Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has been sued by a former Epstein accuser who says she was sexually abused for years by the disgraced financier.

The woman, Elizabeth Stein, who has previously identified herself as a victim of Ghislaine Maxwell during the latter’s 2021 trial, filed the lawsuit under New York’s Adult Survivors Act in the Supreme Court of New York against Maxwell and two executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate.

The Act, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in May 2022, allows alleged survivors of sexual offenses to file lawsuits against their abusers in New York, even if the statute of limitations on their claims has expired, provided that the incident happened when the victims were over the age of 18. It provides a one-year window to do so, which ended on Thursday.

The complaint alleges a “Decades-long organized scheme to procure young females for their own sexual pleasure and that of their friends and acquaintances, many of them high government officials and corporate titans,” between 1994 and 1997, when she was in her early 20s.

“The pair first groomed Plaintiff with flattery, gifts, feigned interest in her future, and false promises of advancing her career and personal life. They shamed her when she refused their favors and overtures and stalked her with the malicious and malevolent purpose of turning her into sexual meat for consumption by themselves and others,” reads the filing.

Stein was subsequently hospitalized “numerous times for nervous breakdowns” and underwent “multiple medical procedures to rid herself of the horrific psychological damage Epstein and Maxwell foisted upon her in her formative years.”

Maxwell, now 61 and serving a 20-year prison sentence, remains a focal point of intrigue. Her high-profile status as the daughter of the late media mogul (and alleged Mossad spy) Robert Maxwell adds layers to this complex narrative.

Stein recounts her initial encounter with Maxwell at the Henri Bendel department store, a meeting that spiraled into a prolonged nightmare of exploitation.

The lawsuit alleges how Maxwell and Epstein, after inviting Stein for a drink, began a calculated process of inquiry into her personal life, then shifted to probing questions about her sex life. Stein felt “confused, betrayed, humiliated, and completely violated” after “reluctantly” being persuaded into a threesome with them, for which Epstein handed her cash as a “tip.”

“Maxwell and Plaintiff had a friendly conversation wherein Maxwell told Plaintiff that her colleague was in very close relations with Les Wexner, the owner of Henri Bendel. As Maxwell paid for several items, she asked Plaintiff to deliver her packages to the St. Regis on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which she did,” the lawsuit states.

Ms. Stein alleges she later arrived at the property to deliver the packages, at which point the concierge “directed her to the bar where Maxwell and a man later identified as Jeffrey Epstein were having drinks.”

The two invited Ms. Stein to sit with them at the hotel bar for a drink and conversation, which she agreed to do, her attorneys wrote.

Shortly after, the concierge returned to tell Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Epstein that their room was ready, at which point they asked Ms. Stein to help bring the packages up to their hotel room, to which she agreed, the lawsuit stated.

Once in the room Ms. Maxwell and Mr. Epstein began asking Ms. Stein about herself, including questions about her career goals, the lawsuit states. However, they then went into the bathroom and changed before returning to the bedroom in “monogrammed bathrobes.” –Epoch Times

The lawsuit further claims that “Plaintiff began to feel uncomfortable but nonetheless continued with the conversation out of concern that leaving would be impolite and perhaps get back to her bosses,” adding “As Plaintiff shared additional details about her life, including but not limited to her then-relationship with a boyfriend who was around her same age. In response, Maxwell and Epstein told Plaintiff they had a lot of male friends they could introduce her to, and that she would be sure to find a more appropriate match.”

After Epstein offered her a cash ‘tip’ for a threesome, Stein says she initially refused, but Epstein “insisted she take the money,” which left her feeling “confused, betrayed, humiliated and completely violated.“

The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending that people in China wear masks, socially distance and stay home if they’re unwell, as cases of an ‘undiagnosed pneumonia’ has been detected in hospitals in Beijing and Liaoning – located roughly 500 miles northeast of the capital.

According to reports, healthcare facilities are “overwhelmed” with sick children, whose schools are on the verge of suspending classes. Meanwhile, the situation prompted an alert from ProMed, the disease surveillance system which similarly sounded the alarm when COVID-19 was an emerging mystery infection in Wuhan towards the end of 2019.

The WHO, which of course helped China cover-up during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, says ‘no unusual or novel’ pathogens have been detected, Reuters reports.

The State Council said influenza would peak this winter and spring and mycoplasma pneumoniae infection would continue to be high in some areas in future. It also warned of the risk of a rebound in COVID infections.

“All localities should strengthen information reporting on infectious diseases to ensure information is reported in a timely and accurate manner,” the State Council said in a statement.

The situation came into the spotlight this week when the WHO asked China for more information, citing a report by the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED) on clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children.

Both China and the WHO have faced questions about the transparency of reporting on the earliest COVID-19 cases that emerged in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Since the beginning of October, the Beijing CDC says that more than 3,500 cases of “respiratory infection” had been admitted into the Beijing’s Children’s Hospital, Radio Free Asia (funded by the US State Department) reported.

On Thursday, the WHO claimed that in response to their request, data provided by China suggested that the spread of the new virus was linked to lifting of COVID curbs (so why isn’t it everywhere?), plus the circulation of known pathogens such as mycoplasma pneumoniae, a common bacterial infection which primarily affects younger individuals, and which has been circulating since May.

Here we go again guys.

Mysterious illness being called a “Mystery Pneumonia without the cough” is currently tearing through schools in China.

Hospitals in Beijing currently overwhelmed.

Alert comes via Promed.
———————-
VIA SIM WARLORD
———————- pic.twitter.com/ljTA96zX7B

— Malcolm FleX (@Malcolm_fleX48) November 22, 2023

“At this stage, there is nothing to suggest that it may be a new variant of COVID,” said Bruce Thompson, head of the Melbourne School of Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne, discussing preliminary data. “One thing to note is that we can be reassured that the surveillance processes are working, which is a very good thing,” he said, revealing his blind faith in Chinese data.

The WHO, meanwhile, said it made an official request to China on Wednesday to obtain additional information, including laboratory results from reported cases and about recent trends in respiratory pathogens. The organization says it held a teleconference with Chinese health authorities from the Chinese CDC, and the Beijing Children’s Hospital on Thursday.

“‘Chinese authorities advised that there has been no detection of any unusual or novel pathogens or unusual clinical presentations, including in Beijing and Liaoning, but only the aforementioned general increase in respiratory illnesses due to multiple known pathogens,” said the WHO. “They further stated that the rise in respiratory illness has not resulted in patient loads exceeding hospital capacities.“

Local media, however – including Taiwanese outlet FTV news, claimed that hospitals are being ‘overwhelmed.’

According to one employee at the Beijing Friendship Hospital pediatric department, there was a 24-hour wait for emergency cases to be seen.

We’re sure vote-by-mail ballot companies are over the moon.

By John Kingston of FreightWaves,

The RailTrends conference for 2023, last week’s gathering of many of the industry’s operating executives as well as those who finance, analyze or try to sell goods and services to the sector, had a cautiously optimistic tone that rail may soon be able to start to snag some market share from the trucking industry.

It’s not a meeting at which unbridled optimism is usually present. Rail has not seen significant organic growth at the expense of 18-wheelers for a long time. That time span might be viewed as forever, if you have listened to some of the speakers at RailTrends over the years.

Whereas the meeting in 2022 seemed almost like a gathering of people who thought an exorcism might be in order, after railroads failed to capitalize on one of the greatest freight markets ever and had a huge number of complaints about bad service to boot, RailTrends 2023 might mark at least a turnaround in outlook that would still need to be backed up by actual performance.

What has been lost was starkly laid out by Rob Cannizzaro, COO of the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA).

According to Cannizzaro, intermodal rail has lost about 1.4 million intermodal loads since 2017, which translates to about $3.5 billion in revenue.

Keith Creel, president and CEO of Canadian Pacific Kansas City Southern (CPKC), came to the meeting as the CEO of the merged Class I railroad between its two namesakes (NYSE: CP), a deal that was not concluded by RailTrends a year earlier. He said the combined railroad, which stretches from Mexico into Canada — the only Class I that can make that claim — is creating competition. 

“This industry is getting stronger as a result,” he said. “Not just us. I think if you look across the board at every railroad, we’re in a better place today than a year ago. There’s motivation, there’s excitement, there’s energy and there’s investment.”

Specifically, Creel said the Midwest Express intermodal service that was announced in May to provide four-day service between Chicago and Mexico has been turning in a performance that has exceeded that goal on average by several hours.

Referring to other competing services between the U.S. and Mexico that have been announced in the last year, Creel said these expansions were signs that “competition is undoubtedly changing and driving a stronger industrial network to the benefit of the customer and commerce.”

Creel said CPKC has “a very robust pipeline plan for next year, and the following year, there’s no shortage of demand.” But he cautioned that while he saw the road map to more growth, “if you get ahead of yourself, and you’re putting too much traffic on your network, you destroy your value proposition.”

Another change from the 2022 meeting is that a year ago, railroad and union negotiators had agreed upon a contract but the road to ratification had plenty of bumps in it before full worker acceptance. That didn’t come for several weeks after the meeting. 

Ian Jefferies, president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads, noted that difference between this year’s RailTrends conference and last year’s. “In the weeks following [the 2022] conference, we were able to get [contracts] across the finish line.”

He called it the “richest contract for our employees,” with provisions on leave that “created much more work-life balance.”

Even Adrienne Bailey was positive. The partner at Oliver Wyman’s rail consulting group, a fixture on the agenda at RailTrends, has been strongly critical of the rail sector at earlier gatherings. Although her address was about “green propulsion,” the use of alternative fuels in power units, she prefaced her remarks by saying that she hoped “by next year I will be talking about the shining successes” of the industry after reviewing positive steps taken in the past year. 

Chuck Baker, on the same panel as Jefferies, is the president of the American Short Line Rail and Regional Railroad Association. He said it’s “been a rough, I guess I would probably say, about six years at this point.”

But he also said that “you’re starting to see a lot of green shoots in the industry. It feels like we’re turning a corner.”

There were several references during the conference to recent gains on the rails. 

Beth Whited, president of Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP), echoed that view of recently stronger markets, saying the railway was having “a really very strong run through about the end of September, maybe even into early October.” And while grain and coal shipments have slowed recently, Union Pacific had a “really strong” October in both its industrial and premium divisions. 

It was the address by Joe Hinrichs, president and CEO of CSX (NASDAQ: CSX), that sounded more like some of the gloomier forecasts of the past. Its themes were familiar: Good service is necessary for growth and we’ve got a long way to go.

Hinrichs lamented that railroading is the type of activity that many people have had a “love affair” with “and somehow we lost that.” That fact has made it more difficult to attract and retain talent.

Another result is that railroads’ reputation (damaged in part by the February accident in East Palestine, Ohio, that was mentioned several times over the course of the meeting) has taken a hit, with the industry sometimes being seen as “bad guys,” Hinrichs said.

Part of the solution for safety and technology shortcomings is more and better cooperation, Hinrichs said. 

“What in our railroads’ DNA inhibits us from working together on stuff like that?” Hinrichs asked. That the fate of the railroads is linked is obvious. Every railroad has derailments and when they occur, “we all feel the effects of that.”

Even if that could be overcome, “the standards are too low in this industry for customer service.” And if better service were provided, “a lot of our problems would go away,” Hinrichs said. 

“We should want our customers to be enthusiastic about doing business with us to be excited about their business,” Hinrichs said. “And the standards we set for that bar are too low in our industry.” 

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

The OPEC+ group has made progress in talks with its African producers over their oil output quotas next year, three OPEC+ sources told Reuters on Friday, after the alliance had to postpone this weekend’s meeting over the spat.  

On Wednesday, OPEC said that the OPEC+ meeting scheduled for this weekend would be postponed to November 30, which sent oil prices tumbling over fears of disagreements in the group about the next move in its oil production policy.

OPEC’s African members Angola and Nigeria have reportedly asked to have a higher production ceiling next year, after taking a cut in their quotas at the June 2023 meeting of OPEC+ as they had consistently failed to pump to their quotas.

Angola, Congo and Nigeria were forced to commit to lower oil production in 2024, and the originally scheduled November 26 meeting could potentially have pressured them to make further production cuts, as the Saudis express discontent over compliance with the deal as it shoulders the bulk of the burden, according to reports this week.  

Before the announcement of a delay in the meeting, which will be held online next week, most analysts had expected that OPEC’s top producer, Saudi Arabia, would extend its voluntary cut of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) into 2024, considering the latest slide in oil prices to $80 and the typically weak period for oil demand in the first quarter of every year. Market talk was also intensifying that OPEC+ could announce a deeper cut.

OPEC+ will likely reach an agreement at the meeting next week, one of Reuters’ sources said on Friday, feeling “with 99% of confidence” there would be a deal.

Two other sources told Reuters that the group was close to reaching a compromise with the African producers on the levels of their crude oil production next year.   

After going into effect Friday morning, the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas has held throughout the day, leading to the release of 25 total hostages from Hamas captivity. 

Among the 25 are 12 Thai hostages and 13 Israeli hostages. They were handed over to the Red Cross where they were taken into Egypt and are en route to Israel. A Hamas source has been quoted as saying, “This is the first group under the agreement.”

The first group released were the Thai hostages, comprising foreign workers who had been taken in the Oct.7 Hamas terror raids on southern Israel. Thailand Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has confirmed their release and said that embassy officials were en route to pick them up.

The release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons are another key feature of the deal, as well as the ability of humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza. Some 150 aid and fuel trucks have reportedly entered the Strip from Egypt on Friday.

This first day of the four day truce will see 39 Palestinian prisoners go free. So far it’s been the longest pause in fighting after seven weeks of intense conflict by air and land. According to more details via NY Times, there are children included in the prisoner swap: 

• The cease-fire deal, brokered by Qatar in weeks of talks, calls for Hamas to return 50 of the women and children taken hostage during its Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, and for Israel to release 150 imprisoned Palestinian women and teenagers. The exchange would occur in phases across the four days of the cease-fire. Read more about the deal.

• The freed Thai hostages were agricultural workers living in southern Israel, and were among scores of foreign nationals who were abducted alongside Israelis on Oct. 7.

• In Israel, family members of hostages were hopeful they would soon see their loved ones. Among the roughly 240 people abducted to Gaza is a girl who turned 4 on Friday, whose parents were slain in the Hamas attacks.

• Palestinian and Israeli officials said that 39 Palestinians jailed in Israel, including 24 women and 15 teenage males, would be freed on Friday. Among those expected to be released were two women whose families in the West Bank were eagerly awaiting their return.

Fox News: “Hamas has released 25 hostages: 13 Israelis and 12 Thai nationals” pic.twitter.com/upPt8mFCU6

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 24, 2023

On the Palestinian side a big festive scene is gearing up for their return. Al Jazeera describes of a crowd gathering at Ofer Prison, which is near Ramallah in the West Bank: 

There are hundreds if not thousands of people who have gathered on a hill overlooking the Ofer Prison in expectation of these 39 women and minors that are going to be – in theory – brought here by the Israelis on buses.

We’ve seen at least one bus leave one of those jails in northern Israel a few hours ago.

People have begun to light bonfires here, very excited about this prisoner-captive swap.

Hamas is calling for a “massive reception” to greet freed Palestinians in the West Bank.

However, some are said to still be skeptical that it will happen. But the Israeli Broadcasting Authority has confirmed that the Israeli group of released hostages are now in Egypt, currently meeting and being examined by Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, on the other side of the Rafah crossing.

The truce is still tenuous and uncertainty looms amid the hopeful signs – given the number of statements by Israeli officials vowing this won’t deter them from eradicating Hamas.

Authored by Robert Aro via The Mises Institute,

Just when you thought every inflation related economic term was used up, CNBC headlines:

‘Funflation’ drives sporting event ticket prices up a whopping 25%

One might assume terms such as transitory, creeping, galloping, and entrenched inflation, along with shrinkflation and foodflation, would suffice. Nonetheless, we can now include “funflation” to the array of consequences resulting from the expansion of the supply of money and credit, also called inflation.

Funflation is characterized as:

…a term used by economists to explain the increasing price tags of live events as consumers hanker for the experiences they lost during the pandemic.

The economists who coined this term remain unmentioned.

In the October Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) reading of 3.2%, sporting events experienced the most significant increase among the few hundred categories comprising the index. One economist from the College of the Holy Cross attempted to explain the reason:

People are getting back to things that they enjoy doing and are willing to pay a bunch.

Despite both fun and inflation coexisting for quite some time, we’ve never seen a mashup between the two until now, yet CNBC tries to explain:

Much of the upward pressure on admission costs has come this year, underscoring the role of funflation as consumers shift their attention from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts to NFL and Major League Baseball games.

Funflation has even spread as far north as Canada, where the government owned news channel CBC offers four possible causes for this growing phenomenon:

1. It’s a natural response to existential dread

2. Concerts provide a sacred experience that’s priceless

3. The post-pandemic effect is greater than a potential recession

4. Concerts are a long-term investment in your soul 

It’s important to scrutinize the sources of the information we are fed. In the case of the responses from a mainstream economist, a mainstream news source, and a government-owned news channel, it seems that the explanations provided are more about filling a knowledge gap, which they may not even be aware of. It becomes a matter of explaining for the sake of providing one, rather than genuinely delving into the underlying causes.

Even if we were to accept the data showing an increase in attendance in ticket sales this year compared to the previous, or a shift from Taylor Swift to the NFL, this merely indicates changes in behavior without explaining the underlying cause of the change.

No one can definitively attribute the change to lockdowns or clarify why more people are watching the NFL this year. However, what is barely, if ever, considered by a mainstream news source is a discussion of changes in the demand and supply factors of money itself: Specifically, the demand to hold onto the money you have vis-à-vis fluctuations in the supply of money largely due to the Federal Reserve’s inflationary monetary policies.

Given a society still grappling with the repercussions of a multi-trillion-dollar monetary binge from several years ago and the threat of a continuously depreciating dollar, it’s plausible that people are allocating more funds towards leisure and enjoyment this year compared to the last. That said and oddly enough, the notion of the “natural response to existential dread” may not be too far off the mark after all!

Authored by Brent Bennett & Andrea Hitt via RealClear Wire,

The Biden administration is pushing for widespread electrification in less than 20 years through government subsidies and coercive regulations as part of its aggressive climate agenda. The truth is that President Joe Biden’s goals are an illusion at the expense of the American people.

While EV proponents try to claim that EVs will soon be cheaper than gasoline vehicles, our new research demonstrates that EVs benefitted from hidden subsidies that total nearly $50,000 per EV.

Who is footing that bill? Gasoline vehicle owners, taxpayers, and utility ratepayers are.

Electric vehicles primarily benefit from regulatory credits and generous fuel economy standards, which average $27,881 per vehicle. EVs have been given an unlawful 6.67 multiplier to their rated fuel economy, so that an EV with a rated fuel economy of 100 miles per gallon is credited as if it is getting 667 miles per gallon. What’s more, the EPA’s proposed fuel economy standards are designed to require that 67% of new passenger cars sold be all-electric by 2032, demonstrating a clear government preference toward EVs without proper consideration of costs and benefits.

For gasoline vehicles, the price you see at the gas pump covers the cost of extracting, refining, and transporting the gasoline, but the same cannot be said for the cost of charging an EV. EVs require new charging infrastructure, and their large power draw increases the strain on electricity infrastructure. As our research highlights, a typical EV charging overnight at home consumes as much power as several homes, and an EV charging at a fast-charging station in 30 minutes consumes as much power as a small to medium-sized grocery store. A few extra EVs in the neighborhoods are manageable, but widespread EV adoption will require significant and expensive grid upgrades.

Adding insult to injury, EV owners alone aren’t shouldering these increased electricity costs, which average $11,833 per vehicle over 10 years. Until a utility starts charging EV owners for the extra infrastructure costs to serve them, those costs are shared among all the utility’s customers. Residential electricity costs across the U.S. have risen 20% over the last three years, and a rapid forced adoption of EVs will only make this problem worse.

Direct federal and state subsidies provide EVs with another $8,984 per vehicle over 10 years, including the widely publicized $7,500 federal tax credit in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act and smaller state subsidies for EVs. All these subsidies, of course, are borne by the American taxpayer.

President Biden’s expensive green pipe dream is not without irony.

While Biden administration claims that these draconian EV mandates are necessary to combat climate change, the widespread adoption of EVs in the developed world would have negligible effects on global emissions and climate. For starters, if EVs are able to displace all the carbon emissions from U.S. passenger cars, that would only cut out 20% of U.S. carbon emissions. Our calculations show that even if the U.S. eliminated all of its carbon emissions by 2050, the effect on global temperatures in 2100 would only be 0.08 degrees Celsius.

But EVs will not even get us that far because they don’t cut carbon emissions much—if at all—compared  to gasoline vehicles. As pointed out by Mark Mills in a recent op-ed in Real Clear Energy, it is nearly impossible to measure an individual EV’s emissions. While driving an EV itself does not directly produce emissions, the emissions to generate the electricity used to charge EVs vary widely depending on location.

EV batteries also require fossil fuels to produce, and many components of EV batteries are made in emissions-heavy China. The emissions resulting from mining and processing the materials used in the battery are largely unreported, and the emissions during EV production could potentially be enough to wipe out the emissions saved by not combusting gasoline.

A recent study by Volvo attempts to quantify some of these factors, and the result is not rosy for EVs. The lifetime emissions of the electric version of the Volvo SUV at the center of the study are only a third less than the emissions of the gasoline version, and that is when it is charged on the carbon-light European grid. Different assumptions could lead to an EV emitting more carbon than its gasoline counterpart. The obvious conclusion is that without rapid reductions in carbon emissions from the electric grid, an equally Herculean task to EV mass adoption, EVs will continue to produce significant carbon emissions.

Emissions from gasoline vehicles are projected to decline 20% over the next decade, and hybrids, which nearly double the fuel efficiency of a gasoline vehicle with a battery that is 50-100 times smaller than an EV battery, would actually produce the least amount of lifetime emissions. But the net-zero advocates are needlessly demanding all EVs—or nothing.

EVs would also have little impact on levels of actual pollution in U.S. cities, like soot and smog, because the U.S. is already a world leader in clean air. When the number of passenger cars on the road fell by half during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there was no measurable impact on air quality in the U.S. Our air pollution levels are so close their natural state that weather has a far greater impact on pollution levels in most U.S. cities than the emissions from our vehicles.

The reality is, EVs are not going away any time soon, but neither are cars in general. Americans are still driving at nearly the same rate they were before the COVID-19 pandemic—more than 3.2 trillion miles total annually. Even the addition of a few hundred million new EVs over the next decade, up from 20 million today, will only account for approximately 10-20% of all passenger vehicles globally.[GU1] [GU2] [3]  Currently, 90% of EVs in the U.S. are purchased as a second or third car, usually in addition to a gasoline vehicle. If the U.S. were to adopt the Biden administration’s preferred number EVs, consumers would have to purchase EVs at a scale and velocity 10 times greater and faster than any new model car in history.

Even this isn’t enough to achieve the left’s dystopian net-zero goals. The International Energy Agency forecasts [GU4] the number of global households without a car needs to rise from 45% today to 70% to achieve net-zero by 2050. That’s right—70% of people around the world must not have a car to meet the global elite’s climate goals. Most of the 45% of households who do not own cars are in developing world and crave the kind of personal mobility we enjoy in the U.S. and in Europe, but net-zero will require them to remain confined forever or to rely solely on government-owned transit. Even the developed world will have to cut its driving dramatically. In California, regulators predicted [GU5] that the state’s emissions goals will require Californians to both buy EVs and reduce miles driven by 25%.

Coercing American citizens into buying EVs is simply untenable and is not truly environmentally friendly. As our research shows, EV subsidies and mandates are already costing Americans $22 billion annually, and that amount is set to rise dramatically, with particularly adverse impacts on lower-income Americans. The Biden administration would be wise to end its special treatment of EVs, prioritize the American consumer, and stop driving the U.S. auto industry off a cliff.

Brent Bennett, Ph.D., is the policy director for Life:Powered, an initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation to raise America’s energy IQ, and a former battery researcher and engineer. 

Andrea Hitt is a communications manager for the Texas Public Policy Foundation and previously served as communications director for Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ).