Newsom embraces dirty energy in bid to stave off blackouts

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom campaigned on shutting down Aliso Canyon, a gas storage facility that was the site of the largest methane leak in U.S. history.

Now, five years later, his administration is poised to inject even more gas into the sandstone chamber 8,500 feet beneath north Los Angeles in a bid to stave off energy price spikes and power shortages.

He's also blessed extensions of gas and nuclear power plants that were scheduled to be closed. Keeping the lights on takes precedence over California's clean energy goals, at least for now.

Newsom is grappling with the same nuts-and-bolts challenges of running the electric grid as other blue-state officials in New York as well as the Biden administration. The pivot reflects the awkward reality faced by Newsom and other climate-minded governors: Politics moves far faster than the building of solar fields, wind farms and transmission lines, while power blackouts and electric bill spikes hit home immediately.

“If there’s a blackout, it’s the governor’s fault," said former Gov. Gray Davis (D), who was recalled in 2003 partly due to rolling blackouts and electricity price spikes during his term. "Certainly they don’t send you congratulations when you keep the power on, but ultimately they’ll hold the governor responsible for maintaining the grid.”

Newsom is scarred from not only the state's bout with two nights of rolling blackouts in 2020, when energy demand spiked during a heat wave, but the memory of a political upset 20 years ago. He's keenly aware of the political risks and the real-world consequences of outages that affect not just comfort and convenience but health, safety and the economy.

“If that comes at the expense of the lights staying on, you know, you have to be practical,” Newsom spokesman Anthony York said earlier this month of Newsom’s position on delaying the nuclear and Aliso closures.

The Newsom-appointed Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to approve the Aliso Canyon expansion, which would boost storage by two-thirds to nearly 69 billion cubic feet.

His administration also extended the life of three aging natural gas plants in Southern California last month and is helping keep Diablo Canyon, the state's remaining nuclear plant, open despite his prior support as lieutenant governor for closing it.

Underpinning all of the extensions is a rapidly changing energy picture on multiple fronts. Extreme weather is becoming more common, producing dramatic swings in demand and extreme events such as wildfires and floods that can abruptly wipe out transmission.

At the same time, energy demand is climbing due to a push to electrify everything from cars to homes. And new sources of renewable energy are backed up for years in permitting bottlenecks.

“Climate change is making it harder to fight climate change,” said Patty Monahan, a California Energy Commission appointee, earlier this month during a meeting on extending the natural gas plants. “As we moved from a system that was really around how we just reduced demand for electricity to a system where we say ‘No, no, let's scale up as fast as possible because that's how we clean the air,’ it's stressing our system. We are finding it really hard.”

The CPUC has been studying closing Aliso Canyon since shortly after a 2015 leak from one of the 114 storage wells at the site, which sits at the foot of the Santa Susana Mountains near the neighborhood of Porter Ranch. The leaking well spewed methane along with benzene and other compounds, sickening residents. It went on for 111 days as attempts to plug it repeatedly failed and prompted 8,000 residents to relocate. Former Gov. Jerry Brown (D) directed the agency to close it by 2027, and Newsom backed closing it even earlier when he first took office in 2019.

Regulators are bucking heavy political pressure in favor of closing the site, including from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and the three leading candidates to succeed her, California Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff.

Others are backing the move, including consumer advocates worried about natural gas shortages and price spikes.

Customers of SoCalGas, the company that owns the storage facility, saw their bills skyrocket by 128 percent from December to January, a shock the company — and the federal Energy Information Administration — attributed to widespread cold, reduced gas flows and pipeline constraints that SoCalGas said could have been moderated by additional Aliso reserves.

Environmental advocates, community organizations and at least 11 legislators are skeptical of the claims, pointing to the profits that SoCalGas’ parent company, Sempra, recorded last winter.

“Prices spiked irrespective of inventories,” state Sen. Henry Stern (D-Sherman Oaks) and 10 other lawmakers said in a letter to PUC President Alice Reynolds last week. The letter noted other supply shortages over the last 10 years were not attended by such big price hikes. The CPUC is investigating the spikes, and Newsom asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in February to launch its own probe.

A PUC analysis published a year ago identified an “undeniable” link between Aliso storage and prices not just in Southern California but across the state. A staff report suggests the commission should expect to phase out the facility between 2027 and 2035, noting the challenges of replacing it with renewable electricity, building electrification and energy efficiency improvements.

SoCalGas spokesperson Brian Haas said in a statement that the company supports the state investigation and that Thursday's expected vote will "help advance our shared goal of maintaining energy reliability at just and reasonable rates.”

Stern said he wants to see Newsom take a more aggressive stance toward Sempra.

“He’s just got to fight,” Stern said in an interview. “We’re going to need him to put the gloves on and make things a little bit uncomfortable for people and push the envelope.”

Porter Ranch residents have been flooding a PUC web page with public comments opposing the expansion and calling on Newsom to keep his word to close the site.

“It is impossible for me to tell if anything has changed or what has changed in the governor’s perspective,” said Issam Najm, a neighborhood resident and environmental engineer who is involved in the closure proceedings. “I would expect him to chime in on this situation. We have not heard from him yet.”

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Trump fraudulently inflated his net worth by billions of dollars, New York AG says

NEW YORK — Donald Trump fraudulently inflated his net worth by as much as $2.2 billion per year, New York officials said in court filings unsealed Wednesday ahead of his upcoming civil fraud trial.

The new estimates came in filings from the New York state attorney general’s office, which is suing Trump, some of his adult children and his business empire for falsifying his net worth in an effort to obtain favorable terms from banks and insurance companies. The trial is set to begin Oct. 2.

As part of its motion for partial summary judgment in the case, the attorney general’s office provided an estimated range of how much Trump had fraudulently inflated his net worth, saying he falsely boosted it by between $812 million to $2.2 billion (or 17-39%) in each year from 2011 to 2021.

A lawyer for Trump didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The lawsuit accuses Trump and his children Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump of creating more than 200 misleading evaluations of the company’s finances, as well as other forms of misrepresentation. For example, the lawsuit alleges Trump falsely inflated the square footage of his apartment from 11,000 to 30,000, resulting in him declaring the apartment to be worth $327 million. That estimate would make the apartment worth significantly more than any apartment ever sold in New York City, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Tish James last year, seeks $250 million in damages and a lifetime bar on the Trumps from serving as officers or directors in any New York companies.

Trump and his lawyers have contended that James is politically motivated, pointing to her vows during her 2018 campaign to pursue legal action against Trump.

The October trial over James’ lawsuit will be the first in a string of civil and criminal trials Trump is set to face in coming months, including two federal criminal trials, two state criminal trials and a handful of civil trials stemming from lawsuits.

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Super PAC mounts major effort to carry Burgum back to the debate stage

A super PAC backing GOP presidential candidate Doug Burgum is launching a huge national ad campaign in an effort to vault the North Dakota governor into the second debate next month.

Best of America PAC on Wednesday reserved over $4 million in advertising set to run nationally on Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel, the History Channel, Newsmax, TBS, TNT on the Fox broadcast network. The ads are set to run from Aug. 30 to Sept. 24, the day ahead of debate qualification.

The second Republican debate will be held Sept. 27 on Fox Business Network.

The national ad strategy is a departure from Burgum's campaign, which has concentrated its efforts in Iowa and New Hampshire in an effort to boost his standing in the first two states in the GOP nominating process.

But national ads have become a necessity for Burgum to keep him on the debate stage. In order to qualify for the Sept. 27 debate, candidates will need to hit at least 3 percent in two national polls, or 3 percent in one national poll and 3 percent in two polls conducted from separate early nominating states (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada), in order to qualify by the Sept. 25 deadline. They will also need at least 50,000 donors, with 200 unique donors in 20 different states or territories

So far, Burgum has 50,000 donors and garnered at least 3 percent in two state polls. But not only does he not have a national poll, no national survey in RealClearPolitics' database has ever showed him over 1 percent.

Prior to the first GOP debate last week, Burgum injured his Achilles tendon while playing pickup basketball, springing him into the spotlight with questions of how he would participate in the debate. The North Dakota governor eventually made it to the debate stage and later fundraised off his injury with T-shirts.

The debate presented the best opportunity yet for Burgum to increase his national profile after he launched his long-shot campaign in June. Burgum spoke for nearly eight minutes while on stage last week.

Burgum has spent millions of his personal money to boost his campaign. He poured money into a tactic that offered donors $20 gift cards in exchange for donating as little as $1 to his campaign.

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Ryan Reynolds has transformed Wrexham. Who will save Britain’s other struggling towns?

Can the Hollywood takeover of a Welsh football club really be a model for regeneration?

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Dem Senate plots move amid spending clash with House GOP

The Senate is preparing its first big move in the fall spending fight.

Chuck Schumer is tentatively planning to bring up several spending bills for floor votes in mid-September, as the Senate majority leader works with Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and ranking member Susan Collins (R-Maine) to prepare the bills for prime time. Democrats hope it will set up a stark bipartisan contrast with the House, which has already struggled to pass GOP-backed funding bills ahead of the Sept. 30 shutdown deadline.

The votes could help the chamber advance its spending priorities in coming fiscal clashes with the House Republican majority, which hit some speed bumps before it passed a military construction bill in July and deferred action on an agriculture spending bill. The Senate will consider nominees when it returns from recess next week and likely move to the spending bills the following week.

Schumer and the two spending chiefs are leaning toward floor action on bills funding military construction, transportation and housing, as well as agriculture spending legislation, according to three people familiar with the matter. No final decision has been made, and it’s not clear whether the bills would be rolled together or considered separately; Senate rules mean individual bills take roughly a week to process.

“The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed all 12 bills to fund the government with strong — sometimes unanimous — bipartisan support. The Senate will work to get as much done as possible in September. To avoid a government shutdown, the House should follow the Senate’s lead and pass their appropriations bills in a bipartisan way,” Schumer said in a statement for this story.

Schumer's plans mark the latest move in a larger conflict with House Republicans, who are seeking to slow Ukraine funding and restrict government spending at large. Without regular funding bills, the federal government risks 1 percent spending cuts if Congress continues operating on a stopgap spending bill into January.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his House Republican majority do not want a catch-all spending bill, also known as an omnibus, and both chambers of Congress are urgently working to instead pass all 12 spending bills. Last year, McCarthy pilloried the sweeping spending bill devised by House Democrats and bipartisan Senate leaders, sitting out the talks and warning the episode wouldn't be repeated under his leadership.

Yet Congress is nowhere close to having all 12 departments funded under regular order. The House doesn't return from recess until the second week of September, and both chambers have a long way to go before they even pass their own versions of spending bills — let alone reconcile their different spending visions.

House Republican leaders are readying two of their own spending bills for September floor action, on Homeland Security and the Pentagon, though they are keeping their appropriations plans tentative, telling lawmakers that they “may” tee up floor action next month.

Both the House and Senate are working to pass short-term spending bills into December to give the two chambers more time to work out those issues.

Even that could be fraught with challenges. This summer, the Biden administration requested an additional $24 billion for Ukraine funding, $12 billion for disaster relief and about $4 billion for border security and shelter money. Some of that money could ride on the stopgap spending bill, also known as a continuing resolution.

The situation is further complicated by Hurricane Idalia, which hit Florida on Wednesday. Already, the state's Republicans are making noise about immediate disaster relief, with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) saying he will try to approve new legislation when the Senate reconvenes next week.

“Floridians are doing their part and getting ready, and I will not allow Washington to continue playing games with disaster aid and the lives of those needing our help,” Scott said.

Still, Republicans will have to balance their request for more disaster money alongside the Biden administration’s Ukraine aid request. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports continuing to fund Ukraine’s defense against Russia, but many House conservatives and some Senate Republicans are more skeptical. At the same time, Schumer and spending leaders are working closely with Hawaii’s congressional delegation to help Maui recover from wildfires.

So it’s against that backdrop the Senate plans to begin the larger task of fully funding the government before the end of the calendar year while also juggling the more immediate Sept. 30 deadline, as well as tricky supplemental funding requests. Once each chamber has passed spending bills, like the military construction legislation, the House and Senate can enter into a conference to resolve their differences.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

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China behind ‘largest ever’ digital influence operation

Groups linked with China’s law enforcement peppered more than 50 social media platforms with pro-Beijing messages, Meta says.

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Officials unveil “unprecedented” cybercrime takedown

Senior Justice Department officials on Tuesday revealed a major digital sting they carried out to quash malware cybercriminals have used for decades to launch ransomware attacks, break into corporate networks, and filch sensitive consumer data across the globe.

The operation, which they called “unprecedented,” involved FBI agents and law enforcement partners in six other countries — France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Romania and Latvia — slipping unnoticed onto the computer servers where criminals controlled the notorious QakBot malware. They issued commands to self-destruct it and then seized roughly $9 million worth of cryptocurrency from those behind the malware, United States Attorney Martin Estrada said Tuesday.

The campaign, which U.S. law enforcement planned over 18 months and then brought to a head over three furious days this weekend, amounts to “the most significant technological and financial operation ever led by the DOJ against a botnet,” Estrada said from a U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

Botnets — short for robot networks — refer to vast webs of computers that are infected with a common piece of malicious software. Cybercriminals control the botnets via a hub-and-spoke-like web of computer servers, which can then issue commands to the infected machines, harnessing their combined computing power to stage cyber attacks, breach corporate networks or illicitly harvest data.

The operators of botnets also tend to rent access to other cybercriminals via the dark-web, and QakBot’s enormous size made it “the botnet of choice for cyber gangs throughout the world,” Estrada said.

Over the course of the 18 month operation, U.S. and international law enforcement clandestinely gained access to the 52 servers controlling QakBot. That gave them a unique, behind-the-curtain look at how much damage the malware caused.

Cybercriminals infected 700,000 new victims with the malware over the past year alone, roughly 200,000 of which were in the U.S., according to U.S. law enforcement. They also used it to launch 40 different ransomware attacks, causing $58 million in damages.

“You can imagine that the losses have been many millions throughout the life of QakBot,” which has been active since 2008, said Estrada.

U.S. law enforcement did not announce any arrests on Tuesday. When asked who they believed to be responsible for the botnet, Estrada declined to say, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation.

U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that a large percentage of global cybercrime and ransomware activity comes from Russia. They accuse the Kremlin of turning a blind eye to digital crooks as long as they focus their activity abroad — a claim Russia denies. China also accounts for significant hacking activity within the United States, but authorities say a majority of it is state-sponsored. The Chinese government also denies sanctioning hacking efforts.

Given how long it has been operating and the financial nature of the crimes QakBot is associated with, it is likely that many cybercriminals from across the world have contributed to or rented services from the botnet.

The operation follows a string of recent digital takedown operations from the Justice Department, which has made a concerted push over the last three years to find new ways to stem a growing wave of cybercrime.

Because much computer crime occurs abroad, cybercriminals rarely face punishment, even if charged with a crime.

Donald Alway, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, which spearheaded the case, said that the operation had dealt a major blow to cybercrime.

“We believe that this will effectively put the QakBot criminal groups out of business,” he said, and put an end to “one of the most devastating cyber criminal tools in history.”

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Record warm waters power Hurricane Idalia's path to the coast

Hurricane Idalia is gathering strength as it churns toward Florida’s northern Gulf Coast, fueled by a sizzling marine heat wave that has gripped the Gulf of Mexico all summer.

The storm could surge into a catastrophic Category 4 cyclone before making landfall Wednesday morning, National Hurricane Center forecasters warned.

Its path toward Florida’s Big Bend region includes waters where sea surface temperatures are hitting 90 degrees. The Gulf is warm under normal circumstances — water temperatures tend to hover in the 80s this time of year — but those extra few degrees are hurricane juice, researchers and meteorologists say.

“It just makes rapid intensification more likely,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami.

Though much remains unknown about what causes hurricanes to strengthen swiftly, a few factors can help. Warm waters and low wind shear — a measurement of the way winds change speed or direction as they move over the ocean — are key.

Idalia tussled with some wind shear as it churned slowly through the Caribbean over the weekend, but conditions turned more favorable as it pushed past Cuba and entered the Gulf late Monday night. Wind shear is lower, and the waters are as warm as a bathtub. The National Hurricane Center’s latest forecast predicts it will hit the coast as at least a Category 3 storm, with winds around 125 mph, but the National Hurricane Center warned that some models had winds reaching as much as 138 mph.

By the time it makes landfall, experts expect Idalia will meet the threshold for what scientists call rapid intensification — that’s when a storm’s wind speeds increase by at least 35 mph within a 24-hour period.

That would make it the second storm this season to rapidly intensify. Hurricane Franklin, now churning toward Bermuda in the Atlantic Ocean, became the strongest storm of the summer so far after ballooning Monday into a Category 4 hurricane.

Last year’s devastating Hurricane Ian swelled from a weak Category 1 to Category 3 in a single day, before ultimately making landfall as a Category 4 storm along the state’s southwest coast.

The phenomenon is growing more common as the climate warms, research suggests. A 2019 study found that the proportion of cyclones undergoing rapid intensification is increasing across the Atlantic Basin, and that intensification rates are rising. A 2018 study also found that hurricanes are intensifying faster than they used to.

Rapid intensification can cause problems for communities in a storm’s path. It can sometimes cause forecasts to underestimate a storm’s intensity when it makes landfall, leaving people with little time to prepare for a major hurricane.

Models are getting better at predicting rapid intensification events, said Philip Klotzbach, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University. In Idalia’s case, scientists saw the burst of intensity coming days in advance. But it’s still a tricky business.

“It’s still hard — sometimes these storms really explode,” he said. “There’s still a challenge there.”

A summer of record-breaking heat

This summer’s unusual water temperatures are part of an ongoing pattern, experts say. The Gulf of Mexico has been warming for decades — and the warming has accelerated in recent years. One recent study found that temperatures there have risen swiftly since 2010.

Human-caused climate change has a clear influence on Gulf temperatures. But other factors may also be at play, said Mark Bourassa, associate director of Florida State University’s Center for Ocean-Atmosphere Prediction Studies.

“We know it’s warming, we know it has been warming, but in the last few years we’ve seen it warm up a lot more than we would expect from [human-caused] warming,” he said. “It’s not clear what’s doing it.”

There are a few theories about what’s going on this summer, said Zhankun Wang, an oceanographer at Mississippi State University and lead author of the recent study on rising Gulf water temperatures.

The Gulf Coast has experienced record-breaking air temperatures this summer — New Orleans just felt its hottest weather on record at 105 degrees Sunday. Extreme air temperatures may be funneling extra heat into the upper water layers of the Gulf of Mexico, Wang suggested.

That’s likely to happen more often in the future, as climate change drives more frequent and intense heat waves.

Some scientists also believe that the much-feared weakening of a major Atlantic Ocean current, which among other things carries warm water from the tropics toward Western Europe and the U.S. East Coast, could be causing more heat to build up in the Gulf over the long term, Wang added. Studies indicate that the current has been slowing for decades and climate change is likely at least partly to blame.

Record heat in the larger Atlantic Ocean basin likely has had at least some influence on Gulf temperatures this summer, too, Klotzbach added. The North Atlantic, in general, has experienced some of its hottest temperatures ever recorded over the last few months.

The long-term influence of climate change is steadily increasing ocean temperatures over time. The world’s oceans hit their hottest temperatures on record in 2022 for the fourth year in a row, scientists announced in January.

But a few additional factors have probably contributed to this year’s extreme heat. Trade winds over the Atlantic have been weaker than usual, and they haven’t churned up the ocean as much as they would in a normal year. That’s allowed the water to sit relatively stagnant and soak up heat.

In a typical year, winds also sweep large volumes of dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa out over the ocean. This dust has a slight cooling effect on local temperatures. But this year’s weaker winds have carried less dust, contributing to even faster warming.

Under ordinary conditions, scientists would expect above-average hurricane activity from such extreme ocean heat. But it’s been an unusual summer for another reason, too.

This year has been marked by a strong El Niño event, a natural climate pattern that causes temporary warming in the eastern and central Pacific. Because the world’s oceans are so closely connected, El Niños can influence weather all over the globe. El Niño years also tend to see drops in Atlantic hurricane activity, because of higher wind shear.

Scientists weren’t totally sure what to expect at the beginning of this season, said Klotzbach, the Colorado State University scientist. This combination of conditions is largely uncharted territory.

“We’ve never had a strong El Niño with a record warm Atlantic at the same time,” he said. “So we’re kind of off in a spectrum that we haven’t seen, which makes forecasting extra challenging.”

Colorado State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration each issue an annual hurricane forecast at the beginning of the season. Both institutions predicted an average season this year, assuming that the influence of El Niño and the extreme warm waters would essentially cancel each other out.

But Atlantic wind shear hasn’t been too extreme so far this year. That may be partly because El Niño is still gathering strength, said McNoldy, the University of Miami scientist.

And the warm waters have helped some storms battle through the wind shear that does exist, Klotzbach added. Rapidly intensifying Franklin is a prime example.

“It did get torn apart by shear, but managed to hang on,” Klotzbach said. “And then it got into a much more conducive environment, and now it’s exploded.”

Scientists measure seasonal hurricane activity in a few different ways. One is the total number of storms that form. Another is the total accumulated cyclone energy, which measures the cumulative wind speed and strength of all the storms that form throughout the season.

Thanks to the combination of Franklin and Idalia, this season already is approaching the average level of total accumulated energy for a typical season, Klotzbach said — and the season is only half over. That means there’s a good chance it will end as an above-average season after all, with the record warm waters largely to blame.

This summer’s unusual confluence of conditions may have been a first, but it likely won’t be the last. Studies suggest that El Niño events may grow more severe as the Earth continues to warm. The oceans also will keep warming as long as humans continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and scientists expect marine heat waves will grow more frequent and severe.

“Next time we have a season that looks like this, 2023 will be a great analog,” Klotzbach said. “But we’re a little bit flying blind in 2023.”

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'A big f-ing deal': Dem convention delegates will stay within Chicago city limits

CHICAGO — State delegations attending the 2024 Democratic National Convention will get to do something almost unheard of: Stay in a hotel within the city limits.

Hotels for next year's Democratic convention delegates are all in downtown Chicago and all within close proximity of each other, allowing high-profile speakers to travel quickly from one hotel to another for the Aug. 19-22, 2024 event.

“It means we’ll be able to conduct joint activities together whether it's nighttime fundraisers or events. You name it,” Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party for the past 13 years and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, told POLITICO.

Conventions often overwhelm cities with demand for hotel space, and delegations wind up in far-flung suburbs with long commutes. The Chicago convention could be a significant quality of life improvement for the 2024 convention delegates.

Martin recalled hotels for Democratic conventions in Philadelphia and Charlotte “so far spread out that it made it virtually impossible for state party delegations to actually do joint activities together.”

He called the improved logistics “a big f-ing deal.”

The Chicago hotels designated for the convention are within a five-mile radius of official convention venues — including McCormick Place, where the party plans to conduct daytime meetings, and the United Center, where evening proceedings will be broadcast nationwide.

State party chairs and executive directors have already been notified about where they’ll be staying. Delegates will travel to Chicago in a few weeks for a Sept. 12 preview day that will include convention site visits and tours of their respective hotels.

The Biden Victory Fund also has a meeting scheduled in Chicago as part of the visit.

State Sen. Bill DeMora, a delegate director for Ohio Democrats, said he has found the logistics to be so smooth he would love to see all the Democratic conventions hosted in Chicago.

“I remember staying about an hour away at the convention in Charlotte. Our delegation was split up between multiple hotels,” he told POLITICO, referring to the North Carolina convention in 2012, one of the seven conventions he's been to over the years. Next year, the entire Ohio delegation will all stay at one hotel, the Fairmont, and will be housed with four other state delegations, he said.

The promise of close hotels to convention events was a big reason Chicago was chosen to host the convention, according to party leaders who spoke to POLITICO. And it helped that all the hotels the convention will use are unionized, since unions are an important constituency for the Democratic base.

While many of the hotels are within walking distance from each other, delegates will be bused back and forth to McCormick Place for official meetings. The trek will take them along a two-and-a-half-mile restricted access route used only by Chicago’s mayor, the Cook County Board president and special buses with security clearance. Officials taking part in the 2012 NATO G-8 Summit in Chicago also used the route.

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel liked to call it the “bat cave” because a large portion of the route is underground.

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Hawaii power utility takes responsibility for first fire on Maui, but faults firefighters

HONOLULU — Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged its power lines started a wildfire on Maui but faulted county firefighters for declaring the blaze contained and leaving the scene, only to have a second wildfire break out nearby and become the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.

Hawaiian Electric Company released a statement Sunday night in response to Maui County’s lawsuit blaming the utility for failing to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions. Hawaiian Electric called that complaint “factually and legally irresponsible,” and said its power lines in West Maui had been de-energized for more than six hours when the second blaze started.

In its statement, the utility addressed the cause for the first time. It said the fire on the morning of Aug. 8 “appears to have been caused by power lines that fell in high winds.” The Associated Press reported Saturday that bare electrical wire that could spark on contact and leaning poles on Maui were the possible cause.

But Hawaiian Electric appeared to blame Maui County for most of the devastation — the fact that the fire appeared to reignite that afternoon and tore through downtown Lahaina, killing at least 115 people and destroying 2,000 structures.

Richard Fried, a Honolulu attorney working as co-counsel on Maui County’s lawsuit, countered that if their power lines hadn’t caused the initial fire, “this all would be moot.”

“That’s the biggest problem,” Fried said Monday. “They can dance around this all they want. But there’s no explanation for that.”

Mike Morgan, an Orlando attorney who’s currently on Maui to work on wildfire litigation for his firm, Morgan & Morgan, said he thinks Hawaiian Electric’s statement was an attempt to shift liability and total responsibility.

“By taking responsibility for causing the first fire, then pointing the finger on a fire that started 75 yards away and saying, ‘That’s not our fault, we started it but they should’ve put it out,’ I’m not sure how that will hold up,” Morgan, who manages complex litigation, said Monday. “It’s also so premature because there are ongoing investigations.”

Officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who are investigating the cause and origin of the fire, and lawyers involved in the litigation, were at a warehouse Monday to inspect electrical equipment taken from the neighborhood where the fire is thought to have originated. The utility took down the burnt poles and removed fallen wires from the site.

Videos and images analyzed by AP confirmed that the wires that started the morning fire were among miles of line that the utility left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds.

As Hurricane Dora passed roughly 500 miles (800 kilometers) south of Hawaii Aug. 8, Lahaina resident Shane Treu heard a utility pole snap next to Lahainaluna Road. He saw a downed power line ignite the grass and called 911 at 6:37 a.m. to report the fire. Small brush fires aren’t unusual for Lahaina, and a drought in the region had left plants, including invasive grasses, dangerously dry. The Maui County Fire Department declared that fire 100% contained by 9:55 a.m. Firefighters then left to attend to other calls.

Hawaiian Electric said its own crews then went to the scene that afternoon to make repairs and did not see fire, smoke or embers. The power to the area was off. Shortly before 3 p.m., those crews saw a small fire in a nearby field and called 911, the utility said.

Residents said the embers from the morning fire had reignited and the fire raced toward downtown Lahaina. Treu’s neighbor Robert Arconado recorded video of it spreading at 3:06 p.m., as large plumes of smoke rise near Lahainaluna Road and are carried downtown by the wind.

Hawaiian Electric is a for-profit, investor-owned, publicly traded utility that serves 95% of Hawaii’s electric customers. CEO Shelee Kimura said there are important lessons to be learned from this tragedy, and resolved to “figure out what we need to do to keep our communities safe as climate issues rapidly intensify here and around the globe.”

The utility faces a spate of new lawsuits that seek to hold it responsible. Wailuku attorney Paul Starita, lead counsel on three lawsuits by Singleton Schreiber, called it a “preventable tragedy of epic proportions.”

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Police search for suspected shooter at University of North Carolina; students warned to stay inside

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — An apparent shooting at the University of North Carolina flagship campus on Monday led to a school-wide alert warning of an “armed, dangerous person on or near campus” and urging people to go inside and avoid windows.

Authorities didn’t immediately provide details of the alleged shooting on the Chapel Hill campus, including whether anyone had been shot. But Gov. Roy Cooper posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had spoken to the Orange County sheriff and the state’s public safety secretary and “pledged all state resources needed to capture the shooter and protect the UNC campus.”

Cooper didn’t provide further information. School officials said as soon as they had verified information, they would share it. They didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking further details.

The school’s first alert was sent out just after 1 p.m. At 1:50 p.m., officials posted on X that the shelter-in-place order remained in effect and that it was “an ongoing situation.” About 40 minutes later, the school added a post saying: “Remain sheltered in place. This is an ongoing situation. Suspect at large.”

About two hours after the first alert went out, officers were still arriving in droves, with about 30 police vehicles at the scene and multiple helicopters circling over the school, where the fall semester started last week.

An officer admonished two people who tried to exit the student center, yelling, “Inside, now!”

About 10 minutes later, law enforcement escorted a group of students out of one of the science buildings, with everyone walking in an orderly line with their hands up.

A student told TV station WTVD that she had barricaded her dormitory door with her furniture. Another student, speaking softly, described hiding in fear with others in a dark bathroom.

The report of the shooting and subsequent lockdown paralyzed campus and parts of the surrounding town of Chapel Hill a week after classes began at the state’s flagship public university. The university has approximately 20,000 undergraduate students and 12,000 graduate students.

Noel T. Brewer, a professor of health behavior, said that he was once held at gunpoint in his mother’s jewelry store, but that Monday’s apparent shooting and lockdown was “far more stressful.”

Speaking from his locked office where he hid with other colleagues, Brewer, 57, said by phone that he was getting little information.

Brewer, a married father of two young kids, said he felt for anyone who might have been shot.

“But even in our own building, the students who are locked down and what they’re thinking about — it’s just a lot. It’s a terrible situation,” said Brewer, a married father of two young children.

It was also the first day of kindergarten for Brewer’s 5-year-old son. His elementary school was also on lockdown.

“He doesn’t know what’s going on. And at some point, he’s going to realize that he hasn’t gotten on the bus when he’s supposed to,” he said.

Brewer, who also has a 2-year-old added: “My husband and I have been trading texts and trying to figure out what to do … Just wondering how our kids are feeling. It’s a lot.”

One of Brewer’s colleagues is visiting from Africa and staying in the U.S. for the first time.

“She said her one concern was guns and possibly something happening at the university,” Brewer said. “And this was her first faculty meeting, and her worst nightmare came true.”

As he and his colleagues waited in locked offices, they texted each other about whether it was safe to walk to the bathroom.

“We’re trying to tell each other stories and talk about cooking and trying to not get worked up,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re fielding lots of texts and calls from friends and family and colleagues.”

Nearby Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools posted on social media that all doors would be locked at its schools and offices until authorities say it’s safe.

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DOT levies largest-ever penalty against American Airlines for tarmac delays

The Transportation Department has issued a $4 million fine against Texas-based American Airlines for leaving passengers stranded on the tarmac for three hours or more — the agency's largest penalty to date for a single domestic airline for breaking the rule.

DOT’s rules permit aircraft to idle awaiting takeoff for only three hours max for a domestic flight, without offering passengers a chance to deplane. However, following an investigation, the agency determined American “kept dozens of flights stuck on the tarmac for long periods of time without letting passengers off."

American spokesperson Sarah Jantz said the referenced delays were as a result of “exceptional weather events,” and represented a small amount of “the 7.7 million flights during this time period.”

In addition to improving its performance on tarmac delays, “we have since apologized to the impacted customers and regret any inconvenience caused,” Jantz said.

Background: DOT has broad consumer protection authority, which has been used in the past to underpin decisions to fine airlines for keeping passengers sitting on the tarmac for too long, for failing to issue prompt refunds, or violating similar rules.

The agency’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection studied incidents between 2018 and 2021, and found that American allowed "43 domestic flights to remain on the tarmac for lengthy periods without providing passengers an opportunity to deplane,” it said. Passengers were also not offered food or water — a staple of the rule — during the delays, officials said.

The majority of the delays occurred at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport — American’s central hub — and affected a total of 5,821 passengers.

Similarly, in 2021, DOT announced $1.9 million in fines against United Airlines for violating the same rule, which at the time was the largest fine to date for breaking the rules.

What’s next: In recent months, DOT has proposed a series of rules intended to better protect airline consumers, the most substantial of which would strengthen protections for airline passengers who want a cash refund after a flight is canceled.

DOT on Monday said roughly half of the fine will be “credited to the airline for compensation provided to passengers on the affected flights.”

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Joe the Plumber, who questioned Obama's tax policies during the 2008 campaign, has died at 49

TOLEDO, Ohio — Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher, who was thrust into the political spotlight as “Joe the Plumber” after questioning Barack Obama about his economic policies during the 2008 presidential campaign, and who later forayed into politics himself, has died, his son said Monday. He was 49.

His oldest son, Joey Wurzelbacher, said his father died Sunday in Wisconsin after a long illness. His family announced this year on an online fundraising site that he had pancreatic cancer.

“The only thing I have to say is that he was a true patriot,” Joey Wurzelbacher — whose father had the middle name Joseph and went by Joe — said in a telephone interview. “His big thing is that everyone come to God. That’s what he taught me, and that’s a message I hope is heard by a lot of people.”

He went from toiling as a plumber in suburban Toledo, Ohio, to life as a media sensation when he asked Obama about his tax plan during a campaign stop.

Their exchange and Obama’s response that he wanted to “spread the wealth around” aired often on cable news. Days later, Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, repeatedly cited “Joe the Plumber” in a presidential debate.

Wurzelbacher went on to campaign with McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but he later criticized McCain in his book and said he did not want him as the GOP presidential nominee.

His sudden fame turned him into a sought-after voice for many anti-establishment conservatives, and he traveled the country speaking at tea party rallies and conservative gatherings.

He also wrote a book and worked with a veterans organization that provided outdoor programs for wounded soldiers.

In 2012, he made a bid for a U.S. House seat in Ohio, but he lost in a landslide to Democrat Marcy Kaptur in a district heavily tilted toward Democrats.

Republicans had recruited him to run and thought his fame would help bring in enough money to mount a serious challenge. But he drew criticism during the campaign for suggesting that the United States should build a fence at the Mexico border and “start shooting” at immigrants suspected of entering the country illegally.

Wurzelbacher returned to working as a plumber after he gave up on politics, his family said.

Funeral arrangements were pending. Survivors include his wife, Katie, and four children.

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Pentagon bets on quick production of autonomous systems to counter China

The Pentagon is about to make a huge bet that it can field thousands of autonomous systems within two years — an attempt to use technological innovation to counter China’s much larger stockpile of traditional weapons.

The ambitious effort, named Replicator, will be spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who previewed the push in an interview. Hicks will formally announce the initiative Monday in a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference.

China, China, China: Hicks said the time is right to push to rapidly scale up innovative technology. The move comes as the U.S. looks to get creative to deter China in the Indo-Pacific and Pentagon leadership has taken stock of how Ukraine has fended off Russia's invasion.

"Industry is ready. The culture is ready to shift," Hicks said. "We have to drive that from the top, and we need to give it a hard target."

“The great paradox of military innovation is you're going to have to make big bets and you've got to execute on those bets,” she added.

The plan: With Replicator, the Pentagon aims to have thousands of autonomous systems across various domains produced and delivered in 18 to 24 months.

Hicks declined to discuss what specific platforms might be produced under the program — such as aerial drones or unmanned ships — citing the “competition landscape” in the defense industry as well as concerns about tipping DOD's hand to China. The Pentagon will instead "say more as we get to production on capabilities."

Why now: The Pentagon is pushing to counter threats posed by China in the Pacific amid concerns that Beijing may accrue the military might needed to invade Taiwan before the decade is out.

Defense leaders are also fighting an arduous battle to quickly ramp up the industrial base to replenish military inventories of missiles and other weapons that have been sent to Ukraine, but that could also be of use in a China-Taiwan conflict.

Why this tech: Autonomous weapons are seen as a potential way to counter China's numerical advantages in ships, missiles and troops in a rapidly narrowing window. Fielding large numbers of cheap, expendable drones, proponents argue, is faster and lower-cost than exquisite weapons systems and puts fewer troops at risk.

Rinse, repeat: Another major aim of the Replicator initiative is to provide a template for future efforts to rapidly field military technology.

She said lessons from the Replicator program could be applied throughout the Pentagon, military services and combatant commands.

"The pieces that work well, they can be replicated throughout the department where they see what we've been able to do," Hicks said. "So if it's cutting years off of a process because we've got the standards figured out and right. If it's because there's a lack of communication between two components and we fixed that problem, that kind of speeding can happen through this formal process."

Funding: Hicks predicted the price tag would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars rather than billions of dollars. She noted that the Pentagon is harnessing many programs that are already underway, but added the Pentagon may need to "augment" some spending.

"Dollars are not the major challenge," Hicks said. "Getting the production up and running and getting it at scale is."

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Pope slammed for telling Russians to hold on to ‘legacy’ of a ‘great empire’

While he also advocated for peace, remarks seeming to praise Russia’s imperialist past come under fire.

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First test in Georgia v. Trump: Can prosecutors keep home-court advantage?

The first big showdown for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in her case against Donald Trump and 18 of his allies will take place on unfamiliar turf: a federal courtroom.

Officially, the Monday hearing in Atlanta will focus on a bid by co-defendant Mark Meadows to move the case out of Georgia state court.

But the session will also be a post-indictment courtroom debut for Willis’ prosecution team and a chance for attorneys in both camps to air their strongest initial arguments about the case, which was unveiled just two weeks ago and alleges a sweeping conspiracy to subvert the 2020 presidential election in Georgia and other states.

In short, the hearing before U.S. District Judge Steve Jones could resemble a mini-trial that will carry important lessons for the bigger battle to come. Some witnesses have even been served with subpoenas to testify at the hearing, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who resisted Trump’s pressure to “find” extra votes in January 2021 and could be a star witness for the prosecution at the eventual trial.

A transfer of the case to federal court would not likely be catastrophic for Willis’ case, but it would, at a minimum, eliminate an intrinsic home-court advantage for the veteran Fulton County prosecutor, legal experts said.

“Fani Willis spends her professional life in Fulton County Superior Court. She knows the court. She knows the judges. It’s geographically convenient. She knows the juries. She knows everything about it,” said Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “She’s prepared to do it [in federal court], but that’s not her home court.”

For the moment, Trump himself has not asked for a transfer — formally known as a “removal” — to federal court. But five of the 19 defendants have: Meadows, who served as Trump’s final White House chief of staff; Jeffrey Clark, who served in Trump’s Justice Department; and three defendants who falsely claimed to be electors authorized to cast Electoral College ballots for Georgia.

Trump still has plenty of time to seek a transfer. Under federal law, that deadline won’t come for more than a month.

Meanwhile, he can sit back and see what happens Monday, sizing up Jones — an appointee of former President Barack Obama — and assessing the judge’s openness to arguments that the case properly belongs in federal court because some of the defendants held posts in the federal government at the time of the 2020 election.

If moved to federal court, the charges — all of which are under Georgia law — would remain the same, and Willis’ team could continue to handle the prosecution. But federal procedural rules, not state court rules, would apply. And some defendants might anticipate other, more substantive advantages in a federal forum.

A jury for a trial in federal court would likely be drawn from 10 counties that comprise Atlanta and its sprawling suburbs, while a state-court trial would likely include jurors only from Fulton County, which delivered a 73% to 26% victory for Joe Biden over Trump in 2020. The broader set of counties is home to a somewhat higher proportion of Trump supporters, though the political makeup is not dramatically different.

“It's a slightly different jury pool,” Eisen said. “I don't think it'll be outcome-determinative. Only one of the counties went for Trump. It's almost all Biden counties in this division.”

A federal judge might also have more leeway to consider challenges to the constitutionality of the state racketeering statute or other laws included in the indictment than state judges, who are bound to follow state precedent.

Questions of immunity

Meadows hopes that a transfer to federal court would be a prelude to a ruling that he is entirely immune from the Georgia charges because they relate to actions he took as a federal official.

Other defendants — including Trump himself — are expected to make the same immunity argument.

The argument is rooted in the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which declares federal law to be “the supreme law of the land,” taking precedence over state laws that might conflict with it. It’s intended to prevent states from criminalizing actions that federal officials take to do their jobs. But legal scholars say the Constitution does not provide immunity from state charges based on conduct that clearly falls outside the scope of a federal official’s duties.

A string of cases in which federal officials — particularly law enforcement officers — have faced state-level charges have resulted in court rulings that often lead to immunity for those officials. Federal courts, more so than state courts, have tended to show deference to such claims.

“The conduct alleged in the Indictment plainly came about because Mr. Meadows was serving as Chief of Staff to then-President Donald J. Trump, and the Chief of Staff has broad-ranging duties to advise and assist the President. This is not a case where the defendant was plainly ‘acting on a frolic of their own which had no relevancy of their official duties,’” Meadows’ lawyers wrote in a court filing Friday, quoting an earlier legal precedent.

Meadows’ submission even dabbles in a controversial argument advanced by some conservatives known as the unitary executive theory. The former chief of staff’s lawyers argue that since state- and locally-run elections are overseen by portions of the federal government such as the Justice Department, they are the business of the president and, by extension, the president’s top adviser — in this case, Meadows.

Willis’ team argues the opposite: that the effort by Trump and his allies to revise the vote count in Georgia and to submit electors not certified by the state was purely political in nature and had nothing to do with the official duties of anyone involved on Trump’s side.

The prosecutors argue that a federal law known as the Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity as part of their official work, so Meadows couldn’t have been acting as White House chief of staff when he lobbied Georgia officials to change the vote tally.

“Since the defendant was forbidden by law to use his authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election or otherwise participate in activity directed toward the success of Mr. Trump as a candidate for the presidency, every single one of these activities fell outside the scope of his duties, both as a matter of fact and as a matter of law,” Chief Senior Assistant District Attorney McDonald Wakeford wrote in a brief submitted to Jones Wednesday.

Monday’s hearing is officially about Meadows’ request to transfer the case to federal court, but the immunity questions under the supremacy clause are related to that request, so the hearing may be the first time that lawyers on both sides will be questioned in court about a key potential legal defense.

Removal repercussions

Still unclear is precisely what any ruling the judge issues on Meadows’ transfer request would mean for Trump or other defendants. Typically, cases are moved from state court to federal court in their entirety, but some defendants might seek to have their cases sent back.

“It's a very unsettled question of law,” Eisen said. “Probably what happens is the whole thing goes up [to federal court], as in a civil case. But the courts have said that the presumption of a state's right to hang on to its criminal matters is stronger. … So you know, while that's likely, it's not guaranteed.”

Removal of civil lawsuits from state court to federal courts is routine, but removal of criminal cases from the state system to the federal one is far rarer.

One of the most high-profile transfers of a criminal prosecution from state to federal court came in 1997, when FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi was indicted in connection with the Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho five years earlier. A local prosecutor charged Horiuchi with involuntary manslaughter for shooting and killing Vicki Weaver, the wife of anti-government militant Randy Weaver, during the siege.

Federal prosecutors had the case moved to federal court, where a judge later dismissed it, ruling that Horiuchi had immunity because he was acting within the scope of his duties. A federal appeals court reversed that ruling and reinstated the case, but it was eventually dropped after a change in leadership at the local prosecutor’s office.

More recently, two U.S. Park Police officers got their prosecution in a Virginia state court moved to federal court after they were charged with involuntary manslaughter for killing an unarmed motorist, Bijan Ghaisar, during a traffic stop in 2017 following a chase on the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Fairfax County, Va. A federal judge later dismissed the charges against the pair.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, appealed that ruling. But after Republican Jason Miyares won the AG post in 2021, he dropped the appeal. Despite vocal protests over the officers’ actions, the Justice Department last year declined to reopen its investigation of the shooting and stood by an earlier decision not to file federal charges.

Trump’s transfer bids

Trump himself has already backed two recent efforts to transfer cases against him from state to federal court.

Less than two months before the 2020 election, the Justice Department stepped into a civil suit that writer E. Jean Carroll filed against Trump over his denials of her claim that he raped her in a New York City department store dressing room in the 1990s.

The transfer to federal court went forward, but the judge rejected claims from the Justice Department that Trump had immunity for statements he made about Carroll while he was president.

A federal jury in Manhattan found Trump liable in a parallel suit in May, concluding that he committed sexual abuse and defamation and ordering him to pay Carroll $5 million in damages. Trump is appealing.

Carroll's other suit is set for trial in January. The Justice Department recently changed its stance in the case, saying that Trump is not entitled to immunity and that his statements about Carroll appeared to be outside the scope of his official role as president.

Earlier this year, Trump also sought to move his criminal prosecution over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels from New York state court to federal court there. A federal judge rejected Trump's transfer request, but the former president is appealing.

Margarine precedent

Fights over forums have a long and, at times, peculiar history.

Meadows' brief backing transfer of his prosecution to federal court cites a trio of Supreme Court cases from over a century ago.

In 1890, the high court concluded that a deputy U.S. marshal — charged in California with murdering a man who was assaulting a sitting Supreme Court justice — was properly acting in his federal capacity when he fired the fatal shot.

In 1899, the justices rejected a bid by Ohio to prosecute a federal official for a state-law crime the court described as "serving margarine in a home for disabled veterans without placing a sign in the window."

And in 1906, the Supreme Court denied immunity in a case featuring conflicting evidence about a group of soldiers who shot and killed a thief after a rapid pursuit.

But some critics of the attempt by Trump allies to move the Georgia prosecution to federal court say it flies in the face of Republican officials’ frequent calls for the federal government to devolve power to the states.

“It's ironic,” Eisen said. “Conservatives are known for trumpeting the role of the states in our federalist system, and here you have two conservatives who are running to federal court to avoid the operation of a state judicial system.”

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