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‘Social cost of greenhouse gases’: House GOP targets progressive Biden policy for rising energy prices

‘Social cost of greenhouse gases’: House GOP targets progressive Biden policy for rising energy prices

FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are moving to roll back a progressive Obama-era regulatory metric for greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that it’s sandbagging the U.S. energy sector by using “nonscientific” standards. “North Carolinians are struggling to fill up their tanks and pay their electricity bills. The last thing they are worried about is the ‘social cost’ of energy,” Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital. “We need to be unleashing American energy to lower prices, not crippling production with burdensome, costly regulations.” Hudson, who also chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, is leading 12 fellow GOP lawmakers in introducing a bill to stop federal agencies using the “social cost of carbon” when creating new regulations for the U.S. energy sector. HOUSE PASSES BILL BLOCKING BIDEN ADMIN ATTEMPT TO REQUIRE TWO-THIRDS OF NEW CARS TO BE ELECTRIC WITHIN YEARS Models calculating the “social cost” of greenhouse gases use several factors, including population health, sea level changes, economic impacts and other human-felt costs. Because of the vastly different indicators, “social cost” emissions projections can vary widely, according to the Brookings Institute. It was first used as a federal regulatory tool under the Obama administration but was rolled back by former President Trump. President Biden made it part of his clean energy plan when he took office, directing a task force to study where federal agencies should consider the “social cost of greenhouse gases” as part of an executive order titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis.” BIDEN-HARRIS EV MANDATES WILL HURT WORKERS IN STATES LIKE MICHIGAN: TUDOR DIXON Democrats have held it up as a necessary tool that presents a more holistic picture for the long-term harms of carbon pollution. Republicans, however, have criticized the metric as a nonscientific tool that’s responsible for burdensome regulations. Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern, R-Okla., a co-sponsor of the bill, said the “social cost” metric and the Biden administration’s green energy push overall was pushing gas prices up. EXPERTS RIP ‘TRIPLE CROWN OF BAD REGS’ AS BIDEN ADMIN POSTS GAS STOVE RULE IT DENIED WAS A BAN “It’s just a fact that government interference in the energy industry has directly contributed to these rising costs. No more manipulated studies and biased research – the American people deserve transparent and honest information,” Hern told Fox News Digital. Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, another co-sponsor of the bill, said, “The Biden-Harris White House has proven their willingness to hide behind biased and flawed research to advance their war against American energy producers.” “The White House should unleash clean, affordable American energy to bring costs down for the American people,” he said. The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Kamala 2.0’s challenge? Making more news, and not just with ultra-friendly hosts

Kamala 2.0’s challenge? Making more news, and not just with ultra-friendly hosts

For well over a month, Kamala Harris rode a wave of the most positive press any presidential candidate has gotten in two decades, and her own skills, to turn what had been a lost cause for the Democrats into an extremely tight race. But does she have a second act? Kamala 2.0, under constant attack by Donald Trump and the Republicans, doesn’t have much new to say. She is conducting a play-it-safe campaign, like a basketball team sitting on a lead and running out the clock. But Harris doesn’t have a lead in the three “blue wall” midwestern states she needs to win, and the loss of any one of them could hand Trump the presidency once again. VANCE-WALZ VP DEBATE ENDED IN A ‘DRAW’: DEMOCRAT REP. DEBBIE DINGELL For all the focus on Pennsylvania, Harris leads by 0.7 percent in Michigan – a statistical tie, based on the Real Clear Politics average. On Sunday’s “Media Buzz,” Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell told me her state could go either way.  “The vice president has a problem with union workers,” Dingell said. “Many of the men, as well as, quite frankly, African-American young men who have said to me, I was with a group with them last week. ‘You know what, Donald Trump talks to us. Democrats take us for granted.’” The lawmaker recalls how “everybody got mad at me” when she predicted in 2016 that Trump would win Michigan – which he did, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A major problem for Harris is that she doesn’t seem to know how to make news. With less than 30 days to go, with many voters understandably believing they don’t know her, or enough about her policies, since she took over for Joe Biden, the VP is stitching together parts of her stump speech and recycling the same anecdotes virtually verbatim. A presidential candidate has to deliver a few new lines, a new proposal, something to break into the news cycle, which is currently being dominated by Trump.  So what’s on this week’s agenda? Kamala will sit down with Howard Stern (who is totally against his old pal Donald); “The View,” where the ladies despise Trump, and Stephen Colbert, who hosted fundraisers for Joe Biden in 2020 and this year. For good measure, she’s also spoken to Alex Cooper, whose podcast, “Call Your Daddy,” is about sex. WHY VANCE EASILY BEAT WALZ IN DEBATE, SOFTENING HIS IMAGE IN THE PROCESS I’ll go out on a limb here and say these sessions are designed to be friendly – not unlike the conversation with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, who kept agreeing with Harris and had just pronounced Trump a danger to democracy.  In fairness, Harris also sat for a “60 Minutes” interview, an invitation declined by Trump. Look, there’s nothing wrong with candidates showing their softer side with unorthodox outlets in our fragmented media universe. We’ve come a long way since critics scoffed at candidate Bill Clinton answering the “boxers or briefs” question on MTV, calling it unpresidential.  On “Call Your Daddy,” Harris was actually quite thoughtful in responding to Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying that her kids keep her humble and the VP doesn’t have anyone to keep her humble.  Rather than jab at the Arkansas governor, which would have produced a cheap headline, she ruminated that families come in all shapes, bound by blood or love, that she is deeply involved with her stepchildren, and this isn’t the 1950s anymore. They also discussed, uh, tampons. Still, the party is getting nervous. “Democratic operatives, including some of Kamala Harris’ own staffers,” says Politico, “are growing increasingly concerned about her relatively light campaign schedule, which has her holding fewer events than Donald Trump and avoiding unscripted interactions with voters and the press almost entirely.” Since the convention, the veep has spent more than a third of days on meeting and briefings, with no public events. With early voting under way in more than half the states, Politico describes this “a do-no-harm, risk-averse approach to the race.”  GEORGIA GOP CHAIR SHARES 2-PRONGED ELECTION STRATEGY AS TRUMP WORKS TO WIN BACK PEACH STATE Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who fervently doesn’t want Trump to win, nonetheless is whacks Harris pretty hard: “She hasn’t fleshed out her political intent — what she stands for, what she won’t abide, what she means to establish, what she won’t let happen. What is her essential mission? Is it national ‘repair,’ is it to ‘stabilize’ an uncertain country, is it ‘relaunch’?.. “She so far hasn’t conveyed a sense of intellectual grasp. Her campaign has placed too many chips on the idea of the mood, the vibe, the picture.” And vibes can only take you so far. But the VP has certain duties, and spent two days visiting hurricane victims and relief workers in North Carolina and Georgia–which also happens to be good politics. She also met with Volodomyr Zelenskyy. Harris attended a fundraiser over the weekend. Why bother? Her campaign has already had $400 million roll in. She’s already outspending Trump 2-½ to 1 on ads. She doesn’t need any more money. What’s more, Harris doesn’t make news at these fundraisers, which in any event are off camera. A ground game is great, but it has to be married to a winning message. Here’s one more: Dan Pfeiffer, a former top Obama White House official, says on Message Box, his Substack column, that “the media — and Politico Playbook in particular — are fuming over the Harris-Walz media strategy.” Kamala “must be on offense at all times — say new things, be edgy enough to get attention, and dictate the terms, or the campaign could “take on water…In this media world, there is a never-ending, insatiable appetite for content. Either serve lunch or become the menu… “Dominating attention is Trump’s political superpower…Even when he doesn’t have a big moment, Trump speaks so outrageously that it shifts attention to his issues of choice.” Now it’s easy to snipe from the sidelines. For Harris to be

‘They tried to murder everyone’: Haiti reels after deadly gang attack

‘They tried to murder everyone’: Haiti reels after deadly gang attack

More than 6,200 people are staying with relatives or in makeshift shelters after massacre in central Haiti town. Survivors of a deadly gang attack in central Haiti last week have described waking up to gunfire and walking for hours in search of safety, as the country continues to grapple in the aftermath of the assault that killed at least 70 people. Dozens of Gran Grif gang members armed with knives and assault rifles killed infants, women, the elderly and entire families in their attack last Thursday on Pont-Sonde, about 100km (62 miles) northwest of Port-au-Prince in the Artibonite region. “They tried to murder everyone,” Jina Joseph, a survivor, told The Associated Press news agency. Jameson Fermilus, who had crouched in a corridor next to his house as smoke and gunfire filled the air, was among thousands of survivors who walked for hours, looking for safety. “We don’t know what we are going to do,” said another resident who joined them, 60-year-old Sonise Morino. “We have nowhere to go.” The massacre has underscored the deadly violence and instability gripping Haiti, where powerful armed groups have carried out attacks and kidnappings across the capital of Port-au-Prince and in other parts of the country. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said at least 6,270 people were displaced in the attack on Pont-Sonde. The vast majority have sought refuge with relatives and friends in nearby communities. Others with nowhere to go have crowded into a church, a school and a public plaza shaded by trees in the coastal city of Saint-Marc. “These deaths are unimaginable,” Mayor Myriam Fievre said as she met with survivors. The attack – retribution for self-defence groups trying to stop the gang from erecting a toll on a nearby road – was the largest massacre in central Haiti in recent years. It came just days after the United Nations reported that at least 3,661 people had been killed in Haiti in the first half of 2024 amid the “senseless” gang violence that has engulfed the country. “To those who sow terror, I say this: You will not break our will,” Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Garry Conille said in a statement following the Pont-Sonde attack. “You will not subjugate this people who have always fought for their dignity and freedom. We will never abandon our right to live in peace, security and justice.” More than 6,000 people have been displaced following armed attacks in Pont-Sondé, a locality in Haiti situated in the commune of Saint-Marc, in the Artibonite department. The majority have taken shelter with relatives in nearby localities. 👉 https://t.co/oBLDDVMoWI pic.twitter.com/AhA3d8iW0H — IOM Haiti (@IOMHaiti) October 5, 2024 Yet, despite the defiant rhetoric, Conille late last month acknowledged that Haiti was “nowhere near winning” the battle against the gangs. The UN Security Council recently extended the mandate of a Kenya-led policing mission meant to help restore security in the Caribbean nation, but the force has struggled to wrest control from the gangs. Funding for the deployment – formally known as the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) – has lagged, and a UN expert said last month that the force remains under-resourced. Conille has travelled to Kenya and the United Arab Emirates this week to push for additional help. Adblock test (Why?)

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 956

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 956

As the war enters its 956th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Tuesday, October 8, 2024. Fighting At least one person was killed and six injured in Russian shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk. Vadym Filashkin, the governor of the Donetsk region, said six multistorey apartment blocks were among the buildings damaged and that two children were among the injured. One Ukrainian port worker was killed and five other people injured, including foreign nationals, after a Russian missile struck a Palau-flagged ship in Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa, in the second such attack in as many days. Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha condemned the attacks on the two ships. Ukraine’s Ministry for Restoration said the ship attacked on Sunday was the Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged Paresa, which had a cargo of 6,000 tonnes of corn. Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed its forces captured the village of Hrodivka, close to the strategically important city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine said its forces struck an oil terminal on the Crimean Peninsula, which was seized and illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said there had been a fire at an oil depot in the Black Sea port town of Feodosia and there were no casualties. The GRU, Ukraine’s military spy agency, said it “seriously damaged” the Alexander Obukhov, an Alexandrit-class Russian minesweeping vessel, in Russia’s Kaliningrad region in a sabotage operation. There was no immediate comment from Russia. Ukraine said a Russian hypersonic missile struck the “area” of Ukraine’s major Starokostiantyniv airbase on Monday morning. The air force did not say whether the attack caused any damage. Local governor, Serhii Tyurin, said there were no civilian casualties or damage to critical infrastructure. Two Russian Kinzhal missiles were also shot down in the Kyiv region, the Ukrainian air force said. Debris came down in three districts of the capital, but no major damage or casualties were reported. Ukrainian air defences shot down 32 Russian drones and a further 37 were lost on military radars, suggesting they had been disabled by electronic warfare systems, the air force said. Politics and diplomacy Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war had entered “a very important phase” and that Ukraine needed to “put pressure on Russia in the way that’s necessary for Russia to realise that the war will gain them nothing”. Speaking in a video statement, Zelenskyy added: “Only through strength can we bring peace closer”. The United States criticised Russia for withholding consular access for detained US citizen Stephen Hubbard after a court jailed the 72-year-old for six years and 10 months. Russia detained Hubbard in April 2022 and accused of being a “mercenary” for Ukraine. A court in Russia’s Kursk region ordered the arrest in absentia of two Italian journalists for reporting from the Ukrainian-occupied part of Kursk. The court demanded Simone Traini and Stefania Battistini, journalists from Italy’s RAI public broadcaster, be extradited for “illegally crossing” the border from Ukraine. A Ukrainian government source told the Reuters news agency that Ukrainian hackers were behind a large-scale cyberattack on Russian state media company VGTRK on Monday. Adblock test (Why?)

Russian court jails US citizen for nearly seven years on ‘mercenary’ charge

Russian court jails US citizen for nearly seven years on ‘mercenary’ charge

Stephen Hubbard, 72, was detained in eastern Ukraine in April 2022 and accused of fighting for Ukraine. A Russian court has jailed a United States citizen for six years and 10 months after convicting him in a closed-door trial of fighting for Ukraine as a mercenary. Investigators said Stephen Hubbard, who is originally from the US state of Michigan, was paid $1,000 a month to serve in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the eastern city of Izyum, where he had been living since 2014. They alleged the 72-year-old signed up in February 2022, just before Russia launched its full-scale invasion, and was provided with training, weapons and ammunition. Hubbard was detained by Russian soldiers two months later. Hubbard’s case first became public late last month when his trial began and he entered a guilty plea. At a hearing last week, the court granted the prosecutors’ request for the proceedings to be held in secret without the media. Hubbard, who was handcuffed, shuffled slowly into the Moscow City Court and stood with difficulty as Judge Alexandra Kovalevskaya read out the sentence, according to journalists from the Reuters and AFP news agencies who were in the court. Russia’s state news agency RIA reported that Hubbard’s lawyer planned to lodge an appeal. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Washington had limited information about the case because Russia had refused to grant consular access to Hubbard. He confirmed that Hubbard had been arrested two years ago in Ukraine. “We’re disappointed, as we often are, when they refuse to grant consular access,” Miller told reporters in Washington. “They have an obligation to provide it and we’re going to continue to press for it. We’re looking at the case very closely and considering our next steps.” Hubbard’s sister Patricia Hubbard Fox and another relative have cast doubt on his reported confession, telling Reuters he held pro-Russian views and was unlikely to have taken up arms given his age. In interviews, Fox and the other relative portrayed Hubbard as an isolated figure who had grown estranged from some family members during decades abroad teaching English, including in Japan and Cyprus. Fox said Hubbard moved to Ukraine in 2014 and lived there for a time with a Ukrainian woman, surviving off a small pension of about $300 a month. He never learned Russian or Ukrainian, she said. Hubbard is one of at least 10 Americans behind bars in Russia, nearly two months after a prisoner swap between Moscow and the West freed three Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and dozens of others. Adblock test (Why?)