Court revives claims by Texas death row inmate backed by DA


In courtrooms across America, defendants get additional prison time for crimes that juries found they didn’t commit. The Supreme Court is being asked, again, to put an end to the practice.

MARK SHERMAN
Mon, January 9, 2023 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday revived claims by a Texas inmate who has the rare support of the state prosecutor's office that put him on death row.

The justices threw out a Texas appeals court ruling that refused to grant the inmate, Areli Escobar, a new trial. The state appeals court had overruled a lower court judge who documented the flaws in the forensic evidence used to convict Escobar.

The high court's action returns the case to the appeals court.

Escobar was convicted and sentenced to death in the May 2009 fatal stabbing and sexual assault of Bianca Maldonado, a 17-year-old high school student in Austin. They lived in the same apartment complex.

The focus of the prosecution case against Escobar was evidence from the Austin Police Department's DNA lab.

But a later audit turned up problems at the lab that led Judge David Wahlberg of the Travis County District Court to conclude that Escobar's trial was unfair.

“The State’s use of unreliable, false, or misleading DNA evidence to secure (Escobar's) conviction violated fundamental concepts of justice,” Wahlberg wrote.

When the case returned to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Travis County prosecutors no longer were defending the conviction. Voters had elected a new district attorney, Jose Garza, who ran on a promise to hold police accountable in Austin, the state capital and county seat.

But the appeals court refused to go along, saying it had conducted its own review that justified affirming the conviction and sentence, and not mentioning the prosecution's change of position. Even after Garza's office pointed out it was no longer standing behind the conviction, the appeals court stuck with its ruling.

In its filing with the Supreme Court, Garza's office wrote that prosecutors have a duty to see justice done and that the appeals court “undermined the District Attorney’s historical role in the criminal justice system.”

Escobar's lawyers, unsurprisingly, agreed, telling the court that their case is so clear, the justices could reverse the appellate ruling without hearing arguments.

“If ever there were a case calling for summary reversal, it is this capital case. Denying the petition would be a grave miscarriage of justice,” they wrote.

EPA, pipeline operator reach deal to clean up Kansas spill


HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
Mon, January 9, 2023 

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it has reached an agreement with a pipeline operator to clean up a spill that dumped 14,000 bathtubs’ worth of crude oil into a rural Kansas creek.

The agency said in a news release that the Dec. 7 rupture of the Keystone pipeline affected 3 1/2 miles of the creek as it flows through rural pastureland in Washington County, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City.

The order requires TC Oil Pipeline Operations Inc., whose parent company is Canadian-based TC Energy, to recover oil and oil-contaminated soil and vegetation and contain the further spread of oil in the creek.

Meg McCollister, an EPA regional administrator, said in a statement that the federal government and the state are “committed to a thorough cleanup and restoration."

The 2,700-mile (4,345-kilometer) Keystone system carries heavy crude oil extracted from tar sands in western Canada to the Gulf Coast and to central Illinois.

The cause of the 14,000-barrel spill hasn't yet been announced. Each barrel is 42 gallons, the size of a household bathtub.

But U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, raised concerns in a letter Monday about the decision to grant TC Energy a permit that allowed the pressure inside parts of the Keystone system — including the stretch through Kansas — to exceed the typical maximum permitted levels.

“This latest spill is no surprise," Cantwell told the deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in demanding a review of the permit.

The spill was the largest onshore in nine years and larger than 22 previous spills on the Keystone system combined, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data.

The company and government officials have said drinking water supplies were not affected. No one was evacuated, and most of the Keystone system was back in operation in eight days.

Concerns that spills could pollute waterways spurred opposition to plans by TC Energy to build another crude oil pipeline in the same system, the 1,200-mile (1,900-kilometer) Keystone XL, across Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. President Joe Biden’s cancelation of a permit for the project led the company to pull the plug on the project last year.

 Cost of IRS funding repeal? More than $100 billion, says federal budget watchdog.

 Jan. 10, 2023
By Robert Schroeder

Stopping new money to the Internal Revenue Service would cost the government in the long run, a budget group warned Monday.

House Republicans’ plans to repeal billions of dollars of funding for the Internal Revenue Service would boost the U.S.’s red ink by more than $100 billion over the next decade, a budget watchdog estimated Monday, hours before the GOP approved the measure.

Approved on a party-line, 220-213 vote Monday night, the measure takes aim at $80 billion in extra funding for the IRS that was included in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act — their big climate, healthcare and tax package. The vote followed approval of a package of rules for the new session of Congress — which some Republicans had voiced opposition to but which ultimately garnered all GOP votes but one.


The aim of the extra money for the IRS is to expand support for the agency’s operations, modernize its systems, improve customer service and strengthen tax enforcement, as the Committee for a Responsible Budget summarized in a new analysis Monday.

Denying the agency the funding, says the CRFB, would increase federal deficits by well over $100 billion over a decade, including $30 billion in 2031 alone.

The IRS measure is one of a few items that House Republicans are prioritizing as they get down to business in the new Congress. Because Democrats control the Senate, however, it won’t pass that chamber, so the bill is largely symbolic.

Still, campaigning against the IRS featured heavily in Republicans’ midterm election pitches, with candidates warning that the legislation empowers 87,000 new agents to target middle-income Americans. That figure has been dubbed misleading, however, by fact checkers including the Associated Press, which noted many hires will be used to replace some 50,000 IRS employee retirements in coming years. Others will become customer-service representatives answering taxpayer phone calls.

TaxWatch (November 2022): IRS loses $500 billion a year to unpaid taxes — but it’s about to invest $80 billion in administration and enforcement

Bill Gates considers W.Va. to expand nuclear energy efforts


Bill Gates speaks during the Global Fund's Seventh Replenishment Conference, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022, in New York. Gates topped The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of the 10 largest charitable gifts announced by individuals or their foundations in 2022. This year's list totaled nearly $9.3 billion. Gates gave $5 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to back the grantmaker’s work in global health, development, policy and advocacy, and U.S. education. 

LEAH WILLINGHAM
Mon, January 9, 2023

GLASGOW, W.Va. (AP) — Bill Gates is looking to West Virginia as he plans for the next phase of his effort to reboot U.S. nuclear energy technology: powering the east coast.

Microsoft co-founder Gates, who visited a closed down coal-fired plant in Glasgow, West Virginia on Monday, said he needs to see how his Natrium nuclear reactor demonstration in Wyoming performs before making any announcements about new sites. The Kemmerer, Wyoming sodium-cooled nuclear reactor is taking over the site of a current coal-powered plant and was scheduled to be online by 2028, but is facing delays because its only source of fuel was uranium from Russia, now at war with Ukraine.

However, during a visit to the American Electric Power plant, which closed in 2015, Gates called the West Virginia’s Legislature’s decision last year to repeal the state’s ban on nuclear power facilities “quite impressive" and said he's looking for sites to expand his efforts to the east coast.

West Virginia’s new law has opened the door to discussions with American Electric Power during the last six months, said Gates, who founded TerraPower, the company behind the $4 billion project in Wyoming.

“Really, I think six months ago we really weren’t on their radar much at all, nuclear wasn’t, but the Legislature did say, ‘Okay, we’re open-minded to nuclear’ and that was quite impressive,” he said of the American Electric Power plant, known as AEP.

The Wyoming coal-fired power plant that is being converted for the sodium-cooled nuclear reactor is scheduled to close in 2025, when Gates said its 200 employees will stay on and transition to working with nuclear energy. The demonstration project comes as many U.S. states see nuclear emerging as an option to help transition energy production away from coal, oil and natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Wyoming plant will feature a sodium reactor and molten salt energy storage system that will perform better, more safely and cost less than a traditional nuclear power, Gates said.

TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque said sites like the Glasgow plant are “ready and capable" to support a plant like Natrium because the company can take advantage of existing infrastructure, like the grid connection.

“You can get a two-year jump on this one — this is ready to go now,” Democratic Sen. Manchin joked, as he accompanied Gates on a tour of the plant in Glasgow.

The coal-fired plant, known as the Kanawha River Plant, is located along the Kanawha River in Glasgow, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast from Charleston. It went into operation in 1953 and was retired in May 2015 as part of AEP’s plan to comply with the U.S. EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.

Gates said that as the Wyoming project matures, it will be more clear how efforts can be expanded to new sites and will give utility companies the time needed to look at their overall strategy and see how and if nuclear power fits in.

“We hope to say, three years from now, have a couple of utilities that have a pretty solid plan and that Natrium is a part of their multi-decade generation strategy,” he said.

An Associated Press survey last year of the energy policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that a strong majority— about two-thirds— say nuclear, in one fashion or another, will help take the place of fossil fuels. The momentum building behind nuclear power could lead to the first expansion of nuclear reactor construction in the U.S. in more than three decades.

Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority bus driver Anthony Smith's grandparents lived in Glasgow, and both his parents worked at the plant before it closed. He said the town of less than 1,000 is in need of a boost.

“This town needs rejuvenating, honestly. It was different back then, you know?" he said. “I'd love to see things back how they used to be, that's probably what a lot of people feel anywhere they're from that has an area that's struggling, they just want to see it get better.”

Holtec seeks $7.4 billion loan for expansion tied to new reactor



Jim Walsh, Cherry Hill Courier-Post
Mon, January 9, 2023 

CAMDEN – Holtec International Inc. has applied for a $7.4 billion federal loan to fund expansion expected from future sales of a company-designed nuclear reactor.

Holtec would tap the loan to boost capacity to make parts at its existing U.S. facilities, and to build and commission “at least four” SMR-160 advanced light water reactors.

It also expects to build “one or more additional manufacturing plants,” the company said.

Holtec added it’s “actively evaluating” potential sites “for the new ultra-modern manufacturing plant(s)."

The firm has three nuclear manufacturing facilities in the United States, including one at its Camden corporate campus that was designed for the eventual production of SMR-160s. It also has a fabrication plant in India.

Holtec claims its small modular reactor produces carbon-free energy more safely than a conventional nuclear power plant.

The firm has invested more than $400 million in the reactor's development since 2010. It was approved in 2020 for $116 million in federal aid "to support the SMR-160’s commercialization readiness."

Holtec is seeking the loan from the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, which received an infusion of about $111 billion from last year's Inflation Reduction Act.

"We anticipate that (the application process) will be ongoing for a while as DOE usually (has requests) for information or clarifying questions for an applicant," said Holtec spokesman Patrick O'Brien.

"Our goal is to have an SMR-160 licensed and operational by 2030," he said.

The company has said it’s “exploring” the potential to put its first SMR-160 at the Oyster Creek complex in Ocean County, where Holtec is decommissioning a former atomic power plant.

Earlier:Lacey to receive grant to prepare for future without Oyster Creek

It's also looking at two southern states “with rapidly growing regional demand for carbon-free energy,” Holtec said in a review of its 2022 performance.

Holtec also said it expects the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission “early this year” will license its planned nuclear-waste storage facility in New Mexico.

The complex, in the works for seven years, could hold “the vast quantity of spent nuclear fuel presently stored at more than 70 nuclear sites in 35 states,” the company said.

But an environmental coalition plans to challenge any NRC approval in federal court, said Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear, a nonprofit that’s sharply critical of Holtec’s plan.

Kamps said Holtec’s waste-storage project also faces court challenges from the states of New Mexico and Texas, as well as from businesses with mining and ranching interests near the proposed storage site.

He also described potential federal aid to Holtec as “an outrageous pickpocketing of hardworking American taxpayers to benefit a filthy rich private company.”

According to Holtec, the operation of a consolidated waste-storage site would spur nuclear power in the United States, “leading to the rise of small modular reactors."

It also expressed the belief that modular reactors made in America would find “a large global export market.”

Holtec previously has predicted it could place 32 SMR-160s in the United Kingdom by 2050.

The company said it expects to pair its SMR-160 with a “Green Boiler” facility that can store excess energy “from an SMR-160, a wind or a solar power plant, and generally from the grid in periods of excess power, then deliver that stored energy in times of generation deficit."

Holtec has been developing the Green Boiler since 2021.

Jim Walsh is a senior reporter at the Courier-Post, the Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Holtec seeks federal loan for production of advanced nuclear reactor

US law based on anti-Latino racism fuels immigration fight


 In this photo provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, people who've been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States rest in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas, on June 17, 2018. As thousands of children were taken from their parents at the southern border amid a crackdown on illegal crossings by the Trump administration, a federal public defender in San Diego set out to find new strategies to go after the longstanding deportation law fueling the family separations. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP, File)


RIO YAMAT
Mon, January 9, 2023

LAS VEGAS (AP) — As thousands of children were taken from their parents at the southern border during a Trump administration crackdown on illegal crossings, a federal public defender in San Diego set out to find new strategies to go after the longstanding deportation law fueling the family separations.

The resulting legal defense that Kara Hartzler would help draft in the coming years — work that continued even after a judge halted the general practice at the U.S.-Mexico border in June 2018 — was unprecedented.

It exposed Section 1326 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which makes it a crime to unlawfully return to the U.S. after deportation, removal or denied admission, as racist and a violation of equal protection rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.

And it became the legal framework for a never-before-seen ruling in August 2021 by Nevada U.S. District Judge Miranda Du. She struck down the law as unconstitutional and discriminatory against Latinos when she dismissed an illegal reentry charge against Mexican immigrant Gustavo Carrillo Lopez, though she didn’t block enforcement and prosecutions haven't stopped as the government appeals the case.

Du's 43-page ruling cited much of Hartzler's legal defense. “The record before the Court reflects that at no point has Congress confronted the racist, nativist roots of Section 1326,” the judge wrote.

Hartzler, who has spent the last decade as a federal public defender in California, said she was blown away when she learned of the ruling.

“When you’ve been working in law for as long as I have, you know that just because you’re legally right doesn’t mean you always win,” she said. “There’s a lot of forces at work in making legal decisions.”

The potentially precedent-setting case has been in legal limbo for more than a year as a federal court in California considers the Justice Department's appeal defending the law. Despite the ongoing battle in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Nevada case has shined a national spotlight on the little-known history of Section 1326.

“It really is an ill-understood law when you think about the degree to which it is based on explicitly racist and white supremacist ideology,” said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the nonprofit National Immigration Project.

Section 1326, along with its misdemeanor counterpart Section 1325, which criminalizes unauthorized entry, was enacted by Congress in 1952.

But the law's origins can be traced back a century to the 1920s — a decade described by UCLA history professor and leading Section 1326 researcher Kelly Lytle Hernandez as “a time when the Ku Klux Klan was reborn, Jim Crow came of age, and public intellectuals preached the science of eugenics.”

Many of the key elements that formed the legal defense now being considered by the 9th Circuit came from Hernandez's findings on Section 1326's discriminatory background.

With Congress' sights in the 1920s set on legislation that would block “undesirable” immigration, the National Origins Act of 1924 was enacted, establishing a cap on how many immigrants could enter the U.S. under a system that reserved 96% of slots for European immigrants and included a total ban on Asian immigrants.

Exempt from that system, however, were immigrants from the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico. Hernandez, who was called as an expert witness in the Nevada case, said the exception came as a compromise between nativist lawmakers and employers who had come to rely heavily on cheap labor from Mexico.

But before the decade's end, South Carolina Sen. Coleman Livingston Blease would orchestrate a new deal with employers that led to the Undesirable Aliens Act of 1929.

Under this new law, unauthorized entry into the U.S. became illegal, allowing Congress to limit immigration from Mexico without implementing an outright ban.

Blease, Hernandez said, was a “proud white supremacist" who advocated for segregation and defended lynching. “That alone requires some reckoning with.”

Nearly a century later, the Justice Department has conceded that the 1929 law was motivated by racism. But in oral arguments in early December before the 9th Circuit, an attorney for the U.S. government argued later revisions — like Section 1326 — made it constitutional.

Du's ruling, however, points out that the 1952 revision establishing Section 1326 had adopted language “word for word” from the 1929 legislation, and since then, penalties — that range from prison time to permanent deportation — have stiffened at least five times.

Justice Department attorneys have also conceded that Section 1326 “bears more heavily on Mexican and Latinx individuals,” but argued the disparity is “a product of geography, not discrimination,” as well as “a feature of Mexico’s proximity to the United States, the history of Mexican employment patterns, and other socio-political and economic factors that drive migration from Mexico to the United States.”

Between October 2021 and September this year, the federal government’s fiscal year, 96% of people charged under Section 1326 were from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands.

Section 1325 and 1326 cases are among the most prosecuted charges by the federal government, hitting record numbers in the 2019 budget year, when nearly 90,000 people were charged under Section 1325 and nearly 25,500 under Section 1326. The number of prosecutions have fallen since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Justice Department continues to prosecute tens of thousands of people annually for illegal reentry.

This fiscal year, for example, the Justice Department under the Biden administration prosecuted 13,670 cases under Section 1326. The vast majority of those defendants were charged in border states, including Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

“If you look at this law dispassionately and without political motivations, the facts of the legislation, how it was enacted and its impact on immigrants from Latinx countries, the case is really clear," said Shebaya, of the National Immigration Project. "There is a clear equal protections violation.”

There is no deadline for the 9th Circuit to issue its ruling on the Justice Department's appeal.

In the meantime, the U.S. government continues to pursue Section 1326 cases across the country because Du's order did not include an injunction on the statute.

“It's still pretty outrageous that they are continuing to pursue them,” Shebaya said, “given a court order saying they are unconstitutional.”

At the same time, some of the thousands of children separated from their parents during the Trump administration still have not been reunited.

Under Trump’s immigration policy, all adults crossing the border without authorization were charged with illegal entry. Because children cannot be jailed with their parents, Health and Human Services took custody of the children. No reunification system was put in place.

Goldman Sachs to cut 3,200 jobs this week

Pedro Goncalves
·Finance Reporter, Yahoo Finance UK
Mon, January 9, 2023 

Goldman Sachs prepares for tough economic conditions, including recessions in many key markets. Photo: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Goldman Sachs (GS) is planning to cut approximately 3,200 jobs, one of the largest rounds of layoffs in the company's history.

The layoffs are likely to affect most major divisions of the banks but should focus on Goldman Sachs' investment banking division, according to Bloomberg.

The bank is expected to begin informing people that they will lose their jobs on Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs will cut around 6.5% of roles from its workforce of 49,000 as it prepares for tough economic conditions, including recessions in many key markets. Headcount has jumped 34% since the end of 2018.

The firm is also expected to cut hundreds of jobs from its loss-making consumer operation after scaling back its direct-to-consumer Marcus division.

The investment bank has six offices in the UK, including in London, where it is believed to employ around 6,000 staff, and in Birmingham and Milton Keynes.

However, Goldman Sachs is continuing to hire in areas such as its analyst class for junior employees.

Chief executive, David Solomon, told staff late last month that the cuts were necessary to “weather the headwinds” caused by rising interest rates.

In December, the Financial Times reported that Goldman Sachs was considering cutting its bonus pool for investment bankers by at least 40% this year as it seeks to keep control of costs.

Institutional banks have been struck by a major slowdown in activity in recent months due to volatility in the global financial markets.

Annual bonuses season is due to kick off this week as JP Morgan (JPM), Citi (C) and Bank of America (BAC) all report their results for the past year.

The drop-off in deal activity is expected to result in a marked fall in bonus payments.

Goldman Sachs is expected to unveil pre-tax losses of more than $2bn (£1.7bn/€187bn) for a new unit covering its credit card and instalment-lending business.

The bank is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings on 17 January.

Goldman Sachs readies biggest layoffs since the financial crisis


The logo for Goldman Sachs is seen on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City

Sun, January 8, 2023 
By Saeed Azhar and Scott Murdoch

(Reuters) -Goldman Sachs Group will start cutting thousands of jobs across the firm from Wednesday, two sources familiar with the move said, as it prepares for a tough economic environment.

Just over 3,000 employees will be let go, one of the sources said, but the final number is yet to be determined. That scale of layoffs would be the largest since the 2008 financial crisis, one of the sources said.

The sources could not be named as the information was not yet disclosed publicly. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

Bloomberg News reported on Sunday that Goldman would eliminate about 3,200 positions.

Goldman had 49,100 employees at the end of the third quarter, after adding significant numbers of staff during the coronavirus pandemic.

The layoffs are likely to affect most of the bank's major divisions, but should centre on Goldman Sachs' investment banking arm, one of the sources said. Wall Street banks have suffered a major slowdown in corporate dealmaking activity as a result of volatile global financial markets.

Hundreds of jobs are also likely to be reduced from Goldman Sachs' consumer business, Marcus, after it scaled back plans for the loss-making unit, the sources said.

The bank's chief executive David Solomon sent a year-end voice memo to staff warning of a headcount reduction in the first half of January, two separate sources said. Goldman Sachs declined comment on the memo.

The job cuts come ahead of the bank's annual bonus payments which are usually delivered later in January and are expected to fall about 40%.

The bank restarted its annual performance review process and staff cuts in September after pausing for two years during the pandemic.

The Wall Street giant typically trims about 1% to 5% of employees each year. These new cuts will come on top of the earlier layoffs.

Global banks, including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc, have reduced their workforces in recent months as a dealmaking boom on Wall Street fizzled out due to high interest rates, tensions between the United States and China, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and soaring inflation.

Global investment banking fees nearly halved in 2022, with $77 billion earned by the banks, down from $132.3 billion one year earlier, Dealogic data showed.

The total value of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) globally had slumped 37% to $3.66 trillion by Dec. 20, according to Dealogic data, after hitting an all-time high of $5.9 trillion last year.

Banks had executed $517 billion worth of equity capital markets (ECM) transactions by late December 2022, the lowest level since the early 2000s and a 66% drop from 2021's bonanza, according to Dealogic data.

Despite the slowdown, Goldman's top dealmakers told Reuters in recent interviews that they are bullish on an M&A recovery in the second half of 2023.

(Reporting by Saeed Azhar in New York and Scott Murdoch in Sydney; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell, Christopher Cushing and Nick Zieminski)

CES 2023: Companies tout environmental tech innovations

More than a thousand startups are showcasing their products at the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas, hoping to create some buzz around their gadgets and capture the eyes of investors who can help their businesses grow.

(AP Photo/John Locher, File)

BRITTANY PETERSON
Mon, January 9, 2023 

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The mottled bright green leaves of a pothos plant stood out against the flashy expanse of electric vehicles and smart products at the CES tech show in Las Vegas this year. This particular version of the familiar houseplant was bioengineered to remove 30 times the amount of indoor air pollutants of a typical house plant, according to Neoplants, the Paris-based company that created it.

Customers are already joining a waitlist for seedlings still in the nursery.

Neoplants founder and CEO Lionel Mora is a passionate former Google employee who sings a bit of a different tune than other founders at the electronics convention, with its technology-can-solve-anything vibe. He says before people turn to engineering solutions, they need to address consumption. But, "when it comes to innovation, we believe that biology is the way to go because it’s sustainable by design,” he said.

As countries grapple with how to limit global warming and protect natural resources and biodiversity, more companies are growing their own commitments to building sustainable supply chains and slowing emissions. For others, like Neoplants, addressing environmental issues is their whole reason for being.

Companies and start-ups at CES touched on a broad range of those efforts. Austin-based Pivet showcased biodegradable phone cases. Electric watercraft company Candela unveiled a 28-foot electric speedboat. Ukrainian start-up Melt Water Club presented its water purification method that uses freezing.

The Department of Energy even had a booth — a first, said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who spoke with The Associated Press ahead of her keynote on Friday.

Granholm said she is excited about a range of technologies at CES and beyond, from John Deere's newest electronic farm equipment, to battery storage using alternative materials such as sodium salt, both of which she said the Department of Energy has helped fund.

Granholm also spoke about expanding the use of clean energy, including some forms of hydrogen, fusion and geothermal energy, highlighting the latter as an opportunity for the oil and gas industry.

"If they’ve used fracking to be able to get to oil and gas, they could be using that same technology to be able to extract the heat beneath our feet,” she said.

It could be a while before the oil and gas industry walks away from extracting fossil fuels. In the meantime, more companies are taking emissions reductions seriously. And the first step to reducing emissions is having a full understanding of them, said GreenSwapp founder Ajay Varadharajan. The Dutch company intends to help online grocers and food delivery services understand their carbon footprint, including those in their supply chain or “Scope 3” — often the toughest to track.

Varadharajan wrote an algorithm that pulls information about various edible products from published research papers, which allows him to assign a carbon footprint to every food’s barcode. The algorithm then fine tunes that number with information about a product’s farming techniques and packaging.

Using GreenSwapp's app, CES attendees could scan the barcode of various milk containers on display to instantly compare their carbon footprint. The company claims this works on any food item with a barcode.

The information is helpful for conscious consumers, but Varadharajan says the real impact happens when food companies use it to track their emissions.

Some companies may want to share the information with customers. But he expects many to use it internally, preparing for possible regulations, he explained. The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to soon require publicly traded U.S. companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions. The largest ones may need to disclose Scope 3 emissions related to their supply chain. Once finalized, the U.S. would join a growing number of countries including the U.K. and Japan that require large companies to disclose this information. The European Union is finalizing reporting standards.

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company didn't have a booth this year, but it did demo new tires on vehicles plastered in blue and yellow that rolled around Las Vegas.

The company currently has the largest market share for replacement consumer tires in the U.S. It says its new demo tire contains 90% sustainable materials, and has improved rolling efficiency, which helps people save energy, even when the tires are on electric vehicles.

Goodyear didn’t specify how much carbon is reduced in the new tire manufacturing process, or how much energy is saved through rolling efficiency.

“It's very dependent on the type of vehicle and the type of tire being used,” said CEO Rich Kramer.

But the company’s line of ingredients appear to move in the right direction. Tires use many materials and this new one transitions away from petroleum products to surplus soybean oil to maintain pliability. It uses silica from rice husk waste residue for grip and fuel efficiency. The list goes on, and Kramer says the tire is an important step toward the company goal of reaching zero emissions by 2050.

But sourcing these materials in large quantities is an issue, he said.

“Can you get them at scale to be able to increase production? And then how do you change the manufacturing process for that? That’s a challenge, but a challenge we welcome," he said.

There’s still some room for improvement in the sourcing of Goodyear's rubber, said Sean Nyquist of Forest Stewardship Council, which works to certify sustainable rubber.

“In the last 20 years, there’s been significant deforestation as a result of natural rubber,” he said, as demand grew for rubber from trees instead of synthetic versions made in a lab.

Goodyear’s rubber sourcing follows the guidelines of the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber. Nyquist says this is an important step, but third-party certification would add even more validity to sustainability claims.

Several tire companies are on a similar path, he said. The tires Pirelli makes for the plug-in version of the BMW X5 have obtained FSC certification, which guarantees rubber was sourced ethically, including forest management and labor practices.

There may not be a simple path to reducing emissions and building sustainable supply chains. But one place U.S. companies may now get more help is the record federal funding available to decarbonize buildings and transportation through the Inflation Reduction Act. Granholm says she believes the incentives to reduce energy use and scale clean technology are powerful.

“There’s policy innovation and there’s technology innovation, she said. “We’re all scanning to see what has the best impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and getting to our ultimate goal of saving the planet.”

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Associated Press writer Suman Naishadham contributed from Washington.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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For more coverage of CES, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/technology

Peru bans Bolivia's Evo Morales as political crisis simmers


Bolivia's former President Evo Morales attends a news conference in Mexico City

Mon, January 9, 2023 
By Marco Aquino

LIMA (Reuters) -Peru barred Bolivia's socialist former president, Evo Morales, from entering its territory on Monday, Peru's government announced in a statement, a decision Morales later derided as an attack meant to distract from rights violations.

The move to ban Morales, along with eight other unidentified Bolivians, follows weeks of deadly protests in Peru targeting President Dina Boluarte following last month's swift removal of former President Pedro Castillo, with some demonstrations held near the border with Bolivia.

Castillo's attempt to unlawfully dissolve Congress ahead of a looming impeachment vote unleashed a fresh political crisis in the South American nation, one of the world's top copper producers. He had been in office for less than two tumultuous years.

The statement from Peru's interior ministry said Bolivian citizens have entered the country in recent months to carry out political activities, violating immigration laws while undermining national security.

Morales, one of Latin America's most prominent leftists, has publicly backed Castillo, criticizing his ouster and subsequent arrest as illegal.

The indigenous Bolivian leader served as president for some 14 years through 2019 until he resigned under intense pressure following a disputed election and mass protests.

Morales took to Twitter on Monday to respond to the decision to deny him entry to Peru.

"Now they attack us to distract and dodge responsibility for grave violations of the human rights of our Peruvian brothers," he wrote, adding that political conflicts cannot be resolved with "expulsions, prohibitions or repression."

Shortly after the ban was announced, Peru Prime Minister Alberto Otarola blamed Morales for stoking unrest.

"We are closely watching not only the attitude of Mr. Morales, but also of those who work with him in southern Peru," he told reporters. "They have been very active in promoting a situation of crisis."

Last week, Peru's defense minister also accused foreigners of stirring up divisive protests.

After Castillo was removed from office and detained on charges of fomenting rebellion, thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding Boluarte's resignation, the release of Castillo, the closure of Congress, and a new constitution.

While Castillo remains jailed in pretrial detention, more than 20 people have been killed in the protests, which resumed last week after a pause for the holidays.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino in LimaWriting by Valentine HilaireEditing by Isabel Woodford, Bill Berkrot and Matthew Lewis)

HOW RIGHT YOU ARE
Palestinian prime minister says Israel aims to topple the PA


 Protesters hold a Palestinian flag in Umm el-Fahm, Israel, on Sept. 10, 2021. Israel's new public security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, ordered police on Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023, to remove Palestinian flags from public places in the latest crackdown by the country's new hardline government. 

LAURIE KELLMAN
Mon, January 9, 2023 at 1:53 AM MST·4 min read

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Palestinian prime minister on Monday accused Israel’s new ultra-nationalist government of trying to topple the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, and warned that a series of new Israeli sanctions could further inflame what has been a particularly deadly period of fighting.

In recent days, Israel has withheld millions of dollars of Palestinian tax revenues, stripped Palestinian officials of VIP privileges and broken up a meeting of Palestinian parents discussing their children's education. Late Sunday, Israel’s security minister banned public displays of the Palestinian flag.

Palestinian premier Mohammad Shtayyeh said the Israeli measures, made in response to a Palestinian appeal for U.N. help, are “aimed at toppling the authority and pushing it to the brink financially and institutionally.”

“We consider these measures a new war against the Palestinian people, their capabilities and funds, and a war against the national authority, its survival and its achievements,” Shtayyeh said during his weekly Cabinet meeting.

The Israeli measures have come in response to the U.N. General Assembly's decision to ask the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem. Israel vehemently opposed the Palestinian-backed move. Decisions by the International Court of Justice are not binding, but can carry great influence.

Shtayyeh rejected Israeli claims that such moves are counter to peace.

“We have the right to complain and tell the world we are in pain,” he said in comments published in Haaretz earlier Monday. “Israel wants to prevent even the most non-violent way of fighting the occupation.”

A day earlier, Israel's national security minister ordered police to ban on the Palestinian flag in public.

“Today I directed the Israel police to enforce the prohibition of flying any PLO flag that shows identification with a terrorist organization from the public sphere and to stop any incitement against the state of Israel,” Itamar Ben-Gvir announced on Twitter.

A far-right firebrand known for his anti-Palestinian rhetoric, Ben-Gvir drew widespread international condemnation when he visited Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site last week.

Under Israeli law, flying the Palestinian flag is not a crime. But Israel's attorney general in 2014 ruled that police have the authority to confiscate a flag if it disrupts public order or is done in support of terrorism.

Adalah, an Arab minority legal rights group, said that Ben-Gvir's order falsely implies that any public display of the Palestinian flag disrupts the peace.

“This gives the police unfettered discretion to ban the waving of the Palestinian flag under all circumstances,” the group said.

The Israeli crackdown comes at a fragile time. The Israeli military has been conducting near-daily raids into Palestinian cities and towns since a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 last spring.

Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2004, when 197 Palestinians were killed. A fresh wave of attacks killed at least another nine Israelis in the fall.

The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

Ben-Gvir’s latest order is not the first battle over the Palestinian flag.

The red, green and white Palestinian flag carries great symbolism in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Last May, Israeli riot police beat pallbearers at the funeral for slain Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, causing them to nearly drop the casket. Police ripped Palestinian flags out of people’s hands and fired stun grenades to disperse the crowd.

Israel once considered the Palestinian flag to be an enemy symbol. But after Israel and the Palestinians signed a series of interim peace agreements in the 1990s known as the Oslo Accords, the flag was recognized as that of the Palestinian Authority, which was created to administer Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank. Israel opposes any official business being carried out by the PA in east Jerusalem, and police have in the past broken up events they alleged were linked to the PA.

Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday the measures against the Palestinians were aimed at what he called “an extreme anti-Israel” step at the U.N.

Israel’s Palestinian citizens make up 20% of the population and they’ve had a turbulent relationship with the state since its creation in 1948. During the war surrounding Israel's establishment, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced to leave.

Those who remained became citizens, but have long suffered discrimination and been viewed with suspicion by some Israelis because of their ties to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future independent state. Netanyahu’s new government is dominated by hard-liners who oppose Palestinian statehood.