World Business Report US-Japan steel deal?
Japanese-owned steelmaker Nippon Steel is expected to close its 'partnership' with U.S. Steel at $55 per share, as the US media have reported. On Friday, last week, President Donald Trump said that he has cleared the deal. We hear from Chris Kelly, the Mayor of West Mifflin, a steel town in Pennsylvania.
Zimbabwe's president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has signed into law a contentious bill that requires all drivers to buy a car radio licence before a vehicle can legally be on the road.
And Rahul Tandon hears how one woman's quest to buy only US made goods has been surprisingly difficult.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
You can oppose Israel's policies without killing Jewish people
It happened again. The third time this year that Jewish people were attacked with murderous intent in a major US city under the guise of the assailant caring about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. It's the second time that fires were set. The first happened when an attacker – a US citizen – broke into the official residence of Pennsylvania's governor in Harrisburg, on the evening of Passover and set fire to the residence. The only thing that saved governor Josh Shapiro and his family was a quick response from security guards, leaving only some Passover Haggadahs, the text that charts Jewish hopes for freedom and liberation from one generation to the next, to burn on the tables still set from dinner. About two weeks ago, there was the murder of two innocent Jewish Israeli embassy workers who were attending an event hosted by the The American Jewish Committee at the Jewish Museum in Washington DC on how to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza; these young people were chosen at random from a crowd apparently targeted intentionally since the murderer, again a US citizen, appeared to have wanted to hunt down and kill Jews in response to Israel – a sovereign country's – military acts. Tellingly, the gunman had a brief association to the far-left Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL said in a statement that he is not a member and that his association with the group ended in 2017). And now, again with the element of fire, we wait for word on the condition of at least 12 victims of a torching in broad daylight in downtown Boulder, Colorado, by an assailant named Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, who yelled 'Free Palestine' and scorched the skin of activists ranging from their 50s to the 80s who gathered peacefully in that square each week demanding one thing: bring the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas home. This group of activists, part of the international movement that posts on Twitter/X as #RunForTheirLives walks and runs each week, in Boulder, in New York's Central Park, in Mexico and around the world, in support of freeing the hostages. They also post this missive for participants, beginning by asking: 'Should I be scared to participate?' Their response: 'That's a valid concern these days. Make your best judgment to decide if it's safe. However, we encourage a couple of principles to make this safer: don't protest! Don't disturb your neighbors. Do it quietly and don't block roads. Be polite and peaceful. Focus on humanity. This is about innocent children, women, the elderly, and other civilians being held by terrorists – not about the war. We encourage carrying flags of all countries from which there are hostages.' They encouraged bringing kids. 'This is a family-friendly event. It is non-violent and does not focus on the traumatic events that occurred during the hostages' captivity. Our events are meant to be quiet and peaceful.' Jews demonstrating in an open town square were burned solely because they are Jews. It's way past time; there needs to be a real and deep understanding of how ugly some factions of the US left became, both pre and post 7 October's attack by Hamas, with a delegitimizing ideology about 'settler colonialism' the wishful erasure of Israel as a state by proclaiming support for a future Palestine in a region where some protesters hope to annihilate Israel, silencing of Israeli and Jewish voices even when they are voices of protest against Benjamin Netanyahu's government or even if the assailant has no idea what the victim's position is on Israeli policies. This desire for erasure opened the floodgates to those who think they are being one of the team by killing with a slogan as their battle cry. This is not about parsing legalisms of whether it is a legitimate protest to harm or kill civilians. It isn't. Full stop. (And, I have said and written the same thing regarding Palestinian civilians being killed and will continue to write and protest any innocent civilians being killed. I also reject any attempts by any person or group or government to blame all Palestinians for Hamas's actions. Also, perhaps it needs to be said here and time again: I fully support, and have spent my life fighting for, freedom and self-determination for the Palestinian people, acknowledging the rights of two people to one plot of land). One of the first things I did after 7 October was to purchase and wear a Jewish star around my neck. In my 69 years, I had never worn my religion or my identity on my person. But since 7 October, perhaps defying the odds – but more so, wearing my pride, I purchased a star which I wear proudly. In solidarity with those in Israel and around the world who are demanding that the Israeli hostages come home, I also wear a yellow ribbon affixed to my bag whenever I leave my home. It is perhaps the sort of symbol that is an 'if you know, you know,' but I want the world to know two things: this is not OK, and no one will scare me off because of my Jewish identity or my support for an end to the poisonous Hamas's incursion of 7 October. I intensely hope this is obvious: you can oppose policies without setting people on fire because they are Jewish. The majority of US Jews overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli prime minister's policies. But subtleties get lost and truly unleashed people react. The leftwing reaction to an horrific action like this has to be swift and soul-searching. Again, while this current perpetrator apparently has no ties to the left, the rhetoric of the left – and the actions of some leftwing organizations – have to be examined. Imagine a situation where there was in fact an American left that embraced peace efforts on both sides instead of demonizing one side or the other, which is by the way, a mirror image of what the right wing does. Two sides. Two peoples. I write this as someone whose entire life has been lived on the left, as a prominent activist and one who continues to believe in my gut in the values of a humanitarian left. I won't allow a very real fear to stop me from being a proud Jew or an outspoken leftist demanding my rightful place in the lexicon of what must be an inclusive movement, promoting humanity for all and freedom for all. No erasures. No exceptions. I write this as someone whose entire life has been lived on the left, as a prominent activist and one who continues to believe in my gut in the values of a humanitarian left. I won't allow a very real fear to stop me – not to stop me from being a proud Jew or an outspoken leftist demanding my rightful place in the lexicon of what must be an inclusive movement promoting humanity for all and freedom for all. No erasures. No exceptions. Meanwhile, it's important to also call out the sickening and cynical usage of antisemitism on the right by Donald Trump and his allies. The US president is handily and cynically already using the Boulder attack to attack all immigrants and to promote his heartless expulsion agenda with barely a mention of the victims of the crime. He has used antisemitism throughout his term in the most cynical of ways, never showing any genuine interest in eradicating it or embracing the victims. He pretty much ignored the heinous attack on Shapiro, most likely because Shapiro is a vocal and effective opponent of Trump. And, of course, Trump's Darth Vader imitator Stephen Miller is hard at work using these crimes to promote his anti-American agenda to attack immigrants in the US as well as attack universities and legitimate protest. Trump's destructive weaponizing of antisemitism to promote his own authoritarian agenda will not keep one Jew safe: in fact, it does the opposite. Jews don't want to be played by the left or the right. We don't want to be pawns tossed back and forth. We want to be safe. We want to be heard. We want to be seen in our diversity, as would any people. We don't want our lives to be at risk. Listen to and watch what each person says. See each person as an individual. Please build a serious political program that doesn't cancel or promote violence of any kind but rather lifts up the hopes and desires of everyone. The alternative is deadly. Jo-Ann Mort is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in Today's Israel? She writes frequently about Israel for US, UK, and Israeli publications
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Confusion on sensor plane's abilities delayed response in Ohio train derailment, report says
A specialized plane equipped with advanced sensors that the government deploys to chemical disasters could have helped authorities avoid needlessly blowing open five rail tank cars and burning their toxic contents after the disastrous 2023 East Palestine train derailment, a new report says. The report released Tuesday found the single-engine Cessna wasn't called into action until the night before the rail cars filled with vinyl chloride were blown open because officials with the Environmental Protection Agency on the ground didn't fully understand the plane's sophisticated capabilities. The report by the EPA's Inspector General said the agency's on-scene coordinator mistakenly thought the so-called ASPECT plane could only measure 20- to 30-degree differences in temperature. In reality, the report noted, the sensors can measure slight temperature differences of less than 1 degree. That information could have helped first responders avoid the key mistake the National Transportation Safety Board identified of blowing open the tank cars filled with the toxic plastic ingredient. The on-scene coordinator's 'limited awareness or use of the full range of ASPECT capabilities could negatively impact emergency response decision-making,' the report said. The towering plume of black smoke The explosion and fire generated a massive plume of black smoke over East Palestine that billowed eastward over the nearby Ohio- Pennsylvania border three days after the derailment. State and local officials in charge of the response feared those tank cars would explode even though the limited temperature information they had showed the cars were starting to cool off. The National Transportation Safety Board had previously faulted the Norfolk Southern railroad for not sharing the opinion of the chemical maker that the vinyl chloride wasn't going to explode with decisionmakers. Norfolk Southern has said OxyVinyls officials offered conflicting information that left the railroad's experts worried about a dangerous chemical reaction. Much of the small town of East Palestine had to be evacuated for days because of the toxic chemical fire. Many residents still complain of lingering health symptoms, fearful of potential long-term health consequences. The EPA has maintained that dangerous levels of chemicals were never found after the evacuation order was lifted five days after the Feb. 3, 2023, derailment. Some have questioned whether the agency did enough to detect the chemicals in the aftermath and doctors are still trying to determine what prolonged exposure to low levels of the chemicals might mean. Recently released records show officials with the Federal Emergency Management Administration have acknowledged residents' fears that cancer clusters could develop years from now in local residents despite the EPA's assurances. Robert Kroutil, the man who wrote the software and helped interpret the data from the plane's advanced radiological and infrared sensors, has said having accurate temperature data from the plane could have helped avoid the vent-and-burn operation. 'The report noted that EPA officials believe that the on-ground monitoring equipment provided superior detection capabilities, which is incorrect,' Kroutil said. "This demonstrates EPA's complete lack of understanding of the ASPECT technology and how it works to protect chemically impacted sites.' EPA updates its policies The East Palestine derailment was the worst rail disaster in a decade. It prompted a national reckoning with rail safety and calls for reform — although proposals for new industry rules stalled in Congress. The railroad's contractors who led the response to the derailment told the NTSB they had difficulty getting accurate temperature readings on the cars because the fire surrounding them made it especially dangerous. Kroutil's concerns prompted the IG investigation. The EPA said in its official response to the report that it has developed a detailed fact sheet and plans to train its emergency responders about the plane's capabilities and when it should be deployed over the next year. But the agency didn't immediately respond Tuesday to questions about the delayed response in East Palestine. Lingering questions about the flights The Government Accountability Project watchdog group that helped Kroutil document his concerns questioned why the Inspector General didn't look into other aspects like Kroutil's concerns that the plane's sensors were intentionally shut off over the creeks around East Palestine and that the final report on the flights was changed to overlook the incomplete data that was generated in just two flights before the plane was sent home. GAP's Senior Environmental Officer Lesley Pacey said 'the investigation's scope was too narrow, failing to address the most serious allegations.' The EPA didn't even call for the sensor plane until two nights after the derailment when officials were already contemplating the vent-and-burn operation. The plane took off from its Texas base within a half hour of getting the call, but it didn't make a pass over the derailment as it flew into the area that night, and then weather conditions kept it from flying during the controversial burn operation the next day. It didn't gather any data until the following day after most of the chemicals had already been distributed by the wind. The Inspector General said the emails and documents it reviewed showed that officials followed existing practices on deploying the plane, but those procedures lacked the clarity needed to help them decide when to deploy the plane.
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Trump to sign order doubling metals tariffs, White House says
WASHINGTON, June 3 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday making official his vow to double tariffs on steel and aluminum, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters in a briefing. Trump on Friday announced that he would increase tariffs on the two metals from 25% to 50%. On Monday, U.S. steel and aluminum prices jumped while shares of foreign steelmakers fell.
