PR in the Philippines

The most significant challenges—and biggest opportunities—for reducing carbon emissions in industry are happening just outside the highway, a short distance from downtown Chicago in a nondescript industrial area. Here along the Chicago River, the Ozinga concrete company manufactures and sells a lower-carbon version of concrete made using recycled steel byproducts. Ozinga is a small company addressing a large problem. The global cement industry is responsible for 8% of global carbon emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. (Cement is the primary ingredient in concrete). Ozinga's efforts represent a chance to rapidly reduce these emissions. However, there's a catch: while the technology is proven, the market is not. "Who is driving the demand?" Marty Ozinga, the company's CEO, said to me from a conference room as concrete trucks drove past us. "That's the tricky part right now."  It's not that demand is absent. Major tech companies building new data centers are especially eager to pay for low-carbon solutions. Federal and state governments are seeking low-carbon products for their projects. And many end users of buildings—companies leasing office space, for example—would be willing to pay a small premium. But connecting that demand with supply can be tricky. Even if building occupants are eager to work in a green building, contractors are hesitant about anything that increases costs. And the supply of green cement isn't necessarily located where developers want to build. This is the challenge at the heart of efforts to decarbonize not only cement and concrete, but a wide range of industries at this critical moment in history. Industry, which includes manufacturing and steel, among other sectors, accounts for 21% of global emissions. We have the technical knowledge to reduce emissions—and often the additional cost is minimal. But in many cases, the world lacks the business models, financing mechanisms, and policy support needed to make it work. Ozinga is an unusual case. The company is family-owned and financing a $250 million green cement facility with its own funds. It's a bet that the rest of the market will follow suit—and when it does, the company will have a first-mover advantage. But truly achieving industrial decarbonization will require companies, governments, and financial institutions to come together and bridge this gap. In the coming weeks and months, TIME's Futures series will explore the companies and leaders trying to bridge that gap. Off and on for the past several decades, investors have poured billions into early-stage companies working on innovative technologies that could accelerate the energy transition. These investments benefited from government spending on research to lay the groundwork. As a result, a range of technologies have reached a point where they are reliable and, in some cases, similar in cost to their traditional counterparts. But the gaps between technology and full market entry are numerous. Financial institutions want to see long-term contracts for green commodities before they lend money for projects, but potential buyers don't want to commit early and pay too high a price. Buyers who are willing to pay for the green commodities that come from industrial decarbonization may not be located where these commodities are produced, requiring new infrastructure in some cases and making it completely inaccessible in others. And end users who are willing to pay more for green don't always have an easy way to connect with—and pay—the companies at the top of the supply chain. These gaps are not new to climate experts familiar with the landscape of industrial decarbonization. Indeed, policies like the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act now provide incentives designed to stimulate financial innovation and bridge the divide. Funding for the Department of Energy's Loan Program Office, for example, gives the agency the ability to lend money to help companies commercialize new industrial technologies where traditional banks have limited expertise.  And other institutions are getting involved too. This week, for instance, a coalition led by the Bezos Earth Fund formally launched a green market maker that will help connect supply and demand of green commodities to scale these innovations. Companies are forming buyers' coalitions where businesses jointly commit to purchasing a green commodity explicitly to help stimulate demand. Meanwhile, Ozinga is finding opportunities in supplying low-carbon cement to major tech companies. And, as with any invention, the best innovation may be yet to come.

Hurricane Helene struck Florida as a Category 4 storm on Thursday night, resulting in at least 21 deaths across four states. The storm has caused widespread damage in Florida, with power outages and flooding affecting multiple southern states. Helene initially formed as a tropical storm earlier this week but intensified to a Category 4 hurricane before making landfall in the U.S. The storm first hit Florida's sparsely populated Big Bend region before moving along the Gulf Coast. It brought maximum sustained winds of 140 mph and record-breaking storm surges to the state. As the storm made landfall in Perry, Florida, on Thursday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned residents to brace for the worst: "When Floridians wake up tomorrow morning, we're going to be waking up to a state where very likely there's been additional loss of life and certainly there's going to be loss of property," he said during a press conference late Thursday. On Friday morning, DeSantis reported two storm-related deaths in the state and added that 1.24 million customers were without power across the state. A spokesperson for Georgia Governor Brian Kemp told that 11 people have died in the state, and dozens more are trapped in their homes. Millions in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Florida are due to the storm. As the system moved up the coast of Florida and into Georgia and the Carolinas on Friday morning, it had been downgraded to a tropical storm. The National Hurricane Center warned of catastrophic and life-threatening flash and urban flooding, including numerous significant landslides, in the southern Appalachian region on Friday. Flooding is also expected in Northwestern, northern, and southeast Florida on Friday.

Beloved British actor Maggie Smith, known for her captivating performances as Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey and Professor Minerva McGonagall in Harry Potter, passed away on Friday morning at the age of 89.  Smith passed away peacefully at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London on Sept. 27, her sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, confirmed in a statement on Friday. "An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," the statement reads. "We thank you for all your kind messages and support and ask that you respect our privacy at this time." Her family also thanked hospital staff for their kindness.   Throughout her illustrious career, Smith embraced a wide array of roles, earning her two Academy Awards for her performances in the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and the 1973 movie Travels with My Aunt. She also received four additional Oscar nominations. Smith was the recipient of multiple BAFTAs, including a Best Actress win for the Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne and another in 1993, among many other accolades.  Her contributions to the arts were acknowledged by royalty—Smith was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a form of knighthood, in 1990 by Queen Elizabeth II—and also by other prominent actors, politicians, and celebrities.  U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed condolences to Smith’s family and loved ones. "Dame Maggie Smith introduced us to new worlds with the countless stories she acted over her long career," he said in a statement. "She was beloved by so many for her great talent, becoming a true national treasure whose work will be cherished for generations to come." Former Lord Commissioner of the U.K. Treasury Gyles Brandreth described Smith as "one of the greats" and admired her intelligent and witty personality.   "Saddened to hear Dame Maggie Smith has passed. I had the unforgettable experience of working with her; sharing a two-shot was like being paired with a lion. She could eat anyone alive, and often did," said actor Rob Lowe, who worked alongside Smith in Suddenly, Last Summer. "We will never see another. God speed, Ms. Smith!"  Star Trek actor George Takei offered his condolences, calling her a "grand star of screen and stage" in a tweet. Whoopi Goldberg, who co-starred with Smith in the Sister Act films, shared a tribute on Instagram alongside a photo from the film. "I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to work with the ‘one-of-a-kind.’ My heartfelt condolences go out to the family…RIP," she captioned the photo.  "Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent," fellow Downton Abbey costar Hugh Bonneville shared in a statement to the BBC. "She was a true legend of her generation and thankfully will live on in so many magnificent screen performances. My condolences to her boys and wider family." Smith’s name was trending on X, along with “RIP Queen” as fans expressed their grief online. "Rest in peace to an absolute treasure, Dame Maggie Smith. They’ve been reunited," wrote one user who shared a picture of Smith with Alan Rickman and Michael Gambon, two other actors in the Harry Potter franchise who died previously. Others shared clips of their favorite performances by her, calling Smith a "legend" and "brilliant actress." "She was such a significant part of my childhood and adult life too," shared one user. "Thank you, Maggie, for the wonderful talent you shared with us all."

Instituto Terra, established by renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado and his wife Lélia Dluiz Wanick, has dedicated itself to environmental restoration since 1998. The organization has planted over 2.7 million trees in the Rio Doce Basin region of Brazil. Through their efforts, Instituto Terra has revived more than 550 acres of forest and revitalized 2,000 natural springs in the area. Currently, they are collaborating with local farmers to expand their restoration initiatives, aiming to revitalize even more land and waterways.

of American states have abolished the death penalty or hit pause on executions. —47%—of Americans believe the death penalty is administered fairly, a record low. A clear trend line has emerged. Every year, we see .   So what happened last week? Why did we see five executions of five human beings, by five different states, in the span of only seven days?   How do we make sense of the executions of Freddie Eugene Owens (who went by Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah) by South Carolina, Marcellus Williams (who went by Khalifah Ibn Rayford Daniels) by Missouri, Travis Mullis by Texas, Emmanuel Littlejohn by Oklahoma, and Alan Eugene Miller by Alabama?   While this series of executions has shocked America’s conscience, the unfortunate reality is that they embody well-documented problems with the death penalty. They have become not the exception, but the rule. And the rule is that executions reflect racism, government error and arrogance, untreated mental illness and trauma, and disrespect for our democracy. The same factors that have driven abolition of the death penalty in a growing number of states remain on display this week. They serve as a five-alarm wake-up call and reminder of the work to be done. Mirroring the overrepresentation of Black men on America’s death rows, three of the five men executed this week were Black: Owens, Williams, and Littlejohn. And mirroring a , four of the five executions were punishments for killing white victims. Among its many other flaws, and in line with its history as an outgrowth of slavery and lynchings, the death penalty fails America by vastly preferencing white victims.    The executions also confirm that the government makes mistakes and takes shortcuts that lead to wrongful convictions. Defending the sentence is often prioritized over justice. Missouri executed Williams even after so many, including the prosecuting authority, insisted on his innocence. Together with the Innocence Project, District Attorney Wesley Bell that no forensic evidence pointed to Williams. Law enforcement had spoiled the evidence and prevented DNA testing, and only two unreliable and incentivized witnesses supported the conviction. As Bell stated after the execution, “if there is even the shadow of a doubt of innocence, the death penalty should never be an option.” Gov. Parsons defended the indefensible by pointing to the findings of the jury and of the courts, while ignoring that the prosecutor (as so ) culled the jury of . Neither Missouri—nor any other state for that matter—can credibly claim to have no doubts. Wrongful convictions are all too common. An estimated have been falsely convicted and later exonerated from America’s death rows. Missouri is responsible for four.  Did we execute the right man is not the question that should be on our minds right now. But Owens’ Littlejohn’s cases raise it, too. In Owens’, the codefendant that Owens was not present for the 1997 robbery murder. In Littlejohn’s, the Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole voted to grant clemency, a recommendation the Governor rejected, after hearing that prosecutors presented conflicting , in different trials, on who fired the fatal shot in 1994. Notably, all three cases of doubt involve Black defendants, and two involve a convenience-store crime, decades ago. These crimes would rarely if ever result in death sentence if tried today.     Like so many others on death rows across the country, , in Alabama, and , in Texas both endured significant mental illness and trauma documented by court and mental-health records. Our social-service institutions failed them both. As I saw firsthand when I travelled to Texas to represent Mullis in 2012—after one of the many times he sought to reinstate appeals he had dropped amidst suicidal ideation and mental illness—these are not the “worst of the worst” for whom the death penalty is mythically reserved. Error—and cruelty—extend through the execution process itself. Alabama executed Alan Miller using an experimental lethal gas protocol that had resulted in an excruciating in its only prior use. The first attempt against Miller in 2022 was a botched lethal injection in which execution personnel, including those and other misconduct, struggled to find a suitable vein and then left him, a 350-pound man, strapped hanging vertically on a gurney for He is one of only six known persons to survive an execution, with half of these botches occurring in Alabama in the last six years. This week reminds us that the road to abolition does not run in a straight line. As shocked and saddened as we feel, we also need to work towards progress. We must feel moved to and towards a day when the death penalty ends—once and for all.

(LONDON) — Maggie Smith, the remarkable and captivating actress who won an Academy Award for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and gained widespread popularity in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in and Professor Minerva McGonagall in , passed away on Friday. She was 89 years old. Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, revealed in a statement that Smith died early on Friday at a London hospital. “She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are deeply saddened by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they stated in a statement released through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently considered the most prominent British female performer of her generation, which included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a collection of Academy Award nominations and a multitude of acting awards. She remained in high demand even in her later years, despite her remark that “when you enter the grandmother stage, you’re fortunate to get any roles at all.” Smith humorously summarized her later roles as “a collection of eccentrics,” including Professor McGonagall. When asked about her reason for taking the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my retirement plan.” Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of “Suddenly Last Summer,” described her as “the most intellectually brilliant actress I’ve ever collaborated with. You have to be very, very alert to outsmart Maggie Smith.” “Jean Brodie,” where she portrayed a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, earned her the Academy Award for best actress and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986, and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988. She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in “Othello,” “Travels with My Aunt,” “Room with a View” and “Gosford Park,” and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in “Tea with Mussolini.” On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.” Her work in 2012 garnered three Golden Globe nominations for the globally successful “Downton Abbey” TV series and the films “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and “Quartet.” Smith had a reputation for being demanding, and sometimes overshadowing others. Richard Burton remarked that Smith didn’t just take over a scene in “The VIPs” with him: “She commits grand larceny.” However, the director Peter Hall discovered that Smith wasn’t “remotely difficult unless she’s among fools. She’s very hard on herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be hard on other people, too.” Smith acknowledged that she could be impatient at times. “It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am prickly,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing prickly elderly ladies.” Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of “Lettice and Lovage,” praised Smith as “the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as ‘Have you no marmalade?’ until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde.” Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line — “This haddock is disgusting” — in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever.” “But unfortunately the critics mentioned it, and after that it never got a laugh,” she recalled. “The moment you say something is funny it’s gossamer. It’s gone, really.” Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on Dec. 28, 1934. She concisely summarized her life: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting.” Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship. “I did so many things, you know, round the universities there. … If you were kind of clever enough and I suppose quick enough, you could almost do weekly rep because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times,” she said in a BBC interview. She adopted Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was already active in the theater. Laurence Olivier recognized her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of “Othello.” Smith mentioned two directors, Ingmar Bergman and William Gaskill, both in National Theatre productions, as significant influences. Alan Bennett, preparing to film the monologue “A Bed Among the Lentils,” said he was apprehensive about Smith’s reputation for becoming bored. As the actor Jeremy Brett put it, “she starts divinely and then goes off, rather like a cheese.” “So the fact that we only just had enough time to do it was an absolute blessing really because she was so fresh and just so into it,” said Bennett, who also wrote a starring role for Smith in “The Lady in the Van.” However flamboyant she may have been on stage or in front of the cameras, Smith was known to be intensely private. Simon Callow, who acted with her in “A Room with a View,” said he ruined their first meeting by gushing compliments. “I blurted out various kinds of rubbish about her and she kind of withdrew. She doesn’t like that sort of thing very much at all,” Callow said in a film portrait of the actress. “She never wanted to talk about acting. Acting was something she was terrified to talk about because if she did, it would disappear.” Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, in 1990. She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998. ___ Associated Press writer Robert Barr contributed biographical material to this obituary before his death in 2018.

Republican Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the vice-presidential candidates, will face off in the only vice-presidential debate of the 2024 U.S. election. The event, moderated by Norah O'Donnell, CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor, and Margaret Brennan, chief foreign affairs correspondent at CBS News and moderator of Face The Nation, will be held at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. The exact structure and rules of the debate have not yet been made public by the network. This election marks the first time since 1988 that the Nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates is not involved in arranging presidential and vice-presidential debates. The Republican National Committee withdrew from the commission in 2022 due to concerns about perceived bias against Republican candidates, such as former President Donald Trump. In the 2024 election, news organizations have been engaging in direct negotiations with presidential campaigns to set debate schedules and rules. When is the VP debate?  The debate will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 9 p.m. EST and is expected to last 90 minutes. Where is the VP debate?  The debate will be held at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City. The event coincides with a significant political scandal in the city following the indictment of Democratic Mayor Eric Adams. How can I watch the VP debate? Viewers in the U.S. can watch the debate in full on the CBS News television network in their local area. It can also be streamed online via and . The debate will be simulcast on other platforms, including PBS News, C-Span, and Fox News.

When Kate Winslet set out to make a film about photographer Lee Miller, she knew it couldn't capture everything. “She lived such a vast life, it would have been impossible to make a film about all of it,” Winslet told TIME. So Winslet, who produced and stars in the film, focused on one period in Miller's life for Lee, which premiered at last year’s Telluride Film Festival and is out in theaters Sept. 27. The movie, directed by Ellen Kuras, primarily takes place during World War II, when Miller was on the front lines, capturing iconic photographs of the Blitz, the liberation of Paris, and the Nazi concentration camps and the Bergen-Belsen camp. Winslet portrays Miller as a fearless pioneer in her field, deeply attuned to the suffering of those she photographed. The screenplay by Liz Hannah, John Collee, and Marion Hume utilizes a flashback structure where Miller, born in 1907 and died in 1977, is interviewed by a journalist, later revealed to be her son, Antony Penrose, played by Josh O’Connor. This is fitting, as the film is based on a section of Penrose’s 1985 book The Lives of Lee Miller. Penrose begins his biography by writing: “Lee Miller, fashion model. Lee Miller, photographer. Lee Miller, war correspondent. Lee Miller, writer. Lee Miller, aficionado of classical music. Lee Miller, haute cuisine cook. Lee Miller, traveler. In all her different worlds she moved with freedom. In all her roles she was her own bold self.” By the time we meet the eponymous subject of Lee, she has already lived some of those lives, and has embraced a life behind the camera. Hilary Roberts, who wrote a book and exhibition about Miller, explains: “She may have belonged to the first generation of women entitled to vote but was well aware she lived in a man’s world. Photography offered Miller an outlet for her personal frustration and a means of taking control.” Before becoming a photographer, she had been a model for Vogue and a student of Man Ray, as well as his muse. She had a friendship with Picasso. However, the movie deliberately minimizes her relationships with some of the most famous men in her life. One of the opening scenes recreates Miller’s photograph Sunbathing of her friends on holiday, the women topless and free. However, Man Ray, who is present in that photograph, does not appear as a character in the movie. “[Kate] wanted to be true to the sensibility of women, that they had a certain kind of freedom, there was a certain laissez faire in their lives,” Kuras says of those early moments. “I also think in juxtaposition to later on you see how remarkably different it was and how everyone came to realize the difference between what was before and what was happening during the war.” For instance, we see Miller encounter one of her friends who was present at that party on screen—though not in the photo referenced above—Solange d’Ayen, played by Marion Cotillard, in Paris following the liberation. Solange, formerly glamorous, is now destitute and in despair. The movie doesn’t cover much of Miller’s life following the war, which included her marriage to Roland when she was pregnant with Antony. She also grappled with depression, but in her later years found a love of cooking. Penrose wrote that it “appealed directly to Lee’s curiosity about exotic things.” In the eight years it took to get Lee off the ground, Winslet worked closely with Penrose, the real-life son of Miller and artist Roland Penrose, who followed in his mother’s footsteps to become a photographer. Additionally, she consulted with Miller’s surviving friends, including Bettina McNulty, who worked for Vogue. “When I spoke to her it was very hard to decipher the things that she was saying,” Winslet says. “But she shared things with me that she just didn’t share and I knew that she was sharing it because she could feel that she didn’t have much time left and there were things that she wanted to say.” Beyond her eventual husband Roland, portrayed by Alexander Skarsgård, Kuras’ film focuses on two other key relationships during this time in Miller’s career: British Vogue editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough) and fellow photojournalist David Scherman (Andy Samberg). Also clear is her hatred for the Vogue photographer Cecil Beaton, played by Samuel Barnett, evident in Antony Penrose’s book and in the film. The catty words between them offer some of the movie’s lighter moments. (“Lee loathed him and found his conceit, his technical incompetence and the flaunting of his antisemitic feelings repugnant,” Penrose wrote.) It’s with Scherman that Miller experienced the most devastating horrors of the war. He wrote, “During the war, Lee and I were mostly inseparable. We were together at the linkup with the Russians, and we were together at Dachau. We moved into Hitler’s headquarters in Munich.” There, they worked together on one of the most harrowing photographs. At Hitler’s house, Miller stripped naked and got in the bathtub setting up a self-portrait of her washing. Scherman snapped the photo, which acts as a veritable middle finger to the dictator. Lee also links Miller’s personal trauma to the abuses she witnessed during the war. When Miller was 7, she was sent to stay with family friends in Brooklyn while her mother was ill. During that time she was sexually assaulted and contracted a venereal disease. In the film, before the extent of her own abuse is revealed, Miller is seen defending a young French girl from harassment and expressing sympathy to a woman whose head was shaved after being accused of collaboration with the Germans. Winslet and Kuras therefore make the case that Winslet’s devastating past made her a uniquely empathetic journalist and artist. “Lee’s extraordinary acceptance of self has inspired me,” Winslet says. “It inspired me every day I was playing her and has inspired me every single day since.”

Shigeru Ishiba is set to become Japan's next Prime Minister after winning the presidency of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a ballot of party lawmakers and members on Friday afternoon. Ishiba, 67, a plain-spoken populist and former defense minister, won the LDP leadership on his fifth attempt—what he called his “final battle”—emerging victorious from a nine-strong field on promises to revitalize rural areas and win back public trust after a led to the stepping down of outgoing Prime Minister . Ishiba will assume the nation’s top job on Oct. 1 following a rubber-stamp parliamentary vote. “Prime Minister Kishida has made a decision to let the LDP be reborn and win back the public’s trust,” Ishiba said in his victory speech. “We must all pull together to respond to this.” Ishiba's leadership of the East Asian nation of 125 million has implications for global security given Japan’s increasingly prominent role alongside the U.S. checking China’s assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific. Under the outgoing Kishida, who announced he wouldn’t last month amid plummeting popularity, Japan has beefed up defense spending and healed historical wounds with South Korea, another key regional U.S. ally. A Tokyo native, Ishiba has both establishment and rebel credentials. He briefly worked in banking before embarking on his own political career following the death of his father, who was himself a lawmaker and cabinet member. He’s seen as distant from the right-wing faction of the party centered around the late , Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister who was murdered in 2022, having reportedly turned down several cabinet posts under him. That distance likely proved key in Ishiba’s victory. LDP elders recognized the need for change following public opprobrium regarding the Abe faction’s ties to the controversial as well as the misuse of political funds. “Distrust grew in the Kishida administration because he didn’t really deal with the financial scandals of the LDP factions,” says Mieko Nakabayashi, a professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University and a former Japanese lawmaker. Ishiba’s popularity was bolstered by his outspokenness on the need to properly investigate any malfeasance and for reforms to regain public confidence. Having previously served as agriculture minister and rural revitalization minister, Ishiba’s economic agenda focuses on revitalizing Japan’s outlying regions. “He has the most credibility as somebody who understands the pain of the people,” says Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Tokyo’s Temple University. “But he’s a blunt-spoken guy who doesn’t suffer fools easily, and many of his colleagues fit that bill. So he can seem arrogant and condescending to his fellow lawmakers.” As a result, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Ishiba’s support lay more with LDP’s broad membership than fellow lawmakers, many of whom still regard him as a traitor for switching parties for several years in the 1990s. He was also the most populist of the main challengers and known for flip-flopping on various issues depending on public mood, including nuclear energy and whether a woman could serve as Emperor. “There are many cases when he has changed his stance, so he is sometimes regarded as a weak leader who does not have really strong principles,” says Hosoya Yuichi, a professor of international politics at Keio University in Tokyo. “But at the same time, he is regarded as an experienced, reliable politician.” Ishiba is one of only two of the leadership candidates who doesn’t speak English—remarkably, four of the nine were Harvard-educated—and is seen as a more conservative choice than his two closest challengers, who would have been either Japan’s youngest or . (The latter, Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, was ahead on the first-round vote but was defeated by Ishiba in a runoff.) Yet Ishiba also has a distinct maverick streak. He is one of the few LDP politicians to acknowledge Japanese mistakes in its 1910-45 colonization of Korea, which promises warmer ties with Seoul, though he has also openly called for the establishment of an Asian version of NATO, which may put him on collision course with Beijing. Regarding U.S. ties, Ishiba has alarmed some by calling for a rebalancing of defense arrangements, with Japan taking more control and responsibility for its own security. He has a reputation as a security hardliner who is fond of building and painting models of aircraft and ships, which reportedly line his office walls, and he has previously voiced support for Japan developing its own nuclear deterrent. However, it’s unlikely he would deviate far from the U.S.-led orthodoxy. U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel congratulated Ishiba in a and said he looks forward to working with him to “cultivate even closer” U.S.-Japan ties. “We will put our hearts into protecting Japan, local areas, rules, and the people of Japan,” Ishiba said Friday.

The “on-ramp” repayment plan, which provided a grace period for student loan borrowers after pandemic-related payment pauses ended last fall, will come to an end on Monday, Sept. 30. After this date, borrowers will once again face consequences for missed or late payments. This development comes as the Biden Administration’s broader student debt relief efforts are facing legal challenges. This 12-month safety net shielded student loan borrowers from negative credit reporting, delinquency or default status, and referral to debt collection agencies for missed or late payments. It's important to note that interest still accrued on their loans during this period. Approximately 43 million Americans hold a collective $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. “For millions of borrowers, this will be the first time they experience the negative economic repercussions of falling behind on student loans,” explains Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director of the nonprofit Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC). “I believe this is a crucial piece of context when discussing the seriousness of this safety net protection expiring.” Canchola Bañez works for one of over a hundred advocacy, labor, and civil rights groups that sent a letter on Sept. 19 to Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, urging an extension of both the on-ramp period and the Fresh Start program, which helped borrowers who had defaulted on their federal student loans. Both initiatives are scheduled to end on Sept. 30. However, advocacy efforts proved unsuccessful. “There are no plans to extend the on-ramp period. Borrowers should visit to learn more about available repayment options,” a Department of Education spokesperson told TIME in a statement. Advocates argue that the end of the on-ramp plan program coincides with increased instability for borrowers impacted by lawsuits restricting aspects of Biden’s student loan forgiveness initiatives. “We have borrowers who are genuinely struggling to afford their payments and are unable to access some of the most affordable repayment options,” says Canchola Bañez. “This is likely the worst time to consider ending a safety net like this, as our most vulnerable borrowers lack easy access to affordable repayment options right now.” Beyond the June 2023 halting of the Administration’s broader program, which would have forgiven $400 billion in loans, recent legal challenges have also targeted elements of the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) student loan repayment plan, which the Department of Education labeled the “most affordable repayment plan ever.” This plan is currently blocked, and borrowers have been placed in interest-free forbearance. The states involved in these lawsuits argue that President Joe Biden requires Congressional approval to provide loan relief under SAVE. Eight million borrowers currently enrolled in this program were scheduled to receive loan forgiveness after making 20-25 years of payments. What should borrowers know? Moving forward, borrowers should be aware of the potential financial harm, including a decrease in their credit scores, if they fail to make payments towards their student loans. Starting in October, consumers with a payment that is 90 days past due could see their credit reports impacted in January, Liz Pagel, senior vice president of Consumer Lending at TransUnion, stated to TIME. “Unlike other credit products, student loan payments are not marked delinquent until they reach 90 days past due. These delinquencies will affect credit scores.” Borrowers missing payments for 270 days could face loan default, which could lead to the garnishment of their personal social security, tax refund, and wages. While the Department of Education cannot currently process any new applications for the SAVE plan due to ongoing lawsuits, Canchola Bañez clarifies that borrowers can still apply for income-driven payment plans, including SAVE. Paper applications for SAVE are currently being accepted. (Online applications are indefinitely closed.) Borrowers should also be vigilant about the actions of their loan servicer. Most recently, faced accusations from the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) of misleading student loan borrowers and failing to properly process payments.  “If your servicer provides inaccurate information or gives you the runaround, submit a complaint to the CFPB, the student loan ombudsman, or the FSA ombudsman at the Department of Education, as these are the mechanisms we, as advocates and policymakers, use to monitor harmful trends,” she advises.