Official: Trump to challenge California authority on mileage
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is moving forward with a proposal to revoke part of California’s authority to set its own automobile gas mileage standards, a government official said Thursday, confronting a state that has repeatedly challenged the administration’s environmental rollbacks.
The Environmental Protection Agency was preparing paperwork for the White House for the move, meant to help the administration set a single, less rigorous mileage standard enforceable nationwide, according to the official, who is familiar with the regulatory process and spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been made public.
President Donald Trump has pushed for months to weaken Obama-era mileage standards nationwide and has targeted California’s decades-old power to set its own mileage standards as part of that effort.
Administration moves to rescind authority that Congress granted probably would end up in court. When President George W. Bush challenged California’s greenhouse gas emissions and mileage-setting ability, California fought it. The Obama administration subsequently dropped the Bush effort.
The Trump plan would have to be posted in the Federal Register and would be subject to public comment.
Hurricane death toll in Bahamas at 30 as aid begins to land
ABACO, Bahamas — Carrying possessions in plastic bags, some weary Bahamians whose homes were smashed by Hurricane Dorian waited Thursday for a flight out of the disaster zone as an international humanitarian effort to help the Caribbean country gained momentum.
Despite hardship and uncertainty, those at the airport were mostly calm. The Bahamian health ministry said helicopters and boats were on the way to help people in affected areas, though warned of delays because of severe flooding and limited access.
At least 30 people died in the hurricane and the number could be “significantly higher,” Bahamian health minister Duane Sands told the Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday night. The victims are from Abaco and Grand Bahama islands and include some who were injured and flown to New Providence island, he said.
The hurricane hit Abaco on Sunday and then hovered over Grand Bahama for a day and a half.
Fire foiled rescued attempts by California boat crew
LOS ANGELES — The crew of a scuba diving boat that sank off the coast of Southern California made several attempts to rescue the 34 people who were trapped below decks by fire, but intense flames drove them back and all perished, federal authorities said Thursday.
All those lost in the Labor Day tragedy aboard the Conception were sleeping in a bunkroom below the main deck when fire broke out around 3 a.m. The captain and four crew were above and survived, and one of the searing questions was whether they tried to help the others before saving themselves.
The crew members told investigators in “very lengthy, detailed, comprehensive interviews” what Jennifer Homendy, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, called a harrowing story of the moments after the fire erupted on the vessel.
One said he awoke to a noise — but did not hear a smoke alarm — and saw flames “erupting” from the ship’s galley below, Homendy said. He tried to get down a ladder, but flames had engulfed it.
Crew members then jumped from the ship’s bridge to its main deck — one breaking a leg in the effort — and tried to get through the double doors of the galley, under which the ship’s 33 passengers and a 26-year-old crew member slept. A stairway and escape hatch from the bunkroom both exited into the galley.
AP-NORC Poll: Most Americans see weather disasters worsening
WASHINGTON — Nearly three-quarters of Americans see weather disasters, like Hurricane Dorian, worsening and most of them blame global warming to some extent, a new poll finds.
And scientists say they’re right.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey shows 72% of Americans think catastrophic weather is more severe, while 4% see it as less nasty. About one-quarter say those disasters are about as extreme as they always were.
Half of those who think weather disasters are worsening say it’s mainly because of man-made climate change, with another 37% who think natural randomness and global warming are equally to blame.
The poll was conducted in mid-August before Dorian formed, pummeled the Bahamas and put much of the U.S. East Coast on edge.
Administration unveils plan to privatize Fannie, Freddie
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has unveiled its plan for ending government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two giant mortgage finance companies that nearly collapsed in the financial crisis 11 years ago and were bailed out at a total cost to taxpayers of $187 billion.
The administration’s plan calls for returning Fannie and Freddie to private ownership and reducing risk to taxpayers. That while preserving homebuyers’ access to 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages, a pillar of housing finance. The Treasury Department published the plan Thursday and submitted it to President Donald Trump, who called for it in March.
While not prominently in the public eye, the two companies perform a critical role in the housing market. Together they guarantee roughly half of the $10 trillion U.S. home loan market.
Fannie and Freddie, operating under so-called government conservatorships, have become profitable again in the years since the 2008 rescue and have repaid their bailouts in full to the Treasury.
The administration initially looked to Congress for legislation to overhaul the housing finance system and return the companies to private shareholders. But Congress hasn’t acted, and now officials say they will take administrative action for the core change, ending the Fannie and Freddie conservatorships.
No conviction in California warehouse fire stuns families
OAKLAND, Calif. — A jury on Thursday didn’t convict two men charged after flames tore through a party at a San Francisco Bay Area warehouse that had been converted into a mazelike artist space, stunning families of the 36 victims who had opposed a deal that would have put the pair behind bars.
Jurors acquitted Max Harris of involuntary manslaughter but said they could not unanimously agree on whether to convict or acquit Derick Almena after deliberating for nearly two weeks.
As the judge declared a mistrial, sobs and gasps erupted from family and friends of the victims who have packed the courtroom for the emotional three-month trial. The men were accused of filling the building in Oakland with so much clutter that it trapped people at an electronic music party nearly three years ago.
“I’m in shock,” said David Gregory, whose 20-year-old daughter Michela perished in the fast-moving fire. “We were hoping for justice, but we didn’t get justice today.”
Michela Gregory and her 22-year-old boyfriend, Alex Vega, died when fire roared through the so- Ghost Ship warehouse, which had been illegally converted into a live-work space for artists and held events.