British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker held their first face-to-face talks Monday, without any visible signs of a breakthrough on an elusive Brexit deal.

The two men talked over a two-hour lunch of snails and salmon in Juncker’s native Luxembourg, amid claims from the U.K. — though not the EU — that a deal is in sight.
 
The European Commission said after the meeting that Britain had yet to offer any “legally operational” solutions to the issue of the Irish border, the main roadblock to a deal.
 
“President Juncker underlined the Commission’s continued willingness and openness to examine whether such proposals meet the objectives of the backstop”— a border provision rejected by Britain.
 
 “Such proposals have not yet been made,” the European Commission said in a statement, adding that officials “will remain available to work 24/7.”
 
Johnson says the U.K. will leave the EU on the scheduled Oct. 31 date, with or without a withdrawal agreement. But he insists he can strike a revised divorce deal with the bloc in time for an orderly departure. The agreement made by his predecessor, Theresa May, was rejected three times by Britain’s Parliament.
 
Johnson said in a Daily Telegraph column Monday that he believes “passionately” that a deal can be agreed and approved at a summit of EU leaders on Oct. 17-18.
 
While the EU says it is still waiting for firm proposals from the U.K., Johnson spokesman James Slack said Britain had “put forward workable solutions in a number of areas.”
 
He declined to provide details, saying it was unhelpful to negotiate in public.
 
The key sticking point is the “backstop,” an insurance policy in May’s agreement intended to guarantee an open border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland. That is vital both to the local economy and to Northern Ireland’s peace process.
 
British Brexit supporters oppose the backstop because it keeps the U.K. bound to EU trade rules, limiting its ability to forge new free trade agreements around the world after Brexit.
 
Britain has suggested the backstop could be replaced by “alternative arrangements,” but the EU says it has yet to hear any workable suggestions.
 
Neither side expects a breakthrough Monday, but much still rests on Johnson’s encounter with Juncker, who like other EU officials is tired of the long-running Brexit drama, and wary of Johnson’s populist rhetoric.
 
The British leader has vowed to leave the bloc “do or die” and compared himself to angry green superhero the Incredible Hulk, telling the Mail on Sunday newspaper: “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets, and he always escapes … and that is the case for this country.”
 
European Parliament Brexit chief Guy Verhofstadt branded the comparison “infantile,” and it also earned a rebuke from “Hulk” star Mark Ruffalo.
 
Ruffalo tweeted: “Boris Johnson forgets that the Hulk only fights for the good of the whole. Mad and strong can also be dense and destructive.”
 
Monday’s meeting marks the start a tumultuous week, with the Brexit deadline just 45 days away.
 
On Tuesday, Britain’s Supreme Court will consider whether Johnson’s decision to prorogue — or suspend — the British Parliament for five weeks was lawful, after conflicting judgments in lower courts.
 
Johnson sent lawmakers home until Oct. 14, a drastic move that gives him a respite from rebellious lawmakers determined to thwart his Brexit plan.
 
Last week, Scotland’s highest civil court ruled the prorogation illegal because it had the intention of stymieing Parliament. The High Court in London, however, said it was not a matter for the courts.
 
If the Supreme Court overturns the suspension, lawmakers could be called back to Parliament as early as next week.
 
Many lawmakers fear a no-deal Brexit would be economically devastating, and are determined to stop the U.K. from crashing out of the bloc on Oct. 31.
 
Just before the suspension, Parliament passed a law that orders the government to seek a three-month delay to Brexit if no agreement has been reached by late October.
 
Johnson insists he will not seek a delay under any circumstances, though it’s not clear how he can avoid it.
 
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Monday that the government would obey the law, but suggested it would try to find loopholes.
 
  “I think the precise implications of the legislation need to be looked at very carefully,” he told the BBC. “We are doing that.”
    

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Tunisians voted Sunday to select their next president among some two dozen candidates. More than seven million people were eligible to cast their ballot in what is only the North African country’s second free presidential election, eight years after its so-called Jasmine Revolution.

A steady stream of people filed into this primary school in the working class Tunis suburb of Ariana, lining up under posters offering instructions on how to vote. Nineteen-year-old college student Yomna El-Benna is excited to be voting for the first time.

“I’m going to vote for Mourou… for many reasons…. when I was deciding, I eliminated the persons who I’m not convinced with… they cannot lead Tunisia,” said El-Benna.

That’s Abdelfattah Mourou from the moderate Islamist Ennahdha party, running to replace 92-year-old president Beji Caid Essebsi who died in July. Mourou’s part of a dizzying lineup of presidential hopefuls, including two women. Among them: government ministers, far left politicians and jailed media tycoon Nabil Karoui. A runoff vote is expected, following next month’s legislative elections.

Zohra Goummid voted for Prime Minister Youssef Chahed. “He’s got experience, he’s young,’ she says. ‘We Tunisians know him well. The other candidates are just upstarts,” she said.

But with Tunisia’s economy sputtering and unemployment high, others are looking for new faces, outside the political establishment.

Retired professor Mohammed Sami Neffati voted for a friend of his: 61-year-old law expert Kais Saied, who opted for door-to-door campaigning instead of large rallies. He isn’t eloquent, Neffati says, but he’s got a chance, because he’s honest.

But other Tunisians stayed home, disappointed about the state of their country — and skeptical that any of the candidates can turn things around.

…

The al-Shabab militant group launched a series of attacks since Saturday that led to the death of at least 17 people in Somalia.

Lower Shabelle region officials told VOA Somali that the militants attacked the town of Qoryoley late Saturday using rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, killing nine people.

The town’s Mayor Sayid Ali Ibrajim told VOA that an RPG fired by the militants caused most of the casualties.

Somali government forces with support from African Union forces, who are based outside the town, repelled the attack, according to officials.

Some of the residents in Qoryoley alleged that heavy weapons fired by AU troops caused some of the civilians casualties.

The Governor of the region Ibrahim Adan Najah told VOA Somali that they are investigating the allegations. AMISOM forces did not immediately respond to the allegations.

Also in Lower Shabelle region on Saturday, two civilians were killed after al-Shabab militants fired mortars on the ancient port town of Marka during a visit by the Prime Minister of Somalia Hassan Ai Khaire.

Al-Shabab claimed they were targeting the prime minister but the Governor Najah told VOA Somali that the incident took place outside the town. Residents and security sources said one of the mortars landed in a residential area killing two women. The prime minister was unharmed and has returned to Mogadishu safely.

Governor Najah himself was attacked on Sunday after his convoy was targeted with a remote-controlled explosion while travelling in an agricultural area near the town of Shalanbod, about 20 kilometers south of Qoryoley town. According to security sources, two bodyguards were killed and four others were injured including two junior regional officials.

In the neighboring Middle Shabelle region, al-Shabab carried out a roadside explosion that killed four regional officials and injured six others on Saturday. Among the dead was Abdullahi Shitawe, deputy governor for finances, Sabrie Osman a former regional deputy minister for business, and businessman Hassan Baldos. A fourth person said to be a bodyguard was also killed. They were travelling on a road in the north of the agricultural town of Bal’ad, about 40 kilometers north of Mogadishu.

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US President Donald Trump mounted an angry defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday as the controversial judge faced calls for an investigation over fresh allegations of sexual misconduct.

Trump blasted the media and “Radical Left Democrats” after a former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh alleged that the jurist — one of the most senior judges in the land  — exposed himself at a freshman year party before other students pushed his genitals into the hand of a female student.

The latest allegation in The New York Times came after Kavanaugh denied sexual misconduct accusations leveled against him by two women during his confirmation to the Supreme Court last October.

“Now the Radical Left Democrats and their Partner, the LameStream Media, are after Brett Kavanaugh again, talking loudly of their favorite word, impeachment,” Trump tweeted.

“He is an innocent man who has been treated HORRIBLY. Such lies about him. They want to scare him into turning Liberal!”

Now the Radical Left Democrats and their Partner, the LameStream Media, are after Brett Kavanaugh again, talking loudly of their favorite word, impeachment. He is an innocent man who has been treated HORRIBLY. Such lies about him. They want to scare him into turning Liberal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2019

The new allegations came from Max Stier, who runs a non-profit in Washington. His concerns were reported to the FBI during Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation process but not investigated, according to the Times.

Stier said he saw his former classmate “with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”

Stier has not spoken publicly about the incident but his story was corroborated by two officials, the Times said.

It is the latest in a string of accusations of unwanted sexual contact or assault against Kavanaugh since Trump nominated him to the Supreme Court.

‘Shame’

Christine Blasey Ford testified before Congress that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, while Deborah Ramirez told The New Yorker Kavanaugh had waved his penis in front of her face at a 1980s dormitory party.

The latest allegation surfaced during a 10-month investigation by Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, and features in their upcoming book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.”

Trump called on Kavanaugh to take legal action over the claims, suggesting also that the Department of Justice should intervene on the judge’s behalf and “come to his rescue.”

But Democrats seeking to be Trump’s opponent in the 2020 election called for the judge to be investigated.

“Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation is a shame to the Supreme Court. This latest allegation of assault must be investigated,” former housing secretary and Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro tweeted.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobouchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who was involved in a heated exchange with Kavanaugh during his confirmation, described the process as a “sham.”

“I strongly opposed him based on his views on executive power, which will continue to haunt our country, as well as how he behaved, including the allegations that we are hearing more about today,” she told ABC’s “This Week.”

Republican Senator Ted Cruz dismissed the new allegation, however, as “the obsession with the far left with trying to smear Justice Kavanaugh by going 30 years back with anonymous sources.”

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It’s been a rocky week in Afghanistan peace talks, and NATO’s operational commander said allies “anticipate increased violence” on the ground as Afghan presidential elections inch closer.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), told a small group of reporters that Afghan elections “probably won’t be perfect,” but the 29-member North Atlantic alliance will “plan and execute to the ends of the Earth” to try to make the September 28 vote as safe as possible.

“There has been a lot of drama associated with Afghanistan, and at this very moment the signal we send to our NATO partners is the U.S. is committed, NATO is committed, and the mission still remains,” Wolters said on the sidelines of the latest NATO Military Committee in Chiefs of Defense Session.

British Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, chairman of NATO’s military chiefs, added Saturday that there was “no division” on that commitment.

“We went into Afghanistan together, and any changes we will make together,” Peach said.

Peace talks between the U.S. and the Taliban collapsed late last week. President Donald Trump had planned talks with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and Taliban leaders at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, but then said that he decided to cancel them.

US-Taliban talks

U.S. and Taliban negotiators had recently appeared to be close to a deal to end America’s longest war and start talks between the insurgent group and the Afghan government. However, Trump declared U.S.-Afghan peace talks “dead” after a car bombing in Kabul killed dozens, including an American soldier.

The decision to end talks has increased concerns about escalating violence. Since then, the Taliban has threatened to disrupt the upcoming election, vowing that American troops “will suffer more than anyone else.”

Afghan President Ghani, who is running for re-election this month, appears emboldened by Trump’s cancellation of talks with the Taliban and has hardened his stance for engaging in future peace talks with them.

Ghani said this week that negotiations will be “impossible” until the Taliban declares a cease-fire.
 

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A senior Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) intelligence officer arrested this week for allegedly stealing sensitive documents oversaw an investigation into the laundering of stolen Russian funds, Canadian media reported Saturday.

The Globe and Mail said Cameron Ortis’ arrest was linked to a major corruption case that was first revealed by Sergei Magnitsky, who went public with details of a $230 million fraud scheme allegedly run by senior Russian interior ministry and tax officials.

Ortis was as recently as August said to be overseeing an inquiry into whether some of the money was funneled through Canada, the newspaper reported.

“Ortis, director-general of the RCMP’s National Intelligence Coordination Centre, was planning to meet for a second time with the legal team pursuing the matter alleging more than $14 million in Russian fraud proceeds were tied to Canada,” The Globe and Mail said, citing an unnamed source.

Ortis’ involvement in the case came after William Browder, a British financier and former investor in Russia whom Magnitsky worked for, filed a complaint with the RCMP in 2016.

Magnitsky died in detention after spending 11 months in prisons in 2009.

Canada’s federal police agency hasn’t opened a formal investigation into the allegation, despite a 2017 meeting between Ortis and Browder, the newspaper said.

Ortis, who was arrested in the capital Ottawa on Thursday, was a top adviser to former RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson and had control over counter-intelligence operations, Canada’s Global News reported.

He faces five charges under the country’s criminal code and its Security of Information Act and will appear for a court hearing next Friday.

“The allegations are that he obtained, stored, processed sensitive information, we believe with the intent to communicate it to people that he shouldn’t be communicating it to,” prosecutor John MacFarlane told journalists after Ortis appeared in court last Friday.

The RCMP fears Ortis stole “large quantities of information, which could compromise an untold number of investigations,” according to Global News, which first reported the arrest.

Canada is a member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance with Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the United States.
 

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson likened himself to the unruly comic book character The Incredible Hulk late Saturday in a newspaper interview in which he stressed his determination to take Britain out of the European Union on Oct. 31. 

The Mail on Sunday reported that Johnson said he would find a way to circumvent a recent Parliament vote ordering him to delay Brexit rather than take Britain out of the EU without a transition deal to ease the economic shock. 

“The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets,” Johnson was quoted as saying. “Hulk always escaped, no matter how tightly bound in he seemed to be — and that is the case for this country. We will come out on October 31.” 

Britain’s Parliament has repeatedly rejected the exit deal Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, negotiated with the EU, and this month rejected leaving without a deal — angering many Britons who voted to leave the bloc more than three years ago.  

No ‘backstop’

Johnson has said he wants to negotiate a new deal that does not involve a “backstop,” which would potentially tie Britain against its will to EU rules after it leaves in order to avoid checks on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. 

The EU has so far insisted on the backstop, and Britain has not presented any detailed alternative. 

Nonetheless, Johnson said he was “very confident” ahead of a meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Monday. 

“There’s a very, very good conversation going on about how to address the issues of the Northern Irish border. A huge amount of progress is being made,” Johnson told The Mail on Sunday, without giving details. 

Johnson drew parallels between Britain’s situation in Brexit talks and the frustrations felt by fictional scientist Bruce Banner, who when enraged turned into The Incredible Hulk, frequently leaving behind a trail of destruction.  

“Banner might be bound in manacles, but when provoked he would explode out of them,” he said. 

Earlier on Saturday, former Conservative minister Sam Gyimah said he was switching to the pro-EU Liberal Democrat party in protest at Johnson’s Brexit policies and political style. 

Opinion polls late Saturday painted a conflicting picture of the Conservative Party’s political fortunes under Johnson, who wants to hold an early election to regain a working majority in Parliament. 

A poll conducted by Opinium for The Observer newspaper showed Conservative support rose to 37% from 35% over the past week, while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour held at 25% and Liberal Democrat support dropped to 16% from 17%. Support for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party remained at 13%. 

However, a separate poll by ComRes for The Sunday Express put Conservative support at just 28%, down from 30% and only a shade ahead of Labour at 27%. 

ComRes said just 12% of the more than 2,000 people it surveyed thought Parliament could be trusted to do the right thing for the country. 

…

A tropical depression near the Bahamas has strengthened into Tropical Storm Humberto, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said late Friday night.

A tropical storm warning is in effect for the northwest Bahamas, excluding Andros Island, meaning that tropical storm conditions are expected somewhere in the warning area within 36 hours.

The agency said the storm was about 365 kilometers (226 miles) east-southeast of Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, moving toward the northwest at almost 9 kilometers (15 miles) per hour, with a turn toward the north-northwest expected by Sunday. 

The storm is expected to pass very close to the northwestern Bahamas Saturday but stay offshore of Florida’s east coast by Sunday and early next week.

The agency said maximum sustained winds had increased to nearly 65 kph (40 mph) and added that gradual strengthening is forecast, with Humberto expected to become a hurricane in two or three days.

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There was a time not too long ago when sneakers were just another kind of footwear, usually used for sports. Now, some popular sneaker models are seen as collectibles. Even used sneakers can be bought and sold like precious commodities. Saqib Ul Islam visited “Sneaker Con DC” an annual gathering in Washington where so-called “sneakerheads” gather to buy, sell and talk about their favorite shoes.
 

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President Donald Trump has pegged his re-election bid on the strength of the U.S. economy. Amid growing concerns of a potential slowdown, the president insists the economy is strong, at the same time he’s pushing for growth by floating another potential round of tax cuts and urging the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates further. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.

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The European Union’s powerful competition chief has indicated she’s looking at expanding regulations on personal data, dropping an initial hint about how she plans to use new powers against tech companies.
 
Margrethe Vestager said Friday that while Europeans have control over their own data through the EU’s existing data privacy rules, they don’t address problems stemming from the way companies use other people’s data, “to draw conclusions about me or to undermine democracy.”

She said, “we may also need broader rules to make sure that the way companies collect and use data doesn’t harm the fundamental values of our society.”

Vestager spoke days after she was appointed to a second term as the EU’s competition commissioner. She was also given new powers to shape the bloc’s digital policies.

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India’s first major railway station managed by an all-women staff in the northern Rajasthan state is helping break gender stereotypes and empowering women in one of the country’s most conservative states. Reporter Anjana Pasricha visited the station to see how the initiative has fared since it was launched last year.

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A lawyer for the former Tunisian president ousted in the 2011 Arab Spring says Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been hospitalized in Saudi Arabia.

Mounir Ben Salha told Mosaique radio Thursday night that Ben Ali’s daughter called him to say the 83-year-old ex-president is “very sick” after years of treatment for prostate cancer. The lawyer said Ben Ali is in a hospital in Jeddah.

The lawyer’s announcement came as Tunisians prepare for a presidential election Sunday. It is Tunisia’s second democratic presidential election since the 2011 uprising over corruption, unemployment and repression pushed Ben Ali to flee.

Ben Ali has been convicted in absentia to several prison terms for corruption-related violations.

Given Tunisia’s economic troubles since Ben Ali’s ouster, some have called for his return. But he remains detested by others.

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President Donald Trump’s administration has released $250 million in military aid for Ukraine, U.S. senators said on Thursday, after lawmakers from both parties expressed anger that the White House had held up money approved by Congress.

Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Committee said the White House released the money on Wednesday night, hours before the panel was due to debate an amendment to a defense spending bill that would have prevented Trump from such actions in the future.

It was one of several disputes recently between Trump and members of Congress, some of his fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, over his administration’s decision to sidestep congressional approval to fund its own policy initiatives.

A few Republicans, as well as Democrats, had said they expected Congress would pass legislation to reinstate the aid for Ukraine if the administration had not released the money. The money is intended for use by Ukraine in its struggle with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

The White House has sought repeatedly to slash foreign aid since Trump took office in January 2017, but Congress has pushed back repeatedly against such plans.

The White House Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for comment.

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The new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations took up her post on Thursday. Kelly Knight Craft will not have much time to settle in, as she arrives little more than a week before the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer has more.

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Across Nigeria, there’s a rising demand for vultures, and poachers are driving the local population of four large vulture species to near extinction. 
 
The Nigerian Conservation Foundation is now placing vulture preservation high on its agenda, hoping to revive the threatened population. Abidemi Balogun, a senior special conservation officer with the foundation’s educational unit, is engaging with local communities where superstitions and folklore about the birds persist. 
 
“Someone actually asked me how do they identity the evil ones because there’s been a belief that vultures are evil birds,” Balogun told VOA with a laugh. 
 
She’s been with the foundation for eight years and said vulture poaching was not taken seriously in the past. 

Spiritual practices

She said that the birds aren’t being hunted for consumption as much as they’re being killed for spiritual practices. In 2017, the foundation conducted a market survey to see how the birds were traded. 
 
“Some of the findings that we made is that the head is used for ritual purposes and the head is the most expensive part of it,” she said. 
 
In local markets, vulture feathers are sold for about 100 naira, or less than 50 cents. But the head can fetch up to 25,000 naira, or about $70. 
 
In Nigeria’s diverse cultural landscape, the beliefs around vultures vary widely. In the southwest, where they’re called igún, vultures are seen as sacred in traditional spirituality.  According to folklore, they can be used to communicate with the dead or to appease the gods in elaborate sacrificial ceremonies. 
 
In northern Nigeria, they are consumed. But they’re also sold by traders known as yan shinfida to be used in traditional medicine and spiritual healing. 

Treatments

A 2013 report cited traders in the north marketing vulture parts to treat epilepsy, mental instability and stroke, as well as to offer supernatural protection, good luck, pain relief and relief for women in labor. Some say the head possesses clairvoyant powers. 
 
In southeastern Nigeria, the bird is not eaten and has no place in traditional spirituality, Ike Nwakamma of the Nigerian Supreme Council of Traditional Worshippers told VOA. He said it is viewed as unclean, and therefore unacceptable to traditional gods. People don’t want them around, whether alive or dead. 
 
That’s why an incident that happened in July caused panic at a local market. 
 
Amateur videos captured shocked and fearful reactions at the sight of 50 dead vultures on the ground at Eke-Ihe market in the Awgu community, in the southeastern state of Enugu. 
 
Igwe Godwin Ekoh, the traditional ruler of Ihe and the chairman of the Agwu Traditional Rulers Council, told VOA that a poacher had killed the vultures en masse, using poisoned meat, to sell the corpses. 
 
Vulture trafficking has become a lucrative trade. The NIgerian Conservation foundation said 500 tons of vultures are trafficked every month. 
 
BirdLife International, a global partnership organization, said that across Africa, vulture populations have virtually collapsed in the last 30 years, with poisoning as the major threat. 
 
In June, 537 vultures were found dead in Botswana’s northeast, after ingesting poison left by elephant poachers. 
 
BirdLife International describes vultures as nature’s sanitary workers, worthy of being celebrated. 

Vulture workshops
 
In Enugu last week, Igwe Ekoh attended a forum that was organized by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation for International Vulture Awareness Day, held on the first Saturday every September. The foundation held workshops in Jalingo, Ibadan and Sokoto as well as Enugu. 
 
Attendants at the Enugu edition went to a popular market to talk to meat butchers and asked them to inform authorities if they ever saw vulture parts being sold. 
 
Igwe Ekoh said he left the forum with a newfound appreciation for vultures, saying he learned about how they are vital to reducing the spread of bacteria of dead animals. 
 
A local NGO, the South Saharan Development Organization (SSDO), has agreed to partner with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation. SSDO will set up conservation clubs for high school students to learn about the environment and the role of animals, including vultures, in sustaining nature. 
 
“It’s holistic,” SSDO’s executive director, Dr. Stanley Ilechukwu, told VOA. 

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U.S. President Donald Trump is set to visit Baltimore, the eastern U.S., majority-black city he recently called a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” 
 
Trump will be in Baltimore on Thursday to address Republican congressional leaders attending an annual retreat. 
 
Several protests are planned to coincide with his visit. Activist groups are planning to protest “racism, white supremacy, war, bigotry and climate change,” organizers told The Baltimore Sun. 
 
Trump has denied charges of racism regarding his attacks on the city and U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who is a native of Baltimore. 
 
“There is nothing racist in stating plainly what most people already know, that Elijah Cummings has done a terrible job for the people of his district, and of Baltimore itself,” he tweeted in July. 

…

The U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State (IS) was announced five years ago. Despite defeating the terror group militarily, some experts believe IS still poses a major threat to global security. Sirwan Kajjo reports from Washington.
 

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What is a Push Poll?

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It was a sobering moment this July 1 in Gillette, Wyoming, when two of the largest coal mines in the country closed in midshift.

Melissa Peterson Worden was one of about 600 people who lost their jobs that day, when the nation’s sixth-largest coal mining company, Blackjewel, abruptly went out of business.

“It is the thing they said would never happen,” Worden said. “And it happened.”

Blackjewel had applied for bankruptcy protection that morning. But the company couldn’t get funding to keep the mines running while courts sorted out its finances. So the mines closed that afternoon. They haven’t opened since.

Blackjewel’s bankruptcy underscores the paradigm shift taking place in the electric power industry. In just the last decade or so, more than half of the nation’s 530 coal-fired power plants have shut down or announced plans to do so as cheaper, cleaner alternatives have moved in, according to the Sierra Club. 

Coal Industry’s Decline Hits Nation’s Largest Producer video player.

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While the downturn in the coal industry has hit hard in the Eastern U.S. region of Appalachia, Wyoming is the nation’s largest coal producer by far. The state dug more than 316 million tons of coal in 2017, more than all seven states of Appalachia combined.

Companies with mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin were thought to have “jewels in their balance sheets,” said Robert Godby, director of the University of Wyoming’s Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy, “because the Powder River Basin was so profitable.”

“But that’s changed in a few short years,” he added. “The tide has just turned so quickly that it’s caught a lot of people off guard.”

Rock bottom prices

Even as the coal industry faltered elsewhere, the Powder River Basin thought it would weather the downturn.

Coal is so easy to mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the local joke goes, that all you need is a golf club. Huge seams lie just below the surface.

The mines are massive. Seven of the 10 largest mines in the country are here. Dump trucks the size of houses carry 400 tons of coal at a time through terraced craters carved out of the grasslands.

The huge economies of scale meant coal from these mines was among the cheapest in the country. The state supplies 40% of the nation’s coal, fueling power plants from Georgia to Oregon.

Coal’s backers blame the Obama administration environmental regulations for closing plants that have kept the lights on for generations.

But experts say the decline has more to do with the rapid rise of cheaper natural gas since the mid-2000s. And the plunging cost of solar and wind power in just the last few years is helping renewable energy further cut into coal’s market.

That’s forcing a reckoning in places like Gillette, Wyoming, the de facto capital of the Powder River basin.

Change comes to the ‘energy capital’

Mining is “kind-of a family thing” for Rory Wallet.

His father, stepfather and sister all have worked in the coal mines around Gillette, he said. His grandfather was a phosphate miner before that.

“It’s a wonderful way to make a living. A decent, livable living,” he said. “I’ve got four kids, so it’s a great way to keep them insured and keep food on the table and keep a good home over their head.”

But Wallet lost his job in the Blackjewel bankruptcy.

“We’re struggling,” he said. “The big one for us is the house payment.”

He’s kept up his spirits and those of hundreds of others with a Facebook page that’s become a de facto support group for former Blackjewel workers.

Mining is a high paying job with good benefits that doesn’t require higher education. When mining jobs dry up, experts say, it’s hard to find a substitute.

That poses a problem for Gillette, population 30,000. The city bills itself as the “Energy Capital of the Nation.”

While Gillette and Wyoming are profiting from oil and gas development, those industries tend to boom and bust. Coal has been a relatively steady source of tax revenue for decades.

“Coal has built the city as you see it,” said Gillette Mayor Louise Carter-King.

Gillette has weathered previous downturns. But the mayor sees the coal industry is on a downward trajectory.

“That’s why it’s important that we diversify,” she said.

The carbon prize

The city and the state have a lot riding on an experimental project called the Integrated Test Center attached to a coal-fired power plant just outside town. The $15 million facility allows researchers to plug directly into the plant’s exhaust and study ways to capture the planet-warming carbon dioxide.

Many experts consider carbon capture essential to fighting climate change. The world’s existing power plants, factories, vehicles and other fossil fuel-burning infrastructure are already on track to produce enough carbon dioxide to push the planet into catastrophic warming, scientists say.

While coal plants are closing in the United States and Europe, the rest of the world is building or planning to build hundreds more.

Carbon capture technology is not yet commercially viable, however, and is years away at best.

Next year, the center will be one of two sites hosting the $20 million Carbon XPRIZE. The other site is in Alberta, Canada. Teams from around the world will compete to find the best way to turn the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions into profitable products, such as building materials or chemicals.

Whether they win or lose, Carter-King hopes some of the teams competing for the prize will set up shop in Gillette permanently.

In the meantime, Rory Wallet said recent events have shaken his faith in coal — but not much.

“I’d lie if I said it didn’t,” he said. However, he added, “I plan on hanging on. If I don’t get a coal job immediately I’ll keep looking in the basin. They’re always available.”

Miners are a family, he said, and “it’s something I love doing.”

But there is a growing sense in Gillette that, after keeping the lights on for decades, coal will not be there forever.

The big question is, what’s next?

“The United States is saying, ‘What do you have for us now?’“ Melissa Peterson Worden said. “And we have to come up with a better answer than, ‘If you don’t like coal, don’t turn your lights on.’ We can’t be those people anymore.”

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