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Prince Harry jokes about getting a tattoo on his a** in hilarious video with singer Jelly Roll
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Princely Umanmielen's return to the Swamp ended with a police escort . Umanmielen, who spent three years at Florida before transferring to Ole Miss, left the stadium with a number of officers surrounding him. And the defensive end still tried to get at heckling fans. It started when Umanmielen left the sideline in the waning seconds of a 24-17 loss to the Gators . He was walking toward the visiting locker room when at least one fan yelled at him from the stands. Umanmielen clearly didn't like what he heard and made his way toward the seats. Officers quickly stepped in and escorted Umanmielen back toward the locker room. They then walked him directly to the team's waiting busses, but more fans were in the path and shouted at him again. Umanmielen turned and started toward the fans before officers stepped in and stopped him. It was the latest bit of oddness for Umanmielen, who wore an orange Gators ski mask through Ole Miss' practice facility late in the week. He finished the game with seven tackles, including a sack. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-footballRENTON, Wash. — The Seattle Seahawks offense has done its part to come out on top during the team’s three-game win streak, but the players and coaches know they’ve left some meat on the bone. Maintaining first place in the NFC West requires better execution in several areas. One of those areas is short-yardage situations. This was a point of emphasis entering Week 10’s bye because of struggles in back-to-back home losses to the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams , and it remains a focus for the Seahawks (7-5) ahead of their high-stakes rematch Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals (6-6).
Hafiz Naeem urges PTI founder to denounce Israel
Addressing devotees as chief guest at the 99 birth anniversary celebrations of Satya Sai Baba at the Sai Kulwanth Hall in Prasanthinilayam in Puttaparthi of Satya Sai district on Saturday, the Governor said there have been many rishis, munis, sufis, acharyas and saints who have guided humanity on the right path. “In our age, Sai Baba spread spirituality across the globe and took up social services on a large scale,” Abdul Nazeer pointed out. He commended the Sri Satya Sai Central Trust for initiating construction of a 6,100 KW solar power generation plant, the largest by an NGO in the country. The Governor recalled Sri Sathya Sai Baba teaching that a human’s basic nature is divine and his / her purpose is to realise that divinity. Such realisation comes by leading a moral life, rendering selfless service to those in need, engaging in devotional practices, and developing love, respect and compassion for all life. Abdul Nazeer underlined that for Sathya Sai Baba, spiritualism had not been through rituals, but by providing selfless service to people and education to students. BC welfare minister Savitha, MLAs Sindhura Reddy and M.S. Raju, and SP V. Rathna were among those present.Maybe 15 minutes before the Wild hosted and defeated the Nashville Predators on Saturday, general manager Bill Guerin took a few minutes to talk to the media about his first noteworthy acquisition of the season—the trade with Columbus, which will bring David Jiricek to the State of Hockey in the first few days of December. Maybe it’s just the pessimistic nature of a fanbase that hasn’t seen a men’s professional team play for a championship in more than three decades, but the grumbling had begun even before the collected media had reached the press box for Saturday’s game. “Seems like a lot to pay for a minor-leaguer,” was one of the comments overheard at the rink on Saturday. Indeed, to get Jiricek – the sixth overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft – and a lower-round pick, Guerin surrendered defenseman Daemon Hunt and four draft picks, including Minnesota’s 2025 first-rounder and a second round pick in 2027. He wasted no time in getting an up-close look at the new guy, calling Jiricek up to the NHL level on Sunday, and sending former Gophers forward Travis Boyd back down to Iowa. Guerin and Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell are old friends from their time working together with the Pittsburgh Penguins. But there was no discount offered from Waddell to his old pal in Minnesota. “It took awhile. Donny,” Guerin said with an exasperated grin. “He played with me. He’s one of my old mentors. He made me work for it. He’s the best.” Still, Guerin would not have pulled the trigger had he not believed in two things: 1) The Wild can turn all of Jiricek’s size (6-foot-4) and potential into another piece of their bright future on the blue line. 2) The price they paid was not as steep as it might look on the surface. To that second point, consider that Hunt was not really part of the Wild’s NHL-level defensive picture, even at a time like this when Jonas Brodin’s long-term viability is a serious question mark. And after getting two points with an overtime win over the Predators on Saturday, the Wild were tied for the most points in the NHL, meaning that at this pace, that 2025 first-round draft pick is going to come in the 25th spot or later. If the Wild go into a tailspin this season, the pick sent to Columbus is lottery protected, meaning the Blue Jackets will not get to pick in the top 10 at the Wild’s expense. To the first point, Jiricek is a player Guerin and his assistants have had their eye on for some time, even before he was named the top defenseman in the tournament while playing for Czechia in the 2023 World Juniors. “He’s not 30, he’s not a rental. He’s a 21-year-old defenseman that we can invest in. And we did. That’s how I look at it. It’s an investment,” Guerin said. In 2022, the Wild grabbed Liam Ohgren with the 19th overall pick, more than a dozen selections after Jiricek was picked by Columbus and was posing for pictures in a new red-white-and-blue sweater. “He was somebody that we really liked (during) his draft year. We knew we weren’t going to get him, but we liked him,” Guerin said. “And, you know, when this became available, I did my due diligence and asked our staff what they thought. They were all on board with it. So it’s good.” Perhaps in hopes of getting the fans on board, Guerin also stressed patience. Jiricek has not yet been a star in the NHL, despite his high draft stock. But the Wild are confident that their system of developing players — especially defensemen — is the change the new guy needs. “He’s a young player. He’s got a lot to learn. He’s going to continue to improve, just like all young players,” Guerin said, name-dropping two youthful every-night members of the Wild roster who still have ample room to grow. “Brock Faber’s got to get better. Matt Boldy’s still going to get better. All these guys are going to continue to improve because they’re so young. So just because they’re in the NHL doesn’t mean they’re not going to develop their game and get better. That’s our job as the coaches, management. That’s our job to help him get better.” If he has to spend some future draft capital to put those pieces in place, that is clearly a chance Guerin is willing to take.FGen to supply 100% renewable energy to FEU campuses
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'Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense': Bush adviser says Hegseth doesn't know nomination diedBamboo Technology's HereHear Virtual AI Therapist Joins Berkeley Skydeck IPP ProgramMUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — Payton Sparks scored 20 points off of the bench to lead Ball State past Evansville 80-43 on Saturday. Sparks had five rebounds for the Cardinals (5-6). Jermahri Hill added 13 points while going 5 of 14 (1 for 5 from 3-point range) while he also had eight rebounds and four steals. Jeremiah Hernandez had 12 points and shot 3 of 9 from the field, including 2 for 3 from 3-point range, and went 4 for 5 from the line. Michael Day led the Purple Aces (3-9) in scoring, finishing with 13 points. Evansville also got 11 points and seven rebounds from Tanner Cuff. Gui Tesch also recorded five points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .Article content The rising cost of living has been taking a greater bite out of Canadians’ wallets since the pandemic, with the average price of all goods and services up by about 18 per cent cumulatively over the past four years. But as general inflation has pinched pocketbooks, it has also focused attention on a more insidious problem: hidden, sometimes excessive “ junk fees ,” that have become bane of consumers everywhere. “There are just so many ways that prices are being played with, and it’s a kind of competition to see who can most sneakily get more money out of you,” says Ken Whitehurst, executive director of the non-profit Consumers Council of Canada. “I think people are very justifiably angry. We are evolving into a transaction economy where nobody is making money off of the great product or service they’re delivering, they’re just making money off of how many times they can manipulate the transaction.” It isn’t hard to find examples. Charges labelled as processing fees, administrative fees, service fees or booking fees abound across a variety of major industries. And because many sectors — including airlines, banks, telecom companies and grocery store chains — are controlled by a few big players , experts say Canadians often have limited options for exercising choice and taking their business elsewhere. That combination has attracted the attention of the federal government and various regulatory agencies, which are starting to target pricing agreements that either disguise the real price of an item or potentially trap consumers into paying additional fees for a product or service they already use. Tackling junk fees and drip pricing In the 2023 federal budget , the government vowed to strengthen the Competition Act and target “higher telecom roaming charges, event and concert fees, excessive baggage fees, and unjustified shipping and freight fees.” Earlier this year, Ottawa said it will introduce regulations that require banks to cap non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees at $10 — a fraction of the $45 to $48 currently charged by the Big Five banks. And in October, the CRTC ordered cellphone companies to take “concrete steps” toward making roaming fees more affordable. One specific practice that is under the microscope target has been the use of “drip pricing,” where consumers are lured in by a low advertised price that doesn’t include additional hidden fixed charges for a product or service, a tact that is illegal under the Competition Act. Over the past few years, several headline-making fines have been doled out to companies for misleading pricing. In 2019, Ticketmaster paid a $4.5 million penalty for “allegedly misleading pricing claims in online ticket sales,” where fees piled on an extra 20 per cent to 65 per cent onto advertised prices. Ticket resale website TicketNetwork paid a $825,000 fine for similar misleading advertising in 2023. In September, the Competition Tribunal issued Cineplex a record $38.9-million fine, ruling that the theatre chain committed drip pricing through an $1.50 online booking fee. Cineplex has filed an appeal. In the book The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians, co-authors Vass Bednar and Denise Hearn call unjustified junk fees “a kind of lazy man’s innovation.” In an interview with the Financial Post, Bednar noted that some fees charged by private businesses and public institutions are legitimately related to the cost of doing business. For example, because credit card processing fees are costly to merchants in Canada, they’re allowed to add an optional surcharge on credit card purchases of up to 2.4 per cent per transaction — it just has to be clearly disclosed to the cardholder before the transaction, and cardholders must also have the option to pay using debit or cash instead. “Sometimes these fees are real, genuine, supplementary and necessary fees,” Bednar says. “Other times, when (fees) are junk, they are just tacked on and inflate the price because a firm can, and that’s where we see firms trying to take advantage of us.” Searching for a solution Within Canada, Whitehurst says Ontario and Quebec have stronger consumer protection laws compared with other provinces. “Quebec consumer protection law is more assertive,” he says. “The Quebec government, directly and indirectly provides some funding to their consumer organizations, and they’re organized a bit differently. There’s kind of a blending, more like what you would see in the U.K., where the consumer organizations are involved in service delivery as well as policy development representation.” Bednar says the United States is “more voracious and a bit more ambitious” on competition-related issues compared with Canada, but she sees an opportunity for Canada to take inspiration and shift its approach. “There’s a U.S.-led campaign around ending junk fees at the state level. But here, probably partially a function of our historically weak consumer protection, it’s not catching on. I think it’s just not as resonant as it should be. Tackling junk fees and banking is actually huge and very provocative, especially since we have a pretty cozy banking sector,” she says. One study, from Alberta based consultancy North Economics Ltd., found that Canada’s Big Five banks are costing Canadians $7.7 billion in extra fees each year, with Canadians paying higher fees for “inferior service and slow innovation” compared with consumers in Australia and the United Kingdom. The study explores fees ranging from chequing account service fees, insufficient funds fees, overdraft fees, bank machine fees. While more competition and choice are often touted as a solution to Canada’s woes, Whitehurst says it’s a multifaceted issue that requires transparency, meaningful consumer representation, collaboration between federal, provincial and territorial governments, and “sufficient courageousness” among the people tasked with enforcing laws to take action. To help reduce or avoid paying extra fees, non-profit advocacy organization Consumer Reports recommends tactics like negotiating, questioning or complaining about fees. But Whitehurst says it’s not fair to treat the issue as a consumer responsibility — there might not be anyone to ask upfront about additional charges, they might not give an honest answer, or consumers might not be offered an agreement to consider in advance, such as an unexpected charge added to a restaurant or hotel bill “Our best suggestion for consumers is to call their members of legislatures and tell them they want more legal protections and more proactive oversight and enforcement of consumer protection law, regulation and standards,” he says. “Don’t vote for those who won’t commit to reform and then demonstrate they will take action.” Bednar also says that it shouldn’t be up to individuals to solve structural issues, but does see value in the power of calling out junk fees on social media, directly asking companies to provide justification for fees, and reporting deceptive marketing tactics to consumer protection authorities like the Competition Bureau . “Citizens need to be a part of reporting or inquiring and starting to build that awareness around what’s a junk fee and what’s not,” she says. “And I don’t see people being engaged in that way yet, so that’s definitely an area of opportunity.” Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the business news you need to know — add financialpost.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.
Hail Flutie: BC celebrates 40th anniversary of Miracle in Miami
AMHERST — The past few weeks have been tough for climate activism, and longtime climate activist Bill McKibben, who makes his home in Vermont, is feeling the heat. This year will be the hottest year on record, breaking the record-setting temperatures from 2023. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly denied facts or relayed false information about climate change, most recently claiming that sea level rise will increase seaside property values. Even at the international level, global climate conferences produced little progress on limiting CO2 and other climate-changing gases, McKibben noted, as represented by Azerbaijan’s president proclaiming that gas and oil are “a gift from God” at COP29. “The fossil fuel industry has achieved, in its own mind, all of its aims,” said McKibben, founder of international grassroots climate movement 350.org . “They mobilized every bit of money that they could, and they’re firmly convinced that they are in control of the situation in a way that they haven’t been for a while.” Yet it’s during these difficult times that McKibben refocuses on his “North Star”: the sun. Renewable energy is now cheaper to produce than coal and gas, McKibben said, largely due to China’s incredibly cheap and efficient solar panel production. “We’ve done extraordinary work over the years to try and stop the fossil fuel industry as much as we could, to stand up to pipelines, to demand divestment on and on. Those things will be hard for the next four years,” he said. “But now we have economic gravity working in the right direction, and we just have to speed it along.” For the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s third annual Ellsberg Lecture, “Back to the Wall, Face to the Sun” on Monday night, McKibben told a packed audience at the Old Chapel how the world has begun to embrace the most effective tool for displacing fossil fuels and mitigating climate change. He plans to continue the climate fight by championing the growth of renewable energy infrastructure, even under the current dire circumstances. “I do think that it is a spectacular notion to imagine powering this world on energy from heaven, not from hell,” McKibben said. McKibben has spoken out against fossil fuels since the late 1980s. Influential author and journalist, he wrote “End of Nature,” a book credited with first introducing the concept of climate change to a general audience. He founded the first international grassroots climate movement 350.org in 2007. Recently, McKibben was campaigning in swing states with the Third Act, a climate movement aimed at seniors. Article continues after... Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess The work of activists like himself, McKibben said, coupled with innovation by engineers, laid the groundwork for the surge in renewable energy happening all over the world. Pakistan, a country hit hard by hot, smoggy cities and extreme flooding linked to climate change, took advantage of its proximity to China and built 50% of the national electric grid with solar panels in just a year. As a result, the country will use 30% less diesel fuel in 2024 than in 2023, he said. “I was surprised that renewable energy was actually less expensive,” said lecture attendee Amy Vongvasin, a Northfield Mount Hermon School student. “People here are probably still stuck on the notion that one of the barriers toward it (renewable energy) is the price, but it’s not.” The cost of solar panels, however, is not just money. McKibben said land and mining for toxic raw materials are both required to create the renewable energy infrastructure vital to society, but those costs are nowhere near the footprint of land and resources used to produce coal, gas and oil. Solar panels require rare-earth metals, including lithium and cobalt mined from deep in the ground, which McKibben said can leave “a wound on the surface of the planet.” But unlike oil drilling or coal mining, materials in solar panels and batteries can be recycled effectively after their lifespans, which he said can be extended to 40 years or so. “Rocky Mountain Institute put out a paper that said essentially we should be able to do almost all the mining that we’re going to need to do for the ‘green tech revolution’ by about 2050, after which point it should just be constant recirculation that we’ve taken out of the ground,” he said. Similarly, drilling in oil fields, working coal mines and even using cornfields for ethanol production take up huge swaths of land in the Midwest, South and western United States. Greener energy not only uses significantly less land, McKibben said, but the land can be dual-purpose. Solar fields in Vermont have experimented with growing native plants for pollinators, he noted, and solar panels are much more efficient energy producers than plants. “If this (acre of land) was growing corn to be used for ethanol, that acre would produce about enough ethanol to drive a Ford F-150 about 25,000 miles,” McKibben said. “If you cover it in solar panels, it produces enough electricity to drive the Ford F-150 Lightning, not 25,000 miles, but 550,000 miles.” During the question-and-answer portion of his talk Monday, McKibben addressed several questions about the intersection between geopolitics and climate change. He called renewable energy a natural rebalancing of global power because every human on Earth has access to the sun, as opposed to the few countries in the Global North with concentrated amounts of fossil fuels that must be distributed around the world. “I really like the way he was talking about how the sun goes around the Earth every day, and how that’s free transportation of the electricity that we need,” Northfield Mount Hermon School student Maeve Tholen said. “It was really beautiful and made me feel a lot more hopeful about some of these things that are hard for people to wrap their heads around because they’re so scientific and political.” McKibben asked the audience what the Pioneer Valley could do if it treated local electrons like local crops. The hundreds of millions of dollars the area spends on gas, oil and coal would instead be invested back into society, therefore fostering community like never before, he said. “This is a great revolution, and one of its blessings is that it’s inherently a little more small ‘d’ democratic than the thing that it replaces,” McKibben said. “It moves us in the direction of community, because the sun and the wind are everywhere.” Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.U.N. Secretary-General Seems a Bit Concerned His 'Climate Finance' Is Drying UpJimmy Carter: Many evolutions for a centenarian ‘citizen of the world’
Prince Harry jokes about getting a tattoo on his a** in hilarious video with singer Jelly Roll
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Princely Umanmielen's return to the Swamp ended with a police escort . Umanmielen, who spent three years at Florida before transferring to Ole Miss, left the stadium with a number of officers surrounding him. And the defensive end still tried to get at heckling fans. It started when Umanmielen left the sideline in the waning seconds of a 24-17 loss to the Gators . He was walking toward the visiting locker room when at least one fan yelled at him from the stands. Umanmielen clearly didn't like what he heard and made his way toward the seats. Officers quickly stepped in and escorted Umanmielen back toward the locker room. They then walked him directly to the team's waiting busses, but more fans were in the path and shouted at him again. Umanmielen turned and started toward the fans before officers stepped in and stopped him. It was the latest bit of oddness for Umanmielen, who wore an orange Gators ski mask through Ole Miss' practice facility late in the week. He finished the game with seven tackles, including a sack. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-footballRENTON, Wash. — The Seattle Seahawks offense has done its part to come out on top during the team’s three-game win streak, but the players and coaches know they’ve left some meat on the bone. Maintaining first place in the NFC West requires better execution in several areas. One of those areas is short-yardage situations. This was a point of emphasis entering Week 10’s bye because of struggles in back-to-back home losses to the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams , and it remains a focus for the Seahawks (7-5) ahead of their high-stakes rematch Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals (6-6).
Hafiz Naeem urges PTI founder to denounce Israel
Addressing devotees as chief guest at the 99 birth anniversary celebrations of Satya Sai Baba at the Sai Kulwanth Hall in Prasanthinilayam in Puttaparthi of Satya Sai district on Saturday, the Governor said there have been many rishis, munis, sufis, acharyas and saints who have guided humanity on the right path. “In our age, Sai Baba spread spirituality across the globe and took up social services on a large scale,” Abdul Nazeer pointed out. He commended the Sri Satya Sai Central Trust for initiating construction of a 6,100 KW solar power generation plant, the largest by an NGO in the country. The Governor recalled Sri Sathya Sai Baba teaching that a human’s basic nature is divine and his / her purpose is to realise that divinity. Such realisation comes by leading a moral life, rendering selfless service to those in need, engaging in devotional practices, and developing love, respect and compassion for all life. Abdul Nazeer underlined that for Sathya Sai Baba, spiritualism had not been through rituals, but by providing selfless service to people and education to students. BC welfare minister Savitha, MLAs Sindhura Reddy and M.S. Raju, and SP V. Rathna were among those present.Maybe 15 minutes before the Wild hosted and defeated the Nashville Predators on Saturday, general manager Bill Guerin took a few minutes to talk to the media about his first noteworthy acquisition of the season—the trade with Columbus, which will bring David Jiricek to the State of Hockey in the first few days of December. Maybe it’s just the pessimistic nature of a fanbase that hasn’t seen a men’s professional team play for a championship in more than three decades, but the grumbling had begun even before the collected media had reached the press box for Saturday’s game. “Seems like a lot to pay for a minor-leaguer,” was one of the comments overheard at the rink on Saturday. Indeed, to get Jiricek – the sixth overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft – and a lower-round pick, Guerin surrendered defenseman Daemon Hunt and four draft picks, including Minnesota’s 2025 first-rounder and a second round pick in 2027. He wasted no time in getting an up-close look at the new guy, calling Jiricek up to the NHL level on Sunday, and sending former Gophers forward Travis Boyd back down to Iowa. Guerin and Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell are old friends from their time working together with the Pittsburgh Penguins. But there was no discount offered from Waddell to his old pal in Minnesota. “It took awhile. Donny,” Guerin said with an exasperated grin. “He played with me. He’s one of my old mentors. He made me work for it. He’s the best.” Still, Guerin would not have pulled the trigger had he not believed in two things: 1) The Wild can turn all of Jiricek’s size (6-foot-4) and potential into another piece of their bright future on the blue line. 2) The price they paid was not as steep as it might look on the surface. To that second point, consider that Hunt was not really part of the Wild’s NHL-level defensive picture, even at a time like this when Jonas Brodin’s long-term viability is a serious question mark. And after getting two points with an overtime win over the Predators on Saturday, the Wild were tied for the most points in the NHL, meaning that at this pace, that 2025 first-round draft pick is going to come in the 25th spot or later. If the Wild go into a tailspin this season, the pick sent to Columbus is lottery protected, meaning the Blue Jackets will not get to pick in the top 10 at the Wild’s expense. To the first point, Jiricek is a player Guerin and his assistants have had their eye on for some time, even before he was named the top defenseman in the tournament while playing for Czechia in the 2023 World Juniors. “He’s not 30, he’s not a rental. He’s a 21-year-old defenseman that we can invest in. And we did. That’s how I look at it. It’s an investment,” Guerin said. In 2022, the Wild grabbed Liam Ohgren with the 19th overall pick, more than a dozen selections after Jiricek was picked by Columbus and was posing for pictures in a new red-white-and-blue sweater. “He was somebody that we really liked (during) his draft year. We knew we weren’t going to get him, but we liked him,” Guerin said. “And, you know, when this became available, I did my due diligence and asked our staff what they thought. They were all on board with it. So it’s good.” Perhaps in hopes of getting the fans on board, Guerin also stressed patience. Jiricek has not yet been a star in the NHL, despite his high draft stock. But the Wild are confident that their system of developing players — especially defensemen — is the change the new guy needs. “He’s a young player. He’s got a lot to learn. He’s going to continue to improve, just like all young players,” Guerin said, name-dropping two youthful every-night members of the Wild roster who still have ample room to grow. “Brock Faber’s got to get better. Matt Boldy’s still going to get better. All these guys are going to continue to improve because they’re so young. So just because they’re in the NHL doesn’t mean they’re not going to develop their game and get better. That’s our job as the coaches, management. That’s our job to help him get better.” If he has to spend some future draft capital to put those pieces in place, that is clearly a chance Guerin is willing to take.FGen to supply 100% renewable energy to FEU campuses
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'Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense': Bush adviser says Hegseth doesn't know nomination diedBamboo Technology's HereHear Virtual AI Therapist Joins Berkeley Skydeck IPP ProgramMUNCIE, Ind. (AP) — Payton Sparks scored 20 points off of the bench to lead Ball State past Evansville 80-43 on Saturday. Sparks had five rebounds for the Cardinals (5-6). Jermahri Hill added 13 points while going 5 of 14 (1 for 5 from 3-point range) while he also had eight rebounds and four steals. Jeremiah Hernandez had 12 points and shot 3 of 9 from the field, including 2 for 3 from 3-point range, and went 4 for 5 from the line. Michael Day led the Purple Aces (3-9) in scoring, finishing with 13 points. Evansville also got 11 points and seven rebounds from Tanner Cuff. Gui Tesch also recorded five points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .Article content The rising cost of living has been taking a greater bite out of Canadians’ wallets since the pandemic, with the average price of all goods and services up by about 18 per cent cumulatively over the past four years. But as general inflation has pinched pocketbooks, it has also focused attention on a more insidious problem: hidden, sometimes excessive “ junk fees ,” that have become bane of consumers everywhere. “There are just so many ways that prices are being played with, and it’s a kind of competition to see who can most sneakily get more money out of you,” says Ken Whitehurst, executive director of the non-profit Consumers Council of Canada. “I think people are very justifiably angry. We are evolving into a transaction economy where nobody is making money off of the great product or service they’re delivering, they’re just making money off of how many times they can manipulate the transaction.” It isn’t hard to find examples. Charges labelled as processing fees, administrative fees, service fees or booking fees abound across a variety of major industries. And because many sectors — including airlines, banks, telecom companies and grocery store chains — are controlled by a few big players , experts say Canadians often have limited options for exercising choice and taking their business elsewhere. That combination has attracted the attention of the federal government and various regulatory agencies, which are starting to target pricing agreements that either disguise the real price of an item or potentially trap consumers into paying additional fees for a product or service they already use. Tackling junk fees and drip pricing In the 2023 federal budget , the government vowed to strengthen the Competition Act and target “higher telecom roaming charges, event and concert fees, excessive baggage fees, and unjustified shipping and freight fees.” Earlier this year, Ottawa said it will introduce regulations that require banks to cap non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees at $10 — a fraction of the $45 to $48 currently charged by the Big Five banks. And in October, the CRTC ordered cellphone companies to take “concrete steps” toward making roaming fees more affordable. One specific practice that is under the microscope target has been the use of “drip pricing,” where consumers are lured in by a low advertised price that doesn’t include additional hidden fixed charges for a product or service, a tact that is illegal under the Competition Act. Over the past few years, several headline-making fines have been doled out to companies for misleading pricing. In 2019, Ticketmaster paid a $4.5 million penalty for “allegedly misleading pricing claims in online ticket sales,” where fees piled on an extra 20 per cent to 65 per cent onto advertised prices. Ticket resale website TicketNetwork paid a $825,000 fine for similar misleading advertising in 2023. In September, the Competition Tribunal issued Cineplex a record $38.9-million fine, ruling that the theatre chain committed drip pricing through an $1.50 online booking fee. Cineplex has filed an appeal. In the book The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians, co-authors Vass Bednar and Denise Hearn call unjustified junk fees “a kind of lazy man’s innovation.” In an interview with the Financial Post, Bednar noted that some fees charged by private businesses and public institutions are legitimately related to the cost of doing business. For example, because credit card processing fees are costly to merchants in Canada, they’re allowed to add an optional surcharge on credit card purchases of up to 2.4 per cent per transaction — it just has to be clearly disclosed to the cardholder before the transaction, and cardholders must also have the option to pay using debit or cash instead. “Sometimes these fees are real, genuine, supplementary and necessary fees,” Bednar says. “Other times, when (fees) are junk, they are just tacked on and inflate the price because a firm can, and that’s where we see firms trying to take advantage of us.” Searching for a solution Within Canada, Whitehurst says Ontario and Quebec have stronger consumer protection laws compared with other provinces. “Quebec consumer protection law is more assertive,” he says. “The Quebec government, directly and indirectly provides some funding to their consumer organizations, and they’re organized a bit differently. There’s kind of a blending, more like what you would see in the U.K., where the consumer organizations are involved in service delivery as well as policy development representation.” Bednar says the United States is “more voracious and a bit more ambitious” on competition-related issues compared with Canada, but she sees an opportunity for Canada to take inspiration and shift its approach. “There’s a U.S.-led campaign around ending junk fees at the state level. But here, probably partially a function of our historically weak consumer protection, it’s not catching on. I think it’s just not as resonant as it should be. Tackling junk fees and banking is actually huge and very provocative, especially since we have a pretty cozy banking sector,” she says. One study, from Alberta based consultancy North Economics Ltd., found that Canada’s Big Five banks are costing Canadians $7.7 billion in extra fees each year, with Canadians paying higher fees for “inferior service and slow innovation” compared with consumers in Australia and the United Kingdom. The study explores fees ranging from chequing account service fees, insufficient funds fees, overdraft fees, bank machine fees. While more competition and choice are often touted as a solution to Canada’s woes, Whitehurst says it’s a multifaceted issue that requires transparency, meaningful consumer representation, collaboration between federal, provincial and territorial governments, and “sufficient courageousness” among the people tasked with enforcing laws to take action. To help reduce or avoid paying extra fees, non-profit advocacy organization Consumer Reports recommends tactics like negotiating, questioning or complaining about fees. But Whitehurst says it’s not fair to treat the issue as a consumer responsibility — there might not be anyone to ask upfront about additional charges, they might not give an honest answer, or consumers might not be offered an agreement to consider in advance, such as an unexpected charge added to a restaurant or hotel bill “Our best suggestion for consumers is to call their members of legislatures and tell them they want more legal protections and more proactive oversight and enforcement of consumer protection law, regulation and standards,” he says. “Don’t vote for those who won’t commit to reform and then demonstrate they will take action.” Bednar also says that it shouldn’t be up to individuals to solve structural issues, but does see value in the power of calling out junk fees on social media, directly asking companies to provide justification for fees, and reporting deceptive marketing tactics to consumer protection authorities like the Competition Bureau . “Citizens need to be a part of reporting or inquiring and starting to build that awareness around what’s a junk fee and what’s not,” she says. “And I don’t see people being engaged in that way yet, so that’s definitely an area of opportunity.” Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the business news you need to know — add financialpost.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.
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AMHERST — The past few weeks have been tough for climate activism, and longtime climate activist Bill McKibben, who makes his home in Vermont, is feeling the heat. This year will be the hottest year on record, breaking the record-setting temperatures from 2023. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly denied facts or relayed false information about climate change, most recently claiming that sea level rise will increase seaside property values. Even at the international level, global climate conferences produced little progress on limiting CO2 and other climate-changing gases, McKibben noted, as represented by Azerbaijan’s president proclaiming that gas and oil are “a gift from God” at COP29. “The fossil fuel industry has achieved, in its own mind, all of its aims,” said McKibben, founder of international grassroots climate movement 350.org . “They mobilized every bit of money that they could, and they’re firmly convinced that they are in control of the situation in a way that they haven’t been for a while.” Yet it’s during these difficult times that McKibben refocuses on his “North Star”: the sun. Renewable energy is now cheaper to produce than coal and gas, McKibben said, largely due to China’s incredibly cheap and efficient solar panel production. “We’ve done extraordinary work over the years to try and stop the fossil fuel industry as much as we could, to stand up to pipelines, to demand divestment on and on. Those things will be hard for the next four years,” he said. “But now we have economic gravity working in the right direction, and we just have to speed it along.” For the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s third annual Ellsberg Lecture, “Back to the Wall, Face to the Sun” on Monday night, McKibben told a packed audience at the Old Chapel how the world has begun to embrace the most effective tool for displacing fossil fuels and mitigating climate change. He plans to continue the climate fight by championing the growth of renewable energy infrastructure, even under the current dire circumstances. “I do think that it is a spectacular notion to imagine powering this world on energy from heaven, not from hell,” McKibben said. McKibben has spoken out against fossil fuels since the late 1980s. Influential author and journalist, he wrote “End of Nature,” a book credited with first introducing the concept of climate change to a general audience. He founded the first international grassroots climate movement 350.org in 2007. Recently, McKibben was campaigning in swing states with the Third Act, a climate movement aimed at seniors. Article continues after... Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess The work of activists like himself, McKibben said, coupled with innovation by engineers, laid the groundwork for the surge in renewable energy happening all over the world. Pakistan, a country hit hard by hot, smoggy cities and extreme flooding linked to climate change, took advantage of its proximity to China and built 50% of the national electric grid with solar panels in just a year. As a result, the country will use 30% less diesel fuel in 2024 than in 2023, he said. “I was surprised that renewable energy was actually less expensive,” said lecture attendee Amy Vongvasin, a Northfield Mount Hermon School student. “People here are probably still stuck on the notion that one of the barriers toward it (renewable energy) is the price, but it’s not.” The cost of solar panels, however, is not just money. McKibben said land and mining for toxic raw materials are both required to create the renewable energy infrastructure vital to society, but those costs are nowhere near the footprint of land and resources used to produce coal, gas and oil. Solar panels require rare-earth metals, including lithium and cobalt mined from deep in the ground, which McKibben said can leave “a wound on the surface of the planet.” But unlike oil drilling or coal mining, materials in solar panels and batteries can be recycled effectively after their lifespans, which he said can be extended to 40 years or so. “Rocky Mountain Institute put out a paper that said essentially we should be able to do almost all the mining that we’re going to need to do for the ‘green tech revolution’ by about 2050, after which point it should just be constant recirculation that we’ve taken out of the ground,” he said. Similarly, drilling in oil fields, working coal mines and even using cornfields for ethanol production take up huge swaths of land in the Midwest, South and western United States. Greener energy not only uses significantly less land, McKibben said, but the land can be dual-purpose. Solar fields in Vermont have experimented with growing native plants for pollinators, he noted, and solar panels are much more efficient energy producers than plants. “If this (acre of land) was growing corn to be used for ethanol, that acre would produce about enough ethanol to drive a Ford F-150 about 25,000 miles,” McKibben said. “If you cover it in solar panels, it produces enough electricity to drive the Ford F-150 Lightning, not 25,000 miles, but 550,000 miles.” During the question-and-answer portion of his talk Monday, McKibben addressed several questions about the intersection between geopolitics and climate change. He called renewable energy a natural rebalancing of global power because every human on Earth has access to the sun, as opposed to the few countries in the Global North with concentrated amounts of fossil fuels that must be distributed around the world. “I really like the way he was talking about how the sun goes around the Earth every day, and how that’s free transportation of the electricity that we need,” Northfield Mount Hermon School student Maeve Tholen said. “It was really beautiful and made me feel a lot more hopeful about some of these things that are hard for people to wrap their heads around because they’re so scientific and political.” McKibben asked the audience what the Pioneer Valley could do if it treated local electrons like local crops. The hundreds of millions of dollars the area spends on gas, oil and coal would instead be invested back into society, therefore fostering community like never before, he said. “This is a great revolution, and one of its blessings is that it’s inherently a little more small ‘d’ democratic than the thing that it replaces,” McKibben said. “It moves us in the direction of community, because the sun and the wind are everywhere.” Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.U.N. Secretary-General Seems a Bit Concerned His 'Climate Finance' Is Drying UpJimmy Carter: Many evolutions for a centenarian ‘citizen of the world’
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