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  • FACT FOCUS: A look at Harris’ economic agenda

    FACT FOCUS: A look at Harris’ economic agenda

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    Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled her economic agenda in a speech Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina.

    The Democratic presidential nominee laid out plans including a proposal for a federal ban on what she called price gouging on groceries, as well as $25,000 in down payment help for certain first-time homebuyers and tax incentives for builders of starter homes. She also spoke at length about lowering drug costs and criticized the platform of her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.

    Here’s a closer look at some of her promises and claims.

    The impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs

    HARRIS: Trump “wants to impose what is in effect, a national sales tax on everyday products and basic necessities that we import from other countries. … And you know, economists have done the math. Donald Trump’s plan would cost a typical family $3,900 a year.”

    THE FACTS: Harris was referring to Trump’s proposal to impose a tariff of 10% to 20% on all imports — he has mentioned both figures — and up to 60% on imports from China.

    Most economists do expect it would raise prices on many goods. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, estimates it would reduce average incomes in the top 60% of earners by 1.8%. And the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive advocacy group, has calculated that the higher tariffs would cost households an extra $3,900 a year. However, Trump has said the tariff revenue could be used to cut other taxes, which would reduce the overall cost of the policy.

    Lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs

    HARRIS: “I’ll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone.”

    THE FACTS: Harris made this promise while referencing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which allows Medicare to negotiate medication costs directly with drug companies. While it is difficult to predict whether she will be able to keep it, especially without more details, recent policy can provide some clues.

    For example, the White House announced Thursday that it had inked deals with manufacturers that could save taxpayers billions of dollars by knocking down the list prices for 10 of Medicare’s costliest drugs. However, there are a number of factors — from discounts to the coinsurance or copays for the person’s Medicare drug plan — that determine the final price a person pays when they pick up the drugs at their pharmacy.

    Powerful drug companies unsuccessfully tried to file lawsuits to stop these negotiations. They ended up engaging in talks and executives hinted in recent weeks during earnings calls that they don’t expect the new Medicare drug prices to impact their bottom line. However, the manufacturers have warned that the Inflation Reduction Act could drive up prices for consumers in other areas.

    Both the Trump and Biden administrations achieved $35 insulin copay caps for certain Medicare recipients. Biden’s caps have a wider reach, as they apply to all insulin products covered by any Medicare Part D or Part B plan, according to health policy research nonprofit KFF. Trump’s applied only to some insulin products covered by a voluntary subset of Part D plans.

    A federal ban on grocery ‘price gouging’

    HARRIS: “As president, I will take on the high costs that matter most to most Americans. … And I will work to pass the first ever federal ban on price gouging on food.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    THE FACTS: While grocery prices are 25% higher than they were before the pandemic four-and-a-half years ago, they have settled down recently and it’s not clear that much price gouging is now going on.

    In the past 12 months, grocery prices on average are up just 1.1%, comparable to pre-pandemic increases. Also, prices for most goods and services, in general, don’t fall significantly except in steep, painful recessions. Instead, most economists expect that wages will rise enough so that Americans can adjust to higher costs. Still, prices remain higher overall than they were just a couple of years ago.

    Addressing housing shortages and helping home buyers

    HARRIS: “And by the end of my first term, we will end America’s housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals. … While we work on the housing shortage, my administration will provide first time homebuyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home.”

    THE FACTS: These promises could end up working at cross-purposes. By helping more Americans afford homes, the Harris proposal to subsidize down payments would almost certainly increase demand, at a time when estimates of the U.S. housing shortage already range from 3 million to as high as 7 million.

    Harris’ proposal to provide tax incentives to builders to encourage more home and apartment construction would address that concern, but there are many reasons experts cite for the housing shortage, including restrictive zoning laws, higher costs for building materials, and even shortages of construction workers, which tax incentives can’t address.

    Harris is also promising to cut red tape that restricts new building, but that is mostly a state and local concern, and many localities are already moving to make it easier build homes.

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

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  • Stock market today: Wall Street rallies closer to its records as US shoppers help drive the economy

    Stock market today: Wall Street rallies closer to its records as US shoppers help drive the economy

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    NEW YORK — Wall Street is rallying closer to its records on Thursday following signals the U.S. economy is holding up better than expected, with particular credit going to the country’s shoppers.

    The S&P 500 was up 1.1% in morning trading and on track for a sixth straight gain as the U.S. stock market rights itself following a scary few weeks. It’s back to within 3% of its all-time high set last month after earlier falling nearly 10% below it.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 357 points, or 0.9%, as of 10:20 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.6% higher as Big Tech stocks recover more of their stumbles from the last month.

    Treasury yields leaped in the bond market following the encouraging economic data. One report said U.S. shoppers increased their spending at retailers last month by much more than economists expected, while another said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits.

    A year ago, such reports could have sent the stock market reeling on worries they would worsen high inflation. But good news on the economy is once again good news on Wall Street, particularly after a report earlier this month showed U.S. employers pulled back on their hiring by much more than expected.

    That dud of a jobs report raised worries the U.S. economy could buckle under the weight of high interest rates brought by the Federal Reserve, and it contributed to turmoil in stock markets worldwide. But Thursday’s reports hint a perfect landing may still be possible, one where the Fed slows the economy’s growth by just enough through high rates to stifle inflation but not so much that it causes a recession.

    “The growth scare isn’t over, but it’s a little less scary,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.

    Walmart added to the optimism after it delivered a bigger profit for the spring than analysts expected. The retail giant also raised its forecasts for sales and profit over the full year. Walmart’s shares rose 6.7%.

    Other big companies likewise joined the parade that’s built of businesses topping analysts’ expectations for springtime profit.

    Tapestry rose 1.8% after the company behind the Coach and Kate Spade brands reported stronger profit than expected.

    Cisco System’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter squeaked past analysts’ forecasts, and its stock jumped 8.3% after the maker of networking equipment also said it would cut costs by eliminating thousands of jobs as it shifts to faster-growing areas of technology.

    Ulta Beauty’s stock rose 10.4% to help lead the market after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed it has built an ownership stake in the retailer.

    In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield clambered up to 3.92% from 3.84% following the strong economic data.

    The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely follows expectations for action by the Federal Reserve, jumped to 4.07% from 3.96%.

    Traders still widely expect the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate at its next meeting in September, which would be the first such cut since the 2020 COVID crash. But they’re now largely expecting the Fed to lower rates by the traditional quarter of a percentage point, according to data from CME Group. A week ago, many traders were forecasting a more more severe cut of half of a percentage point because of worries that the U.S. economy’s growth was sliding too fast.

    The Fed has been clear about the tightrope it began walking when it started hiking rates sharply in March 2022: Being too aggressive would choke the economy, but going too soft would give inflation more oxygen and hurt everyone.

    The Fed ultimately raised its main interest rate from virtually zero to a two-decade high, where it’s sat for about a year. Inflation has slowed sharply from its peak above 9% two summers ago, and an easing of rates would remove pressure on the economy and on prices for investments.

    Signals of a stronger U.S. economy helped drive smaller stocks in particular on Thursday. Smaller companies can be more beholden to the strength of the U.S. economy than huge multinationals, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks rose 1.9% to help lead the market.

    Smaller stocks have been even jumpier than the rest of the market recently, rising more than the S&P 500 when signals indicate the U.S. economy is doing well and interest rates are about to come down, but tumbling more sharply when pessimism rises.

    In stock markets abroad, indexes also rose in much of Asia and Europe.

    Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.8% after data showed its economy returned to growth during the spring. The U.K. economy also grew during the latest quarter, a welcome signal following a rough run, and the FTSE 100 rose 0.6% in London.

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    AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed.

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  • US shoppers sharply boosted spending at retailers in July despite higher prices

    US shoppers sharply boosted spending at retailers in July despite higher prices

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    WASHINGTON — Americans stepped up their spending at retailers last month by the most in a year and a half, easing concerns that the economy might be weakening under the pressure of higher prices and elevated interest rates.

    The Commerce Department reported Thursday that retail sales jumped 1% from June to July, the biggest such increase since January 2023, after having declined slightly the previous month. Auto dealers, electronics and appliance stores and grocery stores all reported strong sales gains.

    The July retail sales data provided reassurance that the U.S. economy, while slowing under the pressure of high interest rates, remains resilient. It showed that America’s consumers, the primary driver of economic growth, are still willing to spend.

    The prospect of a still-growing economy is likely to be promoted by Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, which is preparing to roll out policies Friday to ban “price gouging” on groceries. On Wednesday, her opponent, former President Donald Trump slammed the economic record of the Biden-Harris administration Wednesday, though he wildly inflated cost increases on food and monthly mortgage payments.

    Other economic data released Thursday was also mostly positive, including a report on first-time applications for unemployment benefits. The figures show that businesses are mainly holding onto their workers and not increasing layoffs.

    With Americans spending more, economists at Morgan Stanley have boosted their forecast for growth in the July-September quarter to a 2.3% annual rate, from an earlier estimate of 2.1%. The economy expanded at a healthy 2.8% rate in the April-June quarter.

    All told, the latest data is consistent with an economy that is headed toward a “soft landing,” in which the Federal Reserve raises interest rates enough to cool inflation but not so much as to cause a recession.

    “The ongoing resilience of consumer spending should ease recession fears and reduce the odds markets have placed on a larger (half-point) cut” at the Fed’s meeting in mid-September, said Michael Pearce, an economist at Oxford Economics. Instead, economists increasingly expect the Fed to begin cutting interest rates next month with a modest quarter-point reduction in its key rate, which affects many consumer and business loans.

    Adjusted for inflation, sales rose about 0.8% last month. And excluding gas station sales, which don’t reflect Americans’ appetite to spend, retail purchases also rose 1%.

    Consumers have been pummeled since the pandemic by high prices and elevated interest rates. Yet at the same time, average wages have also been rising, providing many households with the means to keep spending.

    Inflation-adjusted wages have increased slightly from a year ago. Upper-income households have also seen their wealth increase, with stock prices and home values having jumped in the past three years. Increases in wealth can encourage more spending.

    Auto sales jumped 3.6% last month, the largest increase since January 2023. It marked a rebound from the previous month, when a cyberattack involving many dealerships slowed sales.

    Sales at electronics and appliances stores surged 1.6%. And they rose 0.9% at hardware stores and garden centers. Restaurant sales were up 0.3%, a sign that Americans are still willing to spend on discretionary items, such as eating out.

    Financial markets had plunged earlier this month on fears surrounding the economy after the government reported that hiring was much weaker than expected in July and the unemployment rate rose for a fourth straight month.

    Yet since then, economic reports have shown that layoffs are still low and that activity and hiring in services industries remains solid. Americans are also still splurging on services, such as travel, entertainment, and health care, which are not included in Thursday’s retail sales report.

    Still, some economists worry that much of Americans’ spending now is being fueled by the increased use of credit cards. And the proportion of Americans who are falling behind on their credit card payments, while still relatively low, has been rising.

    But cooling inflation may give households a needed boost. Consumer prices rose just 2.9% in July from a year earlier, the government said Wednesday. That was the smallest year-over-year inflation figure since March 2021. And core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, slipped for the fourth straight month.

    While Americans are still willing to spend, they are increasingly searching out bargains. On Thursday, Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, reported strong sales in the three months that ended July 31.

    More Americans appear to be shopping at lower-prices outlets like Walmart. The company also boosted its sales outlook for this year and said that it hasn’t seen any signs of weakness from the consumer.

    Other companies are also starting to offer lower prices to entice consumers, a trend that is helping slow inflation. McDonald’s said its global same-store sales fell for the first time in nearly four years in the second quarter. The company introduced a $5 meal deal at U.S. restaurants in June; most franchisees plan to extend that deal through August.

    Arie Kotler, CEO of Arko Corp., a convenience chain based in Richmond, Virginia, said he’s noticed that shoppers have cut back their spending on discretionary items like salty snacks and candy bars since May. He said he thinks people are struggling with high interest rates on credit cards, with many of them maxed out.

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    AP Business Writers Anne D’Innocenzio in New York and Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.

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  • Why Trump’s and Harris’ proposals to end federal taxes on tips would be difficult to enact

    Why Trump’s and Harris’ proposals to end federal taxes on tips would be difficult to enact

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    Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris agree on one thing, at least: Both say they want to eliminate federal taxes on workers’ tips.

    But experts say there’s a reason Congress hasn’t made such a change already. It would be complicated, not to mention enormously costly to the federal government, to enact. It would encourage many higher-paid workers to restructure their compensation to classify some of it as “tips” and thereby avoid taxes. And, in the end, it likely wouldn’t help millions of low-income workers.

    “There’s no way that it wouldn’t be a mess,” said James Hines Jr., a professor of law and economics and the research director of the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

    Both candidates unveiled their plans in Nevada, a state with one of the highest concentrations of tipped service workers in the country. Trump announced a proposal to exclude tips from federal taxes on June 9. Harris announced a similar proposal on Aug. 10.

    Details have been sparse. Neither candidate’s team has said whether it would exempt tips only from income taxes, only from payroll taxes or both. The payroll tax funds Social Security and Medicare.

    Harris’ campaign has said she would work with Congress to draft a proposal that would include an income limit and other provisions to prevent abuses by wealthy individuals who might seek to structure their compensation to classify certain fees as tips.

    Her campaign said these requirements, which it did not specify, would be intended “to prevent hedge fund managers and lawyers from structuring their compensation in ways to try to take advantage of the policy.” Trump’s campaign has not said whether its proposal would include any such requirements.

    Even so, Hines suggested that millions of workers — not just wealthy ones — would seek to change their compensation to include tips, and could even do so legally. For example, he said, a company might set up a separate entity that would reward its employees with tips instead of year-end bonuses.

    “You will have taxpayers pushing their attorneys to try to characterize their wage and salary income as tips,” Hines said. “And some would be successful, inevitably, because it’s impossible to write foolproof rules that will cover every situation.”

    Republican supporters of Trump argue that Hines’ concerns are overblown. Darin Miller, a spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, said the Internal Revenue Service has a precise definition for tips and contended that reclassifying wages would be considered fraud.

    Miller noted that some Democrats have signed on to co-sponsor a bill Cruz introduced in June that would exempt tips from federal income taxes. A bill exempting tips from payroll and income taxes has also been introduced in the House.

    Though supporters say the measures are designed to help low-wage workers, many experts say that making tips tax-free would provide only limited help to those workers.

    The Budget Lab at Yale, a non-partisan policy research center, estimates that there were 4 million U.S. workers in tipped occupations in 2023. That amounted to about 2.5% of all employees, including restaurant servers and beauticians.

    Tipped workers tend to be younger, with an average age of 31, and of lower income. The Budget Lab said the median weekly pay for tipped workers in 2023 was $538, compared with roughly $1,000 for non-tipped workers.

    As a result, many tipped workers already bear a lower income-tax burden. In 2022, 37% of tipped workers had incomes low enough that they paid no federal income tax at all, The Budget Lab said.

    “If the issue is you’re concerned about low-income taxpayers, there are a lot better ways to address that problem, like expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit or changing tax rates or changing deductions,” Hines said.

    In her speech in Nevada, Harris also called for raising the federal minimum wage. (The platform on Trump’s campaign site doesn’t mention the minimum wage.)

    Changing federal tax policy on tips would also be costly. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan group, estimates that exempting all tip income from federal income and payroll taxes would reduce revenue by $150 billion to $250 billion between 2026 and 2035. And it said that amount could rise significantly if the policy changed behavior and more people declared tip income.

    Whether Trump or Harris wins the presidential election, tax policy will be high on Congress’ agenda in 2025. That’s because Trump-era tax cuts, passed in 2017, are set to expire. But Hines said he thinks Congress will be in no hurry to add “vast amounts of complexity” to the tax code.

    “A presidential candidate can say whatever they want, but it’s the House and Senate that have to do it,” he said.

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  • What to know about the controversy over a cancelled grain terminal in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

    What to know about the controversy over a cancelled grain terminal in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

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    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An agricultural company made the surprise decision Tuesday to cancel a project to build a massive grain terminal in a historic Black town in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” a heavily industrialized stretch of land along the Mississippi River.

    The company, Greenfield Louisiana LLC, and its supporters — including Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry — blamed “special interest groups”, “plantation owners” and the Army Corps of Engineers for delaying construction on a grain export facility which would have brought jobs and development to St. John the Baptist Parish.

    But community organizers and environmental advocates said the company had brought the problem on itself by attempting to install a 222-acre (90 hectare) facility in an area filled with nationally recognized historic sites and cultural spaces worthy of preservation and investment.

    The Army Corps of Engineers said the company had chosen to build in the middle of an area with “environmental justice” and “cultural concerns” which required it to prove it could comply with a range of laws.

    What Greenfield promised

    Greenfield said that its $800 million grain terminal would have generated more than 1,000 construction jobs, north of 300 permanent jobs, $300 million in state tax revenue and $1.4 million in direct state and local taxes.

    The company said its facility was “expected to drive transformative social and economic benefits to the local community” and play a significant role in connecting American farmers with global markets. The facility had been designed with the potential to store 11 million tons of grain.

    On its website, Greenfield features testimony from a range of parish residents pledging their support for the facility and the economic growth they believed it would bring.

    St. John the Baptist Parish President Jaclyn Hotard described the company’s decision as “a devastating blow to economic development” and lamented the loss of hundreds of jobs at a “state-of-the art, eco-friendly facility.”

    What caused Greenfield to pull the plug?

    Greenfield’s Van Davis blamed the project’s failure to advance on “the repeated delays and goal-post moving we have faced have finally become untenable, and as a result, our local communities lost.”

    The company said the Army Corps of Engineers had recently extended the deadline for the fifth time, pushing a decision on the project’s permits to March 2025.

    But Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Specialist Matt Roe disputed Greenfield’s framing in an emailed statement.

    Roe said the company had to show compliance with multiple laws, including the Clean Water Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, and that “the regulations do not set forth a prescribed timeline for the process.”

    Roe said the project’s location “was in a setting with many cultural resources” and that the Corps’ review has been “timely in every respect.”

    The Corps has found the project would adversely impact historic sites. Greenfield had said it would take steps to preserve any historical sites or artifacts found during construction.

    What was at stake?

    Governor Jeff Landry pinned the blame on the Army Corps of Engineers for bringing “additional delays” by listening to “special interest groups and wealthy plantation owners instead of hardworking Louisianans.”

    Opponents included the sisters Joy and Jo Banner, whose nonprofit The Descendants Project has bought land in the area — including a former plantation — to protect their town’s heritage. They gained national recognition for their efforts to invest in preserving history of enslaved people and their descendants.

    But they are not the only people who thought there should be more focus on finding other avenues to bring jobs and growth to the historic Black town of Wallace and the surrounding parish.

    Whitney Plantation Executive Director Ashley Rogers oversees a nearby National Register Historic District which draws 80,000 visitors a year from around the world. The area surrounding the proposed grain terminal site offers two centuries of well-documented history and culture containing “huge potential” for the community to capitalize on, she added.

    There is also a National Historic Landmark, Evergreen Plantation, and the Willow Grove cemetery for descendants of the formerly enslaved which would have been adjacent to the 275-foot-high grain terminal.

    “There does need to be economic development,” Rogers said. “I just think it can be done in a way that doesn’t permanently destroy the heritage, the culture and the environment and ruin people’s livelihoods and homes, right?”

    Fighting in and out of the court

    From Greenfield’s representatives to community activists, everyone acknowledged the fight over the project had been exhausting and brutal.

    In recent months, flyers attacking local activists opposed to the grain terminal were distributed throughout the community, including images featuring racist tropes. Greenfield representatives denied the company had any connection to the flyers.

    There are multiple ongoing lawsuits related to the facility filed by the Descendants Project related to zoning changes and tax exemptions for the company.

    Joy Banner, of the Descendant Project, has also sued Parish Council Chairman Michael Wright in federal court for allegedly making threats against her at a council meeting. Wright did not respond to a request for comment.

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    This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Joy Banner’s first name on first reference. It is Joy, not Joyce.

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    Jack Brook 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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  • Energy Department awards $2.2B to strengthen the electrical grid and add clean power

    Energy Department awards $2.2B to strengthen the electrical grid and add clean power

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    The Department of Energy on Tuesday announced $2.2 billion in funding for eight projects across 18 states to strengthen the electrical grid against increasing extreme weather, advance the transition to cleaner electricity and meet a growing demand for power.

    The money will help build more than 600 miles of new transmission lines and upgrade about 400 miles of existing lines so that they can carry more current.

    Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the funding is important because extreme weather events fueled by climate change are increasing, damaging towers and bringing down wires, causing power outages.

    Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas on July 8 and knocked out power to nearly 3 million people, for example. Officials have said at least a dozen Houston area residents died from complications related to the heat and losing power.

    The investments will provide more reliable, affordable electricity for 56 million homes and businesses, according to the DOE. Granholm said the funds are the single largest direct investment ever in the nation’s grid.

    “They’ll help us to meet the needs of electrified homes and businesses and new manufacturing facilities and all of these growing data centers that are placing demands on the grid,” Granholm said in a press call to announce the funding.

    It’s the second round of awards through a $10.5 billion DOE program called Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships. It was funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021. More projects will be announced this fall.

    Among the ones in this round, more than 100 miles of transmission line in California will be upgraded so that new renewable energy can be added quickly and as a response to a growing demand for electricity. A project in New England will upgrade onshore connection points for electricity generated by wind turbines offshore, allowing 4,800 megawatts of wind energy to be added, enough to power about 2 million homes.

    The Montana Department of Commerce will get $700 million. Most of that will go toward building a 415-mile, high-voltage, direct current transmission line across Montana and North Dakota. The North Plains Connector will increase the ability to move electricity from east to west and vice versa, and help protect against extreme weather and power disruptions.

    The Virginia Department of Energy will get $85 million to employ clean electricity and clean backup power at two data centers, one instate and one in South Carolina. The DOE chose this project because the data centers will be responsive to the grid in a new way: They could provide needed electricity to the local grid on a hot day, from batteries, or reduce their energy use in times of high demand. This could serve as a model for other data centers to reduce their impact on a local area, since they place such high demand on the grid, according to the department.

    “These investments are certainly a step in the right direction and they are the right types of investments,” said Max Luke, director of business development and regulatory affairs at VEIR, an early-stage Massachusetts company developing transmission lines capable of carrying five times the power of conventional ones. “If you look at the scale of the challenge and the quantity of grid capacity needed for deep decarbonization and net zero, it’s a drop in the bucket.”

    According to Princeton University’s “Net-Zero America” research, the United States will need to expand electricity transmission by roughly 60% by 2030 and may need to triple it by 2050.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Heat deaths of people without air conditioning, often in mobile homes, underscore energy inequity

    Heat deaths of people without air conditioning, often in mobile homes, underscore energy inequity

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    PHOENIX — Mexican farm worker Avelino Vazquez Navarro didn’t have air conditioning in the motor home where he died last month in Washington state as temperatures surged into the triple digits.

    For the last dozen years, the 61-year-old spent much of the year working near Pasco, Washington, sending money to his wife and daughters in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, Mexico, and traveling back every Christmas.

    Now, the family is raising money to bring his remains home.

    “If this motor home would have had AC and it was running, then it most likely would have helped,” said Franklin County Coroner Curtis McGary, who determined Vazquez Navarro’s death was heat-related, with alcohol intoxication as a contributing cause.

    Most heat-related deaths involve homeless people living outdoors. But those who die inside without sufficient cooling also are vulnerable, typically older than 60, living alone and with limited income.

    Underscoring the inequities around energy and access to air conditioning as summers grow hotter, many victims are Black, Indigenous or Latino, like Vazquez Navarro.

    “Air conditioning is not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, which represents state energy assistance programs. “It’s a public health issue and it’s an affordability issue.”

    People living in mobile homes or in aging trailers and RVs are especially likely to lack proper cooling. Nearly a quarter of the indoor heat deaths in Arizona’s Maricopa County last year were in those kinds of dwellings, which are transformed into a broiling tin can by the blazing desert sun.

    “Mobile homes can really heat up because they don’t always have the best insulation and are often made of metal,” said Dana Kennedy, AARP director in Arizona, where many heat-related deaths occur.

    Research shows mobile home dwellers are particularly at risk in blistering hot Phoenix, where 113-degree Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) weather is forecast for this weekend.

    “People are exposed to the elements more than in other housing,” said Patricia Solís, executive director of the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University, who worked on mapping hot weather impacts on mobile home parks for a state preparedness plan.

    Worse, some parks bar residents from making modifications that could cool their homes, citing esthetic concerns. A new Arizona law required parks for the first time this summer to let residents install cooling methods such as window units, shade awnings and shutters.

    In Arizona’s Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, 156 of 645 heat-related deaths last year occurred indoors in uncooled environments. In most cases, a unit was present but was not working, was without electricity or turned off, public health officials said.

    One victim was Shirley Marie Kouplen, who died after being overcome by high temperatures inside her Phoenix mobile home amid a heat wave when the extension cord providing her electricity was unplugged.

    Emergency responders recorded the 70-year-old widow’s body temperature at 107.1 F (41.7 C). Kouplen, who was diabetic and had high blood pressure, was rushed to a hospital, where she died.

    Kouplen apparently was struggling financially, if the shabby condition of her mobile home was any indication. It still sits on Lot 60, surrounded by a chain-link fence with a locked gate and a dirt driveway overgrown with weeds.

    It’s unclear how the cord got unplugged, if Kouplen had an electricity account or how she got her power.

    “Losing your air conditioning is now a life-threatening event,” said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who grew up in hot, humid Houston in the 1970s. “You didn’t want to lose your air conditioning, but it wasn’t going to kill you. And now it is.”

    Arizona’s regulated utilities have been banned since 2022 from cutting off power during the summer, following the 2018 death of a 72-year-old woman after Arizona Public Service disconnected her electricity over a $51 debt.

    Ann Porter, spokesperson for Arizona Public Service, which provides electricity to homes in the park where Kouplen lived, said “due to privacy concerns” the company could not say if she had an account at the time of her death or in the past. Porter said the utility does not cut power from June 1 to Oct. 15.

    Cutoffs can occur after those dates if mounting debts are not paid.

    Arizona is among 19 states with shut-off protections, leaving about half of the U.S. population without safeguards against losing electricity during the summer, the National Energy Assistance Directors Association said in a new study.

    Almost 20% of very-low income families have no air conditioning at all, especially in places like Washington state where they weren’t commonly installed before climate-fueled heat waves grew increasingly stronger, frequent and longer lasting.

    In the Pacific Northwest, several hundred people died during a 2021 heat wave, prompting Portland, Oregon, to launch a program to provide portable cooling units to vulnerable, low-income people.

    Chicago, better known for its cold winters, saw a heat wave kill 739 mostly older people over five days in 1995. Amid high humidity and temperatures over 100 F (37.7 C), most victims had no air conditioning or couldn’t afford to turn on their units.

    In 2022, Chicago adopted a cooling ordinance after three women died in their apartments in a building for older adults on an unusually warm spring day. Certain residential buildings must now have at least one air conditioned common area for cooling when the heat index exceeds 80 F (26.6 C) and cooling is unavailable in individual units.

    Nonprofits in historically hotter areas like Arizona also are trying to better address the inequities low-income people face during the sweltering summers. The Phoenix-based community agency Wildfire recently raised money to buy over $2 million worth of air conditioning equipment to help 150 households statewide over three years, Executive Director Kelly McGowan said.

    Laws protect renters in some places. Phoenix landlords must ensure air conditioning units cool to 82 F (28 C) or below and that evaporative coolers lower the temperature to 86 F (30 C).

    Palm Springs, California, and Las Vegas, both desert cities, have ordinances requiring landlords to offer air conditioning in rental dwellings. Dallas, where temperatures can pass 110 F (43.3 C) in the summer, has a similar law.

    But most renters pay their own electricity costs, leaving them to agonize whether they can afford to even turn on the cooling or how high to set the thermostat.

    A new report estimates the average cost for U.S. families to keep cool from June to September will grow nationwide by 7.9% this year, from $661 in 2023 to $719 this summer.

    Wolf noted the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which grants money to states to help families pay for heating and cooling, is underfunded, with 80% going to heat homes in winter.

    At Kouplen’s mobile home park, Spanish-speaking neighbors had little interaction with “Señora Shirley,” who used a walker to take her two small dogs outside. Neighbors said the animals were adopted after her death.

    Kouplen was buried in northern Phoenix at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona alongside her husband, JD D. Kouplen, who died in 2020.

    “Never Forgotten,” their shared marker reads.

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  • Mexico’s costly Maya Train draws few passengers in its first six months of partial operation

    Mexico’s costly Maya Train draws few passengers in its first six months of partial operation

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    MEXICO CITY (AP) — The pet rail project of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador could wind up costing as much as $30 billion, is only half finished as he heads into the final 2 1/2 months of his term, and has wreaked major damage on the environment.

    But the most damning judgments on the Maya Train tourist line, which runs in a loop around the Yucatan Peninsula, are the ridership figures on about half the railway that is now open: only about 1,200 people per day use the train, according to government figures released Monday.

    Most ride it only on short stretches between the city of Merida and Cancun, or the nearby city of Campeche. The big hope for paying the train’s massive cost was that tourists would use it to depart from the resort of Cancun and explore the whole 950-mile (1,500-kilometer) route to visit the Mayan archaeological sites that dot the peninsula.

    But a round-trip route from Cancun to the well-known Mayan temple complex of Palenque has drawn only about 100 passengers per day each way in the first six months of operation. That is a volume that a bus or two per day could handle far more cheaply.

    The government had originally promised the train would carry between 22,000 and 37,000 people per day. Current ridership is about 3-5% of that, with three of the four most popular stations — Cancun, Merida, Palenque and Campeche — already in service.

    Admittedly, the rail line down the heavily traveled corridor linking Cancun and the resorts of Playa del Carmen and Tulum — an area known as the Riviera Maya — isn’t finished yet, and only 17 trains are operating; three times as many may eventually be added.

    But critics say there is little evidence the Cancun-Tulum line will make the project profitable, because it doesn’t run particularly near any of the resort towns it is supposed to serve.

    The Cancun-Tulum railway was originally supposed to run on an elevated line over the coastal highway, where most hotels are. But facing technical difficulties, the government changed the route by cutting a 68-mile (110-kilometer) swath through the jungle and moving the tracks about 4½ miles (7 kilometers) inland.

    So instead of hopping one of the micro-buses that run constantly down the coastal highway, tourists or resort workers would have to take a taxi to the train station, wait for one of the few daily trains, and then take another taxi to the resorts once they reach their destination.

    “The uselessness of this project was foreseeable,” said Jose “Pepe” Urbina, a local diver who opposes the train because its steel pilings have damaged the caverns he has explored for decades. “In reality, the train doesn’t go anywhere you couldn’t get to by highway before.”

    “These are rail lines that don’t provide any useful service for workers, for students, for any daily use,” Urbina said.

    One thing the railway project did create was jobs: Manuel Merino, the governor of the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, said the Maya Train had created 20,000 direct or indirect jobs in his state and lowered the unemployment rate by 40%.

    “This makes it truly a motor for developing the south,” a historically poorer and undeveloped part of Mexico, Merino said. But most of those jobs will be gone once construction is finished, and federal officials are also casting around for ways to try to make the railway pay for itself.

    Officials have suggested freight trains may run on the tracks as well, but there is little industry in the region, and thus freight demand is limited.

    It’s not clear whether the government ever thought the railway would be profitable. López Obrador had already decided to build it before feasibility studies were carried out. According to a 2019 government study, the railway was going to cost $8.5 billion, and the estimated benefits would be about $10.5 billion.

    But those “estimated benefits” always included a lot of intangibles, like reduced traffic on highways, quicker travel or increased tourism revenues, all of which either didn’t happen or were unrelated to the train.

    Moody’s Analytics Director Alfredo Coutiño noted that cost overruns are common on such projects.

    “As was expected, the Maya Train project was not finished as planned and the cost was much higher than the original budget,” Coutiño wrote.

    “The question that still must be resolved is if this project will be profitable in the medium term when it is expected to be fully functional, operating at full capacity and managed as a government concern and not as a private enterprise.”

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  • Former CIA official charged with being secret agent for South Korean intelligence

    Former CIA official charged with being secret agent for South Korean intelligence

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    WASHINGTON — A former CIA employee and senior official at the National Security Council has been charged with serving as a secret agent for South Korea’s intelligence service, the U.S. Justice Department said.

    Sue Mi Terry accepted luxury goods, including fancy handbags, and expensive dinners at sushi restaurants in exchange for advocating South Korean government positions during media appearances, sharing nonpublic information with intelligence officers and facilitating access for South Korean officials to U.S. government officials, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan.

    She also admitted to the FBI that she served as a source of information for South Korean intelligence, including by passing handwritten notes from an off-the-record June 2022 meeting that she participated in with Secretary of State Antony Blinken about U.S. government policy toward North Korea, the indictment says.

    Prosecutors say South Korean intelligence officers also covertly paid her more than $37,000 for a public policy program that Terry controlled that was focused on Korean affairs.

    South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, its main spy agency, said Wednesday that intelligence authorities in South Korea and the U.S. are closely communicating over the case. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry separately said it was not appropriate to comment on a case that is under judicial proceedings in a foreign country.

    The conduct at issue occurred in the years after Terry left the U.S. government and worked at think tanks, where she became a prominent public policy voice on foreign affairs.

    Lee Wolosky, a lawyer for Terry, said in a statement that the “allegations are unfounded and distort the work of a scholar and news analyst known for her independence and years of service to the United States.”

    He said she had not held a security clearance for more than a decade and her views have been consistent.

    “In fact, she was a harsh critic of the South Korean government during times this indictment alleges that she was acting on its behalf,” he said. “Once the facts are made clear it will be evident the government made a significant mistake.”

    Terry served in the government from 2001 to 2011, first as a CIA analyst and later as the deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council, before working for think tanks, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

    Prosecutors say Terry never registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent.

    On disclosure forms filed with the House of Representatives, where she testified at least three times between 2016 and 2022, she said that she was not an “active registrant” but also never disclosed her covert work with South Korea, preventing Congress from having “the opportunity to fairly evaluate Terry’s testimony in light of her longstanding efforts” for the government, the indictment says.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

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  • Houston community groups strain to keep feeding and cooling a city battered by repeat storms

    Houston community groups strain to keep feeding and cooling a city battered by repeat storms

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    HOUSTON — The deafening hum of a generator was a welcome noise Thursday evening at a Houston independent living center where several dozen seniors had lost power in the wake of Hurricane Beryl.

    Joe and Terri Hackl, who had pulled up with the backup electricity source after delivering hundreds of meals all day, estimate they’ve spent at least 18 hours daily this week filling service gaps around the wind-torn city.

    The couple is part of a volunteer network called CrowdSource Rescue, designed during 2017’s Hurricane Harvey to connect first responders to people in need.

    Likeminded community efforts have brought relief in the form of fresh food and cool air for some of the millions who sweltered this week without electricity. Beryl knocked power out across one of the nation’s largest cities, pressuring electric utility CenterPoint Energy as outages endured days after the Category 1 storm had passed.

    While nonprofit and mutual aid organizations have honed their disaster services in a city frequently battered by severe weather, some now find themselves drained by repeat deadly events. A May storm already strained food and energy supplies with hurricane-force winds that similarly left electricity lacking.

    It’s been a challenge for CrowdSource Rescue to allocate generators with such great need, executive director Matthew Marchetti said.

    The organization has just 30 compared to the 300 it bought after money poured in during Texas’ record winter freeze in 2021. Many storms have since depleted resources, and donations are harder to come by, he said.

    “The banner cry has been ‘Houston Strong,’” he said. “I kind of want to be ‘Houston Normal’ for a while.”

    It’s difficult to make people whole when shocks come frequently, West Street Recovery co-Director Ben Hirsch said. The environmental justice organization repairs homes and navigates federal assistance for families in some of northeast Houston’s most vulnerable parts.

    Government money to fix damage from the May storm only just arrived and people haven’t had time to recover. Mutual aid can only do so much to alleviate systemic barriers to resilience, Hirsch said.

    “Mutual aid is really good at giving out hot meals and mucking out houses,” he said. “But we need to bury our power lines and build massive flood infrastructure.”

    Experts forecast unprecedented ocean heat will help make this one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record and climate change is intensifying the strongest hurricanes.

    Worried that damaging hurricanes are brewing so early, Sally Ray, director of domestic funds at the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, said donors should more strategically be “supporting these communities in the long term to make them better prepared for what may come next.”

    During times of crisis, preestablished community ties become especially important for nonprofits, which often have the deepest connections with some of the hardest-hit communities, Ray said.

    That includes groups like Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston. About six dozen drivers deliver 2,000 hot meals daily through its Meals on Wheels program, checking in on homebound residents, operations Director Matthew Wright said.

    The nonprofit also provides people with five shelf-stable meals each in June ahead of hurricane season. Beryl hit so early that Meals on Wheels plans to deliver another round soon.

    Annie Jones, 62, received an emergency box before the weekend. No longer working after breaking her hip, the lifelong Houston resident said she had just fixed May wind damage to her roof.

    “I know it’s coming,” she said of the frequent storms. “But you don’t get used to it. It’s still devastating.”

    The successive extreme weather events are worrying even the most established nonprofits. Houston Food Bank, which serves 18 southeast Texas counties through more than 1,600 community partners, tries to collect over 40 tractor trailer loads of disaster relief supplies before hurricane season begins in June, said Brian Greene, the organization’s president.

    But the May storm hit when they were still stocking up, forcing them to pull boxes from other food banks as far as Minnesota and Tennessee. That’s feasible when there is only one extreme weather event hitting the country. But he said the nationwide Feeding America network is concerned about the increased prevalence and severity of these scenarios.

    A “disaster-level volume” of supplies — more than 400,000 pounds (181,400 kilograms) — moved Wednesday, Greene said, and he doesn’t want to let down Houston residents who have come to rely on that output.

    “I worry that our ability to meet those expectations, if this is happening with more frequency, it’s going to be really tough,” Greene said.

    The Hackls hadn’t even stopped to clear the debris littering their yard before they were back delivering food, drinks, ice and cleaning supplies Friday.

    Before leaving the independent living center the day prior, Terri Hackl had some advice for what to do with any extra supplies bought by staff.

    “Keep it,” she said. “I can almost guarantee that there will be more storms this year.”

    ___

    Glenn Gamboa contributed reporting.

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • Up to two new offshore wind projects are proposed for New Jersey. A third seeks to re-bid its terms

    Up to two new offshore wind projects are proposed for New Jersey. A third seeks to re-bid its terms

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    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Up to two additional offshore wind projects were proposed for the New Jersey coast Wednesday, and the developers of a third project that already has preliminary approval sought to re-bid its terms.

    The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities received three bids by Wednesday’s deadline in the state’s fourth round of solicitations for offshore wind farms.

    At least one would be a new project, and one was a request by Atlantic Shores to rebid half of its previously announced two-phase project, which has already received preliminary state and federal approvals. No information was available regarding the third bid.

    Attentive Energy, which also has preliminary approval for a wind farm 42 miles (67 kilometers) off Seaside Heights, said Wednesday it is proposing a second project in New Jersey, but did not immediately give details.

    Atlantic Shores said it also submitted a bid that does not propose a new project. Rather, the application seeks to re-bid the first part of its project, called Atlantic Shores 1, while bunding it with the second half, Atlantic Shores 2.

    The utilities board is allowing companies to re-bid previously approved projects. If they are approved in this fourth round of solicitations, their original approval will be canceled, and the company must put up an irrevocable $100 million letter of credit, among other requirements.

    Atlantic Shores did not specify which aspects of its original bid it is seeking to change.

    As it was initially announced, Atlantic Shores, consisting of two phases, would be built between Atlantic City and Long Beach Island in southern New Jersey. It would generate 2,800 megawatts, enough to power 1 million homes. It could not be determined Wednesday if a potential re-bid would change those dimensions.

    The Interior Department said the Atlantic Shores project would be about 8.7 miles from shore at its closest point. But the company has previously said that it will not built right up to that line and that the closest turbines will be at least 12.8 miles from shore.

    Atlantic Shores is a joint partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF-RE Offshore Development LLC.

    The third bidder had not identified itself as of Wednesday evening, and the BPU did not reveal the identities of the bidders, saying only that the bids would be reviewed and acted upon by December.

    Two other projects previously have received preliminary state approval.

    One from Chicago-based Invenergy and New York-based energyRE. Called Leading Light Wind, it would be built 40 miles (64 kilometers) off Long Beach Island and would consist of up to 100 turbines, enough to power 1 million homes.

    Another from Attentive Energy would not be visible from the shoreline. It is a joint venture between Paris-based TotalEnergies and London-based Corio Generation, and it would power over 650,000 homes.

    Attentive Energy was one of several companies that failed to reach a final deal for a wind farm in New York in April.

    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 support the growth of the industry here.

    But it has been a bumpy ride thus far. Last October, Danish wind developer Orsted scrapped two offshore wind farms that were far along in the approval process, saying it no longer made financial sense to pursue the projects.

    And 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 say widespread use of wind and solar energy is essential to move away from the burning of fossil fuels, which contributes to climate change.

    ___

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

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  • Forced labor, same-sex marriage, shoplifting on the ballot in California this year

    Forced labor, same-sex marriage, shoplifting on the ballot in California this year

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Forced labor, same-sex marriage and shoplifting are among the 10 statewide ballot measures that California voters are set to consider in November.

    The California secretary of state assigned proposition numbers to the measures on Wednesday after the Legislature added two more bond proposals to the ballot.

    Here’s a look at what voters will decide in November:

    This asks voters for permission to borrow $10 billion for public school construction and repairs. Most of the money, $8.5 billion, would go to elementary and secondary schools. The rest, or $1.5 billion, would go to community colleges. No money would be available for the California State University or University of California systems.

    This would remove the ban on same-sex marriage from the California Constitution. Voters added that ban to the constitution in 2008. But the U.S. Supreme Court has prevented California from enforcing the ban since 2013. Still, the language banning same-sex marriage remains in the state constitution. The proposed amendment would remove the ban and replace it with language saying, “The right to marry is a fundamental right.”

    This asks voters for permission to borrow $10 billion for various climate programs. The largest chunk of the money, $3.8 billion, would help pay to improve drinking water systems and prepare for droughts and floods. Programs preparing for wildfires would receive $1.5 billion while programs combating sea level rise would get $1.2 billion.

    The rest would be divided up among parks and outdoor recreation programs, clean air initiatives and programs preparing for extreme heat, protecting biodiversity and helping make farms and ranches sustainable.

    This would change the state constitution to make it easier for local governments to borrow money, provided they use the funds to build affordable housing or public infrastructure. Local governments, excluding school districts, currently can borrow money only if two-thirds of voters approve.

    This would lower that threshold to 55% for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects. Public infrastructure includes water and sewer systems, public transportation, libraries, broadband internet and hospitals.

    This would change the California Constitution to ban forced labor in any form. The constitution currently bans involuntary servitude, or forced labor, except as a punishment for crime. That exemption has become a target of criminal justice advocates concerned about prison labor conditions. It is not uncommon for people who are incarcerated to be put to work earning less than $1 an hour.

    This eventually would increase California’s minimum wage to $18 per hour. It is currently $16 per hour for most people and $20 per hour for fast food workers. Health care workers will eventually see their minimum wage reach $25 per hour, according to a law that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last year.

    This would repeal a state law prohibiting cities and counties from capping rents on single-family homes, condominiums and apartments built after 1995. Supporters say the proposal would help prevent homelessness.

    Similar measures failed in 2018 and 2020 amid fierce opposition led by landlord groups and the real-estate industry. Opponents argued the proposal would hurt mom-and-pop landlords and discourage the construction of affordable housing.

    State lawmakers in 2019 approved a 10% statewide cap on annual rent increases. The law exempted new construction for 15 years and is set to expire in 2030. Several cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose also have local rent control policies.

    This would permanently allow California’s Medicaid program to pay pharmacies directly for prescription drugs. California started doing this in 2019 after Newsom signed an executive order allowing the payments. This measure would make it a law.

    The measure also would require some health care providers to spend almost all of the money they get from a federal prescription drug program directly on patient care instead of other things.

    This proposition appears to be directed at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The measure has the backing of the California Apartment Association, which helped pay for an ad criticizing the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The foundation has said it is being targeted for its support for rent control.

    This would make the state pay doctors more money for treating patients who are covered by Medicaid, the government-funded health insurance program for people with low incomes.

    Managed care organizations contract with the state to provide these health benefits. The state taxes these organizations to help pay for the Medicaid program. This measure would require the state to use a portion of that tax money to increase how much Medicaid pays doctors.

    This would make the crime of shoplifting a felony for repeat offenders and increase penalties for some drug charges, including those involving the synthetic opioid fentanyl. It also would give judges the authority to order those with multiple drug charges to get treatment.

    Proponents said the initiative is necessary to close loopholes in existing laws that have made it challenging for law enforcement to punish shoplifters and drug dealers.

    Opponents, including Democratic state leaders and social justice groups, said the proposal would disproportionately imprison poor people and those with substance use issues rather than target ringleaders who hire large groups of people to steal goods for them to resell online.

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  • Millions in Nigeria have little to no electricity. It’s straining businesses and public services

    Millions in Nigeria have little to no electricity. It’s straining businesses and public services

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    IBADAN, Nigeria — Dimly lit and stuffy classrooms stir with life every morning as children file in. Rays of sunlight stream through wooden windows, the only source of light. Pupils squint at their books and intermittently the blackboard as teachers try to hold their attention.

    It’s a reality for many schoolchildren across Nigeria, where many buildings don’t have access to the national electricity grid. In Excellent Moral School in Olodo Okin in Ibadan, “the entire community is not connected, including the school,” said school founder Muyideen Raji. It acutely affects pupils, he said, who can’t learn how to use computers or the Internet and can’t study in the evenings.

    About half of Nigeria’s more than 200 million people are hooked up to a national electricity grid that can’t provide sufficient daily electricity to most of those connected. Many poor, rural communities like Olodo Okin are off the grid entirely.

    In a country with abundant sunshine, many are looking to solar energy to help fill the gaps, but getting risk-averse investors to finance major solar projects that would give Nigeria enough reliable energy is an uphill struggle. It means that millions in the country are finding ways to live with little to no electricity.

    Studies have shown that Nigeria could generate much more electricity than it needs from solar energy thanks to its powerful sunshine. But 14 grid-scale solar projects in the northern and central parts of the country that could generate 1,125 megawatts of electricity have stalled since contracts were signed in 2016.

    Those trying to develop solar projects in the country blame interest rates for borrowing which can be as high as 15 percent, two to three times higher than in advanced economies and China, according to the International Energy Agency.

    That means it’s more costly for solar companies to work in Nigeria or other developing nations than in rich countries. Africa only has one-fifth the solar power capacity of Germany, and just 2% of global clean energy investments go to the continent.

    “The same project put up in Nigeria and Denmark; the Danish project will get funding for 2 to 3 percent” interest rate, said Najim Animashaun, director of Nova Power, one of the stalled solar projects. Meanwhile he struggles to get loans even with interest rates of 10 percent or higher, “even though my solar project can produce two and half times more power,” than a Danish one.

    Nigeria also does not set so-called cost-reflective tariffs, meaning the price consumers pay for electricity doesn’t cover the costs to produce and distribute it. This means distribution companies can’t fully pay producers and the industry relies on government interventions to stay afloat, scaring off lenders from investing in the solar industry.

    Currently, power producers say they are owed up to 3.7 trillion Naira ($2.7 billion) by the government, making it difficult to meet obligations to their lenders and contractors.

    One option would be getting World Bank guarantees that would put investors at ease and make them more willing to put money into solar projects — but the government is wary of signing up to anything that would force them to pay large sums even if electricity from the projects does not get the consumers because of inadequate transmission and distribution infrastructure.

    But without World Bank guarantees “nobody will develop or finance a project with a government subsidy, because it can dry off,” said Edu Okeke, the managing director of Azura Power. Azura Power has a stake in the now-stalled 100 megawatt Nova solar project in Nigeria’s northern Katsina State.

    With less than 8,000 megawatts of capacity and an average supply of less than 4,000 megawatts — less than half of what Singapore supplies to just 5.6 million people — power outages are an everyday occurrence in Nigeria.

    Communities like Excellent Moral School’s in Ibadan that have no access to electricity are often surrounded by more fortunate ones that are connected to the grid but experience frequent outages and have to use gasoline and diesel-run private generators.

    With the long-running petroleum subsidies now removed, many households, schools, hospitals and businesses struggle with the cost of the fuel for their backup generators.

    “We have stopped using a diesel generator as an alternative due to costs,” said Abdulhakeem Adedoja, the head of Lorat Nursery and Primary School in Ibadan. He added that although the school is in an Ibadan area that is connected to the grid, they could go two weeks without a power supply.

    The problem is not just the lack of electricity for computer-aided learning, proper lighting, and fans to make classes less stuffy for pupils and teachers, but also that students are unable to complete their school assignments at home, Adedoja said.

    For more energy-hungry small businesses like restaurants, they either close shop or continue with alternative power generation, incurring high costs that hurt their capacity for expansion.

    Ebunola Akinwale, the owner of Nature’s Treat Cafe in Ibadan, said she pays 2.5 million Naira ($1,700) monthly to power backup generators in her four branches.

    “If nothing changes, I probably would have to close one or two branches,” she said, though she is planning to go solar which she enthuses will help us cut “pollution from the diesel (generators).” She’s in talks with her bank for a low-cost loan package specially designed for young women entrepreneurs to finance the solar alternative.

    However, not every business and household has such access or can afford the upfront capital for a private solar system. School heads Raji and Adedoja said they find the costs prohibitive.

    The stalled solar projects aren’t happening as finances don’t add up, but even for other sources of electricity generation, Nigeria struggles to attract desperately needed private financing.

    The power minister, Adebayo Adelabu, said in May that in order to address the financial crisis affecting the electricity sector, prices must reflect the true costs of service because a broke “government cannot afford to pay 3 trillion Naira ($2.4 billion) in subsidy.”

    The government also insists that Nigerians paying fully for the electricity they consume would encourage investments in the sector.

    There has been some pushback to that, as labor unions went on strike in early June in part to protest electricity tariff increases.

    But businesspeople like Akinwale understand the government’s position because regularly supplied grid electricity, even without a subsidy, is “still cheaper and cleaner” than diesel for generators, she said.

    If finances for grid-scale solar projects do not add up, the government should offer incentives such as tax relief and payment plans to encourage private solar adoption, Akinwale said. “Sunlight is there abundantly,” she said.

    Former regulatory chief Sam Amadi doubts if consumers in Nigeria — where the minimum wage is 30,000 Naira ($20) a month — “can today pay for energy consumed without subsidy.” He also wants a policy that makes it more affordable to have smaller-scale solar projects dotted across communities, businesses and homes.

    Until then, there are consequences to the frequent blackouts, he said.

    “I have the story of a person who died in hospital because the electricity went out during operation,” he said. “Every day, we see the real-world effects of the lack of electricity.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Puerto Rico power company suspends $65M worth of maintenance projects, sparking outcry amid outages

    Puerto Rico power company suspends $65M worth of maintenance projects, sparking outcry amid outages

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    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The private operator of Puerto Rico’s power grid confirmed Monday the deferral of $65 million worth of maintenance and improvement projects in the U.S. territory, with some repairs postponed for at least a year because of budget constraints, putting at risk the already troubled grid — and sparking a widespread outcry.

    Some of the deferred projects include maintenance of more than 100,000 light posts, fire mitigation and repairs on underground circuits, among other improvements.

    Luma Energy’s head of regulatory affairs, Mario Hurtado, told The Associated Press on Monday that the suspended projects, which he aims to bring back next year, risk more outages across the island.

    “The risk is always that there will be more failures in terms of public lighting,” Hurtado said.

    At a budget hearing on Friday, Hurtado said Luma Energy prioritized other tasks based on “professional judgment,” which they consider calculated risks. The lack of fire mitigation puts the grid at risk as hotter temperatures seize Puerto Rico, increasing the chances of wildfires disrupting power lines.

    “We make judgments based on what we have available and what our goals are,” Hurtado said Friday. “Although it entails a risk, it’s an acceptable risk.”

    Luma’s budget, proposed to Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau, includes $1.3 billion for the entire electrical sector, with 65% allocated to Luma, which is in charge of transmission and distribution, 32% to Genera PR, which operates and maintains the grid, and 3% to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

    The budget aims to inject funds into Luma’s customer service, personnel safety and renewable energy projects.

    Luma’s announcement to defer millions of dollars’ worth of projects amid chronic power outages has angered many.

    “It is unacceptable that Luma Energy can unilaterally decide to suspend crucial tasks,” Jesús Manuel Ortiz, a member of the House of Representatives who’s also running for governor, said in a statement Monday. “It is evident that Luma continues to fail in its responsibilities, and that no one in the Government of Puerto Rico is responsible.”

    The company confirmed a delay in funds disbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday. Luma has submitted about 400 projects for approval to upgrade the energy grid, and about 100 have been approved, Hurtado said.

    The budget hearing comes as the island of 3.2 million people contends with frequent power outages more than six years after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm. The combination of storms, earthquakes and underinvestment has hindered recovery efforts.

    A massive blackout in mid-June left over 340,000 customers in the capital, San Juan, and nearby cities without power during a heat wave. Prior to the blackout, towns in central and southern Puerto Rico were left without power for about five days after a transformer collapsed early June. The company restored the service on June 9, with some residents still experiencing sporadic outages last week.

    Over the weekend, Luma shipped a transformer via boat from San Juan to the southern coastal city of Ponce and then transported it to the nearby town of Santa Isabel.

    Governor Pedro Pierluisi activated the National Guard to help with the energy crisis and ordered an investigation into the June 13 blackout. The Energy Bureau is also investigating and has directed Luma and Genera PR to submit a plan to stabilize the island’s electrical network.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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  • France’s Macron, African leaders push for vaccines for Africa after COVID-19 exposed inequalities

    France’s Macron, African leaders push for vaccines for Africa after COVID-19 exposed inequalities

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    PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron is joining several African leaders on Thursday to kick off a planned $1 billion project to accelerate the rollout of vaccines in Africa, after the coronavirus pandemic exposed gaping inequalities in access to them.

    The launch of the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator, which will provide financial incentives to vaccine manufacturers, offered a momentary break for Macron from domestic political concerns as legislative elections loom on June 30 and July 7.

    Many African leaders and advocacy groups say Africa was unfairly locked out of access to COVID-19 treatment tools, vaccines and testing equipment — that many richer countries bought up in huge quantities — after the pandemic swept the world starting in 2020.

    WHO, advocacy groups and others want to help Africa get better prepared for the next pandemic, which many health experts say is inevitable. When the coronavirus pandemic began, South Africa was the only country in Africa with any ability to produce vaccines, officials say, and the continent produced a tiny fraction of all vaccines worldwide.

    WHO failed in its efforts to help countries agree to a “pandemic treaty” — to improve preparedness and response to pandemics — before its annual meeting last month. The project was shelved largely over disagreements about sharing of information about pathogens that cause epidemics and the high-tech tools used to fight them.

    Negotiators will resume work on the treaty in hopes of clinching a deal by the next WHO annual meeting in 2025.

    Thursday’s event in Paris also aims to give a funding shot-in-the-arm to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private partnership that helps get needed vaccines to developing countries around the world.

    Gavi says the project aims to make up to US$ 1 billion available over the next ten years help boost Africa’s manufacturing base, to improve global vaccines markets and improve preparedness and response to pandemics and outbreaks like HIV, malaria, TB and COVID-19.

    The Geneva-based alliance says the accelerator will inject funds into manufacturers in Africa once they hit supply and regulatory milestones, with an aim to use market forces to drive down prices and encourage investment upstream.

    Officials say the project will explore issues like technology transfer — which has been resisted by some Western countries with powerful pharmaceutical companies — as well as the possible creation of a African medicines agency and tackling regulatory hurdles faced in Africa’s patchwork of legal systems.

    ___

    AP journalist Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

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  • In Wyoming, Bill Gates moves ahead with nuclear project aimed at revolutionizing power generation

    In Wyoming, Bill Gates moves ahead with nuclear project aimed at revolutionizing power generation

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    Bill Gates and his energy company are starting construction at their Wyoming site for a next-generation nuclear power plant he believes will “revolutionize” how power is generated.

    Gates was in the tiny community of Kemmerer Monday to break ground on the project. The co-founder of Microsoft is chairman of TerraPower. The company applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March for a construction permit for an advanced nuclear reactor that uses sodium, not water, for cooling. If approved, it would operate as a commercial nuclear power plant.

    The site is adjacent to PacifiCorp’s Naughton Power Plant, which will stop burning coal in 2026 and natural gas a decade later, the utility said. Nuclear reactors operate without emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases. PacifiCorp plans to get carbon-free power from the reactor and says it is weighing how much nuclear to include in its long-range planning.

    The work begun Monday is aimed at having the site ready so TerraPower can build the reactor as quickly as possible if its permit is approved. Russia is at the forefront for developing sodium-cooled reactors.

    Gates told the audience at the groundbreaking that they were “standing on what will soon be the bedrock of America’s energy future.”

    “This is a big step toward safe, abundant, zero-carbon energy,” Gates said. “And it’s important for the future of this country that projects like this succeed.”

    Advanced reactors typically use a coolant other than water and operate at lower pressures and higher temperatures. Such technology has been around for decades, but the United States has continued to build large, conventional water-cooled reactors as commercial power plants. The Wyoming project is the first time in about four decades that a company has tried to get an advanced reactor up and running as a commercial power plant in the United States, according to the NRC.

    It’s time to move to advanced nuclear technology that uses the latest computer modeling and physics for a simpler plant design that’s cheaper, even safer and more efficient, said Chris Levesque, the company’s president and chief executive officer.

    TerraPower’s Natrium reactor demonstration project is a sodium-cooled fast reactor design with a molten salt energy storage system.

    “The industry’s character hasn’t been to innovate. It’s kind of been to repeat past performance, you know, not to move forward with new technology. And that was good for reliability,” Levesque said in an interview. “But the electricity demands we’re seeing in the coming decades, and also to correct the cost issues with today’s nuclear and nuclear energy, we at TerraPower and our founders really felt it’s time to innovate.”

    A Georgia utility just finished the first two scratch-built American reactors in a generation at a cost of nearly $35 billion. The price tag for the expansion of Plant Vogtle from two of the traditional large reactors to four includes $11 billion in cost overruns.

    The TerraPower project is expected to cost up to $4 billion, half of it from the U.S. Department of Energy. Levesque said that figure includes first-of-its-kind costs for designing and licensing the reactor, so future ones would cost significantly less.

    Most advanced nuclear reactors under development in the U.S. rely on a type of fuel — known as high-assay low-enriched uranium — that’s enriched to a higher percentage of the isotope uranium-235 than the fuel used by conventional reactors. TerraPower delayed its launch date in Wyoming by two years to 2030 because Russia is the only commercial supplier of the fuel, and it’s working with other companies to develop alternate supplies. The U.S. Energy Department is working on developing it domestically.

    Edwin Lyman co-authored an article in Science on Thursday that raises concerns that this fuel could be used for nuclear weapons. Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the risk posed by HALEU today is small because there isn’t that much of it around the world. But that will change if advanced reactor projects, which require much larger quantities, move forward, he added. Lyman said he wants to raise awareness of the danger in the hope that the international community will strengthen security around the fuel.

    NRC spokesperson Scott Burnell said the agency is confident its current requirements will maintain both security and public safety of any reactors that are built and their fuel.

    Gates co-founded TerraPower in 2008 as a way for the private sector to propel advanced nuclear energy forward to provide safe, abundant, carbon-free energy.

    The company’s 345-megawatt reactor could generate up to 500 megawatts at its peak, enough for up to 400,000 homes. TerraPower said its first few reactors will focus on supplying electricity. But it envisions future reactors could be built near industrial plants to supply high heat.

    Nearly all industrial processes requiring high heat currently get it from burning fossil fuels. Heat from advanced reactors could be used to produce hydrogen, petrochemicals, ammonia and fertilizer, said John Kotek at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

    It’s significant that Gates, a technological innovator and climate champion, is betting on nuclear power to help address the climate crisis, added Kotek, the industry group’s senior vice president for policy.

    “I think this has helped open people’s eyes to the role that nuclear power does play today and can play in the future in addressing carbon emissions,” he said. “There’s tremendous momentum building for new nuclear in the U.S. and the potential use of a far wider range of nuclear energy technology than we’ve seen in decades.”

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • From decay to dazzling. Ford restores grandeur to former eyesore Detroit train station

    From decay to dazzling. Ford restores grandeur to former eyesore Detroit train station

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    DETROIT — The once-blighted monolithic Michigan Central train station — for decades a symbol of Detroit’s decline — has new life following a massive six-year, multimillion-dollar renovation to create a hub for mobility projects in the rebirth of the Motor City.

    The windowless hulking scavenger-ravaged structure that ominously shadowed the city’s Corktown neighborhood is now home to Ford Motor Co. and the centerpiece of a sprawling 30-acre (12-hectare) mobility innovation district.

    The building’s first tenant, Google’s Code Next Detroit computer science education program, is expected to move in by late June. Grand opening ceremonies include an outdoor concert on Thursday, with tours for the public starting Friday.

    “The train station … it is perhaps the most powerful story in Michigan of the power of historic renovation,” Detroit Regional Chamber President and Chief Executive Sandy Baruah said. “To turn something that was blight into something that is hugely attractive and is an anchor as opposed to a deficit is huge.”

    The restoration effort — part of the automaker’s more than $900 million project to create a place where new transportation and mobility ideas are nurtured and developed — was just as massive as the size of the more than century-old, 500,000-square-foot (46,000-square-meter) building.

    In numbers:

    __ More than 3,100 workers spent about 1.7 million hours of labor on the station and its surrounding public spaces

    __ 29,000 Gustavino tiles were restored in its Grand Hall

    __ 8.6 million miles (13.8 million kilometers) of new grout was laid across the 21,000-square-foot (1,951 square-meter) ceiling

    __ 8 million bricks, 23,000 square feet (2,138 square meters) of marble flooring and 90,000 square feet (8,361 square meters) of decorative plaster were restored or replicated

    __ 3.5 million gallons (13.2 million liters) of water was pumped from the basement

    __ Installation of 300 miles (482 kilometers) of electrical cable and wiring and 5.6 miles (9 kilometers) of plumbing

    The train station’s history reflects the city’s fortunes during its heyday as the world’s car capital and later misfortunes as thousands of auto workers and other residents fled Detroit for life in the suburbs.

    Michigan Central Railroad started purchasing land around 1908 in Corktown, the city’s oldest neighborhood, for the new train station, according to HistoricDetroit.org. The depot opened in late 1913. But as traveling by train gave way to commuter air travel and as more Americans chose to use the nation’s interstates, the numbers of people coming through Michigan Central steadily dropped.

    The last train pulled out in 1988 and for years after the building fell into disrepair, neglect and abandonment. It became a destination for the curious and urban adventurers seeking out such places. Other buildings in Detroit, particularly factories, suffered the same or similar fate, but due to Michigan Central’s size it became a symbol of the city’s decline.

    Redevelopment by its former owner never materialized. Then in 2018, Ford announced it was buying the 18-story building and adjacent structures as part of its plans for a more than 1 million square foot campus focusing on autonomous vehicles.

    “There’s a lot of innovation going on here,” said Jim Farley, Ford chief executive. “Very much the future of the company is going to be housed here and on the campus. It represents our future revenues.”

    It also was the vision of Bill Ford, company executive chair and great-grandson of its legendary founder Henry Ford, that a revamped Michigan Central would be something for the community to enjoy, he added.

    “And as employees, we’re so proud that Ford stuck its neck out to do this project,” Farley said.

    The project is expected to bring with it thousands of tech-related jobs. Restaurants, new hotels and other service-industry businesses already are moving into and near Corktown.

    In December, state officials announced three proposed housing development efforts intended to meet housing needs around Michigan Central and the innovation district.

    Michigan Central and several other efforts around Detroit are expected to accelerate southeastern Michigan’s innovation economy, said Baruah, who added that the building and the surrounding campus will help draw the best and most innovative minds to the area.

    “It’s really an attraction play. It’s about talent,” he said.

    The reopening of the train station also comes as Detroit apparently has turned the corner from national joke to national attraction. Nearly a decade from exiting its embarrassing bankruptcy, the motor city has stabilized its finances, improved city services, staunched the population losses that saw more than a million people leave since the 1950s, and made inroads in cleaning up blight across its 139 square miles.

    Detroit now is a destination for conventions and meetings. Last month, Detroit set an attendance record for the NFL draft after more than 775,000 fans poured into downtown last month for the three-day event.

    The significance of Michigan Central’s rebirth is not lost on Mayor Mike Duggan, whose administration has guided Detroit back to respectability since the city’s 2014 exit from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

    “I’ve been waiting 40 years for this day and so have all long-time to Detroiters, so it’s going to be very special,” Duggan said last week. “It’ll be a very emotional day.”

    “The abandoned train station was the national symbol of Detroit’s decline and bankruptcy,” he explained. “It was on the cover of Time magazine under the headline ‘bankruptcy.’ So the fact that not only has the city come back, but that the train station has come back in such a spectacular way and the place where we’re going to be designing the automobiles of the future. It’s now about the future, not about the past.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporter Joey Cappelletti on Mackinac Island, Michigan, contributed to this story.

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  • Puerto Rico’s two biggest parties hold primaries as governor seeks 2nd term

    Puerto Rico’s two biggest parties hold primaries as governor seeks 2nd term

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    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico congressional representative Jenniffer González defeated Gov. Pedro Pierluisi in a surprise upset during a primary election held Sunday by their pro-statehood party.

    The two ran on the same ticket four years ago under the New Progressive Party, but González, a Republican, announced her plan to challenge Pierluisi, a Democrat, in early December. Public jabs between the two have since turned acrimonious.

    “What happened is very painful, and I didn’t expect it, but let no one think that I’m going to slow down in the remainder of this four-year period,” Pierluisi said late Sunday.

    He addressed his supporters briefly as González celebrated with hers while results still trickled in.

    González obtained 56% of the vote compared with Pierluisi’s 44%, with an estimated tens of thousands of votes still uncounted.

    Running with González for the position of resident commissioner is senior U.S. naval military officer Elmer Román, a former secretary of state for Puerto Rico, while Puerto Rico Sen. William Villafañe is seeking the position under Pierluisi.

    Earlier on Sunday, Puerto Rico Rep. Jesús Manuel Ortiz defeated Sen. Juan Zaragoza in the primary held by their Popular Democratic Party, which backs the island’s territorial status and seeks a return to power in the upcoming general elections.

    Zaragoza conceded defeat after obtaining 38% of the votes compared with Zaragoza’s 62%, even though only a little more than 60% of the votes had been counted.

    Running alongside Pierluisi for the position of congressional representative was Puerto Rico Sen. William Villafañe, while senior U.S. naval military officer Elmer Román, a former secretary of state for Puerto Rico, sought the position under González.

    Attorney Pablo José Hernández ran unopposed to be the Popular Democratic Party’s candidate for resident commissioner, the first person in 20 years to seek that nomination.

    As results trickled in late Sunday, the page of Puerto Rico’s elections commission crashed, frustrating many who were closely following the primaries. Officials said they were rushing to fix the problem, saying they did not know what caused it but that U.S. Homeland Security and other agencies were helping.

    “If it were necessary to activate the FBI given the situation, we will do it,” said Jessika Padilla, the commission’s alternate president.

    The candidates face disgruntled voters on an island still struggling with chronic power outages and awaiting completion of reconstruction projects following Hurricane Maria, which hit as a Category 4 storm in September 2017.

    Power outages were reported at more than a dozen voting centers, including one where Ortiz arrived to cast his vote, forcing officials to revert to a manual process. Heavy rains also pelted parts of the island, with flood warnings issued for nearly a dozen towns and cities.

    Power outages remain such a big concern that the State Commission of Elections rented more than a dozen generators and a private power company identified 81 alternate voting sites with guaranteed electricity.

    “It’s been years since I last voted,” said Benito López, a 66-year-old retiree wearing a T-shirt that read, “The Island of Enchantment.” He planned to cast a vote for a candidate he would not reveal “to see if there’s any improvement and change.”

    Other voter complaints include the difficulty of obtaining business permits, a fractured education system, and the island’s lack of access to capital markets after the local government emerged two years ago from the largest debt restructuring in U.S. history.

    Meanwhile, more than $9 billion of debt owed by Puerto Rico’s power company, the largest of any government agency, remains unresolved. A federal judge overseeing a bankruptcy-like process has yet to rule on a restructuring plan following bitter negotiations between the government and bondholders.

    “They have broken Puerto Rico,” Cecilio Rodríguez, said of the current and previous administrations as he waited to cast his vote. “Economic development must be a priority.”

    For other voters, stopping the exodus of doctors from Puerto Rico and improving the U.S. territory’s crumbling health system is a priority.

    “The patients are the ones who have to stay here and endure this. It’s not fair,” said Dr. Alfredo Rivera Freytes, an anesthesiologist who left Puerto Rico for St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands because of the problems with Puerto Rico’s health system.

    He returned two years ago with plans to retire, but found himself working again because of the need for anesthesiologists in Puerto Rico.

    Ahead of the primaries, Pierluisi touted record tourist numbers, hurricane reconstruction and growing economic development among his successes. He pledged to prioritize projects targeting children and the island’s growing elderly population, among other things.

    An event marking the end of his campaign held a week before the primaries was headlined by former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, who resigned in August 2019 following nearly two weeks of street touched off by a leak of crude and insulting chat messages between him and his top advisers.

    Pierluisi’s opponent, González, did not hold a campaign closer. She pledged to crack down on corruption, award more funds to agencies to help victims of violence amid a surge in killings of women, and stem an exodus of doctors and other medical workers to the U.S. mainland.

    Zaragoza had promised to prioritize climate change and renewable energy, decentralize the island’s education department and improve access to health. His opponent, Ortiz, pledged to improve the licensing process to retain doctors, simplify the island’s tax system and revamp health care.

    Puerto Rico’s next governor will have to work alongside a federal control board that oversees the island’s finances and was created after the government declared bankruptcy.

    Ahead of Sunday’s primaries, more than 4,900 inmates voted in prisons across the U.S. territory. The State Commission of Elections also received and counted more than 122,000 early ballots.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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  • Number of Americans applying for jobless benefits inches up, but layoffs remain low

    Number of Americans applying for jobless benefits inches up, but layoffs remain low

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    The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits ticked up last week, but layoffs remain historically low in the face of lingering inflation and high interest rates.

    Jobless claims for the week ending May 25 rose by 3,000 to 219,000, up from 216,000 the week before, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

    The four-week average of claims, which quiets some of the week-to-week noise, also rose modestly to 222,500. That’s an increase of 2,500 from the previous week.

    Weekly unemployment claims are broadly interpreted as a proxy for the number of U.S. layoffs in a given week and a sign of where the job market is headed. They have remained at historically low levels since millions of jobs were lost when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in the spring of 2020.

    The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark borrowing rate 11 times beginning in March of 2022 in a bid to stifle the four-decade high inflation that took hold after the economy rebounded from the COVID-19 recession of 2020. The Fed’s intention was to cool off a red-hot labor market and slow wage growth, which can fuel inflation.

    Many economists had expected the rapid rate hikes would trigger a recession, but that’s been avoided so far thanks to strong consumer demand and sturdier-than-expected labor market.

    In April, U.S. employers added just 175,000 jobs, the fewest in six months and a sign that the labor market may be finally cooling off. The unemployment rate inched back up to 3.9% from 3.8% and has now remained below 4% for 27 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s.

    The government also recently reported 8.5 million job openings in March, the lowest number of vacancies in three years.

    Moderation in the pace of hiring, along with a slowdown in wage growth, could give the Fed the data its been seeking to finally bring interest rates back down. A cooler reading on consumer inflation in April could also play into the Fed’s next rate decision.

    Though layoffs remain at low levels, companies have been announcing more job cuts recently, mostly across technology and media. Google parent company Alphabet, Apple and eBay have all recently announced layoffs.

    Outside of tech and media, Walmart, Peloton, Stellantis, Nike and Tesla have recently announced job cuts.

    In total, 1.79 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits during the week that ended May 18. That’s an increase of 4,000 from the previous week.

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  • Denver launches ambitious migrant program, breaking from the short-term shelter approach

    Denver launches ambitious migrant program, breaking from the short-term shelter approach

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    DENVER — In a hotel conference room in Denver, Dallenis Martinez attended orientation with hundreds of other migrants Monday for the city’s new, ambitious migrant support program, which includes six month apartment stays and intensive job preparation for those who can’t yet legally work.

    It’s an about-face from strategies Denver, New York City and Chicago have used as the cities scrambled to support thousands of migrants and slashed budgets. The largely improvised support strategies have included days- to weeks-long shelter stays or bus tickets to send migrants elsewhere.

    Now, Martinez, 28, and her two young kids, along with some 650 others in Denver, are being set up with an apartment with six months of rental, food and utility assistance, a free computer, a prepaid cell phone and metro bus passes.

    Then, the city working in coordination with several nonprofits plan to provide courses on English language, computers, financial literacy, and workers rights, while also assisting migrants in getting credentialed in specific industries, like construction, retail, hospitality, healthcare and early childhood education. Martinez said she will take any job to support her kids.

    The support will also include help with the paperwork for asylum applications, and eventually work authorization.

    The goal of the new program is to act as a buffer for new arrivals who have to wait six months for a work permit after applying for asylum under federal law, using that time to prepare migrants for their new life.

    “This is investing in people to set them up to be independent and thrive,” said Sarah Plastino, who’s overseeing the program. “We know that when we set people up for success, people really do succeed.”

    The city expects to enroll 800 migrants in the coming months, though only those who don’t yet qualify for a work permit can enter this program.

    Martinez, who’s from Venezuela but was living in Peru when she started her journey north, didn’t know she’d end up in a program like this. She didn’t even know what the orientation was about when she first took a seat.

    Martinez, who travelled with her 11-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, arrived in the U.S. with nothing. On the border of Guatemala and Mexico, she was robbed of the little money she had. Then, it happened again, and she had to hide in a river with her kids for two nights.

    “I was hungry, cold and scared,” said Martinez, who turned herself in to U.S. immigration soon after crossing the border. “I couldn’t take it anymore.”

    Halfway through the orientation, Martinez was excited.

    “Faith is the last thing you lose,” she said, a smile broadening on her face. “I feel more hope with this program.”

    The mood was upbeat in the Denver Quality Inn; where most who attended the orientation were staying. The city has rented out several hotels to support the some 42,000 migrants who’ve arrived since the beginning of 2023. Now, the hotels are shuttered or winding down as the number of new migrants drops.

    Over the last year, new arrivals strained the city’s resources, as they did in Chicago and New York City, prompting the mayors to slash city budgets after unsuccessfully asking for more federal aid from President Joe Biden.

    “We were hemorrhaging money. We had over 5,000 people a day in our shelter system, and it was completely financially unsustainable,” said Plastino. “We knew we had to make a shift from reactive to proactive.”

    New York City officials said 197,100 immigrants have made their way there. Some 65,500 are currently in shelters. Since a federally-sponsored Asylum Application Help Center started assisting with immigration applications, some 50,000 applications have been submitted, including for asylum, work permits and other forms of immigration relief.

    Even while Denver’s new program is intensive, Plastino said it’s still more cost effective.

    The city’s costs for supporting migrants will be roughly half of what they had initially expected in January. Services like recreation centers will open once again after their funding was sliced to help afford the city’s previous migrant housing strategy.

    Renting hotel rooms and paying for premade meals is more expensive than providing rental support for an apartment on the market and food assistance for grocery stores, Plastino said, adding, “It’s also just the right thing to do.”

    ___

    Bedayn 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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