week ending Mar 23

 Bill Dudley Says Fed Hikes May Be Back In Play As Soon As The Second Half - As discussed over the weekend, when looking at Wednesday's FOMC announcement, the market appears to be focused on one of two possibilities: a dovish Fed, where the dot plot is cut to 1+1 hikes in 2019/2020 or a very dovish Fed, in which the Fed projects 1 hike in 2019 and none in 2020, with an appropriate cut to the Fed's Summary of Economic Projections. As a result, BofA even laid out a comprehensive analysis looking at which FOMC member would have to lower their dots to reach this new level.  To be sure, the market is already pricing in an uber-dovish Fed, with the Fed Funds market now expecting a rate cut in 2020. Meanwhile, virtually nobody expects a hawkish surprise. Commenting on a potential reversal by Powell, earlier today Std Chartered's Steven Englander said that given the shift in Fed rhetoric and market pricing, staying at two + one would be very hawkish because even though investors discount the dot plot projections, they "would be concerned that the shift in narrative was not visible in the projections.   Incidentally, a surprisingly hawkish Fed is not out of the picture: as Morgan Stanley predicted last week, the Fed will not only hike once in 2019 (December) but also hike a total of three more times in 2020.  Meanwhile, looking at Wednesday's announcement, Dudley said that "we’re just going to hear about how we are going to end the balance-sheet runoff. Maybe we will hear a little bit about the composition between Treasury bills, notes and bonds, but I’d be surprised if they got to the bigger issue of the composition of the balance sheet, and how we’re going to get there." While Dudley is no longer on the FOMC, there is a distinct possibility that he is being used as a conduit to disseminate the "less than pleasant" possibility of a Fed that returns to tightening as soon as the Q1 period of weakness - where GDP is expected to drop as low as 0.5% - is over. In such a case, it is very possible that 2019 ends up being a mirror image of 2018, a year where stocks stampede to all time highs in the late summer, only to tumble later in the year when Powell once again "shocks" everyone by announcing that the neutral rate is a long way away, and that the Fed will aggressively hike well into 2020.

  Powell Signals Prolonged Fed Pause as Inflation Lags, Risks Loom - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said interest rates could be on hold for “some time” as global risks weigh on the economic outlook and inflation remains muted. “We don’t see data coming in that suggest that we should move in either direction. They suggest that we should remain patient and let the situation clarify itself over time,” he told a press conference Wednesday after officials slashed their projected interest-rate increases this year to zero from two. “It may be some time before the outlook for jobs and inflation calls clearly for a change in policy.” Officials also decided to slow the drawdown of the U.S. central bank’s bond holdings starting in May, then end them in September. Together, the moves complete the Fed’s 2019 pivot away from policy tightening and toward a markedly cautious stance -- a sign that policy makers take risks to their outlook seriously even as the domestic economy chugs along. Financial markets confirmed the dovish interpretation, with futures traders lifting the probability of the Fed cutting rates this year to almost one-in-two. The 10-year Treasury yield dropped to its lowest level in more than a year, while the dollar was poised for its biggest daily loss since January. Stocks retreated. The unanimous decision held the target range of the federal funds rate at 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent. The Fed’s signal that it will keep rates on hold goes further than the one-hike forecast analysts had expected in a Bloomberg survey. Powell sounded the alarm on low inflation during his post-meeting press conference, calling weak global price pressures “one of the major challenges of our time.” He indicated that the continually plodding price gains leave the central bank room to proceed with caution.

Powell 'Throws In The Towel' On Growth & Inflation, Sees No More Rate-Hikes In 2019 -- Summary:

• Fed leaves rates unchanged, says economic growth has slowed form Q4, even as labor market still strong, job gains solid
• As expected, the Fed will taper its balance-sheet rolloff, sees it ending by the of September
• Fed signals no rate hike this year with one increase in 2020
  • 11 officials for zero 2019 hikes, four for one hike
• Fed says median funds rate 2.4% in 2019, 2.6% in 2020-2021
• But, the median estimate for the neutral funds rate remains unchanged at 2.8%

The Fed has some 'splaining to do. The market is pricing in 16bps of rate-cuts in 2019 while they are forecasting - at last call - 2 rate-hikes... One of the big issues the Fed's wrestling with is what constitutes neutral, and while there's a lot of false precision in the r* framework, by one popular measure the funds rate is already bang on neutral. Bloomberg notes that if we compare the real policy rate (deflated by the core PCE price index) with the Laubach-Williams estimate of the real neutral rate, we find a perfect match. And furthermore, 10Y yields have been glued to the Fed's long-term dot-plot rate forecast since the start of 2018... Expectations are that the FOMC will maintain its more dovish "patient" stance and shift from two hikes to one (zero would likely scare the markets) in 2019. Currently, there is a 73% chance that the Fed doesn't hike in 2019. This will be evident in the SEP with a lowered inflation and growth outlook. As of December, the Fed was anticipating 2.3% growth in 2019 and 2.0% in 2020. “The focus is going to be entirely on their dot plot and whether or not the Fed has taken any chance of a rate hike out of their own internal forecast,”  “It’s going to be interesting to see if any of the Fed has priced in a rate cut, which I doubt they have, and then how many are thinking they may still need to adjust rates higher once or twice more throughout the year -- because I think it’s been a little premature for the market to discount any rate hike.” And, along with when to stop shrinking its asset portfolio, the Fed faces another decision - what mix of Treasurys it holds, with implications for the economy.

Trump says he will nominate Stephen Moore for Fed appointment -- Trump says he will nominate Fed critic Stephen Moore for central bank appointment President Donald Trump is looking to appoint economic commentator Stephen Moore to a vacant Federal Reserve governor position. President Donald Trump is set to offer a position on the Federal Reserve to economic commentator and former campaign advisor Stephen Moore, CNBC has learned. The president is waiting for Moore to get through the nominee clearance process. Trump called Moore "a very respected" economist who he has known "for a long time — and have no doubt he will be an outstanding choice!" In an interview earlier in the day, Moore said he had not been contacted at that point about an appointment. "I could just say that I've been talking to some people about it, but I've not been formally offered a position," Moore told CNBC. "If I were offered it, I would do it." Moore, 59, currently is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former Wall Street Journal editorial board member and has been a Trump supporter since the 2016 election. In October 2018, he released the book with economist Art Laffer, "Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy." Moore also has been a frequent Fed critic, saying the central bank's policies of keeping short-term rates near zero and buying bonds to stimulate growth were misguided and would spur inflation. “If I were to do it I would certainly want to try to influence the Fed to a stable dollar and pro-growth monetary policy," he told CNBC.  Reports had circulated in late-January that Trump was considering businessman and former presidential candidate Hermain Cain for a Fed governorship. Cain has previously served as chairman of the Kansas City Fed.

Curve Crushed- 2Y, 3Y And 5Y Treasury Yields Plummet Below The Fed Funds Rate -  Some were convinced there was no way Powell could surprise markets dovishly. They were wrong. And to get a sense of just how dovish the Fed's statement was, look no further than the yield curve where everything to the left of the 7Y Treasury (and even that is in danger), is now inverted to the effective Fed Funds rate (2.40%), with 2Y and 3Y yields tumbling to 2.326%, and 5Y 2.3858%.  Needless to say this is a nightmare for banks, whose Net Interest Margin just got crushed. It also means that indeed as some were worried, the Fed may indeed know something about the economy that nobody else does, at least judging by the panicked bid for safety.

U.S. Treasury Yield Curve Inverts for First Time Since 2007 - A closely watched section of the Treasury yield curve on Friday turned negative for the first time since the crisis more than a decade ago, underscoring concern about a possible economic slump and the prospect that the Federal Reserve will have to cut interest rates. The gap between the 3-month and 10-year yields vanished on Friday as a surge of buying pushed long-end rates sharply lower. Inversion is widely considered a reliable harbinger of recession in the U.S. The 10-year slipped to as low as 2.439 percent. U.S. central bank policy makers on Wednesday lowered both their growth projections and their interest rate outlook, with the majority of officials now envisaging no hikes this year. That’s down from a median call of two at their December meeting. Traders took that dovish shift as their cue to dig into positions for a Fed easing cycle, pricing in a cut by the end of 2020 and a one-in-two chance of a reduction as soon as this year. “It looks like the global slowdown worries have been confirmed and the market is beginning to price in Fed easing, potential recession down the road,” “It’s clearly a sign that the market is worried about growth and moving into Treasuries from riskier asset classes.” A wave of buying drove the 10-year yield to fresh lows for the year. That yield has fallen as much as 17 basis points from the close on Tuesday, the day before the Fed decision. Weaker-than-expected European factory data that helped drive benchmark German yields back below zero on Friday also supported the move. The 3-month to 10-year curve is widely favored as an indicator that the economy is within a couple of years of recession. But Friday’s move is an extension of the inversion at the front end of the curve that happened in December. The gap between the 2-year and 10-year yields has also narrowed, to around 10 basis points.

The bond market is flashing its biggest recession sign since before the financial crisis - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's assertion this week that the U.S. economy remains strong is facing a stern test from the bond market, which showed a classic recession sign Friday morning. Short-term government fixed income yields are now ahead of the longer part of the curve, delivering a strong recession indication that hasn't happened since 2007. The spread, or yield curve, between the 3-month and 10-year Treasury notes just broke the longest streak ever of being above 10 basis points, or 0.1 percentage point. The two maturities were last below that level in September 2007, a run of 3,009 trading days, according to Bespoke Investment Group. The two maturities inverted Friday morning, a near-perfect sign that a recession is coming. An inverted yield curve does not mean a recession is imminent but that one is likely over the next year or so.The three-month note yielded 2.468 percent around 10 am, while the benchmark 10-year was around 2.44 percent.Economists see the yield move as a dark signal for an economy coming off its best year since the recovery began in mid-2009. "Yield curves are responding to what they see, to what I believe is a global economic slowdown," said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. "You don't see this kind of move in curves, not just here but everywhere, unless you get one." Short-term yields moving ahead of their longer-duration counterparts is seen as a sign that growth will be higher now than it will be in the future. New York Fed research considered by many to be seminal on the spread between yields found that the most-telling relationship was between the 3-month and 10-year notes, though many market participants still watch the spread between the two- and 10-year notes, which was about 10 basis points Friday morning. The Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy for the Fed, said Wednesday that it won't be raising rates anytime soon — likely for at least the rest of the year — unless economic conditions change.

Conference Board Leading Economic Index: "...Expanding in Near-Term" - The latest Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for February increased to 111.5 from 111.3 in January. The Coincident Economic Index (CEI) came in at 105.9, up from 105.7 the previous month.NOTE: The partial federal government shutdown that occurred in late December and January continues to have an impact on delays of some of the underlying components data that are used to produce estimates of the composite indexes. Please note that building permits data is still not available for February 2019. The Conference Board has used its standard procedure of statistical imputations to fill in the missing data in order to publish the Leading Economic Index.The Conference Board LEI for the U.S. increased for the first time since September 2018. Positive contributions from all the financial components along with consumer expectations for business conditions more than offset the negative contributions from average weekly manufacturing hours and initial claims for unemployment insurance (inverted). In the six-month period ending February 2019, the leading economic index increased 0.5 percent (about a 1.1 percent annual rate), much slower than the growth of 2.5 percent (about a 5.1 percent annual rate) over the previous six months. In addition, the strengths among the leading indicators have become much less widespread.The Conference Board CEI for the U.S., a measure of current economic activity, increased in February. The coincident economic index rose 1.1 percent (about a 2.3 percent annual rate) between August 2018 and February 2019, slightly slower than the growth of 1.4 percent (about a 2.7 percent annual rate) over the previous six months. However, the strengths among the coincident indicators have remained very widespread, with all components advancing over the past six months. The lagging economic index remained unchanged last month, and with the CEI’s increase, the coincident-to-lagging ratio improved slightly in February. Real GDP expanded at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2018, after increasing 3.4 percent (annual rate) in the third quarter. [Full notes in PDF] Here is a log-scale chart of the LEI series with documented recessions as identified by the NBER. The use of a log scale gives us a better sense of the relative sizes of peaks and troughs than a more conventional linear scale.

Q1 GDP Forecasts: Around 1% - From Goldman Sachs: We boosted our Q1 GDP tracking estimate by three tenths to +0.7% (qoq ar). However ... we lowered our past-quarter GDP tracking estimate for Q4 by two tenths to +2.1%. [March 22 estimate] From the NY Fed Nowcasting Report The New York Fed Staff Nowcast stands at 1.3% for 2019:Q1 and 1.7% for 2019:Q2. [Mar 22 estimate]. And from the Altanta Fed: GDPNow The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2019 is 1.2 percent on March 22, up from 0.4 percent on March 13. [Mar 13 estimate] CR Note: These early estimates suggest real GDP growth will be around 1% annualized in Q1.

The government shutdown may have caused a mini-recession - Aside from being a monumentally poor policy outcome, and aside from the hardship it caused nearly a million workers, the government shutdown may also have caused a general contraction in production, sales, and income, and a slowdown in employment, that if it were longer would qualify as a recession.  Because the affected three months straddle Q4 2018 and Q1 2019, both quarters will likely show positive real GDP growth, it won’t be a recession. Let’s call it a mini-recession. Although shorthand for a recession is two quarters of GDP contraction, that wasn’t the case for 2001, and the NBER has indicated that a general downturn in production, employment, sales, and income are the crucial criteria. So let’s look at each. Industrial production declined significantly in December, and the small rebound in January was not enough to overcome that downturn. This is especially true of the manufacturing component:The same is also true of real retail sales: Put the four series together, and you get a picture of an economy that in terms of production, employment, income, and sales suddenly contracted in December and January. Assuming these series bounce back no later than March – which I expect to happen – the downturn isn’t deep enough nor long enough to qualify as a recession. But the government shutdown may have done significantly more damage than was projected at the time. And this highlights how poor pubic policy, whether it comes from the Fed, the Congress, or the Administration, can very quickly topple a slowing economy into outright recession.

 US GDP May Be Hit By The Boeing 737 MAX Fiasco -  With US GDP in Q1 already tracking at a barely positive 0.4% according to the Atlanta Fed and expected to barely hit 2.0% for the full year (according to the double-dovish Federal Reserve), it wouldn't take much to push the US economy into a contraction in the current quarter (in which stocks have staged their biggest 3 month move since 1987), and perhaps in the second one, ending the second longest expansion of all time with a recessionary whimper. Just such a recessionary catalyst may be the fiasco involving the Boeing 737 MAX, which according to JPM economist Michael Feroli, could begin impacting the economic dataflow. According to the biggest US bank, the issues affecting the 737 MAX should have no short-run impact on GDP, as production of this airplane is continuing, but will affect the composition of GDP, implying more growth in inventories and less growth of business investment and gross exports. However, if the issues are not resolved in a timely manner and production of the 737 MAX needs to be halted for an extended period of time, it would take about 0.15% off the level of GDP, or about 0.6%-point off the quarterly annualized growth rate of GDP in the quarter in which production is stopped. Some context: the value of total shipments of aircraft by domestic producers in the US totaled $129 billion in 2016. Extrapolating that figure using monthly shipments data by the aircraft and parts industry implies a similar figure for 2018, around $130 billion. The NIPA-based data arrive at a similar number and indicate that by category of demand, around 55% of that production is destined for export, 35% is purchased by domestic businesses, and 10% by the Department of Defense. Of this total in 2019, sales of the 737 were projected to total about $35 billion, with about 90% accounted for by the MAX model, or about one-quarter of total domestic aircraft production according to JPM's equity analysts. This value of shipments figure includes parts suppliers, not just the value added by Boeing, and so should be a reasonably accurate approximation of the GDP impact of the 737 MAX for this year: about 0.15%.

US Budget Deficit Hits A Record $234 Billion As Interest On Debt Soars - Another month, another frightening jump in the US budget deficit. And this time it was a record.According to the latest Treasury data, the US budget surplus in February - traditionally the worst month of the year due to tax refunds - was a whopping $234 billion, missing the $227 billion deficit expected, and well worse than the $214 billion deficit recorded last February. And even though there may have been one-time tax refund and government shutdown factors at play, the February deficit was also the biggest budget deficit on record.  For March, receipts rose 7.5% y/y to $167.3BN while outlays rose 8.2% to $401.2BN in Feb. As a result, the budget deficit for the first five months of the fiscal year, widened to $544 billion, a whopping 39% higher than the $391 billion reported for the same period last year, largely the result of the revenue hit from Trump's tax cuts and the increase in government spending. The deficit was the result of a modest drop in fiscal YTD receipts to $1.278 trillion, while spending jumped 9% to $1.823 trillion. The jump in the deficit was despite the bump in customs duties, which almost doubled to about $29.5 billion this fiscal year from $15.3 billion a year ago, reflecting the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports.On a trailing 12 month basis, the defciit rose again, hitting $932 billion, the highest since February 2013, when it was just above $1 trillion.

GOP moves to rein in president’s emergency powers - Republicans are digging in for a long fight over reining in the president's emergency powers, setting up a potential clash with both the White House and Democrats. President Trump on Friday vetoed Congress’s attempt to block his national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border wall. With neither chamber expected to have the votes to override his veto, the president is poised to win round one of his fight with lawmakers. But Republicans are already setting their sights on making it easier to terminate future emergency declarations — setting up an intriguing round two. “It’s an institutional issue, it’s a congressional authorities issue. We have the power of the purse,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). “Under the National Emergencies Act, there was too much latitude that was given away … and we need to pull that back some and let it be used for legitimate national security purposes.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) added that there is “unanimity” in the GOP conference about making changes to the law in the wake of the fight over Trump’s emergency declaration to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has tapped Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to craft legislation in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that could win the 60 votes needed for a bill to defeat a filibuster and ultimately pass the upper chamber. Under the National Emergencies Act, Congress can force a vote on a resolution of disapproval if they want to try to block an emergency declaration. But a president can veto the resolution, setting up a difficult hurdle for Congress to overcome since a two-thirds majority vote in each chamber is needed to override a veto. Even GOP senators who sided with Trump are interested in the broader issue. “I would like to revisit the emergency powers that Congress has provided to the executive branch,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who voted with Trump. “I do think it's going to be a healthy debate to have.” McConnell told reporters after a closed-door conference lunch that there was “a lot of discomfort with the law” among Republicans and that they were “discussing” ways it could be altered. “If Congress has grown uneasy with this law, as many have, then we should amend it. If the 116th Congress regrets the degree of flexibility that the 94th Congress gave the executive, the 116th Congress can do something about it,” McConnell added separately during a floor speech, announcing that he had asked Johnson to look into legislation on the issue. Roughly a third of the Republican conference, including members of leadership, is already backing legislation from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) that would require Congress to pass a resolution approving future national emergency declarations within 30 days. Without the approval, the resolution would be terminated.

Pentagon lists military projects that could lose funds to Trump’s border wall -- The Pentagon delivered a list of projects to Congress on Monday that could be affected by President Trump’s plan to use $3.6 billion in military construction funds for his proposed border wall. The 21-page list of military construction funds that could be tapped for the wall includes everything from equipment maintenance facilities to training areas to schools for military families. Its delivery comes days after acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan had promised senators he would provide such a document. “We know President Trump wants to take money from our national security accounts to pay for his wall, and now we have a list of some of the projects and needed base repairs that could be derailed or put on the chopping block as a result,” Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said in a statement Monday. Lawmakers are getting the list after they voted on a resolution to block Trump’s national emergency declaration but before the House’s planned vote on overriding Trump’s veto. Trump vetoed the resolution Friday, and the House plans to hold a veto override vote March 26. “What President Trump is doing is a slap in the face to our military that makes our border and the country less secure,” Reed said. “Now that members of Congress can see the potential impact this proposal could have on projects in their home states, I hope they will take that into consideration before the vote to override the president’s veto.” The document sent to lawmakers Monday lists all military construction projects for which Congress has approved funding but for which the Pentagon has not signed a contract. The emergency declaration allows Trump to dip into such funds, which are known as unobligated funds. The list, which senators released to reporters Monday, is broken down by military service, which is then further broken down by state or country. There are projects throughout the United States and abroad in places including South Korea, Germany and Qatar.

House Armed Services chairman says Democrats open to fairly big defense budget - The White House’s $750 billion defense budget is a nonstarter and stuffs too much money into emergency war accounts, but there is a way the Defense Department can get most of the funds it wants for 2020, says House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.). It’s no secret that the 2020 White House budget, which slashed domestic spending and benefits while beefing up the military, would be dead on arrival for the Democratic-led House. But Smith told the audience at the McAleese/Credit Suisse Defense Conference Wednesday that it shouldn’t be too hard to give the military most of what it wants for 2020 with a $733 billion defense budget that Democrats can get behind.“The House Budget Committee, the number that they’ve talked about for defense is $733 billion,” Smith said. “It’s a not insubstantial number. If you take out the roughly $10 billion in emergency spending that’s folded in, you’re not that far apart on the budget numbers. I don’t see that being a problem, but we will have to find savings in some places, obviously.” The $9.2 billion DoD requested for emergency spending would be used mostly to build the wall along the southern border and refill military construction accounts it plans to use for wall construction in 2019 under the president’s emergency declaration. Smith said Congress will be putting pressure on the DoD to find savings now that its performed its first ever audit.“I do believe there are savings to be found within the Pentagon in terms of being more efficient in acquisition and procurement and a whole lot of other areas” Smith said. 

The Pentagon’s Bottomless Money Pit - Matt Taibbi -- A retired Air Force auditor — we’ll call him Andy — tells a story about a thing that happened at Ogden Air Force Base, Utah. Sometime in early 2001, something went wrong with a base inventory order. Andy thinks it was a simple data-entry error. “Someone ordered five of something,” he says, “and it came out as an order for 999,000.” He laughs. “It was probably just something the machine defaulted to. Type in an order for a part the wrong way, and it comes out all frickin’ nines in every field.” Nobody actually delivered a monster load of parts. But the faulty transaction — the paper trail for a phantom inventory adjustment never made — started moving through the Air Force’s maze of internal accounting systems anyway. A junior-level logistics officer caught it before it went out of house. Andy remembers the incident because, as a souvenir, he kept the June 28th, 2001, email that circulated about it in the Air Force accounting world, in which the dollar value of the error was discussed.Wanted to keep you all informed of the massive inventory adjustment processed at [Ogden] on Wednesday of this week. It isn’t as bad as we first thought ($8.5 trillion). The hit . . . $3.9 trillion instead of the $8.5 trillion as we first thought. The Air Force, which had an $85 billion budget that year, nearly created in one stroke an accounting error more than a third the size of the U.S. GDP, which was just over $10 trillion in 2001. Nobody lost money. It was just a paper error, one that was caught. “Even the Air Force notices a trillion-dollar error,” Andy says with a laugh. “Now, if it had been a billion, it might have gone through.” Years later, Andy watched as another massive accounting issue made its way into the military bureaucracy. The Air Force changed one of its financial reporting systems, and after the change, the service showed a negative number for inventory — everything from engine cores to landing gear — in transit. Freaked out, because you can’t have a negative number of things in transit, Air Force accountants went back and tried to reverse the mistake. In doing so, they somehow ended up adding more than $4 billion in value to the Air Force’s overall spare-parts inventory in a single month. This suspicious number is still there. You can see a sudden spike in the Air Force’s working-capital fund’s stagnant spare-parts numbers. That doesn’t mean money was lost, or stolen. It does, however, mean the Air Force probably has less inventory on hand than it thinks it does.

Senators Stunned By Air Force Plan For More Boeing F-15X Fighters, F-35 Cuts -- The Air Force has outlined its major near term goals by submitting a five-year plan to Congress related to the Pentagon's 2020 budget proposal that favors procurement of Boeing's new F-15X fighter — seen as a more cost effective compliment to Lockheed Martin's F-35, and now apparently eclipsed as the Air Force plans to buy 48 F-35s each year during FY 2021-23 instead of the 54 previously planned. But the F-15X, which is Boeing's upgraded F-15, is not necessarily in competition with the F-35, instead it represents Pentagon efforts at better battlefield integration against enemy targets:  In a future air fight, it’s possible that the more stealthy F-35A could get closer to enemies, spot them, then relay targeting data back to F-15Xs, which could launch the missiles at threats from a safe distance. The US military has embraced this kind of networked warfare as a whole, and the strengths of the F-15X and F-35A complement each other in such an environment. The five-year plan calls for 80 F-15X fighters in a $7.8B investment that would increase from eight of the planes next year to 18 per year through 2024. Lockheed Martin's F-35 will get $37.5 billion over the five years, according to the proposal, but in numbers cut down from prior projections.  Gen. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the Pentagon is pursuing the  F-15X partly because it is “slightly less expensive for procurement than the F-35, but it’s more than 50% cheaper to operate over time and it has twice as many hours in terms of how long it lasts.”  This cheaper F-15X Super Eagle, able to carry more weapons though without the stealth capability of the F-35 (the F-15X can carry nearly two dozen air-to-air missiles) is expected to have a service life of a whopping 20,000 hours.  What appears a slowed trajectory for the roll out of the F-35 will likely touch off intense debate, which has already begun in the form of a letter sent to President Trump and Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan from leading Republicans including John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas, and Marco Rubio of Florida, according to Bloomberg.

Bombshell Report- Pentagon Mismanaged $2.1 Billion In F-35 Stealth Jet Parts -- DoD personnel who manage Government property supporting the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Program could not account for billions of dollars in parts, according to a new watchdog report. Now, the Pentagon has to rely upon Lockheed Martin for records.  The bombshell report from the DoD's Office of Inspector General found that DoD personnel “failed to implement procedures, and failed to appoint and hold officials responsible, to account for and manage government property for more than 16 years.”  As a result of the DoD's Office of Inspector General's close examination of the program, “the DoD does not know the actual value of the F‑35 property and does not have an independent record to verify the contractor‑valued government property of $2.1 billion for the F‑35 Program. Without accurate records, the F‑35 Program officials have no visibility over the property and have no metrics to hold the prime contractor accountable for how it manages Government property. The lack of asset visibility restricts the DoD’s ability to conduct the necessary checks and balances that ensure the prime contractor is managing and spending,” the report states.

North Korea Denies Secret Nuclear Facilities Exist As Door Closing On Future Talks -  - A new report by the prominent Japanese daily Asahi has revealed that a key reason talks with the US broke down last month in Hanoi was due to Kim Jong Un’s denial of the existence of “secret” nuclear facilities, resulting in disagreements that have reportedly left Kim disappointed and impatient, to the point that the north last week threatened to shut down talks altogether.  Citing the report, which relies on unnamed officials, Bloomberg notes, "The U.S. had requested specific names and locations of facilities to be shut down as part of the talks but North Korea said only that 'all' facilities be closed without giving details."  The talks broke down prematurely when the US side reportedly demanded the north give up all its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons before it receives any sanctions relief  — even after Kim Jong Un reportedly made a "historically unprecedented offer" to close all of Yongbyon together with U.S. experts, according to later North Korean foreign ministry press statements.  The US side later confirmed that offer was on the table, but stalled as there was severe disagreement over just which facilities were included, as well the scope of Pyongyang's sanctions relief demands.   Last Friday North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told reporters that Kim was "disappointed" not to make a deal with Trump last month.   It appears Kim is fast losing patience, according to Vox's summary of the content of the press briefing:  North Korea threatened to end diplomatic talks with the US as well as its moratorium on missile and nuclear tests — a provocative statement that could end a months-long period of relative harmony between the two nations. “We have no intention to yield to the US demands in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind,” Choe said. Expressing Kim's level of anger and disappointment, Choe said further, “On our way back to the homeland, our chairman of the state affairs commission [Kim] said, ‘For what reason do we have to make this train trip again?’”

‘This Is Utterly Shocking’: Trump Sparks New Confusion Over North Korea Policy - President Donald Trump threw U.S. sanctions policy toward North Korea into confusion on Friday, saying he ordered the withdrawal of “additional large scale” penalties his government imposed against the country.It was not immediately clear what he meant. Trump said the new sanctions had been issued on Friday, but the Treasury Department made no such announcement. Treasury announced sanctions against two Chinese shipping companies on Thursday to punish them for alleged violations of existing sanctions against shipments to North Korea. Spokesmen for the White House and the Treasury Department didn’t immediately explain Trump’s announcement, which left unclear which sanctions he’d reversed. Trump has a penchant for making policy on Twitter, catching his government off-guard. On Thursday he announced in a tweet that the U.S. should recognize the disputed Golan Heights as Israeli territory, surprising State Department officials.

Trump reverses first North Korea sanctions since failed summit after one day - Trump decides against more North Korea sanctions at this time: source (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he has decided against imposing new large-scale sanctions on North Korea in a confusing tweet that seemed to imply he was reversing measures against two Chinese shipping companies, a U.S. administration source familiar with the matter said. U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands before their one-on-one chat during the second U.S.-North Korea summit at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam February 27, 2019. REUTERS/Leah Millis The confusion began when Trump said on Twitter that he had “ordered the withdrawal” of “additional large-scale sanctions” on North Korea that had been “announced today by the U.S. Treasury.” But there were no new U.S. sanctions on North Korea announced on Friday, leading news organizations, lawmakers and experts to believe Trump was referring to the Treasury’s blacklisting on Thursday of two Chinese shipping companies that it said helped North Korea evade sanctions over its nuclear weapons program. The sanctions on Thursday were the first since his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi last month, which collapsed over conflicting demands by Pyongyang for sanctions relief and by Washington for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. The Trump administration did not respond to queries to explain what Trump meant in his tweet for more than five hours. Shortly after Trump’s tweet, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders explained it by saying: “President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary.” But she did not specify which sanctions Trump spoke of.

 North Korea Demanded That US Remove Weapons From Guam, Hawaii- Fmr CIA Korea Chief-  The February summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke down in part over North Korea's insistence that the United States remove the strategic nuclear umbrella and the dismantling of the Indian Pacific Command, according to South Korea's DongA, citing the CIA's former Korea Mission Center Chief Andrew Kim.   SouthKorea's DongA Ilbo: Former CIA Korea Mission Center Chief Andrew Kim said at a closed-door event in Seoul that #NorthKorea continued to insist the #US remove strategic assets in Guam and Hawaii, avoided talks on denuclearisation before Hanoi summithttps://t.co/X9a4Zf8C69   Speaking at a lecture of the Stanford University alumni conference in Seoul on March 20, Kim added that North Korean officials demanded that they be allowed to develop weapons that can be deployed on the Korean Peninsula. They have also requested sanctions relief.  Kim said that North Korea has not been able to elaborate on specific steps to denuclearize during negotiations between representatives, and that North Korea's special envoy Kim Hyeok-Cheol would not commit to anything - even using the word "denuclearization." When pressed for specific demands for sanctions relief, North Korea demanded that foreigners be allowed to resume tours in the Mount Kumgang region in North Korea, as well as the "special economic zone" of Kaesong - a border town with South Korea which at one point employed over 50,000 North Korean workers. In 2016, the South Korean Ministry of Unification shut down the joint industrial venture after suggesting it was a source of hard currency to bankroll North Korea's nuclear program.  Meanwhile, the relationship between North and South Korea has continued to deteriorate, as North Korea is withdrawing from a join liaison office near the demilitarized zone (DMZ), according to CNN.

WATCH: Independent Journalists Debunk Lies About Venezuela at the United Nations (3 full videos) — The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil spoke about Venezuela at a United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19. They joined former special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas on a panel titled “Humanitarian crisis in Venezuela: Propaganda vs. reality.”

US Imposes New Sanctions as Venezuelan Government Denounces Takeover of Diplomatic Offices – The US Treasury Department sanctioned the Venezuela General Mining Company, known as Minerven, and its president, Adrian Perdomo, on Tuesday. The move blocks all eventual assets in the US in which Minerven and Perdomo hold more than 50 percent of shares, and also blocks all US persons and companies from dealing with them. “Treasury is targeting gold processor Minerven and its president for propping up the inner circle of the corrupt Maduro regime,” Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin said in a statement. Minerven operates in the eastern state of Bolivar and is part of the state-owned basic industry conglomerate Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG). It owns several gold-processing plants and produces gold bars from both state-run and small scale independent mining operations. Venezuela sits on the world’s second largest certified gold reserves and has sought to increase mining operations in the so-called Orinoco Mining Arc in the east of the country. However, these mega-mining projects have also drawn criticism for their social and environmental impact on the biodiversity-rich region. Reuters had reported on March 14 that Uganda was investigating its largest gold refinery for allegedly importing US $300 million worth of gold from Venezuela. The African Gold Refinery confirmed that the gold had originated in South America but denied any wrongdoing. Sanctions from the US, Canada and Europe have seen Venezuela look for alternative partners for gold refining operations, with Turkey chief among them. Financial sanctions, which have hampered all transactions and blocked Venezuelan accounts abroad, have also seen Caracas increasingly turn to gold as a source of hard currency to fund imports. These operations have also been targeted by Western governments, with the Bank of England refusing to repatriate an estimated $1.2 billion of Venezuelan gold.

America’s Venezuela Strategy: Coup By Sheer Narrative Control Caitlin Johnstone, The Trump administration is working to overthrow the government of Venezuela. They are not at this time doing this by military invasion, nor by funneling thousands of armed militants into the country, nor even solely with starvation sanctions and CIA ops. The first and foremost means of overthrowing Venezuela’s government currently being utilized by the United States government is the low-risk, low-cost plan to simply control the stories that everyone tells themselves about who is in charge in Venezuela. Adept manipulators understand that humans are storytelling animals. The only thing keeping the powerful powerful, keeping money operating the way it operates, and keeping government running the way it runs is the stories we all agree to tell each other about those things. If everyone collectively decided today that poker chips are the new currency and Kim Kardashian is the Supreme Ruler of the Entire World, those stories would be the new reality, and tomorrow we’d all be doing whatever Empress Kim commands and Las Vegas would be the new Wall Street. The Trump administration is exploiting this exact principle in Venezuela by singling out some guy named Juan and calling him Mister President, despite the fact that he’s never received a single vote for that office and holds no actual power. If they can persuade enough Venezuelans (particularly the ones with the big guns) and the rest of the world’s governments to do the same, then Guaido will indeed become the functional president of the country. Everything the Trump administration does to Venezuela is done with the goal of controlling the stories people tell about it. They smash the country with starvation sanctions, then tell everyone to believe that Maduro is starving his people. They stage a “humanitarian aid” stunt on Venezuela’s border, then they lie and tell everyone that Maduro is blocking all aid to Venezuela and setting aid trucks on fire, because he wants to starve the hungry and kill the sick. It’s all about controlling the narrative with the goal of changing who is recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela. We saw this illustrated especially clearly in a recent press briefing with the State Department’s “Special Representative for Venezuela”, war criminal Elliott Abrams. Abrams was asked by a reporter to “explain to us the article under which Mr. Guaido declared himself president” because “It is said that it has expired last month.” Indeed, when Guaido declared himself interim president back in January we were told that it would be a month-long position in the interim while a new election is prepared. As Reuters reported at the time, “Venezuela’s constitution says if the presidency is determined to be vacant, new elections should be called in 30 days and that the head of the congress should assume the presidency in the meantime.” But, since the Trump administration’s coup-by-narrative has not gone as planned, Abrams stumbled all over himself informing the press that the goalposts of the story have been moved:

Ex-UN Human Rights Expert Blasts ‘Manipulation’ on Venezuela: ‘We Are Swimming in an Ocean of Lies’  - A former United Nations human rights expert and top legal scholar has harshly criticized the international body’s reporting on Venezuela, calling it “unprofessional,” politicized, and unfairly slanted in favor of the country’s right-wing opposition.“We are swimming in an ocean of lies,” explained Alfred de Zayas. “When I went to Venezuela, I expected to find a humanitarian crisis.”“I was predetermined to find a humanitarian crisis,” he continued. “I walked the streets, I spoke to people of all kinds, and that was not the case.“That means I had been manipulated. I had been lied to. And I resent that.”De Zayas previously served as UN independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. A renowned legal scholar, he spent decades working as a senior lawyer for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and is today a professor of international law at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations. He made these remarks during a side event panel on Venezuela at a UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19, where he spoke alongside The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil.

What a Military Intervention in Venezuela Would Look Like - There are two plausible ways the United States might use force in Venezuela: a precision bombing campaign and a full-scale invasion. Either course would have to be followed by efforts to stabilize the country and establish a civilian government. That could take years, given the country's size and military strength. Venezuela has a population of 33 million spread across a territory twice the size of Iraq. Its military is 160,000 strong and paramilitaries, colectivos (armed leftist groups that support Maduro), and criminal gangs collectively have more than 100,000 members. Even if a military intervention began well, U.S. forces would likely find themselves bogged down in the messy work of keeping the peace and rebuilding institutions for years to come. Venezuela has a population of 33 million spread across a territory twice the size of Iraq. Its military is 160,000 strong and paramilitaries, colectivos (armed leftist groups that support Maduro), and criminal gangs collectively have more than 100,000 members. Even if a military intervention began well, U.S. forces would likely find themselves bogged down in the messy work of keeping the peace and rebuilding institutions for years to come.  For precision strikes to work, they would need to destroy the Maduro regime’s military, security, and economic infrastructure. The aim would be to eliminate the regime’s ability to repress the Venezuelan people and to convince the military to abandon the government. A precision military intervention in Venezuela would require operations in the air, at sea, and in cyberspace. The U.S. Navy would need to station an aircraft carrier off the coast of Venezuela to enforce a no-fly zone and hit military targets and crucial infrastructure. The navy would also need to deploy a group of battleships and, perhaps, submarines that could launch a steady stream of Tomahawk missiles at military targets, such as air bases, air defense facilities, and communications and command and control centers. The United States would need to deploy other assets, too, such as attack tactical aircraft (which have greater precision) and drones, deployed either from an aircraft carrier or from a partner nation, to help destroy infrastructure. Finally, U.S. forces would likely use cyberweapons to manipulate, degrade, and destroy Venezuela’s defenses. The United States would almost certainly get sucked in to a long, difficult campaign to stabilize Venezuela after the initial fighting was over.

Exclusive: U.S. threatens to derail meeting of Latam lender if China bars Venezuela (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday threatened to pull out of the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank in China next week if Beijing refuses to allow a representative of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido to attend. The Washington-based IADB, the biggest lender to Latin America, voted last week to replace Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s board representative with Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann, who is backed by Guaido. Several sources familiar with the situation told Reuters that China - one of the Venezuelan government’s few remaining international allies - had proposed not inviting representatives from either the Maduro or Guaido camps to “de-politicize” the meeting. Discussions to try to resolve the issue are ongoing among IADB member countries, and a final decision has not yet been taken, the sources said. China’s embassy in DC was not immediately available to comment on the issue. But a senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration - which has backed Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate ruler - said the United States and its regional allies would “pull quorum” from the meeting in Chengdu if Hausmann was excluded. The move likely would derail the meetings, which bring together finance and development ministers from the lender’s 48 member countries. “China’s unwillingness to recognize and provide a visa to Hausmann is a breach of long-established Inter-American Development Bank protocols and procedures,” the U.S. official told Reuters. “If China refuses to recognize and provide Hausmann a visa, the United States and its regional partners will pull quorum on the annual meeting,” the official added. .

Months after saying US will withdraw, now 1,000 troops in Syria to stay - Just months after claiming the US would withdraw from Syria, Washington has reportedly now decided to keep up to a thousand troops in the country. The revelations were published Sunday in the Wall Street Journal but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford disputed them, claiming the US was still drawing down its presence in Syria. This is the latest shift in policy that has made the US appear disconnected from the realities on the ground in Syria and unable to carve out a clear decision for what the future holds. In mid-December, President Donald Trump spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and decided to withdraw US forces from Syria. The US had up to 2,000 soldiers in Syria aiding the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The main US partners on the ground are the Syrian Democratic Forces. They had largely liberated eastern Syria from Islamic State and, by December, surrounded the terrorist group in an area called Hajin. However, Turkey views the SDF as linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and had threatened to invade an area in northern Syria held by the SDF. Trump appeared to side with Ankara in his December conversation and sudden decision to withdraw. The withdrawal changed many calculations in the region. The US had said it would remain in Syria until Iran left the country, and it appeared the US would therefore be in eastern Syria for the long term. Trump’s reversal set in motion the resignation of secretary of defense James Mattis and anti-ISIS envoy Brett McGurk. But others decided that they could change Trump’s mind. Sen. Lindsey Graham, keenly engaged in the Syrian conflict for years, visited Trump in late December and said he was hopeful the Syria decision would be slowed down and not lead to chaos.

An Illegal War in Syria That Just Won’t End  -- The size of the residual U.S. force staying in Syria continues to grow: The U.S. military is crafting plans to keep nearly 1,000 forces in Syria, U.S. officials said, a shift that comes three months after President Trump ordered a complete withdrawal and is far more than the White House originally intended. The U.S. now plans to keep working with Kurdish fighters in Syria, despite Turkish threats to cross the border and attack the Kurds, the U.S. officials said. The proposal could keep as many as 1,000 American forces, spread from the north of Syria to the south, they said.   Micah Zenko points out that the real number of personnel involved, including contractors, will be even higher than that: From 200, to 400, to now 1,000 US troops. With DOD contractors and unacknowledged DOD/CIA personnel, that's probably closer to 2,500.  https://t.co/xQSDD9I2ft   At the rate things are going, there will probably be more U.S. troops in Syria at the end of Trump’s term than there were at the beginning. There will almost certainly be some troops in Syria for many more years. U.S. withdrawal from Syria is long overdue, and it should have been one of the easiest foreign policy decisions for Trump to carry out. The fact that he can’t follow through on one of his only defensible decisions shows both his own weakness as president and testifies to his terrible judgment in selecting advisers and Cabinet officials that will fight to keep the U.S. in illegal and unnecessary wars.  The failure to withdraw from Syria was predictable and predicted, but that doesn’t make it any less discouraging. The dysfunction and lack of organization in the making of foreign policy under Trump have given the officials serving him enormous latitude to make policy according to their own preferences. Under Bolton as National Security Advisor, both the dysfunction and the influence of key officials have increased in tandem.  This is another Trump failure, but the more important thing to take away from this is that there is virtually no war so illegal or unnecessary that our political and military leaders won’t fight to continue it. The U.S. seems incapable of ending its involvement in any foreign conflict. Even when there is broad majority support in Congress to halt U.S. involvement, as there is for the war on Yemen, the White House and the Pentagon will resist to the bitter end. Even when there is absolutely no legal authority for our troops to be operating in Syria, apparently not even the president is able to bring our involvement to an end.

Trump's Mideast Bombshell- US Must Back Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan Heights - President Trump has with a single bombshell tweet rattled an already tense and war-torn region by announcing "it is time" for the US to "fully recognize Israel's sovereignty" over the Golan Heights. "After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability," Trump tweeted midday Thursday, marking a dramatic reversal of US policy which has historically alongside global international allies seen it as occupied territory.  The impact has been immediately felt in Israeli politics, where politically embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands less than three weeks away from his toughest election yet — after a campaign marred by multiple formal charges of corruption and ongoing state investigations.Trump's tweet, and apparent willingness to move forward on the White House's long signaling that it would dramatically shift policy from prior administrations, hands Netanyahu a huge foreign policy victory and boosts his stature domestically, after he recently renewed a diplomatic push with Trump for the US to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel. Netanyahu was quick to thank Trump, tweeting: "At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Thank you President Trump! @realDonaldTrump."At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Thank you President Trump! @realDonaldTrump— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) March 21, 2019   Beyond Trump's shock Thursday tweet, it's unclear if the White House will release additional specifics or a timeline on any formal recognition. Israel fully annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 after capturing it from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. The United Nations has never recognized Israeli annexation and settlement there, but has repeatedly condemned it.

‘We all found out by tweet’: Trump’s Golan Heights surprise - President Donald Trump’s tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials. U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week’s meetings between Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential announcement this week. No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump’s decision, and the diplomats responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark. Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump’s message. “We all found out by tweet,” one Israeli official said. “We’ve been lobbying for this for a long time, but it was not the product of one phone call. There were hints, but we weren’t given advance notice.”

Foreign Aid, Trump Style: Getting Netanyahu Re-Elected - High officials in Benjamin Netanyahu's government don't usually gush praise for foreign reports on human rights in Israel and the occupied territories.  Until now. The State Department's annual human rights report came out on Wednesday, with 113 pages on Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely's response:“Our greatest friend, the United States, continues to stand up for historical truth. ... This is an achievement of the prime minister and of our work in the [Foreign] Ministry.” The reason for her euphoria was an omission: The State Department's report no longer refers to the West Bank, Gaza or the Golan Heights as “occupied.” The report refers to the "Israeli-controlled" Golan and to “Israeli-controlled” parts of the West Bank, as distinct from areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. “The fact that the definition ‘occupied territory’ is missing from an official document of the State Department is an important step for Israel’s foreign relations and for the future of the settlements,” Hotovely said.  She kept herself from saying, “...and a real help to Prime Minister Netanyahu's election campaign.” I dare to guess that she was thinking those words, but was diplomatic enough not to say out loud what is happening: President Donald Trump and his lackeys are doing their best to get Netanyahu reelected. A quick Orwellian editing of the human rights report is one part of that effort.

'Blatant Effort to Intimidate and Retaliate': Pompeo Imposes Visa Ban on ICC Staff Probing US War Crimes - Human rights defenders expressed outrage on Friday after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed that the Trump administration is revoking or denying visas for any International Criminal Court (ICC) personnel who try to investigate or prosecute U.S. officials or key allies for potential war crimes. The move, Pompeo confirmed to reporters Friday morning, is a direct response to ongoing efforts by the ICC to probe allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity tied to the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan. Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, was among those who spoke out against the decision. The ACLU currently represents Khaled El Masri, Suleiman Salim, and Mohamed Ben Soud, who were all detained and tortured in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2008. "This is an unprecedented attempt to skirt international accountability for well-documented war crimes that haunt our clients to this day," Dakwar said. "It reeks of the very totalitarian practices that are characteristic of the worst human rights abusers, and is a blatant effort to intimidate and retaliate against judges, prosecutors, and advocates seeking justice for victims of serious human rights abuses." Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, called it "an outrageous effort to bully the court and deter scrutiny of U.S. conduct." He encouraged ICC member countries to "publicly make clear that they will remain undaunted in their support for the ICC and will not tolerate U.S. obstruction." Daniel Balson, advocacy director at Amnesty International USA, noted that this is just "the latest attack on international justice and international institutions by an administration hellbent on rolling back human rights protections."

 WaPo Gives Campaign Space To Main Sponsor Of ISIS Who Also Jails More Journalists Than Anyone Else - Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan uses the recent terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand to whip up support for local elections in Turkey: It begins with dramatic music, edited in for effect.   Then stills of the manifesto posted by the gunman in New Zealand before his terror attack, highlighting and translating the sections targeting Turkey. The video streamed live by the attacker comes next, shooting his way into a Christchurch mosque, before blurred images with the sound of automatic gunfire. And then a cut to Turkey's opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, talking of "terrorism rooted in the Islamic world". The crowd boos wildly, galvanised by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has now shown the footage during at least eight election rallies.  In a Washington Post op-ed published today Erdogan goes further. Erdogan compares the Australian terrorist who killed 50 people in a mosque in Christchurch with the Islamic State: The Christchurch massacre’s alleged perpetrator attempted to legitimize his twisted views by distorting world history and the Christian faith. He sought to plant seeds of hate among fellow humans.  In this regard, we must establish that there is absolutely no difference between the murderer who killed innocent people in New Zealand and those who have carried out terrorist acts in Turkey, France, Indonesia and elsewhere. There is of course a big difference. While the murderer in New Zealand, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, visited fascist groups in many countries including Turkey,  he was not part of a larger organization or even a terrorist state. There is no evidence so far that he had any big sponsors.The Islamic State and the ten-thousands of fanatics who established it had by contrast a large sponsor who enabled its killings.His name is Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

US May Soon Freeze Preparations for F-35 Delivery to Turkey - The United States could soon freeze preparations for delivering F-35 fighter jets to Turkey in what would be the strongest signal yet by Washington that Ankara cannot have both the advanced aircraft and Russia’s S-400 air defense system. Reuters reported in an exclusive on Thursday, citing officials. The United States is nearing an inflection point in a years-long standoff with Turkey, a NATO ally, after so far failing to sway President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that buying a Russian air defense system would compromise the security of F-35 aircraft. “The S-400 is a computer. The F-35 is a computer. You don’t hook your computer to your adversary’s computer, and that’s basically what we would be doing,” Katie Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told Reuters. While no decision has been made yet, US officials confirmed that Washington was considering halting steps now underway to ready Turkey to receive the F-35, which is built by Lockheed Martin Corp. “There [are] decisions that come up constantly about things being delivered in anticipation of them eventually taking custody of the planes,” said Wheelbarger. However, another US official said one of the measures the United States was looking at was alternatives to an engine depot in Turkey, without giving more details. The official said any potential alternatives would likely be somewhere in Western Europe. Turkey is home to an F-35 engine overhaul depot in the western city of Eskişehir. If Turkey was removed from the F-35 program, it would be the most serious crisis in the relationship between the two allies in decades, according to Bülent Alirıza, director of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The strains on ties between Washington and Ankara already extend beyond the F-35 to include strategy in Syria, Iran sanctions and the detention of US consular staff. “This [the F-35 standoff] is really a symptom, not a cause of the problem between the two countries,” Alirıza said.

Some U.S. Officials See China Walking Back Trade Pledges - Some U.S. negotiators are concerned that China is pushing back against American demands in trade talks, according to people familiar with the negotiations, even as President Donald Trump sounded optimistic about reaching a deal that could boost his reelection chances. Chinese officials have shifted their stance because after agreeing to changes to their intellectual-property policies, they haven’t received assurances from the Trump administration that tariffs imposed on their exports would be lifted, two of the people said on condition of anonymity. Beijing has also stepped back from its initial promises over data protection of pharmaceuticals, didn’t offer details on plans to improve patent linkages, and refused to give ground on data-service issues, one person familiar with the U.S.’s views said. Beijing is trying to bring in wording that would ensure rules in the trade agreement have to comply with Chinese laws, the person added. “Talks with China are going very well,” Trump said in response to a shouted question at the White House where he held a joint press conference on Tuesday with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. President Trump Hosts Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro At White House U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will travel to Beijing the week of March 25 for high-level talks to try to hammer out a deal, according to a senior administration official, who asked not to be identified. The men agreed to the plans in a phone call on Tuesday with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, who would then make a return visit to Washington at a date yet to be confirmed. The Wall Street Journal earlier on Tuesday reported details about the trip. Talks are going well and are expected to wrap up in the coming weeks, the official said.

Drop Huawei or See Intelligence Sharing Pared Back, U.S. Tells Germany - In a letter to the country’s economics minister, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard A. Grenell wrote allowing the participation of Huawei or other Chinese equipment vendors in the 5G project would mean the U.S. won’t be able to maintain the same level of cooperation with German security agencies. The letter marks the first known time the U.S. has explicitly warned an ally that refusing to ostracize Huawei could lessen security cooperation with Washington. Among other things, European security agencies have relied heavily on U.S. intelligence in the fight against terrorism.Mr. Grenell’s letter notes that secure communications systems are essential for defense and intelligence cooperation, including within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and that companies such as Huawei and state-controlled ZTE Corp. could compromise the confidentiality of these exchanges.His letter noted that under Chinese legislation, Chinese companies could be compelled to assist their country’s vast security apparatus without any democratic checks and balances, and that it would be impossible to mitigate that risk. He also noted that the code running on 5G equipment would need frequent updates and was so complex that the potential for so-called backdoors and other system vulnerabilities couldn’t be ruled out even if Huawei were to let regulators regularly inspect its software. Huawei, which is an employee-owned company, has strongly denied that it has ever spied for the Chinese government or would consider doing so.

 Real Reason Behind Washington's Huawei Ban- US Wants To Spy And China Won't Cooperate -  The UK, Germany, India, and the United Arab Emirates are among the countries resisting US pressure to ban Huawei. The New York Times reports U.S. Campaign to Ban Huawei Overseas Stumbles as Allies Resist. Over the past several months, American officials have tried to pressure, scold and, increasingly, threaten other nations that are considering using Huawei in building fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, has pledged to withhold intelligence from nations that continue to use Chinese telecom equipment. The American ambassador to Germany cautioned Berlin this month that the United States would curtail intelligence sharing if that country used Huawei.But the campaign has run aground. Britain, Germany, India and the United Arab Emirates are among the countries signaling they are unlikely to back the American effort to entirely ban Huawei from building their 5G networks. While some countries like Britain share the United States’ concerns, they argue that the security risks can be managed by closely scrutinizing the company and its software.  Mr. Trump has repeatedly undercut his own Justice Department, which unveiled sweeping criminal indictments against Huawei and its chief financial officer with accusations of fraud, sanctions evasion and obstruction of justice. Mr. Trump has suggested that the charges could be dropped as part of a trade deal with China. The president previously eased penalties on another Chinese telecom firm accused of violating American sanctions, ZTE, after a personal appeal by President Xi Jinping of China.One senior European telecommunications executive said that no American officials had presented “actual facts” about China’s abuse of Huawei networks. The American ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, wrote a letter a letter to Berlin, warning of repercussions should it use Huawei. Germany politely told the Trump administration to go to hell according to the Times. German Chancellor Angela Merkel responded Germany was “defining our standards for ourselves.”

 Will Boeing's 737 Ground US-China Trade Talks? - It's a major embarrassment for the mainstay product of the United States' largest exporter of manufactures to be grounded worldwide. Remember, though, that Chinese aviation authorities were among the first to do so. Boeing's workhorse model, the 737, has had teething problems with the rollout of its latest edition, the Max 8 and 9. Worse still, the two recent crashes of the plane appear to have been caused by similar factors, shifting the likelihood of blame away from pilot error to the software of the plane.  Now, we learn that not only is the Boeing 737 Max a global aviation concern, but also one that could ground US-China trade talks. You see, one of the quicker ways to "bridge" the enormous US-China trade imbalance is for the PRC to buy big-ticket items, and few come more expensive than state-of-the-art jetliners. Unfortunately, though, the Chinese understandably balking at purchasing more 737s--these are meant more for the domestic market--may cause wider damage to trade negotiations: China’s move to ground Boeing Co’s 737 MAX jetliners following the deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash has cast a shadow over the American planemaker’s immediate hopes for a major jet order linked to a U.S.-China trade deal, industry sources said... Evidence of a major potential order for more than 100 jets worth well over $10 billion at list prices had risen in recent weeks as Washington and Beijing reported some progress in trade talks to resolve a months-long trade war.  Now, those sources say it is uncertain how quickly China will be willing to give the 737 MAX the expected new endorsement after ordering its own airlines to stop flying the jet.  Also keep in mind that the Chinese are busy rolling out their own Boeing 737 / Airbus A320 competitor, the COMAC C919. To burnish its reputation for safety, especially among PRC nationals, it may be worth denigrating the Boeing 737 as unsafe such as by canceling orders originally meant to appease the trade-crazed Donald Trump: China may now see an opening to establish itself as more of a leader in the aerospace industry, having already embarrassed the Federal Aviation Administration by leading a global charge to ground the Max that left the U.S. regulator isolated in its defense of the plane’s airworthiness and nearly the last of its brethren to temporarily ban the jet from commercial flight. In any event, this latest brouhaha over the 737 Max surely does not look like it's helping to bring current trade talks to a successful conclusion. After all, what else big-ticket goods are still made in the USA that the Chinese would buy lots and lots of?

 Beijing Threatens Retaliation Over Sale Of F-16s To Taiwan  -- Beijing has been ratcheting up its rhetoric over Taiwan all year, ever since President Xi kicked off 2019 with a speech calling for the "reunification" of Taiwan with the mainland, which provoked a fiery response from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. So when the US approved the sale of 70 new F-16s to Taiwan, crossing one of Beijing's "red lines", and further straining Washington's relationship with Beijing at a very delicate time, when there's a lot on the line for the global economy and markets. Yet, in the latest hair-raising warning that the markets will almost inevitably ignore, one of the Communist Party's most visible mouthpieces just warned that Beijing "will definitely retaliate" if the sale is completed.Whether that retaliation might come via the trade war - or an actual war - was left ambiguous. Though the State Department hasn't officially given its stamp of approval, media reports suggest the sale is all but assured. China's foreign ministry has already registered its displeasure, Bloomberg reported."China’s position to firmly oppose arms sales to Taiwan is consistent and clear," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing Friday in Beijing. "We have made stern representations to the U.S. We have urged the U.S. to fully recognize the sensitivity of this issue and the harm it will cause."While it's unlikely, Congress now has a 30 day window during which it could opt to block the deal, which marks the first US sale of fighter jets to Taiwan since 1992, when the Bush (senior) administration sold 150 F-16s to Taipei in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Obama administration rejected a similar request from Taiwan. In addition to the fighter jets, Taiwan has also requested a purchase order for 108 American-made battle tanks.

Trump says he’s talking about leaving tariffs on China for ‘substantial period of time --President Donald Trump on Wednesday, ahead of a trip to Ohio, told reporters on the South Lawn that he would leave tariffs on China for a "substantial period of time." "We are not talking about removing them, we are talking about leaving them," he said. "We have to make sure that if we do the deal with China, that China lives by the deal," he said. Trump said the deal "is coming along nicely." There's currently a 10% tariff on an array of Chinese goods.

Trump says tariffs on China could remain in place - The tariffs imposed by the US on imports from China could remain in place even after the two countries sign a comprehensive trade agreement, President Donald Trump said today. "We are not talking about removing (tariffs), we are talking about leaving them for a substantial period of time," Trump told reporters at the White House today. "We have to make sure that if we do a deal with China, China lives by the deal. Because they had a lot of problems living by the previous deals." Trump's remarks appear to drive a harder bargain for a potential deal to end the ongoing trade war than what US officials have suggested they would seek. US trade representative Robert Lighthizer has told members of Congress the terms of the agreement would include lifting the tariffs in exchange for extensive changes in China's trade policies, with the possibility of reimposing tariffs later if Washington believes its concerns are not addressed. Trump is proposing a different sequence, keeping the tariffs in place unless China is shown to adhere to its end of the trade deal. The terms of the agreement outlined by Lighthizer would include an inspection mechanism to ensure Beijing's compliance on the so-called "structural issues" — protecting intellectual property, ending forced technology transfer and lifting restrictions on US companies' participation in banking and other sectors. The US administration holds that the large US trade deficit with China — $419bn last year — reflects Beijing's protectionist measures that it is working to overturn. The enforcement mechanism will include monthly meetings between the US Trade Representative's (USTR) office and the Chinese Commerce Ministry, quarterly meetings at the deputy ministerial level, and a semi-annual meeting between Lighthizer and his Chinese counterpart to review complaints from companies. While public remarks by Trump and his senior Cabinet members in recent weeks provide an outline of what Washington expects, Beijing's position is less clear. Both sides insist that negotiations are going well and making progress, even though the timeline for a meeting between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping that was expected to seal the deal is starting to slide. Chinese market participants expect the US to lift all tariffs imposed last year once the agreement is signed, paving the way for Beijing to lift the retaliatory taxes on imports of energy, agricultural and other commodities from the US. The trade war cut off China's imports of crude and LNG from the US for most of the second half of 2018. Trump last month he wanted a "grand deal" covering all bilateral issues — preferably agreed to in a one-on-one session with Xi. A meeting between the two leaders was tentatively scheduled to take place this month at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. But it is delayed until April, US officials said. Lighthizer and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to travel to Beijing next week to continue negotiations. Lighthizer last week said the two sides remain apart on major issues.

In Plain Sight- Bolsonaro, Moro and the CIA - On March 18, Brazil’s extreme-right President Jair Bolsonaro made history. Outside the official agenda of his first official trip to the United States he paid a visit to CIA Headquarters, becoming the first ever Brazilian President to do so. In contrast, Bolsonaro has never visited ABIN, Brazil’s moribund equivalent of the CIA.On the agenda, it is assumed, were the ongoing coup attempt in Venezuela, in which the United States wants further Brazilian assistance, unrest in Nicaragua, Cuba, and Bolivia’s coming election. More pertinent is what role, if any, the CIA had in Bolsonaro’s own.“No Brazilian president had ever paid a visit to the CIA, This is an explicitly submissive position. Nothing compares to this.” remarked former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, one of the world’s most respected diplomats.Bolsonaro’s CIA visit has not only angered steadfast anti-imperialists, who the country should now look to for answers after years of naivety and complacency over the U.S. role in the country’s descent into political distress – it has even left conservative commentators exasperated.The new Government was already delivering a wish list of demands, both corporate and strategic, including the lease of the long-prized Alcantâra rocket base to the United States Military, the first such presence on Brazilian soil since the second world war. The U.S. has gained enormously since the coup of 2016, advantages which have only expanded and solidified with the election of Bolsonaro. The Brazilian President was accompanied to the CIA HQ by Sérgio Moro, the US-trained Inquisitor-Judge turned Justice Minister who was responsible for the politically motivated jailing of Bolsonaro’s main competitor in the 2018 election, Lula da Silva, who was certain to win until his forced removal from the race. With this, Moro delivered the election to Bolsonaro, and was immediately rewarded with a ministerial position. The pair met Gina Haspel, the head of the agency who had been removed in 2013 after revelations of her direct role in torture of kidnapped suspects in the wake of 911. Given that Bolsonaro is an enthusiastic supporter of torture and publicly eulogises torturers of Brazil’s dictatorship era, this cannot have caused him any concern.

 Jair Bolsanaro's Ties to Brazil Paramilitary Gangs Revealed Ahead of Trump Meeting – video - BRAZIL’S PRESIDENT JAIR BOLSONARO is in Washington to meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday. While the trip officially is focused on the joint efforts of the U.S. and Brazil to change the government of Venezuela, it is being billed by the Bolsonaro government as a “restart” of his presidency and image after multiple, serious scandals crippled the first three months of his presidency. But when it comes to recreating his image, the timing of this trip could hardly be worse. Key news events of the last several weeks — including the arrests of two former Rio de Janeiro police officers for the March 2018 assassination of Rio City Council Councilor Marielle Franco — have highlighted the most damaging and, to many, most terrifying revelations about Bolsonaro and his three politician sons: their extensive, direct, multilayered, and deeply personal ties to the paramilitary gangs and militias responsible for Brazil’s most horrific violence. Watch our video report on the growing, multilevel, personal, and highly disturbing links between Bolsonaro and his family on the one hand, and the country’s most violent, lawless, and murderous paramilitary gangs on the other:

  Trump Praises Far-Right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — President Donald Trump praised Brazil’s new far-right leader Tuesday as he welcomed him to the White House, saying the man who’s been described as the “Trump of the Tropics” has done “a very outstanding job.”Trump said President Jair Bolsonaro had run “one of the incredible campaigns,” saying he was “honored” it had drawn comparisons with his own 2016 victory. And he predicted the two would have a “fantastic working relationship,” telling reporters as he opened a joint press conference that they have “many views” in common.The two leaders were expected to discuss a range of issues during their first sit-down, including expanding trade relations, increasing U.S. private-sector investment in Brazil and resolving the ongoing political crisis in Venezuela. Both are fierce critics of Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro.As they sat down for talks, Trump also said that he supports Brazil’s effort’s to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and is “very strongly” looking at U.S. support for Brazil’s effort to gain certain NATO privileges. “We’re very inclined to do that,” Trump told reporters, describing the relationship between the two countries as better than ever. “I think there was a lot of hostility with other presidents. There’s zero hostility with me. And we’re going to look at that very, very strongly, whether it’s NATO or it’s something having to do with alliance,” he said. Brazil, the largest and most populous nation in Latin America, has pursued becoming a “major non-member ally” to NATO to make buying U.S. weapons easier and to lower barriers to military and other cooperation with the U.S. Days after taking office Jan. 1, Bolsonaro, a former army captain, said Brazil would consider letting the U.S. have a military base in the country as way to counter Russian influence in the region, particularly related to Brazil’s neighbor Venezuela.

Brazil To Go Full NATO- Trump Floats Possibility After Bolsonaro Visit - - Latin America's largest country to enter NATO? President Trump actually broached the unlikely scenario during a press conference after meeting with populist far right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — dubbed by the Media as the 'Brazilian Donald Trump' — at the White House on Monday. During the remarks President Trump said he intends to designate Brazil as a non-NATO ally while also musing in an off-the-cuff manner "even possibly" making it "maybe a NATO ally". Brazil had previously indicated it is seeking and would welcome "major non-NATO ally" status granted by the White House, which would significantly boost its ability to purchase military equipment from the US. The designation of “major non-NATO ally” (MNNA) would give Brazil "preferential access" to American military equipment procurement, and further invite more US-led military training and joint operations. Trump previously indicated he is "inclined" to push for Brazil receiving non-NATO ally privileges. “We’re looking at it very strongly. We’re very inclined to do that. The relationship we have now with Brazil has never been better,” he said Monday. But the comments about full NATO entry came as a surprise to many, perhaps even Bolsonaro himself. Brazil has been a key regional ally in ramping up pressure against Maduro's Venezuela as well, and a longtime on-and-off again ally, going all the way back to the US being the first to recognize Brazilian independence from Portugal in the early 19th century. Last week Brazilian officials told Reuters the two countries were in the midst of strengthening direct military cooperation and ties, with eye toward increased NATO level cooperation.

Families Are Crossing Southern U.S. Border In Record Numbers -  Undocumented immigrants travelling in family units have been crossing the Southern U.S. border in record numbers,  as inferred to by arrest counts from Customs and Border Protection. In February 2019, more than 36,000 people were apprehended while trying to cross the border with their families, exceeding the number of other apprehended people by almost 6,000. As Statista's Katharina Buchholz notes, the number of families arrested has pushed total border apprehensions to an 11-year high in February. The number of immigrants apprehended with their family in fiscal year 2019 so far (October-February) has also exceeded the record for most family apprehensions in a whole year, set in FY2018. Recently, more immigrants that are coming across the Southern U.S. border have travelled from countries in Central America, like Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador, while undocumented immigrants from Mexico remain the largest group. These migrants often claim asylum because of political turmoil in their home countries. Family units have been travelling as part of larger groups of up to 100 people, which have been branded as “migrant caravans” by different media outlets. Customs and Border Protection said they had apprehended groups of 100 or more people on 53 occasions since October on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump administration to stop detaining some migrant families at border: report -- The Trump administration will reportedly stop detaining some migrant families who illegally cross the border in Texas as it copes with overcrowding in detention facilities.The Wall Street Journal, citing government officials, said authorities will begin releasing hundreds of families caught each day in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, rather than referring the families to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detention.Under current policy, families who cross the border are detained while they await court proceedings. Families typically get released after a maximum of 20 days, as families with children can't be detained for longer than that under federal law.  According to the Journal, the exact number of families who will be immediately released will depend on the room available in detention facilities. Under the policy, the families who are released will first be processed by Border Patrol and, after they are released, they will be instructed to return for court proceedings. The policy would be at odds with President Trump's opposition to the practice called "catch and release," in which families who are detained after crossing the border are later released. Trump has often railed against the policy, including when he said last year that border agents "are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release."Trump last year also signed an order to end "catch and release," though the policy can't be ended by executive order and the practice has continued. Officials told the newspaper that crowding and safety concerns prompted them to make the change. The Journal noted that conditions at detention facilities has come under scrutiny in recent years. Multiple children have died in recent months in the custody of Border Patrol.

US Supreme Court rules government can indefinitely detain immigrants years after release from criminal custody - In a 5-4 decision Tuesday, the US Supreme Court upheld the federal government’s interpretation of a law in a manner that enables it to indefinitely detain immigrants years after they have been released from criminal custody for certain offenses, while they await a decision on their immigration status.The ruling emboldens the Trump administration in its fascistic war on immigrants, giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents a free hand to hunt down and detain, without bail, any migrant, documented or undocumented, who served time for a criminal offense, including charges as minor as marijuana possession or the illegal download of music. The ruling creates a class of US residents who can be disappeared into America’s network of immigration detention centers over actions that took place years in their past.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which represented the plaintiffs in the case, released a statement on Twitter Tuesday denouncing the decision. “For two terms in a row now,” the statement declared, “SCOTUS [the Supreme Court of the United States] has endorsed the most extreme interpretation of immigration detention statutes, allowing mass incarceration of people without any hearing, simply because they are fighting a deportation charge.”At question in the case, Nielsen v. Preap, was a recent ruling by the Ninth Circuit United States Court of Appeals that a 1996 law enacted under Democratic President Bill Clinton stipulated that immigrants with a criminal conviction could be detained by immigration agents without a bond hearing only if they were arrested within 24 hours of their release from prison. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the extreme right-wing majority, used sophistry, including an argument based on faulty grammar, to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s ruling and justify the unconstitutional and arbitrary detention of immigrants, including legal immigrants holding green cards.

 Black Sites for Kids: Rights Advocates Outraged Over Child Immigrants Being Held at 'Off-the-Books' Detention Facilities - Immigrant rights advocates were horrified Tuesday by a new report which confirmed that the Trump administration is sending some immigrant children to clandestine facilities that are not known to their families and lawyers and are not equipped to provide care to vulnerable minors.An investigation by Reveal on Monday showed that at least 16 young immigrants—as young as nine years old and in need of mental or behavioral health treatment—have been sent by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to "off-the-books" facilities outside the network of federally-funded detention centers. The administration is housing immigrant children with an even greater degree of secrecy than was previously known, in violation of U.S. law."ORR needs to provide answers immediately about where they are holding asylum-seeking children, and what, if any, child welfare regulations those facilities are meeting." —Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) At least one facility—Rolling Hills Hospital in Ada, Oklahoma—has a history of patient abuse. The Flores settlement of 1997 requires that minors are held in U.S. custody for no more than 20 days and demands that the federal government share with a child's attorney the minor's whereabouts and release him or her to a sponsor as soon as possible—two stipulations that the ORR has blatantly flouted with its use of secret facilities. "Detained unaccompanied children with mental health issues are some of the most vulnerable children, and when the government does not provide access to their whereabouts, it calls into question the basic underpinnings of our democratic institutions," Holly Cooper, an attorney representing unaccompanied minors in a class action lawsuit, told Reveal. Reveal's report was met with shocked reactions from rights groups and other critics on social media.

Warren Buffett says US health care must be revamped or it will be left to the government — which will probably make it worse - Complacency will make fixing the nation's health-care system a daunting task, according to Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway recently joined with J.P. Morgan Chase and Amazon to develop a new model for their 1 million employees. Buffett along with Amazon's Jeff Bezos and J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon recently formed the health-care joint venture Haven to figure out how to deliver better health care at a lower cost. One of the problems with the current system, Buffett said in an interview for Yahoo Finance, is that health-care providers and others entrenched in the current model don't have any incentive to change things.  "We have a $3.4 trillion industry, which is as much as the federal government raises every year, that basically feels pretty good about the system," Buffett said. "There's enormous resistance to change while a similar acknowledgement that change will be needed. And of course if the private sector doesn't supply that over a period of time, people will say 'we give up, we've got to turn this over to the government,' which will probably be even worse."  Health spending rose 3.9 percent in 2017 and now makes up nearly 18 percent of American economic output. Last month in his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump called for legislation to cut drug prices. He has also outlined a plan to end the "rigged system" in which people in other countries pay far less for drugs like insulin than Americans spend at home.  "We've got this incredible economic machine but we shouldn't be spending 18 percent when other countries are doing something pretty comparable in terms of doctors per capita and hospital beds per capita," Buffett told Yahoo Finance. "We're paying a price." Haven CEO Atul Gawande, who is a surgeon, is tasked with figuring out how to build the new model. Buffett said the goal isn't to make money but to find a way to deliver better care and stop the "march upward" of costs. "We've got a wonderful partnership in the sense that it's large and in the sense that it has reasonable market muscle with more than 1 million employees," Buffett said. "We've got a unity of commitment and an ability to execute on the commitment."

Establishment Democrats Are Undermining Medicare for All  - The Democratic establishment — deep in the pockets of the health industry — wanted to make sure any blue wave election in 2018 would help sink, rather than support, the growing movement for a single-payer health care system. The recent decline in co-sponsors of the House Medicare for All legislation is, in part, a byproduct of this strategy and a reminder of the great obstacles corporate Democrats have put in front of the single-payer movement. In 2018, there were 124 cosponsors for the Medicare for All bill in the House (then H.R. 676), representing 66 percent of the Democratic Caucus. This was celebrated widely as a high-water mark for the legislation. So was the release of Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All bill in the Senate, which also got a record 16 co-sponsors, including prominent Democrats who are running for president.Given that the Democrats gained 35 seats in the 2018 midterm and Medicare for All has been polling extremely high among Democratic voters — a survey by Reuters from August 2018 showed around 85 percent of Democrats supported the policy — many were hopeful that the number of cosponsors would rise even higher in the current Congress. Despite this hope, when Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced the new flagship Medicare for All bill (H.R. 1384), the amount of co-sponsors decreased considerably to 106, down to 47 percent of the caucus. So why, if Democratic voters are moving left on health care, is this not reflected in Congress? Where did all the co-sponsors go?A Truthout analysis shows the primary reasons for this decline are: 1) incumbents who once supported Medicare for All who have defected, and 2) a largely disappointing freshman class.The most well-known faces of the freshman class are progressives, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, thanks to their ambitious proposals and popular support. This might give the impression to the public that this is reflective of the whole class. The majority of the newest House Democrats, however, were shaped strongly by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the New Democratic Coalition. About 71 percent (42 of 59) of freshman House members declined to co-sponsor the legislation. Some freshman candidates who ran on the issue during the campaign, like Harley Rouda of California, still declined to co-sponsor Jayapal’s bill.

Medical Advisor:  Congress Is Owned by Pharma - Pharmaceutical companies are under the spotlight with congressional hearings on the cost of drug prices and allegations of the industry’s role in the opioid crisis. Dr. Raeford Brown, a pediatric anesthesia specialist at the UK Kentucky Children’s Hospital and chair of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Committee on Analgesics and Anesthetics, has been openly critical of big pharma and the lack of proper oversight from the FDA.Despite many politicians, particularly declared presidential candidates, beginning to speak out against big pharma, Brown does not think that anything will come out of it “because Congress is owned by pharma.”“The pharmaceutical industry pours millions of dollars into the legislative branch every single year,” he told Yahoo Finance. “In 2016, they put $100 million into the elections. That’s a ton of money.”  OpenSecrets, a website operated by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, tracks money in U.S. politics. It ranked the top 20 members of the House and the Senate that have received the most campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical and health products industry during the 2017-2018 election cycle.   (Photo: screenshot/OpenSecrets)

Democrats on the take: New DCCC Chair is a best friend of health insurers -- Here’s a headline you can bet my former colleagues in the health insurance business were thrilled to see last week: “DCCC chief: Medicare for All price tag ‘a little scary.’” That headline topped the lead story in the March 6 edition of The Hill, a newspaper widely read by Congressional staff and lobbyists and others in the influence-peddling business in Washington. You’ll see ads in The Hill by big corporations and special interests you won’t see anywhere else—like the full-page “we’re-not-a-bad-guy” ad on page 2 by opioid maker Purdue Pharma and the two full-page “we’re-part-of the-solution” ads a bit deeper inside by Eli Lilly. The DCCC—for those of us outside the Beltway—stands for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the organization responsible for hauling in as much cash as possible for Democratic candidates running for Congress. And the new “d-triple-c” chief—Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois—is a real pro when it comes to shaking down special interests, health insurers in particular, for the Dems. I mentioned Bustos in a story I wrote on June 25, the day before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stunned party honchos with her upset victory over longtime incumbent Joe Crowley in the New York Democratic primary. Crowley, as I pointed out, was one of a handful of House Democrats who received campaign contributions from the political action committees of all five of the biggest for-profit health insurers—Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Humana and UnitedHealth Group. But Crowley wasn’t those PACs’ favorite Democrat in Congress. That distinction at the time went to none other than Cheri Bustos. So it came as no surprise to see Bustos pouring a big bucket of ice-cold water on the very idea that Congress would give serious consideration to improving and expanding the Medicare program to cover every American, which polls show a big majority of Democratic voters—and even a sizable percentage of Republican voters—favor. When Medicare covers all of us, there will be no need for health insurers as we know them—and we know them increasingly as barriers to getting the care we need. To delay for as long as possible the day Medicare covers everybody, the insurance industry and its allies are showering Democrats with campaign cash and providing their friends in high places—including Cheri Bustos—with talking points designed to scare the daylights out of people.

Bernie Sanders Thinks He Can Beat Insurers. He’s Wrong - Whether they’re running for president or just hoping to hold on to their seats, Democratic lawmakers face growing pressure to endorse one of Bernie Sanders’s signature causes. “Doc, they keep coming—pressing me to sign onto Medicare for all,” a somewhat hesitant and confused congressman told me recently. “Should I?”  “It all depends what you mean by ‘Medicare for all,’” I said. He was hoping for a better answer than I had. About 70 percent of Americans say they support the idea—under which Medicare, the federal program that now provides health coverage for about 60 million seniors and disabled individuals, would expand to cover millions more people.  Yet Medicare for all is a messy concept. At least four different approaches to health reform could truthfully carry the Medicare for all label. Sanders’s plan is the best known, but it’s also the most politically impractical. It ignores the brutal history of repeated defeats for all Democratic health-reform proposals that try to abolish private health insurers.  In the senator from Vermont’s proposal, the federal government—Medicare—would become the primary payer for health-care services. Private insurance companies would be relegated to selling small, specialized plans for medical services not covered by Medicare. According to some bad-faith criticisms of his plan, Sanders is proposing socialized medicine—a government takeover of the whole health-care system. That’s not so. Other ideologically driven critics of Sanders-style Medicare for all have been stoking fears about its cost. [… ]The real obstacle to Sanders’s plan is the public’s expectations. As much as Americans hate insurance companies in general, they want the right to have a love-hate relationship with their own insurer. During the battle over the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama promised, “If you like your plan, you can keep it.” When a handful of Americans lost their plans, the backlash was tremendous—even when the cancellations had nothing to do with the new law. The polling data today are clear: When Americans are told they might have to give up their current insurer, fewer than 40 percent support Medicare for all. That’s nowhere near enough to override the entrenched interests in health care.

Pharma & Insurance Gave $43M to the 129 House Democrats Not Backing Medicare for All -   Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) recently rolled out House Democrats’ version of a Medicare for All proposal that would ensure all Americans have guaranteed healthcare. The bill (H.R. 1384) has an impressive 106 co-sponsors, and has been called “the most ambitious Medicare-for-All plan yet” by Vox, which also reported the benefits the House bill contained were even more significant than the companion bill Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) first introduced in his chamber. Under Jayapal’s plan, private, for-profit health insurance plans would be eliminated, and all Americans would be covered by a government-administered single-payer healthcare plan. However impressive 106 House Democrats co-sponsoring the bill may be, that number falls short of the 218 votes needed for a bill to pass the House of Representatives with a majority vote. Even though there are 235 House Democrats, 112 of the 129 House Democrats currently not listed as co-sponsors on Rep. Jayapal’s bill would need to come on board in order for the bill to be able to pass the chamber and go to the Senate. As Grit Post reported last year, private health insurance companies (and pharmaceutical drug manufacturers) were spending big on making sure that Senate Democrats up for re-election in competitive races would allow the for-profit system to remain in place. And according to new research, it appears that the healthcare industry’s robust election spending also benefited House Democrats. Using campaign finance data made publicly available by the Center for Responsive Politics, Grit Post calculated that donors in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries gave a combined $43,740,947 in career campaign donations to the 130 House Democrats who have not yet signed on as co-sponsors to Rep. Jayapal’s bill. House Democrats received anywhere from $9,570 in financial support from pharma and insurance to $3.2 million, depending on the member. Of those 130 House Democrats not yet co-sponsoring the Medicare for All Act of 2019, 48 of them were elected in the “blue wave” of 2018. Additionally, not one member of House Democrats’ leadership has co-sponsored the bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland), House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), and House Democratic Caucus chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) have all received generous donations from pharma and insurance (Hoyer alone received more than $2.5 million in career donations) throughout their Congressional careers. Below are the names of all 130 House Democrats not co-sponsoring H.R. 1384, in alphabetical order.  A star* denotes House Democratic leadership.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right – it's time for radical change, not more ‘meh’ politics - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an equal-opportunity irritant. The newly elected congresswoman doesn’t just drive Republicans to distraction, she routinely riles establishment Democrats with her refusal to meekly toe the party line. Ocasio-Cortez, to the chagrin of many of her colleagues, has no interest in diluting her views and occupying a “safe” middle ground. If that wasn’t obvious enough already, AOC made her derision for political moderates extremely clear in a speech at South by Southwest on Saturday. “Moderate is not a stance. It’s just an attitude towards life of, like, ‘meh,’” Ocasio-Cortez told a packed room at the tech-centric festival in Austin, Texas. “We’ve become so cynical, that we view … cynicism as an intellectually superior attitude, and we view ambition as youthful naivety when ... the greatest things we have ever accomplished as a society have been ambitious acts of vision. The ‘meh’ is worshipped now. For what?”  It’s a shame Ocasio-Cortez didn’t reference ‘centrist dads’ in her speech, as I reckon the British insult could do with being popularised in the United States. Despite this omission, however, the congresswoman was spot on. On both sides of the Atlantic, the “meh” is worshipped while progressive politics are condescendingly dismissed as unworkable. In Britain, people see Corbynism as an existential threat to Labour; in America, people see the likes of Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez as an existential threat to the Democratic party. More than ever, it would seem that the greatest enemy of the left isn’t the right, but the centre. This reverence for the centre is frustrating, considering we live in an age of extreme inequality. There is nothing moderate about the world’s 26 richest people owning as much in assets as the 3.8 billion who make up the poorer half of the world’s population.  Nor is there anything moderate about the climate crisis. We face massive systemic problems and fixing them requires massive systemic change. Yet the establishment keeps telling us incrementalism is the reasonable answer to an unreasonable situation. It keeps telling us we are naive if we think the world can change. It keeps telling us to be “pragmatic”. It keeps telling us, in essence, to shut up and accept the status quo. What so-called moderates seem unwilling to accept is that the status quo has changed and that centrism is a fringe position now.

 MoveOn Calls for Democratic Presidential Candidates to Boycott AIPAC Conference — MoveOn, a progressive advocacy group with millions of members, is calling on Democratic presidential candidates to boycott AIPAC’s annual conference.“It’s no secret that that AIPAC has worked to hinder diplomatic efforts like the Iran deal, is undermining Palestinian self-determination, and inviting figures actively involved in human rights violations to its stage,” Iram Ali, campaign director at MoveOn Political Action, said in a statement.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are among the confirmed speakers for the event, which begins Sunday.None of the Democratic presidential candidates are listed as speakers at the conference, and there is no indication that any of them plan to attend. But MoveOn’s demand for a boycott will nevertheless “give a clear insight to 2020 candidates on where their base stands instead of prioritizing lobbying groups and policy people who rarely step outside of D.C.,” said Ali.Anna Zuccaro, a spokeswoman for MoveOn, told Politico that the boycott demand is “a clear sign that momentum is shifting.” The call to boycott the conference was viewed as further evidence of the generational shift within the Democratic Party over America’s relationship with the Israeli goverment, which continues to brutally occupy and massacre Palestinians with impunity.

Trump dismisses court packing- ‘It will never happen’ --President Trump on Tuesday dismissed the idea of court packing that has been floated by a number of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. “No, I wouldn’t entertain that,” Trump said when asked if he would consider adding more justices to the Supreme Court to pre-empt Democrats. “We would have no interest in that whatsoever. It will never happen.” The president said “the only reason” Democrats are talking about court packing is because they can't “catch up” with Republicans “through the ballot box.” Whether to expand the number of Supreme Court justices has emerged as a lightning-rod issue in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, with a number of liberal activists and outside groups pushing it as a way to counter what they say is undue GOP influence over the high court.South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) have both said they could support the idea.Liberals remain deeply embittered over Senate Republicans' decision to block former President Obama’s final Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, from receiving a confirmation vote in 2016, while Trump has placed two new justices on the bench.

Senate GOP poised to go 'nuclear' on Trump picks -- Senate Republicans are set to hit the gas on confirming hundreds of President Trump’s nominees by muscling through a rules change that would dramatically cut down on the amount of time required to confirm district court and executive nominations. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who supports the change, hasn’t tipped his hand on when the proposal will come to the Senate floor. But members of his leadership team say it will be taken up after lawmakers return to Washington next week. “I think we have 51 Republicans who would rather do it with 60 [votes], most of us,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of leadership who helped spearhead the proposal along with Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “We cannot continue to let this current situation be the way we do business.” Republicans say they want to change the rules by way of a standing order, which would require 60 votes and the support of Democrats, but recognize that they are unlikely to hit that mark since no Democrats are signaling support. The resolution would reduce the amount of debate time required for district judge picks and most executive nominations. The Senate allows for an additional 30 hours of debate on nominees even after it’s clear that they can defeat a filibuster and ultimately be confirmed. The Blunt-Lankford proposal would reduce that extra time to as few as two hours.

 AT&T CEO interrupted by a robocall during a live interview - At an Economic Club event in Washington, DC today, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was interrupted on stage by a robocall, pausing an interview in front of dozens of people and driving home that absolutely no one is safe from the spam epidemic.Over the past few months, regulators at the Federal Communications Commission have been feeling the pressure from lawmakers and consumers who are urging them to put an end to the relentless onslaught of robocalls people receive every day. Last year, consumers received over 26.3 billion of these scammy calls and the problem only appears to be getting worse. “I’m getting a robocall, too,” Stephenson said during the Economic Club event, ultimately declining the call on his Apple Watch. “It’s literally a robocall.”Lawmakers like Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Ed Markey (D-MA) have introduced a bipartisan piece of legislation that would work to tone back the number of calls, but there hasn’t been any similar reaction from the FCC to combat the problem. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has repeatedly threatened some method of regulatory intervention if carriers like AT&T and Verizon don’t step up with a solution, but he and the commissioners have yet to propose any new rules for carriers.  In response to frustration from consumers, wireless providers including AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have launched free spam filter for calls, but as Stephenson can now attest, it doesn’t make any difference. Today, AT&T and Comcast announced the “nation’s first” call authentication system between two service providers, so that’s a good step in the right direction.

Conservatives face a tough fight as Big Tech's censorship expands -  Donald Trump Jr., op-ed -- As Big Tech’s censorship of conservatives becomes ever more flagrant and overt, the old arguments about protecting the sanctity of the modern public square are now invalid. Our right to freely engage in public discourse through speech is under sustained attack, necessitating a vigorous defense against the major social media and internet platforms. From “shadowbans” on Facebook and Twitter, to demonetization of YouTube videos, to pulled ads for Republican candidates at the critical junctures of election campaigns, the list of violations against the online practices and speech of conservatives is long. I certainly had my suspicions confirmed when Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, “accidentally” censored a post I made regarding the Jussie Smollett hoax, which consequently led to me hearing from hundreds of my followers about how they've been having problems seeing, liking or being able to interact with my posts. Many of them even claimed that they've had to repeatedly refollow me, as Instagram keeps unfollowing me on their accounts.While nothing about Big Tech's censorship of conservatives truly surprises me anymore, it's still chilling to see the proof for yourself. If it can happen to me, the son of the president, with millions of followers on social media, just think about how bad it must be for conservatives with smaller followings and those who don't have the soapbox or media reach to push back when they're being targeted?Thanks to a brave Facebook whistleblower who approached James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, we now know that Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant developed algorithms to “deboost” certain content, limiting its distribution and appearance in news feeds. As you probably guessed, this stealth censorship was specifically aimed at conservatives. Facebook appears to have deliberately tailored its algorithm to recognize the syntax and style popular among conservatives in order to “deboost” that content. “Mainstream media,” “SJW" (Social Justice Warrior) and “red pill” — all terms that conservatives often use to express themselves — were listed as red flags, according to the former Facebook insider. Facebook engineers even cited BlazeTV host Lauren Chen’s video criticizing the social justice movement as an example of the kind of “red pills” that users just aren’t allowed to drop anymore. Mainstream conservative content was strangled in real time, yet fringe leftists such as the Young Turks enjoy free rein on the social media platform.

Nunes Sues Twitter For $250 Million In Shadow Ban Lawsuit --Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) filed a lawsuit against Twitter and several of its users on Monday seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages, reports Fox News. The suit accuses the social media giant of "shadow-banning conservatives," including himself, in order to influence the 2018 US elections through the systematic censorship of certain opinions - while "ignoring" multiple lawful complaints of abusive behavior.   Also included in the lawsuit are several accounts which Nunes claims defamed him - accusing the lawmaker of being a racist, having "white supremacist friends" and turning out "worse than Jacob Wohl," a 21-year-old political exhibitionist and former investment adviser who was charged with 14 counts of securities fraud in 2017.  The lawsuit alleges defamation, conspiracy, and negligence, and seeks not only damages, but also an injunction compelling Twitter to turn over the identities behind numerous accounts he says have harassed and defamed him. Although federal law ordinarily exempts services like Twitter from defamation liability, Nunes' suit said the platform has taken such an active role in curating and banning content -- as opposed to merely hosting it -- that it should face liability like any other organization that defames. -Fox News "Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct, imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon," reads the lawsuit. "Twitter is 'responsible' for the development of offensive content on its platform because it in some way specifically encourages development of what is offensive about the content." Nunes' lawsuit against Twitter basically argues that Twitter does so much to shape content--censorship, shadow-banning, terms of service--that it functions as a de facto content provider. https://t.co/3ck87y5m4I — Byron York (@ByronYork) March 18, 2019 Twitter is accused of supporting "an orchestrated defamation campaign of stunning breadth and scope, one that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life," after the platform allowed defamatory material to be spread about Nunes.

Trump Vows To Investigate Facebook - President Trump renewed his criticism of Silicon Valley tech giants on Tuesday, calling Facebook, Google and Twitter "on the side of the Radical Left Democrats." Facebook, Google and Twitter, not to mention the Corrupt Media, are sooo on the side of the Radical Left Democrats. But fear not, we will win anyway, just like we did before! #MAGA— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2019Since the 2016 election, left-leaning tech platforms have been caught censoring, mocking, or otherwise limiting the reach of conservatives. In a Monday Op-Ed for The Hill, Donald Trump Jr. writes: "From “shadowbans” on Facebook and Twitter, to demonetization of YouTube videos, to pulled ads for Republican candidates at the critical junctures of election campaigns, the list of violations against the online practices and speech of conservatives is long." Trump Jr's op-ed comes the same day that Twitter acknowledged shadowbanning a tweet by The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis. Davis had noted the irony that the FBI was madly scrambling to find ties between President Trump and Russia, while Hillary Clinton paid a guy to collude with Russians on a dossier used as a tool to hurt Trump politically.  Conservatives haven't taken this standing down, however. Also on Monday - California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes sued Twitter and several of its users for more than $250 million. Nunes has accused the social media platform of "shadow-banning conservatives," including himself, in order to influence the 2018 elections.  That said...While President Trump and others have slammed big tech for censorship and bias, his re-election campaign has spent nearly twice as much on Facebook ads as the entire 2020 Democratic field combined. According to data from Facebook and Google's political ad transparency reports, aggregated by Bully Pulpit Interactive and reported by Axios, Trump has spent $3.5 million on Facebook ads, and $1 million with Google between December 30 2018 and March 10 2019.  All of the 2020 Democratic contenders, meanwhile, have spent just $2.1 million combined over the same period.

State AGs put tech giants on notice: ‘Something must be done with these companies … they have become too big’ -- A US attorney general has said "all actions" are on the table when it comes to curbing the power of tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Speaking to SiriusXM's "Breitbart News Daily" radio show, Jeff Landry, the attorney general for Louisiana, described a growing sense of unease among his peers regarding the size of the tech giants."A handful of companies have am massed a tremendous amount of data and power over the US and world economy," he said."When you talk to attorneys general around the country — irrespective of whether they're Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative — there is an instinct that something is going on, there is this instinctive feeling that something must be done with these companies, that they have become too big."He added that US attorneys general will be meeting potentially as early as next Monday to discuss possible antitrust regulation against big tech."In a couple of weeks... there's a roundtable being conducted by attorneys general in front of the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] to discuss this, to discuss the harm that it's placing on consumers, whether or not it will lead to antitrust action against the companies, or whether or not we should be looking more carefully on any mergers or consolidations or buyouts by these tech companies," Landry said. The Republican added that history has shown that there could be the appetite to stand up to big tech companies if there is a view among voters that they have grown too powerful.

DOJ And Clinton Lawyers Struck Secret Deal To Block FBI Access To Clinton Foundation Emails: Strzok -- The Justice Department and Hillary Clinton's legal team "negotiated" an agreement that blocked the FBI from accessing emails on Clinton's homebrew server related to the Clinton Foundation, according to a transcript of recently released testimony from last summer by former FBI special agent Peter Strzok.  Strzok acknowledged that Clinton's private personal email servers contained a mixture of emails related to the Clinton Foundation, her work as secretary of state and other matters. "Were you given access to [Clinton Foundation-related] emails as part of the investigation?" Somers asked"We were not. We did not have access," Strzok responded. "My recollection is that the access to those emails were based on consent that was negotiated between the Department of Justice attorneys and counsel for Clinton." -Fox News Strzok added that "a significant filter team" was employed at the FBI to "work through the various terms of the various consent agreements." "According to the attorneys, we lacked probable cause to get a search warrant for those servers and projected that either it would take a very long time and/or it would be impossible to get to the point where we could obtain probable cause to get a warrant," said Strzok.  The foundation has long been accused of "pay-to-play" transactions, fueled by a report in the IBTimes that the Clinton-led State Department authorized $151 billion in Pentagon-brokered deals to 16 countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation - a 145% increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration.  Bill Clinton reportedly received a $1 million check from Qatar - one of the countries which gained State Department clearance to buy US weapons while Clinton was Secretary of State, even as the department signaled them out for a range of alleged ills," according to IBTimes. The Clinton Foundation confirmed it accepted the money.

Ex-Mercenary CEO Erik Prince Admits To Trump Tower Meet With Don Jr., Saudi Emissary - Erik Prince, former head of mercenary business Blackwater, revealed in a bombshell interview Friday that he attended a meeting in Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. and a representative of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss “Iran policy” during the presidential campaign.The interview marked the first time Prince has publicly acknowledged such a meeting. Prince said in congressional testimony in 2017 that he had no “official” or “unofficial” role in the campaign — other than a “yard sign” and writing “papers” — according to the transcript of his testimony before the House intelligence committee. Nor did he mention the meeting in his testimony, according to transcripts.The New York Times reported last year that Prince organized the 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump’s eldest son and Lebanese-American businessman George Nader. Nader revealed at the meeting that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia wanted to aid Trump in his bid for the presidency, according to the newspaper.The meeting also reportedly included now-top White House aide Stephen Miller and Israeli social media expert Joel Zamel.The August meeting is yet another secret huddle with a representative of foreign governments that may have provided illegal international aid to sway the American election. Just months earlier Donald Jr. and the president’s son-in-law and now senior White House aide Jared Kushner met at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer connected to the Kremlin.Prince, brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, acknowledged the meeting in an on-camera interview on Al Jazeera’s “Head to Head” aired Friday (above).  Asked by host Mehdi Hasan why he didn’t reveal the meeting in his congressional testimony, Prince insisted he had. When his actual response was read back to him, he suggested the transcript was “wrong,” drawing titters from the interview audience.

Sitting Ambassadors Participated In Plot To 'Take Trump Down'- Meadows - Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) revealed that "sitting ambassadors" were involved in a plot to "take down" President Trump. Sitting down with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Sara Carter and Gregg Jarrett, Meadows said that the release of new documents will "show" that US ambassadors conspired with the DOJ, reports the Washington Examiner. "It's additional information that is coming out that will show not only was there no collusion, but there was a coordinated effort to take this president down," said Meadows. "We talk about the 'Deep State.' There are players now, even ambassadors, that are sitting ambassadors that were involved in part of this with the FBI-DOJ." "As we look at this, it's time to show that we show the American people what's out there, declassify some of those documents," Meadows added. "I think when the American people see what I've seen, they will judge for themselves and know that this has all been a hoax."  Watch:

Even a Vacuous Mueller Report Won’t End ‘Russiagate’ Stephen Cohen -- Russiagate allegations that the Kremlin has a subversive hold over President Trump, and even put him in the White House, have poisoned American political life for almost three years. Among other afflictions, it has inspired an array of media malpractices, virtually criminalized anti–Cold War thinking about Russia, and distorted the priorities of the Democratic Party. And this leaves aside the woeful impact Russiagate has had in Moscow—on its policymakers’ perception of the US as a reliable partner on mutually vital strategic issues and on Russian democrats who once looked to the American political system as one to be emulated, a loss of “illusions” I previously reported. Contrary to many expectations, even if the Mueller report, said to be impending, finds, as did a Senate committee recently, “no direct evidence of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia,” Russiagate allegations are unlikely to dissipate in the near future and certainly not before the 2020 presidential election. There are several reasons this is so, foremost among them the following:

• § The story of a “Kremlin puppet” in the White House is so fabulous and unprecedented it is certain to become a tenacious political legend, as have others in American history despite the absence of any supporting evidence.
• § The careers of many previously semi-obscure Democratic members of Congress have been greatly enhanced—if that is the right word—by their aggressive promotion of Russiagate. (Think, for example, of the ubiquitous media coverage and cable-television appearances awarded to Representatives Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Maxine Walters, and to Senators Mark Warner and Richard Blumenthal.) If Mueller fails to report “collusion” of real political substance, these and other Russiagate zealots, as well as their supporters in the media, will need to reinterpret run-of-the-mill (and bipartisan) financial corruption and mundane “contacts with Russia” as somehow treasonous.
• § Still worse, the top Democratic congressional leadership evidently has concluded that promoting the new Cold War, of which Russiagate has become an integral part, is a winning issue in 2020.  Trump has reasonably questioned NATO’s mission and costs nearly 30 years after the Soviet Union disappeared, as did many Washington think tanks and pundits back in the 1990s. But for Pelosi and other Democratic leaders, there can be no such discussion, only valorization of NATO, even though the military alliance’s eastward expansion has brought the West to the brink of war with nuclear Russia. Anything Trump suggests must be opposed, regardless of the cost to US national security. Will the Democrats go to the country in 2020 as the party of investigations, subpoenas, Russophobia, and escalating cold war—and win?

Mueller submits Trump-Russia inquiry report to U.S. attorney general  (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Friday handed in a confidential report on his investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election and any potential wrongdoing by U.S. President Donald Trump, setting off a clamor from lawmakers in both parties for the document’s quick release. Marking the end of his nearly two-year investigation that ensnared former Trump aides and Russian intelligence officers and cast a cloud over the Republican businessman’s presidency, Mueller submitted the report to Attorney General William Barr, the Justice Department said. It was not known if Mueller found criminal conduct by Trump or his campaign, beyond the charges already leveled against several aides. In all, Mueller brought charges against 34 people and three companies. Mueller, a former FBI director, had been examining since May 2017 whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Moscow to try to influence the election and whether the Republican president later unlawfully tried to obstruct his investigation. Trump has denied collusion and obstruction. Russia has denied election interference. Trump has sought to discredit the investigation, calling it a “witch hunt” and accusing Mueller of conflicts of interest. But he said on Wednesday he does not mind if the public is allowed to see the report.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivers Russia probe inquiry report - The special counsel Robert Mueller delivered a report late Friday to Attorney General William Barr bringing to a conclusion a 22-month investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. No details of the content of the report have yet been made public.Barr notified the leaders and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Democrats Jerrold Nadler and Dianne Feinstein, and Republicans Lindsey Graham and Doug Collins, in an official Department of Justice letter. Barr wrote that he is reviewing the confidential report and “may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.”Under the terms of the Special Counsel regulations, the Attorney General is required to notify Congress of any proposed action in Mueller’s report that he has vetoed because it is “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.” Barr wrote that there are no such instances in the Special Counsel’s investigation.The Special Counsel law also gives Attorney General Barr discretion in determining how much of the report will be shared with Congress and the public. He wrote that he is “committed to as much transparency as possible” and that this determination will be made in the course of his review.Shortly after Mueller made his submission, NBC News reported that an unnamed senior justice department official confirmed that there are no sealed or further criminal indictments coming out of the probe. This means that no one in the Trump campaign has or will be charged with carrying out any criminal act in conjunction with Russia. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) rejected claims that no further indictments would be forthcoming, saying to CNN he would call Mueller before a House panel for questions, indicating that the internecine conflict between different factions of the ruling establishment is not over.

Very Quick Thoughts on the End of the Mueller Investigation - Lawfare - Attorney General William Barr now has the Mueller Report, and the world looks a heck of a lot like it did yesterday, when Barr did not have the Mueller Report. At least, it appears to. The major difference is that the mystery before us has slightly changed form. Before today, we asked what Mueller was going to do, what indictments he was going to bring, and what allegations he was going to make. Today, we ask a subtly different question: What is it that he has written? What allegations has he made? And why has he decided not to make those allegations in the form of additional cases? We don’t, at this stage, know anything about what information the Mueller Report contains. We don’t know what form the document takes. We don’t even know how many pages comprise it. We don’t know when we will learn what Mueller has found. Speculating about these questions is not useful. A huge amount depends here on how Mueller imagines his role—and on how Barr imagines his. But there are certain things we do know: We know, for example, that Mueller was able to finish his investigation on his own terms. We know this because Barr said so in his letter to Congress Friday evening. The special counsel regulations, writes Barr, “require that I provide [Congress] with ‘a description and explanation of incidents (if any) in which the Attorney General’” countermanded an investigative step of the special counsel. “There were no such instances during the Special Counsel’s investigation.” This is reassuring. From it, we can at least tentatively conclude that the Mueller report—whatever is in it—reflects Mueller’s best assessment of the evidence, following his having taken every investigative step he felt necessary and appropriate to reach that assessment. We also know that Mueller is not going to indict more people. Though what precisely this means is unclear, it means at a minimum that we should not expect the major collusion indictment that ties together the earlier Russian hacking allegations and social media indictment with conduct by figures in the Trump campaign. It also means that whatever Mueller found on the obstruction prong of the investigation, it’s not resulting in criminal charges either. The president should wait before popping the champagne corks over this and tweeting in triumph. Yes, in the best-case scenario for the president, Mueller is not proceeding further because he lacks the evidence to do so. But even this possibility contains multitudes: everything from what the president calls “NO COLLUSION!” to evidence that falls just short of adequate to prove criminal conduct to a reasonable jury beyond a reasonable doubt—evidence that could still prove devastating if the conduct at issue becomes public. There are other possibilities as well...

The Mueller Report Is In. They Were Wrong. We Were Right. - Caitlin Johnstone - — The Robert Mueller investigation which monopolized political discourse for two years has finally concluded, and his anxiously awaited report has been submitted to Attorney General William Barr. The results are in and the debate is over: those advancing the conspiracy theory that the Kremlin has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government were wrong, and those of us voicing skepticism of this were right.The contents of the report are still secret, but CNN’s Justice Department reporter Laura Jarrett has told us all we need to know, tweeting, “Special Counsel Mueller is not recommending ANY further indictments am told.” On top of that, William Barr said in a letter to congressional leaders that there has been no obstruction of Mueller’s investigation by Justice Department officials. So that’s it, then. A completely unhindered investigation has failed to convict a single American of any kind of conspiracy with the Russian government, and no further indictments are coming. The political/media class which sold rank-and-file Americans on the lie that the Mueller investigation was going to bring down this presidency were liars and frauds, and none of the goalpost-moving that I am sure is already beginning to happen will change that.

‘The watchword is transparency’: Democrats ready to fight for Mueller’s complete findings - House Democrats, concerned that President Trump’s attorney general may withhold evidence of wrongdoing uncovered by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, are preparing for potential battle over access to the full contents of Mueller’s newly completed report, vowing to pursue it and any underlying investigative materials in court if necessary. “We will fight” for the full report, said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, emphasizing that Democrats expect complete transparency from Mueller and the Justice Department, save for redactions of classified information that could jeopardize sensitive law enforcement methods if disclosed publicly. Attorney General William P. Barr informed the heads of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees in a letter Friday that he might be able to advise them of Mueller’s “principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.” He noted also that neither Barr nor his predecessors had challenged any actions Mueller took during his probe. But with limited power to compel information from potential witnesses, congressional Democrats are looking to Mueller’s findings to inform their investigations of Trump’s campaign, businesses and alleged foreign ties — and insist they will be satisfied with nothing short of a complete account of the results and the evidence that informed them. “The Special Counsel’s investigation focused on questions that go to the integrity of our democracy itself: whether foreign powers corruptly interfered in our elections, and whether unlawful means were used to hinder that investigation,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement after Barr announced Mueller had completed his report. “The American people have a right to the truth. The watchword is transparency.” The stakes are high: If the special counsel found evidence that Trump committed a crime, participated in a coverup, or otherwise engaged in conduct undermining the public trust, it could fuel calls for impeachment, which Democratic leaders have resisted absent proof of wrongdoing.

Former Putin adviser had neck fracture at time of death in Washington Hotel - Newly released documents show that a former adviser to Vladimir Putin sustained a complete fracture of his neck “at or near the time of his death” in a Washington hotel room in 2015.The documents from the city’s medical examiner were released to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE) in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed nearly two years ago.  In a report published on Saturday, RFE said the finding offered no clearcut evidence of foul play in the death of Mikhail Lesin, who was a key adviser during Putin’s rise to power in Russia. But RFE said the documents provide “the most precise scientific description” yet of a death that has been shrouded in suspicion. The official ruling was that Lesin, 57, died accidentally of blunt force trauma after falling repeatedly in his room while intoxicated.  Yet there is intrigue surrounding the case, fed by circumstantial evidence: it seems odd for someone of Lesin’s age to die of blunt force trauma while alone in a room. There is also a gap in security video footage for the hours after Lesin was last seen alive. The police report eventually released to the public has been heavily redacted. Above all, there is a long history of high-profile Russians turning up dead or seriously ill in foreign countries. RFE said the documents released by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner show that Lesin’s hyoid bone had been completely fractured. An official, whose name was redacted, is quoted as saying such breaks “are commonly associated with hanging or manual strangulation”, but that it was also possible that the bone was damaged during the autopsy.

Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska goes on the record about his lawsuit against the US government - (interview) In a CNBC exclusive, Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska sits down with CNBC's Geoff Cutmore to discuss his lawsuit against the United State government. Deripaska, who has strong ties to President Vladimir Putin, claims that the sanctions imposed by the United States back in April 2018 have led to at least $7.5 billion in material loss for him, forcing him to lower his ownership in two companies.

Deutsche Bank reportedly loaned more than $2 billion to Trump over two decades - Deutsche Bank loaned more than $2 billion to Donald Trumpbefore he became president — despite multiple red flags surrounding his business dealings, The New York Times reported Monday.  The Times interviewed more than 20 former and current executives and board members at Deutsche Bank for the report, which outlined how Trump managed to secure financing from theGerman bank for nearly two decades despite his bankruptcies and being considered a risky client by other lenders.  The Times report comes after Germany's two largest lenders, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, confirmed on Sunday that they were in talks about a merger. German-traded shares of both banks jumped Monday. According to the newspaper, in some instances, Trump exaggerated his wealth and promised to reward bankers with a weekend at Mar-a-Lago — his private club in Palm Beach, Florida — in order to get loans.  Over the years, Trump used loans provided by Deutsche Bank to build skyscrapers and other high-end properties, the Times reported. For the German bank, its relationship with Trump was key in building its investment-banking business, the report said.  Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the Times report. The Trump Organization and the White House did not reply to CNBC's request for comment.  Trump's relationship with Deutsche Bank has come under scrutiny in the United States. The New York state attorney general's office and the Democratic-controlled Intelligence Committee and Financial Services Committee in Congress have been looking into the president's financial ties with the German bank.

 Billions From Deutsche Bank Despite Trump’s Bankruptcies, Defaults, and Financial Malfeasance (video) The latest developments about Trump’s relationship to Deutsche Bank could be the unraveling with Deutsche Bank and Trump facing a serious legal probe on bank fraud by the House Financial Services Committee chaired by Rep. Maxine Waters. NEP’s Bill Black appears on The Real News Network to discuss. You can view here with transcript.

U.S. Grand Jury to Examine How Boeing’s 737 Max 8 Jets Are Made - The day after Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff in Ethiopia, a Washington, D.C. grand jury issued a broad subpoena naming at least one person with knowledge of how Boeing’s 737 Max jets are made, The Wall Street Journal reports. The subpoena, dated March 11, seeks documents—including correspondence, emails, and text messages—regarding the jet’s development, the paper reports. The inquiry reportedly seeks to ensure that no records were destroyed in the days following the crash that killed 157 people from more than 30 countries. The probe also involves at least one prosecutor from the fraud section of the Department of Justice’s criminal division. The documents must be turned over to the jury within a month.

Boeing’s Unsuccessful Attempt to Avert a Crisis - Dennis Muilenburg and Donald Trump are said to have a close and trusting relationship. The Boeing CEO has boasted of his close rapport with the 45th president in front of TV cameras. Indeed, the Boeing CEO and the 45th U.S. president -- a known aviation enthusiast who once owned his own airline -- have spoken several times since Trump's election. "He cares about business," Muilenburg has said about Trump. "We sit with him at the table."But on the morning of Tuesday, March 12, having the president's ear wasn't enough to fend off an order from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ban all Boeing 737 Max 8s from U.S. airspace.In a phone call with Trump earlier in the week, Muilenburg had tried to convince the president that there was nothing amiss with the plane. The crash in Ethiopia on March 10 was no reason to ground the entire fleet, the Boeing CEO had said.One hundred fifty seven people were killed when an Ethiopian Airlines plane slammed into a field south of the capital Addis Ababa at a nearly vertical angle, but Muilenburg acted as if his company would be immune to any fallout. He claimed there was no safety problem, and that there were no parallels to the crash involving the same type of plane in Indonesia five months earlier. Boeing tersely responded that there would be a software update -- one that was supposed to make the planes safer. But with 356 people dead, the company's promise to reprogram some code just sounded cynical.Trump himself put an end to this, shattering Muilenburg's arrogant defensive strategy. A mere 24 hours later, the president announced that Boeing's vaunted short- and medium-haul aircraft would be grounded in the United States. By the time the FAA implemented the order, airlines and aviation authorities in dozens of other countries had already done so.

Flawed analysis, failed oversight: How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system - Seattle Times - As Boeing hustled in 2015 to catch up to Airbus and certify its new 737 MAX, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) managers pushed the agency’s safety engineers to delegate safety assessments to Boeing itself, and to speedily approve the resulting analysis.But the original safety analysis that Boeing delivered to the FAA for a new flight control system on the MAX — a report used to certify the plane as safe to fly — had several crucial flaws.That flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), is now under scrutiny after two crashes of the jet in less than five months resulted in Wednesday’s FAA order to ground the plane.Current and former engineers directly involved with the evaluations or familiar with the document shared details of Boeing’s “System Safety Analysis” of MCAS, which The Seattle Times confirmed. The safety analysis:

• Understated the power of the new flight control system, which was designed to swivel the horizontal tail to push the nose of the plane down to avert a stall. When the planes later entered service, MCAS was capable of moving the tail more than four times farther than was stated in the initial safety analysis document.
• Failed to account for how the system could reset itself each time a pilot responded, thereby missing the potential impact of the system repeatedly pushing the airplane’s nose downward.
• Assessed a failure of the system as one level below “catastrophic.” But even that “hazardous” danger level should have precluded activation of the system based on input from a single sensor — and yet that’s how it was designed.

The people who spoke to The Seattle Times and shared details of the safety analysis all spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their jobs at the FAA and other aviation organizations. Both Boeing and the FAA were informed of the specifics of this story and were asked for responses 11 days ago, before the second crash of a 737 MAX last Sunday.

DOT Begins Audit of How 737 Max Was Certified By FAA And Boeing - Confirming a Monday WSJ report that Department of Transportation officials are scrutinizing the development of Boeing 737 MAX jetliners and in particular its anti-stall (MCAS) system, the Department of Transportation has officially asked for a wide-ranging review of how the government and Boeing certified the now infamous 737 MAX. In a Tuesday press release, transportation Secretary Elaine Chao requested the audit in a memo to the department’s Inspector General Calvin Scovel.The new audit is separate from the criminal probe that the Inspector General is also conducting in conjunction with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division.As Bloomberg notes, Chao’s move opens a new front in the U.S. government’s inquiries into the Oct. 31 crash of an Indonesian 737 Max and another crash of the same model in Ethiopia on March 10. The 737 Max family of jets was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday after evidence surfaced linking the two crashes. Boeing stock drifted to session lows, following the confirmation of the DOT probe of the 737 MAX.

Boeing Stock Tumbles After FBI Joins Criminal Investigation Into 737 MAX Certification — While it should not come as a surprise following news that a grand jury subpoena – which listed the Justice Department’s criminal division listed as a contact – had been sent to Boeing and the FAA, scrutinizing the development of Boeing 737 MAX jetliners and in particular whether corners had been cut with its anti-stall (MCAS) system, moments ago Boeing stock tumbled when the Seattle Times reported that the FBI has joined the criminal investigation into the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX, “lending its considerable resources to an inquiry already being conducted by U.S. Department of Transportation agents.”  The federal grand jury investigation, based in Washington, D.C., is looking into the certification process that approved the safety of the new Boeing plane, two of which have crashed since October, the Seattle Times reported. Conveniently, the FBI’s Seattle field office is located close to Boeing’s 737 manufacturing plant in Renton, as well as nearby offices of Boeing and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials involved in the certification of the plane, which means that the probe should be rather quick.A story by the Seattle Times over the weekend detailed how FAA managers pushed its engineers to delegate more of the certification process to Boeing itself, sparking confusion just what the FAA’s role actually is, and whether it delegated its own duties to the “supervised” company in exchange for kickbacks. The Times story also detailed flaws in an original safety analysis that Boeing delivered to the FAA. As the newspaper adds, “criminal investigations into the federal oversight of airplane manufacturing and flight are rare, in part because of the longstanding belief  that a civil-enforcement system better promotes candid reporting of concerns without fear of criminal repercussions.”

Doomed Boeing Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Company Sold Only as Extras -  NYT - As the pilots of the doomed Boeing jets in Ethiopia and Indonesia fought to control their planes, they lacked two notable safety features in their cockpits.One reason: Boeing charged extra for them.For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations. Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them. Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again. It is not yet known what caused the crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10 and Lion Air Flight 610 five months earlier, both after erratic takeoffs. But investigators are looking at whether a new software system added to avoid stalls in Boeing’s 737 Max series may have been partly to blame. Faulty data from sensors on the Lion Air plane may have caused the system, known as MCAS, to malfunction, authorities investigating that crash suspect.  Federal prosecutors are investigating the development of the Boeing 737 Max jet, according to a person briefed on the matter. As part of the federal investigation, the F.B.I. is also supporting the Department of Transportation’s inspector general in its inquiry, said another person with knowledge of the matter.

FAA Saga Is A Perfect Microcosm Of Our Twisted & Broken Culture - One of the first things to become apparent as I began reading about the deadly crash of Ethiopian Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane on March 10th, was the fact that nobody seemed to trust U.S. authorities.As Fortune noted:Ethiopia’s aviation authority is unable to read the black box recorders from the Boeing 737 Max plane that crashed Sunday, but a row is brewing over just where the flight recorders will be sent for analysis.The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is pushing to have its experts analyze the data and voice recorders, which were partly damaged, the Wall Street Journal reports, but Ethiopian authorities would prefer to work with the U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch to ensure that U.S. experts won’t have undue influence in the probe of the American-made plane.At the same time, pretty much the entire world had started to ground 737 MAX planes as this was the second time this model had crashed within the span of five months. By early last week, Canada and the U.S. had become increasingly isolated in insisting the planes were safe to fly, and then Canada folded too.This represented a huge rebuke to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which continued to defend the aircraft until the very last moment. In a ridiculous stunt, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao even rode in a 737 MAX two days after the latest crash. Many people, including myself, saw this lack of trust in the FAA as a watershed moment. Politico noted: It was a sharp contrast to the typical way such decisions have been made in the past, in which countries would follow the lead of the agency that had certified the aircraft in question. In this case, that would be the FAA, which has historically been seen as the gold standard among aviation safety regulators. Given the plethora of information to emerge in recent days, it turns out the rest of the world was correct to distrust the FAA and Boeing. The most illuminating article on the subject was published yesterday in The Seattle Times, titled: Flawed Analysis, Failed Oversight: How Boeing, FAA Certified the Suspect 737 Max Flight Control System. If you read one article today, that should be it. It becomes perfectly clear that both the FAA and Boeing played major roles in allowing flawed planes to fly all over the world, and it took two disastrous crashes, as well as the whole world grounding them, to finally act.

 SEC says Musk's contempt defense 'borders on the ridiculous' - — U.S. securities regulators countered Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s contempt-of-court defense Monday night, writing in court papers that he brazenly disregarded a federal judge’s order and that one of his arguments “borders on the ridiculous.” Lawyers for the Securities and Exchange Commission, in a response to Musk, wrote that when the contempt motion was filed in February, Musk had not had a single tweet approved by a company lawyer, violating a requirement of a court-approved settlement order. The October securities fraud settlement stemmed from tweets by Musk in August about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share. But Musk didn’t have the funding secured. Tesla and Musk each had to pay $20 million in fines and agree to governance changes that included Musk’s removal as chairman. SEC lawyers led by Cheryl Crumpton wrote in a response to Musk’s defense that he interprets the settlement order as not requiring pre-approval unless Musk decides the tweets are meaningful to investors. The agency said Musk’s argument that tweeting about car production forecasts on Feb. 19 wasn’t material information is nearly ridiculous. “His interpretation is inconsistent with the plain terms of this court’s order and renders its pre-approval requirement meaningless,” the lawyers wrote. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan will decide if Musk is in contempt and whether he should be punished. Musk’s lawyers wrote last week that the Feb. 19 tweet merely restated previously approved disclosures on electric car production. They wrote that the tweet, which was published after the markets closed, neither revealed material information, nor altered the mix of data available to investors. The lawyers also accused the Securities and Exchange Commission of censorship and of violating Musk’s First Amendment rights by imposing a prior restraint on his speech. But the SEC lawyers wrote that submitting statements for approval does not mean Musk is prohibited from speaking. “As long as a statement submitted for pre-approval is not false or misleading, Tesla would presumably approve its publication without prior restraint on Musk,” they wrote. The SEC also wrote that Musk waived any First Amendment challenge to the order when he agreed to it.

That Didn’t Last Long- CBOE Bails on Bitcoin Futures Trading - Wolf Richter • When Cboe Global Markets – which owns the Chicago Board Options Exchange, BATS Global Markets, and others – started to let folks trade bitcoin futures contracts for the first time on December 10, 2017, it was greeted by deafening hoopla in the crypto community and in the crypto-bedazzled media. Within 24 hours bitcoin jumped by $2,000 to $17,382.  At the time, bitcoin was changing the world as we knew it, creating dreams by regular folks and their in-laws of becoming overnight billionaires or at least millionaires. Trading bitcoin futures contracts was just the next logical step in making bitcoin the mainstream millionaire-maker.  Then the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launched bitcoin futures on December 18, 2017. But on that day already the price of bitcoin had begun its epic collapse: When it comes to impeccable timing, few events can hold a candle to those two launch dates:  Futures trading can be used to bet on rising or falling prices, and this gave investors their first convenient chance to bet against the ludicrous run-up of bitcoin. Suddenly the bearish bets were the ones that made money.  So last week, the Chicago Board of Exchange (Cboe) announced that it would abandon bitcoin futures on its Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE):  CFE is not adding a Cboe Bitcoin (USD) (“XBT”) futures contract for trading in March 2019. CFE is assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading. While it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading. Currently listed XBT futures contracts remain available for trading.  Currently offered contracts expire in April, May, and June. And then that’s it, unless after “assessing” things, Cboe changes its mind.  But bitcoin futures trading isn’t dead yet. CME Group has seen higher trading volumes than Cboe and told CoinDesk that it has “no changes to announce re our bitcoin futures contract.” The bitcoin futures listed by both, Cboe and CME, are cash-settled, where at the end of the contract, one party pays the counterparty in US dollars for the difference in the spot price and the futures price. Other exchanges are planning to offer physically settled contracts that are settled by delivering the physical commodity, namely bitcoin, rather than dollars, but they’re stuck in regulatory limbo at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

 Media Silent as Israel’s Largest Banks Pay Over $1 Billion in Fines for US Tax Evasion Schemes - — Israel’s three largest banks — Hapoalim Bank, Leumi Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank — have all been ordered to pay record fines, which collectively are set to total over $1 billion, to the U.S. government after the banks were found to have actively colluded with thousands of wealthy Americans in massive tax-evasion schemes.The scandal, though it has been reported on in Israeli media, has garnered little attention in the United States. The media black-out has been so surprising it was even directly mentioned by the Times of Israel, given that similar revelations about other banks and offshore tax-evasion schemes — such as those contained within the Panama Papers — led to global protests and even the resignations of some world leaders.The settlements are the end result of a series of Department of Justice (DOJ) probes that were related to the DOJ’s 2007 investigation targeting UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank. The focus of the probe turned to Israel a few years later in 2011, when it was determined that the Swiss subsidiaries of several of Israel’s largest banks had actively aided Americans seeking to launder their money.As the probes advanced, the DOJ found that the three banks — Israel’s largest when ranked by net income and total assets — had a history of collaborating with wealthy Americans in tax evasion schemes, not just in their Swiss subsidiaries but in Israel as well. Most of those wealthy Americans were Jewish Americans or dual U.S.-Israeli citizens who hid their U.S. citizenship from the Israeli banks. A year after the probes into Leumi, Hapoalim and Mizrahi Tefahot were made public, the U.S. State Department notably listed Israel as a “major money laundering country… whose financial institutions engage in currency transactions involving significant amounts of proceeds from international narcotics trafficking … or other serious crime.”

'Total Embarrassment': WaPo Rebuked for Failed Fact-Check of Sanders on Trillion-Dollar Wall Street Bailout - Progressive critics accused Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler of cherry-picking evidence, playing semantic games, and obscuring the truth on Monday after he said Sen. Bernie Sanders inflated the amount of taxpayer bailout money Wall Street received following the 2008 financial crisis.   Kessler took issue with a line the Vermont Independent and 2020 presidential contender often includes in his stump speeches: "Not one major Wall Street executive went to jail for destroying our economy in 2008 as a result of their greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior. No. They didn't go to jail. They got a trillion-dollar bailout."   Dismissing the trillion-dollar figure as "a nice round number" that is "not borne out by the facts," Kessler added up the amount of aid major banks received through the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Even under an expansive definition of Wall Street, Kessler asserted, the bailout amounted to "just over $500 billion—or half a trillion." Under the Post's vaguely defined scoring system, Kessler rewarded Sanders with two "Pinocchios."   But Sanders' team and other critics were quick to argue that Kessler's focus on TARP funds was overly narrow and neglected emergency loans from the Federal Reserve that amounted to trillions of dollars in bailout money that kept Wall Street afloat. "If anything, Senator Sanders has underestimated the size of the post-crisis bailouts," Arianna Jones, a spokeswoman for Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, told the Post. Jones pointed to several studies and news reports showing that Fed loans exceeded a trillion dollars and may have been as high as $29 trillion. Responding to Jones' rebuttal, Kessler—who sparked outrage last year after his error-riddled Medicare for All "fact-check"—argued that "there is a definitional issue about what one considers a bailout" and suggested that loans from the Fed may not fit his definition.

Fed chief hints Wells Fargo's regulatory issues are far from over — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested Wells Fargo has a long way to go to satisfy the regulator’s demands for “fundamental” risk management upgrades. Speaking at a press conference held after the Federal Open Market Committee’s regular meeting Wednesday, Powell said the bank’s risk management failures in recent years have required a dramatic overhaul of its processes. “What happened at Wells Fargo was really a remarkably widespread series of breakdowns in their risk management apparatus that resulted in considerable consumer abuses,” Powell said. “And as it’s gone on and on, it’s become clear … that these are deep problems that needed to be addressed in a fundamental kind of way. So there’s a lot of work to do on that.” Responding to a question on whether Wells will remain under a Fed-imposed asset growth cap beyond 2019, Powell suggested the firm has not made changes commensurate with the Fed’s expectations. “We put in place an unprecedented sanction in the form of an asset growth cap, and we will not lift that until Wells Fargo gets their arms around this, comes forward with plans, implements those plans and we’re satisfied with what they’ve done,” Powell said. “That’s not where we are right now.” Powell’s comments came as other policymakers have stepped up their criticism of Wells. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency unexpectedly vented its frustration with the bank publicly last week, emailing a statement to reporters saying the OCC continues “to be disappointed with Wells Fargo Bank N.A.’s performance under our consent orders and its inability to execute effective corporate governance and a successful risk-management program.” Wells CEO Tim Sloan was grilled by the House Financial Services Committee last Tuesday, followed by the news that he had earned more than $18 million in 2018 despite continuing fallout from the bank’s phony-accounts scandal and a nearly 25% drop in share price over the year. The compensation package prompted House committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., to say Sloan “should be shown the door.”

JPMorgan Managing Director Dies Suddenly; Has Links to Other JPM Deaths - Pam Martens -  When you are the largest bank in the United States and you’ve been compared to the Gambino crime family in a book by two trial lawyers; when you’ve pleaded guilty to three criminal felony counts brought by the United States Justice Department in the past five years; when you’ve paid over $30 billion in fines over charges of crimes against the public and investors since 2008; and when you’ve had an unprecedented string of employees leaping to their death from buildings, dropping dead at home or on the street, and two alleged murder-suicides by employees — all in just the past five years – one might think that law enforcement might show some interest – especially since this employer – JPMorgan Chase – holds tens of billions of dollars of Bank-Owned Life Insurance (BOLI) on its workers. (This death benefit, by the way, pays tax-free to the corporation, not the employee’s family.) But when it comes to JPMorgan Chase and law enforcement, there does not seem to be a morsel of curiosity over the continuing sudden deaths of its computer technology workers – no matter how high up the corporate ladder they rank or how many floors they are alleged to fall to their death. Take the case of Douglas (Doug) Arthur Carucci, age 53, who died on Saturday, March 9 under what Sarah Butcher at eFinancial Careers calls “tragic” and unexpected circumstances. Carucci is believed to have been a resident of Manhattan with his wife, Cindy. We called the New York City Police Department and were told they had no information in their database about the death of a Douglas Carucci in March 2019. We next emailed the New York City Medical Examiner’s office – which is mandated under law to investigate all deaths from accidents or sudden deaths. Nada. JPMorgan Chase’s media relations department refused to comment on where Carucci died or the circumstances surrounding his death.  Based on internet postings, Carucci’s funeral was to be held at the Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York City on Friday, March 15. We confirmed by a telephone call to the Chapel that the funeral occurred. Mainstream business media, such as Reuters, Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, etc. have yet to report on Carucci’s death, potentially because there has been a news blackout from official sources.

Median CEO pay in US tops $1 million a month - The median income for 132 CEOs of major US corporations jumped to $12.4 million in 2018, more than $1 million a month, according to an analysis published Sunday by the Wall Street Journal. The CEOs, representing about one-quarter of the S&P 500 firms for which figures have thus far been released, saw pay rises of about 6.4 percent apiece compared to 2017.The CEO gains were driven by rising stock prices for the year, despite a sharp drop in December 2018, the worst December for the financial markets since the Great Depression. Assuming the pay rises for the remaining CEOs in the S&P 500 match those of the first group, 2018 would mark the third consecutive year of record CEO pay in the United States. Among the biggest payouts were $66 million for Robert Iger, longtime CEO of Walt Disney Co., $44.7 million for Richard Handler, CEO of Jefferies Financial Group, and $42 million for Stephen MacMillan, CEO of medical equipment maker Hologic Inc. Patrick McHale of Minneapolis-based manufacturer Graco Corp. made $34.9 million in 2018.Some CEOs outside the S&P 500 received even bigger windfalls, topped by the $125 million for Nikesh Arora, a former Google executive who became CEO of Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company, only in June 2018.Corporate criminals like the CEO of Boeing and the heads of the major banks suffered no consequences from the devastation that their actions have caused for their own workers and the population as a whole.

Bankers fight bill to let credit unions take public deposits in Florida - Credit unions in Florida are making another attempt to get into public banking. Florida law bars credit unions from accepting public funds, so state agencies, municipalities, school boards, universities and police and fire departments typically do business with commercial banks. Proposed legislation would let credit unions become qualified public depositories, meaning that they could receive public funds for deposit. An amendment has been proposed that would only allow credit unions to accept public funds if there are no qualified public depositories within five miles of the depositing institution. A similar bill, which did not include the proposed amendment, failed to pass in 2017. The amendment has not assuaged bankers, who have long opposed such legislation. “Talk about the camel’s nose under the tent!" Alex Sanchez, president and CEO of the Florida Bankers Association, wrote in a recent email to members. "As you can imagine, we are opposed to this charade." Deposits from local governments, state agencies, police and fire, local housing authorities, etc. at banks based in Florida Florida's bankers are in favor of competition as long as the playing field is equal, said Anthony DiMarco, the association's executive vice president of government affairs. He said bankers' primary beef is that credit unions do not pay corporate income tax, sales tax or Florida's so-called intangible tax on loans. “So they get a 20% to 30% advantage,” he said of credit union profitability. "But when competing with a tax-paying bank for a public deposit, there’s a big pricing advantage for the credit union, too." Credit unions view the issue differently. Jared Ross, senior vice president of governmental affairs at the League of Southeastern Credit Unions & Affiliates, said credit unions should have an equal opportunity to compete for public funds. Nothing in the bill would force public entities to move their money. Rather, it would provide more options.

Financial firms could not cut ties to firearms clients under GOP bill — Two Republican senators introduced a bill Thursday legislation aimed at preventing banks and credit unions from cutting off service to legal firearms businesses. Sens. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and John Kennedy, R-La., are sponsoring the Freedom Financing Act, which they say ensures that financial institutions cannot deny service to certain constitutionally protected industries that are fully compliant with all laws and statutes. The legislation comes after a string of mass shootings prompted some large institutions, including Bank of America and Citigroup, to curtail business with customers associated with the firearms industry. “A small number of banks controlling most of the financial sector could effectively illegalize legal commerce by refusing to finance certain industries or process certain transactions,” Cramer said in a press release. “Look no further than pro-Second Amendment industries where such discrimination has already occurred. Big banks should not be the arbiters of constitutionality.” Kennedy has long pushed back against institutions that restricted services to the firearms industry. At one point, he even opposed proposals to ease the Volcker Rule’s regulations for banks with such restrictions. “This legislation will ban big banks from refusing to do business with customers that may not share the same political values as the bank,” Kennedy said in the press release. “This kind of power move is an unfair assertion of dominance by the big banks, which is why it should be illegal.” The legislation, which is focused on firearms, ammunition and sporting goods industries, would exempt financial institutions with less than $10 billion in assets.

 House Dem proposes banning use of credit scores for auto insurance — A first-term Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee is introducing legislation to ban the use of credit reports and scores in determining auto insurance rates. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan has sponsored the Prevent Discrimination in Auto Insurance Act to prevent “undue burden” on low-income individuals seeking auto insurance. In a letter to her colleagues, Tlaib said using credit reports "for the determination of auto insurance rates serves no purpose in determining the safety of the driver" and "does nothing to keep other drivers safe." “Historically marginalized populations have already had less access to wealth and credit building opportunities and the continued use of credit histories to set auto insurance pricing compounds racial discrimination and exacerbates wealth inequality,” she wrote. Specifically, the legislation would prohibit consumer reporting agencies from furnishing reports for the use of underwriting an auto insurance policy and setting a consumer's rate. It also prevents insurers from using or obtaining credit reports or other consumer information in connection with underwriting or pricing. The bill comes after a February House hearing in which the chief executives of the three major credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — testified and members of both parties described the current credit reporting system as "broken." At the hearing, Tlaib said auto insurance rates in her district are some of the highest in the country due to their credit history. “What does a credit score say about the person's driving history or their potential for accidents? … More and more of our residents are driving without car insurance because of this issue around credit score, with the use of credit score,” 

Payday lenders get unexpected reprieve from CFPB rule - A federal judge delivered another victory to payday lenders by leaving in place a stay on the compliance date for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2017 payday lending rule. That rule, drafted under former CFPB Director Richard Cordray, had two key components: new underwriting requirements for high-cost, small-dollar lenders, and limits on how often a lender can attempt debiting payments from a borrower's bank account. The CFPB under Trump-appointed Director Kathleen Kraninger already proposed eliminating the underwriting portion. But in a surprising development, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel's ruling that a stay of the Aug. 19 deadline will remain in effect means the payment provision will continue to be delayed as well. Yeakel, who did not indicate when he would lift the stay, is presiding over an industry lawsuit in Texas seeking to kill the rule. Once the Trump administration took control of the CFPB, the bureau sided with the plaintiffs in the case and announced its intent to reopen the rule and propose changes. The judge issued the stay in November to give the agency time to formulate a proposal. Following the CFPB's proposal in February, legal observers had expected Yeakel to lift the stay, setting in motion a deadline to comply with the payment restrictions. But he wrote in his ruling that he has received no request to lift the stay. “With regard to the stay of the compliance date, the Bureau's position is that, at the current time, no party is seeking to lift the compliance-date stay for the payments provisions,” Yeakel wrote in the March 19 order. Kraninger in February proposed rescinding the underwriting requirements of Cordray’s regulation rule — but she left intact the payment provisions, which were set to go into effect in August. The payment provisions restrict how often lenders can debit a consumer’s bank account when collecting on small dollar loans, among other requirements.

Crapo planning two days of Senate Banking hearings on GSE reform - — The Senate Banking Committee will hold two days of hearings at the end of March on Chairman Mike Crapo’s most recent framework for housing finance reform. Robert Broeksmit, the president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, and Vince Malta, the president-elect of the National Association of Realtors, are among the witnesses slated to testify at the March 27 hearing, both groups confirmed to American Banker. The National Association of Home Builders has also been invited to testify. The committee has also scheduled a March 26 hearing to examine Crapo’s proposal, but has not put out an official notice of the hearings since details are being finalized. A total of 12 witnesses are expected to testify over the course of the two days. Crapo’s legislative outline released last month is the latest effort by lawmakers to reform the government-sponsored enterprises, which the Idaho Republican has said is one of his top priorities as chairman. His framework suggests turning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into private guarantors while allowing for other private guarantors to compete with the mortgage giants, using Ginnie Mae to provide a government backstop. However, insured depository institutions would not be permitted to be guarantors in an aim to limit the role of the largest commercial banks and increase competition. It remains to be seen if Crapo's plan has enough congressional support to be enacted, but it is worth noting that he previously authored the most successful GSE reform bill to date since the 2008 conservatorships.

Don’t leave community lenders behind on GSE reform -- Once again, housing finance reform appears to be on Washington’s radar.  With comments by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the release of a legislative outline by Senate Banking Committee Chair Sen. Mike Crapo, R-S.D., and the vote to advance Mark Calabria’s nomination to oversee the Federal Housing Finance Agency to the full Senate, the momentum is shifting toward action. Yet, as important as it is to act, it’s even more important to get it right. And for Main Street America, getting it right should mean one thing: Community lenders must be at the core of the future secondary mortgage market. The facts are straightforward. Consumers want and need responsible, affordable mortgage credit. Historically, it has been community lenders — credit unions and community banks — that have provided access to mortgage credit minus predatory features and without having to first be prompted by their regulators to do so. The ability to offer mortgage products is highly dependent on the liquidity that the secondary mortgage market provides. So, it is critical that any serious housing finance proposal start with the proposition that the future system should function well for lenders of all shapes and sizes. That means the future secondary mortgage market must be equitable. Acceptable reform proposals must prevent community lenders from being priced out of the secondary market through giveaways to big banks and huge mortgage finance companies in the form of volume pricing discounts, exceptions from complying with certain terms, and other forms of preferential treatment. All lenders should feel confident that they can access the secondary market on a level playing field with everyone else. Ultimately, both consumers and the market benefit when community lenders can fairly compete for mortgage business.

Pennsylvania says big banks fixed GSE bond prices — More than a dozen of the world’s largest banks have been accused of a price-fixing scheme of roughly $486 billion in bonds issued by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania State Treasurer Joseph Torsella alleges that the banks, including Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, “colluded to manipulate prices” in the secondary market for Fannie and Freddie bonds “to extract supra-competitive profits for themselves at the expense of Commonwealth Funds and Class members.” “Defendants’ conspiracy systematically raised their profits earned from dealing FFBs at the expense of their customers — investors who traded FFBs with Defendants and who were repeatedly overcharged and underpaid due to Defendants’ anticompetitive conduct,” the suit alleges. The suit is the second of its kind. The City of Birmingham Retirement and Relief System and the Electrical Workers Pension System filed a joint suit last month making similar allegations. Both lawsuits were first reported by Law360. From March 2010 through April 2014, the banks collectively underwrote roughly $486 billion in Fannie and Freddie bonds, approximately 64% of the total bonds underwritten during the period, according to Pennsylvania's class action suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Specifically, the suit alleges the banks agreed to charge inflated prices for newly issued Fannie and Freddie bonds that they sold to investors after acquiring them from the mortgage giants. It also suggests that the banks coordinated to inflate the prices of older Fannie and Freddie bonds in the days prior to each new bond issuance. “This acted to drive the market price of new FFBs artificially higher by establishing an inflated benchmark for comparison so that Defendants could earn excess, unlawful profits once they had new FFB inventory to sell,” according to the suit. Rather than competing with each other for investors’ Fannie and Freddie bond transactions, the banks allegedly agreed to inflate the prices at which they sold the bonds to investors, or deflated the price at which they purchased them from investors, or both, the suit says. The bank’s behavior was observed to “statistically diminish” after April 2014 in the wake of the London interbank offered rate scandal, when banks’ fixed-income operations were more heavily scrutinized, the suit says.

The inconvenient truth for GSE reform plans — Congress once again appears interested in housing finance reform, but once again the political obstacles to upending the current system might be too difficult to avoid. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo has scheduled two days of hearings later this month on the subject, following his release of a legislative outline last month that would turn Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into private guarantors and position Ginnie Mae as a government backstop.But despite bipartisan consensus that the status quo is unsustainable with Fannie and Freddie in federal control, lawmakers must still grapple with whether transitioning to a new system will make it any harder for consumers to own a home.“It’s a politically risky proposition for lawmakers who see the risks of tinkering with the housing and mortgage markets and they don’t see the political benefit for doing so," said Brian Gardner, director of Washington research at KBW. "You have two markets that are a significant part of American life that seem to be operating relatively well.”Crapo's outline swung attention back to Congress' role in reforming the government-sponsored enterprises after speculation that the Trump administration might try releasing Fannie and Freddie from conservatorship. Acting Federal Housing Finance Director Joseph Otting reportedly predicted an ambitious administration plan, but Mark Calabria — the pending nominee to run the FHFA for the long term — told senators he would defer to Congress' role.  Crapo's plan resembles other legislative proposals that envision Ginnie Mae as providing an explicit government guarantee for the mortgage market. Yet many Democrats have shied from supporting such ideas, raising concerns about the effect on Fannie and Freddie's affordable housing goals, among other things. "The closer these proposals get to reality, the more of a focus there will be on how does this impact the average American," . "When you look at the impact, it shows that the cost of mortgages will go up. Housing, certainly home ownership, will become less affordable."

Citi mortgage discount program violated Fair Housing Act: OCC - Citigroup's main bank subsidiary was fined $25 million to settle allegations by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that the bank failed to offer home loan discounts to thousands of borrowers in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The OCC, which released its consent order Tuesday, said in a press release that Citibank's inability to provide benefits through its Relationship Loan Pricing program to all who were eligible "adversely affected" borrowers "on the basis of their race, color, national origin, or sex.” The agency blamed a lack of training for loan officers. Citi failed to offer discounts on home loans to roughly 24,000 eligible borrowers over a three-year period beginning in mid-2011, the OCC said. The pricing benefit is available to borrowers who maintain certain asset levels with the bank. “The OCC found that the bank had certain control weaknesses related to its Relationship Loan Pricing program designed to provide eligible mortgage loan customers either a credit to closing costs or an interest rate reduction,” the OCC said in a press release Tuesday. Citi neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing. The $1.4 trillion-asset bank said it self-identified the errors in 2014, conducted a comprehensive review and “has largely completed reimbursements to the identified customers.” “A small percentage of mortgage customers did not receive the benefit for which they were eligible, either receiving no benefit or one that was smaller than they should have,” Citi said in an emailed statement. “The errors affected borrowers across gender, race and ethnicity. Citi has no tolerance for discrimination in any form.”

Black Knight: National Mortgage Delinquency Rate Increased in February - CR Note: It is possible that some of the increase in the delinquency rate in February was due to late tax refunds.From Black Knight: Black Knight’s First Look: Bucking Historical Seasonal Trend, February Sees Delinquencies Rise; Prepayments Up 11 Percent, Driven by Softening Interest Rates:

• Delinquencies rose by 3.7 percent in February, the first February increase in 12 years
• Despite the monthly rise, delinquencies remain more than 9.5 percent below last year’s level
• At 40,400 for the month, foreclosure starts were down 19.5 percent from January and edged close to September 2018’s 15-year low
• The national foreclosure rate improved marginally and is now down more than 21 percent year-over-year
• Prepayment speeds rose by 11 percent from January’s 18-year low, suggesting an increase in refinance activity driven by the recent decline in 30-year interest rates

According to Black Knight's First Look report for February, the percent of loans delinquent increased 3.7% in February compared to January, and decreased 9.5% year-over-year.
The percent of loans in the foreclosure process decreased 0.4% in February and were down 21.3% over the last year. Black Knight reported the U.S. mortgage delinquency rate (loans 30 or more days past due, but not in foreclosure) was 3.89% in February, up from 3.75% in January.The percent of loans in the foreclosure process decreased slightly in February to 0.51% from 0.51% in January. The number of delinquent properties, but not in foreclosure, is down 179,000 properties year-over-year, and the number of properties in the foreclosure process is down 67,000 properties year-over-year.

MBA: Mortgage Applications Increased in Latest Weekly Survey - From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey:  Mortgage applications increased 1.6 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 15, 2019. ... The Refinance Index increased 4 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.3 perent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 1 percent compared with the previous week and was 1 percent higher than the same week one year ago. ... “Mortgage rates declined once again, as concerns about the slowing global economy and status of Brexit continued to drive investors’ demand for U.S. Treasuries, ultimately pushing yields lower,” said Joel Kan, Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “Rates for most loan types were at their lowest levels in over a year, with the 30-year fixed mortgage rate falling to 4.55 percent – its lowest reading since last February. Although lower rates sparked a 3.5 percent increase in refinance applications, purchase activity was up only slightly last week and from a year ago.”  The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($484,350 or less) decreased to 4.55 percent from 4.64 percent, with points decreasing to 0.42 from 0.47 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.  The first graph shows the refinance index since 1990.  Rates would have to fall further for a significant increase in refinance activity.  The second graph shows the MBA mortgage purchase index.

Mortgage rates are now breaking to new lower territory, and they could stay there for months - The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage is falling again today, as investors rush into the bond market. Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year Treasury.The average lender is offering a rate between 4.125 and 4.25 percent, with more aggressive lenders going to 3.875 percent for borrowers with pristine applications, according to Mortgage News Daily. The average rate was at 4.40 percent before the Federal Reserve's announcement Wednesday that it would not raise interest rates this year and that it would start buying bonds again.  "This is happening due to big picture reassessments of global economic growth, or lack thereof," said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. "If the fears are validated, today's rates will be near the top of the range for quite a while--months at least, but possibly years."The average rate jumped over 5 percent last November, but then fell off in December. That caused a nearly 12 percent monthly spike in sales of existing homes in February, deals that were likely signed in December and January. Mortgage rates were lower in 2016 and 2017, which may have caused the huge surge in home values during those years. Buyers could afford to pay more with interest rates in the 3.5 percent range. The supply of homes for sale was also incredibly low, prompting more bidding wars. With economic growth here in the U.S. in question and global growth clearly shrinking, interest rates could move even lower than they are now. Or not. "Although our forecast still calls for mortgage rates to tick up higher later in the year to an average of 4.6 percent, the recent drop is great for prospective buyers on the search for a home this spring," said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association. "The combination of lower rates – especially compared to last spring – and moderating home-price growth improves buyers' purchasing power and will hopefully translate to a somewhat faster pace of home sales than previously expected."

NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 5.51 million in February -- From the NAR: Existing-Home Sales Surge 11.8 Percent in February Existing-home sales rebounded strongly in February, experiencing the largest month-over-month gain since December 2015, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Three of the four major U.S. regions saw sales gains, while the Northeast remained unchanged from last month. Total existing-home sales, completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, shot up 11.8 percent from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.51 million in February. However, sales are down 1.8 percent from a year ago (5.61 million in February 2018). ... Total housing inventory at the end of February increased to 1.63 million, up from 1.59 million existing homes available for sale in January, a 3.2 percent increase from 1.58 million a year ago. Unsold inventory is at a 3.5-month supply at the current sales pace, down from 3.9 months in January but up from 3.4 months in February 2018. This graph shows existing home sales, on a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) basis since 1993. Sales in February (5.51 million SAAR) were up 11.8% from last month, and were 1.8% below the February 2018 sales rate. The second graph shows nationwide inventory for existing homes. According to the NAR, inventory increased to 1.63 million in February from 1.59 million in January. Headline inventory is not seasonally adjusted, and inventory usually decreases to the seasonal lows in December and January, and peaks in mid-to-late summer. The last graph shows the year-over-year (YoY) change in reported existing home inventory and months-of-supply. Since inventory is not seasonally adjusted, it really helps to look at the YoY change.

Comments on February Existing Home Sales - Bill Mcbride - Earlier: NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 5.51 million in February.  A few key points:
1) Seasonally February is one of the weakest months of the year for existing home sales (See Not Seasonally Adjusted NSA graph below).  Since existing home sales are counted at closing, these are properties that usually went under contract during the holidays or in early January.   So I wouldn't read too much into the pickup in February.   Sales will be stronger seasonally over the next several months.  The headline number was not a surprise (see note 3), and the pickup was probably due to lower mortgage rates and a stronger stock market (so buyers were more confident).  But the next several months are more important for existing home sales.
2) Inventory is still low, and was only up 3.2% year-over-year (YoY) in February. This was the seventh consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in inventory, although the YoY increase was smaller in February than in the three previous months.
3) As usual, housing economist Tom Lawler's forecast was closer to the NAR report than the consensus. See:Lawler: Early Read on Existing Home Sales in February.   The consensus was for sales of 5.08 million SAAR, Lawler estimated the NAR would report 5.46 million SAAR in February, and the NAR actually reported 5.51 million SAAR.
The second graph shows existing home sales Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA). Sales NSA in February (312,000, red column) were below sales in February 2018 (319,000, NSA), and sales were the lowest for February since 2015.

  US Housing Hits A Brick Wall- The House Price Deceleration Is Staggering - RedFin puts out a monthly home sales report, which contains a lot of great data. The chart below shows Feb 2018 year-over-year price growth, which was off the charts, compared to Feb 2019 year-over-year growth, which was very weak.This y/y growth deceleration is staggering, especially in the high-flying regions.Very few regions escaped a significant deceleration with some prominent regions like San Jose and San Francisco even getting crushed on a year-over-year absolute basis.The only thing that even comes close to this sharp of deceleration was circa-2007.It was data like these I have been tracking that led to my call last year that there was no way the Fed could continue to hike in 2019. For certain housing and related names, this is a killer unless prices re-accelerate quickly.

February Construction Starts Descend 3 Percent - At a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $697.4 billion, new construction starts in February dropped 3% from the previous month, according to Dodge Data & Analytics. The February decline returned construction starts to the downward path that emerged during the closing months of 2018. Two of the three main construction sectors registered weaker activity in February – nonbuilding construction fell 8%, due to a pullback by its public works segment, while residential building slipped 3%. Meanwhile, nonresidential building in February was able to hold steady with its January pace. During the first two months of 2019, total construction starts on an unadjusted basis were $99.3 billion, down 12% from the same period a year ago which had been lifted by the start of the $2.0 billion NEXUS natural gas pipeline in Ohio and Michigan and the $1.3 billion domed NFL stadium in Las Vegas NV. On a twelve-month moving total basis, total construction starts for the twelve months ending February 2019 were able to remain essentially even with the corresponding amount for the twelve months ending February 2018.

AIA: "Billings Moderate in February Following Robust New Year" -- Note: This index is a leading indicator primarily for new Commercial Real Estate (CRE) investment.
From the AIA: Billings Moderate in February Following Robust New Year Architecture firm billings growth softened in February but remained positive, according to a new report today from The American Institute of Architects (AIA).AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score for February was 50.3, down from 55.3 in January. Indicators of work in the pipeline, including inquiries into new projects and the value of new design contracts remained positive. “Overall business conditions at architecture firms across the country have remained generally healthy,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD. “Firms in the south recorded continued strong design activity, likely reflecting a healthy regional economy and ongoing rebuilding from the catastrophic 2018 hurricane season.”
• Regional averages: South (58.3), West (51.6), Northeast (51.5), Midwest (51.3)
• Sector index breakdown: mixed practice (57.2), commercial/industrial (53.9), multi-family residential (51.6), institutional (50.9)
This graph shows the Architecture Billings Index since 1996. The index was at 50.3 in February, down from 55.3 in January. Anything above 50 indicates expansion in demand for architects' services.

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Decreased Year-over-year --From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 9 March : The U.S. hotel industry reported mixed year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 3-9 March 2019, according to data from STR.
In comparison with the week of 4-10 March 2018, the industry recorded the following:
• Occupancy: -2.4% to 66.8%
• Average daily rate (ADR): +0.8% to US$132.01
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): -1.7% at US$88.15
The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average.  The red line is for 2019, dash light blue is 2018, blue is the median, and black is for 2009 (the worst year probably since the Great Depression for hotels). A decent start for 2019 - close to the previous 4 years.

US Freight Volume Drops --Now it’s the third month in a row, and the red flag is getting more visible and a little harder to ignore about the goods-based economy: Freight shipment volume in the US across all modes of transportation – truck, rail, air, and barge – in February fell 2.1% from February a year ago, according to the Cass Freight Index, released today. The three months in a row of year-over-year declines are the first such declines since the transportation recession of 2015 and 2016.The chart shows the changes in percent for each month from a year earlier, which eliminates the large seasonal fluctuations in the transportation sector (more on that in a moment). The record-breaking and mind-boggling boom in shipments through most of 2018 – six months with double-digit year-over-year growth rates! – has turned negative: The Cass Freight Index covers shipments of merchandise for the consumer and industrial economy via all modes of transportation, but it does not include bulk commodities, such as grains or chemicals. A recession in the US is always preceded by a contraction in the flow of goods across the US. But not each contraction in the flow of goods leads to a recession. Services – healthcare, finance, shelter (rent), education, barber shops, etc. – are the far bigger part of the economy; and even in 2016, as a recession in the goods-based economy triggered a steep transportation recession, services kept growing, and GDP still eked out a gain of 1.6%, albeit the lowest gain since the Great Recession. As long as services hold up, the economy will grow.

How The Widened Panama Canal Is Disrupting U.S. Domestic Transportation - Rail traffic is at recessionary levels YoY, and total freight traffic has also declined in the last three months. Meanwhile, trucking is doing exceptionally well. And East Coast ports appear to be prospering at the expense of West Coast ports. All of this appears to be a secular and ongoing consequence of the widening of the Panama Canal that began accepting bigger ships in late 2016. As a result, the YoY decline in total freight traffic in the past 3 months may be overstating recent economic developments such as tariffs. Recently, rail carloads have been tanking. Here’s the most recent AAR chart from last week: Not only were both intermodal and carloads down sharply for the week compared with one year prior, but they are also down YoY for the entire year of 2019 so far! This is a downright recessionary statistic. Meanwhile, the monthly Cass Freight Index was reported today for the month of February, and also shows a YoY decline in total freight — including rail, trucking, shipping, and air freight — for the third month in a row: I’ve highlighted these several times in the past few months as evidence that the US economy was in a steeper slowdown than most thought. While that isn’t entirely wrong, it turns out that there may be a deeper realignment going on. Why? The newly widened Panama Canal opened in late 2016. This means that “supermax” container ships from Asia do not have to dock at US West Coast ports, but can transit the canal and make use of East and Gulf Coast ports closer to their ultimate destinations. As a result, lengthy rail trips across the US can be replaced by shorter trucking hauls. And that is what a comparison of rail vs. trucking data shows (from Yardeni.com):    Note importantly that the left and right scales are different percentages. Nevertheless, you can see that trucking volumes had a positive inflection point in early 2017, just months after the widened Panama Canal opened. In the two years since, trucking volume has gone up about 15%, while rail traffic has only gone up about 5%. Since about 75% of total traffic is by truck vs. rail, this tells us that the very negative AAR rail statistics are not currently representative of transportation as a whole, since there has been a secular shift away from rail to trucking. But if shipping is simply being redirected from the West Coast to the East Coast, we ought to find that pattern revealed in port statistics. And it is. Here’s Bill McBride’s report on West Coast port traffic from last Friday.  He writes that: On a rolling 12 month basis, inbound traffic was down 0.8% in February compared to the rolling 12 months ending in January. Outbound traffic was down 1.2% compared to the rolling 12 months ending the previous month. Here is his accompanying graph:  While there is no overall report for East Coast ports, the individual ports do have statistical report in various frequencies, and the bottom line is that the East Coast ports are doing gangbusters traffic, setting new records.

Steel stock investors beware: Price-crushing 'Steelmaggedon' is coming, says BofA - Bank of America Merrill Lynch is warning of a price-crushing steel glut so punishing that it warrants the end-of-days moniker "Steelmageddon." The glut will sweep through the industry over the next few years as new project start-ups create an oversupply of steel commodities. The wave of new additions is expected to hit in 2022, with U.S. steel capacity growing by 20 percent, swamping the market and putting pressure on steelmakers' profit margins. In the wake of Steelmaggedon, Merrill sees the U.S. industry emerging with a smaller footprint, as new electric arc furnaces replace older blast furnaces. The bank believes Nucor and Steel Dynamics could emerge with better market share and healthier profit margins, but warns that Steelmaggedon should deter most long-term investors from buying into the space. "This purge of inefficient capacity can ultimately result in a leaner, more competitive, streamlined U.S. steel industry," Merrill Lynch analysts Timna Tanners and Wilfredo Ortiz wrote in a research note Thursday. "After the dust clears from Steelmageddon™, an attractive steel industry could emerge. But we would warn investors the path for the next several years of upheaval can be treacherous." (The investment bank is so confident the event will come to pass, it went ahead and trademarked the term "Steelmageddon.") In the near term, Merrill Lynch expects steel prices to remain roughly steady, with benchmark hot rolled coil trading between $650 and $750 per ton. But the bank sees prices falling to $550 to $660 per ton into 2021 and 2022.

  U.S. factory orders barely rise; shipments fall further (Reuters) - New orders for U.S.-made goods rose less than expected in January and shipments fell for a fourth straight month, offering more evidence of a slowdown in manufacturing activity. Factory goods orders edged up 0.1 percent, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday, held back by decreases in orders for computers and electronic products, after rising by the same margin in December. There were also declines in demand for primary metals and fabricated metal products. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory orders rising 0.3 percent in January. Factory orders increased 3.8 percent compared to January 2018. Shipments of factory goods fell 0.4 percent after dropping 0.2 percent in December. They have now declined for four consecutive months, the longest streak since mid-2015. Factory orders are likely to remain soft as unfilled orders rose only 0.1 percent in January after dropping for three straight months. Stocks at manufacturers jumped 0.5 percent in January after edging up 0.1 percent in the prior month.  Manufacturing, which accounts for about 12 percent of the economy, is losing momentum as the stimulus from last year’s $1.5 trillion tax cut package fades. Activity is also being hampered by a trade war between the United States and China as well as by last year’s surge in the dollar and softening global economic growth, which are hurting exports. In January, orders for machinery rose 1.5 percent after falling 0.4 percent in December. Orders for mining, oil field and gas field machinery fell 2.7 percent after tumbling 8.2 percent in December. Orders for electrical equipment, appliances and components rebounded 1.4 percent after dropping 0.3 percent in December. Computers and electronic products orders fell 0.9 percent after decreasing 0.4 percent in December. Orders for primary metals declined 2.0 percent and fabricated metal products orders fell 0.6 percent. Transportation equipment orders increased 1.2 percent in January, slowing from the prior month’s 3.2 percent rise. Orders for civilian aircraft and parts increased 15.6 percent in January. Motor vehicles and parts orders gained 0.4 percent. The Commerce Department also said January orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, which are seen as a measure of business spending plans on equipment, rose 0.8 percent as reported last week. Orders for these so-called core capital goods dropped 0.8 percent in December. Shipments of core capital goods, which are used to calculate business equipment spending in the gross domestic product report, also increased 0.8 percent in January as previously reported.

US Manufacturing PMI Plunges To 21-Month Lows, Services SlumpFollowing February's very mixed picture (Services soared, Manufacturing tumbled), PMIs were expected to revert modestly in March (especially following this morning's collapse in German PMI).However, just like Germany, US Services and Manufacturing PMIs dropped notably more than expected:

• US Manufacturing PMI prints 52.0, down from 53.0 (and expectations of 53.5) - 21-month low
• US Services PMI prints 54.8, down from 56.0 (and expectations of 55.5)

Manufacturing PMI continues to track hard data lower... Commenting on the flash PMI data, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit said:“US businesses reported a softer end to the first quarter, with output growth easing to the second lowest recorded over the last year. “A gap has opened up between the manufacturing and service sectors, however, with goods-producers and exporters struggling amid a deteriorating external environment and concerns regarding the impact of trade wars. The survey is consistent with the official measure of manufacturing production falling at an increased rate in March and hence acting as a drag on the economy in the first quarter.“At the moment, the service sector appears to be holding up relatively well. But the worry is that manufacturing woes are spreading to service providers, via reduced demand for services such as transport and storage as well as deteriorating business optimism about the outlook – which fell to the lowest for nearly three years in March – and a cooling of the labour market. The survey showed hiring across both manufacturing and services hit the weakest for just under two years in March.“Price pressures have meanwhile cooled alongside the slowdown. Input prices – a key leading indicator of inflation trends – rose at the slowest rate for two years.”

Philly Fed Mfg "Improved" in March From the Philly Fed: March 2019 Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey Manufacturing conditions in the region improved this month, according to firms responding to the March Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey. The indicators for general activity, new orders, and shipments returned to positive territory, while the indicator for employment remained positive. Price pressures also moderated, according to the surveyed firms. Most of the survey’s indexes for future conditions continued to moderate, but the firms remained generally optimistic about growth over the next six months.The index for current manufacturing activity in the region increased from a reading of -4.1 in February to 13.7 this month. The index nearly recovered its decline from last month, when it dropped to its first negative reading in almost three years .  The firms continued to add to their payrolls this month. The current employment index, however, decreased from a reading of 14.5 in February to 9.6 this month.Here is a graph comparing the regional Fed surveys and the ISM manufacturing index: 

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decreased to 221,000 -The DOL reported: In the week ending March 16, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 221,000, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 229,000 to 230,000. The 4-week moving average was 225,000, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 223,750 to 224,000. The previous week was revised up.The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.

BLS: Unemployment Rates at New Series Lows in Alabama, North Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont -- From the BLS: Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary Unemployment rates were lower in February in 4 states and stable in 46 states and the District of Columbia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today....Iowa, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Vermont had the lowest unemployment rates in February, 2.4 percent each. The rates in Alabama (3.7 percent), North Dakota (2.4 percent), Tennessee (3.2 percent), and Vermont (2.4 percent) set new series lows.This graph shows the number of states (and D.C.) with unemployment rates at or above certain levels since January 1976. At the worst of the great recession, there were 11 states with an unemployment rate at or above 11% (red). Currently only one state, Alaska, has an unemployment rate at or above 6% (dark blue). Note that the series low for Alaska is above 6%. Four states and the D.C. have unemployment rates above 5%; Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico and West Virginia. A total of nine states are at the series low.

Puzzling Number of Men Tied to Ferguson Protests Have Died -  Two young men were found dead inside torched cars. Three others died of apparent suicides. Another collapsed on a bus, his death ruled an overdose.Six deaths, all involving men with connections to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, drew attention on social media and speculation in the activist community that something sinister was at play. Police say there is no evidence the deaths have anything to do with the protests stemming from a white police officer's fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown and that only two were homicides. But activists and observers remain puzzled, especially since people involved in the protests continue to face harassment and threats.

Firearms Registration Act Introduced In Pennsylvania - HB0768 is known as the Firearms Registration Act. The Democrats that introduced the bill were Mary Louise Isaacson (D), Angel Cruz (D), and Mary Jo Daley (D). Last Friday, the General Assembly referred the bill to the committee on judiciary. The bill would require gun owners in the Keystone State to register their firearms with the Pennsylvania State Police. Owners would have to provide the police with the make, model, and the serial numbers of all their guns. Along with the application that the gun owner must swear to under oath, the gun owner would have to submit fingerprints, two photographs that are no older than 30 days and go through a background check for each firearm that they own. This background check is the same one that they must go through to purchase a gun. In addition to this requirement, they must also provide the Pennsylvania State Police with their home and work address, telephone number, social security number, date of birth, age, sex, and citizenship. This requirement is more information than a person needs to vote. If the State Police rejects the person's application, then they will have ten days to appeal the decision. The owner must turn their firearms into the State Police within three days of receiving notification of the rejection. If a person does not appeal the decision within ten days, their right is forfeit. A gun owner cannot transfer any unregistered firearm. Anyone caught with an unregistered gun is guilty of a crime even if they are unaware of the firearm registration status. Also just holding an unregistered firearm at a range is a crime. The gun owner must keep all firearms unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock. If a firearms owner doesn't secure their firearm that way, they would be guilty of a crime. This rule even applies to homes with no children. The gun owner has 48 hours to update the State Police if they change jobs, phone numbers, addresses, or anything else on the application. If they do not update the State Police, then they could be prosecuted for violating the law. The certificate which will cost $10 per firearm will expire after one year. The gun owner would have to start the process over again to renew their certification. This process must be done 60 days before the certificate expires. The procedure can get confusing for gun owners with large collections. The bill makes no mention of how the state will enforce the law. 

Missouri Bill Would Require 'Every Resident' Aged 18-34 To Possess An AR-15 - Missouri State Rep. Andrew McDaniel (R) trying to prove a point about the "absurdity" of gun control laws has introduced legislation that would require every citizen between the ages of 18-34 to own a rifle based on the ArmaLite, Inc. AR-15 platform.  As Fox4KC reports, House Bill No. 1108 - the "McDaniel Militia Act," would offer an income tax credit for 75% of the purchase of an AR-15, up to a cumulative one million dollars statewide per tax year.   "Every resident of this state shall own at least one AR-15. Any person who qualifies as a resident on August 28, 2019, and who does not own an AR-15 shall have one year to purchase an AR-15," reads the bill. "Any resident qualifies as a resident after August 28, 2019, and does not own an AR-15 shall purchase an AR-15 no later than one year after qualifying as a resident." According to Fox4KC, while McDaniel is aware that his bill has zero chance of passing, he hopes that it will "make a point on mandates in general."

Why are millennials burned out- Capitalism - “If Millennials are different, it’s not because we’re more or less evolved than our parents or grandparents, it’s because they’ve changed the world in ways that have produced people like us.”That’s how Malcolm Harris, an editor at the online magazine the New Inquiry, begins his book Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials. It’s a smart, contrarian look at the social and economic problems plaguing millennials — defined as people born between 1980 and 2000.But it’s not a typical defense of millennials. Harris, who is a millennial (as am I), makes no attempt to undercut the complaints of baby boomers — namely, that millennials are anxious, spoiled, and narcissistic.Instead, he asks: What made millennials the way they are? Why are they so burned out? Why are they having fewer kids? Why are they getting married later? Why are they obsessed with efficiency and technology?And his answer, in so many words, is the economy. Millennials, he argues, are bearing the brunt of the economic damage wrought by late-20th-century capitalism. All these insecurities — and the material conditions that produced them — have thrown millennials into a state of perpetual panic. If “generations are characterized by crises,” as Harris argues, then ours is the crisis of extreme capitalism.I spoke to Harris about the case he lays out in the book, and why he thinks millennials will have to overthrow the system and rewrite the social contract if they want to meaningfully improves their lives — and the lives of future generations.A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Millions of American youth attend schools with police but no support staff --On March 4, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a devastating report which exposed the increasingly militarized state of public schools in the United States and chronic underfunding of school support staff.The report, “Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff is Harming Students” provides a state-level student-to-staff ratio of employed student counselors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers and contrasts these numbers to the increasing presence of police officers in public schools, especially in lower-income neighborhoods. The statistics revealed in this report are harrowing.The ACLU found that over 90 percent of individual schools in the US do not meet the one to 250 counselor-to-student ratio recommended by professional standards and the US Public Health Service. On average, all of the schools in the country employ close to half of this number of counselors: one for every 444 students, with Arizona having the worst ratio in the country at one counselor for every 758 students. Only three states out of 50 meet the recommended ratio. The report went on to note that there are 1.7 million students in the US who attend schools where there are police on campus but no counselors at all; 6 million students attend schools where police are present but not a single school psychologist is employed; and finally, 10 million students have police in their schools where not a single social worker is employed. Many schools in the US do not have any nurses on campus. The nurse-to-student ratio recommended by professional standards is one nurse for every 750 students. Twenty-nine states do not meet this standard. Michigan and Oregon employ the fewest school nurses in the country. The ratios of students per nurse provided in the report for these two states are downright criminal: both are above 4,100 students per nurse. Three million children in the country attend schools where there are police officers on staff but not a single nurse.

Child refugee becomes New York chess champ – BBC video - Tanitoluwa Adewumi left his home in northern Nigeria with his family in 2017, because of the ongoing attacks by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. He moved with his family to the United States, but is currently living in a homeless shelter with his mother Oluwatoyin, father Kayode and older brother. Despite the challenges, when Tanitoluwa showed an interest in playing chess, his mother made sure that he could attend the local club. He has been playing for just over a year, but hours of practice and hard work have paid off - he has just won top prize in his age category at the New York State Chess Championship. Tanitoluwa and his family spoke to Newsday's Alan Kasujja about his win.

School lessons targeted by climate change doubters (AP) — A Connecticut lawmaker wants to strike climate change from state science standards. A Virginia legislator worries teachers are indoctrinating students with their personal views on global warming. And an Oklahoma state senator wants educators to be able to introduce alternative viewpoints without fear of losing their jobs. As climate change becomes a hotter topic in American classrooms, politicians around the country are pushing back against the near-universal scientific consensus that global warming is real, dire and man-made. Of the more than a dozen such measures proposed so far this year, some already have failed. But they have emerged this year in growing numbers, many of them inspired or directly encouraged by a pair of advocacy groups, the Discovery Institute and the Heartland Institute. “You have to present two sides of the argument and allow the kids to deliberate,” said Republican state Sen. David Bullard of Oklahoma, a former high school geography teacher whose bill, based on model legislation from the Discovery Institute, ran into opposition from science teachers and went nowhere. Scientists and science education organizations have blasted such proposals for sowing confusion and doubt on a topic of global urgency. They reject the notion that there are “two sides” to the issue. “You can’t talk about two sides when the other side doesn’t have a foot in reality,” said University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said these legislative proposals are dangerous, bad-faith efforts to undermine scientific findings that the fossil-fuel industry or fundamentalist religious groups don’t want to hear. In the mainstream scientific community, there is little disagreement about the basics that greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and gas are causing the world to warm in a dangerous manner. More than 90 percent of the peer-reviewed studies and scientists who write them say climate change is a human-caused problem 

Spokane high school students join global climate change protests -  On Friday, Lewis and Clark High School students gathered in their school’s courtyard to join their peers in cities across the world like Montreal, Chicago, Berlin and Seattle to address climate change in a way that would encourage government officials at all levels to focus on the issue in more meaningful ways. The student-led Youth Climate Protest aimed to raise awareness about the Green New Deal, a resolution proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., that would increase reliance on renewable energy and place an emphasis on reducing greenhouse emissions. Coming a day after a similar protest at Mead High School, Mattie Hartman, a junior at LC, wanted to do her part for her school and community. Hartman said her family has a history of activism on both local and national issues. She said her grandmother is who informed her of this week’s environmental protests. “I want to get people aware of what’s happening in the world,” said Hartman. “A lot of people don’t know about the Green New Deal and I want to go over what it means.” But for some who already knows about the Green New Deal, the program doesn’t seem to be the adequate solution for all of the country’s issues. “The fact that they’re trying to push the Green New Deal and not really compromise on it is a little disappointing,” said LC Conservative Club President Isaac Engle. “I would be fine with something where we could compromise on the environment in general,” said Engle, “but if they’re going to try to make it an all-or-nothing, then nothing’s going to happen.” Friday’s worldwide movement has ties to Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who confronted climate change negotiators on the world stage at the United Nations climate summit in Poland last December. Inspired by the “March for Our Lives” walkouts that drew nearly a million students ranging from kindergartners to high school seniors in 2018, including several high schools across Eastern Washington, Thunberg turned to the same strategy for climate change. It became a global phenomenon Friday, as hundreds of thousands of students worldwide – many skipping school – demanded urgent action on climate change. Lewis and Clark students did not skip classes, but instead gathered immediately after the last bell of the day. 

Sacramento, California teachers authorize strike - Last Friday, more than 92 percent of voting teachers in the Sacramento Unified School District in California’s state capital voted to authorize a strike by the district’s 2,500 teachers. The vote expresses the growing militancy of teachers who over the last year have engaged in the largest number of walkouts in decades, involving nearly a half million teachers, including more than 40,000 in Los Angeles and Oakland.Teachers in Dublin, California, 23 miles east of Oakland, have also voted by 98 percent to strike in the suburban district, which serves 12,300 students. The 623 teachers, who have been working without a new contract for more than a year, are demanding improved wages, smaller class sizes, reduced workloads, additional counselors and more affordable healthcare.The Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA), which conducted the vote, said a strike could be called if the district and the city “persist in their unlawful behavior and avoid taking measures to correct their unlawful behavior.” The Sacramento City Unified School District serves approximately 40,000 students across 75 school sites. The union did not set a date for a strike. If it is called it will likely not occur until April at the earliest as the SCTA has offered to meet with the district on either March 26 or March 28. Like other teacher unions, the SCTA has fully accepted the budgetary framework set by state Democrats who after decades of corporate tax cuts and school funding cuts, have left California 43rd in the nation for per pupil spending.

Mock Executions? Real Screams and Blood? Just Another School Shooter Drill - Active-shooter training has become a macabre ritual for educators in America’s public school system. “There’s a trauma that comes simply from being part of one of those drills,” Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Rolling Stone recently. But some trainers in Indiana have been amping up the realism, making the alarming decision to use non-lethal ammo in their demonstrations — shooting teachers in mock executions with pellet guns that allegedly left the educators with bloody welts.The practice was revealed in series of tweets Wednesday by the the Indiana State Teachers Association. The group described training exercises in which “four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles — resulting in injuries.”   The “terrified” teachers, ISTA added, were then instructed to not tell their colleagues what was in store for them. “Teachers waiting outside that heard the screaming were brought into the room four at a time and the shooting process was repeated.” ISTA insisted the practice was uncalled for: “No one in education takes these drills lightly. The risk of harming someone far outweighs whatever added realism one is trying to convey here.”According to a report Thursday by the Indianapolis Star, the drill occurred in the small town of Monticello, as part of an ALICE training by the local sheriff’s department. The exercise is meant to impress on teachers that traditional duck-and-cover techniques are largely useless against mass shooters, and that teachers should lead students in more active countermeasures to defend themselves from attack. But according to one educator, the trainers took the lessons too far. The trainers allegedly lined teachers up on their knees against a wall and told them: “This is what happens when you just cower and do nothing.” The source told the Star the educators were then shot multiple times in their backs, adding: “It hurt so bad.”

Teachers Shot ‘Execution-Style’ With Pellet Guns During Active Shooter Drill — As state and federal lawmakers fail to take meaningful action to confront America’s gun violence epidemic, Indiana elementary school teachers were reportedly shot “execution-style” with plastic pellets in an active shooter drill led by law enforcement. According to the Indianapolis Star, several teachers at a time “were asked by local law enforcement to kneel down against a classroom wall before being sprayed across their backs with plastic pellets without warning.” “They told us, ‘This is what happens if you just cower and do nothing,'” a teacher who experienced the January drill told the Indy Star. “They shot all of us across our backs. I was hit four times. It hurt so bad.” Journalist David Klion contrasted Indiana’s active shooter drill with New Zealand’s rapid and decisive response to the Christchurch massacre: In New Zealand, they respond to a mass shooting by banning semi-automatics five days later. In America, we respond to near-daily mass shootings by… literally shooting teachershttps://t.co/FDLc8mN9lL During testimony before the state’s Senate Education Committee this week, officials from the Indiana State Teachers Association (ISTA)—which is demanding an end to drills in which teachers are shot with projectiles of any kind—said educators were left with bruises and welts from the drill. In some cases, according to the ISTA, the pellets drew blood. Reacting with horror to Indiana teachers’ testimony, gun control advocates characterized the state’s active shooter drill as an “outrageous” example of what America’s educators are being forced to accept as one school shooting after another takes place without any action from Congress.

 How Parents Are Robbing Their Children of Adulthood - NYT - Nicole Eisenberg’s older son has wanted to be a star of the stage since he was a toddler, she said. He took voice, dance and drama lessons and attended the renowned Stagedoor Manor summer camp for half a dozen years, but she was anxious that might not be enough to get him into the best performing-arts programs. So Ms. Eisenberg and others in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., the affluent suburb where she lives, helped him start a charity with friends that raised more than $250,000 over four years. “The moms — the four or five moms that started it together — we started it, we helped, but we did not do it for them,” Ms. Eisenberg, 49, recalled. “Did we ask for sponsors for them? Yes. Did we ask for money for them? Yes. But they had to do the work.” She even considered a donation to the college of his choice. “There’s no amount of money we could have paid to have got him in,” Ms. Eisenberg said. “Because, trust me, my father-in-law asked.” (Ms. Eisenberg’s son was admitted to two of the best musical theater programs in the country, she said, along with nine more of the 26 schools he applied to.) College has been on their radar since her son was in diapers. “We’ve been working on this since he was 3 years old,” she said. To apply, she said, “I had to take him on 20 auditions for musical theater. But he did it with me. I don’t feel like I did this. I supported him in it. I did not helicopter parent him. I was a co-pilot.” Or was she, perhaps, a … snowplow parent? Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near one’s children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some affluent mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their child’s path to success, so they don’t have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities. Taken to its criminal extreme, that means bribing SAT proctors and paying off college coaches to get children in to elite colleges — and then going to great lengths to make sure they never face the humiliation of knowing how they got there.

 Meet The Harvard Test-Taking Genius At The Center Of The College Admissions Scandal --A 36-year-old Harvard university graduate implicated in the college admissions scandal is being described as a "test taking whiz who could get any score on demand" according to federal prosecutors. He has been revealed to be the "secret weapon" in the college admissions cheating scandal, according to a new Wall Street Journal article. U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Andrew Lelling, said: “He did not have inside information about the correct answers. He was just smart enough to get a near-perfect score.” Prosecutors claim that Mark Riddell was central to the cheating scheme and he has agreed to plead guilty to mail fraud and money laundering, according to court documents.He issued a statement after the charges, stating: “I understand how my actions contributed to a loss of trust in the college admissions process.”  Prosecutors have said that William Rick Singer's admissions scheme happened over 30 times as far back as 2011 and of the 33 parents that were implicated in the scheme, at least 16 are linked to Riddell. He was described in court documents as “Cooperating Witness 2.” In hopes of leniency, he has been helping with the investigation since February.  Riddell is an alumnus of a private Florida prep school and Harvard, where he studied biology and played tennis before graduating in 2004. As a result of the scandal he was suspended indefinitely from his job - wait for it - as director of a college entrance exam preparation at his alma mater prep school.

The College Admissions Ring Tells Us How Much Schoolwork Is Worth  -- What is a premium childhood worth? It’s a bizarre proposition, but we all know it makes some kind of sense. American students (and their families) at all income levels invest tons of effort and often as much money as they can afford in order to contend for acceptance at some of the country’s elite universities. We know how much a working-class or poor student can win in scholarships, and we can estimate the future wages that a particular degree will yield, but one can’t buy an adolescence’s worth of 5 a.m. crew practice and honors classes on the market. At least that’s what they told most of us. As it turns out, where there’s a will, there’s a guy who can sell you a way. The FBI busted a nationwide fraud ring that enabled wealthy parents to bribe their children’s way into desirable schools. Their methods, according to the Justice Department’s indictment, encompassed the mundane (teachers correcting ACT answers), the inventive (coaches recruiting “athletes” who couldn’t play), and the outlandish (Photoshopped pictures of kids mid-athletic-accomplishment). Fees allegedly ran up to $6 million, and in exchange, ringleader Rick Singer guaranteed success without any work. That’s something no testing tutor or admissions consultant can offer, and it seems there were plenty of eager clients. Much of the coverage of the scandal has focused on how clownishly disengaged the students in question must have been in order to need their parents to literally buy them paths to admission. The rich have plenty of non-fraudulent advantages, and these kids still couldn’t hack it? It’s true, extremely wealthy people have always been able to legally buy their way into just about anywhere, including universities, by, say, donating a new building to a campus. But such bribes are much higher — higher-ed reporter Dana Goldstein put the shoo-in price at $10 million, according to one source — and, importantly, they’re understood to be part of a direct exchange: donations for admission. Singer’s scheme asked parents to spend money not to buy admission directly, but to buy the appearance of good test scores and enough extracurricular accomplishments to win admission. These rich teen layabouts screwed less savvy students out of spots at prestigious schools, but in their refusal to do any of the work, these families have done us a favor: We now have a rough baseline for the market value of a high-achieving teenager’s years of toil. This baseline can help us to understand some of the central animating mechanics of 21st-century America.

 How US university admissions are broken - BBC News video - The US university admissions process is in the spotlight following the scandal over wealthy parents allegedly cheating to get their children into elite colleges.  It's an extraordinary case of life imitating art for the stars of Admissions, a play about using privilege to rig the system. The actors, and the Brooking Institution's Richard Reeves, explain how things are broken.

Of Course College Admissions Rigged for the Rich. The Whole Economic System Is -  The children of working stiffs learned a brutal lesson this week as federal prosecutors criminally charged rich people with buying admission to elite universities for their less-than-stellar children. The lesson is that no matter how hard you work, no matter how smart or talented you are, a dumb, lazy rich kid is going to beat you. It’s crucial that everyone who is not a wealthy movie star, hedge fund executive, or corporate CEO—that is, 99 percent of all Americans—sees this college admissions scandal for what it really is: a microcosm of the larger, corrupt system that works against working people, squashing their chances for advancement.   Despite all that land-of-equal-opportunity crap, the rich ensure that only they can have nice things, starting with what they can buy legally and illegally for their children and rising through what they can buy legally and illegally from politicians who make the rules that withdraw money from the pockets of working people and deposit it into the bulging bank accounts of the fabulously rich. When the mastermind of the elite university admissions scheme, William Singer, pleaded guilty this week, he exposed the launching pad available to the well-heeled to guarantee that their children will be well-heeled. Even after the wealthy pay for their heirs to attend prohibitively expensive private preparatory academies, their grades, test scores and extracurricular activities may not add up to enough to gain them entrance to Ivy League universities, from which a degree virtually assures an overpaid position on Wall Street, and with it, another generation of wealth accumulation. Singer admitted he developed a work-around for the wealthy. The indictment revealed that, through Singer, parents handed between $15,000 and $75,000 to college entrance exam administrators to fabricate top-notch test scores for low-achieving offspring. That lower amount—$15,000—paid by the rich to pad SAT and ACT scores is a good example. It’s a figure of trifling import to a one-percenter. It is, however, the entire year’s earnings of a parent working full-time at the federal $7.25 minimum wage. That parent may have a child who received a perfect SAT score—without cheating—who has earned straight As, even in advanced placement classes, who excelled in soccer and served as class president. But that child of a minimum-wage worker won’t get into Harvard because the rich kid took his place with falsified test scores and faked athletic achievements.

USC Blocks Students Involved In Admission Scandal From Registering For Classes & Obtaining Transcripts --The next shoe in the admission scandal saga has dropped. The University of Southern California has now blocked students who were involved in the admissions scandal from registering for classes and getting their transcripts, according to a brand new CNBC report. Additionally, the students could see their admission revoked and are facing potential expulsion.  Among those students enrolled at USC are actress Lori Loughlin's daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli. Olivia Jade also recently saw two of her advertising partners — Sephora and TRESemme — drop ties with the social media personality. “USC has placed holds on the accounts of students who may be associated with the alleged admissions scheme; this prevents the students from registering for classes or acquiring transcripts while their cases are under review,” the school announced in a Tweet.   These students have been notified that their status is under review.   Following the review, we will take the proper action related to their status, up to revoking admission or expulsion.  More information is available on the FAQ: https://t.co/U3qejBfXfm  — USC (@USC) March 19, 2019   The school announced in a website post that it had also terminated two employees involved:We immediately terminated two employees associated with the allegations. We also placed on leave a faculty member who was named in the federal indictment as a parent. This leave is a required procedural step in the process for evaluating the termination of tenured faculty. More employment actions may be possible as new facts come to light.The university is conducting a full review of the matter and continues to cooperate with the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation. We are in the process of identifying donations that may have been received in connection with the alleged scheme and will determine how best to redirect those funds to a non-USC organization that will benefit underserved students. USC determined which applicants in the current admissions cycle are connected to the alleged scheme and they will be denied admission. A case-by-case review of current students who may be connected to the alleged scheme is also underway. We will make informed decisions about those cases as the reviews are completed.

UCLA Men's Soccer Coach Resigns After Accepting $200,000 In Bribes In College Admissions Scandal - UCLA's head men’s soccer coach, who was among those charged in the biggest college admissions fraud scheme in history, resigned on Thursday, according to Reuters. Jorge Salcedo was one of nine college coaches who were charged by federal prosecutors on March 12 in connection with the admissions scandal. Salcedo is a former player for the US Men's national soccer team who played professionally in both Mexico and in the United States. He had managed the UCLA Bruins as their head coach since 2004.  Salcedo was charged for allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for designating admissions candidates as recruited athletes in order to help their chances of getting into the University. UCLA placed him on leave last week after learning he was charged with accepting up to $200,000 in order to help to students gain admission by posing them as recruited competitive soccer players. According to the Daily Mail, he took a $100,000 bribe in order to get a woman named Lauren Isackson on the women's soccer team roster.  Isackson was given jersey No. 41 in 2017 on a team of all star players and required to stay on the side for at least one year, according to the report. Isackson's father is the President of a real estate firm and reportedly spent more than $600,000 to get Lauren and her sister into both UCLA and USC.  They reportedly handed over 2,000 Facebook shares, worth about $250,000, in addition to donations, to scheme mastermind Rick Singer.

What If Instead of Taking the SAT You Got to Play a Video Game? - Getting a college degree has long been integral to the mythic promise of American opportunity. Yet for millions, it’s become exactly that, a myth—and a very expensive myth at that. The average student leaves school carrying $30,000 in debt. More than 40 percent of students who enter college fail to earn a degree within six years, and many of them wind up in the workforce lacking the credentials and practical skills required to get ahead. The U.S. system of higher education isn’t the main source of economic inequality in America. But it’s almost certainly making things worse.A 27-year-old entrepreneur who dropped out of Harvard, Rebecca Kantar, has a plan to fix it. The American obsession with college admissions, she says, benefits the wealthiest and highest-achieving students, while leaving the vast majority ill-qualified for the jobs of the future. She says a big part of the problem is the avalanche of standardized tests students take from kindergarten through high school, a $10 billion industry that drives much of what’s taught in the classroom. At the top of the pyramid sit the SAT and ACT, the generations-old multiple-choice tests that still help to determine who gains entry to top colleges and universities.In Kantar’s view, those tests reveal little, if anything, about whether a student has the cognitive skills essential for success beyond college. As the FBI’s investigation reveals, the SAT and ACT can also be gamed: The mastermind of the scheme had parents petition for their kids to take the tests in largely unsupervised settings, then submitted fake scores on their behalf. “The system has coalesced around things that work for at most 30 percent or so of kids,” Kantar says. “They don’t work for the rest.” Kantar is the founder of Imbellus Inc., a startup in Los Angeles that aims to reinvent testing and, in the process, challenge the received wisdom about what students are expected to learn. The digital assessments Imbellus has developed resemble video games. Placing users in a simulated natural environment, they present test takers with a series of tasks, all the while capturing the decision-making process used to complete them. And because each simulation delivers a unique user experience, they’re intended to be cheatproof.

Ivanka Trump Wants America to Kick Addiction to Four-Year College  - America’s ever-deepening college debt problem is really a symptom of a worse malady: our societal addiction to college itself.Any sober assessment of the facts would indicate that too many Americans are going to college. As a result, college costs—and debt—have skyrocketed while the rewards for college have plunged. Yet this is something that has escaped the attention of our political elites. And, as it turns out, our financial and cultural elites—as the recent college admissions scandal indicates. Many Democrats want to double-down, promising “free college” to young people—a euphemism for college funded by taxpayers.Perhaps surprisingly, Ivy-league educated Ivanka Trump has recently come out as a skeptic about America’s love affair with college. The first daughter has taken up a leadership role in the Trump administration’s workforce development efforts—and shown a remarkable candidness when it comes to our college problem.“I think culturally, for a long time we have created and perpetuated the narrative that there is one pathway to achieving the American dream and its four-year university,” Ms. Trump said in a recent interview. Trump goes on: That has been instilled into American students, it’s often American parents that feel that is the only viable path. So you have kids going into school racking up enormous amounts of student debt that they’ll often take decades if there ever able to pay it off without a skill, if they ultimately graduate. So I think opening up the prism and saying there are many different pathways. It depends what you want in your life and taking the stigma away from those who choose alternative pathways who choose technical schools, vocational education. At the end of the day, it’s about connecting workers with their passion, with their jobs. There’s very little opportunity for somebody who wants to the vocational route, the technical route because all the money pushes you into a four-year college system.

Donald Trump Signs Executive Order to Defend Free Speech on Campus --President Donald Trump will sign an Executive Order on improving free inquiry, transparency, and accountability on campus on Thursday.   The White House event is scheduled to begin at 3:15 p.m. EST.The order will demand universities to certify their commitment to free speech in order to receive federal research grants.“The president strongly supports free speech,” a senior administration told reporters during a briefing. “American institutions of higher education should support open intellectually engaging debate, which is critical to creating the next generation of successful leaders and thinkers.”

Coercion Meets Its Match – Kunstler - Like the fabled spring zephyr came news that the Golden Golem of Greatness, (a.k.a. President Trump) signed an executive order that would withhold federal funding from colleges and universities that do not demonstrate support for free speech. It has been an amazement to behold the appalling, hypocritical suppression of the first amendment on campuses across the nation, with their ignoble speech codes, asinine safe spaces, sinister kangaroo courts, and racist anti-whiteness crusades. Most wondrous of all has been the failure of college presidents, deans, trustees, and faculty chairs to assert their authority and do the right thing — namely, take a stand against the arrant muzzling of free expression by campus Stalinists. Their craven passivity is a symptom of what future historians will identify as the epic institutional collapse of higher education, which first made itself into an industry like any other moneygrubbing business, and then became a titanic racketeering operation. And now it is all coming to grief. In the years ahead, you will see colleges go out of business at a shocking rate and the contagion will spread to the giant state systems around the country. The delusion that everybody must have a college education finally turned Higher Ed into a racket, when the federal government decided to guarantee college loans — which only prompted colleges to ramp up tuitions way beyond the official inflation rate and undertake massive expansion programs in the competition for the expanding base of student customer-borrowers. Almost all colleges acted as facilitators to this loan racket, though with federal guarantees they had no skin in that game. Now, outstanding student loan debt is $1.5 trillion, and about 40 percent of it is nonperforming, in euphemistic banker jargon. The student borrowers have been fleeced, many of them financially destroyed for life, and they have only begun to express themselves politically.The anxiety and remorse behind that dastardly financial behavior, and the prospect of coming institutional ruin, is probably a big factor behind the engineered social justice hysterias that paradoxically made college campuses the most intellectually unfree — and intellectually unsafe! —places in the land. And turned all those college presidents into cowards and cravens. Since coercion is the only behavior modification college administrators understand these days, it’s reasonable that Mr. Trump use federal grant largesse as a lever to end the structural despotism of campus culture. The stumbling economy will take care of the rest.

  Brown University Becomes First Ivy League School to Pass BDS Resolution - Students at Brown University voted Thursday to call on the school to divest from companies that allegedly violate human rights through their work in Israel. Some 69% voted for the measure in a campus referendum, with 31% opposed. Students were asked whether the university should ““divest all stocks, funds, endowment and other monetary instruments from companies complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine.” Around 44% of the student body participated in the vote, which also included student government elections. Many Jewish students expressed their disappointment in the result. “This referendum is a defeat for all students who believe there is a better way to pursue peace between Israelis and Palestinians, who seek intellectually honest discourse about Israel and the conflict, and who prioritize a safe and inclusive community at Brown,” the group Brown Students for Israel said on their Facebook page. But the group Brown Divest, which also included some Jewish supporters, was jubilant. “Today is a historic day for Brown as we take an emboldened and clear stand against the university’s complicity in human rights abuses in Palestine and in similar systems of oppression around the world,” the coalition said in a statement. University president Christina Paxton said that the school would not abide by the referendum’s results. “Brown’s endowment is not a political instrument to be used to express views on complex social and political issues, especially those over which thoughtful and intelligent people vehemently disagree,” she said in a statement Friday.

California university workers in one-day strike across the state - Thousands of university workers throughout the University of California (UC) higher education system will take part in a one-day strike today across 10 campuses, five medical centers, 16 health professional schools, three national laboratories and numerous satellite facilities that comprise the largest public institution of higher learning in the world.There are over 25,000 workers in American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 and 13,000 in University Professional and Technical Employees--Communications Workers of America (UPTE-CWA) Local 9119. Workers are striking for wage increases to keep up with rising living costs, for an end to the outsourcing of jobs and use of temporary labor, and in opposition to the 401K-style pension plan the UC Regents are attempting to impose on them.AFSCME 3299 members, in particular, are some of the lowest-paid in the system, holding positions such as admitting clerks, anesthesia technicians, MRI technologists, cooks, gardeners, security guards and janitorial staff. UPTE members are comprised of case managers, audiologists, animal technicians, lab assistants and pharmacists. . The University of California is the largest non-governmental employer in the state of California, the world’s fifth largest economy, with a gross domestic product than that of the United Kingdom.In 2017, the behemoth UC system reported global assets totaling $109.8 billion. According to the UC Office of the President, the institution “generates more than $46 billion in economic activity in California,” and “supports one out of every 46 jobs” in the state. Despite the university system’s vast wealth, AFSCME and UPTE have kept its members on the job, working without a contract, since June 30, 2017 and September 30, 2017, respectively.

University of Illinois at Chicago graduate student workers go on strike - Graduate student workers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) went on strike Tuesday to fight against low wages, unfair appointment policies and to demand full healthcare coverage and protect tuition waivers, among other issues. The strike so far has caused many classes at UIC to be canceled.About 1,500 students work as graduate and teaching assistants for professors in undergraduate courses, some responsible for class sizes of more than 60 students. Graduate students grade papers, run discussion sections and labs, tutor one-on-one, and perform research and other essential duties while also studying in PhD and Master’s programs.The minimum salary for graduate workers is just $18,065 and requires 20 hours per week of work for the nine-month school year. Most students are also responsible for an average of $2,000 in university fees each year. Many graduate students have to work more than one additional job to make ends meet. The minimum annual income needed to live in Chicago is estimated at $28,000.The strike comes after more than a year of bargaining between the UIC administration and the graduate workers’ union, the Graduate Employee’s Organization (GEO)—affiliated to the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) nationally—failed to produce any agreement. The GEO has proposed a contract which would waive all fees for graduate workers, increase the percentage the university pays for healthcare coverage, reform the system for earning appointments, and provide a wage increase to $24,000 by 2021. The UIC administration has so far rejected these proposals. The next bargaining session is set to take place Thursday.

A College Education Has Little To Do With Education - An old friend of mine, who taught political science for 25 years at the University of Colorado, was known to tell his students that the real reason they were there was to marry people from the right social class. While perhaps a little overly cynical, this assessment certainly wasn't totally wrong. Few parents have ever been overly concerned with the supposed education their children receive at a University like CU. The real concern has primarily been the receipt of a degree from a respectable - although not "elite" in the case of CU - university. And, whether they are consciously aware of it or not, an additional benefit has been to ensure that little Susie and little Johnny also become accustomed to the social mores and habits of a certain socio-economic class. Even if Susie doesn't meet a doctor at college, it's still best to send Susie to a place where she learns to socialize and interact with the sorts of people who will eventually become doctors and engineers and successful business people. When one is finished with his or her "education," one has a nice degree to show for it, plus a social circle comprised of presumably soon-to-be-successful people. So, it shouldn't surprise anyone that it turns out rich Hollywood actors with intellectually and academically mediocre children have become obsessed with getting their children into high-status colleges. They employ bribes and fake test scores to purchase what they've always been able to purchase otherwise: a stylish consumer product, which is essentially all a college degree is for most people. In a certain way, one has to admire these corrupt, cheating parents because they are too savvy to buy the nonsense that the higher education industry has been peddling for decades. As ridiculous as it sounds, there are still people in higher education who spout quaint theories about "liberal education" and how college is a time for self-reflection and becoming "immersed in the great books of the Western Tradition," and so on. There is surely a tiny minority of college students who actually believe this — many of whom grow up to become professional students and college faculty — but college has long been largely about certification.

U.S. Students Have Achieved World Domination in Computer Science Skills — For Now - When it comes to computer science skills, U.S. students approaching graduation have a significant advantage over their peers in China, India, and Russia.That’s the conclusion of a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The study was put together by a global team of researchers led by Prashant Loyalka, an assistant professor at Stanford University. The team constructed a careful sampling mechanism to select senior (typically fourth year) computer science or equivalent students in each of the four countries, making sure that both the educational institutions and students enrolled at those schools were statistically representative of schools and computer science students throughout the respective nations. The sampling also ensured that study participants represented both elite and non-elite universities. The final selection included 6847 students from the U.S., 678 from China, 364 from India, and 551 from Russia. Once the students were selected, the researchers then administered the Major Field Test in Computer Science, an exam that was developed by the U.S. Educational Testing Service and is regularly updated. The exam was translated for the students in China and Russia. When the researchers tabulated the results, the U.S. students came out ahead in every category. U.S. seniors outperformed their peers overall; students from elite U.S. schools outclassed their counterparts at the other countries’ elite institutions; and the same was true for students at non-elite universities.  (The differences among the scores of students in China, India, and Russia were not statistically significant, the researchers indicated.)  The study sets in relief an important but rarely mentioned point with regard to the sheer numbers of computer science graduates. U.S. universities graduate about 65,000 computer science students annually, compared with an annual total of 417,000 for institutions in the other countries studied.  But those figures don’t tell the story of who will fill the most coveted slots at the world’s premiere tech companies. Loyalka and his collaborators note that the number of graduates supplied by China's elite programs is approximately half the total number of graduates supplied by those in the U.S. India's elite programs turn out only one-eighth the total number of graduates supplied by comparable U.S. schools)

These Are The Top Colleges For 'Sugar Babies' - It's no secret that the growing mountain of student loan debt and increasingly unaffordable college experience has forced some college students to resort to desperate measures to pay their bills. And while some young students have the luxury of relying on their wealthy parents, one of the most attractive options, among female students with certain desirable attributes, is 'sugaring' - the practice of finding an older, wealthy sugar daddy to pay their bills, often in exchange for sexual favors. Well, the website SeekingArrangements, one of the most popular platforms for connecting 'sugar babies' with 'sugar daddies', has released a list of the 'fastest growing' schools for sugar babies. And oddly enough, rather than being expensive private schools like NYU and USC, the top spots are largely occupied by public schools like Georgia State and University of West Virginia. Georgia State, which took the top spot, had 1,300 registered sugar babies, 300 of which signed up in 2018.  One self-described sugar baby who spoke with a local CBS affiliate said she uses the service because she likes men of a 'higher caliber'. She said her sugar daddies have paid her rent, her tuition and even helped her start her own beauty business. Meanwhile, she has used the money they have given her to travel to Mexico and the Bahamas. Here's the full list:

 'Why Educate the Public When You Can Give Billionaires Tax Cuts': Trump Budget Would Slash All Federal Funding for Media, Arts, Libraries, Museums - Despite new research showing that the arts contribute over $760 billion to the American economy each year—in addition to their many non-economic societal benefits—President Donald Trump's budget proposal calls for eliminating all federal funding for the arts, museums, humanities, public television and radios, and libraries. "For the third time in as many years, the White House has proposed a federal budget that would shutter the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—which supports PBS and NPR—and the Institute of Museum and Library Services," the Washington Post reported on Monday. "Like last year, the plan provides small appropriations for each agency to facilitate its orderly demise." Framed by the Trump White House as "wasteful or unnecessary spending," the budget's proposed cuts to the arts, libraries, and humanities programs would total $897 million. Because why educate the public when you can give billionaires tax cutshttps://t.co/0bDAWbLspG — Thor Benson (@thor_benson) March 18, 2019 Jon Parrish Peede, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), told the Post that the agency will continue operating as normal until Congress takes action on its 2020 funding. "Since its creation in 1965, NEH has established a significant record of achievement through its grantmaking programs," Peede said. "Over these five decades, NEH has awarded more than $5.7 billion for humanities projects through more than 65,000 grants. That public investment has led to the creation of books, films, and museum exhibits, and to ensuring the preservation of significant cultural resources around the country."

Education and Science Giant Elsevier Left Users’ Passwords Exposed Online - Elsevier, the company behind scientific journals such as The Lancet, left a server open to the public internet, exposing user email addresses and passwords. The impacted users include people from universities and educational institutions from across the world.It’s not entirely clear how long the server was exposed or how many accounts were impacted, but it provided a rolling list of passwords as well as password reset links when a user requested to change their login credentials. “Most users are .edu [educational institute] accounts, either students or teachers,” Mossab Hussein, chief security officer at cybersecurity company SpiderSilk who found the issue, told Motherboard in an online chat. “They could be using the same password for their emails, iCloud, etc.”   Motherboard verified the data exposure by asking Hussein to reset his own password to a specific phrase provided by Motherboard before hand. A few minutes later, the plain text password appeared on the exposed server. Elsevier is controversial, after acquiring a number of platforms that distributed academic material for free. Profit-driven Elsevier’s legal threats against other sites that openly host millions of scientific papers have forced them to go into the digital underground, and distribute their material with the protection of the Tor anonymity network. Some universities have boycotted Elsevier.

Student Debt Is Crushing Net Worth Of Couples In Their 20s - Young people in their 20s are starting their careers with a negative net worth as a direct result of student loans. With student loan debt burdening a growing number of Americans, a new profile in the Seattle Times recently highlighted one couple's struggle with having a negative net worth to start their careers, despite both having degrees from prestigious universities and reliable work. Today, about 15% of households nationwide have a net worth of zero or less according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data. Take, for example, Jenni and Sean Gritters. They recently moved to the Seattle area, where Jenni grew up, after earning both bachelor's degrees and master's degrees in Boston. Combined, her and her husband owe about $125,000 on student loans, which has plunged their net worth to negative $93,500. The most expensive loan they had was Sean’s $56,000 loan at 6.49% that he used to get a second bachelor's degree in nursing. The difference-maker for their net worth being in the red, versus the black? Student loans. Without them, the couple's net worth would be in the black by $31,500, which would be above the national median for their age bracket.The debt has weighed on them as a couple. Sean described their student loans posing obstacles to their other financial goals as "scary". He is 28 years old and a nurse in Seattle, earning about $71,000 a year. Jenni is a freelance writer and an editor for various outlets, mainly specializing in health and the outdoors. Her income can vary between $1000 and $12,000 a month. They then applied for free financial advice and, working with the Seattle Times, they started to plan a way to come up with a $50,000 emergency fund while adding more to their savings. The $523 a month they were paying on Sean’s $56,000 loan had them thinking that the debt would "forever be a ball and chain" for them. Since then, they have upped those payments to $1000 a month to try and pay off that loan more aggressively, while still making the minimum payments on the other loans.

Government withholds 84-year-old woman’s social security, claims she owes thousands for college - Mamie Walker is 84-years-old, has never attended college and depends on her monthly social security check of $1,498 to survive.But for the past two months, the government has sent Mamie nothing, except a letter claiming she owes them $224,414.50.A letter from the Treasury Department claims she has been referred to them for "collection action." The letter explains up to 15 percent of each of her checks will be withheld to pay the debt. That was shocking enough, but no check came at all in February or March. She received another letter stating she won't receive another check until Sept. 2031."I'll probably be dead by then," Walker said. "I'm so scared. I don't sleep at night because I'm so scared next week ... my lights are going to be off."Mamie says she not only never went to college, but she never learned to read or write because she had to go to work as a child to help support her family as a "field hand."Her son, Morrison Walker, stepped in to help his mother. He says she hasn't been able to pay rent or utilities and is at risk for losing her home.  "I work and I try my best to help her with her bills, but now this done happened and I have my own bills, and she don't have no income and now they're trying to put eviction on her house, her water bill skyrocketed, her lights are going to get cut off," Walker said. He says he called social security multiple times and listened to "hold music" for hours only to have no one pick up. He went to a local Social Security office and says he was told it sounds like fraud, but no one offered any help.

 It just became easier for employers to dump retirees’ pensions - Traditional pensions are disappearing in America, and the federal government just made it easier for employers to get rid of them. With no fanfare in early March, the Treasury Department issued a notice that allows employers to buy out current retirees from their pensions with a one-time lump sum payment. The decision reverses Obama-era guidance, issued in 2015, that had effectively banned the practice after officials determined that lump-sum payments often shortchanged seniors. Now, advocates for the elderly worry that millions of people receiving monthly pension checks could be at risk. "Permitting plans — for their own financial benefit — to replace joint and survivor or other annuities with lump-sum payments will reduce the retirement security of both workers and their spouses," AARP Legislative Counsel David Certner said. Since the 1980s, employers have shifted away from offering defined-benefit pensions, which provide a guaranteed monthly income for as long as someone lives in retirement. Instead, employers now favor 401(k) accounts, a finite pot of money that becomes available at age 59.5. Pensions, which are insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in case employers go bankrupt, still cover 26.2 million people across 23,400 single-employer plans. But that number has been shrinking faster than it would naturally as companies close their plans to new hires. Here's why: Pensions are big liabilities for companies, which Wall Street ratings agencies don't like. To remain solvent, pension funds depend on their investments in bonds, stocks and other securities, but recent swings in financial markets serve as a reminder that positive returns are not a sure thing. Pensions are also expensive to maintain. The premiums the PBGC charges per covered employee have more than doubled over the past decade as part of a budget gimmick to fill other government revenue holes. "Healthy companies throw up their hands and say, 'why do we bother?'"

 In 24 States, 50% or More of Babies Born on Medicaid; New Mexico Leads Nation With 72% - In 24 of the nation’s 50 states at least half of the babies born during the latest year on record had their births paid for by Medicaid, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. New Mexico led all states with 72 percent of the babies born there in 2015 having their births covered by Medicaid.Arkansas ranked second with 67 percent; Louisiana ranked third with 65 percent; and three states—Mississippi, Nevada and Wisconsin—tied for fourth place with 64 percent of babies born there covered by Medicaid.New Hampshire earned the distinction of having the smallest percentage of babies born on Medicaid. In that state, Medicaid paid for the births of only 27 percent of the babies born in 2015.Virginia and Utah tied for the next to last position, with 31 percent of the babies born on Medicaid.However, according to KFF, some of the nation’s most populous states shared the distinction of having 50 percent or more of the babies born there born on Medicaid.In California, Florida and Illinois, for example, 50 percent of all babies were born on Medicaid in the latest year on record.In New York, 51 percent of the babies were born on Medicaid.In Ohio, 52 percent of babies were born on Medicaid. The Kaiser Family Foundation gathered its data on the number of babies born on Medicaid in each state by surveying the state Medicaid directors.

Electronic Health Records: Death By A Thousand Clicks - Electronic health records were supposed to do a lot: make medicine safer, bring higher-quality care, empower patients, and yes, even save money. Boosters heralded an age when researchers could harness the big data within to reveal the most effective treatments for disease and sharply reduce medical errors. Patients, in turn, would have truly portable health records, being able to share their medical histories in a flash with doctors and hospitals anywhere in the country — essential when life-and-death decisions are being made in the ER. But 10 years after President Barack Obama signed a law to accelerate the digitization of medical records — with the federal government, so far, sinking $36 billion into the effort — America has little to show for its investment. KHN and Fortune spoke with more than 100 physicians, patients, IT experts and administrators, health policy leaders, attorneys, top government officials and representatives at more than a half-dozen EHR vendors, including the CEOs of two of the companies. The interviews reveal a tragic missed opportunity: Rather than an electronic ecosystem of information, the nation’s thousands of EHRs largely remain a sprawling, disconnected patchwork. Moreover, the effort has handcuffed health providers to technology they mostly can’t stand and has enriched and empowered the $13-billion-a-year industry that sells it.

Costly Confusion: Patients Caught by Medicare Not Covering Annual Physical Exams -- Shorter: patients should not be required to play games in order to escape paying costly medical bills. When Beverly Dunn called her new primary care doctor’s office last November to schedule an annual checkup, she assumed her Medicare coverage would pick up most of the tab.  Until she got the bill: $400.  Dunn, 69, called the doctor’s office assuming there was a billing error. But it was no mistake, she was told. Medicare does not cover an annual physical exam. Dunn, of Austin, Texas, was tripped up by Medicare’s confusing coverage rules. Federal law prohibits the health care program from paying for annual physicals, and patients who get them may be on the hook for the entire amount. But beneficiaries pay nothing for an “annual wellness visit,” which the program covers in full as a preventive service.“It’s very important that someone, when they call to make an appointment, uses those magic words, ‘annual wellness visit,’” said Leslie Fried, senior director of the Center for Benefits Access at the National Council on Aging. Otherwise, “people think they are making an appointment for an annual wellness visit and it ends up they are having a complete physical.”An annual physical typically involves an exam by a doctor along with bloodwork or other tests. The annual wellness visit generally doesn’t include a physical exam, except to check routine measurements such as height, weight and blood pressure. The focus of the Medicare wellness visitis on preventing disease and disability by coming up with a “personalized prevention plan” for future medical issues based on the beneficiary’s health and risk factors. When the Medicare program was established more than 50 years ago, its purpose was to cover the diagnosis and treatment of illness and injury in older people. Preventive services were generally not covered, and routine physical checkups were explicitly excluded, along with routine foot and dental care, eyeglasses and hearing aids.

Survey: About 1 in 10 U.S. adults rationing medicine in effort to lower costs - New survey data shows that 11.4 percent of U.S. adults did not take their medication as prescribed in an effort to reduce costs. The survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that those adults, aged 18 to 64, either skipped doses, took less medicine than prescribed, or delayed filling a prescription because of the cost of the drugs in the past 12 months. In addition, the data, from 2017, show that 19.5 percent of adults asked their doctor for a lower-cost medication than the one initially prescribed. The data comes as attention is intensifying on high drug prices, and members of both parties call for action.The AARP highlighted the data on Tuesday. “This is unacceptable. No one should have to ration their treatment or skip medication,” the group wrote on Twitter.The situation is worse for people who are uninsured. Among the uninsured, 33.6 percent did not take their medication as prescribed in an effort to lower costs. The percentage of adults not taking their medication as prescribed remained steady from 2015 to 2017, the survey found, after dropping somewhat from 2013 to 2015.

Here’s How Much Your Healthcare Costs Rise As You Age -- Imagine working your entire life with the plan to retire at the age of 65, only to declare bankruptcy due to medical costs and losing all your assets.  This isn't some unlikely nightmare scenario; the rate of senior citizens declaring bankruptcy has more than doubled since 1999, and the leading cause is high healthcare costs. Despite the existence of Medicare insurance for seniors, it doesn't cover all costs and healthcare can be extremely expensive, especially as you age.In this analysis, we decided to look at the most recent data on how healthcare spending increases as you age along with Priceonomics customer RegisteredNursing.org. The goal of this is for people to understand just how much higher healthcare costs are the older you get and how sensitive they are to medical inflation rates.By the time you reach 65 years old, average healthcare costs are $11.3K per person, per year in the United States. This is nearly triple the annual average cost of when you're in your 20s and 30s. During your adult lifetime, average spending for women is nearly twice as high as for men. Healthcare spending for minority groups like Black and Hispanic Americans is approximately 30% less than on White Americans.During one's lifetime, over $400K will be spent on the average American's healthcare in today's dollars. And that is if medical costs rise as the same rate as inflation. If medical costs rise at 3% more than inflation, your healthcare will cost over $2MM, the vast majority of which will take place after the age of 45.Even if your insurance company or Medicare covers most of that bill, the typical American can still be on the hook for a very large sum of money to cover their healthcare costs as they age.

Kentucky governor says he exposed his nine children to chickenpox - Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) said Tuesday that he deliberately exposed his nine children to chickenpox rather than vaccinating them."They got the chickenpox on purpose because we found a neighbor that had it and I went and made sure every one of my kids was exposed to it, and they got it. They had it as children. They were miserable for a few days, and they all turned out fine," Bevin said in an interview with Bowling Green, Kentucky, talk radio station WKCT.Bevin also expressed skepticism about the government mandating vaccines in the interview. The chickenpox vaccine is among those required for all children entering kindergarten in Kentucky. Last week, a high school senior at Kentucky’s Our Lady of the Sacred Heart/Assumption Academy filed a lawsuit accusing the Northern Kentucky Health Department of religious discrimination for barring him from school because he has not received the chickenpox vaccine. "Why are we forcing kids to get it? If you are worried about your child getting chickenpox or whatever else, vaccinate your child," Bevin said. "But for some people, and for some parents, for some reason they choose otherwise. This is America. The federal government should not be forcing this upon people. They just shouldn’t."

Obesity-related cancers rise among US millennials --Obesity-related cancers among millennials have climbed to rates higher than what was generally witnessed during the baby boomer generation, according to a recent scientific study. Astonishingly, the publication found that these cancers, which are typically present in elderly adults, have become increasingly common at younger ages over the past 20 years.The study, published in The Lancet last month, found that between 1995 and 2014, out of the over 14 million incident cases for 30 types of cancer, incident occurrences increased significantly for six of 12 obesity-related cancers in young adults aged 25-49.Funded by the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute, the study examined data over a 20-year period, covering 67 percent of the US population.It found that the risk of pancreatic, colorectal, endometrial and gallbladder cancers in millennials is far higher than baby boomers when they were the same age. This increase is steeper in progressively younger generations (individuals aged under 50) and successively younger generations (individuals born after 1950).Senior author Ahmedin Jemal, vice president of Surveillance and Health Services Research for the American Cancer Society, told CNN that “the risk of cancer is increasing in young adults for half of the obesity-related cancers, with the increase steeper in progressively younger ages.” Excessive body weight is a known carcinogen that is associated with over a dozen cancers, and the report provides further evidence that obesity is a significant risk factor for cancer. Besides cancer, obesity and being overweight are also major risk factors for other serious diet-related diseases and illnesses, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and strokes.

‘Filth, mold, abuse’: report condemns state of California homeless shelters - When she first moved into the Bridges at Kraemer Place shelter, Jan was optimistic. The southern California homeless shelter, which had just opened a couple months prior, seemed clean and well-organized.  But things quickly went downhill,  “Within a month, everything was rotten,” she said. “There was filth and mold and abuse by the staff. Mold on the floor of the bathroom, mold by the microwave … The only time it looked nice was when somebody would come to see it, like the media or someone from the board of supervisors.” Bridges at Kraemer Place is one of three California shelters condemned for its bleak conditions in a new report from the ACLU. All are in Orange county, one of the wealthiest counties in California, which has been ravaged by a homelessness crisis. Last year there was an outcry after bus stops abutting Disneyland, one of the county’s largest employers, were stripped of benches that homeless people slept on, and local authorities were criticized for evicting hundreds of people living in a riverbed without offering them an alternative place to stay.The ACLU report details a dizzying list of abuses and unlivable conditions, as reported by shelter residents, volunteers and staff.The shelters were racked by infestations of rodents, roaches, bedbugs and other pests, and plagued by a culture of neglect and abuse by shelter staff, the report alleges. “The shelters … fail to conform to standards set forth by international human rights law, which establish the minimum standard of living adequate for health and well-being,” its authors write.“To the extent that the county or its agents have subjected people experiencing homelessness using emergency shelters to foreseeable harm and failed to intercede, it is responsible for state-created danger.”

San Francisco Moves To Ban E-Cigarettes Until Health Effects Known - Officials in San Francisco have proposed a new law to ban e-cigarette sales until their health effects are evaluated by the US government. The law appears to be the first of its kind in the US and seeks to curb a rising usage by young people. Critics, however, say it will make it harder for people to kick addiction. A second city law would bar making, selling or distributing tobacco on city property and is aimed at an e-cigarette firm renting on Pier 70. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - the national regulator - released its proposed guidelines, giving companies until 2021 to apply to have their e-cigarette products evaluated. A deadline had initially been set for August 2018, but the agency later said more preparation time was needed. San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera, one of the co-authors of the bill, which is yet to be approved, said reviews should have been done before they were sold. "These companies may hide behind the veneer of harm reduction, but let's be clear, their product is addiction," said Mr Herrera. He added that San Francisco, Chicago and New York had sent a joint letter to the FDA calling on it to investigate the effects of e-cigarettes on public health. Anti-vaping activists say companies are deliberately targeting young people by offering flavoured products. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of US teenagers who admitted using tobacco products "within the last 30 days" rose 36% between 2017 and 2018 - from 3.6m to 4.9m. It attributes this to a growth in e-cigarette use. Last year San Francisco became the first US city to ban flavoured tobacco and vaping liquids, and already prevents smokeless tobacco from being used on playing fields.

Germany named drug use capital following Europe-wide sewage study - Germany has topped a Europe-wide study for crystal meth and amphetamine use following close examination of the country's wastewater. Sewage in over 70 cities was analyzed to explore the drug-taking habits of residents. Scientists examining the common effluent in 20 European countries discovered residents and visitors to the German city of Erfurt used an inordinate amount of the illicit drug methamphetamine, the most for any of the 73 European towns and cities taking part in Europe's largest wastewater drug analysis. Samples from an estimated 46 million people across the bloc were analyzed for traces of four illicit drugs — amphetamine, cocaine, MDMA (or ecstasy) and methamphetamine — in an attempt to better understand drug-taking habits. Through daily wastewater analysis, scientists were able to estimate the amount of drugs taken within the community over a one-week period by looking at metabolites, a substance produced when the body breaks down drugs, which is then excreted in urine. Researchers for the Sewage Analysis CORe group Europe (SCORE), in conjunction with the European Union's drugs agency EMCDDA, found that for each 1,000 residents, a daily average of 211.3 mg of methamphetamine was used. Chemnitz, a two-hour drive east of Erfurt, was second on the list of cities being studied, with a figure of 196.2 mg of the illicit drug per 1,000 people, down from 240.6 in 2017.Dresden, also in the east of the country, came in third with 174.6 mg, down slightly from 180.2 mg the previous year."Traditionally," the EMCDDA reported, "methamphetamine use [has been] generally low and historically concentrated in the Czech Republic and Slovakia." "Now it appears to be present also in the east of Germany and northern Europe, particularly in cities in Finland," the monitoring center added.

Short-Term Exposure to Air Pollution May Increase Asthma Mortality - Just a few days' exposure to ambient air pollution was associated with increased risk of death from asthma, researchers from China indicated. Earlier studies have linked short-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ground-level ozone (O3) in asthma sufferers to increased symptoms, exacerbations, and hospital emergency department visits, but the study is among the first to show a link between short-term exposure and death from asthma. Researchers in China analyzed death records from approximately 4,500 people who died of asthma in a province of the nation with a population of 59 million people and more than 50 air quality monitoring stations. The findings were published online in the American Thoracic Society journal: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Medicine. "Given that short-term exposure to air pollution has been associated with increased risk of death from a variety of causes, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, we hypothesized that air pollution might increase the risk of death from asthma," said Yuewei Liu, PhD of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, in a press release. For the study, he and his colleagues used a case-crossover design along with conditional logistic regression modeling to analyze the data. Exposures to PM2.5, PM10, sulfur dioxide (SO2), NO2, carbon monoxide (CO), and O3 were estimated using inverse distance weighted averages of all monitoring stations within 50 kilometers of the home address of each deceased case. For each asthma death identified by the researchers, the case day was defined as the death date, and the death case also served as his or her own control. Control days were defined as the days in the same year and month as the death day that shared the same day of the week to control for confounding effects by day of week, long-term trend, and seasonality (3 or 4 control days). The team used inverse distance weighting (ID) to assess air pollutant exposures. Locations of monitoring stations and case home addresses were geocoded, and for each asthma death, the researchers estimated air pollution exposure on the day of death by calculating the inverse distance weighted average of concentrations at all monitoring stations within 50 km of the home address on each of the case and control days."Our findings provide new evidence that short-term exposure to air pollution may increase the risk of dying from asthma and highlight the need for those with asthma to take effective measures -- staying indoors with an air purifier or wearing a mask -- to reduce air pollution exposure when those levels are very high," Liu said.

Trump EPA Science Advisers Push Doubt About Air Pollution Health Risks --For two years, the Trump administration has been planting seeds of change in the Environmental Protection Agency—installing allies of regulated industries onto its elite panels of science advisers. That effort now has borne fruit in dramatic fashion. The EPA's new science advisers, sweeping aside decades of research on the grave health risks of fine particle air pollution, have launched a drive to force the agency to give greater weight to a handful of contrarian studies that dispute the harmful effects of soot.Particulate matter is the pollution caused by combustion, a mixture of solid and liquid droplets that forms in the burning of fossil fuels or wood. The health risks of particulate matter have been an underpinning of the EPA's cost-benefit analysis of a number of air pollution regulations, including those meant to address climate change, like the Obama administration's Clean Air Act.  The science is well-established—the World Health Organizationestimates that there are 4.2 million premature deaths a year due to fine particle pollution, making it one of the leading environmental health risks globally. But allies of the fossil fuel industry have vigorously disputed the validity of fine particle pollution studies since they first emerged in the 1990s. Significantly, the health damages from particle and other pollution coming from the combustion of fossil fuels have also been used by the EPA to justify controls on carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.  The latest scientific dispute centers around the EPA's draft assessment of the science on particulate matter (PM), a comprehensive review that the agency is required by law to conduct every few years to update the state of the science on several key pollutants.  It affirmed the agency's previous findings that the science points consistently and overwhelmingly to a "causal relationship" between PM pollution and premature deaths. The assessment concludes the greatest risk is due to particles less than 2.5 microns in width, and that PM2.5 is associated with a range of cardiovascular and respiratory effects.

Dormant viruses reactivate during space travel- NASA - Space travel caused herpes viruses to reactivate in more than half of crew aboard Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS), according to a NASA study, a finding that could jeopardise mankind's future missions to Mars and beyond.While only a small proportion develop symptoms, virus reactivation rates increase with spaceflight duration and could present a significant health risk on future missions. "NASA astronauts endure weeks or even months exposed to microgravity and cosmic radiation -- not to mention the extreme G forces of take-off and re-entry," said Satish K Mehta at NASA's Johnson Space Center."This physical challenge is compounded by more familiar stressors like social separation, confinement and an altered sleep-wake cycle," said Mehta."During spaceflight there is a rise in secretion of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which are known to suppress the immune system," said Mehta."In keeping with this, we find that astronaut's immune cells --particularly those that normally suppress and eliminate viruses -- become less effective during spaceflight and sometimes for up to 60 days after," he said.In the midst of this stress-induced amnesty on viral killing, dormant viruses reactivate and resurface, according to the research published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology."To date, 47 out of 89 (53 per cent) astronauts on short space shuttle flights, and 14 out of 23 (61 per cent) on longer ISS missions shed herpes viruses in their saliva or urine samples," said Mehta."These frequencies -- as well as the quantity -- of viral shedding are markedly higher than in samples from before or after flight, or from matched healthy controls," he said. Overall, four of the eight known human herpes viruses were detected. These include the varieties responsible for oral and genital herpes (HSV), chickenpox and shingles (VZV) -- which remain lifelong in our nerve cells -- as well as CMV and EBV, which take permanent but uneventful residence in our immune cells during childhood.

Scientists Resume Efforts To Create Deadly Flu Virus, With US Government's Blessing -  Forbes - For more than a decade now, two scientists–one in the U.S. and one in the Netherlands–have been trying to create a deadly human pathogen from avian influenza. That's right: they are trying to turn "bird flu," which does not normally infect people, into a human flu.Not surprisingly, many scientists are vehemently opposed to this. In mid-2014, a group of them formed the Cambridge Working Group and issued a statement warning of the dangers of this research. The statement was signed by hundreds of scientists at virtually every major U.S. and European university. (Full disclosure: I am one of the signatories.)In response to these and other concerns, in October 2014 the U.S. government called for a "pause" in this dangerous research. NIH Director Francis Collins said that his agency would study the risks and benefits before proceeding further.Well, four years later, the risks and benefits haven't changed, but the NIH has (quietly) just allowed the research to start again, as we learned last week in an exclusive report from Science's Jocelyn Kaiser.I can't allow this to go unchallenged. This research is so potentially harmful, and offers such little benefit to society, that I fear that NIH is endangering the trust that Congress places in it. And don't misinterpret me: I'm a huge supporter of NIH, and I've argued before that it's one of the best investments the American public can make. But they got this one really, really wrong. For those who might not know, the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide (3% of the entire world population at the time), was caused by a strain of avian influenza that made the jump into humans. The 1918 flu was so deadly that it "killed more American soldiers and sailors during World War I than did enemy weapons." Not surprisingly, then, when other scientists (including me) learned about the efforts to turn bird flu into a human flu, we asked: why the heck would anyone do that? The answers were and still are unsatisfactory: claims such as "we'll learn more about the pandemic potential of the flu" and "we'll be better prepared for an avian flu pandemic if one occurs." These are hand-waving arguments that may sound reasonable, but they promise only vague benefits while ignoring the dangers of this research. If the research succeeds, and one of the newly-designed, highly virulent flu strains escapes, the damage could be horrific.

 EPA Announces 20 Toxic Chemicals It Won’t Protect Us From - On Wednesday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the first 20 chemicals it plans to prioritize as "high priority" for assessment under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Given the EPA's record of malfeasance on chemicals policy over the past two years, it is clear that these are chemicals that EPA is prioritizing to ensure that they are not properly evaluated or regulated. Of the 20 chemicals named, the one that immediately jumps out is formaldehyde. EPA's program for assessing the hazards of chemicals — known as "IRIS," the Integrated Risk Information System — completed an assessment of formaldehyde that Trump officials have prevented being publicly released, or even undergoing peer review. This is likely because the conclusions of the IRIS assessment are unfavorable to formaldehyde manufacturers and polluters. The Trump administration, along with the chemical industry and allies in Congress, is trying to defund and dismantle the IRIS program (industry has been trying for many years, but now it has serious inside help). EPA's plan is plainly to create an industry-approved alternative assessment of formaldehyde under TSCA using Trump EPA standard tactics: suppressing independent science; bending (and breaking) the rules of how to evaluate chemical hazards; and, taking only those steps that meet the approval of the nation's largest chemical manufacturers. There are other important chemicals on the "high priority" list EPA announced Wednesday, including several phthalates, toxic flame retardants and numerous chlorinated solvents. Most importantly, as with the first 10 chemicals that EPA designated for assessment in 2016, and which it is currently evaluating, for these 20 chemicals, EPA's decisions will ultimately impose preemption on state authority to take stronger action than what EPA concludes is necessary, even if EPA concludes that no action is necessary. This means that for formaldehyde and the other phthalates, flame retardants and solvents on EPA's list — if EPA concludes that the uses it evaluates do not pose an unreasonable risk — states will be preempted from taking more protective actions.

California bill could ban cosmetics with cancer causing chemicals - California is considering a bill that would ban the sale of all cosmetics in state that contain certain chemicals known to cause cancer and other health effects. State legislators introduced a bill Tuesday that would ban makeup made with 20 highly toxic chemicals including asbestos, mercury, lead, formaldehyde and fluorinated compounds known as PFAS. The cosmetics under the bill would be classified as "adulterated cosmetics," and would not be able to be sold in the state. Some of the chemicals have been linked to reproductive harm and hormone disruption in addition to cancer. "Californians deserve to know whether the cosmetic products they purchase in the state are not harmful to their health," said state assembly member Al Muratsuchi (D), a co-sponsor of the bill in a statement. "While cosmetic products sold in the U.S. are largely unregulated, other nations -- and even retailers -- have proactively banned or restricted the use of hundreds or thousands of cosmetic ingredients. AB 495 will protect consumers by banning the sale in California of cosmetics containing known carcinogens, reproductive toxins, and endocrine disruptors that are harmful to human health." Environmental and consumer advocacy groups have long argued that the U.S .does not do enough to regulate the chemicals used in makeup and personal care products. "Toxic chemicals that cause cancer or reproductive harm have no place in any consumer products, especially those that adults and children alike apply to their bodies every day," said Susan Little, senior California advocate for government affairs of the Environmental Working Group. "This common-sense proposal is exactly what is needed to clean up the cosmetics aisle so that Californians can be assured their makeup, soap and shampoos don't include harmful chemicals." 

Jury Finds Monsanto’s Roundup Was “Substantial Factor” in Causing Man’s Cancer — In a landmark verdict against Monsanto that could have far-reaching implications, a federal jury on Tuesday found that the weed-killer Roundup was “a substantial factor” in causing a 70-year-old plaintiff’s cancer.  “Today’s verdict reinforces what another jury found last year, and what scientists with the state of California and the World Health Organization have concluded: Glyphosate causes cancer in people,” Environmental Working Group president Ken Cook said in a statement, referring to the active ingredient in Roundup. “As similar lawsuits mount, the evidence will grow that Roundup is not safe, and that the company has tried to cover it up.”  Edwin Hardeman, the plaintiff in the case, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) in 2015 after using Roundup to kill poison oak and weeds on his property for over 20 years. In 2016, Hardeman sued Monsanto, which was acquired by the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer last year.  “The decision by Bayer to purchase Monsanto, a company with a long history of environmental malfeasance, could go down as one of the worst business decisions ever made,” said Cook. “The day of reckoning for Bayer and its cancer-causing weedkiller is getting closer.” The jury’s verdict comes just months after Monsanto was ordered to pay over $200 million in damages to a former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson, who said Roundup caused his cancer.

Early Pesticide Exposure Linked to Increased Autism Risk - Environmental exposure to pesticides, both before birth and during the first year of life, has been linked to an increased risk of developing autism spectrum disorder, according to the largest epidemiological study to date on the connection. The study, published Wednesday in BMJ, found that pregnant women who lived within 2,000 meters (approximately 1.2 miles) of a highly-sprayed agricultural area in California had children who were 10 to 16 percent more likely to develop autism and 30 percent more likely to develop severe autism that impacted their intellectual ability. If the children were exposed to pesticides during their first year of life, the risk they would develop autism went up to 50 percent.While the results do not prove that pesticide exposure caused the children to develop autism, they do raise concerns about the consequences of pesticide exposure, something it is difficult for pregnant women or new mothers and their partners to control. "I would hope that these findings would make some policy makers think about effective public health policy measures to protect populations who may be vulnerable and living in areas that could put them at higher risk," lead study author and Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles associate professor Ondine von Ehrenstein told Time Magazine. "Raising awareness in the public may be the way to eventually change practices and agricultural policies."

Pesticide residues found in 70% of produce sold in US even after washing - About 70% of fresh produce sold in the US has pesticide residues on it even after it is washed, according to a health advocacy group. According to the Environmental Working Group’s annual analysis of US Department of Agriculture data, strawberries, spinach and kale are among the most pesticide-heavy produce, while avocados, sweetcorn and pineapples had the lowest level of residues.More than 92% of kale tested contained two or more pesticide residues, according to the analysis, and a single sample of conventionally farmed kale could contain up to 18 different pesticides. Dacthal – the most common pesticide found, which was detected in nearly 60% of kale samples, is banned in Europe and classified as a possible human carcinogen in the US. “We definitely acknowledge and support that everybody should be eating healthy fruits and vegetables as part of their diet regardless of if they’re conventional or organic,” said Alexis Temkin, a toxicologist working with the EWG. “But what we try to highlight with the Shopper’s Guide to Produce is building on a body of evidence that shows mixtures of pesticides can have adverse effects.” Other foods on the group’s “dirty dozen” list include grapes, cherries, apples, tomatoes and potatoes. In contrast, its “clean 15” list includes avocados, onions and cauliflower.  Leonardo Trasande, an environmental medicine specialist at the New York University medical school, called the EWG report “widely respected” and said it can inform shoppers who want to buy some organic fruits and vegetables, but would like to know which ones they could prioritize.

Strawberries, Spinach Top 'Dirty Dozen' List of Pesticide-Contaminated Produce - Which conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables in the U.S. are most contaminated with pesticides? That's the question that the Environmental Working Group answers every year with its "Dirty Dozen" list of produce with the highest concentration of pesticides after being washed or peeled. This year's surprise? Kale ranked number three, behind strawberries and spinach. More than 92 percent of conventionally kale samples had residue from two or more pesticides, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tests. The last year that the USDA tested kale was in 2009, when it ranked eighth. "We were surprised kale had so many pesticides on it, but the test results were unequivocal," EWG toxicologist Alexis Temkin, Ph.D. said in a statement announcing the new list Wednesday. "Fruits and vegetables are an important part of everyone's diet, and when it comes to some conventionally grown produce items, such as kale, choosing organic may be a better option." The other items on the list were:

1. Strawberries
2. Spinach
3. Kale
4. Nectarines
5. Apples
6. Grapes
7. Peaches
8. Cherries
9. Pears
10. Tomatoes
11. Celery
12. Potatoes

The "Dirty Dozen" is part of the EWG's annual "Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce," which also includes a "Clean Fifteen" list of the produce with the least amount of pesticide residue. Topping that list were avocados, sweet corn and pineapples. The lists are based on more than 40,900 fruit and vegetable samples tested by the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Overall, pesticides were found on nearly 70 percent of non-organic produce sold in the U.S., according to EWG. One of the pesticides found was Dacthal, which was found on nearly 60 percent of kale samples. It has been found by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to possibly cause cancer in humans and has been banned from being used on crops in the EU since 2009. Another chemical found on apples, diphenylamine, has also been banned in the EU over cancer concerns.

Restoring Tropical Forests Isn’t Meaningful if Those Forests Only Stand for 10 or 20 Years -- Tropical forests globally are being lost at a rate of 61,000 square miles a year. And despite conservation efforts, the global rate of loss is accelerating. In 2016 it reached a 15-year high, with 114,000 square miles cleared.  At the same time, many countries are pledging to restore large swaths of forests. The Bonn Challenge, a global initiative launched in 2011, calls for national commitments to restore 580,000 square miles of the world's deforested and degraded land by 2020. In 2014 the New York Declaration on Forests increased this goal to 1.35 million square miles, an area about twice the size of Alaska, by 2030.   Ecological restoration is a process of helping damaged ecosystems recover. It produces many benefits for both wildlife and people — for example, better habitat, erosion control, cleaner drinking water and jobs. . However, a closer look shows that a struggle remains to fully realize the Bonn Challenge vision. Some reforestation efforts provide only limited benefits, and studies have shown that maintaining these forests for decades is critical to maximize the economic and ecological benefits of establishing them.Benefits for wildlife and Earth's climate from forest restoration accrue over decades. However, many forests are unlikely to remain protected for this long. In a 2018 study we showed that forests that naturally regenerated in Costa Rica between 1947 and 2014 hadonly a 50 percent chance of enduring for 20 years. Most places where forests regrew were subsequently re-cleared for farming. Twenty years represents about a quarter of the time needed for forest carbon stocks to fully recover, and less than one-fifth of the time required for many forest-dwelling plants and animals to return.

Delhi’s Dying Holy River - Before you can see the Yamuna River or hear its roar, you smell its nauseating stench from a distance. When you finally glimpse it, the waterway looks like a sewer. Originating from the pristine Himalayan ranges further up north, the water of the Yamuna River carries with it raw sewage, untreated industrial runoff, and garbage as it flows through Delhi, destroying not only its marine life and biodiversity, but also the prospects for survival of those who depend on it for livelihood.More than three-quarters of the pollution of the Yamuna, considered one of the most scared Indian rivers in Hindu lore, is found in a small stretch in Delhi – about 14 miles – that covers roughly 2 percent of the river’s total length, according to a monitoring committee overseeing its cleaning.The Okhla area in South Delhi was the city’s prime fishing ground from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, according to the Delhi Gazetteers, but there’s no freshwater anymore. Instead, there’s a flow of untreated sewage, thanks to the discharge of toxic industrial chemicals released into the river.The pollution has killed most of the fish population, but desperate fishermen, mostly migrants from the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, still cast their nets for whatever little they can catch. The river is a testimony to the need for a balance between modern development that comes from industry and the conservation of natural assets. While the Indian government claims that it is spending millions of rupees on the cleaning of the Yamuna, the visible evidence gives a completely different picture, as shown in these photos.

We Are Already Living in a ‘New India’ – and It’s Alarmingly Water-Stressed -Our proprietor says his well has run dry and the municipal water supply has become increasingly erratic. He is now forced to rely on expensive private tankers. The tanker driver tells me that Goa’s wells are running out of water, even though it’s only spring and the hot, dry summer is yet to come.Many have spoken about India’s future water crisis, but the crisis has already begun manifesting itself across the country. A NITI Aayog report stated that 21 Indian cities, including Delhi, will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people. Perhaps more concerning is that Goa, a state with one of India’s lowest populations and highest rainfall rates, is experiencing a shortfall. The proliferation of private water tankers in many Indian cities has masked the severity of the problem. Also according to NITI Aayog, Delhi has been losing 3 cm of water from ground and surface water reserves, and is predicted to hit ‘day zero’ – when its water supply runs out – by 2020 at this rate.   Alarmingly, India’s national and state governments have failed to grasp the crisis’s severity. Their apathy stands in stark contrast to the response of policymakers in Cape Town. The South African city had its day zero in 2018, and it was manageable because the city’s residents had curtailed their water usage by almost 60% over three years, achieved through city-wide restrictions and innovative policies.  India’s policymakers, on the other hand, don’t have the appetite for demand-side restrictions or higher tariffs that could spur public investment in water infrastructure. The resulting shortfall in municipal water supply creates a perfect breeding ground for water-tanker mafias. Although the middle-class is willing to pay for private tankers, it is the poor who are affected more because they have to part with a larger share of their income.

Britain Will Have Water Shortages In 25 Years Thanks to Climate Change, Environment Chief Says -  England could face water shortages in just 25 years due to climate change if radical shifts in consumption and infrastructure aren’t immediately implemented.That’s according to the chief executive of the country’s Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, who described one of the most looming environmental consequences of our time at the Waterwise conference in London on Tuesday, reported the Guardian. “Around 25 years from now, where those [demand and supply] lines cross is known by some as the ‘jaws of death’—the point at which we will not have enough water to supply our needs, unless we take action to change things,” Bevan told the Guardian.Bevan, who was appointed to lead the agency in 2015, cited population growth and failing infrastructure, such as leaky pipes, as the main reasons for the potential crisis.“We need water wastage to be as socially unacceptable as blowing smoke in the face of a baby or throwing your plastic bags into the sea,” he said. Bevan recommended cuts to water consumption by as much as one third, as well as leaks from water pipes by 50 percent, and suggested changes such as more water metering and the building of “mega-reservoirs,” which the Guardian described as controversial and likely to be met by local opposition.Climate change is predicted to usher in UK summers that are roughly 5 degrees Celsius warmer by 2070—should emissions continue the increase—according to a 2018 reportby the UK Met Officer. It also projected drier conditions within this century, with summer rainfall potentially dropping 47 percent by 2070. More than a quarter of the country’s groundwater sources and 18 percent of surface water resources were “extracted beyond a sustainable level in 2017,” reported NBC News, describing a 2018 study by the Environment Agency that investigated the UK’s water usage. The report called current levels of extraction “unsustainable,” noting that three billion liters of water are lost through leakage each day. More than a third of freshwater extraction, it added, goes toward electricity supply and other industries.

Two Dead, Hundreds Evacuated as ‘Historic’ Flooding Swamps Midwest - Flooding caused by last week's bomb cyclone storm has broken records in 17 places across the state of Nebraska, CNN reported Sunday. Around nine million people in 14 states along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers were under a flood watch, CNN meteorologist Karen Maginnis said.Communities in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa were the most severely impacted, AccuWeather reported. Two Nebraskan residents have died, two are missing and hundreds have been forced to evacuate."Nebraska has experienced historic flooding and extreme weather in nearly every region of the state," Nebraska Republican Governor Pete Ricketts tweeted Friday. The flooding is the result of a bomb cyclone that brought hurricane-force winds, blizzards and heavy rain to the central U.S. last week. This caused rivers to overflow, especially as the ground was frozen, causing all of the excess water and snowmelt to flow into waterways, Brian Barjenbruch of Omaha's National Weather Service told The Washington Post. "It is some of the worst flooding that we've seen in many years," Barjenbruch said. "In some locations it's the worst flooding on record on many of these river gauges."  The governors of Nebraska, Wisconsin and South Dakota have all declared emergencies, while Iowa's governor has issued several disaster proclamations. Most of the records broken by flooding were along the Missouri river, where waters crested one to four feet above previous records in different locations throughout Nebraska, CNN reported.More rain is expected in the area Tuesday, AccuWeather reported, which could make the situation worse.

 ‘Bomb Cyclone’ Triggers Biblical Flooding In Midwest - As students around the country participated in a global strike Friday to demand action on climate change, a powerful “bomb cyclone” ripped through the Midwest, bringing extreme flooding to parts of Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin.  The National Weather Service in Omaha issued a flash flood emergency order early Friday for areas west of Omaha after a dike on the Platte River in the town of Valley, Nebraska, failed. “SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” NWS wrote before having to evacuate its office. “This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.”The Platte River near Leshara swelled to a record 12.63 feet on Friday, topping the previous high of 11.84 feet set in 1996. In the town of Plattsmouth, south of Omaha, the Missouri River reached a record 37.15 feet, breaking the previous high of 36.73 feet in 2011. Several levees reportedly failed and thousands were forced to evacuate across the state.   The flooding killed at least one person and left another missing, The Omaha World-Herald reports. Several firefighters were injured Thursday when their boat capsized during an attempted rescue near the town of Arlington, according to the paper.As the Missouri River rose, a nuclear power plant in southeast Nebraska declared a “Notification of Unusual Event” early Friday, a precautionary low-level alert, and said it would would continue to monitor the the water level. The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang reports that more than 10 million people across the Midwest, from Nebraska to Wisconsin, were under flood warnings Friday. Major to historic river flooding will continue into the weekend for many points throughout the Missouri and Mississippi River basins. Anyone with interests along impacted rivers should monitor closely/take action.https://t.co/0mAgMs2v3P for the latest forecast river levels. pic.twitter.com/wBZmwiEkJh — NWS (@NWS) March 15, 2019  The heavy rains and flooding came after a powerful winter storm battered Colorado, Wyoming and other central states with blizzard conditions and strong winds earlier in the week. Several tornadoes touched down in Kentucky and Indiana.  The National Weather Service called it “a Great Plains cyclone of historic proportions.”

11-foot wall of water- One dam breaks, three counties suffer -- Earlier, the Niobrara had been running at 5 or 6 feet of gauge height. After it broke through the dam, it measured nearly 17.5 feet. It wasn’t a gradual increase, either.“It started a really fast rise,” he said. “There was an 11-foot wave that rolled through.”And in its wake, three Nebraska counties would learn how that much moving water can become immediately destructive and potentially deadly. How it can cause instant pain and long-term suffering. How it can harm not only those in its path, but those living miles away. First, the wave swept away a section of U.S. 281, a nearby riverside saloon and at least one home, possibly occupied. And it continued downstream, barreling toward the town of Niobrara — and its mouth at the Missouri River — about 40 miles away.  Vic’s Service has anchored the west edge of Niobrara for 25 years, and had enough hydraulic fittings and plumbing pieces to serve as a kind of farmer’s supply store, said Ruth Janak, who co-owns the station with her husband, Victor. They returned Thursday, and found most of it missing.“Our main building, the one we did our business at, it’s gone. The gas pumps are gone. We lost the propane tank. So many tools are gone,” Janak said Friday. “Where’s all that stuff at? It’s crazy.”Theirs wasn't the only missing building. The wall of water had brutalized Niobrara's west side, a low-lying commercial district, and the part of town closest to the river.  Several buildings from a hay business? Gone. A state Department of Transportation garage? Gone. A Knox County road shop? Gone. The Mormon Bridge on Nebraska 12? Stark has video of the deck floating away. The Country Cafe? Still standing, but it had been nearly swallowed by water and ice, with maybe a foot of the roof visible at one point.“A lot of buildings washed away,” he said. “They were pretty much swept right down the river and they're in the Missouri somewhere.”

Floodwaters threaten millions in US crop and livestock losses -   — Farmer Jeff Jorgenson looks out over 750 acres of cropland submerged beneath the swollen Missouri River, and he knows he probably won’t plant this year. But that’s not his biggest worry. He and other farmers have worked until midnight for days to move grain, equipment and fuel barrels away from the floodwaters fed by heavy rain and snowmelt. The rising water that has damaged hundreds of homes and been blamed for three deaths has also taken a heavy toll on agriculture, inundating thousands of acres, threatening stockpiled grain and killing livestock. In Fremont County alone, Jorgenson estimates that more than a million bushels of corn and nearly half a million bushels of soybeans have been lost after water overwhelmed grain bins before they could be emptied of last year’s crop. His calculation using local grain prices puts the financial loss at more than $7 million in grain alone. That’s for about 28 farmers in his immediate area, he said. Once it’s deposited in bins, grain is not insured, so it’s just lost money. This year farmers have stored much more grain than normal because of a large crop last year and fewer markets in which to sell soybeans because of a trade dispute with China.

Historic Midwest Flooding Has Devastating Consequences for Farmers - The record flooding in the Midwest that has now been blamed for four deaths could also have lasting consequences for the region's many farmers. Flooding has swamped fields and stockpiles and drowned or harmed livestock in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and other states. In Nebraska alone, the loss of crops and livestock is estimated to total nearly $1 billion, Reuters reported Tuesday. "The economy in agriculture is not very good right now. It will end some of these folks farming, family legacies, family farms," Iowa farmer Farmer Jeff Jorgenson told The Associated Press. "There will be farmers that will be dealing with so much of a negative they won't be able to tolerate it."  Not only crops were lost. The floods have damaged roads, bridges and railways farmers rely on to move their products to processing plants and shipping centers, Reuters reported. Such a major blow to U.S. farmers is likely to have national consequences. "This will impact the food on your table," Chair of Nebraska's Democratic Party Jane Fleming Kleeb tweeted, as The New Food Economy reported. The floods come at a bad time for farmers for a variety of reasons. Seasonally, the floods have come just as farmers usually start their spring planting and need dry weather in order to get seeds in the ground.  At the same time, farmers in the region are generally suffering. The number of farms that filed for bankruptcy last year rose by 19 percent, the highest level in more than ten years. Further, incomes from farming have fallen by more than 50 percent because of a global glut of grain, Reuters reported. To make matters worse, a trade war with China has meant the country has stopped importing U.S. soybeans. Many farmers had stored last years' crops of grain and soy in hopes of better prices, and now some of those stores have been destroyed.

Home Of Strategic Command And Some Of The USAF’s Most Prized Aircraft Is Flooding (Updated) The home to America's prized RC-135 "Rivet Joint" strategic reconnaissance and E-4B "Nightwatch" Advanced Airborne Command Post aircraft, as well as others, and the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), is flooding with water from a swollen Missouri River. Offutt Air Force Base sits near Omaha, Nebraska and is considered one of the most critical installations in the U.S. Air Force's portfolio. Not only does it house extremely high-value, but low density reconnaissance and command and control aircraft—massively expensive platforms that are essential to national security—but it is also the beating heart of STRATCOM that oversees America's strategic nuclear forces. In fact, a brand new command bunker, buried underground at the base, was just opened in January—which sounds far less than ideal considering water is now nearly covering the end of the base's runway. A conga line of RC-135s were tracked escaping the impending deluge earlier today.  The thing is that the fleet of aircraft housed at Offutt is among the oldest in the USAF's inventory and has received quite a reputation as of late for less than stellar readiness. In other words, some aircraft may not have been able to fly out. And even if most were good to go, there will almost always be a number left behind due to various circumstances—most commonly of which is being down for deep maintenance. But still, considering the strategic operations centers that are the backbone of STRATCOM are located at the base, many of which are underground, this flood could prove to be way more harmful than the damage done to aircraft and basic infrastructure above ground.

Nebraska floods swamp Air Force base, as devastation from 'Bomb Cyclone' seen in satellite photos -The torrent of water from heavy rainfall spawned by last week's "bomb cyclone" and snowmelt has led to devastating flooding across several Midwestern states, including swamping a major Air Force base in Nebraska that's key to the nation’s nuclear attack response. About one-third of Offutt Air Force Base -- including offices, hangars and nearly 3,000 feet of the base's 11,700-foot runway -- is underwater due to flooding from the Missouri River south of Omaha. Spokeswoman Tech. Sgt. Rachelle Blake told the Omaha World-Herald that 60 buildings, mostly on the south end of the base, have been damaged, including about 30 that were completely inundated with as much as 8 feet of water. The runway at Offutt Air Force Base can be seen covered by floodwaters from the Missouri River. Airmen from the 55th Wing had been filling thousands of sandbags in a round-the-clock effort to fortify facilities but were forced to give up after filling 235,000 sandbags and preparing 460 flood barriers. “It was a lost cause," Blake told the World-Herald. "We gave up." Col. Michael Manion, commander of the 55th Wing, has been providing updates on the flooding on Facebook. As of Tuesday morning, he reported there has been "slow water regression" that's allowed some high points that were underwater to be revealed. Disaster recovery crews are expected to arrive by the end of the week to begin work when floodwaters fully recede.

Dramatic Satellite Photos Show Historic Flooding Across Central U.S. in Wake of Bomb Cyclone - (before & after photos) When last week’s bomb cyclone hit the Midwest, it was hard to imagine the inundation it could bring amid whiteout conditions and more than a foot of snow. But the warm weather that wrapped in behind it quickly melted out all that white stuff and unleashed historic flooding across parts of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, and Missouri. Floodwaters have worked their way down the rivers that run like arteries through the region, overtop the banks of the Missouri, Platte, Elkhorn, and more. Dams have been destroyed, bridges and other infrastructure have been washed away, and small towns have been cut off from the outside world, surrounded by moats of muddy water. The flooding has also paralyzed the various military bases scattered across the region, with waters lapping up against Fort Leavenworth and Offutt Air Force Base, home U.S. Strategic Command. As Task and Purpose helpfully notes, that means the base that “oversees the Pentagon’s nuclear strategic deterrence and global strike capabilities” is largely underwater. As of Monday, nine flood gauges operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration remained at major flood stage with another 17 in moderate flood stages. While the on-the-ground photos show the human toll of the floods, satellites are the best way to get a handle on the full scope of what’s happening in the Midwest. Below are before and after images captured by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellites.

Flood waters push up and break natural gas line near Le Mars - A 4 inch natural gas line in the Floyd River ruptured today. The rushing flood waters from the Floyd River has severed a four-inch natural gas line which feeds around 95 Le Mars residents and businesses. Le Mars Fire Chief Dave Schipper says the gas line was located near the Highway 3 bridge.”The line that ruptured was actually bored under the river and I think with the volume of the water and the speed of the current — it uprooted that gas line and broke it,” Schipper says. Residents noticed the broken line at about 10:00 this morning after smelling odor from the leaking gas. Schipper says line provides gas to a trailer court. They are looking at bringing in a gas truck, or possible a temporary fix. He says another options would be to ask the Iowa Department of Transportation if they would allow a temporary gas line to be installed under the Highway 3 bridge. MidAmerican Energy crews are still working to fix the line and spokesman Geoff Greenwood says the flooding has caused a lot of issues. He says they haven’t had a situation like this but have had experience a lot of flooding impact throughout western and southwestern Iowa. Greenwood says they had a lot of concern with the Nishnabotna River. He says the river rose rapidly, but has started to go down. Greenwood says this won’t be the first problem they have with the high water. “We expect some longer term issues along the Missouri River and down the road probably in eastern Iowa along the Missouri River as well — so lots of impacts statewide because of flooding,” according to Greenwood. Greenwood says they hope to find a solution to get the gas back to the area in Le Mars by this evening.

Historic flooding across US Midwest leaves thousands homeless, four dead --Thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes as communities throughout the US Midwest experience historic flooding events. States of emergency have been declared in four states, including Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and South Dakota. As of this writing four people have died, while thousands remain in emergency shelters or trapped in their homes, surrounded by water.Seventy out of ninety-nine counties in Nebraska are under state-issued emergency declarations, as are forty-one of Iowa’s ninety-nine counties. In both states, melting snow, ice jams, and falling rain have engorged river systems with rushing water that has overwhelmed insufficient levee systems and destroyed outdated dams.The flooding, which began last week, but was predicted weeks in advance, will continue throughout the week and into Spring, as snow and ice melts while rain continues to fall. According to the National Weather Service, flooding has impacted approximately 9 million people in 14 states.A record-setting winter snowfall season followed by last week's “bomb cyclone,” which brought high winds and heavy snow across the Midwest, in conjunction with warming temperatures, proved to be a deadly combination that has overwhelmed neglected infrastructure and transportation systems. The latest environmental and social crisis, exacerbated by climate change, will have devastating impacts on local farming economies. Meteorologists have documented an upward trend of between a 15 and 20 percent increase in rainfall since the early 1900s in the Upper Midwest. The frequency of high impact rainfall has nearly doubled in the same timeframe. The message is clear: just as hurricanes and tropical storms have increased in intensity, flooding events in the Midwest are expected to increase as well.

Floods shut nearly a sixth of U.S. ethanol production (Reuters) - Massive flooding in the U.S. Midwest has knocked out roughly 13 percent of the country’s ethanol production capacity, as plants in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota have been forced to shut down or scale back production following the devastation. Production facilities owned by large companies like Archer Daniels Midland Co and Green Plains Inc were still operating despite days of snowstorms followed by rains that sent record floods into the Farm Belt. However, with rail lines are washed out, and corn in storage flooded, production is dropping off, sending prices spiking in markets that buy the corn-based fuel. The U.S. has some 200 ethanol plants capable of producing 1.06 million barrels per day, and about 100,000 to 140,000 bpd of capacity has been taken off line due to the floods, according to three traders who track operations. Crop damage exceeds $400 million in Nebraska alone, according to Nebraska officials. The disruption comes as the ethanol industry is in the midst of a historic downswing due to the ongoing trade conflict with China and sluggish domestic demand growth that has led to high inventories and weak margins. The floods will boost margins for those still operating but could be punishing for firms digging out from the water. Ethanol plants use rail cars to deliver products to the Gulf Coast, East Coast and West Coast markets. Ethanol delivered in the Gulf Coast is trading at 15 to 17 cents per gallon above Chicago’s benchmark price, about double the average gap for this time of year, traders said. 

Flood Damage to Midwestern Levees, Roads, Farms May Run Well into the Billions - Costs are mounting quickly from the late-winter/early-spring flood disaster that’s assaulted the Midwest this month. Estimates from several disparate sources now suggest that the total cost of the flooding to date—including agricultural losses, road repair, and levee reconstruction—could end up in the multiple-billions-of-dollars range. At least three deaths have been linked to the flooding. Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts told reporters on Wednesday that preliminary damage estimates in his state alone are more than $1.3 billion, including $439 million in infrastructure losses, $85 million in private homes and business losses, $400 million in livestock and $440 million in crop losses. The total does not apparently include damage to Offutt Air Force Base, where floodwaters covered about one third of the area and inundated dozens of buildings. To make matters worse, the Midwest is highly vulnerable to more flooding this spring, thanks to saturated soil and a large snowpack in the Upper Midwest. It will take weeks if not months to assess the full damage from the March flooding, but it appears to be the costliest U.S. weather disaster of the year thus far by a long shot. “This is virtually guaranteed to be a billion-dollar flooding event. The question is how high will it ultimately go?” said Steve Bowen, director of impact forecasting for the insurance broker Aon. The flooding was triggered after an intense “bomb cyclone” pushed strong winds, mild temperatures, and heavy rain across frozen, snow-covered ground on March 12-14. The result was a flash melt that clogged rivers and streams with huge ice chunks and massive amounts of water. The cyclone itself also caused widespread wind damage and blizzard-related impacts.Here are some of the biggest-ticket items the Midwest is facing:

Unprecedented spring flooding possible, US forecasters say -The National Weather Service says the flooding of Nebraska and Iowa is just a preview of potentially historic widespread major flooding to hit much of America this spring - The stage is set for unprecedented major flooding this spring for most of the nation, U.S. weather officials said Thursday. More than 200 million Americans are at risk for some kind of flooding, with 13 million of them at risk of major inundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its spring weather outlook. About 41 million people are at risk of moderate flooding. Major flooding now occurring in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri and other Midwestern states is a preview of an all-too-wet and dangerous spring, said Mary Erickson, deputy director of the National Weather Service. “In fact, we expect the flooding to get worse and more widespread,” she said. This year’s flooding “could be worse than anything we’ve seen in recent years, even worse than the historic floods of 1993 and 2011,” she said. Those floods caused billions of dollars in damage, and officials said this year’s damage in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota has already passed the billion-dollar mark. Forecasters said the biggest risks include all three Mississippi River basins, the Red River of the North, the Great Lakes, plus the basins of the eastern Missouri River, lower Ohio River, lower Cumberland River and the Tennessee River. “This is the broadest expanse of area in the United States that we’ve projected with an elevated risk that I can remember,” said Thomas Graziano, a 20-year weather service veteran and director of the Office of Water Prediction. “Is this the perfect storm? I don’t know.” A lot depends on how much rain falls in the next couple months, Graziano said, but forecasters say it will be more than average. The Missouri River has already set records with historic flood marks measured in 30 places in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota, Kansas City forecaster Kevin Low said. The river “remains vulnerable to moderate flooding for the remainder of the spring and early summer,” Low said. “People should be prepared for major flooding along the Missouri River ... going into the future.” Most of Nebraska, except right along the Missouri River, is unlikely to see major flooding again this year, but the rest of the flooded area is still prone to more, Low said. Several factors will likely combine to create a pulse of flooding that will eventually head south along the Mississippi: above average rainfall this winter— including 10 to 15 inches earlier this year in a drenching along the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys; the third wettest year in U.S. history; and rapidly melting snow in the Upper Midwest. Extra rain will bring more farm runoff down the Mississippi, which will likely lead to more oxygen-starved areas in the Gulf of Mexico and likely make the summer dead zone larger than normal, said Edward Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 

California is drought-free for the first time in nearly a decade -It’s official: California is 100% drought-free.For the first time since 2011, the state shows no areas suffering from prolonged drought and illustrates almost entirely normal conditions, according to a map released Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor. Former Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order in 2017 that lifted the drought emergency in most of the state, leaving some breathing a sigh of relief. But he cautioned Californians to keep saving water as some parts of the state were still suffering from extreme drought.  Now, two years later, that deficit seems to have been erased, thanks to an exceptionally wet winter.“The reservoirs are full, lakes are full, the streams are flowing, there’s tons of snow,” said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “All the drought is officially gone.” The Drought Monitor, which collects data from scientists from the National Drought Mitigation Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and dozens of weather agencies, last showed a drought map that was clear in December 2011.In updating the map, scientists consult with hydrologists, water managers, meteorologists and other experts to determine the amount of water in the state’s reservoirs, the snowpack level and other key measurements. With the wet winter streak going strong, their reports have been good.In January, storms filled up many of the state’s water reserves almost to capacity and added about 580 billion gallons of water to reservoirs across the state. That month, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, a major source of California’s water supply, doubled — and then doubled again in February. “California has been getting a tremendous amount of rain, storms and snow,” Blunden said. “It’s just been extremely wet and it’s been so wet … that we’ve been able to alleviate drought across the state.”

'Monster' El Nino a chance later this year, pointing to extended dry times - Relief for Australia's drought-hit regions could be a long way off, with climate influences in the Pacific and Indian oceans tilting towards drier conditions and a large El Nino event a possibility by year's end. Climate scientists said the conditions in the Pacific were particularly concerning given an unusual build-up of equatorial heat below the surface that could provide the fuel for a significant El Nino. If such an event transpires, the Great Barrier Reef would face another bout of mass coral bleaching while the drought gripping southern and eastern Australia could intensify. Agus Santoso, a senior scientist at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said there were two likely outcomes from the developments in the Pacific. "We could have an El Nino fully formed by the end of May and then it could dissipate," Dr Santoso said. "The other is that by May it’s already formed and it still keeps building up... and by the end of the year we could have a monster El Nino." The prospect of a big El Nino later this year was raised at an international conference of climate scientists in Chile earlier this month.They considered parallel years, such as 2014 when a near-El Nino was reached before conditions revived a year later, creating one of the three most powerful such events in the past half century. "There is more heat now below the surface waiting to be tapped than there was in early 2015," said Michael McPhaden, a senior scientist with US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration who attended the Chilean event. "If westerly wind bursts of sufficient amplitude, duration and zonal extent develop along the equator in the next couple of months, 2019-20 could be very exciting," he said.

Senator Sanders’ claim that climate change is making tornadoes worse isn’t supported by published research  - Andreas Prein, Project Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research: Sen. Sanders’ is partly correct since there is a lot of scientific evidence that climate change increases the frequency and intensity of many extreme events such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, or extreme rainfall. However, it is not clear if climate change will make U.S. tornadoes worse or more frequent. The observational record does not show any significant change in the frequency of U.S. tornadoes in the last 60 years but there is a tendency that more tornadoes occur during big outbreak days such as in the recent Alabama event^[1] and there are spatial shifts in the occurrence of tornadoes^[2]. Whether these changes are related to climate change is, however, unclear. Adam Sobel, Professor, Columbia University: Sen. Sanders’ statement is inaccurate with regard to tornadoes. It is possible that climate change may be influencing tornadoes, but the evidence for that so far is weak, and our understanding of the problem is poor at this point. So it is not true that “the science is clear” on this topic.  Sanders would have been broadly correct if he had left out the “including tornadoes” phrase. There is strong evidence that climate change is making some kinds of extreme events worse. Heat waves and heavy rain events are perhaps the best examples; hydrological drought and wildfire (both being influenced by warmer temperatures in relatively simple ways) are others. The influence of climate change on some other kinds of extreme events is more uncertain, and tornadoes are perhaps the most uncertain of all. There is no agreement among scientists about even what influence climate change should have on tornadoes. Our physical understanding of what controls tornadoes suggests that global warming should have at least two different effects[see below]; these act in opposite ways and we don’t know which is stronger, so we don’t know if there should be more or fewer tornadoes with warming, for example. Climate models can’t simulate tornadoes so they are little help, and the observations thus far are not much help either.

At Least 150 Dead, 1.5 Million Impacted as Cyclone Idai Slams Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe -- At least 150 people have died in a cyclone that devastated parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi over the weekend, The Associated Press reported Sunday. Cyclone Idai has affected more than 1.5 million people since it hit Mozambique's port city of Beira late Thursday, then traveled west to Zimbabwe and Malawi. Hundreds are still missing and tens of thousands are without access to roads or telephones. "I think this is the biggest natural disaster Mozambique has ever faced. Everything is destroyed. Our priority now is to save human lives," Mozambique's Environment Minister Celso Correia said, as AFP reported. The storm, which had wind speeds of more than 124 miles per hour before making landfall, was the worst to hit Mozambique in at least a decade, Bloomberg News reported. While the storm was less intense than cyclones that hit the country in 2000 and 2008, it may have more of an impact because more people now live in affected areas.

Beira city '90 percent destroyed' by Cyclone Idai, hundreds dead ---President Filipe Nyusi feared the death toll could rise to 1,000 in Mozambique in the wake of Cyclone Idai he said in a nationwide address on Monday. "For the moment we have registered 84 deaths officially, but when we flew over the area ... this morning to understand what's going on, everything indicates that we could register more than 1,000 deaths," he said. So far the total death toll has risen to at least 215 after the storm tore into central Mozambique last week before continuing on to Zimbabwe and Malawi, bringing flash floods and ferocious winds. At least 126 people were killed in Mozambique and Malawi, according to the Red Cross, and Zimbabwe's information ministry on Monday put the number of dead at 89 in the country. Hundreds are missing and more than 1.5 million people have been affected across the three countries by widespread destruction and flooding. Most of the deaths in Mozambique happened in the central port city of Beira, 90 percent of which was destroyed, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). A large dam burst on Sunday in the city, cutting off the last road to the city of about 530,000 people, the IFRC said in a statement. "The scale of damage caused by Cyclone Idai that hit the Mozambican city of Beira is massive and horrifying," it said. The IFRC warned that the death toll could rise once the full scale of the devastation is known, with further heavy rains expected..

In photos: Cyclone Idai lays waste to parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi – WaPo - Four days have passed since Cyclone Idai barreled into the coast of southeastern Africa, and the extent of the damage is only now becoming clearer.The storm, packing winds that topped 100 mph, landed a direct hit on Mozambique’s fourth-largest city, Beira, home to half a million people. The city is almost totally submerged. Idai then stalled out over the mountainous border between Mozambique and Zimbabwe, causing massive landslides that swept away roads and homes.On Monday, after flying over Beira, President Filipe Nyusi told a radio station that the death toll could reach 1,000 in Mozambique alone. The official death toll in the country stands at 84, and it is 80 in Zimbabwe. Before the storm even made landfall, its outer bands caused flooding in neighboring Malawi, killing more than 120, demonstrating just how huge the storm was.The Red Cross said in a statement Monday that 90 percent of Beira was either damaged or destroyed. Communication out of the city has been slow, with telephone lines knocked out. The city is connected to Mozambique’s road network by a single highway through a low-lying plain. Beira is home to a major port that is essential for the supply of goods to the central part of the country, as well as Zimbabwe and Malawi, which are landlocked.

Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi face a humanitarian catastrophe in the wake of Cyclone Idai -Large swathes of Southeast Africa face a humanitarian crisis in the wake of Cyclone Idai which swept through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi this past week. The storm, categorized by the United Nations as the “worst ever disaster to hit the southern hemisphere,” has already destroyed crops, caused massive flooding, rendered hundreds of thousands homeless.While the official death toll as of this writing stands at 552, Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, reported that more than 1,000 people had been killed by high winds and widespread flooding. The storm is believed to have affected over 2.6 million people.Mozambique, the country where the storm first made landfall, is perhaps the worst hit, with vast swathes of land completely submerged. The port city of Beira, home to 500,000 people, was hit on Friday. Media reports indicate that the city appears to be an “island in the ocean” and was initially completely cut off from the rest of the world.Jill Lovell, an Australian running a missionary school in Beira, was able to send out an email message, cited by the Guardian, describing the situation: “It is a total mess here ... People are in trees and on rooftops. Emergency relief crews are slowly coming in. Rains continue to make it all even harder. So many lives lost and homes destroyed.” Reports from pilots attempting rescue missions describe chaotic and heart-wrenching scenes of completely submerged homes, with people clinging on to what remains of roofs, tree trunks and small islands that have appeared overnight without any possibility of accessing food or clean water. The situation is so grim that pilots have been forced to make the difficult call of having to decide whom to save.

Who’s to blame for the neurotoxin that’s poisoning the Pacific? (video) There’s a fight brewing in the Pacific about toxic algae, climate change, and crabs. It has the commercial crab industry squaring off against Big Oil. So for our latest Verge Science video, I took some motion-sickness meds and hopped on a boat to find out what’s really threatening commercial crabbing and what can be done about it.At the heart of this fight is a neurotoxin called domoic acid, which causes something calledamnesic shellfish poisoning. The symptoms can range from stomach problems, confusion, short-term memory loss, seizures, and even death. For three of the past four years, elevated levels of the toxin have forced California’s commercial crab fishery to stay closed for weeks to months past the usual opening day until the levels drop. Domoic acid is produced by algae that bloom regularly along the Pacific coast. These blooms aren’t always dangerous. There’s some combination of nutrients, light, and, perhaps most importantly, warm water that can create a toxic soup. The toxin travels up the food chain from filter-feeding shellfish to creatures like crabs, marine mammals, and, rarely, to humans. To keep the food supply safe, state officials close fisheries when levels get too high.An organization called the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations is bracing for a future where climate change ensures that there’s plenty of that key ingredient for toxic blooms: warm water. These fishers have connected some worrying dots, from the toxic blooms and warming oceans to climate change and fossil fuels. So the group has taken the extraordinary step of suing 30 major fossil fuel companies: it wants Big Oil to pay for the harm to members’ livelihoods, and they want their industry to survive even in a changing climate. Our new Verge Science video dives into this fight from a boat called the Karen Jeanne.

Researchers embrace a radical idea: engineering coral to cope with climate change - That imperative—to move, and move fast—is now the mantra for an entire field of coral research and for coral geneticist Madeleine van Oppen in particular. The relentless rise of global temperatures is imperiling coral reefs around the world. Just 75 kilometers offshore from the research center, Australia's Great Barrier Reef—the world's largest—has been battered by a string of marine heat waves that have killed half its coral. The threat has transformed Van Oppen into a leading advocate for something considered radical just a few years ago: creating breeds of coral that can withstand underwater heat waves. And it has helped make Australia, which recently committed a hefty $300 million to coral research and restoration, a global magnet for reef scientists.  One major attraction is the National Sea Simulator, a $25 million facility nestled in eucalyptus-lined hills on the shore of the Coral Sea, which was opened in 2013 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). Here, in dozens of seawater tanks where conditions can be precisely matched to those of the ocean today or in the future, Van Oppen and other scientists are tinkering with creatures that are the very cornerstones of reef ecosystems. Imagine ecologists cultivating whole new breeds of trees to restock a devastated wilderness. In the minds of some researchers, the work could help shape the future of some of the world's richest underwater places. But the endeavor will first have to overcome formidable technical challenges—and concerns that such interventions could bring new problems. Van Oppen and others are re-engineering corals with techniques as old as the domestication of plants and as new as the latest gene-editing tools. And the researchers are adopting attitudes more common to free-wheeling Silicon Valley startups than the methodical world of conservation science. Just as tech entrepreneurs are urged to "fail fast, fail often," scientists are pushing to quickly test ideas and ditch the least promising ones in the hunt for results that can be moved from the lab to the ocean.

What’s the cost (in fish) between 1.5 and 3 degrees of warming?  - Climate change is already affecting oceans, fisheries, and the livelihoods that depend on them. Some local fish stocks are declining, while other fish populations are shifting their distributions, forcing fishers to travel farther to make their catch. It stands to reason that fighting climate change would also help protect fisheries and the fishing economy. Now, researchers have quantified these benefits, calculating just how much fish stocks, fishers, and seafood consumers worldwide would gain from meeting the climate benchmarks set out in the Paris Agreement. In a study published 27 February in Science Advances, the researchers combed through U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and other databases for information on fisheries catch levels and prices from 2001 to 2010. They gathered data on the 10 most valuable marine fisheries in each country – a total of 381 different species worldwide. Then, they used a series of climate, ecosystem, and economic models to project what will happen with those fisheries in two climate change scenarios.  They found that if climate change is limited to 1.5 °C, the biomass of the top revenue-generating fish species will be on average 6.5% higher than it would be with 3.5 °C of warming. Sustainable catch levels of these species will be 7.3%, or 3.3 million metric tons, greater than they would be if we stay on our current trajectory. Extrapolating from the top revenue-generating fish species to the total global seafood catch, the researchers estimate that meeting the Paris Agreement benchmark “could protect a total of 9.5 million metric tons of catch annually,” they write. In turn, that translates into $13.1 billion annually in fishers’ revenues, and $10.6 billion in seafood workers’ income. Meanwhile, consumers save $18.3 billion annually because fish is more abundant and lower in price.

88 Pounds Of Plastic Found In Stomach Of Dead Whale In The Philippines -- Darrell Blatchley received a call from the Philippines' Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources early Friday morning reporting that it had a young Cuvier's beaked whale that was weak and vomiting blood. Within a few hours it was dead. Blatchley, a marine biologist and environmentalist based in the Philippine city of Davao, gathered his team to drive two hours to where the whale had washed up. When the necropsy was performed, Blatchley told NPR, he was not prepared for the amount of plastic they found in the whale's stomach. "It was full of plastic — nothing but nonstop plastic," he said. "It was compact to the point that its stomach was literally as hard as a baseball." "That means that this animal has been suffering not for days or weeks but for months or even a year or more," Blatchley added. He noted that among the 88 pounds of plastic were 16 rice sacks — similar to potato sacks — and plastic bags from local Philippine grocery chains, Gaisano Capital and Gaisano grocery outlet. 

Coca Cola Admits It Produces 3 Million Tonnes of Plastic Packaging a Year -- Coca-Cola has revealed for the first time it produces 3m tonnes of plastic packaging a year – equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute – as a report calls on other global companies to end the secrecy over their plastic footprint. The data from the soft drinks manufacturer was provided to the campaigner Ellen MacArthur, who is pushing for major companies and governments to do more to tackle plastic pollution. The figures – which the company has refused in the past to disclose – reveal the amount of plastic packaging Coca-Cola produced in 2017. The company did not reveal the scale of its bottle production but when its packaging footprint is translated into 500ml PET plastic bottles, it amounts to about 108bn bottles a year, more than a fifth of the world’s PET bottle output of about 500bn bottles a year. Coca-Cola is one of 31 companies – including Mars, Nestlé and Danone – that have revealed how much plastic packaging they create as part of a drive for transparency by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Combined, they produce 8m tonnes of plastic packaging a year. But the majority of the 150 companies who have signed up to MacArthur’s global commitment to reduce plastic pollution are still refusing to publicly disclose figures on their own plastic packaging production. These include Pepsi Co, H&M, L’Oréal, Walmart and Marks & Spencer.

Hundreds of US cities are killing or scaling back their recycling programs - For plenty of Americans, recycling is practically second nature. It’s mandated by law in cities such as New York, San Diego, Pittsburgh, and Seattle, where apartment buildings, office spaces, and restaurants must recycle plastics, cans, cardboard, and glass, unless their owners want to face a fine. But even in cities where it’s not required by law, recycling is mainstream. It has turned into a virtue boasted by restaurants like Sweetgreen and fashion brands like Gap, H&M, and Madewell, which recycle clothes in stores and produce clothing lines made of recycled materials.The problem, though, is that while recycling has become trendy, it’s also becoming harder to do.You might not know where all your recycled goods go, but they’re a part of a vast ecosystem that spans the globe and contributes to a $200 billion industry. One country that used to be the biggest importer of recycled materials, especially for the US, is China. But last year, it stopped accepting most foreign recyclables as part of an effort to crack down on thecountry’s pollution. As a result of this ban, the global recycling system has been crumbling, and plenty of cities in the US are now struggling to figure out what to do with their recycled goods.According to a recent report from the New York Times, hundreds of local recycling programs in American cities and towns are collapsing. In states like Tennessee, Florida, and Pennsylvania, cities are reportedly sending newspapers, cans, and bottles to landfills, while others are burning their waste instead. As the treasurer of California put it, “We are in a crisis moment in the recycling movement right now.” The University of Georgia has estimated that China’s ban on imported recyclables will leave 111 million metric tons of trash from around the world with nowhere to go by 2030. But we don’t even need to look ahead to the next decade for consequences because they’re already happening. Tons of recycled paper and plastics are piling up across the country, and this problem has only just begun.

Recycle Crisis Sweeps Across America After China Halts Plastic Waste Imports - The green movement of the 1970s formed the modern American recycling industry, although there is some concern today that it could be collapsing in many parts of the country, The New York Times warned. “The sooner we accept the economic impracticality of recycling, the sooner we can make serious progress on addressing the plastic pollution problem,” said Jan Dell, an engineer who leads Last Beach Cleanup. The report cited Philadelphia, Memphis, and Sunrise and Deltona, Florida, as metropolitan areas where the economics of recycling are not feasible anymore. "We are in a crisis moment in the recycling movement right now," California state treasurer Fiona Ma told the Times. The major dilemma, per the Times, is China’s ban on imported plastic waste. Recovered plastic shipments to China collapsed by 99.1% in 2018 versus 2017. The government halted mixed paper and post-consumer scrap plastic on Jan. 1, 2018. "Recycling has been dysfunctional for a long time," nonprofit Recycle Across America Executive Director Mitch Hedlund told the Times. "But not many people really noticed when China was our dumping ground." It seems like Americans are recycling more than they need too, blending trash with recycled items, which triggered the Chinese to ban plastic waste shipments from abroad. With China no longer a buyer of American post-consumer plastics, recycling and waste companies are now slapping municipalities with higher service fees. "Amid the soaring costs, cities and towns are making hard choices about whether to raise taxes, cut other municipal services or abandon an effort that took hold during the environmental movement of the 1970s," the Times reported. Sunrise, Florida is now burning its recycled waste and transforming it into energy. Philadelphia has also resorted to burning its recycled waste. 

Beer and pop cans are not being recycled because car and airplane makers don’t like recycled aluminum Remember how aluminum cans are "100 percent recyclable into pure aluminum"? They lied. We go on about how recycling is broken, and noted earlier that even aluminum recycling was a mess. Now it turns out that used aluminum cans are piling up in scrapyards because the aluminum producers don't want them. Aluminum is always pitched as being 100 percent recyclable – and it is – but there are different grades and alloys of aluminum. According to Bob Tita of the Wall Street Journal, car and airplane makers want the pure new stuff and are willing to pay more for it. "Old cans are less versatile than other scrap. The makers of airplane and car parts prefer not to use aluminum made from recycled cans." Producing aluminum for cans isn’t as profitable as rolling sheet for car companies. Aluminum rolling mills are paid about $1 a pound above the market price for the raw-aluminum ingots they use to make auto-body sheet, compared with about 35 cents a pound for converting can sheeting. Tesla body © Tesla aluminum body Recycled cans might be good enough for making new cans, but not for an F150, Tesla, or a 737-8 and certainly not for a MacBook Air. So the rolling mills would rather roll car body sheet than can sheet and the cans pile up. Meanwhile, Molson-Coors and Pepsi still need cans, so they buy imported aluminum, even though it is costly thanks to tariffs.

U.S. weakens first global commitment on curbing single-use plastics - (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Nations made their first global commitment towards curtailing the surging consumption of single-use plastics on Friday, but critics said it failed to confront the planet’s pollution crisis with the United States blocking efforts for more radical action. After five days of talks in the Kenyan capital, ministers at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) agreed to curb items like plastic bags, bottles and straws over the next decade as part of moves aimed at creating a more sustainable planet. “We will address the damage to our ecosystems caused by the unsustainable use and disposal of plastic products, including by significantly reducing single-use plastic products by 2030,” said a ministerial declaration at the end of the summit. The nearly 200 environment ministers also made a host of other commitments - ranging from reducing food waste and marine litter to developing and sharing innovative technologies and consulting indigenous people when developing policies. But environmental campaigners said the governments’ commitment on curbing plastic was disappointing and failed to urgently confront the ever-growing pollution crisis threatening the world’s waterways, ecosystems and health. Negotiators said most nations, including the European Union, at the UNEA backed stronger action suggested by India which wanted governments to commit to “phasing-out most problematic single-use plastic products by 2025”. But a few countries led by the United States - and including Saudi Arabia and Cuba - played “spoiler” by watering down the text, replacing it with a commitment to “significantly reduce” single-use plastics by 2030, said negotiators and campaigners. “The vast majority of countries came together to develop a vision for the future of global plastic governance,” “Seeing the U.S., guided by the interests of the fracking and petrochemical industry, leading efforts to sabotage that vision is disheartening.”

Destruction from sea level rise in California could exceed worst wildfires and earthquakes, new research shows - In the most extensive study to date on sea level rise in California, researchers say damage by the end of the century could be far more devastating than the worst earthquakes and wildfires in state history. A team of U.S. Geological Survey scientists concluded that even a modest amount of sea level rise — often dismissed as a creeping, slow-moving disaster — could overwhelm communities when a storm hits at the same time.The study combines sea level rise and storms for the first time, as well as wave action, cliff erosion, beach loss and other coastal threats across California. These factors have been studied extensively but rarely together in the same model.The results are sobering. More than half a million Californians and $150 billion in property are at risk of flooding along the coast by 2100 — equivalent to 6% of the state’s GDP, the study found, and on par with Hurricane Katrina and some of the world’s costliest disasters. The number of people exposed is three times greater than previous models that considered only sea level rise.And at a time when marshes are drowning, cliffs eroding, beaches disappearing and severe storms likely to become more frequent, scientists say even a small shift in sea level rise could launch a new range of extremes that Californians would have to confront every single year. “It’s not just some nuisance that's going to pop its head up once in a while,” said Patrick Barnard, research director of the USGS Climate Impacts and Coastal Processes Team and lead author of the study. “These are significant events that are going to recur and be ten times the scale of the worst wildfires and earthquakes that we've experienced in modern California history.”

The Rapid Decline Of The Natural World Is A Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change --Nature is in freefall and the planet’s support systems are so stretched that we face widespread species extinctions and mass human migration unless urgent action is taken. That’s the warning hundreds of scientists are preparing to give, and it’s stark.The last year has seen a slew of brutal and terrifying warnings about the threat climate change poses to life. Far less talked about but just as dangerous, if not more so, is the rapid decline of the natural world. The felling of forests, the over-exploitation of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together driving the living world to the brink, according to a huge three-year, U.N.-backed landmark study to be published in May. The study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform On Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), expected to run to over 8,000 pages, is being compiled by more than 500 experts in 50 countries. It is the greatest attempt yet to assess the state of life on Earth and will show how tens of thousands of species are at high risk of extinction, how countries are using nature at a rate that far exceeds its ability to renew itself, and how nature’s ability to contribute food and fresh water to a growing human population is being compromised in every region on earth.Nature underpins all economies with the “free” services it provides in the form of clean water, air and the pollination of all major human food crops by bees and insects. In the Americas, this is said to total more than $24 trillion a year. The pollination of crops globally by bees and other animals alone is worth up to $577 billion. The final report will be handed to world leaders not just to help politicians, businesses and the public become more aware of the trends shaping life on Earth, but also to show them how to better protect nature.

 EIA projects U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions will remain near current level through 2050 - Carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. energy consumption will remain near current levels through 2050, according to projections in EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2019. The AEO2019 Reference case, which reflects no changes to current laws and regulations and extends current trends in technology, projects that U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will be 5,019 million metric tons in 2050, or 4% below their 2018 value, as emissions associated with coal and petroleum consumption fall and emissions from natural gas consumption rise.  Energy-related CO2 emissions generally follow energy consumption trends. In the United States, emissions associated with the consumption of petroleum fuels—motor gasoline, distillate, jet fuel, and more—have consistently made up the largest portion of CO2 emissions. In 2018, the transportation sector’s consumption accounted for 78% of U.S. CO2 emissions from petroleum and more than one-third of all U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions. Petroleum emissions from other sectors have fallen in recent years as equipment and processes that use petroleum fuels have been replaced by those using other fuels, in particular, natural gas. In the transportation sector, consumption and emissions trends in the past have been driven by changes in travel demand, fuel prices, and fuel economy regulations. In EIA’s AEO2019 Reference case projection, current fuel economy standards stop requiring additional efficiency improvements in 2025 for light-duty vehicles and in 2027 for heavy-duty vehicles, reflecting existing regulations. As travel demand continues to rise, transportation consumption and emissions increase.  Natural gas is the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel, and for decades natural gas made up the smallest portion of U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions. However, in 2015, natural gas emissions surpassed coal emissions, and the AEO2019 Reference case projects that natural gas CO2 emissions will continue increasing as natural gas use increases. The U.S. electric power sector—now the largest consuming sector for natural gas—has added generating capacity from natural gas in recent years and has used those power plants more often. Natural gas surpassed coal to become the most prevalent fuel used to generate electricity in the United States in 2016. Other sectors have also increased their consumption of natural gas. By the mid-2020s, EIA projects that the industrial sector will again become the largest consumer of natural gas, using natural gas as a feedstock in chemical industries, as lease and plant fuel, for industrial heat and power applications, and for liquefied natural gas production. The residential and commercial sectors are also expected to continue using more natural gas.

Factcheck: Is 3-5C of Arctic warming now ‘locked in’? - A new UN Environment report on the Arctic was released last week, which covered a broad range of changes to the region’s climate, environment, wildlife and epidemiology. The accompanying press release focused on the report’s section about climate change. It warned that, “even if the Paris Agreement goals are met, Arctic winter temperatures will increase 3-5C by 2050 compared to 1986-2005 levels” and will warm 5-9C by 2080. The report was covered by a number of news outlets, including the Guardian, Wired, Hill,CBC and others. Media coverage focused on the idea – promoted in the press release – that large amounts of Arctic warming is “locked in”, “inevitable” or “unavoidable”. However, an investigation by Carbon Brief has found that the section of the report on climate change erroneously conflates the Paris Agreement target – which is to limit warming to “well below” 2C by the end of the century relative to pre-industrial levels – with a scenario that has much more modest emission reductions which result in around 3C of global warming. In climate-model runs using a scenario limiting global warming to below 2C, the Arctic still warms faster than the rest of the world. But future Arctic winter warming will be around 0.5-5C by the 2080s compared to 1986-2005 levels, much lower than the 5-9C values stated in the report. This means that much of the future warming in the Arctic will depend on our emissions over the 21st century, rather than being “locked in”, as the report claims.

'We won't stop striking': the New York 13 year-old taking a stand over climate change - Alexandria Villasenor looks a slightly incongruous figure to stage a lengthy protest over the perils of catastrophic global warming. The 13-year-old, wrapped in a coat and a woolen hat, has spent every Friday since December seated on a frigid bench outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City with signs warning of climate change’s dire consequences.Most passersby, probably hardened to confronting New York street scenes, scurry past, eyes diverted downwards. But some mutter words of support, while the odd passing driver rolls down their window to offer a thumbs up. There is media interest, too. On a recent Friday protest stint, a microphone was being pinned to a shivering Villasenor by an NBC crew. “I stayed out there for four hours and I lost circulation in my toes for the first time,” she said afterwards. Her concern drove her to help organize the first nationwide strikes by US school students over climate change, on 15 March.  Villasenor was born and raised in Davis, California, in the teeth of the state’s fiercest drought in at least 1,200 years. She recalls seeing the dead and dying fish on the shores of nearby Folsom Lake as it dried up. In November, Davis was shrouded in a pall of smoke from record wildfires that obliterated the town of Paradise, 100 miles to the north. “I have asthma so it was a very scary experience for me, I couldn’t leave my house at all,” Villasenor said. Villasenor’s family subsequently moved to New York, the switch hastened by concerns over her health due to the smoke. The young student then swiftly became an activist after reading how warming temperatures are making the western US far more prone to the sort of huge wildfires that menaced her hometown.

Students at UN stage ‘die-in’ to protest climate inaction (AFP) – Dozens of young climate change activists staged a “die-in” in front of the United Nations on Friday, lying sprawled on the pavement to draw attention to the lethal consequences of global warming. “Today, the young people of the US are declaring the era of American climate change denialism over,” said Alexandria Villasenor, a 13-year-old who has been staging a climate strike outside the UN headquarters every Friday since December. “We are here to tell leaders that they urgently act.”  Tens of thousands of teenagers and schoolchildren took to the streets worldwide on Friday to push world leaders to take action to combat climate change. “I ask politicians to think about what will happen when they are gone and think about the kids that are going to suffer because of their choices,” said Emma Rose, 15. “None of the government officials are doing anything to change this and we need to make an impact to change this and we want to stop climate change,” said 12-year-old Ella Goodman, carrying a sign that read “I’m With Her” pointing to an image of the Earth. The students carried banners that highlighted their frustration with the lack of action from leaders. “When adults act like children, children must take action,” read one banner. Another said: “You are failing us.” “We’re striking for our future and at this rate, we don’t have one,” said 17-year-old Sarah Bennett. “Generations before us have ignored these issues. We are the one who will live with the consequences.” 

Climate Change Means 'Real Death, Real Blood' — Extinction Rebellion Paints Downing Street Red - ‘Blood’ was spilled outside Downing Street on Saturday as campaign group Extinction Rebellion kickstarted its spring action with a graphic sea of red.Protestors emptied buckets of artificial blood, made from a mixture of syrup, food colouring, water, and cornflour, on the pavement outside Downing Street to represent the “loss of life that will be inflicted on the next generation,” said an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson.It also represents those lives which have “already been lost around the world as a result of the climate crisis,” they added.In February 2018, the World Health Organisation suggested that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause an additional 250,000 globally deaths a year. Saturday’s protest was to highlight the UK government’s inaction in dealing with the climate crisis.  Hundreds of police officers blocked the entrance to the Prime Minister’s residence, where young people gave speeches. After pouring the blood, protesters sat down on the pavement to await arrest. Ultimately, no arrests were made at the protest. Extinction Rebellion, which launched in October 2018, commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience in order to bring attention to the climate crisis.

Help from fracking campaigner, or manipulating students? - Nicole Pietsch, a prominent activist against fracking, was directing the chanting by students participating in the “School Strike 4 Climate Action” in Alice Springs yesterday. While taking photographs and possibly videos of the group, Ms Pietsch (pictured at the rally) said “shall we say no fossil fuels three times? … Say no fossil fuels … Why don’t we do climate actions now? … Really loud”. The group followed her leads (see video at bottom). There has been much discussion about the possibility of the world-wide school strike movement being exposed to influence from established pressure groups. In fact, earlier in yesterday’s rally a mother drew attention to that in a short speech, which was followed by articulate presentations by several young people. (This article is not to suggest that they do not genuinely hold the views they expressed nor that they do not have reason to do so.) And yesterday’s The Australian newspaper, under the heading “School students’ strike: adults organised climate rally” reported: “A school strike today promoted as a ‘student-led protest’ by thousands of children skipping classes to attend climate change rallies around the nation has been organ­ised by a network of adult activists from climate campaign organisations.” Ms Pietsch is the Strategy and Communications Manager of the influential Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC) which, according to its CEO Jimmy Cocking, has 350 paid up members. Triangular yellow “No Fracking” signs were prominent in the rally. Mr Cocking, when asked whether the students were being taken advantage of said they were being “supported”. NEWS: Ms Pietsch was telling them what to say and how to say it and how often to say it. She is guiding them. She was giving instructions to the supposedly independent student protesters. COCKING: The adults there were giving support. It was the first time [the students] have done this sort of stuff. It’s important to do it safely. NEWS: There was no safety issue. They were standing on a lawn. There was no traffic.

Would the Green New Deal survive the supreme court? -  How the United States confronts climate change will be decided whenever the Democratic Party regains control of the White House and Congress. But it may ultimately be Chief Justice John Roberts who decides whether they succeed. Every major Democratic policy would need to survive scrutiny by the justices. So how would the Green New Deal fare if it reaches the high court? This isn’t an easy question to answer, partly because lawmakers have yet to draft a proposal. Early last month, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a resolution recognizing “the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal”; 90 House Democrats have cosponsored it, and multiple Democratic presidential candidates have expressed support for it. But the resolution lacks the specificity of a bill. In fewer than 2,000 words, it outlines the Green New Deal’s goals, which include not only net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and renewable-energy investment but a job guarantee, universal healthcare, and more.  While the resolution does not describe in detail how the government could achieve these goals, left-wing policy wonks have been working to fill in the gaps. Data for Progress, a progressive think tank with close ties to Ocasio-Cortez, released its own proposal for a Green New Deal last September. It provides a road map for what a legislative package could look like if Democrats win unified control in Washington—and thus serves as a useful guide for what the courts would have to wrestle with, once conservatives mount the inevitable legal challenges. One of the Green New Deal’s key components is a familiar one: implementing the Clean Power Plan. The plan called for drastically curbing greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, namely those powered by coal, and was meant to persuade other countries to put forth their own plans ahead of the  Paris climate summit later that year.The plan was soon challenged in court, and in 2016 the Supreme Court blocked it from going into effect until the legal questions were resolved. Justice Antonin Scalia’s death a few days later effectively tied the plan’s long-term fate to the outcome of the presidential election later that year. After Donald Trump took office, his first EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, began the process of repealing the Clean Power Plan.

 Global Banks, Led by JPMorgan Chase, Invested $1.9 Trillion in Fossil Fuels Since Paris Climate Pact - A report published Wednesday names the banks that have played the biggest recent role in funding fossil fuel projects, finding that since 2016, immediately following the Paris agreement's adoption, 33 global banks have poured $1.9 trillion into financing climate-changing projects worldwide.The top four banks that invested most heavily in fossil fuel projects are all based in the U.S., and include JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America. Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays in Europe, Japan's MUFG, TD Bank, Scotiabank and Mizuho make up the remainder of the top 10.This report comes as March has already brought deadly weather to places such as the American Midwest, where historic flooding has left four dead and farm losses could reach $1 billion, and Mozambique, where Tropical Cyclone Idai has devastated the East African country and President Filipe Nyusi estimated that more than a thousand people are likely dead.Both disasters have been linked to climate change. "Increased flooding is one of the clearest signals of a changing climate," said 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in a statement published by ThinkProgress, adding that flooded Nebraska's "current trauma is part of everyone's future."  "One inescapable finding of this report is that JPMorgan Chase is very clearly the world's worst banker of climate change," the report, titled "Banking on Climate Change," found. "The race was not even close: the $196 billion the bank poured into fossil fuels between 2016 and 2018 is nearly a third higher than the second-worst bank, Wells Fargo." A half-dozen environmental groups — Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, Indigenous Environmental Network and Honor the Earth — authored the 2019 report, which was endorsed by 160 organizations worldwide. It tracked the financing for 1,800 companies involved in extracting, transporting, burning, or storing fossil fuels or fossil-generated electricity and examined the roles played by banks worldwide.

We need to talk about the ethics of having children in a warming world -- In a recent Instagram live stream from her kitchen, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) raised a taboo dimension of climate change few politicians would dare to touch. “Basically, there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question: Is it okay to still have children?” she said. The criticism from conservatives that followed was predictably swift and hollow. Fox News’s Steve Hilton called it “fascistic” and a “no-child policy.” But Ocasio-Cortez was voicing a genuine concern of many young prospective parents today who can plainly see that climate change is already here and its worst effects are still to come. These anxieties are beginning to appear in pop culture — they were a major theme in the 2018 film First Reformed. Business Insider conducted an online poll this month that found that 38 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 agreed that climate change should be a consideration in the decision to have children. For Americans between the ages of 30 and 44, 34 percent said climate change should be a factor in having children.As we’ve learned from climate scientists in several recent bracing reports, a child born today will be living on a planet that’s likely to be dramatically warmer by the end of the century. We’ve already experienced 1 degree Celsius of average warming since preindustrial times, and we’re currently on track to reach as much as 4 degrees by 2100.One degree of warming has already delivered rising sea levels, deadly heat waves, wetter hurricanes, droughts, costlier disasters, bigger wildfires, and more illnesses, to name a few impacts, and these effects are only going to compound. So clearly, young people have good reason to be worried, not just for themselves but for their future families. Many also feel angry that decades of political intransigence on climate change has forced them to make such a calculation at all. “The fact that our generation has to ask these questions is politically forceful and massively fucked up,” said Meghan Kallman, a co-founder of Conceivable Future, a group that frames climate change as an issue of reproductive justice.

John Bellamy Foster on the ‘Green New Deal’ - Capitalism is not just a system, it is a system of social relations and socio-metabolic processes, and we have to change many of those relations and processes radically from within and very quickly in order to deal with the current ecological emergency. In the long run, of course, we have to have a full ecological and social revolution, transcending existing capitalist relations of production. But right now, we are in an emergency situation, and the first priority is eliminating fossil fuels, which entails the destruction of what is called fossil capital. The object is to avoid what Earth system scientists are calling “hothouse Earth” where catastrophic climate change is locked in and irreversible, and which could set in a couple of decades or less. With respect to Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal on the Green New Deal, I am impressed by some aspects of it. She calls for mass mobilization, which is indeed necessary. She also calls for innovative forms of financing, such as setting up a network of public banks to finance it directly, modeled after the New Deal, and through much higher marginal tax brackets on the rich and corporations, going back to what we once had in the United States. The revenues could be used to finance a massive shift toward solar and wind power. She connects this to a wide array of social issues. But none of this will really work, even if it were possible to legislate it, given the system, unless it takes on the character of an ecological revolution with a broad social base. Hence, a radical Green New Deal is, at best, just the entry point to such wider, eco-revolutionary change, involving the self-mobilization of the population. If it does not spark an ecological revolution, its effect will be nil.As far as your question on the role of financial incentives and regulation, none of this will work as a strategy. It would be mere spitting into the wind. What kind of financial incentives could be given to energy companies when they own trillions of dollars in fossil fuel assets, and they have a vested interest in this system? Exxon-Mobil has declared hey will extract and burn all the fossil fuel assets that they own, which are buried in the ground, because they own them and because they can profit from them—knowing full well that this would be a death sentence for humanity. There is no way that mere incentives are going to change that. So far, even the subsidies for fossil fuel exploration have not been removed.  Regulation won’t work in the present system since corporations always capture the regulatory process. To alter the present political-economic-energy matrix would require changes in ownership of means of production—in this case, fossil fuels. It would not mean just the transfer of ownership but the destruction of trillions of dollars of financial assets globally, since fossil fuels would need to remain in the ground.

Who’s Behind Trump’s Claim the Green New Deal Will Cost $100 Trillion? -- President Trump’s claim that the Green New Deal would cost $100 trillion can be traced back to the Manhattan Institute, a think tank backed by fossil fuel investor Paul Singer and companies like ExxonMobil. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward Markey made waves at a press conference in February when they rolled out a Green New Deal resolution that called for the nation to transition to 100 percent clean energy in ten years. Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the New York-based Manhattan Institute, attempted to “cost out the Green New Deal” in a Twitter thread the next day. Riedl admitted he had “No idea” how much things like “Installing renewable energy everywhere” would cost. Riedl nonetheless floated his own guesstimate that the cost of the Green New Deal “… must be heading towards $100 trillion.”   The claim reverberated across social media and right-wing media outlets like Townhall.com, and soon found its way onto President Trump’s bully pulpit.  “They want to take away your car, reduce the value of your home, and put millions of Americans out of work, spend $100 trillion, which, by the way, there’s no such thing as $100 trillion,” President Trump said a few days later at a rally in El Paso, as he attacked the Green New Deal. The American Action Forum run by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Manhattan Institute fellow, later put out an “Initial Analysis” that Republicans have used to falsely claim the Green New Deal would cost $93 trillion, a similarly massive number that was not quite big enough for some pundits. “We should make it an even $100 trillion,” wrote Allahpundit, an anonymous blogger for the conservative blog HotAir. “People love round numbers. We’ll find another $7 trillion in the couch cushions.” President Trump stuck with the $100 trillion number during his speech at CPAC last week. “But perhaps nothing is more extreme than the Democrats’ plan to completely takeover American energy and completely destroy America’s economy through their new $100 trillion Green New Deal,” Trump said at CPAC.The $100 trillion guesstimate that originated with a Manhattan Institute fellow’s Tweet remains a fixture of the debate over the Green New Deal. Charles Payne of Fox News used the figure during an interview last week with Andrew Wheeler, President Trump’s EPA administrator. Others like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell have preferred to say that the Green New Deal will cost $93 trillion, a “bogus figure” according to an analysis by Politico reporter Zack Coleman.

On Paying for a Green New Deal with Modern Monetary Theory -- Dean Baker - Much of the Democratic Party, including almost the entire pack of contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, has embraced the concept of a Green New Deal (GND). This is an ambitious plan for slashing greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time creating good-paying jobs, improving education, and reducing inequality.At this point, the specific policies entailed by these ambitious goals are largely up for grabs, as is the question of how to pay for this agenda. One way of paying for it, borrowing from the economic doctrine know as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), is that we don’t have to. Modern Monetary Theory argues that a government that prints its own currency is not constrained in its spending by its tax revenue. Some on the left have argued that we can just print whatever money we need to finance a GND. This claim does not make sense.The logic of MMT’s claim is that, since the US government prints its own currency, it is not constrained by revenue from taxes, or what it borrows in credit markets. It can always just print the money it needs to cover its spending. If the government wants to spend another billion dollars paying workers to build roads or paying contractors for steel, who is going to turn down its money? They will just be happy to get the money, end of story.The limiting factor is that, at some point, this process can lead to inflation. If an economy has a substantial amount of excess capacity, meaning that there are a large number of unemployed workers and idle factories and other facilities, the additional spending due to printing money will just put some workers and factories to use. There should still be plenty of competitive pressure to limit wage and price increases.This was quite effectively demonstrated in the recovery from the Great Recession, in which the United States, the eurozone, and Japan have all struggled to increase their rates of inflation. In all three cases, the large-scale printing of money had a modest impact, at best, in raising the rate of inflation. The predictions of runaway inflation made by conservative economists were shown to be completely wrong. While it’s true that countries could print money to boost their economies to recover from the Great Recession, that doesn’t mean that the United States could now spend a large amount of money on GND projects, without tax increases and/or offsetting spending cuts. The reason is that we have largely recovered from the Great Recession.

 Energy Execs’ Tone on Climate Changing, But They Still See a Long Fossil Future  — A weeklong energy industry conference that came to a close on Friday revealed an oil and gas industry in the midst of a working contradiction.In speeches that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, executives from some of the world's largest oil companies said the future is low-carbon and the industry needs to reinvent itself or risk becoming irrelevant as the world turns to cleaner energy.Yet at the same time, their peers talked about a future where oil and gas demand would remain strong for decades. They spoke of natural gas not as a bridge to some fossil-fuel-free world but as a "forever fuel."The public debate highlighted the gap between a stated desire to become part of a climate solution and the reality of a booming oil and gas industry that remains the biggest part of the greenhouse gas problem. The CERAWeek conference, hosted by the research and analysis firm IHS Markit, occupied the entire Hilton Americas hotel in downtown Houston, where $8,500 tickets bought thousands of executives, financiers and analysts access to the industry and an unending supply of food, drink and, in one tech-focused display, espresso served by a robotic arm.Maarten Wetselaar, a Royal Dutch Shell executive, spoke on one of the first panels about "Fuels of the Future." Shell has presented perhaps the most expansive vision of how the industry might change, and Wetselaar described a company that, a few decades from now, will service an electrified, hydrogen- and bio-fueled vehicle market and provide natural gas for heavy transportation. To meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, he said, electricity may be the only energy consumers buy within 20 years, although he said natural gas will still fuel ships and heavy transportation.The following day, Shell urged the Trump administration to halt its proposed reversal of limits on methane emissions from new oil and gas development, and to go farther than the Obama administration had in cracking down on emissions from existing operations. Later in the conference, executives with BP and Equinor, the Norwegian energy company that last year changed its name from Statoil, stressed many of the same points as Wetselaar. BP's chief executive, Bob Dudley, told the conference that his industry needs to engage in a discussion with supporters of the Green New Deal.

Study shows IPCC is underselling climate change - A new study has revealed that the language used by the global climate change watchdog, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is overly conservative – and therefore the threats are much greater than the Panel's reports suggest. Published in the journal BioScience, the team of scientists from the University of Adelaide, Flinders University, the University of Bristol (UK), and the Spanish National Research Council has analysed the language used in the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (from 2014). "We found that the main message from the reports—that our society is in climate emergency—is lost by overstatement of uncertainty and gets confused among the gigabytes of information," says lead author Dr. Salvador Herrando-Pérez, from the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute and Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. "The IPCC supports the overwhelming scientific consensus about human impact on climate change, so we would expect the reports' vocabulary to be dominated by greater certainty on the state of climate science—but this is not the case." The IPCC assigns a level of certainty to climate findings using five categories of confidence and ten categories of probability. The team found the categories of intermediate certainty predominated, with those of highest certainty barely reaching 8% of the climate findings evaluated. "The accumulation of uncertainty across all elements of the climate-change complexity means that the IPCC tends to be conservative," "The certainty is in reality much higher than even the IPCC implies, and the threats are much worse." "Uncertainty is to science what the score is to music—but it's a two-edged sword: what the IPCC and the majority of the scientific community regard as a paradigm of rigour and transparency is exactly what the 'merchants of doubt' put forward as a weakness," 

Donald Trump is using Stalinist tactics to discredit climate science - Americans should not be fooled by the Stalinist tactics being used by the White House to try to discredit the findings of mainstream climate science. The Trump administration has already purged information about climate change from government websites, gagged federal experts and attempted to end funding for climate change programmes.  Now a group of hardcore climate change deniers and contrarians linked to the administration is organising a petition in support of a new panel being set up by the National Security Council to promote an alternative official explanation for climate change. The panel will consist of scientists who do not accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are behind climate change and its impacts. Americans should not be conned by the Trump administration's climate lysenkoism The petition is being circulated for signature by Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a lobby group for “free market” fanatics which has become infamous for championing climate change denial. It does not disclose its sources of funding, but is known to have received money from ExxonMobil and conservative billionaires such as the Koch brothers. Mr Ebell, who has no expertise whatsoever in climate science – or any kind of science for that matter – was a member of Donald Trump’s presidential transition team and diverted the focus of the Environmental Protection Agency towards weakening and removing policies that limit pollution by companies, including President Obama’s Clean Power Plan.  The Trump administration’s “climate lysenkoism” is being led by William Happer, a retired professor from Princeton University who was hired by the National Security Council in September 2018 as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for emerging technologies. Media reports suggest that Professor Happer and his fellow propagandists will target the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which was prepared by leading researchers in the United States, and concluded last November: “The impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country.”

Radical plan to artificially cool Earth’s climate could be safe, study finds - A new study contradicts fears that using solar geoengineering to fight climate change could dangerously alter rainfall and storm patterns in some parts of the world. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, the analysis finds that cooling the Earth enough to eliminate roughly half of warming, rather than all of it, generally would not make tropical cyclones more intense or worsen water availability, extreme temperatures, or extreme rain. Only a small fraction of places, 0.4 percent, might see climate change impacts worsened, the study says. Many climate experts have warned that cooling the Earth but keeping twice as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as before industrialization could put some regions at risk. One scientist who read the paper published on Monday said it was not comprehensive enough to conclude that solar geoengineering — most likely involving spraying sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, thereby mimicking gas from volcanoes and reflecting the sun’s heat — would be safe.Some climate advocacy groups argue that banking on an unproven technology could hamstring efforts to reduce carbon dioxide still spewing from power plants and cars.But study coauthor David Keith, a Harvard professor who works in engineering and public policy, said researchers should not rule out geoengineering yet.“I am not saying we know it works and we should do it now,” he said. “Indeed, I would absolutely oppose deployment now. There’s still only a little group of people looking at this, there’s lots of uncertainty.”Keith said the study’s main message was that “there is the possibility that solar geoengineering could really substantially reduce climate risks for the most vulnerable.”The findings come as Nairobi hosts a United Nations Environment Program meeting on limiting climate change. A U.N. report last year said geoengineering by injecting su lphur dioxide into the atmosphere may be necessary but would come with major uncertainties.

The very optimistic new argument for dimming the sky - The year is 2055, and climate change has fully set in. Months-long heat waves regularly kill infants and the elderly, and food shortages are testing governments on every continent. While the world is finally reducing its carbon emissions, the cuts aren’t happening fast enough, and scientists say Earth will keep rapidly warming for at least another century.To stave off a crisis, China and the United States jointly propose an audacious scheme: They will inject sulfate aerosols into the high atmosphere to dim the sun’s rays, as happens naturally after a huge volcanic eruption. The two countries say the plan will restore order and lower the planet’s fever. But critics assert that the aerosols will distort the planet’s climate even further, weakening the monsoon and setting off droughts across Asia and Africa.The scenario may sound like science fiction, but the debate over the prudence of this technique—called solar geo-engineering—has already begun.On Monday, a new paper from a team of researchers claimed that it is possible to dim the sky in such a way that no region of the planet will be made significantly worse. No major land area will face more intense temperature, precipitation, or drought extremes under a specific solar geo-engineering scenario than would occur instead under climate change, the paper asserts. The study, which relies on a relatively rosy and moderate geo-engineering scenario, was co-authored by several widely recognized climate scientists who had never published on the topic before: Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor who specializes in tropical cyclones, and Gabriel Vecchi, a geoscience professor at Princeton. David Keith, an author of the paper and a professor of applied physics at Harvard, believes that these optimistic early results should justify the establishment of a new international research program on solar geo-engineering.

After years of rejection, Missouri regulators give nod to Grain Belt Express transmission line - After faltering before Missouri regulators for years, the state Public Service Commission finally gave a nod Wednesday to the Grain Belt Express transmission line — a project aiming to bring Kansas wind energy east to Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, and then into the grid beyond.The unanimous decision from PSC commissioners grants the project “a certificate of convenience and necessity” — a designation recognizing it as being in the public interest, and lending developers the right to use eminent domain as needed to construct the line.The move from the PSC capped a series of developments that built momentum for the long-stalled project. Last year, for instance, an appeals court judge said the commission “erred” in its controversial legal interpretation that it was unable to approve the line without first attaining assent from individual counties the project would pass through. That sentiment was echoed in a July ruling from the Missouri Supreme Court, which redirected the matter to the PSC. Despite the PSC’s earlier interpretation that it could not authorize the project, commissioners had firmly expressed at the time that it would enable millions of dollars in energy cost savings and benefit the public. “The Order confirms that the Grain Belt Express project is in the public interest and is good for Missouri,” Invenergy said in a statement released after Wednesday’s decision from the PSC.

New York develops plan to ease nat gas shortage - The state of New York will invest $250mn in renewable energy and efficiency measures in response to a natural gas service moratorium in Westchester County that stems from a lack of sufficient pipeline capacity. Utility Con Edison in January said that after 15 March it would no longer accept applications for new natural gas connections in the majority of its service area in Westchester County, New York, because of pipeline constraints. The New York Department of Public Service (DPS) in February said it would review natural gas supply and demand in the county to develop recommendations. The DPS, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the New York Power Authority late last week announced a plan to address the shortage, including: $165mn in grants to Con Edison for heat pumps and increasing gas efficiency for its residential, commercial and industrial customers; $32mn in financing services for customers to retrofit heating systems with alternatives to natural gas; $28mn for grants to new customers to use alternatives to natural gas for heating and cooling; and $25mn to improve energy efficiency to lower overall demand. The agencies said the investments are expected to reduce energy consumption equivalent to the amount of gas to heat more than 90,000 homes. The investments are not considered a complete fix for the critical lack of pipeline capacity in the state. While the state's initiatives are a "step in the right direction," state assemblyman Nader Sayegh (D)said he hopes the collaboration will enable the state to "find a long-term solution." White Plains mayor Thomas Roach said the program is a "vital first step" in ensuring the county's residents have access to energy. Con Edison in September 2018 requested a six-year $305mn budget for a portfolio of non-pipeline gas projects, including targeted energy efficiency and heating electrification measures, three renewable gas production plants and up to five gas storage facilities in Westchester County. The state approved $222.6mn for the energy efficiency and heating electrification, but denied the utility's other requests, saying it should pursue or seek cost recovery in other ways. The utility delivers gas to about 1.1mn people in New York City and Westchester County.

 Millions awarded to local states for cleaning up coal mines-- Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri are among 25 states given a total of more than $290 million to clean up abandoned coal mines. U.S. Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt today announced that the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) will provide $18,678,495 to Illinois, $18,296,295 to Kentucky, and $2,814,000 to Missouri to clean up and repurpose abandoned coal mines. The money is part of Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reclamation grants. More than $291 million in AML Reclamation funding will be available to states and tribes in FY 2019. "These grants are a great example of Interior partnering with states, Tribes, and local governments to provide resources for conservation efforts and infrastructure and public safety improvements, like fixing embankments, stabilizing land above underground mines, and restoring streams," said Acting Secretary Bernhardt. "The investment we're making back into coal country helps protect people, land, water and property, and enhances the lives of local citizens." AML grants, funded in part by a fee based on coal produced in the United States, help to eliminate dangerous conditions and pollution caused by past coal mining. AML-funded projects have closed dangerous mine shafts, eliminated highwalls, reclaimed unstable slopes, treated acid mine drainage, and restored water supplies damaged by mining. 

Congress' inaction endangers black lung fund (AP) — Former coal miner John Robinson’s bills for black lung treatments run $4,000 a month, but the federal fund he depends on to help cover them is being drained of money because of inaction by Congress and the Trump administration. Amid the turmoil of the government shutdown this winter, a tax on coal that helps pay for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund was cut sharply Jan. 1 and never restored, potentially saving coal operators hundreds of millions of dollars a year. With cash trickling into the fund at less than half its usual rate, budget officials estimate that by the middle of 2020 there won’t be enough money to fully cover the fund’s benefit payments. As a surge of black lung disease scars miners’ lungs at younger ages than ever, Robinson worries not only about cuts to his benefits, but that younger miners won’t get any coverage. “Coal miners sort of been put on the back burner, thrown to the side,”  “They just ain’t being done right.” President Donald Trump, who vowed to save the coal industry during the 2016 campaign, has repeatedly praised miners. At an August rally in West Virginia filled with miners in hard hats, he called them “great people. Brave people. I don’t know how the hell you do that. You guys have a lot of courage.” Trump made no mention of restoring the 2018 tax rate in his proposed budget released in mid-March. The White House said in a statement Tuesday that “President Trump and this administration have always supported the mining industry by prioritizing deregulation and less Washington interference.”

Wyoming governor vetoes coal-export terminal lawsuit bill . (AP) — Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed the Legislature to sue the state of Washington over coal exports. It’s important for Wyoming to “speak with one voice” on coal-export litigation, Gordon said. Wyoming is the top coal-producing state. Wyoming’s coal industry seeks to export more coal overseas to offset declining demand for coal from electric utilities in the U.S. A developer is suing Washington state for denying a crucial permit for a $680 million coal-export facility. Wyoming and five other states — Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Utah — have filed friend-of-the-court briefs siding with the developer. Six states — California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Oregon — have filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s administration. Wyoming lawmakers argued that a friend-of-the-court brief doesn’t go far enough and Wyoming should file its own lawsuit. The bill would have authorized legislators in the months ahead to look into filing their own lawsuit. A lawsuit from Wyoming’s legislative branch threatened to introduce a “whole new set of topics” and delay the case, said Gordon. “We just wanted to make sure we have a coherent approach that wasn’t confusing,” Gordon said. Gordon said he would continue to discuss with Wyoming Attorney Bridget Hill, an appointee of his who was sworn in Friday, how to best approach the litigation. Gordon and a substantial majority of the Wyoming Legislature are Republicans. 

Devastation at blast site after China chemical plant explosion leaves at least 64 dead, 640 injured - Executives of a chemical plant in China’s Jiangsu province have been taken into police custody after an explosion on Thursday killed at least 64 people, injured 640 others and polluted areas several kilometres away. Cao Lubao, mayor of Yancheng, where the blast occurred, said on Friday that nearly 3,000 people – employees of nearby plants and residents – had been evacuated after the explosion at the Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical plant in the township of Chenjiagang, which left a giant crater. Schools and kindergartens had been closed while the authorities monitored air and water quality, Cao said. President Xi Jinping, who is visiting Italy, said no effort should be spared to rescue trapped people and treat the injured. He also demanded that all levels of government strengthen inspection procedures. Thirty-four people were in a critical condition and 60 were seriously injured, while 28 were still missing as of late Friday. The Ministry of Emergency Management said 88 people were rescued from the scene. Visible flames had been put out but the whole of Xiangshui Ecological Chemical Industrial Park, where the plant is situated, was still engulfed by heavy smoke on Friday morning. Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical plant was flattened and 16 neighbouring factories were left with varying degrees of damage. The impact smashed windows and uprooted roofs of some buildings and reduced others to rubble. Early on Friday, injured people streaming into the emergency ward at Xiangshui People’s Hospital – one of the biggest in Xiangshui county, about 300km north of Shanghai. The plant had been flattened and reduced to rubble, with only part of the workshop frame still standing. A survivor who was standing by the roadside 1½km from the factory said the impact blew him and two of his friends off their feet, sending them tumbling in the air. “The air blast hit us and sent us up in the air,” the man, surnamed Lan, told the Beijing News. “I can’t describe it. It was horrifying.”

 Despite closures, U.S. nuclear electricity generation in 2018 surpassed its previous peak - Electricity generation from U.S. nuclear power plants totaled 807.1 million megawatthours (MWh) in 2018, slightly more than the previous peak of 807.0 million MWh in 2010, based on preliminary annual data. Although several nuclear power plants have closed since 2010, a combination of added capacity through uprates and shorter refueling and maintenance cycles allowed the remaining nuclear power plants to produce more electricity. In the near future, however, EIA expects that U.S. nuclear power output will decline. Between 2010 and 2018, only one new nuclear power plant came online in the United States. The Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear power reactor came online in the fall of 2016, providing 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of additional power. Seven plants with a combined capacity of 5.3 GW had retired since 2013. As of the beginning of 2019, the United States had 98 nuclear power reactors at 60 plants, but two plants—Pilgrim, Massachusetts’s only nuclear plant, and Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania—are expected to retire later this year, based on announced retirements.Despite changes in capacity from plants coming online or retiring, the U.S. nuclear power fleet maintained electricity generation near 800 million MWh for over a decade for several reasons. Several plants commissioned uprates, which involves modifying the plant to increase its generating capacity. EIA recorded 2.0 GW of thermal power uprates between 2010 and 2018, nearly the equivalent of adding two new reactors similar to Watts Bar Unit 2.  Nuclear power plants have also shortened the time they are out of operation for refueling or maintenance. Nearly all of the recent reduction in outage duration is attributed to shorter outages for refueling operations. In 2018, the average nuclear reactor outage was about 25 days. Nuclear power plants typically refuel every 18 to 24 months, so some of the annual fluctuations in nuclear output are largely attributable to how maintenance cycles align across the fleet.

Ohio, Pennsylvania consider nuclear plant bailouts - Subsidizing nuclear power to fight climate change is one thing in liberal states like New York and New Jersey. It's quite another in the natural gas bastions of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Drillers and gas-fired power plant operators are girding to fight measures to save money-losing reactors in the Keystone and Buckeye states, saying they've learned from past defeats and are better positioned to win. The looming debates are a key test of how far lawmakers in shale gas country are willing to go to fight climate change. Four left-leaning states have already approved bailouts for reactors, in step with aggressive targets to replace coal and gas with clean energy. This time, fossil-fuel proponents are fighting on their home turf. In Pennsylvania, a Republican lawmaker introduced a bill Monday to support the state's five plants, owned by Exelon Corp., FirstEnergy Solutions and Riverstone Holdings LLC's Talen Energy Corp. Ohio legislators are preparing their own measure. Time is critical for nuclear plants. Reactors are struggling to stay solvent as the fracking boom has made gas cheap and abundant, pushing down wholesale electricity prices. At least six have closed since 2013, including in New Jersey and Vermont. FirstEnergy Solutions said it will close its Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants in Ohio without subsidies. Exelon needs to order a new reactor core by May for its Three Mile Island plant — site of the infamous 1979 meltdown — making it crucial for lawmakers to pass legislation this spring, Chief Executive Officer Chris Crane said on a call with analysts last month. New York became the first state to throw reactors a lifeline in 2016, followed by Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut. In each case, fossil fuel generators fought back, saying the bailouts were an intrusion into free markets and would drive up electricity prices. But all four states have aggressive clean-energy targets, and without reactors they'd need to rely more heavily on power plants fueled by coal and gas.

Millstone deal reached, set to run for another 10 years - The Millstone Nuclear Power Station will stay open for another 10 years – a prospect that had been in some doubt recently even after it was selected in December as a winner of the final carbon-free energy competition by the Malloy administration.Dominion, Millstone’s owner, had been negotiating with Connecticut’s two utilities – Eversource and United Illuminating – against a March 15 deadline for coming up with a long-term contract to purchase Millstone’s power. The contract was announced just hours before the deadline was set to expire.Dominion threatened to shut the plant’s two units in 2023 if an agreement wasn’t reached today. That would have stripped 2,100 megawatts of carbon-free power from New England’s electric grid, including about half of Connecticut’s power. That loss would have made it difficult, if not impossible, for the state to meet its long-term clean energy and greenhouse gas emission reduction mandates. “The loss of Millstone would have been catastrophic for our state and our region,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a statement announcing the agreement. “The shutdown of the plant would have exposed the New England region to a nearly 25 percent increase in carbon emissions, increased risk of rolling blackouts, billions of dollars in power replacement costs, and the loss of more than 1,500 well-paying jobs.”

What will become of Three Mile Island's nuclear waste if the plant closes?-- THREE MILE ISLAND's short-term survival currently rests with Harrisburg lawmakers and lobbyists but the storied nuclear power plant’s ultimate fate is already known: It will eventually be decommissioned and, for now at least, its radioactive waste will be stored on site for years to come. The specifics are still murky but the outcomes of other shuttered reactors illustrate a long and often fraught process. In decades past, spent fuel and other contaminated materials were shipped to federal compounds where they were warehoused or buried underground. Growing health and environmental concerns put a stop to that practice, resulting in radioactive elements being stored at dozens of reactors across the country. “Nobody wants the spent fuel near them,” said Don Hudson, who lives downstream from the defunct Maine Yankee plant and chairs its community advisory panel. “It’s the biggest NIMBY on the planet and nobody wants to deal with it.” For decades, federal officials sought a location to serve as a permanent repository — one remote, secure and stable enough to avoid calamity or widespread contamination. Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada was designated as just such a place in 1987 but it faced numerous setbacks and was abandoned by the Obama administration in 2011. The Trump administration sent mixed signals in its first two years. The president’s 2020 budget proposal asked Congress for billions of dollars to restart the project. If Congress approves, the repository would still be years (and potentially decades) in the making. In the absence of a long-term solution, the country’s nuclear power plants are left with one option: indefinite on-site storage. That’s what will happen at Three Mile Island, where Exelon plans to build an interim spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) that will hold spent fuel in the middle of the current plant, between the two units’ cooling towers. As of 2017, the first phase of that project was expected to cost $85 million. 

 US is losing the nuclear energy export race to China, Russia. Here's the Trump plan to change that - The Trump administration is preparing a new push to help American companies compete in the race to build the next generation of nuclear power plants around the world — a competition the U.S. is currently losing.In doing so, the administration also aims to push back on the growing dominance of Russia and China in the space, preventing them from expanding their international influence by forging long-lasting nuclear ties with foreign powers. The State Department plans to expand cooperation with countries pursuing atomic energy long before those nations ever purchase a nuclear reactor. By facilitating early stage talks, the U.S. intends to put American companies first in line to build tomorrow's fleet of nuclear power plants overseas. "We still lead the world in nuclear technology innovation. Our big challenge is taking that incredible IP and those incredible technological innovative breakthroughs and bringing them to market." -Ed McGinnis, U.S. deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy To be sure, the Energy and Commerce departments actively facilitate U.S. nuclear cooperation with their foreign counterparts. But the State Department now intends to push the issue in talks at the highest levels of government, making it clear that Washington believes cooperation in the nuclear realm is central to its strategic relationships. But even with the State Department lending its diplomatic heft, winning nuclear energy contracts won't be easy. Russia and China are aggressively pursuing those deals at a time when the U.S. has struggled to build reactors at home and no longer enriches uranium to fuel those facilities. "We have lost tremendous ground. We were once 90 percent of the market globally. We're down to 20 [percent] if we're lucky," Ed McGinnis, the Department of Energy's principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in an interview.

San Diego judge dismisses U.S. sailors' Fukushima radiation lawsuits, rules Japan has jurisdiction - A San Diego federal judge has dismissed two class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of hundreds of U.S. sailors who claimed they were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation during a humanitarian mission in Japan following 2011’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. In the end, the case came down to a jurisdiction issue. U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino ruled in orders Monday that Japanese law applies to these claims and leaves open the possibility for the sailors to pursue recourse there. The sailors were serving on the then-San Diego-based carrier Ronald Reagan off Korea when the earthquake struck on March 11, 2011. The quake set off a tsunami that flooded Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing the plant’s radioactive core to melt down and release radiation. The Reagan and other crew in the vessel’s strike force responded under a relief effort known as Operation Tomodachi — a Japanese word meaning “friends” — staying off the coast for more than three weeks aiding Japanese survivors. The Navy detected low levels of contamination in the air and on 17 crewmembers two days after the disaster and repositioned the ship. Attorneys for the sailors said the radiation caused several ailments, including thyroid and gallbladder cancer, rectal bleeding, headaches and hair loss. Some have died. The lawsuits blamed “negligently designed and maintained” boiling water reactors at the plant and also accused the power utility of denying and underplaying the disaster. The sailors sued the Tokyo Electric Power Company, known as TEPCO, as well as U.S. company General Electric, which designed the reactors in California. The suits sought at least $1 billion each and include more than 400 sailors. 

 Brazilian Nuclear Fuel Convoy Attacked By Heavily Armed Gangsters -  Brazillian gangsters armed with assault rifles attacked a convoy of trucks carrying nuclear fuel in Southern Brazil earlier this week, according to police reports. The convoy left the headquarters of Indústrias Nucleares de Brasil in Resend around 6:20 am Tuesday and headed towards the Angra Nuclear Power Plant located at the Central Nuclear Almirante Álvaro Alberto on the Itaorna Beach in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Within the convoy, there were two specialized trucks hauling uranium pellets were escorted by the Federal Highway Police and vehicles of the State Environmental Institute.  According to Brazil’s O Globo newspaper, the convoy was peppered by heavy fire two miles north of the power plant. The Brazilian Federal Highway Police said in a statement that its vehicles were escorting the nuclear fuel convoy when the attack occurred. Law enforcement returned fire, which developed into a fierce shootout.  The statement from authorities said attackers retreated when law enforcement personnel returned fire.The convoy arrived at its final destination [nuclear power plant] without further incident 20 minutes following the attack.

Cleanup fund for Ohio mines could get $5 million in DeWine’s proposed budget - Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed budget would restore $5 million to Ohio’s coal-mining reclamation fund that was raided by former Gov. John Kasich’s administration in 2017. “When there’s a change in administration, I guess you never really know what to expect. I guess I would say I’m pleasantly surprised,” said Michael Sliva, a board member on the state’s reclamation forfeiture fund advisory board, who was unaware of the budget proposal before contacted Friday afternoon by The Dispatch.At an advisory board meeting last week, members received preliminary figures from an actuarial report on the coal fund by Pinnacle Actuarial Resources.“It’s actually not as rosy as it was two years ago,” said John Wade, a consulting actuary with Pinnacle.Estimates showed that Ohio’s coal-mining reclamation fund would never recover from the Kasich administration taking $5 million from the fund for its general budget.  Five years from now, without the $5 million added back or other changes, the actuarial firm projected the fund balance would fall to $19.6 million, down from its current balance of a little more than $21 million.

ODNR Issues Six New Permits for Utica Shale Wells - – The Ohio Department of Natural Resources issued six new horizontal well permits to energy companies exploring Ohio’s Utica shale during the week ended March 16, the agency reports.Three permits were issued to Chesapeake Exploration LLC and three more to Ascent Resources Utica LLC to drill wells in Harrison County, data show.The rig count stood a 15 for the week.As of March 16, oil and gas companies have drilled 2,552 wells across the Utica, of which 2,168 are producing, according to ODNR. The agency has issued a total of 3,037 horizontal well permits since energy companies started exploring the play in 2010.Much of the exploration is centered in counties in southeastern Ohio, where wells have proven the most productive. There were no new permits in the northern tier of Ohio’s Utica, which includes Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties. Nor were there new permits issued in neighboring Lawrence or Mercer counties in western Pennsylvania, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Ohio Epa sets hearing on switching brine wells - The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has scheduled an April 15 public meeting on draft permits to allow Buckeye Brine to switch its Class 2 brine injection wells in Coshocton County to Class 1 facilities, to handle other industrial liquid wastes.The facility currently takes brine water from hydraulic fracturing at its three injection wells in Coshocton in east-central Ohio, Kallanish Energy reports. The company has been handling roughly 600,000 gallons of brine per year from Utica Shale production.The new permits, if approved, would allow Buckeye Brine to switch two of its wells to take other types of non-hazardous waste, including liquid from petroleum refining, metal production, chemical production, pharmaceutical production, commercial disposal, food production and municipal wastewater treatment.The request is the first time an operator in Ohio has sought to change from Class 2 to Class 1. There are roughly 10 Class 1 wells in the state. An informational session is set for 6 p.m. at Coshocton High School, immediately followed by a public hearing to accept public comment on the draft permits.

UPDATE: Stark County judge tosses Rover Pipeline lawsuit - A Stark County judge has dismissed the state’s lawsuit against Rover Pipeline over alleged water pollution during construction of the natural gas pipeline. In a ruling filed Monday, Common Pleas Judge Kristin G. Farmer said the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency waived its right to regulate pipeline construction under the Clean Water Act. The state had a year to act on Rover’s application seeking to discharge pollutants under the Clean Water Act, and failed to do so, the judge wrote. Instead, Ohio EPA asked Rover to resubmit its application, which was approved. The Ohio Attorney General sued Rover in November 2017, alleging environmental violations in more than a dozen counties across the state due to sediment-laden stormwater, leaks and spills of clay-based drilling fluid or the release of water used to pressure-test the pipeline. The biggest spill happened in April 2017 when millions of gallons of clay-based drilling fluid leaked into a Bethlehem Township wetland while workers bored a path for one of two main lines beneath the Tuscarawas River. The lawsuit asked the court to order Rover to comply with Ohio EPA’s orders and pay a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per day for each violation, as well as reimburse the Ohio EPA and pay the cost of the court action. Rover and subcontractors Pretec Directional Drilling, Laney Directional Drilling, Atlas Trenchless, Mears Group and B&T Directional Drilling argued they had the necessary permits. Also, they said federal law gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not state agencies, authority to enforce environmental laws during construction of intestate pipelines.

Ascent Sees 2019 as 'Inflection Point' in Ohio's Utica -- Ohio pure-play Ascent Resources LLC, the Utica Shale’s largest producer, said in a rare operational update that it expects to reach at least 2 Bcfe/d of production this year. The privately owned producer said it achieved record production of 2.4 Bcfe/d gross and 1.9 Bcfe/d net in December. This year, it forecasts net production to average 2-2.2 Bcfe/d, consisting of 90% natural gas, 7% natural gas liquids and 3% crude oil. Management said 85% of anticipated gas production and 75% of expected oil output has been hedged. “We believe 2019 will be an inflection point for Ascent as we achieve a size and scale that should allow us, at current strip prices, to reach cash flow neutrality before the end of 2019 and generate significant free cash flow in 2020 and beyond,” said CEO Jeff Fisher. The company has amassed a leading position in the Utica core of southeastern Ohio with 311,000 net acres. It was also the most active operator, drilled the most footage and had the highest average initial production rate in the state last year, according to the Ohio Oil and Gas Association’s Debrosse Memorial Report. Fischer said the company in 2018 operated 29 of the state’s 40 top gas wells and 21 of the 40 top oil wells. Ascent plans to build on those marks this year, with capital expenditures set at $1.1-1.25 billion. Of that, up to $1.1 billion is to be spent on drilling and completion, while up to $170 million would go toward land expenses. At the midpoint of its plan, Ascent said it would spud up to 100 gross wells, complete up to 110 gross wells and bring online up to 130 gross operated wells in 2019. The company also saw a significant boost in its borrowing base in 2018 to $2 billion from $925 million to $2 billion. Proved reserves were 7.6 Tcfe at the end of last year.

Study Shows Ohio Economies Not Seeing Impact of Drilling Boom – WOSU -  A new study shows that the drilling boom in south east Ohio is not contributing as much as it could to the local economy. One of the authors, Amanda Weinstein of the University of Akron, says part of this loss is because many of the workers in those drilling areas are spending their earnings elsewhere. Weinstein on why the drilling boom in southeast Ohio is not affecting the economy like it could:  “Because of this leakage, what it suggests we need to make sure that we’re not ignoring these counties, thinking these co: unties are just fine on their own," she said. "We need to make sure these counties have the funds that they need to make sure that their infrastructure is maintained.” Weinstein says the long term benefits of the oil and gas drilling industry, like investments in local businesses, school systems and roads are not being seen in the counties that are most impacted by the activity.  To see more, visit WKSU.

Marathon could build storage caverns in Harrison Co. - Marathon Pipe Line is looking to build storage caverns for ethane, butane and propane near Hopedale in northeastern Harrison County. Jason Stechschulte, the company’s commercial development manager, said Marathon Pipe Line finished taking geologic core samples at the end of last year, and felt confident the location is viable. MPLX has a gas processing plant at the Hopedale site, and Findlay-based Marathon Petroleum Corp. controls MPLX and Marathon Pipe Line. Stechschulte didn’t provide a timeline for when the project might be completed.   Several speakers discussed what to do with the heavier components of Utica Shale natural gas, also called natural gas liquids. Ethane, butane and propane contain more energy — and can be worth more — than methane, the primary component of natural gas. Besides being fuel, natural gas liquids have other uses, notably as chemical precursors in plastics production. The Utica region has pipelines and processing plants to transport natural gas liquids, but chemical plants, factories or export terminals need a reliable supply, Stechschulte said. A storage facility would increase reliability. Stechschulte said capacity of the storage caverns would depend on customer demand, but Marathon Pipe Line was considering multiple caverns hollowed out over several years. Ethane, propane and butane would be stored as liquids under pressure in the caverns. Marathon Pipe Line also is investing $150 million in two projects to increase the amount of Utica Shale butane and isobutane it can ship to users in Ohio, Illinois and Michigan. The projects include construction of two storage spheres at facilities in both East Sparta and Lima, and expansion of the 8-inch-diameter Robinson-Indiana-Ohio (RIO) liquids pipeline. The RIO expansion should be completed in about 10 days, and the butane-storage project should be finished by mid-2020, Stechschulte said.

A Fracking-Driven Industrial Boom Renews Pollution Concerns in Pittsburgh -   Although the air in Pittsburgh has dramatically improved from the days when it was one of America’s most polluted cities, it still contains high levels of hazardous pollutants, in large part because of several major steel foundries and coke works still in operation, according to the Clean Air Council. The rise of hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas, now more than a decade old, has exacerbated regional air quality problems. Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, is out of compliance with federal air quality standards on fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) and sulfur dioxide. In 2018, the region barely met the federal ozone standard after falling short in years past.Now, Pittsburgh and the surrounding area are embracing a new wave of industry tied to the fracking boom in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. Nothing better embodies this surge than a massive, $6 billion ethane cracker currently being built 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh by Shell Chemical Appalachia, a subsidiary of the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell. The facility will process huge quantities of natural gas and natural gas liquids from the prolific Marcellus and Utica shales and turn them into the building blocks of plastic. The plastic pellets produced by “cracking” ethane molecules will then be sold to manufacturers producing consumer and industrial products such as plastic bags, packaging, automotive parts, and furniture. When it comes online in 2021, Shell’s ethane cracker will also add significantly to air pollution in western Pennsylvania, becoming the region’s largest source of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are harmful gases emitted by solids or liquids, including combusted fossil fuels. The facility will also emit substantial amounts of nitrogen oxide (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), fine particulate matter, and other hazardous air pollutants, the Clean Air Council says. All of these have been linked to an increased risk of respiratory problems such as asthma, as well as to cardiovascular effects and a heightened risk of cancer.

Natgas production projected to jump nearly 1 Bcf/d: Dpr - Natural gas production from the U.S.’s seven most prolific unconventional basins/plays from March to April is projected to jump nearly 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), the Energy Information Administration projects.EIA’s just-released Drilling Productivity Report (Dpr) for March projects March-to-April production will jump 883 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d), to 79.02 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), from 78.14 Bcf/d. (All numbers are rounded.)Six of the seven basins/plays in the monthly survey are projected to see a March-to-April natural gas production increase, Kallanish Energy reports. The biggest jump by far is expected in the Appalachia region, which includes the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays, rising 358 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d), to 31.51 Bcf/d, 31.15 Bcf/d, Kallanish Energy reports.Due to its seemingly ever-increasing rise in crude production (see story elsewhere in this issue), the Permian Basin is second in terms of natural gas production. The increase is pegged at 216 Mmcfr/d, to 14.08 Bcf/d in April, from 13.86 Bcf/d in March.The Haynesville Shale is projected from March to April to increase natural gas production by 182 Mmcf/d, to 10.52 Bcf/d, from 10.34 Bcf/d, the Dpr stated.The three remaining basins/[plays the DPR projects will increase natural gas production from March to April, including the Niobrara, Eagle Ford and Bakken, will see increases of 75 Mmcf/d to 5.48 Bcf/d, 34 Mmcf/d to 6.94 Bcf/d, and 18 Mmcf/d, to 2.82 Bcf/d, respectively. One region, the Anadarko, is expected to see a 1 Mmcf/ drop in production from March to April, to 7.673 Bcf/d, from 7.674 Bcf/d.

Shale study- Marcellus to supply 45 percent of natural gas to US - The Marcellus and Utica shale formations are among the largest sources of natural gas and natural gas liquids in the world, and their production will increase exponentially in the next two decades, according to an IHS Markit study released at the World Petrochemical Conference in San Antonio, Texas.  Natural gas from the tri-state region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will supply 45 percent of the nation’s production by 2040, up from 31 percent this year, according to the IHS study. The production of the highly lucrative natural gas liquids ethane, propane and butane (LPG) is expected to nearly double in the same period, accounting for 19 percent of the nation’s total by 2040, up from 14 percent in 2018, the study shows.The study, “Estimated Logistics Benefits of the Shale Crescent USA Region Versus the U.S. Gulf Coast for Natural Gas and LPG” examines both production trends and the economics of petrochemical production in the region.“Research continues to drive home the myriad economic advantages for manufacturers in the Shale Crescent region when compared to other, more traditionally accepted energy and chemical hubs,” said Wally Kandel, spokesperson for Shale Crescent USA. “Investors are catching on that the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations offer unprecedented benefits. There are few other places in the world, if any, where the supply, manufacturing facilities and end users are all in close proximity.” The IHS Markit study, commissioned by Shale Crescent USA and JobsOhio, quantifies for the first time the anticipated development and production growth emerging from one of the world’s most prolific sources of natural gas and natural gas liquids. In 2018, an IHS Markit study evaluated the prospects for a world-scale ethylene and polyethylene plant based on ethane feedstock in the Shale Crescent USA region.

Ohio Valley region will supply half of US gas by 2040 - The Marcellus and Utica shale formations are among the largest sources of natural gas and natural gas liquids in the world, and their production will increase exponentially in the next two decades, according to an IHS Markit study released today at the World Petrochemical Conference in San Antonio, Texas.Natural gas from the tri-state region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will constitute 45% of US production by 2040, up from 31% this year, according to the IHS study. The production of the highly lucrative natural gas liquids ethane, propane and butane (LPG) is expected to nearly double in the same period, accounting for 19% of the nation’s total by 2040, up from 14% in 2018, the study shows.The study, ‘Estimated Logistics Benefits of the Shale Crescent USA Region Versus the US Gulf Coast for Natural Gas and LPG’, examines both production trends and the economics of petrochemical production in the region.“Research continues to drive home the myriad economic advantages for manufacturers in the Shale Crescent region when compared to other, more traditionally accepted energy and chemical hubs,” said Wally Kandel, spokesperson for Shale Crescent USA. “Investors are catching on that the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations offer unprecedented benefits. There are few other places in the world, if any, where the supply, manufacturing facilities and end users are all in close proximity.”The IHS Markit study, commissioned by Shale Crescent USA and JobsOhio, quantifies for the first time the anticipated development and production growth emerging from one of the world’s most prolific sources of natural gas and natural gas liquids. In 2018, an IHS Markit study evaluated the prospects for a world-scale ethylene and polyethylene plant based on ethane feedstock in the Shale Crescent USA region. The 2019 study says the region “will play a key role in satisfying America’s increasing reliance on natural gas, as well as keeping energy costs moderate. Favourable production economics place the Marcellus and Utica shale plays amongst the most cost competitive in the nation.”

Canada Pension Fund Boosts US Shale Presence with $3.8 Billion JV - The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board announced it was expanding in U.S. shale gas through a US$3.8-billion joint venture with U.S. independent energy company Williams.  The new company will be a pipeline operation and will focus on the Marcellus and Utica shale plays, which are the most prolific in natural gas production. The transactions leading to the establishment of the joint venture involve CPPIB buying a 35-percent stake in Williams’ wholly owned Ohio Valley Midstream pipeline system for US$1.34 billion and Williams buying out its partner Momentum Midstream in another pipeline system, the Utica East Ohio Midstream. “This joint venture will provide CPPIB additional exposure to the attractive North American natural gas market, aligning with our growing focus on energy transition,” a CPPIB official commented, reflecting the rising interest in investments across the shale patch This has been particularly true in shale gas-producing regions where drilling has boomed in recent years, but pipeline capacity has been slow to catch up, as Reuters notes in a report on the news. Earlier this month, this industry segment saw another large deal: Equitrans Midstream Corp. bought majority stakes in two pipelines connecting the Marcellus and Utica plays for US$1.03 billion from a Morgan Stanley-managed fund. Chances are as demand for gas continues to rise and so does production in these prolific plays, we will see more deals of this kind. Unlike oil pipelines, it seems that gas pipeline at least in this part of the United States, are not such a matter of contention between the industry and the environmentalist lobby, which makes the segment ripe for M&A activity as drilling increases. However, there is opposition from landowners in the area whose territory pipeline builders are encroaching on. A group of affected homeowners this month approached the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that energy companies were abusing the eminent domain rule.

 CPPIB, Williams to form $3.8 bln Marcellus-Utica shale gas venture (Reuters) - Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is expanding its presence in the North American natural gas market through a $3.8 billion joint venture with U.S. energy firm Williams Cos Inc, which will hold pipeline assets in the Marcellus and Utica shale basins, the biggest gas-producing region in the United States.  Canada’s largest pension fund will invest about $1.34 billion for a 35 percent stake in the venture, with Williams holding the rest and operating the combined business, the companies said on Monday. “This joint venture will provide CPPIB additional exposure to the attractive North American natural gas market, aligning with our growing focus on energy transition,” said Avik Dey, managing director, head of energy & resources, CPPIB. Pipeline infrastructure in the Utica and Marcellus shale basins, which span Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, are attracting huge investments after a resurgence in drilling activity over the last few years led to tight pipeline capacity. A privately held company backed by CPPIB and Encino Energy last year signed a deal to buy the Chesapeake Energy’s entire natural gas assets in Ohio.  The companies said on Monday that the venture includes Williams’ Ohio Valley Midstream system in the Marcellus shale basin and the Utica East Ohio Midstream system.

Homeowners Take Fight Against Gas Pipeline Land Grab To US Supreme Court - For nearly a decade, Michelle and Gary Erb lived on a rustic, 72-acre plot of land east of the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  There, the couple hoped they could build a second home for their sons. But the landscape Gary once called a “deer paradise” became a construction site for a pipeline that can move 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas every day.  Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company (Transco), a wholly owned subsidiary of the $8.6 billion energy-infrastructure titan Williams, demanded access to the Erbs’ land so it could construct the Atlantic Sunrise project, a 200-mile pipeline that expands the nation’s largest natural-gas pipeline system to the Marcellus Shale. Rich in reserves, the Marcellus Shale has propelled Pennsylvania to become the nation’s second-largest supplier of natural gas, with the state accounting for one-fifth of U.S. natural gas production in 2017. At first, Transco offered to pay the Erbs for a six-acre easement. When the couple declined, Transco authorized eminent domain and forced the Erbs to hand over the property anyway. It’s now been more than a year and a half since Transco began digging up their land and yet the Erbs still haven’t seen a dime for their land.  On Wednesday, the Erbs, along with their neighbors Stephen Hoffman and Lynda Like, who also saw their land taken, filed a cert petition  urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in this widespread abuse of eminent domain. Representing the landowners is theInstitute for Justice, the public interest law firm that litigated on behalf of homeowners in the Supreme Court’s last major eminent domain case: Kelo v. New London.  What happened to the Erbs is not an isolated incident. In order to build natural gas pipelines, “over the past twenty years, district courts have entered hundreds of preliminary injunctions granting private companies immediate possession of thousands of acres of private land,” the Institute for Justice noted.

Higher operating pressure prompts new safety concerns over Sunoco’s Mariner East 2X pipeline - Pipeline opponents are raising new concerns about the safety of Energy Transfer/Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East 2x natural gas liquids line, which the company says will have a maximum operating pressure much higher than that of the Mariner East 1 and 2 lines. The pressure on the Mariner East 2x had previously been reported in public documents as equal to the pressure of parallel Mariner East 2, which uses the same right-of-way. A pipeline’s “Maximum Allowable Operating Pressure,” or MAOP, is set by the Department of Transportation and, for safety reasons, is lower than what the design characteristics of the pipe can withstand.  In permit applications filed in 2016 with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and with the Delaware River Basin Commission in 2015, Sunoco stated the MAOP for Mariner East 2 and 2x would be 1480 psig, or pounds per square inch gauge. But a footnote in recent reports filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection point to a much higher number: 2100 psig. Clean Air Council attorney Alex Bomstein, who says he discovered the difference while analyzing Sunoco’s new horizontal directional drilling plans filed with DEP, said a risk assessment conducted of the pipeline project was based on a lower pressure.“Every risk assessment done on Mariner East has used the 1480 psig figure in calculating destructive potential, because that’s what Sunoco has always represented to the public and to regulators,” Bomstein said.Del-Chesco United for Pipeline Safety hired Quest Consultants to do a risk assessment on the line. Quest’s senior engineer Jeff Marx, who conducted the assessment, says the risks are greater with a higher pressure. “Something up in the 2100 psi range would be a significant increase and will increase the hazard because the release rate of material is largely driven by pressure,” Marx said.

Appeals court keeps alive Pa. attorney general's case over landowner gas royalty payments - The Pennsylvania attorney general’s case alleging that two natural gas companies misled landowners and cheated them out of royalty payments cleared an important hurdle on Friday when a state appeals court largely ruled against the companies’ efforts to get the case thrown out at its preliminary stages.In a 6-1 decision, the Commonwealth Court ruled that the attorney general can bring claims in the public interest under Pennsylvania’s consumer protection law — even though the landowners were technically sellers, not consumers, when they signed leases with companies to extract Marcellus Shale gas from under their land.Oklahoma-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. said it plans to appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The attorney general’s office filed the case in 2015. It alleged that Chesapeake violated the state’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law by inflating gas shipping costs and passing the higher costs on to landowners, whose monthly royalty checks shrank even as huge amounts of gas were pulled from their property. Landowner advocates estimate that the questionable deductions have amounted to more than $100 million in lost royalties for northeast Pennsylvania property owners. The state also accuses Chesapeake of engaging in deceptive leasing practices and colluding with Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to split the northeastern Pennsylvania market and not compete with one another for leases there.

Federal appeals court issues stay halting PennEast pipeline project - A federal appeals court has granted New Jersey a stay, halting construction of the PennEast natural gas pipeline while it resolves issues surrounding the company’s attempt to take property in which the state has an interest. The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the order Tuesday in an appeal by several New Jersey state agencies that challenged the federal court’s jurisdiction to hear eminent domain actions by a private company. The agencies argued that such matters must be heard in state court. While the order bars physical construction of the pipeline, it does permit PennEast Pipeline Co. to continue surveying and testing for the 110-mile pipeline, which is planned to carry natural gas from the Marcellus Shale region of Central Pennsylvania, through Northampton County and to southern New Jersey. There are about 535 landowners along the entire route. That route, through farmland and environmentally sensitive areas, has been hotly contested in both states. Attorney Timothy P. Duggan, who represents dozens of New Jersey landowners fighting the company, said the order applies only in New Jersey. It could, however, provide support for those challenging PennEast’s legal action to build on their land, he said. “I think the lawyers in Pennsylvania are going to make sure their judges know what’s happening in New Jersey,” Duggan said. Despite the ruling, PennEast spokeswoman Patricia Kornick said pipeline officials haven’t adjusted their timeline, which calls for starting construction late this year. Article continues belowConstruction would take seven months, and the pipeline is expected to be fully operational seven months later. 

PSE&G Wants to Spend Almost $900M on Resiliency of Natural-Gas Network - Public Service Electric & Gas plans to add 14 gas pipelines to its grid to safeguard against curtailments in interstate shipments of natural gas, but critics say the lines will be seldom, if ever, used. In filings on the Newark utility’s pending $2.5 billion Energy Strong II program, the Division of Rate Counsel argued the overall project should be rejected, saying it will have significant impacts on rates if approved as proposed. But Rate Counsel director Stefanie Brand and her consultants addressed their most withering criticism to the company’s nearly $1 billion plan to strengthen the resiliency of its gas distribution system, the bulk of which ($863 million) will spent on projects designed to back up supply if interstate pipelines are disrupted. “We just don’t think we need to do this,’’ Brand said. “The contingency that they are trying to protect against has never happened. It just doesn’t feel like a wise investment for the state or ratepayer.’’ The Energy Strong proposal comes at a time when the state Board of Public Utilities is juggling various petitions that would increase utility bills by more than $12 billion, according to consumer advocates. The projects range from ratepayer subsidies for nuclear power plants, to clean energy, to requests from other utilities to upgrade their electric and gas systems.

No new natural gas hookups in New York's Westchester County, Con Ed says (Reuters) - New York energy company Consolidated Edison Inc said on Friday it still plans to impose a moratorium on new natural gas service in parts of Westchester County after March 15 despite a $250 million plan by the state to reduce energy usage. “The moratorium will still go into effect after March 15,” Con Edison spokesman Allan Drury said, noting the company needs to stop hooking up new gas customers to avoid compromising gas system reliability because of limited space on existing interstate pipelines into the region. Westchester County is north of New York City. New York State has blocked construction of new interstate pipelines for environmental reasons for years as Governor Andrew Cuomo and other state officials want utilities to focus more on renewable power sources and energy efficiency programs, instead of building more gas and other fossil fuel-fired power plants and infrastructure. Consumers, however, want access to more gas to heat homes and businesses because it is cheaper and cleaner to burn than oil. This winter, U.S. Northeast households, on average, are expected to spend $723 to heat with gas and $1,646 with oil, according to federal estimates. Drury said Con Edison has received more than 1,300 applications for new gas hookups since notifying the state of the moratorium on Jan. 17, well above the number the company normally receives during a two-month period. On Thursday, the state announced several steps totaling $250 million to reduce energy consumption and fund alternative energy programs. The state said the programs will “provide immediate relief to Westchester County businesses and residents affected by Con Edison announcement that it will put new applications for firm natural gas service on a waiting list beginning March 15.” The programs, which are estimated to reduce energy consumption equivalent to the amount of gas needed to heat over 90,000 homes, include funding for clean energy alternatives like electric heat pumps and high-efficiency appliances. The problem with those programs is they only reduce demand, not boost gas supplies.

Report: No need for gas pipeline under New York Harbor - The fight over a proposed 24-mile natural gas pipeline extension through lower New York Bay heated up Tuesday with the release of a report by an anti-global-warming organization that argues the need for the controversial project has been overstated. Alternatives, such as conservation and new technologies, have been overlooked, the report said. "False Demand: The Case Against the Williams Fracked Gas Pipeline," from the environmental group 350.org, targets claims by both utility National Grid and pipeline builder Williams Transco that the project is an environmentally sound approach to meeting rising demand for natural gas. In particular, it addresses the assertion that new projects, including the state's Belmont Park redevelopment, will not have sufficient access to natural gas without the pipeline. And it disputes claims that the project will meet a 10% increase in demand for natural gas over the next decade. "The national forecast for residential and commercial natural gas use is 'flat' because while growth has gone up, demand has gone down," the report states. "Williams' touting of a 10% increase in need over the next decade is outdated." The report also cites a recent New York state study that found the use of air and geothermal heat pumps alone could cut gas needs for the region by about a third of the amount that the Williams pipeline would deliver. In addition, it pointed out that National Grid's assertion of the need for the project "has not been subject to public review or analysis of alternatives."

U.S. natural gas production hit record high in 2018  - The United States produced more natural gas in 2018 than any year prior, breaking the previous record set in 2017, and local wells played a big part.According to a recent report form the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the nation's gas production measured as gross withdrawals averaged 101.3 billion cubic feet per day, and increase of 10 billion cubic feet per day over record-breaking production in 2017. That 11 percent increase is a record for the largest annual increase in production.  Gross withdrawals increased every month of the year, save June, and peaked in December at 107.8 billion cubic feet per day.The Appalachian region remained the top-producing natural gas region in the country, with wells in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia producing more than a quarter of the county's total output. Texas led all states in total production with 24.1 billion cubic feet per day, but Pennsylvania was not far behind as the second-biggest producer at a little over 18 billion cubic feet per day.    Exports of natural gas were also up to 9.9 billion cubic feet per day, making 2018 the fourth straight year that exports increased. For the second year in a row, the U.S. exported more natural gas than it imported. Prior to 2017, the country had been a net importer for nearly 60 years.

Cold End Of March Keeps Gas Afloat  - It was a mixed day for natural gas futures, as colder weather forecasts helped the April gas contract settle a bit less than a percent higher on the day despite looser fundamental data.  The April contract was clearly the strongest on the day, with other contracts lagging behind on looser demand data.  The result was the first positive settle of the April/May J/K spread in quite some time.  The April/October J/V spread eclipsed the recent highs set last week as well.  Much of the support at the front of the curve came from bullish overnight weather trends that were outlined in our Morning Update.  Yet out sentiment was slightly bearish on the day due to bearish fundamentals besides weather that had us see intraday price downside. This worked out well until mid-day weather model guidance (particularly the GFS ensembles) progressed in an even colder direction (images courtesy of Tropical Tidbits).  Climate Prediction Center forecasts this afternoon accordingly eliminated the bulk of what seemed like high probability warm risks yesterday. Tomorrow, traders will be weighing these recent weather changes against Thursday's expected EIA number and the latest daily balances, which we present to clients on a weather-adjusted basis. In our Afternoon Update we broke down our price and weather expectations for the week, showing how risk is skewed and what our latest weather forecast is.

Weaker Balances And Warmer Weather Models Lower Natural Gas Prices - April natural gas prices ended the day down about five cents. The market came under pressure first on weak fundamentals data.  Unlike yesterday, where the front month contracts had the most relative strength, the front of the natural gas curve was the weakest.  This resulted in a complete reversal of yesterday's move in the April / May spread, with the spread going back negative today.  The reversal was also seen in the April / October spread, almost perfectly negating yesterday's move.  We saw additional pressure on prices from some of the midday weather models, most notably the American ensemble (GEFS), which made a notable warmer change out in the 12-16 day time frame when compared with the overnight 0z run of the same model.  The end of the model run also showed a pattern that would not be conducive for colder weather in the key energy consumption areas of the U.S, with an enhanced warmer ridge in the eastern part of the nation.  We must be cautious in trusting these weather models, as they have been prone to wild changes in recent days, and often do struggle in the transitional seasons of Spring and Autumn, but the warmer, lower demand idea does fit with the longer range climate models into the first half of April.  Moving forward, these recent weather changes will have to be judged in conjunction with latest balances along with tomorrow's EIA number.

US natural gas in storage falls 47 Bcf to 1.143 Tcf- EIA - — The amount of natural gas in US storage facilities decreased 47 Bcf to 1.143 Tcf in the week that ended Friday, the US Energy Information Administration reported Thursday. The draw was slightly smaller than the consensus expectations of analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts, which called for a 48 Bcf pull.The withdrawal was smaller than the 87 Bcf pull reported during the corresponding week in 2018 as well as the five-year average draw of 56 Bcf, according to EIA data.As a result, stocks were 315 Bcf, or 21.6%, under the year-ago level of 1.458 Tcf and 556 Bcf, or 32.7%, below the five-year average of 1.699 Tcf.The NYMEX April gas futures contract rose 0.9 cent to $2.829/MMBtu following the announcement.The EIA reported a 17 Bcf withdrawal in the East to drop stocks to 245 Bcf, compared with 276 Bcf a year ago; a 19 Bcf draw in the Midwest to cut inventories to 268 Bcf, compared with 320 Bcf a year ago; a 4 Bcf pull in the Mountain region to trim stocks to 62 Bcf, compared with 90 Bcf a year ago; a 6 Bcf withdrawal in the Pacific to drop inventories 96 Bcf, compared to 169 Bcf a year ago; and a 2 Bcf net draw in the South Central region to nudge stocks down 471 Bcf, compared with 603 Bcf a year ago.Total inventories are now 65 Bcf below the five-year average of 310 Bcf in the East, 106 Bcf under the five-year average of 374 Bcf in the Midwest, 53 Bcf lower than the five-year average of 115 Bcf in the Mountain region, 104 Bcf smaller than the five-year average of 200 Bcf in the Pacific and 228 Bcf under the five-year average of 699 Bcf in the South Central region. Only two more weeks of withdrawals are expected before the switch to injection season begins in the first week of April. Based on current forecasts, the week that will end Friday should see a 28 Bcf draw and the week after a 21 Bcf pull, reducing stocks to 1.089 Tcf, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. It would mark the lowest volume in storage at the start of the injection season since it bottomed out at 824 Bcf March 28, 2014. Even with the low start that year, storage rebounded to 3.611 Tcf by the start of the next heating season.

Natural Gas Flat Following In-Line EIA Storage Number - It was a rather slow day in the natural gas market, with the April contract settling just a tick higher in a 4.3-cent range. Bearish daily balances were canceled out by mixed weather forecasts and an in-line EIA print, keeping prices mostly range-bound.  Later contracts along the curve were stronger through the day, with April actually being the weakest overall.  The result is that the J/V April/October spread went out to recent wide levels.  These later contracts were firm enough to help the April contract defend the $2.8 support level. Our Morning Update was "Neutral" despite slight GWDD losses overnight we we highlighted that, "it still seems hard to break below the $2.8 level..."  Then the Energy Information Administration announced a draw of 47 bcf from storage last week, which was just 1 bcf away from our estimate of 48 bcf. They also announced a 4 bcf revision lower in last week's 204 bcf draw, indicating that the draw actually should have been 200 bcf.  Despite the revision, the market did not move much after the EIA number, as it was seen generally confirming current expectations.

Judge delays any decision on ACP-related lawsuit against the county — Plaintiffs and the Robeson County Board of Commissioners must another month before learning how a judge will rule in a lawsuit related to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Superior Court Judge Mary Ann Tally, out of Cumberland County, gave the plaintiffs two weeks to submit more information and documents to support their case against the approval of a conditional-use permit approved by the commissioners on Aug. 7, 2017. The permit cleared the way for the ACP’s builders to place a metering station and a 350-foot tower near Prospect that would service the 600-mile pipeline that would carry natural gas from West Virginia to a point near Pembroke. Tally issued her decision on Tuesday at the end of a hearing in Courtroom 3C in the Robeson County Courthouse, said Gary Locklear, the county government’s attorney. ally declared the hearing will reconvene April 15, and she will issue a ruling sometime afterward. “The county feels real good because of the questions she asked,” Locklear said Wednesday. “Judge Tally has a firm grasp of the issue.” Brothers Robie and Dwayne Goins filed the initial lawsuit against the permit approval in October 2017, Locklear said. Since then other area residents, environmental groups and the Tuscarora Tribe have joined the legal fight.

 From tiny Cove Point on the Chesapeake, tankers take natural gas around the world. At what cost? -  In a quiet pocket of Southern Maryland where beach bungalows line dirt roads to the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s booming natural gas industry has established an unlikely multibillion-dollar foothold. For a year now, natural gas pulled from ancient shale formations deep below the surface of Pennsylvania and other states has been piped across Maryland to a new $4.4 billion gas export terminal in the woods beyond Cove Point Beach in Calvert County.  From there, the gas is cooled through a complex industrial process to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit, which liquefies it and makes it easier to transport. It is then piped through a tunnel to a platform a mile offshore and loaded onto massive tankers for shipment overseas — to Japan and India, the Middle East and Europe, and countries across Central and South America. Lea Callahan says the increase in tanker ships in the waters beyond her beachfront home, about 65 miles south of Baltimore, has been shocking. “All of a sudden, it was like boom,” she said. “They come in at all hours, so you wake up in the morning and you see another ship.”  The new activity makes Maryland a global gateway for natural gas extracted from the ground through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, even though the state has banned the controversial process within its own borders. It also puts Maryland at the vanguard of a growing global trade in liquefied natural gas, or LNG, that U.S. government leaders and energy executives are feverishly working to support by building similar facilities across the country. The Cove Point terminal began operations in early 2018 as just the second large LNG export facility in the continental U.S.; Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana began exporting in 2016. But more than a dozen others are in the works — each of them eager to replicate Cove Point’s success.

'It's incredibly harmful': Cape May rally against seismic testing draws crowd -  —  The widespread opposition along the Jersey Shore to planned seismic testing brought together more than 100 residents, local officials, high school students and even some inflatable dolphins at a rally outside the Cape May Convention Hall. The protest comes after the Trump administration last year issued five authorizations to advance permit applications for air gun blasting from Delaware to Florida. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will soon rule on the applications, which would allow oil and gas companies to shoot sound waves into the water every 10 to 15 seconds to locate deposits under the seafloor.  “Our beaches, we can’t afford to lose them. This is our lifeblood down here,”   In New Jersey, there’s been pushback from environmentalists and both political parties who say the testing — a precursor to oil drilling — would harm marine mammals and the state’s multi-billion dollar fishing industry. In Cape May alone, commercial fishing was worth about $85 million in 2017. The sound waves from seismic testing can travel thousands of miles under water, environmental groups say. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has said vessels are required to alert operators if a “protected species” swims within a certain distance of the testing area. Still, some scientists and environmentalists are worried the blasts will cause fish populations to scatter and create disorientation in mammals, said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action.A 2017 study found that seismic testing increased the mortality of zooplankton off southern Tasmania.“If you’re a scallop or marine mammal that’s in the pathway of that, it’s incredibly harmful,” Zipf said.

Government: Offshore drilling prep should go on during suit - — Preparatory work for offshore drilling shouldn’t be halted while a lawsuit challenging the practice moves through the court, according to papers filed Monday by attorneys for the Trump administration. The government wants a judge to deny a preliminary injunction request filed by coastal municipalities that are suing the administration over offshore drilling tests using seismic air guns. The cities and towns want the tests halted while their lawsuit moves forward, arguing that such testing is harmful to marine life and tourism. In its filing, the government says there’s no evidence the communities or nearby wildlife would be adversely affected by the testing, which precedes the drilling itself, saying such an injunction would constitute “extraordinary relief.” Last year, the municipalities, along with environmental groups, sued to oppose the administration’s plans to conduct the tests, challenging permits for the testing. The legal challenge claims that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act in issuing the permits. South Carolina has also joined the lawsuit, which is filed in federal court in South Carolina. Gov. Henry McMaster and Attorney General Alan Wilson, both Republicans, support the state’s effort, which comes in the wake of the Trump administration’s announcement of a five-year plan to open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore reserves to private development. Drilling has stirred emotions and vocal opposition along South Carolina’s coast, with many expressing concern the proposal could cause irreparable harm to the coastal areas that are the heart of South Carolina’s $20 billion tourism industry. Some drilling supporters say it could mean an economic boon for an area increasingly reliant on tourism. The drilling issue has been difficult for McMaster, an ally of Trump. Last year, McMaster was among state executives who requested a drilling waiver, seeking the same sort of promise already given to then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott, another Trump ally. But McMaster supports Wilson’s decision to join the federal action and has repeatedly pledged to protect the state’s coastline.

Dem senators demand offshore drilling info before Bernhardt confirmation hearing - A group of Senate Democrats are calling on the Interior Department to release more details about its anticipated offshore drilling plan prior to next week’s confirmation hearing for acting Secretary David Bernhardt. The group of 17 Senators on Wednesday sent a letter to Bernhardt asking him to provide them a copy of the latest five-year plan currently being drafted by Interior, known as The 2019-2024 National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Draft Proposed Program. Bernhardt is expected to testify in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee next Thursday as part of his confirmation hearing. He was nominated formally by President Trump in March to replace former Interior head Ryan Zinke. “The American public and their elected representatives in Congress deserve to understand your vision for the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) before we consider your nomination to serve as Secretary of the Interior,” the senators wrote. The letter was signed by, among others, Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). It specifically asked Interior to provide them with prior insight into which coastal areas will be included in the draft plan. Former Secretary Zinke first announced last spring that he was directing the agency to develop an offshore drilling plan. A majority of state governors and leaders resoundingly came out against the plan. Since the announcement states have waited anxiously to see whether their concerns have been considered by the federal government, which controls drilling rights three to nine nautical miles offshore.

Florida fracking ban to apply to only certain types of fracking methods - Some forms of fracking could soon be banned in Florida if a new bill passes. A Florida fracking ban, or at least a partial ban on the oil and natural gas exploration method, could come into effect in the near future if a new fracking bill is passed into law. The bill would result in the ban of the two most common forms of the practice, one of which being hydraulic fracturing. Fracking exploration will still be permitted with a rock-dissolving method that uses acid.The Florida fracking ban would prevent hydraulic fracturing, which injects high-pressure liquids into the ground to create fissures in rocks to let pockets of oil and gas flow freely. This method has been associated with earthquakes and has spiked fears of its waste water infecting water supplies.That being said, the bill would still allow a fracking method that was once called matrix acidizing. This method of fracking involves dissolving rock with acid and has been used for decades in the state to clean out or restore wells without reportedly contaminating water supplies or damaging the environment. “The fact is,” says Republican Senator Doug Broxson of Pensacola, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “we have to have that production. Florida has very limited resources as far as what’s in the ground. Let’s don’t interrupt what we’ve done right.”

Bernie Sanders Pledges To Ban 'Fracking' If Elected President In 2020 - Sen. Bernie Sanders, a 2020 presidential candidate, pledged to ban the drilling technique that’s turned the U.S. into the world’s largest oil and natural gas producer. “Fracking pollutes water, degrades air quality and worsens climate change,” the Vermont Independent tweeted Tuesday. “When we are in the White House we are going to ban fracking nationwide and rapidly move to renewable energy.” Sanders was responding to Oregon state lawmakers passing legislation to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. However, Sanders also voiced his opposition to fracking during the 2016 election cycle.  Sanders, who is running on the Democratic ticket, is popular among the so-called “keep it in the ground” movement, which seeks to ban fossil fuels in the name of global warming. Activists in this camp have also pressured candidates not to take fossil fuel industry campaign donations, which Sanders has pledged not to do. Environmentalists have campaigned to ban fracking for years, finding success in New York, Maryland, Vermont and some localities. Like Sanders, activists point to studies alleging links between fracking and water contamination, poor air quality, illness and even birth defects. Activists have largely zeroed in on claims fracking contaminates groundwater. Most notably, the “Gasland” film series featured faucets and even a hose catching on fire because of fracked methane getting into water supplies.

Interest ticks up in US lease sale - The latest auction for oil and natural gas leases in the US Gulf of Mexico generated $244mn in high bids today, almost double last year's total but still below amounts generated before the surge in onshore shale exploration. The lease sale resulted in 227 high bids from 22 companies — a smaller set of participants compared with the March 2018 lease sale even though the sale revenue was higher. The winning bids cover just a fraction of more than 78 million acres (316,000 km²) area offered, at 1.3mn acres. Norway's Equinor submitted the highest bid, at $24.5mn, for a Mississippi Canyon block. Shell submitted the highest number of high bids, 87, for a total of almost $85mn. US independent producers Anadarko and Hess were the next highest bidders by the dollar amount of high bids, with $24mn and $18mn respectively. BP had 23 high bids for $15.5mn, including one submitted jointly with LLOG Exploration. Total submitted two high bids for a total of $15mn. The Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) offered acreage in federal waters offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. That kept up the recent practice of offering all available acreage for offshore development, instead of holding sales separately in the western, central and eastern parts of the Gulf. The lease revenue from Gulf-wide sales remains below pre-2015 levels. The lease sale, for example, for the central part of the Gulf raised $851mn in March 2014 and $539mn in March 2015. But the drop in oil prices in 2014-16 and a shift in exploration to shale formations onshore have since tempered interest in US offshore development. BOEM said it was satisfied with today's results, noting the increase in bids compared with 2018.

U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil and gas auction generates $244 million (Reuters) - A major auction of oil and gas leases in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday received $244.3 million in high bids, government officials said. The revenue generated by the sale was higher than similar sales held last year. Royal Dutch Shell and Equinor were among the high bidders for the leases, officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said in a conference call with reporters following the sale. 

US Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 252 bids focus on blocks near existing fields— Upstream operators in US Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 252 on Wednesday focused much of their bids around existing discoveries or fields in proven productive areas, a harbinger of quicker production from that oil-prone arena and an ongoing trend in recent years. The auction, which fetched $244 million in total high bids and $284 million for all bids, was the strongest in two years in the US Gulf and featured majors, large independents and a handful of smaller companies capturing tracts across the region from offshore Alabama to ultra-deep remote areas near Mexican territorial waters.  Also, "the bidding in potential new plays shows potential growth in Gulf of Mexico [production] in the future, and the consistency of deepwater for the long term." The 30 participating companies were roughly on par with recent sales of the last couple of years, with only ExxonMobil - traditionally one of the biggest spenders in Gulf lease sales - conspicuously absent.  "It seems those left in the Gulf of Mexico are committed to the region and taking this opportunity to quietly strengthen their prospect inventory,"  The sale captured 257 bids spread over 227 blocks, higher than the 171 bids across 144 blocks in the August 2018 sale, when $178 million was placed for high bids. It also surpassed the 159 bids across 148 tracts in the March 2018 auction, which took in $125 million in high bids. Majors and large independents with deeper pockets were especially active in the auction - the first of two sales planned for 2019 - which was live-streamed from BOEM officies in New Orleans. Shell in particular was the winner by far in numbers of apparent high bids (87) - a contrast to its mere three high bids in the August 2018 sale. Sale 252 also snagged a number of multi-million dollar bids from its 30 participants, including some in the eight figures. The highest offer of the sale came from Equinor - $24.5 million for a tract in the prolific lower Mississippi Canyon area that Turner said was adjacent to W&T Offshore's operated Gladden Deep exploration prospect. "It was the most competitive block in the round, receiving four bids totaling over $37 million," he noted. Many blocks that received bids appeared to aim at shoring up existing fields, as the new acreage may hold the potential for new discoveries that can be produced through nearby production hubs. For example, Anadarko Petroleum's apparent winning seven bids in the Viosca Knoll area are sited around its Marlin and Horn Mountain platforms. Hess also was apparent winner of a block for $10.1 million in the central Mississippi Canyon area, northeast of its Tubular Bells development, and also was high bidder on another tract for $4.1 million in Green Canyon, which is about six miles north of its Stampede field that began producing last year. Total wins block near Thunder Horse France's Total - a spare bidder in Sale 252, only winning two blocks - picked up a Mississippi Canyon block for $6 million.

The oil industry continues to undermine the estimates of gulf spills - The president of Taylor Energy, the company responsible for the 14-year-old oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, expressed concern in his March 8 letter, “Mopping up the ‘spill’ record,” that the Coast Guard “recently abandoned a decade of meticulous response actions and scientific collaboration to act recklessly.” This assertion is deeply troubling.  For six years, the public had little to no knowledge of this ongoing disaster. Since 2010, nonprofit advocates regularly have flown over Taylor Energy’s wells, often reporting oil slicks extending more than 10 miles. No camera was installed to monitor the bottom, nor has any continuous effort been made to contain the oil that is reaching the surface of the gulf. The ongoing flow of oil poses a risk to the marine life of the gulf.Taylor Energy disagrees with the Coast Guard’s current estimates of the leak. This is not the first time independent analysis revealed much larger spill rates than were reported by the industry. During the BP disaster, independent analysis of flow rates was more than 10 times that of BP’s initial estimates. Industry self-reporting can be flawed; independent science is necessary. While Taylor Energy has spent millions capping busted wells, oil is still flowing into the gulf at an alarming rate. If this is the “meticulous response” we can expect from the oil industry, it is time we rethink efforts to expand oil development in the gulf and elsewhere.

U.S. Gulf Coast refinery demand for hydrogen increasingly met by merchant suppliers - Petroleum refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast increasingly rely on merchant suppliers, rather than their own production, to provide the hydrogen used to reduce the sulfur content of fuel. As global demand for distillate fuel oil has increased and sulfur content regulations have become more stringent, refineries have needed to use more hydrogen. Hydrogen demand is expected to continue to rise as International Maritime Organization regulations that limit the sulfur content in marine fuels take effect on January 1, 2020.   Petroleum refineries use hydrogen in downstream units, such as hydrocrackers and hydrotreaters, to meet fuel specifications for producing distillate, jet fuel, and other petroleum products. Hydrogen is particularly important in processing low-grade, sour crude slates that are rich in sulfur content. Refineries typically fulfill incremental hydrogen demand by either producing it on-site through steam reforming of natural gas or by purchasing it from merchant suppliers.  As demand for hydrogen increases, U.S. Gulf Coast refiners (those in Petroleum Administration for Defense District 3) are consuming more hydrogen from merchant suppliers than from their own production. Between 2012 and 2017, consumption of hydrogen sourced from merchant suppliers increased from about 1,750 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) to 2,200 MMcf/d, a 25% increase. Over the same period, on-site production of hydrogen from natural gas fell from about 475 MMcf/d to 415 MMcf/d, a 13% decrease. Merchant suppliers accounted for more than 85% of hydrogen consumed by refineries in 2017. The increased use of purchased hydrogen by U.S. Gulf Coast refineries is a response to limitations on the amount of hydrogen that can be produced on-site compared with the supply of hydrogen provided by merchant suppliers. A large share of hydrogen used by U.S. Gulf Coast refineries is supplied by a 600-mile, one billion cubic foot per day network of hydrogen pipelines stretching from Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Houston, Texas.

Planned South Texas LNG terminal gets environmental OK (AP) — Federal regulators have given final environmental approval for a South Texas liquefied natural gas and export terminal in a migratory corridor for rare animals.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday issued its report on the proposed Texas LNG terminal at the Port of Brownsville.Critics raised concerns about habitat of the endangered ocelot, jaguarundi and aplomado falcon. The terminal would be on about 625 acres (252.934 hectares) near the Laguna Atascosa (at-uh-SKOH’-suh) National Wildlife Refuge.FERC says construction and operation would have adverse environmental impacts, but those could be mitigated through planning, design, engineering and training. Recommendations include using electric motors to reduce noise and emissions, installing barriers to control erosion, planting native vegetation and limiting construction during breeding periods. A final permit decision is expected later this year.

 Buyers want certainty as much as good price from second wave US LNG developers - — As they face competitive pressure to lower the price for their offtake, developers of the second wave of US liquefaction capacity are being increasingly pressed by buyers to provide project certainty and make terms more flexible. The three export terminals preparing to start up in the coming weeks and months - Sempra Energy's Cameron LNG, Freeport LNG and Kinder Morgan's Elba Liquefaction -- have all been beset by delays, primarily resulting from construction and weather-related issues. The snags often mean higher costs for contractors, and the change in timing can impact the global supply of LNG and, thus, prices. That history, and ongoing concerns about the pace at which US regulators are approving new permits, has led buyers in Asia, Europe and Latin America to be more selective in whom they sign long-term contracts with among the next wave of projects that are expected to come online in the early to mid-2020s. None of the three projects proposed for Brownsville, Texas -- NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG and Exelon's Annova LNG -- has yet to announce any firm offtake deals. "When we're talking to buyers, what's important to them is flexibility," NextDecade CEO Matt Schatzman said in a telephone interview. NextDecade expects to receive a permit decision from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in July. Commercial operations are targeted to begin in 2023. In the meantime, it is looking to secure a new contractor and to prove commercial viability. NextDecade has said it remains on track to announce at least one firm long-term contract by the end of March, and shore up additional contracts in the second and third quarters to support initial construction of up to three liquefaction trains. The developer also is sticking to its plan to make a final investment decision in the third quarter. The other two Brownsville projects are also trying to gain momentum in a crowded field of second wave developers.   While the three Texas projects have yet to announce binding long-term contracts, new pipeline infrastructure that Kinder Morgan and other operators are planning to connect gas from the Permian Basin with the Agua Dulce trading hub offer hope the terminals will have access to cheap feedgas, aiding talks with offtakers.

ExxonMobil is combating a fire at their Baytown plant -- Officials are still investigating the cause behind a fire at the ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown. Emergency teams are responding to the fire Saturday around 1 p.m. at the complex located 5000 Bayway Drive. ExxonMobil confirmed the fire at the facility, but we are unsure of the cause. Since then, the fire at the refinery was contained and no injuries were reported. Pollution control teams say they are continuing to monitor the air in La Porte and Clear Lake.

 The U.S. Gulf Coast became a net exporter of crude oil in late 2018 --In the last two months of 2018, the U.S. Gulf Coast exported more crude oil than it imported. Monthly net trade of crude oil in the Gulf Coast region (the difference between gross exports and gross imports) fell from a high in early 2007 of 6.6 million barrels per day (b/d) of net imports to 0.4 million b/d of net exports in December 2018. As gross exports of crude oil from the Gulf Coast hit a record 2.3 million b/d, gross imports of crude oil to the Gulf Coast in December—at slightly less than 2.0 million b/d—were the lowest level since March 1986.Several continuing trends pushed crude oil exports higher and imports lower and resulted in the Gulf Coast (defined as Petroleum Administration for Defense District, or PADD, 3) becoming a net crude oil exporter in the last two months of 2018. U.S. crude oil production, particularly in the U.S. Gulf Coast region, has increased in recent years. In November 2018, U.S. Gulf Coast crude oil production set a new record of 7.7 million b/d. The increased production is mostly of light, sweet crude oils, but U.S. Gulf Coast refineries are configured mostly to process heavy, sour crude oils. This increasing production and mismatch between crude oil type and refinery configuration allows for more of the increasing U.S. crude oil production to be exported. As a result, in late 2018, U.S. gross crude oil exports reached new record highs. Because more than 90% of U.S. crude oil exports leave from the U.S. Gulf Coast, crude oil exports from the region also set a record high of 2.3 million b/d in December. In each of the last three months of 2018, the U.S. Gulf Coast exported more than 2 million b/d.

Fire Breaks Out At a Houston-Area Petrochemicals Terminal (AP) -- Some Houston-area residents have been urged to remain indoors as a fire burns at a petrochemicals terminal.The fire started Sunday morning at Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Houston, and continued to burn Sunday night. Deer Park officials issued a shelter-in-place directive after the fire was reported.Efforts to extinguish the fire with foam continue.Harris County officials say the fire started at the terminal that stores petrochemical liquids and gases, including fuel oil and bunker oil. The company's website says the terminal has a storage capacity of 13.1 million barrels.The fire is the second in as many days at a Houston-area petrochemical facility. A fire at an ExxonMobil plant in nearby Baytown that broke out Saturday has been contained.

Houston-area chemical fire expected to burn for days -A raging fire at a petrochemical storage terminal near Houston spread to two more massive tanks after firefighting water pumps stopped working for six hours, the company said on Tuesday.The blaze at Intercontinental Terminals Co (ITC) in Deer Park, Texas, has been burning since Sunday when a leaking tank containing volatile naphtha ignited and quickly spread to other nearby tanks, the company said.The fire has spewed thick, acrid smoke, which is visible from dozens of miles away.The steel containers hold up to 160,000 barrels of liquid products used to boost gasoline octane, make solvents and plastics, according to the company's website.Some of the chemicals have washed into the adjacent Houston Ship Channel that links the Gulf of Mexico to Houston, the nation's busiest petrochemical port, a spokesman said. Some chemicals and water have escaped the site and flowed into a nearby waterway and into the ship channel, he said. ITC has set up containment booms to limit the liquids from spreading and to capture the chemicals. State and federal regulators have said they are monitoring the site. Samuelsen said he had no new timetable for when the blaze will be extinguished. On Monday, ITC had said the fire could burn until Wednesday.

Houston Chemical Fires to Rage for Days Until Fuel Burns Out  -- Petrochemical tank fires that covered the Houston skyline in thick, black smoke will likely burn for two more days or until the fuel runs out, first responders said. Firefighters are in “defensive mode” as they seek to contain a blaze that spread to seven tanks storing liquids used to make gasoline in Deer Park, near the city’s shipping channel, said Ray Russell, a spokesman for Channel Industries Mutual Aid, a petrochemical emergency response organization.First responders are confident that they can stop the blaze spreading beyond the affected 15-tank unit by using foam and water, he said. The facility is owned by Intercontinental Terminals Company, a division of Tokyo-based Mitsui & Co., and has a total of 242 storage tanks located near the Houston Ship Channel to the east of the city, one of the busiest ports along the Gulf Coast.“At this time we are in a defensive mode,” Russell said at a press conference held at 10 a.m. local time. “It is going to have to burn out in that tank or until we complete draining the tank.” Residents have been urged to stay inside and nearby schools and highways were closed as fumes soared up into the sky causing a black haze across the city. However, local officials lifted a “Shelter in Place” order at 5:30 a.m. after air quality was found to be below “action levels.”

Texas petrochemicals blaze blankets Houston area in black smoke - The ongoing fire at a petrochemicals storage terminal in Deer Park, Texas, intensified overnight, blanketing parts of the Houston area in dramatic clouds of black smoke on Tuesday.The blaze ripped through the Intercontinental Terminals facility for a third day, worsening after a drop in water pressure hampered attempts by first responders to contain the fire. By Tuesday morning, flames had engulfed 10 of the facility's 242 tanks, though two were empty.Additional fire-fighting staff arrived on site on Tuesday, Intercontinental Terminals said. Local authorities say the fire could burn for at least another day, the NBC News affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth reported.The fire broke out on Sunday morning in a storage tank containing naphtha, a super light oil used to make high-grade gasoline, jet fuel and petrochemicals. It later spread to tanks containing another gasoline component and a chemical used to make nail polish remover and glue.Despite the stunning images of smoke billowing from the facility, air monitoring continues to show readings are well below hazardous levels, Intercontinental Terminals said in a press release on Tuesday. The company also said no injuries have been reported.Intercontinental Terminals said there is little chance of an explosion, but it's taking precautions by pumping naphtha, which is combustible, out of tanks. The city of Deer Park initially advised residents to shelter in place, but lifted the warning on Monday. The blaze temporarily shut Highway 225, which runs from the city of Houston east to the Houston Ship Channel, where the Intercontinental Terminals facility is located.

Toxic Chemical Inferno Threatens Houston as Black Plume Extends for Miles — The petrochemical fire that has been raging out of control at an oil storage facility in Deer Park, Texas since Sunday is now impacting the greater Houston area by what’s been described as a “plume of thick, black smoke [which] for a third day intensified overnight as pungent fumes pervaded neighborhoods more than 20 miles away,” according to Bloomberg and local reports.The fire which has consumed highly flammable chemical tanks at the Intercontinental Terminals Company oil plant about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Houston remains “uncontrolled” according to local officials.The petrochemical fire had triggered a “shelter-in-place” warning for area residents on Sunday, who were further advised by Deer Park city officials to close air ventilation systems in their homes and close all windows. "Last night was really bad. Hard to breathe." A thick cloud of toxic smoke is stretching for miles as the result of a massive chemical plant fire near Houston. @TVMarci reports from Texas.https://t.co/W1vUNMab63 pic.twitter.com/fBIcrmMlMh Disturbingly, a black plume has settled over downtown Houston and has now reportedly made its way to the city’s northside. Bloomberg cited one local woman who noted, “You can really smell and taste it now.”According to prior local reports, the initial chemical tanks that caught fire were known to contain a highly flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture called naphtha, which is often used as a raw material for production and conversion to gasoline.Bloomberg further described: “…in residential neighborhoods on the city’s north side, a chemical odor descended Tuesday morning on an otherwise clear day.”  Naphtha is classified as “Extremely flammable” and a dangerous irritant to humans if encountered in “high vapor concentration”. According to its chemical safety fact sheet it is “Irritating to eyes and respiratory system. Affects central nervous system. Harmful or fatal if swallowed. Aspiration Hazard.” Now a total of eight storage tanks are reported to be on fire after firefighters dealt with a drop in water pressure while attempting to extinguish the fire Monday evening.

Fire impacts operations at key oil products storage facility in Texas — Operations at the Deer Park tank farm operated by Intercontinental Terminal Company in Texas, United Sates, have been impacted due to a fire at tanks containing refined and petrochemical products, the company said Monday. ITC said that the fire took place on Sunday morning at tanks containing naphtha and xylene and has now affected other storage units. The company said no-one was hurt. The fire could provide support for the gasoline and naphtha markets, both of which have been weak due to surplus supply and tepid demand. "The fire at ITC Deer Park facility has spread to five additional tanks [containing gasoline and base oil blendstocks] adjacent to the tanks already involved in the fire," ITC said in a statement. "All personnel are accounted for and there have been no injuries reported as a result of this incident," it said. The storage facility has a capacity of 13.1 million barrels across 242 tanks, according to its website. It stores all kinds of petrochemical liquids and gases, as well as fuel oil, bunker oil and distillates. The terminal has five tanker docks and 10 barge docks, rail and truck access, as well as multiple pipeline connections. Residents in Deer Park were instructed to remain indoors and shelter because of the ITC fire. "Emergency responders continue to work on controlling the fire using foam and are working to prevent the fire from spreading further," ITC said.

After Earlier Assurances Over Air Quality, Benzene From Petrochemical Fire Triggers ‘Shelter in Place’ Order for Texas City - Despite assurances early in the week from top local officials that air quality was not a threat to public health, residents in the city of Deer Park, Texas are now under a shelter in place order due to elevated and dangerous levels of benzene caused by a mass petrochemical fire in the area. The City of Deer Park remains under Shelter-in-Place orders following reports of elevated benzene levels in the area surrounding the Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC) Deer Park site — City of Deer Park (@DEERPARKTXGOV) March 21, 2019  The fire started last weekend at an oil refinery plant for Royal Dutch Shell at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, a city of just over 32,000 that's 21 miles east of Houston.Since Sunday, a plume of black smoke has been omnipresent in Deer Park skies and air quality has gone from bad to worse, despite assurances from local officials. On Tuesday, Harris County Public Health appeared to downplay the risks posed by the fire in a statement. "Based on current air monitoring reports, there continues to be a low risk to the community because the smoke is several thousand feet above the ground," said the county. That prompted frustration from observers, who feel the city isn't doing enough for its people during the chemical fire crisis. Benzene is notorious for causing many types of leukemia and even aplastic anemia where all the bone marrow dies. It’s unconscionable the government said everything was ok until finally ordering Deer Park residents to shelter in place. People should’ve been evacuated much earlier.— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) March 21, 2019Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told residents the county was monitoring the situation. "It's understandable why people would be scared," Hidalgo said.   The fire is now technically extinguished, but dangerous chemicals are still becoming airborne. County firefighters are working to spray foam over the tanks to stop vapors from escaping, according to the city.

National Guard called into Houston after chemical fire, residents told to stay inside — National Guard troops have been called in and residents were told to stay inside after elevated levels of benzene were detected early Thursday near a Houston-area petrochemicals storage facility that caught fire this week.Harris County officials said the Guard and hazardous materials teams have established perimeters around the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, which is about 15 miles southeast of Houston.The Texas Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that benzene levels near the facility didn't pose a health concern. But authorities issued a shelter-in-place order Thursday following "reports of action levels of benzene or other volatile organic compounds" within Deer Park, according to the city.Several school districts also canceled classes for the day, citing "unfavorable air quality conditions."The fire started Sunday, sending a huge, dark plume into the air for several days before crews extinguished the blaze on Wednesday. The fire spread to storage tanks holding components of gasoline and materials used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner.Environmental groups said residents who live near the facility have experienced various symptoms, including headaches, nausea and nose bleeds. According to the Centers for Disease Control, long-term exposure to the highly flammable chemical causes harmful effects on the blood, including bone marrow.The state Environmental Protection Agency conducted air quality tests throughout the Houston area, both on the ground and from a small airplane, and "measured no levels of hazardous concentrations," agency official Adam Adams said Wednesday. But some residents who live near the storage facility said they didn't have confidence in the air quality test results.

 Houston petrochemical fire put out after it re-ignites, had added to shipping woes - (Reuters) - A petrochemical fire was quickly put out after it had re-ignited Friday at a fuel storage facility outside Houston, which had compounded the danger from a containment wall breach earlier in the day that spilled chemicals and halted ship traffic in the nation’s busiest oil port. The fire in multiple giant tanks of fuel at Mitsui & Co.’s Intercontinental Terminals facility in Deer Park, Texas, was put out by emergency workers at the scene about an hour after it began. But lingering smoke and leaking toxic chemicals prompted the U.S. Coast Guard to halt vessel traffic from the ITC site near Tucker Bayou to Crystal Bay, near the mouth of the channel. Police also halted traffic on a busy highway for a time amid the smoke and air pollution worries. Hundreds of people showed up Friday to be checked at a medical clinic in Deer Park after air monitors a day earlier showed a spike in benzene, a cancer-causing chemical contained in the tanks of gasoline. Friday’s fire erupted on the West side of the facility and engulfed several of the 11 tanks damaged earlier in the week. The tanks contained fuels used to make gasoline and plastics. Each can hold up to 3.3 million gallons. There were no worker injuries reported on Friday, a spokesman for Intercontinental Terminals said. There were about 100 workers at the site on Friday, pumping chemicals from damaged tanks and trying to close a breach in the six-foot-tall containment wall surrounding the site. A portion of the wall suffered a collapse earlier in the day. The chemicals leak prompted the facility to call for a shelter-in-place order for the local area for the third time this week. ITC said emergency workers set up booms to halt the spread of the chemicals spilling from the site. The spill led the U.S. Coast Guard to halt ship traffic along most of the Houston Ship Channel, creating a bottleneck of vessels looking to enter or leave terminals on a key industrial waterway that connects Houston to the Gulf of Mexico. Movement was initially halted on a five-mile stretch between Tucker Bayou and Ship Channel light 116, said Coast Guard Vessel Tracking Service Watch Supervisor Derby Flory, and later expanded. The breach occurred as emergency workers were pumping pyrolysis gasoline from one of the 11 tanks destroyed or damaged during a fire that started Sunday and took more than three days to extinguish. Fumes from the exposed fuels triggered elevated benzene readings on Thursday at an air monitor located near the site. The company said the benzene likely came when the fuels were exposed to the air.

Oil majors rush to dominate U.S. shale as independents scale back (Reuters) - In New Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert, Exxon Mobil Corp is building a massive shale oil project that its executives boast will allow it to ride out the industry’s notorious boom-and-bust cycles. Workers at its Remuda lease near Carlsbad - part of a staff of 5,000 spread across New Mexico and Texas - are drilling wells, operating fleets of hydraulic pumps and digging trenches for pipelines. The sprawling site reflects the massive commitment to the Permian Basin by oil majors, who have spent an estimated $10 billion buying acreage in the top U.S. shale field since the beginning of 2017, according to research firm Drillinginfo Inc. The rising investment also reflects a recognition that Exxon, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP Plc largely missed out on the first phase of the Permian shale bonanza while more nimble independent producers, who pioneered shale drilling technology, leased Permian acreage on the cheap. Now that the field has made the U.S. the world’s top oil producer, Exxon and other majors are moving aggressively to dominate the Permian and use the oil to feed their sprawling pipeline, trading, logistics, refining and chemicals businesses. The majors have 75 drilling rigs here this month, up from 31 in 2017, according to Drillinginfo. Exxon operates 48 of those rigs and plans to add seven more this year. The majors’ expansion comes as smaller independent producers, who profit only from selling the oil, are slowing exploration and cutting staff and budgets amid investor pressure to control spending and boost returns. Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods said on March 6 that Exxon would change “the way that game is played” in shale. Its size and businesses could allow Exxon to earn double-digit percentage returns in the Permian even if oil prices - now above $58 per barrel - crashed to below $35, added Senior Vice President Neil Chapman. Exxon’s 1.6 million acres in the Permian means it can approach the field as a “megaproject,” said Staale Gjervik, the head of shale subsidiary XTO Resources, whose headquarters was recently relocated to share space with its logistics and refining businesses. The firm also recently outlined plans to nearly double the capacity of a Gulf Coast refinery to process shale oil.  

Exxon Plans for $15 per Barrel Permian Costs  | Rigzone -- Exxon Mobil Corp. plans to reduce the cost of pumping oil in the Permian to about $15 a barrel, a level only seen in the giant oil fields of the Middle East. The scale of Exxon’s drilling means that it can spread its costs over such a big operation that the basin will become competitive with almost anywhere in the world, Staale Gjervik, president of XTO Energy, the supermajor’s shale division, said in an interview. Development, operating and land acquisition costs will be “in and around $15 a barrel,” he said on the sidelines of the CERAWeek Conference by IHS Markit in Houston. West Texas Intermediate futures traded at almost $59 on Thursday. “The way we are approaching it is very unique compared to most, if not really everybody out there, as far as the scale," he said. The shale revolution has made the Permian into the world’s largest shale field, with production topping 4 million barrels a day, almost as much as Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest member. But the rapid growth has often meant that producers burn cash flow to reinvest in the expansion, prompting investors to call on them to focus more on returns in 2019. Exxon plans to deploy 55 rigs in the Permian this year, by far the most of any driller, as it aims to increase output in the region fivefold to about 1 million barrels a day by 2024. Its strategy also includes building its own takeaway infrastructure from separation tanks to pipelines, and it’s even joining a giant conduit project to make sure its oil doesn’t get stuck in bottlenecks that have depressed prices in West Texas. Some analysts raised their eyebrows over Exxon’s ambitious plan for the Permian, but Gjervik -- a Norwegian who joined Exxon in 1998 and has worked in Angola, Nigeria and the North Sea -- argues that it’s exactly that kind of massive scale that will help the company generate $5 billion of cash flow from the region by 2023. “Part of this is to get sufficient scale to get capital efficiency out of this,”   Exxon’s Permian expansion pits it against U.S. rival Chevron Corp., which is also aiming for strong growth there. The San Ramon, California-based company announced plans last week for 900,000 barrels a day by 2023.

One Last Warning For The U.S. Shale Patch -  Arthur Berman -  Oil price lost 44% of its value late last year. That price collapse was a signal to tight oil companies to stop over-producing. The message will be repeated until action results.  From October 3 to December 24 2018, WTI fell from $76.41 to $42.53 (Figure 1).  Since then, WTI has recovered to nearly $60/barrel and Brent to about $68. Market observers seem to have largely forgotten the scale of price collapse just a few months ago. Although the magnitude of that collapse was not as great as in 2014-2015, the rate of decline was greater. That is because it occurred more quickly. In 2018, WTI price fell an average of -$0.42 per day for 81 days. In 2014-2015, it fell -$0.29 per day for 218 days (Figure 2).   Analysts are making fairly aggressive calls for 2019 average Brent price of $74 and $83 in 2020. I hope those calls are right but I am less optimistic. That is because the world remains over-supplied with oil. The balance between world oil production and consumption moved from a deficit of -0.24 million barrels per day (mmb/d) in 2017 and early 2018 to a surplus of +0.44 mmb/d beginning in the third quarter of 2018 (Figure 3). Source: EIA STEO and Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc. It is likely that the production surplus will persist through 2019 and possibly 2020 based on EIA forecasts for production and consumption. EIA’s forecast for quarterly WTI price is below $65 per barrel through 2020. The global supply and demand outlook is similar. World oil supply-demand balance reached an over-supply of +1.6 mmb/d in the 4th quarter of 2019. It has fallen to around +0.6 mmb/d today (Figure 4). Forecasts based on EIA supply and IEA demand suggest that the surplus will rise to +1 mmb/d in the second quarter and then, decline through the rest of the year. Market sentiment has turned bullish since OPEC+ cuts were announced late last year even though concern remains about the strength of the global economy and the status of U.S.-China trade talks. I am less concerned about those demand-side issues than about the ongoing over-production in the world generally and in the Permian basin in particular. Despite talk of fiscal restraint by shale companies and more limited capital supply from credit markets, production continues to increase. I share Khalid Al-Falih’s concerns that world inventories are moving in the wrong direction for a sustainable price recovery beyond recent gains. Some analysts seem to forget that world oil prices have been on OPEC+ life support since late 2016 and apparently need even stronger measures in 2019.

US oil and gas production outlook for 2019: Permian, Bakken, Appalachian – podcast - S&P Global Platts senior gas writer J. Robinson talks with Platts Analytics senior oil and gas analyst Taylor Cavey about some of the biggest trends in upstream production for 2019, with a look at Permian Basin supply growth and constraints, Bakken flaring, and the looming slowdown in drilling across the Appalachian Basin.

 For second year in a row, Enbridge Energy spends the most in Minnesota on lobbying - Enbridge Energy Partners spent just over $11 million lobbying Minnesota state government in 2018 — almost all of it advocating before the Public Utilities Commission — according to data released this week by the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.Enbridge also topped the list last year, when it spent $5.3 million. For the past several years Enbridge has advocated before the PUC for the highly contentious Line 3 oil pipeline, a $2.6 billion project to replace a corroding pipeline across northern Minnesota with a larger pipe along a different route. The commission approved the project last summer.Many of the other largest spenders were also energy companies and utilities that advocated before the PUC, including Xcel Energy, CenterPoint Energy and Freeborn Wind Energy. Altogether, those companies, along with unions, nonprofits and other groups, spent more than $15 million on legal fees and other expenses at the Public Utilities Commission.

EIA Mar '19 Drilling Report: Numbers Tweaked, Record Gas - Yesterday our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, issued our favorite monthly report, the Drilling Productivity Report. The DPR is a forecast of oil and gas production in the country’s seven major shale plays for the coming month, made by the expert number crunchers at EIA.The latest DPR shows that the Marcellus/Utica region (called Appalachia in the report) will go up by another 358 million cubic feet of natural gas production per day (MMcf/d) next month, in April. However, we have to be cautious with these numbers. Last month EIA said that this month, in March, Appalachia would produce 31.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of gas. Yet this month’s report says Appalachia will produce 31.5 Bcf/d in April, down a bit. How can our output go “up 358 MMcf/d” yet be less than the month before? Here’s how: EIA revises their numbers in each month’s report. They have revised March output from a previously-predicted 31.6 Bcf/d (made last month), to now saying March will be more like 31.1 Bcf/d. Gotta watch those revisions!Overall, natural gas production across all seven major shale plays will hit yet another all-time high record: 79.0 Bcf/d in April (if the numbers hold). The Marcellus/Utica will also hit a new record high: 31.5 Bcf/d (if the numbers hold). Below are the three charts the EIA doesn’t include in the official PDF of the report (for whatever reason). We think these are the three best charts they issue each month. Note to EIA: these charts need to be in the PDF! Below is a copy of the full, official March 2019 DPR, which estimates production volumes for the coming month of April 2019. Note that as actual numbers roll in, EIA updates the numbers from previous monthly reports, as they have done with this one. The March numbers in this report are tweaked, quite a bit, from last month.

 U.S. oil drillers cut rigs for fifth week in a row- Baker Hughes - (Reuters) - U.S. energy firms this week reduced the number of oil rigs operating for a fifth week in a row to its lowest in nearly a year as independent producers follow through on plans to cut spending on new drilling with the government cutting its growth forecasts for shale output. Drillers cut nine oil rigs in the week to March 22, bringing the total count down to 824, the lowest since April 2018, General Electric Co’s Baker Hughes energy services firm said in its closely followed report on Friday. That is the first time the rig count has declined for five weeks in a row since May 2016 when it fell for eight consecutive weeks. More than half the total U.S. oil rigs are in the Permian basin, the nation’s biggest shale oil field, where active units fell by six this week to 459, the lowest since May 2018. The U.S. rig count, an early indicator of future output, is still a bit higher than a year ago when 804 rigs were active after energy companies boosted spending in 2018 to capture higher prices that year. Drilling this year has slowed with the rig count contracting for the past three months as independent exploration and production companies cut spending as they focus on earnings growth instead of increased output with crude prices projected to decline in 2019 versus 2018. U.S. oil output from seven biggest shale formations, the nation’s major producing regions, was expected to rise by 85,000 barrels per day (bpd) in April to a record 8.59 million bpd, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its monthly drilling productivity report on Monday. The increase, however, would be the smallest monthly increase since May 2018, continuing a pattern of shrinking growth. The EIA last week already forecast total crude production was expected to grow slower than previously expected in 2019 but still average a record high 12.3 million bpd, from the all-time high at 11.0 million bpd in 2018. U.S. crude futures rose over $60 a barrel this week for the first time in four months due to supply cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies and U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela.

Wastewater – private equity’s new black gold in U.S. shale - (Reuters) - Mike Christensen strides among rows of gleaming steel tanks, pointing to pipelines that arrive from miles around to this corner of former farmland near Midland, Texas, the heart of the largest oil patch in the United States. His company is one of dozens opening sites like this one that handles, not the lucrative oil, but the shale industry’s dirty secret: wastewater. While U.S. oil production has reached record levels on account of the shale revolution of the last decade, much of the supporting infrastructure has failed to keep up, including how to transport the large quantities of water used in the hydraulic fracturing process and the water that is produced from wells alongside oil and gas. Once managed individually by energy producers, the job of supplying, collecting and disposing of water is a rising cost, and has spawned a $34 billion a year business in the U.S. that has lured investors including TPG Capital, Blackstone Energy Partners LP and Ares Management Corp to back these firms. Oil production in the Permian basin that spans West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is expected to rise to rise 35 percent to 5.4 million barrels of per day (bpd) by 2023, requiring even more water supply and disposal, said analysts. In two New Mexico counties, firms produced 505 million barrels of oil from 2016-2018, and five times that in water, a Reuters analysis of state production data showed. “You can’t bring production online until you have a solution for the water,” There are 5,500 Permian wells to be drilled, requiring 2.75 billion barrels, or 115 billion gallons to complete, a Morgan Stanley report estimated. While much of the water in the Permian is transported for high fees by trucks, which also exacerbate traffic congestion around production sites, midstream companies build and use pipelines which energy producers pay to utilize. Christensen’s company, On Point Oilfield Holdings, owns a water disposal network that this year will take up to 375,000 bpd of wastewater. Some of that water will be recycled, but millions of gallons will eventually be sunk deep underground in West Texas. “Water was always an afterthought for producers,” said Christensen, who stretches him arm and draws a 360-degree arc to show the locations of lines carrying oilfield bilge to the site. “Now it’s a business plan in itself.”

This State Wants Oil Companies to Treat and Recycle Fracking Waste Water – --Fracking requires a huge amount of water, a major concern in dry Western states that otherwise welcome the practice. But New Mexico thinks it can mitigate that problem by pushing oil companies to treat and recycle fracking waste water for use in agriculture — or even as drinking water.State officials, with the help of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, are still working out the details. If they move forward with the strategy, other arid states may follow New Mexico’s lead.“Oil and gas in New Mexico provide over a third of our general fund,” said Ken McQueen, who heads the New Mexico Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources. “We have to be concerned we’re doing what’s necessary into the future to make sure this industry continues to be alive and vibrant.”In addition to keeping a vital industry going, McQueen thinks the reclaimed waste water could be a boon to New Mexico farmers and ranchers who need water for their crops and herds. Factories could use it, and it might help revive parched wildlife habitat, he said. And even though the waste water is filled with salt and other minerals, it might even be treated and used for drinking. In a typical month, the amount of waste water generated by the fracking process in New Mexico, the country’s third-largest producer of oil, would be enough to fill Elephant Butte, the state’s largest lake. But even in the nation’s fifth-driest state, where water is as precious as crude, environmentalists are skeptical of a strategy many state leaders view as a greener approach to dealing with waste water. Even after it is treated, they argue, the water can be tainted by harmful metals or chemicals used in fracking, creating long-term risks for people and the environment. “If they go without challenge, these plans will forever change New Mexico’s water,” the Red Nation, a Native American advocacy group, said in a statement released in advance of a protest at a recent oil and gas industry conference in New Mexico. The new regulations would “guzzle up the region’s scarce and sacred freshwater resources for fracking and then ‘re-introduce’ dirty water back into the hydrological cycle.”

Oil spill in San Juan River reaches Sand Island - Crews are working to cleanup an oil spill in the San Juan River near the Sand Island boat ramp in Bluff. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said three or four barrels of the oil reached the San Juan River when a leaking transmission pipeline was found at a wellhead gathering facility near Montezuma Creek in an area adjacent to the Navajo Nation. Other sources now site that more than 25 barrels (more than 1,000 gallons) of oil have spilled, but the EPA has not posted any updated documents or information about the spill to its website since March 3. [Photo courtesy of EPA]

Forest Service Rejects Oil, Gas Leasing in Nevada's Ruby Mountains — The U.S. Forest Service today rejected an earlier plan to lease public lands for oil drilling and fracking in Nevada’s iconic Ruby Mountains. The Trump administration proposal to auction off 54,000 acres of the Rubies was met with overwhelming public opposition in Nevada. “This is a resounding victory for the Rubies and the wildlife that call them home,” said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s a testament to the power of the people to resist the Trump administration’s destructive frack-anywhere agenda.”  The Ruby Mountains, in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, are famous for the state’s largest mule deer herd, world-class skiing and breathtaking vistas. Rising 7,000 feet above the floor of the Great Basin desert, the Rubies are a majestic sky island harboring robust populations of Nevada’s most cherished wildlife. The Forest Service’s original plan to auction off the Rubies prompted Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) last month to introduce the Ruby Mountains Protection Act (S. 258) to permanently ban oil and gas leasing on 450,000 acres. The fracking plan also brought more than 13,000 comment letters in opposition, concerns from the Nevada Department of Wildlife and efforts from the Nevada State Legislature Public Lands Committee to protect the Rubies from leasing and fracking. 

US Oil & Gas plc continues in permitting process as it seeks to frack Nevada well - US Oil & Gas told investors that dialogue is continuing with regulatory agencies regarding its permit application for the hydraulic fracturing of the Eblana-3 well in Nevada.The explorer added that it has undertaken a comprehensive study of local water resources, requiring multiple samples be collected over an extended period and be independently analysed.A report has been submitted to the authorities, and additional data is now being collected.“The company wishes to emphasise that the implementation of the fracking plan and the associated operational timetable is contingent on regulatory approvals,” it said in a statement released on Friday. “Every effort is being made by the company to satisfy requirements, but no timescale can be offered for the completion of the process.”USOG also told investors that volumes of data collected in the previous Eblana-3 drilling phase are currently being integrated with all other data sets/ It added: “The company views the results of these latest studies as highly encouraging, supporting the belief that its Hot Creek Valley lease area features a major oil system analogous to that in Railroad Valley. “Highly prospective targets are clearly emerging from these studies and will form the basis of a multi-well development proposal now being prepared.”

 Colorado’s tougher approach to oil and gas advances in House as Democratic lawmakers weigh climate change push - State lawmakers’ attempt to re-focus Colorado’s regulation of the $10 billion fossil-fuel industry gained momentum Monday after scores of supporters and opponents packed a first committee hearing in the House on the proposed oil and gas legislation. The House Energy and Environment committee approved Senate Bill 181 by a 7-4 vote following a marathon hearing that lasted late into the night. The oil and gas bill next goes to the House Finance committee.Democratic lawmakers also are looking at a more aggressive approach to climate change with a bill to be introduced this week that would adopt theParis climate agreement’s goals, possibly as mandates, for reducing greenhouse gas emissions — linked to global warming — as part of Colorado law.“It is a shift. We’re not going to be promoting” oil and gas extraction, House Speaker KC Becker, D-Boulder, said of the oil and gas legislation. “But they (state regulators) are still going to be providing permits” for new drilling.These efforts to reform how Colorado handles fossil fuels “are related” to efforts to step in, along with other states, where President Donald Trump has stepped out in fighting global warming, Becker said, calling climate change a critical issue.Colorado still relies on coal, a major source of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, for more than half of the electricity that the state’s residents use, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data. “It affects Colorado particularly because of our geography,” Becker said. “We have a responsibility in this state to step forward … We’re going to see more catastrophic weather events. All we can do is our part to contain it.” Industry leaders who are engaged with the oil and gas legislation are accepting requirements that companies control methane, a potent heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. Becker praised this, saying industry leaders “are recognizing their own role and stepping forward on addressing methane emissions.”  Behind the scenes, the 33-page draft bill has been tweaked to insert the words “reasonable” and “necessary” as checks on local power, a compromise for the industry. These legislative “guardrails” are aimed at making sure local governments and state regulators do not overreach in regulating industry operations. Even without that language, however, government agencies cannot legally take arbitrary or capricious action against companies.

Trump administration lifts protections on federal land, opens leases to energy industry - Walking back a 2015 regulation under President Obama, the Trump administration on Friday finalized a move to lift protections on nearly 9 million acres of federal lands for the greater sage grouse, with the aim of expanding leases for the oil, gas and mining industry, reports the Washington Post. Also this week, the Interior Department spelled out plans to keep the Atlantic coast in its program to expand offshore oil-and-gas leasing despite criticism. Per WaPo: “In pursuit of that agenda over the past two years, the administration has sought to reverse dozens of regulations aimed at making oil platforms safer, reducing carbon dioxide and methane released into the atmosphere, and protecting the habitats of endangered animals and those on the verge of an endangered status.”

 Obama-Era Oil Leases Broke the Law by Not Assessing Climate Impact, Judge Rules - — The Obama administration violated federal law by failing to adequately take into account the climate change impact of leasing public land for oil gas drilling in Wyoming, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.But the decision by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia could also present a legal threat to President Trump’s agenda to quickly expand oil and gas drilling and coal mining across the nation’s public lands and waters. That’s because the decision amounts to a road map that could be used to challenge hundreds of Trump administration leases as well.However, experts said that, while the decision could lead to legal delays for the drilling expansion envisioned by Mr. Trump by tangling them in litigation, it was unlikely to halt it entirely. Tuesday’s decision by Judge Rudolph Contreras, which applied specifically to an Obama-era plan by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management to lease several thousand acres of land for drilling in Wyoming, also concluded that the agency was legally required to consider the climate impact of all such lease sales for fossil fuel development.“This is the first court ruling that specifically tears apart the Interior Department’s failure to take into account the climate change of impact on drilling, on a national scale,” said Jeremy Nichols, the climate change and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. In his decision, Judge Contreras wrote that, under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, federal agencies are required to consider and quantify the effect of the possible planet-warming emissions associated with the fossil fuels to be extracted from the sales of such leases. Already, that law requires the federal government to consider the on-site environmental effects of oil and gas drilling, such as water pollution and the effects on plants and animals of road construction.  “What this decision says is, in evaluating the environmental consequences of the lease, an agency has to look not just at the consequences of the impacts immediately surrounding the lease but also the consequences down the road of burning the fuel once it’s extracted,” said Richard L. Revesz, an expert on environmental law at New York University. “That’s enormously important.”The Bureau of Land Management protested that it “would be required to identify any past, present, or reasonably foreseeable greenhouse-emitting projects worldwide,” an “impossible” scope of analysis. Judge Contreras wrote that the agency was correct in that the law “does not require the impossible.” But he wrote, “In short, BLM did not adequately quantify the climate change impacts of oil and gas leasing.”

US judge halts hundreds of drilling projects in groundbreaking climate change ruling -In the first significant check on the Trump administration’s “energy-first” agenda, a US judge has temporarily halted hundreds of drilling projects for failing to take climate change into account. Drilling had been stalled on more than 300,000 acres of public land in Wyoming after it was ruled the Trump administration violated environmental laws by failing to consider greenhouse gas emissions. The federal judge has ordered the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages US public lands and issues leases to the energy industry, to redo its analysis. The decision stems from an environmental lawsuit. WildEarth Guardians, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Western Environmental Law Center sued the BLM in 2016 for failing to calculate and limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from future oil and gas projects. The agency “did not adequately quantify the climate change impacts of oil and gas leasing”, said Rudolph Contreras, a US district judge in Washington DC, in a ruling late on Tuesday. He added that the agency “must consider the cumulative impact of GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions” generated by past, present and future BLM leases across the country.The decision is the first significant check on the climate impact of the Trump administration’s “energy-first” agenda that has opened up vast swaths of public land for mining and drilling. Environmental advocates are praising the move, with Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program director, calling it a “triumph for our climate”. “This ruling says that the entire oil & gas drilling program is off the rails, and moving forward illegally,” said Nichols.

U.S. judge blocks drilling over climate change, casting doubt on Trump agenda (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has blocked oil drilling planned in Wyoming because the government failed to adequately consider its impact on global warming - a decision that could complicate President Donald Trump’s broader efforts to expand oil, gas and coal output on America’s public lands. The ruling, by Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, was issued late on Tuesday, according to court documents. It blocked drilling on more than 300,000 acres (121,400 hectares) in Wyoming until the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management conducts further analyses about how the development would impact climate change. “Having reviewed the record and the relevant law, the Court concludes that - withholding judgment on whether BLM’s leasing decisions were correct - BLM did not sufficiently consider climate change when making those decisions,” Judge Contreras wrote in the order. A spokesperson for the Department of Interior would not comment on ongoing litigation. Conservation groups - including WildEarth Guardians which jointly launched the lawsuit in 2016 - said the decision marked an important precedent that could force the Trump administration to put the brakes on its pro-fossil fuels agenda. “While the judge’s ruling relates to lands that were leased for fracking in Wyoming, the judge made clear the Interior Department and its Bureau of Land Management have to start accounting for the impacts of oil and gas development on a regional and national scale,” Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth, said in an email. 

One of America's biggest oil companies wants to be 'carbon neutral' -- eventually - Occidental Petroleum, one of America's most aggressive drillers of oil, is trying to figure out a way to wipe out its vast carbon footprint. Vicki Hollub, Occidental's CEO, told the Financial Times that she wants her oil company to eventually be "carbon neutral." Occidental, a leading shale oil producer and the No. 5 US oil company by market valuation, is experimenting with ways to capture greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions released by its operations. "I'm thinking about the long term for our shareholders," Hollub told the FT. "We want to be the company that's producing the last barrel of oil." A spokesman for Occidental confirmed the accuracy of the remarks attributed to Hollub, but declined to comment further. The pledge could help make Occidental an environmental leader among US oil companies, which are grappling with a backlash over the environmental impact of drilling activities. "It's the largest American oil company to set the goal of becoming carbon neutral," said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James. Occidental's push to use carbon capture technology may have a dual-pronged benefit. It could save the company money while simultaneously quieting pressure from shareholders who are worried about climate change. "It's a very elegant solution. It's environmentally friendly and there is an economic value to it," said Molchanov.

Tank leak causes brine, oil spill in Divide County, ND -- A tank leak caused a brine and oil spill at a well in Divide County earlier this month, but it wasn’t reported until several days later, according to the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division.Future Acquisition Co. reported that 300 barrels, or 12,600 gallons, of brine and 10 barrels, or 420 gallons, of oil spilled on March 6 at a well about 4 miles southwest of Fortuna. The spill was verbally reported to a state inspector on March 11, and a spill report was filed on Monday, said Katie Haarsager, spokeswoman for the Oil and Gas Division.North Dakota regulations require spills to be reported within 24 hours. The brine and oil have been recovered and were contained within the diking on the well site, according to the Oil and Gas Division.

Oil spill being cleaned up at McKenzie County well site (AP) — A spill of 12,600 gallons of oil is being cleaned up at a well site in McKenzie County.The state's Oil and Gas Division says Oasis Petroleum North America reported the Monday spill at the well 8 miles north of Watford City and cited a valve leak as the cause. The spilled oil was contained on-site and most had been cleaned up by Wednesday afternoon. A state official inspected the site and is monitoring cleanup.

Saltwater and oil leak at Divide County well recovered (AP) — A leak of about 12,600 gallons of saltwater and 420 gallons of oil has been recovered at a well in Divide County. The state Oil and Gas Division says Future Acquisition Company on Monday reported the March 6 spill at a well about 4 miles southwest of Fortuna. The company said a tank leak was to blame. All of the oil and saltwater was contained by on-site diking. A state official inspected the site and will monitor any additional cleanup.

Keystone XL construction still banned following appeals court ruling - The $8 billion Keystone XL Pipeline, blocked by a U.S. District Court judge in Great Falls after construction began last fall, remains in limbo while the legal tussle over its construction continues following a key decision last week. Calgary-based TransCanada, which is building the oil pipeline, asked the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an injunction on the pipeline's construction previously issued by U.S. District Judge Brian Morris, who is seated in Great Falls. On Friday, the higher court denied a motion by TransCanada to overturn Morris' work stoppage. "The record shows that the district court carefully considered all applicable factors in denying the stay of its injunction," a two-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in its decision. "We see no abuse of discretion in refusing to stay the order. The district court has previously narrowed the scope of its injunction." Friday's order leaves in place a ban on construction while the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals considers an appeal by TransCanada and the State Department of Morris' original order overturning the pipeline's permit.

Firefighters knock down blaze at Carson oil refinery  - A fire erupted Friday night at an oil refinery in Carson but was knocked down after about three hours. Television footage showed a section of the Phillips 66 refinery in the 1500 block of East Sepulveda Boulevard engulfed in large flames and plumes of black smoke spewing into the sky. After almost three hours battling the fire, Los Angeles County fire officials said in a tweet that the blaze had been knocked down. One person was being treated at the scene for an unspecified injury, fire officials said. Three of the facility’s four crude oil pumps were involved in the fire, which started about 7:45 p.m., according to county fire officials. The pressurized pumps were shut down to cut off the flow of oil that was fueling the blaze, the department said in a tweet. Fire crews could be seen on the television footage drenching large pipes and two tanks in the area of the flames. Several storage tanks farther away were not at risk, fire officials said. There were no orders given for people in the area to evacuate or warnings about health risks caused by the smoke. 

Oregon House approves 10-year fracking ban - The Oregon House on Monday voted by a large margin to approve a 10-year ban on fracking in the state, according to a report by The Oregonian. The state house voted 42-12 in favor of outlawing the practice, in which pressurized liquid is injected into deep-rock formations to allow oil and natural gas to escape. There are no current fracking operations in Oregon but developers have long eyed the Willamette Valley as a potential site for methane fracking, according to The Oregonian. The vote makes Oregon the fourth state to ban the practice after New York, Vermont and Maryland. Florida and New Mexico are also considering bans or restrictions.Ban advocates claim the practice pollutes groundwater and contributes to earthquakes. The bill next heads to the state senate, which Democrats also control by about the same margin.“Oregon’s natural beauty should be cherished and protected,” said bill sponsor Rep. Rachel Prusak in a press release. “This legislation is a common sense proposal to ensure that no one engages in this potentially destructive practice while we work to better understand its long-term impacts.” “I am pleased that this legislation received bipartisan support today,” said Rep. Ken Helm (D), who co-sponsored the bill. “When it comes to protecting this state, we all have a vested interest in being thoughtful about how we regulate new industries that could have significant long-term impacts.”

 Major Pipeline Delays Leave Canada’s Tar Sands Struggling - March has brought a string of setbacks for Canada's struggling tar sands oil industry, including the further delay of two proposed pipelines, a poor forecast for growth and signs that investors may be growing wary.  On Friday, a federal appeals court in California refused to lift a lower court order that blocks construction of the Keystone XL pipeline until a thorough new environmental assessment is completed. The decision likely pushed back by a year the start of major work by TransCanada, Keystone XL's owner, to complete the project. The same day,  ExxonMobil affiliate Imperial Oil said it was delaying a new tar sands project in Alberta, likely by a year.Those setbacks followed an earlier announcement by Enbridge, another pipeline operator, that it would delay the completion of its Line 3 expansion through northern Minnesota by a year, to late 2020. That project is one of two other major pipelines planned to carry oil out of Canada's tar sands, also called oil sands. While western Canada's production grew slowly but steadily in recent years, companies struggled to complete new pipelines. Opposition from climate activists and indigenous groups, slow regulatory processes and volatile oil prices have led to a series of delays and cancellations.The effect has been to weaken the prospects of future growth in tar sands production and to drive away investors. Last year, the provincial government in Alberta—home to nearly all of Canada's tar sands—said it would curtail production this year in an effort to steady the market. By constraining supply, government officials hoped to boost prices that had been pushed down as companies struggled to export their oil. The government said the move was temporary, and at the time it expected Enbridge's Line 3 to ease pressure in late 2019. With that project's start date now pushed back by a year, and with Keystone XL likely delayed too, investors are growing jittery about Canada's oil sector. "For oil sands, we're seeing the lowest investment in 15 years."

Is Canada's Arctic Drilling Ban Hurting Its Oil Industry-?   Canada is lagging behind other oil producers in tapping its offshore oil and gas resources because of the moratorium on drilling in its Arctic waters in place since 2016 and up for review in 2021, according to Paul Barnes, Atlantic Canada and Arctic director for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). In December 2016, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canadian Arctic waters are indefinitely off limits to new offshore oil and gas licensing, and this ban would be reconsidered every five years through a science-based review.The recent moves by the U.S. Administration to re-open Arctic Alaska to drilling means that Canada faces “lost opportunities” in exploring its own Arctic waters, The Canadian Pressquoted CAPP’s Barnes as saying.The Arctic drilling moratorium creates uncertainties in the Canadian oil industry and deprives the country of the chance to compete for investment in exploration, according to Barnes.Yet, Canada’s Northern Affairs minister Dominic LeBlanc says that the ban is necessary to allow extensive consultations and ensure development that respects environment, The Canadian Press reports.Just yesterday, CAPP said in a new report that Canada’s abundance of natural resources can help the country’s economy, but only if Canada overcomes the current market challenges by building new pipelines and other energy infrastructure. The shortage of oil pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure “are crippling our ability to compete for global market share,” CAPP said.

Husky working to retrieve subsea connector linked to largest oil spill in N.L. history - Work is underway to recover the faulty flowline connector believed to be responsible for an oil spill off the coast of Newfoundland last fall. Husky Energy says subsea operations to retrieve the connector and plug the flowline began Friday at the offshore site of the SeaRose production vessel as a window of good weather opened up. Once retrieved, the connector will be inspected for insight into the November incident that saw 250,000 litres of oil leaked into the ocean. A statement says 47.5 litres of residual oil was released from the flowline during Saturday’s operations, observed as a “light sheen” on the water that a spokesperson says was “managed” following the company’s spill response plan. The company says Saturday’s oil release was anticipated and reported no seabirds spotted on the water at the time. Operations were paused on Sunday due to weather-related complications and are expected to continue on Monday. 

Canada's Alberta increases crude output limit for May and June (Reuters) - The Canadian oil-producing province of Alberta will increase crude production limits by 25,000 barrels per day in May and a further 25,000 bpd in June, the government said on Monday. The increases mean that by June, oil companies will be limited to 3.71 million bpd of production. Alberta mandated production cuts this year to ease congestion on export pipelines that resulted in crude getting bottlenecked in storage and the discount on Canadian heavy crude widening to record levels. “This temporary policy has been critical to reducing the oil price differential while we move ahead with our medium-term plan to ship more oil by rail and lead the long-term charge for new pipelines as we fight to get full value for the resources owned by all Albertans,” Premier Rachel Notley said in a statement. The government said the increase in production limits comes as warmer weather reduces the amount of diluent needed to help oil sands bitumen flow through pipelines, increasing capacity. Diluent is any ultra-light hydrocarbon mixed with viscous bitumen to enable it to flow. The government said giving production limits two months in advance gives the energy industry and markets greater certainty when making decisions. Some producers like MEG Energy (MEG.TO) supported curtailments because the move boosted prices, but it was criticized by integrated producers including Suncor Energy (SU.TO) and Imperial Oil (IMO.TO) whose refining operations were benefiting from cheap crude. Critics also blasted the government for making crude by rail shipments uneconomic and adding to volatility in the Canadian crude market. On Friday, Imperial canceled a $2.6 billion oil sands project in northern Alberta, blaming the uncertainty caused by government intervention in the market. Alberta is leasing 4,400 rail cars to ship 120,000 bpd of crude out of the province and ease pipeline congestion, with the first shipments due to begin in July. 

Mexico's Pemex plans to triple oil well drilling this year to boost output (Reuters) - Mexico’s national oil company Pemex plans to triple the number of wells it will drill this year, the company’s chief executive said on Monday, in a bid to grow crude output and reverse more than a decade of declining production. The government-funded plan involves drilling 506 new wells spread across 20 recently-discovered fields, according to a presentation from Pemex CEO Octavio Romero. That would be more than three times the number of wells Pemex drilled in 2018. The plan should yield more than 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) in new oil output by 2022, according to the presentation, which would mark a new record for Pemex, formally known as Petroleos Mexicanos. “In Petroleos Mexicanos’ entire history, it has perhaps never developed 20 new fields in one year,” he said at President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s regular news conference. Romero said oil output was running at 1.68 million bpd. “We can expect this level of production to be maintained and that it will begin to grow from this year,” he said. By the end of Lopez Obrador’s six-year term in 2024, Pemex’s crude production was expected to average nearly 2.5 million bpd, he said. Last year, its output averaged 1.8 million bpd. Romero said Pemex’s production plan this year also includes building 13 new offshore platforms to service 16 shallow water projects, all clustered around the southern tip of the Gulf of Mexico. The offshore projects will be serviced by 14 new underwater pipelines covering some 109 miles (175 km) to move the expected new streams of production. Separately, Romero added, three new drilling platforms will be built to service four nearby onshore discoveries, as well as the expansion of nine others. Thirteen new onshore pipelines will also be built, covering 55 miles (88 km). 

Pemex stabilizing crude oil production, expects to increase drilling by 200%- CEO— Pemex has stabilized its crude oil production at 1.68 million b/d in March and expects to raise it by the end of the year as the state-owned Mexican oil company boosts drilling activity by 200% year on year in 2019, according to CEO Octavio Romero Oropeza. "According to the company's technical team, we have stopped our [oil production] decrease ... and we can expect an increase [in output] starting this year," Romero said Monday at the commemoration of Mexico's nationalization of its oil industry. Pemex will drill 506 wells in 2019, compared with 80 wells in 2018, which would be its highest level since 2014, he added. The company expects to post average oil production of 1.72 million b/d in 2019, Romero said. The company is currently developing 20 onshore and shallow water fields to boost production. Pemex's production has been on a continual decline since it peaked at 3.4 million b/d in 2003 as major offshore fields like Cantarell enter their last few years. These areas will reach a combined peak production of 320,000 b/d by 2022, according to a presentation by Romero. Four of these fields are onshore, and the other 16 are in shallow waters. To develop the shallow water projects, Pemex ordered the construction of 13 production platforms and 175 km of offshore pipeline. It will also tie these areas to eight existing production facilities. Pemex is going to drill 72 offshore and 44 onshore wells to develop the 20 areas. About 80% of the work has been awarded so far using integral service contracts, Romero said. By using this development scheme, Pemex saved over Peso 15.6 billion ($820 million) in expenditure compared with 2018 reference prices, he added. On Monday, Lopez Obrador urged private companies holding exploration and production contracts to expedite their investments and increase production, adding that he will honor upstream contracts signed by the previous administration. During Lopez Obrador's term, Mexico will find which model is better: awarding more areas to private companies or assigning them directly to Pemex for their development. "We are going to compete against these private contracts, and we are going to show that Pemex can be more efficient than private companies." Lopez Obrador said, adding: "That is our challenge."

Colombia shelves ConocoPhillips, Canacol requests fracking licenses: sources (Reuters) - Colombia has shelved two environmental licensing requests made by oil companies ConocoPhillips and Canacol Energy Ltd for fracking projects in northern Cesar province, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. Colombia does not yet allow hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, but the government says use of the technique could nearly triple Colombia’s oil and gas reserves. An expert commission convened by the government to study non-conventional exploration methods has recommended strict monitoring of three pilot projects to determine whether the techniques should be widely used. The companies did not meet minimum conditions for the Piranga project, a source from the licensing authority said, while the Plata project raised possible water protection concerns. U.S.-based ConocoPhillips and Canada’s Canacol can request to re-open the licensing process for the projects in the future, the source said, adding the decision is not a definitive no. ConocoPhillips had an 80 percent stake in the projects and Canacol the remaining 20 percent. ConocoPhillips said it was reviewing the decision. A source at Canacol said the company was doing the same. Several other companies, including state-run Ecopetrol, have applied for fracking licenses. 

Brazil's Petrobras to sell $10 billion in assets by end of April- CEO -— Brazilian state-led oil producer and refiner Petrobras expects to ramp up its divestments in the near term, with a series of deals expected to close by the end of April, according to Chief Executive Roberto Castello Branco. "An asset-sales program already exists, but now we have a much more aggressive divestment program," Castello Branco said during an event Friday at the private Getulio Vargas Foundation, or FGV. "I believe that in the first four months of the year, we're going to carry out $10 billion in divestments and we intend to do much more than this going forward." Petrobras currently is targeting $26.9 billion worth of sales in the 2019-2023 period, according to the company's most recent five-year investment plan. But the company announced last week it would expand the sales to additional onshore and shallow-water mature oil and natural gas fields, midstream and downstream assets. The fresh assets are part of the company's new resiliency plan, Petrobras said. While the sales target appears aggressive given Petrobras' failure to meet its 2017-2018 divestment goal and pending legal challenges to the sales, the company has enough assets currently in the binding phase of negotiations to quickly make good on Castello Branco's forecast. The biggest asset up for sale is gas pipeline operator Transportadora Associada de Gas, which is expected to fetch more than $7.5 billion. Last week, Petrobras reopened bidding for interested parties that have not yet participated in the sales process and want to submit a binding offer. Petrobras previously was in exclusive talks to sell 90% of TAG to France's Engie. TAG operates more than 4,505 km of pipelines across 10 states in Brazil's north, northeast and southeast, with 10 compressor stations and 91 access points. Petrobras is also in the binding phase of talks to sell two fertilizer plants to Russia's Acron.

How Russia Gets To Build Its Most Controversial Pipeline - Moscow and Berlin are holding talks on the future of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, yet again, despite the fact it is already under construction. Whatever these talks bring, the overarching picture is that this highly controversial project is now all but sure to go ahead, and on time at that. Understanding why and how this played out provides insight into how Russian energy projects can defy sizeable political risks by securing buy-in from key capitals and corporations.  The pipeline has faced myriad challenges. First and foremost from the US government, which also opposed the original Nord Stream pipeline linking Germany and Russia’s gas networks. The first pipeline was inaugurated in November 2011. And right from its launch, Gazprom and a consortium of European energy firms announced plans for second link, despite it taking another six years for the first to approach full capacity. US efforts against the pipeline escalated after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Sanctions on Russia’s energy industry came quick on the heels of annexation. Gazprom and the project, however, were not directly targeted. The fraying of relations between Russia and the West was not limited to the US. Warsaw also significantly escalated its efforts to block Nord Stream 2. It employed Poland’s antitrust regulator to try and block the project. The reason for Poland’s animosity? Nord Stream 2, if completed, will be a game changer for Russian gas exports to western and central Europe. It will allow Moscow’s gas deliveries to bypass not only Ukraine, but also most eastern European nations. A series of Russian-Ukrainian gas spats between 2005 and 2009 caused an intermittent shortage of supplies as far downstream as Switzerland. Yet the completion of Nord Stream 2 and the ensuing ability to transfer up to 55 billion cubic meters of gas annually via Germany would give the Kremlin a largely free hand in cutting off supplies to gas-dependent eastern European nations without risking such a backlash.

Italian oil and gas company will plant forests to make up for polluting - Eni SpA committed to eliminating all carbon dioxide emissions from its oil and gas exploration and production operations by the end of the next decade, in part by planting forests on a large scale.The Italian giant’s plan, which entails planting 20 million acres of forest in Africa, is the latest example of major oil companies bowing to pressure to do more to prevent runaway climate change. Its European peers Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell Plc have also set targets to reduce the carbon emitted from their own operations.“Our objective is to achieve net zero emissions in our upstream business by 2030,” Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi said in the company’s strategy update on Friday. “We will accomplish this by increased efficiency to minimize direct upstream CO2 emissions and offsetting residual upstream emissions through large forestry projects.”The forests planted in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Ghana should be removing about 20 million tons a year of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2030, Eni said. That would offset residual emissions from the company’s upstream business, which it also plans to reduce through greater operational efficiency and minimizing waste. Eni will spend about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) on “circular economy” initiatives such as these over the next four years.Beyond forests, Eni has been investing in converting two of its crude oil refineries in Italy -- Gela and Venice -- to instead use vegetable oils. Venice is the first refinery in the world converted from processing traditional fossil fuels to biofuels, the company said.  Unlike Shell and Total, Eni didn’t offer any plans to target emissions from the products they sell to consumers, the biggest portion of these companies’ impact on the climate. Eni also announced on Friday that it will reward investors with a four-year share buyback and an increase in its dividend.

  Analysis- South Korea slashes LNG taxes for power producers by 75%, boosting LNG potential— The South Korean government Tuesday gave its final approval to lower taxes on LNG used for power production by 75%, and raise those on thermal coal by 28% from April 1, in a move likely to boost downstream gas consumption. The decision is likely to boost LNG demand from the world's third-largest LNG importer. South Korea imported 42.7 million mt of LNG in 2018, up 15% from a year earlier, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. The decision is driven by the government's efforts to reduce the country's heavy reliance on coal and increase the use of natural gas and renewables amid growing air pollution concerns. South Korea's energy tax regime has traditionally triggered criticism that it does not do enough to cut coal demand and increase competitiveness of LNG prices. "Currently, total taxes on LNG are Won 91.4/kg, much higher than taxes on coal at Won 36/kg, said an official with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. "But through the tax rate changes from next month, total taxes on LNG will be lowered to Won 23/kg, compared with Won 46/kg on coal." The tax benefit, however, is applicable to LNG used in electricity generation, not city gas households and businesses, the official said. Taxes on LNG for power production, which comprise consumption tax, import surcharge and import tariff, will be lowered to Won 23/kg ($0.02/kg) from Won 91.4/kg currently. Consumption tax will be reduced to Won 12/kg from Won 60/kg, import surcharge will be lowered to Won 3.8/kg from Won 24.2/kg, and imports tariffs will remain unchanged at Won 7.2/kg. Import surcharge and tariffs are used to fund the country's energy projects, according to the ministry official. Consumption tax on thermal coal will increase to Won 46/kg from Won 36/kg currently, after rising from Won 30/kg in April 2018. There are no import surcharge or import tariffs on coal. "The tax measure would reduce the country's fine dust production by 427 mt/year," the official said. In an additional measure to reduce coal consumption, the country has closed four coal-fired power plants aged over 30 years from March through June 2018. The government is also pushing to reduce operations at the other coal-fired power plants during the off-peak spring seasons, the official said.

 Massive gas reserves close to being tapped – Alice Springs News -- “If two percent of that becomes economic, that’s INPEX.”As Parliament debated gas legislation today Alister Trier (at left), Chief Executive of Department of Primary Industry and Resources, was addressing some 250 mining personnel at the AGES conference in Alice Springs, the biggest in six years.He was talking about the estimated gas reserves in the Beetaloo Basin, between Tennant Creek and Katherine.INPEX, of course, is the Japanese company that has just finished building the biggest commercial complex in Darwin, to handle gas from the Timor Sea and ship it out.The onshore gas Mr Trier was talking about is “right next-door to a pipeline”.He named his Powerpoint file “implementation” and he maintained his low key while speaking about an issue that had nearly torn the NT apart.The word fracking did not pass his lips. It is “hydraulic fracturing” that is now entering the phase of “preparing for exploration,” according to the conference program. Mr Trier ended his speech on a sober note – like the rest of it: “With the concerns of the community, and the issues floating around, there have always been some tensions around these activities.

Russia will be fully compliant with OPEC-led supply cuts by April, energy minister says - Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday that Moscow will be fully compliant with OPEC-led supply cuts over the coming weeks. "As far as the meeting is concerned we, of course, discussed the situation with the execution of the agreement (and) we stressed once again that Russia is discharging its obligations in accordance with the agreement to smoothly achieve the target output," Novak told CNBC's Dan Murphy in Baku, Azerbaijan, according to a translation. "As for the target output level that forms part of the signed agreement, we plan to reach those figures by the end of March (or) beginning of April. This is earlier than in the same period two years ago by about one month." His comments come three months into a fresh round of production cuts from the so-called OPEC+ alliance. The producers meet in mid-April to review their oil supply cut agreement, which is scheduled to last through the first-half of 2019. The Middle East-dominated group, alongside non-OPEC allies such as Russia, agreed to reduce output by 1.2 million barrels per day (b/d) for six months. OPEC's share is 800,000 b/d, to be delivered by 11 members — with Iran, Venezuela and Libya exempt from cuts. When asked whether Russia would support an extension to the cuts, Novak replied: "It is a little premature to talk about this. The deal after all covers the first six months of the year so any extension will be discussed in May or June this year." Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister, Khalid al-Falih, said on Sunday he was "optimistic" about the prospect of continued commitment to the OPEC-led production cuts.

OPEC scraps April meeting but keeps oil cuts in place (Reuters) - Oil producer group OPEC on Monday scrapped its planned meeting in April and will decide instead whether to extend output cuts in June, once the market has assessed the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran and the crisis in Venezuela. A ministerial panel of OPEC and its allies recommended that they cancel the extraordinary meeting scheduled for April 17-18 and hold the next regular talks on June 25-26. The energy minister of OPEC’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, said the market was looking oversupplied until the end of the year but that April would be too early for any decision on output policy. “The consensus we heard ... is that April will be premature to make any production decision for the second half,” the Saudi minister, Khalid al-Falih, said. “As long as the levels of inventories are rising and we are far from normal levels, we will stay the course, guiding the market toward balance,” he added. The United States has been increasing its own oil exports in recent months while imposing sanctions on OPEC members Venezuela and Iran in an effort to reduce those two countries’ shipments to global markets. Washington’s policies have introduced a new level of complication for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries as it struggles to predict global supply and demand. “We are not under pressure except by the market,” Falih told reporters before the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting in the Azeri capital, Baku, when asked whether he was under U.S. pressure to raise output. U.S. President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of OPEC, blaming it for high oil prices. Trump’s sanctions policies have been the key factor behind a price rally, many OPEC members say, having removed more than 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian and Venezuelan crude from the market. Brent oil prices hit a 2019 peak above $68 per barrel last week. Saudi Arabia needs a price of around $85 per barrel to balance its budget. OPEC and its allies agreed in December to cut output by 1.2 million bpd - 1.2 percent of global demand - during the first half of this year in an effort to boost prices. The JMMC, which also includes non-OPEC Russia, monitors the oil market and conformity with supply cuts. Asked if he had been updated on whether Washington would extend its waivers for buyers of Iranian crude, which are due to end in May, Falih said: “Until we see it hurting consumers, until we see the impact on inventory, we are not going to change course.” 

Saudi-Russia Oil Alliance Shows Signs of Strain -  The partnership at the heart of the OPEC+ alliance showed further signs of strain after Russia pressured the Saudi-led group to delay a decision on the future of their production cuts. The unusual recommendation to cancel next month’s scheduled meeting means the group probably won’t decide whether to prolong its supply curbs until late June, just days before they expire. At talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Monday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak convinced the committee overseeing the output cuts that the scheduled April meeting would be too soon to agree to an extension. Khalid Al-Falih, the Saudi energy minister who had initially been in favor of making a decision at that time, acquiesced, saying “April will be premature.” For now, the supply curbs that have buoyed Brent crude by 25 percent this year are secure, and the nations present in the Azeri capital said they will go beyond their pledged cuts in the coming months. Still, the cancellation is the latest in a number of disagreements between the two largest and most powerful members of the 24-nation coalition. While there’s general backing within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for an extension, with members including Iraq voicing support behind closed doors, Novak remains opposed, according to one delegate, who asked not to be named because the talks were private. If that difference can’t be resolved in the coming months, it sets up a high-stakes meeting in Vienna on June 25 to 26 that could give oil traders very little time to adjust to a major shift in supply. "The need for close ties between Saudi and Russia has diminished," "The delay of the OPEC meeting seems to point to a Russia reticence to commit to more cuts and to leave any decision as late as possible before committing further."

Trump grants Iraq a new 90-day sanctions waiver to buy Iranian energy — The Trump administration is granting Iraq a renewed 90-day waiver exempting it from U.S. sanctions on Iran, a State Department official told CNBC on Tuesday.The waiver, last issued in December and which expired on the morning of March 19, will allow Iraq to continue buying electricity from its neighbor even as the White House pledges a maximum pressure campaign against Tehran. “While this waiver is intended to help Iraq mitigate energy shortages, we continue to discuss our Iran-related sanctions with our partners in Iraq," the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.Despite being OPEC's second-largest producer of oil, years of war and lack of investment have left Iraq dependent on Iranian natural gas plants for up to 45 percent of its electricity.The Trump administration reinstated sanctions on Iran last year after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which lifted economic restrictions on Iran in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program. The White House is carrying out a "maximum pressure" campaign against the Islamic Republic in an effort to counter what it deems its "malign and destabilizing activity" around the world.Iraq is a special case, putting the administration in an awkward position as putting too much pressure on Iran — Baghdad's third-largest trading partner — could lead to destabilization in Iraq. Iraq imports some 28 million cubic meters of Iranian natural gas daily, which powers up to 1 million Iraqi homes, but the country still faces severe power shortages thanks to its outdated power infrastructure and frequent failure to pay its bills. Without continued sanctions exemptions, Iraq could lose more than a third of its power overnight, energy analysts say. Already burdened by failing infrastructure, pockets of ISIS activity and poor public service provision, the scenario makes Iraq a "ticking time bomb," according to Michael Stephens, a regional expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

U.S. aims to cut Iran oil exports to under 1 million bpd from May - sources (Reuters) - The United States aims to cut Iran’s crude exports by about 20 percent to below 1 million barrels per day (bpd) from May by requiring importing countries to reduce purchases to avoid U.S. sanctions, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. U.S. President Donald Trump eventually aims to halt Iranian oil exports and thereby choke off Tehran’s main source of revenue. Washington is pressuring Iran to curtail its nuclear program and stop backing militant proxies across the Middle East. The United States will likely renew waivers to sanctions for most countries buying Iranian crude, including the biggest buyers China and India, in exchange for pledges to cut combined imports to below 1 million bpd. That would be around 250,000 bpd below Iran’s current exports of 1.25 million bpd. “The goal right now is to reduce Iranian oil exports to under 1 million barrels per day,” one of the sources said, adding the Trump administration was concerned that pressing for a complete shutdown of Iran’s oil in the short-term would trigger a global oil price spike. Washington may also deny waivers to some countries that have not bought Iranian crude recently, the sources said. The U.S. reimposed sanctions in November after pulling out of a 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers. Those sanctions have already halved Iranian oil exports. To give time to importers to find alternatives and prevent a jump in oil prices, the U.S. granted Iran’s main oil buyers waivers to sanctions on the condition they buy less in the future. The waivers are due for renewal every six months. “Zeroing out could prove difficult” one of the sources said, adding a price of around $65 a barrel for international benchmark Brent crude was “the high end of Trump’s crude price comfort zone.” Brent crude settled at $67.55 a barrel on Wednesday. Both sources said they were briefed by the Trump administration on the matter but were not authorized to speak publicly about it and asked for anonymity. 

Iran just struck a hoard of deals with Iraq, and Washington isn't happy -- Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has returned from his first-ever trip to Iraq with a raft of agreements for expanded trade, cross-border infrastructure, and pledges of greater cooperation with Baghdad. Leaders of both countries embraced strengthening ties — something Washington has been watching closely. Iran is upping its game in Iraq as U.S. influence recedes, deepening ties with its war-weary neighbor and betting on bilateral economic activity to help offset tough sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. Iraq is "another channel for Iran to bypass America's unjust sanctions ... this trip will provide opportunities for Iran's economy," a senior Iranian official on the trip was quoted as telling Reuters last week. The Trump administration reinstated sanctions on Iran last year for what it deemed "destabilizing and malign activities around the world," and the country's economy has since been in a tailspin. With a massive shared border and religious and cultural ties — and the major role of Iranian-backed paramilitaries in Iraq's defeat of the Islamic State — the Islamic Republic's influence in Iraq is entrenched. Rouhani and Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi signed memorandums of understanding across sectors including trade, oil, health, mining, visa-free travel, and perhaps most significantly a railway that would connect Iraq's southern oil-rich city of Basra to Iran's border.  U.S. officials see Iran's growing inroads into Iraq, and they don't like it. "Iran's actions are aimed at subverting Iraqi sovereignty and making Iraq dependent on Iran," a senior State Department official told CNBC on Monday. He echoed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent charge that Tehran wanted to turn Iraq into a "vassal state."

U.S. warns it can act against people helping Iran evade energy sanctions (Reuters) - The United States reserves the right to take action against any person helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions on energy shipments, a State Department official said on Friday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was responding to a request for comment on a Reuters report this week that at least two tankers have sent Iranian fuel oil to Asia in recent months despite U.S. sanctions against such shipments. “The United States, in cooperation with our allies and partners, is closely monitoring efforts by the Iranian regime to evade U.S. sanctions,” said the official. Washington “reserves the right to designate any person engaging in or facilitating these activities in accordance with our laws.” President Donald Trump last year abandoned a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers. In November, his administration reimposed sanctions on Iran’s energy exports to cut off the country’s main source of revenue. Trump aims to use the sanctions to pressure Iran over not only its nuclear program, but now also its ballistic missile program and backing of militants in Syria and other Middle Eastern countries. The shipments in question were loaded onto tankers with documents showing the fuel oil was Iraqi. But three Iraqi oil industry sources and Prakash Vakkayil, a manager at United Arab Emirates (UAE) shipping services firm Yacht International Co, said the papers were forged. The shipments show how some traders have revived tactics that were used to skirt sanctions against Iran between 2012 and 2016. A State Department official recently told Voice of America, a news organization funded by the U.S. government, that the Trump administration would go after anyone conducting off-coast ship-to-ship transfers of Iranian oil and is working with foreign governments to monitor the behavior. David Peyman, the deputy assistant secretary of state for counter threat finance and sanctions, said U.S. authorities will take actions against ship owners, managers, insurance providers and mortgagees linked to ships involved. “If you are engaged in evasive action, which is really the worst kind of violation when it comes to U.S. sanctions, we will hold you accountable,” Peyman told the VOA.

US sanctions are an 'attempt against our lives,' Venezuela's petroleum minister says - Venezuelan Petroleum Minister Manuel Quevedo has denounced U.S. sanctions against Caracas as a "direct attack" on its citizens. His comments come at a time when the oil-rich, but cash-poor, country is suffering the Western Hemisphere's worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory. "The powers of the United States are out in front of this attack," Quevedo told CNBC at the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee Meeting (JMMC) in Baku, Azerbaijan on Monday. "With a political objective, they are trying to economically choke our country, our people, and appropriate our petroleum wealth." The U.S. imposed targeted crude sanctions against Venezuela's state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) and resources sector in January, choking a critical source of revenue for President Nicolas Maduro's embattled government. Quevedo, a former National Guard official who also serves as the head of the state oil company, has been personally sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for his involvement in funding the regime through PDVSA. "It affects all Venezuelans when they attack PDVSA, when blackouts happen like the one that happened in our country," Quevedo said, referring to last week's vast power failure that plunged millions of its citizens into almost complete darkness and put some essential services to a stop. "People in hospitals died because of this blackout – that was an attack. For what? To impact the petroleum industry. So, it is no longer a purely economic attack, but an attempt against our lives," he said. A failure at the Guri hydropower plant earlier this month pitched most of the South American country into darkness for days. The outage crippled the OPEC member country's oil exports and left millions of citizens struggling to find food and water. Power was eventually restored to much of Venezuela, but many areas remain without electricity. It is widely expected that normal services may not resume for weeks.

U.S. ‘’Oil Weapon’’ Could Change Geopolitics Forever - In a dynamic that shows just how far U.S. oil production has come in recent years, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Monday that in the last two months of 2018, the U.S. Gulf Coast exported more crude oil than it imported.  Monthly net trade of crude oil in the Gulf Coast region (the difference between gross exports and gross imports) fell from a high in early 2007 of 6.6 million b/d of net imports to 0.4 million b/d of net exports in December 2018. As gross exports of crude oil from the Gulf Coast hit a record 2.3 million b/d, gross imports of crude oil to the Gulf Coast in December—at slightly less than 2.0 million b/d—were the lowest level since March 1986. U.S. oil production hit a staggering 12.1 million b/d in February, while that amount has been projected to stay around that production mark in the mid-term then increase in the coming years. The U.S. is the new global oil production leader, followed by Russia and Saudi Arabia, while Saudi Arabia is still the world’s largest oil exporter – a factor that still gives Riyadh considerable leverage, particularly as it works with Russia, and other partners as part of the so-called OPEC+ group of producers. However, Saudi Arabia’s decades-long role of market swing producers has now been replaced by this coalition of producers, reducing Riyadh’s power both geopolitically and in global oil markets. In short, what Saudi Arabia could once do on its own, it has to do with several partners. Evidence of growing American energy clout was evident last week when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the oil industry  to work with the Trump administration to promote U.S. foreign policy interests, especially in Asia and in Europe, and to punish what he called “bad actors” on the world stage. Pompeo made his remarks at IHS Markit’s CERAWeek conference in Houston, where U.S. oil and gas executives, energy players and OPEC officials usually gather annually to discuss global energy development. Pompeo’s added that America’s new-found shale oil and natural gas abundance would “strengthen our hand in foreign policy.” He added that the U.S. oil-and-gas export boom had given the U.S. the ability to meet energy demand once satisfied by its geopolitical rivals. This is the first time, in at least recent history, that American officials have considered using oil production and exports for geopolitical advantage. Moreover, Pompeo’s comments can be viewed as a reversal from the so-called oil weapon that Arab producers have used on the U.S. and its western allies for decades, including both the unsuccessful 1967 Arab oil embargo and the 1973 Arab oil embargo that brought the U.S. and its allies to their knees, driving up the price of oil four-fold and contributing to severe economic headwinds for the West and a geopolitical and economic shift that still persists to the current.

$60-$70 oil is the 'pain threshold' for the US and OPEC, JPMorgan says - An oil price of between $60 and $70 per barrel is both a "sweet spot" and "pain threshold" that rival oil producers in the U.S. and OPEC can tolerate when it comes to the price of oil and production, according to the head of EMEA Oil & Gas Research at JPMorgan."$60-70 is the pain threshold that works both for the U.S. (and OPEC)" JPMorgan's Christyan Malek told CNBC on Monday. "Above $65 and you saw oil being released from (the U.S.') strategic (oil) reserves and we saw tweets from Trump (criticizing OPEC's production cuts). Equally, $65 to $70 is a level where Saudi and OPEC can manage in the context of their fiscal oil break-even (price per barrel). They'd ideally like higher but it does feel like the sweet spot," he said.Brent crude futures are trading at $67.26 Monday and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is trade at $58.46. Malek said that the trouble with cutting production -- and the corresponding rise in oil prices -- is that it encouraged more output from U.S. shale producers as the price per barrel becomes more attractive. More production from U.S. shale producers could affect supply and demand dynamics, putting downward pressure on oil prices if supply outweighs demand. "The issue, however, is that at that (price) level you are seeing more U.S. shale production, more non-OPEC non-U.S. production, meaning that what you could end up seeing is a transient period of tightness but just a continuation of this oversupply that continues to recur over the next 6-12 months so you never actually see a tight market."

Trump's sanctions and OPEC supply cuts are about to push oil prices higher: Morgan Stanley - OPEC's supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela will push the oil market into undersupply and boost the cost of crude in coming months, Morgan Stanley forecasts.  The investment bank previously said oil prices were more likely to fall after Brent crude topped $65 a barrel last month. But Morgan Stanley now sees the international benchmark for oil prices rising to $75 by the third quarter.Analysts at Morgan Stanley say they changed their minds after last week's CERAWeek by IHS Markit energy conference in Houston. They are now more convinced that OPEC has the determination and capability to drain oversupply from the oil market."Conversations with several OPEC officials left us with the impression that Brent in the mid-$60s is not where the cartel would like to see it," Morgan Stanley global oil strategists Martijn Rats and Amy Sergeant said in a research note Tuesday."We assume that OPEC will extend – or even deepen – production cuts to support the oil market at the next meeting in June." OPEC and its partners aim to keep 1.2 million barrels per day off the market. On Monday, the alliancecanceled an April meeting intended to review the supply deal, leaving the output cuts in place until the June gathering. Members of the pact believe the market will remain oversupplied through the first half of the year, making the April meeting unnecessary.

Oil dips on weak economic outlook, but OPEC-led cuts still support - (Reuters) - Oil prices dipped early on Monday, weighed down by concerns that a global economic downturn may dent fuel consumption.However, crude markets remain broadly supported by supply cuts led by producer group OPEC and by aggressive sanctions bythe United States against Iran and Venezuela.Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were at $67.03 per barrel at0053 GMT, down 13 cents, or 0.2 percent, from their last close,but not far off the $68.14 per barrel 2019-high reached lastweek.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures CLc1 were at$58.37 per barrel, down 15 cents, or 0.3 percent, from their last settlement, and also not far off their 2019-high of $58.95from the previous week."The greatest downside risk to our oil price view is demand weakness on slower economic growth. Our base case is that global oil demand will increase by 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in2019... A synchronized global slowdown in growth could push global demand growth to below 1 million bpd," analysts at Bernstein Energy said on Monday.Despite this, oil prices have gained around a quarter since the start of the year amid U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela, and as the Organization of the Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC) and non-affiliated allies like Russia - known as OPEC+ - have pledged to withhold 1.2 million bpd in supply toprop up prices.Top crude exporter and OPEC's de-facto leader Saudi Arabiasaid on Sunday balancing the oil market was far from done as inventories were still rising, signalling it may need to expand output cuts into the second half of 2019. Russia also said production cuts would stay in place atleast until June.

Middle East sour crude trading picks up as summer requirements emerge - — Trading activity in the Middle East sour crude spot market for cargoes loading over May is expected to accelerate this week now that allocations from producers and feedstock requirements from refineries have been largely determined for the month. The market structure for benchmark Dubai crude spreads has remained rangebound, with the M1/M3 cash Dubai spread hovering within the 60-cents/b band for most of last week. The structure picked up a notch on Friday, rising to 70 cents/b at the close of trading in Asia for the week, but dipped to 67 cents/b in mid-morning trading hours (0300 GMT) on Monday. The majority of spot market trading for May loading cargoes is expected to be concluded in the days ahead, now that refineries have concluded feedstock requirements, while term customers of Middle East producers have now received confirmation on allocated volumes to be loaded. Most recently, Iraq's SOMO was heard to be offering several million barrels of its Basrah Light and Heavy crude grades for April loading via private tenders this week. Thailand's PTT was also seen on the market with a buy tender for sour crudes, while Petroleum Brunei is offering two 600,000-barrel cargoes of Malaysia's middle distillate rich Kimanis crude in a separate tender. More tenders will continue to emerge as the week wears on, traders said on Monday. Last week, Qatar Petroleum's tenders for Al-Shaheen crude and low sulfur condensate proved as forebears for the market, with participants using award levels to gauge sentiment, they said. QP sold three 500,000-barrel clips of medium sour Al-Shaheen crude to various buyers in Asia, at premiums averaging around 92 cents/b over Platts front-month Dubai crude assessments on a FOB basis. The state-owned entity also sold two 500,000-barrel cargoes of its low sulfur condensate to South Korean refiners at discounts of around $3.50/b to Dubai, trade sources told S&P Global Platts. There were no deodorized field condensate cargoes offered in the QP condensate tender as the grade is fully committed to term buyers, according to company sources. Full subscription of term volumes has been a key theme for Asian refiners this month, as summer demand for distillate-rich grades ramps up alongside relatively firm buying sentiment for medium and heavy sour crudes yielding fuel oil.

Oil closes in on four-month highs on OPEC cuts, U.S. stock draw (Reuters) - Oil prices rose to near four-month highs on Monday, supported by the prospect of extended OPEC-led oil supply curbs and signs of inventory declines in U.S. crude stockpiles. Brent crude futures settled at $67.54 a barrel, rising 38 cents, or 0.6 percent. The international benchmark held near its 2019 peak of $68.14 reached on Thursday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled at $59.09 a barrel, adding 57 cents, or 1 percent, after hitting a four-month high at $59.23. “We will leave open the likelihood of fresh Brent highs especially with OPEC+ reaffirming their commitment to cut production further via the past weekend’s ministerial session,”  The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, met in Azerbaijan this weekend to monitor their crude supply reduction pact, where they said they would exceed commitments in the coming months. The group also canceled their April meeting, meaning the producer group will not meet again until June. Saudi Arabia on Sunday signaled producers may need to extend the 1.2 million barrels per day of curbs past June into the second half of 2019. The kingdom has in general been cutting more dramatically than some other nations, while Russia, the largest non-OPEC member in the pact, is less enthused about continuing production cuts. “As long as the levels of inventories are rising and we are far from normal levels, we will stay the course, guiding the market toward balance,” said Saudi minister Khalid al-Falih. Exports from OPEC’s biggest producer fell to 7.3 million bpd in January from 7.7 million bpd in December, official data showed. Signs of falling crude inventory levels at the U.S. storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma also supported futures, market participants said. Crude stockpiles at Cushing, the delivery point for WTI, fell 1.08 million barrels in the week to Friday, traders said, citing data from market intelligence firm Genscape. Overall U.S. crude inventories were forecast to have drawn down last week, the second consecutive weekly decline, a preliminary Reuters poll showed.

Oil Price Rally Hits Resistance - Oil prices held onto gains at the start of the week, keeping WTI and Brent at four-month highs. OPEC’s assurances that cuts will remain in place for the next few months – including potentially over-compliance – firmed up prices. When OPEC announced the production cuts last December, it said that it would review the next steps at a meeting in April. Now, it appears that the group will push off a decision until the June meeting, at which point there will be more clarity on the Iran sanctions waivers and the impact of the production declines in Venezuela. American officials said that the global oil market can withstand the removal of all Iranian oil exports this year, according to Bloomberg. No decisions have been made on waivers yet. Refining margins have been poor for gasoline, but strong for distillates. That trend will continue ahead of the IMO regulations in 2020 that will reduce sulfur content in marine fuels, raising demand for distillates. Bloomberg reports that refiners are likely going to reduce planned maintenance periods, or front-load them in the first half of 2019, in anticipation of a strong period leading up to the implementation of the IMO rules.  A potential meeting between Trump and Xi Jingping that could put an end to the trade war has been pushed off until June, back from a proposed meeting later this month or for April.  ExxonMobil’s Baytown refinery caught fire over the weekend. The facility’s gasoline hydrofiner, which removes sulfur from fuel, caught fire and was billowing smoke. Separately, Phillips 66’s (NYSE: PSX) shut a crude unit on Friday near Los Angeles after it caught fire. The incidents could put pressure on gasoline stocks and prices. The Phillips 66 unit could have a bigger impact since California does not have interconnections with the rest of the country’s refining system. The impact on petrochemical production is so far unclear.  A U.S. court had previously ordered TransCanada to halt construction on the Keystone XL pipeline while an environmental review played out. TransCanada appealed the decision but last week lost that appeal in a subsequent court ruling.

WTI Rebounds After Second Weekly Surprise Crude Draw - Oil's gains were capped today as China trade talk headlines spoiled the party. “China has been the real driver behind oil demand globally for the last decade and if that is turned off, it is going to make people very nervous,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. API

• Crude -2.133mm (+1.75mm exp)
• Cushing -317k
• Gasoline -2.794mm
• Distillates -1.607mm

After a surprise crude draw last week, expectations were for a build but API reported a surprise 2.133mm crude draw (and draws across all products and at Cushing). WTI faded back after attempting to tag $60 intraday ahead of the API print, kneejerked down to $59 the figure, before bouncing higher after the print. “There was some technical trading, trying to get that push up toward the big round number psychologically at $60, and it failed just short of it,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York hedge fund focused on energy.

 Oil prices hit 2019 highs on OPEC cuts and U.S. sanctions (Reuters) - Oil prices held close to four-month highs on Tuesday on expectations that OPEC would continue production cuts through the end of the year and ahead of official weekly U.S. crude inventory data. Brent crude oil futures settled 7 cents higher at $67.61 a barrel, the global benchmark’s highest settlement since November 2018. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures touched its highest since November at $59.57 a barrel but finished at $59.03 a barrel, falling 6 cents. Prices inched up in post-settlement trade after data from the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry group, showed a surprise draw-down on crude inventories. Crude stocks fell by 2.1 million barrels in the week to March 15, to 446.8 million, compared with analysts’ expectations for an increase of 309,000 barrels, the data showed. [API/S] Official Energy Information Administration (EIA) figures are expected on Wednesday. [EIA/S] Oil prices have rallied more than 20 percent since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies began to curb supplies at the start of the year. After a short gathering in Azerbaijan, the producer group on Monday scrapped its planned meeting in April and will decide instead whether to extend output cuts in June, once the market has assessed the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran and the crisis in Venezuela. Some analysts expressed concern that the cancellation was related to tension between Saudi Arabia, the de facto head of OPEC, and Russia, the largest producing non-member of the group that agreed to production cuts last year. The move to cancel the meeting favored Russia over Saudi Arabia, which originally wanted to use the meeting to extend output curbs until the end of the year, Commerzbank said in a note. OPEC will next meet in June. Both benchmarks weakened after Bloomberg reported U.S. officials were concerned Beijing was pushing back against Washington’s demands during trade talks, lowering hopes for a resolution to the tariff war that has threatened global oil demand.

Why This Oil Price Rally Has A Limit - The crisis in Venezuela threatens to disrupt the global oil market, but OPEC has a much stronger base of spare capacity that offers a “supply cushion,” according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). “Although there are signs that the situation is improving, the degradation of the power system is such that we cannot be sure if the fixes are durable. Until recently, Venezuela’s oil production had stabilised at around 1.2 mb/d,” the IEA said in its March Oil Market Report. Independent analysts have estimated that Venezuela’s oil exports may have temporarily plunged as low as 500,000 bpd after ports and other oil operations went offline due to the blackout. The electricity losses have been mitigated somewhat in recent days, and a key oil export terminal recommenced operations, but the threat to supply is significant. Nevertheless, for the global oil market, the disruption does not present an apocalyptic scenario because OPEC has plenty of oil sitting on the sidelines to handle any lengthy outages from Venezuela’s 1.2 mb/d of production. “Due to the cuts, OPEC members are sitting on about 2.8 mb/d of effective spare production capacity (Iran and Venezuela are excluded from the calculation), with Saudi Arabia holding two-thirds of it.” By backing out 1.2 mb/d of production, OPEC has tightened up the market. But it also rebuilt spare capacity. So, while the oil market is tightening, and a deficit is looming, the spigot can be turned back on. It’s the exact opposite scenario of last summer, when OPEC was producing flat out, helping to add barrels onto the market, but burning through spare capacity.Moreover, as the IEA notes, the quality of production that is being held on the sidelines by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies is similar to that of the heavy oil in Venezuela. “Therefore, in the event of a major loss of supply from Venezuela, the potential means of avoiding serious disruption to the oil market is theoretically at hand,” the IEA said. Even so, the market has been tightening. Demand has been “solid” at a time when OPEC has been keeping barrels off of the market. The IEA sees a surplus in the first half of 2019, but a deficit of about 0.5 mb/d in the second half.

Oil beats retreat from four-month high on fears for US-China trade progress - Oil prices fell on Wednesday, retreating from four-month highs struck in the previous session. Crude futures have drawn support this week from ongoing supply cuts led by producer club OPEC and U.S. sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. However, analysts said concerns over economic growth are weighing on the market and capping gains. International Brent crude oil futures were down 30 cents at $67.31 a barrel around 8:35 a.m. ET (1235 GMT). Brent on Tuesday touched its highest since Nov. 16 at $68.20 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 57 cents, or 1 percent, to $58.46 per barrel. WTI on Tuesday reached its highest level since Nov. 12 at $59.57 a barrel. Crude prices have risen by almost a third this year, pushed up by a move led by OPEC to withhold around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) of supply as well as by U.S. sanctions against oil exporters Iran and Venezuela. "The shaky supply outlook with regard to Venezuela and Iran, as well as the petro-nations' output restrictions are top of mind in the oil market," said Norbert Ruecker, head of economics at Swiss bank Julius Baer. But analysts said an economic slowdown could soon dent fuel consumption, holding back crude somewhat.

WTI Spikes Above $60 After Huge Inventory Draws -  WTI’s post-API surprise crude draw rally stuttered this morning as uncertainty over the status of trade negotiations between the U.S. and China stoked concerns over global economic growth.  “The energy complex is on the back foot as it takes its cues from a pullback on global stock markets,” Stephen Brennock and Tamas Varga, analysts at PVM Oil Associates Ltd., wrote in a report. “This is in spite of a bullish API report.” DOE:

• Crude -9.59mm (+1.75mm exp, Whisper +66k) - biggest since July 2018
• Cushing -468k
• Gasoline -4.587mm
• Distillates -4.127mm - biggest since Dec 2018

After last week's broad-based inventory declines, expectations were for a rebound build this week (API, however, reported a surprise draw). But DOE reported a massive crude draw (9.59mm barrels), the biggest since July 2018, along with draws in products and at Cushing.  Crude inventories in Europe’s Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp region fell by 1.2 percent last week, Genscape data show.Bloomberg notes that Crude unit outages at refineries are set to be significantly higher for the rest of March than they were in the last two years. That should help to further whittle down gasoline inventories, which are still well above the seasonal average. Crude Production rose modestly on the week but looks set to slow as US rig counts fall notably...

U.S. oil prices rise above $60 a barrel on tightening supply (Reuters) - U.S. crude prices rose on Wednesday to a four-month high above $60 a barrel after U.S. government data showed tightening domestic oil supplies, but gains were capped by concerns over global economic growth due to the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. The front-month U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures contract, which expired Wednesday, gained 80 cents, or 1.36 percent, to settle at $59.83 a barrel. It hit a session high of $60.12 a barrel, the highest since Nov. 12. The more-active second-month WTI benchmark gained 94 cents, or 1.6 percent, to settle at $60.23 a barrel. International Brent crude rose 89 cents, or 1.32 percent, to settle at $68.50 a barrel. Prices rose after the U.S. Energy Information Administration posted a large and unexpected drop in crude inventories due to strong export and refining demand. [EIA/S] Stockpiles fell 9.6 million barrels last week, compared with analysts' expectations for an increase of 309,000 barrels. The draw was the largest since July 2018 and brought stockpiles to their lowest since January. Gasoline and distillate inventories both fell by more than expected. Gasoline stocks fell by 4.6 million barrels, while distillate inventories fell by 4.1 million barrels. "The report is bullish due to the large crude oil inventory drawdown, which was a function of low import levels and high export volumes," said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC in New York. "The across-the-board inventory declines in crude oil and refined products highlights the tightening market." Crude prices have risen almost a third this year, pushed up by supply cuts among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies including Russia, as well as U.S. sanctions against oil exporters Iran and Venezuela.

Oil eases from four-month high on global growth worries - Oil edged lower on Thursday but held near 2019 highs, supported by a sharp tightening of global stocks, OPEC production cuts and U.S. sanctions on key producers Iran and Venezuela. International Brent crude oil futures were down 21 cents at $68.29 a barrel around 9:20 a.m. ET (1320) GMT, having hit their highest since Nov. 13 at $68.69 earlier in the session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $60.08 per barrel, down 15 cents. WTI reached its highest since Nov. 12 earlier in the day, at $60.33 per barrel. Crude prices have been pushed up by almost a third since the start of 2019 by supply cuts led by OPEC, as well as sanctions enacted against Iran and Venezuela by the United States. The drop in production has led to a tightening in global inventories. Vienna-based consultancy JBC Energy estimated stocks had run down by a "solid" 40 million barrels since mid-January. That followed a nearly 10-million-barrel fall in U.S. crude stocks last week, the largest drop since last July, boosted by strong export and refining demand, according to the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration. The rapid decline in inventories comes despite many refineries undergoing seasonal maintenance work ahead of peak summer demand. However, global trade tensions remain a worry. "Why are oil prices not rallying through the roof? We suspect the sword of Damocles hanging over the market is currently called U.S.-Chinese trade talks,"

Oil prices pull back from multimonth highs to end lower for the session - Oil futures pulled back on Thursday from the mulitmonth highs they saw a day earlier, with the U.S. benchmark settling below the key $60 mark as global crude prices suffered their first loss in four sessions. Prices for both benchmark had climbed by more than 1% Wednesday after U.S. government data showed an unexpectedly large fall in domestic crude inventories. On its first full session as a front-month contract, West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery CLK9, -1.68% on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 25 cents, or 0.4%, to settle at $59.98 a barrel after tapping a high of $60.39. May Brent crude LCOK9, -1.15% lost 64 cents, or 0.9%, to $67.86 a barrel on ICE Futures Group. U.S. benchmark WTI remains up by nearly 2% for the week and losses for crude Thursday were modest. Oil may have seen some support from risk-on sentiment, with U.S. equities headed broadly higher as investors digested the conclusion of a Federal Reserve meeting a day earlier that saw policy makers signal they would deliver no rate increases in 2019. The central bank, however, cited concerns over global growth prospects, which could threaten energy demand. The Energy Information Administration on Wednesday said U.S. crude inventories fell by an unexpected 9.6 million barrels last week, while supplies of gasoline dropped 4.6 million barrels and distillates declined by 4.1 million barrels. On Nymex, April gasoline rose 0.2% to $1.920 a gallon, while April heating oil as off 1.1% to settle at $1.987 a gallon. “Stocks normally increase at this time of the year, which makes the substantial inventory reduction all the more remarkable,” wrote analysts at Commerzbank. “U.S. crude oil stocks meanwhile are slightly below the five-year average. The sizable inventory overhang that had still been in place until recently was thus eradicated completely. The U.S. oil market is no longer oversupplied, in other words, which should benefit WTI and result in further price convergence” with Brent futures, they said.

 Oil declines from 2019 highs but set for third weekly gain - Oil fell further from 2019 highs on Friday, but was set for a third straight week of gains due to supply cuts led by producer club OPEC and by U.S. sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. Brent crude futures were at $67.39 per barrel at 0942 GMT, 47 cents below their last close. Brent hit a four-month high of $68.69 on Thursday. The benchmark has risen by just under a third since the beginning of January, when OPEC started to cut production. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were at $59.53 per barrel, down 45 cents from their last settlement. WTI marked a 2019 peak in the previous session at $60.39. Both contracts were on course for their third consecutive week of increase. "For all the recent chatter of positive vibes and faithful oil bulls, the $70 barrier has so far proved a tough nut to crack for the European benchmark," PVM analysts wrote. "A sense of hesitancy has taken hold across the energy complex. Market players are waiting for a bullish catalyst to spark a decisive upside breakout. The most obvious contender would be a conclusive trade agreement between the U.S. and China." As economic growth has slowed across Asia, Europe and North America, potentially denting fuel consumption, no breakthrough has emerged in the trade stand-off between Washington and Beijing, at least before meetings scheduled on March 28-29. Three in four Japanese companies expect U.S.-China trade frictions to last until at least late this year, a Reuters poll found. A jump of more than 2 million barrels per day in U.S. crude oil production since early 2018 to a record 12.1 million bpd has made the United States the world's biggest producer, ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia. This has resulted in increasing exports, which have doubled over the past year to more than 3 million bpd. The International Energy Agency estimated that the United States would become a net crude oil exporter by 2021.

 Oil pulls back, but U.S. prices tally a third straight weekly gain - Oil futures declined on Friday, pressured by concerns about global energy demand, but U.S. prices managed to tally a gain for the week, their third in a row, as OPEC output cuts and U.S. sanctions on Venezuela and Iran look to further tighten supplies. Crude prices continued to retreat from their four-month highs on Friday “due to lingering concerns of weakening future energy demand,” said Balint Balazs, global commodity analyst at Schneider Electric, in a note. Data Friday showed the IHS Markit flash purchasing managers index for manufacturing in March fell to a 21-month low, with the U.S. flash manufacturing PMI at 52.5 in March from 53 a month earlier. The purchasing-managers-index readings for the eurozone also came in much weaker than expected. The data as well as a slump in Treasury yields — and an inversion of the yield curve — underlined worries over global growth prospects—and energy demand.  West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 94 cents, or 1.6%, to settle at $59.04 a barrel. The front-month contract ended higher for the week, up 0.4% from the week-ago finish, according to Dow Jones Market Data.May Brent crude lost 83 cents, or 1.2%, to $67.03 a barrel on ICE Futures Group, for a 0.2% weekly decline.Prices pared some of their losses shortly after data from Baker Hughes on Friday revealed a fifth consecutive weekly decline in the number of active U.S. oil rigs, suggesting a slowdown in oil drilling activity. The number fell by nine to 824 this week.

Saudi crown prince allegedly stripped of some authority - The heir to the Saudi throne has not attended a series of high-profile ministerial and diplomatic meetings in Saudi Arabia over the last fortnight and is alleged to have been stripped of some of his financial and economic authority, the Guardian has been told. The move to restrict, if only temporarily, the responsibilities of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is understood to have been revealed to a group of senior ministers earlier last week by his father, King Salman.The king is said to have asked Bin Salman to be at this cabinet meeting, but he failed to attend.While the move has not been declared publicly, the Guardian has been told that one of the king’s trusted advisers, Musaed al-Aiban, who was educated at Harvard and recently named as national security adviser, will informally oversee investment decisions on the king’s behalf.The Saudi embassy in Washington has declined multiple requests for comment since the Guardian approached it on Tuesday. The relationship between the king and his son has been under scrutiny since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which was alleged to have been ordered by Prince Mohammed and provoked international condemnation of the crown prince. This has been denied by the Saudi government.Experts on the Middle East are divided over whether the murder, and concern over the kingdom’s role in the conflict in Yemen, have led to tension at the heart of the notoriously secretive royal court.But while most observers expect Prince Mohammed to accede to the throne, there are some signs that the king is seeking to rein in his controversial son at a time when Saudi Arabia is under the spotlight.The Guardian has been told Prince Mohammed did not attend two of the most recent weekly meetings of cabinet ministers, which are headed by the king.The crown prince has also not attended other high-profile talks with visiting dignitaries, including one last week with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. Prince Mohammed also wasn’t present at a meeting with senior economic and finance officials earlier this week, a meeting between the king and the grand mufti, a meeting with the head of the World Health Organisation, and meetings with the prime minister of Lebanon, and ambassadors from India and China.

Saudi Arabia – an absolutist tyranny - "The Rapid Intervention Group also appears to have been involved in the detention and abuse of about a dozen women’s rights activists, who were detained last spring and summer. The activists, who had campaigned for lifting the kingdom’s ban on driving by women, included several well-known figures: Loujain al-Hathloul, who had been jailed for trying to drive her car into the kingdom from the United Arab Emirates; Aziza al-Yousef, a retired computer science professor; and Eman al-Nafjan, the linguistics lecturer.  At first, the women were not held in a prison, but were detained informally in what appeared to be an unused palace in the Red Sea port city of Jidda, according to Ms. al-Hathloul’s sister, Alia. Each woman was locked in a small room, and the windows were covered. Some of the women were frequently taken downstairs for interrogation, which included beatings, electric shocks, waterboarding and threats of rape and murder. In an Op-Ed article for The New York Times, Alia al-Hathloul wrote that Mr. al-Qahtani was “present several times” when her sister was tortured, and that he threatened to kill her and throw her body in the sewer.  The treatment was so harsh that Ms. al-Nafjan tried to commit suicide, according to a United States intelligence assessment.  The women were later moved to the Dhahban Prison in Jidda, where the physical abuse stopped and their relatives were allowed to visit, Ms. al-Hathloul said. Their trial opened in Riyadh on Wednesday, but journalists and diplomats were not permitted to attend, and the government did not announce the charges against them."  

Iraq Prepares to Evict US Troops From the Country — In the wake of the ISIS War in Iraq, Pentagon officials will tell you what they’ve been saying all along, that America’s intention is to stay in Iraq, and that there is no consideration being given to leaving. It’s not clear the US has spoken to the Iraqi government about this, however.While many Iraqis accepted the offer of help in the more desperate moments of the ISIS War, the US military has quickly worn out its welcome. Across a number of major political blocs in Iraq, there is growing consensus that the US, and indeed all foreign military forces, need to go.This has been brewing for months. The Iraqis saw Trump’s visit to Iraq, during which he didn’t meet the Iraqi PM, as a sign of disrespect. That the Pentagon keeps insisting they’re staying in Iraq, without asking the Iraqis, only adds to the sense that the US isn’t really an invited guest in any real sense.Hawks are already trying to spin this, as with everything else that doesn’t go America’s way in Iraq, as Iran’s fault. Iraq’s political scene is dominated by Shi’ite parties, and US officials have plenty of practice pretending that Shi’ite is just a fancy word for “Iranian” these days.Yet this underpins one of the major reasons the US is on the outs with so much of the Iraqi parliament. US hostility toward Iran has meant practical hostility toward Iraqi Shi’ite militias who fought against ISIS and enjoy strong support from the Iraqi government. US ultimatums to disarm militias that are practically part of the Iraqi government have always come with the implied threat of the US leaving, when they never had any intention of doing so. And now, when hostility to the Shi’ite militias has turned parliament against them, US hawks are still trying to spin this as proof of an Iran problem, In reality, the US and Iran have been backing the same parties in Iraq since 2003, and US discomfort with that fact has been consistently undermining their goals.

Empire Of Chaos Crumbles As Iran Outflanks US In Iraq & Beyond - Iran has successfully navigated the first phase of its resistance to U.S. sanctions pressure. The U.S. State Department has admitted it’s goal of reducing Iran’s oil exports to zero is not feasible.The goal now is a 25% drop to 800,000 barrel per day. And that is no joke. It’s a big drop from where Iran was looking to produce in the coming years under the auspice of the JCPOA.The U.S. will not stop until all avenues have been exhausted or Trump fires his current cabinet.Iran’s total non-oil exports have suffered as well, since gas condensate exports have also dropped along with the crude oil numbers.But Iran is finding friends in other places. They are currently finalizing a free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) with Belarus leading the talks at the 15th meeting between their Joint Economic Committee.Iran’s non-oil exports, however, are still just one-fifth of their peak exports. Like Russia it is working quickly with regional partners to change that dynamic.It won’t be enough to overcome the U.S.’s economic pressure in the short term.But as I always say if it survives the initial onslaught then market forces open up opportunities for change. Things like INSTEX, the EU special purpose vehicle for getting around U.S. sanctions, is a perfect example. Bilateral trade outside of the U.S. dollar is another.

Exclusive- How Iran fuel oil exports beat U.S. sanctions in tanker odyssey to Asia (Reuters) - At least two tankers have ferried Iranian fuel oil to Asia in recent months despite U.S. sanctions against such shipments, according to a Reuters analysis of ship-tracking data and port information, as well as interviews with brokers and traders. The shipments were loaded onto tankers with documents showing the fuel oil was Iraqi. But three Iraqi oil industry sources and Prakash Vakkayil, a manager at United Arab Emirates (UAE) shipping services firm Yacht International Co, said the papers were forged. The people said they did not know who forged the documents, nor when. The transfers show at least some Iranian fuel oil is being traded despite the reimposition of sanctions in November 2018, as Washington seeks to pressure Iran into abandoning nuclear and missile programs. They also show how some traders have revived tactics that were used to skirt sanctions against Iran between 2012 and 2016. (reut.rs/2NF1fTK) “Some buyers...will want Iranian oil regardless of U.S. strategic objectives to deny Tehran oil revenue, and Iran will find a way to keep some volumes flowing,” said Peter Kiernan, lead energy analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. While the United States has granted eight countries temporary waivers allowing limited purchases of Iranian crude oil, these exemptions do not cover products refined from crude, including fuel oil, mainly used to power the engines of large ships. Documents forwarded to Reuters by ship owners say a 300,000 tonne-supertanker, the Grace 1, took on fuel oil at Basra, Iraq, between Dec. 10 and 12, 2018. But Basra port loading schedules reviewed by Reuters do not list the Grace 1 as being in port during those dates. One Iraqi industry source with knowledge of the port’s operations confirmed there were no records of the Grace 1 at Basra during this period. Reuters examined data from four ship-tracking information providers - Refinitiv, Kpler, IHS Markit and Vessel Finder - to locate the Grace 1 during that time. All four showed that the Grace 1 had its Automatic Identification System (AIS), or transponder, switched off between Nov. 30 and Dec. 14, 2018, meaning its location could not be tracked. The Grace 1 then re-appeared in waters near Iran’s port of Bandar Assaluyeh, fully loaded, data showed. The cargo was transferred onto two smaller ships in UAE waters in January, from where one ship delivered fuel oil to Singapore in February. Shipping documents showed about 284,000 tonnes of fuel oil were transferred in the cargoes tracked by Reuters, worth about $120 million at current prices. 

U.S. accuses Iran of plotting to restart nuclear weapons program - U.S. officials on Friday accused Iran of plotting to restart work on its nuclear weapons program, despite Tehran agreeing in a 2015 accord to not pursue such weapons. The charges were made as the Treasury and State Departments announced a new round of sanctions against 14 individuals and 17 entities linked to the Iranian Ministry of Defense unit responsible for nuclear weapons development, senior administration officials said Friday. Story Continued Below ..Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, also referred to by the acronym SPND, maintains technical experts and critical ties to Iran’s previous nuclear efforts — notably to Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of Iran’s pre-2004 nuclear weapons program, officials said. They added that Tehran-based SPND may not currently be working to develop nuclear weapons, but that the connections to Iran’s previous nuclear programs increase the threat of the country developing weapons of mass destruction. Iran has long claimed to have no interest in developing nuclear weapons, but the United Nations in 2015 uncovered a secret program that lasted until at least 2009. The sanctions are the latest step the U.S. has taken to ramp up economic pressure on Iran after President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear pact, in which the country's Islamist regime agreed to abandon any nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic sanctions relief. The other parties in the agreement — including several European countries, China and Russia — have all remained in the deal, and international organizations say Tehran has complied with the agreement. Trump has bashed the the international pact for not doing enough to stop Iranian efforts to build nuclear bombs. Since leaving the accord, his administration has leaned on other countries to cut off their interactions with Iran.

Iranian human rights lawyer sentenced to 38 years in prison, her family says - Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes, according to her family. Sotoudeh is well known for representing human rights defenders, dissidents and women who protested against the compulsory wearing of a headscarf in Iran. According to IRNA, Iran's state-owned news service, the human rights lawyer was convicted of "gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security" and for "insulting the Supreme Leader". A Facebook post by her husband Reza Khandan said the ruling sentenced her to 33 years and 148 lashes. He added that the punishment brings her prison time to 38 years. In 2016, she was sentenced in absentia to five years, according to Khandan. But state media said that Sotoudeh was sentenced to seven years in prison, citing the judge in the case, Mohammad Moghiseh. The reasons for the discrepancy in the reports was not immediately clear.

The US is pushing Lebanon into the arms of Iran and Russia - Lebanon is expecting the visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week at a time when the Lebanese economic-political map is being redrawn and while Lebanon is suffering its most serious economic downturnin recent history. Reasons for the deterioration of the local economy include not only the corruption of Lebanon’s political leadership and lower level administration but also US sanctions imposed on Iran. The latest sanctions are the harshest ever imposed. They will also dramatically affect Lebanon so long as President Donald Trump is in power if Lebanon does not follow US policy and dictates. If, as anticipated, Washington declares economic war on Lebanon, the sanctions will leave Lebanon few alternatives. They may force Lebanon to fall back on Iranian civilian industry to overcome US economic pressure, and to rely on the Russian military industry to equip Lebanese security forces. This will be the result if Pompeo insists on threatening Lebanese officials, as his assistantshave done on previous visits to the country. The consistent message from US officials has been: you’re either with us or against us. Politically, Lebanon is divided between two currents, one pro-US (and Saudi Arabia) and another outside the US orbit. The economic situation may well increase internal division to the point that the local population reacts angrily in order to exclude the US and its allies from influence in Lebanon. Such a scenario may still be avoided if Saudi Arabia injects enough investment to reboot the agonising local economy. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia fears that those who are not aligned with its policies and those of the US could benefit from its support. To date, Riyadh has not fully understood the internal Lebanese dynamic and what it is possible or impossible to achieve in Lebanon. The kidnappingof the Prime Minister Saad Hariri was the most flagrant indication of Saudi ignorance of Lebanese politics. The Saudis’ lack of strategic vision in Lebanon will likely prevent any serious support to the failing economy and may lead the country into serious instability.  

Russian Warplanes Rain Hell On Idlib -  On March 13, warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces delivered a series of airstrikes on infrastructure of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the city of Idlib and in its southeastern countryisde. According to reports, at least 16 strikes hit weapon depots, HQs and a jail belonging to the terrorist group.  Opposition sources said that hundreds of prisoners, including dozens persons allegedly linked with the Syrian and Russian intelligence managed to escape the prison after the airstrike. Hayat Tahir al-Sham responded with a wide-scale security operation to trace and capture these people. This operation is still ongoing with varying results. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the strikes in Idlib and said that they were coordinated with Turkey. According to the Russian side, the strikes hit depots in which the terrorist group was storing armed unnamed aerial vehicles. The eliminated UAVs were reportedly prepared for an attack on Russia’s Hmeimim airbase.  Despite comments about the coordination with Turkey, in the following days Turkish pro-government and state media released multiple reports accusing the Russians and the Assad government of causing casualties in Idlib. On March 13, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that they had uncovered an alleged Hezbollah network in the Golan Heights. The network named by the IDF as “the Golan File” was reportedly led by Hezbollah operative Ali Musa Daqduq on the Syrian side of the contact line in order to prepare attacks on Israel. The IDF stressed that Daqduq has been a Hezbollah member since 1983. During this period, he reportedly occupied various important posts and was even involved in an attack on a US military base in Iraq’s Karbala in 2007. The IDF described the alleged Hezbollah network as a serious threat and threatened both Damascus and the Lebanese party with consequences.  Regardless of real facts besides these claims, this series of reports looks as a coordinated media campaign. According to experts, its main goal is to justify further Israeli military actions against supposed Iranian targets in Syria and to continue the militarization of the occupied Golan Heights.

Was UK Paying White Helmets To Produce Syria "Chemical Weapon" PR As Cover For Jaish Al Islam? --As controversy rages over the alleged April 2018 Douma “chemical weapon attacks” that signaled the end of Jaish Al Islam’s occupation, life in the Syrian city gradually returns to peace and stability. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) interim report and final report have thrown the Western media community into disarray. Already scrambling to salvage their loss of face after the “no sarin” conclusions were drawn by the OPCW in July 2018, they are now trying to convert an inconclusive OPCW report into a definitive claim regarding chlorine use, in order to reassert their declining narrative supremacy.A “chemical weapon” narrative that has effectively sustained the criminalization of the Syrian government and thus the continued unlawful aggression, direct and through Takfiri proxies, by the US coalition against Syria.“Reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place” is transformed into “OPCW confirms chlorine gas used in attack on Douma by Syrian government” by the state media revisionists across the Western media echo chambers.A retraction for the Western media’s earlier certainty that Sarin was used is above their pay grade, presumably. An apology to the Syrian people for enabling the unlawful bombing of Syrian territory by a rapacious FUKUS alliance is clearly not within their moral remit. Putting aside the almost unassailable evidence that the NATO-member-state-financed White Helmets staged the now notorious hospital scenes that were universally distributed by NATO-aligned media outlets and incredulity that a yellow cylinder could be dropped from a helicopter through the roof of an apartment and then bounce from the floor and onto an undamaged bed, what is largely being ignored by the West and the OPCW is the context of the attack.

US Military Now Planning to Keep 1,000 Troops on the Ground in Syria  — The US military is now making plans to keep almost 1,000 troops in Syria, officials said, a shift that comes three months after President Donald Trump ordered a complete withdrawal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing unidentified US officials.Talks with Turkey, European allies and US-backed Kurdish fighters have so far failed to secure an agreement to create a safe zone in northeastern Syria, part of Trump’s plan for leaving Syria, the Journal said.The US now plans to keep working with Kurdish fighters in Syria, despite Turkish threats to cross the border and attack the Kurds, the US officials said. The proposal may keep as many as 1,000 American forces, spread from the north of Syria to the south, they said.Once the last bastion of the Islamic State (IS) group is seized, the US may shift its focus towards withdrawing hundreds of American forces, in keeping with what Trump had originally ordered.The evolving discussions represent a shift away from Trump’s December directive to get all Americans out of Syria.His original decision to withdraw all of the more-than-2,000 US troops from Syria triggered the resignation  of Pentagon chief Jim Mattis and drew widespread concern that America was leaving the fight against IS before it was finished. Trump initially stood by his decision, but members of his national-security team urged him to secure assurances that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wouldn’t attack the US-backed Kurdish fighters once America withdrew, the WSJ said. Turkey has refused to do so.

Trump Gives Netanyahu Part of Syria to Boost Israeli Leader’s Flagging Reelection Campaign - WITH A TWEET posted on Thursday, President Donald Trump dismissed five decades of international consensus on the status of the Golan Heights, Syrian territory seized by Israel in 1967 during a preemptive war, declaring that the United States would recognize Israel’s annexation of the region.Offered without explanation, the move looked to many Israeli, Palestinian and American observers like a transparent attempt to boost the reelection prospects of Trump’s embattled ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces corruption charges and could be defeated at the polls next month.In reply to Trump’s tweet, Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, suggested that the American president “might want to consult with your international lawyers.” Trump’s declaration, ElBaradei noted, flies in the face a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted unanimously in 1967, which called for the “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied” in that summer’s conflict — including the Golan, as well as the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — and emphasized, “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.”It was not lost on some analysts that U.S. recognition of Israel’s right to annex territory it seized by force would also seem to pave the way for Trump to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea.Calling Trump’s declaration, “a brazen violation of international law,” which “doesn’t change protections occupied Syrians of Golan have,” Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director of Human Rights watch,observed that “moves like this only isolate the U.S. further from international consensus and make its voice even more irrelevant.” Standing alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was in Israel for the announcement, a beaming Netanyahu described Trump’s gift to his reelection campaign as “a miracle of Purim,” the Jewish holiday celebrated this week.

Watch the film Labour MPs didn’t want you to see - The official online debut of the new film WitchHunt has arrived, and you can watch the entire thing in the video above.The film has faced severe censorship, including a bomb threat which successfully canceled one preview. It tells a story about Israel’s alliance with the global far-right that Israel’s supporters would rather you not hear. Acclaimed British directors Mike Leigh and Peter Kosminsky have praised WitchHunt.Leigh said it “exposes with chilling accuracy the terrifying threat that now confronts democracy.”Kosminsky said it “packs a powerful punch” and is “telling a story we just aren’t hearing at the moment.”  Last month, left-wing member of Parliament Chris Williamson was suspended as a Labour Party member – after a long campaign by Israel lobby groups against him.  Williamson had booked a room in Parliament on behalf of the group Jewish Voice for Labour so that WitchHunt could be screened.  But it was canceled after the Labour leadership came under severe pressure by right-wing and pro-Israel Labour MPs.  Unless Williamson’s Labour suspension is reversed before the next election, the move will make it hard for him to return as an MP.  A source in Parliament told The Electronic Intifada that the ringleader of much of the outrage against Williamson was Ruth Smeeth.  Smeeth is a former professional Israel lobbyist who, since becoming an MP, has continued to receive donations from prominent Israel lobby funders.

US Killing Civilians With ‘Impunity’ in Hidden War on Somalia: Report— A human rights group is accusing the United States of waging a shadow air war in Somalia that is killing civilians with abandon. Amnesty International issued its findings on the African war Tuesday evening in a report titled The Hidden US War in Somalia (pdf). The U.S. has been covertly engaging in conflicts in Somalia for decades, but in April 2017, the Donald Trump administration upped airstrikes and attacks targeted at the rebel group Al-Shabaab. The human rights advocacy group studied five of more than 100 strikes on Somalia over the past two years and found that 14 civilians were killed in the attacks. Eight others were injured, the report says. “These five incidents were carried out with Reaper drones and manned aircraft in Lower Shabelle,” Amnesty said in a press release, “a region largely under Al-Shabaab control outside the Somali capital Mogadishu.” The U.S. military denied to Amnesty that any civilians have been killed as a result of American operations in Somalia. However, Amnesty’s report claims its methodology is sound and that the evidence is overwhelming. “The attacks appear to have violated international humanitarian law,” the organization said, “and some may amount to war crimes.” In comments provided to the media, Brian Castner, the group’s senior crisis advisor on arms and military operations, claimed that the continued airstrikes are also a sign of the Trump administration’s aggressive use of military action across the world. “The civilian death toll we’ve uncovered in just a handful of strikes suggests the shroud of secrecy surrounding the US role in Somalia’s war is actually a smokescreen for impunity,” Castner said.

Who Are the Private Contractors Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan?  - The debate on privatizing the war in Afghanistan is heating up yet again, with Democratic lawmakers pledging to end so-called “forever wars.” The public is slowly recognizing the war’s hidden costs and global scale.In 2016, 1 in 4 U.S. armed personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan was a private contractor. This means that the war is already being outsourced, yet scholars, the media and the general public know almost nothing about it. Because contractors operate in the shadows, without effective public oversight, they allow policymakers to have their cake and eat it too – by appearing to withdraw, while keeping proxy forces in theater. Who are the contractors who actually execute American policy? Are they equipped to succeed in this important task? What risks is the U.S. asking them to take? The simple truth is that there is little reliable data about this industry. Without this data, scholars cannot ask even the most basic questions of whether using contractors works better than the alternative, namely military personal or local forces – or, indeed, whether it works at all.   It’s hard to get data about private military contractors, mainly because of the proprietary business secrets. Despite the fact that those companies act as proxies of the state, they are not legally obligated to share information with the public on their actions, organization or labor force. Given how centrally private military companies feature in American foreign policy debates lately, Americans may assume that their policymakers are working from a detailed understanding of the contractor workforce. After all, the point is to weigh the contractors’ merits against uniformed service members, about whom the public have excellent information.But this does not appear to be the case. There isn’t a detailed account of the private military industry’s practices, workforce, misconducts or contracts. Noticing this gap, in 2008, Congress instructed the Department of Defense to start collecting data on private security personnel. However, this data is limited, as security contractors comprise just 10 to 20 percent of DOD contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq. The rest provide mission essential functions, such as engineering, communication and transportation and many others. Those roles take place in conflict areas and place those contractors at similar risk level as the soldiers.

100 Afghan Soldiers Said to Flee Across Border, Chased by Taliban — At least 100 Afghan soldiers abandoned their posts and fled imminent capture by the Taliban by crossing the country’s border into neighboring Turkmenistan, only to face immediate expulsion, Afghan officials said on Saturday.It was the latest in a series of insurgent attacks in the hotly contested Bala Murghab district, where an entire Afghan Army company was killed or captured on Monday. By Saturday, its defenders said the district had mostly fallen into Taliban control.Afghan officials gave varying accounts of what happened Saturday, with some saying the soldiers would be returned to safety by Turkmenistan, and others that they had been forced back by the Turkmenistan Army into a no man’s land, a 500-yard-wide strip between border fences. And some said the soldiers had been forced back into Taliban hands by day’s end. Saleh Mohammad Mubarez, the commander of the Afghan local police in the district, said that 140 soldiers from the Afghan Border Police, a military unit, had fled toward Turkmenistan after two days of Taliban attacks on bases in the Morichaq area.

US exit from Afghanistan could spark wider conflict --The proposed US withdrawal from Afghanistan is poised to be a repeat of what happened after then-president Barack Obama decided to pull US troops out of Iraq in 2012.  Recent announcements of US withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan signal an attempt to achieve an honorable exit from a failed strategy, while at the same time saving the enormous financial costs of war in both countries, estimated at around US$15.3 billion in Syria and $45 billion in Afghanistan this year alone.  Afghanistan is currently not only a safe haven for Taliban leadership but is also a sanctuary for a complex nest of extremist outfits in the war-torn country. It is evident that terror outfit al-Qaeda, in cooperation with the Taliban, has been operating in the region.  ISIS, too, has clearly established a manageable command and control structure with the collaboration of the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Ahrar-ul-Hind, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) in Tajikistan and the Islamist movement in Uzbekistan.  Currently, the Pentagon has stepped up air strikes and special operations raids in Afghanistan to the highest levels, which Defense Department officials have described as a coordinated series of attacks on Taliban leaders and fighters. This war strategy has been deployed in order to gain leverage in the ongoing negotiations with the Taliban. Soon after the US’s withdrawal from Iraq, the world witnessed the worst type of violence in the shape of ISIS. Now we see a power struggle among extremist outfits in Afghanistan, meaning there is a huge possibility of chaos in the region. Some experts even speculate that a ferocious civil war could affect the Kabul government and weaken its army, which would give the opportunity to warlords to forge new power. That, in turn, could open the way to a new refugee crisis and cuts in international aid, which would cripple the standing of the Afghan military. Ahead of what they foresee as a potential paradigm shift in regional stability, Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia have welcomed the prospect of a US withdrawal from the region. These four states’ proactive role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table was due to the “common enemy” factor, as both the Taliban and these four powers opposed the increasing power of ISIS and its allied groups in Afghanistan.

N. Korea, Russia sign agreement on economic, political exchanges in Moscow: KCNA --Bilateral exchanges also continued in Pyongyang with visit of Russian parliamentary delegation Representatives of the North Korean and Russian foreign ministries met in Moscow last week to sign an agreement on exchanges for the next year in areas such as politics and the economy, DPRK state outlet Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday.The meeting between Vice Foreign Minister Im Chon Il and his Russian counterpart Igor Morgulov took place on March 14 and received a short readout from the Russian foreign ministry at the time.That report said the two sides discussed “topical issues of development of bilateral relations” including over “political contacts and prospects for promoting cooperation in practical areas,” in addition to the “situation on the Korean peninsula.”KCNA on Monday expanded on the details of the meeting, saying a “2019-2020 plan of exchange” was signed as “both sides agreed to boost high-level contact and exchange in the political field [and] actively promote cooperation in the fields of economy and humanitarianism.”And as talks between the U.S. and North Korea hit another major stumbling block in the wake of the no-agreement Hanoi summit, the two allies also agreed to “bolster up mutual support and collaboration in tackling the issue of the Korean peninsula and on the international arena.”This meeting and others between the two sides this month, KCNA reported, are part of efforts to “steadily develop the traditional and strategic DPRK-Russia relations this year marking the 70th anniversary of the conclusion of the DPRK-Russia agreement on economic and cultural cooperation.” The two countries earlier this month held the 9th Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) for Cooperation in Trade, Economics, Science, and Technology in Moscow, where progress was made on joint projects such as a new cross-border bridge and plans for a “trading house” based in Vladivostok. But with both sides likely expecting some form of sanctions relief to have emerged from the second DPRK-U.S. summit, it also appeared that less progress was made than originally intended, concluding the 9th IGC without concrete agreements.

Working for the weekend: China extends holiday to spur consumers  (Reuters) - China is extending a public holiday to get people to travel and spend more as the government pins its hopes on a vast consumer base to help cushion an economic slowdown.  People can have two more days off for the Labour Day holidays that start on May 1, which falls on a Wednesday this year, creating a 4-day break through May 4 to encourage more travel, the state council said on Friday.  To compensate for the extra time off, people will have to work on April 28 and May 5, both Sundays.  Retail sales growth slid to the lowest in over a decade last year as consumers bought fewer cars, electronics and home appliances.

How could a sharp slowdown in China affect growth prospects for the rest of Asia  -The threat of a sharper than expected economic slowdown in China could damage Asia’s growth prospects, according to analysts. While optimism is rising over continuing trade talks between the United States and China, they have yet to reach a deal and remain far apart on key structural issues. If the conflict were to intensify, China’s challenge would be to cushion its economy from a fall. China’s latest data on foreign trade, gross domestic product growth and the purchasing managers’ index suggest the economy will continue to slow, at least for the next month or so, meaning a hard landing is not anticipated for now. A sudden shock to the economy would add to challenges from increasing protectionist tensions in the Asia-Pacific, a region which is highly dependent on global demand. As companies and manufacturers shift supply chains to lower cost countries, that may make the markets most reliant on Chinese demand more sensitive to a slowing Chinese economy. “We will have a slowdown in Asia-Pacific growth in the first quarter because of trade uncertainties between the US and China. Most companies do not invest when they worry about the future and they delay investment,” said Mahamoud Islam, Asia-Pacific senior economist at Euler Hermes. “The fact that they are delaying investment is impacting demand for goods and global trade.”

India Redeployed Nuclear-Armed Subs During War Games Turned "Real Time" Crisis -  India has launched a major show of force operation following soaring tensions with Pakistan last month due to the Feb. 27 incident wherein Indian jets conducted anti-terror operations in Pakistani airspace, resulting in a downed Indian pilot. The details of what's being described as India's largest war games — called TROPEX 2019 — which combined Navy, Air Force and Army assets were revealed this weekend only upon the exercises' completion.The drills involving some 60 ships and an equal number of aircraft had been slated to run from January to early March, but according to reports quickly turned into a real time operational situation following the crisis over Kashmir.  Notably, the games which had already been underway at the time of the crisis had involved the INS ‘Vikramaditya,’ a Russian-built aircraft carrier, and multiple other nuclear submarines essentially becoming "active" as the situation unfolded. According to Indian military statements the continued deployment of the vessels is intended “to prevent, deter and defeat any misadventure by Pakistan in the maritime domain.”Indian Navy statements further confirmed that the warships which had been part of the TROPEX 2019 exercises had “swiftly transited from exercise to operational deployment mode.”  Their continued operational deployment in the Arabian Sea and beyond in the Indian Ocean threatens to bring tensions further to a head between Islamabad and New Delhi following recent revelations that each side had informed the other of missile launch preparations last month, nearly stoking an all out war.

Reports underscore how close India and Pakistan came to all-out war in late February A Reuters report and an Indian Navy press statement, both published Sunday, shed further light on just how close South Asia’s rival nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, came to all-out war late last month.According to Reuters, at the height of the war crisis—after Indian warplanes had bombed Pakistan, and Pakistan had retaliated by ordering its fighter jets to strafe Indian-controlled Kashmir, resulting in a dogfight and the downing of an Indian jet—New Delhi threatened to hit Pakistan with a volley of “at least six missiles.”In reply, Islamabad vowed it would fire three missiles at India for every one launched against Pakistan. “We said if you will fire one missile, we will fire three,” an unnamed Pakistan cabinet minister told Reuters. “Whatever India will do, we will respond three times to that.”Titled “India, Pakistan threatened to unleash missiles at each other: sources,” Reuters’ report is based on information from “Western diplomats and government sources in New Delhi, Islamabad and Washington.”According to Reuters, “there was no suggestion that the missiles” India and Pakistan were threatening to hit each other with “were anything more than conventional weapons.” But the mutual threats “created consternation in official circles in Washington, Beijing and London.” Only the intervention of the US, China and other powers, argues the Reuters article, prevented the situation from spiraling out of control. “Diplomatic experts said that the latest crisis underlined the chances of misread signals and unpredictability in the ties between the nuclear-armed rivals, and the huge dangers.”

For First Time Since 1993-94, India’s Male Workforce Is Getting Smaller- Report -- The National Sample Survey Office’s periodic labour force survey 2017-18 has reportedly found that the size of India’s male workforce – or men who are working – has reduced for the first time since 1993-94.According to the Indian Express, the unreleased report says there are 28.6 crore employed men – a decline from 30.4 crore in 2011-12, when the last NSSO survey was conducted. This downward trend is even stronger in rural areas than in urban, the newspaper reported, with a 6.4% decline in the number of employed men in rural areas against 4.7% in urban.For men and women combined, the national workforce shrunk by 4.7 crore, Indian Express quoted the NSSO data as saying. “While the employment loss in the rural segment hurt the women most (68 per cent), men suffered more (96 per cent) job losses in the urban areas,” the newspaper said.The NSSO report puts the urban unemployment rate at 7.1% and the rural rate at 5.8%. The government’s decision not to publish this report yet has been subject to controversy, and two expert members including the acting chairman quit the National Statistical Commission in protest after it was not released despite their okay. The report was first leaked in the Business Standard in January. The NSSO reportedly found that unemployment in India was at a 45-year high in 2017-18. This was the first job survey conducted after Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move.

Politicians, public swiftly condemn Aussie senator who punched ‘egg boy’ in the face - A swoopy-haired teen, dressed in a T-shirt, positions himself behind Australian Sen. Fraser Anning during a news conference in Melbourne and raises his phone with his left hand. Then, he lifts his right hand and cracks a raw egg on the back of Anning’s head.The far-right lawmaker had sparked outrage Friday when — after a terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, claimed at least 50 lives — he said Muslims “may have been the victims today; usually they are the perpetrators.”“The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today,” Anning wrote in a statement, “is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.” A day later, as he stood before a group of reporters, the teen smashed the egg, and Anning, with yolk dripping down the back of his neck, swiftly punched the 17-year-old in the face. He then lunged for him again, throwing another punch before the two were separated. A group of men tackled the teen to the floor and placed him in a chokehold.Footage of the encounter immediately went viral; a seven-second video had more than 2 million views just hours after it was posted.Now, nearly 1.5 million people have signed a petition to have the senator removed from P arliament. His colleagues are planning to formally censure him. The prime ministers for Australia and New Zealand condemned Anning for what he said about Muslims and did to the teen, now known as “egg boy.”

Censorship at the Center of the Christchurch Terror Attack — As the world struggles to come to terms with last week’s terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, heavy-handed censorship has made it a struggle to figure out what happened, and why, above and beyond the official narrative. News that shooting was ongoing in two mosques in New Zealand was met with a flurry of curiosity on social media, and just as quickly saw much of that shut down, with wholesale censorship of the topic and any specifics or videos related to it blocked out of hand.Facebook was almost bragging when they revealed that they’d removed or blocked 1.5 million videos related to the rampage in just the first 24 hours. 80% of the videos, indeed, were blocked at the point of upload, never to be seen by anyone.Underpinning this was likely an anticipation from social media outlets like Facebook that an ideologically driven attack on mosques would have at least tangential links to social media, and lead to mainstream outlets blaming them for not being even more heavy-handed in censoring objectionable views before the attacks happened. Their solution, then, was to excessively censor the attack itself, and the aftermath. A substantial manifesto from the main gunmen, and other clearly relevant content on what the attackers were doing, are all but impossible to find on social media, and more traditional media outlets are doing a rather thin attempt at picking up the slack, mostly just echoing what officials say.

New Zealand Threatens 10 Years In Prison For ‘Possessing’ Mosque Shooting Video  — New Zealand authorities have reminded citizens that they face up to 10 years in prison for “knowingly” possessing a copy of the New Zealand mosque shooting video – and up to 14 years in prison for sharing it. Corporations (such as web hosts) face an additional $200,000 ($137,000 US) fine under the same law.Terrorist Brenton Tarrant used Facebook Live to broadcast the first 17 minutes of his attack on the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand at approximately 1:40 p.m. on Friday – the first of two mosque attacks which left 50 dead and 50 injured.Copies of Tarrant’s live stream, along with his lengthy manifesto, began to rapidly circulate on various file hosting sites following the attack, which as we noted Friday – were quickly scrubbed from mainstream platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Scribd. YouTube has gone so far as to intentionally disable search filters so that people cannot find Christchurch shooting materials – including footage of suspected multiple shooters as well as the arrest of Tarrant and other suspects. On Saturday, journalist Nick Monroe reported that New Zealand police have warned citizens that they face imprisonment for distributing the video, while popular New Zealand Facebook group Wellington Live notes that “NZ police would like to remind the public that it is an offense to share an objectional publication which includes the horrific video from yesterday’s attack. If you see this video, report it immediately. Do not download it. Do not share it. If you are found to have a copy of the video or to have shared it, you face fines & potential imprisonment.”

  Would Social Media Have Censored Video Of 9/11 Or The Kennedy Assassination? -  According to CNN Business, “Facebook, YouTube and Twitter struggle to deal with New Zealand shooting video.”  “Deal with” is code for “censor on demand by governments and activist organizations who oppose public access to information that hasn’t first been thoroughly vetted for conformity to their preferred narrative.” Do you really need to see first-person video footage of an attacker murdering 49 worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand? Maybe not. Chances are pretty good you didn’t even want to. I suspect that many of us who did (I viewed what appeared to be a partial copy before YouTube deleted it) would rather we could un-see it. But whether or not we watch it should be up to us, not those governments and activists. Social media companies should enable our choices, not suppress our choices at the censors’ every whim. If Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube had been primary news sources in 1915, would they have permitted us to view footage (rare, as film was in its early days) of New Zealanders’ desperate fight at Gallipoli? How about the attack on Pearl Harbor? The assassination of president John F. Kennedy? The second plane hitting the World Trade Center? Lucinda Creighton of the Counter Extremism Project complains to CNN that the big social media firms aren’t really “cooperating and acting in the best interest of citizens to remove this content.” The CEP claims that it “counter[s] the narrative of extremists” and works to “reveal the extremist threat.” How does demanding that something be kept hidden “counter” or “reveal” it? How is it in “the best of interest of citizens” to only let those citizens see what Lucinda Creighton thinks they should be allowed to see?  CNN analyst Steve Moore warns that the video could “inspire copycats.” “Do you want to help terrorists? Because if you do, sharing this video is exactly how you do it.” Moore has it backward. Terrorists don’t need video to “inspire” them. Like mold, evil grows best in darkness and struggles in sunlight. If you want to help terrorists, hiding the ugliness of their actions from the public they hope to mobilize in support of those actions is exactly how you do it.

Misguided Spying and the New Zealand Massacre - Now that the bodies of 49 innocent human beings are lying in a Christchurch, New Zealand, morgue — gunned down by a heavily armed terrorist — New Zealand media are asking the obvious questions: why didn’t our intelligence agencies know there were xenophobic, murderous, white supremacists on the loose in Christchurch?  “Questions are being asked of the nation’s security services in the wake of a mass shooting described as ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days,” Stuff.co.nz reports and quotes a University of Waikato professor of international law, Alexander Gillespie, as saying: ‘If it’s a cell we need to ask why weren’t they detected, because that’s why we have security services and it may be that those services have been looking under the wrong rocks.’ ” According to the same article, in response to the terrorist attack, “A crisis meeting of national security agencies was held at Police National Headquarters in Wellington after the shooting.“ In the NZ Herald, veteran intelligence reporter David Fisher asked many pertinent questions in an opinion piece titled “Christchurch massacre – what did we miss and who missed it?” “We need answers,” says Fisher. “The NZSIS [New Zealand’s equivalent of the FBI] – and its electronic counterpart, the Government Communications Security Bureau – have more funding than ever, and almost double the staff numbers they had six years ago. They also now have the most powerful legislation they have ever had.” We know thanks to the findings of an inquiry by the State Services Commission last December that as many as a dozen government agencies, including the NZ Police, were too busy squandering their resources spying on NGOs such as Greenpeace NZ; political parties such as the New Zealand Green Party and then-Internet Party aligned Mana Movement, as well as on anti-TPP protesters and activists such as myself. As if that weren’t egregious enough, they were even spying on Christchurch earthquake insurance claimants and historical victims of institutional state child abuse.

New Zealand Police Interviewed Mosque Shooter Before Granting Gun License – New Zealand police revealed on Friday that they met with accused Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant in October 2017 as part of a routine home inspection connected to his purchase of the guns used in the March 15 attacks that left 50 dead.Australian Brenton Tarrant, a self-avowed white supremacist, applied for the gun licence in September 2017 and a police “firearms vetting team” visited his home in the southern city of Dunedin the following month, a police spokesman said.“One of the steps to gaining a firearms licence is a home visit to meet the applicant in person and inspect the security of their property,” he said in a statement. –Channel NewsAsiaTarrant was interviewed in October 2017 while the firearms vetting team carried out a “security inspection” of his home.“Following this, all the available information was reviewed and the license was approved in November 2017.”Two New Zealand residents were listed as references, who were also interviewed by police and “met the requirements of the process,” according to the spokesman.Tarrant legally purchased several weapons in December 2017, including two semi-automatic rifles, two shotguns and a lever-action firearm used in the mosque attacks which had been inscribed anti-Islamic writings.On Thursday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the “first tranche” to reforms on gun laws – beginning with the immediate ban on the sale of semi-automatic and ‘assault’ rifles.

Erdogan Vows to Punish Christchurch Attacker if New Zealand Does Not – Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday said Turkey would make a man accused of murdering 50 people in two Christchurch mosques last week pay for his crime if New Zealand does not, Reuters reported.“You heinously killed 50 of our siblings. You will pay for this. If New Zealand doesn’t make you, we know how to make you pay one way or another,” Erdoğan told an election rally in northern Turkey. He did not elaborate.Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was charged with murder on Saturday after a lone gunman opened fire at the two mosques during Friday prayers. Erdoğan also called on New Zealand to restore the death penalty so that the Christchurch gunman could face capital punishment. “If the New Zealand parliament doesn’t make this decision, I will continue to argue this with them constantly. The necessary action needs to be taken,” he said.

Officials, media call for school militarization, censorship after mass shooting in Brazilian school --  Brazil, one of the most unequal and violent countries in the world, was left stunned a week ago on Wednesday by the brutality of a school shooting in the city of Suzano, in the industrial belt surrounding São Paulo. Two former students of the Raul Brasil State School, one aged 17 and the other 25, opened fire during a class break, killing five students and two school officials and wounding 17 others, before the 17-year-old shot his older accomplice and killed himself as the police arrived.  It soon emerged that another murder in the city minutes earlier, of the 17-year-old’s uncle, was the beginning of the rampage. This week, police announced the provisional detention of another 17-year-old youth, charged with helping to organize the massacre. As the police and media investigation into the reasons for the massacre and the profiles of the shooters began, it immediately became clear that deep social alienation had been a major factor in their lives for a long time. Despite the age difference, the two had been friends from an early age and shared a considerable portion of their lives together playing video games at a local LAN gaming center, where workers told investigators they mostly played so-called shooting games, as do most of those who go there. While the older shooter, Luiz Henrique de Castro, had graduated from the school, the younger one, Guilherme Taucci de Monteiro, had dropped out a year ago, telling his parents and grandparents, with whom he lived, that he couldn’t bear the feeling of social awkwardness and exclusion. His family, itself in considerable social distress as a result of the mother being unemployed for two years and also suffering from severe drug addiction, was unable to help. The conditions affecting his family are widespread in the city, at the center of a growing “rust belt” in São Paulo’s far east, in which no less than 25 percent of families are recipients of poverty relief benefits, and industry and trade are facing a slow recovery from a 43 percent collapse. According to family members, despite the long build-up of Monteiro’s distress, the death of his grandmother three months ago plunged him into what appeared to be severe depression.

Brazilian Real Tumbles After Former President Temer Arrested In Car Wash Corruption Scandal - The latest shock to Brazilian politics makes for a new bizarre reality — that pretty much every former Brazilian president still living has either been impeached or went to prison, leaving open the question of if there is really any politician left in Brazil who has not been tainted by the multiple years running so-called 'Car Wash scandal' that has long rattled and decimated the Brazilian establishment. As Latin American journalist Filipe Domingues observes, "Now Brazil has a record of 2 impeached presidents + 2 former presidents in jail: Lula and Temer."Brazil’s former president Michel Temer been arrested on Thursday as part of the sweeping and years-running 'Operation Car Wash' anti-corruption probe, regional media reports say, after the predecessor to Jair Bolsonaro left office on January 1. Temer has reportedly been sought by police, who reportedly have been trying to trace him since he left office.  Temer, who served as president from 2016 to 2018 after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, has consistently denied any wrongdoing when he was first named as one among the dozens of politicians and business executives rounded up and convicted as part of the multi-billion dollar corruption scandal dubbed Operation Car Wash — named so because it was first uncovered at a car wash in Brasilia. The allegations first came against Temer during his presidency in 2017, but which were blocked by allies in Brazil's congress. The sprawling investigation, involving at least 6.4 billion reais ($2.0 billion) in bribes for contracts with state-run enterprises, has charged 200 people and convicted more than 80 executives and politicians. Temer's long-time-in-coming arrest happened Thursday morning in a police raid on his house in Sao Paulo, after which he was transferred to federal police headquarters in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian news portal Globo further reports former energy minister Moreira Franco is also being sought by federal police, who is also facing graft charges.

Netherlands, U.S. agree on use of Curacao as possible aid hub for Venezuela (Reuters) - The Netherlands and the United States reached an agreement on Friday to use facilities on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao for possible distribution of aid to nearby Venezuela, Curacao’s prime minister said. The island will only be used for civilian operations to deliver aid, such as food and medicines, to Venezuela if the Venezuelan government explicitly allows it, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said last month. Curacao Prime Minister Eugene Ruggenaath said on Twitter the United States and the Netherlands signed an agreement detailing the access and use of facilities in Curacao as a humanitarian hub for aid to Venezuela. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly refused to let foreign aid into Venezuela, despite a deep economic crisis marked by shortages of food and medicine and hyperinflation. Maduro has called U.S.-led aid efforts a veiled invasion meant to push him from power, and has insisted that there is no crisis in the country. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has been pressing for humanitarian aid to be allowed in. The Netherlands has joined the United States and around 50 other countries in recognizing Guaido, who is head of the National Assembly, as the interim president of the country. 

Venezuela’s Guaido starts domestic tour to stir support --- Venezuela's self-proclaimed interim leader Juan Guaido began a tour of his country Saturday aimed at sparking a citizen's movement to pry President Nicolas Maduro from power. As Guaido, 35, kicked off his "operation freedom" in the northern city of Valencia, the pro-Maduro military staged the latest in a series of exercises. The drill focused on defending hydroelectric infrastructure from attack -- a reaction to a weeklong national blackout that Maduro blamed on US "sabotage" but experts said was more likely the result of years of neglect. Guaido, the head of the opposition-ruled National Assembly whose claim to be caretaker president is recognized by the US, Canada and much of Latin America and Europe, vowed he would "very soon" take up office in Miraflores, the presidential palace. He has been pushing for nearly two months against Maduro after declaring himself acting president during street rallies by tens of thousands, following Maduro's swearing-in for a second term despite elections widely dismissed as a sham. "We are going to reclaim what belongs to the people," Guaido told thousands of supporters on Saturday. Maduro, he said, "believes that a thieving gang or a palace makes him president. It's only the support of our people that makes someone president of a nation and he doesn't have that. And not much longer will he be in that palace." Guaido offered no timeline for the mobilization across Venezuela, which he said will culminate with a march on the presidential palace in Caracas. "I'm ready to head over to Miraflores right now, wherever my future president Juan Guaido asks me to go," said one of his supporters, Milagros Lima, 50, a lawyer. She told AFP that her "whole family" are among the millions who have fled the country's dire shortages of food and medicine. "If it weren't for them, we'd be starving to death," she said. Accompanying Guaido on his tour are opposition lawmakers tasked with creating citizen assemblies -- "freedom cells" -- across the country. The opposition said that, by Saturday, around 50 had already been set up in half of Venezuela's 23 states. "Whatever happens, we must be united, mobilized in the streets," Guaido said, adding that he has not ruled out asking the National Assembly to activate a constitutional clause allowing foreign military intervention -- though such a move "depended on others." 

A bad situation in Venezuela is getting worse - As has been widely covered, Venezuela is facing an unprecedented economic and humanitarian catastrophe. With regime change still out of reach for US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who is looking to unseat strongman President Nicolás Maduro, the situation is rapidly getting worse.Earlier this month, millions of Venezuelans were plunged into darkness in what has become the country's longest blackout in its history; some suffered for six days straight, “luckier” households lost power for four.Here's the view from space on March 9. Venezuela is outlined in red:With the power went public transportation, communications, refrigeration and most importantly, hospitals. According to the National Assembly Domestic Affairs Commission, 52 people died as a result. Of that, 20 perished from interruptions to their dialysis treatments, per the NGO Codevida.From a financial standpoint, Franciso Rodriguez at Torino Capital reckons the blackouts, which many link to a lack of maintenance at important power plants, could lead to an additional 1.05 per cent slide in GDP for this year. Given this, Rodriguez now expects GDP growth to fall 28.45 per cent in 2019. And when it comes to specific sectors, manufacturing and oil are among the most effected, as Rodriguez's table below shows:(He says his calculations are based on estimates of the value that would have been produced in the economy but could not be because of the blackout. As he does not factor in losses not included in GDP, including those for existing inventories due to spoiling, damages to industrial equipment and looting, he warns the total figures are likely higher.) The blackouts come at a time when Venezuela's oil production has collapsed under the weight of US sanctions on state-owned oil company, PDVSA. international Finance. There have been larger drops before, in fact in the past three years there were 21 cases when oil output fell 20 per cent or more, according to a study conducted by Sergi Lanau at the Institute for International Finance.

 Guaido's Chief Of Staff Detained By Venezuelan Intelligence In Pre-Dawn Raid - Two days after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido's "government-in-waiting" forcibly took possession of three diplomatic facilities in the United States with the blessing of Washington, and following what many observers speculate are a series of US aggressive maneuvers paving the way for military intervention, Maduro's security forces have begun arresting members of Guaido's staff. According to Reuters Venezuelan intelligence agents have arrested and detained Guaido's own chief of staff, Roberto Marrero, as well as opposition legislator Sergio Vergara.  Guaido's press team confirmed their detentions by security forces in what's been described as a pre-dawn raid on their Caracas residences on Thursday. And in confirmation Guaido tweeted an "Alert" — saying the two men are "currently being held hostage" since 2:24 am by the SEBIN, or the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service.  The AP described in its reporting: Venezuelan intelligence agents early Thursday entered the homes of opposition lawmaker Sergio Vergara and of Roberto Marrero, a lawyer who heads Guaido's office. Both men accompanied Guaido on a recent Latin American tour to build international support for his efforts to remove Maduro. A video also emerged online purporting to show Maduro security force vehicles speeding off from one of the Caracas homes in the dead of night.

Bitcoin Volume Collapsed During Venezuelan Blackout -  Bitcoin transactions in Venezuela collapsed earlier this month due to widespread electrical blackouts that paralyzed most of the country's 23 states. A widespread rolling blackout in Venezuela began on March 7 and ended around March 14. Some power was restored a few days later, but in Caracas and western regions near the border with Colombia - remained dark. By March 14, power across the country was back online. During the massive power outage, weekly trade volumes on the P2P platform Localbitcoins showed that the number of transactions collapsed by as much as 40% in the week ending March 9. By March 13, transaction volumes started to form a v-shape recovery as power was slowly turned on. Frances Coppola, a business writer for Forbes, tweeted on March 16, two days after power was restored, that the issue with Bitcoin is that electricity is needed to transact. Twitter account Crypto For Venezuela!, tweeted at the Forbes writer by saying - during the blackout, financial institutions stopped functioning while some Bitcoin networks remained live. Anthony Pompliano, the founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets, also responded to Coppola's tweet and pointed out how the cryptocurrency's network was still functional during the blackout. While this is true, only Venezuelans with access to power and internet access could transact.  A Venezuelan Redditor, with the handle ImViTo, explained how the entire banking sector came to a halt during the blackouts. ImViTos said, some crypto enthusiasts around the country used generators and were still able to tap into phone lines to then broadcast WiFi to a small geographic area where people could transact digital coins on their smartphones. Energy-intensive Bitcoin transactions cannot withstand widespread power outages. In the case of Venezuela, data showed Zerohedge readers that transaction volume crashed when the power went out, but for some, who had generators and access to the internet - it was business as usual.

Canada Sees Largest Influx Of Immigrants Since 1913 -- Though the mainstream media (and many in Congress) has largely dismissed President Trump's cries about an emergency along the US southern border, even the New York Times and Washington Post have acknowledged in recent weeks that the number of migrants crossing the southern border is climbing rapidly. As the number of apprehensions have increased, the situation has gotten so bad that the administration has decided to start releasing some migrant families because its detention facilities along the border have become so crowded.  And as it turns out, migration is surging north of the border as well, as Canada's statistics agency reported on Thursday that the country experienced the largest inflow of migrants in more than a century last year. Though the figures excluded illegal migrants (who have also reportedly been entering the country in record numbers), more than 320,000 people migrated to Canada last year, with more than 71,000 arriving in the final quarter - including legal refugees attracted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's "open door" policy. The increase is the largest since 1913, when 401,000 migrants entered Canada. The country has detailed migration data stretching all the way back to the mid-19th century. As birthrates in the developed world continue to slide, the influx of migrants helped Canada's population swell by more than half a million people last year, the largest annual increase since the 1950s, and the fastest pace of growth since the early 1990s. Though it's worth noting that the boom includes many foreign students, some of whom aren't planning to remain in Canada for the long term.

Ontario government savages public education - Doug Ford’s right-wing populist Progressive Conservative government has unveiled a plan that in the name of education “reform” makes savage cuts to Ontario’s public education system.This attack, which is part of a broader assault on public and social services to pay for further massive handouts to the corporate elite, will see class sizes in Ontario high schools increase by over 25 percent, with smaller increases for lower grades.Education Minister Lisa Thompson announced last Thursday that the high school class-size average will be increased over the next four years by the equivalent of six students, from 22.1 to 28.1. For Grades 4 to 8, the class-size average will be raised by one student to 24.5. Additionally, the government intends to revise the province’s sex education curriculum, which has been the target of fierce denunciations from the religious right and their far-right allies, and to change the way that math is taught to focus more on rote learning. Thompson made the preposterous claim that not a single teacher will lose his or her job as a result of the government’s changes. In truth, the real character of the reform was underscored two weeks prior to her announcement, when Deputy Education Minister Nancy Naylor addressed a letter to school board heads urging them to impose an immediate hiring freeze. “School boards are advised to defer the annual processes of filling vacancies for retirements and other leaves related to teachers and other staff until the minister of education provides an update to the sector on or before March 15th,” wrote Naylor, according to a March 1 CBC report. In other words, the government’s vicious cost-cutting will be implemented through “natural attrition”—i.e., by refusing to fill vacant posts following teacher retirements or other departures from the profession. This will force teachers to accept larger workloads. Needless to say, the quality of education, especially for pupils needing additional teacher support due to learning difficulties or adverse economic or family circumstances, will suffer.

Putin Signs “Digital Iron Curtain” Into Law - Widespread protests have failed to halt the Kremlin’s march towards internet censorship and population control, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has now signed into law a set of bills that render both “fake news” and online “disrespect” of the state criminal.It was only on March 7 that the Russian State Duma, the country’s lower house of parliament, passed the two bills, which then required approval in the upper house before going to the President.While tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Russian cities after the Duma passed the two laws, the breakneck speed with which these laws were approved and signed by the president gave protesters no time to organize on a mass level.The package of harsh restrictions is called the “digital sovereignty bill”, which requires all Russian telecoms companies to reroute internet traffic through the state telecom regulator, Roskomnadzor.So, as of today, Russians find themselves living under a modern-day digital “iron curtain”.According to The Moscow Times, the bills make it criminal for news outlets or individual users to spread “fake news”—determined by the authorities—or face fines of around $23,000 for repeat offenses. Even more ominous is the fine and prison sentence for insulting state symbols and authorities, for which repeat offenders will pay around $4,500 and spend 15 days in jail.

What FedEx Just Said About Europe and China - Wolf Richter - “Asia volume weakness, which we experienced during peak season, deepened post Chinese New Year.”  When FedEx, a corporate barometer for the global goods-based economy,reported earnings this evening, it missed lowered earnings and revenue expectations, and it cut its guidance for the rest of the year, below already lowered expectations, and its shares tanked 5.7% in afterhours trading. The US holiday-shipping season had been fairly decent for FedEx, largely due to the continued shift of retail sales from brick-and-mortar to booming e-commerce. Quarterly revenues in the FedEx Express segment in the US rose 4.0% year-over-year to $4.19 billion, and shipping volume rose 6%. The stunner was in its international business.In the FedEx Express segment – “macroeconomic environment lately has presented challenges relative to our prior expectations, particularly at FedEx Express,” is how CEO Fred Smith put it during the earnings call – quarterly revenues for all international sub-segments combined fell 4.5% year-over-year, to $4.67 billion. This includes:

• International export, package: -3.4% ($2.54 billion)
• International domestic (intra-country) package: -5.4% ($1.08 billion)
• International priority freight: -10.3% ($477 million)
• International economy freight: +0.6% (495 million)
• International airfreight: -18.3% ($76 million)

This 4.5% decline in its international revenues overpowered the 4% growth in US revenues, and so overall FedEx Express revenues fell by 1.0% to $9.0 billion.“Slowing international macroeconomic conditions and weaker global trade growth trends continue, as seen in the year-over-year decline in our FedEx Express international revenue,” it said in the earnings release. And cost cutting has started by trimming the workforce via a “voluntary employee buyout program,” constraining hiring, and tamping down on “discretionary spending,” the statement said. And it’s “reviewing additional actions to mitigate the lower-than-expected revenue trends.”

The World Economy's Industrial Downswing - As economic data for 2019 comes in, the numbers continue to suggest more slowing especially in the goods economy. Perhaps what happened during that October-December window was a soft patch. Even if that was the case, we should still expect second and third order effects to follow along from it. Starting with Europe first, Germany’s deStatis had earlier reported factory orders and production levels in January 2019 while higher than December still keeping within the same trend. These were lower compared to the prior January, meaning a contraction in annual terms that has at least spilled over into this year.Eurostat’s estimates of Industrial Production for all of Europe, including those collected from Germany and repurposed, unsurprisingly follow the same way.  Year-over-year, production in Europe has declined in each of the last three months up to and including January. The rate of contraction is, already, about equal to the worst months of the 2012-13 declared recession. And while Mario Draghi may have still been talking about his booming European economy as late as October, European industry has had it like a recession going as far back as last May if not an earlier inflection all the way back in December 2017.In other words, the word “unexpected” has rematerialized in most commentary but the trend has been in place for a good long while already. Maybe the whole of last year. This simply means it is not something European official should have so easily dismissed, which they will always do, and certainly not something they should take lightly this year. This much time going the wrong way can only be a serious economic concern. Europe’s misfortune was supposed to be just that; European. Of course, that’s not the way these things work. The global economy, tied together by the conditions of a truly global currency, is going to act in harmony in whichever direction it is forced to move.

German Manufacturing Craters, Sending Bund Yields Negative - Two weeks ago, traders were puzzled by the ECB's especially dovish stance (just days before the Fed followed suit). They got their answer today with the release of the latest German and French manufacturing PMIs, both of which cratered deeper into contraction territory.Confirming that Germany - and Europe - is currently in a deep manufacturing recession, Markit’s Manufacturing PMI crashed to 44.7 from 47.6, the lowest since 2012 and far below economists’ expectation of a modest rebound to 48. That’s the third consecutive reading below 50, which indicates contraction (and recession). The new orders and employment components also declined. Germany’s composite index, which includes services, slipped to 51.5, the lowest in 69 months. The services index came in at 54.9 after posting 55.3 in February."The downturn in Germany’s manufacturing sector has become more entrenched," said Phil Smith, Principal Economist at IHS Markit. "Uncertainty towards Brexit and US-China trade relations, a slowdown in the car industry and generally softer global demand all continue to weigh heavily on the performance of the manufacturing sector, which is now registering the steepest rate of contraction since 2012."“The domestic market remains strong, which continues to be reflected in wage pressures and robust growth across the services sector of the economy, but the question is whether it can withstand a protracted downturn in manufacturing. The first decrease in factory employment for three years is perhaps a warning sign for the health of domestic demand, with overall job creation now running at its lowest since May 2016." Markit said if the weakness persists into the next quarter, it may leave the euro-zone economy struggling to grow by much more than 1 percent this year. The ECB currently sees growth averaging 1.1 percent in 2019.

Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank go public on merger talks (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank confirmed on Sunday they were in talks about a merger, prompting labor union concerns about possible job losses and questions from analysts about the merits of a combination. Germany’s two largest banks issued short statements following separate meetings of their management boards, a person with knowledge of the matter said, indicating a quickening of pace in the merger process, although both also warned that a deal was far from certain. “In light of arising opportunities, the management board of Deutsche Bank has decided to review strategic options,” Deutsche said in its statement. Christian Sewing, Deutsche Bank’s chief executive, told employees that Deutsche still aimed “to remain a global bank with a strong capital markets business... with a global network”. Sewing said many factors could still prevent a merger and a Deutsche spokesman said the talks were expected to last some time. Commerzbank described the outcome as open. However, formal disclosure of talks appeared to boost the chances of concluding a deal first floated in 2016 before the banks opted to focus on restructuring. The German government has pushed for a combination given concerns about the health of Deutsche, which has struggled to generate sustainable profits since the 2008 financial crisis. The government, which holds a stake of more than 15 percent in Commerzbank following a bailout, wants a national banking champion to support its export-led economy, best known for cars and machine tools. Berlin also wants to keep Commerzbank’s speciality - the funding of medium-sized companies, the backbone of the economy - in German hands.

Shotgun Marriage: Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank Discuss Merger - Yves Smith - Normally, when banks look into merging, the impetus is either opportunism, whether well informed or not, or desperation. The only thing that differentiates the possible combination of Deutsche Bank, long the sickest man of Europe, and not all that healthy Commerzbank is that the desperation isn’t driven by the usual urgency, that a bank is about to keel over, unless, as some wags speculate, Deutsche’s first quarter numbers are coming in so bad that the bank needs to have some of credible plan to Do Something before it announces the results. One commentor at the Financial Times reported that “DBK was and is having trouble with wholesale funding spreads widening very strongly.” That suggests that the German giant, after so many years of limping along, may be too close to a tipping point for the officialdom to sit pat. Bloomberg also highlighted high borrowing costs due to credit risk:  For Deutsche Bank, the urgency to address the situation is exacerbated by high funding costs and the risk of a credit rating cut. Chairman Paul Achleitner is said to see an expansion of Deutsche Bank’s retail deposit base — which Commerzbank would bring — as one way to lower funding costs.  Germany is a particularly difficult banking market.  Germany’s Landesbanken have government backing and their Sparkasse purportedly are not profit oriented.  But Germany feels it can’t not have a national champion. From Bloomberg:  By bowing to officials’ desire to forge a durable German lender with global reach out of two troubled firms, Deutsche Bank’s leaders are hardly putting their woes behind them: massive job cuts, political turbulence, a weakening European economy, U.S. probes into its dealings with Donald Trump and a herculean integration – not to mention skeptical clients and investors — lie ahead if they reach a deal. That does not excuse Deutsche Bank having long been spectacularly mismanaged. It’s been operating under what amounts to regulatory forbearance since the crisis, with capital levels way way below any other big international bank. But Deutsche is the classic “too big to fail” bank. Whether it is too big to bail is debatable, but the EU’s new Banking Recovery and Resolution Directive, which banking experts almost to a person declared to be a horrorshow, was supposed to end bailouts and force bail ins….refusing to recognize that that’s a prescription for bank runs. And even though Deutsche is very much the German government’s problem, as readers no doubt have figured out, German politicians hate fiscal spending and stealth monetization of spending. So until there is a crisis to force their hands, they are allergic to providing official support to Deutsche.  No one is trying to put lipstick on this pig. It’s remarkable to see how little support there is for the prosed merger. I’ve never seen comments in major media outlets, particularly citing the opinions of insiders.

Russia sends 'squadrons' of nuclear-capable bombers to Crimea in response to U.S. missile shield in Romania - Russia has sent “squadrons” of nuclear-capable Tu-22M3 strategic bombers to Crimea in response to the deployment of U.S. Navy Aegis Ashore missile defense installations in Romania, according to a report in Russian state-run media. “The deployment of American missile defense systems in Romania came as a major challenge, in response to which the Russian Defense Ministry made the decision to deploy long-range missile-carrying bombers Tupolev Tu-22M23 at the Gvardeyskoye air base,” Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian Federation Council’s Committee for Defense and Security, was quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency as saying Monday. “This move has drastically changed the balance of forces in the region,” Bondarev said of the missile defense shield. While the bombers are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, it is unclear if those weapons would come with the bombers when they are sent to Crimea. Washington views the missile shield, which U.S. and NATO officials switched on in May 2016, as vital to defending itself and Europe from so-called rogue states — especially Iran — a claim Moscow has disputed. Rather, the Kremlin has said, the move is actually aimed at blunting Russia’s own nuclear arsenal. U.S. officials have said that despite Washington’s plans to continue to develop the capabilities of its system, the shield would not be used against any future Russian missile threat.

Pentagon Deploys B-52 Bombers to Europe in Message to Russia Amid Nuclear Tensions — The Pentagon has sent six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Europe for training exercises with European NATO member nations, in a move which officials are presenting as a “message” to Russia.Though officials tried to present this as a response to Russian “aggression,” in practice Russia hasn’t done anything in quite some time. Rather, the deployment appears to be timed to the fifth year anniversary of Crimea’s accession into the Russian Federation, which the US opposes.The nuclear bombers will be operating out of RAF Fairford in Britain for the time being. This isn’t the only set of B-52 US bombers being positioned within range of Russia, however, with another set exercises in the north Pacific, off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. Potentially nuclear-related deployments are likely to add to pressure for Russia to add to its own deployments in western Russia, as they attempt to retain some sort of deterrence as the US works on intermediate-range missiles and threatens more deployments into Europe.

Kremlin Says US Stoking Tensions By Deploying 6 Nuke-Capable Bombers To Europe -- The Kremlin on Thursday slammed US attempts to "stoke tensions" by flying nuclear-capable bombers near its borders after a series of prior close encounters over the Baltic Sea. This after the US Air Force starting late last week deployed no less than six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Europe for what it described as "theater integration and flying training" with regional NATO allies and partners. The training missions are set to occur at various locations across Europe, but on Monday the operation riled Moscow due to four B-52s conducting "flights to several places in Europe, including to the Norwegian Sea, the Baltic Sea/Estonia and the Mediterranean Sea/Greece," according to an Air Force statement. US Baltic operations puts American and Russian planes in dangerously close vicinity as there's been a recent spate of instances over the past year where Russian intercepts of US flights have resulted in heightening rhetoric coming from each side.For example, in November, the US complained about an "unsafe" intercept of a plane by an Su-27. As video of that incident showed the Su-27 made a pass directly in front of the mission aircraft. Moscow insisted that the pass was indeed safe; however, the Pentagon has consistently condemned the Russian intercepts as "unsafe" and "unprofessional". Two weeks ago the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) released stunning footage of yet another intercept of a US spy plane over the waters of the Baltic Sea near the Russian border which occurred on an unknown date.

 Germany Backpedals On NATO Spending Promise As France Goes Full Throttle -- Germany is poised to renege on its promise to boost NATO spending, backtracking on a public commitment last year by Chancellor Angela Merkel to increase German military expenditure to 1.5% of gross domestic product by 2024 - bringing it closer to the 2% level set by NATO themselves, according to the Wall Street Journal. If confirmed at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the move would mark a fresh step in the gradual estrangement between the U.S. and its erstwhile loyal European ally and comes after Mr. Trump’s repeated attacks of North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders for not meeting a 2% military-spending target. -WSJBerlin currently spends around €43 billion ($49 billion), equal to just over 1.2% of GDP on defense. Under a new plan unveiled on Monday by the finance ministry, the spending would rise to just 1.37% of GDP next year, then decrease again to 1.33% in 2019, 1.29% in 2022 and 1.25% in 2023."The commitment we have made to NATO states that spending should reach 2% if the budget conditions allow for it. We haven't abandoned the target but it remains a challenge that the federal government wants to master," said a senior government official. Berlin's change of heart is the second recent rebuke of President Trump - who publicly embarrassed Germany during a July 2018 bilateral breakfast over their reliance on Russian energy. Germany is "captive of Russia because it is getting so much of its energy from Russia," said Trump, adding "The former Chancellor of Germany is the head of the pipeline company that is supplying the gas." "Ultimately Germany will have almost 70 percent of their country controlled by Russia with natural gas. So you tell me, is that appropriate?" Trump asked. "It should have never been allowed to happen. So Germany is totally controlled by Russia." 

Macron calls for ‘strong decisions’ after violent Yellow Jacket protests -- French President Emmanuel Macron said he intends to take “strong decisions” to end the Yellow Jacket protests following violent demonstrations in the French capital Saturday. The protests marked the 18th demonstration by the Yellow Jackets’ movement in Paris, timed to coincide with the end of a two-month public debate exercise launched by Macron. Protesters vandalized shops and restaurants on the Champs-Elysées as police sought to break up the protests with water canons. “I want strong decisions to be made as soon as possible so that this does not happen again,” Macron tweeted late Saturday. "A lot has been done since November," but the renewed protests "shows that on these subjects we are not there," he said. Interrupting a ski trip with his wife in the south of France to return to Paris, the French president condemned the violent clashes, lootings and fires. “What happened today on the Champs-Élysées is no longer called a demonstration. These are people who want to destroy the Republic, at the risk of killing. Everyone who was there was complicit in this," he said in another tweet. French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Saturday that a number of the protestors were “ultra violent people who are there just to smash things up, to fight.” The protests began in response to a planned rise in fuel prices but has spiraled into a wider offense against Macron’s government.

The Day After: Paris Burns As Macron Returns From Mountain Vacation - Paris awoke on Sunday to smouldering fires, broken windows and looted stores following the 18th consecutive Saturday of Yellow Vest protests.  Around 200 people were arrested according to BFM TV, while about 80 shops near the iconic Champs Elysees had been damaged and/or looted according to AFP, citing Champs Elysees committee president Jean-Noel Reinhardt.   #GiletsJaunes #ActeXIII #Acte18 The devastation at the #ChampsElyssées #Paris pic.twitter.com/kaAdndFIhw — AP Photos (@ApPhotos) March 17, 2019   WATCH: This is the aftermath of the 18th straight weekend of #GiletJaunes protests in Paris pic.twitter.com/pJ1hsgAN2N — TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) March 17, 2019   Stores looted, cars burnt, violence returns to Paris landmark #ChampsElysees, as #YellowVest protestors clash with French police pic.twitter.com/aVSvcT1JEX — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) March 17, 2019  The 373-year-old Saint Sulpice Roman Catholic church was set on fire while people were inside, however nobody was injured. The cause of the fire remains unknown. The riots were so severe that French President Emmanuel Macron cut short a vacation at the La Mongie ski resort in the Hautes-Pyrénées following a three-day tour of East Africa which took him to Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya.  Macron skied on Friday, telling La Depeche du Midi "I'm going to spend two-three days here to relax, to find landscapes and friendly faces," adding "I'm happy to see the Pyrenees like that, radiant, although I know it was more difficult at Christmas" referring to the lack of snow in December.   In response to Saturday's violence, Macron said over Twitter that "strong decisions" were coming to prevent more violence.   Macron said some individuals -- dubbed “black blocs” by French police forces -- were taking advantage of the protests by the Yellow Vest grassroots movement to “damage the Republic, to break, to destroy.” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Twitter that those who excused or encouraged such violence were complicit in it. -Bloomberg

 France to Deploy Military Against Next Round of Yellow Vest Protests — If the black smoke over the Paris skyline and charred cars and buildings along the Champs-Elysees which have become characteristic of France’s increasingly violent Yellow Vest protests over the past months weren’t alarming enough, things look to get much worse as the government prepares to escalate.In an effort to clamp down on the unraveling security situation, which has lately seen banks and residential buildings torched, and luxury stores and restaurants vandalized and destroyed, the French authorities have announced the deployment of anti-terrorism military forces in order to protect and secure public buildings. Following the worsening protest situation of the past weekend (after a brief lull at the end of President Macron’s failed ‘great debate’ initiative which pushed town halls to air grievances), which nearly turned deadly for random civilians caught in the mayhem of rioters clashing with police, the government will redirect counter-terror troops from Opération Sentinelle to focus on Yellow Vest related threats. Opération Sentinelle began after the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks (the series of al-Qaeda linked terrorist acts that began with the Charlie Hebdo shooting) and resulted in some 10,000 soldiers and 4,700 police and gendarmes deployed at sensitive sites and public buildings across the country. According to Bloomberg, French authorities have sought to calm the obvious and immediate fears raised that the move constitutes the government taking a full martial law approach of sending the military against its own people.  Following a weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux pointed to the “new forms of violence” Saturday which he said justifies deploying the counter-terror forces. “After seeing the new forms of violence Saturday, emergency measures will be taken to reinforce the reaction of the security forces,” Griveaux said. He added this is to include “the reinforced mobilization of Sentinelle to protect official building and other fixed positions in the capital.”

French army receives authorization to shoot “yellow vest” protesters - Yesterday, the governor of the Paris military district told France Info that soldiers of the Operation Sentinel counter-terror mission had been authorized to fire today on the “yellow vests.” Asked about whether soldiers were capable of carrying out law enforcement duties, General Bruno Le Ray replied: “Our orders are sufficiently clear that we do not need to be worried at all. The soldiers’ rules of engagement will be fixed very rigorously.”“They will have different means for action faced with all types of threats,” he continued. “That can go as far as opening fire.”Le Ray added that soldiers will have the same rules of engagement for shooting protesters as those for gunning down terrorism suspects inside France: “They will deliver warnings. This has happened in the past, as in (attacks at) the Louvre or at Orly. They are perfectly able to assess the nature of the threat and to respond proportionally.” These threats against a protest movement against social inequality that is largely peaceful must be taken as a warning by workers and youth not only in France but internationally. As mass protests and strikes erupting outside the control of the union bureaucracies spread across the world, the military and security agencies of the financial aristocracy are preparing to carry out ruthless repression. Even in countries like France with long bourgeois-democratic traditions, they are rapidly moving towards military-police dictatorship.

Dutch shooting- Letter may suggest terror motive in Utrecht – BBC - Dutch prosecutors investigating the murder of three people on a tram said a letter found in the gunman's getaway car was among the reasons why a terrorist motive was being seriously considered.Three people were killed and three others seriously wounded in the attack in the central city of Utrecht.Turkish-born suspect Gokmen Tanis was arrested on Monday evening.No connection has been found between Mr Tanis and the victims of the attack.Police said on Tuesday that armed officers had arrested another suspect, a 40-year-old man, in Utrecht. A statement said he was "suspected of involvement" and his role was under investigation.Two other men arrested on Monday were released and were no longer suspects, police said. Prime Minister Mark Rutte laid flowers at the scene of the attack on Tuesday afternoon. In a statement he paid tribute to the people of Utrecht who had "remained calm despite the great threat".  "So far a terrorist motive is being seriously taken into account. Among other things a letter found in the getaway car and the nature of the facts give rise to that," a statement said (in Dutch), without detailing the contents of the letter.Prosecutors say a firearm was found when Tanis was detained. They say other motives have not been ruled out.  The red Renault Clio getaway car was stolen from the scene of the attack and later found in Utrecht's Tichelaarslaan close to where the suspect was arrested.   Owner Frans Hoogendijk said he had abandoned the car with the engine running when he saw people fleeing the tram and one shouted at him to run for his life.  Neighbours had earlier described the suspected gunman as a "loser" and a petty criminal rather than a terrorist. Dutch justice officials confirmed on Tuesday that he had been released from custody recently in a rape case, which was due to go to court in July. He was freed after promising to co-operate with authorities. He has been convicted of crimes this month as well as in the past.

 Upstart Populist Party Shocks In Dutch Election Upset, 2 Days After Utrecht Attack --Dutch voters have sent shock waves through Europe at the polls on Wednesday in the wake of Monday's deadly Utrecht terror shooting, in which a now detained 37-year old Turkish man went on a terrifying tram killing spree which left three dead and three injured.  Euroskeptic party, Forum for Democracy (FvD), has emerged victorious in key provincial elections this week, paving the way to making it one of the two largest groups in the Dutch Senate, and representing growing Dutch frustration with the recent unprecedented refugee influx in Europe.  International reports have described the FvD as receiving "a surge of last-minute support" in the days following the Utrecht attack, which investigators have since described as having a "terror motive" based on a letter found in shooter Gokmen Tanis' possession.Forum for Democracy party leader Thierry Baudet had immediately placed ultimate blame for the incident on the government's “lax immigration policies” and provocatively stated a day before the elections (referencing his political rival) Baudet, riding a wave of renewed Euroskeptic sentiment, and whose party also wants to see more military spending, green initiatives, and an easing on income tax while greatly restricting the borders, said in the aftermath of Wednesday's vote: “The voters in the Netherlands have spread their wings and shown their true power.” Referencing the Utrecht attack and other deadly terror incidents on European soil, he added: “We have been called to the front because we have to. Because the country needs us.”

Italy probes mystery death of Berlusconi sex trial witness - Italy is investigating the mysterious death of a former model and witness at Silvio Berlusconi's sex trial, with a newspaper suggesting on Saturday she may have been poisoned with a radioactive substance. Milan prosecutor Francesco Greco said an investigation had been opened following the death on March 1 of Moroccan-born Imane Fadil at one of the city's hospitals. The 33-year-old had been taken to hospital on January 29 with unexplained stomach pains. Fadil was one of the witnesses who testified at the trial of the former Italian premier and media mogul on charges of having sex with an underage prostitute at one of his notoriously hedonistic bunga-bunga parties. According to Italy's Corriere della Sera daily, the hospital had run a battery of tests to determine the cause of her failing health, but finding nothing, had sent off samples to a specialised laboratory in the northern town of Pavia. The results came back on March 6, five days after her death, suggesting the presence of "a mixture of radioactive substances which are not normally available for purchase", the paper said, citing unnamed sources. Fadil's lawyer, Paolo Sevesi, said she had spoken to him about "her fear of having been poisoned", the AGI news agency reported. The former model first hit the headlines in 2012 when she gave detailed testimony about the goings-on at Berlusconi's parties at his villa in Arcore near Milan. She testified that the first time she went to a party, she saw two young women in nun costumes stripping in front of the then prime minister. Later, she said he himself handed her 2,000 euros ($2,300 at current rates) in cash, telling her: "Don't be offended." Speaking at a political meeting in the southern Basilicata, Berlusconi said he was "sorry when a young person dies. I never knew this person and I never spoke to them." "What I read about her declarations always made me think that they were contrived and absurd," he said. 

Italy Probes Mysterious 'Radioactive Poisoning' Death Of Berlusconi Sex-Trial Witness -- Moroccan-born Imane Fidal, who was caught up in the scandal of Silvio Berlusconi’s notorious “bunga bunga” parties, has mysteriously died, with a newspaper suggesting on Saturday she may have been poisoned with a radioactive substance.  And now, France24 reports that Milan prosecutor Francesco Greco said an investigation had been opened following the death.The 33-year-old had been brought to the hospital on January 29 with unexplained stomach pains.According to Italy's Corriere della Sera daily, the hospital had run a battery of tests to determine the cause of her failing health, but finding nothing, had sent off samples to a specialised laboratory in the northern town of Pavia.The results came back on March 6, five days after her death, suggesting the presence of "a mixture of radioactive substances which are not normally available for purchase", the paper said, citing unnamed sources.Perhaps they have reason to suspect foul play, as Fadil's lawyer, Paolo Sevesi, said she had spoken to him about "her fear of having been poisoned," the AGI news agency reported. The former model first hit the headlines in 2012, The Telegraph reports when Ms Fidal was one of three young women who claimed that Mr Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” gatherings, held at his villa outside Milan, were sordid sex parties.

 EU Slaps Google With $1.7 Billion Fine Over Anti-Competitive Behavior -  Google shares are 'plunging' 0.2% in the pre-market as Brussels has fined Alphabet’s Google unit €1.49bn for hampering potential rival search advertisers between 2006 and 2016, closing the last formal EU investigation into the US tech company.As AP reports, it's the third time the commission has slapped Google with an antitrust penalty, following multibillion-dollar fines resulting from separate probes into two other parts of the Silicon Valley giant's business.Brussels also found Google abused its dominance in two other cases: in June 2017 it was fined €2.4bn for favouring its own shopping service and the following summer it was hit with a €4.6bn penalty for restrictive terms for Android phonemakers. The EU's competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, announced the results of the long-running probe of Google's AdSense advertising business at a news conference in Brussels on Wednesday."Today's decision is about how Google abused its dominance to stop websites using brokers other than the AdSense platform," Vestager said.“Google has cemented its dominance in online search adverts and shielded itself from competitive pressure by imposing anti-competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites...The misconduct lasted over 10 years and denied other companies the possibility to compete on the merits and to in novate — and consumers the benefits of competition.”

EU’s Antitrust Enforcer Starts Campaign for One of Bloc’s Top Jobs -Margrethe Vestager put herself forward for one of the European Union’s top jobs, a day after she cemented her reputation as the bloc’s tough antitrust enforcer by squeezing a $1.7 billion fine out of Google.“It’s long overdue to have a woman heading” the European Commission, she told reporters ahead of a meeting of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the centrist party group that chose her as one of seven senior politicians to rally for votes in the European Parliament elections in May. The group is among mainstream parties seeking to fend off a populist surge fueled by anger against elites and economic inequality.The Dane has pitched herself as a campaigner for fairness in taxation and business. She has cracked down on corporate tax evasion by telling Apple Inc. to pay billions of euros of back taxes to Ireland. She’s battled Alphabet Inc. to call for fair treatment in Internet search results and phone apps from its Google business.  Vestager’s popular profile got the loudest cheer from party supporters at a Brussels campaign launch on Wednesday as the 50-year-old was mobbed by people seeking selfies with her. She now needs to turn that fame into electoral success, calling “first things first” to get people out to vote in May and refusing to discuss her own job prospects in detail. There’s never been a female European Commission president.

Trump Blockade of Huawei Fizzles In European 5G Rollout -- Last summer, the Trump administration started a campaign to convince its European allies to bar China’s Huawei Technologies Co. from their telecom networks. Bolstered by the success of similar efforts in Australia and New Zealand, the White House sent envoys to European capitals with warnings that Huawei’s gear would open a backdoor for Chinese spies. The U.S. even threatened to cut off intelligence sharing if Europe ignored its advice. So far, not a single European country has banned Huawei. “There are two things I don’t believe in,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a conference Tuesday in Berlin. “First, to discuss these very sensitive security questions publicly, and second, to exclude a company simply because it’s from a certain country.’’ Europe, caught in the middle of the U.S.-China trade war, has sought to balance concerns about growing Chinese influence with a desire to increase business with the region’s second-biggest trading partner. With no ban in the works, Huawei is in the running for contracts to build 5G phone networks, the ultra-fast wireless technology Europe’s leaders hope will fuel the growth of a data-based economy. The U.K.’s spy chief has indicated that a ban on Huawei is unlikely, citing a lack of viable alternatives to upgrade British telecom networks. Italy’s government has dismissed the U.S. warnings as it seeks to boost trade with China. In Germany, which is selling 5G airwaves in an auction expected to raise as much as 5 billion euros ($5.7 billion), authorities have proposed tighter security rules for data networks rather than outlawing Huawei. France is doing the same after initially flirting with the idea of restrictions on the company.

Four Wikipedias To ‘Black Out’ Over EU Copyright Directive - Volunteer editor communities in four language Wikipedias—German, Czech, Danish, and Slovak—have decided to black out the sites on 21 March in opposition to the current version of the proposed EU Copyright Directive.Those language editions of Wikipedia will redirect all visitors to a banner about the directive, blocking access to content on Wikipedia for 24 hours. A final vote on the directive is expected on 26 March. These independent language communities decided to black out in the same way most decisions are made on Wikipedia—through discussion and consensus, something summarized in a statement from the German Wikipedia volunteer community: “Each of these independent Wikipedia communities has been engaging in public online discussions as to their course of action, and voting on whether and how to protest. They have done this according to their own rules of governance.”This is not the first time volunteer editors have decided to take a stand on policy issues that may impact Wikipedia and the broader free and open internet.* However, it is something that happens rarely and with clear intention, and for good reason: Wikipedia’s volunteer communities recognize the importance that any one Wikipedia plays in the world, and its authority as a collection of knowledge, relies upon the neutrality of its content. And as we said in another community-led civic engagement seven years ago, “Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, [but] its existence is not.” The Wikimedia Foundation supports decisions from our community about how they choose to include the Wikimedia projects in policy issues that directly impact our mission and values. We also recognize that our community is often in the best position to understand the local policy context and make decisions about how the site gets involved.  The Wikimedia Foundation’s role is to respect each community’s decision and work to ensure that their action is supported.

How the backstop deal was done – and why Cox blew it apart - On Monday morning Martin Selmayr, the secretary general of the European Commission, was in mid-flow briefing EU ambassadors on how efforts over the weekend to get legally binding assurances on the Irish backstop had ground to a halt.Suddenly, Selmayr received a message on his phone from London.The deal was back on.By 8pm that evening Theresa May was on an RAF BAe 146 jet bound for Strasbourg to meet Jean-Claude Juncker.At 10.45pm a deal was struck: May had secured three documents designed to allow the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox to change his legal advice that the backstop was "indefinite".A cliff-hanger sequence was then in motion. Cox would endorse the Strasbourg deal 12 hours later, confirm the backstop was no longer a permanent "trap", and give the Conservative Party and DUP cover to ratify the Withdrawal Agreement. Just over two weeks later, Brexit - the glittering prize of Theresa May’s career - would be delivered.That was the plan. But… just as Cordelia could inexplicably not summon up the anticipated flattery for King Lear - earning herself instant banishment and penury - the stentorian Cox himself took to the stage and, on cue, delivered the very opposite of what the script was supposed to say."The legal risk remains unchanged," he told an audibly deflating House of Commons the following morning.  "There is no ultimate unilateral right out of this [backstop] arrangement."Sterling plummeted. At 7.20pm the Withdrawal Agreement suffered a second thumping defeat.

The Prime Minister of Humiliation - Shortly before 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May was sitting in a jam-packed British parliament. She had just been badly humiliated by her own Conservative Party once again, but nobody seemed willing to stand by her. May sat sunken, ashen, with one of those chunky necklaces around her neck that look like they could drag her into the abyss at any moment. She was alone. Even her voice had left her. But then she stood up, uttered words of regret and proceeded to announce the next steps. She apparently wanted to keep going. Onwards and onwards. As if nothing momentous had happened at all. Yet something momentous had happened. This week, 17 days before the date when the United Kingdom is set to leave the European Union, British parliament rejected the divorce deal for the second time. And once again, it did so by such an overwhelming majority that the last remnants of Theresa May's control over events -- if she ever had it in the first place -- evaporated. Whatever happens now is no longer up to her. Despite massive pressure exerted on her own fellow Conservatives, despite blatant attempts to lure the opposition with money, despite tentative concessions from Brussels, and despite nightmarish predictions for what would happen if she failed, May hasn't managed win over a single one of the opposing factions in parliament in recent weeks. The Brexiteers, the fans of a second referendum, the supporters of a soft deal: They all marched together, shoulder to shoulder on Tuesday, issuing to May an unequivocal: "No." May has merely been reacting to events for quite some time now. Rather than building bridges, she has burned them. And even though MPs have now voted against a no-deal exit from the EU and in favor of extending the deadline, it is unclear what that extra time should be used for. And by whom. It has become increasingly clear that May has led her country, her party and herself into a labyrinth, and that she apparently has neither the power nor the ideas that will allow them to find a way out. Brexit would have been a momentous challenge for any prime minister, but May's stubbornness and ineptness have made it even more difficult. Because of this, Brexit has become, for many, a referendum on May herself.

Brexit talks focused on legal guarantees ‘not cash’, says DUP - The DUP has rejected suggestions it is seeking a cash incentive from the British government in exchange for supporting it in a third vote on the Brexit withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons next week. On Saturday, the DUP issued a statement from a spokesperson saying its focus was on ensuring Northern Ireland was treated the same as Britain post-Brexit. “We are in discussions with the Government to ensure Northern Ireland is not separated out from the rest of the United Kingdom as we leave the European Union. “Contrary to some reports we are not discussing cash. There are still issues to be addressed in our discussions.” The Spectator magazine reported on Saturday that the DUP was likely to support prime minister Theresa May in the vote next week after twice rejecting the deal. The DUP, whose 10 MPs hold the balance of power in parliament, is moving towards backing the agreement after receiving a promise that the government would put into law a requirement that there be no divergence between Northern Ireland and Britain, it was claimed. A cabinet minister involved in the talks with the DUP told the Spectator the chances of the DUP backing the government’s deal were around 60 percent.

‘Back me and we’ll be out by May’: Prime Minister urges MPs to vote for her deal or risk being stuck forever in the EU’s ‘Hotel California’ - Theresa May has warned Tory MPs that if her Brexit deal fails to pass the Commons this week the UK will be stuck in the Brussels version of a ‘Hotel California’ – unable ever to leave the EU. The Prime Minister has been advised that, if her troubled agreement is rejected again this week – forcing her to apply to the EU for a long extension to Article 50 – then the Commons would have the power to delay Brexit indefinitely. The officials warned Mrs May that, because a delay which runs beyond June would oblige the UK to participate in this year’s European parliamentary elections, ‘there is effectively no limit to the number of extensions of Article 50 the UK can ask for or be required to ask for by Parliament’. Mrs May said last night: ‘The idea of the British people going to the polls to elect MEPs three years after voting to leave the EU hardly bears thinking about. There could be no more potent symbol of Parliament’s collective political failure’. The Government has been locked in critical negotiations with the DUP this weekend to persuade them to sign up to Mrs May’s deal. Their discussions have focused on Attorney General Geoffrey Cox’s ‘clarification’ of his legal advice on the backstop. Downing Street hopes that, if the DUP backs the deal, most rebel Tory MPs would then also fall into line. With another tumultuous week in prospect at Westminster, The Mail on Sunday today reveals that:

• No 10 believes the delay to Brexit can be limited to under two months if MPs back the deal.
• Leave-supporting MPs, led by former Brexit Secretary David Davis, have signed a public letter urging Tory MPs to vote for the deal.
• A ‘suicide squad’ of hardline Brexiteers is plotting to ‘blow up’ Mrs May’s Government if she tries to impose a long delay to Brexit.
• Moves to deselect pro-Remain Tory MPs have reportedly started in more than 50 local associations after last week’s Commons voting drama.
• Allies of Boris Johnson have claimed that Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Health Secretary Matt Hancock are trying to ‘stitch up’ a post-May leadership contest by keeping Brexiteers off the ballot paper.
• Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss has added to the sense of civil war in the party by condemning ‘virtue-signalling vultures’ in the Cabinet, who she accused of pandering to ‘Left-wing whingers’.

Around 40 Tory Rebels Told Theresa May: We’ll Vote For Your Brexit Deal If You Quit - Conservative MPs have told Theresa May and her aides in phone calls and meetings over the weekend that she must publicly commit to standing down as prime minister to secure their votes for her Brexit deal. As Downing Street struggles to persuade enough rebel MPs to back May’s withdrawal agreement in time for the third meaningful vote scheduled for Tuesday, a group of 40 backbenchers have warned they will not vote for the deal unless she agrees to step aside so a new PM lead the next stage of Brexit negotiations. In conversations with May, her senior advisers in Number 10 and chief whip Julian Smith on Saturday and Sunday, details of which have been shared with BuzzFeed News, MPs on both the Remain and Leave wings of the Tory party said the price for getting the deal through is her departure. May was told in direct terms by several MPs in one-on-one phone calls on Sunday that she should make a pact promising to resign if her deal passes, a source familiar with the conversations said. In one of the phone calls, a former cabinet minister who last week swapped sides to vote for the deal told May she would win round other rebels if she announced she is willing to go. A source familiar with the conversation said the PM reacted with “surprise” and “faux astonishment” at the idea of a resignation pact. Several MPs have contacted Graham Brady, the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, to urge him to tell May to make a public commitment that she will leave office after the deal passes. On Friday, at a meeting between May and Tory “switchers” – the backbenchers who didn’t vote for the deal at the first meaningful vote but backed it at the second vote last week – MPs also said the PM would have to set a departure date in order to win over the remaining rebels.

Labour likely to back public vote on UK PM’s deal, says Corbyn (Reuters) - Britain’s Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn signaled on Sunday he would back a proposal by lawmakers to hold a public vote on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal if it was approved by parliament. May is expected to stage another vote on her deal to leave the European Union this week, but two of her ministers indicated on Sunday the Conservative government would only do so if there was the support to get it approved. Corbyn, who has been reluctant to stage a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, has long said he would act to stop what he calls a “botched” Conservative Brexit. On Sunday, he said Labour would most probably back a proposal, or an amendment, drawn up by two Labour lawmakers, Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, which would seek a “confirmation ballot” if May’s deal is passed by parliament. “Yes we will be supporting it but we’ve obviously got to see the wording of it,” he told Sky News, adding that Labour would not support May’s deal. “The priority is to make sure that we don’t crash out on the 29th of March.” Corbyn has long been under pressure by members of his party to back a second referendum, or People’s Vote, on Britain’s membership of the EU but fears alienating those Labour voters who backed Brexit.

Brexit by July 1 unless UK votes in EU election: Document - Brexit can't be delayed beyond July 1 unless Britain takes part in the European Parliament election at the end of May, according to an EU document presented to ambassadors of member countries on Friday. The document, prepared by EU officials, sets out the legal issues that would be raised by Britain requesting an extension of the Article 50 period, as Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to do next week. The text states that a withdrawing member country is legally bound to organize European Parliament elections between May 23 and May 26 this year. If the member country does not do so and the new Parliament holds its first session on July 2 with that country still in the bloc, the EU institutions "cease being able to operate in a secure legal context." "It follows that no extension should be granted beyond 1 July unless the European Parliament elections are held at the mandatory date," the document says. The document says that multiple extensions to the Article 50 period are theoretically possible. But if the U.K. were granted an extension until July 1 and did not take part in the European Parliament election, it could not then be given a further extension. "It follows that if an initial extension puts the withdrawal date after the date of the European Parliament elections, and if these elections were not organised by the withdrawing State, this would make any further extension impossible," the document says.

Britain faces a TWENTY month delay to leaving the EU amid a ‘constitutional crisis’ after smirking Bercow (whose wife had a ‘B******s to Brexit’ car sticker) invokes 400-year-old law to scupper PM’s hopes of a third ‘meaningful vote’ -- John Bercow was accused of trying to sabotage Brexit last night after he blocked another vote on Theresa May’s deal. In a dramatic intervention, the Commons Speaker ruled that the EU withdrawal agreement could not be put to a vote again without substantial changes. He gave Downing Street no notice of his announcement, which came just 24 hours before the Prime Minister was expected to ask the Commons to decide on the issue for a third time following two crushing defeats. As well as sparking a constitutional crisis, Mr Bercow’s move all but killed any prospect of a vote before Mrs May heads to an EU summit on Thursday. Commons Speaker John Bercow’s move all but killed any prospect of a vote before Mrs May heads to an EU summit on Thursday It also means she may have to ask Brussels for a delay of up to 20 months. A senior Government source said the Speaker, who is an outspoken critic of Brexit, wanted to wreck Mrs May’s plan of limiting the delay to three months. ‘It seems clear that the Speaker’s motive here is to rule out a meaningful vote this week,’ the source added. ‘It leads you to believe what he really wants is a longer extension, where Parliament will take over the process and force a softer form of Brexit. ‘Anyone who thinks that this makes No Deal more likely is mistaken – the Speaker wouldn’t have done it if it did.’ With just ten days to go until Britain is scheduled to leave the EU, the Prime Minister was last night locked in crisis talks with her closest advisers to try to come up with a new strategy. Ministers proposed a string of radical options – including asking the Queen to open a new session of Parliament – in the hope of getting round Mr Bercow’s ruling. 

 It's A Shit Show - Likelihood Of UK Crashing Out Of EU Next Week Is Higher Than It Has Ever Been - UK Prime Minister Theresa May must enjoy ritual humiliation, because despite warnings from European Council President Donald Tusk that the EU likely wouldn't accept May's request for a brief Brexit extension, the Prime Minister traveled all the way to Brussels on Thursday so she could hear the EU27's rejection in person. The bloc is insisting that it won't authorize an Article 50 extension unless a meaningful vote on May's deal succeeds (it has already been rejected twice, both times by historic margins), yet May has continued to grovel, because, at this point, it's all she can do (other than resign, that is). With the EU increasingly indifferent to a 'no deal' Brexit, and the UK's emergency planning entering its most advanced stages, the House of Commons has gone full-on 'Lord of the Flies', with backbenchers once again scheming to wrest control from May, and frustrated cabinet ministers have been telling any reporter who will listen that May's days are numbered, and to expect her resignation at any minute.  Meanwhile. journalists and analysts have been baffled by May's continued insistence that MPs must choose between her deal, no deal or no Brexit. Even the most discerning observers in the Brexit press corp have no idea what might happen next, and although it doesn't take a genius to realize the wheels have finally come off May's Brexit clown car, Wall Street banks are finally beginning to revise their projections. And while they're still probably still underestimating the probability that the UK crashes out of the trade bloc without a deal at the end of the month (just like they underestimating the likelihood that UK voters would opt to leave the EU), a team of analysts at Deutsche Bank that has been closely tracking different Brexit potentialities has raised the odds of a no-deal exit to their highest level yet - to 20%, from 15% in a prior assessment. Online betting markets are also pricing in rising odds of 'no deal', though traders continue to see an orderly exit as still the more likely outcome. However, a no-deal exit isn't the bank's base case: It continues to expect the EU to approve a long-term Article 50 extension after May resigns and triggers another general election, ushering in a wave of unprecedented political instability.

 May Reportedly Preparing 'Timetable For Resignation' As EU Weighs Brexit Extension -  The latest Brexit headlines cast May's dilemma into stark relief: The EU is giving May another in a series of ultimatums. The French Foreign Minister has reportedly said that May's extension request will not be approved unless she can guarantee that she can pass her deal by the deadline.  In her letter to Tusk requesting the delay, May said she's "confident" that she can push the deal through, leaving MPs utterly baffled after Parliament has repeatedly demonstrated that her deal is wildly unpopular, and that Brexiteers would rather force a 'no deal' exit than risk the UK becoming a "vassal state" of Europe.  Supporting what we said earlier about May potentially using tonight's speech (note: No. 10 insiders have said she would not be making a speech tonight) to set out plans for her resignation, one independent twitter journalist has noted that rumors are swirling that May might lay out a timetable for her resignation tonight.  According to a steady drumbeat of reports in recent weeks, May has lost the confidence of most of the members of her cabinet, with some speculating that she won't make it until the summer. As a reminder, the PM only survived a Tory no confidence vote last year by promising she would not lead the party into the next general election.  Speaking in Brussels, Donald Tusk said that the approval of May's request for a brief Article 50 extension is 'possible' but would be conditional on a Commons vote in support of the withdrawal agreement (note: the agreement has already been twice rejected by the Commons, which has also already voted in favor of an extension). Meanwhile, Tusk said he 'does not foresee' an extra EU summit to focus on the Brexit catastrophe, though, if there's movement on passing the WA, he wouldn't rule out a meeting of the European Council.  In summary, Tusk said EU is prepared to let it go down to the wire - and if the UK can't pass May's withdrawal agreement, then no dice on the extension.  He also reiterated that the EU won't reopen the withdrawal agreement.  In other words, though cable didn't react much to his statement, a 'no deal' exit just became even more likely.

 The UK will have very little control over trade tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit -- No-deal Brexit remains a distinct possibility. On 29 March, the UK will simply cease to be a member of the EU if a Withdrawal Agreement or an extension to Article 50 is not agreed.One of the main changes that would immediately result on this day is that the UK will need to apply its own tariff rates on its imports. It will not be bound by the EU's common external tariffs. It will also not be eligible for zero tariffs on exports to the EU. And, it will lose the benefits of almost all of the EU’s trade agreements, which cover 82 countries. To date, just seven of these trade agreements have been converted into continuity agreements, and none of these are with a major trade partner of the UK. The government has announced that, in the case of no deal, it will eliminate tariffs on 87 per cent of imports but introduce tariffs in key sectors including cars, ceramics and key meat products. The Cabinet has been divided over its tariff policy, with Michael Gove reportedly pursuing high tariffs, at least on agriculture, and Phillip Hammond preferring to opt for lower rates. Meanwhile, Liam Fox has floated the idea ofunilaterally dropping all tariffs to zero. For many products, there is actually very little flexibility. Politics aside, the economic reality is that the maximum tariffs that can be set for any product will be determined by the “bound rates” that the UK already has in place under the WTO. Members of the WTO negotiate over the maximum tariffs that governments can apply and these rates must be the same for imports from all countries, with the exception of developing countries and certain trade partners with who there is a comprehensive trade agreement in place. Successive rounds of WTO negotiations have led to low maximum tariff rates on a lot of goods. The average tariff that the UK charges to WTO members is under 3 per cent. But the average rate masks a number of tariff peaks, notably for agricultural products, textiles and apparel, leather products and automobiles, where the government, if they so wish, has a lot more room to deviate from the current EU tariff policy. 

May asks Brussels for Brexit extension amid worsening political crisis --Prime Minister Theresa May will ask for an extension before Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) comes into effect. If this is rejected by Brussels at a summit on Thursday, Brexit is set for March 29, in just nine days.No one knows exactly what May will ask for—a short extension (June 30 has been raised) or one extending beyond the summer that would require UK participation in the European elections. May has not ruled out asking for a combined short extension, with the back-up of a two-year delay if no parliamentary agreement on her EU deal is possible. It is far from certain that the EU will agree an extension. Its leaders have made clear they want May to provide sufficient reason for doing so, insisting it will come with a political and financial cost to the UK.May met with her cabinet yesterday, after her plan to bring her Brexit deal back to parliament for a third “meaningful vote” was scuppered by the intervention of Parliamentary Speaker John Bercow. The pro-Remain Conservative ruled Tuesday that a parliamentary convention dating back to 1604 meant it was unacceptable for another vote on a deal rejected twice already—the second time by a majority of 149. MPs decided that May had not secured the necessary concessions on the UK’s right to unilaterally leave the Northern Irish backstop customs arrangement already agreed with the EU.Bercow ruled that any additional vote would demand “a new proposition that is neither the same nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the House on March 12…” He added that this ruling “should not be regarded as my last word on the subject,” suggesting a possible compromise. But Solicitor General Robert Buckland described his intervention as a “constitutional crisis” and May readily agreed. The 90-minute Tory cabinet meeting was bitter and angry. One insider compared it to the “last days of Rome.” May has the support of those of her MPs who fear a “hard Brexit” and loss of tariff-free access to the Single European Market. Her aim now is to force hard-Brexit Tory MPs and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)—whose votes May relies on to rule as a minority government—to accept that the likely alternative to her “soft-Brexit” option is not a “no-deal Brexit”, but an extended period of continued EU membership. She also counts on their fear of a delay that might create the conditions for a second referendum to overturn the 2016 result or possibly even a general election. Any extension before invoking Article 50 of the EU constitution would have to be agreed by all 27 member states. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to “fight to the last hour of the deadline on 29 March for an orderly exit," but her Europe minister, Michael Roth, spoke of the EU’s patience “really being put to the test at the moment” and insisting on a “concrete proposal” about why the UK is “seeking an extension.”

Brexit: End of the Road -  Yves Smith -  As the Brexit clock runs down, the Government lost a day by getting caught up in yet another internal row. May had planned to send a letter to the EU saying what she wanted in the way of an extension. But that didn’t happen because her ministers got in a 90 minute row over the idea that she would seek anything more than a short extension. Reports vary as to what May sought. Some said she wanted to try to get an extension till anywhere from April to June but also have the option of a long extension if she couldn’t get her Withdrawal Agreement approved. For instance: Cabinet sources say PM is writing letter to EU today asking for extension – frustration that she is going to ask for end date of June 30th, with proviso of up delay of up to 2 years.  The BBC reported May didn’t actually pose a concrete plan (sadly plausible): There was alarm among Brexiteer cabinet ministers after May reportedly failed to outline a definitive decision on her approach to Article 50 at Tuesday’s cabinet. Leave cabinet ministers held talks at Westminster on Tuesday night to agree a joint position. Some cabinet ministers are expected to resign if the prime minister requests a lengthy extension to Article 50. The Daily Mail says May wanted nine months:Theresa May is preparing to to abandon her plan to ask the EU for a nine-month Brexit delay after furious cabinet ministers told her the Tory party would only accept a three-month wait. May has apparently capitulated to the demands of her ministers and will seek only a short extension. The Telegraph reported just after 7:00 AM London time that:Theresa May will not seek a long extension to Brexit, Number 10 has reportedly stated. The EU is talking tough and likely would have rejected a long extension. The spectacle of the Parliament and the Government flailing about as if March 29 didn’t matter isn’t endearing the UK to EU leaders. EU officials appear to have decided in the interest of time that they need to constrain the UK’s options before the summit Thursday and Friday, so the messages have become far more pointed. Reading between the lines, it also appears that the idea of a long extension, which came from Donald Tusk, wasn’t an EU view. It now appears Tusk was freelancing and perhaps also hoping to give support to the MPs who wanted a second referendum, since it would clearly take a very long runway for that plus the resulting course changes. But even if there had been some willingness on the EU side to consider a lengthy extension, Parliament’s decisive rejection of a second referendum eliminated the biggest reason for granting the UK a lot ore time. We had pointed out specifically that Macron didn’t sound like he was bluffing when he said, in effect, that the UK better present a damned good reason for seeking an extension. That reading looks to have been correct.From the Financial Times:The EU has told Britain there are no guarantees it can delay Brexit, raising the risk that Theresa May will leave a crucial summit this week with no assurances that the UK will be able to stay in the bloc beyond the scheduled departure date of March 29. Even if the EU agrees to a short extension, even that might not be as long as the UK wants. This morning’s reports suggest that May plans to ask for a June 30 drop dead date. That might not fly. From the BBC: Opinion is hardening in the EU against a lengthy extension to Article 50, Newsnight has learned.

European Union leaders grant May extra time to pass Brexit deal in UK parliament - The European Union’s (EU) 27 member states have agreed a plan allowing a delay of Brexit to May 22. But this is only on condition that UK MPs approve the deal the EU agreed with Prime Minister Theresa May by the previous official exit date of March 29.May and the EU leaders hope that the threat of a “hard-Brexit” as the only alternative will swing enough MPs behind the proposed “Strasbourg Agreement” between May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. If not, the UK will have only until April 12.Any further extension would involve UK participation in elections to the European parliament—a further incentive to the Conservative Party’s hard-Brexit faction and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to come on board.  This only gives two additional weeks towards a new “cliff edge.” After that the EU has made clear that essentially only an abandonment of Brexit will prevent the UK crashing out without a deal. There will be no further renegotiation.May came to the two-day summit just eight days before Britain was due to exit the European trade block under the terms of Article 50—following the June 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU. She arrived after making a televised statement to the nation the previous evening in which she posed as the people’s champion against a recalcitrant Parliament. “You want this stage of the Brexit process to be over and done with. I agree. I am on your side. It is now time for MPs to decide,” May said.  May’s request was for an extension to June 30. The proposal agreed fixes May 22 as the new Brexit date because that is when EU elections begin. May has so far ruled out any scenario which would mean UK participation in the elections. All reports and public statements portrayed French President Emmanuel Macron as taking the hardest line—most notably against Germany. But this was likely a prearranged case of good cop/bad cop. Macron in fact spoke for the entire EU when he warned, “In the case of a negative vote [in the UK parliament], we will go towards no deal—we all know it.” He stressed that the stability and homogeneity of the EU was at stake. “We must respect the will of the British people, but also the European project. European leaders understand and respect the will of the British people, but we defend the interests of our own people… We are ready for Brexit. France didn’t choose this, the British people did… The European project must continue and must be stronger.”

Waiting for Brexit - Yves Smith - The EU Council did what no one expected, which was to come up with a compromise on the UK’s request for a Brexit extension which was different than the UK’s proposal and any of the pre-meeting rumors about the EU’s position. Although we’ll likely learn more about how this was arrived at, superficially, it looks like it resulted from heated arguments between Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, as well as allowing for the point of view of Donald Tusk (and whatever other national leaders who hold similar views) that the UK should have the opportunity to have a long extension if it can come up with a credible Brexit plan. Specifically, as most readers likely know, the EU has agreed to extend the departure date to May 22 if Theresa May succeeds in getting her Brexit deal approved by Parliament next week, to enough time to pass necessary legislation if she succeeds. If she fails, the UK can still seek a long extension by April 12 if it presents a plausible plan for getting to a different type of Brexit: Later reports explained that if the UK seeks a longer extension, it has to commit to participating in European Parliament elections (April 12 is the last day it can make that decision). This solution may seem to be a well-balanced or even elegant compromise, but it does have the risk of being the prototypical horse designed by a committee winding up being a camel.1 For starters, the EU gave the UK more than it asked for, and some of the motives for doing so looked iffy. The press reported that Merkel argued that the EU should not go down in history as pushing the UK out. This was the Financial Times’ account:The French president emerged as the head of a hardline group of EU leaders arguing that Brussels should rule out any extended delay of Britain’s exit date unless London fundamentally rethinks its Brexit policy.But on Thursday he was challenged by Angela Merkel, German chancellor, who said the union had to do whatever it could to avoid a hard Brexit. The two leaders clashed at a private meeting, which “nearly” erupted into a row, according to one EU diplomat. Ms Merkel told her French counterpart they would be judged harshly by history if they allowed a chaotic fracture with Britain to occur. Needless to say, that’s a peculiar construction when it’s the UK that decided to leave and then has been unable to manage deadlines it created by sending in an Article 50 notice. Even though many UK businesses were in freakout mode upon getting the memo that Brexit really might happen next week, the flip side, as Macron and others have stressed, many have prepared for a March 29 event, and pushing the drop dead date to June 30 (May’s original request) would requires businesses to go through all that preparation a second time. 

EU delays Brexit, gives UK new deadlines - EU leaders agreed to postpone Brexit day, imposing two new dates — April 12 and May 22 — that will determine the course of the U.K.'s departure. Leaders devised the new plan at a summit in Brussels on Thursday after quickly rejecting U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's request for an extension of the Article 50 negotiating period to June 30. Fierce disagreements among the EU27 over how best to respond to May's extension request forced the leaders to upend their summit agenda and put off a planned dinner discussion about China and the EU’s place in the world. Instead, they took a break, and resumed the Brexit discussion over dinner — a demonstration that despite their best efforts, Brexit to a large degree has hijacked the EU’s more substantive policy agenda. Both new dates in the EU plan come with conditions, but in either event the original March 29 deadline — the so-called cliff edge by which Britain would leave the bloc with or without a divorce agreement — was put off, if only for two weeks. EU27 leaders said that if the U.K. parliament ratifies the Brexit deal before the March 29 deadline, Britain will have until May 22 to complete any technical steps, exit and begin a transition period. That is a day before the European Parliament election begins. If the House of Commons fails to vote, or votes to reject the deal for a third time — the outcomes leaders view as far more likely given continuing political chaos in London, according to officials — the U.K. would have until April 12 "to indicate a way forward." European Council President Donald Tusk left the leaders' meeting and presented the plan to May, who agreed — though with a potentially disastrous no-deal Brexit imminent, she had little choice. At a news conference shortly before midnight, Tusk said the EU's plan leaves all options open to the U.K. — including a reversal of Brexit altogether. "The European Council agrees to an extension until the 12th of April, while expecting the United Kingdom to indicate a way forward," Tusk said. "What this means in practice is that, until that date, all options will remain open, and the cliff-edge date will be delayed. The U.K. government will still have a choice of a deal, no-deal, a long extension or revoking Article 50.".

DUP needs legal assurances on backstop to support May’s deal, says MP - DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said his party still needs legal assurances on the backstop to support Theresa May’s deal. Sir Jeffrey said he and colleagues would “work day and night” to get such assurances. “If those issues are not adequately addressed than I don’t think this agreement is going to go through,” he told BBC Radio Ulster. When asked what the party specifically required, Mr Donaldson declined to be drawn, but he did highlight paragraph 50 of the EU/UK joint report on Brexit from December 2017 that referenced a strong role for Stormont in the operation of the backstop. The paragraph was not subsequently included in the Withdrawal Agreement. The interview came after days of speculation that the Government may move to strengthen the role of the Assembly in domestic law in order to win DUP support for the Brexit withdrawal treaty. “I am not going to negotiate with the Government over the airwaves, all I will say is that last December 2017 paragraph 50 of the joint report, which we insisted on having included in that report, gives safeguards to Northern Ireland,” he added. “Those safeguards were removed in the Withdrawal Agreement. We need that issue addressed by the Government and that’s what we are working towards.” Sir Jeffrey said the Government needed to translate “verbal commitments” on the issue into “law”. “Our priority is preserving the Union and getting an outcome that is economically good for Northern Ireland,” he added.

Brexit breakdown: a big day in the north – video  -Some hardcore remainers think they have heard enough from leave-voting northern towns, but people in those places are still desperate to be heard: about poverty, cuts, and how and when we might leave the EU. As Theresa May's deal hits the skids, Anywhere But Westminster hits Wigan: 64% leave, and still waiting for the answers

• Brexit breakdown: fear and anger on the Irish border – video
• Brexit breakdown: southern discomfort – video

Brexit: Vote on Theresa May’s deal may not happen next week Theresa May has told MPs there might not be a third vote on her Brexit deal next week if there is insufficient support for it to pass. If it does not pass, the EU has set a deadline of 12 April for the UK to propose a new plan. Supporters of another EU referendum are due to march through central London later. Labour's Tom Watson will speak at the event, pledging to back May's deal if she agrees to hold a referendum on it. Meanwhile, an online petition calling for the UK to remain in the EU has attracted a record number of signatures. By 11:32 GMT, the total number of signatures calling for Article 50 to be revoked stood at 4,151,815 - beating the previous record reached by another Brexit-related petition in 2016. 'Clear choices' If Mrs May's deal is approved by MPs next week, the EU has agreed to extend the Brexit deadline until 22 May. If it is not - and no alternative plan is put forward - the UK is set to leave the EU on 12 April. In a letter to all MPs on Friday evening, Mrs May offered to talk to MPs over the coming days "as Parliament prepares to take momentous decisions". She said there were now four "clear choices".   These were:

• Approving her deal next week - which relies on Commons Speaker John Bercow allowing her to put it to MPs to vote on again, which he has ruled will not be allowed unless "substantial" changes are made to it
• Asking for another extension before 12 April - which would mean the UK would have to take part in elections for the European Parliament
• Revoking Article 50 - cancelling Brexit - which Mrs May said would "betray the result of the referendum"
• Leaving with no deal

U.K. Cabinet Ministers Are War-Gaming the Fall of Theresa May - U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is confronting what could be the end of her premiership as the near impossible task of delivering a Brexit deal cracks her fragile government apart. In the past two weeks, May has lost the trust of her Cabinet ministers, infuriated members of Parliament on all sides, and been told to her face a growing number of Conservatives want her to quit, according to at least 12 people familiar with the matter who declined to named. Government ministers are now privately war-gaming the end of May’s rule as speculation grows that the Brexit crisis could force her out in the days ahead, officials said. May’s office declined to comment. One senior Conservative figure said the situation is grave and appealed to May’s husband to urge his wife to resign so she can escape the miserable situation she’s in. May’s crisis stems from her failure to get the divorce agreement she’s struck with the European Union ratified in Parliament, forcing her to make a humiliating request to EU leaders for more time to try again. When May Lost Her Voice, Her Brexit Vote and Almost Lost Control Persuading May to go will be tough. She’s survived countless set-backs already and shows few signs of wanting to leave the job she took on in July 2016. But her situation has become dire. In Brussels, she has eroded trust among fellow EU leaders and was granted only a short period of grace. The perception is of someone who has lost control of her government and her party.

As the clock ticks on Brexit, Japan warns of irreversible damage from political disarray - Japanese experts have again called for clarity amid the chaotic Brexit process, even as British Prime Minister Theresa May earned a two-week reprieve from the European Union. They told a symposium on Brexit on Friday (March 22) that a disorderly, no deal exit from the European Union will hurt the interests of the 1,000 Japanese firms in the United Kingdom that collectively employ some 140,000 people. Worse still, Britain's reputation for being stable, pragmatic and relatively business friendly could suffer irreversible damage by the political disarray, they told the conference, which was co-organised by Japan's Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry and the UK's Centre for Economic Policy Research. The ensuing uncertainty means many Japanese firms are already acting on costly contingency plans to stockpile inventory to avoid sharp tariff increases, or to plan drastic changes to their supply chains, Hitachi's special representative for external relations Yasuo Tanabe said. Already, there has been an exodus of companies like car makers Nissan and Honda and electronics giants Panasonic and Sony. Japan's financial services sector is also hedging their bets: while they have not said they will leave Britain, the likes of banks from Nomura to Mitsubishi UFJ, Daiwa, Mizuho and Sumitomo are expanding their presence in mainland Europe. Dr Eiichi Tomiura, an economist at Japan's Hitotsubashi University, said that it was not just a matter of taking short-term measures, as the costs associated with reorganisation are huge. "When there is going to be more uncertainty, then for contingency companies will need to prepare dual sourcing and redundancies," he said. "They will need to reallocate resources for those areas, which means the productivity of the global economy will be undermined. Who is going to bear the cost of that?"

 Outsourcing Giant Interserve with 65,000 Employees Collapses --Shares in UK outsourcing giant Interserve, which employs over 65,000 people worldwide including 45,000 in the UK, were suspended today after almost 60% of the firm’s shareholders, led by the US hedge fund Coltrane Asset Management, rejected a last-ditch debt-for-equity swap with Interserve’s creditors that would have diluted the shares of current stockholders to nearly nothing, leaving them just 5%. The company has thousands of government contracts, including for hospital cleaning, probation services, school meals and the maintenance of military bases. Interserve now faces a “pre-pack” administration that — it is hoped — will see its various divisions and 45,000 UK staff insulated from the fallout. The firm’s lenders, including HSBC and RBS, and bondholders, will agree to write off £485 million of Interserve’s crippling £631 million debt and inject £110 million of additional funds, in return for ownership of the company’s stock. Current stock holders are out of luck. Interserve had been working on this contingency plan in advance of the vote to prevent a possible repeat of the disorderly collapse of Carillion in January 2018, which shook the foundations of Britain’s outsourcing industry, triggered the collapse of hundreds of supply firms, and left the British government holding a tab for at least £148 million, of which an estimated £50 million will go to auditor PwC for its work in the liquidation. A Cabinet Office spokesperson said the Carillion debacle will not be repeated. The announcement of the pre-pack administration “will not affect jobs or the provision of public services delivered by Interserve,” he said. “We are in close contact with the company and we are confident a positive way forward will be found.”