Bills target corporate practices thwarting product repairs
WASHINGTON — After Dyani Chapman’s refrigerator broke, her landlord replaced it with a new one, a cheaper route than fixing the original. When her phone’s screen cracked, Chapman faced a similar dilemma.
“When I went in and asked to get it fixed,” repairing the screen would have cost close to the bill for a new phone, said Chapman, state director for Alaska Environment, an advocacy group. “It’s not even worth it.” In an era of nearly ubiquitous electronics, Chapman’s experience is common.
You buy a gadget. You use it until it breaks. You go to the company that makes it. The company offers to repair it or sell you a new gadget at a similar price. New gadget in hand, you use that one until it breaks, and the cycle repeats.
While this loop helped catapult disposed electronics into the fastest-growing source of waste in the country, according to the EPA, there is bipartisan congressional interest behind bills to make it easier for average citizens to repair what they own, a potential boon to consumers and the environment.
—CQ-Roll Call
Before DeSantis could say he kicked migrants out of Florida, he had to pay to fly them in
MIAMI — Documents released this week by the aviation company that helped manage Florida’s $12 million migrant relocation program shed new light on behind-the-scenes dealings as the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, working with the politically connected vendor, wriggled around a requirement that Florida use the money to export Florida migrants — not those living in some other state.
The records obtained by the Florida Center for Government Accountability show, among other revelations, that the president of Destin-based Vertol Systems Company Inc. was not only on the plane when his company flew migrants out of Texas to Massachusetts on Sept. 14, but he and the governor’s “public safety czar,” Larry Keefe, were intimately involved in the plan to justify using Florida funds for the Texas covert op.
The flights carrying migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard made a 30-minute pit stop in the Panhandle town of Crestview. It was a convenient spot for Keefe, a former U.S. attorney and his former client in private practice, Vertol President James Montgomerie, who would be dropped off in the vicinity of their homes.
But it also served another purpose: to allow the Venezuelan and Peruvian migrants picked up in Texas to be treated as if they were Florida-based migrants and thus eligible to be airlifted out under the secretive program.
—Miami Herald
LA schools have a plan to reverse enrollment woes: Recruit newborn babies
LOS ANGELES — It's not every day that the superintendent of the nation's second-largest school district can be heard touting blankies and onesies. But on Tuesday, Los Angeles schools chief Alberto Carvalho launched a student recruitment campaign beginning just about as early as possible — targeting newborns in maternity wards, starting with L.A. County-USC Medical Center.
In a school system confronting troubling enrollment projections — a 30% decline over the next decade — the "Born to Learn" campaign is part inspiration and perhaps part desperation.
Carvalho is out to pitch an L.A. Unified School District education to the parents of prospective students — even before the babies have lost their umbilical cords.
And there's swag contained in a cheery 8.5-inch cardboard cube with LAUSD-branded gear: a beanie, a onesie, a bib and a plush blanket that Carvalho could not resist referring to as a "blankie." "You have to have some swag if you're born right here," he said.
—Los Angeles Times
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine moves toward ‘war of drones’ as winter looms
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s swift and severe response to an attack on his Black Sea fleet reflects a war that is increasingly marked by a duel between long-range Russian missiles and Ukraine’s innovative array of drones and truck bombs.
Putin on Monday made clear why he was suspending Russia’s involvement in a deal that for three months had allowed much-needed Ukrainian grain to be shipped to global markets: He wants to secure the Russian Navy’s ships after an attack by air and sea drones.
On Wednesday, Russia’s defense ministry said Moscow was rejoining the grain agreement, after receiving assurances from Ukraine that the safe passage corridor it established won’t be used for attacks. The episode speaks volumes about the dual nature of a war that’s now being fought as intensely behind the front lines as on them.
The Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet may no longer pose the threat of imminent amphibious assault it did at the outset of Putin’s invasion, but according to the U.S. and Ukraine it’s been launching Kalibr cruise missiles that form part of the missile barrages Russia has been unleashing on Ukrainian cities for weeks.
—Bloomberg News
