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Mexico truck market keeps growing Fleet Owner / December 8, 2016 Showing double-digit growth for the third year in a row, heavy-duty sales up 20% For the third year in a row, the Mexican Class 8 truck market will show double digit growth, beating 2015 sales by 20% if it hits the projected 26,000 units, according to Stefan Kurschner, president and CEO of Daimler Commercial Vehicles Mexico. Overall Class 4-8 truck sales are expected to near 33,000 units for an 18% increase over last year. Forecasting similar growth in 2017, Kurschner said the domestic market here is strong enough to continue growing well beyond 30,000 trucks even following annual sales growth of 12% to 14% over the last three years. “The [truck]market is not as big as it should be for the size of the overall domestic market,” he said at a press briefing for U.S. and Mexican journalists. Renewal of the Mexican truck fleet, which currently has an average age of 17.2 years and more than 150,000 units over 20 years old, along with continued steady GDP growth and a strengthening of oil prices should support a normal annual Class 4 to 8 sales of around 60,000, according to Kurschner. “We’ve seen three years of good growth and see the same to come. No matter what, we will see growth.” Questioned about possible trade disruptions between Mexico and the U.S. under the new Trump Administration, a Daimler Trucks North America spokesperson declined comment, saying “it is not our policy to comment on political speculation.” He added that DTNA “as any good corporate citizen, will continue to engage in constructive dialog with governments in all countries in which it operates.” A second company spokesperson pointed out that Daimler has deep roots in both countries, operating in Mexico for 30 years and in the U.S. for 75 years, where it currently has over 22,000 employees. Daimler has two truck plants in Mexico including a 6-year-old facility in Saltillo building the current Freightliner Cascadia for both domestic and international markets. In other Mexican truck market news, Kurschner welcomed the release of draft emissions regulations just three weeks ago. Known as Regulation 044, it calls for new trucks to meet U.S EPA 2013 emissions levels by 2018 with a two-year transition period that would allow OEMs to also sell trucks meeting EPA 2007 levels. Currently new trucks sold in Mexico must meet EPA 2004 emissions standards. With local Mexican states and municipalities often creating their own emissions standards, “the lack of clear definition makes it a bit difficult, but at least we have a draft on the table and a timeline to work with,” Kurschner said. Daimler is also actively expanding its Select Truck dealership network in Mexico, seeing it as part of the solution to bringing down the national fleet’s average age. While 2014 and 2015 saw a spike in illegally imported trucks that did not meet Mexico’s emissions standards for used equipment, that problem is now largely under control, and Kurschner believes there is an annual market for 15,000 to 20,000 newer used trucks. A current effort offering incentives to scrap older trucks “has had some success” in modernizing the Mexican fleet, he added, pointing to about 1,000 Daimler sales through the program. “It has some limitation, but we believe we still need the incentive program to help renew the fleet,” Kurschner said.

Today’s Trucking / December 8, 2016 In a year when dealers in Canada and the U.S. face a dramatic downturn in truck sales, Mexico is a world apart. As of November the market for Class 4-8 vehicles was up 18.5%, and Daimler Trucks North America accounted for 36% of it -- up 7.8% over last year. But Stefan Kurschner, president and Chief Executive Officer of Daimler Vehiculos Comerciales Mexico, says there’s room for more. “It’s a country which has its problems, but it is a land of opportunity as well,” he said today in a briefing to media from across North America. The year-to-date sales of 30,190 Class 4-8 trucks – 26,890 of which were Class 8 models – is still a fraction of what the country should require, he said, suggesting the market could handle double those volumes. The average age for a truck in Mexico is also 17.8 years; more than 150,000 vehicles on the road today are still over 20 years old. There are undeniable economic challenges, though. The Gross Domestic Product will grow by just over 2% this year. And the peso continues to struggle in the face of low oil prices. The national currency is worth about 6.5 cents against its Canadian counterpart, and has fluctuated wildly. Daimler is offsetting the currency challenge by setting prices in pesos, unlike other manufacturers in the market, and guaranteeing the prices for six months at a time. Prices had been set in U.S. dollars until as recently as 2015, leaving dealers to account for shifting exchange rates in quotes and when filing taxes. “It was very, very complicated,” said Fernando Zapata of Zapata Camiones, a dealership group with 558 employees. But the peso pricing has simplified the issue, and is playing a role in Daimler’s growing market share, he added. Many customers collect their revenue in pesos, Kurschner says. “If they earn pesos, they want to pay in pesos.” Daimler, meanwhile, has access to financial instruments that can help to hedge against currency shifts. But there are other challenges ahead. Mexico is also preparing to move from EPA 04 emissions standards to EPA 13 technology. The draft rules were unveiled only weeks ago, but could take hold as early as 2018. And there is still work to do before that happens. Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel, widely available in Canada and the U.S., is not available everywhere in Mexico. Local governments also set up their own emission-related rules, Kurschner said. Some larger cities have restricted truck access in a bid to tackle pollution. Drivers and mechanics alike will need to be educated about the new standards, Kurschner said. The change could also lead to a “pre-buy” if fleets rush to buy EPA 04 equipment to delay the higher costs associated with the newer generation of equipment. “That’s obvious with every emission change,” he said. Mexico does have an incentive program for those who want to scrap old trucks, but it is very bureaucratic, Kurschner added, noting how Daimler has applied it to about 1,000 vehicles. Refined systems The country’s dealers are clearly taking steps to eliminate red tape on their own, adopting programs that streamline processes and establish best practices. The recently adopted Promesa Mutua – essentially a customer bill of rights – commits to optimizing operations, simplifying processes, effectively communicating, and establishing the same level of service from one dealer to the next. A new Dealer Management System more seamlessly shares data between dealers and the Original Equipment Manufacturer, said dealer council president Alejandro Rivera, offering the example of one change that has emerged. His own dealership, Camiones Rivera, was also one of the first to be certified through the Evolucion Elite program, which commits to measures such as better service times. “We are measuring the time the customer spends in the workshops, trying to make it shorter every day,” he said. And gains are being realized. The country’s 56 Freightliner shops completed about 65,000 service orders last year, but saw 110,000 of them in 2016. Where service and repairs took an average of 9.8 days in 2013, they now average 2.7 days. Spare parts, which were delivered just once a week in 2014, now arrive every single day. Jose Luis Gonzales of Euro Centro Camionero refers to a Joint Action Development Group that has helped reduce warranty-related paperwork by about 70%. “Everyone in the headquarters gets the chance to work a couple of days with the dealer,” Kurschner said. It’s where finance teams have the chance to see issues like invoice-related challenges first hand. “Turning a table has created a much easier conversation with the dealer network … Everybody sells in our company.”

Carrier consensus on speed limiter mandate: 65 mph and retroactive; truckers remain ‘vehemently’ opposed Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ) / December 8, 2016 Though the majority of commenters who filed formal feedback with the U.S. DOT on its proposal to mandate speed governor use in the trucking industry adamantly oppose such a rule, most comments from fleets — albeit large ones — offer support for the mandate and provided regulators constructive guidance on what a final rule should look like. The 90-day public comment period on the September-issued Notice of Proposed Rulemaking closed late Wednesday. The proposed rule was developed and published jointly by the DOT agencies the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. See CCJ’s coverage of the rule and its contents at this link. Several prominent commenters said the DOT’s September-issued proposal was too incomplete and requires another iteration before being made a final rule. But most commenters, as noted above, stated strong opposition to any form of speed limiter mandate. The American Trucking Associations, the Truckload Carriers Association and the newer Trucking Alliance — trade groups that represent fleets large and small — all proposed a 65 mph speed limit for the rule. ATA, however, says it can’t support the DOT’s proposed rule until regulators produce more data. “ATA cannot support the proposed rulemaking, absent additional data and research demonstrating that it would not create new safety hazards that might outweigh any safety benefits anticipated by the agencies. In addition, the agencies failed to adequately explore alternative emerging technologies that may soon render speed limiters obsolete, by addressing the same concerns without creating the potential risks of the proposed rule,” ATA wrote in its comments. “In short, the NPRM leaves too many important questions unanswered—questions that the agencies cannot simply shrug their collective shoulders at.” TCA says its also advocates for a 65 mph limit. “We recognize that traveling too fast for conditions is one of the most prominent reasons for accidents/safety events on our roads today. However, we would be remiss if we did not recognize that over ninety five percent of the hours driven are on our nation’s highways, thus concluding that the majority of our industry is operating at speeds consistent with highway/interstate travel,” the group said. “In recognizing that, we must conclude that we, as an industry, have a safety obligation to responsibly operate our vehicles at speeds in which we can effectively control and limit the opportunity for accidents.” Most carriers who commented agreed the DOT should adopt a 65 mph speed limit, and the mandate should retroactively apply to trucks already in use, not just new trucks rolling out of factories, they said. “It is unfortunate that there is not more science to support a specific speed recommendation contained within the NPRM. As a result, CTG recommends a maximum speed of 65 mph,” wrote Covenant Transportation Group (No. 41 in the CCJ Top 250). “Theoretically, consistent speeds of 65 mph may reduce congestion caused by one truck passing another with a minimal speed difference of just a few miles per hour, or less.” “We truly believe the benefits achieved in saving lives and reducing injuries by controlling the maximum speed of commercial motor vehicles far outweigh any argument against the rule,” wrote J.B. Hunt (No. 6 in the CCJ Top 250). Werner Enterprises (No. 11) says while it supports an industry-wide mandate for maximum truck speeds, the proposed rule presents several “deficiencies,” the carrier says, that need to be addressed before a permanent rule is issued. “Beyond the consideration of interactions between cars and speed-limited trucks, the proposed rule only applies to newly manufactured trucks and therefore, neglects to calculate the safety risk between non-limited trucks and newly manufactured speed-limited trucks driving on our roadways,” the carrier said in its comment. “If the rule moves forward, the agencies will need to consider all aspects to achieve compliance of the final rule speed standard with the significant majority of operating trucks to reduce the safety risk of speed differentials.” C.R. England, meanwhile, urged NHTSA and FMCSA to adopt the rule as quickly as it can. It also wrote that since most trucks built since the early 1990s are manufacturer-equipped with the ability to have their speeds electronically limited, the mandate should cover all vehicles, says C.R. England (No. 19) in its comment. “C.R. England urges FMCSA and NHTSA to impose the rule on all existing heavy vehicles either through activation of ECM technology already available on most vehicles or through the installation of approved retrofitted speed limiting devices,” the Salt Lake City-based carrier said. “There is a strong correlation between speed and crash severity in truck accidents; the higher the speed of the truck, the more severe the injuries of those involved. Instituting the speed limiter rule will not only save lives and prevent catastrophic injury; it will also make significant contributions to safer driving and reduce collisions.” Many commenters posed questions for the two agencies responsible for the rule, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Such comments pressed the agencies on the scant nature of the proposal, which failed to not only specify a mandated speed but to propose a concrete scope for the rule. The enforcer community’s Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, for instance, called for the agency to flesh out the rule further and publish a so-called Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to give the industry a look at a more complete rule proposal and to provide feedback. “This will allow stakeholders to fully evaluate the proposal and provide constructive input, ensuring more effective deployment and enforcement of speed limiters,” CVSA writes. The group said it supports a speed limiter mandate overall. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), a vocal and staunch critic of the speed limiter mandate from the onset, filed a 41-page comment tearing down the rule and regulators’ intentions. OOIDA “vehemently” opposes the rule, it says, calling it damaging to owner-operators’ and independents’ ability to compete in the marketplace against larger carriers. The group also says the rule’s initiation is illegal, given new stipulations passed last year by Congress in the FAST Act highway bill. Rules classified as “major rules,” as the limiter mandate is, have to be initiated as an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking or a Negotiated Rulemaking, says OOIDA. OOIDA contends a speed limiter mandate would also damage highway safety efforts, rather than bolster them. As noted in prior CCJ coverage, OOIDA says the speed differential created between trucks and other vehicles on the highway poses a much greater safety risk than higher truck speeds. “Instead of relying upon concrete evidence and data about actual motor carrier and driver experience associated with speed limiters, the agencies have resorted to postulating a theoretical reduction in crash severity and environmental benefits.” The Western States Trucking Association also said neither NHTSA nor FMCSA have the legal authority to promulgate a rule to mandate speed limiters. “Contrary to the statements made in the preamble, the joint proposed rules are not based on any safety need but, rather, on a misguided effort to use federal traffic safety laws to govern emissions of greenhouse gases from trucks. Neither NHTSA nor FMCSA has the legal authority to misuse federal law in that manner. Accordingly, the commenters believe the joint proposed rules are misguided, counterproductive, illegal and dangerous,” writes the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who developed and filed comments on behalf of Western States, a Texas-based trucker and a Texas-based carrier. Comments from hundreds, if not thousands, of truckers show they agree with OOIDA’s and WSTA’s assertions. The docket, which contains nearly 4,500 comments total, is brimming with comments from truck operators framing the rule as unsafe, overly intrusive and unnecessary. CCJ sister site Overdrive has published a roundup of comments from owner-operator and truck driver commenters. See that story at this link. Purported safety groups like Advocates for Auto and Highway Safety and the Truck Safety Coalition both asked the DOT to limit speeds to 60 mph and make the mandate industry-wide.

Trump meets with Mulally The Detroit News / December 8, 2016 President-elect Donald Trump met with former Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally on Thursday as he builds the cabinet for his incoming administration. Mulally is a candidate for secretary of state. After serving as head of the commercial aircraft business at Boeing Co., Mulally earned adulation for his time as Ford’s CEO from 2006-2014. He steered the company through the 2008 and 2009 collapse of new vehicle sales without a government bailout or a Chapter 11 reorganization, as was needed by General Motors and then-Chrysler. He oversaw a massive restructuring of Ford to reinvigorate the automaker in part through better-aligned global operations and a crystallized focus on Ford and Lincoln cars and trucks, positioning the company to reap heady profits during the industry’s recovery. Trump spokesman Jason Miller refused to describe the nature of the meeting, but said “Mr. Mulally is certainly someone who knows a lot about trade issues and the economy and what we need to do get our manufacturing sector going again.” The pool of potential candidates for secretary of state includes 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman [superb individual], former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker and former CIA Director David Petraeus. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ex-Ford boss Mulally in mix for secretary of state Bloomberg / December 9, 2016 President-elect Donald Trump’s short list for secretary of state has grown, with former Ford CEO Alan Mulally now under consideration for the job as the nation’s top diplomat, a top adviser said today. Mulally, 71, met with Trump Thursday in New York to discuss the position, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said. Mulally helped engineer a turnaround at the automaker while avoiding the bankruptcies that befell its crosstown rivals, General Motors and Chrysler, now part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. He previously served as head of Boeing Co.’s commercial airline business division. “This is an important process,” Conway said. Trump “is welcoming in a number of men and women who have very diverse backgrounds.” Conway said Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former CIA Director David Petraeus, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, were also among the names under consideration. Trump’s vision Conway has publicly warned that the selection of Romney could upset Trump voters who see the former Massachusetts governor as too aligned with the political establishment. She said today that whoever was selected would need to hew to the president-elect’s foreign policy vision. “You have to be able to adhere to what will be the Trump doctrine worldwide and be able to execute it,” she said. While Conway didn’t indicate who was Trump’s leading contender, she did praise some of the candidates. She said Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, would likely “face easy confirmation” by his colleagues. And she praised Giuliani as “a very close and loyal adviser throughout the campaign” who remains “still in the mix.” She acknowledged that Mulally would be an interesting choice considering that Trump has targeted two firms he helped lead. Earlier this week, Trump tweeted that Boeing’s contract to build the next Air Force One plane was too expensive. He has said he wants to keep Ford from moving manufacturing plants from the U.S. to Mexico. Staved off bankruptcy Mulally, who retired as CEO of Ford in 2014, earned bipartisan praise for his efforts at the iconic automaker, staving off bankruptcy by globalizing new models, cutting costs, boosting technology and overhauling the lineup with fuel-efficient vehicles such as the aluminum-bodied F-150 pickup. After leaving Ford, Mulally joined the board of Google just as the tech giant was stepping up research into self-driving cars. Before leaving Ford, Mulally had been considered for the top job at Microsoft Corp. that ultimately went to Satya Nadella. There was also speculation that he could join the Obama administration because he sat on Barack Obama’s Export Council, formed in 2010 to advise the president on trade.

2017 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel Car & Driver / December 8, 2016 Chevrolet did a pretty poor job keeping the 2017 Cruze diesel a secret. Details surrounding the second edition of a diesel-powered Cruze have been trickling into the public sphere for a couple of months. First it was the news about the six-speed manual and nine-speed automatic transmissions; then came word that the diesel engine would be offered in both sedan and hatchback body styles. Now Chevrolet has started the make-it-official process by announcing a key element: the pricing. The sedan with a manual transmission starts at $24,670, and the sedan with a nine-speed automatic is $26,270. The base diesel comes standard with the LT trim and the Convenience package, typically an $850 add-on that includes an eight-way power driver’s seat, push-button ignition, keyless entry, and heated front seats. The Leather package is an option on both models for an extra $1125. A combination of that package and the Sun, Sound, and Confidence package is available for $3680 on sedans but only with the nine-speed. Prices for the hatchback have not been released yet. The price undercuts the previous-generation Cruze diesel, which started at $25,695 when it was introduced for 2014. For 2017, the diesel will start at $4056 more than the gasoline-powered automatic Cruze LT with the Convenience package and $3345 more than the six-speed manual Cruze LT with the Convenience package and the $695 RS package. Every 2017 Cruze diesel include Chevy’s 24/7 Promise: two years of SiriusXM satellite radio and OnStar plus two years or 24 GB of 4G LTE data. The next big pieces of news we’ll be waiting for on the 2017 Cruze diesel are the 1.6-liter turbo-diesel’s engine output figures and, even more critically, its fuel-economy numbers.

VW’s Lost, Destroyed Phones Are 'a Bright Red Flag,' FTC Says Bloomberg / December 8, 2016 The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to further question Volkswagen AG’s U.S. officials about whether evidence including mobile phones was destroyed amid the probe of diesel vehicles rigged to cheat emissions tests. “In the context of the massive scandal at the center of this case, 23 lost or bricked phones is a bright red flag, especially when they include phones that belonged to important individuals,’’ FTC attorneys said in a court filing Thursday. The agency “should not have to accept VW’s assurance that there is nothing to see and that we should just move along.’’ The FTC asked the San Francisco judge overseeing most of the consumer and government claims against the carmaker to order further questioning of a company witness. While Volkswagen Group of America contends its “designated corporate witness” has already answered thousands of questions during a deposition, the FTC said the person provided “nonsensical or evasive responses” when questioned about whether the company intentionally destroyed evidence. The witness, Manuel Sanchez, “was either unprepared or otherwise unable to provide responsive information,’’ the FTC said. Sanchez “answered ‘I don’t know’ or some variation thereof over 250 times, including in response to questions he should have been able to answer,’’ the FTC said. This included questions about the 23 phones that had been lost or had been “wiped,” the FTC said. The FTC request comes amid criminal investigations of the company in the U.S. and Germany spurred by VW’s admission last year to systematically rigging cars to evade environmental laws. VW has repeatedly alleged its top management was unaware of the decision to install software, so called defeat devices, to cheat emissions tests. (A lie......there’s little doubt that board chairman Ferdinand Piech have final approval)

Heroin deaths surpass gun homicides for the first time The Wall Street Journal / December 8, 2016 Opioid deaths continued to surge in 2015, surpassing 30,000 for the first time in recent history, according to CDC data released Thursday. That marks an increase of nearly 5,000 deaths from 2014. Deaths involving powerful synthetic opiates, like fentanyl, rose by nearly 75 percent from 2014 to 2015. Heroin deaths spiked too, rising by more than 2,000 cases. For the first time since at least the late 1990s, there were more deaths due to heroin than to traditional opioid painkillers, like hydrocodone and oxycodone. "The epidemic of deaths involving opioids continues to worsen," said CDC Director Tom Frieden in a statement. "Prescription opioid misuse and use of heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are intertwined and deeply troubling problems." In the CDC's opioid death data, deaths may involve more than one individual drug category, so numbers in the chart above aren't mutually exclusive. Many opioid fatalities involve a combination of drugs, often multiple types of opioids, or opioids in conjunction with other sedative substances like alcohol. In a grim milestone, more people died from heroin-related causes than from gun homicides in 2015. As recently as 2007, gun homicides outnumbered heroin deaths by more than 5 to 1. These increases come amid a year-over-year increase in mortality across the board, resulting in the first decline in American life expectancy since 1993. Congress recently passed a spending bill containing $1 billion to combat the opioid epidemic, including money for addiction treatment and prevention. "The prescription opioid and heroin epidemic continues to devastate communities and families across the country—in large part because too many people still do not get effective substance use disorder treatment,” said Michael Botticelli, Director of National Drug Control Policy, in a statement. "That is why the President has called since February for $1 billion in new funding to expand access to treatment." Much of the current opioid predicament stems from the explosion of prescription painkiller use in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Widespread painkiller use led to many Americans developing dependencies on the drugs. When various authorities at the state and federal levels began issuing tighter restrictions on painkillers in the late 2000s, much of that demand shifted over to the illicit market, feeding the heroin boom of the past several years. Drug policy reformers say the criminalization of illicit and off-label drug use is a barrier to reversing the growing epidemic. “Criminalization drives people to the margins and dissuades them from getting help,” said Grant Smith, deputy director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. “It drives a wedge between people who need help and the services they need. Because of criminalization and stigma, people hide their addictions from others.” .

Trump puts new spotlight on Long Island gang killings Associated Press / December 8, 2016 As he sat down for an interview with Time magazine for his "person of the year" profile, Donald Trump explained his tough view on illegal immigration by retrieving a copy of the Long Island newspaper Newsday and pointing to a blaring headline: "Extremely Violent Gang Faction." The article focused on the killings of five teenagers from the same New York City suburb and suspicions that the slayings were the work of a street gang, MS-13, that has roots in El Salvador and has been linked to at least 30 killings on Long Island since 2010. "They come from Central America. They're tougher than any people you've ever met," Trump said. "They're killing and raping everybody out there. They're illegal. And they are finished." That tough talk was welcomed — and created new worries — in the suburban community plagued by the gang violence. Just months ago, advocates for immigrants were lamenting publicly that a string of disappearances of Hispanic high school students in Brentwood, New York, hadn't gotten enough attention from authorities while they were happening. Now, they are worried that the president-elect's attention will mean a crackdown that goes far beyond gangs. "It's not a good thing," said Maryann Sinclair Slutsky, executive director of the immigrant advocacy group Long Island Wins. "I don't know why he's picking Long Island. The entire immigrant community is terrified. All immigrants in that community feel uncomfortable. There's profiling going on and whether they are totally upstanding citizens, they are going to feel targeted in some way." Gang-related violence in Brentwood got renewed attention in September when best friends Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, were found beaten to death in a residential neighborhood near an elementary school. Within a few weeks, the skeletal remains of three other Brentwood teens were found hidden in secluded areas of the hamlet. Miguel Garcia-Moran, 15, disappeared in February. Oscar Acosta, 19, was reported missing in May. Jose Pena-Hernandez, 18, vanished in June. Police suspect all the killings were committed by members of local offshoots of the MS-13 street gang, which has already left a trail of corpses on Long Island. Some of the people accused in those crimes were in the U.S. illegally. In one of the most heinous killings, in 2010, three teenage MS-13 members shot a 19-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son in the woods over an imagined slight of the gang's honor. Two were El Salvadoran citizens who were illegally in the U.S. at the time they killed the pair, as was Heriberto Martinez, the MS-13 leader convicted of authorizing the murders. Another of the killers was a U.S. citizen. In July, four MS-13 members were charged with killing four men in Brentwood and neighboring Central Islip between 2013 and 2015. Two of them were citizens of El Salvador. One had illegally re-entered the U.S. after previously being departed. A second was in proceedings to be deported. Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco, whose office is involved in the probe of this year's killings in Brentwood, said there is "no question" that gangs were recruiting young [illegal] immigrants who had crossed into the U.S. without authorization. Brentwood, he said, "is becoming a border town." "I don't think anyone would argue with the president-elect and Homeland Security removing criminal alien gang members from the streets of Brentwood. I think the residents of Brentwood deserve it," DeMarco said. Trump has called for increased border security and deportations of undocumented [illegal] immigrants with criminal records. Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini said as part of a local law enforcement crackdown on the gang, six MS-13 members have been taken into federal custody and are expected to be charged under racketeering statutes. More than 50 others have been charged in state courts. Sini refused to identify any of the more than four dozen suspects, or say what they did.

Andrew Puzder Post: Secretary of Labor Previous government experience in labor: None Age: 66 (Born July 11, 1950) Schooling: Puzder has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cleveland State University, and a Juris Doctor from Washington University. Background: Puzder was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Puzder is a vocal critic of government regulation and opposes a $15 minimum wage, broader overtime pay and the Affordable Care Act. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed in March, Puzder said a $15 minimum wage, mandatory paid sick leave laws and the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, raise costs for employers and force them to rely more on automated technology. "While the technology is becoming much cheaper, government mandates have been making labor much more expensive," he wrote. Puzder told the Los Angeles Times in March that he's not opposed to raising the federal minimum wage above $7.25 or pegging it to inflation, though he said a jump to $15 an hour will cost workers their jobs. Puzder has also been one of the harshest critics of an Obama administration rule that would require workers who make less than $47,500 and work 40 hours per week be paid overtime. The rule was put on hold by a federal judge in November. "The real world is far different than the Labor Department's Excel spreadsheet," Puzder wrote in a Forbes guest column in May. "This new rule will simply add to the extensive regulatory maze the Obama Administration has imposed on employers, forcing many to offset increased labor expense by cutting costs elsewhere." In 2004, CKE agreed to pay $9 million to settle three class-action lawsuits involving overtime pay. Puzder told the Orange County Register in 2014 that CKE had spent $20 million on overtime lawsuits in California over the previous eight years, and that the company had reclassified managers as hourly workers as a result. Puzder is anti-abortion. While practicing law in St. Louis, Puzder authored a Missouri abortion law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services in 1989. Following the Webster decision, Puzder was a founding member of the Common Ground Network for Life and Choice. In 1984, Pudzer and another lawyer had written an article for the Stetson Law Journal proposing a Missouri law that would define life as beginning at conception in the broad context of contract or property law. Puzder reasoned that if fetuses were recognized as having rights in other contexts, it would establish a foundation for challenging Roe v. Wade later on. In St. Louis, Puzder met Carl Karcher, the founder of the Carl's Jr. fast food restaurant chain. Karcher was embroiled in serious financial difficulties and asked Puzder to move to California as his personal attorney. In 1991, Puzder relocated to Orange County, California. Puzder has been credited with resolving Karcher’s financial dilemma, allowing Karcher to avoid bankruptcy and retain a significant ownership interest in the company he founded, CKE Restaurants, Inc. Puzder solved Karcher’s financial problems by putting together a transaction with William P. Foley, the Chairman and CEO of Fidelity National Financial. In 1994, Foley became Chairman and CEO of CKE and Karcher became Chairman Emeritus. In 1995, Puzder went on to become Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Fidelity, managing one of the largest corporate legal departments in the country. Puzder also worked with Foley to create the Santa Barbara Restaurant Group, and served as the company’s CEO. In 1997, Puzder was also named Executive Vice President and General Counsel for CKE. Also in 1997, CKE purchased Hardee’s Food Systems, Inc.. Hardee's was a distressed brand and CKE was burdened by over $700 million in debt following the acquisition. The company underperformed and its market capitalization dropped to about $200,000. Faced with serious financial and operational issues, CKE’s Board of Directors named Puzder as president and CEO of Hardee’s Food Systems in June 2000 and named him president and CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc. in September of that year. Puzder is credited with turning around both Hardee’s and CKE. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Financial Times / December 8, 2016 Donald Trump’s pick for labor secretary, a fast-food company CEO who is an outspoken opponent of raising the minimum wage, setting the stage for a fight with US unions. Andrew Puzder, head of CKE, the California-based owner of the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr chains, has been a longtime campaigner against efforts to raise the minimum wage and the reach of government into business. Trump says the ex-lawyer will “save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages”. “Andy Puzder has created and boosted the careers of thousands of Americans,” he said. The move fits the Republican’s pledge to help create a business-friendly environment and help the economy through a combination of tax cuts and deregulation. The decision marks another major departure from the Obama administration, which has been advocating an increase in the minimum wage despite opposition from many business groups. This year the Obama administration also introduced new overtime rules meant to secure better pay for middle-managers and other salaried workers often forced to work long hours without extra pay. Earlier this year, Puzder said his first move, were he president, would be to cut 10% of all government regulations and force departments to justify why they needed to keep others. “I think our country has really gone in a very bad direction over the past seven years,” he said. “We’ve been a country traditionally where consumers drive the economy [but] we’ve now become one where the government is more and more involved in driving the economy and taking the power away from consumers.” Puzder has expressed other more provocative views related to work and business. In one interview this year, Puzder spoke of replacing workers with robots in his company’s fast-food stores. “They’re always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case,” he said. News of Mr Trump’s pick immediately drew outrage from Democrats and labour groups. “The Labor secretary should be someone who wakes up every day thinking about how they can raise American wages and fight for American workers. Mr Puzder’s career has shown exactly the opposite,” said Charles Schumer, the Democrats’ incoming leader in the Senate. Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a union-affiliated think-tank that Trump often cited on the campaign trail, said: “Donald Trump ran a campaign that was long on rhetoric about helping working people. But will his actual policies enrich business at the expense of workers? “There is nothing in his record or his public statements to indicate that he would lead in developing policies and enforcement strategies to generate higher wages and better quality jobs for America’s workers.”

Associated Press / December 8, 2016 Did anyone see it coming, the apparent new rapport between President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump? Just a few months ago they were regularly flinging insults back and forth. Today they're trading phone calls and pleasantries. Apparently, membership in one of the world's most exclusive clubs, the club of U.S. presidents, has a way of changing things. On Wednesday, Trump talked about letting bygones be bygones. "I've now gotten to know President Obama. I really like him," Trump said on NBC's "Today". "We have, I think I can say, at least for myself, I can't speak for him, but we have a really good chemistry together. We talk." Trump continued: "He loves the country. He wants to do right by the country and for the country, and I will tell you, we obviously very much disagree on certain policies and certain things but, you know, I really like him as a president." Obama hasn't been quite as effusive in his comments about Trump since the Nov. 8 election. But he has repeatedly urged the public and world leaders concerned about a Trump presidency to adopt a "wait-and-see" approach. His argument is that campaigning is different than governing, and that the reality of holding office will lead Trump to alter his thinking in some cases. "That's just the way this office works," Obama said. It's not the tone many expected just a few months ago. Obama spent much of the campaign almost gleefully denouncing the showy New York businessman as "temperamentally unfit" and "uniquely unqualified" to lead the world's most powerful nation. Trump wasn't shy about responding, tweeting at one point that Obama "will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States!" Trump also spent years fomenting the "birther" issue and trying to undermine Obama with false claims that he was not a U.S. citizen, and therefore an illegitimate president. White House press secretary Josh Earnest has acknowledged that Obama and Trump have had "at least a handful" of telephone conversations since their 90-minute Oval Office meeting on Nov. 10. Trump had said at the White House that he would likely be calling on Obama for his "counsel." Turns out it wasn't just bluster.

MAZ Trucks Press Release / December 6, 2016 .

KrAZ Trucks / December 2, 2016 KrAZ Trucks intends to boost its market share in the light and medium truck segments with new products. Following the launch of the model 5401, available in both 4x2 and 4x4 configurations and rated at 9, 10 and 12 metric tons, Kraz is now introducing the 6 metric ton-rated model 5401Н2 in a variety of wheelbases. For the first time, KrAZ is offering a four-cylinder engine. The 170 horsepower Euro-5 emissions rated powerplant is paired with a 6-speed model 6J70 manual transmission. The 5401H2’s low-cab-forward design allows for superior maneuverability on congested city street and better load distribution, while making entry and exit safer and easier. .

Ford releases for sale half of 10-speed F-150 stockpiled trucks Reuters / December 7, 2016 Ford by Wednesday had released for sale more than half of the 15,000 F-150 pickup trucks with 10-speed transmissions that were held to ensure quality, a company spokeswoman said. Reuters reported on Tuesday that shipment of some of the 2017 models of the F-150 were being delayed to keep from having quality issues during the first application of a 10-speed transmission. In an interview with Reuters earlier this week, Joe Hinrichs, head of Ford in the Americas, said holding the trucks was the prudent thing to do. "In the normal course of business, when we have a new product launch – this is a new product launch for that transmission – we wanted to be extra sure, to do extra testing,” Hinrichs said. Ford designed the 10-speed transmission jointly with Detroit rival General Motors. The 2017 model F-150s equipped with a 3.5-liter, six-cylinder engine and the 10-speed automatic gearbox get a one-mile-per-gallon improvement in fuel economy over comparable 2016 models with six-speed transmissions, according to federal fuel economy data. The delayed shipments of 2017 model year F-150 trucks occurred as rival General Motors is aggressively trying to cut into Ford's lead in U.S. pickup sales. This year will be the 40th straight year that the F-Series pickup trucks from Ford are the best-selling truck in the United States and the 35th consecutive year of it being the top-selling model of any kind. Hinrichs said the delayed shipments will not affect the company's fourth-quarter profit picture because they will all be shipped by year's end.

WIDE APPEAL Power Torque Magazine / December 2016 Dave Whyte and Chris Mullett find the Kenworth T610 brings in the long-awaited appeal of a wide cab for conventional operators It’s not exactly been the best kept secret in Australian trucking, but when production kicks off finally in February and the wide cab versions start entering fleets there are going to be a lot of extremely satisfied drivers out on the road. Eagle-eyed readers of PowerTorque have spotted the five trucks seeded into major fleets as they’ve been racking up the kilometres under the most extensive product testing Kenworth has completed in our market to date. One such example used on linehaul with driver changes is currently covering 14000 km each week. But there’s much more to the development of the T610 than just producing five prime movers and running them up and down the highway. Brad May, director of sales and marketing for PACCAR Australia, gave PowerTorque an exclusive insight into the T610 development programme that started back in 2012, at the same time that PACCAR in the United States showcased the Kenworth T680 and Peterbilt 579 at the Mid-America Truck Show. “The T610 is the result of a $400 million investment programme that has been built around the decision to increase the width of the cab from the previous 1.83 metres measured between the B-pillars to 2.1 metres,” said Brad. “It may sound a simple idea, but the development programme to substantiate the increase in width also resulted in a new design of floor plan and a totally new method of assembling the cab structure during manufacturing. The work also included a wide range of changes to the interior design and dashboard layout that has produced a more modern visual appearance and improved ergonomics,” he added. The initial development work was a combined programme between the two PACCAR brands of Kenworth and Peterbilt in the United States, in conjunction with the R&D team at Bayswater in Victoria. The Kenworth development team concentrated on the bonnet and cab changes, while Peterbilt developed the interior dashboard layout and trim requirements. Building a larger cab meant changing the construction method from a reliance on Huck bolts to using Henrob self-piercing rivets for the alloy framed and sheeted cab. The roof for the sleeper versions is manufactured in composite material. The larger width of 2.1 m has provided an increase in interior space in many areas of up to 30 percent, but has been achieved with virtually no additional weight penalty, with the new cab tipping the scales at just a 20 kg difference. The bumper to back-of-cab (BBC) measurement of the T610 has moved from the 116-inch dimension of the T409 it replaces, to 112 inches, and, with noise intrusion significantly reduced, there’s also additional strength in the firewall that is now 60 percent thicker at 4.0 mm compared to the T409 at 2.4 mm. Drivers will appreciate the additional space between the seats when moving around the cab interior and also how the forward vision has been improved. The traditional West Coast style of mirrors has been replaced by aerodynamic power adjustable mirror heads mounted on extended arms from the A-pillar. This new location enables forward vision over the top of the mirror housing, and between the mirror housing and the A-pillar, removing previous blind spots. The injection moulded dashboard is now much more car-like in appearance and features digital display screens showing driver information and engine data such as fuel economy and performance. With a completely new floor design there’s now much more room in the footwell around the pedals, with extra space for the driver’s left footrest. A lot of development work has also taken place in the redesign of the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) system, which is now a full climate-control unit. In past designs, where a right-hand-drive version has been the result of modifications to an original left-hand-drive design, there have always been issues occurring through routing the steering column past components such as turbochargers. Often the solution has been to incorporate a series of universal joints. Because of the close collaboration of the three design teams between America and Australia, it was possible to create a straight path for the steering column, right through from the wheel to the steering box. This results in probably the best steering precision yet achieved for an on-highway truck of this category. The electrical system retains the normal US choice of 12 volts, but is now based on a multiplex system, with the new cab frame constructed in the US and shipped direct to the Bayswater factory in Victoria. The cooling system has also come in for close attention, with the radiator on the T610 now based on aluminium cores, replacing the previous copper and brass construction. The durability of the new designs has been verified by extensive finite element analysis and then further confirmed by physical shakedown testing on continuous activity rigs that reproduced highly destructive road conditions. The shake-down testing programmes were repeated three times more than any previous test programme in order to validate the durability by simulating over 10 million kilometres of real-time experience. As well as the single-cab version, the T609 is available as a sleeper cab SAR with a set forward front axle. This features the traditional Aerodyne style sleeper but without the roof mounted windows that featured in previous versions. The bed size has been maintained at 860 mm, the same spec as used in the previous 36-inch sleeper design to maintain compatibility for 19 m and 26 m B-double application. “We looked at how to improve headroom and spaciousness inside the cab and the input we had into the final designs enabled us to move the high roof slope forwards in the roof line,” said Brad. “Mike Dozier, Kenworth Australia’s chief executive at the time of the T610 development programme, came from a product background with Peterbilt. Being tall himself, he was a strong supporter of ensuring sufficient headroom to promote the feeling of interior spaciousness with excellent walk-around access. “This attention to visibility for tall drivers also resulted in the window line of the doors being styled to provide clear vision, without having to stoop to improve line of sight. “The doors themselves have triple seals to prevent noise and dust intrusion, and no longer have to carry the mirror mounts, which, as mentioned previously, are now fixed to the A-pillar framing. Conventional hinges now replace the older-style piano hinges, providing a more positive and refined door closure,” added Brad. The T610 is the culmination of many years of extensive product development and cooperation between Paccar in Australia and the United States. Although currently confined to one model in two configurations, there’s little doubt that over the next couple of years we will be seeing the innovation of the T610 influencing other models throughout the Kenworth Australia product range. .

The Gazette Xtra / December 7, 2016 Larry Brown descended the steps of his Chevrolet oil tank truck in two small leaps and disappeared around the back, past the red-and-blue lettering on his truck that reads "Brown Oil Co." Brown unreeled a red fuel hose and hauled it across the snow, through the yard of a weathered farmhouse in the town of Avon. He linked the hose to a pipe on the side of the house and pumped red-dyed fuel oil into a holding tank in the basement. The whole time, Brown whistled a tune. It seemed less like a song and more a physical function—the way a power generator kicks on and off whenever it needs to. Brown has run Brown Oil in Janesville, Wisconsin, since 1986. And he has hauled diesel, gasoline and fuel oil to customers for 50 years this December—ever since he was 20 years old. Brown now is 70, yet his age doesn't quite show. He still delivers oil and fuel oil in one of his own trucks, even though he employs drivers who are much younger than he is. Brown Oil is one of only a few remaining independent oil haulers, and Brown has remained in business by continuing to find new customers outside the dwindling fuel oil home heating market. For years, home heating has been become more and more dominated by natural gas and LP gas, a trend that has put dozens of other oil haulers out of business. Brown Oil continues, and it continues to change, although Brown doesn't acknowledge he has changed much. He still runs dozens of deliveries a week in his tank truck, long after most in the business would leave the work to younger men. “I don't have a hobby, and I've never fished or hunted a lot,” Brown said. “This job is me, and I don't feel like closing up shop and dying. This job is my alternative, I guess.” In his 30 years running Brown Oil, Brown has marketed his services to an ever-broadening clientele, including road construction crews, quarry pits and local marinas, all while holding onto a shrinking base of fuel oil home heating customers. This week, Brown delivered fuel oil to several homes and farms throughout the county alongside commercial deliveries that included a semitrailer truck service garage on Bell Street in Janesville. One day this week, he delivered 250 gallons of kerosene to a Beloit business. Brown boiled down the 50 million gallons of oil he estimates he has delivered to customers over five decades, summing up his concept of business diversification: “There's always different things going on. A chance for new customers all the time. You've always got to find what's going on and figure out how to reach it.” The business of oil has become more complicated for independent haulers such as Brown, in part because of new federal regulations and in part because of the vagaries of the commodities market. Brown now is in a partnership with Cambeck Petroleum, another Janesville oil company. He shares space with Cambeck on South Pearl Street in Janesville, the same location where Brown Oil has been since Brown started it. Through an agreement, Brown gets fuel from an underground storage terminal Cambeck owns off Highway 14 on Janesville's north side. Brown says he stopped trying to outsmart the oil market years ago. He said his edge lies instead on the human side, and it's a major reason why he still delivers oil to customers, sometimes for 10 or 12 hours a day. As he wrapped up a stop at a truck fleet service shop in Janesville, Brown answered his phone. A local excavating contractor called to ask Brown if he could wait at the truck garage. The contractor needed to refill his truck's utility fuel tank. It would delay Brown's next stop, a farm on the other side of Rock County, but Brown didn't seem flustered. When the contractor pulled up, Brown slung his arm over the man's shoulder to greet him. As he worked up the bill for the refuel, he joked with the contractor and asked about his plans for the winter. “Prices and market pressures and all those things don't mean as much when you've got camaraderie with people, your customers,” Brown said. Brown's first business agreement was with his father, Arthur Brown, who had delivered oil for years as a contractor for Lein Oil in Janesville. Arthur died in his 50s after years of health problems linked to childhood tuberculosis, Brown said. Brown himself was just 20 at the time. Brown remembers the day in early December when he promised his father he'd take over the family oil trucking route. At the time, Brown had an infant son, and his dad's truck had 175,000 miles on it. The floorboards were so rusted that in winter, the cab stayed as cold as the air outside. It wasn't until 20 years later that Brown founded Brown Oil, but Brown had learned how to be an oil truck man from the age of 5, when he began riding with his father on weekends and helped pull the truck's heavy fuel hoses. “The rest is my history, the mark I've left on the road,” Brown said. “I think he'd be proud of me.” Video - http://www.gazettextra.com/20161207/shell_brown_oil_company_profile_shell

Scania Group Press Release / December 7, 2016 The Nordic region’s first bus service featuring wireless (inductive) bus stop charging is now starting. A newly developed electric hybrid bus from Scania will be operated in regular urban traffic in Södertälje, Sweden, as part of the efforts to identify new more sustainable solutions for public transport in urban environments. This is the first time the technology is being tested in the Nordic region and both the bus and bus stop solution are part of a research project where Scania, the public transport operator for the Stockholm region SL, Vattenfall, Södertälje Municipality and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) are cooperating to develop a silent and sustainable public transport system. The project is partly financed by the Swedish Energy Agency. Silent and invisible charging For the first time ever, this type of technology is also being tested for a more extreme climate, which this type of infrastructure must also cope with to be relevant in more northerly parts of the world. Wireless bus stop charging means that the bus parks over a charging segment located under the road surface at the charging station, where charging occurs automatically. The design of the inductive technology has been adapted so as not to disturb existing urban environments and is essentially invisible. Seven minutes of wireless charging is enough to cover the entire 10 km-long route, which the bus will operate in Södertälje. “The electric hybrid bus in this project demonstrates a technology track for a more sustainable transport solution. The inductive charging technology is both silent and invisible. The field test in Södertälje is important ahead of the choices facing both society and the automotive industry with regard to eliminating emissions and reducing noise from traffic in sensitive urban environments,” says Hedvig Paradis, who is a project manager at Scania and responsible for the company’s participation in the research project. Solutions for sustainable city transport solutions The cost of the Wireless bus stop charging project amounts to just over SEK 38 million, of which Scania is investing SEK 22 million. The Swedish Energy Agency has granted almost SEK 10 million in research funding, which will be divided among the Royal Institute of Technology, Scania and SL. “This is one of several projects Scania is conducting in order to find solutions for future sustainable transport services in cities,” says Anders Grundströmer, Head of recently started Scania Sustainable City Solutions. “We are working on identifying the needs of cities and on creating systems for eco-friendly, fast, secure and cost-effective transport solutions, which are based on locally-produced alternative fuels including electrification.” Several options for electrification Electrification of the transport sector will demand various technologies and solutions – both in terms of where and how vehicles are charged. Charging can either occur when vehicles are stationary at depots and bus stops or during operation. For charging during operation the alternatives are conductive charging via a pantograph or inductive charging – or a combination of these techniques. The choice of solution depends on what transport task will be performed. The size and weight of the batteries, which can be carried on board the vehicle, for example, determines how much of the charging must occur while in service. The bus that Scania will test in Södertälje’s urban traffic is a hybrid bus, i.e. featuring technology, which means that the bus’s batteries are also charged during operation by utilising braking power. Charging may also occur using the bus’s combustion engine, which operates on fossil-free fuel. Technical facts about the bus Model: Scania "Citywide" LE4x2 Powertrain: Parallel hybrid, integrated with the gearbox (GRS895) Electrical engine, capacity: 130 kW Battery: Li-Ion 56 kWh Combustion engine: 9-litre 320 hp diesel engine (operates on biodiesel) .

CNN / December 7, 2016 Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel met with Donald Trump in New York on Wednesday, urging him to continue the Deferred Action for [illegal immigrant] Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program until a modernized immigration system can be decided by Congress. Emanuel delivered a letter co-signed by 14 other mayors, including New York's Bill de Blasio, and two other local government officials on the issue. "Ensuring DREAMers can continue to live and work in their communities without fear of deportation is the foundation of sound, responsible immigration policy," Emanuel wrote. Trump has said he will terminate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive action signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2012 that gives some undocumented [illegal] immigrants an exemption from deportation and a renewable two-year work permit. (DREAMers – Politically correct speak for criminal “illegal immigrants” in year 2016) More than 740,000 people have been approved to receive DACA status, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Among the guidelines, the policy states applicants must have come to the United States before they turned 16 years old, must have been in the States since June 15, 2007, and cannot have been convicted of certain crimes. "Those are students, those are also people who want to join the armed forces, they gave their name, their address, their phone number, where they are. ... They are something we should hold up and embrace," Emanuel said after meeting with Trump; his chief of staff, Reince Priebus; and his senior adviser, Steve Bannon. On his website, Trump calls Obama's DACA executive action "illegal and unconstitutional." But in an interview with Time magazine, which named Trump person of the year, he softened his stance [flip-flopping]. "We're going to work something out that's going to make people happy and proud," he said. "They got brought here at a very young age, they've worked here, they've gone to school here. Some were good students. Some have wonderful jobs. And they're in never-never land because they don't know what's going to happen." Emanuel, who was Obama's chief of staff from January 2009 to October 2010, said they also discussed how White House operations might run. They also had discussions on infrastructure investments, education programs and Chicago as a sanctuary city, the mayor said.

Associated Press / November 7, 2016 A 16-year-old Nevada high school student was shot by a Washoe County School District police officer Wednesday morning after attacking classmates in the schoolyard with two knives. The shooting at Procter R. Hug High School was first reported at around 11.30am, Washoe County School District spokesman Riley Sutton stated. Reno police Officer Tim Broadway told reporters that one student was taken to a hospital with unspecified injuries and the campus remained locked down, 'but the kids are safe.' The attacker is in critical condition at Renown Hospital Medical Center. Reno Police Chief Jason Soto said the incident began at 11:25 a.m. with an altercation between two students. One of those students drew a knife and tried to attack others. At that point, a school police officer told the student to drop the knife. When the student didn't cooperate, the officer shot him and then provided medical attention. High school freshman Robert Barragan told the Reno Gazette-Journal that an officer shot a student in the shoulder after the teen pulled a knife and stabbed a classmate during a confrontation outside the school library. . .

FMCSA ditches minimum hours requirement in final driver training rule Fleet Owner / December 7, 2016 New drivers to the trucking industry seeking to obtain a commercial driver’s license (CDL) will be required to show proficiency in both knowledge training and behind-the-wheel training on public roads under the new entry-level driver training final rule to be published tomorrow by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). That instructional program, says FMCSA, will have to meet an agency standard. The agency said it anticipates that “many entities currently providing entry-level driver training, including motor carriers, school districts, independent training schools, and individuals will be eligible to provide training that complies with the new requirements.” “Ensuring that drivers are properly trained is a critical element in improving road safety for everyone,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “The entry-level training standards for large truck and bus operators put forth today exemplify a commitment to safety from a broad coalition of commercial motor vehicle stakeholders.” On March 4, FMCSA announced a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) following months of a “negotiated rulemaking.” Following years of being unable to create a rule that would govern entry-level driver standards, the agency convened a committee in 2014 to try and craft a rule. That panel provided the recommendations that would make up the NPRM, which initially included 30 hours of behind-the-wheel (BTW) training. According to FMCSA, the final rule incorporates many of the recommendations issued by the committee, made up of 25 stakeholders and FMCSA representatives. The NPRM proposed no minimum number of hours that driver-trainees must spend on the theory portions of any of the individual curricula, but it did propose that Class A CDL driver-trainees must receive a minimum of 30 hours of BTW training, with a minimum of 10 hours on a driving range. Driving on a public road would also be required, and Class A CDL driver-trainees may fulfill this requirement by either driving 10 hours on a public road, or by driving 10 public road trips (each no less than 50 minutes in duration). However, in the final rule, those minimum number of hours for either the knowledge or BTW training have been eliminated. Instead, FMCSA said that “training providers must determine that each CDL applicant demonstrates proficiency in all required elements of the training in order to successfully complete the program.” However, driver-trainees must achieve at least an 80% score on the theory assessment. The American Trucking Assns., which opposed the proposed minimum hours requirement, was pleased with final rule. “At the conclusion of the negotiation, ATA expressed our disappointment the agency appeared poised to go with an hours-based training regimen, but we were pleased and surprised to see they eschewed an arbitrary hours threshold in favor of a skills-based standard,” ATA Director of Safety Policy P. Sean Garney. “ATA has consistently advocated that skills, not simply time spent in a classroom or behind the wheel, should be the deciding factor if a student should be allowed to take a commercial driver’s license test,” added ATA Executive Vice President of Advocacy Bill Sullivan. “Today’s rule is a victory for common sense and for safety.” Conversely, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn. (OOIDA) had a different take, specifically with the approach FMCSA took with behind-the-wheel training. "While it's a great first step, we are disappointed the rule doesn't address behind the wheel training as instructed by Congress. We will continue to work with the agency to see the follow-up and evaluation of training provided as promised in the rule and push to require BTW education,” OOIDA spokesperson Norita Taylor told Fleet Owner. Mandatory training is required for first-time Class A and Class B CDL applicants as well as current CDL holders seeking a license upgrade, such as a Class B CDL holder wishing to upgrade to a Class A CDL. Also, anyone seeking additional endorsements necessary to transport hazardous materials or to operate a motorcoach or school bus. “This new rule represents the culmination of a sustained and coordinated effort to identify appropriate pre-licensing CDL standards that will enhance safety on our Nation’s roads,” said FMCSA Administrator T.F. Scott Darling, III. “Without the collective efforts of our stakeholders working closely with us, we could not have completed this important lifesaving rule.” Drivers who are not subject to or are excepted or exempted from federal CDL requirements are not subject to this Final Rule, FMCSA said. These include military drivers, farmers, and firefighters. The entry-level driver training Final Rule goes into effect on Feb. 6, 2017, with a compliance date of February 2020.

Heavy Duty Trucking / November 7, 2016 A very long-awaited final rule on national minimum training standards for entry-level applicants seeking to obtain a commercial driver’s license or certain endorsements was announced on Dec. 7 by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The agency had been working on this rulemaking since 2007, but efforts to advance such a rule date back to the 1980s. The effective date of the new rule is February 6, 2017 and the compliance date is listed as February of 2020. The final rule does not include a requirement for 30 hours of behind-the-wheel training for new drivers, which had been included in the notice of proposed rulemaking that FMCSA issued in March of this year. That NPRM also called for a minimum of 10 hours of training on a “driving range” as well as an unspecified amount of time driving on a public road. FMCSA noted that the final rule retains “many” of the recommendations of a negotiated rulemaking committee that was comprised of 25 industry stakeholders and agency representatives. Per the final rule, applicants seeking a CDL will have to demonstrate proficiency in knowledge training and behind-the-wheel training on a driving range and on a public road. But there are no required minimum number of hours for the knowledge or behind-the-wheel portions of any of the individual training curricula. However, training providers must determine that each CDL applicant demonstrates proficiency in all required elements of the training to successfully complete the program. In addition, the driver training must be obtained from an instructional program that meets qualification standards set forth in the final rule. FMCSA said it expects that “many entities currently providing entry-level driver training, including motor carriers, school districts, independent training schools, and individuals will be eligible to provide training that complies with the new requirements.” Mandatory, comprehensive training in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories would apply to the following individuals under the Final Rule: First-time CDL applicants, including for Class A and Class B CDLs Current CDL holders seeking a license upgrade (e.g., a Class B holder seeking a Class A) or an additional endorsement to transport hazardous materials, or to operate a motor coach or school bus The rulemaking was mandated by Congress under the MAP-21 highway bill, passed in 2012. FMSCA said the rule is based, in part, on recommendations of the agency’s Entry-Level Driver Training Advisory Committee, a negotiated rulemaking committee that held a series of meetings in 2015. “This new rule represents the culmination of a sustained and coordinated effort to identify appropriate pre-licensing CDL standards that will enhance safety on our Nation’s roads,” said FMCSA Administrator T.F. Scott Darling, III. “Without the collective efforts of our stakeholders working closely with us, we could not have completed this important lifesaving rule. We especially appreciate the Entry-Level Driver Training Advisory Committee for its tireless efforts and expertise to enhance roadway safety through the negotiated rulemaking process.” The American Trucking Associations praised the rule for its “common sense” approach to safety. “ATA has consistently advocated that skills, not simply time spent in a classroom or behind the wheel, should be the deciding factor if a student should be allowed to take a commercial driver’s license test,” said ATA Executive Vice President of Advocacy Bill Sullivan. “Today’s rule is a victory for common sense and for safety.” ATA Director of Safety Policy P. Sean Garney noted that the association participated in FMCSA’s negotiated rulemaking process and is “pleased with how the agency outlined the skills and knowledge students must have. “At the conclusion of the negotiation, ATA expressed our disappointment the agency appeared poised to go with an hours-based training regimen, but we were pleased and surprised to see they eschewed an arbitrary hours threshold in favor of a skills-based standard.” Also welcoming the rule’s release and its specifics was the Commercial Vehicle Training Association, which represents nearly 200 training providers in 41 states, a member of the ELDTAC that helped FMCSA formulate the rule’s minimum training requirements. “FMCSA has put forth a common-sense rule, which recognizes the value and importance of effectively training commercial drivers based on their actual performance,” said Don Lefeve, CVTA president & CEO, CVTA. “This rule ensures that students can only sit for their CDL exam after demonstrating driving and knowledge proficiency. This is a major step in advancing highway safety by requiring driver training and ends nearly 25 years of effort to get this rule in place.” As described by CVTA, here’s what the rule requires of the providers of entry-level driver training: Register with FMCSA’s Training Provider Registry (TPR) and certify that their program meets the standards for classroom and behind-the-wheel (BTW) training Certify students have completed BTW training to a proficiency standard Certify their program teaches the required classroom subjects (outlined in the final rule), and that students have completed a written assessment covering all subjects with a passing score of 80% or higher Certify students have demonstrated proficiency in operating a vehicle before sitting for the CDL exam Click here to view the final ELDT rule.

Scott Pruitt Post: Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Previous experience relating to the post: NONE Age: 48 (Born May 9, 1968) Schooling: Pruit graduated from Georgetown College in 1990 with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Communications. He received a Juris Doctor from the University of Tulsa in 1993, and passed the bar examination that same year. Background: Pruit is currently Oklahoma Attorney General. He is a lawyer and Republican politician. Pruit was born in Danville, Kentucky. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The New York Times / December 7, 2016 Republican Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general and a close ally of the fossil fuel industry, to run the EPA, signaling Trump’s determination to dismantle President Obama’s efforts to counter climate change — and much of the EPA itself. Pruitt has been a key architect of the legal battle against Obama’s climate change policies, actions that fit with Trump’s comments during the campaign. Trump has criticized the established science of human-caused global warming as a hoax, vowed to “cancel” the Paris accord committing nearly every nation to taking action to fight climate change, and attacked Obama’s signature global warming policy, the Clean Power Plan, as a “war on coal.” Pruitt has been in lock step with Trump’s views. “Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind,” he wrote in National Review earlier this year. “That debate should be encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress. It should not be silenced with threats of prosecution. Dissent is not a crime.” At the heart of Obama’s efforts to tackle climate change are EPA regulations aimed at forcing power plants to significantly reduce their emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution. Trump cannot unilaterally cancel the rules, which were released under the 1970 Clean Air Act. But a legally experienced EPA chief could substantially weaken, delay or slowly take them apart. Beyond climate change, the EPA itself may be endangered. Trump campaigned on a pledge to greatly shrink — or even dismantle — it. “We are going to get rid of it in almost every form,” he once pledged. Mr. Pruitt may be the right man to do that. As attorney general, Mr. Pruitt created a “federalism unit” in his office, to “more effectively combat unwarranted regulation and systematic overreach by federal agencies, boards and offices,” including Obama’s health care law and environmental regulations. Although Obama’s climate rules were not completed until 2015, Pruitt and other attorneys general began planning as early as 2014 for a coordinated legal effort to fight them. That resulted in a 28-state lawsuit against the administration’s rules. A decision on the case is pending in a federal court, but it is widely expected to advance to the Supreme Court. As Pruitt has sought to use legal tools to fight environmental regulations on the oil and gas companies that are a major part of his state’s economy, he has also worked with those companies. A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the EPA, the Interior Department, the Office of Management and Budget and President Obama, outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules. The close ties have paid off for Pruitt politically: Harold G. Hamm, the chief executive of Continental Energy, an Oklahoma oil and gas company, was a co-chairman of Mr. Pruitt’s 2013 re-election campaign. Pruitt, who grew up in Kentucky, moved to Oklahoma to go to law school. An avid baseball fan, for eight years he co-owned and managed the Oklahoma City Redhawks. He won a seat in the Oklahoma Legislature and opened a small legal office, which he called Christian Legal Services, to challenge government actions that he saw as compromising individual rights. As he ran for attorney general of Oklahoma in 2010, he made clear that he intended to use his power as the state’s top law enforcement official to attempt to force the EPA to back down, convinced that it was wrongly stepping on state government powers. “There’s a mentality emanating from Washington today that says, ‘We know best.’ It’s a one-size-fits-all strategy, a command-and-control kind of approach, and we’ve got to make sure we know how to respond to that,” Mr. Pruitt said during his 2010 election campaign. But that campaign, once Pruitt was sworn in, quickly became an opportunity to work secretly with some of the largest oil and gas companies, and the state’s coal-burning electric utility, to try to overturn a large part of the Obama administration’s regulations on air emissions, water pollution and endangered animals, documents obtained by The Times show. As attorney general, Pruitt took the unusual step of jointly filing an anti-regulatory lawsuit with industry players, such as Oklahoma Gas and Electric, the coal-burning electric utility, and the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, a non-profit group backed by major oil and gas executives, including Mr. Hamm. Behind the scenes, Pruit was taking campaign contributions from many of the industry players on his team, or helping deliver even larger sums of money to the Republican Attorneys General Association, which he became the chairman of. Pruitt’s office also began to send letters to federal regulators — including the EPA and even to President Obama — that documents obtained through open records requests show were written by energy industry lobbyists from companies including Devon Energy. Pruitt’s staff put these ghostwritten letters on state government stationery and sent them to Washington, moves that the energy companies then praised in their own news releases, without noting that they had actually drafted the letters in the first place. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Washington Post / December 7, 2016 An ally of the energy industry, Pruitt, along with Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, came to the defense of ExxonMobil when it fell under investigation by attorneys general from more liberal states seeking information about whether the oil giant failed to disclose material information about climate change. “We do not doubt the sincerity of the beliefs of our fellow attorneys general about climate change and the role human activity plays in it,” they wrote at the conservative publication National Review. “But we call upon them to press those beliefs through debate, not through governmental intimidation of those who disagree with them.” In September as a D.C. federal appeals court was preparing to hear arguments over the Clean Power Plan, Pruitt detailed why he has remained a leading opponent of the EPA’s efforts to curb carbon emissions by regulating power plants. “What concerns the states is the process, the procedures, the authority that the EPA is exerting that we think is entirely inconsistent with its constitutional and statutory authority,” he said at the time. Agencies such as the EPA, he said, should not be trying to “pinch hit” for Congress. “This is a unique approach by EPA, whether they want to acknowledge it or not,” he said of the provisions of the Clean Air Act that the agency had relied upon to write new regulations. “The overreach is the statutes do not permit [EPA officials] to act in the way they are. They tend to have this approach that the end justifies the means . . . They tend to justify it by saying this big issue, this is an important issue.” But he added that’s where Congress should have authority, not EPA. “This is something from a constitutional and statutory perspective that causes great concern.” Pruitt has also fought to limit the scope of the federal government in regulating pollution of rivers under the Waters of the United States rule. Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has been active on environmental issues, said, “Scott Pruitt would have EPA stand for Every Polluter’s Ally.” In 2014, the New York Times reported that a letter ostensibly written by Pruitt alleging that the agency overestimated air pollution from natural gas drilling was actually written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of the state’s largest oil and gas companies. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David, you know that we share a lot of thoughts. There's little doubt that your heart is in the right place. But let's step out of the box and look at this realistically. None of us know Trump, Obama or the people that surround them personally. We've never even met them or been in the same room with them. None of us has any real idea of Trump's prowess in business (public record states he declared bankruptcy 4 times), or what Obama is really like. I myself have never been able to peg a person without having spent time with them in person. All we know is what the controlled news tells us, which we're unable to confirm first hand. And about Obama, you know that our country began sliding down the slope LONG before you ever heard of him. He is not the original architect of our national woes.

Automotive News / December 7, 2016 Car thieves are using a new technology to break into and drive away with vehicles that have push-button ignitions without a trace of evidence, and there’s nothing that potential victims can do to prevent it. The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) today said it obtained and tested a so-called “mystery device” that can allow a thief to break into a vehicle without leaving behind any of the traditional pieces of evidence such as broken glass. The device, which comes in two pieces, works by picking up a signal from the vehicle’s key fob from a distance of up to 10 feet. Once the signal is received, the device transfers the data to a smaller “relay box” that can be used to unlock and start the vehicle. NICB spokesman Roger Morris said the bureau, working with used-car retailer CarMax, tested the device on 35 makes and models at various locations, including new- and used-car dealerships, in the Chicago area over a two-week period. He said the NICB was able to open 19 of the vehicles and was able to drive away in 18. Combating these devices is the latest battle between automakers and criminals in the modern era. Concerns over hacking and other cybersecurity issues have gained prominence in recent years as vehicles become more connected. Morris said it is impossible to know how many vehicles might have been stolen using these devices because no evidence is left behind. Owners and law enforcement are often unaware of such technology existing, though the NICB first noted a rise in the use of such technology in 2014. The “scary part is that there’s no warning or explanation for the owner,” said NICB CEO Joe Wehrle. “Unless someone catches the crime on a security camera, there’s no way for the owner or the police to really know what happened. Many times, they think the vehicle has been towed.” NICB said it obtained the device “via a third-party security expert from an overseas company” that provides “manufacturers and other anti-theft organizations the ability to test the vulnerability of various vehicles’ systems.” Morris said that while thieves can purchase devices from various sources, a thief with skills in computer technology could build one on his own, making cracking down on the makers of the devices difficult.

John F. Kelly, USMC General (retired) Post: Secretary of Homeland Security Age: 66 (Born May 11, 1950) Schooling: Received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1976, and later a Master of Arts degree from Georgetown University. Kelly later attended the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and National War College. Background: Kelly was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. Kelly enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1970, and was discharged as a sergeant in 1972, after serving in an infantry company with the 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, NC. Following graduation from the University of Massachusetts in 1976, he was commissioned and returned to the 2nd Marine Division where he served as a rifle and weapons platoon commander, company executive officer, assistant operations officer, and infantry company commander. He then served aboard the Mayport, Florida-based aircraft carriers USS Forrestal and USS Independence. In 1980, then Captain Kelly transferred to the U.S. Army's Infantry Officer Advanced Course in Fort Benning, GA. After graduation, he was assigned to Headquarters Marine Corps, Washington, DC, serving there from 1981 through 1984, as an assignment monitor. Kelly returned to the 2nd Marine Division in 1984, to command a rifle and weapons company. Promoted to the rank of Major in 1987, he served as the battalion's operations officer. In 1987, Major Kelly transferred to the Basic School, Quantico, VA, serving first as the head of the Offensive Tactics Section, Tactics Group, and later assuming the duties of the Director of the Infantry Officer Course. After three years of instructing young officers, he attended the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and School for Advanced Warfare at Quantico. Completing duty under instruction and selected for Lieutenant Colonel, Kelly was assigned for two years as Commanding Officer, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, CA. Kelly returned to the East Coast in 1994, to attend the National War College in Washington, DC. He graduated in 1995, and was selected to serve as the Commandant's Liaison Officer to the U.S. House of Representatives, Capitol Hill, where he was promoted to the rank of Colonel. In 1999, Kelly transferred to joint duty and served as the Special Assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, in Mons, Belgium. Kelly returned to the United States in 2001, and was assigned to a third tour of duty at Camp Lejeune, now as the Assistant Chief of Staff G-3 with the 2nd Marine Division. In 2002, selected to the rank of Brigadier General, Kelly again served with the 1st Marine Division, this time as the Assistant Division Commander, spending much of his two-year assignment in Iraq. Kelly then returned to Headquarters Marine Corps as the Legislative Assistant to the Commandant from 2004 to 2007. Promoted to major general, he returned to Camp Pendleton as the Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward). The command deployed to Iraq in early 2008 for a year-long mission, replacing II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) as Multinational Force-West in Al Anbar and western Ninewa provinces. Kelly commanded Marine Forces Reserve and Marine Forces North from October 2009 to March 2011. Kelly was Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense from March 2011 to October 2012. Kelly commanded the United States Southern Command from November 2012 to January 2016 when he retired. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hell, these are Marines. Men like them held Guadalcanal and took Iwo Jima. Bagdad ain't shit." ~ Marine Major General John F. Kelly -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kelly’s hawkish testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2015 led to a meeting with Trump on November 19 at his New Jersey country club. “In my opinion, the relative ease with which human smugglers moved tens of thousands of people to our nation’s doorstep also serves as another warning sign. These smuggling routes are a potential vulnerability to our homeland. As I stated last year, terrorist organizations could seek to leverage those same smuggling routes to move operatives with intent to cause grave harm to our citizens or even bring weapons of mass destruction into the United States. Addressing the root causes of insecurity and instability is not just in the region's interests, but ours as well, which is why I support President Obama's commitment to increase assistance to Central America. Unless confronted by an immediate, visible or uncomfortable crisis, our nation's tendency is to take the security of the Western Hemisphere for granted. I believe this is a mistake," Kelly told the Senate committee. “The drug trade, exacerbated by U.S. drug consumption, has wrought devastating consequences in many of our partner nations, degrading their civilian police and justice systems, corrupting their institutions, and contributing to a breakdown in citizen safety,” said Kelly. Asked about the seriousness of the threat of foreign nationals entering the United States via the region’s human smuggling networks, Kelly said that kind of illegal movement of people presents a threat to the United States. “This network … is so efficient that if a terrorist, or almost anyone, wants to get into our country, they just pay the fare. No one checks their passports. They don't go through metal detectors. No one cares why they're coming. They just ride this network,” Kelly responded. In his final post as commander of Florida-based U.S. Southern Command, Kelly’s missions included the border with Mexico, counternarcotics trafficking and counterinsurgency, and the portfolio allowed him regular meetings with Central and South American leaders. His 2015 testimony placed the border issue as not just a socioeconomic problem but as a national security one, saying the same criminals who smuggle unescorted children and adults across the border would be willing to shepherd Islamist terrorists and/or weapons of mass destruction. “These networks could unwittingly, or even wittingly, facilitate the movement of terrorist operatives or weapons of mass destruction toward our borders, potentially undetected and almost completely unrestricted,” Kelly said. “In addition to thousands of Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence, foreign nationals from countries like Somalia, Bangladesh, Lebanon and Pakistan are using the region’s human smuggling networks to enter the United States.” He also warned about the activities of Lebanese Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization sponsored by Iran. “The terrorist group Lebanese Hezbollah, which has long viewed the region as a potential attack venue against Israeli or other Western targets, has supporters and sympathizers in Lebanese diaspora communities in Latin America, some of whom are involved in lucrative illicit activities like money laundering and trafficking in counterfeit goods and drugs,” he said. “Addressing the root causes of insecurity and instability is not just in the region’s interests, but ours,” he said. He said SouthCom’s low priority has translated into meager intelligence assets. “U.S. Southern Command has accepted risk for so long in this region that we now face a near-total lack of awareness of threats and the readiness to respond, should those threats reach crisis levels,” he said.

CNN / December 6, 2016 German chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a ban on full-face veils in Germany. "The full veil is not appropriate here, it should be forbidden wherever that is legally possible. It does not belong to us," she told her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere also calling for the veil to barred from public places in August. "It does not fit into our society for us, for our communication, for our cohesion in the society.... This is why we demand you show your face," he said. "We do not want any parallel societies and where they exist we have to tackle them, said Merkel. "Our laws have priority over honor codes, tribal and family rules, and over the Sharia. That has to be expressed very clearly. That also means that with interpersonal communication, which plays a fundamental role here, we show our face. This is why the full facial veil is inappropriate, and should be banded wherever it is legally possible. It does not belong in our country," said Merkel At the end of her speech, Merkel received an 11-minute standing ovation and applause. In April 2011, France became the first European country to ban wearing the burqa, a full-body covering that includes mesh over the face, and the niqab, a full-face veil with an opening for the eyes, in public. Those breaking the law face fines of 150 euros (about $205) or public service duties. The law was upheld by the European Convention on Human Rights in 2014 after a 24-year-old woman brought the case to court, claiming it infringed on her religious freedom. .