An Ohio Town Struggles Between Biden’s Clean Energy Agenda and Union Support

Jonathan Weisman
Sat, September 23, 2023 

George Goranitis, an Ultium team leader and U.A.W. bargaining representative, at the UAW Local 1112 union hall in Warren, Ohio, on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023. 

(Justin Merriman/The New York Times)

LORDSTOWN, Ohio — In the shadow of a shuttered General Motors plant in Lordstown, far from the United Auto Workers’ picket lines, the UAW and the management of an electric vehicle battery plant are locked in a wholly different conflict.

It may not have the cachet of the national contract talks that have prompted the strikes that expanded Friday to around 40 plants and distribution centers, affecting more than 18,000 workers, but the negotiations unfolding in northeast Ohio could more directly answer one of the most burning questions facing President Joe Biden as he heads into his reelection campaign: Will the transition to a clean energy economy yield a bright future for American workers, or will it consign a large cohort of them to low-wage, minimal-benefit jobs that leave voters in some of the most critical swing states pining for an ecologically unsound but better-paid past?

UAW officials take pains to say the talks in Lordstown between the autoworkers union and Ultium Cells, a joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solution in South Korea that is building the fuel cells to power GM’s electric vehicles, are not directly linked to the strikes. But because batteries will replace much of the mechanics that consume the labor of conventional auto work, the Ultium talks could prove critical to the electric vehicle transition — and have captured the attention of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, will be in Michigan on Wednesday — the day of the second primary debate — to argue that union leaders should undercut Biden’s clean energy agenda. One of his proteges, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, specifically pointed to the struggles of Ultium workers laboring near the old GM plant.

“Up the road from the once-iconic Lordstown Assembly Complex, where 15,000 union workers once assembled millions of cars, now stands a battery plant that employs a fraction of the workers at a fraction of the wages,” he wrote in the newspaper of Toledo, Ohio, where UAW members have walked off the job at a sprawling Jeep complex. “Autoworkers at the Toledo Assembly Complex and Toledo Transmission can look to Lordstown for a cautionary tale of what Joe Biden has in store for them.”

Democrats and their union allies say the notion that an electric vehicle transition driven by the auto industry can simply be stopped is absurd.

“I love the internal combustion engine. There’s nothing like the sound of a small-block V-8 just rumbling down the street,” said Ethan Surganevic, a sheet metal worker who maintains Ultium’s heating and air-conditioning systems. “But as we progress into the future, we need some sort of renewable energy source. We need to stop relying on fossil fuels.”

But Democrats, too, have their worries.

“These workers feel betrayed because presidents of both parties, from Bush to Clinton, then Bush 2, then Obama, then Trump, have sold them out,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, a pro-union Democrat who faces a tough reelection bid next year in Ohio. “We keep pushing the White House to do more.” Brown said Friday morning that he had encouraged Biden to join the UAW picket lines. On Friday afternoon, the president announced he would, in Michigan on Tuesday.

As the only battery plant organized by a union in the country, Lordstown Ultium is expected to produce a first-ever wage, benefit and worker safety contract, which in turn will influence labor demands in battery plants springing up all over the country.

Yet workers here feel the Biden administration has paid far too little attention to the contract negotiations. Once at full capacity, Ultium could reap tax benefits totaling $1.2 billion a year through legislation signed by the president to speed up the transition to electric vehicles. That is leverage that workers say Biden is not using.

“If this is truly something they support, they could probably back in a little more,” said Eric Manaro, 34, a crew leader in the Ultium packaging department. “I mean, they’ve never been down to the area. You know, proof to the pudding.”

George Goranitis, 33, an Ultium team leader and UAW bargaining representative, went further. “Biden and his team, I honestly truly believe they failed,” he said, adding, “There should have been certain terms and regulations when they gave this money out.”

White House officials on Friday said they were doing all they can to support UAW workers. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called GM CEO Mary Barra twice to ensure a fair union election last December and pointedly did not give final approval to Ultium loan guarantees until after the vote.

“The president has made clear from the start his full commitment to fighting for electric vehicle jobs — including battery jobs — that are good-paying, safe UAW jobs that can support a family and bolster the middle class,” said Gene Sperling, Biden’s envoy to the UAW and the Detroit automakers.

But some of the most pro-union provisions in Biden’s economic agenda were stripped out of the final Inflation Reduction Act. Officials also conceded that they had not communicated their efforts well enough to reach workers like Manaro and Goranitis.

Like many workers in Lordstown, both Manaro and Goranitis are familiar with presidential politics. There may be no factory town in the United States that has been more of a political football in the past 15 years. In 2009, after he bailed out Detroit, President Barack Obama drove a Chevy Cruze on the factory floor as a victory lap. Manaro and Goranitis were there as assembly line workers. In 2018, GM shut down the factory anyway, provoking a tirade by Trump, who then engineered the sale of the plant to a startup company making electric pickup trucks.

As the plant teetered, he told workers the jobs were “all coming back.”

“Don’t move; don’t sell your house,” he counseled.

The startup, Lordstown Motors, went belly-up, filing for bankruptcy in June.

UAW union members in a Democratic region that swung solidly behind Trump are deeply split on the electric revolution in which they are key participants.

Surganevic said he was “no fan” of Trump’s. Manaro and Goranitis are. Manaro even credited the former president’s browbeating of Barra for her decision to build Ultium in Lordstown, although construction was completed well after he left office and the company denied its location had anything to do with Trump.

Biden, it seems, cannot get a break.

For all the downturns and false starts in Lordstown, it is no wonder that many in Trumbull and Mahoning counties, first hit by the steep decline of steel and then manufacturing, are viewing any new hope for the Mahoning Valley with skepticism — and that Republicans like Trump are appealing to voters by evoking a return to some halcyon days, just as he did with coal and steel.

But, said AJ Sumell, an economist at the Center for Working Class Studies of Youngstown State University, the electric vehicle transition is happening, whether Trump wants it or not.

When the GM plant finally closed for good, it was down to a single shift, with 1,600 workers. Ultium, whose plant sprawls across 2.8 million square feet and which started the year with 1,100 workers, is now at 1,400, with 1,700 expected to be working there within another year.

“Ultium Cells’ workforce is the foundation of a dynamic new industry that is transforming American transportation and leading the way to an all-EV future,” said Katie Burdette, an Ultium spokesperson.

About 600 more are working at the old GM facility, but for Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn, which just started producing boutique electric tractors.

For now, though, that old GM plant is a shadow of its former self, with a scattering of cars in its vast parking lot, which is sprouting weeds, and only a fraction of the shop floor in use.

But if pay, benefits and workplace safety concerns can be put to rest at Ultium, the president might get some credit for the clean energy transition he helped set in motion from the workers actually doing it.

“This plant is going to be the pattern for everything that’s coming in the future,” said Tim O’Hara, who was the vice president of the Lordstown UAW local when the GM plant shut down.

The negotiations have already produced results, even before a final contract is reached. In late August, Ultium announced an interim agreement that gave 1,100 workers an immediate 25% pay raise and back pay ranging from $3,000 to $7,000. Sumell said that lifted hourly wages from the minimum of $16.50 to a starting wage of $20 and a top wage of about $24 — still considerably lower than the $32 that GM once paid its top earners but likely better than most battery makers springing up with huge subsidies signed into law by Biden.

The UAW still has significant beefs with Ultium, especially with what it says are unsafe working conditions that should be covered by the safety provisions of the national contract. And the talks “have a ways to go,” said Josh Ayers, the bargaining chair at UAW Local 1112.

Workers would like Biden to give the process a nudge.

“If he would come out and say these battery plants need to be unionized, need to go UAW or whatever, then we would throw our backs behind him,” Surganevic said. “But people are seeing the government threw billions of dollars in low-interest loans to the big corporation and didn’t tell them how they were supposed to spend it.”

Of Biden, he added, “I think he is playing it too safe.”

c.2023 The New York Times Company

US Steel Draws Interest From Small Canadian Rival It Once Owned

Joe Deaux and Kiel Porter
Fri, September 22, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Canadian steelmaker Stelco Holdings Inc. is pursuing a bid for bigger rival and former owner United States Steel Corp., adding to a growing list of suitors for the iconic American company.

Stelco, whose sales and market value are dwarfed by US Steel, seeks to buy the Pittsburgh-based producer to increase its steelmaking assets and boost its share of the market for supplying metal to the automotive industry, according to people familiar with the matter. US Steel shipped six times more steel than Stelco last year and has a market value almost five times larger than the Canadian firm it once owned.

Hamilton, Ontario-based Stelco is in talks with a potential partner on its bid, the people said, asking not to be identified because details are private. No final decision has been made and Stelco could opt against making a bid, the people said. Representatives for Stelco and US Steel declined to comment.

US Steel rose as much as 1.9% to $31.82 Friday in New York while Stelco rose as much as 0.9% in Toronto.

US Steel announced a strategic review in August after rejecting a $7.25 billion bid from rival Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. The cash-and-stock bid is the latest bold move from Cliffs, which has gone from a simple iron ore producer just four years ago to dominant steelmaker that acquired the former assets of ArcelorMittal USA and AK Steel Holding Corp. The battle for US Steel could spell the end to what was once the world’s biggest company.

Stelco, once called the Steel Company of Canada, traces its roots back more than 110 years. The company fell onto hard times by the mid-2000s and filed for bankruptcy protection. US Steel bought the troubled producer in 2007 and changed the name to US Steel Canada. Less than a decade later, US Steel took some of Stelco’s best contracts and abandoned what was left of the company in 2015. Chief Executive Officer Alan Kestenbaum, a noted turnaround artist with a long history in the commodities industry, acquired the assets out of bankruptcy in 2017 and restored the Stelco name.

Cliffs is the only remaining company that has gone public with a bid to buy US Steel, with its proposal currently valued at $32.12, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Esmark Inc. made an offer in mid-August and retracted it nine days later, citing union support for the Cliffs deal for the turnabout. US Steel has said multiple companies have expressed interest in the company. Reuters reported last month that ArcelorMittal, the world’s second-largest steelmaker, was considering an offer for the US steelmaker.

Read More: Cliffs CEO Confident US Steel Bid Will Succeed on Union Backing

Stelco and a partner would make sense given the disparity in equity value, Citi analyst Alexander Hacking wrote Friday in a note to investors. It would likely require another steel company to take on some of the assets or provide a “very substantial” financial commitment to handle the existing debt of US Steel, Hacking wrote.

Stelco, with a market value of about $1.5 billion, shipped 2.63 million tons of steel last year. That compares with 16 million tons shipped by US Steel, which has a market value of about $7 billion.

Behind all the speechmaking at the UN lies a basic, unspoken question: Is the world governable?

TED ANTHONY

Updated Thu, September 21, 2023 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Work together. Go it alone. The apocalypse is at hand. But the future can be bright. The squabbles never cease, yet here are human beings from all across the world — hashing out conflicts with words and processes, convening under one roof, trying to write the next chapter of a common dream.

At the United Nations, “multilateralism” is always the goal. Yet so is the quest for a coherent storyline that unites all 193 member states and their ideas. Those two holy grails often find themselves at odds when leaders gather each September at the United Nations — a construct whose very name can be a two-word contradiction.

You hear a lot about “the narrative” these days in politics (and everywhere else). It's a way to punch through the static and make sure people are absorbing your message — and, ultimately, doing what you want them to do. But how to establish a coherent storyline when the very notion of many nations with many voices is baked into the pie to begin with?

Which raises the bigger question, the one that sits beneath it all at this assembling of people trying to figure out how to run their patches of the planet and be part of an increasingly interconnected civilization: With the 21st century unfolding in all of its unimaginable complexities and conundrums, with fracture and fragmentation everywhere, can the world even be governed?

“Yes, it can, but only in the sense that the world has ever been governed, including in this highly institutionalized and regulated world — that is, minimally," Jeffrey Martinson, an associate professor of political science at Meredith College in North Carolina, said in an email.

That truth becomes evident listening to the first two days of leaders' speeches at the U.N. General Assembly this week. They are, to put it mildly, a global festival of competing wants and needs and complaints and demands — with climate and war and public health and inequality at the center of it all, but fragmentation and chaos ever-present.

“The world,” said Wavel Ramkalawan, president of the island nation of Seychelles, “stands at the brink.”

His sentiment embodies the main challenge that surfaces each year since shortly after World War II when leaders have gathered at the United Nations: how exactly to balance hope and cold reality.

For the past several years, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has set the tone with warnings of darkening skies. His imagery gets more dire each year, and this year he topped himself. First, in his opening speech Tuesday, he said that “our world is becoming unhinged.” Then, at a U.N. climate conference on Wednesday, he upped the ante even more — if that was possible — with the statement that humanity has “opened the gates of hell.”

Here's a sampling of what followed:

— "We are going through a crisis — possibly the most significant one since the end of the Second World War," said Alain Berset, the president of Switzerland.

— "We no longer trust any narratives," said Nataša Pirc Musar, the president of Slovenia.

— “We believe that the world ... needs to be reborn,” said El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

— “Time is running out for all of us," said Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo.

Not exactly excerpts from “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Yet in listening to the speeches, it became clear that some of this was merely an attention-getting device. Even Guterres, with his apocalyptic language, offered ways forward. His answer — unsurprising, since he hammers it home every year — is a world that is “multipolar” and multilateral, the collaborative foundations upon which the United Nations was founded.

“We are rapidly moving towards a multipolar world,” he said. “This is, in many ways, positive. It brings new opportunities for justice and balance in international relations. But multipolarity alone cannot guarantee peace."

Or even coherence. Being multilateral means shared responsibility, shared ideas, shared paths forward. And nations have internal constituencies that often prevent that kind of cooperation (Exhibit A: Some Americans' suspicion of the United Nations, a mostly advisory organization, as the path to a “one-world government”).

“The idea of a single governing body able to understand and address each country’s needs and aspirations has proved to be an illusion,” Andrea Molle, a scholar in sociology and political science at Chapman University in California, said in an email. “One of the axioms of the system of international relations is that such a system is intrinsically anarchic.”

Anarchic is right. That’s going to happen when those 193 members try to form a family and get along under one roof. But the goal — a shared vision, but multilateral — is always the United Nations' most elusive quarry.

“We seem incapable of coming together to respond,” Guterres said in his opening speech Tuesday. Here's the thing, though: He may have been right, but he was also wrong.

Because before him sat scores of leaders and deputy leaders and ministers and diplomats, who traveled a total of more than a million miles to be on one patch of land in New York City to talk, to hear others talk and to try to work it out. It's chaos, but it's chaos sublimated.

“One can argue this question of governance has always plagued the United Nations,” Katie Laatikainen, a professor of political science and international relations at Adelphi University in New York, said in an email. “Perhaps governing and a unified narrative are too ambitious for an organization like the U.N. Creative problem-solving and inclusion are worthy goals of multilateralism, and the U.N. has a respectable record in that regard.”

Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's also what makes the most intricate era in human history governable: Sometimes we don't just kill each other. Sometimes, like this week, we draw together with all our contentiousness and all our ego, and we sit down and try to work it out. Maybe that act of trying is the entire point.

___

Ted Anthony, the director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, has been writing about international affairs since 1995 and covering the U.N. General Assembly since 2018. Find him at http://twitter.com/anthonyted

Biden Says GOP Under Trump ‘Gutted’ US Immigration System

Jordan Fabian and Alicia Diaz
Thu, September 21, 2023



(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden lambasted Republicans over the migration crisis, saying they gutted the immigration system during Donald Trump’s presidency and have since failed to provide him with necessary funding to address the situation.

“MAGA Republicans in Congress and my predecessor spent four years gutting the immigration system,” Biden said Thursday at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual gala.“They continue to undermine our border security today, blocking bipartisan reform.”

Biden said he had already delivered more than $1 billion in funds appropriated by Congress to states and cities receiving an influx of migrants.

“I’ve requested more funding, but instead of stepping up to the solution, Republicans are threatening to shut down the government,” he said.

The event was an opportunity for the president to hone his message to Latino voters as he ramps up his 2024 reelection campaign. Latinos’ attitudes toward Biden have soured, presenting a problem for a president who needs to maximize support from them to win a second term.

Biden highlighted his accomplishments including lowering the Latino unemployment rate, offering relief from student loan debt that he said fell heaviest on non-White borrowers and supporting Latino small businesses and entrepreneurs.

But immigration, which has been a sore spot for Biden, was a centerpiece of his address. Republicans have accused the president of fueling historic crossings at the US-Mexico border by supporting policies that are too welcoming toward migrants.

Some Democratic big-city leaders accepting tens of thousands of migrants, such as New York City Mayor Eric Adams, have said the administration has not provided enough support. At the same time, immigrant-rights advocates fault the president for not putting enough political capital behind a push to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws earlier in his term.

The Biden administration on Wednesday moved to temporarily shield 472,000 Venezuelans from deportation and allow them to apply for work permits, under pressure from city leaders who say one of their biggest financial burdens is the migrants’ lack of ability to work as they wait for their court cases to proceed.

The announcement seemed to quell Adams’ criticism for now. The mayor said he “personally spoke” to the White House to thank the administration for the decision.

“I am hopeful that we can continue to partner with President Biden to extend Temporary Protected Status to the tens of thousands of other migrants in our care from other countries.” Adams said.

On Thursday, the administration announced that it was expanding the number of Afghans eligible for temporary protected status, shielding them from deportation and allowing them to seek work permits. That change will cover an additional 14,600 Afghan migrants.

Biden has defended his actions, saying his administration is doing all it can to assist states and cities feeding and housing migrants but that congressional action is needed to fix the system.

“I’ve also directed my team to make historic increase in the number of refugees admitted from Latin America. People fleeing violence and persecution, who simply want their kids to have a better life,” he added. “Next week by team will consult with Congress on this plan.”

The president requested $4 billion from Congress for border security and migration mitigation in an emergency spending measure. That package faces an uphill road to passage, with the Republican-led House girding for a clash with Democrats on their own border demands as part of a fight over how to avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1.

Biden won 65% of Latino voters in his 2020 race against Donald Trump, according to exit polls. But he is under-performing in a hypothetical rematch, winning just 47% of Latinos, according to a New York Times polling

California is engaged in the world’s largest dam removal project in hopes of letting nature rebound

Maura Barrett and Jackie Montalvo and Cate Waters
Updated Thu, September 21, 2023 


California removing dams along Klamath River to restore wildlife

NBC’s Maura Barrett goes off-roading with the team working on the largest dam removal project in the Klamath River on the California-Oregon border. All four decade-old dams should be removed by the end of 2024 for the sake of the environment.

HORNBROOK, Calif. — This time next year, a series of massive dams that block off the Klamath River will no longer exist. The soil and rocks originally dug and transported from a nearby mountain in the 1950s will be returned to their home and the river will run freely again.

The Iron Gate Dam, which opened in 1964 as the last of four dams that, at nearly 200 feet tall each, regulated the flow of the river and time releases for the local water supply in Northern California, is now part of the world’s largest dam removal and river restoration project. Iron Gate is scheduled to be the final stop for decommissioning crews.

One of the dams, Copco2, was removed earlier this year in just a handful of months. It was a relatively quick undertaking, considering the construction of the Iron Gate Dam took nearly a decade.

Mark Bransom, the CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, said the river will be able to flow freely once the dam’s infrastructure is removed. He also said they have plans to help nature take back the area.

“As soon as the reservoir is drained, we’ll get out on the footprint there and begin some initial restoration activity,” Bransom said. “We want to stabilize the remaining sediments using native vegetation.”

NBC News correspondent Maura Barrett speaks with Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, overlooking the Iron Gate Dam. (NBC News)

In the age of extreme heat, record-setting drought and catastrophic flooding linked to climate change, there’s been a national push to “rewild,” a movement rooted in restoring nature to the state it was before human intervention, hoping this helps mitigate the effects of climate change.

A big part of that effort is centered around dams, many of which were originally constructed when infrastructural development took priority over environmental protection.

“One of the fastest ways to heal a river is to remove a dam,” Ann Willis, the California regional director for American Rivers, a nonprofit focused on protecting clean water, said. “The good news is, when you have the opportunity to unjam a river, the river can start to restore itself almost from the moment that the water starts flowing again.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the governing body responsible for maintaining the National Inventory of Dams, has flagged 76% of existing U.S. dams as having “high hazard potential,” a FEMA designation “for any dam whose failure or mis-operation will cause loss of human life and significant property destruction.” In the case of the Iron Gate Dam, Willis pointed out the green growth floating on the stagnant reservoir’s surface: toxic algae in what is supposed to be a water supply source. And because of aged-out infrastructure, some dams can put people in danger of catastrophic flooding, as more extreme climate events become more common.

Advocates, largely driven by tribal activists along the Klamath River, have been pushing for these dams to be decommissioned for more than 20 years and have pointed out the potential determinants from the start — notably, the near extinction of the salmon in the river has forced an elimination of the Karuk, Yurok and Hoopa tribes’ sacred practice of salmon ceremonies.

“Tribal input wasn’t sought,” said Barry McCovey Jr., the director of the Yurok Tribe Fisheries Department. “If we had input, we would have said, ‘No, this isn’t a good idea, you can’t cut a river in half with the dam. You can’t stop fish from migrating. It’s going to throw the ecosystem out of balance. You’re going to see a cascade of effects that’s going to last for generations.’”

McCovey expressed excitement now that the removal has finally begun, calling it “the biggest single restorative action that we can take to start to bring balance back to the ecosystem.” He warned that it could take considerable time to see the impacts.

“But that’s OK. We’re in this for the long run,” he said.

The massive project does come with a cost for local communities: $500 million paid for by taxpayers and those who contract with PacifiCorps, the local electric power company. Some homeowners expressed concern about decreased property values, now that their homes will no longer be on the waterfront. The Siskiyou County Water Users Association, which has been fighting the project for about a decade, filed a federal lawsuit to no avail.

The Renewal Corporation, environmentalists and the tribes argue that the cost is worth to restore nature to its roots and they point to the success of the Elwha Dam Removal project on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state in 2011. That project restored the river’s natural flow, which enabled salmon to return almost immediately, and rebuilt a beach and lagoon that had been deprived of sediment for decades.

Advocates across the country hope to add the Klamath River as another success as they look ahead to even larger projects — like the current $33.5 billion federal proposal to breach four dams on the lower Snake River in eastern Washington.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

F-35 911 call: 'We’ve got a pilot in our house, and he says he got ejected'

Josh Cradduck and Phil Helsel and Mosheh Gains and Laura Strickler
Fri, September 22, 2023 



Pilot of missing F-35 says ‘aircraft failure’ forced him to eject

Newly released 911 audio reveals the pilot of an F-35 fighter jet speaking to a dispatcher, saying he ejected at 2,000 feet due to “aircraft failure.” NBC’s Blayne Alexander reports for TODAY.

“I guess we’ve got a pilot in our house, and he says he got ejected.”

That was the 911 call received in Charleston County, South Carolina, after an F-35B Lightning II fighter jet's pilot ejected Sunday, parachuting into a home's backyard, according to audio released by the county government.

The debris from the jet's crash was found Monday.

In the 911 call, the dispatcher at first appears surprised by the caller: "I'm sorry — what happened?"

"We've got a pilot in the house, and I guess he landed in my backyard, and we're trying to see if we could get an ambulance to the house, please," the caller responds.


The pilot gets on the call a short time later and says he is 47 years old, that he ejected at around 2,000 feet after "an aircraft failure" and had some back pain.

"We have a military jet crash. I’m the pilot. We need to get rescue rolling. I’m not sure where the airplane is," the pilot tells the dispatcher. "It would have crash-landed somewhere. I ejected."

The pilot also asks whether a plane crash had been reported in the area.

Later that day, Joint Base Charleston and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort asked on social media for help finding the stealth aircraft. The joint base asked people to call its defense operations center if they had any information.

Searchers later found a debris field in Williamsburg County, about two hours northeast of Joint Base Charleston, officials said Monday evening.

Eyewitnesses said the plane was flying "inverted" before the crash.

No injuries on the ground have been reported. The crash is under investigation.

The jet belongs to a training squadron of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing.

It took off from Joint Base Charleston on Sunday afternoon, and was was one of two planes involved in a routine training flight, Capt. Joe Leitner, spokesperson for the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, told reporters, according to The Post and Courier newspaper.

The pilot was taken to a hospital and discharged Monday afternoon, Defense Department officials said.

Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin describes the F-35 series on its website as the “most advanced fighter jet in the world,” as well as the “most lethal, stealthy and survivable aircraft.” The Marines declared the first squadron operational in 2015.

The F-35 program is one of the Defense Department’s most expensive, costing taxpayers a total of $1.7 trillion over its lifespan.

But a government watchdog report released Thursday highlights ongoing maintenance delays, showing the fighter jets are “mission capable” only 55% of the time.

“If the aircraft can only perform 55% of the time and the goal is 85 to 90% of the time, taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth,” said Diana Maurer, who authored the report for the Government Accountability Office.

Opinion: It’s not just about its colonial past. Here’s what India’s possible name change is all about

Opinion by Akanksha Singh

CNN
Wed, September 20, 2023 

Akanksha Singh - Courtesy of Akanksha Singh

Editor’s Note: Akanksha Singh is a Mumbai-based writer whose work has appeared in the BBC, The Independent, South China Morning Post and numerous other publications. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. 

India has changed the names of many of its towns and cities over the years. The port city and one-time capital Calcutta became Kolkata in 2001. The name of India’s financial capital Bombay, was changed to Mumbai in 1996. That same year, Madras was renamed Chennai. Over the years, even some roads, railway stations and markets have been renamed. The idea, we Indians were told each time, was to allow the nation to make a clean break once and for all with its colonial past.

Now, the most dramatic rebranding of all may be in the offing.

Earlier this month, India hosted the G20 gathering of the world’s richest nations. A dinner invitation from Indian President Droupadi Murmu described her as the “President of Bharat,” prompting rampant speculation in political and journalistic circles that a formal name change could be in the country’s future.

As the inaugural G20 sessions got underway, suspicions heightened: The nameplate at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s seat identifying the country he represented read “Bharat” instead of “India.” Indian officials, meanwhile, wore badges with the words “Bharat Official.”

Those clues dropped at the G20 might have been a long run-up to a grand unveiling.

Various media outlets are reporting that the Modi government may put forward a resolution during a special session of India’s parliament this week to officially change the country’s name to Bharat, although no agenda has been officially announced. On Tuesday, Modi proposed a new name for the old parliament building itself, suggesting it be called Samvidhan Sadan going forward.

The question on the minds of many people who follow events in India, is why any name change would be needed. Bharat, which means “India” in Hindi, is already one of the country’s two official names. In fact, Article 1 of the nation’s constitution, reads: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a union of states.”

What seems patently clear to me is that this proposed rebranding has nothing to do with stamping out the vestiges of a reviled colonial past. The goal, which has been at the forefront of the Modi government’s agenda, is to erase every facet of Indian history that doesn’t feed its right-wing Hindu ideology.

Indeed, the state goal of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is to make India a “Hindu rashtra (nation).” A name change to “Bharat” would be, first and foremost, about Hindu nationalism. It’s an opportunity to double down on India’s Hindu identity, even in the name by which it is called. Wiping away the vestiges of British rule, is no longer the main goal, if indeed it ever was.

Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has made life increasingly difficult for India’s 200 million Muslims, the country’s largest minority group, (they make up about 14% of the population) which faces discrimination in finding work and in getting an education, and who increasingly are targets of communal violence.

Since his reelection in 2019, conditions for India’s Muslims have only worsened, as the government ramps up policies that critics say attempt to divest Muslims of their rights and seeks to disenfranchise them.

Against that backdrop, the name changes being carried out by the Modi government may seem a comparatively small slight, but erasure is yet another insult to an already beleaguered community. Indeed, in recent years, several towns and cities whose names reflect the Muslim empires that dominated the Indian subcontinent centuries ago have been renamed by BJP governments.

In 2018, the northern city of Allahabad, founded by Mughal emperor Akbar, was changed to Prayagraj. A nearby historic railway exchange, Mughalsarai Junction was renamed Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction, honoring a 20th century Hindu nationalist leader, after being scrubbed of the name Mughalsarai. The list of name changes is long and growing.

The decision by Modi’s move to signal the name change at the G20 was curious. For months before the start of the event, officials planning the event had been referring to the host country as “India.” Perhaps the idea was to field test the new name at the G20, where the world would be watching, to gauge what international reaction would be, and to sniff out possible public disapproval within India.

In fact, there has been considerable opposition to changing India’s name. During a recent European tour to meet with politicians and prominent members of the Indian diaspora, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi called the proposition of a name change “absurd.”

Even if Modi proposes renaming the country as Bharat, some experts say changing India’s name would require a constitutional amendment and therefore two-thirds support of both houses of parliament — a heavy lift, since the opposition would be unlikely to support it. The debate is a live one, however: Some disagree, saying that no amendment to the constitution would be needed to change India’s name.

If the measure were to succeed, there would a price to pay, as there always is for these kinds of sweeping, symbolic changes. According to some, this particular name change could cost tens of millions of dollars. Landmarks would have to be re-inscribed, maps redrawn, books reprinted.

And in the event that this name change goes through, there’s the question of how it is to be put into place and how far officials plan to take the name change. Does the RBI – the Reserve Bank of India – become the RBB? Do the country’s Indian Institutes of Technology become BITs? Has any of this even been thought through?

It’s an enormous expenditure of capital in what is the world’s fifth largest economy, which has the world’s largest population, but a per capita income that is one-quarter that of China’s.

What else might Modi do with those funds to improve the lives of the people of India (or Bharat, if you must)? And where else might he direct the nation’s focus and energies? For starters India is  roiling with rampant ethnic violence. I’ve not heard Modi address the alarming spiral of violence in the northeastern state of Manipur, from where a particularly horrific sexual assault captured on video continues to shock the conscience of the nation.

Here are some things I’d address in Modi’s shoes: Several activists, poets, lawyers, journalists, academics, and musicians are still in jail under a draconian “anti-terror” law that the government exercises at its own will, without accountability or any indication of a timeline. I think that the world’s largest democracy might work toward living up to the name and free or at the very least, properly prosecute those activists who have been imprisoned.

I might also look for ways to address the country’s staggeringly high unemployment rates. And perhaps the government could look for ways to address the plight of women, religious minorities and caste-based minorities remain unsafe, while its  human rights record is getting worse all the time.

There are some hopeful signs. The United Nations and humanitarian groups have condemned New Delhi’s actions against the Muslim minority, although BJP has repeatedly pushed back against criticisms, stating somewhat duplicitously that it “respects all religions.”

Encouragingly, earlier this year, amid the headlong rush to rename India’s towns and villages, the Supreme Court rejected a petition to rename vast numbers of historical sites, saying that the proposal went against the principle of secularism enshrined in the Constitution.

“We are secular and supposed to protect the Constitution. You are concerned about the past and dig it up to place its burden on the present,” the court ruling said.

Very much so. And it’s a message Modi and his political companions should heed.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Chicago Sues Monsanto, Univar for Contaminating City’s Water

Kim Chipman and Tarso Veloso
Wed, September 20, 2023 




(Bloomberg) -- Chicago is suing Bayer AG’s Monsanto and Univar Solutions Inc. for polluting the city’s water, air and soil with chemicals the companies knew were harmful to humans.

The complaint, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, seeks financial compensation for expenses related to cleaning up contamination with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The city argues the companies “misled the public” and released these chemicals despite knowing they were dangerous to humans and the environment.

The lawsuit follows a similar cases by other cities and states including Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon and Delaware. The pollution has also caused valuable private property in the city to be abandoned, hurting the community, according to Chicago’s complaint filed on Tuesday.

“Monsanto knew for decades that its commercial PCB formulations were highly toxic,” Johnson, who took over in May, said in a statement on Wednesday. He added that the contamination perpetuated “the environmental abuse and stark inequities so many of Chicago’s neighborhoods have long suffered from.”

This isn’t the first time Mayor Brandon Johnson sues big businesses. Last month the city took action against Kia Corp. and Hyundai Motor Co. for failing to include engine immobilizers in various models, causing a spike in car thefts.

Bayer AG, which acquired Monsanto in 2018, said the company has never manufactured or disposed of PCBs in or near Chicago and that the products alleged to be the source of pollution were made by third parties and not Monsanto.

Univar didn’t respond to a request for comment.

PCBs are chemicals that were widely used in a variety of products including paint and varnishes, electrical equipment, insecticides, and coolants until they were banned in the late 1970s. Releases from products produced before then continue to drain into Lake Michigan through municipal storm water, the city said.

Illinois has placed limits on daily PCBs discharges from Chicago and new rules require the city to reduce releases by an estimated 99.6%, according to the statement. As a result, the city is seeking to recover “significant costs” to comply with the regulations.

POSTMODERN HUAC
Mississippi auditor says several college majors indoctrinate students and should be defunded

MICHAEL GOLDBERG
Updated Thu, September 21, 2023 

Republican Mississippi State Auditor Shad White speaks at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss., July 29, 2021. Calling numerous social science and humanities degree programs “indoctrination factories,” Mississippi's auditor says the state should defund several college majors and invest in subjects that match the state's workforce needs.

 (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File) 

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Calling numerous social science and humanities degree programs “indoctrination factories,” Mississippi's auditor says the state should defund several college majors and invest in subjects that match the state's workforce needs.

In a report published Tuesday, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White, a Republican, argued that the state should change its approach to funding its public universities. He proposed tying public investment to workforce needs instead of providing funds without regard for the degree programs, as has traditionally been the case. Too many college graduates are leaving Mississippi, and aligning degree programs with labor market demand might stem the tide, White said.

In numerous statements on social media leading up to the report's publication, White said there should be no taxpayer funding for “useless degrees" in “garbage fields” like Urban Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, German Literature, African American Studies, Gender Studies and Women's Studies. Claiming some academic programs are hotbeds of political radicalization, White's statements and his report arrive as education, from K-12 to the university level, remains at the center of America's culture wars.

A Florida law enacted in May bars curricula that teach “identity politics” or theories about race, gender and sexuality disfavored by conservatives. A raft of legislation passed by Republican-controlled legislatures curtails diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public universities.

White leaned into the ideological fights roiling higher education in his social media commentary. But the report released by his office focuses on elevating some majors over others as a solution to Mississippi's brain drain — a phenomenon that sees significant numbers of college graduates earning their degrees in the mostly rural state and then departing for bigger paychecks and expanded cultural opportunities.

One way to stop the outmigration is to have the state increase funding in degree programs with higher earning potential right after graduating, such as in engineering or business management, according to White's report.

"Some high-paying degree programs were not likely to produce graduates who work in Mississippi, and this represents a missed opportunity for the state’s taxpayers," the report said. “Producing more of these graduates and then retaining even a small number of them would inject millions of additional dollars into Mississippi’s economy.”

At the same time, the state should cut taxpayer funding for programs in the social sciences, humanities and arts that aren't advantageous for the state’s economy, White said. He pointed to a 2023 Texas law that bases funding for community colleges on “measurable outcomes” like the number of degrees awarded in high-demand fields.

In an August 2022 analysis, Corey Miller and Sondra Collins, economists for Mississippi's Institutions of Higher Learning, said one likely factor at the root of the state's brain drain is an increasing segregation by education nationwide. In the mid-to-late 20th century, a smaller percentage of the U.S. population went to college, and those who did were distributed more evenly throughout the country.

Today, more people earn degrees. College graduates are concentrated in the nation’s urban centers. Unlike many nearby states, Mississippi's largest city, Jackson, has a shrinking population.

“This demographic shift has profound implications for the Mississippi economy given the college-educated share of the state’s population is one of the smallest in the country,” wrote Miller and Collins.

The share of Mississippi's population ages 25 and above who held at least a bachelor’s degree in 2020 was 22.8 %, which ranked 49th among all states, ahead of only West Virginia. In one online comment, White pointed to financial trouble and budget cuts at West Virginia's largest public university as a sign Mississippi should defund some degree programs.

On Sept. 15, West Virginia University's board voted to drop 28 of its majors and cut 143 faculty positions as it grapples with a $45 million budget shortfall. Among the cuts are one-third of the education department faculty and the entire world language department.

Republican Gov. Jim Justice pointed to “some level of bloating in programs and things that maybe, just maybe, we ought not to be teaching at WVU.”

White does not have the authority to regulate education funding, but the state legislature often uses reports from the auditor to evaluate government spending and weigh potential budget cuts. The auditor studied political science and economics at the University of Mississippi and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

___

Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.

 Lebanese troops rescue 27 migrants from sinking boat off Lebanon's coast

Associated Press
Sat, September 23, 2023

This photo released on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, by the Lebanese Army official website, shows a rubber boat with migrants during a rescue operation at the Mediterranean Sea, near the shores of the northern coastal town of Chekka, Lebanon. The Lebanese army and the country's civil defense recused early Saturday more than a few dozen migrants whose boat was sinking off the coast of north Lebanon, the military said in a statement.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Lebanese army and the country’s civil defense recused early Saturday 27 migrants whose boat was sinking off the coast of north Lebanon, the military said in a statement.

The army did not say where the migrants were heading nor did it give their nationalities.

Over the past years, thousands of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinian migrants took the dangerous trip from Lebanon across the Mediterranean seeking a better life in Europe. Such migrations intensified since the country’s historic economic meltdown began in October 2019.

Lebanon has hosted refugees for years. It has some 805,000 U.N.-registered Syrian refugees, but officials estimate the actual number to be between 1.5 million and 2 million. Lebanon is also home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, many living in 12 refugee camps scattered around the country.

Over the past months, thousands of Syrian citizens fleeing worsening economic conditions in their war-torn country made it to Lebanon through illegal crossing points seeking better opportunities. Lebanese officials have warned that the flow of Syrian refugees could create “harsh imbalances” negatively affecting the country's delicate demographic structure.

Last month, Lebanese troops detained dozens of Lebanese and Syrian traffickers in the country’s north while they were preparing to send migrants on boats to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea.

A boat carrying migrants from Lebanon capsized off Syria’s coast in September last year, leaving at least 94 people dead, one of the deadliest incidents involving migrants, and was followed by a wave of detentions of suspected smugglers.

In neighboring Syria, a navy patrol stopped a boat Saturday carrying migrants off the coast of Latakia, according to the pro-government Sham FM radio station. It gave no further details but such incidents are rare in Syria, where a 12-year conflict has killed half a million people and left large parts of the country in ruins.