US vote to shape how world warms as climate pact exit looms
By SETH BORENSTEIN

FILE - In this April 4, 2013, file photo, a mechanized shovel loads a haul truck with coal at the Spring Creek coal mine near Decker, Mont. The United States is out of the Paris climate agreement on the day after the 2020 presidential election. Experts say the outcome will determine to some degree just how hot and nasty the world will get in the future. The two presidential candidates have stark differences on fighting human-caused climate change. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)

What happens on election day will to some degree determine how much more hot and nasty the world’s climate will likely get, experts say.

The day after the presidential election, the United States formally leaves the 2015 Paris agreement to fight climate change. A year ago, President Donald Trump’s administration notified the United Nations that America is exiting the climate agreement. And because of technicalities in the international pact, Nov. 4 is the earliest a country can withdraw.

The U.S., the world’s second biggest carbon polluter, will be the first country to quit the 189-nation agreement, which has countries make voluntary, ever-tighter goals to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases. The only mandatory parts of the agreement cover tracking and reporting of carbon pollution, say U.S. officials who were part of the Paris negotiations.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has pledged to put the country immediately back in the Paris agreement, which doesn’t require congressional approval. Experts say three months — from November to the January inauguration — with the U.S. out of the climate pact will not change the world, but four years will.

If America pulls back from Paris and stronger carbon cutting efforts, some nations are less likely to cut back too, so the withdrawal’s impact will be magnified, said scientists and climate negotiators.

Because the world is so close to feared climate tipping points and on a trajectory to pass a temperature limit goal, climate scientists said the U.S. pullout will have noticeable effects.

“Losing most of the world’s coral reefs is something that would be hard to avoid if the U.S. remains out of the Paris process,” said climate scientist Zeke Hausfather of the Breakthrough Institute in Oakland, California. “At the margins, we would see a world of more extreme heat waves.”

If the U.S. remains out of the climate pact, today’s children are “going to see big changes that you and I don’t see for ice, coral and weather disasters,” said Stanford University’s Rob Jackson.

Because the two presidential candidates have starkly different positions on climate change policy, the election could have profound repercussions for the world’s approach to the problem, according to more than a dozen experts.

“That election could be a make or break point for international climate policy,” said Niklas Hohne, a climate scientist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

In pulling out of the agreement, Trump has questioned climate science and has rolled back environmental initiatives that he called too restrictive in cutting future carbon pollution from power plants and cars.

American carbon emissions dropped by less than one percent a year from 2016 to 2019, until plunging probably temporarily during the pandemic slowdown, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. More than 60 countries cut emissions by higher percentages than the U.S. in that time period, according to international data.

“Other countries around the world are obsessed with the Paris Climate Accord, which shackles economies and has done nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email. “President Trump understands economic growth and environmental protection do not need to conflict.”

“We’ve also done our fair share” to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in the Maldives, a climate-vulnerable country. “We stand amongst industrialized nations as a beacon, and we did it not through state-driven, forced rulesets, but rather through creativity and innovation and good governance.”

In the last debate and on his website, Biden pledged to set a goal of zero net carbon emissions from the U.S. by 2050, meaning the country would not put more greenhouse gases into the air than it takes out through trees and other natural and technological sources. Dozens of nations, including top polluting China, have already made similar pledges.

Eleven years ago, the world was on pace to add about another 5 degrees (2.8 degrees Celsius) of warming. But with emission cut pledges from Paris and afterward, the world is facing only about another 2.2 degrees (1.2 degrees Celsius) of warming if countries do what they promise, said Wageningen University’s Hohne.

“If Biden wins, the whole world is going to start reorienting toward stepping up its action,” said climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the University of Michigan’s environment program.

If the U.S. remains out of Paris, countries trying to cut emissions drastically at potentially high costs to local industry may put “border adjustment” fees on climate laggards like America to even the playing field, said Nigel Purvis, a climate negotiator in the Clinton and second Bush administrations. The European Union is already talking about such fees, Purvis said.

Trevor Houser, a climate modeler for the independent Rhodium Group, and the computer simulation research group Climate Action Tracker ran calculations comparing a continuation of the Trump administration’s current emission trends to what would happen if Biden worked toward net zero emissions. Houser, who worked briefly in the Obama State Department, found that in the next 10 years a Trump scenario, which includes a moderate economic bounce-back from the pandemic, would emit 6 billion tons (5.4 billion metric tons) more greenhouse gases than the Biden scenario — an 11% difference.

Climate Action Tracker calculated that from reduced U.S. emissions alone in a Biden scenario, the world would be two-tenths of a degree (one-tenth of a degree Celsius) cooler.

“Every tenth of a degree counts,” said Hohne, a Climate Action Tracker team member. “We are running into a catastrophe if we don’t do anything.”

Other nations will do more to limit carbon pollution if the U.S. is doing so and less if America isn’t, said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald. “In terms of leadership, it will make an immense difference,” she said.

In Paris, the U.S. was crucial in getting the agreement finished. The rest of the world ended up pledging to reduce roughly five tons of carbon pollution for every ton the U.S. promised to cut, according to Houser and Breakthrough’s Hausfather.

Nations also adopted a goal to limit future warming to just a few more tenths of a degree from now. A UN panel of scientists in 2018 said there was only a slim chance of reaching the goal, but said it would likely make a huge difference in helping avert more loss of corals, extreme weather and extinctions.

A second Trump win “could remove whatever vanishingly small chance we have of” not shooting past that stringent temperature goal, Hausfather said.

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This story has been corrected to fix the location of Wageningen University. The university is in the Netherlands, not Germany.

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.

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

Experts: Police brutality, racism pushing Black anxiety
By COREY WILLIAMStoday


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FILE - Eddie Hall Jr. and his wife Candace stand in front of the broken front window of their Warren, Mich., home, on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020. Some experts say political and social unrest as well as the coronavirus pandemic has taken a disproportionate physical and financial tolls on Black people, resulting in increased anxiety levels among African Americans. (David Guralnick/Detroit News via AP, File)

WARREN, Mich. (AP) — The events of 2020 already had Eddie Hall on edge.

Then, the troubles of a nation in turmoil landed on Hall’s doorstep in suburban Detroit in September when racist graffiti was scrawled on his pickup truck and shots were fired into his home after his family placed a Black Lives Matter sign in their front window.

“I’m in combat mode. I’m protecting my family,” Hall, a 52-year-old Black man from Warren, told The Associated Press.

Some experts say police brutality, the coronavirus pandemic that has taken disproportionate physical and financial tolls on Black people, and other issues around race have increased anxiety levels among African Americans, like Hall.

The attacks on Hall’s home were investigated as a hate crime and 24-year-old white neighbor, Michael Frederick Jr., eventually was arrested and charged with ethnic intimidation and other crimes.

“We, as Black people, have all of the normal human stressors — work, family, finances — and then we’re inundated with racial pressure at all levels,” said Jessica Graham-Lopresti, assistant professor of psychology at Suffolk University and co-founder of Massachusetts-based BARE — Black Advocacy Resilience Empowerment.

“This idea that, for Black people, we don’t feel — currently in this country — that we have the ability to control our environment and protect ourselves and our families,” she said. “We could still be gunned down in the street. That creates anxiety. That creates stress.”

In May, mostly white men and women protesting Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s orders that closed many businesses and services to stem the spread of COVID-19 openly carried rifles and handguns into the state Capitol.

As many activists take to the streets to maintain public political pressure for change, concern about person

“Especially in the aftermath of Kyle Rittenhouse walking untouched in full view with an assault rifle AFTER shooting another civilian dead,” Gooding added.



Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old from northern Illinois, is accused of fatally shooting two white protesters and wounding a third in August in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during demonstrations following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. Rittenhouse was among a number of armed white men who converged on the city, claiming they were protecting property from arson and theft.

After the gunfire, with his AR-15-style rifle over his shoulder and his hands in the air, Rittenhouse walked toward police vehicles that kept going past him, even as a witness shouted, “He just shot them!” Police Chief Daniel Miskinis has explained the response as officers dealing with a chaotic scene.

Sharon Bethune, 56, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, said the events in Kenosha angered her and other Black people.

“This is mind-boggling,” said Bethune, a retiree who managed government accounts for the Environmental Protection Agency. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

For Black professionals and those in the middle class, the anxiety appears to be more pronounced, said Alford Young Jr., a sociology professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

They wonder “how we got to this moment of national leadership after the civil rights movement,” Young said. “There is just extreme anxiety and frustration that people would not have imagined that the kinds of issues surfacing now would have followed an Obama presidency.”

Many working class Black people see the current political landscape with less dread and more “the way it’s always been,” he added.

Candace Hall, Eddie Hall’s wife, said Republican President Donald Trump shoulders part of the blame for how many African Americans are feeling.

Trump, who claims to have done more for Black people than his predecessors, has been accused of using race to stoke division. He has encouraged police to use a heavy-handed approach on people protesting against racism and police brutality. During his first debate with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Trump refused to condemn white supremacy.

“He’s opened up Pandora’s box with racism and anger and telling police to beat people up,” said Candace Hall, 55, also an Army veteran.

Ciaran O’Connor, spokesman for New York-based Braver Angels, which seeks to depolarize American politics, said people need to talk to each other, not retreat from tough conversations, as they fight for what they believe in.

“We believe in the power of conversation if you are trying to persuade people in a way to humanize people,” O’Connor said. “If we’re gonna bring positive change, we’re going to have to find ways to have these conversations.”

Powerful typhoon lashes Philippines, 

killing at least 10

By JIM GOMEZ and JOEAL CALUPITAN

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An All-Terrain Vehicle is toppled by strong winds and floods from Typhoon Goni as it hits Daraga, Albay province, central Philippines, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. The super typhoon slammed into the eastern Philippines with ferocious winds early Sunday and about a million people have been evacuated in its projected path, including in the capital where the main international airport was ordered closed. (AP Photo)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A super typhoon blew into the eastern Philippines with disastrous force Sunday, killing at least 10 people and triggering volcanic mudflows that engulfed about 150 houses before weakening as it blew away from the country, officials said.

Typhoon Goni blasted into the eastern island province of Catanduanes at dawn from the Pacific with sustained winds of 225 kilometers (140 miles) per hour and gusts of 280 kph (174 mph), threatening some provinces still recovering from a deadly typhoon that hit a week ago.

Goni barreled through densely populated regions and threatened to sideswipe Manila, which shut down its main airport, but shifted southward Sunday night and spared the capital, the government weather agency said.

At least nine people were killed in the hard-hit province of Albay, including a father and son. Villagers fled to safety as the typhoon approached, but the two apparently stayed put in the community in Guinobatan town where about 150 houses were inundated by volcanic mudflow.

“The child was found 15 kilometers (9 miles) away,” Albay Gov. Al Francis Bichara told DZMM radio, adding that the boy was swept away by mudflows and found in the next town.

He did not say whether there were any other residents trapped by the rampaging mudflows in the community and added that downed communications made it hard for people to communicate. The Office of Civil Defense reported that three Guinobatan residents were missing, but it was not immediately clear if they were from the mudflow-hit community.

The other deaths in Albay included a villager who was pinned by a fallen tree. One person was killed in Catanduanes province.



Ricardo Jalad, who heads the government’s disaster-response agency, had feared that the typhoon could wreak major damage due to its enormous force. The Philippine weather agency reinforced those concerns, saying that within 12 hours after the typhoon’s landfall, people could face “catastrophic, violent winds and intense to torrential rainfall.”

Residents were warned of possible landslides, massive flooding, storm surges of up to 5 meters (16 feet) and powerful winds that can blow away shanties. But after hitting a mountain range and repeatedly slamming into coastal provinces, the typhoon gradually weakened, although it remained potentially deadly as it blew out into the South China Sea, forecasters said.

One of the most powerful typhoons in the world this year, Goni evoked memories of Typhoon Haiyan, which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing, flattened entire villages, swept ships inland and displaced more than 5 million in the central Philippines in November 2013.

Manila’s main airport was ordered shut down for 24 hours from Sunday to Monday, and airlines canceled dozens of international and domestic flights. Commuter train services were also suspended and a no-sail policy restriction was imposed by the coast guard due to initial fear over the typhoon’s threatening power. The military and national police, along with the coast guard, were put on full alert.

Jalad said nearly a million people were preemptively moved into emergency shelters.

In a Manila gymnasium that was turned into an emergency shelter, COVID-19 outbreaks were an added worry of displaced residents. The Philippines has had more than 383,000 cases of the virus, the second-most in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia.

“We are scared — our fears are doubled,” said Jaqueline Almocera, a 44-year-old street vendor who took cover at the shelter.

The Philippines is lashed by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. It’s also located on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

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Associated Press photojournalist Aaron Favila contributed to this report.

#LEGALIZEDRUGS

Oregon could become 1st US state to decriminalize hard drugs
By ANDREW SELSKY AP

This photo from video provided by the Yes on Measure 110 Campaign shows volunteers delivering boxes containing signed petitions in favor of the measure to the Oregon Secretary of State's office in Salem on June 26, 2020. In what would be a first in the U.S., possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine, LSD and other hard drugs could be decriminalized in Oregon under a ballot measure that voters are deciding on in Tuesday's election. Oregon's Measure 110 is one of the most watched referendums in the state because it would drastically change how the justice system treats people with amounts of the drugs for their personal use. Instead of going to trial and facing possible jail time, people caught with the drugs would have the option of paying $100 fines or attending new "addiction recovery centers." (Yes on Measure 110 Campaign via AP)

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — In what would be a first in the U.S., possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine, LSD and other hard drugs could be decriminalized in Oregon under a ballot measure that voters are deciding on in Tuesday’s election.

Measure 110 is one of the most watched initiatives in Oregon because it would drastically change how the state’s justice system treats people caught with amounts for their personal use.

Instead of being arrested, going to trial and facing possible jail time, the users would have the option of paying $100 fines or attending new, free addiction recovery centers.


The centers would be funded by tax revenue from retail marijuana sales in the state that was the country’s first to decriminalize marijuana possession.

It may sound like a radical concept even in one of the most progressive U.S. states — but countries including Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland have already decriminalized possession of small amounts of hard drugs, according to the United Nations.

Portugal’s 2000 decriminalization brought no surge in drug use. Drug deaths fell while the number of people treated for drug addiction in the country rose 20% from 2001 to 2008 and then stabilized, Portuguese officials have said.

The U.N. Chief Executives Board for Coordination, chaired by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, is also advocating a different approach.

In a 2019 report, the board announced its commitment to “promote alternatives to conviction and punishment in appropriate cases, including the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use.”

Doing so would also “address prison overcrowding and overincarceration by people accused of drug crimes,” said the board, which is made up of the leaders of all U.N. agencies, funds and other bodies.

Oregon’s measure is backed by the Oregon Nurses Association, the Oregon chapter of the American College of Physicians and the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians.

“Punishing people for drug use and addiction is costly and hasn’t worked. More drug treatment, not punishment, is a better approach,” the groups said in a statement.

Opponents include two dozen district attorneys who urged a no vote, saying the measure “recklessly decriminalizes possession of the most dangerous types of drugs (and) will lead to an increase in acceptability of dangerous drugs.”

Three other district attorneys back the measure, including the top prosecutor in Oregon’s most populous county, which includes Portland, the state’s largest city.

“Misguided drug laws have created deep disparities in the justice system,” said Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt. “Arresting people with addictions is a cruel punishment because it slaps them with a lifelong criminal record that can ruin lives.”

Jimmy Jones, executive director of Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action, a group that helps homeless people, said arresting people who are using but not dealing hard drugs makes life extremely difficult for them.

“Every time that this happens, not only does that individual enter the criminal justice system but it makes it very difficult for us, on the back end, to house any of these folks because a lot of landlords won’t touch people with recent criminal history,” Jones said. “They won’t touch people with possession charges.”

The measure would decriminalize possession of less than one gram of heroin or methamphetamine; two grams of cocaine; 12 grams of psilocybin mushrooms; 40 doses of LSD, oxycodone or methadone; and one gram or five pills of MDMA.

The new addiction recovery centers that would be launched in the state would be funded by tax revenues from Oregon’s legal, regulated marijuana industry.

Marijuana tax revenues collected by the state in excess of $45 million annually would fund the centers. Doing so would reduce the amount given to schools, the state police, mental health programs and local governments, according to the ballot measure’s financial impact statement published by the Oregon secretary of state.

The Oregon revenue department said it received about $133 million in marijuana taxes during the most recent fiscal year that started in July 2019 and ended last June.

Opponents have seized on the funding reductions in an attempt to sway voters to vote against the measure and have also said that decriminalizing hard drugs would make young people more likely to start using them.

The state’s voters in 2014 legalized recreational use and sale of marijuana. But it passed by fewer than 200,000 votes of the 1.5 million counted.

Given that margin, the more controversial hard drugs decriminalization measure is unlikely to pass, said Catherine Bolzendahl, director of Oregon State University’s School of Public Policy.

But Christopher McKnight Nichols, associate professor of history at Oregon State University, said it’s hard to gauge the outcome because voter participation seems headed for a historic high, with many first-time voters.

“We don’t know as much about their preferences,” Nichols said.

If Oregon’s voters reject Measure 110, “it may well pass next time, which has been the model for marijuana legalization, for instance, across the country,” Nichols said.

The measure’s political action committee, More Treatment for a Better Oregon: Yes on 110, received a $500,000 donation from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan via the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which supports science and education work and promotes criminal justice reform.

“If the measure passes, Oregon will shift to a health-based approach to drugs and addiction,” the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s website says.

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Associated Press writer Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this story.

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Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky

Many Cubans hope US election will lead to renewed ties
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ October 29, 2020

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A framed image of Argentine-born Cuban Revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara hangs on a wall next to a bust of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in Gregory Biniowsky's house, a Canadian lawyer and consultant who has lived and worked in Cuba for more than 20 years, in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Oct. 19, 2020. Biniowsky said that Trump’s hardline policy toward Cuba prompts a defensive, knee-jerk reaction among officials here wary of changes to the largely state-run economy. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

HAVANA, Cuba (AP) — Not so long ago the tables at Woow!!! restaurant in Havana were filled with tourists ordering mojitos and plates of grilled octopus.

But as President Donald Trump rolled back Obama-era measures opening Cuba relations, the restaurant grew increasingly empty.

Now entrepreneurs like Orlando Alain Rodríguez are keeping a close eye on the upcoming U.S. presidential election in hope that a win by Democratic challenger Joe Biden might lead to a renewal of a relationship cut short.

“The Trump era has been like a virus to tourism in Cuba,” said Rodríguez, the owner of Woow!!! and another restaurant feeling the pinch.

Few countries in Latin America have seen as dramatic a change in U.S. relations during the Trump administration or have as much at stake in who wins the election. Former President Barack Obama restored diplomatic relations, loosened restrictions on travel and remittances and became the first U.S. chief of state to set foot in the island in 88 years. The result was a boom in tourism and business growth on the island.

Pedestrians wearing face masks amid the new coronavirus pandemic walk past a rooster named "Espartaco," or Spartacus, sitting in the middle of a street in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020.


“What the United States was doing was not working,” Obama said from the opulent Gran Teatro in Havana during his 2016 visit. “We have to have the courage to acknowledge that truth. A policy of isolation designed for the Cold War made little sense in the 21st century.”

Trump has steadily reversed that opening, tapping into the frustrations of a wide segment of the Cuban American community that does not support opening relations while a communist government remains in power. He put into effect part of a previously suspended U.S. law that permits American citizens to sue companies that have benefited from private properties confiscated by the Cuban government, put a new cap on remittances, reduced commercial flights and banned cruises. The president has also forbidden Americans from buying cigars, rum or staying in government-run hotels.

Wearing a face mask amid the new coronavirus pandemic, Cristobal Marquez, owner of "Cristobal's," the restaurant where Michelle and Barak Obama had lunch during their visit to Cuba in 2016, shows the book made by White House photographer Pete Souza, in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. Obama restored diplomatic relations, loosened restrictions on travel and remittances and became the first U.S. chief of state to set foot in the island in 88 years. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)


Most U.S. Embassy staff were removed following a series of still unexplained incidents in which diplomats and their families experienced hearing loss, concussions and other ailments.

A Trump reelection would likely spell another four years of tightened U.S. sanctions while many expect a Biden administration to carry out at least some opening.

Cubans on the island, caught in between the six-decade debacle, said they know little about Biden but want to see Trump out of the White House.

“Please, please, not Trump,” said Daysi López, 50, an employee at a medical office in Havana on a recent afternoon. “He’s put up too many barriers.”

The U.S. election comes at a critical time for the island 90 miles from U.S. shores. Though Cuba has managed to keep virus cases and deaths in check, a halt on international tourism has starved it of an important cash line. The government estimates it lost nearly $5.6 billion between April 2019 and March 2020 as a result of U.S. sanctions, up from $4.3 billion the previous year. Long lines have become common outside grocery stores where basic goods like chicken and toothpaste grow harder to find.

Wearing a face mask amid the new coronavirus pandemic, a child watches trumpeter Carlos Sanchez practices in preparation for tourist arrivals in Old Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020. A Trump reelection would likely spell another four years of tightened U.S. sanctions while many expect a Biden administration to carry out at least some opening. Cubans on island, caught in between the six-decade debacle, said they know little about Biden but want to see Trump out of the White House. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Wearing a face mask amid the new coronavirus pandemic, a child runs near a dog fight in Old Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020. Few countries in Latin America have seen as dramatic a change in U.S. relations during the Trump administration or have as much at stake in who wins the election. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)


Nidialys Acosta and Julio Álvarez, the owners of Nostalgicar, a family business that takes tourists for rides along the Malecon boardwalk in restored 50s-era Fords and Chevrolets, said they’ve been pummeled by the downturn in recent years. The pair met with influential Republican Cuban American lawmakers during a 2017 trip to Washington in which they advocated for U.S.-Cuba relations to continue.

“Everything we recommended fell on deaf ears,” Acosta said.

Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, said Biden would have “a lot of latitude” to roll back Trump’s Cuba policy, given that broad changes to travel and remittances can be made by executive order. But a Biden administration will also have to reckon with the political ramifications of returning to an opening widely perceived as having done little to spark economic reform or improve civil liberties.

“It doesn’t want to appear that it is weak and capitulating to the Cuban regime,” he said. “On the other hand, it doesn’t want to punish the Cuban people.”



Biden might demand more concessions from the Cuban government in exchange as a result; it is unclear to what extent officials might negotiate. Authorities have long asserted that they will not bend to the demands of the U.S. or any other foreign government.

“Frankly, they lost an opportunity under Obama,” Shifter said. “It is very hard to know what the internal dynamic and deliberations are within the Cuban government.”

Gregory Biniowsky, a Canadian consultant and former business owner on the island, said that if anything Trump’s hardline policy prompts a defensive, knee-jerk reaction among Cuban officials wary of changes to the largely state-run economy.

“We know the Cuban leadership realizes change has to happen,” he said. “But it’s hard to do when you have a besieged fortress-type mentality.”

Small business owners in Cuba said they are surviving almost entirely on their savings while also trying to come up with creative ways to generate income. Woow!!! started doing deliveries, while one of the owners of Nostalgicar has used a shiny classic to provide messenger and transportation services in Havana.

“After 60 years, I’m no longer afraid of what might happen,” Álvarez said. “Cubans find a way.”

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Andrea Rodríguez on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ARodriguezAP

Under Trump, citizenship and visa agency focuses on fraud

By ELLIOT SPAGAT and SOPHIA TAREEN

FILE - In this June 26, 2020, file photo, Aisha Kazman Kammawie, of Ankeny, Iowa, takes the oath of allegiance during a drive-thru naturalization ceremony at Principal Park in Des Moines, Iowa. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has transformed under President Donald Trump to emphasize fraud detection, enforcement and vetting, which has delayed processing and contributed to severe fiscal problems. Its revamp came as the administration sought to cut legal immigration by making it more dependent on employment skills and wealth tests. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The head of the agency handling citizenship and visa applications was surprised when he faced blowback for cutting a reference to the U.S. being a “nation of immigrants” in its mission statement. The son of a Peruvian immigrant added language about “protecting Americans” instead.

L. Francis Cissna argued that America is indisputably a nation of immigrants but that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ mission statement wasn’t the place to say so. Joseph Edlow, who now oversees the agency, said he hasn’t thought about the 2018 kerfuffle, but it crystallized for many how the Trump administration has changed the government’s approach to legal immigration.

USCIS, established with the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, is emphasizing fraud detection, enforcement and vetting those seeking to work, live or become U.S. citizens. Applicants, attorneys and employees call it overkill, while immigration critics say it’s overdue. New Trump administration rules range from making asylum protections more difficult to get to disqualifying more low-income applicants from green cards.

Processing times are longer, and the agency’s backlog of cases stands at 5 million. Making it tougher to get permission to live and work in America has had consequences for USCIS itself: its roughly $5 billion annual budget is funded almost entirely by application fees, which have dwindled with the stricter rules. Financial pressures mounted this summer as USCIS narrowly averted furloughs for 70% of its roughly 20,000 employees.

Curbing legal immigration has been a priority for President Donald Trump as he’s reshaped the immigration system, arguably more than any predecessor. He’s thrilled supporters with an “America first” message and infuriated critics who call his signature domestic issue insular, xenophobic and even racist.

Before the election, The Associated Press is examining several Trump immigration policies, including r estrictions on international students, a retreat from America’s humanitarian role, a virtual shutdown of asylum and now curbing legal immigration.

Trump failed to get Congress to support cuts to the system of immigrants bringing over relatives, but Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, said moving to a more “merit based” system, based on skills, would be a priority if the president is reelected.

Democrat Joe Biden offers a sharp contrast: preserve family-based immigration and “streamline” naturalization for green-card holders. He wants a path to citizenship for about 11 million people in the U.S. illegally, which would require congressional support.

Miller told the AP that USCIS was plagued by a “huge amount of fraud” and its workforce “came to see itself as a representative of the benefit-seeker rather than the representative of the American people.”

“This administration has undertaken a thorough revamping of the agency to restore its congressional mission of ensuring that benefits are only awarded to those who are genuinely eligible under law and that, ensuring in admitting them, no harm is done to our economic or national security interests,” he said.

Some critics say USCIS hasn’t provided enough evidence of widespread fraud. Even Louis D. Crocetti Jr., first director of USCIS’ anti-fraud unit who supports Trump’s policies and calls fraud common, says the agency should release more findings.

“If you don’t do that, how can you really justify getting the millions of dollars and continuing your operation?” said Crocetti, who retired in 2011.

The changes are evident in USCIS offices. Workers who decide on citizenship and permanent residency applications in the San Diego office saw their workload grow about 20% when officials ordered all applicants for employment-based green cards be interviewed.

Edlow said the blanket interview requirement has been scrapped and whether such applicants are called in depends on the case.

The agency is bringing back Trump’s rule that dramatically expands criteria for denying green cards to those receiving taxpayer-funded benefits. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 vote in January that the policy could take effect, but enforcement was briefly halted by a federal judge due to the coronavirus.

Processing times for employment-based green cards jumped to 14.5 months in an 11-month period ending Aug. 31, up from 6.8 months in the 2016 fiscal year. For citizenship, it rose to 9.1 months from 5.6 months.

An analysis of all visa categories by the American Immigration Lawyers Association found long waits doubled to 10 months in the 2019 fiscal year from five years earlier.

Natividad Rodriguez, 85, has been waiting since July 2019 for a citizenship interview, the final step before the oath. The Chicago woman and Mexican native had hoped to vote this year.

“We have been waiting a long time,” said daughter Ana Maria Fuentes, who helped her mother apply. “It’s too much time.”

In their defense, administration officials note they approved more than 800,000 citizenship applications in fiscal 2019, the highest since 2008.

But the administration also is trying to reduce applications. For example, USCIS last year started requiring that no spaces on forms be left blank, even if a question doesn’t apply, like a middle name. Agency officials say employees were taking too much time filling in incomplete applications.

Blank spaces have led to rejections, attorneys say. An American Immigration Lawyers Association survey this year found nearly 200 examples nationwide. Applications also were rejected for writing “none” or “not applicable” instead of “N/A,” which most instructions said to use.

The administration checks up on those who clear the hurdles. On a recent afternoon, all cubicles in the anti-fraud wing of the USCIS San Diego office were empty because its nine investigators were knocking on visa-holders’ doors, including one who raised flags because the spouse was living in Georgia.

Nationwide, anti-fraud unit staffing has roughly doubled to about 2,000 under Trump, from less than 1,000. The unit projects 249,335 requests to investigate fraud in fiscal 2021, up from 119,424 in 2016. Edlow says checking if people are “actually married when they say they are” or are working at the job they listed is “an investment in the safety and security of this country.”

As costs from anti-fraud work rose, agency revenue took a hit after Trump ended the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields young people from deportation, and Temporary Protected Status, given to 400,000 people escaping natural disasters and civil strife.

Fiscal challenges came to a head in May when USCIS threatened furloughs to tackle a projected $1.2 billion shortfall. The agency didn’t need the money, Edlow said, because application fees rebounded more than expected as offices reopened in June from coronavirus shutdowns and contracts were reviewed for cost savings.

USCIS has been without a Senate-confirmed director since Cissna left in May 2019 in a purge of Homeland Security leaders. Attorneys have challenged the legitimacy of acting Homeland Security leaders in a bid to block new USCIS rules, with mixed results.

A judge in September halted a 20% average increase in visa and citizenship fees, saying in part that two top Homeland Security officials were appointed illegally. Edlow, USCIS deputy director of policy, has been running operations since February.

While some agency employees support the focus on increased vetting, others say some changes are unnecessary and may discourage people from seeking legal status.

“Our job is to keep the doors open but safely secured. The way that it is being administered now, it doesn’t seem like the doors are open,” said Gary Thurman, an employee in Missouri speaking as vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3928 South.

Edlow said he’s focused on better training and technology, including a transition to electronic files.

“Is it going to happen overnight? No, it’s not,” Edlow said. “I do want to get back to a point where we’re flush with money.”

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Tareen reported from Chicago.

GOOD PAYING UNION JOBS

Town built on guns ponders future after Remington plant sale

By MICHAEL HILL

Jacquie Sweeney stands outside the Remington firearms factory in Ilion, N.Y., Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020. Jacquie Sweeney and her husband were among almost 600 workers fired by the company this week, a few months after Remington Outdoor Co. sought bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years. Successful bidders for the idled plant in bankruptcy proceedings have said they plan to restart at least some production, though details remain scarce.. (AP Photo/Michael Hill)

ILION, N.Y. (AP) — Workers at the sprawling Remington factory in this upstate New York village took pride in a local gunmaking tradition stretching back to the days of flintlock rifles. Now they’re looking ahead with uncertainty.

Jacquie Sweeney and her husband were among almost 600 workers fired by the company this week, a few months after Remington Outdoor Co. sought bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years.

Successful bidders for the idled plant in bankruptcy proceedings have said they plan to restart at least some production, though details remain scarce.

There are high hopes for a successful reload of the plant that dominates the local economy. But these hopes are tempered by questions about how many workers will come back, and when.

“My husband, he’s looking for work, just like everybody else. And I plan on going back to college unless I find a job before I start that up,” said Sweeney, recording secretary for the local unit of the United Mine Workers of America. “That’s all we can really do. We can’t sit around and wait for forever.”

It’s common for people here to say that Ilion is Remington and Remington is Ilion. Company founder Eliphalet Remington started making flintlock rifles on his father’s forge near here in 1816, and the Ilion factory site dates to 1828. Though the company moved its headquarters to Madison, North Carolina, the old factory dominates — literally and figuratively — a village that has long depended on workers making rifles and shotguns to power the economy.

Union signs reading “United We Stand with Remington Workers” are in the windows of local businesses that sell everything from pizza slices to steel-toed boots. At Beer Belly Bob’s beverage center across the street from the plant, Bob McDowell recalled the sales bump on Thursdays and Fridays after shifts ended at 3 p.m.

“I used to call it the beer train,” McDowell said with a smile. “It was busy, and it is gone.”

Remington’s recent history has been a roller coaster ride with a lot of drops. Layoffs have been common. The plant, which employed around 1,200 people eight years ago, was down recently to about 600 union workers plus an estimated 100 or so salaried workers. The company began moving two production lines to a new plant in Huntsville, Alabama, in 2014.

Remington dealt not only with the volatile gun market, but also legal action, after the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre. The gunman who killed 20 children and six educators at the Connecticut school used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, which once was made here.

Most workers were furloughed at the end of September as the company went through bankruptcy proceedings. Locals wondered whether it would ever restart.

The company was divvied up by multiple buyers. The bankruptcy court approved Sturm, Ruger & Co.’s $30 million bid for Marlin Firearms, which were made here, and Anoka, Minnesota-based Vista Outdoor’s $81.4 million bid for Remington’s ammunition and accessories businesses.

Roundhill Group’s $13 million bid included the Ilion firearms plant and a handgun barrel factory in Lenoir City, Tennessee.

Roundhill partner Richmond Italia, a paintball industry veteran, said he was approached by Remington CEO Ken D’Arcy about the opportunity, according to documents filed in the bankruptcy case.

“I believe I was approached by Mr. D’Arcy due to my manufacturing business in the paintball gun market and apparently Mr. D’Arcy believed that there may be some synergy,” Italia said in court papers.

Roundhill pledged in court documents to bring back at least 200 workers. They could eventually add hundreds more, but details are not clear.

Roundhill partners did not respond to calls and emails asking about their plans. But Italia told WUTR-TV last week they plan to bring back as many workers as possible within “a couple of months.”

Local officials believe a number of pieces need to be in place before production starts, from a collective bargaining agreement with the union to a new federal firearms license.

One likely product would be Remington’s Model 870 shotguns, said Jamie Rudwall, a district representative for the union. He said the new owners can rely on a trained workforce to produce shotguns for a hot market.

The FBI reports that it has processed more background checks to purchase or possess a firearm in the first nine months of 2020 than any previous year.

“We certainly have that capability of putting every single person back to work at 870s making literally between 1,200 and 1,800 every day. And every one of them will be sold,” said Rudwall, who once worked at the plant.

The UMW said it has held “productive discussions” with Roundhill. Meanwhile, it also has excoriated the outgoing owners for terminating 585 workers this week along with their health care and other contractual benefits. The union said the company is refusing to pay severance and accrued vacation benefits, sparking pickets in Ilion this week.

Local officials say the new owners have also expressed concerns about the efficiency of the old four-story factory, preferring a modern one-floor plant. Vincent Bono, chairman of the Herkimer County Legislature, met with them Thursday and said he believes something can be worked out to keep keep the long local tradition of gun production alive.

“We’re optimistic that Remington’s going to have a home here,” Bono said. “To what degree, we really don’t know.”

Google ad costs, not its alleged monopoly, irks businesses
By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG

FILE - In this file photo dated Monday, Dec. 17, 2018, a man using a mobile phone walks past Google offices in New York. Monopoly or not, small business owners’ biggest complaint about Google is that its advertising policies favor companies with big marketing budgets. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — When asked about Google, Bryan Clayton voices a familiar lament among small business owners.

“You keep getting squeezed further and further down the search results page,” says Clayton, CEO of GreenPal, a company that operates an app to help homeowners find lawn care. “As a startup, you don’t have a million-dollar advertising budget.”

The Justice Department sued Google on Oct. 20 for anticompetitive behavior, saying the company’s dominance in online search and advertising harms rivals and consumers.

Owners such as Clayton have a different beef. What’s unfair about Google, they say, is the way it gives the greatest prominence in search results to the companies that spend the most on advertising.
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Companies covet the top spots in Google search results — the first page of rankings, and the top of subsequent pages. But if too many companies vie for one of these spots, the cost can jump out of reach for a small business, just like the price for prime time TV commercials.

Google controls about 90% of global internet searches. The Justice Department sued Google Tuesday, alleging it uses monopoly power in search to squelch competition. Business owners’ concerns about the cost of advertising aren’t directly related to the government’s lawsuit, although the company’s dominance of the search market has been alleged to be a factor in driving up the price to buy ads in its vast digital marketing network.

But even if prices were lower than they are now, larger companies with more money to spend, in theory, could always outbid smaller businesses vying for the prime advertising spots on Google.

Businesses have two main ways of trying to get their listings high in Google rankings. One is to buy an ad that’s seen at the top of the search result pages; the cost for the ads depends on how often a computer user clicks on the ad and how much a company is willing to pay per click. The more a company can pay, the more likely it will get a prized spot in search results. Google has different types of ads, and whether an ad appears locally or nationally can also affect pricing. So can the time of day an ad appears.

There’s also what’s called paid search, where companies bid on keywords to get a higher ranking. For example, a sporting goods store might bid on words like “baseball” and “hockey” in hopes of landing higher in search results and being more easily seen by customers looking for equipment for those sports. The problem businesses face is they can be outbid by companies with deeper pockets. So the sporting goods store that can only afford to pay $2 a word can lose out to stores able to pay $10.

Mark Aselstine has spent as much as $30,000 a year on Google advertising, but he’s not sure his wine gift basket company will be able to afford Google ads this holiday season. He expects an already competitive time of year to be even more intense as more wine retailers seek customers over the internet due to the coronavirus outbreak and use Google advertising to make themselves more visible.

“I don’t think we’ll run a single Google ad this year. I suspect it will be well out of our price range,” says Aselstine, owner of Uncorked Ventures, based in El Cerrito, California.

If Aselstine can’t afford Google, he has alternatives. Microsoft’s Bing search engine, cheaper but not as popular among computer users, is one. Aselstine can also increase his use of Google’s unpaid search. Like the paid version, he’d seek to use keywords in his ads that prospective customers are likely to search for; depending on the words he chooses, he might get a good ranking, although it will still fall below ads and paid listings.

R.J. Huebert, who buys Google ads on behalf of the law firms, manufacturers and a credit union that are his clients, also sees prices going up because of the competition among advertisers, but the owner of HBT Digital Consulting says, “I think it’s the cost of doing business.”

Huebert, whose company is based in Pittsburgh, sees Google as an important tool for small businesses because of its reach. And when people begin a search on Google, they’re already interested in a product or service; they have what’s known as high intent, a high likelihood that they’re going to make a purchase. And they’re more likely to buy than someone who happens on an ad as they scroll through Facebook.

Aselstine says he’ll advertise on Facebook and Instagram if he can’t afford Google, although he’s likely to get more sales from people who search on Google.

“Those people are more ready to buy that day,” he says.

Clayton, the GreenPal CEO, spends about $100,000 a year on Google advertising. That’s a big number for a small company — GreenPal has 23 employees —but Clayton lists giants Angie’s List and HomeAdviser among his competitors that have much bigger advertising budgets. GreenPal, based in Nashville, Tennessee, and serving homeowners in most of the states, spends about $3 or $4 per click for ads.

But, Clayton says, “it’s getting harder to advertise — the price keeps going up and up.”

Tommy Fang tried Google to advertise his year-old market research company, but the cost far outweighed the business he hoped it would bring in.

“We ran a couple of ads and the economics just didn’t work out for us,” says Fang, co-founder of New York-based Eureka Surveys. The company runs a website where people can take part in surveys.

Fang is looking at other possibilities, such as the advertising Apple sells for mobile devices. However, Fang’s business, which involves finding participants for corporate surveys, is focused on PCs, where he says people prefer to answer survey questions.

Yet some small businesses don’t flinch at the higher prices. Advertising on Google makes sense even for some of Huebert’s law firm clients who often spend between $8 and $12 a click and as much as $35 because they can make the money back from a single case.

But “it you’re selling $5 socks, it doesn’t make sense to pay $35,” he says.

Trump admin funds plasma company based in owner’s condo
By RICHARD LARDNER and JASON DEAREN

This photo shows the outside of a Charleston, S.C., condominium belonging to Eugene Zurlo on Monday, Oct. 19, 2020. The Trump administration recently gave the longtime Republican political donor seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology, noting Zurlo's "manufacturing facilities" in Charleston. An AP investigation found no manufacturing facilities. The company operates out of Zurlo's condo. He and his partners may now be in line for as much as $65 million in taxpayer money. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Trump administration gave a well-connected Republican donor seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology, it noted the company’s “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston, South Carolina.

Plasma Technologies LLC is indeed based in the stately waterfront city. But there are no manufacturing facilities. Instead, the company exists within the luxury condo of its majority owner, Eugene Zurlo.

Zurlo’s company may be in line for as much as $65 million in taxpayer dollars; enough to start building an actual production plant, according to internal government records and other documents obtained by The Associated Press.


The story of how a tiny business that exists only on paper has managed to snare attention from the highest reaches of the U.S. military and government is emblematic of the Trump administration’s frenetic response to the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s also another in a series of contracts awarded to people with close political ties to key officials despite concerns voiced by government scientists. Among the others: an ill-conceived $21 million study of Pepcid as a COVID therapy and more than a half billion dollars to ApiJect Systems America, a startup with an unapproved medicine injection technology and no factory to manufacture the devices.

In addition, a government whistleblower claimed that a $1.6 billion vaccine contract to Novavax Inc. was made over objections of scientific staff.

At the center of these deals is Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services who backed the Pepcid, Novavax and ApiJect projects. Records obtained by the AP also describe Kadlec as a key supporter of Zurlo’s company.

In one government email obtained by the AP, an official said Kadlec, whose job as assistant secretary for preparedness and response is to help guide the nation through public health emergencies, was “all in” on Plasma Technologies.

This was the case despite misgivings from the scientists he oversees. One of them said the company would be just another “mouth to feed” that would distract from other important work on the pandemic. An HHS spokesperson said Kadlec “does not have a role in technical review of proposals nor in negotiating contracts.”

Kadlec has come under pressure from the White House to act with more urgency and not be bound by lower-level officials whom Trump has castigated as the “deep state” and accused of politically motivated delays in fielding COVID-19 vaccines and remedies. This pressure has led to investments in numerous untested companies.

The AP reached out to more than a dozen blood plasma industry leaders and medical experts. Few had heard of Zurlo’s company or its technology, and would not comment.

Zurlo, the company’s founder and a former pharmaceutical industry executive, told the AP in an email that the renewed interest in his company is being driven by COVID and other diseases.

“It is increasingly clear that the collection of adequate supplies of plasma is not possible; the answer being the adoption of new process technology that fully utilizes the scarce plasma currently available,” he said.

But whether Zurlo’s technology, which claims to increase the amount of disease-fighting plasma harvested from human blood, will be an improvement over other methods is still anyone’s guess.

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A FORMER SENATOR ON BOARD

Top government officials began to take notice of Plasma Technologies after Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania and two-time presidential candidate, became part-owner, according to the records and AP interviews.

After Congress supplied hundreds of billions of dollars to combat the pandemic, Santorum stepped up his sales pitch for the company’s method of turning human plasma into a therapeutic product — a process the company has described as a game changer. In mid-August, the federal government awarded Plasma Technologies a $750,000 grant to demonstrate that it could deliver on its promises.

Santorum, who’s held no elective office since 2007, remains influential among social conservatives, a key part of President Donald Trump’s political base. Santorum has extolled the president’s handling of the pandemic on national television in his job as a CNN commentator, arguing that the nation’s response would have been worse under a Democratic administration.

Trump “didn’t botch it,” Santorum said recently in response to charges that the president had done a poor job leading the country through COVID-19. “I mean you guys keep blaming Trump. This is a local decision.”

HHS would not comment when asked whether Santorum’s public backing of the president led to a company he has a financial stake in getting a government contract.

Zurlo has deep ties to the Republican Party. He has contributed thousands of dollars to Santorum’s campaigns and to other GOP campaigns and political action committees. He entertained Santorum and his family at the mansion Zurlo used to own on Kiawah Island, an exclusive golf resort in South Carolina. They would play golf during the day and enjoy evenings overlooking the Atlantic, according to Michel “Mitch” LaPlante, a former business associate of Zurlo’s who attended several dinners with Santorum and Zurlo.

The business relationship between Zurlo and LaPlante turned ugly after those days of hobnobbing on Kiawah. A real estate deal they had invested in together fell into foreclosure, leading to a suit seeking more than $700 million by their mortgage lender. Each man sued the other for fraud and severed their business ties acrimoniously.

Zurlo founded Plasma Technologies in 2003, according to articles of organization and other records filed with South Carolina’s secretary of state. The company’s most recently listed address is Zurlo’s condominium in Charleston’s French Quarter.

The company has no other presence in South Carolina — or any other state — even though a U.S. government spokeswoman told the AP that Plasma Technologies has “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston.

“Fairy tale,” LaPlante said when asked if Plasma Technologies operates any commercial space in South Carolina’s most populous city.

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OUTSIDE, LOOKING IN

Granting tens of millions of dollars to Plasma Technologies would track with Trump’s support for treating COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma. Plasma, the yellowish liquid part of blood, harbors various antibodies, the soldiers of the body’s immune response that can target specific intruders such as viruses. Studies are underway to see if plasma taken from people who have recently recovered from COVID-19 can help those newly diagnosed fight the infection.

Zurlo has spent years trying to break into a sector of the pharmaceutical industry that manufactures therapies using antibodies called immunoglobulins, which are taken from healthy people to treat immune disorders. But routine immunoglobulin treatments are only one part of the field.

During the pandemic, many plasma companies are focusing on “hyperimmune globulin,” a therapy that pools and purifies plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients. The result is a powerful “potential global treatment for people at risk for serious complications from COVID-19,” according to the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance, an industry group that includes the world’s largest plasma companies. Hyperimmune globulin produced by several companies is being tested in new COVID-19 patients.

The process for making these plasma-based therapies is called fractionation, and Plasma Technologies markets its approach as a “disruptive and transformative” technology that makes for a more potent product, according to the records. A document prepared by Plasma Technologies in late May that outlines the company’s business strategy is focused on how much better its method is than a World War II-era process named for its developer, Edwin Cohn.

Dr. Jeff Henderson, an infectious disease specialist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said it is very likely that many companies have already developed improvements over the decades-old “Cohn” method. They just don’t discuss them publicly because they are trade secrets.

“There may be 50 technologies in use that are an improvement over Cohn fractionation,” Henderson said.

But Santorum described the plasma fractionation industry as more interested in keeping shareholders happy than adopting new technologies that would require expensive modifications to their manufacturing lines.

“You’ve got companies that are doing really well and don’t want to change anything,” Santorum said in an interview with the AP.

“We’re the little guy trying to fight City Hall.”

Plasma Technologies seemed to be on its way in 2014. The company had licensed its system to Dallas-based Access Pharmaceuticals, according to financial records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

One filing described Zurlo as a trailblazer whose technology would “fundamentally change the economics of plasma fractionation.” Under the terms of the licensing agreement, Plasma Technologies was to be paid $1 million in cash with an additional $4 million in cash or stock to come.

But three years later, the agreement ended abruptly, according to the SEC records.

Now named Abeona Therapeutics, the company was grappling with crushing deficits — $346 million in June 2017. It’s unclear whether any of that red ink was due to the deal with Plasma Technologies. But by the end of 2017, “the agreement was terminated and the technology was returned” to Zurlo’s company, according to an Abeona SEC filing.

A spokesman for Abeona Therapeutics declined to comment on the licensing agreement with Plasma Technologies.

Santorum blamed the deal’s demise on onerous regulatory hurdles imposed by the Food and Drug Administration to ensure patient safety.

“They basically killed the product,” he said.

Santorum rejected any suggestion that Zurlo’s innovation is unproven, even though his company has never made an FDA-approved product. Plasma Technologies, he declared, is on the verge of transforming the industry, and for a fraction of the cost to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

“I’m just telling you, it’s gonna happen,” Santorum said.

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A LINE IN

Zurlo brought Santorum aboard after the agreement with Abeona fell through. “We’ve got an FDA problem. Can you help me?” Santorum recalled Zurlo telling him.

Zurlo’s close relationship to Santorum offered a direct line into the FDA. The former senator had built a connection with Dr. Peter Marks, a senior FDA official, according to the documents obtained by AP.

In September 2019, Marks introduced Santorum at an FDA workshop held to explore the development of therapies for a rare disease. Santorum told the group about his youngest child, who was born with a life-threatening condition known as Trisomy 18, according to a transcript. Immunoglobulin treatments had saved her life, he told the audience.

Santorum’s personal story about his child’s illness was intertwined with a promotion of Plasma Technologies. Santorum said Zurlo, whom he called “a good friend,” had invented a groundbreaking technology for better plasma-based therapies to help his child and others.

Santorum credited Marks, director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, for pledging to remove barriers that have kept Plasma Technologies on the outside, looking in. “All I’m saying is, we have an opportunity because of Dr. Marks and what he has laid forward,” Santorum said at the workshop.

The former senator told the AP it would have been a “crime” if he hadn’t used his influence to get Plasma Technologies recognized.

“Shame on me if I hadn’t,” he said.

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A SMALL SHAREHOLDER

In mid-April, a few weeks after Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, Santorum described Marks as an enthusiastic backer of Plasma Technologies, according to an email routed to multiple officials in the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, an HHS office Kadlec oversees.

Calling himself a “small shareholder” in Plasma Technologies, Santorum wrote, “Dr. Marks said I should communicate to you that he is ‘excited about this process and looks forward to working with us to get our process adopted by the industry.’”

The FDA declined a request to interview Marks and also declined to answer questions about whether he’s been helping Plasma Technologies secure a commercial foothold.

“Dr. Marks’ enthusiastic nature should not be mistaken for support for any specific product or technology,” FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Caccomo said.

Federal ethics rules ban government employees from giving preferential treatment to any private organization or individual, according to Scott Amey, general counsel at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight.

“Public trust in government decisions and a level playing field is essential to good government, so this situation deserves a look,” Amey said.

Santorum confirmed that he communicated directly with Kadlec, whom he described as “very supportive” of Plasma Technologies.

But Santorum’s initial pitch at HHS failed to gain traction among the agency’s scientists, who didn’t see Zurlo’s technology as worthy of millions in emergency pandemic funding, according to the emails and Rick Bright, the former BARDA director. They were focused on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments that could be delivered quickly, and saw the Plasma Technologies project as a longer-term effort.

“They were not excited,” recalled Bright, a vaccine expert who’s been sharply critical of Kadlec’s tenure at HHS. “They did not jump all over this and say, ‘We’ve got to get this going right away.’”

Bright filed a whistleblower complaint in May that alleges the Trump administration failed to prepare for the onslaught of the coronavirus.

With HHS scientists unconvinced, Plasma Technologies submitted a proposal dated May 28 to the Defense Department, which also is heavily engaged in the government’s COVID-19 response.

The detailed proposal, obtained by the AP, sought $51.6 million to build a plasma fractionation facility in Atlanta or Raleigh, North Carolina.

With a military audience in mind, the proposal emphasizes the national security implications of the coronavirus pandemic, stressing the need to churn out sufficient doses of antibody-rich hyperimmune globulin “to bolster force health protection for members of our military who are at especially high risk of infection, or whose performance is critical to national security and safety.” The proposal adds these plasma-derived proteins can be used as a treatment for viral infections until a vaccine is available.

The pitch fell flat. At first.

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ANOTHER MOUTH TO FEED

In a June 12 email to HHS scientists, Army Lt. Col. Kara Schmid wrote that the price tag for Plasma Technologies was too high, even for the Pentagon, and that key parts of the company’s proposal were too vague.

“I’m just unclear if it has $50M worth of value,” Schmid wrote, adding she was “lukewarm at this point.”

Brian Tse, a BARDA health scientist, told Schmid that his office had passed on Plasma Technologies. With no production facility, Zurlo’s company intended to get COVID-19 patient plasma from blood donation centers that were already under heavy stress because of the pandemic.

“I believe that adding one additional ‘mouth to feed’ to the same source is more likely to induce delays to the projects already underway than it is to solve problems,” Tse wrote.

Despite the doubts, Kadlec didn’t lose interest in Plasma Technologies, according to the emails. “Dr. Kadlec has specifically asked us to take a closer look,” an early July message read.

Over the rest of July, the messages among his staff expressed misgivings about Zurlo’s technology, yet the company remained in play.

Several days later, an HHS contracting officer rejected the idea that Plasma Technologies might partner with one of the plasma companies that the government was already working with.

“The connection is not viable from a contractual standpoint,” the officer wrote in a July 16 email.

Still, a week later, Plasma Technologies had a champion at the Pentagon.

Santorum said he was contacted by Steven Morani, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for materiel readiness. Defense Department officials were drawn to the idea of a U.S.-owned and operated fractionation facility, according to Santorum.

It’s not clear what changed, but messages from late July show Morani and other defense officials had conferred and would support the Plasma Technologies project. An initial $750,000 in emergency coronavirus spending would be used to prove the concept, a move backed by HHS, with as much as $65 million in government money to come later to build a commercial facility and to purchase plasma and other materials, according to the emails. That’s more even than Plasma Technologies requested.

The messages don’t say where that money would come from or why the additional $13.4 million is required.

Morani referred AP’s emailed questions about the company and the contract to a Defense Department spokeswoman, Jessica Maxwell, who declined to discuss future funding for Plasma Technologies.

“The $750,000 is currently the total amount of government funding planned for the effort,” Maxwell said.

Santorum, who criticized a reporter for writing what he termed a “political hit piece,” said Zurlo intends to donate any profits Plasma Technologies generates to charities that support the mission of the Catholic Church.

But Santorum had different plans for any returns on his investment.

“I have made no such claims as a father of seven who has three weddings this year,” he said. “If any money were to come, I would welcome that money to help pay my bills.”

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Dearen reported from New York. Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Charleston, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

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