The federal Liberal government introduced legislation Tuesday to force digital giants to compensate news publishers for the use of their content. CBC News reports: The new regulatory regime would require companies like Google and the Meta Platforms-owned Facebook -- and other major online platforms that reproduce or facilitate access to news content -- to either pay up or go through a binding arbitration process led by an arms-length regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The compensation extracted from these digital giants must be used, in large part, to fund the creation of news content to protect the "sustainability of the Canadian news ecosystem," according to a government backgrounder distributed to reporters. The government is pitching the arrangement as a way to prop up an industry that has seen a steady decline since the emergence of the internet.

To preserve access to Canadian news, the federal government has adopted much of the so-called "Australian model," named after the country that first forced digital companies to pay for the use of news content. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, more than $190 million has been paid already to Australian media companies since the model was enacted last year. The big winners have been legacy media and larger media outlets.

The new Canadian scheme would require that Facebook, Google and other digital platforms that have "a bargaining imbalance with news businesses" make "fair commercial deals" with newspapers, news magazines, online news businesses, private and public broadcasters and certain non-Canadian news media that meet specific criteria. The goal is to have these digital platforms negotiate deals with publishers without the need for government intervention. [T]he amount of money each news business gets from these digital giants will be decided by those negotiations -- there's no preset formula. In the absence of some sort of voluntary arrangement, news businesses can initiate a mandatory bargaining process and go to a CRTC arbitration panel for a binding decision.

"Russia's Roscosmos will stop working with NASA and other western space agencies on the International Space Station," reports Engadget: On early Saturday morning, Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin slammed international sanctions against Russia and said normal cooperation between the space agency and its western counterparts would only be possible after they were lifted.... Rogozin said Roscosmos would submit proposals on ending its work with NASA and other international space agencies to Russian authorities.

It's unclear how the decision would affect the space station. The ISS is not owned by any single country. The US, European Union, Russia, Canada and Japan operate the station through a cooperative agreement between the countries. Roscosmos, however, is critical to the ISS. The Russian Orbital Segment handles guidance control for the entire station....

The ISS isn't the first joint space program to see its future thrown into uncertainty due to rising tensions between the West and Russia. In March, Roscosmos said it would not ferry OneWeb's internet satellites to space until the UK government sold its stake in the company. That same month, the European Space Agency announced it was suspending its joint ExoMars mission with Roscosmos.
But in the middle of all this, "There are currently seven astronauts onboard the ISS — three Russian cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts and one German-born ESA astronaut, Matthias Maurer..." reports UPI: The three Russian cosmonauts are Sergey Korsakov, Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev. It was not immediately clear how the suspension of cooperation would impact the cosmonauts at the ISS.

Artemyev has expressed support for Russia and its decision to invade Ukraine in a statement made last month after he boarded the space station in a yellow and blue uniform, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. "There is no need to look for secret signs and symbols in our uniform. Color is just color," he said. "Despite the fact that we are in space, we are together with our president and people!"

In the past five years, reports of staggering insect declines have stoked anxiety and debate concerning the fate of the "little things that run the world," as the late biologist E. O. Wilson once called them. As for the how and why of these declines, the prime culprits are habitat destruction, rampant use of pesticides, and climate change. But new research published March 30 in Biology Letters adds an unexpected suspect, at least for a large swath of North America: the earthworm. From a report: The study looked at 60 plots in an aspen and poplar forest in Alberta, Canada, and found that as the numbers of earthworms wriggling in the soil and leaf litter increased, the diversity and abundance of invertebrates aboveground decreased. These results might sound surprising, since earthworms are widely considered to be helpful garden residents. Worms earned their reputation by aerating and mixing soil with their burrows and releasing locked up nutrients in their castings, all of which can help certain plants thrive.

But this new study is part of a growing body of research suggesting that at least in the forests of northern North America, earthworms may not be the slimy angels of the underworld we tend to think they are. "When people talk about insect decline, they rarely talk about the soil," says Nico Eisenhauer, a soil ecologist at Leipzig University in Germany and one of the authors of the new study. "Many of the insects and invertebrates that are in decline have life phases in the soil. What you don't see flying around now has first disappeared from the soil, and earthworms can fundamentally alter soil conditions."

Earthworms' subterranean engineering isn't a problem in their native ecosystems, but in the northern half of North America, the glaciers of the last ice age wiped out virtually all soil-dwelling worms more than 10,000 years ago. The ice sheets covered nearly all of Canada, most of the northeast U.S., and much of the upper Midwest. When the ice receded, forests returned but the worms did not because they can only expand their range by a maximum of about 30 feet a year. These northerly ecosystems evolved for millennia in the absence of earthworms. Without worms munching through fallen foliage and churning the soil, these forests accumulated thick layers of leaf litter, which came to support a vast array of animals, fungi, and plants. Eisenhauer says even non-scientists can appreciate the difference.

Canada is joining the ranks of countries and states planning to ban sales of combustion engine cars. Engadget reports: Canada has outlined an Emissions Reduction Plan that will require all new passenger car sales to be zero-emissions models by 2035. The government will gradually ramp up pressure on automakers, requiring "at least" 20 percent zero-emissions sales by 2026 and 60 percent by 2030. Officials didn't say whether this applied to a make's product mix or simply the volume of cars sold. The strategy is more forgiving for the workplace -- the Canadian government wanted 35 percent of total medium- and heavy-duty vehicle sales to be zero-emissions by 2035, and 100 percent of a "subset" of those machines by 2040.

The country is also offering $1.7 billion CAD (about $1.36 billion US) to extend incentives for buying electric cars and other zero-emissions vehicles. The current federal program offers up to a $5,000 CAD ($4,010 US) rebate for EVs, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell cars that meet varying price, seat and battery requirements. Some provinces, such as British Columbia and Nova Scotia, offer their own incentives. The broader plan is meant to reduce emissions to 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050. This includes funds to support renewable energy projects, shrink oil industry emissions and develop "nature-based climate solutions."

About one-third of U.S. subscribers to Netflix share their login credentials with others, according to new data from Leichtman Research Group. From the report: The research firm's online survey of 4,400 consumers confirms the company's own conclusions in recent years. While 64% of respondents said they pay for and use Netflix only in their own household, 33% indicate some form of sharing. (The remaining 3% are households whose Netflix comes packaged via other subscriptions.) Netflix has about 74 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada and has penetrated nearly 70% of U.S. broadband homes. With subscription growth flattening in the region of late, Netflix has recently phased in rate increases in order to continue funding its $18 billion in annual programming spending. Earlier this month, Netflix announced a test of monthly fees for password-sharing in three territories outside of the U.S. The rise of password sharing between households, a blog post explained, is âoeimpacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.â

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it will expand its cybersecurity skilling initiative to 23 additional countries. The campaign, which began last year in the U.S., is part of the company's push to help solve the cybersecurity industry's growing talent problem, while also helping diversify the industry. From a report: Like many industries within tech, cybersecurity is facing both a workforce shortage and a widening skills gap among workers. According to Kate Behncken, vice president and lead of Microsoft Philanthropies, by 2025 there will be 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs open globally. Microsoft originally launched the skilling campaign in the U.S. last fall, partnering with 135 community colleges to skill and recruit workers into the cybersecurity industry. By expanding skilling and training to 23 countries, Microsoft aims to get ahead of the demand. The countries, which include Australia, Brazil, Canada and India, were chosen due to their "elevated cyberthreat risk."

Limiters cap amount of electricity households can use, making many appliances unusable. From a report: Josie Gagne was stumbling in the dark, sobbing while on the phone with an Enmax customer assistant, as she tried to locate the tiny orange button under the utility meter that would restore heat inside. It was the shock that got her. The young single mother with two kids under two returned home one winter day last year to find a note on her door from Enmax. She'd fallen behind on bills; the home was now on a limiter, capping her electricity. The furnace was off and at that point, she had no idea what a limiter even was. "I'm freaking out. I'm crying, thinking 'What am I going to do?'" she said. "It's the middle of winter, it's still cold outside. How am I going to feed my children when my oven doesn't work?"

Rising utility bills have community advocates worried the number of Calgarians facing this scenario will increase, and many don't know what a load limiter is. It's often the first step before disconnection. Several Calgary residents flagged the issue while sharing their utility bill experiences with CBC Calgary through text messaging, and on Calgary Kindness, a mutual aid Facebook group. They've shared their personal stories with CBC journalists so others know what to expect. Contributors said they were scared their fridge would lose power and their groceries would rot. They relied on air fryers, barbecues or a hot plate to make it through. The extra fees -- $52 for the notice, $52 to remove the limiter -- only made it worse. Plus, the black mark on their files means they often can't get a contract with more favourable fixed rates. When the device is installed, a stove or anything else requiring 240 volts of electricity won't work.

"Researchers testing repurposed drugs against Covid-19 found that ivermectin didn't reduce hospital admissions, in the largest trial yet of the effect of the antiparasitic on the disease driving the pandemic," reports the Wall Street Journal: Public-health authorities and researchers have for months said the drug hasn't shown any benefit in treating the disease.... The latest trial, of nearly 1,400 Covid-19 patients at risk of severe disease, is the largest to show that those who received ivermectin as a treatment didn't fare better than those who received a placebo. "There was no indication that ivermectin is clinically useful," said Edward Mills, one of the study's lead researchers and a professor of health sciences at Canada's McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
"That finding is consistent with long-standing FDA claims that ivermectin showed no benefits in clinical testing and could be dangerous in large doses," reports the New York Daily News.

These new findings "have been accepted for publication in a major peer-reviewed medical journal," notes Seeking Alpha.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has confirmed in an undertaking to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) that it would stop opening new accounts for users in the Canadian province, the regulator said on Thursday. The dispute between Binance and OSC started in June last year, when the exchange announced its decision to quit Ontario after a regulatory crackdown on crypto exchanges in the province for allegedly failing to meet securities laws. However, in December, Binance notified investors that it was allowed to continue its operations in Ontario while still being unregistered in the province, the OSC said.

In the undertaking, Binance also made a slew of other commitments, including halting trading in existing Ontario accounts, with certain exceptions that the company said were necessary "to protect investors." The crypto exchange also offered to provide fee waivers and reimbursements to certain Ontario users, and said it would hire an independent third party to oversee the implementation of its commitments.

A newly discovered fossilized vampire squid has been named after the US president, Joe Biden, a team of paleontologists has announced. From a report: The Syllipsimopodi bideni, which has been described as an "incredibly rare" fossil, was first dug up in Montana and then donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in 1988. But it sat untouched in a drawer for decades until a scientist pulled it out for a closer look. Speaking to the New York Times, Christopher Whalen, a paleontologist from New York's American Museum of Natural History, said he first noticed the squid's preserved arms and saw small suckers in the rock. "This was sitting in a museum since the 80s and no one realized it was important," said Whalen. "We chanced on that importance because I happened to notice the arm suckers." The Syllipsimopodi bideni drifted across oceans nearly 328m years ago. According to Whalen, it is the oldest known ancestor of vampyropods, a group that includes vampire squids and octopuses.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CoinTelegraph: As the West continues to impose more sanctions against Russian banks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one Ukrainian official has called for sanctions on Russians' cryptocurrency holdings as well. Mykhailo Fedorov, minister of digital transformation of Ukraine, took to Twitter on Sunday to urge the global cryptocurrency exchanges to block addresses of Russian users. He emphasized that exchanges should freeze not only the addresses tied to Russia and Belarus officially but also to "sabotage ordinary users." Fedorov subsequently pointed out that some industry-related services have already moved to freeze assets from Russia and Belarus, including the nonfungible token platform DMarket. "Funds from these accounts could be donated to the war effort. Nowadays Robin Hoods. Bravo," Fedorov stated. He also cited the ongoing measures taken by the social media giant Meta regarding Russia's attack on Ukraine. Fedorov's appeals could potentially be catastrophic for the Russian cryptocurrency market, as Russians were estimated to hold more than $200 billion in crypto as of early February.

Binance does not plan to freeze assets by Russians because this would contradict cryptocurrency's main principles of financial freedom, a spokesperson for the firm told Cointelegraph on Monday: "We are not going to unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users' accounts. Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe." The representative added that the exchange is taking measures to ensure that sanctions are against sanctioned entities in Russia while "minimizing the impact to innocent users." "Should the international community widen those sanctions further, we will apply those aggressively as well," the spokesperson added.

Some crypto executives believe that sanctions against Russia are eventually inevitable. However, they should target only select persons as the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control usually does. "We think that the sanctions will be inevitable by naming new sanctioned persons as US/OFAC has done in the past. However, banning all crypto companies from offering services to ordinary Russians would not make sense and would cause more harm for everyday people than good," LocalBitcoins chief marketing officer Jukka Blomberg told Cointelegraph. Kraken CEO Jesse Powell also said that the Kraken exchange will not be able to freeze the accounts of the exchange's Russian clients without a legal requirement. "Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent," he added. Powell previously recommended Kraken users move their crypto assets out of the exchanges, referring to Canada's Emergency Act freezing the crypto of dissidents.

Remember when Google threatened to leave Australia if the country implemented a "news media bargaining code" forcing social media platforms to pay news publishers? Wired reports: Google and Facebook did not leave; they paid up, striking deals with news organizations to pay for the content they display on their sites for the first time. The code was formally approved on March 2, 2021... One year after the media code was introduced, Google has 19 content deals with news organizations and Facebook has 11, according to [Australia's communications minister Paul] Fletcher. Now countries around the world are looking at Australia's code as a blueprint of how to subsidize the news and stop the spread of "news deserts" — communities that no longer have a local newspaper.

Canada is expected to propose its own version in March. Media associations in both the U.S. and New Zealand are calling for similar policies. Reports suggest the UK culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, is also planning to require platforms to strike cash-for-content deals.

The international interest has prompted fierce debate about how well Australia's code works.

"We know it works, we can see the evidence," says Fletcher. He points to how the deals are funding journalism in rural areas. Broadcaster The ABC said its deals with Facebook and Google enabled it to hire 50 regional journalists. Google, however, disagrees. It has accused the media code of stifling media diversity by giving media giants a better deal than smaller publishers. "The primary benefactors of such a code would be a small number of incumbent media providers," Google said in a submission to the U.S. Copyright Office, which is currently reviewing its own media laws....

The criticism of Australia's system focuses on its lack of transparency, which means that media companies cannot compare notes on the deals they are offered and there is a lack of clarity on which outlets are entitled to negotiate.... Concerns about the code's flaws are leaking into Canada, where Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party is drafting its own Australia-style legislation. "We're locking down the incumbent publishers, and we're locking down Google and Facebook's dominance as opposed to countering the dominance that exists on both sides," says Dwayne Winseck, journalism professor at Canada's Carleton University.... Yet Canada's news industry is willing to overlook these limitations because it considers the cash as a lifeline, according to Paul Deegan, president and chief executive of News Media Canada.... They are running out of time to save some of the media landscape, he explains — 40 newspapers have closed permanently since the start of the pandemic. "We've got a number of titles and even chains of titles that are quite literally teetering on the brink."

Deegan agrees the code isn't perfect. This is not a magic bullet, he says, "this is a badly needed Band-Aid."

On Thursday the head of Russia's space agency "warned that new sanctions imposed on his country could have dire consequences for the International Space Station program," reports Space.com (in an article shared by Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm): "Do you want to destroy our cooperation on the ISS?" read one of the tweets from Roscosmos Director-General Dimitry Rogozin, which was translated by Rob Mitchell for Ars Technica senior space editor Eric Berger, who shared Mitchell's translation on Twitter. Russia and the United States are the major partners in the ISS program, which also includes Canada, Japan and multiple European nations...

NASA, however, told Space.com later Thursday that civil cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in space will continue, particularly with regard to the ISS.

But Rogozin struck a much different tone, suggesting that the new sanctions could potentially result in the ISS crashing to Earth in an uncontrolled fashion. (The Russian segment of the ISS is responsible for guidance, navigation and control for the entire complex, according to the European Space Agency. And Russian Progress cargo craft provide periodic orbit-raising boosts for the ISS, to ensure that it doesn't sink too low into Earth's atmosphere....) Rogozin also stressed that the ISS would deorbit naturally without periodic reboosts courtesy of Progress freighters....

Just days ago, however, a Cygnus spacecraft built by aerospace company Northrop Grumman arrived at the ISS with a mandate to perform the program's first operational reboost, which may eventually transfer this capability to U.S. vehicles as well.
Business Insider reports that Thursday's tweets from the head of Russia's space agency also included a dire hypothetical. "If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled deorbit and fall into the United States or Europe?"

On Saturday Elon Musk "responded by posting the logo of his company, SpaceX." Musk appeared to confirm that SpaceX would get involved, should the ISS fall out of orbit. A Twitter user asked if that's what the tech mogul really meant, to which Musk simply replied: "Yes."

NASA, meanwhile, said it "continues working with Roscosmos and our other international partners in Canada, Europe, and Japan to maintain safe and continuous ISS operations," in a statement to Euronews.

The Huffington Post reports on "the most drastic financial sanction yet on Russian President Vladimir Putin: The United States and key allies will cut Russian banks out of the global financial messaging system SWIFT and begin to target Russia's central bank, according to a White House statement on Saturday...

The statement said the U.S., top European economies, Britain, and Canada would disconnect selected Russian banks from SWIFT, which will severely hurt their ability to operate internationally, and prevent Russia's central bank from using its foreign currency reserves to evade Western sanctions. The pro-Ukraine countries will also make it harder for wealthy Russians to obtain Western citizenship and launch a task force to freeze the assets of Russian elites — a bid to pressure Putin by hurting his friends....

It represents a significant escalation by America's European partners, many of whom worry about the economic toll their own countries will experience if they cut off ties with Russia.

In 2017, Bell Canada, TVA, Videotron, and Rogers teamed up in a lawsuit against the operator of TVAddons, the largest repository of Kodi add-ons. The legal action proved extremely controversial but now, after many twists and turns, the matter is now over. As part of a consent judgment (PDF), TVAddons' founder [Adam Lackman] has admitted liability and agreed to pay a cool US$19.5 million in damages. TorrentFreak reports: In a letter dated February 18, 2022, the media companies and Lackman told the Federal Court that they had resolved their differences by agreeing to a consent judgment. That was reviewed and issued by Justice Rochester, who laid out the agreed terms in her judgment handed down February 22, 2022. Lackman admits to communicating TV shows owned by the plaintiffs to the public, including by directly or indirectly participating in the "development, hosting, distribution or promotion of Kodi add-ons that provide users with unauthorized access" to the plaintiffs' TV shows, contrary to sections 3(1)(f) and 27(1) of the Copyright Act. The TVAddons founder further admits that he made the TV shows available to the public in a manner that provided access "from a place and at a time individually chosen by them" and induced and authorized users of the infringing add-ons to "initiate acts of infringement of the Plaintiffs' right to communicate the Plaintiffs Programs to the public by telecommunication," again by developing, hosting, distributing or promoting Kodi add-ons.

The Federal Court issued a permanent injunction to restrain Lackman (and anyone acting with him, under his authority, or in association) from communicating the plaintiffs' content to the public in any way, including via the development or distribution of infringing add-ons such as the 'FreeTelly' and 'Indigo' tools. The terms of the injunction are lengthy and comprehensive, leaving no doubt that TVAddons and all related tools and services are now dead, with Lackman unable to do anything remotely similar in the future.

"THIS COURT ORDERS the Defendant Mr. Lackman to pay the Plaintiffs the amount of twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000) in the form of a lump sum for damages, profits, punitive and exemplary damages, and costs," Justice Rochester writes. The judgment is in Canadian dollars but for reference, that's currently around US$19.5 million. The judgment also authorizes the bailiffs and independent supervising solicitor (with the assistance of computer forensics experts) to transfer the evidence obtained during the search of June 2017 to the media companies. Exactly what data was seized is currently unclear but it is likely to be sensitive, particularly if the trove includes user data and/or information about Kodi add-on developers. Finally, it appears the media companies will also be taking control of "login credentials, accounts, domains, subdomains and servers" in order to bring this years-long battle to a conclusion. Adam Lackman announced his relief on Twitter, noting that "It wasn't the outcome I had hoped for, but an outcome nonetheless."

New submitter LZ_Mordan writes: David Heinemeier Hansson, the Ruby on Rails web development framework creator, took to Twitter on Monday to tell his followers that he was no longer a Bitcoin skeptic. "I still can't believe that this is the protest that would prove every Bitcoin crank a prophet. And for me to have to slice a piece of humble pie, and admit that I was wrong on crypto's fundamental necessity in Western democracies," Hansson wrote. In a blog post titled "I was wrong, we need crypto," the Danish programmer mentioned that he's been skeptical about Bitcoin and the crypto industry in general since the early 2010s.

He noted that some of his biggest arguments against Bitcoin were the cryptocurrency's energy consumption, transaction fees, the lack of real decentralization, supposed fraud involving Tether (USDT) stablecoin and many others. But all these arguments do not provide enough reasons to disregard cryptocurrencies as a tool to support freedom and democracy in situations where countries like Canada impose martial law in response to peaceful protest movements, Hansson argued, stating: "It's clear to me now that I was too hasty to completely dismiss crypto on the basis of all the things wrong with it at the moment. Instead of appreciating the fundamental freedom to transact that it's currently our best shot at protecting."

Mike Cannon-Brookes thought Australia's biggest polluter wasn't doing enough to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, so he sought to buy the company. From a report: Mr. Cannon-Brookes, the co-founder of Nasdaq-listed software company Atlassian teamed up with Canada's Brookfield Asset Management to try to acquire electricity generator AGL Energy Ltd., in a proposal valued at more than $3.5 billion. Central to their ambition is a plan to shut AGL's coal-fired power plants years ahead of schedule and replace them with renewable energy. AGL, which the Australian government's Clean Energy Regulator says is Australia's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, said Monday that it had rejected the takeover proposal as too low.

The company plans to close the last of its coal plants by 2045. Mr. Cannon-Brookes and Brookfield, whose head of investing in low-carbon technology is former Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney, say they can make AGL a net-zero emitter by 2035. "AGL accounts for over 8% of Australia's emissions," Mr. Cannon-Brookes said. That is more than the current emissions of Australia's domestic aviation industry and fleet of jets flying on international routes, or every car on the country's roads, he added.

Since being rolled out to users in the U.S. and Canada, Meta's social VR platform for the Quest headset, Horizon Worlds, has grown its monthly user base by a factor of 10x to 300,000 people. "Meta spokesperson Joe Osborne confirmed the stat and said it included users of Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, a separate app for attending live events in VR that uses the same avatars and basic mechanics," reports The Verge. "The number doesn't include Horizon Workrooms, a VR conferencing experience that relies on an invite system." From the report: Before its December rollout, Horizon Worlds was in a private beta for creators to test its world-building tools. Similarly to how the gaming platform Roblox or Microsoft's Minecraft works, Horizon Worlds lets people build custom environments to hang out and play games in as legless avatars. Meta announced this week that 10,000 separate worlds have been built in Horizon Worlds to date, and its private Facebook group for creators now numbers over 20,000 members.

Meta still hasn't disclosed how many Quest headsets it has sold to date, which makes it hard to gauge Horizon's success relative to the underlying hardware platform it runs on. But several third-party estimates peg sales at over 10 million for the Quest. Zuckerberg recently said that Meta would release a version of Horizon for mobile phones later this year to "bring early metaverse experiences to more surfaces beyond VR."

"So while the deepest and most immersive experiences are going to be in virtual reality, you're also going to be able to access the worlds from your Facebook or Instagram apps as well, and probably more over time," the CEO said on Meta's last earnings call. Bringing Horizon to mobile would position it as even more of a competitor to Rec Room, a well-funded, social gaming app with 37 million monthly users across gaming consoles, mobile phones, and VR.

The U.S. produced more petroleum than it consumed in 2020, and the numbers were essentially in balance in 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration. Axios reports: The surge in oil prices taking place in 2022 has radically different implications for the U.S. economy -- and for key geopolitical relationships in the Middle East and Russia -- than in past episodes when energy prices have risen. In the past, when oil prices spiked, the impact on the U.S. economy was straightforward: It made America poorer, as more of our income went overseas to pay for imported energy. Now, after the shale gas revolution of the last 15 years, the impact is more subtle. Higher fuel prices disadvantage consumers and energy-intensive industries, yes. But there is a counteracting surge in incomes for domestic energy producers and their workers. Higher oil prices no longer depress overall measures of prosperity like GDP and national income, but rather shift it around toward certain regions. Texas and North Dakota win; Massachusetts and North Carolina lose.

As recently as 2010, America imported 9.4 million barrels a day of oil more than it exported. That had swung to a 650,000 barrel per day surplus in 2020, and preliminary numbers for 2021 show trade pretty much in balance last year. To the degree the U.S. does still import oil, more of it is coming from our closest ally. Canada was the source of 51% of U.S. petroleum imports in the first 10 months of 2021, compared with 8% from the Persian Gulf. By contrast, the Gulf states supplied more than 30% of American petroleum imports in 2008.

Five major Canadian banks went offline for hours blocking access to online and mobile banking as well as e-transfers for customers. From a report: The banks reportedly hit by the outage include Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), BMO (Bank of Montreal), Scotiabank, and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). Canada's five major banks went offline yesterday impeding access to e-Transfers, online and mobile banking services for many.