fuels

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — If there’s agreement on anything in the two states with governor’s races this year, it’s that utility bills are a growing concern among voters.

One Virginia voter, Kim Wilson, lamented at a town hall recently that her electricity bill seems to go up every month, no matter how much she tries to mitigate the costs. She was drawn to the event in part by its title: “The energy bills are too damn high.”

“It’s way too high,” Wilson readily agreed.

In New Jersey, Herb Michitsch of Kenilworth said his electric bill has climbed to nearly $400 a month, or more than four times what it was when he and his wife moved into their home half a century ago.

“Something really has to be done,” Michitsch said.

That something must be done is pretty much where the agreement ends. It’s what must be done that splits politicians back into rival camps.

Democratic candidates in the two states are far more likely to embrace clean energy options like wind and solar than their Republican opponents. The two states’ Republican nominees are more closely aligned with the policies of President Trump, who has called climate change a “con job” and promotes more traditional energy sources like gas and coal. New Jersey Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli has acknowledged that human-caused climate change is occurring, but he says Democrats have driven up costs with their clean energy push.

Which side voters land on in the off-year elections will give both parties plenty to consider in what feels destined to be an emerging economic issue heading into next year’s midterm elections.

At a recent rally in New Jersey, Democratic state Sen. Vin Gopal made clear that he stood with Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill in support of her plans to lower costs. But Gopal acknowledged that the outcome could signal whether voters are ready to embrace the president’s approach or have simply grown weary of national politics.

“The whole country is watching what happens,” he said.

Technology drives up costs

The debate comes as people in the two states grapple with double-digit percentage increases in monthly electricity bills. The exploding costs are driven by soaring demand, particularly from data centers, and by the rapid onset of energy-intensive artificial intelligence technology. Virginia’s largest energy utility also has linked potential future rate increases to inflation and other costs.

In Virginia’s open race to succeed a term-limited GOP incumbent, Democrat Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears are at odds over the development of renewable energy sources.

Spanberger has laid out a plan to expand solar and wind production in underused locations, praising a wind project off the coast of Virginia Beach. In a debate against her opponent, she also said she would “ensure that data centers pay their fair share” as costs rise. The state is home to the world’s largest data center market,

Republican Winsome Earle-Sears wasn’t having it.

“That’s all she wants, is solar and wind,” Earle-Sears said of Spanberger at the debate. “Well, if you look outside, the sun isn’t shining and the breeze isn’t blowing, and then what, Abigail, what will you do?”

In New Jersey, where Ciattarelli’s endorsement by Trump included recent social media posts praising his energy affordability plans, the GOP nominee blames rising costs on eight years of Democratic control of state government.

Ciattarelli says he would pull New Jersey out of a regional greenhouse gas trading bloc, which Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy reentered when he first took office in 2018.

“It’s been a failure,” Ciattarelli said at the final debate of the campaign. “Electricity is at an all-time high.”

He’s also come out as a strident opponent of wind energy off the state’s coast, an effort Democrats spearheaded under Murphy. A major offshore wind project ground to a halt when the Danish company overseeing it scrapped projects, citing supply chain problems and high interest rates.

At the center of Sherrill’s campaign promise on the issue is an executive order to freeze rates and build cheaper and cleaner power generation.

“I know my opponent laughs at it,” Sherrill said recently.

A growing concern among voters

The candidates’ focus on affordability and utility rates reflects an unease among voters. A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults, at a time when data center development for AI could further strain the power grid.

Perhaps that’s why the statewide races have become something of an energy proxy battle in Virginia. Clean Virginia, a clean energy advocacy group that targets utility corruption, has backed all three Democratic candidates for statewide office in Virginia — a first for the organization. GOP statewide candidates, meanwhile, have accepted money from Dominion Energy, the largest electric utility in Virginia.

To further complicate an already complex issue: Virginia has passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which calls for utilities to sunset carbon energy production methods by 2045.

Republican House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, who represents the southwest edge of Virginia, had failed to alter part of the state’s Clean Economy Act earlier this year. Kilgore, whose top donor is Dominion Energy, said in February: “If their bills go any higher, there are folks in my region that are not able to pay them now, they’re definitely not going to be able to pay them in the future.”

Evan Vaughn, executive director of MAREC Action, a group of Mid-Atlantic renewable energy developers, said candidates from both parties are in a tough spot because bringing down prices quickly will be difficult given broader market dynamics.

“Voters should look to which candidate they think can do the best to stabilize prices by bringing more generation online,” he said. “That’s really going to be the key to affordability.”

Michitsch, who’s backing Sherrill in the governor’s race and said he would campaign for her, said her proposal shows she’s willing to do something to address spiraling costs.

“We need to change,” he said. “And I think she is here to change things.”

Diaz and Catalini write for the Associated Press.

Energy Fuels (UUUU 17.87%) stock, involved in mining both uranium and rare-earth metals, soared 18% through 10:35 a.m. ET Monday after China threatened to throttle rare-earth exports to the United States.

President Donald Trump reassured investors that China isn’t serious, and everything “will all be fine.” Not everyone seems 100% convinced, however, and shares of pretty much every stock having anything to do with rare-earth materials — Energy Fuels included — is rising on elevated risk to the supply chain.

Image source: Getty Images.

Bad news for US is good news for UUUU

London’s Financial Times reports that the U.S. Defense Department will build a $1 billion stockpile of critical minerals to ensure supply chain continuity for defense systems.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of investment bank JPMorgan Chase (JPM 2.36%), is adding fuel to the fire. He commented that it is “painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing — all of which are essential for our national security,” and the JPM CEO says his bank plans to invest $10 billion, in loans and direct investments, over the next decade, to support several critical sectors: defense and aerospace, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, energy technology, and supply chain and advanced manufacturing.

Is Energy Fuels stock a buy?

Dimon’s prediction aligns well with news last week that Energy Fuels is raising $700 million in convertible debt. Even with $115 million in annual cash burn, Energy Fuels’ move last week gives the company six extra years to grow its rare-earth and uranium businesses and reach profitability.

Valued at more than 200 times next year’s earnings, Energy Fuels isn’t a buy just yet, but the picture is at least getting clearer.

Shares of Energy Fuels (UUUU 0.59%), a miner of uranium for use as atomic fuel in nuclear power plants, bounced back from their Friday slump on Monday, gaining 2.3% — then soared 7.8% more through 10:30 a.m. ET Tuesday.

It seems investors have gotten over their shock at Energy Fuels’ Friday money grab.

Image source: Getty Images.

Energy Fuels raises cash

Energy Fuels announced Friday it placed with private investors $700 million worth of convertible notes (that’s debt that can be converted into shares, diluting existing shareholders).

Energy Fuels got a great rate on the debt — just 0.75% interest — and a decent duration as well. The debt doesn’t come due until November 2031. Despite the favorable (to Energy Fuels) terms, demand for the debt was strong, and underwriters elected to expand the offering from its original size, ultimately placing all $700 million with bond investors.

If Energy Fuels decides to convert its debt into shares rather than repay it, the investors will be allowed to trade each $20.34 worth of debt they hold for one share of Energy Fuels stock. However, Energy Fuels noted it bought capped calls for $53.55 million, which effectively raise the conversion rate to $30.70.

Is this good news for Energy Fuels, or bad?

Investors Friday may have been spooked by the possibility of share dilution, but those fears seem to have since subsided. In their place is the understanding that Energy Fuels now has more than $645 million in cash at its disposal, with which to grow its twin businesses of mining uranium and rare earth metals.

Even burning nearly $115 million annually, that gives Energy Fuels almost six years to find its footing now. If the U.S. nuclear industry grows as fast as it’s expected to, that might be just long enough.

When Mukhtar Dahiru saw a TikTok video promising he could make money on WhatsApp, he clicked without hesitation. Within days, after he shared a one-time password with the “recruiters”, his WhatsApp account was hijacked, his cryptocurrency wallets drained. He later realised the “opportunity” had been a scam.

“The road is tricky, and this time I fell for it,” he said.

Behind his loss lies a wider scam network preying on thousands. For several Hausa-speaking social media users across northern Nigeria, the promise of making money has become a lure into a sprawling fraud that turns ordinary people into unwitting accomplices and casualties.

On TikTok, the promise appears in dozens of videos, usually featuring a speaker in Hausa urging viewers to join a WhatsApp group to start earning. “Click on the link below to learn how to make money,” one of the videos says.  “I’ve made a large amount on WhatsApp, and so can you.”

HumAngle’s month-long monitoring revealed that many of these accounts belonged to real users, while others used deepfakes or manipulated videos. Nearly all featured genuine human faces to strengthen credibility and lure victims.

What makes the scheme particularly effective is TikTok’s algorithmic boost. The clips are upbeat, under a minute, tagged with captions like “samu kudi ta WhatsApp” (“earn money on WhatsApp”), and often promoted through paid sponsorships. This visibility pushes them into thousands of feeds, magnifying their reach. 

As of January 2025, TikTok had an estimated 37.4 million users in Nigeria. Meanwhile, WhatsApp remains the country’s most widely used messaging app, with over 51 million active users — about one in four mobile lines nationwide. Together, these figures show how even a small fraction of TikTok’s audience clicking through can funnel hundreds of thousands of people into WhatsApp scam networks.

The funnel of fraud

Once viewers click the link from the videos, they are funnelled to hastily built websites or directly into WhatsApp groups, which present themselves as “training hubs” offering “tasks” or “affiliate opportunities”.

One WhatsApp group, named Daily Updates, had more than 400 members when archived by HumAngle. These groups act as the glue of the operation; hundreds of recruits are placed into shared chat rooms, where the scam is scaled and coordinated.

Inside these rooms, the onboarding phase is simple: surrender your credentials in exchange for small, regular payouts. This is where the exploitation sets in. LetShare.ng, a central website in the network, even promises ₦2460 instantly through QR codes that secretly grant scammers control of users’ WhatsApp accounts.

LetShare.ng was registered in December 2024, according to WhoIs.com, a website that documents who owns and registers a website. The registrant details are hidden, typical of scam operations. Several other related websites were created within weeks of each other and masked by privacy-protected registrars, giving the network a veneer of legitimacy through glossy logos and testimonials.

The glue holding this ecosystem together is referrals. On the LetShare site, recruits are promised ₦300 for every person they bring in. One man told HumAngle he had earned over ₦30,000 this way, meaning he had introduced more than 100 people. 

This referral model fuels relentless promotion on TikTok, as each recruit scrambles to register others under their name. “Everyone is looking for someone to register through them,” he explained. 

‘It looked like a real job’

The abstract funnel becomes devastatingly real in people’s lives.

This was how Aminu Usman nearly lost money. He told HumAngle that someone posing as his friend asked him for ₦5000, promising a quick repayment. Suspicious, Aminu called his friend, who denied sending the message. His friend later admitted he had been hacked after joining a so-called digital hustle group.

Others were less fortunate. One young man, who declined to give his name, told HumAngle that he had handed over his WhatsApp credentials after being promised steady commissions. “It looked like a real job,” he said. “They paid me ₦12,000 the first week after I gave them access to my WhatsApp account.”

However, within a short period, his WhatsApp number was suspended. He later learned it had been used to spread fraudulent offers to strangers, mostly among his contacts and which forced him to make a disclaimer.

For recruits like these, the cycle almost always ends the same way: suspension, blacklisted numbers, and reputations in tatters, while the operators move swiftly to fresh victims. The people caught in this web are sometimes referred to as “mules.”

“The motivation is always greediness,” Mahmud Labaran Galadanci, a cybersecurity expert, told HumAngle. “In reality, the people who join such schemes end up becoming victims through phishing attacks and leverage scams.”

The Hausa connection

What makes this operation distinctive is its local tailoring. Hausa is one of Africa’s most widely spoken languages, with more than 60 million speakers across Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and beyond. On platforms like TikTok, it bridges anglophone and francophone audiences, giving scammers both reach and trust.

HumAngle found dozens of Hausa-language TikTok videos promising ways to “make money on WhatsApp.” Some had racked up thousands of views, with comments reinforcing the illusion of legitimacy.

By using Hausa and familiar slang, operators project trust and cultural proximity. Viewers see themselves reflected on screen, searching for opportunity in a region where unemployment is high and digital literacy is low.

“It is not just about language,” said Mahmud. “It is about trust. These messages are crafted to convince people to click and join the long trail of the scheme.”

However, it is not happening only in Nigeria’s North. Similar schemes are targeting social media users in the country’s South and around the world, where authorities describe them as “task scams” — small paid actions that lure people into larger fraud.

Globally, platforms are struggling to respond. Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, periodically reports banning millions of accounts linked to scams. 

TikTok, meanwhile, insists it is stepping up enforcement. Announcing new safety guidelines that came into effect on Sept. 13, Sandeep Grover, the company’s Global Head of Trust and Safety, said: “Over 85 per cent of the content removed for violating our Community Guidelines is identified and taken down by automation, and 99 per cent of that content we remove before anybody reports it to us.”

“We want to make sure that our community is able to safeguard against such scams,” Grover added. In August 2024, the company also launched a Sub-Saharan Africa Safety Advisory Council.

Yet, HumAngle found that TikTok had accepted sponsored promotions for scam videos of this kind, despite policies that claim to prohibit it.

Back in Northern Nigeria, the consequences are particularly severe. Weak digital literacy and high unemployment make communities vulnerable, while the absence of Hausa-language moderation on TikTok has allowed scammers, like jihadists before them, to exploit the platform unchecked.

WASHINGTON — In an interview with Rachel Maddow this week promoting her new memoir, Kamala Harris was asked whether her book tour is part of a strategy to run again for the presidency in 2028.

“That’s not my focus at all,” Harris replied, dismissive of the idea. “It really isn’t.”

Democratic strategists agree that her book, “107 Days,” and the tour that has followed suggests Harris lacks a serious plan for a future in elected politics, generating more questions than clarity on her path forward and future role in public life.

The book has reopened a fractious intraparty debate over who is to blame for last year’s loss to President Trump. Polls show Harris’ standing in the field of 2028 Democratic presidential contenders as relatively weak for a figure who led the party less than a year ago. And even in California, her home state, Democrats prefer another potential candidate, Gov. Gavin Newsom, over her for the next contest.

A historically weak showing

Harris argues in her book she had too little time to mount a competitive campaign after President Biden announced he would drop out of the race that July, handing the party mantle to her with little notice.

She called it “reckless” to allow Biden to make the decision to run for reelection on his own, and on tour, has acknowledged responsibility for not speaking up more on the matter herself. But she has not stated explicitly that it was a mistake for him to enter the race in the first place.

Harris would ultimately post the worst electoral college showing for a Democrat since Michael Dukakis in 1988.

“I realize that I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on,” she told Maddow. “When I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything, I’m talking about myself.”

Potential 2028 candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, many of whom already are making visits to battleground states, have seized the moment of her tour to criticize her handling of the 2024 race. Harris wrote in the book that it was her duty as Biden’s vice president to remain loyal to him, despite acknowledging that, at 81, Biden “got tired” on the job.

“She’s going to have to answer to how she was in the room and yet never said anything publicly,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told a SiriusXM podcast last week.

The book touches on Shapiro as well as Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s former Transportation secretary and another possible contender in 2028, as figures she considered as potential running mates. But airing her assessments of active political aspirants has only drawn more scrutiny. On “Good Morning America” this week, asked whether her book had hurt her relationships with fellow Democrats, Harris replied, “that’s not my intention, and I hope not.”

“Harris, like other well-known Democrats, naturally wants to be a part of the national conversation — about 2024, 2026 and 2028. What happened, what should the party do, and who should lead it forward?” said Andrew Sinclair, an assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “These are all questions Democrats are actively debating now, and even if she decides not to run in the future, Harris has a high enough profile in the party to have a role in answering those questions.”

Passing on a potential run for governor of California, Harris told Stephen Colbert that she had decided America’s system of elected offices was no longer the venue for her to enact change. “I think it’s broken,” she said.

But her memoir and book tour have shed little light on what alternatives she might have in mind to remain a relevant figure in public life — or what vision she has for the Democratic Party going forward.

She concludes the book with a handful of platitudes on the need to invest in Gen Z.

“We need to come up with our own blueprint that sets out our alternative vision for our country,” she wrote.

Newsom better positioned

High-quality polls show Harris remains a leading choice for Democrats in the next campaign cycle, tied or slightly edged out by Newsom. But under the hood, data indicate that less than 20% of Democrats view her as an ideal party leader entering the coming race.

Newsom’s polling trajectory, on the other hand, has begun moving in the opposite direction.

A series of polls published late last month found support for the California governor had surged over the summer, as Newsom embraced high-profile battles with Trump over ICE raids in Los Angeles, national gerrymandering efforts and the cultural memesphere.

And after Trump took substantial time in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly this week to deride climate change as a “hoax,” Newsom is in New York, as well, to attend Climate Week, highlighting California initiatives in interviews with Colbert and the New York Times.

His combative appearances, looking forward to 2028 and beyond, offer a contrast with a book tour by Harris that has thus far focused on the past.

“Governor Newsom has deftly positioned himself as the national Democrat most consistently ready to stand up to the president, adopting the tools — his podcast — and tactics — in-your-face-social media — that proved so effective for the GOP ticket last time,” said Bruce Mehlman, a bipartisan campaign consultant in Washington.

But the pace of political change in Trump’s America makes current polling unreliable, Sinclair said.

“The 2028 election is far away at a time when the political situation in the United States is changing rapidly,” he said, adding: “At best, Democratic leaders today can put themselves in a position to be influential, but I do not think anyone knows enough about what is going to happen next to have much more of a plan than that.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Family of former DACA recipient who died in ICE custody says officials ignored his pleas for help
The deep dive: RFK Jr. wants an answer to rising autism rates. Scientists say he’s ignoring some obvious ones
The L.A. Times Special: How viral rumors worsened the fallout from an ICE raid at Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet

More to come,
Michael Wilner
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America’s already roiling debate around transgender rights sharply escalated in recent days after Charlie Kirk — one of the nation’s most prominent anti-transgender voices — was fatally shot by a suspect whose life and social circles have been meticulously scrutinized for any connection to the transgender community.

Taking over Kirk’s podcast Monday, top Trump administration officials suggested they are gearing up to avenge Kirk by waging war on left-leaning organizations broadly, despite law enforcement statements that the shooter is believed to have acted alone. Queer organizations took that as a direct threat.

Kirk railed against transgender rights in life, and just prior to being shot on a Utah college campus last week was answering a question about the alleged prevalence of transgender people among the nation’s mass shooters — an idea he had personally stoked, despite pushback from statistical researchers.

Those circumstances seemed to prime the resulting outrage among his conservative base to be hyper-focused on any transgender connection.

The connection was further stoked when the Wall Street Journal reported on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report that suggested — seemingly erroneously — that etchings on bullet casings found with the rifle suspected as being used in the shooting included transgender “ideology.”

It was further inflamed when Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said that suspect Tyler Robinson’s roommate and romantic partner — who he said was “shocked” by the shooting and cooperating with authorities — is currently transitioning.

Leading conservative influencers, some with the ear of President Trump, have openly called for a retribution campaign against transgender people and the LGBTQ+ community more broadly. Laura Loomer called transgender people a “national security threat,” said their “movement needs to be classified as a terrorist organization IMMEDIATELY,” and said that Trump should make transitioning illegal.

LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, meanwhile, have condemned such generalizations and attacks on the community and warned that such rhetoric only increases the likelihood of more political violence — particularly against transgender people and others who have been demonized for years, including by Kirk.

“The obsession with tying trans people to shootings is vile & dangerous,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), one of California’s leading LGBTQ+ voices, wrote on social media. “First they try to say the shooter might be trans & WSJ amplifies that lie. Once that fell apart, they pivot to ‘he lived with a trans person.’ Even if true, who cares? It’s McCarthyism & truly disgusting.”

Many political leaders have called for calm, and for people to wait for the investigation into the suspect’s motivations before jumping to conclusions or casting blame. Cox has said that Robinson’s political ideology, different from that of his conservative family, appeared to be “part of” what drove him to shoot Kirk, but that the exact motivations for the crime remained unclear.

“We’re all drawing lots of conclusions on how someone like this could be radicalized,” Cox said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “Those are important questions for us to ask and important questions for us to answer.”

Searching for a connection

Officials were expected to release charging documents against Robinson on Tuesday that could contain more information about a motive. However, the debate has hardly waited.

Both the political right and left have searched for evidence connecting Robinson to their opposing political camp.

One of the first pieces of information to catch fire was the ATF reporting on the bullet etchings including transgender “ideology” — which turned out to be untrue, according to Cox’s later description of those etchings. That reporting immediately inspired condemnations of the entire transgender community.

“Seems like per capita the radical transgender movement has to be the most violent movement anywhere in the world,” the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. said in a Rumble livestream Thursday.

On Friday morning, President Trump said “vicious and horrible” people on the left were the only ones to blame for the political violence. “They want men in women’s sports, they want transgender for everyone,” he said on “Fox & Friends.”

Trump was asked Monday afternoon if he thought the suspect acted alone.

“I can tell you he didn’t work alone on the internet because it seems that he became radicalized on the internet,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “And he was radicalized on the left, he is a left. A lot of problems with the left and they get protected and they shouldn’t be protected.”

The ATF declined to comment on the leaked report. The Wall Street Journal published an editor’s note walking back its reporting, noting that Cox’s description of the etchings included no references to the transgender community.

The Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ+ advocacy group, responded to the uproar by criticizing the Wall Street Journal for publishing unsubstantiated claims that fueled hateful rhetoric toward the transgender community.

“This reporting was reckless and irresponsible, and it led to a wave of threats against the trans community from right-wing influencers — and a resulting wave of terror for a community that is already living in fear,” the group said.

Spreading the narrative

The debate has heightened existing tensions around transgender rights, which Trump campaigned against and targeted with one of his first official acts — an executive order that said his administration would recognize only “two genders, male and female.”

He and his administration have since banned transgender people from military service, blocked the issuance of U.S. passports with the gender-neutral X marker, threatened medical providers of gender-affirming care for minors, and sued California for allowing transgender athletes to compete in youth sports.

In September, the Department of Justice also reportedly began weighing a rule that would restrict transgender individuals from owning firearms — a move that came after a shooter who identified as transgender killed two children and injured 18 others at a Catholic school in Minneapolis.

That shooting led prominent conservatives, including senior Trump administration officials, to link gender identity to violence. National security advisor Sebastian Gorka claimed that an “inordinately high” number of attacks have been linked to “individuals who are confused about their gender” — a trend he claimed stretched back to at least 2023, when a transgender suspect shot and killed three children and three adults at a Nashville Christian school.

After that shooting, Trump Jr. had said that “rather than talking about guns, we should be talking about lunatics pushing their gender-affirming bull— on our kids,” and Vice President JD Vance, then a senator, had said that “giving in” to ideas on transgender identities was “dangerous.”

After it was reported that Robinson’s partner is transitioning, Matt Walsh, a right-wing political commentator, wrote on X that “trans militants” pose a “very serious” threat to the country. Billionaire Elon Musk agreed, saying it was a “massive problem.”

Many in the LGBTQ+ community have strenuously pushed back against such claims, noting research showing most shootings are committed by cisgender men.

The Violence Prevention Project at Hamline University has found that the majority of shootings where four or more people were wounded in public were by men, and less than 1% of such shootings in the last decade were by transgender people.

An analysis by PolitiFact found that data do not show claims that transgender people are more prone to violence, and that “trans people are more likely to be victims of violence than their cisgender peers.”

A legacy amplified

Kirk espoused a Christian nationalist worldview and opposed LGBTQ+ rights broadly, including same-sex marriage. He called transgender people “perverted,” the acknowledgment of transgender identities “one of the most destructive social contagions in human history,” and gender-affirming care for young people an “unimaginable evil.”

Just before he was shot at Utah Valley University, Kirk had said that “too many” transgender people were involved in shootings.

It was not the first time Kirk had addressed the issue.

Days after the 2023 shooting in Nashville, Kirk went after then-White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for unrelated comments denouncing a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in state houses and saying the transgender community was “under attack.”

“It is the first shooting ever that I’ve seen where the shooter and the murderers get more sympathy than the actual victims,” he said, appearing to blame all transgender people for the attack.

The idea that liberals generally or members of the LGBTQ+ community specifically should be held accountable for Kirk’s killing has gained momentum in the days since. Vance and Trump advisor Stephen Miller seemed to allude to reprisals against left-leaning groups on Kirk’s podcast Monday, with Miller saying federal agencies will be rooting out a “domestic terror movement” on the left in Kirk’s name.

LGBTQ+ advocates called such rhetoric alarming — and said they worry it will be used as a pretext for the administration to ramp up its assault on LGBTQ+ rights.

SEOUL, Sept. 4 (UPI) — Just one day after President Lee Jae Myung’s cabinet approved the so-called “Yellow Envelope Law” on Tuesday, Hyundai Motors’ union launched its first partial strike in seven years, demanding the company notify labor in advance of new business ventures and overseas plant expansions, The Korea Economic Daily reported.

The law, passed by the National Assembly on Aug. 24 and set to take effect in early 2026, expands the scope of legal strikes to include management decisions such as mergers, restructuring and plant relocations.

It also limits corporate damage claims against unions. Analysts say the Hyundai union’s push reflects the law’s immediate influence on labor tactics.

Hyundai shut down assembly lines Wednesday in Ulsan, Jeonju and Asan for four hours, affecting an estimated 1,500 vehicles, Maeil Daily reported. GM Korea and HD Hyundai shipbuilding unions also staged partial walkouts to protest restructuring moves.

Observers warn the law, intended to protect workers from excessive corporate lawsuits, could embolden unions to intervene in management strategy, heightening labor unrest across Korea’s key industries, Maeil Business Newspaper reported.

Local authorities have issued fresh warnings against the risk of wildfires and urged people to take shelter, as Southern Europe experiences the summer’s first severe heatwave and as experts link the rising frequency and intensity of soaring temperatures to climate change.

Acute heatwaves were recorded in Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal through the weekend and into Sunday, with locals and tourists alike battling the sweltering conditions.

Ambulances were also on standby near tourist hot spots.

Two-thirds of Portugal was on high alert on Sunday for extreme heat and wildfires, with temperatures in Lisbon expected to top 42C (107F).

In Lisbon, 39-year-old pharmacist Sofia Monnteiro told the AFP news agency that despite advising people “not to go out” during the hottest hours of the day, “we have already had some cases of heat strokes and burns”.

Several areas in the southern half of Portugal, including Lisbon, are under a red warning until Monday night due to “persistently extremely high maximum temperature values”, said the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA).

Much of Portugal was also on high alert Sunday for extreme heat and forest fires – as was the Italian island of Sicily, where firefighters tackled 15 blazes Saturday.

In Italy, a few regions — Lazio, Tuscany, Calabria, Puglia and Umbria — were planning to ban some outdoor work activities during the hottest hours of the day in response to the record-high temperatures. Italian trade unions pushed the government to expand such measures at a national level.

On Sunday, the Italian Health Ministry placed 21 out of 27 monitored cities under its highest heat alert, including top holiday destinations like Rome, Milan and Naples.

Hospital emergency departments across Italy have reported an increase in heatstroke cases, according to Mario Guarino, vice president of the Italian Society of Emergency Medicine.

“We’ve seen around a 10-percent increase, mainly in cities that not only have very high temperatures but also a higher humidity rate,” he told the AFP.

It is mainly elderly people, cancer patients or homeless people, presenting with dehydration, heat stroke, fatigue.”

Greece was again on high wildfire alert with the heatwave there expected to continue throughout the weekend.

A large wildfire broke out south of Athens on Thursday, forcing evacuations and road closures near the ancient Temple of Poseidon.

Greek authorities deployed 130 firefighters, 12 planes and 12 helicopters to battle the blaze, while police evacuated 40 people, with five areas under evacuation orders.

In Spain, locals and tourists were desperately trying to keep cool, as temperatures reached as high as 42C (107F) in the southern city of Seville along with other locations in the south and central parts of the country.

Southern regions of Spain recorded temperatures above seasonal averages, prompting health alerts and safety recommendations from authorities. The country’s State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) has said that June is set to break yet another record, becoming the hottest such month since records started.

The ‘urban heat island’ effect

Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common across Europe’s southern region due to global warming.

A Lancet Public Health study published last year highlighted the increasing risk of heat-related deaths due to climate change. The study predicted that heat-related deaths could more than quadruple by mid-century under current climate policies.

While more people die from cold than heat, the study stressed that rising temperatures will offset the benefits of milder winters, leading to a significant net increase in heat-related mortality.

Scientists say climate change is stoking hotter and more intense heatwaves, particularly in cities where the so-called “urban heat island” effect amplifies temperatures among tightly packed buildings.

“The heatwaves in the Mediterranean region have become more frequent and more intense in recent years, with peaks of 37 degrees [Celsius, 100F] or even more in cities, where the urban heat island effect raises the temperatures even further,” said Emanuela Piervitali, a researcher at the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA).

Experts have warned that intense heat can affect daily life, especially for vulnerable populations such as the elderly and children.

Local authorities have advised against any physical activity during the hottest hours of the day, and recommended drinking plenty of fluids.

From Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, US wars left not freedom, but ruin. In a recent book, co-authors Noam Chomsky and Nathan Robinson expose how American elites sell violence as virtue, using the myth of democracy to justify endless war.

As California positions itself as a leader on climate change, former Los Angeles mayor and gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa is pivoting away from his own track record as an environmental champion to defend the state’s struggling oil industry.

Villaraigosa’s work to expand mass transit, plant trees and reduce carbon emissions made him a favorite of the environmental movement, but the former state Assembly speaker also accepted more than $1 million in campaign contributions and other financial support from oil companies and other donors tied to the industry over more than three decades in public life, according to city and state fundraising disclosures reviewed by The Times.

Since entering the race last year to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, Villaraigosa has accepted more than $176,000 from donors with ties to the oil industry, including from a company that operates oil fields in the San Joaquin Valley and in Los Angeles County, the disclosures show.

The clash between Villaraigosa’s environmentalist credentials and oil-industry ties surfaced in the governor’s race after Valero announced in late April that its Bay Area refinery would close next year, not long after Phillips 66 said its Wilmington refinery would close in 2025.

Villaraigosa is now warning that California drivers could see gas prices soar, blasting as “absurd” policies that he said could have led to the refinery closures.

“I’m not fighting for refineries,” Villaraigosa said in an interview. “I’m fighting for the people who pay for gas in this state.”

The refineries are a sore spot for Newsom and for California Democrats, pitting their environmental goals against concerns about the rising cost of living and two of the state’s most powerful interest groups — organized labor and environmentalists — against each other.

Villaraigosa said Democrats are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good in their approach to fighting climate change.

He said he hoped no more refineries would close until the state hits more electrification milestones, including building more transmission lines, green-energy storage systems and charging stations for electric cars. The only way for the state to reach “net zero” emissions, he said, is an “all-of-the-above” approach that includes solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear power and oil and gas.

“The notion that we’re not going to do that is poppycock,” Villaraigosa said.

Villaraigosa’s vocal support for the oil industry has upset some environmental groups that saw him as a longtime ally.

“I’m honestly shocked at just how bad it is,” said RL Miller, the president of Climate Hawks Vote and the chair of the California Democratic Party’s environmental caucus, of the contributions Villaraigosa has accepted since entering the race in July.

Miller said Villaraigosa signed a pledge during his unsuccessful run for governor in 2018 not to accept campaign contributions from oil companies and “named executives” at fossil-fuel entities. She said he took the pledge shortly after accepting the maximum allowable contributions from several oil donors in 2017.

Miller said that more than $100,000 in donations that Villaraigosa has accepted in this gubernatorial cycle were clear violations of the pledge.

That included contributions from the state’s largest oil and gas producer, California Resources Corp. and its subsidiaries, as well as the founder of Rocky Mountain Resources, a leader of the oil company Berry Corp., and Excalibur Well Services.

“This is bear-hugging the oil industry,” she said.

Environmental activists view the pledge as binding for future campaigns. Villaraigosa said he has not signed it for this campaign.

The economy is dramatically different than it was in 2018, Villaraigosa said, and working-class Americans are being hammered, which he said was a major factor in recent Democratic losses.

“We’re losing working people, particularly working people who don’t have a college education,” he said. “Why are we losing them? The cost of living, the cost of gas, the cost of utilities, the cost of groceries.”

Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said such statements are consistent with Villaraigosa’s messaging in recent years.

“Villaraigosa is squarely in the moderate lane in the governor’s race. That doomed him in 2018, when voters wanted to counterbalance President Trump and Villaraigosa was outflanked by Newsom,” Kousser said. “But today, even some Democrats may want to counterbalance the direction that they see Sacramento taking, especially when it comes to cost-of-living issues and the price of gas.”

He added that the fossil-fuel donations may not be the basis for Villaraigosa’s apparent embrace of oil and gas priorities.

“When a politician takes campaign contributions from an industry and also takes positions that favor it, that raises the possibility of corruption, of money influencing votes,” Kousser said. “But it is also possible that it was the politician’s own approach to an issue that attracted the contributions, that their votes attracted money but were not in any way corrupted by it. That may be the case here, where Villaraigosa has held fairly consistent positions on this issue and consistently attracted support from an industry because of those positions.”

Other Democrats in the 2026 governor’s race, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, former state Controller Betty Yee and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, have signed the pledge not to accept contributions from oil industry interests, Miller said.

Former California Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and businessman Stephen Cloobeck have not. (Cloobeck has never run for office before and has not been asked to sign.)

Other gubernatorial candidates have also accepted fossil-fuel contributions, although in smaller numbers than Villaraigosa, state and federal filings show.

Becerra accepted contributions from Chevron and California Resources Corp., formerly Occidental Petroleum, while running for attorney general. Atkins took donations from Chevron, Occidental and a trade group for oil companies while running for state Assembly and state Senate. And while running for lieutenant governor, Kounalakis took contributions from executives at oil and mining companies.

Campaign representatives for the two main Republican candidates in the race, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, said they welcomed oil-industry donations.

Villaraigosa is a fierce defender of his environmental record dating back to his first years as an elected official in the California Assembly.

As mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013, Villaraigosa set new goals to reduce emissions at the Port of Los Angeles, end the use of coal-burning power plants and shift the city’s energy generation toward solar, wind and geothermal sources.

The child of a woman who relied on Metro buses, he also branded himself the “transportation mayor.” Villaraigosa was a vocal champion for the 2008 sales tax increase that provided the first funding for the extension of the Wilshire Boulevard subway to the Westside.

But, he said, Democrats in 2025 have to be realistic that the refinery closures and their goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions could disproportionately affect low-income residents who are already struggling to make ends meet.

Villaraigosa’s comments underscore a broader divide among Democrats about how to fight climate change without making California even more expensive, or driving out more high-paying jobs that don’t require a college education.

Lorena Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker who became the leader of the California Labor Federation in 2022, said that while climate change is a real threat, so is shutting down refineries.

“That’s a threat to those workers’ jobs and lives, and it’s also a threat to the price of gas,” Gonzalez said.

California is not currently positioned to end its reliance on fossil fuels, she said. If the state reduces its refining capacity, she said, it will have to rely on exports from nations that have less environmental and labor safeguards.

“Anyone running for governor has to acknowledge that,” Gonzalez said.

Villaraigosa said that while the loss of union jobs at Valero’s Bay Area refinery worried him, his primary concern was over the cost of gasoline and household budgets.

His comments come as California prepares to square off yet again against the Trump administration over its environmental policies.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to revoke a federal waiver that allowed California to set its own vehicle emission standards, including a rule that would have ultimately banned the sale of new gas-fueled cars in 2035. Villaraigosa denounced the vote, but said that efforts to fight climate change can’t come at the expense of working-class Americans.

President Trump has also declared a national energy emergency, calling for increased fossil-fuel production, eliminating environmental reviews and the fast-tracking of projects in potentially sensitive ecosystems and habitats. The Trump administration is also targeting California’s environmental standards.

Villaraigosa, an Eastside native, started his career as a labor organizer and rose to speaker of the state Assembly before becoming the mayor of Los Angeles. Now 72, Villaraigosa has not held elected office for more than a decade; he finished a distant third in the 2018 gubernatorial primary.

Over the years, donors affiliated with the fossil-fuel industry have contributed more than $1 million to Villaraigosa’s political campaigns and his nonprofit causes, including an after-school program, the city’s sports and entertainment commission and an effort to reduce violence by providing programming at city parks during summer nights, according to city and state disclosures.

More than half of the contributions and support for Villaraigosa’s pet causes, over $582,000, came during his years at Los Angeles City Hall as a council member and mayor.

In 2008, billionaire oil and gas magnate T. Boone Pickens donated $150,000 to a city proposition backed by Villaraigosa that levied a new tax on phone and internet use.

Pickens made the donation as his company was vying for business at the port of Los Angeles, which is overseen by mayoral appointees and was seeking to reduce emissions by replacing diesel-powered trucks with vehicles fueled by liquid natural gas.

The rest of the contributions and other financial support flowed to Villaraigosa’s campaign accounts and affiliated committees while he served in the Assembly and during his two gubernatorial runs. These figures do not include donations to independent expenditure committees, since candidates cannot legally be involved in those efforts.

Villaraigosa said that while such voters don’t subscribe to Republicans’ “drill, baby, drill” ethos, he slammed the Democratic Party’s focus on such matters and Trump instead of kitchen-table issues.

“The cost of everything we’re doing is on the backs of the people who work the hardest and who make the least, and that’s why so many of them — even when we were saying Trump is a threat to democracy — they were saying, yeah, but what about my gas prices, grocery prices, the cost of eggs?” he said.

Times staff writer Sandra McDonald in Sacramento contributed to this report.

In Syria, optimism abounds. The unexpected decision by United States President Donald Trump to lift sanctions on the country, announced in Riyadh on Tuesday, is a relief for Syrians. They hope that the move will reintegrate Syria into the global economy, and bring much-needed investment into a country trying to recover from more than 50 years of dynastic family rule, as well as a nearly 14-year-long war.

The impact of Trump’s statement, which he said would give Syria “a chance at greatness” after the December overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, had an almost immediate effect, as the Syrian pound strengthened against the US dollar by about 25 percent, in a boost to a country suffering through economic hardship.

“Lifting sanctions on Syria represents a fundamental turning point,” Ibrahim Nafi Qushji, an economist and banking expert, told Al Jazeera. “The Syrian economy will transition from interacting with developing economies to integrating with more developed ones, potentially significantly reshaping trade and investment relations.”

Complex sanctions

While the announcement will likely lead to some imminent progress, there are still some stumbling blocks to the sanctions removal, analysts and experts told Al Jazeera.

US sanctions on Syria date back to 1979, when the country was under the iron grip of President Hafez al-Assad – Bashar’s father – and designated a “state sponsor of terrorism”. In the intervening years, additional sanctions were placed on the state and individuals associated with both the regime and the opposition, including current President Ahmed al-Sharaa – a result of his former association with al-Qaeda.

“There’s an entire building of a complex gamut of sanctions,” Vittorio Maresca di Serracapriola, sanctions lead analyst for Karam Shaar Advisory Limited, a consulting company with a focus on the political economy of the Middle East, told Al Jazeera.

Analysts said that Trump could remove certain sanctions through executive order, while some “foreign terrorist organisation” (FTO) designations could be removed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But other sanctions may be more complicated to end.

According to Maresca di Serracapriola, there are also a series of export controls, executive orders that target the banking sector, and acts that were passed by the US Congress.

“It is a huge moment for the country,” Maresca di Serracapriola said. “Of course, sanctions are very technical and complicated tools, so it’s still unclear how the US government will be able to implement what it promised.”

There are also questions about the timeline. The economic situation for many Syrians is dire, with 90 percent of the population living in poverty and approximately 25 percent jobless, according to the United Nations. The new Syrian authority is under extreme economic pressure, while at times struggling to exert its authority and provide security around the country.

Trump’s decision will come as a welcome reprieve, but Syrians may have to wait for sanctions relief to take effect. Analysts said the changes would come gradually and could take up to a year before “tangible results” are seen.

Sanctions relief alone will also not be enough. Analysts noted that Syria still needs banking reforms to comply and get off international monitoring lists. There will also need to be incentives from the US and other international actors to build trust among private investors looking to invest in Syria’s future.

“Achieving long-term growth requires implementing internal economic reforms, including improving the business environment, enhancing financial transparency, and developing productive sectors to ensure the Syrian economy effectively benefits from global opportunities,” Qushji said. “Lifting economic sanctions on Syria is a first step toward restructuring the economy, but it requires reform policies focused on sustainable development and global economic integration to ensure a real and productive recovery.”

Trump meets al-Sharaa

For months, everyone from Syria’s new leadership, analysts, and international actors has said there is a dire need for sanctions relief. But the US has previously taken an inflexible stance against al-Sharaa’s government, due to perceived ties to violence and armed groups.

Regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye, however, have built strong relations with the new government in Damascus. Before Trump’s pronouncement on Tuesday, multiple analysts told Al Jazeera they did not expect Syria’s sanctions relief to be high up on the agenda for the US or the Gulf states Trump visited during his three-country tour.

The US has taken a cautious, and at times conflicting, approach to Syria’s new authority since the fall of the Assad regime on December 8.

On March 9, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Syria’s new government for their failure to prevent sectarian violence and massacres in the country’s coastal region. But then, three days later, Rubio praised the agreement between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian central government in Damascus that ostensibly would see the SDF integrate into state institutions.

Previously, the US provided Syria a list of demands that included destroying the remaining chemical weapons, cooperation on “counterterrorism”, and the removal of foreign fighters from senior roles in the new government or military. There have also been suggestions that Syria might throw in a Trump Tower deal in Damascus and that Trump wanted ties between Syria and Israel before any sanctions relief.

But by Tuesday evening, everything had changed. Trump announced he would remove sanctions on Syria without conditions.

“The key emphasis here is it’s a Saudi-US deal rather than something between the US and Syria,” Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer in defence studies at King’s College in London.

Then, on Wednesday morning, Trump and al-Sharaa met for a little more than half an hour in the presence of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and with Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoning in. The meeting appeared to please Trump.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on his way to Doha, Trump called al-Sharaa a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”

After the talks, the White House released a list of issues Trump discussed with al-Sharaa. They included some of the US’s prior demands on Syria, such as dealing with foreign fighters and “counterterrorism” cooperation. But Trump also brought up Syria recognising Israel, as well as taking over ISIL detention centres in northern Syria.

“These don’t appear to be preconditions, but they could slowroll the lifting [of sanctions],” Natasha Hall, a senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.