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    Trump Administration Move to Freeze E.V. Charger Funding Confounds States

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    A new federal order that freezes a Biden-era program to build a national network of electric vehicle charging stations has confounded states, which had been allocated billions of dollars by Congress for the program.In interviews on Friday, some state officials said that as a result of the memo from the Trump administration, they had stopped work on the charging stations. Others said they intended to keep going.In Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has welcomed federal money to build 19 E.V. charging stations, Breanna Badanes, a spokeswoman for the state’s Transportation Department, said Friday that “it’s safe to say we’re not sure” how or whether the state will build more.“Those stations will continue operating, but as far as what comes next, we’re in the same boat with everyone else, just trying to figure it out,” she said.The Feb. 6 memo signed by Emily Biondi, an associate administrator at the U.S. Transportation Department, said that the administration was “suspending approval of state electric vehicle infrastructure deployment plans.” The memo singled out the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, or NEVI, program, which was authorized under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.A national network of fast charging stations was part of President Joseph R. Biden’s Jr.’s effort to combat climate change by accelerating the nation’s transition to electric vehicles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Constitutional Convention? Some Democrats Fear It’s Coming.

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      Some Republicans have said that a constitutional convention is overdue. Many Democratic-led states have rescinded their long-ago calls for one, and California will soon consider whether to do the same.As Republicans prepare to take control of Congress and the White House, among the many scenarios keeping Democrats up at night is an event that many Americans consider a historical relic: a constitutional convention.The 1787 gathering in Philadelphia to write the Constitution was the one and only time state representatives have convened to work on the document.But a simple line in the Constitution allows Congress to convene a rewrite session if two-thirds of state legislatures have called for one. The option has never been used, but most states have long-forgotten requests on the books that could be enough to trigger a new constitutional convention, some scholars and politicians believe.Some Democratic officials are more concerned than ever. In California, a Democratic state senator, Scott Wiener, will introduce legislation on Monday that would rescind the state’s seven active calls for a constitutional convention, the first such move since Donald J. Trump’s election to a second term.Mr. Wiener, who represents San Francisco, and other liberal Democrats believe there is a strong possibility of a “runaway convention.” They say that Republicans could call a convention on the premise, say, of producing an amendment requiring that the federal budget be balanced, then open the door for a free-for-all in which a multitude of other amendments are considered, including some that could restrict abortion access or civil rights.“I do not want California to inadvertently trigger a constitutional convention that ends up shredding the Constitution,” Mr. Wiener said in an interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Will Allow California to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars, Officials Say

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      California and 11 other states want to halt the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to stop them.The Biden administration is expected in the coming days to grant California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, one of the most ambitious climate policies in the United States and beyond, according to three people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to revoke permission soon after taking office, part of his pledge to scrap Biden-era climate policies. “California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” Mr. Trump has said. “I will terminate that.”The state is expected to fight any revocation, setting up a consequential legal battle with the new administration.“California has long led the nation in pioneering climate policies and innovation,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, earlier this year. “Those efforts will continue for years to come.”He has described the ban as the beginning of the end for the internal combustion engine.Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has for decades allowed California, which has historically had the most polluted air in the nation, to enact tougher clean air standards than those set by the federal government. Federal law also allows other states under certain circumstances to adopt California’s standards as their own.The waiver can be used to rein in toxic, smog-causing pollutants like soot, nitrogen dioxide and ozone that lead to asthma and lung disease. But California officials have also been using the waiver to curb greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, a chief cause of global warming. Gas-powered cars and other forms of transportation are the biggest source of carbon dioxide generated by the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      California Lawmakers to Propose $25 Million Fund to Litigate Trump Administration

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      California lawmakers will convene a special session on Monday to discuss legislation to bolster the state against potential attacks by Donald J. Trump’s administration, including a proposed fund of up to $25 million to underwrite litigation against the federal government, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.President-elect Trump and fellow Republicans signaled during the campaign that he would target signature California policies if he were to win the election, including environmental protections, safeguards for immigrants, civil rights laws and abortion access. Democratic governors across the country have expressed concerns that the second Trump administration will be better prepared and less restrained.California’s Democratic leaders, who have been working for more than a year on contingency plans in the event of a second Trump term, announced within days of the election that they would begin to meet early this month on plans to “Trump-proof” the nation’s most populous state.“We will work with the incoming administration and we want President Trump to succeed in serving all Americans,” Governor Newsom said in a statement on Monday. “But when there is overreach, when lives are threatened, when rights and freedoms are targeted, we will take action.”The fund for litigation aims to pay for legal resources in the state’s Justice Department and regulatory agencies to “challenge illegal federal actions in court and take administrative actions to reduce potential harm,” according to the governor’s office.The proposed $25 million figure is significantly less than the roughly $42 million that California spent on lawsuits against the federal government during the first Trump administration, when the state sued the government more than 120 times. The smaller number — a fraction of the state’s nearly $300 billion annual budget — is a testament to concern over the risk of a financial shortfall. California’s lawmakers struggled to close a deficit this year.The figure is also a nod to the number of fronts on which the state’s Democrats expect the Trump administration to attack California. Mr. Newsom has already vowed to provide rebates to eligible residents who buy electric vehicles if Mr. Trump ends the $7,500 federal E.V. tax credit. The governor also has floated a possible disaster assistance fund to cover victims of floods and wildfires should Mr. Trump withhold federal aid from the disaster-prone state.California also extends health insurance coverage under the state’s version of Medicaid to low-income residents regardless of immigration status, a program that the next administration has also targeted.But the fund’s size also reflects the state’s success during and after Mr. Trump’s first term in protecting Californians against efforts to weaken state regulations, and the likelihood that Democratic states will work together to challenge Mr. Trump. More

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      Newsom Challenges Trump on Electric Vehicle Tax Credits

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      Gov. Gavin Newsom said California would fill the void for residents if the Trump administration killed a $7,500 E.V. tax credit.California will step in and provide rebates to eligible residents who buy electric vehicles if President-elect Donald J. Trump ends the $7,500 federal E.V. tax credit, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Monday.“We will intervene if the Trump administration eliminates the federal tax credit, doubling down on our commitment to clean air and green jobs in California,” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future — we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”Mr. Newsom’s proposal comes as California officials gird for an extended battle with the incoming Trump administration over environmental policy, immigration and other issues. As he did during his first term, Mr. Trump is expected to try once again to block California’s authority to set auto emissions limits that are stricter than federal standards.Already, Mr. Newsom has called a special session of the California Legislature for December, in part to discuss an increase in funding for litigation. During Mr. Trump’s first term, California sued his administration more than 120 times.Mr. Trump cannot unilaterally eliminate the electric vehicle tax credits, which are part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Congress would have to amend the law or pass a new one to erase the credits. But his transition team has indicated that the president-elect wants the credits gone.Under the law, consumers can lower the purchase price of an electric, plug-in hybrid or fuel-cell vehicle by up to $7,500 for a new vehicle and up to $4,000 for a used one. There are some restrictions, including income ceilings, for those who qualify.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s FDA Wish List: Raw Milk, Stem Cells, Heavy Metals

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s advisers on health, is taking aim at the agency’s oversight on many fronts.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been unflinching in his attacks on the Food and Drug Administration in recent weeks, saying he wants to fire agency experts who have taken action against treatments that have sometimes harmed people or that teeter on the fringe of accepted health care practice.How much influence Mr. Kennedy will have in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s next administration remains unclear, with some suggesting that he could act as a White House czar for policy over several federal health agencies. Mr. Trump has voiced support for Mr. Kennedy in recent weeks, saying he will let him “go wild on health.” In his acceptance speech, Mr. Trump reiterated his support for Mr. Kennedy’s involvement on health matters.Some of Mr. Kennedy’s priorities are relatively standard, such as focusing on the health effects associated with ultraprocessed foods. Yet others threaten to undermine F.D.A. authority to rein in inappropriate medical treatments or to warn about products that can damage the public health.A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy did not respond to interview requests.Days before the election, in a post on X that has received 6.4 million views, Mr. Kennedy threatened to fire F.D.A. employees who have waged a “war on public health.” He listed some of the products that he claimed the F.D.A. had subjected to “aggressive suppression,” including ivermectin, raw milk, vitamins as well as therapies involving stem cells, and hyperbaric oxygen.Some items that he singled out had become flash points for conservative voters during the coronavirus pandemic, including ivermectin, which was found to be an ineffective treatment against Covid.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Know About the Electoral College

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      “This is a very unique and bespoke system that I think nobody would create again today,” one expert said.Voters are already casting ballots for local offices, state legislators, governors, every member of the U.S. House and one-third of the U.S. Senate as Election Day nears.They are also choosing the next president but with a twist: Americans will actually select the electors, who will, in turn, elect Kamala Harris or Donald J. Trump, and their running mates.Yes, there are really two elections: one in which voters cast their ballots, and a second in which the electoral votes are cast and counted. Or, in other words, the winner of the most votes nationally is not assured victory.This is the way it has been done for more than 200 years, and it is likely to endure, even though a majority of Americans would prefer to have the winner of the most votes nationally rise to the presidency.What is the Electoral College?The Electoral College is made up of 538 elected members, one for each U.S. senator and U.S. representative, plus three for Washington, D.C.A presidential candidate needs to win a simple majority of them (270) to win the White House. The electors meet and cast votes for president and vice president in mid-December.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Republicans Will Regret a Second Trump Term

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      Now is the summer of Republican content.The G.O.P. is confident and unified. Donald Trump has held a consistent and widening lead over President Biden in all the battleground states. Never Trumpers have been exiled, purged or converted. The Supreme Court has eased many of Trump’s legal travails while his felony convictions in New York seem to have inflicted only minimal political damage — if they didn’t actually help him.Best of all for Republicans, a diminished Joe Biden seems determined to stay in the race, leading a dispirited and divided party that thinks of its presumptive nominee as one might think of a colonoscopy: an unpleasant reminder of age. Even if Biden can be cajoled into quitting, his likeliest replacement is Vice President Kamala Harris, whose 37 percent approval rating is just around that of her boss. Do Democrats really think they can run on her non-handling of the border crisis, her reputation for managerial incompetence or her verbal gaffes?In short, Republicans have good reason to think they’ll be back in the White House next January. Only then will the regrets set in.Three in particular: First, Trump won’t slay the left; instead, he will re-energize and radicalize it. Second, Trump will be a down-ballot loser, leading to divided and paralyzed government. Third, Trump’s second-term personnel won’t be like the ones in his first. Instead, he will appoint his Trumpiest people and pursue his Trumpiest instincts. The results won’t be ones old-school Republicans want or expect.Begin with the left.Talk to most conservatives and even a few liberals, and they’ll tell you that Peak Woke — that is, the worst excesses of far-left activism and cancel culture — happened around 2020. In fact, Peak Woke, from the campus witch hunts to “abolish the police” and the “mostly peaceful” protests in cities like Portland, Ore., and Minneapolis that followed George Floyd’s murder, really coincided with the entirety of Trump’s presidency, then abated after Biden’s election.That’s no accident. What used to be called political correctness has been with us for a long time. But it grew to a fever pitch under Trump, most of all because he was precisely the kind of bigoted vulgarian and aspiring strongman that liberals always feared might come to power, and which they felt duty bound to “resist.” With his every tweet, Trump’s presidency felt like a diesel engine blowing black soot in the face of the country. That’s also surely how Trump wanted it, since it delighted his base, goaded his critics and left everyone else in a kind of blind stupor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oklahoma Law Criminalizing Immigrants Without Legal Status Is Blocked

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      The ruling by a federal judge is the latest setback for G.O.P.-controlled states that have passed their own laws on immigration. A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked Oklahoma from enforcing its new immigration law that would make it a crime to enter the state without legal authorization to be in the United States.The ruling, issued just days before the law was set to go into effect on Monday, is the latest legal setback for Republican-controlled states that have tested the limits of their role in immigration by passing their own legislation meant to crack down on people who crossed the border illegally. The Justice Department maintains that only the federal government can regulate and enforce immigration. A Texas law that would have given state and local police officers the authority to arrest undocumented migrants was put on hold by a federal appeals court in March. The Supreme Court had briefly let the law stand but returned the case to the appeals court, which decided to pause enforcement of it. Then, in May, a federal judge temporarily blocked part of a Florida law that made it a crime to transport unauthorized immigrants into the state. And in mid-June, an Iowa law that would have made it a crime for an immigrant to enter the state after being deported or denied entry into the country was put on pause by a district court. In the Oklahoma case, U.S. District Judge Bernard M. Jones wrote in his ruling that the state “may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration,” but the state “may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.” He issued a preliminary injunction, pausing enforcement of the law while a case over the law’s constitutionality continues. Under the new law, willfully entering and remaining in Oklahoma without legal immigration status would be a state crime called an “impermissible occupation.” A first offense would be a misdemeanor, with penalties of up to one year in jail and a $500 fine; a subsequent offense would be a felony, punishable by up to two years in jail and a $1,000 fine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More