NEW YORK (AP) — Employee wages are one of the biggest costs for small businesses.

A new survey found some owners may be seeing a bit of relief when it comes to wages. But while some say wage growth has stabilized or slowed, others note they haven’t seen any moderation in their industries yet.

The Paychex Small Business Employment Watch found hourly earnings growth for workers at firms with 50 employees or less dropped to 2.89% in August. It’s the first time growth has dropped below 3% since January 2021.

“After holding steady for several months, hourly earnings growth continued to decelerate in August,” said John Gibson, Paychex president and CEO. “Falling below three percent for the first time in three years is another notable signal that the labor market is moving closer to its pre-pandemic level.”

John Wilson, the owner of Wilson Plumbing and Heating in Akron, Ohio, with more than 150 employees, said labor costs are one of his biggest expenses, making up about 50%-70% of his budget. He said he’s seen wages going up steadily over the years but he’s seeing signs of stabilization — some recent job candidates have been more open to salary negotiations, for example.

“If labor costs aren’t managed well, it could disrupt the entire business,” he said.

Albert Brenner owns a manufacturing business, Altraco, in Thousand Oaks, California. He said he hasn’t seen signs of a significant deceleration in wages yet. His top concerns right now are inflation, supply chain disruptions and the overall economy, but labor costs are one of his largest expenses.

“We are constantly balancing the need to offer competitive wages to retain skilled workers with the need to manage our overall expenses,” he said.

According to the Paychex data, one-month annualized hourly earnings growth dropped to 1.91%. The national jobs index increased 0.02 percentage points to 99.89 in August, indicating nominal year-over-year job losses. The national small business jobs index has averaged 100.37 through eight months of 2024, representing modest employment growth.

The jobs index is scaled to 100. Index values above 100 represent new jobs being added, while values below 100 represent jobs being lost.

Gibson said that the data supports broader trends of a cooling labor market and expectations that the Federal Reserve could begin lowering interest rates soon.

Josh Miller, CEO of Clean Carpets, a professional carpet cleaning service based in Austin, Texas, with six employees, said labor costs account for almost 45% of his total operational costs.

He said he hasn’t felt any deceleration in wage growth, mainly since, as a service-based business, finding skilled workers who can also run the company’s specialized equipment is always a challenge.

”The labor market in Austin is extremely competitive for skilled labor, so we continue to pay either at or above market rates to retain our talent,” he said. “Inflation may be cooling, but we continue to experience upward pressure on wages to attract and retain reliable staff.”

The Paychex Small Business Employment Watch draws from the payroll data of about 350,000 Paychex clients.

Mae Anderson, The Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — After his traffic stop in Miami on Sunday, Tyreek Hill talked about “the talk” — instructions passed down in Black families for generations about what to do when pulled over by police.

Keep your hands in sight, preferably on the steering wheel. Avoid any sudden movements. Don’t talk back to the officer. And above all, follow instructions without error or delay.

Heeding that advice in the heat of the moment can be hard, as Hill’s own experience showed when the star wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins was stopped for speeding and reckless driving before the team’s first game of the season.

His interaction with police — captured in a now-viral cellphone video and body camera footage — escalated and is yet again prompting a larger discussion about the realities of “driving while Black.” According to a national law enforcement survey, traffic stops of Black drivers are more likely to include the threat or use of force.

Body camera video shows Hill rolled down the driver’s side window and handed his license to a Miami-Dade County officer knocking on the window. Hill then told the officer repeatedly to stop knocking, before he rolled the darkly tinted window back up.

After a back and forth about the window, the body camera video shows an officer pulled Hill out of his car by his arm and head and then forced him face first onto the ground on a street outside the team’s stadium.

The officers handcuffed Hill and one put a knee in the middle of his back.

“It happened so fast that it caught me off guard,” Hill said in a postgame interview on Sunday. Later, he said he was “embarrassed” and “shell-shocked” by the situation.

‘If I wasn’t Tyreek Hill’

For many, Hill’s encounter with police drives home a reality that Black men in particular disproportionately experience what he did. Even if the encounter doesn’t end in tragedy, it confirms an ongoing need for the talk.

Hill wondered what would have happened if he wasn’t a celebrity.

“If I wasn’t Tyreek Hill, worst-case scenario, we would have had a different article — ‘Tyreek Hill got shot in front of Hard Rock Stadium.’ That’s worst-case scenario,” his said in a CNN on Monday.

Fact of life for Black Americans

Other Black Dolphins players said they were used to seeing the kind of police conduct that Hill experienced.

“I won’t say it was scary. It’s something I’m used to seeing,” linebacker David Long Jr. said.

Dolphins safety Jevon Holland said it was “not unnatural” to see police conduct the traffic stop that way – including what the footage appeared to show: one officer striking his handcuffed teammate. One of at least three officers involved in detaining Hill was placed on leave pending an internal investigation.

The Miami-Dade Police Department’s top officer, Director Stephanie Daniels, told the Miami Herald on Monday that the decision to place the officer on leave came after a review of the body camera footage, which she later said would not normally be released during an ongoing investigation but was, in this case, to maintain “public trust.”

“Excessive force on a Black man, that’s not uncommon. It’s a very common thing in America,” Holland said. “So I think that needs to be addressed at a countrywide level.”

Dolphins tight end Jonnu Smith, who was at the scene to support Hill, echoed Holland’s sentiments.

“Obviously we all see the police brutality that goes on in this country, and when you see your teammate possibly being part of that, you’re doing everything in your power to help him,” he said.

Doing exactly as you’re told is no guarantee against discrimination or excessive use of force, said Andrew Grant-Thomas, co-founder of EmbraceRace, a nonprofit that provides resources for parents and educators.

Furthermore, he said, perfectly, subserviently obeying law-enforcement commands “shouldn’t be the standard for any of us in dealing with police,” said Grant-Thomas, who is Black. “There are things like rights.”

Treading carefully around police

Still, it often feels like white parents can talk to their children about how to maintain their rights with the police, he said, but for Black kids, it’s not about rights but “about survival.”

According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics’ special report released in 2022, Black people and Hispanic people were more likely than white people to experience the threat or use of force in 2020. Black people were also more likely to be shouted at by police than white people.

Black drivers were more likely than white drivers to experience no enforcement action during their most recent traffic stop, according to the report. But among those who did experience an enforcement action, white drivers were more likely to be let off with a warning than drivers of any other race or Hispanic origin.

Just like Hill, Grant-Thomas was taught at a young age to tread carefully when it comes to police.

“I’m not going to talk back, I’m going to put my hands at 10 and two o’clock and all those things because the reality is that this person can kill me. It doesn’t matter then whether my rights were observed,” he said.

Grant-Thomas also noticed how quickly people used Hill’s past allegations of violence to justify any excessive use of force.

“What’s astonishing to me — although it shouldn’t be — is how many people immediately began to speculate in ways that were really in terms that were unfavorable to him,” Grant-Thomas said. “Because of who he was or who they supposed him to be, that for many people seems to justify the police treatment in a way that actually doesn’t make any sense.”

Hill’s end-zone victory dance on Sunday that included mimicking being cuffed made many people feel validated in their opinion that the wide receiver had been wronged.

Police and NFL players

Many Black NFL players have long used their platforms, on and off the field, to draw attention to racial disparities in law enforcement.

In 2014, five St. Louis Rams players stood with their arms raised in an apparent show of solidarity with protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, before trotting onto the field for pregame introductions. The “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture referred to a debunked claim that Michael Brown, a Black teenager, had his hands raised in surrender when he was shot by a white officer.

And perhaps the most famous on-field anti-brutality gesture was sparked by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the national anthem, in the wake of fatal police shootings in 2016.

“Unless there’s a conversation actually about this, if it’s simply floating out there and people are talking in their echo chambers,” Grant-Thomas said. “I think the point really will have been lost.”

____

AP Race & Ethnicity Editor Aaron Morrison reported from New York City. AP writers Terry Tang, Alanis Thames and Terry Spencer contributed from Phoenix, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Aaron Morrison, Alanis Thames And Terry Tang, The Associated Press

The Securities and Exchange Commission says that Keurig Dr. Pepper Inc. will pay $1.5 million to settle charges that it made inaccurate statements about the the recyclability of its K-Cup single use beverage pods.

The agency said in its order that in annual reports for fiscal years 2019 and 2020, Keurig stated that its testing with recycling facilities “validate(d) that (K-Cup pods) can be effectively recycled.” But Keurig didn’t disclose that two of the country’s biggest recycling companies had expressed significant concerns to Keurig about the commercial feasibility of curbside recycling of K-Cup pods at that time and indicated that they did not presently intend to accept the pods for recycling.

The SEC said Tuesday that Keurig agreed to a cease-and-desist order and to pay the civil penalty, without admitting or denying the findings in the agency’s order.

Keurig Dr. Pepper, based in Burlington , Massachusetts, said in an emailed statement that it was pleased to reach an agreement that fully resolves the matter.

“Our K-Cup pods are made from recyclable polypropylene plastic (also known as #5 plastic), which is widely accepted in curbside recycling systems across North America,” the company said in a statement. “We continue to encourage consumers to check with their local recycling program to verify acceptance of pods, as they are not recycled in many communities. We remain committed to a better, more standardized U.S. recycling system for all packaging materials through KDP actions, collaboration and smart policy solutions.”

Michelle Chapman, The Associated Press

The family of a girl set on fire in her high school said they have high hopes for her recovery. The victim has been sent to Edmonton for further hospital treatments.

The Department of Health and Community Services is monitoring an increase in pertussis cases throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. To date, in 2024, there have been 230 confirmed cases of pertussis throughout the province.

Pertussis is a contagious respiratory infection that can lead to severe complications, especially in vulnerable populations. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, and progress to episodes of severe, prolonged coughing, often accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.

Symptoms can last from weeks to months. Infants are at the highest risk of complications, such as pneumonia and seizures.

The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date as cases continue to increase throughout the province.

Pertussis can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective means of controlling the spread of pertussis. Pertussis vaccination is offered to:

• All children at two, four, six, and 18 months of age;
• All children between four to six years of age;
• All children in Grade 9;
• Pregnant people between 27 to 32 weeks gestation for each pregnancy; and
• Adults at least 10 years from their school-age dose.

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services has expanded immunization efforts this school year in response to the rising number of pertussis cases across the province. While booster doses are already given in Grade 9, the whooping cough vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students, as well.

For more information on pertussis vaccination schedules, symptoms, and preventive measures, please consult your healthcare provider or contact your local public health office.

Individuals in the Central, Labrador-Grenfell, and Western Zones who have questions about pertussis booster/Tdap vaccine availability are asked to call their local public health clinic/community health office. For contact information, please refer to the NL Health Services’ zone’s website: Central, Labrador-Grenfell, and Western

In our season seven premiere, we welcome the managing director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy and former mayor of Toronto, David MIller. We discuss the crucial role of cities in “fixing” the climate crisis, what we can learn in building sustainable and equitable urban communities and explore the question of just how prepared Canadian cities are to meet the challenges of this crisis.

Reflecting on the key role of cities in dealing with the climate crisis, Miller says:

“The international community said, okay, climate change is a problem. And then they took 21 years to come to an agreement. Twenty-one years! … A mayor would be thrown out if she waited 21 years to act on anything. It’s just inconceivable. So the nature of city governments lends themselves to action. And because they have responsibilities that significantly impact on whether we’re going to have low-impact cities from a planetary perspective, whether we’re going to have cities that emphasize equality or produce inequality. Their actions are really important.”

About today’s guest: 

David Miller is the managing director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy.  He is the author of “Solved: how the great cities of the world are fixing the climate crisis” (University of Toronto Press). 

Miller was Mayor of Toronto from 2003 to 2010 and served as Chair of C40 Cities from 2008 until 2010. Under his leadership, Toronto became widely admired internationally for its environmental leadership, economic strength and social integration. He is a leading advocate for the creation of sustainable urban economies.  

Miller has held a variety of public and private positions and served as Future of Cities Global Fellow at Polytechnic Institute of New York University from 2011 to 2014. He has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Waterloo in Environmental Studies, an Honorary Doctor of Laws from York University and is currently executive in residence at the University of Victoria.

David Miller is a Harvard trained economist and professionally is a lawyer. He and his wife, lawyer Jill Arthur, are the parents of two children.

Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute or here. 

Image: David Miller  / Used with permission.

Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased. 

Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy) 

Courage My Friends podcast organizing committee: Chandra Budhu, Ashley Booth, Resh Budhu. 

Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca. 

Host: Resh Budhu. 

The post Climate and the city: Are we ready? appeared first on rabble.ca.

Imagine being able to collect groceries, drop your kids off at school and access health care within a 15 minute walk or bike ride from your home?  For many Kamloopsians living outside of the downtown or North Shore cores, day-to-day life likely requires getting into a vehicle and facing some traffic congestion. So you may be surprised to learn that a small group of vocal residents are concerned about an urban planning concept that promotes walkability called “15 minute cities.” Social media posts have circulated misinformation and even conspiracy theories about the concept, leading some residents to question its purpose and intent. 

The Wren reached out to local organizations, the City of Kamloops and residents to explain the concept of 15 minute cities and how it applies to Kamloops. 

What is a 15 minute city?

“The concept was put forward as a way of increasing livability in cities,” Gisele Ruckert, a volunteer at Transition Kamloops Network Ruckert tells The Wren. “The intent is that people would be able to meet their daily needs within close proximity to where they live.”

The Transition Kamloops Network is a volunteer and nonprofit organization. It has the goal of building local resilience and self-sufficiency, while taking into consideration social capacity, economic strength and environmental resilience. Ruckert has become very familiar with the concept of 15 minute cities through her work with Transition Kamloops. 

A 15 minute city in practice means applying mixed-use neighborhoods in urban planning. Importantly, it also includes access to active transportation links, Ruckert says. 

“People have more freedom of movement and walkability,” she explains. “They can choose to drive somewhere or they can choose to walk because it’s within walking distance.”

Glen Cheetham is the climate and sustainability manager with the City of Kamloops. His responsibilities are to advance the city’s climate action commitments at a community and corporate scale, in addition to helping the municipality decarbonize and improve the efficiency of buildings and municipal services. 

By also providing transit, cycling and walking networks, and having those in close proximity to neighborhoods, Cheetham explains the urban planning concept of a 15 minute city seeks to create communities that support the integration of daily needs and amenities in existing neighborhoods.

Is Kamloops a 15 minute city?

In 2007, climate regulations and legislation were introduced through the B.C. Climate Action Charter. All B.C. communities who voluntarily signed this document, including Kamloops, agreed to track their greenhouse gas emissions and lower them since some of the most effective climate responses can happen at the local level. Municipalities have influence over 60 per cent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions through public infrastructure, according to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Kamloops has also committed to adopt “complete compact communities.”

“Complete compact communities is really another name for a 15 minute city,” Cheetham says.“Kamloops in its various plans has identified neighbourhood centres, so if you look at the official community plan, it focuses on reducing sprawl and increasing the walkability and livability.”

This is done by encouraging higher density in certain areas, like more residential units and taller buildings that are closer to shopping centers. 

When it comes to walkability, the City of Kamloops’ community planning manager Stephen Bently acknowledges Kamloops has a ways to go. 

As the person in charge of overseeing development and maintenance for the city, his work mainly focuses on the Official Community Plan (OCP) which guides the patterns of development of the city. 

“The city was planned out decades ago initially,” Bentley says. “It’s not going to be possible for everybody to live in a 15 minute city because the way the city is set out is pretty spread out.”

Kamloops’ latest OCP, known as KAMPLAN, was adopted by council in 2018 based on resident feedback and engagement. Kamloops’ 2021 Community Climate Action Plan (CCAP) includes goals and sub-goals related to walkability based on community hubs, like the Tranquille Market Corridor. City council has an obligation to ensure land use decisions are consistent with these goals. 

The province also passed a bill last year requiring local governments to update their bylaws to allow higher density development in close proximity to transit exchanges. 

Last June, the city updated KAMPLAN to support this bill in the three transit exchanges in the city. Next spring the city will be updating the OCP to accommodate these new initiatives. 

The city is also building active transportation and walking networks so people are less reliant on cars, like the Kamloops North-South Bicycle Corridor.

“Kamloops is very car dependent,” Cheetham says. “Our emissions associated with personal vehicles are higher than the B.C. average. It’s simply a reflection of the footprint of our city. It’s fairly sprawled.”

Going a step further, Kamloops is aiming to become a 10 minute city. The CCAP includes this concept. 

According to the CCAP, one goal is that by 2050, 90 per cent of residents will be able to access their daily needs and transit within a 10 minute walk or roll, whether that is by cycling, mobility scooter or car. 

Cheetham clarified that the 10 minute city concept is not something the city is specifically measuring in terms of timing to get to amenities. It is the rough idea of how long it would take to get to different places within the city. 

Transition Kamloops also supports the idea of Kamloops becoming a 10 minute city because it will mean increasing the urban housing density. 

“Our infrastructure hasn’t yet caught up to the goal that we have. It’s a work in progress,” Ruckert says. 

“We’re making progress. We changed some of the zoning requirements to support mixed use and multifamily developments within what used to be exclusively single-family home neighborhoods, which I think is a great way to increase affordability.”

The city is also working on property tax exemptions for new developments in certain areas, Bentley explains. On the North Shore and the downtown of Kamloops, for example, developers can get a 10 year property tax break to encourage density near amenities. 

New legislation from the province requires local governments to amend their zoning bylaws to permit additional dwelling units on residential lots.

What are some of the concerns around the 15 minute concept?

In conversations with members of the community, Transition Kamloops heard opposition to the concept of 15 minute cities, mainly centering around concerns that it would limit where and what vehicles people can drive. 

“I think it’s really hard for us to imagine why people wouldn’t want to live in a place where you have the choice of walking to the store or biking and having the greater freedom,” Ruckert says. 

“Approximately 30 per cent of the Canadian population can’t drive or doesn’t drive and our urban design needs to serve all of us.”

That 30 per cent takes into account young people who cannot drive and people of all ages who have mobility challenges and might be unable to get a vehicle or drive. 

Some residents push back against the idea of a 15 minute city, arguing Kamloops lacks the public transportation for the change. Others say they do not trust local politicians will implement these policies in a way that benefits them. 

Marshall Krueger, a member of Kamloops Citizens for Change and resident of Kamloops for 36 years, has seen little improvement in the city’s public transportation. 

“Since political interests are clearly not in improving public transportation despite decades of talk surrounding environmental issues, I believe that the concept of the 15 minute city is being used to further the interests of developers and other land interests with political allies instead of the ‘greater good; greenwashing it’s being sold under,” he writes to The Wren over Facebook. 

Bentley agreed that transportation needs improvement. However, he explains there is limited funding available for transit from the province.

Cheetham has also heard responses similar to Krueger’s, including doubts about the planning of 10 minute cities. 

“It’s been misconstrued that it’s a plan to somehow restrict people’s freedom of movement between neighbourhood centres,” Cheetham says. “The intent is to provide residents with more transportation choices to travel in our city, to have more freedom of choice. Not be so restricted to just using a car.”

Krueger also argues implementing 15 minute city urban planning deprives people of ownership of buildings or property, and reduces the idea of economic self-sufficiency. 

“I’m certainly aware of the conspiracy theories, but I think that it comes from a place of lack of trust and suspicion of authority in general which is a growing trend across Canada,” Ruckert says. 

“I think that the term [15 minute city] itself has become polarizing,” she adds. “I think the idea makes perfect sense.”

Where did concerns about 15 minute cities begin?

Local concerns about the 15 minute city concept echo misleading information spread online. Since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, misformation has circulated on social media alongside hashtags like #climatescam and #climatecult falsely suggesting 15 minute cities would amount to a resident “climate lockdown,” CNN reports.

Some posts suggest these policies are orchestrated by a network of global elites with ties to the United Nations or the World Economic Forum, conspiracies USA Today has also debunked.

In Canada, climate skeptic Jordan Peterson helped popularize these conspiracies by attacking 15 minute cities on X, formerly Twitter.

Peterson has presented his views with the right-wing organization Action4Canada, which has a history of promoting anti-LGBTQ2S+ and racist materials and campaigns. 

Action4Canada has created and distributed campaign materials for citizens to oppose 15 minute cities with specific mention of Kamloops as a case study.

These online materials challenge climate science, alleging policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will “destroy the economy, isolate citizens and restrict mobility” and would amount to “full government control” of people’s lives.

As Reuters and other news outlets have reported, there is no evidence the concept would limit freedom of movement. 

Kamloops’ 10 minute city goals do not aim to stop traffic or charge residents for traveling to certain areas. In Canada, freedom of mobility is a Charter-protected right. 

What is the city doing right now to become a 15 minute city?

Representatives from the city say they are continuing to work on identifying priority areas to increase housing density and mixed uses, such as apartments above shops and restaurants, as well as improving access to transit to achieve the goal set for 2050.

Every year, city staff groups assigned as CCAP implementation leads summarize their progress to date on each action item. The 2023 report can be found on the city website.

Transition Kamloops is also working to engage residents on what they would like to see in their own neighbourhood to make it more livable, as well as advocating for better active transportation infrastructure or housing cooperatives.  

Ruckert acknowledges there are challenges in Kamloops with a population of more than 108,00 people spread over 299 square kilometres. 

“That is a very low density footprint as a whole and there are some areas that are already more dense, but transit certainly needs improvement to support users, especially in outlying areas,” Ruckert says. “There are people there who don’t want to or can’t afford to use a car on an ongoing basis.” 

The idea of freedom of movement sans vehicles is something Cheetham echos.

“Walkable communities are more equitable communities,” he says. “They increase access to daily needs, and reduce inequities in the community by improving walkability.”

The post Fact check: What is a 15 minute city and why are some Kamloopsians concerned? appeared first on The Wren.

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A Fredericton woman awaiting trial on drug-trafficking and firearms charges found herself in custody this weekend, arrested on a new assault complaint, but she was released Monday.

Taylor Elizabeth Moore, 31, of Emmerson Street, appeared in Fredericton provincial court remotely from the women’s jail in Miramichi on Monday, scheduled to go through a bail hearing.

She was charged on the weekend of Aug. 30 counts of assaulting Melissa Martin, breaching a police undertaking to have no contact with Martin and breaching a judicial release order requiring her to observe a nightly curfew at her home.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Constantine Orbelian was promoted Tuesday to executive director of the largely dormant New York City Opera, which hasn’t given a staged performance since 2022 and says it will return with William Grant Still’s “Troubled Island” at City Center in 2025-26.

Orbelian, 68, became music director for the 2021-22 season and added the title of executive director one day after Michael Capasso’s retirement as general director was announced by board chairman emeritus Roy G. Niederhoffer.

“I’m a person who likes to try to resurrect things. I have a kind of a pretty good track record of doing that,” Orbelian said.

City Opera has been limited to occasional recitals and parks performances since 2022, when it gave the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s “The Garden of the Finzi Continis” at the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and performances of Peter Rothstein’s “All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914″ at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Its tax return for the year ending in June 2023 showed assets of $977,303 and liabilities of $2,055,101. Contributions and grants declined to $599,634 from $1.22 million in 2021-22 and ticket revenue was $237,547.

“There needs to be, of course, a minimal amount of money to be able to function,” Orbelian said. “We’re not going to jump into huge deficits or anything like that,.”

City Opera gave its first performance in 1944 and presented more than 100 in some seasons, first at City Center and then at Lincoln Center’s New York State Theater starting in 1966. It gave exposure to Beverly Sills, Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming early in their careers.

Its fortunes began to decline when it skipped its regular 2008-09 season to allow renovations at the State Theater, then appointed George Steele as general director in 2009. City Opera filed for bankruptcy in 2013, returned in 2016 and presented several productions per season through 2018-19, then dropped two in 2019-20 — cut to one because of the pandemic. Its endowment shrunk from $48 million in 2008 to $5.1 million in 2012 to $1.4 million in 2022, according to tax returns.

Orbelian was music director of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra from 1991-2010, and general and artistic director of the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in Yerevan, Armenia, from 2016-21. He has been principal conductor of the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra since 2014.

He said he increased the Moscow Chamber Orchestra’s schedule to 150 concerts per year outside of Russia.

‘I kind of resurrected the Armenian opera house by bringing in 14 new productions in three years when they had four productions in the previous 18 years,” he said. “I love a challenge.”

“Troubled Island,” with a libretto by Langston Hughes and Verna Arvey, was given its world premiere by City Opera on March 31, 1949, and was the first opera by a Black composer produced by a major U.S. company. The work focuses on Jean Jacques Dessalines and a Haitian revolution.

City Opera plans a Carnegie Hall concert this season of works by Mieczysław Weinberg and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Orbelian said future plans include Pietro Mascagni’s “Isabeau,” a co-production with Opera Holland Park that was presented in London in 2018.

“Tomorrow we’re not going to be building new sets,” Orbelian said, “but we do have 15 productions that we actually own that are in the warehouse, and a number of them have not been done yet here in New York.”

Ronald Blum, The Associated Press

CHURCHILL, Manitoba (AP) — Change has broken, remade and continues to reshape this remote town where tundra meets forest on the shore of Hudson Bay.

The economic base collapsed when the military left town. Rail service and cargo ships — the lifeblood of supplies for a town not connected to the rest of the world by roads — blinked out. The weather is warming, signature animals are dwindling and even the ground is shifting.

Through it all, Churchill has adapted. The town turned to tourism, luring people eager to see its plentiful polar bears. Leaders figured out ways to revitalize its port and railway. As climate change has edged into the picture, they’ve begun designing more flexible buildings and seeking to entice more varied visitors if, as scientists fear, shrinking sea ice crashes the bear population.

Residents, government officials and experts say the town is a model for coping with dramatic shifts and attribute it to the rural mindset that focuses on fixing, not whining.

Churchill sits about 1,700 kilometers (1,055 miles) north of Winnipeg. The town had thousands of people before the military base and a rocket research launch site shut down decades ago. Those sites fell into decay, and what had been a bustling port closed. Train service stopped for more than a year as weather shattered poorly maintained tracks.

As the town dwindled, bears began coming to town more often, no longer frightened away by noise from the base and rocket launches and made desperate as climate change shrank the Hudson Bay ice they depend on as a base for hunting.

A local mechanic built a fat-tired, souped-up recreational vehicle to see bears safely. Photos and documentaries attracted tourists, who spend $5,000 a visit on average and millions of dollars overall. Churchill now bills itself as the polar bear capital of the world, and though it has no stoplights, it features upscale restaurants and plenty of mom-and-pop hotels.

If that comes to an end, Churchill hopes to be ready.

The town is promoting tourism for beluga whales, although those too may be harmed as the entire Hudson Bay ecosystem, including the food the belugas eat, shifts to one usually seen further south. It’s also highlighting visitors’ prospects for seeing the northern lights, spotting birds they can’t see at home, and even trying dogsledding.

“In time you’re going to lose bear season. And we know that. Anyway, it’s just a matter of we’re going to have to adapt to that change,” said Mike Spence, mayor since 1995. “You can’t stew over it. That’s not going to get you any points.”

Spence grew up with the military installation “and all of a sudden it closes and then all of a sudden you get the tourists, the abundance of wildlife and the aurora. That’s where you take advantage of it. You sort of tweak things and you improve life.”

The shuttered port and the damaged train tracks? The town took them over and got both running again. Ground sinking because the weather is getting rainier and permafrost is thawing? New buildings like the ones at Polar Bears International, a nonprofit conservation organization with headquarters in the city, have metal jacks that can be adjusted when a corner sinks nearly half a foot in five years.

Lauren Sorkin, executive director of the Resilient Cities Network, said every city should have a plan to adapt to climate change’s effect on economy and tourism.

“Churchill is a standout example of a city that is planning ahead to protect communities and preserve our natural environment and its biodiversity,” she said.

Spence, who is Cree, grew up with no electricity or running water in “the flats” on the outskirts of town, which was run by a white minority. Churchill is about two-thirds Indigenous with Cree, Metis, Inuit and Dene. Spence recalls his father saying that if only he spoke better English he could tell officials how to fix the town.

“I think I’m doing that for him,” Spence said. “You don’t just say ‘I got a problem.’ You go there with the fix.”

You can’t drive to Churchill. Food, people, cargo, everything gets there by rail, boats or plane. Rail is the cheapest, and most residents travel by taking the overnight train to Thompson, then driving south from there.

Until a few years ago the train tracks, which had been leased to a private company, were not being maintained properly and the wet, stormy spring of 2017 created 22 washouts of the line between Churchill and points south, Spence said. The company couldn’t afford to fix them.

Big storms in Churchill are as much as 30% rainier than 80 years ago because of human-caused climate change, said Cornell University climate scientist Angie Pendergrass.

“Service stopped dead” for 18 months, Spence said. “It was just devastating.”

Meanwhile, there weren’t enough goods coming into the aging port. Spence said that shipping hub and rail lines needed to operate as an integrated system, and not be run by an absentee U.S. owner, so the town negotiated with the federal and provincial governments for local control and federal financial help.

In 2018, Arctic Gateway Group, a partnership of 41 First Nations and northern communities, took ownership of the port and rail line. Rail service returned on Halloween that year. Manitoba officials said that in the last two years 610 kilometers of track have been upgraded and 10 bridges repaired. Shipping in the port has more than tripled since 2021, including the return of its first cruise ship in decade, they said.

Earlier this year, officials announced another $60 million in port and rail funding.

Local ownership is key in Churchill, said former Chamber of Commerce president Dave Daley, who left town in the 1980s but returned after five years because he and his wife missed it. Big hotel chains poked around once and said they could fix up the town’s infrastructure and build something big.

“We all stood and said ‘no’,” Daley said. “We’re a tight-knit group. We have our different opinions and everything else but we know how we want Churchill to be.”

As Churchill evolves, its forgotten past has surfaced at times as tourists ask about residents and their history, said longtime resident Georgina Berg, who like Spence lived on the flats as a child. That past includes “not-so-happy stories” about forced relocation, missing women, poverty, subsistence hunting, being ignored, deaths and abuse, said Berg, who is Cree.

Daley, a dogsled racer and president of Indigenous Tourism Manitoba, tells of how the Metis people were especially ignored, abused and punished, yet he ends the history lesson with an abrupt shift.

“We can’t change five minutes ago, but we can change five minutes from now,” Daley said. “So that’s what I teach my kids. You know it’s nice to know the history and all the atrocities and everything that happened, but if we’re going to get better from that we have to look forward and look five minutes from now and what we can do to change that.”

Meanwhile, Daley and Spence notice the changes in the weather — not only warmer, but they’re getting thunder here, something once unimaginable. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world. While Churchill isn’t quite as bad off because it’s south of the Arctic Circle, “it’s something we take seriously,” Spence said.

“It’s a matter of finding the right blend in how you adapt to climate change,” Spence said. “And work with it.”

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Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press

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