TYLER – Jerry Thomas, from Rusk, was awarded $4.5 million in a lawsuit after an accident that cost him his hand, according to our news partner KETK. In a release from the office of Daniel Gibbins, the lead attorney for Thomas, the lawsuit against Antonio Munoz Asseradero LLC over safety concerns at the sawmill found that unsafe working conditions were the cause of an accident that resulted in the loss of Thomas’ hand.
“This verdict reflects the seriousness of Jerry Thomas’s injury and the negligence that caused it,” Gibbins said. “Justice has been served for Mr. Thomas, and we are proud to have helped him secure the compensation he needs to rebuild his life after this tragic incident.”
AUSTIN (AP) — A civil trial in Texas over a so-called “Trump Train” that surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus days before the 2020 election reached closing arguments Friday before a federal jury decides whether the rolling highway encounter amounted to political intimidation.
“This case is not about politics,” Robert Meyer, an attorney representing those aboard the bus, told the jury. “It’s about safety.”
The two-week trial in an Austin federal courthouse has included testimony from former Texas Democratic lawmaker Wendy Davis, who ran for governor in 2014, and is one of three people who was on board the bus and brought the lawsuit against six supporters of former President Donald Trump.
No criminal charges have been filed against the Trump supporters, who have argued that their actions during the convoy on Oct. 30, 2020, were protected speech.
Video that Davis recorded from the bus shows pickup trucks with large Trump flags slowing down to box in the bus as it tried to move away from the group of Trump supporters. One of the defendants hit a campaign volunteer’s car while the trucks occupied all lanes of traffic, forcing the bus and everyone around it to a 15 mph crawl.
During closing arguments Friday, Meyer argued that the defendants’ conversations leading up to the convoy about “Operation Block the Bus,” dissemination of flyers and aggressive driving met the criteria for political intimidation.
“This wasn’t some kind of peaceful protest,” Meyer said. “The bus swarmed on all sides.”
Attorneys for the defendants were set to make their closing arguments before the seven-member jury later Friday.
Those on the bus — including Davis, a campaign staffer and the driver — repeatedly called 911 asking for help and a police escort through San Marcos, but when no law enforcement arrived, the campaign canceled the event and pushed forward to Austin.
The trial began with plaintiffs’ attorneys saying that organizers targeted the bus in a calculated attack to intimidate the Democrats, arguing that it violated the “Ku Klux Klan Act,” an 1871 federal law that bans political violence and intimidation.
The City of San Marcos settled a separate lawsuit filed by the same three Democrats against the police, agreeing to pay $175,000 and mandate political violence training for law enforcement.
TYLER – Tyler Parks and Recreation Department is again hosting Movies in the Park this fall. The Parks Department has shown 134 movies to date. The Movies in the Park program is a free movie for families and individuals to enjoy at Bergfeld Park, located at 1510 S. College Ave, Faulkner Park, located at 410 Cumberland Rd, and the Tyler Rose Garden, located at 420 Rose Park Dr. Three movies will be hosted starting Oct 5. Come out and see these classics!
Movies in the Park fall schedule:
Bergfeld Park Saturday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m. – Hocus Pocus, rated PG.
Faulkner Park Saturday, Nov. 16 at 6 p.m. – Bad News Bears, rated PG-13.
Tyler Rose Garden (Queen’s Court) Saturday, Dec. 7 at 6 p.m. – Elf, rated PG.
The Movies in the Park program is made possible in part through sponsors with the Tyler Parks and Rec department. The fall season sponsors include Southside Bank, and more sponsors are needed!
For more information or questions, please contact Tyler Parks and Rec at (903) 531-1374 or visit TylerParksandRec.com.
DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports that Dallas police Chief Eddie García once said he’d “run through a wall” for former City Manager T.C. Broadnax, but it appears he will only have to drive down Interstate 35. According to a memo from Broadnax, García will retire from the Dallas Police Department to become an assistant city manager under his former boss, where he will oversee the city’s first responders. According to that memo, his first day will be November 4. Broadnax, who left Dallas for the same job in Austin earlier this year under a cloud of acrimony, had reportedly been eyeing García for the open police chief position there. It prompted interim City Manager Kim Tolbert to tell Houston and Austin to “turn around and go back home.” And even though the city charter doesn’t allow the Council to strike a contract with the police chief, Tolbert seemed to wrangle a deal: in exchange for García’s committing to the city through May 2027, he would get a twice-annual $10,000 retention bonus beginning November 2024, as well as assurances that he would receive a year’s salary if fired “for convenience” during those three years. He will not get those bonuses or severance.
“This was complicated, but we got it done,” Tolbert said in a statement announcing the agreement. “If this was NFL Football, we were able to keep Chief García on the Dallas Team; he’s the right quarterback to lead our police department. We certainly didn’t want to lose him to free agency.” García seemed adamant about staying put. “This is the right place to complete my service, and I know your police officers are honored to serve Dallas residents,” he said. “We will keep doing our jobs with excellence and results.” On May 16, he tweeted “Home = @DallasPD.” This is the risk when a city manager bails. There is always a possibility that he’ll take his preferred employees with him. Deputy City Manager Jon Fortune was among the first to choose Austin, costing Dallas a highly respected administrator with a deep knowledge of public safety. Now it’s García, who teamed with criminologists to translate granular data into a plan that has successfully reduced violent crime in the city of Dallas each of the last four years. It’s been widely cited that Mayor Eric Johnson’s icy relationship with Broadnax forced his resignation, that their time together had grown so sour that little could be accomplished from 1500 Marilla. Now García has chosen his old boss over the city he once pledged to serve for at least five years. He made it three and a half.
AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports that Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, plans a two-day campaign swing in Texas beginning Monday to take part in a get-out-the-vote rally and to raise money on behalf of Democrats in advance of the Nov. 5 election. The rally, scheduled Monday in San Antonio, will be joined by with the city’s mayor, Ron Nirenberg, as well as former Mayor Julia´n Castro and his twin brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro. Tuesday’s events will include stops in Austin and in Houston. The venues and programs were not publicly announced Thursday. Republicans, who hold all statewide offices in Texas and majorities in both chamber of the Legislature, said the visit by the husband of the Democratic presidential nominee would do little to change the political landscape in the state. “We welcome Doug Emhoff wasting time by visiting Texas,” said state GOP Chairman Abraham George in a statement. “Texas is, and will remain solidly Republican. We are well on our way to knocking on over 100,000 doors in targeted flippable races.”
With national polls showing the presidential race neck-and-neck, top Texas Democrats have said the ticket of Harris and vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were unlikely to expend significant resources in the state that is widely expected to remain in the GOP column in November. University of Texas at San Antonio political science professor Jon Taylor, however, said Emhoff’s visit makes at least some political sense, if for no other reason than to tap the checking accounts of the state’s Democratic donors for money that could be spent in the swing states that will likely decide the election. “I would say he’s definitely (coming) here to raise money, definitely to help down-ballot races, given that a lot of polling shows (Democratis U.S. Senate nominee Colin) Allred within 10 to 5 points of Ted Cruz,” Taylor said, referring to the incumbent two-term Republican senator. Among other well-known Democrats who will be joining Emhoff, two Democratic state House candidates running in Republican-held but competitive districts anchored in San Antonio are also scheduled to be part of Monday’s program. Democrat Kristian Carranza, a political newcomer, is challenging two-term Republican John Lujan in House District 118. Lujan scratched out his 2022 victory by fewer than 2,000 votes in the race that drew about 50,000 people to the polls. Laurel Jordan Swift, also a Democratic first-time candidate, will face Republican Marc LaHood, who ousted ousted three-term Republican Steve Allison in District 121 in the GOP primary. Allison won reelection by a more comfortable 5-point margin two years ago.
DETROIT (AP) – General Motors is recalling more than 449,000 of its SUVs and pickup trucks because the electronic brake control module software may fail to display a warning light when a loss of brake fluid takes place.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday that the recall includes certain 2023-2024 Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESVs, 2023 Chevrolet Silverado 1500, 2023-2024 Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban 1500, 2023 GMC Sierra 1500, 2023-2024 GMC Yukon and Yukon XL models.
The agency said that without the warning light, a vehicle may be driven with low brake fluid, which can reduce braking performance and increase the risk of a crash.
A free software update will be provided to vehicle owners.
Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed Oct. 28. Vehicle owners can contact GMC customer service at 1-800-462-8782, Chevrolet customer service at 1-800-222-1020, or Cadillac customer service at 1-800-458-8006.
How would you like to have a backup to your computer mouse and keyboard? Check out David Rancken’s App Of The Day. It’s called Remote Mouse. You can download Remote Mouse in the app stores below.
(NEW YORK) -- While body mass index (BMI) has long been a go-to measure of a person's health, used by doctors and health insurers alike, a new approach is taking hold.
Body roundness index, or BRI, is gaining prominence as a way of predicting one's health risk by taking into account more than just a person's height and weight, which are the sole factors used to determine BMI, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Here are five questions answered about BRI and why it's being used with increasing frequency.
1. What is body roundness index?
Body roundness index takes into account a person's height and waist circumference to determine whether they are in a healthy or unhealthy sphere, according to Maya Feller, a registered dietitian and nutritionist.
A study published in June in JAMA Network Open described BRI as an evidence-backed tool for more accurately determining a person's mortality risk.
2. How do I calculate my own BRI?
BRI is calculated using a mathematical formula: 364.2 − 365.5 × √(1 − [waist circumference in centimeters / 2π]2 / [0.5 × height in centimeters]2, according to the study.
There are online calculators where you can enter your height and waist and hip measurements to determine your BRI.
Once your measurements are entered, you will see a number and whether that puts you in or out of the "healthy zone."
3. What are the criticisms of BRI?
According to Feller, one criticism of BRI is that it favors a certain body type.
"The challenge with the BRI is that it really favors more slender bodies, and it says that, okay, rounder bodies are not as 'healthy,'" Feller said.
4. What is wrong with using BMI?
BMI is still a go-to determinant of health used by medical providers.
Some critics, though, argue that BMI does not take into account a person's body composition because it only measures weight and height, according to Feller.
With BMI, a person is categorized as either underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese.
Last year, the American Medical Association said in a policy announcement that BMI does not account for racial, sex, age ethnic and gender diversity.
"It doesn't take body composition into consideration," Feller said. "So someone who's very muscular might wrongly be put in the overweight or obese category, and that's just not okay."
5. What are other ways to check my health status?
Feller noted that while BRI and BMI can be useful, she recommends relying on tests that measure a person's internal health rather than their weight or measurements.
"I always like to check the insides," Feller said. "You can look as wonderful as you want on the outside, but what's happening with your lipids? What's happening with your blood pressure, your blood sugars? Those are the things that I want to see."
HOUSTON – The San Antonio Express-News reports that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is again suing Harris County over its guaranteed income initiative, alleging that the latest version of the program still violates the Texas Constitution despite modifications officials made to pass muster. “The Texas Constitution expressly prohibits giving away public funds to benefit individuals — a common sense protection to prevent cronyism and ensure that public funds benefit all citizens,” Paxton, a third-term Republican, wrote in the suit. “The State of Texas brings this suit to ensure that Harris County follows the law and that public funds are properly expended and not doled out as door prizes at the voting booth.” Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee held his ground in a statement he made Thursday on social media.
“Our 1st basic income program was legal. The Texas Supreme Court disagreed, so we created a new program to address concerns,” said Menefee, a Democrat. “If it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now: @KenPaxtonTX’s goal is to tank a program that will help Texans in need. We won’t back down. See you in court.” Uplift Harris, as the local program is called, is designed to give financial assistance to low-income households picked through a randomized lottery. Around 1,900 participants were selected earlier this year to receive $500 monthly payments for 18 months, following a similar guaranteed income model that has been used around the country. Though the original legal battle over the program is still making its way through the courts, the county decided last month to move forward with a modified program because it’s running out of time to spend the $20.5 million of earmarked funds. The money comes from federal pandemic recovery dollars that must be allocated by the end of the year.
HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports a surgeon in the liver transplant program at Memorial Hermann – Texas Medical Center admitted earlier this year to circumventing federal rules to make it highly unlikely that certain patients would receive an offer for a life-saving organ, according to federal documents provided this week to the Houston Chronicle. The surgeon, who was not named in the report but was later identified by the hospital as Dr. J. Steve Bynon, said he changed information in a transplant database without going through a formal review process. He is quoted in the documents as saying he took the “shortcut” to “ensure patients were safely transplanted.” Other hospital officials told regulators that the surgeon made the changes because his patients were sick, the documents say. Patients, however, were not notified of the changes while they remained active on the waitlist, according to the documents, which describe deficiencies found during an April 4 inspection by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The surgeon “admitted that it was ‘all his fault,’ and he maybe should have inactivated the patients from the waitlist,” according to the documents. Making such changes without notifying patients is a breach of medical ethics, an expert told the Chronicle. The documents reveal new details about previously reported problems in the hospital’s liver transplant program and raise additional questions about Bynon’s possible motives. They portray an environment where he repeatedly acted without consulting the hospital’s medical review board, a group of medical workers that collectively decides which patients should be added or removed from the transplant wait list. Bynon, a prominent abdominal transplant surgeon who took over the Memorial Hermann program in 2011, has been sued by multiple families who allege their loved one died as a result of changes he made to transplant information. Neither Bynon nor his attorney responded to a request for comment Thursday.
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon's southern village of Kfar Kila on September 20, 2024. -- Rabih Daher/AFP via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) -- A key Hezbollah commander and his chain of command were killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut on Friday, according to the Israel Defense Forces, as tensions continue to rise along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Ibrahim Aqil, a senior member of Hezbollah and the target of the strike in southern Beirut, was killed, according to the Israeli army. Top operatives and the chain of command of the Raduan unit were also killed in the strike, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
Aqil and the commanders who were killed were allegedly planning to occupy Galilee, in what Israel claimed would have been similar to Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a statement.
Aqil, also known as Tahsin, served on Hezbollah’s highest military body and was a principal member of Islamic Jihad Organization, which claimed responsibility for the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, according to the U.S. Department of State.
In 2023, the U.S. announced a reward of up to $7 million for any information leading to the "identification, location, arrest, and/or conviction of Hizballah key leader Ibrahim Aqil," according to the U.S. Award for Justice program. Aqil also directed the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon and held them there in the 1980s.
At least 14 people were killed and 66 others injured in the Israeli strike in southern Beirut, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Search and rescue operations are underway after Israel struck two residential buildings in the Jamous area in the southern suburbs of Beirut, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense.
Hagari said Israel will "continue to act to undermine the capabilities of and harm."
About 120 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Israel by midday on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces told ABC News, one day after Israel struck more than 100 Hezbollah targets within Lebanon, the military said.
The IDF also said in a statement it struck a terrorist in Kfarkela earlier Friday, but did not say who was targeted or whether the individual was killed, saying in a statement, "Earlier today, IDF soldiers identified a Hezbollah terrorist entering a terrorist infrastructure site used by Hezbollah in the area of Kfarkela in southern Lebanon. Swiftly, the IAF struck the site from which the terrorist was operating."
The targeted strike in Beirut came in response to scores of rockets launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel on Friday. The IDF said it also struck Hezbollah targets in several other cities in southern Lebanon.
Israeli emergency medical services raised their national alert state to level 4 -- the highest level and defined as maximum readiness for an all-out war -- an Israeli official told ABC News.
Officials with the U.S. and other international leaders urged Hezbollah and Israel to seek diplomatic paths to de-escalate the conflict.
U.S. officials have this week privately urged their Israeli counterparts to find a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday. He added that U.S. was committed to the defense of Israel from all terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies.
"We will continue to stand by Israel's right to defend itself," Miller said during a press briefing Thursday. "But we don't want to see any party escalate this conflict, period."
Miller and other U.S. officials joined a chorus of international officials who were also asking Israel and Hezbollah to step back from a conflict that's at risk of spreading and increasing in intensity. Israel and Hezbollah have for most of the last 11 months fired a near-daily volley of projectiles across the border.
Those strikes appeared on Thursday to take on a new urgency, as Israel launched a series of strikes on Hezbollah targets within Lebanon. The strikes were among the largest in almost a year. And they followed an attack with explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies in both Lebanon and Syria, a deadly surprise attack that Israel was behind, according to a source.
A spokesperson for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon told Reuters on Friday the agency was also calling for de-escalation after seeing this week "a heavy intensification of the hostilities across the Blue Line," a reference to the border between Israel and Lebanon.
European leaders had on Thursday made similar pleas. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy both called for de-escalation in the Middle East in separate public statements.
Macron posted a message in French on social media addressing the Lebanese people, saying they cannot live in fear of an imminent war and conflict must be avoided.
Lammy said he met with his American, French, German and Italian counterparts Thursday and all four of them agreed that "we want to see a negotiated political settlement" between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group.
"We are all very, very clear that we want to see a negotiated political settlement so that Israelis can return to their homes in northern Israel and indeed, Lebanese can return to their homes," Lammy told reporters Thursday.
He added, "And that's why tonight I'm calling for an immediate cease-fire from both sides so that we can get to that settlement, that political settlement that's required
ABC News' Jordana Miller, Dana Savir and Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
NACOGDOCHES COUNTY – A Tennessee man who led Nacogdoches County Sheriff’s Office deputies in a multi-county pursuit Tuesday morning was found with a firearm and marijuana. According to the sheriff’s office and our news partner KETK, a deputy attempted to pull over a speeding 2020 Toyota at around 7:15 a.m. on US 259 near Central Heights school zone. The driver identified as 41-year-old Christopher Michael Chaney, of Ashland City, Tennessee, fled and reached speeds of 120 mph, the sheriff’s office said.
SMITH COUNTY — Nearly a decade after her son was killed, a Tyler Mother is still looking for answers. For eight years, Mary Moore, mother of Steven Ray Smith who was killed in September of 2016, has been searching and hoping for answers. “I can’t sleep at night because I miss him,” Moore said. “It’s the worst thing that a mother can feel, like a black hole in your heart.”
According to our news partner KETK, in 2016 Aisha McGee and Steven Smith were shot to death outside of a now closed club in northwest Tyler. Tyler police officer Andy Erbaugh served as one of the responding detectives on the case. “On September 18th, 2016, at around 2:44 in the morning,” Erbaugh said. “No witnesses except for one stayed on scene and we found that two people had been shot and killed.”
In this Jan. 25, 2024, file photo, a used Narcan brand Naloxone nasal spray rests on the street after paramedics and police responded to a suspected fentanyl drug overdose in Portland, Oregon. -- Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
(ATLANTA) -- The estimated number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have been dropping for months and are now at their lowest levels in three years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Deaths from overdoses dropped for the first time in five years in 2023, following a steady rise during the pandemic. However, the current number of overdose deaths still remains higher than pre-pandemic levels.
In April 2024, the latest month with data, the estimated number of deaths in the past 12 months was 101,168, according to the CDC. The last month with figures that low was in May of 2021, with 100,997 deaths.
Data from other sources, such as emergency department visits and calls to EMS, support the downward trend, according to an analysis led by Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He tells ABC News that the data may point to 20,000 fewer deaths annually, or more.
While experts continue to explore possible reasons driving the decline, there are a few public health initiatives to curb drug overdoses that may be showing signs of success.
“Enhanced access to naloxone, expanded treatment programs for opioid use disorder, and increased public awareness about the dangers of synthetic opioids like fentanyl are likely playing significant roles in saving lives,” said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News medical contributor.
Another potential explanation for the downturn, Dasgupta says, may be related to changes in the drug supply, such as more people using xylazine, a dangerous, non-opioid animal sedative that's often mixed with other illicit drugs, including fentanyl.
“Xylazine makes people use less fentanyl, is the bottom line,” Dasgupta told ABC News, while citing research that showed that those who overdosed and tested positive for xylazine had less severe health outcomes than those who did not have xylazine in their system. This could be due to the fact that those who used illicit substances, like fentanyl, mixed with xylazine may be using those substances less often, Dasgupta said.
“We're seeing this pattern kind of happening that looks a lot like a change in the drug supply, more so than just explained by all the interventions in the public health space,” Dasgupta added. “It's probably a mix of all these things at the end of the day, but something really changed in the third quarter of last year.”
Within each state, however, the decline in overdose deaths is not uniform among all people. Maryland, for example, experienced a decline in deaths among white populations, yet an increase among Black populations, Dasgupta points out.
Changes in drug overdose deaths also vary greatly by state, with some still experiencing increases in the past 12 months, CDC data shows. States with the greatest dips in overdose deaths over the past year, according to the same data, were Nebraska, North Carolina, Vermont, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, in that descending order.
While the national downward trend may continue, experts told ABC News it may not be permanent.
“We've seen dips that have been erased a year later. So, I'm cautious. I feel like things really haven't cooled down yet,” Dasgupta said. “It feels like we've put the lid on the pot, but we're still at a rolling boil. There's still a lot of people dying of overdose.”
“It's crucial that we continue to intensify our efforts to address the root causes of the opioid epidemic,” Brownstein said. “We need to continue investing in comprehensive strategies that address the complex factors driving the opioid crisis.”
Jake Goodman, MD, MBA is a psychiatry resident physician and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is awarding over $3 billion to U.S. companies to boost domestic production of advanced batteries and other materials used for electric vehicles, part of a continuing push to reduce China’s global dominance in battery production for EVs and other electronics.
The grants will fund a total of 25 projects in 14 states, including battleground states such as Michigan and North Carolina, as well as Ohio, Texas, South Carolina and Louisiana.
The grants announced Friday mark the second round of EV battery funding under the bipartisan infrastructure law approved in 2021. An earlier round allocated $1.8 billion for 14 projects that are ongoing. The totals are down from amounts officials announced in October 2022 and reflect a number of projects that were withdrawn or rejected by U.S. officials during sometimes lengthy negotiations.
The money is part of a larger effort by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to boost production and sales of electric vehicles as a key element of their strategy to slow climate change and build up U.S. manufacturing. Companies receiving awards process lithium, graphite or other battery materials, or manufacture components used in EV batteries.
“Today’s awards move us closer to achieving the administration’s goal of building an end-to-end supply chain for batteries and critical minerals here in America, from mining to processing to manufacturing and recycling, which is vital to reduce China’s dominance of this critical sector,” White House economic adviser Lael Brainard said.
The Biden-Harris administration is “committed to making batteries in the United States that are going to be vital for powering our grid, our homes and businesses and America’s iconic auto industry,” Brainard told reporters Thursday during a White House call.
The awards announced Friday bring to nearly $35 billion total U.S. investments to bolster domestic critical minerals and battery supply chains, Brainard said, citing projects from major lithium mines in Nevada and North Carolina to battery factories in Michigan and Ohio to production of rare earth elements and magnets in California and Texas.
“We’re using every tool at our disposal, from grants and loans to allocated tax credits,” she said, adding that the administration’s approach has leveraged more $100 billion in private sector investment since Biden took office.
In recent years, China has cornered the market for processing and refining key minerals such as lithium, rare earth elements and gallium, and also has dominated battery production, leaving the U.S. and its allies and partners “vulnerable,” Brainard said.
The U.S. has responded by taking what she called “tough, targeted measures to enforce against unfair actions by China.” Just last week, officials finalized higher tariffs on Chinese imports of critical minerals such as graphite used in EV and grid-storage batteries. The administration also has acted under the 2022 climate law to incentivize domestic sourcing for EVs sold in the U.S. and placed restrictions on products from China and other adversaries labeled by the U.S. as foreign entities of concern.
“We’re committed to making batteries in the United States of America,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.
If finalized, awards announced Friday will support 25 projects with 8,000 construction jobs and over 4,000 permanent jobs, officials said. Companies will be required to match grants on a 50-50 basis, with a minimum $50 million investment, the Energy Department said.
While federal funding may not be make-or-break for some projects, the infusion of cash from the infrastructure and climate laws has dramatically transformed the U.S. battery manufacturing sector in the past few years, said Matthew McDowell, associate professor of engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.
McDowell said he is excited about the next generation of batteries for clean energy storage, including solid state batteries, which could potentially hold more energy than lithium ion.
TYLER – Jerry Thomas, from Rusk, was awarded $4.5 million in a lawsuit after an accident that cost him his hand, according to our news partner KETK. In a release from the office of Daniel Gibbins, the lead attorney for Thomas, the lawsuit against Antonio Munoz Asseradero LLC over safety concerns at the sawmill found that unsafe working conditions were the cause of an accident that resulted in the loss of Thomas’ hand.
