KANSAS CITY (AP) —Troubled trucking company Yellow Corp. is shutting down and filing for bankruptcy, the Teamsters said Monday.

An official backruptcy filing is expected any day for Yellow, after years of financial struggles and growing debt. Its impending liquidation marks a significant shift for the U.S. transportation industry and shippers nationwide.

“Today’s news is unfortunate but not surprising. Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government. This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien.

The company's collapse arrives just three years after Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide, Inc., received $700 million in pandemic-era loans from the federal government. But the company was in financial trouble long before that — with industry analysts pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back decades.

Former Yellow customers and shippers will face higher prices as they take their business to competitors, including FedEx or ABF Freight, experts say — noting that Yellow historically offered the cheapest price points in the industry.

Yellow is one of the nation’s largest less-than-truckload carriers. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company had 30,000 employees across the country as of earlier this year.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1690827382488.jpeg" alt="Yellow Corp. trucks are seen at a YRC Freight terminal Friday, July 28, 2023, in Kansas City. After years of financial struggles, Yellow is reportedly preparing for bankruptcy and seeing customers leave in large numbers — heightening risk for future liquidation. While no official decision has been announced by the company, the prospect of bankruptcy has renewed attention around Yellow's ongoing negotiations with unionized workers, a $700 million pandemic-era loan from the government and other bills the trucker has racked up over time. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)" />
 <figcaption>Yellow Corp. trucks are seen at a YRC Freight terminal Friday, July 28, 2023, in Kansas City. After years of financial struggles, Yellow is reportedly preparing for bankruptcy and seeing customers leave in large numbers — heightening risk for future liquidation. While no official decision has been announced by the company, the prospect of bankruptcy has renewed attention around Yellow's ongoing negotiations with unionized workers, a $700 million pandemic-era loan from the government and other bills the trucker has racked up over time. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY (AP) —Troubled trucking company Yellow Corp. is shutting down and filing for bankruptcy, the Teamsters said Monday.An official backruptcy filing is expected any day for Yellow, after years of financial struggles and growing debt. Its impending liquidation marks a significant shift for the U.S. transportation industry and shippers nationwide.“Today’s news is unfortunate but not surprising. Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government. This is a sad day for workers and the American freight industry,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien.The company's collapse arrives just three years after Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide, Inc., received $700 million in pandemic-era loans from the federal government. But the company was in financial trouble long before that — with industry analysts pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back decades.Former Yellow customers and shippers will face higher prices as they take their business to competitors, including FedEx or ABF Freight, experts say — noting that Yellow historically offered the cheapest price points in the industry.Yellow is one of the nation’s largest less-than-truckload carriers. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company had 30,000 employees across the country as of earlier this year.

U.S. trucking giant shuts down putting 30,000 out of work

KANSAS CITY (AP) — The nation's top health official implored states to do more to keep lower-income residents enrolled in Medicaid, as the Biden administration released figures Friday confirming that many who had health coverage during the coronavirus pandemic are now losing it.

Though a decline in Medicaid coverage was expected, health officials are raising concerns about the large numbers of people being dropped from the rolls for failing to return forms or follow procedures.

In 18 states that began a post-pandemic review of their Medicaid rolls in April, health coverage was continued for about 1 million recipients and terminated for 715,000. Of those dropped, 4 in 5 were for procedural reasons, according to newly released data from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra sent a letter Friday to all governors encouraging them to bolster efforts to retain people on Medicaid. He particularly encouraged them to use electronic information from other federal programs, such as food stamps, to automatically confirm people's eligibility for Medicaid. That would avert the need to mail and return documents.

“I am deeply concerned about high rates of procedural terminations due to ‘red tape’ and other paperwork issues,” Becerra told governors.

During the pandemic, states were prohibited from ending people’s Medicaid coverage. As a result, Medicaid enrollment swelled by nearly one-third, from 71 million people in February 2020 to 93 million in February 2023. The prohibition on trimming rolls ended in April, and states now have resumed annual eligibility redeterminations that had been required before the pandemic.

The new federal data captures only the first month of state Medicaid reviews from states that acted the most expeditiously. Since then, additional states also have submitted reports on those renewed and dropped from Medicaid in May and June.

Though the federal government hasn't released data from the most recent reports, information gathered by The Associated Press and health care advocacy groups show that about 3.7 million people already have lost Medicaid coverage. That includes about 500,000 in Texas, around 400,000 in Florida and 225,000 in California. Of those who lost coverage, 89% were for procedural reasons in California, 81% in Texas and 59% in Florida, according to the AP's data.

Many of those people may have still been eligible for Medicaid, “but they’re caught in a bureaucratic nightmare of confusing forms, notices sent to wrong addresses and other errors,” said Michelle Levander, founding director of the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California,

Top CMS officials said they have worked with several states to pause Medicaid removals and improve procedures for determining eligibility.

South Carolina is one state that voluntarily slowed down. It reported renewing Medicaid coverage for about 27,000 people in May while removing 118,000. Of those dropped, 95% were for procedural reasons. In a recent report to the federal government, South Carolina said it removed no one from Medicaid in June because it extended the eligibility renewal deadline from 60 days to 90 days.

Michigan reported renewing more than 103,000 Medicaid recipients in June and removing just 12,000. It told the federal government that the state opted to delay terminations for those who failed to respond to renewal requests while instead making additional outreach attempts. As a result, the state reported more than 100,000 people whose June eligibility cases remained incomplete.

People who are dropped from Medicaid can regain coverage retroactively if they submit information within 90 days proving their eligibility. But some advocacy groups say that still poses a challenge.

“State government is not necessarily nimble,” said Keesa Smith, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. "When individuals are being disenrolled, the biggest concern ... is that there is not a fast track to get those individuals back on the rolls.”

Arkansas officials have been at the forefront of defending Medicaid cuts. They contend that many people likely don't return forms because they no longer need Medicaid.

People are “transitioning off of Medicaid” because "they are working, making more money, and have access to health care through their employers or the federal marketplace,” Arkansas Medicaid Director Janet Mann said earlier this month. “This should be celebrated, not criticized.”

Insurance companies that run Medicaid programs for states said they are trying to reduce procedural terminations and enroll people in new plans.

The Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer Elevance Health lost 130,000 Medicaid customers during the recently completed second quarter, as Medicaid eligibility redeterminations began. Chief Financial Officer John Gallina said earlier this month that many people lost Medicaid coverage for administrative reasons but are likely to reenroll in the near future.

Leaders of the insurer Molina Healthcare told analysts Thursday that the company lost about 93,000 Medicaid customers in the recently completed second quarter, mostly due to eligibility redeterminations. Molina officials said they are trying to switch people who no longer qualify for Medicaid to one of the individual insurance plans they sell through state-based marketplaces.

Federal data for April indicates that some states did a better job than others at handling a crush of questions from people about their Medicaid coverage.

In 19 states and the District of Columbia, the average Medicaid call center wait time was one minute or less in April. But in Idaho, the average caller to the state's Medicaid help line waited 51 minutes. In Missouri, the average wait was 44 minutes, and in Florida 40 minutes.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/4/1681122121502.png" alt="Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra sent a letter Friday to all governors encouraging them to bolster efforts to retain people on Medicaid.-file photo" />
 <figcaption>Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra sent a letter Friday to all governors encouraging them to bolster efforts to retain people on Medicaid.-file photo</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY (AP) — The nation's top health official implored states to do more to keep lower-income residents enrolled in Medicaid, as the Biden administration released figures Friday confirming that many who had health coverage during the coronavirus pandemic are now losing it.Though a decline in Medicaid coverage was expected, health officials are raising concerns about the large numbers of people being dropped from the rolls for failing to return forms or follow procedures.In 18 states that began a post-pandemic review of their Medicaid rolls in April, health coverage was continued for about 1 million recipients and terminated for 715,000. Of those dropped, 4 in 5 were for procedural reasons, according to newly released data from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra sent a letter Friday to all governors encouraging them to bolster efforts to retain people on Medicaid. He particularly encouraged them to use electronic information from other federal programs, such as food stamps, to automatically confirm people's eligibility for Medicaid. That would avert the need to mail and return documents.“I am deeply concerned about high rates of procedural terminations due to ‘red tape’ and other paperwork issues,” Becerra told governors.During the pandemic, states were prohibited from ending people’s Medicaid coverage. As a result, Medicaid enrollment swelled by nearly one-third, from 71 million people in February 2020 to 93 million in February 2023. The prohibition on trimming rolls ended in April, and states now have resumed annual eligibility redeterminations that had been required before the pandemic.The new federal data captures only the first month of state Medicaid reviews from states that acted the most expeditiously. Since then, additional states also have submitted reports on those renewed and dropped from Medicaid in May and June.Though the federal government hasn't released data from the most recent reports, information gathered by The Associated Press and health care advocacy groups show that about 3.7 million people already have lost Medicaid coverage. That includes about 500,000 in Texas, around 400,000 in Florida and 225,000 in California. Of those who lost coverage, 89% were for procedural reasons in California, 81% in Texas and 59% in Florida, according to the AP's data.Many of those people may have still been eligible for Medicaid, “but they’re caught in a bureaucratic nightmare of confusing forms, notices sent to wrong addresses and other errors,” said Michelle Levander, founding director of the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California,Top CMS officials said they have worked with several states to pause Medicaid removals and improve procedures for determining eligibility.South Carolina is one state that voluntarily slowed down. It reported renewing Medicaid coverage for about 27,000 people in May while removing 118,000. Of those dropped, 95% were for procedural reasons. In a recent report to the federal government, South Carolina said it removed no one from Medicaid in June because it extended the eligibility renewal deadline from 60 days to 90 days.Michigan reported renewing more than 103,000 Medicaid recipients in June and removing just 12,000. It told the federal government that the state opted to delay terminations for those who failed to respond to renewal requests while instead making additional outreach attempts. As a result, the state reported more than 100,000 people whose June eligibility cases remained incomplete.People who are dropped from Medicaid can regain coverage retroactively if they submit information within 90 days proving their eligibility. But some advocacy groups say that still poses a challenge.“State government is not necessarily nimble,” said Keesa Smith, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. "When individuals are being disenrolled, the biggest concern ... is that there is not a fast track to get those individuals back on the rolls.”Arkansas officials have been at the forefront of defending Medicaid cuts. They contend that many people likely don't return forms because they no longer need Medicaid.People are “transitioning off of Medicaid” because "they are working, making more money, and have access to health care through their employers or the federal marketplace,” Arkansas Medicaid Director Janet Mann said earlier this month. “This should be celebrated, not criticized.”Insurance companies that run Medicaid programs for states said they are trying to reduce procedural terminations and enroll people in new plans.The Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer Elevance Health lost 130,000 Medicaid customers during the recently completed second quarter, as Medicaid eligibility redeterminations began. Chief Financial Officer John Gallina said earlier this month that many people lost Medicaid coverage for administrative reasons but are likely to reenroll in the near future.Leaders of the insurer Molina Healthcare told analysts Thursday that the company lost about 93,000 Medicaid customers in the recently completed second quarter, mostly due to eligibility redeterminations. Molina officials said they are trying to switch people who no longer qualify for Medicaid to one of the individual insurance plans they sell through state-based marketplaces.Federal data for April indicates that some states did a better job than others at handling a crush of questions from people about their Medicaid coverage.In 19 states and the District of Columbia, the average Medicaid call center wait time was one minute or less in April. But in Idaho, the average caller to the state's Medicaid help line waited 51 minutes. In Missouri, the average wait was 44 minutes, and in Florida 40 minutes.

Simple paperwork problems drive surge in people losing Medicaid coverage

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paul Reubens, the actor and comedian whose character Pee-wee Herman became a cultural phenomenon through films and TV shows, has died.

Reubens died Sunday night after a six-year struggle with cancer that he did not make public, his publicist said in a statement.

“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Reubens said in a statement released with the announcement of his death. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”

The character with his too-tight gray suit, white chunky loafers and red bow tie was best known for the film “Pee-wee's Big Adventure” and the TV series “Pee-wee's Playhouse.”

Herman created Pee-wee when he was part of the Los Angeles improv group The Groundlings in the late 1970s. The live “Pee-wee Herman Show” debuted at a Los Angeles theater in 1981 and was a success with both kids during matinees and adults at a midnight show. HBO would air the show as a special.

Reubens took Pee-wee to the big screen in 1985’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” The film, in which Pee-wee’s cherished bike is stolen, was said to be loosely based on Vittorio De Sica’s Italian neo-realist classic, “The Bicycle Thief.” The film, directed by Tim Burton and co-written by Phil Hartman of “Saturday Night Live,” sent Pee-wee on a nationwide escapade. The movie was a success, grossing $40 million, and continued to spawn a cult following for its oddball whimsy.

A sequel followed three years later in the less well-received “Big Top Pee-wee,” in which Pee-wee seeks to join a circus. Reubens’ character wouldn’t get another movie starring role until 2016’s Pee-wee’s Big Holiday,” for Netflix. Judd Apatow produced Pee-wee’s big-screen revival.

His television series, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” ran for five seasons, earned 22 Emmys and attracted not only children but adults to Saturday-morning TV.

Both silly and subversive and championing nonconformity, the Pee-wee universe was a trippy place, populated by things such as a talking armchair and a friendly pterodactyl. The host, who is fond of secret words and loves fruit salad so much he once married it, is prone to lines like, “I know you are, but what am I?” and “Why don’t you take a picture; it’ll last longer?” The act was a hit because it worked on multiple levels, even though Reubens insists that wasn’t the plan.

“It’s for kids,” Reubens told The Associated Press in 2010. “People have tried to get me for years to go, ‘It wasn’t really for kids, right?’ Even the original show was for kids. I always censored myself to have it be kid-friendly.

“The whole thing has been just a gut feeling from the beginning," Reubens told the AP. "That’s all it ever is and I think always ever be. Much as people want me to dissect it and explain it, I can’t. One, I don’t know, and two, I don’t want to know, and three, I feel like I’ll hex myself if I know.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1690827482075.jpeg" alt="Actor Paul Reubens portraying Pee-wee Herman poses for a portrait while promoting "The Pee-wee Herman Show" live stage play, Monday, Dec. 7, 2009, in Los Angeles. Reubens died Sunday night after a six-year struggle with cancer that he did not make public, his publicist said in a statement. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok, File)" />
 <figcaption>Actor Paul Reubens portraying Pee-wee Herman poses for a portrait while promoting "The Pee-wee Herman Show" live stage play, Monday, Dec. 7, 2009, in Los Angeles. Reubens died Sunday night after a six-year struggle with cancer that he did not make public, his publicist said in a statement. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok, File)</figcaption>
 </figure>LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paul Reubens, the actor and comedian whose character Pee-wee Herman became a cultural phenomenon through films and TV shows, has died.Reubens died Sunday night after a six-year struggle with cancer that he did not make public, his publicist said in a statement.“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Reubens said in a statement released with the announcement of his death. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”The character with his too-tight gray suit, white chunky loafers and red bow tie was best known for the film “Pee-wee's Big Adventure” and the TV series “Pee-wee's Playhouse.”Herman created Pee-wee when he was part of the Los Angeles improv group The Groundlings in the late 1970s. The live “Pee-wee Herman Show” debuted at a Los Angeles theater in 1981 and was a success with both kids during matinees and adults at a midnight show. HBO would air the show as a special.Reubens took Pee-wee to the big screen in 1985’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” The film, in which Pee-wee’s cherished bike is stolen, was said to be loosely based on Vittorio De Sica’s Italian neo-realist classic, “The Bicycle Thief.” The film, directed by Tim Burton and co-written by Phil Hartman of “Saturday Night Live,” sent Pee-wee on a nationwide escapade. The movie was a success, grossing $40 million, and continued to spawn a cult following for its oddball whimsy.A sequel followed three years later in the less well-received “Big Top Pee-wee,” in which Pee-wee seeks to join a circus. Reubens’ character wouldn’t get another movie starring role until 2016’s Pee-wee’s Big Holiday,” for Netflix. Judd Apatow produced Pee-wee’s big-screen revival.His television series, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” ran for five seasons, earned 22 Emmys and attracted not only children but adults to Saturday-morning TV.Both silly and subversive and championing nonconformity, the Pee-wee universe was a trippy place, populated by things such as a talking armchair and a friendly pterodactyl. The host, who is fond of secret words and loves fruit salad so much he once married it, is prone to lines like, “I know you are, but what am I?” and “Why don’t you take a picture; it’ll last longer?” The act was a hit because it worked on multiple levels, even though Reubens insists that wasn’t the plan.“It’s for kids,” Reubens told The Associated Press in 2010. “People have tried to get me for years to go, ‘It wasn’t really for kids, right?’ Even the original show was for kids. I always censored myself to have it be kid-friendly.“The whole thing has been just a gut feeling from the beginning," Reubens told the AP. "That’s all it ever is and I think always ever be. Much as people want me to dissect it and explain it, I can’t. One, I don’t know, and two, I don’t want to know, and three, I feel like I’ll hex myself if I know.”

Pee-wee Herman actor Paul Reubens has died

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China accused the United States of turning Taiwan into an “ammunition depot” after the White House announced a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-military-aid-china-support-06e61a0e0ed787ea120f839ef59885fa">$345 million military aid package</a>&nbsp;for Taipei, and the self-ruled island said Sunday it tracked six Chinese navy ships in waters off its shores.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement late Saturday opposing the military aid to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.

“No matter how much of the ordinary people's taxpayer money the ... Taiwanese separatist forces spend, no matter how many U.S. weapons, it will not shake our resolve to solve the Taiwan problem. Or shake our firm will to realize the reunification of our motherland,” said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office.

“Their actions are turning Taiwan into a powder keg and ammunition depot, aggravating the threat of war in the Taiwan Strait," the statement said.

China’s People’s Liberation Army has increased its military maneuvers in recent years aimed at Taiwan, sending&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-warplanes-military-exercises-2732de541f0154abbc92b5e91b12a611">fighter jets and warships</a>&nbsp;to circle the island.

On Sunday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it tracked six Chinese navy ships near the island.

Taiwan's ruling administration, led by the Democratic Progressive Party, has stepped up its weapons purchases from the U.S. as part of a deterrence strategy against a Chinese invasion.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Taiwan has never been governed by China’s ruling Communist Party.

Unlike previous military purchases, the latest batch of aid is part of a presidential authority approved by the U.S. Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales.

While Taiwan has purchased $19 billion worth of weaponry, much of it has yet to be delivered to Taiwan. Washington will&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-military-aid-china-support-06e61a0e0ed787ea120f839ef59885fa">send man-portable air defense systems, intelligence and surveillance capabilities</a>, firearms and missiles to Taiwan.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Friday announced $345 million in military aid for Taiwan, in what is the Biden administration’s first major package drawing on America’s own stockpiles to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-warplanes-military-exercises-548705bdceb0763c654cfd11f9b74dfd" target="_blank">help Taiwan counter China</a>.

The White House’s announcement said the package would include defense, education and training for the Taiwanese. Washington will send man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters ahead of the announcement.

U.S. lawmakers have been pressuring the Pentagon and White House to speed weapons to Taiwan. The goals are to help it counter China and to deter China from considering attacking, by providing Taipei enough weaponry that it would make the price of invasion too high.

The package is in addition to nearly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-china-taiwan-military-b7d7f4e8ee181301b0b0ceefc1dce74b" target="_blank">$19 billion in military sales</a>&nbsp;of F-16s and other major weapons systems that the U.S. has approved for Taiwan. Delivery of those weapons has been hampered by supply chain issues that started during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been exacerbated by the global defense industrial base pressures created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The difference is that this aid is part of a presidential authority approved by Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales. This gets weapons delivered faster than providing funding for new weapons.

The Pentagon has used a similar authority to get billions of dollars worth of munitions to Ukraine.

Taiwan split from China in 1949 amid civil war. Chinese President Xi Jinping maintains China’s right to take over the now self-ruled island, by force if necessary. China has accused the U.S. of turning Taiwan into a “powder keg” through the billions of dollars in weapons sales it has pledged.

The U.S. maintains a “One China” policy under which it&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-us-military-sales-4730400c993d2e32e85ad8cf718be583" target="_blank">does not recognize</a>&nbsp;Taiwan’s formal independence and has no formal diplomatic relations with the island in deference to Beijing. However, U.S. law requires a credible defense for Taiwan and for the U.S. to treat all threats to the island as matters of “grave concern.”

Getting stockpiles of weapons to Taiwan now, before an attack begins, is one of the lessons the U.S. has learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pentagon deputy defense secretary Kathleen Hicks told The Associated Press earlier this year.

Ukraine “was more of a cold-start approach than the planned approach we have been working on for Taiwan, and we will apply those lessons,” Hicks said. Efforts to resupply Taiwan after a conflict erupted would be complicated because it is an island, she said.

China regularly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/china-taiwan-warships-ee3bcf774b5d979c3b36a1a3c2f6ae7d" target="_blank">sends warships and planes across the center line</a>&nbsp;in the Taiwan Strait that provides a buffer between the sides, as well as into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, in an effort to intimidate the island’s 23 million people and wear down its military capabilities.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, said in a statement Friday that Beijing was “firmly opposed” to U.S. military ties with Taiwan. The U.S. should “stop selling arms to Taiwan” and “stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Liu said.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China accused the United States of turning Taiwan into an “ammunition depot” after the White House announced a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-military-aid-china-support-06e61a0e0ed787ea120f839ef59885fa">$345 million military aid package</a>&nbsp;for Taipei, and the self-ruled island said Sunday it tracked six Chinese navy ships in waters off its shores.China's Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement late Saturday opposing the military aid to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.“No matter how much of the ordinary people's taxpayer money the ... Taiwanese separatist forces spend, no matter how many U.S. weapons, it will not shake our resolve to solve the Taiwan problem. Or shake our firm will to realize the reunification of our motherland,” said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office.“Their actions are turning Taiwan into a powder keg and ammunition depot, aggravating the threat of war in the Taiwan Strait," the statement said.China’s People’s Liberation Army has increased its military maneuvers in recent years aimed at Taiwan, sending&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-warplanes-military-exercises-2732de541f0154abbc92b5e91b12a611">fighter jets and warships</a>&nbsp;to circle the island.On Sunday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it tracked six Chinese navy ships near the island.Taiwan's ruling administration, led by the Democratic Progressive Party, has stepped up its weapons purchases from the U.S. as part of a deterrence strategy against a Chinese invasion.China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Taiwan has never been governed by China’s ruling Communist Party.Unlike previous military purchases, the latest batch of aid is part of a presidential authority approved by the U.S. Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales.While Taiwan has purchased $19 billion worth of weaponry, much of it has yet to be delivered to Taiwan. Washington will&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-military-aid-china-support-06e61a0e0ed787ea120f839ef59885fa">send man-portable air defense systems, intelligence and surveillance capabilities</a>, firearms and missiles to Taiwan.----------------------WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Friday announced $345 million in military aid for Taiwan, in what is the Biden administration’s first major package drawing on America’s own stockpiles to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-warplanes-military-exercises-548705bdceb0763c654cfd11f9b74dfd" target="_blank">help Taiwan counter China</a>.The White House’s announcement said the package would include defense, education and training for the Taiwanese. Washington will send man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters ahead of the announcement.U.S. lawmakers have been pressuring the Pentagon and White House to speed weapons to Taiwan. The goals are to help it counter China and to deter China from considering attacking, by providing Taipei enough weaponry that it would make the price of invasion too high.The package is in addition to nearly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-china-taiwan-military-b7d7f4e8ee181301b0b0ceefc1dce74b" target="_blank">$19 billion in military sales</a>&nbsp;of F-16s and other major weapons systems that the U.S. has approved for Taiwan. Delivery of those weapons has been hampered by supply chain issues that started during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been exacerbated by the global defense industrial base pressures created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The difference is that this aid is part of a presidential authority approved by Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales. This gets weapons delivered faster than providing funding for new weapons.The Pentagon has used a similar authority to get billions of dollars worth of munitions to Ukraine.Taiwan split from China in 1949 amid civil war. Chinese President Xi Jinping maintains China’s right to take over the now self-ruled island, by force if necessary. China has accused the U.S. of turning Taiwan into a “powder keg” through the billions of dollars in weapons sales it has pledged.The U.S. maintains a “One China” policy under which it&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-china-us-military-sales-4730400c993d2e32e85ad8cf718be583" target="_blank">does not recognize</a>&nbsp;Taiwan’s formal independence and has no formal diplomatic relations with the island in deference to Beijing. However, U.S. law requires a credible defense for Taiwan and for the U.S. to treat all threats to the island as matters of “grave concern.”Getting stockpiles of weapons to Taiwan now, before an attack begins, is one of the lessons the U.S. has learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pentagon deputy defense secretary Kathleen Hicks told The Associated Press earlier this year.Ukraine “was more of a cold-start approach than the planned approach we have been working on for Taiwan, and we will apply those lessons,” Hicks said. Efforts to resupply Taiwan after a conflict erupted would be complicated because it is an island, she said.China regularly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/china-taiwan-warships-ee3bcf774b5d979c3b36a1a3c2f6ae7d" target="_blank">sends warships and planes across the center line</a>&nbsp;in the Taiwan Strait that provides a buffer between the sides, as well as into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, in an effort to intimidate the island’s 23 million people and wear down its military capabilities.Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, said in a statement Friday that Beijing was “firmly opposed” to U.S. military ties with Taiwan. The U.S. should “stop selling arms to Taiwan” and “stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Liu said.

China responds to US giving $345M in military aid to Taiwan

BY SETH BORENSTEIN, CAMILLE FASSETT and MICHAEL GOLDBERG Associated Press

ROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — Many were not just killed at home. They were killed by their homes.

Angela Eason had visited Brenda Odoms' tidy mobile home before. It was a place where Odoms, who had many tragedies in her life, felt safe.

In March, a tornado ripped through this small Mississippi town and people in mobile or manufactured homes were hit the hardest. Inside a mobile morgue, Eason, the county coroner, examined Odoms' gaping fatal head wound. Odoms was found just outside of her collapsed mobile home that was tossed around by a tornado. Blunt force trauma killed her.

"The one place she felt safe she was not," Eason said. Fourteen people died in that Rolling Fork tornado, nine of them, including Odoms, were in uprooted manufactured or mobile homes.

Tornadoes in the United States are disproportionately killing more people in mobile or manufactured homes, especially in the South, often victimizing some of the most socially and economically vulnerable residents. Since 1996, tornadoes have killed 815 people in mobile or manufactured homes, representing 53% of all the people killed at home during a tornado, according to an Associated Press data analysis of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tornado deaths. Meanwhile, less than 6% of America's housing units are manufactured homes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

While the dangers of tornadoes to mobile homes have long been known, and there are ways to mitigate the risk, the percentage of total tornado deaths that happen in mobile homes has been increasing. Part of the problem is that federal housing rules that call for tougher manufactured home standards, including anchoring, only apply in hurricane zones, which is most of Florida and then several counties along the coast. Those are not the areas where tornadoes usually hit.

Auburn University engineering professor David Roueche called manufactured homes in non-coastal places "death traps compared to most permanent homes" when it comes to tornadoes.

The first tornado deaths this year were in Alabama in January, killing seven people, all in mobile homes. All but one were thrown at least 1,000 feet from their homes, with the seventh person thrown at least 500 feet, said Ernie Baggett, the former emergency management chief for Autauga County, Alabama. Less than 100 yards from where four of those people died was a permanent home that had little more than shingle damage, he said.

When the wind hits the mobile homes, "it's like a house of cards. They just crumble," Baggett said.

So far this year, at least 45 of the 74 people killed in the U.S. by tornadoes were in some form of manufactured housing when they died, according to NOAA data. Nine others died in site homes and the rest were killed in other places, such as in vehicles.

The manufactured housing industry — which disputes that there's any disproportionate danger — insists on calling the structures manufactured homes if they are built after hurricane-based federal standards in 1976 and mobile homes if they are built before, saying age of the home matters. Federal housing officials use the term manufactured housing. Other people, including many researchers and residents, use the terms interchangeably.

More than 70% of the 8 million manufactured homes in America were built after 1976. Because a big chunk were built in the 1980s and early 1990s, 60% of all those homes were installed before increased federal standards were adopted in 1994, the industry's trade group, Manufactured Housing Institute said.

Tornado experts say most tornadoes should be survivable.

"You just have to be in some structure that's attached to the ground. And then no matter what the tornado throws at you, you have really good odds," said NOAA social scientist Kim Klockow-McClain.

But in manufactured homes, even the weakest tornadoes are killing people in large numbers when they shouldn't be, more than a dozen experts in meteorology, disasters and engineering told The AP.

More than 240 people in mobile homes in the past 28 years have died in tornadoes with winds of 135 mph or less, the three weakest of the six categories of twisters, the AP analysis found. That's 79% of the deaths at home in the weaker tornadoes. It's only in storms with winds higher than 165 mph where most of the at home deaths are in more permanent structures.

Auburn's Roueche not only studies what happens in mobile homes during tornadoes, he grew up in one. What he sees over and over are mobile homes that fail from the bottom up because they are not secured enough to the ground, like permanent homes are.

"The whole structure is rolling or flying through air. You've got dressers falling on top of you. You've got the entire structure that's trying to crush you," said Roueche.

That March evening in Rolling Fork, when the tornado roared through Ida Cartlidge remembered the air blowing so powerfully that she couldn't breathe, the sounds of windows shattering and then utter mayhem.

"The only thing that's holding a mobile home down are the little straps in the ground," Cartlidge said. "It picked up the home one time, set it down. It picked it up again, set it down. It picked it up a third time, and we were in the air."

The tornado hit Mildred Joyner's mobile home so hard she felt the mobile home shake, heard the cracking sound of what she figured was her home coming apart and then she woke up in the hospital.

The problem is worsening in the South because tornadoes have been moving more from the Great Plains to the mid-South in recent decades and will likely to continue to do so with climate change a possible factor, studies show. Alabama has the most tornado deaths by far.

Unlike the rest of the country, which usually has most manufactured housing in parks, the South has mobile homes scattered about the countryside in ones and twos, making central tornado shelters less effective and likely to be built, said Villanova University tornado expert Stephen Strader and Northern Illinois meteorology professor Walker Ashley.

One thing scientists, emergency managers and the manufactured housing industry agree on is that anchoring mobile homes to the ground is key.

That requires expensive concrete or expensive tie down systems, said former Alabama emergency official Jonathan Gaddy, now a professor at Idaho State University.

"Why does that matter? Well, it explains why we haven't fixed the problem with anchoring because nobody can fix the problem and still make money. That's the bottom line," Gaddy said.

"Anchoring matters and has been shown to be the difference between life or death," Villanova's Strader said in an email. "However, the MH industry seems disinterested in addressing this because it would make their homes more expensive."

Manufactured Home Institute Chief Executive Officer Lesli Gooch said the industry is "very clear" about the importance of anchoring. "We also talk about making sure that a professional checks your anchoring systems on your manufactured home, especially on mobile homes built prior to (19)76," she said.

"We're very focused on making sure that there are minimum installation standards in the states," Gooch said.

Northern Illinois' Ashley said lack of state regulations and inspections, especially in much of the South, is a big problem.

Improvements in federal codes that went into effect in 1976, 1994 and 2008 make a big difference, Gooch said, arguing that the NOAA data the AP analyzed and that scientists use lump different ages of manufactured homes together and tar them with the problems of the oldest ones.

"I wouldn't want your readers to misinterpret your data to suggest that living in a manufactured home is somehow more deadly than living in a site-built home because I would tell you that I don't think that the data bears that out," Gooch said.

Gooch pointed to manufactured homes in Florida, where tighter federal Housing and Urban Development safety rules apply because it is a hurricane wind zone. "Homes in Florida that are manufactured homes are performing better than what you see in the site-built world," she said.

Several scientists and engineers said data, and history, show the situation has not improved.

"This is more of the handwaving- and misdirection-type statements that has come to represent the manufactured housing industry's take on tornado and manufactured home safety," Villanova's Strader said in an email, with Northern Illinois' Ashley agreeing.

"Our study of the Lee County Alabama EF4 tornado found that 19 of the 23 deaths were in manufactured homes (all built after 1994)," Strader said. "All of those deaths were due to a lack of anchoring or a floor-to-wall connection. There have been many prior studies that have illustrated that these homes are failing at lower wind loads than permanent homes."

If Gooch were right, the percentage of tornado deaths in mobile homes would be going down with time and they are not, NOAA National Severe Storms Lab tornado scientist Harold Brooks said, presenting data that goes back to 1975. His data showed mobile home deaths between 1975 and 1984 were 43.6% of all at-home tornado deaths and the same figure was 63.2% for the past ten years through the end of May.

A contributing factor, Strader, Ashley and Roueche said, is that federal rules for anchoring only apply in hurricane zones, mostly in Florida. Those are not the areas where tornadoes usually hit. Instead, they hit inland where the weakest federal standards are, they said. Most of tornado-prone areas, including almost all of Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas and Mississippi are in "Zone 1," where safety and anchoring of mobile homes have the most lax standards.

"People are dying in new and old Zone 1 manufactured homes," Roueche said in response to Gooch's comments. Tornado homes throughout the country would be much safer if the coastal federal requirements applied everywhere, he said.

One of the issues with mobile homes and tornadoes is that it is an intersection of risk and "different social vulnerability factors like poverty, even some issues pertaining to race, ethnicity, age," NOAA's Klockow said.

And it makes it harder for people to leave their mobile homes and head for a permanent shelter.

"I always think about the single mother who's living in a manufactured home. It's the middle of the night. She has three kids. Her car's not starting correctly and all of a sudden here comes a tornado," Strader said in an interview.

Officials tell her "to get to a storm shelter because our manufactured home isn't safe," Strader said. "Well, the problem there is that there's all these factors up against them."

Tornadoes pop down rapidly, which doesn't allow meteorologists to give much warning, maybe 10 to 15 minutes. In many cases, the National Weather Service warns days in advance that the conditions are be ripe for tornadoes, but that isn't the same as warning that one has touched down.

University of Oklahoma social scientist Justin Sharpe, who studies disaster warnings, said with poor and disabled residents the key is to avoid warnings that simply say "get out now" and nothing else.

Instead, a couple hours before a tornado is possible, meteorologists should warn people to be packed up and ready to go at a moment's notice later, Sharpe and Klockow-McClain said.

A relatively new law in Alabama could help provide more shelters. The law gives liability protection to buildings like churches and stores that open up in an emergency as a shelter if specifically-built shelters aren't available.

When this year's first deadly tornado struck just outside Montgomery, Alabama, Autauga County had about 30 minutes warning but no "safer places" to send people, the then-emergency chief, Baggett said. Seven people in mobile homes died.

The tornado continued into neighboring Elmore County, which had already set off its 30 warning sirens, used a mass notification system to make 16,772 calls to phones in the danger area and opened up 16 churches and other safer places.

People went into the temporary shelters. Homes were destroyed, but no one died.

This story has been corrected to show that Stephen Strader is affiliated with Villanova University, not Vanderbilt University.

Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert and video journalist Stephen Smith contributed to this report. Borenstein reported from Washington and Fassett from Seattle.

Follow AP's climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Follow Seth Borenstein, Camille Fasset and Michael Goldberg on Twitter at @borenbears, @camfassett and @mikergoldberg.

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP's climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/5/1651760459335.png" alt="EF3 tornado in Andover, Kansas - photo courtesy city of Andover" />
 <figcaption>EF3 tornado in Andover, Kansas - photo courtesy city of Andover</figcaption>
 </figure>BY SETH BORENSTEIN, CAMILLE FASSETT and MICHAEL GOLDBERG Associated PressROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — Many were not just killed at home. They were killed by their homes.Angela Eason had visited Brenda Odoms' tidy mobile home before. It was a place where Odoms, who had many tragedies in her life, felt safe.In March, a tornado ripped through this small Mississippi town and people in mobile or manufactured homes were hit the hardest. Inside a mobile morgue, Eason, the county coroner, examined Odoms' gaping fatal head wound. Odoms was found just outside of her collapsed mobile home that was tossed around by a tornado. Blunt force trauma killed her."The one place she felt safe she was not," Eason said. Fourteen people died in that Rolling Fork tornado, nine of them, including Odoms, were in uprooted manufactured or mobile homes.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1690567690702.png" alt="Damage from the EF3 tornado in Andover, Kansas in April 2022-photo NWS Wichita" />
 <figcaption>Damage from the EF3 tornado in Andover, Kansas in April 2022-photo NWS Wichita</figcaption>
 </figure>Tornadoes in the United States are disproportionately killing more people in mobile or manufactured homes, especially in the South, often victimizing some of the most socially and economically vulnerable residents. Since 1996, tornadoes have killed 815 people in mobile or manufactured homes, representing 53% of all the people killed at home during a tornado, according to an Associated Press data analysis of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tornado deaths. Meanwhile, less than 6% of America's housing units are manufactured homes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.While the dangers of tornadoes to mobile homes have long been known, and there are ways to mitigate the risk, the percentage of total tornado deaths that happen in mobile homes has been increasing. Part of the problem is that federal housing rules that call for tougher manufactured home standards, including anchoring, only apply in hurricane zones, which is most of Florida and then several counties along the coast. Those are not the areas where tornadoes usually hit.Auburn University engineering professor David Roueche called manufactured homes in non-coastal places "death traps compared to most permanent homes" when it comes to tornadoes.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1690567758554.png" alt="Damage from the EF3 tornado in Andover, Kansas in April 2022-photo NWS Wichita" />
 <figcaption>Damage from the EF3 tornado in Andover, Kansas in April 2022-photo NWS Wichita</figcaption>
 </figure>The first tornado deaths this year were in Alabama in January, killing seven people, all in mobile homes. All but one were thrown at least 1,000 feet from their homes, with the seventh person thrown at least 500 feet, said Ernie Baggett, the former emergency management chief for Autauga County, Alabama. Less than 100 yards from where four of those people died was a permanent home that had little more than shingle damage, he said.When the wind hits the mobile homes, "it's like a house of cards. They just crumble," Baggett said.So far this year, at least 45 of the 74 people killed in the U.S. by tornadoes were in some form of manufactured housing when they died, according to NOAA data. Nine others died in site homes and the rest were killed in other places, such as in vehicles.The manufactured housing industry — which disputes that there's any disproportionate danger — insists on calling the structures manufactured homes if they are built after hurricane-based federal standards in 1976 and mobile homes if they are built before, saying age of the home matters. Federal housing officials use the term manufactured housing. Other people, including many researchers and residents, use the terms interchangeably.More than 70% of the 8 million manufactured homes in America were built after 1976. Because a big chunk were built in the 1980s and early 1990s, 60% of all those homes were installed before increased federal standards were adopted in 1994, the industry's trade group, Manufactured Housing Institute said.Tornado experts say most tornadoes should be survivable."You just have to be in some structure that's attached to the ground. And then no matter what the tornado throws at you, you have really good odds," said NOAA social scientist Kim Klockow-McClain.But in manufactured homes, even the weakest tornadoes are killing people in large numbers when they shouldn't be, more than a dozen experts in meteorology, disasters and engineering told The AP.More than 240 people in mobile homes in the past 28 years have died in tornadoes with winds of 135 mph or less, the three weakest of the six categories of twisters, the AP analysis found. That's 79% of the deaths at home in the weaker tornadoes. It's only in storms with winds higher than 165 mph where most of the at home deaths are in more permanent structures.Auburn's Roueche not only studies what happens in mobile homes during tornadoes, he grew up in one. What he sees over and over are mobile homes that fail from the bottom up because they are not secured enough to the ground, like permanent homes are."The whole structure is rolling or flying through air. You've got dressers falling on top of you. You've got the entire structure that's trying to crush you," said Roueche.That March evening in Rolling Fork, when the tornado roared through Ida Cartlidge remembered the air blowing so powerfully that she couldn't breathe, the sounds of windows shattering and then utter mayhem."The only thing that's holding a mobile home down are the little straps in the ground," Cartlidge said. "It picked up the home one time, set it down. It picked it up again, set it down. It picked it up a third time, and we were in the air."The tornado hit Mildred Joyner's mobile home so hard she felt the mobile home shake, heard the cracking sound of what she figured was her home coming apart and then she woke up in the hospital.The problem is worsening in the South because tornadoes have been moving more from the Great Plains to the mid-South in recent decades and will likely to continue to do so with climate change a possible factor, studies show. Alabama has the most tornado deaths by far.Unlike the rest of the country, which usually has most manufactured housing in parks, the South has mobile homes scattered about the countryside in ones and twos, making central tornado shelters less effective and likely to be built, said Villanova University tornado expert Stephen Strader and Northern Illinois meteorology professor Walker Ashley.One thing scientists, emergency managers and the manufactured housing industry agree on is that anchoring mobile homes to the ground is key.That requires expensive concrete or expensive tie down systems, said former Alabama emergency official Jonathan Gaddy, now a professor at Idaho State University."Why does that matter? Well, it explains why we haven't fixed the problem with anchoring because nobody can fix the problem and still make money. That's the bottom line," Gaddy said."Anchoring matters and has been shown to be the difference between life or death," Villanova's Strader said in an email. "However, the MH industry seems disinterested in addressing this because it would make their homes more expensive."Manufactured Home Institute Chief Executive Officer Lesli Gooch said the industry is "very clear" about the importance of anchoring. "We also talk about making sure that a professional checks your anchoring systems on your manufactured home, especially on mobile homes built prior to (19)76," she said."We're very focused on making sure that there are minimum installation standards in the states," Gooch said.Northern Illinois' Ashley said lack of state regulations and inspections, especially in much of the South, is a big problem.Improvements in federal codes that went into effect in 1976, 1994 and 2008 make a big difference, Gooch said, arguing that the NOAA data the AP analyzed and that scientists use lump different ages of manufactured homes together and tar them with the problems of the oldest ones."I wouldn't want your readers to misinterpret your data to suggest that living in a manufactured home is somehow more deadly than living in a site-built home because I would tell you that I don't think that the data bears that out," Gooch said.Gooch pointed to manufactured homes in Florida, where tighter federal Housing and Urban Development safety rules apply because it is a hurricane wind zone. "Homes in Florida that are manufactured homes are performing better than what you see in the site-built world," she said.Several scientists and engineers said data, and history, show the situation has not improved."This is more of the handwaving- and misdirection-type statements that has come to represent the manufactured housing industry's take on tornado and manufactured home safety," Villanova's Strader said in an email, with Northern Illinois' Ashley agreeing."Our study of the Lee County Alabama EF4 tornado found that 19 of the 23 deaths were in manufactured homes (all built after 1994)," Strader said. "All of those deaths were due to a lack of anchoring or a floor-to-wall connection. There have been many prior studies that have illustrated that these homes are failing at lower wind loads than permanent homes."If Gooch were right, the percentage of tornado deaths in mobile homes would be going down with time and they are not, NOAA National Severe Storms Lab tornado scientist Harold Brooks said, presenting data that goes back to 1975. His data showed mobile home deaths between 1975 and 1984 were 43.6% of all at-home tornado deaths and the same figure was 63.2% for the past ten years through the end of May.A contributing factor, Strader, Ashley and Roueche said, is that federal rules for anchoring only apply in hurricane zones, mostly in Florida. Those are not the areas where tornadoes usually hit. Instead, they hit inland where the weakest federal standards are, they said. Most of tornado-prone areas, including almost all of Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas and Mississippi are in "Zone 1," where safety and anchoring of mobile homes have the most lax standards."People are dying in new and old Zone 1 manufactured homes," Roueche said in response to Gooch's comments. Tornado homes throughout the country would be much safer if the coastal federal requirements applied everywhere, he said.One of the issues with mobile homes and tornadoes is that it is an intersection of risk and "different social vulnerability factors like poverty, even some issues pertaining to race, ethnicity, age," NOAA's Klockow said.And it makes it harder for people to leave their mobile homes and head for a permanent shelter."I always think about the single mother who's living in a manufactured home. It's the middle of the night. She has three kids. Her car's not starting correctly and all of a sudden here comes a tornado," Strader said in an interview.Officials tell her "to get to a storm shelter because our manufactured home isn't safe," Strader said. "Well, the problem there is that there's all these factors up against them."Tornadoes pop down rapidly, which doesn't allow meteorologists to give much warning, maybe 10 to 15 minutes. In many cases, the National Weather Service warns days in advance that the conditions are be ripe for tornadoes, but that isn't the same as warning that one has touched down.University of Oklahoma social scientist Justin Sharpe, who studies disaster warnings, said with poor and disabled residents the key is to avoid warnings that simply say "get out now" and nothing else.Instead, a couple hours before a tornado is possible, meteorologists should warn people to be packed up and ready to go at a moment's notice later, Sharpe and Klockow-McClain said.A relatively new law in Alabama could help provide more shelters. The law gives liability protection to buildings like churches and stores that open up in an emergency as a shelter if specifically-built shelters aren't available.When this year's first deadly tornado struck just outside Montgomery, Alabama, Autauga County had about 30 minutes warning but no "safer places" to send people, the then-emergency chief, Baggett said. Seven people in mobile homes died.The tornado continued into neighboring Elmore County, which had already set off its 30 warning sirens, used a mass notification system to make 16,772 calls to phones in the danger area and opened up 16 churches and other safer places.People went into the temporary shelters. Homes were destroyed, but no one died.___This story has been corrected to show that Stephen Strader is affiliated with Villanova University, not Vanderbilt University.___Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert and video journalist Stephen Smith contributed to this report. Borenstein reported from Washington and Fassett from Seattle.___Follow AP's climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment___Follow Seth Borenstein, Camille Fasset and Michael Goldberg on Twitter at @borenbears, @camfassett and @mikergoldberg.___Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP's climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

How living in a mobile home makes you more likely to die in a tornado

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday giving decisions on the prosecution of serious military crimes, including sexual assault, to independent military attorneys, taking that power away from victims’ commanders.

The order formally implements&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-health-kirsten-gillibrand-jackie-speier-032a79f53d084f93ea99674108567e9f" target="_blank">legislation passed by Congress in 2022</a>&nbsp;aimed at strengthening protections for service members, who were often at the mercy of their commanders to decide whether to take their assault claims seriously.

Members of Congress, frustrated with&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/military-sexual-assault-report-a5138e59f145c223284dded6677257e3" target="_blank">the growing number of sexual assaults</a>&nbsp;in the military, fought with defense leaders for several years over the issue. They argued that commanders at times were willing to ignore charges or incidents in their units to protect those accused of offenses and that using independent lawyers would beef up prosecutions. Military leaders balked, saying it could erode commanders’ authority.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York spent about a decade in an uphill battle to reform how the military handles sexual assaults and get the legislative changes passed that were codified through Biden’s order.

“While it will take time to see the results of these changes, these measures will instill more trust, professionalism, and confidence in the system,” Gillibrand said.

The change was among more than two dozen recommendations made in 2021 by&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/sexual-assault-lloyd-austin-government-and-politics-13077b68cbaf65e8ad862a00aa3c5552" target="_blank">an independent review commission</a>&nbsp;on sexual assault in the military that was set up by&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/lloyd-austin" target="_blank">Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin</a>. And it was included in the annual defense bill last year. But since it requires a change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it needed formal presidential action.

In a call with reporters previewing the order, senior Biden administration officials said it was the most sweeping change to the military legal code since it was created in 1950.

The Pentagon had already been moving forward with the change. A year ago, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force set up the new special trial counsel offices, which will assume authority over prosecution decisions by the end of this year. Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, that prosecution authority will expand to include sexual harassment cases.

The changes come as the military grapples with rising numbers of reported sexual assaults in its ranks.

While the services have made inroads in making it easier and safer for troops to come forward, they have had far less success reducing the number of assaults, which have increased nearly every year since 2006. Overall, there were more than 8,942 reports of sexual assaults involving service members during the 2022 fiscal year, a slight increase over&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-crime-pandemics-army-62b6b37fbb992b19f0da65a3a1ba1115" target="_blank">8,866 the year before</a>.

Defense officials have long argued that an increase in reported assaults is a positive trend because so many people are reluctant to report them, both in the military and in society as a whole. Greater reporting, they say, shows there is more confidence in the reporting system, greater comfort with the support for victims, and a growing number of offenders who are being held accountable.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1690574292520.png" alt="White House photo" />
 <figcaption>White House photo</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday giving decisions on the prosecution of serious military crimes, including sexual assault, to independent military attorneys, taking that power away from victims’ commanders.The order formally implements&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-health-kirsten-gillibrand-jackie-speier-032a79f53d084f93ea99674108567e9f" target="_blank">legislation passed by Congress in 2022</a>&nbsp;aimed at strengthening protections for service members, who were often at the mercy of their commanders to decide whether to take their assault claims seriously.Members of Congress, frustrated with&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/military-sexual-assault-report-a5138e59f145c223284dded6677257e3" target="_blank">the growing number of sexual assaults</a>&nbsp;in the military, fought with defense leaders for several years over the issue. They argued that commanders at times were willing to ignore charges or incidents in their units to protect those accused of offenses and that using independent lawyers would beef up prosecutions. Military leaders balked, saying it could erode commanders’ authority.Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York spent about a decade in an uphill battle to reform how the military handles sexual assaults and get the legislative changes passed that were codified through Biden’s order.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Today, President Biden signed an Executive Order strengthening how the U.S. military handles sexual assault, domestic violence, and other serious offenses. Keeping our country safe starts with prioritizing the safety of those who serve. <a href="https://t.co/kRzgrki4RE">pic.twitter.com/kRzgrki4RE</a>&mdash; The White House (@WhiteHouse) <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1685066720325640192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 28, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>“While it will take time to see the results of these changes, these measures will instill more trust, professionalism, and confidence in the system,” Gillibrand said.The change was among more than two dozen recommendations made in 2021 by&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/sexual-assault-lloyd-austin-government-and-politics-13077b68cbaf65e8ad862a00aa3c5552" target="_blank">an independent review commission</a>&nbsp;on sexual assault in the military that was set up by&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/lloyd-austin" target="_blank">Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin</a>. And it was included in the annual defense bill last year. But since it requires a change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it needed formal presidential action.In a call with reporters previewing the order, senior Biden administration officials said it was the most sweeping change to the military legal code since it was created in 1950.The Pentagon had already been moving forward with the change. A year ago, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force set up the new special trial counsel offices, which will assume authority over prosecution decisions by the end of this year. Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, that prosecution authority will expand to include sexual harassment cases.The changes come as the military grapples with rising numbers of reported sexual assaults in its ranks.While the services have made inroads in making it easier and safer for troops to come forward, they have had far less success reducing the number of assaults, which have increased nearly every year since 2006. Overall, there were more than 8,942 reports of sexual assaults involving service members during the 2022 fiscal year, a slight increase over&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-crime-pandemics-army-62b6b37fbb992b19f0da65a3a1ba1115" target="_blank">8,866 the year before</a>.Defense officials have long argued that an increase in reported assaults is a positive trend because so many people are reluctant to report them, both in the military and in society as a whole. Greater reporting, they say, shows there is more confidence in the reporting system, greater comfort with the support for victims, and a growing number of offenders who are being held accountable.

Biden signs order strengthening how U.S. military handles sex assault

NEW YORK (AP) — The fate of U.S. trucking company Yellow Corp. isn't looking good.

After years of financial struggles, Yellow is reportedly preparing for bankruptcy and seeing customers leave in large numbers — heightening risk for future liquidation. While no official decision has been announced by the company, the prospect of bankruptcy has renewed attention around Yellow's ongoing negotiations with unionized workers, a $700 million pandemic-era loan from the government and other bills the trucker has racked up over time.

Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide Inc., is one of the nation's largest less-than-truckload carriers. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company has some 30,000 employees across the country.

Not yet. But industry experts suspect that a bankruptcy filing could come any day now.

People familiar with the matter&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trucker-yellow-prepares-to-file-for-bankruptcy-as-customers-flee-281151a6">told The Wall Street Journal</a>&nbsp;that the company could seek bankruptcy protection as soon as this week — with some noting that a significant amount of customers have already started to leave the carrier.

Meanwhile, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/yellow-executive-tells-sales-employees-company-will-file-bankruptcy-on-july-31">FreightWaves</a>, employees were told to expect the filing Monday. Yellow laid off an unknown number of employees Friday, the outlet&nbsp;<a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/yellow-lays-off-portions-of-at-least-3-major-corporate-teams">later reported</a>, citing a memo that stated the company was “shutting down its regular operations.”

According to Satish Jindel, president of transportation and logistics firm SJ Consulting, Yellow handled an average of 49,000 shipments per day in 2022. As of this week, he estimates that number is down to between 10,000 and 15,000 daily shipments.

With customers leaving — as well reports of Yellow stopping freight pickups earlier this week — bankruptcy would “be the end of Yellow,” Jindel told The Associated Press, noting increased risk for liquidation.

“The likelihood of them surviving and remaining solvent diminishes really by the day,” added Bruce Chan, a research director at investment banking firm Stifel.

Yellow media contacts did not immediately respond to the Associated Press' requests for comment on Friday. In a Wednesday statement to The Journal, the company said it was continuing “to prepare for a range of contingencies.” On Thursday, Yellow said it was in talks with multiple parties about selling its third-party logistics organization.

Even if Yellow was able to sell its logistics firm, it would “not generate a sufficient amount of cash to keep them operational on any sort of permanent basis," Chan said. “Without a major equity injection, it would be very difficult for them to survive.”

As of late March, Yellow had an outstanding debt of about $1.5 billion. Of that, $729.2 million was owed to the federal government.

In 2020, under the Trump administration, the Treasury Department granted the company a $700 million pandemic-era loan on national security grounds. Last month, a congressional probe concluded that the Treasury and Defense Departments “made missteps” in this decision — and noted that Yellow's “precarious financial position at the time of the loan, and continued struggles, expose taxpayers to a significant risk of loss.”

The government loan is due in September 2024. As of March, Yellow had made $54.8 million in interest payments and repaid just $230 million of the principal owed, according to government documents.

Yellow's current finances and prospect of bankruptcy “is probably two decades in the making,” Chan said, pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back to the early 2000s. “At this point, after each party has bailed them out so many times, there is a limited appetite to do that anymore.”

In May, Yellow reported a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/earnings-9cccf85534862b16e643827b52dba349">loss of $54.6 million</a>, a decline of $1.06 per share, for its first quarter of 2023. Operating revenue was about $1.16 billion in the period.

A Wednesday investors note from financial service firm Stephens estimated that Yellow could be burning between $9 million and $10 million each day. Using a liquidity disclosure from earlier this month, Yellow had roughly $100 million in cash at the end of June, the note added — estimating that the company has been burning through increasing amounts of money through July.

“It is reasonable to believe that the Company could breach its $35 mil. liquidity requirement at any moment,” Stephens analyst Jack Atkins and associate Grant Smith wrote.

The reports of bankruptcy preparations arrive just days after a strike from the Teamsters, which represents Yellow's 22,000 unionized workers, was averted.

A series of heated exchanges have built up between the Teamsters and Yellow, who sued the union in June after alleging it was “unjustifiably blocking” restructuring plans needed for the company's survival. The Teamsters called the litigation “baseless” — with general president Sean O’Brien pointing to Yellow's “decades of gross mismanagement," which included exhausting the $700 million federal loan.

On Sunday, a pension fund agreed to extend health benefits for workers at two Yellow Corp. operating companies, averting a strike — and giving Yellow “30 days to pay its bills,” notably $50 million that Yellow failed to pay the Central States Health and Welfare Fund on July 15, the union said. While the strike didn't occur, talks of a walkout may have caused some Yellow customers to pull back, Chan said.

Talks between Yellow and the Teamsters, which also represents&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">UPS's unionized workers</a>, are ongoing. The current contract expires in March 2024.

“The financial struggles of Yellow are not related to the union and the contracts,” Jindel said, pointing to management's responsibility around its services and prices. He added the union wages from Yellow are “lower than any competitor.”

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YELLOW WENT UNDER?

If Yellow files for bankruptcy and customers continue to take their shipments to other carriers, like FedEx or ABF Freight, prices will go up.

Yellow's prices have historically been the cheapest compared to other carriers, Jindel said. “That’s why they obviously were not making money," he added. "And while there is capacity with the other LTL carriers to handle the diversions from Yellow, it will come at a high price for (current shippers and customers) of Yellow.”

Chan adds that we're in an interesting time for the LTL marketplace — noting that, if Yellow declares bankruptcy and liquidates, “the freight would find a home” with other carriers, which may not have been true in recent years.

“It may take time, but there’s room for it to be absorbed,” he said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1690585296924.png" alt="YRC Freight in Kansas City -Google image" />
 <figcaption>YRC Freight in Kansas City -Google image</figcaption>
 </figure>NEW YORK (AP) — The fate of U.S. trucking company Yellow Corp. isn't looking good.After years of financial struggles, Yellow is reportedly preparing for bankruptcy and seeing customers leave in large numbers — heightening risk for future liquidation. While no official decision has been announced by the company, the prospect of bankruptcy has renewed attention around Yellow's ongoing negotiations with unionized workers, a $700 million pandemic-era loan from the government and other bills the trucker has racked up over time.Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide Inc., is one of the nation's largest less-than-truckload carriers. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company has some 30,000 employees across the country.Here's what you need to know.IS YELLOW FILING FOR BANKRUPTCY? Not yet. But industry experts suspect that a bankruptcy filing could come any day now.People familiar with the matter&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trucker-yellow-prepares-to-file-for-bankruptcy-as-customers-flee-281151a6">told The Wall Street Journal</a>&nbsp;that the company could seek bankruptcy protection as soon as this week — with some noting that a significant amount of customers have already started to leave the carrier.Meanwhile, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/yellow-executive-tells-sales-employees-company-will-file-bankruptcy-on-july-31">FreightWaves</a>, employees were told to expect the filing Monday. Yellow laid off an unknown number of employees Friday, the outlet&nbsp;<a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/yellow-lays-off-portions-of-at-least-3-major-corporate-teams">later reported</a>, citing a memo that stated the company was “shutting down its regular operations.”According to Satish Jindel, president of transportation and logistics firm SJ Consulting, Yellow handled an average of 49,000 shipments per day in 2022. As of this week, he estimates that number is down to between 10,000 and 15,000 daily shipments.With customers leaving — as well reports of Yellow stopping freight pickups earlier this week — bankruptcy would “be the end of Yellow,” Jindel told The Associated Press, noting increased risk for liquidation.“The likelihood of them surviving and remaining solvent diminishes really by the day,” added Bruce Chan, a research director at investment banking firm Stifel.Yellow media contacts did not immediately respond to the Associated Press' requests for comment on Friday. In a Wednesday statement to The Journal, the company said it was continuing “to prepare for a range of contingencies.” On Thursday, Yellow said it was in talks with multiple parties about selling its third-party logistics organization.Even if Yellow was able to sell its logistics firm, it would “not generate a sufficient amount of cash to keep them operational on any sort of permanent basis," Chan said. “Without a major equity injection, it would be very difficult for them to survive.”HOW MUCH DEBT DOES YELLOW HAVE? As of late March, Yellow had an outstanding debt of about $1.5 billion. Of that, $729.2 million was owed to the federal government.In 2020, under the Trump administration, the Treasury Department granted the company a $700 million pandemic-era loan on national security grounds. Last month, a congressional probe concluded that the Treasury and Defense Departments “made missteps” in this decision — and noted that Yellow's “precarious financial position at the time of the loan, and continued struggles, expose taxpayers to a significant risk of loss.”The government loan is due in September 2024. As of March, Yellow had made $54.8 million in interest payments and repaid just $230 million of the principal owed, according to government documents.Yellow's current finances and prospect of bankruptcy “is probably two decades in the making,” Chan said, pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back to the early 2000s. “At this point, after each party has bailed them out so many times, there is a limited appetite to do that anymore.”In May, Yellow reported a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/earnings-9cccf85534862b16e643827b52dba349">loss of $54.6 million</a>, a decline of $1.06 per share, for its first quarter of 2023. Operating revenue was about $1.16 billion in the period.A Wednesday investors note from financial service firm Stephens estimated that Yellow could be burning between $9 million and $10 million each day. Using a liquidity disclosure from earlier this month, Yellow had roughly $100 million in cash at the end of June, the note added — estimating that the company has been burning through increasing amounts of money through July.“It is reasonable to believe that the Company could breach its $35 mil. liquidity requirement at any moment,” Stephens analyst Jack Atkins and associate Grant Smith wrote.DID THE COMPANY JUST AVERT A STRIKE? The reports of bankruptcy preparations arrive just days after a strike from the Teamsters, which represents Yellow's 22,000 unionized workers, was averted.A series of heated exchanges have built up between the Teamsters and Yellow, who sued the union in June after alleging it was “unjustifiably blocking” restructuring plans needed for the company's survival. The Teamsters called the litigation “baseless” — with general president Sean O’Brien pointing to Yellow's “decades of gross mismanagement," which included exhausting the $700 million federal loan.On Sunday, a pension fund agreed to extend health benefits for workers at two Yellow Corp. operating companies, averting a strike — and giving Yellow “30 days to pay its bills,” notably $50 million that Yellow failed to pay the Central States Health and Welfare Fund on July 15, the union said. While the strike didn't occur, talks of a walkout may have caused some Yellow customers to pull back, Chan said.Talks between Yellow and the Teamsters, which also represents&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/ups-teamsters-strike-labor-logistics-delivery-a94482dbff7bfb67ad82f607ab127672">UPS's unionized workers</a>, are ongoing. The current contract expires in March 2024.“The financial struggles of Yellow are not related to the union and the contracts,” Jindel said, pointing to management's responsibility around its services and prices. He added the union wages from Yellow are “lower than any competitor.”WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YELLOW WENT UNDER? If Yellow files for bankruptcy and customers continue to take their shipments to other carriers, like FedEx or ABF Freight, prices will go up.Yellow's prices have historically been the cheapest compared to other carriers, Jindel said. “That’s why they obviously were not making money," he added. "And while there is capacity with the other LTL carriers to handle the diversions from Yellow, it will come at a high price for (current shippers and customers) of Yellow.”Chan adds that we're in an interesting time for the LTL marketplace — noting that, if Yellow declares bankruptcy and liquidates, “the freight would find a home” with other carriers, which may not have been true in recent years.“It may take time, but there’s room for it to be absorbed,” he said.

Trucking company Yellow Corp. reportedly preparing for bankruptcy

Des Moines (AP) —The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.05 billion Friday night, only the fifth time in the history of the game that the grand prize has reached into the billions.

No one managed to beat the massive odds and match all six numbers for Friday's estimated $940 million jackpot. The numbers drawn were: 5, 10, 28, 52, 63 and the gold ball 18.

There have been 29 straight draws without a Mega Millions jackpot winner since the last grand prize ticket on April 18.

The $1.05 billion prize up for grabs in the next drawing Tuesday night would be for a sole winner choosing to be&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-jackpot-annuity-vs-cash-0e741f164106c0f4dba89707c5763c99">paid through an annuity</a>, with annual payments over 30 years. Jackpot winners almost always opt for a lump sum payment, which for Tuesday’s drawing would be an estimated $527.9 million.

The potential jackpot is the fourth-largest in the game and the fifth over $1 billion, Mega Millions said in a statement early Saturday.

Although there were no jackpot winners, one ticket in Pennsylvania was worth $5 million and another in the state connected for $1 million. There also were $1 million winners in Arizona, California and New York, Mega Millions said.

It has been less than two weeks since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-jackpot-winner-california-9f0e98a47c96c2b3087a68b33195dd50">someone in Los Angeles</a>&nbsp;won a $1.08 billion Powerball prize that ranked as the sixth-largest in U.S. history. The winner of the prize is still a mystery.

Lottery jackpots grow so large because the odds of winning are so small. For Mega Millions, the odds of winning the jackpot are about&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-mega-millions-winning-odds-numbers-a3e5a8e8e7ed15d7500c1d6acdab6785">1 in 302.6 million.</a>

Winners also would be subject to federal taxes, and many states also tax lottery winnings.

Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Des Moines (AP) —The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.05 billion Friday night, only the fifth time in the history of the game that the grand prize has reached into the billions.No one managed to beat the massive odds and match all six numbers for Friday's estimated $940 million jackpot. The numbers drawn were: 5, 10, 28, 52, 63 and the gold ball 18.There have been 29 straight draws without a Mega Millions jackpot winner since the last grand prize ticket on April 18.The $1.05 billion prize up for grabs in the next drawing Tuesday night would be for a sole winner choosing to be&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-jackpot-annuity-vs-cash-0e741f164106c0f4dba89707c5763c99">paid through an annuity</a>, with annual payments over 30 years. Jackpot winners almost always opt for a lump sum payment, which for Tuesday’s drawing would be an estimated $527.9 million.The potential jackpot is the fourth-largest in the game and the fifth over $1 billion, Mega Millions said in a statement early Saturday.Although there were no jackpot winners, one ticket in Pennsylvania was worth $5 million and another in the state connected for $1 million. There also were $1 million winners in Arizona, California and New York, Mega Millions said.It has been less than two weeks since&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-jackpot-winner-california-9f0e98a47c96c2b3087a68b33195dd50">someone in Los Angeles</a>&nbsp;won a $1.08 billion Powerball prize that ranked as the sixth-largest in U.S. history. The winner of the prize is still a mystery.Lottery jackpots grow so large because the odds of winning are so small. For Mega Millions, the odds of winning the jackpot are about&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/powerball-mega-millions-winning-odds-numbers-a3e5a8e8e7ed15d7500c1d6acdab6785">1 in 302.6 million.</a>Winners also would be subject to federal taxes, and many states also tax lottery winnings.Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Mega Millions jackpot climbs to $1.05 billion; another drawing and no big winner

AUBURN, Maine (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;— buoyed by new signs the economy is continuing on the upswing — took a swipe on Friday at House Republicans' flirtations with an impeachment inquiry, quipping that GOP lawmakers may decide to impeach him because&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-prices-federal-reserve-interest-rates-economy-c48791d3e506b30b643cedec34bab290">inflation is cooling down</a>.

(click below to watch the President's comments)

Standing in a textile manufacturing facility in Auburn Biden pointed to inflation statistics that showed the U.S. has the lowest rate of price increases among the world's biggest economies. Though he was careful to say he was not taking a victory lap on the economy, Biden suggested that his Republican opponents in Congress may need to find a fresh line of attack against him because of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-bidenomics-jobs-inflation-8d03a90a06b566e441f0b3f2284cd6a9">improving economic circumstances</a>.

“Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down,” Biden said. “I don’t know. I'd love that one.”

Earlier this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-impeachment-mccarthy-hannity-78e4c7efeb030b29e1576f868257179b">made his most direct remarks yet</a>&nbsp;that GOP lawmakers could launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden over unproven claims of financial misconduct related to Hunter Biden, the president's son. However, the California Republican has acknowledged privately that it's too soon to know whether the president was aware of — much less involved in — his son's financial dealings in a way that would rise to the level of impeachable conduct.

While McCarthy publicly floated the inquiry this week, the White House has engaged little with those efforts, instead focused on promoting “Bidenomics" and the president's domestic agenda. Aides have repeatedly played down any inquiry as a hypothetical and pointed out the hesitation among&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kevin-mccarthy">McCarthy's</a>&nbsp;own ranks about pursuing impeachment against the president.

“We're not going to get into what House Republicans want to do, may not do, hypotheticals, that's on them,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One en route to Maine earlier Friday. “What I can speak to is exactly what we're doing today, right? We're going to Maine. We're going to be able to talk about an issue that matters to Americans: investing in America, manufacturing, bringing good union-paying jobs back to America.”

Indeed, that was the focus of the White House on Friday, as Biden used the trip to Maine to sign an executive order that would encourage companies to manufacture new inventions in the United States. It was Biden's first trip to the state as president.

“I'm not here to declare victory on the economy. We have more work to do,” Biden said. But “we have a plan for turning things around. ‘Bidenomics’ is just another way of saying restoring the American dream.”

The Democrat&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-elections-maine-23bf8249bea27763dcfdae77f5bd611f">won three out of the state's four electoral votes</a>&nbsp;in 2020 and is seeking to shore up his support in the state. Maine allocates its electoral votes by congressional district, and Biden lost the vote in the state's 2nd District, which provided the only electoral vote in New England for then-President Donald Trump, a Republican.

By going to that district on Friday, Biden sought to show its blue-collar voters that he's committed to them, as a single electoral vote could be critical in a narrow&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2024-presidential-candidates-who-is-running-e89fbfee94e7e7980594a9ce3994fec7">2024 presidential election</a>.

Democrats can compete in Maine's 2nd District as Rep. Jared Golden has been its congressman since 2019. But Golden has also been one of the Democratic lawmakers who has openly criticized Biden over his handling of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/president-joe-biden-kevin-mccarthy-debt-limit-aee6d1dd48f53bedadfe1212e231f48f">debt limit talks</a>&nbsp;this year and the administration's forgiveness of student debt that has since been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-student-loan-forgiveness-borrowers-76423b2951d89074cbb78f14b24af105">overturned by the Supreme Court</a>. Despite distancing himself from the White House on some policies, Golden traveled with Biden on Air Force One on Friday.

And shortly before Biden spoke at Auburn Manufacturing Inc., Golden noted to the audience that “it's no secret” he doesn't always agree with the president's agenda but that he “proudly” supports Bidenomics.

Republicans have said that Biden's policies have led to higher inflation. Consumer prices climbed to a four-decade high last summer, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-prices-interest-rates-economy-federal-reserve-53d93610b5ccaacd097853593f29bc26">inflation has eased</a>&nbsp;over the past 12 months to a rate of 3% annually.

“&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-economy-bidenomics-jobs-speech-inflation-1fcefdcbb66cb980db85b24accdfbaa6">Bidenomics</a>&nbsp;is hurting working people in my district," said Maine state Rep. Joshua Morris, a Republican. "The cost of groceries, heating oil, gas, health care and electricity have gone up as a result of Joe Biden’s policies. He should be apologizing to us while he’s here, not bragging.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee went on the attack against Golden, calling him “Joe Biden's loyal foot soldier” who had backed inflation-boosting policies earlier in his presidency.

The White House outlined the executive order being signed by Biden, which would improve the transparency of federal research and development programs to meet the administration's goals for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-technology-democracy-congress-government-and-politics-46c5be6252376e5018163d6647f2cfe8">domestic manufacturing</a>. The order asks agencies to weigh U.S. national security and economic interests when determining if domestic manufacturing requirements should be broadened.

The order also urges federal agencies to consider domestic production when investing in research and development and to use their own legal authorities to encourage manufacturing new technologies in the U.S. But when goods cannot be made in the U.S., the order instructs the Commerce Department to create a clearer and timelier process for receiving a waiver.

<a href="https://apnews.com/4cb4f3c0b1e94c9eb6d923640c6fa140">Auburn Manufacturing Inc.</a>, where Biden spoke Friday, is a maker of heat- and fire-resistant fabrics for industries that include shipbuilding, oil refining and electricity generation. The company challenged China for its unfair trade practices regarding amorphous silica fabric, or ASF, which is a heat-resistant material.

Biden was also scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in Freeport, Maine, later Friday.

AUBURN, Maine (AP) —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;— buoyed by new signs the economy is continuing on the upswing — took a swipe on Friday at House Republicans' flirtations with an impeachment inquiry, quipping that GOP lawmakers may decide to impeach him because&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-prices-federal-reserve-interest-rates-economy-c48791d3e506b30b643cedec34bab290">inflation is cooling down</a>.(click below to watch the President's comments)<div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FWhiteHouse%2Fvideos%2F647526017316344%2F&show_text=false&width=560&t=661" width="560" height="314" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe></div>Standing in a textile manufacturing facility in Auburn Biden pointed to inflation statistics that showed the U.S. has the lowest rate of price increases among the world's biggest economies. Though he was careful to say he was not taking a victory lap on the economy, Biden suggested that his Republican opponents in Congress may need to find a fresh line of attack against him because of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-bidenomics-jobs-inflation-8d03a90a06b566e441f0b3f2284cd6a9">improving economic circumstances</a>.“Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down,” Biden said. “I don’t know. I'd love that one.”Earlier this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-impeachment-mccarthy-hannity-78e4c7efeb030b29e1576f868257179b">made his most direct remarks yet</a>&nbsp;that GOP lawmakers could launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden over unproven claims of financial misconduct related to Hunter Biden, the president's son. However, the California Republican has acknowledged privately that it's too soon to know whether the president was aware of — much less involved in — his son's financial dealings in a way that would rise to the level of impeachable conduct.While McCarthy publicly floated the inquiry this week, the White House has engaged little with those efforts, instead focused on promoting “Bidenomics" and the president's domestic agenda. Aides have repeatedly played down any inquiry as a hypothetical and pointed out the hesitation among&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kevin-mccarthy">McCarthy's</a>&nbsp;own ranks about pursuing impeachment against the president.“We're not going to get into what House Republicans want to do, may not do, hypotheticals, that's on them,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One en route to Maine earlier Friday. “What I can speak to is exactly what we're doing today, right? We're going to Maine. We're going to be able to talk about an issue that matters to Americans: investing in America, manufacturing, bringing good union-paying jobs back to America.”Indeed, that was the focus of the White House on Friday, as Biden used the trip to Maine to sign an executive order that would encourage companies to manufacture new inventions in the United States. It was Biden's first trip to the state as president.“I'm not here to declare victory on the economy. We have more work to do,” Biden said. But “we have a plan for turning things around. ‘Bidenomics’ is just another way of saying restoring the American dream.”The Democrat&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-elections-maine-23bf8249bea27763dcfdae77f5bd611f">won three out of the state's four electoral votes</a>&nbsp;in 2020 and is seeking to shore up his support in the state. Maine allocates its electoral votes by congressional district, and Biden lost the vote in the state's 2nd District, which provided the only electoral vote in New England for then-President Donald Trump, a Republican.By going to that district on Friday, Biden sought to show its blue-collar voters that he's committed to them, as a single electoral vote could be critical in a narrow&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2024-presidential-candidates-who-is-running-e89fbfee94e7e7980594a9ce3994fec7">2024 presidential election</a>.Democrats can compete in Maine's 2nd District as Rep. Jared Golden has been its congressman since 2019. But Golden has also been one of the Democratic lawmakers who has openly criticized Biden over his handling of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/president-joe-biden-kevin-mccarthy-debt-limit-aee6d1dd48f53bedadfe1212e231f48f">debt limit talks</a>&nbsp;this year and the administration's forgiveness of student debt that has since been&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-student-loan-forgiveness-borrowers-76423b2951d89074cbb78f14b24af105">overturned by the Supreme Court</a>. Despite distancing himself from the White House on some policies, Golden traveled with Biden on Air Force One on Friday.And shortly before Biden spoke at Auburn Manufacturing Inc., Golden noted to the audience that “it's no secret” he doesn't always agree with the president's agenda but that he “proudly” supports Bidenomics.Republicans have said that Biden's policies have led to higher inflation. Consumer prices climbed to a four-decade high last summer, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/inflation-prices-interest-rates-economy-federal-reserve-53d93610b5ccaacd097853593f29bc26">inflation has eased</a>&nbsp;over the past 12 months to a rate of 3% annually.“&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-economy-bidenomics-jobs-speech-inflation-1fcefdcbb66cb980db85b24accdfbaa6">Bidenomics</a>&nbsp;is hurting working people in my district," said Maine state Rep. Joshua Morris, a Republican. "The cost of groceries, heating oil, gas, health care and electricity have gone up as a result of Joe Biden’s policies. He should be apologizing to us while he’s here, not bragging.”The National Republican Congressional Committee went on the attack against Golden, calling him “Joe Biden's loyal foot soldier” who had backed inflation-boosting policies earlier in his presidency.The White House outlined the executive order being signed by Biden, which would improve the transparency of federal research and development programs to meet the administration's goals for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-technology-democracy-congress-government-and-politics-46c5be6252376e5018163d6647f2cfe8">domestic manufacturing</a>. The order asks agencies to weigh U.S. national security and economic interests when determining if domestic manufacturing requirements should be broadened.The order also urges federal agencies to consider domestic production when investing in research and development and to use their own legal authorities to encourage manufacturing new technologies in the U.S. But when goods cannot be made in the U.S., the order instructs the Commerce Department to create a clearer and timelier process for receiving a waiver.<a href="https://apnews.com/4cb4f3c0b1e94c9eb6d923640c6fa140">Auburn Manufacturing Inc.</a>, where Biden spoke Friday, is a maker of heat- and fire-resistant fabrics for industries that include shipbuilding, oil refining and electricity generation. The company challenged China for its unfair trade practices regarding amorphous silica fabric, or ASF, which is a heat-resistant material.Biden was also scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in Freeport, Maine, later Friday.___