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NoneBHP Group expects a global copper deficit of 10 million metric tons a decade from now, a shortfall that is driving its plans to spend at least $11 billion at the world’s biggest copper mine, Escondida, and other projects in Chile. BHP detailed to investors this week plans to spend $10.7 billion to $14.7 billion within about 10 years to extract more copper from Escondida and the smaller Spence mine, and restart the Cerro Colorado mine. The world’s biggest listed miner’s annual production is set to fall by around 300,000 tons to 1.6 million tons by the end of the decade, largely driven by a slump at Escondida that is expected to peak in 2025. Other top copper miners are facing similar challenges to increase output at aging mines. Those difficulties are hitting just as demand for copper, an essential metal for production of electric-vehicle batteries and construction of data centers, is expected to grow. “We think the deficit is going to be around 10 million tons by 2035,” BHP Americas President Brandon Craig told Reuters in an interview on Thursday, estimating a $250-billion cost to develop enough mines to match demand. “That’s quite a challenging task for mining companies.” The amount represents a little under half of current global production, with copper mine output at 22.4 million tons last year. BHP is contending with diminishing ore grades at Escondida, which it aims to offset through expanded and new processing facilities, plus leaching technologies to extract copper from sulphide, rather than oxide where copper is more commonly mined. BHP’s heaviest spending is anticipated around fiscal years 2030 and 2031, Craig said, referring to a schedule that outlines four Escondida projects and three at the Pampa Norte division, which includes Spence and Cerro Colorado. The earliest projects are set for first production between 2027 and 2028, and the latest ones between 2031 and 2032. BHP sought this year to boost its copper portfolio in a $49-billion bid for Anglo American AAL.L, but was rebuffed. BHP has not ruled out a renewed bid. Asked about organic growth versus acquisitions, Craig said BHP is keen on maximizing Escondida, Spence and Cerro Colorado. “Our default is to take that resource and develop it ... We always have a set of investable growth options.” BHP aims to stagger the timing of Chile projects to keep them from “becoming too intense to be able to execute effectively,” he added. BHP is also working with industry associations to press the Chilean government to finalize reforms for faster permitting, but for now anticipates the standard timeline. “The legal time frames that they set out for how long it should take are often exceeded, so it creates a high degree of uncertainty,” he said. Although the company previously explored an underground expansion for Escondida, Craig said the idea was not feasible at current copper prices for at least another decade. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange CMCU3 is down around 20% from its 2024 peak in May, at around $8,995 per metric ton. He also said the miner set aside past interest in selling Cerro Colorado, which was put into temporary care and maintenance late last year amid issues over water use. The miner is now looking for a leaching solution using seawater. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Rod Nickel)

PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter's in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter's path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That's a very narrow way of assessing them," Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn't suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he'd be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter's tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter's lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor's race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival's endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King's daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters' early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan's presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan's Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.TEL AVIV -- Ari Krauss, a reservist in the Israeli military’s elite Golani Brigade, said he spent his days inside Gaza exploding underground tunnels. At night, he recalled, he would join the other fathers in uniform on a sandy hill, trying to get enough cellphone bars to FaceTime his infant daughter. His day job seemed like a distant memory. Early in the war, the brigade sent a letter to his company apologizing for drafting him but committing to no date for his full return. Being a soldier, the letter made clear, was now his main calling. “Once upon a time, I had my high-tech career and my family life, and I had to strike the balance,” said Krauss, who spent four months battling Hamas militants in Gaza and is preparing to return next month. “Now I have to enter into that equation the fact that I am disappearing for weeks, or months, on end.” Krauss’s dilemma, or some version of it, is shared by some 80,000 Israeli reservists who are planning to leave, or have already left, families, jobs and studies to serve on the front lines of Israel’s grinding wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Increasingly, some are choosing not to report for duty, putting further strain on an overextended military amid an ever-widening regional war. Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said in a briefing last week that the army’s enlistment numbers are down by about 15 percent since the period after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, when hundreds of thousands of Israelis from all walks of life reported to fight, many without being summoned. Historically, the country has maintained a small standing army, relying on reservists to fill out its ranks during a series of short-lived wars. But the Hamas-led rampage across southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and some 250 taken hostage, thrust Israel into the longest conflict in its history. In the early months of the war, about 350,000 Israelis were called up, a staggering figure in a country of less than 10 million. The losses, too, have been unprecedented. More than 800 soldiers have been killed since October 2023. “Wherever you look -- the economic crisis, the toll on the reservists and their families, and of course the dead and the wounded -- Israeli society is definitely at the edge of its capacity,” said Gayil Talshir, a political analyst at Hebrew University. Reservists prepare goodbyes in case they don’t make it out: video messages for the kids, bank passwords for their partners. Chava Landau Zenilman, whose husband, Ari, fought militants on Oct. 7 and was killed in combat two months later in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, remembers the visceral fear in the aftermath of the attacks. “We were imagining the terrorists coming into their house, to kill the kids in their beds,” she recalled. Ari had been called up for reserve duty every three months in recent years; sometimes, he needed to convince her. This time there was no question he would go. “These dilemmas are our reality from before, but this war is extreme,” she said. She barely ate or slept when he was in Gaza, she said, and tried to keep herself from imagining “the knock on the door.” When it came, she was heartbroken, but said she has no regrets: “He was fighting for our kids.” The country’s universal draft requires most Jewish men to serve for roughly three years and Jewish women for two. Members of the Arab minority, including Bedouin and Druze citizens, also enlist. But the growing and politically influential ultra-Orthodox community is largely exempt, an issue that has roiled Israeli society in recent weeks. The Supreme Court ruled this year that ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students must be conscripted into the military, threatening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile right-wing political coalition. When his defense minister signed off on the first draft notices this month, Netanyahu fired him. The military, facing a possible shortage of troops, is planning to extend mandatory service in the standing army and increase the maximum age for reservists. Many soldiers are already at their breaking point. “I feel like the government is making me ask my wife for a weekend with the boys in Vegas, but actually it’s to go for weeks into Lebanon to defend the country,” said a reservist in the special forces who has served for nearly 300 days over the past year. He spoke on the condition of anonymity in compliance with military protocol. His 12-man unit is down to five after seven refused to show up. “We never imagined a war that would be going so deep and going for so long,” he said. “And also, that there’s no one to replace us.” Soldiers swap stories of partners threatening divorce and of bosses -- many reservists themselves -- running low on patience. Many women are struggling as single parents, cutting back their work hours to meet childcare needs, as productivity plummets across the board. Israel’s economic growth fell by 2 percent last year and is expected to shrink 1.5 percent in 2024, said Benjamin Bental, chair of the Economics Policy Program at the Taub Center for Social Policies in Israel. Before the war, an average of 3,200 workers were absent from work each month for reserve duty, usually for only part of a week, according to a study by the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem. Between October and December last year, the average figure was around 130,000 per month, with most workers fully absent. Small businesses are shuttering, start-ups are losing capital, and potentially successful companies are thinking about relocating. “There’s burnout,” said Shmulik Moskovitz, a freelance business consultant and reservist. The father of four young kids has spent more than 250 days on the front lines, at one point overlapping with his brother in Gaza. Moskovitz lost clients after he was called up, and said government assistance programs have been inadequate. Still, “being involved was more important than being at home,” he concluded. “We are the country,” said Moskovitz. “If we don’t show up, there’s no country.” For many Israelis, the mounting social, economic and human costs of the wars only add to the urgency of achieving their objectives: the defeat of Hamas in Gaza, the release of the more than 100 hostages still held there, and the return of 60,000 Israelis forced from their homes in the north. Stories like that of Dor Zimel, a major in the reserves, are emblematic of the country’s resolve. On Oct. 7, Zimel raced to the border with Lebanon to join the rest of his company. A few weeks later, he proposed to his girlfriend with a diamond ring given to him by a jeweler whose son was murdered in the Hamas attacks. In April, Zimel lost his life in a Hezbollah drone-and-missile barrage on northern Israel. Zimel’s father, Alon, wants the IDF to keep up the fight in Lebanon, and to establish a buffer zone in the south of the country -- to protect Israel from the kind of attacks that killed his son. “Otherwise, what was it for?” he asked.

Watch: Woman’s daring lion kiss goes viral; this is what internet saysWeeks before President-elect Donald Trump is to take office, a major rift has emerged among his supporters over immigration and the place of foreign workers in the U.S. labor market. The debate hinges on how much tolerance, if any, the incoming administration should have for skilled immigrants brought into the country on work visas. The schism pits immigration hard-liners against many of the president-elect’s most prominent backers from the technology industry — among them Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who helped back Trump’s election efforts with more than a quarter-billion dollars, and David Sacks, a venture capitalist picked to be czar for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency policy. The tech industry has long relied on foreign skilled workers to help run its companies, a labor supply that critics say undercuts wages for American citizens. The dispute, which late Thursday exploded online into acrimony, finger-pointing and accusations of censorship, frames a policy quandary for Trump. The president-elect has in the past expressed a willingness to provide more work visas to skilled workers, but has also promised to close the border, deploy tariffs to create more jobs for American citizens and severely restrict immigration. Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and fervent Trump loyalist, helped set off the altercation this week by criticizing Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian American venture capitalist, to be an adviser on artificial intelligence policy. In a post, she said she was concerned that Krishnan, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India, would have influence on the Trump administration’s immigration policies, and mentioned “third-world invaders.” “It’s alarming to see the number of career leftists who are now being appointed to serve in Trump’s admin when they share views that are in direct opposition to Trump’s America First agenda,” Loomer wrote on the social platform X, which is owned by Musk. Loomer’s comments surfaced a simmering tension between longtime Trump supporters, who embrace his virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric, and his more recently acquired backers from the tech industry, many of whom have built or financed businesses that rely on the government’s H-1B visa program to hire skilled workers from abroad. In response, Sacks called Loomer’s critiques “crude,” while Musk posted regularly this week about the lack of homegrown talent to fill all the needed positions within American technology companies. The expertise U.S. companies need “simply does not exist in America in sufficient quantity,” Musk posted Thursday, drawing a line between what he views as legal immigration and illegal immigration. Throughout the election cycle, Musk helped amplify the debunked theory that the Democratic Party was encouraging immigrants to illegally cross the border to vote, thus replacing American voters. A naturalized citizen born in South Africa, Musk has spoken out frequently against immigration, characterizing it as a threat to national sovereignty and endorsing messages calling noncitizens “invaders.” This week, however, he came out strongly in favor of H-1B visas, which are given to specialized foreign workers. Musk has said he held an H-1B before becoming a citizen, and his electric-car company, Tesla, obtained 724 of the visas this year. H-1B visas are typically for three-year periods, although holders can extend them or apply for green cards. Krishnan, Sacks and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Loomer, reached by telephone, said she took on the visa issue because she didn’t trust the motivations of Musk and other tech magnates who helped elect Trump. She is worried, she said, that Musk, in particular, would try to use his sway to persuade the incoming president to allow more immigration rather than close the border as she and others on the right would prefer. “He’s not MAGA and he’s a drag on the Trump transition,” said Loomer, who said she believed that Musk was using his relationship with Trump to further enrich himself. “Elon wants everyone to think he’s a hero because he gave $250 million to the Trump campaign. But that’s not much of an investment if it allows him to become a trillionaire.” A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to a request for comment. Trump said on a podcast co-hosted by Sacks in June that any international student who graduates from an American university “should be able to stay in this country.” The taping followed a San Francisco fundraiser for Trump’s campaign hosted by Sacks. Since then, the leaders of tech companies who rely on skilled foreign labor, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Sundar Pichai of Google, have wooed Trump with calls, visits to Mar-a-Lago — Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida — and donations for his inauguration. That’s a different dynamic from Trump’s first term, which began with the industry’s sweeping condemnation of the first Trump administration’s travel ban suspending the issuance of visas to applicants from seven countries, all of which had Muslim-majority populations. Tech leaders have also been taking an important role in the presidential transition, proposing associates for high-ranking administration positions and advising the president-elect on potential policies and foreign relations. Trump also tapped Musk to serve as co-leader of a new “government efficiency” commission. The rising importance of tech leaders in Trump’s circle is now drawing scrutiny from his base — and even some past rivals. Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who ran for president against Trump and who in the past has called herself the “proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” slammed the tech industry and its leaders as “lazy” for automatically seeking out foreign workers to fulfill their needs. “If the tech industry needs workers, invest in our education system,” she wrote on X on Friday morning. “Invest in our American workforce. We must invest in Americans first before looking elsewhere.” On Friday, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump confidant, hosted a series of influencers and researchers on his popular “War Room” podcast who critiqued “big tech oligarchs” for supporting the H-1B program and cast immigration as a threat to Western civilization. Others took a more sympathetic stance toward Silicon Valley’s desire to continue bringing in engineers and other skilled workers from abroad. Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate who last month was tapped to lead the government efficiency initiative alongside Musk, blamed American culture for creating people ill-suited for skilled tech positions. “The H-1B system is badly broken & should be replaced with one that focuses on selecting the very best of the best,” Ramaswamy said on X on Friday. The rancorous exchange over immigration soon grew to encompass another flashpoint on the right: online speech. Since acquiring what was then called Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, Musk has characterized himself as a “free speech absolutist.” Among his first acts atop the company was reinstating accounts banned by the previous management, including Loomer’s, which had been taken down in 2018 after sharing anti-Muslim posts. But on Thursday, X temporarily blocked Loomer from posting on the site and removed her verified status, cutting her off from income from paid subscribers. Numerous other accounts reported losing their verified status as well, although only Loomer seems to have been blocked from posting or monetizing her account. Loomer said that starting Friday morning, she was able to post again but still had not regained her verified status. An X spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Loomer, whose account has 1.4 million followers, called it retaliation, pointing out that Musk on Thursday night endorsed a post from a popular pro-tech influencer stating “play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” in reference to Loomer. Loomer called the restriction “censorship.”

The Lawrence Energy Center in Kansas burns coal for electric power. A federal lawsuit filed by 11 Republican attorneys general claims institutional investors BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street committed antitrust violations to lower supply and increase the cost of coal. (Jill Hummels/Kansas Reflector) Major institutional investors have artificially lowered coal production and raised energy costs for consumers in an effort to lower global carbon emissions, a federal lawsuit claims. Republican attorneys general in 11 states, including Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, filed a joint lawsuit last month against BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, claiming the organizations’ efforts to pressure coal companies to lower carbon emissions and respond to climate change amount to anti-competitive business practices. All three companies, the lawsuit says, have acquired significant shares in the largest publicly-traded coal companies to coerce their management. “For the past four years, America’s coal producers have been responding not to the price signals of the free market, but to the commands of Larry Fink, BlackRock’s chairman and CEO, and his fellow asset managers,” the lawsuit says. BlackRock is the world’s largest financial asset manager. The case was in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on behalf of the states of Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, West Virginia and Wyoming. The case asks the court to find that the companies have violated federal antitrust laws and prohibit them from using their stock holdings in coal companies to limit output. In a statement, State Street called the lawsuit “baseless.” “State Street acts in the long-term financial interests of investors with a focus on enhancing shareholder value,” the company said. “As long-term capital providers, we have a mutual interest in the long-term success of our portfolio companies.” In 2020, Fink wrote in a letter to CEOs that “climate risk is investment risk” and announced efforts to “place sustainability at the center of our investment approach.” He said companies and investors had a meaningful role to play in the transition from fossil fuels and coal to clean energy. The following year, BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard joined the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, acknowledging an “urgent need to accelerate the transition towards global net zero emissions” and committing to work to reduce carbon emissions. Black Rock and State Street also signed onto Climate Action 100+, a similar initiative where investors work with companies “on improving climate change governance, cutting emissions and strengthening climate-related financial disclosures. Burning coal produces carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas and a significant drive of climate change, scientists say. It also produces sulfur dioxide, particulates and other emissions that can be harmful to human health. Coal made up 19% of energy-related carbon emissions in 2022 and more than half of emissions from electric power companies, according to the Energy Information Administration . In a press release, Hilgers’ office accused the three companies of weaponizing their shares of the coal market. “Whether it comes from state or federal governments or the private sector,” Hilgers said, “the radical climate agenda harms Nebraskans.” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey vowed to “not stand idly by while these companies hamper energy production and raise prices for Missouri consumers.” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office said in a press release that he was “taking further action to stop work corporatists and their left-leaning allies in government from driving up energy costs for hardworking Hoosiers.” “Coal has been the backbone of Indiana’s economic success for decades,” Rokita said. “The demand for electricity has gone up and these (environmental, social and governance) titans are reaping the benefits of these skyrocketed prices by keeping their thumb on production.” And Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said she would keep “fighting until we take down every cog of the woke machine and protect hardworking families and farmers.” “While Woke Wall Street lines its own pockets,” Bird said, “families and farmers are forced to pay the price.” This article first appeared in the Kansas Reflector , a sister site of the Nebraska Examiner in the States Newsroom network.If you’re new to snowboarding, you may not realize the importance of a solid pair of snowboard bindings. In reality, this piece of gear does more than just secure your boots to the snowboard. Bindings are responsible for transferring the power from your legs to the board, allowing improved control and comfort. A quality pair of bindings could last for years, so the decision to buy is a big one. For snowboard bindings that are durable, lightweight and comfortable, check out the BURTON Malavita Snowboard Bindings . Some snowboard bindings are better suited for certain riding styles. Consider how you plan to use your snowboard before settling on a specific pair of bindings. If you’re not sure, try renting some gear for a day and see how the bindings feel on the slopes. Many snowboard manufacturers include a 1 to 10 flexibility rating with their bindings. A high number indicates stiff bindings, while a low number is assigned to bindings that are particularly soft and flexible. Most snowboard bindings have straps that secure the ankle and toe sections of your boots to the board. The ankle straps keep you in a flexible yet fixed position when you lean forward onto your toes, while the toe straps keep your feet in place when you lean back. Padding is used on snowboard bindings to absorb some of the shock caused by bumpy runs. Think about your riding style when deciding how much padding you need. Mounts secure the bindings to the board. You can use mounting screws to attach the bindings and adjust the foot positioning to your preference. Just like a snowboard, snowboard bindings come in a wide variety of different colors and patterns. If you want a cohesive look, pick out bindings that match the rest of your gear. When shopping for snowboard gear online, try to purchase from well-known brands like Burton, Salomon or Rossignol. Cheap snowboard bindings from an obscure manufacturer might be tempting, but you could find yourself with an inferior product once you hit the slopes. The cost of snowboard bindings can vary depending on the brand name and the quality of the parts. Beginner and intermediate snowboarders can expect to pay around $100-$250 for a quality pair of bindings, while advanced snowboard bindings regularly exceed $300. A. Most snowboard bindings are sold in two to five size options. Look at the model’s sizing chart and compare it with your boot size to find bindings that fit you. A. Yes. Although there are women’s snowboard bindings that advertise particular design features, snowboard bindings are universal. This means you can choose any pair you want, as long as they’re the right size. BURTON Malavita Snowboard Bindings What you need to know: Despite being advertised as men’s snowboard bindings, these bindings use advanced technology to deliver quality support and performance for any rider. What you’ll love: Backed by Burton’s legendary reputation, these snowboard bindings offer an advanced level of performance, control and comfort in a stylish package. The padding has a gel to absorb extra shock, and the bindings come in five color options. What you should consider: These bindings might be too expensive for beginner and intermediate riders. Salomon Pact Snowboard Bindings What you need to know: These versatile bindings are durable and affordable enough for almost any rider. What you’ll love: A solid choice for beginners, these snowboard bindings have a rear-entry design with high-quality straps for fine adjustments. Many users note their durability and comfort during long days of riding. What you should consider: These bindings have a limited number of size options, and the mounting discs may not attach to every board type. BURTON Grom Snowboard Bindings What you need to know: Designed for kids and small snowboarders, these popular bindings have a solid construction and reasonable price tag. What you’ll love: Perfect for young riders hitting the slopes for the first time, these beginner bindings are compatible with most snowboard mounting systems and feature a single-component baseplate for consistent control and responsiveness. They’re also available in two sleek color options, black and white. What you should consider: Some users questioned the quality and longevity of the bindings’ highback. Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change. Check out our Daily Deals for the best products at the best prices and sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter full of shopping inspo and sales. BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. 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PRATTVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge has ordered an Alabama city to allow an LGBTQ+ pride group to participate in the city's Christmas parade on Friday, after the mayor initially blocked the group from the annual event citing unspecified “safety concerns.” U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr. ruled that the City of Prattville violated Prattville Pride's First Amendment right to free speech and 14th Amendment right to equal protection under the law when it banned the group from running a float in the annual Christmas parade one day before the event was set to take place. “The City removed Prattville Pride from the parade based on its belief that certain members of the public who oppose Prattville Pride, and what is stands for, would react in a disruptive way. But discrimination based on a message’s content 'cannot be tolerated under the First Amendment,' ” Huffaker wrote in his opinion. The ruling required the city to provide at least two police officers to escort the float throughout the parade. On Thursday, Prattville Pride requested additional security measures from law enforcement. In response, Mayor Bill Gillespie Jr released a statement banning the group from the parade altogether, citing “serious safety concerns.” Huffaker's ruling said that, leading up to the event, some community members “voiced vehement opposition” to the group's inclusion in the parade, but that “the City has presented no evidence of legitimate, true threats of physical violence.” Gillespie's office referred to a statement posted on the city's social media in response to a request for comment. “The City respects the ruling of the Court and will comply with its order. The safety of everyone involved with the parade is a priority,” city officials said in a statement on social media. Prattville Pride celebrated the ruling on social media. “The Christmas parade is a cherished holiday tradition, and we are excited to celebrate alongside our neighbors and friends in the spirit of love, joy, and unity," the group wrote. Prattville is a small city of about 40,000 people, just north of the capital of Montgomery. Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more.