week ending Sept 26

 In Unprecedented Monetary Overhaul, The Fed Is Preparing To Deposit Digital Dollars Directly To Each American - Ever since the Fed launched QE and NIRP, it has been making the situation it has been trying to "fix" even worse while blowing the biggest asset price bubble in history.  To be sure, in the aftermath of the covid pandemic shutdowns the Fed has tried to short-circuit this process, and in conjunction with the Treasury it has launched "helicopter money" which has resulted in a direct transfer of funds to US corporations via PPP loans, as well as to end consumers via the emergency $600 weekly unemployment benefits .  And yet, the lament is that even as the economy was desperately in need of a massive liquidity tsunami, the funds created by the Fed and Treasury did not make their way to those who need them the most: end consumers. Which is why we read with great interest a Bloomberg interview with two former Fed officials: Simon Potter, who led the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s markets group i.e., he was the head of the Fed's Plunge Protection Team for years, and Julia Coronado, who spent eight years as an economist for the Fed’s Board of Governors, who are among the innovators brainstorming solutions to what has emerged as the most crucial and difficult problem facing the Fed: get money swiftly to people who need it most in a crisis. The response was striking: the two propose creating a monetary tool that they call recession insurance bonds, which draw on some of the advances in digital payments, which will be wired instantly to Americans.As Coronado explained the details, Congress would grant the Federal Reserve an additional tool for providing support—say, a percent of GDP [in a lump sum that would be divided equally and distributed] to households in a recession. Recession insurance bonds would be zero-coupon securities, a contingent asset of households that would basically lie in wait. The trigger could be reaching the zero lower bound on interest rates or, as economist Claudia Sahm has proposed, a 0.5 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate. The Fed would then activate the securities and deposit the funds digitally in households’ apps. As Potter added, "it took Congress too long to get money to people, and it’s too clunky. We need a separate infrastructure. The Fed could buy the bonds quickly without going to the private market. On March 15 they could have said interest rates are now at zero, we’re activating X amount of the bonds, and we’ll be tracking the unemployment rate—if it increases above this level, we’ll buy more. The bonds will be on the asset side of the Fed’s balance sheet; the digital dollars in people’s accounts will be on the liability side." Essentially, the Fed is proposing creating a hybrid digital legal tender unlike reserves which are stuck within the financial system, and which it can deposit directly into US consumer accounts. In short, as we summarized "The Fed Is Planning To Send Money Directly To Americans In The Next Crisis", something we reminded readers of on Monday:

Fed Chair Powell Testimony: "Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act" at 10:30 AM ET - Here is Fed Chair Powell's prepared testimony: Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act

 Powell grilled by Congress over how Fed is helping Main Street -Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell faced questions from U.S. lawmakers Wednesday over the central bank’s help for Americans compared with markets. “Our actions were in no way an attempt to relieve pain on Wall Street,” Powell said in a hearing before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. The Fed chief said that with its Main Street Lending Program, the central bank has “done basically all of the things that we can think of.” “We’re looking to do more,” he added but said the central bank isn’t planning to make other big changes to the Main Street facility. “There’s nothing major that we’re looking at now,” Powell said. “There is nothing major that we see now that would be consistent with opening it up further.” Powell answered multiple, pointed questions about the efficacy of the Main Street program, which has been slow to start and seen little uptake from small-to-midsize businesses. One of the Fed’s emergency measures unleashed during the pandemic, the facility has seen low takeup — just about 0.3% of its $600 billion capacity — and has been criticized by lawmakers and companies alike. That compares with the Fed’s programs set up to keep credit flowing to public companies, which have generally been seen as a success in stabilizing job losses there and bolstering stock and bond markets. Banks have been reluctant to apply more lenient underwriting standards to the Main Street loans, 5% of which will remain on bank balance sheets after they sell the remaining 95% to the Fed. Last week, after the Fed’s September policy meeting, Powell said that the central bank was working on changes to the program, saying they were working to make it available “pretty much to any company that needs it and can service a loan.” The Fed on Friday tweaked guidance to banks, urging them to underwrite loans based on the borrower’s pre-pandemic conditions and its potential post-pandemic prospects. Powell was asked about lowering the minimum loan size in the program, where the smallest possible loan is currently $250,000. He said that credit, via the banking sector, is pretty broadly available for the companies targeted by the Main Street program, so those firms may be able to get lending outside of the Fed’s facilities.“The current facility would not work for much smaller loans,” Powell said. “We’d have to start a new facility that had much less protection for the taxpayer.” He added that the Paycheck Protection Program, which has expired, may be better suited to companies needing smaller loans.

Senator Sinema Tells Mnuchin and Powell She Lived in an Abandoned Gas Station as a Child; Asks What they Plan to Do About Wave of Coming Evictions - Fed Chair Jerome Powell looked genuinely troubled as Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona shared her traumatic childhood during yesterday’s Senate Banking hearing. The witness panel included both Powell and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Sinema first asked Mnuchin and Powell if they had ever been evicted from their home. Both said no. She then shared this:  “Well, as you may know, I was homeless for a number of years as a child. And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I know the challenges that Arizona families are facing right now and it’s an important perspective for people here in Washington to understand. “When I was in elementary school, my Dad lost his job and my parents got divorced. We lost our car and our home and we were homeless for almost three years. We lived in an abandoned gas station without running water or electricity.”  The New York Times has suggested that Sinema has embellished this story, but concedes that she and her family did live in an abandoned gas station; that it was a trying time; and that she had the grit to go on to graduate high school at age 16, as valedictorian of her class.  Sinema was making the case that dramatically more stimulus from Congress is urgently needed. She said “According to the Census Bureau’s household Pulse Survey, over 300,000 Arizona families missed their July rent payments. Two-thirds of those households are families with children.” Sinema went on to remind Mnuchin and Powell that Arizona’s unemployment insurance, at $240 a week, is the second lowest in the nation and without Congress passing a continuation of the prior unemployment supplement of $600 a week, the eviction crisis is destined to get worse. Another emotional moment in the hearing came when Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio appeared outraged at Mnuchin and President Trump praising themselves over the great job they’ve done. The exchange went like this:

• Brown: “Secretary Mnuchin, President Trump said with regard to the Coronavirus ‘I think we did a great job.’ Do you agree with that? Do you think the President’s done a great job with the Coronavirus?”
• Mnuchin: “I do. I think we’ve made tremendous progress…
• Brown: “Mr. Secretary, I’m sorry to cut you off. I hope that you and the President don’t dislocate your shoulders by patting yourselves on the back, saying ‘good job.’ We are 4 percent of the world’s population; we are 22 percent of the world’s deaths.”

Brown went on to remind Mnuchin where the U.S. economy stands compared to other countries:  […] Later in the exchange, Brown reminded Mnuchin that Republicans offered a “paltry” $500 billion stimulus plan when “economists all over the country wanted 3 and 4 and 5 times that amount.” Brown asked why Mnuchin was so successful in getting Republicans to fall in line and approve the massive $1 trillion-plus tax cut “where 70 percent of it went to the richest people in the country,” but he can’t get those same Republicans to fall in line to pass a larger stimulus bill during this economic crisis.  Mnuchin said that he continues to negotiate with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.The strangest moment in the hearing came when Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania asked Mnuchin and Powell about the current availability of credit for credit-worthy borrowers in light of all of the Fed’s emergency lending operations.Powell gave a bizarre answer, stating, “We haven’t made a single loan to a corporate directly and yet something like a trillion dollars in financing has happened.” You can watch the full exchange at 53 minutes and 59 seconds (53:59) here.

Lawmakers Offer Support for Fed’s New Inflation Strategy – WSJ  - The Federal Reserve last month changed the way it will implement its mandate from Congress, and lawmakers have no objection. Over three days of congressional hearings this week that concluded Thursday, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell received some accolades—and not a word of concern—from lawmakers about the central bank’s formal decision to seek periods of higher inflation to compensate for periods of lower inflation. Mr. Powell also said Thursday he didn’t see a need to change the central bank’s mandate to add a new focus on racial equality because the Fed is already doing what a new proposal would require. Congress assigns two broad goals to the Fed—to maintain stable prices and to secure full employment—but it leaves it up to the central bank how to achieve those goals. The Fed’s new strategy represents the biggest change to its operating framework since 2012, when the central bank adopted a 2% inflation target to define the first part of its mandate. The initial inflation target drew significant concerns from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for years leading up to its adoption. The Fed didn’t seek formal approval from Congress for either the initial target or the latest change. Lawmakers who have in the past raised concerns about allowing higher inflation didn’t press Mr. Powell over the changes or raise any objections this week, while others offered their compliments. “I am not at all exaggerating when I say this new framework is the most important thing that has happened to monetary policy—indeed, in economic policy—in 40 years,” Rep. Denny Heck (D., Wash.) said on Tuesday. The changes are “great news,” said Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R., Ind.). “I really appreciate you doing that and I think it’s going to be a positive for the Fed and for the American economy going forward.” The new policy highlights a deficiency the Fed’s old one confronted in a world with more frequent or extended episodes in which interest rates can’t be lowered once falling to near zero. If the central bank targets 2% inflation and consistently falls short, expectations of future inflation will slide, making it much harder to achieve the target. The new framework codifies two important changes. First, it effectively raises the Fed’s inflation target by saying the central bank should take past misses of the 2% target into account and seek periods of moderately higher inflation to compensate. Second, officials won’t raise interest rates simply because unemployment rates fall below a level estimated to put pressure on prices. In doing so, they have set aside the consensus that guided central bank policy following the runaway inflation of the 1970s.

Chicago Fed: "Index suggests slower, but still above-average growth in August" - "Index suggests slower, but still above-average growth in August." That is the headline for this morning's release of the Chicago Fed's National Activity Index, and here is the opening paragraph from the report: Led by some further moderation in the growth of production-related indicators, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) declined to +0.79 in August from +2.54 in July. Two of the four broad categories of indicators used to construct the index made positive contributions in August, but all four categories decreased from July. The index’s three-month moving average, CFNAI-MA3, moved down to +3.05 in August from +4.23 in July. [Download report]  The Chicago Fed's National Activity Index (CFNAI) is a monthly indicator designed to gauge overall economic activity and related inflationary pressure. It is a composite of 85 monthly indicators as explained in this background PDF file on the Chicago Fed's website. The index is constructed so a zero value for the index indicates that the national economy is expanding at its historical trend rate of growth. Negative values indicate below-average growth, and positive values indicate above-average growth. The first chart below shows the recent behavior of the index since 2007. The red dots show the indicator itself, which is quite noisy, together with the 3-month moving average (CFNAI-MA3), which is more useful as an indicator of the actual trend for coincident economic activity.

Seven High Frequency Indicators for the Economy --These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment - some of the sectors that will recover very slowly.  The TSA is providing daily travel numbers. This data shows the seven day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Blue) and 2020 (Red).   The seven day average is down 69% from last year (31% of last year).  There has been a slow increase from the bottom. The second graph shows the 7 day average of the year-over-year change in diners as tabulated by OpenTable for the US and several selected cities.  The 7 day average for New York is still off 66% YoY, and down 31% in Texas.  There was a surge in restaurant dining around Labor Day - hopefully mostly outdoor dining.  This data shows domestic box office for each week (red) and the maximum and minimum for the previous four years.  Data is from BoxOfficeMojo through September 17th. Movie ticket sales have picked up over the last few weeks, and were at $15 million last week (compared to usually under $200 million per week in the late Summer / early Fall).  This 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 since the Great Depression for hotels - prior to 2020).  This data is through September 12th. Hotel occupancy is currently down 30% year-over-year (and that is boosted by fires and a hurricane).  This graph, based on weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows gasoline supplied compared to the same week last year of . At one point, gasoline supplied was off almost 50% YoY. As of September 11th, gasoline supplied was only off about 5.2% YoY (about 94.8% of normal).  This graph is from Apple mobility. From Apple: "This data is generated by counting the number of requests made to Apple Maps for directions in select countries/regions, sub-regions, and cities." This is just a general guide - people that regularly commute probably don't ask for directions. There is also some great data on mobility from the Dallas Fed Mobility and Engagement Index.  This data is through September 18th for the United States and several selected cities. The graph is the running 7 day average to remove the impact of weekends. According to the Apple data directions requests, public transit in the 7 day average for the US is still only about 56% of the January level. It is at 49% in Chicago, and 59% in Houston.  Here is some interesting data on New York subway usage (HT BR). This graph is from Todd W Schneider.This data is through Friday, September 18th. Schneider has graphs for each borough, and links to all the data sources.

U.S. Economy Continues Steady Recovery in September, Business Surveys Show – WSJ -The U.S. economy in September continued its steady recovery from the sharp declines in the second quarter as demand and output strengthened, according to new business surveys.   But the pace faltered in Europe and Asia, where new infections have led to new restrictions on activity. U.S. service-sector and manufacturing companies reported solid growth in September, a positive signal for overall economic growth in the third quarter. Data firm IHS Markit said Wednesday its composite Purchasing Managers Index for the U.S.—a measure of activity in the private sector—was 54.4 in September, down slightly from 54.6 in August. A reading above 50.0 indicates that activity is increasing, while a reading below points to a decline in activity.Growth in the services sector slowed slightly to 54.6 in September from 55 in August, while in the manufacturing sector it accelerated to 53.5 from 53.1.The numbers suggest the U.S. economy continues its slow and steady climb from the deep declines seen in the spring due to lockdowns and other restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.“The question now turns to whether the economy’s strong performance can be sustained into the fourth quarter,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.   Coronavirus infection rates remain high in the U.S., and mounting uncertainty over the presidential election could further tamp down business optimism, he said. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the economy has made “marked improvement” but remains far from prepandemic activity levels.“The path ahead continues to be highly uncertain,” he told lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “A full recovery is likely to come only when people are confident that it is safe to re-engage in a broad range of activities.”Paul Jacobson, chief financial officer of Delta Air Lines, Inc., said he remained cautious about the outlook even though the past few months have been encouraging.“We have to be very, very careful about opening that floodgate of costs and expenses to rebuild the airline until we’re absolutely sure that demand is going to be there,” he said at a conference last week.The recovery has been slower in other parts of the world.Purchasing-manager surveys in France, Germany and Japan pointed to a decline in activity at businesses that provide services during September, an indication that the global economy may struggle to return to pre-pandemic levels of output until a vaccine becomes widely available.The surveys indicate a faltering end to the third quarter, which saw the recovery of much of the output lost to strict lockdowns. The weakening of services activity comes as a number of European countries, including the U.K., France, Spain and the Netherlands, have tightened restrictions in response to accelerating infection rates.

Q3 GDP Forecasts -- From Merrill Lynch:  We expect 2Q GDP to be unrevised at -31.7% qoq saar in the third and final release. We continue to track 27% qoq saar for 3Q GDP. [Sept 25 estimate] From Goldman Sachs:  The details of the durable goods report were broadly consistent with our expectations. We left our Q3 GDP tracking estimate unchanged at +35% (qoq ar). [Sept 25 estimate]  From the NY Fed Nowcasting Report  The New York Fed Staff Nowcast stands at 14.1% for 2020:Q3 and 5.0% for 2020:Q4. [Sept 25 estimate]  And from the Altanta Fed: GDPNow: The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2020 is 32.0 percent on September 25, unchanged from September 17 after rounding. [Sept 25 estimate]It is important to note that GDP is reported at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR).  A 30% annualized increase in Q3 GDP, is about 6.8% QoQ, and would leave real GDP down about 4.2% from Q4 2019. The following graph illustrates this decline. This graph shows the percent decline in real GDP from the previous peak (currently the previous peak was in Q4 2019). This graph is through Q2 2020, and real GDP is currently off 10.2% from the previous peak.  For comparison, at the depth of the Great Recession, real GDP was down 4.0% from the previous peak. The black arrow shows what a 30% annualized increase in real GDP would look like in Q3. Even with a 30% annualized increase (about 6.8% QoQ), real GDP will be down about 4.2% from Q4 2019; a larger decline in real GDP than at the depth of the Great Recession.

Citi Blames Systemic Racism For $16 Trillion GDP Shortfall -- In a 104-page study, Citigroup has published its findings on quantifying the cost of 'systemic racism' in America. There are two big number stand-outs from the report:

• 1) The Historic Cost... Due to lost wages, less access to home and small business loans, and limited access to higher education, over the past 20 years, GDP lost about $16 trillion because of race-based inequalities.
• 2) The Future Benefits... If the U.S. could instantly end the most severe forms of economic discrimination against African Americans, it could give a $5 trillion boost to gross domestic product over the next five years.

Citigroup Vice Chairman Raymond J. McGuire said in the report: Today, more than at any time since Dr. King’s assassination, we are bearing witness to the grave injustices affecting our fellow citizens. Black, Latinx, and Native Americans have been hospitalized for COVID-19 at a disproportionately high rate, a direct result of what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified as “long-standing systemic health and social inequities.” Blacks and People of Color are also bearing a disproportionate share of the pandemic’s economic devastation. As Dr. King noted, these injustices affect all of us. Higher rates of infection among some affect the health of all, and the loss of health, life, and livelihood among communities of color diminish everyone’s economic security. No one should want to live in a society that incarcerates or kills so many of its citizens just because they are black or brown.  The 400 years of enslavement of Black populations in the Americas has residual effects that persist to this day despite tomes of legislation providing equal access to various aspects of American life under the law. Attitudes and policies undermining equal access are at the root of the racial gaps plaguing U.S. society.Moreover, societal inequities have manifested themselves into economic costs, which have harmed individuals, families, communities, and ultimately the growth and well-being of the U.S. economy.

• If the racial gaps in wages in the U.S. had been closed two decades ago, there might have been an additional 0.2 percentage point to real GDP growth per year.
• Adequate access to housing credit might have produced 770,000 new Black homeowners.
• More Black students with university and advanced degrees might have generated an additional $90 to $113 billion in income that could have contributed to consumption.
• More than 6 million jobs per year might have been added and $13 trillion in cumulative revenue gained if Black-owned firms had equitable access to credit.

The global implications are also apparent given the U.S. contributes a one-third share of growth to the world economy.

Goldman Expects Treasury Yields To Surge If Democrats Sweep In November - Over the weekend we reported that in its latest "hot take" on possible election outcomes, Goldman's FX team concluded that a Biden win and Democratic sweep on Nov 3 would "accelerate" dollar weakness, for three reasons:

• First, Biden’s proposals to raise the US corporate tax rate would make domestic stocks less attractive compared to international markets, all else equal, which could result in Dollar selling if US equities underperform. Regulatory changes, especially anything targeting the technology sector, could have similar effects.
• Second, a large fiscal stimulus would also likely weaken the Dollar, due to the Fed’s commitment to keep rates low. Normally currencies appreciate after fiscal stimulus, because it lifts rates, and higher rates in turn attract portfolio inflows from abroad. But academic research finds that currencies depreciate after fiscal expansions when unemployment is high and/or central bank policy rates are stuck at their effective lower bound.
• Third, a more multilateral approach to foreign affairs should reduce risk premium in certain currencies, especially the Chinese Yuan. Goldman recently lowered its 12m target for USD/CNH to 6.50 for this reason: a Biden Administration would likely imply lower trade war risks, and therefore should allow the Chinese currency to gain alongside broad Dollar weakness.

Furthermore, having initially warned that a Biden win would likely be negative for stocks due to the prospect of higher corporate taxes from a Democratic sweep, only to caveat this forecast by saying that a "larger fiscal stimulus and of more predictability in trade policy" could actually push higher, it meant that Goldman still had to opine what Treasurys would do under a Biden administration, and alternatively, what would happen if the "worst-case scenario" for markets, a lengthy contested election struck.

CBO on the Macro Impact of Pandemic Recovery Packages Thus Far - Menzie Chinn - On Friday, the CBO released The Effects of Pandemic-Related Legislation on Output. In March and April of 2020, four major federal laws were enacted to address the public health emergency and the economic distress created by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. That legislation provides financial support to households, businesses, and state and local governments. In this report, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the legislation’s effects on economic output.

• Deficits. The legislation is projected to add $2.3 trillion to the deficit in fiscal year 2020 and $0.6 trillion in 2021.
• Short-Term Effects. CBO estimates that the legislation will increase the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by 4.7 percent in 2020 and 3.1 percent in 2021. From fiscal year 2020 through 2023, for every dollar that it adds to the deficit, the legislation is projected to increase GDP by about 59 cents.
• Longer-Term Effects. By increasing debt as a percentage of GDP, the legislation is expected to raise borrowing costs, lower economic output, and reduce national income in the longer term.
• Uncertainty. The estimates in this report are subject to considerable uncertainty, especially because of factors associated with the pandemic.

Here’s a graphical depiction of GDP’s trajectory under the counterfactual of no-Covid-19 recovery legislation: I based Figure 1 on the estimates of macro impact contained in Table 2: Source: CBO, The Effects of Pandemic-Related Legislation on Output (September 18, 2020). These estimated impacts in turn are based on the estimated spending levels associated with the legislation so far enacted.  Source: CBO, The Effects of Pandemic-Related Legislation on Output (September 18, 2020).  As discussed on many occasions in this blog, the multiplier associated with each of these spending provisions depends on a variety of factors (spending vs. transfers, for instance), and the overall multiplier effect in particular depends on the conduct of monetary policy (well, we know now that the Fed has committed to three years of essentially zero Fed funds rates) and whether there is slack in the economy. As noted in the report (page7): In CBO’s assessment, the effects of changes in spending or revenues on output are larger when the economy is weak or when short-term interest rates are near zero and are expected to remain there for several years, a situation known as being at the effective lower bound.12 At such times, the Federal Reserve would not respond, in CBO’s view, by raising short-term interest rates to restrain the boost in overall demand. In contrast, if the increase in spending or the reduction in revenues occurred when output was at or above its potential level, the Federal Reserve would probably raise the path of short-term interest rates to prevent inflation from rising above its long-term goal, thereby restraining the boost in overall demand and output. CBO expects the economy to operate considerably below its potential level over the next several years. The Federal Reserve is therefore expected to keep interest rates low over that period. As a result, the legislation’s changes to federal spending and revenues—most of which are projected to occur in 2020 and 2021—will boost overall demand and output more than they would under normal economic conditions, CBO expects.

 Implications of a “No Recovery Package” Outcome -- Menzie Chinn - From Deutsche Bank on Sunday:  In the US, fiscal uncertainty is a major issue. As outlined above, we now assume that significant further support will not be forthcoming until after the election. The resulting drop in income support for households is already beginning to depress activity and we see GDP growth slowing to near zero in Q4 as consumer spending slides. Growth will pick up in Q1 with some post-election fiscal support.  This manifests in zero (0) growth in 2020Q4.  Figure 1: GDP (black), Deutsche Bank (blue), WSJ September consensus (red), all in billion Ch.2012$, SAAR. Source: BEA 2020Q2 2nd release, DB World Outlook Update (Sep 20, 2020), WSJ September survey, author’s calculations.  Today, Bloomberg notes:  After four rounds of U.S. aid totaling nearly $3 trillion, fiscal stimulus is running out: Bloomberg Economics’ analysis shows that under a no-stimulus baseline scenario through year-end, total income flowing to households will transition from unprecedentedly strong for a recession, to just so-so. That in itself would be enough to subtract 5 percentage points from fourth-quarter gross domestic product compared with a counterfactual scenario that includes an extension of stimulus measures. Funding problems for states and small businesses are poised to add to the drag.  This point is illustrated in the figure depicting personal income around recessions: What do academic economists think? From the latest round of the IGM/FiveThirtyEight Covid-19 panel: The results also bring into focus how the economists are viewing the election results and  overall political climate. We’ve written many times that they believe an infusion of additional money from Congress — whether in the form of enhanced federal unemployment insurance or another series of stimulus payments — is paramount to stabilize the economy through the recovery. According to our survey results, the biggest economic risk for 2021 is the possibility that no additional stimulus is passed by November 2020. And the economists see Democrats’ control of Congress as having a significant effect on growth potential in 2021, likely because they have been much more willing to pass government spending bills. “I think that failing to pass fiscal stimulus is the biggest downside risk,” said Jonathan Wright, an economist at Johns Hopkins University who has been consulting with FiveThirtyEight on the survey. “And that’s probably made more likely by the RBG fight.”  In other words, no additional fiscal stimulus now is a recipe for flatlining in Q4.

Enhanced Benefits and Outlook: Continuation vs. End -- Menzie Chinn - From Wells Fargo Economics today: To simulate a continuation of unemployment benefits (Scenario 1), we held monthly nominal personal disposable income constant at its July level of $1.49 trillion (before the PUC expired) through the end of 2021. To simulate the expiry of benefits (Scenario 2), we subtracted the $75 billion of monthly PUC payments from income levels in August through December, and then we let the $16.8 billion of monthly PUA and PEUC payments expire starting in January. We then held that level of income constant through the end of 2021.  Here’s the picture:  … That is, instead of an approximately 6% growth (SAAR) in 2020Q4, we get -3.6%. That’s what their model projects, although given employment growth, the actual Q4 number might well be better. The more appropriate interpretation is that that keeping enhanced benefits at the nominal level which they were at July would have added about 9.5 percentage points of growth in 2020Q4 (which is about 2.5 percentage points, not annualized).

The Fed's Financial Accounts: What Are Uncle Sam's Largest Assets? - Pop Quiz! Without recourse to your text, your notes, or a Google search, which line item is one of the largest assets in Uncle Sam's financial accounts?

• A) Checkable Deposits and Currency
• B) Total Mortgages
• C) Taxes Receivable
• D) Student Loans

The correct answer, as of the latest quarterly data, is ... Checkable Deposits and Currency! Followed closely in second by student loans. We will focus on student loans first and its rise as a federal asset. The rapid growth in student debt has been an ongoing topic in the financial press. A stunning chart that continues to haunt us illustrates the rapid growth in federal loans to students since the onset of the great recession. The chart is based on the Federal Reserve's Financial Accounts data (available here) for the government's assets and liabilities. We've used a log-scale vertical axis. For a more dramatic look at the same data, here it is with a standard linear axis.  As we point out on the chart, the two callouts are for Q4 2007, the quarter in which the Great Recession began (December 2007), and the most recent quarter on record, Q2 2020. The loan balance has risen an astonishing 1,172 percent over that time frame, most of which dates from after the recession. This chart only includes federal loans to students. Private loans increase the debt burden. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York regularly tracks household debt and credit. In their most recent update, they calculate student loan debt to be$1.54 trillion. But back to our quiz. Student loans may be a liability on the consumer balance sheet, but they constitute an asset for Uncle Sam. Just how big? It's about 29.8 percent of the total Federal assets. This is 10.7 times larger than the 2.8 percent for the Total Mortgages outstanding and 3.0 times the size of Taxes Receivable at 9.8 percent. As you can see, Checkable Deposits and Currency has taken the #1 spot as the Fed's largest asset after many years of Student Loans in first place. What are checkable deposits and currency, you ask? The federal M1 money supply! That's right, folks, the money supply has now taken over as the Fed's largest asset. Cash is king. Student loans still make up a hefty chunk, coming in at second place at almost 30% of Fed assets. The 29.8 percent referenced is below its peak. Here is a look at how this metric has changed since 1995. Here's a look at each of the assets over time from the pie chart above. You can see that Checkable Deposits and Currency has never been higher. The CARES Act has clearly had a massive impact on the money supply and the Fed's assets overall. Clearly the Fed has injected money into the economy in order to maintain liquidity in the current recession, but the repercussions are yet to be seen.

Fed Officials Step Up Calls for More Government Spending to Speed Economic Recovery – WSJ -Federal Reserve officials stepped up calls for additional government spending to avoid an uneven and protracted economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.The recovery would move along faster “if there is support coming both from Congress and from the Fed,” Chairman Jerome Powell said during the second of three days of congressional testimony Wednesday.Chicago Fed President Charles Evans told reporters that his projection that the unemployment rate would fall below 6% by the end of next year had been premised on around $1 trillion in additional fiscal relief.“If that doesn’t happen, then I think it’s going to be a lot harder, and much more unlikely that we make that much progress,” he said.The Fed committed last week to a much longer interval of low rates than it did initially after the 2008 financial crisis. Officials said they would hold short-term rates near zero until inflation reaches 2% and is likely to stay somewhat above that level, something most officials don’t see happening in the next three years.But Mr. Powell and his colleagues said Congress and the White House, more than the Fed, had the power to hasten a faster recovery. “The power of fiscal policy is really unequaled by anything else,” Mr. Powell told lawmakers on a House panel overseeing the U.S. response to the coronavirus.Bond investors have turned their attention to additional measures the Fed could take to lower borrowing costs, including adjusting the composition of the central bank’s asset purchases to buy more longer-term securities as it did in so-called quantitative easing programs after the 2008 crisis.Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said it was premature to say whether the Fed needed to take such a step. “The lack of fiscal policy is a much bigger problem than what we’re doing with our balance sheet,” he said in an interview. “It’s not that it won’t help, but I don’t think it is of the economic magnitude of fiscal policy.”In addition to its low-rate pledges, the Fed is buying $120 billion in Treasury and mortgage securities a month to hold down borrowing costs. Unlike in its previous quantitative easing program that lasted from 2012-14, the Fed is buying Treasurys of all maturities rather than concentrating on longer maturities, which can push down long-term yields. Those yields are much lower than they were at any time after the 2008 crisis.

Fed officials push for new corporate stimulus package - Federal Reserve officials have launched what amounts to a full court press aimed at ensuring that Congress provides a further fiscal stimulus to corporations, as the COVID pandemic continues out of control and the limited revival of the US economy stalls. While Fed representatives always couch their remarks in terms of giving assistance to the economy and even to workers, the fall in the stock market since the beginning of the month—the most significant downturn since the plunge in mid-March, when all financial markets froze—is the underlying concern. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) The push began on Tuesday, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. Powell repeated earlier calls for fiscal action, on top of the more than $3 trillion made available under the CARES Act. He warned that while many economic indicators had shown an improvement, both employment and overall economic activity “remain well below their pre-pandemic levels, and the path ahead continues to be highly uncertain.” Powell said the path forward would depend on “keeping the virus under control, and on policy actions taken at all levels of government”—a call for further stimulus measures. Pointing to the measures taken by the Fed, which amount to an injection of around $3 trillion into the financial markets, he said they were designed to support the functioning of private markets, and stressed that the central bank had only lending, not spending, powers. While some borrowers would benefit from its programs, for others a loan that was difficult to repay might not be the answer, and in those cases “direct fiscal support may be needed.” Together with the repetition of the commitment, at the start of his testimony, that the Fed would use all its tools “for as long as it takes,” these remarks temporarily halted the market slide, resulting in a slight upturn after a major fall on Monday. But the downturn resumed on Wednesday, when the Dow fell more than 500 points, or 1.9 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 2.4 percent and the Nasdaq lost 3 percent. The market falls brought forward a series of comments by Fed officials on the need for government action, held up in Congress because of disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over the size and direction of any new measures. In further testimony on Wednesday, Powell said economic recovery would move faster “if there is support coming both from Congress and the Fed. The power of fiscal policy is really unequalled by anything else.”

The House Moves to Avert a Shutdown - - House Democrats reached a deal with the White House yesterday on a stopgap spending measure that seeks to avert a government shutdown just weeks before the November election.The bill now needs to be approved by the Senate before it can be sent to President Trump’s desk. Congress has been unable to agree on the broader spending bills that would keep the government funded when the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1.There has also been virtually no progress on a new round of coronavirus relief legislation, but a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing for the House to remain in session until a bill is passed.In a letter signed by 20 Democrats and 14 Republicans, the lawmakers wrote, “Our constituents do not want us home campaigning while businesses continue to shutter.”  The House passed a stimulus package of more than $3 trillion in May, after which Senate Republicans proposed a narrower measure, but negotiations have been stalled since then.

 House passes bipartisan stopgap funding bill to avert government shutdown at month’s end (AP) — In a sweeping bipartisan vote that takes a government shutdown off the table, the House passed a temporary government-wide funding bill Tuesday night, shortly after President Donald Trump prevailed in a behind-the-scenes fight over his farm bailout.The stopgap measure, which next heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, will keep federal agencies fully up and running into December, giving lame-duck lawmakers time to digest the election and decide whether to pass the annual government funding bills by then or kick them to the next administration. The budget year ends Sept. 30.Trump announced a new $13 billion allotment of bailout funding at a political rally in Wisconsin last week.The 359-57 vote came after considerable behind-the-scenes battling over proposed add-ons. The final agreement gives the administration continued immediate authority to dole out Agriculture Department subsidies in the run-up to Election Day. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., retreated from an initial draft that sparked a furor with Republicans and farm-state Democrats.Instead, in talks Tuesday, Pelosi restored a farm aid funding patch sought by the administration, which has sparked the ire of Democrats who said it plays political favorites as it gives out bailout money to farmers and ranchers.In return, Pelosi won COVID-related food aid for the poor, including a higher food benefit for families whose children are unable to receive free or reduced lunches because schools are closed over the coronavirus. Another add-on would permit states to remove hurdles to food stamps and nutrition aid to low-income mothers that are more difficult to clear during the pandemic. The deal permitted the measure to speed through the House after a swift debate that should ensure smooth sailing in the GOP-held Senate before next Wednesday’s deadline. There’s no appetite on either side for a government shutdown.

Democrats Prepare New Coronavirus Aid Proposal – WSJ —House Democrats are readying a new, scaled-down package of coronavirus aid that would include assistance to airlines, restaurants and small businesses, according to people familiar with the matter, but Republicans said the chances of a deal before Election Day remained slim. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) is aiming for a price tag of around $2.4 trillion, according to Democratic aides, in the range of what Mrs. Pelosi has said she would be willing to accept in negotiations. The White House has indicated it could support spending as much as $1.5 trillion, though many Senate Republicans have said they wouldn’t back that level of spending. “We want a bill passed and signed so that’s what our focus is, trying to get an agreement before we go home,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.). Mr. Hoyer said Democrats were focused on working to find a deal that both chambers could accept and was noncommittal on whether the House would vote on the legislation without an agreement with the White House. Almost immediately, centrist Democratic lawmakers began circulating a letter that would encourage leadership to hold a vote on the package, according to aides. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that he and Mrs. Pelosi had spoken repeatedly in recent days in a successful, separate effort to reach an agreement on keeping government funded until Dec. 11, and they also plan to keep the door open for coronavirus talks. “We’ve agreed to continue to have discussions” about coronavirus aid, Mr. Mnuchin said in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. “I think there are areas of support. Let’s pass things that we agree on quickly and we can always come back.” Reports of a new plan got a skeptical reaction from Republican senators. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) said Thursday there was a “slim chance” that the new proposal could ease the partisan gridlock over a relief package. “I think that’s too big,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.) said when asked about a proposal over $2 trillion. Centrist Democrats have been pressuring Mrs. Pelosi to put forward another aid bill, even if it is smaller than the $3.5 trillion bill the House passed in May. That legislation didn’t come up in the GOP-controlled Senate.

 The Senate holds a COVID-19 hearing as US tops 200,000 COVID-19 deaths - The number of individuals infected with COVID-19 is now more than 32 million globally, of which almost one million have perished. Since early July, when lockdowns were lifted, and economies were opened, the number of new cases has been steadily growing, and the number of daily deaths has kept abreast with 40 to 50 thousand dying each week. In this regard, the United States has proven incapable of containing and quelling the pandemic by any reputable public health standard. With 7.1 million cases of COVID-19 and over 206,000 deaths, and despite having one of the highest per capita testing with over 300,000 tests per million population, it leads in almost every grim category, which underscores the obvious—the inability of the most powerful imperialist country to use its resources to protect the population. The policy of herd immunity being pursued, as the perspective noted yesterday, is one of “social euthanasia” where the elderly and infirmed, considered unproductive and therefore worthless, are allowed to be culled by the infection, absolving them of supposedly any direct responsibility. The recognition of the 200,000 deaths milestone by every major media outlet also means that damage control measures must be brought to bear on the chance of seeming too smug for “mission accomplished” claims as schools and universities have moved to ensure in-class education inaugurated by the return of 90,000 pre-K and special education students in New York City. This was precisely what was behind the political theater yesterday that saw the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing on the US’s response to the coronavirus, first lightly censuring, then offering their confidence, all to assure the population’s flagging trust in US health institutions. This comes on the heels of acknowledgment that the Trump administration had been meddling with the CDC’s weekly scientific reports and publishing of guidance that did not support the president’s outlook. Additionally, recent guidance on testing asymptomatic individuals and retraction of aerosolization of the virus has all but irrevocably tarnished the reputation of the revered US CDC. The fabulous four – Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Robert Redfield, Admiral Brett Giroir, and Dr. Stephen Hahn – testified in support of their tireless and committed response to the pandemic. Dr. Hahn told the panel that “every one of the decisions we have reached has been made by career FDA scientists based on science and data, not politics.” He then ensured the panel that he would “not permit any pressure from anyone to change that.”

Trump on coronavirus pandemic: “Virtually nobody” affected - The United States has now surpassed the horrific milestone of 200,000 official deaths from the coronavirus, more than the total number of Americans who were killed in World War I, Korea and Vietnam combined. The actual toll, measured by “excess deaths” over the average in previous years, has surpassed a quarter of a million. Worldwide, the number killed, based on reported figures, will surpass one million before the end of the month. In the face of this horrifying toll on human life, US President Donald Trump declared on Monday that the virus affects “virtually nobody.” At a campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio he stated, It [the coronavirus] affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems. If they have other problems. That’s what it really affects. That’s it. … Below the age of 18, like, nobody. They have a strong immune system, who knows? You look. ... Take your hat off to the young, because they have a hell of an immune system. But it affects virtually nobody. It's an amazing thing. Trump concluded his statement with the demand that schools be reopened, “Open your schools. Everybody, open your schools.” As a factual matter, Trump’s claim that the pandemic affects only “elderly people” is blatantly false. As he himself acknowledged in March, in one of the recordings released by Bob Woodward earlier this month, “Now it’s turning out it’s not just old people” affected by the virus. Twenty percent of those who have been killed in the US, or more than 40,000 people, were under the age of 65. The longterm impact and adverse health consequences for those who contract the virus and live remain unknown. Moreover, with the death toll expected to rise as high as 400,000 by the end of the year, the pandemic will affect “virtually everyone,” in the form of the death or serious illness of a family member, friend, teacher or coworker. Even for Trump, from whom one expects almost anything, there is something chilling in the indifference with which he speaks about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. However, to view this in individual terms, an expression of the particular sociopathic personality of the present occupant of the White House, would miss the essential significance. Trump is speaking not just for himself but for a class.

President Trump gives preliminary approval to takeover of TikTok by Oracle and Walmart - President Donald Trump gave preliminary approval on Saturday to a proposal by Oracle and Walmart, along with a group of private equity and venture capital investors, to take over the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and create a new US corporation. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “I have given the deal my blessing. If they get it done that’s great, if they don’t that’s fine too.” An official statement from the Department of Treasury later said “the transaction is subject to a closing with Oracle and Walmart and necessary documentation and conditions” to be approved by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS). The three-sentence Treasury Department statement by spokesperson Monica Crowley also confirmed that the deal involved the creation of a new entity called TikTok Global. The statement also said that “Oracle will be responsible for key technology and security responsibilities to protect all US user data.” As has been clear since Trump first issued two executive orders on August 6 outlining plans to ban the social media apps TikTok and WeChat, the White House campaign of imperialist bullying, anti-Chinese propaganda and online censorship has nothing to do with protecting “US user data.” CFIUS has been involved in negotiations with US companies for the takeover of TikTok for months including an earlier offer by Microsoft which was eventually rejected. The new announcement by the Trump administration has not included any reference to how much money is being offered for the ownership of TikTok or if anything is being paid for it at all. As further details of the US government-brokered deal emerge, it is becoming clearer that the White House is engineering the theft of the massively popular video-sharing app from ByteDance Ltd., the Beijing-based owner of TikTok, by US corporate interests. A report in the New York Times, based on two anonymous sources familiar with the details of the negotiations, said, “ByteDance and its investors, which include the U.S.-based General Atlantic, Coatue Management and Sequoia Capital, would transfer some of their equity control into TikTok Global.” The Times report also said that the new firm TikTok Global would have “53 percent American investors” including 20 percent held by Oracle and Walmart and “existing American investments in ByteDance.”

Tesla Sues In US Court Of International Trade To Block Trump's Tariffs On China -- Tesla, which we have long suspected to be getting awfully comfortable with China (see this piece and this one), isn't exactly going out of its way to prove us wrong.  Instead, in what appears to be a move putting Elon Musk's interests and China's interests ahead of that of the United States, Tesla has sued in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, seeking an order that declares President Trump's tariffs against China unlawful. The company is also seeking a refund, with interest, of tariffs it has already paid, according to Bloomberg. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been named as a defendant in the case. Recall, his office denied Tesla's bid to avoid the 25% tariffs last year. The tariffs affect Chinese-made computer and display screens that are used for Tesla's Model 3 electric vehicle.  Recall, we wrote at the beginning of August that Elon Musk's distaste for the U.S. was starting to become palpable.  The Tesla CEO - who has made himself billions off the back of U.S. government subsidies and the U.S. taxpayer - took to the "Daily Drive" podcast earlier this summer and called the people of China “smart” and “hard working” while at the same time calling U.S. citizens "entitled" and "complacent".  He specifically called out both New York and California, states whose taxpayers have literally funded Tesla's business with massive tax breaks amounting to billions.   When asked about China as an EV strategy leader worldwide, Musk responded:  “China rocks in my opinion. The energy in China is great. People there – there’s like a lot of smart, hard working people. And they’re really -- they’re not entitled, they’re not complacent, whereas I see in the United States increasingly much more complacency and entitlement especially in places like the Bay Area, and L.A. and New York.”  He then compared the U.S. to losing sports teams: “When you’ve been winning for too long you sort of take things for granted. The United States, and especially like California and New York, you’ve been winning for too long. When you’ve been winning too long you take things for granted. So, just like some pro sports team they win a championship you know a bunch of times in a row, they get complacent and they start losing.”

Trump delivers anti-China tirade to United Nations - US President Donald Trump’s recorded speech delivered to the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday consisted of a hysterical anti-Chinese rant combined with a lying coverup of the disastrous US response to the COVID-19 pandemic and boasting about the prowess of the American military and its ability to blow up the world. The unprecedented character of the session, which is being held almost entirely virtually, with world heads of state having sent in recorded remarks rather than making speeches from the assembly’s green marble rostrum, is a graphic expression of the impact of the global pandemic, with nearly one million deaths recorded worldwide. The assembly marked the 75th anniversary of the UN, which was formed after the end of the Second World War and its slaughter of more than 70 million human beings with the pledge of saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The body’s organic incapacity to make good on this promise under the existing capitalist order has been made abundantly clear over the course of its three-quarters-of-a-century existence. It directly participated in the US war that claimed the lives of two million Koreans, was incapable of preventing Washington’s war against Vietnam that killed three million and has facilitated three decades of uninterrupted US wars in the Middle East that have killed millions more, while creating the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. Trump’s speech and US actions in recent days have confirmed once again that the ravages of the coronavirus have done nothing to curb the drive toward imperialist war, but on the contrary have only accelerated it. While the allotted time for speeches from heads of state to the General Assembly is 15 minutes—and most traditionally substantially exceed this limit—Trump’s speech clocked in at barely seven minutes. Nonetheless, he managed to mention China no less than 12 times, beginning in his first few words with the description of the global pandemic as the “China virus.” He went on to demand twice in his brief address that China be “held accountable,” while blaming the country for lying about the coronavirus, subverting the World Health Organization, polluting the environment, over-fishing and destroying “vast swaths of coral reef.”

Chinese President Xi Issues Warning At UN Of “Clash Of Civilizations” - President Xi Jinping defended China’s ambitions Tuesday in a speech to the UN, warning against the danger of a “clash of civilizations.”  In a prerecorded address Xi said that the world must “oppose politicization and stigmatization” over the pandemic, urging global leaders to embrace the “concept of a big family … and avoid falling into the trap of a clash of civilizations.” The U.S. and China have seen tensions rise over a plethora of issues: the origins of the coronavirus, trade and tech dominance, security, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as well as the long-disputed South China Sea.The U.S. has also called China out over its ambitions to control the strategically pivotal South China Sea as well as for its bid to crush democracy movements in Hong Kong and Taiwan.Xi reassured world leaders his country had no desire for “hegemony, expansion or sphere of influence,” The Guardian reported. “China has no intention to enter a Cold War with any country,” he said, insisting Beijing is instead a bulwark of international systems such as the World Trade Organization and a willing partner in the face of diplomatic spats. “We insist on dialogue to bridge differences and negotiation to resolve disputes,” Xi added. Xi urged the world to “join hands to uphold the values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom shared by all of us.” However, as A new post reported, China’s military has painted a much different picture releasing several frightening videos aimed at the U.S. More recently, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force published a video of nuclear-capable H-6 bombers carrying out a simulated attack on Andersen Air Force Base on the U.S. Pacific island of Guam. That isn’t the first video release that seems aimed at the U.S. either. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has previously published a video on social media showing Hong Kong air defense drills as Anewspost reported.This also follows an incident last month when Chinese military drills were disrupted by the U.S. and China responded firing two medium-range “ship killer” projectiles into the South China Sea as a warning.The PLA has been increasing the number of military drills across East Asia as relations with the U.S continue to deteriorate. This comes after two American aircraft carriers held an unusual exercise in the South China Sea in July. As well as after a mysterious visit to Taiwan by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.Upon Azar’s visit to Taiwan, Chinese state media angrily threatened to retaliate by holding live-fire missile drills near Taiwan and Guam.China claims Taiwan is its territory and threatens to use military force to bring under its control the island that is a self-governing democracy and close U.S. ally, CBS reported. Trump also made a speech at the UN virtually, the U.S. President stated the UN “must hold China accountable for their actions,” before listing a litany of alleged crimes by Beijing.

US escalates military intervention in Syria - The US has significantly escalated its military presence in northeastern Syria in response to growing friction with Russian forces deployed in the same area and in apparent preparation for carving out a US-backed “autonomous” zone controlling Syria’s major oil fields. On Friday, the US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees American military operations throughout the Middle East, announced the deployment of half a dozen Bradley fighting vehicles along with roughly 100 troops to operate them. The Pentagon is also beefing up radar installations in the area and increasing patrols by fighter jets and attack helicopters in a bid for control of the region’s airspace. While the US military’s announcement made no mention of Russia, the purpose of the deployment is clear. The actions were designed to “ensure the safety and security of Coalition forces,” Centcom spokesman Captain Bill Urban said in a statement, adding that Washington “does not seek conflict with any other nation in Syria, but will defend Coalition forces if necessary.” The deployment is ostensibly a response to an incident at the end of last month in which four US troops were injured in a collision between US and Russian armored vehicles near Syria’s northeastern triple border with Turkey and Iraq. Washington accused the Russian military of “unprofessional” conduct and a violation of “de-confliction protocols,” while Moscow charged that the US forces provoked the incident, attempting to block a previously announced Russian patrol. On the same day that the Pentagon announced the escalation of the illegal US military occupation in Syria, Trump repeated his semi-coherent explanation of US policy in the country, telling a White House press conference: “We are out of Syria other than we kept the oil. I kept the oil. We have troops guarding the oil. Other than that, we are out of Syria.” US military forces have been concentrated in Syria’s northeastern governorates of Deir ez-Zor and Al-Hasakah, the center of Syria’s oil production. While the official rationale for the occupation is the continuation of the 2014 intervention launched against ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), the reality is that US troops are there to deny the Syrian government access to energy resources that are desperately needed for the country’s reconstruction after nearly a decade of armed conflict.

Trump Unveils New Cuba Sanctions (On Alcohol & Tobacco) In Fight Against Communist Oppression -- The trade restrictions against Cuba have been prolonged for another year, with President Trump citing "the national interest of the United States" on Wednesday. Specifically the ban on Cuban imports of tobacco and alcohol have been extended, and the tourism industry has been targeted.   Trump said at a mid-morning White House event:"Today, as part of our continuing fight against communist oppression, I am announcing that the Treasury Department will prohibit US travellers from staying at properties owned by the Cuban government. We're also further restricting the importation of alcohol and Cuban tobacco."  President @realDonaldTrump was joined today by veterans of the Bay of Pigs, who fought courageously against the brutal Castro regime. pic.twitter.com/6pk8aPQwSO   This comes after Trump's reversing Obama-era relaxation of historic Cold War era sanctions on the communist-run island.  The president unveiled the sanctions during a speech recognizing Bay of Pigs Veterans hosted at the White House. “These actions will ensure that U.S. dollars do not fund the Cuban regime and go directly to the Cuban people,” he said.  Trump framed the measures as part of the “continuing fight against communist oppression.”

Trump order seeks to ban military, government contractors from some diversity training - (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday that he said would ban the military, government contractors and federal grantees from some diversity training. The lengthy order says it forbids “divisive concepts,” including teaching that the United States is “fundamentally racist or sexist” or that any individual bears “responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.” It says military members will not face any penalty for refusing to support or believe these concepts. “Americans should be taught to take PRIDE in our Great Country, and if you don’t, there’s nothing in it for you!” Trump said on Twitter as the order was issued. Psyche Williams-Forson, who chairs the American Studies department at the University of Maryland, said the order was clearly aimed at pleasing a segment of Trump’s base, just weeks before the presidential election. “It’s a dog whistle. It’s a way to ease the minds of people who do not want to confront the horror of their ancestry,” said Williams-Forson, adding the order would likely result in a sharp reduction in diversity training across the federal government. The order comes amid a broad re-examination of racism in the United States in recent months, after police killings of Black Americans including George Floyd, who died on May 25 in Minneapolis. Many U.S. companies have issued statements of solidarity with the Black community, promised to increase diversity among employees, and collectively pledged nearly $2 billion to advance racial justice and equity.

Acting Homeland Security Chief’s Confirmation Hearing Brings Pointed Questioning – WSJ  --Chad Wolf, who has overseen the Department of Homeland Security in an acting role since late last year, faced sharp questions at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday about the department’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, civil unrest around the country and allegations that employees were politically pressured to modify intelligence assessments.A senior DHS official recently alleged in a whistleblower complaint that Mr. Wolf and his deputy pressured him to modify assessments to bring them in line with the White House’s agenda, playing down threats of Russian election interference and white supremacists.At the hearing, Mr. Wolf denied the whistleblower’s allegations and defended his department. He also told senators the country faces threats of election interference from Russia, China and Iran.Mr. Wolf has led DHS since November, after the resignation of Kevin McAleenan, who was never confirmed by Congress. The department hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed leader since April 2019, the longest secretary-level vacancy in executive branch history. President Trump formally nominated Mr. Wolf last month.The Government Accountability Office recently concluded he was improperly appointed to his acting role and is serving on an unlawful basis.Mr. Wolf told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Wednesday that white supremacists posed “the most persistent and lethal threat when we talk about domestic violent extremists,” particularly “from a lethality standpoint over the last two years.” Mr. Wolf also noted what he described as anarchist, anti-government and anti-law enforcement violence in recent months.Mr. Wolf earlier this month briefly mentioned the role of white supremacists in a “State of the Homeland” speech, saying “DHS stands in absolute opposition to any form of violent extremism. Whether by white supremacist extremists or anarchist extremists.”Mr. Trump and Attorney General William Barr have repeatedly focused on antifa activists as violent threats.Mr. Wolf’s comments come days after Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray flagged similar concerns at a House hearing. “[T]he most lethal of all domestic extremists since 2001” have been those who are racially and ethnically motivated, Mr. Wray said. White supremacists encompass the largest share of such extremists, he said.

ICE Hysterectomy Doctor Wasn’t Even a Board-Certified OB-GYN - The doctor at the center of a scandal over unwanted hysterectomies at an immigrant detention facility in Georgia is not a board certified OB-GYN, The Daily Beast has learned.Dr.  Mahendra Amin came under scrutiny after immigrant rights groups issued a report accusing him of conducting unnecessary or unwanted gynecological procedures on women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia.  On Friday, a spokesperson for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology told The Daily Beast that its records show Amin is not certified by the organization. A spokesperson for the American Board of Medical Specialties, the leading organization for physician board certification in the U.S., said Amin was not certified by any of the 24 ABMS member boards.Azadeh Shahshahani, an attorney with one of the immigrant rights groups that filed the complaint, said it was “outrageous” that ICE would send detainees to a doctor who had not passed this quality control. “It shows the lack of care that ICE feels for detained immigrants, for their wellbeing and healthcare,” said Shahshahani, the legal and advocacy director for Project South. “It’s really disturbing."ICE declined to comment on the record about Amin’s certification or policies concerning board-certified physicians. The agency has previously said it "vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures,” and cautioned that "anonymous, unproven allegations” should be treated with skepticism.Reached by text message, Amin declined to comment on his board certification and deferred all questions to his lawyer, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the issue.

The physician accused of performing unwanted hysterectomies in an ICE detention center is not a board-certified OB-GYN -  Mahendra Amin, the physician accused of performing unwanted or unnecessary gynecological procedures at an immigrant-detention facility, is not certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Daily Beast reported. On Monday, several immigration-advocacy groups representing a whistleblower filed a complaint to the Office of the Inspector General, alleging "jarring medical neglect" and the occurrence of unwanted and unnecessary hysterectomies at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia.In the complaint, Dawn Wooten, a licensed practical nurse who was previously employed by the center and is represented by Project South and Government Accountability Project, reported witnessing a large number of hysterectomies performed on immigrant women detained in the facility."Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody," Wooten said of one doctor who she described as "the uterus collector." Three lawyers cited by NBC News later identified the physician as Mahendra Amin.Wooten also said she believed the women in the center did not "really, totally, all the way understand" what was happening to them during the procedures.Tony H. Pham, the Senior Official Performing the Duties of Director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement to Insider that the recent allegations by the independently contracted employee "raise some very serious concerns that deserve to be investigated quickly and thoroughly."

 The New York Times and Nicole Hannah-Jones abandon key claims of the 1619 Project -- The New York Times, without announcement or explanation, has abandoned the central claim of the 1619 Project: that 1619, the year the first slaves were brought to Colonial Virginia—and not 1776—was the “true founding” of the United States.The initial introduction to the Project, when it was rolled out in August 2019, stated that The 1619 Project is a major initiative from the New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are. The revised text now reads:The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative. A similar change was made from the print version of the 1619 Project, which has been sent out to millions of school children in all 50 states.  It is not entirely clear when the Times deleted its “true founding” claim, but an examination of old cached versions of the 1619 Project text indicates that it probably took place on December 18, 2019.These deletions are not mere wording changes. The “true founding” claim was the core element of the Project’s assertion that all of American history is rooted in and defined by white racial hatred of blacks. According to this narrative, trumpeted by Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones, the American Revolution was a preemptive racial counterrevolution waged by white people in North America to defend slavery against British plans to abolish it. The fact that there is no historical evidence to support this claim did not deter theTimes and Hannah-Jones from declaring that the historical identification of 1776 with the creation of a new nation is a myth, as is the claim that the Civil War was a progressive struggle aimed at the destruction of slavery. According to the New York Times and Hannah-Jones, the fight against slavery and all forms of oppression were struggles that black Americans always waged alone.

Trump Approves Final Plan to Import Drugs From Canada ‘for a Fraction of the Price’ — President Donald Trump, outlining his “America First Health Plan” on Thursday, announced that his administration will allow the importation of prescription drugs from Canada. The final plan clears the way for Florida and other states to implement a program bringing medications across the border, despite the strong objections of drugmakers and the Canadian government. But it does not allow states to import biologic drugs, including insulin. Florida, the biggest swing state in the presidential election, is one of six states to pass laws seeking federal approval to import drugs. Trump’s announcement came the same day counties in Florida began sending out vote-by-mail ballots. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a close ally of the president’s, is a strong advocate of importing drugs. His administration has already advertised for a contractor to run the state program and is expected to announce Tuesday which companies have bid for the three-year, $30 million state contract. Congress has allowed drug importation since 2003 but only if the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services certified it is safe. That had never occurred until Secretary Alex Azar did it Wednesday, according to a letter he wrote to congressional leaders. Implementation under the administration’s final rule “poses no additional risk to the public’s health and safety and will result in a significant reduction in the cost of covered products to the American consumer,” Azar said in the letter KHN obtained Thursday. The rule noted, however, that HHS is unable to make any estimates about savings because it doesn’t know which drugs will be imported. Prices are cheaper north of the border because Canada limits how much drugmakers can charge for medicines. The United States lets the free market dictate drug prices. Even though insulin is not included among the drugs covered by the rule, the Trump administration Thursday issued a request for proposals seeking plans from private companies on how insulin could be safely brought in from other countries and made available to consumers at a lower cost than products here. The request specified it would have to be insulin that was once in the United States and sent to other nations before being brought back. The pharmaceutical industry has long fought efforts on drug importation, arguing that it would disrupt the nation’s supply chain and make it easier for unsafe or counterfeit medications to enter the market. “We are reviewing the final rule and guidance that were released; however, we continue to have grave concerns with drug importation that exposes Americans unnecessarily to the dangers of counterfeit or adulterated drugs,” said a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade group. “It is alarming that the administration chose to pursue a policy that threatens public health at the same time that we are fighting a global pandemic.”

Romney Agrees To Back Trump On Supreme Court Pick; McConnell Now Has Votes To Replace RBG -Utah Senator Mitt Romney (R) announced on Tuesday that he would support a floor vote on President Trump's Supreme Court pick - giving Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) a 53-seat majority and the votes needed to move forward in replacing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, according to Politico. "I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the president’s nominee. If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualifications," Romney said in a statement. The senator who thinks the president should have been removed from office for abuse of power wants to help him confirm a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court https://t.co/PTbV6d8Ov1— Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) September 22, 2020

Democrats capitulate as Republicans secure votes to install far-right justice on Supreme Court - On Tuesday, Utah Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced that he would support a vote prior to the November 3 election on Trump’s nominee to fill the seat on the US Supreme Court vacated by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The announcement virtually assures the installation of a far-right justice, to be named by Trump on Saturday, who will shift the court even more decisively against abortion rights and democratic rights in general. The Democratic Party, whose response from the outset has combined cowardice and dishonesty, sank to the level of farce. Even as the top Democrat in the Senate, Charles Schumer, was denouncing the Republicans for their “hypocrisy” and pleading for a change of heart, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was secretly negotiating with Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, to extend funding for the federal government until after the election. For all her talk of “taking nothing off of the table” to oppose Trump’s antidemocratic court move, Pelosi was focused on preventing a plunge in the stock market by reaching a bipartisan deal with the Republicans on a continuing resolution before the September 30 deadline. The two announced a deal Tuesday afternoon and the Democratic-controlled House quickly passed it in a bipartisan 359-57 vote. The supposed leader of the “progressive” Democrats in the House, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, could not even summon up the nerve to vote “no” and instead voted “present” on the bill. So much for going “all-out” to oppose a court appointment that will be used to attack not only abortion rights, but all that remains of the past gains in civil rights, voting rights and social rights, from the eight-hour day to child labor laws, and accelerate the drive toward dictatorship. Rather than use the threat of a government shutdown as leverage against Trump’s Supreme Court coup, the Democrats rushed to demonstrate their fealty to Wall Street and pass the spending bill.

 Trump Says Supreme Court Will Decide The Election, Needs A Ninth Justice -  Over the weekend, in the aftermath of Ruth Bader GInsburg's death, we said that the "worst case scenario" for markets - a contested election - had become even more complicated as it now appeared that the US was heading into the most controversial election since Gore vs Bush with a SCOTUS that could end up deadlocked with a 4-4 vote should the election outcome escalate to the Supreme Court.  It appears that the president agrees, because moments ago President Trump also predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide the outcome of the November election and argued the Senate should confirm his nominee - who we already know will be a conservative woman - to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to break any tie. Trump said that "I think this will end up in the Supreme Court and I think it’s very important to have nine justices."  Speaking before reporters at the White House, he continued, claiming that "this scam that the Democrats are pulling, it’s a scam, this scam will be before the United States Supreme Court," Lawyers representing Trump’s campaign are challenging mail-in voting rules in a host of states, as a result of Trump's claims that mail-in voting is more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting on Election Day.  As reported yesterday, there is a growing probability that the first major test of the new post-RBG iteration of the Supreme Court, which will soon have a 6-3 conservative majority, the GOP is planning to ask SCOTUS to review a major PA state court decision that extended the due date for mail-in ballots in a critical battleground state.

Trump Won’t Commit to Peaceful Transfer of Power After Election – WSJ  —President Trump wouldn’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the November election and predicted the outcome would be decided by the Supreme Court, a reason he wants to quickly fill the vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.“I think this will end up in the Supreme Court. And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday. During an event on social-media companies Wednesday, Mr. Trump amplified his long-running claim of widespread ballot fraud—which studies show is rare—and asserted without providing evidence the idea that Democrats plan to use mail-in voting to tilt the election in their favor. Later, during a news conference, Mr. Trump was asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer whether he won or lost in November. “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” he responded. “I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots.…The ballots are out of control.” Pressed on the question, the president said, “Get rid of the ballots and…we’ll have a very peaceful. There won’t be a transfer. Frankly, there’ll be a continuation.” Lawmakers from both parties called Mr. Trump’s comments unacceptable.

McConnell pushes back on Trump: 'There will be an orderly transition' - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Thursday that there would be an "orderly" transition of power in 2021, after President Trump refused to commit to a peaceful hand off of power if he loses in November. "The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th. There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792," McConnell said in a tweet.  The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th. There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792.— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) September 24, 2020    Trump set off a political firestorm on Wednesday, when he told reporters at the White House, when asked if he would commit to ensuring a peaceful transition of power if he loses in November, that he would have to “see what happens" and tried once again to sow doubt about the security of mail-in ballots. “Get rid of the ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful — there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation,” Trump said. “The ballots are out of control. You know it, and you know who knows it better than anyone else? The Democrats know it better than anyone else.” Trump has declined to commit to accepting the results of the November election, saying he will “have to see.” He's also argued that an increase in mail-in voting leads to fraud in the election, even though experts have repeatedly said there is no evidence tying it to meaningful fraud. The comment from McConnell, while not directly criticizing Trump, is notable because the tight-lipped GOP leader frequently refuses to weigh in on the president's remarks, even when they spark backlash from members of his caucus.

 Facebook plans political censorship in anticipation of “chaos” and “violence” in the 2020 US electionsThe social media monopoly Facebook is preparing to take “exceptional measures” including aggressive action to “restrict the circulation of content” on its network if the 2020 US elections on November 3 result in “chaos” or “violence.” In an interview with Facebook Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications Nick Clegg, the Financial Times reported that the social media corporation had “drawn up plans” for handling “a range of outcomes including widespread civic unrest” or other unprecedented “political dilemmas” during the counting of in-person and mail-in ballots. Clegg told FT, “There are some break-glass options available to us if there really is an extremely chaotic and, worse still, violent set of circumstances.” Although he did not reveal any details about Facebook’s planned responses, Clegg referenced the actions taken by the world’s number one social media platform previously in countries where social unrest erupted. Clegg said, “We have acted aggressively in other parts of the world where we think that there is real civic instability and we obviously have the tools to do that [again],” adding that the company had taken “pretty exceptional measures to significantly restrict the circulation of content on our platform.” FT said Clegg was referring to the actions taken by Facebook to reduce the content reach of “malicious actors” and “repeated rule breakers” during recent periods of unrest in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. The Right Honorable Sir Nick Clegg is a leading political figure in the UK. He was the Deputy Prime Minister under Prime Minister David Cameron (2010-2015) and leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007-2015. He was hired by Facebook in October 2018 as a lobbyist and chief international public relations officer. While the FT report emphasized “concerns” about how President Trump would use social media to “interfere in the process” of the elections or “contest the results or call for violent protest, potentially triggering a constitutional crisis,” the real fear for Facebook and Clegg is that there will be a mass response to the election crisis that will move outside of the US two-party political establishment. Significantly, FT says, “Facebook has been exploring how to handle about 70 different potential scenarios, according to a person familiar with the situation, with staff including world-class military scenario planners.” In other words, Facebook is collaborating with military-intelligence and bracing for the eruption of mass social unrest in the US during the 2020 elections. Clegg also said that any extraordinary measures taken by Facebook “will fall to a team of top executives including himself and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg—with chief executive Mark Zuckerberg holding the right to overrule positions.” He said, “We’ve slightly reorganized things such that we have a fairly tight arrangement by which decisions are taken at different levels [depending on] the gravity of the controversy attached.”

The Danger Of Fascism With The Death Of RBG -  I try to avoid these terms like “fascism,” but it has become clear that Donald J. Trump actively seeks to become an at least authoritarian leader of the US, indeed openly arguing that the Constitution’s limit of only two terms should not hold for him.  We face a clear danger of a contested election that may end up in the Supreme Court. If Trump can put a flunky into the court before the election we may have them putting him in despite a situation where he has clearly lost. And given his recent behavior, backed by a friendly SCOTUS, he would be in position to impose a fascist dictatorship in this nation.  I also note that she died on Rosh Hashanah, and in the Jewish tradition this is a portentous time to die, with one doing so being especially blessed.  I do not know how all this will turn out, and I can think of scenarios where her death at this time may lead to a more progressive future, but she was a very great woman deserving of the most profound respect and admiration, who should rest in the greatest of peace.  Clearly, Mitch McConnell hypocritically seeks to impose a Trump appointee before the election, or if not then, during the following lame-duck session.  So far Romney (R-UT) and Murkowski (R-AK) have said they will not go along with this, but two more GOP Sens must step forward to block this. That may happen.  But if it does not, then the Dem senators must simply shut the Senate down, which I think is about the only thing they can do, given that the filibuster was abolished (by Dems)for judicial appointments. But I think they can simply bring the whole place to a halt, and it may come to that.

 Civil War? What Civil War? - Boogaloo Boys. Are these people any match for the hegemonic state? “When the government watches you 24 hours a day, you can’t use the word ‘liberty.’ That’s the relationship between a master and a slave.” —Chris Hedges, speaking with Juliana Forlano  There’s more in Julianna Forlano’s Act.tv interview with Chris Hedges than I can do justice to in a short piece, but I will say he has all the answers; he’s figured it out.  Forlano’s questions are brilliant and she asks the right ones, from the meaning of the Assange extradition hearing to whether there will be a revolution in the U.S., what it will look like, and what the elite response will look like. His thoughts on the Sanders campaigns (both of them) are more nuanced than you might think based on Hedges’ oft-played soundbites, and they make perfect sense.  Context is everything, and Chris Hedges comes to his analyses from the right set of contexts. If you stand on the earth and look at the planets, their motion makes no sense at all. If you stand on the sun, what the planets are doing is obvious. The same with Hedges. When you start from his starting point, what you see around you soon becomes perfectly clear. But let’s focus briefly on just one of the questions he was asked, about the possible emergence of a new, Trump-led totalitarian state, a possibility liberals and other Biden supporters are making much noise about these days. And like Hedges, let’s start from the right starting point, which is this: Biden is the candidate of the elites, of almost everyone who counts in America. For them, Trump is an aberration, a mole that must be removed. If that isn’t obvious, it should be — the evidence is everywhere, from all the non-Fox news sources, to the behavior most of our public figures, even to the behavior of a great many Republican leaders. Given this as context, let’s look at the possibility of a “descent into Trump-led totalitarianism” during and immediately following the next election. In short, will Trump seize power, dictator-like, to win and rule like Mussolini? This is the Big Fear in Democratic eyes, the one we’ve been hearing about, week after week after week. It’s possible, of course. But consider:

• 1. Trump doesn’t have the backing of the military; they’ve made that perfectly clear. Without the military, the only possible coup will have to come from the courts.
• 2. Trump may have the instincts of a dictator, but he doesn’t have the skills or the desire to put in the work. Frankly, if he really wanted to be a dictator, he’d be one already.

He’s an egocentric, relatively mindless, easily distracted, lazy, unbright narcissist whose monomania is simply himself — the incoming adoration he basks in minute-to-minute; the minute-to-minute state of his pleasure; the joy he takes in disrupting any room he’s in before he leaves it.

 As U.S. Supreme Court nomination looms, a religious community draws fresh interest (Reuters) - People of Praise, a self-described charismatic Christian community, has faced renewed interest since U.S. President Donald Trump put one of its purported members, Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on his short list of candidates for elevation to the Supreme Court.The group describes itself as an ultraconservative group with a mixture of Roman Catholic and Pentecostal traditions. Until 2018, it used the term ‘handmaid’ for its female leaders. The group has declined to confirm or deny whether Barrett was a member since a New York Times article in 2017 said she was in the group, citing unnamed current and former members. It says it leaves it to members to disclose any involvement. At the time, Barrett did not respond to requests for comment from the Times. The group’s spokesman, Sean Connolly, told Reuters that women are not considered subservient in People of Praise and that many hold leadership roles, such as directing schools and ministries. Barrett did not respond on Tuesday to requests for comment about her membership in People of Praise made through a clerk at the Chicago-based 7th Circuit. Sharon Loftus, a judicial assistant to Barrett, said in an email the judge’s policy was not to give interviews or comments to the media.

Republicans prep lightning-quick Supreme Court confirmation - The Senate is taking America for one last turbulent ride before the election. President Donald Trump’s Saturday announcement of his Supreme Court pick will spark a lightning-quick confirmation attempt by Senate Republicans that now seems almost certain to occur before the election. After Trump’s reveal, Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is expected to quickly lay out a hearing schedule for October, and the nominee will begin meeting with individual senators next week, according to senators and aides. Provided no surprising information is unearthed that upends the nomination, Republicans and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are set to make history: Never has a Supreme Court justice been confirmed so close to a presidential election. Other than two dissenting GOP senators, no one thus far in the 53-member conference is arguing to wait for a lame duck session — let alone the next Congress — to hold a confirmation vote. McConnell only needs a simple majority. “There’s not much of a margin for error. But we don’t have much error,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). “We have our [party] meetings and no one has ever gotten up and made the case for why we should do this after the election.” “There’s going to be plenty of time, plenty of time for both the nominee and the committee for questions, plenty of time to vote. I’m not worried about the timing,” added Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who serves on the Judiciary Committee. “I’m obviously not Mitch McConnell, but I think we’ll have a vote before the election.” The two leading contenders for the nomination, Amy Coney Barrett and Barbara Lagoa, are both Circuit Court judges who have already been confirmed by most sitting Republican senators. Republicans argue that those candidates are almost pre-vetted, allowing them to be confirmed more quickly than someone unknown. Confirming either one would lock in a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for a generation. And it would avoid any risks that might come with a lame duck confirmation, such as losing a Senate seat in Arizona that narrows the GOP majority or conducting a confirmation after being defeated in the election. Democrats counter that a Supreme Court confirmation deserves more scrutiny than a Circuit Court seat. After all, President Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland had been confirmed as a Circuit judge with a big bipartisan vote, but McConnell blocked his high court appointment in 2016. Advertisement Barrett in particular could move quickly given her vetting for a vacant Supreme Court seat in 2018 and her rock-solid support on the party’s right wing. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the two GOP members most supportive of abortion rights and likely to be skeptical of Barrett's socially conservative views, are the only two in the party opposed to a quick confirmation. Since Trump and GOP leaders don't need either centrist Republican senator, Barrett pretty much already has the 51 other votes locked up, pending any new revelations.

Trump said to pick Amy Coney Barrett for Court — President Donald Trump has selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the favorite candidate of conservatives, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and will try to force Senate confirmation before Election Day in a move that would significantly alter the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court for years. Trump plans to announce Saturday that she is his choice, according to people close to the process who asked not to be identified disclosing the decision in advance. The president met with Barrett at the White House this week and came away impressed with a jurist that leading conservatives told him would be a female Antonin Scalia, referring to the justice who died in 2016 and for whom Barrett clerked. As they often do, aides cautioned that Trump sometimes upends his own plans. But he is not known to have interviewed any other candidates for the post.

Trump taps Amy Coney Barrett for Supreme Court, setting up confirmation sprint  -- President Trump on Saturday officially nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court, revealing his choice at a Rose Garden ceremony and kicking off a sprint to get the conservative judge confirmed before Election Day. It was widely reported on Friday night that Barrett was Trump's choice for the vacancy, taking some of the drama out of the president's formal announcement. Now the focus shifts to a looming confirmation fight that is expected to conclude with Barrett becoming the youngest member of a 6-3 conservative-majority court. Barrett, 48, a Trump-appointed federal appeals court judge and former professor at Notre Dame Law School, her alma mater, was seen by anti-abortion activists and White House allies as a trusted choice to tilt the court right and energize Trump’s conservative Christian supporters. She was viewed as an immediate favorite to replace Ginsburg, having already gone through the vetting process in 2018 when Trump ultimately nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace former Justice Anthony Kennedy. Trump previously told allies that he was “saving” Barrett as a nominee to replace Ginsburg, Axios reported in 2019. Administration officials and outside conservative groups felt a sense of familiarity with Barrett and her views and believed she'd be a reliably conservative vote on the court, according to sources familiar with the selection process, making her the preferred pick among many White House allies. The president met with Barrett, a mother of seven, at the White House earlier in the week. Barrett edged out Judge Barbara Lagoa, a Trump appointee to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, who was viewed as the only other serious contender and was pushed by a number of the president’s allies in Florida, a critical swing state in this year’s election. But Lagoa’s lack of a judicial record on abortion in particular worried some close to the White House, and Barrett’s conservative bona fides ultimately won out. A former clerk for late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett was nominated by Trump and confirmed in a 55-43 vote by the Senate to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in 2017. At the time, three Democratic senators supported her nomination: Joe Donnelly (Ind.), who subsequently lost his 2018 reelection bid, Tim Kaine (Va.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.).

Who Is Replacing Justice Ruth Ginsburg? - DAILY KOS’s Joan Mc Carter gives an excellent rundown on trump’s candidate (Amy Coney Barrett) for SCOTUS to replace Justice Ruth Ginsburg: Trump’s Supreme Court short list includes member of the sect that inspired the ‘Handmaid’s Tale’. Amy Coney Barrett, “representing The Handmaid’s Tale as societal model wing” She belong to an extreme, charismatic wing of the Catholic Church called People of Praise, which actually did serve as the inspiration for Margaret Atwood in her dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. The book was published in 1985 after Atwood “delayed writing it for about three years after I got the idea because I felt it was too crazy,” she told The New York Times Book Review in 1986. “Then two things happened. I started noticing that a lot of the things I thought I was more or less making up were now happening, and indeed more of them have happened since the publication of the book.” Specifically: “There is a sect now, a Catholic charismatic spinoff sect, which calls the women handmaids. They don’t go in for polygamy of this kind but they do threaten the handmaids according to the biblical verse I use in the book—sit down and shut up.” Yeah, that’s Barrett’s church. Except they’ve dropped the “head” moniker for male leadership and “handmaids” title for women who keep their fellow women in line because the television series based on the novel forced a change. They are now all called “leaders,” who direct such intimate life decisions of members as who they marry, where they live, and how they raise their children.  Barrett:  a “legal career is but a means to an end and to that end, is building the Kingdom of God.” She’s also written that judges shouldn’t necessarily be held to upholding Supreme Court precedents like Roe v. Wade, which she almost certainly would vote to restrict out of existence. Barrett’s religion came up briefly in her confirmation hearing for her current position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. California Democrat Dianne Feinstein mentioned: “The dogma lives loudly within you,” and the entire Republican world erupted, accusing Feinstein of trying to impose an unconstitutional “religious test” on nominees. The issue pretty much ended there. It can’t end there in hearings should Trump nominate Barrett. That is, if McConnell and Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham don’t just decide to forego hearings and send her straight to the floor. At this point, McConnell could probably get 51 Republican senators to do anything for Trump.  Barrett’s hall mark decision is to deter colleges and universities from vigorously investigating sexual assault allegations by making it easier for students accused of assault to challenge the handling of their cases. Barrett based her decision on reverse gender discrimination, writing in a case against Purdue University: “It is plausible university officials chose to believe Jane because she is a woman and to disbelieve John because he is a man,” turning what might have been a more straightforward due process issue into a gender bias question. So that’s Barrett.

 Amy Coney Barrett Is an Extremist—Just Not the Kind You Think  -Donald Trump is planning to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Barrett is a law professor at the University of Notre Dame and has sat on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since Trump nominated her to that position in 2017. She is a star in conservative legal circles, and she is only 48 years old. Should Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell succeed in ramming through her appointment—an appointment made, no less, in the midst of the 2020 election—she could serve on the Supreme Court into the 2060s. Barrett’s elevation to this position has been a long time coming. Her nomination has been made with one issue in mind: abortion. The conservative men who have been attacking a woman’s right to choose for a generation have long pined for a woman to do the final work of denying women their right to their own bodies. They’ve said so: Ramesh Ponnuru, longtime editor at National Review and fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has written: “The main reason I favor Barrett, though, is the obvious one: She’s a woman…. If Roe v. Wade is ever overturned—as I certainly hope it will be, as it is an unjust decision with no plausible basis in the Constitution—it would be better if it were not done by only male justices, with every female justice in dissent.” Barrett will not disappoint conservatives when it comes to abortion. While other jurists hoping to sit on the Supreme Court have at least attempted to be coy with their opposition to Roe v. Wade, Barrett has not. She has said that abortion is “always immoral.” She has said that Roe creates a framework of “abortion on demand” (a patently false claim given that Roe explicitly created a fetal viability standard after which the state was allowed to limit women’s fundamental rights). Barrett has put herself on the record against abortion rights generally, and Roe v. Wade specifically, more than any other person I can think of nominated for the Supreme Court since that decision came out in 1973. ... You can see Barrett’s moral hypocrisy all throughout her judicial opinions. No modern church favors deliberate indifference to human life. Amy Coney Barrett does. In 2019, she dissented from a Seventh Circuit opinion that found that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment protected people in prison from correctional officers firing “warning shots” into a cafeteria. Barrett callously wrote: “The guards may have acted with deliberate indifference to inmate safety by firing warning shots into the ceiling of a crowded cafeteria in the wake of the disturbance.… In the context of prison discipline, however, ‘deliberate indifference’ is not enough.” ...

Notable legal opinions of Trump’s planned U.S. Supreme Court pick Barrett (Reuters) - Amy Coney Barrett, who President Donald Trump plans to pick for a lifetime job on the U.S. Supreme Court, has served as a federal appeals court judge since 2017 and has weighed in on cases involving several hot-button issues including abortion, gun rights, immigration and campus sexual assault. Trump appointed Barrett, a favorite of religious conservatives, to her current job as a judge on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Here are some of her notable legal opinions.

• Although Barrett has not ruled directly on abortion as a judge, she has cast votes signaling opposition to rulings that struck down abortion-related restrictions. Abortion rights groups have expressed concern that Barrett could help overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
• Barrett indicated support for expansive gun rights in a March 2019 opinion dissenting from a 7th Circuit ruling regarding gun ownership by people convicted of serious crimes.
• Barrett wrote a 2019 ruling on behalf of a unanimous three-judge 7th Circuit panel that made it easier for male college students accused of sexual misconduct to challenge how campus tribunals handled their cases. The case involved a male student at Purdue University in Indiana who was accused of sexually assaulting a female student.
• In June, Barrett said in a dissenting opinion that she would have let one of Trump’s hardline immigration policies go forward in Illinois.

Progressive group buys domain name of Trump’s No. 1 Supreme Court pick – The Progressive group Demand Justice is redirecting the website AmyConeyBarrett.com to a webpage criticizing the record of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s expected pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Multiple people familiar with the process confirmed to The Hill that Trump is set to select Barrett, a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, on Saturday. The webpage accuses Barrett of being “someone who could be counted on to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the Affordable Care Act,” in addition to criticizing her record on worker rights. “She is also one of the favorite judges of people who want to overturn Roe v. Wade, because they know she will be a reliable vote to roll back reproductive freedom,” the website claims. The webpage also includes a fundraising link organizing efforts opposing Barrett’s conformation before Inauguration Day in 2021, when Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is set to be sworn into office. Demand Justice is a "progressive movement fighting to restore the ideological balance and legitimacy of the federal courts," according to its website. Barrett is a favorite among conservative Christian voters hoping to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which established a woman’s right to an abortion. During a confirmation process, she would face scrutiny over her previous statements on the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate, which she has called a “grave violation of religious freedom.” Barrett has questioned the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, as well as the court’s deference to legal precedent. President Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Friday that he has made a decision on a Supreme Court nominee, but he declined to confirm that Barrett was the pick. He has also told allies that he was pleased with the judge’s performance during a meeting at the White House this week. Barrett has faced widespread criticism from Democrats since she was first floated as a candidate to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) predicted at the time that she would be an “activist” on the bench and vote to overturn abortion protections and protections for patients with preexisting conditions under the Affordable Care Act.

Nun criticizes Catholic group for giving Barr award for 'Christlike behavior' - A nun criticized the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast (NCPB) for its plans to award Attorney General Bill Barr for “Christlike behavior” on Wednesday morning. Sister Helen Prejean slammed the Catholic organization for announcing the Christifideles Laici Award would be given to Barr, who is Catholic, at the annual breakfast. The award honors the recipient for “Exemplary Selfless and Steadfast Service in the Lord’s Vineyard,” according to the NCPB website. Prejean, an advocate against the death penalty, argued in a tweet Tuesday night that the attorney general has not demonstrated “Christlike behavior” after the Department of Justice (DOJ) resumed federal executions this year. “A.G. Barr has ordered the executions of six men with at least one more on the calendar,” she wrote on the social media platform. “What is ‘Christlike’ about using discretionary power to kill?” Another nun, Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of the Catholic social justice group Network, told Newsweek she was “horrified” Barr was the recipient of the award. "I am horrified that they are giving an award to Attorney General Barr who had reinstituted executions of people on death row, which is shocking and counter to Catholic social teaching,” she said. “It is abundantly clear, 'thou shalt not kill', and he is doing that and he is being given an award.” The NCPB created the award last year “to help highlight these good works and those who serve the Church so well.” The virtual breakfast, which was postponed since March due to the pandemic, started at 11 a.m. “Attorney General William Barr's work — which includes teargassing peaceful protesters in front of the White House, defending the president's lawless corruption and attacks on American elections, and reinstating federal executions — has nothing to do with service to the Lord, and cannot be described as fidelity to the Church,” the petition reads. “As fellow Catholics and other Christians, we call on the NCPB to cancel this award for Barr immediately, and avoid any further appearance of endorsing Donald Trump or his Cabinet members so close to an election,” it continues. The NCPB and the Justice Department did not immediately return requests for comment. Faithful America, a progressive Christian group, noted in a release that the award will be given the same week the DOJ will conduct two executions. 

 Trump’s Businesses Raked In $1.9 Billion Of Revenue During His First Three Years In Office - Donald Trump never really got out of business. Sure, he handed day-to-day management of his companies to his children, like a lot of tycoons who get preoccupied with other interests late in life. But the president held onto ownership of his assets after taking office, ensuring that he would continue to generate money while serving in the White House. From 2017 to 2019, the president’s businesses raked in an estimated $1.9 billion of revenue.It’s a significant sum, no matter how you look at it. Documents from various sources—including private lenders, local governments, federal officials and overseas regulators—help show where the money comes from and roughly how much of it turns into profit. An analysis that relies on those documents and conversations with industry experts, broken down for the first time in the forthcoming book White House, Inc., provides an unprecedented look at the president’s finances, which he has worked so hard to shield from public scrutiny.Trump’s licensing, management and hotel empire has been fading, but his golf and club business has picked up the slack. The president’s commercial buildings remain his cash cows.Trump’s golf course and club portfolio produced the biggest chunk of revenue, some $753 million in three years. The Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami, Florida led the way, bringing in $228 million of revenue from 2017 to 2019, about three-quarters of the total from the 10 other golf courses Trump owns in the United States. In Europe, another golf resort named Trump Turnberry generated $70 million. Holdings in Doonbeg, Ireland and Aberdeenshire, Scotland added $53 million, while Mar-a-Lago took in $69 million. Despite all the revenue it generates, the president’s golf and club business is not where he earns the biggest profits. Financial statements from the Trump Organization and conversations with golf industry insiders suggest that the president’s traditional golf clubs have operating margins of roughly 20%. His golf resorts produce even slimmer profits. In 2017, Trump National Doral earned just $4.3 million on $75.4 million in revenue. None of his three European properties have ever recorded an annual profit, according to the most recent financial data available.Only one of Trump’s four golf resorts turned a profit in 2017 and 2018, according to a set of documents that is not yet available for 2019. The second-biggest revenue generator is Trump’s collection of commercial real estate assets. New York City remains the hub. The president continues to own the commercial space inside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, a lease to 40 Wall Street in the financial district, and a 30% stake in 1290 Avenue of the Americas, one of the broad-shouldered office buildings that defines midtown Manhattan. The New York City holdings generated an estimated $461 million in revenue from 2017 to 2019. Another $114 million or so came from Trump’s 30% interest in 555 California Street, a skyscraper in the heart of San Francisco.

Florida AG calls for criminal inquiry into Bloomberg’s $16M felon voter donation - Florida‘s Republican attorney general on Wednesday urged the FBI and state authorities to investigate former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg‘s pledge to spend $16 million helping convicted felons regain their voting rights in the nation’s largest swing state.The attorney general, Ashley Moody, said in a letter to top law enforcement officials that she was asked by Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Republican, to review the donation Bloomberg announced on Tuesday. Moody said she quickly decided additional scrutiny was warranted.“After preliminarily reviewing this limited public information and law, it appears further investigation is warranted,” Moody wrote in a letter to Michael McPherson, the FBI special agent in charge of the bureau’s Tampa office, and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Richard Swearingen. “Accordingly, I request that your agencies further investigate the matter and take appropriate steps as merited.”The move comes just two weeks before Florida’s voter registration deadline and 12 days after a federal appeals court upheld a restrictive new state law that requires former felons to clear court debts before registering to vote.State CFO Jimmy Patronis also called on Wednesday for an inquiry into Bloomberg’s effort, asking the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether Bloomberg is "breaking the law by giving direct cash for voters."A spokesperson for Bloomberg, who has pledged to spend $100 million in Florida to help Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump in the November election, accused Republicans of playing politics with voter rights. The billionaire former Republican made his own brief big this year to win the Democratic nomination for president.

‘Something’s in the water’: Florida Republicans see surge in voter registration — Republicans have closed the traditional voter registration gap with Democrats to an historically small margin in Florida, triggering a wave of Democratic apprehension in the nation’s biggest swing state.Top Florida Democrats and longtime activists have increasingly groused in private that they feel pressure from Joe Biden’s campaign to refrain from door-to-door canvassing or holding voter registration drives due to the potential spread of the coronavirus and fears of muddying his messaging on the pandemic.In the absence of such efforts, a concerted drive by President Donald Trump’s Florida campaign to register voters has helped cut the state’s long-standing Democratic advantage to fewer than 185,000 voters, a gap of just 1.3 percentage points, according to data from the Florida Division of Elections released this week.“It’s late in the game now,” said state Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Miami Democrat. “There’s been no pushback from us, meaning that for every 100 doors that Republicans have proverbially knocked on, it’s not like they pissed people off to the point where they’ve run to the Democratic Party because they’re pissed at the GOP. It’s shown to be effective.”  In August, Republicans added a party record of almost 58,000 new voters — a 91 percent increase compared to August 2016, the Florida election data show. The number of new Republicans added in August is 41 percent more than the number of new Democrats who registered. Democratic registration, meanwhile, was 6 percent lower than the total racked up in August 2016.  “We’ve turned our focus to voter registration in a more meaningful way than before. Everyone said you can’t do it — get the gap between Republicans and Democrats to such a small number. Well, you can do it,” Susie Wiles, the Florida campaign director for Trump, told POLITICO. In 2016, Democrats had a 327,000 voter-registration edge over Republicans, when Trump won the state by a little more than a point. Now the GOP has reduced that Democratic advantage by 44 percent. Recent polls show Florida is essentially tied between Biden and Trump.

FBI investigates ballots for Trump found in Pennsylvania garbage -  The Justice Department on Thursday said the FBI has opened an investigation into nine absentee ballots — seven cast for President Trump — that were found in the garbage near Scranton, Pennsylvania. Trump routinely expresses doubt about the reliability of mail-in voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the investigation quickly became national news. “At this point we can confirm that a small number of military ballots were discarded,” US Attorney David Freed said in a statement. “Investigators have recovered nine ballots at this time. Some of those ballots can be attributed to specific voters and some cannot. Of the nine ballots that were discarded and then recovered, 7 were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump,” Freed said. “Two of the discarded ballots had been resealed inside their appropriate envelopes by Luzerne elections staff prior to recovery by the FBI and the contents of those 2 ballots are unknown.” An initial statement from Freed incorrectly said, “All nine ballots were cast for presidential candidate Donald Trump.”

 Eric Trump Must Appear for Deposition Before Election, Judge Says – WSJ -Eric Trump and others who have done work for the Trump Organization must sit for depositions by next month as part of a civil fraud investigation conducted by the New York attorney general, a state court judge ruled Wednesday.President Trump’s middle son, who had said he couldn’t be available until after the Nov. 3 election, must appear by Oct. 7, Justice Arthur Engoron said Wednesday. The judge also ordered the production of some documents about Trump Organization transactions sought by the attorney general and said he would make determinations about other documents sought by the attorney general’s office after reviewing them privately.  A lawyer for Eric Trump declined to comment. New York Attorney General Letitia James said the ruling “makes clear that no one is above the law, not even an organization or an individual with the name Trump.” The state attorney general’s office is examining whether the Trump Organization and the president improperly inflated the value of his assets on financial statements to obtain loans and get economic and tax benefits. Last month, the attorney general’s office asked a judge to order the Trump Organization and others to comply with subpoenas. It said the seven subpoenas in question would give the office witness testimony and thousands of documents about specific Trump Organization properties. The office also asked the judge to order the testimony of Eric Trump, among others.  During a hearing Wednesday, much of the discussion revolved around two properties: Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago, about which the attorney general is looking at whether the president benefited financially from the forgiveness of a $100 million loan, and Seven Springs, an estate in New York’s Westchester County with a conservation easement that the attorney general’s office said was put in place for an apparent tax deduction. Trump Organization lawyers have said there was nothing improper about either matter. They have said some documents the office requested are subject to attorney-client privilege and other requests are overbroad.

GOP set to release controversial Biden report  - Republicans are preparing to release a report in a matter of days on their investigation focused on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, a move they hope will put fresh scrutiny on the Democratic nominee just weeks from the election. The controversial probe, spearheaded by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), is focused broadly on Obama-era policy and Hunter Biden's work for Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings. The GOP report, which is set to be released this week, is expected to argue that Hunter Biden’s work impacted Obama-era Ukraine policy and created a conflict of interest given then-Vice President Joe Biden’s work in the area. No evidence has indicated criminal wrongdoing by the Bidens. A narrative, seized on by President Trump, that Biden worked to oust Ukrainian Prosecutor Viktor Shokin to protect his son has been widely discredited, though Hunter Biden has said joining the board was “poor judgment.” “I think it’s time for the American people to see what we’ve got,” said Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Though he’s argued for months that his probe isn’t being driven by the 2020 election, Johnson has teased the forthcoming findings as damaging to Biden’s political prospects and placed it in the context of the rapidly approaching November election. "What our investigations are uncovering, I think, will reveal this is not somebody we should be electing president of the United States," Johnson said in an interview with loca Wisconsin radio station WCLO. The release of the report will come days before the first debate between Joe Biden and Trump, with the president’s allies likely to seize on the probe's findings and Johnson hoping it sparks new scrutiny by the media. The report was initially expected to be released in July, but Johnson has faced delays in getting documents and interviews for the investigation. The document, according to Johnson, is expected to also include a section of unanswered questions he has for the Bidens.

 Hunter Biden’s Ukraine Work Raised Concerns With Obama Officials, GOP-Led Probe Confirms – WSJ —Two Obama administration officials raised concerns to the White House in 2015 about Hunter Biden serving on the board of a Ukrainian natural-gas company while his father, then Vice President Joe Biden, led U.S. policy efforts toward the country, a Senate investigation by Republicans concluded.The GOP-led probe shows that officials working on U.S.-Ukraine relations saw Hunter Biden’s position as creating the perception of a conflict of interest with his father’s work, a concern that had previously been made public during last year’s impeachment proceedings. The findings, outlined in an 87-page report, don’t support a central accusation President Trump and other Republicans have made about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s duties in Ukraine: that he sought the removal of the country’s top prosecutor to protect the gas company, Burisma Holdings, from investigation.“Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board cast a shadow over the work of those advancing anticorruption reforms in Ukraine,” the report says, calling the arrangement “problematic.” Both Bidens have denied wrongdoing. Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said before the report’s release that Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee who led the probe, was using committee resources to “subsidize a foreign attack against the sovereignty of our elections with taxpayer dollars—an attack founded on a long-disproven, hard-core right-wing conspiracy theory.”An attorney for Hunter Biden didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. With the report, Republicans on the Homeland Security and Finance committees sought to return a spotlight to the work the Bidens did in Ukraine, renewing a partisan battle over an issue that was central to Mr. Trump’s impeachment weeks before the presidential election. Mr. Trump’s attempt last year to press the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens led to his impeachment in the Democrat-led House, which ended with acquittal in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Hunter Biden Raised 'Counterintelligence And Extortion' Concerns, May Have Participated In Sex Trafficking: Senate Report - A long-awaited Senate report on Hunter Biden's financial dealings with Ukrainian, Chinese and Russian businesses created potential "criminal financial, counterintelligence and extortion concerns," and alarmed US officials who perceived an ethical conflict of interest and flagged potential crimes ranging from sex trafficking to bribery.  The findings are contained in a joint report by the GOP-led Senate Homeland and Government Affairs and Senate Finance Committees, released just six days before the first Presidential Debate between Joe Biden and President Trump.OUT TODAY: Report with @chuckgrassley found millions of dollars in questionable financial transactions between Hunter Biden & his associates and foreign individuals, including the wife of the former mayor of Moscow. https://t.co/R1MxQ4xGKP— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) September 23, 2020According to the Daily Caller's Chuck Ross, suspicious financial transactions between Hunter Biden's firms and foreign nationals from Russia and China - including a CCP-linked Chinese businessman, raised serious concerns. What's more, Hunter's seat on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma while his father served as the Obama administration point-man for Ukraine, worried State Department officials in 2015 and 2016. One official, Amos Hochstein, told the Senate Homeland Security and Senate Finance committees that he said to then-Vice President Joe Biden in October 2015 that Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma “enabled Russian disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in Ukraine.”Hunter Biden, now 50, joined Burisma’s board of directors in April 2014, shortly after his father, Joe Biden, took over as the Obama administration’s chief liaison to Ukraine. -Daily CallerAs Ross notes, while the report does not produce direct evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, Republicans say the evidence paints a troubling picture of Biden receiving "millions of dollars from foreign sources as a result of business relationships that he built during the period when his father was vice president of the United States and after."

Pedophiles Panic As New Epstein Flight Logs Set To Be Revealed - Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs on all his aircraft, including his ‘Lolita Express’ jet, have been subpoenaed by the Attorney General in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  The U.S. Virgin Islands specifically Little St. James is where the billionaire pedophile had his island home one of several places he would frequent. The U.S. Virgin Islands has demanded to see all flight logs of Epstein’s four helicopters and three planes spanning from 1998 until his untimely mysterious death last year, one day after a cache of documents wasunsealed in a federal civil case in New York. Previous documents named numerous powerful men involved with Epstein’s pedophile trafficking. A few of those men alleged by Virginia Giuffre included – Bill Richardson, George Mitchell, Britain’s Prince Andrew, Hedge Fund manager Glenn Dubin, American scientist Marvin Minsky, “another prince,” “a large hotel chain owner,” Stephen Kauffman, and MC2 agency model scout Jean Luc Brunell. All have denied the claims.  That list of men may soon expand to be an even larger list of potential accomplices and offenders. Attorney General Denise George filed a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate alleging 22 accounts including human trafficking, aggravated rape, child abuse, neglect, forced labor, and prostitution, The Mirror reported.  The subpoena expands to include the names and details of anyone who worked for Epstein’s pilots, interacted with Epstein, and any passengers who traveled with the billionaire deceased pedophile. Pilot David Rodgers has previously revealed logs from 2009 which showed Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey and Naomi Campbell were among those who flew on his jet.  Rodgers previously testified that he flew Ghislaine Maxwell and Virginia Giuffre at least 23 times on Epstein’s jet, the “Lolita Express” and that “GM” on the flight logs stands for Ghislaine Maxwell. A second Epstein pilot, chief pilot Larry Visoski, 54, admitted he knew minors were being flown on his boss’s plane but said he never suspected him of having sex with them. Thus far the flight logs for Visoki have not been revealed. Although, investigators last year told the New York Times that Visoski, Epstein’s chief pilot who chartered the “Lolita Express,” was cooperating with authorities. However, there is no public knowledge of flight logs released by Visoki and that report did not say whether they had received his aviation logs.Maxwell is also known to have acquired her helicopter flying license to fly anyone she wanted to the island going all the way back to the 1990s according to Vanity Fair.But Maxwell isn’t the only Epstein associate known to have had a pilot’s license. Nadia Marcinko, an alleged accomplice of Epstein, holds three rating certificates: for single-engine aircraft, multi-engine aircraft, and various Gulfstream business jets.  A source told the Dailymail that the coming release will send shockwaves of fear throughout Epstein’s network of pedophiles.

Bill Clinton Had “Intimate” Dinner With Ghislaine Maxwell Years After First Epstein Arrest (photo)  Former president Bill Clinton reportedly had an intimate dinner with Ghislaine Maxwell in 2014, along with a very small group of other high profile figures. This meeting took place years after the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein were exposed, and long after Maxwell’s involvement with the disgraced financier had first made headlines. In fact, Clinton’s PR team was concerned that Maxwell would be spotted by a photographer or journalist at the meeting, and were relieved that their gathering didn’t make the news.These details were revealed in a recent report by The Daily Beast, in which the site interviewed numerous Clinton associates who were willing to speak under the condition of anonymity.The pair reportedly met at Crossroads Kitchen, a hotspot for celebrities and millionaires on Melrose Avenue. On the night of their meeting, famous actors like Bruce Willis and Sean Penn were also in the building.Also in attendance at the meeting was mutual friend Steve Bing, a producer and major Democratic donor who killed himself earlier this year. It is not clear if his suicide had anything to do with his involvement in people like Ghislaine Maxwell.“They’re always fighting against the reporting and not that they did it. That’s the problem,” one friend of the Clintons told the site. It is well-documented that Clinton was closely connected with both Epstein and Maxwell. He also continued to hang out with them after they were both exposed as sex offenders. In fact, Maxwell was served court papers relating to the Epstein trafficking ring in 2009 while she was attending the Clinton Global Initiative at the Sheraton Hotel in New York City.Just a few months later, Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, and Bill continued his relationship with both of them for many years despite the public knowledge of their crimes. After Epstein was arrested last year, The Clinton Foundation was forced to deny the allegations that the former president was a participant in Epstein’s trafficking network.It is clear that Clinton and Maxwell spent a decent amount of time with one another, and took flights together on Epstein’s private plane, a customized Boeing 727 that has since become known as the “Lolita Express.” Sources in the book say that Clinton and Maxwell became very close during these trips, and would have occasional flings. The two apparently also met on different occasions away from Epstein, with Clinton sneaking out to visit Maxwell on numerous occasions.

Pressure Is On Prince Andrew To Speak Following Epstein’s Chef Helping FBI - The chef that worked for Jeffrey Epstein is now fully cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in its probe against Epstein and Maxwell’s pedophile ring, puting pressure on Prince Andrew to speak to U.S. authorities. Adam Perry Lang, who worked for Epstein for four years is now singing like a canary to the FBI according to a podcast Broken: Seeking Justice. Lang worked for Jeffrey Epstein between 1999 and 2003 and knew Prince Andrew which makes his cooperation even more key to the ongoing Epstein and Maxwell investigation. A news post previously reported that the case was still open and more of Epstein’s pals may soon face the music with arrests and charges.Attorney Arick Fudali, representing the victims, heaped pressure on Prince Andrew — who has been accused of stonewalling detectives.“We certainly hope that this may inspire other witnesses to come forward and help shed some light on Epstein’s dark scheme,” Fudali said.Sources told the Mirror: “Perry Lang holds information on what took place. They will get as much detail as possible that will shape any interview they may one day have with the duke.”Lang came forward after Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre wrote to ask him to be a “hero.”Lawrence Lustberg confirmed the chef was helping the FBI. Lang himself added: “We have absolutely always been available to the attorneys representing the victims.”

Silly Season - The corporate media speaks as one in proclaiming that, as sure as anyone killed in a motorcycle crash is a Covid fatality, if Trump says he likes puppies that’s a threat to refuse to leave the White House after the election which, this media is certain, has already been won by the corporate-technocratic congealment centering on the Democratic Party. Antifa shock troops continue to rampage in the streets amid an orgy of looting and fire. We’re reaching the extreme of that odd reversal which commenced in 2016, where Republicans and Democrats flipped polarity with the former suddenly lacking all conviction while the latter rage with passionate intensity. Trump himself for four years never lifted a finger toward building any kind of movement outside the government and party, nor has anyone else taken up that job. I never would’ve thought it would turn out to be the Democrats that would be fastest with the mostest in fielding a street shock army threatening a coup. This coup attempt will be step two in the technocratic globalist counterattack against rising anti-global revanchist populism. Step one was the pre-planned terrorist propaganda-lockdown assault using Covid-19 as a pretext. Whether SARS-COV-2 was deliberately engineered in a lab and released last autumn, or whether the system waited opportunistically for globalization to roust it out of a cave somewhere (the timing strongly indicates the former), the terror-lockdown campaign was used to smash mass protest everywhere, further atomize all social relations in general and demolish every level of economy from global to local. This “Great Reset” is by far the most extreme exercise in disaster capitalism ever undertaken. There are many proofs that the entire Covid-based assault has been history’s biggest lie ever. One of the best is the fact that all the same government and media operatives that were shrieking loudest about the alleged need to liquidate all small and locally-based economic structures, superstition trinkets and hex distancing for individuals, groups to cease to exist at all, suddenly dropped all that and began cheering as one with the advent of the BLM/Antifa street action. That’s because this launched step two of the US’s very own color revolution whose ultimate goal is to topple Trump, preferably by “winning” through election fraud, by main force if necessary. Even though there’s practically no substantive difference between what Trump wants and what globalist technocracy wants (Trump has been less warlike than technocracy prefers), he’s undisciplined and mercurial and embarrasses the carefully constructed propaganda facade of neoliberalism. His Kaiser-like idiot bluster, strategic and tactical boneheadedness and lack of any propaganda filter threaten to disenchant friends, alienate reluctant allies and embolden opponents and enemies all toward the effect of speeding the inevitable collapse of the empire.

 Jamie Dimon Says He Supports Taxing The Rich, But Opposes Dems' Wealth Tax - With the specter of socialism looming over the Democratic primary, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon decided to take a stand. Although he seemed to have no problem with socialism when he took oodles of government money during the financial crisis, Dimon penned a shareholder letter, and made several media appearances where he defended American capitalism as a peerless wealth-creation machine. Now, with two months to go until the election, and California and New York battling to enact the first state-level "wealth tax" in the nation, "St. Jamie" Dimon is back. And as Capital Economics Chairman Roger Bootle warns that COVID-19 could usher in a wave of (confiscatory) wealth taxes around the world, Dimon is warning that while he fully supports raising taxes on "people like me", a wealth tax that targets savings and/or assets simply isn't the way to do it. "A wealth tax is almost impossible to do," Dimon said during an interview with CNBC at the JP Morgan India summit after being asked about the Democratic proposals. Asked to elaborate, Dimon said that wealthy people typically hide most of their wealth in places called 'tax shelters', a behavior that a 'wealth tax' would almost certainly aggravate. "I’m not against having higher tax on the wealthy. But I think that you do that through their income as opposed to, you know, calculate wealth which becomes extremely complicated, legalistic, bureaucratic, regulatory, and people find a million ways around it. I would just tax income," Dimon said. He argued that it's far more difficult for rich people to cheat on their income, since it's inevitably "given" to them by another source, who is also reporting it. 

Pressure mounts on U.S. bank regulators to stress test for climate change - Regulators need to give banks a kick in the pants to confront business risks posed by climate change, according to a new report out of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Federal agencies — and banks themselves — should conduct stress tests and other analyses that measure the financial industry’s resilience to hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other natural disasters. Otherwise the economy could be subjected to shocks as devastating as the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the report said. If the recommendations were to be adopted, banks in the short term would need to collect more and different kinds of data on their customers. In the longer term, lenders would have to make some tough decisions with respect to credit and underwriting practices. “What strikes me in this report is the very detailed road map — we have the plans and we know what needs to happen to manage these risks, is what this report says,” said Emilie Mazzacurati, founder and CEO of 427, a Moody’s affiliate that specializes in climate risk. “Should this become a priority, there’s a very clear set of actions the market should expect to see from financial regulators and supervisors.” U.S. regulators have paid more attention lately to climate change and the increasing frequency of severe weather events, but they had stopped short of embracing stress testing for climate risks. The CFTC study, called “Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System,” stands out for directly addressing the financial implications of environmental threats and recommending specific actions to address them.The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., all declined to comment on the report. The subcommittee that wrote the report, which included several bankers and officials from the government and nonprofit sectors, outlined a possible stress-test pilot and urged regulators to study the steps already taken by central bankers in Europe and elsewhere. The pilot should include agricultural and other community banks as well as regional banks, and it should test balance sheets against “plausible and relevant” climate scenarios, the report said. It should cover financial institutions’ responses to climate-related risks and opportunities over defined time horizons. The report called for greater research into and attention to what it calls subsystemic shocks, or climate events affecting a particular geography, sector or asset class. An example of a subsystemic shock might be the wildfires across the Western U.S., which have been exacerbated by warmer global temperatures. “Subsystemic shocks related to climate change can undermine the financial health of community banks, agricultural banks, or local insurance markets, leaving small businesses, farmers and households without access to critical financial services,” the report said. Besides stress tests, the subcommittee recommended that regulators promote information-sharing across the industry and conduct greater research into climate-related shocks. This could mean banks would need to collect more and different kinds of data on their clients, especially commercial clients, and integrate that data into their risk management processes.

Money-laundering report alleges banks profited by aiding criminals - A new investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists says JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG and several global banks “kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players” in the past two decades even after the U.S. imposed penalties on these financial institutions. The report, based on leaked documents obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the consortium, said that in some cases the banks kept moving illicit funds after receiving warnings from U.S. officials. The documents identified more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged by financial institutions’ internal compliance officers as possible money laundering or other criminal activity, the report said. The top two banks are Deutsche Bank, which disclosed $1.3 trillion of suspicious money in the files, and JPMorgan, which disclosed $514 billion, the analysis found. The investigation was based on more than 2,100 “suspicious activity reports” filed by banks with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The report, dubbed the FinCEN Files, was the result of an investigation by more than 100 news organizations in 88 countries, Buzzfeed said.One example highlighted in the report: JPMorgan moved more than $1 billion for the fugitive financier behind Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal, based on records. The bank also processed payments for Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, after he resigned from the campaign amid money laundering and corruption allegations from his work with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, according to the investigation. JPMorgan told ICIJ that it was legally prohibited from discussing clients or transactions. It said it has taken a “leadership role” in pursuing “proactive intelligence-led investigations.” “We report suspicious activity to the government so that law enforcement can combat financial crime,” the bank said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “We have played a leadership role in anti-money laundering reform that will modernize how the government and law enforcement combat money laundering, terrorism financing and other financial crimes.”

Report documents criminality and corruption at heart of global banking system - An explosive report published Sunday by BuzzFeed News documents the role that major US and international banks knowingly play in laundering and circulating trillions of dollars in dirty money from terrorist organizations, drug cartels and assorted international financial criminals. The report is an unanswerable indictment not only of the banks, but also of Western governments and regulatory agencies, which are fully aware of the banks’ illegal but highly lucrative activities and tacitly sanction them. BuzzFeed writes that its investigation demonstrates “an underlying truth of the modern era: The networks through which dirty money traverses the world have become vital arteries of the global economy. They enable a shadow financial system so wide-ranging and so unchecked that it has become inextricable from the so-called legitimate economy. Banks with household names have helped to make it so.” The report continues: “Profits from deadly drug wars, fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and hard-earned savings stolen in a Ponzi scheme were all allowed to flow into and out of these financial institutions, despite warnings from the banks’ own employees. “Money laundering is a crime that makes other crimes possible. It can accelerate economic inequality, drain public funds, undermine democracy, and destabilize nations—and the banks play a key role. ‘Some of these people in crisp white shirts in their sharp suits are feeding off the tragedy of people dying all over the world,’ said Martin Woods, a former suspicious transactions investigator for Wachovia.’” The report goes on to explain that “even after they were prosecuted or fined for financial misconduct, banks such as JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon continued to move money for suspected criminals.” The extensive report is based on more than 21,000 “suspicious activity reports” (SARs) filed by some of the world’s biggest banks with the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, between 1999 and 2017. FinCEN makes its database of SARs available to more than 450 law enforcement and regulatory agencies across the United States. What BuzzFeed calls the “FinCEN Files” were leaked to the news outlet more than a year ago. It has since been combing through them, in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which coauthored the report. BuzzFeed News notes that it also shared the SARs with more than 100 other news organizations in 88 countries. The report, titled “Dirty Money Pours into the World’s Most Powerful Banks,” includes only a small and redacted sample of the news outlet’s hoard of suspicious activity reports. The US government maintains a policy of total secrecy in relation to the SARs, refusing to release them even in response to Freedom of Information requests. Earlier this year, the Treasury Department issued a statement declaring that the unauthorized disclosure of SARs is a crime. In an obvious attempt at intimidation and threat of prosecution, the statement added that the matter was being referred to the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General.

3-Count Felon, JPMorgan Chase, Caught Laundering More Dirty Money - Pam Martens - The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has once again managed to do what federal bank regulators refuse to do in the United States – come clean with the American people about our dirty Wall Street banks. ICIJ dropped a bombshell investigative report yesterday about money laundering for criminals at some of the biggest banks on Wall Street, but you won’t find a peep about it on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal or New York Times’ print editions. In fact, the New York Times, as of 6:44 a.m. this morning, hasn’t reported the story at all. The Wall Street Journal carries an innocuous headline, “HSBC Stock Hits 25-Year Low,” putting the focus on the British bank, HSBC, when its focus should be on the largest bank in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase, a serial felon. JPMorgan Chase has already pleaded guilty to three criminal felony counts brought by the U.S. Department of Justice since 2014. Two of those counts related to money laundering and failure to file suspicious activity reports on the business bank account it held for Bernie Madoff for decades.  The third felony count brought by the U.S. Department of Justice came one year later, in 2015. It related to JPMorgan’s involvement in a bank cartel that was engaged in rigging foreign exchange trading. The bank is currently under a criminal investigation for allowing its precious metals desk to be turned into a racketeering enterprise according to the Justice Department. Multiple JPMorgan precious metals traders have already been charged under the RICO statute, typically reserved for members of organized crime. The ICIJ investigation is based on secret documents leaked from FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a unit of the U.S. Treasury. The documents “show that five global banks — JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon — kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players even after U.S. authorities fined these financial institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money.”The report has much to say about JPMorgan Chase: JPMorgan Chase was involved in moving illicit funds for the fugitive, Jho Low, involving the notorious looting of public funds in Malaysia. Jho Low has been accused by multiple jurisdictions of playing a key role in the embezzlement of more than $4.5 billion from a Malaysian economic development fund, 1MDB. JPMorgan Chase moved $1.2 billion in money for Jho Low from 2013 to 2016, according to the report.The ICIJ bombshell includes the charge that JPMorgan also “processed more than $50 million in payments over a decade, the records show, for Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump. The bank shuttled at least $6.9 million in Manafort transactions in the 14 months after he resigned from the campaign amid a swirl of money laundering and corruption allegations spawning from his work with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.”

There’s a Pattern of Corporate Media Censoring News About Wall Street Banks’ Crimes -  Pam Martens  - There are two opposing narratives living side by side in the United States: independent journalists and researchers have documented how the behemoth banks on Wall Street are as crooked as ever while the Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, repeatedly tells Congress and the press that these banks are a “source of strength” in this economic crisis. (Never mind that the Fed is flooding these banks with trillions of dollars in cumulative loans at less than 1 percent interest.)Corporate-owned mainstream media, that is dependent on financing from these same banks, prefers the Fed’s alternative version of reality.Wall Street On Parade has repeatedly written about critical reports showing serial corruption at these banks that have been censored by those Pulitzer prize winning media outlets. Yesterday provided another example: the New York Times refused to cover theInternational Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ stunning report on how five of the biggest banks on Wall Street have continued to launder dirty money for fugitives and suspected criminals. The Wall Street Journal, whose name suggests that perhaps its focus should be Wall Street, failed to put the story on its front page, opting instead to bury it under an innocuous headline about HSBC’s stock hitting a new low.The same news blackout occurred last year when the public interest group, Better Markets, published an in-depth report on “Wall Street’s Six Biggest Bailed-Out Banks: Their RAP Sheets & Their Ongoing Crime Spree.” Three days after the report came out, major news outlets were still refusing to cover the report. We wrote this in a report three days after the study was released:“We checked the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Financial Times, Bloomberg News, Reuters, CNBC, and CNN. We could find no mention of the Better Markets report. (We checked again this morning. There is still a news blackout.)“We know that the Wall Street Journal was aware of the report because Lalita Clozel, a banking regulation reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Tweeted on April 10 that Democrats in the House Financial Services Committee room were handing out the report to journalists while the Chair of the Committee, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, was introducing the bank CEOs.“There are four words in this outstanding report from Better Markets that rendered it unpalatable to corporate business media: ‘rap sheets’ and ‘criminal enterprise.’ We searched Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times back to 2004 to see if at any time they had used the words ‘rap sheet’ to describe the unprecedented serial crime sprees of these Wall Street mega banks. They had not.”Read our full report on the censorship of the Better Markets study: Research Study on Ongoing Crime Spree by Wall Street Mega Banks Gets News Blackout: Here’s Why We are not the only outlet to have noticed the censorship of Wall Street bank crimes. When the story of Wall Street banks rigging the interest rate benchmark known as “Libor” broke, Media Matters ran this headline: ABC, NBC Evening News Shows Ignore Massive Banking Scandal For More Than A Month. And it’s not just groundbreaking studies that corporate media is ignoring. Corporate media is also flagrantly ignoring crucial hearings in Congress with important witnesses.

Law enforcement needs better access to BSA reports, watchdog says— The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network should develop policies enabling more law enforcement agencies to utilize suspicious transaction reports, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday. The watchdog released a wide-ranging report on the usefulness and costs to banks of suspicious activity reports and currency transaction reports from 2015 through 2018. The GAO review came as some in the industry and Congress have called for regulatory relief from SAR and CTR requirements, saying the reports have limited benefit for catching money launderers, while law enforcement agencies say the reporting should not be curtailed. The GAO report also followed the publication of a separate report by the International Consortium of Journalists exposing details of big-bank SARs resulting from a Fincen data leak. The GAO said Fincen should make efforts to provide information that could be useful to law enforcement agencies that do not have immediate access to the agency's database of Fincen reports. While more than 85% of federal law enforcement offices have direct access to the database, only 54% of state law enforcement offices and 1% of local law enforcement agencies have such access. “Fincen lacks written policies and procedures for assessing which agencies without direct access could benefit from greater use of BSA reports, reaching out to such agencies, and distributing educational materials about BSA reports,” the GAO said in its report. “By developing such policies and procedures, Fincen would help ensure law enforcement agencies are using BSA reports to the greatest extent possible to combat money laundering and other crimes.” In a survey, the GAO found that the Fincen’s Bank Secrecy Act database is considered fairly helpful among federal personnel. Across six federal agencies, including the FBI, IRS and Department of Homeland Security, 59% of personnel reported using BSA data to “start or assist new criminal investigations,” according to the report. At the same time, however, the GAO found that 21 of the nation’s 50 largest police departments, many of which often investigate crimes related to money laundering, lacked direct access to the database. The GAO juxtaposed the limited use of Fincen’s database to the cost of compliance for financial institutions subject to the Bank Secrecy Act. The report found that “total direct BSA compliance costs generally tended to be proportionally greater for smaller banks than for larger banks.” “For example, such costs comprised about 2% of the operating expenses for each of the three smallest banks in 2018 but less than 1% for each of the three largest banks in GAO’s review,” the report noted. The GAO also reported that roughly 23% of banks were cited for violating the BSA by their regulators each year between 2015 and 2018, though the violations "largely were technical and did not warrant formal enforcement," according to the report. The office found that the most common mistakes by banks revolved around failing to file currency transaction reports in a timely manner, as well as failing to submit SARs that were "complete or accurate."

Banks feel more pressure to upgrade AML tech after 'Fincen Files' - Banks have long needed to strengthen their efforts to catch money launderers, which they mostly attempt to do with anti-money-laundering software. New revelations of financial crime taking place under bankers' noses only add to the pressure to do so — quickly.This week, journalists from BuzzFeed and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists began publishing their analyses of a trove of 2,100 suspicious activity reports leaked from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a unit of the Treasury Department.The journalists say five large banks — JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon — allowed $2 trillion of laundering to take place through their institutions after they had been fined by regulators for AML compliance violations."This leak will be a wake-up call for financial services firms and their regulators,” said Guy Harrison, general manager at Dow Jones Risk and Compliance, who pointed out that the $2 trillion in suspicious transactions were flagged in 2,000 SARs from 2011 to 2017, which were only 0.02% of the total SARs filed in that period. So the scope of the problem could be much larger. Banks are required to file SARs whenever they suspect some kind of financial crime, and they do file them by the thousands. But about 90% of the time, the suspicious activities don't prove to be criminal, according to Barefoot. “We also must have a high false-negative rate where we're not finding money laundering,” she said.One challenge is that banks often don’t know exactly who is behind the transactions they process. Though each new customer is put through know-your-customer vetting, money launderers use shell companies and other forms of obfuscation.“Only a few cases actually get prosecuted,” Gossain said. “So to know the bad actors becomes a challenge because of limited data size. Advanced machine learning really helps.” "Banks and regulators will embrace new [artificial-intelligence] powered technologies to be able to analyze vast amounts of data and be able to identify and manage the associated risks,” he said. “We may see regulators put more pressure on banks to identify trends or patterns within their SARs to help them deal with the volumes of SARs filed."

Will ‘Fincen Files’ give banks opening to push for AML reform-— Many banks were in the uncomfortable position over the weekend of having their ties to dubious customers revealed thanks to the BuzzFeed report on data sent to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. But there may be a silver lining. The "Fincen Files" report, based on over 2,000 suspicious activity reports that were leaked to BuzzFeed, could shine an unenviable light on the client list at certain large institutions. But industry lawyers and others say the investigation, a collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, could also heighten attention on flaws with SARs and other anti-money-laundering efforts that banks have urged Congress and Fincen to fix. "If I were looking at anti-money-laundering today, knowing what I know about the instances and enforcement matters I was involved in, I would sort of rebuild it from the ground up," . Banking industry representatives have rejected the report's suggestion that banks aided and abetted criminals by moving roughly $2 trillion in transactions. They say the SARs banks submit to Fincen are intended as a red flag to help law enforcement agencies track illicit activity. "It does not make sense that the basis for media allegations that banks knowingly hid illegal activity consisted solely of Suspicious Activity Reports that those banks filed alerting law enforcement to that very activity," Greg Baer, president and CEO of the Bank Policy Institute, said in a statement on Sunday. Yet the report could lead to AML reforms supported by banks if policymakers start to question the effectiveness of Fincen reporting. Last year, the SARs filed by depository institutions exceeded 1 million for the first time. The industry has urged Congress to finally pass a measure to require corporations to disclose beneficial owners to Fincen. Bank lobbyists have urged lawmakers to go further by seeking to make the reporting process more efficient, including raising the transaction thresholds requiring reports. “For years, [Fincen] farmed out all of the SAR analyses,” “More recently, they formed a group in-house that does the analysis but it’s still largely done by law enforcement in regional locations around the country. That’s not supposed to be the way a financial intelligence unit works. Financial intelligence units are supposed to analyze SARs in-house and … send their recommendations to law enforcement for further investigation.” Others cautioned that while the heightened attention to money-laundering issues could lead to reforms, there are still looming risks for banks.  "But to the extent that there is a perception that AML reform results in more leniency for banks, some may think we need to hit the pause button before charging ahead with very significant reform legislation. If it plays out that way, I can see it derailing the reform bill.”

 Banks report record spike in fraud as U.S. business aid flows - U.S. banks and credit unions reported skyrocketing levels of suspected business-loan fraud last month, a period that coincided with growing awareness of scams involving government small-business aid programs. Financial institutions filed 1,922 suspicious activity reports involving business-loan fraud in August, data from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network show. That’s about 14 times the monthly average for the six years beginning in 2014, the earliest date for which data is available. It’s the fourth consecutive monthly record. The statistical data don’t show what’s causing the spike in reports. Neither Fincen nor the Small Business Administration’s inspector general said they could comment on a potential link. But the reports coincide with a wave of applications for the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which has distributed more than $200 billion and which the agency’s inspector general, Hannibal Ware, warned in July is plagued by “pervasive fraudulent activity.” They also coincide with the last days of another SBA program, the $525 billion Paycheck Protection Program, which concluded on Aug. 8. The Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based nonprofit, published an article earlier this month noting the spike in business-loan fraud reports through July and their potential connection to SBA programs. The August figures weren’t available at that time. In his July 28 report, Ware cited thousands of reports of potential fraud from financial institutions, including banks and credit unions. In many cases, the institutions were noticing that individuals with no apparent connection to a small business were receiving disaster-loan aid proceeds in their personal bank accounts. The Fincen suspicious-activity statistics show that most of the suspected fraud was thought to involve bank customers, that it was linked to deposit accounts and that it involved government payments. Last month, Bloomberg News reported that it identified 52 congressional districts where the SBA sent more $10,000 disaster-loan grants than the number of eligible small businesses. In all, there were about 128,000 excess grants worth almost $1.3 billion. About half of the total was in the Chicago area.

One fix to the deluge of suspicious activity reports - Every 120 days, financial institutions holding accounts for marijuana-related businesses must file suspicious activity reports (SARs) to the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen. The agency is charged with combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other financial crimes that may involve human trafficking, elder abuse or Bernie Madoff-type Ponzi schemes, just to name a few. The SARs are detailed, lengthy and time consuming, both to prepare and to read. Fincen received more than 2 million SARs last year. That number has nearly doubled over the past decade, as financial institutions have faced mounting pressure to file, and the volume of international transactions has grown. Over the same period, budget cuts have reduced Fincen’s staff by more than 10%. It is dubious that most SARs are ever even read, let alone acted upon. An investigative report by BuzzFeed News found that the crushing volume of SARs is overwhelming Fincen, suggesting that the onus should be on financial institutions to shut down suspected money-laundering activities. This is a bit like asking the victim of a home burglary to not call 911 but wrestle the perp to the ground. Law enforcement and banks have separate roles, each of which should be respected. The SARs are like the 911 calls to law enforcement. So why would someone call 911 on a friendly neighbor who is just stopping by for chat? State legalized marijuana-related businesses are those neighbors. All but eight states have either legalized or decriminalized the use of cannabis in either medicinal or recreational form. Sales of legal cannabis in the U.S. exceeded $12 billion last year and are expected to pass $15 billion by the end of 2020. A House bill (called the SAFE Act) would remove regulatory action against a financial institution for banking a cannabis business. The bill, now pending in the Senate, is part of a series of proposals that would open the doors to making cannabis commerce federally legal. So, it’s time to ask: Does it make sense to continue to file ongoing SARs on state-legal businesses, particularly as Fincen is overwhelmed and money-launderers are slipping into the night? These legalized-marijuana-related businesses are fully licensed (having passed stringent vetting processes by licensing authorities), pay taxes, contribute to their local economies and are providing a product that more than 55 million Americans use on a regular basis. These are not criminal enterprises. There are small-business operators making an honest living.

Three more former Wells Fargo execs settle civil charges - Three former senior executives at Wells Fargo have agreed to pay six-figure fines to regulators in connection with the bank’s unauthorized account scandal.Matthew Raphaelson, Kenneth Zimmerman and Tracy Kidd were all once executives in Wells Fargo’s consumer banking unit. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency found in settlements announced Monday that they either knew or should have known about what the agency described as the unit’s systemic sales misconduct problem.Raphaelson, Zimmerman and Kidd did not admit to wrongdoing, but they all agreed to cooperate with the agency in litigation related to sales misconduct at the bank. Five other former Wells executives, including one-time consumer banking head Carrie Tolstedt, are currently facing civil charges.In January, the OCC announced civil settlements with three additional former Wells Fargo senior executives: onetime CEO John Stumpf, former Chief Administrative Officer Hope Hardison, and former Chief Risk Officer Michael Loughlin. They agreed to pay a combined $21 million in penalties, including a $17.5 million fine to be paid by Stumpf.The scandal, which emerged in 2016, involved thousands of employees opening millions of potentially unauthorized customer accounts.A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said Monday that the company has made fundamental changes over the last four years to its business model, compensation programs, leadership and governance.“The OCC actions against former employees,” the bank spokeswoman said in an email, “are consistent with our belief that we should hold ourselves and individuals accountable, and that significant parts of the operating model of our Community Bank were flawed at that time” “We are committing all necessary resources to ensure that we operate with the strongest business practices and controls, maintain the highest level of integrity, and have in place the appropriate culture,” the spokeswoman said. “The company is different today, and we are doing what’s necessary to regain the trust of all stakeholders.”

JPMorgan is set to pay $1 billion in record spoofing penalty - JPMorgan Chase is poised to pay close to $1 billion to resolve market manipulation investigations by U.S. authorities into its trading of metals futures and Treasury securities, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The potential record for a settlement involving alleged spoofing could be announced as soon as this week, said the people who asked not to be named because the details haven’t yet been finalized. The accord would end probes by the Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether traders on JPMorgan’s precious metals and treasuries desks rigged markets, two of the people said. A penalty approaching $1 billion would far exceed previous spoofing-related fines. It would also be on par with sanctions in many prior manipulation cases, including some brought several years ago against banks for allegedly rigging benchmark interest rates and foreign exchange markets. Spoofing typically involves flooding derivatives markets with orders that traders don’t intend to execute to trick others into moving prices in a desired direction. The practice has become a focus for prosecutors and regulators in recent years after lawmakers specifically prohibited it in 2010. While submitting and then canceling orders isn’t illegal, it is unlawful as part of a strategy intended to dupe other traders. It couldn’t be determined whether New York-based JPMorgan will face additional Justice Department penalties in court. Previous spoofing cases have been resolved without banks or trading firms pleading guilty to criminal charges. However, when prosecutors filed cases last year against individual JPMorgan traders they painted a grave picture of its precious metals desk, saying it operated as an illicit enterprise within the bank for almost a decade. The government’s settlement with JPMorgan is not expected to result in any restrictions on its business practices, said one person familiar with the negotiations between authorities and the bank. It is anticipated that JPMorgan will admit to wrongdoing. Spokespeople for the Justice Department, CFTC, SEC and JPMorgan all declined to comment. In 2015, JPMorgan was among firms accused of manipulating currencies. It pleaded guilty to an antitrust charge and paid a $550 million fine to the Justice Department. The bank also paid penalties to U.S. regulators. The pending spoofing case against JPMorgan follows criminal charges filed last year against several of its employees, including former head of the precious metals desk, Michael Nowak. In that case, the Justice Department used racketeering laws more commonly used in mafia and drug gang prosecutions, alleging the precious metals desk effectively became a criminal enterprise for eight years.

JPMorgan Traders Complain Bank Didn't Warn Them About Recent COVID-19 Outbreak - While the world's biggest tech firms have come out in favor of working from home in perpetuity (or at least until next summer), JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs were among the earliest major American companies to start pushing employees to get back to the office. And already, both have endured trading floor outbreaks (albeit smaller than outbreaks they experienced back in March). But while JP Morgan's 'research' showing young employees lose 'creative intelligence' when confined to their homes - denied the collaborative experience of working from a cubicle in Midtown - is certainly compelling, it looks like the bank's employees have some trepidation about the push back to the office. Specifically, they're concerned about the bank's policy of only informing employees who came into close, direct contact with anybody who tests positive of the virus. According to CNBC, an employee asked Troy Rohrbaugh, JPM's global markets head, about the policy during a recent virtual town hall. The executive explained the bank's policy is to inform only those who had been working on the same floor, or who may have had contact with the sick individual. But JPM isn't alone in that: Goldman only discloses infection to workers who had meetings, or worked on the same floor, as somebody who got sick.  Traders are reportedly angry that when there was a trading floor outbreak earlier this month, they only learned about it when they saw the story on their Bloomberg terminals. "Why did I have to read about this in Bloomberg?" said one trader who declined to be identified criticizing his or her employer, referring to an article on the matter. Looking to the CDC guidelines, the source of the conflict is clear. Guidelines clearly state that "employers should inform fellow employees of their possible exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace but maintain confidentiality as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Results-driven Fraser just the ticket for fixing Citi, associates say -  Missed financial targets. Mounting investor frustration. A mistaken $900 million payment that could lead to federal enforcement action. And a festering pandemic that continues to not only upend lives of employees and customers, but also lay bare deep racial and economic inequities.The list of challenges Jane Fraser will face when she steps into the CEO job at Citigroup in February is daunting. But some of those who know the Scottish-born banker, whose promotion will make her the first woman to lead a major U.S. bank, say she is ideally suited for the task of mending fences with regulators and investors and moving the company forward.“She is a person who, when it comes to managing under difficult circumstances, has a history of doing that,” said David Bailin, chief investment officer at Citi Private Bank, whom Fraser hired away from Bank of America in 2009. “What will define her time in office will be both specificity and transparency. … Her voice will be, ‘What do we need to do?’ … and ‘Here’s where we’re at and where we need to go.’ ” Jane Fraser “has a strategic vision, she knows the business very well, and she’s able to execute,” says Clifford Rossi, a former chief risk officer for Citi’s consumer lending group. Strategic thinking will be crucial as she leads Citi through the current low-interest environment, he said.Whatever plan she puts in place needs to happen quickly, according to Brian Kleinhanzl, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods who covers the $2.2 trillion-asset company. That’s because investors are growing weary of compliance issues and waiting for higher returns from an organization whose stock price trades below tangible book value. At 0.56, its price-to-tangible-book ratio is well below that of many of its peers; JPMorgan Chase’s ratio is 1.41, according to data tracked by Reuters.“I think one of the things [Fraser] has to be aware of is that there is general frustration about how these issues have lingered for a long period of time,” Kleinhanzl said. “So she may not have a long time to get settled before she has to come up with a plan. She’s going to have to hit the ground running.”Fixing trouble spots is something of a specialty for Fraser, a former partner at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. who joined Citi’s corporate and investment banking division in 2004. Over the past 16 years, she oversaw the massive restructuring of Citi’s global mergers-and-acquisition business during the financial crisis, which involved the sale of about $1 trillion of assets; helped reconfigure the private bank after the sale of Smith Barney in 2012; and moved from London to St. Louis to lead the company’s mortgage business following intense government scrutiny of its foreclosure, robo-signing and other practices.

Goldman Sachs Promotes First Woman To Lead Investment Bank As CEO Strives To Meet 'Diversity' Go -Just weeks after Citigroup named the first female CEO to lead a Wall Street megabank, Goldman Sachs has announced the elevation of a handful of female MDs to leadership positions as the 'Vampire Squid' seeks to burnish its 'woke' credentials.One of the most high-profile moves is the promotion of MD Kim Posnett, 43, to become the first female co-head of investment-banking. She's the first woman to lead the operation, as well as the youngest person to hold the role.GS will also promote Christina Minnis to co-head of global credit finance, alongside Michael Marsh, who was also recently promoted. Akila Raman will become the COO of the global financing group and Miriam Wheeler head of Americas real estate financing."Diversity" is a top priority for CEO David Solomon, who has a goal of shifting the composition of the bank's executives to 40% women.This isn't the bank's first attempt at virtue-signaling: Goldman made headlines earlier this year when the bank announced it wouldn't do IPOs for companies that don't have at least one "diverse" candidate on their board.Its research department recently published a 'study' claiming women-led mutual funds outperform funds led by men, without explaining that such a small sample size makes a comparison like this essentially useless. And it's not like the difference was all that extreme: 43% of women-led funds (that is, funds with at least one female PM) outperformed their benchmarks, while 41% of male-led funds outperformed. Of the nearly 500 funds the bank incorporated into its research, only 63 were designated "woman-led". Of course, the bank still promoted plenty of mem during this latest shake-up. For example, the firm picked Stephan Feldgoise and Mark Sorrell to co-lead the global M&A business, while its equity-capital markets business will be run by David Ludwig, who will serve as its global head, while Gabe Gelman and Simon Watson will co-lead the business in the Americas. Those promotions come amid a booming year for IPOs, even if M&A deal volume has slowed. The promotions are a great distraction. Perhaps if the bank proves it's 'woke' enough, the DoJ will back off on its demands that Goldman make a criminal plea to settle allegations related to the 1MDB probe (settlement talks are still ongoing in the US, though the bank has  settled the issue in Malaysia with a massive payout).

Banks can hold stablecoin-related assets for customers, OCC says — The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Monday cleared national banks to hold stablecoin-related assets for customers, two months after the agency permitted institutions to provide custody services for cryptocurrency holders. Stablecoins, a cryptocurrency typically pegged to a government currency, have been trumpeted as a viable and secure form of finance by acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks. Before coming to the OCC, Brooks served as chief legal officer of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The OCC issued an interpretive letter signed by OCC Chief Counsel Jonathan Gould clarifying that national banks can place assets in reserve accounts that are tied to stablecoins in a "hosted wallet." A hosted wallet typically refers to a kind of cryptocurrency account that is safeguarded by a third party. “National banks and federal savings associations currently engage in stablecoin related activities involving billions of dollars each day,” Brooks said in a statement. “This opinion provides greater regulatory certainty for banks within the federal banking system to provide those client services in a safe and sound manner.” Gould wrote that "stablecoin issuers may desire to place assets in a reserve account with a national bank to provide assurance that the issuer has sufficient assets backing the stablecoin in situations where there is a hosted wallet." “[W]e conclude that a national bank may hold such stablecoin ‘reserves’ as a service to bank customers,” he wrote. The letter explicitly does not address the implications involving “un-hosted” wallets, which are typically controlled individuals, rather than institutions. An interpretive letter issued by the OCC in July cleared national banks to hold hosted wallets on behalf of customers. In the letter Monday, Gould wrote, "Banks may receive deposits from stablecoin issuers, including deposits that constitute reserves for a stablecoin associated with hosted wallets." “In connection with these activities, a national bank may also engage in any activity incidental to receiving deposits from stablecoin issuers,” Gould wrote. “As with any deposit product, a national bank or [federal savings association] that accepts reserve accounts should be aware of the laws and regulations relating to deposit insurance coverage, including deposit insurance limits, and the requirements for deposit insurance to ‘pass through’ to an underlying depositor, if applicable.” 

 SEC charges S&P employee with index insider trading - Well this is quite a story. Here’s the shot:  A criminal complaint was unsealed earlier today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Yinghang Yang with securities fraud for his role in an insider-trading scheme. Yang and a co-conspirator allegedly executed a series of securities transactions based on nonpublic information stolen from Yang’s employer, which resulted in profits of more than $900,000. Yang was arrested this afternoon and is scheduled to make his initial appearance tomorrow via videoconference before United States Magistrate Judge Roanne L. Mann.  And the chaser:  Between April 2019 and October 2019, Yang and a co-conspirator allegedly executed securities transactions in the co-conspirator’s brokerage account based, in whole or in part, on nonpublic information obtained by Yang through his employment at the Company, about issuers that were to be added or subtracted from market indices published by the Company. For example, on October 2, 2019, beginning at 2:47 p.m., the co-conspirator’s brokerage account entered orders to buy call options of Cleveland Cliffs (CLF), a publicly traded mining company. The same day, at 5:15 p.m., the Company announced the addition of CLF to one of its indices effective prior to the open of trading on October 8, 2019. The co-conspirator’s brokerage account subsequently sold the CLF call options on October 3, 2019, realising a gain of approximately $155,029. This sequence was followed in 13 additional transactions in the co-conspirator’s brokerage account during the charged conspiracy.  While we’ve heard about investors trying to arbitrage index inclusion and, conversely, accusations of companies gaming their accounts to meet the index’s arbitrary rules for years, this is the first time we’ve heard of insiders allegedlytrading on index inclusion. Mr Yang’s LinkedIn profile states that he was on the index committee for several indices including the S&P Dividend Aristocrats, the Dow Jones Select Dividend and the Dividend 100:  We often hear about insider trading cases where there’s unusual options activity before a big M&A announcement.  Said buyers of options are then often busted (but not always) as it’s a pretty easy trade for a regulator like the SEC to spot. Here, however, we have an employee at arguably the main index provider — Standard & Poors — allegedly trading off a company being added to an index. So here’s a question: given the trade was profitable, is it time we stopped referring to index-tracking funds as passive? Clearly, the total funds devoted to passive AUM at BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and so on have now become so large that employees at index providers could safely assume that inclusion in a major index is guaranteed to move markets.

Citigroup Shutters Retail Options Market-Making After Losing War Against HFTs Anyone following market dynamics in recent months would have been left with the impression that whereas other securities may have had a rather somnolent third quarter, option market makers would be printing cash hand over fist, thanks mostly to the recent boom in retail call option buying, which as shown in the chart below, has seen nearly a doubling in option trading volumes in the past few months and hitting a record 18.4 million in August.   But while that may be true for Citadel, Wolverine, Susquehanna, Simplex and Optiver and various other HFT-hybrids which dominate retail option trading as their generous payments for Robinhood orderflow demonstrate...it is not the case for Citigroup, which as the FT reports overnight, has shuttered its market making business in retail options "in a move that underscores how the boom in zero-commission trading has squeezed the profitability of the industry’s middlemen" despite the unprecedented surge in option trading.  Citing three sources, the FT reports that Citi closed the business - which serves retail broker-dealers such as Charles Schwab and Fidelity - at the start of last month. At the same time, Citi maintained its market making operations for institutional investors and high-net-worth customers, who still pay commissions. The stated reason for the pullout is that Citi was unable to compete in a technology arms race to be among the fastest and most reliable venues on Wall Street, which is to be expected when Citi's competition was pure play HFT firms.

Record Numbers Of Companies Drown In Debt To Pay Dividends To Their Private Equity Owners -- One week ago we used Bloomberg data to report that in the latest Fed-fuelled bubble to sweep the market, now with Powell buying corporate bonds and ETFs, private equity firms were instructing their junk-rated portfolio companies to get even deeper in debt and issue secured loans, using the proceeds to pay dividends to owners: the same private equity companies. Specifically, we focused on five deals marketed at the start of the month to fund shareholder dividends, which accounting for half of the week’s volume, and the most in a week since 2017, according to Bloomberg. Now, a little over a week late, the FT is also looking at these dividend recap deals which have become all the rage in the loan market in recent weeks, among other reasons because they are "ringing alarm bells since they come on top of already high leverage and weak investor protections and against a backdrop of economic uncertainty."Having updated our calculation, the FT finds that in September a quarter (24% to be exact) of all new money raised in the US loan market has been used to fund dividends to private equity owners, up from an average of less than 4% over the past two years: that would be the highest proportion since the beginning of 2015, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. As we wrote a little over a week ago, while the loan market — where PE firms fund the companies they own by selling secured first, second, third and so on lien debt — had until recently not seen the same volume of issuance as other parts of the financial markets. That changed after the Fed stepped into the corporate bond market sending yields crashing to record lows, and forcing US investors into the last corner of the fixed income world to still offer some modest yields: leveraged loans. And since this is the domain of PE firms which desperately need to extract as much cash as they can from their melting ice cubes (another names for single-B and lower rated portfolio companies which will likely all be broke in the next 3-5 years), everyone is rushing to market with dividend recaps to pay as much to their equity sponsor as they can before the window is shut again.

CRE concerns intensify as stimulus programs expire - Uncertainty about exposure to commercial real estate continues to dog banks. While many lenders have reported a steady decline in loan deferrals, industry observers are concerned about future demand for retail and office space and what would happen if legislators fail to approve more stimulus for existing tenants. And a number of CRE borrowers are barred from participating in federal pandemic-relief initiatives like the Main Street Lending Program. The overall CRE delinquency rate for banks increased to 0.92% on June 30 from 0.83% a quarter earlier and 0.68% at the end of last year, according to Federal Reserve data. While much lower than levels seen during the financial crisis, it is the highest rate since early 2016, and some industry observers fear it will continue to climb in coming quarters. As stimulus programs expire, more tenants will likely miss rent payments, putting more pressure on commercial landlords trying to pay their mortgages. “What happens when all this stimulus goes away, when these deferral periods end?” said Jon Winick, CEO of Clark Street Capital. “I think we’re going to see many more challenges. The credit picture right now is a mirage.” “It is sobering to think about what things could look like for banks without any more stimulus,” said Matthew Anderson, a managing director at Trepp. And there are signs some borrowers are purposefully defaulting after realizing they would be unable to extend or refinance their loans — a development that could hasten a wave of foreclosures later this year. Loans set to mature over the next five quarters have delinquency rates that are materially higher than other loans, Trepp researchers said in a recent report. Within that group, delinquency rates for loans with balances greater than $25 million are significantly higher than those for smaller loans. “Larger borrowers are typically more sophisticated and less likely to be encumbered by recourse or guarantees, making strategic default a more rational decision,” Trepp’s researchers said.

 Lawmakers urge Fed, Treasury to let CRE borrowers tap Main Street loans — Pressure is growing on the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to enable commercial real estate borrowers to access government relief tools such as the Main Street Lending Program. At a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, members pressed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the need to help small hotels and other indebted companies that pledge real estate and other collateral to obtain financing. Such borrowers are typically barred from taking on new debt, and therefore have been unable to use the government's pandemic relief programs. “As a result of COVID-19 and subsequent travel shutdowns and through no fault of their own, family-owned and operated hotels in Texas and across the country are facing an unimaginable economic crisis, with no ability to access a lifeline to the Main Street Lending Program,” Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, said at the hearing Tuesday. Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., said his office has been hearing from business-owner constituents who were unable to secure short-term financing from the private sector and were instead using working capital to fund their operations. “They were too large to take advantage of the PPP, and they don't have access to the capital markets,” he said. “So how could the Fed use its 13(3) authority to provide assistance to these companies [that] provide services and supplies all up and down the supply chain are critical to our nation's economy?” Restrictions on lending to CRE borrowers also led to frustration over their inability to access the Paycheck Protection Program. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act provided $500 billion to the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund to provide loans to distressed sectors of the economy, including the hospitality industry. But in order to quality, a business had to have between 500-1,000 employees The Fed and Treasury on Sept. 18 released updated guidance on the Main Street Lending Program in which they said that they had considered expanding it to allow loans for companies pledging real estate or other collateral — known as asset-based borrowers — but determined that “conditions do not warrant such changes at this time.”

AIA: "Architectural billings in August still show little sign of improvement" - Note: This index is a leading indicator primarily for new Commercial Real Estate (CRE) investment. From the AIA: Architectural billings in August still show little sign of improvement Business conditions remained stalled at architecture firms during August as demand for design services continued to decline, according to a new report from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The pace of decline during August remained at about the same level as in July and June, posting an Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score of 40.0 (any score below 50 indicates a decline in firm billings). Inquiries into new projects during August grew for the first time since February, and the value of new design contracts increased to a score of 46.0. As a result, fewer firms reported a decline in August, despite the fact that they remained negative overall. “Unfortunately, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many architecture firms are finding fewer inquiries that convert to billable projects,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, PhD. “While fewer firms reported declining billings in August than during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the fact that the score has been unchanged for the last three months shows that the recovery from this downturn is not progressing at the pace we had hoped to see.”
• Regional averages: Midwest (41.7); South (41.6); West (41.3); Northeast (33.9)
• Sector index breakdown: multi-family residential (49.4); mixed practice (41.9); institutional (40.2); commercial/industrial (35.5)

Fed plan to reform CRA at odds with OCC rule— The Federal Reserve released a preliminary proposal Monday to update the decades-old Community Reinvestment Act, distancing the central bank even further from a CRA rule finalized by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in May. In the Fed's advance notice of proposed rulemaking, the agency floated a new framework in which banks could rely on existing data collection and reporting requirements, deviating from the OCC's plan to request new data points for CRA scoring. The Fed would also include key tests that consumer advocates had blasted the OCC for abandoning, such as a separate community development test “with separate financing and service subtests,” according to the Fed's memo. “Stakeholder feedback indicated that retail and community development activities are both fundamental to the CRA and essential for meeting the core purpose of the statute," the Fed said in its memo. "Staff believe that separately evaluating these activities in a Retail Test and a Community Development Test would better ensure that these activities are appropriately taken into consideration.” Having separate retail and community development tests would allow the Fed to tailor CRA metrics for a bank’s local market conditions, which may have disparities between retail lending and community development financing, said Fed. Gov. Lael Brainard in remarks to the Urban Institute after the Fed voted to approve the proposal. While the Fed has embarked on a different path from the one the OCC followed, the central bank indicated that it intends for the new ANPR to be the basis for the agencies to work together on an eventual CRA reform plan. And some observers said the door is still open to the Fed, OCC and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreeing on a joint plan. Some analysts say that because the OCC’s finalized framework won’t go fully into effect until 2023, that timeline will give regulators ample time to coordinate on an interagency framework of some kind, regardless of who occupies the White House after this year. The Fed's ANPR will be open for comment for 120 days, stretching past the upcoming general election. “The OCC regulation doesn’t really go into effect until January 2023,” said Warren W. Traiger, senior counsel at Buckley. “There is plenty of time, no matter what happens with the election, for the regulators to come together on this.”

OCC reports surge in 'seriously delinquent' mortgages — An Office of the Comptroller of the Currency report suggested notable stress on credit quality in the mortgage portfolios of the nation's largest banks resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency's second-quarter Mortgage Metrics said the performance of residential loans at seven banks with significant servicing portfolios had declined last quarter. Overall, 91.1% of first-lien mortgages were current and performing, which was down from 96.1% during the same period last year. The decline was driven by a sharp jump in mortgages that banks reported as “seriously delinquent,” defined as more than 60 days overdue. The percentage of seriously delinquent mortgages jumped to 6.8% in the second quarter from 1.4% in the first quarter. In the report, the OCC said that “seriously delinquent loans have increased as a result of the pandemic.” At the same time, foreclosures remain unusually low as a result of the national moratorium in place since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The OCC reported that its surveyed banks initiated foreclosures only 249 times in the second quarter of 2020, compared with nearly 20,000 in the first quarter — a drop of 98.7%. The OCC estimates that the mortgage portfolios of national banks in its study represent $2.97 trillion in unpaid principal balances, or 28% of the nation’s outstanding residential mortgage debt.

Freddie Mac: Mortgage Serious Delinquency Rate increased in August, Highest Since January 2013 Freddie Mac reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate in August was 3.17%, up from 3.12% in July. Freddie's rate is up from 0.61% in August 2019. This is the highest serious delinquency rate since January 2013.   Freddie's serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 4.20%.  These are mortgage loans that are "three monthly payments or more past due or in foreclosure".  Mortgages in forbearance are being counted as delinquent in this monthly report, but they will not be reported to the credit bureaus.  This is very different from the increase in delinquencies following the housing bubble.   Lending standards have been fairly solid over the last decade, and most of these homeowners have equity in their homes - and they will be able to restructure their loans once (if) they are employed.

Black Knight: National Mortgage Delinquency Rate Decreased in August, Serious Delinquencies Rise -- Note: Loans in forbearance are counted as delinquent in this survey, but those loans are not reported as delinquent to the credit bureaus. From Black Knight: Early-Stage Delinquencies Improve Further, While Seriously Past-Due Loans Rise; Rate of Improvement Slows
• The divergence between early-stage delinquencies and seriously past-due mortgages continues to widen as fewer delinquent loans cured to current status in August
• Overall, the national delinquency rate fell just 0.03 basis points from July after declining a combined 0.85 basis points over the prior two months, a noticeable slowing in the rate of improvement
• The share of borrowers with a single missed payment had already fallen below pre-pandemic levels; in August, the sum of all early-stage delinquencies (those 30 and 60 days past due) fell 9%, dropping below that benchmark as well
• However, the improvement in early-stage delinquencies was offset by a 5% increase in serious delinquencies – those 90 or more days past due – which have now risen in each of the past five months
• August’s rise in serious delinquencies was the mildest of those five months, suggesting that they may be nearing their peak
• While there are nearly 2 million more seriously delinquent homeowners than at pre-pandemic levels, foreclosure activity remains muted due to active forbearance plans and foreclosure moratoriums
According to Black Knight's First Look report, the percent of loans delinquent decreased 0.5% in August compared to July, and increased 99% year-over-year.
The percent of loans in the foreclosure process decreased 1.4% in August and were down 27% over the last year.  Black Knight reported the U.S. mortgage delinquency rate (loans 30 or more days past due, but not in foreclosure) was 6.88% in August, down from 6.81% in July.  The percent of loans in the foreclosure process decreased slightly in August to 0.35% from 0.36% in July.  The number of delinquent properties, but not in foreclosure, is up 1,866,000 properties year-over-year, and the number of properties in the foreclosure process is down 66,000 properties year-over-year.

Lawler: Serious Delinquency Rate on FHA-Insured SF Loans Up Again in August - From housing economist Tom Lawler: Serious Delinquency Rate on FHA-Insured SF Loans Up Again in August While the FHA’s “official” monthly loan performance report for August is not yet available on its website, data from the FHA’s Early Warning System indicates that FHA’s Early Warning System indicate that the serious delinquency rate on FHA-insured single-family loans increased to above 11% in August, an all-time monthly high.Delinquency rates in the EWS do not match those in the official report, but the two delinquency rates tend to move together over time.  [table]  The official Loan Performance Trends Report includes delinquency data for various subcategories, including (Fiscal) Year “Cohorts. Here are some SDQ data by Fiscal Year endorsement.[table] What is striking about these data is that the years with both the largest increases in SDQ’s and the highest SDQ levels were the 2018 and 2019 “cohorts.” These two years were relatively risky books of business, with lower average credit scores compared to the previous 10 years and substantially higher (and never before seen) average debt-to-income ratios than in the previous 10 years. The surging FHA serious delinquency rate obviously reflects the huge increase in the number of FHA borrowers adversely impacted by the pandemic’s effect on the economy, and most of these seriously delinquent borrowers are in a FHA loan forbearance program. Given this program, combined with the current moratorium on foreclosures, the surging SDQ does not augur any imminent increase in foreclosures. It does, however, highlight that a sizable number of homeowners (and, presumably, potential homeowners) have been adversely impacted financially by enough to be unable to make their mortgage payments. This observation, of course, leads one to ask: why have SF family home sales surged by so much this summer? Obviously, record low mortgage rates have been a catalyst, but it appears as if there has also been a sizeable, pandemic-related shift in the demand for existing householders who have not been materially impacted financially from the pandemic (1) away from urban areas and into suburban (or even more remote) areas, and (2) away from renting in multifamily units and into single-family detached units There has also apparently been a huge increase in demand for second homes, especially but not solely in beach, mountain, and country “resort” areas. This “discrete” shift in relative demand, combined with limited supply as fewer than normal households already in single-family homes have been moving and listing their property for sale, has already started to put major upward pressure on prices of single-family detached homes, and in some areas of the country have created almost “bubble-like” conditions. And this discrete shift in demand has played a massively larger role in the surge in SF home sales than “demographics.”

MBA Survey: "Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Declines to 6.93%"  Note: This is as of September 13th. From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Declines to 6.93%: The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 8 basis points from 7.01% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 6.93% as of September 13, 2020. According to MBA’s estimate, 3.5 million homeowners are in forbearance plans....“The share of loans in forbearance has dropped to its lowest level in five months, driven by a consistent decline in the GSE share in forbearance,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “However, not only the did the share of Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance increase, new requests for forbearance for these loans have increased for two consecutive weeks. While housing market data continue to show a quite strong recovery, the job market recovery appears to have slowed, and we are seeing the impact of this slowdown on FHA and VA borrowers in the Ginnie Mae portfolio.” By stage, 31.65% of total loans in forbearance are in the initial forbearance plan stage, while 67.01% are in a forbearance extension. The remaining 1.34% are forbearance re-entries. .This graph shows the percent of portfolio in forbearance by investor type over time.  Most of the increase was in late March and early April, and has been trending down for the last few months. The MBA notes: "Total weekly forbearance requests as a percent of servicing portfolio volume (#) decreased relative to the prior week: from 0.11% to 0.10%."There hasn't been a pickup in forbearance activity related to the end of the extra unemployment benefits.

Black Knight: Number of Homeowners in COVID-19-Related Forbearance Plans Decreased - Note: Both Black Knight and the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) are putting out weekly estimates of mortgages in forbearance. This data is as of September 22nd.  From Forbearances Down 24% from Peak The pace of improvement in the number of mortgages in active forbearance increased this week, as the number of plans fell 95K over the past seven days (-2.6%).  This marks five consecutive weeks of improvement and puts us 24% off the peak in late May – a decline of 1.17M plans since that point. As of September 22, 3.6M homeowers remain in COVID-19-related forbearance plans, or 6.8% of all active mortgages, down from 7% last week. Together, they represent $751 billion in unpaid principal.Servicers continue to proactively assess September-scheduled forbearance expirations for extensions and removals. As of the 22nd, 1.1M forbearance plans are still set to expire this month, down from 1.7M just last week....Over the past month, active forbearance volumes are now down by 9%, with 357k fewer active COVID-19 forbearance plans than at the same time in August. Of the 3.6M loans still in active forbearance, some 78% have had their terms extended at some point since March.The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to represent significant uncertainty for the weeks ahead. Black Knight will continue to monitor the situation and report our findings on this blog.

CoreLogic: 1.7 Million Homes with Negative Equity in Q2 2020 - From CoreLogic: Home Equity Rises Despite the Pandemic: CoreLogic Reports Homeowners Gained Over $620 Billion in Equity in Q2 2020 - CoreLogic® ... today released the Home Equity Report for the second quarter of 2020. The report shows U.S. homeowners with mortgages (which account for roughly 63% of all properties) have seen their equity increase by 6.6% year over year. This represents a collective equity gain of $620 billion, and an average gain of $9,800 per homeowner, since the second quarter of 2019. Despite a cool off in April, home-purchase activity remained strong in the second quarter of 2020 as prospective buyers took advantage of record-low mortgage rates. This, coupled with constricted for-sale inventory, helped drive home prices up and add to borrower equity through June. However, with unemployment expected to remain elevated throughout the remainder of the year, CoreLogic predicts home price growth will slow over the next 12 months and mortgage delinquencies will continue to rise. These factors combined could lead to an increase of distressed-sale inventory, which could put downward pressure on home prices and negatively impact home equity. … Negative equity, also referred to as underwater or upside down, applies to borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. As of the second quarter of 2020, negative equity share, and the quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year changes, were as follows:
• Quarterly change: From the first quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2020, the total number of mortgaged homes in negative equity decreased by 5.4% to 1.7 million homes or 3.2% of all mortgaged properties.
• Annual change: In the second quarter of 2019, 2.1 million homes, or 3.8% of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity. This number decreased by 15% in the second quarter of 2020 to 1.7 million mortgaged properties in negative equity.
• National aggregate value: The national aggregate value of negative equity was approximately $284 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2020. This is down quarter over quarter by approximately $0.7 billion, or 0.2%, from $285 billion in the first quarter of 2020, and down year over year by approximately $20 billion, or 6.6%, from $304 billion in the second quarter of 2019.
This graph from CoreLogic compares Q2 to Q1 2020 equity distribution by LTV. There are still quite a few properties with LTV over 125%.  But most homeowners have a significant amount of equity.  This is a very different picture than at the start of the housing bust when many homeowners had little equity. On a year-over-year basis, the number of homeowners with negative equity has declined from 2.1 million to 1.7 million.

MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest Weekly Survey - From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey; Mortgage applications increased 6.8 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending September 18, 2020. The previous week’s results included an adjustment for the Labor Day holiday. ... The Refinance Index increased 9 percent from the previous week and was 86 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 3 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 13 percent compared with the previous week and was 25 percent higher than the same week one year ago. “Mortgage applications activity remained strong last week, even as the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and 15-year fixed-rate mortgage increased to their highest levels since late August. Purchase applications were up over 25 percent from a year ago, and the demand for higher-balance loans pushed the average purchase loan size to another record high. The strong interest in homebuying observed this summer has carried over to the fall,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “Despite the uptick in rates, refinance applications increased around 9 percent and were almost 86 percent higher than last year. Both conventional and government refinance activity, and in particular FHA refinances, picked up last week.” ... The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($510,400 or less) increased to 3.10 percent from 3.07 percent, with points increasing to 0.46 from 0.32 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.  The first graph shows the refinance index since 1990.

FHFA: House Prices up 6.5% YoY in July - From the FHFA: FHFA House Price Index Up 1.0 Percent in July; Up 6.5 Percent from Last Year: House prices rose nationwide in July, up 1.0 percent from the previous month, according to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index (FHFA HPI). House prices rose 6.5 percent from July 2019 to July 2020. FHFA also revised its previously reported 0.9 percent price change for June 2020 to 1.0 percent. For the nine census divisions, seasonally adjusted monthly house price changes from June 2020 to July 2020 ranged from +0.6 percent in the West North Central division to +2.0 percent in the New England division. The 12-month changes ranged from +5.4 percent in the West South Central division to +7.7 percent in both the Mountain and the East South Central divisions. “U.S. house prices posted a strong increase in July," said Dr. Lynn Fisher, FHFA's Deputy Director of the Division of Research and Statistics. “Between May and July 2020, national prices increased by over 2 percent, which represents the largest two-month price increase observed since the start of the index in 1991. The dramatic increase in prices this summer can be attributed to the historically low interest rate environment and rebounding housing demand even as the supply of homes for sale remains constrained." This is a sharp increase in house prices.

NMHC: Rent Payment Tracker Shows Decline in Households Paying Rent in September - From the NMHC: NMHC Rent Payment Tracker Finds 90.1 Percent of Apartment Households Paid Rent as of September 20: The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 90.1 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by September 20 in its survey of 11.4 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country. This is a 1.7-percentage point, or 192,936-household decrease from the share who paid rent through September 20, 2019 and compares to 90.0 percent that had paid by August 20, 2020. These data encompass a wide variety of market-rate rental properties across the United States, which can vary by size, type and average rental price. “This morning’s results show the real-world impact of lawmakers failing in their responsibilities to their constituents,” said Doug Bibby, NMHC President. “Almost 200,000 households have been unable to pay their September rent. Congress and the Trump administration have a proven model in the CARES Act that supported apartment residents through the early months of the pandemic. Now is the time for them to show leadership by once again supporting the millions of Americans who call an apartment home by enacting meaningful rental assistance and mitigating, to some degree, the negative consequences of the nationwide eviction moratorium which jeopardizes the stability of the nation’s housing finance system.”  This graph from the NMHC Rent Payment Tracker shows the percent of household making full or partial rent payments by the 20th of the month.  This is mostly for large, professionally managed properties.  It appears fewer people are paying their rent this year compared to last year - down 1.7 percentage points from a year ago. Declining, but not falling off a cliff.

L.A. Mayor Unveils Push To End Homelessness By Sending Around Some Pretty Reasonable Zillow Listings - —In an effort to help alleviate the city’s worsening crisis, Mayor Eric Garcetti unveiled a new initiative Monday to assist homeless individuals by sending around some Zillow listings that looked pretty reasonable. “We need to act decisively to help our unhoused brothers and sisters, which is why I’ve linked to some nice, modest starter homes that are going for less than market price,” said the mayor in a social media post, urging individuals experiencing homelessness to visit some open houses and put down a deposit immediately to avoid getting into a full-out bidding war with other prospective buyers. “I am calling on all those in our city without a roof over their heads to check out this two-bedroom in Glendale—it’s right by the freeway so it’ll be easy to commute to your job, and the website says it has a resort-style pool, which would be a great way to keep cool during a deadly heatwave. Even if this place isn’t exactly to your taste, you could just buy it now and flip it in a couple years to make quite a tidy profit.” At press time, Garcetti announced that he had further slashed public services since few homeless people had been taking advantage of this generous new program.

NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increased to 6.00 million in August - From the NAR: Existing-Home Sales Hit Highest Level Since December 2006 - Total existing-home sales, completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, rose 2.4% from July to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.00 million in August. Sales as a whole rose year-over-year, up 10.5% from a year ago (5.43 million in August 2019).... Total housing inventory at the end of August totaled 1.49 million units, down 0.7% from July and down 18.6% from one year ago (1.83 million). Unsold inventory sits at a 3.0-month supply at the current sales pace, down from 3.1 months in July and down from the 4.0-month figure recorded in August 2019.This graph shows existing home sales, on a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) basis since 1993. Sales in August (6.00 million SAAR) were up 2.4% from last month, and were 10.5% above the August 2019 sales rate. This was the highest sales rate since 2006. The second graph shows nationwide inventory for existing homes. Existing Home InventoryAccording to the NAR, inventory decreased to 1.49 million in August from 1.50 million in July. Headline inventory is not seasonally adjusted, and inventory usually decreases to the seasonal lows in December and January, and peaks in mid-to-late summer. The last graph shows the year-over-year (YoY) change in reported existing home inventory and months-of-supply. Since inventory is not seasonally adjusted, it really helps to look at the YoY change. Note: Months-of-supply is based on the seasonally adjusted sales and not seasonally adjusted inventory. Year-over-year Inventory Inventory was down 18.6% year-over-year in August compared to August 2019. Months of supply decreased to 3.0 months in August. This was at the consensus forecast. I'll have more later.

August Existing-Home Sales Highest Since 2006 - This morning's release of the August Existing-Home Sales showed that sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.00 million units from the previous month's revised 5.86 million. The Investing.com consensus was for 6.00 million. The latest number represents a 2.4% increase from the previous month.Here is an excerpt from today's report from the National Association of Realtors.– Existing-home sales continued to climb in August, marking three consecutive months of positive sales gains, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Each of the four major regions experienced both month-over-month and year-over-year growth, with the Northeast seeing the greatest improvement from the prior month.Total existing-home sales,¹ https://www.nar.realtor/existing-home-sales, completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, rose 2.4% from July to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.00 million in August. Sales as a whole rose year-over-year, up 10.5% from a year ago (5.43 million in August 2019)."Home sales continue to amaze, and there are plenty of buyers in the pipeline ready to enter the market," said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. "Further gains in sales are likely for the remainder of the year, with mortgage rates hovering around 3% and with continued job recovery." [Full Report]  For a longer-term perspective, here is a snapshot of the data series, which comes from the National Association of Realtors. The data since January 1999 was previously available in the St. Louis Fed's FRED repository and is now only available for the last twelve months. Over this time frame, we clearly see the Real Estate Bubble, which peaked in 2005 and then fell dramatically. Sales were volatile for the first year or so following the Great Recession. Now let's examine the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau's mid-month population estimates show an 18.9% increase in the US population since the turn of the century. The snapshot below is an overlay of the NAR's annualized estimates with a population-adjusted version.

 Comments on August Existing Home Sales - A few key points:
1) This was the highest sales rate since 2006. Existing home sales are counted at the close of escrow, so the August report was mostly for contracts signed in June and July - when the economy was much more open than in March and April. Some of the increase over the last three months was probably related to pent up demand from the shutdowns in March and April. However, with the high unemployment rate and the high rate of COVID infections, housing might be under some pressure later this year or in 2021. That is difficult to predict and depends on the course of the pandemic.
2) Inventory is very low, and was down 18.6% year-over-year (YoY) in August. This is the lowest level of inventory for August since at least the early 1990s. ..  This graph shows existing home sales by month for 2019 and 2020. Note that existing home sales picked up somewhat in the second half of 2019 as interest rates declined. Even with weak sales in April, May, and June, sales to date are only down about 3.2% compared to the same period in 2019.  The second graph shows existing home sales Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) by month (Red dashes are 2020), and the minimum and maximum for 2005 through 2019. Sales NSA in August (561,000) were 5.5% above sales last year in August (532,000).

New Home Sales increased to 1,011,000 Annual Rate in August - The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in August were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 1.011 million.The previous three months were revised up significantly.Sales of new single-family houses in August 2020 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,011,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 4.8 percent above the revised July rate of 965,000 and is 43.2 percent above the August 2019 estimate of 706,000.The first graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions since 1963. The dashed line is the current sales rate.  This is the highest sales rate since 2006. The second graph shows New Home Months of Supply. The months of supply decreased in August to 3.3 months from 3.6 months in July.   This is the all time record low months of supply.The all time record high was 12.1 months of supply in January 2009.  This is below the normal range (about 4 to 6 months supply is normal)."The seasonally-adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of August was 282,000. This represents a supply of 3.3 months at the current sales rate. "  Starting in 1973 the Census Bureau broke inventory down into three categories: Not Started, Under Construction, and Completed.The third graph shows the three categories of inventory starting in 1973. The inventory of completed homes for sale is low, and the combined total of completed and under construction is lower than normal.  The last graph shows sales NSA (monthly sales, not seasonally adjusted annual rate).In August 2020 (red column), 83 thousand new homes were sold (NSA). Last year, 57 thousand homes were sold in August. The all time high for August was 110 thousand in 2005, and the all time low for August was 23 thousand in 2010. This was well above expectations of 900 thousand sales SAAR, and sales in the three previous months were revised up significantly.

A few Comments on August New Home Sales - New home sales for August were reported at 1,011,000 on a seasonally adjusted annual rate basis (SAAR). Sales for the previous three months were revised up significantly. This was well above consensus expectations, and this was the highest sales rate since 2006. Clearly low mortgages rates, low existing home supply, and low sales in March and April (due to the pandemic) have led to a strong increase in sales.  Favorable demographics (something I wrote about many times over the last decade) and a surging stock market have probably helped new home sales too. Earlier: New Home Sales increased to 1,011,000 Annual Rate in August.  This graph shows new home sales for 2019 and 2020 by month (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate).New home sales were up 43.2% year-over-year (YoY) in August.   Year-to-date (YTD) sales are up 14.9%.  And on inventory: since new home sales are reported when the contract is signed - even if the home hasn't been started - new home sales are not limited by inventory.   Inventory for new home sales is important in that it means there will be more housing starts if inventory is low (like right now) - and fewer starts if inventory is too high (not now). No one should get too excited about new home sales as a leading indicator for the economy.  Many years ago, I wrote several articles about how new home sales and housing starts (especially single family starts) were some of the best leading indicators, however, I've also noted that there are times when this isn't true.   NOW is one of those times. Currently the course of the economy will be determined by the course of the virus, and New Home Sales tell us nothing about the future of the pandemic.  Without the pandemic, I'd obviously be very positive about this report.

 Fed's Flow of Funds: Household Net Worth Increased $6.2 Trillion in Q2 --The Federal Reserve released the Q2 2020 Flow of Funds report today: Flow of Funds.The net worth of households and nonprofits rose to $119.0 trillion during the second quarter of 2020. The value of directly and indirectly held corporate equities increased $5.7 trillion and the value of real estate increased $0.5 trillion. Household debt increased 0.5 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter of 2020. Consumer credit shrank at an annual rate of 6.6 percent, while mortgage debt (excluding charge-offs) grew at an annual rate of 3 percent.  The first graph shows Households and Nonprofit net worth as a percent of GDP.   With the sharp decline in GDP in Q2, net worth as a percent of GDP increased sharply. This includes real estate and financial assets (stocks, bonds, pension reserves, deposits, etc) net of liabilities (mostly mortgages). Note that this does NOT include public debt obligations. This graph shows homeowner percent equity since 1952.  Household percent equity (as measured by the Fed) collapsed when house prices fell sharply in 2007 and 2008.  In Q2 2020, household percent equity (of household real estate) was at 65.6% - up from Q1.   Note: about 30.3% of owner occupied households had no mortgage debt as of April 2010. So the approximately 50+ million households with mortgages have less than 56.6% equity - and about 1.7 million homeowners still have negative equity.  The third graph shows household real estate assets and mortgage debt as a percent of GDP.  Note this graph was impacted by the sharp decline in Q2 GDP.  Mortgage debt increased by $81 billion in Q2.  Mortgage debt is still down from the peak during the housing bubble, and, as a percent of GDP is at 54.4% - up from Q2 due to the decline in GDP - but down from a peak of 73.5% of GDP during the housing bubble.  The value of real estate, as a percent of GDP, increased in Q2, and is above the average of the last 30 years.

Mortgage Equity Withdrawal Increased in Q2 - The following data is calculated from the Fed's Flow of Funds data (released today) and the BEA supplement data on single family structure investment. This is an aggregate number, and is a combination of homeowners extracting equity - hence the name "MEW" - and normal principal payments and debt cancellation (modifications, short sales, and foreclosures). For Q2 2020, the Net Equity Extraction was $28 billion, or a 0.60% of Disposable Personal Income (DPI) .  This graph shows the net equity extraction, or mortgage equity withdrawal (MEW), results, using the Flow of Funds (and BEA data) compared to the Kennedy-Greenspan method. Note: This data is impacted by debt cancellation and foreclosures, but much less than a few years ago. MEW has been mostly positive for the last four years. The Fed's Flow of Funds report showed that the amount of mortgage debt outstanding increased by $81 billion in Q2.

 Q2 2020 Household Net Worth: The "Real" Story - With the September release of the Federal Reserve's Z.1. Financial Accounts of the United States for Q2 2020, we have updated this commentary to incorporate the latest data.  Let's take a long-term view of household net worth from the latest Z.1 release. A quick glance at the complete data series shows a distinct bubble in net worth that peaked in Q4 2007 with a trough in Q1 2009, the same quarter the stock market bottomed. The latest Fed balance sheet shows a total net worth that is 97% above the 2009 trough. The nominal Q2 net worth is up 6.8% from the previous quarter and up 4.4% year-over-year. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a clear impact on household net worth - notably the immediate decline due to income losses and the Federal government's reaction via the CARES Act.  But there are problems with this analysis. Over the six decades of this data series, total net worth has grown about 10,920%. A linear vertical scale on the chart above is misleading because it fails to provide an accurate visual illustration of growth over time. It also gives an exaggerated dimension to the bubble that began in 2002.  But there is another more serious problem, one that has to do with the data itself rather than the method of display. Over the same time frame that net worth grew more than 10,000%, the value of the 1950 dollar shrank to about $0.09. The Federal Reserve gives us the nominal value of total net worth, which is significantly skewed by money illusion. Here is a log scale chart adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index. Here is the same chart with an exponential regression through the data. The regression helps us see the twin wealth bubbles peaking in Q1 2000 and Q1 2007, the Tech and Real Estate bubbles. The trough in real household net worth was in Q1 2009. This indicator is now 5.3% above trend. The annualized growth rate over this time frame is 3.15%.

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Declined 30% Year-over-year - From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 12 September U.S. hotel occupancy decreased slightly from the previous week, according to the latest data from STR.
6-12 September 2020 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019):
• Occupancy: 48.5% (-30.2%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$98.99 (-25.5%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$47.96 (-48.1%)
The highest occupancy markets were those housing displaced residents from Hurricane Laura and western wildfires, with Louisiana North (77.2%) and Louisiana South (76.8%) showing the highest levels in the metric. The Oregon Area (73.7%) and California North (73.3%) markets were also among the top 5 highest occupancy levels for the week.
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 since the Great Depression for hotels - before 2020). There was some boost by Hurricane Laura and the western fires, but it seems unlikely business travel will pickup significantly in the Fall.

Hotels: Occupancy Rate Declined 32% Year-over-year -- From HotelNewsNow.com: STR: US hotel results for week ending 19 September: U.S. hotel occupancy was nearly flat from the previous week, according to the latest data from STR. 13-19 September 2020 (percentage change from comparable week in 2019):
• Occupancy: 48.6% (-31.9%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$95.84 (-28.9%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$46.54 (-51.6%)
Demand rose slightly (+0.3%), and the highest occupancy markets were once again those housing displaced residents from Hurricane Laura and western wildfires, with California South/Central showing the highest level in the metric (74.7%). The Louisiana South (72.8%) and Louisiana North (72.3%) markets were also among the top five highest occupancy levels for the week. The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average.

NYT Report: 9 of Every 10 Restaurants and Bars in N.Y.C. Can’t Pay Full Rent --This is just another respect in which the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the city hard and despite dropping COVID-19 numbers, there’s no end for the restaurant industry in sight According to the New York Times, 9 of Every 10 Restaurants and Bars in N.Y.C. Can’t Pay Full Rent: The ongoing travails of the industry were underscored by a survey released this week by the New York City Hospitality Alliance, which found that nearly nine out of every 10 dining establishments had not paid full rent in August and that about a third had not paid any rent.  Outdoor dining alone has not replaced any meaningful proportion of lost revenues. Yet nor will the much touted return of indoor dining at reduced capacity begin to solve the problem either. According to the NYT:Even as the city prepares to allow indoor dining at 25 percent capacity on Sept. 30, that may not be enough to reverse the steep economic slide of one of the city’s key industries. With the lack of tourists and office workers, many restaurants, particularly in Manhattan, are on the brink of collapse, posing a big obstacle to New York’s recovery.The 87 percent of restaurants that said they had not paid their entire August rent was an increase from the 80 percent that reported not paying all of their June rent. The survey was based on responses from 450 of the 2,500 businesses that make up the alliance’s membership.  The resumption of indoor dining at reduced capacity will allow restaurants to welcome more diners, but some owners said that would not be enough to offset the loss of outdoor dining because of cold weather or the end of the city-permitted program on Oct. 31. We seem to have lost our way policy-wise. At the same time as the UK government has provided funds to encourage customers to dine out, New York dithers about incremental changes that would encourage continued outdoor dining:  The city should allow restaurants to use portable propane heaters, which are currently banned, said Andrew Rigie, the executive director of the hospitality alliance. He said heaters hooked up to natural gas lines were permitted but were expensive to install and required special permits. With policymakers focusing on such small ball strategies, is it any winder NY restaurants are in such a state? To be sure, the major blow comes from the disease itself, but NYC seems to be doing its best to make things worse and drive the maximum number of bars and restaurants out of business. But the evictions crisis is not an easy problem to solve. And on solving that problem turns the question of the survival of so any bars and restaurants. Over again to the NYT: Socially distanced outdoor dining brings in only a fraction of what a restaurant’s typical income might be, and many establishments were already having a hard time making a profit. Many restaurants are still trying to pay rent owed from the months when they were shut down, making it even harder to cover rent in more recent months Federal aid through the Paycheck Protection Program, which was meant to help preserve workers’ jobs, offset some costs, but that has mostly run out. The inability of restaurants to pay rent has also dealt a severe blow to many smaller landlords, who have their own bills to pay. Whether a restaurant is able to pay rent often hinges on whether landlords and tenants can make deals. About 60 percent of the businesses that responded to the alliance’s survey said that their landlords had not waived any portion of their rent. Landlords are struggling to pay mortgages and property taxes, and their income is dependent on rents’ being paid in full. “We’re at margins that are very thin,” he said.

Father, Son Used-Car Sellers Get $5 Billion Richer in a Day --Carvana Co. has yet to post a quarterly profit since going public in 2017, but it’s made Ernie Garcia II and his son Ernest Garcia III two of the richest people in America. The elder Garcia is the largest shareholder of Phoenix-based Carvana, the online retailer that sells cars out of massive vending machines. His son, Garcia III, is the company’s chief executive officer. Together they’re worth $21.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Shares of the company surged 31% in New York on Tuesday after it projected record revenue and profit margins. “Covid-19 is prompting consumers to seek out used cars, and CVNA is a key beneficiary of this trend,” Carvana lets customers choose from more than 19,000 cars and complete purchases in as little as 10 minutes, according to its website. Buyers have the option of picking up their car at more than a dozen vending machines located around the country, using a giant coin. Its revenue doubled to $3.9 billion last year as it sold about 200,000 cars. It now sees a path to 2 million sales a year. Garcia II is worth more than $15 billion and his son $6.4 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Index, which tracks the daily fortunes of the world’s richest 500 people.

 Rivian Faces Ban From Michigan Car Dealers in Direct-Sales Fight - Michigan auto dealers are trying to block startup electric carmakers including Rivian Automotive Inc. and Lucid Motors Inc. from following inTesla Inc.’s footsteps by selling vehicles directly to consumers and servicing them in the state.A bill introduced in the Michigan legislature last week would block any manufacturer other than Tesla from selling cars to customers without a dealer as an intermediary and from owning and operating service and repair facilities. It could come up for a vote as soon as Tuesday, according to a Rivian official.The 11-year-old company has raised about $6 billion from backers includingFord Motor Co. and Amazon.com Inc. It expects to begin production of its first two vehicles -- a battery-powered pickup and a sport-utility vehicle -- by mid-2021.The Michigan bill is an attempt to shut the door behind Tesla, whichprevailed in a years-long legal battle with Michigan auto dealers in January when the Michigan attorney general granted a workaround that allows the electric carmaker to deliver its vehicles to buyers without requiring them to leave the state. The attorney general’s stipulation also allows Tesla to indirectly own service centers in Michigan through a subsidiary. This sets Tesla apart from Ford, General Motors Co., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and other auto companies, which operate under franchise laws that have been on the books for decades and were originally put in place to prevent manufacturers from opening stores that competed with dealers.“This is a bullseye on Rivian and Lucid and any EV manufacturer that would come in after Tesla does,” said James Chen, Rivian’s vice president of public policy. Auto dealers are “protecting a monopoly through legislation.”The Michigan Automobile Dealers Association, which represents about 600 new-car dealerships in the state, says the agreement with Tesla didn’t change state law banning direct sales, and the bill is intended to clear up any ambiguity.

Wolf Richter: Nikola Hype Collapses, Shares Plunge Further, Founder/CEO Pushed Out. GM Swoons -- Shares of the electric truck maker Nikola that hasn’t made a single truck — not even a working prototype that uses its own technology — started trading on June 4, 2020, through a reverse merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) VectoIQ Holdings – the boom in SPACs being another phenomenon that shows how nuts this market has gotten. By June 9, Nikola’s market capitalization had vaulted to $29 billion as day-trader fans were going nuts over it, trying to get rich quick on this supernatural phenomenon. Then the collapse began, the collapse in every aspect, including the collapse of hype. This morning, the company announced in an astounding SEC filing that CEO and founder Trevor Milton, who is immersed in fraud allegations, was out, and the way it was done, namely effective yesterday, September 20, suggests that this was an orchestrated firing over the weekend, dressed up as “voluntary.” Some excerpts from the SEC filing: The Executive hereby voluntarily hands over and otherwise relinquishes, and the Company accepts his relinquishment of, his position as Executive Chairman of the Company and all positions as an employee and officer of the Company and its subsidiaries (the “Company Group”), and his position as a Director on the Board and a director of any of the Company’s subsidiaries, including all committees thereof effective as of the Effective Date and without the need for any other action.On September 10, Nikola got hammered by detailed allegations of short-seller Hindenburg Research that the company was “an intricate fraud built on dozens of lies over the course of its Founder and Executive Chairman Trevor Milton’s career.” In explaining its short position on the stock, Hindenburg Research summarized: “We have never seen this level of deception at a public company, especially of this size.”Then Monday last week, Bloomberg, citing sources, reported that the SEC was examining Nikola “to assess the merits” of the fraud allegations of Hindenburg Research. Milton had responded to the allegations with some tweets, that made things only worse. The company, still on Monday, came out with a rebuttal, that didn’t help matters either.The deal with GM, announced on September 8 – though the media and Wall Street analysts oohed and aahed over it and caused the shares of both companies to soar briefly – raised red flags about the Nikola’s so-called industry-leading core technology upon which all the hype had been built, namely its battery and fuel cell technology that were supposed to power its trucks.In the deal with GM, however, it was revealed that GM’s own Hydrotec fuel cell technology and Ultium battery systems would power Nikola’s Badger pickup trucks, not Nikola’s technology, which raised further doubts about the validity of Nikola’s technology breakthrough claims. Not only would GM provide the core technology for those trucks, Nikola also disclosed that GM would “engineer, validate, homologate and build the Nikola Badger for both the battery electric vehicle and fuel cell electric vehicle variants as part of the in-kind services.”

Headline Durable Goods Orders Up 0.4% in August - The Advance Report on Manufacturers’ Shipments, Inventories, and Orders released today gives us a first look at the latest durable goods numbers. Here is the Bureau's summary on new orders: New orders for manufactured durable goods in August increased $1.0 billion or 0.4 percent to $232.8 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase, up four consecutive months, followed an 11.7 percent July increase. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 0.4 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 0.7 percent. Machinery, also up four consecutive months, led the increase, $0.5 billion or 1.5 percent to $31.2 billion. Download full PDF  The latest new orders number at 0.4% month-over-month (MoM) was worse than the Investing.com 1.5% estimate. The series is down 4.6% year-over-year (YoY).If we exclude transportation, "core" durable goods was up 0.4% MoM, which was worse than the Investing.com consensus of 1.2%. The core measure is up 0.1% YoY.If we exclude both transportation and defense for an even more fundamental "core", the latest number is up 0.9% MoM and up 1.1% YoY.Core Capital Goods New Orders (nondefense capital goods used in the production of goods or services, excluding aircraft) is an important gauge of business spending, often referred to as Core Capex. It is up 1.8% MoM and up 2.8% YoY. For a look at the big picture and an understanding of the relative size of the major components, here is an area chart of Durable Goods New Orders minus Transportation and Defense with those two components stacked on top. We've also included a dotted line to show the relative size of Core Capex.

 Richmond Fed: "Manufacturing Activity Improved in September" -- Earlier from the Richmond Fed: Manufacturing Activity Improved in September - Manufacturing activity in the Fifth District improved in September, according to the most recent survey from the Richmond Fed. The composite index climbed from 18 in August to 21 in September, buoyed by increases in the indicators for new orders and employment. The third component index—shipments—decreased but remained positive, suggesting continued expansion. Survey results also reflected improvement in local business conditions and increased capital spending. Overall, respondents were optimistic that conditions would continue to improve in the next six months. Results reflected higher employment among many survey participants in September and suggested several manufacturers raised wages over the month. This was above consensus expectations.

 Kansas City Fed: "Tenth District Manufacturing Activity Increased at a Slower Pace" in September -From the Kansas City Fed: Tenth District Manufacturing Activity Increased at a Slower Pace The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released the September Manufacturing Survey today. According to Chad Wilkerson, vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the survey revealed that Tenth District manufacturing activity increased at a slower pace in September and remained lower than a year ago, while expectations for future activity were positive.“Regional factory activity expanded again in September but was still below year-ago levels for the majority of firms,” said Wilkerson. “Firms’ expectations for future activity continued to be relatively optimistic, although they anticipated slightly lower wage and salary growth in the year ahead.”The month-over-month composite index was 11 in September, slightly lower than 14 in August but higher than 3 in July ...The composite index is an average of the production, new orders, employment, supplier delivery time, and raw materials inventory indexes. Activity at non-durable and durable goods factories expanded at a similar pace. The increase in activity at food and beverage manufacturers was slower in September than in previous months, when activity bounced back more sharply. Most month-over-month indexes remained positive, indicating continued expansion. Production, shipments, new orders, and employment rose at a slower pace, while order backlog and supplier delivery time increased. The indexes for employee workweek and new orders for exports dipped slightly, and inventory indexes for materials and finished goods were negative.This suggests activity has bottomed, but activity is still below a year ago.

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims increased to 870,000 -- The DOL reported:  In the week ending September 19, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 870,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 6,000 from 860,000 to 866,000. The 4-week moving average was 878,250, a decrease of 35,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 1,500 from 912,000 to 913,500.  This does not include the 630,080 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) that was down from 675,154 the previous week. (There are some questions on PUA numbers). The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.

Initial jobless claims rise slightly, while continuing claims decline - both at still awful levels -  This morning’s jobless claims report indicated that the trend of “less worse” news is at best continuing at a snail’s pace, and at levels worse than the worst weekly levels of the Great Recession. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims rose by 28,527 to 824,542. After seasonal adjustment (which is far less important than usual at this time), claims rose by 4,000 to 870,000, slightly above their revised “best” reading of 866,000. The 4 week moving average, however, declined by 35,250 to a new pandemic low of 913,500: Continuing claims declined both on a non-adjusted basis (by 176,510 to 12,264,351, and on a seasonally adjusted basis by 167,000 to 12,580,000, both new pandemic lows: This remains almost exactly half of their worst levels at the beginning of May, and more than 4 million higher than the worst level of continuing claims during the Great Recession. There has been only very slow downward movement in new jobless claims over the past seven weeks. As a result, the pandemic shock recession is gradually turning into something much more chronic at very depressed levels.

 Nonfarm Payroll Employment vs. Trend, Pre-Covid-19 - Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment (blue), deterministic trend estimated 2013M01-2017M01 (brown), both on log scale. Source: BLS and author’s calculations. Figure 2: Nonfarm payroll employment (blue), stochastic trend estimated 2013M01-2017M01 (brown), both on log scale. Source: BLS and author’s calculations. The above graphs are useful if you thought everything was hunky-dory employment-wise, even before the pandemic hit.

  September Employment Report Will Show a Decrease of 41,403 Temporary Census Workers - The Census Bureau released an update today on 2020 Census Paid Temporary Workers. The release today was for the BLS reference week for the September employment report.  As of the August reference week, there were 288,204 decennial Census temporary workers. As of the September reference week, there were 246,801 temporary Census workers. This means the September employment report will show a decrease of 41,403 temporary Census workers. This will decrease the headline number.   In August, the employment report showed a gain of 238,000 temporary 2020 Census workers, boosting the headline number.

Study finds 90 percent of Americans would make 67 percent more without last four decades of increasing income inequality -  A new study from the RAND Corporation, “Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018,” written by Carter Price and Kathryn Edwards, provides new documentation of the profound restructuring of class relations in America over the last 40 years.The study, which looks at changes in pre-tax family income from 1947 to 2018, divided into quintiles of the American population, concludes that the bottom 90 percent of the population would, on average, make 67 percent more in income—every year (!)—had shifts in income inequality not occurred the last four decades.  In other words, any family that made less than $184,292 (the 90th percentile income bracket) in 2018 would be, on average, making 67 percent more. This amounts to a total sum of $2.5 trillion of collective lost income for the bottom 90 percent, just in 2018. Furthermore, the study concludes, that had more equitable growth continued after 1975 (a date they use as a shifting point), the bottom 90 percent of American households would have earned a total of $47 trillion more in income.Given that there were about 115 million households in the bottom 90 percent of the US in 2018 population (out of a total of 127.59 million in 2018), that would mean that each of these households would, on average, be $408,696 richer today with this lost income.To reach these conclusions, the authors break down historical real, pre-tax, income into different quintiles of the population (bottom fifth, second fifth, third fifth, fourth fifth, highest fifth). Looking at the period between 1947 and 2018, they divide the years based on business cycles (booms and busts of the economy). As the data shows, while the bottom 40 percent of American households made significant percentile increases to their income, relative to the top 5 percent, for the 20 years between 1947 and 1968, in the 40 years from 1980 to the present, this trend was reversed. In 1980-2000, the bottom 40 percent of the population experienced a net income gain significantly below that of the top 5 percent. It must be noted that because these are percentile increases, the absolute differences between the gains of the rich versus the poor is far larger.

 Many workers have exhausted their state’s regular unemployment benefits: The CARES Act provided important UI benefits and Congress must act to extend them   Another 1.5 million people applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits last week. That includes 870,000 people who applied for regular state UI and 630,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). PUA is the federal program for workers who are not eligible for regular unemployment insurance, like gig workers. It provides up to 39 weeks of benefits, but it is set to expire at the end of this year.Last week was the 27th week in a row—more than six months—that total initial claims were far greater than the worst week of the Great Recession. If you restrict to regular state claims (because we didn’t have PUA in the Great Recession), claims are still greater than the 3rd-worst week of the Great Recession. We’ve hit a grim milestone. Most states provide 26 weeks of regular benefits. That means last week was the first week many workers had exhausted their regular state UI. However, data on continuing claims for regular state UI is delayed a week, so we can’t see the drop yet. The good news is that unless there are administrative glitches, total claims should not fall as a result of individuals exhausting regular state UI, because unemployed workers can move onto Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which is an additional 13 weeks of regular state UI (and is only available to people who were on regular state UI). Note: PEUC was part of the CARES Act. It is different from Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, or PUC, the now-expired $600 additional weekly benefit, which anyone on any UI program had been eligible for. With people moving from regular state benefits onto PEUC, I expect PEUC began to spike up dramatically last week. However, because of reporting delays for PEUC, we won’t get PEUC data from last week until October 8th. Department of Labor (DOL) data suggest that right now, 28.4 million workers are either on unemployment benefits or have applied recently and are waiting to get approved (see Figure A). But importantly, that number is a substantial overestimate for at least two reasons: (1) Initial claims for regular state UI and PUA should be non-overlapping—that is how DOL has directed state agencies to report them—but some individuals are erroneously being counted as being in both programs; (2) Some states are including retroactive payments in their continuing PUA claims, which would also lead to double counting (this story does a great job of explaining this). The bottom line is that, astoundingly, nobody knows exactly how many people are receiving unemployment insurance benefits right now. This is a grim reminder that we need to invest heavily in our data infrastructure and technology.

 Coronavirus Economic Distress Hitting Indebted Professionals -  Yves Smith - The Wall Street Journal describes tonight how the line between two tiers of the Covid economy isn’t as tidy as many might think. It isn’t just hourly workers in service businesses like restaurants and hotels who are seeing smaller or even no paycheck. High income professionals are also in distress due to having relatively high level of borrowings which makes them vulnerable to declines in income.We warned early on, as did a Bloomberg story in June, that layoffs would increase higher up the job ladder as it became more evident that Covid-19 damage was not just severe but long-lived.From the Bloomberg account (note the chart is interactive, so go to the original story if you’d like to play with it): The pandemic isn’t finished with the U.S. labor market, threatening a second wave of job cuts—this time among white-collar workers.Close to 6 million jobs are potentially on the line, according to Bloomberg Economics. That includes higher-paid supervisors in sectors where frontline workers were hit first, such as restaurants and hotels. It also includes the knock on-effects to connected industries such as professional services, finance and real estateAnd the Bloomberg analysis found that these “second wave” losses would have a disproportionate impact: While not as high in number as the initial wave of layoffs, the second round will still pack a sizable economic punch, as it will include middle-class Americans who drive discretionary spending, a major growth engine. An additional issue, which this article does not address directly, is that work both at the high end and the low end has become specialized. When manufacturing was much more important to the economy, employers expected to train new hires, although they would often require a basic level of mathematical and reading skills. Today, even fast food outlets prefer to hire front line and managerial personnel with industry experience. In The Predator State, Jamie Galbraith argued that having a society invest heavily in conferring advanced degrees was not a plus. The cost of that education, in terms of the resources involves as well as the student foregoing wages in order to earn the degree, is high. Yet by investing in that training, those students have chosen to limit their career opportunities, which may not be a good bet in the long haul. If employment contracts in your field and you are one of the ones who winds up earning less or losing a job entirely, the immediately available replacement is usually at a much much lower skill level, where to add insult to injury, employers will worry that the displaced professional is overqualified and won’t stick around long. And getting established in a new field takes time and often involves spending on new training….and that self-reinvention process may not work.

Derision, Disbelief After Iowa Meatpacking Plant Where Hundreds Caught Coronavirus Fined Just $957 -  Iowa regulators on Thursday levied their first coronavirus-related fine against a meatpacking plant—a $957 citation for a minor record-keeping violation by a subsidiary of one of the nation’s biggest beef processing companies.The Associated Press reports the Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the citation to the Iowa Premium Beef Plant in Tama, where 338 of the facility’s 850 employees tested positive for Covid-19 during an April outbreak that produced one of the state’s first “hot spots.” That’s 80 more workers than the state previously acknowledged, according to inspection records.Iowa OSHA announced on June 1 that it would investigate the Tama plant and four other meat processing facilities in the state where thousands of workers had tested positive for coronavirus. Records reviewed by the AP showed that none of the other plants were fined, despite at least nine Covid-19 deaths among them.The other facilities that were investigated by the agency are Tyson Foods plants in Waterloo, Columbus Junction, and Perry, and the JBS plant in Marshalltown.Iowa OSHA cited two “other-than-serious” violations committed by the Tama plant: failure to keep a required log of workplace-related injuries and illnesses, and failure to provide the document within four hours after inspectors requested it.The fine was originally meant to be twice as high. However, Iowa OSHA Administrator Russell Perry approved a settlement with the company cutting the amount in half. Iowa Premium Beef—which last year was purchased by National Beef, the nation’s fourth-largest beef processor—also agreed to correct the violations. Observers reacted to the fine with disbelief and derision: [embedded tweets]  The first Iowa fine comes less than two weeks after the U.S. Labor Department fined JBS Foods, the U.S. subsidiary of Brazilian giant JBS SA—which, with over $50 billion in annual sales, is the world’s largest meat processing company—a paltry $15,615 for failing to adequately protect workers against coronavirus.

'I cry before work': US essential workers burned out amid pandemic  - Terri Prunty Kay has worked as a cashier at Walmart in Sonoma county, California since 2011. She had never cried at work because of treatment from customers before the pandemic.“It’s been a nightmare,” she said. “The first three months there were item limits. Everyone was angry and combative. Now it’s the masks.” Prunty Kay has asthma and wears a mask at work, but not all customers follow the mask policy. The heat in the store and through the summer has made it unbearable to work and she said her store is understaffed with long lines at the registers.“It’s exhausting, mentally, emotionally and physically,” she added.Punty Kay is just one of the millions of essential jobs around the US reporting burnout, fatigue, stress and anxiety while continuing to work through Covid-19.A national poll conducted in August 2020 by Eagle Hill Consulting found 58% of US workers reported burnout, compared to 45% polled in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020. More workers also attributed their burnout to Covid-19 circumstances, at 35% compared to 25% in the previous poll. A July 2020 poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation on adults in the US found 53% reported their mental health was negatively affected by coronavirus related worry and stress, compared to 32% reported in March.In interviews with the Guardian, essential workers reported burnout caused by increased workloads, understaffing, stress associated with fears over coronavirus and struggles in enforcing social distancing and safety protocols. Jennifer Sims, an advocate and housing coordinator for a domestic violence nonprofit in Pendleton, Oregon, has been dealing with a 30% increase in calls during the pandemic. At the same time coronavirus safety protocols have halted transportation of clients and the ability to respond to sexual assault victims at local hospitals. The pandemic has also made it increasingly difficult to help victims find housing and its attendant recession has left many concerned with how they will afford rent. “It makes it incredibly difficult to assist someone who has been through such a gut-wrenching trauma when the phone is the only option,” said Sims. “We have helped a lot of individuals during this pandemic. I really do love my job. But it doesn’t come without burnout and adding a pandemic to it makes the stress level through the roof.” Grocery store and food service workers have faced enormous stress throughout the pandemic. Most grocery and food chains began ending hazard pay for essential workers in June 2020.Elizabeth Rung works in the front end as a grocery store cashier in Seattle, Washington. “More and more people are calling out [sick], we’re short staffed all the time,” Rung said. “Customers are becoming crazy, sometimes violent when asked to wear a mask and we aren’t allowed to give out free masks due to the drama and hostility. I haven’t slept well in months.”

39 States Don't Have Enough Money To Pay Their Bills …It’s not just the federal government running massive deficits and piling up enormous levels of debt. Thirty-nine US states don’t have enough money to pay all of their bills.  That was the grim conclusion of Truth in Accounting’s annual Financial State of the States report.The report summarizes a comprehensive analysis surveying the fiscal health of the 50 states prior to the coronavirus pandemic.Total debt for all states combined totaled $1.4 trillion at the end of fiscal 2019. This does not include debt related to capital assets.  "Most of the states were ill-prepared for any crisis, much less one as serious as what we are currently facing.”Ironically, 49 states require balanced budgets by law. As the report explains, “This means that to balance the budget … elected officials have not included the true costs of the government in their budget calculations and have pushed costs onto future taxpayers.”The vast majority of state debt comes from unfunded retirement benefit obligations. This includes pension plans and retiree healthcare liabilities. Pension debt accounts for $855 billion and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) totaled $617 billion at the end of FY 2019.The coronavirus pandemic and the accompanying government-imposed economic shutdowns have only exacerbated financial problems at the state level. The report estimates the 50 states could lose $397 billion in revenue.These numbers pale compared to the debt being piled up by the federal government. But Uncle Sam has access to the Federal Reserve’s printing press and can create money out of thin air to backstop its borrowing and spending. States don’t have that option. They have to rely on accounting tricks and ultimately federal bailouts to fill their gaping budget holes. The surging levels of state debt will probably end up piled on top of the national debt.

Nearly 20 percent of Americans don't have enough to eat   – More than 18 percent of U.S. adults do not know whether they will have enough to eat from day to day, and the numbers are worse for Hispanics, Blacks, people with obesity, and women, a new report shows.“The percentage of adults with food insecurity ­– the lack of access to adequate food – more than doubled between 1999 and 2016,”  said Candice Myers, PhD, assistant professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center and lead author of the article published in JAMA.  “The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly worsened the situation.  The country may face long-term economic and health consequences unless we solve this public health crisis.” The study looked at national trends in food insecurity among U.S. adults from 1999 to 2016 using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The study found that food insecurity rates jumped to:

• 35 percent among Hispanic adults, from 19.5 percent
• 1 percent among Blacks, from 12.4 percent.
• 6 percent among people with obesity, from 10.4 percent.
• 2 percent among women, from 8.7 percent.

Dr. Myers said the study further solidifies the link between food insecurity and unhealthy body weight.Food insecurity has a range of health consequences, all of them negative, she said.  Obesity is key among them.  “Food insecurity and obesity are not mutually exclusive,” Dr. Myers said.  “Rather, these health issues are linked in such a way that a solution will require public policy that addresses both at the same time.”

Louisville police chief declares “state of emergency” in advance of state’s decision on charges against policemen who killed Breonna Taylor - The chief of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) has issued a special order declaring a state of emergency in preparation for an imminent announcement from Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron on whether or not criminal charges will be brought against the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American emergency medical technician, in her home six months ago. Interim Chief of LMPD Robert Schroeder sent a memo to all department personnel on Monday stating that requests for vacations and days off were being cancelled until further notice. “In anticipation of Attorney General Cameron’s announcement in the Breonna Taylor case, I am declaring a state of emergency for the Louisville Metro Police Department,” Schroeder wrote in his memo. Chief Schroeder also said that to “ensure we have the appropriate level of staffing to provide for public safety services and our policing functions,” LMPD will operate under the emergency staffing and reporting guidelines outlined in the city’s Emergency Response Plan. This plan contains a lengthy section on “Civil Disturbances/Disorderly Crowds” that was updated on Monday. In addition to the LMPD staffing requirements, Sgt. Lamont Washington reported in a news release, “The public may also see barriers being staged around downtown, which is another part of our preparations.” Attorney General Cameron is expected this week to present before a grand jury the findings of the months’ long investigation into the brutal police killing of Taylor on March 13, 2020. Taylor was shot eight times and bled to death on the floor of her apartment during a “no-knock” search warrant raid carried out by three plainclothes LMPD officers.

Protests erupt over whitewash of police murder of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky - Protests erupted in Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday following the announcement that a grand jury impaneled by the state attorney general, Daniel Cameron, had decided not to bring criminal charges against police officers for shooting and killing Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American emergency medical technician. Taylor was felled by multiple bullets during a police raid on her home in the early morning hours of March 13. Anger over Taylor’s killing—along with the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25—has fueled months of multi-racial protests across the US and internationally demanding an end to police violence and racism. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Louisville as soon as Cameron, who served as a special prosecutor in the case, announced the grand jury’s decision at an afternoon press conference. Soon after, phalanxes of riot police waded into the crowd of peaceful protesters, swinging clubs and carrying out multiple arrests. Already on Monday, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear had declared a state of emergency in Louisville and ordered a lockdown of the downtown business area, enforced with the aid of concrete barricades set up by the police. By Wednesday, Beshear had activated the Kentucky National Guard and Louisville Mayor Greg Fisher, also a Democrat, had imposed a 72-hour curfew from 9 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., beginning Wednesday night. In the weeks following the murder of George Floyd, hundreds of thousands marched and demonstrated in a wave of protests that spread to small towns as well as big cities. Louisville has remained a center of anti-police violence protests. Thousands have been arrested in violent crackdowns by police, who have assaulted and detained journalists and fired countless rounds of tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets. Two protesters were killed by a right-wing militia member in Kenosha, Wisconsin last month during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake. President Donald Trump has hailed the police violence against demonstrators and incited violent attacks on protesters by far-right and fascistic elements, including armed militia groups. His Department of Homeland Security sent federal police and paramilitary forces into Portland and Seattle to lead the crackdown on protesters in those cities. Trump has defended the targeted assassination of anti-fascist protester Michael Reinoehl by a police squad led by US Marshals..

Two Police Shot In Louisville Amid Violent Protests After Officers Who Killed Breonna Taylor Walk - At least two Metropolitan law enforcement officers have been shot in Louisville, Kentucky, on Wednesday following angry protests after the officers linked to the March 13th killing of Breonna Taylor, failed to be charged for her murder.WDRB reported that an officer was shot at the intersection of Brook and Broadway in downtown Louisville just before 8 p.m. Wednesday. The news was later confirmed by LMPD Spokesperson Lamont Washington in an email. Katrina Helmer, of WDRB-TV, tweeted one of the shootings on Twitter stating an officer had been shot at Brook and Broadway.OFFICER SHOT: Per MetroSafe, one LMPD Officer has been shot at Brook & Broadway. This is a look outside U of L hospital right now, the ER entrance off Chestnut & Hancock. @WDRBNews#Louisville pic.twitter.com/LFCMr5624O— Katrina Helmer (@KatrinaWDRB) September 24, 2020  Another report by WKYT a local Kentucy news station, later stated that at least two officers had been shot.Thus far details remain obscure about the circumstances of the shooting. Although, the condition of the two officers is said to be stable and the suspect is in custody according to WKYT which reported a police statement.KIRO7 corroberated those reports stating Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Robert Schroeder confirmed at a news conference that two officers shot were in stable condition. Both officers are currently undergoing treatment at the University of Louisville Hospital. Schroeder further described both officers’ injuries as non-life-threatening.The officers were fired on after responding to a separate “shots fired call” at about 8:30 p.m. ET, Chief Schroeder said in a brief press conference. “Both officers are currently undergoing treatment at University Hospital,” LMPD Interim Chief Rob Schroeder said at a news conference at about 10:15 p.m. Wednesday. “One is alert and stable. One is undergoing surgery and is stable.”

Two Vehicles Hit Breonna Taylor Black Lives Matter Protesters In LA -   Not one but two vehicles collided with protesters on Thursday night in Los Angeles who were standing up against the Kentucky grand jury decision not to charge officiers who brutally killed Breonna Taylor, Abc News reported. Around 300 protesters gathered on Sunset Boulevard, according to Los Angeles Police Department.A truck drove through the group of protesters in Hollywood on Thursday night, striking at least one person as it sped through the crowd, according to the police and news footage from the scene. Moments later a second vehicle hit a car participating in the same protest as it tried to leave the area, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. The injured protester was taken to a hospital in unknown condition, but the video shows the driver driving over her body. Reports on social media claim protesters surrounded the truck and hit it with sticks, before the driver accelerated and ran over the protesters. However, Christian Monterrosa a freelance journalist said it was clear that the truck aggravated the situation. “I would say the truck instigated the incident, definitely,” Monterrosa said.Demonstrators had gathered at 7 p.m. at Hollywood Forever Cemetery before marching through the streets of Hollywood, LA Times reported.Video footage posted to Twitter and YouTube shows, a dark-colored pickup truck accelerate into the protesters, striking one directly and hurtling the person backwards. Police later tracked the driver down and questioned him. However, Fox News reports that the unidentified male driver was later released by cops.Only approximately 10 minutes later a white Prius tried to drive through a group of demonstrators who had gathered in an intersection, according to the LAPD. Video footage from KCAL-TV Channel 9’s chopper, Sky9, shows the car crash between the Prius and another vehicle. “It wasn’t traveling at a fast speed — it was inching forward, trying to get past, and that upset people,” said Monterrosa, the photojournalist. People in the crowd began striking the car’s windows and doors, the news footage shows. After the Prius cleared the crowd of people, the Prius speeds past a red light with a black pickup truck with people sitting in the bed and a green Mustang, accelerating ahead of the Prius. The truck then pulls to a stop attempting to block it. A man then gets out of the truck and appeared to try to pull the driver out of the Prius according to the video. The Prius reverses and then collides with a green Mustang convertible, which was associated with the protest, according to the LAPD. A person then gets out of the convertible and begins striking the Prius with a flagpole, the video depicts, while another person arrived on a skateboard, which he uses to smash the Prius’ windshield. The driver then leaves the scene driving off but was detained a few blocks away by the LAPD. No one was injured in the incident, according to police.

Revealed: pro-Trump activists plotted violence ahead of Portland rallies --Leaked chat logs show Portland-area pro-Trump activists planning and training for violence, sourcing arms and ammunition and even suggesting political assassinations ahead of a series of contentious rallies in the Oregon city, including one scheduled for this weekend.The chats on the GroupMe app, shared with the Guardian by the antifascist group Eugene Antifa, show conversations between Oregon members of the Patriots Coalition growing more extreme as they discuss armed confrontations with leftwing Portland activists, and consume a steady diet of online disinformation about protests and wildfires.At times, rightwing activists discuss acts of violence at recent, contentious protests, which in some cases they were recorded carrying out. At one point, David Willis, a felon currently being sued for his alleged role in an earlier episode of political violence, joins a discussion about the use of paintballs.Where other members had previously suggested freezing the paintballs for maximum damage, Willis wrote: “They make glass breaker balls that are rubber coated metal. They also have pepper balls but they are about 3 dollars a ball. Don’t freeze paintballs it makes them wildly inaccurate” [sic.] Willis did not immediately respond to voice and text messages sent to his listed cellphone number.  Another prolific poster is Mark Melchi, a 41-year-old Dallas, Oregon-based car restorer who claims to have served as a captain in the US army. Melchi has been recorded leading an armed pro-Trump militia, “1776 2.0” into downtown confrontations in Portland, including on 22 August. At several points in the chat he proposes violence in advance of those confrontations, and appears to confess to prior acts committed in the company of his paramilitary group.In advance of the 22 August protest, Melchi wrote: “It’s going to be bloody and most likely shooting, they’re definitely armed… so let’s make sure we have an organized direction of movement and direction of clearing or other Patriots will be caught in the possible cross fire. When shit hits the fan.”

Four charged after black man's body found burning in Iowa ditch  - Four people were charged in the strangulation death of a black man whose body was found burning in a ditch in Iowa, authorities said. Steven Vogel, 31, of Grinnell, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of strangling to death 44-year-old Michael Williams on Sept. 12, the Iowa Department of Public Safety said. Williams’ body was then wrapped, bound and dumped four days later in a ditch near Kellogg, where it was set ablaze, police said. The three other people arrested in the killing were Vogel’s mother, Julia Cox, 55; Roy Garner, 57; and Cody Johnson, 29. Vogel was charged with first-degree murder, while the others face charges for destruction of evidence and accessory after the fact, authorities said. They are all charged with abuse of a corpse. No motive has been released in the slaying, though cops noted that Vogel and Williams were well acquainted. The four charged in the case are all white, but police said there’s no evidence that the crime was racially motivated.

Canceling Beethoven is the latest woke madness for the classical-music world -  If there’s anything we should have learned from months of “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter street protests, statue toppling and online mobs seeking to silence anyone who dissents against leftist narratives about “racism,” it’s that no one, living or dead, is safe from the attentions of woke fascists. Even Ludwig van Beethoven.Beethoven’s work is not only at the core of the standard repertory of classical music; some of his most popular works have also become part of popular culture, their melodies recognizable even to those who’ve never heard an orchestral concert.For the last 200 years, Beethoven’s compositions have also been symbols of the struggle for freedom against tyranny. The “Ode to Joy” from the conclusion to his Ninth Symphony remains the definitive anthem of universal brotherhood. It is no coincidence that the opening notes of his Fifth Symphony — whose rhythmic pattern duplicates the Morse Code notation for the letter “V” as in “V for Victory” — were used by the BBC for broadcasts to occupied Europe during the Second World War.But to woke critics, Beethoven’s music has taken on a new, darker meaning. To musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding, stars of the “Switched on Pop” podcast produced in association with the New York Philharmonic, the Fifth Symphony is a stand-in for everything they don’t like about classical music and Western culture. As far as they’re concerned, it’s time to cancel Ludwig.On Vox.com, the pair blame Beethoven’s music for what they consider to be a stuffy elitist classical culture that bolsters the rule of white males and suppresses the voices of women, blacks and the LGBTQ community. Beethoven’s music was so profound and different that it did begin the trend of adopting rules of behavior at concerts, like being quiet during performances and holding applause until the conclusion. But the idea that such music is the “soundtrack” for “white privilege” and oppression is imposing a contemporary woke narrative on Beethoven that has nothing to do with his music or the way it’s performed.

More than a billion school meals not served during pandemic: - School closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to low or no-cost school breakfast and lunch programs for millions of low-income children. States and school districts developed innovative solutions to meet the nutritional needs of children and respond to the rapidly growing food insecurity crisis, yet the number of replacement meals is likely far short of what they provided prior to the pandemic, according to a study led by a researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The findings are published in the American Journal of Public These shortfalls came despite significant efforts at all levels. The USDA issued waivers that allowed states and localities to find new ways to provide meals to students who need them. Due to increased community need, some districts offered grab-and-go meals in outdoor locations and expanded meal distribution to seven days per week. Home delivery has been another common approach, especially in rural districts, and in many districts, school meal access was expanded to include to any child age up to age 18 years and students with disabilities up to age 26.

Los Angeles educators form rank-and-file safety committee to oppose unsafe school reopening - The drive to reopen schools in Los Angeles—with 734,000 students and nearly 60,000 teachers and support staff—poses serious issues of life and death. In light of this, teachers and education workers have formed the Los Angeles Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, which advances the following demands to unite the enormous opposition to the profit-driven school reopening:

• 1. No to in-person and hybrid learning across all K-12 schools, colleges and universities! Any and all decisions on the viability of in-person instruction must be determined democratically by rank-and-file educators, parents and workers, based on the scientifically grounded guidance of trusted health authorities. The “hybrid” model seeks to establish an “acceptable” level of risk. In reality, it exposes students and teachers to the virus on a part-time basis and is therefore not acceptable.
• 2. All teachers and students must be provided with the means and technology necessary to carry out fully remote instruction, including high-quality computer hardware and software, webcams, microphones and utilities as well as rent and mortgage protection! An estimated 20 percent of California students, numbering about 1.2 million, do not have internet access in their homes. This is a basic necessity in the 21st century. High-speed internet access must be provided to all families free of charge.
• 3. Educators who choose to teach from home must be guaranteed full income, unlimited sick leave, full medical coverage, and must be allowed to return to their jobs once safe conditions have been reestablished. Teachers should not have to choose between their health and their jobs. Those who have been forced to resign or retire, such as those with high seniority or who may be immuno-compromised, must be given the option of returning to their positions if they desire.
• 4. We demand full income protection, an indefinite rent and mortgage moratorium, and medical care for all parents who need to remain at home to facilitate their children’s education and for all those who have been cast into the ranks of the unemployed. The vast wealth of the financial oligarchy must be heavily taxed to pay for the health and safety of all workers and the education of the younger generation.
• 5. Wherever schools have been reopened, we demand the provision of rapid-response, on-site daily testing for all students, staff, and faculty. Every site must be fully staffed with registered nurses working with administrators to ensure safety protocols are followed and enforced. Contact tracers must be stationed at every school in every district to provide the public with up-to-date information about the locality and severity of the virus.
• 6. Schools cannot be reopened until they ha ve undergone air purification and ventilation retrofitting and are sanitized daily with the most advanced cleaning technology. Decades of defunding public education have resulted in the layoff of thousands of custodial staff and decaying infrastructure. Before the pandemic, Los Angeles schools were already severely understaffed with custodians and maintenance workers, restrooms ran out of soap and paper towels, and classrooms were habitually unsanitary. In Long Beach Unified, a rat and insect infestation caused teachers and students to contract scabies.
• 7. We demand daily reporting to the community on COVID-19 testing results and the full disclosure of where positive cases happen. We uphold the right to free speech and the protection of whistleblowers, including teachers, students and staff. California, like the majority of states, is not releasing data on school outbreaks. No one can return to a school building without a negative test.

Hundreds of Kenosha, Wisconsin teachers call in sick to force schools to close - Starting Monday, 276 teachers in Kenosha Unified School District (KUSD) in Wisconsin engaged in a sickout strike in opposition to increasing COVID-19 outbreaks and deadly conditions in the school district. The majority of teachers who called in sick did so on Sunday evening, forcing the district to close seven schools and switch to remote learning for this entire week. With 104,170 COVID-19 cases and 1,251 deaths since the onset of the pandemic, Wisconsin has had a major surge in cases in recent weeks. In the past week alone, there have been a reported 4,200 new positive cases and 34 deaths. Among those who died last week was Heidi Hussli, a 47-year-old Bay Port, Wisconsin, German teacher who had been teaching in person under a hybrid model just prior to contracting the virus. KUSD is the only large public school district in Wisconsin offering in-person education to start the academic year. The state is now averaging 1,792 new cases a day, with a 16.7 percent test positivity rate for the past week, among the highest in the US. In addition to K-12 schools reporting outbreaks, college campuses, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have become major hot spots adding to the surge in cases throughout the state. As of Sunday, KUSD had seven confirmed cases of students and three staff members across multiple school sites. With at least three positive cases reported at Indian Trail High School and Academy, at least 16 staff members and 100 students are in quarantine through September 30. There are also reports of positive cases at Tremper High School, Lakeview Technology Academy, Prairie Lane Elementary and Bullen Middle School. Each of these schools, except Prairie Lane Elementary and Bullen Middle School, has been closed for the week by the sickout. In addition, Bradford High School, Harborside Academy, Lincoln Middle School, and Reuther Central High School were also closed due to the sickout. The new school year began on September 14, with parents and students given a choice of either in-person or remote learning. Roughly 58 percent of students returned to schools for in-person instruction, and within days confirmed cases began cropping up within the schools.

 Teachers across the US engage in sickout strikes to close schools - Protests and strikes continue to erupt across the United States by educators opposed to the homicidal push to return students to classrooms, which has resulted in at least 24,358 new COVID-19 infections tied to K-12 school reopenings. Since the end of July, when schools began to reopen en masse across the country, at least 30 educators have died from COVID-19. This week, educators in South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Wisconsin have responded to the unfolding crisis with sickouts, in some cases compelling entire school districts to suspend in-person instruction. In South Carolina, the Facebook group “SC for Ed” organized a statewide sickout strike on Wednesday to protest unsafe conditions and low pay. While the total number of teachers that participated has not been reported, hundreds of teachers planned to take part in the protest. One teacher commented in the Facebook group, “I hate it when people say we’re abandoning our students. We’re fighting FOR our students! We’re fighting to keep top talented teachers in SC instead of losing them to GA & NC where they’re better paid and treated!” Like their counterparts across the country and internationally, teachers in South Carolina are overwhelmingly hostile to the unsafe reopening of schools. A survey of more than 4,000 teachers and school staff across the state found that 71 percent disapproved or strongly disapproved of the state’s handling of the pandemic and the reopening of schools. An astounding 27 percent are considering leaving their jobs over concerns about health and safety. Adding insult to injury, the annual pay increase that teachers receive has been frozen until Junuary. Already, at least 622 cases of coronavirus among students and staff have been tied to the reopening of K-12 schools in the state. On September 7, just three days after being diagnosed with the virus, third grade teacher Demetria “Demi” Bannister, only 28 years old, died of COVID-19 complications. According to the Associated Press, there were 293 new cases per 100,000 people in South Carolina over the past two weeks, putting the state in the top 10 for new cases per capita. There are over 141,000 reported cases in the state and 3,243 deaths. On Wednesday, the reported seven-day average positivity rate was 11.1, indicating a high degree of community transmission

Asthmatic Mother Tased, Cuffed And Arrested For Not Wearing Mask At Son’s Football Game - An asthmatic mother was tased cuffed and arrested for not wearing a face mask in Marietta, Ohio at a mostly empty stadium football game for her son’s eighth-grade sport. In a video from Wednesday, Alecia Kitts was arrested at her son’s middle school football game for not wearing a mask. She was sitting with, who appear to be her young children when she was approached by a police officer. Around 300 people attended a Marietta City Schools football game where Kitts was arrested. It’s unclear what was initially said, but Kitts repeatedly resists arrest as the officer struggles to handcuff her. The Ohio mother identified as Alecia Kitts by The Marietta Times, which was first to report footage of the incident circulating online, can be heard in the video asking the officer “what the f**k is wrong with you?” “You’re not arresting me for nothing, I ain’t doing nothing wrong,” she yells during the struggle with police. Kitts can be seen in the video screaming and falling to the ground after the police officer strikes her in the back with the taser. After the two struggled for a a few minutes, the officer takes out his taser and deploys it on Kitts. “Tasing this lady over not wearing a damn mask” a witness later identified as Tiffany Kennedy can be heard saying. Kitt’s mother can also be heard saying “it’s just a mask” before police restrained her daughter and walked her away into custody. Alecia Kitts was tased, cuffed, and arrested by the police officer during the game for not adhering to something that could cause her to have breathing problems.

 Senator’s Husband Likely Used Clout in UC Admissions, Auditor Says – WSJ  - Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, a regent at the University of California, likely helped an unqualified student gain admission to UC Berkeley, the California state auditor said Thursday. Richard Blum, an investment banker and a UC regent since 2002, penned a letter to the chancellor’s office that likely bumped a student off the school’s wait list and into the highly selective flagship university, according to an audit released Tuesday. The regent wasn’t named in the report, but on Thursday a spokeswoman for the auditor identified him as Mr. Blum. Mr. Blum declined to comment to The Wall Street Journal through a spokeswoman, but he told the Mercury News that he had written many letters to chancellors over the years. “This is the first time I’ve heard that maybe I did something that wasn’t right,” he told the Mercury News. “I think it’s a bunch of nonsense.” The report comes as Ms. Feinstein (D., Calif.), 87 years old, prepares to lead Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats during the forthcoming confirmation hearings for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. On Saturday, Mr. Trump is expected to nominate a woman to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ms. Feinstein’s office declined to comment.

Pity the Poor College Frosh: “Definitely Weird” -  Jerri-Lynn Scofield - The Wall Street Journal ran an article today on the travails afflicting college frosh, The College Freshman’s Life This Fall: ‘Definitely Weird’.  Roughly 1,300 colleges and universities are operating primarily or fully online this fall, while about 800 are primarily or fully in person, according to College Crisis Initiative, a tally of schools by Davidson College. Another 650 or so set out to offer hybrid instruction.  As they’re no doubt largely driven by the tremendous economic pressures on colleges. How can they continue to justify their high fees – and accrue revenue from overpriced ancillary services such as dorm rooms and mandatory meal plans – unless students meet in person? And as we’ve discussed at length before, the pandemic is straining revenues throughout he collegiate system, from the elite to the bottom-end. For anyone who might choose to look closely, it’s shameful that pressure for revenues is leading college administrators to put so many young people at risk of infection – not to mention their communities – by allowing in-person classes.Ofeven when these have web cancelled, students continue to live in dorms and other central living facilities. In fact, the best way to quell the pandemic is not to allow students to meet at state u – short-term pain would be reduced relative to long-term gain and we’d have the greatest chance that “normal” would emerge again.  The Washington Post has also run a piece on colleges reopening, The fall opening of colleges: Upheaval, pandemic weirdness and a fragile stability.   From the WaPo:  “We’re operating under the assumption that covid is a permanent partner to the human ecosystem that we have to manage for the foreseeable future,”   The reopening of colleges amid a deadly pandemic has brought upheaval and uncertainty to campuses from coast to coast, with a staggering academic and emotional toll for students. But the chaos is not uniform.  Variations in testing protocols, campus locations and student housing patterns from school to school can play a huge role in success or failure. So do school culture, state politics and luck. Pauses and delays  of in-person teaching can shape the outcome. Geography is critical: The pandemic waxes in some regions as it wanes in others. A degree of stability, perhaps tenuous, has taken hold at many schools that brought students to campus. It is a remarkable turn after the spring crisis that forced students nationwide to evacuate and professors to pivot practically overnight from classrooms to remote instruction. Leaders of these schools say they are gaining confidence they can keep campuses on track with research, teaching and learning. Students are settling into the strangeness. Differences in approach reflect the contrasting political  approaches towards the virus that is playing out across the country:  Schools in the South and Midwest, he said, tend to be opening more fully in person than those in the Northeast and on the West Coast. “It pretty much mirrors what you’re seeing in the politics of the country,” he said. I realize that asking college students to do zoom study while remaining under the roof of Mom & Dad is a bit of a hard sell. What 18 years old, eager for the limited emancipation going away to college provides, wishes to surrender their newfound freedom to practice social distancing at home?:

Opposition mounts at the University of Michigan as COVID-19 outbreaks emerge on campus - The University of Michigan reported on Thursday that a cluster of COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in South Quad Residence Hall, primarily on the sixth and eighth floors. The outbreaks were reported just one day after a nearly two-week-long strike by the University of Michigan’s Graduate Employee Organization (GEO), a subsidiary of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), was shut down with the ramming through of a sell-out contract that did not seriously address any of the student demands. The graduate student instructors were striking against the reckless reopening policies of the administration that many students felt would almost certainly lead to an outbreak on the campus. Their COVID-19-related demands included a universal right to work remotely, improved testing and contact tracing, care subsidies for parents and caregivers, a $2,500 unconditional emergency grant and rent freezes. The possibility that the university administration delayed the public announcement of the cases until after the strike was officially smothered cannot be discounted. An article published Thursday by the Michigan Daily, the student-run campus newspaper, shared a memo written by the Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) department on the outbreak. The letter was addressed only to the sixth- and eighth-floor residents of the South Quadrangle dormitory and reported that as of September 17, there had been 19 confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in South Quad. The memo went on to note that the majority of the cases were found to be “connected,” meaning that their origin was known and the outbreak presumably isolated, but that three cases on the sixth floor had not yet been “associated” and “have no known source of exposure.” The memo declared that students should “only leave when necessary to obtain food or to attend in-person classes if no remote option is available while wearing a face covering.” The memo also stated that “due to increased testing for athletes, they can also leave to attend their athletic events.” The university has taken every measure necessary to ensure that resumption of sports. In fact, last week as the university was preparing the shutdown of the GEO strike, it announced that the campus was bringing back the football program, which generated $122 million in profits in 2019.

Strike by 4,000 service workers at University of Illinois at Chicago enters its second week - The strike by 4,000 University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) service workers is entering into its second week. Workers' main demands include personal protective equipment (PPE) and more protection from the COVID-19 pandemic. At least 300 UIC workers have been infected with COVID-19 and two have died. Workers are also demanding a substantial wage increase. Many UIC workers are classified as workers of the state of Illinois, a loophole that allows them to be paid substantially less than Chicago’s minimum wage. The fight is bringing workers into direct conflict with major figures in the Democratic party and the Illinois financial elite, who dominate the University’s board. The unions are working lockstep with management, the political establishment and the media, which has subjected the strike to a news blackout, to isolate the strike and pave the way for a sellout. The strike continues after the Illinois Nurses Association ended a seven day strike by 800 UIC Hospital nurses without a new contract, forcing them to cross the picket lines against hospital staffers. Meanwhile, SEIU Local 73 is keeping its 25,000 other members on the job. To oppose the sellout which is being prepared behind their backs, striking hospital workers must follow the examples of auto workers and educators and organize themselves independently by forming rank-and-file committees. These committees would break the isolation of the strike, seeking the broadest possible mobilization of workers throughout Chicago and healthcare workers around the world in support the strike. They must also demand adequate time to study any contract proposal and that the voting process be monitored by representatives from the rank-and-file.

 A twenty-year-old student dies from COVID-19 at California University of Pennsylvania - The Coronavirus continues to spread throughout the public colleges and universities in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania State University has seen a spike in cases and at least one student has died of complications from COVID-19 at California University of Pennsylvania. This past week another 306 students tested positive for COVID-19 at the main campus of Pennsylvania State University. This brings the total number of confirmed cases to over 1,371 since the school reopened late last month. Centre County, where the school is located, now has one of the fastest-growing number of new cases in Pennsylvania. California University of Pennsylvania student Jamain Stephens Jr. died September 9 from a blood clot in his heart after he contracted COVID-19. He was 20 years old. About a week before his death, Jamain told friends that he tested positive for COVID-19. He played football for California University as a defensive lineman. The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference voted in July to suspend all fall sports in 2020. His mother, Kelly Allen, told CBS News that she was worried about football players and other athletes who were playing sports this fall in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. "I'm very, very nervous for these young men and women … These kids, their lives are priceless. And it's just not worth it. It's not worth it," she said. Stephens was the son of Pittsburgh Steelers Jamain Stephens who also was a defensive lineman. The death of Stephens marks another tragic example that the premature reopening of schools and universities is having a deadly impact on students, faculty, and staff.

San Diego County seeks to exclude university outbreaks to undercount coronavirus cases - As California reaches new record levels of infection, officials in San Diego County are attempting to artificially lower the COVID-19 case numbers by demanding the state exclude the recent outbreak at San Diego State University (SDSU) from the county’s case count. There are now over 851 cases reported among SDSU students, growing from 648 just days ago. The reckless reopening of the campus has created a community health disaster that will undoubtedly lead to more hospitalizations and more deaths throughout the region. While SDSU was recently forced to end on-campus classes in the face of immense public pressure, the residence halls remain open. The majority of students in the residence halls are living with roommates and remain in close contact with other groups of students. This week will see the start of the university’s ham-fisted “mandatory” testing system for on-campus residents being implemented in an attempt to save face after garnering a mountain of negative attention in national headlines. In response to the outbreak, SDSU administration has continually blamed students for becoming ill. SDSU President Adela de la Torre recently complained about a “plague of parties” for their record-breaking infection rate, according to the San Diego Tribune. This past week, SDSU Vice President J. Luke Wood ominously threatened students with suspensions and unstated “consequences” if they refuse to “submit to testing” or are found in violation of campus policies.  In reality, the outbreak of cases at SDSU is a direct product of the administration's own reckless policy to reopen for in-person learning. Every bit of credible science that has emerged since the onset of the pandemic indicated that the reopening of schools would act as a dangerous spreader of the virus. Now, as cases skyrocket, putting the whole region at risk, San Diego County Supervisors is lobbying to artificially lower the COVID-19 case numbers by excluding the recent outbreak at SDSU from the official county case count.  The main motivation for the exemption is to allow the county to remain within a particular range of cases, in line with Governor Gavin Newsom’s “tiered”reopening plan, in order to keep the economy from shutting down.

 Four Texas universities report over 1,000 COVID-19 cases each - Universities and schools around Texas made absurd claims leading up to the start of the fall semester boasting that they could reopen safely, citing various plans for testing, contact tracing, and requirements for students including social distancing and the use of masks. These claims have been proven false by reality. University towns have, unsurprisingly though tragically, become COVID-19 hotspots. According to an analysis by the Texas Tribune, in the counties where four-year college students make up at least 10 percent of the population, including Lubbock, Hays and Brazos, cases have grown 34 percent since August 19 compared with a 23 percent case increase in counties with proportionally less four-year college students such as Houston and Dallas that also have universities. A surge in COVID-19 cases in Lubbock and Brazos counties coincided with the start of fall semester at Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University which are located in those respective counties. Travis County, which includes the city of Austin, also saw the largest increase in cases within the past four weeks in ZIP codes containing the University of Texas at Austin. Stephen Kissler, an infectious disease researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, recently told the Hill that colleges are “places where we’re starting to see a lot of spread” and that the virus has the potential to jump to the general population from college campuses, stating, “diseases don’t stay isolated in the populations where they start.” Four universities in Texas now total over a thousand confirmed cases each, with a fifth university just under one thousand. The case totals, taken from their respective university coronavirus dashboards, are made even worse once the lack of adequate testing is considered. This means that the real numbers are likely far higher. University of Texas at Austin has recorded 1,173 cases, with 974 students and 199 staff cases; Texas A&M has 1,447 cases with a 10.3 percent test positivity rate; 1,553 cases have been identified at Texas Tech; Texas Christian University has confirmed 1,129 cases; and Baylor has 967 cases. These are all universities that have resumed in-person classes for most students. Universities that have stayed online for most students have recorded fewer cases.

Brown University study used to downplay spread of coronavirus in US schools - A new database announced by Brown University and software company Qualtrics is being used to claim that the danger from the coronavirus pandemic in reopened schools is minimal, and that in-person learning should be resumed more fully across the United States. One of the first articles commenting on the database, known as the National COVID-19 School Response Dashboard, was in the Washington Post. In an article titled “Scant evidence that the pathogen is spreading inside buildings,” it uses the data presented to claim that there are “low levels of infection among students and teachers.” The article continues, asserting that “health experts” suggest that “opening the schools may not have been as risky as many have feared.” Drawing from the database, it notes that “0.23 percent of students” and “0.49 percent” of teachers nationwide had a confirmed or suspected coronavirus case. Similar arguments were made by the Hill, as well as the authors of the Brown study themselves. Emily Oster, an economics professor who helped create the database, noted, “These numbers will be, for some people, reassuring and suggest that school reopenings may be less risky than they expected.” Translated into actual numbers and extrapolated to the teacher and student population across the country, the infection rate reported by the database corresponds to about 18,620 teachers and an estimated 115,000 students infected with the coronavirus. These cases and any subsequent deaths are the direct result of the reopening of schools amidst a raging pandemic, which has resulted in more than 7.1 million cases in the United States and killed more than 207,000 people. It is worth pointing out that the total case numbers suggested by the Brown study are four to five times higher than other estimates of COVID-19 in schools. A different database, the COVID Monitor, counts as of this writing only 24,358 cases of the coronavirus among both staff and students. If anything, the data presented in the Brown study is an alarming indication that the data collected so far on school reopenings is inadequate for accurately tracking the virus and keeping it from infecting and killing more teachers and students. It should not be forgotten that the number of students and teachers infected should ultimately be zero. The fact that a pandemic has so far killed at least 30 educators and is poised to kill many more should not be taken as an unavoidable loss of life. Yet both the Post and Hill articles, as well as the Brown study itself, treat the spread of the pandemic as a fact of life, and not a deadly threat that must be fought against at every turn.

A self-inflicted crisis in biomedical research could delay discoveries and cures for years - American medical research, a crown jewel of the world scientific community, faces a profound crisis in the age of COVID-19. Without policy changes by the federal government, the academic biomedical research sector could be hobbled for years to come and could lose its competitive edge to other nations.  Over the past six months, medical researchers have been battered by a triple blow. First, most clinical trials in the United States came to a halt to protect participants and staff from COVID-19 infection. Then, academic hospitals and medical centers, financially crippled by the pandemic, dramatically cut back on research funding. Finally, the Trump Administration stopped issuing visas to foreign scientists, cutting off a wellspring of talent on which American research teams depend.  “It is the most turbulent time for academic biomedical and clinical research you can possibly imagine,” said Paul Glimcher, Julius Silver Professor of Neural Science at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. “We have seen a freeze in cutting edge research on everything from cancer to depression to Alzheimer’s disease. In the longer term, funding cutbacks for exploratory research and restrictions on immigration could put limits on our ability to create new cures and new jobs and to compete on the world stage.” The United States has long been considered the world’s leading center of medical research and innovation. The industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs at universities, academic medical centers, and companies across the country. It provides trillions of dollars of value in everything from foreign exports to increased longevity. With the onset of the pandemic, thousands of clinical trials, totaling 80 percent of non-COVID trials, were stopped or interrupted. And many researchers turned their attention solely to the development of COVID-related treatments and vaccines. In the private medical research sector alone, nearly 100 companies and 240 trials have experienced disruptions. Pharmaceutical manufacturers like Eli Lilly, Merck, and Pfizer all announced delays in enrollment for ongoing studies and initiation of future studies. At hospitals and health systems, the American Hospital Association estimates a total financial impact of $202.6 billion in losses between March and June of this year from a drop in elective procedures and an array of increased costs for staff support, emergency equipment, and treating COVID-19 patients. One result has been a dramatic drop in funding for academic research from hospitals and health systems.  “Laboratories have been closed,” Michael Lauer, the deputy director for extramural research at the National Institutes of Health recently said toThe Lancet. “Communications have been shut down, conferences have been canceled, supply chains for equipment have been lost, resources have been lost. There have been widespread financial losses within academic medical centers that have spilled over onto their research operations.” Altogether, the impact could last for years.

Too much candy: Man dies from eating bags of black licorice - A Massachusetts construction worker’s love of black licorice wound up costing him his life. Eating a bag and a half every day for a few weeks threw his nutrients out of whack and caused the 54-year-old man’s heart to stop, doctors reported Wednesday.  “Even a small amount of licorice you eat can increase your blood pressure a little bit,” said Dr. Neel Butala, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who described the case in the New England Journal of Medicine. The problem is glycyrrhizic acid, found in black licorice and in many other foods and dietary supplements containing licorice root extract. It can cause dangerously low potassium and imbalances in other minerals called electrolytes. Eating as little as 2 ounces of black licorice a day for two weeks could cause a heart rhythm problem, especially for folks over 40, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns. “It’s more than licorice sticks. It could be jelly beans, licorice teas, a lot of things over the counter. Even some beers, like Belgian beers, have this compound in it,” as do some chewing tobaccos

Study: Black women with breast cancer experience delayed, longer treatment than whites -One in seven black women with breast cancer had delays in starting treatment, and black women also had extended duration of treatment, according to a study led by UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers. In the journal Cancer, Melissa Troester, PhD, Marc Emerson, PhD, and their colleagues report that Black women were more likely than white women (13.4% vs. 7.9%) to have the start of the care delayed by at least 60 days after diagnosis. Black women were also more likely to have longer duration of treatment, as were women under the age of 50 of all races. The study assessed a variety of patient-reported factors for their impact on delaying start or prolonging duration. While access to care, tumor status and socioeconomic status did affect treatment start times, these factors had greater impact on the length of care. It was also notable that socioeconomic status was not as strongly connected to treatment delay as race. "Our study found that Black women experienced delays in both treatment initiation and duration more often than white women. Even among women with low socioeconomic status, we still saw fewer delays among white women, underscoring the disparate experience of Black women, who appear to experience unique barriers," said Emerson, the paper's first author and postdoctoral fellow at UNC Lineberger and UNC Gillings. Although they have a similar risk of developing breast cancer, Black women are 42% more likely than white women to die from the disease. Among women younger than 45, the mortality rate for black women is more than double that of white women.

Death rates spike for patients with cancer and COVID-19 who are treated with certain anti-cancer therapies at certain times - University of Cincinnati researchers have found that certain treatments for cancer may increase the chance of death if they contract COVID-19. These findings from a multicenter study, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology Virtual Congress 2020, shed light on ways standard anti-cancer treatments may impact outcomes for patients with both cancer and the coronavirus. "Patients with cancer are susceptible to infection from COVID-19 and subsequent complications," says Trisha Wise-Draper, MD, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology Oncology at the UC College of Medicine and lead author. "They experience higher rates of hospitalization, up to 40%, severe respiratory illness and death. Treatment for cancer, within four weeks of [the diagnosis of] COVID-19, was suggested to be associated with higher rates of complications, but less is known about treatment before or after that time frame. "In a previous study from the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium, with a smaller group of patients, we found that several factors increased the chance of death including age, sex, history of smoking and other health conditions, including active cancer. However, recent cancer treatment was not associated with poor outcomes in the smaller cohort. Now, we're investigating the correlation between timing of anti-cancer treatment and COVID-19 related complications as well as death in 30 days of a larger number of patients -- over 3,000." "Of the 3,600 patients analyzed from 122 institutions across the country, we found that 30-day mortality was highest among cancer patients treated one to three months prior to COVID-19 diagnosis and was highest for those treated with a chemotherapy/immunotherapy combination," continues Wise-Draper, a UC Health oncologist and member of the UC Cancer Center. "Death was especially high in those receiving anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies, which are normally used to deplete abnormal B cells common for certain lymphomas, one to three months prior to COVID-19 infection - a time period for which significant B-cell depletion develops." She adds that death was higher for those undergoing active cancer treatment, except for endocrine therapy, when compared to patients untreated within a year prior to COVID-19 diagnosis.

Higher risk of death in cancer patients with COVID-19 may be due to advanced age and more pre-existing conditions, rather than cancer itself - New research presented at this this week's ESCMID Conference on Coronavirus Diseases (ECCVID, online 23-25 September) suggests that the poor outcomes and higher death rates in cancer patients with COVID-19 could be due to them generally being older and having more underlying conditions, rather than due to the cancer itself. The study is by Dr Maria Rüthrich, Jena University Hospital, Germany, and colleagues. The authors retrospectively analysed a cohort of 435 patients with cancer and COVID-19 from a total of 3071 patients enrolled between March and August 2020. Baseline characteristics include socio-demographics, comorbidity according to Charlson Comorbidity Index (a measurement of number of underlying conditions) (CCI), ECOG score (measure of functional status in cancer patients) and outcome of COVID-19.A total of 193 patients (54%) had an active malignant disease and 96 (22%) had received anti-cancer treatment within the last 3 months before testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. At detection of SARS-CoV-2, 272 (63%) pts were in an uncomplicated phase of COVID-19 disease. Progression to complicated/ critical phases of COVID-19 was seen in 206 (55%) pts, while 119 (28%) pts received critical care. A total of 78 of these 119 pts (66%) needed mechanical ventilation. COVID-19 mortality rate was 23%, while men were twice as likely to die as women (28% vs 14%). Additionally, active cancer disease (e.g. recurrent or metastatic cancer, pts receiving anti-cancer therapy) was associated with a higher mortality attributed to COVID-19 than in patients without active cancer disease (27% vs 17%) Compared with non-cancer patients, the distribution of age and comorbidity differ significantly. Thus, patients without cancer were younger (most frequent age category 56 - 65) and had less comorbidity (CCI 1.12 vs 1.59). Survival at 30 days was worse in cancer patients (70%) versus those without cancer (77%), and mortality rate higher (23% vs 14%). However, after adjustments for age, sex and comorbidity, survival and mortality attributed to COVID-19 were comparable to non-cancer patients.

Statins reduce COVID-19 severity, likely by removing cholesterol that virus uses to infect - There are no Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved treatments for COVID-19, the pandemic infection caused by a novel coronavirus. While several therapies are being tested in clinical trials, current standard of care involves providing patients with fluids and fever-reducing medications. To speed the search for new COVID-19 therapies, researchers are testing repurposed drugs -- medicines already known to be safe for human use because they are FDA-approved for other conditions -- for their abilities to mitigate the virus. UC San Diego Health researchers recently reported that statins -- widely used cholesterol-lowering medications -- are associated with reduced risk of developing severe COVID-19 disease, as well as faster recovery times. A second research team at UC San Diego School of Medicine has uncovered evidence that helps explains why: In short, removing cholesterol from cell membranes prevents the coronavirus from getting in.  .. The researchers found that statin use prior to hospital admission for COVID-19 was associated with a more than 50 percent reduction in risk of developing severe COVID-19, compared to those with COVID-19 but not taking statins. Patients with COVID-19 who were taking statins prior to hospitalization also recovered faster than those not taking the cholesterol-lowering medication.

Lower zinc levels in the blood are associated with an increased risk of death in patients with COVID-19 - New research presented at this week's ESCMID Conference on Coronavirus Disease (ECCVID, held online from 23-25 September) shows that having a lower level of zinc in the blood is associated with a poorer outcome in patients with COVID-19. The study is by Dr Roberto Güerri-Fernández, Hospital Del Mar, Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues. Increased intracellular zinc concentrations efficiently impair replication/reproduction of a number of viruses. However, the effect of plasma zinc levels on SARS-COV-2 is not yet understood. In this study, the authors explored whether plasma zinc levels at admission are associated with disease outcome in COVID-19 patients. The authors did a retrospective analysis of symptomatic admitted patients to a tertiary university hospital in Barcelona, Spain over the period from 15th March 2020 to 30th April 2020. Data on demography, pre-existing chronic conditions, laboratory results and treatment were collected. Clinical severity of COVID-19 was assessed at admission. Fasting plasma zinc levels were measured routinely at admission (baseline) in all patients admitted to the COVID-19 Unit. Computer modelling and statistical analyses were used the assess the impact of zinc on mortality. During this period of study 611 patients were admitted. The mean age was 63 years, and 332 patients were male (55%). During this period total mortality was 87 patients (14%). Among those who died, the zinc levels at baseline were significantly lower at 43mcg/dl vs 63.1mcg/dl in survivors. Higher zinc levels were associated with lower maximum levels of interleukin-6 (proteins that indicate systemic inflammation) during the period of active infection. After adjusting by age, sex, severity and receiving hydroxychloroquine, statistical analysis showed each unit increase of plasma zinc at admission to hospital was associated with a 7% reduced risk of in-hospital mortality. Having a plasma zinc level lower than 50mcg/dl at admission was associated with a 2.3 times increased risk of in-hospital death compared with those patients with a plasma zinc level of 50mcg/dl or higher. The authors conclude: "Lower zinc levels at admission correlate with higher inflammation in the course of infection and poorer outcome. Plasma zinc levels at admission are associated with mortality in COVID-19 in our study. Further studies are needed to assess the therapeutic impact of this association."

Adequate levels of vitamin D reduces complications, death among COVID-19 patients. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients who were vitamin D sufficient, with a blood level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D of at least 30 ng/mL (a measure of vitamin D status), had a significant decreased risk for adverse clinical outcomes including becoming unconscious, hypoxia (body starved for oxygen) and death. In addition, they had lower blood levels of an inflammatory marker (C-reactive protein) and higher blood levels of lymphocytes (a type of immune cell to help fight infection)."This study provides direct evidence that vitamin D sufficiency can reduce the complications, including the cytokine storm (release of too many proteins into the blood too quickly) and ultimately death from COVID-19," explained corresponding author Michael F. Holick, Ph.D., MD, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics and molecular medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. A blood sample to measure vitamin D status (measured serum level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D) was taken from 235 patients were admitted to the hospital with COVID-19. These patients were followed for clinical outcomes including clinical severity of the infection, becoming unconscious, having difficulty in breathing resulting in hypoxia and death. The blood was also analyze for an inflammatory marker (C-reactive protein) and for numbers of lymphocytes. The researchers then compared all of these parameters in patients who were vitamin D deficient to those who were vitamin D sufficient. In patients older than 40 years they observed that those patients who were vitamin D sufficient were 51.5 percent less likely to die from the infection compared to patients who were vitamin D deficient or insufficient with a blood level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D less than 30 ng/mL. Holick, who most recently published a study which found that a sufficient amount of vitamin D can reduce the risk of catching coronavirus by 54 percent, believes that being vitamin D sufficient helps to fight consequences from being infected not only with the corona virus but also other viruses causing upper respiratory tract illnesses including influenza.   "Because vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency is so widespread in children and adults in the United States and worldwide, especially in the winter months, it is prudent for everyone to take a vitamin D supplement to reduce risk of being infected and having complications from COVID-19." These findings appear online in the journal PLOS ONE.

Most homemade masks are doing a great job, even when we sneeze, study finds - Studies indicate that homemade masks help combat the spread of viruses like COVID-19 when combined with frequent hand-washing and physical distancing. Many of these studies focus on the transfer of tiny aerosol particles; however, researchers say that speaking, coughing and sneezing generates larger droplets that carry virus particles. Because of this, mechanical engineer Taher Saif said the established knowledge may not be enough to determine the effectiveness of some fabrics used in homemade masks. Saif, a mechanical science and engineering professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, led a study that examined the effectiveness of common household fabrics in blocking droplets. The findings are published in the journal Extreme Mechanics Letters. “We found that all of the fabrics tested are considerably effective at blocking the 100 nanometer particles carried by high-velocity droplets similar to those that may be released by speaking, coughing and sneezing, even as a single layer,” Saif said. “With two or three layers, even the more permeable fabrics, such as T-shirt cloth, achieve droplet-blocking efficiency that is similar to that of a medical mask, while still maintaining comparable or better breathability.

Patients Who Refuse Masks: Responses That Won't Get You Sued -- medscape.com -- Your waiting room is filled with mask-wearing individuals, except for one person. Your staff offers a mask to this person, citing your office policy of requiring masks for all persons in order to prevent asymptomatic COVID spread, and the patient refuses to put it on. What can you/should you/must you do? Are you required to see a patient who refuses to wear a mask? If you ask the patient to leave without being seen, can you be accused of patient abandonment? If you allow the patient to stay, could you be liable for negligence for exposing others to a deadly illness? The rules on mask-wearing, while initially downright confusing, have inexorably come to a rough consensus. By governors' orders, masks are now mandatory in most states, though when and where they are required varies. For example, effective July 7, the governor of Washington has ordered that a business not allow a customer to enter without a face covering.So far, there are no cases or court decisions to guide us about whether it is negligence to allow an unmasked patient to commingle in a medical practice. Nor do we have case law to help us determine whether patient abandonment would apply if a patient is sent home without being seen.We can apply the legal principles and cases from other situations to this one, however, to tell us what constitutes negligence or patient abandonment.The practical questions, legally, are who might sue and on what basis? 

The CDC retracts its guidance that stipulated the airborne danger of the coronavirus - On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published new guidelines acknowledging that the virus causing COVID-19 is primarily transmitted through small airborne particles. This admission implies that people occupying poorly ventilated areas such as classrooms, meat packing factories, production lines, churches, grocery stores, etc., are at risk of acquiring COVID-19 if someone else in the room with COVID-19 is contagious. Airborne particles, unlike respiratory droplets, can linger in the air and concentrate throughout an enclosed room. The CDC wrote in no uncertain terms that the most common modes of transmission for SARS-CoV-2 were through “respiratory droplets or small particles, such as those in aerosols, produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, sings, talks, or breathes. These particles can be inhaled into the nose, mouth, airways, and lungs and cause infection. This is thought to be the main way the virus spreads.” They also added that these airborne particles could travel beyond the six feet limit that has been the officially stated social distancing yardstick. However, by Monday afternoon, the guidelines had disappeared off their pages, reverting to their previous position that the virus is spread mainly from person-to-person in close contact. There is no longer a mention of “airborne” or “aerosol.” Only a comment stating that “a draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error to the agency’s official website” indicates that a retraction occurred. Given the recent controversies surrounding the CDC, the exposure by Politico over the administration’s manipulation of the weekly reports, essentially being taken hostage by the Trump administration and the political establishment to censor the scientific data, it is apparent that the national public health institution is being used to provide a cover for the ruling class policy of herd immunity. The small window provided by this slip underscores the deeply criminal intentions that are at play. Clearly, a statement that indicates the airborne nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus brings into stark relief that the opening of schools is a dangerous initiative, one rooted in ensuring the factories and production lines are operating at breakneck capacity, and every productive hand is gainfully employed unadulterated by the needs of their children or families. From the perspective of the ruling class, schools are not primarily a place of education, but temporary safe holding locations for children and adolescents while their parents are laboring at work. Children and young people infected with COVID-19 fair better than older adults, but they are not impervious to the dangers of the virus. There have been well-documented cases of infants, toddlers, teenagers and young adults succumbing to the infection and suffering from the morbidity it causes. They are also quite efficient at transmitting the virus, especially as asymptomatic carriers. By all accounts, school reopenings and children are a key element in the policy of herd immunity that is being embraced openly by every political spectrum of the capitalist class. Behind this policy is the need to effectively cull the most unproductive sector of the population—the retired and enfeebled who are a drain on the surplus value that is generated by the working class. If it happens to kill a few thousand children or hundreds of thousands of adults in the prime of their lives, the surplus population will quickly fill in these gaps.

In Stunning Reversal, CDC Says It Published New Guidance On Risks Of 'Airborne' COVID-19 "In Error" -  After publishing guidance warning about the serious risks of "airborne" infection associated with SARS-CoV-2, the CDC just seriously harmed its own credibility by acknowledging Monday that it had posted the new guidance "in error", following a pressure campaign from the WHO.Scientists have been gathering evidence that the novel coronavirus plaguing the world spreads via aerosol particles practically since it first emerged, and back in July, a group of 200 scientists sent a letter to the WHO urging the international public health agency to change its guidance on the spread of the disease. The problem scientists argued is that the WHO hasn't updated its views to incorporate new research showing that aerosol spread is a much greater threat than touching contaminated surfaces, or via large droplets spread by close contact between individuals.Yet, the WHO has refused these overtures, and this week it successfully convinced the CDC to do the same.After the WHO announced earlier that it had reached out to the CDC over the guidance change, the agency informed American media outlets that a "draft version" of the guidance had been "posted in error"."A draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error to the agency’s official website," the CDC said. "CDC is currently updating its recommendations regarding airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Once this process has been completed, the update language will be posted."Even so, the American media has grown increasingly convinced that aerosols significantly contribute to overall spread of the virus, with ABC News suggesting yesterday that expensive UV-light powered surface cleaners were merely examples of "hygiene theater". For months, the CDC has insisted that these large droplets are the primary mode of transmission, which is why - it argued - people must wear masks in public, because masks are effective at blocking large particles. However, masks - at least, homemade clothe masks with imperfect seals - aren't as effective at filtering all aerosol particles. Furthermore, research suggests aerosol particles released when a person sneezes can reach up to 26 feet.

CDC Flip-Flops on Paradigm Shift to SARS-COV-2 Transmission via Aerosols - Lambert Strether - As readers know, I stand for aerosol transmission as the primary transmission mechanism for SARS-COV-2; that is, singing, shouting, talking, even breathing, all of which give rise to small virus-bearing particles that float indefinite distances (aerosols), as opposed to coughing or sneezing, which give rise to larger particles that fall, pulled down by gravity (droplets), after travelling one or two meters (and also accumulate on surfaces, which are then to be wiped). As I wrote back in May: From the beginning of the #COVID19 pandemic, we’ve been washing our hands, masking up, cleaning surfaces, and social distancing. These measures have worked (especially masking), but now we know more. There’s mounting evidence that airborne transmission indoors is a key — perhaps the main — pathwa y to SARS-COV-2 transmission. In this post I want to look at why that’s so, give examples, and suggest a simple heuristic to stay safe. Material like this might also be used to inform public policy (here; here) by reducing superspreader events in enclosed spaces like churches (airborne transmission via singing), restaurants (loud talking, especially if room is noisy), bars (ditto), nursing homes (shouting[1]), gyms (grunting), meat-packing plants (shouting), call centers (talking), offices generally (air conditioning), and other hot spots, but working that policy out is not the object of this post (see here for engineering controls for airborne transmission, and here for covid-proofing public spaces).  I took this view because of case studies, given in the post, for which aerosol transmission could give an account, and droplet tranmission could not. (Subsequently, actual transmission of viable viral material through the air was demonstrated in two hospital studies, posted in Links.)  So it was with great interest that I received the following mail from alert reader Chi Gal in Carolina, saying that the CDC had finally updated its guidance to support aerosol transmission. (I quote Chi Gal to give her a hat tip for taking point on this topic in comments). Chi Gal wrote:  Subject: Finally, the CDC updated its guidance! On September 18, just 7 months in. Maybe now we have a shot at getting this thing under control. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html  First, I checked the Twitter, and found this headline from the Los Angeles Times: “CDC says coronavirus spreads mainly in the air, through respiratory aerosols and droplets.” OMG! Happily and excitedly, I went to the CDC website, where this notice appeared:  I took a screenshot and sent it to Chi Gal: “Did the version you saw have this at the top:”  “Nope—omg” And that, dear readers, is all that anybody knows (at least out here in the Great Unwashed). Here is the CDC guidance that appeared and disappeared. From the Hill, the CDC guidance that appeared and disappeared: “There is growing evidence that droplets and airborne particles can remain suspended in the air and be breathed in by others, and travel distances beyond 6 feet (for example, during choir practice, in restaurants, or in fitness classes),” the agency had written. “In general, indoor environments without good ventilation increase this risk.”  “These particles can be inhaled into the nose, mouth, airways, and lungs and cause infection,” the deleted guidance said. “This is thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”

Former FDA Director Expects "At Least One More Cycle" Of COVID-19 Before Vaccine Approval - Former FDA Director Dr. Scott Gottlieb has been one of the most prominent 'expert' voices since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic, writing op-eds about how the FDA can safely speed up approval of a vaccine, and appearing daily on CNBC's "Squawk Box".On Sunday, Gottlieb appeared on CBS News' Face the Nation, where he shared that he expects the US to experience one more round of COVID-19 before a vaccine becomes widely available."Well I think we have at least one more cycle with this virus heading into the fall and winter...if you look around the country right now there's an unmistakable spike in new cases and the declines in hospitalizations that we were achieving have started to level off."It's possible it could be a "post-Labor Day bump," and Saturday's Sunday's numbers could suggest that perhaps US cases are already leveling off again. But it's clear that "we're seeing a resurgence in infections," Gottlieb said, adding that "there's a lot of risk" heading into the fall season because that's when "respiratory illnesses" like to spread."  Gottlieb also weighed in on President Trump's latest claim on vaccine timing - that a vaccine will be widely available by April. Gottlieb, who is on the board of Pfizer, said that he doesn't expect a vaccine will be approved for general use until the end of the 2nd quarter, or perhaps even the beginning of the third quarter, of next year."I don't believe a vaccine will be licensed for general use by the population until the end of the 2nd quarter of 2021, or perhaps a little later than that...what you really want is a vaccine available by the fall of 2021," Gottlieb said. Whether the vaccine is approved in April or June of next year, ultimately, shouldn't make much difference, Gottlieb added. The outbreak should have mostly tapered off by then. But there will always be a risk of a comeback heading into the fall in the US.

Low genetic diversity may be an Achilles heel of SARS-CoV-2 (PDF) PNAS. “Scientists worldwide are racing to develop effective vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of the COVID-19 pandemic. An important and perhaps underappreciated aspect of this endeavor is ensuring that the vaccines being developed confer immunity to all viral lineages in the global population. Toward this end, a seminal study published in PNAS (1) analyzes 27,977 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from 84 countries obtained throughout the course of the pandemic to track and characterize the evolution of the novel coronavirus since its origination. The principle conclusion reached by the authors of this work is that SARS-CoV-2 genetic diversity is remarkably low, almost entirely the product of genetic drift, and should not be expected to impede development of a broadly protective vaccine..”

Antibody Responses to SARS-CoV-2: Let’s Stick to Known Knowns (PDF) Journal of Immunology. From the Abstract: “The scale of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has thrust immunology into the public spotlight in unprecedented ways.  In this article, which is part opinion piece and part review, we argue that the normal cadence by which we discuss science with our colleagues failed to properly convey likelihoods of the immune response to SARSCoV-2 to the public and the media. As a result, biologically implausible outcomes were given equal weight as the principles set by decades of viral immunology. Unsurprisingly, questionable results and alarmist news media articles have filled the void. We suggest an emphasis on setting expectations based on prior findings while avoiding the overused approach of assuming nothing. After reviewing Ab-mediated immunity after coronavirus and other acute viral infections, we posit that, with few exceptions, the development of protective humoral immunity of more than a year is the norm. Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is likely to follow the same pattern.”

Why misinformation about COVID-19’s origins keeps going viral --TWENTY YEARS AGO, data scientist Sinan Aral began to see the formation of a trend that now defines our social media era: how quickly untrue information spreads.  “Human attention is drawn to novelty, to things that are new and unexpected,” says Aral. “We gain in status when we share novel information because it looks like we're in the know, or that we have access to inside information.”  Enter the Yan report. On September 14, an article was posted to Zenodo, an open-access site for sharing research papers, which claimed that genetic evidence showed that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was made in a lab, rather than emerging through natural spillover from animals. The 26-page paper, led by Chinese virologist Li-Meng Yan, a postdoctoral researcher who left Hong Kong University, has not undergone peer review and asserts that this evidence of genetic engineering has been “censored” in the scientific journals. A Twitter firestorm promptly erupted. Prominent virologists, such as Kristian Andersen from Scripps Research and Carl Bergstrom from University of Washington, took to the internet and called out the paper for being unscientific. Chief among their complaints was that the report ignored the vast body of published literature regarding what is known about how coronaviruses circulate in wild animal populations and the tendency to spill over into humans, including recent publications about the origins of SARS-CoV-2. In July, David Robertson, a viral genomics researcher at University of Glasgow, authored a peer-reviewed paper in Nature Medicine that showed the lineage behind SARS-CoV-2 and its closest known ancestor, a virus called RaTG13, have been circulating in bat populations for decades. Virologists think this relative, which is 96-percent identical to the novel coronavirus, probably propagated and evolved in bats or human hosts and then went undetected for about 20 years before adapting its current form and causing the ongoing pandemic. The Yan report claims this hypothesis is controversial, and that RaTG13 was also engineered in a lab. But that flies in the face of the overwhelming body of genetic evidence published about SARS-CoV-2 and its progenitors. What’s more, the report was funded by the Rule of Law Society, a nonprofit organization founded by former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, who has since been arrested for fraud. That’s yet another reason many virologists are questioning the veracity of its claims.

Signs of an ‘October Vaccine Surprise’ Alarm Career Scientists - President Donald Trump, who seems intent on announcing a COVID-19 vaccine before Election Day, could legally authorize a vaccine over the objections of experts, officials at the Food and Drug Administration and even vaccine manufacturers, who have pledged not to release any vaccine unless it’s proved safe and effective.In podcasts, public forums, social media and medical journals, a growing number of prominent health leaders say they fear that Trump — who has repeatedly signaled his desire for the swift approval of a vaccine and his displeasure with perceived delays at the FDA — will take matters into his own hands, running roughshod over the usual regulatory process.It would reflect another attempt by a norm-breaking administration, poised to ram through a Supreme Court nominee opposed to existing abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act, to inject politics into sensitive public health decisions. Trump has repeatedly contradicted the advice of senior scientists on COVID-19 while pushing controversial treatments for the disease.If the executive branch were to overrule the FDA’s scientific judgment, a vaccine of limited efficacy and, worse, unknown side effects could be rushed to market.The worries intensified over the weekend, after Alex Azar, the administration’s secretary of Health and Human Services, asserted his agency’s rule-making authority over the FDA. HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley said Azar’s decision had no bearing on the vaccine approval process.Vaccines are typically approved by the FDA. Alternatively, Azar — who reports directly to Trump — can issue an emergency use authorization, even before any vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective in late-stage clinical trials.  “Yes, this scenario is certainly possible legally and politically,” said Dr. Jerry Avorn, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who outlined such an event in the New England Journal of Medicine. He said it “seems frighteningly more plausible each day.”  Vaccine experts and public health officials are particularly vexed by the possibility because it could ruin the fragile public confidence in a COVID-19 vaccine. It might put scientific authorities in the position of urging people not to be vaccinated after years of coaxing hesitant parents to ignore baseless fears.  Physicians might refuse to administer a vaccine approved with inadequate data, said Dr. Preeti Malani, chief health officer and professor of medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, in a recent webinar. “You could have a safe, effective vaccine that no one wants to take.” A recent KFF poll found that 54% of Americans would not submit to a COVID-19 vaccine authorized before Election Day.

Andrew Cuomo Says NY Officials Will Do Separate Review of Any COVID-19 Vaccine  --Jerri-Lynn Scofield - Andrew Cuomo has been given kudos for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Inappropriately so.Now, why do I say this? Consider the death counts. Hong Kong, a city of roughly 7 million people, one of the most densely populated in the world, and close to the Wuhan epicentre of COVID-19, has due to its excellent policies and health care, is only showing 104 deaths as of today. No typo.Whereas New York, of which Cuomo is governor, has to this day suffered 32,696 deaths, and New York City, which holds a population of 8 million, making it about the same size as Hong Kong, has seen 23,875 deaths. I’ve written about this comparison extensively, often drawing on the insights of Dr. Sarah Borwein, a Hong Kong based doctor with extensive experience going back to at least to SARS outbreak; see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; and here.) When faced with this comparison, there’s no way I would call NY’s relative performance – for which Cuomo is trying to claim credit – good. And I will continue to hammer the point every time I see Cuomo trying to take a victory lap for New York state or city’s COVID-19 performance. It has been highly deficient, and only seems good in comparison to Trump. But is that any comparison?Now, onto the latest controversy. Using his credit, Cuomo has jumped into the fraught debate over premature emerge of a vaccine, without sufficient design and testing. Everyone knows Trump is counting on an October surprise in the form of a vaccine to goose his re-election chances.  And thus, we’re all primed to be rightfully skeptical of any vaccine the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) might put forward, maybe any day now.Enter stage left, Cuomo. According to the FT:The governor of New York has become the latest figure to cast doubt on the Trump administration’s process to authorise a coronavirus vaccine, saying his state would do a separate review because he “does not trust the federal government”. Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday his officials would review any vaccine licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration, warning that the federal process had become too politicised.Mr Cuomo said: “Frankly, I’m not going to trust the federal government’s opinion, and I wouldn’t recommend [a vaccine] to New Yorkers based on the federal government’s opinion.” Now, state governors such as Cuomo enjoy no regulatory approval over vaccines. But Cuomo seems to have found a loophole and has appointed a 16-member panel to decide on logistics of how a vaccine would be distributed in New York. This ability would extend to go slow on distributing any vaccine it thought unsafe. So as a New Yorker, I might not, after all, have access to that first vaccine that is made available.

A Covid-19 Vaccine for Children May Not Arrive Before Fall 2021 NYT -  -- Thanks to the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed and other programs, a number of Covid-19 vaccines for adults are already in advanced clinical trials. But no trials have yet begun in the United States to determine whether these vaccines are safe and effective for children.    On Friday, Dr. Anderson and his colleagues published a commentary in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases in which they called for vaccine makers to get their act together. They entitled it, “Warp Speed for Covid-19 Vaccines: Why are Children Stuck in Neutral?” The search for a Covid-19 vaccine started as soon as researchers isolated the virus in January. Teams of developers across the world began creating vaccines based on different techniques. For example, some used inactivated coronaviruses that stimulated the immune system to make its own antibodies; others delivered viral genes into the body, triggering immune cells into action. Once they were ready to test those vaccines, they started down a well-worn path of rigorous protocols developed over decades to determine if a vaccine is safe and effective. Vaccines require especially strict tests because they’re fundamentally different from drugs, which are intended for a limited number of people who are sick with some particular disease. Vaccines, on the other hand, are given to millions of healthy people to prevent them from getting sick in the first place. After testing a vaccine on animals, developers start clinical trials on people.  Only if researchers discovered no serious side effects would they start testing them in children, often beginning with teenagers, then working their way down to younger ages. Dr. Anderson said that vaccine makers could have started running trials for children over the summer, as soon as they had gotten good Phase 2 results from adults. But that did not happen. And with autumn around the corner, that still hasn’t happened.  Whenever these trials do start, it could take upward of a year to get vaccines for Covid-19 ready for children. Vaccine makers will need to write protocols and get them approved by the F.D.A. They’ll need to recruit volunteers — a process that is more time consuming for pediatric vaccines since parents must give informed consent. Getting to the first injections could take a couple of months. By necessity, the trials would have to start small, with researchers giving perhaps just half a dozen kids a low dose of the vaccine and then monitoring them for several days. Then the trial could expand to dozens and then hundreds of kids.A couple more months might pass while the vaccine developers give a low dose to a small group of kids. Each group of children would need two months of observation to check for their immune response and to make sure they don’t have any side effects. Only then would vaccine developers start a new trial with a higher dose.These tests would likely start with older children, before researchers could shift down to kids between 3 and 8. And only after gathering early data from that trial would it be possible to start one for children under 3. Once all of the results from these trials came in, the F.D.A. would have to put them through an independent review before approving the vaccines for children.

One Bank Expects COVID Herd Immunity To Emerge By 2022 - Last week, Bank of America made a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation that roughly 12% of the US population had achieved COVID herd immunity, far below the 60% threshold that is necessary for the disease to be contained without fresh policy actions, prompting BofA to propose a vision for a world in which we get periodic covid flareups in the coming months, many of which could culminate in fresh lockdowns. Taking the initial thoughts from BofA, this morning Deutsche Bank published an extensive report analyzing what "Living with Covid" for the foreseeable future would be like (with an emphasis on Asian countries) since - like BofA - the German bank does not see herd immunity emerging as a factor until 2022 for advanced economies, and 2023 for the rest of the world, to wit:Although developments on the vaccine front have been promising, there is uncertainty over the uptake of vaccines by the public and thereby the pace of achieving herd immunity, which would better ensure a more full normalization of economic activity. Our baseline forecast now assumes that some economies will achieve herd immunity to Covid-19 in 2022, along with most advanced  economies. Other countries are likely to have to wait until 2023 to achieve the same. Risks around these forecasts are evenly balanced.Another key point that remains lost on many politicians both in the US and elsewhere is that "the tolerance for extended rigorous social distancing appears to be weakening, with new social distancing regulations being in most places milder and imposed for shorter durations. People appear to have learned how to protect themselves and to live with the virus better than during the initial outbreaks, as economic data are proving in some respects more resilient to the virus."The bottom line, as we said many months ago, is that having done the calculus most economies are now willing to reopen their economies as the political and socioeconomic hit from lockdowns is far more adverse to the broader population - and especially the youth which is losing jobs by the millions - than enforcing full quarantine with spotty results while hoping to minimize new cases, something which can be seen most vividly in new cases in some countries like Spain and France, has failed to lead to a rebound in new deaths or hospitalizations.

Connecticut Democrat tests positive for coronavirus - A Connecticut Democrat announced on Sunday that she had been diagnosed with coronavirus. Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) tweeted that she would quarantine for two weeks after testing positive following several unsuccessful attempts to get tested. "This morning I received a positive COVID-19 test result and will be quarantined for the 14 days," she wrote. "After going to 2 urgent care centers yesterday, I finally got an appointment at a 3rd site and was tested this morning." "I have taken every possible precaution and still contracted coronavirus," she added. Hayes said she was asymptomatic, other than some breathing issues, but said her experience and that of her staff "underscore the need for a nat’l testing strategy with a coherent way to receive speedy, accurate results. This level of anxiety and uncertainty is untenable." Hayes's tweet comes as Connecticut's COVID-19 caseload have remained at a low rate following a spike earlier this year; the state currently averages about 172 cases per day, according to The New York Times. Nearly 200,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus since the pandemic reached the U.S.'s shores earlier this year, and more than 6 million Americans have been infected, making the U.S. the country with the highest number of confirmed cases. 

September 21 COVID-19 Test Results - The US is now mostly reporting over 700,000 tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly (or take actions to push down the number of new infections).
There were 676,903 test results reported over the last 24 hours. There were 39,467 positive tests. Over 16,000 Americans have died from COVID so far in September. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here.   This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 5.8% (red line is 7 day average).  For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com. And check out COVID Exit Strategy to see how each state is doing.  The second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported. The dashed line is the June low.Note that there were very few tests available in March and April, and many cases were missed (the percent positive was very high - see first graph). By June, the percent positive had dropped below 5%.If people stay vigilant, the number of cases might drop to the June low some time in October (that would still be a large number of new cases, but progress).

US Suffers Most New COVID-19 Cases In 5 Weeks As Doctors Warn Of "Apocalyptic" Fall: Live Updates - The US remains on the cusp of passing the critical 200,000-death threshold as deaths slowed on Monday, while the number of new cases reported accelerated to its highest daily toll since Aug. 14. Another 52,070 cases were announced on Monday, while only 356 deaths were reported. The virus has continued to accelerate since the end of the summer, as new hotspots have emerged in the Midwest, and in parts of the South. Meanwhile, NY and NJ have both seen cases tick higher, even as both states have dragged their feet on reopening. The US has confirmed a total of 6,857,703 cases, while globally, Johns Hopkins has counted. As more doctors and scientists warn about an "apocalyptic" fall in the US, Bloomberg is reporting that college campuses have become veritable reservoirs of COVID-19 infection, and that the growing case totals might spill over into the rest of the US as kids head home for the holidays.  "We may be in for a very apocalyptic fall, I'm sorry to say," Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN. And here's more from Bloomberg: Amid an outbreak, the University of Colorado will teach all classes remotely for at least two weeks beginning Wednesday to “help protect the health and safety of our Boulder community,” Chancellor Phil DiStefano said Monday. The New Jersey Institute of Technology last week quarantined 300 people after the virus was found in their dorm’s wastewater, the University of Wisconsin at River Falls ordered all students to shelter in place after a surge in cases, and Florida State University’s football coach announced he had tested positive. With many schools planning to end their semesters at the November holiday, students will disperse across the country, and some will bring the disease with them. "This is beyond our wildest nightmares," said Gavin Yamey, a physician who directs Duke University’s Center for Policy Impact in Global Health. "It has been a debacle, a national catastrophe and, in many ways, you could consider it a third wave. The third wave is a university reopening wave. It was a self-inflicted national wound." Universities were bleeding revenue when they called students back for the fall semester, facing cuts as tuition and fees plunged. Some plowed ahead with lucrative football programs, despite their potential to draw crowds. But as students returned, infection rates increased. Many schools are now running out of space to house those who tested positive. Administrators are struggling to keep infections contained as students venture off campus for coffee or hang out at bars and parties. “If infected students go home, there is a risk that they could seed outbreaks all around the country -- outbreaks that are ultimately caused by the university reopening,” said Yamey.

U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Pass 200,000 as New Surge in Cases Begins - The United States passed 200,000 deaths due to COVID-19 Tuesday and experts warn that number may double before the end of the year as an autumn surge in cases starts, according to USA Today.Researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington (IHME) analyzed various scenarios that include fatigue from wearing masks and social distancing to create projections for the number of COVID-19 deaths we should expect by Jan. 1. One of their models has the U.S. reaching just shy of 400,000 deaths by the beginning of 2021."The worst is yet to come. I don't think perhaps that's a surprise, although I think there's a natural tendency as we're a little bit in the Northern hemisphere summer, to think maybe the epidemic is going away," said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the IHME, earlier this month, as CNBC reported. The U.S. accounts for roughly one-fifth of all the confirmed COVID-related deaths around the world despite having only 4 percent of the population, according to CNBC. The virus claimed the lives of roughly 100,000 Americans in the first four months of the outbreak. That number doubled over the next four months. Now, several states are seeing surges in cases after summer peaks in the Southeast, Texas and Arizona have diminished.The surges that took place across those states quickly declined with mitigation efforts like social distancing and mandated mask wearing, according to The New York Times.According to The Washington Post, 27 states and Puerto Rico have seen an increase in the number of cases over the last week. It also found that six states and Puerto Rico set record highs for the number of positive cases for a single day on Monday. While roughly half the states are seeing an increase in cases, only seven are seeing decreases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, as CNN reported."We're entering into the fall and into the winter, and that means there's going to be more indoor things than outdoor things," Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday during the Atlantic Festival, as CNN reported. "Going into that situation, I would like to have seen the baseline of where we are — the daily number of infections — come way, way down, and not be stuck at around 30 to 40,000 per day."

Study: Death counts fail to capture full mortality effects of COVID-19 -  More than 200,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19. Some argue that statistic is inaccurate due to inconsistencies in how deaths are being reported. But researchers from the University of South Florida claim that even if those deaths have been correctly measured, the number doesn't fully convey the true mortality effects of COVID-19.A study published in the Journal of Public Health finds that for each person in the U.S. who died after contracting COVID-19, an average of nearly 10 years of life had been lost. Researchers claim "years of life lost" is a more insightful measure than death count since it accounts for the ages of the deceased. The tool is often used to determine the effects of non-communicable disease, drug misuse and suicide. They believe "years of life lost" is especially appropriate given the range of ages at which individuals have died of COVID-19."While death counts are a vital initial measure of the extent of COVID-19 mortality, they do not provide information regarding the age profile of those who died," said lead author Troy Quast, professor of health economics in the USF College of Public Health. "By contrast, years of life lost tell us the extent to which deaths are occurring across age groups and can potentially help healthcare providers and policymakers better target clinical and governmental responses to reduce the number of deaths." When taking those factors into account, they calculated that COVID-19 had caused 1.2 million years of life lost during that timeframe. While the analysis only covered the period through mid-July, if past trends were to have continued, that figure at this point would approach 2 million. Nearly 80 percent of deaths nationwide occurred among people ages 65 and older. Therefore, geographical areas with a younger population had more years of life lost due to COVID-19.  For example, one-sixth of the nation's years of life lost is attributed to New York City, the then-epicenter of the outbreak. Another significant factor is pre-existing medical conditions. Males generally have more pre-existing medical conditions than females and accounted for roughly 55 percent of deaths attributed to COVID-19. Researchers adjusted for the higher rate of pre-existing conditions among COVID-19 decedents by reducing expected life expectancy by 25 percent.

 California’s Deadliest Spring in 20 Years Suggests COVID Undercount The first five months of the COVID-19 pandemic in California rank among the deadliest in state history, deadlier than any other consecutive five-month period in at least 20 years.And the grim milestone encompasses thousands of “excess” deaths not accounted for in the state’s official COVID death tally: a loss of life concentrated among Blacks, Asians and Latinos, afflicting people who experts say likely didn’t get preventive medical care amid the far-reaching shutdowns or who were wrongly excluded from the coronavirus death count.About 125,000 Californians died from March through July, up by 14,200, or 13%, from the average for the same five months during the prior three years, according to a review of data from the state Department of Public Health. By the end of July, California had logged about 9,200 deaths officially attributed to COVID-19 in county death records. That left about 5,000 “excess” deaths for those months — meaning deaths above the norm not attributed to COVID-19. Deaths tend to increase from year to year as the population grows, but typically not by that much. A closer look at California’s excess deaths during the period reveal a disturbing racial and ethnic variance: All the excess deaths not officially linked to COVID infection were concentrated in minority communities. Latinos make up the vast majority, accounting for 3,350 of those excess deaths, followed by Asians (1,150), Blacks (860) and other Californians of color (350).The overall number of excess deaths across all races and ethnicities was ultimately tempered because, compared with the three prior years, there were actually 383 fewer deaths among white Californians than would be expected in the absence of COVID-19. In addition, California Healthline adjusted the overall numbers to reflect more than 320 COVID deaths that could not be categorized by race or ethnicity because that information was missing from state records. Several epidemiologists interviewed said they believe a sizable portion of the excess deaths among people of color did, in fact, stem from COVID infections but went undetected for a variety of reasons. Among them: a shortage of coronavirus tests in the early months of the pandemic; an uneven strategy for how and when to administer those tests, which persists; and inadequate access to health care providers in many low-income and immigrant communities.

 Coronavirus dashboard for September 23: a pandemic course veering between panic and complacency - (8 detailed graphs) One of my consistent points over the past several months has been that, until there is competent federal leadership and/or an effective vaccine, the course of the coronavirus pandemic in the US would wax and wane as mass behavior varied between complacency and panic.   This point of view has now been validated not just for the US, but for much of the world, as set forth in a piece recently by Joshua Gans, “Reproduction numbers tend to 1 and the reasons could be behavioural:    [T]his pattern of R falling to about 1 happens across all states in the US and many countries in the world. To be sure, some countries actually suppressed the outbreak with R falling to 0 but for the majority, movement around 1 or just below it seems to be the norm. What happened was people are people and when they know they can catch an infectious disease by physical contact they adjust their behaviour accordingly.... When people understand that there is a dangerous coronavirus circulating, they engage in behaviour that reduces the rate at which they are infected even without governments ordering them to do so. That’s the good news.  The bad news is that these people who react to what the virus is actually doing and similarly going to react when governments put in place various policies. But what if we engage in more modest policies such as testing, tracing and isolating which reduces the risk of being infected if you go out or we encourage mask-wearing with a similar desired effect? In that case, because their risk equation changes, people’s behaviour might change and this may have the perverse effect of increasing infection rates or, more assuredly, not reducing them by as much as might be hoped.  And that is precisely where we are, not just in US States, but in a large number of industrialized Western nations. Let’s start by comparing the US with Canada and the 5 most populous countries in Europe. First, here is the 7 day average rate of new infections:  And here are deaths:  Spain, France, and to a lesser extent the UK are all having serious new outbreaks. The rate of deaths in Spain is already exceeding that of the US, with France gaining. Since deaths follow infections with a several week delay, we can expect further deterioration in those European nations.  Turning to the US, let’s first break things down by region, as to both infections (first graph) and deaths (second graph)We can see that the panic in the South and West from their uncontrolled outbreaks of July and August led to a steep decline - until complacency set inparticularly over Labor Day weekend. Meanwhile the Midwest, which earlier in summer had been making good progress, saw an increase first (most likely) from the motorcycle mass gathering in Iowa, and then again post-Labor Day. Even in the Northeast a little complacency has set in. Breaking it down further, here are the top 25 States and Territories, first for infections and second for deaths: The top 10 in each show a pandemic raging out of control, and verging on uncontrolled in the next 15. This is simply ghastly 6 months into the disease. Now here are the bottom 10 for infections (first graph) and bottom 10 plus 4 other States where the death rate is averaging less than 1 per million daily: Only the three States of northern New England - Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire - are on par with neighboring Canada. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Washington State are reasonably close behind. This too has been the pattern for months: that there are only about 10 States where the pandemic has been brought under control, or nearly so.

 U.S. coronavirus cases surpass seven million as Midwest outbreak flares up (Reuters) - The number of novel coronavirus cases in the United States topped 7 million on Thursday - more than 20% of the world’s total - as Midwest states reported spikes in COVID-19 infections in September, according to a Reuters tally. Slideshow ( 2 images ) The latest milestone comes just days after the nation surpassed over 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, the world’s highest death toll from the virus. Each day, over 700 people die in the United States from COVID-19. California leads the country with over 800,000 total cases, followed by Texas, Florida and New York. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/363tab5) All Midwest states except Ohio reported more cases in the past four weeks as compared with the prior four weeks, led by South Dakota and North Dakota. South Dakota had the biggest percentage increase at 166% with 8,129 new cases, while North Dakota’s new cases doubled to 8,752 as compared to 4,243 during the same time in August. Many cases in those two states have been linked to the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, that annually attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. According to a Reuters analysis, positive cases rose in half of the 50 U.S. states this month. Ten states have reported a record one-day increase in COVID-19 cases in September. New cases rose last week after falling for eight consecutive weeks. Health experts believe this spike was due to reopening schools and universities as well as parties over the recent Labor Day holiday. A study by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Indiana University, the University of Washington and Davidson College said recent reopening of college and university campuses for in-person instruction during late summer this year could be associated with more than 3,000 additional cases of COVID-19 per day in the United States in recent weeks. U.S. confirmed cases are the highest in the world followed by India with 5.7 million cases and Brazil with 4.6 million. The United states is currently averaging 40,000 new infections per day. Top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has said he would like to see the number to fall below 10,000 per day before flu season starts in October. Health officials and President Donald Trump have presented different views about the nation’s health crisis. Trump, who is seeking re-election to a second term on Nov. 3, early this month had claimed that the United States was “rounding the corner” on the crisis. Fauci contradicted the claim the next day, saying the statistics were disturbing.

Missouri governor tests positive for COVID-19- Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) and first lady Teresa Parson both tested positive for the coronavirus, the governor's office said Wednesday.The office said Teresa Parson was tested Wednesday morning after showing minor symptoms. Mike Parson was tested too, and both tests came back positive. Staffers who came into contact with the governor are being tested and awaiting results.The governor has canceled official and campaign events. His office said he is not experiencing any symptoms, and that he continues to work from the governor’s mansion in Jefferson City.Parson is the second governor to test positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of the outbreak, after Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R). Stitt recovered and shared a photo of himself on social media donating plasma to help other patients.Parson ascended to the governorship in 2018, after his predecessor, Eric Greitens (R), resigned in the midst of a sex abuse scandal. He faces Auditor Nicole Galloway (D) in November’s election for a full term, one of the marquee gubernatorial contests on the ballot this year. Parson and Galloway had been scheduled to participate in a debate hosted by the Missouri Press Association on Friday. That debate is likely to be canceled as Parson isolates himself while he recovers.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, wife, test positive for Covid-19 -  Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and his wife have tested positive forCovid-19, his office announced Friday. The governor, who is a doctor, was told Wednesday that a member of the staff of his residence had tested positive for the coronavirus, his office said in a statement. Northam, a Democrat, and his wife, Pamela Northam, were then tested. President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign rally in Newport News, Virginia, later Friday, an event that had drawn criticism from Northam's administration because it will bring together 4,000 people in defiance of the governor's executive order limiting public gatherings.  “As I’ve been reminding Virginians throughout this crisis, Covid-19 is very real and very contagious,” Northam said in a statement. “The safety and health of our staff and close contacts is of utmost importance to Pam and me, and we are working closely with the Department of Health to ensure that everyone is well taken care of. We are grateful for your thoughts and support, but the best thing you can do for us—and most importantly, for your fellow Virginians—is to take this seriously.”  Northam is not experiencing any symptoms, his office said, while his wife is experiencing mild symptoms. The pair are working with public health officials in the state to trace the contacts they have made in recent days. Last Friday, Northam cast his vote during the early voting window in Virginia for the presidential election. An official at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va., said that because Northam and his wife were on campus on Tuesday, that the school would notify public health officials about "a very small group of individuals" that Northam was in close contact with during the visit.Northam is the second governor this week to test positive for Covid-19, after Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, and his wife, Teresa Parson.As of Friday, there have been more than 7 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the U.S., and more than 200,000 deaths from the virus.

News Notes: Texas reported single day record of active COVID-19 cases, other stories to know  (KXAN) — Texas reported a record number of active COVID-19 cases in a single day.There are currently more than 15,000 active cases in the state, but most of those came from a backlog of test results in the Houston area. In a video lasting less than five minutes, Will DuPree discusses the latest numbers in Austin-Travis County as well as these other stories in the latest KXAN Live News Notes:   South by Southwest will return in 2021 and will mostly be held virtually due to ongoing concerns with the COVID-19 pandemic.

September 24 COVID-19 Test Results - The US is now mostly reporting over 700,000 tests per day. Based on the experience of other countries, the percent positive needs to be well under 5% to really push down new infections, so the US still needs to increase the number of tests per day significantly (or take actions to push down the number of new infections).
There were 887,884 test results reported over the last 24 hours. There were 44,315 positive tests. Over 19,000 Americans have died from COVID so far in September. See the graph on US Daily Deaths here  This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. The percent positive over the last 24 hours was 5.0% (red line is 7 day average).For the status of contact tracing by state, check out testandtrace.com. And check out COVID Exit Strategy to see how each state is doing. The second graph shows the 7 day average of positive tests reported.  The dashed line is the June low. Note that there were very few tests available in March and April, and many cases were missed (the percent positive was very high - see first graph). By June, the percent positive had dropped below 5%. If people stay vigilant, the number of cases might drop to the June low some time in October (that would still be a large number of new cases, but progress).

Study finds fewer than 1 in 10 Americans have had COVID-19 - Fewer than 1 in 10 Americans show evidence of having contracted the coronavirus, a new study of tens of thousands of blood samples has found, underscoring the broad ability the virus still has to spread during cold fall and winter months. The study, conducted by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine, tested plasma from more than 28,500 patients at kidney dialysis centers in July, during the second apex of the pandemic. Their research found that just 9.3 percent of the samples showed evidence of infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The findings suggest that a huge percentage of Americans are still susceptible to the coronavirus, which has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States already. It also suggests that millions of coronavirus cases are going undetected. More than 7 million Americans have tested positive for the virus, but the study suggests that fewer than 10 percent of those who get the virus are diagnosed. Even with increased testing capacity, tens of millions of Americans are likely to have contracted the coronavirus without knowing it. The new research found those living in neighborhoods with higher shares of Black and Hispanic residents were more likely to have contracted the virus than those living in majority-white neighborhoods. The virus has disproportionately impacted those in big cities and dense urban areas, and minorities are more likely to hold public-facing jobs deemed essential during the pandemic, putting them at increased risk of becoming ill. Evidence of the coronavirus, known in technical terms as seroprevalence, was highest in Northeastern states that suffered the brunt of the first wave of infections. About 1 in 3 people tested in New York showed signs of previous infection, as did a quarter of those tested in the Northeast. More than 1 in 10 people tested in New Jersey, Maryland, Louisiana, Illinois and the District of Columbia showed evidence of infection too. Those tested in Western and Southern states were far less likely to show signs of infection. Just 4.2 percent of residents of Western states and 5.1 percent of those in Southern states had been infected by July — though those states were among the hardest hit during the hot summer months. The study is a stark reminder that the vast majority of Americans are susceptible to the coronavirus as states begin to reopen schools, return to sporting events and congregate indoors as the weather turns chilly. The number of cases confirmed in the United States every day has already begun rising again, to an average of more than 44,000 new infections each day over the last week. Experts expect a new wave of infections, led by cases in Midwestern and Mountain West states, where the weather turns earlier in the year. Already, states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota are showing alarming increases.

New York reports 1,000 daily new COVID-19 cases for first time since June - More than 1,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus in New York on Friday, marking the first time since early June the state has seen a daily number of cases rise above that mark. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Saturday that of 99,953 tests reported the previous day, 1,005 were positive, a positivity rate of about 1 percent. Four people died Friday, and 527 people in total are hospitalized. The number of daily positive results has ticked up in the Empire State in recent weeks, a trend that could be tied to the rise in business and school reopenings. The number of new cases stalled in the mid-to-high-500s in early September but have hit the 800 and 900-range in recent weeks, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Students in public elementary, middle and high schools are set to return to in-person classes next week. The uptick in positive cases also comes ahead of flu season, when health experts fear the spread of the coronavirus could be exacerbated. “New Yorkers should continue the basic behaviors in the fight against COVID-19, wearing masks, socially distancing and washing hands, as we move into the fall and flu season,” Cuomo said on his website. Officials were quick to note that while the state has ramped up testing, the positivity rate has remained relatively flat. On June 5, the last day with more than 1,000 new daily cases, 78,000 people were tested, compared with nearly 100,000 people Friday. "Yes, NY recorded 1,005 new cases yesterday. However, this was out of 100k tests. In June, the last time NYS recorded 1,000 new cases, NYS was avg. 60k tests/day. Positivity remains flat - under 2% since June 3, 1.1% or below since July 22, 1.0% or below since Aug 4," tweeted Gareth Rhodes, who is on the governor’s COVID-19 task force. Four states report record number of new COVID-19 cases China vaccinates tens of thousands of people with COVID-19 trials... Still, New York is faring notably better in grappling with the pandemic within its borders than a number of other states that have seen more significant recent spikes in positive tests. The Empire State was hit hard early on in the pandemic, often topping 9,000 positive tests a day in April, but it has since worked to get its transmission rate to one of the lowest in the country.

Four states report record number of new COVID-19 cases - Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon and Utah all hit records for single-day increases in the number of COVID-19 infections Friday as the country surpassed 7 million total cases, according to an analysis by Reuters. Reuters reported that, according to its tally, Wisconsin had the largest number of new infections out of the four states on Friday at 2,629, surpassing its previous record of 2,533 cases last Friday. However, as of Saturday morning, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services website recorded only 2,504 newly confirmed cases Friday.  The Minnesota Department of Health recorded 1,191 new cases on Friday, while Utah reported nearly1,370 and Oregon recorded close to 460.  Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D)announced on Twitter on Friday that the state would be holding free COVID-19 testing in various cities next week amid the state's spike in cases. Reuters said in its analysis that all Midwestern states excluding Ohio reported more cases over the past four weeks than in the four weeks prior. The outlet also reported that hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients hit new highs in Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming this week. These numbers come after Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) on Tuesdaydeclared a new public health emergency following spikes in cases on college campuses in the state. The governor also extended the state’s mandatory mask mandate. In the order, Evers activated the Wisconsin National Guard to provide support on Election Day and oversee community testing locations. “We need folks to start taking this seriously, and young people especially—please stay home as much as you are able, skip heading to the bars, and wear a mask whenever you go out. We need your help to stop the spread of this virus, and we all have to do this together,” Evers said in a statement on Tuesday.

Are Covid-19 Deaths Falling? - Menzie Chinn - I read some claims that Covid-19 fatalities are declining. I want to — again — remind readers about the hazards of interpreting (1) administrative data, and (2) data revisions. First, there are official tabulations of fatalities due to Covid-19. We should worry about suppression of data in, for instance, Florida, but let’s take the CDC data (which compiles the data provided by authorities) at face value. It’s not clear that all fatalities attributable to Covid-19 are caught by the tracking system. Then we might use “excess fatalities” as a check on the administrative tabulation. Figure 1 below shows how the CDC data on Covid-19 deaths matches the deviation from the fatalities we expect (“excess fatalities”). Figure 1:  Weekly fatalities due to Covid-19 as reported to CDC for weeks ending on indicated dates (black), excess fatalities calculated as actual minus expected (teal), fatalities as tabulated by Our World in Data (dark red). Note excess fatalities differ from CDC series which are bounded below at zero. Note that excess fatalities far exceed the officially designated Covid-19 fatalities for most of the sample. (Seediscussion in latest Economist on excess fatalities around the world.) Only recently have excess deaths fallen below designated Covid-19 fatalities. In fact, both of the CDC series – Covid-19 Fatalities and Excess Fatalities – drop off dramatically in recent weeks. If you didn’t read the notes attached to the CDC spreadsheet, you’d conclude that we’ve won! But inspection of the spreadsheet reveals notes that indicate that the most recent data is incomplete. In fact, as I show in this post, about the four most recent weeks worth of data are going to be substantially revised. I shade this period in green in the above graph. A hint that this is a substantial problem is provided by comparing the trajectory of the unofficial tally compiled by the Our World in Data, which indicates a much smaller decline.The current vintage’s August 8th observations is moved up from the previous vintage so that excess fatalities are rising through the 8th. CDC designated Covid-19 deaths for the week ending August 8 rose 149 going from previous to latest vintage; excess deaths rose 486 from the previous vintage to the current. For more comparisons, see Figure 2.  Figure 2: Excess fatalities, 9/23 vintage (blue), 9/16 vintage (tan), 9/9 vintage (green), 9/2 vintage (red), 8/25 vintage (brown). Note excess fatalities differ from CDC series which are bounded below at zero. Source: CDC, various vintages, and author’s calculations.That means it is possible that “excess fatalities” — our proxy measure for Covid-19 fatalities  — is still increasing through August 8th (although officially designated Covid-19 fatalities are probably slightly declining, as the Our World in Data series not subject to really large revisions).

WHO Releases Plans for COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution as U.S., China and Russia Opt Out - The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday that 64 high-income nations have joined an effort to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine fairly, prioritizing the most vulnerable citizens, as Science reported. The program is called the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or Covax, and it is a joint effort led by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The 64 high-income countries bring the total number of participating countries up to 156, but their participation is crucial to financing the 2 billion doses that the WHO hopes to purchase and distribute before the end of 2021, according to STAT News. The 156 economies participating in Covax make up 64 percent of the global population."COVAX is now in business: governments from every continent have chosen to work together, not only to secure vaccines for their own populations, but also to help ensure that vaccines are available to the most vulnerable everywhere," said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, in a WHO statement. "With the commitments we're announcing today for the COVAX Facility, as well as the historic partnership we are forging with industry, we now stand a far better chance of ending the acute phase of this pandemic once safe, effective vaccines become available."The United States, Russia and China have not agreed to join Covax. The Trump administration plans to withdraw from the WHO by next July so it refuses to participate in a WHO-led campaign, as STAT News reported. China has not said if it will participate or not, according to The Washington Post."COVID-19 is an unprecedented global crisis that demands an unprecedented global response," said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. "Vaccine nationalism will only perpetuate the disease and prolong the global recovery. Working together through the COVAX Facility is not charity, it's in every country's own best interests to control the pandemic and accelerate the global economic recovery." At a briefing on Monday, Ghebreyesus denounced vaccine nationalism again, according to The Washington Post. "The race for vaccines is a collaboration, not a contest," he said to a gathering of reporters. "This is not charity. It's in every country's best interest. We sink or swim together."

The global campaign to reopen schools drives COVID-19 deaths past one million - The world is closing in on a grim milestone of one million deaths from COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. The United States, with only 4.25 percent of the world’s population, accounts for nearly one-fifth of the deaths worldwide, or 200,000 people. The reopening of schools is now a focal point of both the efforts by the ruling elites to abandon the most basic precautions against the spread of the virus and the growing resistance of workers and youth throughout the world. In the United States, public health experts are warning of an “apocalyptic fall,” in large measure because of the opening of schools and colleges. In a deliberate effort to conceal this danger, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday retracted passages from guidelines it had released just a few days prior that acknowledged COVID-19 is mainly transmitted through airborne particles. The retracted information included the following warning: “In general, indoor environments without good ventilation increase this risk.” On Monday, 90,000 pre-K and special education students returned to classrooms in New York City, the nation’s largest school district. After a series of protests by teachers and parents last week, including at poorly ventilated schools, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio delayed full resumption of in-person learning for hundreds of thousands of students until September 29, one week from today.  The reopening of the schools across the country has already led to tragedy, including the deaths of at least three teachers reported last week alone. Colleges and universities have also been hotspots, with at least 90,000 infections over the last few weeks. While this policy has been spearheaded by the Trump administration, it has been backed and implemented by Democrats who run state governments and the largest urban school districts.

Spike in Canada’s COVID-19 infections exposes criminality of back-to-work, back-to-school drive - Over the past two weeks, COVID-19 infections have surged across Canada. The dramatic rise in cases, which in some provinces are now more than three times higher than in August, is the direct product of the ruling elite’s criminal back-to-work and back-to-school policies, which are aimed at guaranteeing corporate profits regardless of the cost in human lives. Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, recorded 425 cases on Monday, its highest daily tally in three-and-a-half months. This followed over 400 cases being registered on both Friday and Saturday. Reflecting the fact that the virus is now spreading out of control, authorities in Ontario have conceded repeatedly for several weeks that they are unable to determine the origin of around 50 percent of the new infections. Around two thirds of current infections are among those under the age of 40, confirming that the government’s reopening of the economy is chiefly to blame. Over 400 people under the age of 20 are currently infected, many of whom are no doubt school children. Two Ontario schools have already been forced to shut down in-person classes, less than two weeks after they reopened for the first time in six months. The virus is also reaching into the political establishment, with both Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet testing positive in recent days. Responding to the rapidly deteriorating situation, Ontario’s right-wing premier, Doug Ford, held a press conference Saturday, where he sought to blame the population at large for the looming disaster. He complained about “wild parties” and lax adherence to social distancing regulations, as he announced that private gatherings will henceforth be limited to 10 people indoors and 25 people outside. However, the government remains adamant that it will not limit school class-sizes or the number of workers in factories and other congested workplaces. Neighbouring Quebec, which was the epicentre of the pandemic last spring with over 5,500 of Canada’s 9,200 deaths, is also experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, with 587 new infections announced Monday. More than 400 infections were recorded on both Saturday and Sunday, forcing the province’s right-wing Coalition Avenir Quebec government to announce new restrictions on gatherings in Montreal and Quebec City. Quebec’s director of public health, Horacio Arruda, who played a leading role in enforcing the reopening of schools in late August, said Monday, “We are in the second wave. The situation is serious. The virus is everywhere in Quebec.” But like the Ontario Conservative government, Quebec Premier Francois Legault and his CAQ government are determined to press forward with their reckless drive to “reopen” the economy, and especially the schools, so that parents can be forced to return to the job and resume producing profits for big business.

Madrid hospitals collapsing amid Covid-19 resurgence in Europe - Three months after the Spanish government ended lockdowns amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the resurgence of the virus is again swamping Madrid’s hospitals. Health authorities report 90 percent of beds in Madrid intensive care wards are occupied; 139 people died of Covid-19 there last week. These events are a warning to workers across Europe and internationally: the premature ending of lockdowns is leading to catastrophe. In Spain, there have been 31,428 new Covid-19 cases found and 168 deaths just since Friday. In Madrid, the number of cases has been multiplied by 73 since July, rising from 9 to 659 per 100,000 inhabitants. Similar surges are taking place in every European country, and many European cities are only weeks behind Madrid in the spread of the virus. Working class neighborhoods in the south of the city are hardest-hit by the virus, with double the average rate of infection: Puente de Vallecas has 1,280 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, Villaverde 1,208 and Usera 1,198. Many essential workers highly exposed to Covid-19 live in these areas, where many large families live together in small, cramped apartments. One doctor from the Doce de Octubre hospital in southern Madrid, which has begun canceling scheduled surgeries to deal with the Covid-19 surge, told the press: “The situation is beginning to be unsustainable. We are no longer short of protective equipment or respirators, but we are short of hands. The workforce is very depleted. There is a lack of doctors, nurses, administrators. We have warned of it over and over again, but no one listens.” Not only are hospitals collapsing amid the influx of patients, but contact tracers and testing centers are falling far behind in identifying and testing all those exposed to Covid-19 patients. The right-wing Popular Party (PP) government of the Madrid region, led by Isabel Ayuso, admitted this weekend that its own calculations show it must double the number of contact tracers, but will take a month to hire them all. “Currently we have over 800 contact tracers,” Madrid health counselor Enrique Ruiz Escudero said. “The objective is to have 1,100 by the end of the month and arrive sometime in October at 1,500, so we can do the work of investigating both the infected and their contacts, as well as daily follow-up.”

Volunteers quit COVID-19 vaccine trial in Spain amid serious side effects reported in U.K. study  -- Some volunteers participating in a Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine trial in Spain have dropped out of the study, days after a serious side effect was reported by a participant of a vaccine trial in the U.K. Spanish clinical pharmacologist Alberto Boronia, the study’s lead investigator, told Reuters that some participants “called to ask us some more detail about the risk of the vaccine, whether what happened with that vaccine had anything to do with the one we are studying, these types of questions.” Last week, British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced that trials for its COVID-19 vaccine — AZD1222 — had been halted, after a suspected adverse reaction was reported in one participant. According to The Associated Press, around 18,000 people have received the AstraZeneca vaccine in the U.K., Brazil and South Africa. Some 30,000 volunteers are currently being recruited in the U.S.AZD1222, which is being developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, is one of the three major vaccines currently undergoing testing around the world. On Saturday, the companyannounced that trials were to resume, “following confirmation by the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority (MHRA) that it was safe to do so." According to World Health Organization, clinical evaluation of vaccines should be observed in three phases. Phase I involves small-scale studies to determine safety and clinical tolerance. Phase II, which can include up to 1,000 participants, is designed to test which dose the vaccine generates the most antibodies. Phase III is designed to test the vaccine’s efficacy.

BoJo Unveils New National COVID-19 Restrictions As Cases Surge, Warns They Could Last For Up To 6 Months -- With Spain and France now grappling with COVID-19 outbreaks that are on par with the case numbers they battled in the spring (though deaths remain significantly lower this time around as doctors have better learned to treat the disease), and Germany imposing more restrictions as it deals with its latest flareup, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has delivered new national COVID-19 restrictions in a statement to the House of Commons. With roughly 30 million Britons already facing some level of local restrictions above and beyond the national requirements, including 'local lockdowns', Johnson has announced new restrictions on pubs and the hospitality industry, while asking millions of Britons to return to working from home, if they can. The announcement marks a reversal from Johnson's urging that commuters start to return to city centers as parts of London, and other British cities, start to look like ghost towns, prompting businesses that serve commuters to fail. New restrictions include the following (per BBG):

• Work from home if possible
• Pubs and restaurants to close by 10pm
• Curbs on large sports events from Oct. 1
• Max 15 guests at weddings
• Fines for breaking rules

But perhaps the biggest changes were on the punitive end. Now, Britons can be fined of up to £10,000 for violations of social distancing restirctions, while fines for first offenses have been doubled. Johnson promised "significantly greater" restrictions if the UK's "R" rate fails to drop below 1 in the coming weeks. Britons should assume that the restrictions Johnson just announced could be in place for up to 6 months, and that "we will not listen to those who say let the virus rip, nor those who urge a permanent lockdown." The government, Johnson said, is doing its best to balance saving people's lives, with preserving livelihoods and the economy.He insisted that "we want to avoid taking further steps", and urged all Britons to abide by the guidelines and protect the national interest.Some of the measures were previewed earlier by Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove during an interview with Radio 4's "Today" program. Johnson's announcement comes as the number of deaths linked to COVID-19 in England and Wales rose for the first time since April: with deaths climbing 27% to 99 in the seven days through Sept. 11 from a week earlier, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.

 Saudi Arabia reports 30 new coronavirus deaths - Saudi Arabia has recorded 552 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, 30 new virus related deaths. The Health Ministry said the new cases bring the total number of COVID-19 patients to 330,798, including 13,572 active cases that are undergoing treatment. Of these, there are 1,121 critical cases, while the health condition of the rest is stable. It added that 30 new deaths have been reported; putting the tally of fatalities, at 4,542. Meanwhile, as many as 1,185 cases have recovered, raising recoveries' toll to 312,684. It also said that new 48,367 laboratory tests were carried, during the past 24-hours, bringing the total of tests conducted in the kingdom to 6,141,968.

 Number of new weekly coronavirus cases at record high, says WHO -The weekly number of new recorded coronavirus infections worldwide was last week at its highest level to date, the World Health Organization has announced, as deaths from Covid-19 in Europe increased by more than a quarter week on week. Almost 1 million people have now died from the coronavirus since it emerged in China at the beginning of the year.With a new seven-day high of just short of 2 million new cases being recorded by the WHO, the latest tally represents a 6% increase over the previous week as well as “the highest number of reported cases in a single week since the beginning of the epidemic”, the UN health agency said. That figure is skewed by the fact testing has become much more widespread globally over recent months.The latest rise in infections, amid a resurgence in cases that has sent countries including the UK and across Europe scrambling to reintroduce restrictions, comes despite a global decrease in the weekly number of deaths from the virus.However the figures showed that deaths from the disease in Europe increased by 27% in the last week, with more than 4,000 recorded. France, Russia, Spain and Britain reported the highest number of new cases in Europe in the past week, while Hungary and Denmark reported the highest relative increase in deaths. According to the WHO, almost 31 million have now been infected by the virus worldwide. The largest concentration of recorded infections continues to be centred in the Americas – which is responsible for almost half of all infections – as the US approaches the grim milestone of 200,000 deaths. Nearly all regions of the world experienced a rise in new cases last week, the WHO said, with infections increasing by 11% and 10% respectively in Europe and the Americas. Only Africa went against the upward trend, reporting a 12% drop in new cases from a week earlier.The figures, released by the WHO late on Monday, have underlined the huge difficulties countries are facing in attempting to bring the spread of the virus under control without an effective and widely available vaccine.Last week, about 37,700 new deaths linked to the virus were recorded worldwide, marking a decline of 10% compared with the previous week. The decline was driven by the Americas, long the hardest-hit region, where new deaths were 22% lower than a week earlier, and by Africa where new deaths dropped 16%. But the Americas still account for half of all reported cases and 55% of deaths in the world. The clear drop in new deaths in the region were driven mainly by decreases in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and Bolivia.The US, the world’s worst-hit country, and Brazil, the second-worst, continued to report the highest number of deaths, each reporting more than 5,000 new deaths in the past week. Britain continues to have the highest number of cumulative deaths in Europe, at nearly 42,000 since the beginning of the pandemic.

India’s health minister downplays raging pandemic to conceal ruling elite’s criminal “herd immunity” policy - While India’s coronavirus cases are increasing at an alarming rate, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s health minister, Harsh Vardhan, has downplayed the threat posed by the pandemic’s relentless spread. Vardhan’s remarks were aimed at justifying the government’s reopening of the economy, which has also been supported by the state governments led by the opposition parties and has needlessly exposed millions of workers and rural toilers to the virus. Even according to the highly under-reported official figures, India’s total number of COVID-19 infections has passed 5.6 million, while more than 90,000 deaths have been registered. India is second only to the United States in terms of the number of coronavirus cases. However, due to the high level of transmission, with new cases routinely exceeding 90,000 per day, India is expected to surpass the US sooner rather than later. In an hour-long appearance on social media Sunday, health minister Vardhan made the truly absurd claim that community transmission of the virus is not yet occurring in India. “Only 10 states are contributing 77 percent of active cases,” argued Vadhan. “If you see state-specific data, you will find that these cases are concentrated in few districts.” Addressing India’s parliament on the first day of its Monsoon session, on Sept. 14, Vardhan similarly tried to cavalierly downplay the pandemic’s impact. He claimed that 92 percent of cases are reported to be a “mild disease,” and contended India’s response to the pandemic is among the best in the world. “India,” he said, “has been able to limit its cases and deaths to 3,328 cases per million and 55 deaths per million population respectively, which is one of the lowest in the world as compared to similarly affected countries.” Vardhan’s effort to cherry pick statistics that compare relatively well to other countries thanks only to India’s large population of 1.3 billion people cannot disguise the fact that all states and Union territories have recorded increasing infections, and that the pandemic and its economic fallout have produced a social catastrophe. On Saturday, the Delhi government’s health minister, Satyendar Jain, from the Aam Aadmi Party, admitted the vast increase in infections, adding, “We should have accepted there is community spread.” In a further exposure of the bogus character of Vardhan’s denial that community spread is taking place, 30 MPs and 50 members of staff tested positive for the virus prior to the commencement of the new parliamentary session. Even based on the severely under-counted official death toll of more than 90,000, India is currently third globally in terms of coronavirus deaths, behind only the United States and Brazil. Indian authorities are notorious for failing to provide the cause of death in the majority of cases even under non-pandemic conditions, making it all but certain that the actual death toll is far higher.

 Russia to supply 17 more countries with COVID-19 drug Avifavir - (Reuters) - Russia's sovereign wealth fund and its partner Chemrar will supply the COVID-19 drug Avifavir to 17 additional countries, the fund said in a statement on Thursday. Avifavir gained approval from the Russian health ministry in May and is based on Favipiravir, which was developed in Japan and is widely used there as the basis for viral treatments. Clinical trials in Japan and Russia have confirmed those drugs' efficacy, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said in a statement. Russia is pushing hard to take a global lead in the race against the virus. It is already exporting its COVID-19 tests and has clinched several international deals for supplies of its Sputnik-V vaccine. Avifavir has already been delivered to Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It will now be sent to Argentina, Bulgaria, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Kuwait, Panama, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, the UAE and Uruguay, the RDIF said. Last week Russia approved R-Pharm's Coronavir treatment for outpatients with mild to moderate COVID-19 infections and the company said the antiviral drug could be rolled out to pharmacies in the country as soon as this week. The RDIF said favipiravir-based drugs are three to four times cheaper than remdesivir, another COVID-19 treatment.

France sees record new coronavirus infections, with more than 16,000 cases in 24 hours - France reported a new record for daily coronavirus infections on Thursday a day after the government announced new restrictions on bars and restaurants in major cities which have provoked an outcry from local politicians and business owners.Figures from Public Health France showed that 16,096 people had tested positive for Covid-19 over the last 24 hours, a record—even though experts advise that testing during the first coronavirus wave in March-April captured only a fraction of cases.The centrist government of President Emmanuel Macron announced a series of new measures on Wednesday to try to slow the spread of the disease, including the closure of all bars and restaurants in Marseille and earlier closing times in Paris and elsewhere.Faced with criticism from the mayors of Paris and Marseille, legal challenges and calls from some bar owners to defy the new orders, Prime Minister Jean Castex called for “responsibility” and implied his opponents were playing politics.“What I don’t want is that we go back to March,” he said, referring to one of the strictest national lockdowns in Europe in which French people were required to fill out forms to leave their homes.The southern port city of Marseille has been put on “maximum alert”, while Paris and 10 other cities are at “elevated alert”—the second tier on a new sliding scale system of infection control measures.Public gatherings in all of these cities—which includes Bordeaux and Lyon—have been limited to 10 people, and attendance of large sporting events or concerts to 1,000.Marseille’s left-wing mayor objected that she had not been consulted about orders to shut bars, restaurants and sports facilities, and insisted that steps taken locally were starting to slow the outbreak. “I am angry because there was no consultation,” Mayor Michele Rubirola, herself a doctor, told Franceinfo radio. “Why turn the screws when our numbers have been improving for a few days now?” Owners of restaurants, cafes and other businesses in Marseille said they would stage a protest against the new measures on Friday.  Bernard Marty of the UMIH union, which represents the hospitality sector, warned of “insurrection,” with several restaurant owners vowing to ignore the closure orders.

 COVID-19 cases climbing in US, Europe, Canada | CIDRAP - After a steady decline from summer peaks through the beginning of September, new COVID-19 cases appear to be on the rise again in the United States. According to data from the New York Times, there have been 41,822 new cases per day in the country over the past week, a 14% increase from the previous 2 weeks. Among the states seeing the largest increases in new cases over the past 14 days are Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota.And the United States is far from the only country seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases as the fall begins. In a televised speech yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the nation is at a "crossroads," with British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec all entering a second wave of the pandemic, the CBCreports. Trudeau urged Canadians to follow public health guidelines."I know this isn't the news that any of us wanted to hear. And we can't change today's numbers or even tomorrow's … but what we can change is where we are in October, and into the winter," he said.Meanwhile, coronavirus infections are surging throughout Europe, where health officials are warning the coming months could look similar to this past spring.Globally, there are now 32,048,333 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 979,454 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard. The United States accounts for 6,962,333 of those cases, with 202,467 deaths. The rise in cases in Italy, which was one of the hardest-hit European countries in the spring, and Germany follow the pattern of increasing coronavirus transmission that officials have observed throughout the continent in recent weeks.As a new report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) highlights, data from Sep 13 show sustained increases (greater than 10%) in the 14-day COVID-19 case notification in 13 countries: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom."The observed increased transmission levels indicate that the non-pharmaceutical interventions in place have not achieved the intended effect, either because adherence to the measures is not optimal or because the measures are not sufficient to reduce or control exposure," the ECDC wrote in its Rapid Risk Assessment.The ECDC said in several countries the upsurge is linked to increased testing and "intense transmission" among 15- to 49-year-olds, while in other countries the increase has been among older people and has been accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations and severe cases.The United Kingdom reported 6,634 new COVID-19 cases today, up from 6,178 on Wednesday, according to the BBC, while Reuters reports that the number of new infections in the Netherlands hit a new daily record of 2,544, and Spain reported more than 10,600 new cases. France also set a daily record, with 16,096 new cases, and the  number of French COVID-19 patients in intensive care climbed to more than 1,000 for the first time since Jun 8.

 Trump’s EPA Dismisses Agency’s Own Findings That Chlorpyrifos Harms Children’s Brains -  The Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a risk assessment for toxicpesticide chlorpyrifos Tuesday that downplayed its effects on children's brains and may be the first indication of how the administration's "secret science" policy could impact public health. Several studies have found that babies exposed to chlorpyrifos in the womb can suffer from lower birth weights, attention deficit disorder, autism spectrum disorder, lower IQ and limited working memory, Earthjustice pointed out.  But the EPA on Tuesday discounted those findings, ruling instead that the science on chlorpyrifos' brain-damaging effects "remains unresolved." In doing so, it reversed the findings of EPA scientists from previous administrations. "This shows that E.P.A. has completely abandoned any commitment to protecting children from this extremely toxic chemical when their own scientists recommended twice to ban it," Natural Resources Defense Councilsenior director for health Erik D. Olson told The New York Times. "The science is being overridden by politics." In Tuesday's conclusion, the EPA discounted several epidemiological studies, including a prominent one conducted by Columbia University that found a connection between chlorpyrifos exposure in utero and developmental disorders in toddlers. This suggests the agency is moving forward with its proposed "secret science" policy that would reject or at least give less weight to the conclusions of studies that do not make their underlying data public.  However, several long-term health studies do not publish such data in order to preserve their subjects' privacy.  "The EPA is ignoring decades of science by leading universities and in doing so, it's neglecting its duty to protect children from pesticides," Earthjustice managing attorney Patti Goldman said in a statement. "Ignoring the demonstrated harm to children doesn't make chlorpyrifos safe, it just shows a commitment to keep a toxic pesticide in the market and in our food at all cost."

Expect Plagues of Locusts as Climate Change Gets Worse, Say Scientists - For much of this year, desert locusts have ravaged large swathes of farmlands and forage across East Africa, the Middle East, Southwest Asia and West Africa, in one of the worst outbreaks in decades, threatening the livelihoods of millions of people. And, thanks to climate change, scientists are warning that these outbreaks will only get worse in the future, as extreme weather events continue to break out across every region. In November 2019, Djibouti suffered two years worth of rain in a single day. The water level of Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, is the highest it has been in decades. Meanwhile, the Kilimanjaro region on the border between Kenya and Tanzania – which had consecutive, alternating wet and dry years – has just experienced the wettest year in four decades, all these creating the perfect conditions for the infestation. Also year on year, the western part of the Indian Ocean is getting warmer relative to the eastern side – a phenomenon knows as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) - creating both periods of long drought and heavy rainfall in East Africa.  “The Western part of the Indian ocean, the part that affects the East African region is seeing the fastest warming up of the tropical oceans in the past 100 years.”  The desert locust is the most destructive migratory pest in the world. They are part of a group of insects that have the ability to change their behaviour and migrate over large distances.  You can have around 40 million to 80 million locust adults in each square kilometre of a swarm, travelling up to 150 kilometres a day. A swarm of 40 million locusts eats the same amount of food in one day as about 35,000 people. The Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) in the Western Indian Ocean have increased by 1.2 degrees centigrade in the past century, higher than the global average of just slightly below 1 degree centigrade. At this rate, the locust invasions seen this year will become more common, bringing with them diseases and other pests, Babiker added. A positive IOD of warmer ocean water near the East African Coast will also result in higher annual rates of cyclones and more rainfall.  By April this year, over 500,000 hectares of cropland including sorghum and maize were damaged in Ethiopia, putting over a million people in need of food assistance. Pakistan declared a national emergency to combat the pests after locusts devoured wheat and cotton crops before crossing over to India, while Somalia declared anational emergency over their invasion. The locusts have also caused havoc in Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti and Eritrea, too. Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo have also reported problems in handling the swarm. Residents in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya have tried to fight the pests by lighting fires, banging plastic bottles, honking their cars and screaming, all in vain. The invasion is now expected to continue into October, as parts of Somalia, Sudan, Yemen have been hit by double the normal rainfall in August and September.

Scores of temperature records smashed as cold blast sweeps through Eastern U.S. - Dozens of temperature records were smashed or tied across the Eastern U.S. over the weekend as a shot of cold air swept through the region, weeks ahead of the average for much of the area. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued frost advisories and freeze warnings through 13:00 UTC (09:00 LT) on Monday, September 21, 2020. Parts of the northern Plains were the first to witness frosts and feel the chill last week. In Minnesota, International Falls registered -5 °C (23 °F) on Thursday night, September 17, smashing the previous record of -4.4 °C (24 °F) for the date set in 1959. Duluth smashed a 91-year-old record Friday morning, September 18, when temperatures pummelled to -2.2 °C (28 °F). The previous record for the date was -1.7 °C (29 °F), set in 1929. It's worthy to note that Duluth also set another record for the warmest low of 18 °C (65 °F) on September 18, 2019. Over the weekend, residents from Michigan to New England were gripped by cold and thick frost. On Saturday, September 19, more than a dozen low-temperature records were broken or tied for the date, including the following: Arkon-Canto in Ohio registered 3.3 °C (38 °F), breaking the past record low of 3.9 °C (39 °F) set in 1956; Binghamton in New York registered 1.7 °C (35 °F), tying with the record in 1959; Concord in New Hampshire with -2.2 °C (28 °F), surpassing the past record of -1.1 °C (30 °F) in 1990. The cold snap marked the end of the growing season for much across the Great Lakes and interior Northeast. "Some areas with lighter frost where plants could be protected may survive, but for many of the more sensitive vegetable and flower plants in gardens, this chill will mark the end," AccuWeather meteorologist Matt Benz said. "The frosts and freezes will also kick start the fall foliage season, with trees beginning to change quickly now over the next couple of weeks. Although in much of New England and parts of New York and Pennsylvania that remain in an ongoing drought and had a very dry mid-summer, the fall colors are likely to be muted this year." NWS Eastern Region noted more temperatures tied or smashed on Sunday morning, September 20, including the following: Allentown in Pennsylvania registered 2.2 °C (36 °F), beating the record of 2.8 °C (37 °F) set in 1993; Baltimore in Maryland had lows of 5.5 °C (42 °F), tying with the record in 1959; Houlton in Maine registered -3.9 °C (25 °F), also tying with the record in 1950.

Massive bird die-off in Western U.S. linked to cold blast  - Researchers at the University of New Mexico have found that the mysterious deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of migratory birds in the Western U.S. were primarily caused by acold blast that killed off edible insects and induced hypothermia. Around August 20, a large number of bird carcasses were found in the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument. Researchers thought the case was isolated, but hundreds of more birds were discovered in other regions. Since the die-off was first reported, the event caused a stir on social media and among scientists, who considered wildfires and drought as some of the factors. The birds reportedly behaved unusually prior to their deaths-- some that are commonly seen in shrubs and trees were found chasing bugs on the ground.   "I am no stranger to dead birds, but I had never seen anything like this. This was a lot of dead birds. It really is sad to see something like that," said UNM ornithology Ph.D. student Jenna McCullough, one of the researchers who examined the samples.McCullough, along with colleague Nick Vinciguerra, collected 305 samples of bird carcasses-- most of which were violet-green swallows-- and took them to UNM's Museum of Southwestern Biology in Albuquerque.The researchers documented a pattern of atrophied breast muscles and a lack of fat stores, indicating that the birds suffered dehydration and starvation.  After conducting tests, the researchers said a cold front that swept through the Rocky Mountains possibly killed off insects eaten by the birds. The cold weather also likely induced hypothermia.

Botswana says it has solved mystery of mass elephant die-off -- Hundreds of elephants died in Botswana earlier this year from ingesting toxins produced by cyanobacteria, according to government officials who say they will be testing waterholes for algal blooms next rainy season to reduce the risk of another mass die-off.The mysterious death of 350 elephants in the Okavango delta between May and June baffled conservationists, with leading theories suggesting they were killed by a rodent virus known as EMC (encephalomyocarditis) or toxins from algal blooms.“Our latest tests have detected cyanobacterial neurotoxins to be the cause of deaths. These are bacteria found in water,” Mmadi Reuben, principal veterinary officer at the Botswana department of wildlife and national parks, said in a news conference on Monday. “However we have many questions still to be answered such as why the elephants only and why that area only. We have a number of hypotheses we are investigating.” Local sources suggest 70% of elephants died near water holes containing algal blooms, which can produce toxic microscopic organisms called cyanobacteria. Toxins were initially ruled out because no other species died – except for one horse – but scientists now think elephants could be particularly susceptible because they spend a lot of time bathing and drinking large quantities of water.  Reuben said the investigation looked at how mortality affected the elephant population and injuries on carcasses, as well as testing water samples at laboratories in Botswana, South Africa and the US. He said the cause was a “combination of neurotoxins” but declined to give further details and declined to say at which institutions tests had been carried out. “I hope that what the government has said is true because it rules out some of the more sinister things,” said Dr Niall McCann, director of conservation at UK-based charity National Park Rescue, who initially suggested the elephants may have been poisoned or died from an unknown pathogen. To test tissue samples they need to be kept in specific conditions and quickly transported to specialised laboratories, but this was not done in Botswana which fuelled speculation about potential causes.  “Just because cyanobacteria were found in the water that does not prove that the elephants died from exposure to those toxins. Without good samples from dead elephants, all hypotheses are just that: hypotheses,” said McCann.

Australia counts record 470 stranded whales as rescue continues (Reuters) - Rescuers were racing against the tide on Wednesday to free whales beached off the Australian coast, with more than half the estimated 470 mammals in the country’s biggest stranding on record already believed dead. The pod of long-finned pilot whales was first spotted on a wide sandbank during an aerial reconnaissance of remote and rugged Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania state on Monday, launching a difficult rescue operation. Around 25 whales were freed on Tuesday, but officials said some had beached themselves again when they were brought back in by the tide, creating an exhausting loop for rescuers in freezing waters. “We’re not at a point where we’re considering euthanasia ... but it is always something that we have at the back of our mind,” said Kris Carlyon, a wildlife biologist with the state government conservation agency. “We’re still very hopeful.” A team of about 65 state park workers, fishermen and volunteers were triaging the pilot whales, a species of oceanic dolphin that grow to 7 metres (23 ft) long and can weigh up to 3 tonnes, to identify those most likely to survive.The refloating process involves as many as four or five people per whale wading waist-deep in freezing water, attaching slings to the animals so they can be guided out of the harbour by a boat. The stranding, about 200 kms (120 miles) northwest of the state capital Hobart, is the biggest on record in modern Australia and one of the largest in the world, drawing attention to a natural phenomenon that remains a mystery to scientists. “It’s certainly a major event and of great concern when we potentially lose that many whales out of a stranding event,”

At Least 380 Whales Die in Australia's Largest Mass Stranding - More long-finned pilot whales were found stranded today on beaches in Tasmania, Australia. About 500 whales have become stranded, including at least 380 that have died, the AP reported. It is the largest mass stranding in Australia's recorded history.  The stranding started on Monday when the whales became stuck on sandbars in Macquarie Harbor on Tasmania's west coast. Rescue efforts started on Tuesday morning and successfully helped 50 whales back into the water. On Wednesday afternoon, rescuers were trying to save the remaining 30 survivors, The Guardian reported."While they're still alive and in water, there's still hope for them — but as time goes on they do become more fatigued," Nic Deka, regional manager for Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service, told the BBC.  The Tasmanian government officials said that rescue efforts would continue as long as there were survivors. At the same time, The Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service will address removing the carcasses dotting Macquarie Harbor, the BBC reported.  "We have a couple of options that we are considering, but we need to consider all aspects before we settle on a decision," Deka said in a Tasmanian government press release. "We can't leave the whales in the harbor as they will present a range of issues. We are committed to retrieving and disposing but our key priority is to remain focused on the rescue effort." The first pod, containing about 270 stranded whales, were spotted Monday near the small town of Strahan. Aerial surveillance found another pod Wednesday morning with about 200 whales further south. Experts believe the two groups represent one mass stranding event, CNN reported."From the air most of the additional whales detected appear to be dead, but a boat has headed over there this morning to do an assessment from the water," Deka said in the press release.He explained that the whales were difficult to detect partly because of the dark water. "In that part of the harbor the water is a very dark tannin color so we think potentially they stranded, washed back into the water and then have been washed back into the bay, so that made it more difficult for them to be detected earlier in the piece."

Israel fish deaths linked to rapid warming of seas  -High temperatures and the persistent warming of oceans have triggered profound changes in marine ecosystems, but a new study suggests that the rate of onset of warming – rather than the peak – could also play a key role in the damage fuelled by climate change. In early July 2017, researchers were drawn to the coast of Eilat, Israel, following sightings of fish carcasses, a rare occurrence in the region’s coral reefs. “The fish were absolutely fresh … their gills were still red,”  . Necropsies were performed on 14 freshly dead and moribund fish from eight different species. In 13 cases, severe infection directly caused by a pathogenic bacterium,Streptococcus iniae, was observed. Although this pathogen is ubiquitous in fish in warm waters, a healthy immune system usually prevents debilitating infections. So, what caused the mass casualties? Typically, mass fish mortality events in the aftermath of marine heat waves are chalked up to factors such as toxic algal bloom or oxygen deprivation (hypoxia). But further examination revealed that the rate of warming – a rise of 4.2C over 2.5 days in early July – was the steepest recorded since daily measurements were registered 32 years ago. In August, the water warmed by 3.4C in 2.5 days. The same pattern emerged in two earlier documented mass coral reef fish deaths in Kuwait Bay in 2001 and western Australia in 2011. Both were immediately preceded by rapid warming spikes, suggesting that the rapid onset of warming, regardless of the final temperature, might trigger widespread mortality, the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This study isn’t quite the loud canary in a coal mine, but it’s part of the canary chorus, announcing that that the ocean has changed, and ecosystems are degrading … declining in both robustness and ability for organisms to survive,” said Dr Brad de Young from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, who was not involved in the study. “Ocean systems are being stressed out in many different ways – and like the background stress of Covid-19 on people, it makes everything else in life just that much more difficult,” he said. When you add events such as sudden warming to overfishing, pollutants, changes in ocean acidity and oxygen levels – the abruptness of it can be devastating because fish are already metabolically and physiologically stressed, he suggested.

‘Trash Tsunami’ Washes up on Honduran Beaches - A "trash tsunami" has washed ashore on the beaches of Honduras, endangering both wildlife and the local economy. The trash is mostly plastic waste, Voice of America reported Tuesday, and it is polluting the typically pristine tropical beaches of Omoa in the country's north. Honduran officials said Saturday that the refuse was coming from the mouth of the Motagua River in neighboring Guatemala. It poses a problem for the local economy because it depends on the tourism the beaches attract. "This wave of trash which came from the Motagua River really surprised us, and even though it caused problems, it has not stopped our activities," Honduran environment official Lilian Rivera said, as Yahoo News reported. "We are committed to cleaning our beaches and keeping them clean, but today we are demanding that authorities in Tegucigalpa take strong actions, actions to find a permanent solution to this problem."Tegucigalpa is the capital of Honduras.The Hondoran government, meanwhile, has demanded action from Guatemala to stem the tide of plastic, according to Voice of America.But the plastic flowing from Guatemala's Motagua River is an ongoing problem for the region, as The Intercept reported in 2019. The plastic tide is fed by the fact that Guatemala has few managed landfills or wastewater treatment plants. The plastic then washes out in the Caribbean Sea, home to the biodiverse Mesoamerican reef.In 2017, the Guatemalan government installed a "bio-fence" in the river to catch some of the waste after the Honduran government threatened a lawsuit over the pollution that reached its beaches. The fence is made of plastic bottles tied together with plastic netting."When it's full, you can practically walk on it," trash removal worker Marco Dubón told The Intercept. Worldwide, rivers are a major source of ocean plastic pollution: 90 percent of it comes from just 10 rivers, scientists found in 2017. The problem is only growing. A study published in July found that around 11 million metric tons of plastic enter marine environments every year, and that number will increase to 29 million metric tons a year by 2040 if no action is taken. Plastic is then a major problem for marine life. Seabirds, turtles and marine mammals can become entangled in plastic or eat it by mistake, PEW pointed out. This can lead to strangulation, suffocation or death. It is estimated that plastic kills one million seabirds every year and that half of all sea turtles have swallowed plastic.

New Jersey Legislature Passes ‘Most Comprehensive’ Plastics Ban in the Nation -  New Jersey is one step closer to passing what environmental advocates say is the strongest anti-plastic legislation in the nation. The state Legislature passed a sweeping measure Thursday that would ban plastic bags from stores and restaurants and single-use food and drink containers made from polystyrene foam, The New York Times reported. The ban is noteworthy for being the first in the country to include supermarket paper bags as well as plastic ones. "This is the single most comprehensive plastics and paper reduction bill in the nation," former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator and Beyond Plastics President Judith Enck said in a statement published by Insider NJ. "Building on the success of local laws adopted throughout New Jersey to reduce plastic pollution, the NJ State Legislature listened to the people and not the polluters and embraced a sensible environmental strategy." The bill now passes to Gov. Philip Murphy, who intends to sign it, a spokesperson told The New York Times. The bans on bags and containers will go into effect 18 months after he does so, NorthJersey.com reported. In addition to banning plastic and paper bags and plastic food containers, the bill will also limit plastic strawsin restaurants so that they will only be available upon request. There are exemptions for newspaper bags; bags used for loose produce, fish or meat; dry-cleaning bags and prescription drug bags. The measure effectively settles a long-running debate about whether plastic or paper bags are worse for the environment by banning both. Plastic bags account for about 12 percent of U.S. plastic pollution, according to The New York Times. But paper bags need more energy, and therefore more climate pollution, to make. New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittle said the new legislation would encourage people to use more sustainable, reusable shopping bags. However, the ban on paper bags was also the key to getting an important supermarket trade group to support the bill, NorthJersey.com reported. The organization argued that it would cost stores too much to supply customers with only paper bags. "The ban on paper bags is critically important to the success of this legislation," New Jersey Food Council President Linda Doherty said ahead of Thursday's vote. "Without a ban, consumers will simply move to paper single-use bags and we will not address the underlying goal of reducing our reliance on single-use products."

Trump Uses E.P.A. Office to Widen ‘Anarchist’ War vs. New York - President Trump’s politicized campaign to label New York City an “anarchist jurisdiction” broadened on Tuesday, with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency threatening to move its regional headquarters out of Lower Manhattan.The E.P.A. administrator, Andrew R. Wheeler, suggested that local agency officials had become so fearful of New York streets that they are now considering moving offices.The root of those fears? Mr. Wheeler cited three-month old protests against police brutality, and a small, recent protest against another federal agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at a nearby building. That demonstration was quickly shut down by the police.Few in New York have taken the president’s rhetoric seriously, and the threat from the E.P.A. administrator was also being dismissed as political theater to be deployed in Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign.“Another day, another transparent political game from this federal government,” said Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. “The fact is the E.P.A. has abandoned every state since 2017, and they should quit playing political flunky and actually do their job.”Earlier this month, Mr. Trump told his attorney general, William P. Barr, to identify jurisdictions that had allowed “themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones,” threatening to withhold federal funding from those places.Mr. Barr complied on Monday, delivering a memo that painted New York as a city run amok, descending into violence and anarchy. Mr. Wheeler’s threat, first reported by The New York Post, matched that message in tone and rhetoric. “If you cannot demonstrate that E.P.A. employees will be safe accessing our New York City offices, then I will begin the process of looking for a new location for our regional headquarters outside of New York City that can maintain order,” Mr. Wheeler wrote in a letter to Mr. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats. About 580 employees work at the regional office.

GASP Group: Let’s Not Forget N. Birmingham’s Toxic Air and Soil Issues  - GASP Group, an environmental advocacy group for clean air, said it has tried for months to get the attention of Governor Kay Ivey to support more action toward cleanup of a local toxic site in North Birmingham and so far has not received a response. GASP is asking the governor to add the site on 35th Avenue North to the Environmental Protection Agency’s “National Priority List.” This would mean more attention to resident concerns about the safety of the area. The 35th Avenue site consists of Harriman Park, Collegeville and Fairmont. Industrial plants for steel, pipe and coke, a distilled form of coal, were once common in the area. According to the EPA, these industries left behind toxic levels of arsenic, lead and benzo(a)pyrene, or BaP. BaP and arsenic are carcinogens. Cleanup in the area dominated the news cycle more than three years ago during a high-profile corruption case involving a local lawmaker and a coal company executive and has not received much attention since. Michael Hansen, executive director of GASP, said he is determined to not let the cleanup issue fade. “We held a caravan in Montgomery where we honked and caused a lot of noise at the governor’s mansion, put signs on our cars,” Hansen said. “And we’ll continue to do that, we have another caravan [on October 3]. But we’re also having a letter writing campaign.” Hansen said GASP has been trying to speak with the governor for more than a year. “We have requested a meeting with the governor directly. We’ve been pushed to meetings with aides, like chiefs of staff or economic policy advisors,” Hansen said. “They have been open to talking about it, but not open to doing anything about it. We’re requesting to have a meeting directly with the governor herself, and we haven’t been acknowledged [by Ivey] since we put in that request.”

2 missing after worst rainfall in 120 years triggers flash flooding in southern France - (videos) At least 2 people are missing after torrential rains triggered flash flooding in several departments of southern France on Saturday, September 19, 2020. Valleraugue commune in Gard Department recorded up to 468 mm (18 inches) of rain in just a 6-hour period, which is over six times the average rain for September of 75 mm (3 inches)-- the worst since 1900. Meteo France reported violent storms in the foothills of the Cevennes mountains on Saturday, with the worst affected departments Gard, Lozere, and Herault. In a six-hour period, Vigan recorded 196 mm (8 inches) of rain, Saumane 175 mm (7 inches), and an exceptional 468 mm (18 inches) in Valleraugue, including 361 mm (14 inches) in just three hours. According to AFP, this was the worst downpour in the area since 1900. Climate data also shows that the commune usually receives around 75 mm (3 inches) of rain for the month of September, which means the area was hit by over six months' worth of rain in less than a day. At least 2 people are missing after torrential rains triggered flash flooding in several departments of southern France on Saturday, September 19, 2020. Valleraugue commune in Gard Department recorded up to 468 mm (18 inches) of rain in just a 6-hour period, which is over six times the average rain for September of 75 mm (3 inches)-- the worst since 1900. Meteo France reported violent storms in the foothills of the Cevennes mountains on Saturday, with the worst affected departments Gard, Lozere, and Herault. In a six-hour period, Vigan recorded 196 mm (8 inches) of rain, Saumane 175 mm (7 inches), and an exceptional 468 mm (18 inches) in Valleraugue, including 361 mm (14 inches) in just three hours. According to AFP, this was the worst downpour in the area since 1900. Climate data also shows that the commune usually receives around 75 mm (3 inches) of rain for the month of September, which means the area was hit by over six months' worth of rain in less than a day. Emergency services deployed some 650 personnel and mobilized helicopters for evacuations and rescue operations. As of Sunday, September 20, around 421 people have been moved to shelter, including more than 200 in Anduze commune, and 46 people have been rescued. As a result of the flooding, 12 roads and five bridges have been temporarily closed. Water and electricity supplies had also been cut in some areas in Gard. At least two people were reported missing in the region. The victims were identified as a 64-year-old woman who was washed away by raging floods and a man who went missing during a hill run in the Cevennes.

Massive floods leave widespread destruction, displace 140 000 people in Afar, Ethiopia - More than 240 000 people have been affected and 144 000 displaced as widespread floods hit Afar, Ethiopia, the government stated in a press release on September 21, 2020. More than 80 localities have been hit in what authorities described as the worst flood the region has ever seen. Floodwaters left up to 41 000 ha (101 300 acres) of crops damaged and at least 21 000 animals perished. Afar Regional State Disaster Prevention and Food Security Bureau Head, Mohammed Hussein told the Ethiopian News Agency that 240 000 people have been impacted by major floods, and the state needs 350 million birrs or around 9.5 million dollars for relief and rehabilitation. So far, only 100 million birrs or 2.7 million dollars have been collected. "Even if the regional and federal governments, as well as different organizations, have been supporting the displaced persons surrounded by water, the assistance provided is still insufficient," Mohammad noted. He added that the region has been battered not only by flooding, but also by desert locust invasion and the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a lack of medicine, clean water, and shelter. Kesem, Tendaho, and Koka dams on the Awash river overflowed, displacing more than 144 000 citizens. About 41 000 ha (101 300 acres) of land were also ravaged, while more than 21 000 animals perished. More than 80 localities have been inundated, with authorities describing it as the worst ever the region has seen. More than 1 000 people were stranded, at least 48 000 lost their homes, and around 123 740 are in need of emergency food assistance, while another 84 000 people composed of mothers and children are in need of medicines.

At least 126 people killed in floods and landslides in Gandaki Pradesh, Nepal – vidoes At least 126 people have lost their lives to natural disasters, such as floods and landslides, triggered by monsoon rains this year in Gandaki Pradesh, Nepal. The Meteorological Forecasting Division (MFD) forecasts moderate to heavy rains throughout the country until Saturday, September 26, 2020.​ This year's monsoon rains have caused floods and landslides that affected all districts in Gandaki Pradesh. The provincial government assured that efforts are being made to assist victims in the worst-hit districts. However, officials were having a tough time managing permanent settlements for displaced people. According to Minister of Internal Affairs and Law Hari Bahadur Chuman, most of the deaths occurred in Baglung with 52 fatalities, 29 in Myagdi, 13 in Tanahun, 10 in Kaskiand, nine in Parbat, and five in Syangja. The minister added that damage assessment is underway to identify damaged houses in various districts. Each of the victims' families were pledged a financial assistance of 50 000 rupees from the Gandaki government. In Myagdi, some of the families of the deceased said they are yet to receive the relief. Food assistance amounting to 600 000 rupees and 422 tents have been provided for the displaced in the said district. 200 000 rupees each was allocated for Manag and Mustang and 1 million rupees each to the remaining nine districts.   MFD predicts moderate to heavy rainfall with thunder and lightning is forecast throughout Nepal until Saturday. "A low-pressure area is now located over Chhattisgarh state of India and is advancing to the west and north-west of Nepal, bringing in more rains," the forecast stated.

At least 10 dead as Tropical Storm "Noul" wreaks havoc in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar - (videos) At least 10 people lost their lives, properties were damaged or destroyed, and hundreds of thousands were affected as Tropical Storm "Noul" ripped through parts of Southeast Asia -- from Vietnam, where it caused the most damage (amounting to 10 million dollars) as well as the most fatalities, to Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. The storm made landfall in Vietnam, between the provinces of Quảng Trị and Thừa Thiên-Huế, at 03:00 UTC on September 18. In central Vietnam, Noul claimed six lives, injured 112 others, and knocked down over 10 000 trees and several power lines that cut electricity to more than 280 000 households. The worst affected province was Thua Thien-Hue, where four deaths were reported and 10 houses were completely destroyed, according to the Central Steering Committee on Natural Disaster Prevention and Control. Winds of up to 90 km/h (56 mph) and rains peaking at 310 mm (12 inches) were recorded, triggering floods and causing up to 200 billion dongs or 10 million dollars in damage. Thousands of other houses suffered damage, mostly due to strong winds. Around 50 000 people were evacuated in the affected provinces.As the storm headed further inland, parts of Laos were drenched by heavy rains, resulting in floods in Xekong and Champassak provinces. Floodwaters infiltrated temples and ravaged roads and rice fields. The storm then made its way to Thailand around September 19, affecting more than 1 900 families across 27 provinces-- 22 of which have been severely inundated due to excessive rainwater. Infrastructures, farms, and villages have been damaged in the past few days, according to the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) Director-General Chayaphol Thitisak.

Widespread destruction after Medicane Cassilda (Ianos) strikes Greece, heads toward Libya/Egypt border region - Medicane Cassilda (Ianos) made landfall in Argostoli, Kefalonia, western Greece at 02:20 UTC on September 18, 2020, with maximum sustained winds up to 110 km/h (70 mph), gusts to 135 km/h (85 mph), and heavy rain.

• Widespread destruction was reported.
• At least 3 people have been killed and one is still missing. Nearly 1 000 were rescued.
• The storm moved through central Greece after striking the Ionian islands and exited back into the Mediterranean Sea.
• Cassilda is now weakening on its way toward the Libya-Egypt border region.

Cassilda caused widespread infrastructural damage, downed trees and bridges, disrupted traffic, damaged roads, homes and buildings, sank boats, and left thousands of homes without power. Ionian Sea islands of Zakynthos, Kefalonia, and Ithaca, and areas around the cities of Kardiutsa and Farsala in central Greece are among the worst hit. According to official estimates, 5 000 properties were flooded in Karditsa alone.At least 3 people have been killed -- one in Farsala, and two in Karditsa.Rescuers are still searching for a woman who went missing in Mouzaki after the car she was driving got swept away by floodwaters.Emergency service officials said they received over 2 500 calls for assistance and rescued nearly 1 000 people.Five boats reportedly sank off Zakynthos and Lefkada. One boat believed to be carrying 55 migrants was in distress off the Peloponnese peninsula, southwest of Athens, and urged vessels in the area to assist. On Friday, waves off the coast of the western Peloponnese were as high as 7 m (23 feet).Many farmers in central Greece said their crops and greenhouses were destroyed.Cassilda weakened into Severe Medistorm on September 19 as it moved south and is now back in the Mediterranean, weakening on its way toward the Libya-Egypt border region.

Mainland Portugal hit by its first (sub)tropical cyclone on record -- Subtropical Storm "Alpha" -- the 22nd named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season and the earliest 22nd Atlantic named storm on record -- made landfall near central Portugal at 18:30 UTC on September 18, just 2 hours after its formation. Alpha is the first tropical or subtropical cyclone on record to strike mainland Portugal and the third to make landfall in mainland Europe. Alpha had maximum sustained winds of 85 km/h (50 mph) at the time of landfall and minimum central pressure of 996 hPa. This made it the first (sub)tropical cyclone on record to make landfall in mainland Portugal. After making landfall, alpha quickly weakened as it headed further into the Iberian Peninsula, becoming a remnant low at 03:00 UTC on September 19. Orange warnings for high winds and heavy rainfall were issued for Coimbra and Leiria districts ahead of the landfall. Subtropical Storm "Alpha" at 14:30 UTC on September 18, 2020. Credit: EUMETSAT/Meteosat-11, RAMMB/CIRA Although Alpha was a small storm, with tropical-storm-force winds extending outward up to 55 km (35 miles) from the center, it managed to cause widespread power outages, down hundreds of trees, and damage dozens of dozens of buildings and vehicles. In addition, at least two tornadoes were reported in Beja and Palmela. Some cities reported extreme flash flooding and powerful winds. In total, authorities said there were 203 reports of fallen trees, 174 reports of minor flooding, 88 structures damaged, and 82 roads blocked by debris. Most of the damage reports came from the Leira District (143), followed by 135 reports from the Lisbon District. Alpha was the first tropical or subtropical cyclone to make landfall in mainland Portugal and the third to make landfall in mainland Europe, following a hurricane in Spain in 1842 and Hurricane "Vince" in 2005 as a tropical depression. Furthermore, Alpha and Medicane Cassilda (Ianos) made landfall on the same day. This marked the first time in history that two subtropical cyclones hit Europe on the same day.

Devastation left in the wake of Hurricanes Sally and Laura along the US Gulf Coast Power restorations, debris hauling, and the rebuilding of damaged critical infrastructure continues in communities along the northern Gulf Coast portion of Florida and southern Alabama in the wake of Hurricane Sally, which made landfall as a Category 2 last Wednesday in Gulf Shores, Alabama. But amidst the widespread flood damage, mass power outages, prolonged boil water advisories, and water rescues, the Gulf region of the contiguous US, home to 64 million people, remains lodged in the crosshairs of a historically overactive hurricane season. Though its original path placed the city of New Orleans and the southwest Mississippi coast as its center for landfall, Hurricane Sally, made a sharp eastward turn towards the Alabama-Florida border before making landfall, causing almost 600,000 homes and businesses from southeast Louisiana over into the heart of Georgia to lose power at one point last week. Sally brought torrential rain and major flooding to the area even before it made landfall. Less than a week later, there have already been seven reported deaths related to the Hurricane—two in Baldwin County, Alabama; two in Escambia County, Florida; and three in the Atlanta area. Widespread flooding resulted from Hurricane Sally in a large area spanning from southeast Louisiana to as far as Tallahassee, Florida. Pensacola Fire Chief Ginny Cranor told CNN that "four months of rain" fell in "four hours"—well over 30 inches. The storm surge was one of the worst Pensacola had ever experienced, at one point producing flooding up to a depth of five feet.  Amanda Marcial, a resident in Escambia County whose home flooded, told the Pensacola News Journal that "[e]very time it rains we live in fear," adding that "I am in what they say is a 100-year flood plain," but "it's flooded again" since a rainstorm flooded her home in April 2014. At least 600 water rescues have been carried out in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida in response to Hurricane Sally. Food, water, and tarp distribution sites had to be established in several locations throughout Escambia County, serving 20,000 cars up until last weekend. At least $180 million in damages to public and private property has been tallied so far by officials in Alabama and Florida. This includes $19 million in Mobile County in Alabama, $139 million in Escambia County, and $21 million in Santa Rose County in Florida. As assessments to road and home damage to debris removal continues, the total amount of damages in these areas alone will undoubtedly increase.

Hurricane "Teddy" forecast to become a strong post-tropical cyclone before reaching Nova Scotia, Canada --The center of Hurricane "Teddy" is moving east of Bermuda on September 21, 2020, bringing tropical-storm-force wind gusts. Teddy is forecast to become a strong post-tropical cyclone before reaching Nova Scotia, Canada on September 23.

• A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Bermuda and Watch for Lower East Pubnico to Main-a-Dieu, Nova Scotia, Canada.
• Gradual weakening is forecast to begin mid-week, but the cyclone is expected to remain a large and powerful hurricane Tuesday, then become a strong post-tropical cyclone when it nears Nova Scotia by Wednesday morning (LT), September 23.
• Meanwhile, the center of Tropical Storm "Beta" will continue to move toward the central coast of Texas and will likely move inland by tonight. Beta is forecast to remain close to the coast of southeastern Texas on Tuesday.

Hurricane "Teddy" is expected to transition to a powerful post-tropical cyclone as it moves near or over portions of Atlantic Canada late Tuesday, September 22 through Thursday, September 24. There is an increasing risk of direct impacts from wind, heavy rain, and storm surge.  At 12:00 UTC on September 21, Teddy's center was located about 260 km (160 miles) SE of Bermuda. The system had maximum sustained winds of 155 km/h (100 mph), making it a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Teddy had minimum central pressure of 960 hPa and was moving NNE at 15 km/h (9 mph). Little change in strength is expected during the next day or so, NHC forecasters said.

Tropical Storm Beta Makes Landfall in Texas, Drenching Storm-Weary Gulf Coast - The National Hurricane Center has run out of names for tropical storms this year and has now moved on to the Greek alphabet during an extremely active hurricane season. Late Monday night, Tropical Storm Beta became the ninth named storm to make landfall. That's the first time so many named storms have made landfall since 1916, when Woodrow Wilson was president, according to NBC News. Beta is a small but slow-moving storm. Its tropical-storm winds extend 125 miles from the eye of the storm. However, the danger from Beta is not its winds, but the tremendous amount of rain it is expected to drop on towns and cities along the Interstate 10 corridor in Texas and Louisiana, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The National Hurricane Center issued an update late last night that the center of Beta made landfall in Texas near the Southern End of the Matagorda peninsula around 10 p.m. CDT. The storm's slow movement will stall Beta over Texas and drench the region with five to 10 inches of rain, said Rich Otto, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, MD, as The New York Times reported. The heavy rains and wind will also create dangerous storm surges. "Twenty-four hours from now it will be in roughly the same location," Otto said Monday, according to The New York Times. That stalled movement has put roughly 11 million people under flash flood warnings that span the Texas and Louisiana coast, according to CNN. The sustained rain is also expected to cause river flooding and urban flooding. Early Tuesday morning, Beta was moving no faster than people typically walk, at just 3 miles per hour. It is predicted to stall over inland Texas Tuesday and then move toward the east and northeast later in the day when it will begin to weaken, according to the AP. It is expected to stay in southeastern Texas through Wednesday and then move over Louisiana and Mississippi through Friday.

Tropical Storm "Beta" makes landfall, expected to stall inland over Texas - Tropical Storm "Beta" made landfall near the southern end of Matagorda Peninsula, Texas -- about 10 km (6 miles) N of Port O'Connor -- at 04:00 UTC on September 22, 2020, with maximum sustained winds of 75 km/h (45 mph) and minimum central pressure of 999 hPa.

• Beta is the 9^th named storm to make landfall in the continental U.S. (CONUS) this year. This tied 2020 with the 1916 Atlantic hurricane season for the most named storm to make CONUS landfall in an Atlantic hurricane season on record.
• Significant flash and urban flooding is occurring and will continue for the middle and upper Texas coast today. The slow motion of Beta will continue to produce a long duration rainfall event from the middle Texas coast to southern Louisiana.

A Storm Surge Warning is still in effect for Sargent, Texas to Sabine Pass including Galveston Bay. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Port Aransas, Texas to Sabine Pass. At 12:00 UTC on September 22, Beta's center was located about 15 km (10 miles) ESE of Victoria and 55 km (35 miles) W of Palacios, Texas. The storm was moving NW at 6 km/h (3 mph) with maximum sustained winds of 65 km/h (40 mph) and minimum central pressure of 999 hPa. Significant flash and urban flooding is occurring and will continue for the middle and upper Texas coast today, NHC forecasters noted. The slow motion of Beta will continue to produce a long duration rainfall event from the middle Texas coast to southern Louisiana. Flash, urban, and minor river flooding is likely.

 Zombie storms are rising from the dead thanks to climate change Wildfires are burning the West Coast, hurricanes are flooding the Southeast — and some of those storms are rising from the dead.  "Zombie storms," which regain strength after initially petering out, are the newest addition to the year 2020. And these undead weather anomalies are becoming more common thanks to climate change."Because 2020, we now have Zombie Tropical Storms. Welcome back to the land of the living, Tropical Storm #Paulette," the National Weather Service wrote on Twitter on Tuesday (Sept. 22). Earlier this month, Tropical storm Paulette formed in the Atlantic Ocean and made landfall in Bermuda as a Category 1 hurricane, according to CNN. It then strengthened over land into a Category 2 hurricane, before weakening and dying off five and half days later. But then, Paulette opened her frightening eye once again. She wasn't gone. Paulette regained strength and became a tropical storm once more about 300 miles (480 kilometers) away from the Azores Islands on Monday (Sept. 21), according to CNN. The term "zombie storm" is new, and though the phenomenon has been recorded before, it is thought to be rare.  But zombie storms are going to happen more often, said Donald Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And as with other natural disasters that have been intensifying in recent years, such as wildfires and hurricanes, climate change and rapid global warming are to blame.  There has been an "extreme amount of heating of the Gulf (of Mexico), particularly in some of the ocean areas off of the Carribean," Wuebbles told Live Science. The Gulf of Mexico, where many hurricanes gain strength before hitting the U.S., is particularly vulnerable to global warming because the gulf waters are very shallow — and thus heat up easily, Wuebbles said.

Trump Administration to Allow Logging in Pristine National Forest --America's largest national forest, Tongass National Forest in Alaska, will be opened up to logging and road construction after the Trump administration finalizes its plans to open up the forest on Friday, according toThe New York Times.The plans to open up the forest to logging have been in the works for years. In March, the Trump administration faced a setback when a federal judge halted plans to open 1.8 million acres to logging and road building because the administration had failed to evaluate the environmental impact fully, as EcoWatchreported at the time.The roughly 9 million acres that the administration wants to open up now have been protected since the 2001 by the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, or Roadless Rule, which prohibits construction in nationally protected wild areas, according to The Guardian. The U.S Forest Service is expected to release a full environmental impact statement later on Friday, saying that lifting the rule will not damage the 16.7 million-acre temperate rainforest in southeast Alaska. The administration will consequently revoke the Roadless Rule and move forward with plans to lease the land for logging. The drive to open up Tongass National Forest to logging, as well as energy and mineral exploration, started in 2018 when Alaska's Governor Bill Walker asked the federal government to consider removing protections for the forest. While Alaska's senators have supported the idea, environmental advocates have criticized it, according to the AP.The U.S. Forest Service evaluated several plans, including more moderate ones that would maintain protections for 80 percent of the forest and another that would have opened up logging and road construction to 2.3 million acres. The Forest Service, however, decided to fully remove the Roadless Rule protections and open 9 million acres to developers and loggers, according to a statement from the Department of Agriculture, as The New York Times reported. "This administration has opted to take the road well traveled by continuing to spend tens of millions of dollars every year to expand logging roads for a dying old-growth timber industry," said Andy Moderow, a director for the Alaska Wilderness League, in a statement, as The Guardian reported. "This is bad for people, bad for a sustainable economy and bad for wildlife."  Earthjustice, an environmental legal-advocacy group that successfully stopped development in Tongass in March, said it would fight the plan in the courts. Katie Glover, an attorney for Earthjustice, said, "We will use every tool available to continue defending this majestic and irreplaceable national forest," as the AP reported.

6 Men in Oregon Charged for Allegedly Starting Fires During Wildfire Season on Purpose - At least six men in Oregon have been charged with allegedly starting fires in the region on purpose. This happens in the wake of widespread wildfires in the west, according to The Oregonian. One suspect damaged more than a dozen homes, and put people in danger, authorities said. A second man allegedly burned hundreds of acres in Lane County. The four other suspects allegedly caused more minor flames, which were put out. None of the suspects, however, were allegedly motivated by politics. Unsubstantiated rumors circulated around Oregon that left-wing extremists were starting wildfires. This resulted in reports of armed locals east of Portland setting up roadblocks. “Deputies responded to reports some people were armed and asking for identification of the folks they stopped,” Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese said in a statement last week. “We told people engaging in this behavior that roadways are open to all users, and their actions are illegal and they could be subject to citation or arrest.” Officials in Douglas County, and Jackson County reported getting false claims of arrests. “Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON,” the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said in a September 10 statement. One of the suspects in the fires–Michael Jarrod Bakkela–allegedly set a blaze on September 8 in Phoenix, Oregon, damaging 15 properties and threatening the lives of 14 people. He was described as a transient, but had a Salem address. He had a 2019 conviction for meth possession, and had been charged before with harassment connected to the 2019 crash of a stolen car. The defendant pleaded not guilty in the Sept. 8 fire. The four suspects in the smaller fires reportedly dealt with drug addiction, mental illness, and homelessness.

California firefighters make stand to save famed observatory, homes (Reuters) - Crews fought on Tuesday to defend homes and the famed Mount Wilson Observatory from California’s biggest and most dangerous wildfire, standing their ground at a major highway between the flames and populated areas. The Bobcat Fire, which broke out Sept. 6 in the Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles, has already blackened an area larger than the city of Atlanta and its rapid spread prompted worried law enforcement officials to call for new evacuations on Monday evening. Once home to the largest operational telescope in the world, the Mount Wilson Observatory, which sits on a peak of the San Gabriel mountains near vital communications towers, said in an update that almost all the forest around it had burned. Firefighters overnight kept the Bobcat from breaching containment lines near the observatory and were preventively burning vegetation ahead of the fire along state Highway 2, which runs northeast from Los Angeles. This summer California already has seen more land charred by wildfires than in any previous full year, with some 3.4 million acres burned since mid-August. The fires, stoked by extreme weather conditions that some scientists call evidence of climate change, have destroyed some 6,100 homes and other structures and killed 26 people, three of them firefighters. Another 2 million acres have burned in Oregon and Washington during an outbreak of wildfires, destroying more than 4,400 structures and claiming 10 lives. But rain showers across the western Cascade mountain range helped fire crews in the Pacific Northwest gain control of those conflagrations. Although California has seen little rain in September, bouts of high temperatures and gale-force winds have given way in recent days to cooler weather, enabling firefighters to gain ground. But forecasters predict rising temperatures, lower humidity and a return of strong, erratic winds around midweek in Southern California and by the weekend across the state’s northern half, lending urgency to the firefight.The Bobcat Fire has now scorched more than 109,000 acres to become one of the largest wildfires in recorded Los Angeles County history and was only 17% contained on Tuesday afternoon. The flames came perilously close to the Mount Wilson Observatory last week before they were driven back by crews using air support. Several more areas, including Pasadena, a city of 140,000 people, remained under evacuation warnings. California’s fire season historically has run through October. Five of the state’s 20 largest blazes on record have occurred this year.

Creek Fire becomes largest single blaze in California, spawning 2 rare fire tornadoes (videos) The Creek Fire in California has become the state's largest single blaze record, scorching up to 117 935 ha (291 426 acres) of land as of Thursday, September 24, 2020, and is only 34 percent contained. The blazes spawned two rare tornadoes rated EF-1 and EF-2 a day after the fire started earlier this month, the National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed. The blaze started on September 4, near Mammoth Pool, Shaver Lake, Big Creek, and Huntington Lake. In a span of just three weeks, the flame exploded to 117 935 ha (291 426 acres), left nearly 1 000 structures damaged or destroyed, and is posing threats to 6 723 more properties. Around 3 085 fire personnel have been deployed to combat the flame, with the full containment expected to be accomplished by October 15. As of Thursday, September 24, the Creek Fire has become the largest single blaze in the history of California as the state is experiencing its worst fire year since the 1910 Great Fire, which ripped through more than 1.2 million ha (3 million acres) of land. On Wednesday, NWS confirmed that in a rare event, the blaze spawned two fire tornadoes or firenadoes on September 5, a day after it sparked. One was rated EF-2 with winds up to 201 km/h (125 mph) and the other EF-1 with winds of up to 160 km/h (100 mph). CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward noted that to have even one tornado within a fire is rare. "Fires can lead to fire whirls-- kind of like a dust devil-- due to differential heating, but to get a tornado with winds over 160 km/h (100 mph) is quite unusual." One of the firenadoes occurred in Mammoth Pool Reservoir in the Sierra National Forest well southeast of Yosemite, while the other formed near Bass Lake. Unlike firewhirls, which is usually seen forming from the ground up over small brushfires, fire tornadoes are actual tornadoes but are dynamically different than normal ones in general. This phenomenon is produced by rotating clouds or smoke plumes in environments where wind change and direction with height. While the funnels are not filled with fire literally, they are filled with a superheated column of debris, ash, and smoke. The historic wildfires in the state have generated intense heat, causing the vortices to develop, according to NWS meteorologist Jerald Meadows. "The main contributing factor was the debarking of all the pine trees up with the Mammoth Pool tornado," he explained. "They both uprooted trees to the root balls and snapped large pines. But the [EF1 tornado] did not have any signs of true debarking. We’re probably talking the difference between 160 and 177 km/h (100 and 110 mph)."

Catastrophic wildfires, corporate air pollution, and COVID-19: A collision of crises - Air quality indexes, measures of the amount of particulate present in the air, in Portland and Seattle are currently being recorded as the worst in the world due to particulates emitted from the ongoing wildfires nearby. The scientific data suggest that residents of these cities (and much of the Pacific coast of the United States as well as British Columbia, which all currently are experiencing incredibly poor air quality) will simultaneously be facing an increased risk of developing COVID-19 as well as an increased risk of severe disease if infected. The effect of corporate practices that shirk environmental regulations, along with politicians from both major parties passing regulations that are far too lax in the first place, is well documented in regard to climate change. Climate change in turn has exacerbated the wildfires across the West Coast.  What is less well documented in the media is the effect of air pollutants, due to both corporate emissions and particulate matter released by the massive wildfires, on the risk of infection and the risk of death due to COVID-19. Air pollution caused by the wildfires will exacerbate the COVID-19 crisis due to both immunological and sociological factors. Research has suggested that particulate matter in the air, due to industrial pollution, the burning of fossil fuels, and now the fires on the West Coast, increases the likelihood of infection by COVID-19 and the likelihood for severe disease. Meanwhile, the fires themselves are forcing mass evacuations of individuals, creating de facto climate crisis refugees, putting them into close contact with other individuals and creating a veritable breeding ground for COVID-19 transmission.  From an immunological standpoint, two factors are at play in regard to the effects of the air pollution and COVID-19: increases in likelihood for infection and increases in severity among individuals who are infected. In April, data from a large cross-sectional study was released as a preprint by researchers at Harvard using county-level data of nearly every county in the US. This study accounted for more than 20 other variables, and then compared COVID-19 deaths and long-term air quality data in each county. The results were striking. It was determined that just 1 microgram per cubic meter of PM2.5 (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns in size, small enough to be inhaled deeply into the lung) was associated with an 8 percent increase in COVID-19 fatalities. Since then, a similar analysis was conducted using data from the Netherlands, which found that the same increase in PM2.5 levels, 1 microgram per cubic meter, increased the number of cases of COVID-19 by 7.2 percent, and an increase in COVID-19 fatalities of between 9.4 percent and 15.1 percent. It has been known for quite some time that air pollution, particularly airborne particulate matter, is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular pathology, being responsible for 5 million deaths in 2017 alone, and being linked to death in individuals with heart or lung disease, heart attacks, aggravated asthma, decreased lung function, and respiratory inflammation.These pathologies have been linked directly to increased severity of COVID-19 infections, and increased risk of death due to COVID-19. Other studies have since found increases in COVID-19 infections and deaths in areas with higher airborne particulate levels in the UK and an increase in deaths in some regions in Italy .

What the Photos of Wildfires and Smoke Don’t Show You — ProPublica - Over the past few weeks, the West erupted in flames. The lucky among us know this from the news: 3.2 million acres burned in California, 1 million acres burned in Oregon, more than 900,000 acres burned in Washington. Words often fail as those words just failed — to communicate what these fires are actually like up close. Photographs often do better at capturing the drama and emotion. But the pictures that run in news outlets represent a tiny subset of what happens during a wildfire. What we see, and don’t see, shapes what we think about fire. And what we think about fire shapes fire policy. And as the West Coast learned these past few weeks, our fire management policy has left us in a very dangerous place. We talked to a handful of photojournalists, forest ecologists and firefighters about how fire images get made, and lightly edited parts of interviews are presented below. The three key takeaways from our conversations are:

• 1. Fire photos often stir up fear and leave out “good fire,” which the public needs to see in order to understand and support managed burns.
• 2. Fire photos often make fire look like an enemy best attacked with something like a military campaign, an idea that is often wrong, a waste of money and ineffective.
• 3. Fire photos make fire look far more ubiquitous than it is, even in the midst of big blazes.

Wildfires taint West Coast vineyards with taste of smoke (AP) — Smoke from the West Coast wildfires has tainted grapes in some of the nation’s most celebrated wine regions with an ashy flavor that could spell disaster for the 2020 vintage. Wineries in California, Oregon and Washington have survived severe wildfires before, but the smoke from this year’s blazes has been especially bad — thick enough to obscure vineyards drooping with clusters of grapes almost ready for harvest. Day after day, some West Coast cities endured some of the worst air quality in the world. No one knows the extent of the smoke damage to the crop, and growers are trying to assess the severity. If tainted grapes are made into wine without steps to minimize the harm or weed out the damaged fruit, the result could be wine so bad that it cannot be marketed. The wildfires are likely to be “without question the single worst disaster the wine-grape growing community has ever faced,” said John Aguirre, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers. Winemakers around the world are already adapting to climate change, including rising temperatures and more frequent, more severe droughts. Those near fire-prone forests face the additional risk that smoke could ruin everything. “Unfortunately, climate experts are telling us this is going to be a problem,” said Anita Oberholster, a wine expert at the University of California, Davis. “And so we need to do better. We need to do loads more research.” With this year’s harvest underway, some wineries are not accepting grapes they had agreed to purchase unless they have been tested for smoke taint, Aguirre said. But laboratories are too backed up to analyze new orders in time. ETS Laboratories, in the Napa Valley town of St. Helena, California, says test results on grape samples received now will not be ready until November. New clients will have to wait even longer for results, according to the lab’s website. 

Smoke from California wildfires may have killed more than 1,000 people -  - The heavy smoke from wildfires that choked much of California in recent weeks was more than an inconvenience.It was deadly. And it almost certainly killed more people than the flames from the massive fires themselves, health experts say.Between Aug. 1 and Sept. 10, the historically bad concentrations of wildfire smoke were responsible for at least 1,200 and possibly up to 3,000 deaths in California that otherwise would not have occurred, according to an estimate by researchers at Stanford University. Those fatalities were among people age 65 and over, most of whom were living with pre-existing medical conditions like heart disease, diabetes and respiratory ailments.By comparison, through Wednesday, 26 people have died directly in wildfires this year statewide.“Clean air is much more important than we realize,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of earth system science at Stanford who calculated the impacts. “When you look at it on a population level, you can see very clearly that breathing clean air has huge public health benefits, and breathing dirty air has disastrous consequences.”Decades of medical research has shown that soot is among the most dangerous types of air pollution to human health. Known as “PM 2.5,” for particulate matter that is smaller than 2.5 microns in size, the microscopic soot particles are so small that 30 or more of them can line up along the width of a human hair.Coming from diesel trucks, wildfires, power plants, fireplaces and other sources, the tiny particles can travel deep into the lungs, even entering the bloodstream, when people breathe them in high concentrations. In mild levels they can cause itchy eyes and sore throats, coughing and a tight feeling in the chest. In more severe instances, they can trigger asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes or respiratory failure, particularly in the elderly, infants and people with existing heart and lung problems. That study, by researchers at the University of Illinois and Georgia State University, found that for each day particulate air pollution increased by about 10% over typical levels _ or 1 microgram per cubic meter _ there was an increase in deaths over the next three days of 0.7 per 1 million people over 65, and a jump in emergency room visits among the elderly by 2.7 per 1 million people.

Hidden cost’ of wildfire smoke: Stanford researchers estimate up to 3,000 indirect deaths - --  More than two dozen people have died as a direct result of California’s devastating wildfires so far this year. But the actual number of lives lost because of them may have been much higher. Researchers at Stanford University estimate that the pollution from an unprecedented stretch of heavy wildfire smoke is likely to have led to at least 1,200, and up to 3,000, deaths in California between Aug 1. and Sept. 10 that otherwise would not have occurred.They refer to these deaths — among people 65 and older, many of whom had underlying conditions — as “excess deaths.”“You could think of it as the hidden cost of air pollution exposure,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of earth system science at Stanford whose team estimated the impacts.Burke’s team was interested in the potential health costs, mortality in particular, for the people in California subject to poor air quality for almost a month straight. They used two numbers: one that tracked how bad the air quality was, and another that would estimate the likely health toll of prolonged exposure. For that estimate, they relied on existing literature about air pollution exposure and mortality from detailed Medicare data. Burke said the estimate by his team has not been peer-reviewed, and the actual data on mortality will not be available for several months. Also, he said, it’s not known whether the pandemic could further increase the number of excess deaths, or decrease the estimate, considering that many people were already staying inside to keep safe from the coronavirus.

Ocean Heat Waves Are Directly Linked to Climate Change -  Six years ago, a huge part of the Pacific Ocean near North America quickly warmed, reaching temperatures more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. Nicknamed “the blob,” it persisted for two years, with devastating impacts on marine life, including sea lions and salmon.The blob was a marine heat wave, the oceanic equivalent of a deadly summer atmospheric one. It was far from a solitary event: Tens of thousands have occurred in the past four decades, although most are far smaller and last for days rather than years. The largest and longest ones have occurred with increasing frequency over time.On Thursday, scientists revealed the culprit. Climate change, they said, is making severe marine heat waves much more likely.The study, published in the journal Science, looked at the blob and six other large events around the world, including one in the Northwest Atlantic in 2012. Human-caused global warming made these events at least 20 times more likely, the researchers found.“Some of these couldn’t even have occurred without climate change,” said Charlotte Laufkötter, a marine scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland and the lead author of the study.In a world with no human-caused warming, a large marine heat wave would have had about a one-tenth of 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year — what is called a thousand-year event. But with the current rate of global warming, an ocean heat wave like that could soon have as much as a 10 percent chance of occurring, the study found.Dr. Laufkötter said the likelihood of these large events would continue to increase as the world keeps warming. And if emissions of greenhouse gases continue at a high level for decades and average global temperatures reach about 5 degrees above preindustrial levels, some parts of the oceans may be in a continuous state of extreme heat. In effect, the blob may become permanent. Already, a marine heat wave resembling the blob has emerged in the past year off northwestern North America.

Arctic Sea Ice Hit a Scary Milestone - Arctic sea ice shrank to its second lowest level on record, researchers announced on Monday. Sorry. It’s typical for Arctic sea ice to melt in summer and freeze back up in winter. But thanks to a wild-ass, record-breaking heat waves in the Earth’s northernmost regions, this year’s minimum ice extent is anything but normal.  The National Snow and Ice Data Center’s data shows that on Sept. 15, Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent of 1.44 million square miles (3.74 million square kilometers), ranking behind only September 2012's minimum, when the lowest level on record was measured at 1.32 million square miles (3.41 million square kilometers). The minimum 969,000 square miles (2.51 million square kilometers) below the 1981 to 2010 average, which NSIDC helpfully notes is roughly equal to Alaska, Texas, and Montana combined. The 10 lowest sea ice extents have occurred in the past 13 years.  Ice declined especially quickly between Aug. 31 and Sept. 5, as warm air from the recent heat wave in Siberia—which would have been nearly impossible without the climate crisis—rose into the region. That six-day period marked the fastest rate of ice loss on record, according to NSIDC.  This is the second-lowest seen since satellite observation began in 1979. . But other research using record like mud deposits and other proxies for deep past climate show that the stark decline in sea ice is like nothing seen in thousands of years. “Even though 2020’s sea ice minimum didn’t set a record, we shouldn’t think that Arctic conditions have stabilized or even improved,” “This is still a bad ice year, part of a clear trajectory of an ever-warming Arctic with less and less summer ice, until it disappears all together.” This scary news is the latest signal that the climate crisis is fundamentally changing the Arctic, which is the fastest-warming region of our planet.

‘Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice’ - (interview transcript) Peter Wadhams has spent his career in the Arctic, making more than 50 trips there, some in submarines under the polar ice. He is credited with being one of the first scientists to show that the thick icecap that once covered the Arctic ocean was beginning to thin and shrink. He was director of the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge from 1987 to 1992 and professor of ocean physics at Cambridge since 2001. His book, A Farewell to Ice, tells the story of his unravelling of this alarming trend and describes what the consequences for our planet will be if Arctic ice continues to disappear at its current rate. Q: You have said on several occasions that summer Arctic sea ice would disappear by the middle of this decade. It hasn’t. Are you being alarmist?
A: No. There is a clear trend down to zero for summer cover. However, each year chance events can give a boost to ice cover or take some away. The overall trend is a very strong downward one, however. Most people expect this year will see a record low in the Arctic’s summer sea-ice cover. Next year or the year after that, I think it will be free of ice in summer and by that I mean the central Arctic will be ice-free. You will be able to cross over the north pole by ship. There will still be about a million square kilometres of ice in the Arctic in summer but it will be packed into various nooks and crannies along the Northwest Passage and along bits of the Canadian coastline. Ice-free means the central basin of the Arctic will be ice-free and I think that that is going to happen in summer 2017 or 2018.

Melting ice sheets will add over 15 inches to global sea level rise by 2100 -If humans continue emitting greenhouse gases at the current pace, global sea levels could rise more than 15 inches (38 centimeters) by 2100, scientists found in a new study. Greenhouse gases emitted by human activity, such as carbon dioxide, contribute significantly to climate change and warming temperatures on planet Earth, studies continue to show. As things heat up, ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melt. A new study by an international team of more than 60 ice, ocean and atmospheric scientists estimates just how much these melting ice sheets will contribute to global sea levels. "One of the biggest uncertainties when it comes to how much sea level will rise in the future is how much the ice sheets will contribute," project leader and ice scientist Sophie Nowicki, now at the University at Buffalo and formerly at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in a statement. "And how much the ice sheets contribute is really dependent on what the climate will do." The results of this study show that, if human greenhouse gas emissions continue at the pace they're currently at, Greenland and Antarctica's melting ice sheets will contribute over 15 inches (28 centimeters) to global sea levels. This new study is part of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6), which is led by NASA Goddard.

 Humans Destroyed Intact Ecosystem Land the Size of Mexico in Just 13 Years --Between 2000 and 2013, Earth lost an area of undisturbed ecosystems roughly the size of Mexico.That's the mind-melting finding of a new study published in One Earth Friday, and the researchers say it has "profound implications" for global biodiversity and for humans who rely on natural resources."We were expecting there to be high levels of intact ecosystem and wilderness loss, but the results were shocking," lead researcher Brooke Williams of the University of Queensland told The Guardian. "We found substantial area of intact ecosystems had been lost in just 13 years – nearly two million square kilometres – which is terrifying to think about. Our findings show that human pressure is extending ever further into the last ecologically intact and wilderness areas."In total, the researchers found that 1.9 million square kilometers (approximately 700,000 square miles) of previously intact ecosystem area had been "highly modified" during the study period. They also found that 58.4 percent of Earth's land ecosystems were under "moderate or intense" pressure from human activity, while only 41.6 percent of ecosystems were intact and 25 percent were true wilderness.The 1.9 million square kilometers lost were mostly tropical and subtropical grasslands in Asia, South America and Africa, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which participated in the research. The rainforests of Southeast Asia also suffered significant human encroachments.To achieve these results, an international team of 17 scientists from six countries used satellite imagery to assess the human footprint on land-based ecosystems and how it had changed between 2000 and 2013, The Guardian explained. The researchers found that human pressure increased on nearly 20 percent of the globe and decreased on only around six percent."  "Humanity keeps on shrinking the amount of land that other species need to survive. In a time of rapid climate change, we need to proactively secure the last intact ecosystems on the planet, as these are critical in the fight to stop extinction and halt climate change."

Newly formed West Virginia environmental group presents climate report — West Virginia environmental leaders have formed a group with the intent to promote public education on climate change. The West Virginia Climate Alliance held one of its first public events Monday with a press conference releasing a new 16-page report titled A Citizen’s Guide to Climate Change. “It’s really important for West Virginians to understand what the causes are of climate change, what are some of the impacts and more importantly, what are the various options that are there so we can have an informed discussions about how to proceed to reduce greenhouse gas admissions,” Perry Bryant, the moderator of the virtual event said on MetroNews ‘Talkline.’ According to the Sierra Club, the Guide, written by West Virginians for West Virginians, is an effort to educate the public on the causes of climate change and provide solutions that center around environmental justice and just transition to clean energy for impacted workers and frontline communities. Bryant said the group let the readers decide what to think and feel. “We didn’t say ‘we ought to have a green new deal or we ought to have cap and trade or a carbon fee and dividend.’ We layout exactly what those proposals do. We let the reader decide what fits his or her philosophy best,” he said on ‘Talkline.’ Bryant added on ‘Talkline’ there need to be two provisions in any proposal to address climate change. Those include environmental justice to make sure that low-income communities and people of color are not adversely affected and a transition to not leave coal miners and coal communities behind with the transition. Angie Rosser, Executive Director of West Virginia Rivers Coalition, echoed Bryant’s comments in West Virginia transitioning in the effort on ‘Talkline.’ She was one of the participates at the presser Monday. “The truth of the matter is the science is driving us to make changes. Addressing climate change is complex to begin with when you are talking about that in a historically fossil fuel-producing state, it gets even more complex,” Rosser said. Other participants included Gary Zuckett, Executive Director of West Virginia Citizen Action Education Fund, Pam Nixon with the NAACP Charleston branch, Jim Probst, the State Coordinator for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Jim Kotcon the Chair of the Conservation Committee for the WV Chapter of Sierra Club, Leah Barbor of Moms Clean Air Force West Virginia Chapter, and Robin Blakeman, the Project Coordinator of Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

Walmart Aims to End Emissions From Global Operations by 2040 -  Walmart Inc. said it’s targeting zero emissions from its global operations by 2040, a small fraction of its total, in the latest climate-focused step amid heightened calls from investors and activists to reduce carbon footprints. The world’s biggest retailer also plans to secure enough wind, solar and other renewable energy sources to power its facilities with 100% green power by 2035, it said in a statement Monday. It had previously said that it aims to secure half of its power from renewable sources by 2025. Walmart is committing to cutting emissions from it own operations, known as Scope 1 and 2. Though not an easy task, the target will zero out merely 5% of its total emissions. The retailing giant has put in some efforts through so-called Project Gigaton to address Scope 3 emissions, which are generated by its suppliers and customers, but the company has yet to set a net-zero target across all scopes. The company also said Monday it aims to electrify and eliminate emissions from all of its vehicles, including long-haul trucks, by 2040. As well, it plans to manage or restore at least 50 million acres of land and one million square miles of ocean by 2030, and transition to low-impact refrigerants for cooling and electrified equipment for heating in its stores, clubs, and data and distribution centers by 2040.

 Prince Charles calls for a 'Marshall-like plan' for the planet - Prince Charles has called for a "Marshall-like plan for nature, people and planet," adding his voice to the intensifying debate surrounding climate change and its effects on the planet. Speaking Monday on the opening day of Climate Week NYC, the heir apparent to the British throne said: "The borderless climate, biodiversity and health crises are all symptoms of a planet that has been pushed beyond its planetary boundaries." "Without swift and immediate action, at an unprecedented pace and scale, we will miss the window of opportunity to reset for a green-blue recovery and a more sustainable and inclusive future," he added, in a speech which was broadcast online. The Prince of Wales, a longstanding advocate for the environment, went on to describe the coronavirus pandemic as a "wake-up call we simply cannot ignore," and said he had "long observed that people tend not to act until there is a real crisis." "Ladies and gentlemen, that (environmental) crisis has been with us for far too many years, decried, denigrated and denied," he claimed. "It is now rapidly becoming a comprehensive catastrophe that will dwarf the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. At this late stage I can see no other way forward but to call for a Marshall-like plan for nature, people and planet." The Marshall Plan, named for former U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, saw the U.S. provide billions of dollars in aid to help reconstruct Western Europe after the devastation and destruction of the Second World War. Climate Week NYC, which runs until Sept. 27, is organized by the Climate Group, an international non-profit. Helen Clarkson, the Climate Group's CEO, described Prince Charles' speech as "incredibly moving." "Invoking the Marshall Plan harks back to a very special moment in history, when the U.S. led by example on the biggest issue of the day," she added. "I hope that decision makers in the U.S. hear that call and take note." Prince Charles is not the only member of royalty to touch on subjects related to the coronavirus and sustainability this week. In a speech delivered on Monday ahead of a CNBC-moderated panel at the World Economic Forum's Sustainable Development Impact Summit, King Abdullah II of Jordan noted how the pandemic and its long-term consequences had "exasperated" issues in a range of areas. "The climate crisis, poverty, hunger, unemployment and socioeconomic inequalities have worsened after years of ineffective collective action," he said. "The way forward must be rooted in a re-globalization that fortifies the building blocks of our international community by enabling our countries to strike a balance between self-reliance and positive interdependence, enabling us all to jointly mount a holistic response to all crises facing our world."

In SUVs and on planes, richest 1% drive climate-heating emissions   (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Prone to frequent flying, a passion for SUVs and big spending, the richest 1% of the world's population produced twice as many planet-heating emissions as the poorest half of humanity over the last quarter-century, researchers said on Monday.That excessive consumption has left little room in the world's "carbon budget" for poorer countries to grow without pushing the planet into increasingly dangerous climate impacts, from worsening storms to water shortages, scientists said.And it suggests that keeping global climate change under control will require not just helping poorer countries to develop cleanly, but putting in place tough measures to curb over-consumption by the world's rich, they said in a new study.Tim Gore, head of climate policy for anti-poverty charity Oxfam and lead author of the report, said change would not come from individuals voluntarily acting alone. "That will never add up. This has to be driven by governments," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The research, carried out with the Stockholm Environment Institute, found that over the 25 years between 1990 and 2015, the richest 1% of people drove 15% of climate-changing emissions - more than twice the 7% emitted by the poorest half. The richest 10% accounted for 52% of emissions over that period, the study said. The growing popularity of fuel-guzzling SUVs was a particular problem, with the vehicles emerging as the second biggest driver of global growth in carbon emissions between 2010 and 2018, it said.  As countries now look to recover from economic downturns linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, which have hit the poor hardest, revamping economic incentives to discourage excessive consumption could play a role, officials said."Our current economic model has been an enabler of catastrophic climate change and equally catastrophic inequality," said former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.The pandemic offers a chance to rethink systems - and "addressing the disproportionate carbon emissions from the wealthiest in society must be a key priority as part of this collective commitment", he added in a statement.Still, the scale of the emissions cuts needed by the wealthy to hold planetary heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times - the toughest goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement - is breathtaking. The Oxfam report estimates that the richest 10% of people would have to slash their emissions to about 10 times lower than now to keep the world on track for the goal - and do it by 2030.

World's richest 1% cause double CO2 emissions of poorest 50%, says Oxfam -- The wealthiest 1% of the world’s population were responsible for the emission of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorer half of the world from 1990 to 2015, according to new research. Carbon dioxide emissions rose by 60% over the 25-year period, but the increase in emissions from the richest 1% was three times greater than the increase in emissions from the poorest half. The report, compiled by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, warned that rampant overconsumption and the rich world’s addiction to high-carbon transport are exhausting the world’s “carbon budget”. Such a concentration of carbon emissions in the hands of the rich means that despite taking the world to the brink of climate catastrophe, through burning fossil fuels, we have still failed to improve the lives of billions, said Tim Gore, head of policy, advocacy and research at Oxfam International. “The global carbon budget has been squandered to expand the consumption of the already rich, rather than to improve humanity,” he told the Guardian. “A finite amount of carbon can be added to the atmosphere if we want to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We need to ensure that carbon is used for the best.” The richest 10% of the global population, comprising about 630 million people, were responsible for about 52% of global emissions over the 25-year period, the study showed. Globally, the richest 10% are those with incomes above about $35,000 (£27,000) a year, and the richest 1% are people earning more than about $100,000. If left unchecked, in the next decade the carbon emissions of the world’s richest 10% would be enough to raise levels above the point likely to increase temperatures by 1.5C, even if the whole of the rest of the world cut their emissions to zero immediately, according to Monday’s report. He pointed to transport as one of the key drivers of growth in emissions, with people in rich countries showing an increasing tendency to drive high-emitting cars, such as SUVs, and take more flights. Oxfam wants more taxes on high-carbon luxuries, such as a frequent-flyer levy, to funnel investment into low-carbon alternatives and improving the lot of the poor. “This isn’t about people who have one family holiday a year, but people who are taking long-haul flights every month – it’s a fairly small group of people,” said Gore. 

World's Richest One Percent Are Producing More Than Double the Carbon Emissions as the Bottom 50 Percent - A new report from Oxfam found that the wealthiest one percent of the world produced a carbon footprint that was more than double that of the bottom 50 percent of the world, The Guardian reported. The study examined 25 years of carbon dioxide emissions and wealth inequality from 1990 to 2015.  The findings, Confronting Carbon Inequality: Putting climate justice at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery, reveal how current economic systems have created extreme carbon inequity and brought the planet to the brink of ecological collapse. It also provides a roadmap for governments around the world to create fairer, more sustainable economies. The brief found that the roughly 630 million people who make up the world's wealthiest 10 percent were responsible for 52 percent of the world's carbons emissions from 1990-2015. They alone depleted the world's "carbon budget" by 31 percent. Carbon budgets define the total amount of carbon emissions allowed within a set period. By contrast, the world's poorest 50 percent, consisting of nearly 3.1 billion people, were responsible for just seven percent of global emissions and four percent of the available carbon budget. The analysis further examined how wealth correlates to carbon emissions. It found that the richest one percent, about 63 million people, were responsible for 15 percent of carbon emissions. The wealthiest five percent were responsible for more than a third of carbon emissions growth over the 25-year time frame. The growth emissions from the top one percent amounted to three times the growth in emissions compared to the bottom 50 percent. Reuters reported that consumption from the world's wealthiest people had depleted the carbon budget to the point where there isn't much room for poorer countries to grow without worsening the climate crisis. The report noted that if emissions continue to go unchecked, the wealthy will use up the world's available carbon budget by 2030, even if the rest of the world slashed its emissions to zero today.

The 'new normal' has been postponed (and probably canceled) - There remains a hope that once we get past the economic and social effects of the pandemic, all of us will be able to return to something resembling normal life before the pandemic—even if it is a "new normal" marked by heightened vigilance and protection against infectious disease and more work at home for office workers as companies realize they don't need to maintain as much expensive office space. But the date for this recovery to a new normal seems to keep getting postponed. The International Air Transport Association now projects a full recovery in international passenger traffic will take until 2024, a year later than the association projected back in April. The hotel industry will get a bit of a jump on the airline industry with a projected recovery by 2023. Retailers of all kinds continue to suffer as closures abound throughout the United States. And, anyone who relies on commuter foot traffic for sales is hurting.   Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank just signaled that in the wake of such a sluggish economy it will keep short-term interest rates near zero until 2023. One commentator provided a list of hobbies that Fed board members could take up to fill their time between now and then.  Outside the bubble we call modern life, another set of momentous changes is taking place before our eyes that the Federal Reserve and the political and economic establishment can't control. Smoke from vast wildfires in the western United States has blocked out the midday Sun in major cities. It's not just the United States, however. The world's largest tropical wetland located mostly in Brazil has been burning this year. Fires have consumed 12,000 square kilometers so far. A heat wave in a land practically synonymous with cold, Siberia, has resulted in previously frozen tundra catching fire. Scientists expect things to get worse in the coming years. Meanwhile, fierce hurricanes have pummeled the American coastline this year. So many storms are forming in the Atlantic this year that the U.S. National Hurricane Center ran out of names reserved for the storms and has resorted to using the Greek alphabet to name the overage. In August California's Death Valley hit 130 degrees F, believed to be the highest credible measurement of air temperature on Earth ever. If we are planning for the "new normal," this is will be part of it. All of this we humans have had a hand in making through our neglect of climate change. We thought it was a far-off problem that could wait for a response. Actually, what appears to be ahead for human society and planet Earth is not a new normal, by which I mean a new, stable pattern of events both social and natural. Rather, what appears to be ahead is almost continuous disruption in the natural world that will affect the stability of our social, political and economic world.

Climate to reduce GDP by 1 percent in 2050: government analysis - U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) will be 1 percent smaller than it would have been otherwise in 2050 because of climate change, according to a new projection from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). CBO predicted that between 2020 and 2050, climate change will, on average, reduce GDP growth by 0.03 percentage points each year, culminating in the ultimate 1 percent decrease as of 2050. The projection was calculated using data from 1995 to 2019. Researchers used both the overall historical trends between the changing climate and GDP output and also how specific events like high temperatures and hurricanes might cause specific results like property damage. GDP is a calculation of all goods and services produced in a country and is used as a measure of economic activity. The CBO says that its finding averages several climate scenarios to make its determination. There have been other studies saying that climate change's impact could be greater than 1 percent over the same period, with a study from last year saying that climate change could shrink GDP by nearly 4 percent by 2050. A study last year found that the U.S. could see a GDP decrease of up to 10.5 percent by 2100, and earlier this month, a report from a Wall Street regulator said that climate change was likely to cause economic instability. Kate Ricke, a professor of climate, atmospheric science and physical oceanography at the University of California San Diego said that while it was likely to leave out factors that both increase and decrease GDP, she believes the CBO findings are likely an underestimate. “My judgment is that on average it’s probably an underestimate, but there are effects that go both ways,” she said, adding that the findings leaves out things like the cost of short-term adaptation, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, long-term adaptation and impacts on other parts of the economy like trade. Ricke also said that the projection was limited because it can’t calculate how the impacts of climate change will change after 2019. “The real power of studies that employ this methodology is that it’s empirically based, so it’s tied to real-world evidence. These relationships are calibrated based on data for how GDP has changed in the past in response to variation year-to-year in temperature...but the problem is that basically any source of large changes to large-scale conditions that aren’t reflected in...the past, the model can’t capture,” she said. The CBO’s working paper acknowledged that its conclusion isn't absolutely certain, especially given potential changes in how climate affects economic growth and uncertainties about how much damage from climate-related events may persist.

‘Adults are asleep at the wheel’ in climate crisis, says Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement - Washington Post- Varshini Prakash, 27, is co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led political organization fighting to stop climate change. She is co-editor of the book “Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can,” which was released in August. Sunrise is a youth movement. Do you think the reason other generations haven’t embraced climate issues with the same urgency is a question of skin in the game, the fact that your generation is going to bear the brunt of climate issues? It’s a good question. We work with a lot of organizations not solely focused on young people, who are really concerned about the climate crisis. But I think for young people, it’s in our bones. We always kind of had this fear of this looming crisis. One of the experiences that defined my childhood was hearing about Hurricane Katrina. I was 12. You know, seeing these images of people on their roof, hearing about bodies just floating downstream. And the government doing nothing to support those communities. I was probably at the tail end of the generation that hoped that people more powerful and older than us would do what was necessary to stop it. [Laughs.] And when we got to be teenagers and 20-somethings, it became abundantly clear: The adults are asleep at the wheel. Our politicians weren’t doing what was necessary. And if young people didn’t force the conversation, it was never going to happen.

Student Climate Protesters Urge Their Universities to Go Carbon Neutral - Carbon neutrality commitments typically require schools to dramatically cut their carbon emissions by reimagining how they run their campuses — everything from the electricity they purchase to the air travel they fund. Colleges across the country, from the University of San Francisco to American University in Washington DC have already attained carbon neutrality. Other academic institutions, including the University of California system, have taken steps to fully divest from fossil fuels.But as young activists like Daas urge their universities to do their part to avert climate disaster, many are frustrated by tepid responses from administrators whom they feel lack their same sense of urgency and drive. Appalachian State, part of the University of North Carolina system, has committed to reaching net-zero emissions decades down the line, but Daas and her fellow activists fear that's far too late. She's baffled that an institution devoted to higher learning is seemingly ignoring the science around the climate emergency."If our voices don't matter, can you please stop telling us that they do?" Daas says.College activists concerned about the climate crisis have largely focused their efforts on two popular movements that go hand-in-hand: reaching carbon neutrality, and divesting university endowments. Broadly, the term "net carbon neutrality" means that a campus zeroes out all of its carbon emissions, says Timothy Carter, president of Second Nature, a nonprofit focused on climate action in higher education. This can be achieved through modifying campus operations, often with the help of alternatives, such as renewable energy certificates and voluntary carbon offsets (activities that atone for other emissions). In Second Nature's definition, investment holdings don't factor in a school's carbon footprint. Carbon neutrality often falls within a wider umbrella of climate neutrality, which also incorporates justice and other concerns. Divestment campaigns, meanwhile, pressure universities to shed investments in fossil fuels in their endowments. "We cannot truly be climate neutral if we continue to invest in a fossil fuel industry," says Nadia Sheppard, chair of the Climate Reality Project campus corps chapter at North Carolina State University, where oil, gas and consumable, nonrenewable fuels account for around $43m in university investments.

Facebook Suspends More Than 200 Environmental and Indigenous Groups - Facebook suspended more than 200 accounts belonging to environmental and Indigenous groups Saturday, casting doubt on the company's stated commitments to addressing the climate crisis. The suspensions came days after Facebook launched a Climate Science Information Center to correct widely-shared posts that spread disinformation about climate change, The Guardian pointed out. The same week, Facebook also pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. But the activist groups expressed doubt about Facebook's priorities, saying they were locked out of their accounts days before a planned protest against a fossil fuel company building a pipeline through Indigenous land. "Actions speak louder than words and once again Facebook has taken actions that are in stark contrast to public statements from the company," senior corporate campaigner at Greenpeace USA Elizabeth Jardim told The Guardian. "The recent bans targeting people fighting to save their communities from climate change and the continued exploitation of fossil fuel companies show us that when push comes to shove, Facebook will side with polluters at the cost of their users' trying to organize."Greenpeace USA reported it was one of the suspended groups, along with others including Rainforest Action Network, Presente.org and Wet'suwet'en Access Point on Gidimt'en Territory. The groups were all co-hosts of an event in May targeting the company KKR & Co. Inc., which is the new majority funder of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline that the Wet'suwet'en community is fighting to keep off its unceded land in British Columbia. Another online protest against the company had been scheduled for Monday.The accounts were told they were being suspended for three days for "copyright infringement," Greenpeace said."The timing was more than suspect," Delee Nikal, a Wet'suwet'en activist from the Gidimt'en clan, toldCanada's National Observer. "We would like to have transparency in this situation." Facebook, meanwhile, claimed the accounts were suspended by accident and had since been reinstated. "Our systems mistakenly removed these accounts and content," a company spokesperson told the National Observer. The company did not provide any more information about how or why the mistake was made. Most of the accounts were able to post Monday night, but some are still locked out, Greenpeace's Valentina Stackl said.

Wolf vetoes bill that would keep Pennsylvania out of RGGI | StateImpact Pennsylvania - Gov. Tom Wolf is rejecting a measure that would require the legislature’s approval to join a regional effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions.Wolf vetoed House Bill 2025 Thursday. In a statement, he called the bill “extremely harmful to public health and welfare.” He said letting it become law would “effectively deny that climate change is an urgent problem that demands prudent solutions.”The bill would have essentially stopped Pennsylvania’s entrance into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program among 10 northeastern states that targets carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector.Lawmakers claimed it was really about who has the power to make the decision to join the program, not on whether Pennsylvania should. “It is unfortunate that the governor is once again standing in the way of the people’s voice exercising a check on his continued attempts to turn the Governor’s office into a one-person legislature,” House GOP spokesman Jason Gottesman said in a statement Thursday.Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming), who chairs the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, said he is dismayed that Wolf would “propose to go forward with an agreement clearly detrimental to Pennsylvania’s interests.”The bill passed the House 130-71 and the Senate 33-17, a few votes shy of a veto-proof majority, which requires 135 votes in the House and 34 in the Senate.Republican lawmakers who control the General Assembly say RGGI will be bad for the state’s economy and decimate Pennsylvania’s coal industry. Gottesman’s statement accused Wolf of holding up energy development in the Commonwealth.The governor signed an executive order last October directing the Department of Environmental Protection to join RGGI through the regulatory process. Last week, the Environmental Quality Board approved the draft regulation for public comment. RGGI sets a limit on carbon emissions from power plants, which must purchase a credit for each ton of carbon dioxide they emit.

12 major cities pledge fossil fuel divestment | Utility Dive - The mayors of 12 major cities around the globe have pledged to divest from fossil fuel companies in an effort to further support a green and sustainable COVID-19 recovery.  The C40 Cities-backed declaration, unveiled at a virtual Climate Week NYC event on Tuesday, calls on signatories to commit to divesting all city assets and pension funds from fossil fuel companies; increasing financial investments in climate solutions; and advocating for fossil-free finance from other investors.   The signatories include the mayors of Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York and Pittsburgh, along with the leaders of eight international cities including London and Oslo. Details of individual divestment amounts and timelines were not shared. Following this commitment, cities must navigate their specific divestment processes and structures in proposing next steps to pension boards.

New York directs insurers to disclose climate risks for first time - A key New York regulator Tuesday ordered insurers to take a harder look at how climate change will affect their operations and begin developing plans to disclose the related financial risks. New York Superintendent of Financial Services Linda Lacewell outlined her department's expectations in a letter to all domestic and foreign insurers operating in the state. She said the firms should "start integrating the consideration of the financial risks from climate change into their governance frameworks, risk management processes and business strategies." The agency said insurers should develop an approach to climate-related financial disclosure and consider working with the Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures, which reports to G-20 leaders and is chaired by former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The move is the latest signal that regulators around the world are ramping up efforts to police financial firms for climate risks. The New York Department of Financial Services is addressing the issue as part of an international coalition of central banks and regulators known as the Network for Greening the Financial System. “Mitigating the financial risks from climate change is a critical component of creating a stronger industry and a healthier and safer world for ourselves, our families, and future generations," Lacewell wrote. "There is no more time to wait.”

Opinion: Astoria power plant proposal undermines NYC’s resiliency goals — Queens Daily Eagle Every thick governmental report and violent natural event right out of a 1970s disaster movie screams that we have to do more than say “Climate Change is real.” We’ve yelled as much at everyone from ConEdison executives to the former New Yorker unfortunately occupying the White House. It’s abundantly clear we need shovel-ready projects to make our air cleaner and our shores safer. So it makes no sense that we stand idly by while an energy company seeks to build a new fossil fuel plant in Astoria. Which is why New York State must reject NRG’s application for a new natural gas-fired power plant on the western Queens waterfront. This project flies in the face of every historic commitment we’ve made to renewable energy, environmental justice and clean air. It also puts more dirty infrastructure on a beleaguered waterfront we should be reinforcing — not wearing down. It’s been well established that this plant will only continue the environmental injustice that’s dominated western Queens for too long. Astoria generates more than half the city’s power, but all residents have gotten in return is higher asthma rates. Many of the neighborhood’s power plants were built on false promises, having now outstayed their welcome. Still, they must fight for their right to breathe.

Corporate America Is Irrationally Enthusiastic About Carbon Capture - Between 2010 and 2018, the Department of Energy poured $5 billion worth of research and development funding into carbon-capturing technologies, which aim to extract the greenhouse gas from power plants and other industrial activities, limiting the extent to which they warm the planet. In 2018, Congress also passed a generous tax break known as 45Q, encouraging companies to partake. This summer, however, the only coal-fired power plant capturing a meaningful amount of carbon in the United States—the country’s main showcase for that technology—unceremoniously closed down following months of inactivity. It’ll be “mothballed” (switched off) until market conditions improve.Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, has, at best, a patchy track record. But it’s wildly popular in the fossil fuel industry as a potential fix for the fundamental unsustainability of its business model. This past week has been a big one for carbon capture boosterism. One bipartisan amendmentin H.R. 4447—the massive energy bill being debated in the House of Representatives this week—will give companies another 10 years to collect an existing tax credit for carbon capturing and storing carbon. Areport out this week from the Global CCS Institute and Columbia University’s Center on Energy Policy argues that boosting government support for CCS will be key to making the technology viable. It recommends additional tax breaks, grants, and R&D funding. The Global CCS Institute, to note, was started with funding from the traditionally coal-friendly Australian government, and its paying membership includes several national governments as well as most of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies, among them ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum. Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy has receivedmillions of dollars’ worth of donations from fossil fuel companies in recent years, including Cheniere Energy, BP, and ConocoPhillips. ExxonMobil, incidentally, announced on Tuesday that it’ll be expandingits carbon capture partnership with the company Global Thermostat.   Carbon capture—which is an umbrella term for many different technologies—can broadly be divided into two categories: carbon captured directly from the air, and carbon captured from power plants and industrial processes. In theory, the carbon can simply be sequestered in rock formations. Often, though, that captured carbon is transported via pipeline to be injected into oil wells in order to dig up more fossil fuels, in a process known as enhanced oil recovery. Direct air capture uses contraptions that look like air conditioners to draw carbon down from the air, usually funneling it into novel uses like carbonating soft drinks.

NOAA pick is critic of Weather Service, dire climate forecasts - The Washington Post - The White House has tapped Ryan Maue, a meteorologist who has challenged connections between extreme weather and climate change, to serve as the new chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Two NOAA officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the personnel move, confirmed the appointment is in progress. The position, pushed forward by the White House pending completion of ethics and security reviews and not requiring Senate confirmation, would put Maue in a leadership position within the agency. As chief scientist, Maue would be tasked with helping establish its oceans and atmosphere research priorities, as well as playing a role in enforcing its scientific integrity policy. The White House and NOAA declined to comment, and the Commerce Department, which oversees the NOAA, did not respond to a request for comment. The NOAA scientific integrity policy is meant to prevent political influence from interfering with its scientific work, as well as the communication of NOAA scientists’ findings. The current acting chief scientist, Craig McLean, initiated an investigation into actions by NOAA leadership during the controversy surrounding the agency’s support for President Trump’s inaccurate claims regarding the path of Hurricane Dorian.Maue serves as the developer of weathermodels.com, a site that displays computer model information using eye-catching graphics to make their simulations accessible to professionals and hobbyists. He was previously an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that was involved in efforts to question the scientific consensus on human-induced climate change.Along with Patrick Michaels, a well-known climate change contrarian, Maue penned a 2018 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal challenging the climate change projections made in 1988 by noted former NASA scientist James Hansen, which other researchers, backed up by peer-reviewed studies, have found were prescient.

Trump’s energy secretary questions mainstream science on human impacts of climate change --  On a tour through Western Pennsylvania Monday, the Trump administration’s top energy official questioned the mainstream scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. Department of Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette made the remarks at a news conference touting Pennsylvania’s natural gas and petrochemical industry. When asked how the Trump administration would fight climate change, Brouillette said: “We have a lot to learn about what causes changes in the climate, and we’re not there yet.” When asked to clarify whether he believed the scientific consensus that human-caused carbon emissions are fueling hotter temperatures, he said: “No one knows that.” When told by a reporter that scientists say humans are causing climate change, he said: covering climate now “Scientists say a lot of things. I have scientists inside of the Department of Energy that say a lot of things. Look, the bottom line is we live here, so we must have some impact. The question is, what is the exact impact that we’re having? And that’s the question that has not been resolved.” Brouillette’s trip included a tour of a chemical plant Shell is building west of Pittsburgh that will turn the region’s natural gas into plastic. “We know a lot about carbon, we know a lot about carbon’s impact on various components of the environment. What we do not know is the exact impact that we’re having,” he said.

House passes sweeping clean energy bill | TheHill The House on Thursday passed a broad bill that aims to boost energy efficiency and renewable energy sources as part of an attempt to combat climate change. The chamber approved the 900-page Clean Energy and Jobs Innovation Act in a 220-185 vote. The legislation would create research and development programs for solar, wind, advanced geothermal energy and hydroelectric power as well as lessening pollution from fossil fuel production. It would also establish more rigorous building codes and bolster energy efficiency requirements and weatherization programs. The bill moved rapidly through the House. It was first introduced last week and did not go through any legislative hearings.A similar energy innovation package that was introduced in the Senate earlier this year has recently been reenergized after legislators came to an agreement on an amendment seeking to phase down the use of a type of greenhouse gas. A senior House Democratic aide told The Hill that if the Senate passes its own bill, the chambers can go to conference to resolve their disagreements. The aide said that House Democrats urge Republicans to take some action on clean energy, either moving by their own bill or taking up the House bill. Speaking in favor of the House legislation, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) praised it as one step in the fight to tackle climate change. “It takes actions that scientists, researchers and experts tell us is needed by launching the research and development needed to unleash a clean energy revolution and reduce pollution in our communities, making a bold down payment for future climate action by modernizing America’s energy innovation infrastructure,” she said. The top Republicans on the Natural Resources, Energy and Commerce and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees released a joint statement criticizing the legislation this week. “Here we are in the middle of a global pandemic and Speaker Pelosi wants to spend more than $135 billion on a piece of legislation that will never become law,” said Reps. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Greg Walden (R-Ore.), and Frank Lucas (R-Okla.). “This bill is chock-full of government mandates that would raise what Americans pay for everything from the vehicles they drive to what they pay to heat, cool, and power their homes.”  It comes as House Democrats have already proposed other major energyand climate change bills that have yet to receive a vote. 

House Approves Sweeping Clean Energy Bill - The House of Representatives passed a sweeping bill to boost clean energy while phasing out the use of coolants in air conditioners and refrigerators that are known pollutants and contribute to the climate crisis, as the AP reported.  The 900-page Clean Energy and Jobs Innovation Act passed the House in a 220-185 vote. The bill, if it were approved by the Senate and signed by the president, would increase the energy efficiency standards for building and boost research and investment in the development of solar, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power, according to The Hill. The Clean Energy and Jobs Innovation Act was crafted after negotiations with the Senate. It is full of agreed upon, "practical and achievable clean energy policies that are possible for us to achieve this year," said Frank Pallone, Democrat from New Jersey and chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, as Utility Drive reported. Pallone added that the bill would "modernize our energy system, create jobs and take positive steps towards addressing the climate crisis," as the AP reported. He called it "one of the most impactful steps we can take now to create manufacturing jobs and boost our competitiveness, all while protecting our environment." The effort to pass the bill, however, may have been in vain. Earlier in the week, The White House said the president's advisors would suggest he veto the bill. "With the news of Justice Ginsburg's passing, I cannot even venture a guess of how the next few weeks and months may play out," said Rep. Paul Tonko, a Democrat from New York in speaking to a National Clean Energy Week symposium, according to Utility Drive. And yet, some in Congress were somewhat hopeful that the bill had a chance of becoming law. The Hill reported that a House Democratic aide believed that if the Senate passes their similar bill, then the respective committees can work together to settle the small discrepancies between the two bills. The bills that are in the House and the Senate are modest in their ambition, which House Democrats acknowledged.  "I want to give a clear-eyed assessment: This bill is not going to stop climate change," said Tonko, as the AP reported. "But it is a good opportunity to make good and sometimes necessary changes to programs, which might make it easier to do a bigger, more ambitious bill in the near future." The National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), an advocacy group, examined the bill and praised it in a blog post as "a needed step forward to ensure future climate action will be built from a solid foundation." It added that this bill is unique from past legislation because it "has opened the door for better ideas on how to spur progress in clean energy innovation." And yet, the NRDC noted that the funding for clean energy fell behind the money spent for fossil fuels and nuclear energy. "This bill is very promising but it's obvious that it won't provide the transformative change we need to win the fight against climate change and protect our environment," the NRDC wrote.

SK Innovation accelerates hiring at its first US-based EV battery site in Georgia - Green Car Congress With the support of the State of Georgia, Jackson County and City of Commerce, SK Innovation plans to hire more than 1,000 skilled workers by the end of 2021 as it prepares for initial production at the first of two electric vehicle battery plants being built in Commerce, about 70 miles northeast of Atlanta.In one of the largest economic projects in Georgia’s history, SK Innovation affirmed its long-range investment plans for the facility that would make Georgia one of the largest hubs of EV battery manufacturing in the world.SK Innovation recently reached a hiring milestone with the on-boarding of its first 60 employees at the Commerce site. These employees include production supervisors, production/process/electrical engineers and quality/logistics specialists who will set up, work and serve as the trainers for the EV battery production workforce at the two SK Battery America plants under construction at the site.SK Innovation also recently achieved key construction milestones at the Georgia site with the completion of the exterior of its first manufacturing plant and ground-breaking on the second plant. Together, the two SK Battery America plants will have capacity to make enough battery cells each year to power the equivalent of more than 300,000 electric vehicles. SK Innovation, South Korea’s largest energy company, is building two EV battery plants at the Georgia site as part of a $2.6-billion investment in its US battery business that will directly create more than 2,600 permanent jobs in the Jackson County area by 2024. The first SK Battery America plant is scheduled to begin initial operations in 2021 with mass production in 2022. A second plant at the same site is expected to begin mass production in 2023. As the market for electric vehicles continues to grow, SK Innovation is committed to making Georgia a world leader in EV battery manufacturing.

California Governor Signs Order to Ban Sale of New Gas-Powered Cars by 2035 - California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday that would ban the sale of new cars in California that run only on gasoline by the year 2035. The bid to reduce emissions and combat the climate crisis would make California the first state to ban the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines, according to POLITICO. "This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change," said Newsom in a statement that accompanied the signing of the executive order. "For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe. Californians shouldn't have to worry if our cars are giving our kids asthma. Our cars shouldn't make wildfires worse – and create more days filled with smoky air. Cars shouldn't melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines."  The threats posed by the climate crisis are playing out in dramatic fashion in California. This summer, the state has seen record-setting wildfires, heat waves and drought. Those mounting climate crisis-related challenges have spurred the move away from the state's leading source of greenhouse gas emissions, as The Washington Post reported.  "We can't continue down this path," Newsom said at a briefing, as The Guardian reported. "If you care about your kids and your grandkids, if you care about disadvantaged communities, if you care about seniors, if you care about rural communities, if you care about inner city communities that have been underserved by our fossil fuel economy, then you care about the core construct that we are advancing here in this executive order."  Newsom added that the order will create "green collar jobs" that Californians are well-positioned to capitalize on since 34 electric car manufacturers are already in the state.

California's EV rush - California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed anexecutive order Wednesday setting a goal to ban the sale of new gas vehicles within 15 years, POLITICO's Colby Bermel, Carla Marinucci and Alex Guillén report. "We are setting a new marker," Newsom said at a press conference. Under the order, the California Air Resources Board will be tasked with writing the vehicle rules, which the Newsom administration says will slash greenhouse gas and nitrogen oxide emissions. Other agencies will be directed to support the development of zero-emission vehicle charging stations, and medium- and heavy-duty trucks will be mandated to be zero-emission by 2045 where feasible.  The ban is likely to face opposition from automakers and Republican leaders in Washington, who have already battled the state over its stricter fuel economy rules. Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, said it appears California would need EPA approval to end sales of internal combustion engine cars. California has almost always been granted Clean Air Act waivers to more stringently control tailpipe pollution — but the Trump administration last year revoked its permission for California to regulate greenhouse gases from cars, casting doubt on whether it would approve this new measure as well should the president be re-elected. "Under ordinary circumstances they would get it," Becker said. "If Trump were re-elected, maybe not."

California’s Ban on New Gas Cars Further Upends Auto Industry - WSJ - California’s decision to ban sales of new conventional vehicles starting in 2035 shows how regulators’ aggressive emission targets are forcibly reshaping an industry that is struggling to keep its customers on board. Tighter rules from Europe to the U.S. are accelerating manufacturers’ efforts to shrink their carbon footprint, even as they fight to come back from a pandemic slump. Those rules are also drawing investors toward new electric-vehicle startups hoping to replicate the success of Tesla Inc. Volvo Cars, the Swedish auto maker owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, said Thursday that it was preparing to launch a green bond to fund its electric-vehicle program. The news follows similar issues by Volkswagen and Daimler, which have both sought to tap into growing investor appetite for clean mobility. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement this week that his state will ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles, effective in 2035, is just the latest sign that the days of the internal combustion engine might be numbered. Last week, the European Union signaled that it would tighten its carbon-dioxide car-emission targets for the next decade. The EU’s cap of 95 grams per kilometer on carbon-dioxide emissions takes full effect next year. Slashing that target to 47.5 g/km in 2030, as the EU is now considering, would require fully electric vehicles to account for more than 60% of new-car sales in Europe—up from about 4% now. China has also been moving quickly through regulation to suppress greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, while developing markets for electric vehicles. For years, Beijing has offered subsidies and tax breaks for consumers to buy electric vehicles, capped new conventional-vehicle registrations, and nurtured a homegrown electric-car and battery industry that is challenging Western manufacturers.

California Wants Cars to Run on Electricity. It’s Going to Need a Much Bigger Grid – WSJ --California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday to end the sale of new gas-burning cars in his state in 15 years.Now comes the hard part.Energy consultants and academics say converting all passenger cars and trucks to run on electricity in California could raise power demand by as much as 25%. That poses a major challenge for a state already facing periodic rolling blackouts as it rapidly transitions to renewable energy.California will need to boost power generation, scale up its network of fast charging stations, enhance its electric grid to handle the added load and hope that battery technology continues to improve enough that millions in America’s most populous state can handle long freeway commutes to schools and offices without problems.“We’ve got 15 years to do the work,” said Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, owner of Southern California Edison, a utility serving 15 million people in the state. “Frankly the state agencies are going to have to do their part. We’ve got to get to the permitting processes, the approvals; all of that work is going to have to get accelerated to meet [Wednesday’s] target.”    Switching from petroleum fuels to electricity to phase out the internal combustion engine won’t happen all at once—Mr. Newsom’s order applies to sales of new vehicles, so older gas-powered cars will be on the road in California for many years to come. But the mandate means the state will face a growing demand for megawatts. California is already facing a shortfall of power supplies over the next couple of years. The problem was highlighted last month when a heat wave blanketed the western U.S. and the state’s grid operator instituted rolling blackouts on two occasions. “It is too early to tell what kind of impact the order will have on our power grid, and we don’t have any specific analysis or projections,” Currently, California faces a crunchtime in the early evening as solar power falls off and demand to power air conditioners remains relatively high. Car charging presents a new potential issue: What happens when too many drivers want a high-energy, fast charge at the same time?

Tesla's Nevada lithium plan faces stark obstacles on path to production (Reuters) - Tesla Inc's TSLA.O plan to produce lithium for electric vehicle batteries close to its Nevada Gigafactory faces stark challenges from the outset, including an onerous permitting process, uncertain access to water and questions about unproven methodologies. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk told shareholders on Tuesday Tesla has secured rights to 10,000 acres in Nevada where it aims to produce lithium from clay deposits using a process developed internally. The move would make Tesla the first company in the world to commercially produce the white metal from clay. Lithium is produced either from brine, commonly found in South America, or spodumene hard rock, usually in Australia. In Nevada, Tesla plans to mix clay with table salt and then add water, which it says causes a reaction where the salt would leach out with lithium, which can then be extracted. The leftover clay would be put back in the earth to mitigate environmental damage. “It’s a very sustainable way of obtaining lithium,” said Musk, who did not say where in Nevada the company had obtained the lithium rights or whether development has started. The plan drew backlash almost immediately, with critics describing Musk’s plan as too simplistic and light on details. Returning rock to the earth after minerals are extracted, for instance, is already common industry practice through the use of tailings dams. “This plan from Tesla brings up a lot more questions than it answers,” said Chris Berry, an independent lithium industry consultant. “Are we just supposed to take Elon Musk’s word for it that the cost will be lower than existing lithium projects?” Palo Alto, Calif.-based Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nevada already has several lithium clay projects under development, including one from Lithium Americas Corp LAC.TO that has been seeking federal permit approval for more than a decade and another from ioneer Ltd INR.AX.

Hydrogen-powered passenger plane completes maiden flight in ‘world first’ - A hydrogen fuel-cell plane that's capable of carrying passengers completed its maiden flight this week, in another step forward for low and zero-emission flight.  ZeroAvia's six-seater Piper M-class aircraft — which has been retrofitted with the device that combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity — undertook a taxi, take-off, full pattern circuit and landing on Thursday.ZeroAvia has said the trip, described as a "hydrogen fuel cell powered flight of a commercial-grade aircraft," is a "world first." Other examples of hydrogen-fuel cell planes that can host passengers do exist, however.Back in 2016, the HY4 aircraft, which is able to carry four people, undertook its first official journey when it flew from Stuttgart Airport in Germany. The HY4 was developed by researchers at the German Aerospace Center alongside "industry and research partners."Thursday's ZeroAvia flight was carried out at the company's research and development site at Cranfield Airport, in England — 50 miles north of London. The airport is owned by Cranfield University."While some experimental aircraft have flown using hydrogen fuel cells as a power source, the size of this commercially available aircraft shows that paying passengers could be boarding a truly zero-emission flight very soon," Val Miftakhov, the CEO of ZeroAvia, said in a statement.ZeroAvia is heading up a program called HyFlyer alongside project partners Intelligent Energy and the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC). EMEC has described HyFlyer, which is backed by the U.K. government, as aiming "to decarbonise medium range small passenger aircraft by demonstrating powertrain technology to replace conventional piston engines in propeller aircraft." The next step of the HyFlyer project will see ZeroAvia work toward carrying out a flight of between 250 and 300 nautical miles from the Orkney Islands, an archipelago located in waters off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plane on this flight will use hydrogen-fuel cells. It's hoped this trip will happen before the end of 2020. The news on ZeroAvia's flight bookends a week in which European aerospace giant Airbus released details of three hydrogen-fueled concept planes, saying they could enter service by the year 2035.

U.S.: Long-term contracts with American Municipal Power (AMP) saddle local communities with high prices - Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis :  Counties across five states with extraordinarily high electricity prices for half a century, according to a briefing note released today by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.The largest AMP member, Cleveland Public Power (CPP), has already paid an extra $106 million more for power from two projects than it would have cost to buy power and capacity from wholesale markets. Like other members in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia, the utility is locked into 50-year contracts to buy power and capacity from projects that include the Prairie State coal-fired plant in Illinois and the AMP Combined Hydro Project on the Ohio River. Both stand out as particularly bad deals, according to David Schlissel, the study’s author.“The electricity that AMP communities get from the Prairie State and Combined Hydro Project is very expensive compared to buying the same power from PJM or the competitive market,” said Schlissel,  “and ratepayers are unlikely to find relief any time soon.”“It’s surprising that no one has yet sued AMP for mismanaging these coal and hydro projects,” Schlissel added.The trouble for AMP customers began in the mid-2000s, when it began building its own power plants, financed with multibillion bond deals. AMP studies predicted that the costs of power from Prairie State and the Combined Hydro Project would be stable and cheaper than purchasing electricity from the competitive wholesale markets.The average cost of purchasing power from Prairie State, however, stood last year at $60.97 per megawatt-hour (MWh), much higher than the $50.26/MWh estimate that AMP provided to the Cleveland City Council in 2007 and almost double the actual $33.49/MWh price for purchase available from the wholesale markets.The Combined Hydro Project (made up of the Smithland, Cannelton, and Willow Island plants on the Ohio River) has been an even worse deal. The average 2019 price for CPP customers was $178.58/MWh, almost triple the $67/MWh estimate provided in 2007 and quadruple the $43.93 actual cost for purchasing electricity from the wholesale markets.

Protesters gather against new El Paso Electric generator  — Sunrise El Paso members and other climate action advocacy groups are protesting the addition of a new generator in the El Paso Electric Chaparral substation in Northeast El Paso. “Since El Paso is one of the sunniest cities in the world, we should take advantage of our solar energy rather than focusing on fracking plants and fracking all sorts of energy that are harmful to the environment,” protester Ana Fuentes said. The group is concerned this would impact air quality by emitting considerable amounts of greenhouse gasses. They propose using solar power instead of coal or fossil fuel, but El Paso Electric says they are proposing using a combination of solar, battery, and natural gas. The utility adds the new system would actually help reduce carbon emissions. “So the utility has moved to a coal-free utility, and as we look to the future, reducing carbon out of the air, so we are reducing carbon emissions and looking into a carbon-neutral or reduced carbon generation utility,” said Eddie Gutierrez with El Paso Electric. El Paso Electric says the new generator would replace two old units and use less water and air cooling technology, which reduces its carbon footprint.

Entergy Joins the Utility Pack with Net Zero Carbon Promise for 2050 --Utility decarbonization commitments move pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss them.Case in point: One week ago, GTM published a list of the major investor-owned utilities that had not committed to eliminating carbon emissions. Given all the commitments announced over the last few years, we could only find five holdouts, one of which was Entergy.But Entergy pulled itself off the list with an announcement made Thursday pledging net-zero emissions by 2050.The company, which controls regulated utilities serving 2.9 million customers across the Gulf region and an 8-gigawatt nuclear generation fleet, first promised to cap greenhouse gas emissions in 2001 and has since enhanced its goal multiple times. Most recently, it promised to lower its emissions intensity 50 percent below 2000 levels by 2030. But such a goal does not require the hard work of deep decarbonization; as long as the oldest and dirtiest plants are shut down, it allows emissions to continue. Peer utilities moved forward with pledges to eliminate carbon emissions entirely or achieve a net-zero target, which allows some emissions along with offsets.Now Entergy is part of that pack (the biggest holdouts remaining are NextEra Energy and Berkshire Hathaway Energy). Its particular approach to fulfilling that mission follows from the makeup of its fleet.In an analyst presentation Thursday, COO Paul Hinnenkamp cautioned that renewables alone cannot ensure reliability around the clock, adding that energy storage is not ready to fully meet reliability needs. But Entergy will increase renewables while tackling its biggest emitters and retaining a sizable gas fleet.

Jasper Pellets in Ridgeland SC accused of breaking the law Jasper Pellets, a wood pellet manufacturing plant in Ridgeland, has committed “significant, repeated, and ongoing” violations of the Clean Air Act, three environmental groups say in a letter to the company. The letter, a notice of intent to sue sent Tuesday, accuses the company of operating the facility and installing new manufacturing equipment without proper permits. The notice gives the company 60 days to “fix the violations” before the environmental groups file a federal lawsuit. The environmental groups include South Carolina-based Coastal Conservation League, Washington D.C.,-based Environmental Integrity Project, and the Southern Environmental Law Center. TOP ARTICLES NC’s coronavirus cases increase as state looks ahead to potential Phase 2.5 changes Trump order blocks Charlotte judge’s bias class for federal prosecutors Developer fired man whose boss beat him up. Court sides with victim in Charlotte case. Gap between Mecklenburg rents and what people can afford keeps growing, report says Outer Banks highway to reopen after sand banks up to 6 feet high are scraped away NC pastor yells ‘white power’ from truck during weekend Trump parade, videos show SKIP AD Trump order blocks Charlotte judge’s bias class for federal prosecutors The groups warned Jasper Pellets two years ago that the company would be violating the law if it continued to operate without a specific permit, EIP attorney Patrick Anderson said in a news release. “Unfortunately, we never heard from them, and sure enough they continue to operate illegally without the permit, forcing our hand,” Anderson said. Jasper Pellets turns raw wood from trees into compressed pellets that are typically shipped overseas to be used as power-plant fuel. That process can emit more than 100 tons of “volatile organic compounds” per year, meaning it’s a “major source of air pollution” under the Clean Air Act, the release said.

Virginia, North Carolina reach settlement over 2014 Dan River spill -The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Attorney General Mark Herring have entered into a consent decree to finalize the restoration plan and environmental assessment related to the 2014 Dan River spill.“This final restoration plan ensures that any damage caused by the Dan River spill is reversed and restored, as well as holds those who were responsible for the spill accountable,” Herring said. “The community was directly impacted by this spill and I’m glad we were able to involve them in coming up with a suitable plan for everyone. I want to thank our state and federal partners for their help and collaboration on reaching this important settlement.”Four projects have been selected as meeting these goals and three of those have already been completed as early restoration. Completion of the last project – improved recreational access to the Dan River – is expected after the court filing. Selected projects include:

• Acquisition and conservation of the Mayo River floodplain and riverbank adding up to 619 acres to the Mayo River State Parks in North Carolina and Virginia for long-term stewardship (completed)
• Aquatic habitat restoration in the Pigg River via removal of the Power Dam returning riverine conditions to 2.2 miles, benefitting game fish such as smallmouth bass, and the federally and state listed Roanoke logperch and other nongame fish (completed)
• Establishment of public boat launch facilities on the Dan River (ongoing)
• Improvements to the Abreu Grogan Park in Danville, Virginia, including new amenities and other improvements that address impacts related to park closure during spill response activities (completed)

Trump EPA Rule on Coal Ash Puts Lives and the Environment at Risk - Bloomberg Editorial Board -  Its latest effort to prop up the coal industry will put human health at risk. To help some of the country’s dirtiest electric-power plants save a little money, the Environmental Protection Agency is willing to imperil the lives and health of Americans who live downstream from them. A new rule that relaxes restrictions on ash pollution is the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to sustain coal power in the face of crushing competition from renewables. And like the others, it’s sure to prove ineffective, wasteful and hugely damaging to the environment. The new action relaxes an Obama-administration effort to protect the water supply from mercury, arsenic, lead and other toxic components of coal ash. That rule had required plants to remove heavy metals from wastewater containing pollutants scrubbed from smokestacks, and to use dry disposal methods to deal with the “bottom ash” from boilers rather than wash it away. The revision — enacted under the EPA leadership of Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist — weakens the wastewater cleaning requirements and allows plants to continue to flush some bottom ash. It also extends compliance deadlines until the last day of 2025, or the end of 2028 for plants that voluntarily adopt improved pollution-control technologies or promise to close or switch to natural gas by then. For the next eight years, in other words, coal ash will continue to be discharged into enormous, notoriously leaky holding pits and reservoirs, from which it will inevitably spill into rivers, streams and lakes, where the toxic metals will accumulate in fish and the ecosystem at large. Although it’s hard to predict exactly how much damage this toxic pollution will cause, it is known to cause cancer, respiratory illnesses, neurological disorders and other diseases. Why take such an enormous risk? The EPA claims the revised rules will save the coal industry $140 million a year. That tradeoff would be hard enough to justify in its own right. But the agency doesn’t even estimate how much power companies, or taxpayers, will ultimately have to pay to clean up the damage. The Tennessee Valley Authority spent six years and more than $1 billion to clean up and compensate for a 2008 ash spill into the Emory River; three dozen workers died of cancer and other diseasescontracted in the process. This reform is all the more nonsensical because advances in treatment processes have made it easier than ever to discard coal ash more safelyand to recycle the useful metals it contains. Nor will it do much to keep the coal industry alive.Bloomberg Green reports that coal, once the leading source of electricity in the U.S., is expected to provide just 18% of the total this year; it has long since been overtaken by natural gas and this year will be surpassed by renewable energy. Under Trump, the federal government has spent more than $1 billion trying to revive coal power — yet plants just continue to close.  Unfortunately, even after the last one is shuttered, coal ash will litter the American landscape for many years to come, menacing nature and threatening human health. Legal challenges may keep these revisions from taking effect immediately. But in the long run, the U.S. needs new management at the EPA that will place life and the environment above the interests of a dying industry.

Duke Energy Carolinas rate-hike hearing ends, with ruling on coal-ash costs likely in December - Charlotte Business Journal - North Carolina regulators completed hearings Friday on Duke Energy Carolinas' proposed rate hike with commissioners probing how it decided against pursuing aggressive coal-ash disposal policies until state and federal regulations required them.  James Wells, Duke’s vice president for environmental health and safety, repeatedly told the N.C. Utilities Commission that Duke was at the industry’s forefront for working to understand the potential environmental impact of coal ash. Wells said that as evidence grew that impacts were possible, Duke monitored its coal plant operations with increasing care.  Wells said the company took action when necessary, though he said there were almost never any signs of actual damage. He cited as an example the selenium contamination at Belews Lake north of Winston-Salem caused by the massive Belews Creek Steam Station. Wells said Duke saw harm to the fish population in the lake and traced the deaths to selenium from the plant. Duke converted to disposing its ash there in dry dumps rather than the wet ash ponds that had leached selenium into the lake.  Environmental groups and others have generally criticized the large fish-kill at Belews Lake as an example of Duke’s failure to handle ash appropriately. But Wells argued it was a prime example of acting quickly when evidence of actual — rather than potential — environmental damage occurred. He said there was never been any evidence of damage to residential wells or human illness from contaminated wells associated with Duke. But commissioners all asked in different ways about whether it might have been possible to avoid some current costs by acting earlier to reduce environmental problems at the coal plants. Williams pushed back against that idea strongly. She said that Duke was moving forward and collecting data that has been useful to it and regulators now in deciding how to safely handle and dispose of the coal ash. And she says that the company did not have sufficient information 10, 20 or 30 years ago to make such decisions. Duke is seeking a rate increase that would amount to 2.1% in 2021 and 2022. The underlying rate hike is 7%, but its impact would be reduced in the early effective years by Duke refunding hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred taxes. Duke charged customers for those deferred taxes — a routine expense — at a higher rate than the company eventually paid after major corporate tax cuts at the state and federal levels. Those cuts created the need to refund the money to customers.

Indiana pulls out of Lawrenceburg site for new port project (WKRC) – More than three years ago, Indiana state leaders, including former governor and now-Vice President Mike Pence, vowed to sink billions into the Tanner Creek site just east of downtown Lawrenceburg of this southeast Indiana river town. But the state pulled the plug on putting its fourth port here. The reason? The site is too environmentally contaminated to make it work. The Tanner Creek site is where a coal-fired power plant operated for years. It shut down less than 10 years ago, leaving behind at least three or four ponds containing highly toxic fly ash. Pence and his successor, Eric Holcomb, wanted to build a port on the site of more than 700 acres. There was never an official price tag attached, but it was going to be in the billions of dollars. But recently released environmental studies found only 100 acres are usable. That leaves leaders trying to figure out what to do next, although the city is still exploring using the site. The state's decision was a victory of sorts for environmental activists, such as Matt Miles who’s been trying to get the owners to clean up the site for more than two years. Miles says it still poses a risk to Dearborn County's drinking water. "Stopping the port was never really the goal. It just became necessary,” Miles said. “It cost me two years of my life. It cost me my reputation. It cost me a lot of things that are going to come to light." In its release, the state said it was continuing to monitor the cleanup and will continue to do so for the next 30 years.

Breaking: Coal ash released after sinkhole collapse in Mooresville -Coal ash from a structural fill site entered an unnamed stream after a sinkhole formed in Mooresville, state regulators announced today.The sinkhole was in a parking lot built on top of a coal ash structural fill site off NC Highway 150. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality did not specify which fill site was affected, but state records show a previous sinkhole in a parking lot of the Terry K Smith Highway 150 project.This site contains 45,833 tons of coal ash, sourced from Duke Energy’s Marshall Steam Station, located on nearby Lake Norman.DEQ said in a press release that a stream culvert pipe collapsed under a coal ash structural fill during heavy rains on Thursday, Sept. 17, that caused a previously repaired sinkhole in a parking lot to reopen.DEQ said it has been monitoring the sinkhole since becoming aware of it during a site inspection in July of 2019. The property owner had previously repaired the sinkhole in 2018 and 2019.During site visits after the storm, sediment containing coal ash was observed in the stream bed of the unnamed tributary where it emerges south of Highway 150.DEQ staff collected water quality samples from the stream and is conducting ongoing monitoring. The location is in the area of a state Department of Transportation expansion project, and DEQ has discussed necessary next steps with the property owner and NCDOT.  DEQ also alerted county and state emergency management authorities.There are dozens of known coal ash structural fill sites in North Carolina, and more that have been reported but not documented.

Miners Triaged, One Hospitalized After Cameron Mine Fire - One man was taken to Wheeling Hospital after an electrical fire at a coal mine in Cameron. The fire started shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday at the American Consolidated Natural Resources Inc. Marshall County Mine, according to Marshall County Director of Emergency Management Tom Hart. The 911 call indicated that the team of miners, 15 people in total, had possibly suffered smoke inhalation as a result of the fire. First responders were on scene within minutes, Hart said, with Marshall County EMS out of Cameron being first on the scene, along with the Moundsville station, Tri-State EMS and Health Team EMS.

Over $50 million in delinquent royalty payments still unresolved in Blackjewel bankruptcy -The federal government has yet to recoup over $50 million in unpaid royalty payments and other past due charges from bankrupt coal firm Blackjewel, according to a recent court order. The royalty delinquencies have stalled the transfer of federal mine leases to the new owner of two Wyoming coal sites and left the fate of the bankruptcy case unclear.When Blackjewel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2019 and abruptly closed down some of the largest mines in the world, it owed the U.S. Department of Interior over $50.1 million in royalty payments and additional fees for extracting coal at the Belle Ayr and Eagle Butte mines.Though a new company called Eagle Specialty Materials has since taken over all operations at the two mines, the federal government — and consequently American taxpayers — has yet to be paid what it’s due.According to a court order filed Thursday, Eagle Specialty Materials will be liable for all royalty payments associated with the two coal mines for the period after Oct. 18, the date the company began operating the mines. But it remains unclear who will be responsible for the over $50 million in delinquent royalty payments racked up by Blackjewel before and shortly after the bankruptcy began.In addition to the millions of dollars owed by Blackjewel, the Interior Department is also owed nearly $886,000 in royalty payments and feesfor coal produced between the time Blackjewel petitioned for bankruptcy on July 1, 2019, and the sale of the mines to Eagle Specialty Materials on Oct. 17, 2019.It remains unclear if a company will step up to settle all these liabilities, or if the federal coal leases will ultimately be relinquished.In October 2019, Eagle Specialty Materials purchased the two mines from Blackjewel and restarted production soon after the sale was finalized. But even after nearly a year leading operations at the two mines, the new company has yet to secure the federal leases from the previous owner. According to the Mineral Leasing Act, all outstanding liabilities must be settled before a lease transfer can take place. Outstanding violations need to be resolved too, among several other requirements. The new company only obtained a license to mine as a contract operator in Wyoming but still does not have the required federal leases.

GE plans big shift away from coal-fired power sector  = GE said Monday that it intended to "exit the new build coal power market," in a move that will see the industrial powerhouse place a renewed emphasis on renewable energy.Over the years, GE has been deeply involved with the coal industry. Its website states it has 100 years of "coal-fired power service expertise" spread across more than 90 original equipment manufacturer brands. It has also described its GE Steam Power division as the number one "steam and coal power franchise." But Russell Stokes, GE senior vice president and president and CEO of GE Power Portfolio, said in a statement that the company was "focused on power generation businesses that have attractive economics and a growth trajectory." GE said the shift away from new coal-fired power plants could involve divestitures, the closing of sites and "job impacts," and would be "subject to applicable consultation requirements." The firm's Steam Power business will carry on servicing existing coal and nuclear facilities, as well as delivering turbine islands for the nuclear sector, it said. Reacting to the news, the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) Han Chen said: "It's great news for our climate that GE is heeding the calls of communities around the world to stop financing and building new coal plants." "Coal plants are the biggest single source of global carbon emissions — which are fueling climate change," Chen, who is manager of energy policy in NRDC's International Program, added. GE's move away from coal came on the same day the conglomerate announced it would supply the Dogger Bank Wind Farm with 190 turbines. The 13 megawatt (MW) versions of the Haliade-X offshore turbine – which has 107 meter (350 foot) long blades – will be used for phases A and B of the scheme, which will be located in waters off England's northeast coast. According to GE, one rotation of the Haliade-X 13 MW turbine can produce enough electricity to power a U.K. household for over two days.

GE plans to stop making coal-fired power plants  (Reuters) - General Electric Co GE.N said on Monday it plans to stop making coal-fired power plants, as the U.S. industrial conglomerate focuses more on renewable sources of power generation. The company said the exit from the business could include divestitures, site closings and job cuts, while it works with its customers to complete existing obligations. (invent.ge/33HCxdQ)  GE has said in the past it would focus less on fossil fuels and more on renewable energy, reflecting a growing acceptance of clean power sources by utilities. “GE’s exit from building new coal-fired power — after decades as a leader in this space — is an acknowledgement that growth in the energy sector will no longer be in coal,” said Kathy Hipple, a financial analyst at Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “The market will ultimately reward GE for exiting new coal builds.”

Environmental activists demand UNC end coal usage virtually and in-person - The Daily Tar Heel - Environmental activists held a “No Coal UNC” rally in-person at the Old Well and virtually on Zoom Tuesday, demanding that the University stop using its coal-fired power plant by 2023. Drawing from the University’s response to COVID-19 and the national reckoning on racial injustice, speakers condemned UNC's coal use for its disproportionate effect on the historically-Black community around the plant. Claire Bradley, a UNC junior and co-hub coordinator for the Chapel Hill & Carrboro Sunrise Movement, said coal use intersects with the Black Lives Matter movement, community safety, and the COVID-19 pandemic. "I think UNC has mishandled all three of those," Bradley said. “The use of coal is a risk to public health, the continued use of University police and our relationship with the Chapel Hill Police Department is harmful to BIPOC students, and our mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a lot of people harm." The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club organized the rallyfollowing recent legal action they have taken against UNC. The complaint, scheduled to enter mediation on Friday, alleges that the power plant has violated the Clean Air Act. “There are 10 claims in the complaint and they fall roughly into three categories,” Perrin deJong, the Center’s North Carolina staff attorney said. “There are substantive pollution control violations, there are failures to monitor pollution from various parts of the facility, and then there are failures to report those violations to the regulatory authorities.”At the Old Well, activists staged a socially-distant protest, holding a large black-and-white banner saying “No Coal UNC” towards South Building, chanting “people over profits, justice over greed, we demand accountability!” On Zoom, professors, student activists, and Orange County Commissioner Mark Marcoplos spoke about the danger of the coal plant and its impact on communities of color. Attendees were invited to call Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and read a script calling for the end of coal use on campus.

Editorial: Two power plants' future becomes uncertain - A couple of large coal-fired power plants in this area could be retired ahead of schedule. As part of a deal to secure a rate increase in Virginia, Appalachian Power has agreed to examine what would happen if the John Amos Power Plant in Putnam County and the Mountaineer Power Plant in Mason County were taken out of service ahead of schedule. Neither is old for a coal-fired power plant, with Amos having begun service in 1971 and Mountaineer in 1980. Both have another 20 years of service, more or less. What happened in Virginia is a complicated situation, but in simple terms, Appalachian Power wanted a rate increase there, but the Sierra Club opposed it. After negotiating various components of the request, the two parties decided that Appalachian Power would study what would happen if the two plants were retired and the company replaced their output with other sources. Appalachian Power is supposed to report the results of its study before the end of 2022. Appalachian Power is a subsidiary of American Electric Power, which is based in Columbus, Ohio. AEP has committed to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions and obtaining more of its power from renewable resources while also divesting itself of much of its coal-powered generating fleet. It retired its Philip Sporn power plant in Mason County and its Kanawha River Power Plant in Kanawha County in 2015. It sold the Gavin plant at Cheshire, Ohio, a few years ago, and it has announced plans to reduce output at its large plant at Rockport, Indiana. AEP subsidiary Kentucky Power converted the Big Sandy power plant near Louisa, Kentucky, from coal to gas a few years ago. When AEP has built new fossil fuel-powered plants in recent years, they have been gas burners.Other than in their local communities, the loss of Sporn and Kanawha River were barely noticed. Both were smaller, older plants that didn’t produce enough power to justify the investment needed to meet modern environmental standards. Had natural gas not become so plentiful and inexpensive, one or both might still be operating. Taking Amos and Mountaineer out of service would not be a simple step for AEP. Both plants handle part of Appalachian Power’s baseload needs in Virginia and West Virginia, so their output would have to be replaced with a dependable source. For now, that would mean natural gas. In the long run, it could mean renewables. Shutting down either plant would be hard on the economies of their local communities, not to mention the West Virginia coal industry in general.

Wyoming wants to keep coal burning. But is carbon capture the answer?  --Over the past decade, Wyoming’s coal industry has taken a beating, but this year has proven particularly brutal.Layoffs have whipped through the state at a searing pace, outstripping previous busts and catapulting thousands of families into uncertainty.  Since March, over 500 miners have lost their jobs in the coal mines. Over 300 have been furloughed. Coal production has been slashed by 30%. Coal-fired power plants across the nation have continued to shutter.The COVID-19 pandemic can shoulder some of the blame for coal companies’ decision to shed workers and contract production. But the downturn in coal predates the virus, stretching back several years as the nation shifts how it uses power. Even four years of the most pro-coal president in recent memory has done little to change coal’s misfortunes. The dirt cheap cost of natural gas, combined with advancements in renewable energy, have bullied coal out of its top ranking in the electricity sector. Utilities, shouldering the mandate of keeping electricity as inexpensive and reliable as possible, have gradually transitioned away from the once indomitable rock.  The Energy Information Administration, an impartial data center for U.S. energy, forecasts nationwide coal production could plummet to levels 28% below last year. In Wyoming, these predictions can have dire implications. When coal loses money, so does Wyoming. And right now, the state is facing a revenue shortfall that has ballooned to $1.7 billion. Wyoming energy experts and lawmakers have proposed one potential solution to solve the crisis: keep coal production going, but just make it clean. By “clean,” they mean limiting the amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants emitted when processing coal into electricity. Now, the state faces a decision: put all its chips on developing clean coal technology or transition to new industries. A study published by the U.S. Department of Energy this month could give Wyoming, the nation’s leader in coal production, ammunition to make its case. The federal agency’s report concluded that installing technology to capture the carbon emitted from Wyoming’s coal-fired power plants could be the foundering industry’s saving grace. By retrofitting four coal plants and trapping the climate warming pollutant, the state’s biggest utility, Rocky Mountain Power, could lower emissions, save ratepayers money, keep the facilities open and save jobs, according to the study. But despite the rosy picture the report paints for coal, some economists, attorneys and conservationists have characterized its findings as misleading and incomplete.

U.S.: Ratepayers face risks with Project Tundra’s retrofit of aging N.D. coal-fired plant - Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis  — A plan to retrofit an aging coal-fired plant in North Dakota with unproven carbon capture and storage technology is likely to raise rates for customers who get electricity from the Milton R. Young Unit 2 facility, according to a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). The Project Tundra plan would retrofit the 43-year-old, 455-megawatt plant with a new carbon dioxide (CO2) technology that is untested at commercial scale. According to the proponents, the captured CO2 would be geologically sequestered or sold to companies for use in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations. Already, ratepayers for the Square Butte Electric Cooperative and Minnkota Power Cooperative are paying much more for power from Young Unit 2 than it would cost to purchase the same electricity from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator’s (MISO) competitive wholesale market. Using federal tax credits to add carbon capture storage infrastructure is highly unlikely to reduce those costs, said David Schlissel, the study’s lead author. “Minnkota customers already have paid millions of dollars more for electricity from Young Unit 2 than necessary,’’ said Schlissel, IEEFA director of resource planning analysis. “Adding carbon capture to the plant is only going to raise its costs, and ratepayers and customers are likely to end up stuck with the bill for the whole risky venture.” The operators of the Young plant have estimated that retrofitting the plant will cost between $1 billion and $1.6 billion. IEEFA concludes that these estimates are optimistic, given that the Young retrofit would be almost twice the size of the 240 megawatt (MW) Petra Nova plant in East Texas, one of only two carbon capture storage facilities at coal-fired plants in the world. The much-smaller Petra Nova plant cost $1 billion to build, failed to capture as much CO2 as was expected, and was mothballed in May due to low oil prices. The other plant, Boundary Dam 3 in Saskatchewan, Canada has also failed to meet projected CO2 capture goals. Even without accounting for the almost-certain cost overruns inherent in new technology, retrofitting the Young Unit 2 plant presents unique issues for its owners because of its age. Older plants cost more to operate and are less reliable than newer facilities, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Since the amount of CO2 produced by the plant depends on how much the plant operates, the project’s backers are betting that they can keep the unit running at a high rate even though research and real-world experience shows this to be unlikely.

China considers easing coal import restrictions - Authorities at Guangzhou and Fuzhou ports in south China's Guangdong and Fujian province respectively are looking at how much stockpiled imported coal is waiting for customs clearance at the ports, according to market participants. The move could signal a possible relaxation of import restrictions, while Guangzhou port could clear 1.5mn t of imported stockpiled coal. Fuzhou and Guangzhou ports have exhausted their import quotas in early August, meaning only some local utilities could still buy small volumes using limited quotas. But other market participants are not optimistic about China's acceptance of imported coal. An official at an east China-based power utility said he remains cautious about booking new cargoes, saying customs authorities will stick to a previous target of limiting 2020 imports at a level no higher than last year's receipts of 300mn t. Expiring 2020 import quotas in most Chinese customs regions have weighed on Chinese coal imports. Total receipts last month, including anthracite, coking coal and thermal coal, reached an intra-year low of 20.66mn t. This marked a fall of 37pc from the same month last year and followed a 21pc year-on-year decline in July. Market participants expect domestic coal prices could weaken if stockpiled imported coal is cleared. Tight supplies of domestic coal, coupled with an increase in utility restocking ahead of scheduled maintenance on the Daqin railway line, have pushed up domestic coal prices for four consecutive weeks. The price of NAR 5,500 kcal/kg coal increased from $79.88/t fob Qinhuangdao on 14 August to $86.49/t on 18 September, according to Argus assessments. Asia-Pacific coal prices have also been supported by an increase in Chinese buying interest with expectations that the 2021 quota system will take effect in January. Argus assessed prices of NAR 3,800 kcal/kg Indonesian coal at $23.61/t on 18 September, up by $1.21/t on the previous week, while prices of NAR 5,500 kcal/kg Australian coal rose to $39.79/t fob Newcastle on 18 September from $35.04/t fob on 4 September. Customs authorities allocated some additional quotas to utilities in the northeast China provinces of Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin late last month to cope with tighter domestic coal supplies ahead of the winter restocking that typically begins in October. This has boosted demand for Russian coal because of its proximity to the provinces.

ENERGY TRANSITIONS: Fusion reactors go small for trip to market -- Monday, September 21, 2020 -The long quest in the U.S. to mimic the sun's mighty power by mastering nuclear fusion has added a new goal — the development of compact, affordable fusion reactors that could be widely deployed by utilities in the century's second half. Urged on by the Energy Department, a top-level committee of U.S. scientists has begun planning for a pilot fusion reactor plant smaller than the typical jumbo-sized units. It would be based on the massive $25 billion fusion test facility being assembled in southern France, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).  "As we take this forward ... we can show people maybe a pilot plant that costs $6 billion or $7 billion" rather than $30 billion, said Steven Cowley, who heads the DOE-backed Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in New Jersey, where one of the competing designs for a utility-scale fusion reactor is under development. In an interview with E&E News, Cowley said the PPPL project is back on track, positioning it to capitalize on ITER's startup midway through the coming decade. With much fanfare, government and science leaders announced the start of main construction work on ITER in July (Energywire, July 29).ITER's leadership expects to see the achievement of a crucial milestone called "first plasma" in 2025. That is the moment when ITER produces the sustained conditions of immense heat and pressure required to force charged hydrogen isotopes to fuse into helium atoms, releasing energy. Although the reactor would not be fueled for the experiment, a successful launch would show that a fusion reactor could be self-sustaining, generating more heat than is needed to create fusion, officials say.The reaction occurs within a cloud or plasma of hydrogen gas, whose temperatures of up to 150 million degrees Celsius require confinement away from the walls of the ITER chamber. That is achieved through a blanket of magnetic fields generated by the most powerful supermagnets ever invented.Recent research achievements have advanced hopes that ITER's success would lead to commercialization of fusion reactors some time after 2040. Despite the distance of that horizon, venture capitalists and private foundations have begun to stake initial claims in competing strategies (Climatewire, Aug. 24)."ITER is making people feel like fusion is real,"

Palisades nuclear plant on Lake Michigan seeks approval for repairs -  — The company that owns the Palisades nuclear plant is asking federal officials to approve its plan to fix “indications of cracking” on components used to generate power at the plant. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesperson Viktoria Mitlyng said officials with Entergy discovered the problem during a recent inspection and notified the commission on Friday, Sept. 18. The indications of cracking, found on nozzle penetrations for the nuclear reactor vessel head, do not pose a risk to the public, she said. “The public is not in danger,” Mitlyng said. “These indications of cracking were identified. The plant will repair them according to the NRC requirements.” Palisades is located on Lake Michigan, about 7 miles south of South Haven. The plant generates 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 800,000 homes in Michigan. Entergy plans to close Palisades in 2022. The nuclear plant is not currently generating power, Mitlyng said. A refueling and maintenance outage at Palisades began on Aug. 30, and the plant cannot begin generating power until the indications of cracking are repaired, she said. “Only then can the plant go back online,” Mitlyng said of the requirement that the repairs be made. “The plant is safe when it is shut down like it is right now.” Before Entergy can make repairs to the plant, it must submit its repair plan to the NRC for approval. Entergy spokesperson Val Gent said the company plans to do so this week. The company is asking the NRC to approve its plan by Oct. 1. “Palisades maintains a robust reactor integrity program and adheres to the highest federal safety and operating standards,” she said. A conference call between the NRC and Entergy was held Monday morning. During the call Entergy officials described the approach they would use to fix the indications of cracking. Following the discussion, several anti-nuclear activists questioned Entergy’s repair plan. Kevin Kamps, a member of the group Beyond Nuclear, said he strongly objects to the “band aid repair that’s being proposed.” “This rush job is unacceptable,” he said. “It increases the danger of mistakes being made, and the public downwind, including my family and loves ones in Kalamazoo, have had enough of this.”

A look at Exelon's 4 economically challenged nuclear plants in Illinois | S&P Global Market Intelligence -Exelon Corp.-owned nuclear power plants in Illinois eyed for early retirement have had declining financial margins of late, according to an analysis using S&P Global Market Intelligence's plant-level production cost model. Citing economic challenges due to the combination of prolonged periods of depressed wholesale power prices, market rules allowing "fossil fuel plants to underbid clean resources" in the PJM Interconnection capacity auction, and the lack of government support recognizing the clean energy attributes of nuclear generation, Exelon Generation Co. LLC announced Aug. 27 that it plans to retire its 2,346-MW Byron and 1,805-MW Dresden nuclear power stations in September 2021 and November 2021, respectively. The Exelon Corp. subsidiary added that the 2,384-MW Braidwood Generating Station and 2,313-MW LaSalle County Generating Station are "also at high risk for premature closure," though the company has not yet projected any closure dates for those plants. The two-unit Dresden plant in Grundy County, the first of the four northern Illinois plants to enter service, in the early 1970s, is licensed to operate until 2029 and 2031. Braidwood in Will County, Byron in Ogle County, and LaSalle in LaSalle County all began operating in the mid- to late 1980s and are licensed to operate until the 2040s. These facilities had a combined net generation of 74.9 million MWh in 2019 at capacity factors upward of 95.0%. A comparison of modeled operations and maintenance, or O&M, expenses at the nuclear plants against wholesale power prices show operating costs exceeding spot electricity values of late. For January-August 2020, modeled O&M costs were more than $24/MWh in the case of Dresden and spanned $20/MWh to $21/MWh at Braidwood, Byron and LaSalle, while the average price of around-the-clock day-ahead power at the PJM Northern Illinois hub over the same period was near $19/MWh. Recent pressure on power prices included the dampening effect of the coronavirus pandemic on demand paired with low natural gas prices. In the three preceding full-year periods, modeled O&M expenses at the four nuclear plants similarly spanned the low $20s/MWh, while the price of power at PJM Northern Illinois initially averaged in the high $20s/MWh in 2017 and 2018 then pulled back into the low $20s/MWh in 2019. Exelon warned in early 2019 about the future of Braidwood, Byron and Dresden, citing similar reasons. A Market Intelligence analysis then found O&M costs for the three plants at roughly between $23/MWh and $24.25/MWh, generally below wholesale power prices at the PJM Northern Illinois hub, which averaged $28.51/MWh in 2018. Industry observers noted that Exelon's announcement to shutter Byron and Dresden could pressure Illinois lawmakers to subsidize the plants. Exelon's two other nuclear plants in Illinois — the 1,078-MW Clinton Power Station in De Witt County and the 1,819-MW Quad Cities facility in Rock Island County — are already compensated through the state's zero-emissions credit initiative. Clinton operates in the Midcontinent ISO market, and Quad Cities, based on its ownership, is split, with 75% of its capacity committed to PJM and the rest to MISO.

House Democrats Say Ohio Nuclear Bailout Repeal Is Taking Too Long | WOSU - The Ohio House is planning another hearing on a potential repeal of HB6, the legislation that brought big changes to Ohio energy laws and bailed out two nuclear power plants. Opponents of HB6 are growing frustrated with the process saying it should be repealed now. HB6 is at the center of a $60 million federal corruption investigation involving former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R-Glenford). House Republican leadership and Gov. Mike DeWine have expressed support for a full repeal of HB6. However, state Rep. Sedrick Denson (D-Cincinnati) said the hearings in a House Select Committee on Energy Policy and Oversight are beginning to look like a "dog and pony show." "What we at least owe it to everyone who lives here in Ohio. We owe it to the ratepayers to look back at what we did and say 'let's scrap that and start over fresh.' We've got that opportunity to do it and I don't know why we wouldn't be taking advantage of it," Denson said. Republican House Speaker Bob Cupp said HB6 is complicated and believes these hearings are needed to understand the impact of a repeal. "And to do something in a hasty and reckless manner is totally inappropriate," Cupp said to a group of reporters on September 1. But Denson said the legislature should simply repeal the bill now, then begin deeper conversations about how to address Ohio's energy laws. "For the life of me, now that we figured out all the games, in my opinion, that had been played through House Bill 6, why would we want to be on the hook and/or in the position to look as though we're not moving in the direction of, at least, disassociating ourselves with something that we've just learned," Denson said.

Dark-money groups would have to reveal donors, spending under new Ohio House bill - —Legislation seeking to erase “dark-money” political spending from Ohio was introduced Monday by Republican state lawmakers.House Bill 762, dubbed the “Light of Day” bill, would create sweeping new requirements for corporations, unions, nonprofits, LLCs and other organizations to disclose their state-level political spending, as well as their donors. Groups that make political donations would have to create separate accounts earmarked specifically for such spending and publicly report contributors to and spending from such accounts.The legislation follows the arrest of Republican ex-House Speaker Larry Householder on a charge that he oversaw a $60 million bribery scheme to pass House Bill 6, which gives lucrative subsidies to nuclear, coal, and solar power plants, using FirstEnergy Corp. money that was distributed using a network of dark-money groups that don’t have to publicly report their donors or spending under current law.But while the bill is sponsored by 15 House Republicans – many of whom voted for HB6 – it’s unclear whether the legislation will have the support needed to speed through the GOP-controlled Ohio General Assembly before the current legislative session ends in December.State Rep. Diane Grendell, a Geauga County Republican co-sponsoring HB762, said in an interview that even if HB6 is repealed, as some lawmakers are seeking to do, it wouldn’t stop the dark money at the heart of the HB6 scandal.“It’s far better than repealing House Bill 6,” Grendell said. “This is what people want.” Asked whether HB762 could pass by the end of the year, Grendell replied, “I hope so.”

Amid debate over repealing House Bill 6, Energy Harbor still won’t say whether its nuclear plants are profitable - — State lawmakers are looking at whether to keep in place a $1.3 billion public bailout for the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants along Lake Erie, a law that federal authorities say was corruptly enacted.But throughout the debate, there’s still a glaring problem: the owner of the nuclear plants refuses to disclose whether they are profitable or not. And so far, there’s been no attempt by state lawmakers to compel the company to release its numbers before the bailout takes effect.During last year’s debate over whether to pass the bailout as part of House Bill 6, Energy Harbor – then known as FirstEnergy Solutions – asserted it needed public subsidies or it would close the plants. But the company wouldn’t open its books to lawmakers or the public to prove that it actually needed the money, leading legislators to rely on estimates, industry averages and company officials' word.At the time, FirstEnergy Solutions told cleveland.com the reason it couldn’t open its books was because it was involved in bankruptcy proceedings. Those proceedings have been over for months, yet Energy Harbor still won’t say whether the plants are profitable. And this time, the company is not offering a reason.“We do not release financial performance figures for the plants,” said Energy Harbor spokesman Jason Copsey in an email, when asked for such information. Copsey didn’t reply to an email asking why the company won’t publicly release the data.State lawmakers are now considering whether to repeal or revise HB6 since ex-Speaker Larry Householder and four allies were indicted in July on charges that they secured the passage of HB6 through a bribery scheme fueled by $60 million in FirstEnergy Corp./FirstEnergy Solutions money.When state Rep. Jim Hoops, a Napoleon Republican who chairs the House Select Committee on Energy Policy and Oversight, a special committee studying what to do about HB6, was asked earlier this month whether the committee would ask Energy Harbor to open its books, Hoops replied by saying lawmakers have discussed ensuring there’s an audit to prove whether Energy Harbor needs the money. “I’m getting the language to show exactly how much do they need, if they need anything,” Hoops said.But when asked whether lawmakers would seek to obtain such information before the legislature decides whether or not to move on repealing or replacing HB6, Hoops said he didn’t know the timing and needed to talk with House Speaker Bob Cupp about it.Hoops told Gongwer News Service on Thursday that he’s not sure whether Energy Harbor or FirstEnergy Corp. (Energy Harbor’s former parent company) can or will testify before his committee, given lawsuits filed against the companies by Attorney General Dave Yost, among others.

Ohio AG Dave Yost sues to block House Bill 6 nuclear bailout money from being paid out - --Attorney General Dave Yost on Wednesday filed a civil lawsuit seeking to block the owner of two Northern Ohio nuclear power plants from receiving any of the $1.3 billion in public bailout funds approved under House Bill 6, the law at the center of an enormous corruption scandal.Yost’s lawsuit asks a Franklin County Common Pleas court judge to block payments of the bailout money to the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants, owned by Energy Harbor (a former FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary) which are scheduled to start in January. The bailout is funded by new monthly surcharges ranging from 85 cents for residential customers to as much as $2,400 for large industrial plants.The lawsuit doesn’t seek to stop the collection of any nuclear bailout money -- just to block its payment to Energy Harbor. Yost told reporters it’s up to the legislature to decide whether such money should be collected and suggested it could be refunded to consumers, though it’s unclear whether refunds could or would happen.Even if the suit succeeds to stop the payment of the bailout money, Yost said his legal complaint wouldn’t, as written, affect other parts of HB6 that -- among other things -- authorize subsidies for coal and solar plants, as well as lock in how much money FirstEnergy Corp. can collect from residential and commercial customers.Yost, a Columbus Republican, threatened last month to file such a lawsuit unless state lawmakers voted to repeal HB6. New House Speaker Bob Cupp formed a committee to study the issue, but it’s still unclear whether the GOP-led General Assembly will take any action before the current legislative session ends in December.In order to prevent the surcharge from being charged in January, lawmakers would have to pass a repeal bill by Oct. 1, as new state laws don’t take effect until 90 days after they’re signed into law. The only exception would be if a repeal bill passed as an emergency measure, though that would require larger legislative majorities to pass.The suit was filed against Energy Harbor (the owner of the Perry and Davis-Besse plants), FirstEnergy Corp., ex-House Speaker Larry Householder, and four Householder allies. Householder and his allies were arrested in July and charged with using $60 million in bribe money from FirstEnergy to secure passage of House Bill 6. Householder has pleaded not guilty, and no FirstEnergy or Energy Harbor officials have been charged with any wrongdoing so far.

FirstEnergy Says Attorney General's Nuclear Bailout Lawsuit Does Not Have 'Legal Merit' | WOSU - FirstEnergy is responding to a civil case filed over Ohio's nuclear bailout by Attorney General Dave Yost, saying the utility company plans to "vigorously" defend itself. FirstEnergy spokesperson Jennifer Young says the company has followed the law when it comes to making political contributions. "The attorney general's lawsuit unjustly targets the FirstEnergy for lawfully participating in the political process and advocating for policy that's consistent with our interests," Young says. "Many public companies, we support policy initiatives that matter to our customers, employees, communities and shareholders. We believe the attorney general’s complaint is without legal merit, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves." Yost’s civil suit seeks to stop any defendants in his filing from collecting any revenue created through HB6, the nuclear bailout and energy law passed last year. The law allows for monthly charges starting in January on all electric ratepayers bills to send money to nuclear, coal and solar plants. HB6 also allows for "decoupling," which guarantees FirstEnergy a certain amount of profits. Yost says he’s basing his civil case on a federal racketeering investigation, which accuses a utility widely believed to be FirstEnergy of playing a role in a bribery scehem. FirstEnergy, which is not currently facing charges, has denied wrongdoing in that federal investigation. "Our CEO Chuck Jones said during an earnings call that we conducted in late July that he believes FirstEnergy acted properly in this matter and we intend to ensure our company and our role in HB6 is understood as accurately as possible and we will cooperate with the DOJ investigator as part of that process in demonstrating our role," Young says. The civil case is also filed against former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, Matt Borges, Neil Clark, Juan Cespedes, and Jeff Longstreth. All five people are indicted on racketeering charges, accused of playing a role in a bribery scheme that helped HB6 become law using $61 million from a 501(c)(4) dark money group.

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Cancels Mountaineer Permits — The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) announced that it has cancelled permits Powhatan Salt Company applied for to build three solution mining wells. The solution mining wells would be used to create underground fracked gas liquids storage caverns for Mountaineer NGL Storage to then use to supply fracked gas liquids to petrochemical manufacturers, jeopardizing water supplies. Instead, Powhatan Salt Company will have to go through public notice, comment, draft permitting, and fact sheet preparation in order to receive the permits. The cancellation comes at Powhatan Salt Company’s request and reflects the demands that a coalition of clean water advocates outlined in a lawsuit against ODNR over the permits. Represented by Earthjustice, Buckeye Environmental Network, Concerned Ohio River Residents, Freshwater Accountability Project, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the Sierra Club sued ODNR last month for issuing these permits without public notice or comment or preparing a draft permit, in violation with their own regulations for solution mining projects.

• “This is a huge win for the autonomy of the Ohio River Valley's people. We cannot allow companies to walk into our community and store highly explosive and toxic chemicals under our river, our drinking water, without the bare minimum of public comment,” said Alex Cole of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
• “This is a resounding victory for clean water advocates. The public deserves to have a voice, especially on projects that could have a disastrous impact on their health and water quality,” said Megan Hunter, Earthjustice staff attorney.
• “We are happy to see the permits for these wells cancelled. The site location for Mountaineer is very problematic. It is located on the banks of the Ohio River, threatening the drinking water of five million people. The proposed site is in close proximity to coal mines, fracking wells, pipelines, and is less than a mile away from Clarington and the communities drinking water wells,” said Jill Antares Hunkler, member of Concerned Ohio River Residents.
• Shelly Corbin, Ohio Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign said, “This unnecessary fracked gas facility shouldn’t have been proposed in the first place, but we’re glad to see that the people most impacted by it will have their chance to weigh in. The scheme to store dangerous ethane underground is one of the fracking industry's last ditch efforts to save itself. We shouldn’t be building projects that pollute the air we breathe and the water we drink.”
• Teresa Mills, Buckeye Environmental Network, claims this as a victory. “We will continue to watchdog not only the industry but also any and all agencies that are supposed to regulate the industry and fail to do so,” she said.

U.S. energy secretary talks natural gas, climate in Beaver County — U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette on Monday met with Shell staff to talk Appalachian natural gas, petrochemical development and COVID-19’s impact on site construction. Brouillette called Beaver County’s ethane cracker plant the “future of the American economy” following a Monday tour of the petrochemical facility. Brouillette, joined by gas industry supporters and regional economic leaders, met with Shell Chemicals staff to talk Appalachian natural gas, petrochemical development and COVID-19’s impact on site construction. “This is where it all starts,” Brouillette said. “With facilities and infrastructure just like this one. It is so critical, not only to western Pennsylvania or the state of Pennsylvania, but the country and the world.” After a COVID-19 slowdown, thousands of workers are back on site constructing the $6 billion ethane cracker plant in Potter Township. Once open, the site will convert oil and gas into ethylene, used in plastics manufacturing to make a range of products from automotive parts to food packaging. It will eventually support 600 permanent jobs in the region. Brouillette echoed President Donald Trump’s comments that the economy, including natural gas, is experiencing a “V-shaped recovery,” with demand for crude oil and gas improving as nationwide business grows. Demand for products developed by cracker-like facilities is also increasing worldwide, he said, adding that policymakers sometimes forget how products such as hand sanitizer packaging and vital PPE are made. Taking a strong pro-fracking stance, Brouillette said “100% renewable energy” in America is unrealistic. “It does not work with the technologies we have today,” he said. “It's completely dependent on natural gas, nuclear and sometimes coal and hydro to produce baseload power.” When asked what President Donald Trump would do to address climate change if re-elected this November, Brouillette said the president would take an “all of the above” approach to energy production, adding “no one knows” how much of climate change can be attributed to human involvement.

Pa. shale gas production flatlines in June as producer cuts take effect - Shale gas production in Pennsylvania dropped 2% in June from May, to 18.48 Bcf/d, almost flat to the year prior, according to data from the state Department of Environmental Protection. Volume cuts by EQT Corp., the nation's largest natural gas producer, accounted for a large part of the falloff. EQT announced in May it was shutting in 1.4 Bcf/d of production, about one-third of companywide volumes. That led to an immediate 11% drop in its Pennsylvania production, followed by another 10% cut in June. EQT's Pennsylvania production fell to 2.86 Bcf/d in June, a 16% decrease year over year.EQT and other drillers, such as neighbor CNX Resources Corp., are chopping volumes in hopes of timing the gas commodities market to catch a wave of $3/MMBtu prices expected this winter, almost double current prices at the benchmark Henry Hub.While EQT said it had restored all of its production at the end of July, executives were pleased that well performance did not suffer after turning off the valves, and they may repeat the performance this fall until prices improve. CNX plans to restore the 500 MMcfe/d it has shut in by Oct. 1.None of the production cuts changed the basic outline of Pennsylvania's shale gas play. Production is still dominated by five counties in opposite corners of the state, led by Susquehanna County in the dry gas window in the northeast. Susquehanna production volumes were basically flat in June, both month to month and year over year.

The wooing of a would-be petrochemical plant - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - It was a long shot, if a shot at all. After years of casual chitchat with ExxonMobil petrochemical executives, Pennsylvania finally detected some interest in a tour. The state Department of Community and Economic Development pounced on the opportunity, securing a date months in the future to allow for a massive herding of local officials, business groups and university leaders.  The effort culminated in a four-day trip last fall when Pennsylvania officials hosted two executives from ExxonMobil’s chemicals division — highlighting shuttered industrial sites along the Monongahela River in Washington and Greene counties that they hoped could be the home of a second major petrochemical manufacturing complex in southwestern Pennsylvania. The wooing from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3, 2019, included suite seats to a Steelers game, a visit to a plant where wet natural gas is split into marketable components, a meeting with the environmental regulators that had handled permits for the Shell petrochemical plant under construction in Beaver County, a drive-by viewing of Shell’s $6 billion project and a meeting with Carnegie Mellon University officials working on advanced manufacturing.  A spokesman for Texas-based ExxonMobil was unambiguous in a statement last week: “We have no active plans for a facility in Pennsylvania.” Still, documents obtained through open records requests by the Clean Air Council, a Philadelphia-based environmental group, reveal the alternately enticing, frantic, political and sometimes dull behind-the-scenes work that goes into attracting a major project developer like Exxon, one of the world’s largest energy companies, which state officials referred to in the emails as “our client.”   Officials assembled an itinerary designed to showcase possible locations for a petrochemical complex in Washington or Greene counties. Planned tours included the Mon River Industrial Park on the site of a former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel mill in Allenport and the closed Robena coal mine in Monongahela Township. They dubbed the hoped-for development, “Project West.”

New Research Shows Fracking and Petrochemicals Create Fewer Pennsylvania Jobs than Clean Energy – While Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette toured a Shell petrochemical plant under construction in Pennsylvania today, a new analysis shows that the high-profile project will employ far less workers than promised, and that a similar investment in wind and solar manufacturing would be far more beneficial.The new Food & Water Watch research, “Cracked: The Case For Green Jobs Over Petrochemicals In Pennsylvania,” focuses on the massive Shell petrochemical ‘cracker’ plant outside Pittsburgh. While early backers of the $6 billion project predicted it would create between 10,000 and 20,000 jobs, the facility will only employ 600 workers. Factoring in the massive $1.6 billion tax break granted to the company — the largest in Pennsylvania history– means the state is essentially paying $2.75 million to create each job at the plant.The Food & Water Watch research estimates that a similar level of investment in wind and solar manufacturing would create over 16,000 jobs.  Unfortunately, state political leaders are still pushing tax breaks for fossil fuels and petrochemicals in the hopes that it will drive additional job growth. The Shell plant is emblematic of this misguided approach: Minimal job creation, increased pollution, and broken promises on using local labor and in-state materials like steel.  The Trump re-election campaign is heavily emphasizing fossil fuel and petrochemical jobs in Pennsylvania. Trump held a campaign-style rally at the facility a few months ago, and more recently falsely claimed credit for its construction. Brouilette’s two-day visit is a strong indicator that the White House will continue to emphasize the importance of fossil fuel jobs.

More spills at Lebanon County Mariner East pipeline drill site earn Sunoco more violations | StateImpact Pennsylvania - The Department of Environmental Protection last month directed Mariner East pipeline pipeline builder Sunoco to find a new path for about a mile of its 20-inch pipeline at a site in Chester County, after a drilling spill of more than 8,000 gallons closed part of Marsh Creek Lake to the public. The DEP order was the first in the troubled 43-month history of the pipeline’s construction to require a route change. It followed criticism that dozens of fines and notices of violation in response to earlier problems had done little to force Sunoco to improve construction practices. Now, a string of spills and notices of violation at a horizontal directional drill (HDD) site in Lebanon County, at Snitz Creek in West Cornwall Township, are prompting questions about whether it’s technically feasible to run the pipeline under the creek, given the fragile karst limestone geology of the area, or whether another route for the pipeline is the only realistic option. Sunoco reported five spills, or “inadvertent returns,” of drilling mud at the site between Aug. 13 and Sept. 18, according to the DEP’s Pipeline Portal, bringing to 12 the number of such incidents there since construction began in February 2017. In response, the DEP issued four notices of violation of two environmental laws, and told Sunoco that it could not restart the operation without approval from the department. DEP spokesman Jamar Thrasher said the department has no rule for the number of spills that would lead to an order to reroute the pipeline. “We generally review each site on a case-by-case basis,” he said. Chester and Lebanon counties share the karst limestone geology that creates problems for industrial projects that use underground drilling. Sunoco did not respond to a request for comment, but the Pennsylvania Energy Infrastructure Alliance, which advocates for the industry, said that any rerouting of the pipeline would mean a further delay to the already years-late project. “Any new route would require a major modification of the existing DEP permit,” said Kurt Knaus, a spokesman for the alliance. “This project is nearly complete, and these remaining drills are connecting parts of the line that are already finished and in the ground. What we need to do is get the job done.” The project already carries natural gas liquids from southwestern Pennsylvania and Ohio through 17 counties to a terminal at Marcus Hook near Philadelphia, where most of it is exported. Although not all sections of its three pipes are complete, different combinations of pipe have been carrying ethane, propane and butane eastward since December 2018.

DEP approves changes to Mariner East construction methods at three troubled sites in Delaware, Chester counties - Construction at three troubled Mariner East pipeline sites in Chester and Delaware counties will shift from the planned horizontal directional drilling (HDD) to open trench, a method that risks greater damage to the surface area but avoids further drilling mud spills and sinkholes that have plagued the project in southeast Pennsylvania.The Department of Environmental Protection approved the amended permitsproposed by pipeline builder Energy Transfer/Sunoco after construction caused several pollution events and risks to worker safety at the three sites.The company chose a route through southeastern Pennsylvania that required drilling through unstable rock formations like limestone that has caused dozens of spills, sinkholes and damage to drinking water. Following a 2017 lawsuit by environmental groups over the company’s pipeline work, an order agreed to by all parties requires the company to submit “reevaluation reports” to DEP whenever operations cause drilling mud spills, also referred to as “inadvertent returns.” Those reports are evaluated by a geologist and are open to public comment.The move is not related to a recent order by DEP to Energy Transfer to re-route a section of the pipeline to avoid further damage to Chester County’s Marsh Creek Lake. In August, drilling at nearby pipeline construction site 290 caused about 8,000 gallons of drilling mud to flow into the lake, the main attraction at Marsh Creek State Park and popular to birders, boaters and anglers. Energy Transfer has yet to agree to that order, and could still file an appeal. The three sites now approved to shift to open trench digging are in Delaware County’s Middletown Township, and Chester County’s West Whiteland and Upper Uwchlan townships.

Snubbed retiree gets back at Sunoco for canceling a Mariner East pipeline meeting -Sunoco Pipeline LP’s abrupt cancellation of a public pipeline safety meeting near Carlisle, Pa., two years ago was the final insult for Wilmer Baker, a retired steelworker who lives about a quarter-mile from the contentious cross-state Mariner East project.Baker filed a formal complaint with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission in 2018, alleging a litany of bad behavior by Sunoco. He demanded that the PUC order the company to improve safety measures.  This week, he got vindication of sorts when the PUC ordered the pipeline operator to schedule a public awareness meeting within 30 days in Cumberland County. A PUC administrative law judge, who had heard formal testimony last year in Baker’s complaint, chided the company for canceling a July 10, 2018, public safety meeting in Lower Frankford Township on short notice because it suspected that the media and potentially litigious residents would be in attendance.The PUC also levied a $1,000 fine against Sunoco.For Baker, a 65-year-old retired foundry worker who represented himself during the PUC’s formal legal process, the commission’s decision was a sweet victory. “Being a private citizen with no legal experience and going up against Sunoco — they had five lawyers there at the hearing and two paralegals — to be able to challenge Sunoco in court and win, I’m ecstatic,” Baker said Thursday.

The Revolution pipeline, two years since it exploded, is back under construction in Beaver County | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Two years and two weeks after the Revolution pipeline slid down a steep hill in Center Township and burst into flames, its owner has begun the process of repair.Texas-based Energy Transfer Corp. got approval from state environmental regulators to reroute part of the 24-inch natural gas pipeline onto flatter ground near the area of the explosion. The company told nearby residents that it is felling trees this week and plans to be done with construction in about 45 to 60 days.The pipeline explosion Sept. 10, 2018, was preceded by a heavy rainfall and a history of landslides in that part of Beaver County. The Revolution pipeline had been operational for only a few days before the rupture, and that part hasn’t operated since.The project is considered a gathering pipeline — it is meant to collect gas from wells starting in Beaver and Butler counties and ferry it to an Energy Transfer gas processing plant in Washington County. Although the company at first advised investors and clients that the Revolution pipeline would be back up and running within a few weeks, then months, regulators put a halt to those plans.In the summer, Energy Transfer revealed what residents of nearby Ivy Lane had long suspected after the company bought out two landowners. It would seek to change the route of the pipeline to avoid the steel hill that failed to hold it. That is what the state Department of Environmental Protection recently approved. Energy Transfer’s plan to stabilize the hillside that slipped two years ago was also approved this week, the DEP said.Construction on the pipeline was permitted to begin Thursday. Ivy Lane resident Karen Gdula had a feeling things were about to ramp up.“They’ve been doing a ton of stabilization all over Center Township,” she said, watchful, as ever, of the comings and goings of Energy Transfer’s contractors and large equipment.There’s so much activity on the ground, “it’s like they’re coming in and doing an entire new pipeline,” she said.It’s not clear when the pipeline will be put back into service or which company’s gas will be flowing through it then.The two major shippers for Revolution in that area were EdgeMarc Energy, which declared bankruptcy allegedly because of the explosion, and PennEnergy Resources, which is involved in a contentious lawsuit against Energy Transfer over the pipeline rupture. Among other things, PennEnergy has charged that the pipeline company orchestrated a cover-up to keep from voiding its contract with the driller. A trial in that case is scheduled to begin in March.

Transco Pays Pennsylvania Nearly $1M for Atlantic Sunrise Violations - Natural Gas Intelligence  Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC (Transco) has agreed to pay nearly $1 million in penalties and environmental donations for violations that occurred during the construction of its Atlantic Sunrise expansion project, Pennsylvania regulators said Tuesday.  The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said it has collected a civil penalty of $736,294 from Transco for construction violations in Columbia, Lancaster, Lebanon, Luzerne, Lycoming, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties in the eastern part of the state. The company has also agreed to provide $100,000 to fund two water quality improvement projects in Northumberland County. DEP said the violations included failure to properly maintain erosion and sedimentation best practices, inadvertent returns of drilling fluids and sediment discharges into waters of the state. The agency said it would take $680,000 of the civil penalty, while the remainder would go toward the county conservation districts that helped inspect the project during its construction. Transco parent Williams said severe weather events during construction caused “erosion-related issues that were quickly addressed once identified.” The company added that it notified regulators promptly, “who were kept informed until the issues were resolved.” The Atlantic Sunrise expansion entered full service in 2018 to move 1.7 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale in Northeast Pennsylvania. The expansion came online in phases beginning in 2017 with Brownfield portions first entering service until the 186-mile stretch of greenfield pipeline was finished. Atlantic Sunrise moves gas into Transco, a 10,000-mile pipeline system that spans a large chunk of the East Coast.

A new tool can show if your water is polluted by fracking - - Penn Medicine researchers have created an interactive tool, called WellExplorer, that allows community members and scientists to find out which toxins may be lurking in their drinking water as a result of fracking. You just have to type your ZIP code in the website or the app and look at the fracking sites near you, with information on the chemicals used at each of them.In a recent study, the researchers behind the interactive tool found worrying data on some of the wells. For example, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania use a high number of ingredients targeting testosterone pathways. Meanwhile, Alabama uses a disproportionately high number of ingredients targeting estrogen pathways.“The chemical mixtures used in fracking are known to regulate hormonal pathways, including testosterone and estrogen, and can therefore affect human development and reproduction,” Mary Regina Boland, one of the researchers behind the project, said in a statement. “Knowing about these chemicals is important, not only for researchers but also for individuals.”The US already has a central registry for fracking chemical disclosures called FracFocus but the researchers believed it’s not user-friendly for the general public. It also doesn’t have information about the biological action of the fracking chemicals that it lists. That’s why they developed WellExplorer, starting by cleaning and shortening the data from FracFocus to use it in their own interactive tool.The researchers integrated data from the Toxin and Toxin Target Database (T3DB) in order to obtain the toxic and biological properties of the ingredients found at the well sites. They also extracted toxicity rankings of the top 275 most toxic ingredients from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, as well as a list of ingredients that were food additives. Boland explained that the use of chemicals at a fracking site may not necessarily mean that those chemicals would be present in the water supply, which would be dependent on other factors, such as the depth of the hydraulic fracturing. Nevertheless, she said WellExplorer was a very good starting point for residents that may be dealing with symptoms and want to have their water tested.

NRC says gas pipeline rupture wouldn't pose a danger to Indian Point - Indian Point’s owners concluded this year that it could take as many as eight minutes to cut off the flow of natural gas if a pipeline near the nuclear power plant ruptured, five minutes longer than they said it would take in 2014, federal safety regulators said on Tuesday. But officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Entergy’s revised timeline did not alter their 2015 assessment of the hazards posed by an expansion of the Algonquin Incremental Market Pipeline that brought it closer to Indian Point’s border. “Whatever assumptions they used, whatever calculational methodology they used, we did an independent review and did not identify any concerns relative to our overall conclusion, that the pipeline was not an undue hazard to the Indian Point plant,” said Ray Lorson, the NRC’s deputy regional administrator, during a video-conference on Tuesday. “That was true in 2015 and it’s true today as well.” Lorson’s comments came ahead of the NRC’s annual safety performance hearing for Indian Point, scheduled to take place by video conference on Tuesday at 6 p.m. It will be the last such hearing before the Buchanan plant closes in late April when its last working reactor — Unit 3 — powers down after generating electricity for Westchester County and New York City for more than four decades. The plant received passing grades from the NRC for its 2019 safety performance.

Mountaineer Gas Pipeline Explosion in Martinsburg West Virginia -A Mountaineer Gas pipeline in Martinsburg, West Virginia exploded this afternoon at about 3:15 p.m. on the Sentz family property on Salvation Road.   Anne and Benjamin Sentz were working from home and watching workers dig a trench for a new pipeline that was running by an old pipeline that had gas in it. “We were standing in our kitchen looking out our window watching them dig. We kept an eye on the people doing the work ever since they started. We happened to be watching them dig. They were digging really deep. We heard a bang like they hit metal. All of a sudden there was a loud explosion. Pressurized gas shot up 80 to 100 feet into the air. Six or seven workers just scattered.”  “My husband grabbed me and said – we need to get out of here. I grabbed one dog and he grabbed the other. We just ran to our car. While we were on our way to our car, a worker came to the front of our house and said we needed to go. We just left. I left the door open. We were out of there in 30 seconds. We just drove away. We didn’t know if our house was going to explode or what. We kept on driving. I drove all the way to Shepherdstown.”  “I called 911. They had already received a call about the incident. They put me through to the fire department. I talked to someone from the fire department. They told me they would give me a call when it was safe to come back to the house.  It’s 5:30 and we are still not back. We haven’t received the call yet that it is all clear.”  “I’ve been watching this operation for a while,” Sentz said. “I am trying to figure out what is going on. The gas company hasn’t been as transparent as they should be to the property owners and neighbors and people affected by this.”  “I was just at the site at 5 p.m. and could still smell the gas,” said Tracy Cannon. “I’ve been watching the pipeline construction in the Eastern Panhandle closely for two years now. I’ve often been concerned about what I saw. Mountaineer Gas Company has been installing new pipeline on Salvation Road without removing the old pipeline first.  I was worried that something could go wrong, but I’m still shocked that this happened. Thankfully no one was injured.”“This incident is an example of the careless manner in which Mountaineer Gas is installing the gas pipeline to Rockwool,” said Christine Wimer, President of Jefferson County Foundation. “We have again and again tried to get Mountaineer Gas to have the pipeline appropriately permitted, but they have refused to do so. The regulators are all too happy to oblige Mountaineer Gas’s obfuscation of the regulatory requirements. The regulators have abandoned their post of protecting the public. This cannot be tolerated.”

Mountain Valley seeks to resume construction of pipeline - After a winter hiatus in construction that stretched into the spring, summer and fall, builders of the Mountain Valley Pipeline say they are ready to return. In a letter filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission late Tuesday, an attorney for the joint venture of energy companies requested that a stop-work order issued last Oct. 15 be lifted. Matthew Eggerding asked FERC to act by Friday “so that Mountain Valley can maximize final restoration and complete as many activities as possible before winter,” he wrote in the letter. Since work began in early 2018, litigation has caused cost overruns and construction delays for Mountain Valley. Not long after FERC issued its stop-work order, the company said it expected to be back on the job by April. But Mountain Valley still lacks two sets of key permits that were set aside after a federal appeals court sided with conservation groups, who argued that building a 303-mile natural gas pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia was causing widespread environmental harm. A third suspended permit was reissued earlier this month by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which found that construction would not likely jeopardize protected species. That in turn led Mountain Valley to request that it be allowed to resume “all construction activities permitted by law.” All work except for erosion control and stabilization was ceased a year ago by FERC, after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the original biological opinion pending a legal challenge that has not gone away. The buried pipeline cannot cross nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grants new permits. And construction of a 3.5-mile passage through the Jefferson National Forest requires a separate approval from the U.S. Forest Service. In a letter to FERC on Wednesday, the Sierra Club maintained that construction cannot commence until all federal authorizations are obtained. A start to construction at this point would raise the risk of “bureaucratic momentum,” in which agencies that have yet to make a decision might be pressured to go along, senior attorney Elly Benson wrote in a letter co-signed by other environmental groups. The letter also contains the first official hint of additional litigation that could derail any movement forward for Mountain Valley.

West Virginia joins coalition seeking to protect pipeline construction (WV News) — West Virginia has joined a 17-state coalition in asking a federal appeals court to reverse a lower court ruling that brought pipeline construction to a halt nationwide, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey says.The coalition’s brief, filed late Wednesday, argues a federal district judge inappropriately transformed a case challenging one project into a nationwide injunction that affected new oil and gas pipelines in every state — no matter the project’s length, purpose or minimal environmental effect.The coalition won a stay in July at the U.S. Supreme Court. Now its member states seek ultimate reversal of the lower court ruling.“Such overreach by a federal district judge cannot stand,” Morrisey said. “Aside from the ruling being overly broad and deeply flawed as a matter of fairness and court procedure, it presents serious consequences for our national economy and causes unnecessary instability and disruption for the dedicated pipeliners of West Virginia, as well as those who depend upon their success.”The original lawsuit focused upon a permit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline. The coalition argues the district court order inappropriately used that issue to strike down all projects that employed the same permitting process nationwide.That decision led to the cancellation of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline — an announcement that came days before the Supreme Court’s stay.The coalition contends the district court ruling, if allowed to stand, would make needed infrastructure projects significantly more costly and time-consuming — and potentially render some completely unfeasible, thus eliminating an untold number of jobs. The West Virginia- and Texas-led brief carries support from attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Industrial sector consumption of natural gas falls amid slowing economy - Natural gas consumption in the U.S. industrial sector declined from 25.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in January 2020 to 20.1 Bcf/d in June 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Natural Gas Monthly. Industrial natural gas consumption in June 2020 was nearly 1.0 Bcf/d lower than its year-ago level. The decline in industrial sector natural gas consumption compared with the previous year began in March 2020, amid responses to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that resulted in a global economic slowdown. Industrial sector consumption reached its lowest point in May 2020, falling by 8% compared with 2019 levels. May 2020 consumption of natural gas by U.S. industry marked the largest year-over-year decline since July 2009, during the 2007–2009 recession. Before this year, average U.S. industrial natural gas consumption grew 5.4% in 2018 and was relatively flat (growing 0.1%) in 2019.Beginning in March 2020, efforts to mitigate COVID-19 began in the United States. Responses to the virus, including stay-at-home orders and temporary closings of nonessential businesses, contributed to a slowing U.S. economy. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the value of goods and services produced in the United States, known as gross domestic product (GDP), decreased by 9.1% in the second quarter of 2020 compared with the same quarter a year ago. A slowing economy as a result of COVID-19 mitigation efforts also affected GDP in the first quarter of 2020, which grew 0.3%. Last year, the U.S. economy grew 2.2%. According to the September 2020 Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA expects annual consumption of natural gas by U.S. industries to decline by 4.4% in 2020 and then grow 1.1% in 2021. EIA forecasts U.S. industrial natural gas consumption to increase in 2021 because of expected growth in the overall economy and the natural gas-weighted industrial production index. The index reflects the growth of the underlying manufacturing subsectors and the relative importance of those subsectors to total natural gas consumption.

You've Got Your Troubles, Part 3 - Seasonal Demand Declines, Production Curtailments Hit Appalachian Gas Market - As U.S. natural gas spot and futures prices retreated in the past week, the price of gas at Appalachia’s Dominion South hub fell as low as $0.735/MMBtu, the lowest since fall 2017, before partially rebounding yesterday to about $1.10/MMBtu, according to the NGI daily gas price index. Moreover, the forwards market indicates sub-$1/MMBtu prices are in store for October as well. The regional supply hub didn’t weaken quite as much as prices at the national benchmark Henry Hub, which collapsed in recent days on demand losses — from cooler weather, storm-related power outages, and disruptions to LNG exports — and storage levels in the Gulf Coast region that are well above average and approaching peak capacity levels. The relative support for prices in the Northeast is in part due to a second round of production shut-ins by EQT Corp., which took effect September 1. But seasonal demand declines are underway; the Dominion Energy Cove Point LNG facility in Maryland just went offline for its annual fall maintenance, placing additional pressure on already-packed storage fields and takeaway pipelines; and pipeline maintenance events are reducing outflow capacity and curtailing production. Altogether, that signals more volatility ahead. Today, we provide an update on the fundamentals driving the Northeast gas market. When we last checked in on the Northeast gas market in late July (see You’ve Got Your Troubles Part 1 and Part 2), there already were signs of trouble. Following a mild winter and despite pandemic-induced demand disruptions, Appalachian producers had managed to eke past the low-demand spring season without a price meltdown by shutting in production and increasing flows out of the region. But by late July, LNG cargo cancellations were in full swing. Production shut-ins led by EQT from mid-May through mid-July were roaring back online. Appalachian production volumes, after almost flattening out to year-ago levels in June, had surged back to 2020 highs that surpassed pre-shut-in levels and were approaching the region’s all-time highs seen in late 2019. Northeast demand was also strong and setting records. But storage and takeaway capacity fears were brewing for fall shoulder season as storage levels were already high and reflecting surpluses to prior years after the mild winter, and pipeline capacity utilization for routes moving gas out of the region also was running higher than in previous years. These factors combined signaled the likelihood of pipeline takeaway constraints and a price meltdown this fall, including the potential for a second round of production shut-ins.

You've Got Your Troubles, Part 4 - More Northeast Gas Production Curtailments --U.S. natural gas production in recent days has plunged more than 3 Bcf/d. While some Gulf of Mexico offshore and Gulf Coast production is still offline from the recent tropical storms, the bulk of these declines are happening in the Northeast, where gas production has dived 2 Bcf/d in the past week or so to about 30.2 Bcf/d, the lowest level since May 2019, pipeline flow data shows. Appalachia’s gas output was already down earlier in the month, as EQT Corp. shut in some volumes starting September 1. But with storage inventories soaring near five-year highs, a combination of maintenance events and demand constraints are forcing further curtailments of Marcellus/Utica volumes near-term. Today, we provide an update of Appalachia gas supply trends using daily gas pipeline flow data. As we discussed on Wednesday in Part 3 of this blog series, the Northeast gas market has been volatile lately. Appalachian supply prices in the spot market earlier this week fell to three-year lows, despite production shut-ins being in effect. A confluence of factors influenced the downturn, including low weather-driven demand, pipeline outages that are restricting outflows, and the start of an annual fall maintenance event at Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG facility that took another 700 MMcf/d or so of export demand out of the market. What’s making all of that worse is that storage levels are soaring, not just in the Northeast but also in downstream markets, reducing flexibility to navigate supply congestion and forcing production curtailments. In the past couple of days, cash prices have strengthened again as production has pulled back.  We’re going to delve into the specifics of the latest production pullback using daily pipeline flow data from our good friends at Genscape next. Before we get into the production trends, though, let’s first review a bit about the data itself. The pipeline flow dataset comprises the daily gas volumes nominated by market participants to either be received or delivered at thousands of individual meters along natural gas interstate pipelines across the U.S. The meter volumes are then aggregated by type of connecting facility (i.e., gathering systems and processing plants that represent production, and power plants, industrial plants or distribution companies that represent demand); these pipeline flows provide critical insights into supply and demand trends on a daily basis. How much of the market flow this data captures can vary widely by region, but in the Northeast, it provides a high degree (~95%) of transparency into the region’s supply and demand picture. However, note that initial volumes for the most recent gas day can get revised based on final nominations reported for that day. The data discussed in today’s blog is as of the evening cycle for gas day Thursday, September 24. (See Sooner or Later and One Step Closer for more on flow data. We’ll also be demonstrating how to use flow data to track the Northeast gas market in our upcomingSchool of Energy Virtual on October 20-21, 2020.)

U.S. natgas futures drop over 10% to 7-week low as LNG exports slide  (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures plunged over 10% on Monday to a seven-week low on forecasts for less demand over the next two weeks than previously expected due to a decline in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Gas flows to LNG export plants dropped because of planned maintenance at Dominion Energy Inc's Cove Point in Maryland, the continued outage at Cameron in Louisiana and as some ships steer clear of Tropical Storm Beta, which is expected to lash the Texas and Louisiana coasts this week. Front-month gas futures fell 21.3 cents, or 10.4%, to settle at $1.835 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), their biggest one-day percentage drop since January 2019 to their lowest close since July 31. That drop puts the front-month down 33% since hitting an eight-month high of $2.743 per mmBtu on Aug. 28 and boosted the premium of November futures over October NGV20-X20 to a record high of 89 cents. Despite the recent drop in the front-month, gas speculators last week increased their net long positions on the New York Mercantile and Intercontinental Exchanges for the seventh time in eight weeks to their highest since May 2017 on expectations energy demand will rise as the economy rebounds once state governments lift more coronavirus-linked lockdowns. Those added long positions came despite expectations stockpiles will hit record highs by the end of October, which should remove lingering concerns about price spikes and gas shortages this winter. Data provider Refinitiv said the amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants was on track to slide to a two-week low of 5.2 bcfd on Monday from a four-month high of 7.9 bcfd last week. LNG feedgas has averaged 5.6 bcfd so far in September. That was the most in a month since May as global gas prices rise, making U.S. gas more attractive.

U.S. natgas holds near 7-week low as output drop offsets fall in LNG exports (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures held near a seven-week low on Tuesday as an expected drop in output to its lowest in two years offset a forecast decrease in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Front-month gas futures fell 0.1 cents, or 0.1%, to settle at $1.834 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), their lowest close since July 31 for a second day in a row after the contract dropped over 10% in the prior session. Traders said futures, which were down about 33% since hitting an eight-month high in late August, were mostly following the spot market lower. Next-day gas at the Henry Hub NG-W-HH-SNL benchmark in Louisiana plunged to an 11-year low of $1.331 per mmBtu for Tuesday, putting it down almost 50% since it hit a nine-month high in late August. Data provider Refinitiv said output in the Lower 48 U.S. states was on track to fall to 83.9 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) on Tuesday, its lowest since August 2018, as Tropical Storm Beta swirls along the Texas Coast. That drop occurred even though producers said they did not expect much damage from Beta. With prices expected to remain relatively low, Refinitiv projected demand, including exports, would rise from 81.4 bcfd this week to 83.7 bcfd next week as electric generators burn more gas instead of coal to produce power. That, however, was below Refinitiv's forecasts on Monday due mostly to reduced LNG exports. The amount of gas flowing to LNG export plants was on track to slide to a two-week low of 3.9 bcfd on Tuesday from a four-month high of 7.9 bcfd last week due to planned maintenance at Dominion Energy Inc's Cove Point in Maryland, the continued outage at Cameron in Louisiana and as some vessels steer clear of Beta.

Natural-gas futures rally on storm-related disruptions and signs of stronger demand - Natural-gas futures rallied Wednesday, to settle at their highest in a week. Prices found support amid production slowdowns tied to recent storms as well as facility maintenance, and as flooding along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico that reportedly led to disruptions at export facilities, analysts said. The flow of natural gas to major hubs Sabine Pass and the Freeport LNG export facilities in Texas remains “greatly reduced” as Tropical Storm Beta unleashed flooding in the Houston area and inched toward Louisiana. Beta made landfall as a tropical storm late Monday in Texas. By Wednesday, it was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, but flash flood watches are in effect across southeast Texas and southern Louisiana, the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday morning. This year marks only the second time that the Greek alphabet has been used to name storms, reflecting that the regular list of 21 names, ended with Tropical Storm Wilfred, have been exhausted. Deliveries of feed gas, which is natural gas that comes from field production, has seen a significant decline in recent days, Natural Gas Intelligence reported on Tuesday.. It also said the Cameron, Corpus Christi, Freeport and Sabine Pass export terminals were in Beta’s path as the storm neared land.   Luke Jackson, team lead, North America natural gas at S&P Global Platts, meanwhile, attributed the rally in natural gas to easing worries about stocks in the Gulf Coast hitting capacity. Production in the Northeast U.S. fell 1.5 billion cubic feet per day Wednesday, compared with the September month-to-date average, he told MarketWatch. “That drop is partly maintenance related, but also likely a function of the region’s own storage congestion and lack of demand, which is forcing prices lower and causing production to shut.” On Wednesday, the front-month October natural gas contract rose nearly 16%, or 29 cents, at $2.125 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, for the biggest one-day percentage rise since early August, according to FactSet data. The settlement was the highest for a front month since Sept. 16. Export demand prospects “have a silver lining,” as well, with traders estimating that less than five U.S. cargoes have been cancelled for November loading, said Redmond. Given that, and “assuming that Gulf LNG export terminals or their surrounding power grids do not sustain substantial damages from Beta, feedgas demand should ramp up again quickly following the storm and could run near full capacity in October,” she said.

US working natural gas volumes in underground storage rise 66 Bcf on week: EIA -The amount of natural gas in US underground storage facilities increased by 66 Bcf to 3.680 Tcf in the week ended Sept. 18, according to data released by the US Energy Information Administration Sept. 24. The injection was much less than an S&P Global Platts' survey of analysts calling for a 77 Bcf build. The estimate was also a shocking departure from the prior week's build of 89 Bcf. The EIA's Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report is a survey, not a census, and the many storm-related logistical difficulties in the South Central region for the first half of September potentially caused sampling errors or discrepancies between the storage fields in the EIA's sampling frame and those outside of it, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. It is likely the EIA overestimated net injections for the week-ended Sept. 11. The injection measured less than the 97 Bcf build reported during the same week last year as well as the five-year average gain of 80 Bcf, according to EIA data. Storage volumes now stand 504 Bcf, or 16%, more than the year-ago level of 3.176 Tcf and 407 Bcf, or 12.4%, more than the five-year average of 3.273 Tcf. After briefly trading up 21 cents the morning of Sept. 24, the prompt-month NYMEX Henry Hub contract settled back down to a roughly 9 cent/MMBtu gain day on day, driven by a much smaller-than-anticipated storage build reported by the EIA. The price strength did not extend far into the strip, with November trading just 2 cents higher, and the rest of the winter contracts through March 2021 trading about 1.5 cents higher on the day. Platts Analytics' supply and demand model currently forecasts a 67 Bcf injection for the week ending Sept. 25. This would lower the surplus to the five-year average by 11 Bcf as about seven net injections remain before the flip to the winter withdrawal season. Total supplies are trending 1.2 Bcf/d lower this week compared with the week ended Sept. 18, driven by a 900 MMcf/d drop in onshore production, the vast majority of which stems from the Northeast region, where output has slid nearly 2 Bcf/d in the past few days due to weak prices and infrastructure constraints. The ICE end-of-season EIA inventory estimate was 5 Bcf lower on Sept. 24, with markets narrowing in on an expected 3.97 Tcf end-of-summer carryout to begin the winter demand season in November. This would be about 250 Bcf more than the five-year average of 3.75 Tcf.

U.S. natgas futures jump 6% on small storage build, rising LNG exports  (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures jumped almost 6% on Thursday on a smaller-than-expected weekly storage build, a continued decline in output and an increase in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said U.S. utilities injected just 66 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage in the week ended Sept. 18. That was well below the 78-bcf build analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with an increase of 97 bcf during the same week last year and a five-year (2015-19) average build of 80 bcf. Front-month gas futures rose 12.3 cents, or 5.8%, to settle at a one-week high of $2.248 per million British thermal units. The market has already been extremely volatile this week - prices fell over 10% on Monday and jumped almost 16% on Wednesday - as traders roll out of front-month October contracts, which expire on Sept. 28, and into much higher priced November futures. Data provider Refinitiv said output in the Lower 48 U.S. states was on track to fall for a second month in a row to 86.9 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in September from 87.5 bcfd in August. That is well below the all-time monthly high of 95.4 bcfd in November. Refinitiv projected demand, including exports, would rise from 82.6 bcfd this week to 85.3 bcfd next week as LNG exports increase. The amount of gas flowing to LNG export plants was on track to reach 5.7 bcfd on Thursday from a two-week low of 3.9 bcfd on Tuesday as vessels returned to Gulf Coast terminals after Tropical Storm Beta dissipated. Traders said the Cameron LNG export plant in Louisiana will likely return to service around Oct. 8 when the Army Corps of Engineers expects to finish dredging the Calcasieu Ship Channel after Hurricane Laura.

US natgas futures fall with cash prices on lower demand forecasts - US natural gas futures ended a volatile week down almost 5% on Friday as spot prices continued to trade much lower than futures on forecasts for less demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. The decline in futures prices came despite a projected increase in LNG exports, record sales to Mexico and a drop in daily output to a 25-month low. On its second to last day as the front-month, gas futures for October delivery fell 10.9 cents, or 4.8%, to settle at $2.139 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). November futures, which will soon be the front-month, were down about 9 cents at $2.81 per mmBtu. If November continues to trade at that level next week, it would put the front-month on track for its highest close since November 2019. For the week, the front-month was up about 4% after falling over 10% on Monday and rising almost 16% on Wednesday. Next-day gas at the Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana, which fell to a 21-year low earlier this week, has traded below front-month futures since late August due mostly to weak demand along the Gulf Coast after a series of storms hit LNG exports. Data provider Refinitiv projected demand, including exports, would rise from 82.4 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) this week to 84.6 bcfd next week and 85.3 bcfd in two weeks, with LNG exports expected to climb. That, however, is lower than Refinitiv's forecast on Thursday, as an expected increase in gas prices will cause some electric generators to burn more coal instead of gas to produce power. The amount of gas flowing to LNG export plants was on track to reach 6.1 bcfd on Friday, up from a two-week low of 3.9 bcfd on Tuesday, as vessels returned to Gulf Coast terminals after Tropical Storm Beta dissipated.

Sen. Tillis: Trump to extend offshore drilling pause to NC (AP) — President Donald Trump will add North Carolina to a list of southeastern states whose coastal waters won’t be subjected to offshore drilling for a decade, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis said on Monday. Earlier this month, Trump signed a memorandum instructing his interior secretary to prohibit drilling in the waters off both Florida coasts, and off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina for 10 years — from July 2022 through June 2032. North Carolina wasn’t on the list. In a short video released by his Senate office, Tillis, a Republican, said he spoke to Trump on Monday morning and asked him to “extend the offshore drilling moratorium to North Carolina. I’m pleased to announce that the president will be doing just that.” The Trump administration didn’t immediately announce such a move Monday. The three-state prohibition marked a policy reversal by Trump and was seen as a potential political asset for Republican senators in Georgia and South Carolina facing tough election fights. The drilling issue hasn’t reached the forefront of the Senate campaign between Tillis and Democrat Cal Cunningham, however. Still, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, an offshore drilling opponent, wrote Trump last week asking him to add North Carolina to the list, citing the risk of spills and potential damage to the tourism and fishing industries. Tillis was state House speaker in the early 2010s, when the legislature approved the framework to allow oil and natural gas drilling off the Atlantic coast and to collect taxes from the energy products. But that production hasn’t occurred due to delays from Washington as well as an oversupply of natural gas. A bipartisan group of more than two dozen coastal mayors signed a resolution last year urging such exploration be permanently off-limits. Tillis pressed for Atlantic coast exploration during a floor speech early in his Senate term for jobs and U.S. energy independence. But last year he expressed some concerns, asking the Trump administration to speak with North Carolina tourism and fishing interests to ensure they would be protected under an exploration plan.

Questions Linger on Offshore Drilling, Seismic Testing -- Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced this week that President Trump had agreed to prevent drilling for oil and natural gas off the North Carolina coast, but the president has yet to speak publicly on the matter, and his administration says it is still moving forward with permitting for seismic exploration in the Atlantic.Tillis, whom polls show trailing his Democratic Party challenger Cal Cunningham, announced Monday that Trump had agreed to add North Carolina to a multistate moratorium on Atlantic offshore drilling announced earlier this month.The president announced Sept. 8 during an event in Jupiter, Florida, an order to extend the moratorium on offshore drilling on Florida’s Gulf Coast and expand it to Florida’s Atlantic Coast, as well as the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. North Carolina was not included at the time.Tillis said Monday that he had spoken with Trump who agreed North Carolina would be included in the presidential memorandum withdrawing new leasing for offshore oil and gas developments for the next 12 years.Also on Monday, the Department of Justice filed a document with the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division, stating that Trump’s memorandum “has no legal effect” on the status of the applications to conduct seismic surveys in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf that are pending before the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.“If Trump were remotely serious about protecting Florida and the Carolinas from offshore drilling, he wouldn’t be allowing oil exploration along the coast,” Kristen Monsell of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund said in a statement. “This Justice Department filing underscores the appalling emptiness of Trump’s election-year effort to hoodwink voters. Seismic testing’s sonic blasts harm whales and other marine life, and they set the stage for future drilling and devastating oil spills.”

SCS resists request for Byhalia Pipeline to run through section of district property - Shelby County Schools is resisting an easement request for an oil pipeline to run along its property on Weaver Road in South Memphis, documents show. Leadership pointed to potential environmental risks and several lingering questions about the Byhalia Connection Pipeline and also pointed to community outcry over the last several months. The pipeline would run through Boxtown, a historically Black neighborhood in South Memphis that is still one of the city's poorest and most isolated, as reported in-depth by Storyboard Memphis. "From the administration side, there's still several questions about this project. Especially the idea that there would be an underground oil transfer from President's Island to Byhalia, would potentially present environmental risks. So our initial response, our recommendation, is to not accept this offer," John Barker, deputy superintendent for strategic operations and finance, said in a recent capital needs and facilities meeting. During the meeting district representatives Barker and Michelle Stuart, the director of facility planning and property management, said that the pipeline offered $25,340 for a 50-foot-wide easement, which would run along empty land the district owns on Weaver Road, between W. Holmes Road and Ruby Creek Cove. Board member Billy Orgel, who chairs the committee, initially questioned the rejection since the land is vacant and pointed to existing pipelines in Memphis. He later questioned whether the current route was the only one available. "Certainly it's not running through someone's neighborhood, is it?" he said. Stuart pointed to community meetings about the pipeline reported in the news. Southerly, which covers ecology, justice and culture in the South, and MLK50: Justice Through Journalism recently c0reported about the pipeline and the people whose families have owned land on the planned route for generations.

Louisiana lawmaker paid to push proposed pipeline through Black, Indigenous communities - Dorothy Ingram is among dozens of Raceland, Louisiana residents who say they’ve received few details about a proposed natural gas pipeline that would cut through historic Black churches and graveyards in their community, which sits about 40 miles west of New Orleans. “We have been treated unfairly and without meaningful involvement,”  “We as a community did not have a meeting in our area to participate in the plan.”First proposed in April 2019, the 280-mile Delta Express pipeline would be built through 14 parishes, connecting an existing natural gas pipeline in northern Louisiana to a liquid natural gas facility in Plaquemines Parish — Louisiana’s southernmost parish, where coastal erosion and sea level rise are expected to swallow up 55% of land without coastal restoration projects. The company, Venture Global, has not held a meeting to seek public comments in Lafourche Parish, which includes Ingram’s neighborhood. The pipeline is still in an early stage of permitting: Venture Global hasn’t submitted its formal application to FERC or acquired state permits. But emails show that the company has tried to influence state and federal permitting agencies by employing a Louisiana lawmaker, Rep. Ryan Bourriaque, R-Abbeville, who is also vice chair of the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee. Emails obtained through a public records request by the Energy and Policy Institute reveal that Bourriaque negotiated with the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, or CPRA, about a separate Venture Global pipeline crossing a Mississippi River levee CPRA is planning to elevate. Bourriaque also sent a template letter for other Louisiana lawmakers to send to FERC in support of the Delta Express pipeline. “Regular citizens are having a harder time voicing their opposition to projects that impact them directly,” said Energy and Policy Institute researcher Itai Vardi. “At the same time, you see that there’s an acceleration with industry insiders using their cozy relationship with elected officials to influence decisions.”

Max Midstream buys Seahawk pipeline, terminal project -  Houston-based Max Midstream has purchased the Seahawk Pipeline project and Seahawk Terminal from Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management. Max Midstream plans to bring the first phase of the terminal-and-pipeline project online in the fourth quarter, exporting crude from the terminal site at the Port of Calhoun on the Texas Coast between Houston and Corpus Christi. If it successfully does so, the project would represent a new place to load crude oil for waterborne export abroad."By developing the Seahawk Terminal at the port, we will be able to offer a deep-water terminal with little congestion and the ability for producers to get their product to the port at a very reasonable price,” CEO Todd Edwards said in a press release.The project is set to directly create 474 new jobs in addition to 598 construction-related jobs, according to the press release. The eventual goal of the project will be to directly connect oil production in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford to the Port of Calhoun for export, and the company plans to spend up to $1 billion on the whole endeavor.The company expects it will be able to export up to 4.2 million barrels a month by November, Edwards said.Max Midstream has also reached a deal with the Calhoun Port Authority in which the company will finance $360 million toward an effort to deepen and widen the port to accommodate large vessels.“Once the widening and deepening project is complete, Aframax and Suezmax ships will also be able to load at the port, making it a viable option for any exporter seeking a port other than Houston or Corpus Christi,” the company said in the press release.

Oil well drilling fluid flows through neighborhood — While arriving home from work Wednesday afternoon, Alan Flores was surprised to see some kind of liquid flowing in the bar ditch in front of his house on Nueces County Road 73A just outside of Calallen. “We hadn’t had rain in two or three days, so I wondered, 'Where is all this coming from?" Flores said. "And the color was unusual. That’s what got me." Flores tracked the liquid about a quarter of a mile up the street to a property where a Houston-based company drilled for oil last month. He then called the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality concerned that the liquid could be dangerous. “We’re just being taken advantage of because the drilling company said they were going to take care of the community," he said while motioning to the bar ditch that still contained some of the liquid Thursday. "This isn’t taking care of the community." Rather than TCEQ, the Texas Railroad Commission says it's the agency that investigated the drilling fluid release Thursday and will continue to monitor the cleanup process. "The Railroad Commission will inspect the work to ensure public safety and the environment has been safeguarded," spokesperson Andrew Keese said in an email. The drilling company says the liquid is mostly rainwater but does include some drilling fluids used for lubrication, among other purposes. Tag Operating Company, Inc. says that fluid is not harmful -- rather beneficial. “They’re very desirable for agricultural purposes," Tag Principal Ted Snyder said. "Many landowners are very happy to have that on their soil." Snyder says the owner of the drill site and the Texas Railroad Commission approved releasing the drilling fluid on the property for that very purpose. But there was a problem. “What we hadn’t really calculated, with the heavy rains that we had last week, the ground was quite saturated," Snyder said. "As a result — rather than soaking into the soil as we anticipated that it would do — it ran off.” Snyder apologized for the miscalculation and reiterated to concerned residents that the drilling fluid isn't dangerous. Flores remains convinced there will be a negative impact. "Regardless of whether this (drilling fluid) is good for the environment or not, it shouldn’t end up going into the ditch which eventually goes into the Nueces River," Flores said.

Texas oil regulator exceeds state’s annual goal for plugging abandoned wells – For the fourth straight year the Railroad Commission of Texas has exceeded its performance target of plugging abandoned oil and gas wells throughout the state. With the fiscal year ending on Aug. 31, the agency plugged 1,477 orphan wells in Fiscal Year 2020, which exceeded the target of 1,400 set by the Legislature. “The State Managed Plugging Program is an important part of our critical mission to protect public safety and the environment.” said Danny Sorrells, RRC’s Assistant Executive Director and Director of its Oil and Gas Division. “Given the current energy industry downturn, the program also helps to employ oilfield service company workers throughout Texas. These employees are contracted and supervised to plug abandoned orphan wells by the Railroad Commission of Texas.” The State Managed Plugging Program is paid through industry fees rather than by taxpayers. This program addresses wells that are no longer productive and are considered orphaned in accordance with state laws and regulations. Railroad Commission staff prioritizes which orphan wells to plug based on potential risks to public safety and the environment. The work done in the most recent fiscal year continues a positive trend in the RRC’s work in exceeding performance targets. In Fiscal Year 2017, the goal was to plug 875 wells, and the agency plugged 918 wells. In Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019 the performance goal was to plug 979 abandoned wells each year, and the agency plugged 1,364 and 1,710 respectively.

Drilling Gaining Steam in Texas as US Rig Count Rises - Spurred by an uptick in drilling activity in Texas, the U.S. rig count climbed six units to finish at 261 for the week ending Friday (Sept. 25), according to the latest tally from oilfield services provider Baker Hughes Co. (BKR).Four oil-directed rigs and two natural gas-directed units returned to action in the United States, offering perhaps a hint of recovery amid a profoundly challenging stretch for the industry. As of Friday, BKR’s combined domestic tally still lagged year-ago levels by nearly 600 units.All of the gains occurred on land in the United States, with the Gulf of Mexico count unchanged at 14. Horizontal units increased by nine, while directional units declined by two and vertical units eased lower by one overall.The Canadian rig count gained seven units for the week to end at 71, down from 127 a year ago. Gains there were split between three oil-directed units and four gas-directed.The combined North American count rose 13 units for the week to end at 332, down from 987 at this time last year.Among the major plays, it was not the Permian Basin but the Eagle Ford Shale that led the charge during the week. The Eagle Ford added three rigs, upping its total to 12, versus 62 a year ago. The Permian, meanwhile, picked up to two rigs to end with 125, off from 414 a year ago.Also among plays, the Marcellus and Utica shales in the Northeast each added one rig to their respective totals.Broken down by state, the gains in the Permian and Eagle Ford helped lift the rig count in Texas by seven week/week. The Lone Star State ended up with 113 overall, versus 418 a year ago. New Mexico dropped two rigs from its total, falling to 41, versus 109 at this time last year. Elsewhere among states, Ohio and Pennsylvania each added a rig during the week, while Alaska and West Virginia each dropped one, BKR data show.

Exclusive: U.S. shale producer Devon in talks to acquire peer WPX - sources (Reuters) - U.S. shale producer Devon Energy Corp is in talks to acquire rival WPX Energy Inc in an all-stock transaction that would create a company worth around $6 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Saturday. The deal talks show how consolidation in the oil and gas industry is picking up, as low energy prices drive some independent producers to seek scale through mergers. In July, Noble Energy Inc agreed to be acquired by Chevron Corp for $5 billion in stock. The deal, which would value Tulsa, Oklahoma-based WPX at a small premium to its current share price, could be announced as soon as next week, according to one of the sources. The sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the private talks, cautioned that an agreement was not guaranteed. Devon and WPX did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Buffered by reduced demand for hydrocarbons amid coronavirus lockdown measures, which helped push U.S. crude prices briefly into negative territory for the first time earlier this year, U.S. oil and gas producers are seeking out combinations. Such mergers allow companies to remove duplication and create economies of scale, while structuring them at a small premium or none to existing valuations to retain as much cash as possible.

State, Enbridge resolve Straits of Mackinac oil pipeline injunction - Canadian oil transport giant Enbridge will create new safety guidelines for its contracted vessels operating near twin underwater oil and gas pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac, as part of a stipulated agreement with the state of Michigan in a court case stemming from damage to the 67-year-old pipelines. Ingham County Circuit Judge James Jamo announced the agreement Thursday. State Attorney General Dana Nessel on June 22 sought a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order against operation of the Straits pipelines, known as Line 5, after Enbridge days earlier reported to the state "significant damage" had occurred to an anchor support holding one of the twin pipelines along the lake bottom. Later inspection showed an exterior striking of the other, westernmost pipeline as well by an object, suspected of being a cable hanging from a passing vessel. Nessel sought all of the information Enbridge had on the incident, and to keep the underwater pipelines out of operation until the state conducted a full review of the information with the help of independent experts. Ingham County Circuit Judge Jamo granted the temporary shutdown, then on July 1 allowed the westernmost of the underwater pipelines to resume operation following inspections, keeping the eastern line shut down as its damage was further investigated and awaiting response from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, which regulates interstate oil and gas pipelines. In a Sept. 4 letter to Enbridge, PHMSA officials gave approval for the eastern line to resume operations, and those flows resumed Sept. 10.

Nessel joins coalition backing DAPL shutdown ⋆ Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition supporting the federal court order shutting down the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Michigan joins 18 other states, territories and countries urging the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm strict enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Nessel has previously sued Enbridge — which owns Line 5 and also is a partial owner of the DAPL — on behalf of the state of Michigan due to environmental concerns about that pipeline running through the Straits of Mackinac. A court decision was announced in July that the DAPL must shut down due to an environmental review. That pipeline runs from North Dakota and has been opposed by environmental groups and Native American tribes, including the Standing Rock Sioux. President Trump has been a staunch supporter. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to comply with legal requirements by neglecting to fully consider the consequences of a breach of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and my colleagues and I urge the Court of Appeals to affirm the lower court’s ruling,” Nessel said in the press release on Thursday. “This oil and gas pipeline could potentially impact the environment and has climate change implications we cannot overlook. Moreover, we must join our Indigenous partners who have led the way in raising the alarm about the environmental threat this project poses. As they have advocated from the beginning, shutting down this project is essential to protecting the environment.”

Judge denies key permit for Monroe County sand project; Meteor Timber sought to fill rare wetlands  – A judge has declined to reinstate a key permit for a Georgia company seeking to build a controversial frac sand operation in Monroe County.Monroe County Circuit Judge Todd Ziegler ruled Monday that the state Department of Natural Resources violated the law when it granted Meteor Timber a permit to fill 16.25 acres of wetlands for the $75 million project.Ziegler’s oral ruling affirms an administrative law judge’s decision to revoke the permit, finding that Meteor failed to demonstrate its project would not result in significant adverse impacts to the environment.“The application was not complete. That requires the application to be denied,” Ziegler said. “The law as interpreted by the (administrative law judge) is correct in this regard.”Environmental advocates and the Ho-Chunk Nation, who had challenged the permit, applauded Ziegler’s decision as a victory “for all those who value our natural resources and the public’s role in protecting them.”Ho-Chunk lawmaker Rep. Conroy Greendeer Jr. said the nation is “relieved that the law can balance economic development and the harmful impacts of environmental exploitation.”“The homelands of the Ho-Chunk Nation and our people are being defaced by each of these frac sand operations,” Greendeer said. “Every truckload and train full of sand that comes out of Wisconsin leaves behind scars on our landscape, upon this habitat, and in our lungs.”“We must listen to the science, and to scientists, when making decisions that permanently affect the environment in Wisconsin,” said Evan Feinauer, staff attorney for Clean Wisconsin. “Today’s ruling also makes clear that all permit applicants must meet the same legal standards, irrespective of their wealth or political influence.”Attorneys for Meteor Timber did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The decision marks the end of another chapter in Meteor’s four-year effort, which has spanned two administrations, multiple courts and a boom-and-bust cycle for Wisconsin’s frac sand industry, which supplies silica used to extract oil and gas from deep rock formations.

Colorado draws 2,000-foot statewide oil and gas drilling setback. But it comes with a big “however.” –  Colorado is poised to impose the biggest statewide oil and gas drilling setback in the nation – 2,000 feet from homes and schools – after state regulators unanimously backed the measure in an informal vote Thursday. A final, formal vote will be held Nov. 6. But while setting the buffer for even a single home, many members of the commission made clear that there would be “offramps” allowing oil and gas operators to site their drill pads closer. “This is a good place to be,” Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission Chairman Jeff Robbins said during a meeting held on Zoom. “2,000 feet is necessary and reasonable” to protect public health and safety Environmental and community groups had pushed for the 2,000-foot buffer from drilling, while industry advocates said it would severely hamstring companies and might lead to a lawsuit. Twelve other states have statewide setbacks, but the largest is 1,000 feet, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California is also considering a 2,000-foot setback. The setback rule is part of a comprehensive revision of regulations to reflect COGCC’s change in mission, from promoting oil and gas development to protecting public health, safety and welfare, and the environment. The change is the result of Senate Bill 181, which was passed in 2019.

This month's oil and gas lease sale still on, but numerous parcels deferred - A federal auction of public land scheduled this month for oil and gas companies will move ahead, albeit at a significantly smaller scalethan initially announced. The Bureau of Land Management confirmed it will defer the vast majority of parcels from the Thursday sale in response to a federal court decision to vacate leases located on sage grouse habitat.Of the 290 parcels the agency originally intended to lease during two sales this month, only eight parcels covering about 4,000 acres will be available to oil and gas developers in Wyoming.The federal government offers a selection of nominated parcels to oil and gas companies in an online bidding process, typically four times a year. The agency usually hosts the competitive sales in March, June, September and December, but the pandemic has made this year an anomaly. The agency postponed the June sale in Wyoming, along with sales in several other Western states, in response to COVID-19. And the September sale will be notably smaller in response to a court order. In May, a Montana judge ruled the U.S. Interior Department had failed to properly prioritize leasing public land outside sage grouse core habitat for energy development during several quarterly lease sales. The U.S. District Court for Montana’s order effectively struck down the sale of 440 leases, encompassing 336,000 acres auctioned during a June 2018 lease sale. It marked the second ruling in a single year from the 9th Circuit vacating oil and gas lease sales in Wyoming. Wyoming is home to the world’s largest sage grouse population, forcing public officials to walk a fine line between preserving the imperiled bird’s limited sagebrush habitat and not infringing on the state’s economic backbone — oil and gas. Nearly half of sage grouse habitat nationwide falls on public land managed by the BLM.

North Dakota's Natural Gas Production Increased 17% Month-Over-Month; State Still Hit Capture Target Guidelines; NDIC Tweaks Policy -- September 23, 2020 - Big headline in Bismarck, but, wow, talk about trivial. The NDIC simply tweaked some rules and regulations after consulting with the oil companies. Link to Houston Chronicle:North Dakota’s Industrial Commission on Tuesday approved a revised gas capture policy that aims to encourage investment in infrastructure but doesn’t change targets for burning excess natural gas at well heads.State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms said the Oil and Gas Division has “relaxed the policy slightly in a few places and tightened it significantly in other places” after months of consultation with industry and environmental groups, The Bismarck Tribune reported.Helms said future gas capture requires “a monumental effort” and billions of dollars in infrastructure such as natural gas processing plants and pipelines. North Dakota's gas production is projected to hit 5.3 billion cubic feet a day 18 years from now. The state produced a record of more than 3.1 billion cubic feet per day in November 2019.Companies have met or exceeded gas capture goals in recent months, largely due to decreased production amid the coronavirus pandemic and several new processing facilities and expansions coming online in the last year, North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad said.The policy includes several exceptions for companies that flare natural gas under certain circumstances, such as gas plant outages or delays securing a right-of-way for pipeline construction. Mineral Resources spokeswoman Katie Haarsager said the revised policy should clarify how the variances in the calculation are applied. In fact, natural gas production increased by 17% month-over-month in most recent data and North Dakota still reached its natural gas capture target.  Link here.

North Dakota Industrial Commission approves revisions to gas capture policy North Dakota’s Industrial Commission on Tuesday approved a revised gas capture policy that aims to encourage investment in infrastructure but doesn't change the gas capture targets.Current gas capture policy requires companies to capture 88% of the Bakken natural gas they produce. The target increases to 91% on Nov. 1.State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms said the Oil and Gas Division has “relaxed the policy slightly in a few places and tightened it significantly in other places” after months of consultation with industry and environmental groups.The changes approved unanimously Tuesday aim to ensure industry compliance with gas capture regulations amid future gas production growth."We believe that the revisions that we've made to the gas capture policy are the right step at the right time, but I do think every two or three years, we are going to have to look at this thing and modify it as time goes on," Helms told the three-member, all-Republican panel chaired by Gov. Doug Burgum. Helms said future gas capture requires "a monumental effort" and billions of dollars in infrastructure such as natural gas processing plants and pipelines amid projections that see North Dakota's gas production hitting 5.3 billion cubic feet a day 18 years from now.North Dakota produced nearly 2.3 billion cubic feet per day in July, the most recent figure available. The state produced a record of more than 3.1 billion cubic feet per day in November 2019.Companies have met or exceeded gas capture goals in recent months, largely due to decreased production amid the coronavirus pandemic and several new processing facilities and expansions coming online in the last year, North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad said.The policy includes several variances, or exceptions, for companies that flare natural gas under certain circumstances, such as gas plant outages or delays securing a right-of-way for pipeline construction. Mineral Resources spokeswoman Katie Haarsager said the revised policy aims to clarify how the variances in the calculation are applied. Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, who sits on the commission, praised Helms for developing "a North Dakota-centric plan."

 Lightning strike causes oil spill near McKenzie County creek - — An estimated 10,000 gallons of oil and produced water spilled into the tributary of a creek in McKenzie County, according to a news 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 during oil and gas production. The spill occurred Wednesday, Sept. 24, at a saltwater disposal well about eight miles north of Alexander due to a lightning strike at a saltwater injection facility operated by Environmentally Clean Systems, according to the release. Initial inspection found that the oil and brine spilled into a tributary of Camp Creek. It's the second spill in McKenzie County this summer caused by a lightning strike. Department officials will continue inspecting the site and monitoring remediation efforts, the release said.

Oil Companies Are Profiting From Illegal Spills. And California Lets Them. — ProPublica - In May 2019, workers in California’s Central Valley struggled to seal a broken oil well. It was one of thousands of aging wells that crowd the dusty foothills three hours from the coast, where Chevron and other companies inject steam at high pressure to loosen up heavy crude. Suddenly, oil shot out of the bare ground nearby. Chevron corralled the oil in a dry streambed, and within days the flow petered out. But it resumed with a vengeance a month later. By July, a sticky, shimmering stream of crude and brine oozed through the steep ravine.  Workers and wildlife rescuers couldn’t immediately approach the site — it was 400 degrees underground, and if the earth exploded or gave way, they might be scalded or drown in boiling fluids. Dizzying, potentially toxic fumes filled the scorching summer air. Lights strobed through the night and propane cannons fired to ward off rare burrowing owls, tiny San Joaquin kit foxes, antelope squirrels and other wildlife.   Over four months, more than 1.2 million gallons of oil and wastewater ran down the gully. California had declared these dangerous inland spills illegal that spring. They are known as “surface expressions,” and the Cymric field was a hot spot. Half a dozen spills and a massive well blowout had occurred there since 1999. This time, faced with news headlines and a visit by Gov. Gavin Newsom to the site, officials with the California Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM — the main state agency overseeing the petroleum industry — ordered Chevron to stop the flow. Regulators later levied a $2.7 million fine on the company.Instead, Chevron profited.Amid the noise and heat, trucks arrived daily to vacuum out the oil from a safe distance. It was refined, sold and shipped to corner gas stations, bringing the company $399,000, according to state records. Chevron appealed the fine, saying while “we fully accept — and take responsibility for — our actions,” it does not believe the spill, known as Cymric 1Y, posed a threat to human health. The company has yet to pay, and CalGEM has not moved forward with an appeal hearing. Along with being a global leader on addressing climate change, California is the seventh-largest producer of oil in the nation. And across some of its largest oil fields, companies have for decades turned spills into profits, garnering millions of dollars from surface expressions that can foul sensitive habitats and endanger workers, an investigation by The Desert Sun and ProPublica has found.

Energy executives say U.S. oil production has peaked: Dallas Fed survey  (Reuters) - Nearly two-thirds of U.S. energy company executives polled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas believe U.S. crude oil production has peaked, according to a survey released on Wednesday. The COVID-19 pandemic has knocked global oil demand and prices, prompting deep cuts in drilling this year by shale oil producers. The United States last pumped 12.2 million barrels per day, taking top spot in global crude oil output. Survey results said 66% of 154 oil and gas firm executives contacted by the Dallas Fed this month believe U.S. crude oil production has peaked. The survey includes executives from Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico. The Dallas Fed did not say if the peak was considered temporary or permanent as major oil firms have been discussing. Global demand destruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, work from home policies and the continued growth of electric vehicles has energy companies looking to a prolonged downturn in crude oil and fuel consumption. Earlier this year, BP Plc BP.L said the pandemic would reduce demand by 3 million barrels per day (bpd) through 2025 and forecast a peak in demand between 2019 and 2050, according to the company's energy outlook. Nearly three-quarters of executives from 148 oil and gas firms told the Dallas Fed that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would have a bigger role in determining the price of crude oil going forward. Executives surveyed, on average, expect the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil CLc1 to be $43.27 a barrel by the end of 2020. On Wednesday, WTI was up 36 cents at $40.16 a barrel.

 Energy transition could spur $111 billion in oil divestments, report says -  A societal shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy could force the largest oil companies to sell $111 billion worth of oil and gas assets in the coming years, according to a new report. Rystad, a Norwegian energy research firm, on Tuesday said oil companies will need to streamline their oil and gas portfolios significantly to address low oil prices and falling demand for fossil fuels, particularly in advanced countries concerned about climate change.

It's time for states that grew rich from oil, gas and coal to figure out what's next - These are very challenging times for U.S. fossil fuel-producing states, such as Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota. The COVID-19 economic downturn has reduced energy demand, with uncertain prospects for the extent of its recovery. Meanwhile, rising concern about climate change and the declining cost of renewable energy are precipitating a sharp decline in demand for coal in particular. As a result, fossil fuel-dependent states and communities face the prospect of budget shortfalls and lower employment for the next several years. As researchers who study energy from economic, cultural and public policyperspectives, we believe that it is time for these states to develop long-term plans to diversify their economies and help ensure just and equitable transitions. The idea of a just transition emerged from North American labor law, and has become part of international discussions about making societies more environmentally sustainable. It centers on protecting workers’ rights and livelihoods as they move out of declining industries. In our view, just transition programs likely are the best way for these states to build more sustainable and diverse economic bases, reducing their reliance on fossil fuel production as a revenue source. To support secure, family-sustaining jobs as global fossil reliance declines, they will need to create new, lower-carbon economies. The states that are most reliant on energy are Alaska, where it accounted for 70% of state revenues ($1.1 billion) in fiscal 2019; Wyoming, where energy and other minerals yielded 52% of state revenues ($2.2 billion) in FY2017; and North Dakota, which reaped 45% of its revenues ($1.6 billion) from energy production in fiscal 2017. Production declines and workforce reductions can have major economic impacts in fossil fuel states. For example, Wyoming is forecasting that it will have 29% less money in its General Fund than it previously expected in fiscal years 2021-22. Alaska is projecting an estimated 18% budget deficit in fiscal 2021. Even assuming that oil and gas production recovers from FY2020-2021 lows, these states expect to be forced to close the funding gap for the next several years.

Exclusive: Shell launches major cost-cutting drive to prepare for energy transition - (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell is looking to slash up to 40% off the cost of producing oil and gas in a major drive to save cash so it can overhaul its business and focus more on renewable energy and power markets, sources told Reuters. Shell’s new cost-cutting review, known internally as Project Reshape and expected to be completed this year, will affect its three main divisions and any savings will come on top of a $4 billion target set in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Reducing costs is vital for Shell’s plans to move into the power sector and renewables where margins are relatively low. Competition is also likely to intensify with utilities and rival oil firms including BP and Total all battling for market share as economies around the world go green. “We had a great model but is it right for the future? There will be differences, this is not just about structure but culture and about the type of company we want to be,” said a senior Shell source, who declined to be named. Last year, Shell’s overall operating costs came to $38 billion and capital spending totalled $24 billion. Shell is exploring ways to reduce spending on oil and gas production, its largest division known as upstream, by 30% to 40% through cuts in operating costs and capital spending on new projects, two sources involved with the review told Reuters. Shell now wants to focus its oil and gas production on a few key hubs, including the Gulf of Mexico, Nigeria and the North Sea, the sources said. The company’s integrated gas division, which runs Shell’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) operations as well as some gas production, is also looking at deep cuts, the sources said. For downstream, the review is focusing on cutting costs from Shell’s network of 45,000 service stations - the world’s biggest - which is seen as one its “most high-value activities” and is expected to play a pivotal role in the transition, two more sources involved with the review told Reuters. “We are undergoing a strategic review of the organisation, which intends to ensure we are set up to thrive throughout the energy transition and be a simpler organisation, which is also cost competitive. We are looking at a range of options and scenarios at this time, which are being carefully evaluated,” a spokeswoman for Shell said in a statement.

Oil Springs Eternal - EXXONMOBIL WAS ONCE the most valuable company on earth. The product of a Clinton-era merger between the rebranded progeny of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and Standard Oil Company of New York—reuniting, respectively, as Exxon and Mobil, nearly a century after a Supreme Court antitrust ruling cleaved their parent company apart—it has long benefitted from the worldwide neoliberal retreat of government in the face of swelling corporate power. The corporation’s influence ran deep, especially in regard to the public perception of climate change. “Those with power create knowledge,” wrote Emily Plec and Mary Pettenger in a 2012 study of ExxonMobil’s marketing practices. At the time, ExxonMobil was aggressively marketing its latest low-emission energy initiative, a venture into algae biofuels. Do not fear climate change, such ads, which carry on today, seemed to suggest. Our engineers are hard at work. As Plec and Pettenger saw it, ExxonMobil’s greenwashing coached “acceptance of a particular attitude toward history,” effectively resigning the mainstream public to the incumbent energy regime, constraining efforts to imagine a future that does not, like the present, orbit around “ideologies of consumption”—and companies like ExxonMobil. If ExxonMobil ever did stand eternal, its public messaging certainly did not. In his day, one-time CEO Lee R. Raymond was famously loathe to concede an inch to the company’s rabid environmentalist adversaries—even on the public relations front. In 2000, with regard to global warming, he could be heard telling shareholders: “If the data were compelling, I would change my view. Ninety percent of people thought the world was flat. No?” As the journalist Steve Coll noted in his 2012 epic, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, some ExxonMobil executives “took pride in their self-image as a corporation that did not try to pretend to be something it was not.” In this, the company differed from fellow oil and gas giant BP Amoco, which rebranded in 2000 as just “BP,” unveiling a new sun logo and marketing slogan: Beyond Petroleum. ExxonMobil took a different tack. Raymond dismissed the company’s earlier ventures into renewable energy as moments of weakness, in which its former leaders made reactionary concessions to ephemeral political fads, eroding the business’s core identity. “In hindsight it appeared that we were abdicating who we were,” Raymond told Coll, referring to the company’s adventures in solar during the seventies. “Presidents come and go; Exxon doesn’t come and go.”

 Oil Industry’s Shift to Plastics in Question as Report Warns $400 Billion in Stranded Assets Possible -  Aldabra is a UN World Heritage Site that’s home to a stunning array of wildlife, including tens of thousands of wild giant tortoises, far more tortoises than in the Galapagos Islands. This wild, protected place is also, according to newly published research from Oxford University, littered with over 500 tons of plastic waste.That’s the amount remaining after the Oxford team itself removed 25 tons of plastic debris, a manufactured mountain of plastic trash that included 360,000 used flip flop sandals and literal tons of plastic nets, ropes and other fishing industry trash. “This is the largest accumulation of plastic waste reported for any single island in the world,” Oxford noted as the findings were announced.  Since the 1950’s, the world has produced over 8.3 billion tons of plastic, according to UN Environment, virtually all of it derived from fossil fuels. During the 1970’s and 80’s, plastic waste generation rates more than tripled, causing growing concern among consumers.“The image of plastics is deteriorating at an alarming rate,” Larry Thomas, a former president of a plastics industry association, wrote in records obtained by NPR from that meeting. “We are approaching a point of no return.”The solution the gathered executives arrived at, NPR found, was to advertise a solution that industry officials knew was unworkable: recycling.The campaigns resulted in very little actual plastic being recycled. Less than ten percent of the plastic ever made has been recycled even once, a 2017 peer-reviewed scientific paper found — and global recycling ran further aground the following year, when China banned imports of most used plastics after that nation’s attempts at processing and recycling the world’s plastic scrap became inescapably overwhelmed.  But from the plastic and oil industries’ perspectives, pro-recycling campaigns proved to be extraordinarily effective — not just because advertising plastic recycling helped to insulate the industry from public concern, but also, as NPR noted, because recycled plastic was always actually a poor and expensive substitute for new plastics — which meant less competition for oil companies and plastics manufacturers. This past year has brought massive disruptions for fossil fuel producers, who saw oil prices briefly dip far below $0 a barrel in some places amid pandemic lockdowns and witnessed ExxonMobil, once the king of blue chip stocks, unceremoniously bootedfrom the widely-watched Dow Jones Industrial Average. But executives with major oil giants have said that even if oil demand grown dries up, they expect they’ll still be able to sell an increasing amount of their products as petrochemicals. “Unlike refining, and ultimately unlike oil, which will see a moment when the growth will stop, we actually don’t anticipate that with petrochemicals,” Andrew Brown, a Royal Dutch Shell official,told the San Antonio Express News in 2018. This strategy, according to a report published this month by the Carbon Tracker Initiative, carries significant financial risks, putting $400 billion of petrochemical industry investments at risk of becoming stranded assets. That’s nearly an entire year’s revenue for the worldwide plastics industry, based on 2018 figures from the Plastics Industry Association, potentially down the drain.

Pompeo: We are Building A Coalition Against Nord Stream 2 - The United States is building a coalition aimed at preventing the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will substantially increase the flow of Russian gas into Europe, the U.S. Secretary of State told German daily Bild in an interview. “From the US point of view, Nord Stream 2 endangers Europe because it makes it dependent on Russian gas and endangers Ukraine – which in my opinion worries many Germans,” Pompeo said. “We hope Nord Stream 2 will not be completed and we are working on a coalition to prevent this from happening. We hope that the German government will also come to this assessment, be it because of what happened to Mr. Navalny or because of the security implications that dependence on Russian gas brings.” The interview comes days after another report in German media said the German government had tried to appease Washington about Nord Stream by offering to build two liquefied natural gas import terminals worth $1.2 billion if the U.S. stopped opposing the pipeline. Germany will be the receiver of most of the gas that will flow through the expanded Nord Stream pipeline amid an expected surge in demand for natural gas as it closes coal and nuclear power plants. The U.S., however, is against it, claiming it will only increase Russia’s influence in the energy supply of the EU, which would be unwise. Of course, there are also the U.S. gas interests as a major LNG exporter. The alleged poisoning of Putin critic Alexey Navalny recently raised the temperature of the issue, with critics of the Nord Stream project calling for the German government to punish Moscow by withdrawing its support for the infrastructure. On the other hand, a group of local primer minister from eastern German regions declared their support for Nord Stream 2, saying in a joint document that it was important for the energy future of both Germany and Europe and its completion would be “right and justified”.

Trinidad to inspect Venezuela oil storage vessel - Trinidad and Tobago is concluding arrangements with Venezuela to allow its inspectors to access a damaged oil storage vessel in the Gulf of Paria, the Caribbean state's energy ministry told Argus. The inspection of the Venezuela-flagged Nabarima is meant to "independently verify reports that the vessel has been stabilized and that leaking oil does not pose a threat to our waters," Trinidad's energy ministry said. The inspection will not violate US sanctions on Venezuela, the ministry added. The Trinidadian and Venezuelan governments have exchanged the required protocols to clear the way for the inspection that will happen by the end of September, the ministry said. "We have been told arrangements are being made to offload the cargo and we are relieved that this is happening," the ministry said, adding that the inspection will deliver the assurance that Trinidad's waters are not in danger of a major oil spill. The Nabarima, which is holding around 1.2mn bl of crude, has been moored at the offshore Corocoro field in the Gulf of Paria for 10 years. The field, which is not currently in production, belongs to PetroSucre, a joint venture operated by Venezuelan state-owned PdV. The company's minority partner is Italy's Eni. The vessel had been listing in recent weeks, but PdV and Eni have since said the vessel is upright after problems were corrected. The Corocoro field had been producing around 11,000 b/d of medium-quality crude before it was suspended in August 2019. Trinidad has a bilateral oil spill contingency plan with Venezuela, but transferring the oil off of the Nabarima has been delayed by the sanctions. Eni has said it awaiting a green light from the US before proceeding to help deploy a dynamic positioning tanker to drain the vessel. How the crude is handled after it is unloaded is unclear in light of the sanctions.

Chilean regulators file charges against state-run ENAP over Quintero pollution crisis (Reuters) - Chile´s top environmental regulator on Thursday filed charges against state energy company ENAP over allegations its Quintero port facilities emitted air pollution that may have sickened hundreds during an incident in 2018. The Environmental Superintendent (SMA) said recent studies linked high levels of air contaminants to the company´s operations in Quintero at a time when it was offloading a shipment of heavy Iranian crude oil. At the time, hundreds of people in the port town reported nausea, headaches and vomiting. ENAP told Chile´s financial regulator in a filing Thursday “it has the necessary technical background to demonstrate...that the alleged infractions have not caused any effect in the health of the population.” Environmental activists have long labeled the town of Quintero and its surroundings a “sacrifice zone” for the successive pollution episodes that have caused public health emergencies. The coastal port city is home to coal-burning power plants, an oil refinery, and a copper smelter, some of which operate very close to residential areas. ADVERTISEMENT The SMA said in a statement that the company had eluded regulators by failing to inform them of their activities and use of potentially high-risk and closely regulated chemicals. The infractions continued during the SMA´s earlier investigation of the incident, the agency said. The regulator said some of the seven charges it filed against ENAP are serious enough to lead to the revocation of the company´s environmental permits at Quintero. It has given the state energy company 10 days to provide the agency with a compliance plan or 15 days to contest the charges. ENAP is the main oil refiner in Chile, which imports nearly all the fuel it consumes.

Investors Are Pulling The Plug On Argentina’s Prized Shale Play  Much ink has been spilled about the downfall and dubious recovery of the United States shale oil sector. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude benchmark’s dramatic rock bottom in April, which saw oil prices plunge to nearly $40 dollars below zero in a jaw-dropping first, a flurry of think pieces about the sector’s future poured forth and has never fully stopped. While the Brent international crude benchmark never went negative, it also suffered, and there have been no shortage of headlines about OPEC and their ill-planned actions that sent prices tumbling in the first place or their redoubled efforts to recover after the crash. But there are plenty of other oil producing countries in the world who have also seen massive market failures due to COVID-19’s destruction of oil demand and which have not received even a fraction of the attention. One such country is Argentina, home to one of the largest oil and gas fields in the world, the Vaca Muerta shale basin, which contains approximately 927 million barrels of proven reserves.  Way back in April, even before the historic WTI crash, Bloomberg (via World Oil) published one of relatively few reports of the shale play. More than a report, it was an obituary. “Oil crash kills Vaca Muerta’s potential as the next shale hotspot,” the headline read.  Now, nearly half a year later, is Vaca Muerta fully dead? The short answer is no. The full answer, of course, is a lot more complicated. According to the Argentinian energy minister of Neuquen province, where the vast Vaca Muerta field is located, resurrecting the shale play will take more than a year. Achieving pre-COVID-19 production levels, he said, will take an estimated 12-18 months due to a lack of market demand, which may not be bouncing back any time soon. “We believe it will take a while for fuel demand to fully recover,” Monteiro told listeners on Monday in an industry webinar. Before COCID-19, Vaca Muerta had been in a state of rapid expansion, as Bloomberg's “next potential shale hotspot” description would indicate. The novel coronavirus, however, stopped this expansion in its tracks, leaving many projects half-completed. “Many wells have been drilled but not connected, but even when demand fully recovers it will take even longer for drilling activity to return to pre-pandemic levels because of storage constraints,” MercoPress reported this week, summing up the energy minister’s announcement. This is exemplified by YPF, Argentina’s largest shale producer, which is controlled by the state. YPF “has said it has 71 shale oil wells and 10 shale gas wells in Neuquen that have been drilled but not completed.”   “In mid-2019, companies had said they would invest a total of more than US$ 6bn in upstream projects in Neuquen in 2020,” MercoPress reports. “Now the number is closer to US$ 3bn, the lowest since 2016, according to provincial data.”

Seventeen dead dolphins wash ashore on island of Mauritius - Seventeen dead dolphins washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius after a wrecked oil tanker precipitated an ecological disaster within the space — sparking anger from residents, in line with studies. Some of the animals had bloody accidents once they have been found Wednesday and others touring within the pod appeared severely sick, researchers from the island nation advised Reuters. “The dead dolphins had a number of wounds and blood round their jaws, no hint of oil nevertheless,” mentioned Jasvin Sok Appadu of the nation’s fisheries ministry. “Those that survived, round ten, appeared very fatigued and will barely swim.” Some residents have been livid over the heartbreaking discovery. “Waking up this morning to witness so many dead dolphins on our seashore is worse than a nightmare,” Nitin Jeeha, who lives on the island, advised the BBC. The lifeless mammals have been taken to the Albion Fisheries Analysis Centre for an animal post-mortem however outcomes hadn’t been launched Thursday. They have been discovered roughly a month after the Japanese-owned MV Wakashio tanker struck a coral reef on July 25 and commenced to leak a whole lot of tons of oil. Some scientists mentioned the dolphins seemingly died from being poisoned by the gasoline. A person holds open the mouth of a dead Melon-headed whale, also called Electra dolphin, after the oil spill.EPA“I feel there are two potentialities: Both they died from tons of gasoline spilled within the sea, or they have been poisoned by the poisonous supplies on the bow of the ship that was sunk offshore,” mentioned environmental marketing consultant Sunil Dowarkasing.

Oil leak from ONGC pipeline damages samba crops - Oil spill from the underground pipeline of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), conveying crude oil extracted from the ground has damaged an agricultural land cultivated with samba crops at Keezha Erukkattur village in Tiruvarur district. The oil seepage into agricultural land, reportedly due to a crack in the ONGC pipeline, owned by a farmer Dhanasekaran was noticed on Wednesday morning. Due to the oil leakage, a portion of the land was inundated with the crude oil damaging the samba crops raised in one acre. The oil seepage was spreading to the nearby agricultural lands in the village, the locals alleged.

Arab ministers warn of oil spill disasters in the Red Sea - Arab ministers have warned of oil spill disasters in the Red Sea and called on international and regional bodies to maintain maritime security in the area. An Arab League video conference session on Monday brought together ministers responsible for environmental affairs. The session was held at Saudi Arabia’s request to discuss ways of avoiding a disaster in the Red Sea because of an oil tanker that has been anchored off Yemen’s Ras Isa port since 2015. The Houthis have prevented international engineers from boarding the vessel to carry out essential repairs and there are fears that the oil it contains will start to seep out as the tanker’s condition deteriorates. Ambassador Kamal Hassan Ali, assistant secretary-general and head of the economic affairs sector at the Arab League, said that the meeting concluded with foreign ministers being requested to take political action as the oil disaster threat was a matter of politics and security. The meeting also requested that the league’s general secretariat communicate with the regional and international bodies of countries bordering the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to preserve the environment and provide technical support in order to submit a report on spillage risks. Hassan said that finding an appropriate solution to avoid an environmental catastrophe was of major regional and global importance because the scale of such a disaster would threaten marine life, biodiversity, international shipping lines and ports in that location. He said that the region was facing major challenges that demanded solidarity and unity in all fields, including the environment.

 Saudi warns of oil spill from tanker stranded off Yemen coast for five years - Saudi Arabia warned the UN Security Council on Wednesday that an "oil spot" had been seen in a shipping transit area 31 miles (50km) west of a decaying tanker that is threatening to spill 1.1 million barrels of crude oil off the coast of Yemen. The Safer tanker has been stranded off Yemen's Red Sea oil terminal of Ras Issa for more than five years. The United Nations has warned that the Safer could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska. In a letter to the 15-member body, Saudi Arabia's UN Ambassador Abdallah Al Mouallimi wrote that experts had observed that "a pipeline attached to the vessel is suspected to have been separated from the stabilisers holding it to the bottom and is now floating on the surface of the sea." The United Nations has been waiting for formal authorisation from Yemen's Houthi movement to send a mission to the Safer tanker to conduct a technical assessment and whatever initial repairs might be feasible. The Security Council and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have both called on the Houthis to grant access. Al Mouallimi wrote that the tanker "has reached a critical state of degradation, and that the situation is a serious threat to all Red Sea countries, particularly Yemen and Saudi Arabia," adding "this dangerous situation must not be left unaddressed."

OPEC In Trouble As Oil Outlook Worsens -Just when they thought they had rebalanced the oil market, OPEC members were served an unpleasant surprise from exempted fellow Libya. The country’s warring factions reached a ceasefire, and some long-shuttered oil ports have been reopened, along with the fields that feed them. By the end of the month, the National Oil Corporation plans to boost the average daily output of the nation from less than 100,000 bpd to 260,000 bpd. Meanwhile, OPEC+ has relaxed its production cuts by 2 million bpd.  The market, according to Mercuria chief executive Marco Dunand, cannot handle this.In an interview for Bloomberg, Dunand said demand was still weaker than previously expected, and any additional oil flowing into markets would fail to be absorbed. This means a looming build in floating storage as this month, global inventories rose by between 500,000 bpd and 1 million bpd—and that’s excluding the Libyan restart— while drawdowns over the final quarter were seen at 1 million bpd.In his bearish outlook for the immediate term, Mercuria’s head is in sync with the head of another commodity trading major, Trafigura. The third super trader, however, is surprisingly optimistic. Also in an interview with Bloomberg, Vitol’s chief executive said earlier this month he expected global crude oil inventories to shrink considerably by the end of the year. While both the heads of Trafigura and Mercuria expect stocks to build first before starting to decline, Vitol’s chief said he expected a drawdown of some 250-300 million barrels by the end of the year.Reports emerged earlier this month that commodity traders—including the Big Three—were chartering more tankers to store crude oil offshore, sparking concern we could see something like a repeat of this spring when hundreds of millions of barrels of unsellable oil had to be dumped on tankers because onshore storage was full. After the lockdowns ended, demand began improving. This moderate demand boost, however, fell short of pretty much all expectations. One particularly worrying trend is the slow rate of economic recovery among emerging countries—the main drivers of oil demand growth. Except for China, most are still battling the coronavirus and its effects on their economies. India is a good case in point: its oil demand is seen to be the worst affected by the coronavirus as the country itself suffers the second-highest total case count in the world. Some analysts believe, however, that demand in China is about to start slowing down soon. It will be a long-term trend, according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, and a result not just of Covid-19 but of Beijing’s emission-reduction goals. Over the next 20 years, the energy research organization said, China’s oil demand was likely to grow at an annual pace of 3 to 4 million bpd, after growing by double-digit rates in the past few years.According to Mercuria’s Dunand, oil demand during the fourth quarter will average 95 million bpd. That’s down from a market consensus of 97 to 98 million bpd, made in spring. And the rate at which excessive inventories will be drawn is seen weaker than previously expected. Add to this a dramatic build in diesel inventories because refiners, Dunand noted to Bloomberg, are dumping jet fuel into the diesel pool, and Libya’s restart of production and the outlook for prices once again becomes grim.

Oil prices steady as third storm in month takes aims at U.S. - Oil prices edged higher on Monday as a tropical storm took aim for the U.S. Gulf of Mexico region halting some production, though price gains were capped by the potential return of oil output in Libya and a continued rise in coronavirus cases. Brent crude was up 9 cents, or 0.2%, at $43.24 a barrel by 0230 GMT, while U.S. crude was up 10 cents, or 0.2%, to $42.21 a barrel. Royal Dutch Shell Plc halted some oil production and began evacuating workers from a U.S. Gulf of Mexico platform, the company said on Saturday. Tropical Storm Beta was predicted to bring 1 foot (30 centimetres) of rain to parts of coastal Texas and Louisiana as the 23rd named storm of this year's Atlantic hurricane season moves ashore on Monday night, the National Hurricane Center said. Oil and gas producers had been restarting their offshore operations over the weekend after being disrupted by Sally. Some 17% of U.S. Gulf of Mexico offshore oil production and nearly 13% of natural gas output went offline on Saturday in the face of Hurricane Sally's waves and winds. Elsewhere, Libya's National Oil Corp lifted force majeure on what it deemed secure oil ports and facilities on Saturday, but said the measure would remain in place for facilities where fighters remain. "The market can ill afford more crude hitting the market," ANZ analysts said in a note on Monday. A resurgence of virus cases globally is also acting as a brake on crude demand. More than 30.78 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 954,843? have died, according to a Reuters tally. "It is hard to get excited about a pickup in crude demand as the virus is surging in France, Spain, and the UK, along with concerns the U.S. appears poised for at least one more cycle in the fall and winter," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA. "Even if energy markets don't see Libyan production return or if Hurricane season eases, oil prices can't shake off the dwindling demand outlook."

Oil Prices Fall Amid Broad Selloff  -- Oil declined the most in almost two weeks as U.S. equities slid on mounting worries over prolonged coronavirus restrictions, while the prospect of Libya resuming exports added to supply concerns. Crude futures in New York fell 4.4%. At the same time, the S&P 500 slumped to the lowest intraday level since July. Libya is moving closer to reopening its battered oil industry after it told companies to resume production at some fields that are free of foreign mercenaries and fighters. This will add to already rising supply from OPEC+ nations. There was a “dramatic selloff in equity markets and other commodity markets, and petroleum markets took part in it,” said Andrew Lebow, senior partner at Commodity Research Group. U.S. benchmark prices jumped 10% last week after Saudi Arabia, the most influential member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, sought to defend the market. But a troubling demand picture continues to weigh on the market. China National Petroleum Corp. -- the country’s biggest oil company -- see demand for refined petroleum products peaking around 2025. BP Plc last week became the first supermajor to call the end of the era of oil-demand growth. As U.S. deaths related to Covid-19 approached 200,000, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said he expects the nation to experience “at least one more cycle” of the virus in the fall and winter. “There are legitimate demand concerns,” said Peter McNally, global head for industrials, materials and energy at Third Bridge. “If we go into another lockdown, we are going to see inventories build.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Gulf Coast is preparing for another storm, with companies shutting production or evacuating staff at some platforms and the Houston Ship Channel closing due to Tropical Storm Beta. The storm has unleashed flooding on southeastern Texas and will hammer the Gulf Coast into eastern Louisiana with heavy rain, even as the storm loses power on its approach to shore. West Texas Intermediate for October fell $1.80 to settle at $39.31 a barrel. Brent for November dropped $1.71 to end the session at $41.44 a barrel. The plunge was the steepest daily loss since Sept. 8. Libya’s National Oil Corp. is ending force majeure -- a legal status protecting a party that can’t fulfill a contract for reasons beyond its control -- at “secure” facilities in the conflict-ridden nation and has told companies to resume production. The country’s overall oil production is set to reach 310,000 barrels a day in a few days from the current 90,000 a day, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.

 Oil rises as U.S. storm eases, but demand worries linger - Oil rose in early trade on Tuesday, paring sharp overnight losses, as the latest tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico lost strength, but worries about fuel demand persisted with flare-ups around the globe in coronavirus cases. Brent crude futures rose 27 cents, or 0.65%, to $41.71 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for October, due to expire on Tuesday, rose 15 cents, or 0.38%, to $39.46 a barrel. The more active November contract rose 13 cents, or 0.3%, to $39.67. Crude prices, which fell about 4% on Monday, steadied as Texas refineries stayed open despite forecasts of heavy flooding, with Tropical Storm Beta expected to keep losing strength, allaying worries about U.S. refinery demand for feedstock. "The recovery in sentiment after the rout in risk assets seen a fortnight ago was clearly fragile," "This week, the market is recalibrating to a likely stalling of the economic recovery in Europe as several countries in the region impose fresh restrictions to contain a surge in the coronavirus." Monday's price slump was spurred by concerns that an increase in coronavirus cases in major markets could lead to fresh lockdowns and hurt demand. That raised the possibility that Libyan oil could return when it isn't needed. "We had a pretty punchy risk-off session (overnight) ... on fears around the risk that a COVID resurgence starts to have negative impacts on demand again," Markets are nervous about demand in places like the United Kingdom, where fresh restrictions are being imposed. U.S. health officials are also warning of a new wave in the coming winter. "When the virus resurges, governments lock down, impose restrictions, and individuals and businesses start to retreat. It's all bad for demand," Traders will be watching out for the American Petroleum Institute's data on U.S. oil inventories due later on Tuesday. U.S. crude oil and gasoline stockpiles likely fell last week, while inventories of distillates, including diesel, were seen climbing, a preliminary Reuters poll showed.

WTI oil futures climb, but hold below $40 a barrel – Oil settled higher on Tuesday, finding support from expectations for a second weekly decline in U.S. crude supplies. Prices scored a partial rebound from the sharp decline in oil seen a day earlier, when the rise of COVID-19 cases and potential for renewed activity restrictions in Europe fed a global equity selloff reported MarketWatch. Tuesday’s oil-price rise was modest. Energy traders struggled “to assess the uncertainty with U.S. production as we approach the last two months of hurricane season [and] how bad the demand outlook will get following the winter wave of the coronavirus,” as Libyan oil production slowly bounces back, said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda. West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange edged up by 29 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $39.60 a barrel after a decline of 4.3% on Monday. The contract expired at the day’s settlement. The November WTI contract , which is now the front month, settled at $39.80, up 26 cents, or 0.7%. Global benchmark November Brent crude, meanwhile, rose 28 cents, or 0.7%, at $41.72 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe.

WTI Extends Gains After Official Inventory Data Shows Big Draws - Oil prices have chopped around overnight, rallying hard as Europe opened after weakness following last night's surprise crude build reported by API.  “The API was positive I’d say, with draws in gasoline and distillates” . “A large drawdown in the fourth quarter or not is the big question.”  Additionally, as Bloomberg reports, in the near term, the demand outlook looks troubled. In Europe, the profit from turning crude into diesel slipped toward $2 a barrel earlier, a record low in data going back to 2011. That curbs demand for crude from refineries. The head of Russia’s Gazprom Neft PJSC said that the recovery in global oil consumption has indeed slowed down.  DOE:

• Crude -1.64mm (-4.0mm exp)
• Cushing +4k
• Gasoline -4.03mm (-1.9mm exp)
• Distillates -3.364mm (+1.2mm exp) - biggest draw since March 2020

Dramatic draws in crude, gasoline, and distillates... This is the 7th weekly draw in gasoline in a row and biggest distillates draw since March. Between Hurricanes and Tropical Depressions, there is still some lingering noise in the production data, which showed a small drop in the last week... Graphs Source: Bloomberg. WTI hovered around $40 ahead of the official inventory data and extended gains on the draws...

Oil posts slight gain as U.S. inventory declines - Oil rose more than 1% on Wednesday, supported by U.S. government data that showed crude and fuel inventories dropped last week, although concerns about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic capped gains. Brent crude rose 53 cents, or 1.3%, to $42.25 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled 13 cents, or 0.3%, higher at $39.93 per barrel. U.S. crude, gasoline and distillate inventories all fell last week, Energy Information Administration data showed. Crude inventories fell by 1.6 million barrels, less than forecast; gasoline stocks dropped more than expected, sliding by 4 million barrels; while distillate stockpiles posted a surprise drawdown of 3.4 million barrels. "The distillate overhang that we've seen most of this year has been a primary bearish consideration to the energy complex and as that begins to adjust lower that can be viewed as supportive," said Tony Headrick, energy markets analyst at CHS Hedging. Elsewhere, better-than-expected German manufacturing data lifted some risk appetite on Wednesday. But COVID-19 infections in countries including India, France and Spain and new restrictions in Britain have renewed worries about demand, just as more supply may come from Libya. In the United States, the death toll has passed 200,000. Oil collapsed as the pandemic decimated demand, with Brent falling below $16, a 21-year low, in April. A record output cut by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, known as OPEC+, has helped revive prices. OPEC faces a new challenge in that Libya, an OPEC member exempt from the supply cut, is aiming to boost supply after an easing of the country's conflict. An oil tanker is expected to load crude at Libya's Marsa el-Hariga terminal this week, the first since January. 

Oil falls as demand growth concerns outweigh U.S. stock drawdown - Oil prices dropped on Thursday, weighed down by concerns that U.S. economic recovery is slowing as the coronavirus outbreak lingers, while a renewed wave of COVID-19 cases in Europe have led to reimposed travel restrictions in several countries. The jitters over demand and economic outlook due to the coronavirus resurgence have prompted a rally in the dollar as investors turned to safer assets, adding pressure to oil prices. A stronger dollar makes oil, priced in U.S. dollars, less attractive to global buyers. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 60 cents, or 1.5%, to $39.33 a barrel at 0445 GMT, while Brent crude futures dropped 47 cents, or 1.1%, to $41.30 a barrel. Both benchmarks climbed slightly on Wednesday after government data showed U.S. crude and fuel stockpiles dropped last week. Gasoline inventories fell more than expected, sliding by 4 million barrels, and distillate stockpiles posted a surprise drawdown of 3.4 million barrels. Still, fuel demand in the U.S. remains subdued as the pandemic limits travel. The four-week average of gasoline demand was 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd) last week, the government data showed, down 9% from a year earlier. Prices turned down after data showed U.S. business activity slowed in September, U.S. Federal Reserve officials flagged concerns about a stalling recovery, and Britain and Germany imposed restrictions to stem new coronavirus infections -- all factors affecting the fuel demand outlook. "Oil prices are wilting as product for immediate delivery remains plentiful," "Consumption outlook concerns are rising as COVID-19 restrictions return in Europe, and the clamour from the Federal Reserve for more U.S. fiscal stimulus, undermines the global recovery case, the lynchpin for oil's price recovery." On the supply side, the market remains wary of a resumption of exports from Libya, although it is unclear how quickly it can ramp up volumes. Libya's National Oil Corp (NOC) seeks to boost output to 260,000 bpd by next week. "That clearly is going to be something the oil market doesn't need right now,"

  Oil prices end higher, buoyed by signs of tighter supplies -  Oil futures finished higher on Thursday, supported by signs of tighter U.S. crude supplies, despite persistent concerns that rising cases of COVID-19 will lead to weaker energy demand. The commodity tallied a third climb in a row, but the gains have been modest and prices still remain lower for the week. “Oil prices need a shot of something,” The U.S. Federal Reserve “wants it to be another shot of stimulus and perhaps a shot of a coronavirus vaccine,” he said. “Perhaps it’s another shot of compliance by the OPEC plus cartel, or maybe it just needs to get past September where hurricanes and storms impacted both supply and demand.” West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery edged up by 38 cents, or nearly 1%, to settle at $40.31 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after tapping a low at $39.12. November Brent crude, the global benchmark, added 17 cents, or 0.4%, to trade at $41.94 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. “Lifeless crude prices and frightful refining margins present a faltering demand recovery, especially with COVID cases rising again. But fortunately, OPEC’s supply constraint and a further fall in U.S. supply in 4Q and 2021 will provide the offset,” Oil rose Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. crude inventories fell for a second straight week, by 1.6 million barrels for the week ended Sept. 18. That was much less than the average forecast from analysts polled by S&P Global Platts for a decline of 4 million barrels, but the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday had reported an increase of 691,000 barrels. Also, gasoline inventories fell by a larger-than-expected 4 million barrels, while distillate stocks unexpectedly declined by 3.4 million barrels. On Thursday, October gasoline rose 1.2% to finish at $1.1957 a gallon, while October heating oil settled at $1.1167 a gallon, up 0.8% “The continued drop in U.S. oil supply and refinery challenges suggests a balancing of supply,” “It also indicates that we should see oil bottom and rally as we head into winter and out of the [refinery] maintenance season.” Also, “despite gridlock in Washington, oil demand should recover, and we face a balanced market globally that will add higher prices,” he said, though “the risk to this forecast is a massive” COVID-related shutdown.

Oil gains but heading for weekly fall over coronavirus demand concerns - Oil prices fell on Friday and were set for a weekly decline due to mounting worries about the impact on fuel demand of a widespread resurgence in coronavirus infections, as well as some concern about the likely return of exports from Libya. Brent crude was down 23 cents at $41.71 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude fell 38 cents to $39.91. Brent is heading for a drop of more than 3% this week with U.S. crude on track for a decline of nearly 3%. Both benchmarks are also heading for a monthly decline, which would be the first for Brent in six months. "This month has not been kind to the oil market," "Rising virus infections, renewed lockdowns, slowing economic recovery and stalled U.S. stimulus talks have put the brakes on the fragile revival in fuel demand." In the United States, which has the highest death toll from the coronavirus pandemic and is the world's biggest oil consumer, unemployment claims unexpectedly rose last week suggesting an economic recovery is flailing and pushing down fuel demand. U.S. fuel demand remains in the doldrums as the pandemic constrains travel. The four-week average of gasoline demand last week was 9% below a year earlier, government data showed on Wednesday. In other parts of the world, daily increases of coronavirus infections are hitting records and new restrictions are being put in place that will likely limit travel and fuel demand. In India, throughput by crude oil refiners in August fell 26.4% from a year ago, the most in four months, as fuel demand ebbed because surging coronavirus cases hindered industrial and transport activity. In Libya, Shell has provisionally booked a tanker to load a crude cargo at Libya's Zueitina terminal on Oct. 3, potentially the first since January at the recently reopened port. However, analysts have questioned how quickly the country could ramp up supply. "Fundamentally, nothing has changed to the supply side of the equation that is weighing on oil prices in the bigger picture,"

Oil falls on mounting COVID-19 cases, supply concerns (Reuters) - Oil edged lower on Friday, falling more than 2% on the week as COVID-19 cases surged globally and oil supply is set to rise in coming weeks. FILE PHOTO: the sun sets behind a crude oil pump jack on a drill pad in the Permian Basin in Loving County, Texas, U.S. November 24, 2019. Picture taken November 24, 2019. REUTERS/Angus Mordant/File Photo Brent crude futures LCOc1 settled at $41.92 a barrel, down 2 cents, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 lost 6 cents to $40.25 a barrel. Brent dropped 2.9% for the week and WTI sunk 2.1% “There is this second wave of fear overhanging the oil market at this point and that’s holding us back,”  In the world’s top oil consumer the United States, infections are rising in the Midwest, while New York City, which was hit hardest in the spring, is considering renewed shutdown mandates. More than 200,000 people have died of the virus in the nation. U.S. fuel consumption remains sluggish as the pandemic constrains travel and hampers economic recovery.. The four-week average of gasoline demand last week was 9% below a year earlier. In other parts of the world, daily increases of coronavirus infections are hitting records and new restrictions are being put in place to limit travel. In India, throughput by crude oil refiners in August fell 26% from a year ago, most in four months, as demand ebbed because the pandemic is hindering industrial and transport activity. At the same time, more crude oil entering the global market threatens to beef up supply and push prices lower. The U.S. oil and gas rig count rose by six to 261 in the week to Sept. 25, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co BKR.N said. [RIG/U] Libya has recently boosted production and Shell RDSa.L has provisionally booked the first crude tanker to load at Libya's Zueitina terminal since January. Iranian oil exports, meanwhile, have risen sharply in September in defiance of U.S. sanctions, three assessments based on tanker tracking showed.

Oil prices down for the week on new coronavirus concerns -Oil fell this week amid growing concerns that another wave of the coronavirus pandemic will spark tighter lockdown measures and further stifle crude demand. New York futures edged lower Friday and fell 2.1% on the week. The number of U.S. coronavirus cases rose above 7 million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile, a second governor tested positive for Covid-19 as cases surge around the country. At the same time, the market is contending with returning supply. Oil traders have reported a sharp increase in Iraqi exports for next month, while output from Libya has shown signs of rising this week. “There are concerns about the stalling economic recovery,” said Phil Streible, chief market strategist at Blue Line Futures LLC in Chicago. When the world gets a vaccine, widespread reopenings and a meaningful increase in travel, “that’s when you’re going to start to see demand pick up” and prices rally. U.S. crude’s gradual climb since May has come to a halt in September, with futures on track to drop about 5.5% this month. Still, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said oil consumption is currently just above 93 million barrels a day and may rise 1.8 million a day to the end of the year. Yet, any meaningful recovery in consumption has so far been held back by the lingering pandemic. “We’re going to be range-bound for a while until there’s the perception that the bulk of the Covid impact on demand is behind us,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research. Additionally “if the OPEC+ deal starts to fall apart and we get a lot more crude, that would send prices down.” West Texas Intermediate for November delivery edged 6 cents lower to settle at $40.25 a barrel. Brent for November dipped 2 cents to end the session at $41.92 a barrel. The contract lost 2.9% this week. In a sign of just how damaging the virus has been to oil demand, the industry’s largest tankers next year will earn 8% less than they were anticipating back in May, according to a survey of shipping analysts by Bloomberg. That comes as nations including Saudi Arabia and Russia have drastically scaled back output, draining the hoard at sea and diminishing the flow of cargoes. The spread between Nymex gasoline futures and WTI rallied over 9% on Friday toward $10 a barrel. Still, the so-called crack remains at its lowest seasonally since 2013. At the same time, Gulf Coast gasoline climbed to a one-month high as refiners snapped up winter-grade fuel and on dwindling fall stockpiles.

 The Debt Crisis Is Mounting For Oil Economies - Dubai. Abu Dhabi. Bahrain. And, of course, Saudi Arabia. The two emirates this year issued debt for the first time in years. So did Bahrain. Saudi Arabia stepped up its debt issuance. The moves are typical for the oil-dependent Gulf economies. When the going is good, the money flows. When oil prices crash, they issue debt to keep going until prices recover. This time, there is a problem. Nobody knows if prices will recover. In August, Abu Dhabi announced plans for what Bloomberg called the longest bond ever issued by a Gulf government. The 50-year debt stood at $5 billion, and its issuance was completed in early September. The bond was oversubscribed as proof of the wealthiest Emirate’s continued good reputation among investors.Dubai, another emirate, said it was preparing to issue debt for the first time since 2014 at the end of August. Despite the fact the UAE economy is relatively diversified when compared to other Gulf oil producers, it too suffered a hard blow from the latest oil price crash and needed to replenish its reserves urgently. Dubai raised $2 billion on international bond markets last week. Like Abu Dhabi’s bond, Dubai’s was oversubscribed.Oversubscription is certainly a good sign. It means investors trust that the issuer of the debt is solid. But can the Gulf economies remain solid by issuing bond after bond with oil prices set to recover a lot more slowly than previously expected? Or could this crisis be the final straw that tips them into actual reforms?No economy, especially not the ones dependent on a single export for most of its budget revenues, can rely on borrowing for long-term survival, let alone growth. In fact, the growth prospects of the Gulf economies are dimming, Reuters’ Davide Barbuscia wrote in a recent analysis of the region. Gulf governments are doing what they have always done: cut public spending and borrow. This time, however, the crisis is like no other before it, and these governments may find themselves in a tight spot while they wait for prices to bounce back. The problem is that public spending is the main growth driver in the Gulf economies, Barbuscia wrote, quoting the chief economist of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. If public spending falls, so will consumption and, therefore, growth. This is already happening and, what’s worse, it is happening across industries. Earlier this month, IHS Markit said, as quoted by Arabian Business, that non-oil private sector activity in Saudi Arabia and the UAE had fallen in August below 50—the figure that separates growth from contraction. That was after this indicator had registered improvement in the previous month despite still low oil prices. All Gulf economies—except Qatar—are expected to stay or swing into budget deficits this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. Saudi Arabia, the biggest economy in the region, is seen faring the best, with a deficit of 11.4 percent of GDP, and Oman faring the worst, with a deficit of 16.9 percent. Deficits happen. There is nothing extraordinary about them. What is extraordinary is the lack of wiggle room for the local governments. Investor interest in their new bonds may have been strong, but how likely would it be to remain strong for further debt issues if prices continue hovering around $40 a barrel? This is much below the Gulf economies’ breakeven levels, even the lowest ones. Saudi Arabia’s breakeven alone, according to the IMF, is $76.10 per barrel this year. It could fall to $66 next year, but this will still be too high for comfort with Goldman optimistically projecting Brent to hit $65 a barrel next year. In what is perhaps a cruel twist, this unprecedented situation is stifling the Gulf economies’ attempts to diversify their economies away from oil. This is incredibly obvious in Saudi Arabia, which had the ambitious goal of becoming a diversified economy by 2030. The goal, however, was to be financed with money from oil sales, and these collapsed this year as the pandemic spread globally.

US Sends M2A2 Bradleys To Challenge Russian Forces In Northern Syria - The US military has reinforced its troops, supposedly mostly withdrawn from Syria, with a new batch of military equipment, this time M2A2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. In an official comment released on September 18, the US-led coalition said that mechanized infantry assets, including Bradley IFVs, were positioned to Syria in order to “ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS”, “ensure the protection of Coalition forces” and “provide the rapid flexibility needed to protect critical petroleum resources”.The M2A2 Bradley is armed with a 25 mm chain gun, a 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun and a dual TOW anti-tank guided missile launcher. This makes the IFV the heaviest weapon deployed by the US on the ground in Syria.As of September 21, the newly deployed armoured vehicles were already spotted during a coalition patrol in al-Hasakah province, where the US has a network of fortified positions and military bases. US forces regularly conduct patrols in the area. Another area of US interest in Syria’s northeast are the Omar oil fields on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. Washington reinforced its troops deployed there with M2A2 Bradley IFVs in October 2019.The main difference is that, according to local sources, the vehicles deployed in al-Hasakah province will most likely be involved in patrols in the area and thus regular confrontations with the Russian Military Police and the Syrian Army.ust a few days ago, Russian attack helicopters chased US Apaches after they had tried to harass a Russian Military Police patrol. Earlier, the US military claimed that US troops sustained “mild injures”, when a Russian vehicle rammed a US MRAP in the al-Hasakah countryside.The US-led coalition regularly tries to limit the freedom of movement of Russian and Syrian forces in the northeast of the country and faces an asymmetric response. Now, US forces will have an additional argument in securing what they see as their sphere of influence.Syrian government forces have suffered even more casualties from ISIS attacks in the provinces of Homs and Deir Ezzor. On September 19, at least five members of Liwa al-Quds, a pro-government Palestinian militia, died in an explosion of an improvised explosive device near the town of al-Shumaytiyah. On September 20, an explosion hit a vehicle of the Syrian Army near al-Mayadin reportedly injuring several soldiers. Also, a field commander of the National Defense Forces was killed in clashes with ISIS terrorists west of Deir Ezzor.

 Japan is a 'democracy without women', says ruling party MP - A prominent member of Japan’s ruling party has described the country’s politics as “democracy without women”, days after the new prime ministerappointed just two female MPs to his cabinet. Tomomi Inada, a former defence minister from the governing Liberal Democratic party (LDP), added her voice to criticism of Japan’s poor record ongender equality, directing most of her anger at her own party. “Women make up half of Japan’s population and 40% of the LDP grassroots membership,” she said on Wednesday. “If women do not have a place to discuss policies they want enacted, Japan’s democracy cannot help but be biased.”During the campaign for leader of the LDP – who is practically assured of becoming prime minister due to its dominance in parliament – a group of female MPs submitted recommendations to the eventual winner, Yoshihide Suga, and his two male rivals on female representation in the cabinet and on the party’s executive.“But looking at the result, with just two women in the cabinet, it looks like our proposals weren’t taken that seriously,” she said.“I’m not saying this just for the sake of women. To enhance Japanese democracy and ensure it has a bright future I want to create a society in which women have more of a voice in politics. I want to realise a more free, democratic and diverse political landscape so that even in Japan women aim to become prime minister and girls aim to become politicians.”

GM's sale of India plant faces delays amid China tensions - Delays to General Motors' sale of its Indian plant to Great Wall Motor due to tensions between India and China are likely to result in hefty unplanned costs for the U.S. automaker. Gaining Indian government approval for China-related deals is now expected to take quite some time and although the sale should still happen at some point, GM has not changed its plan to begin winding down the plant's operations next month. "By next year, it will either be a closed GM site or it will be an operating site with Great Wall," said one source. GM had planned to use the expected sale proceeds of $250 million-$300 million to pay off liabilities incurred with its exit from manufacturing in India in what a second source said would have been a "no gain-no loss" situation. Although money will come through once the deal is done, it will now have to pay out of pocket for severance pay, some of which would never have occurred had the deal proceeded smoothly, as well as other costs -- which could amount to a couple hundred million dollars. Sources also said severance pay costs could be much higher than usual due to lack of clarity about the deal's prospects and workers' demands for greater relief given the low chances of finding new jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Melbourne Police Surround & Arrest 2 Elderly Women Resting On Park Bench For 'COVID Violation' --"Victoria Police have lost all commonsense," one Australian eyewitness quipped upon posting a video showing police telling a 38-week pregnant woman she can't sit down due to coronavirus and social distancing enforcement measures.  It's one of many recent viral videos to come out of Australia's southeast state of Victoria, home to Melbourne, showing absurd "crackdowns" by police for alleged coronavirus policy violators. "As a pregnant woman I can't sit in the park?" the incredulous woman whose story was covered widely in local media asked the couple of officers who harassed her. Apparently not... because COVID. “You can only be out of your house for one of four reasons,” the officer responded. “One of those would be exercise. Sitting in a park is not one of the four reasons.” The woman reasoned, “So, I’m pregnant and obviously my exercise is limited because I have to walk I’m now puffed out because I’m 38 weeks pregnant. So, even I can’t sit in a park, is that right?” “You can only be out for one of the four reasons,” the officer asserted, explaining that her designated one-hour of exercise outdoors still includes certain restrictions (as if free citizens are under a prison regimen!).But the above scene which unfolded earlier this month is nothing compared to another recent moment caught on video of police surrounding two old ladies resting on a park bench in Melbourne. This one made national media in Australia and is still going viral across the world after it happened during the first week of September: How many cops for two little old ladies? https://t.co/yb9R6nEIsd pic.twitter.com/wHqzT5HdG4    Here's how national news source news.com.au described the scene unfold: Dramatic footage has captured a bizarre stand-off between five police officers and two elderly women sitting on a Melbourne park bench.

Students occupy schools across Greece to protest unsafe return to classrooms --High school students in several cities on the Greek mainland and islands began occupying schools last week to protest the unsafe return to classrooms. Among the earliest schools occupied were in the cities of Karditsa and Agrinio. According to the director of secondary education in Karditsa, last Wednesday four of the five General Lyceums in the city, were occupied. The two Vocational Lyceum (EPAL) schools in Karditsa are also occupied by students. On Monday, dozens more schools nationally joined the protests; by Tuesday, more than 100 schools were being occupied nationally. Despite the resurgence of the virus in Greece this summer—fueled by the homicidal decision to let the tourist season proceed—Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ right-wing New Democracy government sent teachers and pupils back to classrooms on September 14. Over 557,516 high school students and 64,000 permanent secondary school teachers, a large part of Greece’s 10 million population, are in danger. The return to school has proceeded unopposed by the trade unions and the main opposition party, Syriza-Progressive Alliance. A banner on a school fence with some of the demands of the occupying students. It reads: “No more than 15 students per class, Give money to education, We are not expendable! (Credit: Pantelis Paspals/Facebook) Within one week, this disastrous policy has let COVID-19 rip through the school system, leading to the closure of at least 59 schools. To suspend the operation of a school, at least three cases of coronavirus—of people not directly related to each other—must be identified. This is contributing to a surge in coronavirus cases nationally, with 453 new coronavirus cases announced Monday and six deaths. On Tuesday, 346 new cases were recorded (210 of them in the most populated region, Attica) and 8 deaths. Seventy-seven patients are intubated. This brought total cases to 15,928 and deaths to 352. The demands of students occupying high schools include limiting classroom groups to at most 15 students; for immediately hiring more teachers to fill the gaps; that permanent cleaning staff be hired; and that cameras not be installed in schools for e-learning, as proposed by the government. At one school a banner put up by students read: “No more than 15 students per class, Give money to education, We are not expendable!” The government is letting teaching proceed based on maximum class sizes of 25 for primary schools and the last class of secondary school. For other secondary school classes, the maximum size is 27. These numbers are routinely breached.

 Student protests against herd immunity policy spread across Greece - Greek high school students marched Thursday in protests against the government’s herd immunity policy as occupations of high schools and strikes by doctors and transport workers spread across the country. This upsurge of social opposition comes as Athens hospitals, devastated by decades of European Union austerity, find themselves swamped with 580 COVID-19 victims as young as 17, including 70 intubated patients. Amid a total blackout in the international media, students at hundreds of high schools and broad layers of workers are joining the struggle against the EU’s back-to-school campaign, led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ right-wing New Democracy (ND) government. The return to school has proceeded without opposition from the trade unions or the main bourgeois opposition party, the pro-austerity Syriza (“Coalition of the Radical Left”). Doctors take part in a rally during a 24-hour nationwide strike by state hospital workers outside the health ministry in Athens, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis) Protests by high school students against the ND government’s guidelines for the return to school continue to accelerate. While on Monday dozens of high schools joined a movement to occupy the schools that began last week, by Tuesday 100 schools were occupied. Yesterday, Kathimerini reported that over 200 schools were occupied across Greece, mainly in the Attica region around Athens, Thessaloniki, Crete, Achaea and Magnesia. Anger is mounting among workers and youth over the lack of social distancing and conditions, such as large class sizes in poorly ventilated classrooms, which ensure that the virus will spread. The main demands of the protesting students include limiting class sizes to 15 and hiring on the basis of permanent contracts the number of teachers necessary to reduce class sizes, along with additional cleaning staff. Sections of workers are taking strike action in solidarity, while also demanding wage increases and contract revisions. On Thursday, a strike at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, shut down all traffic, including both merchant shipping and ferries, for 24 hours. From Monday to Wednesday, Olympic Air was forced by strike action to cancel 58 domestic flights between Athens and various Greek islands. On Thursday, students, joined by teachers and parents, marched in Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece’s two largest cities, criticizing both herd immunity policies and the military buildup against Turkey being carried out by the Mitsotakis government, in alliance with France.

National Education Union letter to Boris Johnson: A total surrender to herd immunity - The National Education Union (NEU) has offered continued collaboration and support for the Johnson government’s herd immunity programme. Millions of teachers and students have been forced to confront the devastating consequences of the full reopening of schools from September 1. There has been a massive surge in coronavirus outbreaks, with 1,700 schools recording infections. Many have been forced to close, fully or partially. Teachers have already begun to be hospitalised and teachers’ mental health is now recorded as the most compromised of any profession. Warnings have been issued by Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer, that the virus is “spiralling out of control” with 50,000 daily infections predicted in the next four weeks and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a raft of ineffectual measures to suppress the pandemic. The death rate could rise to 200 a day by November. How has the “largest teaching union in all of Europe” responded? Despite growing opposition by its members, it has not raised a single demand on the government to protect its members. Instead it insists that the Tories must “act now” and fondly “hopes” that this hated government “will be able to get this situation under control quickly.” The NEU letter sent on September 20 to Johnson, which was made public in a break with the union’s normal practice of behind the scenes discussions, takes a solemn tone. “The issues raised in this letter are so serious and pressing that we are making its contents public,” the NEU writes. The “serious situation” does not reference any concerns regarding the impact of schools in accelerating the circulation of the virus, or on the risks that are posed for the health of staff or children. The union’s concerns focus on the catastrophic failure of the “test, track and trace” system in undermining its support for the full reopening of schools, which the NEU has desperately tried to sell to its membership. The letter states, “As the testing regime buckles under the strain of demand, staff and pupils cannot get tested, or get results, and schools cannot deal with outbreaks or sustain full opening if people are unnecessarily isolating.” The NEU fully accepts the government’s insistence that schools must not close under any circumstances and explains, in introducing the letter, “With lockdowns likely but further school closure ruled out by the Government, today’s letter calls for the testing regime to be significantly and urgently increased for schools.”

Report demolishes government claims that reopening UK schools reflects concern for disadvantaged children - Since the reckless reopening of the UK economy from the beginning of July and all schools at the beginning of September, the number of coronavirus cases has escalated out of control. Weekly figures show a doubling of new infections, directly related to the premature lifting of lockdown before the virus was sufficiently suppressed and adequate public health measures put in place. As early as May, Boris Johnson’s Conservative government—backed by the Labour Party and the unions—insisted schools be reopened so parents could return to work. Health Secretary Gavin Williamson dismissed the safety concerns and opposition of parents, educators and doctors as “scaremongering,” claiming the government had the best interests of children at heart. Such nonsense is belied by a damning report by the Social Mobility Commission (SMC), “The Long Shadow of Deprivation: Differences in Opportunity across England.” The SMC is an advisory public body sponsored by the Department of Education. Its remit is to monitor and encourage ways to achieve social mobility in the UK. Published as schools began reopening their gates, its findings confirm what has long been known—that inequality in educational outcomes is directly related to economic deprivation, over which successive governments have presided. The inequality persists and widens post-education, with children from poorer backgrounds in general earning less than their peers with the same educational qualifications. Williamson said, “We recognise that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are the ones that are going to suffer the most if we do not bring schools back when we are able to do so.” The recent A-level assessment scandal, which forced the government into a U-turn with an apology, exposed this hogwash. The exams were cancelled due to the pandemic, and rather than base this year’s grades on teacher assessments, an algorithm was used which favoured children from better off areas. Almost 40 percent of pupils’ grades were downgraded, revealing that the awards were based on social class, not merit. Pupils attending private schools saw their grades rise. The education of poorer children is of as little concern for the Johnson government as the health of the working class.

We Must Defeat the US Trade Deal - The Johnson government is sabre-rattling once again over what it will accept in a trade deal with the EU. The details of the arguments appear technical and arcane, while the media like to portray it as a bitter dispute between a divorcing couple. Sadly, this obscures the real nature of what’s at stake, which is no less than the future of Britain – what sort of country we become after Brexit, and what role we play in the world.  That’s because modern trade deals set so many of the rules by which we live our lives. They have huge implications for our society and economy. Britain has a choice about the standards and rules it wants to live by. But it can’t have both European and American standards. Drawing closer to one bloc pushes us further from the other. For many on the right of the Tory Party there is no contest – tilting towards the US will embed a big business, low regulation model. Signing any sort of significant deal with the EU makes this harder to achieve. In this piece, I look at what is at stake and how we can stop Johnson’s government using these parallel talks to change Britain for the worst. The article is taken from my new book, ‘Trade Secrets: the truth about the US trade deal and how we stop it’, which also includes full referencing and is available for free here