Sunak’s stop-start policies harming UK green investment, says net zero tsar

Helena Horton and Fiona Harvey
Thu, 12 January 2023 


Rishi Sunak has been criticised by his own net zero tsar, who says the UK risks missing its green targets due to inconsistent policies and lack of commitment to pledges.

In his net zero review, seen by the Guardian, Chris Skidmore said a large barrier to renewable energy was a lack of confidence in the government, which has inconsistent policy support for green energy, with measures such as Sunak’s new electricity tax.

Skidmore, the Conservative MP for Kingswood, was asked by the former prime minister Liz Truss to write a review on the policy to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. He was asked to find out what was working with the policy regarding not putting more carbon into the atmosphere than the UK absorbs, and to make the business case for the goal.


One issue mentioned throughout the report is a lack of policy commitment. Skidmore said: “The overwhelming impression I got was we will make net zero more affordable if we are able to deliver further and faster, which requires certainty and consistency of approach. We need to de-risk investment, which will actually drive down the costs of net zero, and if the recommendations put forward by my review are followed we will create incentives to invest in renewables.

“The review recognises we have fallen behind, but it sets out how we can be world-leading in these areas once again. We need to remove the barriers that are in place at the moment.”

Related: Liz Truss appoints green Tory Chris Skidmore to lead net zero review

Dan McGrail, chief executive of the trade body RenewableUK, said: “Sudden policy changes like the imposition of the electricity generator levy, which kicked in at the start of this year, have put investment at risk.”

Chris Hewett, chief executive of the trade association Solar Energy UK, said: “Skidmore is right to demand the replacement of stop-start policies with certainty for investors.”

Skidmore cited agriculture as one of the main culprits of carbon emissions, and said its share of emissions could, by 2030, grow from 12% to 30%. To encourage people to eat more environmentally friendly foods, Skidmore recommended “eco-labelling” rather than a tax or ban on foods such as red meat.

He also said that farmers had been disincentivised from farming in an environmentally friendly way by the confusion around the government’s post-Brexit nature-friendly agriculture payments, and that there had been missed opportunities for nature-based solutions with most policy focused on woodlands and peatland rather than many other carbon sinks such as wetlands.

In the review, Skidmore called for a stable policy environment, with consistent support for renewables, as well as a reform of the way the government financially helps renewable energy projects to make that more attractive for investors.

But climate campaigners criticised the review for being unambitious and for not calling for strong policies to avert the climate crisis.

Doug Parr, policy director for Greenpeace UK, said: “Whilst there is much useful analysis of the problem the review stops short of recommending the kind of muscular policies that would really drive change towards the massive growth in renewables which will be necessary.

“Without a strong push from government the renewables revolution will still proceed, because the economic logic dictates it should. But it won’t happen at the pace it needs to in order to forestall some of the worst effects of climate change.”

While the review says the UK needs a “rooftop revolution” for solar panels and suggests making planning decisions easier to enable this, it stops short of recommending mandates for solar panels on new builds, or more funding to encourage take-up.

Parr added: “All credible scenarios of our future economy rely on renewable energy being the backbone of the future energy system, and the review should have said government needs to change the remit of the regulator to include net zero delivery, insist on solar panels being on new roofs, expand the scale of renewables contracts and rapidly lay out the location of the offshore electricity grid. Instead, the government seem like a mildly curious spectator, wondering why their aspirations aren’t materialising without ever intervening to make them happen.”

The renewable energy industry has tentatively welcomed the review, with industry leaders saying it contains good ideas that should be adopted by the government.

McGrail said: “If the government is looking to increase the economic benefits of the UK’s decarbonisation ambitions, Chris Skidmore’s review has some really clear easy wins. As he suggests, setting targets for new onshore wind and solar capacity would certainly increase investor confidence, as well as ensuring we can decarbonise our electricity system by 2035.”

He also praised Skidmore for promoting the use of “a wide range of renewables to strengthen Britain’s energy security, including innovative technologies like floating wind and tidal stream”.

He said that he would have liked the review to have told the government to take a “war room” approach to tackling grid connectivity, “with the prime minister bringing all relevant bodies together to address this urgently”.

Hewett said: “We very much hope that Whitehall will embrace his call to establish a joint taskforce with the solar industry to work on a roadmap for reaching 70GW of solar [capacity] by 2035 – about four-and-a-half times what we have now.

“The number-one priority of this group will have to be unblocking access to the grid – which is pushing back the completion of many large projects well into the next decade.”

Polly Billington, chief executive of the UK100 group of local government leaders, said the review showed that local authorities must play a leading role in implementing policy. “This independent review confirms what UK100 has been saying for years: local authorities are the key to achieving the UK’s net zero goals,” she said.

“[We particularly welcome] the recommendation to end the disjointed mess of short-term, competitive local authority funding pots. This move would help communities maximise the economic and social benefits of net zero while making the most cost-effective use of resources.”

Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, said: “Another day, another Conservative MP calling out the total failure of this government over many years to act with the urgency and consistency that the climate crisis demands. Chris Skidmore is right about the fact that 13 years of delay, dither and a refusal to go all-in on a green energy sprint under the Conservatives, is depriving our country of the economic opportunities climate action offers.

“The tragedy is that Rishi Sunak is making things even worse. He is a fossil fuel prime minister in a renewable age who has never understood what this report reaffirms – that going green is pro-business, pro-worker and is a vital part of growing our economy.”

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been approached for comment.

UK Review Advises ‘Step Change’ in Approach to Climate Change

Ellen Milligan
Thu, 12 January 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- The UK needs “a step change” in its approach to slashing carbon emissions if it is to eliminate greenhouse gases by 2050, according to a review commissioned by the government.

The country is not doing enough to invest in projects that benefit the economy and climate, according to the review obtained by Bloomberg ahead of its planned release on Friday. The deployment of green technologies is being held-back by ““a lack of long-term thinking, siloed behaviour from government departments, and uncertainty over the length of funding commitments,” it said.

The review was commissioned in the fall by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, to scrutinize UK green policies and ensure they increase energy security and affordability while delivering on a national goal to achieve so-called “net zero” emissions by mid-century. It was prepared by Chris Skidmore, a Conservative former energy minister.

“We must deliver greater certainty, consistency, and clarity across net zero policy making,” Skidmore wrote in his foreword to the 340-page document. “Climate commitments and net zero targets remain just words on a page without a clear, consistent, and stable transition plan.”

Skidmore made 25 recommendations for policies to be advanced by 2025 in order to go “further, faster.” They include legislating to phase out gas boilers for household heating by 2033, setting out a clear roadmap to roll out carbon capture and storage technology and devising a plan for a fivefold increase in installed solar power in the next 12 years.

The recommendations come with the UK already likely to be in a prolonged recession, and Sunak under pressure to roll-out more policies aimed at growing the economy and reducing the country’s energy dependence.

Opportunity of the Century

Skidmore recommended the government publish a financing strategy by the end of this year to show how government spending and policies will be used to help scale up private financing and deliver projects geared toward net zero. He also recommended establishing an “Office for Net Zero Delivery” responsible for putting emissions reductions at the heart of all government policy.

“We have heard from businesses that economic opportunities are being missed today because of weaknesses in the UK’s investment environment,” he said.

Skidmore’s review described the pursuit of net zero as the “economic opportunity of the 21st century,” and said the UK is now at a “crossroads.”

“We can either go further and faster in the transition, capitalizing on our comparative advantages on clean technologies, our world class science base, our global leadership on financial services and the natural power reserves of the North Sea,” it said. “Or we can hold up our hands and say it is too difficult and watch our world-leading sectors, such as the City of London or our advanced car manufacturing, pack up and move on, taking high-skilled, high-paying jobs with them.”

The review identified 10 “missions” for the UK to pursue:

Create a plan to deliver the grid infrastructure needed to accelerate the deployment of onshore and offshore power projects


Ramp up solar power to 70 gigawatts of capacity by 2035, from just under 14 gigawatts now


Work with communities to deploy more onshore wind


Roll-out more nuclear power through a structured program covering the whole supply chain


Invest in long-term carbon-capture and hydrogen technologies


Step up recycling and the reuse of critical materials


Unblock the planning system and hand more power to local authorities


Work toward gas-free homes by 2035


Restore natural habitats


Set a roadmap for research, development and technology with more agile regulation

“When one of the governing party’s own MPs says tackling the climate crisis is the economic opportunity of the century, may we hope that ministers will finally listen” Greenpeace UK’s policy director Doug Parr said in a statement. “We have all seen what our dependence on fossil fuels is doing to our world - from devastating floods and heat-waves to budget-busting energy bills.”

--With assistance from William Mathis.

School strikes will go ahead in Glasgow on Monday after no new offer made to teachers

Stewart Paterson
Thu, 12 January 2023

(Image: Newsquest)

MORE school strikes will go ahead next week after teachers’ unions said no new offer has been made by the Scottish Government and Cosla.

Unions met with employers in the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers today but ended with no resolution.

The EIS, Scotland’s largest teachers’ union, said the next phase of industrial action will take place as planned.

READ MORE: Teachers blast Nicola Sturgeon amid Glasgow school strikes

It means schools in Glasgow will be shut on Monday.

It comes after primary schools were shut on Tuesday this week and secondary schools on Wednesday, as the EIS, SSTA and NASUWT unions took co-ordinated strike action.

The unions are calling for a 10% pay rise while the employers have offered 5.5% with slightly more for teachers on the lowest salaries.

Cosla said 10% is "unaffordable".

Andrea Bradley, EIS general secretary, said, “Despite their warm words over the past week, the Scottish Government and Cosla have again failed to come to the table with a new pay offer to Scotland’s teachers.

“Our members are not prepared to accept the repeatedly reheated sub-inflationary offer that has now been sitting around for six months, and that is neither fair nor affordable for teachers.

“In the absence of an improved offer, our members will continue with strike action from Monday of next week, in their struggle for fair pay.”

The EIS said its National Executive Committee will meet tomorrow and will be considering the next steps in the campaign.

Councillor Katie Hagmann, Cosla spokesperson for resources, said: “I am pleased that we continue to be in proactive discussions with our trade union and Scottish Government partners as we endeavour to find areas for agreement.

“Strikes in education are in nobody’s interest and all parties are eager to seek a resolution that not only protects the teaching and wider local government workforce, but also our children and young people’s educational experience.

“Cosla leaders are clear that given the financial pressures being faced it remains the case that the 10% ask of the trade unions remains unaffordable and therefore we still remain a distance apart in terms of a settlement.”

THE BEDDIE ROLLER
Surendran Pattel: The US judge who once made cigarettes in India


Thu, January 12, 2023 

Surendran K Pattel has become a judge in Texas state

Last week, when Indian-origin lawyer Surendran K Pattel took the oath as a district judge in a US court, he made headlines back home because of his inspiring journey. BBC Hindi's Imran Qureshi tells the story of a man who went from making hand-rolled cigarettes in India to becoming an arbiter of justice.

Mr Pattel, 51, who is from the southern Indian state of Kerala, has been appointed a judge in the 240th Judicial District Court in Fort Bend County in Texas state.

He was sworn in on 1 January, five years after he became a US citizen - his journey, Mr Pattel says, was all about "hard work, determination and a lot of struggle".


"But there were also a lot of people who supported and helped me at every stage of my life," he says, saying that the list is topped by his mother, whom he calls "a symbol of sacrifice".

Mr Pattel spent his childhood in grinding poverty. His parents were labourers who depended on meagre daily wages to feed their six children.

As a child, Mr Pattel would roll beedis - traditional cigarettes made by wrapping raw tobacco in leaves - "so that we could have three meals a day".

"My elder sister and I used to sit late into the night doing this," he says.

As a teenager, he dropped out of school after not scoring well in his exams. He had almost accepted his lot in life when his eldest sister died, leaving behind a 15 month-old daughter.

"The case was determined to be a suicide but I felt that justice had not been done in the matter. It still haunts me," he told the BBC without giving more details about the incident.

The tragedy spurred him to redefine his future and he rejoined school and studied hard. When he was in a two-year, pre-degree course before going to college, Mr Pattel often had to skip classes because he had to work too.

In his first year, he had to plead with his teachers after they asked him not to take the final exams due to low attendance.

"I didn't want to tell them that I wasn't going to class because of my financial situation because I didn't want sympathy," he says.

His teachers gave him another chance - they only learnt later from his friends that he had no choice but to work.

When the results came out, Mr Pattel surprised everyone by ranking second in his class.

He also decided that his future lay in law. "I never wanted to do anything else. I am so passionate about it," he says.

Mr Pattel was sworn in as a district judge on 1 January

Mr Pattel's financial situation continued to pose challenges but he was helped by the generosity of people he met along the way.

One of them was a Mr Uttupp, who ran a hotel in Kerala.

"I told him if he did not give me a job, I would have to discontinue my education. He hired me as part of the housekeeping staff in the hotel," Mr Pattel says.

The relationship continued until Mr Uttupp's death.

"His brother Manuel even called me after the news broke that I had become a judge," Mr Pattel says.

Mr Pattel got a degree in political science in 1992 before studying law.

Four years later, he got a job with lawyer P Appukuttan and began working in the town of Hosdurg in Kerala's Kasaragod district.

"He was so enthusiastic that I trusted him. I entrusted all kinds of civil matters to him because he was capable of doing it," Mr Appukuttan told the BBC.

Mr Pattel worked there for a decade until his wife, Subha, got a job at a hospital in India's capital Delhi.

He decided to follow her because he "never wanted to come in the way of her career".

In Delhi, he worked with a Supreme Court lawyer for a few months before his wife had to move again - this time to the US.

"Even though I wasn't happy about leaving my profession behind, I followed her. Without her, I would not have been where I am today,'' Mr Pattel says.

Mr Pattel lives in Texas with his family

The couple moved to Texas in 2007, where Mr Pattel worked in a grocery store for some time before realising that he could take the Bar exam in Texas. He then went on to get a degree in international law.

When Mr Pattel decided to run for the post of the judge with the Democratic Party, he had some unpleasant experiences - for instance, he was mocked for his Indian accent while campaigning, he says.

"But I was not hurt by it. Campaigns can be nasty sometimes. I think it doesn't matter how long you live here - what matters is how long you have served the community," he adds.

The American journey, he says, has been a rewarding one: "I became a citizen only in 2017 and now in 2022, I have won an election. I don't think this can happen in any other country."

His victory is also special for a personal reason.

While practising in Texas, Mr Pattel became very close to a senior lawyer, Glenden B Adams.

When Mr Adams died, his wife Rosalie Adams asked Mr Pattel to be a pallbearer.

On Wednesday, when he began his new role, "it was Rosalie Adams who put the robes on me at my private investiture in my courtroom".

The Webb Telescope's first confirmed exoplanet is 99 percent the diameter of Earth

LHS 475 b is just 41 light years away.


Just_Super via Getty Images

Andrew Tarantola
·Senior Editor
Wed, January 11, 2023 

Having already returned visually stunning and scientifically spectacular results from its first six months in operation, the James Webb Space Telescope has recorded another inaugural milestone: its first exoplanet discovery confirmation. It peered 41 light years into the cosmos and found a planet in the Octans constellation with a diameter 99 percent that of Earth itself — say hello to LHS 475 b.

Specifically a team of astronomers from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, led by Kevin Stevenson and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, first spotted evidence of the candidate exoplanet while digging through data generated from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). However it was Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) that confirmed the planets existence by observing two transits in front of its parent star. “There is no question that the planet is there. Webb’s pristine data validate it,” Lustig-Yaeger declared in a NASA press release.



As the space agency notes, among telescopes in operation today (both terrestrial and orbital), only the JWST possesses the resolving capabilities to accurately characterize the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets. The research team is still working to determine what, if any, sort of atmosphere is sitting atop the rocky mass using by analyzing its transmission spectrum.

There is a chance that the planet will be devoid of its critical gaseous insulation but at these distances, it could simply be hiding a very small atmo close to the surface. "Counterintuitively, a 100% carbon dioxide atmosphere is so much more compact that it becomes very challenging to detect,” said Lustig-Yaeger.

They are confident that it does not possess an oppressive atmosphere similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan, however. “There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out,” he said. “It can’t have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere.”

That said, the surface of the planet does appear to be around 300 Celsius, several hundred degrees warmer than here on Earth. If cloud cover is discovered in subsequent studies, it could suggest a greenhouse world climate closer to Venus. The researchers have also confirmed that LHS 475 b maintains a tidal-locked orbit with its star of just two days — far too close to attempt with Sol but, because LHS circles a red dwarf that's producing less than half of our sun's energy, can theoretically maintain an atmosphere.

THE BIGGEST FAILURE IN SPACE RACE2.0

Virgin Orbit says issue with rocket's second stage led to mission failure



Aria Alamalhodaei
Thu, January 12, 2023 

Virgin Orbit, the unconventional rocket company founded by billionaire Sir Richard Branson, said its mission failure earlier this week was due to an anomaly with the rocket’s second stage.

Although the LauncherOne rocket managed to reach space and achieve stage separation, the anomaly prematurely terminated the first burn of the upper stage’s engines, at an altitude of around 180 kilometers, Virgin said in a statement. Due to this engine anomaly, both the rocket components and payload fell back to Earth and were destroyed upon atmospheric reentry.

The mission payload consisted of nine small satellites, including two CubeSats for the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense, a first test satellite from Welsh in-space manufacturing startup Space Forge and what would’ve been Oman’s first earth observation satellite.

Virgin Orbit engineers and board members have already begun an analysis of mission telemetry data to identify the cause of the anomaly. The company added that a formal investigation into the source of the failure will be led by Jim Sponnick, former VP for the Atlas and Delta launch system programs at United Launch Alliance, and Virgin Orbit’s chief engineer, Chad Foerster.

The company said the investigation will be complete, and corrective measures implemented, before LaucherOne’s next flight from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port. But how long that will take, and when we’ll next see Virgin’s Boeing 747 and rocket system take to the air again, is far from clear. Virgin said it was in talks with the U.K. government to conduct another launch from the country’s new Space Port in Cornwall for “as soon as later this year.”

That degree of uncertainty is never good for a public company, but it’s likely especially straining for Virgin Orbit, which is facing dwindling cash reserves and a pressing need to ramp up launch cadence to boost revenues. As of September 30, the company had $71 million in cash on hand; by the end of the year, Virgin got an injection of $25 million from Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and $20 million from Virgin Investments Ltd. But these funds will do little but delay the inevitable if Virgin doesn’t return to launch soon.

Virgin Orbit clarifies the cause behind its 'Start Me Up' mission's failure to reach orbit

The anomaly that aborted the attempt has been identified as a 'premature shutdown of first burn of second stage.'


Matthew Horwood via Getty Images

Andrew Tarantola
·Senior Editor
Thu, January 12, 2023 

Everything was going great until it wasn't in the skies over Cornwall, UK on Monday. Virgin Orbit, the space launch division of Sir Richard Branson's sprawling commercial empire, was in the midst of setting a major milestone for the country and the nation: to be the first orbital launch from European soil. The carrier aircraft, Cosmic Girl, had successfully taken off from Spaceport Cornwall, LauncherOne had cleanly separated from the modified 747 and properly ignited its first stage rocket, blasting it and its payload of satellites into space. But before they could be pushed into their proper orbit by the rocket's second stage, something went wrong. On Thursday, Virgin Orbit leaders provided a preliminary explanation as to just what happened.

"At an altitude of approximately 180 km, the upper stage experienced an anomaly. This anomaly prematurely ended the first burn of the upper stage," the company told Engadget via email. "This event ended the mission, with the rocket components and payload falling back to Earth within the approved safety corridor without ever achieving orbit."

Virgin Orbit has also announced a "formal" investigation into the root causes of the anomaly which will be led by Jim Sponnick, who developed the Atlas and Delta launch systems, and Chad Foerster, Virgin Orbit's Chief Engineer. Despite the setback, the company is already in contact with UK officials to reschedule the launch for as soon as late 2023.

Virgin Orbit: Premature shutdown behind rocket launch fail


Britain Start Me Up Launch

A repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named Cosmic Girl, carrying Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket, takes off from Spaceport Cornwall at Cornwall Airport, Newquay, England, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. The plane will carry the rocket to 35,000 feet where it will be released over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland, as part of the Start Me Up mission and the first rocket launch from U.K. The rocket will take multiple small satellites, with a variety of civil and defence applications, into orbit. (Ben Birchall/PA via AP)

Thu, January 12, 2023

LONDON (AP) — Virgin Orbit said Thursday its first attempt to launch satellites into orbit from the U.K. failed after its rocket's upper stage prematurely shut down.

The U.S.-based company used a modified Boeing 747 plane to carry one of its rockets from Cornwall in southwestern England over the Atlantic Ocean on Monday. The plane released the rocket, which carried nine small satellites, but the rocket failed to reach orbit.

In a statement Thursday, Virgin Orbit said initial data indicated that the first stage of the rocket performed as expected. It said the rocket reached space altitudes, and that stage separation and ignition of the upper stage occurred in line with the mission plan.

But it said that later in the mission, at an altitude of approximately 180 kilometers (112 miles), "the upper stage experienced an anomaly. This anomaly prematurely ended the first burn of the upper stage,” the company said.

The plane, piloted by a Royal Air Force pilot, returned to Cornwall. The rocket components and the satellites were destroyed.

The launch failure was a disappointment to the company and U.K. space officials, who had high hopes that the mission — the first such one to be attempted from Europe — would be the beginning of more commercial space launch ventures.

Virgin Orbit, which was founded by British billionaire Richard Branson in 2017, began commercial launching services in 2021. It had previously successfully completed four similar launches from California, carrying payloads for businesses and governmental agencies into orbit.

The company has launched an investigation into the source of the second stage failure on Monday. It said it plans to carry out its next mission from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, and that it is in talks with officials and businesses to return to the U.K. for another potential launch “as soon as later this year.”

“We’re going to make them pay a price”: The liberal groups attacking the House GOP

Story by Christian Paz • Jan 6, 2023

The new year could not have started any worse for House Republicans: 11 failed attempts to elect Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, infighting among the rank and file as fringe members of the party hold the rest of the chamber hostage, and a unified Democratic caucus that’s watching Republicans tear themselves apart.


House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) react during a vote to adjourn following a day of votes for the new speaker of the House at the US Capitol.

© Win McNamee/Getty Images

That’s exactly the narrative a coalition of Democratic and liberal groups want to cement in the minds of American voters for the next two years. These groups have developed a new plan to put the Democratic Party on offense and use Republican talking points and priorities against them. That effort includes an “investigate-the-investigators” approach: attacking the new House GOP leadership as they launch investigations into the Biden administration.

Describing themselves as collaborators in a war room to coordinate messaging, polling, paid and earned media, rallies, and local organizing, the groups include the relaunched Congressional Integrity Project and a campaign of progressive activists called Courage for America. Helping with public opinion surveys is Navigator, a progressive research and polling group; Common Defense, a progressive veteran-focused organization; and a new rapid response and opposition research team called the House Accountability War Room, which Courage for America launched.

All of these organizations will be focused on crafting attack ads, social media messaging, local awareness campaigns, and the occasional stunt, which would represent a bit of a departure for Democrats in Congress if they embrace the outside efforts. For most of the 2022 cycle, President Joe Biden and more moderate congressional candidates were less enthusiastic about attacking Republicans, opting instead for bipartisan messaging where they could, even as progressive firebrands called for more confrontation with the GOP’s right flank. That changed after the summer, and the more combative tone may be here to stay.

The efforts also aim to prevent a repeat of congressional Republicans’ two-year Benghazi investigations, which damaged Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign by uncovering her private email use, accusing her of mishandling the State Department’s response to the terrorist attack, and selectively leaking information from closed-door testimony.

Democrats don’t just want to avoid another Benghazi investigation, however. They learned from it and are borrowing some of the GOP’s messaging tactics with social media campaigns, opposition research distributed to journalists, and scrutiny of their funders, subordinates, and supporters. The hope is that the liberal groups will counterbalance the conservative think tanks, activists, and organizations that have been prepping Republicans to use their power in the majority for probes.

How progressive groups plan to control the narrative

Though these groups aren’t all operating under the same umbrella organization, they share similar goals: set the narrative for how the House GOP will operate before they have the power to start their investigations, push their conservative agenda, and create new rules for Congress.

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“One of the key goals here is to help educate the American people about how this House is run and controlled by MAGA extremists, which is becoming increasingly clear as we witness this speaker fight,” Zac Petkanas, a longtime Democratic strategist who has worked for Hillary Clinton’s presidential and Harry Reid’s senate campaigns and is running the House Accountability War Room, told me.

Petkanas said that the goal of these groups is to “make sure that none of the work that this new House does goes unnoticed.” The idea is to hold a mirror up to Republicans’ priorities. “So when they pass legislation,” he said, “doing what they said they were going to do, which is to cut Social Security and Medicare, to raise prescription drug costs, to pass a national abortion ban, we’re going to make sure that people don’t just shrug it off here in DC so that people back at home don’t hear about it, we’re going to hold a lantern to that.”

The groups geared up in the fall of 2022, after it seemed apparent that despite Democratic candidates defying the odds in battleground districts and states, they would lose their House majority by the slimmest of margins.

For example, Common Defense, which usually focuses on veteran-specific policy advocacy, partnered with Courage for America, the network of progressive activists, to “start preparing as soon as the election ended in November for what was going to inevitably be this Republican shitshow,” Naveed Shah, the political director for Common Defense and a senior adviser to Courage for America, told me. “Common Defense and Courage for America are working to ensure that our elected officials hear from their constituents, and they need to know that they are going to be held accountable by us.”

That includes press conferences, like the one that both groups delivered Thursday in front of the Capitol building to call for the House GOP to condemn political violence two years after the January 6 Capitol attack. In attendance were four Democratic members of Congress, former Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone, and about 40 military veterans. And it includes directly confronting Republican members of Congress either through local demonstrations in their districts (like one in Long Island, New York, to call for an investigation of Representative-elect George Santos) or on the Hill and filming those interactions for social media, like encounters this week with Reps.-elect Troy Nehls of Texas, Mike Carey and Bill Johnson of Ohio, and Fanone delivering a petition to Georgia Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office.

Those confrontations show the different attitude these outside groups have for dealing with the GOP; compared to official Democratic Party groups, these new organizations are bolder about keeping Republicans on their toes on Capitol Hill and tarnishing the reputations of these future investigators and power brokers.

This week, House Accountability War Room also released its first opposition research document focused on 39 current and incoming GOP lawmakers. Highlighting figures like Greene, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the “MAGA Guidebook” was distributed around congressional offices, Metro stations, and in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Boosting the guidebook and the effort to tie the House Republican majority to its furthest right flank is the revamped Congressional Integrity Project, which put up posters and projected a display near the Capitol to exploit the GOP’s chaotic speaker election, highlighting McCarthy’s efforts to gain favor with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s and the House Freedom Caucus that is so far blocking McCarthy’s bid.

Beyond that, the Congressional Integrity Project plans to “engage in other paid activities. We’re looking at putting people in key swing districts around the country because we want to have a discussion with the constituents of Republican members in swing districts to ask, ‘Is this what you want Congress focused on?’” Brad Woodhouse, a veteran Democratic strategist helping to lead the project, told me. “We’re gonna spend money, we’re gonna grow our organization, we’re gonna go down into the district level, and we’re going to be on offense.”

That offensive posture would be a new strategy for Democrats, especially in the context of the eventual congressional investigations that Republicans want to conduct of the Biden administration, Woodhouse told me. “Someone could look at the effort to push back investigations against President Biden and his administration and Democrats and democratic policies, it would be defensive,” he said, “but we don’t consider it that way. We are on offense.” He added that the goal is “to undermine their political standing. We’re going to make them pay a price.”

And that means crafting a coordinated anti-MAGA Republican narrative in the press and social media, informing partners in the White House and in both chambers of Congress of polling and opposition research, and taking that knowledge to voters, in the same spirit that Republicans did the last time they had a House majority with a Democratic president (like the Benghazi hearings) and had begun to prepare with outside groups late last year.

“I take a lot of optimism from how unified the message was by Democrats and the president putting this MAGA ideology front and center, making Republicans accountable for it,” Woodhouse said. “And it’s not a hard concept.”

Canada enters a public domain pause as copyright laws change to match other nations

Story by Joseph Pugh • Saturday 7, 01,2023

Excited about Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books entering the public domain in Canada? Thanks to recent changes to copyright laws here, you'll now be waiting a couple more decades.

When the copyright on a work expires anyone is free to use it without needing to seek permission. This is known as public domain. In Canada, copyright laws meant that books, films, songs or other works entered public domain 50 years after the death of the creator.

But last week, the country updated those laws, tacking on an extra 20 years, so works don't enter the public domain until 70 years after the creator's death. This means additional content will not enter the public domain in Canada until at least 2043. So the copyright on the works of fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien, who died in 1973, will now expire in 2043, meaning the Lord of the Rings trilogy and many of his other works will become public domain on Jan. 1, 2044.

The change brings Canada in line with other jurisdictions that lengthened their copyright terms decades ago. Some artists and creative unions welcome the change, while others feel the duration hampers public access to artistic works.

Canadian songwriter Marc Jordan from Toronto, whose credits include 1978's Rhythm of my Heart, feels the copyright extension has benefits for his work down the road.

"If you're going to go into this business, you want to know that there is some way you can make a living, and I think by extending this the extra 20 years … adds a little bit of value to what you're doing," he said.

"People, companies will still make money from those songs if they're used to promote a product or they're used as a theme song, so why shouldn't the heirs have some access to the value of that?"

Canada now on a par with other countries

Intellectual property lawyer Elizabeth Dipchand says this recent change is the result of what's happening outside our borders.

"It is absolutely about copyright, but it's actually more so about trade rights," she said. "The management of intangible assets [doesn't] stop at the borders."

Both the European Union and the U.S. extended their copyright terms to 70 years after an author's death at separate points during the 1990s (in the U.S., there are also different copyright rules regarding corporate-owned works and those from before 1978.)

In a statement to CBC News, the Office of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry cited the Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA) trade agreement as the reason for the change last week.

"In keeping with our trade obligations under CUSMA, Canada was required to extend copyright term protection by 20 years, to 70 years after end of life prior to January 1. This puts Canada in line with many other jurisdictions in the world, including Europe, the U.K. and Australia."

Change not retroactive

But the change to Canada's copyright laws is not retroactive, so any works whose creators died before 1972 are still available in the public domain.

This means for the next 20 years, there are a number of titles that have entered the public domain in Canada that still have copyright protection in most of the world. Some examples include the works of authors Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath and James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Dipchand says Canadians could potentially use that material, but would need to be concerned about whether or not people could access them across borders, including via the internet.

"Does that purpose behind what you're going to do with the work, is that traded off against what potential hot water you can get into in a different jurisdiction?" she says.

According to Dipchand, live performance is one space Canadians could see the material used, allowing theatres to stage performances of public domain works here without having to pay royalties.



Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a classic Canadian novel beloved around the world. Montgomery's works are in the public domain, but are also protected by trademarks.© The Canadian Press/University of Guelph, Spark Photo Festival

Even when something is in the public domain, potential creators may still face issues.

Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne Of Green Gables, for example, entered the public domain 30 years ago. But The Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority Inc., owned by the province of Prince Edward Island and Montgomery's heirs, has a trademark on Anne of Green Gables, and has worked to protect it.

The impact of public domain

Neil Shyminsky, a pop culture writer and professor of English at Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ont., thinks most Canadians are unlikely to notice this copyright extension.

"Really, it's just the furthering of a situation that was already in place," he said.

In the U.S., works from 1927 are entering the public domain this year.

These include The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, the final Holmes novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, whose work has been in the Canadian public domain for decades.

Next year Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse, is scheduled to enter the public domain.

"I expect that Disney will be spending the next 12 months lobbying really hard to get the United States to once again revisit and look at extending those copyright protections," said Shyminsky.

But he says there is often an impact that comes with having content in the public domain sooner.

He cites the cultural revival of the 1946 film It's A Wonderful Life as an example of a work that has come to be seen as a classic largely because it entered the public domain early.

Though the film was not initially a commercial success, a bureaucratic error allowed it to enter the public domain in the 1970s.



Because It's A Wonderful Life, released in 1946, entered the public domain earlier than it should have, TV stations began to play it without paying royalties, and it gained a reputation as a holiday classic.© RKO Pictures Inc/The Associated Press

This meant television stations could play it without having to pay for the rights, giving the film a new audience and a reputation as a holiday classic.

"It allowed for this sort of democratisation of what it means to be popular," Shyminsky said.

"Rather than 'We're going to push this, we're going to put a marketing budget of multiple millions of dollars, and we're going to tell you what is popular culture.' "

Fentanyl killed 70,000 in US. With Biden in Mexico, can neighbors cooperate to stop flow?

Josh Meyer, USA TODAY

Mon, January 9, 2023

Four days before President Joe Biden flies south to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, authorities in the northwest state of Sinaloa arrested the son of the infamous drug cartel leader known as "El Chapo," who is wanted by U.S. officials for contributing to the fentanyl epidemic that killed as many as 70,000 Americans last year.

At least 29 people, including 10 Mexican soldiers, were killed in shootouts with Sinaloa Cartel members during the operation to nab Ovidio Guzman on Thursday and fly him to Mexico City on a military plane.

Publicly, Mexican officials denied that the raid was timed to show Washington that its southern neighbor is an active partner in the politically fraught bilateral effort to stanch the cross-border flow of the lethal synthetic opioid.

More: Arrest of El Chapo's son Ovidio Guzman throws Mexico into chaos ahead of Biden visit

But some current and former American counternarcotics officials are suspicious, noting that another "most wanted" drug cartel leader, Rafael Caro Quintero, was arrested in Sinaloa just days after Biden and Lopez Obrador met in Washington last July to discuss a range of issues, including a drug war that has tested the two countries' security alliance for the past half a century.

"It certainly seems like politics. There's a lot of speculation now that it's all about the timing," former Drug Enforcement Administration official Derek Maltz told USA TODAY. "Biden announces he's going down to Mexico, so now they're going to go out and grab Ovidio," who has been facing U.S. criminal drug trafficking charges since his indictment in New York in 2018.

President Joe Biden meets with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the Oval Office of the White House on July 12.

Based on his conversations with current DEA leaders, some senior U.S. counternarcotics officials believe Mexico also has been inflating the amount of fentanyl and other drugs it has seized at cartel "superlabs" where vast quantities of fentanyl and methamphetamine are produced just south of the border for easy smuggling into the United States, according to Maltz, the special agent in charge of DEA's Special Operations Division for almost 10 years before his retirement in 2014.

"I really don't know for sure," added Maltz, who helped lead the international effort to capture Ovidio's father, Joaquín Guzmán Loera. "But in my opinion, unless it's sustained attacks against the cartel leadership and the production labs, it's not going to make a difference. Meanwhile, we have 9,000 Americans dying every month."

More: Biden says Mexico to step up help with border security, plans trip to El Paso border

'No secret' what both sides want

It’s no secret what Biden will be asking of López Obrador, and vice versa, when they meet in Mexico City next week on the sidelines of the North American Leaders’ Summit.

López Obrador wants the same thing from Biden as Mexican leaders have been demanding for the past half a century: to reduce the voracious American demand for Mexican-made drugs that has created the multibillion-dollar black market economy in the first place. He wants Washington to stem the flow of U.S.-manufactured guns smuggled into Mexico, which have allowed Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation and other cartels to accumulate more firepower than most government armies.

And Biden wants Mexico to stop  the flood of deadly narcotics coming into the United States, especially fentanyl, which killed more Americans last year than COVID-19, motor vehicle accidents, cancer and suicide. More discreetly, he will also push Mexico to do far more to attack the rampant government corruption and collusion that for decades has allowed the cartels to flourish.

Working hard for a deal

Aides to both presidents have been working behind the scenes to tee up some form of counternarcotics agreement, or at least signs of progress, that can be announced when the two meet.

On Friday, White House spokesman John Kirby said Mexico already has taken "significant steps" to crack down on fentanyl traffickers and referenced Guzman's arrest. "That is not an insignificant accomplishment by Mexican authorities, and we're certainly grateful for that," Kirby told reporters. "So we're going to continue to work with them in lockstep to see what we can do jointly to try to limit that flow."

Security analysts, however, told USA TODAY that the outcome is likely going to be the same as it has been after similar summits attended by almost every U.S. president since Richard Nixon established the U.S. “War on Drugs” just over 50 years ago. There will be promises made by both sides to do more, followed by the inevitable backsliding when it comes to turning those promises into reality.

A truck burns on a street in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, on Thursday. Mexican security forces captured Ovidio Guzmán, an alleged drug trafficker wanted by the United States and one of the sons of former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, in a pre-dawn operation.

That’s especially the case because counternarcotics relations between Washington and Mexico City have been at an unusually low point since AMLO, as he is popularly known, became president in December 2018. Almost immediately, he threw out the bilateral playbook the two countries had been using to go after the cartels.

Even as Mexico's murder rate soared, López Obrador said he had no intention of going after the cartels, instead focusing on a more wholistic "Hugs, not bullets" approach that prioritized social welfare over law enforcement.

More: Biden plans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time in his presidency

“These issues are very difficult. They're very hard. But look, you’ve got to restart some of these conversations and have, again, a more constructive, honest dialogue between the two countries to beget a framework, and begin a process, that leads to greater action,” said David Luna, a former top State Department official who led bilateral efforts to fight the growing threat of transnational drug cartels.

“You can’t just focus on the cartels and the criminality," Luna said. "To make greater progress, with greater results, you need to be fighting the enabling corruption and organized crime that is helping to fuel the insecurity and cartel violence in Mexico."

Fighting corruption alongside criminality

The U.S.-Mexico security relationship became even more strained after U.S. drug enforcement agents arrested the former Mexican defense minister, retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, on drug-trafficking-related corruption charges as he and his family arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 15, 2020. That all but dismantled bilateral law enforcement operations between the two countries, especially over drug traffickers.

To move forward, Biden himself “needs to take a more direct role" in pushing Mexico to deal much more aggressively with the endemic corruption in the country, said Luna, the founder and executive director of the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies. “President Biden must place greater accountability on President Obrador to disrupt the illegal fentanyl production in Mexico and to disrupt the various illicit trafficking flows.”

Frame grab from video provided by the Mexican government shows Ovidio Guzman Lopez at the moment of his detention, in Culiacan, Mexico

Four demands Washington needs to make

Maltz, the former DEA Special Operations chief, outlined four demands that Biden should make – and that he says U.S. counternarcotics officials have been pushing for years.

The U.S. has indicted a “massive number” of senior cartel leaders who are still operating in Mexico, including in fentanyl trafficking, but who Mexico hasn’t captured or, more importantly, extradited to the United States to stand trial, Maltz told USA TODAY.

He also said Washington has shared intelligence with Mexico numerous times about the “superlabs” that are producing record-breaking amounts of fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs just south of the U.S. border that are then smuggled into the United States. “We’ve made historic seizures at the border and in this country, but they have to go after the border labs with their elite units like the Mexican Navy,” Maltz said.

He said the Cienfuegos arrest “set us back many, many years in Mexico, and they are not being cooperative and they are not working on joint operational successes. And the lab seizures are way down” in Mexico, Maltz said

And Mexico needs to stop the flow of chemical precursors from China and India that are used to make fentanyl and meth, and to take far more aggressive action against Chinese money launderers that are now working in tandem with the cartels.

“There’s really a lot of frustration on our side of the border,” Maltz said. “We are not getting enough from them.”

A 'very prickly nationalist'

Whether López Obrador will be responsive is anybody’s guess. He made headlines by not going to the Summit of Americas last July in what was seen as a major blow to the U.S.-Mexico relationship. He made his second visit to the White House in eight months soon after but tartly told Biden that he was meeting “in spite of our differences and also in spite of our grievances that are not really easy to forget with time or with good wishes.”

"López Obrador is a very prickly nationalist,” said former Mexico Ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhán Casamitjana. He noted that the Mexican president sent a letter to Biden before the summit in which he continued to insist that one of the key issues that he'll be pressing is to ensure that the U.S doesn't meddle in the domestic affairs of other countries in the Americas, including his own.

“This is part of his 1960s, 1970s vision of the world and the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship," Sarukhán said. “So given that this is also a Mexican government, that has really sort of ratcheted down the level of collaboration in terms of law enforcement and counternarcotics policy.”

Contributing: Rebecca Morin, Francesca Chambers

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden Mexico visit: Can US, AMLO halt deadly cartel flow of fentanyl?

Analysis-Capture of El Chapo's son gilds Mexican president's patchy record on crime


Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attend a news conference, in Mexico 
Fri, January 6, 2023
By Dave Graham

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The capture of a drug cartel boss who embarrassed Mexico's government has given President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador a rare crime-fighting victory as he prepares to host a major North American summit and gears up to secure his succession.

The arrest of Ovidio Guzman, son of captured kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, was a timely reversal of fortune for Lopez Obrador. The president had ordered Ovidio to be freed to avoid mass bloodshed after he was captured previously in the state of Sinaloa in 2019, sparking a violent stand-off with cartel gunmen.

His release angered the armed forces and caused consternation inside the government and the United States, according to U.S. and Mexican officials, feeding criticism of Lopez Obrador's strategy of avoiding direct clashes with gangs.

But the recapture of Guzman, a leader of a cartel blamed for helping to fuel a surge in U.S. opioid deaths, just as President Joe Biden and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are due to arrive in Mexico for the summit could hardly have come at a better time for Lopez Obrador, analysts and officials said.

"It's a plus for him domestically, and a plus for him with the Americans," said Jorge Castaneda, a former Mexican foreign minister and prominent critic of the president.

However, the arrest, one of just a handful of major scalps Lopez Obrador has claimed, is unlikely to herald a major sea change in the battle on organized crime unless the government is more aggressive about going after gangs, analysts said.

Lopez Obrador took office in 2018 vowing to get a grip on gang violence. Instead, the number of homicides rose on his watch, and is now on the verge of surpassing the total recorded in the entire preceding six-year administration.

And while Lopez Obrador is popular, his record on combating crime has consistently been viewed critically by voters.

In a poll by newspaper El Financiero published this week, security again emerged as his biggest weakness, with 52% of respondents saying the government was doing a bad job on it compared with just over a third arguing the opposite.

The president's overall approval rating has held close to 60% for months, and he is hoping to lend his popularity to help his party's candidate, due to be chosen this year, secure victory in the 2024 presidential election.

Mexican presidents can only serve a single term.

GOODWILL

Lopez Obrador's attitude to the Sinaloa Cartel has stirred up misgivings, particularly when he decided to greet El Chapo's mother on a trip to Sinaloa in 2020.

Raul Benitez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said Ovidio's capture should help quell frustration the military felt at having to give up Ovidio during the botched attempt at nabbing him in 2019.

Mexican security forces were never persuaded by Lopez Obrador's stated policy of using "hugs not bullets" to combat crime and the successful sting against Guzman showed that a more robust approach was what yielded results, he added.

Now Mexico needs to pursue the Sinaloa gang's main rival, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or they would pick up any slack in the market for deadly opioid fentanyl, Benitez said.

John Feeley, a former deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy to Mexico, said unless authorities had a comprehensive strategy to dismantle cartels and their front businesses, little progress would be made against fentanyl traffickers.

"Any big dude you take down is always welcome," he said. "(But) until you have a coordinated take-down of first, second and third tier associates as well as ... 'legitimate' citizens who collaborate in the money laundering, all you're really doing is putting on a spectacle for a visiting dignitary."

Feeley was skeptical that enough pressure would come from Washington to build on Guzman's capture, arguing that U.S. governments tended to subordinate all other interests to securing the U.S.-Mexico border against illegal immigration.

There were signs of mutual goodwill after the capture.

Mexico's government said late on Thursday that Biden had decided to land for the summit at a politically contentious new airport and flagship project of Lopez Obrador north of Mexico City which has so far struggled to secure airline traffic.

Mexican officials had privately been skeptical that Biden would agree to touch down there.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Mexican capo's arrest a gesture to US, not signal of change


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Traffic drive past a charred vehicle set on fire the day before, in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. The government operation on Thursday to detain Ovidio Guzman, the son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, unleashed firefights that killed 10 military personnel and 19 suspected members of the Sinaloa drug cartel, according to authorities.

 (AP Photo/Martin Urista)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, MARK STEVENSON and FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ
Fri, January 6, 2023 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s capture of a son of former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán this week was an isolated nod to a drug war strategy that Mexico’s current administration has abandoned rather than a sign that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s thinking has changed, experts say.

Ovidio Guzmán’s arrest in the Sinaloa cartel stronghold of Culiacan on Thursday came at the cost of at least 30 lives — 11 from the military and law enforcement and 19 suspected cartel gunmen. But analysts predict it won't have any impact on the flow of drugs to the United States.

It was a display of muscle — helicopter gunships, hundreds of troops and armored vehicles — at the initiation of a possible extradition process rather than a significant step in a homegrown Mexican effort to dismantle one of the country’s most powerful criminal organizations. Perhaps coincidentally, it came just days before U.S President Joe Biden makes the first visit by a U.S. leader in almost a decade.

López Obrador has made clear throughout the first four years of his six-year term that pursuing drug capos is not his priority. When military forces cornered the younger Guzmán in Culiacan in 2019, the president ordered him freed to avoid loss of life after gunmen started shooting up the city.

The only other big capture under his administration was the grabbing of a geriatric Rafael Caro Quintero last July — just days after López Obrador met with Biden in the White House. At that point, Caro Quintero carried more symbolic significance for ordering a DEA agent’s murder decades ago than real weight in today’s drug world.

“Mexico wants to do at least the bare minimum in terms of counter-drug efforts,” said Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of international operations who spent 13 years of his career in Mexico. “I don’t think that this is a sign that there’s going to be closer cooperation, bilateral collaboration, if you will, between the United States and Mexico.”

While capturing a criminal is a win for justice and rule of law, Vigil said, the impact on what he sees as a “permanent campaign against drugs” is nil. “Really what we need to do here in the United States is we need to do a better job in terms of reducing demand.”

That was a key talking point when the U.S. and Mexican governments announced late in 2021 a new Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health and Safe Communities, replacing the outdated Merida Initiative.

The pact was supposed to take a more holistic approach to the scourge of drugs and the deaths they cause on both sides of the border. But underlining the frequent disconnect between diplomatic speech and reality, just two months later the U.S. government announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of any of four of El Chapo’s sons, including Ovidio, signaling the U.S. kingpin strategy was alive and well.

“The Bicentennial understanding was a change on paper with respect to attacking drug trafficking and violence with a more important focus on what were supposedly public health programs — (but) without any budget,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an associate professor at George Mason University. In reality, “Mexico is bending to the United States’ interests.”

For decades, the U.S. has nabbed drug kingpins from Mexico, Colombia and points between, but drugs are as available and more deadly in the United States as ever, she said. “The kingpin strategy is a failed strategy.”

The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment on Ovidio Guzmán's arrest.

López Obrador took office in December 2018 after campaigning with a motto of “hugs, not bullets.” He shifted resources to social programs to address what he sees as violence’s root causes, a medium- to long-term approach that did little for a country suffering more than 35,000 homicides per year.

“Something that has characterized, in my opinion, Mexico’s security policy in recent years is that it isn’t very clear. It has been a bit contradictory,” said Ángelica Durán-Martínez, associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. That ambiguity makes it difficult to determine if there has really been a change, she said.

López Obrador’s government benefits from the detention of Guzmán in several ways. The arrest eases the armed forces’ humiliation after being forced by cartel gunmen to release him in 2019. It may sooth ill-feelings after his administration strictly limited U.S. anti-drug cooperation two years ago. And it may help diminish perceptions that López Obrador -- who has frequently visited Sinaloa and praised its people — has gone easier on the Sinaloa cartel than on other gangs.

For four years López Obrador has continued to shred his predecessors’ prosecution of the drug war at every opportunity. Experts say the respite allowed the cartels to get stronger, both in terms of organization and armament.

Guzmán during that time took a growing role after his father was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. The younger Guzmán was indicted in Washington on drug trafficking charges along with another brother in 2018. He allegedly controlled a number of methamphetamine labs and was involved as the Sinaloa cartel expanded strongly into fentanyl production.

Synthetic drugs have been impervious to government eradication efforts, are easier to produce and smuggle, and are much more profitable.

The Sinaloa cartel hardly missed a beat when Guzmán's father was sent to the U.S., so the capture of one of the so-called “Chapitos,” as the brothers are known, is never going to shake the operation.

Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope said the detention of Ovidio Guzman probably came as the result of pressure or information from the U.S. government, and marks the tacit abandonment of López Obrador’s rhetoric about ditching the kingpin strategy.

For Hope, the detention is depressing, not only because it won’t fundamentally change the Sinaloa cartel’s booming export trade in meth and fentanyl, but because it reveals how little investigation Mexican authorities had done on Guzmán and the cartel since 2019.

“How great that they got Ovidio, applause, perfect,” Hope said. “What depresses me is that we’ve been at this (drug war) for 16 years, or 40 counting from the (murder of DEA agent Enrique) Camarena, and we still don’t have the ability to investigate.”

After Guzmán's capture, Mexican officials said he was arrested on an existing U.S. extradition request, as well as for illegal weapons possession and attempted murder at the time they found him. On Friday, Interior Secretary Adán López Hernández said there were other Mexican investigations underway that they couldn’t talk about.

“We keep betting on the muscle, the military capabilities and not on the ability to investigate,” Hope said.