GM to pay $146 million in penalties for excess auto emissions

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — General Motors will pay nearly $146 million in penalties to the federal government because 5.9 million of its older vehicles do not comply with emissions and fuel economy standards.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement Wednesday that certain GM vehicles from the 2012 through 2018 model years did not comply with federal fuel economy requirements.

The penalty comes after the Environmental Protection Agency said its testing showed the GM pickups and SUVs emit more than 10% more carbon dioxide on average than GM’s initial compliance testing claimed.

The EPA says the vehicles will remain on the road and cannot be repaired. The GM vehicles on average consume at least 10% more fuel than the window sticker numbers say, but the company won’t be required to reduce the miles per gallon on the stickers, the EPA said.

“Our investigation has achieved accountability and upholds an important program that’s reducing air pollution and protecting communities across the country,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said.

GM said in a statement that it complied with all regulations regarding the pollution and mileage certification of its vehicles. The company said it is not admitting to any wrongdoing nor that it failed to comply with the Clean Air Act.

The problem stems from a change in testing procedures that the EPA put in place in 2016, GM spokesperson Bill Grotz said.

Owners don’t have to take any action because there is no defect in the vehicles, Grotz said.

“We believe this voluntary action is the best course of action to resolve the outstanding issues with the federal government,” he said.

The enforcement action involves about 4.6 million full-size pickups and SUVs and about 1.3 million midsize SUVs, the EPA said. The affected models include the Chevy Tahoe, Cadillac Escalade and Chevy Silverado. About 40 variations of GM vehicles are covered.

GM will be forced to give up credits used to ensure that manufacturers’ greenhouse gas emissions are below the fleet standard for emissions that applies for that model year, the EPA said. In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, GM said it expects the total cost to resolve the matter will be $490 million.

Because GM agreed to address the excess emissions, EPA said it was not necessary to make a formal determination regarding the reasons for the excess pollution.

But David Cooke, senior vehicles analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, questioned how GM could not know that pollution exceeded initial tests by more than 10% because the problem was so widespread on so many different vehicles.

“You don’t just make a more than 10% rounding error,” he said.

Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign for the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, said the violations by GM “show why automakers can’t be trusted to protect our air and health, and why we need strong pollution rules. Supreme Court, take notice!”

In similar pollution cases in the past, automakers have been fined under the Clean Air Act for such violations, and the Justice Department normally gets involved, Cooke said. Hyundai and Kia, for instance, faced Justice Department action in a similar case.

The Justice Department declined to comment, and GM said the settlement resolves all government claims.

Cooke said it’s possible that GM owners could sue the company because they are getting lower gas mileage than advertised.

In 2014, Hyundai and Kia entered into a settlement in which they had to pay a $100 million civil penalty to end a two-year investigation into overstated gas mileage on window stickers of 1.2 million vehicles.
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Ukraine security, Indo-Pacific challenges in focus as US hosts NATO summit

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NATO will roll out “concrete ways” to accelerate Ukraine’s eventual membership in the Atlantic alliance during a summit next week in Washington. The summit will also address top security concerns amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching has the story, narrated by Elizabeth Cherneff.
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France expels Iranian suspected of influence peddling for Tehran

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paris — France on Wednesday expelled an Iranian suspected of influence peddling on behalf of Tehran and having links to the Revolutionary Guard’s ideological army, his lawyer and Iranian officials said.

The deportation of Bashir Biazar, reportedly a former senior figure in state television in Iran, frustrated Paris-based activists who last month filed a torture complaint against him.

Biazar had been held in administrative detention since the beginning of June and was subject to a deportation order from the French interior ministry.

Mohammad Mahdi Rahimi, the head of public relations for the office of the Iranian president, wrote on X that Biazar “has been released and is on his way back to his homeland.”

He said Biazar had been “illegally arrested and imprisoned in France a few weeks ago.”

But a representative of the French interior ministry, speaking at a hearing earlier Wednesday, said Biazar was an “agent of influence, an agitator who promotes the views of the Islamic Republic of Iran and, more worryingly, harasses opponents of the regime.”

The representative accused Biazar of filming journalists from Iranian opposition media in September in front of the Iranian consulate in Paris after an arson attack on the building.

French authorities also accused him of posting messages on social networks in connection with the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza in which he denounced “Zionist dogs.”

During the hearing, his lawyer Rachid Lemoudaa said that the expulsion order was based on assumptions and that his client’s comments fell within the scope of “freedom of expression.”

“I have never been made aware of any threat whatsoever” posed by Biazar, he added.

Biazar has been described by the London-based Iran International television channel as a former official for Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.

Iranian state media have described him as a “cultural figure.”

The case has emerged at a time of heightened tensions between Paris and Tehran, with three French citizens, described by France as “state hostages,” still imprisoned in Iran.

A fourth French detainee, Louis Arnaud, held in Iran since September 2022, was suddenly released last month.

Activist group Iran Justice and victims of human rights violations filed the torture complaint against Biazar last month in Paris.

It accuses Biazar of complicity in torture because of his past work with IRIB, describing him as a former director of production there.

The complaint referred to the regular broadcasts by Iranian state television of statements by, and even interviews with, Iranian or foreign prisoners, which activists regard as forced confessions.

“It is incomprehensible … that no legal proceedings have been initiated” against Biazar, Chirinne Ardakani, the Paris-based lawyer behind the complaint, told AFP.

She said there were “serious indications” implicating Biazar “in the production, recording and broadcasting of forced confessions obtained clearly under torture.”

“Nothing is clear in this case,” she added.

The French citizens still held in Iran are Cecile Kohler, a teacher, and her partner Jacques Paris, detained since May 2022, and another man identified only as Olivier.

Kohler appeared on Iranian television in October 2022 giving comments activists said amounted to a forced confession.

Amnesty International describes Kohler as “arbitrarily detained … amidst mounting evidence Iran’s authorities are holding her hostage to compel specific action[s] by French authorities.”
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In bid to join BRICS, Turkey plays delicate balancing act

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Turkey’s bid to join the BRICS trading group is likely a topic discussed between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the bid has Erdogan playing a delicate balancing act in his relations with both Washington and Moscow.
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NATO summit to unveil concrete steps for Ukraine’s membership

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WASHINGTON — NATO will roll out “concrete ways” to accelerate Ukraine’s eventual membership in the Atlantic alliance during a summit next week in Washington, according to a senior U.S. official.

Summit organizers are understood to be leaning toward language in a final declaration that would say Ukraine’s path to NATO is “irreversible,” but the official would say only that the wording is still being negotiated.

Douglas Jones, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, told VOA during an interview on Tuesday that foreign ministers from 35 non-NATO member partners are invited to attend the Washington summit.

Notable attendees include the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

For the third consecutive summit, heads of state from all 32 NATO allies will engage in discussions with leaders from its Indo-Pacific partners: Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

Building the resilience of allies to confront threats and challenges from China is among the key agenda items, said Jones. But, he added, a proposal to establish a NATO liaison office in Tokyo, intended as a hub for cooperation with Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, is currently “not under active discussion.”

In celebration of NATO’s 75th anniversary, more than two dozen influencers have been invited to observe the proceedings and create social media content to commemorate the milestone.

The following excerpts from the interview have been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Kyiv on Tuesday and urged President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to consider a cease-fire with Russia. Are you concerned that this shows a divide in NATO? What is the U.S. perspective on Orban’s visit to Ukraine?

Douglas Jones, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs:  It’s good that Prime Minister Orban visited Ukraine. On the idea of a cease-fire, these decisions are for Ukraine to make. We’ve always said, “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” It is up to Ukraine to decide when it’s time to discuss a cease-fire and what the terms of any peace settlement might be.

VOA: Moving on to NATO: What are the key items on the agenda? Are the foreign ministers of Israel and several Arab countries invited to the NATO summit?

Jones: We will be talking about the state of NATO. This summit is really about the future, about how NATO continues to transform and adapt itself to meet future challenges.

Whether that’s supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russian aggression, working with partners to build the resilience of allies to confront the threats and challenges from the People’s Republic of China, or addressing hybrid and cyber threats, these are all issues that we’ll be focusing on at the summit.

NATO has a broad network of partnerships. There are 35 countries around the world that have a formal partnership relationship with NATO. They will all be invited at the level of foreign ministers to attend, including Israel and many countries in the Middle East.

VOA: Zelenskyy is expected to attend next week’s NATO summit. Does the U.S. view Ukraine’s path to NATO membership as irreversible? Are the U.S. and its allies working to incorporate such language into NATO’s joint statement?

Jones: The United States and all NATO allies have said that Ukraine’s future is in NATO. At this summit, we will be rolling out concrete ways in which NATO can help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression, build the future force needed to deter Russia, and implement the reforms it needs to make itself a stronger candidate for eventual NATO membership.

Together, this is what we describe as a bridge to NATO membership. The assistance that we’re going to be rolling out at the summit will really help accelerate Ukraine on its path to NATO membership.

VOA: And such a bridge is irreversible?

Jones: The wording of the declaration is still under negotiation by NATO allies. The alliance has already said that Ukraine will become a member of NATO.

VOA: Regarding NATO’s Indo-Pacific strategy, could you give us an update on the plan to open a NATO liaison office in Tokyo?

Jones: So, at the summit, the outcome with the Indo-Pacific partners is that all the heads of state and governments of NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners — Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand — will be present. There are only three main meetings of the summit, and one of them will be when the heads of state of all 32 NATO allies meet with these Indo-Pacific partners. This is going to be the third summit in a row where this has happened.

And the reason for that is because allies are increasingly recognizing that there are links between security in the Euro-Atlantic space and in the Indo-Pacific.

Ukraine is the No. 1 example where you have the biggest threat to transatlantic security, with Russia being fueled by assistance from China and the DPRK.

VOA: Is there going to be a NATO office in Tokyo, or has such a plan been postponed indefinitely?

Jones: It’s not under active discussion currently within the alliance.

VOA: What can we expect from the NATO summit regarding the implications of the Russia-North Korea mutual defense pact?

Jones: Russia is seeking weapons from the DPRK as it looks for ways to continue its assault and aggression against Ukraine. The connections are deep. That’s why we’ll have the leaders of NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners at the summit: to discuss how we can learn from each other and cooperate in addressing these common security challenges.
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After boosting ties, Japan, South Korea, US try to keep them going

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Seoul, South Korea — The United States, Japan and South Korea last week held what in some ways could be seen as their most important joint military exercise ever — and an indication of enhanced future cooperation.

The inaugural Freedom Edge drill involved a U.S. aircraft carrier and multiple Japanese and South Korean ships and planes, mirroring other recent trilateral exercises held since the three countries intensified defense cooperation.

But, importantly, this drill for the first time took place across multiple domains, including land, sea, air and cyber — a crucial step toward allowing the countries’ militaries to work together more seamlessly and in a wider range of warfighting scenarios.

The drill reflects a bigger effort by Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, which are trying to advance cooperation toward a more formalized stage that will be harder for future leaders to overturn.

In recent months, the three countries have not only expanded the frequency of their engagement but also taken steps to ensure that it lasts — an attempt to solidify a partnership that could reshape northeast Asian geopolitics.

The steps include establishing a regular pattern of joint military exercises, activating a channel for sharing real-time data on North Korean missile launches, and exploring the creation of a permanent office to boost coordination.

During meetings among senior officials, the countries have also increasingly emphasized shared values for the region, such as a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” in the hopes of providing a more durable foundation for cooperation.

The moves attempt to fulfill the vision laid out in August, when U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol held the first standalone summit among the leaders of the three countries.

South Korea key

A primary goal of the so-called Camp David summit was to create a framework for collaboration that could withstand domestic political fluctuations in each country.

A major concern was South Korea, where commitment to the trilateral partnership has often wavered. Those efforts appear to be yielding progress, according to a growing number of South Korea-based observers.

“Cooperation is now entering a level of institutionalization that will make it considerably more difficult for future administrations in Seoul to change,” said Jeffrey Robertson, a professor of diplomatic studies at Seoul’s Yonsei University.

The depth of trilateral ties has long hinged on whatever government is in power in South Korea.

The South Korean left opposes closer cooperation with Japan without more steps by Tokyo to atone for atrocities committed during its 1910-1945 colonization of Korea.

South Korea’s leaders also have been reluctant to sign up for any multilateral efforts that anger China, the military and economic giant that lies just beyond its border.

Changing views

South Korea’s outlook toward its neighbors, however, appears to be shifting.

Opinion polls suggest that South Korean perceptions of China have declined precipitously, as Beijing becomes more authoritarian at home and more assertive in expanding its regional influence.

Meanwhile, views on Japan appear to be improving, especially among young people.

South Korea’s national security establishment has also expressed growing fears about North Korea, which has rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal and become much more hostile toward Seoul.

For Yoon, a conservative who took office in 2022, the solution was to align his country more closely with the United States. Yoon also mended ties with Japan, quickly accelerating trilateral cooperation.

Reasons for optimism

The big question is whether Yoon’s approach will outlast his presidency, given that his predecessor, the left-leaning Moon Jae-in, reversed many of the Japan-friendly policies of previous administrations.

Peter Lee, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a conservative research group, says he is optimistic. Although he concedes that South Korean public attitudes toward Japan remain generally unfavorable, he points to opinion polls conducted by his organization suggesting consistently strong support for South Korean participation in U.S.-led multilateral initiatives.

“This suggests that future ROK presidents will struggle to withdraw or terminate their participation in these partnerships, at least for populist purposes,” Lee said.

Another potential deterrent is that each step toward formalizing trilateral engagement adds a layer of commitment, making it politically riskier for any future South Korean administration to reverse, many observers say.

Not so fast

Others think that Yoon’s policies are on much shakier ground.

Moon Chung-in, a senior foreign affairs adviser in multiple left-leaning governments, rejected the notion of a permanent change in South Koreans’ views toward their neighbors.

“Yoon and Biden do not see this. But Japanese political leaders are well aware of the volatility, and that’s why they are not making major concessions,” Moon said.

Seoul-Tokyo ties can “easily degenerate,” Moon maintained, unless Japan takes further steps to address unresolved historical disputes.

Many in South Korea also worry that enhanced trilateral cooperation could provoke a counter-reaction from U.S. foes in the region, ultimately leading to increased instability.

As evidence, they cite last month’s decision by North Korea and Russia to restore a Cold War-era mutual defense treaty — a move both sides described as necessary to counter U.S. moves in Asia.

If the regional security dilemma worsens, some fear that China could eventually respond by enhancing its own security cooperation with North Korea and Russia.

For many South Korean liberals, the best way to avoid such a scenario with China is to take a more cautious approach to Japan and the United States.

“China is near and powerful,” Moon said. “What other options do we have but to maintain good relations? This is common sense.”
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VOA Exclusive: On board as US Coast Guard searches for migrants

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Between the southernmost tip of the United States and Cuba lies a body of water called the Florida Straits. Coast Guard vehicles patrol these waters daily, looking for migrants illegally trying to enter the U.S. VOA earlier this year got an exclusive flight with the U.S. Coast Guard on patrol. VOA’s Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti takes us along on the ride. (Camera and produced by: Mary Cieslak)
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Japan’s top court rules forced sterilization law unconstitutional   

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Tokyo — Japan’s top court ruled on Wednesday that a defunct eugenics law under which thousands of people were forcibly sterilized between 1948 and 1996 was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court also declared that a 20-year statute of limitations could not be applied, paving the way for compensation claims from victims after years of legal battles.

“For the state to evade responsibility for damages payments would be extremely unfair and unjust, and absolutely intolerable,” the court in Tokyo said.

Japan’s government acknowledges that around 16,500 people were forcibly sterilized under the law that aimed to “prevent the generation of poor quality descendants.”

An additional 8,500 people were sterilized with their consent, although lawyers say even those cases were likely “de facto forced” because of the pressure individuals faced.

A 1953 government notice said physical restraint, anesthesia and even “deception” could be used for the operations.

“There are people who couldn’t be here today. There are those who died as well. I want to visit the grave of my parents and tell them we’ve won,” victim Saburo Kita, who uses a pseudonym, told reporters after the ruling.

Kita was convinced to undergo a vasectomy when he was 14 at a facility housing troubled children. He only told his wife what had happened shortly before she died in 2013.

“But a complete resolution of this issue hasn’t been realized yet. Together with lawyers, I will continue to fight,” said Kita, one of several victims who celebrated outside the court, some in wheelchairs.

Apology

The number of operations in Japan slowed to a trickle in the 1980s and 1990s before the law was scrapped in 1996.

That dark history was thrust back under the spotlight in 2018 when a woman in her 60s sued the government over a procedure she had undergone at age 15, opening the floodgates for similar lawsuits.

The government, for its part, “wholeheartedly” apologized after legislation was passed in 2019 stipulating a lump-sum payment of 3.2 million yen (around $20,000 today) per victim.

However, survivors say that was too little to match the severity of their suffering and took their fight to court.

Regional courts have mostly agreed in recent years that the eugenics law was a violation of Japan’s constitution.

However, judges have been divided on whether claims are valid beyond the 20-year statute of limitations.

Some ordered the state to pay damages but others dismissed cases, saying the window for pursuing damages had closed.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the government would “swiftly pay damages based on the finalized ruling” and discuss “the new ways in which (victims) can be compensated.”

The government “sincerely apologizes” for the policy that “trampled on the human dignity” of victims, Kishida said, adding he would meet survivors in coming weeks to listen “face-to-face to their stories of suffering.”

A group of victims said on Wednesday it “wholeheartedly” welcomed the ruling.

“We cannot forgive the irresponsibility of the government and its lack of human rights awareness, as well as the fact that what is now described as the biggest human rights violation in Japan’s post-war history was left unaddressed for such a long time,” the group said in a statement.

Lawyer Koji Niizato said it was “the best ruling we could have hoped for.”

“Victims of the eugenics law put up a wonderful fight, one that influenced the Supreme Court and changed society,” Niizato said.
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Only far right can win absolute majority, French PM warns 

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Paris — The far-right National Rally (RN) is the only party capable of winning an absolute majority in France’s legislative elections, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said Wednesday, urging voters to block their rise to power.  

Attal admitted four days ahead of the polls that many French voters would have to hold their nose and vote for parties that they do not support in order to take control of the government.   

The RN dominated the first round of polls, presenting the party of Marine Le Pen with the prospect of forming the government and her protege Jordan Bardella, 28, taking the post of premier in a tense “cohabitation” with President Emmanuel Macron.   

But over 200 candidates from the left and the center this week dropped out of three-way races in the second round of the contest, sacrificing their hopes to prevent the RN winning the seat.   

“There is one bloc that is able to have an absolute majority (in the National Assembly) and it’s the extreme right,” Attal told France Inter radio.   

“On Sunday evening, what’s at stake in the second round is to do everything so that the extreme right does not have an absolute majority,” he added.   

“It is not nice for some French to have to block… by using a vote that they did not want to,” he said.  

“I say it’s our responsibility to do this,” he added.    

An absolute majority of 289 seats is needed in the 577 seat National Assembly for a party to form a government on its own. But Le Pen has said that the RN will try if it gets any more than 270 seats by winning over other deputies.   

“At the end of this second round, either power will be in the hands of a far-right government, or power will be in parliament. I am fighting for this second scenario,” said Attal.   

One option that is the subject of increasing media attention is the possibility that rather than a far-right government France could be ruled by a broad coalition of pro-Macron centrists, the traditional right, Socialists and Greens.   

But Attal was non-committal: “I did not speak about a coalition. I do not want to impose on the French a coalition that they did not choose.”   

Former prime minister Edouard Philippe, still an influential voice in the pro-Macron camp, told TF1 TV in his constituency on Sunday he would be voting for a Communist candidate to stop the far right.   

He said that after the election he would support a new parliamentary majority that could span “conservative right to the social democrats” but not include the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI). 
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Local officials: Suspected jihadist attack in Mali Monday killed more than 20 civilians

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Bamako — An attack blamed on jihadists in central Mali killed more than 20 civilians on Monday, two officials from the provincial authority said, in the latest killings in the troubled Sahel region.

“At least 21 civilians have been killed” in the village of Djiguibombo, several dozen kilometers [miles] from the town of Bandiagara, one of the officials said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another official, who spoke overnight, said about 20 people had been killed and the security situation prevented authorities from going to the site.

Both sources asked not to be identified given their positions. Since the junta came to power in the West African nation in 2020, information about such events is not generally made public.

The attack began before nightfall and “lasted around three hours”, a youth representative, also speaking anonymously for security reasons, said.

“Twenty people have been killed. More than half are young people. Some victims had their throats cut,” the source said.

Mali has since 2012 been ravaged by different factions affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, as well as by self-declared, self-defense forces and bandits.

The violence spilled over into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, with all three countries seeing military regimes seize power.
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France’s renowned Arles photo fest goes ‘beneath the surface’

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Arles, France — One of the world’s most renowned photo festivals, in the French town of Arles, returned this week with a timely ode to diversity at a moment when France is turning towards the far right.

The Rencontres festival, which runs until Sept. 29, is spread across 27 venues in the ancient cobbled streets of this former Roman town in Provence and has been running since 1970.

This year’s theme is “Beneath the Surface,” seeking to delve into diversity without the usual caricatures around minorities.

The star exhibition is a world-first retrospective for U.S. portrait artist Mary Ellen Mark (1940-2015), who worked for magazines like Life and Rolling Stone.

One of her celebrated images features an Icelandic child resting on the neck of a horse that focuses attention away from the boy’s disability.

Mark “devoted a lot of time and attention to her protagonists, in a few cases returning to photograph them again and again over the course of many years, forging close relationships with many,” said co-curator Sophia Greiff.

An example is Tiny, whom Mark followed from her years on the street falling into drug use, to tender moments with her children.

“What I’m trying to do is make photographs that are universally understood… that cross cultural lines,” Mark once said.

Elsewhere at the festival, Spanish photographer Cristina de Middel presents documentary and dreamlike work about migrants traveling from Mexico to the U.S.

She ignores the usual tropes around migration, presenting the crossing as a heroic epic of courageous men and women heading towards a new life.

By mixing documentary images with staged and poetic photos, “it gives each person back their personality and restores a level of humanity in their representation,” said festival director Christoph Wiesner.

He said the message was particularly vital given the rise of the far right in France, which is currently leading in legislative elections.

“Just because the situation is complex, we cannot just give up,” said Wiesner, highlighting the festival’s regular work on issues around feminism and anti-racism, including presentations in local schools. 

Other exhibitions this year include “I’m So Happy You’re Here,” featuring the work of 20 Japanese female photographers.

Another invites visitors into the “baroque of everyday life” in the Indian state of Punjab with shots of bizarre roof sculptures that locals have brought back after working abroad, including footballs, tanks, planes and lions.

French artist Sophie Calle presents her images alongside responses from blind people about their understanding of visual beauty.

“Green is beautiful, because every time I like something I’m told it’s green,” reads one caption alongside a shot of vivid grass.
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What was the ‘first American novel’? On this Independence Day, a look at what it started

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NEW YORK — In the winter of 1789, around the time George Washington was elected the country’s first president, a Boston-based printer quietly launched another American institution.

William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy, published anonymously by Isaiah Thomas & Company, is widely cited as something momentous: the first American novel.

Around 100 pages long, Brown’s narrative tells of two young New Englanders whose love affair abruptly and tragically ends when they learn a shocking secret that makes their relationship unbearable. The dedication page, addressed to the “Young Ladies of United Columbia” (the United States), promised an exposé of “the Fatal consequences of Seduction” and a prescription for the “Economy of Human Life.”

Outside of Boston society, though, few would have known or cared whether The Power of Sympathy marked any kind of literary milestone.

“If you picked 10 random citizens, I doubt it would have mattered to any of them,” says David Lawrimore, an associate professor of English at the University of Idaho who has written often about early U.S. literature. “Most people weren’t thinking about the first American novel.”

What the first American novel was like

Subtitled The Triumph of Nature. Founded in Truth, Brown’s book is in many ways characteristic of the era, whether its epistolary format, its Anglicized prose, its unidentified author, or its pious message. But The Power of Sympathy also includes themes that reflected the aspirations and anxieties of a young country and still resonate now.

Dana McClain, an assistant professor of English at Holy Family University, notes that Brown was an outspoken Federalist, believing in a strong national government, and shared his contemporaries’ preoccupation with forging how a stable republican citizenry. The letters in The Power of Sympathy include reflections on class, temperament and the differences between North and South, notably the “aristocratic temper” of Southern slaveholders that endangered “domestic quietude,” as if anticipating the next century’s Civil War.

Like many other early American writers, fiction and nonfiction, Brown tied the behavior of women to the fate of the larger society. The novel’s correspondents fret about the destabilizing “power of pleasure” and how female envy “inundates the land with a flood of scandal.” Virtue is likened to a “mighty river” that “fertilizes the country through which it passes and increases in magnitude and force until it empty itself into the ocean.”

Brown also examines at length the ways novels might be a path to corruption or a vehicle to uplift, mirroring current debates over the banning and restrictions of books in schools and libraries.

“Most of the novels with which our female libraries are overrun are built upon on a foundation not always placed on strict morality, and in the pursuit of of objects not always probable or praiseworthy,” one of Brown’s characters warns. “Novels, not regulated on the chaste principles of true friendship, rational love, and connubial duty, appear to me totally unfit to form the minds of women, of friends, or of wives.”

Brown was likely more interested in shaping minds than in literary glory.

“The Great American Novel” is a favorite catchphrase but wasn’t coined until the 1860s. During Brown’s lifetime, novels were a relatively crude art form and were valued mostly for satire, light entertainment or moral instruction. Few writers identified themselves as “novelists”: Brown was known as a poet, and essayist and the composer of an opera.

Even he recognized the book’s lower stature, writing in the novel’s preface: “This species of writing hath not been received with universal approbation.”

How it became considered the first

The Power of Sympathy was commonly cited as the first American novel in the 1800s, but few bothered debating it until the 20th century. Scholars then agreed that honors should belong to the first written and published in the United States by an author born and still residing in the country.

Those guidelines disqualified such earlier works as Charlotte Ramsay Lennox’s The Life of Harriot Stuart and Thomas Atwood Digges’ Adventures of Alonso.

Another contender was Father Bombo’s Pilgrimage to Mecca, a prose adventure by college students Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Philip Freneau, both of whom went on to prominent public careers. Written around 1770, the manuscript was later believed lost and wasn’t published in full until 1975.

Brown’s novel was unexamined for so long that only in the late 19th century did the public even discover he had written it. Many had credited the Boston poet Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, whose family had endured a scandal similar to the one in The Power of Sympathy.

In 1894-95, editor Arthur W. Brayley of the Bostonian serialized the novel in his magazine, identifying Morton as the author. But after being contacted by Brown’s niece, Rebecca Vollentine Thompson, Brayley published a lengthy correction, titled “The Real Author of the Power of Sympathy.”

Thompson herself added a preface to a 1900 reissue, noting that Brown was close to Morton’s family and alleging that the publication had been “suppressed” because Brown had bared an “unfortunate scandal.”

A clockmaker’s son, Brown was a Boston native, likely born in 1765. He was well-read, connected, culturally conservative and politically minded; one of his first published writings was an unflattering poem about Daniel Shays, the namesake for the 1786-87 rebellion of impoverished Revolutionary War veterans in Massachusetts. Brown is also the author of several posthumous releases, including the play The Treason of Arnold and the novel Ira and Isabella.

His unofficial standing as “America’s First Novelist” did not lead to broader fame. The novel, currently in print through a 1996 edition from Penguin Classics, remains more of interest to specialists and antiquarians than to general readers.

Brown was not yet 30 when he died in North Carolina, in 1793, from what is believed to be malaria. He apparently never married or had children. No memorials or other historical sites are dedicated to him. No literary societies have been formed in his name.

His burial site is unknown.
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Australian coal mine battles three-day blaze

Posted on by SeeEA

SYDNEY — A major Australian coal mine battled on Wednesday to extinguish an underground gas fire that has been burning for three days following a “combustion event.”

The blaze erupted on Saturday when gas ignited at Anglo American’s Grosvenor Mine in the eastern state of Queensland, forcing the evacuation of all workers and a halt to production.

“The fire is still going and we are still working to safely seal up the last of the ventilation shafts using a variety of methods,” a spokeswoman for Anglo American told AFP.

“But we are very close.”

Anglo American said it was working with state health and safety authorities on the next steps to ensure a “safe restart” to the mine, which employs about 1,400 people.

The re-opening is likely to take “several months as a result of the likely damage underground,” it said in an earlier update.

The group said air quality had not been impacted.

“External health specialists have reassured us that, based on current information they have, there is no impact to community health,” it said.

The fire started when a “localized ignition” occurred at a site where coal is extracted in a long slice along a broad wall of the coal face, Anglo American said.

This resulted in “an underground combustion event.”

The Grosvenor mine, near the town of Moranbah, had been expected to produce more than a fifth of Anglo American’s overall forecast of 15-17 million tons of steel-making coal in 2024, the company said.

Anglo American was already under pressure to execute a restructuring plan that involves selling the steel-making coal assets, said RBC Capital Markets’ London-based analyst Marina Calero.
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Robert Towne, Oscar-winning writer of ‘Chinatown,’ dies at 89

Posted on by SeeUS

NEW YORK — Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail” and other acclaimed films whose work on “Chinatown” became a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles, has died. He was 89.

Towne died Monday surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said publicist Carri McClure. She declined to comment on a cause of death.

In an industry that gave birth to rueful jokes about the writer’s status, Towne for a time held prestige comparable to the actors and directors he worked with.

Through his friendships with two of the biggest stars of the 1960s and ’70s, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, he wrote or co-wrote some of the signature films of an era when artists held an unusual level of creative control.

The rare “auteur” among screen writers, Towne managed to bring a highly personal and influential vision of Los Angeles onto the screen.

“It’s a city that’s so illusory,” Towne told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. “It’s the westernmost west of America. It’s a sort of place of last resort. It’s a place where, in a word, people go to make their dreams come true. And they’re forever disappointed.”

Recognizable around Hollywood for his high forehead and full beard, Towne won an Academy Award for “Chinatown” and was nominated three other times, for “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo” and “Greystoke.” In 1997, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America.

“His life, like the characters he created, was incisive, iconoclastic and entirely (original),” said “Shampoo” actor Lee Grant on X.

Towne’s success came after a long stretch of working in television, including “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show,” and on low-budget movies for “B” producer Roger Corman. In a classic show business story, he owed his breakthrough in part to his psychiatrist, through whom he met Beatty, a fellow patient. As Beatty worked on “Bonnie and Clyde,” he brought in Towne for revisions of the Robert Benton-David Newman script and had him on the set while the movie was filmed in Texas.

Towne’s contributions were uncredited for “Bonnie and Clyde,” the landmark crime film released in 1967, and for years he was a favorite ghost writer. He helped out on “The Godfather,” “The Parallax View” and “Heaven Can Wait” among others and referred to himself as a “relief pitcher who could come in for an inning, not pitch the whole game.”

But Towne was credited by name for Nicholson’s macho “The Last Detail” and Beatty’s sex comedy “Shampoo” and was immortalized by “Chinatown,” the 1974 thriller set during the Great Depression.

“Chinatown” was directed by Roman Polanski and starred Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, a private detective asked to follow the husband of Evelyn Mulwray (played by Faye Dunaway). The husband is chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Gittes finds himself caught in a chaotic spiral of corruption and violence, embodied by Evelyn’s ruthless father, Noah Cross (John Huston).

Influenced by the fiction of Raymond Chandler, Towne resurrected the menace and mood of a classic Los Angeles film noir but cast Gittes’ labyrinthine odyssey across a grander and more insidious portrait of Southern California. Clues accumulate into a timeless detective tale and lead helplessly to tragedy, summed up by one of the most repeated lines in movie history, words of grim fatalism a devastated Gittes receives from his partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell): “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
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