Fareed's take: Trump's immigration woes give Democrats an opportunity
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Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why does the White House want to redesign gas cans? Explaining the situation
The White House says it wants to 'Make Gas Cans Great Again.' Under a plan announced July 24 by President Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency, the federal government is encouraging manufacturers to add vents to portable fuel containers, also known as gas cans. It would effectively reverse a 2009-rule by federal environmental officials at the time that required portable gas cans - used for lawnmowers, chainsaws, ATVS and stranded vehicles - to have special vents that stop the vapors from escaping. Proponents of that rule - which was finalized in 2007 - said the vapors that escape contributed to ozone pollution. But the 2009 rule created an online market for pre-ban gas cans among buyers dissatisfied with the new cans. Why does Trump want to redesign gas cans? 'Gas cans used to pour gas,' Trump's head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, said on X, formerly Twitter. 'Now they just dribble like a child's sippy cup.' But many modern designs are often infuriatingly ineffective at actually filling tanks because the vents work so poorly, critics argue. Instead of stopping vapors from flowing out the complicated spouts and relief valves, the new designs often cause gasoline spills, which some critics say are far worse than a tiny amount of vapor escaping from an older design. Some rules for gas cans will still remain in place Other rules for gas cans have to remain in place under federal law, like making sure they're child-resistant and limiting the risk of flash fires. What happens next for gas cans? The EPA's announcement is non-binding for manufacturers and doesn't prohibit the vents. Rather, the EPA is asking manufacturers to redesign the gas cans to have vents 'to facilitate fast and smooth fuel flow.' This article contains material from USA TODAY Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for and The Record. Email: munozd@ Twitter:@danielmunoz100 and Facebook This article originally appeared on Gas can redesign considered by Trump White House. Here's why
Politico
10 minutes ago
- Politico
ICE Is Overplaying Its Hand. We've Seen It Happen Before.
Out of this breach emerged the Compromise of 1850, a grand bargain designed to preserve the Union. Under its provisions, California entered the Union as a free state, but the citizens of other former Mexican territories were left to make their own determinations about slavery. Congress abolished the slave trade, but not slavery, in Washington, D.C. And, in return for these concessions, Southern politicians secured what would prove to be the most incendiary component of the deal: the Fugitive Slave Act (FSA) of 1850. The new act inspired widespread disgust throughout the North. The law stripped accused runaways of their right to trial by jury and allowed individual cases to be bumped up from state courts to special federal courts. As an extra incentive to federal commissioners adjudicating such cases, it provided a $10 fee when a defendant was remanded to slavery but only $5 for a finding rendered against the slave owner. Most obnoxious to many Northerners, the law stipulated harsh fines and prison sentences for any citizen who refused to cooperate with or aid federal authorities in the capture of accused fugitives — much in the same way the Trump administration has threatened to jail persons who impede its immigration raids. Before the FSA, formerly enslaved people were able to build lives for themselves in many northern communities. They found homes, took jobs, made friends, started families, formed churches. But after the FSA, they were permanent fugitives — and anyone who employed them, associated with them or provided them housing were accomplices. Early enforcement made immediate martyrs of ordinary people and pierced the illusion that slavery was just a Southern problem. In 1851 federal agents in Boston arrested Thomas Sims, who had escaped enslavement in Georgia, and marched him to a federal courthouse under guard by more than 300 armed soldiers to prevent a rescue. For Boston, a city whose history was steeped in the struggle against King George's standing army, it was an ominous display. Sims' hearing was, just as the law intended, shambolic, and he was ultimately returned to Georgia. (He would later escape a second time during the Civil War.) Want to read more stories like this? POLITICO Weekend delivers gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun every Friday. Sign up for the newsletter. That same year, Shadrach Minkins, a waiter who had also fled enslavement to Boston, was seized in broad daylight. This time, word traveled fast, and a local 'vigilance committee' — interracial groups formed to monitor and, when necessary, resist enforcement of the fugitive slave law — assembled, with an eye toward liberating the accused man. Awaiting a hearing in federal custody, Minkins was suddenly rescued in a dramatic confrontation witnessed by attorney Richard H. Dana, Jr. 'We heard a shout from across the courthouse,' Dana recalled, 'continued into a yell of triumph, and in an instant after down the steps came two negroes bearing the prisoner between them with his clothes half torn off, and so stupefied by his sudden rescue and the violence of the dragging off that he sat almost dumb, and I thought had fainted. ... It was all done in an instant, too quick to be believed.' Minkins made it to Montreal, where he lived the rest of his life in freedom.
New York Post
12 minutes ago
- New York Post
Psychologists predicted Trump's 2024 win before a single vote was cast — here's how they did it
Psychologists pulled off what political pundits and polls failed to do: predict the 2024 presidential election winner. Before a single ballot was cast in 2024, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say they already predicted Donald Trump as the winner by tracking how optimistically each candidate explained bad news. While Trump's tone grew increasingly upbeat in the final weeks of the campaign, Kamala Harris's stayed flat. That shift correctly forecast not just that Trump would win, but by how much, according to a new study from Penn's Positive Psychology Center. 4 Trump's 2024 win was predicted weeks before the election by UPenn psychologists who tracked his rising optimism — a shift that set him apart from Kamala Harris, according to a new study. The Washington Post via Getty Images 'Starting around October 10 or so, Trump started to get significantly more optimistic,' Martin Seligman, the study's co-author and a professor of psychology at Penn, told The Post. 'By the 27th, it was a very large difference between Harris and Trump.' The team analyzed 1,389 explanations of negative events — such as war, crime, or economic hardship — from both candidates. Their dataset drew from speeches, interviews, and their only presidential debate, all delivered between early September and October 27. Each explanation was scored using the CAVE method, or Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations, a positive psychology technique that analyzes how people explain events in speech or writing. Researchers used it to measure optimism by assessing whether causes were described as temporary, specific, and fixable. The narrower and solvable the cause, the more 'optimistic' the candidate's message. 4 Kamala Harris and Donald Trump spoke during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. AFP via Getty Images Trump referenced more than 1,000 negative issues or events — over four times the number cited by Harris — often blaming outside forces while insisting the problems were fixable, usually by himself, the study found. Harris, by contrast, described deep, lasting threats with little sense of resolution, Seligman said. To see whether any other speech patterns could have predicted the results, the researchers also looked at emotional tone, focus on past vs. future and language about control or responsibility. None of them tracked with the outcome. Optimism stood alone. Seligman's earlier research found that more optimism predicted the winner in 9 out of the 10 elections between 1948 and 1984. 4 Before a single ballot was cast in 2024, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say they already predicted Donald Trump as the winner by tracking how optimistically each candidate explained bad news. AFP via Getty Images After that, he advised both political parties on using optimism in their campaigns. But when candidates began scripting fake optimism, he shelved the method. He only revived it this cycle because Trump's off-the-cuff style allowed for real-time analysis. The researchers encrypted their prediction before Election Day and shared it with four outside verifiers, including Wall Street Journal reporters Lara Seligman — daughter of Martin Seligman — and Al Hunt, University of Washington political scientist Dan Chirot, and Hope College psychologist Dave Myers, before publishing the results after the race. 4 'Starting around October 10 or so, Trump started to get significantly more optimistic,' Martin Seligman, the study's co-author and a professor of psychology at Penn, told The Post. 'By the 27th, it was a very large difference between Harris and Trump.' Getty Images 'We're the only people who predicted a Trump election, as far as I know,' Seligman said. A separate forecasting model, based on economic conditions and presidential approval ratings, was developed by Cornell University professor Peter Enns and also correctly predicted Trump's win in all 50 states. The findings suggest voters respond more favorably to optimistic candidates who present problems as fixable rather than systemic — and that Trump's tendency to 'go off script' gave researchers an authentic glimpse of his true mindset, Seligman said. 'When optimism is genuine, I think there's a lot of reason to believe that the American public wants optimism and wants hope,' he said. 'It speaks to the general optimistic slant of American history.'
