Opinion: Voters are wise to Trump's economic con. Harris' plan for economy is far better

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Rex Huppke, USA TODAY
Tue, October 22, 2024 at 3:14 AM MDT 5 min read

This may come as a shock to some, but Donald Trump is not an economic genius. He’s a full-of-it fabulist who somehow branded himself a master of the economy despite leaving a long trail of bankruptcies and business failures in his wake.

Still, thanks to inflation and Trump’s incessant lie of having overseen the “greatest economy in the history of the world” while he was president, voters generally favored him on economic matters in the earlier months of the 2024 presidential race.

Not any more.

A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Monday found Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris effectively tied with Trump on the question of who would better handle the economy, in line with other polling. In the survey, she has a 5 percentage point lead over him on “cost of housing” and a 2 point lead on “jobs and unemployment.” Trump leads Harris by 2 points on “cost of groceries and gas.”

What changed?
Harris' 'opportunity economy' is resonating with voters
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris campaigns in Detroit on Oct. 19, 2024.

First, people had time to look over Harris’ plan for the economy, which includes expanding the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit, increasing tax deductions for small business, helping qualified first-time homebuyers with an average of $25,000 in assistance and raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%.

Harris’ campaign bills the plan as a way to build an “opportunity economy.”

Opinion: Trump's MAGA base might want to brace themselves – Harris could win

Her campaign has been helped by largely positive reviews from people who actually understand economics.

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reported Monday that the Social Security trust funds would be insolvent in only six years under another Trump presidency: “We find President Trump’s campaign proposals would dramatically worsen Social Security’s finances.”
Survey: 70% of economists say Trump's plan will increase inflation

Recently, the Financial Times and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business’ Clark Center for Global Markets surveyed several dozen economists from top universities. Asked which candidate’s plan would increase inflation, 70% of the economists said Trump’s, while only 3% said Harris’ would raise prices.

Goldman Sachs issued a September report that estimated job growth under Harris’ plan would be 30,000 jobs higher per month than if Trump won and had full Republican control of Congress.
Former President Donald Trump campaigns for reelection in Greenville, N.C., on Oct. 21, 2024.

On Oct. 14, the notoriously non-liberal Wall Street Journal reported on a quarterly survey the news organization had done: “Most economists think inflation, interest rates and deficits would be higher under the policies former President Donald Trump would pursue in a second administration than under those proposed by Vice President Kamala Harris.”


The Journal noted that the margin of economist surveyed who “say Trump’s policies are more likely to add to inflation, deficits and interest rates” has grown since July.
All Trump does is rant about tariffs and make absurd promises

So the movement toward Harris as a sound overseer of the U.S. economy is not just based on vibes.

And it’s probably not helping Trump that, in rallies and interviews, he talks about his economic plan by saying his favorite word is “tariffs,” repeating the phrase “drill, baby, drill” and promising he will magically make everything perfect.
The economy when Trump was president was not 'the greatest'

He leans heavily on his incorrect assessment of the economy when he was president. As the AP reported in May, the economic numbers “expose a far more complicated reality during Trump’s time in the White House. His tax cuts never delivered the promised growth. His budget deficits surged and then stayed relatively high under (the Biden administration). His tariffs and trade deals never brought back all of the lost factory jobs.”

Opinion: Harris did with Fox News what Trump can't do anywhere ‒ handle tough questions


In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Trump added 6.7 million jobs as president – that’s excluding the huge number of jobs lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Joe Biden has added 15 million jobs during his term.

By the end of Trump’s presidency, the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services had increased 36.3% from 2016. And the federal debt jumped from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.

Bottom line: It was a long way from the “greatest economy" in history.
The Biden-Harris economy is chugging along, giving the VP a tailwind

But Trump thinks voters aren’t smart enough to spot a con.

My guess is voters smell B.S., and they’re seeing and feeling encouraged by unmistakably strong economic indicators. Last month, U.S. companies blew away expectations and added a quarter-million jobs.
Vice President Kamala Harris greets supporters at her presidential campaign rally on Oct. 3, 2024, in Ripon, Wis.

The New York Times wrote of the September employment data: “By several measures, the job market is historically strong. People in their prime working years of 25 to 54 are employed at a rate previously seen only in the early 2000s. Average hourly earnings are strong – and climbing – even when adjusted for inflation. Women in their peak working ages 
And the stock market has been repeatedly hitting record highs.

Maybe voters are starting to notice Trump's economic con

Trump’s weird plan to enact outlandish tariffs will rattle the economy and pass costs along to consumers.

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Harris, on the other hand, has an economy with the wind at its back and a plan that's resonating. She’s talking to voters and promoting actual ideas supported by a wide array of economists.

All Trump is doing, as always, is selling himself.

Maybe voters are starting to see him for what he is: a cheap fraud, and one hell of a risky investment.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY

23 Nobel economic experts say Harris' plan 'vastly superior' to Trump's

Chris Benson
Wed, October 23, 2024

Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Nearly two dozen winners of the renowned Nobel Prize in economics said Vice President Kamala Harris' economic agenda is "vastly superior" to that of the current Republican presidential nominee.

"Simply put, Harris' policies will result in a stronger economic performance, with economic growth that is more robust, more sustainable, and more equitable," wrote 23 Nobel Prize laureates in an open letter obtained Wednesday.

The list of 23 Nobel recipients represents more than half of the living U.S. holders of the coveted international award.

The Federal Reserve's recent interest rate cut and September's employment data that shows hiring has increased with a dropping rate of unemployment indicates to experts a robust U.S. economy moving in the right direction.

Economists widely view former President Donald Trump's tariff and tax policies as inflationary and will keep expanding the already trillion-dollar federal deficit.

Meanwhile, compared to Trump's policies, Harris would be "a far better steward of our economy," the letter said, although both campaigns have yet to outline specifics. But Trump, they note, "threatens" the rule of law which they added is key to economic success.

Harris has made an "opportunity economy" a centerpiece of her presidential campaign that, among other things, looks at future entrepreneurs to help jumpstart small businesses, cutting inflation, price gouging and first-time homebuyer incentives.

Trump economic policies, the noted economic experts wrote, "including high tariffs even on goods from our friends and allies and regressive tax cuts for corporations and individuals, will lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality."

This new letter was led by the noted economist Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor who won the Nobel Prize in 2001. And it marks the second such letter Stiglitz has spearheaded with other laureates.

In June, 16 Noble Prize-winning economists also wrote that if Trump wins the presidency on Nov. 5., it will "reignite inflation."

At the time, the Trump campaign was dismissive and critical, calling the economic experts "worthless" and "out of touch."

"Harris' economic agenda will improve our nation's health, investment, sustainability, resilience, employment opportunities, and fairness," according to this new letter.

But Wednesday's 228-word letter is shorter, more pointed and included two of the three most recent Nobel recipients, Simon Johnson and Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Among the most important determinants of economic success are the rule of law and economic and political certainty, and Trump threatens all of these," the economists wrote.

Nobel laureates endorse Harris economic agenda
Tobias Burns
Wed, October 23, 2024

Winners of the Nobel Prize in economics are backing Vice President Harris’s vision for the economy, calling it “vastly better” to that of former President Trump.

“Harris’s economic agenda will improve our nation’s health, investment, sustainability, resilience, employment opportunities, and fairness,” economic laureates Daron Acemoglu, Esther Duflo, William Nordhaus and 20 others wrote in an open letter.

The economists criticized Trump’s plan for the economy, calling out his plans to greatly increase tariffs, which has been met with staunch resistance from many policy experts in Washington.

“His policies, including high tariffs even on goods from our friends and allies and regressive tax cuts for corporations and individuals, will lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality,” they wrote.

Economic agendas from both Harris and Trump have not been fully laid out yet, but they have been given a few defining features.

Harris wants to go after price gouging, help aspiring entrepreneurs start small businesses and provide incentives for first-time homebuyers, among other proposals.

Trump is promising to alter the U.S. revenue structure by imposing a general tariff on imported goods. He has also pledged a number of new tax breaks.

Trump’s plans would add significantly more to the U.S. deficit than Harris’s, according to various budgetary summaries and analyses.

U.S. debt levels ballooned following the pandemic, as the government under both the Trump and Biden administrations sent out trillions in fiscal stimulus, both to individuals and businesses.

That stimulus contributed to the inflation that weighed on President Biden’s economic approval ratings throughout his term. As supply chains returned to normal and the stimulus was absorbed into the economy, prices have since fallen back down toward a 2-percent annual increase.

A monetary tightening cycle undertaken by the Federal Reserve helped to keep inflation expectations anchored.

The fact that inflation has come down without a recession has been hailed by economists as a serious achievement and could be a hallmark of the Biden administration’s legacy.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The Hill.

Billionaire sex saga is latest scandal to hit Australia CEOs

Angus Whitley
Thu 24 October 2024 

(Bloomberg) — The sex-for-investment scandal that swiftly deposed Australian tech billionaire Richard White is just the latest corporate calamity in a country fast losing its reputation as a tightly-regulated market with strict governance standards.

More than A$7.7 billion ($5.1 billion) of market value has been wiped from WiseTech Global Ltd. (AU000000WTC3.SG, WIGBY) this week before White suddenly stepped down as chief executive officer late Thursday. His resignation followed a series of ever-worsening media reports and claims, including that he’d paid millions of dollars to a former partner to settle allegations of inappropriate behavior.

Ultimately, White’s three-decade tenure at the helm of the freight-software giant he founded unraveled in four tumultuous days.

The crisis finally overwhelmed WiseTech and its figurehead CEO on Thursday after the Australian Financial Review reported a former board member had accused White of intimidation and bullying. The newspaper earlier said White also had a years-long relationship with an employee before gifting her a A$7 million waterfront house in Melbourne. The transaction wasn’t disclosed to the board, the report said.

Richard White, CEO of Wisetech, in Alexandria. August 13th, 2024 (Photo by Dominic Lorrimer / The Australian Financial Review via Getty Images) · Fairfax Media via Getty Images

While the statement announcing White’s departure didn’t address the multiple allegations leveled at the former CEO, WiseTech said law firms Herbert Smith Freehills and Seyfarth Shaw LLP have been hired to assist a board investigation into the claims.

White isn’t leaving the company completely. After taking a short break he will commence a new role focused on product and business development. His new 10-year contract as a consultant comes with a two-year notice period, while his A$1 million annual salary is unchanged.
Cascading Scandals

In a matter of months, accusations of operational or ethical failures have also hit Australia’s two dominant supermarkets, one of the major banks, the largest insurer, the biggest listed media company and Sydney’s main casino.

Another tycoon founder, Mineral Resources Ltd.’s (MIN.AX) Chris Ellison, also this week found himself embroiled in scandal with the company investigating historic undeclared payments that helped him avoid tax. Australia’s corporate watchdog has launched a probe, and almost A$2 billion has been slashed from the miner’s market value since Monday.

The mining magnate described his actions in a statement on Monday as “a poor decision and a serious lapse of judgment.” He had subsequently “voluntarily” disclosed the matters to the Australian Taxation Office in full, with all outstanding tax, penalties and interest repaid. The company’s board said earlier this week it retained confidence in Ellison.

While executive or corporate transgressions are a worldwide phenomenon, it seems to be particularly pronounced in Australia, where a confluence of factors come into play. Many of the country’s largest industries — aviation, banking, groceries and retailing — are duopolies or oligopolies, comfortable environments that can be conducive for market-power abuse.

Australia is home to only 27 million people and has a relatively small pool of independent board directors to oversee listed companies. Many directors have roles at multiple businesses. Advocacy groups have long said board members are reluctant to speak out when standards lapse at one company for fear of losing a board position at another firm.

That’s not the only problem. Some of the country’s watchdogs are either short of resources, have few corporate scalps to their name, or dish out fines that do little to deter bad behavior. Star Entertainment Group Ltd. (SGR.AX) was this month fined just A$15 million — less than 1% of revenue — by its regulator after an inquiry found the casino operator had breached its license several times and was unfit to run its flagship Sydney complex, despite having had two years to address its problems.

The head of a Senate inquiry into the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the country’s primary corporate regulator, in July described the agency as “an organization without transparency, few prosecutions, and a litany of cultural, structural and governance issues.”

One of the most damning assessments of an Australian workplace came only last week when Nine Entertainment Co. (NEC.AX), publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and the AFR, released an independent review of its own practices. The report uncovered systemic abuses of power and authority, bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment.

At too many businesses, internal governance measures aren’t detecting problems before they develop into major public scandals, said Rahat Munir, a professor at Macquarie University’s business school who leads the department of accounting and corporate governance. Australia’s geographical remoteness, far from the world’s major financial and corporate hubs, means its companies risk operating in their own bubble, he said.

“As a result, it’s very, very easy to manipulate the local market,” he said.
WiseTech Woes

In a country with one of the planet’s biggest pension pools, where worker contributions are mandatory, everyday savers are picking up the tab when stock prices decline.

At WiseTech, shareholders who have suffered losses this week include Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, along with its largest pension fund, AustralianSuper Pty. WiseTech shares fell 6.3% Thursday.

“We should all be concerned that these are not isolated examples, but a pattern of behavior that is causing direct losses to shareholders,” said Brendan Lyon, a professor with the University of Wollongong’s faculty of business and law. Corporate regulation is failing, Lyon said.


Former director Christine Holman accused White of “sustained intimidation and bullying” as she quit the board in October 2019 after less than a year, the AFR reported Thursday. The AFR said it wasn’t suggesting White bullied or intimidated Holman, only that she accused him of doing so. Holman declined to comment to the newspaper.

AGL Energy Ltd., where Holman is now a board member, forwarded her an interview request from Bloomberg News earlier this week, which she declined. AGL didn’t reply to a fresh request from Bloomberg on Thursday for comment from Holman on her reported resignation letter from WiseTech.

He last week reached an out-of-court settlement with an another alleged former lover he was pursuing for bankruptcy, the case that first thrust him into the media spotlight. The woman had alleged White expected her to have sex with him in exchange for an investment in her business.

—With assistance from Amy Bainbridge, Ainsley Thomson and Georgina McKay.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Arrested Philippine televangelist confronted in the Senate by women he's accused of sexually abusing

JIM GOMEZ and AARON FAVILA
Wed, October 23, 2024 at 

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo, right, talks beside Undersecretary Gary Domingo and Commission on Human Right Chairperson Richard Palpal-latoc, right, attend a senate inquiry for detained Filipino preacher Apollo Quiboloy at the Philippine Senate Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)


MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Former followers of an arrested Filipino televangelist confronted him in a Senate hearing Wednesday, accusing him of repeatedly abusing them sexually by portraying the assaults as their religious duty to the “appointed son of God."

Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who was brought to the Senate under heavy police security, denied the allegations from several women, including some from Ukraine as well as the Philippines. He challenged his accusers to file criminal complaints so he could face them in court.

The 74-year-old preacher said he could not discuss his response because criminal charges against him, including sexually abusing women and human trafficking, were already being heard in two Philippine courts.


Yulya Voronina told the Senate hearing through a video link from Ukraine that Quiboloy and his key aides allegedly forced her and other victims into agreeing to have sex with him through religious deception and coercion.

"They always used the Bible as an instrument to convince us to do it,” she said, adding that at least nine other Ukrainian women became members of Quiboloy’s group, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, based in the southern Philippine city of Davao.

The women took steps to avoid being sexually abused but Voronina said Quiboloy had access to their rooms in the sprawling religious complex, and his aides also helped coerce them into submission.

"If you say, `I don’t want,’ Quiboloy would say, `you will go to hell,’” Voronina said. “They will punish and call us, scold us in a meeting and put us in shame, saying that we were ungrateful because the pastor gave us everything.”

She managed to leave eventually and returned to Ukraine.

Filipina Teresita Valdehueza testified at the Senate hearing that she became a member of Quiboloy’s church at age 17 in 1980 as part of her deep faith. She revered him for years but said she was also sexually abused by him eventually in a Philippine hotel like three other Filipino women she knew who alternately slept with him.

Quiboloy “violated me with his lustful act that left me in shock," Valdehueza said. After the assault, she said he told her, “This is the fulfillment of God’s revelation."

“Quiboloy presented himself like a god and gradually took over the mind and bodies of his victims,” said Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who led the Senate hearing. He “presided over a malicious and systematic subversion of personal will, autonomy and dignity to make his victims participants in their own abuse — psychological, sexual, physical and economic.”

Philippine police officials investigating Quiboloy told senators that up to 200 women may have been victimized by him over many years, including 68 sexual abuse victims who have been identified by them.

Aside from the criminal charges he's facing in two Philippine courts, Quiboloy may have to answer more criminal complaints, according to police officials, who alleged during the Senate hearing that Quiboloy's organization maintained an armed group, which may have committed criminal violations.

Once among the most influential religious televangelists in the Philippines, Quiboloy backed the successful 2016 candidacy of President Rodrigo Duterte, whose deadly anti-drugs crackdown is being investigated by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.

In response to a question, Quiboloy told the Senate that his church has about 7 million members and supporters worldwide. But police officials disputed his claim and said he has fewer than 8,000 followers in the Philippines and abroad.

Early this year, Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest and that of several others over allegations of child and sexual abuse and human trafficking. The Philippine Senate separately ordered his arrest for failing to appear at committee hearings investigating the allegations.

He faced similar criminal charges in the United States, where federal prosecutors in 2021 announced his indictment, along with two of his top administrators. The expanded indictment contained a raft of charges, including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.

A U.S. federal warrant for Quiboloy’s arrest was issued in November 2021 and he landed on the FBI’s most-wanted list, his face splashed on the agency’s globally circulated posters of fugitives.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo told the Senate hearing there has been no request by the United States so far for Quiboloy's extradition. The preacher has accused U.S. authorities of conspiring with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against him, a charge the Philippine leader has denied.

Former Abercrombie and Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries is arrested for sex trafficking

Athena Stavrou
Tue 22 October 2024 


ABERCROMBIE-&-FITCH-CEO ARRESTO (AP)

The former CEO of fashion giant Abercrombie & Fitch has been arrested on sex trafficking charges following a major FBI investigation.

Mike Jeffries, his partner Matthew Smith and another alleged middleman were arrested on Tuesday morning in connection with a federal sex-trafficking and interstate prostitution probe.

The investigation was opened last year following claims that Mr Jeffries and his partner had sexually abused and exploited men at events in New York and around the world.


A lawyer representing some of the alleged victims confirmed the arrests in a statement to the BBC and said: “These arrests are a huge first step towards obtaining justice for the many victims who were exploited and abused through this sex-trafficking scheme that operated for many years under the legitimate cover Abercrombie provided.”

Mr Jeffries and Mr Smith have both previously denied any wrongdoing.

(BERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty Images)

The former boss of the international clothing company stepped down in 2014 following declining sales. He left with a retirement package valued at around £20.5m ($25m) according to company filings at the time.

He was then subsequently accused of running a sex trafficking operation. Under US law, sex trafficking includes getting an adult to travel to another state or country to have sex for money by using force, fraud or coercion.

David Bradberry, a former model for Abercrombie & Fitch, sued the fashion retailer alleging it allowed Mr Jeffries to run the alleged operation during his 22-year tenure at the helm.

Bradberry, then 23, said that it was “made clear” to him that without performing oral sex on the alleged middleman, he would not be meeting Mr Jeffries.

“It was like he was selling fame. And the price was compliance,” Mr Bradberry told the BBC.

ABERCROMBIE-&-FITCH-CEO ARRESTO (AP)

Mr Bradberry said he later attended a party at Mr Jeffries’s mansion in the Hamptons in Long Island where he met Mr Jeffries and had sex with him.

The lawsuit was filed following a BBC investigation that found that Mr Jeffries and his British partner allegedly exploited young adult men for sex at events hosted by them in London, New York, and Marrakesh.

It accused Mr Jeffries of exploiting his position to “ensnare” more than 100 male victims with free clothes and gift cards, and false promises about modeling opportunities, according to the Delaware complaint.

Abercrombie & Fitch in a statement in October said: “For close to a decade, a new executive leadership team and refreshed board of directors have successfully transformed our brands and culture into the values-driven organization we are today.”

“We have zero tolerance for abuse, harassment or discrimination of any kind.”

Lauren Boebert slams Harris and Biden for protecting ‘ugly’ animal

Kelly Rissman
Wed, October 23, 2024 at 11:09 AM MDT·2 min read
2.3k

Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert blasted the Biden-Harris administration for its plans to protect an “ugly” animal in her home state.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that it planned to conserve public lands in Colorado in an effort to protect the Gunnison sage-grouse, a bird designated as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

The Republican Representative took issue with these plans, and ranted that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — as well as former president Barack Obama — have been trying to protect this bird’s “ugly, non-endangered cousin,” the Greater Sage-Grouse.


BLM announced plans to protect the Gunnison sage-grouse, a threatened species, by conserving lands in Colorado — a move that Rep Lauren Boebert took issue with (US Fish and Wildlife Service)

“The Biden-Harris Administration and the radical progressives in charge of BLM are attempting to lock up our public lands from critical uses like oil & gas exploration,” Boebert told Newsweek. “Instead of putting Coloradans first, they’re continuing to bend the knee to Green New Deal worshippers who want to destroy Colorado’s oil & gas industry and the tens of thousands of good-paying jobs that support families across the state.”

“Obama, Biden and Harris have tried to use the Gunnison Sage-Grouse’s ugly, non-endangered cousin, the Greater Sage-Grouse, to lock up more than 183 million acres in the West,” she continued. This species is considered “near threatened” by the World Wildlife Fund.

Boebert also vowed to “fight this newest land grab just like I’ve done for every ridiculous attempt from the Biden-Harris Administration and BLM to damage our economy.”

While Boebert pointed fingers at Democrats for the plan, the BLM’s announcement noted that the recovery plan for the threatened species was approved in 2020 — when Donald Trump was president.

Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert called a bird species ‘ugly’ when taking issue with the Biden administration’s newly-unveiled plans to conserve land to protect another animal (CPSAN)

The Republican Congresswoman also expressed fear that the conservation plan was going to interfere with gas and oil business in the region.

BLM Colorado State Director Doug Vilsack issued a statement on October 17: “BLM is at the forefront of wildlife conservation in Colorado by aligning oil and gas management in big game habitat with strong State rules and advancing a separate plan that will limit disturbance in the habitat of the threatened Gunnison sage-grouse.”

The bureau also noted that it manages roughly 85 per cent of acres “with high potential open for future oil and gas leasing while low and medium potential areas are largely closed to leasing.”

The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.

Mineral found in Brazil nuts could be key to preventing the spread of cancer

Kate Ng
·Trending Lifestyle Reporter
Tue 22 October 2024 

Brazil nuts are packed with the mineral selenium, which is essential for maintaining body functions. (Getty Images)


A common food supplement that’s mainly found in Brazil nuts could hold the key to preventing the spread of cancer, new research has found.

Selenium is an essential mineral that helps support thyroid function, boosts the immune system, and protects cells from damage. It can also be found in seafood and cereals, as well as in many multivitamins on the market.

However, researchers have found that selenium is necessary for cancer cells to keep them functioning and spreading through the body - so depriving these cells of selenium could be the answer to a new type of cancer treatment.


Cells in the body are more likely to die from a lack of selenium via a process called ferroptosis, which is a sort of "self-destruct" button that goes off when cells are in danger of causing damage or becoming cancerous. But, the research, funded by Cancer Research UK, found that when triple negative breast cancer cells cluster together, they are able to protect themselves from ferroptosis by producing a type of fat molecule that is triggered by a lack of selenium.

The bypassing of the "self-destruct" process means cancer cells are able to grow and spread, becoming deadlier. Although when cancer cells move away from these clusters, which happens when they start moving to other parts of the body, they become more vulnerable to ferroptosis.

Cancer cells benefit from a lack of selenium when clustered together - but when they move away from these clusters, the lack of selenium can become the thing that destroys them. (Getty Images)

Dr Saverio Tardito, who led the research, explained that selenium is necessary for our body to continue normal function, so removing it from our diet is not an option.

"However, if we can find a treatment that interferes with the uptake of this mineral by triple negative breast cancer cells, we could potentially prevent this cancer spreading to other parts of the body."

He added that breast cancer itself is not usually fatal when treated successfully through medication or surgery - but when the cancer spreads, it becomes harder to control.

Interfering with the metabolism of selenium in sparse cancer cells was an effective way to kill them, Dr Tardito and his team found. It is hoped that this could lead to a solution that turns triple negative breast cancer from a potentially fatal disease into a manageable one.


Triple negative breast cancers can be harder to treat than other types of breast cancer because of a lack of receptors for the hormones oestrogen and progesterone, or a protein called Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2).

Doctors are unable to use hormone therapies or targeted cancer drugs to treat this type of breast cancer, which affects around 15% of the 56,800 people in the UK who are diagnosed with breast cancer each year.

Explaining why studies like Dr Tardito’s can be cause for hope, Dr Sam Godfrey, director of research at Cancer Research UK, said that it "could be the key to preventing this type of cancer spreading, and that would have a transformative effect on how this disease is treated".

While you shouldn’t stop eating foods or taking multivitamins that contain selenium - because the mineral is important to keep your body functioning well - there is such a thing as too much selenium.

Eating too many Brazil nuts can result in selenium toxicity, because they contain highly concentrated amounts of the mineral. People are advised to eat no more than one or two Brazil nuts a day, as just one ounce of these nuts contains 544mg of selenium - 777% of the recommended daily allowance.

Selenium toxicity can lead to symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, nail discoloration, brittleness and loss, hair loss, fatigue, irritability, and bad breath. The British Nutrition Foundation warns against the use of selenium supplements, as these could increase the risk of selenium toxicity at high doses.

UK
Be more ambitious on restricting harmful ‘forever chemicals’, Government urged

Emily Beament, PA Environment Correspondent
Wed 23 October 2024


The UK should enact wide-ranging restrictions on “forever chemicals”, which could have the potential to harm humans, scientists have urged.

A group of more than 50 scientists from the UK and around the world have written to ministers urging them to be more ambitious in their regulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, than the previous government.

They warn the highly persistent group of chemicals show no evidence of degrading in the environment, and have been found across the world from the Arctic to Mount Everest.


They have also been detected in people’s blood, drinking water and foods bought in supermarkets.

They are widely used in industry and consumer goods, from non-stick frying pans to clothing and carpets, with concerns over a range of impacts from cancer to suppressed immune systems, and their ability to move through the environment for long distances.

Some well-studied PFAS have been found to be toxic to humans and wildlife, the scientists warned, and while some substances have been banned, there is little information about the impact of many others.

The letter to UK Government ministers warns the only way to curb them polluting the environment, and reduce their risks, is to regulate all the chemicals as a single group.

But the UK has adopted a “narrow definition” of PFAS which only includes a few hundred substances and excludes thousands more, the experts say.

The EU has adopted an approach which includes 10,000 chemicals with proposals to phase out all PFAS, with a few specific exceptions, and scientists behind the letter say the UK should be doing as well – or better – than the bloc, not lagging behind post-Brexit.

Associate Professor Tony Fletcher, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “I am worried that the effect of Brexit might lead to Britain lagging behind environmental improvements at EU level.

“In the case of PFAS regulation, the EU has some good proposals for regulating them all. We should be as good as that, if not better, and this letter is making the case.

“We have found effects on human health in the few specific PFAS which have been studied in detail, and exposure up to now is so widespread.

“As most uses of PFAS can be substituted with less persistent or less toxic alternatives, the EU initiative to phase out all PFAS (with a few specific exceptions), should be a model adopted by the UK Government.

“We can do at least as well as the EU proposals. I would be very disappointed if Brexit appeared to lead to worse environments for us than being part of the EU.”

Professor Ian Cousins, who works at Stockholm University in Sweden, said: “Because the UK has been slow in acting on PFAS pollution, many British people have been unnecessarily and unknowingly exposed to a whole cocktail of PFAS.

“We only understand the toxicity of a handful of PFAS well, while there are about 10,000 PFAS in use.

“These PFAS continue to be emitted in the UK and will remain in the environment for centuries to come.

“The UK should follow Sweden, and the rest of Europe, in ‘turning off the tap’ of PFAS pollution by enacting a broad restriction of all non-essential PFAS uses.”

A spokesperson for the Environment Department said: “We are charting a new course to develop an ambitious programme to turn the tide and better protect our natural environment.

“This Government has wasted no time in announcing a rapid review of the Environmental Improvement Plan to deliver on our legally binding targets to save nature.

“This includes how best to manage chemicals, including the risks posed by PFAS.”


U$A

Grizzly Research releases Hershey short report amid cancer-link concerns

Investing.com
Wed 23 October 2024 

Investing.com -- Grizzly Research issued a short report on The Hershey Company (NYSE:HSY) Wednesday, raising concerns over the presence of potentially harmful "forever chemicals" (PFAS) detected in the packaging of several of Hershey's popular products.

The short seller claims that independent tests found heightened levels of PFAS contamination in the wrappers of numerous Hershey products, including Reese's Pieces, Almond Joy, and Hershey's Kisses.

PFAS chemicals, which are linked to cancer and other health risks, are commonly used in packaging coatings but are increasingly being regulated or banned.

Grizzly noted that PFAS toxins are particularly dangerous for children and stated, "PFAS, or 'forever chemicals,' are carcinogenic, and a ban or phase-out for plastic food and candy packaging was introduced until 2024 in at least 13 U.S. states."

Grizzly said it commissioned tests from four different labs across the U.S., Germany, and China to compare Hershey's packaging with competitors like Mars and Nestlé.

"All four labs found heightened traces of PFAS in various HSY's products but none or negligible amounts in products by Mars and Nestlé," the report said.

Of the 50 tests conducted, Grizzly claims 20 cases of PFAS contamination over 10 mg/kg were found, with 19 involving Hershey's products.

The report further alleges that Hershey may be using "uncommon, harder-to-detect PFAS compounds" to bypass regulatory bans while still exposing consumers to health risks.

"Our expert heading this case believes that HSY deliberately uses uncommon, harder-to-detect PFAS compounds to avoid detection and bans, while the negative health implications of such uncommon substances remain similar," they argue.

Grizzly added that "as of today, the FDA's Food Contact Substance database does not show any authorization of PFAS use for HSY."

Given Hershey's reliance on North American sales, Grizzly warns that these findings could pose significant legal, reputational, and financial risks for the company.

The firm believes that this issue "can materially affect these brands' recognition and add material reputational and litigation risk to HSY."

Related Articles

UK
Chess ace Bodhana, 9, beats players twice her age to win title

Mike Brooke
Tue 22 October 2024 

Bodhana Sivanandan at Blenham Palace grand finals (Image: Rahil Ahmad)


A schoolgirl beat chess players twice her age to win a national title and a worldwide top ranking.

Bodhana Sivanandan is one of two school pupils from North London among the top three winners of the national 2024 Delancey UK Chess Challenge.

The nine-year-old, who attends St John Fisher Primary school in Harrow, won the Under 18s section of the contest — despite being eligible for the Under 10s.


The Under 14s champion was Stanley Badacsonyi, from Fortismere School in Muswell Hill, who won his final game on a tiebreak. Stanley has had an outstanding year, earning his FIDE Master title to boost his national and international ratings.

They were both up against 58 other competitors competitors at the Blenheim Palace grand final in Oxfordshire in five age groups, each player having got through eliminator rounds staged all over the country.

But Bodhana was up against players twice her age in the grand final and stunned the field scoring six points, giving her older competitors a real run for their money.

She’s a ‘chess legend’ who recently returned from Budapest as part of the England Ladies team at the World Olympiad, the youngest-ever player to represent Britain — then returned to London for the WR Masters, squaring up to 21-year-old World No 4 grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi.

Some 330 games were played in the grand finals, with £5,000 in prizes as well as trophies for the top three players like Bodhana and Stanley.

The competition involved 1,000 schools in 36 events all over the country with 5,000 young players taking part.

Israeli weapon seen in rare AP photos of Beirut airstrike appears to be a powerful smart bomb

ADAM SCHRECK
Updated Wed 23 October 2024 







A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

JERUSALEM (AP) — In all but the blink of an eye, an Associated Press photographer's camera captured the moments that a battleship-gray Israeli bomb plummeted toward a Beirut building before detonating to bring the tower down.

The airstrike came 40 minutes after Israel warned people to evacuate two buildings in the area that it said were located near Hezbollah warehouses and assets. The site was not far from where a spokesperson for the militant group had just briefed journalists.

It was a rare glimpse into the use of one of the most powerful bombs in Israel's arsenal.

What kind of weapon was it?

An examination by independent arms researchers suggests the weapon was a guided bomb, also known as a smart bomb, launched from an Israeli jet.

The tail fin and nose sections indicate this was a 2,000-pound warhead fitted with an Israeli-made guidance kit known as SPICE, according to Richard Weir, a senior conflict, crisis and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch.

SPICE — Smart, Precise-Impact and Cost-Effective — guidance systems are made by Israel’s government-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. They are attached to a standard unguided bomb to direct the weapon to its target.

Minutes before the strike brought down the building, there were two smaller strikes on it, in what Israel’s military often refers to as a “knock on the roof" warning strike, according to AP journalists at the scene. The practice has been observed in Israel's military campaign in Gaza; there, over 40,000 have been killed, according to local officials who don't distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, in one of the most destructive conflicts in recent history.

The Israeli military declined to comment about the type of weapon used.

Why does Israel use this type of bomb?

Rafael advertises SPICE kits as being able to operate day or night, through bad weather, and in areas jammed against GPS. It says the weapons offer “high lethality and low collateral damage” and “pinpoint hit accuracy.”

It also keeps the attacking aircraft out of harm's way. The 2,000-pound version can be launched as far as 60 kilometers (37 miles) from its target. Rafael also makes smaller versions.

Once released by an attacking Israeli warplane such as an American-made F-15 or F-16, the bomb glides toward its target, adjusting course using movable fins.

Joseph Dempsey, a defense and military analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, agreed the photos indicated the weapon was a 2,000-pound SPICE bomb.

He said the guidance system is thought to rely on GPS and what are known as electro-optical guidance systems, which use cameras or sensors to zero in on the bomb's target.

The destructive nature of the weapon comes down to many factors, including the size of the warhead and the way it is fused.

“This was clearly a delayed action fuse. It buried down into the ground (and) detonated, which has the effect of limiting the fragmentation and blast damage of this particular strike,” Weir said.

That explains why the destruction was limited almost entirely to the targeted building. People standing a few hundred meters away felt little to nothing from the blast and didn't see much fragmentation.

Where is this bomb made?

The answer isn't straightforward.

“The guidance kits for the SPICE 2000 are manufactured by Rafael in Israel, though the level of reliance on foreign sub-components is unclear,” Dempsey said.

In 2019, Rafael and U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin signed a deal to work together to build and sell SPICE guidance kits in the U.S. At the time, the companies said production of over 60 percent of the SPICE system was spread across eight U.S. states.

In late October 2023, weeks after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack, the U.S. State Department issued a letter approving the export of additional SPICE bomb assemblies to Israel.

That letter, first reported by The New York Times, notified Congress that Rafael USA, an American subsidiary of the Israeli defense company, was seeking the $320 million shipment. That request was an amendment to an earlier $403 million license in 2020.

The explosive warhead is a basic bomb, in this case likely a 2,000-pound MK-84 style explosive, where the nose and tail section have been swapped out for the guidance system.

The U.S. earlier this year paused shipments of those powerful bombs to Israel because of concerns over civilian casualties, though Israel is believed to still have supplies in stock.

It is difficult to know for sure where the bomb part was produced. Israel relies on the U.S. for supplies of MK-84 bombs, but it and other countries also produce similar weapons.

Determining that with certainty would require recovering remnants with markings on them, Weir said.

__

Associated Press journalist Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut.

AFTER HELENE CAME TRUMP

A Trump Win Would Threaten Historic Climate Progress in North Carolina

Antonia Juhasz
Wed 23 October 2024


In 1999, Hurricane Floyd roared through North Carolina as one of the state’s deadliest and most harmful hurricanes. It was the second major storm that month and the third in as many years to ravage the state. Chandra Taylor-Sawyer, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, was raised in the small Black community of Kinston, but “the neighborhood I grew up in no longer exists,” she tells me. It was rendered uninhabitable by the storm.

Twenty-five years later, on September 26, Hurricane Helene struck North Carolina, breaking all of the state’s past records for death and destruction, as it carved a path of ruin across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia. Patrick Hunter, a managing attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, lives in Asheville, whole sections of which were wiped away along with entire towns across western North Carolina.

“It’s really hard to put into words what the devastation looks like,” he tells me of his beloved mountain community, the sound of shock thick in his voice. “It’s hard to describe the sense of loss.”


Hurricane Helene is one of the worst storms in U.S. history, causing over $250 billion in economic damage. At least 224 people have died, almost half in North Carolina, where another 26 people are still missing, likely drowned in torrential waters or buried by mud. The death toll will rise in the years to come. The average hurricane in the U.S. ultimately causes the deaths of as many 11,000 people, with the most disadvantaged prior to the storm suffering the worst consequences in its wake.

An increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is the hallmark and long-predicted outcome of the burning of fossil fuels causing a worsening climate crisis.

“Climate change is here and we’re going to experience more of these types of events if we can’t address it,” Hunter says, exasperation finally entering his voice. “When we’re not taking the steps we need to take to reduce the effects of climate change… there are very real consequences.”

For Taylor-Sawyer and Hunter, that means righting environmental injustice, protecting public health and the environment, and transforming the region away from fossil fuel — the primary cause of the climate crisis — to renewable energy. They’re working with allies across the state to significantly deepen these efforts by tapping into billions of dollars in funding from the Biden-Harris administration.

Less than two weeks before Hurricane Helene struck, I’d been visiting communities across North Carolina to see how the Biden-Harris money is contributing to their organizing, what the investments look like on the ground, and the threats and opportunities presented by the looming November election.

As a key swing state, North Carolina could single-handedly determine the outcome of the Presidential election (some polls give Trump the lead). There’s also an extremely consequential gubernatorial race pitting Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson against Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein.

While Donald Trump has used Hurricane Helene as an opportunity to deny the reality of climate change and spread lies and conspiracy theories, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris “are harnessing every agency and every authority to respond to Helene’s destruction and devastation,” White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi says in a statement to Rolling Stone. “At the same time, we keep accelerating our efforts to build long-term resilience to extreme-climate disasters and attack the root cause of climate change itself.”

Historic levels of federal funding for climate action, the energy transition, and environmental justice are included throughout the over $2 trillion in the administration’s “Investing in America Agenda,” which includes the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, American Rescue Plan, and CHIPS and Science Act.

With its Justice40 Initiative, the Biden-Harris administration stipulated within days of taking office that at least 40 percent of federal climate and environmental funds, across 19 federal agencies and totaling some $613 billion, must target disadvantaged environmental justice communities. These are Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other people of color and low-income communities who have been overburdened by pollution and the climate crisis, and underserved by government. An official with the Environmental Protection Agency tells me the agency has exceeded that bar, with over 60 percent of the funds serving those most in need.

It amounts to the nation’s largest-ever financial commitment to environmental and climate justice. “It’s unprecedented. I don’t think there’s any other time in history that there has been such a targeted plan to invest in disinvested communities,” Taylor-Sawyer says. “Just the EPA’s $3 billion Environmental and Climate Justice program is 80 times more than any federal investment in environmental justice in history.”


Chandra Taylor-Sawyer.

Since 2022, the EPA alone has awarded North Carolina over $1.3 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, according to new figures provided by the agency to Rolling Stone. These and other “Investing in America” funds are credited with directing over $19 billion in federal and private clean energy investments to North Carolina, resulting in the third-highest overall net growth in clean energy jobs in the nation.

I met dozens of people across North Carolina who have received or are applying for Justice40 and related federal funds, including the heads of environmental justice networks, small rural Black community groups tackling coal companies and hog farms, the mayor of Durham, Native American activists taking on oil pipelines and methane gas plants, and Southern Environmental Law Center lawyers battling just about everyone.

The funding is supporting air and water quality monitoring, zero-emission buses, protection of tree canopies and tree planting, flood mitigation, rooftop and community solar — including local “resilience hubs,” renewable energy and energy efficiency tax credits, and community education and organizing, among other efforts. The administration is also trying to do something that the federal government has rarely achieved before: directly engaging and funding frontline communities.

But they’re in a race against time. Harris plans to continue and expand upon these policies. But the funding and the climate and equity agenda it supports are under direct assault from Donald Trump, who calls the money Washington’s “green new scam.” Project 2025, the 900-page playbook for a second Trump term published by the Heritage Foundation and authored by at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration, would eliminate all of the funding and the legislation that backs it. Congressional Republicans have also attacked the programs, accusing the administration of “funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to radical, far-left organizations whose mission is to protest, disrupt, and undercut United States energy production and leadership, while also freeing up funds to support their extreme activist agendas.”

“There’s a huge urgency,” explains Sherri White-Williamson, director of North Carolina’s Environmental Justice Community Action Network. “If things change on November 4, we know that money is not going to be there.” And critical work that’s just getting started, “just wouldn’t get done,” she says.
Spidey Sense-r

It was raining and early in the morning when I met Chris Hawn, a co-director at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, in downtown Durham’s Central Park. But Hawn looked fantastic, dressed in stylish brown leather loafers, burgundy slacks, and a ‘50’s-inspired colorful geometric sweater. They directed me to a gnarly spider web, home to a funnel weaver spider (not to be confused with the more popular but far less useful, orb-weaver spider). While the latter spin Halloween style webs, the funnel weaver is all-functionality. This web had probably been there for about a year, and it was filthy. But that’s exactly why Hawn, a Ph.D. in zoology, liked it. Piled in amidst the soot, leaves, and trash, the web was also collecting polluting metals like arsenic, aluminum, and cadmium that can destroy human health.

In less than 15 minutes, and with little more than a straw, a stick, purple tape, and a phone app, Hawn taught me how to measure the pollution in the air in downtown Durham using the spider’s web. Hawn calls it “Spidey Sense-r.”

Measuring the pollution where we live is the first and most basic step to protect public health. But getting expensive air monitors into communities is stymied by the polluters who hate them, governments that don’t want to pay for them, racism, classism, and communities that can’t afford them. Spidey Sense-r, by comparison, can be made available to anyone with the skills to spot a spider’s web.


Chris Hawn collects a web.

Hawn specializes in community centered participatory research, with those most impacted by harm in the lead. The North Carolina Environmental Justice Network is a grassroots, people of color-led coalition of community organizations and their supporters who work with low-income communities and people of color on issues of climate, environmental, racial, and social injustice. It has already received federal funding to participate in a larger hub of organizations working to aid local and smaller frontline groups apply for and win Justice40 money. The network has also applied for funds to support their broader educational work, including to develop a curriculum and pay for the testing of web samples to bring Spidey Sense-r to K-12 schools, community colleges, seniors, and local organizations across the state.

“It’s a once in a generation opportunity,” Hawn says of Justice40. “I see a massive potential to increase environmental justice competency and conversations, and also support the movement.”
Airkeepers

While Spidey Sense-r awaits its support, the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act are funding a first-of-its kind community air quality monitoring network in locations across the country based on the same principles of local empowerment and advocacy.

Christian Felipe is the newly hired project coordinator at the Environmental Justice Community Action Network (EJCAN) in Clinton, a small rural city in Sampson County in Eastern North Carolina where hogs outnumber people 35 to 1. Sampson is one of the most economically distressed counties in the state. It is home to the state’s largest landfill and a multitude of industrial hog farms primarily located in low-income Black and Latinx communities. Felipe is 30-years-old and a sincere, unassuming minister in his mother’s nearby church. He was hired as part of a $500,000 grant from the EPA to oversee the area’s first community air quality monitoring project.

“We call them ‘airkeepers,’” Felipe tells me, describing the thirty or so local residents who have volunteered to place the free small air monitors outside of their homes.

“Sampson County has never had any kind of federal attention around air quality,” he adds. “We’ve had a lot of issues for many, many years, but our closest federally regulated air monitor is about an hour away.”

With Felipe’s hire, EJCAN’s staff now totals five (including two others recently hired with federal funds). The office is located just down the street and at times downwind from the Smithfield Packing Company where up to 11,000 hogs a day are slaughtered, cut, and packaged into pork products. The smell is a pungent and sickening cocktail of hog feces, urine, and flesh that regularly wafts over Clinton. But it’s more than just a bad aroma. The cumulative impact of the different polluters here releases a myriad of dangerous and toxic pollutants into the air harming public health. Until now, the only information about which, how much, where, and when pollutants are being released was provided by the companies themselves.

“Like so many other environmental justice communities, there’s very little data that’s available, and especially true for rural areas,” EJCAN’s founder and director, Sherri White-Williamson explains. Collecting that data is how “we can tell the story of what’s happening in places like this.”

Alice Brunson.

Around the corner from Smithfield’s and down the street from the Southern Style Barbecue and Fried Chicken restaurant, airkeeper Alice Brunson welcomes me into her home. “I was probably one of the first ones that signed up,” Brunson tells me. “I think the air we breathe is really important… and it should be a right to have clean air so, I just jumped on the wagon and said, ‘Let’s go for it.’” She enthusiastically presents the air monitor perched on her front lawn.

Brunson and her fellow airkeepers attend regular meetings to discuss their goals for the work, learn how to use the monitors, about the pollutants they are measuring and the associated health harms, what the data means, and how it can be used.

Since 2021, the EPA increased clean air and pollution standards estimated to have saved more than 200,000 lives. The federal funding is enabling a ground-up model of self-regulation, allowing residents to directly police industry and determine how well they’re abiding by the law.

As I left EJCAN’s office, two young women who are lawyers with the Southern Environmental Law Center arrived to talk about legal proceedings against the landfill.

“It’s how we start to create action and bring about change,” White-Williamson says.
Durham’s Justice40 Benefits: Trees, Clean Buses, Flood Protection, Solar

Seated at his desk at city hall, Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams beams with excitement, ready to share his city’s success stories. He credits the Biden-Haris administration with a new approach to providing much-needed support. “For the first time, I felt like the federal government worked with us locally on the ground,” he tells me. “We [usually] have to jockey around with the state on determining what’s a priority,” with those communities most in need the last to be served, he says. “But the federal government, this administration, stepped up and said, ‘We see you. We’re going to help you.’”

In other words, the Biden-Harris administration leap-frogged the ultra-conservative North Carolina Republican General Assembly and went straight to the municipalities, allowing spending that would otherwise never have taken place here.

A zero-emissions bus in downtown Durham.

Durham has been awarded nearly $60 million in federal Justice40 grants. The evidence of this money is apparent walking around the city. I see trees planted to reduce heat stress in the historic Black communities of Braggtown and Merrick-Moore, among thousands of trees planted and existing canopy maintained with funds for urban and community forestry.

In downtown, the new fleet of zero-emissions buses pass by without the familiar choking cloud of black polluting smoke from fossil fueled buses, part of the Infrastructure Law’s $5 billion Clean Bus Program. Researchers at Harvard have estimated that roughly 17,000 to 20,000 people die each year in the U.S. from fossil fuel transportation air pollution, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

A day earlier, I sat in on a meeting at the Durham Armory organized by the Southern Environmental Law Center where about 100 local elected officials, non-governmental organizations, and community organizers gathered to discuss strategies, including tapping into federal funding, to make Durham and the state less focused and reliant on automobiles, ensuring accessible and equitable provision of public transit, housing, zero-emissions vehicles, and more walkable and bikeable cities, with the goal of reducing driving miles overall.

Durham also received funds to restore watersheds, part of some $472 million in EPA funding across the state to upgrade water systems, improve water quality, and reduce flooding.

“Getting the Solar in and the Fossil Fuels Out”

After meeting Mayor Williams, I am greeted by an eager group of local city officials from the Parks & Rec and related departments on Fayetteville Street at the W.D. Hill Recreation Center. W.D. Hill is on the other side of the train tracks and the freeway from downtown Durham. That’s by design, explains Summer Alston, special projects manager for the City of Durham.

Alston grew up in a small rural community about an hour outside of Durham in Warren County, the birthplace of the U.S. environmental justice movement. In 1982, residents blocked roads to halt the dumping of toxic waste just down the road from the Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church, where much of their organizing took place.

Seated on the historic church’s pews, associate minister, Reverend Bill Kearney, tells me how the EPA had okayed the dumping based on the assumption that the Black community was “poor, politically impotent, and this was an easy thing to do.” But then, Kearney says, Black and white residents joined together, and “everyday people, many of them who were descendants of enslaved people who had been fighting and wishing for social justice, found themselves having to fight and resist because of environmental injustice. So, the two merged here” and the term “environmental justice” was born.

This legacy influences and permeates the work of those who have followed in their footsteps, Alston explains. She is not alone in expressing a healthy dose of skepticism about relying on the federal government or its money. Trained as an urban planner, Alston is now working full-time to ensure that the new federal funds service the needs of North Carolina’s most hard-hit communities.

W.D. Hill sits in the heart of the historic Black community of Hayti where residents face a host of challenges that are exacerbated by the worsening climate crisis. “There is a historic trend here of poor and Black folks getting less quality land and being in those areas that are more prone to flooding historically having infrastructure that is not up to standard,” Alston says. “Now with climate change, historical wrongs are just being amplified, generation after generation after generation.”

To address some of these risks, W.D. Hill is about to become Durham’s first “resilience hub.” The city received a $297,000 grant from the $550 million Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant designed to assist states, local governments, and Tribes to reduce energy use, fossil fuel emissions, and improve energy efficiency. W.D. Hill will be installing solar panels and backup battery storage which will allow it to retain power even when the centralized fossil fuel system fails.

Summer Alston, André White, and Neisha Reynolds at W.D. Hill Recreation Center in Hayti.

The community already relies on the facility not only for recreation, but also as a cooling center and place of refuge during frequent bouts of extreme heat and storms. Now W.D. Hill will be energy-self-reliant. The federal funding also inspired a community-led months-long discussion about what “resilience” means for the whole district. The city applied for a $12 million Justice40 grant to support the resulting, “Hayti Reborn” initiative.

In a Hart Research poll for the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters Foundation, registered voters of all affiliations in North Carolina overwhelmingly support solar and wind over fossil fuels and want to rapidly transition off fossil fuels. They identify the urgency of the climate crisis, with Black voters expressing the greatest concern. In a Quinnipiac University poll, North Carolina Democrats place the climate crisis above abortion, health care, and crime, and rank addressing racial inequality second (after preserving democracy) on their most pressing issues facing the nation.

Central Park and Fayetteville Street flooded as a result of Hurricane Helene. To the west, Asheville was without power for weeks, and many areas are still waiting for electricity. Without electricity, water and sewage cannot flow. Across the state, over one million households went without power, including parts of Durham.

Durham, like the rest of the state, primarily depends on electricity powered by highly centralized fossil fuel energy plants that rely on coal and methane gas, followed by nuclear power. A leading cause of electricity outages in extreme weather events is downed or damaged lines and towers carrying power from centralized plants to faraway users. The shorter the distance energy travels the more resilient the system, and the less energy is used. This is why localized distributed renewable energy systems — such as solar panels on the roof — are a solution to a host of fossil-fueled problems.

City officials share a vision of bringing solar panels and community-level microgrids across Durham, building off of a grant from the American Rescue Plan. The state government has received $156 million from the Infrastructure Law’s $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund for a Solar For All program to fund rooftop and community solar projects in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Across the state, some 90,000 North Carolina households claimed more than $100 million in residential renewable energy credits and $60 million in energy efficiency credits under the IRA in just one year, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Bobby Jones outside a Duke Energy facility in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

Federal subsidies will help overcome obstacles imposed by Duke Energy, the state’s monopoly power-provider. In what advocates describe as its decade-long battle against solar, among other policies, Duke has made solar more expensive to use by rejecting net-metering.

Bobby Jones, founder and President of Down East Coal Ash Environmental and Social Justice Coalition, wants a 100 percent renewable energy transition in his small city of Goldsboro. Duke’s Goldsboro power plant burned coal from 1951 to 2012, and has continued to store and utilize coal ash waste after it switched to methane gas. Jones has watched loved-ones die from cancers and other illnesses that he attributes to pollution from the plant. He’s working to not only hold Duke accountable, but also halt Duke’s plans to further expand methane gas operations.

“Solar could be such a blessing to my community in a whole lot of ways,” Jones says. “Not only would it put clean energy in our community, [but also] get them fossil fuels out.”

“It’s an all-boats-float situation,” Alston says of the Biden-Harris funding. “Making scarcity less of a thing means” there’s more money to go around to service the entire state.

“When we can deliver on funding, this once in a lifetime funding, we’re able to execute on promises that we’ve made, not promises we’ve made today, promises we made for the past 20 years,” says Neisha Reynolds, Durham’s grant writer. “Then you know that we’ll re-instill people’s faith in the system that’s supposed to be designed to serve them.”

But if the money falls through and they’re unable to deliver, people will disengage even further. “I don’t know how many more hits they will take,” Alston confides.
“We’ve Never Been Asked Before. We’ve Always Been Told.”

Crystal Cavalier-Keck is a member of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation. Her family and her Tribe have resided in North Carolina for generations. She lives in the home built by her grandfather in Mebane just North of Durham and surrounded by relatives.

She has repeatedly put her body on the line in protest to protect her land and her people, including showing up outside of the White House in 2022 to shut down roads and block traffic in opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act. Passage of the law required a side deal with Senator Joe Manchin that greenlit the Mountain Valley Pipeline project, which would pass within miles of her home and which she has led opposition to for years. “It was a deal with the devil,” she says.

Crystal Cavalier-Keck and husband Jason Crazy Bear Keck.

Cavalier-Keck founded 7 Directions of Service to “mobilize impacted communities and our allies to protect sacred places and phase out fossil fuels.” She has continued to fight not only against the pipeline, but also the many other faults in the law which include tax breaks for the largest fossil fuel companies to conduct carbon capture and storage, support for destructive extractive projects, and other federal policies that are expanding fossil fuel production. But this has not stopped her from also working to ensure that tribal communities secure benefits.

As a part of a Justice40 hub which includes North Carolina Environmental Justice Network and Southern Environmental Law Center, 7 Directions has already helped seven tribal communities submit their own proposals for support.

Cavalier-Keck describes an entirely unique and empowering process. “Whenever somebody used to come into our community, they would say, ‘This is what’s good for you, this is what will be done.’ We’ve never been asked before. We’ve always been told.”

If Trump takes back the White House, not only will these benefits likely stop flowing, she explains, but she and her allies will instead be forced to confront a rollback of hard-fought victories. She expressed similar fears for the outcome of the state’s gubernatorial race if Mark Robinson were to win.

“Our community would really be at a loss,” Cavalier-Keck says. “Even low-income white communities too. I don’t think these Trump administration people understand what they are proposing, or they do understand, and they just don’t care that it would affect those people too.”

A Trump Win Would Threaten Historic Climate Progress in North Carolina
The Attack

Donald Trump plans to renew his “American Energy Dominance” agenda via a fossil fuel free-for-all on behalf of Big Oil. He will gut solar, wind, and federal regulations that protect our air, water, and climate. He tried to kill the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law while it was being negotiated, and said that he will repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and rescind any “unspent” funds, having asserted that he should have the power to refuse to spend any federal money he considers wasteful. He has threatened to deploy the U.S. military against the “radical left;”congressional Republicans have described many Justice40 recipient organizations, including the Southern Environmental Law Center, in remarkably similar terms.

Project 2025, the conservative policy handbook for a second Trump term, would undo what it calls the “woke” and “racist ‘equity’ agenda of the Biden administration.” Stephen Moore, co-author of those words, also co-wrote Fueling Freedom, which calls fossil fuels the “Master Resource” and details how white men and the federal government can fully unleash them.

Project 2025 would eliminate the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and rescind all funds not already spent by these programs. If the IRA withstands the assault, Project 2025 would end direct funding for nonprofits or community organizations under the law. It would eliminate Justice40, the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, gut the EPA, end climate action, and halt “extreme ‘green’ policies,” including subsidies for renewable energy and green energy jobs.

An analysis by Energy Innovation found that, in contrast to current policies, Project 2025 would increase annual energy costs by nearly $200 per household for North Carolinians in 2030 and more than $360 in 2035. It would also emit an excess of over 21 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the state in 2035 — equivalent to the emissions from five coal-fired power plants.

“There’s so much on the line” with this election, says Williams, the Durham mayor. Vice President Kamala Harris’ policies are “the solutions that we’re looking for on the ground.”

The alternative, he adds, is just “impossible to imagine.”

Rolling Stone