The skies during Women’s History Month have witnessed a series of historic female flights. On March 16, Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri held the “first all-female two-ship T-38 flyover,” an aerial salute that soared above the KC Current stadium, the “first stadium to be built for women,” according to KSHB.

United Airlines also held a special flight on March 7 that epitomized elegance in aviation and inclusivity on the ground. Aboard Flight 1215, which traveled from Newark, NJ, to Sarasota, FL and back, was an all-women crew. At the helm was Captain Gabrielle Harding, a trailblazer recognized by PEOPLE as not only the second Black woman Line Check Pilot in United’s history, but also “the only Black woman captain working for a commercial airline who graduated from a historically Black college or university’s pilot program.”

Spotlighting trailblazers like Captain Harding is pivotal in paving the runway for future aviators, especially when we consider the gender disparities in the field. A 2022 study from the Women in Aviation Advisory Board reveals that women constitute a mere 4.6 percent of professional pilots. More starkly, Black women sit at a scant 0.5 percent.

In light of these underrepresentation statistics, the stories of women who bravely faced the challenges of their time in aviation become increasingly important for us to recognize and learn from.

While everyone knows the story of Amelia Earhart, from her historic flights to her mysterious disappearance, there’s another pioneering female pilot from the past who is finally getting her due. Just like Earhart, Bessie Coleman shattered equally big barriers—and the tragic circumstances surrounding her own untimely death have also sparked theories of wrongdoing, drawing renewed attention to her story.

Who Was Bessie Coleman?

Before the Wright Brothers’ historic ascent at Kitty Hawk captured the world’s imagination, the most legendary figures in aviation lore were a father and son: Daedalus and Icarus.

In the oft-referenced myth from Ancient Greece, Daedelus crafted wings for his son, Icarus. Basking in the thrill of flight and the warmth of the sun, Icarus soared higher and higher, ignoring his father’s warnings, until the sun’s rays melted his manmade wings, causing him to hurtle to his death.

Icarus has often served as a symbol of human hubris. As people throughout history dared to touch the skies—from Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent le Vieux d’Arlandes with their hot air balloons in France in 1783, to Alberto Santos-Dumont in Brazil, and the Wright Brothers in North Carolina—their lofty ambitions were met with skepticism from critics who recalled the boy who tumbled from the heavens for flying too close to the sun.

But for Bessie Coleman, a young girl of Black and Indigenous ancestry growing up in the poor town of Waxahachie, Texas, Icarus wasn’t the only fictional figure who kept her grounded. She also had to contend with Jim Crow, a crude minstrel character whose name was colloquially used to describe oppressive and racist laws in the American South.

Coleman didn’t always dream of being a pilot, but she knew she wanted more than the life offered by the small patch of land where she and her family picked cotton for minuscule wages.

At first, Coleman tried to pursue a college education. As Biography notes, “she embarked on a journey to Oklahoma to attend the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University (Langston University), where she completed only one term due to financial constraints.”

Money was a constant challenge for the Coleman family. After her father left to reside on a reservation in Oklahoma—an option Coleman’s mother reportedly declined—her mother became the main provider. Eventually, Bessie’s brothers also departed, seeking opportunities in Chicago with hopes of supporting the family back home. In 1915, with her educational ambitions paused, a 23-year-old Coleman followed suit and ventured to Chicago, eager to carve out her own path.

Coleman took a job in Chicago as a nail technician. In an early sign of her tenacity, she chose a prominent spot by the salon window to attract attention and built a reputation by attending to male customers, persuasively telling them that well-groomed nails would help them court women. What began as a means to make ends meet soon turned into a platform for recognition. In 1916, Coleman’s efforts and charm won her the title of “best manicurist in Black Chicago,” bringing her unexpected prominence in her community.

Coleman’s prowess secured her a place at the White Sox Barber Shop, owned by the trainer of the local baseball team for which it was named. Between the clients who sat in her chair and told stories of the brave aviators of World War I, and the cajoling of her combat-veteran brother, who according to Biography “…ribbed her about the superiority of French women who knew how to fly planes,” Coleman found her calling: to soar amidst the clouds.

How Did Bessie Coleman Learn to Fly?

For a Black American woman in 1921, obtaining a pilot’s license was virtually impossible. No one had done it before, and no flight school in the U.S. was willing to let Coleman be the first.

And so, recalling her brother’s comments about the women of France learning how to fly, Coleman chose to follow her dreams all the way to the Caudron Brothers’ School of Aviation in Le Crotoy. While Coleman taught herself French, she couldn’t always connect verbally with her French-speaking instructors. So she bridged the communication gap by “feeling the movements of steering system that connected the front and back cockpits,” according to Biography.

Through her diligence, on June 15, 1921, Coleman became the first Black woman in the world to earn a pilot’s license, which she received from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. But, as the podcast Invisible Eagles: Bessie Coleman points out, Coleman’s aeronautic achievement was overshadowed in her home country by a far more shocking story.

Only two weeks before Coleman received her pilot’s license, the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, sometimes referred to as “Black Wall Street,” suffered a devastating and deadly attack from a white mob, one that left between 100 and 300 people dead, and more than 10,000 homeless. And as HISTORY notes, airplanes—likely owned by the nearby Curtiss-Southwest Airplane Company—aided in the terror. So while Coleman flew high in France, back home, her beloved planes had become a tool of suppression.

How Did Bessie Coleman Become Famous?

When Coleman first returned home, she was greeted with praise from the Black newspapers of the time, but pointedly ignored by the white press. When she struggled to find jobs as a Black female pilot, she returned to Europe once more, this time to learn the art of aerial tricks and stunt piloting.

Coleman saw her performances as both a means to live and a beacon of inspiration, aiming to demonstrate to women and people of color that they, too, could aspire to and attain success in the field of aviation. Her grand aspiration was to establish a flight school that would empower African Americans to chase their own piloting dreams.

In September 1922, Coleman debuted her first aerial stunt show in Garden City, New York, during an era when “barnstorming” captivated the American public. These shows, aptly named for the rural practice where pilots utilized farms as impromptu airstrips, roamed from one locale to another, showcasing thrilling maneuvers like barrel rolls and loop-de-loops to awe-struck audiences across the country.

The shows were instrumental in the evolution of civil aviation, bringing the public into early contact with pilots outside the context of the battlefield. Coleman was acutely aware of the significance of her public persona within the barnstorming scene and crafted an image that exuded flair and respectability. As Biography notes, she was referred to as “Queen Bess” or “Brave Bess” by the media, presenting a striking image adorned in her long coat, leather boots, and Sam Browne officer’s belt. She was known to embellish her credentials in interviews, adding to the mystique of her character.

Coleman also recognized the powerful role that burgeoning cinema played in shaping public perception. She incorporated filmed footage of her flights in her traveling lectures, and even reached out to several studios specializing in “race films” (films produced by and for Black audiences in the early 20th century) to make a film about her life’s story. She first wrote to Norman Studios in Jacksonville, Florida, before she was contacted by the Seminole Film Producing Company.

Coleman accepted a role in Seminole’s upcoming feature film, Shadow and Sunshine, but was disappointed with the content of the script, which began with her character in tattered clothes and poverty. Coleman walked away from the project, in breach of her contract, “over her refusal to play to ‘Uncle Tom’ stereotypes,” according to Biography.

How Did Bessie Coleman Die?

Following a brief hiatus to recover from injuries sustained in a crash, Coleman returned to the skies in 1925. By then, she had included other Black female aviators in her shows, per Biography:

“That August, she was accompanied by the first known Black woman to make a parachute jump. After this same parachutist backed out of another gig, Coleman strapped on the jumper’s harness and did the deed herself.”

Ahead of a scheduled performance in Jacksonville, Coleman acquired an airplane, but it was delivered in a severe state of disrepair. The engine of the Jenny, in particular, was so “poorly maintained” that it elicited concern from other aviators who inspected it. On April 30, 1926, Coleman and her co-pilot William Wills went out for a test flight; Wills took control in the front cockpit while Coleman chose to sit without fastening her seatbelt in the back, intending to scout suitable locations for a parachute jump.

Tragically, during the flight, a mechanical failure resulted in catastrophe:

“According to witnesses, the plane suddenly accelerated and nose-dived, before flipping upside-down at about 500 feet. There was nothing to halt Coleman’s fall from the cockpit, and the 34-year-old trailblazer was instantly killed upon hitting the ground.

Wills also died in the subsequent crash, and investigators soon discovered the loose wrench that had jammed the gears and caused the plane’s uncontrollable behavior.”

“It was a tragic, but not uncommon accident in the heyday of barnstorming, at the time aircraft safety was being addressed by Congress with the Air Commerce Act of 1926 that mandated the regulation of pilots and aircraft,” the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) observes.

Despite the absence of concrete evidence to confirm foul play, the NASM acknowledges that “rumors of sabotage could not be stopped or corroborated.” Given the wrench that caused the fatal crash, some speculate whether its presence was an intentional act meant to thwart Coleman’s flight. Contextualizing these suspicions within the era’s racial and gender challenges, it’s understandable why questions linger about whether malicious intent played a role in the tragedy that ended Coleman’s life and career.

And the specter of sabotage in aviation, particularly targeting women, didn’t end with Coleman’s death.

Take the case of the Women’s Air Derby of 1929. As noted by the National Endowment for the Humanities, female pilots competing in the event were met with an alarming, anonymous warning before the race: “Beware of sabotage.” The race was marred by a series of mysterious mishaps ranging from contaminated fuel to structural failures and even life-threatening carbon monoxide leaks—all of which, prominent men in the press asserted, proved that “women can’t fly.”

Indeed, all the way through World War II, female pilots were subject to deadly acts of sabotage from men who didn’t feel they belonged in the skies. As TIME notes, “Some women reported finding grass in their tanks or acid in their parachutes, or that their tires had been slashed very slightly so that they’d blow out in the air.” In one instance, “Jacqueline Cochran personally discovered sugar in the gas tank of a plane that had crashed, killing her colleague Betty Davis, but feared she and her colleagues would lose their jobs if they reported it as such.”

The question of how that wrench came to be lodged in Bessie Coleman’s aircraft may forever be left unanswered. Aviation safety during the era was notoriously unreliable, but when coupled with the virulent racism and sexism of the time—exemplified by events such as the Ku Klux Klan’s 1926 march in Washington, D.C.—it presents a troubling backdrop against which Coleman’s death might be viewed.

How Do We Remember Bessie Coleman?

Coleman died in Jacksonville, Florida, a city that held another connection to her dreams beyond aviation. It was the home of Norman Studios, to whom she had written years earlier, expressing her desire to share her life’s story on the silver screen. While there is no evidence that a collaboration between Coleman and the studio ever materialized—nor is it certain if she and filmmaker Richard Norman ever personally crossed paths—Coleman’s spirit and achievements undoubtedly left an indelible mark on Norman.

Norman Studios never made The Bessie Coleman Story, per se, but Coleman provided the inspiration for the character of Ruth Sawtelle, the female lead of Norman’s 1926 film, The Flying Ace. Billed as “the greatest airplane thriller ever filmed,” The Flying Ace, which showcases an all-Black cast, features actress Kathryn Boyd’s Ruth in an outfit that strikingly mirrors the distinctive ensemble Coleman wore during her barnstorming days.

The Flying Ace sidesteps the same racial stereotypes of its era that Coleman staunchly opposed in Seminole’s Shadow and Sunshine, opting instead for a respectful detective thriller. Starring J. Laurence Criner, a distinguished actor from the Harlem theatre scene, as the titular World War I pilot, The Flying Ace stands out as the only fully preserved film from Norman Studios. In 2021, the film was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, having been deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

While The Flying Ace might be the most enduring tribute to Coleman from her era, more recent efforts have been made to properly honor her legacy. In 1995, Coleman appeared on a U.S. postage stamp. In 2001, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and entered the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2006. And just last year, Coleman was commemorated on an American Women-series U.S. quarter and celebrated with her own Barbie doll in the Inspiring Women series.

Was Bessie Coleman an “American Icarus” who flew too close to the sun? Perhaps a better analogy lies in a different ancient story.

In the Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana, the story of two winged demigods, Sampati and Jatayu, unfolds. The two fly upward one day, toward the sun, in order to test their skills. But the younger brother, Jatayu, gets too close and his wings begin to scorch in the noon heat. Sampati, the older brother, flies ahead, spreading his wings wide to provide shade for his younger sibling and sacrificing his own wings in the process. Sampati crashes into the Vindhya mountains and dies, so that the younger Jatayu can continue to fly.

Bessie Coleman, more than anything, wanted to inspire other pilots from backgrounds traditionally excluded from the skies. Her narrative isn’t about succumbing to prideful excess, but rather, a deliberate act of selflessness for the sake of the future. She was scorched, both by the sun and the spotlight—not so that she could bask in the glow, but so that others might also one day soar.

Source: Popular Mechanics

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Republican presidential candidate Trump had to be asked twice during a televised town hall event in Iowa to deny that he would abuse power to seek revenge on political opponents if re-elected to the White House.

“No. No. Other than day one,” Trump said when asked to deny he would become a “dictator” if he wins the November election.

Trump said on the “day one” he referred to, he would use his presidential powers to close the southern border with Mexico and expand oil drilling.

Trump, seeking a second White House term in a likely election re-match with Democratic President Joe Biden, has frequently promised “retribution” on political opponents if he gains power again.

Targets include Biden, prosecutors who have charged him with dozens of crimes, the Department of Justice, and the federal bureaucracy, he said in campaign speeches and TV appearances this year.

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, was appearing at a Fox News event before a friendly audience in Davenport, Iowa, the state where the party’s nominating contest kicks off on Jan. 15.

As soon as the event finished, Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a statement: “Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s re-elected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him.”

Trump was U.S. president between 2017 and 2021, and has refused to concede that he lost to Biden in the 2020 election.

Since then Trump has spread false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, a conspiracy that fueled the deadly insurrection by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump’s election lies also form a cornerstone of his current White House campaign.

Trump’s rivals for the nomination, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, will appear at a televised debate on Wednesday at the University of Alabama at 7 p.m. CST (0100 GMT).

Trump will skip the event, as he has done for the three previous Republican debates.

Biden has repeatedly warned that Trump is a threat to democracy, and that a second Trump term could usher in an unprecedented and dangerous age of American autocracy.

Former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican who is an outspoken critic of Trump and who co-chaired the congressional probe of the attack on the Capitol, said in media interviews to promote a memoir this week that a Trump dictatorship is a “very real threat” if he wins re-election.

Source: Reuters

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The virtual meeting of 11 nations, convened by South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, came as Arab foreign ministers toured capitals to drum up support for a fresh UN security council resolution mandating Israel to introduce a full ceasefire and end what they say are breaches of international humanitarian law.

The moves are the latest sign of a revolt brewing among global south nations about US double standards in refusing to do more to stop the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which so far has claimed more than 13,000 civilian lives, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The UN security council last week made a call, not amounting to an instruction, for Israel to accept humanitarian pauses, but the Arab foreign ministers want a firmer resolution and are prepared to challenge the US not to use its veto to protect Israel. It was notable that the Arab foreign ministers, including those not allied to Iran, chose to travel first to China and Moscow to enlist their support.

Putin told the Brics meeting that the US was undermining the chances of peace by trying to monopolise diplomacy in its own self-interest. He said that “the deaths of thousands of people, the mass displacement of civilians and the humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded are deeply disturbing”.

He added: “Due to the sabotage of UN efforts, more than one generation of Palestinians are being brought up with a sense of unfairness to their state while the Israeli people cannot fully guarantee their own security.”

Putin accused the US of sidelining other members of the Middle East Quartet – a group seeking to navigate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that also includes Russia, the UN, and the EU. Washington had attempted to “monopolise the role of the mediator” while blocking the efforts of other international actors, he said. “History has vividly demonstrated that attempts to single-handedly cut the Palestinian knot are not viable and counterproductive.”

Other countries attending the meeting include Brazil, India, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, reflecting how the expanded Brics group is now a strong rival to the western G7 group of leading industrialised nations.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, added his voice to the call for a ceasefire in Gaza, telling the summit: “All parties in the conflicts should immediately cease fire and hostilities, stop all violence and attacks targeting civilians, and release civilian detainees to avoid more loss of lives and suffering.”

Xi said: “The root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli situation is the fact that the right of the Palestinian people to statehood, their right to existence, and their right of return have long been ignored.”

However, the eventual joint statement was relatively mild and called only for Israel to comply with international humanitarian law and accept “full, immediate, safe, unhindered and sustained humanitarian access”. It also warned Israel not to attempt to displace Palestinans from Gaza.

The Biden administration has been repeatedly told, including by its own diplomats, that it risks losing the support of the global south nations. Many of them accuse the US of double standards in condemning Russian war crimes in Ukraine while remaining largely silent on Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Opening the Brics meeting, Ramaphosa accused Israel of committing war crimes that were tantamount to genocide and collective punishment. “The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime,” Ramaphosa said. “The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide.”

Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, called on the security council to adopt a binding resolution in the UN general assembly to stop attacks on Gaza and to label Israel as a terrorist regime and its army as a terrorist organisation. He called for the US to be held to account and urged the world to recognise the right of Palestinians to self-defence, a phrase that would absolve Hamas for its October attacks on Israel.

Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, criticised the killing of innocent civilians and the destruction of health facilities and places of worship.

The Indian prime minister, Narenda Modi, did not attend.

The Brics meeting comes before a virtual meeting on Wednesday of the wider G20 group of nations, convened by India, that will be attended by Putin.

The delegation of Arab diplomats is being led by a group appointed by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, including the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and the secretary general of the Arab League.

They visited the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Beijing on Monday, before travelling to Moscow to meet the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

The delegation is expected also to visit France and the UK this week.

The Egyptian foreign ministry said the diplomats had “drafted a new resolution to be submitted to the security council by the Arab and Islamic groups, to deal with existing obstacles and imbalances of humanitarian aid entry to Gaza”.

Egypt’s foreign ministry said it remained convinced that the “continued bombing targeting displaced people in the south had a clear objective, and that was to force Gaza’s residents to leave the strip. Egypt has clearly declared its utter rejection of any attempt to enforce displacement of Palestinians.”

Source: The Guardian

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Producers entered 2023 thinking the 590,000 barrel per day (bpd) expansion – nearly tripling the existing pipeline’s capacity – from Alberta’s landlocked oilfields to the Pacific Coast would be filling with oil by year-end – the last step before full operations commence.

However, the project, about 95% completed, has been beset by construction issues in British Columbia, stoking concerns among traders and analysts that its start will be delayed beyond the current target of late March 2024. In October, TMX said linefill would start in the first quarter and take up to seven weeks.

On Tuesday Canadian regulators denied a variance request, a move Trans Mountain said risked delaying the project’s start date. That comes after changing some of its route and dealing with a work stoppage for environmental noncompliances.

It is just the latest hurdle for the Canadian government-owned project after being plagued by years of regulatory delay, environmental opposition and massive cost overruns.

While over the years the pipeline’s start date has been moved further back, supply has kept coming. Further delays could force producers to accept lower prices for their crude and to put more barrels into storage to deal with a glut of oil stranded in Alberta while they wait for the pipeline to start.

TMX’s construction hold-ups already helped push the discount, or differential, on benchmark Western Canada Select (WCS) heavy crude to the U.S. benchmark crude futures close to $30 a barrel last month, the deepest level in a year.

WCS was last at a $22 a barrel discount, roughly $7 wider than average, according to brokerage CalRock. Light synthetic crude from the oil sands, another key Canadian grade, is trading close to its deepest discount since 2020.

With Canada exporting around 3.8 million bpd via pipelines, each additional dollar the discount widens amounts to millions in lost revenues for oil companies, analysts say.

“There seems to be growing nervousness in the market that the start date will be later,” said RBN Energy analyst Martin King. “More people are getting concerned that this is going to go beyond into the second quarter, maybe even the third.”

The blowout in WCS differentials also highlights how the troubled expansion, likely one of the last big oil pipeline projects to be built in Canada, continues to inflict pain even as it nears the finish line.

TMX’s construction budget has already quadrupled to C$30.9 billion ($22.75 billion), on which Canada is expected to have to take a significant write-down.

“It’s not just the cost of construction which is outrageous, but the impact on the Canadian economy of the (WCS) differential and oil production not getting to market,” said Heather Exner-Pirot, special adviser to the Business Council of Canada.

OUTPUT CLIMBS, NO RAIL TO THE RESCUE

The concerns come as output in Canada, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, climbs toward record levels, outpacing capacity on existing pipelines to the U.S.

Canada, produced 4.86 million bpd in 2022 and is forecast to hit 5.5 million bpd by 2030, according to Kevin Birn, chief analyst of Canadian oil markets at S&P Global.

Oil companies are expected to add a combined 375,000 bpd in 2023 and 2024 alone, and the coming winter months are typically peak production season in Canada.

Conventional oil and gas producers will drill 8% more wells in 2024 to take advantage of greater access to pipelines including Trans Mountain.

As production climbs, space is increasingly being rationed, or apportioned, for all shippers on the 3.1 million bpd Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO) Mainline system, which ships the bulk of Canada’s crude exports to the U.S.

Apportionment hit 35% and 28% on light and heavy oil pipelines respectively in December, Enbridge said, meaning more than a quarter of all barrels are being turned back. In August Mainline apportionment was zero.

In the past, Canadian companies have exported excess crude using railcars, despite the higher cost. Rail exports hit 145,000 bpd in September, nearly doubling from May, according to latest data from the Canada Energy Regulator.

Wider crude differentials indicate crude-by-rail levels increased to about 250,000-300,000 bpd in November, said James Davis, head of upstream oil at energy consultant FGE.

Crude-by-rail, however, is unlikely to bring big relief to Canadian producers.

Jesse Jones, head of North American upstream at Energy Aspects, said rail will not be able to ship all the barrels being pushed off pipelines by high apportionment.

Interviews with terminal operators and company filings also suggest the crude-by-rail industry has foundered in recent years and capacity will struggle to rise significantly.

Smaller players especially will be reluctant to sign commitments with TMX around the corner, Jones said

“We’re getting more enquiries, but we move substantially less than we moved a couple of years ago, everybody is moving less,” said John Zahary, CEO of Altex Energy, a terminal operator shipping around 10,000 bpd.

Shipments will be limited by a railcar shortage and uncertainty over the profitability of long-term crude-by-rail economics, said Kent MacDougall, chief commercial officer at Torq Transloading, which ships about 10,000 bpd.

“It’s challenging and it’s cumbersome to do rail for spot deals,” he said.

Source: Reuters

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Living in California is already more expensive than in other states, and the higher costs are “unreasonable and completely unnecessary,” said the Cost of California Report published by the Transparency Foundation, a California-based organization, on Thursday.

The report calculates the total higher costs paid by Californians in major household budget categories, including housing, utilities, food, gas, transportation, healthcare, insurance, childcare, and taxes.

“In every household budget category, the cost of living in California is exponentially higher than the national average,” said Carl DeMaio, the organization’s chairman, in a news release.

According to the report, a typical middle-class family earning 130,000 U.S. dollars a year would face an extra cost of 26,478 dollars annually by living in California, compared with the national average costs.

Housing cost is the most significant category, the report shows, with homeowners paying 32 percent more and renters paying 47 percent more in California than the rest of the country.

As a result, about 40 percent of Californians are considering moving out of the state. Among them, 67 percent cite the high living costs as the main reason, according to the report.

DeMaio blamed the state politicians’ “costly mandates and bad policies” for driving up the living expenses. Incumbent state and local politicians should be “held accountable” for the working families’ financial hardships, he said.

The report also makes recommendations on how California’s leaders can reduce costs for Californians, such as adopting the same regulations as the lowest cost state in each cost category, creating a state “Cost-of-Living Benchmark” Commission, and proposing a package of reforms for voter approval. 

Source: Xinhua

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The ADL cited some 312 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7-23, 190 of which were linked to the fighting in Israel and Gaza. By comparison, there were 64 incidents over the same time frame in 2022.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it is collecting data and has seen an uptick in reports, but did not have numbers to release.

Jews, Palestinians and Muslims in the US told CNN they’re experiencing a growing fear about bigotry and hatred in the wake of the Hamas attack.

But the recent uptick from the war is part of a years-long rise in hate crimes in the US, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI data released in October shows hate crimes in the US are the highest since collection began in 1991.

The FBI collects and publishes hate crime data but reporting is voluntary and only about 80% of agencies submit data. Compliance changes from year to year. The data is also an undercount: fewer than half of hate crime victims report to police, according to the FBI’s National Crime Victimization Survey.

FBI records show a rise in anti-Muslim incidents starting in 2015, with more bias-driven assaults against Muslims in 2016 than in 2001.

Antisemitic crimes were on the rise long before Oct. 7. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of antisemitic hate crimes increased by 36% to a total of 1,124 – the highest ever recorded by the FBI.

The ADL’s data, which captures bias incidents outside crimes, matches the pattern in the FBI numbers.

CAIR has not yet released the number of incidents it has recorded in the past weeks, but Research Director Corey Saylor said the organization has been flooded with reports.

“We haven’t had time to do tallies, but we are responding to incidents around the clock,” Saylor said. “The last time we saw something like this was in December 2015, with Trump’s Muslim ban [proposal].”

As a candidate in late 2015, former President Donald Trump called for a banon Muslims entering the US. Anti-Muslim events sparked in tandem with his statements on the campaign trail, CAIR said.

Trump enacted his ban in January 2017, initially against a handful of Muslim countries, and expanded it to include some African countries. President Joe Biden reversed the ban in early 2021, but Trump (currently the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination) recently said he would reinstate and expand the restrictions, pointing to Hamas’ attack on Israel as vindication of his initial policy.

CAIR’s record of anti-Muslim bias incidents trends differently than the FBI’s hate crime data, showing a consistent increase in reports until 2022, when reports dropped by 23%. In its annual report on the data, CAIR attributed the change to decreased volatility in domestic politics and increased federal targeting of white supremacist groups in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Source: CNN

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China and the United States have released “The Sunnylands Statement on Enhancing Cooperation to Address the Climate Crisis” on Tuesday.

The two countries reaffirmed their commitment to work jointly and together with other countries to address the climate crisis.

“It sets a foundation of ambition going into global climate talks in Dubai,” Bapna said in a statement.

The two countries also agreed to enhance cooperation in energy transition, reducing methane and other non-carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gas emissions, to jointly tackle global warming, according to the statement.

Bapna praised the two countries’ pledge of rapidly scaling renewable energy this decade, phasing out fossil fuel dependance, cutting methane pollution and strengthening their national climate goals.

The United States and China must be leaders in the climate solution, he said.

“The agreement provides the urgent multilateral commitment we need — and not a moment too soon,” he added.

Headquartered in New York City, the NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. 

Source: Xinhua

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RDI Inspector General Angeline van Dijk made the call as she delivered a speech on “A European Approach to Artificial Intelligence,” at the 2023 World Summit AI (WSAI), an annual event launched in 2017 for tech leaders to discuss the latest global AI developments. The theme of this year’s WSAI is “AI on the Brink: Shaping the Future of Humanity.”

Van Dijk provided insights into the expected timeline for the AI Act, the EU’s first legislative framework on AI development and deployment across Europe.

“From a market perspective, understanding the timeline of the AI Act is crucial for strategic planning,” she said.

Under Spain’s leadership, the final text of the AI Act should be established this year, with ratification anticipated by the following spring. However, the act’s standards are expected to be implemented around 2025, and full enforcement may not happen until 2026 or 2027.

“The AI Act is a significant step of providing a blueprint for responsible AI development and deployment across Europe,” van Dijk said.

In her speech, she announced a joint initiative on AI supervision by the European Commission, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Netherlands.

“Our joint initiative aims not only to enhance AI’s supervisory capabilities, (but) also to support all European AI oversight bodies. And together our goal is to ensure responsible AI development and deployment across Europe,” she said.

The AI Act, van Dijk explained, takes a risk-based approach, strongly regulating high-risk AI practices while affording more flexibility to less risky applications.

She underlined that companies should start preparing for the AI Act immediately, as the building of an AI ecosystem requires support from all sectors, including governments, scientists, and private industry.

She also emphasized the need for leaders to understand and engage with AI, in order to make more informed decisions about its applications and implications.

Source: Xinhua

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The complaint alleges Suncor removed warnings that oil sands projects could potentially become stranded assets in a low-carbon emissions scenario from its 2023 climate report.

“Suncor has stopped warning investors of the risk that a significant slice of its oil sands assets will be worthless in a low carbon future,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada. “Deleting information about stranded assets doesn’t make that risk go away.”

Suncor posts annual climate reports on its company website.

In the 2022 report, under the heading “Expected impact on Suncor”, the company said some producing upstream assets “may be retired before the end of their producing life” in the most ambitious global emissions-reduction scenario.

In the 2023 report, Suncor does not have an “Expected impact on Suncor” section in the low-carbon scenario. However the company notes massive changes to the global energy system would come at enormous cost “where people, companies, infrastructure and whole industries are made redundant.”

Suncor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Canada, it is still voluntary for companies to make climate-risk disclosures. The Liberal government said in 2022 it would mandate companies to report climate-related financial risks, but regulations have not yet been finalised.

In 2016, Suncor shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of the company providing more information about its exposure to climate change.

In a reply to Greenpeace, the ASC said it would review the concerns.

Calgary-based Suncor is counting on carbon capture and storage and efficiency measures to help reach its net-zero emissions by 2050 goal and last year sold its wind and solar business to focus instead on hydrogen and renewable fuels.

CEO Rich Kruger, who took over in April, told an August earnings call Suncor had put a “disproportionate emphasis” on the longer-term energy transition.

Greenpeace is asking the ASC to investigate whether Suncor failed to adequately disclose climate-related transition risks associated with the recent shift in its business strategy, and order the company to reinstate those disclosures.

Source: Reuters

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US district judge, Denise Cote yesterday granted Sri Lanka’s request for a six-month halt on a creditor lawsuit against the country. Hamilton Reserve Bank, an obscure and tiny St Kitt’s bank with interesting ties, says it has accumulated a big chunk of one of Sri Lanka’s now-defaulted bonds and had been suing it for immediate repayment.

Sri Lanka had asked for a stay on these legal proceedings to let it restructure its overall pile of debt in some peace and quiet, and had gotten heavyweight support from the UK, France and the US government.

Judge Cote ruled, “The Court recognizes that a stay will prejudice the plaintiff’s ability to obtain a prompt judgment. The requested stay, however, is not indefinite. Sri Lanka seeks a six-month stay of this litigation while it conducts sovereign debt restructuring negotiations with sovereign and commercial creditors. Moreover, if Hamilton prevails on its claim at some future date, any judgment will be subject to pre-judgment interest. Accordingly, the prejudice to the plaintiff is limited.”

The judge also implicitly recognised that the public interest in an orderly restructuring trumped HRB’s legal rights for a summary judgment.

While Hamilton’s rights are unquestionable as it really is a jilted Sri Lankan creditor, the court is willing to slow-walk things for the sake of other creditors, Sri Lanka and the amorphous principle of orderly workouts.

“The private interests of and burden on the defendant are significant — a judgment for Hamilton would likely threaten the complex debt negotiations and, hence, the successful economic rehabilitation of Sri Lanka. Hamilton’s claim that any such prejudice is “wholly speculative and implausible” must be rejected. A judgment for Hamilton would provide an incentive to other bondholders to engage in line-jumping litigation and deter commercial creditors from participating in the restructuring negotiations. As France and the UK explain, a decision in favor of Hamilton would provide a “strong incentive” for holdout creditors to forgo participation in voluntary restructuring. Moreover, the IMF funding is contingent on “a sovereign debt restructuring that meets debt sustainability targets.” A breakdown in restructuring negotiations could threaten Sri Lanka’s progress towards these IMF targets, its economic recovery, and the well-being of its citizenry.

This supports the interests of persons not parties to the civil litigation, including Sri Lanka’s official bilateral creditors and private commercial creditors. If judgment were entered for Hamilton, the plaintiff may assert that it has priority in recovery while the debt restructuring negotiations are ongoing. As described in the Paris Club Amicus Brief, “the implementation of comparability of treatment among creditors is of the utmost significance, as it serves as the bedrock for obtaining creditors’ consent to the debt restructuring.”

“In August 2021, Hamilton began to purchase the bonds at issue here. Hamilton asserts that it is the beneficial owner of over $240 million in principal amount of Sri Lanka’s international sovereign bonds that were due in July 2022 (the “Bonds”). The Bonds provide for interest payments of 5.875% per annum, paid semi-annually on January 25 and July 25 of each year, from January 25, 2013 through July 25, 2022. Following Sri Lanka’s moratorium on foreign debt repayments in the Spring of 2022, Sri Lanka failed to pay the principal and interest amount due to the plaintiff when those bonds matured on July 25, 2022. Hamilton alleges that, as a result of Sri Lanka’s default, it is owed $242,990,000 in principal and $7,137,831.25 in accrued interest (before accounting for pre- and post-judgment interest). Hamilton represents that it has not participated, and does not wish to participate, in Sri Lanka’s restructuring negotiations.”

This indicates that Hamilton does not control enough of the bond in question to block the use of collective action clauses, which radically change things.

HRB had said that it held $250mn of the bond in question. The collection action clauses embedded in the bond stipulate that if a restructuring deal is struck by 75 per cent of holders it is binding on all of them, so $250mn would give HRB enough votes to block any deal it didn’t like. But $243mn is narrowly short.

The bank could get someone else to join it, or might be sitting on another sliver that gives it a blocking stake. Or maybe this is just wrong. But if this is true, then Sri Lanka’s situation will look much better.

Source: Financial Times

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