Los Angeles man is trapped in circling Waymo on way to airport: 'Is somebody playing a joke?'

Hannah Wiley
Sun, January 5, 2025 

A Waymo rider said he missed his flight in Scottsdale, Ariz., after the autonomous car wouldn’t stop driving in circles.

For the record:

9:59 a.m. Jan. 6, 2025: An earlier version of this story said Mike Johns missed his flight. He nearly missed his flight. An earlier headline said he was headed to LAX. He was in Arizona at the time of the incident.


A Los Angeles man said he nearly missed his flight home after getting trapped on his way to the airport in a Waymo self-driving vehicle that wouldn't stop making circles in a parking lot.

L.A. tech entrepreneur Mike Johns posted a video three weeks ago on LinkedIn of his call to a customer service representative for Waymo to report that the car kept turning in circles and that he was nervous about missing his flight.

"I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I'm getting dizzy," Johns said. "It's circling around a parking lot. I got my seat belt on. I can't get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What's going on? I feel like I'm in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me?"

The customer service representative told Johns to open his Waymo app and that she would try to pull the car over but seemed to struggle with getting the vehicle to stop.

Johns was returning home from Scottsdale, Ariz., according to a CBS report.

On his social media post, Johns, who also works on AI initiatives, according to his LinkedIn profile, said Waymo had not followed up with him after the experience.

"You'd think by now Waymo would email, text or call for a follow-up," he wrote.

A Waymo spokesperson wrote in an email to The Times on Sunday that the incident occurred in mid-December and that the rider was delayed by roughly five minutes, then driven to his destination.

At the time of the incident, Johns wrote on LinkedIn, "Mind you I was on my way to the airport and now missed my flight." Johns has since updated his post to clarify that he almost missed his flight.

The spokesperson said the software glitch had since been resolved and that Johns was not charged for the ride. The spokesperson added that the company had tried to follow up with him via voicemail.

The company's autonomous cars have been a common sight on San Francisco streets for years, and Waymo recently opened its services to all riders after first rolling out a pilot program to select users. The robotaxis launched in L.A. last fall.

Waymo's stated goal is to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities through autonomous driving technology, and riders and proponents of the service have lauded it as a safe and easy alternative to human drivers.

But there have also been tech glitches and safety concerns during the company's rollout in several cities.

A man in downtown L.A. on Thursday allegedly attempted to hijack a Waymo and drive away. Police took the man into custody after they eventually got him out of the car.

There have also been reports of riders experiencing harassment by pedestrians who block the car's path and stall the vehicle.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.




Tech Worker Blames Getting Stuck in Circling Waymo for Missing His Flight Home

Victoria Beaver
Mon, January 6, 2025


Tech Worker Says He Got Stuck in Circling Waymo 

Smith Collection/Gado - Getty Images

Last month, at the end of a planned visit the Phoenix area, tech worker Mike Johns attempted to make his flight to Los Angeles, California, but things took an unexpected turn when h became stuck in his self-driving Waymo vehicle. Or, to be precise, unexpected turns, plural; the autonomous Jaguar I-Pace he was riding in repeatedly ran around in circles instead of staying on the desired route to the airport, according to his account.

Johns captured the incident on a video which he then posted on his LinkedIn account — where he describes himself as "a tactician who sits at the intersection of tech, entertainment, media, and politics," and lists his current employer as the Federal Communication Commission. The clip shows him the backseat of the Waymo vehicle, calling customer support through the car's communication system. When greeted by Waymo, Johns explained his situation, saying he was on his way to a flight and stuck in his autonomous Jag.

"I have a flight to catch; why is this thing going in a circle?" Johns asked. "I’m getting dizzy. Look at what it’s doing."

The customer service representative apologized and then asked him to confirm his location. "I’m really sorry, Mike. We’re working on the situation with the vehicle. Is it circling around a parking lot, right?"

"It’s circling around a parking lot," Johns continued. "I got my seatbelt on; I can’t get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me? I have a flight to catch."

In an interview with KCAL News, CBS's Los Angeles affiliate, Johns shared that he was unsure if he was talking with a human or an AI-generated bot, and felt unsupported in his strange predicament.

"Where's the empathy? Where's the human connection to this?" Johns said. "It's just, again, a case of today's digital world. A half-baked product and nobody meeting the customer, the consumers, in the middle."

In a response to Road & Track's request for background information, Waymo said that its Rider Support team is staffed by trained human operators, not an AI bot.

Johns was stuck in the loop for over five minutes, but once the operator was able to fix the problem, the vehicle drove the rider to their destination; Waymo says the rider was not charged for his trip due to the inconvenience of the error, and a regularly scheduled software update has reportedly addressed the software issue that led to the issue. Still, that's little solace forJohns, who said on LinkedIn that he missed his flight. (Waymo says it has reached out to him and left a voicemail in response.)

As self-driving cars continue to try and find their footing, often the humans that both choose to use them or are just citizens in the cities they're rolled out pay the price. Last fall, a group of Waymos created a bottleneck in the middle of San Francisco as the self-driving cars couldn't find their way around a double-parked Amazon delivery van.

Saudi Arabia presses Florida man to give up US citizenship over critical tweets, family says

JOSHUA GOODMAN and ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Mon, January 6, 2025 




Saudi Arabia Crackdown on Americans
Ibrahim Almadi holds a photo of his father Saad Almadi graduating from college in 1984, in Washington Monday, Dec. 23, 2024. Saad Almadi, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen was jailed for social media posts critical of the kingdom's crown prince. He was released from a Saudi prison in March 2023 and banned from returning to his home in south Florida.

 (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Saudi Arabia has forced a Florida retiree to try to renounce his American citizenship after jailing him over social media posts critical of the kingdom’s crown prince, according to the man’s son.

The retiree, 74-year-old Saad Almadi, is one of at least four dual Saudi-American nationals who accuse Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's government of pressuring them to give up their U.S. citizenship, a U.S.-based Middle East human rights group said.

The alleged tactic by a key strategic partner of the U.S., which has not been previously reported, tracks with similar efforts to silence even mild criticism, including the threat of imprisonment and exit bans like the one that has kept Almadi from returning to the U.S. after being released from more than a year in a Saudi prison.

“There are Saudi princes that come to the U.S. for routine medical checkups, so why can’t an American citizen return home for his health?” Ibrahim Almadi said of his father.

“It’s all because we don’t want to upset our ally’s feelings,” he said in an interview from Washington. “If this were Russia, Iran or North Korea, he would’ve been declared wrongfully detained months ago.”

The Saudi Embassy in Washington acknowledged receiving a request for comment on the allegations but did not otherwise respond. The Saudi government doesn’t recognize dual citizenship. It regularly rejects criticism of its actions, saying they are part of a multiyear crackdown on corruption, terrorism and other security threats.

The plight of the elder Almadi and others could complicate U.S. efforts to turn the page on tensions arising from the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

President Joe Biden in his 2020 campaign vowed to make pariahs out of Saudi royals after U.S. intelligence officials concluded that the crown prince authorized the killing of the U.S.-based journalist inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The prince has denied any involvement.

But once in office and confronted with a spike in gas prices that did lasting damage to support for Democrats, Biden softened his criticism. During a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2022, the president had an awkward fist bump with Prince Mohammed.

Saudi-U.S. relations are expected to warm further under President-elect Donald Trump, whose real estate empire and family have extensive business dealings with the world's top oil exporter.

A retired project manager who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, Almadi was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2021, when he arrived on a planned two-week visit to see family. Saudi officials confronted him with tweets he had posted over the past several years in the U.S., including one about Khashoggi’s killing and another on the crown prince’s consolidation of power.

Almadi was quickly sentenced to more than 19 years in prison on terrorism-related charges stemming from the tweets. Saudi Arabia freed him after more than a year but imposed an exit ban that keeps him from returning to his home in Boca Raton, near Miami.

For months after his release, Almadi received menacing phone calls from men his son alleges were agents of the feared intelligence police, whose job it is to root out threats to the kingdom’s rulers. Then, last November, they summoned Almadi to a villa in Riyadh, where he was promised the exit ban would be lifted if he renounced his American citizenship, his son said.

Feeling helpless, Almadi signed a document and followed instructions to try to return his American passport to the U.S. Embassy, his son said.

By law, Americans seeking to relinquish their citizenship must follow a lengthy process, and U.S. officials must deem their actions voluntary. That had not happened in Almadi’s case, the State Department said, adding that he remains a U.S. citizen and receives consular support.

“The Department will continue to advocate for Mr. Almadi with the Saudi government and hope he is soon able to rejoin his family in the United States,” the agency spokeswoman said.

Abdullah Alaoudh, a senior director at the Middle East Democracy Center, a Washington-based human rights group, said he knew of three other dual U.S.-Saudi citizens who reported being pushed to give up their U.S. citizenship. He said they were not activists or vocal critics of the Saudi government.

Alaoudh said Almadi's case appeared the most egregious: “They are kind of forcing him.”

The group wrote to the Biden administration in December to ask it to make a final push for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Americans, U.S. residents and their close relatives either imprisoned in Saudi Arabia or banned from traveling in what activists say are attempts to silence them.

Among those prevented from leaving is Aziza al-Yousef, a U.S. green-card holder and retired professor who was among several activists imprisoned in 2018 — and later released — over peaceful demonstrations and petitions to allow women to drive in the kingdom.

It’s unclear how Trump’s presidency will affect the handling of such cases, but his relations with Saudi leaders run deep.

The Trump Organization last month unveiled plans for a luxury high-rise apartment building in the coastal city of Jeddah. And a private equity firm controlled by Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser Jared Kushner received a $2 billion investment from the sovereign wealth fund controlled by the crown prince.

Two weeks after the U.S. election, Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk were spotted sitting alongside the head of the wealth fund at a UFC fight in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

Saudi Arabia is the most coveted prize in U.S. efforts to get Arab states to normalize relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords — a hallmark foreign policy achievement during Trump’s first presidency — and end the U.S. ally’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

The exit ban against Almadi in Saudi Arabia, and similar practices against dual nationals by China, are aimed less at extracting foreign policy concessions from the U.S. than arbitrary arrests by adversaries such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela. But they can damage relations.

“From a policy perspective, it’s very complicated for the U.S. to act when an ally is involved,” said Mickey Bergman, CEO of Global Reach, which works to secure the release of Americans imprisoned abroad.

That matters little to Almadi's son. In March, he emailed several State Department officials, including the consular officer his father met in Riyadh, complaining about what he considered the lack of U.S. action to secure his father’s freedom.

“We can’t keep waiting when the ship is sinking,” he wrote in the email, which he provided to The Associated Press.

He decided to go public after spending his fourth New Year’s separated from his father.

“Words can’t describe it,” said the younger Almadi, who put his finance career on hold and moved to Washington to advocate for his father. “I used to focus on advancing my life, I’m still only 28. But now all I think about is what to do, how to act, what to say, and what not to say, to secure my dad’s release.”

___

Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Opinion

Toxic masculinity links the New Orleans attacker and the Las Vegas bomber

Amanda Marcotte
Mon, January 6, 2025 

Trump International Hotel Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion

 David Becker for the Washington Post

As I noted in passing last week, the striking thing about the life of Shamsud-Din Jabbar is how much it reads like the boilerplate biography of any random Jan. 6 defendant or MAGA-inspired criminal. The 42-year-old who allegedly murdered 15 people at the New Year's festivities in New Orleans appeared, on paper, to be relatively successful in his career: 8 years in the Army, a degree from Georgia State, and a $125,000 a year job for an accounting firm. But his personal life was a mess. He was thrice divorced in 10 years, and at least two of the divorces were acrimonious and required repeat court interference. His divorce lawyer even fired him. His financial mismanagement meant his healthy salary didn't go far enough, and he had to be forced to make back payments on child support.

Like so many men facing personal troubles, Jabbar didn't get the help he needed. Instead, he turned to radicalizing voices online, which led him to believe that he needed to double down on toxic masculinity. It's a story we hear over and over, from so-called incels who commit mass shootings to Donald Trump fans who attack government buildings to terrorists imbibing ISIS propaganda. Rather than taking responsibility for their personal failures and striving to do better, men of all stripes turn to the internet where they're greeted by a sea of influencers, ready to tell them that it's other people — women, people of different races or religions, the "woke mob" — that is to blame. In some cases, as happened here, they go far enough down the rabbit hole that they talk themselves into violence.

Thankfully, no one but the bomber was badly hurt in the Las Vegas suicide bombing that happened the same night as the Bourbon St. attack, but the parallels between Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger aren't hard to spot. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger was a troubled man who picked a highly symbolic location, blowing up a Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel. Both men had checkered romantic histories, and Livelsberger appears to have told multiple people he feared he suffered from PTSD. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger seems to have acted on a belief that he was going out like a hero, standing up for his far-right ideology and using his death to call on fellow MAGA believers to commit acts of terrorism.

"Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary," he wrote in his final manifesto. He declared the U.S. is "terminally ill and headed toward collapse," complained that people don't believe "[m]asculinity is good and men must be leaders" and made tired Twitter jokes calling Vice President Kamala Harris a "DEI candidate" and President Joe Biden "Weekend at Bernie's." He concluded, "Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans!".

Livelsberger defensively insisted the bombing "was not a terrorist attack." This sentiment is belied not just by the violence of the act itself and his calls for MAGA men to use violence because "a hard reset must occur for our country."

BREAKING: Las Vegas Metro police release more letters from bomber Matthew Livelsberger where he tells Americans to “rally around” Donald Trump, Elon Musk and RFK Jr. https://t.co/RKxmEd5PFv pic.twitter.com/V7AN110STN

— David Charns (@davidcharns) January 3, 2025

Friday, the Washington Post published an in-depth report on the role self-radicalization plays in ISIS violence. In many cases, reporters Souad Mekhennet and Joby Warrick write, "the perpetrators appear to have been driven less by ideology or politics than by rage over personal failings." They largely follow the story of Beran Aliji, the 19-year-old Austrian whose plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert was thankfully thwarted by authorities. The contours of his story are familiar to anyone who knows examples like Elliot Rodger, the UCSB incel killer, or Jacob Chansley, the infamous "QAnon Shaman" at the Jan. 6 riot. Aliji was a lost soul with few friends and serious mental health issues. Instead of getting help for his issues, Aliji turned to online sources that promoted toxic masculinity. He embraced overt misogyny and developed an obsession with guns and knives, telling police he posed for photos with weapons because he "wanted to be cool and brag about it."

Aliji's brand of toxic masculinity was radical Islamic propaganda, which eventually led him to ISIS, which he saw "as a means of gaining an identity and purpose." There are many flavors of this pitch aimed at lost men worldwide. In the U.S., groups like the Proud Boys offer a similar tactic: Join them, and you'll be transformed from a nobody to a warrior fighting for the supposedly noble MAGA cause. Online incel communities are less positive in their marketing but push a similar message, that the world is a fallen place and only this group of men see the truth of it. Christian nationalist churches, such as the one attended by Trump's Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegeseth, pump out huge amounts of online content valorizing male violence and female oppression. A lot of people fall into these radical communities after imbibing months or even years of "softer" versions of the same "feminism is bad, toxic masculinity is good" messaging from influencers like Jordan Peterson, Matt Walsh, or Ben Shapiro.

Whether it's radical Islam or MAGA vitriol, the appeal is obvious. They allow the troubled man to blame others, especially women and "woke" culture, rather than look to themselves. They offer a false promise that their ideologies will transform followers from losers to heroes. What they actually sell them is more of the same poison that led to their problems in the first place: toxic masculinity. They're encouraged to be domineering toward women and bombastic in their rigid worldviews, both of which alienate them further from people in their lives. But they often respond by digging even deeper into the radicalizing materials, and all too often, they act out violently. In some cases, as with Aliji or the would-be Pizzagate shooter, they're stopped before anyone gets hurt. All too often, they're not.

Right now, most media focus on men and online radicalization focuses on the "demand" side of the equation, looking at the psychological factors that drive men to seek out these influences. That's important, but sources I spoke with last year for an in-depth report on radicalization also felt attention must be paid to the "supply" side. American University professor Brian Hughes explained that pre-internet, it was relatively rare "to encounter extremist propaganda or an extremist recruiter." With the internet, however, "you can't avoid radicalizing material. Propaganda is everywhere."

More will likely be learned about Jabbar, but what we already know suggests he's part of this larger trend. Bruce Riedel, a counterterrorism expert, told the Washington Post that Jabbar is "a classic case" of someone who "finds now a cause to justify his life and his rage" in the radical Islamic ideology he found online. After an initial investigation into whether Jabbar had accomplices, federal authorities have determined he acted alone and was "inspired" by ISIS propaganda.

Similarly, while Livelsberger hinted at his intent to friends and an ex-girlfriend, he ultimately seemed self-directed. Like Jabbar, he appears to have been lost and felt that this final act of violence would give him meaning. His letter suggests he believes he'll be a hero to men who share his radical political views. Both men were caught up in the sick logic of toxic masculinity, where being "good" is about being dominant and hateful. It's a worldview that reimagines ugly behavior as noble, and it's not a surprise it so often ends in violence.

HEGEMONIC HUBRIS

House Foreign Affairs chair moving ICC sanctions bill amid Israeli arrest warrants

Brad Dress
Mon 6 January 2025 




Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is planning to move legislation this week to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year.

A GOP congressional aide said the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act could get a vote on the House floor as soon as Thursday.

The aide said the bill has support “spanning the entire GOP conference” and that it was also bipartisan, with a similar measure getting the support of around 40 Democrats last year. Last year’s bill did not pass Congress because then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) did not move on it.

“With a new Congress, we’re bringing it up early to send a strong message that the America Last foreign policy of the Biden era is over,” the congressional aide said. “This is just an opening act.”

The Hill reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) office for comment on whether the bill would move this week, and to the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) for comment on whether the Senate plans to pick up the legislation.

The bill, which would take effect 60 days after enactment, would sanction any individual working to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute American citizens or an official from an allied U.S. country, including Israel.

The legislation covers the 32-member Western security alliance NATO and the 19 major non-NATO countries, which include Israel, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, the Philippines and Egypt.

It would also rescind any funds the U.S. has designated for the ICC and prohibit any future money for the court.

Mast said in a statement that the legislation “sends a clear message to the International Criminal Court.”

“We may not recognize you, but you sure as hell will recognize what happens when you target America or its allies,” said Mast. “The ICC’s attempt to obstruct Israel’s right to defend itself has only prolonged the war and prevented the release of American hostages by boosting Hamas’ morale.”

The bill was introduced by Mast and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), and it has 17 other Republican co-sponsors.

Roy said the ICC “is an illegitimate body that has no business interfering with our sovereignty or that of our allies.”

“Now it is engaged in a shameful lawfare campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu for doing his duty to protect his fellow citizens from Hamas in the wake of the barbaric October 7th attacks,” Roy said in a statement.

Roy said the bill was not only about Israel but also about protecting American troops from “political attacks” from the ICC as President-elect Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20.

“While I have full confidence that President Trump will stand for Israel with the strength and moral clarity that Biden has sorely lacked, this bill will ensure that no future administration after him will be able to give the ICC a free pass to attack our allies like this,” he added.

Republicans will hold the House, Senate and White House by the end of the month.

Still, many Democrats are likely to object to the measure, especially more progressive lawmakers who have raised concerns about Israel’s devastating war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, where more than 46,000 people have died. The war began when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, about 100 of whom are still in Gaza.

The ICC, an independent court formed in 2002, issued arrest warrants in November after prosecutors sought the warrants last spring. The warrants are for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Mohammed Deif, a key Hamas commander who Israel has claimed to have killed.

Both the U.S. and Israel do not recognize the ICC, but the state of Palestine does, which the court says gives it jurisdiction. The Biden administration, Republicans and many Democrats have argued the ICC has no jurisdiction.

Still, Washington has generally supported the ICC arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin related to his deporting children for the war in Ukraine.

The arrest warrants complicate travel for Netanyahu, who cannot go to a country that is a member of the ICC without risk of arrest.

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Debbie Harry Reveals 'One of the Bad Things About Aging' as She Prepares for 80th Birthday: 'Everyone's Gone Already'

The Blondie frontwoman also opened up about getting older and how "thinking about it all the time could be your downfall"

Jack Irvin
Mon 6 January 2025 
PEOPL4

Shane Anthony Sinclair/GettyDebbie Harry in May 2024


Debbie Harry is learning the downsides of getting older.

Before the Blondie frontwoman turns 80 on July 1, she spoke in-depth about her feelings toward aging in a new interview with The Times — including how it feels to have outlived many of her friends.

"I don’t walk around thinking every minute, oh my God, I’m going be 80 — but that’s sort of how I feel," said the rock icon. "My mother used to say in her head she was 25 and I’m the same."

Related: Debbie Harry Elevates Her Rockstar Status as She Poses for New Punk Eyewear Campaign (Exclusive)

Sansho Scott/BFA.com/ShutterstockDebbie Harry in October 2024

Harry explained she feels "thinking about [aging] all the time could be your downfall," adding that she doesn't "really want the same kind of life I did when I was younger" because she's already "done that."

"That’s the beauty of aging — you know what it’s about," said the "Call Me" singer. "You have it in your heart and soul and your memory bank … or does that sound like an excuse? Should I go out and party every night?"

Looking toward her milestone birthday this summer, Harry detailed plans to "have a whopping great party with everyone there" before telling the outlet: "Though one of the bad things about aging is everyone’s gone already."

Gilbert Flores/WWD via Getty  Debbie Harry in February 2024

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member then recalled, "In the 1980s, or maybe 1990s, there was a show at [the downtown nightclub] CBGB’s gallery. I went around the room and 50 per cent of the musicians in the photos were gone and that was years ago. It’s what they call diminishing returns."

Elsewhere in Harry's The Times interview, she spoke about having "no more nerves" at this stage in her life when it comes to performing live. "Experience is the key," she said.

The "One Way or Another" musician added, "It hasn’t all been lucky, but I feel I’ve been treated very generously by the fickle finger of fate and I’m just more content than I used to be. I tried very hard to do something and succeeded, and having some success is a terrific elixir."

Blondie's Debbie Harry Opens Up About Her Choice Not to Have Kids: 'Some Missing Element in My Chromosomes'

The singer spoke about her choice in an interview with 'The Times'

Hannah Sacks
Mon 6 January 2025

PEOPLE

John Lamparski/GettyDebbie Harry

Debbie Harry doesn't regret her choice not to have kids.

The lead singer of Blondie, 79, spoke with The Times in a new interview and was asked whether she has any regrets about not having kids. "No, I think I would have been a terrible parent," Harry admits.

"Although who knows? I salute anyone who raises a family, but it doesn't bother me for some reason. I guess there's some missing element in my chromosomes," she jokes.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Samir Hussein/WireImageDebbie Harry 

Blondie - Atomic (Glastonbury 2023)

Harry was in a relationship with Blondie's guitarist Chris Stein, but the pair split up in 1987 and remained friends. She is godmother to Stein's two daughters.

Elsewhere in her interview with The Times, the rockstar shared that she remains "curious" about dating as she's about to turn 80.

Harry told the outlet that she doesn't believe it's "possible" for her to start dating someone, though she also hasn't ventured into the modern world of dating online: "I haven't tried. I like chemistry between people."

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Debbie Harry with Zac Posen and Harrison Ball at 'Feud' premiere

"I had a friend who was an avid practitioner of online dating and she met a terrific guy," she said. "But I don’t know if I’m in the right position to be dating online."

The Times reporter Julia Llewellyn Smith then encouraged Harry to try her hand at a celebrity-friendly dating app like Raya, and she agreed to give it a go. "And I’m going to get back in touch and let you know how it went," she said.

"I’m definitely not so adventurous as I was, but I’m still curious," she said. "I like the way the world spins."

Jazz Passengers with Debbie Harry - Full Concert [HD] | Live at North Sea Jazz Festival 1995

What is HMPV? China steps up monitoring amid new virus outbreak

Stuti Mishra
Mon 6 January 2025

THE INDEPENDENT


What is HMPV? China steps up monitoring amid new virus outbreak

China is experiencing a surge in infections of a respiratory virus, leading to reports of overcrowded hospitals, new monitoring measures and public concerns about an outbreak.

The virus, identified as human metapneumovirus (HMPV), has seen cases spiking across northern Chinese provinces this winter, particularly among children.

The outbreak comes five years after the world was first alerted to the emergence of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, which later turned into a global pandemic with seven million deaths reported.

Photos and videos of people wearing masks in hospitals in China emerged on social media platforms and local reports compared the scenes to the initial outbreak of Covid.

Health authorities are implementing new measures to monitor and manage the spread of pneumonia cases of unknown origin. Nonetheless, Beijing has downplayed the developments as an annual winter occurrence.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday: “Respiratory infections tend to peak during the winter season.

“The diseases appear to be less severe and spread with a smaller scale compared to the previous year,” she said.

What is HMPV?

Human metapneumovirus, or HMPV, is a respiratory virus that causes symptoms similar to the common cold and influenza. While the illness is typically mild, it can lead to severe complications such as pneumonia, particularly in infants, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems.

The virus is not new but has gained attention amid a surge in cases, particularly in children under 14 in northern China.

First identified in 2001, HMPV is a single-stranded RNA virus that spreads through respiratory droplets or contact with contaminated surfaces. Cases have been previously identified in various countries, including the United Kingdom.

Its symptoms include cough, fever, nasal congestion, and fatigue, with an incubation period of three to six days. Unlike Covid-19, there is no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment for HMPV; treatment primarily involves managing symptoms.

Rising cases of HMPV in China

The spike in cases coincides with colder weather and increased indoor activity, conditions that typically fuel the spread of respiratory viruses. Health officials emphasize that this surge is consistent with seasonal trends.

China’s National Disease Control and Prevention Administration recently reported an increase in respiratory infections, including HMPV, during the winter. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has not flagged the situation as a global health emergency, but the rise in cases has prompted authorities to bolster monitoring systems.

A pilot programme has been launched to track pneumonia of unknown origin, ensuring labs and health agencies report and manage cases more effectively, state broadcaster CCTV reported, quoting an administration official at a news conference.
Can HMPV virus spread to other countries?

Hong Kong has reported a few cases of HMPV. Neighbouring countries like Cambodia and Taiwan are keeping a close watch on the situation. Cambodia’s Communicable Disease Control Department has issued warnings about HMPV, noting its similarity to Covid-19 and influenza.

Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control has said the virus’s higher risks for children, the elderly, and immunocompromised individuals.

In neighbouring India, officials said there is no need for panic as HMPV is “like any other respiratory virus”.

“There has been news doing the rounds about a metapneumovirus outbreak in China. Let me be very clear on that count. Metapneumovirus is like any other respiratory virus which causes the common cold, and in the very old and the very young it could cause flu-like symptoms,” Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) official Dr Atul Goel said.

Reassuring citizens and tourists, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said: “I can assure you that the Chinese government cares about the health of Chinese citizens and foreigners coming to China”, adding that “it is safe to travel in China”.

HMPV is all over TikTok – but is the virus something to worry about?

Jennifer Savin
Mon 6 January 2025 at 8:04 am GMT-7·4-min read
COSMOPOLITAN

HMPV is all over TikTok: so, what is the virus? izusek - Getty Images

As much as we'd love to kick a new year off with a fresh slate and clean bill of health, sadly the reality is often very different: it seems like everyone is coming down with a cold or some virus or another right now. But there's one virus in particular, the Human Metapneumovirus, known as HMPV, which is garnering a lot of attention on socials and in the news – but what actually is HMPV, and is it really anything to worry about?

Eager to get ourselves educated on the symptoms of Human Metapneumovirus, which is reportedly on the rise in China, we asked Dr Suzanne Wylie, GP and medical adviser for IQdoctor for her insights.

While videos of people wearing face masks in China are apparently going viral on some social platforms, causing some to worry that this could be the start of another wave of illnesses like the Covid-19 pandemic, government officials in Beijing have framed HMPV as nothing to be concerned about.

Mao Ning, foreign ministry spokesperson, said last week that "respiratory infections tend to peak during the winter season" and that things actually appear to be "less severe and spread with a smaller scale compared to the previous year".

Here's what you need to know about HMPV.

What is HMPV?

According to the expert GP, Dr Wylie explains HMPV as being a virus that causes respiratory infections, particularly in children, older adults, and those with weakened immune systems.

"It is part of the same viral family as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and was first identified in 2001, although it is thought to have been circulating in humans for many decades before that," she explains – meaning, this isn't a brand new illness. "HMPV is common worldwide, including in the UK, and tends to spread more frequently during the winter and early spring months, much like other respiratory viruses."

Carol Yepes - Getty Images

Is HMPV present in the UK right now?

Yes, says the GP – HMPV is present worldwide. According to the UK government's official national flu and COVID-19 surveillance report for the first week of 2025, the prevalence of the disease is "increasing slightly" in Great Britain right now. A comment in the report states: "hMPV positivity (laboratory surveillance) increased slightly to 4.5%."

It adds that the highest number of those tested and found to have the virus are children. "Human metapneumovirus (hMPV) positivity increased slightly to 4.5%, with the highest positivity in those aged under 5 years at 10.0%."
What are the symptoms of HMPV?

According to Dr Wylie, the symptoms of HMPV infection "can range from mild to severe and often resemble a common cold or flu, and in more severe cases, particularly in young children or older individuals, it can lead to bronchiolitis or pneumonia".

HMPV symptoms to watch out for include:

Runny or blocked nose


Cough


Sore throat


Fever


Shortness of breath

These symptoms overlap with other illnesses such as covid-19 or the flu. If you want to rule coronavirus out, you could try taking an at-home test but there aren't any readily available tests for HMPV.

What is the treatment for HMPV?

While there's no specific cure for HMPV, the GP says you can do all the usual things you would to relieve a cold or flu such as taking plenty of rest, trying over-the-counter medications for fever and/or pain and making sure you're drinking lots of fluids to try and flush your system.

"Severe cases may require hospitalisation for oxygen therapy or other supportive measures," Dr Wylie adds, and she explains that while it is possible to test for HMPV it's usually only done through specialised laboratory tests, using a swab taken from the nose or throat. "However, such tests are usually only done in hospital settings for severe or complicated cases, as the symptoms are generally managed without knowing the specific virus responsible."

Should we be worried about HMPV?

On the whole, no – but it's good to be aware of the symptoms and to chat with your own GP if you have any specific concerns. "HMPV is not usually a cause for major concern for healthy individuals, as most people recover fully with basic care," Dr Wylie notes. "However, it can be more serious for vulnerable groups, including very young children, older adults, and those with chronic health conditions or weakened immune systems. If someone experiences severe symptoms, such as difficulty breathing or high fever that doesn't improve, they should seek medical advice."

UK

When will new petrol and diesel cars be banned? Labour’s electric vehicle plans explained

A Labour consultation promises to provide more clarity to the car industry over the transition to zero-emission vehicles.

James Hockaday
Updated Mon 6 January 2025 

The government has vowed to stop the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. (Getty Images)


The government has launched a consultation on the phasing out of the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

In a written statement to Parliament, published today, the transport secretary Heidi Alexander promised greater clarity for manufacturers and more confidence to drivers thinking of making the switch to electric cars.

Setting out the government's current target, she said: "No new petrol or diesel cars will be sold after 2030. All new cars and vans will need to be 100% zero emission by 2035."

Alexander said transitioning to zero emission vehicles is not only an "environmental necessity" but an "opportunity for the UK to lead in cutting edge technologies".
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The transition may not be as smooth sailing as hoped, however, with ministers admitting late last year that they were "profoundly concerned" about the policy's impact on the industry, promising a review - with a possible view to easing the policy.

The previous Conservative government had initially set a target of 2030, before later pushing it back to 2035. The current Labour government hopes restoring the original target will bring more clarity and confidence to the industry.

Here, Yahoo News explains what you need to know about the consultation and the government's plans.

What has been announced?

The Department for Transport (DfT) has begun an open consultation into the phasing out of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

It says the government has been collaborating with the automotive industry and those invested in electric car charging infrastructure in an attempt to make the most of this transition, but ordinary members of the public are also free to share their views.

Participants are being asked their preference on technology choices and types of vehicles that will be permitted between 2030 and 2035 alongside zero-emission vehicles, for example, whether the sale of certain types of hybrid vehicles should continue up to 2035.

The government is investing an extra £6 billion in charging infrastructure up to 2030. (Alamy)

The consultation also asks for people's views on potential requirements for new non-zero emission vans to be sold from 2030 to 2035, and whether vans should have any CO₂ limits.

Electric vans accounted for just 5.8% of the market share in 2024, according to Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders figures, which is well below the government's zero-emission vehicle mandate target of 10%, with many businesses still preferring diesel vehicles due to their price and carrying capacity.

Other questions on the consultation include what impact the electric vehicle transition could have on the economy, and whether smaller-scale manufacturers should be included in the 2030 ban.

How can you have your say?

All you need to do is visit this page of the government's website, download a response form and send it back to the email address provided.

Alternatively, you can write to the following address: ZEV regulations team, Department for Transport, 3rd Floor Great Minster Housel 33 Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 4DR.

The consultation closes at 11.59pm on 18 February.

Why is the government banning petrol and diesel?

Perhaps the most obvious reason behind this ban is to reduce carbon emissions and help combat climate change.

Speaking at the Cenex Expo for low carbon vehicles in September, Future Roads Minister Lilian Greenwood said this would be an opportunity to "make good on our climate change obligations and improve the quality of something so essential as the air we breathe", Transport and Energy reported.

She said phasing out of new cars that rely on internal combustion engines, combined with efforts to install more electric charging points, will "mean less carbon and more clean energy; fewer polluting cars and more electric vehicles – reducing the burden on our planet and increasing the opportunities for everyone to join in the electric vehicle revolution".

However, there's also an economic element to the ban, with the government hoping it will provide an impetus for UK businesses to capitalise on an ever-growing green industry.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has said the consultation will bring greater clarity to the vehicle industry. (Getty Images)

"It is not just an environmental necessity but an opportunity for the UK to lead in cutting edge technologies, representing a significant industrial opportunity for the UK," said Alexander.

She said the consultation will consider what steps can be taken to support domestic manufacturers and "cement the UK’s position as one of the major European markets for ZEVs (zero-emission vehicles)".

The transport secretary also announced £6 billion of private investment out to 2030 to make charging infrastructure quicker and easier to install, adding to over £2.3 billion of support to UK manufacturers to help with the zero-emission transition.

So, can I drive my petrol and diesel car after 2030?

Yes, if you have a petrol and diesel car, you will still be able to drive it after 2030.

This is because the ban only applies to the sale of any new cars with internal combustion engines – not the usage of them.

You will still be able to buy second-hand petrol or diesel cars after the ban comes into place.

What does the car industry say?

One major concern expressed by the industry is how to incentivise more people to buy electric cars

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme last year, Ford's UK chair and managing director Lisa Brankin said: "The one thing that we really need is government-backed incentives to urgently boost the uptake of electric vehicles."

Edmund King, president of the AA, said drivers have been "hesitant about the transition but not hostile" but hoped the consultation would lead to greater clarity.

Speaking at a conference in June, Maria Grazia Davino, managing director of automotive manufacturer Stellantis, criticised the zero emission vehicle mandate for forcing companies to sell a greater share of electric vehicles each year in the run up to 2030, the Telegraph reported.

“The fact is that the demand is not there, following the glide path designed by the government,” she said, adding that being forced to discount so heavily to reach these targets, even if it means making a loss, could force Stellantis production in the UK could stop."

Read more

Electric car sales hit a record high in 2024 but fall short of government target (The Independent)


Cambridge electric car battery maker warns it may run out of cash within months (The Telegraph)


China is driving an electric vehicle revolution. But is it good news for the climate? (Euronews)


Britain becomes Europe’s biggest electric car market for first time

James Titcomb
Mon 6 January 2025 

THE TELEGRAPH


UK-made EVs


Britain has become Europe’s largest electric car market for the first time ever as tough net zero sales targets prompt manufacturers to offer steep discounts.

The UK outsold Germany last year and surged ahead of France after a rise in electric vehicles (EV) registrations at the end of 2024.

It came as the Government confirmed plans to bring forward Britain’s petrol and diesel ban from 2035 to 2030. Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, said the plans, which will exempt some hybrid vehicles until 2035, would “give confidence to consumers considering making the switch”.

Car makers scrambled to hit harsh government-mandated sales targets last year, which threaten fines of £15,000 for every non-electric car sold above a set quota.

The so-called zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate required 22pc of manufacturers’ car sales to be electric last year. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) estimated that companies spent £4.5bn on price cuts last year, equivalent to almost £12,000 off each EV, in an effort to hit the targets.

The discounting helped EV sales in Britain jump by a fifth last year to 381,970.

This put the UK just ahead of Germany, where EV sales fell by 27pc to 380,609. Olaf Scholz’s government abruptly removed subsidies at the end of 2023, leading to a plunge in sales.

Registrations fell in France, where the government has also reduced subsidies. Sales last year were down by 3pc to 291,143.

‘EU markets pulling the brakes’

EV sales in the UK are also far ahead of both Germany and France in percentage terms, making up 19.6pc of all new car sales last year, compared to 13.5pc in Germany and 16.9pc in France.

Matthias Schmidt, the automotive analyst who compiled the data, said the ZEV mandate had forced carmakers to direct supply to Britain.

He said: “[This] is to do with EU markets pulling the brakes on [battery electric vehicles] BEVs in 2024 and the UK effectively moving one year early with tougher legislation than EU markets enforced during 2024, forcing car manufacturers to boost the number of electric cars they deliver across the UK.”

The EV sales achievement will be cheered by the Government, which has been steadfast in its commitment to boosting sales as part of efforts to reach net zero.

However, the fact that sales are falling elsewhere in Europe will heighten concerns among car makers that Britain’s sales targets are too ambitious.
‘Unsustainable’ discounting levels

The SMMT has repeatedly warned that the level of discounting across the industry is “unsustainable” and has said the true level of demand for EVs among drivers is below the Government’s targets.

Only one in 10 private buyers chose an electric car last year.

Sales in mainland Europe could rebound this year as a result of strict new carbon emissions targets coming into force in the EU.

From this year, carmakers must reduce average fleet emissions by 15pc compared to 2020-2024 levels. Mr Schmidt said some carmakers had held back new electric models until this year to make it easier to hit the targets.

He said: “If the ZEV mandate stays in place in its current form the UK will remain at the peak or very close to the top of the regional electric car market table going forward.”

Labour has launched a consultation on how to make the ZEV mandate more flexible following intense lobbying from industry.

Car manufacturers have warned the targets are putting jobs and investment at risk, with Vauxhall-owner Stellantis explicitly blaming the EV quotas for its decision to close its Luton factory.

The mandate, which rises from 22pc of new car sales to 28pc this year, threatens fines of £15,000 per vehicle for manufacturers who fail to hit targets, although carmakers can make up the difference by buying credits.

Options for more flexibility being considered include giving manufacturers leeway to hit targets through electric van sales.

However, Ms Alexander said on Monday that the Government was committed to “maintaining the trajectories” in the mandate, which increase each year until 2030.

Pace of German emissions cuts slows in 2024: study

AFP
Tue 7 January 2025 

Eighty percent of the fall in Germany's emissions for 2024 is thanks to record high production of renewable energy and the continued closure of coal-fired power stations (John MACDOUGALL)

German greenhouse gas emissions fell again in 2024 but at a slower rate, due to lagging green investment by industry and households, according to a study published Tuesday.

Emissions in Europe's biggest economy fell three percent in 2024, a "marked slowdown" from a 10-percent drop in 2023, according to the Agora Energiewende think tank.

Germany reflects a trend across the EU, where a 3.8-percent drop is expected in 2024, after eight percent in 2023.

However, the study says that the 2024 emissions total of 656 million tonnes does represent a "historic low" and the year's 18 million-tonne drop is larger than the emissions target enshrined in domestic law.

Emissions are down 48 percent from 1990 levels, nearing the EU target of a 55-percent cut by 2030.

But progress continues to lag in sectors such as transport, construction and building use, while industrial emissions actually saw a slight rise of two percent despite Germany's general economic stagnation.

- Investment held back -

Agora Energiewende said that 2023's sharp drop was largely attributable to a slowdown in Germany's ailing industrial sector, where emissions fell 12 percent, and not to long-term changes in production methods.

This seems to be borne out by the latest figures; with the economy predicted not to have shrunk by as much as it did in 2023, industrial emissions have dragged down the overall picture.

Agora Energiewende noted that "in contrast to the electricity sector, no structural progress was visible in industry, building use and transport".

"On the contrary, investments in climate-neutral technologies actually went backwards in comparison with the previous year," the think tank said.

Germany will hold an early general election next month following the recent collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition, and the study notes that economic and political uncertainty is holding back investment by both households and businesses.

Sales of heat pumps were down 44 percent on the previous year, with new electric vehicle registrations down 26 percent.

The slight fall in emissions from building use was only due to milder winter weather resulting in less need for heating.

- Political divide -

Eighty percent of the fall in emissions for 2024 is thanks to record high production of renewable energy and the continued closure of coal-fired power stations.

Germany's energy regulator said Friday that renewable sources such as wind, solar and biomass had risen to 59 percent of electricity generation from 56 percent.


"In the electricity sector, the climate protection measures taken in recent years are increasingly bearing fruit," said Agora Energiewende director Simon Mueller.

He appealed to political parties currently engaged in election campaigning to take the electricity sector as an example of what needs to be done in the rest of the economy.

The extent to which public funds should be used to support the green transition is a key dividing line between Scholz's Social Democrats and the conservative CDU/CSU opposition.

Scholz has advocated an "investment campaign" but CDU/CSU leader Friedrich Merz, currently riding high in opinion polls, has said he is opposed to such an idea.

Jimmy Carter raised climate change concerns 35 years before the Paris Accords

BILL BARROW
Sun 5 January 2025 




President Jimmy Carter speaks against a backdrop of solar panels at the White House, June 21, 1979, in Washington. (AP Photo/Harvey Georges, File)

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — When Jimmy Carter chose branding designs for his presidential campaign, he passed on the usual red, white and blue. He wanted green.

Emphasizing how much the Georgia Democrat enjoyed nature and prioritized environmental policy, the color became ubiquitous. On buttons, bumper stickers, brochures, the sign rechristening the old Plains train depot as his campaign headquarters. Even the hometown Election Night party.

“The minute it was announced, we all had the shirts to put on — and they were green, too,” said LeAnne Smith, Carter’s niece, recalling the 1976 victory celebration.

Nearly a half-century later, environmental advocates are remembering Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100, as a president who elevated environmental stewardship, energy conservation and discussions about the global threat of rising carbon dioxide levels.

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to abandon the renewable energy investments that President Joe Biden included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, echoing how President Ronald Reagan dismantled the solar panels Carter installed on the White House roof. But politics aside, the scientific consensus has settled where Carter stood two generations earlier.

“President Carter was four decades ahead of his time,” said Manish Bapna, who leads the Natural Resources Defense Council. Carter called for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions well before “climate change” was part of the American lexicon, he said.

Wearing cardigans and setting standards

Former Vice President Al Gore, whose climate advocacy earned him the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, called Carter “a lifelong role model for the entire environmental movement.”

As president, Carter implemented the first U.S. efficiency standards for passenger vehicles and household appliances. He created the U.S. Department of Energy, which streamlined energy research, and more than doubled the wildnerness area under National Park Service protection.

Inviting ridicule, Carter asked Americans to conserve energy through personal sacrifice, including driving less and turning down thermostats in winter amid global fuel shortages. He pushed renewable energy to lessen dependence on fossil fuels, calling for 20% of U.S. energy to come from alternative sources by 2000.

But laments linger about what 39th president could not get done or did not try before his landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan.





Addressing climate change

Carter left office in 1981 shortly after receiving a West Wing report linking fossil fuels to rising carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere. Carter’s top environmental advisers urged “immediate” cutbacks on the burning of fossil fuels to reduce what scientists at the time called “carbon dioxide pollution.”

“Nobody anywhere in the world in a high government position was talking about this problem” before Carter, biographer Jonathan Alter said.

The White House released the findings, which drew forgettable news coverage: The New York Times published its story on the 13th page of its front section. And with scant time left in office, there were no tangible moves Carter could make, beyond the energy legislation he had already signed.

The report recommended limiting global average temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Thirty-five years later, in the 2015 Paris climate accords, participating nations set a similar goal.

“If he had been reelected, it’s fair to say that we would have been beginning to address climate change in the early 1980s,” Alter told the AP. “When you think about that, it adds a kind of a tragic dimension, almost, to his political defeat.”

Reagan ended high-level conversations about carbon emissions. He opposed efficiency standards as government overreach and rolled back some regulations. His chief of staff, Don Regan, called the solar panels “a joke.”

Pursuing energy independence

Despite Carter’s emphasis on renewable sources, the fossil fuel industry benefited from his push toward U.S. energy independence.

Collin O’Mara, CEO of the National Wildlife Foundation, pointed to coal-fired power plants built during and shortly thereafter Carter’s term, and his deregulation of natural gas production, a move O'Mara called “a precursor” to widespread fracking. Bapna noted Carter backed drilling off the coasts of Long Island in New York and New England.

Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, pointed to Carter’s Synthetic Fuels Corporation, a short-lived effort to produce fossil fuel alternatives that “would have meant much higher carbon emissions.”

But Carter had the right priorities, especially on research and development coordinated through the Energy Department, Nadel said. “He allowed us to have a national approach rather than one agency here and another there."

Stewarding God's creation

Carter’s environmental interests had deep roots going back to a a rural boyhood filled with hunting and fishing and working his father’s farmland.

“Jimmy Carter was an environmentalist before it was a real part of the political discussion — and I’m not talking about solar panels on the White House,” said Dubose Porter, a longtime Georgia Democratic Party leader. “Just focusing on that misses how early and how committed he was.”

His early years influenced Carter as governor, Porter said, when he boosted Georgia's state parks system and opposed Georgia congressmen who wanted to dam a river. Carter paddled the waterway himself and decided its natural state trumped the lucrative federal construction proposal.

In Washington, Carter continued sometimes unwinnable fights against funding for projects he deemed damaging and unnecessary. He found more success extending federal protection for more than 150 million acres (60.7 million hectares), including redwood forests in California and vast swaths of Alaska.

Randall Balmer, a Dartmouth College professor who has written on Carter's faith, said he saw himself as a custodian of divinely granted natural resources.

“That’s a real connection that young evangelicals still have with him today,” Balmer said.

Condemning consumerism

Carter won the presidency amid energy shortages rooted in global strife, especially in the oil-rich Middle East, so national security and economic interests dovetailed with Carter’s religious beliefs and affinity for nature, Nadel noted.

Carter compared the energy crisis to “the moral equivalent of war,” and as inflation and gas lines grew, he called for individual sacrifice and sweeping action on renewable energy.

“Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns,” Carter warned in 1979. “But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning.”

That “malaise” speech — dubbed so by the media despite Carter not using the word — was unique in presidential politics for its condemnation of unchecked American consumerism. Carter celebrated that more than 100 million Americans watched. By 2010, Carter acknowledged in his annotated “White House Diary” that his speech was a flop, but said it proved to be prescient for advocating bold and direct action on energy.

“You can say the Carter presidency is still producing results today,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, whose 2020 presidential run focused on climate action. “I’ve learned in politics that timing is everything and serendipity is everything.”

___

Former Associated Press reporter Drew Costley contributed from Washington, D.C.

Opinion - We cannot afford to delay modernizing the US power grid

William S. Becker, opinion contributor
Mon 6 January 2025

THE HILL



During his first presidency, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to modernize America’s outdated infrastructure. As it turned out, it was President Biden who worked with Congress to appropriate $1.2 trillion to repair and update the nation’s power lines, pipes, bridges and highways.

Without a single Republican vote, Biden also managed to win the largest-ever investment in clean and renewable energy.

Nothing is more critical to the nation’s future than its energy supplies and how we distribute and use them. Now, the ball will be passed again to Trump and a new Republican-controlled Congress.

Although the infrastructure and energy bills are on the books, incoming leaders will try to influence how the money is spent. Rather than allowing the nation’s clean-energy transition to proceed, they could redirect the appropriations to far less essential purposes or spend them on last century’s energy: fossil fuels. We can’t let that happen.

Meanwhile, the infrastructure bill will lay the foundation for clean and renewable energy in the United States by spending $65 billion — the largest such investment in American history — on a modern electric transmission and distribution system.

That system is often called the biggest machine ever built. It consists today of 11,000 generation plants, 5.5 million miles of transmission and distribution lines (enough to stretch to the moon and back 46 times), 180 million power poles, 3,000 electric utilities, 590 oil and gas rigs, 2.5 million miles of gas pipelines, 560 active coal mines and three separate regional electric grids that mainly transmit alternating current.

In 1982, energy visionaries Amory and Hunter Lovins published a study commissioned by the Defense Department to assess the system’s security. The Lovins warned that America relied on a “continuous electrical supply (that) depends on many large and precise machines, rotating in exact synchrony across half a continent, and strung together by an easily severed network of aerial arteries whose failure is instantly disruptive.”

They warned, “The size, complexity, pattern, and control structure of these electrical machines make them inherently vulnerable to large-scale failures: a vulnerability which government policies are systematically increasing. The same is true of the technologies that deliver oil, gas, and coal to run our vehicles, buildings, and industries. Our reliance on these delicately poised energy systems has unwittingly put at risk our whole way of life.”

That assessment is still accurate. Fossil fuels have triggered economic recessions and brought the world to the brink of permanent environmental catastrophe. Power outages cost U.S. businesses $150 billion annually and households a similar amount. Extreme weather is responsible for more than 80 percent of blackouts. Because of global climate change, power interruptions have increased 67 percent in the U.S. since 2000. Millions of Americans have also found themselves without electricity because tree branches touched powerlines, squirrels chewed through system components, or vandals took potshots at transformers.

Now, the big machine faces modern challenges, including power-hungry electric vehicles, data farms, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mining, and a resurgence in domestic manufacturing.

During the last decade, energy-efficiency gains have kept America’s electric demand relatively stable despite the growing population and economy. Now, a single query using ChatGPT uses nearly 10 times the electricity of a Google search. Analysts say data center power demands could triple in the U.S. over the next three years.

The good news is that nonpolluting, inexhaustible energy has become the least expensive and quickest way to generate electricity. Some 126 million solar panels on 4.3 million rooftops already contribute to the nation’s power supply, along with 75,000 wind turbines, nearly 4,200 large solar farms and 2,100 hydroelectric dams. However, we need vastly more. We have the natural resources and technologies to provide it, but we must modernize and expand the grid to move clean energy to where it’s needed.

As Amory Lovins says today, “We’ve got 21st-century technology and speed colliding head-on with 20th and 19th-century institutions, rules, and cultures.”

“Our grid is at a make-or-break moment,” according to Willie L. Phillips, chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “(The grid) is being tested every single day in ways that we’ve never seen before. We’re not talking about regular demand. We’re talking about dramatic increases of demand on our system.”

One idea gaining traction at the U.S. Department of Energy and Google is to locate power-hungry data operations where renewable resources are available and equip them with microgrids that can detach from the larger grid during outages. Several data operations could be served by the same assets if they are co-located in “energy parks.”

Other experts point out that the transmission system could move electricity over long distances more economically by connecting renewable energy assets with load centers using high-voltage, direct current (HVDC) lines. They can be routed along existing rights of way and buried to keep them safe from weather and to minimize NIMBYism. The Energy Futures Initiative says the nation is underinvesting in HVDC today even though it’s “the backbone grid that is important for economic growth, reliability, resiliency, and the proliferation of low-cost clean energy.”

One challenge is the number of actors and stakeholders in America’s electric system. They include three transmission regions, utilities, independent power producers, standards organizations, grid operators, government agencies, and consumer and environmental groups. Fortunately, under Biden’s Energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. Department of Energy has issued a comprehensive grid modernization strategy, the coordinated product of nine DOE offices and 14 national laboratories.

For the sake of America’s future, we should hope that Trump, Congress and decision-makers nationwide use the strategy to optimize the benefits of every dollar. After all, it was Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, DC power and America’s first power plant, who said, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” He also said, “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”

William S. Becker is a former regional director at the U.S. Department of Energy and author of several books on climate change and national disaster policies, including the “100-Day Action Plan to Save the Planet” and “The Creeks Will Rise: People Co-Existing with Floods.”