Quick reads

** An Idaho company that sold tens of thousands of emissions defeating devices on diesel trucks has been fined $1 million by the EPA. GDP Tuning and Gorilla Performance pleaded guilty and agreed to pay the fine.

** According to a survey of 5,000 Tesla Model 3 owners, the top reason that they are selling their cars and switching to a different brand is due to their issues with Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk, Electrek reported.

** Bare electrical wires and leaning poles are suspected of causing the deadly fires on Maui. Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

** U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visits China for four days, aiming to boost business ties between the world’s largest two economies even as the Biden administration has taken a series of steps to prevent exports of sensitive American technology.

** The Biden administration’s climate czar John Kerry sparked social media outrage this weekend with a video of him scolding humanity for threatening itself by not curbing its effect on the climate.

** Louisiana’s state Department of Environmental Quality and a third-party contractor said there have been “non-detectable air quality impacts” from a massive fire at a Marathon Petroleum refinery about 30 miles northwest of New Orleans.

World

** Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault leaves for Beijing to join talks on fighting climate change and preserving biodiversity, the first Canadian minister to go to China in four years.

** Germany’s top security official says she hopes prosecutors will find sufficient evidence to indict whomever carried out an attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year.

** Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said there is a risk of a “new model of colonialism” if nations with critical minerals do not regard custodianship as a “global responsibility”, as firms race to secure resources central to energy transition goals.

** A massive strike and protests by cargo truck drivers on roads across Mexico are planned for Tuesday and Wednesday, according to members of the Mexican Alliance of Carrier Organizations (AMOTAC).

** After Ecuadorians overwhelmingly voted to ban new oil wells in a prized national park, the government challenged the legitimacy of the referendum and said it would continue drilling.

** Cyprus rejected Chevron Corp’s plan to develop the island nation’s offshore Aphrodite natural gas field, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing Energy Minister Giorgos Papanastasiou.