ATLANTA (AP) — A South Korean solar company says it will temporarily reduce pay and working hours for about 1,000 of its 3,000 employees in Georgia because U.S. customs officials have been detaining imported components needed to make solar panels.
Qcells, a unit of South Korea's Hanwha Solutions, said Friday that it will also lay off 300 workers from staffing agencies at its plants in Dalton and Cartersville, both northwest of Atlanta.
The company says U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been detaining imported components at ports on suspicion that they contain materials that may have been made with forced labor in China, meaning it can't run its solar panel assembly lines at full strength.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced in August that her department was stepping up enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, a 2021 law that restricts Chinese goods made with forced labor from entering the U.S. Published reports indicate that U.S. officials began detaining solar cells made by Qcells in June. A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection couldn't immediately answer questions about Qcells on Friday.
Qcells says none of its materials or components are made with forced labor or even come from China. Spokesperson Marta Stoepker said the company maintains “robust supply chain due diligence measures” and “very detailed documentation,” which has been successful in getting some shipments released.
“Our latest supply chain is sourced completely outside of China and our legacy supply chains contain no material from Xinjiang province based on third party audits and supplier guarantees,” Stoepker said.
She said Qcells is continuing to cooperate and expects to resume full production in the coming weeks and months.
“Although our supply chain operations are beginning to normalize, today we shared with our employees that HR actions must be taken to improve operational efficiency until production capacity returns to normal levels," Stoepker said in a statement.
Qcells has said it pays workers an average of about $53,000 a year. Workers will retain full benefits during furloughs.
Qcells is completing a $2.3 billion plant in Cartersville to make ingots, wafers and solar cells — the building blocks of finished solar modules. The company has said it will finish the plant even though President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress dismantled most of the tax credits for buying solar panels earlier this year.
“Our commitment to building the entire solar supply chain in the United States remains,” Stoepker said. "We will soon be back on track with the full force of our Georgia team delivering American-made energy to communities around the country.”
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This story was first published on Nov. 7, 2025. It was updated on Nov. 9, 2025 to reflect that Qcells no longer plans to use polysilicon refined in Washington state at the Georgia factory.
FILE - The Qcells solar panel plant is seen, June 27, 2025, near Cartersville, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)
ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — Getting ready for the holiday season has never been stressful for Christel Dauwe — after all, her holiday period lasts all year long in her Christmas ornament shop in the Belgian city of Antwerp.
Her collecting began in her teenage years, and she now has more than 64,000 ornaments in her personal collection and another 18,000 displayed in her shop, the Christel Dauwe Collection.
“My personal wish is to have a Christmas museum, where ornaments and the idea of Christmas can be on permanent display,” she told The Associated Press. But until that day comes, her small shop uses every corner to display its vast inventory.
Its wares include birds of every feather, fruit arrangements, cars, angels, snowmen and other figurines, ranging from a few euros for a wood laser-cut Cathedral of Antwerp to more than 500 euros ($580) for a special ornament of Alexander the Great on horseback.
The store began 35 years ago as an antiques shop, selling a few ornaments on the side, but Dauwe wanted to try selling more.
On the suggestion of a Polish au pair, Dauwe and her husband traveled to Poland and found a factory that could produce exactly the ornaments she wanted. The only catch was that 200 pieces of each design had to be ordered at a time.
They returned home deflated.
“After second thoughts though, we decided to order 20 shapes of 200 each, and one day they arrived -- all 4,000 of them. We gave some away and the rest we put in the shop and, well … That’s the story from there,” she said.
The original Polish factory still supplies many of the shop’s ornaments, in addition to 32 other European companies.
“There is an ornament here for everyone. We’ve had people come in who say they have a new pet or even a new car and we try to match an ornament to them. In the end the goal is not to have some kind of posh tree decorated all with the same colors and Christmas balls. The goal of ornaments is to make you smile,″ she said.
Some ornaments are more personal. And one year there was an ornament of Christel herself, designed by her husband as a surprise.
She’s been asked to provide ornaments for weddings and other events as well.
As far as having Christmas all year round, Dauwe says she is never bored with it. Twice a year she goes around the shop and dusts each ornament individually. She has met people from all over the world, and entertains die-hard locals who stop into the store just for a morning chat.
“There are two ways to go with Christmas. It’s either the nostalgia of the past or the hope for the future,″ she said. ″Hope is what is the most important to me. It’s what keeps you going.”
Owner of the Christel Dauwe Collection ornaments shop, Christel Dauwe, shows an ornament of the Horse Bayard, a folkloric Belgian event, at her shop in Antwerp, Belgium, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Owner of the Christel Dauwe Collection ornaments shop, Christel Dauwe, takes a holiday ornament out of a display case at her shop in Antwerp, Belgium, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
A holiday ornament of a British phone cabin hangs on a shelf in the Christel Dauwe Collection ornaments shop in Antwerp, Belgium, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Holiday ornaments are seen through the window of the Christel Dauwe Collection ornaments shop in Antwerp, Belgium, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
Owner of the Christel Dauwe Collection ornaments shop, Christel Dauwe, wraps boxes of holiday ornaments at her shop in Antwerp, Belgium, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
