Auto-state governors press Congress to pass aid for chipmakers
Governors from nine states, led by Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, have sent a letter to top congressional leaders urging them to advance legislation that would provide $52 billion in aid to semiconductor producers and ease a shortage for manufacturers.
The letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and their counterparts in the Senate, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, asks for swift approval of the CHIPS Act, intended to expand U.S. semiconductor production. The governors, largely from auto-producing states, made a case that the shortage has taken a brutal toll on the automobile industry, leading to lost production and jobs.
“There is no question that our nation’s automotive manufacturing industry — more than any other sector —has been hit hardest by the global semiconductor shortage,” Whitmer wrote. “Production at auto plants across the country has been idled, impacting more than 575,000 auto-related American jobs.”
Germany accuses Belarus of ‘trafficking’ migrants toward EU
The German government on Wednesday accused Belarus of “state-run smuggling and trafficking” of human lives by luring desperate migrants to the Polish border — the edge of the European Union — where many are now stuck in makeshift camps in freezing weather.
As the migrant crisis showed no sign of easing, an EU leader also said the bloc was, for the first time, considering the idea of funding a wall or some other barrier on its eastern border. That idea has always been rejected before and still faces many political and humanitarian obstacles.
Polish authorities estimate that about 3,000 to 4,000 migrants have gathered along its border with Belarus, with hundreds concentrated in one makeshift camp not far from the Kuznica crossing. Warsaw has bolstered security at the frontier, where it has declared a state of emergency.
Houston mayor: 3 still in critical condition from Astroworld
Three concertgoers remain in critical condition following a massive crowd surge during a Travis Scott performance that left eight people dead and hundreds more injured at the Astroworld music festival, Houston’s mayor said Wednesday.
Mayor Sylvester Turner did not provide details about the conditions of the fans who have been hospitalized since the rapper’s headliner performance Friday night. But the family of a 9-year-old boy who attended the concert with his father has said the child is in a medically induced coma after sustaining injuries to his heart, lungs and brain.
Authorities have launched a criminal investigation, but Turner told city councilmembers during their weekly meeting that it could take some time to determine what caused the deaths at the sold-out festival, which drew some 50,000 attendees.
“How did this happen? That is a question that remains on all of our minds,” Turner said.
Draft deal at UN climate talks calls for end to coal use
Governments are considering calling for pulling the plug on coal power, the single-biggest source of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, according to a draft deal under negotiation in U.N. climate talks.
The draft released Wednesday at the talks in Glasgow, Scotland, calls for accelerating “the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels,” though it sets no timeline.
The early version of the final document also expresses “alarm and concern” about how much Earth has already warmed and urges countries to cut carbon dioxide emissions by about half by 2030. Pledges so far from governments don’t add up to that frequently stated goal.
Some nations, especially island states whose very existence is threatened by climate change, warned that the draft didn’t go far enough in requiring action to limit increases in global temperatures or in helping poorer countries to pay for adapting to the warming and for losses from it.
Court filings: Maduro ally met with U.S. prior to arrest
A businessman accused of siphoning off millions in state contracts from Venezuela met secretly with U.S. law enforcement to provide intelligence against Nicolás Maduro’s government prior to being charged in 2019 with money laundering, according to new filings in a related case against a disgraced University of Miami professor.
Bruce Bagley, who prior to his arrest in 2019 had been a top expert on organized crime in Latin America, is set to be sentenced next week in Manhattan federal court on two counts of money laundering tied to nearly $3 million in payments he received from the businessman, Alex Saab.
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