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Tag: Government programs

  • UK leader Keir Starmer is marking 100 days in office. It has been a rocky ride

    UK leader Keir Starmer is marking 100 days in office. It has been a rocky ride

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    LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer marks 100 days in office Saturday with little cause for celebration.

    Starmer’s center-left Labour Party was elected by a landslide on July 4, sweeping back to power after 14 years. But after weeks of stories about feuding, freebies and fiscal gloom, polls suggest Starmer’s personal approval rating has plummeted, and Labour is only slightly more popular than a Conservative Party that was rejected by voters after years of infighting and scandal.

    “You couldn’t really have imagined a worse start,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. ”First impressions count, and it’s going to be difficult to turn those around.”

    Starmer won the election on promises to banish years of turmoil and scandal under Conservative governments, get Britain’s sluggish economy growing and restore frayed public services such as the state-funded National Health Service.

    His government argues it has made a strong start: It has ended long-running strikes by doctors and railway workers, set up a publicly owned green energy firm, scrapped the Conservatives’ contentious plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda and introduced bills to strengthen rights for workers and renters.

    Starmer has traveled to Washington, the United Nations and European capitals as he seeks to show that “ Britain is back ” after years of inward-looking wrangling over Brexit. But the United Kingdom, like its allies, has struggled to have much impact on spiraling conflicts in the Middle East and the grinding war in Ukraine.

    The new government also has faced crises at home, including days of far-right-fueled anti-immigrant violence that erupted in towns and cities across England and Northern Ireland in the summer. Starmer condemned the rioters as “mindless thugs” and vowed to jail those responsible. So far, more than 800 people have appeared in court and almost 400 have gone to prison.

    Starmer’s most intractable problem is Britain’s sluggish economy, hobbled by rising public debt and low growth of just 0.2% in August, according to official figures.

    Starmer has warned that things will be “tough in the short term” before they get better. He says public spending will be constrained by a 22-billion-pound ($29 billion) “black hole” in the public finances left by the Conservatives.

    One of the government’s first acts was to strip millions of retirees of a payment intended to help heat their homes in winter. It was intended to signal determination to take tough economic decisions, but it spawned a sharp backlash from Labour members and sections of the public.

    It also sat awkwardly with news that Starmer had accepted thousands of pounds’ (dollars’) worth of clothes and designer eyeglasses from a wealthy Labour donor. Starmer insisted the gifts were within the rules, but after days of negative headlines agreed to pay back 6,000 pounds’ (almost $8,000) worth of gifts and hospitality, including tickets to see Taylor Swift.

    Government officials and advisers have traded blame for the faltering start, with the focus on Downing Street Chief of Staff Sue Gray, and her reported tensions with Labour campaign strategist Morgan McSweeney.

    Amid intense media scrutiny — which produced the revelation that Gray earned more than the prime minister — she resigned Sunday, saying stories about her “risked becoming a distraction.” McSweeney is replacing her as Starmer’s chief of staff.

    Anand Menon, director of the political think tank U.K. in a Changing Europe, wrote on its website that the government made “avoidable mistakes” that allowed a “perception of incompetence and dysfunction” to take hold.

    The government’s focus is now on Oct. 30, when Treasury chief Rachel Reeves will set out her first budget. The government is banking on a mix of public and private investment to spur economic growth, but needs to come up with billions for the task. Reeves has ruled out increasing income tax, sales tax or corporation tax, but also says there will be no “return to austerity” — a hard circle to square. She is thought to be considering hiking levies on wealth such as capital gains or inheritance tax.

    The government is hoping it can take painful decisions early and then turn things around by showing a growing economy and improving living standards. And it has time — there does not have to be another election until 2029.

    Starmer was working from 10 Downing St. on his 100th day in office, and insisted he would not be “knocked off course.”

    “You get these days and weeks when things are choppy, there’s no getting around that,” he told the BBC. “That is in the nature of government.

    “It’s been much tougher than anything I’ve done before, but much better.”

    Bale said the government can rebuild trust with voters, if it shows “not only that it’s had a pretty dire inheritance, but that it has a plan to improve the country.”

    “What’s been lacking in some ways is the vision thing,” he said. “I don’t think people have that much of a sense of what Keir Starmer or indeed Labour is about. And that’s something they need to put right very quickly.”

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  • US filings for jobless benefits jump to 258,000, the most in more than a year

    US filings for jobless benefits jump to 258,000, the most in more than a year

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    The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week jumped to its highest level in a year, which analysts are saying is more likely a result of Hurricane Helene — and the Boeing machinist strike — than a broader softening in the labor market.

    The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless claims jumped by by 33,000 to 258,000 for the week of Oct. 3. That’s the most since Aug. 5, 2023 and well above the 229,000 analysts were expecting.

    Analysts highlighted big jumps in jobless benefit applications last week across states that were most affected by Hurricane Helene, including Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

    “Claims will likely continue to be elevated in states affected by Helene and Hurricane Milton as well as the Boeing strike until it is resolved,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist of Oxford Economics. “We think, though, that the Fed will view these impacts as temporary and still expect it to lower rates by (25 basis points) at the November meeting.”

    Venden Houten said that Washington state was the most impacted by the Boeing strike and accounted for a disproportionate share of the increase.

    Applications for jobless benefits are widely considered representative of U.S. layoffs in a given week, however they can be volatile and prone to revision.

    The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of that weekly volatility, rose by 6,750 to 231,000.

    The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits rose by 42,000 to about 1.86 million for the week of Sept. 28, the most since late July.

    Outside of the weather and labor strife, some recent labor market data has suggested that high interest rates may finally be taking a toll on the labor market.

    In response to weakening employment data and receding consumer prices, the Federal Reserve last month cut its benchmark interest rate by a half of a percentage point as the central bank shifts its focus from taming inflation toward supporting the job market. The Fed’s goal is to achieve a rare “soft landing,” whereby it brings down inflation without causing a recession.

    It was the Fed’s first rate cut in four years after a series of rate hikes in 2022 and 2023 pushed the federal funds rate to a two-decade high of 5.3%.

    Inflation has retreated steadily, approaching the Fed’s 2% target and leading Chair Jerome Powell to declare recently that it was largely under control.

    In a separate report Thursday, the government reported that U.S. inflation reached its lowest point since February 2021.

    During the first four months of 2024, applications for jobless benefits averaged just 213,000 a week before rising in May. They hit 250,000 in late July, supporting the notion that high interest rates were finally cooling a red-hot U.S. job market.

    In August, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March this year than were originally reported. The revised total was also considered evidence that the job market has been slowing steadily, compelling the Fed to start cutting interest rates.

    Despite some signs of labor market slowing, America’s employers added a surprisingly strong 254,000 jobs in September, easing some concerns about a weakening job market and suggesting that the pace of hiring is still solid enough to support a growing economy.

    Last month’s gain was far more than economists had expected, and it was up sharply from the 159,000 jobs that were added in August. After rising for most of 2024, the unemployment rate dropped for a second straight month, from 4.2% in August to 4.1% in September.

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  • Takeaways from AP’s report on affordable housing disappearing across the U.S.

    Takeaways from AP’s report on affordable housing disappearing across the U.S.

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    LOS ANGELES — While Americans continue to struggle under unrelentingly high rents, as many as 223,000 affordable housing units across the U.S. could disappear in the next five years alone.

    It leaves low-income tenants facing protracted eviction battles, scrambling to pay a two-fold rent increase or more, or shunted back into a housing market where costs can easily eat half a paycheck.

    Those affordable housing units were built with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, or LIHTC, a federal program launched in 1987 that provides tax credits to developers in exchange for keeping rents low.

    It has pumped out 3.6 million units nationwide, and its expansion is now central to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ housing plan to build 3 million new homes.

    The catch? The buildings typically only need to be kept affordable for a minimum of 30 years. For the wave of LIHTC construction in the 1990s, those deadlines are arriving now, threatening to hemorrhage affordable housing supply when Americans need it most.

    Data on LIHTC units that will lose their affordability nationally remains a rough estimate.

    The best nationwide analysis estimated that by 2030 roughly 350,000 LIHTC units are at risk of losing affordability. That’s 1 million units by 2040, according to the National Housing Preservation Database.

    Not all units that lose LIHTC’s affordability protections become market rate. Some are kept affordable by other government subsidies, by merciful landlords or by states, including California, Colorado and New York, that have worked to keep costs low.

    Still, it’s a sizeable loss to a housing market already in dire need of new units.

    “If we are losing the homes that are currently affordable and available to households, then we’re losing ground on the crisis,” said Sarah Saadian, vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

    “It’s sort of like having a boat with a hole at the bottom,” she said.

    Local governments and nonprofits can purchase expiring apartments, new tax credits or other subsidies can be applied that extend the affordability, or tenants can organize to try to force action from landlords and city officials.

    California now requires all new LIHTC properties to be affordable for 55 years. Expiring developments built before that rule are also prioritized for new tax credits, and the state essentially requires that all LIHTC applicants have experience owning and managing affordable housing.

    California and Colorado require landlords to notify local governments and tenants before their building expires. Cities and nonprofits then have first shot at buying the property to keep it affordable.

    However, unlike California many states haven’t extended LIHTC agreements beyond 30 years, let alone taken other measures to keep expiring housing affordable.

    Still, local governments or nonprofits scraping together the funds to buy apartment buildings is far from a guarantee. And while new tax credits can reup a lapsing LIHTC affordability, they are limited, doled out to states by the Internal Revenue Service based on population.

    For more than two decades, the low rent on Marina Maalouf’s LIHTC apartment in Los Angeles’ Chinatown was a saving grace for her family, including a granddaughter who has autism.

    When that grace expired, the landlord, no longer legally obligated to keep the building affordable, hiked rent from $1,100 to $2,660 in 2021 — out of reach for Maalouf and her family. Tenant protests, a rent strike and eviction filings followed.

    The eviction case is ongoing, haunting Maalouf’s nights with fears of her family ending up in sleeping bags on a friend’s floor or worse. Mornings she repeats a mantra: “We still here. We still here.” But fighting day after day to make it true is exhausting.

    Still, Maalouf’s tenant activism has helped move the needle. The City of Los Angeles has offered the landlord $15 million to keep her building affordable through 2034, but that deal wouldn’t get rid of over 30 eviction cases still proceeding, including Maalouf’s, or the $25,000 in back rent she owes.

    On a recent day in the courtyard of Maalouf’s apartment, her granddaughter shuffled up with a glass of water. She is 5 years old, but with special needs, her speech is more disconnected words than sentences.

    “That’s why I’ve been hoping everything becomes normal again, and she can be safe,” said Maalouf, her voice shaking with emotion. She has urged her son to start saving money for the worst.

    “We’ll keep fighting,” she said, “but day by day it’s hard. … I’m tired already.”

    ___

    Bedayn is a corps member of 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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  • As affordable housing disappears, states scramble to shore up the losses

    As affordable housing disappears, states scramble to shore up the losses

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    LOS ANGELES — For more than two decades, the low rent on Marina Maalouf’s apartment in a blocky affordable housing development in Los Angeles’ Chinatown was a saving grace for her family, including a granddaughter who has autism.

    But that grace had an expiration date. For Maalouf and her family it arrived in 2020.

    The landlord, no longer legally obligated to keep the building affordable, hiked rent from $1,100 to $2,660 in 2021 — out of reach for Maalouf and her family. Maalouf’s nights are haunted by fears her yearslong eviction battle will end in sleeping bags on a friend’s floor or worse.

    While Americans continue to struggle under unrelentingly high rents, as many as 223,0000 affordable housing units like Maalouf’s across the U.S. could be yanked out from under them in the next five years alone.

    It leaves low-income tenants caught facing protracted eviction battles, scrambling to pay a two-fold rent increase or more, or shunted back into a housing market where costs can easily eat half a paycheck.

    Those affordable housing units were built with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, or LIHTC, a federal program established in 1986 that provides tax credits to developers in exchange for keeping rents low. It has pumped out 3.6 million units since then and boasts over half of all federally supported low-income housing nationwide.

    “It’s the lifeblood of affordable housing development,” said Brian Rossbert, who runs Housing Colorado, an organization advocating for affordable homes.

    That lifeblood isn’t strictly red or blue. By combining social benefits with tax breaks and private ownership, LIHTC has enjoyed bipartisan support. Its expansion is now central to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ housing plan to build 3 million new homes.

    The catch? The buildings typically only need to be kept affordable for a minimum of 30 years. For the wave of LIHTC construction in the 1990s, those deadlines are arriving now, threatening to hemorrhage affordable housing supply when Americans need it most.

    “If we are losing the homes that are currently affordable and available to households, then we’re losing ground on the crisis,” said Sarah Saadian, vice president of public policy at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

    “It’s sort of like having a boat with a hole at the bottom,” she said.

    Not all units that expire out of LIHTC become market rate. Some are kept affordable by other government subsidies, by merciful landlords or by states, including California, Colorado and New York, that have worked to keep them low-cost by relying on several levers.

    Local governments and nonprofits can purchase expiring apartments, new tax credits can be applied that extend the affordability, or, as in Maalouf’s case, tenants can organize to try to force action from landlords and city officials.

    Those options face challenges. While new tax credits can reup a lapsing LIHTC property, they are limited, doled out to states by the Internal Revenue Service based on population. It’s also a tall order for local governments and nonprofits to shell out enough money to purchase and keep expiring developments affordable. And there is little aggregated data on exactly when LIHTC units will lose their affordability, making it difficult for policymakers and activists to fully prepare.

    There also is less of a political incentive to preserve the units.

    “Politically, you’re rewarded for an announcement, a groundbreaking, a ribbon-cutting,” said Vicki Been, a New York University professor who previously was New York City’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development.

    “You’re not rewarded for being a good manager of your assets and keeping track of everything and making sure that you’re not losing a single affordable housing unit,” she said.

    Maalouf stood in her apartment courtyard on a recent warm day, chit-chatting and waving to neighbors, a bracelet with a photo of Che Guevarra dangling from her arm.

    “Friendly,” is how Maalouf described her previous self, but not assertive. That is until the rent hikes pushed her in front of the Los Angeles City Council for the first time, sweat beading as she fought for her home.

    Now an organizer with the LA Tenants’ Union, Maalouf isn’t afraid to speak up, but the angst over her home still keeps her up at night. Mornings she repeats a mantra: “We still here. We still here.” But fighting day after day to make it true is exhausting.

    Maalouf’s apartment was built before California made LIHTC contracts last 55 years instead of 30 in 1996. About 5,700 LIHTC units built around the time of Maalouf’s are expiring in the next decade. In Texas, it’s 21,000 units.

    When California Treasurer Fiona Ma assumed office in 2019, she steered the program toward developers committed to affordable housing and not what she called “churn and burn,” buying up LIHTC properties and flipping them onto the market as soon as possible.

    In California, landlords must notify state and local governments and tenants before their building expires. Housing organizations, nonprofits, and state or local governments then have first shot at buying the property to keep it affordable. Expiring developments also are prioritized for new tax credits, and the state essentially requires that all LIHTC applicants have experience owning and managing affordable housing.

    “It kind of weeded out people who weren’t interested in affordable housing long term,” said Marina Wiant, executive director of California’s tax credit allocation committee.

    But unlike California, some states haven’t extended LIHTC agreements beyond 30 years, let alone taken other measures to keep expiring housing affordable.

    Colorado, which has some 80,000 LIHTC units, passed a law this year giving local governments the right of first refusal in hopes of preserving 4,400 units set to lose affordability protections in the next six years. The law also requires landlords to give local and state governments a two-year heads-up before expiration.

    Still, local governments or nonprofits scraping together the funds to buy sizeable apartment buildings is far from a guarantee.

    Stories like Maalouf’s will keep playing out as LIHTC units turn over, threatening to send families with meager means back into the housing market. The median income of Americans living in these units was just $18,600 in 2021, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

    “This is like a math problem,” said Rossbert of Housing Colorado. “As soon as one of these units expires and converts to market rate and a household is displaced, they become a part of the need that’s driving the need for new construction.”

    “It’s hard to get out of that cycle,” he said.

    Colorado’s housing agency works with groups across the state on preservation and has a fund to help. Still, it’s unclear how many LIHTC units can be saved, in Colorado or across the country.

    It’s even hard to know how many units nationwide are expiring. An accurate accounting would require sorting through the constellation of municipal, state and federal subsidies, each with their own affordability requirements and end dates.

    That can throw a wrench into policymakers’ and advocates’ ability to fully understand where and when many units will lose affordability, and then funnel resources to the right places, said Kelly McElwain, who manages and oversees the National Housing Preservation Database. It’s the most comprehensive aggregation of LIHTC data nationally, but with all the gaps, it remains a rough estimate.

    There also are fears that if states publicize their expiring LIHTC units, for-profit buyers without an interest in keeping them affordable would pounce.

    “It’s sort of this Catch-22 of trying to both understand the problem and not put out a big for-sale sign in front of a property right before its expiration,” Rossbert said.

    Meanwhile, Maalouf’s tenant activism has helped move the needle in Los Angeles. The city has offered the landlord $15 million to keep her building affordable through 2034, but that deal wouldn’t get rid of over 30 eviction cases still proceeding, including Maalouf’s, or the $25,000 in back rent she owes.

    In her courtyard, Maalouf’s granddaughter, Rubie Caceres, shuffled up with a glass of water. She is 5 years old, but with special needs, her speech is more disconnected words than sentences.

    “That’s why I’ve been hoping everything becomes normal again, and she can be safe,” said Maalouf, her voice shaking with emotion. She has urged her son to start saving money for the worst.

    “We’ll keep fighting,” she said, “but day by day it’s hard.”

    “I’m tired already.”

    ___

    Bedayn reported from Denver.

    ___

    Bedayn is a corps member of 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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  • For small cities across Alabama with Haitian populations, Springfield is a cautionary tale

    For small cities across Alabama with Haitian populations, Springfield is a cautionary tale

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    ENTERPRISE, Ala. — The transition from the bustling Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to a small Alabama city on the southernmost tip of the Appalachian mountain range was challenging for Sarah Jacques.

    But, over the course of a year, the 22-year-old got used to the quiet and settled in. Jacques got a job at a manufacturing plant that makes car seats, found a Creole-language church and came to appreciate the ease and security of life in Albertville after the political turmoil and violence that’s plagued her home country.

    Recently, though, as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate began promoting debunked misinformation about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, causing crime and “eating pets,” Jacques said there have been new, unforeseen challenges.

    “When I first got here, people would wave at us, say hello to us, but now it’s not the same,” Jacques said in Creole through a translator. “When people see you, they kind of look at you like they’re very quiet with you or afraid of you.”

    Amid this mounting tension, a bipartisan group of local religious leaders, law enforcement officials and residents across Alabama see the fallout in Springfield as a cautionary tale — and have been taking steps to help integrate the state’s Haitian population in the small cities where they live.

    As political turmoil and violence intensify in Haiti, Haitian migrants have embraced a program established by President Joe Biden in 2023 that allows the U.S. to accept up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela for two years and offers work authorization. The Biden administration recently announced the program could allow an estimated 300,000 Haitians to remain in the U.S. at least through February 2026.

    In 2023, there were 2,370 people of Haitian ancestry in Alabama, according to census data. There is no official count of the increase in the Haitian population in Alabama since the program was implemented.

    The immigration debate is not new to Albertville, where migrant populations have been growing for three decades, said Robin Lathan, executive assistant to the Albertville mayor. Lathan said the city doesn’t track how many Haitians have moved to the city in recent years but said “it seems there has been an increase over the last year, in particular.”

    A representative from Albertville’s school system said that, in the last school year, 34% of the district’s 5,800 students were learning English as a second language — compared to only 17% in 2017.

    In August, weeks before Springfield made national headlines, a Facebook post of men getting off a bus to work at a poultry plant led some residents to speculate that the plant was hiring people living in the country illegally.

    Representatives for the poultry plant said in an email to The Associated Press that all its employees are legally allowed to work in the U.S.

    The uproar culminated in a public meeting where some residents sought clarity about the federal program that allowed Haitians to work in Alabama legally, while others called for landlords to “cut off the housing” for Haitians and suggested that the migrants have a “smell to them,” according to audio recordings.

    To Unique Dunson, a 27-year-old lifelong Albertville resident and community activist, these sentiments felt familiar.

    “Every time Albertville gets a new influx of people who are not white, there seems to be a problem,” Dunson said.

    Dunson runs a store offering free supplies to the community. After tensions boiled over across the country, she put up multiple billboards across town that read, in English, Spanish and Creole, “welcome neighbor glad you came.”

    Dunston said the billboards are a way to “push back” against the notion that migrants are unwelcome.

    When Pastor John Pierre-Charles first arrived in Albertville in 2006, he said the only other Haitians he knew in the area were his family members.

    In 14 years of operation, the congregation at his Creole-language church, Eglise Porte Etroite, has gone from just seven members in 2010 to approximately 300 congregants. He is now annexing classrooms to the church building for English language classes and drivers’ education classes, as well as a podcast studio to accommodate the burgeoning community.

    Still, Pierre-Charles describes the last months as “the worst period” for the Haitian community in all his time in Albertville.

    “I can see some people in Albertville who are really scared right now because they don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Pierre-Charles. “Some are scared because they think they may be sent back to Haiti. But some of them are scared because they don’t know how people are going to react to them.”

    After the fallout from the initial public meetings in August, Pierre-Charles sent a letter to city leadership calling for more resources for housing and food to ensure his growing community could safely acclimate, both economically and culturally.

    “That’s what I’m trying to do, to be a bridge,” said Pierre-Charles.

    He is not working alone.

    In August, Gerilynn Hanson, 54, helped organize the initial meetings in Albertville because she said many residents had legitimate questions about how migration was affecting the city.

    Now, Hanson said she is adjusting her strategy, “focusing on the human level.”

    In September, Hanson, an electrical contractor and Trump supporter, formed a nonprofit with Pierre-Charles and other Haitian community leaders to offer more stable housing and English language classes to meet the growing demand.

    “We can look at (Springfield) and become them in a year,” Hanson said, referring to the animosity that’s taken hold in the Ohio city, which has been inundated with threats. “We can sit back and do nothing and let it unfold under our eyes. Or we can try to counteract some of that and make it to where everyone is productive and can speak to each other.”

    Similar debates have proliferated in public meetings across the state — even in places where Haitian residents make up less than 0.5% of the entire population.

    In Sylacauga, videos from numerous public meetings show residents questioning the impact of the alleged rise in Haitian migrants. Officials said there are only 60 Haitian migrants in the town of about 12,000 people southeast of Birmingham.

    In Enterprise, not far from the Alabama-Florida border, cars packed the parking lot of Open Door Baptist Church in September for an event that promised answers about how the growing Haitian population was affecting the city.

    After the event, James Wright, the chief of the Ma-Chis Lower Creek Indian Tribe, was sympathetic to the reasons Haitians were fleeing their home but said he worried migrants would affect Enterprise’s local “political culture” and “community values.”

    Other attendees echoed fears and misinformation about Haitian migrants being “lawless” and “dangerous.”

    But some came to try to ease mounting anxieties about the migrant community.

    Enterprise police Chief Michael Moore said he shared statistics from his department that show no measurable increase in crimes as the Haitian population has grown.

    “I think there was quite a few people there that were more concerned about the fearmongering than the migrants,” Moore told the AP.

    Moore said his department had received reports of Haitian migrants living in houses that violated city code, but when he reached out to the people in question, the issues were quickly resolved. Since then, his department hasn’t heard any credible complaints about crimes caused by migrants.

    “I completely understand that some people don’t like what I say because it doesn’t fit their own personal thought process,” said Moore. “But those are the facts.”

    ___

    Riddle 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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  • Homeowners hit by Hurricane Helene face the grim task of rebuilding without flood insurance

    Homeowners hit by Hurricane Helene face the grim task of rebuilding without flood insurance

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    A week after Hurricane Helene overwhelmed the Southeastern U.S., homeowners hit the hardest are grappling with how they could possibly pay for the flood damage from one of the deadliest storms to hit the mainland in recent history.

    The Category 4 storm that first struck Florida’s Gulf Coast on September 26 has dumped trillions of gallons of water across several states, leaving a catastrophic trail of destruction that spans hundreds of miles inland. More than 200 people have died in what is now the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina, according to statistics from the National Hurricane Center.

    Western North Carolina and the Asheville area were hit especially hard, with flooding that wiped out buildings, roads, utilities and land in a way that nobody expected, let alone prepared for. Inland areas in parts of Georgia and Tennessee were also washed out.

    The Oak Forest neighborhood in south Asheville lives up to its name, with trees towering over 1960s era ranch-style houses on large lots. But on Sept. 27, as Helene’s remnants swept through western north Carolina, many of those trees came crashing down, sometimes landing on houses.

    Julianne Johnson said she was coming upstairs from the basement to help her 5-year-old son pick out clothes that day when her husband began to yell that a giant oak was falling diagonally across the yard. The tree mostly missed the house, but still crumpled part of a metal porch and damaged the roof. Then, Johnson said, her basement flooded.

    On Friday, there was a blue tarp being held on the roof with a brick. Sodden carpet that the family torn out lay on the side of the house, waiting to go to the landfill. With no cell phone service or internet access, Johnson said she couldn’t file a home insurance claim until four days after the storm.

    “It took me a while to make that call,” she said. “I don’t have an adjuster yet.”

    Roof and tree damage are likely to be covered by the average home insurance policy. But Johnson, like many homeowners, doesn’t have flood insurance and she’s not certain how she’ll pay for that part of the damage.

    Those recovering from the storm may be surprised to learn flood damage is a completely separate thing. Insurance professionals and experts have long warned that home insurance typically does not cover flood damage to the home, even as they espouse that flooding can happen anywhere that rains. That’s because flooding isn’t just sea water seeping into the land – it’s also water from banks, as well as mudflow and torrential rains.

    But most private insurance companies don’t carry flood insurance, leaving the National Flood Insurance Program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as the primary provider for that coverage for residential homes. Congress created the federal flood insurance program more than 50 years ago when many private insurers stopped offering policies in high-risk areas.

    North Carolina has 129,933 such policies in force, according to FEMA’s latest data, though most of that protection will likely be concentrated on the coast rather than in the Blue Ridge Mountains area where Helene caused the most damage. Florida, in comparison, has about 1.7 million flood policies in place statewide.

    Charlotte Hicks, a flood insurance expert in North Carolina who has led flood risk training and educational outreach for the state’s Department of Insurance, said the reality is that many Helene survivors will never be made whole. Without flood insurance, some people may be able to rebuild with the help of charities but most others will be left to fend for themselves.

    “There will absolutely be people who will be financially devasted by this event,” Hicks said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

    Some may go into foreclosure or bankruptcy. Entire neighborhoods will likely never be rebuilt. There’s been water damage across the board, Hicks said, and for some, mudslides have even taken the land upon which their house once stood.

    Meanwhile, Helene is turning out to be a fairly manageable disaster for the private home insurance market because those plans generally only serve to cover wind damage from hurricanes.

    That’s a relief for the industry, which has been under increasing strain from other intensifying climate disasters such as wildfires and tornadoes. Nowhere is the shrinking private market due to climate instability more evident than in Florida, where many companies have already stopped selling policies — leaving the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corporation now the largest home insurer in the state.

    Mark Friedlander, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, said Helene is a “very manageable loss event,” and estimates insurer losses will range from about $5 billion to $8 billion. That’s compared to the insured losses from the Category 4 Hurricane Ian in September 2022 that was estimated in excess of $50 billion.

    Friedlander and other experts point out that less than 1% of the inland areas that sustained the most catastrophic flood damage were protected with flood insurance.

    “This is very common in inland communities across the country,” Friedlander said. “ Lack of flood insurance is a major insurance gap in the U.S., as only about 6% of homeowners carry the coverage, mostly in coastal counties.”

    Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, said the images of the flood destruction in North Carolina shook her despite decades of seeing challenging recovery faced by victims of natural disasters.

    “This is a pretty serious situation here in terms of people disappointed. They are going to be disappointed in their insurers and they are going to be disappointed in FEMA,” Bach said. “FEMA cannot match the kind of dollars private insurers are supposed to be contributing to the recovery.”

    This week, FEMA announced it could meet the immediate needs of Helene but warned it doesn’t have enough funding to make it through the hurricane season, which runs June 1 to Nov. 30 though most hurricanes typically occur in September and October.

    Even if a homeowner does have it, FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program only covers up to $250,000 for single-family homes and $100,000 for contents.

    Bach said that along with homeowners educating themselves about what their policies do and don’t cover, the solution is a national disaster insurance program that does for property insurance what the Affordable Care Act did for health insurance.

    After Hurricane Floyd in 1999, the state of North Carolina started requiring insurance agents to take a flood insurance class so they could properly advise their clients of the risk and policies available, Hicks said. The state also requires home insurance policies to clearly disclose that it does not cover flood.

    “You can’t stop nature from doing what nature is going to do,” Hicks said. “For us to think it’s never going to be this bad again would be a dangerous assumption. A lot of people underestimate their risk of flooding.”

    ___

    Associated Press Staff Writers Jeff Amy in Asheville, North Carolina, Lisa Leff in London and Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Mexico’s president touts austerity on his way out of office but lavishes largesse on friends

    Mexico’s president touts austerity on his way out of office but lavishes largesse on friends

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    MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s outgoing president has always taken pride in his reputation as a penny-pincher but on Friday, three days before leaving office, Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced generous cash giveaways for his allies in a radical union movement.

    It was part of what analysts call López Obrador’s contradictory policies of cutting some government services to the bone while handing out vast amounts for his own pet projects and to political supporters.

    He granted an electrical workers’ union about $95 million a year in unearned pension benefits, describing it as “an act of justice.”

    In 2009, some 7,000 of the unionized workers from the debt-ridden, corrupt and overstaffed government power company were laid off. Still, they spent the next decade supporting López Obrador’s two subsequent presidential campaigns.

    At the time they were sacked, the workers had not accumulated enough years to retire, under policies allowing retirement after 25 years of service. On Friday, López Obrador gave them pensions anyway.

    The action was in line with his generosity to those who support him.

    Last year, he gave about $45 million to former workers of a defunct government-owned airline, Mexicana, in order to acquire the trademark rights to the airline’s name, Mexicana de Aviacion.

    Experts say the name had essentially no commercial value after the airline went bankrupt in 2010, but the workers — whose pensions were wiped out by the company’s collapse — had been been strong supporters of López Obrador in his presidential bids. He has since spent hundreds of millions of dollars more to revive a smaller version of the government airline.

    The lavish giveaways contrast sharply with the image of extreme austerity that López Obrador has sought to project since taking office in 2018 — he sold off the presidential jet and flew around the country on commercial airline flights, in tourist class. Later, he switched to using military aircraft for trips.

    He largely eliminated federal oversight and regulatory agencies, claiming they cost too much and arguing that one “cannot have a rich government with poor people.” Federal revenues sharing for state governments and funding local police forces has been slashed to the bone.

    That austerity has meant less money for basic projects, including building infrastructure, road construction and maintenance and policing.

    Meanwhile, in a rush to finish López Obrador’s pet projects — mostly rail and refinery projects of questionable profitability — the government went on a borrowing spree, running a deficit equivalent to 5% of GDP. That has undermined the central bank’s attempts to control the 5% annual inflation with domestic interest rates of 10.5%.

    Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis of the local financial group Banco Base, said the contradictory policies have hurt Mexico.

    There has been less “physical investment,” Siller said. “Paradoxically, this administration is ending up with more debt and a very high budget deficit.”

    In his final days in office, López Obrador has been harsh to his enemies.

    Late on Monday, he essentially expropriated the $1.9 billion property on the Caribbean coast owned by a U.S. firm that operates a stone quarry and seaport just south of the resort of Playa del Carmen. He declared the land a nature reserve — despite previously granted permits for a quarry and a dock there.

    López Obrador had previously threatened to expropriate the property and later offered to buy it for about $385 million, saying at the time he wanted to turn it into a tourist attraction. The company has estimated the land’s value at about $1.9 billion.

    The U.S. company that owned the property — Alabama-based Vulcan Materials — said Tuesday the expropriation violates the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement and was part of “a series of threats and actions by the current administration against our operations.”

    The outgoing Mexican leader has also engaged in very public and nasty disputes with retail, TV and banking magnate Ricardo Salinas Pliego, claiming the tycoon owes over $1 billion in back taxes.

    Then, López Obrador claimed he had tried to offer Salinas Pliego a deal to forgive late charges on the back taxes but met with the magnate’s refusal out of “arrogance.”

    Salinas Pliego punched back, accusing allies of López Obrador’s son Andy — a top leader in the president’s Morena party — of trying to extort money from businessmen with back tax audits against them.

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  • Medicare Advantage shopping season arrives with a dose of confusion and some political implications

    Medicare Advantage shopping season arrives with a dose of confusion and some political implications

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    Thinner benefits and coverage changes await many older Americans shopping for health insurance this fall. That’s if their plan is even still available in 2025.

    More than a million people will probably have to find new coverage as major insurers cut costs and pull back from markets for Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run version of the federal government’s coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and older.

    Industry experts also predict some price increases for Medicare prescription drug plans as required coverage improvements kick in.

    Voters will learn about the insurance changes just weeks before they pick the next president and as Democrat Kamala Harris campaigns on promises to lower health care costs. Early voting has already started in some states.

    “This could be bad news for Vice President Harris. If that premium is going up, that’s a very obvious sign that you’re paying more,” said Massey Whorley, an analyst for health care consulting company Avalere. “That has significant implications for how they’re viewing the performance of the current administration.”

    Insurance agents say the distraction of the election adds another complication to an already challenging annual enrollment window that starts next month.

    Insurers are pulling back from Medicare Advantage

    Medicare Advantage plans will cover more than 35 million people next year, or around half of all people enrolled in Medicare, according to the federal government. Insurance agents say they expect more people than usual will have to find new coverage for 2025 because their insurer has either ended a plan or left their market.

    The health insurer Humana expects more than half a million customers — about 10% of its total — to be affected as it pulls Medicare Advantage plans from places around the country. Many customers will be able to transfer to other Humana plans, but company leaders still anticipate losing a few hundred thousand customers.

    CVS Health’s Aetna projects a similar loss, and other big insurers have said they are leaving several states.

    Insurers say rising costs and care use, along with reimbursement cuts from the government, are forcing them to pull back.

    Some people can expect a tough search

    When insurers leave Medicare Advantage markets, they tend to stop selling plans that have lower quality ratings and those with a higher proportion of Black buyers, said Dr. Amal Trivedi, a Brown University public health researcher.

    He noted that market exits can be particularly hard on people with several doctors and on patients with cognitive trouble like dementia.

    Most markets will still have dozens of plan choices. But finding a new option involves understanding out-of-pocket costs for each choice, plus figuring out how physicians and regular prescriptions are covered.

    “People don’t like change when it comes to health insurance because you don’t know what’s on the other side of the fence,” said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert at KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care.

    Plans that don’t leave markets may raise deductibles and trim perks like cards used to pay for utilities or food.

    Those proved popular in recent years as inflation rose, said Danielle Roberts, co-founder of the Fort Worth, Texas, insurance agency Boomer Benefits.

    “It’s really difficult for a person on a fixed income to choose a health plan for the right reasons … when $900 on a flex card in free groceries sounds pretty good,” she said.

    Don’t “sleep” on picking a Medicare plan

    Prices also could rise for some so-called standalone Part D prescription drug plans, which people pair with traditional Medicare coverage. KFF says that population includes more than 13 million people.

    The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Friday that premiums for these plans will decrease about 4% on average to $40 next year.

    But brokers and agents say premiums can vary widely, and they still expect some increases. They also expect fewer plan choices and changes to formularies, or lists of covered drugs. Roberts said she has already seen premium hikes of $30 or more from some plans for next year.

    Any price shift will hit a customer base known to switch plans for premium changes as small as $1, said Fran Soistman, CEO of the online insurance marketplace eHealth.

    The changes come as a congressional-approved coverage overhaul takes hold. Most notably, out-of-pocket drug costs will be capped at $2,000 for those on Medicare, an effort championed by Democrats and President Joe Biden in 2022.

    In the long run, these changes will lead to a “much richer benefit,” Whorley said.

    KFF’s Neuman noted that the cap on drug costs will be especially helpful to cancer patients and others with expensive prescriptions. She estimates about 1.5 million people will benefit.

    To ward off big premium spikes because of the changes, the Biden administration will pull billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund to pay insurers to keep premium prices down, a move some Republicans have criticized. Insurers will not be allowed to raise premium prices beyond $35 next year.

    People will be able to sign up for 2025 coverage between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7. Experts say all the potential changes make it important for shoppers to study closely any new choices or coverage they expect to renew.

    “This is not a year to sleep on it, just re-enroll in the status quo,” said Whorley, the health care analyst.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Brett Favre to appear before US House panel looking at welfare misspending

    Brett Favre to appear before US House panel looking at welfare misspending

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    JACKSON, Miss. — Retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre, who has repaid just over $1 million in speaking fees funded by a welfare program in Mississippi, is scheduled to appear before a Republican-led congressional committee that’s examining how states are falling short on using welfare to help families in need.

    The House Ways and Means Committee hearing in Washington is scheduled for Tuesday. A committee spokesperson, J.P. Freire, confirmed to The Associated Press on Friday that Favre is scheduled to appear and was invited by the chairman, Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri.

    Favre will take questions “per the usual witness policy,” Freire said. However, it’s unclear how much the Pro Football Hall of Famer might say because a Mississippi judge in 2023 put a gag order on him and others being sued by the state.

    House Republicans have said a Mississippi welfare misspending scandal involving Favre and others points to the need for “serious reform” in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

    “Democrats have failed to hold a single hearing on TANF or conduct oversight to identify ways the program could be improved,” Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee said in a November 2022 letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

    The letter did not mention that Republicans control the Mississippi government now, as they did during the welfare misspending scandal that officials called the state’s largest public corruption case.

    Mississippi has ranked among the poorest states in the U.S. for decades, but only a fraction of its federal welfare money has been going to families. Instead, the Mississippi Department of Human Services allowed well-connected people to waste tens of millions of welfare dollars from 2016 to 2019, according to Mississippi Auditor Shad White and state and federal prosecutors.

    Favre is not facing any criminal charges, but he is among more than three dozen defendants in a civil lawsuit the state filed in 2022. The suit demands repayment of money that was misspent through TANF.

    White, a Republican, said in 2020 that Favre had improperly received $1.1 million in speaking fees from a nonprofit organization that spent welfare with approval from the state Department of Human Services. White said Favre did not show up for the speeches. Although Favre repaid the $1.1 million, he still owes nearly $730,000 in interest, White said.

    The TANF money was to go toward a volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi. Favre agreed to lead fundraising efforts for the facility at his alma mater, where his daughter started playing on the volleyball team in 2017.

    A nonprofit group called the Mississippi Community Education Center made two payments of welfare money to Favre Enterprises, the athlete’s business: $500,000 in December 2017 and $600,000 in June 2018.

    Court records show that on Dec. 27, 2017, Favre texted the center’s director, Nancy New: “Nancy Santa came today and dropped some money off (two smiling emojis) thank you my goodness thank you.”

    “Yes he did,” New responded. “He felt you had been pretty good this year!”

    New pleaded guilty in April 2022 to charges of misspending welfare money, as did her son Zachary New, who helped run the nonprofit. They await sentencing and have agreed to testify against others.

    Favre said he didn’t know the payments he received came from welfare funds and noted his charity had provided millions of dollars to poor kids in his home state of Mississippi and Wisconsin, where he played most of his career with the Green Bay Packers.

    Punchbowl News was first to report about Favre’s appearance before the Ways and Means Committee.

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  • Weekly applications for US jobless benefits fall to the lowest level in 4 months

    Weekly applications for US jobless benefits fall to the lowest level in 4 months

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    The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in four months last week.

    Jobless claims slid by 12,000, to 219,000, for the week of Sept. 14, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than economists’ expectations for 230,000 new filings.

    Weekly filings for unemployment benefits, considered largely representative of layoffs, had risen moderately since May before this week’s decline. Though still at historically healthy levels, the recent increase signaled that high interest rates may finally be taking a toll on the labor market.

    In response to weakening employment data and receding consumer prices, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate by a half of a percentage point as the central bank shifts its focus from taming inflation toward supporting the job market. The Fed’s goal is to achieve a rare “soft landing,” whereby it curbs inflation without causing a recession.

    “The focus has now decisively shifted to the labor market, and there’s a sense that the Fed is trying to strike a better balance between jobs and inflation,” said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management.

    It was the Fed’s first rate cut in four years after a series of rate hikes in 2022 and 2023 pushed the federal funds rate to a two-decade high of 5.3%.

    Inflation has retreated steadily, approaching the Fed’s 2% target and leading Chair Jerome Powell to declare recently that it was largely under control.

    During the first four months of 2024, applications for jobless benefits averaged just 213,000 a week before rising in May. They hit 250,000 in late July, supporting the notion that high interest rates were finally cooling a red-hot U.S. job market.

    U.S. employers added a modest 142,000 jobs in August, up from a paltry 89,000 in July, but well below the January-June monthly average of nearly 218,000.

    Last month, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March this year than were originally reported. The revised total was also considered evidence that the job market has been slowing steadily, compelling the Fed to start cutting interest rates.

    This week’s Labor Department report showed that the four-week average of claims, which evens out some of weekly volatility, fell by 3,500 to 227,500.

    The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits fell by 14,000 to about 1.83 million for the week of Sept. 7, the fewest since early June.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Trump blends falsehoods and exaggerations at rambling NJ press conference

    FACT FOCUS: Trump blends falsehoods and exaggerations at rambling NJ press conference

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    Former President Donald Trump on Thursday gave his second news conference in as many weeks as he adjusts to a newly energized Democratic ticket ahead of next week’s Democratic National Convention.

    At his New Jersey golf club, the Republican nominee blended falsehoods about the economy with misleading statements and deeply personal attacks about his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    Inflation did not take the toll Trump claimed. Growth surged under Biden

    TRUMP: “As a result of Kamala’s inflation, price hikes have cost the typical household a total of $28,000. … When I left office, I left Kamala and crooked Joe Biden a surging economy and no inflation. The mortgage rate was around 2%. Gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. … Harris and Biden blew it all up.”

    THE FACTS: Trump made numerous economic claims that were either exaggerated or misleading. Prices did surge during the Biden-Harris administration, though $28,000 is far higher than independent estimates. Moody’s Analytics calculated last year that price increases over the previous two years were costing the typical U.S. household $709 a month. That would equal $8,500 a year.

    Separately, the U.S. economy was growing quickly as it reopened from COVID in 2020, as Trump’s term ended, and it continued to do so after Biden took office. Growth reached 5.8% in 2021, Biden’s first year in the White House, as the rebound continued, faster than any year that Trump was in office. Mortgage rates were low when Trump left because of the pandemic, which caused the Federal Reserve to cut its key rate to nearly zero. Gas prices fell as the economy largely shut down and Americans cut back sharply on their driving.

    ‘Foreign born’ is not the same as ‘migrants’

    TRUMP: “Virtually 100% of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants.”

    THE FACTS: This is a misinterpretation of government jobs data. The figures do show that the number of foreign-born people with jobs has increased in the past year, while the number of native-born Americans with jobs has declined. But foreign-born is not the same as “migrants” — it would include people who arrived in the U.S. years ago and are now naturalized citizens.

    In addition, the data is based on Census research that many economists argue is undercounting both foreign- and native-born workers. According to a report by Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson at the Brookings Institution released this week, native-born employment rose by 740,000 in 2023, while foreign-born rose by 1.7 million. Much of the disparity reflects the fact that the native-born population is older than the foreign-born, and are more likely to be retired. In addition, the unemployment rate for native-born Americans is 4.5%, lower than the 4.7% for foreign-born.

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump talks after a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

    A thief is not allowed to steal up to $950

    TRUMP: “You’re allowed to rob a store as long as it’s not more than $950. … If it’s less than $950 they can rob it and not get charged.”

    THE FACTS: Trump was referring to regulations in California that allegedly allow for theft under $950. But his claim is not correct — a 2014 proposition modified, but did not eliminate, sentencing for many nonviolent property and drug crimes.

    Proposition 47 raised the minimum dollar amount necessary for theft to be prosecuted as a felony, instead of a misdemeanor, from $400 to $950.

    Alex Bastian, then-special adviser to Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who co-authored Prop 47, told The Associated Press in 2021 that the minimum was raised “to adjust for inflation and cost of living,” but that most shoplifting cases were already prosecuted as misdemeanors any since they didn’t exceed $400.

    Prop 47 was enacted to comply with a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court order, which upheld that the state’s overcrowded prisons violated incarcerated individuals’ Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment. It instructed California to reduce its state prison population by 33,000 individuals within two years.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Harris has not said in this campaign she wants to defund police

    TRUMP, on Harris: “You know, she wants to defund the police.”

    THE FACTS: Harris expressed praise for the “defund the police” movement after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, questioning whether money was being effectively spent on public safety. However, she has not said during her current campaign that she is in favor of defunding law enforcement.

    The Biden administration tried to overhaul policing, but the legislation stalled on Capitol Hill, and Biden ultimately settled for issuing an executive order. It also pumped more money into local departments.

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens to a question after a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

    Trump did not win Pennsylvania in 2020

    TRUMP: “I won Pennsylvania and I did much better the second time. I won it in 2016, did much better the second time. I know Pennsylvania very well.”

    THE FACTS: False. Trump did win the state in 2016, when he beat Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the presidency. But he lost the state in 2020 to President Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native. According to the official certified results, Biden and Harris received 3.46 million votes, compared to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence with 3.38 million votes, a margin of about 80,000 votes.

    Oil production in U.S. hit record under Biden

    Trump says he will bring energy prices down by reversing President Joe Biden’s policy of encouraging renewable energy at the expense of fossil fuels.

    TRUMP: “We’re going to drill baby drill, we’re going to get the energy prices down, almost immediately.”

    THE FACTS: Oil production in the U.S. hit an all-time high under Biden’s administration.

    The U.S. Department of Energy reported in October that U.S. oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, passing a previous record set in 2020 by 100,000 barrels. Department statistics also show that the U.S. has produced more crude oil per year than any other nation — for the past six years.

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

    Economy has shown recent signs of strength, not evidence of collapse

    TRUMP: “We’re going to have a crash like the 1929 crash if she gets in.”

    THE FACTS: The economy has shown recent signs of strength — not evidence that America is on the edge of economic collapse.

    On Thursday the S&P 500 jumped 1.6%, its sixth gain in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also increased Thursday, as did the Nasdaq composite.

    Recent economic reports show that shoppers increased their retail spending last month and fewer workers sought unemployment benefits.

    Fears the economy was slowing emerged last month following a sharp drop in hiring and higher unemployment rates. But those worries were assuaged earlier this month when better-than-expected jobless numbers led to Wall Street’s best rally since 2022.

    Harris was not named border ‘czar’

    TRUMP: “She was the border czar but she didn’t do anything. She’s the worst border czar in history. … She was the person responsible for the border and she never went there.”

    THE FACTS: Biden tapped Harris in 2021 to work with Central American countries to address the root causes of migration and the challenges it creates. Illegal crossings are one aspect of those challenges, but Harris was never assigned to the border or put in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees law enforcement at the border.

    Black unemployment is lower under Biden

    TRUMP: “The Black population had the best numbers they’ve ever had on jobs, on income, on everything. The Hispanic population had the best numbers.”

    THE FACTS: It’s true that Black and Hispanic unemployment fell to then-record lows under Trump, but that was upended by COVID. When Trump left office, Black unemployment had soared to 9.3% and Hispanic unemployment to 8.5%. Under Biden, Black unemployment fell to a new record low of 4.8% in April 2023, while Hispanic unemployment in September 2022 matched the all-time low of 3.9% it had reached under Trump.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    __

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  • A ‘Trump Train’ convoy surrounded a Biden-Harris bus. Was it political violence?

    A ‘Trump Train’ convoy surrounded a Biden-Harris bus. Was it political violence?

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    AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury will soon decide whether a convoy of supporters of then-President Donald Trump violently intimidated former Democratic lawmaker Wendy Davis and two others on a Biden-Harris campaign bus when a so-called “Trump Train” boxed them in for more than an hour on a Texas highway days before the 2020 election.

    The trial, which began on Sept. 9, resumes Monday and is expected to last another week.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that six of the Trump Train drivers violated state and federal law. Lawyers for the defendants said they did not conspire against the Democrats on the bus and that their actions are protected speech.

    Here’s what else to know:

    What happened on Oct. 30, 2020?

    Dozens of cars and trucks organized by a local Trump Train group swarmed the bus on its way from San Antonio to Austin. It was the last day of early voting in Texas for the 2020 general election, and the bus was scheduled to make a stop in San Marcos for an event at Texas State University.

    Video recorded by Davis shows pickup trucks with large Trump flags aggressively slowing down and boxing in the bus as it tried to move away from the Trump Train. One defendant hit a campaign volunteer’s car while the trucks occupied all lanes of traffic, slowing the bus and everyone around it to a 15 mph crawl.

    Those on the bus — including Davis, a campaign staffer and the driver — repeatedly called 911 asking for help and a police escort through San Marcos, but when no law enforcement arrived, the campaign canceled the event and pushed forward to Austin.

    San Marcos settled a separate lawsuit filed by the same three Democrats against the police, agreeing to pay $175,000 and mandate political violence training for law enforcement.

    Davis testified that she felt she was being “taken hostage” and has sought treatment for anxiety.

    In the days leading up to the event, Democrats were also intimidated, harassed and received death threats, the lawsuit said.

    “I feel like they were enjoying making us afraid,” Davis testified. “It’s traumatic for all of us to revisit that day.”

    What’s the plaintiffs’ argument?

    In opening statements, an attorney for the plaintiffs said convoy organizers targeted the bus in a calculated attack to intimidate the Democrats in violation of the “Ku Klux Klan Act,” an 1871 federal law that bans political violence and intimidation.

    “We’re here because of actions that put people’s lives in danger,” said Samuel Hall, an attorney with the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The plaintiffs, he said, were “literally driven out of town by a swarm of trucks.”

    The six Trump Train drivers succeeded in making the campaign cancel its remaining events in Texas in a war they believed was “between good and evil,” Hall said.

    Two nonprofit advocacy groups, Texas Civil Rights Project and Protect Democracy, also are representing the three plaintiffs.

    What’s the defense’s argument?

    Attorneys for the defendants, who are accused of driving and organizing the convoy, said they did not conspire to swarm the Democrats on the bus, which could have exited the highway at any point.

    “This was a political rally. This was not some conspiracy to intimidate people,” said attorney Jason Greaves, who is representing two of the drivers.

    The defense also argued that their clients’ actions were protected speech and that the trial is a concerted effort to “drain conservatives of their money,” according to Francisco Canseco, a lawyer for three of the defendants.

    “It was a rah-rah group that sought to support and advocate for a candidate of their choice in a very loud way,” Canseco said during opening statements.

    The defense lost a bid last month to have the case ruled in their favor without a trial. The judge wrote that “assaulting, intimidating, or imminently threatening others with force is not protected expression.”

    ___

    Lathan 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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  • Iran says it successfully launched a satellite in its program criticized by West over missile fears

    Iran says it successfully launched a satellite in its program criticized by West over missile fears

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    TEHRAN, Iran — Iran launched a satellite into space Saturday with a rocket built by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, state-run media reported, the latest for a program the West fears helps Tehran advance its ballistic missile program.

    Iran described the launch as a success, which would be the second such launch to put a satellite into orbit with the rocket. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the launch’s success.

    Footage later released by Iranian media showed the rocket blast off from a mobile launcher. The video suggested the launch happened at the Guard’s launch pad on the outskirts of the city of Shahroud, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) east of the capital, Tehran.

    The launch comes amid heightened tensions gripping the wider Middle East over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, during which Tehran launched an unprecedented direct missile-and-drone attack on Israel. Meanwhile, Iran continues to enrich uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels, raising concerns among nonproliferation experts about Tehran’s program.

    Iran identified the satellite-carrying rocket as the Qaem-100, which the Guard used in January for another successful launch. Qaem means “upright” in Iran’s Farsi language. The solid-fuel rocket put the Chamran-1 satellite, weighing 60 kilograms (132 pounds), into a 550-kilometer (340-mile) orbit, state media reported.

    The U.S. State Department and the American military did not immediately respond to requests for comment over the Iranian launch.

    The United States had previously said Iran’s satellite launches defy a U.N. Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. U.N. sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program expired last October.

    Under Iran’s relatively moderate former President Hassan Rouhani, the Islamic Republic slowed its space program for fear of raising tensions with the West. Hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, a protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who came to power in 2021, has pushed the program forward. Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May.

    It’s unclear what Iran’s new president, the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, wants for the program as he was silent on the issue while campaigning.

    The U.S. intelligence community’s worldwide threat assessment this year said Iran’s development of satellite launch vehicles “would shorten the timeline” for Iran to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile because it uses similar technology.

    Intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Iran is now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers. Tehran has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear weapons, if it chooses to produce them, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly has warned.

    Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003.

    The launch also came ahead of the second anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, which sparked nationwide protests against Iran’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab, law and the country’s Shiite theocracy.

    ___

    Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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  • Officials say a troubled and delayed Baltic high-speed rail project still set for completion by 2030

    Officials say a troubled and delayed Baltic high-speed rail project still set for completion by 2030

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    HELSINKI (AP) — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said Saturday they are committed to completing by the end of the decade a financially troubled and badly delayed high-speed rail project integrating the three Baltic countries with the continental European rail network.

    Set to link the Baltic capitals of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius on a new track with passenger trains running at speeds of up to 250 kph (155 mph), the Rail Baltica project was launched in 2014 as a pan-Baltic joint venture with financing primarily provided by the European Union.

    Vladimir Svet, the Estonian infrastructure minister, said Saturday after an earlier meeting with the Latvian and Lithuanian transport ministers that “it is still our goal to start passenger and freight train traffic on the entire Rail Baltica route from 2030.”

    “However, we still have to keep an eye on the growth of costs and find ways to save money and build more efficiently,” he said in a statement.

    While the initial 2010 plan saw the project’s total cost at around 3.5 billion euros ($3.9 billion), a June joint report by auditors from the three Baltic states showcased the venture’s ballooning costs and said the project may need up to 19 billion euros ($21 billion) more funding to be completed.

    It is unclear how much the EU, which has identified Rail Baltica as one of the key European transport projects, is willing to inject money into the venture.

    Construction of new rail track, running a total length of 870 kilometers (540 miles) from Tallinn, Estonia to Kaunas, Lithuania and onward to the Polish border, started in 2019 but has been marred by delays and disputes between the Baltic governments of the train’s routing.

    The venture is running at least five years behind as the first pan-Baltic passenger and cargo trains were supposed run on the new tracks in 2025.

    Critics of the project say the meager population base in the Baltics — just over 6 million people live in the three Baltic states — makes the project economically unfeasible for passenger travel and its emphasis should be more on cargo, also a key element in the venture.

    Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all former Soviet republics, inherited the Soviet rail infrastructure system and the wider Russian gauge of 1,520 mm rails, when they regained their independence in the beginning of the 1990s.

    “The Rail Baltica project is a symbolic return of the Baltic States to Europe — until the Second World War the Baltic States were already connected to Europe with 1,435 mm wide (gauge),” the Rail Baltica website says.

    “But since the middle of the 20th century the Baltic countries have been mainly linked to an East-West railway axis using the Russian gauge 1520 mm rails,” it said.

    Once completed, the high-speed train is set to cover the 660 kilometer (410 mile) journey from Tallinn to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, in 3 hours and 38 minutes, offering a substantial time savings to the current car or bus ride of up to nine hours.

    With additional rail connections, the north-south Rail Baltica will connect the Baltic states with Warsaw, Poland and, eventually, Berlin — a key target of the Baltic governments.

    Due to the changed geopolitical situation in Baltic Sea region following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — all sharing border with Russia — are stressing that the need to invest in infrastructure, which enables fast and large quantities of military equipment to be transported, has grown significantly.

    Finland, strongly linked to Estonia by numerous ferry connections from Helsinki to Tallinn through the Baltic Sea, is indirectly involved in the venture.

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  • Another New Jersey offshore wind project runs into turbulence as Leading Light seeks pause

    Another New Jersey offshore wind project runs into turbulence as Leading Light seeks pause

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    Another offshore wind project in New Jersey is encountering turbulence.

    Leading Light Wind is asking the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to give it a pause through late December on its plan to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Long Beach Island.

    In a filing with the utilities board made in July but not posted on the board’s web site until Tuesday, the company said it has had difficulty securing a manufacturer for turbine blades for the project and is currently without a supplier.

    It asked the board to pause the project through Dec. 20 while a new source of blades is sought.

    Wes Jacobs, the project director and vice president of Offshore Wind Development at Invenergy — one of the project’s partners — said it is seeking to hit the pause button “in light of industry-wide shifts in market conditions.”

    It seeks more time for discussions with the board and supply chain partners, he said.

    “As one of the largest American-led offshore wind projects in the country, we remain committed to delivering this critically important energy project, as well as its significant economic and environmental benefits, to the Garden State,” he said in a statement Tuesday night.

    The statement added that the company, during a pause, would continue moving its project ahead with such developmental activities as an “ongoing survey program and preparation of its construction and operations plan.”

    The request was hailed by opponents of offshore wind, who are particularly vocal in New Jersey.

    “Yet another offshore wind developer is finding out for themselves that building massive power installations in the ocean is a fool’s errand, especially off the coast of New Jersey,” said Protect Our Coast NJ. “We hope Leading Light follows the example of Orsted and leaves New Jersey before any further degradation of the marine and coastal environment can take place.”

    Nearly a year ago, Danish wind energy giant Orsted scrapped two offshore wind farms planned off New Jersey’s coast, saying they were no longer financially feasible to build.

    Atlantic Shores, another project with preliminary approval in New Jersey, is seeking to rebid the financial terms of its project.

    And opponents of offshore wind have seized on the disintegration of a wind turbine blade off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts in July that sent crumbled pieces of it washing ashore on the popular island vacation destination.

    Leading Light was one of two projects chosen in January by the state utilities board. But just three weeks after that approval, one of three major turbine manufacturers, GE Vernova, said it would not announce the kind of turbine Invenergy planned to use in the Leading Light Project, according to the filing with the utilities board.

    A turbine made by manufacturer Vestas was deemed unsuitable for the project, and the lone remaining manufacturer, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, told Invenergy in June “that it was substantially increasing the cost of its turbine offering.”

    “As a result of these actions, Invenergy is currently without a viable turbine supplier,” it wrote in its filing.

    The project, from Chicago-based Invenergy and New York-based energyRE, would be built 40 miles (65 kilometers) off Long Beach Island and would consist of up to 100 turbines, enough to power 1 million homes.

    New Jersey has become the epicenter of resident and political opposition to offshore wind, with numerous community groups and elected officials — most of them Republicans — saying the industry is harmful to the environment and inherently unprofitable.

    Supporters, many of them Democrats, say that offshore wind is crucial to move the planet away from the burning of fossil fuels and the changing climate that results from it.

    New Jersey has set ambitious goals to become the East Coast hub of the offshore wind industry. It built a manufacturing facility for wind turbine components in the southern part of the state to help achieve that aim.

    ___

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

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  • Applications for US jobless benefits fall to 2-month low as layoffs remain at healthy levels

    Applications for US jobless benefits fall to 2-month low as layoffs remain at healthy levels

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    The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell to its lowest level in two months last week, signaling that layoffs remain relatively low despite other signs of labor market cooling.

    Jobless claims fell by 5,000 to 227,000 for the week of Aug. 31, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the fewest since the week of July 6, when 223,000 Americans filed claims. It’s also less than the 230,000 new filings that analysts were expecting.

    The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 1,750 to 230,000. That’s the lowest four-week average since early June.

    Weekly filings for unemployment benefits, considered a proxy for layoffs, remain low by historic standards, though they are up from earlier this year.

    During the first four months of 2024, claims averaged a historically low 213,000 a week. But they started rising in May. They hit 250,000 in late July, adding to evidence that high interest rates were finally cooling a red-hot U.S. job market.

    Employers added just 114,000 jobs in July, well below the January-June monthly average of nearly 218,000. The unemployment rate rose for the fourth straight month in July, though it remains relatively low at 4.3%.

    Economists polled by FactSet expect Friday’s August jobs report to show that the U.S. added 160,000 jobs, up from 114,000 in July, and that the unemployment rate dipped to 4.2% from 4.3%. The report’s strength, or weakness, will likely influence the Federal Reserve’s plans for how much to cut its benchmark interest rate.

    Last month, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March this year than were originally reported. The revised total supports evidence that the job market has been steadily slowing and reinforces the Fed’s plan to start cutting interest rates later this month.

    The Fed, in an attempt to stifle inflation that hit a four-decade high just over two years ago, raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. That pushed it to a 23-year high, where it has stayed for more than a year.

    Inflation has retreated steadily, approaching the Fed’s 2% target and leading Chair Jerome Powell to declare recently that it was largely under control.

    Traders are forecasting the Fed will cut its benchmark rate by a full percentage point by the end of 2024, which would require it to cut the rate by more than the traditional quarter of a percentage point at one of its meetings in the next few months.

    Thursday’s report also showed that the total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits declined by 22,000 to 1.84 million for the week of Aug. 24.

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  • Another New Jersey offshore wind project runs into turbulence as Leading Light seeks pause

    Another New Jersey offshore wind project runs into turbulence as Leading Light seeks pause

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    Another offshore wind project in New Jersey is encountering turbulence.

    Leading Light Wind is asking the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to give it a pause through late December on its plan to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Long Beach Island.

    In a filing with the utilities board made in July but not posted on the board’s web site until Tuesday, the company said it has had difficulty securing a manufacturer for turbine blades for the project and is currently without a supplier.

    It asked the board to pause the project through Dec. 20 while a new source of blades is sought.

    Wes Jacobs, the project director and vice president of Offshore Wind Development at Invenergy — one of the project’s partners — said it is seeking to hit the pause button “in light of industry-wide shifts in market conditions.”

    It seeks more time for discussions with the board and supply chain partners, he said.

    “As one of the largest American-led offshore wind projects in the country, we remain committed to delivering this critically important energy project, as well as its significant economic and environmental benefits, to the Garden State,” he said in a statement Tuesday night.

    The statement added that the company, during a pause, would continue moving its project ahead with such developmental activities as an “ongoing survey program and preparation of its construction and operations plan.”

    The request was hailed by opponents of offshore wind, who are particularly vocal in New Jersey.

    “Yet another offshore wind developer is finding out for themselves that building massive power installations in the ocean is a fool’s errand, especially off the coast of New Jersey,” said Protect Our Coast NJ. “We hope Leading Light follows the example of Orsted and leaves New Jersey before any further degradation of the marine and coastal environment can take place.”

    Nearly a year ago, Danish wind energy giant Orsted scrapped two offshore wind farms planned off New Jersey’s coast, saying they were no longer financially feasible to build.

    Atlantic Shores, another project with preliminary approval in New Jersey, is seeking to rebid the financial terms of its project.

    And opponents of offshore wind have seized on the disintegration of a wind turbine blade off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts in July that sent crumbled pieces of it washing ashore on the popular island vacation destination.

    Leading Light was one of two projects chosen in January by the state utilities board. But just three weeks after that approval, one of three major turbine manufacturers, GE Vernova, said it would not announce the kind of turbine Invenergy planned to use in the Leading Light Project, according to the filing with the utilities board.

    A turbine made by manufacturer Vestas was deemed unsuitable for the project, and the lone remaining manufacturer, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, told Invenergy in June “that it was substantially increasing the cost of its turbine offering.”

    “As a result of these actions, Invenergy is currently without a viable turbine supplier,” it wrote in its filing.

    The project, from Chicago-based Invenergy and New York-based energyRE, would be built 40 miles (65 kilometers) off Long Beach Island and would consist of up to 100 turbines, enough to power 1 million homes.

    New Jersey has become the epicenter of resident and political opposition to offshore wind, with numerous community groups and elected officials — most of them Republicans — saying the industry is harmful to the environment and inherently unprofitable.

    Supporters, many of them Democrats, say that offshore wind is crucial to move the planet away from the burning of fossil fuels and the changing climate that results from it.

    New Jersey has set ambitious goals to become the East Coast hub of the offshore wind industry. It built a manufacturing facility for wind turbine components in the southern part of the state to help achieve that aim.

    ___

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

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  • Maryland awards contract for Francis Scott Key Bridge rebuild after deadly collapse

    Maryland awards contract for Francis Scott Key Bridge rebuild after deadly collapse

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    BALTIMORE — Maryland transportation leaders on Thursday approved a contract for rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge several months after the 1.6-mile (2.6-kilometer) steel span collapsed under the impact of a massive container ship that lost power and crashed into one of its supporting columns.

    In the immediate aftermath of the deadly March 26 collapse, officials quickly promised to rebuild the bridge — a longstanding Baltimore landmark and vital piece of transportation infrastructure.

    They cited a 2028 completion date and estimated the project would cost $1.7 billion and would include significantly more pier protection to better defend against future wayward ships.

    At a monthly meeting Thursday morning, the Maryland Transportation Authority board awarded a $73 million contract for the first phase of the project to Kiewit Infrastructure, which calls itself “one of North America’s largest and most respected engineering and construction organizations.”

    Bruce Gartner, executive director of the Maryland Transportation Authority, said the contract award signifies a big step forward in the recovery and rebuild process.

    “This really represents such an order of magnitude bigger than all our previous milestones,” he said in an interview Thursday. He said the agency hopes to release renderings of a preliminary design within the next few months, which will give the public an idea of what the new bridge will look like.

    Kiewit was founded in 1884 to provide masonry services in Omaha, Nebraska, according to its website. Its notable past projects include the Fort McHenry Tunnel under Baltimore’s harbor, which opened in 1985. More drivers have been using the tunnel since the bridge collapse eliminated one of three water crossings that allowed them to bypass downtown Baltimore.

    Gartner said the state has worked with Kiewit before and that the company has managed construction of major water crossings with maritime activity similar to the Key Bridge.

    “We look forward to partnering with the Maryland Transportation Authority, many local subcontractors and suppliers, and our strong craft workforce to safely deliver and restore this vital transportation link in the city of Baltimore and the greater region,” the company said in a statement Thursday.

    In announcing their recommendation to the board, state transportation officials said the company’s proposal was ranked first for its technical contents despite being somewhat more expensive than others.

    Officials said the project will advance in two phases, with the first focusing on the design work and other necessary steps before construction begins, which could include demolition of the remaining pieces of the bridge that are still standing. Phase one is expected to be completed within a year.

    Kiewit will have “exclusive negotiating rights” for the second phase, transportation officials said in a statement following the board meeting. “In the event a guaranteed maximum price is not agreed upon, the MDTA will deliver the work under a separate contracting mechanism,” the statement read.

    Officials have said the new bridge will be somewhat taller than the old one to accommodate ever-larger ships entering Baltimore’s harbor. The original Key Bridge took five years to construct and opened in 1977.

    The March bridge collapse killed six members of a road work crew who were filling potholes on the bridge when it came crashing down into the water below. Baltimore’s busy port was closed for months after the collapse and increased traffic congestion in the region remains a problem for drivers.

    An FBI investigation is ongoing into the circumstances leading up to the collapse, including power outages experienced by the cargo ship Dali while it was still docked in Baltimore.

    The state transportation board also on Thursday approved a proposal to remit the proceeds from a recent $350 million insurance payout to the federal government. They called the decision a show of good faith as discussions continue about whether the federal government will cover 100% of the cleanup and rebuilding costs. Chubb, the company that insured the bridge, made the $350 million payout to the state, officials said this week.

    Ongoing litigation will ultimately determine other assignments of liability in the bridge collapse, which could become one of the most expensive maritime disasters in U.S. history.

    The federal government generally picks up 90% of the tab and the state 10% when replacing disaster-damaged interstate highways and bridges, but the Biden administration and members of Maryland’s congressional delegation are pushing congressional lawmakers to approve a 100% reimbursement.

    Officials have said they expect that federal taxpayers will eventually be made whole for replacing the bridge through insurance payouts and damages, but that may take a while.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Brian Witte contributed from Annapolis.

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  • Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, UN says

    Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, UN says

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    VIENNA — Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels in defiance of international demands, a confidential report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Thursday.

    The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said that as of Aug. 17, Iran has 164.7 kilograms (363.1 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60 %. That’s an increase of 22.6 kilograms (49.8 pounds) since the IAEA’s last report in May.

    Uranium enriched up to 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

    The IAEA report, which was seen by The Associated Press, says Tehran has also not reconsidered its September 2023 decision to ban the most experienced nuclear inspectors from monitoring its nuclear program and that IAEA surveillance cameras remain disrupted.

    The report further says that Iran has still not provided answers to the nuclear watchdog’s years-long investigation about the origin and current location of man-made uranium particles found at two locations that Tehran has failed to declare as potential nuclear sites. The locations are known as Varamin and Turquzabad.

    The IAEA report comes just days after Iran’s supreme leader opened the door to renewed negotiations with the United States over his country’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, telling its civilian government there was “no harm” in engaging with the “enemy.”

    Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s remarks on Tuesday set clear red lines for any talks taking place under the new government of reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and reiterated his warnings that Washington was not to be trusted.

    The IAEA said that as of Aug. 17, Iran’s overall stockpile of enriched uranium stood at 5,751.8 kilograms (12,681 pounds).

    The report acknowledged that before the June elections in Iran, the IAEA was told “that further engagement with the agency would be determined by the new government of Iran.”

    The IAEA congratulated Pezeshkian on his election and offered to send the agency’s chief to Tehran “to re-launch the dialogue and cooperation between the agency and Iran,” the report said.

    But while the newly elected Iranian president confirmed “his agreement to meet” with the IAEA chief, no discussions on the subject have taken place since.

    The IAEA report also said the agency verified on Aug. 26 that Tehran had completed the installing of eight cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at its underground plant at Fordo and the installation of 10 out of 18 planned cascades of IR-2m centrifuges at Natanz, where two more centrifuges are being installed.

    Under the original 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium to 3.67% with a limited number of its first-generation centrifuges at Natanz only. The more advanced model of centrifuges enrich uranium at a much faster pace than the baseline IR-1 centrifuges.

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  • After millions lose access to internet subsidy, FCC moves to fill connectivity gaps

    After millions lose access to internet subsidy, FCC moves to fill connectivity gaps

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Biden administration is moving to blunt the loss of an expired broadband subsidy program that helped more than 23 million families afford internet access by using money from an existing program that helps libraries and schools provide WiFi hotspots to students and patrons.

    Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, told The Associated Press last week that the agency had voted in July to “modernize” a federal program known as E-Rate to fill at least some of the gaps left by the Affordable Connectivity Program, which gave families with limited income a monthly subsidy to pay for high-speed internet.

    “A lot of those households are at risk of disconnection,” Rosenworcel said after a visit to a Los Angeles elementary school. “We should be clear that it’s not always an on-off switch. It’s about sustainability.”

    The Affordable Connectivity Program, part of a broader effort pushed by the administration to bring affordable internet to every home and business in the country, was not renewed by Congress and ran out of funding earlier this year.

    Image

    Mothers of students at Union Avenue Elementary School, which has a 93% Latino student population, told Rosenworcel that their need for the internet has never been greater. They said the cost of rent and food makes it hard to prioritize maintaining a continuous connection.

    After listening to the mothers describe using WiFi in a McDonald’s parking lot so they can take part in remote doctor’s appointments, pay bills, and provide their kids with an internet connection for their online homework, an emotional Rosenworcel called their stories “chilling.”

    “That family and that child are going to have a harder time thriving in the modern world without that connection at home,” she said.

    The E-Rate program, established in the 1990s, has provided more than $7 billion in discounts for eligible schools and libraries since 2022 to afford broadband products and services. According to a data analysis by the AP, it offered benefits to more than 12,500 libraries, nearly half of them in rural areas, and 106,000 schools.

    For the most recent round of funding, the E-Rate program was expanded to include WiFi on school buses. Starting next year, Rosenworcel said, the list of eligible products will expand to WiFi hotspots.

    The Affordable Connectivity Program was helping one in six families in the U.S. afford internet access. Rosenworcel said the decision to include WiFi hotspots in E-Rate was partly a response to the failure to extend the subsidies.

    “Every child needs internet access at home to really thrive,” Rosenworcel said.

    Alex Houff, who manages digital equity programs for the Baltimore County Public Library in Maryland, said the library began a WiFi hotspot lending program right before the COVID-19 lockdown began in 2020 with around 50 devices. She said the program has grown to include 1,000 devices, which still falls short of meeting demand. There are more than 160 people waiting to use a hotspot, Houff said.

    “Most of the time we were hearing from branches that their communities were borrowing these hotspots because it was their only source of connectivity,” Houff said.

    Affordability, Houff said, is the biggest barrier to connection. She said the library system would apply for E-Rate funding to double the number of hotspots it offers to patrons.

    The expansion of the program has not pleased everyone. The two Republicans sitting on the commission argued that E-Rate was meant to bolster and support internet access within the classroom, not at home or other places where students “might want to learn.”

    “The last I checked, schools, which have classrooms, and libraries, are physical locations with addresses; not philosophical, conceptual ideas of instruction or education,” Republican commissioner Nathan Simington said in a statement after the vote.

    Rosenworcel, who took over as chair of the FCC after President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election, said the Republican members’ characterization of where the program ought to be applied was too restrictive.

    After the FCC voted to expand WiFi hotspots to school buses, a group of Republican senators endorsed a lawsuit challenging the agency’s decision. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who led the group of senators, said in a news release that the commission’s new rule was an overreach that would “harm children by enabling their unsupervised access to the internet.”

    Disagreements between political parties aren’t the only threat to E-Rate. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — the same one where Sen. Cruz filed an amicus brief about WiFi on school buses — ruled at the end of July that the funding mechanism that supports E-Rate and other FCC-administered internet access programs, known as the Universal Service Fund, is unlawful.

    “There is a big cloud of uncertainty over the future of the Universal Service Fund right now because of this Fifth Circuit decision,” John Windhausen, the executive director of the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition. “It’s a horrible decision, and it’s totally out of line with past Supreme Court precedent and totally out of line with other appeals courts that have ruled in just the opposite way.”

    Further litigation is expected. The case could be taken up by the Supreme Court, Windhausen said.

    Chairwoman Rosenworcel said she’s confident in the integrity of the Universal Service Fund, saying the Fifth Circuit’s decision is “misguided and wrong.”

    “It’s done a lot of good for the United States to make sure, no matter who you are or where you live, you get access to modern communications,” Rosenworcel said.

    Rosenworcel said the FCC could mobilize quickly if Congress would simply renew the Affordable Connectivity Program, which might be the easiest way to address the need.

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