.

Too many microgrids?

The Blue Lake Rancheria, a federally recognized tribe operating a 102-room hotel and Casino, constructed two microgrids on its 100-acre reservation beginning in 2017. Much of the $6.5 million for both projects came from a California Energy Commission program meant to invest in clean energy technology and bolster the state’s electricity sector.

Microgrids are a complex of solar panels, storage batteries and distribution lines that operate as part of the larger utility network when the electricity is on, and even contribute power to the main grid in many cases. But during blackouts, they disconnect from the system and use solar-generated energy stored in batteries to operate independently.

The Energy Commission has helped build 43 clean energy microgrids around the state, mainly in rural communities vulnerable to shutoffs and as a backup for universities or critical infrastructure such as wastewater treatment plants. According to some estimates, there are roughly 200 privately-owned and fossil fuel-powered microgrids total in California.

Most recently, $31 million in state funds were granted this year to deploy 60 megawatt-hours of long-duration energy storage for the Viejas Tirbe of Kumeyaay Indians outside San Diego. The facility will supply power that can be sent back to the grid during heat waves, such as the one that hit in September, to help avoid power shutoffs.

Mike Gravely, research program manager at the Energy Commission, said state-sponsored microgrids are meant to both support a business — in Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe’s case, the hotel-casino — and the community during blackouts. Yet every home and business in the state should not go looking for a self-sufficient energy system, he said.

Too many microgrid users could not only undermine the utility-operated grid that the vast majority of state energy customers depend on but also deepen California’s divisions between haves and have-nots as affluent communities and big businesses install their own systems.

“Climate change is happening faster than we can modify the grid,” Gravely said, adding that transmission upgrades are expensive and take years. “So until we get more permanent solutions installed, going forward we’ll see these things get more popular.”

Mark Schaeffer has had a front-row seat to his community’s reliance on Blue Lake Rancheria during power shutoffs. His small solar and battery storage business, Haven Electronic, is just down the road from the reservation. He’s glad the microgrid is there.

“The line outside their gas station goes on for a mile,” he said.

“Everybody in the northern part of Humboldt County knows that they have batteries and big solar arrays, so when the grid goes down they’re fully functional. People go eat, gamble, maybe watch music... people love to spend money when they can’t do anything else.”

'An earthquake can drop in': More than 1 million California homes need retrofittings

Summer Lin
Fri, December 23, 2022

Jacqui McIntosh peers in the window of her red-tagged, quake-damaged home in Rio Dell, Calif., this week. (MediaNews Group / East Bay Times via Getty Images)

Jacqui and Shane McIntosh were looking to sell their two-bedroom, single-family home in Rio Dell, Calif., so they could move closer to work. When a potential buyer scheduled a visit to their property this week, the couple hoped it might result in an offer.

But hours before the buyer was set to arrive Tuesday, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck Humboldt County, jolting the couple awake in the middle of the night and knocking them to the ground. Jacqui McIntosh, 28, recalls clinging on to one of the legs of the bed as they were being tossed around.

She said it was only after they exited the house that they realized how bad the damage truly was.


“Our porch was higher than our house,” she said. “When we got down, our gas line is right next to the door, and we got hit with natural gas and propane. On the other side, there was water going everywhere because the water main broke.”

After their street was evacuated because of the gas leak, the McIntoshes returned home to try to find their cats and other pets and realized the house had been red-tagged.

The couple, who work for a company that makes recreation and military rafts, had applied for a grant to earthquake-retrofit their decades-old home under the state's Earthquake Brace and Bolt program. They got an email Sunday, two days before the temblor, informing them that they'd hear in February whether they'd been selected for the grant.

“It’s always been in the back of my mind,” McIntosh said. “It’s so expensive and we financially couldn’t do it. We set a path for [the new homeowner] to get the house retrofitted by the state but it was too late.”

McIntosh said they also filed a claim with their insurance company but were notified it had been withdrawn because they don't have earthquake insurance due to the cost.

“We have a huge lawn ornament that we are now responsible for,” McIntosh said. “Unless some sort of government aid comes through, it’s now solely on us to fix the house. It’s a real possibility that we might have to just walk away, ruin our credit, go bankrupt and start all over again.”

Jacqui McIntosh inspects the damage to her house. "Unless some sort of government aid comes through, it's now solely on us to fix the house," she said. (MediaNews Group / East Bay Times via Getty Images)

Unfortunately, the McIntoshes' experience is not a rare one. In a state known for its earthquakes, many homes lack retrofitting and insurance.

Today, fewer than 1 in 7 California homeowners have earthquake insurance, according to the California Earthquake Authority, and more than 1 million homes in the state need to be structurally retrofitted.

In Northern California, such a retrofit can cost upward of $5,000, said Janiele Maffei, a structural engineer and chief mitigation officer for the California Earthquake Authority.

Humboldt County has specific structural challenges to its homes, because the region is so moist, Maffei said. Many of the homes there have "post and pier" foundations, meaning they don't have a continuous concrete foundation around the perimeter of the house. Instead, the homes are supported by posts on concrete with a skirt around it, in order to give the residence access to air. Putting in a whole new perimeter foundation can cost between $10,000 and $15,000.

Under the Earthquake Brace and Bolt Program, homeowners can apply for a grant of up to $3,000 for seismic retrofitting. There's also additional funding for low-income homeowners making up to $72,080 per household.

In the case of the McIntoshes' home, the earthquake had knocked the house off of its foundation and made it unstable. Retrofitting would involve either bolting the house's frame to its foundation or adding braces to the walls in the space beneath the first floor.

Registration for the retrofitting program ended Nov. 29, and about 169 households from Humboldt County applied. Maffei said randomized selection for the program is expected to take place in the next few months. She encouraged those who are placed on a wait list to not lose hope, because about 50% of people in the program end up dropping out.

Restoring a home that has fallen off its foundation involves putting up steel beams, picking up and moving the house to where it's supposed to be and building a new foundation underneath, Maffei said. The process can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"My heart goes out there to these families who are displaced," she said. "An earthquake can drop in on the worst week of someone's life. It doesn't just drop in on the healthy and young who are financially prepared to survive that. It drops in on real life and can be catastrophic."

Californians can also prepare their homes for earthquakes by anchoring the contents of their house, including televisions, bookshelves, microwaves, cabinets and other appliances. Beds should be moved away from windows because of the risk of glass shattering. Heavy objects and frames near the bed should also be removed.

Insuring that your gas heater is secured to the wall and installing an automatic valve that shuts off the gas during an earthquake could decrease the chances of a leak or subsequent fire.

Chimneys also pose a significant hazard during earthquakes and could be removed or retrofitted to ensure safety.

McIntosh and her husband have been staying in a corporate condo that her company had offered to them. The days immediately after the quake have involved picking up the pieces of their lives, including locating and securing a place to stay for their pet pot-bellied pig, Elvis Pigsley, who used to reside in their backyard.

McIntosh's sister set up a GoFundMe page for the couple, who are waiting to hear if the Federal Emergency Management Agency will be able to provide any disaster relief or other financial assistance.

“People are living paycheck to paycheck," she said. "They can’t afford earthquake insurance. We’re not the only ones sitting out there going ‘How am I gonna fix this?’ And that’s the scary part.”

Biden’s signature advances major projects in water bill


People fish in Galveston Bay, on Sept. 4, 2020, in Galveston, Texas. President Joe Biden signed on Friday, Dec. 23, 2022, a large defense bill that includes the Water Resources Development Act of 2022. It includes major projects, such as the Ike Dike, a proposed coastal barrier, to improve the nation’s waterways and protect communities against floods made more severe by climate change. 

(AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

MICHAEL PHILLIS
Fri, December 23, 2022 

President Joe Biden signed a large defense bill on Friday that includes a water bill that directs the Army Corps of Engineers on major infrastructure projects to improve navigation and protect against storms worsened by climate change.

The biggest project by far this year is a $34 billion Texas coastal barrier featuring massive floodgates and other structures to protect the Houston region with its concentration of oil refineries and chemical plants, at risk during major hurricanes.

The Water Resources Development Act of 2022 also includes a $3.2 billion authorization for a new Soo Lock on the St. Marys River which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron.

Nearly all U.S. iron ore is mined near Lake Superior, but to create steel and build cars, it needs to travel on large vessels through a single, aging Michigan lock that federal officials have called the Achilles’ heel of the North American industrial economy.

There are two locks operating but only one is big enough to handle the roughly 1,000 feet (305 meters) freighters the industry uses.

“Everything was built around water transport on the Great Lakes,” said Kevin Dempsey, president and CEO of a steel industry group. If the lock fails, it could upend industry and manufacturing, he said. Roads and rail aren't workable alternatives.

After years of studies and planning, members of Congress push to include their preferred projects in the water bill, typically every two years. If they are successful, they tout the job creation and local benefits back in their districts. This water bill includes 25 project authorizations.

Versions of the new Michigan lock have been authorized by Congress before and it is already under construction. But the Army Corps said inflation, design changes and other factors have significantly increased its cost. This year Congress authorized the Corps to spend much more. Some of the money still needs to be allocated. Officials say the new lock should be finished in 2030.

The new Soo Lock is in Sault Ste. Marie on Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula, about 346 miles (556 kilometers) north of Detroit. The existing Poe Lock is growing older and Army Corps officials don’t want it to be a single point of failure for a critical supply chain.

“When you have steel components that are in the water for 50 years, they do tend to fatigue and deteriorate,” said Kevin McDaniels, deputy district engineer for the Army Corps Detroit District.

The Senate voted 83-11 earlier this month to pass the national defense bill. In addition to water infrastructure, it increases spending on defense programs and includes a Republican-favored measure to end COVID-19 vaccination mandates for U.S. service members. It passed the House with broad, bipartisan support.

The water bill also makes it easier for the Corps to shift toward using wetlands and other nature-based solutions to combat flooding.

“There is a lot in here that is important for our environment, our economy and for climate resilience," said Amy Souers Kober, a spokesperson with American Rivers.

For example, when hurricanes hit, coastal protections can be built with climate change in mind, allowing designers to think about how much seas will rise when they make their plans.

There are numerous other provisions. The bill improves outreach with tribes, allows the Corps to focus more on water conservation in drought-prone areas and supports ecosystem restoration projects. In Michigan, it shifts more of the costs to the federal government for a project aimed at protecting the Great Lakes from invasive carp.

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Reporter Corey Williams contributed to this story from Detroit.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Column: Megan Thee Stallion was right. But she's one of too many women who aren't believed

Erika D. Smith
Sat, December 24, 2022 

Megan Thee Stallion, whose legal name is Megan Pete, arrives at court to testify in the trial of Tory Lanez on Dec. 13 in Los Angeles. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Women are waiting — especially Black women.

For an apology. For remorse. For some humility. Hell, for even a modicum of self-awareness.

But I'm not holding my breath for any of that.

On Friday, a jury convicted Tory Lanez, a Canadian rapper whose real name is Daystar Peterson, of assault and gun charges in the Hollywood Hills shooting of fellow rapper Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete.

The verdict comes more than two years after Stallion told police that Lanez attacked her during an argument that started while riding in an SUV along Nichols Canyon Road. When she asked to get out, he shot at her feet — apparently shouting, “Dance, b—!”

The injuries were so bad that she needed surgery to remove bullet fragments from her left heel.

The victim in this case has always been clear. And yet, you wouldn't know that from the misogynistic mess that dominated headlines and social media before and during the trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

“This whole story has not been about the shooting," Stallion testified earlier this month. "It’s only been about who I been having sex with.”

Indeed, in hopes of clearing Lanez's name, defense attorneys tried to pin the shooting on another Black woman, trotting out a lame, male-ego-affirming argument about the two women getting into a fight because they were attracted to the same man — their client.

Even more awful was Lanez himself, who released a whole album — which wasn't his most popular, but wasn't a flop either — about how he was being framed for shooting Stallion and insinuating that she had lied about the whole ordeal.

“How the f— you get shot in your foot," he rapped, "don’t hit no bones or tendons?”

And rather than push back, the response from the broader hip-hop community ranged from conspicuous silence to outright agreement. Just last month, Drake rapped on his new song with 21 Savage: "This b— lie about getting shot but she still a stallion."

Supporters rally in support of Megan Thee Stallion outside the courthouse where Stallion, whose legal name is Megan Pete, testified in the trial of rapper Tory Lanez on Dec. 13 in Los Angeles.

 (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

This is exactly why #BelieveBlackWomen and #ProtectBlackWomen were trending on Twitter after the verdict. Stallion long ago pointed out how neither tends to happen.

"I was recently the victim of an act of violence by a man. After a party, I was shot twice as I walked away from him. We were not in a relationship. Truthfully, I was shocked that I ended up in that place," she wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times in late 2020.

"My initial silence about what happened was out of fear for myself and my friends. Even as a victim, I have been met with skepticism and judgment. The way people have publicly questioned and debated whether I played a role in my own violent assault proves that my fears about discussing what happened were, unfortunately, warranted."

On Friday, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón praised Stallion's "incredible courage" for testifying, despite "repeated and grotesque attacks" on her character.

“Women, especially Black women, are afraid to report crimes like assault and sexual violence because they are too often not believed," he said in a statement, which alluded to the women who testified against rapist Harvey Weinstein. "This trial, for the second time this month highlighted the numerous ways that our society must do better for women.”

Even in California, women, particularly Black and queer women, are among the most vulnerable. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the female jail population has increased six-fold since 1970 — twice as much as the male population.

And there's a short line between women who are incarcerated and women who are victims.

Often, Black women end up behind bars because of some combination of poverty, addiction and being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man.

So, I'll remind you again about Lanez's attorneys' craven strategy to convince the jury that Stallion's former best friend, Kelsey Harris, was really the shooter.

That didn't work, obviously. Lanez now faces more than 20 years in prison.

But a conviction doesn't necessarily mean that Stallion will receive the apologies she is due, much less see some of that remorse, humility and self-awareness I mentioned. The legion of influencers who have made endless excuses for Tory Lanez were mighty quiet on Friday.

Except for Lanez's father. In the minutes after the verdict was read and Superior Court Judge David Herriford set a sentencing hearing for late January, he jumped up from his seat in the courtroom and started yelling at prosecutors.

“This wicked system!” he said, my colleagues James Queally and Jonah Valdez reported. “You are wicked! You know exactly what you did!”

Outside, after sheriff’s deputies had escorted him and other relatives from the courtroom, Lanez's father continued ranting, cursing the record label Roc Nation for supposedly rigging the trial and promising a comeuppance from on high.

“It’s not over! It is NOT over," he shouted. "God does not lose!”

Or maybe this isn't about God.

Maybe Lanez is just guilty. And maybe it's time, once and for all, that we believe and protect Black women.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

First, Tory Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion. But even more violence came in the years after, with a cascade of threats, vitriol, and textbook 'misogynoir' harassment

Taiyler Simone Mitchell
Fri, December 23, 2022 

Megan Thee Stallion testified Tuesday in Tory Lanez's Los Angeles trial on rape charges.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Tory Lanez was convicted Friday in the shooting of Megan The Stallion after an argument in 2020.


In the years since the shooting, Megan was harassed with violent and sexist comments and threats.


The case showed the dangerous depths of "misogynoir," the scholar who coined the term told Insider.

When Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion took the stand last week in the Los Angeles District Attorney's successful case against Canadian rapper Tory Lanez, she was a powerful presence in a deep purple suit and red-bottom pumps, poised as one could be considering the circumstances.

But as the three-time Grammy winner began testifying, her voice almost immediately broke and her emotions began to flow. In the two years since the traumatic shooting, the 27-year-old, whose birth name is Megan Pete, has endured relentless harassment, sexist accusations, and even death threats.

Megan has inadvertently become one of the most recognizable faces in the campaign to #ProtectBlackWomen, a call all too familiar for her Black female peers who regularly experience violence compounded by more violence, one feminist scholar told Insider.

Near the start of the trial, Megan brought the jury back to the early morning hours of July 12, 2020, when the "Tina Snow" artist left a small gathering at Kylie Jenner's house with Lanez, Lanez's driver, and Megan's ex-best friend Kelsey Harris. She testified last week that in the heat of an argument about his musical abilities, Lanez shot at her feet as she was walking away from the car.

On Friday, Lanez, whose birth name is Daystar Peterson, was found guilty on all three of the charges brought on by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office in October 2020 and in December 2022: assault with a semiautomatic handgun, carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.

He denied shooting Megan and pleaded not guilty to the charges. He faces up to 22 years in prison and possible deportation to Canada, where he was born. The trial began on December 12, 2022, more than two years after the day of the shooting.

The lasting pain

Megan hadn't exactly seen the worst of it during the shooting itself, which left her with gunshot wounds and dozens of bullet fragments to both of her feet that she said still bring her pain, the doctor who operated on her that day testified. Instead, in the months and years that followed, she described in a tweet feeling "real life hurt and traumatized." She testified that she suffered depression and watched her career — which had propelled even further into mainstream rap with the spring release of "Savage" — take a hit from accusing Lanez of shooting her.

"This situation has only been worse for me and it has only made him more famous," Megan testified last Tuesday. "This has messed up my whole life."

Despite posting-then-deleting pictures of her injuries online, Lanez supporters — including fellow Canadian rapper and Degrassi star Drake — have accused her of never being shot.

She's been targeted online by some disturbingly cruel Lanez supporters that say he should have killed her instead.

Megan testified about the heartbreaking result of the attacks last Tuesday.

"I don't feel like I want to be on this Earth," she said. "I wish he would have just shot and killed me if I knew I would have to go through this torture."
Textbook 'misogynoir'

The violence against Megan, and the reaction from Lanez supporters in the years that followed, has reignited a larger conversation about "misogynoir," a term coined by acclaimed feminist author Moya Bailey in 2010 defined as a specific type of misogyny, the hatred of women, that Black women experience.

"We've seen people really rallying to Tory's defense in ways that we haven't seen in the case of Megan," Bailey told Insider.

Much of the criticism of Megan is loaded with sexist undertones. During the trial, Lanez's defense lawyer George Mgdesyan painted a narrative of jealousy between Megan and Harris and accused Megan of sleeping around with multiple celebrities that Harris had been intimate with. And, indicative of the way Megan's sex life has been under a microscope over the last two years, a fan outside of the courthouse on day four of the trial had shouted at Lanez as he walked to his car: "How many times did you have sex with Megan?"

Mgdesyan did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Blogs like NoJumper and hip hop news commentators like Milagro Gramz and DJ Akademiks have contributed to a culture of misinformation surrounding the trial by centering baseless theories and regurgitating misogynistic takes, NBC News reporters Kat Tenbarge and Char Adams reported Wednesday.

NoJumper, a hip-hop podcast hosted by Adam Grandmaison with more than 1.1 million followers, erroneously tweeted that Lanez was found not guilty on all counts the day before the verdict was actually established. Other outlets and commentators followed suit — including Say Cheese, which has 513.4k Twitter followers, and Gossip of the City, which has 182.8k Twitter followers — speaking to an overeagerness to share unverified information.

NoJumper, Gramz, Gossip of the City, and Say Cheese did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comments. DJ Akademiks was not immediately reachable for comment.

Megan said during her testimony last Tuesday that "this story is not about the shooting — just about who I'm having sex with."

"The process that is happening in terms of bringing in her sexual history is very much evident of misogynoir," Bailey added. "As somebody who has survived something harmful, we are still focused on Megan's behavior and how that precipitated or should be taken into account when violence was done to her. And so this is a classic tactic to victim blame, to slut shame, and divert attention from the person who caused harm to the person who was harmed."

Megan Thee Stallion spoke openly about the shooting in public on Instagram live.

Denise Truscello/Getty Images for iHeartRadio/y Joseph Okpako/WireImage

Layers of violence

The trial also offers a disturbing example of the violence against Black women, which occurs at rates disproportionately higher than their non-Black counterparts. Four in ten Black women have experienced intimate partner violence, and are markedly more likely to be killed by someone they know than white women, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Prosecutors last Tuesday showed Megan and the court screenshots of violent remarks people posted about her online.

"I see these tweets and Instagram posts every day," Megan testified, describing comments like "'Oh, that bitch should have got shot in the head…Too much twerk.' or 'Who care, she fucked everybody, she should have been shot.'"

"It's stunning to me that the victim of a shooting would receive this kind of reaction from anybody," Megan's attorney Alex Spiro told Insider. "You have to ask yourself if a Caucasian actress was slapped in Hollywood, the backlash that would come out for her assailant and the support that would engulf her would be nationwide. And yet here we have an African American woman who is shot, of all things, and it's not that universal level of outpour of support. And we have to ask ourselves why is that? And what does that say about our culture in our society?"

Those who believe Megan falsely accused Lanez of the shooting point to her early mischaracterization of the shooting, when she told police that she stepped on glass.

But her reasons for lying were deeply rooted in the systemic violence against the Black community, she testified.

She testified that she initially lied about the source of her wounds out of distrust of the police, adding that the incident occurred at the height of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, following the death of George Floyd.

"First of all in the Black community, in my community, it's not really acceptable to be cooperating with police officers," she said on the stand last Tuesday. "I felt if I said this man had shot me, they might shoot first and ask questions later.

"I don't feel safe in the car," she said, but "I don't feel safe with the police."

Megan Thee Stallion testified Tuesday in Tory Lanez's trial on assault charges.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Even the most famous are ignored

One of the most disheartening products of the incident wasn't the clamor over the shooting but the silence that came after Megan accused Lanez, wrote Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah reported in 2020.

"When Black women make music, everyone listens. When we dance, the world wants to move like us," Attiah wrote. "But Megan Thee Stallion's plight is a reminder that when Black women scream for help and cry in pain and even show our gory wounds to the public, the same people who love to dance to our rhythms, rarely, if ever, come to our rescue."

Bailey told Insider that she doesn't believe the criminal justice system, or Lanez being sentenced to prison, will "actually help address the harm that he caused Megan." Rather, she says, self-transformation and Lanez admitting "his culpability" would be a step in the right direction.

Even with Lanez's conviction, the cycle of misogynoir against Megan will likely persist, as it does on a minimized scale for the non-super-star Black woman.

"If these celebrity Black women who have a lot of social clout are still dealing with misogynoir in terms of how they're treated and how people are responding to harm that has been caused to them," Bailey added, "I think we should really consider what that means for Black women who aren't famous and just how they must be coping with misogynoir in their day-to-day lives."

A jury believed Megan Thee Stallion. It's shameful so many social media influencers didn't

Kenan Draughorne, Suzy Exposito
Fri, December 23, 2022

Megan Thee Stallion performs in August. (Scott Garfitt / Invision)

Megan Thee Stallion said Tory Lanez shot her in both feet on a July 2020 evening in the Hollywood Hills.

More than two years after the shooting, an L.A. jury said they believed her.

On Friday, Lanez, the Canadian rapper born Daystar Peterson, was convicted of all three charges connected to the shooting of hip-hop superstar Megan Thee Stallion: assault with a semi-automatic firearm, carrying an unregistered firearm and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.

Lanez faces more than 20 years in prison and possible deportation.

The verdict arrives after a trial rife with false starts, conflicting testimonies and bizarre plot twists. Megan Thee Stallion’s former friend and assistant, Kelsey Nicole, told detectives that Lanez, 30, was the shooter in a lengthy interview in September. She also texted Megan’s bodyguard the night of the incident, saying “Help, Tory shot Meg.”

But on the stand, she contradicted her previous statements, saying she didn’t even know if Megan Thee Stallion, born Megan Pete, had been shot that night, despite sitting next to her in an SUV. She admitted that Lanez had offered her $1 million in the wake of the shooting yet denied it was a bribe and claimed she did not accept it.

Beyond the courtroom, the trial brought out the cancerous misogynoir within hip-hop and its online community. Blogs, personalities and Twitter pages routinely slanted the conversation in favor of Lanez, culminating in several outlets claiming that he was found not guilty while the jury was still deliberating.

Tory Lanez leaves the courthouse with his son on Dec. 13. (AP)

Throughout the ordeal, Megan Thee Stallion, 27, has not only persevered but taken her career to new heights. She won three Grammys in 2021 on the strength of her song “Savage,” featuring an appearance by Beyoncé on the remix, delivered the sexually liberating No. 1 anthem "WAP" with Cardi B, hosted “Saturday Night Live” and landed lucrative partnerships with Nike, CashApp, Netflix and more.

But the shooting and resulting media circus took a toll. While appearing in court on the second day of the trial, Megan's voice cracked on the stand as she spoke of the turmoil she’d suffered since telling the world who shot her in 2020.

“I wish he would’ve just shot and killed me if I knew I was going to have to go through this torture,” she testified.

The Times' music reporters Kenan Draughorne and Suzy Exposito discuss the trial and fallout.

Draughorne: Guilty! After two and a half years of mess.

Exposito: I think it was basically over for the defense when they called their key witness, Sean Kelly, on Tuesday. Kelly, a neighbor who saw part of the altercation from his window, said he noticed two women fighting in the street, along with “flashes” that he initially believed were fireworks. He claimed he first saw the muzzle flashes coming from “the girl” but also saw a “short guy” get out of the car to join the fray, eventually taking the gun and firing “four or five” shots. He also brought up events that had not been mentioned in anyone else’s testimony: three people beating up a fourth woman, a girl shooting into the car and his own fear that they were going to throw one girl into a river.

It was a ghastly look for the defense — which then turned around and tried to label Kelly a “hostile” witness.

Draughorne: Calling your own witness “hostile” is wild beyond words. Let’s not forget how badly the defense fumbled Kelsey’s stammering appearance in court, where she denied everything she’d told prosecutors in September, claiming instead that she “couldn’t remember" even after being granted use immunity. Had Lanez’s lawyer, George Mgdesyan, not been so rapt to prove that prosecutors pressured her into her earlier statements, Judge Herriford wouldn’t have allowed the jury to hear Kelsey’s entire 80-minute testimony in court.

Also, Mgdesyan might be the only person more obsessed with the two rappers’ status than Lanez. Megan couldn’t be the victim because she’s won Grammys?

Exposito: Mgdesyan approached this trial like a late-night talk show host. He kept trying to yuk it up with the jury — I believe he even cracked a “my wife” joke — which would fly in a scripted series but not in a court of law.

Worse, he relied on misogyny throughout the trial. The defense’s whole strategy had been to shift the focus from Lanez’ behavior to his alleged dalliances with both Megan and Kelsey, her former assistant.

To quote a headline written by Buzzfeed writer Shamira Ibrahim: “Tory Lanez is on trial, not Megan Thee Stallion.” When Mgdesyan tried to diminish the shooting as a quarrel between paramours or said things like, "This case is about sexual relationships,” he was not just insulting the jury’s intelligence — he was trying to move the burden of proof away from Lanez and onto Megan, both in court and for those following online. Misogyny is a cheap trick. And misogynoir, the acute misogyny aimed at Black women, is all too abundant.

Draughorne: It’s a very cheap trick, and it’s embarrassing how many “outlets” and commenters fell into it. From the beginning, bloggers and personalities have cherry-picked statements and misrepresented facts: Podcaster and YouTube host DJ Akademiks said in February that Lanez’s DNA “was not found” on the gun, when the actual results were inconclusive; rapper-turned-podcaster Joe Budden made light of Megan's mental health struggles despite the fact that she was the victim of a shooting (he later apologized); and media personality Jason Lee of Hollywood Unlocked said Megan had been acting “aggressive” toward Lanez when the incident took place.

On the stand, Megan talked about the burden she’s had to carry since publicly naming her shooter. The whole trial, people flooded her comments section to mock her, asking “why you lied” and claiming her career would be over once “the truth came out.” The misogynoir (and ego) is so strong that those same parties have already turned to the “Roc Nation paid the jury” line instead of accepting the evidence. Milagro Gramz, a Houston-based hip-hop news personality who showed no remorse for pushing the “Megan might have stepped on glass” theory long after a surgeon had found bullet fragments in her foot, just called the verdict “one of the greatest miscarriages of justice.”

Megan Thee Stallion outside the courthouse on Dec. 13. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Exposito: The online chatter surrounding this trial evoked memories of the social-media clout-chasing surrounding the trial of Johnny Depp and his ex-wife, Amber Heard. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, both trials became vehicles for anti-woman opportunists to boost their audience (and revenue).

Many journalists, namely NBC News reporters Kat Tenbarge and Char Adams, have addressed the roles of bloggers and other online voices in the Lanez trial in proliferating disinformation and bad-faith readings on domestic violence or assault survivors. Going back to my point about misogyny, it’s become a quick and lucrative scheme for content farming: Earlier this year, Vice reported that the Daily Wire, a conservative website, spent tens of thousands of dollars to circulate dubious claims about Amber Heard and generated 4 million impressions. Disinfo pays.

Draughorne: I’m glad to hear Megan and her team are exploring legal action against the disinfo spreaders. Yesterday, “NOT GUILTY” was trending for a brief minute because of a false report that said Lanez had been acquitted, despite the fact that the jury was still very much in deliberations. It seemed to stem from a blank verdict form that went around the courthouse, of which the first option read “not guilty” as a choice for the jury. And people online were celebrating like they’d beat the case themselves!

Kat Tenbarge had a very poignant tweet about how these media personalities don’t face the same accountability you and I would when they send inaccurate information. I’d probably be fired if I falsely tweeted that Lanez was not guilty, especially if The Times ran with the story and blasted the wrong verdict far and wide. Rap sites like No Jumper and Say Cheese get to delete the tweet and move on to the next hip-hop drama. I doubt their core audience even cares about the mistake.

Also, I remember the long delay before Megan publicly accused Lanez of shooting her. The incident took place on July 12, 2020, but she didn’t ID him as the shooter until Aug. 20 of that year — and she spoke out only because Lanez’s team had been pushing false narratives through blogs and Instagram pages. Her first instinct after being shot was to protect her shooter, telling police she’d stepped on glass when they first arrived on scene.

While he should have been preparing for the trial of his life, Lanez was accused of assaulting singer August Alsina because he didn’t shake his hand. In court, he was caught smirking and shaking his head when Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathy Ta correctly said that Megan was more famous and successful than him.

The whole debacle started because of his drunken temper and worsened because of his fragile ego. I’m just glad it’s finally over.

Amazon launches Prime Air drone delivery service in California. Here’s where


Amazon

Michael McGough
Fri, December 23, 2022 

Amazon has begun using drones to deliver packages, with a small town in California’s Central Valley representing one of the first two locations covered by the e-commerce giant’s new Prime Air home-delivery service.

Lockeford, a town of about 3,600 people in San Joaquin County that is about 10 miles from Stockton, as well as College Station, Texas, are the first two locales being served by Prime Air.

Amazon earlier this year unveiled plans to roll out Prime Air service to those two locations before the end of 2022. The company did not specify a launch date at that time, but an Amazon spokesperson on Friday said Prime Air has officially started delivering to customers.

“Our aim is to safely introduce our drones to the skies,” Natalie Banke, an Amazon Air spokesperson, said Friday in an emailed statement to The Sacramento Bee. “We are starting in these communities and will gradually expand deliveries to more customers over time.”

The Prime Air drones, which weigh about 85 pounds, are affixed in a hexagonal frame and fly autonomously, can carry packages up to 5 pounds. The Lockeford drones will serve a roughly one-square-mile zone.

Home delivery drones face logistical challenges including navigation obstacles such as trees and power lines. Amazon secured authorization for its drones with the Federal Aviation Administration and local officials in Lockeford.

Planning in Lockeford began this July, The Modesto Bee previously reported.

Twitter exec who took court action over Elon Musk's 'hardcore' stay-or-go ultimatum has now left the company, report says

Beatrice Nolan
Fri, December 23, 2022 


A Twitter executive who took court action over Elon Musk's "hardcore" deadline has left the company.


Sinead McSweeney, who was Twitter's public policy VP, left her role on Thursday, Reuters reported.


Twitter previously said it had reinstated McSweeney after she failed to respond to Musk's ultimatum.

A Twitter executive who took court action over Elon Musk's "hardcore" stay-or-go ultimatum has left the company, Reuters reported.

Sinead McSweeney, who was Twitter's public policy vice-president, left on Thursday after her team was hit with a fresh round of layoffs, Reuters said. Her LinkedIn profile has "former" before her Twitter job title.

McSweeney is understood to have been replaced by Nick Pickles, who had been Twitter's senior director for global public policy strategy, the news agency reported.

The latest Twitter layoffs, which began on Wednesday, affected half of Twitter's public policy team, according to messages seen by Insider's Kali Hays.

In November, McSweeney secured a temporary injunction from an Irish court to keep her job after she failed to respond to Elon Musk's "hardcore" ultimatum.

The new Twitter CEO sent staff an email on November 15 telling them to sign up for his "extremely hardcore" work culture at Twitter 2.0, or quit. The email specified that all employees had to agree to the policy by November 17, but McSweeney did not comply.

However, she said she had no intention of resigning and didn't respond due to confusion about her employment contract, The Irish Times reported.

After failing to respond to the email, McSweeney said Twitter informed her she had submitted a "voluntary resignation" and she was locked out of company systems and the Dublin office.

Earlier this month Twitter told an Irish court it had reinstated McSweeney as public policy VP.

Representatives for Twitter and McSweeney did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

FTX US's auditor stands by its accounting work for the collapsed crypto exchange, report says

Jennifer Sor
Fri, December 23, 2022 

SOPA Images / Contributor/ Getty Images

Armanino, the auditor for FTX's US branch, defended its accounting work for the exchange.


"We were never engaged to audit internal controls," the company's chief operating officer told the FT.


Armanino has stopped its auditing and proof of reserve work. It is facing a lawsuit from FTX customers.

FTX's US auditor, Armanino, is standing by its accounting work for the crypto exchange, the firm's chief operating office told the Financial Times in an interview.

"We definitely stand by the FTX US work," Armanino chief operating officer Chris Carlberg told the Financial Times on Friday. Armanino gave FTX's US branch a clean bill of health after reviewing its finances in 2020 and 2021, and it's known to be one of the top providers of proof of reserve reports for crypto firms, according to the FT.

"A few industry voices have said we should have done a better job auditing internal controls, but we were never engaged to audit internal controls. That happens with public companies. It's not required by the standards for private company audits," Carlberg added.

That comes just a month after FTX imploded amid "significant" liquidity problems and declared bankruptcy, an event that unearthed numerous accounting scandals within the crypto exchange and drew the attention of regulators and law enforcement. The exchange had no in-housing accounting department, shelled out millions on Bahamian vacation properties, and commingled customer funds with Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto trading arm, Alameda Research.

But according to Carlberg, the firm's auditors weren't tapped to look into internal controls at FTX, and that auditing the internal workings of a company isn't a requisite for private corporations.

John Ray III, FTX's new CEO, has said that FTX had a "complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information" – something critics say should have been a red flag to auditors. During a congressional hearing, Ray pointed to the fact that the multibillion-dollar crypto exchange used QuickBooks to manage its finances, and approved invoices via Slack.

Armanino and Prager Metis, the auditor of FTX International, are being sued by FTX customers. Carlberg did not comment on the lawsuit, but mentioned that Armanino has stopped its auditing and issuing proof of reserve services due to changing "market conditions."

Commentators say the industry is suffering from a transparency problem, and needs stricter policies from regulators to protect customers. Lawmakers have been critical of the Securities and Exchange Commission's current approach to crypto regulation, which they say has been too hands-off.

Dolphins delight with return to B.C. waters, but some see 'invasive species'

After 100 years of absence, large numbers of Pacific white-sided dolphins are back in the northern part of British Columbia's Salish Sea.



But while their return is being greeted by some with delight, the head of a commercial fisheries group is dismayed by the appearance of what he calls an "invasive species," alongside increasing numbers of seals and sea lions.

Simone Thom, a BC Ferries catering worker, said she was thrilled to see a superpod of hundreds of Pacific white-sided dolphins, frolicking in the wake of a ferry from Comox to Powell River last month.

Thom's video of the "exhilarating" encounter went viral on social media.

“It (was) truly magical to see them in their natural state doing their ballet,” said Thom. “I’ve lived here on the island pretty much my whole life and I’ve never seen this.”

So many dolphins in that particular area is rare, said Professor Andrew Trites, director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia.

Although there are estimated to be one million Pacific white-sided dolphins, they are usually found in the open ocean.

Small numbers began to visit the Georgia Strait in the early 2000s, with about 100 to 200 eventually taking up residence in the Salish Sea, Trites said.

“We know they were here in the past,” Trites said.

Their remains have been found in First Nations middens going back 2,000 years, but they all but disappeared for 100 years, he added.

“So that’s a strange thing, like where did they go and what brought them back?”

Their return coincides with an increase in the number of seals, sea lions and transient killer whales that prey upon marine mammals.

Trites said one possible explanation was that through complex food web interactions, the increase in the number of seals may lead to more young herring for dolphins to feed on.

“Before this time, we had heavy culling of seals. There was whaling. We’ve come through a period of removing marine mammals and trying to control nature. And now, since they’ve been protected, I think the ecosystem is re-establishing itself and re-establishing a natural balance which is healthier overall.”

Others vehemently disagree.

"These dolphins are here because the balance in the waters is off,” said Tom Sewid, a commercial fisherman from Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation. He said the dolphins are “an invasive species” driven into new waters by driftnet fleets.

As for the increasing number of seals and sea lions over the past fifty years, Sewid said it was another example of how the ocean is out of balance.

"We’ve forgotten our Indigenous ways of harvesting seals and sea lions, and in those areas, we’re seeing a great overpopulation,” he said, adding that he believed overpopulation of seals and sea lions was a major contributor to the depletion of salmon stocks.

Sewid is the president of Pacific Balance Marine Management, an organization seeking to protect salmon and other fin fish stocks from being “eaten into extinction," by redeveloping a First Nations-led commercial seal and sea lion harvest.

He said a series of fisheries ministers had "basically ignored" their requests.

Related video: A New Type Of Dolphin Has Evolved In The Pacific Ocean (Newsweek)
Duration 0:41  View on Watch

Sewid said he addressed federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray at last month's first-ever Seal Summit, a two-day conference for stakeholders in the seal industry.

"I said, ‘Come hell or high water, coastal First Nations and river First Nations of British Columbia, we will get a licence to sell our seal and sea lion products,’” he said. He said he would take the issue to the courts if necessary.

B.C. First Nations are currently allowed to harvest seals and sea lions for food, social and ceremonial purposes. Sewid says permitting the sale of fur, omega-3 supplements, meat and other products would create 4,000 jobs and allow fin fish populations to recover.

In the past three years, Pacific Balance Marine Management has provided gift cards to First Nations harvesters to purchase bullets.

Sewid estimated that thousands of seals have been removed for food, social and ceremonial purposes from rivers, lakes and estuaries. He said salmon numbers were increasing in some systems as a result.

Stomach samples were being taken for research purposes, and meat and blubber testing for toxins.

Sewid said he would submit a harvest proposal to Murray, and wants a quota set for seals and seal lions.

He estimates an annual harvest of 5,000 to 10,000 seals would be sustainable. According to Fisheries an Oceans research documents, there are approximately 40,000 sea lions and 105,000 seals in all of B.C.

Carl Walters, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, sees the potential for a substantial First Nations-led seal and sea lion harvest based on historical data and modelling predictions. He presented his findings in early December to the Senate committee on fisheries and oceans.

“It’s wrong to think things are coming into balance. OK, even if they are, why do we have to accept that kind of balance? Why do we have to accept a balance that has a top-heavy food web with a really large number of ugly, nasty blubberballs hauled out on the rocks?” he asked.

He said a 50 per cent reduction of the seal and sea lion population over two to three years would yield the maximum sustainable yield of seals and sea lions, while rebuilding the Georgia Strait salmon fishery to about half what it was at its peak in the 1980s.

“If it was up to me, we’d knock them down to about 20 per cent of their current level. We’d accept a lower harvest for that population, because the benefits to the fishery would be so much larger.”

He said there’s no doubt that seals and sea lions are consuming salmon, but it’s not clear if they are actually eating “dead fish swimming” — older or diseased fish that were about to die anyway.

The only way to know for sure, he said, would be to conduct a large-scale experiment to reduce the population by half, and assess the impact on salmon stocks over 10 years.

He said he was “completely confident that there will not be a big food web effect.”

“We had a 60-year period from 1920 to 1980 where seal populations were low in the Georgia Strait,” he said. “We had a huge long experiment if you like, and nothing went wrong in the ecosystem … In a way, we’d be returning the system to the state that showed really high productivity. It’s a no-brainer.”

But Trites warned that such an experiment would be a “huge gamble.”

“The risk of running such an experiment is that you’re playing with life.”

Trites said seal and sea lions numbers had been stable for 25 years, something inconsistent with overpopulation or a population out of balance. Present numbers were similar to what they were in the 1880s, when Europeans first arrived, he said.

“I don’t see any evidence that if the seals are removed, you’re going to see more salmon,” he said.

Researchers had found that juvenile salmon were dying in the open ocean at higher rates.

“The seals are not in the open ocean,” Trites said. “Something else is out there.”

He said there was "generational difference in values" regarding attitudes toward seal and sea lions.

“Those that grew up in the '50s and '60s saw a world where man dominated and we removed the marine mammals and that was just fine,” he said.

“What I see with the current generation of young scientists is they’re concerned about conservation. They’re concerned about keeping ecosystems healthy, and it’s not about resource extraction … In the end, it’s just a difference of values.”

In a written response to questions, the Fisheries Department said it worked with First Nations on plans to harvest small amounts of seals and sea lions for food, social and ceremonial purposes.

It confirmed it had received a few proposals for a commercial seal and sea lion harvest. A review is typically a multi-year process taking into account ecosystems, biodiversity and harvest methods, it said.

“Commercial fisheries are not to be used as a tool to control populations,” the department said. “There is a high degree of scientific uncertainty regarding the extent of pinniped [seal and sea lion] predation on wild fish stocks.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 25, 2022.

Liana Hwang is a family physician in Alberta with a science degree from the University of British Columbia, and a fellow in Global Journalism at the University of Toronto.

Liana Hwang, The Canadian Press