Deere Jumps Into Electric Excavators in Tech Transformation



Joe Deaux
Thu, January 5, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Deere & Co., the world’s largest manufacturer of farm equipment, launched a new electric excavator amid rising demand to reduce emissions in heavy industry.

The Moline, Illinois-based company said the battery-powered machine will reduce daily operating costs for construction workers and road builders, while eliminating tailpipe emissions. The company said the electric version won’t sacrifice any power or performance, but did not immediately give details about how often the machine will need to recharge and how long it will take.

“We’re not in the business of creating new technology just because it’s cool,” John May, Deere’s chief executive officer, said at an industry presentation in Las Vegas. “Technology is the key to driving sustainability on the farm and construction sites and empowering our customers to become more efficient and profitable in the age of significant challenges.”

The announcement comes as large machinery companies like Deere and competitor Caterpillar Inc. begin to improve offerings of fully electric and autonomous equipment that miners, contractors and other heavy industry customers are demanding amid the energy transition. Producing these technologies at scale present some of the biggest challenges for these companies, which could be forced to make costly overhauls of their manufacturing processes.

Deere also unveiled its so-called “ExactShot” technology, which uses a sensor to know when an individual seed is planted and immediately sprays the exact amount of fertilizer needed directly on it. The technology could save more than 93 million gallons of starter fertilizer per year, according to a statement.

is wasting an icon as Prius falls behind other brands

Mark Phelan
Fri, January 6, 2023

Toyota is wasting an icon, allowing an historic vehicle to slide into irrelevance.

The Prius gasoline-electric hybrid revolutionized the auto industry, until Toyota decided to rest on its laurels.

The 2023 Prius that goes on sale next month is arguably the best hybrid you can buy, but being the best hybrid barely qualifies as a consolation prize in a world that’s moved on to electric vehicles, largely without Toyota.

The 2023 Toyota Prius is dramatic despite retaining its aero-hatchback looks.

That’s a disservice to a nameplate that belongs alongside – or above – Corolla, Camry and Tacoma in the pantheon of great Toyotas.

The Prius changed the auto industry, and how people think of Toyota. The first generation – introduced in Japan in 1997, the U.S. 2001 – was a dowdy econobox, but Prius II, introduced in 2003, was a monumental achievement, arguably the most advanced – and certainly the most environmentally conscious – vehicle in the world.

Celebrities lined up to be seen arriving at fancy events in Priuses. It was a halo vehicle that brightened prospects for everything Toyota made, accelerating its decades of steady growth into a leap to become the world’s largest automaker.
Icons don’t come along every day

The Prius is to Toyota as the Model T and Mustang are to Ford, the Wrangler is to Jeep and the Beetle was to Volkswagen: Vehicles that define their makers and embody the values to which they aspire.

Henry Ford next to a Model T in 1921.

Automakers agonize over changes to those vehicles. But Ford and Jeep have transformed the Mustang and Wrangler in recent years.

Ford’s decision went all the way to the CEO’s desk, but the automaker eventually attached the cherished pony car name to the Mustang Mach-E electric SUV.

It was an instant hit, winning awards and erasing perceptions of Ford as an EV laggard.

More: Kia’s 576-hp EV6 GT could teach Ford and Porsche a thing or two

Jeep resisted market trends for years before adding a four-door version of the Wrangler, only to see that Wrangler Unlimited model increase sales and reach three-fourths of production. Jeep later made the Wrangler its first plug-in hybrid model, and saw the 4xe become America’s best-selling PHEV.

Icons that rusted and faded away include the Model T and Beetle. The Model T wasn’t just the car that put America on wheels and created the middle class. At one point .more than half the automobiles in the world were Model Ts. The VW Beetle was Europe’s first mass-market vehicle. It helped put post-war Germany on wheels, revitalizing the country’s shattered industrial sector along the way.
Electrification began with Prius

Brilliant achievements of engineering and business acumen, the Model T and Beetle both stagnated because the companies that created them didn’t have a follow-up. Ford built the Model T virtually unchanged from 1908 to 1927. Not to be outdone, VW produced Beetles that stuck to the original car’s formula from 1938 to 2003. By the end of its run, the affordable, reliable family car, though, was relegated to being built at a single plant in Mexico, for use as a taxi, with the front passenger seat ripped out.

More: Innovation drives family-owned auto company's 100-year run

The new-Beetle revival was fan fiction, a car that looked like a Beetle but lacked its space efficiency, innovation and practicality. And now it’s gone too.

Vehicles whose silhouettes were synonymous with efficient modern transportation became quaint, then extinct.

Once a leader, the Prius is at risk of becoming a relic too.

Volkswagen Beetle sales broke a previous manufacturing record set by the Ford Model T.

The Prius changed the auto industry because it was simultaneously the cleanest vehicle on the road and affordable to the vast majority of drivers.
If you want to be a leader, you have to lead

Toyota calls the 2023 Prius that goes on sale next month “the hybrid reborn,” but it’s an exercise in incrementalism: 1 mpg more fuel efficient, a sportier design, more power, quicker to 60 mph.

It’s a testament to yesterday's best idea, the best CD player in a download world.

Toyota may be right to keep refining hybrid tech, improving and adding the feature across its lineup. There will be a market for hybrids for years, if not decades.

Doing it under the Prius banner is a mistake, however. A new Prius should be Toyota’s technical flagship, a bold statement that the world’s biggest automaker also leads in vision and innovation.

“Toyota is resting on its laurels after the success of the Prius hybrid, refusing to innovate and produce pollution-free electric vehicles. The company’s opposition to zero-emission vehicle mandates, including its global anti-climate lobbying efforts, is a harbinger of Toyota losing its edge and along with it, its faithful customers and green image," said East Peterson-Trujillo, clean vehicles campaigner for Public Citizen.

2023 Toyota bZX4 electric vehicle

Why doesn’t Toyota build the most efficient, longest range, most affordable electric vehicle in the world, and why doesn’t it bear the Prius badge? Instead, Toyota’s sorties into making EVs have been halting at best.

Maybe Toyota’s corporate culture doesn't have another revolutionary idea in it. Maybe lightning won't strike twice in the same corporate offices.

But the burden of leadership is that you have to actually lead, evolve and take risks.

The Prius made Toyota the world's leading automaker in many ways.

If a lack of imagination or daring keeps Toyota from even attempting to regain that mantle, the company's leaders will have nobody but themselves to blame when other automakers pass it by.

Biden admin quietly admits canceling Keystone XL Pipeline cost thousands of jobs, billions of dollars

Thomas Catenacci
Thu, January 5, 2023 

The Biden administration published a congressionally mandated report highlighting the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline would have had if President Biden didn't revoke its federal permits.

The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.

But immediately after taking office in January 2021, Biden canceled the pipeline's permits, effectively shutting the project down.

"The Biden administration finally owned up to what we have known all along — killing the Keystone XL Pipeline cost good-paying jobs, hurt Montana’s economy and was the first step in the Biden administration’s war on oil and gas production in the United States," Sen. Steve Daines. R-Mont., said Thursday in a statement. "Unfortunately, the administration continues to pursue energy production anywhere but the United States."

FORMER KEYSTONE PIPELINE WORKER RIPS BIDEN AFTER COMMENTS ON OIL PRODUCTION

"These policies may appeal to the woke left but hurt Montana’s working families," he continued. "I’ll keep fighting back against Biden’s anti-energy agenda and supporting Montana energy projects and jobs."

The DOE was forced to issue the report after Daines and Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, successfully inserted a bill mandating the report into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Biden signed into law in November 2021. The agency was required to publish the report within 90 days of the bill's passage but ultimately waited more than a year before releasing it.

In a statement Thursday, the DOE noted that the project would have had minimal permanent job impacts, but didn't mention the thousands of jobs that were estimated during the construction of the pipeline.

"The U.S. Department of Energy released a report evaluating existing analysis on economic and job effects of the XL portion of Keystone pipeline," the DOE told Fox News Digital. "It concluded there were limited job impacts, with approximately 50 permanent jobs estimated to have been created were the pipeline operational."

Biden's decision to cancel the pipeline has received widespread criticism from Republican lawmakers and energy industry representatives who have argued it would have helped keep gas prices down and ensure energy security.

Keystone XL had been slated to be completed early this year and transport an additional 830,000 barrels of crude oil from Canada to the U.S. through an existing pipeline network, according to its operator, TC Energy.

Welders work on a joint between two sections of pipe during construction of the Gulf Coast Project pipeline in Prague, Okla., on March 11, 2013. Inset: President Biden.

The project labor agreement that TC Energy signed in August 2020 with four labor unions promised the pipeline would create 42,000 American jobs and provide $2 billion in total wages.

TC Energy ultimately gave up on the project in June 2021 as a result of Biden's decision. Last year, a federal judge tossed a legal challenge from nearly two dozen states asking the court to reinstate the pipeline's permits.

"The Department of Energy finally admitted to the worst-kept secret about the Keystone Pipeline: President Biden’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline sacrificed thousands of American jobs," Risch said Thursday.

The Keystone XL Pipeline would have created up to 59,000 jobs and had a positive economic impact of up to $9.6 billion, according to the Department of Energy.

"To make matters worse, his decision moved the U.S. further away from energy independence and lower gas prices at a time when inflation and gas prices are drastically impacting Americans’ pocketbooks," he added.

"The president must turn to American-made energy and jobs rather than dictators and despots to fix the energy crisis he created on his first day in office."

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden Hands Rare Win to Permian Drillers With Pause on Smog Rule



Jennifer A Dlouhy
Fri, January 6, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- The Biden administration is deferring a plan to crack down on smog in the drilling hotbed of the Permian Basin, handing a win to oil producers along with their allies in Texas and New Mexico.

The Environmental Protection Agency had been considering formally labeling parts of the region as violating federal air quality standards for ozone — a designation that would have spurred new pollution curbs and potentially deterred drilling in the world’s biggest oil field.

But the administration omitted the policy from an agenda of planned regulations released late Wednesday and instead deemed the measure “inactive,” indicating it’s not expected to be finalized in the next six to 12 months.

The move comes after President Joe Biden exhorted oil companies to produce more crude in a bid to keep gasoline prices in check and a spate of industry lobbying against the plan. New Mexico officials also were concerned the designation effort would dovetail with a state legislative session that runs through late March.

In an emailed statement, the EPA confirmed the potential Permian Basin designation is no longer considered an active issue but signaled it could be revived later.

“If EPA decides to advance this action, EPA would initiate the redesignations process by sending a notification letter to the appropriate state governors soliciting their input and recommendations,” the agency said in the emailed statement. “As part of a potential redesignations effort, EPA would also provide an opportunity for public comment on the action.”

Smog Levels

The deferral is a blow to conservationists who have called for urgent action to stem surging ground-level ozone in the oil-drilling hotbeds that straddle the Texas-New Mexico border. The key ingredient of smog, ozone forms when volatile organic compounds and other air pollution from smokestacks, tailpipes and oil wells reacts with sunlight. Even at low levels, it can worsen asthma, emphysema and other respiratory illnesses.

“The agency seems to be backing down from this critical initiative to safeguard clean air and public health in the Permian Basin,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. “While the Biden administration talks a good talk on public health and environmental justice, the reality is they’re bending over backward to let the oil and gas industry trash air quality and communities.”

The move was cheered by oil industry heavyweights who had lobbied Biden administration officials to abandon its approach or at least move more slowly on the policy, arguing that any move to redesignate parts of the Permian Basin as violating ozone air quality standards posed grave risks to US energy and economic security.

“The wide-open spaces of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico are home to the oil and natural gas that fuel our economy and enhance modern life,” Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, said in an emailed statement. “Excessive government regulation is unnecessary and stifles affordable and reliable energy supplies.”

Previously, the administration had anticipated action on the ozone nonattainment designation by September last year.

New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney said he’d recently spoken with a regional EPA official and verified the agency was not likely to start the redesignation process until after the state’s legislative session concludes in late March. “We’d rather have the certainty of knowing that the process has begun and that we can focus on it with all our intention and effort, and that's not possible for us to do during the legislative session,” Kenney said.

New Mexico has not opposed the redesignation, he said, and the state has left open the possibility of filing its own petition with the EPA asking the agency to regulate contributing pollution from the Texas side of the Permian.

Federal law and air monitoring data “suggest we should be going down this path, and that means tougher rules, tougher permits and more enforcement,” Kenney said. “Those are all aspects of necessary regulation when air quality degrades as it has in the Permian Basin.”

Biden signs water bills benefiting 3 tribes in Arizona




A bathtub ring of light minerals shows the high water line of Lake Mead near water intakes on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area Sunday, June 26, 2022, near Boulder City, Nev. The words "dead pool" surfaced this week as officials described the possibility that lake levels could shrink so much that neither dam would be able to release water downstream. The first weeks of 2023 will be crucial for Southwest U.S. states and water entities to agree how to use less water from the drought-stricken and fast-shrinking Colorado River, a top federal water manager said Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. 

(AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FELICIA FONSECA
Thu, January 5, 2023 


FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A Native American tribe that has one of the largest and most secure rights to Colorado River water now has approval to lease some of it in Arizona, a state that’s been hardest hit by cuts to its water supply and is on a perpetual search for more.

President Joe Biden signed legislation Thursday giving leasing authority to the Colorado River Indian Tribes, whose reservation tracks its namesake on the Arizona-California border. Biden also approved a water rights settlement for the Hualapai Tribe and authorized additional funding to complete water projects for the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes passed a resolution in 2020 to seek the federal legislation to help bolster the tribe’s economy and improve housing, health care and education on the reservation. Revenue from water leases also will help fund a nursing home, substance abuse treatment and improve an irrigation system, tribal leaders have said.

The tribe has the right to divert more than 662,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water in Arizona but hasn’t taken full advantage because it lacks the infrastructure. It also has rights to nearly 57,000 acre-feet of water in California. An acre-foot is enough to serve roughly two to three households annually.

The tribe’s leasing authority is limited to its water rights in Arizona and more so by what's already being used for farming. Tribal Chairwoman Amelia Flores said the legislation was designed that way to avoid further straining the river that’s been dwindling because of overuse, climate change and an unrelenting drought.

Already, the tribe has committed to leaving water in Lake Mead — the largest human-made reservoir in the U.S. West — to help ensure Hoover Dam can continue generating power and deliver water to Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico in the lower Colorado River basin. Flores said the tribe will work with its farm managers and talk to the community to determine the amount of water that can be leased, the price for the water and the length of the leases.

Flores suggested the leases won’t be as long as the 50-year terms that the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs offered for farming on the tribe’s reservation.

“I do not believe, and I think I speak for others on the Council, that we have the foresight to know what is best for our members who are not yet born or for their children,” she said.

Cities in metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson, as well as other Native American tribes who get water from a series of canals managed by the Central Arizona Project, are among the likely customers for water leases with the Colorado River Indian Tribes.

Flores said the tribe is committed to helping its neighbors and maintaining the habitat along the river as water becomes more scarce and others face deeper cuts.

The Colorado River serves 40 million people in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. Mexico also gets a share. Mandatory shortages are affecting some states, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has called for more widespread cuts as key reservoirs shrink.

The Hualapai Tribe also secured the right to lease water as part of its settlement in the lower Colorado River basin. The tribe now can divert 3,414 acre-feet of water per year from the Colorado River. But it's also at risk of having water curtailed because it’s a lower-tier right.

“The fourth-priority was only part of the whole negotiations, and we walked into it with our heads held up high because at least it’s water,” said former Hualapai Chairman Damon Clarke. “In that sense, it’s good. In another sense, that’s not good.”

Still, the tribe called Biden’s signature a historic step for the Hualapai people, whose reservation borders a 108-mile (174-kilometer) stretch of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

“This is a life-changing moment for the Hualapai Tribe and the many members of the Tribal Council who have worked toward this goal for more than a decade,” tribal Vice Chairman Scott Crozier said in a statement Thursday.

The legislation includes more than $310 million for the Hualapai tribe to build out a water delivery system. It has long relied on groundwater to serve its communities and its major tourist operation, Grand Canyon West that’s outside the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park.

The tribe secured water rights to a Colorado River tributary in 2014 through another federal water rights settlement. The federal government has approved about 40 such settlements with tribes, some of which include more than one tribe. Tribes often trade potentially huge water claims for the promise of federal funding to deliver water to their citizens.

The third bill that Biden signed amends a 2010 water rights settlement for the White Mountain Apache Tribe in eastern Arizona, authorizing additional funding and extending deadlines to complete a rural water system and dam.

___

Fonseca covers Indigenous communities on the AP's Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter: @FonsecaAP

Biden signs bills that secure long-sought water rights and land for 5 Arizona tribes

Debra Utacia Krol, Arizona Republic
Fri, January 6, 2023 

Five Arizona tribes celebrated after President Joe Biden signed legislation that secured water rights, funding to develop water infrastructure and historically important tribal lands.

Some tribes have been pushing for these bills for years, including the Colorado River Indian Tribes, which worked for more than two decades to secure the right to lease a portion of its Colorado River allotment. The bills were passed in the waning days of the 117th Congress.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes Water Resiliency Act, the Hualapai Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act, and the White Mountain Apache Tribe Water Rights Quantification Act were signed by Biden Jan. 5.

The Colorado River Indian Tribes, known as CRIT, had sought to lease part of its 719,248 acre-feet Colorado River allotment for more than 20 years, said CRIT Chairwoman Amelia Flores. The tribe has saved a portion of its allotment using conservation measures and will use the revenues from leasing it to help stabilize its economy and enable water service extensions to tribal members, she said.

CRIT, which operates a large farm and casino, also plans to improve its canal system and conserve even more water.

More importantly, Flores said, these measures will enable the tribe to help save the life of the river.

"The river's the person. The river can't speak for itself. And we as stewards need to step up and protect the river," she said.

The Mojave and Chemehuevi have lived in the Colorado River Valley and the surrounding lands for millennia, and in recent years, Navajo and Hopi people relocated to the area. All four tribal cultures hold water as the source of life.

"We're connected to the river," she said. "We're connected spiritually. We're connected with our religious ceremonies to to the Colorado River and to the habitat along along the river."

Further up the river, the Hualapai Tribe finally secured a small water settlement that will provide a huge boost to its economy and community. The settlement provides 4,000 acre-feet from the river and authorizes the construction of a pipeline and other infrastructure to deliver the water to the tribe's biggest enterprise, Grand Canyon West. Water will also be delivered to homes.

"The passage of the Hualapai Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 2022 is an historic step for the Hualapai people, who have lived along the Colorado River for millennia,” said Hualapai Tribe Vice-Chairman Scott Crozier.

The 2,300-member tribe had pushed for more than a decade to secure the allotment from the Colorado River. The tribe’s lands lie on the south side of the Grand Canyon along 108 miles of the river.

“This will secure our tribe’s future for generations,” Crozier said.

In eastern Arizona, the White Mountain Apache Tribe Water Rights Quantification Act amends a 2010 water rights settlement for the 15,000-member tribe. It authorizes federal funding and extends the time the tribe needed to complete its rural water system and Miner Flat Fam project.

“On behalf of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, I would like to thank Senator Kelly and Senator Sinema for their leadership in securing passage of this legislation in the Senate," said White Mountain Apache Tribe Chairman Kasey Velasquez. "The legislation would provide the necessary funding to provide desperately needed drinking water on the Fort Apache Reservation and resolve the tribe’s water related claims against the United States and others."

The three water bills were sponsored by Arizona's two senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly. Flores noted that her tribe's bill was backed by other lawmakers, including Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.). Former Rep. Tom O'Halleran sponsored two of the three water bills that passed the full Congress.

“As Arizona and the West navigate this historic drought that often hits tribal communities the hardest, the passage of these three bills could not be more significant," said Kelly.

Sinema added that, by working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, "we ensured critical priorities for Arizona’s tribal communities would not fall victim to partisanship. Passage of these bills will help ensure continued economic growth and water certainty for tribal communities across Arizona.”

Tribal water: Their pleas for water were long ignored. Now tribes are gaining a voice on the Colorado River

Pascua Yaqui, Gila River Indian Community gain new lands

Two other bills, the Old Pascua Community Land Acquisition Act and the Blackwater Trading Post Land Transfer Act, were signed in December. Although each put only small tracts of land into to trust for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the Gila River Indian Community, they each hold historical significance for the two tribal communities.

The Yaqui Tribe released a statement saying that its bill confirmed a 2021 gaming compact agreement between the 19,000-member tribe and the state to place about 30 acres of land in South Tucson into trust. The land is called the Old Pascua Village and contains churches, sacred sites, and ceremonial grounds that are culturally significant to the Pascua Yaqui people.

The Old Pascua Museum and Yaqui Cultural Center is also in the village, which is recognized as the original Yaqui settlement established after tribal members fled persecution in their native Mexico.

“This bill is necessary in order to create additional economic opportunities for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona and its members,” Yaqui Chairman Peter Yucupicio said after approval in the Senate. “The bill acknowledges the relationship between the Pascua Yaqui and the city of Tucson, is reflective of numerous stakeholder meetings and negotiations, and allows the tribe to preserve our traditional homelands while promoting economic opportunities and new housing options for the community.”

Grijalva congratulated the tribe with a Tweet after passage in the Senate.

The tribe did not answer inquiries about any plans to establish a third casino on part of the property.

The Blackwater Trading Post Land Transfer Act places about 55 acres of land on the Gila River community's east end into trust. The land is the site of the the historic Blackwater Trading Post, and was purchased by the tribe in 2010 when the trading post closed. The family who operated the trading post also had a small museum on the site, which contained more than 1,000 cultural items that tribal members had traded for supplies. Those items are now part of the collection at the community's Huhugam Heritage Center.

When the bill was introduced in 2021, Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis thanked Arizona's Senate and House delegation. “This non-controversial legislation is important to the Community and to our members residing in District 1 of the Reservation," he said.

The legislation also prohibited gaming operations on the land.

A long drought:At Lake Powell, a 'front-row seat' to a drying Colorado River and an uncertain future

Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate, culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at debra.krol@azcentral.com. Follow her on Twitter at @debkrol.

Coverage of Indigenous issues at the intersection of climate, culture and commerce is supported by the Catena Foundation

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 5 Arizona tribes gain water rights, land from Biden legislation

END BEAR HUNTING

Hunter bear bait ban proposed for Alaska national preserves


FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017 photo, a black bear checks out his surroundings in Granite Basin in Juneau, Alaska. The National Park Service is proposing a rule that would prohibit bear baiting in national preserves in Alaska, the latest in a dispute over what animal rights supporters call a cruel practice. The park service said Friday, Jan. 6, 2023 it is proposing a rule barring bear baiting in national preserves in Alaska. 

(AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File) 

BECKY BOHRER
Fri, January 6, 2023

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Bear hunters in Alaska would no longer be able to use bait, such as pastries, dog food or bacon grease, under a proposed rule by the National Park Service on Friday that would prohibit bear baiting in national preserves in the state.

It's the latest in a dispute over what animal rights supporters call a cruel practice. The park service also says the new proposal would, in part, “lower the risk that bears will associate food at bait stations with humans and become conditioned to eating human-produced foods.”

The agency will be taking public comments on the proposal.

In September, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason found problems with a 2020 Trump administration-era rule that lifted restrictions previously in place on sport hunting and trapping in national preserves in Alaska, including bear baiting. The case was brought by conservation and animal rights groups.

But the judge did not set the rule aside, and noted the park service had indicated it was already in the process of reassessing the rule. She sent the matter back to the agency.

Appeals in the case are pending.

Peter Christian, a spokesperson with the Alaska region for the National Park Service, said the assistant secretary of Fish, Wildlife and Parks last February directed the park service “to initiate a rulemaking process to reconsider the factual, legal and policy conclusions in the 2020 Alaska Hunting and Trapping rule which authorized several controversial sport hunting practices.”

The park service is pursuing the new proposal “due to legal and policy concerns regarding bear baiting implications for public safety. Bears that become habituated to non-natural foods used as bait pose a safety hazard to the public,” he said by email.

A similar ban on bear baiting, enacted in 2015 during the Obama administration, was rescinded by the 2020 rule, the park service said.

According to the agency, the proposed new rule also would reinstate prohibitions that had been in place under the 2015 rule “on methods of harvest that are not compatible with generally accepted notions of ‘sport’ hunting.”

The 2020 rule removed restrictions on such things as harvesting bears over bait; taking wolves and coyotes during the denning season; taking swimming caribou; and using dogs to hunt black bears, the agency said.

Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, in a statement called the new proposal “a victory for Alaska’s iconic wildlife species.”

Explainer-Why the U.S.-Mexico energy spat is a tough nut to crack


The logo of the Mexican state oil firm PEMEX is pictured during a protest against Senator Samuel Garcia's proposal to close down the Cadereyta refinery as a measure to lower the levels of pollution in the air, in Cadereyta

Fri, January 6, 2023 
By Isabel Woodford

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico are due to hold a summit next week, where a major bone of contention could be a dispute centering on whether Mexico breached a trade pact by tightening state control of its energy market.

WHERE DOES THE DISPUTE STAND?

Tensions over Mexico's nationalist policies boiled over into a formal dispute in July, when the Washington and Ottawa filed a complaint against Mexico under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal.

The complaint argued Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's efforts to change the market to favor state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and national power utility Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) had discriminated against U.S. and Canadian companies.

The companies also complained that bureaucratic delays are stymieing their operations.

Dispute resolution talks began, and although progress has been halting, the United States and Canada last year agreed to extend the process beyond an initial 75-day window.

Under USMCA, if the controversy is not resolved during consultations, a dispute panel can be called to adjudicate.

WHAT IS MEXICO'S DEFENSE?

Lopez Obrador has put on a bullish front, saying Mexico has broken no laws and that "nothing is going to happen."

It comes after he overhauled the electricity market in the name of national sovereignty, giving CFE priority over private companies in connecting power stations to the grid.

Often couching his opposition to foreign and private participation in the energy sector as part of his drive to eradicate corruption, he argues past governments skewed the market in favor of private capital.

He also says that energy is a domestic matter, and points to an article he had inserted into USMCA stipulating Mexico's "inalienable" ownership of its oil and gas. Critics say the article does not cover his treatment of foreign firms.

CAN MEXICO FIX THE DISPUTE?

Most analysts predict Mexico would lose if a panel is asked to resolve the dispute. That could be very costly to Mexico, raising the prospect of punitive U.S. tariffs.

Both countries have previously stressed that they want to sort out the disagreement before it reaches a panel.

Talks slowed down after Mexico's economy minister resigned in October, and her successor cleared out several experienced trade negotiators, leaving an inexperienced team in charge.

The new teams says it has put forward proposals that could deal with two of the four areas of consultations, and that they are also addressing other U.S. concerns. But there has been little clear indication of meaningful progress.

Resolution appears to hinge on whether energy nationalists inside the Mexican administration, who have taken their cues from Lopez Obrador, are prepared to compromise.

WHAT ARE MEXICO'S BARGAINING CHIPS?

Lopez Obrador has made energy policy a cornerstone of his presidency, making it hard for him to back down.

His administration is also mindful that Mexico's assistance on tackling illegal immigration tends to carry more weight in Washington due to its prominence in U.S. domestic politics, giving the government tacit, if unstated, leverage.

Also, Mexican industry is so heavily integrated with the U.S. economy that a trade conflict could be painful for both countries at a time the region is attempting to reduce its reliance on Asia and bring down soaring inflation.

Still, the spat has hit investor confidence in Mexico, and Lopez Obrador is seeking U.S. help to finance solar power output in northern Mexico and attract investment in greener manufacturing, particularly in carmaking, a key industry.

(Reporting by Isabel Woodford; Editing by Dave Graham and Marguerita Choy)

Mexican govt inks deal to buy Mexicana airline brand for $42 million, union says


Mexicana airlines planes is seen at the Benito Juarez international airport in Mexico City

Fri, January 6, 2023 
By Kylie Madry

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -The Mexican government signed a deal with several aviation unions Friday to purchase the brand of the defunct Mexicana airline for 811.1 million Mexican pesos ($42.41 million), a union spokesman told Reuters.

The deal includes rights to use the airline's brand and the purchase of two buildings, a technical training center and a flight simulator, pilots' union spokesman Jose Alonso said in an interview. A time-frame for the payment has yet to be agreed upon, he added.

Mexico's transportation ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said the government intends to use Mexicana to launch a military-run commercial airline.

In December, Lopez Obrador said the airline was set to launch operations in 2023. The government is also in talks with Boeing on renting aircraft, he said.

On Monday, the government will lift any legal actions in place against Mexicana, which was declared bankrupt in 2014, Alonso said.

Founded in 1921, Mexicana had been among the world's oldest airlines.

The payment will be divided between pilots' union ASPA, flight attendants' union ASSA, ex-aviation workers' union AJTEAM and transportation workers' union SNTTTASS proportionally by a percentage of what was owed when Mexicana shuttered, Alonso said.

Though the payment is a small fraction of what was owed to workers, Alonso said, "it's a little bit of justice after 12 years."

The deal was reached Friday between Mexico's transportation ministry and the unions with supervision from the labor ministry, Alonso added.

A military-run business, Olmeca-Maya-Mexica, will take over the company, Lopez Obrador has previously said.

The push to operate the military carrier comes as Lopez Obrador has expressed his discontent with the country's airlines.

($1 = 19.1273 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Kylie Madry; Editing by Sarah Morland and David Gregorio)

WHITE MALE MISOGYNIST FEMICIDE
Utah murder-suicide underscores frequency of family killings





Eight Dead Utah

Jess, left, sits next to her sister, Cecily, during a press conference regarding the killing of a family in Enoch, Utah on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. A Utah man fatally shot his five children, his mother-in-law and his wife, then killed himself two weeks after the woman had filed for divorce, according to authorities and public records.

(Ben B. Braun/The Deseret News via AP)

ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAM METZ and CLAUDIA LAUER
Fri, January 6, 2023

ENOCH, Utah (AP) — City leaders in a small Utah town choked up this week as they expressed shock after a murder-suicide carried out by a fellow church member left eight people dead in their close-knit community, including five children who were classmates with their kids.

Though shocking, family mass killings are an all-too-common tragedy across the country. They've happened nearly every 3.5 weeks for the last two decades on average, according to a database compiled by USA Today, The Associated Press and Northeastern University.

Enoch, Utah, is one of more than 30 communities sent reeling by a family mass killing in the last two years, a list that includes communities of wealth and poverty and spares no race or class. A family mass killing — where four or more people were killed, not including the perpetrator — happened each of the last two years in places as large as Houston or as small as Casa Grande, Arizona, the database shows.

The circumstances of the killings are myriad: An argument over pandemic stimulus checks leaves four family members shot dead and two injured in Indianapolis; financial issues lead to authorities finding six children and their parents inside a house set ablaze in Oklahoma; an escalating custody battle in Ohio precedes a man and members of his family shooting the mother of his child and seven of her family members; a father loses his job, piles his wife and kids in the family station wagon and plunges it into the Detroit River.

Motives can remain speculative in family killings in which assailants take their own lives, but police often cite financial or relationship issues as the causes.

Enoch police are still investigating what led to the deaths discovered Wednesday, but authorities said Tausha Haight had recently filed a divorce petition against her husband Michael, a 42-year-old insurance agent who they believe killed her, their five children and Tausha’s mother, who was staying at the family’s home.

Officials have not released information on the weapon they believe killed the adults and the children, who ranged in age from 4 to 17. A relative of Tausha Haight said Friday that the family was left “vulnerable” after Michael Haight removed guns he and his wife owned in the days before the murder-suicide.

Police went to the Haight’s home on Wednesday in response to a welfare check call placed when Tausha Haight missed an appointment.

The news left mothers, fathers, teachers and churchgoers asking a question many communities face in the aftermath of mass shootings: How could this happen here?

City Councilman Rob Jensen said he was well aware such tragedies happen throughout the country, yet that did little to quell the shock he felt when the killings happened in his town.

“Especially in a small town, you don’t anticipate this kind of thing. Nobody does,” Jensen said. “Everyone knows this kind of thing can happen. But everyone wants to say that it’s not them.”

Family mass killings immediately capture the attention of people in a community, but rarely garner the level of national attention received by mass killings at schools, places of worship or restaurants, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University who has studied familicides and mass killings for decades.

Fox, who helped compile and maintains the database for the AP and USA Today, said that’s because it doesn’t carry the same kind of fear with the public. He noted police often issue messages saying there is no danger to the public shortly after the killings are discovered.

“It’s a nice safe community, but family massacres are independent of the crime rate in the local area,” he said. “We are talking about internal factors, and I think that’s why it’s hard for people to see themselves in these situations and why the response is to mourn instead of fear.”

Family mass killings are in fact the most common type of mass killing, making up about 45% of the 415 mass shootings since 2006, according to the database. They happen twice as frequently as mass shootings in which members of the public are killed.

Most, but not all, involve handguns, only about a third involve households with a previous occurrence of domestic violence and most of the assailants have no violent history or criminal past, Fox said.

There is no governmental agency tracking murder-suicides nationally, so a few years ago policy analysts at the Violence Policy Center — a nonprofit educational organization that conducts research and public education on violence in the U.S. — began tracking details from news accounts to produce an annual report. The latest version from 2020 looked at murder-suicides including many mass killings during the first six months of 2019.

The study found 81% of murder-suicides happened at home and 65% involved intimate partners. The study also found that among murder-suicides where more than three people aside from the assailant were killed, six of the 10 during those six months were incidents in which a person killed their children, partner and themselves.

Fox said most of the killings fall into two categories. The first is murder by proxy, in which the killer is motivated by anger or resentment and kills the children who are seen as an extension of their partner. The second is suicide by proxy motivated by despondency or depression, most often a job loss, and the assailant kills the children as an extension of themselves.

"He wants to spare them the misery of living in this awful world," Fox said. “Over the years, there's been an eclipse in community. There was a time decades ago if you had trouble feeding your family or if you had lost your job, neighbors would come over with casseroles and they would offer emotional support. Many people don’t know their neighbors these days.”

___

Lauer reported from Philadelphia.


COMMENT

J.

This is domestic violence. In domestic abuse, the most dangerous time for the woman is when she tells the man she's leaving the marriage, which this woman had - she had filed for divorce the week prior. I'm so sick of these constant news articles of sick 'men' who abuse their wives and family in the first place and second, are so sick that they'd rather kill their entire family than suffer through rejection and divorce.

Utah man massacred family, including five children, after divorce petition

Thu, January 5, 2023 
By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) -A 42-year-old Utah man whose wife had filed for divorce just before Christmas shot dead seven members of his family including his five children ranging in age from 4 to 17 and then turned the gun on himself, officials said on Thursday.

The massacre on Wednesday has stunned the close-knit community of Enoch City in southwestern Utah, where both the mayor and the city manager said they knew the Haight family as neighbors.

After reporting the shooting with scant details on Wednesday, city officials called a news conference on Thursday and identified the shooter as Michael Haight, the father of the five children he killed.

Haight also shot dead his wife, Tausha Haight, 40, and her mother, Gail Earl, 78.

The children killed were a 4-year-old boy, a 7-year-old boy, a 7-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl, officials said without naming them.

"The Haights were my neighbors. The youngest children played in my yard with my sons," Enoch City Mayor Geoffrey Chesnut told reporters. "Enoch City is a very close community. The neighbors are good. The people are wonderful. And the effort we make on one another's behalf is like family."

The rural town of about 7,500 is home to a high number of young professionals with children, Chesnut said.

Police were sent to the home for a welfare check after Tausha Haight had missed an appointment in town and efforts to reach her had failed, Chesnut said.

Tausha Haight and one of her daughters had been seen at a church event on Tuesday night, Chesnut said.

Officials declined to draw conclusions about the impact of the divorce petition that they said had been filed on Dec. 21.

Police Chief Jackson Ames said officers were once called to the couple's home a couple of years ago for an incident that he declined to describe, but that there had been no recent complaints.

"From what we saw outside, they were just phenomenally kind, and so everyone I've talked to has just been absolutely shocked about losing them," neighbor Garrett Minkler told ABC4 television.

School officials said counselors were being made available to classmates of the victims.

City Manager Rob Dotson noted that officials at the news conference were misty-eyed, their voices cracking, because of the emotional toll.

"We don't know why this happened," Dotson said. "However, we do know that they were our friends. They were our neighbors. And that we loved them."

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Peru protesters clash with police in airport takeover attempt in Puno

Fri, January 6, 2023 

LIMA (Reuters) - Dozens of protesters attempted to take over an airport near Peru's border with Bolivia Friday as part of anti-government protests, prompting police to use tear gas to disperse them.

Protesters set fire to a police tank outside the Inca Manco Capac airport in Juliaca, in Peru's Puno region, according to images on social media and local television.

Protests against President Dina Boluarte resumed this week after a two-week pause, following violent clashes in December that left 22 dead after the removal and arrest of former President Pedro Castillo.

News outlets in Puno reported 15 injured, including two policemen. The healthy ministry did not immediately confirm the reports.

Andean Airports of Peru, which operates the Juliaca airport, said services were suspended "due to the violent acts and lack of security."

In December, protesters forced the temporary closure of three airports in Peru.

Demonstrators demand Boluarte's resignation, the closure of Congress, constitutional changes and Castillo's release. The former president is serving 18 months in pre-trial detention while being investigated for "rebellion" after illegally trying to close Congress, a charge he denies.

Up to 49 blockade points were reported Friday in different regions of the country, an uptick from the day before, the Ombudsman's office said in a statement.

In the Ica region, on Peru's central coast, protesters have blocked a key highway, stranding dozens of passenger and cargo transport vehicles.

"We have already supported last year's strike, we have been unemployed for about 10 days and the truth is, with the pandemic and all that there has been, we want to continue working," said Jose Palomino, a driver affected by the roadblock.

The attorney general's office said Friday it was assessing complaints against Boluarte and three of her ministers and, if warranted, would launch an investigation into deaths that occurred during December's protests.

Human rights group have accused security forces of using deadly firearms and launching smoke bombs on protesters, who the army says have used homemade weapons and explosives.

Boluarte welcomed the prosecutor's announcement on Twitter, writing that she "will provide all the appropriate resources for the prompt clarification of the facts, as he has repeatedly requested."

(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Additional reporting by Alfredo Galarza for Reuters TV; editing by Diane Craft)