Here is the fossil fuel report (pdf).

- Democrats are asking the US Department of Justice to investigate major oil companies and their trade groups following a congressional probe that concluded the industry spent decades deceiving the public about climate change.

- The American Petroleum Institute criticized the move by Democrats as “unfounded political charade to distract from persistent inflation and America’s need for more energy, including oil and natural gas".

The three-year investigation, started by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, accused Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell Plc, BP Plc, the American Petroleum Institute and US Chamber of Commerce of engaging in a public relations “campaign of deception and doublespeak” while internally acknowledging that fossil fuels caused climate change since the 1960s.

“We believe that there is adequate evidence that fossil fuel industry companies and trade associations may have violated one or more federal statutes and that, accordingly, further investigation is warranted,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Jamie Raskin wrote in a May 22 letter to the Justice Department.

Read More: US Lawmakers Lambast Big Oil’s ‘Deception’ on Climate Change

The lawmakers are “setting a dangerous precedent by attempting to leverage federal law enforcement agencies to settle policy disputes,” Neil Bradley, the US Chamber of Commerce’s chief policy officer, said in an emailed statement.

The American Petroleum Institute criticized the move by Democrats as “unfounded political charade to distract from persistent inflation and America’s need for more energy, including oil and natural gas,” according to a statement from spokeswoman Andrea Woods. “US energy workers are focused on delivering the reliable, affordable oil and natural gas Americans demand, and any suggestion to the contrary is false,” she said.

The 65-page report was released by the two committees last month along with hundreds of pages of subpoenaed corporate documents. It accused the oil companies of a range of misdeeds including offering public support for the Paris climate agreement while internally acknowledging their business models were at odds with such a scenario.

It also said the companies erroneously touted natural gas as a bridge fuel to a cleaner future while ignoring its significant climate impacts; and it said the industry poured money into universities around the world to win support for the idea of fossil fuels being part of an energy transition.

“Our investigation into the fossil fuel industry calls to mind the historic congressional investigation into deceptive practices of the tobacco industry and its trade associations, which led to investigations and litigation by several state attorneys general and the Department of Justice,” Whitehouse, who leads the Senate Budget Committee, and Raskin, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, said in their letter.

The Justice Department said it received the letter, but declined to comment further.

Families of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting are suing the manufacturer of the gun used in the attack, the maker of a video game and Instagram parent company Meta.

In two new lawsuits, they claim the companies helped promote dangerous weapons to a generation of “socially vulnerable” young men, including the 18-year old gunman.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the attack at Robb Elementary School. Friday marked the second anniversary of the Texas school shooting.

The dual lawsuits - filed in Texas and California - are against Activision, the developer of the military video game series “Call of Duty”; Daniel Defense, the gun manufacturer known for its high-end rifles; and Meta.

The companies are accused of being responsible for “grooming” a generation of young people who live out violent video game fantasies in the real world, with easily accessible weapons of war.

The gunman, Salvador Ramos, used an AR-15 style rifle in the attack.

The lawsuits contend that Meta and Activision "knowingly exposed" him to the gun he used at Uvalde and conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems.

The lawsuits claim that Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense have been "partnering…in a scheme that preys upon insecure, adolescent boys", attorneys said in a news release.

“There is a direct line between the conduct of these companies and the Uvalde shooting,” the statement said.

“This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”

According to lawsuits, the gunman had been playing Call of Duty, a war-based video game with a rifle similar to the one used in the shooting, since he was 15 years old.

The lawsuit says the gunman was "simultaneously" the subject of "aggressive marketing" by Daniel Defense, which targeted the teen with ads on Instagram.

"Instagram creates a connection between …an adolescent …and the gun and a gun company," Josh Koskoff, the plaintiffs' attorney, told the BBC's US media partner CBS, on Friday.

"And nobody exploited Instagram for this purpose more than Daniel Defense."

An Activision spokesperson told CBS that the "Uvalde shooting was horrendous and heartbreaking in every way", adding that the company expresses its "deepest sympathies" to victims and their families.

"Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts", the spokesman said.

The BBC has reached out to Meta, Daniel Defense and Activision for comment.

Daniel Defense, which is facing other lawsuits filed by some victims' families, said in a 2022 statement that such litigation was “frivolous” and “politically motivated”.

On Wednesday, families of the victims reached a $2m (£1.5m) settlement with the city of Uvalde.

More than 370 officers from various local, state and federal departments were at Robb Elementary during the attack.

It took police more than an hour to stop the gunman, who was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms.

Additionally, the families announced that they will be taking new legal action against 92 individual officers from the state's Department of Public Safety for "shocking and extensive failures" during the shooting response.

Archived link

Sometimes I’d rather not be right. In January, reacting to Donald Trump affectionately referring to the trio of tyrants Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un as “very fine people,” I wrote that two constants in the Trump Era are his affection for murderous authoritarians and Russian efforts to screw with American politics. The former is well-known, the latter, less recognized. Moscow mounted information warfare operations to boost Trump during both the 2016 election—most notably, the hack-and-leak attack in which Russian cyber-operatives swiped Democratic emails and documents and WikiLeaks released them—and the 2020 election, when Russian intelligence operatives spread disinformation about Joe and Hunter Biden and Ukraine. The first op helped the Putin-friendly Trump reach the White House; the second failed to keep him in office, but it had the side-benefit of fueling the House Republicans’ baseless (and now fizzling) impeachment crusade against President Biden. Putin went one for two.

I noted in that Our Land issue: “[I]t’s a good bet that Putin this year will try once again to mess in an American election…[As Putin] continues to commit horrendous war crimes in Ukraine, he has even more reason to clandestinely boost Trump and win the rubber match.” At long last, official warnings have arrived.

Two weeks ago, Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia remains “the most active foreign threat to our elections.” She noted that the Kremlin’s “goals in such influence operations tend to include eroding trust in US democratic institutions, exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the United States, and degrading Western support to Ukraine.” All of this, obviously, would be to Trump’s benefit. She pointed out that artificial intelligence and deepfakes will presumably be deployed in this effort, and she cited China and Iran as other threats.

Russia’s latest attack on the United States is already underway. As the Associated Press reported in March:

Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have spread and amplified misleading and incendiary content about US immigration and border security. The campaign seems crafted to stoke outrage and polarization before the 2024 election for the White House, and experts who study Russian disinformation say Americans can expect more to come as Putin looks to weaken support for Ukraine and cut off a vital supply of aid.

The New York Times reported recently that a disinformation operation—most likely mounted by Russians—has been circulating a video that purports to disclose the existence of a troll farm in Ukraine that is being run by the CIA and targeting the US election to prevent Trump’s election. It’s a clever instance of cyber-gaslighting, for it is Russian trolls who are disseminating fakery to hurt Biden and help Trump.

Microsoft, according to the Times, concluded this video “came from a group it calls Storm-1516, a collection of disinformation experts who now focus on creating videos they hope might go viral in America. The group most likely includes veterans of the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-aligned troll farm that sought to influence the 2016 election.” Another recent video from this gang—or a similar one—claimed to show Ukrainian soldiers burning an effigy of Trump and blaming him for delays in military aid shipments to Ukraine. The aim was to bolster MAGA’s opposition to aid for Ukraine. (You can’t send money to those anti-Trump ingrates!) Alex Jones’ conspiracy site posted the video that was not hard for experts to spot as a ruse. (The Ukrainian soldiers had Russian accents.)

A disinformation operation has been circulating a video that purports to disclose the existence of a troll farm in Ukraine that is being run by the CIA and targeting the US election to prevent Trump’s election.

At the Senate hearing, Haines testified that combatting disinformation “from foreign influence or interference is an absolute priority for the intelligence community” and that the US government is prepared “to address the challenge.” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the chair of the intelligence committee, said, “We’ve got to do a better job of making sure Americans of all political stripes understand what is very probably coming their way over the next…less than six months.”

In fact, disinformation experts in and out of government regularly say a crucial element in thwarting such operations is to alert the public that it is being targeted by bad-faith actors with false messages. Basically, you have to educate people about the big picture and then try to counter the specific instances as they occur. Here’s the rub: In a time of political division, not all major players are keen to do this. Especially when they, too, are engaging in similar activities.

Let’s rewind to the summer of 2016. When the Obama administration determined that Russia was covertly assaulting the US election, the White House reached out to Sen. Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader, to form a united front against the Kremlin’s interference. McConnell told President Obama to take a hike. At the time, Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, was falsely claiming there was no Russian intervention underway. McConnell didn’t want to cross-swords with Trump, and, ever the cynical political operative, he suspected the White House wanted to use this issue to undermine the Republicans. Consequently, he took a powder and placed party over country.

Since then, it’s only gotten worse. Republicans have generally waved away concerns about Putin’s war on US elections, echoing Trump’s phony assertion—disinformation—that it’s a big hoax concocted by Democrats and the media. Moreover, as noted above, many Republicans have gone further, embracing and amplifying Russian disinformation about both Biden and the war in Ukraine. Don’t take my word for it. Recently, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, groused, “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” And Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, complained that anti-Ukraine messages from Russia are “being uttered on the House floor.”

Republicans have generally waved away concerns about Putin’s war on US elections, echoing Trump’s phony assertion—disinformation—that it’s a big hoax concocted by Democrats and the media.

Theirs is a minority position. Most Republicans don’t want to broach the subject of Russian meddling. Putin’s operations are useful for these useful idiots. And their Dear Leader certainly desires no discussion of this. Any such talk is a reminder of how he slid into the White House with Russian assistance, which, in an act of grand betrayal, he aided and abetted by claiming no such thing was happening. Of course, conservative media and ex-lefty Trump-Russia denialists (Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and others) will pooh-pooh this and pump up the conspiracy theory that countering Russian disinformation is a scheme to impose state-sponsored censorship.

Given all this, how can a strategy to counter Russian information be implemented? If the Biden administration or congressional Democrats elevate these concerns, Trump and his minions will insist this is a plot to undermine him. The Trumpers don’t need to win the argument; they succeed if they turn this matter into yet another political mud-wrestling match that confuses or confounds voters. Still, Haines and others ought to keep trying.

The media has an important role to play. The more attention it can cast upon the Russian efforts, the greater the odds that a slice of the electorate will comprehend the threat and perhaps be inoculated from being unduly influenced by these operations. But how many of you saw coverage of this hearing? How about of the recent Russian actions? The New York Times did not consider this threat to American democracy front-page news, and buried its account of that phony video and the hearing on the bottom of page A19. (The Washington Post did not assign its own reporter to the hearing; it ran an AP account.) My hunch is that Trump’s ceaseless grousing about the “Russia hoax” has made some in the media gun-shy about this stuff.

As McConnell demonstrated eight years ago, it is tough to devise an effective and nonpartisan counter to a foreign threat when an entire political party denies that threat or, worse, sees benefits from it. The Russians aren’t coming, they’re here. Preserving democracy could depend on making sure Putin doesn’t win this round.

American Airlines has been accused of blaming a nine-year-old girl for being filmed in the plane's bathrooms by a male flight attendant.

Estes Carter Thompson III, 37, was arrested in January after he allegedly recorded four underaged girls - aged 7, 9, 11 and 14- as they used the bathroom aboard several AA flights.

In their response to a lawsuit filed by the nine-year-old's family, American Airlines put forward several defenses, including that they are not responsible because of 'the doctrine of comparative negligence, contributory negligence, comparative responsibility and/or comparative causation.'

AA's legal defense continues: 'Defendant would show that any injuries or illnesses alleged to have been sustained by Plaintiff, Mary Doe, were proximately caused by Plaintiff’s own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by Plaintiff’s use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device.'

Explaining the defense in plain English, the plaintiff's lawyer Caroline Recupero said: 'In other words, American Airlines is blaming a 9-year-old-girl for being filmed by an American Airlines flight attendant, arguing the child knew or should have known that the airplane toilet contained a recording device.'

“Traverse City is becoming Myrtle Beach meets Hilton Head — a place catering to a population outside the region,” Mr. Treter said. “Our work force can’t live here anymore.”

Mr. Treter and others in this small Lake Michigan community with a population of nearly 16,000 came up with a solution: a 47,000 square-foot building that offered spaces for residences, businesses and community activities that had been in short supply as gentrification in the city pushed prices up and local residents out.

What sets this project apart from others like it is how it’s paid for. Mr. Treter developed the space with Kate Redman, a lawyer who works with nonprofit organizations, and several other entrepreneurs who were dealing with similar challenges. They created a crowdfunding campaign that recruited nearly 500 residents to invest $1.3 million as a down payment to help finance the project’s construction and earn up to 7 percent annually in dividend payments. Roughly 500 more residents contributed $50 each to join the project as co-op members.

The $20 million development, called Commongrounds, opened late last year. It is at full occupancy and consists of 18 income-based apartments (rent below market rate based on median income), five hotel-like rooms for short-term rentals, a restaurant, three commercial kitchens (for the restaurant and to be used for events and classes), a food market, a coffee training center (for new hires and developing new drinks), a 150-seat performing arts center, a co-working space, offices and a Montessori preschool.

Archive link

Addition to include ths Supply Trace project link Professor Bhimani is talking about: https://www.supplytrace.org

Shawn Bhimani, assistant professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, leads Northeastern’s Supply Trace project, an open-access platform that uses machine learning and shipping data — and on-the-ground investigations — to link forced labor to international trade transactions.

The Biden administration has added 26 more companies to the list of Chinese textile traders and manufacturers whose goods are blocked from entering the United States because of their alleged ties to forced labor.

The banned imports, known as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, names businesses that are said to be involved in exploiting forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. The announcement brings the total number of banned companies to 65.

The act, passed by Congress in 2021 and enacted in June 2022, prohibits the import of any goods made in Xinjiang from entering the U.S.

Shawn Bhimani, assistant professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, says 90% of the cotton in China is grown in Xinjiang. Other industries, he says, such as solar and electronics, are also tainted by the Uyghur human rights abuses.

Bhimani leads Northeastern’s Supply Trace project, an open-access digital platform that uses machine learning and shipping data — as well as on-the-ground investigations — to link forced labor to international trade transactions.

Northeastern Global News spoke to Bhimani about the evidence the U.S. government has of the alleged human rights violations in China, as well as how Supply Trace helps companies and consumers to make ethical decisions.

Q1 - How do you define “forced labor” and how big is this problem globally?

The International Labor Organization defines forced labor as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.” If I was to simplify, its people working against their will.

Forced labor is estimated currently at 27 to 28 million people globally [comparable to the population of Australia]. It is a subset of what some people refer to as modern slavery.

Q2 - Where in the world does forced labor happen most?

The highest problems of forced labor occur in India [11 million people] based on the 2023 estimates by the Global Slavery Index. China is also on their list.

China is much more in the news and in focus right now because of multiple political discussions that are happening this year. Part of it is tariffs that were levied against China two days ago by the Biden administration.

Part of it is because the Chinese government has been committing human rights abuses against the Uyghur population for many years. Because of that, the U.S. Congress passed in 2021 the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which prohibits the importation of any goods made in whole or in part, in Xinjiang [province] from entering the U.S. That law was enforced in June of 2022.

The U.S. government continues to build out credible evidence and a list of entities that should be avoided in business transactions.

Recent testing shows that of goods coming into the U.S. 20% of the apparel was still being made with Xinjiang cotton.

Q3 - How does the U.S. government know that these human rights abuses, including forced labor, are happening?

We have victim testimony. People who are from that region are able to provide testimony of the atrocities that are occurring, which are not limited to forced labor.

Additionally, we are able to leverage the fact that shipments coming out of China into the U.S. and other Western markets are traceable.

As part of our Supply Trace project, we trace shipments from factories in China with known links to Xinjiang and make it clear that those factories are shipping to the U.S. companies in our pilot phase of the platform. As we grow, there will be companies all over the world that are buying these products made by victims of forced labor.

We use shipping records of goods that travel by ocean freight. We also look at investigations performed on factories within China, where we look at their public disclosures on where the materials come from and who their customers and clients are.

Q4 - How can American companies vet their supply chain?

It is imperative that companies comply with the [Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act] and the list of banned companies.

About 90% of the cotton from China is from Xinjiang, which means that there’s a 90% chance that any cotton that China exports has Xinjiang fibers in it. There are so many other industries such as solar or electronics or others that are tainted by bigger human rights abuses in China.

When it comes to other countries, and other areas [of China], there are business advisories or recommendations of where companies should consider exercising caution. They can do this by vetting their supply chain by mapping it, by understanding known areas of risk and performing due diligence… for example, factory investigations to ensure that there’s no forced labor happening out of the facility.

They need to think about corrective action and in the case of Uyghur human rights abuses, they need to change their sourcing locations.

Many companies don’t know where to start. They don’t know what to do with the list. They don’t even know sometimes if their suppliers are connected to Xinjiang.

So what we do is we create an open-access website where they can see a map of their supply chain based on shipping records. We use machine learning to connect the dots for them. We also provide resources if a company realizes they are connected [to forced labor] on what to do about it.

Q5 - How can consumers figure out if a brand was produced with forced labor?

Supply Trace is open to everyone. It is an equal access platform, so anyone anywhere in the world can access it. There is no paywall. You type in the name of the brand or a factory and see potential risk and make better, more informed decisions.

Sometimes products do not ship directly from China to the U.S. They go through a third-party country before they arrive in the U.S.

Q6 - How have these bans affected China?

We know that after passing of the law in 2021, and enforced in 2022, Customs Border Patrol has stopped over $3 billion worth of goods at the U.S. border to comply with the UFLPA.

We also know because of our own research that we’ve been conducting, that we have seen a decrease in raw cotton from China entering the United States because of companies trying to comply with this law.

However, in our recent research we found that retail products that are made in part with [Xinjiang] cotton have not significantly decreased, which is another way of saying we’re still importing those products tainted with human rights abuses.

The United States has barred imports from 26 Chinese cotton traders or warehouse facilities on Thursday as part of its effort to eliminate goods made with the forced labor of Uyghur minorities from the US supply chain.

The companies are the latest additions to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List that restricts the import of goods tied to what the US government has characterized as an ongoing genocide of minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.

US officials believe Chinese authorities have established labor camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in China’s western Xinjiang region. Beijing denies any abuses.

Many of the cotton companies listed are based outside of Xinjiang but source their cotton from the region, the US Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

The designations help “responsible companies conduct due diligence so that, together, we can keep the products of forced labor out of our country,” Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, said in the statement.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington criticized the move.

"The so-called ‘Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act’ is just an instrument of a few US politicians to disrupt stability in Xinjiang and contain China’s development,” the spokesperson said.

Washington has restricted imports from 65 entities since the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List law was passed in 2021, according to the department.

“We enthusiastically endorse DHS’s action today to nearly double the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act’s ‘Entity List’ — while recognizing that the current list remains only a fraction of the businesses complicit in forced labor,” Representative Chris Smith and Senator Jeff Merkley, chairs of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said in a statement.

The lawmakers want DHS to blacklist Chinese companies in the polysilicon, aluminum, PVC and rayon industries and any company in other parts of Asia making goods for the US market with inputs sourced from Xinjiang.

By Tinglong Dai, Bernard T. Ferrari Professor of Business, Johns Hopkins University

In June 2019, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden tweeted: “Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.”

Fast-forward five years to May 2024, and President Biden has announced a hike in tariffs on a variety of Chinese imports, including a 100% tariff that would significantly increase the price of Chinese-made electric vehicles.

For a nation committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, efforts by the U.S. to block low-cost EVs might seem counterproductive. At a price of around US$12,000, Chinese automaker BYD’s Seagull electric car could quickly expand EV sales if it landed at that price in the U.S., where the cheapest new electric cars cost nearly three times more.

As an expert in global supply chains, however, I believe the Biden tariffs can succeed in giving the U.S. EV industry room to grow. Without the tariffs, U.S. auto sales risk being undercut by Chinese companies, which have much lower production costs due to their manufacturing methods, looser environmental and safety standards, cheaper labor and more generous government EV subsidies.

Tariffs have a troubled history

The U.S. has a long history of tariffs that have failed to achieve their economic goals.

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was meant to protect American jobs by raising tariffs on imported goods. But it backfired by prompting other countries to raise their tariffs, which led to a drop in international trade and deepened the Great Depression.

Biden speaks at a podium with people standing behind him holding United Steelworkers signs.

President George W. Bush’s 2002 steel tariffs also led to higher steel prices, which hurt industries that use steel and cost American manufacturing an estimated 200,000 jobs. The tariffs were lifted after the World Trade Organization ruled against them.

The Obama administration’s tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels in 2012 blocked direct imports but failed to foster a domestic solar panel industry. Today, the U.S. relies heavily on imports from companies operating in Southeast Asia – primarily Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Many of those companies are linked to China.

Why EV tariffs are different this time

Biden’s EV tariffs, however, might defy historical precedent and succeed where the solar tariff failed, for a few key reasons:

1. Timing matters.

When Obama imposed tariffs on solar panels in 2012, nearly half of U.S. installations were already using Chinese-manufactured panels. In contrast, Chinese-made EVs, including models sold in the U.S. by Volvo and Polestar, have negligible U.S. market shares.

Because the U.S. market is not dependent on Chinese-made EVs, the tariffs can be implemented without significant disruption or price increases, giving the domestic industry time to grow and compete more effectively.

By imposing tariffs early, the Biden administration hopes to prevent the U.S. market from becoming saturated with low-price Chinese EVs, which could undercut domestic manufacturers and stifle innovation.

2. Global supply chains are not the same today.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in global supply chains, such as the risk of disruptions in the availability of critical components and delays in production and shipping. These issues prompted many countries, including the U.S., to reevaluate their dependence on foreign manufacturers for critical goods and to shift toward reshoring – bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. – and strengthening domestic supply chains.

The war in Ukraine has further intensified the separation between U.S.-led and China-led economic orders, a phenomenon I call the “Supply Chain Iron Curtain.”

In a recent McKinsey survey, 67% of executives cited geopolitical risk as the greatest threat to global growth. In this context, EVs and their components, particularly batteries, are key products identified in Biden’s supply chain reviews as critical to the nation’s supply chain resilience.

Ensuring a stable and secure supply of these components through domestic manufacturing can mitigate the risks associated with global supply chain disruptions and geopolitical tensions.

3. National security concerns are higher.

Unlike solar panels, EVs have direct national security implications. The Biden administration considers Chinese-made EVs a potential cybersecurity threat due to the possibility of embedded software that could be used for surveillance or cyberattacks.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has discussed espionage risks involving the potential for foreign-made EVs to collect sensitive data and transmit it outside the U.S. Officials have raised concerns about the resilience of an EV supply chain dependent on other countries in the event of a geopolitical conflict.

BYD targets EV sales in Mexico

While Biden’s EV tariffs might succeed in keeping Chinese competition out for a while, Chinese EV manufacturers could try to circumvent the tariffs by moving production to countries such as Mexico.

This scenario is similar to past tactics used by Chinese solar panel manufacturers, which relocated production to other Asian countries to avoid U.S. tariffs.

Chinese automaker BYD, the world leader in EV sales, is already exploring establishing a factory in Mexico to produce its new electric truck. Nearly 10% of cars sold in Mexico in 2023 were produced by Chinese automakers.

Given the changing geopolitical reality, Biden’s 100% EV tariffs are likely the beginning of a broader strategy rather than an isolated measure. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai hinted at this during a recent press conference, stating that addressing vehicles made in Mexico would require “a separate pathway” and to “stay tuned” for future actions.

Is Europe next?

For now, given the near absence of Chinese-made EVs in the U.S. auto market, Biden’s EV tariffs are unlikely to have a noticeable short-term impact in the U.S. They could, however, affect decisions in Europe.

The European Union saw Chinese EV imports more than double over a seven-month period in 2023, undercutting European vehicles by offering lower prices. Manufacturers are concerned. When finance ministers from the Group of Seven advanced democracies meet in late May, tariffs will be on the agenda.

Biden’s move might encourage similar protective actions elsewhere, reinforcing the global shift toward securing supply chains and promoting domestic manufacturing.

Archive link

Oh, and restoration of firearms rights.

Archived link (without Cloudflare).

Here is the link in Spanish (archived version)

Poynter’s PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-Prize winning fact-checking newsroom, is pleased to announce the launch of a new Spanish-language experience, PolitiFact en Español, to help more than 40 million Spanish-speakers in the U.S. sort out the truth in politics.

A new Spanish-language website and a related social media presence are the culmination of an effort that began in 2023 when PolitiFact launched a Spanish-language team. The team’s fact-checks have appeared on pages of PolitiFact’s existing website and via Telemundo stations in Florida through a partnership that brings fact checks to the stations’ newscasts, digital and streaming platforms. But starting this month, a newly launched website www.politifact.com/espanol/ provides an excellent user experience in Spanish.

"We are excited about taking this next step to better serve the millions of people in the United States who consume news primarily in Spanish," said Katie Sanders, PolitiFact editor-in-chief.

Deputy Editor Miriam Valverde, who started fact-checking immigration claims for PolitiFact in 2016, leads PolitiFact en Español and its team of Spanish-speaking reporters.

"Our new website and social media presence will provide Spanish speakers with fact-based information and help them guard against dangerous misinformation that is increasingly pervasive across platforms," Valverde said.

The free website features fact checks from the PolitiFact en Español team, who root out Spanish-language misinformation in its many forms, and write in-depth stories and fact checks. Much of the fact-checking falls under Meta’s third-party fact-checking program, debunking misinformation on Instagram and Facebook. The team also translates trending fact checks and stories, both from English to Spanish and vice versa.

Valverde said the premise was not to simply copy PolitlFact.com into Spanish, but to find ways to best serve the target audience. To that end, the effort has included launching a WhatsApp tipline to solicit reader ideas, as well as a WhatsApp channel. PolitiFact en Español also is active on TikTok and Instagram.

With the 2024 U.S. presidential election later this year, and Hispanic voters a coveted demographic from both parties, there will be no shortage of political claims to check, Sanders said.

"It’s especially important that PolitiFact en Español is a resource for Spanish-speaking voters, who will be bombarded with political messages, many of them false, during the campaign season," she said.

Other partnerships include FactChequeado, a fact-checking organization that shares PolitiFact’s work with its network that includes Hispanic media outlets. PolitiFact also has a partnership with Telemundo and NBCUniversal’s TV stations in Florida to bring its fact-checks to the stations’ newscasts, digital, mobile and streaming platforms.