Regulators boost PG&E’s wildfire fine to $2.1 billion

FILE - In this Oct. 9, 2017, file photo, a firefighter monitors a house burning in Santa Rosa, Calif. California power regulators slapped Pacific Gas and Electric with a $2.1 billion fine for igniting a series of deadly wildfires that landed the beleaguered utility in bankruptcy. The record penalty imposed Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, in a an administrative law judge's decision boosts the punishment that had been agreed upon in a $1.7 billion settlement announced in December. The increased punishment includes a $200 million payment earmarked for the people who lost family and property in catastrophic wildfires caused by PG&E's outdated electrical grid and negligence during 2017 and 2018. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE February 27, 2020

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California power regulators on Thursday slapped Pacific Gas & Electric with a $2.1 billion fine for igniting a series of deadly wildfires that landed the beleaguered utility in bankruptcy.

The record penalty imposed in an administrative law judge’s decision boosts a previously agreed upon $1.7 billion settlement announced in December. Several consumer groups had protested the settlement as too lenient in light of PG&E’s destruction, and the California Public Utilities Commission agreed after further review.

PG&E officials said they were disappointed by the increased fine after “working diligently over many months with multiple parties” to reach the previous deal.


“We recognize our fundamental obligation is to operate our system safely and we share the same objectives as the Commission and other state leaders — namely in reducing the risk of future wildfires in our communities,” PG&E spokesman James Noonan said in a statement.

The harsher punishment includes a $200 million payment to California’s general fund.

The San Francisco company has already set up a $13.5 billion fund to help those who lost family members, homes and businesses in catastrophic wildfires caused by PG&E’s outdated electrical grid and negligence during 2017 and 2018. The fires killed nearly 130 people and destroyed almost 28,000 homes and other buildings.

More than 81,000 claims have been filed in the bankruptcy case.

The decision will also prevent PG&E from attempting to recover $1.82 billion from its customers, forcing its shareholders to bear the cost instead. The settlement previously had prevented PG&E from recovering $1.63 billion.

As part of the previous settlement, PG&E had projected it would realize $469 million in tax savings. Thursday’s ruling could require the San Francisco company to funnel any tax savings to hold down the prices charged to the 16 million people who rely on the nation’s largest utility for electricity.

Thursday’s rebuke is the latest blow to PG&E, which has been trying to climb out of a huge financial hole left by its liabilities from the fires. The company filed for bankruptcy 13 months ago to seek shelter from more than $50 billion in claimed losses. It is seeking to emerge from bankruptcy by June 30 to qualify for a state wildfire insurance fund.

PG&E has settled those claims by reaching settlements totaling $25.5 billion with the wildfire victims, insurers and some government agencies.

But the company still faces some potentially imposing hurdles, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom threatening a government-led takeover bid if the utility doesn’t make significant reforms. PG&E needs state approval of the plan to qualify for the wildfire insurance fund.

FILE - In this Oct. 10, 2019, file photo, a Pacific Gas & Electric sign is shown outside of a PG&E building in San Francisco. California power regulators slapped Pacific Gas and Electric with a $2.1 billion fine for igniting a series of deadly wildfires that landed the beleaguered utility in bankruptcy. The record penalty imposed Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, in a an administrative law judge's decision boosts the punishment that had been agreed upon in a $1.7 billion settlement announced in December. The increased punishment includes a $200 million payment earmarked for the people who lost family and property in catastrophic wildfires caused by PG&E's outdated electrical grid and negligence during 2017 and 2018. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

NATIONALIZE PG&E UNDER PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA

UK court blocks Heathrow expansion over climate concerns
By DANICA KIRKA February 27, 2020

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Campaigners protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice where a Court of Appeal ruling is taking place on the Heathrow expansion row, in London, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. Britain's Court of Appeal is preparing to publish its decision in a case that could stall the 14 billion pound ($18 billion) plan to expand Heathrow Airport amid concerns about climate change, pollution and noise. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)

LONDON (AP) — Heathrow Airport’s plans to increase capacity of Europe’s biggest travel hub by over 50% were stalled Thursday when a British court said the government failed to consider its commitment to combat climate change when it approved the project.

The ruling throws in doubt the future of the 14 billion-pound ($18 billion) plan to build a third runway at Heathrow, the west London hub that already handles more than 1,300 flights a day.

While Heathrow officials said they planned to appeal, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government indicated it wouldn’t challenge the ruling by the Court of Appeal.

“We won!″ said London Mayor Sadiq Khan, a long-time opponent of the project who joined other local officials and environmental groups in challenging the national government’s approval of Heathrow’s expansion plans.

At stake is a project that business groups and Heathrow officials argue is crucial for the British economy as the U.K. looks to increase links with countries from China to the United States after leaving the European Union. Heathrow has already reached the capacity of its current facilities, and a third runway is needed to serve the growing demands of travelers and international trade, they say.

Campaigners cheer outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Thursday Feb. 27, 2020. Campaigners have won a court ruling to block the plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport on environmental grounds. The case before Britain's Court of Appeal could stall the 14 billion-pound ($18 billion) plan to expand Heathrow Airport. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)

Environmental campaigners, however, challenged the project because of concerns that a third runway would encourage increased air travel and the carbon emissions blamed for global warming. The British government has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a signatory to the 2016 Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

The court upheld the appeal, saying the government had failed to consider its commitments under the Paris Agreement when it approved a national policy on airport capacity in southeastern England that paved the way for a third runway at Heathrow. That policy statement backed the Heathrow project over a competing plan from Gatwick Airport, 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of central London, and a proposal to build a new airport in the Thames estuary east of London.

In a narrowly written opinion, the three-judge panel stressed that it wasn’t ruling on the merits of the Heathrow project. Instead, the court said the national policy statement would be suspended until the government has reviewed the findings in accordance with Britain’s obligations under the Paris Agreement.

“We have not found that a national policy statement supporting this project is necessarily incompatible with the United Kingdom’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change under the Paris Agreement, or with any other policy the Government may adopt or international obligation it may undertake,″ the court said.

“The consequence of our decision is that the Government will now have the opportunity to reconsider the (national policy statement) in accordance with the clear statutory requirements that Parliament has imposed.”

The Department for Transport said the government wouldn’t challenge the ruling.

“We take seriously our commitments on the environment, clean air and reducing carbon emissions,″ the department said in a statement. ”We will carefully consider this complex judgment and set out our next steps in due course.″

Heathrow said the issue raised by court’s ruling is “eminently fixable,″ and it will work with the government to resolve the problem. The airport also said it planned to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

“Expanding Heathrow, Britain’s biggest port and only hub, is essential to achieving the Prime Minister’s vision of global Britain,″ the airport said in a statement. “We will get it done the right way, without jeopardising the planet’s future.″

Thursday’s ruling is just the latest twist in a 13-year battle over increasing airport capacity in and around London.

Choosing a project pits the economic benefits of expansion against the pollution, noise and congestion that it will produce. The issue is so toxic that politicians created an independent commission to weigh the options.

Amid furious public relations battles, the Airports Commission in 2015 backed a third runway at Heathrow. Parliament finally approved the airport policy statement in June 2018.

But things have changed since then. Most notably, perhaps, is Boris Johnson’s election as prime minister last year. Johnson, a long-time opponent of Heathrow expansion, once promised to lie down in front of the bulldozers to prevent construction of the third runway.

Tony Travers, an expert on London issues at the London School of Economics, pointed out that the debate over Heathrow has been going on intermittently since the 1960s and choosing another option to expand airport capacity would take years.

Meanwhile, the government has staked its future on increasing trade with nations outside the EU, and in this context it makes little sense to ignore the Heathrow project.

“Brexit means trade with countries further away than you can get on a train,″ Travers said.

The Department for Transportation argued that the Heathrow project would permit an additional 260,000 flights a year and give a 74 billion-pound ($99 billion) boost to the British economy over 60 years.


Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines U.K., an industry body representing U.K.-registered airlines, described Thursday’s decision as “extremely disappointing.″

“The economic prize is enormous if expansion is done right, with airlines ready to respond to the unlocking of new capacity by creating new routes and helping to connect the U.K. to new markets and destinations,″ he said.

The court dismissed appeals that dealt with issues such as noise and air pollution raised by Heathrow’s neighbors.

But local campaingers, some of whom have been fighting expansion for decades, popped champagne corks and cheered when they heard the ruling. Many saw it as decisive.

“It surely must be the final nail in the coffin for Heathrow’s attempts to steamroll over local and national opposition to their disastrous third runway plans,″ said Gareth Roberts, the leader of Richmond Council, the local government body for a community in the flight path of the proposed runway. “The expansion of Heathrow would be a catastrophe for our climate and environment and for the thousands of Londoners who would be forced to live with the huge disruption it will cause.″

Campaigners cheer outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Thursday Feb. 27, 2020. Campaigners have won a court ruling to block the plans for a third runway at Heathrow Airport on environmental grounds. The case before Britain's Court of Appeal could stall the 14 billion-pound ($18 billion) plan to expand Heathrow Airport. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)

Trump seeks high court approval to speed deportations
By MARK SHERMAN

FILE - In this Oct. 10, 2017, file photo, the Supreme Court in Washington, at sunset. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments March 2, 2020, to decide whether Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam can be deported without getting to make his asylum case to a federal judge. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The man slipped into the U.S from Tijuana, Mexico, and made it just 25 yards from the border before he was arrested.

A seven-month journey from Sri Lanka was over for Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam. Now he would be able to tell an American official why he had fled the place he had lived virtually his entire life: As a member of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, he had been beaten and threatened. He would seek asylum to remain in the United States.

His timing couldn’t have been worse.

His arrival coincided with the start of the Trump administration and its sustained effort to crack down on asylum-seekers. Officials rejected his claim in an initial screening and he was designated for rapid deportation, or expedited removal as federal law calls it.

Now the Supreme Court will decide whether Thuraissigiam and others like him can be deported without ever getting to make their case to a federal judge. Arguments will take place Monday.

The administration is seeking a sweeping ruling that it could potentially use to deport millions of people, even those arrested far from the border and who have been in the country for years, experts on the issue said.

“The Supreme Court has held for more than a century that anyone in the United States, even those illegally, are entitled to due process. If successful, the government’s argument in this case would reverse this basic principle of constitutional law and theoretically deny due process rights to millions of undocumented immigrants,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration specialist at Cornell University Law School. Yale-Loehr signed onto a court brief siding with the asylum-seeker.

The Justice Department counters in its Supreme Court filings that immigrants have no constitutional rights regarding their application to enter the United States under high court rulings. The limited review that Congress provided for when it created expedited removal proceedings is sufficient, the administration said.

But the federal appeals court in San Francisco relied on the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in favor of court access to detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to rule that the practice of denying federal court review violates the Constitution. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the administration’s appeal. Thuraissigiam is living in the New York area at the moment.

Since 2004, immigration officials have targeted for quick deportation undocumented immigrants who are picked up within 100 miles of the U.S. border and within 14 days of entering the country. The Trump administration is seeking to expand that authority so that people detained anywhere in the U.S. and up to two years after they got here could be quickly deported.

A federal judge has put that policy on hold and the administration’s appeal will be heard Friday by the federal appeals court in Washington.

The administration has imposed other restrictions on those who say they need refuge in the U.S. because they would be harmed if they had to return home. People crossing through Mexico before arriving at the southern border can no longer seek asylum in the U.S. unless they first have been denied asylum elsewhere. The Supreme Court allowed the policy to take effect while a legal fight over it plays out in the courts.

A separate “remain in Mexico” policy that requires asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico until their cases are considered by American officials was temporarily halted this past Friday by a federal appeals court.

People who come to the United States to ask for asylum must persuade immigration officials that they have a “credible fear” of persecution in their home country. Asylum-seekers who pass that screening generally are allowed into the country as their cases progress. But the bar to grant asylum is narrow; a person must face persecution for race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.

After Thuraissigiam’s arrest in February 2017, he told anyone who asked that because of his support for a Tamil political candidate, he was arrested, put in a van and beaten so severely that he spent 11 days in a hospital. Immigration officials found the account credible, but they determined he did not have a real fear of persecution if he returned home.

Having failed this initial screening, known as a “credible fear” screening, he was eligible for quick deportation.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union who represent him said the official who first interviewed Thuraissigiam was unable to elicit and synthesize critical information, including that the episode likely was a widely known “white van” abduction by Sri Lankan security forces. The translation via telephone also didn’t help, the lawyers said.

More critically, the administration doesn’t want to allow Thuraissigiam to make his case in front of a federal judge, said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who will argue the case. If his client loses at the Supreme Court, Gelernt said, “it will be the first time in U.S. history that an individual was deprived of their liberty, citizen or noncitizen, without the opportunity for a federal court to review the case.”

Supporting the administration, the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California, said in its court filing that Thuraissigiam is “a would-be immigrant whose only connection to this country is stepping illegally a few yards inside the border.” He has no constitutional right to a full-blown court hearing, the foundation wrote.

A decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 19-161, is expected before summer.

AP FACT CHECK:

 Trump revives false claim on wall at CPAC
President Donald Trump at Conservative Political Action Conference, 

CPAC 2020, at the National Harbor, in Oxon Hill, Md., 

Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
By CALVIN WOODWARD
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump asserted anew on Saturday that Mexico is paying for his border wall, even as his administration shifts billions from the Pentagon to cover some construction costs and Mexico pitches in nothing.

A look at some of his claims from his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference:

TRUMP, on Mexico and his border wall: “Yes they are. They’re paying for it. And they’re OK with it. Mexico’s paying for it.”

THE FACTS: That’s false. Mexico is not paying for the wall. And far from being “OK with it,” Mexican leaders flatly rejected the idea when Trump pressed them early on.

“NO,” Enrique Peña Nieto, then Mexico’s president, tweeted in May 2018. “Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever. Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).”

The money is coming from today’s U.S. taxpayers and the future ones who will inherit the federal debt. In February, the Pentagon announced that it was slashing billions of dollars for Navy and Air Force aircraft and other military programs to divert money to the construction of the wall. More such military cuts are coming, officials said.

The president has come up with several creative formulations to argue that Mexico is in some way paying.

Among them: He has projected that his updated trade agreement with Mexico and Canada will stimulate enough extra growth over the years to cover the cost. Even if that happens, which analysts widely doubt, the wall will have cost the U.S. money that it could have used for something else. It’s not a payment from Mexico. He’s talked about taxing or blocking money that immigrants in the U.S. send to their countries of origin, often to family members. But that is not happening.

Trump has also credited Mexico with stepped-up enforcement against migrants and asylum seekers who come from other countries and try to get to the U.S. from Mexican soil
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TRUMP: “America has declared energy independence. I declared it.”

THE FACTS: He may have declared it but he hasn’t earned it.

The U.S. still needs plenty of oil from around the world. It imported a daily average of roughly 6.5 million barrels of crude oil last year, according to the Census Bureau. That is down from the 2018 average, though it does not mean independence.

Technological advances like fracking and horizontal drilling have allowed the U.S. to greatly increase production, but the country still imports millions of barrels of oil from Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iraq and other countries. Moreover, much of what the U.S. produces is hard for domestic refiners to convert to practical use. So the U.S. exports that production and imports oil that is more suitable for American refineries to handle.


On energy more broadly, the U.S. is indeed close to parity on how much energy it produces and how much it consumes. In some months, it produces more than it consumes. But it has not achieved self-sufficiency. In the first nine months of last year, it imported about as much energy as it exported.

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TRUMP, on the situation before he became president: “American energy was under siege.”

THE FACTS: That’s a stretch, given how energy production was unleashed in past administrations, particularly Barack Obama’s.

As he has repeatedly, Trump took credit for a U.S. oil and gas production boom that he inherited and has continued under his watch. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says the U.S. has been the world’s top natural gas producer since 2009, top petroleum hydrocarbon producer since 2013, and top crude oil producer since 2018.

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Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Josh Boak contributed to this report.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

Iranian director wins prize at Berlin festival in abstenia 

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Cast and crew of the film 'Sheytan vojud nadarad' (There Is No Evil), hold The Golden Bear for Best Film in place of director Mohammad Rasoulof, who did not attend, during the award ceremony at the 70th International Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany. Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s “There Is No Evil” won the Golden Bear prize Saturday for best picture at the Berlin Film Festival. Rasoulof wasn’t there to accept the award due to a travel ban imposed on him by Iranian authorities.

“There Is No Evil” tells four stories loosely connected to the use of the death penalty in Iran and dealing with personal freedom under tyranny.

The Berlin festival jury led by actor Jeremy Irons chose the film over 17 others competing for the prize, including Sally Potter’s “The Road Not Taken,” a remake of “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” and “Siberia,” starring Willem Dafoe and Dounia Sichov.

Organizers left an empty chair and name sign for Rasoulof at the news conference for his entry. Germany’s dpa news agency reported that Rasoulof’s daughter, Baran, accepted the Golden Bear award on his behalf.

The Silver Bear for best actress went to Paul Beer for her performance in “Undine” and the Silver Bear for best actor to Elio Germano for his role in “Hidden Away.” Best screenplay went to the D’Innocenzo brothers, Damiano and Fabio, for “Bad Tales.”

Outbreak starts to look more like worldwide economic crisis
CAPITALISM IS NOT IN CRISIS CAPITALISM IS THE CRISIS

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Workers wearing protective gears spray disinfectant as a precaution against the new coronavirus at a subway station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. Japan's schools prepared to close for almost a month and entertainers, topped by K-pop superstars BTS, canceled events as a virus epidemic extended its spread through Asia into Europe and on Friday, into sub-Saharan Africa. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)



NEW YORK (AP) — The coronavirus outbreak began to look more like a worldwide economic crisis Friday as anxiety about the infection emptied shops and amusement parks, canceled events, cut trade and travel and dragged already slumping financial markets even lower.

More employers told their workers to stay home, and officials locked down neighborhoods and closed schools. The wide-ranging efforts to halt the spread of the illness threatened jobs, paychecks and profits.

“This is a case where in economic terms the cure is almost worse than the disease,″ said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “When you quarantine cities ... you lose economic activity that you’re not going to get back.′


The list of countries touched by the illness climbed to nearly 60 as Mexico, Belarus, Lithuania, New Zealand, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Iceland and the Netherlands reported their first cases. More than 83,000 people worldwide have contracted the illness, with deaths topping 2,800.

China, where the outbreak began in December, has seen a slowdown in new infections and on Saturday morning reported 427 new cases over the past 24 hours along with 47 additional deaths. The city at the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, accounted for the bulk of both.

New cases in mainland China have held steady at under 500 for past four days, with almost all of them in Wuhan and its surrounding Hubei province.

With the number of discharged patients now greatly exceeding those of new arrivals, Wuhan now has more than 5,000 spare beds in 16 temporary treatment centers, Ma Xiaowei, director of the National Health Commission, told a news conference in Wuhan on Friday.

South Korea, the second hardest hit country, on Saturday morning reported 594 new cases, the highest daily jump since confirming its first patient in late January. Emerging clusters in Italy and in Iran, which has had 34 deaths and 388 cases, have led to infections of people in other countries. France and Germany were also seeing increases, with dozens of infections.

The head of the World Health Organization on Friday announced that the risk of the virus spreading worldwide was “very high,” citing the “continued increase in the number of cases and the number of affected countries.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged all governments to “do everything possible to contain the disease.”

“We know containment is possible, but the window of opportunity is narrowing,” the U.N. chief told reporters in New York.

The economic ripples have already reached around the globe.

Stock markets around the world plunged again Friday. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones index took yet another hit, closing down nearly 360 points. The index has dropped more than 14% from a recent high, making this the market’s worst week since 2008, during the global financial crisis.

The effects were just as evident in the hush that settled in over places where throngs of people ordinarily work and play and buy and sell.

“There’s almost no one coming here,” said Kim Yun-ok, who sells doughnuts and seaweed rolls at Seoul’s Gwangjang Market, where crowds were thin. “I am just hoping that the outbreak will come under control soon.”

In Asia, Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan announced they would close, and events that were expected to attract tens of thousands of people were called off, including a concert series by the K-pop group BTS. The state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea shut down its headquarters in Seoul after a worker tested positive for the virus, telling 800 others to work from home. Japanese officials prepared to shutter all schools until early April.


In Italy — which has reported 888 cases, the most of any country outside of Asia — hotel bookings are falling, and Premier Giuseppe Conte raised the specter of recession. Shopkeepers like Flavio Gastaldi, who has sold souvenirs in Venice for three decades, wondered if they could survive the blow.

“We will return the keys to the landlords soon,” he said.

The Swiss government banned events with more than 1,000 people, while at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany, basins of holy water were emptied for fear of spreading germs.

In a report published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine, Chinese health officials said the death rate from the illness known as COVID-19 was 1.4%, based on 1,099 patients at more than 500 hospitals throughout China.

Assuming there are many more cases with no or very mild symptoms, the rate “may be considerably less than 1%,” U.S. health officials wrote in an editorial in the journal. That would make the virus more like a severe seasonal flu than a disease similar to its genetic cousins SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome.

Given the ease of spread, however, the virus could gain footholds around the world and many could die.

“It’s not cholera or the black plague,” said Simone Venturini, the city councilor for economic development in Venice, Italy, where tourism already hurt by historic flooding last year has sunk with news of virus cases. “The damage that worries us even more is the damage to the economy.”

Europe’s economy is already teetering on the edge of recession. A measure of business sentiment in Germany fell sharply last week, suggesting that some companies could postpone investment and expansion plans. China is a huge export market for German manufacturers.

In the U.S., online retail giant Amazon said Friday that it has asked all of its 800,000 employees to postpone any non-essential travel, both within the country and internationally.

The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said that the U.S. economy remains strong and that policymakers would “use our tools” to support it if necessary.

Larry Kudlow, the top economic advisor to President Donald Trump, told reporters that the selloff in financial markets may be an overreaction to an epidemic with uncertain long-term effects.

“We don’t see any evidence of major supply chain disruptions. I’m not trying to say nothing’s happening. I think there will be impacts, but to be honest with you, at the moment, I don’t see much,” Kudlow said.

The pain was already taking hold in places like Bangkok, where merchants at the Platinum Fashion Mall staged a flash mob, shouting “Reduce the rent!” and holding signs that said “Tourists don’t come, shops suffer.”

Tourist arrivals in Thailand are down 50% compared with a year ago, according Capital Economics, a consulting firm.

Kanya Yontararak, a clothing store owner, said her sales have sunk as low as 1,000 baht ($32) some days, making it a struggle to pay back a loan for her lease. The situation is more severe than the floods and political crises her store has braved in the past.

“Coronavirus is the worst situation they have ever seen,” she said of her fellow merchants.

Economists have forecast global growth will slip to 2.4% this year, the slowest since the Great Recession in 2009, and down from earlier expectations closer to 3%. For the United States, estimates are falling to as low as 1.7% growth this year, down from 2.3% in 2019.

But if COVID-19 becomes a global pandemic, economists expect the impact could be much worse, with the U.S. and other global economies falling into recession.

“If we start to see more cases in the United States, if we start to see people not traveling domestically, if we start to see people stay home from work and from stores, then I think the hit is going to get substantially worse,” said Gus Faucher, an economist at PNC Financial.

After the WHO raised its alert level, the agency’s Emergencies Program Director Michael Ryan called the situation “a reality check for every government on the planet.”

“Wake up, get ready,” he said. “This virus may be on its way.”

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Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann in Washington, Joseph Pisani and Edith M. Lederer in New York, Carla K. Johnson in Seattle, Matt Sedensky and Preeyapa Khunsong in Bangkok, Hyung-jin Kim and Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, Foster Klug and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Renata Brito and Giada Zampano in Venice, Italy, Frances D’Emilio in Rome, Angela Charlton in Paris and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

Sinn Fein would easily win repeat Irish election: poll

FILE PHOTO: Sinn Fein souvenirs on sale before a public meeting Liberty Hall in Dublin, Ireland February 25, 2020. REUTERS/Lorraine O'Sullivan

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The pro-Irish unity Sinn Fein party would easily win a repeat Irish election if ongoing government talks fail, with an opinion poll on Saturday showing it has almost twice as much support as its two nearest rivals.

The left wing party’s support jumped to 35%, ahead of Fianna Fail on 20% and acting Prime Minister Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael on 18% in a Sunday Times/Behaviour & Attitudes poll that may influence early talks between the two centre-right rivals.

Sinn Fein shocked the political establishment in an election earlier this month by securing more votes than any other party for the first time, almost doubling its vote to 24.5%, ahead of Fianna Fail on 22.2% and Fine Gael on 20.9%.


But it has been frozen out of government talks by its two rivals, who refuse to contemplate sharing power due to policy differences and Sinn Fein’s history as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, the militant group that fought against British rule in Northern Ireland in a conflict in which some 3,600 people were killed before a 1998 peace deal.

Caught by surprise themselves, Sinn Fein ran too few candidates to emerge with the most seats - a mistake it will not make next time around. It has already begun a series of packed national rallies to sure up its support.

Both Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail have 37 seats in the fractured 160-seat parliament, with Fine Gael on 35, meaning some sort of combination of two of the three largest parties is required to form a government.


Bruised by its election defeat, Fine Gael will reluctantly hold a “one-day policy exchange” with Fianna Fail next week as well as similar talks with the Green Party, whose 12 seats would be needed for the two historic rivals to reach a majority.

If Ireland’s two dominant parties cannot agree to lead the next government while also maintaining their steadfast opposition to governing with Sinn Fein, a second election would be the only way to break the deadlock.

All sides predict talks will take a number of weeks before such a choice has to be made.

UPDATED
Countries where public transport is completely free, mapped

Image: indy100 via mapchart.net

Public transport can be very expensive, depending where you live in the world.

But at midnight on 28 February, 2020, one country became the first in the world to make all public transport free for everyone.

Yup, you’ve guessed it (or, in fact, you probably didn’t) the answer is: Luxembourg. But why?

Luxembourg City, the capital of the small Grand Duchy, suffers from some of the worst traffic congestion in the world. It is home to about 110,000 people, but a further 400,000 commute into the city to work. A study suggested that drivers in the capital spent an average of 33 hours in traffic jams in 2016.

So to fix this problem, the government has just made all public transport completely free.

While the country as a whole has 600,000 inhabitants, nearly 200,000 people living in France, Belgium and Germany cross the border every day to work in Luxembourg, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

Several cities have tried similar schemes. Estonia's capital, Tallinn, introduced free public transport in 2013 but only for residents. The northern French city of Dunkirk (population: 200,000) also introduced free travel in 2018.

But the tiny nation of Luxembourg currently stands alone in Europe, and in fact the world, as the only country to offer free public transport nationwide.

Here’s a couple of maps to put that in context. See the small green circle next to France?


Other countries will likely be keeping an eye on Luxembourg’s bold new policy to see if it works. Because if one thing’s for sure, we could all do to use more public transport and rely less on cars.

Luxembourg becomes first country with free public transport

AFP / JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGENPrivate cars are the most used means of transport in Luxembourg, but the government is hoping to change that with the new free ride policy

Luxembourg on Saturday became the first country in the world to offer free public transport, as the small and wealthy EU country tries to help less-well-off workers and reduce road traffic.

Some cities elsewhere have already taken similar, partial measures. But the transport ministry said it was the first time such a decision covered an entire country.

The free transport, flagged as "an important social measure", affects approximately 40 percent of households and is estimated to save each one around 100 euros ($110) per year.

Not all passengers were aware of the change, which was brought forward one day ahead of schedule.

"It's free? I didn't know," said a woman in her 50s who gave her first name as Dominique as she waited at Luxembourg's main train station.

Transport workers were concerned about what impact the measure would have on their job security.

"We don't yet know" what will happen to their positions, said one ticket seller at the station who declined to give his name.

"All the public transport workers are worried. It's not yet clear."

- Traffic woes -

The measure is part of a plan intended to reduce congestion.

Private cars are the most used means of transport in the Grand Duchy, accounting for 47 percent of business travel and 71 percent of leisure transport.

With more than 200,000 people living in neighbouring France, Germany and Belgium who work in Luxembourg and most of them driving in, that makes for major traffic jams at peak hours.

The population of the tiny country is just 610,000 and those cross-border workers account for half the total employees.

The capital city of Luxembourg has invested in its public transport network, notably by building a tram network, but commuters complain it is still patchy.

It will be some years before the network links to the northern airport, for instance.

"There's been an enormous delay to the development of public transport," said Blanche Weber, head of the Luxembourg Ecological Movement pressing for better links on environmental grounds.

AFP / JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGENLuxembourg has invested in its public transport network, but commuters complain it is still patchy

"Systematic and continuous investment is a sine qua non (essential) condition for promoting the attractiveness of public transport," admitted transport minister Francois Bausch.

Sales of tickets on the domestic network -- which cost two euros per journey -- previously covered just eight percent of the 500-million-euro cost of running the transport system. That shortfall will now be met from the treasury.

Ticket machines are to be gradually removed from stations, but offices selling tickets for international train trips and for first-class seating in Luxembourg -- which continues to be a paying service -- will remain.

Luxembourg becomes first country to make public transport free

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - Luxembourg abolished fares for trains, trams and buses on Saturday in what the government said was a bid to tackle road congestion and pollution, as well as supporting low earners.


Passengers wait on a platform while a train arrives at Luxembourg railway station, as Luxembourg becomes the first country in the world to offer free public transport, February 29, 2020. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

All standard-class journeys on public transport in the tiny and wealthy European country are now free of charge, compared to an annual pass worth 440 euros ($485) before. Travelers can still pay for first class, at a cost of 660 euros a year.

“For people with low incomes or the minimum wage, for them it’s really substantial,” transport minister Francois Bausch told Reuters.

“The main reason is to have a better quality of mobility, and then the side reason is clearly also environmental issues.”


Luxembourg has just over 600,000 inhabitants, but 214,000 more travel in for work every day from neighboring Germany, Belgium and France, causing heavy traffic jams as the majority of workers commute by car. More than half of Luxembourg’s greenhouse gas emissions come from transport.

Alexandre Turquia, a sales manager at a hotel group, drives to work in the capital Luxembourg City from a neighboring village. The trip should take 30 minutes, but traffic means it can last an hour. Still, he says his car is the best option.

“If it’s a day where I need to visit customers that are far away, I will take my car for sure,” he said.

But Mia Mayer, an employee at Amazon, has already switched from driving to work to taking the bus to save time and money.


“I had the experience on an almost daily basis of trying to get through the city center, getting really stuck in traffic and sometimes taking 45-50 minutes. Luxembourg City is not a huge place so that really is a long driving time,” she said.

To cope with the many commuters, Luxembourg plans to invest 3.9 billion euros in railways from 2018-28, upgrade the bus network and add more park-and-ride sites on the border.

Despite these investments, the government expects 65% of commuters to still get to work by car in 2025, down from 73% in 2017. Luxembourg is the first country to roll out free transport, but some cities, including Estonian capital Tallinn, have also experimented with the idea.


Editing by Gabriela Baczynska and Alexander Smith
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Britain ready to reject EU demands on human rights laws - Sunday Telegraph

(Reuters) - Britain is preparing to reject EU demands to guarantee that the country will continue to be bound by European human rights laws once the UK becomes fully independent, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

British negotiators will refuse to accept proposed clauses in a post-Brexit trade agreement that would require Britain remain signed up to the European Convention of Human Rights, leaving the door open to break away from the treaty as soon as next year, the Sunday Telegraph said.

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