policy

Liccia Romero is a prominent biologist and professor at the University of the Andes (ULA) in Mérida. Her academic and organizational work has been centered on the scientist-campesino alliance, in defense of food sovereignty and biodiversity in the páramo region, and in opposition to the logic of agribusiness.

In this interview, Romero discusses the challenges and achievements of the Mano a Mano (“Hand in Hand”) Agroecological Market, a grassroots initiative founded in 2010 that connects producers and consumers in Venezuela’s Andean region. She also talks about projects to expand agroecology, coordination with state institutions, and the importance of Venezuela’s Seed Law.

How have the producers at the Mano a Mano market experienced the revival of this space given the pandemic and the economic blockade, and what strategies have they employed to adapt to Venezuela’s current reality?

The combination of the blockade and the pandemic beginning in 2020 brought about a shift in Mano a Mano’s dynamics. We had a biweekly delivery system organized around prepaid orders, with a production rhythm established after 10 years of uninterrupted work.

We never even stopped during the guarimbas [insurrectionary opposition protests]. We always organized ourselves to hold the market every other Saturday and make our deliveries. And then, suddenly, the pandemic interrupted our activity with the lockdown. Later, although mobility restrictions were gradually eased, there were fuel shortages. This forced producers to employ various strategies, such as starting to sell directly from their farms.

For a time, Mano a Mano had a four-wheel-drive vehicle, thanks to support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, which helped with our distribution. Producers from remote areas would bring their harvests to a common location. This made it possible to organize a more feasible distribution route.

Another important development was that producers began transforming farm products into processed foods, with a longer shelf life. In this way, they reduced their reliance on delivering fresh produce and began processing a portion of it using various techniques. This slightly altered the profile of the production units.

Several Mano a Mano producer families have ventured into this field with great success, even creating lines of processed products. What’s interesting is that they not only process what they produce but can also source from nearby production units.

These are the strategies that have allowed people to sustain themselves. In other cases, smaller producers began selling at markets near their plots. There were also some who retired, or left production to their children, who no longer followed the agroecological methodology. 

When we resumed the distribution events last June, the producers were able to organize quickly and establish a monthly delivery system with a different model, no longer based on prepayment. We have not been able to reorganize that way because that prepayment model relies on a level of income that has disappeared in Venezuela and for which there are still no signs of recovery.

Nevertheless, we continue with these monthly deliveries, which are tailored to the preferences of a number of families who have always supported us and who returned when we relaunched the agroecological markets.

What is the profile of the producers who make up the Mano a Mano network, and how does this initiative bridge the gap between rural and urban areas?

Since Mano a Mano defines itself as a local production and consumption network with the city of Mérida as its hub, most of the producers who bring their products to the market are located in the state’s coffee-growing and livestock-raising regions.

This is an area located between 1,000 and 1,800 meters above sea level, where agroforestry crops and some short-cycle crops typical of this environment predominate. For example, in the drier areas, bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes are grown. In wetter areas, we have agroforestry systems with coffee and bananas. There are also unconventional crops that are native to this region such as sacha inchi, yacon, and chachafruto. We are trying to introduce them in our distributions.

Some people have had great success producing yacon honey, primarily for consumers with medical conditions like diabetes. Flours, such as chachafruto flour, are also processed for those seeking gluten-free foods. Additionally, we have sacha inchi, an innovative food that can be used to create novel recipes by combining it with coffee and cacao.

We also have production units at greater altitudes dedicated to growing root vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots, as well as vegetables.

Producers who are part of agroecological circuits contact us, and we establish connections so that some of them can coordinate with various local producers, bring the products, and be present at the market. In this way, we minimize travel as much as possible. The idea is not to exceed a radius of 90 km [from Mérida city]. That is the distance we believe is most reasonable for everything to work well.

Previously, Mano a Mano was organized through in-person assemblies, but currently, these interactions take place mainly in digital spaces. We have a group with the producers registered in the organization, where we plan delivery dates, conditions, and prices. Not all producers can join this group. Rather, each member has undergone a verification process on their farms and agrees to regular visits to monitor their production process.

Our goal is to hold in-person meetings two or three times a year to make decisions, such as undertaking new projects. On the administrative side, we have a board of directors that is institutionally responsible for the agreements we enter into. For example, the one we currently have with the Ministry of Agriculture.

What agroecological and traditional campesino techniques do Mano a Mano producers use for planting, soil management, and pest control, and how do they maintain productivity and quality?

There are several basic principles. The main strategy is diversification. We must move as far away from monocultures as possible. The more diverse the system, the better. It will offer many advantages in the face of technical, production, and market challenges.

What is the basis of that diversification? Seed diversity –open-pollinated seeds. That is why, at Mano a Mano, we promote and are part of all movements in favor of open-pollinated seeds and against privatization. Free seeds, in the hands of campesino families, stand in opposition to all processes of seed control. These two strategies –open-source seeds and crop diversification –form the foundation.

Then there are specific techniques. For example, depending on the circumstances, intensive soil revitalization and recovery processes can be carried out using mountain microorganisms, or as some call them, efficient microorganisms. 

There is also the use of organic fertilizers and the entire process of planning planting, management, and harvesting with a preventive approach to diseases and pests. The other strategy is consumer education,that is, teaching consumer families that their consumption should align with production cycles. Certain harvest times are more favorable for specific products.

On the other hand, depending on the circumstances, we have worked on implementing water-saving techniques in semi-arid areas and techniques to prevent erosion. We have also worked on the use of mulch and crop rotation as mechanisms to regenerate and protect soils. Depending on the area, we have used contour farming, minimum tillage, recycling, the use of crop residues, and on-site fertilizer production.

How does the recent support from the Ministry of Agriculture align with the autonomy and self-management nature of the Mano a Mano market, and what mechanisms have its members created to preserve their grassroots organization?

The question is interesting because we were the ones who sought that alliance, as we believe that the work we do should have an impact and win over those responsible for public policies.

One way to achieve this was to reach an agreement to occupy an office space and a garden at the Ministry, as well as to carry out joint activities: product exchange events, workshops, festivals, fairs, etc. Additionally, this is where the research projects supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology are carried out.

The most important thing right now is an initiative of participatory agroecological certification. We are developing a methodology to rigorously comply with this certification, so that we can issue seals endorsed by both government agencies and private entities.

Our collaboration with the Agriculture Ministry is based on mutual respect and collaboration. We focus on what we have in common, not on our differences.

We know that Mano a Mano is more than just a market. What other projects are currently underway?

Participatory agroecological certification is one of those projects that extends beyond Mano a Mano. Our idea is for this certification to serve as a tool for other agroecological hubs and campesino communities that want to establish sovereign certification processes.

In other words, we’re not interested in traditional corporate certification,which involves payments to companies or private certifiers,but rather in certifications that foster self-organization and self-management.

That is the methodology we are interested in, and we are now trying to establish links with other national organizations so that, once we have completed and submitted the respective reports to FONACIT [national science fund] and the Ministry of Science and Technology, we can democratize and share this proposal to begin transferring it to other spaces.

These are some of the things we promote: training programs in partnership with universities, the Institute of Environmental and Ecological Sciences, the graduate program in Agroecology at Simón Rodríguez University, etc.

Another initiative we carry out in partnership with other organizations is the Native Potato Ecofestival, an annual event now in its 14th year. This event takes place at the end of the year, in December, and not only celebrates the potato harvest but also showcases all the work done throughout the year, sharing it and promoting it on a national level. 

We invite students, cooks, and farmers to create a space for community, but also for presentations, knowledge transfer, and seed distribution. It has the support of partner networks such as PROINPA, the universities I mentioned, and other local seed producers and agroecological organizations.

Given the challenges small-scale campesinos face in a market dominated by agribusiness, does agroecology represent a real alternative? What policies would be needed to make it viable in the current context?

I think we need a funding policy for agroecological initiatives, and there hasn’t been one for a long time. So it’s often said that agroecology only works on a small scale. It only works on a small scale because there is no large-scale support in agroecology. 

If the available land isn’t the best, if people lack financing and have barely any access to basic resources like water and seeds, you can’t expect high yields. What we also need are policies that recognize the self-managed processes of agroecology as opposed to subjecting them to the savage capitalist market. 

If a producer, after all the effort, rigor, and sacrifice, obtains a product but lacks a properly identified marketing and distribution channel, that product is lost. We must create conditions for these agroecological products, including health permits, because it makes no sense for contaminated products to have an easier ride.

We need these regulations and laws to be updated and adapted to our circumstances so that they become tools for progress rather than obstacles. The same applies to participatory agroecological certification: it is not a mechanism for control, but rather for promoting and facilitating the agroecological transition.

Furthermore, Venezuelan food policy and jurisprudence should begin to protect non-polluting agriculture that promotes resource conservation. Because it often happens that an agroecological area, or even an organic or biodynamic one, is surrounded by production units that use methods threatening that agroecological production, and Venezuelan jurisprudence and laws favor those who pollute over those trying to produce in a healthy way. 

In fact, we are aware of cases where landowners who use agrochemicals intensively have sued families who have attempted to demand controls on the use of these chemicals. These lawsuits have been upheld by agricultural courts. In short, we need legislation that is consistent with the claim that Venezuela wants to conserve its resources by penalizing those who do not.

What is your current assessment of the issue of genetically modified foods in Venezuela, from seeds to imported foods? 

In Venezuela, we are currently engaged in a battle in which we had made tremendous progress with the approval of the Seed Law in 2015. The law was very important because, first, it declares seeds to be a common good. In other words, it prevents their privatization. And second, it declares the promotion and reproduction of genetically modified seeds to be contrary to the national interest and the biodiverse functioning of our ecosystems.

Therefore, this is a landmark law for the ecosystemic logic of our country. Right now, there is a battle taking place amid all the contradictions we are facing as a country invaded by a nuclear power. So, we are at risk of losing that progress in this complex political moment, and we have done very poorly in the battle to educate about food.

There is great confusion among the population regarding the issue of genetically modified foods and their risks. This is a highly dangerous weapon for controlling a nation, jeopardizing its food security and food sovereignty. This technology represents a form of domination disguised as a production technique. 

That is why the Venezuelan agroecological movement must ramp up an educational, advocacy, and training offensive so that our grassroots collectives, at least at the level of communes, producer organizations in rural areas, and consumer groups in cities, can be better informed about the risks. We still have time to capitalize on these comparative advantages of popular organization in the present and the future. 

The law has succeeded in curbing the entry of GMOs. If it did not exist, we would face a clear invasion of genetically modified seeds. What we have failed to achieve above all is the grassroots organization needed to defend this achievement and advance it further. We need popular movements to take ownership of the Seed Law as valuable and sovereign tool at their disposal.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday voted in favor of new restrictions on so-called “pretextual” traffic stops, signaling a growing impatience with the Police Commission’s failure to rein in a controversial LAPD tactic that critics say enables racial discrimination.

The vote requests that the department’s all-civilian watchdog adopt new guidelines similar to San Francisco, which bars police officers from pulling people over for broken taillights and other minor equipment violations unless there is a safety threat.

“Board of Police Commissioners: Get this done; we’re watching, no excuses,” said Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who shared stories of her late father being stopped by police with no explanation. “This is what this generation wants.”

If the new policy were adopted, LAPD officers would be prohibited from stopping motorists, bicyclists or pedestrians for minor violations “except in cases where the violation poses a significant and imminent safety risk.”

The unanimous vote followed sometimes emotional testimony at a City Council meeting from Angelenos about how their lives had been shaken by discriminatory traffic stops and searches.

Several speakers pointed to a growing body of research showing that minor stops disproportionately affect Black and brown motorists and do little to combat violent crime while eroding public trust. In recent years, there have been several high-profile traffic stops that resulted in officers or drivers being killed.

The current LAPD policy, in place since 2022, requires officers to record themselves on their body-worn cameras stating the reasons for suspecting a more serious crime had occurred when making a stop for a minor infraction.

The measure passed Wednesday stops short of a categorical ban that some have sought, but was still met with cautious optimism by traffic safety reformers.

“It helps place the city of Los Angeles on a path of ending racial profiling by LAPD,” said Chauncee Smith, of Catalyst California, a group that advocates for racial justice.

Smith’s group recently released a report that said such stops have continued to disproportionately affect Black and Latino drivers.

Smith said the new policy advanced by the City Council represents “a more formal, explicit prohibition,” adding that he hopes the Police Commission will ultimately give officers even less discretion in deciding when to make stops.

In a brief statement after the vote, Mayor Karen Bass thanked Harris-Dawson for his “leadership and dedication in moving this updated policy forward.”

“I will work closely with the Police Commission and Chief [Jim] McDonnell to implement it and to provide officers with appropriate training,” Bass said.

Any changes to the policy will probably draw strong challenges from within the LAPD and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the powerful union that represents the city’s rank-and-file officers.

McDonnell has publicly defended the stops as an essential law enforcement tool in the department’s fight against guns, gangs and drugs. He and some transportation safety advocates have argued that persistent traffic deaths — road fatalities have in recent years outpaced the number of homicides — indicate the city needs to crack down harder on reckless driving.

The proposed change comes against the backdrop of a broader effort by city leaders to wrest greater oversight of the LAPD from the Police Commission. A spokesperson for the civilian body said it would evaluate how to proceed.

“The Board intends to place this item on a forthcoming agenda to enable a full and transparent discussion of the Department’s pretextual stop policy, which will include the recommendations from the City Council,” the statement said.

McDonnell did not respond to a request for comment.

The vote was the latest move in a broader push to remove police officers from traffic enforcement. Some advocates have argued that more punitive approaches that prioritize arrests and traffic citations do little to keep city streets safe; instead, they argue the city should invest in unarmed civilian workers and speed bumps, roundabouts and other street modifications that could help curb unsafe driving.

Adrienna Wong, a senior attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday’s vote showed city leaders taking action on an issue that was personal to them.

“I think what you saw today in council was the council members have lived experiences and are hearing from their constituents and are voting to represent their constituents in a way that the Police Commission has not,” she said.

WASHINGTON — White House economists estimate that President Trump’s deals with pharmaceutical companies to drop some of their U.S. prescription drug prices to what they charge in other countries could save $529 billion over the next 10 years.

The analysis obtained by the Associated Press includes the first economy-wide projections behind a policy at the core of Trump’s pitch to voters going into November’s midterm elections for control of the House and Senate. Democratic lawmakers have been doubtful about the savings claimed by Trump and these new numbers are likely to trigger additional questions about the data.

Cost-of-living issues are at the forefront of voters’ concerns and higher energy prices tied to the Iran war have deepened the public’s anxiety. Trump has tried in part to address affordability concerns by focusing on his efforts to cut deals with companies so that the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. would no longer be dramatically higher than in other affluent nations.

“Now you have the lowest drug prices anywhere in the world,” Trump said at a Friday rally before a crowd of seniors in Florida. “And that alone should win us the midterms.”

The analysis was done by administration officials for the White House Council of Economic Advisers. They also estimated that federal and state governments could save a combined $64.3 billion on Medicaid during the next decade because of what Trump calls his “most favored nation” policy on drug prices.

Few of the details of the deals struck by the Trump administration and 17 leading pharmaceutical companies have been made public, making it hard to independently verify the projected savings. The White House analysis sought to estimate the prospective savings as more medications come onto the market and fall under Trump’s framework — with one model in the report tallying the possible savings at $733 billion over a decade.

Trump and his Department of Health and Human Services have touted his drug-pricing deals as transformative and urged Congress to codify their principles into law. Democratic lawmakers have challenged the administration’s claims of savings. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and 17 Senate Democrats in April proposed a measure requiring the administration to disclose the terms of the agreements signed by pharmaceutical companies.

“If these deals are so great, why is the Trump administration afraid of showing them to the public?” Wyden said when announcing the measure. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said his team would share details that didn’t include proprietary information or trade secrets.

The White House said it has not shared the text of the agreements because they include highly sensitive data that could move financial markets.

The potential savings estimated by the Trump administration would be substantial as Americans spent $467 billion on prescription drugs in 2024, according to the most recent government data available. The analysis is premised on the idea that foreign countries would also pay more for their prescription drugs, which would diversify drugmakers’ sources of revenue and preserve their ability to innovate with new treatments.

Outside economists have caveated that any savings might not flow directly to patients, many of whom already pay discounted prices for their drugs through their insurance coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office in October 2024 estimated that a plan similar to what Trump ended up adopting could reduce prescription drug prices by more than 5%, though the decrease “would probably diminish over time as manufacturers adjusted to the new policy by altering prices or distribution of drugs in other countries.”

The scope of the savings claimed by the Trump administration are likely to intensify the scrutiny by Democrats, who counter that any price reductions would be offset by higher costs for prescription drugs not covered by the “most favored nation” framework. One of their main critiques is that pharmaceutical companies have increased their profit margins while working with the administration.

In April, staff working for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., released an analysis that looked at 15 of the companies that have agreed to this drug-pricing plan and found that their combined profits jumped 66% over the past year to $177 billion. The report noted that the tax cuts Trump signed into law last year “exempted or delayed many of the most expensive drugs” from price negotiations with Medicare.

The Trump administration has countered that they consider Sanders’ critique to be flawed, saying that it’s based on the list prices for pharmaceutical drugs instead of the actual price that patients pay.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton consulted congressional leaders Wednesday on his policy toward Bosnia but continued to avoid a firm commitment to seek congressional approval before deciding to send American forces there.

The 1973 War Powers Act requires the President to notify Congress in most cases before sending troops into areas of potential hostilities and requires that the troops be withdrawn within 60 days if Congress does not authorize their presence.

The law was enacted over President Richard Nixon’s veto. Each successive Administration has argued that it represents an unconstitutional infringement on the President’s powers as commander in chief.

During the last 12 years of Republican administrations, Democrats in Congress have made a major issue of support for the War Powers Act. That puts Clinton and his aides in a potentially difficult situation, which they have tried to avoid by evading questions about precisely where they stand.

Clinton continued that approach Wednesday. “Ask my lawyer, I don’t play lawyer,” he said when asked at a White House photo session whether he believes the law is constitutional. “I think it’s worked reasonably well.”

Later, White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos said: “The President is reviewing the War Powers Act at this time. That is under review by the National Security Council and the counsel’s office.”

White House aides have fallen back on carefully worded pledges to consult with Congress in a manner that is “consistent with” the war powers law but not necessarily “pursuant to” it. Once Clinton decides on a course of action, he “will go to the Congress if it is required,” Stephanopoulos said.

President George Bush followed a somewhat similar path before the Persian Gulf War. Bush argued that he did not need congressional authorization before sending troops to the Gulf but urged Congress to pass a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq before the actual war began. Bush insisted, however, that he had the power to go ahead with the attack if Congress voted against him.

Clinton’s less clear-cut position appears to be acceptable to congressional leaders.

Although members of Congress have often touted the War Powers Act as an important safeguard against unbridled executive power, few over the last 20 years have relished the prospect of using it.

One indication of the weakness of the law came in the House on Wednesday when it finally got around to approving a resolution authorizing the sending of U.S. troops to Somalia. The authorization came five months after the troops were dispatched and the day after U.S. forces turned over control of the relief effort to the United Nations.

At a ceremony at the White House to honor troops returning from the African nation, Clinton linked their experiences with the events that may soon unfold in the former Yugoslav republics.

“Your successful return reminds us that other missions lie ahead for our nation,” he said. “You have proved again that our involvement in multilateral operations need not be open-ended or ill-defined, that we can go abroad and accomplish some distinct objectives and then come home again when the mission is accomplished.”

At a later White House ceremony, where he talked about the importance of rapid action on health care reform, Clinton defended his Administration against the charge that monitoring developments in Bosnia-Herzegovina has interfered with his other activities and that it has tried to do too many things at once.

“One of the most challenging things we have to do in this city at this time is to break a mind-set that we have one problem at a time and we’ll get on it and we’ll only think about that,” Clinton said.

Wildfire and insurance — issues amped by climate change — along with the price of gas, took center stage at the California governor’s debate on Tuesday night.

Here are some of the candidates’ defining statements, starting left of the stage:

Tony Thurmond

The Democratic State Superintendent of Public Instruction addressed the state’s wildfire insurance crisis, where private insurers have been dropping policies as climate changes fuels more frequent catastrophic fire. The state has allowed insurers to raise rates in return for writing more policies, but so far its backup FAIR Plan, meant to provide coverage when other companies will not, continues to grow.

Thurmond said he would withhold tax credits, subsidies and benefits from non-cooperative insurers, although moderators and other candidates raised questions about the legality of this strategy.

“The governor can certainly work with the Insurance Commissioner to say there should be no rate increase unless the insurance industry is actually writing policies. They have failed California in our greatest need. They’ve taken the money for premiums and then when people needed to have support to rebuild their homes, they said, ‘whoops, we’re not going to help you.’ Then they got a rate increase. I’m sorry, where I come from, when you do a bad job, you don’t get a raise.”

Chad Bianco

The Republican Riverside County Sheriff said insurers aren’t leaving California because of climate change, but because the state has failed to pass and enforce vegetation management and defensible space policies that would reduce wildfire risk.

“It wasn’t global warming, stop believing that. It was a failed environmental policy that doesn’t allow fire departments to prevent defensible space around our homes or clear out the brush for 30 years that are building in our mountains and in our hills that took out a city. [Insurers] specifically said we were going to lose a city, and our governor said ‘we don’t care.’ And so the insurance companies left.”

Inadequate brush clearance has contributed to other fires in the state, although it’s not a factor experts cite in the Los Angeles fires specifically.

Tom Steyer

The Democratic billionaire hedge fund founder who is positioning himself as the climate candidate in the race, touted his drive to make oil companies pay for damages from climate change, including rising insurance rates and homes lost to wildfires.

“In environmentalism, I have three real rules. Number one is polluter pays. It’s absolutely critical that if people are going to pollute and damage the environment and cause harm to their neighbors, they pay. Two, we have to include environmental justice in every single environmental rule. And third is we need to start to deploy all of the clean energy stuff that’s cheaper now and get us back to the front of the world in leading it.

“There is one person that the corporations are going after, including Big Oil, who is spending millions of dollars to stop me. The electric monopolies, PG&E, millions of dollars to stop me, because I’m the person on this stage who’s the change agent.”

Steve Hilton

The former Republican Fox News commentator said insurers should be allowed to raise rates consistent with actual wildfire risk. He also advocated for “modern forest management,” removing fuel from forests, as a way to protect against wildfires, reduce carbon emissions from fire, and revive the state’s timber industry.

“We can create jobs and opportunity in rural California and reduce carbon emissions in the process, because we won’t have the mega wildfires.”

Asked if he supports the transition to electrification, he promoted natural gas: “Yes, but let’s be sensible about electric. Right now, we have a fleet of gas fired power stations generating electricity that are running at 10 to 15% of their capacity, even though we have abundant natural gas in California that we could be using to generate affordable, reliable electricity that would lower the cost of electric bills for consumers and businesses.”

According to the U.S Energy Information Administration, California’s natural gas production provides less than one tenth of what the state consumes.

Xavier Becerra

The former Health and Human Services Secretary said he would call a state of emergency as governor to require wildfire insurers to freeze rates and come to the table.

“This affordability crisis is hitting every family, and we have to act as if this were a break glass moment … Rate payers have to understand what their risk is, so they understand why they are going to pay for what they’re going to pay for their home insurance. But an insurance company has to be open and transparent about how its pricing its policies so people can afford it.”

Moderator Julie Watts noted that California home insurance rates are below the national average and questioned the legality of a freeze.

Katie Porter

The former Democratic Orange County Congresswoman was asked whether California should keep its refineries. Two of them closed in the past year, reducing the state’s refining capacity by 20 percent and causing California to lean more heavily on imports.

She said the state should keep the remaining refineries open, but also rapidly scale up green energy to meet the state’s growing electricity demand: “Right now we need to keep all of our energy sources online. That’s just the reality that we’re in. … Right now those refineries, they’re up, they’re running, they’re creating good jobs. Let’s keep them there. But I want to be really clear … The people who work at those refineries, and the people who live in Kern County also face some of the worst pollution and lower life expectancies. Green energy gets us out of that.”

She also backed an idea to have state dollars cover insurance for insurers, known as reinsurance.

Matt Mahan

Democratic San Jose Mayor called to suspend the state’s 61 cent-per-gallon gas tax, used to fund road repairs, bridges, and public transport. The state is looking at a $216.4 billion revenue shortfall over the next decade due to increasing fuel economy and electric vehicles. The other Democratic candidates support keeping the tax; Mahan has instead proposed a flat fee on all vehicles.

He said: “I’m the only candidate on this stage who has pledged to suspend and then reform the gas tax. It is the most regressive tax in California. Working people, rural people, are spending three times as much maintaining our roads as wealthier EV owners.”

On the wildfire insurance crisis he said: “The government in Sacramento created so many restrictions, including taking over a year to approve any rate changes, prohibiting insurance companies from using climate data to project future costs, that they stopped writing new policies. The answer is bring them back, force them to compete, allow them to appropriately price risk, and then hold government accountable for maintaining our wildland, reducing all that vegetation and wildfire risk so that we don’t have these catastrophic fires.”

Antonio Villaraigosa

The former Democratic L.A. mayor expressed his concerns with the readiness of the state’s infrastructure to support a transition to electric vehicles.

“We need an all of the above strategy that understands we’ve got to transition from oil and gas to renewables. But here’s an example: the 2035 mandate [to ban gas-powered car sales]. We built 167,000 charging stations in the last 10 years. We need 2 million more to get to that mandate, and if we build them, we don’t have a grid. So we ought to build the grid instead of arguing about whether or not we need an all-of-the-above policy.”

In a 3-0 ruling, court says Trump administration misread a decades-old immigration law to justify mandatory detention.

A United States federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s practice of subjecting most people arrested in its immigration crackdown to mandatory detention without the opportunity to seek release on bond.

In a 3-0 ruling on Tuesday, a panel of the New York-based US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the administration relied on a novel but incorrect interpretation of a decades-old immigration law to justify the policy.

Writing for the panel, US Circuit Judge Joseph F Bianco, a Trump appointee, warned that the government’s reading “would send a seismic shock through our immigration detention system and society”, straining already overcrowded facilities, separating families and disrupting communities.

Lawyers for the Trump administration say the mandatory detention policy is legal under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, passed in 1996.

But Bianco said the government had made “an attempt to muddy” the law’s “textually clear waters”, arguing that the administration’s interpretation “defies the statute’s context, structure, history, and purpose” and contradicts “longstanding executive branch practice”.

Under the Trump administration policy, the Department of Homeland Security last year took the position that non-citizens already living in the US, not just those arriving at the border, qualify as “applicants for admission” and are subject to mandatory detention.

Under federal immigration law, “applicants for admission” to the US are detained while their cases proceed in immigration courts and are ineligible for bond hearings.

The Department of Homeland Security has been denying bond hearings to immigrants arrested across the country, including those who have been living in the US for years without any criminal history, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reports.

That is a departure from the practice under previous US administrations, when most non-citizens with no criminal record who were arrested away from the border were given the opportunity to request a bond while their cases moved through immigration court, according to AP.

In such cases, bonds were often granted to people who were deemed not to be flight risks, and mandatory detention was limited to those who had just entered the country.

Amy Belsher, director of immigrants rights’ litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the appeals court ruling affirmed “that the Trump administration’s policy of detaining immigrants without any process is unlawful and cannot stand”.

“The government cannot mandatorily detain millions of noncitizens, many of whom have lived here for decades, without an opportunity to seek release. It defies the Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and basic human decency,” Belsher said in a statement.

Conflicting rulings set stage for Supreme Court review

The New York court’s decision comes after two other appeals courts ruled in favour of the Trump administration’s policy.

Acknowledging the opposing rulings, Judge Bianco said the panel was parting ways with them and instead aligning with more than 370 lower-court judges nationwide who have rejected the administration’s position as a misreading of the law.

The split among the courts increases the likelihood that the US Supreme Court will weigh in.

The latest ruling also upheld an order by a New York judge that led to the release of Brazilian national Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, who was arrested by immigration officials last year while driving to work after living in the US for more than 20 years.

“The court was right to conclude the Trump administration can’t just ⁠reinterpret the law at its own whim,” Michael Tan, a lawyer for Barbosa at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

The Department of Justice, which is defending the mandatory detention policy in court, did not respond to a request for comment.

President Obama is planning to speak in the “near future” on U.S. policy in the Mideast, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday.

“It’s a speech to a broader audience than just the Arab world,” Carney said at his televised briefing. He didn’t specify when or where the president will speak, but said it will be in “the relatively near future.”

Obama is scheduled to begin a five-day European trip May 23.

The speech will come as the United States faces a slew of issues in the Middle East, including pro-democracy uprisings in several countries, a stalled Mideast peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, and the ongoing issue of nuclear proliferation and Iran.

The speech also will come within weeks of the U.S. raid in Pakistan during which terrorist leader Osama bin Laden was killed. The raid has raised questions from some about the future of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, which the West invaded seeking to end the Taliban state that was sheltering terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The raid has also raised questions about what Pakistan leaders knew about Bin Laden and whether the founder of Al Qaeda was being protected by elements of the Pakistani intelligence community.

Obama is scheduled to meet next week with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, a strong U.S. ally, and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been invited to address Congress. Efforts to bring peace between Netanyahu’s government and the Palestinians have bogged down despite early U.S. efforts. Complicating that issue is the apparent reconciliation between Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian National Authority, and Hamas, which controls Gaza, the other part of the Palestinian entity. Israel and the United States view Hamas as a terrorist group.

In 2009, Obama visited Cairo in what was billed as an overture to the Islamic world, still smarting from the Bush years and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama mainly spoke of the positive power of Islam as a world force.

Since then, much of the Arab world has been shattered by ongoing pro-democracy revolutions and, in some cases, civil wars and extensive state repression.

In some countries, notably Syria and Libya, where the United States has had long-term questions about the rulers, the United States strongly condemned the use of force against citizens and took even more severe actions. The Obama administration helped engineer a United Nations resolution that has imposed a no-fly zone on Libya, which is being enforced by NATO. The Obama administration has also spoken out forcefully against Syria’s violence against its citizens.

Though it has condemned state violence, the Obama administration has been less forceful with some nations with friendlier governments, such as Yemen and Bahrain, and it was slow to condemn Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who was eventually deposed by the military after extensive demonstrations.

Michael.muskal@latimes.com

Twitter.com/LATimesmuskal

HOUSTON — A Houston city ordinance that limited police officers’ cooperation with federal immigration agents was amended on Wednesday after Texas’ governor threatened to take away millions of dollars in public safety grants.

Houston, Austin and Dallas — three of the state’s biggest cities and Democratic strongholds — are being confronted by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott with threats of losing public safety dollars over policies that dictate how law enforcement interacts with federal immigration authorities. The three cities are being threatened with the loss of about $200 million in public safety funding, including tens of millions expected to cover security at World Cup matches this summer in Dallas and Houston.

Two weeks ago, the Houston City Council passed the ordinance, which eliminated a requirement that Houston police officers wait 30 minutes for agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pick up someone with a nonjudicial administrative warrant. If ICE agents didn’t show up in time, police officers took a detained person’s information and then released them.

But Abbott warned city officials that the new ordinance and its limitation on cooperating with ICE agents violated the terms of $110 million in state grants Houston had received for police and security during the World Cup games the city is hosting in June.

Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton had also filed a lawsuit against Mayor John Whitmire and members of the City Council over the ordinance, accusing them of violating a 2017 state law that prevents cities from adopting policies that limit the enforcement of immigration laws and that also banned “sanctuary city” policies in the state. There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe limited cooperation with ICE.

After more than two hours of discussion during its weekly meeting, the Houston City Council voted 13 to 4 to make changes to the ordinance. Whitmire said he had consulted with Abbott’s office about making changes that would prevent Houston from losing its funding.

The amended ordinance deletes language that highlighted that administrative warrants — versus warrants signed by a judge — that ICE agents use to take individuals into custody are not enough for officers to arrest or detain an individual.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire speaks during a City Council meeting on Wednesday.

(Raquel Natalicchio/AP)

“We have no alternative for Houston to survive, prepare for [the World Cup], patrol these neighborhoods,” Whitmire said. “We’ve got to have today the restoration of the $114 million.”

Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said the governor expects any policy Houston police adopt has to comply with the city’s certification that it will fully cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security.

“This vote is a step in the right direction after Houston leaders put public safety at risk with reckless policies that undermined law enforcement,” Mahaleris said in a statement.

Councilmember Abbie Kamin, one of three members who had pushed for the ordinance, voted against amending it, saying that doing so was giving in to bullying tactics from state leaders.

“If we roll over now to a bully, what will he come for next?” Kamin said.

Councilmembers Edward Pollard and Alejandra Salinas, who also pushed for the ordinance, said they remained hopeful the changes approved Wednesday would not violate individuals’ constitutional rights and wouldn’t result in people being held on nonjudicial warrants.

Nikki Luellen, an advocate for criminal justice reform for the ACLU of Texas, called the amended ordinance “a green light for deeper collaboration between ICE and the Houston Police Department.”

Martha Castex-Tatum was one of several council members who had supported the ordinance but voted in favor of amending it in order to protect the city’s finances.

“For some people, this may feel like surrender. It’s not. It’s real stewardship,” Castex-Tatum said.

Dallas officials have said they are committed to ensuring public safety.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a moderate Democrat, said the local policy complies with state law. He said Abbott’s threat to cut nearly $3 million in Austin would cut trauma aid for police officers and sexual assault victims.

“We don’t have the time and will not play into this political theater,” Watson said.

Austin officials have since indicated they could try to negotiate with Abbott.

The debate in Houston and other Texas cities comes during fraught times. Whitmire and other local leaders in many of Texas’ left-leaning urban areas have tried not to draw the federal government’s attention amid the aggressive immigration crackdown by President Trump’s administration.

Lozano writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jim Vertuno in Austin contributed to this report.

Japan could soon sell weapons overseas, including fighter jets, in major shift from pacifist policies introduced after World War II.

The cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has lifted a ban on exporting lethal weapons, including fighter jets, in a major shift to Japan’s pacifist post-World War II constitution.

In a post on X announcing the changes on Tuesday, Takaichi did not specify which weapons Japan would now sell overseas. However, Japanese newspapers said the changes would encompass fighter jets, missiles and warships, which Japan has recently agreed to build for Australia.

“With this amendment, transfers of all defence equipment will in principle become possible,” Takaichi said, adding that “recipients will be limited to countries that commit to use in accordance with the UN Charter”.

“In an increasingly severe security environment, no single country can now protect its own peace and security alone.”

At least 17 countries will be eligible to buy weapons manufactured in Japan under the changes, Japan’s Chunichi newspaper reported, adding that this list may be expanded if more countries enter into bilateral agreements with Japan.

Previous rules, introduced in 1967 and enacted in 1976, had limited Japanese military exports to non-lethal arms, such as those used for surveillance and mine sweeping, Japan’s Asahi newspaper reported.

Asahi also reported that Japan will still restrict exporting weapons to countries where fighting is currently taking place, but exemptions are allowed under “special circumstances” where Japan’s national security needs are taken into account.

Countries interested in buying Japanese-made weapons include Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Indonesia, which recently signed a major defence pact with the United States, Chunichi reported, citing Japan’s Ministry of Defence.

Tokyo’s change in policy comes soon after Japan and Australia signed a $7bn deal that will see Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries build the first three of 11 warships for the Australian navy.

Takaichi sends offering to controversial war shrine

The changes announced by Takaichi on Tuesday come amid reports that the Japanese prime minister had sent a ritual offering to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on the occasion of its spring festival.

Built in the 1800s to honour Japan’s war dead, the shrine includes the names of more than 1,000 convicted Japanese war criminals from World War II, including 14 who were found guilty of “Class A” crimes.

Visits by Japanese officials to the shrine have long been considered insensitive to the people of China, South Korea, and other countries that Japanese soldiers brutalised during the war.

After the defeat of Axis countries, including the bombing of Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, Japan introduced a new constitution renouncing participation in war.

However, Takaichi, considered a China “hawk” and sometimes referred to as Japan’s “Iron Lady”, is among a number of recent Japanese leaders to have pushed back against the country’s pacifist stance.

Once he got into power, Hugo Chávez spared no effort to reverse the neoliberal policies implemented in the 80s and 90s. This meant impressive advances for the Venezuelan working class.

In this 2006 speech, Chávez paid special attention to the Fourth Republic’s policies to increase the precariousness of the workers and favor business interests, particularly by replacing wages with bonuses.

With the economy under merciless US attacks in recent years, the Venezuelan government has favored non-wage bonuses, sparking widespread debate within Chavismo and criticism from trade unions.

Source: Tatuy Tv

April 16 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Thursday announced visa restrictions on 26 people across the Western Hemisphere as the State Department unveiled a “significant expansion” of an existing policy to deny entry to those accused of working with U.S. adversaries to undermine Washington’s interests in the region.

Those blacklisted were not identified in the State Department release, which said they were being punished for destabilizing U.S. regional security efforts, undermining U.S. economic interests, conducting influence operations targeting the sovereignty and stability of nations in the region or enabling adversaries to acquire or control key assets and strategic resources in the hemisphere.

“President Trump’s National Security Strategy makes clear: this Administration will deny adversarial powers the ability to own or control vital assets or threaten the security and prosperity of the United States in our region,” a State Department spokesperson said.

“The Department of State is working to advance American leadership in our hemisphere, protect our homeland and ensure access to vital routes and areas throughout our region.”

The blacklisting was permitted as the State Department said it was announcing “a significant expansion” of an existing visa restriction policy, one first announced in early September, permitting the Trump administration to deny visas to Central American nationals accused of undermining the rule of law in the region on behalf of China.

The move comes as the Trump administration seeks to expand its influence in the Western Hemisphere. Under what some administration officials have called the “Donroe Doctrine,” Trump has sought to reassert U.S. dominance in the region in the Western Hemispher and push back on foreign influence, invoking a modern corollary to the Monroe Doctrine of the 1820s.

That initial policy specifically targeted those in Central America who collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party, while the expansion includes anyone in the Western Hemisphere who aids any of the United States’ adversaries.

China protested the earlier version of the policy in November. In a statement from its embassy in Washington, Beijing said the United States imposed visa restrictions on nationals from Panama and other Central American nations over their ties to China.

“Turning visas into political leverage runs against #UN Charter and the principles of sovereign equality and non-interference,” the embassy said. “Central America is no one’s backyard.”

With the global attention fixated on the diplomatic efforts to end the war on Iran, Israel has systematically escalated its attacks on Gaza and choked off vital aid, plunging the besieged enclave into what economic experts are now calling an “engineered, compounded famine”.

The number of aid trucks entering Gaza has dropped drastically in violation of the October 2025 ceasefire with Hamas. Since then, the Government Media Office in Gaza has recorded 2,400 military violations by Israeli forces, resulting in the killing of more than 700 Palestinians.

On Tuesday, Israel’s military killed at least 11 Palestinians, including two children, in separate attacks across the war-torn Strip.

The intensity of these attacks spiked during peak regional tensions. Between February 28 and April 8, while Israel and the US were engaged in a bombing campaign against Iran, Israeli forces bombed Gaza on 36 out of those 40 days.

In the last five weeks alone, more than 100 people have been killed, including Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Wishah. Israel has killed more than 72,336 people since launching the brutal military offensive on October 7, 2023.

The ‘truck deception’

While Israel frequently claims it is allowing hundreds of aid trucks into Gaza, Palestinian officials and economic experts argue these figures are a deliberate mathematical deception.

According to the Government Media Office, only 41,714 aid and commercial trucks have entered Gaza over the past six months. This represents a mere 37 percent of the 110,400 trucks stipulated under the ceasefire agreement. The fuel situation is even more critical, with only 1,366 fuel trucks entering out of a promised 9,200 – an abysmal 14 percent compliance rate.

Recent daily logs highlight the severity of the bottleneck. On April 13, a total of only 102 aid trucks and 7 fuel trucks were allowed into the entire Strip, alongside 216 commercial trucks – a fraction of the more than 600 total trucks required daily under the “ceasefire” deal. By April 14, the numbers remained critically low with 122 aid trucks and 12 fuel trucks entering.

Crucially, Israeli authorities entirely shut down additional entry points like the Zikim and Kissufim crossings, which had processed dozens of commercial and aid trucks just a day prior, bottlenecking all limited traffic exclusively through Karem Abu Salem.

Mohammed Abu Jayyab, a Palestinian economic expert based in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that Israel utilises a “technical and commercial deception” to inflate these numbers.

“An Israeli truck carries up to 32 or 34 pallets… which are then unloaded into two or three smaller, dilapidated Palestinian trucks on the Gaza side,” Abu Jayyab explained. “Consequently, the UN and Israel count double or triple the actual number of Israeli trucks entering.” One pallet holds roughly 1 tonne of goods or food items.

Furthermore, Israel recently banned mixed-load shipments. If a merchant brings in 20 pallets of sugar, the remaining 12 pallet spaces on the truck must remain empty, yet it is still registered as a full commercial truck.

“The political agreement stipulated a ‘truck’ but did not specify quantities, weights, or the number of pallets,” Abu Jayyab noted, allowing Israel to weaponise logistics to restrict aid while appearing compliant.

Engineering starvation

This logistical strangulation is part of a broader strategy. Hassan Abu Riyala, undersecretary of the Ministry of National Economy in Gaza, stated in a meeting published on the ministry’s official Telegram channel that Israel is “engineering a policy of starvation”.

To ensure chaos in the local markets and sky-high prices, Israel has deliberately dismantled civil regulatory bodies. “The occupation targeted the majority of the crews that monitored prices, and assassinated the [former] undersecretary of the Ministry of Economy and five directors general during the war,” Abu Riyala said.

The results have been devastating, basic commodities have become scarce, and bread production has plummeted to 200 tonnes daily, far below the 450 tonnes required to feed the population.

“We manage this structural deficit under exceptional and coercive conditions,” Ismail Al-Thawabteh, director general of the Government Media Office, told Al Jazeera.

He described the ongoing reduction of supplies despite the truce as a “systematic restriction of basic supplies” that pushes the population towards dangerous levels of food insecurity. Fresh produce has skyrocketed, with 1kg (2.2lb) of tomatoes jumping from $1.50 to nearly $4 in a matter of weeks.

Moreover, the humanitarian catastrophe is being accelerated by the withdrawal of major aid groups. Al-Thawabteh noted that the scaling back or suspension of operations by key international institutions, most notably the World Food Programme (WFP), due to Israeli restrictions, represents a “highly dangerous development” that threatens the complete collapse of Gaza’s relief system.

“We issue an urgent appeal to the international community and the guarantors of the agreement to immediately pressure Israel to open the crossings… before reaching a point of no return and an imminent human explosion,” he said.

A ‘compounded famine’

The crisis has evolved beyond a simple lack of food; it is now a complete collapse of the Palestinian economy.

Abu Jayyab described the current situation as a “compounded famine”. With unemployment soaring to 80 percent and the destruction of more than 160,000 jobs across industrial, agricultural, and commercial sectors, the population has entirely lost its purchasing power.

“It has become illogical to link the entry of food supplies from the crossings to their availability to Palestinian citizens,” Abu Jayyab told Al Jazeera. Even when goods reach the market, between 70 to 80 percent of families simply cannot afford to buy them due to the total absence of income.

This extreme deprivation is forcing civilians into life-threatening alternatives. “The return of long queues for bakeries, and citizens resorting to burning plastic and waste in the absence of cooking gas, are dangerous field indicators of an unprecedented deterioration,” Al-Thawabteh warned, noting that government health facilities are currently struggling to treat respiratory and skin diseases resulting from this toxic pollution.

The medical blockade

Meanwhile, the stranglehold extends to Gaza’s most vulnerable patients. While the ceasefire agreement mandated the opening of the Rafah crossing for medical evacuations, Israel has kept the borders tightly restricted.

Over the past six months, only 2,703 people have been allowed to cross through Rafah out of an expected 36,800 – a compliance rate of just 7 percent. Consequently, only 8 percent of the severely wounded and chronically ill patients slated for urgent medical evacuation have been permitted to leave. According to the World Health Organization, roughly 18,000 people are still trapped in Gaza waiting for life-saving treatment abroad.