WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Tuesday is launching a website to map and track tens of thousands of infrastructure projects and private manufacturing investments, an effort by the administration to show the positive impact of its policies on the U.S. economy to a skeptical public.

The site, Invest.gov, documents roughly 32,000 infrastructure projects and more than $470 billion worth of investments in the production of electric vehicles, batteries, computer chips, biotech, clean energy and other sectors. President Joe Biden is seeking reelection in 2024 by trying to show how his policies are reshaping the U.S. economy to address climate change and compete with rivals such as China.

The president promoted the new website during a meeting Tuesday with his Cabinet, as part of a larger effort to keep public attention on a string of legislative wins during Biden’s first two years, when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. Following $1.9 trillion in pandemic relief, Biden signed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law. He also secured more than $250 billion to invest in computer chip production and scientific research and created new tax incentives for renewable energy sources that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

“You can go down to every city, town, anywhere on the map and find out exactly how much we’ve invested so far, what the investment is for and how it’s going to affect your community,” Biden said of the new website during the meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House.

Natalie Quillian, deputy White House chief of staff, said the site shows that Biden’s agenda is “underway and working.”

“We want people to be able to see what’s happening in their communities,” Quillian said.

U.S. adults have generally given Biden poor reviews on his economic leadership. Just 33% approve of how the president has handled the economy, according to a May survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. High inflation coming out of the pandemic has eroded confidence in Biden’s economic stewardship, overshadowing the 3.7% unemployment rate and more than 13 million jobs added during his presidency.

The rollout of the site comes shortly before the administration engages in additional public outreach with a second round of its “Investing in America” tour. It plans to send out Cabinet secretaries and other officials around the country as part of the two-week July 4 congressional recess. Biden and other top administration officials previously visited parts of the U.S. in March and April in hopes of putting more focus on their policies.

“ ‘Investing in America’ is more than just a slogan,” Biden said Tuesday. “For the first time, America is actually investing in itself, beginning to pay off.”

On the website, users on the site can look at a national map or scroll through projects by state. The site documents private investments of more than $100 million that the administration said its policies helped to spur. It also provides additional economic data and details at the state level, including on how administration policies have increased access to health care coverage and lowered prescription drug prices.

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Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A lawsuit that Louisiana and other Republican-leaning states filed challenging figures the Biden administration uses to calculate damages from greenhouse gasses was dismissed Wednesday by a federal appeals court.

The unanimous decision by three judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was the latest defeat for states challenging the Biden “cost of carbon” policy. It leaves the administration to continue using a damage cost estimate of about $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions as it develops environmental regulations. That estimate is under review by the administration and could increase.

The Biden cost estimate had been used during former President Barack Obama’s administration. President Joe Biden restored it on his first day in office after the administration of former President Donald Trump had reduced the figure to about $7 or less per ton.

A federal judge in Louisiana had ordered a halt to the administration’s approach early last year after the states filed a lawsuit. The states said the policy threatened to drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans blocked the judge’s order and the Supreme Court declined to intervene.

On Thursday the appeals court dismissed the case, saying the challenging states had no standing to sue because they had not shown that the regulations caused the economic harms their lawsuit cited.

“Plaintiffs contemplate harms that are several steps removed from — and are not guaranteed by — the challenged Executive Order,” wrote Judge Jacques Wiener, appointed to the court by former President George H.W. Bush, on behalf of a panel that also included Obama appointee Stephen Higginson and Trump appointee Cory Wilson.

The $51 per ton estimate was established in 2016 and used to justify major rules such as the Clean Power Plan — former President Barack Obama’s signature effort to address climate change by tightening emissions standards from coal-fired power plants — and separate rules imposing tougher vehicle emission standards. However, the Clean Power Plan never took effect after being blocked by federal courts.

Now, the administration is reviewing the $51 per ton estimate. The Environmental Protection Agency in September proposed a cost roughly four times higher than the Obama figure.

Researchers have said for years that the damage done by every ton of carbon dioxide that comes out of a smokestack or tailpipe far exceeds $51. A study last year in the journal Nature concluded the price should be $185 per ton — 3.6 times higher than the U.S. standard.

A 2017 report from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said current carbon pricing calculations were inadequate. Researchers began calculating damages from carbon emissions in the 1980s and before 2017, the last updates to the modelling were in the early to mid 1990s.

The other states whose officials sued are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.

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TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — When a woman gashed her leg in mountains inhabited by snakes and scorpions, she told Joel Úbeda to take her 5-year-old daughter. Úbeda refused to let the mother die, despite the advice of their smuggler and another migrant in a group of seven, and helped carry her to safety by shining a mirror in sunlight to flag a U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter near San Diego.

The motorcycle mechanic, who used his house in Nicaragua as collateral for a $6,500 smuggling fee, says the worst day of his life was yet to come.

Arrested after the encounter with U.S. agents, Úbeda learned two days later that he could not pursue asylum in the United States while living with a cousin in Miami. Instead, he would have to wait in the Mexican border city of Tijuana for hearings in U.S. immigration court under a Trump-era policy that will be argued Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Joe Biden halted the “Remain in Mexico” policy his first day in office. A judge forced him to reinstate it in December, but barely 3,000 migrants were enrolled by the end of March, making little impact during a period when authorities stopped migrants about 700,000 times at the border.

Úbeda, like many migrants at a Tijuana shelter, had never heard of the policy, officially called “Migrant Protection Protocols.” It was widely known under President Donald Trump, who enrolled about 70,000 migrants after launching it in 2019 and making it a centerpiece of efforts to deter asylum-seekers.

“It’s a frightening experience,” Úbeda said after a telephone call with his mother to consider whether to return to Nicaragua to reunite with her, his wife and his daughter. He was perplexed that a vast majority of Nicaraguans are released in the U.S. to pursue asylum, including the woman he saved and her daughter.

Nearly 2,200 asylum-seekers, or 73% of those enrolled through March, are from Nicaragua, with nearly all the rest from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela. Yet even among Nicaraguans, the policy is small in scope. U.S. authorities stopped Nicaraguans more than 56,000 times from December to March.

Criticisms of the policy are the same under Biden and Trump: Migrants are terrified in dangerous Mexican border cities and it is extremely difficult to find lawyers from Mexico.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in an October order to end “Remain in Mexico,” reluctantly conceded that the policy caused a drop in weak asylum claims under Trump but said it did not justify the harms.

Emil Cardenas, 27, said he bloodied his foot and drank his urine after running out of water on a three-day hike in mountains near San Diego with a smuggler who took a $10,000 installment toward his fee and stole his passport, phone and other identification.

Cardenas hoped to live near his brother, a Catholic priest in New Jersey, while seeking asylum but waits at the Tijuana shelter for his first hearing in San Diego on May 18. He is disheartened to see others at the shelter on their third or fourth hearing.

“One has to find a way to get across,” said Cardenas, a Colombian who had attempted twice to enter the U.S. “I’m thinking about what to do.”

While waiting for hearings, men at the shelter are attached to smartphones — reading, watching videos and occasionally calling friends and family. A large television facing rows of tables and plastic chairs helps defeat boredom.

Many have been robbed and assaulted in Mexico, making them too scared to leave the shelter. Some chat in small groups but most keep to themselves, lost in thought.

Carlos Humberto Castellano, who repaired cellphones in Colombia and wants to join family in New York, cried for two days after being returned to Tijuana to wait for a court date in San Diego. It cost him about $6,500 to fly to Mexico and pay a smuggler to cross the border, leaving him in debt, he said.

“I can’t leave (the shelter) because I don’t know what could happen,” said Castellano, 23, recalling that his smuggler took a photo of him. “Getting kidnapped is the fear.”

The issue before the Supreme Court is whether the policy is discretionary and can be ended, as the Biden administration argues, or is the only way to comply with what Texas and Missouri say is a congressional command not to release the migrants in the United States.

Without adequate detention facilities, the states argue the administration’s only option is to make migrants wait in Mexico for asylum hearings in the U.S.

The two sides also disagree about whether the way the administration ended the policy complies with a federal law that compels agencies to follow certain rules and explain their actions.

A ruling is expected shortly after the administration ends another key Trump-era border policy, lifting pandemic-related authority to expel migrants without a chance to seek asylum on May 23. The decision to end Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law, is being legally challenged by 22 states and faces growing division within Biden’s Democratic Party.

Due to costs, logistics and strained diplomatic relations, Title 42 has been difficult to apply to some nationalities, including Nicaraguans, which explains why the administration has favored them for “Remain in Mexico.”

The administration made some changes at Mexico’s behest, which may explain low enrollment. It pledged to try to resolve cases within six months and agreed to shoulder costs of shuttling migrants to and from the border in Mexico for hearings.

As under Trump, finding a lawyer is a tall order. U.S. authorities give migrants a list of low- or no-cost attorneys but phone lines are overwhelmed.

Judges warn migrants that immigration law is complicated and that they face longer odds without an attorney. Migrants respond that calls to attorneys go unanswered and they can’t afford typical fees.

“I’ve seen lots of people in your situation who have found attorneys, often for free,” Judge Scott Simpson told a migrant this month in a San Diego courtroom before granting more time to hire one.

Victor Cervera, 40, gave up on low-cost attorneys after his calls went unanswered. The Peruvian’s online search for those who take “Remain in Mexico” cases yielded one find — a Miami lawyer who charges $350 for an initial phone consultation.

Nearly all migrants tell U.S. authorities they fear waiting in Mexico, entitling them to a phone interview with an asylum officer. About 15% are spared when the officer agrees their worries are well-founded, while others are excused for reasons deemed to make them vulnerable in Mexico, like gender or sexual orientation.

Those sent back wonder why they were chosen when so many others are released in the U.S to pursue their claims.

“It’s a raffle,” said Alvaro Galo, 34, a Nicaraguan man who cleans and cooks meals at the shelter to keep his mind busy.

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Initially negative, students now actually prefer new policy

Tahquitz High School has implemented a new rule to prevent students from using their cell phones in class. The idea behind this rule is that if all the students in the school can’t access their cell phones. Without access to their cell phones students won’t develop what the kids nowadays are calling “FOMO” or Fear Of Missing Out. Students won’t be as tempted to check their social media or text each other. Most importantly their number one tool to cheat in class is now taken out of their hands. 

Hemet Unified School District (HUSD) claims that their original case study, initiated last year, showed great improvement in students’ behavior/test scores. This led to school-widen implementation of the rule.

Although Tahquitz and the HUSD claim that they are already seeing improvements, there are Pros & Cons to this rule. At least the HUSD is doing everything they can to help students learn with ease. Classrooms can be tricky environments. Classrooms are becoming harder to manage, with kids attention spans shrinking and having various learning styles. Teachers struggle to remain in control. Taking cellphones out of the classroom will help the teacher obtain the students’ undivided attention, but we will have to wait and see how this turns out for Tahquitz to find out if other schools will follow their lead.

Right now, two other schools have followed Tahquitz’s lead in limiting cell phone usage. Acacia Middle School has adopted a zero tolerance rule, basically outlawing cell phone usage at school. Teachers at the school claim that it’s been an adjustment, but that students are starting to comply. They don’t hand out detentions for cell phone usage: teachers simply issue the students a simple reminder to put their cell phones away. Acacia has noticed a significant difference in the classroom since enforcing this rule. Students pay more attention in class and are willing to learn, and that’s a surprise in and of itself.

Alessandro Continuation HS (ACHS) has also adopted the no cell phone policy, but it’s only during class periods. Teachers at ACHS have even set up charging stations for students for use during class times. 

We spoke to Tahquitz High School junior Iran Estrada and asked her views on the policy at Tahquitz.  “Honestly, I don’t mind the new rules. In my opinion, they have made a change, because i’ve noticed students getting more work done in class than they did before, when they had contact with their phones.”

Some wondered if the fact that the new policy might lead to cell-phone theft, but Miss Estrada finds that’s not the case.”No phones have been stolen that I’m aware of, but some teachers do stand where the phones are placed at the end of class when the bell rings to make sure everyone only grabs one phone. It’s not mandatory that teachers do this, but some do it for the students,” she says, adding, “There was a lot of negative responses to these new rules at first. Most students didn’t like the policies and they complained about them a lot. The majority of the students have adjusted now. You don’t even notice that you don’t have your phone anymore!” she smiles.  “I would highly recommend other schools adopt this policy. A lot of students will complain in the beginning, but it will only benefit the school as a whole.

Most students seem to be taking the new policy in stride.. Tahquitz just needs to implement a safer protocol that prevents cell-phone theft, such as a a check-in system: you get a card with a number on it when you turn in your phone and you have to turn in that card at the end of class to get your phone back.  Other school districts have implemented such precautions and have done so with great success.

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