Category: 3. Business

When congressional Republicans decided to cut some Biden-era energy subsidies to help fund their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they could have pruned wasteful subsidies while sparing the rest. Instead, they did the reverse. Americans will pay the price with higher costs for dirtier energy.

The nearly 900-page bill that President Donald Trump signed on July 4, 2025, slashes incentives for wind and solar energy, batteries, electric cars and home efficiency while expanding subsidies for fossil fuels and biofuels. That will leave Americans burning more fossil fuels despite strong public and scientific support for shifting to renewable energy.

As an environmental engineering professor who studies ways to confront climate change, I think it is important to distinguish which energy technologies could rapidly cut emissions or need a financial boost to become viable from those that are already profitable but harm the environment. Unfortunately, the Republican bill favors the latter while stifling the former.

Cuts to renewable electricity

Wind and solar power, often paired with batteries, provide over 90% of the new electricity added nationally and around the world in recent years. Natural gas turbines are in short supply, and there are long lead times to build nuclear power plants. Wind and solar energy projects – with batteries to store excess power until it’s needed – offer the fastest way to satisfy growing demand for power. Recent technological breakthroughs put geothermal power on the verge of rapid growth.

However, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act rescinds billions of dollars that the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in 2022, devoted to boosting domestic manufacturing and deployments of renewable energy and batteries.

It accelerates the phaseout of tax credits for factories that manufacture equipment needed for renewable energy and electric vehicles. That would disrupt the boom in domestic manufacturing projects that had been stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Efforts to build new wind and solar farms will be hit even harder. To receive any tax credits, those projects will need to commence construction by mid-2026 or come online by the end of 2027. The act preserves a slower timeline for phasing out subsidies for nuclear, geothermal and hydrogen projects, which take far longer to build than wind and solar farms.

However, even projects that could be built soon enough will struggle to comply with the bill’s restrictions on using Chinese-made components. Tax law experts have called those provisions “unworkable,” since some Chinese materials may be necessary even for projects built with as much domestic content as possible. For example, even American-made solar panels may rely on components sourced from China or Chinese-owned companies.

Princeton University professor Jesse Jenkins estimates that the bill will mean wind and solar power generate 820 fewer terawatt-hours in 2035 than under previous policies. That’s more power than all U.S. coal-fired power plants generated in 2023.

That’s why BloombergNEF, an energy research firm, called the bill a “nightmare scenario” for clean energy proponents.

However, one person’s nightmare may be another man’s dream. “We’re constraining the hell out of wind and solar, which is good,” said U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who is backed by the oil and gas industry.

Electric cars and efficiency

Cuts fall even harder on Americans who are trying to reduce their carbon footprints and energy costs. The quickest phaseout comes for tax credits for electric vehicles, which will end on Sept. 30, 2025. And since the bill eliminates fines on car companies that fail to meet fuel economy standards, other new cars are likely to guzzle more gas.

Tax credits for home efficiency improvements such as heat pumps, efficient windows and energy audits will end at the end of 2025. Homeowners will also lose tax credits for installing solar panels at the end of the year, seven years earlier than under the previous law.

The bill also rescinds funding that would have helped cut diesel emissions and finance clean energy projects in underserved communities.

Support for biofuels and fossil fuels

Biofuels and fossil fuels fared far better under the bill. Tens of billions of dollars will be spent to extend tax credits for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.

Food-based biofuels do little good for the climate because growing, harvesting and processing crops requires fertilizers, pesticides and fuel. The bill would allow forests to be cut to make room for crops because it directs agencies to ignore the effects of biofuels on land use.

Meanwhile, the bill opens more federal lands and waters to leasing for oil and gas drilling and coal mining. It also slashes the royalties that companies pay to the federal government for fuels extracted from publicly owned land. And a new tax credit will subsidize metallurgical coal, which is mainly exported to steelmakers overseas.

The bill also increases subsidies for using captured carbon dioxide to extract more oil and gas from the ground. That makes it less likely that captured emissions will only be sequestered to combat climate change.

Summing it up

With fewer efficiency improvements, fewer electric vehicles and less clean power on the grid, Princeton’s Jenkins projects that the law will increase household energy costs by over $280 per year by 2035 above what they would have been without the bill. The extra fossil fuel-burning will negate 470 million tons of anticipated emissions reductions that year, a 7% bump.

The bill will also leave America’s clean energy transition further behind China, which is deploying more solar and wind power and electric vehicles than the rest of the world combined.

No one expected President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to escape unscathed with Republicans in the White House and dominating both houses of Congress, even though many of its projects were in Republican-voting districts. Still, pairing cuts to clean energy with support for fossil fuels makes Trump’s bill uniquely harmful to the world’s climate and to Americans’ wallets.

This article includes some material previously published on June 10, 2025.

In September 2012, a young couple capped a romantic date in Newfoundland, on Canada’s eastern tip, by putting a message in a bottle and dropping it into the Atlantic.

“Anita and Brad’s day trip to Bell Island. Today, we enjoyed dinner, this bottle of wine and each other, at the edge of the island,” it said. It asked whomever might find the message to “please call us”, followed by a scribbled number.

Thirteen years later and 2,000 miles away, another couple, Kate and John Gay, found the bottle at Scraggane Bay in County Kerry, on Ireland’s western tip. They read the note, toasted Anita and Brad and wondered: were they still together?

They rang the number but there was no answer. So on Monday night they posted a message on the Facebook page of Maharees Heritage and Conservation, an environmental group that had organised the bay cleanup that led to the bottle’s discovery, and waited.

The post went viral and within hours friends in Canada had alerted Anita and Brad Squires – now married with three children and still living in Newfoundland – to the bottle’s discovery.

“The last 24 hours have just been awesome – knowing the story is appreciated by so many people,” Brad told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland show on Wednesday. “We were just young people in love. We’re now older people in love. We’re glad that the story got out. We’re meeting new friends because of it and hopefully we’ll get back to Ireland soon.”

The couple, who had been dating for a year before the Bell Island excursion, got married in 2016.

Martha Farrell, of the Maharees Conservation Association, said the story had prompted other couples in Canada to get in touch to share their own stories of sending messages in bottles across the Atlantic.

Positive safety and efficacy findings with the PRAME-directed T-cell receptor (TCR) T-cell therapy IMA203 in patients with PD-1 inhibitor–refractory metastatic melanoma from the phase 1 ACTengine trial (NCT03686124) have propelled the launch of the phase 3 SUPRAME trial (NCT06743126), which is comparing IMA203 with investigator’s choice of treatment in patients with previously treated unresectable or metastatic cutaneous melanoma.¹

“IMA203 is a novel treatment for melanoma…. It’s the first engineered cell therapy that we have for the potential [management] of melanoma,” Justin Moser, MD, said in an interview with OncLive. “Many [standard melanoma therapies] have 10%, 20%, maybe up to 25% response rates in the refractory setting. [IMA203] looks like it has much higher potential for patients with refractory melanoma.”

Moser is an associate clinical investigator, a melanoma and cutaneous oncology specialist, and a phase 1 trialist at HonorHealth Research Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is also a research associate professor at Arizona State University School of Medicine and Advanced Medical Engineering and a clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona, both in Phoenix.

IMA203 is engineered to recognize an intracellular PRAME-derived peptide presented by human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A*02:01 on the cell surface and subsequently initiate an antitumor response.²

“[IMA203] is being studied in [patients with] melanoma because the expression pattern of PRAME in melanoma…is somewhere between 90% and 100%,” Jason J. Luke, MD, FACP, said in an interview with OncLive. “[It’s] important to understand that this is a new kind of cell therapy that’s easier…and faster to make, [which] seems to work better and is less toxic for patients.”

Luke is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Malignant Hematology and Medical Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. He is also the associate director for clinical research and director of the Immunotherapy and Drug Development Center (Phase I) at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Hillman Cancer Center.

ACTengine Data Act as a Catalyst for Further IMA203 Research in Melanoma

Safety data from ACTengine, which were related to the trial’s primary end point and presented during the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, showed that the most common treatment-emergent adverse effects (TEAEs) were cytopenias associated with lymphodepleting chemotherapy; mild-to-moderate cytokine release syndrome (94.6%); and infrequent, mild, and manageable immune effector cell–associated neurotoxicity syndrome (13.5%). Investigators observed no grade 5 IMA203-related AEs.¹ The recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D) was identified as 1 x 10⁹ to 10 x 10⁹ TCR T cells.

The confirmed objective response rate (ORR) with IMA203 was 56% (n = 18/32) among response-evaluable patients with melanoma. Additionally, the unconfirmed ORR was 64% (n = 21/33), and the disease control rate (DCR) was 91% (n = 30/33). At a median follow-up of 13.4 months (n = 33), the median duration of response (DOR) was 12.1 months (range, 1.8+ to 32.6+). Furthermore, at a median follow-up of 14.4 months, the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 6.1 months (range, 1.4 to 34.0+), and the median overall survival (OS) was 15.9 months (range, 2.4 to 34.2+).

In the population of patients with cutaneous melanoma (n = 14), the confirmed ORR was 50%, the unconfirmed ORR was 57%, and the DCR was 93%. At a median follow-up of 16.7 months, the median DOR was not reached (range, 4.2 to 32.6+). Moreover, at a median follow-up of 14.4 months, the median PFS was 6.0 months (range, 1.4 to 34.0+), and the median OS was 13.9 months (range, 2.4 to 34.0+).

SUPRAME Plans to Provide an In-Depth Look at IMA203 vs Standard Therapies in Cutaneous Disease

SUPRAME is an ongoing, prospective, multicenter, open-label, parallel-group trial that is enrolling patients with pathologically confirmed and documented unresectable or metastatic cutaneous melanoma, including acral melanoma.^3,4 Patients need to have HLA-A*02:01–positive disease, adequate per-protocol selected organ function, an ECOG performance status of 0 or 1, a life expectancy of more than 6 months, measurable disease per RECIST 1.1 criteria, and disease progression on or after 1 or more PD-1 inhibitors either as monotherapy or in combination with other therapies for the management of unresectable or metastatic cutaneous melanoma. Notably, patients with BRAF-mutated disease should have received 1 prior line of BRAF-directed therapy (with or without a MEK inhibitor) before their initial eligibility assessment for SUPRAME. Exclusion criteria include primary mucosal or uveal melanoma and melanoma of unknown primary, as well as a history of other malignancies (except for adequately treated basal or squamous cell carcinoma or carcinoma in situ) within the past 3 years.

“This is a TCR-based therapy, and for that reason…we need to know if the patient is [positive for] HLA-A*02:01,” said Luke. “This is a new biomarker that will be necessary in our field.”

“The main limitation for recruiting for this study is the restriction for…HLA-A*02:01, which is found in approximately 30% to 50% of Caucasians, and much less so in patients of other ethnicities,” Moser noted.

Patients eligible for enrollment in SUPRAME who are also eligible for leukapheresis may undergo leukapheresis for the potential manufacturing of IMA203. Patients will be randomly assigned to receive either IMA203 or investigator’s choice of active comparator approved by their respective competent authority.

Patients in the experimental arm will undergo nonmyeloablative chemotherapy for lymphodepletion over 4 days using fludarabine and cyclophosphamide, followed by a onetime administration of IMA203 at the RP2D and adjunctive therapy with low-dose IL-2 for a maximum of 10 days beginning approximately 24 hours after IMA203 infusion. Patients in the control arm may receive nivolumab (Opdivo) as monotherapy or in combination with relatlimab (Opdualag), lifileucel (Amtagvi), pembrolizumab (Keytruda), ipilimumab (Yervoy), dacarbazine, temozolomide (Temodar), paclitaxel as monotherapy or in combination with carboplatin, or albumin-bound paclitaxel. Patients in both arms may receive optional bridging therapy.

“Currently, the only…available option [for patients with refractory melanoma] outside of checkpoint inhibitors is lifileucel, [a] TIL [tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte] therapy, which has roughly a 30% response rate but has logistical [hurdles] in the fact that [patients] have to have disease that can be collected, [and they] have to be a candidate to undergo high-dose chemotherapy and high-dose IL-2,” Moser explained. “IMA203 is unique in the fact that [patients] would not need surgery for collection, and [they] are treated with lower doses of chemotherapy and lower doses of IL-2, meaning patients who may not be candidates for lifileucel may be candidates for IMA203 in the future, if they have the right HLA type and [IMA203] receives FDA approval.”

The primary end point of SUPRAME is PFS, centrally assessed by blinded independent central review per RECIST 1.1 criteria. Secondary end points comprise OS; ORR; PFS locally assessed using RECIST 1.1 criteria; TEAEs; AEs of special interest; serious TEAEs; the frequency and duration of dose interruptions, reductions, and discontinuations; and quality-of-life measures.

SUPRAME was initiated in January 2025 and is enrolling patients at 24 centers in the US and Germany. The estimated primary completion date for the trial is January 2028, and the study is anticipated to run through October 2031.

“[An important contribution from SUPRAME] will be identifying patients at the right period in their care,” Luke emphasized. “What we observed in [ACTengine] was that you can get responses to this agent even in heavily refractory patients, but the risk of toxicity goes up the [longer] you wait. There’s a lot going on in the immune system as cancer is progressing, and now we’re harnessing and administering a powerful immune treatment. Some of the worst AEs we’ve seen have been in patients who have been in the furthest lines of therapy. We want to try to move [IMA203] into the earlier lines of therapy as much as possible. [SUPRAME] requires progression on a frontline therapy, but I would heavily advocate that we should be looking quickly for patients who are refractory to immune checkpoint blockade and quickly moving them to this type of approach. [This is important] for [patients with] melanoma. In the patients [in whom] we identify [that checkpoint inhibition] isn’t working, transitioning to a fundamentally different mechanism—cell-based therapy—is going to be a huge priority. This is going to require a major shift in the way oncologists think. Cellular therapy is going to become a standard [treatment we consider] in solid tumors.”

References

1. Wermke M, Alsdorf W, Araujo DM, et al. Phase 1 clinical update of IMA203, an autologous TCR-T targeting PRAME in patients with PD1 refractory metastatic melanoma. J Clin Oncol. 2025;43(suppl 16):2508. doi:10.1200/JCO.2025.43.16_suppl.2508
2. Immatics IMA203 PRAME cell therapy data presented at 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting continues to show strong anti-tumor activity and durability in patients with metastatic melanoma. News release. Immatics. May 31, 2025. Accessed June 26, 2025. bit.ly/3ZOIcNg
3. SUPRAME-ACTengine IMA203 vs investigator’s choice of treatment in previously treated, unresectable or metastatic cutaneous melanoma (SUPRAME). ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated July 2, 2025. Accessed June 25, 2025. https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06743126
4. Luke JJ, Warner AB, Chmielowski B, et al. SUPRAME: a phase 3 trial comparing IMA203, an engineered T-cell receptor expressing T cell therapy (TCR-T) vs investigator’s choice in patients with previously treated advanced cutaneous melanoma. J Clin Oncol. 2025;43(suppl 16):TPS2673. doi:10.1200/JCO.2025.43.16_suppl.TPS2673

Pret A Manger has launched a new range of “premium” salads costing up to £12.95, which the company says have been “priced competitively”.

The four new “Super Plates” – including options like chipotle chicken and miso salmon – are said to be “nearly 60%” larger than the chain’s existing salads and are filled with “premium ingredients” including “hand massaged” kale.

Defending the higher price point, a Pret spokesperson told the BBC the new range was launched to meet growing demand for “larger, nutrient-rich lunch options”.

Pret’s new offering comes after the chain faced backlash last year for making changes to its popular subscription model.

Like many companies that cater to office workers and commuters, Pret took a hit during the Covid pandemic when the majority of Britons were ordered to work from home if they could.

Many employees who have spent the last few years working from home are now being encouraged, or mandated by their employers, to return to the office – a move which has seen the lunchtime market become fiercely competitive again.

The most expensive of Pret’s new range of salads is the miso salmon with a price tag of £12.95. The company said the range had been launched in order to “reflect a shift in customer habits”.

The use of more premium ingredients “reflects the growing trend of workers treating themselves to a more filling lunch the days they are in the office”, a spokesperson for Pret said.

Pret was criticised by customers last year when it changed its subscription offer of up to five coffees a day for a monthly fee of £30 to up to five half-price coffees a day for £5 a month.

It also ended its 20% discount on food, saying it had “never really got comfortable” with the dual pricing system across its food products as it announced it was scrapping the offer.

Among Pret’s biggest competitors is the bakery chain Greggs. The bakery was ranked as the most popular dining brand in the UK in 2025 and the second strongest brand of 2024, according to data platform Statista.

Other competitors include the likes of Atis, Farmer J and Salad Project which already focus their menus on “premium” salads and lunches aimed at inner-city workers.

The new Pret salads are available in over 250 shops in large cities such as London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester.

Press release

NGOs urge European Commission to halt deregulation Omnibus in chemicals sector

09 July 2025

Today, ClientEarth and nine health and environmental organisations have sent an open letter to the European Commission, calling on the institution to abandon the proposed deregulatory Omnibus affecting chemicals legislation. This proposal  – which covers CLP (Classification, Labelling and Packaging) and cosmetics rules – risks rolling back key protections that safeguard public health, consumers and ecosystems.

Chemical regulation is foundational to our standards of living and environmental protection. In the letter, ClientEarth and other signatories outline how the proposal undermines legal certainty, fails to meet EU transparency and consultation requirements, and is likely in breach of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The letter also highlights instances of maladministration in the Commission’s process, including the absence of a proper public consultation and a lack of evidence to justify the rollback of key safety provisions. ClientEarth warns the proposal is legally vulnerable and risks being overturned in court.

ClientEarth legal expert Julian Schenten said: “The EU institutions exist to protect people and planet, not to bend to industry pressure. The Commission must resist pressure from industry to weaken health and safety rules for the sake of preserving business as usual.”

Schenten added “The Commission’s proposal lacks a solid evidence base, sidesteps public consultation, and ignores its own Better Regulation Guidelines. That’s not simplification – that’s maladministration. By advancing a legally unsound proposal, the Commission risks triggering legal challenges that will increase uncertainty for industry and exacerbate problems rather than solve them”

On the planned rollback of CLP measures, Schenten warned previously: “The Commission is planning to scrap rules on packaging and advertising of hazardous mixtures. Cutting paperwork does not make toxic products any safer. The CLP Regulation exists to ensure a high level of protection – not to ease administrative burdens at the expense of public safety.”

Silvia Pastorelli, EU petrochemicals campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) added: “Regulatory safeguards aren’t barriers. They are vital investments in public wellbeing, ecosystems, and a just and necessary transition away from a fossil-based economy. Cutting so-called ‘red tape’ cannot come at the cost of public safety.”

The Commission must commit to full transparency and include civil society and independent experts in the decision-making process. ClientEarth’s letter urges the Commission to drop the omnibus deregulatory package, and refrain from eliminating safeguards in CLP, cosmetics and fertilisers.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

• The letter was signed by ChemSec – the International Chemical Secretariat, Child Rights International Network (CRIN), Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), ECOS (Environmental Coalition on Standards), European Environmental Bureau (EEB)
   Federation SEPANSO Aquitaine, Générations Futures, Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL).
• Since the beginning of this year, the European Commission has been pushing for simplification across many different environment and climate files to boost the competitive edge of Europe. ClientEarth has condemned the downgrading of sustainability standards, as it happened with the Omnibus I package, and has sounded the alarm over the lack of transparency in these processes. In March, we denounced the limited stakeholder engagement in the Strategic Dialogue on the Chemicals Industry Package. With very few representatives of civil society, the high-level dialogue favoured industry’s interests. ClientEarth warned that more deregulation is unacceptable and stressed the need to maintain REACH’s core objectives.
• This simplification is not just a step backwards for the environment, but also for people’s health and safety. Consumer groups have expressed concerns about the new simplification, as its rules could greatly increase consumer exposure to dangerous chemicals and increase health risks.
• This call comes as the European watchdog upheld her finding of maladministration against the Commission over systemic delays in authorisation decisions for hazardous chemicals. Teresa Anjinho criticised the Commission’s failure to act on her recommendations or present a credible plan to remedy the situation. These delays pose a serious threat to public health and the environment, reinforcing the need for stronger chemical regulation in the EU.

About ClientEarth

ClientEarth is a non-profit organisation that uses the law to create systemic change that protects the Earth for – and with – its inhabitants. We are tackling climate change, protecting nature and stopping pollution, with partners and citizens around the globe. We hold industry and governments to account, and defend everyone’s right to a healthy world. From our offices in Europe, Asia and the USA we shape, implement and enforce the law, to build a future for our planet in which people and nature can thrive together.

 

A fraudulent personal injury claim worth more than £74,000 has been foiled after dashcam footage revealed that the claimant – who alleged he was injured while sitting in his luxury Porsche – was in fact standing in the bushes at the side of the road at the time of impact.

The claim was brought by Mr Terell Brooks, a 33-year-old account manager from Romford, Essex following a minor collision on the A13 on 19 August 2022. Mr Brooks had parked his Porsche 911 Carrera GTS on the edge of the road when a commercial lorry, insured by AXA UK, clipped the vehicle. Mr Brooks alleged that he was seated in the £81,000 car at the time of impact and suffered injuries as a result.

His claim included £63,435 for alleged damage to the Porsche, £5,000 for personal injury, £2,400 for medical treatment, and a further £3,374 for loss of earnings.

However, dashcam footage from the lorry revealed a different story. The video clearly showed the Porsche parked and unoccupied, with Mr Brooks visible several metres away in bushes behind a roadside barrier. It is unclear why he had exited the vehicle, but the footage confirmed he was not inside at the time of the incident.

After the footage was disclosed, Mr Brooks’ solicitors withdrew from the case. Clyde & Co, representing AXA UK, filed an Amended Defence stating the claim was “founded on a false premise,” asserting that both Mr Brooks and an alleged passenger knowingly gave false accounts to insurers, legal representatives, and medical professionals.

Mr Brooks subsequently discontinued his claim and agreed to pay AXA’s legal costs of £4,000. He signed a Tomlin Order formally admitting his claim was dishonest, confirming he was not in the vehicle at the time of the collision. No damages were paid. The order further confirmed that costs were enforceable under CPR 44.16, following AXA’s application to strike out the claim on grounds of fundamental dishonesty.

Deborah Talbot, AXA Claims Operations Manager, said:

“This case highlights how technology is helping us to fight claims fraud. The dashcam footage provided clear evidence that Mr Brooks wasn’t in the car at the time of the collision, avoiding a potentially costly and lengthy court hearing.”

Damian Rourke, Partner at Clyde & Co, added:

“Mr Brooks claimed he was sitting in his Porsche, belted up and injured. The dashcam showed him in the bushes. We still don’t know what he was doing there – but we do know he wasn’t in the car. His story fell apart the moment the truth came to light. In every sense, the claim was caught short.”

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Clyde & Co are specialists in dealing with fraudulent claims, and we closely monitor developments around related topics. For more on this subject, you can read all of our previous articles here, and if you have any questions about this topic you can contact Damian Rourke or any of our Fraud team.