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  • Lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles’ Venice Beach neighborhood inspires activism and art

    Lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles’ Venice Beach neighborhood inspires activism and art

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    LOS ANGELES — As more and more of her friends and neighbors found themselves priced out of rental units in Venice Beach, Judy Branfman began photographing the dozens of houses, bungalows and apartments being sold, renovated and then relisted at double or triple the cost.

    Branfman started with only the vague idea that she should be documenting the growing problem of evictions and housing unaffordability in her beloved west Los Angeles neighborhood. The writer and activist lamented that Venice, where tourists flock to the famous boardwalk and Muscle Beach, has been slowly shedding its historically bohemian vibe and becoming another enclave for the wealthy.

    Word spread about her photo project and earlier this year Branfman started hosting community meetings where residents could share their experiences with evictions that forced them to move out of the area and, in some cases, into homelessness. Some people recited poems. Others expressed themselves through paintings. And the more academically-minded among them began compiling housing and eviction statistics.

    Branfman’s initial notion to just shoot a few photos has culminated in an unlikely but ambitious art-meets-data exhibit titled “Where Has All The (affordable) Housing Gone?” It’s on display through Saturday at Venice’s venerable Beyond Baroque gallery, a hub for cultural events and activism dating back to the late 1960s.

    “The idea was to illustrate the problem, to show what we’ve lost. You know, make it visual so people would walk in and be a little shocked, and want to do something about it,” Branfman said at the gallery this week.

    Venice became a center of the Los Angeles homelessness crisis during the coronavirus pandemic, when camps sprouted up in residential neighborhoods and along the sands. The nation’s second-largest city also has 46,000 residents who are homeless among the overall population of 4 million people, according to the most recent survey.

    The area was a flashpoint because of its visibility as a city landmark — the boardwalk attracts an estimated 10 million visitors per year. A certain edginess always coexisted with a live-and-let-live ethos in the artsy beach community, but the widening of the wealth gap has become increasingly apparent as tech firms moved in and sleek modern homes went up.

    As building owners seek to bring in more deep-pocketed renters, longtime residents find themselves dealing with rent increases that overwhelm their finances. Some 80% of low-income Los Angeles renters pay over half their income toward housing costs, according to data released this week by the nonprofit Angeleno Project.

    While Los Angeles is on track to meet certain goals for new housing set out by recent ballot measures, “supply is severely behind demand,” the report found.

    “Some 3,500 housing units are at high or very high risk of losing their affordability terms, threatening to push more families into homelessness,” said the report. “A significant dip in affordable housing that started in 2022 post-COVID-19 continues to trend downward.”

    Upon entering Branfman’s exhibit, visitors are confronted by her photos on an enormous and detailed map depicting, block by block, many of the nearly 1,500 rent-controlled units she says have disappeared from the housing market in Venice over two decades. In many instances, the buildings were sold to large corporations that are increasingly buying up properties and jacking up rents.

    The map, and much of the exhibit, pins some of the blame for the problem on the Ellis Act, a 1985 California law that gave landlords broad authority to evict tenants in rent-controlled buildings for redevelopment, and then later list the same units at market rates. Branfman said she was “Ellis Acted” when she was evicted from a Venice apartment in 2003.

    “Too many tenants are afraid to fight back. And most don’t know what their rights are under the law,” she said. And even when tenants do file complaints against landlords, she said, the city very rarely prosecutes the claims.

    On the wall opposite the map is a free-verse poem made up of quotes about why many renters are were afraid to take on landlords, such as: “I don’t want any trouble” and “My neighbors aren’t documented and they’re afraid if they say anything they’ll be targeted.”

    Upstairs there are paintings and mixed-media figurines that the artist Sumaya Evans calls “dignity dolls.” Evans, who was homeless in Venice for years before recently finding housing, said creating art gave her a sense of self-worth when she was living on the streets.

    “You get used to being ignored as a homeless woman. People are blind to you when you’re outside,” she said. “And so being a part of of a project like this, being a part of a community, is just so healing.”

    Branfman and other housing activists are hopeful that change could come with measure that’s qualified for the 2024 ballot. The initiative that will go before voters would expand local control by overturning a 28-year-old law that prohibits rent control on single-family homes, condos and rental units that were built after 1995.

    After the exhibit closes Saturday, Branfman hopes to find a home for some of the installations at a library or university. Most of it will live virtually on its own Instagram page.

    “The rest of it will be on display in my apartment,” she laughs.

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  • Lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles’ Venice Beach neighborhood inspires activism and art

    Lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles’ Venice Beach neighborhood inspires activism and art

    [ad_1]

    LOS ANGELES — As more and more of her friends and neighbors found themselves priced out of rental units in Venice Beach, Judy Branfman began photographing the dozens of houses, bungalows and apartments being sold, renovated and then relisted at double or triple the cost.

    Branfman started with only the vague idea that she should be documenting the growing problem of evictions and housing unaffordability in her beloved west Los Angeles neighborhood. The writer and activist lamented that Venice, where tourists flock to the famous boardwalk and Muscle Beach, has been slowly shedding its historically bohemian vibe and becoming another enclave for the wealthy.

    Word spread about her photo project and earlier this year Branfman started hosting community meetings where residents could share their experiences with evictions that forced them to move out of the area and, in some cases, into homelessness. Some people recited poems. Others expressed themselves through paintings. And the more academically-minded among them began compiling housing and eviction statistics.

    Branfman’s initial notion to just shoot a few photos has culminated in an unlikely but ambitious art-meets-data exhibit titled “Where Has All The (affordable) Housing Gone?” It’s on display through Saturday at Venice’s venerable Beyond Baroque gallery, a hub for cultural events and activism dating back to the late 1960s.

    “The idea was to illustrate the problem, to show what we’ve lost. You know, make it visual so people would walk in and be a little shocked, and want to do something about it,” Branfman said at the gallery this week.

    Venice became a center of the Los Angeles homelessness crisis during the coronavirus pandemic, when camps sprouted up in residential neighborhoods and along the sands. The nation’s second-largest city also has 46,000 residents who are homeless among the overall population of 4 million people, according to the most recent survey.

    The area was a flashpoint because of its visibility as a city landmark — the boardwalk attracts an estimated 10 million visitors per year. A certain edginess always coexisted with a live-and-let-live ethos in the artsy beach community, but the widening of the wealth gap has become increasingly apparent as tech firms moved in and sleek modern homes went up.

    As building owners seek to bring in more deep-pocketed renters, longtime residents find themselves dealing with rent increases that overwhelm their finances. Some 80% of low-income Los Angeles renters pay over half their income toward housing costs, according to data released this week by the nonprofit Angeleno Project.

    While Los Angeles is on track to meet certain goals for new housing set out by recent ballot measures, “supply is severely behind demand,” the report found.

    “Some 3,500 housing units are at high or very high risk of losing their affordability terms, threatening to push more families into homelessness,” said the report. “A significant dip in affordable housing that started in 2022 post-COVID-19 continues to trend downward.”

    Upon entering Branfman’s exhibit, visitors are confronted by her photos on an enormous and detailed map depicting, block by block, many of the nearly 1,500 rent-controlled units she says have disappeared from the housing market in Venice over two decades. In many instances, the buildings were sold to large corporations that are increasingly buying up properties and jacking up rents.

    The map, and much of the exhibit, pins some of the blame for the problem on the Ellis Act, a 1985 California law that gave landlords broad authority to evict tenants in rent-controlled buildings for redevelopment, and then later list the same units at market rates. Branfman said she was “Ellis Acted” when she was evicted from a Venice apartment in 2003.

    “Too many tenants are afraid to fight back. And most don’t know what their rights are under the law,” she said. And even when tenants do file complaints against landlords, she said, the city very rarely prosecutes the claims.

    On the wall opposite the map is a free-verse poem made up of quotes about why many renters are were afraid to take on landlords, such as: “I don’t want any trouble” and “My neighbors aren’t documented and they’re afraid if they say anything they’ll be targeted.”

    Upstairs there are paintings and mixed-media figurines that the artist Sumaya Evans calls “dignity dolls.” Evans, who was homeless in Venice for years before recently finding housing, said creating art gave her a sense of self-worth when she was living on the streets.

    “You get used to being ignored as a homeless woman. People are blind to you when you’re outside,” she said. “And so being a part of of a project like this, being a part of a community, is just so healing.”

    Branfman and other housing activists are hopeful that change could come with measure that’s qualified for the 2024 ballot. The initiative that will go before voters would expand local control by overturning a 28-year-old law that prohibits rent control on single-family homes, condos and rental units that were built after 1995.

    After the exhibit closes Saturday, Branfman hopes to find a home for some of the installations at a library or university. Most of it will live virtually on its own Instagram page.

    “The rest of it will be on display in my apartment,” she laughs.

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  • North Korean art sells in China despite UN sanctions over nuclear program

    North Korean art sells in China despite UN sanctions over nuclear program

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    BEIJING — For sale at a recent Beijing art exposition was a painting with an asking price of $2,460 that depicted the snow-capped Mount Paektu, the mythical birthplace of the Korean people.

    A portrait of a prim young lady in bright brushstrokes was being sold for $5,190. For buyers on a budget, there were colorful landscapes being offered for less than $100.

    The dealer hawking the art made no effort to disguise who produced the pieces, despite stiff U.N. sanctions prohibiting the sale of such goods: “They were painted over there,” the dealer said, “in North Korea.”

    The dealer, who had salt-and-pepper hair and refused to divulge his name, was a representative of an art gallery that trumpets itself as China’s premier seller of North Korean art. The gallery, The Paintings Say Arirang, also operates a studio for North Korean artists in the outskirts of Beijing.

    Housed in a fenced and heavily surveilled compound, the North Koreans paint glorified, idyllic visions of life back home. For the right price, the Arirang studio says, the artists will render “exquisite” portraits at “unimaginable prices.”

    The gallery’s existence and conspicuous sales tactics, experts say, highlight China’s lax enforcement of U.N. sanctions targeting North Korea to stymie Pyongyang’s nuclear program. A. The U.N. has sanctioned a long list of North Korean goods, including arms, coal and art. The U.N. has also sought to block North Koreans from working overseas in the hopes of preventing North Korea from garnishing the wages of such laborers to fund its nuclear program. U.N. report in March singled out Arirang for selling North Korean art and hosting North Korean artists in apparent violation of sanctions.

    China has a long history of rebuffing efforts by the U.N. to rein in such suspected sanctions violators, and last year vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have toughened such restrictions. The U.N. reported that Arirang did not respond to requests for information.

    Arirang was not hard for the U.N. to find. That’s because the gallery is actively seeking to tap a niche audience drawn to the unique, socialist realist style of North Korean artists.

    Arirang was founded by Jin Zhe, an ethnic Korean and art lover born in China near the North Korean border, according to posts written by Jin on Arirang’s website. The son of a prominent painter, Jin spent years at a Chinese state-run radio station before a trip to Pyongyang instilled a taste for North Korean art. Jin, Arirang’s director, couldn’t be reached for comment.

    An Arirang employee told The AP by phone that the studio was in operation and offered a tour of the complex. She also said the studio was selling customized portraits by its North Korean artists. The employee, a woman identifying herself as surnamed Shen, changed her story a few days later, saying the base wasn’t in operation because “business is bad.”

    When AP journalists visited the “painting base,” guards turned them away.

    In lengthy posts on Chinese chat application WeChat, the art gallery expounds at length on the beauty rendered by North Korean artists because they are free from the fetters of the “market economy.”

    “They do not compare who is richer than the other, but simply focus on pure aesthetics,” Arirang wrote on WeChat. “They regard the pursuit of art as a mission of spiritual civilization,” not vulgar commodification.

    Such art is exceptionally valuable, Arirang said, “because of its superb realistic skills, high-cost performance, high collection value and other advantages.”

    In most countries, art is seen as a form of self-expression. But in North Korea it is strictly regulated. Artists work directly for North Korea’s propaganda authorities, and their mission is to create art glorifying the state and its socialist, nationalist ideology.

    Their work also provides income for the North Korean state.

    “All artists in North Korea are slaves to the Party,” said Song Byeok, a dissident artist who painted propaganda posters in North Korea until he fled to the South two decades ago. “North Korean art is a tool of the Kim family, with no identity of its own.”

    Posts on Arirang provide glimpses of the artists’ lives in China. In one photo, they raise glasses of beer around sizzling barbecue. Others show them playing ping pong or visiting historic monuments and bustling market streets.

    Nearly a thousand paintings had been rendered in Arirang’s “painting base,” Jin wrote wrote on WeChat. The artists work hard, often refusing breaks, the gallery’s director added.

    “It’s very relaxing, no worries,” Jin recounted one artist saying.

    Another told Jin that they can’t sleep until they were done, Jin said.

    BG Muhn, an expert in North Korean art at Georgetown University, said artists enjoy special care and respect in North Korean society.

    “The interesting thing is they don’t consider themselves doing propaganda art,” said Muhn, who met artists on nine trips to North Korea. “They feel they are doing art for the country, to serve the country and the people.”

    For decades, North Korean art was created largely for North Korean audiences. That changed in the 1990s when Pyongyang’s biggest benefactor, the Soviet Union, collapsed. North Korea desperately needed cash, so it turned to its artists.

    The government organized teams of artists to go to friendly countries in Africa and the Middle East, where they erected sculptures and painted murals eulogizing local leaders. Those efforts were financially lucrative. At the same time, the private art market took an interest, especially after South Korea began encouraging trade with its northern neighbor. Tens of thousands of paintings began flowing into South Korea, often through Chinese dealers.

    After Kim Jong Un took power in 2011, Pyongyang began loosening its grip on the artists’ creativity. They were told they no longer had to make portraits glorifying state leaders. Business boomed: Pyongyang’s state-run Mansudae studio outfitted a museum in Cambodia and was paid to erect statutes of soldiers and dictators in Senegal, the Congo, Angola, and over a dozen other sites across Africa. North Korea reaped tens of millions of dollars in art sales.

    That success evaporated when the U.N. slapped sanctions on Pyongyang in 2016 and 2017 after a series of nuclear and missile tests. Detectives questioned an art dealer in Italy and seized paintings in South Korea. Pyongyang’s art exports slowed, then ground to a halt when North Korea sealed its borders during the pandemic.

    But there are signs that North Korea’s isolation is thawing. China’s relations with North Korea have warmed as ties with the West have soured. Moscow is courting Pyongyang, with Kim visiting Russia in September to discuss arms sales amid the war with Ukraine.

    Art and cultural exchanges are now resuming, Jin wrote recently.

    “Art is becoming an important way for the outside world to understand North Korea,” Jin wrote on WeChat. “Through unremitting effort and by expanding their horizons, North Korean artists will definitely go abroad and out into the world.”

    ___

    Corrects to say that North Korean landscape paintings were being sold at a Beijing art exposition for less than a hundred dollars, not a few hundred dollars.

    AP writer Alan Suderman contributed to this story from Washington.

    Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org

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  • Ohio will vote on marijuana legalization. Advocates say there’s a lot at stake

    Ohio will vote on marijuana legalization. Advocates say there’s a lot at stake

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Voters in Ohio will decide next week whether to legalize recreational marijuana, but people on both sides of the issue say more hangs in the balance than simply decriminalizing the drug.

    Supporters of legalization say Ohio can reclaim tax revenue being lost to states such as Michigan, where marijuana is legal, and take power from illegal drug markets through government regulation. But opponents warn of increased workforce and traffic accidents by people under the influence, and argue much of the revenue will land in the pocket of the marijuana industry, not taxpayers.

    Issue 2 on the Nov. 7 ballot would allow adults 21 and over to buy and possess up to 2.5 ounces (71 grams) of cannabis and 15 grams (about a half-ounce) of extract, and to grow up to six plants per individual through a government program. A 10% tax would be imposed on any purchases, with those proceeds going toward administrative costs and addiction treatment in the state and to municipalities that host dispensaries.

    It would also create a social equity program to give a financial boost to people who want to start a business selling or growing cannabis and who meet certain criteria. They or a family member would need to have had a past run-in with the law for marijuana, and be part of a disadvantaged group based on race, gender, disability or economic considerations.

    The program would fall under the Division of Cannabis Control in the state Department of Commerce, an office that will fashion the rules around licensing, testing and product standards, among other regulations.

    If it passes, Ohio would become the 24th state to legalize recreational marijuana for adult use, a move that supporters say socially and financially makes sense for the state.

    “We’re taking money away from drug dealers and Michigan dispensary owners and putting it back into the pockets of our local governments,” said Tom Haren, spokesperson for the pro-legalization campaign Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.

    The measure also gives those with marijuana-related arrests and convictions, as well as their loved ones, a chance to benefit from the industry once possession of cannabis is no longer illegal. Haren said a marijuana charge can make life much harder for people and has a “downstream effect” on their families.

    Issue 2, should it pass, would also create greater access for those who may not be able to afford medical marijuana through their insurance or get a doctor to sign off on it. This includes veterans, according to Haren, who usually get their insurance through the federal government — which has not cleared marijuana for medical or recreational use.

    But even if it gets the needed votes Tuesday, the future of marijuana use will not be entirely set.

    As a citizen-initiated statute, the measure went first to the Republican-dominated Legislature. Lawmakers had four months to pass it, under state law. But with many — if not all — GOP legislators heartily against it, the measure did not move.

    After the election, if it passes, state law calls for the measure to return again to the Legislature, where lawmakers can tweak it to their liking. They can also vote to repeal it entirely, as GOP Senate President Matt Huffman has indicated could happen.

    Opponents of Issue 2, including Ohio prosecutors and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, are in line with Huffman.

    “There’s legalization, which generally people have a live-and-let-live attitude about. And then there’s Issue 2,” said Scott Milburn, spokesperson for Protect Ohio Workers and Families, the main campaign against the issue.

    The measure, opponents say, gives around one third of the revenue in that 10% tax revenue back to the marijuana industry — making it more of a benefit to marijuana corporations and small businesses than to taxpayers.

    And according to Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, the portion allotted for costs such as addiction treatment and administration under the 10% tax isn’t enough, and the tax would at least need to be doubled to pay for what the measure says it would.

    The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association has also cautioned that legalization could lead to greater traffic and workforce accidents, as well as increased substance abuse among state residents.

    Last year, a study by the by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administratio n found that 54% of injured or killed drivers had drugs or alcohol in their systems, with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an active ingredient in marijuana, the most prevalent.

    The study looked at over 7,000 cases from seven different hospitals around the country from 2019 to 2021, but the authors of the study cautioned that it’s not indicative of drivers nationwide, especially when tracking data on marijuana use and traffic accidents is still so new.

    ___

    Samantha Hendrickson is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Ohio will vote on marijuana legalization. Advocates say there’s a lot at stake

    Ohio will vote on marijuana legalization. Advocates say there’s a lot at stake

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — Voters in Ohio will decide next week whether to legalize recreational marijuana, but people on both sides of the issue say more hangs in the balance than simply decriminalizing the drug.

    Supporters of legalization say Ohio can reclaim tax revenue being lost to states such as Michigan, where marijuana is legal, and take power from illegal drug markets through government regulation. But opponents warn of increased workforce and traffic accidents by people under the influence, and argue much of the revenue will land in the pocket of the marijuana industry, not taxpayers.

    Issue 2 on the Nov. 7 ballot would allow adults 21 and over to buy and possess up to 2.5 ounces (71 grams) of cannabis and 15 grams (about a half-ounce) of extract, and to grow up to six plants per individual through a government program. A 10% tax would be imposed on any purchases, with those proceeds going toward administrative costs and addiction treatment in the state and to municipalities that host dispensaries.

    It would also create a social equity program to give a financial boost to people who want to start a business selling or growing cannabis and who meet certain criteria. They or a family member would need to have had a past run-in with the law for marijuana, and be part of a disadvantaged group based on race, gender, disability or economic considerations.

    The program would fall under the Division of Cannabis Control in the state Department of Commerce, an office that will fashion the rules around licensing, testing and product standards, among other regulations.

    If it passes, Ohio would become the 24th state to legalize recreational marijuana for adult use, a move that supporters say socially and financially makes sense for the state.

    “We’re taking money away from drug dealers and Michigan dispensary owners and putting it back into the pockets of our local governments,” said Tom Haren, spokesperson for the pro-legalization campaign Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.

    The measure also gives those with marijuana-related arrests and convictions, as well as their loved ones, a chance to benefit from the industry once possession of cannabis is no longer illegal. Haren said a marijuana charge can make life much harder for people and has a “downstream effect” on their families.

    Issue 2, should it pass, would also create greater access for those who may not be able to afford medical marijuana through their insurance or get a doctor to sign off on it. This includes veterans, according to Haren, who usually get their insurance through the federal government — which has not cleared marijuana for medical or recreational use.

    But even if it gets the needed votes Tuesday, the future of marijuana use will not be entirely set.

    As a citizen-initiated statute, the measure went first to the Republican-dominated Legislature. Lawmakers had four months to pass it, under state law. But with many — if not all — GOP legislators heartily against it, the measure did not move.

    After the election, if it passes, state law calls for the measure to return again to the Legislature, where lawmakers can tweak it to their liking. They can also vote to repeal it entirely, as GOP Senate President Matt Huffman has indicated could happen.

    Opponents of Issue 2, including Ohio prosecutors and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, are in line with Huffman.

    “There’s legalization, which generally people have a live-and-let-live attitude about. And then there’s Issue 2,” said Scott Milburn, spokesperson for Protect Ohio Workers and Families, the main campaign against the issue.

    The measure, opponents say, gives around one third of the revenue in that 10% tax revenue back to the marijuana industry — making it more of a benefit to marijuana corporations and small businesses than to taxpayers.

    And according to Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, the portion allotted for costs such as addiction treatment and administration under the 10% tax isn’t enough, and the tax would at least need to be doubled to pay for what the measure says it would.

    The Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association has also cautioned that legalization could lead to greater traffic and workforce accidents, as well as increased substance abuse among state residents.

    Last year, a study by the by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administratio n found that 54% of injured or killed drivers had drugs or alcohol in their systems, with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an active ingredient in marijuana, the most prevalent.

    The study looked at over 7,000 cases from seven different hospitals around the country from 2019 to 2021, but the authors of the study cautioned that it’s not indicative of drivers nationwide, especially when tracking data on marijuana use and traffic accidents is still so new.

    ___

    Samantha Hendrickson is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Daylight saving 2023: Here’s what a sleep expert says about the time change

    Daylight saving 2023: Here’s what a sleep expert says about the time change

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    CHICAGO — Brunch dates and flag games might be a little easier to get to this Sunday, when phones grace early-risers with an extra hour of rest before alarm clocks go off.

    The downside: Next week across most of the U.S., the sun will set well before many folks step foot out of the office, leaving them to run errands or take walks in utter darkness. Come Nov. 5, daylight saving time is out and standard time is in, and will last until March 10.

    No need to wait till the midnight hour to prepare for the time change that clocks in early Sunday, when 2 a.m. becomes 1 a.m. Before bed beckons Saturday night, rewind the clock on the microwave, oven, car, or any other device not yet clever enough to make the leap on its own.

    Besides scheduling stumbles and sleep habit disruptions, experts say the twice-yearly ritual can have more serious effects on human health.

    Many Americans are already sleep-deprived, and a change in time messes with sleep schedules even more, says Dr. Phyllis Zee, a sleep researcher at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, although she says “falling back” and gaining an extra hour is generally easier on the body than “springing forward” and losing one.

    Chronic sleep deprivation can increase levels of stress hormones that boost heart rate and blood pressure, and of chemicals that trigger inflammation, research suggests.

    “Just that one hour can change the amount of sleep you get, the quality of sleep that you get,” Zee said. Off-kilter sleep can affect people’s ability to multitask, stay alert, and even maintain their balance, making them more prone to accidents.

    Molly Hart, spokeswoman for AAA’s Auto Club Group, warned that there may be an uptick in accidents on the road following the time change.

    “With daylight savings coming to an end, what people really need to be focused on is their driving now in the afternoon when it’s darker earlier,” and when they may be feeling drowsy, she said.

    Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and most of Arizona do not observe daylight saving time.

    Some members of Congress have pushed to end the back-and-forth and make daylight saving time permanent.

    The U.S. Senate in March 2022 passed a bipartisan bill named the Sunshine Protection Act, but it stalled in the House. The bill was re-introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio in March of this year, then referred to committee, where it has remained idle.

    ___

    Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • North Korean art sells in China despite UN sanctions over nuclear program

    North Korean art sells in China despite UN sanctions over nuclear program

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    BEIJING — For sale at a recent Beijing art exposition was a painting with an asking price of $2,460 that depicted the snow-capped Mount Paektu, the mythical birthplace of the Korean people.

    A portrait of a prim young lady in bright brushstrokes was being sold for $5,190. For buyers on a budget, there were colorful landscapes being offered for a few hundred dollars.

    The dealer hawking the art made no effort to disguise who produced the pieces, despite stiff U.N. sanctions prohibiting the sale of such goods: “They were painted over there,” the dealer said, “in North Korea.”

    The dealer, who had salt-and-pepper hair and refused to divulge his name, was a representative of an art gallery that trumpets itself as China’s premier seller of North Korean art. The gallery, The Paintings Say Arirang, also operates a studio for North Korean artists in the outskirts of Beijing.

    Housed in a fenced and heavily surveilled compound, the North Koreans paint glorified, idyllic visions of life back home. For the right price, the Arirang studio says, the artists will render “exquisite” portraits at “unimaginable prices.”

    The gallery’s existence and conspicuous sales tactics, experts say, highlight China’s lax enforcement of U.N. sanctions targeting North Korea to stymie Pyongyang’s nuclear program. A. The U.N. has sanctioned a long list of North Korean goods, including arms, coal and art. The U.N. has also sought to block North Koreans from working overseas in the hopes of preventing North Korea from garnishing the wages of such laborers to fund its nuclear program. U.N. report in March singled out Arirang for selling North Korean art and hosting North Korean artists in apparent violation of sanctions.

    China has a long history of rebuffing efforts by the U.N. to rein in such suspected sanctions violators, and last year vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have toughened such restrictions. The U.N. reported that Arirang did not respond to requests for information.

    Arirang was not hard for the U.N. to find. That’s because the gallery is actively seeking to tap a niche audience drawn to the unique, socialist realist style of North Korean artists.

    Arirang was founded by Jin Zhe, an ethnic Korean and art lover born in China near the North Korean border, according to posts written by Jin on Arirang’s website. The son of a prominent painter, Jin spent years at a Chinese state-run radio station before a trip to Pyongyang instilled a taste for North Korean art. Jin, Arirang’s director, couldn’t be reached for comment.

    An Arirang employee told The AP by phone that the studio was in operation and offered a tour of the complex. She also said the studio was selling customized portraits by its North Korean artists. The employee, a woman identifying herself as surnamed Shen, changed her story a few days later, saying the base wasn’t in operation because “business is bad.”

    When AP journalists visited the “painting base,” guards turned them away.

    In lengthy posts on Chinese chat application WeChat, the art gallery expounds at length on the beauty rendered by North Korean artists because they are free from the fetters of the “market economy.”

    “They do not compare who is richer than the other, but simply focus on pure aesthetics,” Arirang wrote on WeChat. “They regard the pursuit of art as a mission of spiritual civilization,” not vulgar commodification.

    Such art is exceptionally valuable, Arirang said, “because of its superb realistic skills, high-cost performance, high collection value and other advantages.”

    In most countries, art is seen as a form of self-expression. But in North Korea it is strictly regulated. Artists work directly for North Korea’s propaganda authorities, and their mission is to create art glorifying the state and its socialist, nationalist ideology.

    Their work also provides income for the North Korean state.

    “All artists in North Korea are slaves to the Party,” said Song Byeok, a dissident artist who painted propaganda posters in North Korea until he fled to the South two decades ago. “North Korean art is a tool of the Kim family, with no identity of its own.”

    Posts on Arirang provide glimpses of the artists’ lives in China. In one photo, they raise glasses of beer around sizzling barbecue. Others show them playing ping pong or visiting historic monuments and bustling market streets.

    Nearly a thousand paintings had been rendered in Arirang’s “painting base,” Jin wrote wrote on WeChat. The artists work hard, often refusing breaks, the gallery’s director added.

    “It’s very relaxing, no worries,” Jin recounted one artist saying.

    Another told Jin that they can’t sleep until they were done, Jin said.

    BG Muhn, an expert in North Korean art at Georgetown University, said artists enjoy special care and respect in North Korean society.

    “The interesting thing is they don’t consider themselves doing propaganda art,” said Muhn, who met artists on nine trips to North Korea. “They feel they are doing art for the country, to serve the country and the people.”

    For decades, North Korean art was created largely for North Korean audiences. That changed in the 1990s when Pyongyang’s biggest benefactor, the Soviet Union, collapsed. North Korea desperately needed cash, so it turned to its artists.

    The government organized teams of artists to go to friendly countries in Africa and the Middle East, where they erected sculptures and painted murals eulogizing local leaders. Those efforts were financially lucrative. At the same time, the private art market took an interest, especially after South Korea began encouraging trade with its northern neighbor. Tens of thousands of paintings began flowing into South Korea, often through Chinese dealers.

    After Kim Jong Un took power in 2011, Pyongyang began loosening its grip on the artists’ creativity. They were told they no longer had to make portraits glorifying state leaders. Business boomed: Pyongyang’s state-run Mansudae studio outfitted a museum in Cambodia and was paid to erect statutes of soldiers and dictators in Senegal, the Congo, Angola, and over a dozen other sites across Africa. North Korea reaped tens of millions of dollars in art sales.

    That success evaporated when the U.N. slapped sanctions on Pyongyang in 2016 and 2017 after a series of nuclear and missile tests. Detectives questioned an art dealer in Italy and seized paintings in South Korea. Pyongyang’s art exports slowed, then ground to a halt when North Korea sealed its borders during the pandemic.

    But there are signs that North Korea’s isolation is thawing. China’s relations with North Korea have warmed as ties with the West have soured. Moscow is courting Pyongyang, with Kim visiting Russia in September to discuss arms sales amid the war with Ukraine.

    Art and cultural exchanges are now resuming, Jin wrote recently.

    “Art is becoming an important way for the outside world to understand North Korea,” Jin wrote on WeChat. “Through unremitting effort and by expanding their horizons, North Korean artists will definitely go abroad and out into the world.”

    ___

    AP writer Alan Suderman contributed to this story from Washington.

    Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org

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  • Rep. George Santos survives effort to expel him from the House. But he still faces an ethics report

    Rep. George Santos survives effort to expel him from the House. But he still faces an ethics report

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    WASHINGTON — Rep. George Santos easily survived a vote Wednesday to expel him from the House as most Republicans and 31 Democrats opted to withhold punishment while both his criminal trial and a House Ethics Committee investigation proceed.

    The effort to kick Santos out of the House was led by his fellow New York Republicans, who are anxious to distance themselves from a colleague infamous for fabricating his life story and accused of stealing from donors, lying to Congress and receiving unemployment benefits he did not deserve.

    But the resolution failed to gain the required two-thirds vote. Supporters could not even gain a simple majority, with the final vote being 179 for expulsion and 213 against.

    To succeed, numerous Republican lawmakers would have had to break ranks with newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson, who has said Santos should get his day in court. Johnson, R-La., also recently told Fox News that if Congress is going to expel members because they are charged with a crime or accused of wrongdoing, “that’s a problem.”

    Some Democrats also voiced concerns about getting ahead of the Ethics Committee, which issued a rare memo the day before, citing the depth of its investigation with some 40 witnesses contacted and the issuance of 37 subpoenas. It also said the next steps of the committee’s investigation would be announced by Nov. 17.

    “I feel like due process is still alive. I feel like there’s enough colleagues on both sides of the aisle here who understand that,” Santos said after the vote.

    Congress has rarely resorted to the most extreme punishment at its disposal. The House has expelled only five members in its history — three during the Civil War and two after their convictions on public corruption charges. It would be groundbreaking for the House to kick out Santos before his case in federal court is resolved.

    Some Republicans, however, said they had seen enough of Santos. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said he believes in due process, but also thinks Santos misrepresented himself to New York voters and they never would have elected him if they had “known the true George Santos.”

    “We don’t need the Santos charade all the way through the 2024 election cycle. I think the Congress needs to take action now,” Womack said.

    The House floor debate over whether to expel Santos was undertaken strictly by members of the New York congressional delegation. On one side, Republican Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler laid out their case for expelling Santos.

    “Mr. Santos is a stain on this institution and not fit to serve his constituents in the House of Representatives,” D’Esposito said.

    On the other side was Santos, who appealed to lawmakers to hold off on expulsion, saying that passing judgment without due process would engender mistrust.

    “I’m fighting tooth and nail to clear my name in front of the entire world,” Santos said. “It hasn’t been easy, but I’m fighting by God’s grace.”

    The only Democratic lawmaker to speak during the debate was Rep. Dan Goldman. He said Santos should have been expelled in May when Democrats brought an expulsion resolution, and the only reason the New York Republicans were leading the effort now was because Santos “hangs like an albatross around the necks of every single Republican from New York.”

    “They don’t care any more about integrity or morality or the reputation of this institution than they did in May when they voted to protect Mr. Santos,” Goldman said. “They just care about their reelection in one year when they know that their support for George Santos is going to be a problem.”

    The New York Republicans laid out in their expulsion resolution the array of charges Santos is facing in federal court, saying the charges indicated Santos engaged in serious financial fraud throughout his 2022 campaign for the House. The resolution said he deceived voters regarding his biography and is “not fit to serve his constituents as United States Representative.”

    “Mr. Santos has said expelling him before he is formally charged and found guilty would create a new precedent in this body, one that could have negative consequences for generations,” LaLota said. “Respectfully, Mr. Speaker, I disagree. The consequences and precedents of not expelling him for his lies and fraud has the potential to do far more damage to this institution.”

    In May, Republicans under then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California sidestepped the Democratic-led effort to expel Santos. While 204 Democrats voted against a motion to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee, House Republicans stood unified behind the effort that delayed action on Santos’ conduct.

    Johnson, who took the speaker’s gavel last week, made it clear he would prefer not to oust Santos at this point, despite the many charges against the congressman, as Johnson struggles to control a very slim majority.

    “He’s only been charged. He hasn’t been found guilty of anything. We have due process in America,” said GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who opposed the expulsion resolution.

    Democrats were also more divided than they were during the previous expulsion effort against Santos. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., called it a complicated vote because she would like to wait for the Ethics Committee to release its findings first.

    “If there is a report forthcoming, I think we owe it to ourselves to give ourselves a couple of weeks so that we are all operating off the same information,” she said.

    Rep. Marc Molinaro, a New York Republican who supported the expulsion effort, said the delegation would likely raise it again once the Ethics Committee releases the findings of its investigation.

    “I suspect the report is going to come public soon, and it’s going to be clear that he should be removed from Congress,” he said.

    Santos faces 23 charges in federal court. His trial has been scheduled for September next year. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.

    Also on Wednesday evening, the House voted to reject an effort to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Democrats called off an effort to censure Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

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  • Business group estimates several hundred thousand clean energy jobs in EV, battery storage and solar

    Business group estimates several hundred thousand clean energy jobs in EV, battery storage and solar

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    A nonpartisan business group that advocates for clean energy estimates that 403,000 jobs will be created by the 210 major energy projects announced since the Inflation Reduction Act took effect in mid-2022.

    At least $86 billion in investments have been announced, with the biggest job gains in expected in the electric vehicles, battery storage and solar energy sectors, said the report issued Wednesday by Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2).

    The IRA, signed August 2022, contains $500 billion in new federal spending to lower healthcare costs, increase tax revenues and address climate change by offering incentives so clean tech companies innovate and manufacture in the U.S.

    “We’re in the biggest economic revolution we’ve seen in generations thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act and other clean energy policies,” said E2 executive director Bob Keefe.

    The EV sector had the strongest response to the IRA and represents 58% of investments when the projects were being announced. This sector is expected to support 185,700 jobs annually for five years. Battery storage is expected to support 48,000 jobs, and solar is expected to support 35,000, both annually for five years.

    New jobs indirectly related to the announced projects could include lumber mills hiring more staff to handle growing demand for construction materials and restaurants getting busier because construction workers at new factories are starting to eat there.

    Form Energy is a company building multi-day batteries in Weirton, West Virginia that committed to creating 750 permanent jobs at its factory by 2028. CEO Mateo Jaramillo said the company’s ability to scale quickly is due to support from the state and federal governments.

    “We would not have Weirton without West Virginia and we would not be going as fast as we’re going without the IRA,” Jaramillo said.

    Christopher Chung, CEO of Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, a nonprofit public-private organization, said North Carolina is one of the many states in the South seeing growing clean technology investment. “Bipartisan legislation at the federal level has really juiced the pipelines of activity for us when it comes to economic development, especially attracting foreign direct investment,” he said.

    Chung said many North Carolina community colleges partner with private companies to develop local training programs and job opportunities. “As community colleges develop a rhythm for training the type of workers these companies need, that’s going to enhance the appeal of our workforce and state as a business location to more and more these clean energy companies,” he said.

    Such a significant investment in climate action comes with hurdles to cross in the labor sector, experts say.

    Although investments in clean energy are “on hyperdrive,” other factors were supporting the clean energy labor transition before the IRA, said Joseph Kane, a researcher at the Brookings Institution nonprofit research organization. These factors include growing pressures to reduce planet-warming gases, changing consumer behaviors, and clean technology becoming cheaper and more efficient.

    Kane said state and local leaders who receive funding for clean energy will have to be increasingly attentive to workforce development since some people aren’t aware of these job opportunities or don’t have access to relevant training.

    Labor shortages in the clean energy sector, particularly in construction, manufacturing, and electrical work are notable, said Thomas Kwan, director of sustainability research at Schneider Electric, an energy management and industrial automation company.

    Kwan also said other circumstances that could impact job creation include the permitting process for clean energy projects, which can be complex and lengthy, as well as critical mineral supply chain issues, such as geopolitical forces and changes that could happen in the broader energy market.

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Orsted scraps 2 offshore wind power projects in New Jersey, citing supply chain issues

    Orsted scraps 2 offshore wind power projects in New Jersey, citing supply chain issues

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    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Danish energy developer Orsted said Tuesday night it is scrapping two large offshore wind power projects off the coast of New Jersey, adding uncertainty to a nascent industry the Biden administration and many state governments are counting on to help transition away from the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.

    The company said it is canceling its Ocean Wind I and II projects in southern New Jersey, citing supply chain issues and rising interest rates.

    Orsted CEO Mads Nipper said in a statement the company was disappointed to be halting the projects because it believes the United States needs wind power to reduce carbon emissions.

    “However, the significant adverse developments from supply chain challenges, leading to delays in the project schedule, and rising interest rates have led us to this decision,” Nipper said.

    Orsted stands to lose a $100 million guarantee it posted with New Jersey earlier this month that it would build Ocean Wind I by the end of 2025. That money could be returned to ratepayers.

    The company said it would move forward with its Revolution Wind project in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

    Orsted, the world’s largest wind energy developer, warned in August that it might walk away from one or both of its New Jersey projects, which it said needed more financial subsidies beyond a tax break approved by the state that would have let the company keep as much as $1 million in tax credits that otherwise would have had to be returned to electricity ratepayers.

    At the time, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who is pushing to make his state the East Coast hub of offshore wind, said the break was necessary to save the jobs and economic activity Orsted would have brought to the state.

    Murphy, who took significant political heat for the tax break, reacted angrily to Orsted’s decision to walk away from New Jersey.

    “Today’s decision by Orsted to abandon its commitments to New Jersey is outrageous and calls into question the company’s credibility and competence,” the Democratic governor said. “As recently as several weeks ago, the company made public statements regarding the viability and progress of the Ocean Wind I project.”

    He noted that Orsted was required to put up an additional $200 million to benefit the state’s offshore wind industry, and said he would make sure the company abides by that obligation.

    Murphy said Orsted was facing the same supply chain, inflation and other challenges that competitors in the offshore wind industry face. But he insisted the industry will succeed in New Jersey, noting that the state will solicit yet another round of project proposals soon.

    The decision was the latest in a series of setbacks for the offshore wind industry in the northeast. Two weeks ago, New York regulators rejected a request from companies for larger subsidies to complete large-scale wind, solar and offshore wind projects, saying the companies were expected to to abide by the terms of their deals with the state.

    A handful of other offshore wind projects have been canceled. They include the Park City Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. Avangrid, a subsidiary of Spanish utility company Iberdrola, and several Connecticut utilities scrapped a long-term power purchase agreement.

    Offshore wind in general, and particularly in New Jersey, has faced growing opposition, both politically — mostly from Republicans — and from residents concerned about impacts on the environment, increased costs and the impairment of views of the ocean horizon.

    Jeff Tittel, a longtime environmentalist and former New Jersey chapter president of the Sierra Club, called Orsted’s decision “a devastating setback for offshore wind in New Jersey.”

    “These projects have been mishandled from the beginning by Orsted,” he said. “They didn’t listen to the public and did not understand our needs or politics. They thought they would get a blank check.”

    Still projects in some places are moving forward.

    In Virginia, a utility’s plans for an enormous wind farm off that state’s coast gained key federal approval Tuesday. Dominion Energy received a favorable “record of decision” from federal regulators who reviewed the potential environmental impact of its plan to build 176 turbines in the Atlantic, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) off Virginia Beach.

    Dominion said its project will be the largest offshore wind farm under development in the U.S. and eventually expected to generate enough electricity to power up to 660,000 homes after completion of construction by late 2026.

    And New Jersey still has several other offshore wind projects in various stages of development, with four new proposals submitted in August alone. They join the one remaining project of the three originally approved by the state, Atlantic Shores. That is a project by Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America.

    The White House in statement Tuesday night noted that in just the past week several investments in offshore wind had been made.

    “While macroeconomic headwinds are creating challenges for some projects, momentum remains on the side of an expanding U.S. offshore wind industry — creating good-paying union jobs in manufacturing, shipbuilding, and construction; strengthening the power grid; and providing new clean energy resources for American families and businesses,” Michael Kikukawa, White House assistant press secretary, said in the statement.

    ___

    Follow Wayne Parry on X, formerly Twitter, at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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  • Massive windfarm project to be built off Virginia coast gains key federal approval

    Massive windfarm project to be built off Virginia coast gains key federal approval

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    VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A power company’s plans for an enormous offshore wind farm off Virginia’s coast gained key federal approval Tuesday after the Biden Administration evaluated the project’s potential impact on the environment.

    Dominion Energy received what’s called a favorable “record of decision” from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The agency considered efforts to minimize effects on marine life, such as endangered North Atlantic right whales, among other factors.

    The utility will still need federal approval of its construction and operation plans before more pilings rise above the Atlantic Ocean. Two pilot turbines have been in place since 2020.

    Dominion plans to build 176 turbines more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the coast from the hotels and touristy boardwalk of Virginia Beach. Dominion said its project will be the largest offshore wind farm under development in the United States.

    The project is expected to generate 2.6 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power up to 660,000 homes once fully constructed, according to the utility. It added that the wind farm’s output should generate fuel savings of $3 billion for customers in its first decade of operation.

    Dominion expects construction to be completed by late 2026.

    “Today’s approval of the largest offshore wind project in U.S. history builds on the undeniable momentum we are seeing,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a statement, referring to four other offshore wind projects approved by President Joe Biden’s administration.

    The administration said it wants to build 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 — enough to power more than 10 million homes.

    Construction of the project in Virginia is expected to support about 900 jobs each year and then an estimated 1,100 annual jobs during operations, the Interior Department said.

    The initiative has gained wide support from Virginia policymakers and political leaders, including Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who last week attended a reception marking the arrival of eight monopile foundations for the windfarm.

    Environmental groups have also praised the undertaking.

    The Southern Environmental Law Center cited the importance of offshore wind for cutting carbon pollution, which fuels climate change.

    The project will “significantly reduce Dominion’s reliance on coal and methane gas and also means cost savings for customers,” Will Cleveland, a senior attorney in the law center’s Virginia office, said in a statement.

    Michael Town, executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, added in a separate statement that “we must do everything we can to transition to a clean and just energy future, and offshore wind will play an outsized role.”

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  • China holds major financial conference as leaders maneuver to get slowing economy back on track

    China holds major financial conference as leaders maneuver to get slowing economy back on track

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    BANGKOK — China’s leaders are expected to search for ways to mend the country’s fractured property market, create jobs for millions of unemployed youths and spur faster growth in a meeting that reportedly began Monday in Beijing.

    The National Financial Work Conference, usually held twice a decade, is expected to further fortify leader Xi Jinping’s control of the country’s $61 trillion financial sector. It follows the announcement last week of plans to issue 1 trillion yuan ($330 billion) in bonds for infrastructure projects and disaster prevention.

    By dipping deeper into deficit, the government is looking to counter a sharp slowdown in housing construction. Economists say the challenge lies in finding ways to ensure sustainable, balanced growth while unwinding massive debt held by real estate developers, local governments and regional banks.

    The gathering, held behind closed doors and without any formal public announcement Monday, will tackle such long-term reforms, Takehiko Nakao, former president of the Asian Development Bank, said in an interview with China’s CGTN network while attending an international financial conference in southern China’s Guangzhou.

    “Overall, the financial sector in China has made progress but at this moment they face challenges,” said Nakao. While longer-term reforms are likely on the agenda, he suggested that more immediate problems such as the real estate sector are a priority.

    The last financial work conference was held in 2017, but disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic caused it to be postponed in 2022.

    The sudden death last week of former Premier Li Keqiang, an English-speaking economist who represented a generation of politicians schooled during a time of greater openness to liberal Western ideas, was seen by many observers to symbolize the shift toward stronger party controls.

    Li was sidelined in a leadership shakeup last year. Since then, Xi has conducted a thorough reshuffle of economic and financial leadership positions and set up an entity called the Central Financial Commission, seen as a move to coopt and weaken other regulators like the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

    Last week, Xi reportedly visited the central bank, or People’s Bank of China, a rare step that underscores the party’s consolidation of controls over markets and financial institutions.

    A newly appointed finance minister, Lan Fo’an, will be taking on a substantial challenge given the tide of debt that has engulfed many local governments as revenues from land concessions, a major source of funding, have dried up with a property downturn.

    Although the economy, the world’s second largest, expanded at a 4.9% annual pace in the first nine months of the year, close to the government’s target of about 5%, the International Monetary Fund has warned that debts of local governments have risen to hazardous levels, raising the level of total government debt to nearly 150% of the country’s GDP.

    While retail sales and other services have revived since China ended its stringent anti-virus controls late last year, the jobless rate for young Chinese topped 20% earlier this year and demand has yet to fully bounce back.

    Dipping deeper into deficit by issuing bonds will help counter the steep slowdown in housing construction as Chinese hold onto their savings while developers struggle to deliver new homes they’ve already sold.

    As officials convened their meetings in Beijing, a court in Hong Kong adjourned until Dec. 4 a winding-up hearing for property developer China Evergrande, which got caught short when regulators began cracking down on excessive borrowing two years ago. Fears of a possible Evergrande default in 2021 rattled global markets, but they eased after the central bank said its problems were contained and Beijing would keep credit markets functioning.

    With more than $300 billion in liabilities, Evergrande is the biggest of dozens of developers that have defaulted. Its efforts to restructure overseas debts have been hindered by the detention of its chairman, Hui Ka Yan, in an investigation into unspecified suspected crimes.

    Country Garden, another major developer, failed last week to meet a deadline to pay interest on a dollar bond. The company, based in the southern Chinese city of Foshan, had about $187 billion in liabilities as of June.

    The government has adopted various measures to try to contain fallout from the property crisis. It has eased controls on housing purchases and reduced the amount of funds banks must hold as reserves. It has adopted measures to support private industries, which provide the lion’s share of jobs in China. It has also promised tax relief for small businesses and rural families.

    ___

    AP Business Writer Zen Soo in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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  • George Santos faces arraignment on new fraud indictment in New York

    George Santos faces arraignment on new fraud indictment in New York

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    U.S. Rep. George Santos is set to be arraigned on a revised indictment accusing him of several frauds, including making tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on credit cards belonging to his campaign donors

    ByThe Associated Press

    October 27, 2023, 12:24 AM

    FILE – Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., watches on the House floor at the Capitol in Washington, Oct. 25, 2023. Santos is set to be arraigned on a revised indictment accusing him of several frauds, including making tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on credit cards belonging to his campaign donors. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

    The Associated Press

    CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — U.S. Rep. George Santos is set to be arraigned Friday on a revised indictment accusing him of several frauds, including making tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on credit cards belonging to some of his campaign donors.

    The New York Republican was scheduled to appear at a courthouse on Long Island to enter a plea to the new allegations. He has already pleaded not guilty to other charges, first filed in May, accusing him of lying to Congress about his wealth, applying for and receiving unemployment benefits, even though he had a job, and using campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses like designer clothing.

    Santos has been free on bail while he awaits trial. He has denied any serious wrongdoing and blamed irregularities in his government regulatory filings on his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, who he claims “went rogue.”

    Marks in turn has implicated Santos. She told a judge when she recently pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy charge that she had helped Santos trick Republican party officials into supporting his run for office in 2022 through bogus Federal Election Committee filings that made him look richer than he really was, partly by listing an imaginary $500,000 loan that had supposedly come from his personal wealth.

    Santos has continued to represent his New York district in Congress since he was charged, rejecting calls for his resignation from several fellow New York Republicans.

    He has also said he intends to run for reelection next year, though he could face a lengthy prison term if convicted.

    During his successful 2022 run for office, Santos was buoyed by an uplifting life story that was later revealed to be rife with fabrications. Among other things, he never worked for the major Wall Street investment firms where he claimed to have been employed, didn’t go to the college where he claimed to have been a star volleyball player, and misled people about having Jewish heritage.

    While Santos hasn’t faced any criminal charges related to the lies he told the public, he does face allegations that he propped up his image as having made a fortune in the investing world by submitting a false financial disclosure to the U.S. House.

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  • Greek army destroys World War II bomb found during excavation for luxury development near Athens

    Greek army destroys World War II bomb found during excavation for luxury development near Athens

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    Greek army specialists have destroyed an unexploded World War II bomb discovered during work on a massive urban development project at a coastal area south of Athens

    ByThe Associated Press

    October 26, 2023, 9:20 AM

    ATHENS, Greece — Greek army specialists Thursday destroyed an unexploded World War II bomb discovered during work on a massive urban development project at a coastal area south of Athens.

    Authorities said the 500-pound bomb was destroyed without a detonation after traffic in the area was halted for more than two hours and several nearby apartment blocks had been evacuated as a precaution.

    The urban development project will include a park, shopping malls, hotels, a casino and multiple leisure facilities near the seaside Glyfada area, south of the capital. Work got underway last year and is due to be completed in 2026.

    “Everything went well, and we thank all the agencies involved: the specialized army unit, the fire department and the traffic police,” Glyfada Mayor Giorgos Papanikolaou told reporters near the site.

    “As the excavations progress, more unexploded ordnance may be discovered.”

    The development project will use land that was previously the site of Athens’ international airport before it was closed in 2001 and moved to a new location. The site also hosted several sporting venues during the Athens Olympics in 2004 and briefly housed a camp for asylum seekers during the refugee crisis of 2015-16.

    The airfield has also been used for decades to support a United States military base that closed in the early 1990s. During World War II and the Nazi-led occupation of Greece, the airfield was bombed by the allies.

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  • New organic rules announced by USDA tighten restrictions on livestock and poultry producers

    New organic rules announced by USDA tighten restrictions on livestock and poultry producers

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    DES MOINES, Iowa — Livestock and poultry producers will need to comply with more specific standards if they want to label their products organic under final rules announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    The USDA’s new Organic Livestock and Poultry Standards are being implemented after years of discussions with organics groups, farming organizations and livestock and poultry producers.

    “USDA is creating a fairer, more competitive and transparent food system,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. “This organic poultry and livestock standard establishes clear and strong standards that will increase the consistency of animal welfare practices in organic production and in how these practices are enforced.”

    The Organic Trade Association pushed hard for the new regulations, which the group said would promote consumer trust and ensure all competing companies would abide by the same rules.

    “These new standards not only create a more level playing field for organic producers, but they ensure consumers that the organic meat, poultry, dairy and eggs they choose have been raised with plenty of access to the real outdoors, and in humane conditions,” said Tom Chapman, the association’s CEO, in a statement.

    The final rules cover areas including outdoor space requirements, living conditions for animals, maximum density regulations for poultry and how animals are cared for and transported for slaughter.

    Under the rules, organic poultry must have year-round access to the outdoors. Organic livestock also must have year-round outdoor access and be able to move and stretch at all times. There are additional requirements for pigs regarding their ability to root and live in group housing.

    Producers have a year to comply with the rules, with poultry operations given four additional years to meet rules covering outdoor space requirement for egg layers and density requirements for meat chickens.

    John Brunnquell, president of Indiana-based Egg Innovations, one of the nation’s largest free-range and pasture-raised egg operations, said the new rules would help him compete with companies that have an organic label but don’t now give their hens daily access to the outdoors and actual ground, rather than a concrete pad.

    “All of us worked under the same USDA seal, so a consumer really never knew how their organic eggs were being produced,” Brunnquell said.

    The USDA’s National Organic Program will oversee the new rules, working with certifiers accredited by the agency.

    Organizations representing the egg and chicken meat industry as well as the pork industry and American Farm Bureau either declined to comment or didn’t respond to a request to comment on the new rules.

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  • Georgia Medicaid program with work requirement has enrolled only 1,343 residents in 3 months

    Georgia Medicaid program with work requirement has enrolled only 1,343 residents in 3 months

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    ATLANTA — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s new health plan for low-income adults has enrolled only 1,343 people through the end of September about three months after launching, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

    The Georgia Department of Community Health has projected up to 100,000 people could eventually benefit from Georgia Pathways to Coverage. But the nation’s only Medicaid program that makes recipients meet a work requirement is off to a very slow start.

    “We will continue working to educate Georgians about Pathways’ innovative, first-of-its-kind opportunity and enroll more individuals in the months to come,” Kemp’s office said in a statement.

    The program’s creeping progress reflects fundamental flaws as compared to Medicaid expansions in other states, including the extra burden of submitting and verifying work hours, experts say. And some critics note it’s happening just as the state, as part of a federally mandated review, is kicking tens of thousands of people off its Medicaid rolls — at least some of whom could be eligible for Pathways.

    “Pathways to Coverage is falling well short of these commitments to uninsured Georgians. Medicaid expansion would be a more effective way to meaningfully cover state residents and connect them to care,” Laura Colbert, executive director of the advocacy group Georgians for a Healthy Future, said in a statement Friday.

    The state Department of Community Health had declined to provide sign-up numbers to the newspaper until the Journal-Constitution told Kemp’s office it would report that the state appeared to be violating its open records law. The department then provided the records, but denies violating the law.

    The Biden administration has already tried to revoke Georgia’s Medicaid plan once and is monitoring it, so any missteps could have broader consequences. They could also hamper future efforts by Republicans to make Medicaid eligibility dependent on work.

    The state launched Pathways on July 1 just as it began a review of Medicaid eligibility following the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Federal law prohibited states from removing people from Medicaid during the three-year emergency.

    The state previously said it delayed the reevaluations of 160,000 people who were no longer eligible for traditional Medicaid but could qualify for Pathways to help them try to maintain health coverage. But observers have said they have detected little public outreach to target populations.

    Thirty-nine states have expanded Medicaid eligibility to nearly all adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, $20,120 annually for a single person and $41,400 for a family of four. North Carolina will become the 40th state to do so in December. None of those states require recipients to work in order to qualify.

    That broader Medicaid expansion was a key part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in 2010, but many Republican governors, including Kemp, rejected it. In addition to imposing a work requirement, Pathways limits coverage to able-bodied adults earning up to 100% of the poverty line — $14,580 for a single person or $30,000 for a family of four.

    Kemp has argued full expansion would cost too much money. State officials and supporters of Pathways say the work requirement will also help transition Medicaid recipients to better, private health insurance, and argue that working, studying or volunteering leads to improved health.

    Critics say many low-income people struggle to document the required 80 hours a month of work, volunteer activity, study or vocational rehabilitation.

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  • Navigator cancels proposed Midwestern CO2 pipeline, citing ‘unpredictable’ regulatory processes

    Navigator cancels proposed Midwestern CO2 pipeline, citing ‘unpredictable’ regulatory processes

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    BISMARCK, N.D. — A company on Friday said it would cancel its plans for a 1,300-mile (2,092-kilometer) pipeline across five Midwestern states that would have gathered carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and buried the gas deep underground.

    Navigator CO2 Ventures’ Heartland Greenway project is among a handful of similar ventures supported by the renewable fuels industry and farming organizations, but opposed by many landowners and environmental groups who question their safety and effectiveness in reducing climate-warming gases.

    In a written statement, the company said the “unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa” were key to the decision to cancel the project.

    Navigator’s pipeline would have carried planet-warming CO2 emissions from more than 20 plants across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota for permanent storage deep underground in Illinois.

    Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw said carbon capture projects are “the best way to align ethanol production with the increasing demand for low carbon fuels both at home and abroad.” The association saw the Navigator pipeline as an opportunity to open up markets for sustainable aviation fuel for ethanol producers, spokeswoman Emma Koehler told The Associated Press.

    “It is not an overstatement to say that decisions made over the next few months will likely place agriculture on one of two paths. One would lead to 1990s stagnation as corn production exceeds demand, and the other opens new market opportunities larger than anything we’ve ever seen before,” Shaw said in a statement.

    Navigator earlier this month withdrew its application for a crucial permit in Illinois, and also said it was putting all of its permit applications on hold. Those moves came after South Dakota public utilities regulators denied Navigator a construction permit in September.

    The pipeline would have used carbon capture technology, which supporters tout as a combatant of climate change, with federal tax incentives and billions of dollars from Congress, making such efforts lucrative. But opponents question the technology at scale, and say it could require bigger investments than less expensive alternatives such as solar and wind power.

    CO2 pipelines have faced pushback from landowners, who fear a pipeline rupture and that their land will be taken from them for the projects.

    Pipeline opponents welcomed Navigator’s announcement Friday.

    “Everyone said we have no chance against foreign-backed, multibillion-dollar hazardous pipelines but when hundreds of landowners band together with a unified legal strategy, we can win,” said Brian Jorde, an Omaha-based attorney who represents many landowners opposed to Midwestern pipeline projects.

    Regulatory panels in North Dakota and South Dakota dealt blows to Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed $5.5 billion, 2,000-mile (3,219-kilometer) interstate pipeline network. The system would carry CO2 emissions from more than 30 ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, to be buried deep underground in central North Dakota.

    North Dakota regulators denied Summit a siting permit, but granted the company’s request for reconsideration. The South Dakota panel denied the company’s permit application, but Summit intends to reapply.

    Iowa regulators this month suspended a weekslong hearing for Summit’s project, set to resume next month. Minnesota regulators are proceeding with an environmental review for a small part of Summit’s project.

    In a written statement released after Navigator’s announcement, Summit said it “welcomes and is well positioned to add additional plants and communities to our project footprint.”

    “We remain as committed to our project as the day we announced it,” the company said.

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  • Navigator cancels proposed Midwestern CO2 pipeline, citing ‘unpredictable’ regulatory processes

    Navigator cancels proposed Midwestern CO2 pipeline, citing ‘unpredictable’ regulatory processes

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    BISMARCK, N.D. — A company on Friday said it would cancel its plans for a 1,300-mile (2,092-kilometer) pipeline across five Midwestern states that would have gathered carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and buried the gas deep underground.

    Navigator CO2 Ventures’ Heartland Greenway project is among a handful of similar ventures supported by the renewable fuels industry and farming organizations, but many landowners and environmental groups oppose the pipelines and question their safety and effectiveness in reducing climate-warming gases.

    In a written statement, the company said the “unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa” were key to the decision to cancel the project.

    Navigator’s pipeline would have carried planet-warming CO2 emissions from more than 20 plants across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota for permanent storage deep underground in Illinois.

    Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw said carbon capture projects are “the best way to align ethanol production with the increasing demand for low carbon fuels both at home and abroad,” and are essential “to unlocking the 100-billion-gallon sustainable aviation fuel market for agriculture, in the long term.”

    “It is not an overstatement to say that decisions made over the next few months will likely place agriculture on one of two paths. One would lead to 1990s stagnation as corn production exceeds demand, and the other opens new market opportunities larger than anything we’ve ever seen before,” he said in a statement.

    Navigator earlier this month withdrew its application for a crucial permit in Illinois, and also said it was putting all of its permit applications on hold. Those moves came after South Dakota public utilities regulators denied Navigator a construction permit in September.

    The pipeline would have used carbon capture technology, which supporters tout as a combatant of climate change, with federal tax incentives and billions of dollars from Congress, making such efforts lucrative. But opponents question the technology at scale, and say it could require bigger investments than less expensive alternatives such as solar and wind power.

    CO2 pipelines have faced pushback from landowners, who fear a pipeline rupture and that their land will be taken from them for the projects.

    Pipeline opponents welcomed Navigator’s announcement Friday.

    “Everyone said we have no chance against foreign-backed, multibillion-dollar hazardous pipelines but when hundreds of landowners band together with a unified legal strategy, we can win,” said Brian Jorde, an Omaha-based attorney who represents many landowners opposed to Midwestern pipeline projects.

    Regulatory panels in North Dakota and South Dakota dealt blows to Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed $5.5 billion, 2,000-mile (3,219-kilometer) interstate pipeline network. The system would carry CO2 emissions from more than 30 ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, to be buried deep underground in central North Dakota.

    North Dakota regulators denied Summit a siting permit, but granted the company’s request for reconsideration. The South Dakota panel denied the company’s permit application, but Summit intends to reapply.

    Iowa regulators this month suspended a weekslong hearing for Summit’s project, set to resume next month. Minnesota regulators are proceeding with an environmental review for a small part of Summit’s project.

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  • Feds OK natural gas pipeline expansion in Pacific Northwest over environmentalist protests

    Feds OK natural gas pipeline expansion in Pacific Northwest over environmentalist protests

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    PORTLAND, Ore. — Federal regulators on Thursday approved the expansion of a natural gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest over the protest of environmental groups and top officials in West Coast states, who said it goes against the region’s plans to address climate change and could pose a wildfire risk.

    The project, known as GTN Xpress, aims to expand the capacity of the Gas Transmission Northwest pipeline, which runs through Idaho, Washington and Oregon, by about 150 million cubic feet (4.2 million cubic meters) of natural gas per day. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave it the green light in a vote on Thursday.

    TC Energy plans to modify three compressor stations along the pipeline — in Kootenai County, Idaho; Walla Walla County, Washington; and Sherman County, Oregon. Compressor stations help maintain the pressure and flow of gas over long distances in a pipeline.

    Environmental groups criticized the decision.

    In a statement, Audrey Leonard, staff attorney for environmental nonprofit Columbia Riverkeeper, said it represented a “rubber stamp of unnecessary fracked gas in the Northwest” and accused the energy agency of failing to listen to U.S. senators, governors, state attorneys general, tribes and members of the public.

    Leonard said potential spills and explosions on the pipeline, which was built in the 1960s, would not only harm the environment but also present a heightened wildfire risk in the arid regions it passes through.

    “An explosion of that level in eastern Washington or eastern Oregon would be catastrophic,” she said.

    Leonard said Columbia Riverkeeper will appeal the federal regulators’ decision and submit a petition for a rehearing.

    The pipeline belongs to TC Energy of Calgary, Canada — the same company behind the now-abandoned Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.

    The company said the project is necessary to meet consumer demand and welcomed the decision in an emailed statement.

    Environmentalists and officials opposed to the project have expressed concern about TC Energy’s safety record. Its Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline exploded in Strasburg, Virginia, in July and its existing Keystone pipeline spilled nearly 600,000 gallons of bitumen oil in Kansas last December.

    The 1,377-mile (2,216-kilometer) pipeline runs from the Canadian border through a corner of Idaho and into Washington state and Oregon, connecting with a pipeline going into California.

    Oregon, along with Washington and California, have passed laws requiring utilities to transition to 100% clean electricity sources by 2040 and 2045, respectively.

    Idaho’s Republican governor and Congress members have supported the project and said that imposing other states’ climate policies would be “misguided.”

    After the vote, Washington’s Democratic governor and California’s Democratic attorney general condemned the decision. And the Democratic U.S. Senators from Washington and Oregon described the project as “incompatible with our climate laws” in a letter to the energy agency.

    “GTN Xpress represents a significant expansion of methane gas infrastructure at a time when California, Oregon, and Washington are moving away from fossil fuels,” the senators said.

    The attorneys general of the three states, citing the energy agency’s draft environmental impact statement for the project, said it would result in more than 3.47 million metric tons of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions per year for at least the next three decades.

    The agency’s final environmental assessment issued last November revised that number downward by roughly half in calculations contested by environmental groups. This is partly because some of the project’s gas would be delivered to Tourmaline, a Canadian natural gas producer. The assessment said it wasn’t clear what the end use of the gas delivered to Tourmaline would be, leading it to conclude that the company’s downstream emissions — those stemming from consumers — weren’t “reasonably foreseeable.”

    The energy agency’s chairman, Willie Phillips, reiterated its stance after Thursday’s vote.

    “There was no evidence presented that this project would significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions,” he told reporters. “The commission determined that this project was needed and therefore we support its approval.”

    In its final assessment, the federal agency also said the compressor stations were in non-forested areas with low to moderate fire hazard and concluded the project “would result in limited adverse impacts on the environment.”

    “Most adverse environmental impacts would be temporary or short-term,” the federal agency said.

    The agency recommended certain steps, such as requiring the company to train its personnel and contractors on environmental mitigation measures before any construction begins.

    But environmental groups say the assessment didn’t adequately address the harm caused by the project, including by fracking to obtain the natural gas that flows through the pipeline.

    Fracking is a technique used by the energy industry to extract oil and gas from rock by injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals. It has been criticized by climate and environment groups for increasing emissions of methane, an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas.

    ___

    Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Major solar panel plant opens in US amid backdrop of industry worries about low-priced Asian imports

    Major solar panel plant opens in US amid backdrop of industry worries about low-priced Asian imports

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    A South Korean company has begun production at a huge new solar panel factory in Georgia even as industry leaders say surging Asian imports could dampen efforts to make more solar components in the United States.

    Qcells, a unit of South Korea’s Hanwha Group, said Wednesday that it can now turn out enough solar panels to generate 5.1 gigawatts of power yearly at a two-factory complex in the northwest Georgia city of Dalton. That’s almost 40% of U.S. solar panel capacity, according to figures from the Solar Energy Industries Association.

    Qcells’ opened its first factory in 2019 and an even larger plant in phases since, what the company describes as the largest solar investment in American history.

    “It’s another milestone as we as a company really strive to become a global leader and a U.S. leader in solar manufacturing,” said Scott Moskowitz, Qcells head of market strategy and public affairs, speaking with The Associated Press after a plant tour Monday.

    The company says its new plant is the first solar module factory in the U.S. to begin production since passage of President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation. Qcells’ $208 million investment again shows how federal incentives are spurring a nationwide boom in renewable energy and electric vehicles.

    Industry jitters about a flood of cheap solar panels from overseas show how dependent on federal policy the solar industry remains. That’s a threat in part because former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, is hostile to renewable energy.

    Qcells leaders say the new plant showcases more efficient equipment and processes, part of a much larger investment intended to bring key steps in solar manufacturing to the U.S. A solar panel, or module, is assembled from solar cells most commonly made from wafers cut from ingots of polysilicon.

    Today, the company’s solar cells are imported from Asia. But 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Dalton in Cartersville, Qcells is building a $2.3 billion complex to take polysilicon refined in Washington state and make ingots, wafers and solar cells — in addition to 3.3 gigawatts of solar modules. That plant is scheduled to open in phases starting next year.

    Currently, no silicon ingots or wafers are made in the U.S. But Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, besides offering a extra tax credit on American-made solar equipment, lets manufacturers earn incentives for every unit of polysilicon they refine and every wafer, cell and module they make. For example, Qcells earns a tax credit of 7 cents per watt for every panel it makes in Dalton, or $34.30 for every 490-watt residential panel made.

    Even with that boost, solar industry leaders warn, factories will struggle to compete with a new spike in cheap Asian imports. They’re again urging federal officials to investigate whether solar panels are being dumped at unfairly low prices. Previous investigations have led to anti-dumping tariffs on panels made in China and Taiwan.

    U.S. officials shouldn’t regard the spike as a normal market fluctuation, said Mike Carr, executive director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition, a group that includes Qcells. He argues Chinese component makers are pushing out cheap modules from southeast Asian factories, tanking panel prices to ensure Chinese dominance and smother U.S. manufacturing.

    “This is likely to be the No. 1 new energy source in the 21st century,” Carr said. “It’s already cheaper than pretty much anything else to install. It is the path to meeting our climate goals. So I think it becomes a real national security kind of concern. The way OPEC is in oil markets, we don’t want to allow China to become that same controller of supply in solar.”

    Qcells sees current low prices as a “near-term challenge” in achieving economies of scale and serving a long-term market, Moskowitz said. Beyond trade policy, he said, requiring federal agencies to buy American-made products and promoting panels produced with fewer carbon emissions could bolster Qcells.

    Politics envelops the solar industry. Vice President Kamala Harris visited the plant earlier this year. At the state level, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has wrestled with Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff over political credit for electric vehicle and renewable energy investments flowing to Georgia.

    “Out of all the places Qcells could have gone, they chose to operate and expand here in Georgia because of our unrivaled assets and the competitive package we put together,” Kemp said in a statement.

    Ossoff and fellow Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock note they authored the component incentives that benefit Qcells, emphasizing federal policy.

    “Our state is emerging as the advanced energy capital of the nation, thanks to federal infrastructure and manufacturing policies that are benefiting Georgia more than any other state,” Ossoff said in a statement.

    Qcells, for its part, praises both state and federal assistance.

    “To build these markets up and to have them work, you need a whole government approach,” Moskowitz said.

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