New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection has charged itself with damaging habitat for threatened and endangered birds that it was supposed to protect. 

The work was designed to create habitat for one species of bird but wound up destroying habitat for two others. 

The department acknowledged it sent a violation notice and threatened penalties against its own Division of Fish and Wildlife regarding unauthorized work in February and March at the Glassboro Wildlife Management Area in Clayton, Gloucester County. 

The violation notice includes the threat of penalties, but it was unclear how that might work when the DEP is both the accuser and the accused. Nor was it immediately clear whether any money might actually change hands. The department did not respond to questions about potential fines. 

The work involved the clearing of vegetation and disturbance of soils on nearly three acres of what the state calls “exceptional resource value freshwater wetlands.” Before the work was done, this land was considered suitable habitat for the barred owl, which is listed as a threatened species, and the red-shouldered hawk, an endangered species. 

The project also cleared and disturbed an additional 12 acres of land near wetlands known as transition areas, which also are protected. 

The DEP refused Friday to discuss how the work happened without authorization. 

On its website, the department wrote on February 1 that the work sought to create 21 acres of habitat for the American woodcock, a member of the sandpiper family that uses its long, narrow beak to forage for earthworms in damp soil. The project was designed to create “meadow habitat.” 

But in doing so, the state destroyed mature oak and pine forests in and near wetlands, and filled in some wetlands, four conservation groups said in a letter to the department in early March complaining about the work. The agency issued the violation notice on April 6. 

“The wetland soil and flora that were previously undisturbed have been destroyed, and the mature forest that was already habitat for numerous rare species of plants and birds was clear-cut logged,” the groups wrote. “All trees have been cut, and all stumps bulldozed.” 

Tom Gilbert, a leader of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, said, “This never should have happened. They must also take steps to improve their clearly inadequate internal review process and meaningfully engage the public.” 

Jaclyn Rhoads, assistant executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, commended the state for owning up to its mistake, but said the DEP should provide a list of current projects on its website for public review. 

“It is because of the public that we were able to stop further destruction of this landscape,” she said. 

Agency spokesman Larry Hajna said the Fish and Wildlife Division’s Bureau of Land Management must implement appropriate soil conservation measures within 10 days and submit a plan within 30 days to restore the site. That must include removal of wood chips placed there. 

By the end of April, the DEP intends to issue a notice of penalty assessment. 

Fish and Wildlife will propose additional environmentally beneficial measures, which will be subject to a public comment period, Hajna said. 
…

The Biden administration and a drug manufacturer asked the Supreme Court on Friday to preserve access to an abortion drug free from restrictions imposed by lower court rulings, while a legal fight continues. 

The Justice Department and Danco Laboratories both warned of “regulatory chaos” and harm to women if the high court doesn’t block an appeals court ruling in a case from Texas that had the effect of tightening Food and Drug Administration rules under which the drug, mifepristone, can be prescribed and dispensed. 

The new limits would take effect Saturday unless the court acts before then. 

“This application concerns unprecedented lower court orders countermanding FDA’s scientific judgment and unleashing regulatory chaos by suspending the existing FDA-approved conditions of use for mifepristone,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote Friday, less than two days after the appellate ruling. 

A lawyer for the anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations suing over mifepristone said the justices should reject the drugmaker’s and the administration’s pleas and allow the appeals court-ordered changes to take effect. 

The fight over mifepristone lands at the Supreme Court less than a year after conservative justices reversed Roe v. Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to effectively ban abortion outright. 

The justices are being asked for a temporary order to keep in place Food and Drug Administration regulations governing mifepristone. Such an order would give them time to more fully consider each side’s arguments without the pressure of a deadline. 

The Biden administration and Danco, which is based in New York, also want a more lasting order that would keep the current rules in place as long as the legal fight over mifepristone continues. As a fallback, they asked the court to take up the issue, hear arguments and decide by early summer a legal challenge to mifepristone that anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations filed last year. 

The court rarely acts so quickly to grant full review of cases before at least one appeals court has thoroughly examined the legal issues involved. 

A ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Wednesday would prevent the pill, used in the most common abortion method, from being mailed or prescribed without an in-person visit to a doctor. It also would withdraw the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone for use beyond the seventh week of pregnancy. The FDA says it’s safe through 10 weeks. 

Still, the appeals court did not entirely withdraw FDA approval of mifepristone while the fight over it continues. The 5th Circuit narrowed an April 7 ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, whose far-reaching and virtually unprecedented order would have blocked FDA approval of the pill. He gave the administration a week to appeal. 

“To the government’s knowledge, this is the first time any court has abrogated FDA’s conditions on a drug’s approval based on a disagreement with the agency’s judgment about safety — much less done so after those conditions have been in effect for years,” Prelogar wrote. 

Erin Hawley, a lawyer for the challengers, said in a statement that the FDA has put politics ahead of health concerns in its actions on medication abortion. 

“The 5th Circuit rightly required the agency to prioritize women’s health by restoring critical safeguards, and we’ll urge the Supreme Court to keep that accountability in place,” said Hawley said, a senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that also argued to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Mifepristone was approved by the FDA more than two decades ago and is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol. 

Adding to the uncertainty, a separate federal judge in Washington on Thursday clarified his own order from last week to make clear that the FDA is not to do anything that might block mifepristone’s availability in 17 Democrat-led states suing to keep it on the market. 

It’s unclear how the FDA can comply with court orders in both cases, a situation that Prelogar described Friday as untenable. 

The two judges who voted to tighten restrictions, Kurt Engelhardt and Andrew Oldham, are both appointees of former President Donald Trump. The third judge, Catharina Haynes, is an appointee of former President George W. Bush. She said she would have put the lower court ruling on hold entirely for now to allow oral arguments in the case. 

The appeals court judges in the majority in Wednesday’s decision noted that the Biden administration and mifepristone’s manufacturer “warn us of significant public consequences” that would result if mifepristone were withdrawn entirely from the market under the lower court ruling. 

But the judges suggested FDA changes making mifepristone easier to obtain since 2016 were less consequential than its initial approval of the drug in 2000. It would be difficult to argue the changes were “so critical to the public given that the nation operated — and mifepristone was administered to millions of women — without them for sixteen years” the judges wrote. 

Use of medication abortion jumped significantly after the 2016 rule expansion, according to data gathered by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. In 2017, medication abortion accounted for 39% of abortions but by 2020 had increased to become the most common method, accounting for 53% of all abortions. 

Experts have said the use of medication abortion has increased since the court overturned Roe. 

When the drug was initially approved, the FDA limited its use to up to seven weeks of pregnancy. It also required three in-person office visits: the first to administer mifepristone, the next to administer the second drug, misoprostol, and the third to address any complications. It also required a doctor’s supervision and a reporting system for any serious consequences of the drug. 

If the appeals court’s action stands, those would again be the terms under which mifepristone could be dispensed for now. At the core of the Texas lawsuit is the allegation that the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone was flawed because the agency did not adequately review safety risks. 

Mifepristone has been used by millions of women in the past 23 years. While less drastic than completely overturning the drug’s approval, the latest ruling still represents a stark challenge to the FDA’s authority overseeing how prescription drugs are used in the U.S. The panel overturned multiple decisions made by FDA regulators after years of scientific review. 

Common side effects with mifepristone include cramping, bleeding, nausea, headache and diarrhea. In rare cases, women can experience excess bleeding that requires surgery to stop. 

Still, in loosening restrictions on mifepristone, FDA regulators cited “exceedingly low rates of serious adverse events.” More than 5.6 million women in the U.S. had used the drug as of June 2022, according to the FDA. In that period, the agency received 4,200 reports of complications in women, or less than one-tenth of 1% of women who took the drug. 
…

The Republican-dominated Florida Legislature on Thursday approved a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a proposal supported by the Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as he prepares for an expected presidential run.

DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.

A six-week ban would give DeSantis a key political victory among Republican primary voters as he prepares to launch a presidential candidacy built on his national brand as a conservative standard-bearer.

The policy would also have wider implications for abortion access throughout the South in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade and leaving decisions about abortion access to states. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, while Georgia forbids the procedure after cardiac activity can be detected, which is around six weeks.

“We have the opportunity to lead the national debate about the importance of protecting life and giving every child the opportunity to be born and find his or her purpose,” said Republican Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka.

Democrats and abortion-rights groups have criticized Florida’s proposal as extreme.

“This ban would prevent 4 million Florida women of reproductive age from accessing abortion care after six weeks — before many women even know they’re pregnant,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement issued after Thursday’s vote. “This ban would also impact the nearly 15 million women of reproductive age who live in abortion-banning states throughout the South, many of whom have previously relied on travel to Florida as an option to access care.”

The bill contains some exceptions, including to save the woman’s life. Abortions for pregnancies involving rape or incest would be allowed until 15 weeks of pregnancy, provided a woman has documentation such as a restraining order or police report. DeSantis has called the rape and incest provisions sensible.

Drugs used in medication-induced abortions — which make up the majority of those provided nationally — could be dispensed only in person or by a physician under the Florida bill. Separately, nationwide access to the abortion pill mifepristone is being challenged in court.

Florida’s six-week ban would take effect only if the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld in an ongoing legal challenge that is before the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by conservatives.

“I can’t think of any bill that’s going to provide more protections to more people who are more vulnerable than this piece of legislation,” said Republican Rep. Mike Beltran, who said the bill’s exceptions and six-week timeframe represented a compromise.

Abortion bans are popular among some religious conservatives who are part of the GOP voting base, but the issue has motivated many others to vote for Democrats. Republicans in recent weeks and months have suffered defeats in elections centered on abortion access in states such as Kentucky, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“Have we learned nothing?” House Democratic Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said of recent elections in other states. “Do we not listen to our constituents and to the people of Florida and what they are asking for?”

DeSantis, who often places himself on the front lines of culture war issues, has said he backs the six-week ban but has appeared uncharacteristically tepid on the bill. He has often said, “We welcome pro-life legislation,” when asked about the policy.

DeSantis is expected to announce his presidential candidacy after the session ends in May, with his potential White House run in part buoyed by the conservative policies approved by the Republican supermajority in the Statehouse this year.

Democrats, without power at any level of state government, have mostly turned to stall tactics and protests to oppose the bill, which easily passed both chambers on largely party-line votes. The Senate approved it last week, and the House did so Thursday.

A Democratic senator and chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party were arrested and charged with trespassing during a protest in Tallahassee against the six-week ban. In a last ditch move to delay the bill’s passage in the House on Thursday, Democrats filed dozens of amendments to the proposal, all of which were rejected by Republicans.

“Women’s health and their personal right to choose is being stolen,” said Democratic Rep. Felicia Simone Robinson. “So I ask: Is Florida truly a free state?”
…

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven nations will use talks in Japan next week to assess their strategy in the Middle East, diplomatic sources said Thursday, as strategic shifts bypass Western powers, leaving them scrambling for influence.

The U.S. and its main European allies were caught unprepared in March after China brokered a deal between regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran to revive diplomatic relations after years of bitter rivalry that has fueled conflict across the Middle East.

The kingdom is also pressing ahead with efforts to thaw bilateral ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, joining several other Arab states in moving to formally end Syria’s regional isolation despite Western concerns.

“A reconfiguration is under way,” said a French diplomatic source who was officially briefing reporters but required anonymity as per standard policy.

Foreign ministers to meet soon

The ministers of the G-7 — France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, the U.S. and Japan — meet in Japan April 16-18.

“The region is going through serious upheaval, be it the Iranian nuclear crisis aspect, but also the recomposition of the geopolitical balances with the Iran-Saudi-China deal. We can see something is happening with Syria after the earthquake,” he said.

Certain Middle East allies, notably Saudi Arabia, have questioned U.S. security commitments to the region and have opted to remain neutral about Russia’s war against Ukraine, pushing them to diversify their relationships, including with China, instead of relying on the West.

“The G-7 must be able to preserve its security interests, which incidentally are also in the interest of regional security, but also global security,” the diplomat said.

‘Middle East fatigue’

Some European diplomats have bemoaned a “Middle East fatigue” in the West that has also forced regional players to reconsider their relationships, leaving the door open for others to fill the void.

“The Iran-Saudi-China deal is symptomatic of our problems. Nobody saw it coming, so we need to regroup collectively,” said a second G-7 diplomat.

A third Western diplomat said it was time for the G-7 to take stock of the new dynamics in the region, noting that Saudi Arabian-led efforts to orchestrate OPEC oil cuts, against Western wishes, had been another signal.

The foreign ministers, who are preparing a heads-of-state summit in Hiroshima in mid-May, will center their talks on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament with North Korea, Iran and Russia in mind.

The war in Ukraine and how to prevent Russia from circumventing sanctions, the Indo-Pacific and more broadly how to tackle challenges to the existing international rules-based order also would be on the agenda, the French diplomat said.

“The G-7 will only remain credible if it is able to handle the world’s problems,” he said.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Vietnam later this week. Blinken’s first trip to Hanoi as the top U.S. diplomat comes as the two countries are eyeing an upgrade in bilateral ties to a strategic partnership. Blinken will also break ground on a new U.S. Embassy compound. State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching has more from Hanoi, Vietnam.
…

Jury selection begins Thursday in the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News and its parent company.

Dominion sued the cable news network Fox News in 2021, seeking $1.6 billion for what it said was damage done to the company by Fox News promoting what it knew were false claims by former U.S. President Donald Trump that Dominion voting machines were used to rig the 2020 against him.

Fox News has denied committing defamation and said it was merely reporting on Trump’s allegations in a manner protected by the free speech rights in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The judge overseeing the case sanctioned Fox News on Wednesday for withholding records. The records included recordings made by a former Fox News producer of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani saying before a Fox News appearance that he did not have evidence to support allegations of Dominion being involved in vote-rigging.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden holds talks Thursday with Irish President Michael D. Higgins and Leo Varadkar, the country’s prime minister, and is set to deliver remarks to the houses of the Oireachtas — the Irish parliament.

Biden’s schedule also includes a youth Gaelic sports demonstration in Dublin as well as a banquet dinner at Dublin Castle.

Biden, who often highlights his Irish heritage, closes his trip with a Friday night speech in Ballina, home of his paternal ancestors, on the west coast of Ireland.

Irish heritage

Biden began his visit to the region in Northern Ireland before heading to Ireland.

Immediately after landing in Dublin on Wednesday, Biden traveled to County Louth, home to his maternal great-great-grandfather, shoemaker Owen Finnegan, and toured Carlingford Castle. According to the White House, that would have been the last Irish landmark that Finnegan saw before departing for New York on March 31, 1849. Finnegan’s family, including his son James, Biden’s great-grandfather, followed him in 1850.

Meeting local residents at a pub in Dundalk, Biden spoke fondly of his roots, repeating the story he told during his 2016 visit to Ireland about Finnegan and Joseph Kearney, former President Barack Obama’s great-great-grandfather who was also a shoemaker from a nearby county and emigrated to the U.S. around the same time.

“In all of their dreams, I’m not sure they could have imagined that 175 years later both their great-great-grandchild would be president of the United States of America, Barack Obama and Joe Biden,” he said.

Northern Ireland

Biden told people in Belfast on Wednesday he hopes Northern Ireland’s devolved power-sharing government can soon be restored, promising that American corporations are ready to invest in the region.

“Many have already made homes in Northern Ireland, employing over 30,000 people,” he said, adding that in the past decade, American business has generated almost $2 billion in investment in the region.

In a speech hailing 25 years of peace in the region, Biden told the hundreds of people gathered at Ulster University that the democratic institutions that established the Good Friday Agreement remain critical.

The peace deal helped end 30 years of bloody conflict over whether Northern Ireland should unify with Ireland or remain part of the United Kingdom.

“An effective devolved government that reflects the people of Northern Ireland and is accountable to them. A government that works to find ways through hard problems together is going to draw even greater opportunity to this region,” Biden said. “So, I hope the assembly and the executive will soon be restored.”

Biden was referring to the region’s place in the U.K., in which the government in London has transferred a wide range of powers to Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly where local politicians instead of lawmakers in London make key decisions.

Fraught with conflict

In practice, power sharing in Northern Ireland has been fraught with conflict, mainly between the two dominant political parties — the Democratic Unionist Party, which favors continued governance with London, and Sinn Féin, which broadly favors reunification with Ireland.

Since it was established in 1998, the government has collapsed numerous times because of boycotts by various parties, the latest one in February 2022 when the DUP boycotted in protest of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a post-Brexit agreement between the U.K. and the European Union for Northern Ireland to maintain an open border and allow trade to continue with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.

Under the protocol, while Northern Ireland remains in U.K. customs territory, it is also part of the EU’s single market, requiring checks and additional documentation for certain goods imported into Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. Because of the region’s history of conflict, many people are uneasy with border checks.

The DUP also refused to endorse the Windsor Framework, a deal adopted in March that is designed to fix trade issues including by reducing the number of checks on goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

Biden-Sunak meeting

In Belfast, Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reaffirmed their commitment to the Good Friday Agreement and welcomed the Windsor Framework as an important step in preserving peace, according to a White House statement following their meeting.

Earlier this week, Sunak called on parties in dispute to “get on with the business of governance.”

Biden was more cautious in his comments on the Stormont logjam.

“I’m going to listen,” Biden said in response to a reporter’s question on what he was going to say to the Northern Ireland political parties that he met later Wednesday.

DUP’s leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, said Biden’s visit does not move his party’s position.

“It doesn’t change the political dynamic in Northern Ireland. We know what needs to happen,” he said, underscoring that the British government must do more to protect the region’s place within the United Kingdom and its ability to trade within the U.K. internal market.
…

A Biden administration proposal would force U.S. automakers to sharply increase their production of electric cars and trucks over the next decade, lending greater urgency to the effort to build raw material supply chains that reduce the industry’s dependence on China.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced a proposed rule that would place stricter limits on the average tailpipe emissions of vehicles built in the United States. The proposal would reduce the allowable limit by so much that automakers would have no way to comply unless about two-thirds of the vehicles they produce by 2032 are emission-free electric vehicles.

Automakers have generally recognized that EVs represent the future of the industry, but Wednesday’s proposal would greatly accelerate the trend. The proposal, which will be open to public comment before it is finalized, would greatly reduce a leading cause of air pollution in the U.S., as well as the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

“By proposing the most ambitious pollution standards ever for cars and trucks, we are delivering on the Biden-Harris administration’s promise to protect people and the planet, securing critical reductions in dangerous air and climate pollution, and ensuring significant economic benefits like lower fuel and maintenance costs for families,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan.

The proposal, which would apply to new light-duty vehicles made in 2027 and beyond, would be the strictest environmental standard the federal government has ever applied to automobiles. If it does force the industry to make EVs account for two-thirds of production, it could also exceed President Joe Biden’s previously articulated target of making 50% of new cars either plug-in hybrids or completely emission-free by 2030.

Supply chain questions

Well before the EPA released its proposed rule Wednesday, the Biden administration had been moving to strengthen the EV market in the U.S. and to build a pipeline for raw materials that would reduce the auto industry’s reliance on China for key raw materials.

Accomplishing that reduction will be no small task. According to an analysis by the International Energy Agency last year, China produced three-quarters of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, the key component in the majority of EVs on the road.

China also has a dominant hold on much of the market for the components of those batteries, including lithium, cobalt and graphite. According to the IEA, more than half of the world’s capacity for processing and refining those materials is located in China.

According to the IEA, as of last year, the U.S. accounted for only 10% of EV production worldwide, and just 7% of production capacity for batteries.

Infrastructure projects

Last year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which contained hundreds of billions of dollars in climate-related spending, included the creation of large tax breaks restricted to EVs made at least partly in the U.S. The tax breaks are meant to extend over several years, but the restrictions become tighter as time goes on, creating incentives for manufacturers to “onshore” production to the U.S.

Tax breaks specific to the batteries used in EVs require that the raw materials used to assemble them come from domestic sources or from countries with which the U.S. has existing trade agreements.

Other pieces of legislation meant to spur investment in the U.S., including a major bipartisan infrastructure bill and the CHIPS and Science Act, also contain money and incentives that will help build out electric infrastructure in the U.S.

Achievable goals

Luke Tonachel, senior director for clean vehicles and buildings with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told VOA that building an EV supply chain centered on domestic production and imports from friendly countries is ambitious, but achievable.

Tonachel said the necessary raw materials are available from U.S. allies, but that the capacity for processing them needs to be built domestically. He said the creation of that capacity is already underway.

“There are robust incentives for building out that battery manufacturing and supply chain here in the U.S.,” he said, adding that he believes the administration’s time frame is feasible, especially now that the new standards have created certainty about future demand for EVs.

“It is realistic,” he said. “These are technologies that are known. We can certainly get more economies of scale as we ramp up production.”

Automakers tentative

Industry representatives said achieving the administration’s goal will require that a lot of disparate efforts be successful at the same time, not all of which are under their control. For example, a nationwide network of charging stations and the increased capacity to meet new demand for power will be essential to driving customer demand.

“It’s aggressive, and a lot of pieces have to work perfectly together,” Genevieve Cullen, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, told VOA. “Aside from the technology piece, the market piece has to work, and supply chain speed is part of that. Consumer incentives are working to help bring them into the equation, and we need to keep expanding infrastructure at a pace that meets, and perhaps exceeds, the needs in the beginning so that people feel the confidence that they need to switch to battery electric.”

John Bozzella, president of the trade group Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a blog post Wednesday that the administration’s plan is “aggressive by any measure” and that its success would depend on more than just automakers being able to ramp up production.

“To some extent, the baseline policy framework for the transition has come into focus,” Bozzella said. “But it remains to be seen whether the refueling infrastructure incentives and supply-side provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the CHIPS and Science Act are sufficient to support electrification at the levels envisioned by the proposed standards over the coming years.”
…

Electronic cigarette-maker Juul Labs will pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia, marking the largest settlement the company has reached so far for its role in the youth vaping surge, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Wednesday.

The agreement with New York, California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., marks the latest in a string of recent legal settlements Juul has reached across the country with cities and states.

The vaping company, which has laid off hundreds of employees, will pay $7.9 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the company violated West Virginia’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act by marketing its products to underage users, the state’s Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Monday. Last month, the company paid Chicago $23.8 million to settle a lawsuit.

Minnesota’s case against Juul went to trial last month with the state’s Attorney General Keith Ellison asserting that the company “baited, deceived and addicted a whole new generation of kids after Minnesotans slashed youth smoking rates down to the lowest level in a generation.”

Like some other settlements reached by Juul, this latest agreement includes various restrictions on the marketing, sale and distribution of the company’s vaping products. For example, it is barred from any direct or indirect marketing that targets young people, which includes anyone younger than 35. Juul is also required to limit the purchases customers can make in retail stores and online.

“Juul lit a nationwide public health crisis by putting addictive products in the hands of minors and convincing them that it’s harmless,” James said in a statement. “Today they are paying the price for the harm they caused.”

James said the $112.7 million due to New York will pay for underage smoking abatement programs across the state.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement that Juul “knew how addictive and dangerous its products were and actively tried to cover up that medical truth.”

A spokesperson for the Washington, D.C.-based Juul said that with Wednesday’s settlement, “we are nearing total resolution of the company’s historical legal challenges and securing certainty for our future.”

The spokesperson added that underage use of Juul products has declined by 95% since 2019 based on the National Youth Tobacco Survey. According to the CDC, since surveys were administered online instead of on school campuses during the pandemic, the results cannot be compared to prior years.

In September, Juul agreed to pay nearly $440 million over a period of six to 10 years to settle a two-year investigation by 33 states into the marketing of its high-nicotine vaping products to young people. That settlement amounted to about 25% of Juul’s U.S. sales of $1.9 billion in 2021.

Three months later, the company said it had secured an equity investment to settle thousands of lawsuits over its e-cigarettes brought by individuals and families of Juul users, school districts, city governments and Native American tribes.

Juul rocketed to the top of the U.S. vaping market about five years ago with the popularity of flavors like mango and mint. But the startup’s rise was fueled by use among teenagers, some of whom became hooked on Juul’s high-nicotine pods.

Parents, school administrators and politicians have largely blamed the company for a surge in underage vaping.
…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday proposed sweeping emissions cuts for new cars and trucks through 2032, a move it says could mean two out of every three new vehicles automakers sell will be electric within a decade.

The proposal, if finalized, represents the most aggressive U.S. vehicle emissions reduction plan to date, requiring 13% annual average pollution cuts and a 56% reduction in projected fleet average emissions over 2026 requirements. The EPA is also proposing new stricter emissions standards for medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks through 2032.

The EPA projects the 2027-2032 model year rules would cut more than 9 billion tons of CO2 emissions through 2055 – equivalent to more than twice total U.S. CO2 emissions last year.

Automakers and environmentalists say the administration is moving quickly in order to finalize new rules by early 2024 to make it much harder for a future Congress or president to reverse them. Then President Donald Trump rolled back tough emissions limits through 2025 set under Barack Obama but the Biden administration reversed the rollback.

The agency estimates net benefits through 2055 from the proposal range from $850 billion to $1.6 trillion. By 2032 the proposal would cost about $1,200 per vehicle per manufacturer, but save an owner more than $9,000 on average on fuel, maintenance, and repair costs over an eight-year period.  

“A lot has to go right for this massive – and unprecedented – change in our automotive market and industrial base to succeed,” said John Bozzella, CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation representing General Motors GM.N, Volkswagen VOWG_p.DE, Toyota 7203.T and others.

“Factors outside the vehicle, like charging infrastructure, supply chains, grid resiliency, the availability of low carbon fuels and critical minerals will determine whether EPA standards at these levels are achievable.”

The proposal is more ambitious than President Joe Biden’s 2021 goal, backed by automakers, seeking 50% of new vehicles by 2030 to be electric vehicles (EVs) or plug-in hybrids. Stellantis STLAM.MI said it was “surprised that none of the alternatives align with the President’s previously announced target of 50% EVs by 2030.”

The Biden administration is not proposing banning gasoline-powered vehicles, but wants comments on whether it should extend emissions rules through 2035 and on other alternatives. Some environmental groups want the EPA to set tougher rules, especially on heavy trucks.

“These standards are very ambitious and they track with the sense of urgency that the president and this administration have as we tackle the climate crisis,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a Reuters interview, declining to endorse setting a date to end the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles. He emphasized the proposal is a “performance-based standard” and not an EV mandate.

Under the EPA proposal, automakers are forecast to produce 60% EVs by 2030 and 67% by 2032 to meet requirements – compared with just 5.8% of U.S. vehicles sold in 2022 that were EVs. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to propose parallel economy standards in the coming weeks.

California in August moved to require all new vehicles sold in the state by 2035 be electric or plug-in electric hybrids, but must still seek an EPA waiver to proceed. Regan would not to say how the EPA would react to a California request. “We’ll be on the lookout for that if it were to ever come,” he said.

Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign, said the EPA proposal should have been tougher.

“Automakers talk out of both sides of their tailpipes, promising electric vehicles while delivering mostly the same old gas-guzzlers and lobbying for weak, loophole-riddled rules,” Becker said.

Under the proposal, the EPA estimates 50% of new vocational vehicles like buses and garbage trucks could be EVs by 2032, along with 35% of new short-haul freight tractors and 25% of new long-haul freight tractors. Medium-duty vehicle rules are projected to cut emissions by 44% over 2026.
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The office of Mexico’s attorney general says it has launched a criminal investigation into the head of the country’s immigration agency in connection with last month’s deadly fire at an immigrant detention facility. 

A statement released late Tuesday night said National Immigration Institute (INM) chief Francisco Garduno failed to take steps to prevent the fire at the agency’s facility in the city of Ciudad Juarez that killed 40 migrants on March 27.   

The attorney general’s office says the agency knew about problems at migrant detention facilities after a migrant was killed in a fire at another detention center in 2020. 

Several other high-ranking officials of the INM are also under criminal investigation, but the statement did not specify what charges they are facing. 

Earlier Tuesday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the migrants were unable to escape the fire because the guards who had the keys to the cell door were absent.   

Five people were arrested last month in connection with a homicide investigation into the blaze after video surveillance footage appeared to show guards doing nothing to help migrants escape the fire engulfing their cell.   

Ciudad Juarez is a major crossing area for migrants or asylum-seekers wishing to enter the United States.     

The dead and injured were from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, with Guatemalans being the largest contingent, according to the attorney general’s office.      

Authorities said one migrant is believed to be responsible for igniting the fire.   

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke by phone with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday amid signs that the Saudis and Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen are making “significant progress” toward finding a permanent end to their nine-year conflict, according to a senior administration official. 

The crown prince, often referred to by his initials MBS, has had a strained relationship with President Joe Biden over human rights and oil production concerns. But the de facto Saudi leader and the president’s top national security adviser decided to talk amid encouraging signs on winding down the long and bloody war, a top priority for Biden. 

The call came after Saudi diplomat Mohammed bin Saeed al-Jaber met with Houthi officials in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Sunday for talks that were aimed at accelerating negotiations on ending the war, a senior administration official familiar with the conversation told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity. 

Biden’s special envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, is being dispatched to the Saudi capital Riyadh this week for follow-up talks with Saudi officials, the official said. CIA Director William Burns traveled to Saudi Arabia last week to meet with intelligence officials. 

Al-Jaber’s visit to the Houthi-held Yemeni capital came after the Saudis reached a deal with Iran last month — in China — to restore diplomatic ties that were cut off in 2016. Iran is the Houthis’ main foreign backer in Yemen’s conflict. 

It was a flashy moment of diplomacy for China — the United States’ top global competitor — that Beijing touted as evidence of its ability to be a diplomatic player in the Middle East. White House officials note significant progress was made during several rounds of earlier talks hosted by Iraq and Oman, well before the deal was announced in China during last month’s ceremonial National People’s Congress. 

Following Sunday’s talks, White House officials were “encouraged by the significant progress on a comprehensive roadmap to consolidate the truce in Yemen and ultimately end the war,” according to the official. 

The official said Sullivan and the crown prince largely focused on Yemen but also discussed Saudi Arabia and Iran’s reestablishment of diplomatic ties, Iran’s nuclear program, and other issues. 

Iran-allied Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in 2015. 

Years of inconclusive fighting created a humanitarian disaster and pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine. Overall, the war has killed more than 150,000 people, including over 14,500 civilians, according to The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. 

A six-month cease-fire, the longest of the Yemen conflict, expired in October. Biden has made finding a permanent peace among his highest priorities in the Middle East. 

The call also comes amid fresh concerns that the Riyadh-led OPEC+ alliance plans to cut oil production could stymie efforts to curb global inflation. 

OPEC+ announced last week it would cut oil production by 1.1 million barrels per day, or roughly 1% of global production, beginning next month. The Saudis have said the production cuts were “precautionary,” helping to keep up prices as the world economy appears to be slowing and demand for oil is dropping. 

But along with cuts announced in October, world oil supplies are down by 3%. April’s announcement could have a ripple effect on the U.S. economy in the form of higher gasoline prices, possibly forcing the Federal Reserve to be more aggressive in rate hikes to lower inflation. 

The official said Sullivan and the crown prince discussed macroeconomic issues but did not dwell on the OPEC move. 

As a candidate for the White House, Biden vowed that Saudi rulers would “pay the price” under his watch for their human rights record. But in July, amid rising prices at the pump around the globe, Biden decided to pay a visit to Saudi Arabia. During the visit, he greeted the crown prince, whom he once shunned, with a fist bump. 

Relations hit another rocky patch last fall. 

In October, the president said there would be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia as OPEC+ alliance moved to cut oil production. At the time, the administration said it was reevaluating its relationship with the kingdom in light of the oil production cut that White House officials said was helping another OPEC+ member, Russia, soften the financial blow caused by U.S. and Western sanctions imposed on Moscow for its ongoing war in Ukraine. 

The administration’s reaction to last week’s production cut was far more subdued, with Biden saying, “It’s not going to be as bad as you think.” 

Separately, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham met Tuesday with the crown prince in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Graham said they discussed ongoing reforms in the kingdom as well as trade between the countries. The Saudis announced last month that the two national airlines would order up to 121 jetliners from American aircraft manufacturer Boeing, a deal worth up to $37 billion. 

“I look forward to working with the administration and congressional Republicans and Democrats to see if we can take the U.S.-Saudi relationship to the next level, which would be a tremendous economic benefit to both countries and bring much-needed stability to a troubled region,” Graham said. 
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