week ending May 16

The Fed Hasn’t Spent a Dime Yet for Main Street Versus $735 Billion for Wall Street -  The stimulus bill known as the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) was signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27. Among its many features (such as direct checks to struggling Americans and enhancing unemployment compensation by $600 per week for four months to unemployed workers so they could pay their rent and buy food) the bill also carved out a dubious $454 billion (or 25 percent of the total $1.8 trillion spending package) for the U.S. Treasury to hand over to the Federal Reserve. This was the Faustian Bargain the Democrats had to agree to in order to get the deal approved by the Wall Street cronies in the Senate. If you subtract the $454 billion from the $1.8 trillion total spending package, that left $1.346 trillion for other purposes. But the $454 billion wasn’t really just $454 billion. It was going to be leveraged up by a factor of 10 to 1 into a $4.54 trillion bailout for Wall Street. This, effectively, meant that the CARES Act provided $1.346 trillion for average Americans and other purposes versus $4.54 trillion for Wall Street. In short, the assistance going to Wall Street was more than 3 times larger than that going to families and workers. White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell had cooked up a scheme where the $454 billion would be handed over to the Fed, then split up into chunks, placed into Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) and then leveraged up by as much as 10 to 1 to provide bailouts to Wall Street. The $454 billion is being designated by the Fed as “loss absorbing capital,” meaning that taxpayers will eat the first $454 billion in losses on these Wall Street bailout programs. Here’s where $215 billion out of the total $454 billion has thus far been earmarked by the Fed for its Wall Street bailout programs: $50 billion has been earmarked to prop up the corporate bond market by buying up new issues of corporate bonds that the big Wall Street banks don’t want to be involved with. (See its Term Sheet here.) $25 billion has been earmarked to create this $250 billion program to buy up corporate bonds in the secondary market along with Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Both investment grade and junk-rated bonds and ETFs will be purchased. (See the Term Sheet here.) $10 billion is earmarked for TALF which will leverage itself up to a $100 billion program that will provide loans against collateral composed of asset-backed securities. (See the Term Sheet here.) $10 billion is earmarked for the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF). (See Term Sheet here.) The program is described by the Fed as providing “a liquidity backstop to U.S. issuers of commercial paper through a dedicated funding vehicle that will purchase eligible three-month unsecured and asset-backed commercial paper from eligible issuers using financing provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.” $10 billion has been earmarked to bailing out money market funds with bad paper that can’t be rolled over. (See Term Sheet here.) $75 billion has been earmarked to fund a Fed facility of $600 billion that is preposterously being called the Main Street Lending Program. (See Term Sheet here.)  see our article: JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Fossil Fuel Industry Get Bailed Out Under Fed’s “Main Street” Lending Program. $35 billion of taxpayers’ money will fund a $500 billion Fed facility to make loans to states and municipalities that are experiencing cash flow stress as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. (See Term Sheet here.) This will help Wall Street banks by preventing them from having to write down, or take loan loss reserves against, loans they have made to these states and municipalities. But in addition to the Wall Street bailout programs set up by the Fed using taxpayers’ money to eat the first losses, the Fed is also running an alphabet soup of other programs which are not using taxpayers’ money (raising the suspicion that it’s only demanding taxpayer money where it knows it’s going to experience losses). For these other programs, the Fed is strictly using money the Fed has created out of thin air. Amounts outstanding as of May 6 are as follows in these programs:

• U.S. Dollar Swap Lines to Foreign Central Banks: $444.89 billion
• Repo Loans to the New York Fed’s Primary Dealers: $172.7 billion
• Discount Window Loans to Depository Banks: $26.5 billion
• Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility (the money is not going to small businesses. It’s going to reimburse banks that made these loans to small businesses): $29.1 billion.
• Primary Dealer Credit Facility (loans at ¼ of one percent to the trading houses on Wall Street (a/k/a primary dealers): $14.9 billion.

 BlackRock Begins Buying Junk Bond ETFs for the Fed Today: It’s Already at Work for the Central Bank of Israel - Pam Martens -- It’s off to the races today for BlackRock. The New York Fed, with authority from the Federal Reserve Board and backstopped with taxpayers’ money, will begin the first phase of the Fed’s unprecedented leap into shoring up the sagging prices of investment grade corporate debt and junk bonds. BlackRock has been selected by the New York Fed to be the investment manager for these bailout facilities and will begin Phase I today by buying up Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) containing investment grade corporate bonds as well as junk bonds. Making the situation particularly dicey is that BlackRock just happens to be one of the largest purveyors of said ETFs. The screaming conflict-of-interest that this raises in the minds of many is not ruffling any feathers at the New York Fed (which is itself a bundle of conflicts wrapped in a fraud monetization spigot that creates money out of thin air.) The New York Fed has swiftly dismissed this problem with the following language in its Investment Management Agreement with BlackRock: “The Manager shall treat BlackRock-sponsored ETFs on the same neutral footing as ETFs sponsored by other entities…If the holdings of BlackRock-sponsored ETFs by the Company at any time exceeds or is expected to exceed the then-current market share of BlackRock-sponsored ETFs in the corporate bond ETF market on average (calculated with reference to the most recently ended calendar month), the Manager will notify the Company and consult with the FRBNY, as managing member of the Company, to review the holdings of the Company and implement such adjustments as the FRBNY may direct.” The New York Fed’s answer to teetering highly-leveraged corporate debt is to set up a highly-leveraged bailout facility run by Wall Street insider, BlackRock, which is also managing U.S. securities purchases for the central bank of Israel. The stimulus bill known as the CARES Act allocated $454 billion of taxpayers’ money to effectively bail out all of the New York Fed’s bad supervisory decisions over the past decade. The $454 billion has been designated as “loss absorbing capital” to soak up the first 10 to 25 percent of losses in the Fed’s alphabet soup list of bailout facilities. The New York Fed will use $75 billion of the $454 billion for its two corporate bond buying programs, the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility and the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility. Those programs will be leveraged by an approximate factor of 10 to 1 to create $750 in corporate bond bailouts. Given the size of the corporate bond problem, we strongly suspect that’s just the beginning. Corporate debt, junk bonds, toxic waste in money market funds and commercial paper, along with stocks (which are now being accepted as collateral in the Fed’s Primary Dealer Credit Facility bailout program) now join the mega banks on Wall Street as too-big-to-fail. And with the Fed’s own balance sheet hovering just under $7 trillion from these debt nationalization schemes – wrapped in the garb of helping American families and small businesses – the Fed itself has become too-big-to-fail since the taxpayer would be on the hook for that $7 trillion along with the Federal government’s outstanding debt of $24 trillion.

 Despite Recent Bets, Fed Isn’t Likely to Consider Negative Interest Rates – WSJ - Federal Reserve officials are unlikely to consider using negative interest rates to stimulate economic growth in the current coronavirus-induced downturn after concluding the tool’s clear costs outweigh its uncertain benefits. The topic resurfaced after investors in futures markets began betting the Fed’s benchmark federal-funds rate would go below zero by year-end, which sent yields on two-year Treasury securities to an all-time low. Rates rose slightly on Friday, and futures contracts implied investors expected the fed-funds rate would be negative in June 2021. Fed leaders see negative rates as a very last resort—and a remote one, still—worrying they would have harmful effects on financial markets and the banking industry. More broadly, there is little political support for the policy in the U.S. Central-bank officials have said they prefer to stimulate growth with tools used after the 2008 financial crisis, including purchases of long-term securities and explicit guidance about how long they plan to buy assets and keep rates low. During a policy review last year, officials also discussed combining these policies with a new one that would peg yields on Treasury securities. “Going forward, our inclination would be to rely on the tools that we did use as opposed to negative rates,” said Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in congressional testimony on Feb. 11. “When you have negative rates, you wind up creating downward pressure on bank profitability, which limits credit expansion.” Since mid-March, the Fed has bought hundreds of billions of dollars of Treasury and mortgage securities to hold down long-term interest rates after cutting the fed-funds rate to nearly zero. It is preparing to buy hundreds of billions more in corporate debt, municipal bonds and business loans to support lending in the months ahead. Mr. Powell has strongly encouraged Congress and the White House to spend more money to limit long-term damage to the economy from business failures and high joblessness, and he has said the Fed is in no hurry to raise rates. With negative rates, commercial banks would pay to hold deposits at the Fed, called reserves, rather than collect interest. In theory, banks should prefer to lend the money at low cost to other banks, businesses and consumers, stimulating the economy. Negative rates would be designed to shift their money into other short-term assets, driving down those yields below zero. In turn, investors and banks would buy riskier assets to avoid negative returns and lower longer-term rates, such as those on corporate bonds and mortgages.

Fed chief calls for more money for Wall Street and corporations - Federal Reserve Board chairman Jerome Powell has warned that the slump in the US economy, the most rapid and deepest in the post-war period, could continue for much longer than previously anticipated. In an online address to the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington yesterday, he said while the stimulus measures launched by the government, amounting to some $3 trillion, had been “swift and powerful” they may not be “the final chapter, given that the path ahead is both highly uncertain and subject to significant downside risks.” “There is a growing sense that the recovery may come more slowly than we would like … and that may mean that it’s necessary for us to do more.” In other words, the policies of the Fed and the administration must be directed to making still more money available to Wall Street through the buying up of financial assets while the government carries out further stimulus measures to bail out the corporations. The effect of these measures in a period of massive downturn will be to further the redistribution of wealth up the income scale. Powell’s remarks effectively poured water on the claim that once lockdowns are lifted, as being demanded by the “return to work” advocates, the American economy will immediately snap back in a so-called V-shaped recovery. He said the scope and the speed of the downturn was without modern precedent and as a result the job gains in the US economy over the past decade had now been wiped out. Previewing Fed data to be released today, he noted that those with the lowest incomes had been the hardest hit. Among people working in February, almost 40 percent were in households making less than $40,000 a year that had lost a job in March. The figures are certain to rise when the data for April are tabulated. Powell warned that the coronavirus pandemic raised “longer-term concerns.” “The record shows that deeper and longer recessions can leave behind lasting damage to the productive capacity of the economy,” he said. Household and business insolvencies could “weigh on growth for years to come” leading to an “extended period of low productivity growth and stagnant incomes.”

The Fed Is Fueling A Revolt That It Cannot Control - It's not that hard to forecast a populist revolt against the parasitic class that's grown obscenely wealthy as a direct result of Fed policies. Under the tender care of the Federal Reserve, America's wealth inequality has skyrocketed to new heights of obscenity as America's billionaires feasted off the Fed's recent stock market rally. By some accounts, billionaire Jeff Bezos added $24 billion to his personal wealth in the past week or two as the Fed's master game plan--push stocks higher, no matter what--has further enriched the few who own most of America's wealth. To get a handle on the wealth of the stock market's billionaires, please scroll throughthis site: Wealth, shown to scale.  You'll find that America's private tech fortunes dwarf entire nations' GDP (gross domestic product). The driver of this fantastic concentration of private wealth is the stock market, the vast majority of which is owned by the top 10% (85%). Within this top 10%, the ownership of stocks, junk bonds, business equity and rental real estate is highly concentrated: the top 5% own roughly two-third's of America's private-sector wealth, the top 1% own 40% and the top 0.1% own 20%. (see chart below) According to the financial media, the Federal Reserve's super-power--pushing stocks higher no matter what--is the key to the Universe. I beg to differ. The story we're told--"don't fight the Fed"-- is that the Fed's power to push stocks higher is all that's needed to keep the world in a good place--meaning in the hands of the parasitic few who own most of the stocks. (Hiya doin', Warren, Jeff, Bill, Mark...)    The Fed's policies have created a world in which the top 10% skim an ever-increasing share of the wealth and income and the bottom 90% get more debt. This is a world that is terribly out of balance, as it depends totally and completely on the bottom 90% who own little more than the leftover crumbs of America's wealth borrowing more every year even as their incomes continue stagnating year after year.   The dirty little secret is that America's economy implodes once debt stops expanding. The entire machine is completely and totally dependent on debt expanding, even as the incomes of the bottom 90% stagnate.  The Fed's sole power turns out to be further enriching the few at the expense of the many. It can't force creditworthy households and enterprises to borrow money they don't need, nor can it generate creditworthy borrowers out of thin air, the way it creates dollars out of thin air. It can't force banks to loan money to households and enterprises that are not creditworthy, i.e. are very likely to default. It can't stop the implosion of the U.S. economy once debt expansion reverses, lay-off accelerate and insolvency triggers an avalanche of defaults. The Fed can't magically make zombie companies solvent, nor can it magically make unprofitable companies profitable. All the Fed can do is fuel a revolt of the bottom 90% against their parasitic masters, the Fed, and the class the Fed has enriched with their free money for financiers and stock buybacks.  Yet bailing out Wall Street is the Fed's only plan and only super-power. It's the only reason the Fed exists: the parasitic class would wither away without the Fed's constant distortions of what was once known as "the free market." Now the only thing that's free is the Fed's handouts to the parasites at the top. 

 Fed can do only so much to limit pandemic's economic hit: Powell -  Calling the coronavirus crisis “significantly worse than any recession since World War II,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that the central bank's emergency lending facilities might not be enough to keep businesses afloat if the downturn persists. The Fed has unveiled roughly a dozen programs under its emergency powers to help boost different segments of the financial markets struggling under the weight of the pandemic, including efforts to backstop corporate and municipal bonds, and help fund the Paycheck Protection Program. Many of the programs are still in the planning stages, such as Main Street Lending Program, through which banks will offer loans to middle-market firms.But Powell cautioned that the programs are more a short-term defense against liquidity strains than a permanent solution for companies' financial woes. “A loan from a Fed facility can provide a bridge across temporary interruptions to liquidity, and those loans will help many borrowers get through the current crisis,” Powell said in an online video speech for the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “But the recovery may take some time to gather momentum, and the passage of time can turn liquidity problems into solvency problems.”Powell also warned that without more fiscal support from Congress, the economy could face long-term damage and a tougher path to recovery. “This trade-off is one for our elected representatives, who wield powers of taxation and spending,” Powell said. He emphasized that the Fed has the ability to act of its own accord but its mandate is limited to lending powers.Powell added he didn’t believe it was appropriate for the Fed to weigh in on what fiscal measures Congress should consider. “We don’t play a formal role in fiscal policy, meaning that we wouldn’t take a position … supporting a particular bill,” he said in response to a question from Adam Posen, the president of the Peterson Institute. “It’s not our role to supervise Congress; it’s actually the other way around.”

 Seven weeks into coronavirus lockdowns, Fed has a new, darker message - (Reuters) - One Thursday morning seven weeks ago, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell made a rare appearance on NBC’s “Today Show” to offer a reassuring message to Americans dealing with economic fallout from measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak. There is “nothing fundamentally wrong with our economy,” Powell told viewers, while pointing out the U.S. central bank’s outsized ability to take on lending risk and provide a financial “bridge” over the temporary economic weakness the country was experiencing. Speaking after the Fed cut interest rates to near zero and rolled out a plan to backstop credit for small- and mid-sized companies, Powell emphasized the first order of business was to get the virus under control. “The sooner we get through this period and get the virus under control, the sooner the recovery can come,” said Powell, echoing remarks made the day before by Anthony Fauci, a top U.S. health official helping to coordinate the federal government’s response to the coronavirus crisis. At the time, Powell said he expected economic activity would resume in the second half of the year, and maybe even enjoy a “good rebound.” But on Wednesday, he offered a much more sober outlook. In an interview webcast by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Powell warned here of an "extended period" of weak economic growth, tied to uncertainty about how well the virus could be controlled in the United States. "There is a sense, growing sense I think, that the recovery may come more slowly than we would like," he said. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was similarly somber when he told lawmakers earlier this week that the country was by no means in “total control” of the outbreak. “There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control and, in fact, paradoxically, will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery,” Fauci said. The pandemic has killed more than 83,000 people in the United States so far here and many epidemiological models now point to a death toll that will surpass 100,000 in a matter of weeks. Overall new cases of the virus continue to climb as well, as states end lockdowns and reopen local economies without the widespread, uniform testing and contact tracing policies that helped stamp out initial outbreaks in South Korea and Germany.

Evidence Suggests U.S. Financial Crisis Started on August 14, 2019 - Pam Martens ~ In the Federal Reserve’s most recent “Supervision and Regulation Report” on the big bank holding companies it “supervises,” the Fed continued its attempts to perpetuate the narrative that “The banking industry came into 2020 in a healthy financial position” and has simply unraveled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The Fed is desperate to promote this narrative to stop a new Congress next year from holding hearings on why the Fed, for the second time in 12 years, had to engage in trillions of dollars in Wall Street bank bailouts after reassuring Congress for years that the financial system was fine as the Fed loosened or rolled back reforms like the Volcker Rule. The Fed needs this narrative to prevail in order to cover up its own negligent supervision of the behemoth banks.Depending on the composition of Congress next year, those hearings might bring about not only a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act (which bans trading houses on Wall Street from combining with federally-insured, deposit-taking banks) but might also put an end to the Fed’s ability to negligently supervise the big banks with one hand, while bailing them out with the other hand, using money it creates out of thin air. (The Fed will report its latest balance sheet tally today at 4:30. It is expected to be close to $7 trillion from the $6.7 trillion it reported last week – which is $2.8 trillion more than it was exactly one year ago. The growth in the Fed’s balance sheet has come as a result of efforts to prop up Wall Street banks.)The Fed knew, or should have known (since it has hundreds of people monitoring the markets at the New York Fed) that there was a big banking crisis brewing in August of last year. Here’s the timeline:

• On August 8 Reuters reported that the amount of government bonds around the globe that were carrying negative yields had “increased to an all-time peak of $13.2 trillion.” This was an increase of 13.4 percent from just a month earlier. Large, rapid inflows into government bonds, which drives down the yield, signals a flight to safety, either from a brewing crisis or a brewing economic downturn, or both.
• On August 14, the Wall Street Journal reported that “Investors continued their run on bank stocks, sending shares of some of America’s biggest financial institutions sharply lower following the latest sign of trouble ahead for the U.S. economy.”
• On that day, August 14, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had plunged 800.49 points, or 3.05 percent but the shares of two of the biggest Wall Street banks, JPMorgan and Citigroup, significantly outpaced those losses. JPMorgan Chase lost 4.15 percent on the day while Citigroup gave up 5.27 percent.
• Also on August 14, for the first time since the onset of the financial crisis in 2007, the U.S. saw an inversion of the yield curve, with the 2-year Treasury note yielding more than the 10-year note. This is viewed by market watchers as a harbinger of an impending recession.
• Also notable on August 14, the Financial Times reported that Germany, Europe’s largest economy, had contracted in the second quarter and its annualized growth was now the slowest in six years.

Why the Economic Recovery Will Be More of a ‘Swoosh’ Than V-Shaped – WSJ -Until recently, many policy makers and corporate executives were hoping for a V-shaped economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic: a short, sharp collapse followed by a bounce back to pre-virus levels of activity.Now, however, they expect a “swoosh” recovery.Named after the Nike logo, it predicts a large drop followed by a painfully slow recovery, with many Western economies, including the U.S. and Europe, not back to 2019 levels of output until late next year—or beyond.The sobering new view reflects the depth of the contraction now being recorded for the spring, as well as more evidence that soaring joblessness and months or years of social distancing—particularly in the West—will depress economic activity well into next year.“This is not going to be a quick recovery,” said Mark Schneider, chief executive of Nestlé SA,the world’s biggest packaged foods maker, recently. “This is going to be a several-quarter, if not several-year kind of process.” Airlines don’t expect passenger numbers to return to pre-coronavirus levels until 2022 at the earliest. Social distancing will make it harder to go to the movies, eat out or visit beauty salons until a vaccine is developed. Consumer goods companies anticipate that shoppers will switch to cheaper items and forgo splurges, likely remaining tightfisted long after lockdowns end. Some corporations have already announced fresh layoffs for the fall, prolonging the joblessness surge that has already left more than 30 million Americans unemployed.   Among the reasons for the darker outlook is that lockdowns are being eased more slowly than originally expected in some countries. Even when they do lift, some large-scale activities—such as concerts and professional sports—won’t be possible again for months. Retailers and restaurants that have reopened are allowing in fewer customers at a time due to social distancing. And consumers worried about infection risks may take a long time to return to their old habits. According to a survey by market research group Coresight Research, more than 70% of Americans expect to avoid some public spaces after the lockdowns ease, with more than half saying they expect to stay away from shopping malls. Of those, almost a third expect to stay away for more than six months. In a separate Coresight poll, more than half of respondents plan to scale back on Christmas shopping. The possibility of the virus resurging in the fall or next winter has prompted some analysts to warn of potential setbacks, which could make even a “swoosh” recovery look jagged rather than smooth. The outlook is so uncertain that a string of large companies have suspended financial guidance for the year.

WSJ Survey: Coronavirus to Cause 17% Unemployment in June – WSJ - U.S. unemployment is expected to hit 17% in June as the economy contracts due to efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic, economists predicted, and the economy is expected to start rebounding in the second half of the year. A monthly Wall Street Journal survey found economists expect gross domestic product to shrink 6.6% this year, measured from the fourth quarter of 2019, a downgrade from the 4.9% contraction economists predicted in last month’s survey. While economists expect a deeper contraction in the second quarter, a majority—85%—continue to expect the recovery will start in the second half of the year. They predict an annualized growth rate of 9% in the third quarter, up from 6.2% in the prior survey. Growth is expected to clock in at 6.9% in the fourth quarter, up slightly from last month.  “The trough will occur in May or June, with activity starting to pick up,” said Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers. “With that said, growth will remain well below pre-recessionary levels likely until at least 2022.” Business and academic economists in this month’s survey expect, on average, that gross domestic product will contract at an annual rate of 32% in the second quarter. That represents a worsening from the April survey of economists, when they expected GDP to shrink 25% from April to June. The annualized rate, however, overstates the severity of any drop in output because it assumes that one quarter’s pace continues for a year. In the May survey, 68.3% of economists said they expect the recovery to be shaped like a “swoosh.” Named after the Nike logo, it predicts a large drop followed by a gradual recovery. The survey results echo recent comments by corporate executives. As states start to loosen stay-at-home orders, economists were split on whether this is the right moment to do so. Some 29.8% said the reopening measures are happening at the right time. 14% said such measures were overdue, while 31.6% described it as too soon. Just under a quarter, 24.6%, were unsure whether the timing is right. “In the absence of a vaccine or some therapeutic drug, opening the economy now would certainly trigger a spike in new infections and will be followed by economic shutdown 2.0,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at The Economic Outlook Group, who currently views the reopening as premature.To fight the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. central-bank officials cut rates to near zero, purchased huge quantities of government debt and began lending to American businesses. Those purchases of debt are expected to get bigger. Economists project the central bank’s portfolio of bonds, loans and new programs will swell to $7.74 trillion in June from less than $4 trillion last year. The portfolio stood at $6.72 trillion on May 4. Economists see the Fed’s balance sheet swelling to $9.29 trillion by December, $9.63 trillion by December 2021 and $11.27 trillion by December 2022. In that range, the portfolio would bemore than twice the size reached after the 2007-09 financial crisis.

 Powell Says Washington Will Need to Spend More to Battle Downturn – WSJ -Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell urged the White House and Congress to spend more money to ensure their initial response to the coronavirus-induced economic downturn isn’t squandered. “There is a growing sense that the recovery may come more slowly than we would like…and that may mean that it’s necessary for us to do more,” Mr. Powell said Wednesday during an online speech and question-and-answer session. He warned that, with revenues depressed for longer, waves of business bankruptcies could follow, risking a much slower pace of improvement in the job market. “Additional fiscal support could be costly but worth it if it helps avoid long-term economic damage and leaves us with a stronger recovery,” Mr. Powell said. For example, if small businesses that were viable enterprises before the crisis fail, “we would lose more than just that business. We lose something more fundamental,” he said. “And it won’t be able to be replaced quickly.” His remarks revealed concern about a slower, more difficult rebound than anticipated less than two months ago, when lawmakers shoveled short-term funds to households and businesses and set aside money for the Fed to launch trillion-dollar lending programs. “The scope and speed of this downturn are without modern precedent, significantly worse than any recession since World War II,” Mr. Powell said. He said the central bank wasn’t considering plans to cut its benchmark federal-funds rate below zero after it slashed the rate to near zero in March. Futures markets have implied investors see rising prospects of negative interest rates in 2021 even though the central bank’s rate-setting committee last October said it wouldn’t favor such a policy tool, which has had mixed results in Europe and Japan and which the Fed worries could hinder new bank lending. “The committee’s view on negative rates really has not changed,” said Mr. Powell. “This is not something that we’re looking at.” Congress has appropriated nearly $2.9 trillion so far to support households, businesses, health-care providers and state and local governments, or around 14% of national economic output, the “fastest and largest response for any postwar downturn,” said Mr. Powell. “It may not be the final chapter, given that the path ahead is both highly uncertain and subject to significant downside risks.” The unemployment rate, which just three months ago sat near a 50-year low, jumped in April to its highest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s, wiping out a decade of job gains in a single month. Mr. Powell said it was possible the jobless rate would peak and start to decline in the next few months but signaled concern that it could remain at an elevated level for a long time.

U.S. Budget Deficit Widened to $1.935 Trillion in 12 Months Through April – WSJ - The budget deficit soared to a record $1.935 trillion in the 12 months through April as the U.S. ramped up spending and cut taxes to counter the economic slowdown and revenue dropped, a Treasury Department report showed on Tuesday. The annual deficit was almost double the $1.037 trillion budget gap for the year through March. Spending rose to $5.2 trillion, while revenues fell to $3.265 trillion. Spending climbed to $979.71 billion in April, a monthly record, as government aid to businesses and households hit by the coronavirus pandemic started to kick in. By comparison, monthly spending averaged $384 billion in the previous year. At the same time, revenue plunged to $241.86 billion, down 55% from April 2019. That left a deficit of $737.85 billion for the month. “They really are striking numbers that I didn’t think I’d ever see,” a senior Treasury Department official said at a briefing. “They just reflect the great amount of assistance that the Congress and the administration are trying to respond to the crisis with.” While tax deadlines normally make April the government’s peak month for revenue, the Internal Revenue Service this year allowed taxpayers to defer payments until mid-July to keep money in the hands of consumers and businesses struggling to pay bills. The federal budget deficit has begun a rapid expansion that the Congressional Budget Office projects will leave it at $3.7 trillion by the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year. In the 12 months through April, the gap stood at $1.935 trillion, Tuesday’s data showed. The Treasury official estimated that measures taken to counter the economic damage from the coronavirus reduced revenue in April by nearly $300 billion and increased spending by close to $600 billion. Much of the revenue decline from delayed tax-filing deadlines should be reversed in coming months, the official noted. As a share of the economy, the deficit had been widening even before the pandemic struck. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by President Trump in 2017 led to sluggish growth in tax revenues, while Congress has repeatedly signed off on spending increases in recent years. While chronic budget deficits present a long-term challenge for the U.S., most economists say the government should seek to address them gradually, when the economy is growing and unemployment is low. During severe recessions such as the one that is now under way, they say, government stimulus is crucial to containing the damage. Congress in March authorized close to $3 trillion of spending, tax cuts and other stimulus measures to combat the coronavirus and its economic effects. Some of the largest components of those packages, including direct cash payments to households and forgivable loans for small businesses, have largely been expended. Other programs are getting off the ground.House Democrats on Tuesday released a bill that would spend roughly another $3 trillion to battle the health and economic effects of the pandemic, staking out a position ahead of talks with Senate Republicans who are wary of additional spending.

China 'shocked' by U.S. reversal on U.N. coronavirus action: diplomat  - (Reuters) - China and the United States both supported a draft United Nations Security Council resolution confronting the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday and it was “shocking and regretful” that Washington changed its mind on Friday, a Chinese diplomat said. A U.S. diplomat refuted the Chinese comment, saying there was no U.S. agreement on the text. For more than six weeks the 15-member council has been trying to agree on a text that ultimately aims to back a March 23 call by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres for a ceasefire in global conflicts so the world can focus on the pandemic. But talks have been stymied by a stand-off between China and the United States over whether to mention the World Health Organization. The United States does not want a reference, China has insisted it be included, while some other members see the mention - or not - of WHO as a marginal issue, diplomats said. Washington has halted funding for the WHO, a U.N. agency, after President Donald Trump accused it of being “China-centric” and promoting China’s “disinformation” about the outbreak, assertions the WHO denies. It appeared the Security Council had reached a compromise late on Thursday, diplomats said and according to the latest version of a French- and Tunisian drafted-resolution. Instead of naming the WHO, the draft referenced “specialized health agencies.” The WHO is the only such agency. But the United States rejected that language on Friday, diplomats said, because it was an obvious reference to the Geneva-based WHO. “The United States had agreed to the compromise text and it’s shocking and regretful that the U.S. changed its position,” said the Chinese diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, on Saturday, adding that China supported the draft.

US exports to China to fall short of phase one trade deal, says CSIS - The coronavirus pandemic will cause China's purchases of U.S. goods this year to fall way short of what was agreed to in the "phase one" trade deal, according to a forecast by think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.The American think tank projected that exports of U.S. goods to China could come in at only $60 billion for all of 2020 — much lower than the $186.6 billion needed to meet requirements in the agreement that both countries signed in January.That forecast was "admittedly" a "worst-case scenario" because Chinese purchases of U.S. goods could rise later in the year as the economy recovers, but any increases still "will not change the overall picture, just the details," Scott Kennedy, senior advisor and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at CSIS, wrote in a Friday report."The targets were never realistic; they were just gaudy numbers meant to impress. The pandemic made the unrealistic the impossible," he said.The coronavirus was first detected in China late last year, and Beijing responded by taking measures that many considered draconian — such as locking down cities, suspending public transport and shutting businesses — to contain the outbreak. Those measures led to a plunge in demand for goods and services in China, one of the world's largest consumer markets. Consequently, U.S. goods exports to China fell by 10% year over year in the first quarter of 2020, noted Kennedy, citing data from the U.S. Commerce Department. Official U.S. data for services is not yet published, but "it is likely to show a huge falloff due to the collapse of Chinese travel and tourism and the early closing of U.S. universities," he added. Several factors were behind the decline in U.S. goods exports to China in the first quarter:

• Energy exports were "perhaps the biggest disappointment" after falling by 33.3%;
• Sales of commercial aircraft were "essentially at zero" and that of automobiles were down by 46.9%;
• Soybean exports were lower by 39.4%;
• U.S. failing to take advantage of China's "sky-high" demand for pork following a swine fever outbreak that caused a shortage of the staple meat. But the coronavirus caused many American meat-processing plants to halt production.

In the phase one trade deal, China agreed to buy an additional $200 billion in U.S. goods and services by 2021 on top of 2017 levels. That means that U.S. goods and services exports to China should climb to around $290 billion in 2020 and $330 billion in 2021, according to the agreement released by the U.S. Trade Representative.

"A Tsunami Of Anger": Chinese Officials Call For Renegotiation Of "Phase One" Trade Deal -Amid the ongoing diplomatic spat between Washington DC and Beijing, which now also includes the deployment of B-1B bombers and warships in the South China Sea, late on Monday (local time) China's Global Times reported, citing sources close to the Chinese government, that some "hawkish" officials in China are calling for a renegotiation the the "phase one" trade deal with Washington as well as a "tit-for-tat approach on spiraling trade issues after US' malicious attacks on China ignited a tsunami of anger among Chinese trade insiders." The calls to renegotiate the current version of the deal - which has yet to be actively implemented - emerge amid  dissatisfaction because "China has made compromise for the deal to press ahead."While in the past, these same trade negotiators "believed that it would be worthwhile to make certain compromise to reach a partial truce in the 22-month trade war and ease escalating tensions", given what the Global Times called "President Donald Trump's hyping an anti-China conspiracy that aims to cover up his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic", advisors close to the trade talks have suggested Chinese officials rekindling the possibility of invalidating the trade pact and negotiating a new one to tilt the scales more to the Chinese side, sources close the matter told the Global Times.A former Chinese trade official told the Global Times on condition of anonymity on Monday that China could complete such procedures based on force majeure provisions in the pact."It's in fact in China's interests to terminate the current phase one deal. It is beneficial to us. The US now cannot afford to restart the trade war with China if everything goes back to the starting point," another trade advisor to the Chinese government told the Global Times, pointing to the staggering US economy and the coming of the US presidential election this year. "After signing the phase one deal, the US intensifies crackdown in other areas such as technology, politics and the military against China. So if we don't retreat on trade issues, the US could be trapped," the former official noted.

Investment Between U.S. and China Falls as Tensions, Coronavirus Take Toll – WSJ - Investment between the U.S. and China is off to a weak start in 2020 and could worsen, according to a report published Monday that tallies a continuing slide in a once-vibrant business relationship due to “political friction, regulatory tightening and market dynamics.” China’s $5 billion of foreign direct investment into the U.S. last year was the lowest since the global financial crisis a decade ago, while $14 billion in American investment into China marked a small year-over-year increase but mostly reflected continuing investment plans, New York-based Rhodium Group LLC said in an annual report. Mutual suspicions between Beijing and Washington in the past few years have helped disrupt what had been a mutually reinforcing trend toward cross-border acquisitions, direct investment and venture funding between the world’s two biggest economies. Increasingly, both governments have taken hawkish security reviews of such investment plans. Rhodium cited weak investment in early-stage businesses by venture capitalists so far this year, against a backdrop of roadblocks at home and in the U.S. for Chinese companies to make outbound investments. It noted priorities for American businesses are shifting away from China, where they have invested a cumulative $282 billion.Chinese venture-capital investment into the U.S. slumped to $400 million in the first quarter of this year from $640 million in the year-earlier quarter, and was down from $1 billion in the same period in 2018, Rhodium said. It estimated $600 million in new U.S. venture capital flowed into China during the first quarter, half the quarterly average for last year and well down from the peak $4.9 billion for all of 2018. Political tension over the coronavirus is undermining brief signs of stability in the Sino-U.S. relationship that came with the first phase of a trade deal the countries signed in January. “This has further soured the mood of business people on both sides of the Pacific,” Rhodium said, since politics remains “an important variable for the investment outlook.” American investment into China last year was “mostly driven by ongoing greenfield constructions,” not fresh undertakings, it said, including a Tesla Inc. electric-car plant in Shanghai, Comcast Corp. ’s Universal Studios theme park in Beijing, an Exxon Mobil Corp.petrochemical project near Guangzhou and store expansions by Costco Wholesale Corp. Chinese investment into the U.S. has largely been driven by acquisitions, but it peaked in 2016 at $45 billion, falling to just $5 billion last year. “Beijing’s outbound policies, U.S. regulatory scrutiny and an uncertain outlook for U.S.-China relations continued to weigh on investor risk appetite,” Rhodium said.

 FBI 'Mistakenly' Releases 9/11 Bombshell In Court: Key Saudi Diplomat Who "Tasked" Hijackers Named - It's being called "a complete government cover-up of the Saudi involvement" according to 9/11 victims' families who are in a lengthy ongoing lawsuit seeking to expose Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks and US efforts to cover it up.A new bombshell has been dropped which the families of victims are hailing a huge success: FBI court documents inadvertently left a key Saudi embassy official's name unredacted, revealing one of the government's most sensitive secrets regarding the September 11 attacks and state sponsorship.A Yahoo News exclusive reveals, based on what has since been admitted as "a giant screw-up," the identity of "a mysterious Saudi Embassy official in Washington who agents suspected had directed crucial support to two of the al-Qaida hijackers."Ironically the 'accidental' release of the information was related to filings by Attorney General William Barr and acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell to get information pertaining to the kingdom's role in the attacks permanently banned from public access, citing the usual "state secrets" and national security concerns. The FBI mistakenly revealed the identify of a top Saudi embassy official who had continuing direct contact with individuals involved in running the Los Angeles al-Qaeda terror cell which produced some of the hijackers: his name is Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah.Al-Jarrah was an official diplomat of the Saudi foreign ministry and embassy in D.C. who oversaw Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees at Saudi-funded mosques and Islamic centers throughout the US from 1999 and 2000. Crucially he's been revealed as a key "link" between the Saudi government and the Los Angeles cell, specifically two terrorists which went on to fly a plane into the Pentagon.The Yahoo News report describes the huge significance of the Al-Jarrah revelation as follows:Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi Islamic Affairs official and radical cleric who served as the imam of the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles and Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi government agent who assisted two terrorists, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who participated in the hijacking of the American Airlines plane that flew into the Pentagon, killing 125.After the two hijackers flew to Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2000, al-Bayoumi found them an apartment, lent them money and set them up with bank accounts.A redacted copy of a three-and-a-half page October 2012 FBI “update” about the investigation stated that FBI agents had uncovered “evidence” that Thumairy and Bayoumi had been “tasked” to assist the hijackers by yet another individual whose name was blacked out, prompting lawyers for the families to refer to this person as “the third man” in what they argue is a Saudi-orchestrated conspiracy. That "third man" is newly revealed by the FBI 'mistake' as Al-Jarrah — believed to have "tasked" intermediaries to assist some among the 9/11 hijackers.

White House considers more coronavirus aid as jobs picture worsens -  (Reuters) - The White House has begun informal talks with Republicans and Democrats in Congress about what to include in another round of coronavirus relief legislation, officials said on Sunday, while predicting further U.S. jobs losses in the coming months. Officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, said they were holding discussions with lawmakers on issues including potential aid to states whose finances have been devastated by the pandemic. Another White House economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said future legislation could include food aid to help Americans struggling with hunger amid widespread job losses that have ruined the finances of many people. It also could include broadband access for those who lack it, Hassett added. While Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, are moving to unveil new legislation as early as this week, the White House signaled it is in no hurry to pass another relief bill.“Let’s take the next few weeks,” Mnuchin told the “Fox News Sunday” program. Since early March, Congress has passed bills allocating $3 trillion to combat the pandemic, including taxpayer money for individuals and companies to blunt an economic impact that includes an unemployment rate to 14.7% in April after U.S. job losses unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. “We just want to make sure that before we jump back in and spend another few trillion of taxpayers’ money that we do it carefully,” Mnuchin said. “We’ve been very clear that we’re not going to do things just to bail out states that were poorly managed.” Pressure for further action may mount as the near-term economic picture worsens.

Mnuchin Supports Changes to Small-Business Aid Program – WSJ —Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday that the government will look to make fixes to help restaurants and others participate in the $660 billion small-business aid program, a move that could help ease some of the criticism surrounding the program. The Paycheck Protection Program’s forgiveness requirements mandate borrowers spend 75% of the loan on worker salaries, and for the forgivable amount to be spent over an eight-week period. That has drawn objections from many business owners who say they need more money for rent and other overhead costs and from industries that remain mostly closed, as mandated by state regulations. The National Restaurant Association, for example, has suggested the period should begin at least three weeks after applicable state restaurant closures are lifted. Mr. Mnuchin signaled Monday that he would be open to some program tweaks. “One of the things we’re particularly sympathetic to are the restaurants,” Mr. Mnuchin said in an interview on CNBC. “Many of the restaurants are just beginning to open up and have said that they’d really like to hold the money. They can’t do that; that’s not something we can do. But we’ll look at a technical fix.” The National Restaurant Association said it welcomed Mr. Mnuchin’s comments, saying restaurants need more flexibility in use of the loans. “As currently structured, the PPP creates an unworkable structure for the vast majority of restaurants. As states begin lifting their stay-at-home orders, it will take some weeks—or months—for restaurants to ramp up operations and restock inventory, recruit and retrain staff, comply with new health codes, etc.,” said Sean Kennedy, the group’s executive vice president of public affairs. Small-business advocates, lawmakers and small firms themselves have been pushing for federal agencies to issue additional guidance on the program’s forgiveness requirements, and for more leniency in the terms. “Proposals that offer greater flexibility and improve the utility of the PPP would certainly be welcome by business owners,” said Kevin Kuhlman, vice president of federal government relations at the National Federation of Independent Business. “Small businesses definitely want more flexibility on the forgiveness requirements, especially because we are more than a month into the program and we still don’t have forgiveness guidance,” he said. The calls for clarity on forgiveness guidelines come amid a ticking clock for some large, publicly traded companies to return loan funds they received through the Paycheck Protection Program. The Treasury Department has said large companies with access to other sources of capital are unlikely to meet the requirement that program applicants need the loan to support ongoing operations. Treasury has said firms that determine they misunderstood this requirement may return the loan money without penalty up until Thursday.M

Who Gets CARES Act Aid? Critics See Bailout of Oil, Gas Companies -  As it headed toward bankruptcy, Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. took advantage of a little-noticed provision in the stimulus bill Congress passed in March to get a $9.7 million tax refund. Then, it asked a bankruptcy judge to authorize the same amount as bonuses to nine executives.The rig operator is one of dozens of oil companies and contractors now claiming hundreds of millions of dollars in tax rebates. They are employing a provision of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law, called the CARES act, that gives them more latitude to deduct recent losses. “This is a stealth bailout for the oil and gas industry,” said Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher with Documented, a watchdog group tracking the tax claims. It’s geared to companies “that have been losing money over the last few years -- and now they get that money back as a check from the taxpayers. That’s exactly what the oil industry has been doing.” The change wasn’t aimed only at the oil industry. However, its structure uniquely benefits energy companies that were raking in record profits in 2018 as crude prices reached $76.41 per barrel, only to see their fortunes flip a year later.More than $1.9 billion in CARES Act tax benefits are being claimed by at least 37 oil companies, service firms and contractors, according to a Bloomberg News review of recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Besides Diamond Offshore, which declined to comment, recipients include oil producer Occidental Petroleum Corp. and refinerMarathon Petroleum Corp. Other oil companies say they didn’t lobby Congress for the change, which is widely available across all industries. “We did not request any benefit, but we are obligated to follow the tax laws as passed by Congress, which apply to all corporate manufacturers nationwide,” said Jamal Kheiry, a spokesman for Marathon, which got a $411 million benefit. Congress embedded the tax change governing losses in the stimulus measure early on, as lawmakers moved rapidly in March to steer trillions of dollars in aid to coronavirus-ravaged workers and companies. Alongside expanded unemployment payments and payroll loan programs, lawmakers saw an opportunity to harness the tax code to help get cash flowing to companies struggling to pay rent, workers and insurance. It “was sold as help for the little guy -- help for small business,” said Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “In the name of ‘small business,’ we’re shoveling out billions of dollars to big corporations and rich guys.”

As US House returns to Washington, Democrats signal readiness to grant companies immunity for worker deaths - Amid scenes of disease, death and hunger not seen since the Great Depression, the Trump administration and Congress are, in Trump’s words, “in no rush” to pass a “Phase IV” stimulus bill to provide aid to bankrupt state and city governments and relief to desperate working class families.With today’s reconvening of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, following that of the Republican-led Senate last Monday, the largely stage-managed political wrangling over a new stimulus bill begins in earnest. But it is already clear that any bill that emerges will further enrich the financial aristocracy at the expense of the jobs, the wages and the very lives of the working class.At the end of March, Congress passed, in record time and by a near-unanimous vote, the biggest corporate bailout in world history. Since then, tens of millions of American workers have been laid off, bringing the number of unemployed and underemployed workers, according to Friday’s Labor Department employment report, to at least 47 million, or nearly one-third of the labor force. Millions of those laid off during the lockdown have received neither jobless pay nor the one-time $1,200 stipend promised by the government. Studies show that 40 percent of families with children are unable to buy enough food and mile-long food lines are springing up cross the country.Despite rising coronavirus infections and death, concentrated in work locations such as meatpacking plants and logistics facilities (Amazon, the US Postal Service, UPS, etc.), the Trump administration and state governors, Democratic and well as Republican, are ordering workers back to work without any safety precautions and under pain of being cut off of jobless pay.Meanwhile, the stock market, buoyed by the flood of cash from the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve, is roaring back and poised to surpass its record heights before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in March.On the Sunday interview shows, much attention was paid to disputes between the two parties over a new stimulus bill, while at most perfunctory mention was made of the plight of millions of people facing imminent homelessness and even starvation. As always, not one of the moderators, pundits, politicians, officials or academics mentioned, let alone questioned, the trillions handed over to the super-rich, with no strings attached. No one questioned why it was OK to transfer trillions in taxpayer funds to the corporate oligarchs, but impossible to provide relief for impoverished workers and their families.

Senators Question Lower Relief Loan Amounts for Small Businesses – NYTimes - Three Senate Democrats want Trump administration officials to keep a closer eye on the banks handing out aid to small businesses after some companies said they had received less than they expected, without explanation.In a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Small Business Administrator Jovita Carranza on Wednesday, three members of the Senate Banking Committee asked for more oversight of banks making loans under the Paycheck Protection Program. The program is designed to provide forgivable loans that help small businesses pay their employees and some of their overhead during the coronavirus lockdowns.But some business owners told The New York Times that they had not received as much money as they had asked for, and said they had been told that the decision was made by the banks — not the Small Business Administration, which is funding the program.“Whether inadvertent or intentional, this troubling report warrants a response from your agencies,” the senators, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Tina Smith of Minnesota, wrote in the letter.The issue poses a significant problem for borrowers. Treasury rules say that for Paycheck Protection Program loans to be forgiven, businesses must spend the money in precise ways, including rehiring a certain portion of their employees. If the amount they receive isn’t enough to rehire enough employees, their loans cannot be forgiven.The senators asked Mr. Mnuchin and Ms. Carranza to offer those borrowers options for getting additional funds to cover the gap. They also asked whether the officials had a plan for identifying which borrowers had not gotten as much money as they needed and determining the reason for the discrepancy.It was not clear how many small businesses received less money than they asked for under the program, but borrowers seeking loans from Citizens Financial Group and Bank of America reported experiencing that problem.At least seven borrowers posted about the issue on a page on Bank of America’s website that its customers can use as a discussion forum. The Times spoke with four additional borrowers experiencing the problem. A Bank of America representative advised users on the website to contact the bank for help, and a bank spokesman told The Times that the bank was working to correct any problems that borrowers reported. The senators said small businesses needed all the help they could get while competing against larger, wealthier clients for banks’ attention. “Answers to these questions will help ensure that eligible small businesses are not further disadvantaged by lenders shorting them on P.P.P. loans,” they wrote.

SBA backs off legal threat against firms that didn’t need PPP loans - The Trump administration said firms that took loans that they didn’t need from a small-business aid program will be allowed to repay the money without legal consequences, reversing an earlier threat that the government could pursue them criminally. New guidance issued Wednesday for the Paycheck Protection Program by the Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department also said that companies that took loans of less than $2 million will automatically be determined to have done so in good faith because they’re less likely to have access to other resources. The SBA will review all loans above $2 million to check whether firms properly certified they needed the money. If it determines the company shouldn’t have gotten the money, the loan won’t be forgiven and if the borrower returns it, no further action will be taken, according to the new guidance. Assuming that loans of less than $2 million were taken in good faith will allow the SBA to focus its resources on reviewing larger loans given the massive size of the program, the agencies said. Last month, after a backlash after large firms swooped in and collected millions from the PPP — which was intended to cast a lifeline to small firms that didn’t have access to capital markets —Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that firms could face criminal charges for taking loans they didn’t need. Meanwhile, borrowers who commit fraud in taking relief loans are already being prosecuted. The Justice Department last week brought the first criminal case related to the program when it charged two New England businessmen with fraud and alleged that their applications falsely claimed employees they don’t have.

 Bipartisan lawmakers introduce bill to make changes to Paycheck Protection Program - Reps. Dean Phillips (D-Minn) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced bipartisan legislation Monday that would make changes to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) aimed at providing additional help to employers trying to weather the financial fallout caused by the coronavirus crisis. The PPP was authorized in legislation earlier this year to provide forgivable loans to struggling small businesses. But the lawmakers say more needs to be done to help employers stay afloat and that changes to the program could make a substantial difference. The measure, titled the Paycheck Protection Flexibility Act, includes language that would extend PPP loan forgiveness for expenses beyond the eight weeks allotted under current policy in hopes that businesses will be able to keep more of their workers on the payroll. It would also allow businesses to utilize more than 25 percent of the loan for purposes that extend beyond payroll and allow the term of the loan to extend beyond two years. The bill also includes language that would ensure businesses have full access to payroll tax deferment and would extend the rehiring deadline past June 30. Phillips, who highlighted his experience as a small business owner, said the current policy isn’t accessible to all employers who need the aid. “While the PPP has helped millions of small businesses keep their lights on, millions more remain on the outside looking in. It won’t matter how much money we appropriate if the system by which it’s distributed is inaccessible to those who need it the most,” Phillips said in a statement. “As an entrepreneur and small business owner myself, I understand the challenges facing businesses struggling to survive this crisis. These common-sense solutions will provide the flexibility necessary to weather the storm and prepare for uncertain times ahead.” Roy said noted that a number of “businesses are already four weeks into the loan,” adding that he believes due to the uncertain circumstances they will need more flexibility. “Unfortunately, for many of these business owners, particularly local restaurants, hotels, and those in the hospitality industry, the terms are too inflexible to provide the help they need to weather the economic storm,” he said in a statement.

 Democrats release fraudulent “relief” bill - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday released a $3 trillion coronavirus “relief” bill and scheduled a vote for Friday. The Democratic leadership has acknowledged that the measure has no chance of gaining passage in the Republican-controlled Senate, let alone being signed into law by President Trump. The release of the bill initiates a process of political theater in which the two parties posture to rally their respective bases and generate sound-bites for campaign ads ahead of the November elections. It is expected that the measure will pass on a party-line vote in the Democratic-controlled House, setting off weeks of negotiations between the Democrats and the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Any bill that might emerge from this process will fall far short of addressing the desperate plight of the tens of millions of workers who have been laid off and deprived of the means for paying rent and feeding their families. Nor will it allocate the resources necessary to carry out the mass testing, contact tracing and quarantining required to contain the pandemic and ensure that workers forced to return to work are not put at risk of illness and death. The political charade and partisan grandstanding now under way serve to mask the bipartisan unity when it comes to protecting the basic class interests of the ruling elite at the expense of society. The bickering over a new stimulus bill stands in sharp contrast to the harmony that was displayed in the rush to adopt the CARES Act at the end of March. That unprecedented bailout, granting corporations, banks and Wall Street speculators some $8 trillion with no strings attached, was passed unanimously in the Senate and by a voice vote in the House. It fueled a record 35 percent rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the course of less than two months. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest individual, has pocketed an additional $25 billion, and Tesla boss Elon Musk has added $12.6 billion to his fortune since the beginning of the year. Even though the Democrats know their bill is at most a bargaining marker, their proposals are completely inadequate to safeguard jobs, living standards and basic social services such as education and health care, all of which are facing savage and permanent cuts. One of the most telling aspects of the proposal is the Democrats’ silence on what McConnell has called the bottom-line precondition for any additional social relief or aid to bankrupt state and local governments: legal immunity for companies that fail to provide the protective equipment and hygiene needed to protect their workers from the coronavirus. The Democrats are already working with Trump and the Republicans to “reopen” the economy even though the pandemic continues to spread, and force workers to return to factories and workplaces or lose their unemployment benefits. Now, they are preparing to strip workers of their democratic right to go to court against employers who endanger their lives

House Democrats float $3 trillion coronavirus bill, Republicans reject it (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday unveiled a $3 trillion-plus coronavirus relief package with funding for states, businesses, food support and families, only to see the measure flatly rejected by Senate Republicans. The new legislation, which would more than double Congress' financial response to the crisis, includes nearly $1 trillion in long-sought assistance for state and local governments that are bearing the brunt of a pandemic that has infected 1,359,000 in the United States and killed at least 80,600. It also includes $75 billion for testing people for the novel coronavirus, direct payments of up to $6,000 per U.S. household, $10 billion in emergency grants for small business and $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service. The bill would also extend enhanced federal unemployment payments through next January. But Congress appears to be heading for a legislative stand-off over rival partisan demands, including a Republican push to protect businesses from lawsuits related to the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease that it causes. "It's dead on arrival here," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said of the House bill. Republicans say they want to hold off on new coronavirus relief legislation to assess the impact of nearly $3 trillion in response assistance that Congress has allocated since early March, as states move to reopen a shuttered U.S. economy. Tens of millions of people have lost jobs. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Fox News Channel in an interview that the Democratic proposal contrasted with President Donald Trump's "pro-growth tax and deregulation program." "We should provide growth incentives and not go through various wish lists which ... have been submitted before and failed," Kudlow said.

House passes $3 trillion coronavirus aid bill opposed by Trump -  (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday narrowly approved a $3 trillion bill crafted by Democrats to provide more aid for battling the coronavirus and stimulating a faltering economy rocked by the pandemic. By a vote of 208-199 Democrats won passage of a bill that Republican leaders, who control the Senate, have vowed to block despite some Republican support for provisions aimed at helping state and local governments. Republican President Donald Trump has promised a veto if it were to reach his desk. However, the Democrats’ measure could trigger a new round of negotiations with congressional Republicans and Trump, who have been talking about the need for new business liability protections in the age of coronavirus or additional tax cuts. Democrats oppose both of those ideas. Following the vote, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced that May 27-28 would be set aside for voting on some sort of coronavirus-related bill if one is ready by then. He provided no details on the contents of such a bill.

Congress's paycheck protection program doing more to hurt than help  - The government’s pandemic-prompted, $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program pays businesses to not lay their workers off. Unfortunately, the program’s specific requirement that 75 percent of PPP loans go to hiring workers is doing more to hurt than help economic recovery and preserve jobs. As with so many bad ideas, good intentions were involved. Congress wanted to ensure that workers remained employed, hence the provision that the loans would be forgiven only if the 75 percent threshold was met. That created a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t scenario for business owners. If they spent three-quarters of the money on paychecks, they may not have enough left over to pay rent, vendors, utilities, or any other expenses that have been piling up since the outbreak started. But if business owners paid the rent and those other urgent expenses first, they put themselves on the hook for a big IOU to Uncle Sam, which will just make crawling out of the financial hole they are in that much harder. Manhattan hair salon owners Andrea Hans and Jose Sanchez belatedly discovered that only $43,500 of the $174,000 loan they received could go towards paying the estimated $60,000 in bills they faced. “We put our life savings, every moment of our time and any financial resources we had toward opening this business,” Hans told the Wall Street Journal. “It feels like a funny joke if we had to close because of this.” In other words, using the majority of the loan to re-hire their staff increases the odds that businesses like Hans and Sanchez’s fail anyway, if they are evicted or can’t afford supplies necessary to operate the business and attract customers. So the workers get laid off a second time and nobody wins. The irony, too, is that businesses could face the prospect of paying employees who have nothing to do due to lack of customers and commerce. After all that, it’s not clear that the paycheck mandate has made a dent in the unemployment rate. The national unemployment rate reached a record high of 14.7 percent, as of May 8, despite the paycheck mandate. While it’s impossible to know what the jobless rate would be if the program didn’t exist, anecdotal evidence suggests the program is undermined by the employee retention requirement. Another problem is that many business owners have gotten loans approved only to discover they cannot afford to use them, at least not right away. (anecdotes follow)

Less than 40 percent of small businesses have received emergency coronavirus loans: Census Bureau -Less than 40 percent of small businesses have received support from the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration's (SBA) emergency coronavirus lending initiative, according to Census Bureau data released Thursday.While 74.9 percent of respondents to the Census Bureau’s survey of small businesses applied for a forgivable loan through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), only 38.1 percent received aid. The PPP was created through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help small businesses closed or suffering during the pandemic retain their employees and keep them off of unemployment insurance. The program offers loans intended to cover eight weeks of payroll and 25 percent of overhead costs, and can be forgiven up to 100 percent if spent according to those terms.The SBA has approved more than 4.23 million PPP loans for a total of roughly $542 billion between two rounds, according to data from the administration. The SBA has depleted roughly $193.7 billion of an additional $310 billion in funding from Congress after the SBA distributed all $349 billion originally allocated for the program.While the PPP has received wide bipartisan support, the program has also been marked by frequent controversy, confusion, and concern about the restrictive terms of the loans it offers.A bipartisan group of lawmakers, along with businessowners and advocates, have asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the SBA to allow PPP recipients to spend more of their loans on overhead and hold onto the money longer if they’ve not been able to reopen.Mnuchin has largely brushed off those concerns, insisting that the program is working largely as designed by Congress, but he agreed to would work with lawmakers on a bipartisan fix. Lawmakers counter that Mnuchin and the SBA have the authority to amend the terms on their own through new regulations.

Survey: Oil, manufacturing had best luck with pandemic loans -- Almost 75% of small businesses in a survey applied for help from a federal loan program designed to keep workers employed during the coronavirus pandemic, but only 38% of small businesses received any money, according to survey results the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday. Oil extraction and mining businesses had the best success in getting loans from the Paycheck Protection Program with more than half of businesses surveyed in that sector reporting getting some help, according to the Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey. Just under half of small businesses in manufacturing and about 45% of small businesses in accommodations and food services reported receiving loans, the survey said. Utilities fared the worst of all sectors with less than a quarter of small businesses in that sector getting loans, according to the survey. The Paycheck Protection Program administered by the Small Business Administration has dispensed more than $530 billion in low-cost loans to millions of small businesses to cushion them from the sharp downturn induced by the coronavirus. The Census Bureau survey showed that nearly two-thirds of small businesses in Arkansas, Maine and Oklahoma, had received loans, among the highest in the nation. Trailing the rest of the nation was California, where just over a fifth of small businesses received the emergency loans.

Analysis: We Knew The Coronavirus Was Coming, Yet We Failed 5 Critical Tests -- The arrival of COVID-19 has provided a nuclear-level stress test to the American health care system, and our grade isn’t pretty: at least 73,000 dead, 1.2 million infected and 30 million unemployed; nursing homes, prisons and meatpacking plants that have become hotbeds of infection. The actual numbers are certainly far higher, since there still hasn’t been enough testing to identify all those who have died or have been infected.By all accounts, a number of other countries have responded — and fared — far better.In some ways, COVID-19 seemed the biological equivalent of 9/11 — unthinkable until it happened. Who would have thought individuals would fly jets filled with people into skyscrapers filled with workers? Likewise, who would have predicted the onslaught of a new virus that was stealthy, easily transmissible and also often perilous?Actually, many public health specialists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, did. And yet, our system failed in its response. Heroic health care providers were left to jury-rig last-minute solutions to ensure that the toll wasn’t even worse.But the saddest part is that most of the failings and vulnerabilities that the pandemic has revealed were predictable — a direct outgrowth of the kind of market-based system that Americans generally rely on for health care.Our system requires every player — from insurers to hospitals to the pharmaceutical industry to doctors — be financially self-sustaining, to have a profitable business model. As such, it excels at expensive specialty care. But there’s no return on investment in being primed and positioned for the possibility of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.Combine that with an administration unwilling to intervene to force businesses to act en masse to resolve a public health crisis like this, and you get what we got: a messy, uncoordinated under-response, defined by shortages and finger-pointing.No institutional players — not hospitals, not manufacturers of ventilators, masks, tests or drugs — saw it as their place to address the COVID-19 train coming down the tracks. Meanwhile, the Trump administration, loath to deploy the Defense Production Act, did so only sparingly and slowly, mostly relying on backchannel arm-twisting and “incentives” like forgiving liability to get business buy-in. That’s because, in the current iteration of American health care, tens of thousands of people dying is not incentive enough. Let’s look at the failures.

Coronavirus Magical Thinking, US Style: Contact Tracing Versus Masks -- Yves Smith - Since the US is a federal system with an Administration that refused to take coronavirus seriously early enough, and now seems determined to validate its original decision by doubling down on it, it is a bit simplistic to speak of a “coronavirus response,” since cities and states have been taking the lead and they’ve gone down different paths. Nevertheless, due to the decision by many governments, particularly in the South, to start relaxing restrictions, I’m coming across way too many rationalizations. And one of them is that officials can make things safe enough with approaches like contact tracing. Mind you, as you will see, the point is that contact tracing, or any information gathering, practiced on an insufficient scale and without programs to take disease containment steps using that data, is at best misguided, and at worst, intended to build false confidence. Put it another way: the enthusiasm for a gee-whiz, tech based approach with no real world back end doesn’t merely reflect a lack of operational capacity, a key point Lambert made yesterday. It reflects a grave decline in basic problem-solving and planning skills, as in how do you get from A to B. And there bizarrely is limited interest in the one thing that could be done easily and cheaply, which is getting tough about mask-wearing.  On top of that, one measure that really could make a difference, mandatory mask wearing, isn’t required many places, and even in those locales, not in a sufficiently bloody-minded manner. The first biggie is that it had to be this way. No, it didn’t. Note that Slovenia, which borders Italy, has the disease pretty well contained. From EndCoronavirus.org: (see graphs) Even countries that had very bad outbreaks like Italy and Iran have considerably reduced infection levels: The US is not in good company. Note how Singapore is now sitting at the “bad performance” table due to outbreaks among its migrant worker community…which is now quarantined in housing that makes social distancing pretty much impossible.It turns out that big contagion vector was air travel. Epidemiologist Ignacio had this intuition a few weeks ago. Via e-mail: I have compared the “air connectivity” of various European countries with cumulative casualties with a lag corresponding to the clinical lag between contagions and casualties. Air connectivity is measured by daily flight departures for each country the week ending the 13th of March. And cumulative casualties up to April 7th.When I plot both variables using logarithmic scale for both, I obtain a fine visual correlation: The depressing thing about the contact tracing plans in the US is that they demonstrate how incompetent we’ve become as a people. We were able to send a man to the moon 50 years ago. Now all we seem able to do is build apps when they won’t solve anything.

May 11 Update: US COVID-19 Test Results: Progress! The US might be able to test 400,000 to 600,000 people per day sometime in May according to Dr. Fauci - and that might be enough for test and trace.However, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day according to Dr. Jha of Harvard's Global Health Institute. There were 394,711 test results reported over the last 24 hours.  This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 4.5% (red line). The US probably needs enough tests to keep  the percentage positive well below 5%. (probably much lower based on testing in New Zealand).This is the best day so far.

 Fauci and other top health officials enter quarantine after exposure to White House aide with virus - White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci will follow a "modified" quarantine after "low-risk" exposure to a White House aide who tested positive for coronavirus, an administration official told NBC News. Fauci is expected to work mostly from home, but may go into his office while observing social distancing and wearing a face mask, the official said. Fauci is the third high-ranking member of the White House coronavirus task force to enter some form of quarantine. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, is also expected to self quarantine after exposure to a White House aide who tested positive for coronavirus, two administration officials told NBC News, as is FDA Director Stephen Hahn.  Redfield and Hahn will testify before a Senate hearing on reopening the economy via videoconference from self quarantine Tuesday. Fauci's quarantine is "modified" because he still plans to testify in person before the Senate hearing, though that is subject to change.  The virus hit President Donald Trump's circle this week after one of his personal valets and Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary, Katie Miller, both tested positive.When asked whether the president and vice president would self quarantine, White House spokesman Judd Deere reiterated a statement issued earlier in the week, saying Trump's physician and staff are taking every step to keep the president, his family, and the White House safe and healthy. "In addition to social distancing, daily temperature checks and symptom histories, hand sanitizer, and regular deep cleaning of all work spaces, every staff member in close proximity to the president and vice president is being tested daily for COVID-19 as well as any guest," Deere said.  Trump and Pence tested negative for the virus as of Thursday. The president and vice president have been criticized for not wearing masks during public events. Trump did not wear a mask during a visit to a Honeywell factory that makes masks, and Pence did not wear a mask during a visit to the Mayo Cliniceven though it was required.

Fauci won’t appear in Senate after exposure to White House staffer infected with coronavirus, Pence will also be self-isolating Dr. Anthony Fauci won’t show up in person in the Senate after all. The top pandemic doctor decided not to bend the rules by showing up in person for a Senate hearing set for Tuesday on the government’s response to the pandemic. Fauci, who says he is observing a previously unknown “modified quarantine" regimen, has said he would wear a face mask and observe social distancing requirements when he answers questions from senators. He admits having what he calls “low risk” contact with Katie Miller, the spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence who tested positive on Friday. Advertisement Fauci, who has tested negative for COVID-19 so far, says he will mostly work from home for the next two weeks and will only go into work at the National Institutes for Health if he is alone in the office. The heads of the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration are both staying home due to the same supposedly low-risk contact with Katie Miller. Katie Miller’s husband, controversial White House aide Stephen Miller, will stay out of the White House until his coronavirus infection status can be determined. A military officer who works as a valet to President Trump has also tested positive for the deadly virus.

Joint Chiefs Members Sidelined By COVID-19 As Alarm Grows Over White House Exposure - Since the devastating arrival of the pandemic in North America, the Pentagon has been preoccupied with the incredibly difficult task of finding a balance between protecting the health of the troops on the one hand, while also maintaining optimum defense readiness while rivals like China and Russia look on.Nothing illustrates this more than the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier fiasco, which saw a public fight emerge among the Navy's top brass over what to do when last month eventually more than 1,000 sailors tested positive for COVID-19. The ship's commander, subsequently relieved of duty by a Secretary of the Navy who himself was fired over scathing comments regarding the Roosevelt's leadership, also caught the virus.And now the virus is threatening to rip through the top echelons of the Department of Defense, as over the weekend top commanders and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have been sidelined by COVID-19 exposure. This also suggests — as has already long been a major concern — the virus' closer proximity to the White House, after Pence staffers as well as Secret Service members were infected. First, Chief of the National Guard Bureau General Joseph Lengyel and a member of the Joint Chiefs, tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday. But strangely, he actually tested negative in a follow-up test on Sunday, and is now reportedly awaiting results of a third while quarantining. The hope is that the first test as a 'false positive'.And further Admiral Mike Gilday, the Chief of Naval Operations and another member of the Joint Chiefs, announced he's self-quarantining for at least a week after a close family member was infected. Crucially the two Joint Chiefs members did not attend a Saturday meeting of top military commanders with President Trump at the White House. But it certainly raises concerns of the level of White House personnel exposure.

White House Orders All Staff To Wear Face Masks 'At All Times' -  President Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have issued a memo to all who work in the West Wing that masks must be worn at all times inside the building except when at one's desk, WSJ reports. The decision is notable since the White House actually seems to be reacting to criticism and improving its policy on masks after President Trump and VP Pence were both called out for not wearing masks in public. Two White House staffers tested positive for COVID-19 last week, and VP Pence has said he will be working in quarantine after being exposed to an aide who tested positive. Pence in particular has endured criticism for neglecting to wear a mask during a visit to the Mayo Clinic. President Trump reportedly "erupted" at his aides for purportedly failing to prioritize his safety. Notably, the press has painted Trump as someone who has recklessly refused to wear masks, setting an example that critics say has confused the public (though we'd argue the conflicting research about the efficacy of masks and initial recommendations that they only be worn by the sick are probably caused more confusion). And for those who are tempted to argue that the "science" has changed, keep in mind. Aside from maybe one or two additional non-peer-reviewed studies, not much has changed in terms of the available research. It's just that the West, for whatever reason, didn't accept the precautionary mask culture, until its leaders decided it might help the public take things a little more seriously.

 Coronavirus: Abrupt reversals on face mask policy raise new questions - The French and US governments are under scrutiny for not acting quickly enough to ensure an adequate supply of facial masks after insisting for weeks that wearing them was unhelpful against the coronavirus before making a dramatic U-turn on that policy in recent days.After weeks of official statements saying it was not necessary to wear a mask unless you were sick or worked in the medical profession, France's Académie Nationale de Médecine (Academy of Medicine) announced Friday that a mask should be compulsory during outings both during and after the current lockdown. The French government quickly followed with an announcement that the manufacture of non-medical "alternative" masks to be used by the public would be ramped up and, the next day, said it had ordered 2 billion face masks from China.The reversal came after media reports – notably by investigative news site Mediapart and state-run TV France 2 – that the government’s early insistence that face masks were not useful was, in fact, prompted by a shortage of them. French doctor and TV personality Marina Carrère d'Encausse on Wednesday described the early official line as a "lie" told "for a good cause" to ensure that medical staff had enough.  But even before that, the French government was giving mixed signals. While officially maintaining that face masks were unnecessary for people without symptoms or who are not caring for coronavirus sufferers, President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to rapidly increase France’s production.  The country's four face mask factories will be making more than 10 million per week by the end of April – compared to 3.3 billion per week before the start of the crisis. "Before, we believed that we could import masks quickly and in great quantity from the other side of the world ... and that we did not need to store billions and billions of face masks," Macron said during a visit to the Kolmi-Hopen face mask factory near Angers in western France.

Birx said 'there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust' in a White House coronavirus task force meeting (Reuters) - Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus task force response coordinator, blasted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during a discussion on COVID-19 data in a recent meeting, The Washington Post reported on Saturday. "There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust," she told CDC Director Robert Redfield, two people familiar with the meeting told the newspaper. The Post reported that Birx and others feared that the CDC's data-tracking system was inflating coronavirus statistics like mortality rates and case numbers by up to 25%. Birx later told The Post in a statement that "mortality is slowly declining each day." "To keep with this trend, it is essential that seniors and those with comorbidities shelter in place and that we continue to protect vulnerable communities," she said.Other non-CDC sources have found that daily coronavirus deaths in the US remain close to 2,000 and are not on a steady downward trajectory.  Recent research has also indicated that COVID-19 deaths have been severely undercounted, both in the US and around the world, particularly in the early stages of the pandemic. One internal Trump administration model also projected that daily coronavirus deaths would reach 3,000 by June 1, according to The New York Times.  Several of The Post's sources described the meeting with Birx and Redfield as heated, though two Trump administration sources disagreed.  According to The Post, Redfield defended the CDC in the meeting, but many there agreed that the agency needed a digital upgrade.  Another flashpoint in the meeting came during a discussion on the drug remdesivir, which has shown promise in early results from clinical trials in COVID-19 patients. The Trump administration has said it will distribute the drug to hard-hit states. According to The Post, one official announced that the government had already shipped the drug to seven states, which surprised Birx and others because they had not yet decided which states should be prioritized. "Why would you do that?" Birx asked the official, according to The Post.

Ousted health official warns US needs national plan to beat coronavirus - Rick Bright, a former top federal vaccine doctor, warned Congress that the country faces the "darkest winter in modern history" without a national coordinated response in place before next fall. “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities,” Bright told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. Speaking slowly and softly, Bright testified for nearly four hours. He told lawmakers that Americans "deserve" to hear the truth. "The truth must be based on science. We have the world's greatest scientists. Let us lead. Let us speak without fear of retribution. We must listen. Each of us can and must do our part now,” Bright said. Bright also warned that it might take longer for the world to develop an effective vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, underscoring the need for a national plan. “My concern is if we rush too quickly and consider cutting out critical steps, we may not have a full assessment of the safety of that vaccine,” he said. "I still think 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule and it’s going to take longer than that to do so.” And Bright repeated criticism he's made that officials in the Trump administration ignored his warnings about the coming crisis and the need to get supplies such as masks and other personal protective equipment for health care workers prepared. Bright led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) until he was demoted in late April and transferred to a narrower role at the National Institutes of Health.

Bright says it will likely take longer than 18 months to get coronavirus vaccine - Former top federal vaccine official Rick Bright warned Thursday that projections of a coronavirus vaccine available in 12 to 18 months may be overly optimistic during testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. The frequently cited 12- to 18-month time frame, Bright said, involves a best-case scenario, and “we’ve never seen everything go perfectly.” “My concern is if we rush too quickly and consider cutting out critical steps, we may not have a full assessment of the safety of that vaccine,” he said. "I still think 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule and it’s going to take longer than that to do so.” “It’s critical to note that when we say 12 to 18 months, that doesn’t mean for an FDA-approved vaccine, it means to have sufficient data and information on the safety and immunogenicity, if not efficacy, to be able to use on an emergency basis, and that is the consideration we have in mind when we talk about an accelerated timeline,” he added. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) voiced concerns that even once a vaccine was approved, it would run into similar issues as testing involving unequal access. Bright said he agreed, warning of a scenario in which “we have limited doses and we haven't scaled up production and we don't have a plan and how to fairly and equitably distribute that drug.” “If you can imagine this scenario this fall or winter maybe even early next spring when a vaccine becomes available. There's no one company that can produce enough for our country or for the world. It's going to be a limited supply.” The federal government needs “to have a strategy and plan in place now to make sure that we can not only find that vaccine, make it and distribute it, but administer it in a fair and equitable plan,” he added, saying it was a “significant concern” that no such strategy currently exists.

Economic Shock of Virus Hit Lower-Income Households Harder, Fed Finds – WSJ - The economic shock stemming from the coronavirus pandemic hit lower-income households first and immediately left them much worse off, according to a new survey from the Federal Reserve. Almost 40% of households earning less than $40,000 a year experienced at least one job loss in March, versus 19% of households earning between $40,000 and $100,000 and 13% of those earning more than $100,000, the Fed said. And while 85% of those with no work disruption said they could pay the current month’s bills in full, just 64% of those who had lost a job or had their hours cut said they could cover their expenses for the month, the Fed said in the report released Thursday. The survey reveals a rapidly widening gap between those households that experienced the early economic effects of the pandemic and those that were spared. Those who lost jobs almost immediately found themselves in economic distress while those who didn’t said their personal financial outlook remained strong. About half of those who had lost a job or had their hours cut in March said they were doing “at least OK” financially, versus about three quarters of those with jobs. Overall, about 64% of respondents in the April survey said they could cover an unexpected $400 expense, similar to the 63% in the 2019 survey. But that figure masks a wide variation. Just 46% of those who lost a job or had their hours cut in March could afford such an expense compared with 85% of those whose job status was unchanged. Despite the strong economy and low unemployment rates of the past few years, Americans were increasingly financially vulnerable in the run-up to the pandemic, the study found. Almost half the respondents had no rainy day fund set aside to cover three months of expenses in an emergency, the Fed found. Of that group, just 37% said they would be able to borrow, dip into savings or sell something should they lose their jobs, down from 39% in 2019 and 42% in 2017. The Fed surveyed about 1,000 people over the first weekend of April and asked them about their experiences beginning March 1. The report is a supplement to a regular annual study published by the central bank. That study found that the overall economic condition of Americans had continued to improve in 2019, before the pandemic.

Reopening Isn’t Reopening—It’s Cutting Off Unemployment - Peter Dorman - Donald Trump, cheering on his “warriors” who demand that states lift their lockdown and distancing orders (where they have them), would have you believe this is about bringing the economy back to life so ordinary people can get their jobs and normal lives back.  Elitist liberalswho work from home and have country estates to retreat to don’t care, but “real” people do. The reality is different.  The shuttering of stores, restaurants, hotels and workplaces didn’t beginwith government orders and won’t end with them.  If the rate of new infection and death is too high, a lot of people won’t go along.  Not everyone, but enough to make a huge economic difference.  Ask any small business owner what it would mean for demand to drop by 25-50%.  Lifting government orders won’t magically restore the economic conditions of mid-winter. So what’s it about?  Even as it makes a big PR show of supporting state by state “liberation” in America, the Trump administration is advising state governments on how to remove workers from unemployment insurance once orders are lifted.  Without government directives, employers can demand workers show up, and if they refuse they no longer qualify.  And why might workers refuse?  Perhaps because their workplaces are still unsafe and they have vulnerable family members they want to keep from getting infected?  Not good enough—once the state has been “liberated”. How should we respond to this travesty?  First, of course, by telling the truth that an anti-worker, anti-human campaign is being conducted under the guise of defending workers.  If the Democrats weren’t themselves such a tool of business interests we might hear that narrative from them, but the rest of us are free to speak out and should start doing it, loudly, wherever we can. Second, one of the laws of the land is the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which gives workers the right to refuse imminently hazardous work.  This hasn’t been used very often, nor is there much case law around it, but the current pandemic is a good reason to pull it out of storage.  If there are public interest law firms looking for something useful to do during distancing, they could advertise their willingness to defend workers who need to stay home until work is safe—while still getting their paycheck. 

America’s Chilling Experiment in Human Sacrifice --Lynn Parramore --A chilling experiment is underway in America, with plenty of unwilling human guinea pigs. Many parts of the country are reopening for business against the warnings of medical experts, flying in the face of grim predictions of sharply rising body counts. Two-thirds of Americans fear that the restart is happening too quickly, and the President himself acknowledges that by easing restrictions, “there’ll be more death.” Yet he presses on, even as his own White House suffers a viral outbreak.  News screens flash with tallies of death and tallies of wealth: New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo has declared that lives must be saved “whatever it costs,” insisting that for Americans the choice “between public health and the economy” is “no contest.” But he did not ask celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who some weeks ago expressed his view that reopening schools could give the country its “mojo back,” and perhaps “only cost us 2-3% in terms of total mortality. (2% sounds conveniently small compared to its equivalent in human lives, 6,560,000. Oz laterapologized after public outrage). Meanwhile Dan Patrick, lieutenant governor of Texas, offered his own assessment of the trade-off between capitalism and the lives of America’s senior citizens, explaining, “there are more important things than living.” Since the days of Adam Smith, free market capitalists have held that human beings are rational actors who pursue economic gain for self-interested motives. But here is Patrick, a free marketer if there ever was one, talking about a gift-sacrifice economy model in which people – some people, at least – lay down their lives to keep the economic engines revved. Patrick’s words reveal an unspoken truth about capitalism. For the system to work smoothly, there have always been requirements of human sacrifice — a certain portion of the population was expected to act not as self-serving homo economicus, but self-sacrificing homo communis, focused upon what benefits the collective at their own expense. If these people can’t social distance at the workplace, they are expected to show up anyway. If there isn’t enough safety equipment, they are declared essential workers who must put their lives and that of their families at risk for the greater good. But for whom and for what is this sacrifice intended? How much dying will be figured into state budgets and gross domestic product (GDP)? When ranked by GDP, the U.S. is the wealthiest economy in the world, but is a country’s wealth something totally separate from, or even contrary to, the health and life the majority of its citizens?

Trump USDA Resumes Effort to Cut Food Stamp Benefits for at Least 700,000 People During Pandemic- With hunger rising at an alarming rate across the U.S.—particularly among children—as the coronavirus crisis sends unemployment to levels not seen since the Great Depression, the Trump administration this week resumed its effort to strip nutrition benefits from more than a million people by appealing a court ruling that blocked the Agriculture Department from imposing more punitive work requirements.After briefly backing off its push to implement the rule change last month, the USDA on Tuesday filed court documents appealing Judge Beryl Howell's stay of the administration's long-sought policy, which would limit states' ability to waive work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).While the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in March, suspended SNAP work requirements for the duration of the public health emergency, analysts have warnedthat the economic crisis and the need for nutrition assistance will persist long after Covid-19 is effectively contained.Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) ripped the USDA's appeal in a statement late Wednesday, saying that if Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and other Trump administration officials "had any decency or compassion, they would abandon this appeal immediately.""Secretary Perdue and his officials at USDA continue to show their true colors when it comes to our nation's hungry," said Fudge. "The nation's unemployment percentage has seen its worst spike since the Great Depression. Jobless claims are up over 30 million. The lines at food banks have never been longer. And by any reputable account the worst is yet to come."The administration has decided that now—amid the most pervasive need in a century—is a great time to crack down on Americans who rely on food stamps to keep their families from going hungry," Fudge added.By the Agriculture Department's own estimates, the rule change—which was finalized in December despite the flood of public comments opposing the policy—could strip nutrition assistance from around 700,000 people. Analysts say the actual number would likely be more than a million.Throughout the pandemic, the Trump administration and Republican members of Congress have blocked Democratic efforts to expand SNAP benefits to meet the needs of struggling families. According to researchpublished last week by the Hamilton Project, one in three households in the U.S. are food insecure amid the coronavirus crisis."These are households cutting back on portion sizes, having kids skip meals," said researcher Lauren Bauer. "The numbers are much higher than I expected."

Trump says testing may be 'frankly overrated' -President Trump on Thursday suggested the practice of widespread coronavirus testing may be "overrated," even as health experts insist it is critical to safely loosen restrictions and reopen businesses. Trump boasted about the United States's testing capabilities during remarks at a Pennsylvania medical equipment distribution center, where he announced the country has administered 10 million tests since the outbreak began. "We have the best testing in the world," Trump told employees at Owens & Minor Inc. in Allentown. “Could be that testing’s, frankly, overrated. Maybe it is overrated." “But we have the greatest testing in the world,” he added. “But what we want is we want to get rid of this thing. That’s what we want." The U.S. has more than 1.4 million confirmed coronavirus cases, by far the most of any country in the world. But Trump suggested the soaring infection numbers were merely a reflection of America’s testing capacity. "We have more cases than anybody in the world, but why? Because we do more testing,” Trump said. “When you test, you have a case. When you test you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They don’t want to write that. It’s common sense. We test much more." The Trump administration has drawn intense criticism for its slow initial rollout of coronavirus testing in February and March when the first U.S. cases were reported. Even as testing has ramped up, lawmakers have questioned why the federal government has failed to outline a national testing strategy and instead deferred to states. The president has been relentlessly positive in assessing his administration’s performance, declaring earlier this week that the U.S. has “prevailed” on testing as he pushes for states to loosen restrictions intended to slow the spread of coronavirus. Administration officials have pointed to the sheer volume of tests conducted in the U.S. being higher than other countries, though experts have noted places like South Korea began widespread testing much earlier and have not seen the same level of infections.

Why the United States might not open up to international travelers any time soon -  (Reuters) - The U.S. government largely shut down international travel to the United States in March with a series of rapid-fire moves, but restarting it will likely be a longer, more piecemeal process that could be complicated by rising tensions with China. Even as President Donald Trump pushes for U.S states to begin reopening their economies, U.S. borders remain shut to travelers from China and Europe. Any decision on easing travel restrictions will depend in large part on what safety protocols all countries put in place to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus and whether those countries in turn grant entry to Americans, U.S. officials told Reuters. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said last week that Trump and U.S. health officials were examining the issue of international travel but did not provide further details. Trump implemented a temporary ban on most travelers coming from China, the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak, in January and put similar restrictions on travelers from Europe in March. The United States also halted nonessential travel across its shared borders with Canada and Mexico in March and suspended routine visa services in most U.S. consulates abroad. Some U.S. airlines would like to resume limited service to China - a major market for them - in June, but the possibility of the Trump administration lifting travel restrictions will be complicated by China’s own restrictions on foreign carriers, according to a senior U.S. official who requested anonymity to discuss the matter. China limits foreign airlines to one flight into the country per week, and planes are only allowed to fly with 75% of passenger capacity. Domestic politics may also influence which countries’ travelers are first granted renewed access to the United States. While a nationwide regime of screening, testing and quarantine has vastly reduced the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China, Trump and top aides have questioned the accuracy of information from China, angering Beijing.

 Burr to step down from Senate Intel panel amid stock sale probe  - Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is stepping aside as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee amid an investigation into his stock sales from earlier this year shortly before markets crashed. “Senator Burr contacted me this morning to inform me of his decision to step aside as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the pendency of the investigation," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement Thursday. “We agreed that this decision would be in the best interests of the committee and will be effective at the end of the day tomorrow,” he added. Burr later told reporters that "this is a distraction to the hard work of the committee and the members, and I think that the security of the country is too important to have a distraction." He subsequently released a statement confirming that he told McConnell he would step aside "until this investigation is resolved." "I believe this step is necessary to allow the Committee to continue its essential work free of external distractions," Burr added. His decision to temporarily step down comes just a day after federal investigators seized Burr’s cellphone as part of an investigation into alleged insider trading. The Department of Justice has been conducting a probe since March over Burr's sale of up to $1.72 million in stocks earlier this year. The stocks were sold in early February after senators received closed-door briefings on the national threat posed by the coronavirus, before most Americans were warned about the potential economic fallout of the pandemic. Asked Thursday if he exercised poor judgement with the stock sale, Burr told reporters "no." Burr has denied using any information he learned in his capacity as a senator to guide his decisions regarding selling his stocks.

Burr decision sends shock waves through Senate - Sen. Richard Burr's (R-N.C.) decision to temporarily step down as chairman of the Intelligence Committee sent shock waves through the Senate on Thursday. The announcement, made in a statement by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), visibly shocked several of Burr's colleagues, who appeared to be learning the news as reporters asked them about the decision. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of GOP leadership and the Intelligence Committee, appeared unaware that Burr had decided to step down. "Has he done that?" Blunt said when asked by reporters Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), who are also members of the panel, appeared to have not seen the statement from McConnell. "Oh wow," said Collins. "I don't know what to say, I truly didn't know about it. He's been an excellent chairman of the committee." Collins and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, were later spotted having an animated discussion on the Senate floor. Collins then spoke with Burr, Warner and Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Republican senator, near the well of the Senate. Asked by a gaggle of reporters if he expected to become chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Rubio appeared perplexed: "Um, why?" "I haven't heard that," he added when informed that McConnell had announced that Burr would step aside pending the outcome of the FBI's investigation. ADVERTISEMENT McConnell's statement announcing the decision by Burr to step down temporarily came just as senators were arriving in the Capitol for a pre-scheduled noon vote. Rubio, asked as he left the vote if he got more information while on the floor, noted that the news was "just out." "I mean I wish they would time these things better," he quipped.

Trump won't name crime he's accusing Obama of committing - President Trump on Monday declined to name the crime he believes former President Obama committed as he was pressed on a string of critical tweets he sent over the weekend accusing his predecessor of committing the biggest political crime in history. “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours,” Trump told Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker during a press conference in the White House Rose Garden. Trump on Monday aired grievances over the FBI’s investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russia, suggesting his predecessor was to blame for the probe that dogged his first two years in the White House. Trump has amplified his attacks on the Russia investigation in the days since the Department of Justice (DOJ) moved to drop charges against his former national security adviser Michael Flynn — a decision critics say showcases the politicization of the DOJ under Trump. Obama said in a private phone conversation Friday that has since leaked to the press that the “rule of law is at risk” in the wake of the Flynn decision. He also criticized the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus crisis, calling it an "absolute chaotic disaster." Trump, in response, fired off several tweets over the weekend lashing out at Obama over the Russia investigation, at one point retweeting a conservative commentator accusing Obama of using his last weeks in office to “target incoming officials and sabotage the new administration.” “The biggest political crime in American history, by far!” the president wrote. When asked to name a specific crime on Monday, Trump referred to it as “Obamagate.” “Obamagate. It’s been going on for a long time. It’s been going on from before I even got elected,” Trump said. “It’s a disgrace that it happened, and if you look at what’s gone on and if you look at now all of the information that is being released and, from what I understand, that’s only the beginning.” “Some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again,” the president continued. “You’ll be seeing what’s going on over the coming weeks.” Trump and conservatives have long charged that his campaign was unfairly targeted by FBI agents motivated by political bias. Text messages released by the Justice Department showed that some of the agents working on the Russia investigation criticized Trump in harsh terms, fueling those claims.

Obama Participated In Plot To Frame Flynn- Sidney Powell -  Former President Barack Obama was in on the plot to frame former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, according to his lead attorney, Sidney Powell.Flynn withdrew his guilty plea to providing a false statement to the FBI regarding his communications with a Russian ambassador, after which new documents in the case revealed that a cadre of bad actors within the Obama intelligence community set Flynn up.  And according to Powell, it went straight to the top. "These agents specifically schemed and planned with each other how to not tip him off, that he was even the person being investigated," Powell told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," adding "So they kept him relaxed and unguarded deliberately as part of their effort to set him up and frame him."According to recently released testimony, President Obama revealed during an Oval Office meeting weeks before the interview that he knew about Flynn's phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, apparently surprising then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.After the meeting, Obama asked Yates and then-FBI Director James Comey to "stay behind." Obama "specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information." -Fox NewsDespite the FBI's Washington DC field office recommending closing the case against Flynn - finding "no derogatory information" against him - fired agent Peter Strzok pushed to continue investigating, while former FBI Director James Comey admitted in December 2019 that he "sent" Strzok and agent Joe Pientka to interview Flynn without notifying the White House first. After Strzok and Pientka interviewed Flynn, handwritten notes unsealed last month reveal that at least one agent thought the goal was to entrap Flynn."What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" reads one note."The whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper, [Former CIA Director John] Brennan, and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President Obama," said Powell. When asked if she thinks Flynn was the victim of a plot that extended to Obama, she said "Absolutely."

 Federal judge mulls contempt charge against Michael Flynn – POLITICO - A federal judge is signaling that he might pursue perjury or contempt charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn over his effort to abandon a guilty plea to a charge of lying to the FBI. The Justice Department moved last week to drop the prosecution of Flynn launched by special counsel Robert Mueller, but U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan slammed the brakes on that effort by announcing Wednesday evening that he is appointing a former federal judge to argue against the government’s unusual bid to dismiss the case against an ally of President Donald Trump. Sullivan’s order also directed the retired judge, John Gleeson, to recommend whether Flynn should face a criminal contempt charge for perjury — apparently for declaring under oath at two different court proceedings that he was guilty of lying to the FBI, before he reversed course in January and claimed he had never lied. Sullivan’s announcement appears to shatter the hopes of Flynn’s defense team that the court case will quickly fade away. Instead, the retired general who spent a little more than three weeks as national security adviser before being fired by Trump faces a legal brawl that could drag on for months. Gleeson, who was appointed to the federal bench in New York by President Bill Clinton and retired to enter private practice in 2016, has already staked out a position deeply skeptical of Attorney General William Barr’s decision to abandon the Flynn prosecution. The ex-judge co-authored an op-ed earlier this week that decried the move. “Government motions to dismiss at this stage are virtually unheard of,” Gleeson and his co-authors wrote in The Washington Post. “There has been nothing regular about the department’s effort to dismiss the Flynn case. The record reeks of improper political influence.” Sullivan‘s decision to put up some resistance to the Justice Department’s request could also renew pressure on Trump to grant Flynn a pardon that could forestall any further prosecution now or in the future. Trump and his allies had celebrated Barr‘s decision to sign off on dropping the charges against Flynn, and they appeared caught off-guard by the development. The move came as some of the former Justice Department and FBI officials, whose testimony was cited in the department’s dismissal motion, complained that their words had been twisted to justify it. Asked about a pardon earlier on Wednesday, Trump said he did not want to discuss it, but added: “The FBI said he didn’t lie.”

The unmasking of Joe Biden - Jonathon Turley - The declassification of material from the Michael Flynn case has exposed more chilling details of a concerted effort by prosecutors to come up with any crime to use against the former national security adviser.. Among more than three dozen Obama administration officials asking to “unmask” Flynn from the investigation was former Vice President Joe Biden. This revelation came less than 24 hours after Biden denied any involvement in the investigation of Flynn. It also follows a disclosure that President Obama was following that investigation.For three years, many in the media have expressed horror at the idea of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. We now know there never was credible evidence of such collusion. In recently released transcripts, a long list of Obama administration officials admitted they never saw any evidence of such collusion — none.  As much of the media blindly pushed the Russian collusion story, a truly alarming story has unfolded in plain view: the use of national security power to investigate an opposing political party and opponents. There is little question that the response by the media to such a story would have been overwhelming if George Bush and his administration had targeted Obama campaign figures with secret surveillance. That story would have become all encompassing if it was learned that there was no direct evidence to justify the investigation and, ultimately, the underlying allegation of collusion was found to lack any credible basis.However, the motivations and means of Obama officials are not to be questioned, apparently. Indeed, when candidate Donald Trump claimed the Obama administration was putting his campaign under surveillance, the media universally mocked him. It was later proven to be true. The Obama administration used the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to conduct surveillance of Trump campaign officials. The FBI even falsified key evidence to continue that surveillance. Yet none of that matters. The media is now fully invested in the original false allegations of collusion. If Obama administration officials were to be questioned now, the coverage and judgment of the media might be placed into question. Even this latest disclosure of the unmasking request of Biden will not alter the official media narrative.

Trump demands GOP call on Obama to testify - President Trump on Thursday escalated his attacks against former President Obama over what Trump has viewed as wrongdoing against his campaign by officials in the previous administration, saying that Republicans should call on the former president to testify. “If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama,” Trump tweeted. “He knew EVERYTHING.” The president specifically singled out Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), telling him to “just do it” and to stop playing “Mr. Nice Guy.” Graham’s panel is investigating the origins of the FBI inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Republican chairman has forecast plans to call former senior Obama administration officials to testify but earlier this week said he didn’t anticipate calling Obama himself, according to Politico. Trump over the last week has amplified unsubstantiated claims that Obama administration officials working on the Russia investigation improperly targeted his campaign for political reasons. The president suggested on Twitter over the weekend that Obama was directly involved in the effort and guilty of criminal wrongdoing, though on Monday he declined to name the specific crime he was accusing the former president of committing. “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody,” Trump told reporters when asked about the tweets. Critics, meanwhile, have accused the president of attempting to create a controversy in order to distract from his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Explainer: What's at stake in Supreme Court fight over Trump financial records -  (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday considers three blockbuster cases concerning efforts by the Democratic-led House of Representatives and a grand jury working with a prosecutor in New York City to obtain copies of President Donald Trump’s financial records. Unlike recent presidents, Trump has refused to disclose his tax returns and other materials that would shed light on the scope of his wealth and his family-run real estate business. The cases test the limits of presidential power in relation to Congress and state prosecutors. Two of the three cases concern attempts by House committees to enforce subpoenas seeking Trump’s financial records from three businesses: Trump’s longtime accounting firm Mazars LLP and two banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One. The Supreme Court has consolidated these two cases and will hear them together in a scheduled one-hour argument. The other case concerns another subpoena issued to Mazars for similar information, including tax returns, but this one was issued as part of a grand jury investigation into Trump being carried out in New York City. The justices will hear a second one-hour oral argument in this case. Rulings are due by the end of June.

How Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and America Get Away With It - AMERICA’S ACCOUNTABILITY PROBLEM is being laid bare. Once a global superpower, today jeers of “failed state” better describe our geriatric empire. Having survived impeachment, America’s acquitted president poorly navigates an unclear future as a pandemic rages and a recession looms, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in its global wake. An embattled population barrels toward a national election between two accused rapists and known liars: President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joseph Biden.Biden, accused of sexual assault by one woman, has all but secured the Democratic nomination, gearing up for a general election against Trump, who faces at least 25 sexual misconduct allegations that range in criminal severity. Both men deny all the allegations.Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, was one of eight women who registered complaints of inappropriate touching in April of last year — before Biden ever jumped into the presidential race. As Biden appeared likely to be the Democratic nominee, Reade came forward in late March and told her story about her former boss. In an interview with podcast host Katie Halper, Reade said Biden penetrated her vagina with his fingers. She alleges the incident occurred in 1993, while she was an aide in his Senate office. What Reade describes is rape, according to the Department of Justice’s own definition. In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Reade has called on Biden to end his presidential bid and “step forward and be held accountable.” Now Reade, not Biden, is on trial in the American media landscape. Democrats, the party of “believe women,” are changing their tune, terrified at the prospect of another four years of a Trump presidency. After all, 2016 proved that lugging a litany of sexual assault and harassment accusations does not guarantee an electoral loss. Before the election, at least four women were on record accusing Trump of sexual misconduct. American flags aloft, his fanatical base laughed along with the presidential candidate as he called his accusers liars and implied that they weren’t attractive enough for him to assault. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump said on the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording. “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” This unearthed admission did not cost him the election either. If Democrats continue to do nothing, Reade’s accusation should prove that sexual misconduct allegations in either party are nothing more than a mild political inconvenience.

Facebook and the Folly of Self-Regulation -  Neil Postman used to ask about any new proposal or technology, “What problem does it propose to solve?” When it comes to Facebook, that problem was maintaining relationships over vast time and space. And the company has solved it, spectacularly. Along the way, as Postman would have predicted, it created many more problems. Last week, Facebook revealed the leaders and first 20 members of its new review board. They are an august collection of some of the sharpest minds who have considered questions of free expression, human rights, and legal processes. They represent a stratum of cosmopolitan intelligentsia quite well, while appearing to generate some semblance of global diversity. These distinguished scholars, lawyers, and activists are charged with generating high-minded deliberation about what is fit and proper for Facebook to host. It’s a good look for Facebook—as long as no one looks too closely. What problems does the new Facebook review board propose to solve? In an op-ed in The New York Times, the board’s new leadership declared: “The oversight board will focus on the most challenging content issues for Facebook, including in areas such as hate speech, harassment, and protecting people’s safety and privacy. It will make final and binding decisions on whether specific content should be allowed or removed from Facebook and Instagram (which Facebook owns).” Only in the narrowest and most trivial of ways does this board have any such power. The new Facebook review board will have no influence over anything that really matters in the world. It will hear only individual appeals about specific content that the company has removed from the service—and only a fraction of those appeals. The board can’t say anything about the toxic content that Facebook allows and promotes on the site. It will have no authority over advertising or the massive surveillance that makes Facebook ads so valuable. It won’t curb disinformation campaigns or dangerous conspiracies. It has no influence on the sorts of harassment that regularly occur on Facebook or (Facebook-owned) WhatsApp. It won’t dictate policy for Facebook Groups, where much of the most dangerous content thrives. And most importantly, the board will have no say over how the algorithms work and thus what gets amplified or muffled by the real power of Facebook.

Deutsche Bank’s US operations criticised by New York Fed  - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has sharply rebuked Deutsche Bank for failing to address a litany of concerns at its US operations, casting doubt on the German lender’s ability to rehabilitate its business in the world’s largest and most profitable banking market. In a March 31 letter, the regulator told Deutsche that the bank remained at the second-worst grade on its rating scale, more than two years after it was downgraded and labelled as being in a “troubled condition”, a person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.Germany’s biggest bank has changed its US leadership twice since 2017, appointing global equities boss Tom Patrick as Americas chief executive in August that year before announcing his replacement with Christiana Riley in July last year as part of a group-widerestructuring that included big cuts in the US.Improving Deutsche’s relations with regulators and other stakeholders has been a priority of Ms Riley, alongside improving the economics of the bank’s pared-back trading operations and growing the corporate finance parts of its US wealth management businesses. Deutsche passed the Federal Reserve’s stress tests last year, having failed in 2015, 2016 and 2018.“The bank has made some progress,” the person familiar with the regulatory situation said. “It’s taking a little longer than we thought.”Shares in Deutsche fell more than 6 per cent in after-market trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange after the latest rebuke by the New York Fed was first reported by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday evening.Deutsche declined to comment, as did the NY Fed.The March 31 letter said Deutsche’s US business continued to suffer from meaningful weaknesses, which had not been satisfactorily addressed by management. It expressed doubt as to whether the bank would ever progress to the “2” grade on the NY Fed’s five-rung scale that well-managed lenders aspire to, from “4” presently.

Fed Sends Fresh Rebuke to Deutsche Bank – WSJ - The Federal Reserve has issued a fresh rebuke over Deutsche Bank’s money-laundering controls, according to a person familiar with the situation.The Fed’s move comes as Deutsche Bank tries to prove to investors and regulators that it is cleaning up its act under an overhaul that started last year. The bank posted a huge loss in 2019 but reported better-than-expected results in the first quarter, sticking to cost-cutting goals and a plan to streamline its businesses.The rebuke, pertaining to the bank’s U.S. operations, came in the form of a letter sent to the bank. According to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which first reported on it, the U.S. regulator also slapped Deutsche Bank for failing to solve problems that led it to classify the bank’s U.S. operations as being in “troubled condition” in 2017. The Wall Street Journal reported on the classification in 2018, saying it had contributed to constraints on the bank’s operations. The designation is rare for a major bank. Troubled banks get rated either “4” or “5” under a system that goes from a high of 1 to low of 5, taking into account capital adequacy, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity and sensitivity to market risk. Scores aren’t made public. The “troubled condition” status is one of the lowest employed by the Fed. In a prepared speech to be delivered at the bank’s annual meeting later this month and published on its website, Chief Executive Christian Sewing said that, while the bank has passed the Fed’s 2019 stress test for the first time, “are we there yet regarding our controls? The answer is no.”As a sign investors are giving Deutsche Bank the benefit of the doubt, its shares have become one of the best performers so far this year. They are down 11%, compared with 45% at German rival Commerzbank AG and a Stoxx Europe 600 Bank Index fall of 42%.Still, the bank’s legal challenges haven’t gone away. U.S. authorities are currently investigating its role in Danish lender Danske Bank’s money-laundering scandal. Some $230 billion flowed through Danske’s tiny Estonian branch over several years through 2015. Deutsche Bank acted as correspondent bank for Danske Bank in Estonia, processing payments. It terminated the relationship in 2015 after identifying suspicious activity by its clients, the bank has said. The U.S. Justice Department has also been looking into the bank’s money-laundering controls and longtime links with Russian companies and oligarchs. Deutsche Bank is also under scrutiny over its ties with Russia and business with President Trump. It isn’t the first time the Fed has taken issue with the bank’s money-laundering controls. In 2017, it said the bank’s U.S. operations had failed to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act and other laws. It laid out a series of actions the bank had to take and fined it $41 million. That action hasn’t been lifted. That was only a few months after Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $629 million to end investigations by U.K. and New York regulators into Russian equity trades that transferred $10 billion out of that country in violation of anti-money-laundering laws.

Wall Street Banks Paid $11.7 Billion in Dividends to Investors this Year while Taxpayers Must Absorb $454 Billion of Bank Losses -- Pam Martens - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee held a hearing with the federal regulators of banks on Tuesday of this week. Throughout the hearing, which was done virtually, there was an undertone of disgust on the part of the Senators from both parties with one regulator: Randal Quarles, the Vice Chair of Supervision for the Federal Reserve. A key issue that Senators had with Quarles was that the Fed was allowing these same Wall Street banks that crashed the U.S. economy in 2008 to continue to pay out dividends today while laying off workers and getting cheap emergency loans from the Fed.  Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio grilled Quarles as follows: “U.S. companies, as we know, are laying off thousands of workers while continuing to pay millions in dividends to Wall Street investors. Isn’t it true the Fed continues to allow the biggest banks to spend their capital on dividends to shareholders? Isn’t that the policy allowed.” Quarles said that the largest banks had suspended share buybacks but Brown argued that it’s the Fed that has allowed them to continue to pay dividends. Quarles insisted that the Fed, under its rules, must wait for the outcome of its stress tests before it can order the banks to curtail dividend payments. The speciousness of that argument resides in the fact that the Fed is not allowed under statute (a law not a rule) to accept anything other than “good collateral” for loans but it has ignored that and is making loans with stocks being used as collateral under its Primary Dealer Credit Facility. The Fed, under statute, is only allowed to make loans, not purchases. But this week it started buying up junk-bond Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and said it will soon begin making outright purchases of both investment grade and junk-rated corporate bonds.Brown scolded Quarles by stating that days after the stimulus bill known as the CARES Act passed in Congress, the funds that the Congress had allotted for small businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) had run out so Congress had to rush back to Washington to approve more money for small businesses. “But it turns out,” said Brown, “loans have been going to the largest banks’ biggest corporate customers while at the same time executives of the biggest banks who make these loans continue to reward themselves with dividends. They should be using their capital for struggling small businesses and families that need help during this crisis. After the last crisis we see what happens when we reward wealthy Wall Street investors and you’re just letting it happen again.” Brown had said that the banks were paying out millions in dividends. We checked the recent dividend payouts at just six Wall Street banks. Since the beginning of this year, just those six have paid out $11.7 billion. The breakdown is as follows: JPMorgan Chase made a payment of $5.49 billion consisting of two dividend payments: one on January 31 and one on April 30. We counted only one dividend payment from Citigroup, which it made on February 28 for $1.06 billion. We did not count the dividend that Citigroup must pay in the same amount on May 22 because its record date for payment of May 4 has already passed. We also counted only one dividend payment of $2.09 billion for Wells Fargo which it paid on March 1. It is set to make another dividend payment in the same amount on June 1. Bank of America paid a $1.56 billion dividend on March 27. Morgan Stanley has paid two dividends totaling $1.1 billion. The dividends were paid on February 14 and May 15. Goldman Sachs paid a dividend of $429.86 million on March 30. We did not count the dividend it is set to pay on June 29 in the same amount.

Wall Street’s Useful Idiot: Financial Times Shills for CLOs….as Fed Hasn’t Bailed Them Out -- Yves Smith - It’s not a popular position to point out that a particular financial risk is overblown. But when everyone in Corporate American and investor-land is in “Where’s my bailout?” mode, the usual motivations are reversed. Normally, “Nothing to see here, move along” is the default position when the great unwashed public worries about too much leverage, opacity, and tricky practices. But when central banks are doling out trillions, sounding alarms, whether warranted or not, is the way to get someone else to eat the risks you took for fun and profit. And as we’ll demonstrate, the Financial Times looks to have become an unwitting tool of CLO (collateralized loan obligation) investors who haven’t yet gotten their Fed handout. The article in question is headlined: CLOs: ground zero for the next stage of the financial crisis?The headline and the breathless tone set the reader up for the idea that these complex structures will blow up the financial system, just the way their cousins, collateralized debt obligations, did in the financial crisis. But as we’ll explain, the absolute size of the CLO market, and banks’ not-much exposure to the risky parts of it, means that absent fraud (or a systemically important bank and wobbly bank having gotten high and binged, and the pink paper and others would likey have gotten wind of that by now), there’s no risk to the banking system. And in the hoary old days of the crisis just past and its predecessors, that was the justification for throwing official money in big volumes to clean up bad lending decisions: that as much as it would seem proper to let incompetent institutions go tits up, letting banks fail tends to engulf even healthy banks, since no one can tell from the outside very well how solvent a particular institution is, and hurts innocents like depositors (even with deposit insurance, it is pretty much impossible for a business of any size not to have way above the guaranteed amount in its accounts regularly, if nothing else when it issues payroll).So what the Financial Times piece is effectively getting worked out about is that some investors will lose money. Newflash! Investing involves risk! Who’d have thunk it! In other words, this Financial Times piece is implicitly selling the idea that the consequences of some deep pockets taking hits is just oh-too-dangerous. This is Greenspan put thinking on steroids. And sadly, it seems to be treated as a reasonable line of thinking. Wealth must be spared. The hell with those who live from labor income.

  Fed expands CLO assistance with TALF revision - Revisions in the Federal Reserve’s TALF program will allow collateralized loan obligations a broader range of leveraged loans to be used as collateral. But while welcomed by the loan industry, the changes still leave CLO market observers unsure if the $100 billion Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility program will have the desired impact on investor demand and new-deal issuance, given key restrictions that remain in place.“It’s not going to open up the floodgates, but it can have some measured effects,” said Gregg Jubin, a partner at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP. “This looks certainly better than the first iteration.”The Fed will now accept new AAA CLOs with leveraged loans, including refinanced loans, that priced as far back as January 2019, according to a statement Tuesday on the central bank’s website. Previously, eligible collateralized loan obligations could only hold newly originated loans. Also now eligible for TALF are CLOs with secondary-market loans.The Fed's moves were designed to boost CLO investment, and in turn create more capital for business lending (including for middle-market borrowers). They could also help unwind $15 billion to $20 billion of warehoused leveraged loans from the books of major banks, according to leveraged-finance research from Wells Fargo. TALF’s impact "certainly could affect issuance and cost of liabilities in the market overall," said Al Remeza, an associate managing director leading the primary CLO rating team at Moody's Investors Service. "But, it’s speculative at this point."The Fed’s decision should help increase some demand in the $690 billion CLO market, which so far hasn’t benefited much from the central bank’s effort to boost credit liquidity strained by the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. But TALF will still restrict its financing to so-called “static” CLOs, in which asset managers are disallowed under deal terms with investors from buying and trading loans in the portfolios. For TALF eligibility, CLOs must remain static for the duration of a three-year TALF loan. Actively managed CLOs traditionally have made up the bulk of annual issuance, as they provide the ability for asset management firms to maximize equity returns and favorable "arbitrage," (i.e., the difference between the interest paid to buyers of the securities and the income collateral managers generate from the underlying loans).“If the underlying securitization must have a three year non-call, we do not expect CLOs to benefit from TALF,” wrote research analyst David Preston, the head of CLO and commercial ABS research at Wells Fargo on Tuesday.

 Fed to release more details on participants in emergency programs— The Federal Reserve will release monthly details about two more of its emergency lending facilities that it deployed to support banks and other businesses dealing with the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.The central bank will disclose information on a monthly basis about its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility and its Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility, including the participants of both facilities, the amounts borrowed, the interest rate charged, value of pledged collateral, and the costs and fees associated with using each facility. “The Federal Reserve remains committed to providing the public and Congress with detailed information about our efforts to support households and businesses during this unprecedented time,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a statement Tuesday. The Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility provides funding to banks offering loans to struggling small businesses under the Small Business Administration program. TALF, which has not yet launched, will support the issuance of asset-backed securities backed by student loans, auto loans, credit card loans and SBA-guaranteed loans, which will offer some relief to those borrowers. The Fed also clarified Tuesday that collateralized loan obligations will have to be arranged by a U.S. business in order to be eligible. The Fed said last month that it would release similar details about lending facilities funded under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which Congress passed in March.

 FDIC proposes removing PPP loans from premium formula— The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday proposed steps to ensure banks participating in the Paycheck Protection Program and other coronavirus relief programs do not face higher deposit insurance premiums as a result.The FDIC said banks making small-business loans through the PPP — or participating in the Federal Reserve's Paycheck Protection Program Lending Facility or Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility — could potentially trigger risk measures that the FDIC uses to calculate assessments without further action.The proposal would exclude PPP loans from a bank's portfolio for the purposes of calculating premiums, loans pledged to the Paycheck Protection liquidity facility from an institution's asset total, and other borrowings tied to the facility from total liabilities. In addition, loans pledged to the Paycheck liquidity facility and assets purchased under the Money Market Fund facility would be excluded from the formula used to determine certain adjustments in a bank's premium. The proposal would provide an offset for the increase in a bank's assessment base resulting from participation in the facilities. “PPP loans are fully guaranteed by the SBA, and transactions made with the PPPLF and MMLF are conducted with the Federal Reserve on a non-recourse basis,” the FDIC said in a press release. “The FDIC’s action today will ensure that banks will not be subject to significantly higher deposit insurance assessments for participating in these programs.” The FDIC said the proposed changes would likely require additional tweaks to banks’ reporting requirements through call reports and other typical exchanges of information between financial institutions and their regulators.Comments on the FDIC’s notice of proposed rulemaking will be due seven days after it is published in the Federal Register. The agency said the rule would go into effect June 30 but would be retroactive to April 1.

Lenders worry they could be stuck with billions in PPP loans - Bankers are becoming increasingly concerned that they will end up holding billions of dollars of Paycheck Protection Program loans on their books.Lenders have made roughly $520 billion in PPP loans since the program’s debut in early April. Under the coronavirus stimulus law that created the program, loans should be forgiven if borrowers use the funds to cover payroll and certain other expenses.The Small Business Administration and Treasury Department, the agencies running the program, have yet to provide complete guidance on forgiveness as mandated by the law. One key yardstick in the program — a requirement that borrowers use 75% of the funds for payroll — wasn’t specified in the legislation. Lenders are worried that many borrowers will fall short of the standards necessary for forgiveness, leaving them with two-year loans with nominal 1% interest rates — along with jaded and irate customers. “I am fearful that the original intent of Congress is being lost and small businesses … are confused and no longer willing or able to comply with the program’s requirements,” said Clem Rosenberger, CEO of the $1.4 billion-asset NexTier Bank in Kittanning, Pa., which has originated about $100 million PPP loans.“Forgiveness must be as simplified and assured as possible,” Rosenberger added.Some industry advocates are pressing Congress to step in after the SBA’s inspector general warned in a Friday report that “tens of thousands of borrowers” could fail to qualify for full forgiveness because of the payroll threshold.While banks are in line to bring in origination fees ranging from 1% to 5% of a loan's value, few lenders thought they would have to service significant portions of the loans over the next 24 months. They may also have to shoulder the reputation risk as some borrowers realize they must repay some of their loans.Valley National Bancorp said in its recent quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that 15% to 20% of the loans it had made under the program may not be forgiven. The $39 billion-asset company had 5,000 loans, totaling $1.6 billion, approved during the initial PPP round.“We’re definitely concerned about this,” said Chris Nichols, chief strategy officer at the $18.6 billion-asset CenterState Bank in Winter Haven, Fla., which has originated about $1.3 billion in Paycheck Protection loans.“We know it’s going to be hard for a lot of our small businesses to hire back all their people and qualify” for forgiveness, Nichols added.“Everyone just dove into this, assuming the forgiveness,” said Jon Winick, CEO of the bank consultant Clark Street Capital in Chicago. “It was good for customers and the banks got the upfront fees. But there were not a lot of serious discussions about whether these loans actually made sense under any other circumstances.”

SBA pressured to fix PPP blind spots on race and gender- The Small Business Administration has failed to collect demographic data on the roughly $537 billion in loans funded through the first two rounds of the Paycheck Protection Program, making it hard to know just how much of the rescue funds reached struggling businesses owned by minorities and women. Now, some Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the SBA start collecting information on the race and gender of borrowers who have already received loans and submit weekly reports on this data to the public. The hope is that if a disparity proves drastic, the SBA can find a way to divert funding to underserved groups that so far have missed out on PPP financing. Sens. Ben Cardin of Maryland and Cory Booker of New Jersey also proposed Monday to include new incentives for offering PPP loans in underserved markets. The lawmakers want to set aside another $10 billion for community development financial institutions with track records of serving these borrowers and offering bonuses to lenders that approve loans in redeveloping communities. Their proposals come amid more evidence that neighborhoods predominantly made up of minorities have been among the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.“Across the country, small businesses are on the financial brink,” Booker said in a statement Monday. “And while federal assistance has provided emergency relief to some, millions of minority-owned and very small businesses — the beating heart of our rural main streets and urban corridors — find themselves on the outside looking in.”The SBA was required under the original coronavirus relief package to prioritize PPP funding to rural and underserved markets, but the agency’s inspector general said in a report Friday that it hadn’t been doing so and recommended collecting demographic information to help sharpen its focus..

Community banks call on Congress to rein in credit union regulator -  Bankers are stepping up their fight over the National Credit Union Administration’s change to how it calculates the low-income designation for credit unions.Last week the credit union regulator said it would include members who serve in the military when determining an institution’s low-income status. A credit union can be designated as low income if its membership meets certain criteria, and the status comes with some advantages, such as being exempt from the member business lending cap.Bankers have slammed the move, arguing that it's part of a broader pattern of credit unions and their regulator using the coronavirus as cover to overreach on regulatory changes.“A pandemic and economic crisis should not be an opportunity for credit union powers expansion that does nothing to alleviate the crisis,” Rebeca Romero Rainey, president and CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America, wrote in a letter to members of the Senate Banking Committee. Quickly linking the decision on service members to the wider MBL issue, Rainey claimed in the May 11 letter that weakening current restrictions on credit union business lending “would exclusively benefit the largest, growth-obsessed credit unions.”More commercial lending by big credit unions would serve to increase the industry’s risk profile to the detriment of smaller, more traditional institutions, she wrote, adding, “It warrants mentioning that these very credit unions were shut out of the comment process by their own regulator.”Bankers are objecting more strenuously to the way the NCUA arrived at its decision. Aaron Stetter, the ICBA’s executive vice president of policy and political operations, labeled the decision “executive fiat” in an interview Monday. He wouldn’t rule out possible litigation over the change, though the group is waiting to see how Congress reacts first.The NCUA “made an administrative decision benefitting their largest member without any public input,” Stetter said. Bankers weren’t given a say, to be sure, but the agency “silenced its own industry, as well,” Stetter said. “Other credit unions weren’t allowed to weigh in on this.”

Bond Market Veers From Historic Rallies to Record-Smashing Sales  - With the economy in freefall, bond investors are clinging to just two certainties right now: that the Treasury is flooding the market with debt, and the Federal Reserve is fully mobilized. The government is about to raise a record $96 billion in its refunding auctions for stimulus in the wake of the pandemic. Traders will absorb this and any guidance from Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday, with the market already starting to hedge the risk of negative rates. These fiscal and monetary forces are driving yields at either end of the curve wider apart. The two-year is near a record low barely above zero, while the imminent reintroduction of 20-year bonds is helping drive up long-end rates. Many investors see the curve steepening further. Indeed, it’s been billed the new consensus trade. One key reason: Supply pressures are only expected to build as the deficit heads toward $4 trillion. And the Fed, while promising to keep rates near zero to help revive growth, is continuing to reduce the pace of its Treasuries buying. “The focus is all on reopenings so we will be sensitive to that, but since that will take some time to know, it’s all about Treasury supply and Fed demand,” Two-year yields enter the week at 0.16%, not far above the record low touched Friday amid bets that the Fed could drop its benchmark rate below zero in 2021. Five-year rates also sank to unprecedented levels Friday, at 0.27%, and are about 105 basis points below the long-bond yield. That gap is the widest since March. A growth outlook this dire would ordinarily encourage investors to scoop up long-dated government debt. Friday’s labor report showed 20.5 million Americans lost jobs in April, tripling the unemployment rate to the highest since the 1930s. Data this week are projected to show 2.5 million more people filed for jobless claims. But at least temporarily, buyers may be overwhelmed by a slew of duration risk this month -- a “big-time record,” according to Ian Burdette, head of term trading at Academy Securities. With rates this low and the addition of the 20-year, he estimates the potential combined dollar value of risk across the four upcoming coupon auctions -- of 3-, 10-, 20- and 30-year debt -- is more than $140 million per basis point of yield. That’s almost double the increment implied in last quarter’s fundraising. He reckons the 30-year yield could revisit 2%, from 1.38% now. This week will also likely bring more talk of reopening the economy, which might lead some investors to conclude the worst of the crisis is over. “Two to four months down the road, if it becomes clear the economic impact is going to be much more severe, we could retest those lows but also possibly see even lower rates,”

 As U.S. Slides Into Depression, Consumers Have Never Been More Bullish On Stocks -Not even in Khruschev's wildest dreams did central planners ever conceive of anything so absolutely batshit insane as what is taking place in the centrally-planned US economy and "markets" right now.With the US economy sliding into a depression with the BLS reporting - when one reads between the lines as Standard Chartered did over the weekend - that there were 42 million unemployed workers in April, pushing the unemployment rate to an unheard of 25.5%, far above the reported 14.7% (forget any hope for a V-shaped recovery as millions of those recently laid off will never get back to full-time work )...... it is not a surprise that according to the latest New York Fed survey of consumer expectations, virtually every metric having to do with one's financial well being - income, wealth, debt sustainability and earnings expectations - is cratering with expected earnings, income, and spending growth each hit survey lows which is what one would expect in a depression. For example the expected probability of losing one’s job jumped to an all-time high of 20.9% from 18.5% in April; the probability of missing a minimum debt payment over the next three months surged to 16.2% - a 7 year high - from 15.1%, while expected earnings growth tumbled to the lowest on record at 1.87%, down from 2.05% in April . Adding to the apocalyptic picture, median one-year ahead expected changes in home prices dropped to 0% for first time in survey history - as the average US consumer no longer expects their primary asset to increase in value - with 44.2% of respondents expecting home prices to decline over the coming year. Finally, confirming that an inflation wave is coming, over the next year consumers expect gasoline prices to rise 4.9%; food prices to rise 5.43%; medical costs to rise 9.25%; the price of a college education to rise 4.64%; rent prices to rise 4.57%; needless to say all of these are far, far higher than the Fed's "target" inflation rate of 2%. But while the above data may not have been surprising, what was shocking is what the central bank reported was the average consumer expectation for stock prices in the future: according to the NY Fed, the mean probability that US stock prices will be higher one year from now surged to 51.8% up from 47.7%, above 50% for the first time ever and the highest print on record. That this happens right after we posted that "Stocks Go Up As Everything Is Going Down In Flames", is just perfectly appropriate: Because with his job gone, his $400 dollars of emergency savings just spent on a roll of toilet paper, his bank preparing to foreclose on his home, all while a deadly virus lurks in dark corners, all Joe Sixpack can think of is how to get his "money on the sidelines" into the stock market as it is about to soar to all time highs.And so, thanks to the Fed's now grotesque interventions in all capital markets, including the purchase of over $2.6 trillion in securities in the past two weeks, the stock market is now perceived by conventional wisdom as a depression hedge - a countercyclical indicator which surges the worse the economy gets, and since the economy is sliding into a depression it is only "logical" - we use the term loosely - that expectations of higher stock prices have never been higher.

 Trillions Are Flowing to Private Assets on Recession Front Line - With their faith in basic investment strategies shattered, investors are turning to less-liquid private alternatives -- potentially charging into the center of a deepening recession along the way. JPMorgan Asset Management and Fiera Capital are among those touting the virtues of things like private equity, property and infrastructure in the wake of March’s broad market crash. BNY Mellon says it’s helping managers line up new funds targeting unlisted assets. Yet these are exactly the type of investments now feeling the full force of the economic crisis brought on by the lockdown of swaths of the world’s population to contain the coronavirus. Some speculate they’re just starting the worst slump in years, spelling trouble for anyone late to the private-asset party. “It’s no good to be saying in the middle of the crisis that I now need to diversify into real estate or infrastructure,” said Nikesh Patel, the head of investment strategy at Kempen UK. “Because in these markets, the crisis hasn’t happened yet.” Classic investment styles -- the backbone for pension funds and retail investors the world over -- work because stocks pegged to growth are counterbalanced by bonds that protect during a downturn. Broken markets in March exploded this basic investing tenet, with strategies balancing 60% stocks against 40% bonds posting their worst returns since the 2008 financial crisis. Many are seeking an answer in private assets. Their returns are uncorrelated to public markets. And while they’re illiquid and hard to exit, monthly or even quarterly valuations mean they’re more likely to escape the kind of volatility that kills portfolio returns. “Real assets with reliable non-cyclical cash flows are likely to receive renewed attention from asset allocators,” John Bilton, head of global multi-asset strategy at JPMorgan Asset Management, wrote in a note at the end of April highlighting benefits of private investments. The trouble is, many are cyclical -- and vulnerable. For instance, social-distancing measures will keep consumers away from shopping malls and office workers cloistered in their homes even after lockdowns ease, which could be bad news for the real-estate sector.

 CFPB gives credit card issuers flexibility on billing disputes - The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued guidance meant to enable credit card companies to resolve billing disputes tied to businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic.Credit card issuers that make a good-faith effort to resolve billing disputes will not receive an enforcement action or be cited in a supervisory exam, the CFPB said Wednesday.The agency said it wanted to inform creditors of its “flexible supervisory and enforcement approach" as many small businesses hit by the economic fallout of the virus have struggled to keep up with the volume of billing disputes brought by consumers. Credit card issuers are typically required to acknowledge a merchant billing error notice from a consumer within 30 days. But the guidance means issuers failing to meet that deadline will not be cited by the CFPB. Lenders generally must investigate and resolve billing errors within two billing cycles but no later than 90 days, according to Regulation Z, which implements the Truth in Lending Act.The CFPB noted that consumers have been facing long hold times trying to reach both merchants and credit card time, some of which may be closed or operating with reduced staff. The CFPB said merchants may be having trouble responding to creditors’ inquiries, making it hard for creditors to resolve billing disputes swiftly and accurately.

Democrats lay into OCC chief for pushing ahead with CRA rule— A Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday highlighted a clash between regulators and Democrats over a revamp of the Community Reinvestment Act, as well as senators’ concerns with the Federal Reserve’s rollout of emergency lending programs.Senate Banking Committee members were not in the same room with regulatory agency heads Tuesday for a hearing conducted via teleconference, but that did not prevent lawmakers from sounding off on key policy issues from Community Reinvestment Act reform to the Federal Reserve's emergency lending facilities.Democrats appeared to home in on comments by Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting that his agency is plowing ahead with writing a controversial CRA rule, despite criticism that regulators should pause the effort in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency "is marching ahead with its plan to dismantle a civil rights-era law that requires banks to actually serve the communities where they do business, including low- and moderate-income communities,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the committee’s top Democrat, who added that he wanted Otting to testify separately on CRA. “This pandemic has hit black, brown, and low-income communities harder than anyone else.” Otting disagreed with Democrats on the panel, saying that the coronavirus pandemic amplifies the need to move quickly with the CRA revamp.“Actually, we think we should accelerate it, because it would drive more dollars into low and moderate income communities across America,” Otting said. “And a lot of the comments that we got will allow us to do that and build a program that will allow us to serve in low and moderate income areas.”The hearing — in which both senators and witnesses appeared on video via remote locations — featured testimony from Otting, Fed Vice Chair of Supervision Randal Quarles, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Jelena McWilliams and National Credit Union Administration Chairman Rodney Hood. It was the regulators' first appearance since Congress authorized sweeping relief measures for businesses hit by the coronavirus pandemic.The OCC and FDIC proposed in December a broad overhaul of the CRA regime, including changes to determining banks' CRA assessment boundaries and measuring whether an institution's community development and lending activities sufficiently comply with the law. The Fed has yet to sign on to the OCC and FDIC plan.Brown’s comments urging the OCC to slow down were echoed by Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Mark Warner, D-Va., Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

 CFPB gets earful from consumers about mortgage servicers - Distressed consumers are bombarding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with complaints that mortgage servicers are refusing to provide deferrals for skipped payments, or are forcing homeowners into forbearance plans they didn’t ask for. Complaints to the CFPB hit a record 42,774 in April, up 15% from March — the highest monthly tally since the complaint database was launched in 2011. Though most of them related to credit reporting and repair services, as is typically the case, more than one in five complaints mentioning the coronavirus were about mortgages. Trends in complaints often are a harbinger of the bureau's future enforcement and supervisory actions. Many of the complaints indicate there is widespread confusion about the coronavirus relief law that gives borrowers with federally backed mortgages forbearance for 180 days and a further 180-day extension if needed.  Consumers alleged in complaints to the CFPB that servicers are not abiding by the law.  “They are attempting to scam people into terms that are not compliant with the CARES Act that was passed by the federal government,” wrote one borrower, referring to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. “They are attempting to push loan modifications as well as threatening to report negative information to credit bureaus during a global pandemic.”Some said that servicers have demanded they repay skipped payments in one lump sum once stay-at-home orders are lifted. “I requested a forbearance on my mortgage due to my roommate losing her job due to COVID-19, but they only offered me one option — pay three months of deferred payments in a balloon payment,” wrote one homeowner. “I cannot pay a balloon payment and wish to have the missed payments attached to the end of the loan. I thought that is what the law says. Please help!”Even before the coronavirus led to massive job losses, many consumers were struggling to pay their mortgages. Roughly 52% of households said they would not be able to cover expenses for more than two months if they lost their main source of income, the CFPB found.   As government officials, lawmakers and policymakers encourage struggling homeowners to request forbearances, there remains a big gap in the relief provided. Roughly 30% of home loans are not backed by government agencies such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration and a few smaller agencies. Borrowers may be unaware that the relief bill does not apply to private-label loans that are pooled into residential mortgage-backed securities. In some cases, the documents governing private-label loans may not allow for forbearances or may depend on whether an investor chooses to provide it.

 FHFA, FHA extend eviction and foreclosure moratorium to June 30— The Federal Housing Finance Agency is extending by over a month its moratorium for foreclosures and evictions on single-family loans backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac until at least June 30.Soon after the FHFA's announcement, the Federal Housing Administration announced the same extension for its freeze on foreclosures and evictions, meant to help borrowers affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The previous deadline for both agencies was May 17.“During this national health emergency, no one should be forced from their home," FHFA Director Mark Calabria said in a statement. “Extending the foreclosure and eviction moratoriums protects homeowners and renters with an Enterprise-backed mortgage and provides certainty for families.” The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which Congress passed in March, allowed for a 60-day moratorium on foreclosures and evictions on federally backed mortgages. FHA additionally extended some of its policies developed earlier in the coronavirus outbreak, including allowing appraisers to conduct remote appraisals and providing alternatives for lenders to verify a borrower’s employment status.“For those among the over 8.1 million single family homeowners with FHA-insured mortgages who need assistance, our highest priority is to ensure that they have the time through the foreclosure moratorium, and the assistance they need through special COVID-19 mortgage forbearance, to remain in their homes long-term,” said FHA Commissioner Brian Montgomery. The FHFA's announcement came one day after the agency said it would provide borrowers struggling to stay current with an additional payment deferral option. Starting July 1, homeowners will have the option to make up to a year of payments missed under forbearance at the end of their loan term.The agency said it would “continue to monitor the coronavirus situation and update policies as needed.”

 MBA: "Mortgage Delinquencies Rise in First Quarter of 2020" -- This is mostly pre-COVID. The second quarter will see a large increase in delinquencies (forbearance will be included as delinquent in Q2).  From the MBA: Mortgage Delinquencies Rise in First Quarter of 2020The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties increased to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.36 percent of all loans outstanding at the end of the first quarter of 2020, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) National Delinquency Survey. The delinquency rate was up 59 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2019 and down 6 basis points from one year ago. The percentage of loans on which foreclosure actions were started in the first quarter fell by 2 basis points to 0.19 percent. “The mortgage delinquency rate in the fourth quarter of 2019 was at its lowest rate since MBA’s survey began in 1979. Fast-forward to the end of March, and it is clear the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting homeowners. Mortgage delinquencies jumped by 59 basis points – which is reminiscent of the hurricane-related, 64-basis-point increase seen in the third quarter of 2017,” said Marina Walsh, MBA’s Vice President of Industry Analysis. “The major variances from the fourth quarter of 2019 to this year’s first quarter are tied to the increase in early-stage delinquencies for all loan types. The seriously delinquent rate in the first quarter decreased by 9 basis points and was down 29 basis points from a year ago. The foreclosure inventory rate – the percentage of loans in the foreclosure process – was at its lowest level last quarter since 1984. Foreclosure starts were down 2 basis points from the previous quarter. According to Walsh, there may be a flattening in foreclosure starts in future quarterly surveys due to COVID-19-related foreclosure moratoria and borrower forbearance guidelines under the CARES Act. Almost 4 million homeowners are on forbearance plans as of May 3, but MBA’s survey asks servicers to report these loans as delinquent if the payment was not made based on the original terms of the mortgage – in the same manner that delinquency data is collected during natural disasters. “Once foreclosure moratoria are lifted and forbearance periods end, borrower repayment and modification options, combined with year-over-year equity accumulation and home-price gains, may present alternatives to foreclosure for the millions of distressed homeowners affected by this unfortunate pandemic and economic crisis,” added Walsh. This graph shows the percent of loans delinquent by days past due.  Delinquencies increased in Q1. The increase was mostly in the 30 day bucket that increased from 2.17% in Q4 to 2.67% in Q1.   There will be a huge spike in delinquencies in Q2. The percent of loans in the foreclosure process declined further, and was at the lowest level since at least 1985.

MBA Survey: "Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Increases to 7.91%" of Portfolio Volume - Note: To put these numbers in perspective, the MBA notes "For the week of March 2, only 0.25% of all loans were in forbearance." From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Increases to 7.91%: The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance increased from 7.54% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 7.91% as of May 3, 2020. According to MBA’s estimate, almost 4 million homeowners are now in forbearance plans. “With the calendar turning to May, the share of loans in forbearance increased, but the pace of the increase and incoming forbearance requests continued to slow,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “The dreadful April jobs report showed a decline of more than 20 million jobs, and a spike in the unemployment rate to the highest level since the Great Depression. It will not be surprising if the forbearance numbers continue to rise. As we anticipated, FHA and VA borrowers have been most impacted by the job losses thus far, with the share of Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance at almost 11 percent.” Added Fratantoni, “Although the pace of forbearance requests slowed this week, call volume picked up – which could be a sign that more borrowers are calling in to check their options now that May due dates have arrived.” This graph shows the weekly forbearance requests as a percent of servicer's portfolio volume. The requests peaked in the week of March 30th to April 5th, but might pick up again. The MBA notes: "Forbearance requests as a percent of servicing portfolio volume (#) dropped across all investor types for the fourth consecutive week relative to the prior week: from 0.63% to 0.51%."

 Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey - Mortgage applications increased 0.3 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 8, 2020. ... The Refinance Index decreased 3 percent from the previous week and was 201 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 11 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 11 percent compared with the previous week and was 10 percent lower than the same week one year ago....“There continues to be a stark recovery in purchase applications, as most large states saw increases in activity last week. In the ten largest states in MBA’s survey, New York – after a 9 percent gain two weeks ago – led the increases with a 14 percent jump. Illinois, Florida, Georgia, California and North Carolina also had double-digit increases last week,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “We expect this positive purchase trend to continue – at varying rates across the country – as states gradually loosen social distancing measures, and some of the pent-up demand for housing returns in what is typically the final weeks of the spring home buying season.” Added Kan, “Mortgage rates stayed close to record-lows, but refinance applications decreased for the fourth consecutive week, driven by a 5 percent drop in conventional refinances. Despite the downward trend over the last month, mortgage lenders remain busy. Refinance activity was up 200 percent from a year ago.”..The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($510,400 or less) increased to 3.43 percent from 3.40 percent, with points decreasing to 0.29 from 0.30 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.

Black Knight: 4.7 Million Homeowners Now in COVID-19-Related Forbearance Plans, 8.8% of Mortgages --Note: Both Black Knight and the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) are putting out weekly estimates of mortgages in forbearance. From Black Knight: Nearly 4.1 million homeowners are in forbearance plans

• As of May 12, approximately 4.7 million homeowners are in forbearance plans, up from a revised 4.5 million one week prior.
• The pace of new forbearance plans has slowed considerably – there was an average net increase of just under 26K per day over the past week. That’s a reduction of more than 85% of the rate we saw back in early April.
• Using a momentum-based approach based on the one-week average and assuming an optimistic 10% daily decline moving forward, we would see 4.9 million loans in forbearance by the end of May (9.2% of active mortgages) and just under 5 million (9.4%) by the end of June.
• A more pessimistic scenario, in which the two-week average rolls forward and the 10% daily decline doesn’t manifest until June 15th, could result in as many as 5.4 million loans (10.1%) in forbearance by the end of the month, and nearly 6.3 million (11.8%) by the end of June.
• Together, the 4.66M represent 8.8% of all active mortgages and more than $1 trillion in unpaid principal.

 A leading real-estate data junkie is now focused on the impact of the coronavirus - Bill McBride is a trained chemist and self-deprecating data junkie who is publicity-shy. For years he blogged anonymously, eventually outing himself only so he could praise a deceased co-writer in an interview with a reporter. And if you wanted to know where the housing market was headed long before it began imploding back in 2007, all you had to do was listen to him. “I have taken to calling the housing market a ‘bubble,’” he wrote on his blog, Calculated Risk, on April 4, 2005. “Speculation tends to chase appreciating assets, and then speculation begets more speculation, until finally, for some reason that will become obvious to all in hindsight, the ‘bubble’ bursts.”  Calculated Risk has always been awash in metrics. One of Bill’s hat tricks is combining three data points — single-family housing starts, new home sales and residential investment as a percentage of gross domestic product — intoa bellwether that accurately traces tops and bottoms in the housing market over decades. Last October, he noted that housing vitality also generally correlated with the beginning and end of broader economic recessions. “New home sales are up solidly year-over-year,” he wrote at the time. “No worries.” As fall turned to winter, he remained optimistic about housing and the economy, his faith in the data unwavering. “I think data kind of tells you the truth, even though every bit of data is flawed,” he says. “People can tell you all the stories they want, but data kind of tells you the truth.”  Bill, 66, will also remind you that data only gets you so far. The unforeseen, he allows, can shred the soundest of models. On Feb. 25, Nancy Messonnier, a senior official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that the coronavirus was about to lay siege to the U.S. “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen, and exactly how many people within this country will have severe illness,” she said.Financial markets plunged in response, and Bill, stunned by Messonnier’s warning, stopped going to dinners and lectures to avoid an infection. “Several readers have asked about the economic impact of the novel coronavirus,” he wrote on Feb. 28. “The answer is it depends on the severity of the epidemic.” Then, on March 13: “This is a sudden stop for the U.S. economy like nothing I've ever seen.” Bill is still watching the data but has no idea what lies ahead for housing or the economy. “I’m still trying to get my head around this. It’s so far out of my experience that I don’t know what to say about it,” he says, as we chat about the 128.6 million households staring down yet another crisis. “The outlook for housing is completely dependent on the outlook for the virus.”

Last Week: NY Fed Q1 Report: "Pre-COVID-19 Data Shows Total Household Debt Increased in Q1 2020" - Note: This was released last week. From the NY Fed: Pre-COVID-19 Data Shows Total Household Debt Increased in Q1 2020, Though Growth in Non-Housing Debt Slows The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Center for Microeconomic Data today issued its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, which shows that total household debt increased by $155 billion (1.1%) to $14.30 trillion in the first quarter of 2020. The total balance is now $1.6 trillion higher, in nominal terms, than the previous peak of $12.68 trillion in the third quarter of 2008. The Report is based on data from the New York Fed's Consumer Credit Panel, a nationally representative sample of individual- and household-level debt and credit records drawn from anonymized Equifax credit data. The latest report captures consumer credit data as of March 31, 2020. However, given that individual credit accounts are typically updated monthly, the data do not fully reflect the potential effects of COVID-19 that materialized in the second half of March 2020. … "It is critical to note that the latest report reflects a time when many of the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were only starting to be felt," said Andrew Haughwout, senior vice president at the New York Fed. "We do see a larger-than-expected decline in credit card balances based on past seasonal patterns, but it is too soon to confidently assess its connection to the pandemic. We will continue to monitor these developments and the broader state of household balance sheets closely as key data are updated and the economic situation evolves."

 New York Fed Finds Big Deterioration in Consumer Views in April – WSJ -Americans’ outlook for the job market and their personal finances suffered substantial deterioration in April as the coronavirus crisis left much of the U.S. economy on lockdown, new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said.In its latest Survey of Consumer Expectations, the bank said Monday that respondents’ median expectation of losing their job over the next year rose to a series high of 20.9%, up from 18.5% last month.At the same time, just under 40% of survey respondents said their personal finances were worse off now than relative to a year ago, up from 30.2% who held that view in March. Of those polled, 31.6% foresaw being worse off financially a year from now, up from the 27.8% the prior month.Meanwhile, expected earnings growth hit a record low for the New York Fed report, at a projected increase of 1.8%, down from 2% in March. The report said that income growth over the next 12 months also hit a record low at an expected 1.9% rise. The bank said that 21.9% of respondents project their incomes will outright fall over the coming year.Households are also getting more worried about their ability to borrow, with 48% of respondents reporting credit access was harder to get in April, up from the 32% who held that view in March. Just under half of those polled expected credit will be harder to find a year from now, the report said.The New York Fed report arrives amid a storm of dreadful data. On Friday the government reported that the unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest level ever in the post-World War II era, and growth data for the second quarter is widely expected to show a historic contraction.Last week, several Fed officials said the economy is in for substantial pain, even as they stillexpect to avoid a replay of the Great Depression. As part of its response, the central bank has cut its rate target to near zero and said it would stay there until the economy is in recovery, amid other actions to support financial markets and to boost the level of credit that is available to the economy.

 US Commercial Real Estate Prices Plunged in April, Mall Prices Collapsed -- Wolf Richter - Before the coronavirus, some segments of commercial real estate (CRE) were red hot, others were hanging in there or declining, and one sector, malls, has been in deep trouble since 2016, with prices plunging. Then came the lockdowns. Property prices in every CRE segment fell in April, even those that were red hot. And prices of mall properties got crushed. The overall Commercial Property Price Index (CPPI) by Green Street Advisors had peaked in the period of November 2019 through January 2020. In February and March, it ticked down. In April it plunged 9.4% from March, the second largest percent-drop in the data going back to the 1990s. The largest drop was 10.9% in October 2008, following the Lehman bankruptcy. Since the peak in January, the index has dropped 10.7% and is back where it had first been in May 2015:There is sudden chaos in the industry, and the index designed to capture movements in near-real time has trouble capturing the massive month-to-month upheaval. “The exact numbers are debatable, but property pricing is down about 10%,” said Peter Rothemund, Managing Director at Green Street Advisors, in the report. “Some property types, industrial for example, are probably faring better than that. Retail and lodging values are most likely doing worse.” “There’s been plenty of examples of blown deals and people walking away from deposits, but the best way for us to get a sense of where things would clear these days is by talking with people in the marketplace — buyers, sellers, brokers,” he said. During Financial Crisis 1, CRE prices collapsed nearly 40%, according to the Green Street CPPI, including in the middle the 10.9% cliff-dive in October 2008, following the Lehman bankruptcy. From the bottom in May 2009, the index more than doubled to the peak in January 2020. Now it’s back to May 2015 level. Prices of Malls Collapse, All Commercial Real Estate Sectors Get Hit The sub-index of the CPPI for malls collapsed by 20% in April from March, and is down 33% over the past 12 months. The index had peaked in 2016 and has since swooned by 45%. It’s by far the worst-performing sector of the CCPI. The other segments of the CPPI all dropped in April, but some dropped from record highs such as Manufactured Home Parks (trailer parks) and student housing. Lodging has been weak since 2015:

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Declined 55.9% Year-over-year, Slight Increase Week-over-week From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 9 May: STR data for 3-9 May 2020 showed continues modest gains in U.S. hotel occupancy compared with previous weeks, but a similar level of year-over-year decline in the three key performance metrics.In comparison with the week of 5-11 May 2019, the industry recorded the following:
• Occupancy: -55.9% to 30.1%
• Average daily rate (ADR): -42.1% to US$76.35
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): -74.4% to US$22.95
“The industry reported its fourth consecutive week-to-week increase in demand as the slow and steady ascent in national occupancy continued,” said Jan Freitag, STR’s senior VP of lodging insights. “More people are flying, as shown in daily checkpoint counts from the TSA, and more people are staying in hotels for a variety of purposes—the weekly number of rooms sold topped 10 million for the first time since the end of March. The markets benefiting more from leisure sources in areas with more relaxed distancing measures will see a sharper recovery line than others. Overall, the recovery will be uneven across the country.”The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average. The red line is for 2020, dash light blue is 2019, blue is the median, and black is for 2009 (the worst year probably since the Great Depression for hotels).Note: I added 2001 to show the impact on hotel occupancy after 9/11. 2020 was off to a solid start, however, COVID-19 has crushed hotel occupancy.

If you open it, they still won’t come: restaurant edition -  In case you haven’t already seen it, here is the OpenTable restaurant reservation data from 3 Confederate States that “reopened” their economy at the end of April: Even though restaurants were open again, reservations were still down over 80% from a year ago. This highlights an important behavioral aspect of the pandemic: people did not wait for their State governments to order lockdowns in order to stop face-to-face economic activity. In all States - those that locked down early, late, or not at all - people dramatically slowed down non-“socially distant” participation: This also explains what we see in the Florida data (which has other issues: e.g., snowbirds who have died in Florida haven’t been counted in its data): Cases of coronavirus peaked in early April (no later than the 8th), the same week that Florida finally and belatedly went to a Statewide lockdown - I.e., too early for the lockdown to have made the difference. The evidence is that in general seniors in Florida continue to be seriously concerned about their vulnerability to the virus, and are staying home, regardless of what their governor’s actions.

Retail Sales decreased 16.4% in April -- On a monthly basis, retail sales decreased 16.4 percent from March to April (seasonally adjusted), and sales were down 6.2 percent from April 2019.From the Census Bureau report::Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April 2020, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $403.9 billion, a decrease of 16.4 percent from the previous month, and 21.6 percent below April 2019. Total sales for the February 2020 through April 2020 period were down 7.7 percent  from the same period a year ago. The February 2020 to March 2020 percent change was revised from down 8.4 percent to down 8.3 percent. This graph shows retail sales since 1992. This is monthly retail sales and food service, seasonally adjusted (total and ex-gasoline).Retail sales ex-gasoline were down 15.5% in March.The second graph shows the year-over-year change in retail sales and food service (ex-gasoline) since 1993.  Retail and Food service sales, ex-gasoline, decreased by 19.7% on a YoY basis.The decrease in March was well below expectations, and sales in February and March were revised down, combined.

Coronavirus Lockdowns Trigger Rapid Drop in Retail Sales, Factory Output – WSJ - Consumers pulled back on spending and factories cut output at the fastest pace in decades as lockdowns to contain the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. economy. Retail sales, a measure of purchases at stores, at restaurants and online, fell in April by a seasonally adjusted 16.4% from a month earlier, the biggest drop since record-keeping began in the early 1900s, the Commerce Department said Friday. The Federal Reserve separately said manufacturing output fell by 13.7% in April, its largest monthly decline in records dating to 1919. A broader reading for overall industrial production, which includes mining and utility output, posted its steepest drop in records dating back more than a century. The record declines in spending and output could represent the worst of economic damage from coronavirus-related shutdowns, economists said, although most expect the recovery will be slow. “April was the cruelest month,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a consulting firm. Retail spending likely bottomed out in the first week of May, he said, with spending picking up due to Mother’s Day and gradual state reopenings. “It’s going to be less worse with each month,” said Mr. Johnson, “as people slowly come out of the foxhole and enter the mainstream of American consumerism.” Social distancing, business closures, travel restrictions and other disruptions that started in mid-March have taken a particularly heavy toll on retail stores and restaurants, many of which remain closed or are opening gradually as states begin to reopen their economies. Consumers spent less on vehicle purchases, gas and on food and drinks at bars and restaurants—categories that drove last month’s decline in retail sales. But nearly every other category suffered too as people lost their jobs, commuters worked from home and malls remained shut. Year-over-year data showed the magnitude of the coronavirus-related hit to the retail industry. Overall retail spending in April was down more than 20% from the same month last year. Clothing-store sales in April were down nearly 90%, and sales at department stores, bars and restaurants, and sporting goods stores were all down nearly half. Consumers increased online purchases this month from the same period last year, boosting online retailers by more than 20%. Sales at food and beverage stores also were up by 12% from the same month a year ago. The exception was sales at nonstore retailers—a category that includes internet merchants such as Amazon.com Inc.—which grew 8.4% month-over-month. Grocery stores saw a 13.2% decline in sales, while receipts at bars and restaurants were down 29.5% from the prior month as establishments kept their doors shut or switched to delivery only. Sales were weak across a range of categories, but nonessential businesses were particularly hard hit. Sales at furniture stores dropped 58.7% and electronics fell 60.6%. Clothing sales plummeted 78.8% from March. Year-over-year data showed the magnitude of the coronavirus-related hit to the retail industry. Overall retail spending in April was down more than 20% from the same month last year. Clothing-store sales in April were down nearly 90%, and sales at department stores, bars and restaurants, and sporting goods stores were all down nearly half. Consumers increased online purchases this month from the same period last year, boosting online retailers by more than 20%. Sales at food and beverage stores also were up by 12% from the same month a year ago.

JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy - In what may be one of the most bizarre bankruptcy filings, just hours after JCPenney stock was halted first thing in the morning when everyone was certain the company would announce its has filed its Chapter 11 petition only to read in a bizarre 8K that the company had instead made a $17 million interest payment due on its secured term loan during the 5-day grace period, the iconic retail giant (or maybe not so giant any more) and anchor mall tenant threw in the towel after all to what was a long, drawn out and painful period of fading into irrelevance, and just after 6pm announced it had filed for bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Texas (docket #20-20182).JCPenney joins a parade of retailers including Neiman Marcus, J.Crew and Stage Stores, who have all filed for bankruptcy this month. Other chains like Gap Inc. and Nordstrom Inc. have recently raised billions of dollars in debt to ensure they have the cash to weather the crisis and reopen stores, although it is unclear if they will survive in a bitter war with off-price chains like T.J. Maxx and e-commerce giants such as Amazon.com Inc  The company, founded by James Cash Penney in 1902, which was once a favorite of middle-class suburban consumers and which operated 846 department stores in 46 states as of Feb 1, had been seeking solutions to address billions of dollars in obligations after revenue evaporated amid government-imposed lockdowns to help stem the Covid-19 pandemic. Store shutdowns since March had choked off JCP's revenue, putting even more pressure on the company’s massive debt load. After years of falling sales, red ink and failed turnaround efforts, the coronavirus pandemic hastened a reckoning with creditors over its $3.8 billion in debt. It failed to find a solution, and as a result it filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 restructuring with lenders holding approximately 70% of JCPenney’s first lien debt to reduce the Company’s outstanding debt and strengthen its financial position.   As part of the bankruptcy, JCP arranged a $900 million DIP loan which includes $450 million of fresh capital. It had been in discussions with some of its largest lenders, including Sixth Street Partners and KKR, Apollo Global and Ares Management, as well as H/2 Capital Partners, who will end up owning the post-reorg equity.

BLS: CPI decreased 0.8% in April, Core CPI decreased 0.4% -- From the BLS: The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) declined 0.8 percent in Aprilon a seasonally adjusted basis, the largest monthly decline since December 2008, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 0.3 percent before seasonal adjustment. A 20.6-percent decline in the gasoline index was the largest contributor to the monthly decrease in the seasonally adjusted all items index, but the indexes for apparel, motor vehicle insurance, airline fares, and lodging away from home all fell sharply as well. In contrast, food indexes rose in April, with the index for food at home posting its largest monthly increase since February 1974. The energy index declined mostly due to the decrease in the gasoline index, though some energy component indexes rose.  The index for all items less food and energy fell 0.4 percent in April, the largest monthly decline in the history of the series, which dates to 1957. Along with the indexes mentioned above, the indexes for used cars and trucks and recreation also declined. The indexes for rent, owners’ equivalent rent, medical care, and household furnishings and operations all increased in April.  The all items index increased 0.3 percent for the 12 months ending April, the smallest 12-month increase since October 2015. The index for all items less food and energy increased 1.4 percent over the last 12 months, its smallest increase since April 2011. Overall inflation was below expectations in April. I'll post a graph later today after the Cleveland Fed releases the median and trimmed-mean CPI.

Consumer Price Index: April Core at 1.43% - The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the April Consumer Price Index data this morning. The year-over-year non-seasonally adjusted Headline CPI came in at 0.33%, down from 1.54% the previous month. Year-over-year Core CPI (ex Food and Energy) came in at 1.43%, down from 2.09% the previous month and below the Fed's 2% PCE target. Here is the introduction from the BLS summary, which leads with the seasonally adjusted monthly data: The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) declined 0.8 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, the largest monthly decline since December 2008, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 0.3 percent before seasonal adjustment.  A 20.6-percent decline in the gasoline index was the largest contributor to the monthly decrease in the seasonally adjusted all items index, but the indexes for apparel, motor vehicle insurance, airline fares, and lodging away from home all fell sharply as well. In contrast, food indexes rose in April, with the index for food at home posting its largest monthly increase since February 1974. The energy index declined mostly due to the decrease in the gasoline index, though some energy component indexes rose. The index for all items less food and energy fell 0.4 percent in April, the largest monthly decline in the history of the series, which dates to 1957. Along with the indexes mentioned above, the indexes for used cars and trucks and recreation also declined. The indexes for rent, owners’ equivalent rent, medical care, and household furnishings and operations all increased in April. The all items index increased 0.3 percent for the 12 months ending April, the smallest 12-month increase since October 2015. The index for all items less food and energy increased 1.4 percent over the last 12 months, its smallest increase since April 2011. The energy index fell 17.7 percent over the last year. In contrast, the food index rose 3.5 percent over the last 12 months, its largest 12-month increase since February 2012. [More…] Investing.com was looking for a -0.8% MoM change in seasonally adjusted Headline CPI and a -0.2% in Core CPI. Year-over-year forecasts were 0.4% for Headline and 1.7% for Core. The first chart is an overlay of Headline CPI and Core CPI (the latter excludes Food and Energy) since the turn of the century. The highlighted two percent level is the Federal Reserve's Core inflation target for the CPI's cousin index, the BEA's Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index.

Core CPI Crashes By Most On Record; Food Costs Soar As Energy & Apparel Collapse - Headline Consumer Prices fell 0.8% MoM - the biggest drop since 2008 - as soaring food inflation was dominated by plunging energy, apparel, and lodging costs... But it was Core CPI, printing 0.4% MoM that made the headlines. That is the biggest monthly decline since records began in 1961... Under the hood, the changes were dramatic to say the least... A 20.6-percent decline in the gasoline index was the largest contributor to the monthly decrease in the seasonally adjusted all items index, but the indexes for apparel, motor vehicle insurance, airline fares, and lodging away from home all fell sharply as well. Goods deflation is accelerating as Services inflation is slumping... In contrast, food indexes rose in April, with the index for food at home posting its largest monthly increase since February 1974. Shelter Inflation up only 2.61%, down from 3.01% in March, and the lowest since Feb 2014. Rent inflation up 3.49%, down from 3.67% in March but lowest only since Jan 2019. Given the near total lockdown of the US, we do question just how "real" this data is (and the fact that rent strikes, mortgage forbearance, food banks, UBI, PPP, and you name the acronym have distorted all the inputs).

Cleveland Fed: Key Measures Show Inflation Slowed in April - The Cleveland Fed released the median CPI and the trimmed-mean CPI this morning:According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the median Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% (1.8% annualized rate) in April. The 16% trimmed-mean Consumer Price Index was unchanged (0.3% annualized rate) during the month. The median CPI and 16% trimmed-mean CPI are measures of core inflation calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland based on data released in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) monthly CPI report. Earlier today, the BLS reported that the seasonally adjusted CPI for all urban consumers fell 0.8% (-9.1% annualized rate) in April. The CPI less food and energy fell 0.4% (-5.2% annualized rate) on a seasonally adjusted basis.Note: The Cleveland Fed released the median CPI details for April here. Motor fuel decreased at a 93.5% annualized rate in April!

April deflation follows a typical recessionary pattern - This morning’s consumer price index for April gives us our first indication of what the coronavirus recession has done to inflation. Overall consumer prices declined by -0.8% (blue), while consumer prices excluding energy (gas) declined -0.2% (red). Note that in 2015 when gas prices collapsed, prices otherwise continued to increase, showing the underlying strength of the economy. But in March and April of this year, even prices outside of gas declined, showing underlying weakness. As a result YoY inflation is now only +0.4%, while YoY inflation ex-energy is up +1.7%: This tells us that the decline wasn’t only in typically volatile gas prices, but showed more widespread weakness - i.e., a real recessionary scenario. Typically in recessions prices decelerate or decline more than wages. People who haven’t lost their jobs eventually grow confident enough to swoop in on bargains, creating the turning point in consumer demand that marks the bottom of recessions. Because layoffs in April were so heavily weighted towards lower wage workers in the retail and leisure and hospitality sectors: “average” wages - I.e., among those who remained - actually soared: If competent action were taken to contain the spread of the virus, so that people got confident enough to engage economically again, this suggests that consumer demand would increase from April’s low levels right away.

April Producer Price Index: Core Final Demand Down 0.3% MoM --Today's release of the April Producer Price Index (PPI) for Final Demand was at -1.3% month-over-month seasonally adjusted, down from a 0.2% decrease last month. It is at 1.2% year-over-year, down from 0.7% last month, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Core Final Demand (less food and energy) came in at -0.3% MoM, down from 0.2% the previous month and is up 0.6% YoY NSA. Investing.com MoM consensus forecasts were for -0.5% headline and 0.0% core.Here is the summary of the news release on Final Demand: The Producer Price Index for final demand declined 1.3 percent in April, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This decrease is the largest since the index began inDecember 2009. Final demand prices fell 0.2 percent in March and 0.6 percent in February. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, the final demand index moved down 1.2 percent for the 12 monthsended in April, the largest decline since falling 1.3 percent for the 12 months ended November 2015. In April, over 80 percent of the decrease in the final demand index can be traced to a 3.3-percent drop in prices for final demand goods. The index for final demand services moved down 0.2 percent. Prices for final demand less foods, energy, and trade services fell 0.9 percent in April, the largest decline since the index was introduced in September 2013. For the 12 months ended in April, the index or final demand less foods, energy, and trade services moved down 0.3 percent, the first 12-month decrease. The Producer Price Index (PPI) response rates for April were consistent with those of March and February, and no changes in estimation procedures were necessary. Additional information is available at www.bls.gov/bls/effects-of-covid-19-pandemic-on-bls-price-indexes.htm#PPI. More…  Since our focus is on longer-term trends, we continue to track the legacy Producer Price Index for Finished Goods, which the BLS also includes in their monthly updates. As this (older) overlay illustrates, the Final Demand and Finished Goods indexes are highly correlated.

Producer price index falls, fanning deflation fears -There’s more evidence Wednesday of the extreme weirdness and volatility of this economy — an economy that’s under the influence of COVID-19 right now. A key measure of inflation, the producer price index, fell 1.3% in April. This is wholesale prices — the prices grocery chains and places like Amazon pay to stock their shelves with goods they sell to us, the prices hospitals pay to supply their ICUs. This inflation measure fell the most since 2009, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking producer prices at the peak of the Great Recession. And it comes on top of Tuesday’s report that consumer prices fell in April too, by 0.8%. When prices keep falling, that’s deflation, not a nice word for economists. Now, not everything is going down in price. If you’re selling masks or hospital gowns, you can charge top dollar these days. Ditto anything that’s flying off the grocery shelves. But for most items — from clothes to cigarettes to used cars — prices are going down. “This is the very definition of a fire-sale situation,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. He said right now, people only want to buy what they absolutely need. For retailers, that’s a problem. “Well, what do you do? Lower the prices very dramatically and basically give people an offer they will find it difficult to refuse,” Kirkegaard said. Though, is deflation really so bad? It’s hard to argue with gas under $2 a gallon. But Karen Petrou, co-founder and managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, said that’s not a huge help. “Gas is cheaper, but people are using whatever dollars they’re able to save to handle their economic shock, to try to pay the rent,” Petrou said. For consumers who still have jobs and money in the bank, once they start to expect lower prices, they can stop spending too, according to Eric Freedman, chief investment officer at U.S. Bank. “It can become more of a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will,” Freedman said. “People hold off on making purchases because they think that potentially prices will fall in the not-too-distant future.” Which will make restarting the economy after the pandemic even harder. All these worries are for persistent deflation — prices falling month after month after month, said Columbia University economist and former Federal Reserve Gov. Fred Mishkin. “It’s really not a serious problem as long as it’s only very temporary,” Mishkin said. He added that the Fed stopped a brief bout of deflation during the Great Recession, and its asset purchases, low interest rates and Main Street lending can be effective in reversing deflation again.

Industrial Production in U.S. Fell 11.2% in April – WSJ - U.S. industrial production posted the steepest one-month fall on record in April as efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic closed factories, sapped demand and froze global supply chains. Industrial production, a measure of factory, mining and utility output, decreased a seasonally adjusted 11.2% in April from the prior month, the Federal Reserve said Friday. It was the steepest drop in records dating back 101 years. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected an 11.1% drop. Manufacturing output, the biggest component of industrial production, decreased 13.7% in April from the prior month. Mining production decreased 6.1%. The oil-and-gas industry is suffering from declining demand as the global economy slows. Output of automobiles and parts fell 71.7% on the month, following a 30% decline in March. Factories around the country have been shutting their doors in recent weeks as manufacturers grapple with the economic dislocation brought about by the pandemic. Manufacturers shed 1.3 million jobs in April, after losing 34,000 in March, erasing the jobs gained in the recovery from the 2007-09 recession. Earlier this month, a separate index of manufacturing activity compiled by the Institute for Supply Management fell to the lowest level on records going back to 1948. Capacity utilization, which reflects how much industries are producing compared with what they could potentially produce, decreased by 8.3 percentage points to 64.9% in April, the Fed said. Economists had expected a reading of 64.7%. March’s industrial production was revised to a decline of 4.5% from an original estimate of a 5.4% drop.

Industrial Production Decreased 11.2 Percent in April, Capacity utilization at Record Low -- From the Fed: Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization: Total industrial production fell 11.2 percent in April for its largest monthly drop in the 101-year history of the index, as the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic led many factories to slow or suspend operations throughout the month. Manufacturing output dropped 13.7 percent, its largest decline on record, as all major industries posted decreases. The output of motor vehicles and parts fell more than 70 percent; production elsewhere in manufacturing dropped 10.3 percent. The indexes for utilities and mining decreased 0.9 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively. At 92.6 percent of its 2012 average, the level of total industrial production was 15.0 percent lower in April than it was a year earlier. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 8.3 percentage points to 64.9 percent in April, a rate that is 14.9 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2019) average and 1.8 percentage points below its all-time (since 1967) low set in 2009. This graph shows Capacity Utilization. This series is down 1.8 percentage points from the previous record low set in June 2009 (the series starts in 1967).  Capacity utilization at 64.9% is 14.9% below the average from 1972 to 2017.  The second graph shows industrial production since 1967. Industrial production decreased in April to  92.6. This is 6.3% above the Great Recession low. The change in industrial production was at consensus expectations.

Empire State Manufacturing Survey: Up in April But Still Extremely Weak - This morning we got the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The diffusion index for General Business Conditions at -48.5 was an increase of 29.7 from the previous month's -78.2. The Investing.com forecast was for a reading of -63.5.The Empire State Manufacturing Index rates the relative level of general business conditions in New York state. A level above 0.0 indicates improving conditions, below indicates worsening conditions. The reading is compiled from a survey of about 200 manufacturers in New York state.Here is the opening paragraph from the report. Business activity continued to deteriorate significantly in New York State, according to firms responding to the May 2020 Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The headline general business conditions index climbed thirty points, but remained well below zero at -48.5. New orders and shipments continued to decline sharply, though not as steeply as in April. Delivery times were slightly shorter, and inventories were slightly lower. After plunging last month, employment levels and the average workweek fell further in May. Input prices were slightly higher, and selling prices continued to decline modestly. While current conditions remained extremely weak, firms grew more optimistic that conditions would be better six months from now. [full report] Here is a chart of the current conditions and its 3-month moving average, which helps clarify the trend for this extremely volatile indicator:

LA area Port Traffic Down Sharply Year-over-year in April -  The expansion to the Panama Canal was completed in 2016 (As I noted a few years ago), and some of the traffic that used the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is probably going through the canal. This might be impacting TEUs on the West Coast. Container traffic gives us an idea about the volume of goods being exported and imported - and usually some hints about the trade report since LA area ports handle about 40% of the nation's container port traffic. The following graphs are for inbound and outbound traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in TEUs (TEUs: 20-foot equivalent units or 20-foot-long cargo container). To remove the strong seasonal component for inbound traffic, the first graph shows the rolling 12 month average. On a rolling 12 month basis, inbound traffic was down 0.7% in April compared to the rolling 12 months ending in March. Outbound traffic was down 1.4% compared to the rolling 12 months ending the previous month. The 2nd graph is the monthly data (with a strong seasonal pattern for imports). LA Area Port Traffic Usually imports peak in the July to October period as retailers import goods for the Christmas holiday, and then decline sharply and bottom in February or March depending on the timing of the Chinese New Year (January 25th in 2020). Because of the timing of the New Year, we would have expected traffic to decline in February without an impact from COVID-19, but bounce back in March and April. In general imports both imports and exports have turned down recently - and will probably be negatively impacted by COVID-19 over the next several months.

 Major U.S. airlines endorse temperature checks for passengers -(Reuters) - A major U.S. airline trade group on Saturday said it backed the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checking the temperatures of passengers and customer-facing employees during the coronavirus pandemic. Airlines for America, which represents the largest U.S. airlines including American Airlines (AAL.O), United Airlines (UAL.O), Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) and Southwest Airlines (LUV.N), said the checks “will add an extra layer of protection for passengers as well as airline and airport employees. Temperature checks also will provide additional public confidence that is critical to relaunching air travel and our nation’s economy.” A U.S. official said Saturday no decision has been made on whether to mandate the checks, but said the issue is the subject of extensive talks among government agencies and with U.S. airlines and added a decision could potentially be made as early as next week. One possible route would be for a pilot project or to initially begin temperature checks at the largest U.S. airports. Questions remain about what the government would do if someone had a high temperature and was turned away from a flight. U.S. officials said the temperature checks would not eliminate the risk of coronavirus cases but could act as a deterrent to prevent people who were not feeling well from traveling. TSA Administrator David Pekoske told employees during a town hall meeting Wednesday that no decision had been made regarding possible temperature checks of passengers at airports and that questions remained about where such checks might take place and which agency might perform them.

The Changing Mix of Light Vehicle Sales - The low gasoline prices made me take another look at the mix of vehicles being sold. This graph shows the percent of light vehicle sales between passenger cars and trucks / SUVs through April 2020. Over time the mix has changed toward more and more towards light trucks and SUVs. Only when oil prices are high, does the trend slow or reverse. Recently oil prices have fallen sharply, and the percent of light trucks and SUVs was up to 77% in April 2020.

More Americans return to work; concerns grow of a second virus wave - (Reuters) - Factory workers began returning to assembly lines in Michigan on Monday, paving the way for the reopening of the U.S. auto sector but stoking fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections as strict lockdowns are eased across the country. With millions of Americans thrown out of work and economic activity cratering, a growing number of states are ending the tough restrictions that were put in place in March and April to slow the spread of the outbreak. Some auto suppliers in Michigan, a Midwest industrial powerhouse hard hit by the pandemic and its economic fallout, reopened plants on Monday with skeleton crews to get ready for the planned May 18 restart of auto production. “We’re starting up our foundry this week in anticipation of the orders coming in next week,” Joe Perkins, chief executive of Busche Performance Group, an engineering, casting and machining firm, said in a telephone interview. Busche had been making parts for non-auto customers deemed essential, such as Deere & Co (DE.N) and Emerson Electric Co (EMR.N), but is now firing up its furnaces for auto customers and training employees on how to be safe during the pandemic. Detroit’s Big Three automakers – General Motors Co (GM.N), Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI)(FCAU.N) - have said they plan to restart vehicle production at their North American plants on May 18. The auto sector accounts for 6% of U.S. economic output and employs more than 835,000 Americans. The government of Mexico, another important link in North America’s automobile production chain, is expected to make an announcement this week regarding its plans for the industry. Overall, more than 80,000 Americans have died in the pandemic out of more than 1.34 million known U.S. infections tallied since Jan. 20, according to a Reuters tally. Michigan has counted more than 4,500 deaths related to COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, ranking fourth among the 50 U.S. states.

 Anger simmers over restart of production by Detroit automakers - With Detroit automakers set to restart North American auto factories next Monday, workers are expressing anger over the gang up of big business politicians, corporate CEOs and the unions pushing for a premature return to work despite the continued spread of the deadly COVID-19 disease.In Michigan, a center of US auto production, there have been over 47,000 cases and more than 4,500 deaths as of Tuesday, over 200 just since the weekend. At Fiat Chrysler alone 22 workers have died of COVID-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic and many more sickened. At least 11 Ford workers and one contract worker for GM have also died.Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer gave the green light to restart manufacturing in the state on May 11 and many auto parts plants reopened this week with assembly plants set to start operations on May 18. This despite the fact the governor extended her stay-at-home order through May 28. The safety measures being implemented by the Detroit auto companies in the factories are cosmetic and will not mitigate the potentially devastating consequences of a reckless, premature return to work. These include temperature checks, health questionnaires and the issuing of surgical masks. The United Auto Workers has endorsed this charade, heaping praise in particular on Governor Whitmer, whose craven kowtowing to the auto companies places the lives of countless thousands at risk.A veteran worker at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant said the proposal for temperature checks offered little protection since many who are infected show no symptoms. “There is a young woman whose brother passed away from the coronavirus, yet he did not have a fever or headache, just a cough. Nobody knew he had the coronavirus. That is how it is going to be at work, we may be standing next to someone who is infected and doesn’t even know it.”A worker at the Fiat Chrysler Tipton, Indiana, transmission plant wrote to the Autoworker Newsletter, saying, “at the Tipton transmission plant that I work in they are still making everyone use the one and only entrance doors and our cafeteria is a damn joke, it’s about the size of a closet and we are still overlapping shifts, which is very, very dangerous.”

Factories Close for Good as Coronavirus Cuts Demand- WSJ - Factory furloughs across the U.S. are becoming permanent closings, a sign of the heavy damage the coronavirus pandemic and shutdowns are exerting on the industrial economy. Makers of dishware in North Carolina, furniture foam in Oregon and cutting boards in Michigan are among the companies closing factories in recent weeks. Caterpillar Inc. CAT -2.47% said it is considering closing plants in Germany, boat-and-motorcycle-maker Polaris Inc. PII 0.69% plans to close a plant in Syracuse, Ind., and tire maker Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. GT -2.87% plans to close a plant in Gadsden, Ala. Those factory shutdowns will further erode an industrial workforce that has been shrinking as a share of the overall U.S. economy for decades. While manufacturing output last year surpassed a previous peak from 2007, factory employment never returned to levels reached before the financial crisis. The closures suggest that a growing share of the record job losses in recent weeks won’t be temporary, said Gabriel Ehrlich, an economic forecaster at the University of Michigan. The more that job losses turn from temporary to permanent, he said, the harder the hit to consumer spending and every company that relies on it—including manufacturers. “The higher the proportion of permanent layoffs, the worse the chances of a strong recovery start to look,” Mr. Ehrlich said. Layoffs have already wiped away nearly a decade of employment gains at U.S. manufacturers. Factories added 1.4 million workers from 2010 through the end of last year, employing a total of 12.9 million people in December. The manufacturing workforce has since dropped to 11.5 million, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday, including 1.3 million jobs lost in April alone, though this also includes temporary layoffs. Layoff notices from states across the country indicate a rise in permanent factory closures in recent weeks. In one, Blue Bell Mattress Co. said it was closing its plant in Roseville, Mich., after losing its only two customers within several weeks. First, furniture chain Art Van Furniture LLC filed for bankruptcy in early March. Weeks later, Connecticut-based chain Bob’s Discount Furniture canceled orders and closed its warehouses to new deliveries because it had closed its stores during the crisis.

US Has 'Limited' Ability To Manufacture Coronavirus Treatments, Vaccines - A pharmaceutical company CEO says that while the United States may have the capability to deliver coronavirus treatments - if and when available - that the US has limited capacity to manufacture said treatments. "Our distribution capabilities work. I'm not worried about that," said Leonard Schleifer, CEO of pharmaceutical company Regeneron, which is working on a coronavirus treatment. "Our manufacturing capacity, on the other hand...I think our capacity is limited," he added. "If there's something we have to learn from this pandemic so that when COVID-21 or 25 or 32 comes along, we need a little bit more capacity already in place so that we can get it to everybody," said Schleifer, whose company is developing a method of treating COVID-19 using antibodies. This, of course, is nothing new - considering that at least 80% of the active ingredients found in all of America's medicines come from abroad - primarily China, according to the Senate Finance Committee."Imagine if China turned off that spigot," author Rosemary Gibson told Fox News last year. Gibson's book "China RX: The Risks of America's Dependence on China for Medicine" reveals the threat posed by such a high level of dependence on a foreign adversary for critical medical items.

Tom Ferguson: Big Business Takes Cash as Workers Laid Off, States and Cities Go Bust -  Yves here. We have been VERY VERY remiss in not pointing readers to Paul Jay’s new endeavor, theAnalysis.news. It’s currently a podcast. We hope you’ll listen and if you are a little flush, also support his work.Today he interviews one of the friends of the site, Tom Ferguson, professor emeritus and expert on money in politics. Many of the themes here will be familiar to readers, but this interview can be a useful overview for friends and family members who only now are realizing how corrupt things are and are looking for explanations. This is a meaty and wide-ranging talk on the official responses, such as they are, to the coronacrisis.

 Small Business Optimism Decreased Sharply in April Most of this survey is noise, but there is some information, especially on the labor market. From the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB): April 2020 Report Small business optimism took another dive in April, falling 5.5 points to 90.9, with owners expressing certainty the economy will weaken in the near-term, but expecting it to improve over the next six months. The Optimism Index has fallen 13.6 points over the last two months, with nine of 10 Index components declining in April and one improving. . [J]ob creation plans fell eight points to a net one percent, the lowest level since December 2012. This graph shows the small business optimism index since 1986.  The index decreased to 90.9 in April.

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decrease to 2,981,000 -The DOL reported: In the week ending May 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 2,981,000, a decrease of 195,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 7,000 from 3,169,000 to 3,176,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,616,500, a decrease of 564,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 7,000 from 4,173,500 to 4,180,500. The previous week was revised up. The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.

Nearly Three Million Sought Jobless Benefits Last Week – WSJ - An additional three million workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, continuing a two-month trend of historically high claims as the coronavirus pandemic rippled through the U.S. economy. About 36.5 million Americans have filed applications in the past eight weeks, with weekly totals remaining at or above three million a week. Still, unemployment filings have declined since an initial surge in layoffs drove claims up to a weekly peak of nearly 7 million at the end of March. In 43 states, unemployment applications fell last week. “The numbers are very high, but they’re stepping down every week, and I see no reason why that decline in filings wouldn’t continue,” said Keith Hall, chief economist for the Council of Economic Advisers under former President George W. Bush. “Employers are likely poised to bring people back, but right now we’re in a holding pattern.” Stocks finished higher as investors digested the claims, U.S. and China tension and efforts to reopen local economies. States including Utah, Texas and Indiana have lifted some business restrictions enacted earlier in the crisis to slow the spread of coronavirus. Governors are seeking to increase testing capacity and build contact-tracing teams as they move toward easing their lockdowns. New claims in Georgia and Florida—which have begun lifting business restrictions in recent weeks—increased last week compared from the previous week. However, in several other states that have begun reopening, the number of people filing for benefits has continued to fall. For instance, initial claims in Oklahoma fell 65% from the previous week, and were down 42% in Texas. Last week’s jobless-claims figure is an undercount of the number of workers seeking benefits. Many states are receiving applications under a provision in a federal stimulus law that allows workers to apply who were largely ineligible for benefits before the pandemic, including independent contractors and self-employed people. More than 1.8 million individuals had filed such claims in the past two weeks, according to the Labor Department. Because those claims aren’t seasonally adjusted, they are excluded from the main claims figures. Meanwhile, the ranks of workers drawing on unemployment insurance continues to remain high as states process applications. In the week that ended May 2, 22.8 million Americans received unemployment payments, up slightly from a revised 22.4 million the week before.

Here Is The Real April Jobs Report- 42 Million Unemployed, 25.5% Unemployment Rate - Friday's job report - according to which a record 20.5 million jobs were lost in April, some 10x more than the depths of the Great Depression, resulting in a 14.7% unemployment rate - was ugly enough as is, the NYT summarizing the catastrophic nature of the economic collapse with the following creative front page. The truth, unfortunately is even uglier. While it is true that what the BLS reported that the April unemployment rate (UR) was less than expected (14.7% versus consensus of 16.0%) and the drop in payroll employment of 20.5 million was also less than the 22.0 million expected, Standard Chartered bank has calculated that adjustments to the headline unemployment rate push the effective number of unemployed to 42 million and the effective UR rate to 25.5%, higher even than the U-6 underemployment rate of 22.8%. Worse, if one treats underemployed in line with the U-6 methodology, the true April unemployment number would rise to an mindblowing 27.5%. How does one get these numbers? As the bank's chief FX strategist Steve Englander explains, start with the 23.1 million unemployed as published by BLS. To this add 8.1mn people who have dropped out of the labor force since February (previously the labor force had been growing steadily, so these are likely unemployed). Add back 7.5MM workers classified as ‘employed but not at work for other reasons’ – BLS states that these workers are likely misclassified as employed, when they are in fact unemployed. Involuntary part-time work for economic reasons has gone up by 6.6MM and we treat these as half-unemployed (i.e., a contribution of 3.3MM). This totals almost 42 Million effectively unemployed. Keep the civilian labor force denominator at February’s 164.5 million, which results in a 25.5% estimate for effective unemployment, and if Englander treated involuntary part-time workers as completely unemployed, the resulting unemployment rate would be at 27.5%.  And while a slowdown in the collapse is to be expected - after all, there are only so many workers that can be fired - don't expect it any time soon. As we first noted on Friday, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett - who said two weeks ago that Q2 GDP would be the biggest negative number since the great depression - has set the groundwork for an even scariee number next month as the statistics catch up to the reality, warning that unemployment could hit 20% in May, up from 14.7% in April, or rather down from the real 27.5% unemployment rate.

BLS: Job Openings decreased to 6.2 Million in March --From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary The number of total separations increased by 8.9 million to a series high of 14.5 million in March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Within separations, the quits rate fell to 1.8 percent and the layoffs and discharges rate increased to 7.5 percent. Job openings decreased to 6.2 million on the last business day of March. Over the month, hires declined to 5.2 million. The changes in these measures reflect the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. ...In March, the number and rate of quits decreased to 2.8 million (-654,000) and 1.8 percent, respectively. Total private quits fell to 2.6 million (-640,000), while government edged down to 177,000 (-14,000).The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.This series started in December 2000.Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for March, the most recent employment report was for April. Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs. Jobs openings decreased in March to 6.191 million from 7.004 million in February. The number of job openings (yellow) were down 16% year-over-year. Quits were down 21% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits"). Job openings declined sharply, and will decline further in the April report.

Latest JOLTS data further illustrates the catastrophic COVID-19 labor market --This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data for March, which further confirms what we already know: The labor market deteriorated quickly through the month of March. As a reminder, JOLTS data are for the whole month (not just mid-month, like the monthly employment numbers). JOLTS shows a net decline of 9.3 million jobs in March, while the monthly employment numbers showed a loss of 870,000. The difference is due to the labor market collapse in the last half of March.Total separations hit an all-time high of 14.5 million in March. The increase from February of 8.9 million was nearly 13 times faster than any other point in the history of the survey, which dates back to 2000. Separations occurred across nearly all sectors of the economy, but the largest losses were found in leisure and hospitality, other services, retail trade, and education and health services.The number of layoffs more than account for the total number of separations. Between February and March, layoffs increased by 9.5 million, hitting 11.4 million in March. In April 2009—the worst month of the Great Recession for layoffs—there were nearly 2.7 million layoffs, or 2% of the workforce. Layoffs in March were more than four times larger than the worst month in the Great Recession. The layoffs rate—the number of layoffs during the entire month as a percent of total employment—hit 7.5%, more than three times larger than the series high. As with separations, the largest numbers of layoffs occurred in the service sectors. There were nearly 4.9 million layoffs in leisure and hospitality, almost all in accommodation and food services. There were more than 1.1 million layoffs in retail trade and 1.2 million layoffs in education and health services.

Education and Unemployment --This graph shows the unemployment rate by four levels of education (all groups are 25 years and older) through Feb 2020. Unfortunately this data only goes back to 1992 and includes only two previous recessions (the stock / tech bust in 2001, and the 2007-2009 housing bust/financial crisis). Clearly education matters with regards to the unemployment rate.Although having more education helped, having a college degree didn't protect employees from significant layoffs. Note: This says nothing about the quality of jobs - as an example, a college graduate working at minimum wage would be considered "employed".
The 'Less than a High School Diploma, 25 yrs. & over' unemployment rate increased from 5.7% in February to 6.8% in March to 21.2% in April.
The 'High School Graduates, No College, 25 yrs. & over' unemployment rate increased from 3.6% in February to 4.4% in March to 17.3% in April.
The 'Some College or Associate Degree, 25 yrs. & over' unemployment rate increased from 3.0% in February to 3.7% in March to 15.0% in April.
The 'Bachelors degree and higher, 25 yrs. & over' unemployment rate increased from 1.9% in February to 3.9% in March to 14.8% in April.

Coronavirus Employment Shock Hits Women Harder Than Men – WSJ - Women usually fare better than men during an economic downturn. Not this time. Growth in service professions has allowed women to overtake men as a proportion of the U.S. labor force. But it has also made them more vulnerable to job losses, because sectors with more women, such as education, leisure and hospitality, have been hardest hit by social-distancing measures. In April, when the full force of the coronavirus-related lockdown struck, unemployment surged to 14.7% from 4.4%. Among women, the rate rose to 16.2%, compared with 13.5% for men, according to Labor Department data released last week. In February, before the pandemic, the rates were similar at close to 3.5%. Have you or someone you know faced a job loss during the crisis? Share your story in the form at the end of this article. Job losses in April were particularly steep among industries in which women account for more than half of all workers. Stefania Albanesi, a University of Pittsburgh professor of economics, found that women account for about 77% of workers in occupations that require close personal contact and cannot easily be done remotely, such as food preparation, health-care support and personal service.  The hit to female-dominated jobs carries far-reaching economic consequences for American families. In a typical recession, married women who haven’t been working will take jobs to replace their husbands’ lost income, Ms. Albanesi said. But that is less likely to happen now, because many occupations dominated by women either aren’t hiring or are laying off workers. As a result, she said, “we can expect a much bigger drop in consumption and income for households than we do during a normal recession.” Black and Hispanic women have been hardest hit during the current downturn. The unemployment rate among black women aged 20 and over was 16.4% in April. For Hispanic women it was 20.2%, and for white women, it was 15%. About 30% of both black and Hispanic women held service-sector jobs in 2018, compared with about 20% of white and Asian women, who were more likely to be in management and financial-operations occupations, according to the latest available Labor Department analysis.

Economic Virus Shock Crushes America's Working Poor, Fed Finds  -The Federal Reserve on Thursday published a new survey of how virus-related lockdowns disproportionately affected Americans, suggesting the working-poor has been crushed under the weight of high unemployment and economic distress. The new survey, titled "Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019, Featuring Supplemental Data from April 2020," provides further clarity into the upcoming social-economic challenges of widening wealth inequality as a result of the economic devastation triggered by lockdowns.  It said 40% of respondents earning less than $40,000 per year reported a job loss in March. The Fed's report concentrated on the economic conditions of households at the end of 2019, which was then supplemented with employment data from the start of March through early April, capturing the first several weeks of unprecedented job loss. "Thirty-nine percent of people working in February with a household income below $40,000 reported a job loss in March. Another 6 percent of all adults had their hours reduced or took unpaid leave. Taken together, 19 percent of all adults reported either losing a job or experiencing a reduction in work hours in March," the report said. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell outlined in a webcast to Congress this week that severe economic impacts related to virus shutdowns were mostly seen for lower-income Americans: "The numbers show clearly that it's more recent hires and lower-paid people who are bearing the brunt of this, although people are suffering all across the income spectrum," Powell said. Powell urged Congress to do more to prevent long-lasting economic damage from the virus. The Fed's survey doesn't capture the millions more that were laid off since early April. At the moment, current figures show 36 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits since early March. The unemployment rate jumped to 15% this week, the highest since the Great Depression.   Most of the job loss has been concreted in the leisure and hospitality industry, which is an industry where many low-income folks have been working over the prior expansion. Many of these folks are stuck in a renting society, gig-economy, insurmountable debts, and limited savings, some, as we've noted, are now financially doomed. They will be pushed onto the government welfare system, with an increasing possibility that universal basic income will become a more permanent program.  Of the respondents that lost their jobs or had hours reduced, 70% reported an income decline, impacting their ability to service debt. About 64% of those with a job loss or decline in weekly hours worked were able to pay bills in full, compared with 85% of those who continued to work. At least half of the respondents said they would have trouble covering a $400 expense.

Seventh Amazon Worker Dies Of COVID As Staff Scared To Return - While Amazon restores regular delivery times for most of its products and is set to reduce hazard pay for its warehouse workers, a new report this week indicates that the seventh warehouse employee recently died from COVID-19. The Verge reports, a warehouse worker at distribution center IND8, located in Indianapolis, Indiana, died on April 30 after contracting the disease. Several workers at the warehouse found out about the death and confronted management, who initially failed to inform staff about the passing. It was only after the confrontation that management became more transparent about the death: They weren't going to say anything if it wasn't for people asking questions," an IND8 worker told The Verge, who asked to remain anonymous, considering Amazon has had a history of firing employees who speak up.  The death at IND8 is the second in the state. Virus-related deaths of Amazon warehouse employees have also been reported at Jeffersonville, Indiana; Staten Island and Bethpage, New York; Waukegan, Illinois; and Hawthorne and Tracy, California, which brings the total count to seven during the pandemic. Amazon has quickly silenced workers and fired anyone who has voiced an opinion about workplace safety and or virus infections at warehouses. We noted this back in late March, a Staten Island warehouse employee organized a strike among colleagues, which was an attempt to force the company to disinfect the facility after a rash of virus cases. Days later the employee who organized the strike was fired.  A top engineer at Amazon Web Services quit his job in early May after he was fed up with the company silencing workers who spoke up about workplace safety at warehouses. Another IND8 worker, who requested anonymity, said: "Before we had the unlimited UPT [unpaid time off] so if people didn't feel safe, they didn't have to come to work. "When that went away, we went from having one hundred twenty five people back to four to five hundred people per shift. It's really crowded."That worker and others are afraid the company is forcing people back to work who may be sick and could lead to a second virus wave at warehouses. Amazon offers paid leave for workers diagnosed with the virus, and partial pay for those who exhibit symptoms but do not test positive. The Verge noted this week (May 11-15), one shift of workers at IND8 were sent after someone tested positive for COVID-19. It was noted that the facility remained open for the next shift. Despite the thermal monitoring of employees and rigorous disinfecting, IND8 workers are still terrified to come to work. One employee said: "We're not essential," said a worker. "Everyone's like, why are we not shut down?"

These are the most dangerous jobs you can have in the age of coronavirus - We know what can make us vulnerable to COVID-19 — old age, unwashed hands, underlying conditions. But as much of the country sheltered in place, a new risk factor emerged: work."This has become a worker-safety epidemic," said Dr. David Michaels, an epidemiologist and professor of environmental and occupational health at the Milken School of Public Health. Michaels was the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration during the Obama administration.From nursing home staff members and farmworkers to bus drivers and meatpackers, the jobs deemed "essential" during the coronavirus pandemic are disproportionately held by women, immigrants and people of color, according to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington, D.C., think tank.Among the greatest divides may be between those who can work remotely and those who can't. Only about a quarter of U.S. workers can do so easily, research shows. Many essential workers work low-wage jobs that don't offer paid sick leave, making them likelier to work even while ill.NBC News spoke to economists, epidemiologists, occupational health experts and workers across the country to understand what jobs pose the greatest risks.

Where Have All the Briskets Gone? -- Nick and Jennifer Pencis were itching to reopen their two restaurants in Tyler, Stanley’s Famous Pit Bar-B-Qand Roast Social Kitchen.  Last week, they finally decided it was time to fire up the pits once again at Stanley’s, which opened for curbside service Thursday.The Pencises contacted their laid-off employees and gathered to deep-clean the restaurant before opening. After completing a reopening checklist provided by the health department, Nick called his food supplier to replenish the empty coolers. “We are receiving no briskets next week,” his usual meat supplier told him. He called another and secured the last ten cases of brisket it had in the building. Those fifty briskets would be enough to last just two days of service. He frantically reached out to anyone who might be able to ship him some meat. Ben E. Keith, a distributor in south Fort Worth, got back to him with good news and bad news. They’d have fresh briskets for him eventually, but the first shipment would be frozen beef. “Do you have any tips on cooking a thawed brisket?” Pencis asked me sincerely during our conversation, adding, “I’ve never cooked one.” “You’re gonna get new friends in times like this,” Robby Austin, of Ben E. Keith, tells me. His title is “Category Manager; Center of the Plate,” but he prefers “Meat Head.” Austin distributes beef to dozens of barbecue joints and has a wealth of knowledge about brisket supply and demand. “It’s been a rodeo,” he says, exasperated about the massive swings in the market over the past six weeks. He’s been fielding calls from both tiny independent pitmasters and massive barbecue chains looking for the briskets that their usual suppliers can’t provide. “We’re trying to help who we can,” he says, but there are only so many briskets to go around.

As U.S. meat workers fall sick and supplies dwindle, exports to China soar - (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump ordered meat processing plants to stay open to protect the nation’s food supply even as workers got sick and died. Yet the plants have increasingly been exporting to China while U.S. consumers face shortages, a Reuters analysis of government data showed.Trump, who is in an acrimonious public dispute with Beijing over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, invoked the 1950 Defense Production Act on April 28 to keep plants open. Now he is facing criticism from some lawmakers, consumers and plant employees for putting workers at risk in part to help ensure China’s meat supply. Meat buyers in China ramped up imports from around the world as a pig disease decimated its herd, the world’s largest, and pushed Chinese pork prices to record highs. The supply shock drove China to pay more for U.S. meat than other countries, and even U.S. consumers, since late 2019. “We know that over time exports are critically important. I think we need to focus on meeting domestic demand at this point,” said Mike Naig, the agriculture secretary in the top U.S. pork-producing state of Iowa who supported Trump’s order. Processors including Smithfield Foods, owned by China’s WH Group Ltd, Brazilian-owned JBS USA and Tyson Foods Inc temporarily closed about 20 U.S. meat plants as the virus infected thousands of employees, prompting meatpackers and grocers to warn of shortages. Some plants have resumed limited operations as workers afraid of getting sick stay home. The disruptions mean consumers could see 30% less meat in supermarkets by the end of May, at prices 20% higher than last year, according to Will Sawyer, lead economist at agricultural lender CoBank. While pork supplies tightened as the number of pigs slaughtered each day plunged by about 40% since mid-March, shipments of American pork to China more than quadrupled over the same period, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. tmsnrt.rs/2YLF1XN Smithfield, which China’s WH Group bought for $4.7 billion in 2013, was the biggest U.S. exporter to China from January to March, according to Panjiva, a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Smithfield shipped at least 13,680 tonnes by sea in March, Panjiva said, citing its most recent data.Smithfield, the world’s biggest pork processor, said in April that U.S. plant closures were pushing retailers “perilously close to the edge” on supplies. The company is now retooling its namesake pork plant in Smithfield, Virginia, to supply fresh pork, bacon and ham to more U.S. consumers, according to a statement. The move is an about-face after the company reconfigured the plant last year to process hog carcasses for the Chinese market, employees, local officials and industry sources told Reuters.

‘I’m scared to return’: Nebraska meatpacking workers and their families speak out Omaha - Her mother stopped working at the Smithfield meatpacking plant when Dulce Castañeda was a girl, after the repetitive hacking motions required to slice pork injured her wrist. Her father still works there after nearly 25 years, even as eight- and 10-hour shifts on the production line leave his back and hands aching. “It’s been gruesome and hard and difficult, but it’s something he’s stuck with all these years,” said Castañeda, 26. “It’s gotten all of his children to really live out his version of the American dream.”  Their children have been spared a similar life working on or near the kill floor — Castañeda and her sister went to college. Their brother joined the military.  Life as a meatpacking worker was never easy, and it has only grown harder during the coronavirus pandemic. Inside the sprawling plants located on the edges of many rural communities — or the old stockyards in South Omaha — the work involved in slaughtering animals and cutting and packaging the bacon, steaks and chicken breasts sold to local grocery stores and restaurants is grueling, bloody and virtually invisible. The workers are often immigrants or refugees from Central America, Myanmar, Somalia and South Sudan drawn to work that doesn’t require much English and pays higher than minimum wage. But now those workers face new risks and fears as the coronavirus spreads through meatpacking plants across the Midwest. Roughly 15% of Nebraska’s confirmed coronavirus cases and at least three deaths can be traced to meatpacking plants — 1,005 of the state’s 6,771 cases as of Thursday involved workers, Gov. Pete Ricketts said.Inside crowded plants where hundreds, sometimes thousands, work, the highly contagious virus threatens to sicken workers. Meanwhile, production slows as plants temporarily shut down or scramble to keep pumping out meat with smaller crews. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at least 20 workers nationwide have died, based on data submitted to them by 19 states in April. In Nebraska, outbreaks have hit Grand Island, Omaha, Crete, Lexington, Madison,Dakota City and Schuyler, at chicken, beef and pork plants run by meat titans such as Tyson Foods, Smithfield, Cargill, and JBS USA. A worker at a Fremont chicken plant died of coronavirus-related complications, the company that runs the plant disclosed. The Sioux City Journal has reported at least three deaths tied to Tyson’s Dakota City beef plant.

Booker renews push to phase out factory farming by 2040 after pandemic hits meatpacking plants - Democrats are renewing a push started by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) last year that would crack down on factory farming as several meatpacking plants in the country recover from coronavirus outbreaks. Booker, the only vegan in the Senate, originally introduced the bill in December. On Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced she is co-sponsoring the bill, and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is introducing a companion bill in the House. The legislation directly targets multinational meat producing giants, such as Smithfield Foods, Tyson Foods and JBS, all of which had severe coronavirus outbreaks among workers in their meatpacking plants in the last month that have led to fears of a national meat shortage. President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to keep plants with outbreaks open weeks after they shut down despite potential risks for employees, who often work in close quarters. The bill phases out factory farming, otherwise known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), by 2040 and imposes stricter environmental standards in the interim. Booker said that having CAFOs at the center of the U.S. food supply chain put the country in a vulnerable position even before the pandemic. “Our food system was not broken by the pandemic and it was not broken by independent family farmers,” Booker said in a statement. “It was broken by large, multinational corporations like Tyson, Smithfield and JBS that, because of their buying power and size, have undue influence over the marketplace and over public policy.” The lawmakers describe the bill as a way to empower smaller farmers and ranchers by creating voluntary buyouts for CAFOs and requiring producers to include a country of origin on meat product labels, forbidding the U.S. Department of Agriculture from labeling foreign imported meat products as “Product of USA." “Giant meatpackers cannot be permitted to continue to profit off of the labor of family farmers, consolidating the food industry to the point that our supply chain is threatened,” said Khanna. “Congress must step in to ensure an honest market, or risk losing another historic industry to the hands of big corporations.”

Colorado counties differ on whether to accept shift to "safer at home"  - With Gov. Jared Polis’ stay-at-home mandate set to shift to “safer at home” on Monday, counties across Colorado are grappling with how much leeway they should give to reopening businesses, while weighing the serious life-and-death risks that less social distancing might entail. Some of the Front Range’s largest population centers — including Denver, Boulder, Arapahoe, Jefferson and Adams counties — are proceeding cautiously, electing to extend local stay-at-home orders until May 8, as they ramp up testing and contact tracing to better control the novel coronavirus’ spread when they do ease restrictions. Others, such as Eagle and Mesa counties, have seen positive COVID-19 cases dwindle so much they’ve asked the state to loosen regulations. Weld County’s leaders have gone their own way, openly clashing with Polis’s plan, saying the governor has no right “to pick winners and losers” by deciding which businesses can and can’t open. The result of Polis relaxing some restrictions has been a hodgepodge of rules, reflecting the varying degrees of COVID-19’s severity, as well as deep-rooted resentment of statewide mandates in some parts of Colorado.  In Denver, city officials need more time to expand testing, train staff and establish clear guidelines and regulations for safely allowing more and more people out of their homes, Mayor Michael Hancock said Friday in a news conference. The Mile High City aims to nearly double the amount of testing for the new coronavirus before its stay-at-home order will be lifted, Hancock said. That would mean going from about 550 people being tested currently to about 1,000 each day. That testing expansion should be well within Denver’s capabilities, Public Health Director Bob McDonald said. “We’re not there yet, but we’re making great progress,” he said.

Sioux tribe rejects South Dakota governor request to remove Covid-19 checkpoints  - The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has rejected an ultimatum by South Dakota's governor to remove checkpoints on state highways within tribal reservations or risk legal action.  Gov. Kristi Noem sent letters Friday to the leaders of both the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe demanding that checkpoints designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus on tribal land be removed, the governor's office said in a statement.  "We are strongest when we work together; this includes our battle against Covid-19," Noem said. "I request that the tribes immediately cease interfering with or regulating traffic on US and State Highways and remove all travel checkpoints."  In response, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Harold Frazier said in a news release Friday that while he agreed it's important to work together, "you continuing to interfere in our efforts to do what science and facts dictate seriously undermine our ability to protect everyone on the reservation."  "Ignorant statements and fiery rhetoric encourage individuals already under stress from this situation to carry out irrational actions," he said. "We invite you to join us in protecting the lives of our people and those that live on this reservation. I regretfully decline your request." According to Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe checkpoint policies posted on its social media, its reservation residents may travel within South Dakota to areas the state has not deemed a Covid-19 "hotspot" if it's for an essential activity such as medical appointments or to get supplies unavailable on the reservation. But they must complete a health questionnaire when they leave and when they return every time they go through a checkpoint. South Dakota residents who don't live on the reservation are only allowed there if they're not coming from a hotspot and it is for an essential activity. But they must also complete a health questionnaire.

Woman arrested in New York subway over refusal to wear mask - A woman was arrested on Wednesday on the New York subway after police say she refused to wear a face covering. Kaleemah Rozier, 22, was charged with allegedly resisting her arrest, disorderly conduct and harassment after officers said they asked her to wear a face mask inside the Atlantic Avenue/Barclay Center Subway Station. The New York Police Department (NYPD) said in a statement that officers approached the woman and “politely informed” her that she could not be in the subway station without a face covering. Police said they were met with “vulgar language” from the woman, who “repeatedly refused” to “properly wear her face covering over her nose and mouth.” Officers told her she would be removed from the station and began to escort her, prompting Rozier to allegedly wave her arms and strike an officer with her hand. “As a result of these actions, she was taken into custody and placed under arrest,” NYPD said. Video of the incident shows the woman and the child are both wearing face masks that did not cover their noses and mouths. The footage shows one officer escorting the child and four officers restraining the woman, who yelled and cursed at the officers. Several people took to social media to criticize police for the arrest, saying it was unnecessarily violent as the woman was knocked to the ground. But the NYPD stood by its officers saying “We are confident that the police officers in this incident acted appropriately and with respect. This individual was arrested only after her behavior toward officers warranted police action.”

Viral video shows black truck driver blocked in, questioned by white residents on delivery route - A video going viral on Facebook this week shows the moment a black truck driver in Oklahoma says he was blocked in and questioned by residents in a gated community as he tried to make a delivery. In the video, which was first broadcasted on Facebook on Monday and has since racked up more than 100,000 views, the driver, Travis Miller, could be seen repeatedly telling a man who claimed to be president of the local homeowners association to clear the way so that he could proceed with his delivery route. “So, I’m going live. This is what I’m dealing with right now,” Miller says as he turns his camera to show the man’s car pulled up in front of his truck on a street in the neighborhood. “This is what I’m dealing with,” he continues as he turns the camera toward the man, “Napoleon, get out the way.” “My name is David Stewart,” the man, who appeared to be talking to someone else on the phone, could be heard responding off to the side of Miller’s truck. “I don’t care,” Miller responds. “Move out the way, sir.” After several moments during which the man continues to talk on the phone, Miller asks, “Can you tell him to hang up and move so I can leave? Thank you.” “I asked you one question,” the man tells Miller. “It’s none of your business,” Miller says, to which the man responds: “No, no. It is my business.” “Why, because you [sic] the mayor of the cul-de-sac?” Miller asks. “I'm president of the home owners association,” the man responds. “These are private streets.” “Ok,” Miller replies, “and apparently you need a gate code to get in here, right? So, how did I get in here?” “I want to know where you’re going,” the man tells Miller in the clip. “It’s none of your business. I’m going out, that’s where I’m going, but you’re in my way,” Miller tells the man. Later during the clip, which runs for about 35 minutes, the man is joined by another who also asks Miller to tell him where he is going, and if he made a “wrong turn” into the gated community. “How do I make a wrong turn into a gated neighborhood?” Miller responds. “I need to have a gate code in order to get in, right?” “How did you get a gate code?" the second man asks Miller. “That’s none of your business,” he again says, to which the second man responds: “It sure as hell is my business.” Miller, who told KFOR he works for a company that delivers furniture and home appliances, said he didn’t divulge further information to the men because he wanted to protect the customer’s information. Miller told the station he was in the neighborhood for roughly an hour before the first man decided to move his vehicle. “They must have contacted the customer because the customer came around and he moved out the way,” Miller said, adding: “I don’t know what prompted him to, or what has happened in that neighborhood for him to respond the way he did."

 Police investigating black man with New York plates told to 'leave' Vermont - Vermont State Police said they are investigating an incident after a report that a black man was told to leave the state last week while driving near his residence in Hartford. The man was driving in his car, which has New York license plates, with his 11-year-old son when he was flagged down by two unknown vehicles, police said in a release Wednesday. Police said the man stopped, “thinking someone needed assistance,” and spoke with a white man who told him he was “not wanted in Vermont and told to leave,” police said. “There were significant racial undertones to the interaction,” police said, adding that the man was “in fear for the physical safety of him and his son.” “He was able to verbally deescalate the situation and drive home. No physical altercation occurred,” police added. Police said state investigators do not have descriptions of the vehicles involved, but believe they may be pickup trucks. “People in Vermont should not have to worry about crimes motivated by hate at any time, let alone when our communities should be pulling together to face an unprecedented situation that affects all of us,” Col. Matthew T. Birmingham, director of the state police, said in the release.

Latest far-right tactic: Naming names, threatening people who report coronavirus lockdown violations —  Aram Westergreen, a construction worker idled last month in the COVID-19 pandemic, has suffered from lost income, but regards social distancing as critical to slow the spread of the pathogen.To his alarm on Thursday, he opened his email to find a message entitled “Lowlife scumbag whistle-blower snitches.” It was sent from a stranger to about 100 people, informing them that their names, reports and identifying information had been released by the government and shared on social media.“All you cowards who reported businesses as being open ... guess what ... social media is about to reign fire on you,” the message said. “How can you live with yourself when the REAL DOCTORS have already come out and stated that social distancing is making matters worse? Every one of you slimeballs must only get your news from CNN.” The emailer was correct in one respect. The Washington Military Department, which is coordinating state response to the pandemic, had responded to public records requests by releasing spreadsheets containing more than 7,600 reports of suspected stay-home violations, including email addresses and phone numbers of those lodging complaints. Westergreen and many others did not immediately realize that Washington State Three Percent, regarded by civil rights organizations as a far-right militia organization, had joined another militant group opposed to state coronavirus lockdowns in posting the reports on Facebook and other sites. Some of those listed in the spreadsheets say they are now being harassed, including receiving death threats.Such public naming and threats are among the latest tactics being employed by far-right, neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups seeking to exploit the pandemic, according to organizations that track their activities.Extremists have been spreading hate and misinformation on social media while encouraging members to attend reopen rallies such as one Saturday at the state Capitol in Olympia, according to Western States Center, a Portland, Ore., organization that tracks white nationalist and alt-right groups.  White supremacists from “accelerationist” groups — which seek to weaken the political system that they believe has been diluted by multiculturalism — have sought to weaponize the deadly virus, calling on members to engage in direct attacks in order to expedite the collapse of society, said Joanna Mendelson, a national expert on extremism at the Anti-Defamation League. Accelerationist groups have also been organizing coronavirus-related discussions online around the word “boogaloo.” Usage of the word in far-right context emanated from an unlikely source: the 1984 break-dancing film “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” The word is now being used by extremists as a way to refer to what they believe is a looming civil war. Other shorthand references to the word that extremists use is “the boog.”“There is an enormous indoctrination effort in order to expand their base, and the majority of that recruitment takes place in the virtual space. We have seen them using memes in order to express hatred, targeting Jews,” 

 Right-wing Facebook groups threaten to assassinate Michigan Governor Whitmer - Threats to assassinate Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer have been widely discussed over the past week within several extreme right-wing Facebook groups. This is occurring in the lead-up to a protest against her “stay home, stay safe” executive order scheduled for Thursday morning in the state capital, Lansing. According to a report on Monday, journalists from the Metro Times gained access to four Facebook groups where these discussions were taking place. The groups, which can be viewed only by approved members, included numerous posts and comments calling for the governor to be beaten, lynched, beheaded or shot. In one such group called “People of Michigan vs. Governor Gretchen Whitmer,” a member posted, “We need a good old fashioned lynch mob to storm the Capitol, drag her tyrannical ass out onto the street and string her up as our forefathers would have.” Another post said, “Drag that tyrant governor out to the front lawn. Fit her for a noose,” to which a user responded, “Either President Trump sends in the troops or there is going to be a midnight lynching in Lansing soon.” One said Whitmer “needs to eat lead,” and that this would send a message to other Democrats “that they are next.” When another user wrote, “She needs her ass beat,” a user responded, “Good ol’ fashioned bullets work better, but I like the enthusiasm.” Another requested, “Can we please just take up a collection for an assassin to put that woman from Michigan down?”  In all, the Metro Times reported that the four groups had a total following of 400,000 Facebook members.

A Third Of Americans Will Remain In Quarantine Even If Instructed To Get Back To Normal Life And Work - Last week we pointed out perhaps the most critical distinction as the US begins the long and arduous process of recovery from the coronavirus pandemic: that voluntary lockdowns are worse than official ones as they can’t be turned off by fiat, because as Rabobank's Michael Every put it, "if people stay at home anyway, the economy will not recover as hoped." Adding to the complexity, in recent days we have observed that this distinction has increasingly fallen along party lines, with democratic states refusing to reopen or happy to wait (and in the case of California warning it may be shut for another 3 months), while mostly Republican states already pursuing a partial or full reopening. This particular distinction was featured front and center in the latest CivicScience survey, which found that 69% of respondents would not resume all normal activities after states lift stay-at-home orders, while nearly a third of Americans, or 31%, would remain under quarantine even if local governments issued a notice to go back to normal day-to-day activities in order to prevent an economic collapse. While we won't discuss the political affiliation of these 31%, the data above underscores the nature of the crisis: until the virus is under control, and until the reopening is viewed as a political issue - especially if continued state shutdowns help cripple the Trump economy ahead of the November election - there will be a very substantial speed limit on the economic recovery, especially as Democratic states do everything in their power to delay reopening for as long as possible.

 14,000 New York City school bus workers face furlough as city imposes cuts - More than 14,000 New York City school bus drivers, attendants and mechanics are being furloughed by the private companies that employ them. This will leave these already poorly paid workers not only without incomes, but deprived of medical insurance and pensions at a time when the city’s population is reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although exact figures are not available, according to a union statement, a significant number of drivers have become infected and some have died. In New York City, private bus companies under contract to the city provide transportation for public, charter and parochial school children, including many with special needs, who cannot take public buses or subways to school. Since mid-March, when schools were closed, the buses have been idle, and the city is now refusing to pay the companies under existing contracts or to renew the contracts. Initially during the shutdown the companies had been receiving 85 percent of their contracted payments under a provision of the existing agreements covering suspension of service during emergencies such as blizzards. The city’s Department of Education (DOE) was supposed to vote on an emergency extension of these payments on April 29, but the item was pulled from the agenda at the last minute. While the contract extension is supposedly still under review, the companies began to terminate pay and benefits to their employees the next day. The loss of these jobs will throw thousands more onto the city’s already staggering unemployment rolls (already officially at 900,000) and deprive them of medical insurance when it is most needed. Some are in danger of losing necessary certifications. . The city blamed the state for cutting off the 44 percent share of transportation costs it usually provides to the city. New York City projects a budget deficit of more than $7 billion. Mayor de Blasio, a Democrat, has proposed a more than $800 million reduction to the DOE’s budget. With hundreds dying daily from COVID-19 in New York state and around 1,000 new cases daily, Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently announce that all schools throughout the state would remain closed for the rest of the academic year, and possibly beyond. Huge cuts in the state budget, including aid to local schools, will put additional financial pressure on the city. Cancelling the school bus contracts is only one component of the savage austerity to which the city’s public schools will be subject, undoubtedly including massive job losses.

Washington Post columnist calls for destruction of child care safety in the pursuit of “reopening America” - Last month, the Washington Post, a nominally “liberal” publication owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, published a column entitled, “Will a child-care shortage prevent America’s reopening?” written by author Carrie Lukas. Lukas is the president of the Independent Women’s Forum, a think tank which describes itself as a “conservative alternative to feminist tenets.” She is also a regular contributor to right-wing and pro-business journals such as National Review, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal, while having served as a former policy analyst for the House Republican Policy Committee and the Department of Homeland Security.Lukas begins by stating: “Governments across the country are working on plans to reopen society after the novel coronavirus pandemic reaches its peak. While the timing and components of these plans vary, all must confront an important reality: Getting people back to work requires sufficient child care. The columnist briefly dwells on the conditions suffered by low-paid child care workers, noting that many “earn on average less than $11 per hour.” Rather than offering any solution to this issue, Lukas throws a bone to the Post ’s billionaire owner Bezos, advising workers that the “security and compensation offered at a place such as Amazon” may be more to their liking. In reality, Amazon is presently one of the most dangerous workplaces in the world. Then, Lukas turns to the business at hand, declaring: “As the already limited supply of child-care spaces contracts, demand is about to skyrocket.” She insists that “[s]tates and localities, which regulate providers, should ease requirements to allow existing centers to expand and make it easier for new providers to offer services.”While the author acknowledges that some “[p]arents initially may be concerned about removing regulations,” she claims that “loosening these regulations does not need to erode quality.” She never explains how this trade-off in protections is to translate into better quality care. Instead, Lukas cites a 2015 study from the Charles Koch Foundation-linked Mercatus Center which states: “regulations on child–staff ratios, group size restrictions, and education requirements are all associated with higher care prices.” In fact, a key driver in cost is the profit system itself, which has subordinated human well-being to the bottom line to disastrous effect during the pandemic.

State of Michigan agrees to settle lawsuit to improve literacy in Detroit schools - The state of Michigan reached a settlement today with the plaintiffs of the Gary B. literacy case, a landmark decision that will provide the city of Detroit with increased educational funding.The suit was initially brought forth by seven Detroit students in 2016, who argued that poor building conditions and a lack of books and quality teachers deprived them of access to literacy.Under the settlement, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) must submit a proposal to the Michigan legislature that would give the Detroit Public School Community District at least $94.4 million for funding of "literacy-related programs and initiatives."Additionally, the court awarded the seven plaintiffs $280,000 to be split evenly among them so that they can "access a high-quality literacy program or otherwise further their education." “I have always said that every student, no matter where they come from, has a birthright to a quality public education,” Whitmer said in a statement. “Students in Detroit faced obstacles to their education that inhibited their ability to read – obstacles they never should have faced." Last month, a federal appeals court panel ruled in favor of the Detroit students, saying that the Constitution provides a remedy to “children relegated to a school system that does not provide even a plausible chance to attain literacy." 

What to do About The Schools - There needs to be a plan in place that deals with: grade levels, Covid Virus testing, schedules, classroom size, in-school traffic flow patterns, staffing, transportation, … The how and when are tied together. And yes, all these are interconnected. How to safely get 3,000 high school students to and from school; from class to class; to, into and out of classrooms; to, into and out of the cafeteria; … while maintaining social distancing? Class schedules, school hours, the school year, … these all involve time. To allow for social distancing in the classroom, class size will need be cut in half. More classes and more classrooms will be needed. Requiring perhaps more teachers, certainly more hours per day, per week. To avoid jam-packed hallways, to achieve social distance spacing, class periods will need be staggered by groups. Security will need be enhanced to enforce between class traffic rules, to eliminate wandering about during class, congregating in bathrooms, … Now is the time to work out the kinks in online teaching. Students and Teachers may need to wear masks. Teachers make need to be miked. All these things are more difficult in the lower grades, in the more troubled schools. All these problems and more have to be dealt with in the context of pressure from parents to reopen schools and pandemic depleted state budgets. Should schools be reopened? Is any return to ‘normal’ delusional?

Public Schools Collapsing into a Zoom Heal - Do you hear that silence? That’s the absence of footsteps echoing through our nation’s public school hallways. It’s the silence of teaching in a virtual space populated with students on mute who lack a physical presence. It’s the crushing silence of those who are now missing, who can’t attend the classroom that Zoom and Google built.Maybe you heard the shouted pleas of teachers across the country last year as we walked out of our classrooms and into the streets, begging for affordable housing, health care, and access to equitable funding and resources for our students? Or maybe you heard the impassioned screams of frightened kids as they stormed into the streets and onto the news, demanding safety and an end to the threat of gun violence in our nation’s school buildings? Now, there’s nothing left to hear.Today, all we’re left with is a deafening silence that muffles the sound of so much suffering. The unfolding public health, mental health, and economic crisis of Covid-19 has laid bare the fragility of what was. The institutions charged with caring for and guiding our most valuable assets — our children — were already gutted by half a century of chronic underfunding, misguided curricular policies that prioritized testing over real learning, and social policies that favored austerity overtaking care of the most vulnerable members of our society. Now that so many teachers are sequestered and alone or locked away with family, our bonds of proximity broken, we’re forced to stare into that void, scrambling to find and care for our students across an abyss of silence. The system is broken. The empire has no clothes.Not so many weeks ago, I used to be a teacher in a sprawling public high school outside Portland, Oregon. Before the virus arrived, I taught painting, drawing, ceramics, and filmmaking in three different studio classrooms. There, groups of students ranging across the economic, ethnic, religious, racial, and linguistic spectrum sat shoulder to shoulder, chatting and creating, day after day, year after year. Music played and we talked.On some days, the classes were cacophonous and chaotic; on others, calm and productive. In those spaces, we did our best to connect, to forge thriving communities. What I now realize, though, is that the physical space we shared was the only thing truly tying us all together. Those classrooms were the duct tape securing the smashed bumper on the wreck of a car that was our public education system.Now, it c ouldn’t be more obvious: no one’s going to solve the problems of our present and near future with the usual solutions. When desperation leaves us without imagination, clinging to old answers, scrambling to prop up systems that perpetuated and solidified inequity, it means missing the real opportunity of this otherwise grim moment. The “great pause” that is the Covid-19 shutdown has allowed us all to stare into the void, to see far more clearly just how schools have long shouldered the burdens of a society that functions largely for the privileged, leaving the rest of our nation’s children and families to gather the crumbs of whatever remains.

 Gottlieb: Schools should try to open in fall if coronavirus isn't widespread in their area - Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Thursday that schools "should at least make an attempt to open" in September if the coronavirus is not widespread in their communities. “This is really going to depend on what’s happening in the states and localities, and it's really too early to say what September is going to look like,” Gottlieb said in an interview with CNBC. “I do think we're going to have to contend with COVID going into the fall, but it might not be in September, it might occur later into the fall, and we should at least make an attempt to open the schools if this isn't spreading widely.” Gottlieb said the call on reopening will depend on what's happening in each region and state, most of which have moved to online learning for the rest of the academic year. “I don't think this is a national-level decision at this point,” he said. Gottlieb’s comments come one day after President Trump called for schools to be reopened quickly, pushing back on a warning made by the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, on the dangers of lifting coronavirus restrictions too soon. Fauci, a leading member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, told senators during a hearing Tuesday that lifting coronavirus restrictions too soon could lead to a surge in COVID-19 cases. Overnight Health Care: Ousted Trump official will warn of '... Trump says he was 'surprised' by Fauci's warnings on reopening “I was surprised by his answer, actually," Trump later told reporters at the White House. "It’s just, to me it’s not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools." In an interview with Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo, Trump said “we have to get the schools open.” “Now, we want to do it safely, but we also want to do it as quickly as possible. We can't keep going on like this … You're having bedlam already in the streets, you can't do this. We have to get it open. I totally disagree with him [Fauci] on schools,” the president said in the interview.

Ohio University lays off 140 workers amid massive statewide cuts to higher education - On Friday May 1, Ohio University (OU) administration announced the official layoff of 140 custodial staff, maintenance workers and groundskeepers. The staff were all members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee (AFSCME) union, Local 1699. It is estimated that the cuts will save the university roughly $11 million. In the same week, three faculty members were told that their contacts would not be renewed in the fall. While only three non-renewals have been officially announced, a student Twitter protest group #SaveOUrProfs has reported that eight professors have informed the group of receiving non-renewals. In addition to the eliminated positions, OU has announced that roughly 32 full-time positions vacated before the pandemic through the university’s cost-cutting Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP) will not be filled. Students and professors have taken to Twitter to express their outrage with the layoffs, referring to the announcement as the “May Day Massacre.” As for the union, the AFSCME local has done virtually nothing to protect the workers or organize any serious resistance to the moves. Five days after the layoffs, the Local 1699 union officials, in conjunction with the Association of American University Professors (AAUP), were compelled to call a largely inconsequential one-day motorcade rally. AFSCME has not set dates for any follow-up demonstrations. The laid-off AFSCME workers were working under an extended contract after their contract expired on March 1, 2020. Ohio University’s board of trustees rejected a proposed agreement which was brought to the table on Monday. The layoffs came several days after the university president, M Duane Nellis, sent an email to the OU community detailing the financial impact of COVID-19 and the need to implement severe cost-cutting measures. In a cynical attempt to show their solidarity with workers, Nellis also announced that he and Provost Sayrs would reduce their base pay by 15% in the 2021 fiscal year, for a combined savings of roughly $130,000.

1 Million Students At California Universities To Stay Home Next Fall As Campuses Go 'Online Only’ - The California State University system, commonly recognized as the largest four-year university system in the country with 23 total campus, will not hold in-person classes through the fall semester for the majority of programs due to the coronavirus pandemic. Chancellor Timothy White informed a board meeting on Tuesday that "nearly all in-person classes" will be canceled, meaning the current remote learning online format will continue. And additionally concerning the other major system in the state, the University of California, a new statement this week said "it's likely none of our campuses will fully re-open in fall," according to a UC spokesman. As multiple reports have underscored, this means a total of more than 770,000 students will not return to campus — which will no doubt be a huge blow to school finances, which often relies heavily for daily operations on campus-related fees such as housing, to say nothing of the coming likely massive drop in tuition and other crucial funds.Considering other public and private colleges and universities in California are now likely to also go on-line only, we're now talking a whopping one million students expected to stay home.It further introduces the huge unknown of how many students will choose to forgo paying tuition for what many see as a sub-par online education as opposed to the holistic experience of a college campus. As we described before many especially incoming college freshmen are likely to take a 'gap year' as they're not interested in dropping $50K plus for a semester sitting in their living room.A California State University statement this week said: "First and foremost is the health, safety and welfare of our students, faculty and staff, and the evolving data surrounding the progression of Covid-19 — current and as forecast throughout the 2020-21 academic year," according to CNN.And the University of California announcement said it "will be exploring a mixed approach with some material delivered in classroom and labs settings while other classes will co ntinue to be online."

Coronavirus To Decimate Colleges and Universities by Yves Smith - “Decimate” might be too charitable a forecast for American higher educational institutions, since the word originated with the Roman army practice of killing one man in ten. Coronavirus is hitting pretty much all of the bad aspects of their business models at once. Let’s list them:

• Dependence on/preference for foreign students, often not for their accomplishments but for their ability to pay full and even premium fees. Chinese students accounted for one-third of the total. Their enrollment was already falling as of 2019. But Chinese students’ contribution to revenues is out of proportion to their numbers. From the New York Times in March: Universities in English-speaking countries, especially Britain, Australia and the United States, have grown increasingly dependent on tuition from Chinese students, a business model that the virus could dismantle, potentially leaving countries with multibillion- dollar holes in their universities’ budgets. Foreign students were dismayed by the way US schools shut down abruptly and gave little to no help in helping get them back home.
• Skyrocketing prices leading more students to question college or emphasize “practical” degrees. As with mortgages, access to debt has led to higher prices. And with student debt terms so draconian, more and more students are trading down: going to cheaper schools or focusing on programs that teach harder skills that hopefully translate into market value.
• Bloated adminispheres and gold plated facilities. MBA parasites have colonized universities, with the justification often that they increase fundraising. For what purpose? To pay themselves better, and to create naming opportunities for donors with new buildings, and to justify high charges via plush dormitories. Apparently swanky gyms are common. All those expensive buildings have become an albatross.
• Litigation over terminating on-campus instruction. This is probably the least of their worries. Plaintiffs are seeking refunds for the degradation of the educational product. The schools argue quite explicitly that they are not in the business of educating but of conferring credentials, and it is they alone that determine what is adequate for them to hand out a degree. There is precedent supporting the universities’ arguments, albeit with less bad facts than these.
• Low likelihood of resuming classes on campus this fall. My colleagues with contacts among university administrators say no one has any idea how to make dorms safe if coronavirus is still on the loose. This has many negative implications.
• Schools already looking at probable downgrades. Standard & Poors is already put a long list of higher educational institutions on its negative watch list. Bear in mind that S&P and Moody’s tend not to downgrade before Mr. Market already has the bond trading at a lower rating level.From an April 30 Ratings Action:While S&P Global Ratings’ outlook on the U.S. not-for-profit higher education sector has been negative for three consecutive years now, we believe that the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic and financial impacts exacerbate pressures already facing colleges and universities.

A Way To Make COVID-19 College Furloughs More Fair - When the state of California cut funding to the University of California system by US$619.3 million, or 19%, in the wake of the 2008-09 recession, the leaders of the UC system tried to spread the resulting economic pain to its employees in a fair way. More specifically, employees with bigger salaries took on larger cuts – 10% of their salaries at the top end – while those with smaller salaries faced smaller hits – 4% at the bottom end.  Today, in face of the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities across the nation may be confronting financial challenges even greater than those the University of California faced a decade ago. By some estimates, up to 20% of schools may go out of business by the time the pandemic runs its course. Many more are expected to be badly crippled financially.While the success of the UC’s progressive furlough strategy offers a model for how colleges and universities can shore up their finances, with a few exceptions, it’s not the route that many schools appear to be taking, based on a review of news articles reporting on the steps schools are taking. Rather, the option being pursued by wealthy private schools like Washington University in St. Louis, less affluent public schools like Western Michigan University – where I work – and religiously affiliated institutions like Marquette University involves distinguishing two types of employees – the essential and the nonessential.  Most obviously, when a school’s workforce is divided into essential and nonessential, the hardship and stress of reduced pay only hits some employees. In some cases, these pay cuts may be manageable. But in many others, they will be severe. In fact, at some schools, 30% of employees now find themselves on unpaid leave through the summer. To make up for their lost wages, nonessential employees will need to draw on their vacation time and sick day allocations. In some cases, they may still be able to file for unemployment. Further, once this leave time has been exhausted, these employees are placed on unpaid leave, losing not just their paycheck, but sometimes also their regular health care insurance benefits. School leaders are sensitive to these risks and have been soliciting contributions for newly created relief funds for employees affected by the pandemic. But voluntary efforts like these can only do so much. The University of California system again provides an example of how colleges and universities can keep their commitment. The progressive furlough plan at the University of California systemprovided exemptions to some of the lowest earners: graduate students (like me at the time) and other student workers.

Coronavirus infection in children -- it may not start with a cough - Children suffering from sickness and diarrhea, coupled with a fever or history of exposure to coronavirus, should be suspected of being infected with COVID-19, recommends a new study published in Frontiers in Pediatrics.The research also suggests that the gastrointestinal symptoms first suffered by some children hints at potential infection through the digestive tract, as the type of receptors in cells in the lungs targeted by the virus can also be found in the intestines."Most children are only mildly affected by COVID-19 and the few severe cases often have underlying health issues. It is easy to miss its diagnosis in the early stage, when a child has non-respiratory symptoms or suffers from another illness," says author of this study, Dr. Wenbin Li, who works at the Department of Pediatrics, Tongji Hospital, Wuhan, China. He continues, "Based on our experience of dealing with COVID-19, in regions where this virus is epidemic, children suffering from digestive tract symptoms, especially with fever and/or a history of exposure to this disease, should be suspected of being infected with this virus."

Kawasaki-like disease afflicting young children and teens after infection with SARS-CoV-2 - On April 27, the United Kingdom put out a medical alert over a small rise in cases of critically ill children with COVID-19. They had developed a multi-system inflammatory disease that had features similar to toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki Disease. A week later, New York City followed with an alert delivered on May 4, reporting on 15 pediatric cases, ranging in age from 2 to 15, hospitalized at various hospitals in the city. The syndrome has now been named “Pediatric Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome.” All the pediatric cases were temporally related to a COVID-19 infection that was marked by persistent fevers characterized by single organ or multi-organ dysfunction. These cases were unique in that infection with the virus preceded the symptomatic manifestation of the disease by four to six weeks when the virus was no longer detectable on nasal swabs. Given that the pandemic first really took hold in the United States in the latter half of March, it remains to be seen if the cases presenting now suggest the beginning of an insidious and dangerous impact in children infected with COVID-19.The basis of the April 27 alert was the report published in The Lancet, titled “Hyperinflammatory shock in children during the COVID-19 pandemic,” and focused on a case cluster of eight children who presented with the symptoms of inflammatory shock and Kawasaki-like disease. All the children had tested negative on PCR and bronchoscope lavage, where washings are obtained from the airways and tested for SARS-CoV-2. They also tested negative for any viral infections. Cardiac ultrasound evaluation revealed abnormal findings in the coronary vessels of the heart. One child progressed to developing an aneurysm in these vessels a week after discharge. The authors concluded their report by highlighting that Evelina London Children’s Hospital pediatric ICU had treated 20 children with similar clinical presentations. The first 10 children had tested positive for the coronavirus antibody. Some of those affected presented with some or all the features that are seen in a rare and unusual inflammatory condition called Kawasaki disease, named after the physician who first described the constellation of symptoms back in the 1960s. These include fever, rash, conjunctivitis, swollen hands, and red, cracked lips. Some cases lead to enlargement or aneurysms of the coronary arteries, vessels that provide the heart with oxygenated blood. Laboratory findings indicate the victims have an exaggerated systemic immune response, similar to cytokine storms that have caused organ damage in adults with COVID-19. On Monday, New York state health officials reported that the number of children affected by Pediatric Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome has now possibly risen to 100 as they continue their investigations. Governor Andrew Cuomo also said that there had been two additional deaths. If confirmed, that would raise the total to five children who have died from complications of this manifestation.

Rare Inflammatory Disease Linked to More Than 100 Childhood COVID-19 Cases - A new health condition seemingly related to COVID-19 related symptoms has appeared in more than 100 children living in New York and New Jersey, prompting health officials to ramp up awareness campaigns and spur new health protocols in response to the mysterious disease. At least 102 children in New York and 18 cases in New Jersey have been reportedly connected to the newly named "pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome (PMIS)," reports NBC. At least three children have died in connection with the disease as another two deaths are currently under investigation. More than a dozen states have confirmed similar cases. PMIS is a new health condition believed to be related to COVID-19, the severe respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, but experts say that the connection is "still not clear." Like other inflammatory conditions, such as toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki disease, childhood cases of PMIS are linked to issues with the heart and other organs and can sometimes require hospital support in an intensive care unit. "So far, from what we understand, this is a rare complication in the pediatric population that [doctors] believe is related to COVID-19," New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker told The New York Times. Although uncommon, PMIS can be life-threatening. Guardians are urged to call a doctor immediately if their child becomes ill and has a continued fever of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) lasting several days, along with other symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting, swollen hands and feet, or a red tongue that "looks like a strawberry." PMIS is not believed to be contagious, but its connection to COVID-19 suggests that a child may be infected with the virus or another underlying infection that may be contagious.  Kawasaki disease is an acute febrile illness that typically infects children under the age of five, according to the CDC. Clinical signs often overlap with toxic shock syndrome to include fever, rash, as well as redness of the mouth and throat. A new study published Wednesday in The Lancet "provides the strongest evidence yet that the syndrome [Kawasaki disease] is linked to the coronavirus," The New York Times reported. Doctors in Bergamo, Italy "aimed to evaluate incidence and features of patients with Kawasaki-like disease diagnosed during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic," according to the report. After studying 15 girls and 14 boys age 7 and younger, the doctors concluded: "The SARS-CoV-2 epidemic was associated with high incidence of a severe form of Kawasaki disease. A similar outbreak of Kawasaki-like disease is expected in countries involved in the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic."

Klobuchar, Rubio ask CDC to investigate reports of coronavirus causing strokes in younger patients - Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to assess the risk of strokes in younger and middle-aged coronavirus patients.“We believe it is critical that the CDC evaluate the prevalence of stroke in COVID-19 patients, including the potential link to stroke from the development of blood clots caused by the virus,” the two wrote in a letterto CDC Director Robert Redfield.“With over one million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States as of May 13, even a relatively low prevalence of stroke in this particular patient population could lead to a significant increase in the number of stroke patients in our country,” they added.The two ask whether the CDC currently has any preliminary data on a potential coronavirus-stroke correlation, and whether it is working to obtain further data.They further ask whether the CDC plans to update educational materials on strokes for health professionals and patients to include coronavirus-related information, even for patients who do not present typical risk factors for strokes, and what steps the agency can take to educate Americans about the potential risks.In April, Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at New York’s Mount Sinai Health System, told CNN he and colleagues have treated abut five partially or entirely asymptomatic coronavirus patients under 50 who suffered increased clotting in large arteries, which caused severe strokes.“Our report shows a seven-fold increase in incidence of sudden stroke in young patients during the past two weeks. Most of these patients have no past medical history and were at home with either mild symptoms (or in two cases, no symptoms) of Covid,” Oxley told CNN. Both strokes in general and large-vessel strokes in particular are typically extremely rare in patients between 30 and 40, according to Oxley, who said that over the previous 12 months he and his team treated an average of 0.73 patients under 50 per two weeks for large vessel strokes.

Profile of a killer: the complex biology powering the coronavirus pandemic - Now, as the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic surges, researchers are scrambling to uncover as much as possible about the biology of the latest coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2. A profile of the killer is already emerging. Scientists are learning that the virus has evolved an array of adaptations that make it much more lethal than the other coronaviruses humanity has met so far. Unlike close relatives, SARS-CoV-2 can readily attack human cells at multiple points, with the lungs and the throat being the main targets. Once inside the body, the virus makes use of a diverse arsenal of dangerous molecules. And genetic evidence suggests that it has been hiding out in nature possibly for decades.But there are many crucial unknowns about this virus, including how exactly it kills, whether it will evolve into something more — or less — lethal and what it can reveal about the next outbreak from the coronavirus family.“There will be more, either out there already or in the making,” says Andrew Rambaut, who studies viral evolution at the University of Edinburgh, UK.Of the viruses that attack humans, coronaviruses are big. At 125 nanometres in diameter, they are also relatively large for the viruses that use RNA to replicate, the group that accounts for most newly emerging diseases. But coronaviruses really stand out for their genomes. With 30,000 genetic bases, coronaviruses have the largest genomes of all RNA viruses. Their genomes are more than three times as big as those of HIV and hepatitis C, and more than twice influenza’s.Coronaviruses are also one of the few RNA viruses with a genomic proofreading mechanism — which keeps the virus from accumulating mutations that could weaken it. That ability might be why common antivirals such as ribavirin, which can thwart viruses such as hepatitis C, have failed to subdue SARS-CoV-2. The drugs weaken viruses by inducing mutations. But in the coronaviruses, the proofreader can weed out those changes. Mutations can have their advantages for viruses. Influenza mutates up to three times more often than coronaviruses do, a pace that enables it to evolve quickly and sidestep vaccines. But coronaviruses have a special trick that gives them a deadly dynamism: they frequently recombine, swapping chunks of their RNA with other coronaviruses. Typically, this is a meaningless trading of like parts between like viruses. But when two distant coronavirus relatives end up in the same cell, recombination can lead to formidable versions that infect new cell types and jump to other species, says Rambaut.

How the COVID-19 Coronavirus Attacks the Entire Body - Of course, the lungs and airways are the main focus of attention with the COVID-19 respiratory disease. Since the new SARS-CoV-2 pathogen mainly attacks the lower respiratory tract, infected persons who experience a moderate or severe course of the disease have a dry cough, shortness of breath and/or pneumonia. However, there are now numerous indications that the new coronavirus also attacks other organs on a massive scale and can severely affect the heart, blood vessels, nerves, brain, kidneys and skin. Several studies and papers from countries including the US, China and Italy suggest that SARS-CoV-2 also attacks the heart. The evidence is based not only on the significantly higher mortality of COVID patients with cardiovascular diseases and high blood pressure: Several studies have also shown that patients with severe courses of the disease often had elevated blood biomarkers released by destroyed and dying heart muscle cells. In many previously healthy patients, the virus infection has been shown to cause myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. During the COVID-19 disease, the lung is massively attacked, but the damage doesn't always stop there: Many recovered patients have presented partially reduced lung function as a late consequence. Chinese researchers have found a milky glass-like cloudiness in the lungs of some people who have recovered from COVID-19, which suggests permanent organ damage has occurred. Further investigations must now show whether the patients have developed pulmonary fibrosis, in which the connective tissue of the lung becomes inflamed. This makes it harder for oxygen to reach the blood vessels, stiffens the lungs and makes breathing shallow and rapid. Respiratory disorders, shortness of breath and a dry, irritable cough are the consequences; physical performance decreases and even everyday activities become difficult. Pulmonary fibrosis cannot be cured because the scarred changes in the lung tissue do not regress.  During the autopsy of deceased COVID-19 patients, pathologists at the University Hospital of Zurichdiscovered that in some of them the entire cell layer on the inside of the blood and lymph vessels (endothelium) of various organs was inflamed. In more than 80% of COVD-19 patients, a disturbance of the senses of taste and smell is observed. Such ageusia or anosmia occurs at the very beginning of the infection, and COVID-19 can be diagnosed early on the basis of these symptoms.   The earlier coronavirus infections MERS and SARS already showed a similar penetration of the viruses via the nerves into the brain. When a patient in Japan infected with the new coronavirus showed signs of epileptic seizures, he was diagnosed with meningitis caused by the new coronavirus, which had penetrated the central nervous system.

Kidney damage seen in one-third of COVID-19 patients studied in new report - More than a third of patients treated for coronavirus infections in New York's largest hospital system showed signs of serious kidney damage, according to a new study. Reuters reported that the study from a team at Northwell Health, the state's largest health care provider, found that 36.6 percent of all patients treated in the hospital system for COVID-19 showed signs of "acute kidney injury," resulting in 14.3 percent of that segment of patients requiring dialysis treatments. “We found in the first 5,449 patients admitted, 36.6 percent developed acute kidney injury,” the study's co-author, Dr. Kenar Jhaveri, told Reuters. Jhaveri cautioned that the study does not suggest that COVID-19 specifically targets the kidneys; rather, she said, the high rate of kidney injuries is a sign of the seriousness of a patient's condition. “It’s not specific to COVID-19. It’s more related to how sick you are,” she said. Kidney failure in COVID-19 patients appears to be related to the speed of the disease, the study continued: 37.3 percent of patients with coronavirus-related kidney injuries developed such injuries either before arriving at the hospital or within the first 24 hours of treatment. New York state has confirmed more than 338,000 cases of the coronavirus, the most of any state in the U.S. More than 21,000 deaths have been reported across the state related to the disease.

Is the New Coronavirus Airborne? A Study From China Finds Evidence - Reducing our risk for COVID-19 depends on how well we understand the way SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is transmitted. Experts believe SARS-CoV-2 mainly spreads from person to person through respiratory droplets released when a person with the virus coughs, sneezes, or talks.It's also possible that you can contract the virus if your hands come in contact with your mouth, nose, or eyes after touching a contaminated surface.But can SARS-CoV-2 be spread through the air we breathe?A new study has found evidence of the virus in the air around two hospitals in Wuhan, China.While it's still unclear whether you can contract the virus from breathing virus-laden air, the latest findings could make an impact on how we protect ourselves as states begin to open up.  In a report published April 27 in the journal Nature, researchers measured the concentration of genetic material known as RNA from the new coronavirus in samples collected in February and March from 30 spots in and around two COVID-19 treatment hospitals in Wuhan.One hospital was dedicated to treating patients with severe cases of the disease, while the other was a makeshift field hospital used to quarantine and treat people with mild symptoms.The investigators found higher concentrations of material from the virus in samples collected in areas prone to crowding, certain intensive care units, and places with poor airflow, like bathrooms.Areas where medical staff removed protective apparel were found to have elevated concentrations of viral material, which may indicate that SARS-CoV-2 can be resuspended in the air when staff take off their apparel.Sites that were rigorously sanitized, well-ventilated, and uncrowded were found to have low or undetectable concentrations of viral RNA in aerosol samples.

What We Don’t Know About Coronavirus Origins Might Kill Us - The best minds in virology are trying to unravel a mystery: How did a lethal coronavirus jump from the wilds of rural China to major human population centers? And what chain of genetic mutations produced a pathogen so perfectly adapted for stealth and mass transmission?  Deciphering the creation story of SARS-CoV-2, as the virus now rampaging around the globe is known, is a crucial step toward arresting a pandemic that’s killed 270,000-plus and triggered what could be the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.  To reduce the risk of deadly secondary outbreaks or the emergence of an entirely new strain, disease chasers need to retrace the pathogen’s journey around the globe. That means heading back to China, where it all started sometime in 2019. Last week, the World Health Organization sought permission from Beijing to send a new scientific mission for more epidemiological detective work. China, which let a WHO team into the country in early February as its epidemic raged, hasn’t yet signed off. However, as death tolls and joblessness rise worldwide, pressure on Beijing is intensifying to allow international researchers back in to interview survivors, do field work, and examine virus samples that the country has been stingy about sharing, according to the U.S. Nearly half a year into a historic global health crisis, there are still enormous gaps in our knowledge. Those unanswered questions are hampering our ability to contain the outbreak and to prevent future pandemics, while fueling a war of words between the U.S. and China over the origins of the virus. Roughly 70% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, or transmitted from animals to people. Genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 shows it’s related to two other deadly coronaviruses that originated in bats.Severe acute respiratory syndrome, which started in China in 2002, and Middle East respiratory syndrome a decade later spread to humans via a secondary animal source. In the case of SARS, experts pointed to civet cats—small, sleek nocturnal mammals used in wildlife dishes in China—as the probable conduit. With MERS, camels are believed to be the carrier.It’s presumed that SARS-CoV-2 has made a similar journey, yet investigators have yet to identify an intermediate animal host, according to Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO food safety and animal diseases expert. “We have some kind of a missing link in that story between the origin of the virus and when it started to circulate in humans,” he said.

How Likely Is A Second Wave Of SARS-CoV-2? -  Barkley Rosser - How Likely Is A Second Wave Of SARS-CoV-2? Dr. Anthony Fauci has testified before a Senate committee that he is worried that there may be a serious “Second Wave” of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the United States. The basis for this fear is the experience over a century ago with the Spanish flu, still deadlier than the current pandemic. It came in three full waves, and of those the second was easily substantially larger than the other two. The lag between the first and second was several months, and as of now no nation that has had its first wave essentially get under control, has not had it under control for as long as that gap. So we are not yet in a position to see if this pandemic can or will imitate that former pandcmic. Nevertheless, there is some evidence about the possibility of more immediate, less dramatic, second waves in the form of the number of new cases in a nation rising noticeably after having had a major decline from an initial peak. We have now seen this in a number of nations, in a small number quite dramatically. What is the current situation regarding this? On May 11, the site endcoronavirus.org showed graphically the time path of new cases per day for 99 nations. This group divides these nations into three groups: “Winning” (32 nations) that have basically gotten their numbers well down, with a few exceptions; “Nearly There” (31 nations) that exhibit a variety of patterns, although nearly all currently below their peak by some; and “Need to Take Action” (36 nations), most of which simply are steadily moving up, although a small group have flattened or are slightly declining from a peak (including Ecuador, Finland, and US). Out of each of these groups there are minorities that have exhibited seeing a noticeable upturn in the number of cases after noticeably declining from a peak, with some of those only showing a modest upturn, but a smaller group showing a substantial such upturn of moving back up at least halfway towards the previous peak, with a very small number actually moving back up above the previous peak. I shall note these particular set, but note that out of the 99 total, 16 have shown such a noticeable secondary increase, and out of those 7 that have exhibited a large such increase, with two of those moving back up beyond the previous peak.  As a broader perspective on all this I close by noting that a substantial portion of the world’s 10 most populous nations are not only in the final group that need to take action, which included the US that is mildly declining, they are simply rising solidly with little sign of flattening, with this group including Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Russia.  Clearly this pandemic has a serious way to go, even if we luck out and avoid any really enormous second waves on the scale of the Spanish flu’s one, which we have not yet seen out of any nations so far.

This summer’s severe temperatures could make the pandemic even more complicated  - While there is some preliminary evidence that sunlight, heat, and humidity could slow the spread of COVID-19, the summer months also promise a host of new risks, The Washington Post reports. Soaring temperatures will either compel people wanting relief to go outside, where they could get infected, or the pandemic will force people to stay indoors, where they could swelter. Both the pandemic and extreme heat pose a mortal risk to the elderly and the infirm. Experts say that climate change will likely compound the problem. Much of the country can expect unusually high temperatures this summer, relative to average temperatures between 1981 and 2010. The projections, from the National Weather Service, are consistent with the long-term warming trend. The northeast, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus, faces an especially high risk of warmer weather. No part of the country is looking forward to an unusually cool summer. It won’t be possible to determine the role of climate change until after the season has passed, experts say. The forecast of an exceptionally balmy summer comes as no surprise, given that since 1980, the contiguous US has warmed close to 1 degree C, according to data from NOAA. One reason is that warmer weather is drying out soil early in the season, making it hotter later on. When the soil is moist, some of that moisture evaporates, cooling off the ground—but when the soil is dry, the ground stays warm. Climate change is also producing more days that are both hot and humid, says Radley Horton, a climate scientist at Columbia University. As oceans warm, more seawater is evaporating, turning the air more humid, which is making hot days more miserable. “One thing that worries us about really extreme heat and humidity is that if the air becomes humid enough, it’s basically impossible for somebody to stay cool,” Horton says. When you sweat, the water on your skin evaporates, cooling you off. But when it’s muggy out, the air is already saturated, so the sweat just clings to your skin. If it’s humid enough, healthy people can die in heat waves because they cannot cool off. “From a summer standpoint, the things that I think are going to be really damaging are the combined heat and humidity events,” Mankin says. “For the same temperature, New York has a higher incidence of heat-related mortality than Arizona does. And the reason is because when heat hits New York City, it comes with humidity.” Crucially, heat waves don’t pose the same risk to all people. “They affect the most vulnerable among us, just like COVID-19,” Mankin said. “The ability to cool yourself is increasingly a sign of wealth.”

 'This virus may never go away,' WHO says -  (Reuters) - The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could become endemic like HIV, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, warning against any attempt to predict how long it would keep circulating and calling for a “massive effort” to counter it. “It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan told an online briefing. “I think it is important we are realistic and I don’t think anyone can predict when this disease will disappear,” he added. “I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This disease may settle into a long problem, or it may not be.” However, he said the world had some control over how it coped with the disease, although this would take a “massive effort” even if a vaccine was found — a prospect he described as a “massive moonshot”. More than 100 potential vaccines are being developed, including several in clinical trials, but experts have underscored the difficulties of finding vaccines that are effective against coronaviruses. Ryan noted that vaccines exist for other illnesses, such as measles, that have not been eliminated.

Nursing home residents and workers make up a third of coronavirus deaths. In some states, they account for half.  About one-third of all coronavirus deaths in the US are residents or workers in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to an interactive database compiled by The New York Times. The figure is startling, given that only 10% of coronavirus cases occur in such facilities, and less than 0.5% of Americans live in them. Long-term care facilities — which in this case includes nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, memory care facilities, retirement and senior communities, and rehabilitation facilities — in certain states have been particularly affected, with residents and workers making up more than half the states' coronavirus deaths, the report found.  The Times' data are based "official confirmations from states, counties, and the facilities themselves" since there's a lack of comprehensive data from some states and the federal government. The database includes deaths of residents and, where available, employees. "Given the wide variability in the type of information available, the totals shown here almost certainly represent an undercount of the true toll," the team wrote.   The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers nursing home residents to be a high-risk population when it comes to contracting or dying from COVID-19, the illness the novel coronavirus causes. Not only are residents vulnerable because they're older and tend to have underlying conditions, but they also often live in close quarters and are cared for by burdened staff who frequently travel between rooms.   "They're death pits," Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York who founded the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths told The New York Times on April 17. "These nursing homes are already overwhelmed. They're crowded and they're understaffed. One COVID-positive patient in a nursing home produces carnage."The first coronavirus deaths at a US nursing home occurred in suburban Seattle. By the end of March, at least 43 deaths were linked to the Life of Care Center in Kirkland, Washington, Business Insider previously reported.  At least 94 residents and staff at the Long Island State Veterans Home at Stony Brook University contracted the virus, and 32 residents died.  On April 17, the Times reported that at least 7,000 people had died from COVID-19 associated with nursing homes, making up almost 20% coronavirus deaths in the US.  The publication's latest findings — that at least 25,600 residents and workers have died from coronavirus related to long-term care facilities, making up one-third of US coronavirus deaths — suggest the earlier data was a grave underestimate, or that nursing home-related deaths are rising at a faster rate than coronavirus deaths in the general population, or likely, both.

Half Of Illinois' COVID-19 Deaths Come From Retirement Homes - More than 85 percent of DuPage County’s 236 COVID-19 deaths originated in long-term care facilities, or LTCs. In McHenry County, the percentage is nearly 80 percent. And in downstate Macon County, all 15 of its deaths are tied to LTCs. In all, half of Illinois’ COVID-19 deaths are linked to long-term care facilities, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. That percentage has been rising since IDPH began posting retirement home deaths on April 19. And as that number rises, the more a majority of Illinoisans learn that they face far less risk than originally thought. Instead, the true risk is heavily concentrated in a few vulnerable demographics. Consider the following:

• 1. A total of 1,553 of the state’s 3,241 deaths as of May 8th, or 48 percent, were tied to long-term care facilities.
• 2. The impact of nursing homes is even more pronounced in the collar counties. In addition to the high proportion of deaths in DuPage and McHenry counties, Lake County’s LTC deaths total 63 percent, Kane County’s 57 percent and Will County’s 56 percent. In all, 70 percent of deaths in the Collar counties are tied to LTCs.
• 3. In Cook County, the epicenter of Illinois’ outbreak, 864 deaths, or almost 40 percent, are from LTCs. That means over a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths in Illinois come from Cook County long-term care facilities.
• 4. In the rest of the state – outside of Cook and the collar counties – 60 percent of all deaths are retirement-home related. When you subtract all LTC deaths downstate, the entire region has just 125 deaths.
• 5. Eighteen downstate counties had 50 percent or more of their COVID-19 deaths related to LTCs. Macon, Jackson, Jasper, Peoria, Iroquois and Union County all had 100 percent of their deaths tied to retirement homes.

92% Of Cook County COVID-19 Victims Had Pre-Existing Conditions - A Wirepoints analysis of COVID-19 deaths from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office reveals that 92 percent of victims from the virus had pre-existing medical conditions.The medical examiner’s database showed COVID-19 as the primary cause of death for 2,303 people. Of those, 2,112 were shown to have at least one underlying condition as a secondary cause of death. Those conditions, also known as comorbidities, included hypertension, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. There were no secondary causes reported for 191 deaths. This finding is important because Gov. J.B. Pritzker has refused to release any statewide comorbidity data as part of his official Illinois Department of Health releases. Wirepoints asked for data directly from the governor’s office on April 21st, but we were told it was not available. We’ve since released a piece asking Gov. J.B. Pritzker why that’s so: Who’s most at risk for COVID-19 and why isn’t Illinois publishing that data?Understanding who is most at risk – and who is not – is central to a public understanding of the virus. It’s also central to helping decide when and how to open up our economy and schools. What Cook County’s and other comorbidity data across the country implies is that the risk of death for healthy Illinoisans is far lower than Gov. J.B. Pritzker might lead people to believe based on his protracted lockdown and drawn out reopening plan.Cook County reports that of the 2,303 victims where COVID-19 was listed as the primary cause of death, 92 percent had one or more comorbidities.Hypertension affected 1,070 victims, or more than 46 percent of all deaths. Diabetes impacted 973 victims, or 42 percent of the total. Pulmonary disease was part of 397 deaths, or 17 percent. And 215 of those deaths, about 9 percent, were accompanied by obesity or morbid obesity.Yet others had conditions including cancer and cardiovascular and kidney diseases. The numbers above add up to more than 100 percent because many victims had more than one pre-existing condition.

5,000 deaths in NYC with links unclear to virus, CDC report says -  A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 284,000 people worldwide. Over 4.1 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding the scope of their nations' outbreaks. Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the United States has become the worst-affected country, with more than 1.3 million diagnosed cases and at least 79,825 deaths. A new report released Monday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examines the 32,107 total deaths reported in hard-hit New York City from March 11 to May 2.Of those deaths, 24,172 were found to be in excess of the expected baseline. Out of those 24,172 deaths, 13,831 were confirmed to be related to COVID-19, and another 5,048 were likely linked to COVID-19. That left 5,293 excess deaths that were not identified as either confirmed or probable COVID-19 cases -- and the report says those fatalities "might have been directly or indirectly attributable to the pandemic." "The percentages of these excess deaths that occurred in persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 or resulted from indirect impacts of the pandemic are unknown and require further investigation," the CDC said.  

New COVID-19 cases in New York coming from people leaving home, Cuomo says - (Reuters) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday the state’s new confirmed COVID-19 cases are predominantly coming from people who left their homes to shop, exercise or socialize, rather than from essential workers. “That person got infected and went to the hospital or that person got infected and went home and infected the other people at home,” Cuomo said during his daily news conference on the coronavirus outbreak. State data showed the number of new cases statewide has fluctuated between 2,100 and 2,500 per day. On Saturday, the number of new cases decreased to 2,419, from 2,762 on Friday. Cuomo said while last week he had theorized that new cases were coming from essential workers, “that was exactly wrong. “The infection rate among essential workers is lower than the general population and those new cases are coming predominantly from people who are not working and they are at home,” he said. The state’s budget director, Robert Mujica, said officials expect to “learn a lot more” about the genesis of new cases from contact tracing over the next week. Cuomo has said that New York was hiring thousands of workers to trace the contacts of people who test positive for the coronavirus. Health experts say contact tracing is critical to isolating potentially contagious people in order to limit further outbreaks. Cuomo said the five regions of the state that were allowed on Friday to reopen for business — out of 10 total regions — were required to have a certain number of tracers proportionate to their populations. “The tracing operation is tremendously large and challenging,” he said. New York state, home to both bustling Manhattan and hilly woods and farmland that stretch hundreds of miles north to the Canadian border, has been the global epicenter of the pandemic, but rural areas have not been nearly as badly affected as New York City, the country’s biggest city at roughly 8.4 million people. Driven by the impact in New York City, the state has accounted for more than one-third of the nearly 80,000 American who have died from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, according to a Reuters tally.

Things Fall Apart -- Incidental Economist, Bill Gardner - Stay-at-Home orders are now expiring in many US states. In some places where orders remain in force, compliance is weakening. The US has not used the time in lockdown to establish effective testing and contact tracing plans. The vulnerable populations in nursing homes, factories, and prisons remain unprotected. These lapses will cause more COVID-19 deaths than would have occurred if the time had been used well. But if we aren’t using the lockdown to prepare an offensive against COVID-19, then continuing it is pointless.  So if the lockdown is ending, where are we? The US is in a threefold crisis.

1. Population health is declining. Despite being wealthier than any nation in history and despite spending 1 in every 5 dollars on health care, US life expectancy at birth was lower in 2019 than it was in 2014. And that is before the pandemic hit. To the morbidity and mortality that rose in this decade, COIVD-19 adds more than 2000 excess deaths per day, and this may persist for months.
2. Economic production and employment are collapsing. We are seeing job loss and the destruction of financial and human capital reminiscent of the Great Depression. The steepness of these declines is unprecedented, and we haven’t hit bottom yet. As poverty and despair grow, these calamities will further undermine population health. Release from lockdown will have economic benefits. But it is difficult to see how the economy can recover until the pandemic is extinguished.
3. American political institutions are failing. One of the virtues of democracy — a government of the people — is that a democracy can mobilize the population in a crisis. But despite being the world leader in biomedical science, the US has failed to mount a coherent response to the pandemic. If Clinton were president, she would have tried to implement public health measures appropriate to the crisis. That is what previous American presidents from both parties did when facing epidemics. Yet it is not clear that Clinton would have succeeded. Fighting a pandemic requires social solidarity. US citizens are highly polarized, scientists are not trusted, and conflict entrepreneurs would have exploited our fear and suffering. Many Americans would have resisted lockdown, testing, contract tracing, selective quarantine, and — when we have them — vaccinations.

American is hemorrhaging life, wealth, and social cohesion. Now we face what will be a vicious election in the context of a pandemic and depression. Things will fall apart faster. This is where I am supposed to reveal what we need to do to solve the problem. But I don’t have a solution. Even if I did, I’d present it another time. Right now, it is essential to see that the United States is broken.

Virginia reports highest daily jump in coronavirus cases - Coronavirus cases in Virginia jumped to their highest daily total on Wednesday, just two days before most of the state is scheduled to begin the first phase of reopening. State officials confirmed a record 1,067 new cases and 28 new deaths, according to news reports. The previous one-day record was 1,055 new cases on May 1. Overall, Virginia has recorded 27,813 cases of COVID-19. State officials say they're aiming to conduct 10,000 tests a day, almost double the 5,467 they've conducted since Wednesday, Norfolk station WAVY reported. The percentage of positive cases from testing since Wednesday was 19.5 percent, a higher rate than the state average of 14 percent, according to Harrisonburg station WHSV. Health officials have recommended areas reach 10 percent or lower before reopening, but state officials say the Northern Virginia numbers are skewing the statewide rate. Earlier this week, the number of new cases stayed below 1,000, with 946 cases on Tuesday, 730 on Monday and 989 on Sunday, WHSV reported. The latest figures from Virginia come as neighboring Washington, D.C., has extended a stay-at-home order to June 88. It was previously scheduled to lift on Friday. Maryland will begin reopening on Friday, except in the D.C. suburbs. Northern Virginia made up more than two-thirds of the new cases in Virginia on Wednesday, aligning with previous data showing the more densely populated part of the state is counting the most cases. The northern region, which is near D.C., has delayed its reopening by at least two weeks because of the high counts of cases.

Coronavirus Pandemic Poses Dual Threat in Virginia Coal Country - THE CORONAVIRUS HAS YET to hit many rural communities the way it's raced through major cities, but it's already compromising health in the mountains of southwest Virginia.Bordering West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, Virginia's westernmost communities are deep in coal country, where mining jobs continue to vanish and the Appalachian Mountains separate residents from the rest of the state. Today, less than half of adults are in the labor force, about 1 in 5 people in the broader area live in poverty and rates of chronic health issues like heart disease, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are high. The region has long been considered medically underserved, with a lack of hospitals, primary care, and mental health and dental services. Now, the COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating existing health issues and stretching resources thin in an area that so far has remained relatively unscathed by the virus itself – and local providers worry residents will fare poorly if outbreaks emerge."We are so isolated here in the Appalachian Mountains," says Paula Hill-Collins, a nurse practitioner and clinical director of The Health Wagon, a local mobile health practice that serves communities with limited health care options. "It's like we're forgotten, and we're very vulnerable." There are relatively few confirmed COVID-19 cases in the area, with 70 cases and four deaths in Virginia's seven westernmost counties and the city of Norton as of earlier this week. But testing for COVID-19 has been notoriously subpar in the U.S., including in many rural communities, and Dr. Susan Cantrell, who directs both the Lenowisco and Cumberland Plateau health districts in the region, says it's likely there are people whose infections are not being identified. A surge in cases could make it difficult to control the virus. In April, for example, an entire apartment building was quarantined in a town of less than 2,000 people in Wise County, after a resident in his 70s became the county's first COVID-19 case. A total of eight people who lived in the building became infected with COVID-19, and two died, according to Fred Luntsford, the town manager.

Texas sees 1,000 new coronavirus cases 5 days in a row - —Texas, which began to open its businesses at the beginning of May, has reported more than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 for five consecutive days as the state struggles to curb the coronavirus pandemic. According to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services, 1,179 new cases were reported on Tuesday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Lone Star State to 41,048. Since Gov. Greg Abbott (R) allowed some businesses to resume operations on May 1, Texas has only been below 1,000 new cases per day twice — on May 4 and May 7. On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci, one of the nation's top public health officials, appeared before the Senate Health Committee and warned that states who reopen their economies too quickly could see new outbreaks of the disease that could result in “needless suffering and death.” “The consequences could be really serious,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the committee. Fauci stressed that states follow the reopening guidelines released by the White House, specifically citing that states should see a 14-day consecutive decline in daily new COVID-19 cases before beginning to reopen. Texas has failed to reach that benchmark. Also on Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) warned cities to not enforce stricter coronavirus restrictions than those the state government has mandated during the state's first reopening phase, which Abbott has slated to run through May 18. “Unfortunately, a few Texas counties and cities seem to have confused recommendations with requirements and have grossly exceeded state law to impose their own will on private citizens and businesses. These letters seek to avoid any public confusion as we reopen the state,” Paxton said in a statement. “I trust that local officials will act quickly to correct any orders that unlawfully conflict with Texas law and Governor Abbott’s Executive Orders.”

Illinois reports record COVID-19 death toll as businesses and politicians prepare to “reopen” - As of May 13, 84,698 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Illinois. On Wednesday, 1,677 new cases were confirmed and 191 were reported to have died in the last 24 hours, the highest number of deaths in a single day so far. On Tuesday, the state reported its second-highest death toll to date. There have been 3,792 confirmed deaths in the state. “We haven’t passed our peak yet. We have seen more stability in our numbers, but so far, we are not seeing significant declines in key metrics like hospitalization,” Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker told the media on Tuesday. These deeply worrying figures were announced as state and local officials and business leaders prepare to end mitigation via shelter-in-place and distancing, sending workers back on the job in order to finance the enormous bailout of Wall Street and the super-rich led by the Trump administration with the support of congressional Democrats. On Monday, Pritzker announced all areas of the state are preparing to move into the third, more relaxed phase, of the four phases of social distancing after May 29, except for the northeast part of the state, which includes Chicago and the populous counties around it that make up the metro area. Robocalls went out to Ford workers Tuesday at Ford’s assembly and stamping plants in Chicago and nationally, announcing a back to work start date of May 18. Workers took to social media to express their frustration and anger at their health and safety being sacrificed so that Ford can try to make as much money as possible as the pandemic continues to claim lives. One worker wrote, “Look at what Ford is doing, compromising our health to build cars. It is impossible for everyone to be six feet apart and build cars!” Ford workers also asked important questions: “If the city is still shut down, why isn’t Ford?” “What about carriers of COVID-19 who don’t have fevers?” and “Why isn’t Ford opening factories based on the number of cases in that area instead of one big opening of everyone?” Among those who have died in recent days is Unique Clay, a 31-year-old letter carrier for the US Postal Service. She was a resident of Englewood and had given birth to her third child just a few days before her death.

 As COVID-19 Spreads In Meat Plants, 200 USDA Inspectors Test Positive --As coronavirus has spread rapidly among meat plants across the country, it's not just the workers that are getting infected. Many people have strongly criticized the industry's response for waiting too long to implement safety precautions and close processing plants as thousands have tested positive for coronavirus and at least 20 workers have died. But the inspectors checking these facilities and their products are not immune to the virus either. FSIS inspectors are classified as essential workers, so they have continued to travel to monitor these facilities. But as the plants become coronavirus hot spots, reports have shown the inspectors haven't been able to protect themselves adequately. A FSIS inspector interviewed in Government Executive said moving inspectors exposed to an outbreak at one plant to another location isn't safe because they could then be coronavirus carriers and further the spread.Last month, Politico reported many of the inspectors were expected to find their own protective gear since USDA wasn't able to secure face masks for all of its workers. In April, USDA said it would give a $50 reimbursement for inspectors to find their own, according to Politico. But now the department says it has enough masks.Since more than 300 inspectors have either tested positive or self quarantined, that can make it challenging to inspect every plant. Recent closures, however, could make that easier. More than 20 meatpacking plants, including facilities run by Tyson Foods, JBS USA, Smithfield Foods and Cargill​, have closed temporarily or indefinitely following pressure from local authorities and their own workforce. But as plants start to reopen, the smaller FSIS workforce could weigh on meat processors. Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring meat plants as "critical infrastructure" using the Defense Production Act to keep these facilities open and help prevent shortages. But as plants reopen, inspectors will need to travel to them and there is still risk of the virus continuing to spread. The new executive order puts USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue in charge of coordinating with companies to reopen or continue operations during the pandemic. Perdue previously said he anticipated plants would reopen in "days not weeks." Already, a major beef and pork plant for Tyson reopened with limited production last week after nearly 900 of its workers tested positive. A Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where hundreds contracted the virus, also reopened with limited staff last week.  Several labor groups have criticized the USDA, asking if it can't protect its own employees from the virus, how can it protect workers? ​"The health and safety of federal inspectors and plant workers is in the hands of an industry that the administration is now pressuring to stay open, no matter the costs," Paula Schelling, acting president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 45, which represents 6,500 federal food inspectors, said in a release.

May 13 Update: US COVID-19 Test Results: Possible Errors Cloud Data - This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. These people are doing amazing work. However, @alexismadrigal at the project has noticed a possible error. Alexis wrote yesterday:  We're aware of at least one state including [antibody tests], and this has led us to a broader investigation of which states might have lumped these tests in without telling anyone.  If antibody tests were included, then the reported test count is too high - and the reported percent too low. The US might be able to test 400,000 to 600,000 people per day sometime in May according to Dr. Fauci - and that might be enough for test and trace.  However, the US might need more than 900,000 tests per day according to Dr. Jha of Harvard's Global Health Institute.  There were 336,392 test results reported over the last 24 hours.  This data is from the COVID Tracking Project.   The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 6.4% (red line). The US probably needs enough tests to keep  the percentage positive well below 5%. (probably much lower based on testing in New Zealand). Hopefully the possible data issue will be clarified soon.

California Inmates Infecting Themselves With COVID-19 In Scheme To Get Released -- Inmates in Los Angeles County, California are infecting themselves with the Wuhan coronavirus in the hope that they will be released from prison, Sheriff Alex Villanueva revealed during a Monday press conference. Surveillance footage from the Pitchess Detention Center just north of Santa Clarita shows inmates passing a bottle of hot water around in what Villanueva described as an attempt to both become infected, and raise their body temperature before a nurse takes their temperature in order to fake the illness.  "Under normal circumstances, no one would be doing that anyway, particularly when everyone has the same access to the water. … No one shares this," said Villanueva. "Now, they’re sharing the hot water and using the same bottle." There are roughly 2,000 inmates who have been quarantined at Pitchness, according to SCVTV. "Everyone has the same symptoms," said 28-year-old inmate David Lopez, who is serving a two-year sentence for assault. "I was down for four days. I had severe body aches, troubling breathing, sweating profusely with cold sweats, and I didn’t have the energy to get up to even use the restroom," he said, adding "I have not been tested." In other footage noted by Breitbart, inmates can be seen drinking from the same styrofoam cup and sniffing from a mask to try and become infected. They are also 'deliberately crowding together and not social distancing,' according to the Sheriff. That said, "There's no such thing as social distancing here," said inmate Rudolph Castro, 46, who is currently awaiting trial to face murder charges. "We're pretty much packed in here like sardines."  Castro said the inmates use the same soap, they shower together, line up, sit and eat together, and “everything is really close.” They’ve also been given disinfectant to clean the floors with, but the inmates have said they don’t believe it is enough.

Second COVID-19 Wave Hits USS Theodore Roosevelt - A second coronavirus has reportedly hit the USS Theodore Roosevelt after five sailors who had returned retested positive for the virus. In March, as many as 1,000 of the vessel's 4,900 crew tested positive and were evacuated to shore. The Navy quickly implemented screening procedures to allow those who had recovered to return if they tested negative.The New York Times first reported the emergence of the virus outbreak on Wednesday. Commander Myers Vasquez, a Navy spokesman, told CNN in a statement Thursday that "five TR Sailors who previously tested COVID positive and met rigorous recovery criteria have retested positive. The Navy recovery criteria exceed all CDC guidelines.""The five Sailors developed influenza-like illness symptoms and executed their personal responsibility by reporting to medical for evaluation," Vasquez said. "The Sailors were immediately removed from the ship and placed back in isolation, their close contacts were mapped, and they are receiving the required medical care."The vessel is currently docked in Guam. The sailors, who have been reinfected, were removed from the ship. An additional 18 crew members were also removed due to their close proximity to the infected sailors. A US defense official told CNN that the "flare-up" in cases could be the result of a testing issue than a renewed outbreak.

Stranded by COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of cruise ship workers suffer under horrifying conditions - Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, dozens of cruise ship passengers and crew have died due to COVID-19. Last month there were 200,000 stranded cruise ship crew members worldwide. While companies have since begun to slowly enact measures to repatriate their remaining employees in accordance with governmental guidelines, the conditions facing those workers still stuck on board has grown untenable. Among crew members who remain on ships, there have been 4 confirmed deaths in the past ten days alone, two of which were from crew going overboard, another two of which the causes have not yet been clarified, but that are widely suspected to have been suicides. Governments worldwide as well as cruise companies are criminally responsible for the failure to repatriate the upwards of 100,000 ship employees still stranded at sea. The Miami Herald reported on April 30 that cruise companies refused to arrange for the repatriation of their stranded employees in accordance with the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the basis that the requirements were “too expensive.” “Governments are failing these people,” Thomas noted. “From my exchanges with crew members [currently on board], messages have shifted from positive to hopeless and defeated. I now get messages about being in dark, windowless rooms for 60 plus days, missing the birth of a child, the death of a parent or spouses being unfaithful.”

Coronavirus live updates: India records largest single-day jump in cases India reported 4,213 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours to bring its tally of confirmed infections to 67,152, according to the latest data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The number of new cases was the largest single-day increase in India, reported CNBC-TV18. The spike comes as the country enters its final week of a nationwide lockdown that's set to end on May 17. The country's death toll increased by 97 to 2,206, while the number of recoveries jumped by 1,559 to a total of 20,917, the health ministry data showed.  The number of cases worldwide crossed 4 million as governments planned to reopen economies, raising risks of a second wave of infection. New outbreaks in Germany and South Korea were reported as both countries eased restrictions. Germany's total cases jumped by 357 to 169,575, according to the latest data by Robert Koch Institute, a federal government agency responsible for disease monitoring and prevention. The country's death toll increased by 22 to 7,417, the data showed. South Korea reported 35 new cases, an apparent rebound as the country eases restrictions. The daily number of cases had dropped to single digits or zero in recent weeks.However, the country reported a new, growing outbreak linked to a number of night clubs. The government shut down all such clubs and bars in Seoul and warned of a second wave of infections. (see 8:10 a.m. update) The new cases reported Monday brought the country's total to 10,909, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were no new deaths.

Wuhan reports first new coronavirus cases since end of lockdown - Wuhan, the Chinese city where the global coronavirus pandemic began, on Monday reported its first cluster of new infections since a strict quarantine was relaxed in early April. The setback occurred just over a week before China’s rubber stamp parliament was supposed to convene in Beijing for its delayed annual session, which is usually held in March. It also coincided with a sharp uptick in new cases in South Korea, where the government’s successful efforts at containing the disease since late January had been hailed as a global model.  According to Wuhan health authorities, the five cases were discovered on Sunday in a single residential community and linked to an infection reported a day earlier — the first confirmed in the city since April 3. The state council dispatched an inspection team to Wuhan on Sunday and said in a statement that “we cannot ruin the results of what we’ve achieved”. People in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province had been barred from leaving their hometowns from late January until April 8 and March 25 respectively. The lifting of restrictions signalled a shift in the Chinese government’s focus from combating locally transmitted cases to ones “imported” from abroad, mostly by returning Chinese nationals.   Chinese authorities have banned almost all foreigner arrivals, including longtime residents of the country, since late March. Try our newsletter on Sustainable Business Free four-week trial of the Moral Money newsletter Get the newsletter But there have been concerns about the possible re-emergence of locally transmitted clusters, especially by asymptomatic carriers of the disease. The five new confirmed cases in Wuhan were previously classified as asymptomatic. Clampdowns after clusters emerged in different parts of China would probably be the “new normal”,  “There is definitely a lasting concern about resurgence.” The Wuhan cluster cases were among 17 new infections reported in China on Monday. Seven of the other cases were “imported” on a flight to Beijing that stopped in Inner Mongolia’s Hohhot for screening, Chinese state media reported. The remaining five were local transmissions discovered in north-east China. The 10 locally transmitted cases were the highest daily total reported since early March

New nightlife cluster causes spike in South Korea virus cases - South Korea announced its biggest spike in coronavirus infections in more than a month Monday, driven by a cluster at Seoul nightclubs and forcing authorities to delay this week's planned re-opening of schools. The country has been held up as a global model in how to curb the virus, but over the weekend its capital -- as well as neighbouring Gyeonggi province and the nearby city of Incheon -- ordered the closure of all clubs and bars after a burst of new cases sparked fears of a second wave. Authorities are scrambling to track down thousands of people who visited venues in the Itaewon entertainment district -- including several gay clubs. Many visitors are believed to be reluctant to come forward because of the stigma surrounding homosexuality. The spike comes as parts of Europe begin a cautious re-opening, with health experts warning that moving too quickly will result in a surge in infection numbers. South Korean officials reported 35 new cases Monday, taking its total to 10,909, after recording only single-digit increases for eight of the preceding 12 days -- many of them overseas arrivals. Now 86 cases have been linked to the nightlife cluster, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. It was first thought to have been triggered by a 29-year-old man who tested positive after spending an evening at five clubs and bars in Itaewon in early May. But the KCDC said there appeared to be multiple origins for the cluster, with director Jeong Eun-kyeong telling reporters people visited "different kinds of clubs" on "different dates". "The majority of the visitors are not reachable," said Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun. "If you hesitate a single day, our daily clock may stop for a month. Please contact the nearest clinic or health centre right now." - Privacy concerns - City authorities also urged anyone who visited the district over the past two weeks to get tested.

China, South Korea and Germany report new COVID-19 outbreaks - China, Germany and South Korea have all reported substantial new outbreaks of COVID-19 after they eased lockdowns, sparking warnings that efforts to lift lockdowns in Europe and the United States risk a major new resurgence of the disease. There are now nearly 4.2 million reported infections of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus worldwide, and just under 284,000 deaths caused by the resulting disease. The number of daily new cases has risen from a two-week low on April 27 of about 66,000 to more than 80,000 yesterday, as the pandemic continues to spread from its current epicenters in Western Europe and the United States to Africa, South America, South Asia and countries of the former Soviet Union. Two new clusters of coronavirus cases were reported in China over the weekend, as well as a single larger outbreak in Seoul, South Korea. Concurrently, the German government reported that outbreaks had begun to grow exponentially again. These clusters of new infections include 14 cases discovered in China on May 4, including one in Hubei province, the original epicenter of the pandemic. This is especially concerning given that the number of new cases in China had been in the single digits during previous weeks, a result of the country’s lockdown from January through March and strict policies of testing, quarantining and contact tracing, as well as enforcement of the use of personal protective equipment for civil servants, health care workers and citizens. South Korea’s cluster emerged after a 29-year-old patient from the city of Yongin visited five nightclubs in the Itaewon area on May 1, and then visited the neighboring Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces before testing positive for COVID-19. He came into contact with more than 1,300 people, of which at least 54 have now contracted the infection. This number is expected to rise as the South Korean government continues to trace the progress of the outbreak. In response, the country’s nightclubs and similar institutions have all been closed indefinitely. While there have been no new major clusters reported in Germany, the Robert Koch Institute, which tracks the spread of the pandemic, noted that the reproduction rate for the virus in the country rose to 1.1 in the past week, which means that the number of new cases is again increasing. In all three countries, the new coronavirus cases have come after the partial lifting of lockdown measures. Germany first allowed museums, monuments, botanical gardens, parks and zoos, as well as religious services, to resume on April 30, while Hubei and China as a whole began lifting their most stringent lockdown measures in mid-April. And while the cases in China and Germany have not yet been directly traced to the measures taken to reopen their respective economies, the new cases in South Korea have been.

Rising number of COVID-19 deaths in Germany’s retirement and care homes - As the German government is effectively ending the coronovirus lockdown measures, reports about people dying of COVID-19 in retirement and care homes are increasing. Over the weekend four people, three men and one woman, died of the coronavirus in the Protestant retirement and nursing home of the Inner Mission in Planegg, Bavaria. On Friday, the health department of the city of Mönchengladbach confirmed the death of an 82-year-old resident at the St. Antonius retirement home. German nursing homes have become death traps in the coronavirus pandemic, making clear that is not only in the United States, Italy and Spain where COVID-19 has rampaged out of control. According to figures from the Robert Koch Institute released on April 23, around 1,500 residents of retirement and nursing homes had died of a coronavirus infection. At that time, this amounted to almost a third of all COVID-19 deaths in Germany and the number of unreported cases is certainly much higher. There are no official statistics on confirmed coronavirus cases in homes for the elderly and there is no proper register of cases in outpatient care. Around 800,000 people live in retirement and nursing homes in Germany. Conditions in some of the homes are nightmarish. For example, 23 people died of COVID-19 in the Maternus retirement home in Cologne, according to a report in Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) on April 29. The WDR had received information from staff at the home. The Cologne retirement home cares for 140 people in assisted living quarters and 75 in the care sector. The home is operated by the Berlin-based company Cura GmbH. A few weeks ago, more than 50 residents of the home and about two dozen staff were infected, including the head of the facility. Employees reported anonymously on their shocking experiences at the start of the coronavirus crisis. Staff brought residents with clear symptoms of the virus to surrounding clinics, from where they were sent back to the nursing home without being tested.

Thousands Of Brits Are Dying At Home Due To The Lockdown -- A Guardian analysis has found that there have been thousands of excess deaths of people at home in the UK due to the lockdown.“The data shows 8,196 more deaths at home in England, Wales and Scotland compared with the five-year average for this time of year, including 6,546 non-Covid deaths,” reports the newspaper.“It also indicates a drop in non-Covid deaths in hospital, however, leading experts to conclude that many who would ordinarily have been admitted to a ward and died there are instead dying at home.”According to Jason Oke, a statistician with the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, one explanation for the numbers is that, “People are dying of other causes that would not have happened under normal conditions – and are collateral damage of the lockdown.”Another analysis suggests there could have already been around 10,000 excess deaths in the UK compared with previous years. Why is nobody talking about the jump in NON-Covid related deaths? ONS data confirms lockdown is killing people. Over 10,000 Non-covid excess deaths in April!@BBC @bbclaurak @BethRigby @KayBurley @adamboultonSKY @SkyNews @Channel4News @afneil @toadmeister pic.twitter.com/8QHItqq0bz   It’s a similar story in Italy, where there have already been 11,600 excess deaths due to seriously sick people avoiding hospitals.“Data from other countries has shown delayed presentation in patients with heart attacks during the pandemic, either because people don’t want to burden the health service at the current time, or because of fear of catching Covid-19,” said Prof Andrew Goddard. “It is critical that patients who are worried they may be having a heart attack or stroke should call 999.”

A new analysis of COVID-19 deaths estimates the patients might otherwise have lived much longer — regardless of underlying condition - A new study has modeled how a sample of COVID-19 patients who died might have been expected to fare without an infection, and the results were stark. On average, the group of several hundred patients in Italy who were infected by the novel coronavirus died more than a decade sooner than what would otherwise be expected, even when controlling for several common underlying conditions, according to estimates inthe study conducted by researchers at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.The researchers had been trying to learn more about COVID-19's effects on life expectancy, specifically whether those dying of the novel coronavirus might otherwise have soon died of an underlying condition.The study, which is awaiting peer review, focused on the statistical measurement called "years of potential life lost," or the time a person would be expected to live if they didn't die from a health event like COVID-19. The researchers used data from the World Health Organization and other groups and accounted for age, sex, and underlying health conditions when making their estimates.The researchers concluded that "there appears to be a considerable burden in terms of years of life lost, commensurate with diseases such as coronary heart disease or pneumonia."The study estimated that the average years of life lost for its sample when controlling for a set of common underlying conditions was 13 years for men and 11 years for women. The researchers noted that their results could not control for all underlying conditions or differences among nationalities and did not adjust for other factors like smoking. It also did not adjust for severity of underlying conditions, though the researchers said they did not expect that to significantly alter their findings.

Coronavirus: Male security guards, chefs and taxi drivers among those most likely to die with COVID-19, says ONS -- Male security guards, chefs and taxi drivers are among those most likely to die from COVID-19, according to new figures.Plant processing workers, construction workers and bus and coach drivers are also among those with the highest coronavirus death rates, according to data released by the Office for National Statistics.   Healthcare workers like doctors and nurses did not have a higher mortality rate compared with others of the same age and sex. But researchers did find people working in social care, including care workers and home carers, had "significantly" higher death rates than the working population as a whole.For male social care workers in England and Wales, the rate of COVID-19 related deaths is estimated to be 23.4 deaths per 100,000, while for female social care workers the figure is 9.6.The ONS said the highest rate of deaths was among male security guards (45.7 deaths per 100,000).It was 36.4 deaths per 100,000 among male taxi drivers and chauffeurs, 35.9 deaths per 100,000 among male chefs, and 26.4 deaths per 100,000 among male bus and coach drivers.By contrast, for all males of working age (20-64 years old), the rate is 9.9 deaths per 100,000, with 5.2 deaths per 100,000 females.The figures calculated by the ONS are based on coronavirus deaths in England and Wales registered up to 20 April.Healthcare roles dominate the list of occupations most exposed to the virus.Among them are dental nurses, paramedics, nurses and doctors. Lower ranking prison officers, opticians, vets and residential wardens also make the list for raised exposure.Figures showed three in four people in such roles are women.One in five people in these jobs are aged 55 or over. One in five are also from BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) backgrounds.Six out of 16 of these occupations have a median pay lower than £13.21, the median hourly pay across the UK. The ONS said its analysis "does not prove conclusively that the observed rates of death involving COVID-19 are necessarily caused by differences in occupational exposure".

 Boris Johnson- There May 'Never' Be A COVID-19 Vaccine - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that a coronavirus treatment or vaccine may be more than a year away - and in fact may never arrive, according to a 60-page 'Covid-19 recovery strategy' document which details how the UK plans to emerge from lockdown. "A mass vaccine or treatment may be more than a year away. Indeed, in a worst-case scenario, we may never find a vaccine," said Johnson. "So our plan must countenance a situation where we are in this, together, for the long haul, even while doing all we can to avoid that outcome." Other notable items from the document (via The Independent):

• For the first time, the UK government is recommending that the public wear face-coverings in public settings such as mass transportation and some shops.
• Schools and non-essential shops will begin reopening starting June 1.
• "Social bubbles" where two households can mingle are under consideration.
• Easing of restrictions will be contingent upon no resurgence of the virus - which would cause the government to reimpose tight lockdowns, either nationally or locally or both.

"If the data goes the wrong way, if the alert level begins to rise, we will have no hesitation in putting on the brakes and delaying or reintroducing measures locally, regionally, or nationally," said Johnson. "This document sets out a plan to rebuild the UK for a world with Covid-19," he said. "It is not a quick return to ‘normality’. Nor does it lay out an easy answer. And, inevitably, parts of this plan will adapt as we learn more about the virus. But it is a plan that should give the people of the United Kingdom hope. Hope that we can rebuild; hope that we can save lives; hope that we can safeguard livelihoods."

As Russia Now Has World's 3rd Most COVID-19 Cases, Med Students Being Thrown To Front Lines -  Coming off multiple record numbers in daily coronavirus case jumps, including another record increase of 11,656 new infections on Monday, Russia briefly reached the grim achievement of ranking as the third most infected country in the world, behind the United States and Spain. At this moment Russia and the UK are actually about even in third and fourth spots, with each approaching 225,000 cases. The new record rise in cases was announced a mere hours President Vladimir Putin was set to review lockdown measures.   The epicenter of Moscow currently has over 115,909 cases and its 'stay at home' orders have been extended until at least the end of May, with Putin on Monday further confirming the continuation of a nation-wide 'non-working' period to combat the spread. In total Russia has reported 2,009 deaths.“But the fight with the epidemic isn’t ending, its threat remains even in territories where the situation is relatively safe,” Putin said. “Starting tomorrow, May 12, the national non-working period will end for the entire country and for all sectors of the economy,” he announced. In an effort to insulate the economy from more devastating impact, Moscow city plans to reopen industrial and construction company operations Tuesday. But like most countries service and entertainment sector related businesses such as restaurants, bars and theaters will remain closed.  Meanwhile, the strain on under-prepared hospitals especially in and around the hard-hit capital has become so significant that Russian medical students have alleged they've been pushed onto the front lines of coronavirus wards while under "forced labor" conditions. As Al Jazeera describes:  Daunted by the prospect of contracting the virus in the clinics and infecting family members, or facing expulsion, aspiring medics have protested against the decision to send students in their fourth, fifth and sixth years - who can be as young as 21 - to complete their medical training in coronavirus clinics. The Ministry of Health announced on April 27 that the measure would go into effect starting May 1, and only students with "medical contraindications" can refuse. The decree reportedly calls on students in all medical fields, even dentistry and pediatrics, to respond on an emergency basis. "Those who refuse to go will not get their qualification and can face expulsion," Svetlana, a sixth-year student, told Al Jazeera.

Moscow officials: More than half of coronavirus patient deaths not included in totals - More than half of Moscow’s deaths of coronavirus patients are not being included toward the overall death toll, according to a report in The Moscow Times, citing city officials. The officials reportedly said more than 60 percent of deaths from “alternate causes” have not been recorded in the COVID-19 death toll, according to news outlet. “Over 60 percent of deaths occurred from obvious alternate causes, such as vascular accidents, stage 4 malignant diseases, leukemia, systemic diseases linked to organ failure and other incurable deadly diseases,” Moscow's Health Department said in a statement to the newspaper. Moscow has seen a lower mortality rate compared with other major world capitals, causing critics to say the reported numbers should be doubled. The city reported 1,232 deaths out of 126,004 infections as of Wednesday, according to The Moscow Times. Data released by the Moscow’s civil registry office, first published by The Moscow Times, showed 20 percent more fatalities in April than the average April mortality rate over the past decade. The newspaper noted the jump in deaths could be linked to COVID-19. The health department told the newspaper it is “incorrect to compare monthly death rates.” The department also refuted claims that it was under-reporting its coronavirus deaths. Nationwide, Russia has reported 252,245 confirmed COVID-19 cases and reported just 2,305 deaths, based on data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. By contrast, countries that have reported just slightly less confirmed cases, have reported far more deaths. For example, the U.K. has reported 230,985 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 33,264 deaths, and Spain has reported 228,691 cases and 27,104 deaths, based on the Johns Hopkins data. Globally the virus has infected more than 4.3 million COVID-19 cases and killed 287,682 deaths, based on the same database.

Putin's Longtime Spokesman Hospitalized With COVID-19 -- Dmitry Peskov, the longtime spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin and one of the most recognizable members of the Russian government - at least to reporters and others who closely follow Russian political news - has been hospitalized with advanced coronavirus symptoms, Russian newswire RIA Novosti reported.Russia has surpassed the UK to become the country with the second-largest number of "confirmed" cases, behind only the US. Though Russian President Vladimir Putin has extended a lockdown and warned that the virus is a major problem, urging Russians to stay indoors and follow government guidance, Putin has largely been working from his residence in the Moscow region and running the country via videoconferencing, with only a few in-person meetings. That means it's unlikely the president has been exposed to the virus, which has infected both his prime minister and several other close aides and officials. Exact details of Peskov's condition are unclear. According to CNN, three Russian ministers had already tested positive, including Mikhail Mishustin (Russia's PM), Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova and Minister of Housing Vladimir Yakushev.  Peskov, who is 52, has served as the Kremlin's top press secretary since 2012.

Iran destabilised by US amid COVID-19 pandemic - Iran is reeling under the impact of the world recession, the collapse in oil prices and one of the worst manifestations of the COVID-19 pandemic with one of the world’s highest mortality rates. This is being deliberately exacerbated by Washington’s provocative military deployments in the Persian Gulf and unrelenting “maximum pressure” sanctions that have been ramped up amid the global coronavirus pandemic. While official figures place the number of confirmed cases at more than 110,000 and deaths at just under 7,000, mainly in Tehran Province, the real figures are far higher. In March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the total number of cases might exceed official tallies by a factor of five, concealed due primarily to limited testing capacity. Last month, the Iranian parliament’s research arm estimated that the number of cases could be up to 10 times higher and the death toll nearly twice the official figure. The police have censored online blogs that question official figures, with the police chief announcing that his forces had identified and dealt with 1,300 websites and arrested 320 individuals for “spreading rumours” about the spread of COVID-19. Refusing to acknowledge the spread of the virus before the February elections, the government only reluctantly imposed a lockdown early in March, fearful of its economic and social consequences. Last month, in the run-up to the holy month of Ramadan, it ordered a partial return to work, including many shops, factories and workshops, but did not lift the ban on mass gatherings as the number of cases continued to rise. Mosques are to reopen for three nights this week at the highpoint of Ramadan. Congregational prayers have resumed in 180 towns and cities across the country, although not in Tehran and other major cities, amid reports of tensions between the government and the clerical establishment over the closures. Schools are set to reopen next week. On Sunday, the authorities were forced to reimpose a lockdown on southwestern oil region bordering Iraq, due to the sharp rise in new cases across Khuzestan Province.

Global coronavirus death toll surpasses 300,000 | TheHill - The number of confirmed global deaths from the novel coronavirus on Wednesday surpassed 300,000, as health experts continue to warn that reopening parts of the world too quickly could cause a second wave of infections.  More than 4.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide and roughly 300,070 people have died from it, according to a Johns Hopkins University database. Health experts say that the death toll could be higher given a lack of transparency from China and other countries.  In the U.S., more than 1.4 million individuals have contracted the virus and nearly 85,000 people have died from it. The United Kingdom, Spain and Italy have all confirmed more than 200,000 cases of the virus and more than 25,000 deaths caused by it. The death toll in the U.K. sits at about 33,600, making it the highest reported death count outside of the U.S.  Meanwhile, France has reported more than 178,000 confirmed cases of the virus and roughly 27,000 deaths.   Brazil has reported the highest number of cases of COVID-19 in South America. As of Wednesday, the country had confirmed about 196,000 cases of the virus and more than 13,500 deaths. The governmentsaid on Tuesday that 881 people had died from the disease in a 24-hour period, a new high in the country. 

Over 90,000 health care workers worldwide have been infected with COVID-19 - Last week, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) reported that more than 90,000 nurses, doctors, and other health care workers have tested positive for COVID-19 worldwide, with over 260 health care workers succumbing to the disease. The Geneva, Switzerland-based organization represents some 20 million nurses of 130 national organizations. ICN’s CEO Howard Catton insists that both figures are a serious underestimation of the true scale of infections and deaths among health care workers, given the refusal of governments around the world to keep records of the pandemic’s spread to these front-line workers. The numbers reported to the ICN are from only 30 countries’ governments, nursing associations, and the media, representing merely 15 percent of all countries in the world. One month ago, ICN estimated that 23,000 nurses were infected. Catton stated, “If the average health worker infection rate, about 6 percent we think, is applied to that, the figure globally could be more than 200,000 health worker infections today. The scandal is that governments are not systematically collecting and reporting on this information. It looks to us as though they are turning a blind eye which we think is completely unacceptable and will cost more lives. If governments do not count the number of nurses who have lost their lives, if they continue to turn a blind eye, it sends a message that those nurses’ lives didn’t count.” Catton added, “This failure to record both infection rates and deaths among health care workers is putting more nurses and their patients in danger.” The World Health Organization (WHO), struggling with many of its uncooperative 194 member governments, reports that countries are not supplying the necessary comprehensive data to track the spread of the disease among their health care personnel and their populations more broadly. The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a paper April 14 in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) regarding health care workers’ infections across the US. In states and populations that included data for occupations of those infected, HCPs accounted for fully 11 percent of the total. Women accounted for 73 percent of HCPs with coronavirus, and 38 percent of infected health care workers had at least one underlying chronic illness.

Latin America emerges as new COVID-19 epicenter - The Americas have for the first time surpassed Europe in terms of the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday. The total number of officially reported infections in the Western Hemisphere reached 1.74 million, compared to 1.73 million in Europe. While this shift has undoubted significance, the figures themselves are universally regarded as a gross underestimate of the real spread of the deadly virus, both in the United States and through ever-expanding areas of Latin America. With five percent of the world’s population, the United States accounts for more than a quarter of the confirmed cases across the globe (over 1.4 million) and nearly a third of deaths worldwide (nearly 85,000). There could be no more irrefutable indictment of American capitalism and the criminal incompetence and indifference to human life on the part of the Trump administration and the entire US ruling oligarchy. But the shift of the pandemic’s epicenter from the Old World to the New is also driven by its increasingly uncontrolled surge in Latin America, where the rate of increase in the number of infections is among the highest on the planet. Fueling the spread of the deadly virus are pre-existing social and economic morbidities that have made Latin America the most socially unequal region on the face of the Earth. A century of oppression and economic exploitation by US imperialism, along with the rule of rapacious national bourgeoisies determined to place the full burden of the region’s crisis onto the backs of the working class, have left the working masses of Latin America among the most vulnerable to the pandemic. The spread of the coronavirus has had region-wide impacts, including soaring unemployment and poverty, bloody revolts among the continent’s 1.5 million prisoners trapped in overcrowded jails that have claimed the lives of hundreds, and a growing intervention of the military into political and social life.

Brazil passes France in coronavirus cases to become 6th worst-hit country -  Brazil registered a record number of new cases of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, surpassing France's tally to become the sixth-worst hit country, as the disease sends the economy toward its worst year since at least 1900. The government confirmed 11,385 new cases in the last 24 hours, bringing its total count to 188,974 cases of the coronavirus since the outbreak began. Early on Wednesday, France revised its total number of confirmed and suspected cases down 0.3% to 177,700. The pandemic has battered Brazil's economy as residents shelter at home and many state and local governments instructed most businesses to close to slow the spread of the virus. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has locked horns with state governors for weeks over the lockdowns, saying they are causing more damage through lost jobs than the disease itself. On Wednesday, the economy ministry predicted the Brazilian economy would contract 4.7% in 2020, the biggest annual fall since records began more than a century ago. The ministry estimates every additional week of quarantine measures costs the economy 20 billion reais ($3.40 billion). "It will reach the point where hungry people take to the streets," Bolsonaro said on Wednesday. He escalated the fight this week by declaring gyms and beauty salons as "essential" services that can open for business, threatening legal action against local governments that don't comply. Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous state and with the most cases of the virus, will not comply with Bolsonaro's decree, Governor Joao Doria said on Wednesday, echoing comments made by at least 10 other governors. The five countries that have registered more infections than Brazil are the United States, Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom and Italy. Brazil recorded 749 new deaths from coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing the overall toll to 13,149.

Brazil Overtakes Spain to Be World’s Fourth-Most Infected Nation - Brazil added more cases after a record number of infections Friday, overtaking Spain as the nation with the world’s fourth-highest number of confirmed Covid-19 patients. The country added 14,919 cases, according to government data on Saturday, bringing its total to 233,142. It trails the U.S., Russia, and U.K. The numbers exceed those in Spain, which has a total of 230,698 cases and is planning to extend the state of emergency for a fifth time to combat the outbreak. Brazil’s new cases come as Vice President Hamilton Mourao and his wife are in self-isolation after a civil servant he came into contact with tested positive for Covid-19, according to a note sent by his press office. They are awaiting test results, which are expected on Monday. The country reported a daily record for cases on Friday -- hours after Jair Bolsonaro lost his second health minister in under a month as the president’s reopen-at-all-costs stance alienates the medical community and deepens a political clash with state governors. Nelson Teich, who took over the post in April after Bolsonaro fired his predecessor amid public discord over social distancing, quit Friday after just 29 days on the job. The health ministry gave no details on who will replace him. Brazil reported a record 15,305 new cases on Friday, solidifying its status as the new global hotspot for the disease. Still, it has a lower death rate than Spain and other badly-hit countries. Brazil lost 816 Covid-19 patients in the past 24 hours, raising total fatalities to 15,633 -- which is almost half of the death toll of Spain, France and Italy. Investors have taken notice of the turmoil. Brazil has the world’s worst-performing stock market and currency. The benchmark Ibovespa index’s 54% decline in U.S. dollar terms is the biggest slide among key indexes globally, and the real slumped 31%. With most Brazilians backing social distancing guidelines, Bolsonaro’s popularity is suffering, according to a MDA/CNT poll that interviewed 2,002 people May 7-10. The survey showed the president’s personal approval rating dropping 9 percentage points from the beginning of the year to 39%, and his disapproval rating hitting 55%.

Three nurses murdered in Mexico as coronavirus reaches peak transmission - Three nurses, all sisters, were found dead with signs of strangulation in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, officials said on Friday, an apparent triple murder that follows a series of assaults on health workers in the coronavirus pandemic. Officials said they were investigating a crime but that the motive was not clear. Health workers have faced increased aggression in Mexico in recent weeks over fears of contagion. Javier Guerrero, a top official for Mexico’s main public health service IMSS in Coahuila, described the deaths of the three nurses as murders. They “happened at a moment when our health workers are the most important element to face the health crisis.” Coahuila State Attorney General Gerardo Marquez said two or three criminals might have been involved but no arrests have been made. It was not immediately clear when the sisters died. “Until now there is no evidence that suggests this was because of their jobs in the health sector,” he said. “It’s very regrettable for society - and I reiterate the state’s commitment to find those who are guilty and bring them to justice.”

Coronavirus: India surpasses China as cases surge; Greece reopens beaches - The number of cases in India surged to surpass that of China, climbing to a total of 85,940 infections, according to its health ministry. In the last 24 hours, India confirmed 3,970 new cases and 103 fatalities, according to AP. India is now the 11th worst-hit country globally, with China falling back to be the 13th most affected (see 10:30 a.m. update), according to data from Johns Hopkins University. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday that the country would look to ease a nearly seven-week lockdown despite reporting its largest single-day jump in cases this week, according to Reuters. Its lockdown had repeatedly been extended, with the latest until May 17. China's National Health Commission reported eight new cases, six of which were imported infections, or attributed to travelers from overseas. That brings its total to 82,941 confirmed cases. There were no new deaths, with fatalities staying at 4,633, according to the NHC. There were 13 new asymptomatic cases, where patients do not display symptoms of the disease. In all, 561 asymptomatic cases were under medical observation.South Korea reported 19 new cases, as infections continued to climb following a growing outbreak linked to a number of night clubs. That came after weeks of single-digit or zero infections. That brought its tally to 11,037 cases, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It had two new deaths. Despite the new night club cluster in its capital city of Seoul, South Korea said this week that it had no plans to restore social distancing rules, which it eased last week, according to Reuters.Singapore has reported another 465 cases of Covid-19, taking its tally to 27,356, the health ministry said. Most of the new cases are migrant workers living in dormitories, said the ministry. Those workers, mostly men from other Asian countries, have accounted for a vast majority of cases in the Southeast Asian city-state. Indonesia's health ministry reported 529 new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, bringing the total number of confirmed Covid-19 infections up to 17,025. The Southeast Asian country also reported an additional 13 deaths due to the coronavirus, taking the nationwide death toll to 1,089. Russia reported 9,200 new confirmed cases, bringing its total to 272,043, according to Reuters. There were 119 deaths, with the total number of fatalities now at 2,537, the report said. Russia is the second worst-hit country, after the U.S., according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

• Global cases: More than 4.5 million
• Global deaths: At least 307,903
• Most cases reported: United States (More than 1.4 million), Russia (272,043), United Kingdom (238,004), Spain (230,183), Italy (223,885).

  New Report Finds Malnutrition World's Top Killer Amid Pandemic -As the coronavirus pandemic continues to expose and exacerbate enduring issues and inequities in the global food and health systems, a United Nations-backed report released Tuesday declares the double burden of malnutrition—undernourishment and obesity—the leading cause of death worldwide.The foreword of the 2020 Global Nutrition Report puts the assessment in the context of Covid-19, which has not only killed over 287,000 and infected over 4.2 million people around the world but also revealed "the vulnerability and weaknesses of our already fragile food systems" that are "stressed by increasing climate extremes."Although the report was written before the current public health crisis, "its emphasis on nutritional well-being for all, particularly the most vulnerable, has a heightened significance in the face of this new global threat," the foreword says. "The need for more equitable, resilient, and sustainable food and health systems has never been more urgent."The foreword continues:Covid-19 does not treat us equally. Undernourished people have weaker immune systems, and may be at greater risk of severe illness due to the virus. At the same time, poor metabolic health, including obesity and diabetes, is strongly linked to worse Covid-19 outcomes, including risk of hospitalization and death. People who already suffer as a consequence of inequities—including the poor, women and children, those living in fragile or conflict-affected states, minorities, refugees, and the unsheltered—are particularly affected by both the virus and the impact of containment measures. It is essential that they are protected, especially when responses are implemented.In a statement Tuesday, report co-chair and Tufts University professor Renata Micha echoed the foreword's call for learning from the pandemic and pursuing "well-functioning, well-funded, and coordinated preventive public health strategies that pay attention to food, nutrition, health, and social protection." "Good nutrition is an essential defense strategy to protect populations against epidemics, relieve the burden on our health systems, and ultimately save lives," Micha said. "The findings of the 2020 Global Nutrition Report make clear that tackling malnutrition should be at the center of our global health response."

Trump EPA Won’t Regulate Toxic Drinking Water Chemical That Harms Children’s Development -- In defiance of a court order, the Trump administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not regulate perchlorate, a toxic chemical used in rocket fuel that contaminates drinking water and harms the development of fetuses and small children. The move is in keeping with other Trump administration decisions not to impose recommended limits on toxic chemicals, such as its decision not to ban child-harming pesticide chlorpyrifos or known-carcinogen asbestos,The New York Times pointed out. "This is all of a piece," University of Maryland law professor Rena Steinzor told The New York Times. "You can draw a line between denial of science on climate change, denial of science on coronavirus, and denial of science in the drinking water context. It's all the same issue. They're saying 'We don't care what the research says.'" High concentrations of perchlorate have been found in at least 26 states, usually near military sites because of its use in rocket fuel. It has been shown to hamper the development of fetuses and young children by blocking the thyroid gland's uptake of iodine and therefore interfering with hormone production. The EPA had been ordered by the courts to finalize regulations on the chemical by the end of June. Instead, administratorAndrew Wheeler will reverse a 2011 EPA finding that the chemical posed a health risk to between five and 16 million Americans and argue that it is "not in the public interest" to regulate it, two staff members familiar with the issue told The New York Times Thursday. "EPA's cynical decision to defy a court order and the law, and to ignore the science that, as the American Academy of Pediatrics has said, dictates a strong perchlorate standard to protect vulnerable kids, is a deeply disturbing violation of the agency's mission," Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) senior strategic director for health and food Erik Olson wrote. "It must be reversed."

 Florida Beachgoers Left Behind 13,000 Pounds of Trash Last Week on This Beach - When beaches in Florida reopened last week, people flocked to them to absorb the sun, sand and water. Unfortunately, many forgot to take their trash with them when they left.While pollution and emissions have precipitously dropped worldwide, Cocoa Beach saw a huge spike in garbage as cleanup crews collected more than 13,000 pounds strewn across the sand over the weekend, asThe Hill reported.The beaches, which reopened on April 21, will remain open, but authorities will start to crack down on litter by increasing the fines and enforcement, according to Florida Today. Littering will now come with a $250 fine."As restrictions are becoming more relaxed during this pandemic, the City of Cocoa Beach is beginning to see an influx of day-trippers to our beaches, along with piles of unlawfully discarded trash in their wake," Cocoa Beach Police Department wrote in a notice, according to Florida Today. "This will not be tolerated."In a Facebook post, the Cocoa Beach Police Department stated that they will be "focusing on litter violations in the days and weeks ahead in an effort to educate the public and mitigate this repulsive and disrespectful behavior."This weekend's litter collection surpassed the previous weekend's total of roughly 12,000 pounds. Two weekends ago, cleanup crews collected 297 bags of trash, which weigh roughly 40 pounds per bag. Bryan Bobbitt, executive director of Keep Brevard Beautiful, told CNN that the true number would be higher since they did not collect many larger items like tent poles and beach chairs that were left behind.This weekend's total was 305 bags of trash, according to Bobbitt. Volunteers and observers have noticed that the discarded items are often single-use plastics."People will come from out of town and leave an umbrella, a tent or chairs because it's a onetime use," said Bobbitt to CNN. "Chip bags, plastic straw wrappers and anything can get blown into the dunes."Cocoa Beach Police Chief Scott Rosenfeld said in a statement that the local community works "very hard to be stewards of environmental sustainability," as The Hill reported."If I need to relocate critical resources during our peak season to combat litterers, we are no longer asking our visitors to comply with our litter laws, we expect it, and there will be consequences for offenders," he added.

Microplastics Are Wafting in on the Sea Breeze - Last month, researchers discovered surprisingly high concentrations of microplastics on the seafloor. And now, a paper published in PLOS ONE Tuesday finds the ocean is spitting some of them back in our faces in the form of the sea breeze."We keep putting millions of tonnes of plastic into the ocean every year," study co-leader and University of Strathclyde Ph.D. candidate Steve Allen told The Guardian. "This research shows that it is not going to stay there forever. The ocean is giving it back to us."The study is the first to show microplastics being released into the atmosphere by the ocean itself. The researchers found up to 19 microplastic pieces per cubic meter of air along the Bay of Biscay in France,Wired reported. They also demonstrated in a lab how the popping of bubbles could fling microplastics into the air.Microplastics are just the latest addition to the messy bursting of ocean bubbles, the researchers explained."That bubble actually acts as like a sponge for tiny particles like sea salt, viruses, bacteria, and—potentially—plastics, as it comes up through the water column," University of Strathclyde microplastic researcher and co-study leader Deonie Allen told Wired. "So the outside of that bubble is now sort of coated in particles."When the bubble pops, those particles shoot into the air.All this means you may have to reassess your idea of a sea breeze. The researchers estimated the ocean spray ejects 136,000 tons of microplastics every year."Sea breeze has traditionally been considered 'clean air' but this study shows surprising amounts of microplastic particles being carried by it," Steve Allen told The Guardian. "It appears that some plastic particles could be leaving the sea and entering the atmosphere along with sea salt, bacteria, viruses and algae."

You cannot avoid microplastics - Microplastics are everywhere - including in our drinking water, table salt and in the air that we breathe. Having studied the scope of microplastics in a number of countries, researchers are worried. Given the lifetime inevitable exposure to microplastics, we urgently call for a better understanding of the potential hazards of microplastics to human health, says Dr Elvis Genbo Xu, an Assistant Professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Southern Denmark. There are many studies on microplastics, especially concerning the oceans, but in this study Elvis Genbo Xu and his colleagues chose to focus on microplastics in table salt, drinking water and air. Microplastics have been found in many places, including in various foods such as honey, milk, beer and seafood, but these are foods that you can choose not to eat - unlike salt, water and air, which no one can avoid, and that's why we're focusing on these, he says. When we inhale microplastics, the tiny particles can reach the lungs and digestive system. Nobody knows what this means for the human organism and our health, but as we are talking about a lifelong exposure, it's a cause for concern, says Elvis Genbo Xu. There are no official guidelines for how much microplastic food may contain. Likewise, no studies have defined values for when certain sizes or amounts of microplastic particles can be hazardous for humans to ingest. However, animal studies show that the ingestion of microplastics can disturb, for example, the metabolism and intestinal system. High concentrations of microplastics in table salt have been found in Croatia, Indonesia, Italy, USA and China. Conversely, concentrations are low in Australia, France, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal and Africa. Microplastics do not come from the salt itself, but are added during drying, production, packaging and transport. The occurrence of microplastics is greatest in water from recycled plastic bottles. The microplastics may originate from one or more steps in the water supply chain, from the plastic bottle itself or from its screw cap. The researchers were surprised to find microplastics in water sold in glass bottles. One possible source is the plastic cap, which can release microparticles when screwed off and on the glass bottle.

Fine particulate matter may increase mortality among young patients with certain cancers - An analysis of nearly 16,000 young patients with cancer in Utah revealed that exposure to fine particulate matter was associated with increased mortality at five and 10 years after diagnosis of certain cancers.  The Study was Published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research; this paper will be featured in a forthcoming Environmental Carcinogenesis Focus section in the journal.  "It is estimated that roughly 40 percent of Americans live in communities with unhealthy levels of air pollution," said Ou. "Currently, there are no guidelines for long-term cancer survivors that advise reducing exposure to air pollution, nor are cancer patients considered a population vulnerable to mortality or illness from air pollution. Our results suggest that limiting exposure to fine particulate matter may be important for the survival of younger cancer patients with specific cancers." Studies have shown associations between increased exposure to fine particulate matter, defined as atmospheric particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, and cancer mortality among adult breast, liver, and lung cancer patients, yet the underlying biology of cancers in young patients potentially differs from cancers in adults, Ou explained. "Because the associations observed between exposure to fine particulate matter and increased cancer mortality in adults cannot be easily extrapolated to younger cancer patients, we wanted to study how continued exposure to fine particulate matter after diagnosis affected survival outcomes in this specific population," she said.

Healey, linking air pollution to COVID-19 disparities, calls for action - Poor air quality increases people’s vulnerability to the coronavirus and helps to explain why some of the most polluted areas in the state have become COVID-19 hotspots, according to a new report from Attorney General Maura Healey’s office. Cities that are home to a high percentage of people of color, including Chelsea, Everett, Lawrence and Lynn, have had disproportionately high rates of coronavirus infections, the report found, relying on an analysis from the Boston University School of Public Health. Communities of color are also exposed to more air pollution and have higher rates of hospitalizations from asthma. “These families and these communities are breathing the most polluted air and face the biggest COVID vulnerabilities," Healey said in a Zoom call for reporters. Researchers and community leaders have previously said that environmental factors might be a key reason that some cities have been hit hard by the coronavirus while others have been spared. Healey joined that chorus on Tuesday, releasing a brief linking air quality to high COVID rates in certain parts of the state, and offering policy recommendations to help combat the disparities. Policymakers, Healey’s brief said, should invest in clean energy and green jobs during the period of economic recovery that will likely follow the coronavirus crisis, fight rollbacks of federal environmental regulations, and increase air quality monitoring in order to track high levels of pollution in poor and minority neighborhoods. The memo also recommended that policymakers establish stronger criteria for permitting and siting facilities that create pollution and affect residents’ health. “Our neighbors are getting sick and dying every single day,” said Roseann Bongiovanni, the executive director of GreenRoots, an environmental justice group in Chelsea. Bongiovanni and other leaders in Chelsea have long sounded the alarm about Chelsea’s unequal environmental burden, which includes 85,000 vehicles, plus ships and planes, passing over and under the Tobin Bridge every day.Chelsea is also the epicenter of the coronavirus in Massachusetts, with rates of infection higher than those in New York City, according to Healey’s office. Cities like Chelsea, Brockton and Lawrence have a combination of factors that make the coronavirus so deadly; in addition to environmental burdens, many residents live in crowded housing, work essential jobs, and rely on public transit, where social distancing is difficult.

Human Pollution Reaches Underground Cave Ecosystems, New Study Shows -- New research published in PLoS ONE May 6 examined how water runoff from the surface impacted the communities of microbes in the Monte Conca cave system in Sicily. The answer? Quite a lot. Potentially human-introduced bacteria made up less than 4 percent of the microbial community during the dry season, but shot up to almost 90 percent during the wet season, after heavy rains."Anthropogenic microbial contaminants originating from outside of the cave environment can replace endemic cave communities," the researchers concluded.The Monte Conca cave system is one of many caves formed by a process called sulfuric acid speleogenesis, by which groundwater containing sulfur dissolves limestone. Communities of microbes within the caves contribute to this process, the researchers explained.But the study, carried out by a team of microbiologists and geoscientists at the University of South Florida (USF), indicates that bacteria from urban and agricultural areas can enter these unique communities via runoff from surface water, the university press release explained. This happens despite the fact that the Monte Conca system sits below a nature preserve.To assess the impact of surface-level bacteria on the cave's microbial communities, the researchers compared their composition between the dry and wet seasons.During the dry season, more than 90 percent of the microbes were sulfur oxidizers. These are bacteria uniquely adapted to use both oxygen from the cave and sulfur from its spring pool. But during the wet season, when large amounts of rainwater enter the cave, the composition radically changed. Escherichia and Lysinibacillus bacteria jumped from 3.7 percent of the microbial community to 89.5 percent. These are fecal and soil bacteria researchers identified as influenced by human activity, including the fecal bacteria Escherichia coli, or E. coli.Researchers also found evidence of a transition period between the wet and dry seasons in a sample taken when rains were 50 percent of typical wet season levels. During this period, the human-i ntroduced bacteria made up 67.3 percent of the microbes, while sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and nitrogen-fixing bacteria were also present.

Urban air quality improves as coronavirus empties U.S. highways: NOAA -  (Reuters) - U.S. air quality has improved since the coronavirus crisis emptied the roads of traffic, giving the country a futuristic glimpse of the clearer skies that could come with an electric vehicle fleet, according to preliminary findings by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration labs. Using satellites, airplanes and ground monitors, NOAA researchers say they have observed a 25% to 30% reduction in smog-causing nitrogen oxide emissions along with big cuts in volatile organic compounds and greenhouse gases in both the heavily populated U.S. Northeast and in Colorado’s urban cluster. The so-called COVID Air Quality Study, which focuses on those two disparate regions of the country, “offers a glimpse into a potential future of urban air quality, due to the ongoing electrification of the U.S. transportation fleet,” NOAA said. “We can learn lessons from this shutdown,” said Xinrong Ren, a researcher at the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory in Maryland, who added he expected urban areas of the United States would see similar improvements in air quality if half the U.S. car fleet was electrified and more people continued to work from home. Other parts of the world have also recorded improvements in air quality since the coronavirus outbreak, including the notoriously smog-filled Indian city of New Delhi and industrialized parts of northern China, a thin silver lining to a health crisis that has killed almost 290,000 people. NOAA researchers said they were comparing their U.S. pollution measurements to data recorded in previous years to come up with the estimated cuts. Along the I-95 corridor from Boston to Washington, for example, NOAA researchers found a decrease in nitrogen oxide emissions of 25% to 30% and a cut in carbon dioxide emissions of 15% to 20%, as traffic dropped by about half from typical levels. Transportation is the source of around 43% of the nation’s nitrogen oxide emissions, and 29% of its carbon dioxide emissions, according to according to the U.S. Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR). Preliminary findings from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, showed that concentrations of volatile organic compounds measured during the month of April in Colorado’s Front Range – home to the state’s most-populous cities - were half what they were in April 2018, said Jessica Gilman, a NOAA research chemist. Carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides also decreased by about 30% when compared with the median monthly observations from 2010 to 2019, she said.

Bluer Skies, Less Greenhouse Gas. What Happens After the Pandemic? - Earlier this month, health care experts from across the United States gathered to address hundreds of journalists and policymakers by webinar. But their focus was not testing, nor vaccines, nor "herd immunity." It was not even COVID-19, really. Instead, their focus was climate change."While many see issues like climate change and biodiversity loss as far from what's going on right now … I see this as the time to talk about it," said Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. "Climate solutions are, in fact, pandemic solutions."A few days later, economists and policy experts with the World Resources Institute held their own panel discussion. The message was similar, and the audience one of the largest in the organization's history. The experience of and response to COVID-19, proclaimed expert after expert, was intricately tied to climate.Indeed, increasing numbers of researchers and policymakers, scientists and health care practitioners, are looking at the coronavirus through an ecological lens. Whether they are focused on consumer behavioral shifts, changes in emission outputs, or policy decisions that might help or hurt long-term goals for green infrastructure, they are seeing in this moment a pivotal chance to address climate change."As we respond to the very imminent economic and health crisis, can we also tackle the climate and sustainability crisis?" asked Manish Bapna, WRI's managing director and executive vice president.There have been a number of short-term environmental shifts connected with how the world is coping with the pandemic. China's carbon emissions dropped 18% between the beginning of February and mid-March, according to data compiled by the website CarbonBrief. Pollution over India has decreased dramatically, according to satellite images from NASA's Earth Observatory. And in the U.S., a dramatic decrease in air travel, as well as a drop in vehicular travel, has also lowered emissions. But many of these changes are temporary, researchers say, and may barely register on any long-term analysis of global carbon emissions. The drop in China's carbon output, for instance, came alongside a lockdown over much of the country and a related plunge in factory operations. As the country reopens, says Fang Li, chief representative of the World Resources Institute in Beijing, emissions are expected to rebound along with the economy. After the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, Dr. Fang and others point out, global emissions grew rapidly.

Panicked Over "Murder Hornets" People Are Killing Bees - People, get a grip. Yes, the Asian giant hornet, now famously known as the “murder hornet,” is one huge scary wasp, capable of decimating an entire colony of honeybees and savagely stinging and possibly killing humans who get in their way.But since last week, when it was reported that two hornets were spotted for the first time in Washington state, the national panic has led to the needless slaughter of native wasps and bees, beneficial insects whose populations are already threatened, said Doug Yanega, senior museum scientist for the Department of Entomology at UC Riverside. (Bees, for one, are the planet’s pollinators-in-chief,pollinating approximately 75% of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Millions and millions of innocent native insects are going to die as a result of this,” Yanega said today. “Folks in China, Korea and Japan have lived side by side with these hornets for hundreds of years, and it has not caused the collapse of human society there. My colleagues in Japan, China and Korea are just rolling their eyes in disbelief at what kind of snowflakes we are.” The worries started on May 2, after the New York Times reported that a beekeeper in Custer, Wash., found an entire hive of bees destroyed in November 2019, their heads ripped from their bodies. Then two Asian giant hornets were found near Blaine, just a few miles north, near the U.S.-Canadian border.One of the hornets was found dead on a porch. The other reportedly flew away into the woods, Yanega said, and since then Washington entomologists have been on the lookout, encouraging residents to set out traps for the hornets so authorities can find and destroy any nests before they can grow.Queens are the biggest of the world’s biggest hornets. They can grow to 2 inches from their cartoonish Spider-Man-type face (with vicious mandibles) to their quarter-inch-long stinger that can puncture heavy clothing. They hibernate, Yanega said, so scientists speculate that at least two hornet queens hitched a ride to the New World on a cargo ship, the first time it’s known to have happened “in over a century of significant maritime commerce between Vancouver and Southeast Asia.”

Shark Attacks: Surfer Killed in Northern California, Another Escapes in Australia -A 26-year-old man was killed by a shark as he was surfing near a state beach in Northern California on Saturday, according to authorities, as The New York Times reported.Ben Kelly was roughly 100 yards from shore at Manresa State Beach near Santa Cruz when a shark attacked him around 1:30 p.m., the California Department of Parks and Recreation said on Sunday, according to The New York Times. While the beach was closed to encourage social distancing, the water was open for people to engage in water sports, like surfing and swimming.A witness flagged down a lifeguard patrolling the area. Since the attack, the beach and water are now closed until May 14. The water is off-limits for one mile north and south of the attack and signs have been posted to inform potential beachgoers of the presence of sharks, according to the AP.Monterey Bay drone photographer Eric Mailander told KRON he has observed dozens of great white sharks swimming near the shoreline in recent days. He said he counted 15 sharks while out on his boat Saturday morning, as the AP reported. The species of shark that attacked Mr. Kelly is still unknown, the Department of Parks and Recreation said in a statement. "White sharks are big enough and their teeth are so sharp that even a halfhearted attempt will cause significant injuries," he said.Fatal shark attacks are rare along the Northern California coast, although it is a major breeding ground for the great white shark, according to KPIX, San Francisco's CBS affiliate. There have been at least two other fatal attacks since 1984, KPIX noted, but those involved divers. In March, a shark bit the board of a paddleboarder near Capitola, narrowly missing him, according to the sheriff's office. On the other side of the world, a shark bit a French surfer in Australia, but the surfer was able to get away.Video of the incident shows Dylan Nacass and Matt Sedunary yelling and scrambling to get away from a stalking shark, as The Guardian reported.Nacass, 23, punched the shark twice when it attacked him at Bells Beach in Victoria, according to Sky News. He needed stitches for his puncture wounds. "I punched him one time, he stay in my legs. Two times after, he go," he told television news in Australia. Matt Sedunary heard screaming and thought Nacass was joking around. After realizing the seriousness of the situation, he rushed to help, as Sky News reported.

 200 Goats Run Wild Through California Neighborhood - A California neighborhood was treated to an unusual lockdown protest Tuesday evening when around 200 goats broke through a fence and ran shoulder to shoulder through the streets. The moment was captured on video and shared on social media by 23-year-old Zach Roelands, who returned to his San Jose home around 5 p.m. to find the goats on the loose, as USA Today reported. "This is the craziest thing to happen all quarantine," Roelands tweeted.While goats may not be very good at social distancing, they are very helpful at combating another potential crisis—California wildfires. Their ability to munch on flammable non-native grasses while navigating steep hillsides has made them a valuable (and adorable) part of fire-prevention efforts across the state.  That is the reason the goats were in the neighborhood to begin with, Zach's father Terry Roelands told NBC Bay Area. The hill behind the Roelands' home caught fire around 15 years ago, so goats have since come to eat the brush a few times a year. This time, one of the goats went to eat a flower on the other side of the fence and tapped an electric fence, which then broke the boards on the fence, allowing the goats to escape.

Giant Lizards Are Spreading in Georgia --In the wake of news about "murder hornets" invading the West Coast, the Southeast has its own scourge to contend with: an invasive, South American lizard that can grow up to 4 feet in length. The lizard has been spotted for the third year in a row, according to a Facebook post from the Orianne Society, a reptileconservation group, as The Associated Press reported.The Argentine black and white tegus was first spotted in Florida, but they have now migrated north to establish themselves in Georgia's Toombs and Tattnall counties, said John Jensen of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Conservation in a YouTube video.In the video, Jensen explained, "Many of the public that encounter these often report them, thinking that they look like a baby alligator well away from the water. They eat just about anything they want, plant and animal matter.""Tegus will eat the eggs of ground-nesting birds—including quail and turkeys—and other reptiles, such as American alligators and gopher tortoises, both protected species," according to the Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Conservation's website, as CNN reported. The lizards will also eat fruit, vegetables, pet food and small animals—including grasshoppers and gopher tortoises.The tegus' voracious appetite means it poses a threat to native wildlife, especially protected species like American alligators and gopher tortoises. The black and white tegus have been seen hiding in gopher tortoise burrows and eating tortoise and alligator eggs, as well as baby tortoises, according to The Associated Press."Established from escaped or released pets, these large lizards are voracious predators that have been found consuming a variety of native wildlife in the longer-established Florida populations," the Orianne Society wrote on Facebook.The society said it believes tegus are able to survive the state's winters, which means it has the potential to spread quickly. "It is critical to remove invasive species early in the invasion process to have the best chance of success," the society said, according to CBS News.

Florida wildfire covering 6,000 acres forces evacuations and closes Alligator Alley - Wildfires fuelled by strong winds and dry weather are sweeping across Florida forcing evacuations in the Naples area. NBC 2 reports that several brush fires began burning in Golden Gate Estates inCollier County on Wednesday.They eventually combined to form one large fire spanning as much as 6,000 acres on Thursday. The fire is five to ten per cent contained.Parts of Interstate 75, known as Alligator Alley, have been closed as a precaution, with visibility changing unpredictably due to smoke and shifting winds.The Naples Fire-Rescue Department said in a statement posted to Facebook: “All residents in the area of the fires should be aware of the danger and follow any orders advising evacuation.”“This is an extremely dangerous situation and the fire conditions are making it very difficult to predict the movement and protect property.”Governor Ron DeSantis is travelling to Collier County to receive an update on the fires from local emergency officials.On Wednesday night the local sheriff’s office tweeted: “Moderate winds are contributing to significant fire movement which is now anticipated throughout the late night.”More than a dozen wildfires raged across Florida this week thanks to hotter and drier than average weather in April. The Florida Panhandle was hit hard last week when wildfires led to evacuations and road closures near Pensacola.

Trump Admin Denies Endangered Species Protections to Pacific Fishers Across Most of Their Range -- The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced Thursday it would deny Endangered Species Act protections to the weasel-like Pacific fisher throughout most of its West Coast range, only protecting a subset of its population in the California Sierras. "The Trump administration's denial of protection for fishers is an unwarranted gift to the timber industry that ignores key science on these at-risk animals," Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) endangered speciesdirector Noah Greenwald said in a press release. "These awesome forest weasels face huge threats, including the logging of their old-growth forest homes, rodenticide poisoning and a warming world. They absolutely should have been granted much broader safeguards."Tens of thousands of Pacific fishers once lived in the woods from Southern California to British Columbia, but, beginning in 1900, their numbers started to decline as trappers sought them for their pelts and loggers destroyed their habitat, Reuters explained. In recent years, they have also been threatened by rodenticides used to protect illegal marijuana farms and the climate crisis. There are now only two populations: 100 to 500 in the southern Sierra Nevadas and around 3,000 in Northern California and Southern Oregon. Studies have shown that they are genetically distinct, the Sierra Sun Times reported. It is the first and smaller of these populations that FWS announced Thursday it would protect as endangered.

  With attention on virus, Amazon deforestation surges (AFP) - It has not gotten much attention with the world focused on coronavirus, but deforestation has surged in the Amazon rainforest this year, raising fears of a repeat of last year's record-breaking devastation -- or worse. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon hit a new high in the first four months of the year, according to data released Friday by Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE), which uses satellite images to track the destruction. A total of 1,202 square kilometers of forest (464 square miles) -- an area more than 20 times the size of Manhattan -- was wiped out in the Brazilian Amazon from January to April, it found. That was a 55 percent increase from the same period last year, and the highest figure for the first four months of the year since monthly records began in August 2015. The numbers raise new questions about how well Brazil is protecting its share of the world's biggest rainforest under President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right climate change skeptic who advocates opening protected lands to mining and farming. "Unfortunately, it looks like what we can expect for this year are more record-breaking fires and deforestation," Greenpeace campaigner Romulo Batista said in a statement.Last year, in Bolsonaro's first year in office, deforestation soared 85 percent in the Brazilian Amazon, to 10,123 square kilometers of forest. That loss -- nearly the size of Lebanon -- fueled worldwide alarm over the future of the rainforest, seen as vital to curbing climate change. The destruction was driven by record wildfires that raged across the Amazon from May to October, in addition to illegal logging, mining and farming on protected lands. The trend so far in 2020 is all the more worrying given that the usual high season for deforestation only starts in late May.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Increases for 13th Consecutive Month - Despite the global economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon appears to be continuing largely unabated with forest clearing over the past 12 months reaching the highest level since monthly data started being released publicly in 2007, according to official data released Friday by the country's national space research institute INPE. Forest loss in Earth's largest rainforest has now risen 13 consecutive months relative to year-earlier figures. INPE's deforestation monitoring system, DETER, detected 406 square kilometers of forest loss in the "legal Amazon" during the month of April. That brings the extent of deforestation measured by the system to 9,320 square kilometers for the year ended April 30, 2020, 40% higher than where it stood a year ago and more than twice as high as it was in April 2018.  5,606 square kilometers of forest have been lost since the "deforestation year" began August 1, 2019, the highest on record for this time of year. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest, has been trending upward since bottoming at 4,571 square kilometers in 2012. Prior to that, deforestation had been declining in the region thanks to better forest monitoring and environmental law enforcement, public and private sector efforts to curb forest clearing, the creation of new protected areas and indigenous territories. The rise in deforestation has been particularly sharp since Jair Bolsonaro assumed the presidency in January 2019. Bolsonaro has rolled back environmental regulations, granted amnesty from fines for illegal deforestation, cut budgets for environmental law enforcement, diminished the role of scientists in the government, blamed environmental NGOs for deforestation and claimed without evidence that Leonardo DiCaprio funded last year's fires in the Amazon, and opened protected areas and prospective indigenous territories for extractive industries and agribusiness. He's openly called for more deforestation in the Amazon, while his administration has sacked officials charged with protecting forests and indigenous peoples against illegal land invasions.

Missouri River Drought Was Its Worst in 1,200 Years, Study Finds --For the first decade of the 2000s, the Missouri River, the nation's longest river, was drier than it's been in more than 1,200 years. The culprit is the climate crisis, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS.Since global temperatures continue to warm, the severe droughts like the one the Upper Missouri River basin experienced are likely to happen again, as The Washington Post reported. Rising temperatures that reduced the amount of snowpack melt in the Rocky Mountains in Montana and North Dakota caused the drop in the water level that persisted from 2000 to 2010, according to the study."In the Upper Missouri River basin, what we're really worried about is a future of snow droughts," said Erika Wise, an associate professor in the geography department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and study co-author, to The Washington Post. "Snowpack in the Rocky Mountains is very sensitive to warming temperatures. Snow provides the water for stream flow to the Upper Missouri, and we've designed our agriculture and infrastructure around expectations that this water will be provided at a certain pace over a certain part of the year."The Missouri River runs through North and South Dakota and past Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, where it supports farming in several states and provides fresh water for dozens of municipalities. "In terms of the most severe flow deficits, the driest years of the Turn-Of-The-Century-Drought in the [Upper Missouri River Basin] appear unmatched over the last 1,200 years," the study said, as The Washington Post reported. "Only a single event in the late 13th century rivaled the greatest deficits of this most recent event."

Water loss in northern peatlands threatens to intensify fires, global warming – A group of 59 international scientists, led by researchers at Canada’s McMaster University, has uncovered new information about the distinct effects of climate change on boreal forests and peatlands, which threaten to worsen wildfires and accelerate global warming. Manuel Helbig and Mike Waddington from McMaster’s School of Geography and Earth Sciences gathered observational data from collaborators in countries across the boreal biome. Their study of how ecosystems lose water to the atmosphere appears today in the journal Nature Climate Change. The unprecedented detail of their work has highlighted dramatic differences in the ways forests and peatlands regulate water loss to the atmosphere in a warming climate, and how those differences could in turn accelerate the pace of warming. As the climate warms, air gets drier and can take up more water. In response to the drying of the air, forest ecosystems – which make up most of the world’s natural boreal regions – retain more water. Their trees, shrubs and grasses are vascular plants that typically take up carbon dioxide and release water and oxygen through microscopic pores in their leaves. In warmer, dryer weather, though, those pores close, slowing the exchange to conserve water.Together with lakes, the spongy bogs and fens called peatlands make up the remainder of the boreal landscape. Peatlands store vast amounts of water and carbon in layers of living and dead moss. They serve as natural firebreaks between sections of forest, as long as they remain wet. Peatland mosses are not vascular plants, so as warming continues, they are more prone to drying out. Unlike forests, they have no active mechanism to protect themselves from losing water to the atmosphere. Dehydration exposes their dense carbon stores to accelerated decomposition, and turns them from firebreaks into fire propagators, as shown in previous research from Waddington’s ecohydrology lab.

The First Tropical Depression of the Atlantic Hurricane Season Forms Off Southeast Coast; Tropical Storm Watch Issued - The first tropical depression of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season has formed near the northern Bahamas and is expected to become Tropical Storm Arthur this weekend. This system will bring some rain, breezy conditions, high surf and rip currents to parts of the Southeast coast into next week. Tropical storm watches have been issued for portions of the North Carolina coast. Tropical Depression One is located east of the Florida's East Coast and has been producing showers and thunderstorms, along with gusty winds over parts of South and Central Florida and the northwestern Bahamas. Friday morning, Miami and Ft. Lauderdale took the brunt of the heaviest rain. Rain fell at the rate of almost 2 inches per hour, triggering a flash flood warning for Miami-Dade County, where street flooding was reported to be widespread, according to the National Weather Service. Scattered showers have been moving from north to south through the Florida peninsula on Saturday. Tropical Depression One is expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Arthur by Sunday, and move north-northeastward along the Southeast Coast. Wind shear, a shredding of clouds by varying winds in different layers of the atmosphere, has continued to decrease and become more favorable for slow development of this disturbance since Thursday. These winds are expected become far more favorable this weekend. Tropical Depression One is likely to strengthen modestly this weekend as it moves northeastward. This system will gradually have less impacts over Florida even as it develops and strengthens because thunderstorms are expected to be somewhat lopsided on the eastern side of the system, but some showers and thunderstorms are possible in eastern Florida this evening. The heaviest rain from the system is expected to fall over the Bahamas through Saturday.

 New High Seas Treaty Could Be a Gamechanger for the Ocean - In 2018, after more than a decade of groundwork at the United Nations, negotiations officially began for a new treaty focused on conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the waters beyond national jurisdiction. The proposed treaty is being developed under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was signed in 1982 and defined nations' rights and responsibilities for use of the world's oceans. The Convention itself is a landmark agreement that established many key environmental protections and policies, but over the years it's become obvious that some gaps in its governance policy have left the ocean's ecosystems open to ongoing and emerging threats. The new treaty is intended to help fill those gaps, although, as with any international agreement, that presents challenges. Representatives of world governments gathered in 2018 and 2019 for three rounds of negotiations, but many parts of the key issues remained unresolved. Among them are plans to establish a framework for evaluating and implementing area-based management tools, which include marine protected areas, since no such systems exist now for the high seas. Other items requiring agreement include establishing uniform requirements for conducting environmental impact assessments; how benefits from marine genetic resources may be shared among nations; and capacity building for management and conservation. Many experts hoped the fourth negotiation session, originally scheduled to begin March 23 at the U.N. headquarters in New York, would lead to the finalization of the treaty's text, but the meetings were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  "This is the first time that there's been a treaty process devoted to marine biodiversity in the high seas and the first ocean treaty really to be negotiated in over 30 years," said Peggy Kalas, director of the High Seas Alliance, a coalition of more than 40 environmental nonprofits and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. "It's a big deal, and it's been a long time coming." But this historic opportunity is also one that could be squandered if the treaty fails to enact protections strong enough to actually safeguard ocean life.

Analysis: India’s CO2 Emissions Fall for First Time in Four Decades Amid Coronavirus - An economic slowdown, renewable energy growth and the impact of Covid-19 have led to the first year-on-year reduction in India's CO2 emissions in four decades. Emissions fell by around 1% in the fiscal year ending March 2020, as coal consumption fell and oil consumption flatlined.The decline in emissions reflects the headwinds already affecting the Indian economy since early 2019, and increasing renewable energy generation. But our analysis of official Indian data across the nation's entire 2019-20 fiscal year shows the fall has steepened in March, due to measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The country's CO2 emissions fell by an estimated 15% during the month of March and are likely to have fallen 30% in April.As with the global CO2 impact of the pandemic, the longer-term outlook for India's emissions will be shaped, to a significant degree, by the government response to the crisis. This response is now starting to emerge – as set out below – and will have major long-term implications for India's CO2 emissions and air quality trajectory. As lower power demand growth and competition from renewables weakened the demand for thermal power generation throughout the past 12 months, the drop-off in March was enough to push generation growth below zero in the fiscal year ended March, the first time this has happened in three decades.Over the preceding decade, thermal power generation grew by an average of 7.5% per year. As seen in the figure below, the dramatic drop-off in total power demand was entirely borne by coal-based generators, amplifying the impact on emissions. Coal-fired power generation fell 15% in March and 31% in the first three weeks of April, based on daily datafrom the national grid. In contrast, renewable energy (RE) generation increased by 6.4% in March and saw a slight decrease of 1.4% in the first three weeks of April.

Could New York’s Youth Finally Convince the State to Divest Its Pension of Fossil Fuels? - Despite never having heard of a pension plan before this year, 18-year-old Natalie Penna finds herself discussing New York state's retirement fund, and its role in financing the fossil fuel industry, quite a lot lately. "We're investing in these things that will temporarily benefit the people who are making money off it in their pensions, but what's left for us afterwards?" she said. "What's the world going to look like for us?"  The Albany High School senior is one of hundreds of youth from across New York now urging state legislators and other officials to divest the nation's third largest pension system of its fossil fuel holdings, arguing that failing to do so ignores the reality of climate change and goes against the state's mandated emissions reduction targets. Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law that says the state must transition its power sector to net-zero emissions by 2040 and reduce the state's overall greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. In April, a day before Earth Day's massive virtual gathering, Penna and about 150 other youth met with nearly 40 New York lawmakers or their staff online, asking them to support a bill that would force the New York Common Retirement Fund to divest from fossil fuel companies within five years. As of last year, the fund had nearly $211 billion in assets under management and currently has about $5 billion in fossil fuel holdings, according to the New York State Comptroller's office.The bill, known as the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, has been introduced in the New York Senate four years in a row but has never made it out of committee. But as youth climate strikers who are sheltering in place seek ways to spread their message without marching in the streets, the once stalled legislation has quickly gained support this year.Teenage activists with New York Youth Climate Leaders, an advocacy group, virtually meet with New York Sen. Liz Krueger to talk about divesting the state's pension of fossil fuel holdings. The group lobbied nearly 40 state lawmakers last month on the day before Earth Day.Though still in committee, the bill has already received majority support in the state Senate with 33 sponsors. It's counterpart in the state Assembly currently has 58 sponsors and needs 76 votes for passage. If passed by both chambers, New York would be the first state in the nation to commit to divesting its pension entirely of companies that make their money from producing, selling or burning fossil fuels."It's absolutely in a stronger place than it's ever been before," said Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat and the bill's original sponsor. "And I absolutely believe it is young advocates who are making the difference."

America is trailing in the clean energy race - The United States is falling behind other countries in the race to transition to a clean energy future, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum.For the second-straight year, the United States lost ground in rankings that measure countries on key issues, including energy security, environmental sustainability and preparedness for the energy transition.Ranked 32nd out of 115 countries, the United States scores below European countries including Sweden, France and the United Kingdom as well as Canada, Colombia and Costa Rica. In 2018, the United States was ranked 25th in the Energy Transition Index. The main reason for America sliding in the rankings is poor marks for Washington's political commitment and regulatory stance towards clean energy and fossil fuels.President Donald Trump has attempted to revive the embattled coal industry by slashingenvironmental rules and installing a former coal lobbyist to lead the EPA. At the same time, Trump has gutted fuel economy standards and falsely claimed that windmills cause cancer."The United States has remained flat, while other countries have evolved," said David Victor, a professor at the University of California San Diego who sits on the panel of advisors that ranks nations on the energy transition.Experts warned that the coronavirus pandemic adds great uncertainty to future efforts to transition the world to cleaner energy.The health crisis has scrambled intricate global supply chains, making it harder for solar companies to source panels they normally buy from China. And plunging revenue in cities and states and at major companies could make it harder to fund the transition towards renewable energy.

Clean energy has shed nearly 600,000 U.S. jobs due to pandemic: report - (Reuters) - The U.S. clean energy sector has lost 17% of its work force, or nearly 600,000 jobs, as stay-at-home orders halt production of components from solar panels to electric cars and slow installations at homes and businesses, according to a report released on Wednesday. The sector lost 447,200 jobs, about triple the 147,100 lost in March when states first began implementing lockdown orders to combat the spread of the new coronavirus, according to the analysis of U.S. unemployment data conducted by BW Research Partnership. While they represent a tiny fraction of the nation’s total job losses during the period, the clean energy industry’s fall in employment has exceeded estimates. After a similar study last month, BW Research had projected 500,000 job losses sector-wide by the end of June. It now expects 850,000 job losses, about a quarter of all clean energy jobs, in that time. “The data does not suggest that we have yet to hit the bottom,” BW Research Partnership Principal Phil Jordan said in a statement. Total U.S. unemployment claims have reached 33.5 million since mid-March, according to the Department of Labor. The clean energy industry’s job losses are a devastating blow to an industry that had been growing rapidly. The 594,347 jobs lost is more than double the number the sector has created since 2017, the report said. Energy efficiency accounted for 70% of the losses, as contractors who install efficient lighting or heating and cooling systems were unable to access homes and offices. Renewable energy has shed more than 95,000 jobs and the clean vehicle industry has lost 46,500 jobs, according to the report. California was the state hardest hit, with more than 100,000 jobs lost in total. Florida, Georgia, Texas and Michigan each lost more than 22,000 clean energy jobs in April alone, the report said.

Trump Admin Approves the Nation’s Largest Solar Project Despite Wildlife Concerns - A solar and battery storage project large enough to power the residential population of Las Vegas received final approval from the Department of the Interior on Monday, despite concerns from some conservationists about the project's impact on the threatened Mojave desert tortoise.The $1 billion project is expected to produce 690 MW of electricity coupled with a 380 megawatt AC battery storage system, enough to power about 260,000 homes and businesses. Located on federal land near Las Vegas, the 7,000-acre project was opposed by local and regional environmental groups, who say construction activity could harm wildlife and biological soil crusts which sequester large amounts of carbon. "The solar industry is resilient and a project like this one will bring jobs and private investment to the state when we need it most," Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, told the AP.

U.S. approves massive solar power project on public land - (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Monday approved what it said would one day be the largest solar project in U.S. history, to be located on federal land in the Nevada desert. The Gemini Solar project is expected to generate enough electricity to power 260,000 homes in the Las Vegas area and will include a battery system to store energy for use after the sun goes down, the U.S. Department of Interior said in a statement. Nevada utility NV Energy, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc, will be the customer for the project’s power. California-based Arevia Power is the developer. Officials said the project would be key to stimulating economic activity amid the crippling coronavirus pandemic. The $1 billion project will generate $713 million of economic activity during construction, which is expected to begin this year and last until 2022 or 2023. It will employ an average of 500-700 construction workers at any given time, the department said. Once built, the project will employ 19 full-time workers. Approval of the massive project, which will be sited on about 7,100 acres (2,873 hectares) of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land, was delayed here earlier this year over concerns about its impact on a historic region traversed by settlers of the American West. BLM reached an agreement with the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, Nevada BLM Director John Rabe said on the call, but is awaiting the signature of Indian tribes before it will issue a Notice to Proceed with construction. Conservation groups have also raised concerns about the project’s impact on the federally threatened desert tortoise. About 70 tortoises will be relocated to a conservation center during construction, officials said, and will be returned to the site once the project is built. 

GUEST COMMENTARY: Bill to stop Grain Belt Express is bad for Missouri's economy | Guest Commentaries  - As Missouri residents worry about the health crisis wreaking havoc on our state, the legislature is ignoring those concerns to work on the pet projects of the politically powerful and the wealthy. As the public is told to avoid the Missouri Capitol and the audio on livestreamed committee hearings has continual “technical issues,” it is challenging for the public to understand which bills are being pushed in their name and for whose benefit. One proposal being scuttled through this dark process is a bill to prevent the Grain Belt Express transmission line from exercising eminent domain. Well, the bill doesn’t exactly do that: It describes banning a specific transmission project that could only be the Grain Belt Express line and says only this transmission line cannot use eminent domain. Let’s put aside that targeting one particular person or company is itself unconstitutional to get into the the details of the Grain Belt Express project. This is a transmission line designed to bring wind-generated power from the Great Plains to heavily populated areas east of Missouri. Along the way, Grain Belt will deliver power to dozens of Show-Me State municipalities — such as Columbia — at a savings to rate payers of $12.8 million per year. Direct investment into Missouri’s energy infrastructure will amount to $500 million. Plus, over 1,000 Missouri residents will be hired to build the Grain Belt Express across northern Missouri. This does not include the tens of millions of dollars that will be paid out to landowners along the line for access to their property.

Even In A Pandemic, Texas Is Expected To Break Electricity Use Records This Summer - The group that operates the Texas electric grid expects the state to break records for peak electricity use this summer, despite the fact that people are using less electricity because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In its Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas forecasts yet another hotter-than-average summer. That combined with continued population growth means the state's electric demand will increase, even while it is dampened by the pandemic. Pete Warnken, ERCOT’s manager of resource adequacy, says there should be enough electricity available to meet everyone’s needs, though “an extreme heat wave or low wind generation or an unusual amount of generation outages could still mean that emergency alerts need to be declared.” Those alerts include calls to conserve electricity if the state gets close to its reserve margin, which is the amount of extra energy on hand beyond what operators believe to be peak demand. This summer’s assessment is a big shift from last year’s. In 2019 ERCOT was confronting its smallest ever electricity reserve margin. Some wondered if rolling blackouts would be in the cards, but the grid made it through without ERCOT needing to cut anyone’s power. About half of summer peak electricity use comes from air conditioning. That means heat is a big factor in predicting demand. In line with global warming, Texas has seen hotter and hotter summers both in terms of average temperatures and the number of triple digit days the state experiences.

Commentary: Energy storage is a game-changer for Texas - Wind and solar are powerful forces in their own right, mainly given their ever lower costs and their rare ability to provide some long-term stability in a turbulent world. The U.S., including Texas, has deployed large numbers of wind turbines and solar panels and deployment will  continue to grow. But once another emerging technology — cheap energy storage — shows up, they might very well explode onto the landscape. That is on the verge of happening.You can’t make the sun shine at will or the wind blow when it doesn’t want to. Thus, in that regard, these technologies have earned some fair skepticism. The past and current strategy has generally been to use other dispatchable power plants and flexible demand to help respond to variability in wind and solar output when balancing supply and demand on the grid. This strategy has largely worked because there have been plenty of dispatchable power plants available and the Texas electricity market — the best, most competitive and efficient in the world — makes sure they are compensated fairly for their services. Today, we are much better at predicting changes in wind and solar output and thus are in a much better position to manage them. Wind and solar deliver energy at some of the lowest costs of any source and new technologies keep making them cheaper and easier.   Cheap energy storage is often seen as the “holy grail” technology that forms, along with solar and wind, an “energy trinity” that ushers us into the promised land of clean, cheap, and abundant resources.  But until now, there have been cheaper ways of generating electricity, namely by managing rivers and lakes for hydropower, harnessing the atom with nuclear fission and burning coal, oil and natural gas. But as wind and solar have become — and with energy storage becoming — commodities rather than luxuries, their overall costs have declined significantly. And, because their fuel is free and renewable, the electricity they produce has a stable price, which cannot always be said for other sources. Just like solar, energy storage is scalable and can be installed in massive quantities alongside utility-scale wind and solar farms, such as the 460 MW Permian Energy Center announced recently by Ørsted, or on a small a scale for individual homes. This bodes well for energy storage, as the more flexible a technology is, the more valuable it will be and the more markets it can serve.

What part of 'zero' doesn’t Dominion understand?  - The more things change, the more they stay the same. Dominion Energy Virginia filed its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan on May 1. Instead of charting the electric utility’s pathway to zero carbon emissions, it announced its intent to hang on to all its gas plants, and even add to the number. In doing so, it revealed a company so thoroughly wedded to fracked gas that it would rather flout Virginia law and risk its own future than do the hard work of transforming itself. The Virginia Clean Economy Act may be new, but Dominion can hardly claim to be surprised by the commonwealth’s move away from fossil fuels. Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order last September set a statewide target of zero carbon emissions from the electric sector by 2050.“Challenge accepted,” said a Dominion spokesman at the time, and in February of this year the company claimed it was embracing a 2050 net-zero-carbon goal company-wide. A month later, passage of the Clean Economy Act moved the deadline up to 2045 for Dominion, keeping it at 2050 for utilities that lack Dominion’s head start of 30 percent nuclear power. Dominion’s IRP, however, does not accept the challenge to get off fossil fuels. It rejects the challenge, directing a giant middle finger at the governor and the General Assembly. Dominion’s “preferred” plan keeps the utility’s existing fracked gas generating plants — currently 40 percent of its electric generation — operating through 2045. The IRP acknowledges this violates the law, so it argues against the law. The IRP posits that if Dominion stops burning gas in Virginia, it will instead simply buy electricity from out of state, some of which will be generated by gas, and this will cost more money without reducing carbon emissions at the regional level. Better, then, to keep burning gas in Virginia. It gets worse. The IRP actually proposes increasing the number of gas combustion turbines in Dominion’s fleet. The VCEA imposes a two-year moratorium on new fossil fuel plants, so Dominion’s timetable has these gas peaker plants coming online in 2023 and 2024. The justification is vague; the IRP cites “probable” reliability problems related to adding a lot of solar, but it offers no analysis to back this up, much less any discussion of non-gas alternatives.  Dominion’s flat-out refusal to abandon gas by 2045 poisons the rest of the document. The IRP is supposed to show a utility’s plans over a 15-year period, in this case up to 2035. And for those years, the IRP includes the elements of the VCEA that make money for Dominion: the build-out of solar, offshore wind and energy storage projects. It also includes money-saving retirements of outmoded coal, oil and biomass plants, as the VCEA requires. Heck, it even includes plans to close a coal plant the VCEA would allow to stay open in spite of its poor economic outlook.

Walmart blasts Virginia regulator's report on pricing, biomass in Dominion's proposed 100% renewable energy tariff - Utility Dive - Walmart, one of Dominion Energy's largest customers in Virginia, warned regulators that their consideration of the utility's plan to offer a 100% renewable energy option to C&I and residential customers includes unreasonable pricing, according to a Monday filing. An April report from Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) hearing examiner Mary Beth Adams recommended approving Dominion's proposed tariff. The utility largely approves of Adams's recommendations and wants to see the tariff approved quickly, to prevent customers from leaving its service.  Walmart, alongside renewable energy advocates, said the premium would be paid for an inferior product, as it would include "energy that most customers do not consider to be renewable," such as co-fired coal and biomass units. The company has long-opposed the tariff but noted a litany of oversights in the net-positive report from Adams. Ten fundamental issues that will impact the energy and utilities sector and how our industry players can prepare to address them in the months to come.Dominion is eager for regulators to approve its proposed 100% renewable energy tariff, after submitting the plan in May of 2019 as some of its largest customers tried to leave its service.High costs and the lack of existing 100% renewable energy options in Virginia have driven large customers to seek exit from Dominion's service.The utility urged the SCC to issue an order approving the tariff, which would prevent other companies like Direct Energy and Calpine from signing up new customers for their 100% renewable service. Virginia is a regulated state, and customers that wanted to receive all renewable energy were allowed to exit Dominion's service if they could not get that from the utility itself.While Calpine and Direct Energy have made progress on gaining new customers in Virginia, regulators denied the exit applications of Walmart and Costco last summer, due to concerns over impacts to other ratepayers. Walmart wrote in its Monday response Adams' report failed to take into account the rates of other competitive service providers offering 100% renewable energy, although Direct Energy offered live testimony in the proceeding on competitive pricing. "[R]ather than needing to offer a product that charges a premiumabove standard service — as Dominion proposes here — customers should be able to pay less than standard service to receive 100% renewable power," Walmart wrote in its response. Walmart and other stakeholders also commented that the tariff cannot be for a 100% renewable offering if it includes coal-burning units.

Duke CEO decries 'assault' on natural gas as shareholders, others target company's resource plans -- Duke Energy faced tough questions from shareholders about its long-term resource plan last week, ahead of its Q1 earnings call on Tuesday. Shareholders pressed the utility on its clean energy progress, including its plans to invest in natural gas well into the 2030s. "I am disappointed to learn that the tool of natural gas is under such assault," Duke Board Chair, President and CEO Lynn Good told shareholders, adding that the fuel will remain important in the transition away from coal and toward renewable resources. The utility's Q1 earnings on Tuesday indicated Duke intends to continue on its path to expand its natural gas infrastructure, including building the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, through its $5.6 billion five-year capital plan. The utility also said it is "highly confident" it will reduce operations and maintenance (O&M) costs $350-$450 million in 2020, as part of its COVID-19 response. Duke has been criticized by some for its plans to build out natural gas infrastructure, as well as its perceived slow progress on other clean energy investments. That concern was echoed by shareholders during the company's 2020 shareholder meeting on Thursday, who asked the utility a number of questions related to its progress, especially relative to other utilities. However, Duke says regional discrepancies may make it easier for some utilities to invest in renewable energy resources in the short term. "I believe in this march to reduce carbon there will be geographic differences," Good told shareholders. In the utility's Florida and Carolinas territories, for example, it does not have "abundant wind like other utilities who may be operating more fully in the Midwest. And so having a mix of renewables to achieve more rapid reduction more early in the period is often an opportunity presented to those who have very abundant wind resources," she said. Duke has also been making strides in energy efficiency and overall carbon reductions, she said. "I believe what may be overlooked in this conversation is the extraordinary progress this company has made," including reducing carbon emissions 39% below 2005 levels and the ownership of 8,100 MW of renewables. But environmental and consumer advocacy groups were quick to dismiss the regional discrepancy argument, noting that the utility's territories in North Carolina and Indiana are both suitable for wind investments.

BIOFUELS: Ethanol producers would get cash payments under House bill -- Wednesday, May 13, 2020 -- Biofuel producers hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic would receive cash assistance from the Department of Agriculture as part of the relief bill released by House Democrats yesterday.

EPA's New ACE Rule for Power Plants Barely Decreases Emissions  Last year, the EPA repealed the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era policy aimed at reducing carbon pollution from power plants.The agency replaced it with the Affordable Clean Energy – or ACE – rule. The new rule does not place limits on power plant pollution. Instead, it directs states to prioritize energy efficiency improvements at power plants. The idea is that more-efficient plants will burn less fuel."An unfortunate kind of unintended consequence of that approach is that those power plants then become more cost-effective to operate and tend to run more," says Kathy Fallon Lambert of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment.Her team analyzed EPA data about the expected impact of the ACE rule. Because some plants will likely run more and old power plants may be kept online longer, she says that over a fifth of power plants were estimated to have an increase in CO2 emissions.Overall, the new rule is projected to drive down emissions less than 1% beyond what would likely happen without any policy at all."The bottom line when it comes to the ACE rule is that it does virtually nothing to confront climate change," Lambert says.

Survey: Most N.J. voters support offshore wind - Just a month after Gov. Phil Murphy announced plans to create an offshore wind workforce development hub in the state, Bellwether Research, on behalf of Ørsted, conducted a survey to find out what New Jerseyans truly think of wind parks.The survey found most New Jersey voters (82%) favor expanding wind energy in the state, compared to 13% who don’t approve. And nearly two-thirds (73%) said that offshore wind will impact the environment in a positive way.The Ocean Wind offshore wind farm, which will be the first utility-scale farm in the state located 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City, holds the favorability of 77% of voters statewide and 74% in Atlantic, Cape May and Ocean counties. Beachfront property owners are just as supportive (70% in favor) as those who don’t live at the beach (75% in favor).Concerns over the view are minimal, with 7 in 10 New Jersey voters saying they vacation on the Shore and 85% of them saying they would continue to vacation even if they saw turbines out in the water. Three-fourths of respondents said area tourism will remain the same (62%) or increase (14%) as a result of the project. Voters in the state’s most southern-coastal counties (Atlantic, Cape May, Ocean) were in agreement: 64% the same, 11% increase.

COAL: Meet America's 10 largest emitters -- Monday, May 11, 2020

Indiana utilities want to recover revenue due to pandemic (AP) — Indiana’s gas and electric companies are asking state regulators to allow them to recover lost revenue from customers due to the pandemic, but critics argue that it would burden struggling consumers even more. Ten companies, including Indianapolis Power & Light Co. and Duke Energy Inc., filed the request Friday with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. They want to charge customers for all “bad debt expense incurred” associated with an executive order that has suspended disconnections for nonpayment through June 4. The petition stated that the pandemic is causing “substantial adverse financial impact” on their business. But companies did not provide any actual figures regarding loss in revenue or how much customer’s bills would increase if approved. Building closures across the state has caused an overall downturn in energy use thus putting a financial strain on energy companies, the petitioners said. Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, a consumer group, called the request “unprecedented utility greed.” “It is disgusting that during these unprecedented times, they are more concerned with quarterly stock reports than with the health, safety and well-being of the Hoosier communities and consumers which they serve,” Kerwin Olson said in a written response. He is the organization’s executive director. Essentially, utilities want to charge customers for energy that they did not sell, Olson added. The Indiana Energy Association, a trade group that represents utilities, said the petition seeks to defer the fixed-cost portion of energy production “that enables companies to have power available around the clock.” The association also cited that at least 29 other states have approved similar regulations to what Indiana utilities are seeking. If approved, utility companies will have to track coronavirus related costs and make plans on how to recover their losses, which could include charging customers over time. Customers would not be impacted immediately.

Ohio policies cushion the pandemic’s impact on electric utilities | Energy News Network --Ohio utilities saw electricity sales drop this spring as the coronavirus pandemic prompted schools and businesses across the state to close.The drop in energy use, however, did little to hurt profits as both FirstEnergy and American Electric Power shared positive results with investors.The apparent disconnect can be explained by the complicated way in which utilities earn revenue, which largely comes from fees, riders, guaranteed returns on investments and other sources beyond base distribution charges for actual electricity use.Critics say the utilities’ optimistic reports to shareholders recently highlight how policy provisions protect the companies from risk at the expense of ratepayers.“This is a hard time for businesses large and small. But it strikes me that investor-owned utilities are faring comparatively well in the current situation,” said Sonia Aggarwal, vice president at Energy Innovation, a policy analysis firm in San Francisco. “Over the years they have negotiated riders and rate structures that insulate them somewhat from fluctuations in electricity demand due to economic and weather conditions, and those mechanisms are cushioning the blow to utilities right now, even given the substantial reduction in demand for electricity.”Ohio’s investor-owned utilities this month each reported positive earnings per share (income divided by shares) for the first quarter. Ohio-based American Electric Power had earnings of $1.02 per share, while FirstEnergy announced quarterly earnings of $0.66 per share. Those figures compare with first-quarter earnings per share in 2019 of $1.16 for AEP and $0.59 for FirstEnergy.  Duke Energy and AES Corporation, which owns DPL Inc. and Dayton Power & Light, also announced adjusted earnings per share of $1.14 and $0.29, respectively.

Hearing slated for Coyote Creek proposal to lease federal coal  - Two federal agencies will hold a public hearing May 20 on a proposal to lease 320 acres of federally owned coal to the Coyote Creek Mining Co. The company's lease application is part of its ongoing mining operation southwest of Beulah in Mercer County, and the proposed lease tracts are adjacent to its existing mine, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement. The agencies are accepting public comment on an environmental assessment of the impacts from leasing the coal, as well as on the project's lease-by-application, fair market value and maximum economic recovery. Materials related to the matter are available at https://go.usa.gov/xvwpz under the "Documents" link on the left-hand side of the web page. They also can be requested by contacting Joel Hartmann at 406-896-5159.Comments will be accepted through June 8 via email to BLM_MT_North_Dakota_CoyoteCreekLBA@blm.gov or via mail to the BLM North Dakota Field Office at 99 23rd Ave. W, Suite A, Dickinson, N.D. 58601. In the address line, include: “COYOTE CREEK LBA NDM-110277, Attn: Joel Hartmann.” The hearing will take place via phone from 3-5 p.m. Central time. The public can attend by calling 1-800-369-1853 and entering passcode 3787572. The regulatory proceedings for the Coyote Creek application is part of a U.S. Department of Interior pilot project to streamline compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, according to the agencies.

Central Appalachia Q1 coal production falls to over 25-year low: MSHA — Coal mines in Central Appalachia produced over 14.68 million st of coal in the first quarter of 2020, down 6.5% from 15.71 million st in Q4 and the lowest quarterly output in over 25 years, according to data from the US Mine Safety and Health Administration. The latest quarter was down 22.1% from the year-ago quarter and 27.6% lower than the five-year average for Q1, despite four of the top six mines seeing yearly increases. The region produced has seen six quarterly decreases in the last seven quarters. Coronado Global Resources' Buchanan mine produced 1.33 million st in Q1, up from the four-year low 988,264 st in Q4 and 1.24 million st in Q1 2019. The low-volatile metallurgical underground mine, which is located in Buchanan County, Virginia, has been the largest-producing mine in the region since 2013. In second was Contura Energy's Deep Mine 41, which produced a record-high 519,453 st in Q1, up from 431,466 st in the previous quarter and 368,411 st in the year-ago quarter. Rounding out the top three was Contura's Workman Creek surface mine, which also produced a record-high 489,405 st in Q1, up from 431,466 st in Q4 and 368,411 st in the year-ago quarter. Bristol, Tennessee-based Contura had three of the top five producing mines in Q1, of which all three saw record highs. Just one mine started production for the first time in Q1, which was Contura's Road Fork No. 52 underground mine in Wyoming County, West Virginia, that produced 23,956 st. The top 21 mines in Central Appalachia all produced over 200,000 st and combined to produce 6.91 million st in Q1, compared with 18 mines that produced over 200,000 st with a combined production total of 5.89 million st and 20 mines that produced 7.26 million st in the year-ago quarter. Contura Energy remained the largest coal producer in the region with its 26 mines producing 4.06 million st in Q1, up from 3.72 million st in the prior quarter and 3.83 million st in the year-ago quarter. Blackhawk Mining was the second-largest CAPP coal producer in Q1 with its 20 mines producing 2.37 million st, down from 2.6 million st in Q4 and 3.51 million st in Q1 2019. Surface mine production in Central Appalachia was at 5.15 million st in Q1, down from 6.97 million st produced in the prior quarter and 7.96 million st in Q1 2019. Contura's Workman Creek mine was the largest surface mine in Q1, which overtook Arch Coal's (soon to be renamed Arch Resources) Holden No. 22 mine. Since Q3 2015, Arch's Holden No. 22 mine had been the largest surface mine, but only produced 420,451 st in Q1, down from 531,511 st in Q4 and 474,730 st in Q1 2019. The remaining 9.54 million st was produced by underground mines in Q1, led by the Buchanan mine, which was up from 8.74 million st produced in Q4, but down from 10.87 million st in the year-ago quarter.

Coal mines lay off workers across the Tri-state - The Coronavirus pandemic has hurt the already struggling coal industry. Along Cabin Creek Road in Kanawha County it’s still a busy day for the workers of Panther Creek Mining, but coming up in just a few short weeks, dozens of workers will be laid off and the trend doesn’t stop here. In Floyd County, Kentucky, Redhawk Mining announced its plans to shut down its entire Spurlock Complex due to a “sudden decline in customer orders,” bringing the total number of layoffs to 182 workers starting this week. The announcement came just hours after word in West Virginia’s Kanawha County that 200 jobs are being lost between layoffs at a stamping plant and the Panther Creek Mine. “Every single job is a family and these jobs generally support seven other jobs so you are talking about arguably 10,000 people that are affected by something like this,” says Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper. Carper says there is very little they can do because this is an international issue with the energy market crises. “This is worse than anything we have probably ever seen … just to give you an idea … of how bad the market has been impacted if you consider us manufacturing it’s off 6.4%, that is the largest single decline in the last 74 years,” Says Jason Bostic, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association. Bostic says, at this moment, it is hard to determine whether the jobs or the market will come back. The Panther Creek layoffs begin June 4th

In a First, Renewable Energy Is Poised to Eclipse Coal in U.S. – NYT - The United States is on track to produce more electricity this year from renewable power than from coal for the first time on record, new government projections show, a transformation partly driven by the coronavirus pandemic, with profound implications in the fight against climate change.It is a milestone that seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago, when coal was so dominant that it provided nearly half the nation’s electricity. And it comes despite the Trump administration’s three-year push to try to revive the ailing industry by weakening pollution rules on coal-burning power plants.Those efforts, however, failed to halt the powerful economic forces that have led electric utilities to retire hundreds of aging coal plants since 2010 and run their remaining plants less frequently. The cost of building large wind farms has declined more than 40 percent in that time, while solar costs have dropped more than 80 percent. And the price of natural gas, a cleaner-burning alternative to coal, has fallen to historic lows as a result of the fracking boom.Now the coronavirus outbreak is pushing coal producers into their deepest crisis yet.As factories, retailers, restaurants and office buildings have shut down nationwide to slow the spread of the coronavirus, demand for electricity has fallen sharply. And, because coal plants often cost more to operate than gas plants or renewables, many utilities are cutting back on coal power first in response.“The outbreak has put all the pressures facing the coal industry on steroids,” said Jim Thompson, a coal analyst at IHS Markit.In just the first four and a half months of this year, America’s fleet of wind turbines, solar panels and hydroelectric dams have produced more electricity than coal on 90 separate days — shattering last year’s record of 38 days for the entire year. On May 1 in Texas, wind power alone supplied nearly three times as much electricity as coal did. The latest report from the Energy Information Administration estimates that America’s total coal consumption will fall by nearly one-quarter this year, and coal plants are expected to provide just 19 percent of the nation’s electricity, dropping for the first time below both nuclear power and renewable power, a category that includes wind, solar, hydroelectric dams, geothermal and biomass.

North Dakota's largest power plant looks set to close as the owner bets on wind energy - A 1,151-megawatt (MW) coal power station in North Dakota is set to be retired after it was deemed to have "lost value compared to other alternatives in recent years." Announcing the decision at the end of last week, electric power supplier Great River Energy said it planned to shut down the two units of Coal Creek Station in the second half of 2022, adding that it was also "willing to consider opportunities to sell the plant." Located roughly 50 miles north of Bismarck, the Coal Creek Station facility has a workforce of 260 and uses approximately 22,000 tons of lignite each day. According to Great River Energy, it is the largest power plant in North Dakota. "Coal Creek Station is operated efficiently, safely and with pride by a dedicated and talented staff," David Saggau, Great River Energy's CEO and president, said in a statement. "We will make every effort to minimize impacts on our employees and the communities through this transition." Looking ahead, Great River Energy, which operates as a not-for-profit cooperative, is aiming to purchase over 1,100 MW from new wind energy projects by late 2023, an investment of more than $1.2 billion. Among other things, it is also planning to modify a coal and natural gas-based power plant so that it's fueled solely by natural gas. While other parts of the world, such as Britain, have seen their "reliance on coal for electricity" reach very low levels in recent years — it's fallen from 70% in 1990 to under 3% today, according to the government — the U.S. is a different story. Preliminary figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that in 2019 coal's share of utility-scale electricity generation was 23.5%, second only to natural gas. The EIA states that North Dakota is responsible for 4% of total coal production in the U.S. and home to "the world's largest known deposit of lignite." Nevertheless, the proposed shuttering of the Coal Creek Station could mirror a number of recent closures in Europe. In April, Austria's last operational coal-fired power station shut down, while in the U.K. two coal-fired facilities operated by SSE and RWE shut down on the same day at the end of March.

These dirty power plants cost billions and only operate in summer. Can they be replaced? - As the U.S. approaches another scorching summer, the power grid will be tested once again. Energy use typically spikes during heat waves due to the massive amount of electricity required by widespread air conditioning. This extra demand is met by so-called peaker plants, power plants that typically only run during these periods of peak demand. These plants can emit harmful pollutants like fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide into nearby communities — which are often low-income neighborhoods of color.Peaker plants are also expensive. In New York City, more than 600,000 families spend roughly six percent of their entire annual household income on energy payments, and peak electricity in particular is among the most expensive in the country. A new report has found that New Yorkers over the last decade have paid more than $4.5 billion in electricity bills to the private owners of the city’s peaker plants, just to keep those plants online in case they’re needed — even though they only operate between 90 and 500 hours a year. Even at the upper limit, that’s less than three weeks. This all means that the price tag for peak electricity in the Big Apple is 1300 percent higher than the average cost of electricity in the state.Over 1.2 million New Yorkers live within a one-mile radius of a peaker plant — so not only do they pay unusually high electricity bills, but they are also exposed to harmful pollutants produced by the same entities who receive those payments, according to the report. Many of these facilities are 50 or more years old, lack modern pollution controls, and run on dirty fuels like kerosene or oil at least part-time. Environmental justice advocates say that there’s another way. “Instead of ratepayer money going to fossil fuel interests, we want to see that go to renewable projects, to community solar projects, to energy storage and other clean energy initiatives,” said Annel Hernandez, associate director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA). When it comes to transitioning away from fossil fuels, peaker plants are the “lowest-hanging fruit, because they’re only powered during peak demand.”The new report, entitled “Dirty Energy, Big Money,” was published by the PEAK Coalition, which consists of New York City environmental justice groups NYC-EJA,UPROSE, and The Point CDC, as well as New York Lawyers for the Public Interestand Clean Energy Group. Their analysis found that about 85 percent of the last decade’s peak electricity payments were funneled to three private, out-of-state firms — a Boston hedge fund, a Houston fossil fuel generation company, and a New Jersey private equity firm — that own a large share of the oldest New York City peaker plants. These polluting plants are located in low-income neighborhoods of color, such as Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, a predominantly Chinese and Latino neighborhood, and the South Bronx, the country’s poorest congressional districtand a predominantly black and brown neighborhood.

COAL: Interior proposes rule to ease federal enforcement at mines -- Wednesday, May 13, 2020 -- The Trump administration today proposed relaxing federal involvement in investigations of coal mine violations to allow states more leeway to address complaints.

City fines Hilco $2,500 for canal runoff following Little Village smokestack implosion - Chicago Sun-Times - City health officials slapped a $2,500 fine on a suburban development firm Friday after discovering it was allowing “silty water” to seep into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal nearly a month after a botched smokestack implosion in Little Village.A city health inspector found the runoff water going into the canal Wednesday near the shuttered Crawford power station at Pulaski Road, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health.Northbrook-based Hilco Redevelopment Partners and a demolition contractor leveled a 95-year-old smokestack there April 11, sending clouds of dust cascading through the mostly Latino, low-income neighborhood — all while an acute respiratory disease sweeps the globe with an especially devastating impact on Illinois’ Latino community.“CDPH will continue the investigation to determine whether there were any chemicals contained in the runoff while simultaneously reviewing the developer’s current procedures to ensure similar situations will not occur in the future,” city health officials said in a statement.City code requires developers to control stormwater during demolition and construction. Hilco had “the proper permits and an onsite management plan for stormwater” but their “error” resulted in the runoff, officials said.Representatives for Hilco, which is building a warehouse and distribution center at the site, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The company previously apologized “for the anxiety and fear caused,” saying “the health, safety and welfare of the local community is of paramount concern.”They now face a class-action lawsuit from a group of residents who complained “nothing was done to minimize the effect of this hazardous material to not flow to all of us surrounding this plant.”And Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul sued Hilco, MCM Management Corp. and Controlled Demolition Inc. earlier this week for violating state pollution laws. Raoul’s suit claims they failed to “adequately [wet] the area around the smokestack and, in particular, the area where the smokestack hit the ground.”

 With Ohio bailout law secured, FirstEnergy Solutions successor moves to increase share buybacks by $300 million - cleveland.com -- Leaders of a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, which Ohio electricity customers will soon begin paying $150 million annually to subsidize under a nuclear bailout law Ohio officials passed last year, have moved to spend an extra $300 million on repurchasing the company’s own stock. The stock buybacks, meant to benefit corporate shareholders, come less than a year after an aggressive multi-year lobbying effort by FirstEnergy that culminated in Gov. Mike DeWine and state lawmakers approving $1 billion in bailout money funded by surcharges on Ohioans’ electric bills. The company and elected officials who backed the bailout argued without state money, the power plants and their parent company would become insolvent. The board of directors for the company now known as Energy Harbor on Friday voted to increase authorization for its stock buyback program from $500 million to $800 million, according to an investor presentation the company posted to its website. Energy Harbor can buy back the stock any time until Aug. 27., under the terms of a company plan, approved as the Akron company spun off from FirstEnergy as it emerged from bankruptcy proceedings earlier this year. Private companies buy shares of their own stock to help increase overall share prices by reducing the number of shares available on the market. While the company’s stock is not listed on any U.S. stock exchange, shares of Energy Harbor are available for purchase by the general public through private brokerage companies. The company’s stock was trading at $36.01 a share when markets closed Tuesday evening, more than double the $15.75 it cost when shares first began trading on April 7. The Energy Harbor investors presentation says the company’s “visible" cash flow generated by its nuclear plants is supported by “clean air zero emission credits,” a term for the subsidy created by the nuclear bailout law, called House Bill 6. Energy Harbor owns the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Lake County and the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Toledo. It argues “free cash flow increase from potential future carbon policy offers meaningful upside for Energy Harbor."

USA to graduate 18 — The Utica Shale Academy will graduate 18 students on June 1 at a drive-up ceremony. The board approved the list of students who are completing their programs this spring, despite the obstacles placed in their way by COVID-19. The list was given to the board by Shale Director Bill Watson during the board meeting on Wednesday morning. Watson invited members of the board to come and cheer for each of the students as they arrive. The graduation event will include students driving up at their appointed time when they will be given their honors. A video will be created of the event. Even as they looked at wrapping up the 2019-2020 school year, the Shale Academy board began looking at next year. Watson talked about the two grants he is seeking to help improve the programming offered by the Shale Academy even further. Watson is seeking a $200,000 federal equity grant, which would allow the program to expand its class offerings with some students as young as ninth grade able to participate. Students completing the program would be able to earn a 12-point credential through the state of Ohio and in some cases use classes offered through the Shale Academy as their required credit for science or a foreign language. Classes would include students learning about programming, industrial maintenance, robotics and hydraulic systems.

Shale pioneer Chesapeake considers bankruptcy filing after oil rout -  (Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corp said on Monday it was unable to access financing and was considering a bankruptcy court restructuring of its over $9 billion debt if oil prices don’t recover from the sharp fall caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The announcement follows last month’s statement by the pioneering shale gas producer that it was in talks to line up bankruptcy financing and was in talks for a loan to run its operations through the court proceedings. Company filings showed it had a combined debt of more than $1 billion by way of debt maturities and interest expenses, of which $250 million in senior notes were due this year. This is the second going concern warning by the Oklahoma City-based company since November. It said this quarter's review of the value of its untapped oil and gas reserves is likely to show a decline due to its distressed finances, reducing its ability to borrow against those assets. Chesapeake last week said it would prepay $25 million in incentives to top executives. Peers Whiting Petroleum Corp and Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc also gave cash awards to senior management just days before filing for Chapter 11 protection last month. The company said its net loss available to shareholders widened to $8.3 billion, or $852.97 per share, from $44 million, or $6.37, due to $8.5 billion of asset impairments. A bankruptcy filing would cap a long reversal of fortunes for Chesapeake, a company that helped revolutionize the energy industry through the relentless extraction of untapped oil and natural gas from shale rock formations, an environmentally controversial method that became known as fracking. The company was trying to pivot from natural gas to a greater emphasis on oil when a Saudi-Russian energy price war earlier this year upended its plans and the wider crude market. It was dealt another blow by the coronavirus outbreak, which caused energy demand to dwindle by shutting large swaths of the global economy. Chesapeake, which had about 2,300 employees at the end of 2019, said it laid off about 13% of its workforce in April. Last quarter, it terminated contracts of majority of the employees who joined through its $4 billion acquisition of Texas oil producer WildHorse in 2018. Chesapeake also enacted an anti-takeover plan last month to prevent a hostile buyer from acquiring the company to grab its tax-losses that can be used to deduct from future profits. The company said it had shut-in wells and delayed production of commercial quantities for sales in some areas, all of which will reduce its projected oil output by about 50% and 37% in May and June.M

Gulfport Energy takes half-billion write-down and loss on first quarter results - Gulfport Energy Corp. lost more than a half-billion dollars the first quarter of 2020, it announced this week. It reported it lost about $517.6 million, or $3.24 per share, on revenues of about $246.9 million. During the first quarter of 2019, it had earned a net income of about $62.2 million, or 38 cents per share, on revenues of about $320.6 million. A major influence on its 2020 first-quarter results was a non-cash impairment of about $553.3 million it took on its oil and natural gas properties. David M. Wood, the company’s CEO, said Gulfport remains focused on increasing efficiencies and reducing costs, following a plan it unveiled in February that heavily weights the execution of its capital expenditures program during the first half of this year. The company reported it is running one rig in its Utica Shale field, intending to keep it on through October, and one rig in the SCOOP play of the Anadarko Basin that it will keep running through the end of the year. The company stated it intends to shut-in a number of vertical wells it has drilled in the SCOOP play, impacting its production by less than 20 million cubic feet (equivalent) daily, and that other wells it participates in as a nonoperator might also be taken offline because of low commodity prices. “We remain committed to exercising capital discipline, maximizing cash flow generation, reducing costs and ensuring strong liquidity through the remainder of 2020,” Wood stated.

Shell says it will reintroduce 300 construction workers a week in ramp up at cracker site  - The petrochemical plant in Beaver County is buzzing back to life with 800 workers on site as of last week and a plan to add 300 more workers per week going forward, officials at Shell Chemical Appalachia said. At the same time, Beaver County remains in the red phase of Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to reopen businesses in the state — it is the only county in southwestern Pennsylvania that isn’t being moved to yellow this Friday. Shell, which had more than 8,000 people at the Potter construction site before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, said it would ramp up activity with precautions, such as temperature screenings, social distancing in lunchrooms and on shuttle buses, and face masks. “We will continue to conduct weekly reviews of our health and safety processes to ensure workers are safe, and that we remain in compliance with all CDC and health department guidelines,” the company said. Shell is building an ethane cracker, a natural gas power plant and several other processing facilities on the massive site where natural gas liquids extracted from shale wells will be turned into plastic pellets. The company had curtailed its workforce a few days before Gov. Wolf ordered nonessential businesses to shut down in mid-March. Throughout this period, several hundred workers still reported to work at the site for repair and maintenance duties and for cleaning and disinfecting. Before it shut down construction, Shell faced criticism for crowded shuttle buses and common areas on site. With a few hundred people coming back to work, the employees were able to park onsite, but with the expanding workforce, Shell said shuttle buses will be required again, albeit for a short distance. The company released a diagram of how passengers will be seated — one window seat in every other row will be used and masks will be required. Shell said in a statement that its safety protocols have proved effective at keeping COVID-19 from spreading and the 300-per-week worker increase will depend on it staying that way. Beaver County has confirmed 509 cases of COVID-19 and 78 deaths, nearly all at the Brighton Wellness and Rehabilitation Center. Local officials, such as the county’s district attorney, David Lozier, argued Beaver County doesn’t deserve to be left in the red zone and promised not to prosecute businesses that open.

Study finds methane leaks in PA are much higher than state reports - Pennsylvania’s prolific natural gas industry has made the state the No. 2-producing gas state in the country, second only to Texas. But the industry also releases a lot of methane, a potent greenhouse gas responsible for around 25 percent of global warming, a new analysis by a group of scientists working with the Environmental Defense Fund has found.  The analysis found Pennsylvania’s shale gas industry leaked seven times more methane in 2017 than state reporting for the year indicates. It also found the conventional natural gas industry leaks an even larger amount of methane, despite producing a mere 2 percent of the state’s gas. The analysis comes as the state is creating methane rules for thousands of existing wells. DEP will begin taking comments on the rule later this month. All told, the EDF analysis found oil and gas industry leaks 16 times more methane than state figures show, though more than half of that came from shallow, or conventional, gas producers who aren’t required to report their methane emissions to the state. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, which represents conventional oil and gas companies in the state, said the group had not yet reviewed the report and couldn’t comment on it. “The association will be commenting on DEP’s upcoming rulemaking on behalf of its members,” spokesman Dave Mashek said in an email.   Dave Spigelmyer, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said in a statement that the industry is improving its methods at making sure methane — a potent climate warming agent and the main component of natural gas — stays inside pipelines. “Through new technologies and best practices — such as robust leak detection and repair programs and vapor recovery systems — operators continue to make significant progress to ensure natural gas reaches market,” Spigelmyer said. The analysis follows a similar analysis of Pennsylvania emissions the group conducted two years ago. The latest study found twice the amount of gas leaking out of production in the state — over 1 million tons, or 57 billion cubic feet, which is around 1 percent of the gas produced in the state.

Even after pipeline pollution, DEQ is still resisting water protections and public participation - In March, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality announced a new stakeholder advisory group to discuss numeric criteria for turbidity in streams. Turbidity is a measure of sediment (dirt) and organic materials that make waterbodies cloudy or muddy, harm fish and other critters and impair human uses. Numeric criteria are an important tool in permitting and enforcement. The need for these requirements is all too plain, after assaults on our waters by Mountain Valley Pipeline and DEQ’s weak responses.  There are two major problems with DEQ’s effort. First, DEQ has decided to exclude willing and able members of the public from meaningful roles and has stacked the SAG with representatives of regulated industries and others with financial interests and histories of opposing stringent regulations. Sadly, this fits a pattern set by DEQ leaders. The public provides scientific and legal information and local knowledge and, in many instances, the department cursorily dismisses or ignores the contributions.  Second, DEQ started this process after decades of failing to provide this most basic protection and, only then, under orders from the State Water Control Board. This lack of initiative by DEQ leaders leaves Virginia trailing behind a majority of states and our waters unprotected against severe damages that should have been stopped years ago.  And this DEQ failure is not limited to turbidity. Our water quality standards and DEQ’s implementation procedures need a major reform. Agency officials won’t do it on their own. It’s time for the people of Virginia to insist on these changes. In state reviews for the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines, many of us warned that dirt washing off the land and released during digging and blasting through streams would produce harmful sediment pollution. MVP’s degradation of our waters has proven us right.DEQ failed to use available tools or develop necessary ones to prevent that damage in this case and these failures have allowed pollution problems in many other cases as well, though usually with much less public exposure. We’ve known that sediment was a primary source of water impairments for many decades, long before the 1972 Clean Water Act was enacted. Thousands of miles of streams and countless lakes, as well as the Chesapeake Bay, sustain severe damage from sediment discharges every year.  Virginia regulators have been obligated to adopt regulations to control these pollutants since the act was adopted. Still, we could soon reach the 50th anniversary of Virginia’s inaction on this issue, unless we act soon. That would be a disgrace for a people so fervently committed to the “common wealth.”

Pa. Supreme Court preserves 'rule of capture' for fracking -  A century-old legal principle that allows drillers to drain oil and gas from neighboring properties without paying for it still applies in the modern era of fracking, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.The high court overturned a 2018 decision by the lower Superior Court that had said the “rule of capture” does not cover companies when they use fracking to free gas from surrounding rocks underground.Under the rule of capture, oil and gas in deep reservoirs belongs to whoever pulls it from a well on his own property first — even if some of it flowed out from under a neighbor’s land. It has been applied since at least 1889 in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States.The decision to overturn the lower court’s order is a relief to the oil and gas industry, which said in court briefs that without the rule of capture it would be subject to a welter of trespass lawsuits that could cripple shale gas development in Pennsylvania.But the Supreme Court left open the idea that a company could still be subject to claims of trespassing if its fracturing operations physically cross a property boundary without permission.The Supreme Court said the Superior Court was wrong to claim that fracking is somehow different from past oil and gas extraction technologies so that the rule of capture no longer applies. The high court also said it would be wrong to assume that if gas is drained from a neighboring property by fracking that must mean man-made fractures physically trespassed over the boundary. Gas can be drained through existing cracks, the majority wrote, or move from a place of high pressure to low pressure when fracking occurs nearby.

Federal Court Excludes Evidence Of Stigma Damages In Eminent Domain Case Involving Gas Pipeline - A recurring theme in the area of eminent domain is so-called “stigma damages” caused by the construction of an improvement that may be thought to reduce the market value of a property. A common example is gas pipelines, which are sometimes associated with negative health implications in the form of explosions or environmental contamination from pipeline ruptures. In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit excluded appraisal testimony seeking to increase a damages award due to the stigma allegedly associated with the construction of a gas pipeline, finding that the methodology underlying that testimony was unreliable. UGI Sunbury LLC v. A Permanent Easement for 1.7575 Acres, 949 F.3d 825 (3d Cir.2020) involved the standard for admissibility of expert valuation testimony in a condemnation proceeding under the Natural Gas Act, 15 U.S.C. § 717 et seq. In that case, the condemnor proposed to construct an underground gas pipeline in Pennsylvania that would cross the properties at issue. The property owners engaged an appraiser who relied on a “damaged goods” theory in reaching his opinion of the compensation due to the property owners for the taking.   In supporting this theory, the appraiser relied on his own experience, as well as the reduction of real estate values caused by the Three Mile Island nuclear incident in 1979, the Exxon Valdez Alaskan oil spill in 1989, and various leaking underground storage tanks. The District Court, in a non-jury trial, permitted the appraiser to testify regarding his “damaged goods” theory and attributed some weight to it in reaching its decision regarding the compensation owed to the property owners. On appeal, the Third Circuit reversed on the basis of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786 (1993), which provide that expert testimony is only admissible if it is based on reliable scientific methods. As the Third Circuit explained, this reliability threshold involves many factors including, among others, whether the method consists of a testable hypothesis, whether it has been subjected to peer review, the known or potential rate of error, the existence and maintenance of standards controlling the method’s operation, and whether the method is generally accepted. In rejecting the “damaged goods” theory, the Third Circuit found it had not been subjected to peer review, there was no data on the known or potential rate of error, there were no standards controlling its application, and it does not enjoy general acceptance. The Court further found that the theory was based on the appraiser’s subjective views and was inherently speculative, as the appraiser conceded in his testimony. On these bases, the Court found the “damaged goods” theory unreliable. The Court further found that the “damaged goods” theory did not “fit” the case, which is also required for admissibility, because it was not based on any examples of properties whose value actually decreased after the construction of a gas pipeline.

Could plugging orphan wells keep the suffering oil industry afloat? - Proposals to fund plugging of abandoned old oil and gas wells are gaining support across the U.S. as a way to restore jobs for oil workers displaced during the pandemic-driven price crash.The concept is being promoted by state regulators, industry trade groups and environmental organizations as a way to sustain employment while cleaning up a longstanding environmental problem that has been drastically underfunded.Across the country, states have identified more than 55,000 ownerless wells left unplugged during past waves of oil and gas drilling. Estimates of existing but unidentified wells swelled to 750,000 or more nationwide.  Pennsylvania alone has 8,500 verified orphan and abandoned wells, plus an estimated 200,000 that have not been identified.The decaying wells can leak oil and gas into water, soil and sometimes nearby homes, creating an explosion hazard. Collectively, they are a significant source of climate-warming methane emissions.In recent weeks, the idea of paying oil workers to plug wells has been endorsed by energy regulators in North Dakota and Oklahoma; the environmental groups Greenpeace and Earthworks; the Natural Resources Committee in the Democratic-controlled U.S. House; and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a consortium of 31 oil and gas-producing states, including Pennsylvania.“We know we need to plug these wells, we know that plugging the wells provides environmental benefits, and at the same time we know that there are lots and lots of oil and gas workers, and lots and lots of equipment owned by oil and gas companies, that are sitting idle,” said Daniel Raimi, a researcher with the think tank Resources for the Future.States have existing, but underfunded, regulatory programs set up to plug orphan wells, he said, “which means that the money could flow relatively quickly and you could get people to work relatively quickly.”

Diversified to acquire 900 Appalachian wells from EQT –  Alabama-based Diversified Gas & Oil PLC is purchasing 900 wells in West Virginia and Pennsylvania from gas giant EQT for $125 million, Kallanish Energy reports. The assets being purchased include 67 horizontal wells in western Pennsylvania and mostly shallow wells in West Virginia. In 2019, those assets produced net production of 9,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, all in natural gas. Diversified is also acquiring 6,100 net conventional wells in Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia, 4,700 miles of intrastate gathering pipeline and two natural gas storage fields with capacity for 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas. Those assets are being acquired from Carbon Energy Corp. in a deal that had been announced last month. The deal is for $100 million. The price being paid by Diversified may increase if commodity prices rise. It will seek to raise $87 million through a placing of up to 64.3 million shares on the London market. It will raise $160 million to $165 million in a long-term amortising senior secured term loan with a 10-year maturity and a 6.50% coupon.

Federal judge upholds ban on process for permitting pipelines, including Mountain Valley -A federal judge has declined to lift his temporary ban on a permitting process for the crossing of streams and wetlands by oil and natural gas pipelines, including the Mountain Valley Pipeline. In an order late Monday, Montana U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris denied the Justice Department’s request for a stay pending an appeal of the case. Morris earlier struck down a streamlined method used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to approve waterbody crossings, ruling that the agency did not properly evaluate the potential harm to endangered species by the Keystone XL pipeline, which will transport crude oil from Canada to Nebraska. The sweeping ruling prevented other planned pipelines from obtaining a similar permit from the Army Corps until “completion of the consultation process and compliance with all environmental statutes and regulations” — a process expected to take months. Government lawyers had asked Morris to limit his ruling to the Keystone pipeline. But in a 38-page opinion, Morris wrote that pipeline developers “possess no inherent right to maximize revenues by using a cheaper, quicker permitting process, particularly when their preferred process does not comply with the ESA [Endangered Species Act.]” Environmentalists have argued for years that the Army Corps’ process, called a Nationwide Permit 12, takes a “blanket approach” that does not adequately assess a pipeline’s crossing of each stream or wetland in its path. “Constructing pipelines through rivers, streams and wetlands without analyzing the impacts on imperiled species is unconscionable, and we will continue to fight to protect vulnerable species, our waters and the climate from such reckless development,” Jared Margolis, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. A spokeswoman for Mountain Valley wrote in an email Tuesday that “we will continue to evaluate the potential impacts to the MVP project as new information becomes available.” Natalie Cox added that work on the 303-mile pipeline — currently stalled by Morris’ ruling and other legal challenges filed by environmental groups — is still expected to be completed by the end of the year. But Mountain Valley, a joint venture of five energy companies that includes a subsidiary of RGC Resources of Roanoke, is already behind on its earlier goal to get permits restored in time to restart construction in late April. Cox’s email states that work could resume in July, assuming that Mountain Valley regains a biological opinion — the process used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to evaluate a project’s impact on endangered species — and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission lifts its stop-work order.

EQM sees U.S. Mountain Valley natgas pipe on in 2020, analysts not so sure -  (Reuters) - EQM Midstream Partners LP said on Thursday it still sees a “narrow path” to complete its long-delayed $5.4 billion Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia by late 2020. Analysts, however, said Mountain Valley and other pipelines would probably be delayed by a decision by a federal judge in Montana that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not comply with the Endangered Species Act. EQM said in its first quarter earnings that Mountain Valley “is working through the project’s remaining legal and regulatory challenges to achieve the targeted late 2020 full in-service date.” When EQM started construction in February 2018, it estimated Mountain Valley would cost about $3.5 billion and be completed by the end of 2018. But successful legal challenges by environmental and other groups to federal permits resulted in lengthy delays and higher costs for Mountain Valley and other gas pipes under construction like Dominion Energy Inc’s $8 billion Atlantic Coast from West Virginia to North Carolina. Then, on April 15, Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled that the Army Corps violated federal law by issuing Nationwide Permits to cross bodies of water without adequately consulting other agencies on risks to endangered species and habitat. Although that ruling was in a case involving TC Energy Corp’s long-delayed Keystone XL crude pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Midwest, the judge applied the decision to the Army Corps’s handling of the Nationwide Permit program. This week, the judge refused to limit his decision to just the Keystone case. The U.S. Justice Department then asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to stay the lower court’s ruling. Analysts at Height Capital Markets in Washington said they were “skeptical” the Ninth Circuit will stay the Montana Judge’s order and noted the court may not decide the case until 2021.

Does New York need a new natural gas pipeline? It’s about to decide. - Last week, more than 100 protesters tuned into a virtual rally for a milestone push in a three-year battle against the Williams Pipeline, a controversial project that would bring a new supply of natural gas into New York City and Long Island. With individual pleas, homemade signs, musical performances, and speeches from the likes of Bill McKibben, Cynthia Nixon, and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, the protestors tried to summon the people power of a live event to tell New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration to stop the pipeline once and for all.  The rally was held ahead of the May 17 deadline for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to rule on a key permit for the project. The pipeline would cut through northern New Jersey and then out about 23 miles into New York Harbor to connect with the existing gas system. One year ago, the agency denied the permit on the grounds that it failed to meet the state’s water quality standards. New Jersey’s environmental agency did the same. Both rejections were issued “without prejudice,” meaning Williams could reapply — which it quickly did. National Grid, a gas utility that operates in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, would be the sole customer of the pipeline’s gas. As the fate of the project hangs in the balance, so do National Grid’s long-term plans — and, according to many observers, the fate of New York City and New York State’s climate goals. Both the city and state passed landmark laws last year that seek to drastically reduce carbon emissions by 2050. The city’s Climate Mobilization Act specifically aims to cut emissions from buildings — the majority of which come from natural gas heating systems.    After the Williams Pipeline permits were denied last summer, National Grid began rejecting new customer applications, claiming that it would not be able to meet future demand unless the pipeline was built. Real estate developments were stalled, new restaurants were left in limbo, and homeowners finishing up repairs couldn’t get the gas turned back on. The issue came to a head in November when Governor Cuomo accused the utility of extorting New Yorkers and threatened to revoke its license. The resulting settlement required National Grid to go back to the drawing board and come up with a slate of alternatives to make sure New Yorkers aren’t left in the cold if the pipeline isn’t built.

National Grid releases new report on natural gas capacity in New York -  National Grid released its Natural Gas Long-Term Capacity Supplemental Report for Downstate New York, which includes new recommendations for the state on natural gas capacity. The report follows the original Natural Gas Long-Term Capacity Report, released on Feb. 24, which outlined 10 possible long-term natural gas capacity options for the future. National Grid held six public meetings on that report to gather feedback, which informed the two new recommendations in the Supplemental Report. Those new recommendations include a non-pipeline solution and an infrastructure solution. The report assesses cost, deliverability, and reliability risks, and consists of a range of criteria, including areas of high customer feedback. “The Supplemental Report provides these two potential pathways to solve for the capacity constraint issues in Downstate New York,” National Grid U.S. President Badar Khan said. “We look forward to a continuing dialogue with New York State to ensure a solution is agreed by June 2020, so it can be implemented in time for the winter of 2021/22.” John Bruckner, National Grid’s President in New York, said the changing conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was also important in making these additional recommendations. “These include a reduction in overall demand, a modest supply increase based on ongoing internal reviews, a new risk impact analysis, and updated cost numbers for all the potential solutions that factor in the cost of carbon and customer cost impact,” Bruckner said.

Residents, Advocates Speak Out Against NJ Transit Fracked Gas Power Plant Proposal - As dozens of residents delivered public comments at this morning’s NJ Transit board meeting condemning the agency’s recent actions to push for approval of a new gas fired power plant during the worst days of the pandemic, a coalition of community and environmental groups sent a letter to Governor Murphy urging him to block the proposal and replace it with a renewable energy and storage alternative. The groups point out that the timing could not be worse for a new fossil fuel project: The state is focused on the immediate COVID public health crisis, and will face years of recovery and rebuilding that must focus on climate-friendly initiatives that will reduce harmful emissions and improve local air quality. “The Coronavirus pandemic has made it impossible to ignore the direct link between public health and the dangerous levels of fossil fuel pollution in our state,” said Sam DiFalco, organizer at Food and Water Action. “A new nationwide study by Harvard University concludes that populations exposed to higher levels of particulate matter, one of the main pollutants from burning fossil fuels, are more susceptible to the deadliest impacts of COVID-19. The stay at home orders have also shown us that our air quality will drastically improve with a reduction in fossil fuel use. New Jersey residents are now breathing cleaner air because of lower emissions, and this can be a long-term reality for our state if we commit to a rapid and fair transition to clean renewable energy, and that starts by stopping new dirty energy proposals like the NJ Transit fracked gas power plant. Governor Murphy must follow the science and protect public health by directing NJ Transit to cease all work on their dirty energy proposal, and replace it with a clean energy alternative for public transit resiliency.” “It is shameful that NJ Transit is pushing their dirty fossil fuel plant in the middle of a public health emergency. Their reckless move to rubber stamp their power plant without looking at environmental impacts or alternatives will have major impacts to public health. This area has some of the worst air pollution in the country. When they say they care about the environment, they are full of hot air.  We should be using better alternatives such as renewable energy,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We support federal funding going to NJ Transit to keep our trains moving and its employees with jobs. However, we should not be wasting that money on a fossil fuel power plant that would add major pollution to our air. This power plant is a dirty deal for dirty power.”

Water Regulator Defends OK of Plan to Build LNG Export Terminal in South Jersey --The Delaware River Basin Commission defended its approval of a plan to build New Jersey’s first liquefied natural-gas export terminal on the Delaware River in South Jersey, saying it had allowed critics to argue against it at a quasi-judicial hearing but sees no reason to change its mind. The interstate water regulator offered a brief statement at the start of an online “adjudicatory hearing” that presented opposing arguments by the environmental group Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN), and the developer of the terminal, Delaware River Partners (DRP) over whether the terminal should be built. Risk of explosion DRBC Secretary Pamela Bush said the commissioners agreed last September to a request for the hearing from DRN, which argues that the terminal at Gibbstown in Gloucester County would expose local residents to the risk of explosion, as well as overwhelming the community with truck traffic and disturbing the natural environment. But she said that holding the hearing didn’t mean the commission believes its approval was incorrect. “Rather, the hearing gives DRN an opportunity to show, by a process set forth in DRBC’s rules, that the commission’s decision should be changed,” Bush said at the start of six hours of testimony on Monday, the first day of the hearing, according to a video that was released by DRBC on Tuesday. Advocates had originally expected to face each other in person in a court-like setting, but because of social-distancing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic, each attorney participated via video from his or her home or private office. Presiding was John Kelly, a hearing officer with the Pennsylvania Department of State, who will prepare a report, based on hearing testimony and public comments, and then make recommendations to the commission — which is not required to accept his recommendations. There is no timeline set for the hearing or for Kelly to file his report and recommendations.

Killingly gas plant wastewater discharges are another reason for worry -  On April 27, the DEEP gave public notice that it had granted the controversial Killingly natural gas plant permission to discharge 90,000 gallons of toxic wastewater daily, or 32,850,000 gallons annually. At that rate, Killingly could essentially fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool with polluted water every week. This wastewater will contain lead, ammonia, petroleum, phosphorous, copper and other metals. These pollutants pose a danger to Connecticut’s residents and our natural resources alike. Lead is so notorious for causing birth defects, kidney failure and impairing childhood cognitive development that it’s unnecessary to say more. Ammoniaand phosphorous discharges threaten our aquatic resources — increased levels of ammonia and phosphorous cause bacterial and algae blooms that consume oxygen and suffocate aquatic life, leading to so-called “dead zones.” Copper can lead to liver and kidney damage.The DEEP is going to allow Killingly to direct this toxic soup to the Killingly Publicly Owned Treatment Works, the municipal water treatment plant. In 2014, Killingly residents agreed to spend over $25 million to upgrade their treatment plant. The town will pay for these upgrades with an annual 11 percent increase in sewer usage bills for four years. The DEEP is allowing a privately held, polluting natural gas plant to strain a publicly funded water treatment plant (designed to treat domestic sewage) with industrial wastewater. This doesn’t even consider the threat posed by the pipeline that will transport the natural gas, which will cut through protected lands and the Quinebaug River. The DEEP’s decision underscores the disconnect between the state’s words and deeds. Even as Gov. Ned Lamont and his administration claim commitment to bringing carbon emissions from the power sector to zero by 2040, they’re allowing the development of a new fossil fuel power plant that will emit 2.2 million tons of CO2 annually for decades.  Katie Dykes, the commissioner of energy and environmental protection, justified the Killingly plant by claiming natural gas to be a “bridge from coal and oil.” This is a popular, pro-natural gas talking point. Too bad it’s not true. While natural gas releases half the CO2 of coal and oil when used as an energy source, the extraction and refining of natural gas releases massive quantities of methane gas, and methane warms the planet at 80 times the rate of CO2. Atmospheric levels of methane gas began rapidly increasing in 2007, which tracks our increased reliance on natural gas. A decade-old study by scientists at Cornell University determined that shale natural gas production is worse on the climate than coal. Methane gas has an atmospheric footprint that is at least 20% greater than coal, and “perhaps more than twice as great” as coal. If natural gas is a bridge fuel, it’s a bridge to a place worse than nowhere.

Three Enbridge Pipelines Shut After Kentucky Natgas Line Fire (Reuters) - Three of Enbridge's pipelines were shut following a fire on the company's Line 10 segment of its Texas Eastern Natural Gas System, in Fleming County, Kentucky on May 4, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said on Friday.The company said on Thursday there was no estimated timeline to return its Line 10 to service.The PHMSA has deployed an investigator to the site of the incident, a PHMSA spokesperson said.No injuries were reported in the fire, which occurred in a wooded area in Fleming County.That shutdown stopped gas from flowing through the damaged section of pipe from the Marcellus/Utica Shale in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia to the U.S. Gulf Coast.Before the blast about 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas was flowing through that area, according to data from Refinitiv and was now down to around zero on some days, according to data from Refinitv.Texas Eastern has three lines between its Danville and Tompkinsville compressors in Kentucky that make up its 30-inch (76-centimeter) system. They are Lines 10, 15 and 25.

Appalachian gas markets remain strong, despite continuing Texas Eastern outage - Spot gas prices in Appalachia and the US Northeast edged higher Monday, despite an ongoing outage on Texas Eastern Transmission that will likely continue pushing back on regional supply through late May. In midday cash trading, Appalachia's benchmark supply hub, Dominion South, jumped 9 cents, rising to $1.40/MMBtu. At the nearby Texas Eastern M2 location, prices climbed 10 cents to $1.37/MMBtu. At downstream locations including Texas Eastern M3, Transco Zone 6 NY and Algonquin city-gates, cash markets were up roughly 20 cents Monday as below-average temperatures stoked regional heating demand. In a critical notice Friday, Texas Eastern said it anticipates continued north-to-south flow restrictions through its Owingsville compressor station in Kentucky over the next two to three weeks as it conducts line inspections near the site of a pipeline explosion that occurred May 4. While just one of three lines that comprise its 30-inch diameter pipeline system in the area was damaged, gas transmissions on Texas Eastern have remained at zero following the explosion as the operator works with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to evaluate options for restoring at least partial capacity through the affected segment.In the days since the explosion on Texas Eastern, below-average temperatures and elevated heating demand across the Eastern Seaboard have offered an outlet for Appalachian gas production that otherwise would have likely faced downward pressure. Over the past week, Appalachian Basin producers have churned out an average 32.4 Bcf/d, with output up roughly 100 MMcf/d compared with levels in the month prior to the pipeline explosion. As producers reroute upstream supply, production receipts on Texas Eastern have fallen about 210 MMcf/d since the outage, with smaller declines on Rover Pipeline and Tennessee Gas Pipeline. A simultaneous uptick in receipts has has been reported on Columbia Gas Transmission – up about 300 MMcf/d – along with smaller increases on Rockies Express Pipeline, Nexus Gas Transmission, Equitrans and Dominion Transmission, S&P Global Platts Analytics data shows. While the Texas Eastern outage in Kentucky has lowered Appalachian gas transmission to markets in the Southeast and the Gulf Coast by an estimated 460 MMcf/d in total since the outage began, flows to neighboring markets in the US Midwest have witnessed a simultaneous and nearly equivalent jump.

U.S. natgas little changed as milder forecasts offset slowing output - (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures on Monday were little changed on Monday as forecasts for milder weather and less demand over the next two weeks offset a continued slowdown in output as energy firms slash spending on new drilling and shut well after crude price collapsed due to demand destruction from the coronavirus. Those oil wells also produce a lot of gas. Front-month gas futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 0.3 cents, or 0.2%, to settle at $1.826 per million British thermal units. That kept front-month at the Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana higher than the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands. Henry Hub futures were also was trading higher than TTF in July and August. Analysts said those high U.S. prices and low prices elsewhere should prompt buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to keep canceling some U.S. cargoes in coming months. In April, buyers canceled about 20 U.S. LNG cargoes that were due to be shipped in June. Looking ahead, U.S. gas futures for the balance of 2020 and calendar 2021 were trading higher than the front-month on expectations demand will jump once governments loosen coronavirus travel and work restrictions. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected gas production will fall to an annual average of 91.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2020 and 87.5 bcfd in 2021 from a record 92.2 bcfd in 2019 due to the reduction in drilling. Data provider Refinitiv said average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states has fallen to 90.3 bcfd so far in May, down from an eight-month low of 92.9 bcfd in April and an all-time monthly high of 95.4 bcfd in November.

U.S. natgas falls near 6% as mild weather and coronavirus cut demand - Reuters- U.S. natural gas futures fell almost 6% to a three-week low on Tuesday on forecasts for demand to drop as the weather turns milder and businesses remain closed due to government lockdowns to stop the spread of coronavirus. Those price declines, however, were limited by a continued slowdown in output as a global crude glut and slumping fuel demand due to the lockdowns caused oil prices to collapse, prompting energy firms to slash spending on drilling and shut oil wells. Those oil wells also produce a lot of gas. Front-month gas futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 10.6 cents, or 5.8%, to settle at $1.720 per million British thermal units, their lowest close since April 16. Since late April, the front-month at the Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana has traded higher than the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands. Henry Hub futures were also trading higher than TTF in July and August. Data provider Refinitiv said average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states has fallen to 90.3 bcfd so far in May, down from an eight-month low of 92.9 bcfd in April and an all-time monthly high of 95.4 bcfd in November. The EIA projected coronavirus lockdowns will cut U.S. gas use - not including exports - to an average of 81.7 bcfd in 2020 and 79.2 bcfd in 2021 from a record 85.0 bcfd in 2019. With the weather expected to turn milder, Refinitiv projected demand in the Lower 48 states, including exports, would fall from an average of 85.7 bcfd this week to 79.2 bcfd next week. That is lower than Refinitiv's demand forecasts on Monday of 86.4 bcfd this week and 81.6 bcfd next week. Even though the coronavirus is reducing global gas use, the EIA still expects U.S. exports to hit record highs in coming years as more LNG export plants and pipelines enter service. Still, the agency has reduced its projections on the pace of that growth due to the pandemic. Refinitiv said U.S. LNG exports have averaged 7.2 bcfd so far in May, down from a four-month low of 8.1 bcfd in April and an all-time high of 8.7 bcfd in February.

U.S. natgas futures fall to 4-week low on coronavirus demand destruction -  (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures fell to a four-week low on Wednesday on forecasts for domestic demand and exports to drop as businesses remain closed due to government lockdowns to stop the spread of the coronavirus. That decline came despite expectations output will slow as a collapse in oil prices due to the pandemic prompted energy firms to shut oil wells and slash spending on new drilling. Those oil wells also produce a lot of gas. Front-month gas futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 10.4 cents, or 6.0%, to settle at $1.616 per million British thermal units, their lowest close since April 15. Despite the decline, the front-month at the Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana has traded higher than the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands since late April. Henry Hub futures were also trading higher than TTF in July and August . Analysts said higher U.S. prices should prompt buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to cancel more U.S. cargoes in coming months. In April, buyers canceled about 20 U.S. cargoes due to be shipped in June. Looking ahead, U.S. gas futures for the balance of 2020 and calendar 2021 were trading higher than the front-month on expectations demand will increase once governments loosen coronavirus travel and work restrictions. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected gas production will fall to an annual average of 89.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2020 and 84.9 bcfd in 2021 from a record 92.2 bcfd in 2019 due to the reduction in drilling. Even though the coronavirus is reducing global gas use, the EIA still expects U.S. exports to hit record highs in coming years as more LNG export plants and pipelines enter service. Still, the agency has reduced its projections on the pace of that growth due to the pandemic. .

US working natural gas volumes in underground storage rise by 103 Bcf: EIA | S&P Global Platts -- The US Energy Information Administration reported a second consecutive triple-digit build, but production declines could affect the injection for the week in progress. Storage inventories increased by 103 Bcf to 2.422 Tcf for the week ended May 8, the US Energy Information Administration reported Thursday morning. The injection was less than S&P Global Platts' survey of analysts calling for a 110 Bcf build. Responses to the survey ranged from an injection of 89 Bcf to 118 Bcf. The injection was more than the 100 Bcf build reported during the same week last year as well as the five-year average addition of 75 Bcf. Storage volumes now stand 799 Bcf, or 49%, higher than the year-ago level of 1.623 Tcf and 413 Bcf, or 20.6%, more than the five-year average of 2.009 Tcf. Upstream, supplies were down by a combined 1.7 Bcf/d to an average 92.6 Bcf/d, mainly on a drop in onshore production, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. The Midcontinent market showed a substantial drop in production of nearly 1 Bcf/d and was joined by smaller declines spread across several other regions as well. The rapid downturn in the balance highlights how the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on US gas markets will shift this summer from a bearish demand story to a bullish production one. June Henry Hub NYMEX rallied 8 cents following the report, helping shore-up recent declines in the balance-of-summer strip pricing, which had dipped below $2/MMBtu at Wednesday's close after only 10 days prior peaking at $2.35. Spreads to next winter have widened in the past few weeks, and the winter contract strip is now trading roughly 85 cents over the balance of summer, which may induce elevated injection activity. Platts Analytics' supply and demand model expects a 79 Bcf addition to US storage volumes for the week ending May 15. This would be 8 Bcf less than the five-year average. The week in progress has seen a re-tightening of balances as supply has held virtually flat while residential and commercial demand has rallied on colder weather across the eastern United States. Total demand has increased by an average 4.3 Bcf/d on the week as temperatures plummeted by an average 7.5 degrees across the higher-demand Midcontinent and Northeast regions, according to Platts Analytics. This has helped support a resurgence of residential and commercial demand, but the colder weather is expected to lift by this weekend, likely sending demand lower once again. Upstream, supplies have remained more or less locked-in at just below 93 Bcf/d, with all of this week's 400 MMcf/d increase stemming from an increase in net imports from Canada, to meet the stronger demand in the Midwest and Northeast.

U.S. natgas futures rise 4% on smaller than expected storage build -  (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures rose 4% on Thursday on a smaller-than-expected storage build and a slowdown in output as energy firms shut oil wells and slashed spending on new drilling after crude prices collapsed over the past couple of months due in part to demand destruction from the coronavirus pandemic. Those oil wells also produce a lot of gas. The price increase came despite forecasts for domestic demand and exports to drop as government lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus cut gas use around the world. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said utilities injected 103 billion cubic feet of gas into storage during the week ended May 8. That is slightly less than the 107-bcf build analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with an increase of 100 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year (2015-19) average build of 85 bcf for the period. The increase during the week ended May 8 boosted stockpiles to 2.422 trillion cubic feet, 20.6% above the five-year average of 2.009 tcf for this time of year. Front-month gas futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 6.5 cents, or 4.0%, to settle at $1.681 per million British thermal units. On Wednesday, the contract closed at its lowest since April 15. The 8% collapse in the Henry Hub in Louisiana briefly pushed the U.S. benchmark below the front-month Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands for a second day in a row on Thursday. The TTF front-month has mostly traded at a premium to Henry Hub since April 30, when it closed over the U.S. contract for the first time in a decade. Henry Hub futures, however, continued to trade over TTF in July and August . Analysts said those higher U.S. prices should prompt buyers of liquefied natural gas to continue canceling U.S. cargoes in coming months. In April, buyers canceled about 20 U.S. LNG cargoes due to be shipped in June.

U.S. natgas futures slide on forecasts for milder weather next week - (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures slipped on Friday on forecasts for milder weather and less demand next week despite an outlook calling for higher temperatures and more air-conditioning use in two weeks. Front-month gas futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 3.5 cents, or 2.1%, to settle at $1.646 per million British thermal units. For the week, the contract was down about 10% after falling about 4% in the prior week. Government lockdowns to stop the spread of coronavirus have cut energy use, causing fuel prices and exports to drop as businesses shut. U.S. crude futures are down about 50% this year. U.S. producers have reacted quickly to the price collapse by shutting oil wells and slashing spending on new drilling. Those oil wells also produce a lot of gas. But now that output is dropping, prices are expected to rise in the future as governments slowly lift travel restrictions. U.S. gas for the balance of 2020 and calendar 2021 was trading much higher than the front-month. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected gas production will fall to an annual average of 89.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2020 and 84.9 bcfd in 2021 from a record 92.2 bcfd in 2019. U.S. gas prices for June at the Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana have mostly traded over the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands since late April. As long as U.S. prices remain over the European benchmark - Henry Hub is also trading over TTF for July and August - analysts said LNG buyers will keep canceling U.S. cargoes. In April, buyers canceled about 20 U.S. LNG cargoes due to be shipped in June.

 Energy regulator declines states' request for moratorium on pipeline approvals  - Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Neil Chatterjee has rejected a request from several states to pause approvals for new energy infrastructure projects such as natural gas pipelines. Chatterjee, in a Tuesday letter to Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D), argued that energy projects are important to the country’s infrastructure and said a moratorium would be “short-sighted and impractical.” “As our nation grapples with these uncertain and unprecedented times, the energy sector must continue to deliver reliable and affordable energy for everyone,” he wrote. “Hindering the build-out of energy infrastructure now could have long-term and lasting negative impacts on the delivery of energy the future.” “For these reasons, I view requests for a moratorium on energy projects to be short-sighted and impractical,” the commissioner added. “Any step to slow the energy economy is a step in the wrong direction.” Last week, attorneys general from 10 states and Washington, D.C., wrote a letter saying that waiting to approve the projects is necessary in order to protect the due process rights of people who might be affected by them. “The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed even greater burdens on communities attempting to organize their interests and participate in Commission proceedings,” they wrote. “The Commission should account for the unprecedented hardships the pandemic has imposed on citizens and postpone any approvals of permanent gas infrastructure until those affected by its decisions can once again focus on these matters.” Chatterjee also addressed this argument in his letter, writing the commission continues “to post all submittals and issuances on the FERC eLibrary website and we continue to receive comments, which enable us to thoroughly consider and address parties’ concerns in our orders.” A FERC spokesperson said in an email that Chatterjee will be replying soon to all of the attorneys general who wrote to him, but responded to Herring first because of questions about specific projects. Asked for comment on Chatterjee's letter, a spokesperson for Herring said in an email that the attorney general "made a very reasonable request for FERC to hit pause on approving new fossil fuel projects that will exacerbate climate change and pollute the air while we’re in the middle of an outbreak of a deadly respiratory disease that limits the public’s ability to weigh-in." "Many of these projects directly affect the populations and communities around them and the public deserves the right to an unrestricted comment and debate period before a project is finalized in their area," the spokesperson added.

Michigan to Enbridge: Line 5 tunnel permit application is incomplete -  Before Enbridge can seek a permit to build the Line 5 tunnel to transport oil and natural gas beneath the Straits of Mackinac, Michigan regulators say the company needs to spend more time considering alternatives.That’s one of several conclusions state officials reached when they reviewed Enbridge’s application for a permit from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy to build the controversial tunnel between Michigan’s two peninsulas. In a May 4 letter to the Canadian petroleum conglomerate, a state district supervisor gave Enbridge 30 days to update its application with more information.Regulators said Enbridge’s application was unnecessarily long, at more than 350 pages, but omitted key information state officials need to help decide whether to grant the permit. “EGLE requests that Enbridge edit submitted materials for precision and relevance to actual proposed construction,” wrote Joseph Haas, a supervisor in EGLE’s Gaylord District Office.In addition to submitting “a complete assessment of the alternatives” to the tunnel project, the letter stated, Enbridge must outline plans to mitigate damage the tunnel project could cause to wetlands and federally-protected plants, offer details about ongoing lawsuits that could affect the tunnel’s fate, and add other missing pieces to the application.The holdup is the latest twist in a long battle over the fate of the 67-year-old pipeline, which transports 540,000 barrels daily of crude oil and natural gas liquids between Wisconsin and Ontario. Opponents have long called for its shutdown, arguing the pipeline poses a catastrophic hazard to the Great Lakes and inland waterways. Under a 2018 agreement Enbridge reached with the administration of Gov. Rick Snyder just before the Republican left office, the company plans to replace the 4-mile section that sits exposed at the bottom of the straits with a new line encapsulated in a concrete-lined tunnel deep beneath the lakebed.Enbridge contends the tunnel plan would virtually eliminate the possibility of a spill in the Straits, but opponents cite other environmental concerns, including spill risks on inland waterways and the environmental impacts of fossil fuels, in their continued opposition to the tunnel and the larger pipeline. Snyder’s successor, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, campaigned on a promise to shut the pipeline, but so far she and Attorney General Dana Nessel, who also opposes the pipeline, have been unsuccessful in that effort.State regulators on Wednesday said the letter to Enbridge is merely a routine step in the permitting process.“This type of back-and-forth correspondence is common for the majority of applications we review for completeness,” EGLE spokesman Scott Dean said.That didn’t stop Line 5 opponents from heralding the letter as an incremental victory in their fight against the tunnel project. “The burden is now on Enbridge to prove why Michigan and the Great Lakes should shoulder the huge risk of having Line 5 oil pipelines in the Great Lakes and crossing 400 other waterways,” said Sean McBrearty, coordinator of the anti-Line 5 group Oil & Water Don’t Mix, in a statement.

State tells Enbridge to rewrite Line 5 application -  Conservation groups are praising the state for handing the Line 5 pipeline replacement project another setback.The State Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has asked Enbridge to rewrite its permit application to rebuild an oil and gas pipeline underneath the Straits of Mackinac and include alternative options. David Holtz, communications coordinator for the group Oil and Water Don't Mix, says the state must consider the risk of a spill. "In the letter to Enbridge, the state made clear that it was going to apply environmental standards in evaluating the permit," he points out. "And what that means is that the agency has to determine what the impact of that pipeline will be, including on the Great Lakes but also climate change." Enbridge says its project will bring jobs and energy security to Michigan while practically eliminating the possibility of a spill in the Straits. Opponents cite other environmental concerns, including spill risks on inland waterways and the environmental impacts of fossil fuels. Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy told The Bridge magazine the company plans to provide the requested information to forward with the process. Pending permit approvals, Enbridge officials hope to begin construction on the $500 million tunnel project next year and bring the new segment online in 2024.State Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed a separate suit alleging that the easement for the pipeline, granted in 1953, violates current environmental law and should be voided. Ingham County Circuit Court Judge James Jamo is scheduled to hear arguments on that complaint May 22nd.Holtz says the new Line 5 should not be built -- and wants the old pipeline decommissioned. "This pipeline doesn't belong in the Great  Lakes," he stresses. "It crosses 400 other waterways. Michigan doesn't need the oil. There are other solutions to getting propane to heat homes in the UP. That's been demonstrated."

Feds launch public comment on Enbridge tunnel permit application -The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has deemed Enbridge’s permit application for the construction of a utility tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac complete, a little more than a week after state environmental experts said it was not.The Army Corps set a public comment period that will last through June 4 on the application seeking permission to build a roughly 4-mile tunnel to house a new segment of the Line 5 oil pipeline. “This first determination, coming approximately one month after submittal, is significant and moves the process one step further to the tunnel becoming a reality,” Enbridge spokesman Ryan Duffy said Tuesday.The Army Corps considered the application "administratively complete" after Enbridge responded to two separate requests May 4 and May 7 for additional information, said Katie Otanez, a regulatory project manager for the corps' Detroit District. "We have not scheduled a public hearing, but commenters to the public notice may request a public hearing," Otanez said. "The corps will determine whether a public hearing is needed based on whether a hearing is likely to result in information that could not otherwise be gained." If approved for state and federal permits, the Canadian company plans to begin construction of the tunnel in 2021 and begin operating the new Line 5 within the tunnel 2024. The Whitmer administration opposes the tunnel's construction. The go ahead from the Army Corps comes roughly a week after the state said the Canadian oil company’s application was incomplete and requested further information and edits that provide more specificity on the plan. Duffy said the company is working to provide answers to the state's request for additional information, which he called a “routine request.” “Enbridge appreciates the timeliness and important feedback we are receiving from the permitting agencies,” Duffy said. Enbridge has until June 3 to respond to the May 4 request for more information, said Scott Dean a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. When the department decides the company's application is "administratively complete," the application will be placed on public notice for 20 days, Dean said. State and federal environmental reviews of permit applications vary because they fall under separate state and federal laws, he said.

AG Nessel Calls on MPSC to reject Enbridge's attempt to bypass review process for building new pipelines - Attorney General Dana Nessel recently urged the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) to reject an attempt by Enbridge Energy Limited Partnership to bypass the normal legal process for reviewing proposals to locate and construct new oil pipelines in Michigan. "Enbridge's proposed new pipeline must be thoroughly and publicly vetted through the process required by Michigan law, including full review by the MPSC," said Nessel. "There is too much at stake to allow anything else." Enbridge submitted an application on April 17 to the MPSC under the law that governs oil pipeline siting a 1929 Public Act to approve the construction of a new pipeline in a proposed tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac to replace part of its Line 5.  Nessel filed comment opposing Enbridge's request on Wednesday, and explained that it should be denied for several reasons:
-Enbridge's project is not, as it claims, simply "maintenance" of the pipelines approved in 1953; it proposes to locate and build a new and different pipeline.
-Act 16 and MPSC's rules plainly require an application to locate and construct a new oil pipeline.
-Enbridge's claim that a new approval is "never" required for this type of project is false; Enbridge itself has previously applied for approval to replace sections of other pipelines in Michigan.
-The MPSC has a duty to consider the potential environmental impacts of the project that cannot be bypassed through Enbridge's requested declaratory ruling.

Tribe specialty, environmental law groups join fight against Enbridge tunnel | WPBN -- An Upper Peninsula community is adding allies in its legal battle against Enbridge. On Tuesday, Bay Mills Indian Community announced Earthjustice and the Native American Rights Fund will be assisting in the legal battle against the energy company. Earthjustice is a nonprofit public interest environmental law organization working to protect people’s health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. NARF has provided specialized legal assistance to Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals nationwide since 1970. NARF works in such critical areas as tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, natural resource protection, voting rights, and Indian education. This comes as Enbridge continues to work on a new Line 5 tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac."We are pleased to expand our presence in the Midwest and stand with Bay Mills in defense of the Great Lakes—the largest freshwater system in the world—and the incredible and complex ecosystems that have sustained the Anishinaabe people for generations,” said Gussie Lord, director of Tribal Partnerships at Earthjustice. “Bay Mills has consistently voiced its concerns about the continued operation of Line 5 through the Straits of Mackinac and across other ceded territory in Michigan where it holds treaty-protected rights. BMIC and the new legal advocates said they intend to pursue all avenues to prevent the construction of the tunnel and the pipeline's presence in the area. Earthjustice and NARF attorneys have filed a Petition to Intervene to participate as a party in the Enbridge Line 5 Tunnel Project proceedings before the Michigan Public Service Commission. The construction of the Great Lake Tunnel Project is set to begin in 2021 with the new Line 5 segment in service by 2024. “With their application to move a section of the Line 5 pipeline to a tunnel dug under the Straits of Mackinac, Enbridge proposes a significant project that could have extreme impacts on the area’s waterways and wildlife. Over the years, the tribe has consistently fought to protect their fishing and hunting rights. Yesterday's filing continues that fight. NARF is proud to stand with the nation to ensure that the Bay Mills Community’s fishing lifeways and tribal homelands are adequately protected for generations to come,” said NARF Staff Attorney David Gover.

Illinois oil production slumps during pandemic — Oil production in Illinois has been on the decline for many years, but a steep drop in demand brought on by the economic slowdown spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a big bite out of the industry. “Our production for the first quarter was actually a little bit stronger, quarter-over-quarter, but there's no doubt that our production will decline in the second quarter,” Seth Whitehead, spokesman for the Illinois Petroleum Resources Board, said during an interview this week. “You know, just the eyeball test looking around, where I live in Fayette County, there are a lot of shut-ins at the moment. And right now, the price of oil is about $12 to $15 below where it needs to be for producers to turn a profit.” Illinois tops single-day COVID-19 test record with 20K According to the industry website oilmonster.com, Illinois crude oil was trading at $21.25 per barrel on April 3, well below the roughly $35 per barrel most producers need to turn a profit. But as most states have asked their residents to limit nonessential travel, demand for oil in the United States has plummeted, and on Thursday, May 7, Illinois crude was down to $10.50 per barrel. Although it is a relatively small part of Illinois’ overall economy, oil production remains an important industry in parts of the state, especially southeast Illinois. Whitehead said one reason it is often overlooked is because the industry is concentrated in sparsely-populated counties. Illinois judge to reject lawsuit over ballot obstacles for constitutional amendment “You know, 15 counties produce 90 percent of the oil in Illinois and 2 percent of the entire population resides in those counties,” he said. “So, it's very spread out over a very rural area.” In the early part of the 20th century, according to IPBR, oil production was a major part of the state’s economy and Illinois was the nation’s third leading oil producing state. Today, the state produces only about 9 million barrels per year, Whitehead said. Still, he said, about 4,000 jobs in Illinois are directly tied to the industry, plus another 14,000 jobs in refineries and other industries that are indirectly tied to oil production. The industry also accounts for $770 million in personal income in the state and it provides royalty income to more than 30,000 individuals. It also generates about $330 million in tax revenue for the state, plus $93.4 million in property tax revenue for local governments. Even before the pandemic hit the United States, oil prices had been falling due to overproduction in countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia and a lack of storage capacity in the United States. It remains to be seen how long it will take for prices to recover enough for the oil industry in Illinois to bounce back. But Whitehead said industry officials here remain optimistic. “We'll definitely see a short-term production decline …” he said. “But if the pandemic eases and things get back to normal sooner, rather than later, the industry has a better chance of coming out of this looking in pretty good shape. But the longer it goes on, obviously, the tougher it’ll get.”

Yet Another State Quietly Moves To Criminalize Fossil Fuel Protests Amid Coronavirus - Alabama lawmakers this week advanced legislation to add new criminal penalties to nonviolent protests against pipelines and other fossil fuel projects, setting a course to become the fourth state to enact such measures amid the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic. The bill would designate virtually any oil, gas or coal equipment or facilities in the state as “critical infrastructure” and severely prohibit where aerial drones that watchdog groups depend on to track pollution can fly. The legislation would make any action that “interrupts or interferes” with pipelines, storage depots or refineries a Class C felony, punishable with at least one year in prison and up to $15,000 in fines.  Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia enacted similar measures in March, just as states started implementing lockdowns to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus. The Alabama Senate passed the bill on March 12, just before state officials, alarmed at the spread of the virus, postponed legislative hearings for a month. When the capitol reopened in Montgomery on May 4, state Democrats remained in their home districts, but enough Republican lawmakers returned to restart work on the legislation. On Monday, the House version of the bill was introduced and referred to the committee that oversees utilities and infrastructure. On Thursday, lawmakers hit pause again, pledging to work instead on budgets, bond issues for school and college funding, and local bills until the next legislative session.State Sen. Cam Ward, the lead Republican championing the measure, told HuffPost the bill “will not be voted on this session due to the COVID-19 delay in our session.”  But this is “a high-priority bill,” said Michael Hansen, executive director of Gasp, a clean-air advocacy group based in Birmingham. “So the moment they get a chance, they will pass it,” he said.

Gulf Coast communities grapple with oil and gas impacts - Oil and natural gas were extracted from the Permian Basin’s prolific shale deposits of southeast New Mexico and West Texas for decades. Since about 2017, the extractive industry boomed in the region — led by hydraulic fracturing and unconventional, horizontal wells able to access harder-to-reach crude oil reservoirs. Much of those resources were shipped via pipeline to the Gulf Coast, another major U.S. oil-producing region in east Texas and western Louisiana, for refining and export to the global market. Thousands of miles of pipelines were developed, to eliminate transportation bottlenecks as millions of gallons of fossil fuels were destined for travel up to 800 miles out of the Permian across Texas to the coast. The surge in production and refining had a cultural and environmental impacts on the region. The story of the Permian Basin could not be fully told without including the generations of changes to the coast, its land and people. "A robust network of oil and natural gas pipelines connect the exploration and production activity in the Permian Basin to the complex, interconnected system of storage tanks, refineries, manufacturing facilities, (liquefied natural gas) and export facilities along our Gulf Coast," said Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association. Staples said the connection between the Permian and Gulf Coast was essential to the industry's ability to extract crude oil and develop a vast multitude of products from fuel that powers cars to plastic used in their construction. "The downstream sector of the oil and natural gas industry, with its large presence along the Gulf Coast, is indispensable when it comes to creating the everyday goods that make modern life possible," Staples said.  Much of those resources would be sent to the Gulf Coast for export and refining, strengthening its position as a prominent region for oil and gas. The 2019 Energy Outlook from Louisiana State University reported U.S. crude production last year was up to 3.5 billion barrels, with natural gas climbing above 35 trillion cubic feet, largely fueled by the Permian and Gulf Coast.Meanwhile, the Outlook reported several pipeline projects connecting the Permian with the Gulf Coast were announced in the last two years, with a total capacity of about 3 million barrels per day to be available by 2020.

Coronavirus: Louisiana oil industry 'relief' renewed in legislation - Louisiana's oil and gas industry could succeed on some key legislative proposals that have failed in the past as leaders urge passage during the historic collapse of oil prices. The industry's push to stifle coastal lawsuits and to provide severance tax relief has made progress through the Legislature, in part boosted by arguments that the industry needs "life support" measures to stay afloat. "There's no doubt that we're facing challenging times as an industry right now," Louisiana Oil and Gas Association President Gifford Briggs said to the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee on Wednesday. "This is unlike anything we've ever seen." The association is advocating several measures for passage this session, some that have been on the industry's wish list for years, long before the COVID-19 crisis. More: Amid coronavirus, Louisiana oil and gas workforce sees 23% layoffs, wells shut, fear more Oil prices opened around $25 on Wednesday. LOGA says oil producers need the price to hit $37 to break even. As the industry hopes to avoid huge shutdowns and layoffs, leaders are pushing these measures in the Legislature. Reduce Louisiana's severance tax on oil and gas House Bill 506 status: Passed by House Committee on Ways and Means, waiting for House vote HB506, by Republican Rep. Phillip DeVillier from Eunice, would reduce the severance tax on oil, which currently sits at 12.5%. The severance tax is a state tax paid on all natural resources produced in the state, but the bulk of the collected revenue comes from oil. The oil and gas industry has long been critical of the tax, and the original intention of HB506 was to reduce the tax rate down to 8.5% by July 1, 2028. But the bill was amended to include a short-term reduction in the rate due to COVID-19. More: Gov. John Bel Edwards delays collection of severance tax to help oil and gas The bill would lower the rate from 12.5% to 2% from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, when the price of oil is below $30. The bill would result in a $112.6 million loss of revenue for the next five years for the state, and the parishes, which receive a portion of the revenue, could see $6.9 million in lost revenue by Fiscal Year 2029. The fiscal note says it's difficult to measure the lost revenue — especially with the historic glut of oil on the market — but said "the bill can only result in a significant loss of state severance tax receipts and parish allocation amounts from what would otherwise be the case." The severance tax provides the state with a significant amount of revenue. The majority of the revenue goes to the state, and in fiscal year 2019, the tax brought in $529 million, according to the Louisiana Department of Revenue.

LA. Senate bill undermines parish lawsuits against oil and gas  — A vote on a contentious Louisiana Senate bill that would undermine parishes’ lawsuits against oil and gas companies keeps getting delayed, in spite of a full-court press by business and industry groups to get it passed. Late Thursday, a spokeswoman for Gov. John Bel Edwards said the governor is against the bill. “Some of these coastal lawsuits were filed by the parishes years ago — many before Governor Edwards took office — under statutory authority that was expressly given to them by the Legislature decades ago,” Edwards spokeswoman Christina Stephens told WWL-TV. “The bill in question seeks to retroactively divest them from the lawsuits that are already in progress, which the Governor believes is wrong. The parishes that have chosen to file lawsuits deserve to have their day in court.” The bill, SB 359 by Sen. Bob Hensgens, R-Abbeville, would clarify the law on coastal use permits to prevent six coastal parishes —Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. John the Baptist, Cameron and Vermilion – from enforcing permit violations and to give that power exclusively to the state. But those parishes already filed lawsuits against dozens of oil and gas companies back in 2013 seeking hundreds of millions of dollars. They already agreed on a settlement with one of the oil companies, Freeport McMoran, that stands to net them $100 million for coastal restoration. A coalition of business and industry groups has taken out full-page ads in newspapers urging support for SB 359, saying Louisiana should "work with the oil and gas industry, not against it." The ads claim the coastal lawsuits “drive away jobs, people and investments at a time when we need them most.” It isn’t lost on the bill’s supporters that the oil and gas industry is struggling mightily with record low crude oil prices and reduced demand during the coronavirus shutdown. If SB 359 passes the Senate and the House, opponents believe Gov. John Bel Edwards will veto it because it would take away the parishes’ rights while they are already exercising them in court. But Gifford Briggs of the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association wasn’t deterred Thursday. “We remain very optimistic about the legislation and its opportunity for ultimate and final passage,” Briggs said. “And we look forward to working with the (Edwards) administration and hopefully they will recognize the importance of having predictability, recognize the importance of the state being in the lead and the state being in charge of their own permits.”

Listen: LNG market disruption pushes developers to defer decisions on new liquefaction projects -- S&P Global Platts senior natural gas writer Harry Weber and S&P Global Platts Analytics head of gas and power Ira Joseph discuss the latest developments in the global LNG market as the weak price environment continues and project developers face challenges securing long-term contracts to finance new terminals. Amid supply and demand disruptions, decisions on new projects are being deferred to 2021 and perhaps beyond.

Magnolia LNG project sold for $2.25 million to British business with ties to Lafayette - The Australian parent company behind the Magnolia LNG project near Lake Charles sold the operation to a British business with a significant presence in Lafayette. Global Energy Megatrend Ltd. is expected to pay $2.25 million to LNG Ltd. in a deal slated to close on May 15, which includes all liabilities and those related to its 16 employees. The deal also includes patented liquefied natural gas technology. Global Energy Megatrend describes itself as an integrated natural gas company that has been leasing U.S. natural gas fields and investing in pipelines that lead to Louisiana ports and LNG export terminals. Ben Blanchet is the CEO of Global Energy Megatrend and is overseeing the company from offices in Lafayette. Blanchet is a major land owner in the Abbeville Salt Dome field and has experience contracting with the China National Petroleum Corp. and drilling in China. The company has been interested in the company behind Magnolia LNG long before the business became potentially insolvent, Blanchet said. "We have been in discussions with the company about these assets for quite some time," Blanchet said. The business expects to acquire more than just federal permits for the LNG export terminal. The deal includes land, detailed engineering plans and a contract for development, in addition to the underlying technology. "We're buying a company that is poised to more forward and develop that plant," he said. "They have done a terrific job in putting all those components together, but unfortunately they just ran out of money.

SUPREME COURT: Refiner wants justices to take up biofuel blending fight -- Friday, May 8, 2020 -- One of the companies at the center of a dispute over biofuel-blending requirements at small refineries said it wants the Supreme Court to take up the issue.

 Saudi Oil Rush Threatens to Disrupt Stabilizing U.S. Market - An armada of tankers filled with Saudi Arabian crude steaming toward the U.S. threatens to prevent America’s oil glut from draining, which is only just beginning. Over 30 ships are set to arrive on the U.S. Gulf Coast and West Coast during May and June, according to ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The more-than 50 million barrels of Saudi crude on the water threaten to upend a positive supply development: U.S. crude stockpiles declined for the first time since January and inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma storage hub contracted by the most in months. The U.S. is facing a tsunami of Saudi oil -- the lingering effect of a price war between Riyadh and Russia back in March -- that led the Middle East nation to slash pricing of its grades to multi-year lows and flood the market. The wave of supply occurred even as the Covid-19 pandemic was beginning to rapidly weigh on petroleum demand. A fifth of global consumption is still seen disappearing this quarter alone. “The expected Saudi deliveries could push U.S. inventories back to builds depending on their timing,” said Sandy Fielden, director of oil and products research at Morningstar Inc. “If the shipments land at a rate that isn’t balanced by falling production or an uptick in exports, then we’ll see a domestic build.” The oil industry has been on edge for months with onshore and offshore storage capacity levels tested worldwide due to ballooning oil inventories spurred by the demand slowdown. On the U.S. West Coast, crude stockpiles are less than 5 million barrels short of reaching the region’s storage capacity. While data from the Energy Information Administration this week showed U.S. crude production dropped to the lowest in nearly a year, there are still volumes being produced that may have to jostle with new Saudi deliveries for storage space. “If all the Saudi tankers unload, the crude they carry will offset during May almost all of the production reductions from March levels, effectively maintaining the current high storage filling rates,”

Business has reopened in Texas, but the economy won’t be back anytime soon, experts say --The Texas economy has been protected unlike elsewhere in the country during some of the nation’s most devastating downturns.When the financial market crashed in 2008 and sent the United States into a recession, high energy prices provided the Texas economy with a sort of cushion. After the entire country eventually suffered from the financial squeeze, the number of oil rigs operating in the nation's top oil-producing state increased as the fracking revolution spurred an energy production boom in Texas.“When energy prices are high, that’s good for the state coffers in Texas,” said Steven Beach, dean of the College of Business at the University of Texas Permian Basin. “But it’s a bit of a drag on the economy elsewhere outside of Texas.”Now, as more people are out of work in the United States than ever before and the national economic calamity from the coronavirus outbreak has reached all corners of the country, business is back open in Texas. State officials have said they want the economy to roar back to the strength it had before the coronavirus. But unlike previous downturns, experts said this time the oil and gas industry, which recently saw oil prices dip into the negatives, might hold the state’s economy back.Demand for oil has plummeted during the public health crisis because people have not been flying, commuting or traveling due to the coronavirus pandemic. It's still not known when people's behaviors and habits might return to what they were before the ongoing pandemic. The country’s biggest oil companies have slashed budgets by billions, other companies have gone bankrupt, and what was once the world’s hottest oil field — the Permian Basin — is “so surreal, so quiet,” said Virginia Belew, regional services director at the Permian Basin Regional Planning Commission. “Word is that no one has ever seen it this drastic,” Jim O’Bryan, the top local official in Reagan County near Midland, said in an interview. “Hopefully it will be short lived. It’ll come back, it always has.”

Trump administration to buy 1 million barrels of oil for national stockpile - The Department of Energy (DOE) is planning to buy 1 million barrels of oil from U.S. companies after funding to make a larger purchase failed to pass Congress.A notice posted by the agency Wednesday calls the purchase “a test” for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a national stockpile President Trump in mid-March said he would fill “right up to the top.”The 1 million barrel purchase would be a far cry from the 77 million barrels of space within the reserve. Doing so would have required $3 billion in funds, which Congress did not appropriate as part of the CARES Act stimulus package.The effort comes as oil prices have fallen to historic lows due to a lack of demand and a lack of storage space for an oversupply of oil.Democrats have repeatedly spoken out against any effort to assist the oil and gas industry during the coronavirus pandemic.“Using federal assistance — including low-interest loans, royalty relief, tax breaks, or strategic petroleum reserve purchases — in order to prop up oil companies would be a wasteful misuse of government resources that would exacerbate the climate crisis,” Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) wrote in a letter to the president when the idea was first floated. In April, DOE announced it would instead rent 23 million barrels of storage space in the reserve, allowing companies to pay for the space in oil.  The 1 million barrel purchase would be open to small and mid-sized oil and gas companies. The Federal Reserve Board also tweaked its Main Street Lending Program to be accessible to the same size oil companies. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday that he and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were asked by President Trump “to evaluate the programs that were passed by the Congress and ensure that there is access for these energy industries to those programs.”

 Is EIA Data Disguising A Disastrous Decline In U.S. Shale? - U.S. oil production continues to decline as drillers shut in wells and cut back spending. Output has already declined by 1.1 million barrels per day (mb/d), and more losses are likely. New data from Rystad Energy predicts U.S. oil production declines of roughly 2 mb/d by the end of June.“Actual production cuts are probably larger and occur not only as a result of shut-ins, but also due to a natural decline from existing wells when new wells and drilling decline,” Rystad said in a statement.Energy expert Philip Verleger, in an article for Energy Intelligence reports that the magnitude of output declines is much larger. His latest research shows that production as of May 10 is down by almost 4 million bpd from its peak as the below chart shows.  To be sure, the U.S. government is doing quite a bit to try to bailout the oil industry. A new report finds that some 90 oil and gas companies will benefit from the Federal Reserve’s corporate bond buying program. The Trump administration is also quietly reversing environmental protections on the oil and gas industry.But in the face of a historic meltdown in the oil market, even handouts from Uncle Sam won’t stop declines. The U.S. oil industry continues to idle drilling rigs at a tremendous clip, and the rig count is down by more than half in two months. “[W]e think that the last time there was so little drilling activity in the US was the 1860s during the first decade of the Pennsylvania oil boom,” Standard Chartered analysts said. The investment bank said that the contraction was notably acute in Oklahoma, where rigs fell to just 11 across the state, down 89 percent from the same period a year earlier. The sharp decline in rigs, drilling and completion activity means that the steep decline rates endemic to shale drilling will overwhelm what little new production comes online. Standard Chartered said that if activity were to remain stuck at current levels, U.S. production in the five main shale basins would fall by 2.89 mb/d by the end of 2020.  Those declines would come on top of the output that has only been shut in temporarily. Standard Chartered envisions a “squashed-W pattern” for supply, in which temporarily idled output comes back online in a few months, but more structural declines continue thereafter.The EIA, characteristically, is much more optimistic about the state of U.S. supply. The agencysaid on Tuesday that it only sees a 0.5 mb/d decline in oil production this year, compared to 2019 levels. Notably, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette says production will increase in the third and fourth quarters as the economy roars back.Others aren’t so sunny. A report from Wood Mackenzie released on Wednesday says that oil demand will take years to recover. “Production is falling sharply in the US, and some producers are reluctant to sell forward,” Commerzbank wrote in a note.

US Oil, Gas Permitting at Record Low in April, but Strengthening Seen in Early May - The collapse in drilling activity deepened in April, with permitting for oil and natural gas wells at a record low, but there are glimmers of gains so far this month, according to an analysis by Evercore ISI. Using week/week (w/w) data, Evercore said oil permits climbed 19% from the final week of April to 166 in the first week of May. The Permian Basin accounted for the most permits early this month, rebounding to 100, up by 35 from the week before. The gain was partly offset by the Eagle Ford Shale, with six fewer permits, and the Mississippian Lime, down by seven.Still, natural gas permits “strengthened to 39,” a 64% gain w/w, “as a result of resilience in the Haynesville Shale,” which added 15 permits. Permitting in other onshore plays dropped to 65, down by 37 from late March. For natural gas, permitting has been hit and miss since the start of the year, according to Evercore. Marcellus Shale permitting plunged by 44% through April year/year and was down by 20% from March to 169. The Utica Shale, a mix of gas and liquids, saw a month/month (m/m) decline of 14 permits. However, the Haynesville, second to the Marcellus in dry gas production, posted a slight recovery from March, with permits up by 13.Year-to-date through April, gas permitting across the country decreased by 39% to 884, “resulting from lower applications in the Marcellus to 409,” off 44% year/year, “and the Haynesville to 383,” down 31%. In Texas, where the bulk of the country’s oil and gas is produced, permitting moved to its lowest count in more than 10 years during April and fell 28% year to date, Evercore said.Permits by the oil and gas majors, which dominate in the Permian, were off in the first four months by 25% from the same period in 2019.U.S. onshore permits in April overall fell by 2% from March to 2,013, “primarily as a result of declines in the Gulf Coast (minus 26%) and Midwest (minus 59%),” West said. “Excluding ‘other’ shale plays, drilling permits marked the lowest total in our dataset going back to 2006 at 1,001.”For individual plays, the m/m declines were led by the Permian, off 159 from March, and in the Eagle Ford Shale, down by 74. Lower permit counts also were reported in the Granite Wash formation, down by 16, and in the Barnett Shale, off 13.Wells permitted during April in the West Texas portion of the Permian “declined to 504 (minus 24% m/m) due to curtailments in Howard, Reeves, Loving and Midland counties, where aggregate permit applications declined to 144 (minus 128 m/m).” Contributing to the decline in permits during April was the pullback by some of the biggest operators in Texas, including EOG Resources Inc., which requested 26 fewer permits than in May. ExxonMobil’s requests were down 26 m/m, while Permian pure-play Diamondback Energy Inc. had 18 fewer requests. BP plc requested seven fewer permits than in March.In the Eagle Ford, the second largest play in Texas, permitting contracted in April to 94, off 44% m/m. State regulators granted authorization to drill 480 oil and gas wells in the Permian, with the New Mexico portion accounting for 46% of the activity, West said. New Mexico activity was driven lower by public operators, whose permit applications fell to 142 in April, down by 19 m/m.Through April, overall drilling permits across the country fell by 61% year/year to 8,751.

Federal Judge: Pipelines Must Not Cross Streams Without Considering Endangered Species - A federal judge upheld his April 15 ruling Monday, tossing a key permit required by the Keystone XL and other pipeline projects to cross streams and wetlands.Montana U.S. District Judge Brian Morris affirmed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cannot use a blanket water-crossing permit to approve new oil and gas pipelines without considering their impacts onendangered species."The court rightly ruled that the Trump administration can't continue to ignore the catastrophic effects of fossil fuel pipelines like Keystone XL," Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) senior attorney Jared Margolis said in apress release. "Constructing pipelines through rivers, streams and wetlands without analyzing the impacts on imperiled species is unconscionable. We'll continue to fight to protect vulnerable species, our waters and the climate from this kind of reckless development."At stake is a permit called Nationwide Permit 12, which the Army Corps uses to fast-track approvals for construction across waterways, The Associated Press explained.Morris ruled in April that the Army Corps did not consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service as to how these crossings would impact endangered species when it renewed the permit in 2017, Reuters reported.Morris' April ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by environmental groups focusing on the approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline specifically. However, the ruling blocked the use of Nationwide Permit 12 for all projects, CBD explained.Utility groups and the government asked Morris to alter his ruling, arguing that it interfered with thousands of construction projects, according to The Associated Press. In response, Morris said that the permit could be used for electrical lines or pipeline repairs, but not the construction of new oil and gas pipelines."To allow the Corps to continue to authorize new oil and gas pipeline construction could seriously injure protected species and critical habitat," Morris wrote, according to The Associated Press. The ruling does not actually block construction work on Keystone XL or other pipelines, but it is another setback for the long-delayed project, since it now cannot build across streams without further environmental review.

 Company underestimates North Dakota brine spill — An estimated 35,700 gallons of produced water spilled over a week ago at an oil well pad in McKenzie County, N.D., according to a press release from the state Department of Environmental Quality. Produced water, or brine, is a mixture of saltwater, oil and sometimes, drilling fluids, that is created as a byproduct of oil and gas production. The spill, which occurred about 10 miles northeast of Keene, impacted nearby farmland. The incident was caused by a leak in a small pipeline to the produced water storage tank. Newfield Production Co., which was responsible for the spill, estimated that only 1,260 barrels of brine had spilled when it reported the incident to the state. Later investigation found the company had significantly underestimated the magnitude of the spill. It's unclear if the company accidentally reported incorrect information or purposefully misled the department. A representative of the department did not respond in time for publication of this article. The department said officials will continue inspecting the site and monitoring remediation efforts.

North Dakota aims to use COVID-19 aid to plug oil wells (AP) — North Dakota wants to use $33.1 million in federal coronavirus aid to plug “orphaned” oil wells, many of which have been abandoned by companies financially disrupted amid low energy prices and sparse demand brought on by the pandemic. State and industry officials said the idea is both a jobs program for energy workers and an attempt to curb a growing problem in western North Dakota’s oil patch. The North Dakota Emergency Commission, headed by Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, approved the funding Tuesday. The commission in total approved $524 million, or 42% of the $1.25 billion given to the state as part of the federal stimulus package approved in March. Burgum said the money approved by the commission is to support economic recovery. The state’s Budget Section, which handles the Legislature’s business between sessions, is scheduled Friday to consider the program, along with a package of proposals from several state agencies. State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms said 549 wells have been identified as abandoned in North Dakota’s oil-producing region, including about 10% that companies have walked away from in recent weeks. Before the pandemic devastated the U.S. oil industry, daily oil production in North Dakota was at a near-record 1.45 million barrels daily in February, the latest figures available. Helms said thousands of wells have been idled in recent weeks, amounting to about 550,000 barrels of lost oil production daily, or more than third of the state’s production from a few months ago. Companies are required to post a $100,000 bond for a producing oil well but the cost of plugging and reclaiming a site averages about $150,000, Helms said. The problem, Helms said, is that the oil companies don’t have the money needed to plug and reclaim the sites, and bonding companies are not willing sell more bonds to cover the costs. Plugging an orphaned well consists largely of filling it with cement and sealing it. Helms said it takes a crew of about 15 about five days to plug a well.

There Are Green Jobs Hiding in the Oilfields - Jobs and towns built on fossil fuel extraction appear to be headed for disaster. The Trump administration seems inclined to respond by throwing aid at the oil and gas CEOs who helped to engineer the indebted industry’s current predicament. The Resources for Workforce Investments, not Drilling, or ReWIND, Act introduced last week would prevent an outright bailout for corporate polluters. Less attention has been paid to how to protect the communities who stand to lose the most from plummeting oil prices, even as both drillers and oilfield services companies furlough and lay off tens of thousands of people—moves that will wreak havoc on state and local tax bases. Texas alone could shed a million jobs this year as a result of the downturn. Capitol Hill still seems uninterested in imagining a future without fossil fuels. But in April, drillers shut down more oil drilling rigs in the United States than have been cut since the last price crash in 2015. Many will not come back online anytime soon. More than half of oil and gas workers could lose their jobs. To blunt the impact, oil-producing states have asked the Trump administration to pay laid-off workers to start plugging the country’s roughly two million abandoned wells. There would be some precedent for this, both abroad and domestically. Canada announced the creation earlier this month of a $1.7 billion fund to clean up wells in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. The fund is expected to create 5,200 jobs in those three provinces. And in the United States, the federal government already pays to clean up lots of bankrupt oil companies’ abandoned wells. Since it’s already something of a sunk cost, the oil-producing states’ request could present an opportunity for the federal government for a jobs program that will pass muster in red states. Lawmakers could decide to put a few thousand people to work in some of the places where layoffs in the extractive sector are hitting hardest. Whether through a federal job guarantee or some sort of paycheck-protection program that mandates fossil fuel companies pay workers to do something other than extract oil, the government might be able to address unemployment and help the planet at the same time. . Beyond extraction sites, about half of the country’s 450,000 contaminated lands, known as brownfield sites, are believed to owe that designation to petroleumissues, including from the leakage of storage tanks buried under gas stations. There’s a vast amount of work to be done not just plugging wells but restoring landscapes scarred by fossil fuel development.

Federal agency sides with North Dakota in oil-by-rail dispute with Washington state -- A federal agency has sided with North Dakota and Montana in a dispute over a new Washington state law that places restrictions on shipments of oil by rail in an attempt to boost safety. The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued the decision Monday, nearly 10 months after North Dakota and Montana petitioned the agency to overturn the law, arguing that it amounted to a “de facto ban on Bakken crude.” The Washington Legislature passed a bill last spring requiring that oil unloaded from trains have a vapor pressure under 9 pounds per square inch. The limit falls below North Dakota’s cap, 13.7 psi, which is based on an industry standard. PHMSA Chief Counsel Paul Roberti wrote in the decision that federal law and regulation surrounding the transportation of hazardous materials “preempts” the vapor pressure limit that Washington set. He said Washington’s limit, if it were to stand, “would set an alarming precedent.” “Other State and local jurisdictions would be encouraged to enact their own vapor pressure limits for crude oil,” he said. “The resultant multiple and conflicting requirements will undermine the uniform Federal regulatory scheme.” Roberti said the Washington law creates a new class of crude oil that differs from federal regulation and establishes different rules for handling oil. He added that Washington’s new requirement “is an obstacle to accomplishing and carrying out” federal law.

Refugio oil spill settlement up for discussion on Wednesday - The settlement of the Refugio Oil Spill includes $22.3 million for the remediation of natural resource losses, such as injuries to birds and marine mammals, subtidal and shoreline habitat restoration, and compensation for recreational losses. Two online town hall meetings are scheduled for Wednesday, May 13, to present the 173-page Draft Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan for these projects and to discuss public comments.One session runs 1-3 p.m., and the second 6-8 p.m. Register for the webinar here, and a system checkhere prior to the seminars is advised.Written comments are due by June 8, 2020, and can be emailed to refugiorestoration@fws.gov or mailed to: Refugio Beach Oil Spill Natural Resource Trustees, C/O Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, 2493 Portola Road, Suite B, Ventura, CA 93004, Attn: Michael Anderson, California Department of Fish and Wildlife; Jenny Marek, United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

About all those oil tankers off the coast of California - The U.S. oil market was in a tailspin when dozens of oil tankers began approaching California’s coast in late April. The vessels, some as long as three football fields, were filled with millions of barrels of oil that suddenly had no place to go. Amid the combined effects of a price war between oil-rich states Saudi Arabia and Russia and the COVID-19 pandemic’s curbing of demand, American refineries slashed production while onshore facilities filled to the brim. As a result, U.S. oil prices plunged to negative levels for the first time in history. Tankers are still anchored near southern California today, and as they wait, they’ve switched from running their primary diesel engines to smaller auxiliary engines. While idling doesn’t create the carbon emissions of actually transporting cargo, the fleet is still generating the equivalent daily footprint of driving roughly 16,000 passenger cars. The giant ships burn fuel to keep lights on, power equipment, and heat the large volumes of crude oil resting in their tanks. Given the turbulent economy, oil analysts say the tankers might sit in suspended animation for weeks or months. In recent days, as many as 32 tankers were anchored near Los Angeles and Long Beach, with some vessels leaving and new ones arriving as oil very slowly trickles in and out of ports. On May 11, 18 tankers filled designated spots as if in a “truck stop parking lot” three miles offshore, said Captain Kit Louttit, who monitors port traffic for the Marine Exchange of Southern California. That is about triple the typical number of tankers in those spaces. Tankers along the U.S. West Coast, mainly off of California, held some 20 million barrels of oil on Monday, or nearly enough to satisfy a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption, according to market data firm Kpler. The floating supply glut should gradually clear once new deliveries from the Middle East and Asia stop arriving. But while the idling ships remain near California, they “could pose an ongoing risk to air quality,” said Bryan Comer, a senior researcher at the environmental think tank International Council on Clean Transportation, or ICCT. “Especially because you have these ships lumped together.” The cluster, he noted, concentrates the pollution that drifts ashore.

 Shoreline oily water cleanup begins at Valdez -Spill response efforts at Port Valdez are continuing nearly a month after discovery of an oil sheen at the Valdez Marine Terminal. Some boom has been removed, and shoreline cleanup has begun in oiled areas within the primary containment boom. The cause of the spill remains under investigation, with early indicators suggesting the Alaska North Slope crude oil/water mixture leaked from a sump that overflowed. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation officials said that having determined that the threat of the spill of a mixture of crude oil with water is now limited, the spill management process is looking to scale back while continuing its response to finish the cleanup. Primary containment boom remained in place around the spill outflow area, shoreline impact surveys were completed, and limited impacts were observed with no areas outside of the Valdez Marine Terminal’s shoreline. Boom had previously been deployed to protect the Solomon Gulch Hatchery, the Valdez Duck Flats, Saw Island and Seal Island. Responders concluded that these sensitive areas were no longer at risk for exposure to oil and protection boom was removed from the Solomon Gulch Hatchery and Valdez Duck Flats. Protection boom for Saw Island and Seal Island was approved for removal next. The latest DEC update on the cleanup said that oil skimming operations had removed 53,340 gallons of oily water and that 665 gallons of oil had been recovered. The primary containment boom was adjusted to contain the spill closer to the spill outflow area. The bigger boom was still in place to maintain the outer perimeter of the boomed areas and was being monitored to ensure adequate containment. Response crew were continuing oil skimming operations and use of sorbents for passive recovery.

Future(S) Games, Part 2 - The Baffling Impact Of Oil Futures On Physical Contract Prices - CMA Roll Adjust And P-Plus --On April 20, that fateful day in crude oil markets when the CME May contract for WTI at Cushing collapsed to negative $37.63/bbl, the number of contracts involved in the chaos was relatively small. So you might think that most producers sat on the sidelines, watching Wall Street paper traders writhe in stunning financial pain. But not so. Almost all producers saw their crude prices that day crashing in exactly the same magnitude. That’s because the daily price of the CME WTI contract is part of the formula pricing used in a very large portion of crude oil contracts in U.S. markets, both directly and indirectly. There are two formula mechanisms that are commonly used in crude oil sale/purchase contracts that are responsible for that linkage: the CMA and WTI P-Plus. These arcane pricing mechanisms are complicated, but in order to understand U.S. crude markets, it is critically important to appreciate how they work. Today, we continue our deep dive into crude oil contract pricing mechanisms. The CME NYMEX WTI crude oil futures contract is the underlying benchmark in nearly all U.S. domestic crude price contracts. Differences between futures and physical trading arrangements make pricing physical WTI barrels complex. Two formula mechanisms are commonly used in physical transactions that link directly to the NYMEX settlement prices — the CMA and WTI P-Plus — and so both contract types felt the impact of last month’s price collapse.  As we said in Part 1, the CME NYMEX WTI futures contract is the most liquid — or most widely and actively traded — commodity futures contract in the world, and is so ubiquitous that it also underpins domestic U.S. crude contract markets. It’s a strange symbiotic relationship, in that not only do cash crude prices heavily influence futures prices, but the cash contract price for most U.S. crude is indexed to the futures price. Differences between futures and physical trading, as well as the delivery mechanism that links the two markets, make pricing physical WTI complicated.

CFTC Warns Traders Oil Prices Can Turn Negative Again - With just one week left until the expiration of the June WTI contract, whose open interest is still a whopping 270K contracts equivalent to 270 million barrels that may soon require a physical delivery spot...... and some traders getting flashbacks to the catastrophic oil price crash on April 20, today the CFTC poured gasoline on the smouldering fire when it warned that oil futures contracts could again trade with negative prices during the coronavirus pandemic.As Bloomberg and Dnyuz reports, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will advise exchanges to monitor their markets and remind them to "maintain rules to provide for the exercise of emergency authority”, including the power to “suspend or curtail trading in any contract” if markets become disorderly, according to an advisory notice to be released on Wednesday.“We are issuing this advisory in the wake of unusually high volatility and negative pricing experienced in the May 2020 West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Light Sweet Crude Oil Futures contract on April 20,” says the eight-page advisory signed by the CFTC’s heads of market oversight, clearing and risk, and swap dealer and intermediary oversight.Clearing houses "should prepare for the potential that certain contracts may experience significant price volatility, and that negative pricing is a possibility", the advisory said adding that "we are issuing this advisory in the wake of unusually high volatility and negative pricing experienced in the May 2020 physically-delivered WTI contract, and related reference contracts."The alert comes after the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil contract plunged below $0 a barrel last month for the first time, as buyers searched for places to store a glut of oil. The WTI contract for June delivery is scheduled to expire next Tuesday, raising the prospect of a repeat of the chaotic final two trading days in the May oil contract, which settled at minus $37.63 a barrel on April 20.The move caused losses for countless retail traders and at least one futures broker, and sparked widespread criticism of an oil benchmark referenced by drillers, refiners, consumers and investors.A senior CFTC official said its notice applied to all contracts, not just oil, and did not represent a forecast that negative oil prices would return. “We are not predicting the market. We’re just suggesting planning,” the official said. Brokers “should prepare for the potential that certain contracts may experience significant price volatility and, possibly, negative pricing,” the CFTC said.

WHITE HOUSE: Trump says oil moving 'to greatness.' 4 reports disagree -- Wednesday, May 13, 2020 --  President Trump said yesterday that the oil industry is turning the corner, and his Energy secretary echoed the enthusiasm, insisting in two interviews that the industry is on the verge of what the administration calls a "transition to greatness."

Coronavirus leaves experts pondering if the planet already hit peak oil demand -- Here's a wild but no-longer-unthinkable idea: Is it possible that global oil demand will never again exceed pre-pandemic levels? The timing of peak demand has big implications for carbon emissions, oil-producing nations and the industry. Many prior analyses concluded that it's a rather remote horizon, ranging from the late 2020s to the 2040s or later, though needless to say there are lots of variables.   “Will demand ever go back to where it was? That is hard to say,” Shell CEO Ben van Beurden told Bloomberg late last week. He also said the odds of demand peaking this decade have risen. Until recently the world used roughly 100 million barrels of oil per day.But COVID-19 has crushed demand, with multiple analysts seeing a roughly 25%–30% decline or more at the height of the lockdowns, though recovery has begun. The International Energy Agency estimated in mid-April that demand was down by 29 million bpd that month, the trough before a recovery that still brings a year-over-year drop of 9 million bpd. BNP Paribas Asset Management analyst Mark Lewis believes 2019 may have been the peak.He said in a mid-April Financial Times piece (subscription) that some current demand loss could be permanent, such that consumption hangs around in the 95 million to 100 million bpd range for several years before long-term decline begins. "[C]onsider the structural pressures on the oil market already in evidence before coronavirus hit and then add to these the behavioral changes prompted by the pandemic, some of which seem likely to stick," he wrote.Meanwhile, CNN reports that while the consultancy IHS Markit sees demand coming back to 2019 levels by 2022, they've also modeled a scenario in which a second virus wave leads to demand never coming all the way back.  The idea that peak demand just happened is not the mainstream view, though Bloomberg notes a "growing minority" are speculating about it. But what's clear is that COVID-19 could at least hasten the arrival of the moment when it stops rising entirely.

BP boss Bernard Looney: Peak oil demand may have just happened – Add BP CEO Bernard Looney to the list of people who think oil demand may never fully recover after the coronavirus pandemic, even though it's already coming back from the depths of the collapse. “I don’t think we know how this is going to play out. I certainly don't know,” he told the Financial Times (subscription).“Could it be peak oil? Possibly. Possibly. I would not write that off," he said in the interview, where he notes the proliferation of remote-working technology.  The remarks show how COVID-19 has upended oil markets in a way that's likely to last for a long time. Looney's comments are similar to recent remarks by Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden. An Oxford Institute for Energy Studies analysis sees demand reaching "pre-shock" levels in the fourth quarter of 2021. But they also cite modeling challenges and known unknowns, such as whether there's another wave of lockdowns — a prospect other analysts are weighing too.  "It may be hard to comprehend now. But barring a second wave of the pandemic, nearly all pre-COVID demand could return by the second half of 2021," IHS Markit's Roger Diwan said in an email.

The Fed Just Changed Its Own Rules to Bail Out the Fossil Fuel Industry - Alexis Goldstein - The fossil fuel industry and the Senate GOP had been lobbying the Fed hard for changes to help big oil. One of the changes they sought was the ability to use emergency loans to pay down or refinance other debts. Heavily indebted fossil fuel companies are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and under increasing pressure from their lenders, like the big banks to whom the sector owes $200 billion. In the case of one big bank, Wells Fargo’s portfolio of loans to energy companies is so distressed, it’s been described as a “bloodbath.” Two fossil fuel companies have already declared bankruptcy since April — Whiting Petroleum and Diamond Offshore. Desperate to prop up these failing firms, Sen. Ted Cruz complained to the Fed in an April 24 letter that oil and gas firms needed help, because the original Main Street Lending Program terms explicitly prevented companies from using the funds to “repay or refinance pre-existing loans,” and that made them vulnerable to bankruptcy. A trade group for big oil, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), made the very same complaint. On April 30, the Fed gave the oil industry precisely what it asked for,expanding the lending programs to allow more debt, looser standards and bigger loan amounts to accommodate the oil industry. The changes allow companies to use taxpayer-backed emergency relief funds to refinance and pay down pre-existing debt. The very same day the Fed acted, Chesapeake Energy was about to go bankrupt. But these and other changes the Fed made benefited both Chesapeake and a host of other oil companies. Previously, businesses with large amounts of debt were not able to get large loans, another thing Senator Cruz complained about. The senator got what he asked for when the Fed raised the threshold to allow more heavily indebted companies to participate. The Fed also gave the industry more flexibility to play accounting games to make their earnings look rosier for the purposes of that threshold, changes that benefited both the teetering Chesapeake Energy, but also Occidental Petroleum. Former Trump adviser and mega-donor Carl Icahn has a nearly 10 percent stake in Occidental. And this isn’t even the only change that benefitted Occidental. Previously, firms using the Main Street Lending Program could have no more than 10,000 employees. The Fed raised it to 15,000. Occidental Petroleum just so happens to have 14,400 employees. Yet another oil sector request the Fed granted was Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette’s ask to raise the cap on one of the loan programs from $150 million to $200 million. Big oil isn’t just getting the supposedly independent Fed to change the rules to stay afloat despite a decade of bad bets. Taxpayer funds are now effectively being used to reduce debt costs for oil companies and bail out their Wall Street creditors. While some argue that the Fed’s Main Street Lending Program isn’t taxpayer money, this is inaccurate: the program uses $75 billion from the CARES Act to partially cover any losses these loans incur for the Fed. At the end of the day, taxpayer money is being used as a down payment for loans to big oil. Those who benefit the most are those who’ve loaned money to big oil — banks and bondholders. Those that justify these loans do so on the basis that they support jobs, but the connection to actual worker protections are minimal, as the Feddoesn’t explicitly bar firms who take these loans from laying off their employees.

Oil and gas companies asked, then received changes to Fed coronavirus stimulus program - Oil and gas companies in Pennsylvania could benefit from a change to a Federal Reserve stimulus program aimed at helping businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.Critics have attacked the changes, calling them a “stealth bailout” for heavily indebted oil and gas companies.   The changes were made in late April to the Fed’s Main Street Lending program, part of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress in March. The$600 billion loan program is intended to help small- and medium-sized businesses that were in good financial shape before the pandemic struck. When the Fed rolled out the program, it prohibited companies from using the loans to pay off debts.  Oil and gas companies and their advocates asked the central bank to loosen up those guidelines. One of their biggest asks: They wanted to be allowed to use the loans to pay off other debts, too.  The Fed’s final guidelines gave those companies their wish — companies could use the loans to pay off some types of debt. And the maximum loan size increased from $150 million to $200 million.  Oil-state Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota praised the changes. “It’s another arrow in the quiver” to help the oil industry in his state, Cramer said in a video statement. Environmentalists questioned whether the government should be throwing a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry — one of the country’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases. Emissions must be cut dramatically, scientists say, if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Others saw the Federal Reserve — an independent institution that is supposed to stay outside politics — giving preferential treatment to a powerful industry with substantial ties to the Trump administration.   “This is an oil bailout for a specific set of companies,” said Graham Steele, the director of the Corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business.Steele, a former aide to Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, said the program is risky because climate change risks making these companies’ assets — oil and gas reserves — “stranded assets” in the future, if governments tax carbon to avert runaway climate change. He said the loans are also risky because many of the companies were doing poorly before the pandemic.   “(The Fed) had structured the program in a way so as not to lose taxpayers’ money. And now members of Congress and industry have lobbied them. And under that pressure, they have buckled. They have changed the program to help out a specific industry,” Steele said. The Federal Reserve says changes to the program weren’t made with the oil industry in mind, and that other industries could benefit. Business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also lobbied for the changes.  But observers see the Fed’s revisions to its lending guidelines as a clear win for oil and gas companies. David Livingston with Eurasia group, a risk management firm, said the changes are especially good for oil and gas companies because of the high amount of debt some have accumulated. “They were sort of running on a treadmill and the entire shale enterprise was increasing its production month over month, year over year over year, in large part, thanks to the continued provision of relatively low cost capital,” Livingston said.The idea behind the strategy was that prices for oil and gas would eventually rise and they’d be able to pay off their debts. But the opposite has happened, at least for oil. It plummeted into the negative range in April, though prices are recovering. The loans could also help natural gas companies that operate in Pennsylvania.  A group of GOP senators from Pennsylvania and other Appalachian states wrote in favor of the changes in April.

Oil Stockpiles Have Stopped Growing in World’s Biggest Buyer - The great oil glut of 2020 may have already peaked in the world’s biggest crude importer. Crude inventories in China have shrunk in recent weeks after rising to record levels, according to analysts and satellite observations. Supplies have been drawn out of storage as refineries ramp up operations to meet rising demand from an economy emerging from lockdown. Inventories drawing in the world’s biggest importer is an early sign that rebalancing may have begun in the global oil market after an epic collapse in demand, according to Morgan Stanley. Stockpiles dwindled even as oil imports in April increased from the previous month, according to Customs data. “The combination of inventories falling and strong imports implies really solid refining activity,” said Geoffrey Craig, an analyst with Ursa Space Systems Inc., which uses synthetic aperture radar to track storage tank fills. “You saw them build aggressively in late February and into the end of March, and since then they’ve absolutely plateaued and have come off a bit.” Refiners are drawing oil out of inventory to process into gasoline and diesel as traffic once again snarls China’s cities following the lockdown earlier this year to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Even as driving demand dries up in the rest of the world, rush hours from Beijing to Shenzhen at the end of last month are busier than they were in the same period last year. Meanwhile subway ridership remained about 50% below pre-virus levels in Beijing and about 30% below in Shanghai, according to data compiled by BloombergNEF, as fears of large crowds push commuters toward the relative isolation of cars. Independent refiners in Shandong in northeast China are operating at record rates, while state-owned giant PetroChina Co. said it was ramping up fuel production after it fell in the first quarter.

China crude oil runs rebound in April as fuel demand picks up - (Reuters) - China’s daily crude oil throughput rebounded in April from a 15-month low in March as refiners cranked up operations to meet renewed fuel demand after lockdowns imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus outbreak were eased. The country processed a total of 53.85 million tonnes of crude oil last month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Friday, equivalent to about 13.1 million barrels per day (bpd). That was some 11% higher than 11.78 million bpd in March. The agency said on Friday it had adjusted the database of industrial enterprises it uses to help compile a range of production numbers. On that basis, Friday April’s crude oil throughput was 0.8% above the year-ago level, it said; a Reuters calculation using NBS data from last year put the rise at 3.4%. “In terms of year-on-year percentage change, we only included the companies that existed in both years,” a spokesperson from agency’s media relations department told Reuters. “For instance, if a company existed in 2019 but does not exist in 2020, then their figure in 2019 will not be included in 2020 year-on-year percentage calculation.” Analysts said it would not be not surprising for the agency to revise its year-ago numbers.

China's top energy firms to grow gas output despite spending cuts - (Reuters) - China’s top energy producers will grow their natural gas output this year by twice as much as in the previous oil rout even as they slash spending due to collapsing oil prices, company officials and analysts said. The world’s top energy consumer is forecast to expand its natural gas production by 5% or more in 2020 despite plans for deep spending cuts which will likely curb local oil production, they said. That would be half the growth in 2019 but double the 2.2% growth seen in 2016 following a lengthy oil slump. China’s state-owned energy companies are joining others worldwide in slashing expenditure after this year’s 56% drop in oil prices as a global pandemic ravaged economic activity. As the country’s oil and gas trio plan double digit spending cuts, they are prioritising gas development at home particularly as the market is relatively insulated from sharp oil moves due to government subsidies. “Under the capital expenditure cuts, companies are revising their gas strategy from an earlier aggressive push to a more practical approach, as gas production remains profitable,” said Zhu Kunfeng, Beijing-based associate director at IHS Markit. PetroChina, Sinopec Corp and CNOOC Ltd said in April they would reduce spending by roughly 20% to 30%, similar to the cuts they made in the last oil rout in 2015/2016.

Goldman Sachs' Jeff Currie warns jet fuel demand may never fully recover from the coronavirus crisis - The coronavirus outbreak will have a lasting impact on the behavior of businesses across the globe, with jet fuel demand unlikely to ever fully recover, according to the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs. The Covid-19 pandemic has meant countries have effectively had to shut down, with many governments imposing strict restrictions on the daily lives of billions of people. Confinement measures — which vary in their application worldwide but broadly include school closures, bans on public gatherings and social-distancing guidelines — have been implemented in 187 countries or territories in an effort to try to slow the spread of the virus. To date, more than 4.1 million people have contracted Covid-19 worldwide, with 282,727 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The public health crisis has led to an extreme demand shock in energy markets, with world travel brought close to a standstill. Jeff Currie of Goldman Sachs argued that the severe loss of oil demand came primarily from three sectors: Commuting demand; industrial demand and jet demand. Industrial demand and commuting demand should both be able to recover fairly quickly from the pandemic, Currie said, but jet demand "is the weakest one." "So far, we would tend to think when we see a normalization globally, you'll get the leisure demand back. The part I don't think you get back is what we are doing right now," Currie said during a video call with reporters on Thursday. "I think you are going to lose a good chunk of the jet demand that would have been associated with business travel. Our base case is you lose somewhere around 2 to 3 million barrels per day of that," he added.Goldman Sachs expects global oil demand to fall to 94 million barrels per day in 2020, down from 100 million barrels per day in 2019. Oil demand is then expected to rise to 99 million barrels per day in 2021. Currie said the U.S. investment bank does not expect oil demand to normalize back to pre-crisis levels until the third quarter of 2022.

Oil prices drop amid supply glut, fears of 2nd coronavirus wave - Oil prices fell on Monday as concern over a persistent glut and economic gloom caused by the coronavirus pandemic combined to cancel out support from supply cuts at some of the world's top producers. Brent crude futures were down 29 cents, or 0.9%, at $30.68 a barrel by 0431 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 17 cents, or 0.7%, to $24.57 a barrel. Both benchmarks have notched up gains over the past two weeks as countries have eased business and social lockdowns imposed to cope with the coronavirus and fuel demand has rebounded modestly. Oil production worldwide is also declining. But possible signs of a second wave of coronavirus infections in northeast China and South Korea worried investors even as more countries started to pivot towards easing pandemic restrictions in moves that could support oil demand. Goldman Sachs analysts said there was still concern that demand will stay weak in 2021, with worries about a second wave of Covid-19 cases and only a modest increase in personal or corporate travel. Global oil demand has plummeted by about 30% as the coronavirus pandemic curtailed movement across the world, building up inventories globally. Fears that the United States is running out of storage space triggered WTI prices crashing into negative territory last month, prompting some U.S. producers to slash output. In a sign of that impact, the number of operating oil and gas rigs in the world's largest oil producer fell to 74 in the week to May 8, a record low according to data released on Friday from energy services firm Baker Hughes going back to 1940. "People are surprised by how quickly the U.S. is shutting in production and that's exactly what we need in order to support prices," said Tony Nunan, a senior risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo. "There's another 10 days before the June contract expires ... if the WTI contract can avoid a crash going into expiry, hopefully we've seen the bottom."

Oil turns positive as Saudi Arabia to cut production by an additional 1 million barrels per day - Oil prices jumped to their highs of the day after Saudi Arabia said it will cut production further in an effort to support global oil markets. Beginning on June 1 the Kingdom will cut output by an additional 1 million bpd, which combined with the cuts agreed to by OPEC and its oil-producing allies, brings Saudi Arabia's total cut to roughly 4.8 million bpd below its April record production level. Production for June will now be 7.492 million bpd. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, traded 53 cents, or 2.1%, higher at $25.27 per barrel. Earlier in the session it traded as high as $25.58, and as low as $23.67. International benchmark Brent crude fell 15 cents to trade at $30.80 per barrel. Saudi Arabia also said that it would scale back May production "in consent with its customers." "The Kingdom aims through this additional cut to encourage OPEC+ participants, as well as other producing countries, to comply with the production cuts they have committed to, and to provide additional voluntary cuts, in an effort to support the stability of global oil markets," a statement from the Saudi press agency said. Oil is coming off its second straight positive week as investors have cheered signs that demand recovery is underway amid ongoing production cuts. WTI jumped 25% last week in one of its best weeks in history, while Brent rose 17%. Still, prices are well below their highs and the path to recovery is far from certain. "Despite the production curtailments that commenced this month, traders start to realize that the size of the supply-demand imbalance leaves little room for optimism," said Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil markets at Rystad Energy. "Storages in the US continue to fill up with crude and we are coming closer to tank tops by the day."

Saudi Arabia's oil production cuts show it is back in 'whatever it takes' mode, strategist says - Voluntary production cuts by OPEC members show that oil producing countries are doing what they can to stabilize the market during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, one strategist told CNBC this week. Saudi Arabia on Monday said it will reduce output by an additional 1 million barrels per day from June 1, in a bid to support oil prices. Following the kingdom's announcement, the UAE and Kuwait also announced supply cuts. That's on top of an agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC allies, sometimes referred to as OPEC+, to lower production by 9.7 million bpd from May 1. "The OPEC heavyweights are sort of lining up to try to do what they can to stabilize this market," said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. "We're already starting to see a pick up in demand as global lockdown conditions ease, people start driving again," she told CNBC's "Capital Connection" on Tuesday. "So, essentially what they're doing is acting as an accelerator in terms of getting the market rebalanced." However, while there are "green shoots," the outlook is unclear as the pandemic continues. "If we were to get a second wave in the crisis, if we were to get lockdown restrictions re-implemented, that could really change the trajectory of an oil price recovery," said Croft. "We really have to wait and see what is going to happen with this virus before we can basically say we're in the clear in terms of being on a sustainable path to recovery." More than 4.18 million people have contracted Covid-19 worldwide, and at least 286,336 people have died from the virus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Oil settles higher on hopes supply cuts, reopening economies will drain crude glut - Oil futures finished higher Tuesday, with U.S. prices at a five-week high on expectations that falling production levels and a gradual revival in demand from a COVID-19 pandemic-related drop, will ease a global glut of crude that has slammed prices in 2020. “Oil is back in rebound mode as the market is getting assurances that massive production cuts are coming,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at The Price Futures Group. Saudi Arabia has promised to cut an additional 1 million barrels per day in June, in addition to its share of reductions under the output-cut agreement between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia. Reuters reported Tuesday that OPEC+ wants to continue their existing oil production cuts beyond June, citing four OPEC+ sources. The agreement between the group of producers, known as OPEC+, called for output reductions of 9.7 million barrels per day from May 1 through June, with the group gradually reducing the size of the cuts after that, through April 2022. West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery  rose $1.64, or 6.8%, to settle at $25.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the highest finish for a front-month contract since April 6, according to Dow Jones Market Data. July Brent crude added 35 cents, or 1.2%, t0 $29.98 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. Saudi oil production for June, with the OPEC+ output-cut agreement and the voluntary cuts, will total 7.492 million barrels per day, the Saudi Press Agency reported Monday. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates said Monday that they would offer support for the Saudi move by reducing production by 80,000 barrels and 100,000 barrels per day, respectively, in June. “Now comes word that Russia is making progress on reductions,” said Flynn, in a daily note. As part of the OPEC+ agreement, Russia reduced its oil and gas condensate production to 9.45 million barrels a day on May 1-11, from an average 11.25 million barrels per day in April, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the data.

WTI Holds Big Gains Despite Bigger-Than-Expected Crude Build - Oil prices rallied (despite equity weakness) to their highest since early April today with WTI tagging a $26 handle after the Energy Information Administration revised down its 2020 and 2021 crude output forecasts in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook.“Production is indeed dropping and it might stay down for longer than people thought,” Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at Toronto Dominion Bank said. "U.S. crude oil production has not declined for two years in a row since the 17-year period of declines beginning in 1992 and running through 2008," the agency said in its report."Typically, price changes affect production after about a six-month lag. However, current market conditions will likely reduce this lag as many producers have already announced plans to reduce capital spending and drilling levels."But the huge global glut remains and algos 'eyes' will be glue to API's data tonight... API:

• Crude +7.6mm (+4.3mm exp)
• Cushing -2.216mm (-1.00mm exp)
• Gasoline -1.911mm
• Distillates +4.712mm

This is the 16th weekly crude build in a row...but Cushing saw its first draw in 10 weeks...

 Oil moves between gains and losses, caught between demand loss and supply cuts - Oil prices moved lower on Wednesday in choppy trading as demand concerns exacerbated by a possible second wave of coronavirus infections as countries ease lockdowns outweighed a possible extension of supply cuts by OPEC+. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 32 cents, or 1.2%, to trade at $25.46 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, was unchanged at $29.98. "Fears are running rife that easing lockdown measures will trigger a second wave of coronavirus infections," said Stephen Brennoc at oil brokerage PVM. U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Tuesday told Congress that easing coronavirus lockdowns could set off new outbreaks of the COVID-19 disease that has killed 80,000 Americans and badly damaged the world's biggest economy and oil consumer. New outbreaks have been reported in South Korea and China, where the health crisis started before spreading across the globe, prompting governments to lock down billions of people, devastating economies and demand for oil. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) now expects world oil demand to fall by 8.1 million barrels per day (bpd) this year to 92.6 million bpd, compared with a previous forecast for a drop of 5.2 million bpd. The agency also expects U.S. output to fall by 540,000 bpd, against a previous forecast of 470,000 bpd. It expects global output of 11.7 million bpd this year and 10.9 million bpd in 2021. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries also slashed its world oil demand forecast and now expects it to contract by 9.07 million bpd this year, it said in a monthly report. Last month, OPEC expected a contraction of 6.85 million bpd. On the supply side, OPEC+ is looking to maintain existing cuts beyond June, when it meets next in Vienna, sources told Reuters. OPEC and other producers including Russia - a group known as OPEC+ - agreed to cut output by 9.7 million bpd in May and June and to scale back cuts to 7.7 million bpd for the rest of the year. Saudi Arabia's cabinet has urged OPEC+ countries to reduce output further to restore balance in global crude markets, the country's state news agency reported early on Wednesday. Riyadh said it would add to planned cuts by reducing production by a further 1 million bpd next month, bringing output down to 7.5 million bpd.. In the United States, crude oil inventories rose by 7.6 million barrels last week to 526.2 million barrels, against analyst expectations for an increase of 4.1 million barrels, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said on Tuesday. Still, stocks of crude at the Cushing delivery hub in Oklahoma fell by 2.3 million barrels, API said. If confirmed by official data, that would be the first drawdown since February, ING Economics said.

WTI Spikes After Surprise Crude Draw, Production Plunge - Oil prices have roundtripped from last night's API print, as overnight gains were erased after OPEC presented a bleaker assessment of global oil markets for the second quarter as the COVID-19 crisis continues to drain demand.Notably, just as OPEC members begin to cut production, the cartel cut estimates for the amount of crude it will need to supply over the three-month period by just under 3 million barrels a day, or about 15%, in a report published this morning.“On the demand side there’s probably a view that the worst may be behind us, in terms of the peak damage point. If we do see a second wave, that would hurt demand and hurt pricing,” said Commonwealth Bank’s Dhar.And so once again we look to inventory data for clues with all eyes on Cushing today given some expectation that we’re about to see the beginning of the end of the storage capacity issue. DOE:

• Crude -745k (+4.3mm exp)
• Cushing -3.002mm (-1.00mm exp)
• Gasoline -3.513mm
• Distillates +3.511mm

The 15-week streak of crude inventory builds is over with a 745k barrel draw this week and fears over Cushing storage maxing out seem assuaged... Nationwide crude stocks fell for the first time since January, while Cushing stocks declined for the first time since February and its largest decline since that month.  Bloomberg Intelligence Energy Analyst Fernando Valle notes that "falling tanker rates show that pressure on storage has eased in May as OPEC+ cuts output. An initial recovery in gasoline demand as several U.S. states emerge from lockdown could drive another draw on inventories, but exports are likely to remain subdued. Diesel is in an increasingly delicate situation, as industrial and trade activity slows at the same time as refiners shift volume from jet fuel. Margin recovery is shallow, but positive. Questions remain on how long-lived it will be, as coronavirus cases grow in the U.S. South."US crude production has plummeted quickly - though not as quickly as rig counts have collapsed - down 300k b/d...

Oil prices post a loss even as weekly U.S. crude supplies and stocks at the Cushing storage hub decline - Oil prices settled with a loss on Wednesday, failing to find support even after U.S. government data showed an unexpected weekly decline in domestic crude supplies, along with a fall in stocks at a key storage hub in Cushing, Okla. “As we have seen a good amount of states opening back up, demand for gasoline should easily continue to get better—especially since we are coming from such a demand destruction here in the U.S.” . “However, air travel worldwide…is a long way from coming back.”Zahir said he wouldn’t be surprised to see COVID-19 cases increase in the weeks to come because it takes a couple of weeks for the virus to present itself. “We feel that DNA in the consumer has been badly damaged” and the economy is likely to recover “very slowly” with the amount of jobs lost.Oil can “definitely go higher a few dollars in the next few days, but we feel it will be short lived,” he said. “With space becoming available in Cushing, and with prices going higher” recent pledges by certain countries to cut production may not see full compliance.West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell by 49 cents, or 1.9%, to settle at $25.29 a barrel. It had briefly turned higher immediately after the EIA supply data. The global benchmark, July Brent fell 79 cents, or 2.6%, at $29.19 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.The Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday that U.S. crude inventories fell by 700,000 barrels for the week ended May 8. That marked the first weekly decline in 16 weeks and defied a forecast by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts for an average increase of 4.8 million barrels. The American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday reported a climb of 7.6 million barrels. The EIA report was “bullish, but the mood is bearish,” Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at The Price Futures Group, told MarketWatch. “The risk-off environment in the stock market is having traders overlook the green shoots” in the report.

Oil jumps 9% on dip in U.S. crude stockpiles, IEA data - Oil prices surged on Thursday after the International Energy Agency forecast lower global stockpiles in the second half of 2020, even as worries remain over a second surge in coronavirus infections in coming months. Crude prices have ticked up in the last two weeks as some countries relaxed coronavirus restrictions and lockdowns to allow factories and shops to reopen. West Texas Intermediate crude futures surged 8.98%, or $2.27, to settle at $27.56 per barrel, while Brent crude futures rose $1.94, or 6.65%, to settle at $31.13 per barrel. The market rebounded from Wednesday's losses built on a glum forecast for the economy from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who warned of an "extended period" of weak economic growth. That offset an unexpected drop in U.S. stockpiles. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits totaled a seasonally adjusted 2.98 million for the week ended May 9, the U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday. While that was down from 3.18 million in the prior week and marked the sixth straight weekly drop, claims remain astoundingly high. "Gasoline demand correlates pretty well with the employment level, and it's hard to see gasoline demand come back much more than it already has," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York. U.S. crude inventories fell for the first time in 15 weeks, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, with a fall in U.S. crude stockpiles of 745,000 barrels to 531.5 million barrels in the week to May 8. On Thursday, the IEA again forecast a record drop in demand in 2020, although it trimmed its estimate for the fall, citing measures to ease lockdowns. As demand increases, the IEA expects crude stockpiles to shrink by about 5.5 million barrels per day in the second half. "While these supply and demand dynamics are certainly capable of boosting prices near term, a potential record level of global crude supply will remain as a force to be reckoned with,"

Oil extends gains amid signs of China demand pickup, global supply overhang fading -Oil prices rose on Friday, extending day-earlier gains, as data showed demand for crude picking up in China after the easing of curbs to stem the coronavirus outbreak, boosting hopes that the global supply overhang may start to fade. Brent crude was up 63 cents, or 2% at $31.76 per barrel, after rising nearly 7% on Thursday. The global benchmark is heading for a 1.8% gain on the week after rising for the previous two weeks. West Texas Intermediate was up $1.23, or 4.4%, to trade at $28.78 per barrel, having jumped 9% in the previous session. WTI is heading for a third weekly increase, up more than 12%. Amid supply cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other major producers, bright spots are also emerging on the demand side. Data released on Friday showed China's daily crude oil use rebounded in April as refineries ramped up operations. Still the market mood remains far from euphoric, with the coronavirus pandemic far from over and new clusters emerging in some countries where lockdowns have been eased. "The fundamentals in the market are clearly improving," ING Research analysts said in a note. "But we still believe that in the near term, the upside is limited given that we are still in a surplus environment ... There is plenty of inventory for the market to digest." There is optimism that stockpiles may be on the wane. The International Energy Agency said it expects crude inventories to fall by about 5.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the second half of this year. Meanwhile U.S. crude inventories fell for the first time in 15 weeks, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Output cuts will boost the trend towards lower inventories, but U.S. crude is unlikely to see strong gains. "WTI crude will struggle to break above the $30 level until both the economic outlook improves for the U.S. and some of the downside risks ease," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA. On the production side, OPEC and associated producers — collectively known as OPEC+ — had already agreed to cut output by a record of nearly 10 million bpd before Saudi Arabia this week extended its planned reductions for June, pledging to lower supply by nearly 5 million bpd.

The Relentless Oil Price Rally | OilPrice.com Oil prices are continuously rising despite the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19, with WTI nearing a two-month high on Friday morning.Oil prices appear to be rising relentlessly, with WTI bouncing above $28 per barrel, nearly at a two-month high. Market sentiment has been gaining steam as supply shut-ins mount and demand begins to come back. Still, the risk of another wave of coronavirus infections presents a major risk to the rally.“The ministers want to keep the same oil production cuts now which are about 10 million bpd, after June. They don’t want to reduce the size of the cuts. This is the basic scenario that’s being discussed now,” one OPEC+ source told Reuters. Oil time spreads have seen a narrowing contango, a sign of tightening in the oil market. “We believe stocks will be reduced gradually over the next 12 months or so,” said Rystad Energy head of oil markets Bjornar Tonhaugen. “Brent stabilizing above $30 gives the market confidence that frightening days of negative prices and record daily declines are behind us.”  The flotilla of Saudi supertankers heading to U.S. ports have been delayed because there has been a shortage of the smaller ships used to lighten the load near shore.  Due to sharp cuts in oil production, the pace of inventory builds has slowed dramatically, easing fears of an acute shortage in storage capacity.   Iraq cut 650,000 bpd from its massive southern oil fields in order to comply with the OPEC+ cuts. The reductions have been split between state-owned companies and the private international companies.  Exxon CEO Darren Woods is underscrutiny after Legal & General Investment Management, which oversees $1.5 trillion in assets, said it would vote against Woods as CEO and Chairman at the company’s upcoming shareholder meeting. The investment group cited Exxon’s “lack of strategic ambition around climate change,” while its European competitors “step up and reaffirm their sustainability ambitions.”   Wood Mackenzie outlined several scenarios in a new report, all of which paint a pessimistic outlook for oil demand. The firm said it could take years for demand to recover, but ultimately, demand will probably peak within the next decade. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned of an “extended period” of economic damage. St. Louis Fed Chair James Bullard warned job losses could be permanent and businesses could fail “on a grand scale.”  The World Health Organization warned that the world may live with COVID-19 indefinitely. “It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan told an online briefing.  Diamond Offshore took advantage of stimulus money passed by Congress, getting a $9.7 million tax refund. Then it asked a bankruptcy judge to reward top executives the same amount. Oil companies are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus money. “This is a stealth bailout for the oil and gas industry,” Jesse Coleman, a researcher with Documented, told Bloomberg.

Oil prices jump as demand shows signs of picking up -  (Reuters) - U.S. crude prices jumped 7% on Friday to their highest since March, on strengthening fuel demand as countries around the world eased travel restrictions they had imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.  U.S. crude gained 19.7% in the week and Brent crude rose 5.2% after a week of bullish news. Both contracts gained for the third consecutive week. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil settled up $1.87, or 6.8% at $29.43 a barrel, just off the session peak of $29.92, its highest since mid-March. WTI soared 9% in the previous session. Brent crude settled up $1.37, or 4.4% a barrel at $32.50. Brent rose nearly 7% on Thursday. The second-month contract for U.S. crude traded at a discount to the first month for the first time since late February, implying market tightness, said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho in New York. “It is no accident the spread switched after EIA crude oil storage, and storage at the NYMEX delivery site at Cushing, both posted up their first storage draws in weeks in Wednesday’s storage report,” he said. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major producers have cut supplies to reduce a glut, and now there also are signs of improving demand. Data showed China’s daily crude oil use rebounded in April as refineries ramped up operations. Still, the market remained cautious with the coronavirus pandemic far from over and new clusters of infection emerging in some countries where lockdowns have eased. “Oil prices have been up significantly since yesterday thanks to a better assessment of the situation by the International Energy Agency (IEA),” Commerzbank said in a note. The IEA expects global crude inventories to fall by about 5.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the second half. It also expects oil demand this year to fall by 8.6 million bpd, smaller by 690,000 bpd than the decline it forecast last month. It expects non-OPEC supply to fall by 3.2 million bpd. Barclays raised its forecasts for Brent and WTI by $5-$6 a barrel for 2020 and by $16 a barrel for 2021. It now sees Brent prices averaging $37 a barrel and WTI at $33 this year. For 2021, the bank expects Brent to average $53 a barrel while WTI averages $50.

U.S. Oil Just Shy of $30, Chugging Along on China Data - President Donald Trump might very be disappointed with China these days, but it was Chinese data on Friday that helped accelerate U.S. crude oil’s run toward $30 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the New York-traded benchmark for U.S. crude, settled up $1.87, or 6.8%, at $29.43 per barrel after data showed China's industrial production rose 3.9% in April from a year ago, improving from a 1.1% fall in March. Brent, the London-traded global benchmark for oil, rose $1.37, or 4.4%, to settle at $32.50. WTI has been on a tear since hitting a bottom of $12.34 on Aug 28, rallying almost 140% in just over two weeks. The U.S. crude benchmark remains down 50% on the year. But Friday’s two-month high of $29.91 in WTI brought its discount versus Brent, typically at $5 per barrel, to under $3 at one point, powerfully altering the dynamics between the two benchmarks. For the week, WTI gained 19%, extending last week’s 25% jump and the previous week’s 17% rise. Brent saw a relatively modest climb of 5% on the week. Its gains over the past two weeks were virtually a reverse of WTI’s — 17% last week and 23% the previous week. Much of the boom in U.S. crude of late has been due to cratering domestic production, as the coronavirus pandemic shut down wells and oil rigs across the United States at a faster rate than elsewhere in the world. Rising gasoline production has also helped as most of the 50 U.S. states have reopened from lockdowns imposed over the Covid-19. Rising gasoline consumption has also helped as most of the 50 U.S. states have reopened from lockdowns imposed over the Covid-19. But Friday’s run toward $30 WTI — an important psychological mark for oil bulls —- came on the back of China’s resurgent industrial production data underscoring a recovery in factory activity in the world’s largest oil importing country. It also comes a day after President Donald Trump said he was very disappointed with China's failure to contain the outbreak of the virus, and that he might even cut ties with the world's second largest economy. “WTI crude neared a two-month high as China’s industrial output rose for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic, fueling hope that crude demand will soon improve in Europe and then the U.S.” said Ed Moya, analyst at New York’s OANDA. “China remains the template for the economic recovery for the rest of the world and (it) gave energy traders some hope that demand will begin to recover over the coming weeks.”

Oil Futures Settle Sharply Higher For The Day, Gains 19% In Week - Crude oil futures ended sharply higher on Friday, extending recent gains, amid hopes on some improvement in energy demand following reopening of businesses in several parts across the globe, and on hopes the output cuts from major producers will support prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for June ended up $1.87, or about 6.8%, at $29.43 a barrel. Brent Crude futures were gaining about $1.1 or about 3.6% at $32.23 a barrel. On Thursday, WTI Crude oil futures for June ended up $2.27, or 9%, at $27.56 a barrel. WTI Crude oil futures gained about 19% in the week. According to Baker Hughes, the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil dropped by 34 to 258 this week, falling for a ninth straight week. The total active U.S. rig count also fell, dropping by 35 to 339, according to the report from Baker Hughes. Data showing a notable rebound in China's daily crude oil use in April amid increased activity supported oil's uptick. According to International Energy Agency, (IEA), crude inventories are expected to fall by about 5.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the second half this year. The IEA estimates that global oil supply is set to fall by a spectacular 12 mb/d to a nine-year low of 88 mb/d in May, as the OPEC+ agreement takes effect and global production declines.

Saudi Arabia Running Out Of Money: Riyadh To Slash Spending By $27 Billion, Suspend Cost Of Living Allowance - Last weekend we quoted Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan, who warned that the world's biggest oil exporter hasn’t witnessed "a crisis of this severity" in decades, adding that government spending will have to be cut "very deeply", something we touched on previously. We didn't have long to wait, because early on Monday, the Saudi government - which appears to be running out of money fast - ordered government spending cuts including suspending the cost of living allowance amid broad austerity measures for about $26.6 billion and a tripling of the value-added tax as part of measures aimed to shore up state finances, which have been battered by low oil prices and the coronavirus."Cost of living allowance will be suspended as of June first, and the value added tax will be increased to 15% from 5% as of July first,"  said the Saudi finance minister according to the state news agency, suggesting Saudi Arabia is on the verge of a full-blown fiscal crisis.Other measures includes canceling or delaying some operational and capital expenditures for a number of government agencies and reducing the credits planned for a number of state initiatives, including the Vision 2030 project, just as we predicted."The covid-19 challenges have led to a decline in government revenues, and pressure on public finances to levels that are difficult to deal with later without harming the kingdom’s macroeconomics and public finances in the medium and long term,” Al-Jadaan said. “Therefore more spending cuts must be achieved, and measures to support the stability of non-oil revenues."Already under a strict curfew to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s largest oil exporter has been affected by the oil price rout and global crude production cuts to help balance the market. The price of Brent crude crashed by more than 50% in March, contributing to a record $27 billion monthly drop in the Saudi central bank’s net foreign assets. Adding insult to injury, last week we warned that the Kingdom may soon be dealing with a funding crisis as well: the collapse in crude prices and the government’s drop in foreign reserves, which plunged by a record $27BN in March... ... is putting more pressure on the Saudi riyal. For now, however, prices for 12-month dollar-riyal forward contracts are well short of their all-time high reached in 2016.

Oil Price War Puts Entire Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia At Risk - At no time since Ibn Saud first consolidated his Arabian conquests into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 has the ruling Saud dynasty faced such an existential threat to its continued rule over the country. It is true that Saudi Arabia has been able to gain some temporary advantage in key Asian export markets, as its shipments to China more than doubled in April to 2.2 million barrels a day (bpd) and those to India, at 1.1 million bpd, were also the highest in at least three years. This, though, as much as any other factor that might endure, was a product of Saudi slashing its official selling prices (OSPs) for April crude sales to some of the lowest levels in decades, undercutting its rivals, and exactly the same happened again for May crude sales. Even this very slight victory, though, has already been jeopardised by an indication that the scale of the trouble into which the House of Saud has placed Saudi Arabia is truly monumental. Just last week saw massive economic pressure force the Saudis into increasing the June delivery price for its Arab light crude oil to Asia by US$1.40 per barrel from May, albeit at a discount of US$5.90 to the Oman/Dubai benchmark average. Market expectations were that Saudi would continue to keep OSPs low to hold onto market gains. Saudi Arabia did this because its finances are in an even worse state now than they were at the end of the Kingdom’s previous attempt to destroy the U.S. shale industry that ran disastrously from 2014 to 2016. Back then, Saudi had a much greater chance of success in destroying the U.S. shale industry than it did this year, for a wide variety of reasons, but even then the effort nearly destroyed the Saudi economy forever. Back then Saudi had record-high foreign assets reserves of US$737 billion in August 2014, allowing it real room for manoeuvre in sustaining its SAR/US$-currency peg and covering the huge budget deficits that would be caused from the oil price fall caused by overproduction. Despite this relatively positive backdrop to Saudi’s 2014-2016 oil price war against U.S. shale, OPEC member states lost a collective US$450 billion in oil revenues from the lower price environment, according to the IEA. Saudi Arabia itself moved from a budget surplus to a then-record high deficit in 2015 of US$98 billion and spent at least US$250 billion of its foreign exchange reserves over that period that even senior Saudis have said are lost forever. So bad was Saudi Arabia’s economic and political situation back in 2016 that the country’s deputy economic minister, Mohamed Al Tuwaijri, stated unequivocally (and unprecedentedly for a senior Saudi) in October 2016 that: “If we [Saudi Arabia] don’t take any reform measures, and if the global economy stays the same, then we’re doomed to bankruptcy in three to four years.” That is to say, that if Saudi kept overproducing to push oil prices down – just as it did this year, yet again - then it would be bankrupt within three to four years.

Jordan's King Warns '”Massive Conflict” Coming If Israel Moves To Annex West Bank - With Washington's backing, Israel is planning to move forward on controversial plans to annex a broad swath of the West Bank, particularly the Jordan Valley, as early as this summer. PM Netanyahu last month issued a likely time table of "within two months".Arab nations, especially in the gulf, have remained uncharacteristically mum about the whole thing as they focus on countering Iran (which has, it should be noted, actually brought Saudi Arabia into a quiet 'covert' intelligence sharing relationship with Israel over the past couple years).But Jordan on Friday finally went on the offensive, with King Abdullah telling the German magazine Der Spiegel that Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank “will lead to a massive conflict with Jordan”. The 'warning' was posted to the official website of the king's Royal Hashemite Court on Friday:Asked about the impact of Israel potentially moving forward with the annexation of parts of the West Bank, the King said it could lead to a massive conflict with Jordan.“I don't want to make threats and create an atmosphere of loggerheads, but we are considering all options. We agree with many countries in Europe and the international community that the law of strength should not apply in the Middle East,” His Majesty added.He further reaffirmed Jordan’s position that “the two-state solution is the only way for us to be able to move forward.” He at the same time urged the region to focus on collective efforts at fighting coronavirus instead of clashing with each other, as he said will happen if Israel initiates its provocative and 'illegal' expansionist plans.Abdullah, who maintains a close relationship with the United States and has long opened his country to CIA and US military presence especially during the early years of regime change efforts in Syria, also warned that "chaos and extremism in the region" would be unleashed if the Palestinian Authority collapsed."Leaders who advocate a one-state solution do not understand what that would mean. What would happen if the Palestinian National Authority collapsed? There would be more chaos and extremism in the region," he said.

Mysterious 2,819% Stock Rally Has Traders Scratching Their Heads - An Abu Dhabi-based investment holding company is leaving traders and investors scratching their heads after a 2,819% surge in its stock in the past 12 months with very low trading volumes. International Holdings Co. PJSC, which derived most of its revenue in 2019 from fish farming in the United Arab Emirates, has reached a market value of $14 billion, up from about $133 million a year ago. The steep rally in its shares hasn’t been dented by this year’s global equity market meltdown sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, or the collapse in oil prices which roiled Middle-Eastern markets. The company’s shares are up 351% in 2020. The uninterrupted surge has made it the best performing stock worldwide in the past 12 months among companies worth $1 billion or more, and IHC is now the fifth-biggest listed group in the U.A.E. by market value, after Emirates Telecom Group Co., First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC, Emirates NBD PJSC and DP World Plc.

 US Deploys B-1Bs, Warships In South China Sea As China Nationalists Call For Invasion Of Taiwan - While the global economy remains in a state of near ubiquitous lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the US military has been busy. According to an update posted on the Pacific Air Forces website, a B-1B Lancer strategic bomber part of the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron was one of two B-1s conducting a training mission in the South China Sea in support of Pacific Air Forces’ training efforts and "strategic deterrence missions to reinforce the rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific region."  The training missions follows what Stars and Stripes described on April 30 as a "show of force" by the U.S. military in the South China Sea "with a sortie over the contested waters on Thursday by two Air Force bombers."The B-1B Lancers from the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., flew a 32-hour round trip to conduct operations over the sea as part of a joint bomber task force by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and U.S. Strategic Command, the Air Force said in news release Thursday.The mission further demonstrated the service’s new “dynamic force employment model,” which is intended to make its global bomber presence less predictable, the Air Force said.Meanwhile, according to a Friday report from the USNI, the US Navy "sent a pair of ships to patrol in the vicinity of a mineral rights dispute between Malaysia and China in the South China Sea for the second time in a month." According to the report, the Littoral Combat Ship USS Montgomery (LCS-8) and replenishment ship USNS Cesar Chavez (T-AKE-14) conducted a presence operation in the South China Sea on Thursday near Panamanian-flagged drill ship West Capella, in what appears to have been a show of force/deterrence. The drill ship is under contract to conduct surveying operations in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone for Malaysian state oil company Petronas. Chinese People Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) warships and China Coast Guard vessels have also operated near the Malaysian-contracted drilling ship, according to USNI.

China Auto Sales Fall 5.6% YOY In April Despite Sizeable Bounce Back From March - The auto market in China is a widely watched economic gauge and leading indicator for the rest of the world, not only because the country is the number one seller of vehicles worldwide, but now also as a litmus test as to how the country's coronavirus re-opening is faring.For now, despite a questionable miraculous-looking rebound, sales are still falling.April's auto sales numbers came in down 5.6% compared to last year, despite rising 37% from March numbers, according to data released Sunday by the China Passenger Car Association and MarketWatch. The CAAM claims that declines are moderating although we have a tough time believing (pardon our skepticism of China) that such a V-shaped recovery is possible in the country where the outbreak first began.According to China's data, the YOY growth rebound is pronounced and April's drop pales in comparison to a 40% YOY drop in March and a 79% YOY drop in February. The Chinese government is going to attempt to spur demand with new policies aimed at enticing buyers, according to Bloomberg, citing an unnamed automotive industry group in China. Recall, we have recently noted that U.S. auto manufacturers are teeing up sizeable incentives to get buyers back into showrooms. Europe is following suit, with Volkswagen starting a sales initiative to revive demand, including improved leasing and financing terms.

Mobile Phone Activity From Wuhan Lab Suggests 'Possible Shutdown' In October Due To 'Hazardous Event’ - An intelligence report conducted by private analysts and presented to the US Senate intelligence committee suggests that there may have been a "hazardous event" at the Wuhan Institute of Virology between October 6 and 11, during which time roadblocks were put in place to prevent traffic from coming to the facility, according to the report obtained by NBC News.The 24-page report includes an analysis of phone data from around the institute, including a pattern analysis of devices that frequent the WIV, show no mobile phone activity from October 7 to 24The analysis shows that device traffic "in and around the WIV in the months prior to October was consistent," but that "Beginning on October 11th, there was a substantial decrease in activity," suggesting that the 'window for incident' was October 6th - 11th."During this time, it is believed that roadblocks were put in place to prevent traffic from coming near the facility."  That said, NBC's anonymous government expert has urged caution, suggesting that the report may rely on limited commercially available mobile phone data, and that there could be any number of reasons why no activity was detected during the period in question.Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee (presumably following their briefing), tweeted on May 6: "Would be interesting if someone analyzed commercial telemetry data at & near Wuhan lab from Oct-Dec 2019," adding "If it shows dramatic drop off in activity compared to previous 18 months it would be a strong indication of an incident at lab & of when it happened."

Apple To Move A Fifth Of iPhone Production From China To India In Massive Supply-Chain Shift -  One reason why the global economy will never be the same after the coronavirus pandemic is long forgotten, is that supply-chains - which have been in place for decades, taking advantage of China's cheap labor costs and keeping global inflation in check - are being gutted and overhauled, in many cases from scratch.A perfect example of this is Apple's quiet transition away from China and into the country that is emerging as the next labor superpower: India. According to Inc42, "Apple is looking to move nearly a fifth of its iPhone and other electronics production capacity from China to India to get benefits under the Indian government’s production-linked incentives (PLI) scheme", which was launched to incentivize local handset manufacturing and exports.According to the report, With this move, Apple is planning to produce iPhones worth $40BN through its contractors Foxconn and Wistron, and essentially diversifying its production out of China, and set India as a base for manufacturing and export. The move is in line with Apple’s plans to reduce its reliance on China as a manufacturing hub as it looks to dodge the negative impact of the US trade tariffs as well as the current coronavirus pandemic, which had forced all production in China to come to a halt. Government officials, close to the matter, have assured that they will look into all the concerns raised, as the government is focusing on bringing high-tech manufacturing to India. Under the scheme, a company must manufacture at least $10 Bn worth mobile phones, in a phased manner, between 2020 and 2025 to avail the benefits of the PLI scheme. The selected applicant is required to meet targets on a yearly basis.   Apple currently sells iPhones worth $1.5Bn in India, of which less than a third are locally manufactured, whereas Apple is a top investor in the manufacturing sector in China and produced merchandise valued at $220 Bn in China in the financial year 2018-19. According to an Economic Times report, Apple senior executives have held several rounds of meetings with top-ranking government officials over the last few months. The report also suggests that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also met top executives from tech giants like Apple, Samsung, homegrown phone maker Lava, on December 28 2019, to start the process. The government believes that other smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, Vivo and Oppo may also start applying from next week, once the guidelines are out. The scheme will kick in from August 1.

Indian And Chinese Troops Clash In Fistfight At Disputed Border - Dozens of Indian and Chinese soldiers were injured in a cross-border clash involving fistfights and stone-throwing at a remote but strategically important mountain pass near Tibet, the Indian Army said Sunday according to the Straits Times and BBC.. There have been long-running border tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, with a bitter war fought over India's north-eastern-most state of Arunachal Pradesh in 1962. The two countries have competing claims over their shared 3,400 kilometre (2,100 mile) border. Sometimes stand-offs involve chest-bumping, pushing and shoving, and throwing stones at each other, BBC South Asia Editor Anbarasan Ethirajan reports. The latest tense face-off took place near the Naku La sector in Sikkim, more than 5,000 meters (16,400ft) above sea level in the Himalayas. "Aggressive behaviour by the two sides resulted in minor injuries to troops. It was stone-throwing and arguments that ended in a fistfight," Indian Army Eastern Command spokesman Mandeep Hooda told AFP. The "stand-off" on Saturday at Naku La sector near the 4,572m Nathu La crossing in the north-eastern state of Sikkim - which borders Bhutan, Nepal and China - was later resolved after "dialogue and interaction" at a local level, Hooda said.

"We Sent Them Samples Of A Goat, A Papaya & A Pheasant": Tanzanian President Catches WHO In Epic Lie - As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases explodes across Africa, the creeping involvement of the WHO has made some leaders suspicious of the NGO. Tanzanian President John Magufuli was growing suspicious of the organization, so he reportedly decided to investigate whether the organization was as trustworthy and reliable as it claimed to be.He played what the local press described as "a trick" on the organization: He sent the WHO samples of a goat, a papaya and a quail for testing. All three samples reportedly tested positive. When the president heard the news, he reportedly confronted the WHO, then kicked the organization out of the country. Though, to be sure, the WHO has yet to comment on the situation.That would suggest one of two conclusions: either the strain of SARS-CoV-2 running amok in Tanzania is much, much more infectious than scientists understand, or the WHO has been reporting incorrect results either on purpose (as an attempt to bolster its credibility in the face of President Trump's attacks) or via error (yet another indication that the WHO truly is "badly brokem" - as  Vox described it back in 2015). Most rational people would probably accept the latter scenario as the most accurate one. Magufuli has garnered plenty of controversy himself over the past few weeks. He recently requested stockpiles of an 'herbal tea' that has been falsely branded as a COVID-19 cure, and has launched investigations impacting domestic labs and even frontline medical workers as he's claimed the number of positive tests in his country is too high. The reality is that Tanzania doesn't have much of a outbreak: It has recorded only 503 cases and 21 deaths. Though its mortality rate of 4% would suggest that the true number of cases likely numbers in the thousands.

"Bolsonaro Is A Virus" - Opposition Leader Calls For President's Impeachment As Brazil Reports Record 15k Cases In A Single Day - It's become blindingly obvious that the coronavirus outbreak in Brazil has spiraled out of control, offering an example of the consequences of minimal containment efforts, and causing unease across Latin America, as Brazil's neighbors move to close borders to ensure Brazilians don't carry the virus across the border. As the situation spirals out of control, President Jair Bolsonaro is spending more time egging on his most radical supporters, who are now openly calling for a military takeover of the government, and a return to a military dictatorship with Bolsonaro at the head. Though, as the Washington Post was forced to admit, most Brazilians view the likelihood of a military intrusion into public life as remote. Just hours after Brazil's health minister resigned following less than a month on the job, the country's public health officials reported a record 15,305 cases during the prior day. Before resigning, Health Minister Nelson Teich had criticized Bolsonaro's presidential decree calling for beauty parlors and gyms to reopen. While Teich gave no reason for his resignation, his predecessor was sacked by Bolsonaro for disagreeing with the president's opposition to lockdowns. Bolsonaro believes that the virus is nothing more than a "little flu" and that it will inevitably spread. Brazil's Globo newspaper reported that Teich disagreed with Bolsonaro's insistence on using hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat the virus, and sources said this disagreement was the last straw. Military members of Bolsonaro'sn cabinet are pushing for deputy health minister Eduardo Pazuello, an army general on active duty, to become the new health minister, making his current "interim" position permanent, according to Reuters. Teich's predecessor, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, was fired in April after he urged Brazilians to observe social distancing and stay indoors. Over the past week, Brazil has surged past Germany and France on the global coronavirus depth chart and, in terms of its coronavirus caseload, it has become arguably the world's worst hotspot, since epidemiologists suspect that more than a million cases have probably gone diagnosed, along with tens of thousands of deaths. The record number of cases brought Brazil's total north of 218,000 cases, and the 824 new deaths recorded in the last day brought Brazil's death toll to 14,817. 

Venezuela Displays Military Boats & Weapons It Says Were Part Of US Mercenary Invasion - The failed attempt of US mercenaries operating from Colombia to stage a coup in Venezuela continues developing with more and more details appearing. On May 9, Venezuela’s military said it seized three abandoned Colombian light combat boats that soldiers found in the Orinoco river area. This happened several days after the government accused its neighbor of aiding a failed invasion staged by US mercenaries. The Defense Ministry said the boats were equipped with machine guns and ammunition, but had no crew, adding they were discovered as part of a nationwide operation to guarantee Venezuela’s “freedom and sovereignty.” Colombia’s Navy said that boats were just dragged away by strong river currents. Probably, US mercenaries also appeared in Venezuela thanks to ‘strong currents’ in the area.  Machine guns and ammunition said to be recovered as part of the investigation into last week's mercenary invasion of Venezuela:  The Guardian described previouslys:An American mercenary captured after a bungled attempt to topple Nicolás Maduro has claimed he was on a mission to seize control of Venezuela’s main airport in order to abduct its authoritarian leader – and he alleged that was acting under the command of Donald Trump....In a heavily edited video confession, broadcast on Wednesday by the state broadcaster, VTV, Denman said he had flown to Colombia in mid-January, where he was tasked with training Venezuelan combatants near Riohacha, a city 55 miles west from the Venezuelan border.From there Denman – who said he had never previously set foot in either South American country – claimed the group planned to journey to Caracas to “secure” the city and the nearby Simón Bolívar international airport, before bringing down Maduro.The group of a least a dozen men, who were trained by Florida-based private security firm Silvercorp, reportedly tried to sneak into Venezuela via fishing boats a week ago, but were caught soon after stepping foot on land.

 Germany Enters Recession but Fares Better Than Neighbors – WSJ —Germany fell into recession in the first quarter, shrinking at its second-fastest pace since reunification as the coronavirus pandemic bit into everything from retailers to auto exporters, but Europe’s powerhouse economy is nonetheless expected to fare better than its neighbors over the balance of 2020. Germany’s gross domestic product shrank by 8.6% in the first quarter on an annualized basis. Since fourth-quarter figures were revised to show a small contraction, Friday’s data indicates that Germany is now in recession. While the German economy is expected to shrink more sharply in the second quarter, when lockdowns to slow the spread of the new coronavirus were at their peak, the data already show the divergent economic fortunes of major European countries—a split that is expected to grow. That could create political frictions within the European Union and complicate the bloc’s efforts to combat the crisis. Germany managed to keep most of its factories open during the lockdown, while the government has moved aggressively to provide support for businesses and workers. Instead, lockdowns in Italy and France were more draconian and southern Europe depends more heavily on tourism, which has dried up during the pandemic. Such splits have been repeated around the world, with declines in economic activity during the first quarter largely reflecting the duration and severity of the lockdowns. Sweden and South Korea, which decided against mandated shutdowns, saw smaller contractions. France, Italy and Spain posted annualized declines of 21.4%, 17.7% and 19.4% respectively. The Netherlands—which is the eurozone’s fifth-largest member—Friday said its economy shrank by 6.6% in the first three months of the year. The eurozone economy as a whole contracted by 14.2%, while the U.S. economy shrank by 4.8%.

France has made wearing face masks compulsory in public, while maintaining a controversial ban on burqas and niqabs - From Monday, all people in France must now wear a face mask in public to avoid further spread of the COVID-19 disease. However, the burqa, niqab, and other religious face and head coverings remain banned — reigniting a debate over the government's 2010 ban on religious coverings. France mandated face masks in public to coincide with a gradual easing of its strict coronavirus lockdown, which started Monday. Under these new rules, people can now travel 60 miles from home, and some businesses and schools can reopen. However, bars and restaurants — which have been closed on March 17 — remain shuttered. Those using public transport, entering certain shops, or attending schools must now wear a mask, the government said. The issue of face coverings is especially sensitive in France, and has been a major political issue on at least two occasions since the new millennium. In 2010, the government imposed a ban on Muslim head coverings, namely the burqa or niqab. Those in favor of the bill protected gender equality and women's dignity, and encouraged assimilation into secular French culture. Critics saw it as an attack on religious freedom. Flouting the law can result in a 150-euro ($162) fine and/or participation in so-called French citizenship education.

Brexit Talks Go Nowhere, Adding New European Economic Headache – WSJ —A further round of Brexit talks ended in a stalemate Friday, adding another economic anxiety in a region already battered by the coronavirus. With a trade deal of huge complexity to negotiate, for the moment taking place over video links, the European Union and the U.K. have yet to agree even on the basic elements of an accord—including whether there should be a single overarching agreement with one set of rules and oversight or multiple smaller ones. Both sides reported little progress as a deadline looms on whether to extend the talks beyond the end of the year. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he has no intention of asking for an extension, which under the country’s exit agreement with the EU must be agreed on by the end of next month. The glacial pace of the talks, aimed at anchoring the future economic relationship between Britain and the bloc, suggests the logjam will be broken only by a high-level political intervention or at least direct, face-to-face talks. There is currently little prospect of physical meetings because of the Covid-19 crisis.The next summit of EU leaders is in June—after just one further round of scheduled talks. David Frost, the chief British negotiator, said there had been “very little progress” in these talks, adding that the EU would have to change its approach when negotiations resume June 1. “It is hard to understand why the EU insists on an ideological approach which makes it more difficult to reach a mutually beneficial agreement,” he said in a statement Friday. The U.K. complains that Brussels is demanding the U.K. adhere to EU rules on so-called level-playing-field issues like environmental, labor and state-aid standards as a price for a zero-tariff trade deal. It says the EU didn’t insist on these standards in past trade deals with other countries, such as Canada. EU officials say previous trade deals have been with smaller economies much more distant from the EU. They fear being undercut by British competition operating in a laxer regulatory environment next door. With the British and European economies cratering because of the coronavirus crisis, there has been growing business alarm at the lack of progress in the talks. Even with an agreement, bilateral trade worth £670 billion ($813 billion) last year will face many new bureaucratic obstacles; without an accord, trade experts expect ports to be clogged by dozens of new customs rules and other checks.