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Tag: Washington news

  • Stock market today: Wall Street drifts to start what could be a quiet wek

    Stock market today: Wall Street drifts to start what could be a quiet wek

    NEW YORK — Stocks are drifting Monday in their first trading since a big rally for Wall Street hit its first roadblock in six weeks.

    The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in morning trading. It’s still close to its highest level in a year, reached a couple weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 11 points, or less than 0.1%, at 33,716, as of 10:20 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

    Electric vehicle maker Lucid Group jumped 12.4% after announcing a deal where it would provide powertrain and battery systems to Aston Martin. PacWest Bancorp, one of the banks Wall Street has punished in its hunt for the system’s next potential weak link, rose 6.4% after it sold a portfolio of loans to strengthen its cash position.

    Carnival, meanwhile, fell 8.5% despite reporting stronger results and revenue for its latest quarter than expected. Its forecasted ranges for earnings per share, occupancy levels and other measures in the current quarter may have disappointed some investors.

    Trading was mostly quiet in financial markets around the world as the fundamental question remains the same, and unanswered for investors: Will the economy be able to avoid a painful recession after central banks around the world hiked interest rates at a blistering pace to get inflation under control?

    Adding to the uncertainty was a short-lived armed rebellion in Russia over the weekend. The war in Ukraine has already helped push upward on inflation around the world, but investors mostly looked past the brief mutiny by mercenary soldiers.

    Crude oil prices were holding relatively steady, unlike the first days of the war in Ukraine when they soared immediately. A barrel of U.S. crude rose 0.4% to $69.47. Brent crude, the international standard, added 0.4% to $74.31.

    This upcoming week does not have many economic or earnings reports that can help answer investors’ main question. A report on Friday will show how the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation behaved in May, but data already arrived earlier this month on prices at the consumer and wholesale levels.

    More emphasis will be on June’s inflation data, which will arrive next month. Also upcoming is the next monthly jobs report, which will arrive in two Fridays.

    For now, traders are betting those reports will push the Fed to raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point at its next meeting, which runs July 25-26, according to data from CME Group. The Fed has been hiking its key overnight interest at a breakneck pace since early last year, though it refrained from making a move last month. More importantly, much of Wall Street expects a hike next month to be the final one of this cycle.

    The Fed, meanwhile, has suggested it could raise rates twice more because inflation remains stubbornly high even if it has come down from its peak last summer. The difference in expectations is minor, but each successive hike could mean a much bigger impact on the economy than the last.

    High rates undercut inflation by applying the brakes to the entire economy, and they raise the risk of a recession if they stay too high, too long.

    High rates have already helped cause several U.S. banks to fail, rattling confidence in the system. The manufacturing industry has also been contracting for months, and analysts say they don’t know what could break next in the economy under the weight of much higher rates.

    “We have a slowing U.S. economy, a slowing global economy, all with on-going extreme inflation and high and going higher interest rate levels,” said Clifford Bennett, chief economist at ACY Securities. “There is no bullish stock market scenario here.”

    That’s even though the S&P 500 has climbed more than 20% since mid-October. That means Wall Street, by one definition, has moved into a “bull market,” which is what traders call a long-term upward run for stocks.

    Last week, though, the S&P 500 had its first losing week in six after Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated that the fight against inflation is still not done and several central banks around the world cranked rates higher.

    Many critics also said the stock market was due for a breather after rising so far, so quickly as the economy has been able to avoid a recession so far, largely because of a remarkably solid job market.

    In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 3.72% from 3.74% late Friday. It helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans.

    The two-year yield, which moves more on expectations for the Fed, was holding steady at 4.75%.

    In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe. Stocks in Shanghai fell 1.5%, but indexes moved more modestly elsewhere in Asia.

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    AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

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  • The Supreme Court won’t let a North Carolina charter school force girls to wear skirts to school

    The Supreme Court won’t let a North Carolina charter school force girls to wear skirts to school

    The Supreme Court has left in place an appellate ruling barring a North Carolina public charter school from requiring girls to wear skirts to school

    FILE – The U.S. Supreme Court, June 13, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, file)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place an appellate ruling barring a North Carolina public charter school from requiring girls to wear skirts to school.

    The justices declined without comment to hear an appeal from the Charter Day School in the eastern North Carolina town of Leland. A federal appeals court had ruled that the school’s dress code violated students’ constitutional rights.

    School founder Baker Mitchell had said the dress code was intended to promote “chivalry” by the male students and respect for the female students, according to court documents.

    The dress code already has been changed to allow girls to wear pants, in line with the lower court ruling.

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    Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

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  • Supreme Court lets lawsuits over team doctor’s sexual abuse proceed against Ohio State

    Supreme Court lets lawsuits over team doctor’s sexual abuse proceed against Ohio State

    The Supreme Court is leaving in place a decision that allows more than 230 men to sue Ohio State University over decades-old sexual abuse by a university doctor, the late Richard Strauss

    FILE – Members of the Supreme Court sit for a new group portrait following the addition of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, at the Supreme Court building in Washington, Oct. 7, 2022. Bottom row, from left, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Top row, from left, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a decision that allows more than 230 men to sue Ohio State University over decades-old sexual abuse by a university doctor, the late Richard Strauss.

    Two cases involving the abuse were on a list of many cases the court said it would not hear. And, as is typical, the court did not comment in saying it would not hear the cases.

    Ohio State University had urged the court to review a ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that revived lawsuits that had been dismissed. The men who sued are among hundreds of former student-athletes and other alumni who say they were abused by Strauss, who worked at the school from 1978 to 1998.

    They say university officials failed to stop him despite complaints raised as early as the late 1970s. Many of them allege Strauss abused them during required physicals and other medical exams at campus athletic facilities, a student health center, his home and an off-campus clinic.

    Strauss killed himself in 2005 at age 67. The university in 2018 announced an investigation into Strauss’ abuse and the university’s conduct. It has apologized to his victims and reached over $60 million in settlements with at least 296 people.

    But the university eventually sought to have the remaining unsettled cases dismissed, arguing that the time limit for the claims had long passed.

    The remaining plaintiffs have argued that they filed timely claims and that the time limit didn’t start running until the 2018 investigation into Strauss’ abuse made his conduct public. The men say that was when they first learned that the school had been aware of Strauss’ abuse and failed to protect them from him. Many also only realized then that they’d been victims of abuse since Strauss disguised his abuse as medical care, their lawyers said.

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  • The US government is awarding $1.7 billion to buy electric and low-emission buses

    The US government is awarding $1.7 billion to buy electric and low-emission buses

    The U.S. Department of Transportation is awarding $1.7 billion in grants for buying zero- and low-emission buses

    ByJOSH BOAK Associated Press

    FILE – A Chicago Transit Authority electric bus charges at Navy Pier Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023, in Chicago. The Transportation Department is awarding almost $1.7 billion in grants for buying zero and low emission buses, with the money going to transit projects in 46 states and territories. The grants will enable transit agencies and state and local governments to buy 1,700 U.S.-built buses, nearly half of which will have zero carbon emissions. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Department of Transportation is awarding almost $1.7 billion in grants for buying zero- and low-emission buses, with the money going to transit projects in 46 states and territories.

    The grants will enable transit agencies and state and local governments to buy 1,700 U.S.-built buses, nearly half of which will have zero carbon emissions. Funding for the grants comes from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill signed into law by President Joe Biden. The Democratic president has made it a priority to put more electric vehicles on the road — especially for schools and public transit — in an effort to contain the damage from climate change.

    “Every day, millions of Americans climb aboard over 60,000 buses to get to work, to school, doctor’s appointments, everywhere they need to be,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a call with reporters. “These are unprecedented levels of investment when it comes to putting modern cleaner buses on the road.”

    Monday’s announcement covers the second round of grants for buses and supporting infrastructure. All told, the U.S. has invested a total of $3.3 billion in the projects so far. Government officials expect to award roughly $5 billion more over the next three years.

    The Biden administration said that the new buses will improve public health as diesel exhaust will no longer be going into the air and that the new buses will be easier to maintain.

    The government received 475 project proposals for the grants that totaled roughly $8.7 billion, a sign of the demand for the funding.

    The Seattle area will be getting $33.5 million to purchase 30 electric battery buses and chargers. The Washington, D.C., transit authority will use $104 million to make a bus garage an electric facility and buy roughly 100 electric battery buses. But money also is going outside of major U.S. cities, with Iowa City, Iowa, and the Seneca Nation in Western New York also receiving grants.

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  • Stock market today: Asian shares mixed, oil prices gain after armed rebellion quelled in Russia

    Stock market today: Asian shares mixed, oil prices gain after armed rebellion quelled in Russia

    TOKYO — Asian shares fell Monday after a short-lived armed rebellion in Russia added to uncertainties over the war in Ukraine.

    Benchmarks declined in Tokyo, Sydney Hong Kong and Shanghai, but rose in Seoul.

    The rebellion by mercenary soldiers who briefly took over a Russian military headquarters on an ominous march toward Moscow was over. But the brief weakened President Vladimir Putin just as his forces were facing a fierce counteroffensive in Ukraine.

    Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner troops were some of Russia’s most effective fighters in Ukraine. Their aborted takeover of the capital also left their fate uncertain.

    Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost nearly 0.3% to finish at 32,698.81. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.5% to 2,582.20. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.2% to 18,853.18, while the Shanghai Composite, reopening after a holiday, dropped 1.5% to 3,150.62. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.3% to 7,078.70.

    Wall Street marked its first losing week in the last six on Friday. The S&P 500 fell 0.8% to 4,348.33, pulling back further from last week when it reached its highest level in more than a year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.6% to 33,727.43 and the Nasdaq composite sank 1% to 13,492.52.

    “We have a slowing U.S. economy, a slowing global economy, all with on-going extreme inflation and high and going higher interest rate levels. There is no bullish stock market scenario here,” said Clifford Bennett, chief economist at ACY Securities.

    High interest rates in the United States have already dragged manufacturing and other industries into contraction, while also helping to cause several failures in the banking system that rattled confidence. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said last week that even though his central bank didn’t raise rates last week, it could still push through a couple more hikes by the end of this year.

    A preliminary report last week indicated the overall U.S. economy continues to grow, even though manufacturing is shrinking and its output fell to a five-month low.

    In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude gained 44 cents to $69.60 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell 35 cents to $69.16 Friday. Brent crude, the international standard, added 55 cents to $74.40 a barrel.

    In currency trading, the U.S. dollar fell to 143.02 Japanese yen from 143.58 yen. The euro cost $1.0901, inching down from $1.0903.

    In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell Friday to 3.73% from 3.79% late Thursday.

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    Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • The Supreme Court’s biggest decisions are coming. Here’s what they could say

    The Supreme Court’s biggest decisions are coming. Here’s what they could say

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is getting ready to decide some of its biggest cases of the term. The high court has 10 opinions left to release over the next week before the justices begin their summer break. As is typical, the last opinions to be released cover some of the most contentious issues the court has wrestled with this term including affirmative action, student loans and gay rights.

    Here’s a look at some of the cases the court has left to decide from the term that began back in October:

    AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

    The survival of affirmative action in higher education is the subject of two related cases, one involving Harvard and the other the University of North Carolina. The Supreme Court has previously approved of the use of affirmative action in higher education in decisions reaching back to 1978. But the justices’ decision to take the cases suggested a willingness to revisit those rulings. And when the high court heard arguments in the cases in late October, all six conservative justices on the court expressed doubts about the practice.

    The Biden administration has said that getting rid of race-conscious college admissions would have a “destabilizing” effect that would cause the ranks of Black and Latino students to plummet at the nation’s most selective schools.

    STUDENT LOANS

    The justices will also decide the fate of President Joe Biden’s plan to wipe away or reduce student loans held by millions of Americans. When the court heard arguments in the case in February, the plan didn’t seem likely to survive, though it’s possible the justices could decide the challengers lacked the right to sue and the plan can still go forward.

    Biden had proposed erasing $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those with incomes below $125,000 a year, or households that earn less than $250,000. He also wanted to cancel an additional $10,000 for those who received federal Pell Grants to attend college. The administration has said millions of borrowers would benefit from the program.

    Regardless of what happens at the high court, loan payments that have been on hold since the start of the coronavirus pandemic three years ago will resume this summer.

    GAY RIGHTS

    A clash of gay rights and religious rights is also yet to be decided by the court. The case involves a Christian graphic artist from Colorado who wants to begin designing wedding websites but objects to making wedding websites for same-sex couples.

    State law requires businesses that are open to the public to provide services to all customers, but the designer, Lorie Smith, says the law violates her free speech rights. She says ruling against her would force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their beliefs. Her opponents, meanwhile, say that if she wins, a range of businesses will be able to discriminate, refusing to serve Black, Jewish or Muslim customers, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants.

    During arguments in the case in December, the court’s conservative majority sounded sympathetic to Smith’s arguments, and religious plaintiffs have in recent years won a series of victories at the high court.

    RELIGIOUS RIGHTS

    Another case that could end as a victory for religious rights is the case of a Christian mail carrier who refused to work on Sundays when he was required to deliver Amazon packages.

    The question for the high court has to do with when businesses have to accommodate religious employees. The case is somewhat unusual in that both sides agree on a number of things, and when the court heard arguments in April both liberal and conservative justices seemed in broad agreement that businesses like the Postal Service can’t cite minor costs or hardships to reject requests to accommodate religious practices. That could mean a ruling joined by both liberals and conservatives.

    Less clear, however, was how the justices might decide the particular worker’s case.

    VOTING

    As election season accelerates, the Supreme Court has still not said what it will do in a case about the power of state legislatures to make rules for congressional and presidential elections without being checked by state courts.

    In a case out of North Carolina the justices were asked to essentially eliminate the power of state courts to strike down congressional districts drawn by legislatures on the grounds that they violate state constitutions.

    But there’s a wrinkle. Since the justices heard arguments in the case in December, North Carolina’s state Supreme Court threw out the ruling the Supreme Court was reviewing after Republicans claimed control of that court. That could give the justices an out and let them dismiss the case without reaching a decision.

    The high court could still take up a similar case from Ohio and reach a decision there, but it wouldn’t be until after the 2024 elections.

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  • US aircraft carrier makes Da Nang port call as America looks to strengthen ties with Vietnam

    US aircraft carrier makes Da Nang port call as America looks to strengthen ties with Vietnam

    BANGKOK — A U.S. aircraft carrier and two guided missile cruisers were visiting Vietnam on Monday, a rare port call that comes as the United States and China increasingly vie for influence in Southeast Asia.

    The USS Ronald Reagan, along with the guided missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Robert Smalls, arrived in Da Nang on Sunday for the visit.

    Neighboring China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner but Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea have led to increasing friction with Vietnam, as well as with Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.

    The U.S., meantime, has been on a diplomatic push to strengthen economic and military ties in the Indo-Pacific region.

    The aircraft carrier’s port call — only the third such visit since relations were reestablished after the end of the Vietnam war — follows visits to Vietnam this year from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and USAID Administrator Samantha Power.

    “Though aircraft carrier visits often spark media attention because of their highly visible nature, the broader question is how this will play into the development of ties, including Washington’s quest to upgrade relations,” Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, wrote in a research note.

    “An overly narrow focus on carrier visits can distract from the broader trend of the more comprehensive development of U.S.-Vietnam defense ties and relations more generally,” Parameswaran added.

    Officers from the Ronald Reagan debarked Sunday and were greeted by Vietnamese officers after mooring in Da Nang, a port that was modernized and expanded by the United States during the war for its own use.

    Capt. Daryle Cardone, the Ronald Reagan’s commanding officer, said some of the more than 5,000 sailors from the ship will volunteer at several community relations events, play sports with local athletes and take part in other cultural and professional exchanges during the visit through June 30.

    “A few Reagan sailors call Vietnam home, but for most it will be their first time visiting,” Cardone said in a release from the U.S. Navy.

    Washington sees Hanoi as a key part of its strategy for the region and has sought to leverage Vietnam’s traditional rivalry with its much larger neighbor China to expand U.S. influence in the region.

    Japan, a strong U.S. ally, also made a port call in Vietnam last week with its largest destroyer, Izumo, following exercises in the South China Sea with the Reagan and other American ships.

    China has also been reaching out in an effort to mend fences, sending a navy training ship to make its own port call in Da Nang a month ago as part of what it called a goodwill tour that also took it to Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines.

    Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry called the Reagan’s port call part of a “normal friendly exchange for the sake of peace, stability, cooperation and development in both the region and the world.”

    Vietnam needs to balance its sensitive ties with Beijing with the U.S. outreach and domestic opinion, Parameswaran said, noting that polls suggest Vietnam’s people have among the highest levels of pro-U.S. sentiment in Southeast Asia.

    Based in Yokosuka, Japan, the USS Ronald Reagan is the only forward-deployed American aircraft carrier. It is due to be replaced in that role next year by the USS George Washington, also a Nimitz-class carrier.

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  • US aircraft carrier makes Da Nang port call as America looks to strengthen ties with Vietnam

    US aircraft carrier makes Da Nang port call as America looks to strengthen ties with Vietnam

    BANGKOK — A U.S. aircraft carrier and two guided missile cruisers were visiting Vietnam on Monday, a rare port call that comes as the United States and China increasingly vie for influence in Southeast Asia.

    The USS Ronald Reagan, along with the guided missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Robert Smalls, arrived in Da Nang on Sunday for the visit.

    Neighboring China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner but Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea have led to increasing friction with Vietnam, as well as with Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.

    The U.S., meantime, has been on a diplomatic push to strengthen economic and military ties in the Indo-Pacific region.

    The aircraft carrier’s port call — only the third such visit since relations were reestablished after the end of the Vietnam war — follows visits to Vietnam this year from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and USAID Administrator Samantha Power.

    “Though aircraft carrier visits often spark media attention because of their highly visible nature, the broader question is how this will play into the development of ties, including Washington’s quest to upgrade relations,” Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, wrote in a research note.

    “An overly narrow focus on carrier visits can distract from the broader trend of the more comprehensive development of U.S.-Vietnam defense ties and relations more generally,” Parameswaran added.

    Officers from the Ronald Reagan debarked Sunday and were greeted by Vietnamese officers after mooring in Da Nang, a port that was modernized and expanded by the United States during the war for its own use.

    Capt. Daryle Cardone, the Ronald Reagan’s commanding officer, said some of the more than 5,000 sailors from the ship will volunteer at several community relations events, play sports with local athletes and take part in other cultural and professional exchanges during the visit through June 30.

    “A few Reagan sailors call Vietnam home, but for most it will be their first time visiting,” Cardone said in a release from the U.S. Navy.

    Washington sees Hanoi as a key part of its strategy for the region and has sought to leverage Vietnam’s traditional rivalry with its much larger neighbor China to expand U.S. influence in the region.

    Japan, a strong U.S. ally, also made a port call in Vietnam last week with its largest destroyer, Izumo, following exercises in the South China Sea with the Reagan and other American ships.

    China has also been reaching out in an effort to mend fences, sending a navy training ship to make its own port call in Da Nang a month ago as part of what it called a goodwill tour that also took it to Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines.

    Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry called the Reagan’s port call part of a “normal friendly exchange for the sake of peace, stability, cooperation and development in both the region and the world.”

    Vietnam needs to balance its sensitive ties with Beijing with the U.S. outreach and domestic opinion, Parameswaran said, noting that polls suggest Vietnam’s people have among the highest levels of pro-U.S. sentiment in Southeast Asia.

    Based in Yokosuka, Japan, the USS Ronald Reagan is the only forward-deployed American aircraft carrier. It is due to be replaced in that role next year by the USS George Washington, also a Nimitz-class carrier.

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  • GOP state legislatures seek greater control over state and local election offices

    GOP state legislatures seek greater control over state and local election offices

    ATLANTA — Lawmakers in several Republican-led states have been looking to exert more authority over state and local election offices, claiming new powers that Democrats warn could be used to target left-leaning counties in future elections.

    The moves range from requiring legislative approval of court settlements in election-related lawsuits to creating paths for taking over local election offices.

    In North Carolina, a Republican proposal working its way through the General Assembly would change the composition of state and county election boards and give lawmakers sole authority to appoint board members.

    Republican lawmakers in Texas recently approved legislation that not only eliminates the top election official in the Democratic stronghold of Harris County, which includes Houston, but also permits the state’s chief election official — the secretary of state — to take over the county’s election office. The secretary is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, both now in Republican hands.

    Election observers say it’s imperative for public trust that elections remain free of partisan manipulation and they say they worry about lawmakers deciding to assert their new powers for political gain.

    “There are ways that states can intervene and help local election officials,” said David Levine, a former local election official in Idaho who is now a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy. “Instead, we are seeing states that are enacting laws that could introduce new challenges to the conduct of U.S. elections.”

    Attempts by Republican legislatures to expand their power over how elections are run have soared since the 2020 presidential election, spurred by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud. Republican lawmakers characterize the moves as necessary oversight aimed at improving elections, while Democrats criticize them as power grabs that could be used to interfere in voting or ballot counting.

    The offices that oversee elections at the state or local level are primarily filled by people who win partisan elections or are appointed in a process that involves partisan officials. But those in the jobs have typically worked to maintain a nonpartisan approach to running elections. Since the 2020 presidential election, a few of these positions have been taken by people who rejected the results, raising doubts about how they will run their office.

    Some of the legislation passed during that time by Republican lawmakers has led to additional concerns about partisan interference. Lawmakers in 13 mostly GOP-controlled states have passed an estimated 15 bills that either expanded lawmakers’ authority over elections or took some action to interfere with local election administrators, according to data collected by the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks voting-related legislation in the states and advocates for expanded voter access.

    In Texas, laws just passed by Republican lawmakers and signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott will abolish the elections administrator’s office in heavily Democratic Harris County, which includes Houston and has more than 2 million voters. The laws also provide a way for the state to take oversight of the county’s election office in the future.

    The rush by the Texas GOP to shake up elections in the nation’s third-largest county — and one with large numbers of Hispanic and Black voters — followed limited problems in November’s elections that included a shortage of paper ballots and some polling locations opening late. Previous stumbles also have put Harris County elections under scrutiny by Republicans, including 10,000 mail ballots that weren’t counted the day of the 2022 primary.

    “This is about performance, not politics,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican.

    Leaders in Harris County have accused Republicans of using the issues as an excuse to take greater control of elections in a place that is increasingly tilting toward Democrats. A lawsuit is expected.

    The county was virtually split in the 2012 presidential race. By 2020, Democrat Joe Biden easily won Harris County by double digits.

    “This has been a big saga of the state deciding that they don’t like the way Harris County residents vote, so instead they’re going to take control of the Harris County elections apparatus,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat and the county’s top elected official.

    In North Carolina, where Republicans control the legislature, lawmakers are making another attempt to take power away from the governor, a Democrat, in deciding who serves on election boards. The moves come after Republicans were thwarted in previous years by the courts and by voters, who opposed a 2018 constitutional amendment.

    Republicans, who now hold veto-proof majorities, envision an eight-person State Board of Elections that likely would be comprised of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, appointed by legislative leaders of both political parties. It would replace the current five-person model, with appointees of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper based on lists of candidates provided by the two parties. Under current state law, no more than three members of the board can be of the same political party.

    Republicans have pointed to a legal settlement reached over mail ballot deadlines during the COVID-19 pandemic between the Democratic-controlled board and a union-affiliated group as proof of partisan mischief.

    “Those actions were enabled by a board that circumvented the legislative process and caused North Carolinians to lose trust in the election process,” said Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican. “Now we will take the necessary steps to begin rebuilding that trust.”

    The elections bill, which passed the Senate this past week, also would reduce the size of county election boards from five members to four. Legislative leaders of both parties would appoint the members, rather than the current model in which the governor has one appointment and the State Board of Elections fills the rest of the seats. Democrats see the change as a recipe for stalemate.

    “This is going to result in uncertified election results, uncertainty and endless litigation,” said Minority Leader Dan Blue, a Democrat.

    Fears of a takeover did not come to pass in Georgia after the GOP-controlled legislature passed a bill in 2021 that gave the State Election Board the power to intervene in county election offices and remove local election officials. After its review clause was triggered by Republican lawmakers, the board launched an examination of Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta and has had a history of election troubles.

    After the review found the heavily Democratic county had shown considerable improvement, the board recently decided against taking over its election office. Matt Mashburn, a Republican appointee to the board, said the “talking heads were wrong” when they suggested the law would be used to meddle in local elections.

    “I think the process has been very good and thorough, and everybody took their time,” he said.

    In Wisconsin, state election commissioners are scheduled to meet this coming week to consider whether Meagan Wolfe, the state’s nonpartisan election administrator, should serve another term. It’s one of the relatively few examples of nonpartisan election administration in the United States.

    Commissioners are weighing the chances of Wolfe surviving confirmation in the Republican-led Senate, where some lawmakers have pledged not to support her despite numerous reviews in the state affirming there was no evidence of widespread fraud or wrongdoing with the state’s elections in 2020. Republicans in the state have made various efforts in recent years to weaken the bipartisan election commission, which has an equal number of Democrats and Republicans.

    Kathy Bernier, a former Republican state senator and county election official who has spoken out against false claims of widespread fraud, said commissioners face a tough vote.

    “The difficulty with both Republicans and Democrats right now is they don’t trust anyone as nonpartisan,” she said. “So whoever they pick, one side or the other is probably going to have a complaint or two.”

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    Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Paul Weber in Austin, Texas; and Harm Venhuizen in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.

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  • In post-Roe era, House Republicans begin quiet push for new restrictions on abortion access

    In post-Roe era, House Republicans begin quiet push for new restrictions on abortion access

    WASHINGTON — When the Supreme Court issued its abortion ruling last June overturning Roe v. Wade, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said “our work is far from done.” He didn’t say what might come next.

    A year later later, McCarthy is the speaker, Republicans are in the majority and the blanks are beginning to be filled in.

    In a flurry of little-noticed legislative action, GOP lawmakers are pushing abortion policy changes, trying to build on the work of activists whose strategy successfully elevated their fight to the nation’s highest court.

    In one government funding bill after another, Republicans are incorporating unrelated policy provisions, known as riders, to restrict women’s reproductive rights. Democrats say the proposals will never become law.

    “This is not just about an attack on women’s health,” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Friday. “I view it as an attempt to derail the entire process of funding the federal government by injecting these riders into the appropriations process.”

    Rep. Kay Granger, the Texas Republican who heads the committee, said during a hearings this past week that the riders that were included continue “long-standing pro-life protections that are important to our side of the aisle.”

    Using budget bills this way is hardly new, but it points to a broader divide among Republicans about where to go next on abortion after the Supreme Court’s decision cleared the way for state-by-state restrictions on abortion rights.

    Republicans for years held stand-alone votes in the House on bills to restrict abortion. Now, some in the party — particularly the nearly 20 Republicans running for reelection in swing districts — are hesitant, if not outright opposed, to roll calls on abortion proposals. They say such bills will never see the light of day as long as Democrats control the Senate.

    The GOP’s new push is taking place line by line in the sprawling legislation drafted each year to fund government agencies and programs.

    Nearly a dozen anti-abortion measures have been included so far in budget bills. In the agricultural one, for example, Republicans are looking to reverse a recent move by the Food and Drug Administration that would allow the contraception pill mifepristone to be dispensed in certified pharmacies, as opposed to only in hospitals and clinics.

    Anti-abortion proposals have found their way into the defense bill, where GOP lawmakers are aiming to ban paid leave and travel for military service members and their family members who are seeking reproductive health care services. Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he warned Defense Secretary Llyod Austin about it.

    “I told them that that was going to be a poison pill when it came to getting their legislation done over here,” Rogers, R-Ala., said this past week. “I told him, you know, you’re asking for trouble. And now they got trouble.”

    There are riders, too, in the financial services bill, where Republicans want to prohibit local and federal money to be used to carry out a District of Columbia law that bans discrimination over employees’ reproductive decisions.

    “It seems like they can’t do anything without trying to put something in there to restrict abortion rights,” Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state, chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, said. “I don’t think the public is fooled by that and absolutely, this will be a critical issue in the next election.”

    She and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are working to target the vulnerable Republicans on the issue before the 2024 election.

    The broad effort by Republicans to include what critics often deride as “poison pills” in the appropriations process steps up the confrontation with Senate Democrats and the White House come September over spending bills, potentially heightening the odds of a government shutdown with the Oct. 1 start of the new budget year.

    DeLauro, who headed the Appropriations Committee in the last Congress, said the decision by Republicans to include these measures is a betrayal of the agreement the parties made years ago to not include any provisions in spending bills that would block passage.

    She said committee Democrats who spent the past week marking up these bills late into the night pleaded with their Republican colleagues to rethink the abortion language.

    The Senate just last week passed the military and agriculture bills out of committee without any abortion measures attached.

    Sen. Patty Murray, chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee, told The Associated Press that she has made it clear that she would be a “firewall” against House Republicans’ efforts to further restrict reproductive rights.

    “I have fought back Republican efforts to restrict access to reproductive health care and abortion in every deal or negotiation I have been a part of since I got to the Senate — that’s not changing any time soon,” said Murray, D-Wash.

    In a previous statement with the committee’s top Republican, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the two pledged “to continue working together in a bipartisan manner to craft serious funding bills that can be signed into law.”

    But the growing tension between GOP factions over abortion legislation remains apparent.

    The Republican Study Committee — the largest single group in the House GOP conference — recently issued a memo to members urging leaders to hold vote on a proposal that would “clarify that health insurance plans that provide elective abortion would be ineligible for federal funding.”

    That bill would effectively codify the Hyde Amendment, which restricts government funding for most abortions. Democrats have allowed it to become part of government funding legislation for decades, as a trade-off of sorts that has enabled them to focus on securing other priorities.

    It is unclear whether House Republican leaders will want to take the risk of bringing anti-abortion measures to the floor for votes when the spending bill route may be a more palatable option for some in the party.

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  • Trump says US government has ‘vital role’ opposing abortion, won’t say if he backs national ban

    Trump says US government has ‘vital role’ opposing abortion, won’t say if he backs national ban

    WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said the federal government should play a “vital role” opposing abortion but again failed to provide specifics on what national restrictions he would support if elected to the White House again.

    Trump’s remarks to a group of influential evangelicals Saturday on the anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning the national right to an abortion stood in contrast to that of his former vice president and 2024 rival Mike Pence.

    Pence, speaking at the same conference a day earlier, challenged every GOP presidential candidate to support the passage of a national ban on abortions at least as early as 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    Trump, the GOP front-runner, has been reluctant to endorse a national ban and has suggested restrictions should be left to the states. He has even suggested that pushing for increased abortion restrictions would be a political liability for Republicans, despite his three Supreme Court nominees making up the majority of justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade last year.

    Trump, in his speech before the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference, continued to offer a muddled answer. He said he believes “the greatest progress is now being made in the states, where everyone wanted to be.”

    “One of the reasons they wanted Roe v. Wade terminated,” he said, “is to bring it back into the states where a lot of people feel strongly the greatest progress for pro-life is now being made.”

    But the former president also added, “There of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life.”

    Trump said he supports three exceptions to abortion restrictions in cases involving rape and incest or when the life of a mother is in danger.

    He took full credit for his role in the overturning of the landmark ruling and said he was “proud to be the most pro-life president in American history.”

    Though white evangelical Christians were initially reluctant to back Trump in 2016, his promises to appoint justices to the court who would overturn Roe — and the ruling’s eventual overturning — have earned him deep support in the evangelical movement.

    As he took the stage Saturday, he received a standing ovation from the crowd of hundreds, with some attendees standing on their chairs to see him enter. The enthusiasm was markedly higher for Trump than it was the previous morning, when Pence and a number of other presidential hopefuls addressed the conference.

    One candidate, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, was met with boos when he criticized Trump in his remarks Friday.

    On Saturday night, the crowd broke into sustained chants of “We want Trump!” halfway through the former president’s remarks.

    “Were your other candidates treated this way?” Trump said with a smile.

    Trump, in his remarks, promised that if elected to the presidency again, he would appoint “appoint rock-solid conservative judges in the mold” of Justice Clarence Thomas and former Justice Antonin Scalia. He also repeated false claims that he’s made before that abortion rights supporters want to “kill a baby” in the ninth month of pregnancy or even after a birth.

    The Republican former president also vowed that before Election Day next year, he will release the list of names of potential justices he would consider appointing to the Supreme Court.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, seen as Trump’s closest rival for the GOP nomination, has made the promise of an even more conservative Supreme Court part of his pitch to attempt to differentiate himself from Trump.

    DeSantis, who addressed the Faith and Freedom conference Friday, declared that if elected president, he would nominate and appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case last year that ended constitutional protections for abortion.

    In a recent interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, DeSantis said he respects the three judges Trump appointed, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barret, but said “I would say we’ll do better than that.”

    “None of those three are at the same level” of Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case last year that ended constitutional protections for abortion.

    “I think they are the gold standard,” he said of Thomas and Alito, who were appointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

    DeSantis repeated that promise in his remarks at the Faith and Freedom conference Friday, vowing to appoint justices in the mold of Thomas and Alito and said he would “stand and defend them against scurrilous attacks that you’re seeing in the media and by left-wing groups.”

    The Florida governor appeared to be referring to recent reports that Thomas and Alito accepted luxury trips from wealthy GOP donors but did not disclose them.

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  • Packages from China are surging into the United States. Some say $800 duty-free limit was a mistake

    Packages from China are surging into the United States. Some say $800 duty-free limit was a mistake

    WASHINGTON — Conservatives anxious to counter America’s leading economic adversary have set their sights on a top trade priority for labor unions and progressives: cracking down on the deluge of duty-free packages coming in from China.

    The changing political dynamic could have major ramifications for e-commerce businesses and consumers importing products from China valued at less than $800. It also could add to the growing tensions between the countries.

    Under current U.S. law, most imports valued at less than $800 enter duty-free into the United States as long as they are packaged and addressed to individual buyers. It’s referred to as the de minimis rule. Efforts to lower the threshold amount or exclude certain countries altogether from duty-free treatment are set to become a major trade fight in this Congress.

    “De minimis has become a proxy for all sorts of anxieties as it relates to China and other trade-related challenges,” said John Drake, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who argues that the current U.S. law should be preserved.

    The rule speeds the pace of commerce and lowers costs for consumers. It also allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection to focus its resources on the bigger-ticket items that generate more tariff revenue for the federal government.

    The volume of products coming into the U.S. that benefit from the de minimis rule has soared in recent years. Congress raised the U.S. government’s threshold for expedited, duty-free treatment from $200 to $800 in 2016.

    The volume of such imports has since risen from about 220 million packages that year to 771 million in 2021 — with China accounting for about 60%, according to the government — and 685 million last year.

    “I think everybody’s got to kind of wrap their head around what kind of mistake this was,” Robert Lighthizer, the former U.S. trade representative during the Trump administration, told a House panel last month. “Nobody dreamt this would ever happen. Now we have packages coming in, 2 million packages a day, almost all from China. We have no idea what’s in them. We don’t really know what the value is.”

    Lighthizer urged Congress to get rid of the de minimis rule altogether, or take it to a much lower amount, say $50 or $100. He said foreign companies are taking advantage of the “loophole” and “putting people out of work in stores, they’re putting people out of work in manufacturing.”

    Last year, House Democrats pushed to prohibit Chinese-made goods from benefiting from the special treatment for lower-cost goods. That move was part of a larger measure that boosted investments in semiconductor manufacturing and research.

    In the rush to get a bill passed before the 2022 elections, the Biden administration and Democratic leaders jettisoned provisions without bipartisan buy-in. The trade provision was opposed by important U.S. business groups and key Republican members of Congress, so it didn’t make the final bill.

    Fast forward just a few months and it’s clear the political dynamic has shifted — and quickly.

    In its first set of recommendations, a new House committee focused exclusively on China called for legislation that would reduce the threshold for duty-free shipments into the U.S. with a particular focus on “foreign adversaries, including the (People’s Republic of China.)”

    The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said that exploiting the $800 threshold may be a major avenue through which Chinese companies selling directly to American consumers can circumvent U.S. law designed to prevent the sale of goods made with forced labor. The committee also said Customs and Border Protection “could not reasonably scrutinize” goods sent under the $800 threshold for forced labor concerns because of the sheer amount of products coming in.

    The committee is most concerned about retailers Temu and Shein, which ship directly to consumers in the U.S. In a report released Thursday, it said the two companies alone are likely responsible for more than 30% of all de minimis shipments entering the U.S. each day, or nearly 600,000 a day last year.

    The committee also has competitiveness concerns. It points out that U.S. retailers such as Gap and H&M paid $700 million and $205 million in import duties, respectively, in 2022. In contrast, virtually all of the goods sold by Temu and Shein are shipped using the de minimis exception in which the importer pays no duty.

    Committees with jurisdiction over trade are also signaling a new mindset. Last year, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, since retired, warned against what he called “hasty changes in reasonable de minimis limits.”

    But the Republican now leading the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, said he wants to “have a lot of conversations” about the $800 threshold.

    “Basically, when you’re looking at $800 or less, that’s a free-trade agreement with anyone. And you’re looking at millions of products that come in per day. We need to look at it,” Smith said.

    Meanwhile, the Senate has some bills on the issue, which were just introduced this month.

    One, from Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., would prevent the expedited, tariff-free treatment of imports from certain countries, most notably China and Russia.

    The other, from Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., not only similarly targets China and Russia, but would affect other trade partners. It would do so by reducing the threshold for duty-free treatment to the amount that other nations use.

    For example, if another country, say Belgium, which uses the European Union threshold of 150 euros, or about $165 currently, then the U.S. would reciprocate and use that same amount when determining whether goods coming in from Belgium get duty-free and expedited treatment.

    Cassidy said it was former President Donald Trump who “really reframed the argument” for Republicans when it comes to trade with China.

    “He pointed out that, through a variety of mechanisms, they are taking jobs, not because they are out-competing us, but because they are subsidizing, because they using forced labor, that sort of thing,” Cassidy said.

    In early 2022, when Congress was considering putting the de minimis trade provision in the semiconductor bill, several business groups led by the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers wrote congressional leaders urging them to keep it out. They said the changes would “impose sweeping costs on American businesses, workers and consumers, add new inflationary pressures on the U.S. economy, and exacerbate ongoing supply chain disruptions at U.S. ports.”

    Drake said that cutting back the threshold not only would represent a big tax increase for many U.S. small businesses, but many would would have to hire a customs broker to process their shipments.

    “There’s a reason Congress raised the level back in 2016,” Drake said. “They knew in addition to it being a competitive advantage for the U.S. business community, they also recognized that collecting duties on these low-value shipments, you know, really wasn’t worth the trouble.”

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  • Packages from China are surging into the U.S. Lawmakers wonder if an $800 exemption was a mistake

    Packages from China are surging into the U.S. Lawmakers wonder if an $800 exemption was a mistake

    WASHINGTON — Conservatives anxious to counter America’s leading economic adversary have set their sights on a top trade priority for labor unions and progressives: cracking down on the deluge of duty-free packages coming in from China.

    The changing political dynamic could have major ramifications for e-commerce businesses and consumers importing products from China valued at less than $800. It also could add to the growing tensions between the countries.

    Under current U.S. law, most imports valued at less than $800 enter duty-free into the United States as long as they are packaged and addressed to individual buyers. It’s referred to as the de minimis rule. Efforts to lower the threshold amount or exclude certain countries altogether from duty-free treatment are set to become a major trade fight in this Congress.

    “De minimis has become a proxy for all sorts of anxieties as it relates to China and other trade-related challenges,” said John Drake, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who argues that the current U.S. law should be preserved.

    The rule speeds the pace of commerce and lowers costs for consumers. It also allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection to focus its resources on the bigger-ticket items that generate more tariff revenue for the federal government.

    The volume of products coming into the U.S. that benefit from the de minimis rule has soared in recent years. Congress raised the U.S. government’s threshold for expedited, duty-free treatment from $200 to $800 in 2016.

    The volume of such imports has since risen from about 220 million packages that year to 720 million in 2021 and 685 million last year.

    “I think everybody’s got to kind of wrap their head around what kind of mistake this was,” Robert Lighthizer, the former U.S. trade representative during the Trump administration, told a House panel last month. “Nobody dreamt this would ever happen. Now we have packages coming in, 2 million packages a day, almost all from China. We have no idea what’s in them. We don’t really know what the value is.”

    Lighthizer urged Congress to get rid of the de minimis rule altogether, or take it to a much lower amount, say $50 or $100. He said foreign companies are taking advantage of the “loophole” and “putting people out of work in stores, they’re putting people out of work in manufacturing.”

    Last year, House Democrats pushed to prohibit Chinese-made goods from benefiting from the special treatment for lower-cost goods. That move was part of a larger measure that boosted investments in semiconductor manufacturing and research.

    In the rush to get a bill passed before the 2022 elections, the Biden administration and Democratic leaders jettisoned provisions without bipartisan buy-in. The trade provision was opposed by important U.S. business groups and key Republican members of Congress, so it didn’t make the final bill.

    Fast forward just a few months and it’s clear the political dynamic has shifted — and quickly.

    In its first set of recommendations, a new House committee focused exclusively on China called for legislation that would reduce the threshold for duty-free shipments into the U.S. with a particular focus on “foreign adversaries, including the (People’s Republic of China.)”

    The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party said that exploiting the $800 threshold may be a major avenue through which Chinese companies selling directly to American consumers can circumvent U.S. law designed to prevent the sale of goods made with forced labor. The committee also said Customs and Border Protection “could not reasonably scrutinize” goods sent under the $800 threshold for forced labor concerns because of the sheer amount of products coming in.

    The committee is most concerned about retailers Temu and Shein, which ship directly to consumers in the U.S. In a report released Thursday, it said the two companies alone are likely responsible for more than 30% of all de minimis shipments entering the U.S. each day, or nearly 600,000 a day last year.

    The committee also has competitiveness concerns. It points out that U.S. retailers such as Gap and H&M paid $700 million and $205 million in import duties, respectively, in 2022. In contrast, virtually all of the goods sold by Temu and Shein are shipped using the de minimis exception in which the importer pays no duty.

    Committees with jurisdiction over trade are also signaling a new mindset. Last year, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, since retired, warned against what he called “hasty changes in reasonable de minimis limits.”

    But the Republican now leading the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, said he wants to “have a lot of conversations” about the $800 threshold.

    “Basically, when you’re looking at $800 or less, that’s a free-trade agreement with anyone. And you’re looking at millions of products that come in per day. We need to look at it,” Smith said.

    Meanwhile, the Senate has some bills on the issue, which were just introduced this month.

    One, from Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., would prevent the expedited, tariff-free treatment of imports from certain countries, most notably China and Russia.

    The other, from Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., not only similarly targets China and Russia, but would affect other trade partners. It would do so by reducing the threshold for duty-free treatment to the amount that other nations use.

    For example, if another country, say Belgium, which uses the European Union threshold of 150 euros, or about $165 currently, then the U.S. would reciprocate and use that same amount when determining whether goods coming in from Belgium get duty-free and expedited treatment.

    Cassidy said it was former President Donald Trump who “really reframed the argument” for Republicans when it comes to trade with China.

    “He pointed out that, through a variety of mechanisms, they are taking jobs, not because they are out-competing us, but because they are subsidizing, because they using forced labor, that sort of thing,” Cassidy said.

    In early 2022, when Congress was considering putting the de minimis trade provision in the semiconductor bill, several business groups led by the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers wrote congressional leaders urging them to keep it out. They said the changes would “impose sweeping costs on American businesses, workers and consumers, add new inflationary pressures on the U.S. economy, and exacerbate ongoing supply chain disruptions at U.S. ports.”

    Drake said that cutting back the threshold not only would represent a big tax increase for many U.S. small businesses, but many would would have to hire a customs broker to process their shipments.

    “There’s a reason Congress raised the level back in 2016,” Drake said. “They knew in addition to it being a competitive advantage for the U.S. business community, they also recognized that collecting duties on these low-value shipments, you know, really wasn’t worth the trouble.”

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  • US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents

    US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents

    WASHINGTON — U.S. officials released an intelligence report Friday that rejected some points raised by those who argue COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab, instead reiterating that American spy agencies remain divided over how the pandemic began.

    The report was issued at the behest of Congress, which in March passed a bill giving U.S. intelligence 90 days to declassify intelligence related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    Intelligence officials under President Joe Biden have been pushed by lawmakers to release more material about the origins of COVID-19. But they have repeatedly argued China’s official obstruction of independent reviews has made it perhaps impossible to determine how the pandemic began.

    The newest report angered some Republicans who have argued the administration is wrongly withholding classified information and researchers who accuse the U.S. of not being forthcoming.

    John Ratcliffe, who served as U.S. director of national intelligence under former President Donald Trump, accused the Biden administration of “continued obfuscation.”

    “The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense,” Ratcliffe said in a statement.

    There was newfound interest from researchers following the revelation earlier this year that the Department of Energy’s intelligence arm had issued a report arguing for a lab-related incident.

    But Friday’s report said the intelligence community has not gone further. Four agencies still believe the virus was transferred from animals to humans, and two agencies — the Energy Department and the FBI — believe the virus leaked from a lab. The CIA and another agency have not made an assessment.

    Located in the city where the pandemic is believed to have began, the Wuhan Institute of Virology has faced intense scrutiny for its previous research into bat coronaviruses and its reported security lapses.

    The lab genetically engineered viruses as part of its research, the report said, including efforts to combine different viruses.

    But the report says U.S. intelligence “has no information, however, indicating that any WIV genetic engineering work has involved SARS-CoV-2, a close progenitor, or a backbone virus that is closely-related enough to have been the source of the pandemic.”

    And reports of several lab researchers falling ill with respiratory symptoms in fall 2019 are also inconclusive, the report argues.

    U.S. intelligence, the report said, “continues to assess that this information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origins because the researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases and some of the symptoms were not consistent with COVID-19.”

    Responding to the report, the Republican chairs of the House Intelligence Committee and a select subcommittee on the pandemic jointly said they had gathered information in favor of the lab leak hypothesis. Reps. Mike Turner and Brad Wenstrup, both of Ohio, credited the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence for taking a “promising step toward transparency.”

    “While we appreciate the report from ODNI, the corroboration of all available evidence along with further investigation into the origins of COVID-19 must continue,” Turner and Wenstrup said.

    But Alina Chan, a molecular biologist who has long argued the virus may have originated in the Wuhan lab, noted the public version of the report did not include the names of researchers who fell sick or other details mandated by Congress.

    The bill requiring the review allowed intelligence officials to redact information publicly to protect agency sources and methods.

    “It’s getting very difficult to believe that the government is not trying to hide what they know about #OriginOfCovid when you see a report like this that contains none of the requested info,” Chan tweeted.

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  • Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

    Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

    Guest lineups for the Sunday news shows

    WASHINGTON — ABC’s “This Week” — Secretary of State Antony Blinken; former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a Republican presidential candidate; Gov. Roy Cooper, D-N.C.

    __

    NBC’s “Meet the Press” — Blinken; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.

    __

    CBS’ “Face the Nation” — Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Veronica Escobar, D-Texas; Cindy McCain, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program.

    __

    CNN’s “State of the Union” — Blinken; Klobuchar; North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Republican presidential candidate; Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.

    ___

    “Fox News Sunday” — Former Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican presidential candidate; Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.

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  • Is Twitter ready for Europe’s new Big Tech rules? EU official says it has work to do

    Is Twitter ready for Europe’s new Big Tech rules? EU official says it has work to do

    Twitter needs to do more work to fall in line with the European Union’s tough new digital rulebook, a top EU official said after overseeing a “stress test” of the company’s systems in Silicon Valley.

    European Commissioner Thierry Breton said late Thursday that he noted the “strong commitment of Twitter to comply” with the Digital Services Act, sweeping new standards that the world’s biggest online platforms all must obey in just two months.

    However, “work needs to continue,” he said in a statement after reviewing the results of the voluntary test at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters with owner Elon Musk and new CEO Linda Yaccarino.

    Breton, who oversees digital policy, is also meeting other tech bosses in California. He’s the EU’s point person working to get Big Tech ready for the new rules, which will force companies to crack down on hate speech, disinformation and other harmful and illegal material on their sites. The law takes effect Aug. 25 for the biggest platforms.

    The Digital Services Act, along with new regulations in the pipeline for data and artificial intelligence, has made Brussels a trailblazer in the growing global movement to clamp down on tech giants.

    The mock exercise tested Twitter’s readiness to cope with the DSA’s requirements, including protecting children online and detecting and mitigating risks like disinformation, under both normal and extreme situations.

    “Twitter is taking the exercise seriously and has identified the key areas on which it needs to focus to comply with the DSA,” Breton said, without providing more details. “With two months to go before the new EU regulation kicks in, work needs to continue for the systems to be in place and work effectively and quickly.”

    Twitter’s global government affairs team tweeted that the company is “on track to be ready when the DSA comes into force.” Yaccarino tweeted that “Europe is very important to Twitter and we’re focused on our continued partnership.”

    Musk agreed in December to let the EU carry out the stress test, which the bloc is offering to all tech companies before the rules take effect. Breton said other online platforms will be carrying out their own stress tests in the coming weeks but didn’t name them.

    Despite Musk’s claims to the contrary, independent researchers have found misinformation — as well as hate speech — spreading on Twitter since the billionaire Tesla CEO took over the company last year. Musk has reinstated notorious election deniers, overhauled Twitter’s verification system and gutted much of the staff that had been responsible for moderating posts.

    Last month, Breton warned Twitter that it “can’t hide” from its obligations after the social media site abandoned the bloc’s voluntary “code of practice” on online disinformation, which other social media platforms have pledged to support.

    Combating disinformation will become a legal requirement under the Digital Services Act.

    “If laws are passed, Twitter will obey the law,” Musk told the France 2 TV channel this week when asked about the DSA.

    Breton’s agenda Friday includes discussions about the EU’s digital rules and upcoming artificial intelligence regulations with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company makes the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. But a briefing for journalists was canceled.

    The DSA is part of a sweeping update to the EU’s digital rulebook aimed at forcing tech companies to clean up their platforms and better protect users online.

    For European users of big tech platforms, it will be easier to report illegal content like hate speech, and they will get more information on why they have been recommended certain content.

    Violations will incur fines worth up to 6% of annual global revenue — amounting to billions of dollars for some tech giants — or even a ban on operating in the EU, with its with 450 million consumers.

    Breton also is meeting Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the dominant supplier of semiconductors used in AI sytems, for talks on the EU’s Chips Act to boost the continent’s chipmaking industry.

    The EU, meanwhile, is putting the final touches on its AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive set of rules on the emerging technology that has stirred fascination as well as fears it could violate privacy, upend jobs, infringe on copyright and more.

    Final approval is expected by the end of the year, but it won’t take effect until two years later. Breton has been pitching a voluntary “AI Pact” to help companies get ready for its adoption.

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  • Biden will sign an order seeking to protect birth control access a year after Roe was overturned

    Biden will sign an order seeking to protect birth control access a year after Roe was overturned

    WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is banking on reproductive rights to be a galvanizing issue for voters in the 2024 election as he collects three top-level endorsements, hosts a rally and issues an executive order seeking to bolster access to contraception as the nation marks a year since the Supreme Court decision overturning federal abortion protections.

    Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday are being endorsed by Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Emily’s List. The groups are throwing their early support behind the reelection effort in part to highlight the importance of the issue for Democrats heading into the election year, the groups’ leaders told The Associated Press.

    “I think that President Biden has been an incredibly valuable partner, along with Vice President Harris, in fighting back against the onslaught of attacks that we have seen,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “We are heading into an election where opposition is very clear — they are pushing for a national ban. And we have an administration that has taken actual steps to protect patients and providers during this health care crisis. The choice is really clear.”

    Biden and fellow Democrats have already seen the power of the issue: A majority of Americans want legalized abortion nationwide. In the leadup to the 2022 midterm elections, many political pundits dismissed the issue, but it was among the top concerns for voters, who consistently rejected efforts to restrict abortion in the states when given the chance.

    Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said the president and the vice president were proud to have earned the support of the groups. Since the decision last year by the Supreme Court, “we have seen the horrifying impact that the extreme MAGA agenda has on women’s health,” she said, referring to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

    “MAGA Republicans promising a national abortion ban makes the stakes for reelecting President Biden and Vice President Harris all the more important,” she said in a statement. She added that the organizing power of the three groups was essential to Democrats’ strong performance in the 2022 midterms and will be again.

    Biden has said he’ll work to protect reproductive health care, including enshrining abortion rights in federal law. He’s expected to convey that message in remarks Friday at a rally with first lady Jill Biden, Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

    Meanwhile, just a mile (1.6 kilometers) from where Biden will be speaking, the Faith & Freedom Coalition is holding its annual conference, at which GOP presidential candidates will be urged to keep pushing for stronger abortion restrictions and work to allay fears that the push will backfire with voters. Trump, the GOP primary front-runner, will speak there on Saturday, even as he has suggested that strict abortion restrictions are a weakness for Republicans.

    Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, said “we’re certainly going to do everything that we can, as an organization and as a pro-life and pro-family movement, to give our candidates a little bit of a testosterone booster shot and explain to them that they should not be on the defensive. Those who are afraid of it need to, candidly, grow a backbone.”

    Biden’s executive order aims to strengthen access to contraception, a growing concern for Democrats after some conservatives have signaled a willingness to push beyond abortion into regulation of contraception. In 2017, nearly 65% or 46.9 million of the 72.2 million girls and women age 15 to 49 in the U.S. used a form of contraception.

    “We’re really trying to do three separate things all related to each other,” said Jen Klein, a top Biden aide on gender policy. “The first is increased and expanded contraceptive options. The second is to lower out-of-pocket costs. And the third is to raise awareness about what options are available.”

    The leading voices on abortion rights were always going to endorse the Democratic president for reelection. But the heads of the three organizations say getting out early and loudly behind Biden and Harris is important on an issue that will animate voters, despite talk that it’s no longer top of mind.

    “The longer these bans are in place, the more people either will know someone who has experienced something or read a terrible story,” said Mini Timmaraju, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “They have to make a decision about where to go to college based on the states with the bans. They have to make a decision about whether to practice medicine based on an abortion ban. It’s permeating everyday life now, and it’s having unintended consequences.”

    The consequences of restricting abortion access are quickly moving beyond ending an unwanted pregnancy into miscarriage and pregnancy care in general. Women in states with tight restrictions are increasingly unable to access care for pregnancy-related complications. Doctors facing criminal charges if they provide abortions are increasingly afraid to care for patients who aren’t sick enough yet to be considered treatable.

    Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, 22 states have passed either a ban or highly restrictive policies on abortion. Other states, though, have expanded access to abortion care. The Biden administration has brought together leaders from all 50 states to talk strategy on how to expand access and work together to help people in more restrictive states.

    “We should recognize that even in conservative states, there has been considerable friction to restricting rights. And that friction is born of independent women, voters and people who are not super engaged in the political process, really coming out because of this issue,” said Neera Tanden, Biden’s top domestic policy aide. “There are places where anti-choice forces have expected an easy passage of laws restricting women’s rights and they have experienced a lot more turmoil — sometimes even from Republican women legislators.”

    Most of the states with severe abortion restrictions are also states that have a high maternal mortality rate and higher rates of stillbirth and miscarriage. Black women are disproportionately affected — they are more than three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Harris has argued it’s not a coincidence, given that maternal health care and abortion care are linked. The same medical procedures used to perform an abortion are the ones used to treat miscarriage.

    For Emily’s List, an advocacy group for Democratic female candidates, Harris, the first female vice president, is a powerful symbol, president Laphonza Butler said.

    “She is the highest-serving woman who has broken the hard glass ceiling of representing women in the White House,” Butler said. “This is the administration using every bully pulpit it can to advance reproductive health and freedom across the country. ”

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of abortion at https://apnews.com/hub/abortion.

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  • Is Twitter ready for Europe’s new Big Tech rules? EU official says it has work to do

    Is Twitter ready for Europe’s new Big Tech rules? EU official says it has work to do

    Twitter needs to do more work to fall in line with the European Union’s tough new digital rulebook, a top EU official said after overseeing a “stress test” of the company’s systems in Silicon Valley.

    European Commissioner Thierry Breton said late Thursday that he noted the “strong commitment of Twitter to comply” with the Digital Services Act, sweeping new standards that the world’s biggest online platforms all must obey in just two months.

    However, “work needs to continue,” he said in a statement after reviewing the results of the voluntary test at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters with owner Elon Musk and new CEO Linda Yaccarino.

    Breton, who oversees digital policy, is also meeting other tech bosses in California. He’s the EU’s point person working to get Big Tech ready for the new rules, which will force companies to crack down on hate speech, disinformation and other harmful and illegal material on their sites. The law takes effect Aug. 25 for the biggest platforms.

    The Digital Services Act, along with new regulations in the pipeline for data and artificial intelligence, has made Brussels a trailblazer in the growing global movement to clamp down on tech giants.

    The mock exercise tested Twitter’s readiness to cope with the DSA’s requirements, including protecting children online and detecting and mitigating risks like disinformation, under both normal and extreme situations.

    “Twitter is taking the exercise seriously and has identified the key areas on which it needs to focus to comply with the DSA,” Breton said, without providing more details. “With two months to go before the new EU regulation kicks in, work needs to continue for the systems to be in place and work effectively and quickly.”

    Twitter’s global government affairs team tweeted that the company is “on track to be ready when the DSA comes into force.” Yaccarino tweeted that “Europe is very important to Twitter and we’re focused on our continued partnership.”

    Musk agreed in December to let the EU carry out the stress test, which the bloc is offering to all tech companies before the rules take effect. Breton said other online platforms will be carrying out their own stress tests in the coming weeks but didn’t name them.

    Despite Musk’s claims to the contrary, independent researchers have found misinformation — as well as hate speech — spreading on Twitter since the billionaire Tesla CEO took over the company last year. Musk has reinstated notorious election deniers, overhauled Twitter’s verification system and gutted much of the staff that had been responsible for moderating posts.

    Last month, Breton warned Twitter that it “can’t hide” from its obligations after the social media site abandoned the bloc’s voluntary “code of practice” on online disinformation, which other social media platforms have pledged to support.

    Combating disinformation will become a legal requirement under the Digital Services Act.

    “If laws are passed, Twitter will obey the law,” Musk told the France 2 TV channel this week when asked about the DSA.

    Breton’s agenda Friday includes discussions about the EU’s digital rules and upcoming artificial intelligence regulations with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company makes the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT.

    Breton was scheduled to hold a briefing for journalists, but it was canceled at the last minute.

    The DSA is part of a sweeping update to the EU’s digital rulebook aimed at forcing tech companies to clean up their platforms and better protect users online.

    For European users of big tech platforms, it will be easier to report illegal content like hate speech, and they will get more information on why they have been recommended certain content.

    Violations will incur fines worth up to 6% of annual global revenue — amounting to billions of dollars for some tech giants — or even a ban on operating in the EU, with its with 450 million consumers.

    Breton also is meeting Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the dominant supplier of semiconductors used in AI sytems, for talks on the EU’s Chips Act to boost the continent’s chipmaking industry.

    The EU, meanwhile, is putting the final touches on its AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive set of rules on the emerging technology that has stirred fascination as well as fears it could violate privacy, upend jobs, infringe on copyright and more.

    Final approval is expected by the end of the year, but it won’t take effect until two years later. Breton has been pitching a voluntary “AI Pact” to help companies get ready for its adoption.

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  • Trump, DeSantis interviews show Fox influence on GOP field still strong despite troubled year

    Trump, DeSantis interviews show Fox influence on GOP field still strong despite troubled year

    NEW YORK (AP) — The two leading GOP presidential contenders had very different interview experiences with Fox News in the past week — each an illustration of the influence that even a damaged Fox has over the Republican nominating process.

    Donald Trump’s interview with Bret Baier, which aired in two parts Monday and Tuesday, was meaty and newsworthy. Baier pressed the former president about his indictment on hoarding confidential documents and pushed back on Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

    Ron DeSantis’ session with Trump’s former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, on Wednesday was far softer.

    Their appearances alone are evidence that Fox, weakened financially by the $787 million settlement over defamation charges reached with Dominion Voting Systems and suffering in the ratings following Tucker Carlson’s firing, remains the media kingmaker for Republicans who want to be president.

    After the first part of his Trump interview aired, Fox announced that Baier and Martha MacCallum will moderate the first Republican presidential primary debate on Aug. 23.

    Baier, in bringing up the documents charges with Trump, asked him simply: “Why not just hand them over?”

    When the former president talked about being busy, Baier brought up the indictment’s charge that he told an aide to move documents to other locations in his Mar-a-Lago estate after telling lawyers to say he had fully complied with a subpoena, “when you hadn’t.”

    He was specific in asking about a recording where Trump told someone about documents he could have declassified as president, while also keeping sight of the big picture. “Why do you want to hold on to these documents after you’re president?” he asked.

    “I don’t say I do,” Trump replied.

    Afterward, Baier received praise in places where Fox figures don’t normally hear it, like MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

    “In many ways, Baier was the big winner of the interview, repeatedly pressing Trump on multiple hot topics and challenging the former president on his lies and questionable praise,” Politico’s Playbook said.

    It was important for Baier, whose reputation took a hit when some Fox communications were revealed through the Dominion lawsuit. Baier had complained internally following the 2020 election that he had become uncomfortable defending the network’s controversial — but correct — election night declaration that Biden had won in Arizona, and suggested awarding the state to Trump instead.

    He’s interviewed other 2024 GOP contenders Nikki Haley and Chris Christie recently, but not DeSantis, who instead talked with McEnany, a non-journalist.

    McEnany primarily teed up DeSantis to talk about Florida’s economy, “culture war” issues and his stance on pandemic-era lockdowns. When DeSantis said that “(Dr. Anthony) Fauci was attacking everything Florida did,” she agreed.

    “I came to Florida a lot on the weekends,” McEnany said. “People don’t know that. I left the swamp, and it was pretty joyful to be in Florida.”

    McEnany also brought up a lengthy Washington Post profile on DeSantis’ wife Casey, who she called “a real rock star.”

    “The best they could come up with in the liberal Washington Post, there are three things Ron DeSantis likes to talk about, the Constitution, baseball, and golf,” she said. “I think that’s most men in this country.”

    Another Post article, about DeSantis donors lending him a golf simulator and providing flights to political events, moved on the newspaper’s website more than seven hours before the interview and was not brought up.

    To be fair, Trump has faced his share of friendly interviewers on Fox, including Carlson and Mark Levin. Sean Hannity, who offered Trump advice when he was in the White House, hosted the former president for a town hall on June 1. DeSantis has also appeared on “Fox & Friends” and was interviewed by former GOP congressman Trey Gowdy the night he announced his candidacy.

    Fox has had a rough two months since the Dominion settlement. Carlson’s firing, for reasons never publicly unexplained, cut sharply into the network’s audience, some of which decamped to rival Newsmax. Carlson reached an average of 3.25 million viewers in his time slot from January through March, and subsequent substitute hosts are far below that.

    Brian Kilmeade reached 2.41 million when Trump’s post-indictment speech was carried live on June 13, but averaged only 1.57 million viewers in Carlson’s old time slot the next three nights, the Nielsen company said.

    That same night, a message referring to President Joe Biden as a “wannabe dictator” appeared on Fox’s screen, costing two of Carlson’s former producers their jobs. This week, Geraldo Rivera quit as a panelist on the popular show “The Five,” saying he was tired of the political combat.

    Still, Republican candidates have appeared for interviews on Fox a staggering 160 times this year, 15 already this week, the network said. The most frequent is entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been on 76 times. Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson have been on 18 times. And in Carlson’s former timeslot, Fox remains the No. 1 cable news show despite the ratings decline.

    There are more media outlets appealing to Republicans than ever, said talk show host Erick Erickson. Ben Shapiro’s “Daily Wire” has been successful in reaching young people who don’t watch television as much as their elders, and the rapid increase in cable cord-cutters is ominous for media executives.

    Fox still reaches the most conservatives in the country, he said.

    “They’re not as dominant as they once were but that doesn’t mean that they’re not dominant,” Erickson said.

    Despite its troubles, Fox retains a powerful agenda-setting role. It is particularly visible in the wake of Trump’s indictment with the number of commentators who have been attacking the U.S. justice system, noted CNN media writer Oliver Darcy.

    “Newsrooms often focus on what lawmakers are saying, but the popular talk show hosts have far more influence over the GOP base,” Darcy wrote. “And they’re priming a large portion of the country to believe the government is being run by a menacing anti-democratic force and that law and order no longer exists.”

    Many in conservative media are watching closely to see if it becomes clear that a majority of Fox personalities are favoring one candidate or another, in large part to attract attention by going in another direction, Erickson said.

    “People feel there is chum in the water and the sharks are circling,” he said.

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  • NASA opposes lithium mining at tabletop flat Nevada desert site used to calibrate satellites

    NASA opposes lithium mining at tabletop flat Nevada desert site used to calibrate satellites

    RENO, Nev. (AP) — Environmentalists, tribal leaders and others have fought for years against lithium mining ventures in Nevada. Yet opposition to mining one particular desert tract for the silvery white metal used in electric car batteries is coming from unusual quarters: space.

    An ancient Nevada lakebed beckons as a vast source of the coveted element needed to produce cleaner electric energy and fight global warming. But NASA says the same site — flat as a tabletop and undisturbed like none other in the Western Hemisphere — is indispensable for calibrating the razor-sharp measurements of hundreds of satellites orbiting overhead.

    At the space agency’s request, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has agreed to withdraw 36 square miles (92 square kilometers) of the eastern Nevada terrain from its inventory of federal lands open to potential mineral exploration and mining.

    NASA says the long, flat piece of land above the untapped lithium deposit in Nevada’s Railroad Valley has been used for nearly three decades to get measurements just right to keep satellites and their applications functioning properly.

    “No other location in the United States is suitable for this purpose,” the Bureau of Land Management concluded in April after receiving NASA’s input on the tract 250 miles (400 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas.

    The bureau has spent nearly three years fighting mining challenges of all sorts from conservationists, tribes, ranchers and others who want to overturn approval of a huge lithium mine in the works in northwest Nevada near the Oregon line.

    In December, the bureau initiated a review of plans for another lithium mine conservationists oppose near the California line where an endangered desert wildflower grows, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) southeast of Reno.

    In Railroad Valley, satellite calculations are critical to gathering information beamed from space with widespread applications from weather forecasting to national security, agricultural outlooks and natural disasters, according to NASA, which said the satellites “provide vital and often time-critical information touching every aspect of life on Earth.”

    That increasingly includes certifying measurements related to climate change.

    Thus the Nevada desert paradox, critics say. Although lithium is the main ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles key to reducing greenhouse gases, in this case the metal is buried beneath land NASA says must remain undisturbed to certify the accuracy of satellites monitoring Earth’s warming atmosphere.

    “As our nation becomes ever more impacted by an evolving and changing environment, it is critical to have reliable and accurate data and imagery of our planet,” said Mark Moneza of Planet Labs, a San Francisco-based satellite imaging company that has relied on NASA’s site to calibrate more than 250 of its satellites since 2016.

    A Nevada congressman introduced legislation earlier this month seeking to revoke the bureau’s decision to withdraw the land from potential mining use. Republican Rep. Mark Amodei told a House subcommittee last week that the decision underscores the “hypocrisy” of President Joe Biden’s administration.

    “It is supposedly a goal of the Biden Administration to boost the development of renewable energy technology and reduce carbon in our atmosphere,” Amodei said. “Yet they support blocking a project to develop the lithium necessary for their clean energy objectives.”

    The Carson City, Nevada, company holding most of the mining claims, 3 Proton Lithium Inc., had not submitted any formal project plans in 2021 when NASA requested the land withdrawal. But the firm claimed to have done extensive research in anticipation of future plans to extract the brine-based lithium resource it said is one of the 10 largest deposits in the world.

    Chairman Kevin Moore said the tract’s withdrawal likely will prevent his energy company from pumping the “super brine” from about one-third of its claims there, including the deepest, richest deposits holding about 60% of the site’s value. He joined Amodei in testifying last week before the House Resources Subcommittee on Mining and Mineral Resources.

    “This project is a vital part of transitioning to a green economy, creating good-paying American jobs, combating climate change, ending America’s over-reliance on foreign adversaries and securing a domestic supply chain for critical and rare earth minerals,” Moore said.

    Other opponents of BLM’s move include James Ingraffia, founder of the energy exploration company Lithium Arrow LLC. He told the bureau in earlier public comments that by establishing obstacles to Railroad Valley lithium mining, it was undermining efforts to combat climate change.

    “Essentially, your actions are boiling down to, ‘There’s a problem that we want to keep worrying about but NOT allow to be solved,’ ” he said. “It’s self-contradictory.”

    3 Proton Lithium insists its brine-pumping operations would cause little if any disturbance to the land’s surface. But NASA doesn’t believe the risk is worthwhile.

    The area’s unchanged nature has allowed NASA to establish a long record of images of the undisturbed topography to assist precise measurement of distances using the travel time of radio signals and assure “absolute radiometric calibration” of sensors on board satellites.

    “Activities that stand to disrupt the surface integrity of Railroad Valley would risk making the site unusable,” Jeremy Eggers, a spokesman for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told The Associated Press.

    “The ultimate decision was to protect Railroad Valley, which in turn protects the critical scientific data that multiple economic sectors rely on,” he said in an email Thursday.

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