THERE IS NO HALF WAY FASCIST

Biden compares Republican ideology to 'semi-fascism'

President Joe Biden addresses Democratic rally ahead of midterm elections, with the party suddenly optimistic that recent policy wins will help dodge a thumping by Republicans.

Biden calls Trump's movement, branded as Make American Great Again or MAGA, an "extreme MAGA philosophy." (Reuters)

President Joe Biden has called on Democrats "to vote to literally save democracy once again" — and compared Republican ideology to "semi-fascism" — as he led a kickoff rally and a fundraiser in Maryland 75 days out from the midterm elections.

Addressing an overflow crowd of thousands at Montgomery High School in Rockville on Thursday, Biden said: "Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. The Social Security you paid for from the time you had a job is on the ballot. The safety of your kids from gun violence is on the ballot, and it's not hyperbole, the very survival of our planet is on the ballot."

"You have to choose," Biden added. "Will we be a country that moves forward or a country that moves backward?"

The events, in the safely Democratic Washington suburbs, were meant to ease Biden into what White House aides say will be an aggressive season of championing his policy victories and aiding his party’s candidates.

He is aiming to turn months of accomplishments into political energy as Democrats have seen their hopes rebound amid the legacy-defining burst of action by Biden and Congress.

From bipartisan action on gun control, infrastructure and domestic technology manufacturing to Democrats-only efforts to tackle climate crisis and health care costs, Biden highlighted the achievements of the party’s unified but razor-thin control of Washington.

Republicans call Biden's comments 'despicable'

And he tried to sharpen the contrast with Republicans, who once seemed poised for sizable victories in November.

Biden on Thursday expanded on his effort to paint Republicans as the "ultra-MAGA" party — a reference to former president Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan — opposing his agenda and embracing conservative ideological proposals as well as Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

"What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy," Biden told donors at the fundraiser.

"It's not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I'm going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism."

"I respect conservative Republicans," Biden said later. "I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans."

The Republican National Committee called Biden's comments "despicable."

"Biden forced Americans out of their jobs, transferred money from working families to Harvard lawyers, and sent our country into a recession while families can’t afford gas and groceries," said spokesperson Nathan Brand.

"Democrats don’t care about suffering Americans — they never did."

French MEPs accuse UK of turning English Channel into sewage 'dumping ground'


Thursday 25 August 2022 at 10:57pm

A group of French MEPs have said Britain has breached its post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.

Credit: PA

A group of French politicians have accused the British government of allowing the English Channel and North Sea to become "dumping grounds" for leaked sewage.

Three French members of the European Parliament sent a letter to the European Commission, on Wednesday, warning that the leaks could threaten bathing waters, fishing grounds and biodiversity in the European Union (EU).

“The English Channel and the North Sea are not dumping grounds,” said Stephanie Yon-Courtin, a member of the European Parliament’s fishing committee and a local lawmaker in Normandy.

“We can’t tolerate that the environment, the economic activity of our fishers and the health of our citizens is put into grave danger by repeated negligence of the United Kingdom in the management of its sewage water,” she said.

The lawmakers asked the Commission “to use all the political and legal means in its possession” to find a solution, accusing Britain of violating its post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.

They said while the UK is no longer held to EU environmental standards, it is still a signatory to the United Nations (UN) convention on maritime rights and obligated to protect shared seawater.

Plans from the government to address the amount of untreated sewage water companies are allowed to release "can't come into place soon enough", reports Martin Stew.

The government has rejected the criticism, saying it has strengthened water quality regulations since Brexit.

Steve Double, the UK's water minister said: “Unhelpful and ill-informed comments like this shouldn’t distract from the work we are doing to further protect our rivers and sea.

“We have already made it law for water companies to reduce the frequency and volume of sewage discharges, and our upcoming Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan will require water companies to deliver the largest infrastructure program in water company history.”

Heavy rainfall after weeks of dry weather overwhelmed parts of Britain's sewage system last week, causing untreated wastewater to be discharged into rivers and seas.

The activist group Surfers Against Sewage reported 654 alerts of sewer overflows spilling sewage into bathing waters this summer, from 171 locations in England and Wales.

Last week the Liberal Democrats released a report alleging that wastewater discharges weren’t being properly recorded because many of the required monitoring devices either weren’t working properly or hadn’t been installed yet.

Warning not to swim after sewage released at four Welsh beaches

Swimmers protest after raw sewage spills into sea during heavy rain

While UK water companies are barred from dumping untreated wastewater in normal circumstances, they are allowed to make such releases when heavy rains threaten to overwhelm sewage treatment plants.

But environmental groups have alleged some companies exploit this exception to save money and avoid upgrading their systems.

During the Brexit breakup negotiations, the EU repeatedly expressed fears that the UK would ditch the bloc’s stringent environmental standards, and yield to business pressures for a more deregulated system which could put their shared environment in danger.

The trade agreement that took effect in 2021 after Britain left the EU contains no specific provision on how to deal with storm water overflows.

Water UK, which represents water and wastewater companies, said its members were investing £3 billion to tackle overflows, as part of a national program to improve the environment between 2020 and 2025.

It acknowledged “an urgent need for action to tackle the harm caused to the environment by spills from storm overflows and wastewater treatment works".

“Water companies can’t do this alone, which why we’re also calling for government, regulators, water companies, agriculture and other sectors to come together as soon as possible to deliver a comprehensive national plan," the group said.

Trump social media platform faces money woes, modest following
AFP
August 25, 2022

Truth Social bills itself as Donald Trump's answer to platforms like Twitter, which the former US president was booted off of

New York (AFP) - Signs are growing that Donald Trump's social media platform Truth Social is in financial trouble, with just a modest following six months after launching.

Fox Business Network reported Thursday that the platform has halted payments to the company that hosts it, RightForge, and owes $1.6 million.

Neither the platform's parent company Trump Media and Technology Group nor RightForge answered AFP requests for comment.

Meanwhile the parent company's merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp -- a blank check company formed specifically to carry out a merger -- has yet to take place, 10 months after the announcement that it would happen. This fusion is supposed to bring in fresh funding for the Trump platform.

DWAC published Thursday a call for a special shareholders meeting September 6 at which investors will be asked to approve a one-year delay for carrying out the merger, until Sept 8 of 2023.

Without a favorable vote for an extension the blank check company said it will be forced to dissolve.

Financial data published Thursday said that as of late June, DWAC had only $3,000 in cash on hand.

Truth Social bills itself as Trump's answer to platforms like Twitter, which the former president used as a loud political bullhorn until he was ejected from it after a mob he had egged on assaulted the US Capitol in January 2021.

But six months later it is in 30th place in an Apple ranking of social media apps downloaded onto iPhones.

The Statista data base says Truth Social is downloaded only around 50,000 times per week.

Trump's account on Truth Social has 3.91 million followers; on Twitter he had 79.5 million when he was booted.

Shares in DWAC have fallen 71 percent since hitting their peak in early March.

Rents are going up, forcing Chicagoans to make lifestyle changes, or hunt for more affordable housing

2022/08/25

Micaeh Johnson and her daughter Carys Saunders, 7, pose for a portrait, Monday, Aug. 15, 2022, in the front yard of their Logan Square home. - 

Raquel Zaldvar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

CHICAGO — When the pandemic started, photographer and public relations professional Micaeh Johnson realized she needed a little extra space for social distancing in the apartment she shared with her now-7-year-old daughter.

So she rented a two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhouse in the South Loop near McCormick Place for $3,250 a month.

Johnson, director at Chicago’s Simply Be. Agency, had been paying $2,875 in monthly rent for her two-bedroom apartment in the South Loop, and upgrading to the townhouse was a stretch for her monthly budget. But the supplemental child care income her company provided during COVID-19 helped. So did staying inside and not traveling.

But once the pandemic started to ease and things began to open up, she felt the pinch again. And then the furnace went out in the townhouse.

“We were paying so much to stay in the South Loop, and our landlord didn’t blink an eye when the furnace went out. We felt isolated, my budget was stretched and I had no idea what I was paying for anymore,” she said.

Tired of the struggle, Johnson bought a 1,700-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Logan Square in December 2021, and she pays just $1,800 a month for the mortgage.

Johnson isn’t the only one grappling with higher rents. Average rents in the Chicago area have climbed almost 9% since 2021, according to online apartment listings marketplace Apartment List. A combination of inflation and climbing demand for units as consumers emerge from the pandemic has driven up rents, with little to no sign that prices will reverse any time soon. At the same time, many of the rental assistance programs offered during the height of the pandemic have ended.

Some people, like Johnson, have been able to transition to homeownership. Others are making lifestyle changes or searching for more affordable units as a way of coping with rising rents.

Alvin Griffin, 46, moved to suburban Homewood in 2017 so his only daughter could get a good high school education. Taylor is now a sophomore in Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School, and Griffin doesn’t envision leaving the area anytime soon.

But when the monthly rent he was paying for a three-bedroom, single-family home jumped to $2,100 last year, up from $1,750 when he moved in, he knew he needed to find a more affordable residence while staying within the Homewood school district.

It took him two months to find the rental that he’s paying $1,500 a month for now. And finding that space wasn’t easy.

“I would say it was luck,” the PepsiCo employee said. “A friend of mine was on Facebook telling everybody about this rental unit. I called her and things went from there.”

Griffin said the current housing market is hard, but he’s coping the best way he knows how. That means less socializing, less traveling and no new car. Any money he saved with the move is now going into his gas tank because he commutes to his job downtown.

William M. Bennett, an adjunct lecturer of real estate at Northwestern University, said landlords were forced to “hustle and offer concessions” during the pandemic, like offering reduced rent or a few months rent-free, as people remained uncertain about “the benefit of living in the urban environment during a pandemic.”

But the rollout of vaccines in 2021 and the return to in-person work and leisure have resulted in climbing demand for rental units. And according to a report from appraisal company Integra Realty Resources, concessions have been “virtually eliminated from the market as most buildings have filled up.”

“I think in the first half of 2021 … there was a general feeling that everybody was going to be back in the office business as usual in the summer of 2021,” said Ron DeVries, senior managing director at Integra. “So the people that moved home or moved out of state temporarily decided, ‘Well, I better go get an apartment downtown again.’ ... But then that requirement never materialized … so I think that it’ll be interesting to see what plays out over the next year.”

According to DeVries, while all submarkets in the city have seen spikes in rent, the “hottest” market for development at present is the West Loop, while Bennett pointed to the West Loop, as well as River North and Fulton Market.

“All of these buildings are at or above the rents where they were before COVID hit,” DeVries said. “So they took a decline of 20% or more in rent, and almost all these buildings are now renting above where they were pre-COVID. So there’s kind of a V-shaped recovery.”

Kyle Stengle, senior managing director of investments at Marcus & Millichap, a company that specializes in commercial real estate sales and financing, said smaller units like studios were hit the worst during the pandemic, as people were “stuck inside” with little to do and in need of more space.

Meanwhile, luxury real estate has had one of the more successful comebacks over the past year.

“The higher-end luxury buildings are the first ones to take the hit when the market starts to decline, but they’re also the first ones to come back as the market recovers,” DeVries said.

Real estate agent Maria Smith says rising rents are the reason why she’s seeing more shared living among family members. She said low supply, bigger demand, property taxes and inflation are all reasons for rent increases.

“Landlords are raising rents because the lights are higher, the gas is higher, the water is higher,” said the former property owner of three Southland homes, who tries to educate people on homebuying through comedic social media videos. “I’m seeing children move back in with their parents. I’m seeing a lot of families coming together to buy buildings — two-flats, three-flats. They’re pooling together to buy a building, move in the bottom unit and have somebody in the other units pay the rent. That is the way that people are able to afford real estate because they’re using rents to qualify for the mortgage.”

According to DeVries, higher rents are partially explained by a scarcity of available units, as well as the strong year the market had in 2021.

Going forward, it is unclear if increasing the supply of units will ease rents, as inflation has driven construction costs up — and once renters land a unit downtown they aren’t as incentivized to leave as they were in 2020.

“Even at these higher rents, it is really hard to pencil out the numbers for new buildings so we don’t expect to see hyper supply,” DeVries said.

A report by Marcus & Millichap notes that for the first time since 2000, fewer than 18,000 units will be available in the downtown market this year, and the vacancy rate is expected to be less than half of the 2019 level.

With an “inflationary environment and supply chain issues,” Bennett said continued high demand will “paint a picture where rents and the apartment market should continue to go up at a pace much higher than inflation” for the foreseeable future.

That’s why Johnson says that if you can find inventory, consider buying. “Get creative if you need to rent/sell in the future,” she said. “Rates are high but you can put in a lower offer and refinance when rates go down. I was lucky that when I was at my wit’s end with the South Loop, I found a great home for our family with a home that had been on the market for a while and while rates were low. Now we no longer feel like transients in a city we were born in.”

____

Micaeh Johnson plays with her daughter Carys Saunders

 in their Logan Square home on Aug. 15, 2022. -

 Raquel Zaldvar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Carys Saunders, 7, talks about a piece of artwork in her 

Logan Square home that she painted with her mom 

Micaeh Johnson, Aug. 15, 2022. -

 Raquel Zaldvar/Chicago Tribune/TNS

© Chicago Tribune

Bill Barr Slams Trump, Accuses Former Boss of 'Extortion' and 'Sabotage'

BY KATHERINE FUNG ON 8/25/22 

Bill Barr Says Trump Was 'Livid And Shaking' After Finding Out Election Result

Former Attorney General Bill Barr painted an unflattering image of former President Donald Trump in a wide-ranging interview this week, describing his former boss as a man who relies on "extortion" and "sabotage" to maintain his grip over the Republican Party more than 19 months after leaving office.

On Thursday's episode of journalist Bari Weiss' podcast Honestly, Barr described Trump as someone who is "all about himself" and willing to pursue his personal agenda at the expense of the greater GOP.

Barr, who headed the Department of Justice for two years under Trump, criticized him for castigating members of their party as "RINOs," or Republicans in name only, contending that not only do such conservatives not exist but that Trump has chosen to do so to purge the GOP of people he didn't like.

"The idea that there are RINOs, people that really don't support Republican principles, is simply not true," Barr said. "What the president is defining as RINOs are people who are true blue Republicans and conservatives but who just have a problem with Trump personally."

Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr meets with members of the St. Louis Police Department during a roundtable discussion on October 15, 2020, in St Louis, Missouri. "The tactic that Trump is using to exert this control over the Republican Party is extortion," Barr said.JEFF ROBERSON/GETTY IMAGES

Barr said that while Trump's influence is exerted on only a minority of the GOP—Barr estimated that Trump controls one-third of the party—what makes Trump powerful is his willingness to sabotage the Republican agenda if it's not on his terms.

"He not only does that in the presidential election, but he'll also do that in state elections," Barr said. "It's my person or it's sabotage. This pursuit of a personal agenda and personal power is weakening the Republican Party at a time when it could have a historic victory and make historic progress in 'making America great again.'"

He added that behavior Trump has displayed is unlike anything that's been exhibited by great leaders of the past.

"The tactic that Trump is using to exert this control over the Republican Party is extortion," Barr said. "What other great leader has done this? Telling the party, 'if it's not me, I'm going to ruin your election chances by telling my base to sit home. And I'll sabotage whoever you nominate other than me.' It shows what he's all about. He's all about himself."

READ MORE

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Speaking about his decision to join the Trump administration, Barr said he was "under no illusions" when he went in but felt that it was important for a Republican administration to be in office at the time. While he hadn't originally supported Trump, he said he backed him once he officially received the 2016 GOP nomination and that he was "following good, sound policies."

He said it wasn't until the 2020 election that he started having problems with Trump. While Barr described being "proud of the record of the administration," he said Trump became "very difficult to work with" after the loss to Biden.

Barr, who has disputed Trump's baseless claims of widespread election fraud, said he "underestimated how far" Trump would take the claims, saying he didn't expect him to purse "these very wacky legal theories that no one gave any credence to."

Despite the criticism, Barr said that he would still vote for him if Trump were to run against a progressive Democrat in 2024, calling Trump the "lesser-of-two-evils choice." He said that if the matchup were Trump versus President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or California Governor Gavin Newsom, he would cast his ballot for his former boss.

Asked whom he thinks will become president in the next election, Barr said, "If I had to bet, I would probably bet DeSantis."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's office for comment.

Watchdog Leader: 'It Is Clear Why Barr Did Not Want the Public to See' Newly Released Trump Memo

The head of CREW—which fought for the document's release—said that "it twists the facts and the law to benefit Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law."

Then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump stepped off Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on September 1, 2020. 

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT

August 24, 2022

This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...

Following a watchdog group's win in court last week, the Biden administration on Wednesday released an unredacted memorandum from 2019 about whether then-President Donald Trump obstructed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russia's election interference.

Noah Bookbinder—president of the organization, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)—highlighted that then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr pointed to the memo from the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel to claim there was no justification for charging Trump with obstruction of justice.

"The memo presents a breathtakingly generous view of the law and facts for Donald Trump," Bookbinder said. "It twists the facts and the law to benefit Trump and does not comport with a serious reading of the law of obstruction of justice or the facts as found by Special Counsel Mueller."

As Bookbinder explained: "The memo is premised in large part on the argument that there was no underlying criminal conduct and that it's hard to charge obstruction without an underlying crime. Of course, that's not what Mueller actually found."

"Mueller found there was not sufficient evidence to charge Trump and others with conspiring with Russia," CREW's leader continued. "He didn't find no crime, just not enough evidence for charges. Of course, Trump couldn't know about that future conclusion when he decided whether or not to obstruct."

He also noted that the document "takes an exceedingly cramped view of prior cases" and "relies on Trump's use of open-ended language [about] his 'hope' the investigation would be let go, and his delegation of firing prosecutors or narrowing investigations to others when he could have done it himself, as exonerating Trump."


"The memo is not just wrong; it is dangerous coming from a usually respected office at the Department of Justice," Bookbinder added. "It is clear why Barr did not want the public to see it."

In a series of Wednesday tweets contrasting the memo with Mueller's report, New York Times reporter Charlie Savage said that the newly released document "reads like a defense lawyer's brief."

US seeks to invalidate Idaho water rights forfeiture laws

FOR GOOD REASON

KEITH RIDLER, Associated Press
Aug. 25, 2022

 In this Jan. 25, 2008 file photo, cows graze in a field near snow covered Lizard Butte just outside Marsing, Idaho. The United States is seeking to invalidate a series of Idaho laws passed in the last five years that create a path through the Idaho Department of Water Resources for ranchers to take over federal instream water rights through a state-approved forfeiture procedure.

 (Greg Kreller/Idaho Press-Tribune via AP, File)Greg Kreller/AP

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — U.S. officials are seeking to invalidate Idaho laws passed over the last five years that create a path through the Idaho Department of Water Resources for ranchers to take control of federal public land instream water rights with a state-approved forfeiture procedure.

The Idaho Legislature in court documents filed last month is seeking to intervene in the case with statewide ramifications for millions of acres of land in Idaho administered by the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The U.S. Department of Justice in a lawsuit filed in June against Idaho and the Idaho Department of Water Resources contends that the state's forfeiture procedure violates the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause. It states that federal law takes precedence over state law. The Justice Department also says the laws violate parts of the Idaho Constitution.

The Idaho attorney general’s office in court documents countered that the state laws are valid and enforceable. The court hasn’t yet ruled on whether the Idaho Legislature can intervene.

Shelley Keen, Water Allocation bureau chief for the state water resources agency, declined to comment on the substance of the lawsuit. Scott Graff, spokesman at the Idaho attorney general's office, said the office does not comment on ongoing litigation.

At the heart of the case is a 2007 Idaho Supreme Court ruling involving a livestock company’s claim to water rights on federal rangeland to provide water for livestock. The court in that case upheld a lower court's ruling that the Joyce Livestock Company established a water right and disallowed the U.S. water right claims.

Idaho officials and ranchers have interpreted that ruling to mean that the federal government can't maintain water rights because it does not put the water to a beneficial use because it doesn't own cattle that graze the land and drink the water.

But the federal government contends it does put the water to a beneficial use because it issues grazing permits to ranchers that in turn graze livestock that drink the water.

Idaho lawmakers in 2017 approved a state law that, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in July by Republican Senate President Pro-Tem Chuck Winder, “clarifies that a grazing permittee cannont be considered an agent of the federal government.”

That appears to be a change in state law as described by the Idaho Supreme Court in its 2007 Joyce Livestock Company decision.

Besides that decision, the impetus for the recent Idaho water rights forfeiture laws also stems from a nearly three-decade effort to wrap up Idaho water law decisions by the Snake River Basin Adjudication Court and Idaho appellate courts that concluded in 2014. The ownership of some 160,000 water rights were decided.

Among those decisions were thousands of instream water rights involving ranchers on federal public grazing land. Instream water is water that flows in streams, as opposed to water that is diverted from streams.

Many ranchers agreed to deals in which they received instream water rights dated one day earlier than the federal government, giving the ranchers priority use of the water.

But the Joyce Livestock Company in Owyhee County in southwestern Idaho didn’t agree to accept a deal giving it a water right dated ahead of the federal government. Instead, it went through a expensive process to determine the instream water rights that ultimately went to the Idaho Supreme Court and led to the Joyce Livestock decision.

By then, however, many water rights had already been decided by the Snake River Basin Adjudication Court to belong to the federal government.

The recently enacted Idaho water rights forfeiture laws create a state process where ranchers can potentially gain control of the federal water rights already decided by the court.

Ranchers have started using that process, and the Idaho Department of Water Resources this year at the request of ranchers initiated multiple actions against water rights claimed by the federal government based on those water rights not being put to beneficial use.

The Justice Department responded with the lawsuit now playing out in federal court that seeks to have the state laws the process is based on nullified. It's not clear if any water rights have changed hands under the new state laws.

Cameron Mulrony, executive vice president of the Idaho Cattle Association, didn't respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

On a broader scale, the federal court case reflects a changing U.S. West where the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are shifting toward a multiple-use strategy for public lands that considers recreational and wildlife instead of just livestock grazing. That's especially true in fast-growing Idaho where many newcomers find the vast federal public lands in the state a chance to explore wild places.

Some of those activities, such as hiking, riding off-road vehicles, hunting and shooting, fishing, camping, and other activities on public land where livestock graze can interfere with ranching operations.

Ranchers, some among families that have grazed livestock on the same federal lands for generations, also face pressure from conservation groups that cite potential violations of environmental laws in challenging grazing permits issued to ranchers by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

Securing water rights to those grazing allotments is seen by some ranchers as protection against having water or grazing rights taken away in a changing political landscape.

Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project, whose goal is to eliminate public land grazing entirely, is one of the groups that has challenged grazing permits.

“The livestock industry has long tried to use water rights as a means to assert livestock grazing as a dominant use on public lands," said Erik Molvar, executive director of the group.

He added: "But the reality is that livestock grazing is a privilege and not a right, and should only be allowed in areas where it's compatible with wildlife, public recreation and all the other multiple uses that are required to be managed on public lands.”

New Survey Data Cast Further Doubt on the FDA's Opposition to Flavored E-Cigarettes

The "epidemic" of adolescent vaping seems to be fading fast, and vaping is replacing smoking among adults, a harm-reducing trend that regulators seem determined to discourage.

JACOB SULLUM | 8.25.2022 

REASON MAGAZINE

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FDA Commissioner Robert Califf (Michael Brochstein/Zuma Press/Newscom)

A federal appeals court this week sided with several companies whose applications to sell nicotine vaping products in a variety of flavors were rejected by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown noted yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that the FDA's decisions were "arbitrary and capricious" because the agency ignored marketing and age-verification plans aimed at preventing underage vaping. But as Judge Robin Rosenbaum noted in her dissent, the manufacturers' victory probably will be short-lived, because the FDA seems dead set against allowing the sale of vaping products in flavors other than tobacco.

That position is puzzling, since former smokers who have switched to vaping overwhelmingly prefer nontobacco flavors, and the FDA acknowledges that "electronic nicotine delivery systems" (ENDS) hold great promise as a harm-reducing alternative to cigarettes. But the FDA insists there is no solid evidence that flavor variety makes vaping more appealing to adult smokers, even as it worries that flavor variety makes vaping more appealing to teenagers. So when the FDA reconsiders these applications on remand from the 11th Circuit, it is almost certain to reject them again, notwithstanding the steps that the companies are taking to keep their products away from underage consumers

The FDA's opposition to flavor variety is driven by concern about an "epidemic" of adolescent vaping. But as new survey data from the government-sponsored Monitoring the Future (MTF) study confirm, the surge in electronic cigarette use by teenagers that alarmed the FDA in 2018 and 2019 is already receding, even though adults can still buy flavored ENDS that remain on the market because the FDA has not yet decided whether to allow them or has not taken enforcement action against them. Those data also indicate that adolescent smoking continued to decline as vaping became more popular. The picture is similar for young adults: As vaping continued to rise among 19-to-30-year-olds in 2021, cigarette smoking hit a record low.

These trends suggest that we are seeing precisely the sort of harm-reducing substitution that the FDA claims to want. The data certainly are not consistent with the idea that the availability of ENDS has resulted in more smoking. Yet Judge Rosenbaum, who seems to think the FDA's opposition to flavored ENDS is well-grounded, avers that "vaping has been shown to be a gateway to smoking combustible cigarettes." She cites no evidence to support that claim, which seems highly implausible in light of the continuing decline in smoking among teenagers and adults.

The annual MTF survey, which University of Michigan researchers conducts under contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, includes students in the eighth, 10th, and 12th grades. In 2021, it shows, the prevalence of past-month nicotine vaping fell sharply in all three grades.

That rate peaked at 10.5 percent in 2020 among eighth-graders before falling to 7.6 percent last year. Among 10th- and 12th-graders, it peaked at 19.9 percent and 25.5 percent, respectively, in 2019 and had fallen to 13.1 percent and 19.6 percent, respectively, by last year. Between 2019 and 2021, the prevalence of "daily" vaping (defined as use on 20 or more occasions in the previous 30 days) fell from 2 percent to 1.1 percent among eighth-graders, from 6.8 percent to 2.5 percent among 10th-graders, and from 11.6 percent to 5.4 percent among 12th-graders.

These findings are broadly consistent with results from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), which is sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That survey shows the prevalence of past-month e-cigarette use by high school students peaking at 27.5 percent in 2019 before falling to 11.3 percent in 2021. Even though adults still have access to ENDS in a variety of flavors, the "epidemic" decried by the FDA and the CDC seems to be fading fast.

Neither survey provides any evidence of the "gateway" that Rosenbaum perceives. On the contrary, the downward trend in adolescent smoking continued even when vaping was rising sharply. Among 12th-graders in the MTF survey, the prevalence of past-month cigarette smoking fell from 10.3 percent in 2011 to 2 percent in 2021. During the same period, the prevalence of "daily" cigarette smoking fell from 4.3 percent to 0.8 percent. In the NYTS, the prevalence of past-month cigarette smoking among high school students fell from 15.8 percent in 2011 to 1.9 percent last year.

There is reason to think that ENDS, far from interfering with the decline in adolescent smoking, hastened that downward trend, which accelerated as vaping took off. The replacement of smoking by vaping is indisputably an improvement in terms of "public health," which the FDA claims to be promoting. But the agency instead portrays it as a grave danger to the youth of America. When it comes to teenagers, the FDA refuses even to consider the positive impact of such substitution.

A 2019 analysis of NYTS data found that frequent e-cigarette use was concentrated among teenagers who were current or former smokers. So far the recent decline in adolescent vaping has not led to an uptick in smoking, which makes sense if casual users, rather than teenagers who vape instead of smoking, account for most of the drop. But the FDA should be wary of any policy that makes cigarettes easier to obtain than ENDS or makes ENDS less appealing to people who otherwise would be smoking. Over the long term, the upshot could be more rather than fewer smoking-related deaths.

Logically, that analysis should include teenagers as well as adults. But the FDA insists that the health benefits of substituting ENDS for cigarettes don't count when vapers are younger than 21. So let's consider what the MTF data tell us about the potential cost of refusing to let adults buy the vaping products they demonstrably want.

"Cigarette smoking among young adults has been declining steadily since
2004 and reached new historic lows in 2021," an MTF report notes. "Cigarette use in the past 30 days decreased by more than half in the past decade," from 21.2 percent in 2011 to 9 percent in 2021.

In recent years, that downward trend in smoking by 19-to-30-year-olds has been accompanied by an upward trend in vaping. "Since it was first measured in 2017,
nicotine vaping in the past 30 days has nearly tripled among young adults to 16.1% in 2021," the report says. "Nicotine vaping in the past 12 months was reported by 21.8%, just below the all-time high of 23.6% in 2019."

Between 2017 and 2021, as the prevalence of past-month vaping in this age group rose by 160 percent, the prevalence of past-month cigarette smoking fell by 39 percent. Those trends are not consistent with Rosenbaum's theory that more vaping means more smoking. But they are consistent with the theory that many young adults are choosing to vape instead of smoke.

The FDA ostensibly would like to see more of that. The whole premise of approving the sale of ENDS as "appropriate for the protection of the public health"—the standard the FDA is supposed to apply under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act—is that it will help reduce tobacco-related morbidity and mortality by offering smokers a much less hazardous way to consume nicotine. Yet the FDA claims to be unpersuaded that flavor variety plays an important role for smokers who have made that potentially lifesaving switch or might be interested in doing so.

The FDA contradictorily insists that flavor variety is important to teenagers. It thinks at least some of them will eschew vaping if tobacco is the only flavor they can find. The possibility that some teenagers therefore will smoke instead does not enter into the FDA's calculations at all. And it dismisses the danger that the same thing will happen among adults, saying ENDS manufacturers have not produced enough evidence to that effect.

Contrary to its legal duty, the FDA has not carefully weighed the costs and benefits of its supposedly youth-protecting policy. Instead, it refuses to admit there are any costs to consider.

Incidents of “Dangerous Heat” Will Triple In Coming Decades: New Study

"Potentially billions of people are going to be exposed to extremely dangerous levels of heat very regularly."

By The Associated Press

Published on 8/25/2022 at 3:50 PM

PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

What's considered officially “dangerous heat” in coming decades will likely hit much of the world at least three times more often asclimate changeworsens, according to a new study.

In much of Earth's wealthy mid-latitudes, spiking temperatures and humidity that feel like 103 degrees (39.4 degrees Celsius) or higher -- now an occasional summer shock — statistically should happen 20 to 50 times a year by mid-century, said a study Monday in the journalCommunications Earth & Environment.

By 2100, that brutal heat index may linger for most of the summer for places like the U.S. Southeast, the study's author said.

And it’s far worse for the sticky tropics. The study said a heat index considered “extremely dangerous” where the feels-like heat index exceeds 124 degrees (51 degrees Celsius) — now something that rarely happens — will likely strike a tropical belt that includes India one to four weeks a year by century's end.

“So that’s kind of the scary thing about this,” said study author Lucas Zeppetello, a Harvard climate scientist. “That’s something where potentially billions of people are going to be exposed to extremely dangerous levels of heat very regularly. So something that's gone from virtually never happening before will go to something that is happening every year.”

Zeppetello and colleagues used more than 1,000 computer simulations to look at the probabilities of two different levels of high heat -- heat indexes of 103 degrees (39.4 Celsius) and above 124 degrees (51 Celsius), which are dangerous and extremely dangerous thresholds according to the U.S. National Weather Service. They calculated for the years 2050 and 2100 and compared that to how often that heat happened each year across the world from 1979 to 1998.

The study found a three- to ten-fold increase in 103-degree heat in the mid-latitudes even in the unlikely best-case scenario of global warming limited to only 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times -- the less stringent of two international goals.
There's only a 5% chance for warming to be that low and that infrequent, the study found. What's more likely, according to the study, is that the 103-degree heat will steam the tropics “during most days of each typical year” by 2100

Chicago hit that 103 degree heat index level only four times from 1979 to 1998. But the study’s most likely scenario shows Chicago hitting that hot-and-sticky threshold 11 times a year by the end of the century.

Heat waves are one of the new four horsemen of apocalyptic climate change, along with sea level rise, water scarcity and changes in the overall ecosystem, said Zeppetello, who did much of the research at University of Washington state during the warming-charged 2021 heat wave that shattered records and killed thousands.

“Sadly, the horrific predictions shown in this study are credible,” climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, who was not part of the study team, said in an email. “The past two summers have provided a window into our steamy future, with lethal heat waves in Europe, China, northwestern North America, India, the south-central U.S., the U.K., central Siberia, and even New England. Already hot places will become uninhabitable as heat indices exceed dangerous thresholds, affecting humans and ecosystems alike. Areas where extreme heat is now rare will also suffer increasingly, as infrastructure and living things are ill-adapted to the crushing heat.”

The study focuses on the heat index and that’s smart because it’s not just heat but the combination with humidity that hurts health, said Harvard School of Public Health professor Dr. Renee Salas, who is an emergency room physician.

“As the heat index rises, it becomes harder and harder to cool our bodies,” Salas, who wasn’t part of the research team, said in an email. “Heat stroke is a potentially deadly form of heat illness that occurs when body temperatures rise to dangerous levels.”

The study is based on mathematical probabilities instead of other climate research that looks at what happens at various carbon pollution levels. Because of that, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann is more skeptical of this research. It also doesn’t take into account landmark U.S. climate legislation that President Joe Biden signed earlier this month or new efforts by Australia, he said.

“The obstacles at this point are political and no statistical methods, regardless of how powerful or sophisticated can predict whether we will garner the political will to overcome them,” Mann said in an email. “But there is reason for cautious optimism.”

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BY SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer

What our shopping choices say about the U.S. economy


Macy's, the nation's largest department store chain, has scaled back its sales forecast for the year.
CREDIT: AP


BY Alina Selyukh
AUG 25, 2022 

NPR

Shoppers are making fewer purchases and fewer trips to stores. But when they do check out at the register, they often spend more, revealing the impact of inflation. Many lower-income shoppers are cutting back on non-essentials like home decor and spending big at discount dollar stores.

These are some of the takeaways from a spate of mid-year financial report cards released by America's leading retailers, including Walmart, Macy's and Dollar Tree. They reflect a deep uncertainty that has set into the U.S. economy, with inflation running at the highest rate in decades.

Department store chains Macy's and Nordstrom, as well as Victoria's Secret this week joined a growing list of retailers cutting their forecasts for the rest of year. Companies are flagging fewer visits from shoppers compared to a year ago, though some retailers, including home goods seller Williams-Sonoma on Wednesday and Home Depot last week, continued to report growing sales despite slower store traffic.

At Dollar General and Dollar Tree, inflation had the result of boosting sales, the companies reported Thursday, as shoppers sought cheaper groceries, smaller packages and more deals on essentials.

Some retailers seeing a dip in sales have blamed their race to discount and sell off unwanted inventory: an unexpected glut of things like pajamas and kitchen appliances that were hot in the pandemic until suddenly shoppers became more interested in travel and outings to restaurants.

People are still shopping

All this comes against a backdrop of a massive, record-blasting shopping spree that marked 2020 and 2021. This year, as pandemic restrictions lifted, people turned back toward experiences rather than things. And then, as prices for gas and food boosted inflation, more shoppers began to switch to private brands or skip discretionary items.

In surveys, people say they feel extremely anxious about finances. Still, in July, retail sales, when adjusted for inflation, edged up both compared to June and to July 2021 as prices somewhat eased.

"Every metric I see is that the economy is pretty resilient," said Sucharita Kodali, an analyst with Forrester, pointing to higher wages, low unemployment, decent savings levels and retail spending remaining above pre-pandemic levels. "Retail spend, even in spite of inflation, is at a record high."

Shoppers are "under pressure"

This week, Macy's, the largest U.S. department store chain, scaled back its forecast for the full year. The company said its shoppers are not switching to less expensive brands, as other retailers have seen, but rather seeking out discounts and prioritizing purchases such as office clothes as more people return to the workplace in person.

The consumer "is actually still healthy, but they're under pressure. Wage rate is not keeping up with the pace of inflation," CEO Jeff Gennette told Bloomberg on Tuesday, suggesting that upscale shoppers were less affected and luxury goods were selling well.

Kodali points out that many retailers – particularly department stores – had wobbled long before the pandemic, particularly as many malls declined and big brands raced to sell directly to shoppers online.

Economists at Wells Fargo are warning that back-to-school shopping was a major factor boosting retail spending in recent months.

"Once the kids return to school and the bills come due, households will begin to tighten their belts," the company wrote in a report last week. "Even as inflation is showing signs of moderating, it will do so only slowly."

Meanwhile, Walmart – whose vast footprint and low prices make it much more of an economic bellwether – has done an about-face from warnings about the rest of the year to signal better times ahead.

In July, the company alerted Wall Street to slumping profits, as people's high grocery bills made products in other aisles less appealing. But last week, Walmart improved its forecast, noting that its stores were drawing more middle-income and higher-income shoppers.

Walmart's biggest rival Amazon, for its part, last month said it had seen no inflation impact on demand at all, with the company's shoppers continuing to spend more. [Copyright 2022 NPR]