SAN LEANDRO — A start-up recycling company has a message for its potential, environmentally conscious customers: Don’t send your problem garbage to the landfill; put it on your front porch.

The company is Ridwell, and if you drive the residential streets of the San Francisco Bay Area or Los Angeles, you’re likely to see the company’s signature white metal boxes on porches.

The boxes are for empty tortilla chip and plastic produce bags, used clothing, light bulbs and batteries. In some locations, polystyrene peanuts. All the things you’re not supposed to put in the blue recycle bin, but wish you could.

The Seattle-based waste service is geared toward people who worry their waste will end up in the landfill, or get exported to a developing country in Asia. They sort their waste into colorfully labeled canvas bags the company provides, and wait for a Ridwell pickup.

“Sorting is our special sauce,” said Gerrine Pan, the company’s vice president of partnerships. Part of the reason the company is successful at finding markets — or buyers — for its waste, she said, is that it’s sorted and pretty clean (unlike the food-contaminated jumble of waste that gets stuffed in many blue bins).

The company promises to distribute all that waste to specialty recyclers, manufacturers, even thrift shops.

But critics say the boutique waste hauler is not accomplishing anything environmentally useful and is selling the public a myth: that these plastics — multilayer plastic film, plastic bags, polystyrene — can be taken care of responsibly. The service would be benign, they say, if it stuck to the delivery of materials, such as light bulbs and batteries, that can be recycled.

Most local waste haulers don’t accept batteries and light bulbs because they can pose a hazard to workers and equipment.

The base Ridwell membership is $20 a month. For that, a driver will come by every two weeks and take the presorted bags to a warehouse where they’re emptied, the contents stacked and collected, until there’s enough to deliver to a facility that will take it.

Company lore is that founder Ryan Metzger and his son were frustrated that so many things weren’t accepted by their local hauler for recycling. The two sat down and researched where to take the stuff, then decided to scale up and serve their neighbors.

The company has since expanded to Vancouver, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; San Francisco; Los Angeles; Denver; Austin, Texas; Minneapolis and Atlanta. It now boasts more than 130,000 customers nationwide.

Most of the waste is delivered locally. But some of it travels hundreds, if not thousands of miles.

For instance, multilayer plastic bags — those that hold snack chips, candy and coffee beans — are the scourge of municipal garbage haulers because they cannot be recycled, and if put in the blue bins, can damage mechanical sorting machines. Ridwell, however, found Hydroblox, a company that melts the multilayer films into hard, plastic bricks that can be used for drainage projects in landscaping and road construction.

But this arrangement highlights some of the limitations of the nascent industry. Hydroblox owner Ed Greiser said he can take only so many chip bags. The company is growing, but it’s still pretty small, and he’s typically maxed out on the bags.

“This article is going to be a nightmare for me,” he told a Times reporter, because it’s likely to attract a parade of unsolicited garbage trucks looking to dump their bags. “I’m not the solution.”

In addition, Greiser’s two facilities are in Pennsylvania, more than 2,700 miles from most West Coast pickup points, a steep transportation cost for a plastic bag that could instead go 20 miles to a local landfill.

Ridwell also has recently expanded to serve customers outside its pickup cities. It sends special plastic bags to these far-flung subscribers so they can sort their waste and ship it back.

Again, critics say the company’s decision to operate a service that is dependent on plastic bags and requires extensive transport undermines their environmental bona fides. And they worry that a narrative suggesting all waste can be dealt with responsibly is false and misleading. That misconception, they say, contributes to the glut of plastic piling up in our rivers and oceans, and inside our bodies.

“There is typically a reason why a given product isn’t being recycled through curbside collection, and it usually isn’t for lack of effort by cities and counties,” said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for Californians Against Waste. “Most of the material being collected by boutique collection services like Ridwell are either very difficult to manage or lack strong recycling markets.”

Manufacturers of plastic packaging, not consumers, should pay for recycling products and packaging at the end of their life, he said. For regular people, “having to pay an extra fee to handle the unrecyclable plastic packaging that is thrust upon us every day is antithetical to every concept of producer responsibility.”

Earlier this month, the anti-plastic group Beyond Plastics published a disparaging report on boutique waste haulers, including Ridwell, accusing them of providing cover for plastic and packaging manufacturers who want people to believe their waste is being recycled.

Ridwell offered a visitor a tour of its Bay Area warehouse in San Leandro. The spacious facility behind a Home Depot and Walmart was crowded with steel drums filled with alternating layers of batteries and fire-retardant pellets, boxes of light bulbs and piles of used clothes, all destined for recyclers, upcyclers and thrift stores.

While the public may think of recycling as a largely physical process, it’s actually a market: a function of how well a material can be profitably turned into something else.

Metzger, Ridwell’s chief executive, said some of the material his company collects can be sold. Some of it is given away, “and some we pay to have responsibly processed.” The more technically challenging the plastic, the more likely Ridwell will have to pay to deal with it, he said.

He said the company vets all the places it sends its waste, giving preference to those that use items a second time over those that melt them down or shred them to make them into something else. It also gives preference to partners that are local.

He said his company is “careful not to present plastic recycling as a cure-all,” and it turns away some materials, for example vinyl shower curtains, “because we don’t have a downstream partner we can stand behind.”

And while Metzger agrees with many of Beyond Plastic’s concerns, he has observed that “when customers actively sort and see which items require special handling, it often increases their awareness of where plastic waste is coming from in their own lives … [leading] them to change purchasing habits and avoid certain packaging altogether.”

Chrysler is recalling 320,065 Jeep Wranglers and Grand Cherokees because the plug-in hybrid SUVs’ high-voltage batteries could fail, potentially causing a fire while a vehicle is parked or in motion, according to federal regulators. 

The affected vehicles include the Jeep Wrangler 4Xe for model years 2020-2025 and the Grand Cherokee 4Xe from 2022-2026. 

Owners should park the vehicles outside and away from structures, and not charge the cars until they are fixed, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a recall notice. The agency said a fix for the issue is currently under development, but didn’t specify when it might be available to vehicle owners. 

In a statement to CBS News, Chrysler owner Stellantis said that a fix will be available soon. 

“A remedy is imminent and affected customers will be notified when they may schedule service,” the company said.

It added, “Vehicle risk is reduced when the battery charge level is depleted. Accordingly, owners are advised to refrain from recharging. Out of an abundance of caution, the company is also advising owners of these vehicles to park away from structures or other vehicles until the remedy is obtained.”

The recall notice said that an estimated 5% of the recall cars may have the defect. Chrysler said it has received 19 reports of fires linked to the batteries and of one injury, although the documents didn’t disclose details about that incident.  

“Owners are advised to park outside and away from structures and not to charge their vehicles until the remedy is completed,” NHTSA said.

Chrysler, which is owned by automaker Stellantis, said that notification letters alerting owners to the risks will be mailed Dec. 2, while additional letters will be sent once a remedy is available. 

According to NHTSA, the recalled Jeep Wranglers and Grand Cherokees were built with a high-voltage battery pack manufactured with cells that could be susceptible to damage, which can lead to vehicle fires. 

For more information, owners can contact Chrysler customer service at 800-853-1403; the company’s number for the recall is 68C. 

Edited by

Alain Sherter

More and more, big arrays of lithium-ion batteries are being hooked up to electrical grids around the U.S. to store power that can be discharged in times of high demand.

But as more energy storage is added, residents in some places are pushing back due to fears that the systems will go up in flames, as a massive facility in California did earlier this year.

Proponents maintain that state-of-the-art battery energy storage systems are safe, but more localities are enacting moratoriums.

“We’re not guinea pigs for anybody … we are not going to experiment, we’re not going to take risk,” said Michael McGinty, the mayor of Island Park, New York, which passed a moratorium in July after a storage system was proposed near the village line.

At least a few dozen localities around the United States have moved to temporarily block development of big battery systems in recent years.

Long Island, where the power grid could get a boost in the next few years as offshore wind farms come online, has been a hotbed of activism, even drawing attention recently from the Trump administration. Opponents there got a boost in August when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin visited New York to complain that the state was rushing approvals of sites in order to meet “delusional” green power goals — a claim state officials deny.

Battery energy storage systems that suck up cheap power during periods of low demand, then discharge it at a profit during periods of high demand, are considered critical with the rise of intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar.

Known by the acronym BESS, the systems can make grids more reliable and have been credited with reducing blackouts. A large battery system might consist of rows of shipping containers in a fenced lot, with the containers holding hundreds of thousands of cells.

China and the United States lead the world in rapidly adding battery storage energy systems. However, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Australia, Netherlands, Chile, Canada and the U.K. have commissioned or started construction on large projects since 2024, too, according to research from BloombergNEF.

In the U.S., California and Texas have been leaders in battery storage. But other states are moving quickly, often with privately developed systems. While the Trump administration has been unsupportive or even hostile to renewable energy, key tax credits for energy storage projects were maintained in the recently approved federal budget for qualified projects that begin construction in the next eight years.

Developers added 4,908 megawatts of battery storage capacity in the second quarter of 2025, with Arizona, California and Texas accounting for about three-quarters of that new capacity, according to a report from American Clean Power Association, an industry group. That’s enough to power nearly 1.7 million households.

New York has an ambitious goal to add 6,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030, half of it large-scale systems.

Opposition to the storage systems usually focuses on the possibility of thermal runaway, a chain reaction of uncontrolled heating that can lead to fire or an explosion. Opponents point to past fires and ask: What if that happens in my neighborhood?

A battery storage system in Moss Landing, California caught fire in January, sending plumes of toxic smoke into the atmosphere and forcing the evacuation of about 1,500 people..

Experts in the field say battery systems have become safer over the years. Ofodike Ezekoye, a combustion expert and professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, notes that failures are relatively infrequent, but also that no engineered system is 100% foolproof.

“This is a relatively immature technology that is maturing quickly, so I think that there are a lot of really thoughtful researchers and other stakeholders who are trying to improve the overall safety of these systems,” Ezekoye said.

Battery storage proponents say a facility like Moss Landing, where batteries were stored indoors, would not be allowed in New York, which has adopted fire codes that require modular enclosure design with required minimum spacing to keep fires from spreading.

People who live near proposed sites are not always assured.

In Washington state, the city of Maple Valley approved a six-month moratorium in July as a way “to protect us until we know more,” said city manager Laura Philpot.

Voters in Halstead, Kansas, which has a moratorium, will be asked this Election Day whether they want to prohibit larger battery storage systems inside the city limits, according to Mayor Dennis Travis. He hopes the city can one day host a safely designed storage system, and said local opponents wrongly fixate on the California fire.

The number of localities passing moratoriums began rising in 2023 and 2024, mirroring trends in battery storage deployment, with a notable cluster in New York, according to a presentation last year by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Winnie Sokolowski is among area residents against a proposed 250-megawatt lithium-ion storage system in the Town of Ulster, New York, contending it is too close to schools and homes.

“They’re banking on nothing happening, but I don’t think you can place it where they’re proposing and assume nothing’s going to happen,” Sokolowski said. “It’s just too risky if it does.”

The developer, Terra-Gen, said the design will keep a fire from spreading and that the system “poses no credible, scientific-based threat to neighbors, the public or the environment.”

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority President Doreen Harris said she’s confident the state has the right safety rules in place, and that scaling up the use of battery storage systems will “strengthen and modernize our grid.”

She noted there also were local concerns in the early stages of siting solar farms, which have since proven their benefits.

___

Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

A civilian employee of the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office was arrested on suspicion of sexual battery on Thursday, Aug. 21, a day after the DA’s Office received a complaint that the employee had assaulted a person while on duty.

Jaiquin Devon Moore, 52, a Lake Elsinore resident, was being held at Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside in lieu of $25,000 bail. He has been placed on administrative leave.

The DA’s Office said it handed off the investigation to the Sheriff’s Department to avoid a conflict of interest.

Moore is an investigative technician. Those employees assist sworn investigators by interviewing witnesses, collecting and documenting information and recording statements, among other duties, said Amy McKenzie, a district attorney’s spokeswoman.

The Sheriff’s Department asks anyone with information on Moore to call the Special Victims Unit at 951-955-1698.

An electric boat company with roots in Torrance is taking steps to bring battery-powered workboats and charging infrastructure to the Port of Los Angeles, where diesel-burning vessels emit tons of carbon dioxide.

Arc Boat Co., a Southern California startup that sells electric boats for recreational use, said it will open a research and development facility at the port in June.

The facility signals a move toward electrification at the nation’s busiest port and marks Arc’s expansion into the commercial sector.

Arc’s promise to deliver an electrified fleet of workboats comes five years ahead of a 2030 deadline set by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to transition to zero-emission equipment.

The twin ports, situated on more than 10,000 acres on San Pedro Bay, rely on heavy-duty cranes, tugboats and trucks to move cargo. Replacing the roughly 2,000 tugboats in the U.S. with electric alternatives could prevent more than 1.6 million cars’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions annually, according to Arc.

“Across the entire marine industry, going electric makes an incredible amount of sense,” Arc co-founder and Chief Executive Mitch Lee said in an interview. “These boats don’t have fumes, and you can cut your operating costs substantially.”

Electric boats require minimal maintenance and zero fuel, an appealing combination for commercial operators who want to save money and consumers looking to enjoy the water, Lee said. Arc’s boats are also quieter and easier to maneuver than traditional boats, he said.

The electrification of vehicles on the water could soon gain momentum, said Petros Ioannou, an engineering professor at USC who researches transportation technology.

“The main reason for going electric is really the environment,” Ioannou said. “The question is whether they are able to solve the technological and logistical problems” presented by electric boats, including power, range and charging limitations.

Despite the challenges of building a battery capable of propelling a boat, several companies including Navier and X Shore are producing and selling electric vessels. Arc’s business currently revolves around recreational boats for water sports, starting at $268,000.

In a partnership with Portland, Ore.-based shipyard Diversified Marine Inc., Arc plans to retrofit a 26-foot-long truckable tugboat with lithium-ion battery packs and a 600-horsepower drivetrain. The vessel will be the first zero-emission tug to support operations at the Port of Los Angeles, Arc said.

Tugboats are an essential tool at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where they guide larger vessels and move equipment such as barges and cranes.

“Tugs run short, repetitive missions requiring high torque, and start and end at the same home base,” Arc said in a statement announcing its retrofitting project. “Not only does that make them well-suited to going electric, but doing so drastically reduces operating expenses.”

Teaming up with Diversified Marine allows Arc to launch its new workboat in collaboration with several entities that do business at the port, Lee said.

“Diversified already knows how to tap into the port operations and get this vessel to work,” he said. “We’re modernizing their tugboat and deploying it into the Port of L.A., and we’re able to provide charging infrastructure as well.”

Switching from diesel-powered to electric workboats can save commercial operators roughly 50% on maintenance and fuel costs, Lee said, adding that Arc’s new research and development facility will provide the groundwork to make the switch possible.

The company did not disclose how much money it was putting into the research facility and accompanying charging network, but said it probably will require an investment of less than $10 million.

The facility will sit within a 35-acre research campus operated by the nonprofit AltaSea. It will support prototype development of electric workboats, on-water testing and fleet deployment, Arc said. The company builds its battery packs out of a separate facility in Los Angeles.

“Decarbonization at our ports is a critical step to achieving real, substantive climate progress,” AltaSea said in a statement. “Arc Boat’s new R&D facility and charging infrastructure will help make the Port of L.A. a global model for sustainable maritime operations.”

Launched in 2021 by former Boeing and SpaceX engineers, Arc has a mission to electrify everything on the water, Lee said. Before co-founding Arc with fellow Northwestern alum Ryan Cook, Lee grew up in the Bay Area and frequently boated with his family.

Arc has received more than $100 million in investment funds from California-based venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Lower Carbon Capital, among others. The startup employs 170 people, including experts with backgrounds at electric vehicle companies Rivian and Tesla.

The company did not disclose its annual revenue, but said demand for its boats is high. Two models are available to be delivered nationwide, including the Arc Sport, designed for wake surfing and water skiing; and the Arc One, a luxury cruiser.

Arc is the only electric boat company to build its own battery packs in-house, Lee said.

Although assembly is done in Los Angeles, President Trump’s steep tariffs on U.S. trade partners — including a 145% tax on goods imported from China — have still presented a challenge. The tariff on China has since been reduced to 30%.

“We are definitely impacted by tariffs and the electric vehicle market has heavy ties to Chinese supply chains,” Lee said. “We’re also ahead of the curve and far more vertically integrated than most companies.”

With ambitions to build electric boats capable of hauling cargo and traveling long distances, Arc will need to stay at the forefront of battery development, Ioannou from USC said. Producing its batteries domestically may give Arc an advantage as tariffs disrupt global trade.

“Whether this space will progress in a rapid way will very much depend on the battery technology and availability,” Ioannou said.

“When you go from gasoline to electric, there are certain benefits that you get, but a lot of headaches too,” he said.

Andrew Tate, a hugely successful social media influencer known for expressing misogynistic views online, is facing a new lawsuit filed by his ex-girlfriend accusing him of sexual assault and battery.

It adds to existing legal trouble for Tate, who’s charged with human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women in Romania. His brother, Tristan Tate, is also accused in that case.

In her complaint, Tate’s ex-girlfriend, Brianna Stern, argues that his abusive treatment of her follows a long pattern of making blatant misogyny part of his brand. She said he initially acted effusively loving and generous to lure her into a relationship that later turned abusive.

The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Los Angeles, details an encounter earlier this month at the Beverly Hills Hotel when Tate choked and beat her, according to the complaint. Stern said she was later diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome.

Tate’s attorney, Joseph McBride, said his client denies all allegations of violence. McBride accused Stern and her lawyers of taking advantage of the recent controversy surrounding Tate, hoping it could win them a lucrative payout.

“This is a money grab,” McBride said in a phone interview Saturday morning. “This is the weaponization of the court system against an innocent man.”

The Tate brothers, who are dual U.S. and British citizens, were arrested in Romania in late 2022 and formally indicted last year. Andrew Tate was also charged with rape. They deny all the allegations against them.

Stern met Tate in July 2024 after the brothers invited her to Romania because they were looking for models to help promote their cryptocurrency meme coin, according to her lawsuit. She said he convinced her the media portrayals of him were untrue, that he was actually a supporter of women. It seemed like “a dream come true,” she said in the complaint.

After she returned to the U.S., Tate’s communications became threatening and manipulative, including calling her his “property,” Stern alleges. He sent messages saying he wanted to beat and impregnate her: “You have an attitude because you’re not hit enough,” he once wrote, according to the complaint.

Tate’s attorney, however, called the messages “doctored, edited and falsified,” saying he doesn’t believe they’ll be admissible in court.

“None of it is true,” McBride said. “All of it is a lie.”

During their last encounter at the hotel, Stern alleges, Tate beat and choked her during sex.

“While doing so, Tate told her repeatedly that if she ever crossed him, he was going to kill her,” the lawsuit says.

Tate, 38, is a former professional kickboxer and self-described misogynist who has amassed millions of followers online, many of them young men and boys drawn in by the luxurious lifestyle he projects. He previously was banned from TikTok, YouTube and Facebook for hate speech, including that women should bear responsibility for getting raped. He and his brother are vocal supporters of President Donald Trump.

The Tate brothers checked in at a police station near Romania’s capital last Monday, complying with judicial control requirements in the human trafficking case that ordered them to return after weeks in the U.S. The American trip was possible because a travel ban against them was lifted last month after a Romanian court found multiple legal and procedural irregularities — a significant blow to the prosecution and a win for the Tates.

Tate has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and claimed there’s a political conspiracy to silence him.

Days after they arrived in Florida, the state’s attorney general opened a criminal investigation into the brothers.

Four British women are suing Tate in the U.K. after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute him on sexual violence and other abuse charges. Last March, the brothers appeared at the Bucharest Court of Appeal in a separate case after U.K. authorities issued arrest warrants over allegations of sexual aggression dating back several years. The appeals court granted the U.K. request to extradite them, but only after legal proceedings in Romania have concluded.

Stern said in a statement posted to social media that she’s terrified of how Tate will respond to her public accusations.

“I considered many times just silently leaving Andrew and saying nothing, doing nothing, because I was scared and because it was honestly hard for me to accept that I was being abused,” she wrote. “But I can now see that doing so would be the cowardly approach.”

Her attorney, Tony Buzbee, praised her “incredible courage to come forward and make her voice heard.”

Monterey County declares state of emergency over California battery plant fire; questions remain

Monterey County supervisors on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in response to last week’s major fire at the Vistra lithium battery plant in Moss Landing.

The emergency declaration came during a special meeting where officials gave updates on the fire and ongoing response. While the fire has burned itself out, there are still a lot of questions from local leaders and neighbors about what’s next. 

“This was the beginning,” said Josh Contreras as he showed photos he took of the incident from his houseboat.

The images show a fireball on the horizon, not even a mile away. 

“I walked up the docks, and then I took more photos,” he said. “Because you could see the flames, probably almost as tall as the towers that stand here.”

The fire at the Moss Landing Vistra Power Plant, located about 90 miles south of San Francisco, broke out last Thursday afternoon, escalating in the early evening to the point where the incident triggered evacuations for about 1,200 Monterey County residents in the area and shut down a section of Highway 1 in both directions.  

Concerned over the potentially toxic runoff if fire crews turned hoses on the burning lithium batteries, officials instead are allowing the to burn itself out.

Officials said the fire was largely out as of late Friday morning during a press conference, but it flared up significantly for a few hours that afternoon before dying down again. Officials were eventually able to lift the evacuation orders by early Friday evening. The stretch of Highway 1 near the plant remained closed until Sunday.

Now that the fire is out, he is one of the many people living in the area what lies in the future for the facility.

“If they do battery packs, they should keep it in more deserted areas,” Contreras said.

“This technology is ahead of the government’s ability to regulate it,” Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church said during the emergency meeting Tuesday. “And the industry’s ability to control it.”

Supervisors were asking similar questions about the fire. A representative from Vistra said were just getting access to the burned-out lithium battery facility. The incident was enough for Church, who last week likened the fire to a “Three Mile Island” event for the emerging industry — to draw this conclusion:

“Battery storage is essential for the future. And that’s the direction we’re going,” Church noted. “But — as I said last night and I’ve tried to emphasize — we just can’t put that above safety. That’s got to be the priority at this point.”

Church is calling for the Vistra facility to remain closed until an independent investigation can determine the cause of the incident.  

“Unfortunately, we’re on a pretty steep learning curve with battery safety still,” said Dustin Mulvaney, a professor of environmental sciences at San Jose State University. “And we’re still figuring out ways that these batteries catch on fire. We’re still figuring out how to best suppress them.”

Mulvaney said the Moss Landing facility fire will be a wake-up call for the entire industry, right down to the people who insure the batteries. A lot of people will want to know what went wrong, and where, in a plant that is a hodgepodge of lithium battery technology.

“That site is actually an example of different ways to design it,” Mulvaney explained. “Because it was built in different phases. They took advantage of different opportunities to put things in different places. But this example will cause the industry to reflect on how they built these things. Because they have to be better neighbors to the community.”

Those who live in the community are reflecting on what it means to have this plant as a neighbor.

“Yeah. It should be out in the desert,” said plant neighbor Julie Nieman. “Somewhere in Nevada, out in the desert where people aren’t around. Why would you put it where people live, in this beautiful area by the ocean?”

With the exception of one closed roadway beside the plant, things in Moss Landing are pretty much back to normal. The parks and beaches have to reopened, though some people have raised additional questions about the impact the fire had on the environment, particularly the sensitive Elkhorn Slough Reserve. The wetlands area is home to a number of endangered sea otters. 

The county says it is going to start water quality testing this week, but they say that is not as high of a concern as the air quality was during the fire. 

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Investors have piled into a bond and loan deal that will hand private equity giant Brookfield a huge $4.5bn dividend, overcoming fears from some money managers that Donald Trump could torpedo a tax break for the company issuing the debt.

The deal is likely to rank among the largest dividend recapitalisations ever completed by a leveraged buyout group, according to PitchBook LCD.

Clarios, a battery maker owned by Brookfield and Canadian pension fund CDPQ, raised $5bn this week in a sign that lenders do not expect the next US president to axe the subsidies in Joe Biden’s marquee Inflation Reduction Act, a move that would put Clarios’s finances at risk.

Clarios was a beneficiary of the IRA, which provides tax credits to companies making batteries in the US. The company makes about a third of the world’s low-voltage car batteries and expected to receive a $1bn benefit in 2024, as well as big tax savings in the coming decade, boosting profits and providing a large dividend to its owners.

But investors have questioned the permanence of those tax breaks during meetings with banks marketing the debt, according to people familiar with the calls. Without the IRA credits, they said the company’s leverage — a measure of its indebtedness compared with its profitability — would look particularly high.

“Even if you take the credit out, [the business] still works,” said one high-yield portfolio manager. “It will still generate cash — but it’s highly leveraged.”

An investor presentation seen by the Financial Times indicated leverage would rise to six times the company’s annual earnings if the tax breaks were scrapped, compared with four times if they remained intact.

President Biden’s landmark climate law included $370bn in subsidies, tax breaks and grants, making the US one of the world’s most attractive destinations for cleantech manufacturing.

Trump, who will be inaugurated into office next week, has vowed to gut key parts of the IRA, which he calls the “green new scam”, injecting uncertainty for cleantech investors.

Analysts with the rating agency S&P Global warned that they would downgrade Clarios’s credit ratings deep into junk territory if it lost its IRA tax break.

The $5bn capital raise will be a boon to investors in Brookfield funds, given private equity firms have struggled to exit investments and return cash to their limited partners over the past three years.

Brookfield’s investors, including CDPQ, will receive a total of $4.5bn in dividends from Clarios, about 1.6 times their original $2.9bn equity investment when they bought the company from industrial conglomerate Johnson Controls in 2019, according to people briefed on the matter.

Clarios will use some of the proceeds from the debt offering to pay down some loans maturing in 2026, according to investors familiar with the transaction.

Brookfield considered selling a minority equity stake in Clarios to large investors such as sovereign wealth funds, but found that buoyant debt markets made the dividend an appealing way to return billions in cash while retaining full ownership.

Demand for the debt was so high that banks increased the size of the capital raise by $500mn to $5bn. Clarios secured a $3.5bn loan that carried an interest rate 2.75 percentage points above the floating interest rate benchmark, or about 7.05 per cent. It also raised a $700mn bond and was finalising a further €800mn loan on Wednesday.

Brookfield declined to comment.

The new deal follows a roughly $9bn dividend raised last year by Belron, a windscreen repair company backed by Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Hellman & Friedman, BlackRock and GIC.

Additional reporting by Amanda Chu

A simple twist of scientific discovery sparked one company’s breakthrough in battery technology for electric vehicles.

Coreshell, a battery technology company, is developing what it says is the first commercial-scale battery that uses metallurgical silicon (MG-SI) in the anode. Their design replaces the traditional Chinese-produced graphite anode electrode with an anode made of domestically sourced, low-cost silicon. Using metallurgical silicon for the anode, Coreshell can use 10 times less anode material to achieve the same battery capacity.

Silicon has a much higher theoretical capacity than graphite, said Ross Polk, Coreshell’s director of business development. “You can load more energy into it, and because of that your battery goes farther.”

Coreshell’s battery is also engineered for fast-charge capabilities, Polk said, so an EV’s recharge rate will be quicker.

Cost is the primary differentiator for Coreshell’s battery technology. A close second is its sustainability and environmental benefits.

The battery is the largest cost component of EVs, accounting for up to 40 percent of the materials cost,” said Coreshell CEO Jonathan Tan.

“Most automotive manufacturers are losing money for every EV sold, and most consumers are still priced out,” he said. “This high cost, combined with reliance on foreign supply chains and ongoing production challenges, is a major barrier to affordable, clean transportation.”

Tan said their EV batteries “have the potential to make EVs affordable enough to enable mass adoption.” By replacing graphite anodes, battery anode material costs were cut by up to 50 percent while increasing EV range by up to 40 percent, Tan said. And using metallurgical silicon will cut carbon emissions by 29 percent.

“This has the potential to replace graphite at a time when China controls nearly 93 percent of the global graphite supply chain,” Tan said.

Ongoing production challenges are another barrier to affordable, clean transportation, Tan said. Coreshell has a strategic partnership with London-based Ferroglobe, a top global producer of silicon metal. Tan said the partnership connects Coreshell with a domestic supply chain rather than relying on China and other countries.

Coreshell will keep production in the U.S. in its new 23,000-square-foot facility in San Leandro, Calif., south of Oakland in the East Bay area.

About Coreshell

Coreshell specializes in cost-effective, high-performance silicon anodes, unlocking new possibilities for EV batteries. The company collaborates with leading silicon producers, battery manufacturers, and automotive OEMs, driving the global shift toward clean energy solutions. Learn more online at coreshell.com.

Mark Maynard has been writing about cars, their people, and products for 30 years. Find him at MaynardsGarage.com.

The news and editorial staffs of Southern California News Group and The San Diego Union-Tribune had no role in this post’s preparation.

FAA data shows lithium battery fires are up 388% on U.S. flights since 2015, happening nearly twice per week on average. The lithium batteries inside your tablet, laptop and phones can be flammable when they’re damaged or they overheat. Passengers should never put a lithium battery in a checked bag, but it’s also advised to keep an eye on your devices during your flight.

As millions prepare to fly for the holidays, the Federal Aviation Administration is warning travelers about a hidden danger in their luggage: lithium-ion batteries. Found in everyday devices like laptops, tablets and even electric toothbrushes, these batteries can catch fire if they overheat or are damaged.

Last July, panic erupted on an American Airlines flight from San Francisco to Miami after a laptop battery in a carry-on bag ignited.

“It was absolute chaos. It truly felt like every man for themselves. And it was terrifying,” said Shilpa Patel, a passenger on the flight. “I don’t know if we’re going to explode. All I know is I need to get out and I need to survive.”

FAA data shows that lithium battery fires on U.S. flights have risen 388% since 2015, now occurring nearly twice a week.

“Any fire at 30,000 feet is unacceptable,” said David Wroth of UL Standards & Engagement, a safety research organization. 

A survey of more than 800 flight attendants conducted by UL found that 87% are concerned about lithium battery risks on airplanes, and more than a third believe airlines should do more to ensure passenger safety. While the FAA requires airlines to include general safety information in preflight announcements, those warnings often don’t address the specific risk of battery fires.

“It’s a balance we probably need to do a better job striking with the airlines,” said Ben Supko, who oversees hazardous materials safety for the FAA. “Passengers don’t fully understand how serious the risk is.”

Supko said passengers need to monitor devices during a flight and immediately notify the crew if a device becomes warm, discolors, or bulges. Passengers are also warned not to pack lithium batteries in checked luggage, as fires in the cargo hold are harder to extinguish.

“When you don’t know what’s going to happen, you act erratically,” said Patel. “It costs us nothing just to say, ‘Hey, the reason why we’re so serious about this is because it could be really dangerous. It could catch fire.'”

The UL survey also found that one in four passengers admits to packing lithium batteries in their checked bags. It is a dangerous practice for one reason in particular: It would be even harder to put out a fire in the plane’s cargo hold.

CBS News contacted American Airlines regarding the incident at the San Francisco airport and potential updates to its safety announcements. The airline did not address the question directly but stated that its flight attendants receive thorough and ongoing training to handle emergencies onboard.

WASHINGTON — The United States will send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery and troops to Israel, the Pentagon said Sunday, even as Iran warned Washington to keep American military forces out of Israel.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin authorized the deployment of the THAAD battery at the direction of President Joe Biden.

Ryder said the system will help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s missile attacks on Israel in April and October.

“This action underscores the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel, and to defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran,” Ryder said.

The Iranian warning came in a post on the social platform X long associated with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who noted the reports that the U.S. was considering the deployment.

Israel is widely believed to be preparing a military response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack when it fired roughly 180 missiles into Israel.

It was not imediately clear where the THAAD battery was coming from. The U.S. deployed one of the batteries to the Middle East along with additional Patriot battalions to bolster protections for U.S. forces in the region late last year after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas militants. Ryder also said that the U.S. sent a THAAD battery to Israel in 2019 for training.

According to an April report by the Congressional Research Service, the Army has seven THAAD batteries. Generally each consists of six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors, radio and radar equipment and required 95 soldiers to operate.

The THAAD is considered a complementary system to the Patriot, but it can defend a wider area. It can hit targets at ranges of 150 to 200 kilometers (93 to 124 miles).

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

One woman alleged in a lawsuit that an Irvine doctor smirked and laughed while opening a paper vest she was wearing to expose and fondle her breasts.

Another woman said in the lawsuit that the same physician stared at her exposed chest and touched her breasts, saying that he was “feeling for [her] liver” and pointing out that he was aroused during an examination.

These and several other women over the years have complained about Dr. John Hoefs’ physical exams — in online forums, to his offices and to the California Medical Board — but he was allowed to continue working until his recent arrest, court records and police reports reviewed by The Times indicate.

Fifteen women filed a civil lawsuit this week alleging that Hoefs, 79, coerced them to expose their breasts under the guise of legitimate medical treatment and in several instances groped them while examining them for conditions related to their liver. The abuse, which lawyers for the women allege dates to 2006, continued until Hoefs was arrested this year, according to the lawsuit.

“Many of the female patients who were sexually abused by Hoefs were fighting for their lives against aggressive forms of liver cancer and hepatitis at the time they sought treatment …” the lawsuit states. “When, in return, Hoefs viciously violated that trust and confidence in order to sexually abuse these extremely vulnerable patients.”

The lawsuit, filed Monday, also names Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and the Regents of the University of California system, which Hoefs was affiliated with during the time the abuse allegedly occurred.

Attorneys representing the women wrote in the lawsuit that UCI Medical Center and Hoag “concealed numerous complaints lodged by female patients about Hoefs’ sexual abuse” and failed to prevent the sexual abuse of “dozens of vulnerable female patients.”

“Hoag and the Regents knew and certainly should have known that Hoefs posed a risk of sexual abuse to patients … as early as 2017 when complaints of such abuse were made to the California Medical Board, as well as numerous complaints posted onto multiple public online forums,” the lawsuit states.

Representatives for Hoag and UCI Medical Center could not be reached for comment Friday. Hoag wrote in a statement to the Orange County Register that Hoefs was not its employee but leased office space in a building owned by Hoag.

“Upon learning of his arrest, Hoag’s medical staff immediately suspended his hospital privileges and Hoag suspended access to his leased space,” Hoag told the newspaper.

Orange County prosecutors charged Hoefs this year with 17 felony counts of sexual battery by fraud and three felony counts of sexual battery. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released from custody on a $500,000 bond, according to Orange County Superior Court records.

Hoefs’ attorney, Kate Corrigan, declined to comment about the allegations against her client when reached on Friday, but said she’s receiving discovery from prosecutors and is reviewing details of the case.

In a conversation in March with Irvine Police Det. Rebecca Steen, Hoefs denied touching patients’ breasts during exams.

“Hoefs told me he was extremely surprised by the allegations,” Steen wrote in a police report. “He also expressed frustration with the situation and said he has never harmed anyone.”

After Hoefs’ arrest earlier this year, the California Medical Board suspended his medical license and prohibited him from having any contact with current, former or prospective patients, according to a suspension order. However, the medical board permitted Hoefs to continue working as medical director for Hepatiq Inc., a medical diagnostic software corporation.

A woman who was in her 40s when she sought treatment from Hoefs in 2016 and 2017 said he required her to remove all of her clothing from the waist up during exams and fondled her breasts without wearing gloves, according to the civil lawsuit. She became suspicious after this happened at several appointments and reported the conduct to the state medical board in October 2017.

It is not clear what action, if any, the medical board took at the time. A representative for the board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Another woman had shown Hoefs a photo of a bruise she had in an effort to seek his medical opinion during a visit to his office. He responded, according to the lawsuit, that he “did not have time to look at photographs unless they were of her in a bikini.”

Irvine police began investigating the doctor in October 2022 after they received a report from a woman who alleged Hoefs touched her breasts at nearly every appointment she’d had with him over the course of two years, according to a police report obtained by The Times.

While listening to her heart and lungs, Hoefs would allegedly “flick off her medical gown fully exposing her breasts for the remainder of the exam,” the police report states.

“She thought it was weird the first time he did it, but after the second time, she thought it must be part of the exam,” Officer Monica Williams wrote in the report.

But during an appointment in October 2022, the woman told officers she became uncomfortable when Hoefs asked her to move closer to him while discussing the results of her exam and asked her about her life. He also talked about sex in schools and transgender issues, according to the report.

Later, she posted on a Facebook group for individuals with liver issues asking if it was normal for their breasts to be touched during an exam. Members of the group said that it wasn’t normal. The woman also told Hoag Hospital about the doctor’s behavior, according to the police report.

Online reviews, which are detailed in the police report, showed that several women had made similar complaints about Hoefs. One woman wrote on Yelp that the doctor “grabbed my breasts during an exam and he told me I wasn’t going to live long enough to raise my then 2 year old son — my [s]on is now 28!”

Since her usual hazardous waste disposal site closed last year, Dashiel St. Damien has accumulated 20 pounds of batteries and a bag full of lightbulbs.

St. Damien, 46, a designer who lives in Mount Washington, knows these items shouldn’t go into her usual curbside bins, but has struggled to find a new, convenient place to drop them off. So the months ticked by, and the bulbs kept piling up.

This week, for a small fee, her mess will finally be cleared. St. Damien has scheduled her first pickup with Ridwell, a subscription service that picks up and disposes of hard-to-recycle trash. For $18 a month, a driver will come to her home biweekly and collect her batteries, light bulbs, plastic mailers and even clothes.

Paying for the service on top of her usual trash collection, she said, is worth it for the positive environmental impact — plus her own feelings of relief. “It’s such an easy thing to do,” St. Damien said. “There are so many big problems that I feel so helpless about, but this is just one small thing.”

Ridwell is part of a new class of businesses, catering to environmentally-conscious consumers, that position themselves as middlemen that can help keep waste out of landfills, and — as a positive side effect — make consumers feel better about the junk they generate.

Ridwell is expanding its services across L.A. as the country is emerging from its peak holiday waste season, where shipping boxes and their foam innards are filling trash bins and unwanted holiday gifts clutter homes.

A Ridwell subscription starts at $14 a month for biweekly pickups, and the company promises that goods get “sustainably reused or recycled.” Tricky trash finds its way to specialized plants for safe disposal, while items with the potential to be reused are donated to organizations that need them. There are more expensive tiers for those with more waste and complicated materials to recycle; the plan that recycles foam costs $24 a month.

“People are starting to ask more questions, like, ‘Where did the stuff come from to produce my stuff?’” said Ryan Metzger, Ridwell’s CEO.

Metzger had the idea for Ridwell in 2018 after he initiated a modest “recycling carpool” with neighbors in Seattle. Faced with the challenge of finding disposal options for batteries, Metzger took the initiative to gather batteries from neighbors and call around to find a facility that could safely get rid of them. That first pickup quickly expanded to include trips to recycle light bulbs, electronics, plastic bags and Halloween candy. Word spread beyond the neighborhood.

“It’s often up to consumers to drive change in a positive way,” Metzger said.

Ridwell now has more than 90,000 members and offers its services in the Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Portland and Los Angeles metro areas. The company is expanding into a dozen more Los Angeles neighborhoods this week, including West Hollywood, Studio City and Central L.A.

The company finds community partners for goods that have the potential to be reused, like toys, clothes and pet supplies. In Los Angeles, these partners include Wags & Walks, Out of the Closet and Baby2Baby, among others. “Our model is to seek out partners that have specific needs,” Metzger said.

Hard-to-break-down plastics — think Amazon mailers, chip bags and pet food bags — usually have to travel farther to special plants .

There is growing consumer awareness that not every plastic with the chasing arrows symbol on it is created equal. Many plastics put into citywide recycling bins go to landfills. St. Damien said subscribing to a service like Ridwell can help curb the common practice of what she calls “wishcycling,” or tossing something into the recycling that might not actually be recyclable. (“I fret about these things terribly,” she said.)

Linda Sanoff, 69, who lives in Hancock Park, has noticed her fair share of wishcyling in her neighborhood. “The city doesn’t take Styrofoam and I know people are putting Styrofoam in their blue bins and it doesn’t get recycled.”

January is a big month for trash. Waste haulers for the city of Los Angeles collected 2.04 tons of cardboard in December 2022; in January 2023 that number soared to 16.42 tons, according to data from the city’s sanitation department. In the weeks after Christmas, Ridwell sees a spike in its collection of batteries, holiday lights and many types of plastics.

Eco-conscious consumers know that the ideal way to deal with waste is to generate less of it to begin with, but most have a hard time reaching a true net-zero lifestyle. Some subscribers said Ridwell is helping them close that gap.

“I think we just owe it to our children’s future to just keep as much out of the landfills as possible,” said Bonnie Zucker, 52, who lives in Pacific Palisades. “In some ways, it’s unfortunate that companies like Ridwell have to exist, because we do have so much waste.”

Zucker prioritizes making eco-conscious choices in her everyday life. Outside of her day job as a psychologist, she volunteers with Resilient Palisades, a local environmental group. Most of her Ridwell pickups so far have consisted of multilayer plastics from packaging, plastic film and empty bags of the Pirate’s Booty her teenage son likes to snack on.

She has been impressed with the range of items that Ridwell will rehome. “They’ll do old eyeglasses and give them to, say, veterans organizations, or old pet supplies to give to animal shelters,” she said.

Although California is a national leader in its efforts to reduce plastic trash, experts agree there is more to be done. The state banned single-use plastic grocery bags in 2014 and will go further with a broader phase-out of plastics starting next year. But in 2021, Californians still generated 76.7 million tons of trash, 46 million of which ended up in a landfill, according to estimates from CalRecycle.

Similar waste disposal businesses are cropping up nationwide in response to consumers’ growing awareness, and guilt, about their own consumption habits and the shortcomings of our current systems. Rabbit Recycling, which works in the Philadelphia metro area, operates similarly to Ridwell and also offers one-time pickups.

TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based company, uses an a-la-carte business model. The company sends its customers boxes they can fill with certain types of waste for a fee. These boxes can either be left at a company drop-off point or shipped back to TerraCycle to dispose of.

Perhaps the best selling point of all is the convenience of a door-to-door service. “I mean, the city, thank goodness, has a recycling program, but it doesn’t take so much stuff that Ridwell does,” said Sanoff. “And now I don’t have to drive to UCLA to recycle batteries.”