I struggle these days whenever someone asks me for my political affiliation. But if you really force me, I’d describe myself as a “Waymo Democrat.” Waymos are the self-driving electric taxis started by Google. My party’s bumper sticker would read, “A chicken in every pot and a Waymo in every city.” And our TV ads would say: “Trump is for he/him — his grievances, his revenge, his corruption — and for bringing old stuff back ‘again,’ like coal and gasoline cars. Waymo Democrats are for ‘We the People’ and reinventing American industry anew.”

Why am I bringing this up now? It’s because, as my colleague David Brooks likes to say, Donald Trump is often the wrong answer to the right question. Trump today is offering America a spectacularly wrong answer — a tariff war against the whole world and a revival of 1960s assembly lines — to a very valid question: How do we get more Americans making stuff again?

Dems offer the wong answer, too

So, then, what’s the right answer? I admire the fiery protest campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.N.Y. I love their ability to get people out to push back on Trump’s destroy-America-in-100-days campaign. God bless them for that.

But when I listen to AOC and Sanders, I don’t hear them solving for the future. So much of what they are about is lazily bashing billionaires, along with defending Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from the Trump-Elon Musk chain saw. Please, save all of that.

But if Democrats are going to again be the party of the working class, and unify the country more, they need a strategy for expanding the pie of work by expanding new industries — not just protecting the pie of benefits. At a time when Trump Republicans have so given up on the future, Democrats should be for reinventing it. And that requires a strategy to push advanced manufacturing in America into wholly new realms. And that is why I am a Waymo Democrat. It is the right answer to the right question: How can we create more good jobs in advanced manufacturing?

I say this for three reasons. First, robotaxis are going to be a huge industry, not just because I use only Waymos whenever I am in San Francisco, but because I am not alone. In just San Francisco; Phoenix; Austin, Texas; and Los Angeles — the four cities where Waymo offers its fully autonomous ride-hailing service — it’s now racking up a whopping 200,000 paid rides a week. That’s a growth industry.

Second, as I have written based on two recent trips to China, if you want to see the future of manufacturing, you need to go to China, not America anymore. But not in every industry, and robotaxis are among the exceptions. A Chinese company does offer limited robotaxi service in a few cities, but it is an industry of the future in which American technology is still more than competitive and can become even more dominant.

And while I don’t enjoy seeing anyone put out of work, taxi drivers are not in a growth industry. Whereas the number of better-paying jobs supporting a robotaxi network — AI researchers, engineers, data scientists, chip designers, blue-collar mechanics, electrical engineers, marketers, maintenance workers, software designers, data-center construction workers — constitute a growth industry, with good incomes for more people.

Finally, I can’t think of a more obvious moonshot project to spur advanced manufacturing in America generally than making it our goal to have Waymos or robo-Teslas — or any other brand of self-driving taxis that we can make — operating in every city in America. Because if you look under the hood of any Waymo, it is made up of chips, batteries, sensors and other components that also go into every part of the 21st-century industrial ecosystem — including robots, drones and flying cars — all infused with artificial intelligence.

Waymo uses its own proprietary artificial intelligence system for driving. That system runs on task-specific chips — GPUs (graphics processing units) and TPUs (tensor processing units) — designed in America but manufactured in Taiwan. There is no reason more could not be made here if the industry expands.

Waymos contain a collection of high-tech sensors, including lidars (short for light detection and ranging), lasers, radars, some 30 cameras and an array of external audio receivers, all tied together by U.S.-designed software to provide a comprehensive 360-degree vision for the car.

They also have onboard computers and backup systems that control braking, the battery and collision detection/avoidance. The Waymo fleet consists entirely of fully electric Jaguar I-PACE cars assembled in America with a contribution from American Axle & Manufacturing and Magna. It is protected from theft and hacking by an AI-controlled cybersecurity system. (And recent studies suggest they are safer than human drivers.)

Waymo is planning to have its next generation of robotaxis manufactured by Zeekr in China, but, again, there is no reason those cars, or those of a U.S. competitor, could not be made in America by Ford or GM. (Unfortunately, in December, under economic pressure, GM scrapped development of its own robotaxi, Cruise, a hugely shortsighted mistake in my view.)

Let’s imagine that one day soon self-driving taxis were operating in every city in America, and we, not China, became the world’s biggest market for them. There would be a huge incentive to make more and more of their components here. And that is one place I would use tariffs and government investment to give this industry a leg up.

Productively, not maliciously

To accelerate this industry further, Waymo Democrats would do everything Trump is doing maliciously today — but do it productively.

We would insist that big law firms that want to do business with the federal government have to offer a certain number of pro bono hours to any startup building AI or other components for our robotaxi industry.

We would tell Harvard and every other Ivy League university that they can teach whatever they want, however they want. But … any student graduating with a degree in math, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering or AI on commencement day should get handed a refund check for their entire tuition along with their diploma.

We would tell would-be immigrants, especially from China and Russia, that if they have a degree or expertise in fields related to artificial intelligence, they can have an “AI visa” and stay as long as they want.

Instead of destroying the Department of Education and letting it be run by a former World Wrestling Entertainment executive who is so clueless she referred to AI as “A1” (as in the steak sauce), we would repurpose her agency as the Department of Engineering and Innovation — DEI for short. Has a nice ring to it.

Instead of wrecking our great research institutions like the National Institutes of Health and our national labs the way Trump is, we would triple their budgets and encourage more research in robotic cars.

And, finally, we’d say to Elon Musk: “Stop wasting your talents and hurting America with your DOGE craziness and finally get the Tesla robotaxi that you have been promising for a decade out on the road. The greatest gift you could give America today is to junk your stupid chain saw, replace it with car tools and create a nationwide competition with Waymo for robotaxis.”

In sum, the best way for Democrats to demonstrate they are the party of the working people is not just by promising to protect people’s entitlements for another generation but also by nurturing new industries, like robotaxis, that will fund them for another generation.

The spinoffs

Remember, back in the 1960s, the moon was our destination, but the space race project spun off all sorts of new technologies, from CT scans to MRIs and more, including the GPS technology that is used by Waymo cars to navigate today! A giant robotaxi industry in America and its ecosystem would surely spin off all kinds of other technologies that can sense, digitize, connect, process, learn, share and act autonomously — all optimized by AI — that would be used in hospitals, homes, data centers and myriad factories.

Any time you try to invent the future you end up inventing a whole bunch of things along the way that spawn multiple industries and solve multiple problems, not just the one that you are trying to solve. Any time all that you are focused on is reinventing the past — the way Trump is with coal and combustion cars — you end up stuck in the past.

Thomas Friedman writes a column for the New York Times.

 

The Twins have used six games against the Chicago White Sox this season to get better, if not well. With the chance for a series sweep on Thursday at Target Field, Minnesota couldn’t get much of anything going offensively in a wet 3-0 loss.

The game was played in an incessant rain that required the grounds crew to give the infield some extreme makeovers between innings before umpire crew chief Laz Diaz called for the tarp after seven innings. After about 40 minutes, it was called.

The Twins have been shut out three times this young season, twice by the White Sox, who improved to 6-19 on Thursday. They beat Minnesota 9-0 in Chicago on March 31.

Lenyn Sosa and Michael Vargas his solo home runs for the White Sox, and Joshua Palacios drew a bases-loaded walk to drive in Chicago’s other run.

White Sox rookie Shane Smith (1-1), making his fifth major league start, held the Twins scoreless for five innings, allowing four hits and a walk while fanning seven.

Chris Paddack (0-3) took the loss, allowing two runs on a solo home run by Sosa in the second inning and walking in another with two out in the fourth. He pitched five innings, allowing five hits and four walks. He struck out five.

Vargas started the sixth with a home run, his first of the season, against reliever Jorge Alcala.

The Twins put runners on first and second with no outs in the sixth inning against reliever Jordan Leasure. The right-hander walked Byron Buxton to start the inning, then gave up a sharp single to Brooks Lee, bringing Trevor Larnach to the plate.

Larnach quickly worked the count to 3-0 but wound up striking out. Next batter Carlos Correa also worked a quick 3-0 count against Leasure, but was called out looking on an outside fastball out of the zone for the second out. Ty France hit a broken-bat liner to second baseman Sosa to end the inning.

Chicago White Sox’s Miguel Vargas (20) rounds the bases after hitting a home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

By JONEL ALECCIA, Associated Press

The Agriculture Department will not require poultry companies to limit salmonella bacteria in their products, halting a Biden Administration effort to prevent food poisoning from contaminated meat.

The department on Thursday said it was withdrawing a rule proposed in August after three years of development. Officials with the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service cited feedback from more than 7,000 public comments and said they would “evaluate whether it should update” current salmonella regulations.

The rule would have required poultry companies to keep levels of salmonella bacteria under a certain threshold and test for the presence of six strains most associated with illness, including three found in turkey and three in chicken. If the levels exceeded the standard or any of those strains were found, the poultry couldn’t be sold and would be subject to recall, the proposal had said.

The plan aimed to reduce an estimated 125,000 salmonella infections from chicken and 43,000 from turkey each year, according to USDA. Overall, salmonella causes 1.35 million infections a year, most through food, and about 420 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The withdrawal drew praise from the National Chicken Council, an industry trade group, which said the proposed rule was legally unsound, misinterpreted science, would have increased costs and create more food waste, all “with no meaningful impact on public health.”

“We remain committed to further reducing salmonella and fully support food safety regulations and policies that are based on sound science,” said Ashley Peterson, the group’s senior vice president of science and regulatory affairs.

But the move drew swift criticism from food safety advocates, including Sandra Eskin, a former USDA official who helped draft the plan.

The withdrawal “sends the clear message that the Make America Healthy Again initiative does not care about the thousands of people who get sick from preventable foodborne salmonella infections linked to poultry,” Eskin said in a statement.

The proposed rule had been regarded as a food safety victory similar to a 1994 decision to ban certain strains of dangerous E. coli bacteria from ground beef after deadly outbreaks, said Sarah Sorscher, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“Make no mistake: Shipping more salmonella to restaurants and grocery stores is certain to make Americans sicker,” Sorscher said.

Earlier this month, the USDA said it would delay by six months the enforcement of a final rule regulating salmonella levels in certain breaded and stuffed raw chicken products. Enforcement, which was set for May 1, now begins Nov. 3.

That covers foods such as frozen chicken cordon bleu and chicken Kiev dishes that appear to be fully cooked but are only heat-treated to set the batter or coating. Such products have been linked to at least 14 salmonella outbreaks and at least 200 illnesses since 1998, according to the CDC.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT, Associated Press

For years, proponents of green energy have argued that a slow, inefficient permitting process in the United States hinders a transition to clean sources of electricity.

“Permitting reform,” as it’s called, is needed to unleash green energies like solar and wind, which don’t emit greenhouse gases that cause climate change, supporters have argued.

The Trump administration agrees on the need to speed up energy projects, but not for wind or for solar, which is the fastest-growing source of electricity generation in the U.S.

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The Interior Department said late Wednesday it’s adopting an alternative process for energy projects to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, shortening the reviews to about 28 days and 14 days respectively. It typically takes about two years for the federal government to approve a full environmental impact statement or up to one year to complete an environmental assessment. The 1970 environmental law, known as NEPA, is designed to ensure community safeguards during reviews for a wide range of federal proposals, including roads, bridges and energy projects.

The procedures apply to energy sources including oil, natural gas, petroleum, uranium, coal, biofuels and critical minerals. They’ll also apply to geothermal and hydropower, both which generate electricity without emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases.

President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency on his first day in office to speed up fossil fuel development.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said the department is cutting through unnecessary delays to fast-track resources that are essential to the nation’s economy, military readiness and global competitiveness.

The cumbersome process helped enable China to dominant in processing and refining critical minerals, said Rich Nolan, president and chief executive officer of the National Mining Association. Streamlining it will make the U.S. more competitive, he added.

Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen said the administration is using “a fake energy emergency” to strip away essential legal safeguards.

“It’s a blatantly illegal move, and we will see them in court,” she said in a statement.

The Sierra Club said it’s concerned the new approach effectively reduces environmental review and public input to a formality.

“These arbitrary time limits make a complete review of the risks of potentially hazardous projects impossible,” Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, said in a statement Thursday. “A shoddy review means the true hazards of a project may only be known when the air or water thousands of people rely on is dangerously polluted.”

Randi Spivak, at the Center for Biological Diversity, said Interior’s plan “proves that Trump’s fabricated energy emergency is a hoax designed to ram through new fracking and coal mining.” Spivak, the center’s public lands policy director, said it’s a “lose-lose deal” for everyone other than the fossil fuel executives who support Trump.

During the Biden administration, the Interior Department tried to move fast on energy projects but did so within the fairly comfortable confines of existing permitting processes, said Travis Annatoyn, who was then the department’s deputy solicitor for energy and mineral resources.

Burgum, on the other hand, is attempting to change the entire permitting process at a deep, structural level overnight, added Annatoyn, now counsel at the law firm Arnold & Porter.

By excluding solar and wind, the administration risks undercutting the asserted rationale for the energy emergency.

“In a real emergency, you would want to be pouring electrons onto the grid from any source you could find,” he said.

Last week, the Interior Department issued an order to stop construction on a major offshore wind project to power more than 500,000 New York homes. Burgum said he was doing so because it appeared the Biden administration rushed the approval. The Norwegian company Equinor went through a seven-year permitting process before starting to build Empire Wind last year.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.