Fed bosses says interest rates will go above 5%—but when and by how much remains a mystery - Two Federal Reserve officials said Monday that the central bank will likely need to raise interest rates above 5% before pausing and holding for some time. “We are just going to have to hold our resolve,” Raphael Bostic, president of the Atlanta Fed, told the Atlanta Rotary Club. He said the Fed was committed to tackling high inflation and this warrants raising interest rates into a 5% to 5.25% range to squeeze excess demand out of the economy. He later told reporters that the case for reducing the size of the Fed’s rate hikes to 25 basis points would be boosted if data due Thursday showed consumer prices cooling, following evidence that wage gains have also slowed. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, speaking in a live-streamed interview with the Wall Street Journal, also said she expects the central bank to raise interest rates to somewhere above 5%, though the ultimate level is unclear and will depend on incoming data on inflation. Neither Bostic nor Daly has a vote on policy this year. Policymakers meet at the end of the month and are expected to either raise rates by 50 basis points for a second straight time or slow down to a quarter-point hike. “Doing it in more gradual steps does give you the ability to respond to incoming information,” Daly said. She stressed that it’s too early to “declare victory” over persistent inflation. The Fed slowed its rate-hike pace at its December meeting while emphasizing that additional tightening is coming and that borrowing costs will likely remain at high levels for some time in order to bring inflation down to the central bank’s 2% target. Neither Daly nor Bostic vote on policy this year. Daly last month said she sees rates remaining restrictive for longer than seen by markets, which have cuts priced in for this year. She said holding the federal funds rate at its peak for 11 months is a “reasonable starting point.” Asked by the moderator how long he saw rates above 5%, Bostic said: “Three words: a long time.” “I am not a pivot guy. I think we should pause and hold there, and let the policy work,” he said. He told reporters after his speech that his forecast had rates on hold through all of next year in order to avoid “bouncing” Fed policy around. Fed officials meet on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 and are expected to deliver either another 50-basis point rate hike or further slow the pace to a quarter percentage point, though traders see the latter as more likely. A report Friday showed hiring in the US labor market remained robust in December while wage gains cooled. Bostic said that if consumer price index data due Thursday also showed inflation pressures easing, it could strengthen the case for reducing the size of rate increases to 25 basis points. “If the CPI comes in showing the same kind of trending that we saw in the jobs number, that will make me have to take 25 more seriously, and to move in that direction,” he said. “But we still have some time to go before that.”
U.S. Fed to raise rates near 5.5% by May, predicts Citigroup CEO - Nikkei Asia-- The U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates to just under 5.5% by May, with an economic recession likely sometime in the second half of 2023, predicts Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser. In a written interview with Nikkei, Fraser said that while "overall U.S. inflation has peaked, services inflation continues to be painfully persistent." "We see the Fed increasing its terminal rate to just under 5.5% by next May and holding rates at that level through the end of [this year]," she said in the interview. Members of the Federal Open Market Committee anticipate rates peaking at 5.1% in 2023, based on the median forecast. "I think a recession is likely to happen in the U.S. sometime in the second half of 2023," Fraser said. The rapid pace of U.S. rate hikes since last year has slowed financial markets, with Citigroup's net profit declining 34% on the year for the January-September period. "No part of the industry has felt the impact of the macro environment more than investment banking," Fraser said. "A stalled deal environment made 2022 a difficult year across the board." Meanwhile, "loans and interest-earning balances are increasing" in the U.S. as spending and borrowing normalize, she said. Fraser also discussed Citigroup's progress on plans to pull out of Russia. "We are moving forward with winding down our consumer business in Russia and will be ending nearly all institutional banking services there by the end of Q1 2023." The Bank of Japan recently widened the target band for long-term interest rates, signaling a shift in monetary policy. Fraser cited the analysis of Citigroup's economic team that the BOJ is "aiming to eliminate side effects that have materialized to date and hence make accommodative financial conditions more sustainable." "If the BOJ were to make additional adjustments, they could well spur further yen strength, dragging down not only corporate earnings (and the equity market) but potentially the inflation outlook as well," according to the analysis. Regarding the stability of the financial system, Fraser said, "as an industry, I believe we're much better positioned, well capitalized and more resilient than we were in 2008." With the bankruptcy of cryptocurrency exchange operator FTX Trading, Fraser said that "recent events underscore the need for regulation around digital assets and crypto markets." "Like any financial institution, operators in this field need to be subject to capital, liquidity and risk management standards," she said.
Jamie Dimon says Fed 'may very well' raise interest rates to 6% - Jamie Dimon expects the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates higher than most officials and Wall Street strategists have forecast as the U.S. central bank continues its fight against persistent inflation. The chief executive officer of JPMorgan (JPM), the largest consumer bank in the U.S. by assets, said Tuesday in an interview with Fox Business Network that the Fed’s terminal rate may hit 6%, a level notably above the 5% many have called for. “Whether 5% interest rates are enough to slow inflation to where it needs to be, I don’t know,” Dimon said during the discussion at JPMorgan’s annual health-care investment-banking conference in San Francisco, citing fiscal stimulus that was “so large and still largely unspent.” “Is it 5%? My view is, it may very well be 6%,” he added. This time last year, Dimon was among the first voices on Wall Street to predict – correctly – that Federal Reserve officials would deliver as many as six or seven increases to their benchmark policy rate as prices rose at a historic pace. He said the three or four hikes investors were bracing for at the time were a low estimate. In 2022, the U.S. central bank lifted rates seven times to a cumulative increase of 4.25% to the highest in 15 years from near-zero levels. At least 75 basis points more of hikes are expected this year. Dimon also told Fox Business on Tuesday that Fed officials should move rates to 5% and then pause to assess their lagging impacts on the U.S. economy. "We were a little slow getting going. It caught up. I don't think there's any harm done by waiting three to six months to see what the full effect this is around the world," he said. "I'm on the side where it may not be enough." He also separately indicated he was not sure if wage inflation would peak "the way people think."
Fed policymakers signal rate-hike slowdown coming, but no easing (Reuters) - Federal Reserve policymakers on Thursday expressed relief that inflation continued easing in December, paving the way for a possible step down to a quarter point interest rate increase when the U.S. central bank meets in just under three weeks.U.S. consumer prices fell in December in the first month-to-month decline in more than 2-1/2 years, and underlying inflation slowed, government data showed on Thursday. In the 12 months through December, the so-called core CPI increased 5.7%, the smallest gain since December 2021 and fresh evidence the Fed's aggressive rate increases are"We are in fact constraining the economy and presumably in the process constraining inflation. That means for me I can be a little more nuanced," in deciding the size of upcoming rate increases, Richmond Federal Reserve president Tom Barkin said in comments to reporters in Richmond. After raising rates by half a point at its December meeting, Barkin said he was "in concept supportive of a path that is slower but longer and potentially higher" depending on how inflation behaves."Hikes of 25 basis points will be appropriate going forward," Philadelphia Fed president Patrick Harker said in a speech to a local group in Malvern, Pennsylvania, adding that once rates get just above 5%, "I expect that...will be restrictive enough that we will hold rates in place to let monetary policy do its work."The December inflation data was "welcome news," Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic said in an interview with CBS News. "It really suggests inflation is moderating and that gives me some comfort that we might be able to move more slowly."The Fed set the target policy rate between 4.25% and 4.5% at its December meeting. Data since then has shown inflation easing and the labor market slowing modestly from the torrid pace of job and wage growth through much of 2022.The data has kept the Fed's hope of a "soft landing" in view, and led policymakers this week to talk more openly of scaling rate hikes back to the quarter point increments the Fed used more commonly in recent decades. In contrast to the first half of 2022, when those most concerned about inflation called for larger rate increases, no one is publicly pressing their colleagues for a half point increase - even as some have remained open to the idea."It is encouraging that we got some information today that went in the right direction," on inflation, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said at an event organized by the Wisconsin Bankers Association.Bullard noted inflation remains far above the Fed's 2% goal, and he repeated that he would like the central bank's policy rate to exceed 5% "as soon as possible."
Despite Losses since September, the Fed Still Made a Profit for the Whole Year 2022, Remitted $76 billion to US Treasury Dept. by Wolf Richter -The Federal Reserve released unaudited preliminary financial information for 2022 today (audited financial statements will be released in a few months). And we knew what would happen, we discussed this a few times before: In September 2022, the Fed started losing money on a weekly basis. In the four months from September through December 31, the Fed lost $18.8 billion, the Fed reported today.But its net income for the first eight months of the year amounted to $78 billion, far bigger than the loss of the last four months in the year, and for the year as a whole, it had a net income of $58.4 billion (-46% year-over-year).In 2022, the Fed hiked all its policy rates by 425 basis points, including the interest rates it pays the banks on their reserve balances and the interest rate it pays its counterparties of the overnight reverse repurchase operations. And that’s where the losses are coming from.The problem that has arisen is that the interest it pays on about $5.2 trillion in combined reserves and RRPs started to exceed the interest it receives from its securities that it bought when interest rates were far lower, and which QT has reduced from nearly $9 trillion at the peak in April, to $8.5 trillion now.The losses don’t matter to the Fed. The Fed creates its own money, and so it cannot become insolvent. And its capital, which is capped by Congress, is not impacted by the losses because the Fed carries the losses as a “deferred asset” on its balance sheet, rather than taking the losses against capital. You can see this on the balance sheet: Since the losses started on a weekly basis, the Fed’s capital has remained unchanged at $41.8 billion.When the Fed starts making money again in the future – after QT has sufficiently reduced the reserves and RRPs, which reduces interest expenses – its net income will then be taken against that deferred asset until the deferred asset is extinguished.The losses do matter to the Treasury Department – which is no longer getting the weekly remittances from the Fed.Every week, the Fed has to remit its estimated income to the Treasury department, and those remittances stopped in September when the Fed started losing money. The remittances won’t get going again until the deferred asset has been fully wiped out by future net income. So it could be years before the Treasury gets any remittances again.
The clock is ticking on the Kansas City Fed's presidential search - The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's search for a new president is coming down to the wire.Esther George, the bank's current president and CEO, turns 65 on Sunday, a milestone that triggers her mandatory retirement, according to Federal Reserve System rules. With just a matter of days left before that marker is reached, the Kansas City Fed's presidential search committee has yet to identify a replacement. Bill Medley, a spokesman for the reserve bank, said the search for a new president is ongoing, but declined to provide a timeline for its completion. "Esther George plans to retire at the end of January after she reaches age 65, as required by the Federal Reserve's mandatory retirement rules for Reserve Bank presidents," Medley wrote in an email last week. "The search committee is continuing their work to identify a qualified candidate. We don't have an update at this time."The search for George's successor comes at a fraught time for the Kansas City Fed. The institution is being sued — alongside the Federal Reserve Board of Governors — for its handling of a master account application from one nontraditional financial institution and investigated by Congress for its handling of another. George's impending departure also comes at a moment of heightened congressional scrutiny of reserve banks broadly. Last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and then-Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., co-authored a bill that would impose greater transparency requirements on the Fed's 12 regional reserve banks. Meanwhile, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., spent much of last year calling for Latino representation, either on the Board of Governors or as a reserve bank president.
Dollar at 7-month low vs euro on slower Fed rate hike expectations (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar on Monday slid to a seven-month low against the euro as traders bet recent economic data would prompt the Federal Reserve to slow the pace of interest rate hikes, while riskier currencies benefited from China reopening its borders. The euro was up 0.96% at $1.0747 at 2:50 p.m. EST (1950 GMT), its highest level versus the greenback since June 9, adding to Friday's 1.17% increase. Sterling surged 0.87% to $1.21975 against the dollar, building on Friday's 1.5% rally, while the Swiss franc jumped 0.82% to $0.92, its strongest since early March.
Americans Extremely Pessimistic About US Prospects in 2023- Gallup - Coming off several challenging years, Americans enter 2023 with a mostly gloomy outlook for the U.S. as majorities predict negative conditions in 12 of 13 economic, political, societal and international arenas. When offered opposing outcomes on each issue, about eight in 10 U.S. adults think 2023 will be a year of economic difficulty with higher rather than lower taxes and a growing rather than shrinking budget deficit. More than six in 10 think prices will rise at a high rate and the stock market will fall in the year ahead, both of which happened in 2022. In addition, just over half of Americans predict that unemployment will increase in 2023, an economic problem the U.S. was spared in 2022. On the domestic front, 90% of Americans expect 2023 will be a year of political conflict in the U.S., 72% think the crime rate will rise, and 56% predict there will be many strikes by labor unions. Regarding world affairs, 85% of U.S. adults predict the year ahead will be fraught with international discord rather than peaceful. And while 64% think the United States’ power in the world will decline, 73% think China’s power will increase. However, 64% of Americans expect Russia’s power in the world will decrease in 2023, likely a reflection of that country’s recent setbacks in its war against Ukraine.
NY Fed Survey Finds 1-Year Inflation Expectations Drop To 5.0%, Lowest Since July 2021 - (several graphs) With long-term inflation expectations (those 3-Years ahead or more) peaking more than a year ago, and even shorter inflation expectations - at least according to the NY Fed Survey of consumers - now sliding after hitting a record high 6.8% in June and dropping alongside 2Y breakevens which recently hit the lowest level in 2 years, wiping out two years of gains... ... it is hardly a surprise that the latest just released NY Fed survey showed a continued drop in inflation expectations, as median one-, three-year-ahead inflation expectations decreased to 4.99% from 5.23% - one month after plunging more than 0.7% from October's 5.94% print - the lowest since July 2021, while 3-Years dipped to 2.99% from 3.00%; 5-year inflation expectations, which the NY Fed tracks only periodically, posted a modest increase from 2.32% to 2.42%. In August, this ad hoc series hit its lowest level yet, dropping to just 2.0%. Median inflation uncertainty—or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes—was unchanged at the short-term horizon and decreased at the medium-term horizon to the lowest level since April 2021. Separately, the median home price growth expectation increased fractionally to 1.3% after dropping to 1.0% from 2.0%, the lowest reading since May 2020 a decrease which was "driven by those in the South census region." Despite this increase, home price growth expectations remain subdued relative to their pre-pandemic levels. Also, a 1% increase which is laughable when 30Y mortgages are about 5-6%... ... while labor market expectations paradoxically remaining very strong (apparently no tech workers were surveyed)... ... although a sliver of concern about the labor market could be found in the survey's job separation expectations, which rose to 12.6%, the highest since Nov 2021, even as the probability of voluntarily leaving one's job was unchanged. Yet nowhere was the self-delusion more evident than in household income growth expectations, which jumped to a new record high of 4.6% from 4.5%. Not surprisingly, the increase was driven exclusively by respondents with no more than a high school education.
Nation closing in on $31.4T borrowing limit -- The federal government is closing in on the $31.4 trillion borrowing limit, meaning a high-stakes fight over raising the debt ceiling is fast approaching. An estimate from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation places the nation’s debt at $31.39 trillion and counting on Wednesday, just a hair below the limit set more than a year ago. That doesn’t mean the debt ceiling will have to be lifted this week — or even this month. The Treasury Department can generally use what are known as extraordinary measures to put off an actual debt crisis. But it’s clear the fight is edging closer, putting the White House on a collision course with a new House majority demanding deep discretionary spending cuts in exchange for any increase to the debt ceiling. “I think this is going to be the defining moment of the year,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) said, adding it’s “certainly possible that we’ll hit that limit this month, or next month.” The extraordinary measures used by Treasury generate cash to help the government pay its debts, which include halting pension fund contributions and prematurely redeeming Treasury bonds, could run out sometime in July, according to an estimate from the CRFB. That means Congress will need to act by mid-summer at the latest to prevent the government from defaulting on its debt. Just getting close to the so-called X-date poses risks. After the 2011 debt ceiling fight between Republicans and then-President Obama, S&P downgraded the nation’s long-term credit rating. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) promised that any debt ceiling increase would be paired with spending cuts to win over his GOP opponents in last week’s Speakership fight. But Democrats will likely refuse to go along with those cuts, setting up a stalemate. “If you’re going to ask for an increase in the limit, at some point in time, you’ve got to sit down and say why are we hitting the limit? Why are we maxing out the credit card?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters Tuesday. Experts say that a default on the federal debt could upend the financial system and send the U.S. economy into a recession, in addition to pausing government benefits such as Social Security and Medicare.Biden administration warily planning for debt ceiling showdown --The tumult surrounding Kevin McCarthy’s election to House speaker, and the rules changes that have empowered members of the far right, have previewed a number of potential showdowns. But none promise to be as high stakes as the one over the debt ceiling. As the chaos unfolded last week, there was a growing sense of wariness and uncertainty over just how close the nation may come to fiscal calamity. That has pushed the White House, months before the nation could hit its borrowing limit this summer, to begin laying the groundwork for negotiations. Senior White House officials and aides from the Office of Legislative Affairs have already fanned out across the Hill, introducing themselves to freshman lawmakers and staff and zeroing in on moderate Republicans whom they imagine might be getable in a debt ceiling vote, according to several people familiar with the strategy. Many of their prime targets are Republicans who won in districts that President Joe Biden carried in 2020 and those whose rhetoric and voting record suggest they could be persuaded to steer clear of the fiscal cliff. The West Wing will later woo those lawmakers by giving them audiences with the president on Air Force One, Kennedy Center seats and visits to the White House as Biden and his aides press their case. “We start relationship building, establishing points of contact,” Louisa Terrell, White House director of the office of legislative affairs. “We’re building a scaffolding right now with our team. And [the outreach] is personal, clearly one size does not fit all.” The White House is not taking the looming standoff lightly, noting that, among House Republicans, the saber-rattling has already begun. Some Republicans, armed with only a razor-thin majority, have publicly entertained the idea of demanding policy concessions in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling ahead of its late September deadline. Democrats counter that no such concessions were made under Donald Trump and that, more importantly, a default would potentially upend the financial markets, cost millions of jobs and downgrade the nation’s credit rating. But the concessions McCarthy made to become speaker in order to appease some of the hardliners in his caucus stripped him of some power he may need to keep the party in line. And his deal with conservatives stipulates that Republicans won’t support a debt limit increase if Congress doesn’t enact steep discretionary spending cuts or pass significant fiscal reforms to rein in the federal debt.
U.S. will hit its debt limit Thursday, start taking steps to avoid default, Yellen warns Congress - Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday notified Congress that the U.S. will reach its statutory debt limit next Thursday.After that, the Treasury Department this month will begin “taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations,” Yellen wrote in a letter to new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. The Treasury “is not currently able” to estimate how long those emergency actions will allow the U.S. to pay for government obligations, she wrote. But, “It is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June,” Yellen added. She warned McCarthy that it is “critical that Congress act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit.” “Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability,” Yellen wrote. “I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.” A spokeswoman for McCarthy had no immediate comment on Yellen’s letter. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters later Friday, “Congress is going to need to raise the debt limit without condition” “It is one of the basic items that Congress has to deal with and that should be done without conditions. So there is going to be no negotiation over it,” Jean-Pierre said. “This is something that must get done.” Yellen’s letter effectively starts a clock counting down how long the federal government can continue to make interest payments on its debt. Congress in December 2021 increased the federal debt limit to about $31.4 trillion.
Yellen says US is projected to hit debt ceiling on Jan. 19 | The Hill - Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the U.S. is projected to reach its roughly $31.4 trillion borrowing limit in less than a week. Yellen shared the estimate in a letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Friday. She also warned the department would soon have to begin taking “extraordinary measures” to stave off a default to buy time for Congress to find a bipartisan solution.Those measures include temporarily redeeming existing and suspending new investments of the Civil Service, Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, as well as suspending reinvestment of the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan.Yellen added that the funds would be “made whole” after the debt limit impasse has ended. While the secretary said it’s unlikely cash and extraordinary measures will run out before early June, she stressed the measures will only last for “a limited amount of time” and pressed for Congress to “act in a timely manner” to raise or suspend the ceiling. The letter to McCarthy comes as a high-stakes fight over raising the debt ceiling looms over the further Congress after Republicans took back control of the lower chamber last week.McCarthy has pressed for any action to address the debt ceiling to be tied to spending cuts sought by Republicans. However, proposals for significant cuts are likely to find trouble in the Senate, where Democrats still hold control.“If you’re going to ask for an increase in the limit, at some point in time, you’ve got to sit down and say why are we hitting the limit? Why are we maxing out the credit card?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporters earlier this week.
Yellen says U.S. to take extraordinary steps to avert a default - Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the department will begin taking special accounting maneuvers on Jan. 19 to avoid breaching the U.S. debt limit, urging lawmakers to boost the ceiling to avert a devastating payments default."The period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty," Yellen wrote in a letter to bipartisan congressional leaders Friday.Still, "it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June," she said.The letter kicks off what is likely to be a prolonged, intense political battle over U.S. fiscal policy, a showdown that could strain financial markets and elevate dangers for an economy already facing the risk of recession. Economists expect the Treasury will run out of cash around August if the debt ceiling isn't boosted.The House's Republican leaders say they'll insist on spending cuts in return for agreeing to boost the debt limit. But Democrats, who control the Senate, and President Biden reject such "hostage-taking" maneuvers and want a straightforward increase, such as Congress offered former GOP President Donald Trump.The current debt limit, or the total debt the Treasury can issue to the public and other government agencies, is just under $31.4 trillion. It was set in December 2021, when Congress raised it by $2.5 trillion.Currently, the government is roughly $78 billion away from reaching the limit.In her letter, Yellen said the Treasury's extraordinary measures would begin by redeeming existing — and suspending new — investments of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund. The department will also suspend reinvestment of the Government Securities Investment Fund of the Federal Employees Retirement System Thrift Savings Plan.Those funds will be made whole after the impasse on Capitol Hill ends, Yellen said, appealing to lawmakers to prevent a standoff from threatening U.S. finances and financial markets.It's "critical that Congress act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit," she wrote. "Failure to meet the government's obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans and global financial stability."Should the Treasury become unable to issue fresh debt and then run out of cash, the US government would default on its financial obligations. Wall Street analysts say the risk of default doesn't really loom until the second half of 2023, after the extraordinary measures the Treasury uses to avoid exceeding the cap are exhausted. "This is about the United States government honoring the obligations that prior Congresses have already made," Brian Deese, director of the White House's National Economic Council, said in a Bloomberg Television interview Friday. "It's a sacred obligation — the full faith and credit of the United States — and Congress is going to have to deal with the debt limit, and do so without conditions, without games and without putting our economy at risk."Yellen said during the 2021 fights over the debt limit that federal contractors and employees would go unpaid and Social Security checks would stop, among other things. Unless their payments were prioritized, investors in Treasury securities wouldn't receive interest payments or get back their principal on maturing bills, notes and bonds.Some economists and bond strategists are warning of the kind of turmoil seen in 2011, when a debt-ceiling standoff saw S&P Global Ratings downgrade the sovereign U.S. rating from AAA. Equities tumbled around the world, and U.S. consumer confidence was hit, undermining the post-financial-crisis economic recovery. Lawrence Summers, one of Yellen's predecessors as Treasury chief, said earlier Friday that fights over the debt limit are the "dumbest" in Washington, given how vital it is to honor US obligations."A default would be a catastrophe — it would mean higher borrowing costs forever," said Summers, a Harvard University professor and paid contributor to Bloomberg Television.
Treasury's Yellen to stay on at Biden's request as showdown over debt nears - President Biden asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to stay in her post, and she agreed, a White House official familiar with the matter said. Biden made the request in mid-December, the official said. Biden is preparing for turnover in his Cabinet and questions have swirled over how long Yellen would remain in his administration. Bloomberg has previously reported that Yellen, 76, was prepared to remain Treasury secretary well after the midterms. Yellen told NBC in November that she intended to stay for "the duration" of Biden's current term. The development ensures stability at the Treasury ahead of a fight in Congress over raising the debt ceiling and a looming threat of a recession as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to cool inflation.The move also gives Yellen more time to see through some of her key priorities, including a revamp of the Internal Revenue Service, reforms at the World Bank and adding pressure on Russia over its Ukraine war via sanctions and the oil price cap. While Yellen already enjoys strong standing with many of her international counterparts, the public confirmation bolsters her position abroad by removing any concerns among foreign finance ministers, central bank governors and other officials that Treasury policy was subject to a significant change. She's scheduled to attend this year's first Group of 20 finance ministers meeting next month in India, after a visit to Africa later this month.
GOP divisions over Social Security, Medicare cuts forecast tough fights ahead - The House Republicans are divided over cuts to Medicare and Social Security, setting up what could be a fierce internal clash over the future of the nation’s top safety net programs when Congress delves into budget fights later in the year. Entitlements have long been a political third rail, but some in the GOP say everything is on the table and are eager to use upcoming debt ceiling negotiations to extract promises to reduce government spending, including entitlement funding. That could pit the GOP’s staunchest deficit hawks against other conservatives who insist Medicare and Social Security will be left alone and the cuts will come from elsewhere. With a narrow GOP majority, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) can lose only four votes on any bill, and will have to find a way to placate the lawmakers calling for hard cuts. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of the conservative leaders who extracted a promise from McCarthy to limit new discretionary spending, insisted entitlements are safe. “It took approximately .2 seconds for everybody to be saying, ‘You’re gonna slaughter defense … You’re gonna hurt Social Security and Medicare.’ Everybody calm down,” Roy said in an interview with conservative radio host Jesse Kelly. “What we have been very clear about is, we’re not going to touch the benefits that are going to people relying on the benefits under Social Security and Medicare,” he said Sunday on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’ The official rules package Republicans passed earlier this week calls for equal or greater cuts in mandatory spending to offset any new spending, but it did not specify where those cuts needed to come from. Yet other Republicans are concerned that excluding the entitlements from the debate creates a greater threat to defense programs, which conservatives are vowing to protect. “I’m all for a balanced budget, but we’re not going to do it on the backs of our troops and our military,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) told Fox Business this week. “If we really want to talk about the debt and spending, it’s the entitlement programs.” The GOP divisions are sure to be a headache for McCarthy and other Republican leaders later in the year when both chambers are expected to consider an increase in the debt ceiling — a routine procedural move allowing the federal government to borrow money to fund obligations Congress has already approved. Republicans are eyeing the debt ceiling vote and possible government default as a way to force Democrats into concessions. McCarthy has not weighed in on the issue since Republicans won the House majority in November’s midterms. But he’d indicated heading into the elections that Republicans would use their new power to prioritize cuts in federal spending, and that entitlement cuts were not necessarily off the table. The Republicans’ cautious approach to entitlement programs this year represents a sharp contrast to the party’s position over recent decades, when GOP leaders have hammered Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as socialist initiatives — inefficient and anti-American — that threaten individual freedoms. Ronald Reagan, even before Medicare’s creation in 1965, warned of the existential dangers of “socialized medicine.” Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) wanted Medicare “to wither on the vine.” Former president George W. Bush privatized parts of Medicare, and sought to extend that push to Social Security. And former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who had built his wonky reputation as chair of the Budget Committee, used that perch to propose annual budgets that ended traditional Medicare, turning it into a voucher program, and privatized Social Security. The arrival of President Trump marked a stark recalibration of those long-held positions, beginning on the very first day of his candidacy in 2015 when he vowed to “save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — without cuts.” That promise was a head-snapping reversal for the GOP, but it helped the populist Trump build support from working-class voters — who benefit disproportionately from the entitlement programs, and tend to support them as a result — who ultimately ushered him into the White House. Now, as Republican leaders are facing pressure from their right flank to slash federal spending and rein in deficits, entitlements have emerged as ground zero in that debate. Members are walking a fine line by calling for reforms in the name of keeping entitlement programs solvent, without actually labeling them “cuts.” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said Republicans should “absolutely” make entitlement changes a condition of raising the debt ceiling later in the year. But the goal should be to “secure” those programs, he said, not get rid of them. “Do you realize that Medicaid and Medicare will be insolvent by 2026? That Social Security will be insolvent by 2033? That’s why we’ve got to act,” he said Wednesday. “But our goal, our charge, should be to save and stabilize, not to cut.”
Schumer, Jeffries call on ‘MAGA Republicans’ to avoid default -- Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) issued a joint statement Friday calling on Congress to avoid a potential default “forced by extreme MAGA Republicans,” the opening salvo in what will be a months-long battle over raising the federal debt limit. Lawmakers in both parties predict the Democratic-controlled White House and Senate are headed for a showdown with newly elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the debt limit after McCarthy pledged to House conservatives last week to attach spending reforms to debt limit legislation. Schumer and Jeffries called on Republicans to move quickly on debt limit legislation without having to go through lengthy and arduous spending negotiations, as Congress did three times under President Trump. “Congress must act on legislation to prevent a disastrous default, meet our obligations and protect the full faith and credit of the United States. A default forced by extreme MAGA Republicans could plunge the country into a deep recession and lead to even higher costs for America’s working families on everything from mortgages and car loans to credit card interest rates,” the Democratic leaders said in a joint statement, referring to former President Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Schumer and Jeffries argue that addressing the debt limit “is about meeting obligations the government has already made” to various constituencies, such as Social Security recipients and veterans. “The debt limit was increased in a bipartisan way three times when Donald Trump was president, twice when Republicans had majorities in the House and Senate. This time should be no different,” they said. They noted that Democrats want to move quickly to pass debt limit legislation “so there is no chance of risking a catastrophic default,” and alluded to the nation’s credit downgrade in 2011 after a prolonged standoff over raising the debt limit. “We’ve seen in previous debt ceiling stand-offs that even the threat of default leads to even higher costs for working families. Republican leaders must do the right thing to protect Social Security, the economy and our country,” Schumer and Jeffries warned. They issued their statement shortly after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned McCarthy and other congressional leaders Friday that the nation would hit the debt limit on Jan. 19, requiring the Treasury Department to take extraordinary measures to prolong the nation’s solvency another few months. Yellen estimated those measures would allow the federal government to cover its financial obligations until at least early June.
Biden meets with Mexican president as immigration issue erupts in U.S. - — President Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met at the National Palace here Monday, embracing in a group hug with their wives as they sought to present a united front amid stubborn tensions over irregular migration and a historic number of deaths from drug overdoses.“Looking back on our shared history, it is clear that the stronger and safer we both are is when we stand together,” Biden said at the beginning of the meeting. “Mexico is a true partner, and when we work together in common values and mutual respect, nothing much is beyond our reach.”One day earlier, Biden and López Obrador projected an image of camaraderie riding together in the U.S. leader’s limousine from the airport into the Mexican capital.In recent days, the Mexican leader provided crucial support for two of Washington’s priorities — signing on to a U.S. plan that will send more border-crossers back into Mexico and capturing Ovidio Guzmán, an alleged fentanyl kingpin and the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.For all the goodwill on display, though, there is considerable friction between the neighbors. The fentanyl crisis in the United States has shown no signs of abating, becoming the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49, and Mexican cartels have become a main source of the drug.The Mexican president, a longtime leftist icon popularly known as AMLO, has adopted nationalist energy policies that have triggered a major fight with his partners in the North American free-trade agreement. Washington has also lobbied López Obrador to alter his policies favoring fossil fuels over green energy.Andrew Rudman, the director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, said that in recent decades, “U.S. and Mexican presidents always shared a common vision of the way the world was supposed to be,” particularly on economic issues such as free trade. “AMLO doesn’t share that view.” Monday’s bilateral meeting will be followed by a “Three Amigos” summit on Tuesday that includes Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The session is expected to include discussions on trade and how to strengthen North American supply chains as manufacturers shift production from China because of political tensions and fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Opinion | Brazil's democracy should stand strong against an insurrection - The Washington Post Editorial Board - If Sunday’s violent right-wing stampede in Brasilia were a movie, you would say it was almost a shot-by-shot remake of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Once again, a mob, summoned to a nation’s capital via social media and inflamed by false claims of election fraud, could be seen smashing windows, invading government offices, assaulting journalists and, in at least one case, attacking a police officer. Though the human toll in death and injury was less than that of Jan. 6, the Brazilian rioters’ imitation — just over two years later, almost to the day — of the pro-Trump assault in D.C. provided ugly proof that the example set by the United States carries global impact. Vigorously and appropriately condemned by Brazil’s political leaders and democratic counterparts around the globe — led by President Biden — the attack on Brazil’s Congress, presidential office and Supreme Court failed to trigger a military coup, which bitter-end followers of defeated former president Jair Bolsonaro have been seeking since the new leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, won a close election runoff in October. That’s the good news. More troubling was the apparent ease with which the mob acquired and boarded a fleet of buses and then descended on Brasilia’s government quarter all but unopposed by the police. Now, hundreds have been arrested and encampments where Brazilian election denialists were allowed to gather for weeks leading up to the attack have been dismantled. Yet the Brazilian Supreme Court seems justified in suspending Brasilia’s governor — a onetime Bolsonaro ally who nominally commands the relevant state police forces — pending investigation into his possible culpability. Mr. Bolsonaro deserves much of the blame. To be sure, his violations of democratic norms were somewhat less flagrant than those of the former U.S. president. Whereas Donald Trump was still in office, and still in Washington, riling up the mob, on Jan. 6, and then failing or refusing to use his power to stem the violence, Mr. Bolsonaro had already been replaced by Mr. Lula on Jan. 1. He issued no overt call for protests on Sunday and had made statements against post-election violence. He was in Florida on Sunday, whence he denounced the assault. Nevertheless, Mr. Bolsonaro’s persistent stoking of election-fraud fears before the balloting process, and his refusal to explicitly concede defeat or to attend Mr. Lula’s inauguration delegitimized Brazil’s democracy and fed far-right conspiracy theories that ultimately exploded in Brasilia. Sunday’s events show that Brazil is deeply divided politically and that a far-right minority is willing to use violence. Mr. Lula had his hands full already with a Congress dominated by opposition parties. He should nevertheless follow through vigorously on his promise to investigate the incident and to bring all guilty parties to justice. In that respect, he can look to more positive U.S. examples: investigations by the Justice Department and the House Jan. 6 committee.It is still too soon to tell whether Sunday’s attack marked the opening of a budding insurrection — or the final spasm of a failed one. The United States should support Mr. Lula’s efforts to ensure it is the latter.
America’s Trumpist export to Brazil: Election denialism - Eugene Robinson - What makes Sunday’s violence and destruction in Brasilia so deeply shocking is that we saw it here first. Instead of serving as a model of democracy, the United States has given the world lessons in denying election results and stoking popular disappointment into nihilistic rage. It was impossible to witness the trashing of Brazil’s Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court and not immediately think of theJan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Both uprisings followed presidential elections in which far-right populists refused to acknowledge their defeats. Both involved planning and organization. Both saw the desecration of buildings that are sacred symbols of national identity and pride — and vicious, bloody attacks against police officers struggling vainly to keep the peace. There were some differences. Donald Trump was still president when he summoned his “stolen election” true believers to Washington and sent them to the Capitol; he watched the insurrection on television from the White House. Jair Bolsonaro, Trump’s Brazilian mini-me, had been out of office for a week — he refused to attend his successor’s inauguration, going so far as to leave the country — and was holed up Sunday near Orlando, of all places, where days earlier he was photographed eating at Kentucky Fried Chicken. But in both cases, unprecedented savagery was inspired by a cynical and unscrupulous leader who amassed his following by inflaming his supporters’ most atavistic fears and resentments, who sought not to unite his nation but to divide it — and who was willing to respect democratic norms only when election results went his way. That these awful events happened in the Western Hemisphere’s two biggest democracies is ominous. The sacking of Brasilia might be a last-gasp spasm of the fascist-adjacent authoritarianism that has established footholds in so many countries over the past two decades. Or it might be a portent of what is to come.
Brazil says it's ready to seek extradition of Bolsonaro ally - (AP) — A high-ranking Brazilian security official who flew to the U.S. before a riot that that some have called an attempted coup must return within three days or his country willl request his extradition, Brazil’s justice minister said Friday. The Supreme Court has issued an arrest warrant for the federal district’s former security chief in connection with the Jan. 8 uprising in the capital, where supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed Congress, the top court and the presidential palace in an attempt to overturn election results. The administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in October, is investigating any complicity by people who paid to transport rioters to the capital and by local security personnel who may have stood aside and let the mayhem occur. His minister of institutional relations, Alexandre Padilha, said Thursday on Twitter that “the coup attempt was meticulously premeditated and sketched out” and that its authors will be punished. Much of the focus has centered on Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, who became the federal district’s security chief on Jan. 2, and was in the U.S. on the day of the riot. The Supreme Court’s Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Torres’ arrest this week and has opened an investigation into his actions, which he characterized as “neglect and collusion.” In his decision, which was made public Friday, de Moraes said that Torres fired subordinates and left the country before the riot, an indication that he was deliberately laying the groundwork for the unrest.m
House rules changes breeze through the chamber following a bitter speaker fight : NPR - The House of Representatives has approved the rules package for the 118th Congress in a near party-line vote, in what marked the first legislative test of newly elected Speaker Kevin McCarthy's narrow GOP majority. Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas joined all Democrats in voting against the package. Negotiations on the rules package were central to McCarthy's dramatic and prolonged bid for House Speaker. McCarthy was able to secure the gavel by brokering a deal to win over a block of holdouts in the far-right faction of his conference.Perhaps most notable among McCarthy's concessions was allowing just one lawmaker to force a vote on ousting the speaker.Gonzales, the lone GOP dissenter, had expressed concerns about cuts to defense spending, and said the one-member threshold on a motion to vacate the chair could lead to "nightmare after nightmare" for House Republicans.. Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde, a McCarthy holdout who eventually flipped his vote for speaker last week, praised the motion to vacate during debate on the House floor Monday night. "By restoring this historic rule, every solitary member has the authority to hold the speaker accountable for following all of the rules," he said. Part of the brokering surrounding the speaker's elections also included commitments to cut government spending, according to lawmakers involved in negotiations. Among the key rules changes conservatives won are:
- Just one member to sponsor a motion to remove the speaker, instead of requiring a majority of either party. McCarthy had resisted this change, instead seeking a compromise that would require five members to advance the motion.
- The establishment of a "Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government." The subcommittee is expected to investigate what conservatives see as the politicization of the FBI and DOJ.
- 72-hours notice before voting on a bill.
GOP adopts House rules, its first legislative victory after messy start - House Republicans adopted a sweeping rules package Monday night, despite frustrations within the conference over private agreements GOP leadership made with the 20 conservatives. Only one House Republican, Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, voted against the rules package released by Speaker Kevin McCarthy — a victory that allows the new House majority to officially begin organizing after a nearly week-long delay. And it’s the kind of political win that McCarthy and his allies sorely needed after the messy roller-coaster of the past week. House Republicans have worked to pull themselves together this week, teeing up their first major legislative vote on a bill that would repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents while also settling a handful of contested committee gavels. The party will name the final panel head, over the House Budget Committee, later Monday night. GOP lawmakers were keen to move on from last week’s theatrics, which culminated in a 2 a.m. speaker vote on Saturday morning. But it was clear the tensions hadn’t yet entirely faded. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), a member of the GOP’s steering committee, had stunned his colleagues by announcing he would step down from the panel after his confrontation on the floor Friday night with conservative rabble-rouser Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). But by mid-afternoon Monday, Rogers — who also chairs the House Armed Services Committee — had reversed course, telling POLITICO that both party leaders and rank-and-file members had urged him to stay on the panel and he planned to remain for the rest of the term. Rogers’ switch is the latest glimpse at the dishevelment that continued to consume the House GOP even after the chamber elected McCarthy as speaker in Saturday’s early hours. And allies of McCarthy also sought to make the case that the plan they established was one the party could get behind, even if some openly voiced opposition to lowering the threshold so only one member of either party could move to depose the speaker. The vote on the rules package marked McCarthy’s first legislative challenge, but proved he was capable of holding his divided conference together as Republicans worked to adopt a resolution that would govern how the House operates for the next two years. The package included basic rules on decorum and legislative action, but changes to the agreement became key bargaining chips as McCarthy worked to flip his conservative opponents last week. Some of the concern was centered over defense spending. Gonzales had said he would vote against the package in part because of potential ramifications to national security spending. It was a major concern roiling the GOP, though it’s not formally enshrined in the rules package. Defense hawks fear that McCarthy’s commitment to balancing the budget within a decade — which will require holding down spending levels to the fiscal year 2022 levels or lower — will cannibalize the Pentagon’s budget. And Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) had said she wanted more details on what handshake deals McCarthy made with his doubters last week that aren’t in the official text, but her office on Monday confirmed she would support it.
House Rules Package Approved Amid Concerns About McCarthy’s Concessions - NYTimes — House Republicans on Monday pushed through an overhaul of operating rules for the new Congress, overcoming the concerns of some rank-and-file members about concessions that Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to the hard right last week in the desperate and drawn-out process of securing his job.Mr. McCarthy clinched the speaker’s gavel early Saturday after a historic 15 rounds of voting that stretched across five days, and after giving in to a sweeping series of demands from the ultraconservative rebels who opposed him, including allowing any single lawmaker to call a snap vote to oust him. The struggle underscored how difficult it would be for him to corral his narrow majority, and in the hours before the vote on Monday, he was already confronting his first challenge, uncertain whether he would have the votes even to approve the rules that would allow the House to begin legislative business.In the end, a handful of holdouts dropped their opposition and supported the measure, putting aside reservations about Mr. McCarthy’s concessions, including some that they worried could lead to deep cuts in military spending.The package passed on Monday evening in a mostly party-line vote of 220-213, with just one Republican voting “no.” It includes the so-called Holman rule, which allows lawmakers to use spending bills to defund specific programs and fire federal officials or reduce their pay; makes it harder for lawmakers to raise the debt limit; and paves the way for the creation of a new select subcommittee under the Judiciary Committee focused on the “weaponization” of the federal government. Taken together, the rules increase transparency around how legislation is put together. But they could also make it difficult for the House to carry out even its most basic duties in the next two years, such as funding the government, including the military, or avoiding a catastrophic federal debt default.“Bills appear by dark of night; bills that nobody’s read that are thousands of pages long,” said Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the majority leader. “Today starts that process — of fixing what’s broken in Washington so that Washington can finally start working for the people of this country who are struggling.”Even as Republicans praised the legislation, the full extent of concessions Mr. McCarthy had made to appease the hard-right rebels was not yet fully known. Details were trickling out in the hours before the scheduled vote, and some lawmakers expressed doubt that they would ever know the entirety of what the speaker had privately promised.Many of the concessions — such as allowing the party’s right wing a critical bloc of seats on the panel that decides which bills can be considered on the House floor and which amendments may be offered — were not included in the package that passed on Monday, but instead were approved in closed-door negotiations with a handshake agreement.“Some sort of deal was hashed out for the majority of the 20 to vote for McCarthy for speaker, but this deal was crafted in private, behind closed doors,” Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina wrote in a letter to her constituents on Monday. “We can’t think of anything more ‘swampy’ than a member of Congress who tells the American people they’re holding up the speaker vote because they’re ‘fighting’ the ‘swamp’ only to broker some back-room deal, hidden away from the American people.”Still, Ms. Mace, who had initially signaled she might oppose the rules package because she and other rank-and-file lawmakers had yet to be briefed on the full extent of Mr. McCarthy’s concessions, supported the legislation after all.
US House passes rules package dictated by Republican far rightOn Monday night, the US House of Representatives passed the package of rules dictated by the most right-wing, fascistic elements in the Republican conference in the course of the 15 ballots and five days it took to elect California Representative Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker. With a narrow majority of 222-213 in the House, the Republicans can afford only four defections to get measures passed, and there was some speculation that there would be a sufficient number of GOP holdouts, combined with a party-line “no” vote by the Democrats, to block the rules package. In the event, only one Republican voted against the proposal and one other failed to show up for the vote. Tony Gonzales, from Uvalde, Texas, voted “no.” He did so on the grounds that side agreements reached behind closed doors in talks between McCarthy and the 20 Republican holdouts during the Speaker election to cap federal discretionary spending at 2022 levels could mean a significant cut in military spending. In fact, according to Roll Call, negotiators have given assurances that the spending cut—$130 billion, or 8 percent—would be in social programs and the military would be largely spared. Texas Representative Dan Crenshaw did not vote. He had been seeking the chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, but was passed over in favor of Mark Green of Tennessee, a Freedom Caucus member, in another concession to the most right-wing forces in the Republican House conference. Passage of rules for the operation of the House in the new, 118th Congress was required before any legislation could be initiated. Normally a routine procedure, this time, as with the Speaker election itself, it became the means by which members of the House Freedom Caucus effected a further lurch to the right of not just the Republican Party, but the entire two-party system of American capitalism. For the most part, the changes in House rules adopted Monday had been agreed by the House Republicans prior to the election for House Speaker. The most prominent alteration, demanded by the holdouts, was a reduction in the number of House members required to trigger a vote at any time to remove the Speaker from five to one. This, of course, makes McCarthy—himself a Donald Trump acolyte who voted against certifying the 2020 election and was supported by Trump for House Speaker—little more than the Freedom Caucus fascists’ cat’s paw. Prior to the vote on the rules package, there were some grumblings by Republicans about the side agreements accompanying the rules that have not been revealed, even to the House members themselves. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of the grumblers, threatened to vote “no” and wrote in a letter to her constituents: “Some sort of deal was hashed out for the majority of the 20 to vote for McCarthy for speaker, but this deal was crafted in private, behind closed doors.” She pointed to the obvious hypocrisy and cynicism of lawmakers claiming to be bringing “transparency” and open debate to the House while refusing to reveal what members were really agreeing to. Nevertheless, she voted for the rules. The basic thrust of the rules changes is to slash federal spending on social programs, block tax increases on the wealthy, and make it easier to block federal government funding and any increase in the debt limit. They also include a provision to establish a select subcommittee, under the House Judiciary Committee, to investigate the Justice Department and other federal agencies that are conducting probes of Trump and the January 6, 2021 coup attempt. Among other things, this subcommittee on “the weaponization of the federal government,” to be headed by Freedom Caucus co-founder and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, will likely seek to end the prosecution of the fascist insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol. The rules package restores the so-called “Holman Rule,” which allows House members to use spending bills to defund specific programs and fire federal officials or reduce their pay. It also includes provisions aimed at gutting the House Ethics Committee.
Unpacking the House GOP's new rules: A handy guide to the changes - The House rules plan that amounted to Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s first legislative victory on Monday night brings much bigger consequences than 55 pages suggest — it will shape the chamber’s operations and what bills can win approval over the next two years. Adoption of the rules package is a routine step in setting up any new Congress, but what is traditionally seen as a “housekeeping” issue will effectively determine how Republicans can govern the chamber. That’s why the rules measure was the centerpiece of high-stakes negotiations between McCarthy and the crop of rebellious conservatives who kept from the gavel for much of last week, talks that started just after the House was called for Republicans in November. Even before they started hashing out handshake deals as McCarthy scrambled for votes to become speaker, conservatives had already racked up victories in the rules package. They had pushed for, and won, provisions that require bills be focused on a single subject — part of an effort to reign in sprawling, take-it-or-leave-it legislative behemoths that both parties’ leaders have muscled through in the past. Their victories only grew as McCarthy pushed toward his 15th-ballot speakership victory, however: Conservatives successfully pushed to allow a single member to propose what’s known as a “motion to vacate the chair,” a vote that would effectively topple a sitting speaker. And they secured the ability to seat three of their own on the House Rules Committee, which would give McCarthy’s right flank de facto veto power over any bill that comes to the floor. At the heart of the rules push by rank-and-file conservatives, including many in the Freedom Caucus, is a desire to shape a more inclusive legislative process that concentrates less power with leadership. To that end, they have secured promises from leaders that aren’t formally written down in the rules, such as allowing more amendments to be considered on the floor and more widely distributing committee positions. Here’s a look at the most consequential elements of the rules package that passed Monday night:
- Republicans have killed Democrats’ “pay-as-you-go” rule, often shorthanded as PAYGO. It had required legislation that would add to the deficit to be offset with tax increases or spending cuts. The GOP has replaced PAYGO with what it’s calling CUTGO, which requires mandatory spending increases to be offset only with equal or greater decreases in mandatory spending — no new taxes allowed.
- House Republicans’ historically slim majority will, in its rules package, constrain itself severely on tax rate increases — requiring a three-fifths supermajority vote to pass any. In practice, however, that’s more of a statement of ideology than a policymaking gesture. Unlike in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to steer most bills past a filibuster, in the House Republicans will have nearly total control over what legislation and amendments are considered on the floor. And, of course, they aren’t interested in moving proposals to increase tax rates.
- The package purges the Democrats’ so-called “Gephardt rule,” which had allowed the House to automatically send a measure extending the debt limit to the Senate when it adopts a budget resolution. That maneuver had been used to let the House avoid a direct vote on lifting the debt ceiling.
- Republicans have revived the “Holman rule” originated in the 19th century that allows Congress to amend spending bills with the intent of salary reduction or employee termination, or cutting a specific program. In recent years the rule was used to reduce the salary of the administrator of the Western Area Power Administration to $1 and to eliminate 89 positions at the Congressional Budget Office’s Budget Analysis Division.
- To make good on their pledges of more federal government accountability, Republicans are requiring every committee to submit a plan for authorization and oversight to the Oversight and House Administration Committees by March 1. They also want a full accounting of any unauthorized federal programs and agencies that received funding in the last fiscal year. The rules package further requires committees to weigh whether any programs should be moved from mandatory funding to discretionary funding, which would force that spending out of an automatic process every year and into one controlled by lawmakers.
Progressives eagerly await their chance to harass McCarthy - Kevin McCarthy’s concessions to conservatives did more than win him the speaker’s gavel — they empowered House progressives to wreak havoc. And they’re eager to mess with him. Republicans’ new rules allow just one member, regardless of party, to force a floor vote on deposing the speaker. And liberal Democrats, some of whom are part of the progressive “Squad,” are warning they have no problem with using the move against McCarthy, even if they don’t expect it to succeed.“Why not? You know, that sounds like a good idea. I mean, you’re still going to need what, 218 for passage, right? But listen, man, he has a very slim majority,” mused Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). “Whenever we want to cause complete chaos, we’ll do that.” The gambit, known as the motion to vacate, would almost certainly fail this early in the new Congress, as Republicans can use a procedural move to toss the motion before it actually gets a vote and Democrats would need GOP support to reach the required majority. But progressives’ zeal confirms a fear from McCarthy’s allies — that a rule he greenlighted to assuage conservatives could easily cause frequent headaches. Still, while progressives dream of stirring trouble for their cross-aisle colleagues, Democratic leaders seem happy to let him stew in the speaker’s chair for a bit amid divisions in his own conference. They say they aren’t considering using the move, at least for now. A Democratic leadership aide noted it was clear the party didn’t need to help Republicans with their infighting and suggested such a motion from the minority party could strengthen McCarthy’s hand. “It’s the furthest thing from my mind at this point,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters. Another senior Democrat, House Rules Committee ranking member Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), said: “I want to get stuff done, and so it’s not where I’m at.” House lawmakers have rarely invoked the motion to vacate, and never successfully. In previous years, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had an unspoken, informal agreement: Pelosi would defend Boehner from potential motions to vacate in order to back the institution of the House, according to two people familiar with the situation. And while conservative hard-liners did push for the motion in 2015 against Boehner, he resigned the gavel before it ever came to a vote. When Democrats came back into the majority in 2019, they severely weakened the motion to vacate, essentially requiring a party leader to sign off on any attempt to bring it to the floor.
Republicans to pass changes to how Office of Congressional Ethics works - The House on Monday passed a rules package that included changes to how ethics-related complaints about members of Congress are handled.According to a summary of the GOP’s proposed rules changes released last week, the package imposes term limits of eight years for the eight board members of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), an independent body established in 2008 that investigates complaints about sitting members of Congress. Any board members who have exceeded those term limits would be removed.The rules package also requires the OCE board to appoint staff within 30 calendar days, and that the hiring and compensation of those staff members would need to be approved by at least four board members.Democrats and liberal groups decried the proposed changes, saying they would hobble the way the OCE functions.Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist with the liberal think tank Public Citizen, criticized the first provision as a way for Republicans to remove long-standing Democrats from the OCE board.The second is to make it difficult for OCE to staff its office,” Holman said in a statement. “These are measures that will render the ethics office ineffectual and which no Member, from either party, should support.Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at the nonpartisan watchdog Common Cause, said Monday the changes would “handcuff” and “significantly weaken” the OCE.“After showing America how not to pick a Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy and his team are now showing America how not to design the Rules of the House,” Rep. Jamie Raskin said in a statement Monday that panned the rules package, including the components that he said would “undercut” the independent ethics office.
House GOP obsesses over mirage of a backroom-deal doc - It’s the three-page document everyone in Washington is talking about — except it may not even exist. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his GOP allies insist that no back-room promises were made to land his gavel after 15 frenetic ballots, that no plum committee spots, precise spending cuts, or debt limit strategy were guaranteed in a quid pro quo. Agreements and goals were reached with conservatives who initially withheld their votes from the speaker, GOP leaders say, but nothing was formalized in writing. McCarthy made his denial of any backroom agreement plain on Thursday, telling reporters: “There’s not a side deal to anything.” But that doesn’t change the reality outlined earlier by Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who leads the Republican Governance Group: “There’s all these people talking about a document that doesn’t exist.” But the debate surrounding the document has exposed a trust problem days into McCarthy’s speakership. There’s plenty of paper flying around summarizing handshake deals between the speaker and his members, and some GOP lawmakers have muddled their leaders’ message by talking candidly about what they secured in exchange for their speaker votes. That boasting has heightened worries within the conference about working together in good faith for the next two years. Nearly a full week after McCarthy’s battle played out in extraordinarily public fashion, lawmakers in his conference are still striving to learn details of what’s been promised and to whom. “You’ve got members who don’t believe other members because they read something. It’s about trust. You either trust people or you don’t,” Joyce said. The situation has grown more complicated this week, as GOP leadership outlined the concessions that it prefers to interpret as agreements and as some House Republicans open up about what they got from last week’s frenetic talks. One McCarthy holdout, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), bluntly told Fox News when asked “what did you get” that he would join the influential GOP Steering Committee “as Speaker McCarthy’s designee.” McCarthy also informed members that the House would take its first-ever vote this Congress on a contentious national sales tax bill that Georgia Republicans — including McCarthy dissenter Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) — have pushed for decades. “That was part of the negotiation. The 20 conservatives who were holding out, one of the things that they wanted was to see it come to the floor for a vote,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said.
Whisper campaign about RNC chair candidate’s Sikh faith roils campaign - As Harmeet Dhillon seeks the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, opponents have begun raising concerns about her Sikh faith — a development that has left some members of the committee unsettled. Two supporters of Dhillon, who is challenging incumbent RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, told POLITICO that McDaniel allies have brought up Dhillon’s religious affiliation with them in recent weeks. One of the two said that a fellow RNC committee member, who is openly supporting McDaniel in the race, brought up concerns about Dhillon’s “Sikh faith” during a recent phone conversation. That person was granted anonymity to discuss the matter. The topic has become so buzzed about that Dhillon herself has been forced to address it publicly, this week retweeting RNC members who condemned those drawing negative attention to her religious affiliation. McDaniel on Wednesday said she “wholeheartedly condemn[s] religious bigotry in any form.” “We are the party of faith, family and freedom, and these attacks have no place in our party or our politics,” McDaniel said in a statement to POLITICO. “As a member of a minority faith myself, I would never condone such attacks. I have vowed to run a positive campaign and will continue to do so.” The focus on Dhillon’s faith hasn’t just come from people supporting McDaniel. In an email sent to an RNC member on Sunday, a purported supporter of “MyPillow” CEO Mike Lindell, who is also running for committee chair, brought up Dhillon’s religion as an issue. The copy of the email, which was provided to POLITICO with the sender’s name redacted, urged the recipient to support Lindell, an “ardent Christian conservative.” “She is an Indian Sikh by birth and heritage, Not of Judeo-Christian worldview,” the emailer wrote of Dhillon. “None of these core character positions aligns with the Republican Party Platform, planks, or conservatism in general.” Reached for comment, Lindell told POLITICO to “shove it.” In a statement to POLITICO, Dhillon called it “hurtful to learn that a handful of RNC members, in a close race for RNC chair, have chosen to question my fitness to run the RNC by using my devout Sikh faith as a weapon against me.”
Curious about George: House Republicans debate Santos’ fate - House Republicans know George Santos is a problem. They’re just not sure what to do about him yet. The New York Republican landed on the Hill for his first term last week with a reputation marred by multiple public falsehoods about his past — behavior that conflicts with his party’s vocal campaign pledges to step up accountability and transparency, particularly among government officials. The GOP conference is now deliberating over how to handle a member who’s been publicly ridiculed as a fraudster, including whether Santos should receive committee assignments. Some members are openly pushing to sideline him until internal investigations can dig through his campaign finances, and even basic biographical information. “I don’t have any historical precedent about what’s appropriate here. And I do think that matters,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), chair of the Republican Main Street Caucus. “In my mind, I wouldn’t seat the guy until we have an investigation done. I think there are enough legitimate concerns out there about his behavior.” Johnson added that while he has not spoken to Speaker Kevin McCarthy about the matter directly, he has raised it with other members. It’s not yet clear how much of the GOP conference feels the same way about Santos’ admitted fabrications, with much of members’ attention still trained elsewhere. Before McCarthy’s speakership battle, though, some current and former House Republicans made clear they wanted him distanced — particularly as some feared he may have violated federal laws. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.), told reporters Santos shouldn’t be seated on committees that handle certain sensitive information. “I don’t think he should be on national security committees but that’s for leadership to decide,” he said. Santos told POLITICO on Monday that he hasn’t spoken to McCarthy about committee assignments yet, but that he expects to receive them like other members of the GOP conference. Another member, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), told CBS on Sunday that it would be “very difficult to work with anyone who cannot be trusted.” She acknowledged: “It is a problem.” The agita over Santos comes as McCarthy and his leadership team work furiously to move past last week’s speakership election theatrics and get to the work of governing. After 15 rounds of votes consumed the House GOP’s first week in power, Republicans are now forging ahead with setting up committees, prepping legislation and scheduling long-awaited hearings. In a conference meeting on Tuesday morning, the mood was mostly upbeat as McCarthy and his deputies talked about their big plans for the two years ahead — from spending freezes and “balanced budgets” to symbolic floor votes on term limits and a sweeping tax bill that would eliminate all corporate taxes, abolish the Internal Revenue Service and create a national sales tax. McCarthy has for weeks declined questions about how he plans to address Santos, whose support was crucial for the California Republican in a speakership election so tight that multiple Republicans needed to vote “present” to successfully hand him the gavel. And Majority Leader Steve Scalise acknowledged there are some “concerns,” but disclosed only that GOP leaders would tackle them “internally.”
Santos refuses to resign amid calls from local N.Y. GOP -— Rep. George Santos refused to resign Wednesday despite a parade of Republican Nassau County officials demanding he step down. Officials from across Santos’ Long Island district and beyond gathered at the headquarters of the Nassau County Republican Committee to offer biting critiques of the newly sworn-in Republican. Critically, they pledged to cut Santos’ local support system off at the knees after he fabricated much of his resume and backstory during a successful Congressional campaign last year. Santos “is a stain on the House of Representatives. He’s a stain on the 3rd Congressional District,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said at a media briefing. He added that he told his staff that any constituent calls to Congress “will now be referred to Congressman Anthony D’Esposito.” D’Esposito, a Republican who represents a neighboring district, dialed into the press conference remotely to also call for Santos’ ouster. And later in the day, outgoing state GOP chair Nick Langworthy, a newly elected House member, said too that Santos should go. “It’s clear that he cannot be an effective representative and it would be in the best interest of the taxpayers to have new leadership,” Langworthy said in a statement. While the briefing was nominally aimed at Santos, the Nassau County GOP also appeared to be worried that their association with the controversial first-term representative could hurt their chances at expanding on recent electoral gains. The 3rd Congressional District that Santos just won, for example, was formerly held by Democrat Tom Suozzi. “This scandalous behavior does damage to all of our reputations because there is a part of our public that is cynical about politicians and public officials,” said Richard Nicolello, the presiding officer of the Nassau County Legislature. Speaker after speaker took to the microphone at the Westbury, N.Y., headquarters with unsparing criticism of Santos — and some expressed hurt that Santos had lied to them personally during endorsement interviews. “We got into it, started getting personal about the fact that he came from a poor background but that he was able to be very successful,” Nassau County GOP Chair Joseph Cairo Jr. said. “He told me, I remember specifically, I’m into sports a little bit — that he was a star on the Baruch [College] volleyball team, that they won the league championship.” Santos never attended Baruch. With so many speakers pledging to ice out Santos and deny him support for any reelection campaign, Wednesday’s announcement cemented that any future bid by Santos to stay in the seat would be incredibly difficult. Yet, Santos told reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday morning that he has no plans to resign. He also repeated that assertion in a tweet, adding that he regrets “to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office.”
McCarthy doesn’t call for Santos to resign: ‘The voters elected him to serve’ House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday declined to call for Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) to resign over fabrications about his résumé and questions about his finances even as New York Republicans raised the pressure on the embattled first-term lawmaker. “I try to stick by the Constitution. The voters elected him to serve. If there is a concern, and he has to go through the Ethics, let him move through that,” McCarthy told reporters on Wednesday. “He will continue to serve,” McCarthy said of Santos. McCarthy’s comments mark his most substantive statements to date about Santos, weeks after the congressman admitted to misrepresenting his background. Asked about Santos admitting to fabricating parts of his resume, McCarthy said, “So did a lot of people here in the Senate and others.” That deflection echoed Santos pointing to President Biden and other Democrats when asked about the fabrications. But Santos’s fabrications about going to college, working at major financial institutions and having employees killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting, misleading claims of Jewish heritage, and major questions about his sharp increase in reported personal wealth that he used to finance his campaign put him in a class of his own. “It’s the voters who made that decision. He has to answer to the voters and the voters to make another decision in two years,” McCarthy said.
House GOP votes to slash IRS funding, targeting pursuit of tax cheats - Fulfilling their 2022 election pledge to take aim at President Biden’s economic agenda, House Republicans late Monday voted to strip roughly $71 billion from the Internal Revenue Service, targeting money Congress approved last year to help the agency find and pursue tax cheats.The 221-210 outcome marked the first major legislative effort by a new GOP majority now under the leadership of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Its passage over strong rebukes in the Democratic-led Senate — and a threat by the White House to veto it — ultimately foreshadowed Republicans’ eagerness to challenge their political foes in an increasingly divided Washington.Democrats provisioned nearly $80 billion for the IRS last year for a widerange of uses — boosting taxpayer services to quicken agency response times, for example, while upgrading its aging computer systems. The funds included more than $45 billion for enforcement, since party lawmakers hoped to empower the IRS to find and collect unpaid federal taxes, particularly from high-earning individuals and businesses.But Republicans, who unanimously opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, seized on the spending starting last year. They quickly turned it into an election-year cudgel, accusing Democrats of trying to pry into innocent Americans’ finances. And GOP lawmakers repeatedly — and falsely — claimed that the IRS planned to hire more than 87,000 tax auditors with the money. The party appeared to take the figure from a 2021 Treasury Department report that projected the total hires across all of the agency’s operations over the next decade.Touting the bill before the House vote, Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), its sponsor, said Republicans hoped to preserve a small portion of the money previously awarded to the IRS to improve its operations. But he added that the cuts, which congressional analysts have tallied at more than $71 billion, would aid Americans who are “struggling under the weight of recent inflation and supply chain shortages.”“The last thing they need is more IRS agents knocking on doors to conduct audits,” Smith alleged.Democrats, meanwhile, repeatedly pilloried Republicans for engaging in political hyperbole — and faulted the GOP for pursuing legislation that would add to the federal deficit despite the new majority’s fervent commitments to improve the country’s fiscal health. The criticisms came in the wake of a report Monday from the Congressional Budget Office, which found that clawing back IRS funds would curtail its ability to collect unpaid taxes, adding about $114 billion to the deficit over the next decade.
In 2022, The IRS Went After The Very Poorest Taxpayers - Despite $80 billion in new funding, the agency is living up to its reputation of hassling low-income taxpayers over rich people... On Wednesday, Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) released data provided to it by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on audits performed by the agency in fiscal year 2022. Despite the infusion of new funding earmarked for the IRS via last year's Inflation Reduction Act, the agency continued historic trends of hassling primarily low-income taxpayers, with relatively few millionaires and billionaires getting caught up in the audit sweep. "The taxpayer class with unbelievably high audit rates—five and a half times virtually everyone else—were low-income wage-earners taking the earned income tax credit," reported TRAC, noting that the poorest taxpayers are "easy marks in an era when IRS increasingly relies upon correspondence audits yet doesn't have the resources to assist taxpayers or answer their questions." In fact, "if one ignores the fiction of auditing a millionaire through simply sending a letter through the mail, the odds that millionaires received a regular audit by a revenue agent (1.1%) was actually less than the audit rate of the targeted lowest income wage-earners whose audit rate was 1.27 percent!"The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, directed $80 billion worth of new funding over the next decade to the IRS so it could hire 87,000 new workers, purportedly to better target millionaire and billionaire scofflaws. The Biden administration and credulous journalists claimed that this would in no way increase audits for those making under $400,000 annually—suspect assurances not provided within the text of the actual bill. This increased capacity meant only those at the top would be targeted, supporters insisted. But this ignores how the IRS's incentives work and how agencywide reform might be too heavy of a lift. Correspondence audits—which are conducted via mail, and are the type frequently used when interacting with the poorest of taxpayers—are much easier and cheaper to conduct than other types of audits. Plus, the earned income tax credit is easy to get wrong. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that new hires with experience in the field will take almost three years of ramp-up time, with more junior new hires taking longer. The lag time between 2022's infusion of funding, and legitimately increased capacity, will be enormous—if the agency can even snag the best in the industry when TurboTax and H&R Block will surely be swelling their own ranks. It makes sense that, given a dearth of experienced auditors not likely to be fixed soon, the agency would rely on the easiest and least time-consuming types of audits.
Washington Post fact-checker gives GOP four ‘Pinocchios’ for IRS ‘agents’ claim - The Washington Post’s top fact-checker has given the GOP four “Pinocchios” for repeated false claims about federal funding for IRS personnel under President Biden’s administration. Citing a series of comments made by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and others, the Post’s Glenn Kessler labeled the GOP’s promise to “defund 87,000 IRS agents” a “zombie claim,” describing it as one that keeps “rising from the dead no matter how often they have been fact-checked.” On Monday, the House passed legislation rescinding an IRS funding boost signed into law last year. The Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act was a key part of the Republican platform ahead of the 2022 midterm elections and promises to rescind “unobligated balances of amounts appropriated or otherwise made available” to the IRS from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. Republicans have repeatedly falsely described the 87,000 new IRS employees, who would be added over the course of a decade, as “agents.” The 87,000 figure comes from a May 2021 Treasury Department compliance report estimating new hires at the IRS over a decade with the $80 billion funding boost. But only a small portion of the department’s current employees are agents, The Hill previously reported, and the department has said the figure accounts for other workers such as customer service representatives and computer scientists as well as replacements for the 52,000 employees expected to retire or resign within the next six years. Kessler also took issue with GOP politicians using of the word “agents” in his report. “We originally gave this claim Three Pinocchios because at least Republicans could point to a number in a Treasury report,” Kessler wrote. “But now, after repeated fact checks, there is really no excuse, and we are upping the rating to Four Pinocchios.” A representative for McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment on Kessler’s fact-check.
House Creates Panel To Probe "Weaponization Of The Federal Government" - The new Republican-majority House voted Tuesday afternoon to create a select subcommittee to investigate the “weaponization of the government” by federal law enforcement agencies under Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration. The special panel would have various functions, including the authority to have subpoena power to receive information on intelligence-related activity that’s typically only shared with the House Intelligence Committee.It would also have the authority to probe the federal government’s expansive role in investigations on U.S. citizens, including in ongoing criminal investigations. The panel would also have the power to probe how federal agencies communicate with private companies to collect information on Americans, according to the text of the resolution.The resolution to create the “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” passed on a straight party-line vote of 221-211. The panel is part of the House Judiciary Committee. Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is also expected to chair it. It would comprise 15 members—nine Republicans and six Democrats—to be appointed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who chairs the House Rules Committee, said the new panel is modeled on the Church Committee, a U.S. Senate select committee in 1975 that investigated U.S. intelligence agencies. That committee “uncovered and exposed a wide variety of abuses, including many [abuses] directed against American citizens,” Cole told fellow lawmakers on the House floor on Tuesday. “Similar to the situation that confronted America in the 1970s, in recent years we have witnessed abuses of the civil liberties of American citizens committed by the executive branch,” Cole said, adding that such violations are “often for political purposes.”He said the newly-created panel “will be tasked with studying and reporting on the executive branch’s authority to collect information on or otherwise investigate citizens of the United States.”“The American people deserve to have confidence in their government,” Cole said. “They deserve to know that the executive branch is not positioning itself as the final arbiter of what constitutes truth,” he continued. “And they deserve to know that they will not be labeled a domestic terrorist for advocating for their children in front of a school board.”
A new House ‘Church committee’? More like an exercise in revenge. - Frank Church would beg to differ. The late Democratic senator from Idaho chaired one of the most consequential chapters in the history of congressional oversight in the mid-1970s, revealing abuses by the U.S. intelligence community that ranged from plots to assassinate foreign leaders to illegal surveillance of American citizens. Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates Now, House Republicans have launched what they are styling as a new Church committee; its grandiose title is the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. “Similar to the situation that confronted America in the 1970s, in recent years we have witnessed abuses of the civil liberties of American citizens committed by the executive branch,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), said as the proposal was debated Tuesday. The panel, under the supervision of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has been given a comically — and dangerously — broad purview. Listen to Jordan and judge for yourself. He wants to look at, among other matters, the Justice Department treating “moms and dads who are simply showing up at a school board meeting” as domestic terrorists; the FBI paying Twitter $3 million “to censor American citizens”; the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to set up a disinformation governance board “as if some federal agency should tell the American people what they’re allowed to say, what they’re not allowed to say.” Each of these has a tangential basis in fact. None approaches the level of sinister incursions on cherished constitutional freedoms of Jordan’s fevered imagining. Back in 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland cited a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school officials and instructed federal law enforcement officials “to determine how federal enforcement tools can be used to prosecute these crimes.” Advertisement This came in response to a letter from the National School Boards Association, for which it subsequently apologized, that invoked the specter of “domestic terrorism.” It wasn’t Garland’s most politically adept moment, but his memorandum didn’t use that phrase. “I can’t imagine any circumstance in which the Patriot Act would be used in the circumstances of parents complaining about their children, nor can I imagine a circumstance where they would be labeled as domestic terrorism,” Garland said when he testified to, yes, the House Judiciary Committee.
GOP officially launches probe into chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal - A top House Republican has officially launched a probe into the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, sending a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting a wide array of information on the matter. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who served as its ranking member previously, said the Biden administration has so far refused to hand over documents but that he is now formally requesting compliance as chair of the panel. “It is absurd and disgraceful that the Biden administration has repeatedly denied our longstanding oversight requests and continues to withhold information related to the withdrawal,” McCaul said in a statement. “In the event of continued noncompliance, the Committee will use the authorities available to it to enforce these requests as necessary, including through a compulsory process.” McCaul is seeking intelligence assessments, internal agency documents and communications with the Taliban and Afghan government, among a long list of other inquiries in the letter Thursday. He requested the information from the Biden administration by Jan. 26. A spokesperson for the State Department said they were committed to working with the congressional committee and have already provided more than 150 briefings to bipartisan members of Congress since the withdrawal. “Additionally, senior Department representatives have appeared in public hearings and answered questions on Afghanistan policy, and the Department has responded to thousands of requests for information and letters from members and their staffs related to Afghanistan policy,” the spokesperson said. Republicans have long hinted at the Afghanistan investigation, one of a number of probes the party planned to launch after seizing the House in the November midterm elections. In October, McCaul demanded the State Department preserve records related to the U.S. troop pullout from Afghanistan, promising he would investigate messy evacuations, the quick Taliban takeover of Kabul and the death of 13 American troops in a terrorist attack.
GOP divided in rush to impeach Mayorkas - Tensions are rising in the GOP House over how to tackle a topic many back enthusiastically: impeaching Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Republicans are largely unified in opposition to the secretary, but while some want to go full bore right away, others see fast-track impeachment as a mistake, warning that it’s important to build their case before the public. “We made the argument that impeachment was rushed — the second impeachment — and I think that’s not who we are as a party,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a former prosecutor, in reference to the second impeachment of former President Trump. McCaul said it’s the committees of jurisdiction that should be leading the inquiry. “We need to have hearings on this and we need to gather evidence and facts and, look, do I think the guy has done a terrible job? Yes,“ McCaul said. “Do I think he’s been derelict in his responsibilities? Yes. But we need to get all this together, and do it in a methodical way.” In some corners, Republicans are lining up at the chance to impeach Mayorkas. After Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against the secretary this week, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) quickly pledged his own resolution while suggesting he was the one who had actually taken the impeachment action first. “I was the first Member of Congress to introduce impeachment articles against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2021,” Biggs wrote on Twitter. “I will reintroduce these articles with even more justification very soon.” Balancing the different interests will be another challenge for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has signaled he supports a deliberate approach. “House Republicans will investigate every order, every action. And every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” he said in November, during a trip to the border. Twenty lawmakers have signed on to Fallon’s resolution. While he said he doesn’t want to preclude any investigation, Fallon wants to prompt his colleagues to start them immediately. “I think it’s of vital import to get the ball rolling immediately. Because this is an emergency. This is break glass. This is something that we can’t just sit around any longer and say, ‘Well, we’ll do it in a month, we’ll take it up in four months.’ Let’s take it up right now,” he told The Hill.
Hundreds Of Illegal Aliens Intercepted Off Florida Coast Repatriated To Cuba, Haiti - The U.S. Coast Guard repatriated 83 illegal aliens to Haiti on Monday and 273 to Cuba on Sunday after they were intercepted in the Florida Keys over the New Year period.The Coast Guard said it continues to intercept and rescue illegal aliens from overloaded and unseaworthy vessels and warned that those interdicted at sea would be repatriated.In a statement about the 83 Haitians repatriated on Monday, Lt. Travis Poulos said Coast Guard District Seven and partner agencies continue to patrol the Florida Straits, Windward, and Mona passages.“These ventures are extremely dangerous and could cost you your life,” Poulos said.
New U.S. House creates committee focused on competing with China - (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to create a select committee on China, using one of its first votes since Republicans took control to stress members' desire to counter Beijing's growing international influence. The House voted 365 to 65 in favor of a resolution establishing the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, which will investigate the issue and make policy recommendations. All 65 of the "no" votes came from Democrats, some of whom said they were concerned the Republican-led panel would be too partisan. But 146 other Democrats voted in favor. Democratic Representative Jim McGovern, a co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a grouping of House members and senators which studies China policy, said he would vote to create the select committee despite concerns it might be overly partisan."We certainly don't want it to turn into a place that perpetuates anti-Asian hate," McGovern said, citing past rhetoric such as Republican former President Donald Trump's labeling of COVID-19 as "the China virus." House Speaker Kevin McCarthy insisted the panel would not be partisan. "You have my word and my commitment. This is not a partisan committee. This will be a bipartisan committee," McCarthy said in remarks urging the House to back the bill.
House establishes tough-on-China select committee - The House voted to establish a select committee to assess the myriad military, economic and technological challenges posed by China — kicking off an effort that was a major pillar of the Republican national security agenda. Lawmakers voted 365-65 to set up the panel, which will be chaired by Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, a steadfast China hawk. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hailed the establishment of the panel. The resolution creating the committee was the second measure the Republican-led House passed, and McCarthy promised the new panel will help “win this economic competition” with Beijing after winning the speaker’s gavel last week. “Here’s the good news: There is bipartisan consensus that the era of trusting communist China is over,” McCarthy said Tuesday on the House floor. The new committee, which will last the length of this Congress but can be reupped, is the latest signal of growing bipartisan concern over China’s military might and deepening skepticism over trade with the world’s second-leading economy. The Biden administration, like the Trump administration, has singled out China as the most significant long-term threat to U.S. security. Congress has approved significant increases in defense spending as the Pentagon looks to match a rapidly modernizing Chinese military and deter a possible invasion of Taiwan. Lawmakers also authorized billions of dollars in new military aid for Taiwan this fiscal year amid growing concerns that Beijing could be rapidly acquiring the capability needed to invade the self-governing island. Tensions have flared as China steps up provocative military drills in the waters around Taiwan. Beijing also stepped up military activity following a visit last year by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first by a House speaker in more than two decades. Gallagher’s agenda for the panel includes examining ways to beef up U.S. military posture, end dependencies on China in supply chains, curtail theft of U.S. intellectual property and highlight Beijing’s authoritarian state. “It is time to understand the urgency of the threat. It is time to reclaim our economic independence in key areas,” Gallagher said. “The select committee will expose the [Chinese Communist Party]'s coordinated whole-of-society strategy to undermine American leadership and American sovereignty while working on a bipartisan basis ... to identify long-overdue, commonsense approaches to counter CCP aggression.”
Opinion | Why the covid testing requirement for Chinese travelers is misguided - The Washington Post - The Biden administration last week implemented travel restrictions for people arriving from China, requiring every traveler 2 years old and older to have a negative test for the coronavirus before their flight.This might seem like a reasonable measure, given that China is experiencing a massive surge of coronavirus infections after abruptly and completely reversing its “zero covid” policies. But it is misguided.The United States already has a high rate of infections, so the added coronavirus load from any infected travelers would be a drop in the bucket. The much bigger concern should be identifying and studyingnew variants that might emerge from China’s surge. Since the Chinese government can’t be relied upon to share what it knows with the world, we don’t want fewer people traveling from China; we should want moreso that we can study and identify new strains that might develop there.This is a very different situation from what the United States experienced last winter. In late November 2021, when South African scientists flagged omicron as a worrisome new strain, I supported travel restrictions. At that time, the restrictions were meant to buy us time to vaccinate more elderly people and, crucially, to study omicron, about which little was known. We knew we couldn’t stop this variant from entering our country, but delaying a surge by even a couple of weeks could blunt its impact.Now, the concern isn’t about an existing strain. The dominant variant in China at the moment, BF.7, has been in the United States for months and has not exhibited evolutionary advantage to outcompete other variants here. That strain and BA.5.2, which is also prevalent in China, are both offshoots of BA.5, which the updated bivalent vaccine targets.Trying to delay the arrival of more of these variants doesn’t make sense, especially since the United States is dealing with a more contagious and immune-evasive strain — XBB.1.5. So what’s the reason for pre-departure testing, then?We don’t require people to test for the flu, RSV or any other common respiratory viruses before coming to the United States. That’s because these diseases are so widespread here. Pre-departure testing of travelers from China similarly wouldn’t have much impact on covid numbers in the United States. If anything, the rule could backfire by further alienating Chinese officials and hinder future cooperation among scientists. It could also further fuel anti-Asian hate by perpetuating the stigma of the coronavirus as the “China virus.”
House GOP to launch probe on coronavirus origin and federal response - House Republicans on Monday commissioned a special investigative panel focused on the coronavirus pandemic, hoping to leverage their new, powerful majority to press scientists and federal officials about the origin of the public health crisis and the government’s response to it. Party lawmakers officially chartered the new effort in a sprawling package setting the chamber’s rules for the next two years, awarding it a sweeping mandate — from looking into vaccine development, school closures and other mitigation measures to examining the roughly $5 trillion in emergency federal aid approved since early 2020. Republicans have long derided Democrats, public health experts and others who advocated for an aggressive government response to covid-19, which has claimed millions of lives globally. At the center of GOP criticism is the suspicion that the coronavirus originated out of laboratory experiments in Wuhan, China, potentially backed by U.S. money — a view at odds with peer-reviewed scientific papers pointing to a more likely origin in a Wuhan market. In the process, Republican lawmakers also have clashed with scientists and doctors on a wide array of policies meant to arrest the spread of the virus — opposing vaccine mandates, blasting in-person capacity limits and rejecting new federal funding for tests, treatments and other tools. With new control of the House, however, the GOP aims to surface those concerns in a more prominent setting, questioning a wide array of current and former government officials, potentially including Anthony S. Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The panel, officially named as the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, essentially replaces a Democrat-led legislative body that had focused its work on monitoring emergency coronavirus aid for fraud. Under Republicans, it does not yet have a leader, but it is expected to hold its first hearing in February. “There’s a lot of confusion out there, there’s a lot of uncertainty out there, and I believe every American regardless of their political ideology would like to know the truth,” said Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is set to chair the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, under whose umbrella the covid panel will do its work. Comer said that congressional investigators would “talk to the researchers,” including “all of the people that were involved” at the National Institutes of Health around the development of vaccines. In December, the congressman joined with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who is set to oversee other investigations of the Biden administration, to demand Fauci and NIH retain records involving “the origins of covid-19, the [Chinese government’s] efforts to cover it up, and all related national security risks.” The new panel highlights the tectonic shift underway in Washington after two years of Democratic control of Congress and the White House. Even before the GOP officially captured the House, Republicans had made clear that they would embark on several politically charged probes — predominantly targeting Biden and his top aides and family members. In recent months, GOP lawmakers have told the White House to preserve records related to the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, the private Florida residence of former president Donald Trump. They have signaled other coming investigations of Biden’s domestic and foreign policies, including his 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. And they have set in motion an entire investigative body to look into the “weaponization of the federal government,” focused on law enforcement and national security agencies. “We will hold the swamp accountable, from the withdrawal of Afghanistan to the origins of covid and to the weaponization of the FBI,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Saturday in his first remarks after winning the leadership post.
Sen. Sanders asks Moderna not to hike COVID vaccine price - U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders sent Moderna Inc a letter this week asking the drug company to halt planned U.S. price increases on its COVID-19 vaccine, saying price hikes could make the shot unaffordable for millions of Americans. Sanders said in his letter that raising prices would be particularly egregious after the U.S. government provided around $1.7 billion to fund development of the vaccine. The letter was addressed to Moderna Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel. "You propose to make the vaccine unaffordable for the residents of this country who made the production of the vaccine possible," wrote Sanders, who is set to become chairman of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions later this month. "That is not acceptable." Bancel told the Wall Street Journal on Monday that Moderna is considering charging $110 to $130 a dose for the vaccine once the United States moves to a commercial market for the shots. The top end of that range is around 8 times the price in the earliest U.S. contracts for the vaccine and nearly 5 times the roughly $27 a dose the government paid for booster shots last year.
FDA vaccine advisers 'disappointed' and 'angry' that early data about new Covid-19 booster shot wasn't presented for review last year | CNN — Some vaccine advisers to the federal government say they’re “disappointed” and “angry” that government scientists and the pharmaceutical company Moderna didn’t present a set of infection data on the company’s new Covid-19 booster during meetings last year when the advisers discussed whether the shot should be authorized and made available to the public.That data suggested the possibility that the updated booster might not be any more effective at preventing Covid-19 infections than the original shots.The data was early and had many limitations, but several advisers told CNN that they were concerned about a lack of transparency.US taxpayers spent nearly $5 billion on the new booster, which has been given to more than 48.2 million people in the US.“I was angry to find out that there was data that was relevant to our decision that we didn’t get to see,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a group of external advisers that helps the FDA make vaccine decisions. “Decisions that are made for the public have to be made based on all available information – not just some information, but all information.”At a meeting of this FDA advisory group in June and a meeting in September of a panel that advises the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the experts were presented with reams of information indicating that the new vaccine worked better than the one already on shelves, according to a review of videos and transcripts of those meetings and slide presentations made by Moderna, CDC and FDA officials.That data – called immunogenicity data – was based on blood work done on study participants to assess how well each vaccine elicited antibodies that fight off the Omicron strain of the virus that causes Covid-19.The data that was not presented to the experts looked at actual infections: who caught Covid-19 and who did not.It found that 1.9% of the study participants who received the original booster became infected. Among those who got the updated bivalent vaccine – the one that scientists hoped would work better – a higher percentage, 3.2%, became infected. Both versions of the shot were found to be safe.
Biden administration renews Covid-19 public health emergency -The Biden administration on Wednesday again renewed the Covid-19 public health emergency, a provision that gives the administration authorities to respond to the pandemic as cases are again on the rise.US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra renewed the declaration on its expiration date – an expected step because officials have said they will provide 60 days’ notice if they do not plan to renew the emergency, and had not done so.Becerra renewed the Covid-19 public health emergency because “there’s still a lot of Covid out there, and the public health emergency and his determination gives us tools to fight this,” White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota.Jha stressed that the highly contagious XBB.1.5 variant was just one of the variants that prompted the decision, but it wasn’t the only reason.“The secretary made a decision that the tools of the public health emergency are still necessary to continue to fight this virus,” Jha said.The public health emergency gives the federal government wide-ranging authorities over a number of Covid-19-related areas, including data tracking and allowing pharmacists, rather than physicians, to administer the Covid-19 vaccine, among other provisions.However, the federal government spending law enacted last month decoupled several major relief measures from the public health emergency.The package is phasing out the requirement that prevents states from disenrolling Medicaid recipients as long as the public health emergency is in effect in exchange for an enhanced federal match. This continuous coverage measure was enacted as part of a Covid-19 relief package passed in March 2020 and has led to a record 90 million enrollees in Medicaid, many of whom may no longer meet the income requirements to qualify.Now, states can begin processing Medicaid redeterminations as of April 1, regardless of when the public health emergency ends. Estimates vary on how many people would lose their Medicaid benefits, though they range as high as 19 million. Many folks, however, could qualify for other coverage. Also, the federal government has been providing enhanced food stamp benefits to millions of Americans during the public health emergency. Those beefed up monthly payments will end after February.
Extending SNAP support should be a no-brainer in this economy --The Agriculture Improvement Act, known as the farm bill, is up for renewal this year and lawmakers will soon debate whether to extend key provisions that currently help 34 million people suffering from food insecurity in America. But in today’s divisive political environment, where 15 voting rounds are needed to elect a Speaker of the U.S. House, the likelihood that our leaders will reach a consensus on this important legislation, sadly, seems entirely unthinkable. The bill, which requires reauthorization every five years, historically provides funding for nutritional and anti-hunger programs for income-challenged Americans. The bill’s current term, which expires later this year (unless Congress acts), has a total budget of $867 billion, where nearly 80 percent of it funds food stamp programs (now called the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP). SNAP is the most important tool we have in combatting America’s hunger crisis. But over the years, its inclusion in the farm bill has been at the center of an ugly tug-of-war between two fiercely divided parties on Capitol Hill.The SNAP program was contested during the farm bill’s last renewal in 2018 when Republicans sought to dismantle it as it was in the U.S. House version. Every U.S. House Democrat signaled their support for SNAP by unanimously opposing the bill. It was the first time the bill was voted straight down party lines. In 2013, the GOP-controlled U.S. House also passed a version without food stamp support.Despite political differences, lawmakers reached an agreement on those bills and included funding for food stamp/SNAP initiatives. But this year, the bill’s renewal will enter a new political arena where the politics of food aid are bound to be fiercely debated. The odds that lawmakers of the 118th Congress will be able to strike a compromise on a spending bill the size of what’s being considered this year, which some say could top $1.3 trillion, are slim at best.Nine million children in the U.S. are currently food insecure and depend on SNAP. For them, SNAP’s inclusion in this year’s farm bill reauthorization is essential to their health and educational development. Research shows that children who are hungry underperform in school and are more prone to chronic illness. As Congress begins to consider the SNAP program, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Today’s economic challenges present a frightening reality for those who can’t afford to put food on their tables. Inflation may have eased at the gas pump, but the same cannot be said for the cost of food, which has remained at record levels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that from January to November of last year, grocery prices rose 12 percent compared to the overall inflation increase of 7.1 percent. And experts predict prices will stay high for the foreseeable future.
What It Means for Hunger to Burn Through the Pentagon’s Ranks -By any standard, the money the United States government pours into its military is simply overwhelming. Take the $858-billion defense spending authorization that President Biden signed into law last month. Not only did that bill pass in an otherwise riven Senate by a bipartisan majority of 83-11, but this year’s budget increase of 4.3% is the second highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. Indeed, the Pentagon has been granted more money than the next 10 largest cabinet agencies combined. And that doesn’t even take into account funding forhomeland security or the growing costs of caring for the veterans of this country’s post-9/11 wars. That legislation also includes the largest pay raise in 20 years for active-duty and reserve forces and an expansion of a supplemental “basic needs allowance” to support military families with incomes near the poverty line.And yet, despite those changes and a Pentagon budget that’s gone through the roof, many U.S. troops and military families will continue to struggle to make ends meet. Take one basic indicator of welfare: whether or not you have enough to eat.Tens of thousands of service members remain “food insecure” or hungry. Put another way, during the past year, members of those families either worried that their food would run out or actually did run out of food. In 2019, an estimated one in eight military families were considered food insecure. In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, that figure rose to nearly a quarter of them. More recently, one in sixmilitary families experienced food insecurity, according to the advocacy group Military Family Advisory Network.The majority of members of the military largely come frommiddle-class neighborhoods and, not surprisingly perhaps, their struggles mirror those faced by so many other Americans. Spurred by a multitude of factors, including pandemic-related supply-chain problems and — you guessed it — war, inflation in the U.S. rose by more than 9% in 2022. On average, American wages grew by about 4.5% last year and so failed to keep up with the cost of living. This was no less true in the military.
These House Democrats supported GOP-sponsored abortion measures - Four House Democrats voted with Republicans on Wednesday to support GOP-sponsored abortion measures, crossing the aisle to help pass the first anti-abortion pieces of legislation in the House Republican majority. The first bill, titled the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, passed in a 220-210-1 vote. The legislation would require that all infants born after attempted abortions receive medical care. Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas) was the only Democrat to support the measure, while Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) voted present. The Hill reached out to the two lawmakers for comment on their votes. Cuellar, an anti-abortion Democrat, has broken with his colleagues on abortion-related measures in the past. In July — less than one month after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade — Cuellar was the only Democrat to vote against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would enshrine the right to abortion in federal law. Cuellar’s vote is likely to spark frustration among progressives, who worked to oust the congressman last year. Some left-leaning lawmakers supported Jessica Cisneros in a Texas House primary last year and criticized the chamber’s Democratic establishment for backing the incumbent. “On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary. Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter in May, the day of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The second measure the House approved on Wednesday was a resolution condemning attacks on anti-abortion facilities, groups and churches. The chamber adopted the resolution in a 222-219 vote. The measure laid out a number of incidents involving vandalism, violence and destruction at anti-abortion facilities that occurred between when the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked and when the bench officially released the ruling. Porter reveals she has not spoken with Feinstein about Senate run Anti-war group crashes event with Democratic Rep. Adam Smith Some Democrats criticized the resolution for not including violent incidents targeting abortion providers. Nonetheless, three Democrats — Gonzalez and Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) — joined Republicans in supporting the measure.
FAA system outage disrupts thousands of flights across U.S. -- Thousands of flights across the U.S. were delayed Wednesday after a Federal Aviation Administration pilot-alert system failed overnight, prompting a nationwide halt to departures. The FAA lifted the ground stop on departing flights around 9 a.m. ET as it worked to restore the Notice to Air Missions system, which is responsible for sending messages pilots, such as those about closed runways, hazards and other information. The FAA's outage was the second major air travel disruption in less than a month and drew bipartisan criticism. Winter storms derailed holiday travel in late December, prompting widespread cancellations and a crisis at Southwest Airlines after it buckled from all the schedule changes. The NOTAM system failed at 3:28 p.m. on Tuesday, according to an FAA notice. The issue resulted from a corrupted system file, according to people familiar with the matter. The FAA thought the problem was resolved but it wasn't, the people said, so the agency later decided to reboot the system altogether and on Wednesday morning ordered a ground stop, which holds planes scheduled to depart. The NOTAM system does have a backup, but both the primary and backup systems had been fed by the bad data, according to a person familiar with the matter. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he has "directed an after-action process to determine root causes and recommend next steps" of the unusual outage. More than 9,500 U.S. flights were delayed as of 4:45 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to flight-tracker FlightAware. Residual delays from the ground stop worsened throughout the day due to backups. Delta , United and Southwest had warned schedule adjustments were likely Wednesday. Airlines routinely slow down their schedules during disruptions so airports aren't overwhelmed by aircraft without a place to park. For example, Delta flights destined for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Boston and New York's LaGuardia Airport, each were halted beyond the nationwide ground stop as were American Airlines flights scheduled for its Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport hub. United told pilots it was reserving seats for commuting crews so they wouldn't have to rely on stand-by travel to reach assignments. More than 1,300 U.S. flights were canceled on Wednesday. There were more than 23,000 flights scheduled to, from and within the U.S., according to aviation data firm Cirium. There weren't any delayed U.S. flights scheduled for Thursday, according to FlightAware. Delta told CNBC that it expects "minimal residual impact, if any" on Thursday. Several airlines waived change fees and fare differences for travelers affected by the outage.
FAA lifts airline ground stop as flight delays, cancellations pile up across the country - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ground stop order Wednesday morning after suffering a nationwide technical system outage causing mass cancellations and delays. The travel chaos was caused by the failure of the FAA's Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, which alerts pilots and other personnel about airborne issues and other delays at airports across the country. More than 1,000 flights were canceled in the U.S., and more than 6,700 more flights in the U.S. were delayed, as of 11:30 a.m. ET. FAA investigators are continuing to search for the cause of the outage. "Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the United States following an overnight outage to the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system that provides safety information to flight crews," the FAA wrote in its fifth update of the morning. "The ground stop has been lifted. The agency continues to look into the cause of the initial problem," the statement continued. United Airlines announced its decision to ground all of its aircraft until 10 a.m. ET due to the outage. The incident comes roughly a week after an air traffic issue prompted the FAA to slow all flight traffic in Florida earlier in January. That failure involved the En Route Automation Modernization at airports across the state. The earlier January incident affected Southwest Airlines in particular, leaving many travelers stranded without their bags.
FAA outage: White House says 'no evidence of cyber attack,' Biden briefed on grounded flights -The White House announced Wednesday that President Biden has been briefed on the massive FAA outage, though asserting that there’s no evidence it was caused by any cyberattack. "The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Transportation this morning on the FAA system outage," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted before 7:40 a.m. ET. "There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the President directed DOT [Department of Transportation] to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FAA will provide regular updates."An FAA system failure prompted massive flight delays Wednesday morning. All domestic departures were grounded until 9 a.m. ET, though the Federal Aviation Administration said some departures were resuming at Newark Liberty and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airports "due to air traffic congestion in those areas." The FAA said it was working to fully restore the Notice to Air Missions system following an outage. There is a growing chorus of pilots who call today's FAA ground stop of all U.S. flights an "overreaction."Multiple pilots who spoke to Fox News under the condition of anonymity say there are plenty of backup systems in place, such as the radio to be able to send non-emergency advisories, similar to what is found in the NOTAMS (Notice to Air Missions, formerly known as Notice to Airmen). An important part of all pre-flight planning, this is a non-emergency advisory system to notify pilots about issues that will impact their flight, including closed runway, weather hazards, military operations, forest fires and reducing visibility among others. It was designed to ensure safe operations in flight."They didn't have to ground all the flights. We would have been fine," one pilot said.The FAA had ordered airlines to pause all domestic departures until 9 a.m. ET "to allow the agency to validate the integrity of flight and safety information."
FAA outage: Damaged database file took down safety system, grounding flights - There were 1,343 flights canceled within, into or leaving the U.S. on Wednesday, the day a computer outage halted all departures in the country.The number of delayed flights in the U.S. on Wednesday was 10,060, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.New York’s LaGuardia Airport had 50% of its departing plans delayed, according to the website. Denver International had 60% of its departing flights delayed.The Federal Aviation Administration said a damaged database file was found as it investigated the cause of the outage to its Notice to Air Missions system. “There is no evidence of a cyber attack,” the agency said.The U.S. aviation warning system that crashed for more than an hour Wednesday traces its origins to ocean-faring ships and has been under continuous reforms for years, experts say.At least one aviation industry group has called for it to be replaced altogether.The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights blaming an unspecified failure in the Notice to Air Missions system. NOTAM issues a near-constant stream of acronyms and abbreviations to alert pilots to a host of potential dangers, from parachuters and bad weather to legal airspace restrictions and flocks of birds.By Wednesday evening, the agency had pinpointed the problem as a damaged database file, and there is no evidence of a cyberattack, it said. Regardless of the cause, the NOTAM system has long been a source of frustration for pilots and others in the aviation industry, who say it overloads them with information that’s irrelevant to their flights and makes it difficult to identify actually useful information.
Airlines hope for return to normal Thursday after FAA outage snarls U.S. travel (Reuters) - The U.S. aviation sector was struggling to return to normal on Wednesday after a nationwide ground stop imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over a computer issue that forced a 90-minute halt to all U.S. departing flights.More than 10,000 flights have been delayed so far and over 1,300 canceled, according to FlightAware, in the first national grounding of flights in about two decades. Many industry officials compared the grounding to what occurred after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Major carriers, such as Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and American Airlines, all reported 40% or more of flights Wednesday delayed or canceled, though airline officials expressed confidence that normal operations could largely return by Thursday. The FAA computer issue had prevented airports from filing updated safety notices that warn pilots of potential hazards such as runway closures, poor weather and construction, bringing flights to a temporary halt. FAA officials said a preliminary review traced the problem to a damaged database file, but added that there was no evidence of a cyberattack and that the investigation was continuing. The same file corrupted both the main system and its backup, said people familiar with the review, who asked not to be identified. FAA officials said they were working to "further pinpoint the causes" so the problem could be avoided in the future.
FAA outage: What happened and how airlines are responding --The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) blamed a corrupted database file for a system outage on Wednesday morning, but many questions still remain as airlines deal with the fallout from thousands of delayed and canceled flights. The FAA ordered airlines to temporarily halt all domestic departures on Wednesday morning as it worked to address a problem with a system that notifies pilots about real-time flight hazards and cautions. The agency lifted the ground stop after about an hour and a half, but the impacts continued throughout the day, with more than 9,900 U.S. flights delayed and another 1,300 canceled by Wednesday night, according to the flight tracker FlightAware. Here’s what we know so far: System initially crashed on Tuesday The FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system suffered an outage around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, leading officials to temporarily move to a backup system, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters on Wednesday, per The Washington Post. However, ongoing concerns about the accuracy of information coming from the system reportedly led FAA officials to launch a “complete reboot” of the system at around 5 a.m. on Wednesday. The FAA ordered the ground stop at 7:21 a.m. as officials remained unsure about whether the system was functioning correctly despite the reboot. Domestic flights were allowed to begin taking off again around 9 a.m. once the issue was resolved. The agency announced on Wednesday night that the outage was likely the result of a “damaged database file.” “The FAA is working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again,” the agency said in a statement. Airlines scramble to catch up Thousands of U.S. flights were delayed or canceled in the wake of the ground stop on Wednesday, leaving airlines scrambling to catch up. More than half of flights from three major U.S. airlines — Southwest, American and United — were delayed on Wednesday. Delta, the last of the “Big Four” airlines, saw about 40 percent of its flights delayed. Another 10 percent of Southwest’s flights were canceled, as were seven percent of American’s flights. United and Delta were both able to avoid substantial cancellations, cutting 4 percent and 2 percent of flights, respectively. All four airlines have said they are offering travelers some form of waiver to rebook flights if needed. Those who had their flights canceled — and, in some cases, those who simply no longer wished to travel — can request refunds through the airlines as well. It was unclear Wednesday night if delays from the outage would continue into Thursday. Delta said in a statement, “While potential for additional delays and cancels continue, Delta expects minimal residual impact, if any, on Thursday.” Ukraine zeroes in on western tanks in bid to rout Russia Putin running out of options in global pressure campaign The other major airlines did not respond to questions about continued delays.
Southwest shareholders sue airline after mass cancellations | The Hill - - Shareholders of Southwest Airlines Co. filed a class action lawsuit against the company Thursday, alleging that the airline provided “materially false and misleading” information over a two year period regarding issues that caused a “meltdown” of the company last month.Over the holiday weekend in December, Southwest canceled thousands of its flights, largely attributing the cancellations to severe winter weather. However, Southwest was the only airline carrier that canceled the majority of its flights, pointing to systemic scheduling issues that have caused problems at the airline for years.The lawsuit, which was filed by the Rosen Law Firm on behalf of the shareholders in the Southern District of Texas, alleges that Southwest publicly failed to disclose the issues with its scheduling systems or downplayed them in quarterly reports and media appearances by top executives. Among other statements, the lawsuit points to former Southwest CEO Gary Kelly claiming that previous scheduling issues were a result of “human error,” not “a lack of technological capability.” The complaint states that following reports that the company’s technology could not handle its flight scheduling, Southwest Airlines stock dropped by more than 12 percent between Dec. 23 and Dec. 28.. Southwest also faces another class action lawsuit filed earlier this month that alleges the airline failed to provide refunds to passengers when it canceled more than 15,000 flights in December, according to Reuters.
What the House speaker's deal with ultraconservatives means for climate - Kevin McCarthy, U.S. representative from California and the leader of the House Republican Conference, has been one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington for more than a decade. But McCarthy spent the first week of the 118th Congress in a severely diminished state. Early on Saturday morning, McCarthy was elected speaker of the House after a grueling, historic, and humiliating 15 rounds of voting. For five days, a group of Republican hard-liners blocked his bid for House speaker. The Californian made a series of extraordinary concessions to win support from his ultraconservative colleagues. Matt Gaetz, a hard-right Republican from Florida and one of McCarthy’s toughest holdouts, said he finally gave in because “I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for.” On Monday night, House Republicans voted 220-213 to enshrine some of the concessions into the chamber’s rules. The measure, which dictates how the 118th Congress operates, includes an addendum that enumerates other concessions that McCarthy agreed to. And House lawmakers told the New York Times they were worried that the speaker had agreed to even more handshake agreements that weren’t reflected in the written package. The compromises McCarthy made in exchange for the speaker’s gavel could reshape the way the lower chamber operates. Among other concessions, McCarthy agreed to let any member call for a vote to unseat the speaker at any time; to give members of the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative bloc within the House, seats on powerful committees; and to allow lawmakers to propose more amendments on the chamber floor. Some of McCarthy’s compromises may have ramifications, as well, for climate policy. “Kevin McCarthy has ceded his speakership and control of the House Republican agenda to the most extreme fringe faction of his party,” Josh Freed, the senior vice president for climate and energy at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Third Way, told Grist. “There’s a real chance that Republicans are going to try to gut really important government investment on everything, including clean energy and climate.” Freed is referring to a plank of the deal McCarthy struck with his hard-right colleagues to put a cap on discretionary spending —money approved by Congress and the president every yearthrough the annual appropriations process. Discretionary spending includes all federal expenditures that aren’t funded by their own law. About 30 percent of the government’s overall spending is discretionary, including funding for many climate and environmental programs. New limits on that funding could affect clean energy research overseen by the Department of Energy, limit the Interior Department’s conservation efforts, and restrict disaster recovery distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Administration, among other projects. Other elements of the deal, such as putting members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus on the House Rules Committee, which plays a pivotal role in influencing how legislation moves through the House, could have an indirect impact on climate policy by affecting the legislation lawmakers even get to vote on.
House Republican fires opening salvo on energy permitting - A senior House Natural Resources Committee Republican offered an early preview Monday of how the GOP will seek to overhaul the permitting process for energy projects with its new House majority. While the approach, which deals with the hardrock mining industry, is one that’s sure to galvanize Republicans, it isn’t likely to attract the bipartisan coalition necessary for passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate. That won’t deter Rep. Pete Stauber of Minnesota, incoming chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, who is looking to forge ahead with a legislative agenda that mirrors the party’s larger willingness to revisit the National Environmental Policy Act — a sacrosanct law to most Democrats — and cut regulations in the pursuit of U.S. energy independence and dominance. The first bill Stauber has introduced in the 118th Congress is the “Permitting for Mining Needs Act,” which is designed to increase domestic production of critical minerals necessary for meeting defense, technology and clean energy needs in the United States. Stauber told E&E News in an interview that he views it as either a stand-alone bill that could move through the Natural Resources Committee or one that could become a part of a larger permitting reform package the committee’s chair, Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), has pledged to make a priority. “This is important,” Stauber said of his legislation. “America needs this to become critical mineral dominant again.” Stauber’s bill, which enjoys support from the National Mining Association, among other groups, would shorten the hardrock mining permitting review process under NEPA so that environmental assessments would take no more than 12 months and environmental impact statements would take no longer than two years. It would prohibit lawsuits against permitting decisions more than 120 days after such a decision has been made and would designate a lead federal agency to review applications and grant approvals. Crucially, the legislation also would allow an individual to pursue hardrock mining activities “with or without the discovery of a valuable mineral deposit” beforehand — a distinction critics like Aaron Mintzes, senior policy counsel or Earthworks, said would create “Wild West claim-staking,” opening up vast swaths of land to indiscriminate disruption.
Washington Has Trouble Refilling The SPR After 220 Million Barrel Draw - After drawing over 221 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in 2022, Washington is having a tough time refilling it in the New Year, with the Department of Energy (DoE) rejecting the first offers on the grounds that they failed to benefit taxpayers. The DoE has by now received several offers for February purchases to refill the SPR, according to both Bloomberg and Reuters. However, those offers have been rejected as too expensive or failing to meet other requirements. For February, the plan was to purchase 3 million barrels, ideally when oil dropped to around $70 per barrel. This 3-million-barrel pilot program would have given sellers a fixed price for future deliveries and is in contrast to the DoE’s normal operating procedure, which had seen it purchase oil for faster delivery without fixed-price contracts. Right now, WTI is trading around $75/$76 per barrel, and new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Monday shows another 0.8 million barrel draw from the SPR. According to Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources “familiar with the matter”, the DoE will now postpone its originally planned February purchases and embark on a new approach for fixed-price offers. “DOE will only select bids that meet the required crude specifications and that are at a price that is a good deal for taxpayers,” the DoE said in a Friday statement carried by news agencies. “Following review of the initial submission, DOE will not be making any award selections for the February delivery window.”The rejected bids are prompting speculation that refilling the SPR will be challenging, at best.The plan to fill the SPR, which has reached its lowest level since 1984, might not be attractive enough to sellers, despite the DoE’s efforts at enticement. Additionally, the Wall Street Journal speculates that the DoE may not have enough funding to refill the SPR completely. According to WSJ, the DoE has $.48 billion in purchasing power. At the desired $70 per barrel, that would give it enough funding to refill the SPR to 440 million barrels.
180 Million Barrels Of Crude May Never Be Returned To The SPR - Earlier this week, the Biden administration rejected the first bids from companies offering to sell crude oil into the strategic petroleum reserve of the country. The tender followed a record release of 180 million barrels throughout 2022. And that 180 million barrels may never be returned to the SPR. “DOE will only select bids that meet the required crude specifications and that are at a price that is a good deal for taxpayers,” the Department of Energy said in a statement following the failed tender, which invited bids for a modest 3 million barrels. And this statement reflects what many feared last year when President Biden first said the administration would sell oil from the SPR to lower gasoline prices. First, there is the crude specifications issue. When the administration was releasing crude from the SPR, there wasn’t any mention of specifications. The only important thing was the volume. At the time, critics noted that the SPR contains mostly light, sweet crude, and the release of 180 million barrels of that variety won’t make much of a difference in gasoline prices because U.S. gasoline is made by blending light with heavy crude. Yet the oil market moves in strange ways, and sometimes it’s enough to release several million barrels into the market to convince traders there’s plenty more where these came from. Fuel prices in the U.S. fell, especially as the release coincided with persistent inflation that shrank consumption.Second, however, comes the issue of price. The Department of Energy had said at the end of last year it would only start buying oil for the SPR once the price of WTI falls to around $67-70 per barrel. Right now, WTI is trading at around $75. Yet this price appears to be insufficiently low for the DoE. And this is a problem because the total release from the SPR was not the original 180 million barrels, but more than 220 million barrels of crude. This is problematic for more than one reason. First, because the SPR is at the lowest level since the early 1980s and, as some analysts have pointed out, it is astrategic reserve, meant to be there for times of emergency. So, if an emergency does occur, strategic oil reserves would be lower than they should be. The second reason this is problematic is that what the administration hoped to achieve with its offers to buy crude for the SPR was not just replenishing the reserve but motivating higher oil production from local companies. And local companies appear to remain unmotivated to do that. Production is already getting costlier for most oil companies in the U.S., according to industry executives. Even though there is optimism in the oil patch, according to the latest Dallas Fed energy survey, it is moderate and guarded, and nobody is in a rush to boost production at current oil prices. It can’t have come as a surprise: U.S. oil producers were not boosting production when prices were significantly higher, either. A bigger problem, however, is whether the Department of Energy can afford to refill the SPR, as Wall Street Journal’s Jinjoo Lee suggested in a recent article. And the answer to this question may well be “No.” Lee reports that the sale of 180 million barrels of crude from the SPR last year probably generated some $17.3 billion in proceeds at an average price of $96 per barrel. But of this $17.3 billion, $12.5 billion was set aside for use by Congress in the latest spending bill to fill the gap left by the cancellation of previously scheduled SPR sales for the period 2024 to 2027, according to ClearView Energy Partners. This leaves the DoE with $4.8 billion to spend on replenishing the SPR, and, according to Lee, this could only buy 70 million barrels at WTI prices of $70 per barrel. This is less than half of what was released last year.
Bipartisan support for China oil ban could be harbinger - A Republican-led bill restricting oil reserve sales to China gained wide support from Democrats on Thursday, signaling a bipartisan energy security agenda that House Republicans could take advantage of going forward. The chamber voted 331-97 for H.R. 22, from Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), to prohibit the sale of any oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China or Chinese-influenced subsidiaries (Greenwire, Jan. 12).Democrats supported the bill despite attacks from Republicans against the Biden administration for using the oil reserve to lower gas prices. House Republicans zeroed in on one SPR sale last year that delivered nearly a million barrels of oil to a company owned by the Chinese government.“To cover up his failed policies driving our energy and inflation crisis, President [Joe] Biden is draining our nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves,” Rodgers said in a statement on the bill’s passage. “Draining our strategic reserves for political purposes and selling it to China is a significant threat to our national and energy security.” The bipartisan vote Thursday is yet another early sign that Democrats are willing to support Republican-led initiatives countering China. Earlier this week, 146 Democrats voted with Republicans to create a select committee aimed at countering China’s technological, economic and military influence. Republicans could find future success in bills currently being crafted that aim to reduce American reliance on Chinese energy supply chains. In all, 113 Democrats joined Republicans on Thursday in voting for the Rodgers bill. That support included a unique coalition of lawmakers, including moderate, fossil fuel-supporting members like Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) and staunch climate progressives like Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.). Cuellar said in a statement that it was “not in the United States’ best interest” to make sales to China. The two Democratic factions supported the bill for different reasons, with progressives seeing the opportunity to revive arguments around restricting the nation’s oil exports while moderates supported the idea to shore up the nation’s energy security. Despite the Democratic support, the bill has an uncertain future in the Senate. But either way, the bipartisan vote signals that, in a year of anticipated legislative stagnation in the House, Republicans could find rare progress in more bills like it.
Biden Administration Considers Banning Gas Stoves --The Biden administration may move to ban the use of gas stoves on the grounds of new research suggesting they may be related to health problems such as asthma.The research, co-authored by officials from a clean energy nonprofit that also participate in a carbon-free buildings promotion program, suggested that more than 12 percent of asthma cases in children could be attributed to the use of gas stoves.According to a Bloomberg report on the news, some 40 percent of American households use gas stoves but the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission may change that.“This is a hidden hazard. Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” one of the members of the commission, Richard Trumka Jr., told Bloomberg.The report also cites information from the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organisation, which says that gas stoves emit nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and fine particulate matter, which makes them unsafe.A country-wide ban would follow similar bans set by several cities in the United States, including New York, Seattle and San Francisco. Bans in these cities cover things like gas furnaces and gas heaters, and California’s authorities are now moving to ban all gas-fired water heaters in the state.According to the Consumer Product Safety Commissioner interviewed by Bloomberg, the ban on gas stoves could take the form of a suspension of imports of such appliances or a ban on their local manufacture. Congressmen, meanwhile, have suggested the addition of warning labels, range hoods, and the introduction of higher performance standards, Bloomberg noted in its report. People willing to switch from gas to electric stoves could take advantage of funding opportunities in the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes several hundred billion in spending on the transition from fossil fuels to clean electricity.
Suggested ban on gas stoves ignites a culture war - Seemingly overnight, the gas stove in nearly one of three homes in the country became an appliance of controversy, bringing possible comparisons to cigarettes on one side and accusations of government overreach on the other. The fight started when a commissioner for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, said the agency could soon increase regulations and a potential ban on gas stoves, citing the appliance’s public health risks.“This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., commissioner for the CPSC, a federal agency responsible for recalling products like baby swings and bicycles to reduce harm to consumers, told Bloomberg in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” Since that interview, the debate has boiled over. Claims of a “federal gas stove ban” circulated while the Wall Street Journal editorial board and numerous conservative lawmakers hopped into the fray, blaming the Biden Administration for “forcing all buildings to use electricity for everything.”Ronny Jackson, a Texas Republican Congressman representing The northern tip of the state near Oklahoma, said “If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands.”
Gas stoves debate explodes in Washington -Sometimes it takes just a hint of gas to cause a massive flame.That’s what happened this week after a federal appointee floated a hypothetical ban on gas stoves. The comment ignited a swift backlash from Republicans — prompting some in the GOP to vow to defend their fossil-fuel-powered appliances with their lives, while conservative publications ran headlines like “Biden’s War on Gas Stoves.”Never mind that President Joe Biden and his agencies aren’t proposing any stove bans (although a number of liberal state and city governments are).In a matter of days, those blue-flamed cooktops have become emblems of the partisan battle over the future of the nation’s energy. Add them to the GOP’s long-running list of icons of American life they say Democrats are gunning to outlaw or ruin, from incandescent light bulbs and standard toilets to hamburger meat and cars and trucks.“I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove,” tweeted Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, the former presidential physician. “If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!”“First, the liberals came for our light bulbs,” tweeted former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), an ex-Trump administration official and potential White House contender. “Then, they came for our cars. Now, they're coming for our stoves.”The brouhaha kicked up after a peer-reviewed study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that 12.7 percent of childhood asthma cases in the United States can be attributed to gas-burning stoves.A member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates dangerous household items, then told Bloomberg that a ban on gas stoves should be on the table. “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” said Richard Trumka Jr., a Biden nominee who joined the commission in 2021.But as POLITICO’s E&E News reporter Ariel Wittenberg reported, Trumka withdrew a proposal to regulate gas stoves last fall after it failed to gain support from his four fellow commissioners.Instead, the commission voted to gather “public input on hazards associated with gas stoves.” Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric disavowed any ban notions Wednesday, saying: “I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so.” As for Biden, “the President does not support banning gas stoves,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
Banning gas stoves gets Americans’ blood boiling - Sometimes it’s the little things – the one indignity too many – that cause people to revolt. Banning new gas stoves, as a commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has suggested, could be the diktat that finally brings Americans to rebel against the government’s incessant, autocratic and ultimately insulting intrusion into our daily lives. The European Union found that out the hard way. Just weeks before the British went to the polls to vote on whether they wanted to remain in the EU, reports leaked that the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels planned to ban electric teakettles that were a staple of British kitchens, because they used too much electricity. The proposed limits on small appliances would have meant that the time required to boil water would have increased from an average two minutes and 30 seconds to five minutes. For a country consuming 62 billion cups of tea each year, that was an affront. Polling shifted in favor of Brexit, and indeed Great Britain shocked the world in June 2016 by voting to leave the EU. In the U.S. today, we face similar irksome invasions of our homes and our freedom of choice. We already lost incandescent light bulbs; the government issued new specs for lighting last year that have effectively taken the familiar bulbs off the market. We also are forbidden to buy appliances like certain washer-dryers and items like toilets that actually work. People will spend almost anything to keep their old Maytag functioning, well aware that the mandated energy-saving replacements aren’t nearly as effective. Now it seems some Washington bureaucrats want to get rid of gas stoves, the go-to appliance for anyone who takes cooking seriously, used in about 40 percent of American households. Though ostensibly stemming from concerns about children’s health, the idea of a ban almost certainly relates to climate policy as well. For the federal government to ban gas stoves, and generally to oppose natural gas as an energy source, is nuts. The reason that greenhouse emissions declined 20 percent in the United States between 2005 and 2020 is that we have replaced coal and oil with cleaner, abundant and cheap natural gas. Since 2005, we have doubled our production of natural gas, thanks to horizontal drilling and fracking, which has also reduced our reliance on imported oil.
Key figures quash suggestions of gas stove ban - The White House and a key independent regulator are pushing back on the idea of a ban on new gas stoves as tensions over the restrictions boil over in Washington. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the White House doesn’t support a ban on Wednesday, echoing earlier remarks from the chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Their comments come after another commissioner has said that a ban was on the table, sparking fury from Republicans and moderate Democrats in Congress. Meanwhile, some supporters of either a ban or tougher regulations are being galvanized by a new study linking gas stoves to childhood asthma cases CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. last month said that a forthcoming information request from the committee could be “the first step in what could be a long journey toward regulating gas stoves,” as The Hill reported at the time. He also said that an outright ban was “a real possibility.”
U.S. Supreme Court considers narrowing federal protections for unions - (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with a labor dispute that could narrow federal protections for unions by making it easier for employers to sue over strikes that result in damage to company property. The justices heard oral arguments in an appeal by a concrete business in Washington state called Glacier Northwest Inc of a lower court's ruling in favor of a local affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in the company's lawsuit against the union arising from a 2017 strike. Glacier Northwest is a unit of Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement Corp (5233.T). Some of the conservative justices seemed inclined to bolster the ability of companies to take unions to state courts while liberal justices raised concerns about eroding organized labor's power to strike. The Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has leaned toward curbing the power of labor unions in rulings in recent years. This case could deliver another setback to organized labor after the justices in 2021 struck down a California agricultural regulation aimed at helping unions organize workers. The legal issue before the justices on Tuesday was whether companies can sue unions in state court over allegations of intentional property damage or if such claims are barred by a federal labor law called the National Labor Relations Act. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said that a broad ruling in favor of companies could undercut union decisions on when to strike, which often are made to pressure employers by causing economic harm.
The American public no longer believes the Supreme Court is impartial- Never in recent history, perhaps, have so many Americans viewed the Supreme Court as fundamentally partisan. Public approval of the nine-justice panel stands near historic lows. Declining faith in the institution seems rooted in a growing concern that the high court is deciding cases on politics, rather than law. In one recent poll, a majority of Americans opined that Supreme Court justices let partisan views influence major rulings. Three quarters of Republicans approve of the high court’s recent job performance. But Democrats’ supporthas plummeted to 13 percent, and more than half the nation overall disapproves of how the court is doing its job. Public support for the high court sank swiftly last summer in response to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a landmark ruling that revoked a constitutional right to abortion. The decision delighted many conservatives but defied a large majority of Americans who believe abortion should be legal. Yet, partisan anger runs deeper than Dobbs. Liberals are fuming about a confluence of lucky timing and political maneuvering that enabled a Republican-controlled Senate to approve three conservative justices in four years, knocking the panel out of synch with the American public. Judged by last year’s opinions, the current court is the most conservative in nearly a century, at a time when a majority of Americans are voting Democratic in most elections. Democrats say the court no longer mirrors society, a disconnect that spans politics and religion. All six of the court’s conservatives were raised Catholic, a faith that claims roughly one-fifth of the U.S. population. Republicans counter that the high court’s job is to serve the Constitution, not to please the public. “The Left was used to, for the most part, getting its way with the court,” said John Malcolm, a senior legal fellow at conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. “Now that the Left is not getting its way with the court, they’re trying to tear it down and delegitimize it.” Legal scholars may not care much about the high court’s popularity, but they care deeply about its legitimacy. But then, with Dobbs, the high court suffered “the largest decline in legitimacy that’s ever been registered, through dozens and dozens of surveys using the same indicators,” Gibson said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” One Gallup poll, taken after someone leaked a draft of the Dobbs ruling, found that only 25 percent of the American public had confidence in the court, the lowest figure recorded in a half century of polling.
Federal prisoner accounts would pay more to crime victims under new rule - The Justice Department has proposed new rules that would make it harder for federal prisoners to shield their money in government-run accounts while paying little in court-ordered restitution to their victims, following multiple stories in The Washington Post about money kept in the accounts of high-profile inmates.Former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, singer R. Kelly and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are among the federal prisoners who have paid minimal amounts to their victims while keeping thousands of dollars in their accounts. In each of those cases, prosecutors eventually went to court to force the Federal Bureau of Prisons to turn over the money — a process that advocates say delays justice for the victims and should not be necessary.For years, the Bureau of Prisons has required inmates to make only small payments — less than $9 a month — toward court-ordered fees and victim compensation. In Nassar’s case, that meant the former doctor, accused of sexually abusing hundreds of girls and women, was able to make personal expenditures of more than $10,000 from his Bureau of Prisons account over a three-year period while paying his victims about $300, according to court papers.Under a new rule proposed Monday, federal inmates would have to pay 75 percent of any money they receive in their prison accounts from outside sources, including relatives or friends, toward court-ordered debts. The rule change would apply only to inmates in federal prisons. Money earned from prison jobs, which typically pay far less than minimum wage, would be treated differently under the new rule, with authorities proposing to take 25 percent or 50 percent of that money for court-ordered debts, depending on the type of pay. “In recognition of the importance of satisfying financial obligations, including restitution owed to victims of criminal conduct, inmates will also be expected to allot 75% of the deposits received into their commissary accounts from sources outside the institution,” the written proposal says. It adds that “these percentage allotments may be altered on a case-by-case basis” by prison managers.
Keenan Anderson: BLM founder's cousin dies after police use Taser on him - The Washington Post -- A cousin of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors died hours after Los Angeles police repeatedly used a Taser on him and restrained him in the middle of the street following a traffic accident, according to body-camera footage released by authorities Wednesday. The death of Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-old high school teacher and father visiting from Washington, D.C., is among a recent series of separate encounters that ended with men dying after their exchanges with Los Angeles officers. The fatal incidents have rocked the city in recent days, and the community is calling for justice after the police encounters involving Anderson, as well as 45-year-old Takar Smith and 35-year-old Oscar Sanchez, both of whom were fatally shot by officers in the first few days of January.Video of the Jan. 3 incident in Venice, Calif., shows Anderson being detained by multiple officers as he begs for his life shortly after a traffic collision. Body-cam footage shows an officer appearing to have his elbow on Anderson’s neck as he is detained in the middle of the road.“They’re trying to George Floyd me!” he exclaimed, according to the video, referring to the Minneapolis man who was murdered by then-police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020. “They’re trying to George Floyd me!”Then an officer is shown using his Taser on Anderson two times, including one stretch that lasted about 30 seconds uninterrupted.After Anderson was eventually handcuffed and taken into custody, he was transferred by ambulance to a hospital in Santa Monica. It was there that he was pronounced dead after suffering cardiac arrest, according to a police news release.
FEMA fires group for nonsensical Alaska Native translations (AP) — After tidal surges and high winds from the remnants of a rare typhoon caused extensive damage to homes along Alaska’s western coast in September, the U.S. government stepped in to help residents — largely Alaska Natives — repair property damage. Residents who opened Federal Emergency Management Agency paperwork expecting to find instructions on how to file for aid in Alaska Native languages like Yup’ik or Inupiaq instead were reading bizarre phrases. “Tomorrow he will go hunting very early, and will (bring) nothing,” read one passage. The translator randomly added the word “Alaska” in the middle of the sentence. “Your husband is a polar bear, skinny,” another said. Yet another was written entirely in Inuktitut, an Indigenous language spoken in northern Canada, far from Alaska. FEMA fired the California company hired to translate the documents once the errors became known, but the incident was an ugly reminder for Alaska Natives of the suppression of their culture and languages from decades past. FEMA immediately took responsibility for the translation errors and corrected them, and the agency is working to make sure it doesn’t happen again, spokesperson Jaclyn Rothenberg said. No one was denied aid because of the errors. That’s not good enough for one Alaska Native leader. For Tara Sweeney, an Inupiaq who served as an assistant secretary of Indian Affairs in the U.S. Interior Department during the Trump administration, this was another painful reminder of steps taken to prevent Alaska Native children from speaking Indigenous languages. “When my mother was beaten for speaking her language in school, like so many hundreds, thousands of Alaska Natives, to then have the federal government distributing literature representing that it is an Alaska Native language, I can’t even describe the emotion behind that sort of symbolism,” Sweeney said.
U.S. House Republicans vote to go after Biden Justice Department (Reuters) - Republicans controlling the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to launch an investigation into what they term President Joe Biden's weaponization of the federal government, but Democrats branded it a partisan fishing expedition. Republicans have been promising to use their new majority against the Justice Department, FBI and other federal agencies investigating Republican former president Donald Trump and his supporters who on Jan. 6, 2021, stormed the Capitol. The party-line vote on Tuesday aims to do just that, setting up a "Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government." The body is set to launch a wide-ranging probe of Democrat Biden's administration, which Republicans accuse of "weaponizing" the FBI against Trump. "We need to get to work now," Republican James Comer, head of the Oversight Committee, said in a speech on the House floor. "We must expose the abuses committed by the unelected, unaccountable federal bureaucracy." Among the federal agencies targeted are those looking into Trump's attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat and alleged mishandling of classified documents. Trump has dismissed these probes as "witch hunts." Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, days after the August search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort for classified material, promised to launch a probe of "Joe Biden and his administration's weaponization of the Department of Justice and FBI ... The FBI raid of President Trump is a complete abuse and overreach of its authority." Democrats have raised concerns about a provision that authorizes the committee to probe "ongoing criminal investigations," which are generally outside the purview of congressional oversight. "This is a violation of separation of powers, and it's also very dangerous," said Jerrold Nadler, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. On Monday the White House said that lawyers for Biden found classified documents at a Washington think tank affiliated with the president.
Classified documents from Biden's vice presidency found at think tank (Reuters) - Classified documents from Joe Biden's vice-presidential days were discovered in November by the U.S. president's personal attorneys at a Washington think tank, a White House lawyer said on Monday. Nearly 10 documents were found at Biden's office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, CBS News reported earlier, adding that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had asked the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review the classified documents which were handed over to the National Archives.The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Biden on Nov. 2, days before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said in a statement on Monday. The Penn Biden Center is named for Biden, who periodically used the office space from mid-2017 until the start of his 2020 presidential campaign. The White House Counsel's Office notified the National Archives on the day of the discovery of those documents, Sauber said, adding the National Archives took possession of the material on the following morning. The documents were discovered when Biden's personal attorneys "were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.," Sauber said. He added the White House was cooperating with the Justice Department and the National Archives.."When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform late on Monday.
Sen. Graham Demands Special Counsel Probe As Biden Breaks Silence Over Classified Docs - Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday called for Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate the handling of classified documents by President Biden while he served as vice president. Graham said the appointment of a special counsel is necessary to investigate Biden after Garland announced the appointment of career prosecutor Jack Smith to investigate former President Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.“I think if you believe a special counsel is necessary to assure the public about the handling of classified documents by Donald Trump, you should apply a special counsel to the mishandling of classified documents by President Biden when he was vice president,” Graham said during an interview with Martha MacCallum on Fox News.“If there is not a special counsel appointed to find out how this happened with President Biden regarding classified information … it will hurt the country,” Graham warned.Graham warned that many conservatives believe prosecutors and the media are applying a different set of standards for Trump and Biden. “Every conservative out there is completely disgusted with the standard that exists in America when it comes to conservatives and everybody else,” he said.“Garland, if you’re listening, if you thought it was necessary to appoint a special counsel regarding President Trump, then you need to do the exact same thing regarding President Biden when it comes to handling classified information,” Graham said.Additionally, President Biden has broken his silence on the issue.At a news conference Wednesday for the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico, President Biden said he doesn't know why classified papers were lying around in his former office at the Penn Biden Center (this was before the second batch of classified papers were discovered).“People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously,” he said. “When my lawyers were clearing out my office at the University of Pennsylvania, they set up an office for me — a secure office in the Capitol, when I — the four years after being vice president, I was a professor at Penn.“They found some documents in a box — you know, a locked cabinet, or at least a closet. And as soon as they did, they realized there were several classified documents in that box. And they did what they should have done: They immediately called the Archives — immediately called the Archives — turned them over to the Archives.”“And I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office.“But I don’t know what’s in the documents. I’ve — my lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes — they’ve turned over the boxes to the Archives. And we’re cooperating fully — cooperating fully with the review and — which I hope will be finished soon, and will be more detail at that time.”
More classified documents found on Biden at second location -- A second batch of classified documents belonging to President Biden was reportedly discovered by White House aides, days after the discovery of documents from a former private office of the president’s became public.The new batch was found in separate location from the first, NBC News first reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.The first batch was found in a University of Pennsylvania office in Washington, D.C., that once belonged to Biden between his time as vice president and his 2020 presidential campaign.Since then, White House aides have been looking for any additional classified documents in other locations, NBC reported.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the additional documents.Earlier on Wednesday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sparred with reporters over the discovery of the first batch of documents, avoiding answering questions on why the administration didn’t inform the public sooner when attorneys for Biden made the discovery on Nov. 2, just six days ahead of crucial midterm elections.She said that the situation was under review by the Department of Justice and would not comment on it further.CBS News was first to break the news of that discovery.Biden on Tuesday addressed the matter of the first batch, saying he was unaware of which documents were found and that his lawyers advised him not to seek such information. Biden also said he was surprised such records were kept there.The revelation immediately drew comparisons to the FBI’s search last year of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, in which federal investigators seized classified documents as part of a wider federal probe into potential mishandling of the information.
Additional documents marked classified found in Biden's Wilmington garage - Lawyers for President Joe Biden have discovered additional documents with classified markings in a storage space in the garage of his Wilmington, Del., residence, the special counsel to the president announced Thursday. The lawyers found the Obama-Biden administration records during a search completed Wednesday night of Biden’s residences in both Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Del. All but one of the documents were found in a storage space in Biden’s Wilmington garage, with one other record found in an adjacent room, Special Counsel to the President Richard Sauber said in a statement. “As I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified materials seriously,” Biden said following remarks on the economy and inflation Thursday, just after the news broke of the additional documents being discovered. “I also said we’re cooperating fully and completely with the Justice Department’s review.” It’s the second batch of documents marked classified discovered in a space used by Biden since the end of the Obama administration. The previous set, found at a Biden-affiliated think tank on Nov. 2 and publicly disclosed earlier this week, triggered the broader search and a move by the Justice Department to scrutinize the discoveries. Garland announces special counsel investigation into Biden classified docs “As we stated previously, we are fully cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in possession of the Archives,” Sauber said in the statement. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday afternoon that he had appointed a special counsel to review the storage of the records. Former U.S. attorney Robert Hur will lead the probe, Garland announced. “The extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter,” Garland said during a press conference. “This appointment underscores for the public, the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. And to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.”
Garland appoints special counsel to probe Biden classified documents - Attorney General Merrick Garland, citing what he called “extraordinary circumstances,” appointed a special counsel Thursday to investigate the handling of classified documents found at a former office and the Delaware home of President Biden — raising the legal stakes and increasing potential political consequences of national security cases ensnaring both Biden and his predecessor.The nation’s top law enforcement official made the announcement Thursday, tapping Robert K. Hur, a former U.S. attorney in Marylandwho served as a senior Justice Department official during the Trump administration. Hur’s investigation will proceed separately from a different, longer-running probe into the retention of classified documents at the Florida home of former president Donald Trump.Thursday’s appointment could ultimately redefine the relationship between Biden and the attorney general he chose to run the Justice Department as an independent arm of the government. It also means that for some indefinite period of time, the two potential rivals for the White House in 2024 will each proceed toward that race under the shadow of criminal investigations.Speaking to reporters at Justice Department headquarters, Garland provided new details on the timing and progress of the Biden documents investigation, noting that on Jan. 5, the first prosecutor he’d assigned to review the matter recommended that a special counsel take up the case.Hur will examine whether “any person or entity violated the law in connection with this matter,” said the attorney general, who expressed confidence the special counsel will tackle the assignment “in an evenhanded and urgent manner.”Garland said Hur’s appointment “underscores for the public the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability for particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.”
Opinion | Biden and Trump document situations differ. But we need to know more. - From what we know so far, President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents was not nearly as egregious — or potentially criminal — as former president Donald Trump’s. But the Biden situation does require thorough Justice Department scrutiny, and there are legitimate questions about what the president knew and when he knew it.Attorney General Merrick Garland was right to appoint a special counselto investigate the Biden documents: Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney for the state of Maryland who served at Justice during both Republican and Democratic administrations. Another special counsel, Jack Smith, will continue to investigate Trump’s hoarding of secret papers, among other potential crimes.It was bad enough when the White House announced on Monday that “a small number of documents with classified markings” from Biden’s years as vice president were discovered last fall in a closet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank in Washington where Biden had an office during the Trump presidency. It got worse on Thursday, when the administration revealed that yet more classified documents had been discovered at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Del.In September, Biden called Trump “totally irresponsible” for taking classified papers to his Mar-a-Lago estate and squirreling them away in a storage room. We now know that such documents were also stowed in the garage where Biden parks his prized Corvette.There are obvious questions that need to be answered. Chief among them is how sensitive the information in the documents might be and whether unauthorized persons could have had access to them.Also: After the Justice Department went so far as to send the FBI to seize the documents that Trump had taken to Florida, why did Biden and his aides not immediately make sure there was no classified material in his possession? Given that the papers at the Penn Biden Center were found on Nov. 2 — six days before the midterm election — why was their existence not announced until this past Monday, more than two months later? The Justice Department was told about the documents stored in Biden’s garage on Dec. 20, so why was that discovery not revealed until Thursday? And since one other classified document was found elsewhere in Biden’s house on Thursday morning, are we sure there are no others? I mean, has anyone taken a flashlight up into the attic?
Furor over documents creates unexpected political peril for Biden -- President Biden, facing a special counsel investigation amid new revelations of classified documents in his possession after the vice presidency, suddenly confronts a ballooning political problem that threatens to hamstring his agenda and blunt the momentum he hoped to seize at the halfway mark of his term. Congressional Republicans, who just days ago were displaying bitter discord and nearly coming to fisticuffs on the House floor, are now launching new investigations and inquiries. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday he was appointing a special counsel in the deepening probe, which could mean interviews, searches of additional Biden properties and potentially weeks of headlines.More immediately, Biden’s possession of classified documents is likely to rob him of the unvarnished ability to criticize former president Donald Trump for his own handling of sensitive material — even if the cases, and the two presidents’ approach to them, have been notably different. The unexpected focus on the classified documents comes at a moment when Biden and his aides had been buoyant over midterm election results that were far better for Democrats than they feared. Biden seemed to revel in the Republican infighting on full display last week when it took 15 ballots before Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was elected House speaker. And the president is widely expected to announce his reelection bid in the coming months, as his approval ratings rise and the economy is on firmer ground. The potential peril was on vivid display Thursday morning when Biden held an event to tout the good economic news that inflation was down and conditions for consumers were improving. Just before he took the stage, Biden’s lawyers revealed that a second batch of classified documents had been discovered in two separate areas of the president’s home in Wilmington, Del. As soon as he finished talking, reporters shouted questions — not about the improving economy, but about why documents were found in his garage next to his prized 1967 Corvette Stingray.
Biden is in a hole of his own making - President Joe Biden’s approval numbers are rising. Democrats are as loyal as they’ve been in months. Inflation is down, jobs are up, and shovels are hitting dirt on ambitious plans to fortify America’s infrastructure. And, yet, Biden is doing some digging of his own. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s announcement Thursday that he was appointing a special counsel to investigate how classified documents from Biden’s years as vice president came to be stored in his Delaware residence and private office in D.C. thrust a note of political danger into an otherwise good stretch for the White House. Garland announces special counsel investigation into Biden classified docs Biden faces weeks, if not months, of legal probing, speculation and bad headlines over his handling of the material. Not to mention the very strong likelihood of additional House GOP probes into the matter. He also found himself deprived, for the time being, of a clean-shot talking point against his archnemesis former President Donald Trump — who is facing a separate special counsel investigation into his own handling of classified materials kept at his private club and home in Florida. The two cases are markedly different. But some Democrats privately concede that their coexistence gives the president’s critics a chance to denounce him as negligent, hypocritical or careless right at a time when things were moving Biden’s way. “I think it takes the whole Trump scandal off the table,” said one Democratic Party operative, granted anonymity to speak freely about the delicate situation unfolding around the president. “Most polls show that voters don’t give a fuck about this stuff,” they added. “But the media momentum is real.”
Democrats in tough spot with Biden classified documents - Senate Democrats are finding themselves in a tough spot as they try to figure out how to best respond to revelations that President Biden had improperly stashed classified documents at his personal office in Washington and in his garage in Delaware. The Democrats’ position is made trickier by not knowing exactly how sensitive the documents are, nor how they came into Biden’s possession during or after his service as vice president in the Obama administration. Downplaying or dismissing the seriousness of the situation will be difficult after Democrats relentlessly hammered former President Trump for improperly storing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago — though there are important differences between Biden’s and Trump’s situations. “The classified documents stuff will be painful because Democrats made such a huge thing out of the Trump classified documents thing. The reality is everything is under the sun is classified and officials treat them as they stay in office [or leave] with less and less respect,” said Robert Borosage, a progressive activist and co-director of Campaign for America’s Future. He said the gravity of Biden’s political problem “depends on what the documents are.” “Whether the investigations damage Biden depends on what they find,” he said of efforts by House Republicans. The new House GOP majority hasn’t been shy about its plans to inflict as much political damage on the president as possible by shining a light on his handling of classified documents, as well as the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed veteran prosecutor Robert Hur to serve as special counsel to investigate whether Biden’s possession of the classified documents violated the law and merits charges. He made the announcement just a few hours after the White House confirmed the discovery of a second cache of documents. Garland had come under pressure from Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.), two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who called for equal treatment of Biden and Trump. Garland appointed career prosecutor Jack Smith to serve as special counsel overseeing investigations of Trump in November.
Five more classified documents found at Biden’s Wilmington home, lawyer says | The Hill - Five more classified documents from President Biden’s time as vice president were found at his Wilmington, Del., residence on Thursday, the White House said Saturday. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said in a statement that one classified document was found in a room adjacent to Biden’s garage on Wednesday night. The lawyers who discovered that document did not have security clearances and paused their search as a result, Sauber said. Sauber, who has a security clearance, arrived Thursday night to facilitate the transfer of documents to the Justice Department. “While I was transferring it to the DOJ officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages,” Sauber said. “The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them.” The discovery of five more documents brings the total number of materials with classified markings found at Biden’s old office and Wilmington home to roughly two dozen. Biden arrived at his Wilmington residence on Friday night. He is set to spend the weekend there, as he does frequently.
Penn Biden Center is 'dark money nightmare,' patronage mill -The Ivy League think tank where lawyers found classified materials linked to the Obama White House is a patronage mill for the Biden administration, raising suspicions among critics that its establishment attracted tens of millions in donations from anonymous Chinese donors.The Department of Justice is probing how “a small number” of classified documents from President Biden’s years as vice president ended up at the Washington, DC, think tank that bears his name, the White House confirmed Monday. A second batch of papers was found at an additional location, it was reported Wednesday.The University of Pennsylvania received more than $30 million from Chinese donors shortly after the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which functioned as an office for Joe Biden before he was elected president, was announced in 2017, according to public records.“The Penn Biden Center is a dark-money, revolving-door nightmare where foreign competitors like China donated millions of dollars to the university so that they could have access to future high-ranking officials,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the Virginia-based National Legal and Policy Center.The University of Pennsylvania raked in a total of $54.6 million from 2014 through June 2019 in donations from China, including $23.1 million in anonymous gifts starting in 2016, according to public records.Most of the anonymous donations came after the university officially announced in February 2017 that it would create the academic center named for Biden, whose term as vice president under Barack Obama had just ended. In addition to leading the think tank, Biden was named a professor at the school.
Hunter Biden Lived at Biden Home Where Classified Documents Were Stashed, Records Show - The home where President Joe Biden improperly stored a number of classified documents was also Hunter Biden’s residency for a number of years, a Washington Free Beacon review of the younger Biden’s laptop concluded.According to government documents stored on his personal computer, Hunter Biden lived in 2018 and 2019 at the Wilmington, Del., home where his father had classified materials stored in the garage. It is unclear precisely when the documents were put in the garage or when Hunter Biden began living at the residence, but in May 2018 the president's scandal-plagued son was issued a Delaware driver's license listing his father’s home as his primary residence.The living arrangement raises serious questions following Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. Hunter Biden, who suffered from a crack cocaine addiction for years and had extensive ties to foreign business contacts, is facing a federal criminal investigation of his own for tax fraud and lying on a firearm application.Neither the White House nor the Department of Justice responded to a request for comment.In December 2018, Hunter Biden directed his Wells Fargo financial adviser to change his banking address to the Wilmington address. He also added the address to his PayPal account in January 2019. And a month later, Hunter Biden ordered a number of products from the auction site Tophatter to be shipped to the home, including a night vision monocular telescope, an anti-police GPS radar detector, a 5-megawatt laser pointer, a 360-degree USB webcam, and a $51 smartphone, according to shipping receipts found on his laptop.Hunter Biden also used the home as his billing address for his Apple account, according to over a dozen receipts on the hard drive dated between January 2019 and March 2019. Digital items Hunter Biden purchased in that timeframe include subscriptions for various dating services, an app that makes calls and texts from a second phone number, and an audiobook of his father’s memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose. A notarized Quitclaim Deed located on the hard drive dated Feb. 20, 2019, identifies Hunter Biden as a "divorced man, residing" at his father’s Wilmington property.Hunter Biden appears to also have had access to the property’s garage where the misplaced classified records from the Obama-Biden administration were stored, according to a report from RealClearPolitics. Then-Vice President Joe Biden said on CNBC’s Jay Leno’s Garage in 2016 that Hunter had rebuilt the engine on his 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray along with the president’s deceased son, Beau.Joe Biden cited his beloved Corvette in a press conference Thursday as he assured the public the classified documents he kept in the garage were secure."My Corvette’s in a locked garage so it’s not like it’s sitting on the street," Joe Biden said when asked by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy why he kept classified materials next to the vehicle.
Watchdog Calls on Biden Center to Disclose Foreign Donations As DOJ Investigates Classified Docs --After classified documents were found stored in a closet at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center, a watchdog group is calling for the university to disclose whether any of the foreign donations it was given were channeled into the think tank.The calls from the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) come amid reports that the Department of Justice is investigating how Biden’s classified documents ended up at the institute and could revive congressional probes into national security risks posed by the Penn Biden Center, the policy institute launched by Biden and the University of Pennsylvania in 2017.Foreign donations to the University of Pennsylvania more than tripled in the two years after the think tank opened, with most of the $61 million coming from China, the Washington Free Beacon reported in 2021. Republican lawmakers and foreign policy officials have warned about the Chinese government’s influence-buying operations on college campuses, while the Department of Justice has been cracking down on Chinese espionage at American universities.Tom Anderson, director of the Public Integrity Project at the NLPC, said UPenn has shown an "unwillingness to disclose what appears to be millions of dollars of foreign donations" raised following the creation of the Penn Biden Center, which may have been channeled into Biden’s think tank.The funding "has potentially opened the door to national security issues related to the University providing undocumented access to what was then future high-level officials within the Biden administration and State Department," Anderson told the Free Beacon.Stephen MacCarthy, a spokesman for the University of Pennsylvania, dismissed the notion of any link between the Penn Biden Center and the foreign donations to UPenn, which surged after the think tank launched. "One hundred percent of the budget for the Penn Biden Center comes from university funds," he told the Free Beacon on Tuesday.The Penn Biden Center "has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity. In fact, the University has never solicited anygifts for the Center." MacCarthy said the think tank has only unsolicited earmarked gifts from two donors, "which combined total $1,100."
Longtime Trump CFO Weisselberg gets 5 months in jail in tax fraud case - (Reuters) - Allen Weisselberg, a longtime executive for Donald Trump and the star prosecution witness in the Trump Organization's criminal trial, was sentenced on Tuesday to five months behind bars for helping engineer a wide-ranging tax fraud at the former president's real estate company. Weisselberg, 75, was expected to be sent to New York's notorious Rikers Island jail after pleading guilty last August in an agreement with prosecutors to all 15 counts he faced. The Trump Organization's former chief financial officer admitted that from 2005 to 2017 he and other executives received bonuses and perks that fraudulently saved the company and themselves money and that he evaded taxes on $1.76 million of income. The Trump Organization was convicted last month on all counts it faced at a trial overseen by Justice Juan Merchan in a New York state court in Manhattan. At Tuesday's sentencing hearing, Merchan said that had he not agreed last August to a five-month term for Weisselberg arising from the plea deal, he would have imposed a much longer sentence based on the trial testimony. Merchan singled out Weisselberg for putting his wife on Trump's payroll so she could receive undeserved Social Security benefits. Other perks for the Weisselbergs included a luxury Manhattan apartment and multiple Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
Trump Organization fined $1.6 million for tax fraud scheme -- The Trump Organization, former President Donald Trump’s business empire, was hit with a $1.6 million fine Friday for tax fraud and other crimes committed as part of a yearslong scheme to help some of its top executives avoid paying taxes on compensation. The Trump Corp. and The Trump Payroll Corp., two subsidiaries of the Trump Organization, were both sentenced to the maximum possible fines under New York laws. The Trump Organization has denied all wrongdoing and is planning to appeal the verdict. The subsidiaries were found guilty last month on 17 counts, including tax fraud, falsifying business records and conspiracy, as part of what prosecutors had called a “sweeping and audacious” scheme to compensate company executives “off the books.” The verdict by a New York City jury marked the first-ever criminal convictions of Trump’s companies. One of those executives was former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges last summer and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against his longtime employer. The Manhattan district attorney’s office accused Weisselberg of receiving more than $1.7 million in unreported compensation over more than a decade. That compensation came in the form of rent payments on luxury apartments, home furnishings, Mercedes-Benz cars for him and his wife, parking garage expenses, and private school tuition payments for his grandchildren, prosecutors alleged. Weisselberg and Trump’s companies “conducted and benefitted from sweeping fraud for well over a decade,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement after the sentence came down Friday morning. “While corporations can’t serve jail time, this consequential conviction and sentencing serves as a reminder to corporations and executives that you cannot defraud tax authorities and get away with it. It is also an important reminder that our state law must change so that we can impose more significant penalties and sanctions on corporations that commit crimes in New York,” Bragg said. The DA added that his office’s investigation of Trump and his businesses remains ongoing.
Special grand jury completes Trump investigation -The Atlanta-area special grand jury investigating efforts by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election has concluded its investigation, according to the state judge overseeing the probe. Judge Robert McBurney acknowledged the conclusion of the investigation in a two-page order, noting that the panel “has now issued its final report,” but it’s unclear what the grand jury put in its report regarding Trump. The special grand jury is expected to make a charging recommendation related to Trump and other targets, about whether their efforts to overturn the 2020 election violated state law. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis must then make the ultimate charging decision after presenting the panel’s findings to a regular grand jury. The special grand jury has been operating for a year and hauled in testimony from some of Trump’s closest allies, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorney Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The panel’s recommendations remain unclear, but McBurney has set a Jan. 24 hearing to consider whether to unseal the panel’s recommendations and findings. Whether any of its substantive conclusions will be revealed before then is also unclear. The panel spent months probing efforts by top Trump allies to deputize GOP activists to pose as presidential electors, even though Trump lost the state. That effort was a component of Trump’s strategy to overturn the 2020 election when Congress met to count electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. The special grand jury also probed Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, famously asking election officials to “find” enough votes to reverse his defeat. Several witnesses, including Graham and Meadows, challenged the special grand jury’s authority. But Meadows lost a court battle that reached the South Carolina Supreme Court, and Graham similarly was required to testifyafter a legal push that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
McCarthy says he will look at expunging Trump impeachment -- Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Thursday that he would consider expunging one or both of former President Trump’s impeachments. “I would understand why members would want to bring that forward,” McCarthy said in response to a question at a press conference on Thursday, before listing off several other key priorities for House Republicans. “But I understand why individuals want to do it, and we’d look at it,” he added. In the last Congress, a group of more than 30 House Republicans led by Rep. Markwayne Mullin (Okla.) put forward a resolution to expunge Trump’s impeachment in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The resolution was supported by the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.). A smaller group, again led by Mullin, also introduced a resolution to expunge Trump’s December 2019 impeachment for allegedly attempting to withhold military aid from Ukraine in an effort to pressure the country to investigate the business dealings of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden. The Senate ultimately acquitted Trump in both impeachments, after failing to reach the two-thirds majority required to convict him.
Deposed Trump hurled insults at woman who said he raped her -(AP) — Questioned for a lawsuit, former President Donald Trump hurled insults and threatened to sue the columnist who accused him of raping her in a department store in the 1990s, according to excerpts of his testimony unsealed by a court on Friday. Portions of his October deposition in a lawsuit filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll were released publicly after a federal judge rejected his lawyers’ request that it remained sealed. “She said that I did something to her that never took place. There was no anything. I know nothing about this nut job,” he said, according to the transcript. The excerpts reveal a contentious battle between Trump and a lawyer for Carroll who questioned him. The release of excerpts from the deposition came the same day as federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan also refused a request by Trump’s lawyers to toss out two lawsuits by Carroll alleging defamation and rape. An April trial is planned. Trump said the encounter with Carroll in the mid-1990s at an upscale Manhattan department store never happened. In his daylong testimony, he repeatedly attack Carroll depiction of Trump as a rapist. Trump said he knew it wasn’t “politically correct” to say “she’s not my type” when he responded to claims shortly after Carroll’s 2019 book was published, and the writer alleged that she was attacked by Trump in a dressing room after a chance encounter with him in an upscale Manhattan department store in late 1995 or early 1996. “But I’ll say it anyway,” he said. “She’s accusing me of rape, a woman that I have no idea who she is.· It came out of the blue. She’s accusing me of raping her, the worst thing you can do, the worst charge.” He added: “And you know it’s not true too. You’re a political operative also. You’re a disgrace. But she’s accusing me and so are you of rape, and it never took place.
OPEC’s Second-Largest Oil Producer Issues Arrest Warrant For Donald Trump - The Iraqi supreme court has issued an arrest warrant for former U.S. President Donald Trump for the assassination on Iraqi soil of Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, IraqiNews reports, citing a Baghdad news agency. The warrant was issued on Thursday in connection both with the killing of Soleimani and of another Iraqi militia leader, chief of staff of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq–both of whom were killed in a drone strike in January 2020 near the Baghdad airport. That assassination operation led to Iranian strikes on the Aia Al-Assad U.S. base in Iraq. The arrest warrant charges Trump with premeditated murder. While the warrant is clearly symbolic, a conviction of this nature carries the death penalty. The court said the investigation into the killings was still ongoing, AP reported. Citing Baghdad Today news agency, IraqiNews quoted Supreme Judicial Council head Faiq Zaidban as calling on Baghdad to hold Trump “accountable for this heinous crime”. At the same time, in November, Iraq’s parliamentary speaker confirmed that hundreds–and possibly thousands–of people had been kidnapped and killed by Iran-backed militias from 2014 to 2016. Iraq, the second-largest oil producer in OPEC, is caught between rivals Iran and the United States, while Iran’s influence has grown exponentially since the toppling of Saddam Hussein following the 2003 U.S. invasion. In October, ending a long-running stalemate, Iraq’s parliament named a new pro-Iranian prime minister and pro-Iranian parties now dominate, having sidelined Shi’ite rival Moqtada al Sadr, who had been paralyzing the government with anti-Iranian protests. The PMF figure assassinated in a Trump-ordered military operation represented the head of an umbrella group that brought together pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, which enjoyed government support as a loosely defined element of the Iraqi armed forces.
‘Lords of war’: DOJ lays out case that Proud Boys leaders led Capitol breach - Leaders of the far-right Proud Boys loyal to then-President Donald Trump mounted a sophisticated effort to stop the transfer of power to then-President-elect Joe Biden that culminated in an organized push to breach the Capitol, prosecutors argued Thursday. Proud Boys chair Enrique Tarrio and four allies took cues from Trump’s refusal to cede the election to Biden and inspiration from his debate-stage call for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough said. He urged jurors to convict the five men of seditious conspiracy — a plot to use force to prevent Biden from taking office. “These ‘lords of war’ joined together to stop the transfer of presidential power,” McCullough said during opening arguments, citing the Proud Boys’ own description of themselves sent in messages prior to Jan. 6, 2021. The trial is the most significant to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Though prosecutors had already won a conviction in a separate seditious conspiracy trial against Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys have long been seen as more central to the Capitol attack. Prosecutors have theorized that the Proud Boys developed a plan to violently stop the transfer of power at any cost, and used tactics they had honed over the years to influence the pro-Trump crowd — “normies,” as the Proud Boys described them — to overtake police at crucial points around the Capitol. They also helped remove some of the barriers that allowed the mob to advance closer to the building. Members of the group marched on the Capitol well before Trump finished addressing a rally that morning and were present at nearly every significant breach of police lines. Dominic Pezzola, a Proud Boy from New York who is on trial alongside Tarrio, was the first to breach the building, when he smashed two Capitol windows with a stolen police riot shield. Their presence at these breach points was no accident, McCullough contended. The group, under Tarrio’s leadership, had formed a new “fighting force” — dubbed the “Ministry of Self Defense.” That group took additional inspiration from Trump’s Dec. 19, 2020, tweet urging supporters to descend on Washington for a “wild” protest against the election results. Proud Boys, prosecutors said, took that tweet as a call to action.
JPMorgan-Epstein Lawsuit Amended By Virgin Islands; 'Client List' Shortened, Staley And Dubin Ties Unredacted -- The US Virgin Islands case against JP Morgan just got even weirder.Recall that in late December, Attorney General Denise George sued the bank, claiming they reaped financial benefits from Epstein's sex-trafficking operation. Three days later, George was fired. The original complaint against the bank filed by George included a lengthy-but-redacted section on "High Net Worth Clients" Epstein brought to JPMorgan. It had 11 separate entries spanning three pages of the complaint - which James O'Keefe of Project Veritas wants to get his hands on. The original complaint notes that Epstein had an extensive relationship with former JPM Exec Jes Staley, who was CEO of Barclays until he resigned in 2001 over his ties to the pedophile.However, one week after George's firing, the US Virgin Islands has filed an amended complaint which significantly shortens the "High Net Worth Clients" list to just three entries, and unredacts a name we already knew about; Glenn Dubin, the owner of Highbridge Capital Management whose wife once told Epstein's probation officer that she was "100% comfortable" with Jeffrey Epstein being around her minor children. The Dubins and Epstein were close, and remained close after his 2008 conviction for pedophilia - inviting him to their Palm Beach home for Thanksgiving the following year. According to Vanity Fair, several sources said that Epstein was the godfather to the Dubins' three children - a claim which the family disputed ("The Dubins are Jewish and Jewish people do not typically do godparents," said a spokesman). Dubin also directed some of Epstein's money to at least two hedge fund mangers; Dan Zwirn and Joseph Kusnan - both former Highbridge employees who left to start their own firms. "Glenn Dubin introduced me to Epstein as a new manager that he was familiar with and thought highly of," Kusnan told Vanity Fair - insisting that he and Epstein only met once, and never communicated again. Notably, Kusnan delivered "a good rate of return on his modest investment." Former Dubin chef and assistant Rinaldo Rizzo claimed in an unsealed June 2016 deposition that when he and his wife Debra worked for the Dubins, Andersson-Dubin brought home a 15-year-old Swedish girl who had been with Epstein and Maxwell during a visit to the Dubins' home. The girl was "distraught," "upset," and "she was shaking" said Rizzo, who added that the girl seemed "on the verge of crying." According to the report, "[T]he girl told him and his wife that she worked for Epstein as his "executive personal assistant," and when Rizzo expressed shock that such a young girl could have that job, "she just breaks down hysterically." Rizzo stated that the girl told him she was involved in some forced sexual activity at Epstein’s Caribbean island and was told by Maxwell and Epstein not to discuss it." Last but not least, Vanity Fair's Cohan notes that the Dubins were close enough to Victoria's Secret boss (and former Epstein pal) Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder and CEO of L Brands. Wexner - Epstein's only known financial client - allowed the Dubins and their children to use their 316-foot, $100 million yacht, Limitless, for a Mediterranean vacation.
JPMorgan Chase Hit with Lawsuit for Facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s Crime Network; Similar Charges Were Brought Against It for Facilitating Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme By Pam and Russ Martens - Making headlines around the world last week was the news that the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Denise George, was fired just days after she filed a federal lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, charging it with facilitating the sex trafficking of children by Jeffrey Epstein. George was fired by the Governor of the Virgin Islands, Albert Bryan Jr.Unfortunately, those headlines and the mainstream news articles that accompanied them, fail to capture the worst parts of this story, which includes the following: the 30-page lawsuit filed by Attorney General George on December 27 in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York includes a “Sealed Document Placed in Vault” according to the Docket Sheet in the case; after the paragraph headlined as “JP Morgan Ignored Obvious Red Flags Relating to Epstein’s Accounts,” large segments of the lawsuit have been redacted with black lines covering full paragraphs; pages 15 through 22 of the lawsuit are completely white, with no black line redactions and no text; the case has been assigned to Judge Jed Rakoff, who lately seems to be the only Judge in that large courthouse that is allowed to oversee sensitive matters pertaining to JPMorgan Chase – the largest bank in the U.S. which has a rap sheet that reads like the Gambino crime family and which has racked up five criminal felony counts – to which it pleaded guilty. (See Judge Rakoff Signs a Dangerous Protective Order in Whistleblower Case Against 5-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase.)In November, two Jane Doe cases were filed individually against JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank for facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking. Those cases were also assigned to Judge Jed Rakoff and have now been consolidated with the Virgin Islands case. The lead attorney in both Jane Doe cases is the prominent attorney, David Boies, of law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. And, finally, the charges being leveled by the now sacked Attorney General of the Virgin Islands involving JPMorgan Chase facilitating the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein have a distinctly familiar ring to the charges brought in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Justice against JPMorgan Chase for facilitating the massive Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff. Compare the similarities:
Bitcoin Retakes $17K as Interest Rates Plunge Following Economic Reports - The price of bitcoin (BTC) touched $17,000 for the first time in 2023, rallying alongside stocks and bonds on hopes the U.S. Federal Reserve may further slow its pace of monetary tightening. The big economic event of the day was supposed to be the Nonfarm Payrolls reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) at 8:30 a.m. ET, but the rally really kicked off 90 minutes later after the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index (also known as ISM services) for December fell sharply to 49.6 from 56.5 previously. Any number below 50 for this gauge suggests economic contraction, and it was the first time the services index dipped below 50 since May 2020. . Stock and bond prices began taking off just after the ISM report and haven't looked back. The rally in bitcoin took a bit longer to get going on Friday and hasn't been as dramatic, but the crypto did manage to hit $17,000 for the first time in three weeks. Alongside the many issues facing bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency industry, maybe the most major headwind to prices has been the aggressive Fed. To the extent that the Fed may throttle back its pace of tightening, the bullish action for crypto could continue.
FTX’s venture backers included Patriots owner Robert Kraft and billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, new filings show - It wasn’t just Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen. The roster of high-profile investors who lost money betting on crypto exchange FTX also included New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, according to court filings released late Monday. Sam Bankman-Fried’s well-documented success at raising money and charming investors extended to a more expansive set of celebrity investors and big-name financers than was previously disclosed. FTX went through four fundraising rounds to reach a $32 billion valuation by early last year, before ultimately spiraling into bankruptcy in November. Bankman-Fried, FTX’s co-founder and former CEO, has pleaded not guilty to multiple criminal charges, including fraud and money laundering. In December, he was released on a $250 million bond while awaiting trial. For venture backers, FTX represents a loss of historic proportions. Sequoia Capital said in November that it had marked its investment of over $210 million down to zero. Before former equity holders can begin trying to recoup any of their investment, customers face a long road to recovery as the bankruptcy process winds its way through court and across dozens of jurisdictions. FTX’s venture investors included a host of luminaries. Dan Loeb controlled over 6.1 million preferred shares through Third Point-connected venture funds. Rival exchange Coinbase Jones, the founder of Tudor Investment, apparently owned shares through a series of family trusts. Kraft controlled 155,144 shares of preferred stock through previously undisclosed investments in FTX. Brady, who at age 45 is the winningest quarterback in National Football League history, was a known FTX backer and a pitchman for the company. He held common stock in the company alongside Bündchen. The celebrity couple announced their divorce in October after 13 years of marriage. CNBC has compiled and analyzed the following preferred share ownership using Delaware bankruptcy court filings. Despite being called a Series B raise, this July 2021 fundraising round was FTX’s first infusion of outside capital, excluding an early investment from Binance that was ultimately wound down. Investors included Paradigm and Sequoia, as well as Thoma Bravo and Third Point. The $900 million round valued FTX at $18 billion.Just months later, FTX closed a funding round for $420 million, which included many of the original Series B backers. The investor list expanded to include previously undisclosed capital from Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai’s family office, Blue Pool, among others.
Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen's FTX stake will probably get wiped out — Less than a year after Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen appeared in a series of Super Bowl ads for FTX, the former couple have emerged as some of the biggest equity holders in the now-bankrupt enterprise. Brady owns 1.1 million common shares of FTX, while Bundchen owns 686,000 shares, according to bankrupcty court documents filed Monday.At its peak, the privately held FTX was valued at around $32 billion. Whatever Brady and Bundchen paid for their stakes, they, along with hundreds of other investors, will almost certainly see their positions completely wiped out. (The court documents didn’t disclose what investors paid for their shares or detail when they were acquired.)When companies go bankrupt, stockholders are typically the last in line to recover any funds. US bankruptcy laws stipulate that creditors — in FTX’s case, customers who’d deposited money on the platform — be repaid first. A representative for the pair, who divorced in October, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Their role in boosting FTX has already come under legal scrutiny. Soon after FTX’s collapse, a customer filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, along with Brady, Bundchen and several other celebrity backers. The case, filed by heavyweight lawyers Adam Moskowitz and David Boies, argues that FTX was “a massive Ponzi scheme,” and that the leaders behind it were “geniuses at public relations and marketinWhen the crypto platform collapsed in mid-November, Bankman-Fried and others were replaced at the helm by restructuring experts who are overseeing the bankruptcy of FTX and dozens of affiliates.“At the end of the day, we’re not going to be able to recover all the losses here,” said the company’s new CEO, John Ray III, before a Congressional committee last month.Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty last week to eight federal counts of wire fraud, conspiracy and campaign finance violations. Federal prosecutors accuse the 30-year-old entrepreneur, once a celebrity in crypto circles, of stealing customer funds from FTX to cover outsize losses at his hedge fund, Alameda. They also say he used the funds to underwrite a lavish lifestyle for himself and his employees.
'The money is gone': Bahamas tries to turn page after FTX (AP) — Dressed in a canary blue suit on a warm December night, sweat dripping from his brow, Bishop Lawrence Rolle belts out the lyrics to his latest hit song for the hundreds of children and adults gathered to celebrate Christmas. “FTX!,” he sings, bent over and shaking his head for emphasis. “The money is gone!” “FTX!,” his backup singer and audience scream back. “The money have done gone!” The cryptocurrency exchange FTX was supposed to be the crown jewel of the Bahamian government’s push to be the global destination for all things crypto, after years of having an economy overly reliant on tourism and banking. Instead, FTX is bankrupt and Bahamians are trying to figure out what’s next for their country and whether their national crypto experiment has failed. Regulators are trying to locate FTX’s customers’ missing money. Meanwhile, charities like Rolle’s and dozens of contractors now out of work hope that another company will come along and bring new opportunities to the island nation, without the complications and embarrassment of an alleged billion-dollar fraud. Rolle, a Pentecostal preacher known as the “singing bishop,” is a prominent figure in the Bahamas. For decades, he’s cooked and donated food to the poor and provided school lunches from his neighborhood kitchen at International Deliverance Praying Ministry in Over-The-Hill, one of the most impoverished parts of the capital of Nassau. Rolle and his staff feed roughly 2,500 people a week. Rolle had been invited by Kirby Samuel, the principal of Mt. Carmel Preparatory Academy, to sing as part of the school’s Christmas celebration. His act consisted mostly of a half dozen Afro-Caribbean gospel songs, but one number stood out — his social media hit about the recent collapse of FTX. Rolle’s ministry received $50,000 from FTX in early 2022, one of several donations FTX made to the Bahamian people when it relocated to the Caribbean island nation in 2021. It was money, he said, that was used to restore a food storage trailer and make additional food donations. Rolle said it cost upward of $10,000 a week to run his food donation program. Asked about the failure of FTX, Rolle described it as a sad distraction from the many issues facing the country. Others are angry, particularly with Sam Bankman-Fried, the young founder of FTX. The Bahamas had a reputation, like some other Caribbean isles, as a destination for illicit and offshore finance. There was a belief that crypto would allow the island to diversify its economy, give Bahamians more financial opportunities and overall help provide the country a more prosperous future.
As U.S. probes FTX collapse, employees turn to law firm Covington (Reuters) - Several FTX employees have turned to law firm Covington & Burling to help them deal with questions from U.S. authorities investigating the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange and actions by its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Arlo Devlin-Brown, a New York-based Covington partner and former Manhattan federal prosecutor, is acting as so-called pool counsel representing current FTX employees as individuals being asked to share information with prosecutors and regulators, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Companies facing wide-ranging investigations often hire pool counsel for employees. The use of pool counsel suggests that federal prosecutors in Manhattan probing FTX's collapse may be interested in questioning a deep roster of employees. Bankman-Fried, 30, was arrested in December on charges of stealing customer funds to plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and lying to investors and lenders. The one-time billionaire pleaded not guilty. Two close associates pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, has urged others with knowledge of wrongdoing to come forward. "It's nerve-wracking to participate in an interview with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office, regardless of your personal exposure," said Sarah Krissoff, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and now a partner at Day Pitney.
Bankman-Fried says he 'didn't stash billions' as he denies theft - Bankman-Fried offered one of his most detailed descriptions yet of the FTX debacle as he prepares to fight fraud charges, blaming crashing markets and an attack from a rival for the eventual bankruptcy of his exchange."I didn't steal funds, and I certainly didn't stash billions away," the former crypto magnate wrote in a blog post Thursday. "I've been, regrettably, slow to respond to public misperceptions and material misstatements."The latest version of events, drawing on Bankman-Fried's memory of balance sheets at FTX and sister trading house Alameda Research, doesn't go into accounting issues that he had earlier cited as among the reasons for the wipeout of his empire in November. He also doesn't address allegations that he allowed Alameda to siphon customer funds from FTX for high-risk trading.Bankman-Fried, 30, is on bail and wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet while living at his parents' home in California. He faces trial in October after pleading not guilty to fraud and campaign-finance law charges. Bankman-Fried has previously mentioned many of the points in his latest account.Prosecutors allege he's behind one of the biggest scams in U.S. history after fraudulently raising $1.8 billion from investors under the guise of FTX having appropriate controls and risk management. He's also accused of misusing customer funds at FTX to cover personal expenses, real estate purchases and trading at the now-collapsed Alameda.Bankman-Fried again complained that he's lost access to much of his data following the bankruptcy of the sprawling FTX group. He said that he hadn't run Alameda over the past few years.By Bankman-Fried's calculations, Alameda had $100 billion of net asset value in 2021. But he said it wasn't hedged enough against the "risk of an extreme market crash" ahead of the deep rout that unfolded in digital assets in 2022. It ultimately tipped over when a rival's "targeted attack" set off a run, eventually toppling FTX, he said. Alameda's former CEO Caroline Ellison has pleaded guilty to fraud charges and is cooperating with prosecutors. In her plea hearing last month, Ellison said she and Bankman-Fried knowingly misled lenders about how much Alameda was borrowing from the crypto exchange. She said the two of them also crafted false financial statements. In the blog post, Bankman-Fried reiterated claims that FTX's U.S. operation was solvent and that, with time, he could have made customers of the international division "substantially whole" after getting interest from investors.
SBF’s Substack Shows He Will Always Be in Our Face - by Yves Smith --I can see the future. The odds are very high that SBF will still be in it.It was a reasonable assumption to think that now that SBF had been charged with Federal crimes that could result in a sentence of over 150 years, that he would start listening to attorneys and zip his lips.Nope. To much eyerolling on Twitter, SBF launched a Substackto try variations on his already tired theme of “Nothing bad happened and it was everyone else’s fault.” Earth to SBF: Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” and Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman” didn’t work very well for them either.Not only is it just about impossible to take any of this seriously, particularly since former FTX/Alameda officials Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Dan Friedberg are all cooperating with prosecutors. But perhaps we can do just a tiny bit of scatology so you can rest assured SBF has not miraculously become more credible or more interested in faking concern about the harm he did to literally millions of investors.Some of the intelligence-insulting nasties1: SBF defends the virtue of FTX International as if that was all that needed to be discussed. SBF keeps acting as if he had nothing to do with Alameda when that dog will not hunt. New FTX CEO Roy said that the FTX/Alameda empire operated as one business. Co-founder and CTO Wang has allegedly confirmed that he created a software backdoor on SBF’s order for Alameda to hoover, um, borrow funds from FTX. From Business Insider yesterday:Sam Bankman-Fried instructed his FTX cofounder Gary Wang to create a “secret” backdoor to enable his trading firm Alameda to borrow $65 billion of clients’ money from the exchange without their permission, the Delaware bankruptcy court was told Wednesday.Wang was told to create a “backdoor, a secret way for Alameda to borrow from customers on the exchange without permission,” according to FTX’s lawyer, Andrew Dietderich…“Mr Wang created this back door by inserting a single number into millions of lines of code for the exchange, creating a line of credit from FTX to Alameda, to which customers did not consent,” he added. “And we know the size of that line of credit. It was $65 billion. SBF keeps claiming US customers were onboarded only to FTX.US. It appears this could be easily circumvented by using a VPN and the sort that was drawn to crypto for money-laundering purposes would likely work that one out. SBF predictably omits North Dimension customers, who were snookered into bypassing FTX entirely and sending funds supposedly destined to FTX via a fake electronics retailer that sent the funds to Alameda. As a different Business Insider story summarized:
FTX Advisers "Locate Over $5 Billion" In Cash, Liquid Crypto - As FTX returns to bankruptcy court today, Sullivan & Cromwell attorney Adam Landis, speaking on behalf of FTX, told a bankruptcy hearing this morning that:"We have located over $5 billion of cash, liquid cryptocurrency and liquid investment securities measured at petition date value. [It] just does not ascribe any value to holdings of dozens of illiquid cryptocurrency tokens, where our holdings are so large relative to the total supply that our positions cannot be sold without substantially affecting the market for the token."The announcement substantially raises the total FTX claims it holds, after the company's new leadership said it could only find just over $1 billion on Dec. 20, 2022.CoinDesk reports that Landis also spoke to a recently-announced cooperation agreement with the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, saying it was "an important first step to align incentives and maximize joint recoveries.""It does not matter who collects $1 for customers, as long as the customers get it," Landis said. "We've established a task force with the official committee of creditors and the Bahamas JPL to explore alternatives for the sale or reorganization of the international platform."We note that Cointelegraph previously reported that FTX has $8.8 billion in total liabilities.At the time, sources said the exchange had very little in cash and liquid digital assets, amounting to an estimated $8 billion hole in its balance sheet. "The amount of the shortfall is not yet clear. It will depend on the size of the claims pool and our recovery efforts. But every week, we come closer to completing the work necessary to estimate recoveries for the purposes of a plan of reorganization," Landis said.
Sullivan & Cromwell, FTX Lead Counsel in Bankruptcy, Says It Has No Adverse Relationships, Despite Representing Four of FTX’s Crypto Exchange Competitors By Pam and Russ Martens: - Sullivan & Cromwell ranks among the oldest law firms in America. During the financial bust in the 1930s, Sullivan & Cromwell garnered its reputation for defending Wall Street firms against shareholder lawsuits and antitrust actions. As Wall Street On Parade previously detailed, the firm’s Senior Chairman, Rodge Cohen, paved the way for the Fed’s unprecedented $29 trillion bailout of Wall Street banks after their corrupt activities collapsed the U.S. economy in 2008. And, of course, there was S&C partner Jay Clayton, who was tapped by President Donald Trump to Chair the SEC – and, in our opinion, left markets mired in the worst corruption since 1929. Against that backdrop, one would think that S&C would be attempting to stay off the radar screen of federal regulators and prosecutors. Instead, it has steamrolled its way into Lead Law Firm for bankruptcy proceedings of one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history according to federal prosecutors – the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange, FTX. According to the new CEO of FTX, John Ray, $8 billion of customers’ money is missing. On December 21, FTX and its related bankrupt companies, filed a request with the Bankruptcy Court in Delaware to name Sullivan & Cromwell as the lead law firm for the bankruptcy proceedings. Included in that request was a Declaration from S&C law partner, Andrew (Andy) Dietderich. In that declaration, Dietderich stated that “S&C does not represent any person or entity having an interest adverse to the Debtors.” But in that same document, Sullivan & Cromwell provides a list of its current clients who have a relationship to FTX, as well as a list of former clients who had a relationship to FTX. Stunningly, included on the list of Sullivan & Cromwell’s current clients are four crypto exchanges that are major competitors to FTX. Those competitors are BlockFi, Coinbase, Gemini, and Kracken. Clearly, a major competitor would logically seem to have a built-in motive to see its competitor fail rather than be resuscitated in bankruptcy proceedings. Adding to the unseemliness of the situation, on December 7, Bloomberg News reported that the incoming CEO of Kraken, Dave Ripley, called FTX mastermind, Sam Bankman-Fried, a “fraudster,” while adding that “We have information to know that fraud was committed there.” Two days later, on December 9, the New York Post reported that Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, was blasting the media for being too soft on Sam Bankman-Fried, stating that “I mean, this guy just committed a $10 billion fraud, and why is he getting treated with kid gloves?” (Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to an 8-count criminal indictment brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. His trial is scheduled for October.) In addition to representing two crypto exchange competitors whose CEOs are using the media to bash the former CEO of FTX, Sullivan & Cromwell’s crypto client, BlockFi, has filed a lawsuit arguing that approximately $440 million of shares in stock-trading platform, Robinhood, belong to it as collateral for loans it made to FTX. At the same time, the bankruptcy team for FTX is arguing that the Robinhood shares belong to a related FTX company, Alameda Research, which is also in bankruptcy, and it needs to hold onto the stock while investigating other disputed claims to the shares. (One of those disputed claims has emerged as coming from Sam Bankman-Fried, who says he needs the Robinhood stock to pay his legal defense team.) Adding to the Sullivan & Cromwell rabbit hole of conflicts, Sam Bankman-Fried was previously its client according to its recently filed document with the Delaware Bankruptcy Court. Robinhood itself is listed as a current client to Sullivan & Cromwell. Adding to Sullivan & Cromwell’s tenuous claims to the bankruptcy court that it “is not aware of any conflict between its representation of the Debtors and its representations of its Current Clients or Former Clients that would cause S&C not to be a ‘disinterested person,’” are the large legal fees it had been collecting from FTX during a period when federal prosecutors say FTX was looting its customer accounts and Sam Bankman-Fried was using the money as his personal piggy bank. According to the S&C document filed with the bankruptcy court, prior to it filing the FTX bankruptcy petition, Sullivan & Cromwell collected a “retainer in the amount of $12 million” from the parent of FTX.US. Sullivan & Cromwell further notes in its filing that it received legal fees and expenses totaling $8,564,487.50 from FTX and its related companies from July 2021 to the Petition Date of November 11, 2022. Sullivan & Cromwell has asked the court to bill as follows going forward: “from $1,575 to $2,165 per hour for partners and special counsel, $810 to $1,475 per hour for associates and $425 to $595 per hour for legal assistants.” Adding further to the sinking ground on which Sullivan & Cromwell finds itself, a draft of the testimony that Sam Bankman-Fried was set to deliver before the House Financial Services Committee on December 13 (which never materialized because he was arrested on that date), claims that Sullivan & Cromwell used undue pressure tactics to get him to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy Law Expert, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Asks FTX Bankruptcy Judge to Boot Sullivan & Cromwell from the Case By Pam and Russ Martens - In what is likely a first of its kind effort, four sitting U.S. Senators, including former Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, who is a bankruptcy law expert, have asked the Judge overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings of collapsed crypto exchange, FTX, to dump the Big Law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell as the lead law firm in the case because of its conflicts of interest in the matter. The case has garnered international media attention because more than $8 billion of customers’ money is said to be missing and the fact that high profile U.S. sports figures and celebrities promoted the company. On Monday, Senator Warren (D-MA) joined Senator John Hickenlooper (D-CO) along with Republican Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) in a letter outlining the conflicts to Judge John Dorsey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The political news website, Punchbowl News, broke the story of the Senators’ letter yesterday morning. Hickenlooper then gave the story more momentum by Tweeting a link with the comment: “Get this: FTX’s legal advisors *pre-collapse* want to be appointed to oversee investigations INTO the collapse.”The Senators’ letter includes this blunt assessment of Sullivan & Cromwell’s conflicted role:“To name just one challenge: will the firm’s lawyers be able to effectively investigate their current and former partners who were central in FTX’s conduct? Additionally, given their longstanding legal work for FTX, they may well bear a measure of responsibility for the damage wrecked on the company’s victims. Put bluntly, the firm is simply not in a position to uncover the information needed to ensure confidence in any investigation or findings.”Yesterday, another objector to Sullivan & Cromwell serving as lead law firm in the bankruptcy proceedings filed an amended objection with a scathing assessment of the law firm’s conduct. The objector is Warren Winter, a man described by his attorneys as “a United States citizen residing abroad” who had “several hundred thousand dollars of assets in his FTX account when the exchange collapsed, which he has since been unable to access.”The amended objection made the following points, among numerous others, to the bankruptcy court:“Sullivan & Cromwell is not only an inappropriate candidate for appointment as the FTX Group’s bankruptcy counsel—it is a target for investigation with its own potential liability. Its appointment as counsel would endanger the estate and create a rigged game, undermining creditors’ and the public’s faith in the bankruptcy process. The Court should therefore reject Sullivan & Cromwell’s application and disqualify it from appointment as Debtors’ counsel.”And this:“Two former Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers are General Counsel to FTX Group entities. Sullivan & Cromwell did not disclose these connections in its Application and therefore violated Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2014, which requires a statement ‘all of [the firm’s] connections with the debtor … [and the debtor’s] attorneys.’ What’s more, disclosed or not, these connections create a conflict of interest and are disqualifying. FTX US General Counsel Ryne Miller is a former partner at Sullivan & Cromwell…Miller is alleged to have played a key role— perhaps the key role—in wresting control of the FTX Group from Sam BankmanFried and directing this extremely valuable bankruptcy matter to his former firm. According to Bankman-Fried, and supported by what appears to be genuine evidence, Miller proclaimed to have usurped control of the FTX Group by November 8th. He immediately secured a $12 million retainer for his former firm and allegedly mounted an ‘extreme pressure’ campaign to put the FTX Group into bankruptcy with Sullivan & Cromwell and its hand-picked CEO at the helm.“FTX Ventures General Counsel Tim Wilson is another former Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer. The Securities and Exchange Commission has alleged that FTX Ventures made at least $200 million in venture-capital investments using customer funds that had been misappropriated through Alameda Research….” A hearing in the FTX bankruptcy case is scheduled for 8:55 a.m. this morning. It is unclear as to what issues will be discussed today. A live stream of the hearing is available on YouTube at this link.
FTX Bankruptcy Proceedings Thus Far Show a Shocking Miscarriage of Justice -By Pam and Russ Martens: The FTX companies that the bankruptcy lawyers are attempting to resuscitate or sell off to other crypto outfits (while the law firms collect millions of dollars in billable hours for their work) are peddling a product – crypto – that is created out of thin air and has no legitimate productive purpose. (See Over 1,600 of the Brightest Scientific Minds in Technology Have Signed a Letter Calling Both Crypto and Blockchain a Sham.)The hundreds of billions of dollars that American investors have been dumped into crypto exchanges, crypto lenders, crypto miners, and crypto banks are not only threatening the safety and soundness of the U.S. financial system, they are threatening the global competitiveness of U.S. innovation. These failing enterprises raise capital in public markets, crowding out real companies with real innovations.In July 2019, NYU Professor and economist Nouriel Roubini said this in a Bloomberg News interview:“Crypto currencies are not even currencies. They’re a joke…The price of Bitcoin has fallen in a week by how much – 30 percent. It goes up 20 percent one day, collapses the next. It is not a means of payment, nobody, not even this blockchain conference, accepts Bitcoin for paying for conference fees cause you can do only five transactions per second with Bitcoin. With the Visa system you can do 25,000 transactions per second…Crypto’s nonsense. It’s a failure. Nobody’s using it for any transactions. It’s trading one sh*tcoin for another sh*tcoin. That’s the entire trading or currency in the space where’s there’s price manipulation, spoofing, wash trading, pump and dumping, frontrunning. It’s just a big criminal scam and nothing else.”The law firm that Judge Dorsey is allowing to pull a coup d’etat in his courtroom is Sullivan & Cromwell – the go-to law firm for Wall Street for more than a century — which has bestowed on itself the role of lead law firm in the FTX bankruptcy. For reasons that appear to rest firmly on just two words – “billable hours” – Sullivan & Cromwell has immersed itself in all things crypto. In a recent FTX bankruptcy court filing, Sullivan & Cromwell acknowledged that not only has it collected legal fees and expenses of $8,564,487.50 from FTX and its related companies over the prior 16 months, plus a $12 million retainer for bankruptcy work, but it is simultaneously outside counsel to four of FTX’s major competitors: BlockFi, Coinbase, Gemini, and Kraken.The quick take on the status of those five clients of Sullivan & Cromwell is as follows: the FTX group of companies has been described by federal prosecutor Damian Williams as “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history” with three of its top executives now indicted on a combined 19 criminal counts; BlockFi is also in bankruptcy; Coinbase, a publicly-traded crypto exchange, has lost more than 80 percent of its market value over the past 12 months; Gemini has had more than $900 million of client funds frozen at another crypto firm, Genesis; and Kraken has fired 30 percent of its staff. But instead of bringing some sunshine to this murky mess that exists between Sullivan & Cromwell and the crypto cabal, Judge Dorsey has opted for more darkness. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 11 – two months ago. The U.S. Trustee, which represents the Department of Justice in bankruptcy cases, together with major media outlets (Bloomberg News, Dow Jones, New York Times and Financial Times),had filed motions asking the court to release the names of the customers and creditors so that the public and the press could have transparency in the matter.
Crypto meltdown leaves Winklevoss twins' Gemini 'severely tarnished' - The signs of a full-blown crisis were everywhere. Bitcoin was in free fall, the hedge fund Three Arrows was blowing up and the fates of several high-profile crypto lenders were suddenly in doubt.Yet as panic spread like wildfire last June, the Winklevoss twins, founders of the Gemini crypto exchange, hit the road with their rock band, Mars Junction. With Tyler on vocals and Cameron on guitar, they belted out hits like "Don't Stop Believin'," appearing untroubled as other firms — propped up by easy money, rampant speculation and possibly even fraud — crumpled one after the next.And why not? The brothers, who turned their erstwhile Facebook millions into crypto billions, were bona fide believers who survived previous downturns. With Gemini, they set out to prove to the world they were the ones investors could trust. Throughout the summer, they stood behind their own lending product, Gemini Earn — which raked in billions in deposits with interest rates up to 8% — even as trouble began to engulf their sole Earn partner, Genesis Global. Yet two months after Genesis suddenly halted withdrawals and forced the twins to pause redemptions on Earn accounts, it's harder than ever to believe their customers will recoup the $900 million that is still stuck in limbo."The Winklevoss brand is severely tarnished," said Aaron Brown, a crypto investor who writes for Bloomberg Opinion.On Tuesday, Cameron Winklevoss accused Barry Silbert, whose company owns Genesis, of defrauding Gemini Earn customers and called on his company's board to remove him, deepening the acrimony between the onetime business partners. In a separate notice to Earn customers, Gemini said it terminated their loan agreements with Genesis, a move that officially ends the Earn program and requires Genesis to return all outstanding assets immediately. In an interview on Tuesday, Cameron Winklevoss said he and his twin brother are "working around the clock to find a resolution for all Earn users." He added that "we believe in this space. This is a painful episode, but everybody is looking ahead."
Gemini Terminates Its Crypto Yield Product, Amping Up Battle With Barry Silbert's DCGThe Winklevoss twins' crypto exchange Gemini escalated its dispute with Digital Currency Group's (DCG) Genesis Global Trading – its partner on a crypto lending product pitched to smaller investors – by terminating a key aspect of their relationship. Gemini ended the master loan agreement (MLA) between its customers and Genesis, Gemini told customers of its Gemini Earn in an email on Tuesday. "This officially terminates the Earn Program and requires Genesis to return all assets outstanding in the program," according to Gemini's email. "Existing redemption requests are not impacted and continue to await fulfillment by Genesis." In a statement, a spokesperson for Genesis said the company does "not agree with everything that Gemini has said" and was "disappointed that Gemini is waging a public media campaign despite ongoing productive private dialogue between the parties." It added: "This is a very complex process that will take some additional time, but we are committed to moving as quickly as possible." Crypto broker Genesis' lending arm halted customer withdrawals in November in the aftermath of FTX's collapse. That locked up Gemini Earn customers' money. Gemini Earn was launched in February 2021 and marketed as an interest-earning account for cryptocurrency deposits, with Genesis supplying the yield Gemini Earn investors received. Gemini's termination is effective as of Jan. 8, the deadline the company previously set in a Jan. 2 public letter to CEO Barry Silbert of DCG, the parent company of Genesis (and CoinDesk). The letter also accused Silbert of "engaging in bad faith stall tactics" during negotiations. The decision to terminate the partnership comes amid other signs the feud between Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss and Barry Silbert is heating up. On Tuesday, Winklevoss penned another public letter calling for the ouster of Silbert and accused DCG and Genesis of committing accounting fraud. The fraud allegation reappeared in a claim Gemini filed in court that same day in response to a classaction lawsuit put forward by Gemini Earn customers. "Gemini is also a victim of the Genesis/DCG Group's conduct," the court filing read. "Members of the Genesis/DCG Group misled Defendants about Genesis, its financial condition, and its ability to act as a responsible borrower in the Gemini Earn program." In the court filing, Gemini also deflected blame from angry customers, saying their complaint "goes after the wrong parties" and that users acknowledged in writing that their assets in the Earn product "faced the risk of total loss." Additionally, Gemini denied all claims made in the lawsuit because customers had signed an agreement to "arbitrate all claims relating to the Gemini Earn program" and that plaintiffs' claims and causes of action "should not be litigated in any forum unless Genesis is joined."
Gemini's Winklevoss calls for removal of DCG chief Barry Silbert (Reuters) - Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, called for the removal of Digital Currency Group Inc Chief Executive Barry Silbert on Tuesday, amid tensions between the high-profile executives in the wake of the FTX collapse. Stamford, Connecticut-based Digital Currency Group (DCG) is the parent company of several high-profile crypto firms, including crypto asset manager Grayscale and Genesis, which brokers digital assets for financial institutions like hedge funds and asset managers. The conflict comes after Genesis' crypto lending arm halted customer withdrawals in November when crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy. Winklevoss' Gemini offered a crypto lending product called Earn in partnership with DCG's Genesis Global Capital, and now says Genesis owes it $900 million in connection with that product. In his open letter to the DCG board, Winklevoss said Genesis and DCG had "defrauded" some 340,000 Earn users. "There is no path forward as long as Barry Silbert remains CEO of DCG," Winklevoss wrote. "He has proven himself unfit to run DCG and unwilling and unable to find a resolution with creditors that is both fair and reasonable." In a statement, a DCG spokesperson called Winklevoss' allegations "malicious, false and defamatory" and said the company was "preserving all legal remedies in response." “This is another desperate and unconstructive publicity stunt from Cameron Winklevoss to deflect blame from himself and Gemini, who are solely responsible for operating Gemini Earn and marketing the program to its customers," said the spokesperson. A Genesis spokesperson said in a statement that the company was disappointed that Gemini was "waging a public media campaign despite ongoing productive private dialogue between the parties." "We remain focused on finding a solution for our borrowing and lending intermediation business and reaching the best outcome for all affected Genesis lending and Gemini Earn clients," said the spokesperson for Genesis. The latest development comes a week after Winklevoss penned another open letter to Silbert, accusing him of engaging in "bad faith stall tactics." DCG owes $1.675 billion to the crypto lending arm of its subsidiary Genesis, according to a November letter Silbert sent to shareholders. That includes a $1.1 billion promissory note that appears to be connected with liabilities DCG assumed from Genesis after the latter was hit hard by the collapse of Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Winklevoss alleged in his letter on Tuesday that Silbert had misrepresented the liabilities DCG said it had assumed from Genesis related to the money that Three Arrows Capital owes Genesis. "Beginning in early July 2022, Barry, DCG, and Genesis embarked on a carefully crafted campaign of lies to make Gemini, Earn users, and other lenders believe that DCG had injected $1.2 billion of actual support into Genesis," Winklevoss said.
Winklevoss twins, Genesis target of SEC crypto crackdown (AP) — The Securities and Exchange Commission went after two prominent companies in the crypto community, alleging that Genesis Global Capital and the crypto exchange Gemini were selling unregistered securities through a popular program that was supposed to give high interest payments on crypto deposits. The SEC’s lawsuit on Thursday against Gemini, which is run by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss who are sometimes better known for being the disputed creators of Facebook, and Genesis is part of a broader cryptocurrency crackdown by multiple U.S. government agencies after crypto prices fell sharply last year, exposing mostly retail investors to billions of dollars in losses. Tyler Winklevoss called the suit a “parking ticket” and vowed to defend the company. The lawsuit involves a program known as Gemini Earn, which allowed individuals to deposit their cryptocurrencies in turn for a high interest rate, as much as 4.29%. Gemini and Genesis would then lend out those cryptocurrencies to other investors. But the collapse of crypto prices last year has put many of the crypto lenders out of business, into bankruptcy, or caused them to dramatically pull back on their business. Voyager Digital, Celsius and FTX — whose founder was criminally charged last month — were all platforms that did various forms of deposit-and-lending operations. The SEC alleges that Gemini Earn was effectively an offer and sale of securities and the program should have been registered with U.S. authorities. Further, as crypto prices collapsed, Genesis had to freeze withdrawals from its Gemini Earn program and customers are now out around $900 million, according to the SEC. The SEC under Chairman Gary Gensler has argued for some time that they have the legal authority to regulate crypto, and they have largely used their lawsuit and enforcement powers to do so. “Today’s charges build on previous actions to make clear to the marketplace and the investing public that crypto lending platforms and other intermediaries need to comply with our time-tested securities laws,” Gensler said in a statement. The cryptocurrency industry, its lobbyists and friends in Congress have pushed back hard on the SEC, and have largely been pushing for the smaller Commodity Futures Trading Commission to oversee crypto. Tyler Winklevoss said on Twitter that the Gemini Earn program was regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services and they had been in conversations with the SEC about Earn for more than a year-and-a-half. He said the SEC did not have issues with the Earn program until withdrawals were paused in November during the aftermath of the FTX bankruptcy.
SEC charges Genesis and Gemini with selling unregistered securities - The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged crypto firms Genesis and Gemini with allegedly selling unregistered securities in connection with a high-yield product offered to depositors. Gemini, a crypto exchange, and Genesis, a crypto lender, partnered in February 2021 on a Gemini product called Earn, which touted yields of up to 8% for customers. According to the SEC, Genesis loaned Gemini users’ crypto and sent a portion of the profits back to Gemini, which then deducted an agent fee, sometimes over 4%, and returned the remaining profit to its users. Genesis should have registered that product as a securities offering, SEC officials said in a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court. “Today’s charges build on previous actions to make clear to the marketplace and the investing public that crypto lending platforms and other intermediaries need to comply with our time-tested securities laws,” SEC chair Gary Gensler said in a statement. Gemini’s Earn program, supported by Genesis’ lending activities, met the SEC’s definition by including both an investment contract and a note, SEC officials said. Those two features are part of how the SEC assesses whether an offering is a security. The SEC says the Earn program netted the companies billions of dollars in crypto assets. The agency is seeking permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement, and civil penalties against both Genesis and Gemini, and noted that “investigations into other securities law violations and into other entities and persons relating to the alleged misconduct are ongoing.” The two firms have been engaged in a high-profile battle over $900 million in customer assets that Gemini entrusted to Genesis as part of the Earn program, which was shuttered this week. Genesis suspended withdrawals after the failure of FTX in November caused a rush for the exits across the crypto universe, and the firm has yet to allow Earn customers to pull their funds. “The U.S. retail investors who participated in the Gemini Earn program have suffered significant harm,” the SEC complaint read. More than 340,000 investors have been affected by the freeze. In the first three months of 2022, Gemini made around $2.7 million in agent fees off Earn, the SEC complaint alleges. Genesis would use Gemini users’ assets for institutional lending or as “collateral for Genesis’ own borrowing,” the agency said. Over the same period, Genesis paid out $166.2 million in interest to clients, including Gemini, on $169.8 million of interest income, the SEC said.
Barry Silbert racks up enemies as crypto-lending crisis mounts - Barry Silbert, the founder of Digital Currency Group, is far from crypto's most colorful executive. In an industry rife with billionaire impresarios, die-hard evangelists and outright fraudsters, the 46-year-old chief executive has the look and bearing of a middle manager at a regional bank. His inoffensive demeanor — and relatively long tenure in bitcoin — served him well as he drew funding from companies like SoftBank and built a sprawling web of businesses that touch virtually every corner of cryptocurrency.That reach put him at the center of a storm battering crypto lenders like DCG's Genesis Global Capital — with bad loans, runs on deposits and growing mistrust threatening to send the loosely regulated industry into its own version of Wall Street's 2008 credit crisis.The turmoil has left Silbert locked in an escalating battle with Gemini crypto exchange co-founder Cameron Winklevoss, whose customers have lost access to $900 million of funds that were placed with Genesis. U.S. authorities are said to be investigating DCG's web of internal financial dealings. And Genesis has warned that it may file for bankruptcy if it can't raise needed cash.Even DCG's Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, the world's largest crypto fund, has been trading at a deep discount to the amount of cryptocurrency it holds, vexing its shareholders.The struggles mark an about-face for Silbert, a former investment banker who worked on Enron's bankruptcy. His push into crypto left him with a personal fortune once estimated at $3 billion. As the crypto boom gathered force, he aspired to turn DCG into a conglomerate akin to Standard Oil that would dominate the world of digital currencies.The downturn, however, has caused his net worth to tumble to less than $700 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. And Silbert, an entrepreneur who built a career in opaque markets, is now contending with a crisis of confidence among investors suddenly panicking about risks they may not see.At the heart of Stamford, Connecticut-based DCG's recent trouble is Gemini Earn, a product offered through the Winklevoss twins' crypto company in partnership with Genesis.With a simple name and premise, it offered crypto investors a tantalizing opportunity: Park your virtual coins and earn as much as 8%. It was the type of return that particularly appealed in an era of rock-bottom interest rates, when traditional savings accounts yielded almost nothing. Business boomed.Yet even during crypto's peak, doubts spread about how Genesis could deliver such high returns. One prospective business partner, who requested anonymity because the talks were private, said Genesis failed to answer a series of questions, including a request for the names of its banking partners and its financial statements.Such questions now seem prescient. In November, after the swift collapse of FTX sent shock waves through the crypto market, Genesis abruptly halted withdrawals. Some 340,000 Gemini users were unable to access about $900 million of funds.Since then, Gemini's Cameron Winklevoss has waged an increasingly public fight with Silbert. On Tuesday, he called on DCG's board to oust the CEO, alleging he defrauded Gemini customers and lied about its support of Genesis after the downfall of hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, one of the first high-profile casualties of the crypto crash.In an emailed statement, DCG spokesperson Amanda Cowie called the request to the board a "desperate and unconstructive publicity stunt from Cameron Winklevoss to deflect blame from himself and Gemini, who are solely responsible for operating Gemini Earn and marketing the program to its customers," adding that the allegations were "malicious, false, and defamatory."
Voyager cleared to sell crypto customer accounts to Binance -Voyager Digital Ltd. won court approval to sell its crypto platform to Binance.US for $20 million as part of Voyager's plan to liquidate in bankruptcy. Under terms of the deal, about $1 billion worth of assets that Voyager holds on behalf of customers would be taken over by Binance, which will then give account holders the option to cash out. The deal cannot close until U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles approves the related bankruptcy liquidation plan. Customers will have the right to vote on the Binance deal in the coming weeks when they are asked to consider supporting the liquidation plan, Voyager lawyer Christine A. Okike said during a court hearing held by telephone Tuesday. Wiles overruled objections from federal regulators and a handful of states, which questioned whether Binance was financially stable enough to close the proposed transaction and how the company would fulfill its pledge to cash out customers. Once minor wording changes are made, Wiles said he would sign a final order allowing Voyager to enter a contract with Binance and to send creditors an outline of the deal and the liquidation plan for a vote. The approval brings Voyager one step closer to shutting down after it became an early victim of the severe drop in crypto currency values that began earlier this year. Voyager was founded in 2018 as a crypto trading platform and grew rapidly, reaching a peak of 3.5 million users and more than $5.9 billion of cryptocurrency assets, according to court records. It currently has about 1.2 million customer and $1 billion in assets, which are frozen on the platform until the bankruptcy case ends. The company originally had a deal to sell its platform to FTX that would have brought Voyager about $51 million in cash, before that crypto firm filed its own bankruptcy amid fraud allegations. After the FTX deal fell apart, Binance made its offer, which would bring in $20 million. The bankruptcy is Voyager Digital Holdings Inc., 22-10943, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
Coinbase eliminates 20% of staff in latest round of layoffs - Coinbase Global is firing about 950 employees, or 20% of its workforce, as the worsening crypto slump spurs another round of layoffs at the biggest U.S. digital-asset exchange.Co-founder and Chief Executive Brian Armstrong announced the job reductions in a blog post Tuesday, saying the steps were needed to weather the industry downturn. In June, Coinbase announced it would lay off 18% of its workforce, the equivalent of roughly 1,200 employees. It eliminated another 60 positions in November. It will now shut down several projects."This is the first time we've seen a crypto cycle coincide with a broader economic downturn," Armstrong wrote in the blog. "We also reduced headcount last year as the market started to correct, and in hindsight, we could have cut further at that time."The company expects to book $149 million to $163 million of restructuring charges, according to a statement on Tuesday. The overhaul will be "substantially complete" by the end of the second quarter, it said. As a result, adjusted EBITDA for the full year ended Dec. 31 is expected to be around negative $500 million, within its guidance."Coinbase is doing another round of cut because trading volume remains very weak, especially after the FTX fallout," said Owen Lau, analyst at Oppenheimer.While rising rate helps its interest income, the company is trying to maintain a certain loss guardrail so that it can survive through this period and emerge stronger on the other side, he said.Crypto's bear market is entering its second year, and the industry has suffered a series of meltdowns that hurt its outlook, most lately the bankruptcy of rival exchange FTX. With revenues falling and profits evaporating, companies across the sector have resorted to steep cost cuts in past months.Genesis, the troubled crypto brokerage under Barry Silbert's Digital Currency Group, also made another round of job cuts this month, cutting about 30% of workforce. The crypto exchange Huobi is cutting 20% of jobs, while Silvergate Capital, a crypto-friendly bank, laid off 40% of its staff.Coinbase's shares tumbled 86% last year, dropping more than the market bellwether Bitcoin, which slumped 64%. The stock fell about 2% before the start of regular trading in the U.S. on Tuesday. The company ended the third quarter with $5 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
Crypto exchange Coinbase to close most of Japan operations -- The U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global is closing the bulk of its operations in Japan as part of a move to adjust international investment amid a slump in the digital-asset sector. The shift comes as the firm cuts 20% of its workforce globally, the latest layoffs at the San Francisco-headquartered firm. Coinbase is scaling back in Japan even as the nation loosens some crypto rules, which has spurred rival Binance — the largest digital-asset exchange — to seek a license to return to the country. "We've decided to wind down the majority of our operations in Japan, which led to eliminating most of the roles in our Japan entity," Nana Murugesan, vice president for business development and international, said in an interview Wednesday. He said Coinbase won't comment on potential merger and acquisition activity when asked if the Japan unit could be sold. The digital-asset industry has been hammered by a $2 trillion rout in token prices from a 2021 peak and a series of blowups, most recently the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange. That's triggered a series of layoffs at crypto firms. Coinbase is firing about 950 employees globally, a step Chief Executive Brian Armstrong said was needed to weather the industry downturn. He added that several projects with a lower probability of success will be shut down. Murugesan didn't specify how many Japan employees are impacted and said a small number remain to ensure the safety and security of customer assets. He added that Coinbase is in a transition period until discussions with Japan's Financial Services Agency are finalized. Japan Chief Executive Nao Kitazawa is involved in those talks and his next steps will be finalized afterward, Murugesan said. Coinbase previously teamed up with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group to launch a crypto exchange in Japan in 2021. The company has long focused on increasing its presence abroad, with Armstrong saying "international expansion is really core to our mission of increasing economic freedom in the world."
Coinbase CEO Still among those “Who Believe in Crypto,” the Religion, Cuts another 25% of Real-World Staff, Sees another Huge Loss by Wolf Richter -- Crypto exchange Coinbase, which lost $2.1 billion in the first nine months of 2022 as trading activity on the exchange collapsed, and as therefore its revenues collapsed by 75%, announced today another big round of layoffs, 950 people globally, or about 25% of its remaining workforce, after it had already laid off 1,100 employees in June, or 18% of its then-workforce.“We also reduced headcount last year as the market started to correct, and in hindsight, we could have cut further at that time,” CEO Brian Armstrong told Coinbase employees in a message this morning. He spelled out the severance package for the workers in the US, said that workers in other countries would receive a similar package dependent on local laws, and that the company would provide “extra transition support” for those who are in the US on “a work visa,” such as H-1B visa holders.The crypto market “trended downwards” in 2022, he told his employees, winning therewith the award for the most glorious corporate understatement of the year. And he added, “We also saw the fallout from unscrupulous actors in the industry, and there could still be further contagion.” Meaning “contagion” within the crypto space, this mostly self-contained videogame where rules and laws didn’t apply because it’s just a videogame, and where every entity is interconnected with other entities in it. So far, that’s where contagion has been, including hitting a couple of crypto-focused small banks, such as Silvergate, which recently released the details of its own implosion. Ironically, on May 10, just eight months ago, in its Q1 2022 earnings report, the company said that its headcount had tripled in the year through December 2021, to 3,730 employees, and added: “We expect such growth to continue for the foreseeable future.” But this “foreseeable future” extended only a few days: On May 17, after the shares collapsed 83% from the high and were inducted into my pantheon of Imploded Stocks, the company imposed a hiring freeze for two weeks. And then in June 2022, the large-scale layoffs started. The Fed’s easy-money policies, which started in 2008, have turned investors’ brains to mush and have given rise to what I call consensual hallucination, leading to all kinds of crazy stuff, including cryptos. But now, asset prices that were whipped up during Easy Money are coming unglued as The Price of Easy Money Is Now Coming Due. Armstrong has been formed by Easy Money, and he became a “crypto billionaire” during Easy Money. But Easy Money is now over.. And today it announced in an SEC filing of preliminary financial and operating tidbits for Q4 that it will add a whole bunch more to these losses: Including the $149-163 million in restructuring expenses associated with this round of layoffs and cost cuts, its “adjusted EBITDA” will likely be “within the negative $500 million loss guardrail that the Company provided in the Shareholder Letter.”“Adjusted EBITDA” is Coinbase’s homemade metric. The actual net loss for Q4 when it appears on its financial statement, to be added to the $2.1 billion in net losses for the prior three quarters, will be a sight to behold. Coinbase had $3.7 billion in debt at the end of Q3. And its bonds have gotten hammered. For example, its $1.0 billion in 10-year 3.625% unsecured notes, issued in September 2021, are now trading at 51.75 cents on the dollar.
CFTC sues trader over alleged $114 million Mango Markets crypto swaps scam - The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a lawsuit against crypto trader Avraham Eisenberg for allegedly manipulating the price of swaps contracts as part of a scam to steal $114 million.Eisenberg perpetrated a "a manipulative and deceptive scheme" in October to inflate the price of swaps offered by the decentralized digital-asset exchange Mango Markets, culminating in the misappropriation of the funds, the regulator said in a complaint Monday.Eisenberg last month was arrested in Puerto Rico and charged with fraud by prosecutors in New York over the exploit. At one point it looked like he was walking away with about $50 million worth of digital assets after the attack. He defended his actions as legal in the aftermath of the incident. Eisenberg allegedly used two Mango Markets accounts he controlled to manipulate the price of perpetual swaps, pushing up their price by 1,300% in a matter of minutes.He used the swaps as collateral to borrow and withdraw about $114 million worth of cryptocurrencies, which came from the deposits of other investors on the exchange. The CFTC is seeking civil monetary penalties and trading bans.The Mango Markets incident was one of a number of hacks to hit decentralized finance over the past year, adding to a period of ignominy for crypto amid a $2 trillion rout in digital assets and the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried over the implosion of the FTX exchange.
Crypto startup funding falls to lowest level in almost two years | American Banker -- Crypto startups are facing a harrowing time attracting private financiers after the collapse of the digital-asset exchange FTX. Venture capital investment in the industry plunged to its lowest level in almost two years during the fourth quarter of 2022, according to data from the research firm PitchBook. Overall, VC firms invested $2.3 billion in crypto startups during the quarter, a 75% drop from the same period the previous year, according to PitchBook. Venture capitalists had already begun slowing their investment activity, but the implosion of FTX in November prompted them to pull back even further, said Robert Le, a crypto analyst at the research firm. "Investors are trying to see what's going to happen next and there isn't a rush to deploy capital," Le said in an interview. The pullback is a departure from the ardor for crypto at the beginning of 2022. FTX had raised$400 million at a $32 billion valuation last January, while VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz, Haun Ventures and Electric Capital raised billions of dollars to back crypto companies. Enthusiasm for the industry led to a record $26.7 billion being invested in blockchain startups last year, most of which came in the first quarter, according to PitchBook. That number represented a slight increase compared with 2021. FTX's implosion was certainly the last straw for some VCs. Setbacks, such as the bankruptcy of the crypto lender Celsius Network in July, had already given them pause, according to Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at the crypto financial services provider Galaxy Digital. The collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin and the shutdown of the disgraced crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, both of which pushed the prices of digital assets lower, further spooked investors. Generalist VC firms that dabbled in crypto while the market was hot are likely more hesitant about the industry now, especially if they were exposed to one of its major blowups, Thorn said. While such firms can turn to other areas of tech to invest in, smaller funds could be at risk if they're dedicated solely to crypto. "It is hard to see how some of those are going to last," Thorn said. The absence of FTX, which did not have a formal board and whose investors have been criticized for not conducting proper due diligence, is also changing the crypto venture landscape. FTX and its sister firm, Alameda Research, were both active venture investors prior to their collapse. PitchBook's Le said that FTX had a reputation for swooping into deals and writing big checks, while asking founders few questions in a fast process that often pushed out other venture investors.
Criminal activity thrived in otherwise tough year for crypto -- Cryptocurrency transactions may have taken a hit in 2022 with the onset of a bear market. But criminal activity continued to thrive, with an estimated $20 billion in cryptocurrency transactions last year related to stolen funds, terrorism financing, darknet markets, digital ransoms and other scams, according to the blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis.That compares with $18 billion in 2021, according to the company's researchers, who said they believe the total amount in 2022 will continue to grow as additional criminal endeavors are uncovered.The company, which is based in New York, analyzes blockchain transactions by mapping cryptocurrency wallet addresses and tracing them to real-world entities.The annual report on crime, released Thursday, doesn't include doesn't account for money that was laundered through cryptocurrency services, nor does it include transaction volumes associated with crypto firms that collapsed last year.Thieves have become adept at exploiting digital vulnerabilities, conducting heists that resulted in more than $3 billion in losses last year."I was surprised at how hacking remained so persistent," said Kim Grauer, head of research at Chainalysis. "I would have thought it would have trended down."The report concluded that criminal transactions continue to account for just a small amount of overall cryptocurrency activity, at just 0.24% last year.Its publication followed a Chainalysis blog, published Monday, that attempted to assess the impact on sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department on cryptocurrency services that allegedly facilitated cybercrimes or other illicit activity. Chainalysis concluded that sanctions have had varying success.Researchers compared the impact of sanctions on Hydra, once the largest darknet market, Garantex, a cryptocurrency exchange, and Tornado Cash, a mixer allegedly used by North Korea to launder stolen crypto.According to Chainalysis, the location of a crypto service's servers played an important role in eliminating money laundering, as did cooperation between governments and the technology upon which some of the services were built.The sanctioning of Hydra was effective because its server was based in Germany, which shut down the service in cooperation with the U.S. last year, Chainalysis determined. Authorities alleged that Hydra sold hacking tools and drugs and was used to launder money through affiliated cryptocurrency exchanges.In contrast, the sanctioning of Garantex didn't work out so well, according to Chainalysis. Although Garantex, which was designated at the same time as Hydra, is no longer considered a legitimate exchange, Russia hasn't enforced sanctions on the service and its transaction volume increased post designation, the report found.
AI has taken over imaginations. It's also taking over fraud. ChatGPT, DALL•E 2, Stable Diffusion, and other artificial intelligence products have captured imaginations over the past year by generating striking images never before drawn and writing stories never before read. A parallel renaissance has taken over fraud control. Banks and credit unions for years have employed AI to reduce fraud, and they are increasingly doing so today. A recent survey by the identity security company Alloy found that 59% of financial service companies are looking to invest in machine learning and AI-powered models to deter fraud over the coming 12 months, more than physical biometrics (46%), behavioral biometrics (44%) and open source and social media data (43%). Even as artificial intelligence improves, fraud schemes have also grown in sophistication. This has led to an increase in the overall cost of fraud, according to federal data, even as the number of fraud incidents has decreased, according to industry data. Alloy's report indicated that most (90%) regional banks surveyed reported over $500,000 in fraud losses. The same was also true of community banks and credit unions (61%) and national banks (69%). The report is based on a September survey of 251 decision makers working at financial services companies, conducted by the survey platform Qualtrics. Previous iterations of AI models used to identify phony credit applications and questionable transactions mostly mimicked the decisions of their predecessor technology, rules-based fraud detection, some observers say. According to one expert on AI-based fraud control technology, these models have now matured past the "vaporware" stage to outperforming rules-based technology. "AI is less vaporware and a real technology that is powerful and better developed," said Mike Sekits, co-founder and managing director of Btech Consortium, an investor in technology designed for community banks. "Once properly trained, AI can deliver on the promise as computing power allows for scale and efficiencies to review millions of transactions almost instantly." One of the most obvious areas of success for AI fraud control has been identifying possibly fraudulent credit card transactions, Sekits said. Credit card companies that employed AI to identify fraud initially identified too many transactions as potentially fraudulent, but as they trained the models, they got better at distinguishing true fraud from atypical but approved purchases. "Despite being a prime space for technology innovation, the complexity and regulatory and compliance needs of financial services slowed venture capitalists' ability to grasp the opportunity fully," Sekits said. "Once they did, new terms like fintech, insurtech and regtech came into vogue as VCs raised billions around the financial technology sector opportunity." The same thing is happening with artificial intelligence and machine learning, Sekits said. The technology first developed without specific or notable use cases, and much of the early development was not truly AI but "smoke and mirrors" of database queries dressed up as AI.
Crypto Billionaires' Subsequent Deaths Spark Wild Theories Among The Community - The death of four crypto billionaires within a month has caught the crypto community's attention. These deaths occurred under suspicious circumstances, and more importantly, some of these billionaires have raised alarms about being in danger. The death spiral started towards the end of October when Nikolai Mushegian, the co-founder of MakerDAO, was found dead on a Puerto Rican beach just hours after tweeting that intelligence agencies were after him. The next billionaire to perish was broker Javier Biosca, who was found dead on Nov. 22, 2022, in Estepona. At the time, Biosca was being investigated for the biggest cryptocurrency fraud in Spain. On Nov. 23, 2022, Amber Group's co-founder Tiantian Kullander, was found dead mysteriously in his sleep. Just two days later, Russian crypto billionaire Vyacheslav Taran died in a helicopter crash. Apart from these four suspicious deaths, another death made headlines on Dec. 30 when Mr. Park Mo, the vice president of Vidente, the largest shareholder of South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, was found dead mysteriously in front of his house in the early morning. The four deaths of crypto billionaires within a month’s time gave fuel to several conspiracy theories among the crypto community. One user associated the string of deaths with a mafia-style hit job and said that the “crypto world is taking a page from the mafia handbook.” Another user associated the death spiral with the “central banking hierarchy,” sarcastically saying, “I would definitely not put money on it being connected to the central banking hierarchy. There is no way. They are very trustworthy. 100% no chance.” Others questioned the source of the information but did acknowledge the fact that four deaths in less than a month call for some suspicion. While a few Redditors also pointed towards the possibility of faking deaths, where one user wrote, "I wonder how many of these are people faking their own deaths." Many Redditors also speculated that these billionaires might be living under fake names and they are using death to start a new inning in their life. The deaths of four crypto billionaires are for sure a cause of concern, but the crypto ecosystem is known for its fascination with conspiracy theories. A similar saga erupted in May 2020 when the CEO of defunct crypto exchange QuadrigaCX mysteriously died during a visit to India.
FTX bankruptcy fallout continues unchecked in crypto market - The fallout from the $32 billion collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange and his associated company Alameda Research is continuing to spread as more firms report their exposure to his Ponzi scheme operation. Last week, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported what it called the “massive crypto lender” Genesis Global Trading had laid off 30 percent of its staff and was in discussions about filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Genesis had been previously hit by the failure of the crypto-based hedge fund Three Arrows Capital after providing it with a $2.4 billion loan. Its financial problems deepened with the implosion of FTX because it had lent hundreds of millions of dollars to Alameda. Last November, Genesis halted redemptions, hitting the crypto exchange Gemini which had $900 million of its customers’ funds tied up in the firm. Other firms may also be affected. According to the WSJ article, Genesis is owned by the crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group, which operates several other crypto-based firms, including the crypto news outlet Coinbase. The FTX collapse also sparked a run on a major crypto bank, Silvergate, whose business involved the movement of money from institutional investors in and out of the crypto markets. Last Thursday it announced that deposits from its customers had fallen from $12 billion to just $4 billion in the fourth quarter. To cover the withdrawals, it was forced to sell off $5 billion worth of financial assets at a loss of $718 million, far more than its total profits going back to 2013. As a result of the announcement, Silvergate’s shares dropped by 43 percent last Thursday, bringing the total decline to 84 percent over the past three months. A report in the WSJ said the magnitude of the run on Silvergate was “highly unusual—even by the standards of the Great Depression.” In a conference call with analysists on Thursday morning, Silvergate executives said customers did not simply close their accounts but indicated they were getting out of crypto altogether and putting their money into safe assets such as US Treasury bonds. If the crypto debacle were just an isolated event, fuelled by excessive speculation, it would not be of major significance. Its importance lies in the fact that the crypto market—trading and profiting from an asset with no intrinsic value—has been the most egregious expression of processes in the broader financial system. Bankman-Fried’s “business model” has been characterised as a Ponzi scheme dependent on the continued inflow of money. But the same could be said equally of Wall Street.
Crypto lenders morph into miners as repossessed rigs pile up - Crypto lenders have repossessed so many Bitcoin mining rigs they're resorting to plugging them in and extracting tokens themselves. Lenders are getting creative as to what to do with the mining machines they accepted as collateral for the some $4 billion in rig-backed loans they underwrote when the rally in bitcoin seemed unstoppable. With the recent surge in loan defaults and plunge in cryptocurrencies, the value of new generation machines has dropped 85%, according to data from Luxor Technologies. While some machines are just sitting in warehouses, waiting for prices to recover, lenders like New York Digital Investment Group are using debt negotiations to find alternative solutions. In December, NYDIG agreed to pay Greenidge Generation Holdings not only for its mining rigs but to operate them in exchange for debt reduction. The deal effectively made Greenidge — once one of the largest bitcoin miners — a hosting firm while NYDIG became the miner. "Lenders are flooded with mining rigs," said Wolfie Zhao, head of research at TheMinerMag, a research arm of the mining consultancy BlocksBridge. "One way for the lenders to prevent further losses from the defaulted loans is to keep the collateralized machines running and generate some income." It's an option lenders are taking more seriously, especially those that already have mining capabilities to build on, including Galaxy Digital and Digital Currency Group's Foundry. Bitcoin mining — which uses specialized computers known as rigs to validate transactions on the blockchain in exchange for rewards in the token — was among the most lucrative businesses in crypto. Miners had sought to leverage that value in the run-up of bitcoin's historic rally. But with a surge in energy prices and bitcoin down 58% on the year, a number of loans are now underwater. A Valkyrie index of bitcoin miners is down 75% from a year ago, even after this weeks 30% jump on optimism a U.S. economic recovery could prop up crypto prices. NYDIG originated about $378 million in rig-backed loans to miners between October 2020 and May 2022, according to data compiled by TheMinerMag. Already it's received about 26,200 machines from Stronghold Digital Mining to eliminate the miner's $67 million debt, and it's likely to take over another batch of machines from Iris Energy after it defaulted on $103 million in machine-backed loans. Lenders have been moving more rigs out of storage, said Mason Jappa, chief executive of the crypto-mining services company Blockware Solutions. "Some lenders are already on the lookout for high-quality hosting sites," he said. "Lenders can recover some losses if they can find reliable bitcoin mining facilities with cheap electricity, but they are hard to find."
House Republicans plan crypto panel in first move to oversee troubled industry - House Republicans will establish a new subcommittee dedicated to cryptocurrency this Congress, a move that puts oversight and legislation around the ailing industry high on the GOP agenda. Incoming Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who has long made a priority of financial technology issues, said in an interview Thursday that he plans to create the panel because he believes there is “a big hole in how we structure the committee” as it spends more time grappling with crypto topics. The subcommittee on digital assets, financial technology and inclusion will be chaired by Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), who has led Republican efforts to explore the viability of a central bank digital currency. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), another prominent crypto voice in the House, will serve as the subcommittee’s vice chair. McHenry revealed the move as he announced broader plans for Financial Services subcommittees and their chairs. Why it matters: The creation of the digital asset panel underscores how crypto has come to dominate the financial regulation agenda in Congress. The Financial Services Committee in the past has largely focused on oversight of banks, Wall Street firms and their regulators. The digital asset industry emerged as a lobbying force the last few years as startups tried to lay the groundwork for a friendly regulatory environment, winning over allies on both sides of the aisle. Crypto firms now find themselves playing defense after a dramatic crash in the past several months and the implosion of the once-giant FTX, which triggered fraud charges against the exchange’s top executives. The new subcommittee will hold hearings and play a key role in developing bills. McHenry, who has put crypto regulation at the top of his legislative agenda, said the panel will be tasked with providing clear rules among federal regulators and developing policies that promote financial technology to reach underserved communities. “We’ve got to respond for oversight and policymaking on a new asset class,” he said.
New House panel would be in charge of crypto legislation --Incoming House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., has set up a digital assets subcommittee and put former banker Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., at its helm. The move to establish the subcommittee on crypto is part of McHenry's push to create a digital assets framework in the coming year. The subcommittee's aims include providing clear rules around digital assets and developing policies that further the use of financial technology to reach underserved communities. At the same time, McHenry dissolved the diversity and inclusion subcommittee that Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., created in 2019. Before he joined Congress, Hill was founder and CEO of Delta Trust & Banking Corp. in Little Rock, which later merged with Simmons First National Corp. Hill and McHenry have worked together on crypto policy before, specifically on the committee's financial technology task force, where Hill has served as ranking member. Most recently, the pair co-led a letter in October to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting his assessment of whether legislation is necessary for a U.S. central bank digital currency.Hill has put out several bills related to cryptocurrency, mostly focused on CBDC. Two, introduced in the last Congress, would have required the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to produce reports on CBDC. In other subcommittee leadership spots, Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., was named the chair of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, a coveted and prominent spot. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., will be chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., will lead the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., will head up the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, will chair the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance.
Bowman says Fed's crypto oversight will respect innovation -- Regulators are keeping a skeptical eye on cryptocurrencies, but at least one official wants to make sure digital assets are not driven from the banking sector entirely.Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman said banks should be allowed to experiment with crypto currencies and efforts to mitigate risks related to this type of activity should not go so far as to drive it out of the supervised space altogether. "The Fed and other banking agencies will continue to focus in this area, in light of the significant risks these activities may pose. But the bottom line is that we do not want to hinder innovation," Bowman said Tuesday afternoon in prepared remarks delivered at a Florida Bankers Association event. "As regulators, we should support innovation and recognize that the banking industry must evolve to meet consumer demand."Bowman's comments come a week after the Fed, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a joint statement on supervising crypto risks. In it, the agencies noted their "significant safety and soundness concerns" about banks providing credit to crypto firms. They also said it would be "highly unlikely" that banks would be allowed to hold cryptocurrencies or other assets that are traded on decentralized platforms on their balance sheets.Bowman acknowledged the events of the past year, including the demise of the crypto exchange FTX, the collapse of algorithmic stablecoins such as TerraUSD and dubious claims about being FDIC insured— including those made by the now-bankrupt Voyager Digital Holdings — warrant skepticism from bank supervisors. Still, she said, as regulators consider policy changes, they also need to consider the risks of going too far."By inhibiting innovation, we could be pushing growth in this space into the non-bank sector, leading to much less transparency and potential financial stability risk," she said. "We are thinking through some of these issues and what a regulatory approach could look like."
Metropolitan Commercial Bank is closing down its crypto business --Metropolitan Commercial Bank is leaving the crypto business. The $6.4 billion-asset bank in New York City, a unit of Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp., made the announcement on Monday. The company stated that the decision was driven by recent developments in the crypto-asset industry and changes in the regulatory environment for banks."Crypto-related clients, assets and deposits have never represented a material portion of the company's business and have never exposed the company to material financial risks," Mark DeFazio, MCB's president and chief executive, said in a press release. He also said that the decision traces back to 2017, when MCB pivoted away from crypto.According to the release, MCB has four active institutional crypto-asset-related clients, to which the bank provides debit card, payment and account services. They account for about 1.5% of total revenue and 6% of total deposits at the bank. MCB expects to close out these relationships entirely during 2023. The way forward for banks involved in cryptocurrency, after the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange firm FTX and fraud charges against its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, is uncertain. Several institutions, including Silvergate Capital in La Jolla, California, held FTX deposits or did business with the exchange, which raises questions about whether the bank conducted sufficient due diligence. The turmoil may also raise the regulatory bar for banks that want to work with crypto firms or prompt them to end relationships with these companies altogether. On the other hand, banks that do stay involved with crypto companies may become more attractive to investors and these businesses because of their compliance infrastructure and reputation for safety.
Minibubbles in U.S. banking are popping with costs in the billions A two-century-old bank in the New England countryside suddenly became one of the hottest stocks in U.S. finance a couple of years ago after making an unlikely proclamation: It was willing to help cryptocurrency ventures. Provident Bancorp, whose first chairman fought under George Washington in the Revolutionary War, watched its stock skyrocket 140% in just 14 months as bitcoin hurtled toward a record high in November 2021. But as crypto prices fell and took down the FTX exchange last year, Provident's stock plunged, ultimately going lower than where it started. The bank's market value has declined by about two-thirds since the peak, erasing more than $230 million. Call them minibubbles. Across the U.S. financial industry, a pattern is emerging of small lenders plowing into crypto and a variety of other hot niches, sending their stocks soaring and eventually crashing. It's played out with online lending, commercial real estate and even taxi medallions over the past several years. As the number of lenders getting stung kept climbing in recent years, some industry stalwarts grew flummoxed by the willingness of so many bankers to eschew longstanding tenets against taking concentrated risks from a single or unproven source. "Areas that skyrocket all of a sudden are, almost by definition, going to come back to earth, and have outsize risk and very little likelihood of consistent reward," said Gene Ludwig, a comptroller of the currency under President Bill Clinton. "Finance of any sort is a potential fire and that conflagration can get roaring pretty quick." Firms including Signature Bank and Customers Bancorp that once excited shareholders with forays into crypto-related business lines have instead been trying to assuage their concerns in recent months. Then last week, a bank that flew even higher, Silvergate Capital, chalked one of the most dramatic drops yet. At one point, it lost almost half its market value in a matter of hours. Silvergate had soaked up roughly $12 billion in deposits from crypto ventures, turning a profit by plowing the money into securities. That stopped working during FTX's downfall, when depositors rushed to pull their cash and weather the storm. To keep up with payouts, Silvergate sold off holdings at a loss and tapped wholesale funding, including $4.3 billion in short-term cash advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank as of the end of last month. The firm's market capitalization peaked at $5.9 billion in 2021, almost 20 times greater than at the start of 2020. That was down to $386 million on Wednesday — a dramatic wipeout for shareholders in a bank where annual profits never breached $100 million. Provident has said it remains well capitalized despite losses on loans to crypto miners. Silvergate has said it "still believes in the digital-asset industry," and is committed to maintaining a "highly liquid balance sheet with a strong capital position."
The Fed's master account list is coming, but banks still want to know more -Whether an institution has access to the Federal Reserve's payment system will soon be a matter of public information, but just how far that transparency will extend remains unclear.Thanks to a provision in last year's National Defense Authorization Act, the Fed Board of Governors must establish a searchable database of all the institutions with so-called master accounts — which serve as a single point of access for various services within the central bank — by this summer. The legislation preempted the Fed's own effort to bring more transparency to its master account stewardship. In November, the board proposed requiring the reserve system's 12 regional banks to publish lists of account holders quarterly. The master account provision, which was added to the defense spending bill by since-retired Sen. Pat Toomey, guarantees additional transparency around master accounts, but it might not be the final word on the matter.The public still has until Tuesday, Jan. 17, to comment on the Board's proposal. And while some say the Toomey provision made necessary amendments to what the Fed was initially considering, they also say more should be done. "I hope we see a revision to the board's proposal after the comment deadline expires, and some refinement of the sorts of information that they are going to provide in the now legally required database," Julie Hill, a law professor at the University of Alabama, said of the upcoming disclosures around master accounts. Hill, whose research on financial regulation has focused on master account policy, said the Fed's database should include more identifying information about the banks that hold master accounts. The Fed has proposed listing the name of each bank and the reserve bank at which it holds an account, but Hill said that alone might not be sufficient. Given that many banks have similar names, she said, it would be prudent for the database to include each institution's American Bankers Association routing number or the city where it is headquartered. She also noted that the Fed's proposal called for listing both master account holders as well as institutions that have corresponding relationships with master account holders. Hill said the Fed should make clear which institutions fall under each category.
BankThink: Higher bank capital requirements put the economy in danger | American Banker --The global economy is facing its biggest set of challenges since the financial crisis 15 years ago. Historically high inflation is driving up interest rates around the world, a global economic slowdown is afoot, deglobalization is reversing decades of growth in trade andgeopolitical tensions are flaring.But there is a key difference between today's economy and the dark days of 2008. This time around, the U.S. banking system is healthy — and well positioned to be part of the solution as opposed to the source of the problem.Now, as regulators weigh whether to impose stricter requirements on banks, they risk choking off one of the economy's biggest sources of strength — at a time when that strength can do the most good for the rest of the economy.Today, unlike 2008, banks are already very well capitalized and can handle more uncertainty than ever before. Banks' increased loss-absorbing capacitysince the Great Recession is just one example. Countless painful but necessary regulatory requirements have been implemented over the past decade and a half to ensure the system is ready for the next big stressor.As a result, at end of the second quarter of 2022, the eight so-called globally systemically important banks based in the U.S. had $1.1 trillion in total capital reserves (versus just $678 million at the end of 2008) and an average Tier 1 capital ratio of 13.6% (versus 10.2% in 2008). This long and arduous effort to rebuild bank capital is a significant accomplishment in itself.What's more, most observers expect banks' earnings to continue growing — not least owing to rising interest rates, which would cushion banks from consumer credit losses. Earnings are the first line of defense against unexpected losses and enable banks to further pad their capital cushions. The eight biggest U.S. banks posted $92.6 billion in net income in the first three quarters of 2022, 12% greater than the average in the same period from 2017 to 2020.A third cushion banks enjoy is the ability to reduce or eliminate stock buybacks and dividends. A bank can keep its earnings to invest in growth or shore up its capital reserves, or it can pay them out in the form of dividends and share buybacks. In 2021, the total capital distributions for this same group of banks totaled $121 billion, of which nearly $89 billion was share buybacks. Turning off buyback programs is often the least disruptive way to husband capital. When you add it all up, banks are almost certainly capable of absorbing even the most severe projected stress events.
Basel committee has outsize influence over American banks --The capital standards adopted by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision have wrongly taken precedence over the authority invested in Congress to legislate and determine the appropriate capital requirements for American banks. The voluntary consortium of international banking regulators dictates domestic banks' capital requirements even though it possesses no supranational authority or legal force.Congress should be the sole entity authorized to direct how American banking regulators promulgate rules that minimize leverage, enhance capital loss absorption and ensure a vibrant allocation of capital to individuals and businesses.The Basel committee, which is governed by the Bank for International Settlements and chaired by banking regulators from around the world, possesses no legal authority in the United States. Although the committee's charter states that it is the "primary global standard setter for the prudential regulation of banks," it also makes clear that it "does not possess any formal supranational authority. Its decisions do not have legal force."Federal regulators have prioritized the committee's most recent set of standards, known as Basel III," over congressional directives. The regulators' proposed rulemakings from 2012 primarily implemented "certain aspects" of Basel III and "other revisions" based on a "series of documents between 2009 and 2011" by the Basel committee. Attempting to portray a semblance of congressional approval, the rule goes on to say it "would also address relevant provisions" of the Dodd-Frank Act.Clearly the primary focus of the rule was to incorporate the Basel framework. Legislation passed by Congress was an ancillary consideration.Michael Barr, the vice chair for supervision with the Federal Reserve's board of governors, refuses to loosen capital requirements. In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute last month, Barr dismissed any consideration of lowering capital requirements because it augurs a "race to the bottom."Barr neglects to discuss any costs associated with higher capital requirements. One studyshows that "for every 1% increase in capital minimums, lending rates will rise by 5 to 15 basis points and economic output will fall 0.15% to 0.6%." In the long run, higher capital requirements may also "reduce competition by acting as an entry barrier for new banks."A more holistic understanding of the effects of higher capital requirements on the broader economy is needed before the Fed and other regulators continue to draft rules that may inhibit capital allocation.Barr also admits his dedication to implementing additional reforms from Basel III at the expense of congressional consideration of proper prudential regulations. Although Barr understands that the Fed and other banking regulators must undergo the formal rulemaking process under the Administrative Procedure Act, he fails to mention the role Congress should play in prudential regulation, and instead, commits to drafting "the U.S. version of the Basel III endgame reforms" along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.The Fed's annual stress tests, which account for operational and market risks, base their common equity Tier 1 capital ratio off of Basel committee standards instead of direction from Congress. This is a clear example of the committee circumventing elected representatives and directly imposing policies on American regulators that could end up restricting access to capital for all Americans.
Big U.S. banks show brave face on jobs as Goldman Sachs cuts staff | Reuters - JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp continued to add staff as the economy softens, even after the ranks of the five biggest U.S. lenders swelled by 100,000 since the start of 2020. The chief financial officers of the two biggest U.S. banks said they would hire selectively despite waning economic growth. JPMorgan's (JPM.N) Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum said the bank is still hiring and "in growth mode" in a call with journalists to discuss the bank's fourth-quarter earnings. The bank's headcount will probably rise modestly, although "there will be different adjustments at different times, and we're seeing that all across the company," Barnum said. Bank of America (BAC.N) also continues to hire, particularly in wealth management, while also remaining disciplined on its expenses, Chief Financial Officer Alastair Borthwick told reporters on Friday. Its workforce swelled to 216,823 at the end of 2022 compared with 208,248 a year earlier."We don't have any plans for mass layoffs," he said. The banking giants stood by their hiring plans even as other lenders cut staffing in investment banking and mortgages. The projections came after Goldman Sachs became the first major bank to commence large layoffs this year, letting go of more than 3,000 employees in its biggest round of job cuts since the 2008 financial crisis. BNY Mellon (BK.N) plans to cut around 3% of its workforce this year, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.
BofA says it will pay up to slow deposit flight - Bank of America says it will have to pay more for deposits in 2023 to stanch the runoff of recent months. Total fourth-quarter deposits fell $134.1 billion, or 6.5%, year over year, with the biggest drop-off — $53 billion — coming in the global banking group. Consumer banking deposits fell by $6.2 billion over the same period, largely due to the flight of $24 billion during the final three months of 2022. The decline in consumer deposits was driven by continued higher levels of spending, customers' paydown of debt as well as the shift of money to brokerage accounts, BofA CEO Brian Moynihan said during an earnings call with analysts Friday. "While we saw a decline in quarter-four deposits in consumer, correspondingly, we also saw brokerage levels of consumer investments increase," Moynihan told analysts. As BofA repriced deposit rates to slow the pace of contraction, interest-bearing deposits increased 2.8% during the fourth quarter, while noninterest-bearing deposits declined more than 15%. "We feel like the modest balance declines are kind of in there," BofA CFO Alastair Borthwick told analysts, while also cautioning that the trend "may continue" into the early part of 2023. "We expect to pay higher rates as we continue to move through the end of the interest rate cycle," he said. He added that, over the last month, "we're seeing relatively stable deposit balances." As higher interest rates forced BofA to reprice deposits, it also continued to provide a boost to the bank's net interest income of $14.7 billion, which grew 29% compared with the same period last year.
States that limit business with banks that ‘boycott’ fossil fuels could pay high cost, study says | News From The States -Republican state policymakers’ efforts to boost fossil fuels by prohibiting their governments from doing business with companies that take sustainability into consideration has the potential to cost states millions, according to a study released Thursday.Researchers looked specifically at the possible effects on Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and West Virginia if they passed Texas-like legislation limiting investment options on municipal bonds and found it could cost them between $264 and $708 million in additional interest payments. The study noted that the states had not passed such broad legislation.The six states are among two dozen that last year issued proposed or passed legislation prohibiting state government entities from doing business with financial firms that take environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) into consideration when making investment decisions as anti-ESG efforts spread from state treasurers and attorneys general to governors and lawmakers. Republican policymakers refer to ESG as the “boycotting” of energy companies and argue that the investment funds are following a liberal agenda that hurts jobs.The study by Econsult Solutions of Philadelphia was commissioned by the Sunrise Project for two groups focused on environmental policy, As You Sow, and Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets. It expands on a Wharton School of Businessstudy released in July that focused on the cost to Texas after anti-ESG laws restricting business with banks that have policies against fossil fuels and firearms took effect there in 2021. Steven Rothstein, managing director of Ceres Accelerator, calls the anti-ESG bills and changes to state pension funds “short-sighted” and “political.” He argues that these approaches will only hurt taxpayers.“In the long run, we're worried that those taxpayers and pension holders will actually get hurt with higher risk and low return,” he said. With Texas leading the way as the first state to enact anti-ESG laws, the study’s authors assumed passage of similar laws and the same bond market restrictions in the six states they chose to examine. They used data on municipal bond transactions from January 2017 to April 2022 and looked at changes in Texas bonds “that occurred during the last 12 months of the period which corresponded to the implementation of the new laws.” The six were chosen because they had had more debate about anti-ESG bills and administrative action on ESG issues.The Wharton study found that Texas paid higher interest rates because of less competition after major banks were forced from the state. Similarly, the Econsult study found that interest costs for its six states could balloon if they underwent Texas-like changes that influenced municipal bonds in addition to state actions.
- In Florida, the costs would range from $97 million to $361 million.
- In Kentucky, the costs would be between $26 million and $70 million.
- For Louisiana, the cost would fall between $51 million and $131 million.
- In West Virginia, the interest costs would be anywhere from $9 million to $29 million.
- In Missouri, taxpayers would see an increase in interest of $32 to $68 million.
- Oklahoma would have $49 million in additional costs.
“That is a burden on every taxpayer — every teacher, every elder citizen in those states,” Rothstein said. “That obviously doesn't help anyone. It's just higher interest costs, and that is because of having less bankers being able to bid for that work. That is one of the risks. And in addition, they're also not going to be considering climate risk.”
Has Congress made it easier or harder for banks to hire ex-prisoners? — Congress' passage of a provision allowing some applicants with criminal records to obtain jobs in the banking industry is being lauded by banks and some advocacy groups for formerly incarcerated persons, but others question whether the move goes far enough to address the problem of reintegrating formerly incarcerated persons back into society.In the midst of an ongoing labor shortage, the banking industry pushed for the inclusion of the Fair Hiring in Banking Act into last year's defense spending bill. The law amended Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to modify a ban on banks' ability to hire people with criminal records.Though some second-chance advocates criticize it as a half-measure, the move was celebrated by banks and some advocacy groups as a positive, if incremental, step forward fora historically exclusive industry. Reforming what was widely seen as an outdated and overly broad ban comes as banks are pressed to find quality applicants in a tight labor market, and furthers many banks' Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives at the same time. A provision in the 2022 defense spending bill allowed banks to hire more people with criminal records, but some groups say that while the change is welcome and positive, more can still be done to advance second chance hiring."One to three Americans has some type of arrest or conviction record, which creates a significant barrier to employment for 70 million people across the country," said Nan Gibson, executive director at the JPMorgan Chase PolicyCenter. "So that is a huge talent pool that could be tapped to build job openings where we have operations and branches."Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s statute "prohibits individuals that are convicted of certain criminal offenses from participating in the affairs of an insured depository institution without the written consent of the FDIC," according to the agency. Aspiring Bank employees with criminal records may apply to the FDIC for a Section 19 waiver, independently, or with a bank's sponsorship, however, the onerous and lengthy process to do so discourages many with records from even applying.
Powell: Nonbanks need structural reforms, not Fed backstop -- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that what big banks were to the 2008 financial crisis, nonbank financial institutions are to the pandemic era — but he drew the line on how far to carry that comparison. "What the pandemic revealed were weaknesses in the nonbank financial sector, much as the global financial crisis revealed those weaknesses in the big banks and large large financial market utilities," Powell said. "There's a lot of effort going into and has been in what do you do about money market funds, what do you do about the Treasury market?" Powell's remarks came during a question-and-answer session at a symposium on central banking hosted at the Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden's central bank. Earlier in the panel, Powell noted that reforms implemented after the subprime mortgage crisis — specifically those in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 — strengthened the core of the financial system, which proved resilient in the face of COVID-19 disruption. Yet he was quick to draw a line between the Dodd-Frank reforms and what is appropriate today. While nonbanks must undergo structural changes, regulators must compel those entities to reform themselves without bringing them fully into the regulatory perimeter, Powell said. Treating them like banks would entitle them to the Fed's lender-of-last-resort facilities or other financial support, he warned. "Expanding the provision of central bank liquidity is not the not the desired response. It really is to strengthen these institutions," he said. "Our capital markets are quite vibrant and very different in what they do from what the banks do, and I wouldn't want to see the kind of prudential regulation that goes along with liquidity provision. It wouldn't be great to extend that too much into the nonbank financial sector, but rather work on structural reforms." Nonbanks have emerged as a chief financial stability concern for the Fed in recent months. In its latest financial stability report, published in early November, the central bank noted that while it has extensive data about banks extending credit to nonbanks, it often lacks information about the underlying health of those institutions.
CFPB proposes rule to rein in nonbank arbitration contracts -The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a rule Wednesday to rein in arbitration clauses in a second attempt to block companies from limiting consumers' legal rights or their ability to sue or remedy alleged violations of consumer protection laws. The proposed rule would create a nonbank public registry of non-negotiable form contracts that the bureau says "mislead consumers into believing the terms or conditions are legally enforceable." For years companies have used the fine print in consumer contracts to limit liability amounts, waive class action rights, and force customers into arbitration. The bureau views such contracts as restricting the ability of consumers to complain and to file lawsuits. The proposal, which is open for public comment for 60 days, is substantially different from a rule the CFPB proposed in 2016 that was overturned by Congress a year later. Whereas the first arbitration rule sought to eliminate mandatory arbitration clauses in a range of financial contracts including cell phones, credit cards and checking accounts, the current proposal is aimed specifically at nonbanks that are supervised by the CFPB. "Some companies seek to censor their customers and strip them of their rights by inserting fine print into non-negotiable contracts," CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a press release. "The CFPB is proposing a registry of these contract clauses to find out where people are unable to speak up when they've been harmed." Chopra also issued a separate statement further explaining problems that consumers have experienced because of such contracts. He noted that when purchasing a product, downloading an app, or signing up for a service, consumers routinely are required to click a checkbox agreeing to "terms of service" that are not subject to negotiation. He referred to the forms as "take it or leave it" form contracts that typically are "one-sided and favor the company over the consumer." In addition, Chopra cited some consumer contracts that have included "gag clauses" prohibiting a consumer from posting a negative online review or from filing a complaint, essentially limiting free speech. Most contracts seek to limit lawsuits.
Katie Porter announces Senate bid | American Banker— Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., is running for Senate in 2024, a transition for Porter that, if successful, would add a powerful ally to financial policy progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in the upper chamber. Porter will run for the seat held by Dianne Feinstein, who hasn't yet declared her intentions for 2024, but is unlikely to seek reelection amid concerns about her age and ability. Feinstein previously declined consideration to become president pro tempore of the Senate, which typically goes to the most senior senator of the majority party, instead passing the role to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. The primary race for the California Senate seat is likely to be competitive, but Porter, already a known quantity, has a successful fundraising track record. Porter is a longtime consumer advocate and expert on bankruptcy. She studied under Warren at Harvard, and in 2012 was appointed by now-Vice President Kamala Harris as the state's independent monitor of banks in a nationwide $25 billion mortgage settlement. She's currently on extended leave as a financial consumer protection lawyer at the University of California, Irvine. "I don't do Congress the way that others often do," Porter said in a video announcing her candidacy. "I use whatever power I have to speak hard truths to the powers that be, to not just challenge the status quo, but call it out, name names, and demand justice. That goes for taking on Wall Street and the big banks, big oil and big pharma." Although Porter garnered media attention for her combative questioning of financial executives during her first term, when she sat on the House Financial Services Committee, House Democratic leaders denied her request for a waiver in 2021 to continue serving on the panel.
Fed survey: Home Loan bank advances are popular liquidity fallback for banks -Federal Home Loan bank advances are a popular option for banks facing falling reserve balances, a recent survey from the Federal Reserve found. Among banks that are members of the Federal Home Loan Bank System, more than three-quarters of respondents would "very likely" turn to advances to increase reserve balances, according to the Fed's most recent senior financial officer survey, released Friday afternoon. Along with the 77% of respondents who rated their likelihood of turning to advances to replenish their reserves as "very likely," another 14% said they would be "likely" to turn to Home Loan bank advances, according to the survey. The next most popular option was borrowing from unsecured markets, such as the federal funds market, followed by raising brokered deposits or certificates of deposit. The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building stands in Washington. A survey of senior financial officers conducted by the Federal Reserve found that a wide majority of Federal Home Loan Bank System members would turn to Home Loan bank advances to meet liquidity demands.Bloomberg News The least popular option among the officers surveyed was turning to the Fed's discount window, with 78 percent saying they were not likely to use that option and none saying they would be very likely to do so. The most important reason for maintaining a certain level of reserves is to satisfy liquidity requirements determined by stress testing, with 66% of respondents saying that was a very important consideration and another 16% saying it was important. Typically conducted twice a year by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Fed's senior financial officer survey is a poll of officials at 80 banks, covering a range of asset sizes and business models. The survey, conducted Nov. 4-Nov. 18, focused on balance sheet management expectations for the months ahead, views on reserve preferences and expectations about the effects of the Fed's interest rate changes.
Federally-Insured, Crypto-Focused Silvergate Bank Loses 43 Percent of Its Market Value Yesterday as Depositors Flee by Pam and Russ Martens (January 6) If you’re looking for the poster child for everything that is toxic about mixing crypto with federally-insured banks, look no further than Silvergate Capital Corporation, parent of federally-insured Silvergate Bank. Yesterday, the company lost 42.73 percent of its market capitalization in one trading session, putting its stock price losses at 91 percent over the past 12 months. The stock has been plunging since April of last year. Then came the jarring news on November 11 that one of its large customers, crypto exchange FTX, was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy along with its sister hedge fund, Alameda Research – which, it turns out, had been using (and losing) billions of dollars of FTX customer funds to trade and acquire without the knowledge of customers. More than 100 opaque affiliates of FTX, many headquartered in offshore locations, also filed for bankruptcy. Three executives of the two firms have been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on a combined total of 19 criminal counts and new management has testified to Congress that $8 billion of customer funds are missing. On the same day that FTX made its initial filing in bankruptcy court in Delaware, Silvergate Bank released a statement which included this nugget from its CEO, Alan Lane: “In light of recent developments, I want to provide an update on Silvergate’s exposure to FTX. As of September 30, 2022, Silvergate’s total deposits from all digital asset customers totaled $11.9 billion, of which FTX represented less than 10%. Silvergate has no outstanding loans to nor investments in FTX, and FTX is not a custodian for Silvergate’s bitcoin-collateralized SEN Leverage loans. To be clear, our relationship with FTX is limited to deposits.” Customers interpreted that statement to mean that Silvergate had upwards of $1 billion exposure to alleged fraudster FTX and started a run on deposits at the bank. According to a statement released yesterday by Silvergate, its “total deposits from digital asset customers declined to $3.8 billion” as of December 31, 2022 (down from the previously reported $11.9 billion on September 30, 2022.) That’s a stunning 68 percent drop in deposits in one quarter. Yesterday’s statement from Silvergate also included the confidence-draining news that the company is firing 40 percent of its workforce and that it had met the demand for customer withdrawals during the quarter as follows: “Silvergate sold $5.2 billion of debt securities for cash proceeds during the fourth quarter of 2022. The sale resulted in a loss on the sale of securities and related derivatives of $718 million during the fourth quarter of 2022.” Silvergate is also likely to have to start reserving for a wave of lawsuits coming at it. The Federal District Court for the Southern District of California currently shows four class action lawsuits against Silvergate.
Silvergate Bank loaded up on $4.3 billion in Home Loan bank advances - When depositors began pulling money out of Silvergate Capital Corp. following the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the California bank shored up its liquidity by tapping a quasi-government agency not typically known as a lender of last resort.Silvergate received $4.3 billion from the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco late last year,company filings show. The billions in liquidity provided by the FHLB in the fourth quarter alone helped La Jolla, Calif.,-based Silvergate stave off a further run on deposits. The crypto-friendly bank now holds roughly $4.6 billion in cash — the bulk of which came from Home Loan Bank advances, according to select financial metrics that Silvergate released last week. The lifeline that Silvergate got from the Home Loan Bank System shows one way in which the crypto industry has managed to find its way into the mainstream banking system. It also comes as the Federal Housing Finance Agency is reviewing the mission of the Home Loan banks. Critics have questioned the system's hybrid public-private business model and whether the banks are engaged in the primary mission of supporting housing. Though the banks were created during the Depression to support housing finance, some experts suggest the funding to Silvergate is an example of mission creep.Silvergate Bank tapped the Federal Home Loan Bank system for $4.3 billion in advances in the fourth quarter of 2022, just as its deposit levels shrank dramatically by almost 70%."What the $4.3 billion to Silvergate went to in terms of mission is a very intriguing question," said Karen Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. "The housing mission of the Home Loan banks is apparently long gone, since this has nothing to do with housing. It has to do with supplementing wholesale funding sources for banks that can't happen any other way or at greater cost."The Home Loan Bank System provides funding to members through secured loans known as advances. Each of the 11 regional Home Loan banks, stretching from San Francisco to New York, makes advances based on collateral pledged by a bank. Silvergate pledged government-backed securities to obtain the advances, according to the bank's preliminary fourth quarter financial metrics. General advances from the Home Loan banks come with few restrictions on how the funds are used on a bank's balance sheet, experts said.Mary Long, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco bank, said the system is privately capitalized and receives no taxpayer assistance to operate. "The advances FHLBanks make to members are secured by high quality collateral in accordance with statute and regulatory requirements," she said. Silvergate declined to comment. The Home Loan banks typically review the financial condition of a borrower to limit the risk of loss while balancing a borrowers' need for a reliable source of funding. Each of the 11 banks reviews a borrowers' financial condition on an ongoing basis and uses a methodology to evaluate borrowers based on financial, regulatory and other qualitative information.Silvergate had an unusual business model, holding billions in zero-interest deposits from crypto exchanges. It also operated the Silvergate Exchange Network cryptocurrency trading platform that served as a closed-loop settlement system for crypto players, said Todd H. Baker, senior fellow at the Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy at Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School. Silvergate's liquidity issues were exacerbated by old-fashioned interest rate risk, not crypto-related credit losses, Baker and other analysts say. Rapidly rising interest rates over the past year drove losses in its securities portfolio. "Even they recognized that they had significant liquidity risk because crypto is so volatile," Baker said. "But they had a plan that was reflected on their balance sheet that if depositors wanted to take out billions in deposits, they'd just sell a bunch of securities and they had a borrowing facility with the FHLB associated with their original, historic mortgage business." Silvergate held $11.9 billion of deposits on Sept. 30, but that number had plummeted to $3.8 billion on Dec. 31.
Crypto-Focused Silvergate Bank Got De Facto Backdoor FDIC Bailout via $4.3 Billion Federal Home Loan Bank Advance by Yves Smith Kate Berry in American Banker has done some important sleuthing in her new American Banker story, Silvergate Bank loaded up on $4.3 billion in Home Loan bank advances. Berry gets to the bottom line in her story, but the American Banker exposition style resulted in the really bad stuff that would be obvious only to banking industry regulators and insiders coming close to the end. The 50,000 foot version is that because Silvergate focused on handling fiat-currency transactions of crypto traders…like FTX, Alameda Research, Gemini, and Coinbase. when it was hit by a bank run, it went to the Federal Home Loan Bank system for a $4.3 billion bailout. Silvergate could do that because in its old boring days as a traditional bank, it was in the mortgage business and hence had access to the Federal Home Loan Bank facilities, and maintained them despite its transformation into an institution with a very different risk profile. As Berry explained, the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco rescue was tantamount to a FDIC bailout. From her story:Another quirk of the Home Loan Bank System is that, if a member bank fails, the Home Loan bank can assert statutory lien priority on other assets — essentially putting the Home Loan bank ahead of all creditors. Because of this protection, no Home Loan bank has ever lost a penny on an advance. Some critics suggest that the priority position of the Home Loan banks, which stands ahead of the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund, allows the bank system to ignore the risk of failure when pricing advances. Some critics suggest the Home Loan Bank System creates a moral hazard because the FDIC cannot charge fair premiums to offset the unpriced risk of failure, shifting the downside risk to the FDIC.“The Home Loan banks love to say that they’ve never lost a nickel and that’s because they have a prior lien ahead of the FDIC,” Petrou said. “The $4.3 billion is clearly at risk and it leaves the FDIC holding the bag.”…The Home Loan Bank System, Petrou said, is forcing the FDIC “to rescue the irredeemable.”Already experts are prognosticating what will happen in a worst-case scenario for Silvergate and for regulators. The Home Loan bank stands ahead of other creditors and the FDIC.“If the FDIC walked in and had to close the bank, the Home Loan bank takes the first $4.3 billion of whatever the bank has that’s worth taking, leaving the rest to the FDIC,” Petrou said. This incident may explain the sudden issuance at the start of the year of a strictly-worded joint letter by the three national banking regulators, the Fed, the FDIC, and the Office of the Controller of the Currency. They warned that dalliance with crypto and being a bank didn’t fit well together very well. From their missive: […]Silvergate is now under serious regulatory scrutiny, which is likely to include whether it participated in money laundering. This is not far-fetched; the Department of Justice’s seizure of SBF’s Robinhood holdings is in part based on money-laundering allegations.
BankThink: Silvergate's Home Loan bank advances are further proof of crypto contagion | American Banker — Every once in a while two running news stories, with their attendant jargon and acronyms, collide into each other in a spectacular fashion. And that's precisely what has happened with Silvergate Bank's recent meltdown and revelations that the bank has tapped the Federal Home Loan Bank System for more than $4 billion in advances last year. Some background for those who haven't been following the intricacies of the crypto winter and the Biden administration's renewed attention to the Home Loan banks: Silvergate Bank, a federally insured member of the Federal Reserve System that serves as a depository for various crypto ventures, recently experienced a run on its deposits to the tune of $8 billion, or roughly 70% of its total deposit base. And over the past year, the nearly century-old Home Loan Bank System has been facing growing questions about whether it is fulfilling its public mission and/or whether that mission should be revisited.But today's report that Silvergate tapped the Home Loan Bank System for more than $4 billion in advances in 2022 raises important questions about whether cryptocurrency has made greater inroads into traditional finance than is currently understood on the one hand, and whether the Home Loan banks are propping up crypto investors at the expense of traditional bank depositors on the other. The Federal Housing Finance Agency is undertaking a review the Home Loan Bank system, which advanced more than $4 billion to Silvergate in late 2022. Silvergate, whose clients include now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, experienced dramatic deposit withdrawals around the same time.The Home Loan banks exist, at least ostensibly, to give banks low-cost liquidity that they can then use for "housing finance, community lending and asset-liability management as well as liquidity for members' short-term needs," according to the Home Loan banks' mission page. It would appear that Silvergate, which describes itself as the "leading provider of innovative financial infrastructure solutions and services for the growing digital currency industry" was advanced some $4.3 billion to meet its short-term needs. To be absolutely clear, neither Silvergate nor the Home Loan Bank System did anything wrong here — Silvergate has access to the Home Loan banks, and the Home Loan banks took government-backed securities from Silvergate in exchange for the liquidity advances. Silvergate is a publicly traded firm that is more heavily regulated than, say, FTX; has laid off hundreds of employees earlier this year to tighten its belt; and appears to have weathered the storm so far.
How Wall Street Takeover of Rental Market Is Fueling the Homelessness Crisis - A study last year from The Guardian and the University of Washington found that across 73 US cities and counties there were at least 18,000 deaths of people experiencing homelessness over the 2016 to 2020 time period with the number increasing 77 percent over that five-year period. (The federal government makes no effort to count the number of homeless deaths, and many believe the number to be much higher.) Not surprisingly, the US doesn’t have a great way to collect data on the crisis; the number is tallied by volunteers, and it is believed to be a vast undercount. Still, the official numbers show the homeless population increasing steadily since 2016. The jump in both the number of homeless and number of deaths comes amid the ongoing private equity and hedge fund takeover of real estate across the country. As these firms buy up an increasing amount of shelter, they squeeze them for every last drop of profit – a process that involves more evictions, higher rents, and increased vacancy rates. Wall Street’s takeover of the American rental market really took off during Obama’s foreclosure regime as the firms snapped up properties (including from many small landlords) at bargain prices. The pace has continued to accelerate. According to ProPublica: Private equity is now the dominant form of financial backing among the 35 largest owners of multifamily buildings, the analysis showed. Private equity-backed firms in the top 35 cumulatively held roughly a million apartments last year, the analysis showed. That is likely an undercount, because private equity giants like Blackstone, Lone Star Funds and others don’t participate in the National Multifamily Housing Council’s annual survey. Private equity and hedge fund firms use computer algorithms to find houses that would be profitable to turn into rental properties, often snapping them up with cash bids within minutes of a property coming onto the market. And when areas no longer have affordable houses to buy, they can raise rents. It’s now coming to light that these investment behemoths might also be using algorithms to essentially act as one national landlord cartel that coordinates pricing. Recent lawsuits allege that Texas-based RealPage’s YieldStar software helps landlords set prices for apartments across the US. From one of the lawsuits: Beginning in approximately 2016, and potentially earlier, Lessors replaced their independent pricing and supply decisions with collusion. Lessors agreed to use a common third party that collected real-time pricing and supply levels, and then used that data to make unit-specific pricing and supply recommendations. The lawsuit contends that RealPage’s software covers at least 16 million units across the US, and private equity and hedge funds are the main driver behind RealPage’s growth. From ProPublica: RealPage’s influence was burgeoning. [In 2017], the firm’s target market—multifamily buildings with five or more units—made up about 19 million of the nation’s 45 million rental units. A growing share of those buildings were owned by firms backed by Wall Street investors, who were among the most eager adopters of pricing software. …Somewhere around 2016, according to one trade group, the industry’s use of the pricing software began to achieve “critical mass. Enough properties were now using RealPage’s services, that its pricing algorithm began to take full effect. The time frame coincides with astronomical rental price growth and a resurgence in homelessness numbers and uptick in deaths. From the lawsuit: RealPage allows participating Lessors to coordinate supply levels to avoid price competition. In a competitive market, there are periods where supply exceeds demand, and that in turn puts downward pressure on market prices as firms compete to attract lessees. To avoid the consequences of lawful competition, RealPage provides Lessors with information sufficient to “stagger” lease renewals to avoid oversupply.
Lawler: Freddie Mac “National” Home Price Index Down Again in November; Rents Continued to Slide - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Lawler: Freddie Mac “National” Home Price Index Down Again in November; Rents Continued to Slide A brief excerpt: Freddie Mac recently reported that its “National” Home Price Index (FMNHPI)declined for the fifth straight month on a seasonally adjusted basis in November, putting the FNNHPI down 2.06% from its June 2022 peak. Compared to a year earlier the November FMNHPI was up 6.27%, down from October’s 7.92% YOY gain. The November seasonally adjusted FMHPIs for 29 states plus DC were below their 2022 peaks, with five states showing declines of over 5% from their 2022 peak levels.CR Note: This is a repeat sales index using only loans purchased by Fannie and Freddie. Freddie has data for all states and many cities. Idaho is down 8.16% seasonally adjusted compared to the peak in 2022. Arizona is down 7.06%, and California is down 5.88%.
MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest Weekly Survey - From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey: Mortgage applications increased 1.2 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending January 6, 2023.... The Refinance Index increased 5 percent from the previous week and was 86 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 47 percent compared with the previous week and was 44 percent lower than the same week one year ago.“Mortgage rates declined last week as markets reacted to data showing a weakening economy and slowing wage growth. All loan types in the survey saw a decline in rates, with the 30-year fixed rate falling to 6.42 percent. Purchase applications continued to be hampered by broader weakness in the housing market and declined slightly over the week, with the index slipping to its lowest level since 2014,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “There was an increase in refinance activity as a result of the 16-basis-point decline in rates, as both conventional and government refinance applications increased. However, the overall pace of refinance applications was lower than November and December’s 2022 averages, and over 80 percent lower than a year ago. Refinances were about 30 percent of all applications last week — well below the past decade’s average of 58 percent.”...The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) decreased to 6.42 percent from 6.58 percent, with points remaining at 0.73 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.The first graph shows the refinance index since 1990.With higher mortgage rates, the refinance index declined sharply in 2022.The previous week the refinance index was at the lowest level since the year 2000.The second graph shows the MBA mortgage purchase index
Leading Index for Commercial Real Estate Increases in December - From Dodge Data Analytics: Dodge Momentum Index Wraps up 2022 with December Growth -The Dodge Momentum Index (DMI), issued by Dodge Construction Network, improved 6.6% (2000=100) in December to 222.2 from the revised November reading of 208.3. In December, the commercial component of the DMI rose 8.4%, and the institutional component ticked up 2.7%.“One of the key construction storylines for 2022 was the return of enthusiasm and optimism in prospects for nonresidential growth,” stated Richard Branch, chief economist for Dodge Construction Network. “While some of that will likely erode in 2023 as economic growth wanes, increased demand for some building types like data centers, labs, and healthcare buildings will provide a solid floor for the construction sector.” Commercial planning in December was supported by broad-based increases across office, warehouse, retail and hotel planning. Meanwhile, institutional growth focused on recreation and public building, with education and healthcare planning activity remaining flat. On a year-over-year basis, the DMI was 40% higher than in December 2021; the commercial component was up 51%, and institutional planning was 20% higher....The DMI is a monthly measure of the initial report for nonresidential building projects in planning, shown to lead construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year.This graph shows the Dodge Momentum Index since 2002. The index was at 222.2 in December, up from 208.3 in November.According to Dodge, this index leads "construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year". This index suggests a solid pickup in commercial real estate construction into 2023.
AAR: December Rail Carloads and Intermodal Down Year-over-year --From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Rail Time Indicators. In 2022, U.S. railroads originated 11.98 million total carloads, down 0.3% (34,001 carloads) from 2021 and up 6.2% (697,444 carloads) over 2020. Since 1988, when our U.S. rail data begin, only 2020 had fewer total carloads than 2022. This graph from the Rail Time Indicators report shows the six-week average of U.S. Carloads in 2020, 2021 and 2022: December is typically one of the lowest volume months of the year, and 2022 was no exception. Total carloads averaged 210,543 per week in December 2022, the fewest for any month in 2022 and down 4.4% from December 2021. The 4.4% decline in total carloads was the biggest for any month since February 2021. The second graph shows the six-week average (not monthly) of U.S. intermodal in 2020, 2021 and 2022: (using intermodal or shipping containers): U.S. intermodal originations in 2022 were 13.45 million, down 4.9% (686,580 units) from 2021and down 0.02% (3,131 units) from 2020. U.S. intermodal volume in 2022 was the sixth most ever, but also the lowest since 2016. In 2022, containers accounted 93.7% of U.S. intermodal shipments, a record high.
Wild Ride of US Auto Sales in 2022 below 1977. Charts for GM, Toyota, Ford, Stellantis, Hyundai-Kia, Honda, and Nissan oh Dear by Wolf Richter -The thing about new vehicle sales in the US is that even in good years, they’re bad, and in bad years, they’re terrible. In 2022, total new vehicles delivered to retail customers and fleets (dominated by rental fleets), fell by 8% from the already terrible 2021, to 13.7 million vehicles, below where deliveries had been in 1977, down 16.4% from the peak in 2016, and down 20.8% from the prior peak in the year 2000. This makes for 45 years of stagnation with steep plunges in between. The way automakers have gotten their dollar-revenues to rise over the decades in this environment of stagnating or plunging unit sales is to sell more expensive vehicles, going upscale with ever fancier, more advanced, better-performing, more efficient, better equipped, and safer vehicles – I mean, even the base F-150 pickup truck now has a 10-speed automatic transmission, that kind of thing. But already years ago, going upscale and ever-higher prices started to contribute to the stagnation as there appears to be a shortage of upscale Americans. But 2022 was extra-special: chip shortages & shift in demand to fuel-efficient cars. The semiconductor shortages began to bite in late 2020, got a lot worse in 2021, and dragged into 2022, and they’re still going on, though to a lesser extent. In this environment, when automakers could get the semiconductors they needed, they could build vehicles and sell them, and their sales were strong – Toyota through September 2021, Hyundai and Kia in 2021 and 2022, nice to have great relations with Korean semiconductor makers. And when they ran out of just one of the thousands of semiconductors in a model, they couldn’t build this model, and there was nothing to sell, dealer inventories were depleted, and their sales plunged – Honda and Toyota in 2022. The big US automakers had trouble throughout. In addition, powered by the surge in gasoline prices in early 2022, vehicle demand suddenly shifted to fuel-efficient vehicles, especially small and mid-size cars and compact SUVs, and to EVs by legacy automakers that they couldn’t build enough of. Supply chains and production weren’t ready at all to accommodate this shift. So the inventory shortages have shifted in 2022 from pickup trucks and SUVs, which had vanished from dealer lots in 2021 and of which there is now ample supply, to fuel-efficient vehicles, and dealers ran out of those vehicles in 2022. Overall inventory through November has come up to 1.64 million vehicles, but was still down by 54% from November 2019, according to data from Cox Automotive:
NorthAm could lose 900,000 vehicles in '23 - North American automotive production losses could total 900,000 vehicles in 2023 as semiconductor and other parts shortages continue to hamper the industry. The estimate is the first given by AutoForecast Solutions in the new year, with the company marking the planned production of more than 900,000 vehicles in the region as at-risk. European production could fall by nearly 800,000 vehicles, while the rest of Asia outside of China could lose production of more than 700,000 vehicles. China is expected to lose the production of nearly 200,000 vehicles. The North American region is estimated to have lost the production of 3.29mn vehicles since January 2021, when semiconductor shortages began to curtail production in the region. Europe is estimated to have lost 2.62mn vehicles, China 1.13mn, and the rest of Asia 1.12mn vehicles.
US inflation eased again to 6.5% over the past 12 months - Rising consumer prices in the United States moderated again last month, bolstering hopes that inflation’s grip on the economy will continue to ease this year and possibly require less drastic action by the Federal Reserve to control it. Inflation eased to 6.5% in December compared with 12 months earlier, the government said Thursday. It was the sixth straight year-over-year slowdown. On a monthly basis, prices actually slipped 0.1% from November to December, the first such drop since May 2020. The softer readings add to growing signs that the worst inflation bout in four decades is gradually waning. Still, the Fed doesn’t expect inflation to slow enough to get close to its 2% target until well into 2024. The central bank is expected to raise its benchmark rate by at least a quarter-point when it next meets at the end of this month. Even as it gradually slows, inflation remains a painful reality for many Americans, especially with such necessities as food, energy and rents having soared over the past 18 months. For now, inflation is falling, with the national average price of a gallon of gas declining from a $5 a gallon peak in June to $3.27 a gallon as of Wednesday, according to AAA. Supply chain snarls that previously inflated the cost of goods have largely unraveled. Consumers have also shifted much of their spending away from physical goods and instead toward services, such as travel and entertainment. As a result, the cost of goods, including used cars, furniture and clothing, has dropped for two straight months. Last week’s jobs report for December bolstered the possibility that a recession could be avoided. Even after the Fed’s seven rate hikes last year and with inflation still high, employers added a solid 223,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, matching the lowest level in 53 years. At the same time, average hourly pay growth slowed, which should lessen pressure on companies to raise prices to cover their higher labor costs. Another positive sign for the Fed’s efforts to quell inflation is that Americans overall expect price increases to decline over the next few years. That is important because so-called “inflation expectations” can be self-fulfilling: If people expect prices to keep rising sharply, they will typically take steps, like demanding higher pay, that can perpetuate high inflation.
Services Inflation Spikes to 4-Decade High. CPI for Gasoline & Durable Goods Plunge - by Wolf Richter -Services are nearly two-thirds of consumer spending. That’s where inflation is now raging. The Fed has been talking about services for months. . Services include housing, insurance, healthcare, education, travel and hotel bookings, subscriptions, streaming, telecommunication, haircuts…. And this is where inflation is now raging. This is where inflation has gotten entrenched, while prices of durable goods are unwinding the pandemic spike, and while energy prices plunged, and food prices slowed their increase, according to the CPI data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Month-over-month and year-over-year:
- Services: +0.6%; +7.5%
- Durable goods: -0.8%; -0.1%
- Food: +0.3%; +10.4%
- Energy: -4.5%; +7.3% (gasoline: -9.4%; -1.5%)
- Core CPI (without food and energy): +0.3%; +5.7%
- CPI overall: -0.1%; +6.5%.
Inflation rages in services.We’ll start with services because services are such a big part of consumer spending and are therefore so important to consumers. The Fed has been talking about inflation in services for months. I have been talking about it for nearly a year. The CPI for services spiked by 0.6% in December from November, and by 7.5% year-over-year, the worst year-over-year increase since 1982. And it was the fourth month in a row over 7%:The health insurance adjustment. The spike in the services CPI occurred despite the ongoing massive mega-downward adjustment of health insurance. Without that adjustment, services CPI would have been even worse.The BLS undertakes annual adjustments in how it estimates the costs of health insurance and then spreads those adjustments over the following 12 months. December was the third month (I’ve discussed this in greater detail here). Due to this adjustment, the CPI for health insurance plunged by 3.4% in December from November. These three months of mega-adjustments reduced the year-over-year rate of the CPI for health insurance from 28% in September to 7.9% in December. Health insurance is part of medical care services, and so that adjustment knocked down the CPI for medical care services as well. In the chart below, both are indicated in red.
Cleveland Fed: Median CPI increased 0.4% and Trimmed-mean CPI increased 0.4% in November - The Cleveland Fed released the median CPI and the trimmed-mean CPI: According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the median Consumer Price Index rose 0.4% in December. The 16% trimmed-mean Consumer Price Index increased 0.4% in December. "The median CPI and 16% trimmed-mean CPI are measures of core inflation calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland based on data released in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) monthly CPI report". This graph shows the year-over-year change for these four key measures of inflation. On a year-over-year basis, the median CPI rose 6.9%, the trimmed-mean CPI rose 6.5%, and the CPI less food and energy rose 5.7%. Core PCE is for November and increased 4.7% year-over-year.Note: The Cleveland Fed released the median CPI details. "Fuel oil and other fuels" decreased at a 78% annualized rate in December, and "Used Cars" decreased at a 27% annualized rate. Note that Owners' Equivalent Rent and Rent of Primary Residence account for almost 1/3 of median CPI, and these measures were up an average of close to 10% annualized. This data is lagged, and rents have been declining in recent months. To reflect this, I've added core CPI ex-shelter, and that has declined to 4.4% YoY.
Wholesale Used Car Prices Down 14.9% Year-over-year; Largest Annual Decline on Record - From Manheim Consulting today: Wholesale Used-Vehicle Prices Increase in December Wholesale used-vehicle prices (on a mix, mileage, and seasonally adjusted basis) increased 0.8% in December from November. The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index (MUVVI) rose to 219.3, down 14.9% from a year ago. This was the largest annualized decline in the series’ history. December’s increase was driven by the seasonal adjustment. The non-adjusted price change in December was a decline of 1.9% compared to November, moving the unadjusted average price down 13.1% year over year. This index from Manheim Consulting is based on all completed sales transactions at Manheim’s U.S. auctions. The Manheim index suggests used car prices increased slightly in December (seasonally adjusted) and were down 14.9% year-over-year (YoY). It is likely this index will be down further YoY in early 2023.
Carvana terminates more workers amid weak used car sales -WSJ - Carvana is terminating more workers and take other measures such as reduced work hours as the used-car retailer contends with weak sales, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.The company was letting open positions go unfilled and several operations teams were working fewer than 30 hours a week or four-day work weeks, the WSJ reported, citing current and former employees as well as internal emails.Carvana, best known for its automated car vending machines, did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment.The company's shares were down nearly 9% in premarket trade on Friday, a day after surging about 40% amid interest from retail investors. Carvana let about 4,000 employees go in 2022 as it struggled to deal with the debt that piled up as it acquired cars at elevated costs. The demand for used cars has fallen over the past year as consumers opt for alternative means to commute in an attempt to trim expenses.
EIA expects U.S. gasoline and diesel retail prices to decline in 2023 and 2024 --We forecast retail gasoline and diesel prices will decline in 2023 and 2024, according to our latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), after reaching multiyear highs in the first half of 2022. We forecast that retail prices for regular-grade gasoline will average $3.32 per gallon (gal) in 2023 and continue to decrease to average $3.09/gal in 2024, down from $3.96/gal in 2022. We expect on-highway diesel prices to decrease to average $4.23/gal in 2023 before decreasing further to $3.70/gal in 2024. These forecast price decreases are based on our expectation of lower demand growth for diesel and motor gasoline with continued high production of those products.In 2023, we expect that limited growth in global demand for gasoline combined with increased gasoline production will cause gasoline inventories to rise in the United States. We estimate that annual average U.S. gasoline consumption increased by 0.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2022. We forecast a decrease in gasoline consumption in 2023 of 0.3 million b/d compared with 2022, and we expect gasoline consumption will remain similar to 2023 in 2024. Additional refinery capacity that came online in late 2022, combined with additional capacity expansions expected to come online in 2023, will also contribute to rising supplies of both gasoline and diesel fuel internationally, further contributing to lower prices globally in 2023 and 2024. We also estimate that U.S. refiners will continue to produce gasoline, even as prices decrease, to meet higher global demand for diesel fuel.We expect annual U.S. consumption of gasoline will remain less than in 2019 (9.3 million b/d) through the end of 2024. However, we estimate that people drove more in the United States during 2022 than during 2019, before the pandemic. We forecast this trend of increased travel will continue in the United States during 2023 and 2024, but increased vehicle fleet fuel economy will offset the increase in fleet vehicle miles traveled. Vehicle fleet fuel economy is the number of fleet vehicle miles traveled, including hybrid or hybrid-electric vehicles, divided by all gasoline consumption, also reported in miles per gallon.U.S. consumption of distillate fuel oil increased from 4.0 million b/d in 2021 to 4.1 million b/d in 2022. Distillate fuel oil is primarily used in the United States as diesel road fuel, but it is also used for agriculture, space heating, and industrial uses. For both gasoline and distillate, U.S. consumption in 2022 was concentrated in the first part of the year, before high prices began driving consumption down for most of the second half of 2022.We expect U.S. demand for distillate to remain below 2022 demand through the end of our forecast in 2024. Although we forecast global demand for distillate fuel oil will remain strong, distillate demand remains a factor with significant uncertainty in our forecasts for distillate inventories and prices, especially in Europe where sanctions on Russia have disrupted historical supply patterns for the fuel. Similar to gasoline, we expect increased global refinery capacity will help lower diesel prices through 2023.
2022 Box Office Still 33% Shy Of Pre-Pandemic Levels --Despite a 65 percent jump in box office earnings last year, the movie industry still has a long way to go in its recovery from the Covid-19 shock. At an estimated total of $7.5 billion, Statista's Felix Richter notes that the North American box office had the third worst year since 2000, still trailing 2019 box office earnings by 33 percent. Things are looking even worse when adjusting for ticket price inflation, which makes the 2022 results the third worst year in a long, long time. With roughly 814 million tickets sold in the United States and Canada, movie theaters attracted at least 400 million fewer visitors than in any year between 1995 and 2019, according to industry tracker The Numbers. Movie theaters and the film industry were hit incredibly hard by the coronavirus pandemic, as screens went dark in most parts of the world in March 2020, when strict social distancing measures were implemented to contain the virus. Box office earnings vanished practically overnight, and film studios were forced to push back movie releases to later in the year, hoping that things would be back to normal by then. Unfortunately, things never went back to normal, as Covid came and went in waves and it took a long time for people to be comfortable enough to return to movie theaters, even after vaccinations had become widely available. Desperate to generate new revenue streams, studios even did the previously unthinkable in 2021 and started releasing films on streaming services simultaneous to the theatrical release. While embracing streaming as an alternative means of distribution during these special times seemed like a shrewd move, it is proving difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. Consumers have a way of quickly getting used to new realities, and while many people have sorely missed the moviegoing experience, others have long called for the end of theatrical release windows.
Chicago congestion at No. 1 as traffic grows nationwide, INRIX says - Drivers in many U.S. cities were stuck in traffic far longer in 2022 than the year before, with time-savings tied to the pandemic dissipating but not disappearing in commutes around the country, according to data from transportation analytics firm INRIX. Chicago-area drivers had the most hours wasted while sitting in congestion last year, with the average driver losing 155 hours to traffic — a jump of about 50 percent compared to 2021, according to INRIX’s global traffic scorecard released Tuesday. Boston and San Diego saw delays per driver increase by about 70 percent in 2022. The tally of wasted time was up 89 percent in the Washington region, including Maryland and Virginia, soaring from 44 hours of delays in 2021 to 83 hours in 2022. Circumstances varied among cities, said Bob Pishue, a transportation analyst at INRIX, but work-from-home policies established to reduce coronavirus transmission led to stark drop-offs in driving during earlier stages of the pandemic. “D. C. and San Francisco actually saw huge decreases in traffic, more so than some other major areas,” Pishue said. “A lot of it came back last year. But it’s still below pre-covid levels.” Why hybrid work schedules have made some commutes worse In Seattle, Baltimore, Providence and Washington, average time stuck in traffic is down by one-third or more compared to before the pandemic, according to INRIX. Congestion delays in Chicago are up 7 percent, while Miami’s delays were up 30 percent. The company’s scorecard ranked 295 U.S. urban areas largely on the average delays faced by drivers, with slight adjustments based on population. Delays remained below their pre-covid levels in 179 of the areas, and they exceeded them in 116, according to INRIX, noting that smaller and less-congested cities have tended to see their old delays come back. Data from the Federal Highway Administration showed vehicles in the United States traveled about 39 billion miles in the first three quarters of 2022, representing a 1.6 percent increase compared to a year earlier. For many metro areas, the rebound in congestion in 2022 stemmed from the return of the morning commute, Pishue said. Traditionally, traffic would peak in the morning, drop during the day, then rebound in the afternoon and evening, he said. During much of the pandemic, the pattern shifted toward traffic steadily increasing throughout the day, but now those peaks are coming back, Pishue said. “Some would say that’s kind of welcome,” Pishue said. “I hate to say traffic congestion is welcome. But it does signify a little bit that ‘return to normal’ that most of us were used to.”
Seven thousand nurses at two New York hospitals launch open ended strike - Over seven thousand nurses at two of New York City’s largest private hospitals, Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai Hospital on Manhattan’s East Side, began a strike Monday morning after the expiration of their contracts on December 31. The walkout, the latest in a wave of strikes to hit the healthcare industry, comes nearly three years after the onset of the pandemic exposed and exacerbated the crisis at hospitals in New York and beyond. The strike is a reflection of the determination by nurses to take a stand for hospital conditions that prioritize worker and patient well-being over industry profits. Late Sunday night, Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul made a last-ditch effort to force through binding arbitration in order to prevent a strike. The intervention was immediately supported by the hospitals, which know full well that the move is aimed at maintaining the status quo. Hochul, who touted her involvement in negotiations over the course of weeks, is seeking to force through similar agreements to those reached by New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) with eight other hospitals. Over the past week, the union has pushed deals with below-inflation wage increases of 7, 6, and 5 percent over three-year contracts that do nothing meaningful to address the staffing issues. In her statement Sunday night, Hochul pledged that the state would “continue to enforce staffing requirements” that are, in practice, widely ignored. As one worker told the WSWS, “The system is f***ed up, and we realize the [hospital] bureaucracy and their supporters are benefiting from unsafe patient ratios and our having to work long shifts in dangerous conditions.”
Nurse fired for refusing to prescribe birth control sues CVS --A former CVS employee filed a lawsuit against the company Wednesday for allegedly violating her religious beliefs after she was fired for refusing to prescribe birth control.J. Robyn Strader worked as a nurse practitioner at a Texas CVS MinuteClinic for more than six years, saying that CVS granted her a religious accommodation during that time to not prescribe “contraceptive and abortifacient” drugs to patients, according to the complaint. The complaint alleges that when a patient would “rarely” request a prescription like birth control, Strader would refer them to another CVS MinuteClinic provider because of her Christian faith.The complaints stated that this accommodation worked until August 2021, when CVS announced a new policy that it would revoke religious accommodations that allowed providers to not prescribe drugs like contraception. The complaint alleged by refusing to accommodate Strader, CVS avoided “accommodating a religious practice that it could accommodate without undue hardship,” which the complaint says is in violation of Section 12 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The complaint also said that CVS needed to consider religious accommodation requests on an individual basis, instead of prohibiting all religious accommodations on one issue. The complaint suggested that CVS could have accommodated her by transferring her to a position where she did not need to prescribe the birth control, instead of deciding to keep her in a position where prescribing birth control was “essential.”
How a War on Porn Is Endangering US Sex Workers -An ‘anti-trafficking’ US law that has been accused of endangering sex workers faces a crucial hearing this week. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (FOSTA/SESTA), which became law in 2018, claims to hold websites liable for promoting or facilitating prostitution or sex trafficking. But critics say it has actually increased trafficking, as well as threatening sex workers and free speech. Under the law, a website can be sued if a user discusses prostitution or sex trafficking – and the site’s owner can be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison. This means some platforms have introduced bans on all content relating to sex work. Former sex worker and sex-trafficking survivor Justice Rivera told openDemocracy that this is “pushing people to more risky forms of work, like full-service sex work, or something that’s on the street”. Woodhull Freedom Foundation, an organisation that defends sexual freedom as a fundamental right, first sued the federal government over the law in June 2018. The foundation argued that FOSTA/SESTA violates the first amendment, which protects freedom of speech. But a court dismissed the case months later, ruling that Woodhull and its co-plaintiffs, Human Rights Watch and online civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, had no legal standing. This decision was overturned by the Court of Appeals in January 2020, and last March a court ruled in the government’s favour. Woodhull is now appealing that decision, and the Court of Appeals will hear the case on 11 January.A 2020 study of the effects of FOSTA/SESTA found that 72.5% of sex workers had faced economic instability since the law’s introduction.In San Francisco, the number of street-based sex workers tripled in 2018 and there was a 170% increase in human trafficking cases. CBS said both spikes appeared “to be connected to the federal shutdown of sex-for-sale websites”.This increased hardship is because websites that sex workers previously advertised on have been shut down, including Craigslist personals, as have websites that were used to verify clients’ identities.Similarly, in July 2018, police in Indianapolis admitted they were having more trouble finding sex trafficking victims because sites used by pimps have been taken down.Sex workers’ groups say they were not given a chance to present their views on FOSTA-SESTA before it became law.
Missouri Republicans requiring female legislators to keep arms covered in strict House dress code - The Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives used its session’s opening day Wednesday to tighten the dress code for female legislators, while leaving the men’s dress code alone.The changes were spearheaded by state Rep. Ann Kelley (R), a co-sponsor who was among the Republicans seeking to require women to wear a blazer when in the chamber. She was met by swift opposition from Democrats who called it “ridiculous.”The state House eventually approved a modified version of Kelley’s proposal, which allows for cardigans as well as jackets, but still requires women’s arms to be concealed. Missouri Democrats tore into Republicans for pushing the new restrictions on what women in the chamber could wear.“We are fighting — again — for a woman’s right to choose for something. This time, it’s how she covers herself — and the interpretation of someone who has no background in fashion,” state Rep. Raychel Proudie (D) said in a speech on the floor. “I spent $1,200 on a suit, and I can’t wear it in the People’s House because someone who doesn’t have the range tells me that it’s inappropriate.”
Missouri House adopts new dress code for women requiring covering of arms | The Hill - The Missouri House of Representatives proposed a bill Wednesday that would restrict women’s dress code in the state’s House, but would not tighten the dress code for men, eventually passing a version of the bill calling for women to cover their arms. The dress code was updated from 2021, in which women could wear “dresses or skirts or slacks worn with a blazer or sweater and appropriate dress shoes or boots,” to now state that proper attire for women in the House would be “jackets worn with dresses, skirts, or slacks, and dress shoes or boots.” The legislation was proposed by Rep. Ann Kelley (R) and was met with firm opposition from Democrats. Missouri state Rep. Raychel Proudie (D) called the motion “ridiculous” while speaking on the House floor, adding, “We are fighting — again — on a woman’s right to choose something and this time is how she covers herself,” according to Heartland Signal. “Do you know what it feels like to have a bunch of men in this room looking at your top trying to decide whether it’s appropriate or not?” state Rep. Ashley Aune (D) said on the state House floor, according to Heartland Signal, before going on to criticize the motion further as “ridiculous.” Other Democrats weighed in on Twitter: “The caucus that lost their minds over the suggestion that they should wear masks during a pandemic … is now spending its time focusing on the fine details of what women have to wear (specifically how to cover their arms) to show respect here,” state Rep. Peter Meredith tweeted. Women hold less than one-third of the state’s legislature, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and while the House dress code is debated every two years, the men’s dress code was not debated for the 2023 session.
‘They’re Trying to George Floyd Me’: Teacher and Cousin of Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Killed by LAPD -Harrowing video footage released this week shows officers with the Los Angeles Police Department forcibly restraining and repeatedly using a Taser on 31-year-old Keenan Anderson—a high school teacher and cousin of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors—following a traffic accident.Soon thereafter, Anderson was transported to a local hospital where he suffered cardiac arrest and died.Footage of the incident shows one LAPD officer holding Anderson down with an elbow on his neck while another, wielding a Taser, yells orders for Anderson to turn over.“I can’t,” Anderson says as he struggles to breathe. “They’re trying to George Floyd me.”Seconds later, one of the officers uses the Taser on Anderson several times as he pleads for help. Watch (warning: the video is disturbing):Anderson, who was visiting Los Angeles on winter break, was a 10th grade English teacher at the Digital Pioneers Academy in Washington, D.C.In a statement, the school said it is “deeply saddened” by Anderson’s death and called the details of the police encounter “as disturbing as they are tragic.”“Keenan is the third person killed by the Los Angeles Police Department in 2023, and we’re 12 days into the new year,” the statement notes, referring to the police killings of 45-year-old Takar Smith and 35-year-old Oscar Sanchez earlier this month.Last year, U.S. police killed at least 1,176 people, the highest number on record. A Reutersinvestigation published in 2017 showed that “more than 1,000 people in the U.S. have died after police stunned them with Tasers, and the stun gun was ruled to be a cause or contributing factor in 153 of those deaths.”
Los Angeles police begin new year killing 3 people in just over 24 hours - One of the men killed by police was Keenan Anderson, a 31- year-old teacher and father. Anderson encountered police after he was involved in a traffic accident in Los Angeles on January 3. In the body camera footage released by the LAPD, it begins with Anderson jogging towards a motorcycle cop and motioning to him where the accident had taken place. The cop, following Anderson’s direction, arrives at the scene of the accident. As the cop arrives, the other people involved in the accident tell him that Anderson was one of the drivers involved in the incident. The cop immediately turns around and sees that Anderson is in the crosswalk and tells him to go sit on the sidewalk. Anderson complies, but, in an obvious indication of mental distress, tells the cop that “somebody is trying to kill me.” While the next part of the footage is edited, the tape that was released shows Anderson repeatedly apologizing to and being extremely cooperative with the police. In the edited footage, which covers a span of roughly eight minutes, Anderson remained on his knees or sitting on his rear, with his hands either behind his back, on top of his head or in front of him, talking with police. At no point does Anderson brandish a weapon or threaten the police. After roughly eight minutes, Anderson appears to become more agitated and eventually stands up and tells the cop he needs to get some water. He continues to exhibit signs of mental distress, telling the police, “Somebody’s got to see me, sir,” while at the same time beginning to walk away from the police. Even as he begins to walk and eventually, run away from the police, Anderson kept his hands raised with his palms open. The video shows that at least three police officers, one on a motorcycle, quickly giving chase and apprehending Anderson within 30 seconds of him walking/running away from the scene of the accident. As soon as the motorcycle cop catches up to Anderson, he yells at him to “get down on the ground now!” which Anderson did, putting his hands behind his head, while saying, “Yes, sir, yes, sir.” As one cop continued to yell at Anderson to “turn over” on his stomach, two other cops arrived, each one grabbing Anderson by the arm. Within five seconds, all three cops grabbed Anderson and forced him onto the pavement. The tape shows Anderson screaming in distress as the police wrestled him down,“Help, help, they are trying to kill me!” As the police continued to grapple with him, at various points twisting his arms while applying pressure to his neck and chest with their knees and elbows, Anderson yells, “These are actors!” In response to Anderson’s cries, one of the cops threatens Anderson that he is going to “tase him” if he continues to “resist.” At this time there are three police pinning Anderson down, including an African American officer, who is at various points observed using his elbow to apply pressure to Anderson’s throat, causing him to choke and yell, “They’re trying to George Floyd me.” As the police continue to wrestle and suffocate him, Anderson pleads, “Please, please.” One cop responds, “All right, I’m a, I’m a tase him.” In less than a minute Anderson was tased by the one cop at least four times, for roughly 33 seconds. The first time the cop deployed the taser he shot the metal prongs at Anderson, sending 50,000 volts through the wires and into his skin. The cop then pressed the taser directly against Anderson’s back, to the left of his spinal column, roughly where his heart would be located. The cop held the trigger while pressing the taser against Anderson’s back for approximately 12 seconds, sending painful electric shocks into the screaming man. As the other police continued to apply pressure on Anderson’s neck and back, the one cop continued to tase him. After the initially tasing Anderson for 12 seconds, the cop zapped Anderson again for nine seconds, and then again for six more seconds, and again for six more seconds. Each time the cop tased Anderson, he was already on the ground, or on his stomach with his hands behind his back. As he was being tased, Anderson yelled, “Help me!” and “I am not resisting!” Keenan Anderson getting tased by a Los Angeles police officer on January 3. [Photo: Los Angeles Police Department] With roughly five people surrounding and on top of him, Anderson was handcuffed and his legs hogtied. According to police, after a few minutes the fire department and ambulances arrived, and Anderson was placed in a wheelchair before being transported to a local hospital. According to police, roughly four hours after Anderson was tased, choked and hogtied, he suffered a cardiac arrest while at the hospital and died.
A Day In The Life: Southern California's Fentanyl Crisis -As 2022 came to a close, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency announced a record-breaking seizure of over 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl throughout the country. United States Customs and Border Protection agents also faced their busiest year on record regarding fentanyl seizures. According to the Department of Justice, 60 percent of apprehensions occurred in California’s Imperial and San Diego counties with more than 5,000 pounds of fentanyl confiscated from drug traffickers, just in the first nine months of the year. In San Diego County, the drug has been declared a public health crisis response with homeless individuals experiencing the greatest increase of deaths from fentanyl over the last three years, according to county officials. “I don’t even know if I will be alive tomorrow. I might OD tonight,” Pete—a pseudonym—told The Epoch Times. “You are talking to a drug user right now and that’s the name of the game.” The 34-year-old comedian has been using the opiate fentanyl since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic and commonly checks in and out of rehabilitation centers. With his addiction, he wakes up some mornings homeless on the streets of Southern California. “You are talking on the phone to a guy about to get his drugs right now,” he said slurring his words off of Huntington Beach’s 17th Street. “And you just missed me getting shaken down by some guy over here.” The “guy” Pete was referencing, a drug dealer, did not give Pete the drugs he wanted. Instead, he paid a nearby homeless individual $80 to help him track down a dealer. “I would say that the easiest cities to get [fentanyl] in Orange County would be either Costa Mesa or Santa Ana,” Pete said the morning after being arrested for public drunkenness by Newport Beach Police. “You can ask any homeless person and they can tell you where to find fentanyl to inject or smoke,” he said. Dealers which are nicknamed “Fentanyl Fairies” blend in with local homeless populations, even sometimes pushing shopping carts that appear to be filled with their belongings. There’s a “connection with homelessness and fentanyl,” Pete said. “When you are selling everything to feed your own addiction, you become homeless. Dealers look homeless and sell to the homeless.”
Routine Vaccine Coverage Down for Kindergartners - Routine vaccination coverage among U.S. kindergartners declined for a second consecutive year during the 2021-2022 school year, according to health officials on Thursday who cited disruptions in immunization programs related to the COVID-19 pandemic and an overall rise in vaccine hesitancy. Coverage among kindergarten students fell to approximately 93% during the 2021-2022 school year across common vaccines children typically get before entering school, estimates published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report show. Along with shots to protect against measles, mumps and rubella, the study examined vaccine coverage for poliovirus and chickenpox, as well as diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis. The latest rates mark a decline from approximately 94% coverage for the 2020-2021 school year and from the 95% coverage reported for the 2019-2020 school year. Of particular concern is the decline in measles, mumps and rubella vaccination coverage, which fell to 93.5% nationally from 93.9% for the prior school year. Two-dose MMR vaccination rates among states ranged from a low of 78% in Alaska to a high of 98% in New York, according to the report, which notes that while all states require two doses of a measles-containing vaccine, dosage requirements for rubella and mumps can vary. In all, 13 states saw two-dose MMR coverage at or above the national target of 95%, while nine states and the District of Columbia had coverage rates below 90%.
6-year-old who allegedly shot Va. teacher used gun legally purchased by mom - Abigail Zwerner was teaching a lesson Friday at a Virginia elementary school when a 6-year-old student pulled out a 9mm handgun he had brought from home, pointed it in her direction and fired a single shot, police said Monday. The bullet tore through the teacher’s raised hand and hit her chest, but despite the grievous wound, the 25-year-old managed to usher 16 to 20 students to safety from her Richneck Elementary School classroom in Newport News, police said. Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew credited Zwerner with saving lives Monday, after watching the aftermath of the shooting unfold on school surveillance video. “Ms. Zwerner was the last person to leave that class,” said Drew, who was visibly shaken. “She made a right turn and started down the hallway and then she stopped. She turned around to make sure every one of those students was safe.” Authorities gave the dramatic account at a news conference Monday, revealing the most detailed portrait yet of a shooting that Drew labeled “unprecedented.” The boy’s mother had purchased the gun legally, Drew said, but it remains unclear whether the boy or anyone else will be charged in connection with the case that has shocked a nation that has grown accustomed to school shootings. The motive for the shooting remains under investigation, but Drew said it was not preceded by any kind of altercation, as police had previously indicated. They are still investigating how the boy got the gun from his home. Drew said the student brought the gun to school in a backpack. After firing the round, the boy was restrained by a school employee until law enforcement arrived on the scene shortly after 2 p.m. Friday, Drew said. The 6-year-old was taken to a hospital, where he was given an evaluation and then put under court-ordered mental health treatment. He is still in authorities’ custody, receiving treatment at an undisclosed medical facility, authorities said. Zwerner was rushed to a hospital, where her condition was initially listed as life-threatening before being upgraded to stable, Drew said. The police chief visited Zwerner over the weekend and said her first question was: How are my students? The shooting prompted a school evacuation, and there was a chaotic scene outside as parents anxiously — and sometimes angrily — waited to be reunited with their children. The school has about 550 students enrolled in kindergarten through fifth grade, according to state data. Once the building was deemed safe, Drew said investigators entered the classroom and found the 9mm Taurus handgun next to the boy’s desk; the gun, Drew said, was on the ground when the child was being restrained, though it was not immediately clear how it got there. They also found a single spent shell casing, a cellphone and a backpack nearby. Advertisement Drew said police interviewed the 6-year-old shooter and his mother a short time later. They determined the gun was in their home and that the mother had brought the boy to school on the day of the shooting. Drew said the mother legally purchased the gun in York County, Va. Police consulted with prosecutors and county service providers before obtaining an emergency custody order from a magistrate for the boy, Drew said. Legal experts said it would be difficult to charge the boy with a crime because under Virginia law, children younger than 7 are presumed not to be able to form the intent to commit an illegal act.
Backpack had been searched prior to shooting by Virginia 6-year-old --A 6-year-old boy who allegedly shot his first grade teacher last week in Virginia had his backpack searched prior to the shooting, but no weapon was found, according to local station WAVY-TV.“At least one administrator was notified of a possible weapon in the timeline that we’re reviewing and was aware that that student had, that there was a weapon on campus,” George Parker, the superintendent of the Newport News Public Schools, told parents during a meeting on Thursday. Authorities have said the boy brought a 9mm handgun to school in his backpack on Jan. 6 and fired one round at his teacher, 25-year-old Abby Zwerner, who is currently in stable condition, according to The Associated Press. In the wake of the shooting, Parker said the school district has been in contact with Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a shooting in May left 19 children and two adults dead. After three gun-related incidents in the last year and a half, Newport News is considering several new precautions, including requiring students to use clear backpacks and installing permanent metal detectors, Parker added on Thursday. “We want to make sure that we have measures in place that will allow our faculty and our students, and you our parents, to feel … confidence that your student is entering a safe building on a daily basis,” he said.
Central Bucks moves forward with policy censoring classroom decor and discussions — despite federal investigation - The Central Bucks School District passed a contentious policy that bans teachers from engaging in “advocacy activities” and displaying inclusive symbols like Pride flags in their classrooms. The school board voted 6-3 on Tuesday night to approve the final draft of the policy — which is part of a federal investigation of the school district. Board members Mariam Mahmud, Karen Smith, and Tabitha Dell’Angelo voted against the policy. Dell’Angelo, a professor of education at the College of New Jersey, said inclusive spaces lead to better educational outcomes for marginalized students.“Stress impairs cognitive function. Creating classrooms where students know they are valued and included lowers stress and therefore improves cognitive function,” Dell’Angelo said. “Creating inclusive spaces in part means that students see themselves and one another reflected in positive ways in books, materials, displays, etc.”Board President Dana Hunter, Vice President Leigh Vlasblom, and members Debra Cannon, Lisa Sciscio, Sharon Collopy, and Jim Pepper voted for the policy.Cannon said she wants teachers to act with “neutrality” in the classroom, and not “refuse to teach the curriculum that challenges their own political” viewpoint. She said one teacher, who she did not identify, refused to use the name of former President Donald Trump and instead referred to him as “Number 45.”The policy specifically says employees should not “advocate” to students on “partisan, political, or social policy matters,” or display any “flag, banner, poster, sign, sticker, pin, button, insignia, paraphernalia, photograph, or other similar material that advocates concerning any partisan, political, or social policy issue.” An early draft of the policy prohibited materials related to “gender identity,” and “sexual orientation,” but school officials removed those terms after legal reviewand replaced them with “social policy issue.” Hunter told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the policy will ban Pride flags, as well as “Blue Lives Matter flags, anti-abortion flags or any other flags that advocate on social policy issues.”Community members, students, legal experts, and education advocates have been arguing against the policy for months.
GENz Voices: Maya Dawson says mental health needs to be brought into school curriculum | Colorado Public Radio (TED video) When Maya Dawson was a little girl, she drew a picture in her diary. It was a kitchen blender. And inside, spinning around and around was a big, black lump. “It’s the first time I can remember not having the words to express my emotions,” said Dawson.Today, she’s a senior at Conifer High School in Jefferson County, but that drawing still comes to mind from time to time.She believes that while so much is being done to help students address mental health in school– actually integrating it into a school’s everyday curriculum would make a huge difference.Last year, she gave a TEDxYouth at Cherry Creek talk called, “Mental Health In Schools — We’re Doing It Wrong.” She’s one of a number of Colorado Front Range Gen Z students CPR News spoke to about their own TEDxYouth talks. They range from the importance of mental health, to why pronouns matter, and how important education funding is for indigenous youth and teens of color.
Sudden cardiac arrest is leading cause of death in young athletes CBS news (video)
Canadian school demands dress code after trans teacher controversy - A Canadian school board has demanded a new “professional” dress code for teachers following months of backlash over a trans teacher with “clownish” giant prosthetic breasts.Trustees on the Halton District School Board unanimously passed a motion on Jan. 3 ordering the director of education to develop a policy to ensure “appropriate and professional standards of dress and decorum in the classroom,” Fox News reported.The district’s Director of Education Curtis Ennis will have until March 1 to create the policy.“The HDSB’s commitment to human rights remains rooted in our core values and commitment to each and every student and staff who identifies as a member of an underserved and underrepresented group, and our approach is informed by opinions from leading employment law firms with human rights and equity advisors,” Ennis said. “This commitment and approach will continue to be applied as the HDSB looks to fulfill this motion.”Photos of the Oakville Trafalgar High School teacher, identified as Kayla Lemieux by local media, went viral in September and swiftly garnered global attention.The snaps, taken by students, show the blond educator wearing tight clothing that emphasizes her gigantic Z-size prosthetic breasts while teaching in the classroom. Huge nipples can also be seen protruding from her fake, balloon-like bust.The eye-popping photos quickly sparked protests, angry complaints and even several bomb threats at the Oakville school, located about 20 miles outside Toronto.The school board has continued to stand behind the trans teacher, who began identifying as female last year, according to the Toronto Sun. “This teacher (who teaches shop) is an extremely effective teacher,” Halton District School Board chair Margo Shuttleworth said previously.
Melrose Educators Vote To Authorize Strike — Melrose educators will go on strike on Tuesday if negotiations fail to produce a new contract for teachers before that point, the Melrose Education Association announced Friday. Educators recently gathered, according to the Education Association, voting to authorize a strike nearly 200 days after their previous teachers contract with the Melrose Public Schools expired. Melrose School Superintendent Julie Kukenberger and Mayor Paul Brodeur both previously warned about a possible strike on Thursday night, with Kukenberger writing in a letter to families that she was “hopeful” that the Education Association would not choose to strike. READ: Melrose Teachers Strike Possible, District Says Officials this week said a strike would force the Melrose Public Schools to close for all students while such a strike proceeds. Schools will already be closed on Monday due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Strikes are illegal for public employees in Massachusetts. Strikes have moved forward anyway, though, with multiple by public school educators unions in Massachusetts this year. “Our educators, students, families, and community deserve better than what Melrose Mayor Paul Brodeur and the Melrose School Committee have been willing to offer and what we know the city can afford,” the Melrose Education Association said in its announcement. “Even though our contract expired almost 200 days ago, Melrose educators have been showing up to their schools and delivering an excellent education to the students who we serve,” the Education Association continued. “We are dedicated to our students, and if Mayor Brodeur and the School Committee were equally committed to our students, we would have reached a contract settlement long ago." The vote to authorize a strike passed by a 99% margin with more than 90% of union members present, the Education Association said on Friday. Kukenberger shared a statement following the vote. "From my observations," she said, "it has always been the School Committee's intention to arrive at a fair contract and I know they value and appreciate our educators and employees." Brodeur also weighed in Friday night. “The School Committee’s bargaining team has been and will continue to negotiate in good faith until they reach an agreement on a contract that is fair to our teachers, meets the needs of our students and families, and is financially sustainable," he said. Melrose Education Association President Lisa Donovan told Patch later Friday night that the School Committee and the Education Association are scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. on Saturday without a mediator present. Negotiations have seen debates over teacher pay and preparation time among other items.
Public Libraries Continue to Thrive Despite Defunding and Privatization Attacks The public sector in the U.S. has been shrinking rapidly since the 1990s as a deluge of privatization has, to various degrees, overtaken many so-called public services and institutions. Public education, for example, has been increasingly privatized by way of racist school voucher programs, and the expansion of for-profit charter schools and for-profit education management organizations (EMOs). Private organizations own and operate the nation’s homeless shelters and food banks, and oversee many welfare programs including Head Start programs and child welfare assistance. Medicare and Medicaid systems include government payouts to private managed care organizations (MCOs), process reimbursement claims through private intermediaries, and commonly delegate medical care to private care facilities, private doctors, and private hospitals. Not to mention the nightmare that is America’s private, for-profit prison system.Public libraries may be the last truly public institution. Linda Stack-Nelson’s essay “The Last Free Space,” published in 2018 by World Literature Today, is a “love letter to public libraries” that details the reasons these uniquely public entities are essential. In it, she salutes the fact that public libraries offer much more than free books, noting the classes, workshops, internet access, resume and tax help, community gathering events, and so forth that libraries provide. However, she argues, this “plethora of resources and opportunities for community” that libraries provide is not the sole reason they are important. “Libraries are the last place in every town and city that people can simply exist,” Stack-Nelson writes. “Every building one enters today comes with some expectation of spending money.” She continues: “In a library, no one is asked to pay anything simply to sit. For those with few resources besides time, this is a godsend. Libraries are unofficial playgrounds for low-income families on rainy days, homeless shelters in cold months, reprieves from broken homes for grade-school-age children. They are the last bastions of quiet and calm where nothing is asked of one but to exist. Many arguments have been made about how the library is an outdated institution offering outdated services—that in the 21st century, how-to books on building sheds and daily newspaper copies are obsolete and the funding used for libraries ought to be reallocated to other programs. I can only assume that those who make such arguments are people who have always been comfortable with the expenditures it takes to move through the world, whose presence has never been questioned. For those people, libraries can be about books. But not everyone has the luxury of seeing past the space.” The very existence of public libraries, from this perspective, can be seen as an emblem for the people. American Library Association (ALA) President Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada said in November 2022, in an interview with Independent Media Institute, that the public library has been an “enduring symbol of democracy.”
Minnesota Art Professor Fired For Showing Depiction Of Prophet Muhammad - A Minnesota adjunct professor was fired for showing a 14th-century panting of the Prophet Muhammad, despite taking extensive precautions before doing so.The now-former professor at Hamline University, Erika López Prater, warned students in the syllabus that images of holy figures, including the Prophet Muhammad and the Buddha, would be shown during the course. She asked students to contact her with any concerns, and said nobody did.In class, she told students right before the unveiling that the painting would be displayed in case anyone wanted to step out.Then, after showing the image, she was fired, the NY Times reports.Officials at Hamline, a small, private university in St. Paul, Minn., with about 1,800 undergraduates, had tried to douse what they feared would become a runaway fire. Instead they ended up with what they had tried to avoid: a national controversy, which pitted advocates of academic liberty and free speech against Muslims who believe that showing the image of Prophet Muhammad is always sacrilegious.After Dr. López Prater showed the image, a senior in the class complained to the administration. Other Muslim students, not in the course, supported the student, saying the class was an attack on their religion. They demanded that officials take action. -NY TimesSchool officials told López Prater that her 'services would not be needed' next semester, and told students and faculty in an email that the incident was clearly Islamophobic. According to an email so-signed by Hamline president Fayneese S. Miller, respect for Muslim students "should have superseded academic freedom."
Harvard school in row over fellowship for human rights advocate (Reuters) - The prestigious Kennedy School at Harvard University is under fire over a decision not to award a fellowship to the former head of Human Rights Watch, which one academic said was due to the campaigner's criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. The school's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy last year approached Kenneth Roth, who served as HRW's executive director from 1993 to 2022, and agreed on the terms of a fellowship, according to both Roth and the Carr Center. The fellowship was subject to approval by Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf. Kathryn Sikkink, a human rights academic at the Kennedy School, told The Nation magazine that Elmendorf told her he rejected the appointment because of what he called HRW's "anti-Israel bias." The decision, reported by The Nation last week, drew criticism from some alumni, the American Civil Liberties Union and HRW itself. Freedom of expression advocacy group PEN America said the decision "raises serious questions about the credibility of the Harvard program itself." Roth told Reuters by phone on Tuesday he believes the decision was made to avoid upsetting wealthy donors to the school who support Israel, and called on the Kennedy School to "reaffirm its commitment to academic freedom." Harvard Kennedy School spokesperson James Smith said by email that Elmendorf decided not to appoint Roth "based on an evaluation of the candidate’s potential contributions to the Kennedy School," adding that the school does not discuss such deliberations.
Biden-Penn-China Funding Concerns Flagged for Then-Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro 18 Months Ago - Tennessee Star - Concerns about funding ties linking China, Joe Biden and the heavily Chinese-funded University of Pennsylvania were brought to the attention of state law enforcement almost two years ago, with no official action taken by the state’s then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro or any members of his staff.The letter, sent by a group called “Take Back Our Republic” and addressed to Shapiro and other high-ranking members of his team, was sent in July of 2021. That was nearly a year and a half before the Biden classified document story broke, resulting in Attorney General Merrick Garland appointing a special counsel on Thursday to investigate the matter.The letter requested that the state attorney general “open an investigation” into three major concerns, “all concerning the charitable fundraising and use of funds by the University of Pennsylvania.”The first concern cited by the group was “the excessive compensation — almost $4 million — for the President of the University of Pennsylvania Amy Gutmann.”After assisting with the creation of the Biden-Penn center and trading various messages with the president’s son Hunter, Gutmann was named ambassador to Germany following the 2020 election. “Unlike a for profit corporation there are no shareholders to act as a check on self dealing,” the letter continued. “That is the job of the state Attorney General. Gutmann’s salary is far in excess of that of other university presidents about twenty times the compensation of the Governor of Pennsylvania. There’s such a thing as too much and this is way too much.”The second concern was the secrecy veiling large foreign donations to the university. Penn “raised hundreds of millions of dollars in secret donations from China and Saudi Arabia,” the letter noted. “While raising money from abroad is not per se illegal for an American nonprofit, there are serious legal concerns when the money is secret and foreign governments may be involved.“Who gave this money, where did it go, and what strings were attached? These are all matters properly within the scope of an investigation by your office. Any violations of federal law, including the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 should be reported to the Department of Justice. Still, in the first instance it is the responsibility of your office to assure that foreign money flowing into Pennsylvania nonprofits is legal, and to the extent possible, fully disclosed.” The third matter flagged was the nearly $1 million in compensation that the university paid Biden over the years 2017-19. “Biden was appointed a ‘professor’ although he never taught a class,” the letter said. “If Biden did not perform services for the University worth $911,000 this is a serious misapplication of nonprofit funds in violation of Pennsylvania law. If there was any quid pro quo arrangement — for example a promise to Penn President Amy Gutmann of an appointment similar to the ambassadorship for which she has now been nominated — that also would be a violation of Pennsylvania nonprofit law.”Citing the possibility that Penn was used as a conduit for foreign donations to Biden’s presidential campaign, the group urged the attorney general to share the results of any investigation “with the Federal Election Commission and other federal authorities depending upon what you find.”
University of California to invest $4 billion in private equity giant Blackstone -0 As students attending the University of California (UC) system return to classes from their winter break, they are being met with news that the university administration has made a $4 billion investment in the real estate arm of the financial giant Blackstone Inc., the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT). Over the course of the last several months of 2022, 48,000 academic workers across the UC system carried out a strike impacting all ten campuses that shut down the university. The workers walked out because they wanted substantial wage increases, and in particular a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to counteract rampant inflation and the high cost of living in the state. They were betrayed, however, by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union that formally represents them. UAW bargainers eviscerated the demands of the membership, dropping all discussion of COLA from negotiations, and lowering wage proposals by over $10,000. The strike saw an open rift between the union and its rank and file. Though the UAW has managed to push through the sellout contract it negotiated with the UC, the struggle has not yet concluded. Many workers remain opposed to it, and a number have formed a rank-and-file committee to take the struggle out of the hands of the union. A petition signed by hundreds of academic workers claims that the union violated its own by-laws by using union resources—including member dues—to push for a “yes” vote on the tentative agreement, and deliberately held the election on short notice at a time when many student workers were traveling for the holidays. Emboldened by the fecklessness and outright collaboration by the UAW bureaucracy with management, the university administration has wasted no time in deepening its attacks on the academic workers. The decision to spend $4 billion of public money to invest in BREIT will serve to divert vital resources from education and thus further immiserate the workers and students in the UC system. Blackstone is a major investment management and private equity company that was founded in 1985 by Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, both billionaires with a storied history among the financial oligarchy and the political elite. Peterson, the former CEO of the now defunct Lehman Brothers, also served as US Secretary of Commerce under Nixon and as the chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a prominent think tank. Schwarzman, whose current net worth is $25.8 billion, according to Forbes, was chairman of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum. Both have been major donors to the Republican Party. Blackstone currently has a market capitalization of $55.6 billion.
President Biden announced updates to student loan repayment - The Biden Administration released details this week on its plan to overhaul the current income-driven repayment plan known as Revised Pay As You Earn plan (REPAYE) for federal student loan borrowers.Last August, President Joe Biden announced these changes would be coming along with student debt forgiveness of up to $20,000 for borrowers earning less than $125,000 annually, which is currently paused awaiting a Supreme Court decision. All student borrowers with direct federal loans (not parent PLUS loans) are eligible for REPAYE repayment plans. The updates to REPAYE will be open for public comment for 30 days and may start to take effect later this year, according to an Education Department press release. Here’s what’s slated to change.
- Monthly payments reduced to 5% of discretionary income: Under the current REPAYE plan, borrowers’ monthly payments are calculated as 10% of their discretionary income, defined as any income above 150% of the poverty guideline amount for their state.Using 150% of the federal poverty line — $20,400 — a single borrower earning $25,000 annually could be expected to pay about $38 per month on their loans, or about $460 per year. However, under the proposed plan, payments would be capped at 5% of discretionary income and the standard of discretionary income would rise to 225% of the poverty level. Federally, that’s roughly $30,500 for single households.
- $0 monthly payments for low-income borrowers. The proposal would also reduce monthly payments to $0 for single borrowers earning less than $30,500 and any borrower in a “family of four” earning less than $62,400, according to an Education Department fact sheet. The change would also stop interest from accruing on balances while borrowers qualify for $0 monthly payments.
- No interest accumulation while making regular payments. Under the current REPAYE plan, sometimes borrowers’ monthly payments are lower than the interest accrued on the loan. That means borrowers can still see balances growing even if they make full, on-time payments. The government currently subsidizes some of that interest accrual, but not all of it. The proposed change would eliminate additional interest after a borrower’s monthly payment is applied. That means borrowers who qualify for a $0 monthly payment would not see additional interest growing on their balances.
- Easier path to loan forgiveness/ Borrowers on the existing REPAYE plan are eligible to have any remaining loan balances forgiven after 20 years of monthly payments for undergraduate loans or 25 years for graduate or professional study loans. Biden’s proposal would consider the borrower’s original loan balance to determine forgiveness eligibility. Those who borrowed $12,000 or less would be eligible for loan forgiveness after 10 years of monthly payments. Every $1,000 borrowed above that amount would add one year of payments before forgiveness eligibility. Additionally, the proposed change would allow borrowers who enter deferment for a variety of reasons, such as military service or cancer treatment, to still earn credit for payments toward forgiveness.
Transgender youth health care bans have a new target: adults - Lawmakers in at least three states this year have filed legislation meant to restrict access to gender-affirming health care for individuals as old as 26, an escalation of a battle waged nationwide last year over whether minors should be able to access certain prescription medications and procedures.Bills filed this year in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia aim to bar state health care providers from recommending or administering treatments like puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgeries to patients younger than 21, signaling an aggravation in the fight over transgender health care.Another Oklahoma bill filed this month would prohibit adults up to 25 from receiving gender-affirming care in one of the most extreme and restrictive bans introduced to date. The state’s proposed “Millstone Act,” which gets its name from a Bible verse about punishing adults who harm children, would also block Oklahoma’s Medicaid program from providing coverage for “gender transition procedures” to individuals younger than 26. “I don’t think it was ever about children,” Erin Reed, an independent legislative researcher, told The Hill this week, referring to state and federal attempts to ban gender-affirming care over the past two years.GOP legislators’ arguments against transgender health care have in the past centered around a need to protect children from alleged predatory doctors and “woke” gender ideology. Bills filed across the country last year used inflammatory and misleading rhetoric to disparage gender-affirming care for youth with titles like the “Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act” and the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act.”
Fetal Mortality Rate Holds Steady Despite COVID Pandemic - For a second straight year, fetal mortality in the U.S. has remained relatively unchanged since reaching a record low in 2019, even amid potentially heightened risk brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.Measured among fetuses at 20 weeks of gestation or more, the total fetal mortality rate in the U.S. was 5.68 deaths for every 1,000 live births and fetal deaths in 2021, according to a report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.The rate did not significantly change from the count of 5.74 per 1,000 reported in 2020, researchers said, while the rate in 2020 also was relatively unchanged from the mark of 5.70 per 1,000 in 2019 – the year fetal mortality reached its lowest rate on record in the U.S.A total of 20,948 fetal deaths occurred after at least 20 weeks of gestation in 2021, the report shows. That data is based on fetal death reports processed by NCHS as of June 17, 2022, representing what researchers said is approximately 99.5% of the expected count for 2021. There were 21,478 such deaths in 2019 and 20,854 in 2020.Rates of fetal mortality remained essentially unchanged during both early- and later-stage pregnancies as well, the analysis found. For fetuses in between 20 and 27 weeks of gestation, the death rate was 2.93 per 1,000 live births and fetal deaths within that group in 2021, compared with 2.97 per 1,000 in 2020. The rate at 28 weeks or more of gestation went from 2.78 per 1,000 in 2020 to 2.77 per 1,000 in 2021.The only significant change in fetal mortality depicted among racial and ethnic groups included in the report occurred among Black women in 2021, when the death rate declined by 5% to 9.8 per 1,000 compared with 10.34 per 1,000 in 2020. It was down 6% from the rate of 10.41 per 1,000 reported in 2019.
SARS-CoV-2 evolved to counter weakness caused by the virus's initial mutation, say researchers - Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine say their new studies suggest that the first pandemic-accelerating mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, evolved as a way to correct vulnerabilities caused by the mutation that started the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The new evidence, published in the Dec. 23 issue of Science Advances, addresses important biological questions about two key mutations in the virus's surface "spike" protein, say the researchers. It suggests that a mutation called D614G in the gene for the spike protein, which arose just a few months after the virus started to spread in human populations, was not an adaptation to its new human host. Rather, the mutation was an adaptation to the dramatic changes that happened in the spike gene just before the start of the pandemic, which allowed SARS-CoV-2 to spread between people by respiratory transmission. "This study has revealed that the first two genetic alterations in the evolution of the spike protein in SARS-CoV-2 are connected by their function, and this knowledge can improve our understanding of how the spike protein works and how the virus evolves, with important implications for vaccine design and effectiveness of COVID antibodies," says Stephen Gould, Ph.D., professor of biological chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The initial mutation in the virus, Gould says, is known by scientists as the furin cleavage site insertion mutation. Research by other scientists across the world has shown that this mutation enabled the virus's spike protein to be cut and primed it for rapid infection of cells lining the airway. While this initial mutation was essential in helping SARS-CoV-2 efficiently slip into human cells, the mutation's effects weren't all good, says Gould, as it cut the spike protein structure into two separate pieces. This change, says Gould, disrupted other functions of the spike protein and created evolutionary pressure for a second mutation that could correct the disrupted functions of the spike protein while maintaining the rapid infection benefits of the initial mutation. Soon after the pandemic began, in early 2020, researchers from the University of Toronto discovered a subsequent SARS-CoV-2 mutation, called D614G; however, its precise function was not known. Working with dozens of blood samples from patients with COVID hospitalized in April 2020 at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Gould's team isolated antibodies for the spike protein from the patients' blood samples. Then, they used these antibodies to track the location of spike proteins in human cells genetically engineered to produce the spiky surface molecules. They found that the D614G mutation redirects the spike protein and pulls the virus from the surface of human cells into a tiny compartment within the cell called a lysosome, which the spike protein reprograms into storage containers that are used to release infectious virus particles from the cell.
The XBB.1.5 “Kraken” subvariant of Omicron takes hold in the US - For more than a year, the Omicron “alphabet soup” subvariants have seen a myriad of sub-lineages rapidly emerge and disappear, giving rise to subsequent waves of infections. XBB.1.5, the latest iteration of the variant of concern, has garnered significant attention from the health officials, epidemiologists, and the world press. At the press briefing by the World Health Organization last week, lead scientist Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove called XBB.1.5 “the most transmissible Omicron subvariant detected yet.” She added, “We do expect further waves of infection around the world, but that doesn’t have to translate into further waves of death because our countermeasures continue to work.” What this optimistic assertion conceals is that XBB.1.5 will lead to more infections and reinfections, these will inundate health systems, and people will die unnecessarily. Additionally, allowing SARS-Cov-2 to continue its rampage unimpeded by any efforts on the part of national and international health agencies to bring the pandemic to an end means that the virus will continue to mutate genetically in ways that will enable it to bypass the current immunity built up in the population and potentially evolve into a more pathogenic form, making it deadlier and more virulent. XBB.1.5 was given the moniker “Kraken”—the name for the Norwegian mythological sea monster—by Dr. Ryan Gregory, a professor of biology from Canada, to distinguish the ever-growing complex designations of Omicron. As he noted in his December 28, 2022, Twitter post, “XBB.1.5 definitely earns a nickname with its record-setting growth advantage and both very high immune escape and ACE2 binding.” XBB (Gryphon) and XBB.1 (Hippogryph), recent ancestors of XBB.1.5, were first identified in mid-August in India. They quickly spread across different regions of Asia, becoming predominant in India and causing a massive wave of infection in the highly vaccinated city-state of Singapore. The latest subvariant has been detected in close to two dozen countries including the US, where it was first identified in early October. With BA.5 on its way out, and BQ.1.1 (34.4 percent as of January 7, 2023) in decline, XBB.1.5 is quickly displacing all other subvariants across the country. accounting for 27.6 percent (revised estimate down from last week’s 40 percent) of all tracked lineages. It surpassed the one percent threshold of all subvariants at the end of November, a level which requires the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) to report its weekly prevalence as a subvariant of interest. However, the public health agency only confirmed its presence after an insider at the CDC leaked the number to epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, who in turn tweeted his concerns on social media on December 29. This was not the first time that the CDC has suppressed such information only to confirm it after the information was divulged, as a matter of damage control.
New variant XBB.1.5 is ‘most transmissible’ yet, could fuel covid wave - Three years after the novel coronavirus emerged, a new variant, XBB.1.5, is quickly becoming the dominant strain in parts of the United States because of a potent mix of mutations that makes it easier to spread broadly, including among those who have been previously infected or vaccinated. XBB.1.5, pegged by the World Health Organization as “the most transmissible” descendant yet of the omicron variant, rose from barely 2 percent of U.S. cases at the start of December to more than 27 percent the first week of January, according to new estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 70 percent of cases in the Northeast are believed to be XBB.1.5. While there is no evidence so far that XBB.1.5 is more virulent than its predecessors, a recent swirl of misinformation linking the rise of new variants to vaccination has cast a spotlight on this latest strain and raised concern among some health experts that it could further limit booster uptake. “XBB did not evolve because people were vaccinated,” said Vaughn Cooper, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Pittsburgh. “The way it evolved, let’s be straight, is because people were infected by multiple viruses at the same time.” Since the omicron variant ignited an explosion of cases last winter, it spawned a host of descendants that are even more adept at slipping past antibodies and caused most infections in the United States. The XBB line emerged as a result of two other omicron subvariants swapping parts. Virologists who studied XBB.1.5 say it does not appear better at escaping antibodies than other immune-evading predecessors, but it is better at binding to the cell and replicating. That means it can more easily become the dominant strain in a community than its relatives, but it doesn’t necessarily worsen an individual’s covid symptoms.
XB what? BQ huh? Do you need to keep up with Omicron’s ever-expanding offspring? - It’s like clockwork now. Every few months, we’re warned that the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spawned yet another subvariant, this one even more transmissible than the ones it is fast overtaking.The new entity is given a name, an unwieldy string of letters and numbers separated by periods. There’s discussion — some of it breathless — on Twitter and in the media about the threat the new subvariant poses. People who are still following Covid-19 news worry. People who are determined to ignore Covid pay no attention.Rinse and repeat. The cycle has some experts wondering about how useful these discussions are. We aren’t, after all, obsessing about which strain of H3N2 flu has been causing most of the illness that has cycled through the United States in this abnormally early flu season. That’s because new strains of existing flu viruses may make us more vulnerable to infection, but they don’t render us defenseless against influenza. The same is true with SARS-2 subvariants — but that sometimes gets lost in the back and forth. “This keeps happening every couple of months. I sort of feel like it’s Groundhog Day, except with ‘scariants,’” said Angela Rasmussen, a coronavirus virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, using a term coined by Eric Topol. (For the record, Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, disagrees vehemently with the notion that people don’t need to pay much attention to which variant or subvariant is currently circulating, arguing among other things that the public discussion could encourage more people to get the latest booster shots.)Rasmussen has spent a lot of time recently dealing with interview requests from journalists keen to explore the significance of XBB.1.5. She’s not clear that the public is getting information that they can do much with.If a new variant of concern were to materialize, a version of the virus that fundamentally eroded our immune systems’ ability to fend off SARS-2 requiring a rapid updating of Covid vaccines, the public would need to take note, Rasmussen said. But in the absence of that, “then it’s really hard for me to see how it is actionable, or it’s useful, really, to anybody to know that oh, well, XBB.1.5 is taking over when we thought it might be BQ.1.1.”Rasmussen is quick to stress she is not suggesting that Covid is no longer a problem, or that the world should stop tracking the evolution of SARS-2. “We should,” she insisted. “But does the public really need to be on the edge of their seat about that? I don’t think they are, actually. And I think that … this just kind of confuses people.”The actions people should take to fend off XBB.1.5 are the same as the actions they should be taking to fend off its predecessors, Rasmussen said. Stay up to date on vaccinations; get boosters when they are advised. Consider wearing a high quality mask in public settings. Take steps to try to avoid being infected.
Opinion | We need to do more to assist the immunocompromised - Last month, I received a message from Leslie in Michigan. Her husband is immunocompromised because he has Stage 4 chronic kidney disease. His nephrologist told him that a bout of covid could push him into permanent kidney failure, which would necessitate a lifetime of dialysis unless he could receive an organ transplant.Because of his severe renal impairment, he would not able to take Paxlovid to treat a covid infection. The Food and Drug Administration has also revoked its authorization for the one remaining monoclonal antibody to treat covid and warned last week that Evusheld, the preventive therapy for those who don’t mount an adequate immune response to vaccination, might be ineffective against some subvariants, including the currently dominant XBB.1.5 strain.“Needless to say, we are extraordinarily careful,” Leslie told me in an email. Her husband doesn’t go into any indoor public places, except for medical appointments. Though she isn’t at increased risk herself, she takes precautions to avoid infecting him. When she goes anywhere indoors, she wears an N95 mask, keeps her distance and leaves as quickly as possible. “I realize that most Americans have moved on and are tired of the pandemic — we are too — but I am totally stunned at how selfish and unkind people can be,” Leslie wrote. She described a recent encounter in a crowded airport bathroom. A woman came in to charge her phone, and Leslie asked her if she could please use the outlet on the other side of the bathroom. “Rather than social distance temporarily to help protect me, she lashed out, telling me to ‘stay home’ and ‘don’t travel’ if I’m at risk,” Leslie wrote. “To make matters worse, she told people coming into the bathroom, ‘Can you believe this woman over there asked me to move because she’s at risk?’”For millions of Americans who are immunocompromised or who live with someone who is, it extremely difficult to live in a country where most people no longer see covid as a threat. The same is true for elderly Americans who are more vulnerable to severe outcomes and those who simply wish to avoid the potential consequences of infection, including long covid.
Neutralization against BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB from mRNA Bivalent Booster | NEJM - New England Journal of Medicine Correspondence January 12, 2023 - TO THE EDITOR: The emergence of the highly divergent B.1.1.529 (omicron) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) led to concerns about the efficacy of vaccines based on the ancestral spike and to the approval in the United States of bivalent vaccines for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) that include the ancestral spike and the omicron BA.5 spike proteins.1-3 Since the approval and distribution of these vaccines, additional subvariants containing key mutations that further enhance the ability of the virus to escape from vaccine-elicited antibodies and regulatory-approved monoclonal antibodies have been identified.4 Of particular concern is the R346T mutation, which has arisen in multiple omicron subvariants, including BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB (Fig. S1 in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org). We tested serum samples obtained from participants who had received either one or two monovalent boosters or the bivalent booster to determine the neutralization efficiency of the booster vaccines against wild-type (WA1/2020) virus and primary isolates of omicron subvariants BA.1, BA.5, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB using an in vitro, live-virus focus reduction neutralization test (FRNT). All the participants provided written informed consent. We used the FRNT in a VeroE6/TMPRSS2 cell line1 to compare the neutralizing activity in serum samples obtained from participants in three cohorts: the first cohort comprised 12 participants 7 to 28 days after one monovalent booster; the second, 11 participants 6 to 57 days after a second monovalent booster; and the third, 12 participants 16 to 42 days after a bivalent booster. In all three cohorts, neutralization activity was lower against all omicron subvariants than against the WA1/2020 strain; neutralizing activity was lowest against the XBB subvariant (Figure 1 and Fig. S2). In the cohort that received one monovalent booster, the FRNT50 GMTs were 857 against WA1/2020, 60 against BA.1, 50 against BA.5, 23 against BA.2.75.2, 19 against BQ.1.1, and below the limit of detection against XBB. In the cohort that received two monovalent boosters, the FRNT50 GMTs were 2352 against WA1/2020, 408 against BA.1, 250 against BA.5, 98 against BA.2.75.2, 73 against BQ.1.1, and 37 against XBB. The results in both of these cohorts correspond with neutralization titers against BA.1 and BA.5 that were 5 to 9 times as low as that against WA1/2020 and neutralization titers against BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB that were 23 to 63 times as low as that against WA1/2020. In the cohort that received the BA.5-containing bivalent booster, the neutralizing activity against all the omicron subvariants as compared with that against WA1/2020 was better than in the other two cohorts (Figure 1C). The FRNT50 GMTs were 2481 against WA1/2020, 618 against BA.1, 576 against BA.5, 201 against BA.2.75.2, 112 against BQ.1.1, and 96 against XBB. The results in this cohort correspond with neutralization titers against BA.1 and BA.5 that were 4 times as low as that against WA1/2020 and neutralization titers against BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB that were 12 to 26 times as low as that against WA1/2020.
How much should people worry about Covid's XBB.1.5 variant? Our medical analyst explains | CNN - A new Covid-19 variant, XBB.1.5, is spreading rapidly throughout the United States. In December 2022, the proportion of new Covid-19 infections due to this Omicron offshoot have increased from 4% to 18%, according to a January 6 release from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is projected to rise further still. In some parts of the country, it constitutes more than half of all new infections. According to the World Health Organization, XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible form of Omicron yet. What should people know about XBB.1.5? Do vaccines and treatments work against it? Can tests pick it up? Will hospitals become overwhelmed again? Should kids wear masks to school again? And could there be even more worrisome variants that emerge in the future? To guide us through these questions, I spoke with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician, public health expert and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Dr. Leana Wen: People should not be surprised that there is a new variant. The more viruses replicate, the more they mutate. The mutations XBB.1.5 has acquired have made it more contagious. A more transmissible strain has the evolutionary advantage that it will spread faster than others, and therefore could displace other strains. This is a trend seen throughout the coronavirus pandemic — new, even more transmissible strains replacing their predecessors and becoming dominant. he good news is that, thus far, this strain does not appear to cause more severe disease. Like other Omicron descendants, it probably causes milder illness compared with the Delta variants that predated Omicron. here are some studies that suggest XBB.1.5 is more immune-evasive compared with previously dominant Omicron strains. Further research is underway to identify the degree of immune protection afforded by existing vaccines; But even if it turns out these vaccines don’t hold up as well against infection with XBB.1.5, they will probably protect well against severe illness — which underscores the need for people to receive the updated booster if they are eligible. PCR tests can pick up this new variant, and there’s no reason to think that this variant won’t be picked up by rapid home antigen tests. If you have symptoms or are exposed to someone with the coronavirus, you should certainly get tested. The tests won’t show you which strain you picked up, but they should detect circulating variants. Antiviral treatments like Paxlovid should work against XBB.1.5. Unfortunately, monoclonal antibody treatments probably don’t. In November, the US. Food and Drug Administration withdrew their authorization of the last remaining monoclonal antibody because of its lack of efficacy against new variants. And on January 6, the agency issued a statement that the preventive antibody Evusheld may be ineffective against XBB.1.5.
Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 accounts for 43% of U.S. COVID cases - CDC (Reuters) - The fast-spreading Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is estimated to account for 43% of the COVID-19 cases in the United States for the week ended Jan. 14, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Friday.The subvariant accounted for about 30% of cases in the first week of January, higher than the 27.6% the CDC estimated last week.XBB.1.5, which is related to Omicron, is currently the most transmissible variant. It is an offshoot of XBB, first detected in October, which is itself made from a combination of two other Omicron subvariants.The World Health Organization (WHO) said earlier this week XBB.1.5 may spur more COVID-19 cases based on genetic characteristics and early growth rate estimates.While it is unclear if XBB.1.5 can cause its own wave of global infections, experts say the current booster shots continue to protect against severe symptoms, hospitalization and death.WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted last week the subvariant has been on the rise globally and has been identified in over 25 countries.The rise in the new variant correlated with an uptick in COVID-19 cases in United States over the last six weeks. Increased prevalence of XBB.1.5 cases has eclipsed the previously dominant Omicron subvariant BQ.1.1 and BQ.1, which were offshoots of BA.5. The two strains together accounted for 44.7% of cases in the United States in the week ended Jan. 14, compared with 53.2% a week ago, the CDC said.
FDA vaccine advisers 'disappointed' and 'angry' that early data about new Covid-19 booster shot wasn't presented for review last year | CNN — Some vaccine advisers to the federal government say they’re “disappointed” and “angry” that government scientists and the pharmaceutical company Moderna didn’t present a set of infection data on the company’s new Covid-19 booster during meetings last year when the advisers discussed whether the shot should be authorized and made available to the public.That data suggested the possibility that the updated booster might not be any more effective at preventing Covid-19 infections than the original shots.The data was early and had many limitations, but several advisers told CNN that they were concerned about a lack of transparency.US taxpayers spent nearly $5 billion on the new booster, which has been given to more than 48.2 million people in the US.“I was angry to find out that there was data that was relevant to our decision that we didn’t get to see,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a group of external advisers that helps the FDA make vaccine decisions. “Decisions that are made for the public have to be made based on all available information – not just some information, but all information.”At a meeting of this FDA advisory group in June and a meeting in September of a panel that advises the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the experts were presented with reams of information indicating that the new vaccine worked better than the one already on shelves, according to a review of videos and transcripts of those meetings and slide presentations made by Moderna, CDC and FDA officials.That data – called immunogenicity data – was based on blood work done on study participants to assess how well each vaccine elicited antibodies that fight off the Omicron strain of the virus that causes Covid-19.The data that was not presented to the experts looked at actual infections: who caught Covid-19 and who did not.It found that 1.9% of the study participants who received the original booster became infected. Among those who got the updated bivalent vaccine – the one that scientists hoped would work better – a higher percentage, 3.2%, became infected. Both versions of the shot were found to be safe.
Is COVID Immunity Hung Up on Old Variants? - In the two-plus years that COVID vaccines have been available in America, the basic recipe has changed just once. The virus, meanwhile, has belched outfive variants concerning enough to earn their own Greek-letter names, followed by a menagerie of weirdly monikered Omicron subvariants, each seeming to spread faster than the last. Vaccines, which take months to reformulate, just can’t keep up with a virus that seems to reinvent itself by the week.But SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary sprint might not be the only reason that immunity can get bogged down in the past. The body seems to fixate on the first version of the virus that it encountered, either through injection or infection—a preoccupation with the past that researchers call “original antigenic sin,” and that may leave us with defenses that are poorly tailored to circulating variants. In recent months, some experts have begun to worrythat this “sin” might now be undermining updated vaccines. At an extreme, the thinking goes, people may not get much protection from a COVID shot that is a perfect match for the viral variant du jour. Recent data hint at this possibility. Past brushes with the virus or the original vaccine seem to mold, or even muffle, people’s reactions to bivalent shots—“I have no doubt about that,” Jenna Guthmiller, an immunologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, told me. The immune system just doesn’t make Omicron-focused antibodies in the quantity or quality it probably would have had it seen the updated jabs first. But there’s also an upside to this stubbornness that we could not live without, says Katelyn Gostic, an immunologist and infectious-disease modeler who has studied the phenomenon with flu. Original antigenic sin is the reason repeat infections, on average, get milder over time, and the oomph that enables vaccines to work as well as they do. “It’s a fundamental part,” Gostic told me, “of being able to create immunological memory.”This is not just basic biology. The body’s powerful first impressions of this coronavirus can and should influence how, when, and how often we revaccinate against it, and with what. Better understanding of the degree to which these impressions linger could also help scientists figure out why people are (or are not) fighting off the latest variants—and how their defenses will fare against the virus as it continues to change. “Basically, the flu you get first in life is the one you respond to most avidly for the long term,” says Gabriel Victora, an immunologist at Rockefeller University. That can become somewhat of an issue when a very different-looking strain comes knocking.But from the immune system’s point of view, never forgetting your first is logically sound. New encounters with a pathogen catch the body off guard—and tend to be the most severe. A deep-rooted defensive reaction, then, is practical: It ups the chances that the next time the same invader shows up, it will be swiftly identified and dispatched. “Having good memory and being able to boost it very quickly is sometimes a very good thing,” Victora told me. It’s the body’s way of ensuring that it won’t get fooled twice.
Why Rapid COVID-19 Test Results Are Getting More Confusing - After a recent COVID-19 exposure, Dr. Christina Astley tested positive on an at-home test—but just barely. The line signifying a positive result was so faint that Astley, an endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, took a picture and applied a camera filter to confirm it was there at all. Further complicating matters, Astley later tested negative with a different manufacturer’s kit. Even for a physician who is “hyper-vigilant” about COVID-19, Astley says, the results were hard to interpret.Experts say ambiguous results like these may be more common now—but not because rapid tests aren’t working. In fact, these confusing results could actually be a good thing, at least as far as your immune system goes. When a rapid test is clearly positive, with a dark line showing up almost immediately, that means there’s been “a failure of the immune system,” says Dr. Michael Mina, chief science officer at home-testing company eMed and a former Harvard University epidemiologist. A blazing positive essentially means your body is “letting the virus get out of control,” he says. At this point in the pandemic, when most people have been vaccinated multiple times and infected at least once, our immune systems are getting better at responding to the virus before it reaches that point, Mina says. That means exposures may result in shorter illnesses, if they lead to positive tests at all, he says.“Your body has the head start instead of the virus,” says Shane Crotty, who studies infectious-disease immunity at California’s La Jolla Institute for Immunology. “It doesn’t take you seven to 10 days to catch up to the virus.”As our immune systems get better at fending off SARS-CoV-2 through boostersand prior infections, Crotty says people should be ready for more faintly positive results, which could be shortly followed by negative tests as the body quickly clears the virus. People may also experience symptoms sooner after an exposure than they did earlier in the pandemic, Crotty says. Symptoms are a sign that your immune system is fighting back—so when the immune system knows what to do and responds right away, sickness often isn’t far behind.It can take time for at-home tests to catch up to symptoms. That may be because the body is keeping the virus mostly in check, so there isn’t much of it in your nose when you take a swab, Crotty says—although that’s still an open question.“A faint line of positivity can either occur if it’s too early in testing, before somebody has peaked with their infectious viral load, or it’s happening at the tail end of their infection,” says Dr. Paul Drain, an associate professor of global health, medicine, and epidemiology at the University of Washington who has studied rapid tests.Moving forward, all of this means that “you might have to squint a little harder at your antigen tests,” Crotty says. “It’s not going to be this crazy bright band that shows up in 30 seconds, which is a sign that there’s massive amounts of virus in your body. And, big picture, that’s largely a good thing.”
CDC Study: Reports of Serious Adverse Events After Updated COVID-19 Booster Shot Among Children Rare -A new review of safety data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found just two incidents of serious adverse events following the nearly 1 million updated COVID-19 booster shots administered to children ages 5-11 since October.The study, which was published Thursday by the CDC, examined more than 900 reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and found that about 99.8% of submissions for children ages 5-11 years were deemed not serious. Most of the reports were related to vaccination errors, like children receiving the wrong dose for their age.The two serious events reported included one child who developed symptoms consistent with Miller Fisher syndrome, which is a rare neurological condition that is considered to be a variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and another child who was hospitalized with hives and arthritis.Researchers also looked at more than 3,200 submissions to v-safe, a safety surveillance system established by CDC to monitor adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination, and found that no children enrolled in the program received hospital care after vaccination with the updated shot.Additionally, no incidents of myocarditis or death were reported after the shot.“Preliminary safety findings from the first 11 weeks of bivalent booster vaccination among children aged 5-11 years are reassuring,” the study said.The Food and Drug Administration authorized the updated booster shots for kids as young as 5 in October, citing concerns over “increased risk of exposure” as children returned to school. The shots target omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 as well as the original coronavirus strain.“While it has largely been the case that COVID-19 tends to be less severe in children than adults, as the various waves of COVID-19 have occurred, more children have gotten sick with the disease and have been hospitalized,” the FDA’s top vaccine official, Peter Marks, said at the time. “Children may also experience long-term effects, even following initially mild disease. We encourage parents to consider primary vaccination for children and follow-up with an updated booster dose when eligible.”Since its authorization, fewer than 1 million children in the 5-11 age group have gotten the shot, according to CDC data. That accounts for about 2% of the total number of updated booster shots administered as of last week. The Biden administration has been pushing the updated shot as it eyes a potential switch to annual COVID-19 booster strategy.
What we know about COVID vaccines and 'extremely rare' heart problems - There has been no public announcement about what caused Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest after a tackle during a “Monday Night Football” game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills on Jan. 2 — but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating. One unfounded claim making the rounds on social media is that the 24-year-old’s medical emergency was caused by the COVID-19 vaccine. This assertion isn’t based on facts, and heart problems after vaccination have been reported in only a very small number of cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it is monitoring reports of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, an inflammation of the outer lining of the heart, after someone has received the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccine. Symptoms of myocarditis or pericarditis may include chest pain, shortness of breath or “feelings of having a fast-beating, fluttering, or pounding heart,” and cases after vaccination have most often been reported in adolescents and young adult males within a week of the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. While the severity of myocarditis and pericarditis cases can vary, most patients with reported cases who received care “responded well to medicine and rest and felt better quickly.”But experts stress that myocarditis or pericarditis after vaccination is very uncommon. The CDC said in September that of the more than 123 million people who had received COVID shots, it had verified 131 cases of myocarditis. And data published by the CDC in 2021 found just 12.6 cases per million second doses administered. Myocarditis and pericarditis are usually triggered by a viral infection. In fact, Yang and others say, you’re more likely to experience heart problems after contracting the coronavirus than after getting vaccinated — though Yang emphasized that heart problems related to the coronavirus are also very rare.Researchers have also identified a possible association between COVID vaccines and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS, a common condition affecting nervous system functions such as heart rate and blood pressure and characterized by symptoms such as lightheadedness, brain fog and fatigue. However, instances of POTS after vaccination are also unusual and much less likely to occur as a consequence of COVID vaccination than of the COVID virus itself. A study published in December by researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center found that the risk of developing POTS is five times higher after COVID-19 infection than after vaccination.“This concern about POTS is something that you don’t see very often after the COVID vaccine. It’s very rare,” Dr. Mitchell Miglis, a clinical associate professor of neurology at Stanford University, told Yahoo News.“I think the really important point is that the risk of all these heart conditions — including myocarditis [and] pericarditis — it’s much, much higher with COVID infection, and vaccination significantly reduces your risk of severe disease from that. So getting vaccinated is the best way to help prevent these cardiac conditions from COVID.”
CDC and FDA find no increased risk of ischemic stroke for elderly who get Pfizer’s bivalent booster - Following an analysis of vaccine surveillance data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) say they have found no evidence of increased risk of ischemic stroke among people 65 and older who receive Pfizer’s bivalent booster. After the Pfizer’s updated, bivalent COVID-19 booster dose was made available, the CDC said its Vaccine Safety Datalink prompted additional investigation into concerns over whether the shot presented a safety concern for people 65 and older. An ischemic stroke, more common than hemorrhagic strokes, occurs when a blood clot blocks a blood vessel in the brain, stopping blood flow and potentially leading to brain cells dying. If a stroke is not treated quickly, the effects can be debilitating. A similar safety signal was not identified for Moderna’s bivalent booster dose. “Rapid-response investigation of the signal in the VSD raised a question of whether people 65 and older who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent were more likely to have an ischemic stroke in the 21 days following vaccination compared with days 22-44 following vaccination,” the CDC said. Studies conducted with the use of databases from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Veterans Affairs did not indicate or show an increased risk for ischemic stroke, according to the CDC. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System managed by both the CDC and FDA also did not show an increase in reports of ischemic stroke following a bivalent booster dose. The CDC concluded that no change was needed for its current recommendation regarding the bivalent boosters, which advises that everyone over the age of six months stays up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations.
Mass. Reports 9,360 New COVID-19 Cases, 142 Deaths This Week – Massachusetts health officials reported 9,360 new COVID-19 cases and 142 new deaths in the last week, with the new data released Thursday. In total, there have been 1,987,672 cases and 21,533 deaths since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Massachusetts' COVID data, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, shows a decrease in overall cases and hospitalizations, but an increased number of reported deaths, from the previous week. It's reported that as of Jan. 10, there were 409 people primarily hospitalized for COVID-19 and a total of 1,250 hospitalized patients who have the virus. Of the total hospitalizations, 119 were in intensive care and 46 were intubated. Massachusetts COVID-19 wastewater data from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority has been seeing levels the highest they've been since last winter, though they appear to be trending down in the Greater Boston area. The state's seven-day average positivity was listed at 12.25% Thursday, compared to 13.39% last week. Despite recent case increases, we remain well below the types of case counts and hospitalizations seen at height of the omicron surge at the beginning of 2022, when average daily case counts reached over 28,000 and hospitalizations peaked at around 3,300. Experts have said that case count reporting became a less accurate indicator during the omicron surge, given the difficulties in getting tested. Now, widespread use of rapid tests means that some results go unreported.
Is COVID-19 XBB 1.5 Surge Over? Mass. Wastewater Data Shows Decline – COVID-19 levels in Greater Boston wastewater have been trending downward over the past week, a positive sign following spiking virus cases and concerns over the holiday season. As of Tuesday, which is the latest data available, there was a seven day average of 1,501 RNA copies per mL in communities south of Boston, and a seven day average of 986 RNA copies per mL in communities north of Boston. The City of Boston itself is included in the northern grouping. Both territories saw seven day averages that were over 2,000 copies per mL last week, so the newest numbers mark a notable decline. The data is put out by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, and comes from test results of wastewater tracked at the Deer Island Treatment Plant. The COVID metrics have been observed since March 2020, and include a large handful of communities in Greater Boston — as far west as Framingham, as far south as Stoughton and as far north as Wilmington. Meanwhile, the City of Boston has launched a new initiative that tracks wastewater metrics on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. In its report with data as of Jan. 4, the City of Boston had an average of 3,025 RNA copies per mL, which was significantly higher than the regional numbers of the same day from the MWRA. The neighborhood with the lowest metrics was Charlestown, with 791 RNA copies per mL, while Roxbury had the highest, at 6,456.
NYC Issues Plea as ‘Most Transmissible Form of COVID-19 We Know of to Date' Spreads - In addition to being "the most transmissible" to date, NYC health officials say XBB.1.5 may also be more likely than other variants to infect people who already had COVID or have been vaccinated. The unprecedented infectiousness of XBB.1.5 prompted renewed calls for public caution Friday from New York City health officials, who announced the latest omicron descendant, widely believed to be behind the latest case wave, now accounts for nearly three-quarters of all coronavirus circulating across the five boroughs. Calling the new strain "the most transmissible COVID variant we know of to date," the city's health department said XBB.1.5 is now responsible for 73% of all COVID cases sequenced in New York City. Omicron, and its litany of descendants including XBB.1.5, is the only variant of concern still currently in circulation, public health officials sayHealth data, though, only reflects sequenced cases through the first of the year, and a relatively small share of positive cases undergo the exhaustive process required to isolate variants (just 3% in the city's latest week of available data and trending downward). That means XBB.1.5's actual prevalence is likely considerably higher than reported.According to CDC variant data updated Friday, XBB.1.5 accounts for an estimated 82.7% of COVID circulating in the New York region, which also includes New Jersey, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and could represent as many as 88.2% of cases. That's up from a 72.7% baseline estimate and 81.2% high in last week's report. City health officials also noted that XBB.1.5 may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID -- a reality that Dr. Ashish Jha, head of the White House COVID Task Force, acknowledged last week.Reinfection data from the state underscores the point. The 11.7 per 100,000 reinfection rate for New York City in the prior week is on par with the reinfection numbers seen during the initial omicron wave downswing in January 2022. The numbers are starkest on Long Island, with has a 15.8 per 100,000 reinfection rate, mirroring mid-January 2022.
Study: For most mild infections, long Covid subsides after a year - Since long Covid emerged, how best to define it, predict it, and treat it has been up for debate, but perhaps the most urgent question for patients and providers alike has been how long it lasts. A new study analyzing nearly 2 million patient records in Israel concludes that for most people, the troubling symptoms that persist after a mild Covid infection fade away after about a year.Just as estimates of long Covid’s prevalence have varied widely, so have conclusions about a variety of symptoms. Covid infections reach into multiple organ systems, as does long Covid. Scientists have reported on some neuropsychiatric conditions lingering for two years, for example, but the team from the KI Research Institute wanted to paint a broader picture of long Covid’s duration. “When we started this study there was a lot of uncertainty regarding the long-term effects of the pandemic and there was a fear that a large proportion of infected individuals will have long-lasting symptoms and emergence of new morbidities,” “As we analyzed the data, we were surprised to find only a small number of symptoms that were related to Covid and remained for a year post infection and the low number of people affected by them.” For their paper published Wednesday in BMJ, the researchers analyzed 1,913,234 patient records from Maccabi Healthcare Services, a large health maintenance organization in Israel whose members were tested for Covid-19 from March 2020 to October 2021, when the original virus and the Alpha and Delta variants were circulating. After compiling a list of 70 long Covid symptoms, they looked for them at different time points, comparing the nearly 300,000 patients who tested positive to comparable patients who tested negative for Covid-19, excluding anyone hospitalized for the illness. Studying non-hospitalized patients better reflects the vast majority of people who contract Covid, they said, also making it easier to tease out effects caused by the virus and not by intensive care treatments such as ventilators. “We wanted to truly understand what are the long-term effects of this infection on the majority of the population and whether we should expect a significant burden on healthcare providers,” Bivas-Benita and Mizrahi wrote.
Even after mild cases of COVID, long COVID can linger for a year - - For some COVID-19 patients, the initial illness isn’t nearly as bad as the persistent and sometimes disabling symptoms that linger for months or years afterward. These are the people with long COVID, a complex chronic illness that can afflict without regard for age, sex, vaccination status or medical history.A study of nearly 2 million patients in Israel offers new insights into the trajectory of long COVID, particularly for younger, healthier people whose COVID-19 cases were mild. Researchers found that although most protracted symptoms subsided within a year, some of the syndrome’s most debilitating consequences — namely dizziness, loss of taste and smell, and problems with concentration and memory — still plague a minority of sufferers a full year after the initial infection.For the study, published Wednesday in the medical journal BMJ, researchers examined the health records of more than 1.9 million members of Maccabi Healthcare Services, one of Israel’s largest health maintenance organizations. Among them were just under 300,000 people who tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus between March 1, 2020, and Oct. 1, 2021, and who were not hospitalized in the first month after infection, a sign that their cases were mild.The researchers matched each coronavirus-positive subject with an uninfected person in the sample who had the same age, sex and vaccination status and a similar history of risk factors like diabetes, cancer and obesity, among other preexisting conditions. Then the investigators tracked the medical records of both members of each pair to see the health issues they experienced over the following 12 months. “When we started this study, there was a lot of uncertainty regarding the long-term effects of the pandemic,” said computational scientist Maytal Bivas-Benita, who conducted the study with colleagues at Israel’s KI Research Institute.Most COVID-related symptoms declined sharply in the first months after infection, including breathing difficulties, chest pain, cough, joint pain and hair loss, a side effect that often accompanies acute physical stress.The older a patient was at the time of infection, the more likely they were to report long COVID issues. And many long COVID sufferers still grappled with their symptoms a year after becoming sick.
Long Covid patients face battle claiming disability insurance benefits - Mike Yada remembers the day in August 2020 when it became clear that his unusual symptoms — which emerged after a mild case of Covid-19 earlier in the year — were worsening. He experienced crushing fatigue that left him bedridden, the inability to sit upright for more than five or 10 seconds, blurry vision making it impossible to read. Walking was a challenge, and driving was out of the question. He was suffering from “long Covid” — a post-infection condition involving a cluster of symptoms that can be disruptive at best and debilitating at worst. More than two years and many doctor’s appointments later, he is still fighting those symptoms. Yada, who worked in the tech field, also has had to wage another battle: maintaining income replacement through disability insurance, an employee benefit through his now ex-employer. While he recently won an appeal to restore those benefits after the insurer suddenly ended them, he’s not sure it will stick. An estimated 43% of private industry workers have access to short-term disability insurance through their employer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It typically replaces 60% to 100% of an employee’s income, usually for three or six months, said Alex Henry, a national practice leader at Willis Towers Watson, an insurance advisory firm. Long-term disability insurance, which is intended to kick in when necessary after short-term disability benefits run out, is available to 35% of workers. It usually pays 50% to 70% of a worker’s income — often through retirement age, depending on the specifics. Yet approval isn’t guaranteed. And for long Covid sufferers, denials are common, experts said. “There are many claims for both short-term and long-term disability insurance that are not approved, specifically for the subjective symptoms,” Henry said. “Insurers tend to handle it like they do with other subjective conditions … there’s no straight-out denial, but they’re looking for objective medical [proof] of disability.” While most people recover from Covid with no complications, up to 30% of Americans have developed long Covid symptoms, affecting as many as 23 million people, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Those symptoms — which often appear after the original Covid infection has cleared — commonly include fatigue and brain fog (an inability to think clearly), both of which can be tricky to measure.
Nasal injections could treat long-term COVID-19–related smell loss - Early in the pandemic, when people with COVID-19 began reporting that they lost their sense of smell, Zara Patel, MD, figured as much. A professor of otolaryngology at Stanford Medicine, Patel has, for years, studied loss of smell as a symptom of viral infections. "Many viruses can cause smell loss, so it wasn't surprising to us as rhinologists when we found out that COVID-19 causes loss of smell and taste. It was almost expected," she said. Patel also knew that the condition could last a while and that few effective treatments were available. According to a 2022 survey by Patel and colleagues, about 15% of people who experienced smell loss from COVID-19 continued to have problems six months later. That's roughly 9 million people in the U.S., and the number is growing. Many who report loss of smell also report loss of taste because smell is such a major component of how we experience food. Now Patel's team has tested a new treatment for long-term, COVID-19-related smell loss using injections of platelet-rich plasma derived from a patient's own blood. In a trial of 26 participants, those who received the treatment were 12.5 times more likely to improve than patients who received placebo injections. The study was published Dec. 12 in the International Forum of Allergy and Rhinology. Platelet-rich plasma is a concentrated form of plasma, the liquid portion of blood, with blood cells and other blood components removed. It's rich in platelets and, most importantly, growth factors—compounds known to help regenerate tissue. Platelet-rich plasma has been purported to treat mild arthritis when injected into joints, reduce wrinkles when used on the face, and even regrow hair when injected into the scalp. Patel was skeptical of such a cure-all but was intrigued by a study showing that platelet-rich plasma injections were as effective as surgery in treating carpal tunnel syndrome, which is caused by compressing and injuring a nerve in the wrist. She knew that COVID-19-related smell loss also was a neurological problem, in which long-term effects of the virus prevent nerves deep in the nasal cavity from regenerating correctly. These nerves connect to the brain and normally regenerate every three to four months. "It's a nerve damage and nerve regeneration issue that we're dealing with," she said.
Large COVID autopsy study finds SARS-CoV-2 all over the human body --In the most comprehensive autopsy tissue study conducted to date, researchers have found traces of the SARS-CoV-2 virus throughout the entire body, from the brain and the heart to the eyes. The findings indicate the virus can cause persistent infections in many parts of the body, months past an initial illness, and support the argument for further research into antiviral drugs as possible treatment for long COVID. Three years have passed since the emergence of novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, and scientists are still working to understand exactly how this virus interacts with the human body. One ongoing mystery is how broadly SARS-CoV-2 infects different organs, beyond the respiratory system.Several studies, for example, have come to differing conclusions as to whether the neurological effects of COVID are due to the virus directly infecting brain tissue. Most recently, a team from the Stanford School of Medicine closely analyzed post-mortem brain tissue samples from several COVID patients and couldn't find any traces of viral RNA.That research did, on the other hand, detect significant inflammatory biomarkers, leading to the hypothesis that the short- and long-term neurological symptoms could be due to persistent immune system activity. This hypothesis has been backed up by subsequent autopsy studies finding neuroinflammation in COVID patients.This new research, led by National Institutes of Health scientists in association with the University of Maryland, autopsied 44 patients who died from, or with, COVID-19. The study focused on harvesting tissue soon after death from a variety of different locations in the body."Our focus on short postmortem intervals, a comprehensive standardized approach to tissue collection, dissecting the brain before fixation, preserving tissue in RNA later and flash freezing of fresh tissue allowed us to detect and quantify SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels with high sensitivity by ddPCR [polymerase chain reaction] and ISH [in situ hybridization], as well as isolate virus in cell culture from multiple non-respiratory tissues including the brain, which are notable differences compared to other studies," the researchers write in the new study.The findings revealed SARS-CoV-2 RNA could be detected in 84 different locations in the body. The highest burden of viral RNA was found in airway and lung tissue, however, the virus was also detected in the brain, gut, heart, kidney, eye, adrenal gland, and lymph nodes.
WHO weighs in on Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant; US extends COVID health emergency | CIDRAP - The World Health Organization (WHO) advisory group on virus evolution said the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant is poised to drive an increase in COVID-19 cases, but it cautioned that confidence in its assessment is low, because most of the information is based on data from just one country—the United States. In other developments, health officials in the United States extended the COVID-19 public health emergency again, as the world closely watches developments there with XBB.1.5 and looks for clarity on China's evolving surge. More than 82% of XBB.1.5 sequences are from US The WHO said 5,288 XBB.1.5 sequences have been reported between Oct 22 and Jan 11 from 38 countries. Just over 82% are from the United States, with the United Kingdom (8.1%) and Denmark (2.2%) among other countries reporting the most sequences. The subvariant's genetic characteristics and growth rate estimates suggest it may contribute to rising cases. However, the WHO said its confidence in the assessment is low, given that the growth advantage estimate is just from the United States. Last week, US officials fine-tuned their assessment of XBB.1.5 proportions, showing less vigorous growth than previously thought, though spreading is still robust. Along with BQ.1 subvariants, XBB.1.5 is one of the most immune evasive variants to date, the WHO said. So far, there is no evidence that illnesses involving the subvariant are more severe, and XBB.1.5 doesn't carry mutations that are known to increase severity. At a WHO briefing today, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, urged countries that experience intense transmission to increase sequencing and to share the sequencing. He said since the peak of the Omicron wave, the number of shared sequences has dropped 90% and the number of countries sharing sequences has fallen by one third. In an update yesterday, the sequence sharing database GISAID said China continues to ramp up its genomic surveillance, with a host of genome sequences shared by provinces, cities, universities, and private labs. So far, the data suggest that the sequences from China resemble known circulating variants.
WHO: XBB.1.5 Threatens to Increase COVID-19 Infections Globally --The highly transmissible omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is threatening to drive a global increase in coronavirus cases, the World Health Organization said in a new rapid risk assessment of the strain. “Based on its genetic characteristics and early growth rate estimates, XBB.1.5 may contribute to increases in case incidence globally,” the organization said in its assessment. But it noted that growth advantage estimates are only from the U.S., so it rated its confidence in the assessment as “low.” WHO noted that there is no data available on XBB.1.5’s severity, but it said that it “does not carry any mutation known to be associated with potential change in severity.” Similarly, there is no real-world data on how COVID-19 vaccines hold up against the strain, which is shown to be just as immune evasive as XBB.1, the omicron subvariant with the “highest immune escape to date,” WHO stated. XBB.1.5’s spread in the U.S. is paired with increasing COVID-19 cases. The strain was responsible for nearly 28% of coronavirus cases last week. That’s up from 18% of cases the week before. It’s the only omicron subvariant showing growth in the U.S. “It is the most transmissible subvariant that has been detected yet,” WHO’s Maria Van Kerkhove said about XBB.1.5 at a press briefing last week. Notably, global COVID-19 cases and deaths decreased last week, according to WHO’s weekly COVID-19 report. But WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press briefing on Wednesday that last week’s death toll is “almost certainly an underestimate given the under-reporting of COVID-related deaths in China.” China is in the midst of a COVID-19 surge, but WHO and others have had trouble getting adequate data out of the country to assess the full extent of the wave. The U.N. agency “still believes that deaths are heavily underreported from China,” WHO’s Mike Ryan said at Wednesday’s press conference.
China fully reopens borders amid devastating COVID-19 surge - On Sunday, China fully reopened its borders to international travel after three years of border restrictions that formed a key component of the Zero-COVID policy. Going forward, travelers will no longer undergo quarantine, although a negative COVID-19 test within 48 hours of one’s flight will still be enforced. The ditching of these final restrictions takes place two weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday begins on January 21, in what is historically the largest annual human migration. Approximately 2.1 billion domestic journeys are expected to take place during the 40-day travel season, according to Chinese government estimates. It is widely known that this mass travel will deepen the dire surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths across China. Many of the press reports on the resumption of travel to China have a jubilant tone, thrilled to see the lifting of the country’s final public health constraints. They universally claim that Zero-COVID was sheer folly that only harmed China’s economic standing and its population. Tickets to vacation destinations like Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia are selling fast. Ctrip, a Chinese travel booking platform, reported that visas for Singapore are up 30-fold from December 27. Hotel reservations at resorts in Malaysia and Thailand by Chinese vacationers have more than doubled. Other major destinations include Australia and Japan. Japanese financial firm Nomura reported, “The Tourism Authority of Thailand recently raised its full-year target to 25 million inbound tourist arrivals [five million passengers from China], driven by the earlier than expected reopening after Beijing’s recent border rules relaxation.” Considering these economic windfalls for Thailand’s tourist industry, on Monday the health ministry revoked the rule requiring foreign travelers to carry proof of COVID-19 vaccination after protests from business leaders. Last year, Thailand, Southeast Asia’s second largest economy, had only 11.5 million foreign visitors. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, that figure stood at 40 million, with a quarter of those from China. Bloomberg News recently observed, “[The] influx of travelers heading into the country is unlikely to be matched by a surge in demand for overseas trips. The flow of Chinese tourists, previously a $280 billion spending force in global holiday hotspots from Paris to Tokyo, will take months if not years to recover to its pre-pandemic level.” Not one report mentions the calamity that befell Hong Kong last February when Omicron decimated the elderly and, for a few weeks, produced one of the highest death tolls among any country throughout the pandemic. Nor do they raise the important fact that the maintenance of Zero-COVID in Shanghai last March eliminated Omicron and kept deaths to around 500. Such public health successes are meaningless in terms of profit margins and quarterly earning figures that financial institutions pore over.
China Covid: More than 88 million people in Henan infected, official says - Nearly 90% of people in Henan, China's third most populous province, have now been infected with Covid, local health officials say. Provincial official Kan Quancheng revealed the figure - amounting to about 88.5 million people - at a press conference. China is battling an unprecedented surge in cases after abandoning zero-Covid policies in December. The move followed rare protests against lockdowns, quarantines and mass tests. Mr Kan did not specify a timeline for when all the infections happened - but as China's previous zero-Covid policy kept cases to a minimum, it's likely the vast majority of Henan's infections occurred in the past few weeks. He said visits to fever clinics in Henan province peaked on 19 December "after which it showed a continuous downward trend". The Henan provincial figures are in stark contrast to Covid figures from the central government According to official data, just 120,000 people in the country of 1.4 billion have been infected and 30 died since the shift in Covid policy. Meanwhile on Sunday, authorities reported three Covid deaths in mainland China, one more than the day before. However, with the definition of Covid deaths narrowed and mass testing no longer compulsory, government data is no longer reflective of the true scale of the outbreak. Other local and provincial officials have also been providing very different data to that from the central government. On Christmas Eve, a senior health official in the port city of Qingdao reported that half a million people were being infected each day. Those case figures were swiftly removed from news reports. Meanwhile Chinese health officials said they would not include Pfizer's antiviral Covid medicine Paxlovid in its basic medical insurance schemes as a result of the high price quoted by the US firm. The drug, temporarily covered by China's broad healthcare insurance scheme until 31 March, has seen a sharp increase in demand since China's Covid cases surged last month. Pfizer would continue to collaborate with the Chinese government and all relevant stakeholders to "secure and adequate supply" of the medicine in China, the company said in a statement. On Sunday, Beijing also lifted mandatory quarantine for all international arrivals and opened its border with Hong Kong. In the first wave of pre-holiday travel, official data showed that 34.7 million people travelled domestically on Saturday. This represented an increase of more than a third compared to last year, according to state media. Infections are expected to soar as the country celebrates Lunar New Year later this month, with millions expected to travel from big cities to visit older relatives in the countryside. Overall, more than two billion individual journeys are expected to take place, officials have said.
Pfizer working to send COVID pill Paxlovid to China - CNBC | Reuters - Pfizer Inc is working with Chinese authorities to send its COVID-19 pill, Paxlovid, to the country that is dealing with a surge in COVID-19 cases, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said in an interview with CNBC on Monday. In February last year, China approved Paxlovid to treat high-risk patients in several provinces. The drug was supposed to be largely available via hospitals. Pfizer has also reached an agreement to export Paxlovid to China through a local company to make the medicine more widely available. "We are sending as much Paxlovid as we can, our manufacturing machines are working to be able to supply at this stage," Bourla said in the interview at the J.P Morgan Healthcare Conference. Pfizer immediately did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on quantities. China has also been in talks with the drugmaker to secure a license that will allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of Paxlovid in China, Reuters reported last week, citing sources. Chinese hospitals have been under intense pressure after the government abruptly abandoned its "zero-COVID" policy last month, sending infections soaring.
Pfizer CEO says there will be no generic Paxlovid for China - Pfizer is not in talks with Chinese authorities to license a generic version of its Covid-19 treatment Paxlovid for use there, but is in discussions about a price for the branded product, Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on Monday. Reuters reported on Friday that China was in talks with Pfizer to secure a license that will allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of the U.S. firm’s Covid-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid in China. Referring to that report, Bourla speaking at JPMorgan’s healthcare conference in San Francisco, said “We are not in discussions. We have an agreement already for local manufacturing of Paxlovid in China. So we have a local partner that will make Paxlovid for us, and then we will sell it to the Chinese market.” Bourla said the company had shipped thousands of courses of the treatment in 2022 to China and in the past couple of weeks, had increased that to millions. On Sunday, China’s Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) said that the country would not include Paxlovid in an update to its list of medicines covered by basic medical insurance schemes as the U.S. firm quoted a high price for the Covid-19 drug.
Effectiveness of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infections among healthcare personnel in Pakistan: a test-negative, case-control study. - Abstract: Objective: During the COVID-19 pandemic, several vaccines that were efficacious in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were authorized for mass vaccination. In developing countries, inactivated vaccines were widely administered. While inactivated vaccines have been deemed effective in reducing disease severity, for healthcare personnel (HCPs), effectiveness against COVID-19 infections is also essential to reduce the risk to vulnerable patients and ensure a stable healthcare workforce. In addition, there are limited studies examining effectiveness of inactivated vaccines against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants in real-world settings. We aimed to estimate the effectiveness of inactivated vaccines (BBIBP-CorV and CoronaVac) against RT-PCR-confirmed COVID-19 infections among HCPs in the setting of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants in Pakistan. Design, setting and participants: A retrospective matched test-negative case-control analysis of existing data of HCPs at a private healthcare system in Pakistan. Methods: HCPs tested between April 1 and September 30, 2021, were included. Each case was matched to two to six controls by the date of the RT-PCR test (± 7 days) to reduce bias. We compared demographics, reasons for testing, and vaccination status between cases and controls using chi-square for categorical variables and t-test for continuous-level data. The odds of getting a PCR-confirmed SARS-COV-2 infection were calculated using conditional logistic regression, after adjusting for age, gender, and work area. Vaccine effectiveness (VE) was calculated as percent VE using (1-OR)*100. Results: Inactivated vaccines were ineffective against COVID-19 infections ≥ 14 days after receiving the first dose [VE: 20% (95% CI: -10, 41; p=0.162)]. The vaccines showed modest effectiveness ≥ 14 days after the second dose against COVID-19 infections [VE: 33% (95% CI: 11, 50; p=0.006)], and symptomatic COVID-19 infections [VE: 36% (95% CI: 10, 54; p=0.009)]. Conclusions: Inactivated vaccines show modest effectiveness against COVID-19 infections in the setting of emerging VOCs. This builds a strong case for boosters and/or additional vaccination.
WHO officials recommend mask-wearing for travel in light of XBB.1.5, stop short of endorsing travel checks Officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) are recommending that COVID-19 mitigation methods such as masking on planes be reemphasized for regions such as North America and Europe in response to the spread of the XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant, which is believed to be significantly more transmissible than previous mutations. Catherine Smallwood, senior emergency officer for the WHO, was asked during a briefing on Tuesday whether travelers from the U.S. should be subject to travel checks due to the spread of XBB.1.5. More than 70 percent of cases in the Northeastern U.S. are currently attributed to the subvariant. “In terms of travel measures, yes, our opinion is that travel measures should be implemented in a nondiscriminatory manner,” Smallwood said. “That’s not to say that we recommend testing of … passengers coming from the U.S. at this stage.” “Passengers should opt to wear a mask in high-risk settings such as long-haul flights. And this should be a recommendation issued to passengers arriving from anywhere where there’s widespread COVID-19 transmission,” she added, noting that this qualifier applies to basically the entire world at the moment. “So we shouldn’t be targeting any particular passengers by themselves,” Smallwood said. Additionally, Smallwood said pandemic mitigation measures targeting travelers should not divert resources away from domestic measures such as virus surveillance. Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, noted during the briefing that XBB.1.5 cases have been detected in Europe in “small but growing numbers.” He praised countries such as Denmark, France and Germany for maintaining strong genomic surveillance of COVID-19 and urged other countries to not become complacent. XBB.1.5 is believed to be causing 28 percent of cases in the U.S. at the moment. According to a recent report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), at the end of 2022 the same subvariant only caused about 2.5 percent of cases in European countries where variant proportions could be accurately estimated. The ECDC has characterized the current situation in Europe when it comes to XBB.1.5. as having a “high degree of uncertainty” due to the unanswered questions regarding the subvariant’s growth rate.
Tests on travelers from China offer rare snapshot of covid chaos - As more travelers from China begin visiting international destinations for the first time in three years, covid data from places with on-arrival testing is offering a glimpse into the pandemic situation within China, which the World Health Organization said has been obscured by insufficient data. In late December, two flights from China to Italy brought in almost 100 coronavirus-infected passengers; about half of one flight and one-third of another tested positive. Countries around the world soon implemented increased testing requirements for arrivals from China, which have gone into effect during the run-up to heightened travel during the Lunar New Year holiday in late January. The new rules come into effect amid reports of overflowing hospitals and medicine shortages in China after it reversed its “zero covid” policy. Among the strictest are policies in Italy, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, which require on-arrival testing for passengers from China. The United States requires proof of a negative test before departure, while other countries are testing wastewater from aircraft on flights originating in China. Data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency obtained by The Washington Post showed a 23.2 percent infection rate for short-term visitors from China to Korea (or 314 out of 1,352 tested at the airport) from Jan. 2 to Jan. 6. The KDCA expects to publish data on all travelers from China next week, an official told The Post. According to the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control, from Jan. 1 to Jan. 5 about 1 in 5 travelers (21 percent) from mainland China tested positive for the coronavirus, or 1,111 out of 5,283 arrivals. On Friday, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported that about 8 percent of visitors from China from Dec. 30 to Jan. 6 had tested positive, or 408 out of 4,895 arrivals. Data from Italy was not immediately available. “These numbers are certainly [the] tip of the iceberg, highlighting the immense size of infections in China,” Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an email, responding to early reports suggesting an infection rate of 20 to 50 percent among Chinese travelers.
China Covid: Young people self-infect as fears for elderly grow - - When Mr Chen's 85-year-old father fell ill with Covid in December, it was impossible to get an ambulance or see a doctor. They went to Chaoyang Hospital in Beijing, where they were told to either try other hospitals or sit in the corridor with an IV drip. "There was no bed, no respiratory machine, no medical equipment" available, Mr Chen tells the BBC. His father managed to find a bed at another hospital, but only through a special contact, and had by then developed a severe lung infection. The elder Mr Chen has now recovered, but his son worries that a second infection in the future could kill him. Three years of Covid prevention measures were a complete waste and failure, he says, because the government eased controls too quickly, with no preparation, and so many have caught the virus. "The outbreak will come back again. For elderly people, they can only count on their own fate," Mr Chen says. The final step in China's swift reversal of its contentious zero-Covid policy comes on Sunday when it reopens borders for international travel. With mass testing, stringent quarantines and sudden, sweeping lockdowns gone, families like Mr Chen's are wary of what lies ahead. But younger Chinese, all of whom did not wish to be named, feel differently - and some told the BBC they were voluntarily exposing themselves to infection. A 27-year-old coder in Shanghai, who did not receive any of the Chinese vaccines, says he voluntarily exposed himself to the virus. "Because I don't want to change my holiday plan," he explains, "and I could make sure I recovered and won't be infected again during the holiday if I intentionally control the time I get infected." He admits he did not expect the muscle aches that came with the infection, but says the symptoms have been largely as expected. Another Shanghai resident, a 26-year-old woman, tells the BBC she visited her friend who had tested positive "so I could get Covid as well". But she says her recovery has been hard: "I thought it would be like getting a cold but it was much more painful." At least in the big cities, people have been returning to malls, restaurants and parks, and even queuing up for visas and tourist permits. The state-run Global Times newspaper declared "normal times are back", attributing the line to interviews with Chinese. If normal days are indeed back, it is an uncomfortable return to normalcy for many. Mrs Liu's husband never got vaccinated because he suffers from advanced diabetes. Since the re-opening, she has stayed indoors and has disinfected every home delivery that has arrived, but the couple still caught the virus. Their daughter, also sick with Covid, scoured various locations in the midst of a cold Beijing winter for Paxlovid, Pfizer's anti-viral Covid medication, before finally purchasing a single box off the black market at 7500 CNY (£918). "My husband has recovered smoothly. It's a big relief for me," Mrs Liu says. "But when the second wave comes, what will happen to him?" Ms Wang, another Beijing resident, and her family have pre-purchased Paxlovid before it becomes too expensive, as well as an oxygenator and pulse oximeter, for her grandfather-in-law. He has not gotten the virus but is in his 90s. "Anyways, the open-up is good for the economy. Business has recovered quickly," she remarks, adding that hotels, restaurants and shopping malls are all filling up with people again.
How bad is China’s covid outbreak? A look at cases, deaths - The Washington Post - China is in the middle of what may be the world’s largest covid-19 outbreak after authorities abruptly loosened almost three years of strict pandemic restrictions in December following nationwide protests against the measures. The sudden dismantling of China’s “zero covid” regime — enforced through mass lockdowns, testing and contact tracing — has left the country’s health system unprepared and overwhelmed. It has alarmed international health experts concerned about Beijing’s transparency and caused diplomatic friction as countries enforce travel restrictions on arrivals from China.
Satellite images of Chinese crematoriums and funeral homes hint at Covid outbreak’s true toll -- Satellite images taken over multiple cities in China show heightened activity outside crematoriums and funeral homes, appearing to contradict the country’s low official Covid-19 death figuresand illustrating the severity of the outbreak in the world’s most populous country.The images, taken by the space technology company Maxar in late December and early January and shared with NBC News, show a parking lot has been built since early December at a funeral home in Tongzhou, on the outskirts of Beijing, the capital. Other images from cities around the country show a greater number of cars parked outside funeral homes compared with similar periods in past years.The satellite images are consistent with firsthand NBC News reporting in Beijing, where officials say the outbreak has already peaked.Construction equipment was visible at the Tongzhou funeral home during a visit Dec. 22, while workers in white hazmat suits could be seen unloading caskets from a steady stream of vans at the Dongjiao funeral home during multiple visits that week. Police were patrolling both places. Elsewhere in Beijing, crematoriums have been operating 24/7, with one major funeral home saying the wait time for a cremation slot was up to two weeks. With some funeral homes no longer allowing memorial services, reporters have witnessed families instead holding them at hospitals, where empty caskets are being stored outside in alleys.China has reported fewer than 40 Covid-related deaths since Dec. 7, when officials abruptly lifted “zero-Covid” restrictions that had largely shielded China’s 1.4 billion people from the virus for the past three years but fueled rare widespread protests. The country’s official death toll is about 5,270 since the start of the pandemic, but international experts say the true number of deaths could reach 1 million or more in the coming months — about the same as in the U.S.China’s older population, which has a relatively low vaccination rate, is expected to be especially affected. Experts also predict the virus will spread beyond major cities into rural areas as people return to their hometowns to celebrate the coming Lunar New Year. Commenters on Chinese social media have also questioned the government’s reporting, pointing to the recent deaths of prominent artists, scientists and academics, some of whose obituaries named Covid as the cause, as well as the experiences of their own families.
Covid cases in China touch 900 million - study -Some 900 million people in China have been infected with the coronavirus as of 11 January, according to a study by Peking University. The report estimates that 64% of the country's population has the virus. It ranks Gansu province, where 91% of the people are reported to be infected, at the top, followed by Yunnan (84%) and Qinghai (80%). A top Chinese epidemiologist has also warned that cases will surge in rural China over the lunar new year. The peak of China's Covid wave is expected to last two to three months, added Zeng Guang, ex-head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are travelling to their hometowns - many for the first time since the pandemic began - ahead of the lunar new year on 23 January. China has stopped providing daily Covid statistics since abandoning zero-Covid. But hospitals in big cities - where healthcare facilities are better and more easily accessible - have become crowded with Covid patients as the virus has spread through the country. Speaking at an event earlier this month, Mr Zeng said it was "time to focus on the rural areas", in remarks reported in the Caixin news outlet. Many elderly, sick and disabled in the countryside were already being left behind in terms of Covid treatment, he added. China's central Henan province is the only province to have given details of infection rates - earlier this month a health official there said nearly 90% of the population had had Covid, with similar rates seen in urban and rural areas.
Rumours of new XBB variant Covid-19 wave spark run on anti-diarrhoea drugs in China Online post triggers panic buying reminds of frenzy over paracetamol and other Covid-19 supplies as cases surged last month - Diarrhoea pills have sparked the latest Covid-related hoarding spree in China, after online rumours of an imminent new wave caused by the Omicron subvariant XBB. Health experts hastened to quash the rumours, saying diarrhoea was not a particular symptom of Covid-19 caused by the XBB variant and it was “extremely unlikely” that China would see a new wave within three months. But their assurances failed to stop the panic buying. The rumours began after a WeChat user warned about the highly transmissive strain “circulating abroad”, suggesting people stock up on medicines, including “diosmectite rehydration salts”, as China prepared to reopen its borders. He went on to say the XBB.1.5 had become dominant in the US within 15 days and was much more dangerous than those seen so far in China. A screenshot of the social media post quickly went viral, triggering panic buying of anti-diarrheal drugs under the belief that XBB caused gastrointestinal symptoms. This followed a similar frenzy over fever medicines, pulse oximeters or oxygen generators when China’s biggest ever wave of Covid-19 hit last month. Hashtags translated as “diosmectite”, an over-the-counter gastrointestinal drug, and “how to guard against the XBB strain” were trending topics on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, with millions of views for both as of January 5. “Some pharmacies really have nothing left,” a Weibo user from the southwestern province of Guangxi posted.
Why has China’s zero-Covid U-turn sparked so much public resentment? | South China Morning Post -- After three years of tough pandemic controls, China’s sudden U-turn on its zero-Covid policy last month has brought relief but also anxiety that the country is unprepared for the surge in cases. In the final instalment of a five-part series on the policy change and its impact, Jane Cai looks at the widespread resentment at an apparent lack of planning. “It was like a nightmare,” Liu Qunzhu said as she recalled accompanying her 75-year-old husband to a hospital in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, two weeks ago. The hallways were packed with quiet patients and their anxious family members. Liu’s husband, who had surgery to remove lung nodules two months ago, had tested positive for Covid-19 and was feverish for two days, but showed no severe symptoms. Stuck in a long queue at the fever clinic, Liu was about to give up and go home when her husband passed out. “I was scared to death,” Liu, 68, said in tears. “I yelled for help and knelt down. I begged doctors to admit him to hospital. But they said all the wards were full.” Such desperation has been shared by hundreds of millions of Chinese people amid the country’s abrupt but seemingly ill-prepared pivot away from its almost three-year-old zero-Covid strategy. Many people have been infected with the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 in the past few weeks, with some medical experts calling it an “infection tsunami”. Complaints in social media posts about a dearth of medications, overwhelmed hospitals, ambulance services and funeral parlours, and acute blood shortages are a sign of widespread public resentment. “It’s ruthless to make us, the vulnerable elderly, pay the price for the government’s haphazardness,” Liu said, adding that all members of her family had received three vaccine jabs and had worn masks when in public spaces. Her husband was finally given a bed in an intensive care unit after his immediate family, their relatives and friends contacted nearly a dozen hospitals. “I used to be a faithful follower of all policies of the party,” Liu said. “But this time, I blame whoever is in charge of the policy enforcement. Their irresponsible attitude has thrown us into such deep misery.”
China COVID peak to last two-three months, hit rural areas next (Reuters) - The peak of China's COVID-19 wave is expected to last two to three months, and will soon swell over the vast countryside where medical resources are relatively scarce, a top Chinese epidemiologist has said. Infections are expected to surge in rural areas as hundreds of millions travel to their home towns for the Lunar New Year holidays, which officially start from Jan. 21, known before the pandemic as the world's largest annual migration of people. China last month abruptly abandoned the strict anti-virus regime of mass lockdowns that fuelled historic protests across the country in late November, and finally reopened its borders this past Sunday. The abrupt dismantling of restrictions has unleashed the virus onto China's 1.4 billion people, more than a third of whom live in regions where infections are already past their peak, according to state media. But the worst of the outbreak was not yet over, warned Zeng Guang, the former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a report published in local media outlet Caixin on Thursday. "Our priority focus has been on the large cities. It is time to focus on rural areas," Zeng was quoted as saying. He said a large number of people in the countryside, where medical facilities are relatively poor, are being left behind, including the elderly, the sick and the disabled. The World Health Organization this week also warned of the risks stemming from holiday travelling. The UN agency said China was heavily under-reporting deaths from COVID, although it is now providing more information on its outbreak. "Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China has shared relevant information and data with the international community in an open, transparent and responsible manner," foreign ministry official Wu Xi told reporters. Chinese virologists said on Friday they have discovered one infection with the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which has been described by WHO scientists as the most transmissible sub-variant so far after its rapid spread in the United States in December. There is no evidence yet that it is more severe. Health authorities have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers which are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes and the body bags seen coming out of crowded hospitals. China has not reported COVID fatalities data since Monday. Officials said in December they planned monthly, rather than daily updates, going forward. Although international health experts have predicted at least 1 million COVID-related deaths this year, China has reported just over 5,000 since the pandemic began, one of the lowest death rates in the world.
Japan’s healthcare system pushed to collapse by COVID-19 cases - Japan is currently experiencing one of its worst COVID-19 surges since the pandemic began three years ago. Total official cases have now exceeded more than 30 million while deaths reached 60,000 on Sunday. Both are underestimates of the real figures and the overall toll of the pandemic. None of this gives the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pause as it presses ahead with the removal of remaining mitigation measures. On January 5, Japan reported a single-day record high of 498 deaths, a fact that exposes the official lie that the pandemic is over. In December alone, official deaths spiked sharply with approximately 10,000 people succumbing to the virus. In comparison, it took 14 months to first reach the first 10,000 deaths in the pandemic while it took only four months to rise from 40,000 to 50,000. Daily new cases have skyrocketed over the past two months reaching well over 200,000, following relatively low figures in October after the summer surge. Now, at least 12 prefectures have posted record-high cases, while nine have had record-high numbers of deaths. The highest daily case number was recorded on January 6 with 245,542, coming close to the record peak of 261,252 on August 19. The true extent of the situation is not known as infected people recovering at home are not recorded as official cases. In addition, the dangerous new XBB.1.5 variant has also been detected in Japan, believed to be the most immune-evasive strain yet, meaning vaccination and previous infections offer little or no protection. The real situation is therefore far more serious than presented by the government and in the media, which are inundating the public with claims that the pandemic is finished. Toho University Professor Tateda Kazuhiro, who sits on the government’s COVID-19 advisory board, warned that cases could rise later this month as high as 450,000 per day. Excess deaths point to the real impact of the pandemic. In August, during the height of the summer surge, approximately 7,000 people died from infection with COVID-19, according to Health Ministry figures. However, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases estimated in the same month that there were between 12,000 and 17,000 excess deaths. According to figures released last February, the year 2021 set a record for the number of deaths in the post-war period with 1,452,289, driven by the Delta variant of COVID-19. This was an increase of 67,745 deaths over the previous year. Similarly high numbers are expected for 2022 as a result of the spread of the numerous Omicron subvariants. Hospital bed occupancy rates are rising, with beds for COVID-19 patients in Tokyo for example filled to 55.3 percent of capacity as of January 5. Patients are also being admitted to hospitals for different ailments and becoming infected.
COVID in Europe: China’s surge not a cause for concern ‘at this time’ says WHO, as XBB.1.5 virus spreads - Dr. Hans Kluge, head of the World Health Organization for Europe, explained that this is because the two variants circulating in China are already present in European countries, according to data provided by the Chinese authorities. “We share the current view of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) that the ongoing surge in China is not anticipated to significantly impact the COVID-19 epidemiological situation in the WHO European Region at this time.” The WHO senior official acknowledged that China had shared virus sequencing information, but he appealed for more “detailed and regular information”, especially concerning local epidemiology and variants “to better assess the evolving situation”. Dr Kluge also said that travel restrictions by European countries on visitors from China were “not unreasonable…while we are waiting for more detailed information that is shared through publicly available databases”. But he said it was important for the precautionary travel measures being introduced by European countries “to be rooted in science, to be proportionate and non-discriminatory”.The message comes as Chinese embassies suspended issuing new visas for South Koreans and Japanese visitors on Tuesday. The announcement covered tourist, business and some other visa categories. The move appears to be in response to COVID-19 testing requirements recently imposed by those countries on travellers from China. A notice posted in Seoul reportedly said the ban would continue until South Korea lifts its “discriminatory entry measures” against China. At least ten countries in Europe, North America and Asia have announced new virus testing requirements for travellers from China, with officials expressing concern about a lack of adequate information about rapidly spreading virus outbreaks in China.
2022 was Canada’s deadliest year of the COVID-19 pandemic -According to official statistics released by Health Canada, 2022 proved to be the deadliest year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada so far. Almost 20,000 Canadians died from COVID-19, representing close to a 30 percent increase in fatalities compared to 2021. As stark as they are, these official figures represent a significant undercount of the true toll the virus has taken across the country. Data compiled by Dr. Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease expert at the University of Toronto, show that the country has recorded almost 65,000 excess deaths since the start of the pandemic. The excess death rate was almost 1.5 times higher in 2022 compared to 2020 and 2021. Unsurprisingly, total infections and hospitalizations were also at their highest levels during 2022. Unlike the previous two years, there was no significant drop in hospital admissions at any point during the year, with thousands hospitalized continuously. The height of the original Omicron wave in the winter of 2021-22 saw over 10,000 Canadians in hospital care at the end of January 2022. At no point since has that number dipped lower than 3,000. The last reported national data shows that hospitalizations are currently around 5,000, a number that most public health experts expect to rise drastically in the coming months with the emergence of new variants. Meanwhile, despite the vast curtailing of PCR testing by public health agencies across the country, over half of the country’s official 4.5 million infections occurred in 2022 alone. Taken together, these figures represent a damning indictment of the claim advanced by the political and media establishment that the Omicron variant was mild. This grotesque lie was used by the Liberal Trudeau government and all provincial governments to justify the dropping of all measures aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19. The scrapping of the last remaining public health measures in the spring of 2022 was in fact a direct response to the demands of the far-right “Freedom Convoy,” a movement comprised of fascistic social elements.
The incidence of COVID-19-related hospitalisation in migrants in the UK: Findings from the Virus Watch prospective community cohort study - Abstract: Migrants in the UK may be at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 exposure; however, little is known about their risk of COVID-19-related hospitalisation during waves 1-3 of the pandemic. We analysed secondary care data linked to Virus Watch study data for adults and estimated COVID-19-related hospitalisation incidence rates by migration status. To estimate the total effect of migration status on COVID-19 hospitalisation rates, we ran fixed-effect Poisson regression for wave 1 (01/03/2020-31/08/2020; wildtype), and fixed-effect negative binomial regressions for waves 2 (01/09/2020-31/05/2021; Alpha) and 3 (01/06/2020-31/11/2021; Delta). Results of all models were then meta-analysed. Of 30,276 adults in the analyses, 26,492 (87.5%) were UK-born and 3,784 (12.5%) were migrants. COVID-19-related hospitalisation incidence rates for UK-born and migrant individuals across waves 1-3 were 2.7 [95% CI 2.2-3.2], and 4.6 [3.1-6.7] per 1,000 person-years, respectively. Pooled incidence rate ratios across waves suggested increased rate of COVID-19-related hospitalisation in migrants compared to UK-born individuals in unadjusted 1.68 [1.08-2.60] and adjusted analyses 1.35 [0.71-2.60]. Conclusion" Our findings suggest migration populations in the UK have excess risk of COVID-19-related hospitalisations and underscore the need for more equitable interventions particularly aimed at COVID-19 vaccination uptake among migrants.
What’s Going Around: Flu, gastrointestinal, COVID continue to spread in Metro Detroit - Local doctors share their notes on What’s Going Around:
- Dr. Tiffney Widner -- Pediatrician, Children’s Hospital of Michigan - “Still seeing a lot of flu-like symptoms come into the clinic. It’s a little bit more lately, post holidays, but mostly all flu-like symptoms are coming in. We’ve seen some stomach/gastrointestinal stuff come in, but that could all be flu related. RSV is down, COVID is down/steady and we’re not seeing a lot of strep throat cases. Mostly just flu.”
- Dr. Glen Clark -- Emergency Center Chief of Corewell Health Grosse Pointe Hospital - “This week we’re still seeing influenza A and we’re seeing a slight increase in COVID. We’re not seeing much snow-related trauma. It’s a significant amount of viral infections. We’re still swabbing for influenza COVID and RSV. Influenza A is presenting with fever, headache, muscle ache, typical cough and sore throat. Some people are vomiting, but the flu is presenting mainly as respiratory for us. The vast majority are being discharged. Severe dehydration or underlying illness like asthma or heart failure, shortness of breath, those are being admitted.”
- Dr. Jaimie Hope -- Medical Director, Emergency Center, Beaumont Outpatient Campus – Livonia - “We are definitely seeing flu. Also, carbon monoxide poisoning because people are using indoor grills, space heaters, etc. and the symptoms can mimic the flu so it’s easy to miss. High blood pressure is also trending in our E.C. right now. We are treating lots of people who have missed their meds or haven’t had it checked in a while and don’t know they have it.”
- Dr. Neethi Patel -- Beaumont Health pediatrician in Troy - “There’s a lot of stomach stuff going around right now. Not influenza, but some kind of gastroenteritis. It’s just starting this week. Symptoms are vomiting, diarrhea, headache, fever and achiness. The fever – it can be high, anywhere from 101 to 103. Treatment is mostly just rest, fluids, Motrin and Tylenol for fever and aches and pains, and resting the belly with a clear fluid diet – just wait it out and watch for dehydration. If there’s concern for dehydration or we don’t know what the fever’s from, we recommend they come in. There’s also still some flu, and COVID has made a bit of a resurgence. RSV seems to be lessening; it’s still there but not as bad as last month. RSV seems to be slowing down and flu is a little down, but we’re still seeing some Influenza B.”
- Washtenaw County Health Department - “Influenza circulation remains at high levels locally, but it appears this wave of flu may have peaked. Additional flu waves are possible. In the past week, several influenza related deaths in Washtenaw County adults have been reported. The individuals were confirmed with Influenza A. Flu-related hospitalizations of Washtenaw residents are still elevated, but are decreasing. Most Influenza cases being reported in Washtenaw County are Influenza A.”
Dark chocolate from Trader Joe’s, Hershey has ‘unsafe levels’ of lead and cadmium, lawsuits say --Trader Joe's is facing a class-action lawsuit that alleges the company misled and put consumers' health at risk by failing to disclose on packaging that select dark chocolate products contain lead and cadmium.The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Wednesday, comes one week after a similarclass-action lawsuit was filed in the same court against The Hershey Company.Both lawsuits follow a December 2022 report by Consumer Reports, where scientists measured the amount of heavy metals in 28 different chocolate bars. Cadmium and lead were detected in all of them. Twenty-three of those bars contained potentially harmful levels of the heavy metals for adults who eat one ounce a day, Consumer Reports said.Consumer Reports said it used California's maximum allowable dose level for cadmium (4.1 micrograms) and lead (0.5 micrograms) to measure the potential risk, giving percentages of the maximum allowable dose level found in one ounce of each chocolate product."Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao" was found to be high in lead at 192% of California's maximum allowable dose level, the report said. "Trader Joe's The Dark Chocolate Lover's Chocolate 85% Cacao" was high in both lead and cadmium at 127% and 229%, respectively. Meanwhile, Consumer Reports also found "Hershey’s Special Dark Mildly Sweet Chocolate" and "Lily’s Extra Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa" to be high in lead at 265% and 144% of state maximum doses, respectively. "Lily’s Extreme Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa" was high in lead at 143% and cadmium at 101%.
‘Let them eat poison’ - BR Research - --Some statements deserve to be ridiculed. Earlier this week, the honorable Federal Minister for Food Security made one such comment. Remarking on the recent increase in the price of poultry products, the minister pleaded that the public should stop consuming poultry products, as the birds are raised on feed that is poisonous and causes cancer. The food security minister’s war of nerves with the solvent extraction industry has been well documented in this space. Readers interested in the background developments may review three research stories by BR Research over the last month: “Banning nutrition: one GMO at a time”, published on Dec 06, 2022. “Soybean ban: follow the science”, published on Dec 07, 2022. and, “Soybean cargo: an unfortunate hack”, published on Dec 12, 2022”. Today’s comment, thus, will not review the way in which a commercial activity occurring in a legal vacuum has been mishandled by those involved. Instead, it would focus on the minister’s irresponsible statement and its far-reaching consequences. In his media talk, the food security minister noted that “he does not consume poultry meat – nay, the meat of any kind". And the public should do so too”. If the minister believes that the public should celebrate his decision to go vegan, he has another thing coming.In case the minister does not realize, he is the supreme policymaker on food security and safety of the country, not a pundit sitting on a morning show. Any comment made by a federal minister of a country on matters of food security is by definition a policy statement.In a developed society, it would be presumed that a minister would make such statements after reviewing mountains of incontrovertible evidence. If a minister has sufficient cause to believe that poultry meat and farm eggs cause cancer, then mere ‘suggestions’ are not enough. He has the power to – and must – ban all poultry meat immediately. Unless of course, you do not live in a developed society, where it is possible – nay, likely – that a minister could make such comments based on mere hearsay.
Experts say bird flu outbreak is driving up egg prices across country - -- If you've been to the grocery store lately, you've probably noticed egg prices are high. New Rochelle resident Donna Moses says she's cut back on buying eggs. Grocery store owner Jose Filipe says she's not alone; many customers at New Rochelle Farms have changed their spending habits. "I've seen customers gravitate from buying organic eggs now to more conventional eggs, and specifically now, the half dozen. Prices have quadrupled in about six or seven months," he said. He says you'll notice a difference in price not just in cartons of eggs but also in products that contain eggs, like baked goods. At one Manhattan grocery store where a dozen organic jumbo eggs costs nearly $10, there's a sign which notes, "A market-wide shortage is leading to higher prices." But why? "Back in March, the bird flu started affecting different farms," said Daniel Brey, president of Brey's Egg Farm. Brey's Egg Farm in Sullivan County has not been affected, but the family behind it is taking every precaution. "We're out there making sure we're protecting our chickens," said farm worker Vanessa Olsen. "Unless you're a bigger farm, it puts you out of business, it does, if you get it. If you have one sick chicken, all the chickens have to be off the farm, one way or another," Brey said. United States Department of Agriculture data shows more than 57 million birds were affected by the avian flu in 2022, marking the country's deadliest outbreak. "In 2015, when it happened, once we went to the summer, it was over with. This year, the bird flu kept going. Matter of fact, there was birds that were still getting it, as in the first in December," Brey said. He says it's the main reason for the nationwide egg shortage and spike in prices. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the year through November, average egg prices jumped 49.1%.
Scientists are finding increasing evidence for a link between air pollution and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s - The air in Mexico City was once so toxic that people watched as dead birds fell out of the sky. In 1992, the United Nations declared the city the most polluted in the world, with its unregulated diesel engines, factory production, fossil-fuel powered energy plants, and widespread use of internal-combustion engines, all trapped in a high-altitude, mountain-lined valley. In 2002, toxicologist and neuropathologist Lilian Calderón-Garcidueñas, who grew up east of the metropolis and attended medical school in the city, decided to look at the brains of 40 dogs that had lived either in the city’s polluted valley or in the cleaner air of Tlaxcala, a state on its eastern edge. The results were striking: The rural dogs’ brains appeared healthy. In the brains of the city dogs, however, she saw the beginnings of neurodegeneration in puppies as young as eight months old. The findings prompted Calderón-Garcidueñas, who has joint appointments at the University of Montana and Universidad del Valle de México in Mexico City, to begin looking at human brains. And over the last 20 years, she has grown convinced that children raised in areas like Mexico City, with air quality that rarely falls into the healthy range, are at noticeably increased risk for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative conditions. Scientists have known for decades that air pollution has effects far beyond blurred skylines and burning lungs. The fine particles and gases in polluted air have been connected to asthma, heart disease, inflammation, and a variety of other health impacts. But demonstrating that this pollutant soup can have neurodegenerative effects has proved trickier. Only recently has new research begun to paint a picture of air pollution as dangerous not only for the heart and lungs but potentially for the brain, as well.In a 2018 study published in the journal Environmental Research, Calderón-Garcidueñas and her colleagues examined more than 200 brains of Mexico City residents who were between 11 months to 40 years old when they died. All but one of the brains they studied showed at least the beginnings of changes that scientists have previously found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. In comparison, the researchers described nine control brains that had been gathered from people who’d lived (and died) breathing clean air, as “unremarkable.”The Mexico City studies, while intriguing, were far from definitive and limited by methodological issues, some researchers said.“It’s not something from which one can draw major conclusions.”But he noted that further research by scientists at USC and around the world have strengthened the link between air pollution and neurodegenerative disease. Finch noted that there is now a series of papers showing that brain atrophy and cognitive disorders are directly related to how much air pollution someone has been exposed to. “Population-based studies have come into complete agreement on three continents — North America, Western Europe, and Asia — that air pollution above a certain level predicts a higher risk of dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s, and cognitive decline. That’s now proven by at least 10 major studies,” he said.
EPA’s proposed air pollution standards for soot could save thousands of lives - Late last week, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed tighter limits to one of the country’s most dangerous air pollutants: fine particulate matter, or soot. But while the long-awaited move could save thousands of lives per year, health experts say it’s still not enough. Soot is also known as fine particulate matter because its fragments are so small — 2.5 microns in diameter or less. When inhaled into the lungs over time, these harmful materials can cause damage leading to premature death, heart attacks and cancer. Sources for the deadly pollutant include construction sites, power plants, and refineries. Those who live nearby (disproportionately low-income households and people of color) face the greatest risk of exposure. Since 2012, the national annual air quality standard — a number that represents a limit to the average amount of particles in the air outdoors — has been 12 micrograms per cubic meter for fine particulate matter. The Clean Air Act requires these standards to be revisited every five years. The last time the matter came under discussion was 2020, when the Trump administration rejected tougher standards on particulate matter, despite public health officials’ calls for more stringent protections. Under the Biden administration, the new proposed limit is between 9 and 10 micrograms per cubic meter. An even greater range, between 8 and 11 micrograms per cubic meter, will be open to public comment following the proposal. But while the EPA asserted its new proposal “reflect[s] the latest health data and scientific evidence,” public health experts have said this is not the case; the EPA’s own Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee actually recommended an annual standard as low as 8 micrograms per cubic meter. The World Health Organization’s guideline for annual average exposure to particulate matter is even lower, just 5 micrograms per cubic meter. “The proposal falls far short of what is necessary,” said Paul Billings, national senior vice president of public policy for the American Lung Association. Research shows particulate matter exposure causes between 85,000 and 200,000 excess deaths each year in the U.S. According to the EPA, a new primary annual standard of 9 micrograms per cubic meter would prevent up to 4,200 premature deaths per year. Billings said these benefits are far greater if the standard was just one microgram per cubic meter lower — preventing up to 12,000 premature deaths. “Any improvement from our current standard brings us to better health,” said Joshua Apte, who has researched the impact racist real estate practices like redlining have had on exposure to air pollution, said that national standards, no matter what they are, often fall short of protecting communities facing the greatest risk.
Biden Administration Considers Banning Gas Stoves --The Biden administration may move to ban the use of gas stoves on the grounds of new research suggesting they may be related to health problems such as asthma.The research, co-authored by officials from a clean energy nonprofit that also participate in a carbon-free buildings promotion program, suggested that more than 12 percent of asthma cases in children could be attributed to the use of gas stoves.According to a Bloomberg report on the news, some 40 percent of American households use gas stoves but the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission may change that.“This is a hidden hazard. Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” one of the members of the commission, Richard Trumka Jr., told Bloomberg.The report also cites information from the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organisation, which says that gas stoves emit nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and fine particulate matter, which makes them unsafe.A country-wide ban would follow similar bans set by several cities in the United States, including New York, Seattle and San Francisco. Bans in these cities cover things like gas furnaces and gas heaters, and California’s authorities are now moving to ban all gas-fired water heaters in the state.According to the Consumer Product Safety Commissioner interviewed by Bloomberg, the ban on gas stoves could take the form of a suspension of imports of such appliances or a ban on their local manufacture. Congressmen, meanwhile, have suggested the addition of warning labels, range hoods, and the introduction of higher performance standards, Bloomberg noted in its report. People willing to switch from gas to electric stoves could take advantage of funding opportunities in the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes several hundred billion in spending on the transition from fossil fuels to clean electricity.
Suggested ban on gas stoves ignites a culture war - Seemingly overnight, the gas stove in nearly one of three homes in the country became an appliance of controversy, bringing possible comparisons to cigarettes on one side and accusations of government overreach on the other. The fight started when a commissioner for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, said the agency could soon increase regulations and a potential ban on gas stoves, citing the appliance’s public health risks.“This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., commissioner for the CPSC, a federal agency responsible for recalling products like baby swings and bicycles to reduce harm to consumers, toldBloomberg in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” Since that interview, the debate has boiled over. Claims of a “federal gas stove ban” circulated while the Wall Street Journal editorial board and numerous conservative lawmakers hopped into the fray, blaming the Biden Administration for “forcing all buildings to use electricity for everything.”Ronny Jackson, a Texas Republican Congressman representing The northern tip of the state near Oklahoma, said “If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands.”
Key figures quash suggestions of gas stove ban - The White House and a key independent regulator are pushing back on the idea of a ban on new gas stoves as tensions over the restrictions boil over in Washington. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the White House doesn’t support a ban on Wednesday, echoing earlier remarks from the chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Their comments come after another commissioner has said that a ban was on the table, sparking fury from Republicans and moderate Democrats in Congress. Meanwhile, some supporters of either a ban or tougher regulations are being galvanized by a new study linking gas stoves to childhood asthma cases CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. last month said that a forthcoming information request from the committee could be “the first step in what could be a long journey toward regulating gas stoves,” as The Hill reported at the time. He also said that an outright ban was “a real possibility.”
Monkeys – Not Humans – Made Ancient Sets of Stone Tools in Brazil, Study Finds - Researchers believe that ancient stone tools discovered in Brazil are the work of capuchin monkeys, not early humans, the art and design website Artnet reported, citing an academic article."We are confident that the early archeological sites from Brazil may not be human-derived but may belong to capuchin monkeys," wrote archaeologist Agustín M. Agnolín and paleontologist Federico L. Agnolín in an article published in the peer-reviewed science journal The Holocene in November.The article said that archeologists uncovered what they believe to be ancient stone tools, made from locally occurring quartz and quartzite cobbles during past excavations at Pedra Furada – a collection of over 800 archeological sites in Piauí in northeastern Brazil.The oldest of the stone tools discovered appear to be up to 50,000 years old, according to the article, which led to some academics theorizing that it provided evidence of early human habitation of the region.Unexpected findings from 2016, however, posed a challenge to that theory.The findings showed that capuchin monkeys in northeastern Brazil are capable of making and using a large variety of stone tools.This raised the possibility, as was first suggested in 2017, that monkeys – not humans – could be responsible for producing the Pedra Furada discoveries.And according to Agnolín and Agnolín, the researchers behind The Holocene article, there is now a convincing amount of evidence to suggest that the tools weren't human-made."Our review of the evidence suggests that the ancient sites in Brazil do not actually belong to the first Americans, but are actually the product of monkey activity," Federico L. Agnolín told Argentina's National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET).The researchers compared the tools found at Pedra Furada to those that capuchin monkeys make today. “The result was surprising: There was no difference between the supposed human tools from 50,000 years ago and those produced by monkeys today," Agustín M. Agnolín told CONICET.The researchers looked to past research and observations of capuchin monkey populations which show that the primates use small stones as hammers and large, flatter rocks as anvils to crack open nuts and seed pods."The result is that the rocks used often break, generating rock fragments that are very similar to those produced by humans when carving stone tools," said Agustín M. Agnolín, per CONICET'S news release.
800 Florida manatees died in 2022 as starvation lingers—but most survived red tide - For the second year in a row, more Florida manatees died than normal as the species battles a human-caused seagrass famine. At least 800 manatees died statewide in 2022 after hundreds succumbed to starvation and malnutrition on Florida's Atlantic coast last winter, according to preliminary data released this week by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. That follows the record-breaking 1,100 manatee deaths in 2021, caused in large part by decades of pollution-fueled seagrass loss in the 156-mile Indian River Lagoon, often considered one of North America's most biodiverse estuaries. The 800 deaths exceeds the 5-year-average of 741 manatee deaths per year, a number that increased after 2021′s die-off. "Manatee mortality is getting substantially worse," said Pat Rose, an aquatic biologist and executive director of the Maitland-based nonprofit Save the Manatee Club. And it's directly related to decades of nutrient pollution, he said. "It should be a warning that Florida could be facing more of this in the future," While starvation and chronic malnutrition remain the leading cause of death on Florida's Atlantic coast, there are likely a few reasons 300 fewer manatees died last year compared to 2021: a relatively warmer winter caused less stress on the species; there may now be a smaller manatee population after 2021′s mass die-off; and biologists verified fewer carcasses on the east coast last year, according to wildlife officials. But the largest reason the death toll was lower in 2022 was less-severe red tide in the Gulf of Mexico this past year. While widespread toxic red tide blooms killed 84 manatees in 2021, just four manatees deaths have been linked to red tide last year so far, preliminary data show. "The red tide numbers will turn out much lower than 2021 because there was really no red tide bloom for most of the year—it only popped up in October after Hurricane Ian," There are still necropsy tests awaiting results, so a few more red tide-related manatee deaths may be verified over the next few weeks, deWit said. But for now, the four manatees deaths from red tide occurred within roughly the last month of the year—when red tide blooms were at their peak in the Tampa Bay area
Toxic toilet paper and long-lasting chemicals found in endangered killer whales - A chemical used in the production of toilet paper and 'forever chemicals' have been found in the bodies of orcas in B.C. , including the endangered southern resident killer whales. The Institute for the Ocean and Fisheries at UBC, British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientists analyzed tissue samples from six southern resident killer whales and six Bigg's whales stranded along the coast of B.C. from 2006 to 2018, according to a recent study. They discovered that chemical pollutants are prevalent in killer whales, with a chemical often found in toilet paper one of the most prevalent in the samples studied, accounting for 46 percent of the total pollutants identified. Called 4-nonylphenol or 4NP, the compound is listed as a toxic substance in Canada and can interact with the nervous system and influence cognitive function, the authors say. "This research is a wake-up call. Southern residents are an endangered population and it could be that contaminants are contributing to their population decline. We can't wait to protect this species," 4NP is often used in pulp and paper processing, as well as in soap, detergents and textile processing. It can leak into the ocean via sewage treatment plants and industrial runoffs, where it is ingested by smaller organisms and moves up the food chain to reach top predators such as killer whales. It's known as a 'contaminant of emerging concern' or CEC, which are pollutants found in the environment that are not well-studied and so, regulated. "Very little is known of both the prevalence and health implications of 4NP as it has been studied in few marine mammals. This study is the first to find 4NP in killer whales," "This investigation is another example of an approach that takes into account the health of people, animals and the environment, using killer whales as a case study to better understand the potential impacts of these and other compounds to animal and ecosystem health," said co-author Dr. Stephen Raverty, IOF adjunct professor and veterinary pathologist with the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Food. 'Forever chemicals' Just over half the pollutants identified by the researchers belong to a group of compounds known as 'forever chemicals' because they last for a long time in the environment. They are widely used in food-packaging materials, stain and water-repellent fabrics, cookware, and fire extinguishers. Many are listed as new Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). These are toxic substances released into the environment through human activities that adversely affect the health of humans and animals. Many are banned in Canada. The most common pollutant of this group the researchers found was 7:3-fluorotelomer carboxylic acid, or 7:3 FTCA. There are currently no restrictions on the production and use of 7:3 FTCA but one of its potential parent chemicals is on a list of toxic substances proposed to be recognized as new POPs by the European Chemical Agency under an international agreement, the Stockholm Convention on POPs. "This compound has not been found in B.C. before and it was found in killer whales, which are top predators. That means the contaminants are making their way through the food system," says Dr. Alava.
Great Lakes water levels continue to drop: Lake Superior lost 1 trillion gallons last month - --We are in the seasonal decline of the Great Lakes water levels. Two lakes have fallen so much they are approaching the average water level. If the weather conditions are near normal, Great Lakes water levels are usually at their highest around July. The water levels decline from August through March, and then rise from March to July. The loss of water in December is therefore to be expected. Lake Superior declined 2 inches from November 30, 2022 to December 30, 2022. This is a fairly typical amount of water decline for December. It represents what sounds like a bunch of water: one inch of water on Lake Superior equally 550 billion gallons of water. About 1 trillion gallons of water left Lake Superior either through outflow into Lakes Michigan and Huron, or evaporation. In winter, the precipitation amounts decline in the colder air. A loss of water level basically comes down to more water flowing out and evaporating than falling as precipitation. Also, the precipitation is mostly snow in December, which doesn’t make it as water into Lake Superior until the spring snowmelt. Lakes Michigan and Huron are one big lake when it comes to determining lake water levels. Lakes Michigan and Huron also declined 2 inches in December. Again, while this is a big number with gallons of water, it is an average water loss for December. Those two lakes now have 1.6 trillion gallons less water than they did on November 30. Much of the world would rejoice to have a trillion gallons of fresh water. It’s a drop in the bucket for us here in Michigan. Lake Erie also lost 2 inches of water in the past 30 days. Lake Ontario water levels can act differently from the rest of the Great Lakes. Lake Ontario’s water level can be regulated somewhat through the St. Lawrence Seaway. As a result, the Lake Ontario water level doesn’t always fall when the other lakes are declining. In the past 30 days, Lake Ontario has risen 3 inches. Over the past two years, the water level declines have been a little more than average and the water level increases have been less than average. This is especially true on Lakes Michigan and Huron. The water level on those two lakes has dropped from record high levels in 2020 to just a few inches above average now. There has been about a 30-inch water decline over the last two years, and that’s after a 4-foot water level increase in the few years leading up to the record water levels. Lakes Michigan and Huron are only 4 inches above the exact long-term average for December. Lake Superior and Lake Erie are still 6 inches higher than the long-term average. Lake Ontario is one inch below the long-term average. In a large fluctuating water level regime of the Great Lakes, we could say the lakes are close to average water levels now. We have moderate to severe drought around the Great Lakes now. If we continue with drier than normal weather, the lake levels will soon slip to below normal levels.
2022 water report: Global warming changing the water cycle - The third La Niña year in a row intensified existing droughts in the Americas, while causing floods in parts of Asia and Oceania, according to a first-of-its-kind reportreleased today by the Global Water Monitor Consortium, led by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU).The report found global warming is changing the water cycle across the planet, while also warning that events like flash droughts will become more frequent in the coming years. Lead author Professor Albert Van Dijk said the report offers a unique snapshot of global water availability. "Normally, it takes many months for this kind of data to be collected, collated, analyzed and interpreted," Professor Van Dijk from the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society said. "By making the best possible use of satellite instruments orbiting the Earth and by automating the whole data analysis and interpretation process, our team has been able to reduce that time to a few days." The group combined water measurements made at thousands of ground stations and by satellites to produce up-to-date information on rainfall, air temperature and humidity, soil water, river flows and the volume of water in natural and artificial lakes. Globally, in 2022 the water cycle was dominated by relatively warm ocean waters in the western Pacific and the eastern and northern Indian Ocean. As a result, a severe heat wave developed in South Asia early in the year, followed by a very wet monsoon that caused massive floods in Pakistan. Elsewhere, in Europe and China, extreme heat waves gave rise to so-called "flash droughts"—droughts that develop within a few months following severe heat waves, causing low river flows, agricultural damage and bushfires. The report shows that air temperature over land in 2022 followed the long-term warming trend, while air humidity is declining. "This means that nature, crops and people will need more water to stay healthy, which compounds the problem," Professor Van Dijk said. "It is a safe prediction that we will see more and more of these heat waves and flash droughts. We also see evidence of the impact of global warming on glaciers and the water cycle in cold regions, and in fact melting glaciers contributed to the Pakistan floods. That will continue until those glaciers are gone."
Heat and drought have 'significant influence' on food security and agricultural production, new review argues - Heat and drought are the utmost limiting abiotic factors that pose a major threat to food security and agricultural production, and are exacerbated by "extreme and rapid" climate change, according to a new paper in CABI Reviews. The team of international scientists suggests that it is critical to understand the biochemical, ecological and physiological responses of plants to the stresses of heat and drought in order for more practical solutions and management. They state that plant responses to these challenges may be divided into three categories: phenological, physiological and biochemical. Lead researcher Dr. Aqarab Husnain Gondal, of the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan, argues that due to physical damages, biological disruptions and biochemical abnormalities, sub-optimal water supplies and unusual temperatures negatively affect crop development and yields. Supported by colleagues from Yarmouk University, Jordan, the National University of Huancavelica, Peru, and the Citrus Research Institute Sagodha, Dr. Gondal says a distinctive aspect of the phenomenon is comparing fundamental behavior with abiotic stresses. The scientists, referring to a study examining data from research published between 1980 and 2015, state that drought has reduced wheat and maize yields by up to 40% around the world. They also highlight that projections suggest that for every degree Celsius rise in temperature, this would result in a 6% loss in global wheat yields. Dr. Gondal said, "This review gives a thorough description of the adaptation of plants towards heat and drought stress with a particular emphasis on identifying similarities and variations. Abiotic stresses are reducing crop yield all around the world. Heat and drought stress causes plants to respond in a variety of ways—the most notable of which is by altering their development and morphology. "While the capacity of plants to withstand these pressures differs significantly across species, it is worthy to note that recent advances have been achieved in limiting the adverse consequences—either through the use of genetic methods or by the induction of stress tolerance." The scientists maintain that despite the fact that heat and drought stress may have a negative impact on the plant's growth and development, reproductive growth is the most affected. Anthesis or grain filling stress may have a major impact on crop production if it is mild while damage to the photosynthetic machinery, oxidative stress and membrane instability are also caused by these forces, they say.
Agricultural droughts will continue across water-scarce Central Asia, says study - A severe agriculture drought swept Central Asia in 2021 in its early growing season, causing mass die-offs of crops and livestock and leading to increased food prices. This harsh drought is not an independent event but an intensification of a drying trend since the 1990s. Whether the worsening agriculture droughts will continue in the future is of great concern to both the public and the scientific community. Dr. Jiang Jie and Prof. Zhou Tianjun from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have investigated past changes in agriculture droughts across Central Asia and made projections about future changes. They found that the aggravation of agricultural droughts across southern Central Asia in its early growing season since 1992 was caused by the combination of anthropogenic forcing and internal variability associated with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). They also found that human-induced reduction in soil moisture will be aggravated in the future due to the rapidly warming climate. The study was published in Nature Geoscience on Jan. 12. It was based on multiple pieces of evidence, including observations and large ensemble simulations provided by the U.S.'s National Center for Atmospheric Research, Germany's Max Planck Institute and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. "Agricultural drought refers to soil moisture deficits, which is closely related to meteorological factor changes and usually happens after meteorological drought," said Dr. Jiang, first author of the study. The researchers found that anthropogenic external forcing and the natural internal variability of the climate system together have led to aggravated droughts since the 1990s by modulating long-term changes in meteorological factors, including temperature and precipitation. "The anthropogenic external forcing includes anthropogenic changes in greenhouses gases, aerosols, and land use, etc., and mainly refers to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in this research," said Dr. Jiang. The continued emission of greenhouse gases has resulted in a rapid warming across Central Asia, which has further led to increased evapotranspiration and reduced soil moisture in this region. The prominent natural variability that influences Central Asian droughts is a long-term oscillation of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, i.e., the IPO, which waxes and wanes every 20 to 30 years. The recent IPO cycle since the 1990s, from a warmer than normal sea surface in the tropical central-eastern Pacific to a cooler than normal condition, resulted in reduced spring rainfall across southern Central Asia and a subsequent decrease in soil moisture in the early growing season..
As climate warms, drier air likely to be more stressful than less rainfall for Douglas-fir trees -Douglas-fir trees will likely experience more stress from drier air as the climate changes than they will from less rain, computer modeling by Oregon State University scientists shows. The research is important because Douglas-fir are widespread throughout the Pacific Northwest, an iconic species with ecological, cultural and economic significance, and learning how the trees respond to drought is crucial for understanding forest sensitivity to a shifting climate. Douglas-fir grow in a range that stretches from northern British Columbia to central California, and also includes the Rocky Mountains and northeastern Mexico. In Oregon, Douglas-fir are found in a variety of mixed conifer and hardwood forests, from sea level to 5,000 feet, and can reach a massive size; a tree on Bureau of Land Management land in Coos County is more than 300 feet tall and greater than 11 feet in diameter. Native Americans traditionally used the wood of Douglas-fir, Oregon's official state tree since 1936, for fuel and for tools, its pitch as a sealant and many parts of the tree for medicinal purposes. A versatile timber tree, Douglas-fir is a source of softwood products including boards, railroad ties, plywood veneer and wood fiber. Oregon leads all U.S. states in softwood production and most of that is Douglas-fir. The OSU study, published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, simulated the response of a 50-year-old stand of Douglas-fir on the Oregon Cascade Range's west slope to less rain and higher "vapor pressure deficit," or VPD—basically the atmosphere's drying power. Douglas-fir, like other plants, create food for themselves using sunlight, carbon dioxide and water during photosynthesis. The process pulls CO2, a greenhouse gas, from the air, releases oxygen and results in the long-term storage of carbon in the wood and roots. "What governs carbon fixation and water fluxes in response to increased temperatures and water limitation in regions with Mediterranean climates—wet winters and dry summers—is only partially understood," "High VPD and lack of soil moisture can create significant water stress in forests, but dry atmosphere and lack of rainfall are strongly linked, making it difficult to discern their independent effects. They tend to both occur during the summer." Jarecke and collaborators used a computer model to disentangle the effects of the two phenomena. "Decreasing spring and summer precipitation did not have much of an effect on Douglas-fir water stress because moisture remained plentiful deep in the soil profile," Jarecke said. "This demonstrated that the effect of reduced rainfall under future climate change may be minimal but will depend on subsurface water availability, which is determined by soil properties and rooting depths."
Dozen Dead, Over 100,000 Without Power As California Braces For Worst 'Atmospheric River' Barrage - A moisture conveyor belt of atmospheric rivers continues to pound storm-battered California as the latest system could be the most severe yet. Power outages plague Northern California, as a dozen people have died across the Golden State in the last two weeks after. At least 3,000 people were evacuated on Sunday. The National Weather Service described the bomb cyclone, a hurricane-force low-pressure system, and an atmospheric river as the "most potent" yet. Forecasters said the "relentless parade" of "atmospheric rivers" will peak Monday into Tuesday. NWS said, "two major episodes of heavy precipitation" impacting the Golden State "in quick succession," along with "two of the more energetic and moisture-laden parade of cyclones that are aiming directly for" the West Coast. "We expect to see the worst of it still in front of us," Gov. Gavin Newsom warned Sunday. Newsom sent a request to the Biden administration for an emergency declaration to support recovery efforts which was approved this morning. More than 130,000 homes and businesses across California had no power on early Monday, according to PowerOutage.us – down from over 400,000 on Sunday after heavy rains and high winds toppled trees and telephone poles. "We are in the middle of a deadly barrage of winter storms – and California is using every resource at its disposal to protect lives and limit damage," Newsom said. He added: "We are taking the threat from these storms seriously, and want to make sure that Californians stay vigilant as more storms head our way."By Sunday evening, nearly 3,000 people were evacuated from Northern California, with 200 staying in shelters. At least 12 people have died from weather-related incidents across the state in the last two weeks, Newsom said. The latest forecast shows some areas in Northern California could receive upwards of 10 inches of rain through mid-month. For high elevations, that could mean feet of snow.
California storm power outages continue as flood warnings issued - — Thousands of residents were ordered to evacuate a seaside community Monday, and a five-year-old boy was swept away in a creek, authorities said, as the latest in a string of strong storms triggered mudslides and caused widespread flooding across California. The storms Monday caused significant damage along the state’s central coast, including mudslides, collapsed roadways and flooding that trapped people in vehicles and homes. Thousands of residents of Montecito were ordered to evacuate Monday amid extreme rainfall on on what was the fifth anniversary of a mudslide that killed 23 people there. About half a foot of rain had fallen in neighboring Santa Barbara by Monday evening and nearly 13 inches at San Marcos Pass in the mountains to its northeast. “As far as we know, this is a historical record for the amount of rain in that location,” said Eric Boldt, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Los Angeles at a news conference. A five-year-old boy was swept away in the Central California town of Paso Robles, with police calling off the search due to bad weather seven hours later, officials said. The boy and his mother were driving to school around 8 a.m. when water on the roadway swept the car into a nearby creek, according to San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Office spokesperson Tony Cipolla. “Both either jumped out or exited the vehicle, and they both got swept into the current,” Cipolla said. Neighbors were able to rescue the mother, but the boy was pulled downstream towards the Salinas River, he said. A police underwater search team looked for the boy for seven hours, but at around 3 p.m. they called off the search because it had become too dangerous for the dive team, Cipolla said. Police are hoping for a break in the weather so they can resume the search, he said. The Weather Service cautioned that several inches of additional rain could still fall Monday night from roughly San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles, the entire zone under flash flood warnings. Rivers, meanwhile, were approaching or surpassing flood stages from Sacramento to Los Angeles, while paralyzing snowfall was expected in the Sierra Nevada. All across Santa Cruz County on Monday, residents’ phones blared with emergency alerts warning of flash floods and urging people not to leave their homes unless they had to. Rising waters, landslides and downed trees made travel treacherous for those seeking shelter: In Watsonville, road closures forced people heading to a Red Cross shelter to take a long detour through farm fields. President Biden declared a state of emergency for California on Monday at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request, clearing the way for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the storms that have killed at least 12 people in 10 days. That’s more than the number of civilians killed by wildfires in the past two years, Newsom (D) said Sunday at a news conference. More than 90,000 customers were without power Monday evening in Northern and Central California, although that number was down from more than a half-million Sunday after violent winds toppled trees from the Bay Area to the Sacramento Valley. Utility officials said they were working to repair damage to power infrastructure caused by strong winds in recent days as gusts continued to cause damage, downing trees and blowing the roof off a structure in San Luis Obispo County, according to the Weather Service.
Endless onslaught of atmospheric river events in California claim 14 lives, residents urged to be hyper-vigilant - (10 videos) California is once again under threat as an energetic low pressure system quickly gathers strength off the West Coast, bringing with it heavy precipitation, thunderstorms and several feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada region. This, along with already saturated soils and high river levels, is expected to exacerbate ongoing flooding, prolong the risk of flash flooding, and mudslides, especially in recent burn scar regions. The National Weather Service has issued a warning for residents to be prepared, as the heavy rainfall, especially in southern California, is expected to be excessive today and tonight. As of January 9, the storms affecting California over the past 10 days have claimed lives of at least 14 people Nearly all of California has seen much above average rainfall totals over the past several weeks, with totals 400 – 600% above average values. An enormous cyclone forming well off the coast of the North American continent will bring yet another Atmospheric River toward the West Coast–this time impacting areas further north from northern California northward up the coast of the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday, January 11. Residents of California are bracing themselves for yet another round of heavy precipitation as an energetic low pressure system quickly gathers strength off the West Coast. This rapidly intensifying system is not only highly moisture-laden, but it is also packing thunderstorms. According to National Weather Service forecasters Kong and Oravec, the core of the system will hit the state with moderate to heavy rain resuming across much of California today and continuing through tonight.1 The recent spate of heavy precipitation in California has resulted in nearly saturated soils and increasingly high river levels. Today’s heavy rain will further exacerbate ongoing flooding, prolonging the risk of flash flooding and mudslides, especially across recent burn scar regions. With nearly all of California seeing much above-average rainfall totals over the past several weeks, with totals ranging from 400 – 600% above average, residents are urged to be prepared for the potential dangers. In addition to the heavy rain, the Sierra Nevada region can expect several feet of snow. This, along with the heavy precipitation, will make travel dangerous in the affected areas. As the storm system pushes rapidly inland later tonight, it will bring widespread mountain snows across the Great Basin. While the one good aspect of the recent heavy rains has been a relief from the persistent drought that has been plaguing large portions of the West, the recent deluge is now creating a new set of problems. Many of California’s reservoirs are now above their historical average levels, with water levels increasing rapidly during the past month. The National Weather Service advises that widespread considerable flood impact is likely across large portions of California into western Nevada. Unfortunately, the bad news does not end there, as another atmospheric river is set to impact areas further north from northern California northward up the coast of the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday. When all is said and done, precipitation totals over the next few days will be in the 75 – 178 mm (3 – 7 inches) range through the Transverse Range of southern California, northward along the central to northern California coast ranges and through the Sierra.
Watch: California golfers flee '45-foot' waves crashing onto Pebble Beach course – Golfers were sent scrambling for safety as massive waves overtook an ocean-front golf course during one of a series of atmospheric rivers to slam into California in recent weeks. The group was completing the 14th hole at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club in Pebble Beach when a video recorded by Peter Butler shows the group was sent running for higher ground. Butler began filming the unruly ocean crashing onto the normally serene golf course to document the wild weather. He can be heard describing the "45-foot waves" and soon realizing they needed to move fast. "It's going to hit us, dude," someone in the video says, and then the video begins shaking as Butler runs away from the incoming waves. "Go, go, run!" "Oh no," another person said. "Look at the carts." A quick shot of the golf course showed several golf carts halfway submerged in the stormy waves and golf gear being pulled back out to sea. No one was hurt, but the group decided to call it a day on their round of golf. The parade of atmospheric rivers continues The game became high stakes due to a series of atmospheric rivers continuing to pound California over the past several weeks. California continues to deal with an onslaught of atmospheric river storms that has brought torrential rain and life-threatening flooding, mudslides and debris flows to many parts of the state.
California tormented by more heavy rains, damaging winds (Reuters) - The latest Pacific storm unleashed torrential downpours and damaging winds in California on Tuesday, knocking out power and turning city streets into rivers as mudslides cut off highways and entire communities faced evacuation orders. More than 33 million Californians were threatened by severe weather throughout the day as "heavy to excessive" rainfall was expected across the state, especially in southern California, as winds gusts were clocked at more than 40 miles (64 km) an hour in many places, the National Weather Service (NWS) said. The high winds wreaked havoc on the power grid, knocking out electricity to 180,000 homes and businesses as of midday Tuesday, according to data from Poweroutage.us. Experts say the growing frequency and intensity of such storms, interspersed with extreme heat and dry spells, are symptoms of climate change. Though the rain and snow will help replenish reservoirs and aquifers, a mere two weeks of precipitation will not solve two decades of drought. Meanwhile, terrain denuded by past wildfires has created an increased risk of flash floods and mudslides.The torrential rains, along with heavy snow in mountain areas, follow yet another "atmospheric river" of dense moisture funneled into California from the tropical Pacific, powered by sprawling low-pressure systems churning offshore. With the soil already saturated, much of the damage has been concentrated around the city of Santa Barbara, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles, where the steep foothills slope toward the Pacific Ocean. Several remote spots have reported more than a foot (30 cm) of rain including the San Marcos Pass in the Santa Ynez Mountains above Santa Barbara, where more than 17 inches (43 cm) have fallen, according to the NWS. In the Rancho Oso area of the Santa Ynez Mountains, mud and debris across the roadway isolated about 400 people and 70 horses, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department said on Twitter, posting a photo of a vehicle stuck in the mud. Rescue teams were on the way, spokesperson Scott Safechuck said. Near the coast, the California Highway Patrol closed U.S. 101, the main highway connecting northern and southern California, with no estimated time on reopening. "Please stay home and do not drive today if at all possible," the highway patrol advised on Twitter, posting pictures of mudslides and fallen rock that blocked the highway. Many communities were flooded including Goleta, where a man rode his paddleboard through the streets. On Monday, officials ordered the evacuation of some 25,000 people, including the entire affluent enclave of Montecito near Santa Barbara, due to heightened flood and mudslide risks. The 4,000 people of Planada, a community in Central California, started their Tuesday morning with an order to evacuate their homes by the county sheriff's office. The Montecito evacuation zone was among 17 California regions where authorities worry the ongoing torrential downpours could unleash lethal cascades of mud, boulders and other debris in the hillsides.
Cascading climate disasters: Atmospheric rivers over California's wildfire burn scars raise fears of deadly mudslides -Rivers of muddy water from heavy rainfall raced through city streets as thousands of people evacuated homes downhill from California's wildfire burn scars amid atmospheric river storms drenching the state in early January 2023.The evacuations at one point included all of Montecito, home to around 8,000 people—and the site of the state's deadliest mudslide on record exactly five years earlier.Wildfire burn scars are particularly risky because wildfires strip away vegetation and make the soil hydrophobic—meaning it is less able to absorb water. A downpour on these vulnerable landscapes can quickly erode the ground, and fast-moving water can carry the debris, rocks and mud with it.Officials warned of a risk of debris flows near several recently burned areas, including near Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties and theShasta Trinity National Forest.I study cascading hazards like this, in which consecutive events lead to human disasters. Studies show climate change is raising the risk of multiple compound disasters, including new research showing increasing risks to energy infrastructure.Five years ago, on Jan. 9, 2018, a deadly cascading disaster struck Montecito, a community in the coastal hills near Santa Barbara.The cascade of events had started many months earlier with a drought, followed by a wet winter that fueled dense growth of vegetation and shrubs. An unusually warm and dry spring and summer followed, and it dried out the vegetation, turning it into fuel ready to burn. That fall, extreme Santa Ana and Diablo winds created the perfect conditions for wildfires.The Thomas Fire began near Santa Barbara in December 2017 and burned over 280,000 acres. Then, on Jan. 9, 2018, extreme rainfall hit the region—including the burn scar left by the fire. Water raced through the burned landscape above Montecito, eroding the ground and creating the deadliest mudslide-debris flow event in California's history. More than 400 homes were destroyed in about two hours, and 23 people died.These kinds of cascading events aren't unique to California. Australia's Millennium Drought (1997-2009) also ended with devastating floods that inundated urban areas and breached levees. A study linked some of the levee and dike failures to earlier drought conditions, such as cracks forming because of exposure to heat and dryness.
Rain-soaked California to see more rounds of stormy weather - (AP) — With rain-soaked California expected to see several more rounds of stormy weather over the weekend and into next week, state and federal officials pleaded with residents Friday to stay alert to the possibility of more flooding and damage.A series of storms has walloped the state since late December, leaving at least 19 people dead. On Friday, 6,000 people were under evacuation orders and another 20,000 households were without power, said Nancy Ward, the director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.Homes have flooded, levees breached and topped, and mudslides and hurricane-force winds have slammed parts of the state, including a tornado touchdown in Northern California, she said at a press briefing with Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who was in California to tour damage. “People will become complacent, but the ground is saturated. It is extremely, extremely dangerous,” Ward said. “And that water can continue to rise well after the storms have passed.”The ongoing atmospheric river pattern brought showers to Northern California early Friday, and additional surges of moisture, which will be even stronger, are expected to again spread rain and snow elsewhere in the state over the coming days. In the last 18 days, a state plagued by drought has averaged more than nine inches (23 centimeters) of rainfall a day — a remarkable amount that has seen some locations meet their average annual rainfall already, said David Lawrence, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. A Saturday storm will bring widespread, powerful rainfall and heavy mountain snowfall — with wind gusts of up to 60 mph (97 kph) and the possibility of more trees falling and power outages, he said. There have been at least 19 storm-related deaths, and half of those have involved motorists, with some of the deaths preventable if drivers had heeded road closure signs,
Storm outages bring California misery, expose power grid weaknesses – LATimes -- David Higares was on his fourth day without power in his Morada home in San Joaquin County when he woke up to indoor temperatures barely above 50 degrees. His lights had flickered twice since his neighborhood outside Stockton went dark Saturday, following one of the train of atmospheric river storms, but his home remained dark, he said. Each time he checked, it seemed Pacific Gas & Electric had again pushed back the estimate for restoring power.“It feels endless at this point,” said Higares, who lost all the food in his refrigerator and freezer due to spoilage. “Basically, we’re camping indoors.”Since New Year’s Eve, hundreds of thousands of Californians have lost power — many multiple times — as a string of severe winter storms has provided the latest glimpse into how extreme weather tied to climate change is challenging California’s power grid in unprecedented ways.Increased stress on the electric grid has previously been most apparent in the summer and fall months, when wildfires have forced shutoffs to avoid lines sparking flames and during extreme heat when officials have requested customers limit power use during peak times. But this powerful string of storms wreaked a new kind of havoc for utility providers, with heavy rains and high winds pummeling drought-stressed land, toppling trees onto power lines, knocking down support poles and blocking access to certain areas. At one point, more than 400,000 were without electricity, the vast majority in Northern California. For some, getting power back was a days-long ordeal. Others said they felt as if they were caught in a cycle of losing and regaining power.“We expect, unfortunately, more weather extremes, more climate volatility — not just hotter in the summer, but more extreme weather in our winters,” said Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network, which advocates on behalf of utility ratepayers. “Utilities [should be] viewing themselves as part of an ecosystem, if you will, of disaster preparedness.”As the state looks for options to strengthen its power grid in the face of these more powerful storms, officials are running into some of the same challenges as when responding to extreme heat or fire dangers.Options to make the power grid more resilient remain limited, and in many cases, come with a hefty price tag — a concern for Californians already facing some of the highest electricity costs in the nation. “This is kind of the new normal, this is kind of what the climate crisis has brought us,” said Ric O’Connell, executive director of GridLab, a nonprofit focused on power grid transformation. He said California officials and utilities should be “thinking holistically about the system,” considering new technology and innovative ways that can provide more resilient energy sources even during crises.PG&E, the state’s largest electricity provider, has plans to bury thousands of miles of lines to better protect against wildfires, which would also help eliminate risk from high winds or falling trees, experts said — but it’s one of the costliest alternatives. The plan is expected to cost at least $15 billion, and it only accounts for about 10% of PG&E’s transmission and distribution lines. Moving all the state’s power lines underground would be financially unsustainable, O’Connell said.
Grid operator PJM probes U.S. power supply woes during December storm (Reuters) - The largest U.S. power-grid operator is probing why suppliers were unable to deliver needed power during a late December storm when customers narrowly avoided outages as freezing temperatures descended, officials said on Thursday. Generators that were unable to deliver increased electricity during three peak demand days in late December could face about $2 billion in penalties, stakeholders and analysts said. Grid operator PJM Interconnection oversees supply in a 13-state region, managing and paying on-call generators to keep power systems running. When generators fail to meet supply, they may be required to pay the grid operator for replacement power. PJM officials said on Thursday that more than 90% of the generators that fell short gave less than an hour's notice during winter Storm Elliott. PJM acknowledged it underestimated demand by about 10%. About 70% of the units that were short were natural gas-fired generators, some that suffered pipeline fuel losses from the Marcellus-Utica shale region, said Brian Fitzpatrick, a fuel supply analyst at PJM. "There just was not enough upstream supply to match the demand," Fitzpatrick said. The operator serves a territory that spans New Jersey to Illinois and Washington, D.C. It plans to release in April a report on its investigation.
Storms, tornadoes slam US South, killing at least 7 people (AP) — A giant, swirling storm system billowing across the South on Thursday killed at least six people in central Alabama, where a tornado ripped roofs off homes and uprooted trees in historic Selma, while another person was killed in Georgia, where severe winds knocked out power to tens of thousands of people. In Autauga County, Alabama, 41 miles (66 kilometers) northeast of Selma, at least six fatalities were confirmed and an estimated 40 to 50 homes were damaged or destroyed by storms that cut a strip across the county, said Ernie Baggett, the county’s emergency management director. At least 12 people were injured severely enough to be taken to hospitals by emergency responders, Baggett told The Associated Press, adding that he didn’t know the extent of their injuries. He said crews were focused Thursday evening on cutting through downed trees to look for people who may need help. “There are some houses that were completely destroyed that haven’t been searched yet,” Autauga County Coroner Buster Barber said late Thursday, adding that crews “are still in the process of searching through rubble.” In Georgia, a passenger died when a tree fell on a vehicle in Jackson during the storm, Butts County Coroner Lacey Prue said. In the same county southeast of Atlanta, the storm appeared to have knocked a freight train off its tracks, officials said. Nationwide, there were 33 separate tornado reports Thursday from the National Weather Service as of Thursday evening, with a handful of tornado warnings still in effect in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. However, the reports were not yet confirmed and some of them could later be classified as wind damage after assessments are done in coming days.
Tornado outbreak in Alabama leaves extensive damage and at least 7 people dead - (9 videos) A severe weather outbreak in the Southeast United States on Thursday, January 12, 2023, has left at least seven people dead, several injured, and extensive damage in its wake. A series of tornadoes in central Alabama killed at least six people and in Georgia, a passenger in a vehicle was killed when a tree fell on the car during a severe storm. At least seven people were killed and several were injured as severe storms and tornadoes swept through the Southeast United States on January 12, 2023. The National Weather Service issued tornado watches for several states, and as of early Friday morning, there were 35 separate tornado reports. The historic city of Selma, Alabama’s Dallas County, and its surrounding areas sustained some of the heaviest damage, with homes destroyed and trees uprooted, from a tornado classified by the National Weather Service as “large and extremely dangerous.”1, 2 While storm surveys are scheduled to being early Friday morning (LT), unofficial estimations indicate this was an EF-2 or EF-3 tornado that destroyed buildings, flipped cars and downed power lines. The tornado made a direct hit on downtown Selma and lifted debris as high as at least 5 km (16 000 feet) into the air, based on radar and reports. City officials have declared the area a “disaster area” and many roads are blocked with storm debris, making it difficult for emergency management officials to complete their assessments. The tornado also passed close to Selma High School, but school officials later confirmed no students were injured. The school has since opened as an overnight shelter. Multiple people were reportedly injured in the city, but there were no known fatalities as of Thursday night (LT). “This is a disaster area. Powerlines are down and trees are down – this is really dangerous,” Dallas County Probate Judge Jimmy Nunn said. In Autauga County, Alabama (about 65 km / 40 miles northeast of Selma) the same tornado cut a 32 km (20 miles) long path across two rural communities, damaging about 40 – 50 homes and killing at least six people, according to county officials. Emergency management director, Ernie Baggett, confirmed that the fatalities were scattered across multiple homes in the Old Kingston community. He said that at least 12 people were injured severely enough to be taken to hospitals by emergency responders.3 Thousands of county residents were without electricity as of 15:40 LT Thursday, according to the Central Alabama Electric Cooperative’s outage map. A gas station was damaged, debris was strewn about and trees were toppled in Wadsworth. Autauga County Roads 57 and 62 also sustained heavy damage as power lines were brought down by the storm.Damage was also reported in other parts of Alabama, with officials in Elmore County confirming that one person was injured and numerous homes were damaged. Emergency Management Director Keith Barnett said that there was a “large swath of damage in the northwestern portion of the county.”4 In Northern Alabama’s Morgan County, a storm caused 10 to 15 injuries, none of which are believed to be life-threatening, and damaged numerous buildings. Streets and fields were littered with debris and downed power lines in Decatur, a Morgan County community roughly 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Huntsville, as seen in pictures from the city police and the county sheriff’s department.
Rescuers seek survivors after storms kill 9 across South -(AP) — Rescuers raced Friday to find survivors in the aftermath of a tornado-spawning storm system that killed at least nine people as it barreled across parts of Georgia and Alabama and inflicted heavy damage on Selma, a flashpoint of the civil rights movement. Authorities described widespread destruction that included people trapped beneath collapsed homes, uprooted trees sent crashing through buildings, thousands of homes left without power and a freight train that derailed amid powerful winds. Those who emerged with their lives gave thanks Friday as they picked through the wreckage to see what could be salvaged. “God was sure with us,” Tracey Wilhelm said as she surveyed the shattered remnants of her mobile home in Alabama’s Autauga County. She was at work Thursday when a tornado lifted her mobile home off its foundation and dumped it several feet away in a heap of rubble. Her husband and their five dogs scrambled into a shed that stayed intact, she said. Rescue workers later found them inside unharmed. About 100 rescuers — both professionals and volunteers — searched the rubble looking for people, Autauga County Coroner Buster Barber said. The National Weather Service, which was working to confirm the twisters, said suspected tornado damage was reported in at least 14 counties in Alabama and five in Georgia.
U.S. climate disasters racked up 3rd biggest ever bill in 2022 -govt report (Reuters) - There were 18 separate weather and climate disaster events in the United States last year, exceeding $1 billion each in losses, making 2022 the third-costliest year in records spanning more than four decades, a federal report showed on Tuesday.Last year was also the third-highest disaster count ever, the Assessing the U.S. Climate in 2022 report by the National Centers for Environmental Information said.The centers counted six severe storms, three tropical cyclones, three hail events, two tornadoes and one each for drought, flood, winter storm, and wildfire events in 2022, resulting in the deaths of 474 people.Hurricane Ian, which devastated parts of Florida in September, was billed as the third-costliest U.S. hurricane on the 43-year record, costing $112.9 billion, while the Western/Central Drought and Heat Wave was also one of the more costly droughts on record, tallying up to $22.2 billion.Worldwide, three of the decade's costliest disasters, including Hurricane Ian, happened in 2022.
Hurricanes and floods bring $120 billion in insurance losses in 2022 (Reuters) - Hurricane Ian in the United States and floods and Australia helped to make 2022 one of the costliest years on record for natural disasters, Munich Re said on Tuesday, warning that climate change was making storms more intense and frequent. Losses from natural catastrophes covered by insurance totalled around $120 billion last year, similar to 2021, though short of 2017's record damages, Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, said. The annual tally by Munich Re is higher than the average of $97 billion in insured losses over the previous five years and exceeds an initial estimate of $115 billion last month by rival Swiss Re. "Weather shocks are on the rise," Ernst Rauch, chief climate scientist at Munich Re, told Reuters. "We can't directly attribute any single severe weather event to climate change. But climate change has made weather extremes more likely." Total losses from natural catastrophes, including those not covered by insurance, were $270 billion in 2022. That is down from around $320 billion in 2021 and near the average of the previous five years. The United States once again accounted for a big portion of the losses with Hurricane Ian, which hit Florida in September, causing $60 billion of insured damages and $100 billion in total losses. Floods in Australia early in the year and again in October resulted in $4.7 billion in insured damages and $8.1 billion overall. Record monsoon rains and faster melting of glaciers resulted in floods in Pakistan that killed at least 1,700 people and caused $15 billion in damages. Most of the damage was not covered by insurance.
NASA says 2022 fifth warmest year on record, warming trend continues -- Earth's average surface temperature in 2022 tied with 2015 as the fifth warmest on record, according to an analysis by NASA. Continuing the planet's long-term warming trend, global temperatures in 2022 were 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit (0.89 degrees Celsius) above the average for NASA's baseline period (1951-1980), scientists from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York reported. "This warming trend is alarming," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "Our warming climate is already making a mark: Forest fires are intensifying; hurricanes are getting stronger; droughts are wreaking havoc and sea levels are rising. NASA is deepening our commitment to do our part in addressing climate change. Our Earth System Observatory will provide state-of-the-art data to support our climate modeling, analysis and predictions to help humanity confront our planet's changing climate." The past nine years have been the warmest years since modern recordkeeping began in 1880. This means Earth in 2022 was about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (or about 1.11 degrees Celsius) warmer than the late 19th century average. "The reason for the warming trend is that human activities continue to pump enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the long-term planetary impacts will also continue," said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS, NASA's leading center for climate modeling. Human-driven greenhouse gas emissions have rebounded following a short-lived dip in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, NASA scientists, as well as international scientists, determined carbon dioxide emissions were the highest on record in 2022. NASA also identified some super-emitters of methane—another powerful greenhouse gas—using the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation instrument that launched to the International Space Station earlier this year. The Arctic region continues to experience the strongest warming trends—close to four times the global average—according to GISS research presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, as well as a separate study.
Ocean heat sets another record high --The ocean saw record high temperatures once again in 2022, according to new research published on Tuesday.“The inexorable climb in ocean temperatures is the inevitable outcome of Earth’s energy imbalance, primarily associated with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases,” said the paper, published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. “The global long-term warming trend is so steady and robust that annual records continue to be set with each new year,” it added. Global ocean temperatures have continually broken records in recent years. Two separate data sets evaluated in the paper — one from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and another from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — showed relatively similar increases in temperatures in the last year. Ocean temperatures, which are measured in zettajoules (ZJ), have typically increased by about 5.3 ZJ or 5.5 ZJ a year over the last six decades, according to NOAA and CAS, respectively. However, between 2021 and 2022, ocean temperatures increased by about 9.1 ZJ or 10.9 ZJ, according to the two data sets. Since the late 1980s, the ocean has been warming at a rate three to four times faster than earlier decades, the paper noted. For instance, CAS data showed that ocean temperatures increased by about 2.3 ZJ per year between 1958 and 1985. However, since 1986, it has increased by about 8.7 ZJ a year. As the world has struggled to come together on climate change efforts, recent research has continually showed record-setting climate events and natural disasters. In the U.S. alone, there were 18 separate weather and climate disasters that cost more than $1 billion in 2022, making it the third most costly year on record, NOAA said in a release on Tuesday. The last eight years were also the warmest on record, according to research released by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service on Monday.
Devastating floods and landslides leave 17 dead and over half a million affected in the Philippines - Heavy rain and strong winds, caused by the combined effects of a low-pressure area, northeast monsoon, and shearline, have been affecting several parts of the Philippines in recent days, resulting in floods, and landslides that caused widespread damage and left at least 17 people dead. Many of the affected areas are still recovering from severe weather in late December, which resulted in at least 52 deaths. The worst affected regions include Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Mimaropa, Bicol, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region, and BARMM. According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), the floods and landslides in recent days have resulted in 17 deaths, 7 injuries, and 2 missing persons. Over 71 000 people have been displaced and are currently staying in 123 evacuation centers across the country, while over half a million have been affected in total. The NDRRMC reported a total of 687 flood incidents and 31 landslides in affected regions, with the highest number of affected people being reported in Central Luzon, Mimaropa, and Davao Region. Additionally, at least 192 houses have been destroyed, with the majority of them being in Mimaropa. At 15:00 UTC on January 13, the low pressure area was estimated based on all available data in the vicinity of Carmen, Surigao del Dur (9.2°N, 126.0°E). This weather disturbance remains less likely to develop into a tropical depression within the next 24 hours. Over the next 24 hours, moderate to heavy rain is expected across most parts of central and southern Philippines, with extreme flood advisories in effect for Eastern Visayas, Caraga, Zamboanga Peninsula, and BARMM.1 Many of these affected areas are still recovering from severe weather in late December, which resulted in at least 52 deaths.
Very large landslide hits Colombia’s Cauca Department, destroying 64 homes - A very large landslide destroyed the communities of Parraga Viejo, Santa Clara, La Soledad and Chontaduro in Colombia’s Cauca Department on January 9, 2023. Luckily, growing cracks started appearing several days before the landslide, alerting communities about the risk. On January 9, 2023, a massive landslide hit the town of Rosas in Colombia’s Cauca Department, destroying several communities in its path. The slide, approximately 850 m (2 790 feet) wide and 900 m (2 950 feet) long, affected over 700 people and completely destroyed 64 homes. President Gustavo Petro reported that 164 families have been evacuated to shelters.1 The landslide also had a significant impact on infrastructure, destroying more than 500 m (1 640 feet) of the Pan American Highway between Popayán and Pasto. In response, authorities are working to establish both short-term and long-term measures to restore connectivity in the affected area. President Pedro also announced plans for a billion-dollar investment project in the region to create a new path away from the tectonic plate believed to have caused the collapse. The president also stated that a plan will be established for the purchase of farms near the area that would allow for the relocation of the affected communities, and that each family will be left with more land than they had before the emergency for the production of food with the help of the state. The same area was hit by a soil avalanche on April 21, 2019, claiming the lives of 33 people. This recent disaster highlights the need for ongoing monitoring and risk management in the region to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
Severe dust storm turns day into night in Chaco, Argentina - (video) A severe dust storm hit parts of Argentina on January 12, 2023, quickly turning day into night. A severe dust storm swept through the province of Chaco in Argentina on January 12, 2023, quickly turning day into night. The storm hit the town of La Leonesa particularly hard, with images from the town showing the front of the storm as it quickly descended on the city and other parts of the province.1 The region has been experiencing high temperatures and drought for months which has left the area parched. With the temperature in this area reaching over 40 °C (104 °F), the dry, barren land was easily lifted by a strong wind, creating a massive dust cloud. According to the Servicio Meteorológico Nacional (SMN), the province was experiencing storms of varying intensity, some of which were locally strong. These storms were accompanied by intense gusts of wind, occasional hail, strong electrical activity, and primarily heavy rainfall in short periods. SMN has issued recommendations for residents in the affected areas to ensure their safety during the dust storm. These include seeking shelter in closed buildings such as houses, schools, or public buildings, securing any objects that may be thrown by the wind, staying away from trees as the wind may cause branches to break, avoiding electrical appliances and using wired telephones, avoiding driving on flooded or affected roads, and shutting off the electricity supply if there is a risk of water entering your home.
Eruption at Marapi volcano forces evacuation of 164 climbers, Indonesia - Indonesia’s Marapi volcano started erupting at around 23:00 UTC on January 6, 2023, resulting in a column of thick gray ash rising about 300 m (960 feet) above the peak or around 3.2 km (10 200 feet) a.s.l. The Aviation Color Code was raised to Orange. The Alert Level is at Level II (WASPADA) since August 3, 2011. Over the next 2 days, more than 22 eruptions were recorded. This eruptive activity was preceded by an increase in deep volcanic earthquakes on December 25, 2022, as well as inflation at the peak station tiltmeter. The last eruption at this volcano took place in 2018 (VEI 2). On January 8, the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarmas) evacuated 164 climbers from the area surrounding Mount Marapi, a volcano in Padang city, West Sumatra province. The climbers had been caught in the midst of an eruption that began late January 6 (UTC) — the morning of January 7 local time. Basarmas conducted the evacuation operation in coordination with local forces and community members. On January 8, ash clouds produced by the eruptions were rising up to 3 km (10 000 feet) above sea level on January 8, increasing to 3.6 km (12 000 feet) on January 9, according to data provided by Darwin VAAC. Based on the current Level II activity level, it is recommended that communities in the area and tourists/visitors refrain from conducting any activities or approaching the volcano within a 3 km (1.8 miles) radius of the crater/peak. This is due to the potential hazards of volcanic gases, which can be harmful to human life, emanating from the crater, the center of the eruption and source of gas releases.1
The greatest concentration of lightning ever recorded - The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption on January 15, 2022, has set a new record for the greatest concentration of lightning ever detected. According to data from Vaisala’s Global Lightning Dataset GLD360, nearly 400 000 lightning events were detected within just six hours of the eruption, making it a truly exceptional phenomenon. On January 15, 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the Pacific Ocean erupted, triggering over 600 000 lightning events. The eruption was the largest in over 100 years, and it caused significant damage to the Kingdom of Tonga and other Pacific states. According to data from GLD360, around 200 000 lightning events took place on January 13 and 14 but the majority occurred on January 15, with nearly 400 000 events detected in just six hours.1 This made it the greatest concentration of lightning ever recorded, with at the peak of the eruption, nearly half of all global lightning concentrated around the volcano. “In the December 2018 Anak Krakatau eruption, we detected about 340 00 events over a 1-week period, so to detect nearly 400 000 in just a few hours is extraordinary,” said Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist at Vaisala, a Finland-based environmental technology company.2 Around 56% of the lightning struck the surface of the land or ocean during the eruption. “The percentage of lightning that was classified as cloud-to-ground was higher than you would normally see in a typical thunderstorm, and higher than you typically see in volcanic eruptions, so that creates some interesting research questions,” said Vagasky. Data from Vaisala shows Tonga usually records only a few hundred lightning strikes in an entire year. But over the course of the eruption, more than 1 300 strikes hit the main island of Tongatapu alone.
Magnitude 7.2 earthquake strikes near Vanuatu – USGS – A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck 40 km (25 miles) west of Vanuatu's town of Port-Olry, United States Geological Survey said on Sunday. The earthquake was at a depth of 10 km, USGS said. "Tsunami waves reaching 0.3 to 1 meters above the tide level are possible for some coasts of Vanuatu," said the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
Magnitude 7.7 earthquake strikes Indonesia –EMSC - A magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Tanimbar region in Indonesia on Monday, the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said. The quake was at a depth of 97 kilometers (60.27 miles) below the earth's surface, EMSC said.
DEVELOPING: Tsunami Warning Issued After Powerful 7.7 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Indonesia - A tsunami warning was issued on Monday after a powerful 7.7 magnitude struck the Tanimbar region in Indonesia, Reuters reported. According to preliminary reports, the earthquake struck 60 miles below the earth’s surface.
Very strong M7.6 earthquake hits Tanimbar Islands region, Indonesia - A very strong earthquake registered by the USGS as M7.6 hit the Tanimbar Islands region, Indonesia at 17:47 UTC on January 9, 2023 (00:47 LT on January 10). The agency is reporting a depth of 105.1 km (65.3 miles). EMSC reports M7.6 at a depth of 100 km (62 miles), BMKG M7.5 at a depth of 130 km (81 miles). The epicenter was located about 339.3 km (210.8 miles) WSW of Tual (population 39 502), and 426 km (264.7 miles) SSE of Ambon (population 355 596), Maluku, Indonesia. 36 000 people are estimated to have felt very strong shaking, 76 000 strong, 194 000 moderate, and 1 528 000 light. The USGS issued a Green alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. There is a low likelihood of casualties and damage. Overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are vulnerable to earthquake shaking, though resistant structures exist. The predominant vulnerable building types are unreinforced brick with concrete floor and precast concrete frame with wall construction. After receiving preliminary data (M7.9), BMKG said there is a potential for tsunami and directed residents living in the affected regions to follow the tsunami early warning directions from the local government, BPBD, BNPB and BMKG. The agency later revised the magnitude to M7.5 and canceled tsunami warnings. Historical earthquakes of similar magnitude in this region have not produced tsunamis. This is the largest earthquake in this region since M7.7 on June 24, 2019.
No risk of tsunami after Darwin, Northern Territory shaken by magnitude-7.6 earthquake - The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) says there is no risk of a tsunami to Australia after people across the north of the country were awoken by a magnitude-7.6 earthquake in waters off Indonesia overnight. At 3:17am ACST on Tuesday, the undersea earthquake struck near the Tanimbar Islands, about 600 kilometres north of Darwin. The level of infrastructure damage — if any — remains unclear at this stage. The BOM said there was no threat of a tsunami to the Australian mainland, islands or territories from the quake. Geoscience Australia (GA) also received reports of people feeling it in parts of Timor-Leste and Indonesia. Seismologist with GA, Tanja Pejic, told ABC Radio Darwin the earthquake had a preliminary magnitude estimate of 7.6 and struck 90 kilometres under the Earth's surface. She said the earthquake was the largest in the area since 2010, with 2,600 reports so far from people who had felt it across the NT and Western Australia.
Australia news live: flooded Kimberley bridge looks like ‘a big bomb dropped on it’; Indonesia earthquake felt in Darwin -- The emergency management minister, Murray Watt, is doing the rounds on breakfast television and radio. He’s speaking to ABC News following the radio interview. Watt says he has not received any reports of damage in the Darwin “at this stage”.Obviously that’s a pretty scary incident for people to have to go through in Darwin. But at this stage we haven’t heard of any reports of damage on the Australian mainland. Fitzroy Crossing looks as though it ‘had a big bomb dropped on it’: Watt The emergency management minister, Murray Watt, told ABC Radio this morning that the damage is “so severe that it’s going to take time”.Talking about what he saw on the ground touring the region yesterday with the prime minister, Watt said:To see [Fitzroy Crossing] … which is the main freight route, not just into that community, but really across northern Australia. If you see that bridge from above, it looks like one of those bridges that has had a big bomb dropped on it, it’s just collapsed. And there’s been similarly severe damage to connecting roads.So at this point in time, the only way of getting food, medical supplies and other essentials into these communities is by air. And that’s why we’ve dispatched a number of ADF aircraft.… the reality is infrastructure repair in such a remote remote part of Australia … is going to take a significant amount of time, but we’re already on the job working with Western Australia to work out how we can get that done
Increased solar activity, more X-class solar flares possible – video - Solar activity increased over the past 4 days, with numerous C- and M-class solar flares and one X-class flare. With now geoeffective AR 3182, the source of the X1.2 solar flare on January 6, developing unstable ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic configuration, the chances for more X-class solar flares have increased to 30%. A total of 7 M-class solar flares erupted on the Sun since X1.2 at 00:57 UTC on January 6, most of them from newly-numbered AR 3184 (beta) that rotated onto the southeast limb on January 8 and produced a total of 4 flares during the day — M1.2, two M1.4, and M1.0, followed by M1.1 on January 9. Region 3181 (beta-delta), now moving away from the center of the solar disk, produced an M2.1 flare at 09:01 UTC today. There were no Earth-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) over the period, but this might change in the days ahead. On January 8, Region 3182 developed a beta-gamma-delta magnetic configuration and now poses a threat for strong to extreme (R3 – R5 Radio Blackouts — X-class) solar flares. The region is currently in a geoeffective position, so any coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by it would most likely be Earth-directed. This threat will last for a couple of days as the region rotates away from the center of the disk. Additionally, a new Region 3185 (N20E07, Bxo/beta) emerged and was numbered over the past 24 hours. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux was normal to moderate and the greater than 10 MeV proton flux was at background levels in 24 hours to 12:30 UTC today. There is a slight chance for a greater than 10 MeV proton flux enhancement at minor storm levels through January 11. The greater than 2 MeV electron flux is expected to be normal to moderate over the next 2 days.1 The solar wind environment was nominal over the past 24 hours. Solar wind speeds ranged between 350 – 450 km/s, total field was steady near 5-6 nT, and the Bz component was mostly neutral or northward. Ambient solar wind conditions are expected to prevail on January 9. A slight enhancement is expected on January 10 and 11 due to the anticipated influences of a negative polarity coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS).
Major X1.9 solar flare erupts from Region 3184 - video - A major solar flare measuring X1.9 erupted from the newly-numbered Active Region 3184 on January 9, 2023. The event started at 18:37, peaked at 18:50, and ended at 18:57 UTC.
- This is the second strongest solar flare of Solar Cycle 25, following X2.2 from Region 2992 at 03:57 UTC on April 20, 2022
- This is also the second X-class solar flare over the past 3 days after X1.2 at 00:57 UTC on January 6
- There is now a 35% chance for additional R3 – R5 (Strong to Extreme) Radio Blackouts, up from 30% earlier in the day
There were no radio signatures associated with today’s X-class flare that would suggest a coronal mass ejection (CME) was produced. Even if it was, the location of this region doesn’t favor Earth-directed CMEs. This will change in the days ahead as the region rotates toward the center of the solar disk. Shortwave radio blackouts affected the southern United States, Central America, most of South America, large parts of the Pacific Ocean, and parts of Antarctica. A total of 8 M-class solar flares erupted since X1.2 at 00:57 UTC on January 6, most of them from newly-numbered AR 3184 that rotated onto the southeast limb on January 8 and produced a total of 4 flares during the day — M1.2, two M1.4, and M1.0, followed by M1.1 and M2.1 on January 9. Another region to watch these days is Region 3182. This sunspot developed a beta-gamma-delta magnetic configuration on January 8 and also poses a threat for strong to extreme X-class solar flares. The region is currently in a geoeffective position, so any coronal mass ejection produced by it would most likely be Earth-directed. This threat will last for a couple of days as the region rotates away from the center of the disk.
X1.0 solar flare erupts from Region 3186 — CME produced - (video) A major solar flare measuring X1.0 erupted from the newly-numbered Active Region 3186 on January 10, 2023. The event started at 22:39, peaked at 22:47, and ended at 22:52 UTC. This is the third X-class solar flare since January 6, following X1.2 at 00:52 UTC on January 6 and X1.9 at 18:50 UTC — the second strongest solar flare of Solar Cycle 25. It is also the 11th X-class solar flare of Solar Cycle 25. The chances for M-class solar flares through January 13 are now at 70% and for X-class at 30%. A 10cm Radio Burst (Ten flare) lasting one minute and with peak flux of 320 sfu was associated with today’s X-class flare event. A 10cm radio burst indicates that the electromagnetic burst associated with a solar flare at the 10cm wavelength was double or greater than the initial 10cm radio background. This can be indicative of significant radio noise in association with a solar flare. This noise is generally short-lived but can cause interference for sensitive receivers including radar, GPS, and satellite communications. Blackout of HF (high frequency) radio communication was affected over the Pacific Ocean, including New Zealand and parts of eastern Australia. Available imagery shows a coronal mass ejection (CME) was produced by the flare but the location of this region still doesn’t favor Earth-directed CMEs. This region rotated into view on January 9 and 10 and was responsible for an M5.1 flare at 00:16 UTC on January 10. It was the most active region over the past 24 hours and the source of multiple C-class flares and an M1.3 flare. The region remained quite foreshortened during the period and, therefore, an entirely accurate analysis was not possible, but it appeared to possess a delta configuration from likely mixed polarity umbrae within the leader penumbral area. The region was also the source of numerous surges, sprays, and narrow CMEs – none of which are expected to have an Earth-directed component.
Asteroid 2023 AV flew past Earth at just 0.04 LD on January 12 - A newly-discovered asteroid designated 2023 AV flew past Earth at a distance of just 0.04 LD / 0.00010 AU (15 551 km / 9 663 miles) from the center of our planet at 20:09 UTC on January 12, 2023. That’s approximately 9 180 km (5 704 miles) from the surface. This is the first known asteroid to fly past Earth since the start of the year. It is also the 17thclosest on record (since 1901).In 2022, our observatories discovered 123 <1 LD asteroids and one that impacted Earth:Asteroid 2023 AV was first observed at Catalina Sky Survey, Arizona on January 13 — one day after it made its close approach to our planet.The object belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids and has an estimated diameter between 2 and 4.5 m (6.6 to 14.7 feet).
Defunct NASA Satellite To Crash Back To Earth - A defunct NASA science satellite is predicted to reenter Earth's atmosphere and 'mostly' burn up upon reentry. The space agency claims that the 5,400-pound (2,450-kilogram) satellite has a low risk of causing harm on the ground. NASA wrote in a press release the retired Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere around 6:40 p.m. EST today, with an uncertainty window of +/- 17 hours. Aerospace Corporation, a federally funded nonprofit organization, has been tracking ERBS. It predicts the satellite could crash back to Earth around 10:49 p.m. Monday. "The risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth is very low," NASA said, "approximately 1 in 9,400," adding "most of the satellite" will burn up upon reentry, but some pieces could survive and reach the surface. NASA launched ERBS in 1984 on the Space Shuttle Challenger. The satellite was expected to survive only two years, though it kept measuring stratospheric ozone, water vapor, nitrogen dioxide, and aerosols until 2005.
U.S. emissions rose slightly in 2022. They need to be falling rapidly. - U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased slightly in 2022, rising 1.3 percent compared with the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday. The report by the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, shows that the nation remains far from meeting President Biden’s ambitious climate targets — and that humanity remains far from averting the worst consequences of the climate crisis. Biden has pledged to cut U.S. emissions 50 to 52 percent by the end of the decade compared with 2005 levels. And humanity must significantly slash greenhouse gas pollution over the next decade, scientists say, to prevent disastrous extreme weather and other catastrophic climate effects around the globe. Before the coronavirus pandemic, America’s emissions had been falling. But U.S. emissions have moved in the wrong direction for the past two years: They rose 6.2 percent in 2021 compared with 2020, the Rhodium researchers said, as the nation emerged from pandemic-related shutdowns and increased its reliance on coal. “The key takeaway here is that emissions in the U.S. rebounded for a second year after the drop in 2020 owing to the pandemic and associated economic recession,” “Even with the continued growth in U.S. emissions, we’re still not back up to emissions at the pre-pandemic level in 2019,” King said. “And possibly we won’t get back to that level. So that’s the good news, or at least the somewhat less bad news.” Still, time is running out for the United States and other high-emitting countries to start rapidly reducing their planet-warming pollution. The Global Carbon Budget, an annual assessment of how much the world can afford to emit to stay within its warming targets, projected last fall that global emissions would hit a record high in 2022, with U.S. emissions increasing by an estimated 1.5 percent compared to the previous year. To have a chance of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, humanity can release no more than 380 billion tons of carbon dioxide over the coming decades — an amount equal to about nine years of current emissions, the report said.
US carbon emissions rose in 2022. That's not as bad as it sounds. - A new report from the Rhodium Group, a research firm that models greenhouse gas emissions, brings good news and bad news. First, the bad: U.S. emissions increased by just over 1 percent last year, making 2022 the second consecutive year of carbon emissions growth since the American economy began recovering from the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news is that there are signs that the U.S. economy is already starting to kick its addiction to planet-warming emissions, even before the implementation of the landmark clean energy law passed by Congress last year. Although carbon emissions grew in 2022, the 1.3 percent year-over-year growth was far smaller than the 6.2 percent surge in 2021. More significantly, emissions didn’t rise as fast as overall economic output, indicating that the U.S. economy became less carbon-intensive even as it roared back to life after the 2020 lockdowns. The main reason for this increasing divergence between economic growth and emissions growth is the decline of coal power, which is by far the most carbon-intensive form of electricity generation. As coal plants across the U.S. have shuttered over the past decade, natural gas plants have largely opened up to replace them. While natural gas is a fossil fuel, burning it produces around half the emissions that burning coal does. Even more notably, the past two years have seen a dramatic surge in renewable energy. Carbon-free power generation grew 12 percent in 2022, according to Rhodium, driven by the breakneck adoption of solar and wind. This growth came in spite of the fact that new solar deployments actually slowed down in 2022 as the industry grappled with snarls in the supply chain for polysilicon and other critical materials used to make solar panels. Anongoing squabble over tariffs on Chinese solar materials may further hamper the industry. Even so, the continued rollout of solar and wind facilities helped renewables overtake coal power in 2022, marking a major milestone in the energy transition. Solar, wind, and hydropower combined now account for around 22 percent of U.S. power generation, more than coal at 20 percent or nuclear at 19 percent, according to Rhodium. That hasn’t been the case in more than 60 years, ever since coal first surpassed hydropower. The new data from Rhodium suggests that, despite the shocks of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the U.S. is on a long-term path toward a cleaner grid. The drop in power-sector emissions last year doesn’t reflect the potential effect of the Inflation Reduction Act, the major climate law signed by President Biden last August, which provides extensive new tax credits for renewable energy as well as for electric vehicles and home energy efficiency. The first projects that benefit from the legislation aren’t expected to arrive until late 2023, but the subsidies will only further juice the current trend toward clean energy over the coming decade.
Low Salt Marsh Habitats Release More Carbon in Response to Warming, a New Study Finds - Inside Climate News - Salt marshes, excellent reservoirs of carbon, are living ecosystems with vegetation and microscopic organisms that live, breathe, poop and die in the marsh mud. “This is a place where you could get the biggest bang for your buck, if you will, if you’re interested in trying to invest some resources in sequestering carbon using biological systems,” saidSerena Moseman-Valtierra, an associate professor of biological science at the University of Rhode Island. Yet as temperatures rise, marshes at the lowest elevations may also be significant emitters of carbon. This complicated relationship between temperature and respiration of carbon was measured in a new study from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. With each seasonal increase in temperature recorded over a 16-month period, researchers found more carbon dioxide emitted from the low marsh (areas that experience twice-daily tides) than areas of the marsh at higher elevation (an area infrequently covered by the tides), although these marshes were still net carbon sinks. The results of this study add to scientists’ understanding of how rising temperatures will impact the carbon cycle in tidal wetlands, which are understudied in comparison to forests and terrestrial ecosystems. It also suggests that the carbon sink benefits of marshes may be undermined by warming temperatures.Many factors influence the rate of carbon storage in marshes: sea level rise, temperature and nitrogen availability in the soil, plus animal behavior and plant growth. These processes control the elevation of salt marshes relative to sea level, said Kevin Kroeger, co-author of the study and a supervisory research chemist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center. And if marshes are not able to keep up elevation commensurate with sea level, then vegetation will die, he said. Kroeger, along with fellow senior author Jim Tang, a senior scientist at the marine biological laboratory, wanted to understand the fate of carbon in the salt marsh by measuring respiration rates and response to warming temperatures. Marsh plants and soil bacteria, like humans, emit carbon dioxide, and sometimes methane when they decompose. “It turns out respiration is pretty hard to measure in these ecosystems,” Kroeger said.
Biden administration replaces Obama-era emissions guidance withdrawn by Trump -The Biden administration on Friday issued new guidance for incorporating greenhouse gas emissions into federal agencies’ environmental reviews, replacing Obama-era guidelines that had been withdrawn by the Trump administration. The guidance from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) follows a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rule from April. It also updates the Obama-era guidance to factor in updated climate science. The updated guidance further directs agencies to use a “rule of reason,” in which more impactful projects are subject to more in-depth analyses. “Disclosing and reducing emissions will ensure we’re building sustainable, resilient infrastructure for the 21st century and beyond,” CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory said in a statement. “These updated guidelines will provide greater certainty and predictability for green infrastructure projects, help grow our clean energy economy, and help fulfill President Biden’s climate and infrastructure goals.” Climate advocates called the guidance an improvement and important step forward but said it should be a first step for further action. Evergreen co-founder and senior adviser Sam Ricketts called the initial Obama-era guidance “pretty weak” even before the Trump administration withdrew it. The new guidance, he said, makes “significant improvements” in how federal agencies incorporate climate impacts. However, Ricketts said, not only could the guidance include more comprehensive instruction for agencies, “this is just guidance for agencies, which is critically important, but it’s not really a requirement that they use that guidance and truly evaluate climate impacts as part of a project.”
Washington state just started capping carbon emissions. Here's how it works. Washington state rang in the New Year with the launch of its most ambitious plan to slash carbon pollution. The new “cap-and-invest” program is designed to follow in the footsteps of California, where a cap-and-trade system began in 2013, while trying to learn from its missteps. Signed into law by Washington Governor Jay Inslee in 2021, the Climate Commitment Act works by setting a statewide “cap” on greenhouse gas emissions that steadily lowers over time. Washington, like California, is establishing a market for businesses to buy pollution “allowances” that will become increasingly expensive — an incentive to cut emissions and a way to raise money to counter climate change. The first auction to sell off these allowances is scheduled at the end of February, and if all goes according to plan, Washington’s emissions will drop to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, an even steeper cut than California’s, which aims for an 80 percent reduction by the same year. It’s the most recent example of a blue state putting a price tag on carbon dioxide, a longtime goal of climate advocates that has come with controversy. Last year, Oregon instituted a cap-and-trade system via executive order from former Governor Kate Brown after years of failed bills — including two attempts thwarted by Republican state senators going into hiding to avoid a vote. In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, a collection of almost a dozen states participate in a regional cap-and-trade program that began in 2009. The federal government, however, has taken a different approach after two decades’ worth of abandoned attempts to make polluters pay for their emissions. Last summer, a Democratic-controlled Congress broke through the deadlock to pass the historic Inflation Reduction Act, which aims to lower emissions through green tax credits intended to speed up the adoption of clean energy and low-carbon technologies. Proponents of Washington state’s approach say that other states could learn from its equity-focused approach to climate policy, the outcome of years of consultation with green organizations, businesses, labor groups, Native American tribes, and environmental justice advocates. A standard cap-and-trade system can help cut global carbon emissions, but it doesn’t ensure that locals will see benefits.
Supersonic Aviation Program Could Cause ‘Climate Debacle,’ Environmentalists Warn - An experimental jet that aerospace company Lockheed Martin is building for NASA as part of a half-billion dollar supersonic aviation program is a “climate debacle,” according to an environmental group that is calling for the space agency to conduct an independent analysis of the jet’s climate impact. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an environmental advocacy organization based in Silver Spring, Maryland, said supersonic aviation could make the aviation industry’s goal of carbon neutrality unobtainable. In a letter sent to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Thursday, the group called on NASA to conduct a “rigorous, independent, and publicly accessible climate impact analysis” of the test jet. “Supersonic transport is like putting Humvees in the sky,” PEER’s Pacific director, Jeff Ruch, said. “They’re much more fuel consumptive than regular aircraft.” NASA commissioned the X-59 Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) in an effort to create a “low-boom” supersonic passenger jet that could travel faster than the speed of sound without creating the loud sonic booms that plagued an earlier generation of supersonic jets.The Concorde, a supersonic passenger plane that last flew in 2003, was limited to speeds below Mach 1, the speed of sound, when flying over inhabited areas to avoid the disturbance of loud sonic booms. The QueSST program seeks to help develop jets that can exceed the speed of sound—approximately 700 miles per hour—without creating loud disturbances. However, faster planes also have higher emissions. Supersonic jets use 7 to 9 times more fuel per passenger than conventional jets according to a study published last year by the International Council on Clean Transportation.
New law deems natural gas as green energy - — A new law signed by Gov. Mike DeWine designates natural gas as green energy. Environmental experts have said that with DeWine signing HB 507, it paves the way to fast track the drilling of oil and gas in state parks. “When natural gas is mined from the ground, it can leak into the atmosphere and methane admissions from natural gas wells, pipelines and use of natural gas together are the second largest source of climate warming in the United States," said Amy Townsend-Small, University of Cincinnati professor of environmental studies. In a statement, DeWine said "As my administration has analyzed the bill, I believe the amendments in HB 507 do not fundamentally change the criteria and processes established by the Ohio General Assembly in 2011 that first established the policy of leasing mineral rights under state parks and lands." Nolan Rutschilling, the Ohio Environmental Council managing director of energy policy, doesn't support the new law. In his view, natural gas is not an environmentally-friendly fuel. “It's a fossil fuel now,” said Rutschilling. “Natural gas does produce less emissions than coal, but it's still a major contributor to our state's greenhouse gas emissions.” Rutschilling and his team hope to continue to encourage local governments to make purchase decisions regarding power resources, that result in a cleaner environment.
Exxon scientists accurately predicted global warming from burning fossil fuels. - Decades of research by scientists at Exxon accurately predicted how much global warming would occur from burning fossil fuels, according to a new study in the journal Science. The findings clash with an enormously successful campaign that Exxon spearheaded and funded for more than 30 years that cast doubt on human-driven climate change and the science underpinning it. That narrative helped delay federal and international action on climate change, even as the impacts of climate change worsened. Over the last few years, journalists and researchers revealed that Exxon did in-house research that showed it knew that human-caused climate change is real. The new study looked at Exxon's research and compared it to the warming that has actually happened. Researchers at Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research analyzed Exxon's climate studies from 1977 to 2003. The researchers show the company, now called ExxonMobil, produced climate research that was at least as accurate as work by independent academics and governments — and occasionally surpassed it. That's important because ExxonMobil and the broader fossil fuel industry face lawsuits nationwide claiming they misled the public on the harmful effects of their products."The bottom line is we found that they were modeling and predicting global warming with, frankly, shocking levels of skill and accuracy, especially for a company that then spent the next couple of decades denying that very climate science," says lead author Geoffrey Supran, who now is an associate professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami.
UAE puts oil CEO in charge of global climate conference - The United Arab Emirates, which is hosting next year’s global climate summit, has put the head of the country’s oil company in charge of the event. The UAE announced on Thursday that Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, will serve as president of the United Nations COP28 conference. Al Jaber will develop the conference’s agenda, alongside Simon Stiell of the United Nations and the president of last year’s conference, Sameh Shoukry. Climate advocates expressed alarm at the fact that the major summit will be led by an oil executive, given that fossil fuels are the main driver of climate change. “Putting an oil executive in charge of climate talks is the height of hypocrisy, and a slap in the face to all those suffering from fossil-fueled climate harms around the world,” said Jean Su, Energy Justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a written statement. “The UAE needs to replace Al Jaber immediately, or at the very least make him relinquish his role as an active oil company profiteer. We have no time for UAE to put petrostate oil promotion where climate ambition should be,” she said. Al Jaber, meanwhile, pledged in a written statement to “bring a pragmatic, realistic and solutions-oriented approach that delivers transformative progress for the climate.”
Sweden discovers largest known rare earth mineral deposit in Europe -- Swedish government-owned mine operator LKAB on Thursday announced the discovery of a major rare earth mineral deposit in the northern city of Kiruna, potentially significantly reducing reliance on China for electric vehicle components. The deposit, the largest such discovery in Europe, is equivalent to more than 1 million metric tons of rare earth oxides, according to LKAB. “This is the largest known deposit of rare earth elements in our part of the world, and it could become a significant building block for producing the critical raw materials that are absolutely crucial to enable the green transition. We face a supply problem. Without mines, there can be no electric vehicles,” LKAB President and CEO Jan Moström said in a statement. The discovery could be a game-changer for Europe, which currently has no rare earth mining operations and is entirely dependent on Chinese imports for the metals, which are used in the manufacture of wind turbines and electric cars. As of 2020, 99 percent of rare earth imports to the European Union came from China. Demand for the minerals is expected to surge as the proliferation of electric vehicles increases, with the EU projecting a more than fivefold increase by the end of the decade. Europe is particularly wary about dependence on imports after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine highlighted European reliance on Russian oil imports. The company emphasized it will take time before the deposit can produce any useable raw materials. “If we look at how other permit processes have worked within our industry, it will be at least 10-15 years before we can actually begin mining and deliver raw materials to the market,” Moström said. The U.S., meanwhile, has also sought to wrest some of the market share for rare earth minerals from China. In September, the Department of Energy announced $156 million in funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law to create a processing facility for the minerals. While the U.S. has a single rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., no such processing facility currently exists.
Why Fracking May Start To Embrace A New Form Of Energy - With the global transition to clean energy in full swing, traditional renewable energy sources such as solar and wind have, unsurprisingly, been hogging the limelight. Unfortunately, one powerful renewable energy source has been conspicuously missing in the conversation: Geothermal energy. Despite its many obvious benefits, geothermal energy--which taps the heat within the earth’s crust--is criminally underutilized in the United States. In 2019, the U.S. generated ~18,300 GWh from geothermal sources. While that appears impressive at first glance, here’s the kicker: that figure works out to just 0.4% of U.S. power generation. Geothermal energy has two primary applications: electricity generation and heating/cooling. Geothermal energy can be found almost anywhere: other than seismically active hotspots, there is a steady supply of milder heat--useful for direct heating purposes--at depths of anywhere from 10 to a few hundred feet below the surface. This heat can be found in virtually any location on Earth since it has its origins from when the planet formed and accreted, frictional heating caused by denser core material sinking to the center of the planet as well as heat from the decay of radioactive elements. Indeed, just 10,000 meters (about 33,000 feet) of the Earth's surface contains 50,000 times more energy than all the oil and natural gas resources in the world. Further, unlike solar and wind which are intermittent energy sources, geothermal is highly reliable with a high capacity factor of 74.3% vs. 24.9% for solar and 35.4% for wind. Whereas geothermal power plants are frequently associated with sulfur dioxide and silica emissions as well as traces of toxic heavy metals including arsenic, mercury, and boron, the emissions profile of geothermal energy is nowhere near as bad as those of fossil fuels. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says geothermal power plants emit about 99% less carbon dioxide and 97% less acid rain-causing sulfur compounds than fossil fuel power plants of similar size. Further, geothermal power plants are frequently equipped with scrubbers to remove the hydrogen sulfide naturally found in geothermal reservoirs. It’s, therefore, hardly surprising that a country like Iceland--which derives ~two-thirds of its primary energy from geothermal sources--has only one-third the greenhouse gas emission per capita as the United States. Unfortunately, high drilling and production costs compared to other clean energy sources has impeded growth for the geothermal sector. Indeed, in 2021, the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for geothermal energy in the U.S. clocked in at $84.80/MWh, much higher than $36.60/MWh for utility-scale solar and $40.90/MWh for onshore wind projects. For the most part, geothermal has only made economic sense in countries such as Iceland, where heat and water can be found close to the surface of the Earth. However, much like shale drilling, EGS creates a subsurface fracture system that increases the permeability of rock and allows for the injection of a heat transfer fluid (typically water). The injected fluid is then heated by the rock and returned to the surface to generate electricity. In June, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $165 million investment in geothermal energy research and deployment. The Enhanced Geothermal initiative by the DOE aims to lower the cost of EGS projects to $45 per MWh by 2035, thereby vastly increasing the competitiveness of geothermal power. Further, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law included $84 million for research into EGS projects. But the same technology that powered the U.S. shale boom might help unlock the full potential of U.S. geothermal resources.
Burning Man sues Biden administration over geothermal project - Organizers of the art and cultural festival Burning Man and several environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over the agency's approval of a geothermal exploration project in northwestern Nevada. The suit, filed in Nevada federal court on Monday, alleged that the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws in 2022 when it failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of an exploration plan by the developer Ormat. The suit alleges that the agency conducted a limited environmental review that only took into account the project's impacts on Gerlach. The town only has a population of about 100 people, but serves as a gateway to the festival, which attracts 70,000 people each year. Burning Man, which owns or operates over 4,000 acres in the area, argued that the BLM's approval for Ormat to develop 19 geothermal drilling exploration wells and build 2.8 miles of roads ignored multiple potential environmental harms. The festival argued that final geothermal development would deplete the natural hot springs directly adjacent to the project site in a desert area "that otherwise does not have water abundance." The Biden administration last year announced a goal to expand the use of geothermal energy — renewable energy that comes from water heated inside the Earth — in order to aid the country's transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels. The Energy Department has said it plans to curb the costs of geothermal energy systems by 90% by 2035.
What fracking can tell us about the future of fusion -A year in which energy markets were torn apart by our species’ long-standing habit of murdering one another ended with a hopeful scientific breakthrough. In the early hours of December 5, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility in California produced anuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than it took in from the lasers driving it.Announcing this, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm hailed the NIF’s work as offering the potential to solve complex problems “like providing clean power to combat climate change”. After a year like 2022, she might have added “and stop us relying on the likes of Russia for energy once and for all”. Instead, Granholm said: “And maintaining a nuclear deterrent without nuclear testing.”Because, apart from the unfortunately revived relevance of those words, that is what the NIF was set up to do after the end of underground testing of nuclear weapons.The achievement of “ignition” will doubtless inform continuing research into fusion energy, too, but the NIF’s technology wasn’t designed to that end. So-called tokamaks, such as the (delayed) ITER project being built in France, operate differently and are viewed as a more likely path to commercial fusion energy becoming a reality.We live in an era of energy breakthroughs that exist on a spectrum of varying degrees of reality. They are often hard to identify in real time.For example, in June 1998, an engineer working for Mitchell Energy and Development – now part of Devon Energy – successfully applied hydraulic fracturing to produce natural gas from a well in the Barnett shale basin near Dallas.That did not change things overnight; US gas production didn’t begin its resurgence for another decade, and the shale oil boom took several more years to get going. But in demonstrating that shale resources could be produced economically, it touched off a genuine revolution that upended energy markets, national economies and geopolitics. One small but topical example: the LNG tankers crossing the Atlantic today to help European countries cope after Russia cut off their gas, can trace their launch all the way back to the S.H. Griffin Estate No. 4 well in Texas.
New York partially banned cryptocurrency mining. Now environmentalists want more. - — A first-in-the-nation partial ban on cryptocurrency mining in New York is sending ripple effects through the burgeoning industry and also emboldening environmentalists to push for similar measures across the nation. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s November signing of a two-year moratorium on new fossil fuel-powered cryptocurrency mining projects is already said to be deterring some cryptocurrency businesses from investing in the state, and environmentalists are suggesting the measure could be a model for other states. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups are pushing a bill to study the energy and environmental impacts of cryptocurrency mining across the country, and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced a measure last month to require the Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the effects of the industry and mandate reporting of emissions from mining operations using more than 5 megawatts of electricity. “We need to better understand what is happening and to enforce the environmental laws that we have against coal and gas plants that are being operated primarily for the benefit of cryptocurrency operations,” Sierra Club staff attorney Megan Wachspress said in an interview.Environmental groups pushed for the temporary pause on some types of cryptocurrency mining in New York because of concerns that old fossil fuel plants would be brought back online or ramped up to run computers to earn cryptocurrency — a process that uses an extraordinary amount of energy. They’ve also warned that the industry itself may not be compatible with the state’s new climate law that requires a steep reduction in emissions.The law does not affect cryptocurrency mining that uses power drawn from the electric grid. Operations can continue at large and small sites across upstate New York, including a former aluminum smelter in Massena near the Canadian border and a former coal plant in Somerset near Niagara Falls.The partial ban comes as upstate New York has become attractive to companies that mine digital currencies, including Bitcoin. The region has an abundance of former power plants and manufacturing sites with unused electrical infrastructure that is appealing to the industry.The law is likely to scare off companies from coming to New York for fear of further restrictions, some owners said, and it comes as the digital currency market has also crashed following the bankruptcy of Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX — leaving the industry with additional uncertainty.
Media Blackout Over Terror Incident At Vegas Power Plant --The US power grid is under attack as extremists shoot, sabotage, and vandalize electrical equipment at power stations. One of the highest-profile attacks was when two men used guns to paralyze a substation in Washington state on Christmas Day, leaving thousands without electricity. The incident made national news, but strangely enough, another attack last week on the Las Vegas power grid went unnoticed by the national press. Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, rammed his car through the gate of a solar power generation plant outside Las Vegas on Wednesday and set his car on fire, intending to damage a massive transformer, 8 News Now reported. "Employees at the plant said they found a car smoldering in a generator pit," 8 News Now said, adding the Mega Solar Array facility provides power to 13 properties on the Las Vegas Strip, all belonging to MGM Resorts. Investigators believe Mesmarian "siphoned gasoline from his car to put on wires at the transformer," 8 News Now said, citing documents from investigators. "Mesmarian clarified he burned the Toyota Camry," police said. "Mesmarian said he burned the vehicle at a Tesla solar plant and did it 'for the future.'" Here's security camera footage of Mesmarian lighting his car on fire next to a giant transformer.
Germany built LNG terminals in months. Wind turbines still take years.— After seven years of planning, permitting and construction, Matthias Frauen’s two newest wind turbines finally began turning in the very last days of 2022. His was a protracted process compared to another energy project just 60 miles further along the North Sea coast, where Germany’s first liquid natural gas terminal recently started pumping after a turbocharged 10 months. But when it comes to wind energy, the sector has been “collapsing,” complained the grain farmer turned wind-farm developer. That’s despite the desperate shift in European energy policy triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine, and despite the bold targets for renewables set by a German government with Green Party politicians directing energy policy. In addition to onerous planning procedures, costs for making wind turbines have jumped by about 40 percent, making it practically impossible to secure financing for new projects. And across Europe, crushing costs have meant that firms supplying materials to build turbines have posted billions in losses while slashing jobs. It’s a “misconception” that the wind industry has seen a big upside from the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine, “Even if it gives a new vision for renewables on a policy level, it has disrupted supply chains and driven up costs.” After failing to fill two-thirds of the reduced number of tenders it offered for onshore wind projects in December, the government this past week boosted the guaranteed electricity rate for the industry, hoping that would encourage banks to give project loans. But experts say more still needs to be done if Germany is going to meet its goals. When it came into power a year ago, Germany’s government, which includes the Greens as a junior coalition member, set out the most ambitious legislative package to boost renewables that the country had ever seen. Within that plan, Robert Habeck, a Green Party politicians named economy and climate minister, announced plans to dedicate 2 percent of the country’s land area for wind production. The war in Ukraine — which highlighted Germany’s painful exposure to Russian pipeline gas — further fueled the government’s green ambitions. The coalition set a goal of deriving 80 percent of the country’s energy from wind and solar by 2030, up from 47 percent last year. But to get there, experts say Germany would need to add about 1,500 wind turbines each year — a challenging feat under current conditions. “In eight years, we have to build more than what we have in the last 22,” Moser-Abt said. “This is beyond ambitious.” The northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, where Frauen’s two new turbines began operating last week, is seen as a bright spot. The region already produces 160 percent of its electricity from renewables. But in the patchwork of local authorities that make up Germany’s federal system, others are far behind.
Lützerath: Greta Thunberg joins 'Pinky' and 'Brain' tunnel protest – BBC - Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has denounced "police violence" in removing climate protesters trying to stop an abandoned village being swallowed up by an open coal mine. The last resident left Lützerath in western Germany more than a year ago and police moved in to clear activists from the site on Wednesday. Many of the protesters have gone but two protesters nicknamed "Pinky" and "Brain" are holed up in a tunnel. Others are waiting in treehouses. Several thousand supporters are expected to attend a big rally on Saturday in the neighbouring village of Keyenberg. The police operation in Lützerath, now owned by energy firm RWE, has proved awkward for the government as Germany's Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck is a leading figure in the Greens. Germany has promised to phase out coal-fired power by 2030, bringing forward the date from 2038, and Lützerath is expected to be the final village to be swallowed up by the Garzweiler opencast mine. RWE said the coal under the village would be needed as early as this winter. But the climate protesters have been buoyed by public support, with a survey suggesting 59% of Germans are against the lignite mine expanding.
China Dec coal imports slip as COVID spike dampens industrial activity | Reuters(Reuters) - China's coal imports slipped in December from a month earlier as industrial activity slowed following a surge in COVID-19 cases after Beijing's sudden removal of stringent pandemic controls. The world's top coal consumer brought in 30.91 million tonnes of the fossil fuel last month, versus 32.31 million in November, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Friday. That was largely flat compared with 30.95 million tonnes imported in December 2021. Millions of people have fallen ill since China abandoned its zero-COVID strategy in early December, forcing factories to lower operations due to labour shortages and hitting coal demand for industrial use and power generation. For 2022, coal shipments to China reached 293.2 million tonnes, down 9.2% from a year earlier, as the country boosted domestic coal production and urged utilities to sign term-deals with domestic miners to bolster its energy security. China introduced a price cap on domestic thermal coal early last year aimed at lowering power generation costs at utilities and avoiding nationwide power shortages like those recorded in 2021. The policy led to China's domestic coal prices being much lower than supplies from abroad for many months as global coal prices soared over supply concerns after the Russia-Ukraine war. Chinese coal imports are expected to pick up after the Lunar New Year in late January and early February as factories reopen and economic recovery prospects brighten the outlook for demand.
U.S. power use to slide in 2023 from record high on weaker economic activity (Reuters) - U.S. power consumption will ease in 2023 as weaker economic activity and milder weather drag it from the record high hit the previous year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) on Tuesday. EIA projected power demand will slide from a record 4,044 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2022 to 4,014 billion kWh in 2023, before rising to 4,064 billion kWh in 2024 as economic growth ramps up. That compares with an eight-year low of 3,856 billion kWh in 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic depressed demand. EIA projected 2023 power sales would ease to 1,484 billion kWh for residential consumers and 1,373 billion kWh for commercial customers, and hold at 1,013 billion kWh for the industrial sector. In 2022, it hit all-time highs of 1,514 billion kWh for residential consumers, 1,382 billion kWh in 2018 for commercial customers and 1,064 billion kWh in 2000 for industrial customers. EIA said natural gas' share of power generation would slide from 39% in 2022 to 38% in 2023 and 37% in 2024. Coal's share will drop from 20% in 2022 to 18% in 2023 and 17% in 2024 as renewable output rises. The percentage of renewable generation will jump from 21% in 2022 to 24% in 2023 and 26% in 2024. Nuclear power's share will hold at 19% in 2023 and 2024, the same as in 2022. EIA projected 2023 gas sales would rise to 13.71 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) for residential consumers and 9.70 bcfd for commercial customers, but fall to 22.58 bcfd for industrial customers and 31.81 bcfd for power generation.
TVA announces new natural gas plant to replace Cumberland coal plant --The Tennessee Valley Authority will replace its Cumberland coal plant with a natural gas facility, the federal utility announced Tuesday, over the objections of environmental groups. The switch to natural gas will require the construction of a new 32-mile natural gas pipeline across Dickson and Houston counties, crossing over to the plant in Stewart County. The Cumberland City plant is TVA’s largest generator of electricity, powering 1.1 million homes. It consists of two coal-fired units: the first unit will be retired and replaced with a 1,450-megawatt combined cycle natural gas plant by 2026. The second unit will be retired by 2028. TVA has not yet determined how it will replace the second unit.Tuesday's announcement came about two weeks after a severe winter storm in which some of TVA’s coal and natural gas plants, including Cumberland, succumbed to cold weather, forcing the utility to implement rolling blackouts for the first time in its history.TVA tends to run Cumberland 24/7 because the plant generates a large amount of electricity and because it is easier to keep it running than to turn it on and off like a natural gas plant. However, when Cumberland effectively went dark in late December, on the coldest days of the year, TVA scrambled to find replacement electricity, demonstrating the utility's reliance on that plant's generation and the need to replace it with something just as powerful but more resilient.In response to concerns about the failure of some natural gas plants in December, TVA CEO Jeff Lyash said the natural gas plant TVA plans to build at the Cumberland site will be more resilient than the ones that failed during December’s winter storm. The announcement followed a nearly-two-year environmental review process in which environmental groups, the U.S. Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency criticized TVA for not meaningfully exploring other options, such as renewables like solar, to replace the coal plant instead of choosing another fossil fuel.
TVA is officially building a massive gas plant in Middle Tennessee -- The Tennessee Valley Authority has just chosen to burn fossil fuels for several more decades. Again.On Tuesday, CEO Jeff Lyash signed off on a plan to build a nearly 1.5-gigawatt natural gas plant near Clarksville.The decision comes less than three weeks after TVA ordered blackouts, following coal and gas failures during an historic Arctic storm. It also comes just days after six new people were sworn into the nine-person TVA Board, which acts as the only real check on the federal utility’s power.This was the choice of Lyash alone, as a short-staffed, Trump-filled TVA board voted to give him this power in 2021, during the time that several Biden nominees to the board were left unconfirmed by the Senate. Lyash’s nearly $10 million salary, comprised largely of bonuses, in 2021 has been partially tied to the success of fossil fuel plants — though TVA has previously denied that this is a motivation for any particular type of generation.“This decision is based on a thorough environmental and public review process that ensures we meet the growing energy needs of this region,” Lyash said in a statement.TVA released the final environmental review last month for this gas plant. The utility did not provide the data needed to make its claims on costs or sustainability.
Michael Madigan trial: New details emerge in alleged ComEd plot - Two months ahead of trial, federal prosecutors late Tuesday revealed new details and evidence they intend to use against four people accused in an alleged bribery scheme between Commonwealth Edison and then-House Speaker Michael Madigan. Among the new revelations: Former McPier boss Juan Ochoa is expected to testify how he enlisted the help of a member of Congress in 2017 to help repair his tattered political relationship with Madigan and ultimately secure a lucrative position on ComEd’s board of directors. Though the congressman is not named in the document, multiple sources have told the Tribune he is ex-U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez. Gutierrez could not be reached for this story and it was unclear if he has a lawyer. The filing alleged that Ochoa tapped Gutierrez to make the request because he had endorsed Madigan in the prior election cycle and Ochoa “felt Madigan owed the member of Congress a political favor.” Ochoa and Gutierrez met with Madigan at the speaker’s office, where Madigan agreed to recommend Ochoa for the $80,000-a-year ComEd board seat, according to the filing. Ochoa also asked Gutierrez to set up a meeting with “another public official” to discuss the ComEd board appointment at about the same time, according to the filing. Prosecutors do not name that official, either, but sources told the Tribune he is then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Mayoral calendars obtained by the Tribune via an open records request show that Emanuel and two of his aides met with Ochoa and Gutierrez at City Hall on Nov. 17, 2017, though the topic of the meeting was not included. After Madigan’s longtime confidant, Michael McClain, called the speaker in 2018 to tell him the Ochoa appointment was going through, Madigan said that he would reach out to Gutierrez personally so the congressman would be the first to know, according to the document. “I mean, (Gutierrez is) the reason I would talk to (Ochoa),” Madigan is alleged to have said on the July 17, 2018, call, which was secretly recorded by the FBI. Gutierrez, who left Congress in early 2019, has not been charged with wrongdoing, and it was not clear if he’d be a witness at trial.The trial, which is scheduled to begin with jury selection on March 6, promises to be the biggest political corruption trial at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse since ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted by a jury in 2011.It will also offer a preview of many of the allegations against Madigan himself, who was indicted along with McClain last March on racketeering conspiracy charges alleging an array of corrupt schemes, including the alleged plan to use the power of his office to steer ComEd money to his cronies. That case has been set for trial in April 2024.
House Bill 6 left Ohio with least stringent clean-energy program in U.S., study shows - – Since passage of a 2019 law now embroiled in criminal scandal, Ohio has had the least stringent clean-energy requirements of any U.S. state with a renewable standard, a survey of state policies shows.While most states over the past two decades have increased the percentage of energy their utilities distribute that must come from renewable sources, Ohio has rolled back its requirement. Of 31 states with a “renewable energy portfolio standard” (RPS), Ohio derives the smallest share of its energy from renewable sources, according to a 2021 survey from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which conducts research for the U.S. Department of Energy.For instance, since 2019, Washington D.C., Virginia, and Washington state have all adopted 100% zero-carbon clean energy requirements by 2050. New Mexico raised its target to 80%. Maryland, Maine and Nevada increased theirs to 50%.Utilities in Ohio need only 8.5% renewable energy by 2026 to meet state requirements. Meanwhile, Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation on Friday that expands drilling rights for oil and gas underneath state parks. It also redefines the term “green energy” to include natural gas, a methane-based fossil fuel that acts as a greenhouse gas. Ohio established its clean-energy law in 2008, one of the later states in the nation to do so. As part of a broader energy overhaul package, the Ohio law created the RPS and an energy-efficiency program, which allowed utilities to charge all ratepayers to fund efforts to reduce customers’ electricity demand via smart appliances and other energy savers.Since then, the policy has faced constant attacks from utility companies and the fossil-fuel industry. Lawmakers delayed the bill’s annually increasing requirements for two years in 2014 and almost did so again two years later before then-Gov. John Kasich vetoed the delay.The policy’s death blow came via House Bill 6 in 2019. The legislation substantially weakened RPS goals and killed off the energy-efficiency programs. About a year after the bill’s passage, FBI agents arrested then- House Speaker Larry Householder and several allies, accusing them of conspiring to take a $60 million bribe from FirstEnergy Corp. in exchange for passing HB6. Householder’s trial is set to begin later this month.Ohio’s RPS changes join a list of other state policies like onerous property requirements for wind turbines and local government veto power for renewable-energy projects that developers say are holding back Ohio’s clean-energy economy. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows Ohio ranks 39th by state in terms of the share of the state’s energy mix in 2021 that comes from wind and solar power.
Feds reveal more secret pass-throughs for FirstEnergy money in Larry Householder racketeering case — Energy and Policy Institute -- New information made public by federal prosecutors in the racketeering case against ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder revealed that $400,000 secretly paid by FirstEnergy passed through two dark money groups, One Ohio United and Citizens for a Working America, before landing at a Super PAC that supported Householder during the 2018 election. Prosecutors said in a trial brief on Friday that they will seek to introduce a copy of One Ohio United’s annual IRS Form 990 report for 2018 as evidence at Householder’s trial, which is scheduled to begin on January 23. It’s the first time One Ohio United has been publicly named in the case. One Ohio United is an anonymously-funded group registered with the IRS as a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organization. The group raised and spent $11 million between 2011 and 2020, according to a ProPublica database of financial information for nonprofits, and the sources of most of that money remain unknown to the public. One Ohio United paid $575,000 in 2018 to another anonymously-funded 501(c)(4) organization named Citizens for a Working America, according to One Ohio United’s Form 990 for 2018. Citizens for a Working America separately reported to the IRS that it paid $535,000 to the “Hardworking Americans PAC” in 2018. “The evidence at trial will show that money from FirstEnergy ultimately funded Hardworking American’s effort to target Defendant Householder’s opponent, Kevin Black, in the 2018 primary,”prosecutors said in a footnote in the trial brief on Friday.The footnote referenced Exhibit 283, which prosecutors described as a “FEC filing for Hardworking Americans in 2018.” The trial brief linked to the FEC filing where Hardworking Americans, a Super PAC, reported it received $535,000 from Citizens for a Working America, but did not name FirstEnergy as a funder. In the same FEC filing, Hardworking Americans reported contributions from two other sources: coal producer Murray Energy and Political Education Patterns, the political arm of Ohio-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18. The multi-stop money trail from FirstEnergy to Hardworking Americans was previously describedas “a series of transactions” involving “another 501(c)(4)” in the following line from a statement of facts that the utility company agreed to as part of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors: FirstEnergy Corp. also sent approximately $400,000 for Public Official A’s [Householder’s] benefit, at Public Official A’s request, through another 501(c)(4) in late April 2018, which through a series of transactions ultimately paid approximately $400,000 for media benefiting Public Official A before the May 2018 primary. The earlier description of the passage of money from FirstEnergy to Hardworking Americans directly followed a section of the statement of facts that described the use of two other 501(c)(4)s, Partners for Progress and Generation Now, as a conduit for other secret payments FirstEnergy made for Householder’s benefit ahead of the 2018 primary.Prosecutors linked the $400,000 paid to Hardworking Americans to political ads opposing Householder’s 2018 primary opponent, Kevin Black, in their new trial brief.
Dozens of companies, AG Yost, former lawmakers subpoenaed ahead of Householder corruption trial - Ohio Capital Journal -- In newly-filed documents, federal prosecutors outlined some of the evidence they want to bring against former Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives Larry Householder. In the federal government’s trial brief, filed Friday in District Court, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker provided a summary of the evidence against Householder and Matthew Borges, who are both accused of bribery and money laundering. House Bill 6 is one of, if not the biggest political corruption scandal in Ohio’s history. “The H.B. 6 scandal is something that should embarrass all of us,” Case Western Reserve University law professor and constitution expert Jonathan Entin said. On Jan. 23, the public will learn how and why FirstEnergy paid $60 million to the nonprofit Generation Now, which was allegedly controlled by Householder. The speaker is accused of working with former GOP leader Matt Borges to pass a billion-dollar bailout for the struggling nuclear power company. Householder and Borges were two of five people arrested back in 2020. House operative Jeff Longstreth and lobbyist Juan Cespedes both pleaded guilty in the case. Longtime lobbyist Neil Clark died by suicide. The government began by making sure the court has all of the verifications that the evidence the prosecutors gathered by subpoena was authenticated. One of the largest provisions the government is asking for is that statements from co-conspirators should be allowed in court, even if the individual is not testifying or hasn’t been charged. The government is also trying to put forward evidence gathered publicly, like a political ad that attacked a politician with money paid for by the Hardworking Americans Committee and posted by an account from The Strategy Group. There is also a recorded conversation between Householder and another individual charged. Summary exhibits should also be considered admissible by the court, meaning summaries of phone records could be used, the government asserted. The government also will provide transcripts of recordings of phone calls and in-person meetings. The government doesn’t want “inappropriate arguments” to be made during opening statements so that everything can stay objective. It is also asserting that some tactics the defense may try aren’t legitimate — such as using the good faith defense, which would argue Householder and Borges didn’t know they were doing something illegal Any and all merits of H.B. 6 will be found irrelevant since this is a public corruption trial — not about the specific bill, the government added.
Two controversial Ohio bills on oil and gas drilling and election laws both signed | The Statehouse News Bureau - The state is facing a lawsuit over a bill signed on Friday that makes big changes in Ohio’s voting laws. Gov. Mike Dewine signed that and another bill left over from the lame duck legislative session, and both Republican-backed bills are controversial.Late on Friday, as his inaugural weekend was getting started, DeWine signed House Bill 507, which could speed up the process of permitting oil and gas drilling on state lands. DeWine had hinted in a year end interview with the Statehouse News Bureau that he would sign it.The Ohio Environmental Council's Action Fund said in a statement that they are "deeply disappointed" he didn't veto the bill, which they called unconstitutional. A statement from the group continued: "This bill is an egregious assault on executive authority, the public’s interest and our state parks and public lands. The bill also furthers fossil fuel misinformation campaigns designed to brand natural gas as ‘green energy,’ a nationwide effort to delay climate action and the transition to a truly clean energy future.” The other bill deals with election laws. House Bill 458:
- requires voters to show photo ID
- allows just one ballot drop box per county
- permits curbside voting only for people with disabilities
- requires requests for early ballots to be made no later than seven days before Election Day, instead of three days before
- requires mailed-in ballots, including military and overseas ballots, to arrive no later than four days after Election Day, down from ten days
- gives provisional voters four days to provide missing information, down from seven days
- eliminates special elections in August except in cases of fiscal emergency
Almost immediately, a lawsuit was filed by a group representing unions and unhoused Ohioans, from Democratic lawyer Marc Elias, who sued and won cases over Ohio’s redistricting process and helped fight lawsuits filed and lost by former President Trump after he lost the 2020 election.
Governor DeWine signs bills into law - The Highland County Press - Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed the following bills into law:
• House Bill 45 makes appropriations and provides authorization and conditions for the operation of state programs.
• House Bill 458 modifies the law governing voter identification and absent voting and other aspects of Ohio’s election laws and makes changes regarding driver's licenses and state identification cards.
• House Bill 507, sponsored by State Representative J. Kyle Koehler, revises specified provisions of agriculture law, defines green energy, excludes natural gas from receiving renewable energy credits, revises the law governing environmental health specialists and environmental health specialists in training, allows conservancy district police departments to take specified actions regarding the towing and storage of motor vehicles. Governor DeWine issued the following statement on HB 507: The initial and primary purpose of House Bill 507 is important and worthy of passage. “While the bill initially involved agricultural issues, amendments were added regarding drilling and natural gas issues. As my administration has analyzed this bill, I believe the amendments in House Bill 507 do not fundamentally change the criteria and processes established by the Ohio General Assembly in 2011 that first established the policy of leasing mineral rights under state parks and lands."In addition, I am instructing the Director of the Department of Natural Resources to continue to follow the processes first established by the General Assembly in 2011 in this area. This includes continuing my administration’s policy of prohibiting any new surface use access in our state parks."?
OH Gov. Signs Bill Expanding Drilling in State Parks, NatGas “Green” | Marcellus Drilling News - We love this story because it’s driving the left NUTS! In December, we told you about Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 (subsequently passed), a bill that expands drilling in Ohio state parks AND officially designates natural gas as a “green” form of energy (see Ohio Senate Bill Would Expand Shale Drilling on State-Owned Land). Last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a so-so (RINO) Republican, actually signed HB 507 into law. Which is sending the enviro-nuts into orbit. Love it!
DeWine signs bills for voter photo ID and "green energy" natural gas drilling on state lands - Ohio Capital Journal --Late Friday night, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine cleared his desk — signing into law two controversial bills. One makes changes in the way Ohioans will vote going forward. Most notably, it requires voters casting a ballot in-person to present a photo ID. The other law orders state agencies to award drilling licenses for state-owned lands and designates natural gas as “green energy.” A lot of unexpected things happen when lame-duck deadlines loom at the Ohio Statehouse. One of the most notable from December was the chicken bill that directs state agencies to allow natural gas drilling on their land. The measure began as a way to reduce the minimum lot size for live poultry purchases from six chicks to three. A late amendment added language about drilling and designating natural gas as “green energy,” among other changes. “As my administration has analyzed this bill,” DeWine argued in his signing statement, “I believe the amendments in House Bill 507 do not fundamentally change the criteria and processes established by the Ohio General Assembly in 2011 that first established the policy of leasing mineral rights under state parks and lands.” The amendment shifts “may” to “shall” in state law. The idea is to force the hand of the state commission responsible for leases. DeWine, however, seemingly brushed off the changes, stating he’d instruct the commission to continue as usual.In a statement, Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund’s Pete Bucher lit into the bill.“This bill is an egregious assault on executive authority, the public’s interest and our state parks and public lands. The bill also furthers fossil fuel misinformation campaigns designed to brand natural gas as ‘green energy,’ a nationwide effort to delay climate action and the transition to a truly clean energy future.”OECAF’s Chris Tavenor spoke about the organization’s opposition prior to DeWine’s announcement. While he was clear they deeply opposed the policy changes, he seemed just as appalled at the policy making.“If you’re going to do it, create a system,” he argued, “this is essentially forcing it through in order to ensure that oil and gas companies can get their profits as quickly as possible,”“This is not about creating a process to ensure that state land is managed appropriately,” he said. “It’s about ensuring that oil and gas companies get access to the resources.”
New law deems natural gas as green energy - — A new law signed by Gov. Mike DeWine designates natural gas as green energy. Environmental experts have said that with DeWine signing HB 507, it paves the way to fast track the drilling of oil and gas in state parks. “When natural gas is mined from the ground, it can leak into the atmosphere and methane admissions from natural gas wells, pipelines and use of natural gas together are the second largest source of climate warming in the United States," said Amy Townsend-Small, University of Cincinnati professor of environmental studies. In a statement, DeWine said "As my administration has analyzed the bill, I believe the amendments in HB 507 do not fundamentally change the criteria and processes established by the Ohio General Assembly in 2011 that first established the policy of leasing mineral rights under state parks and lands." Nolan Rutschilling, the Ohio Environmental Council managing director of energy policy, doesn't support the new law. In his view, natural gas is not an environmentally-friendly fuel. “It's a fossil fuel now,” said Rutschilling. “Natural gas does produce less emissions than coal, but it's still a major contributor to our state's greenhouse gas emissions.” Rutschilling and his team hope to continue to encourage local governments to make purchase decisions regarding power resources, that result in a cleaner environment.
23 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Jan 2-8 | Marcellus Drilling News --New shale permits issued for Jan. 2-8 in the Marcellus/Utica included 14 new permits in Pennsylvania, 8 new permits in Ohio, and just 1 new permit in West Virginia. The top recipient of permits for last week was Apex Energy, grabbing 6 permits to drill on a single pad in Westmoreland County, PA. Right behind Apex was Coterra Energy with 5 permits to drill on a single pad in Susquehanna County, PA. Opposite sides of the state. Antero Resources, Apex Energy, Ascent Resources, Belmont County, Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G), Gulfport Energy, Inflection Energy, Jefferson County (OH), Lycoming County, Monroe County, Southwestern Energy, Susquehanna County, Westmoreland County, Wetzel County
Fracking Poisoned This Town’s Water. Now Frackers Are Being Allowed Back In. More than a dozen years after the controversial documentary Gaslandmade Dimock, Pennsylvania, the poster child for the dangers of fracking, the successor to the company responsible for poisoning residents’ drinking water pleaded no contest to violating the state’s Clean Stream Law, on November 29, 2022. As a part of the plea, Coterra Energy must pay to construct a new, permanent supply of water for residents, some of whose private water wells became laced with carcinogenic chemicals and contained methane concentrations so high that running faucets could be set on fire. “After more than a decade of denials, of shirking responsibility and accountability, Coterra pleaded to their crime, and the people of Dimock finally had their day in court,” crowed Pennsylvania Attorney General and Governor-elect Josh Shapiro, who launched the investigation that resulted in the settlement.It seemed like a turning point. Shapiro, who convened a grand jury in 2018 to investigate the petroleum industry’s and the state Department of Environmental Protection’s endangerment of Pennsylvania residents, was poised to move into the governor’s mansion. Public opinion in thestate had tilted toward support for a ban on fracking.But on the same day Shapiro held his ballyhooed press conference to announce the deal, the DEP quietly lifted a moratorium on fracking in Dimock that had been in place since 2010. (State officials called the timing coincidental and denied any quid pro quo with Coterra.) “We got played,” Dimock resident Ray Kemble told the Associated Press only hours after he triumphantly stood on the dais with Shapiro. Yet a Susquehanna County commissioner claimed that many of his constituents in Dimock actually supported the resumption of gas drilling. Bureaucrats and some locals’ willingness to restart gas production at the site of the country’s most infamous fracking-related catastrophe is emblematic of Pennsylvania’s conflicted relationship to the industry. And it maps onto the state’s rural/urban political divide. Fracking offered the tantalizing prospect of returning deindustrialized heartland communities in Pennsylvania and the Midwest to their glory days. What’s more, “landmen” hired by petroleum companies to secure rural landowners’ mineral rights routinely peddled the fantasy that allowing fracking under their feet could make land-poor residents “richer than Jed Clampett” of The Beverly Hillbillies, in the words of one Williamsport-area landowner I befriended when I lived there in 2013. The tragedy of Dimock, which reached its nadir when a resident’s water well exploded on New Year’s Day in 2009, became the central story of Josh Fox’s Emmy Award–winning documentary Gasland, which in turnturbocharged the nascent anti-fracking movement in Pennsylvania and around the country. Curiously, though, “fractivism” never caught on in most of the locales where gas and oil drilling actually takes place. Even as more and more Pennsylvanians, and Americans, express serious misgivings about the industry, research indicates that people who live closer to oil and gas wells are less likely to support restrictions on fracking than people who live further away. Fractivism is mostly a not in your backyard movement spearheaded by progressives living in urban and coastal areas. That’s certainly how it felt to friends of mine in Hughesville, Pennsylvania, when Yoko Ono’s activist group “Artists Against Fracking” chartered a tour bus from New York City to the region to draw attention to alleged industry malfeasance.
A perfect (winter) storm brings lessons for gas producers and the electric grid - The brutal, unrelenting cold that lasted for several days over the Christmas holiday froze off a sizable portion of Appalachia’s ample gas production, cutting off supply to power plants when they needed it most.Gas transmission pipelines said the gas they were promised simply didn’t show up.On the electric grid that connects Pennsylvania to 12 other states, at one point almost 25% of the capacity on the system either didn’t start up or broke while operating, leaving coal and petroleum-fired units to pick up the slack. PJM, a Valley Forge-based grid operator, is still analyzing what happened during the storm. In Pittsburgh, Jay Apt, professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon, watched as the temperature on his home weather station plunged 40 degrees in an hour and a half. While the weather was extreme, Mr. Apt said, it was “not a black swan event.” Two years ago, as a winter storm was devastating Texas with blackouts that lasted for days in some areas, Mr. Apt wrote a provocatively titled op-ed in the Washington Post warning, “What is happening in Texas will keep happening until we take action.” A few years ago, Mr. Apt published a series of papers looking at more than two decades of PJM data on how generators function, when they break, and why. These are the same units that worked or didn’t during the Christmas storm, he said — “not just the same type, the same generators.” What he found was that “when temperature gets cold, the rate of forced outages — (aka) broken — goes way up.” This happens with most fuels. But in the winter, it’s more pronounced with natural gas plants, which are already the most prevalent type on the Eastern grid, with more being added. In typical circumstances, an average of 3% of such plants are out at any one time. During very cold weather, the outage rate climbs five times as high or more. Mr. Apt said the mechanism of failure varies. Valves might break, or the giant filter on the air intake system for natural gas plants could freeze. There could be problems with compressor stations that pack gas into pipelines, or issues at the gas wells themselves. The same goes for other fuels. Mr. Apt said he has seen coal operators unable to start up their coal grinders during freezing weather, or wind turbines programmed to shut down below a certain temperature. In very hot weather, coal and nuclear tend to perform worse. In extreme cold, gas is most impaired. Equally important is how the grid operator forecasts the demand on any given day and lines up enough generation to meet it. PJM underestimated demand during the Christmas storm by as much as 10%. .Because natural gas is a “just in time” fuel — it must arrive at power plants when it’s ready to be burned and isn’t stored onsite — a snag in the early part of the supply chain dominoes all the way to the light switch.Natural gas freeze-offs are a known and common phenomenon. The liquids in the natural gas stream — things like butane and propane — along with water molecules can freeze and can end up blocking the pipelines that carry them. This, in turn, could put pressure on compressor stations that must work harder to move the blocked gas. During the winter storm two years ago, as much as 200 billion cubic feet of gas was lost to freeze-offs over the course of several days. Last month’s storm was half as impactful — shedding about 100 billion cubic feet nationwide, with nearly half of that coming from Appalachia, according to pipeline receipts analyzed by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “Most pipelines are deep underground. So it has to be pretty cold to freeze the liquid in those pipes,” “This time around, it got to negative 15 in some places.” And the cold persisted for days.Bloomberg’s data shows that between Dec. 22 and 26, Ohio lost more than half of its gas production. West Virginia’s dropped by a quarter and Pennsylvania — the largest Appalachian gas producer — sustained a 20% drop accounting for about 4 billion cubic feet a day.The nation’s largest natural gas firm, Downtown-based EQT Corp., said in an interview on Bloomberg Television that its production fell by 30% during the extreme cold.EQT declined to answer submitted questions from the Post-Gazette about freeze-offs or preparations for them. Its CEO Toby Rice similarly did not address the issue of weatherizing gas infrastructure when asked by Bloomberg.Instead, he said, the answer is to produce more gas and, in order to do that, the country needs to build more pipelines.
Port Richmond explosion: Interior gas leak could be culprit – WHYY -- The 3500 block of Miller Street in Philadelphia's Port Richmond neighborhood was the scene of an explosion that destroyed three houses on New Year's Day. Although the investigation by Philadelphia Gas Works does not point to the utility’s own infrastructure as causing the explosion, experts say gas was the likely culprit.The New Year’s Day incident in Port Richmond was large enough to destroy three townhomes, and inflict damage on 43 others as well as a nearby recreation center. Five people were injured.“The amount of force and the nature of the destruction … looks pretty characteristic of a contained gas explosion in a brick building,” said Rick Kuprewicz, a pipeline safety expert in Washington who reviewed media coverage and photos of the Port Richmond explosion. Kuprewicz, who heads the consulting firm Accufacts, said he can’t be sure of the cause while the investigation is ongoing.Inspectors with Philadelphia Gas Works finished checking the utility’s infrastructure outside homes — including pipelines beneath sidewalks and lines that run to individual homes — Thursday, and found no evidence of gas leaks. The explosion destroyed three homes and damaged dozens more. So far, the city’s gas utility has not found evidence of a leak.PGW, in coordination with safety inspectors from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, says it conducted “state-of-the-art leak detection surveys” on all underground natural gas mains and service lines on the 3500 block of Miller Street, where the explosion occurred, as well as surrounding streets. “Mains and service pipes were found to be in good operating condition and PGW identified no natural gas leaks on any surveyed PGW natural gas infrastructure,” the utility said in a statement on its website.
Mitigating the risks of fracking — Fracking may be a settled question and a banned activity along the Upper Delaware River, but elsewhere in the United States it’s a growing industry. The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) heard a presentation about the wider world of fracking at its January 5 meeting. Dr. David Yoxtheimer gave the presentation before the UDC. Yoxtheimer is an assistant research professor and extension associate with the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research at Penn State University; the Marcellus Center is the school’s energy education and research initiative. He serves as well as the chairperson of the Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board, part of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Office of Oil and Gas Management. The fracking that Yoxtheimer discussed largely took place within the boundaries of the Marcellus Shale gas reservoir. The Marcellus Shale reservoir “is a very large shale gas basin, about 500 trillion cubic feet [TCF] of gas that can be recovered with today’s technology,” said Yoxtheimer. It stretches across most of Pennsylvania and into surrounding states, and has a presence in the Upper Delaware River Valley. Other reservoirs exist within the region as well, including the Utica Shale reservoir, but the Marcellus Shale reservoir has been the most drilled in Pennsylvania. Currently, about 13,000 wells have been drilled into the various reservoirs under Pennsylvania, and current projections have shale gas production rising, increasing from 25 TCF to 33 TCF by 2050.Many of the environmental issues around fracking relate to the industry’s use of or impact on water. The fracking process takes large volumes of water—mostly surface water in this part of the world—and brings it to a well site, mixing it with a range of chemicals, Yoxtheimer said. That treated water gets forcefully sent underground to open up fractures deep beneath the surface, allowing gas to be extracted; afterward, the water gets removed for reuse or disposal. In the Susquehanna Basin, the nearest Pennsylvania basin to the Upper Delaware, the third leading withdrawal of water is for the natural gas industry, around 24.3 million gallons per day or 10 percent of total withdrawals. This impact is overseen by state and basin-specific agencies, with regulations in place to govern the effect withdrawals can have. The chemicals added to the fracking fluids are themselves a matter of concern. The industry tries to reduce their use, given their expense, said Yoxtheimer, and has released much of the data about their composition through databases like fracfocus.org. Some of the chemicals involved do however remain proprietary. As the drilling process commences, it could contaminate groundwater around the drilling site. It’s not necessarily that fracking’s fractures let gas escape into nearby wells, said Yoxtheimer, but methane leaking around the well closer to the surface can pose a problem. “Some of the shallow methane especially caught the industry off guard; the wells weren’t drilled to contain it.” N After fracking completes, the produced fluids that come out of a well contain both the chemicals that were used to treat the water pre-fracking, and the contaminants pre-existing in the earth, including salts, metals and radioactive substances. The industry treats and re-uses much of this fluid material, and has tried to increase that percentage. Whatever remains—around 6.3 percent of the fluids generated in PA in 2021—gets transported to disposal wells. The transport of the fluids to injection wells carries with it risks of contamination; they get carried by trucks, which can lead to spills and leaks. On the other side, the disposal wells that take the final fluids simply put them back into the ground, many in depleted gas fields with emptied underground reservoirs. That process has the potential to cause seismic activity. “These tend to be very controversial projects, as you can imagine,” said Yoxtheimer. “While the EPA will say that this is the safest way to dispose of these brines, the public might not exactly be buying that, and that’s understandable.”
N.Y. weighs East Coast's first statewide building gas ban - New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul called yesterday for the nation’s most aggressive ban on fossil fuels in new buildings, setting the stage for a possible showdown with the gas industry and state lawmakers.In her State of the State speech, Hochul urged the state Legislature to phase out the sale of fossil fuel heating equipment in existing residential buildings beginning in 2030 and in 2035 in commercial ones. The governor also proposed requiring new residential and commercial buildings to be all-electric by 2025 and 2030, respectively.“We are taking these steps now because climate change remains the greatest threat to our planet, and to our children and grandchildren,” said Hochul in her speech. The state’s landmark 2019 climate law, known as the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, laid out strict deadlines for cutting emissions, she noted. “And now, we are executing on that plan.”Hochul’s proposals face an uncertain path ahead. Last year, the governor came out for the first time in support of a gas ban for new construction that would have gone into effect in 2027 (Energywire, Jan. 6, 2022). The idea found support in the state Senate, but was repeatedly blocked by the Democratic speaker of the state Assembly, Carl Heastie.Spokespeople for Heastie had initially insisted that the speaker’s opposition was due to how the gas ban was being proposed — in the state’s annual budget — rather than through legislation (Energywire, April 18, 2022). However, a separate bill promoted heavily by environmentalists later in the year died without being brought to the floor in either legislative chamber.Green groups have accused Heastie of being influenced by fossil fuel industry and building developers — something Heastie’s spokespeople have dismissed in public statements as “a bunch of conspiracy theories” and “beyond silly.”When asked for comment Tuesday, Heastie’s office sent audio of the speaker’s comments to reporters about the broad “energy policies” outlined by Hochul in her speech.“The faster we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, the better we are for it,” said Heastie in his comments, without addressing the specifics of the gas ban. Some natural gas advocates have criticized bans. Michelle Hook, executive director of New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, predicted they would “send energy bills through the roof” and urge state lawmakers to “start paying attention to the majority of New Yorkers who want to keep their lights on and heat working through our cold winters” (Energywire, June 15, 2022). Yesterday, however, an umbrella coalition of local and national green groups known as the #GasFreeNY campaign, described gas bans in new construction “a critically necessary step” and a “top priority” for climate policy this year. They called on Heastie and the state Assembly to pass a law.
Average cost of wholesale U.S. natural gas in 2022 highest since 2008 - In 2022, the wholesale U.S. natural gas spot price at the national benchmark Henry Hub in Louisiana averaged $6.45 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), the highest annual average—in both real and nominal terms—since 2008, based on data from Refinitiv Eikon. The 2022 average Henry Hub real natural gas spot price increased over 53% from 2021, the fourth-largest year-over-year increase in natural gas prices on record, behind only 2000, 2003, and 2021. On a daily basis, the Henry Hub spot natural gas price ranged from $3.46/MMBtu to $9.85/MMBtu, reflecting significant day-to-day price changes.During the first quarter of 2022, declining U.S. natural gas production due to production freeze-offs in January and February and high net withdrawals of natural gas from storage caused the natural gas price to increase. Continued high demand for U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports in Europe and rising, weather-driven demand for natural gas in the United States led to relatively wide Henry Hub price ranges in February and March, between $4.03/MMBtu and $6.70/MMBtu. Despite these price fluctuations, the $4.67/MMBtu average spot price was lower in the first quarter of 2022 than during the rest of the year.In May, weather-related demand for natural gas for electricity generation and increased uncertainty around working natural gas storage injections led to an increase in natural gas prices. The Henry Hub natural gas spot price increased above $9.00/MMBtu in early June, but it then fell by 40% by July 4 because of a fire and the subsequent shutdown of the Freeport LNG export terminal. The shutdown reduced U.S. LNG exports by about 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), and more natural gas was diverted to underground storage.The Henry Hub natural gas spot price began to rise again in July and peaked on August 22, 2022, at $9.85/MMBtu, 60% higher than the daily Henry Hub natural gas spot price at the beginning of the year.The natural gas spot price decreased late in the third quarter because of high natural gas production and the resulting above-average storage injections in September. By November, working natural gas in underground storage was close to the previous five-year average. The Henry Hub natural gas spot price reached an annual low of $3.46/MMBtu on November 9, down 65% from August 22. The natural gas price began to increase again in December because of dropping winter temperatures that increased demand for natural gas for heating.Capacity constraints also affected natural gas prices throughout the year on a regional level; for example:
- Prices at key Appalachian trading hubs continued to remain at a $0.68/MMBtu average discount to Henry Hub according to pricing data from Natural Gas Intelligence due to limited pipeline takeaway capacity in the region.
- The spot price at the Waha Hub in West Texas averaged $1.26/MMBtu below the Henry Hub in 2022, largely due to limited pipeline takeaway capacity in the region and to periods of pipeline maintenance that decreased takeaway capacity.
- Several pricing hubs in the western United States averaged over $48/MMBtu above Henry Hub onDecember 21 due to colder-than-normal temperatures and regional pipeline constraints.
Natural Gas Futures, Spot Prices Probe Higher Amid Profit-Taking, Hints of Cold - Natural gas futures found their way forward on Monday, marking only the second advance of 2023 so far. After losing 17% the week prior amid forecasts for the mildest January weather in nearly two decades, the February Nymex gas futures contract on Monday gained 20.0 cents day/day and settled at $3.910/MMBtu. March rose 17.1 cents to $3.563. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. advanced 71.5 cents to $5.850. NatGasWeather said forecasts heading into Monday trading continued to show “exceptionally warm and bearish” conditions for the Lower 48 over the next two weeks. However, the latest data teased a colder U.S. pattern arriving Jan. 23-27 “to finally break” from the current stretch of unseasonably mild temperatures, the firm added. The “primary reason for such light national demand the next 15 days is the southern half of the U.S. and up the Mid-Atlantic Coast will see highs in the mid-50s to lower 80s, along with little coverage of daytime highs below freezing over the northern U.S. besides portions of the Midwest and near the Canadian border,” NatGasWeather said. “It’s the Jan. 23-28 period where colder weather systems will have better opportunity to sweep across the northern U.S. and where the natural gas markets are likely to be relieved this period has the potential to finally be cold enough.” EBW Analytics Group analyst Eli Rubin also attributed Monday’s rally to “overdue profit-taking” among traders holding short positions. “Total short positions have grown to a 15-month high as traders rode the wave lower in natural gas prices,” Rubin said Monday. Prices may have room to climb further “as shorts take profits and longs cautiously look for re-entry points.” That noted, the near-term “fundamental outlook remains bearish on a seasonal basis amid the warmest January in 17 years and record production levels — and may require weather forecasts to shift colder to establish a firmer medium-term bottom.”
U.S. natgas plunges 7% to one-year low on rising output, lower demand - (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures fell about 7% to their lowest in a year on Tuesday on rising output and forecasts for lower heating demand than previously expected for this week. "U.S. natural gas demand could be on track to hit record lows in January if unseasonably warm weather sticks around," Emily McClain, vice president at consulting firm Rystad Energy, said in a note. "Despite consistently robust LNG (liquefied natural gas) demand ... particularly from European buyers, prices are falling and expected to continue bearish momentum until winter weather returns," McClain said, noting gas production has rebounded after a winter storm caused a sudden drop in late December. Front-month gas futures for February delivery fell 27.1 cents, or 6.9%, to settle at $3.639 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), their lowest close since Dec. 30, 2021. That continues last year's record volatility with the contract now up or down over 5% on four of the six trading days in 2023. Traders said the biggest market uncertainty remains the restart date for Freeport LNG's export plant in Texas. After several delays from October to November and then to December, Freeport now expects the facility to be back in operation in the second half of January, pending regulatory approvals. Analysts have long said Freeport would probably be back online during the first or second quarter of 2023 because further work is required to satisfy federal regulators, including training staff in new safety procedures, before the plant can be restarted. Whenever Freeport returns, U.S. gas demand will jump. The plant can turn about 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas into LNG, which is about 2% of U.S. daily production. Data provider Refinitiv said that average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states has risen to 98.3 bcfd so far in January, up from 96.7 bcfd in December. That compares with a monthly record of 99.9 bcfd in November 2022. With the weather expected to remain warmer than normal until late January, Refinitiv projected average U.S. gas demand, including exports, would hold at 120.8 bcfd this week and next. The forecast for this week was lower than Refinitiv's outlook on Monday.
Natural Gas Futures Claw Out Rare 2023 Gain; Spot Prices Sputter - Natural gas futures traded in negative territory most of Wednesday – and have declined all but three sessions so far this year – amid a persistently potent warm-weather pattern that squashed demand across much of the Lower 48. The February Nymex gas futures contract settled at $3.671/MMBtu on Wednesday, ultimately eking out a 3.2-cent gain day/day amid bargain buying in the final hour of the session. March rose 3.2 cents to $3.346. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. lost 25.0 cents to $5.170. Above average temperatures across much of the central, southern and eastern United States to kick off the new year – along with forecasts for more of the same next week – cut into heating demand and left markets expecting weak consumption for several more days. EBW Analytics Group’s Eli Rubin, senior analyst, said this January is on pace to be among the warmest in nearly two decades. On a seasonal basis, he called temperatures “scorching” and said the “extent of near-term warming has slashed seasonal supply adequacy fears and Nymex risk premiums may struggle” more in coming days. Against that backdrop, analysts are bracing for a markedly bearish storage print with Thursday’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) inventory report. Reuters’ poll found a median withdrawal estimate of 15 Bcf for the EIA week ended Jan. 6. Predictions ran from an injection of 11 Bcf to a draw of 73 Bcf. The Wall Street Journal’s survey landed at an average draw of 13 Bcf. Estimates spanned pulls of 5 Bcf to 30 Bcf.
U.S. natgas up 1% on higher demand, despite surprise storage build (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures edged up about 1% on Thursday on forecasts for higher demand this week than previously expected, colder-than-normal weather coming in late January and uncertainty about when the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas will exit a seven-month outage. That small price increase came despite a federal report showing a surprise build in gas stockpiles that was the first injection during the month of January on record because the weather last week was warmer than normal, keeping heating demand low. "With prices down so heavily to kick-off 2023, gas market players may have already largely priced in a considerably weak withdrawal," analysts at energy consulting firm Gelber & Associates said in a note. Gas futures were down about 17% so far this year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said utilities added 11 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended Jan. 6. That was a surprise from the 13-bcf withdrawal forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll and compares with a decrease of 157 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2017-2021) average decline of 157 bcf. Last week's increase boosted stockpiles to 2.902 trillion cubic feet (tcf), or 1.4% below the five-year average of 2.942 tcf for this time of year. Front-month gas futures for February delivery rose 2.4 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $3.695 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). Earlier in the week, the contract closed at its lowest level since Dec. 30, 2021. Despite the gain the contract remained in oversold territory with a relative strength index (RSI) below 30 for a third day in a row. Daily volume in the U.S. Natural Gas Fund, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to track the daily price movement of gas, rose to 21.1 million shares on Wednesday, its highest since February 2022, according to Refinitiv data. That was the fifth most active day for the U.S. gas fund and follows a rise on Monday in shares outstanding to their highest since December 2020. Daily share purchases have entered the top 10 daily inflows three times already this year. Data provider Refinitiv said that average gas output in the U.S. Lower 48 states has risen to 98.4 bcfd so far in January, up from 96.7 bcfd in December. That compares with a monthly record of 99.9 bcfd in November 2022. With the weather expected to remain warmer than normal until late January, Refinitiv projected average U.S. gas demand, including exports, would ease from 121.2 bcfd this week to 119.4 bcfd next week. The forecast for this week was higher than Refinitiv's outlook on Wednesday.
Natural gas revisits $3 lows, raising specter of breaking that support - - The gas bears are back to torment the bulls, after allowing them a two-day reprieve. Natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Henry Hub plunged 7% on Friday to approach 19-month lows and threaten a take out of the key $3 support after the U.S. government reported a day ago a rare winter-season storage build for inventories of the heating fuel. The front-month February gas contract settled at $3.419 per mmBtu, down 27.60 cents, or 7.5%, on the day after hitting a session bottom at $3.417 — its lowest since June 25. February gas rose a combined 1.5% over the past two sessions before ending the week down 8%. Cumulatively, warm winter weather has erased 52% of the market’s value over just four weeks. Friday’s leg lower on the Henry Hub came after the Energy Information Administration reported an 11-bcf, or billion cubic feet, in gas storage builds for the week ended Jan. 6. The increase in gas inventories, which came during what is being described as the warmest start to winter in 20 years, was at the high of the forecasts by some industry analysts, who expected a build of under 10 bcf for last week. Fourteen of them, polled by Reuters ahead of the data, had anticipated a draw of 15 bcf on the average. Sensing an extremely bearish storage report, some market participants had expected the last vestiges of $3 support to vanish from the front-month gas contract this week, to reintroduce the $2 trading levels not seen since May 2021. Technical charts had, however, indicated that Henry Hub’s front-month would hold above $3 this week, though there was no indication what could happen next week. After explosive upward price action for most of 2022 from weather extremities and a supply squeeze caused by political and other disruptions to Russian gas output in the aftermath of the Ukraine invasion, natural gas futures suddenly collapsed last month. The change has been attributed primarily to unseasonably warm winter temperatures that has left both the U.S. and European heating markets sufficiently supplied. Exports of LNG, or liquefied natural gas, have also been tamped down since June with the shutdown of the Freeport liquefaction facility in Texas, which has idled about 2 bcf, or billion cubic feet, of gas per day. That is independent of what’s happening on the weather front. “It is becoming increasingly evident that the Freeport LNG export terminal will likely not return online in February, adding another 60 bcf to gas storage stocks,” . On the weather front, Gelber said even if longer-range forecast models, such as the U.S. Global Forecast System and the European ECMWF, showed the potential for colder temperatures in late January, the actual outcome may be a “quick freeze…punctuated by unseasonable warmth.”
It's Basically Spring for the Natural-Gas Market – WSJ - How unusually warm has it been lately? On Thursday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that natural gas inventories rose by 11 billion cubic feet last week.That's the sort of number gas traders are used to seeing in spring, not in the heart of heating season, when demand usually outstrips supply and stockpiles are drawn down to fuel furnaces and boilers.There's not a January increase in EIA data going back to the start of 2010. The average weekly change in inventories in January is a decline of about 165 bcf. The largest was a 359 bcf flow from storage facilities during the blizzard of 2018. The smallest (-44 bcf) occurred at the start of 2020.The unheard of January inventory build brought domestic inventories to just 1.4% shy of the five-year average and is erasing doubt that there will be enough of the fuel to get through winter.
U.S. natgas price plunge could limit this year's output growth (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas output is on track to rise about 2% this year and next, according to government forecasts, but sharp declines in prices in recent weeks could undercut those gains, analysts and producers said. Rising gas production from U.S. shale fields has provided low-cost fuel for domestic power, industrial and residential consumers and international exports. And with Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year pushing prices into the stratosphere, producers kept adding drilling rigs. A warmer-than-expected start to the winter and the cooling of exports to Europe as inventories filled has cut U.S. futures prices by more than half since November, causing drillers to reduce the number of rigs drilling for gas to their lowest since May. "2023 is gearing up to be oversupplied by more than 5.0 bcfd(billion cubic feet per day), which justifies the downward trend in prices," One billion cubic feet is enough gas to supply about five million U.S. homes for a day. Gas futures at the Henry hub benchmark in Louisiana dropped from a recent high of $7.11 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in mid-December to $3.51 on Friday. That 51% price plunge over the past four weeks, the lack of enough pipeline capacity out of West Texas, and a projected decline in U.S. domestic gas consumption in 2023 and 2024 is forcing energy companies to rethink their outlook.
Washington Has Trouble Refilling The SPR After 220 Million Barrel Draw - After drawing over 221 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in 2022, Washington is having a tough time refilling it in the New Year, with the Department of Energy (DoE) rejecting the first offers on the grounds that they failed to benefit taxpayers. The DoE has by now received several offers for February purchases to refill the SPR, according to both Bloomberg and Reuters. However, those offers have been rejected as too expensive or failing to meet other requirements. For February, the plan was to purchase 3 million barrels, ideally when oil dropped to around $70 per barrel. This 3-million-barrel pilot program would have given sellers a fixed price for future deliveries and is in contrast to the DoE’s normal operating procedure, which had seen it purchase oil for faster delivery without fixed-price contracts. Right now, WTI is trading around $75/$76 per barrel, and new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Monday shows another 0.8 million barrel draw from the SPR. According to Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources “familiar with the matter”, the DoE will now postpone its originally planned February purchases and embark on a new approach for fixed-price offers. “DOE will only select bids that meet the required crude specifications and that are at a price that is a good deal for taxpayers,” the DoE said in a Friday statement carried by news agencies. “Following review of the initial submission, DOE will not be making any award selections for the February delivery window.”The rejected bids are prompting speculation that refilling the SPR will be challenging, at best.The plan to fill the SPR, which has reached its lowest level since 1984, might not be attractive enough to sellers, despite the DoE’s efforts at enticement. Additionally, the Wall Street Journal speculates that the DoE may not have enough funding to refill the SPR completely. According to WSJ, the DoE has $.48 billion in purchasing power. At the desired $70 per barrel, that would give it enough funding to refill the SPR to 440 million barrels.
180 Million Barrels Of Crude May Never Be Returned To The SPR - Earlier this week, the Biden administration rejected the first bids from companies offering to sell crude oil into the strategic petroleum reserve of the country. The tender followed a record release of 180 million barrels throughout 2022. And that 180 million barrels may never be returned to the SPR. “DOE will only select bids that meet the required crude specifications and that are at a price that is a good deal for taxpayers,” the Department of Energy said in a statement following the failed tender, which invited bids for a modest 3 million barrels. And this statement reflects what many feared last year when President Biden first said the administration would sell oil from the SPR to lower gasoline prices. First, there is the crude specifications issue. When the administration was releasing crude from the SPR, there wasn’t any mention of specifications. The only important thing was the volume. At the time, critics noted that the SPR contains mostly light, sweet crude, and the release of 180 million barrels of that variety won’t make much of a difference in gasoline prices because U.S. gasoline is made by blending light with heavy crude. Yet the oil market moves in strange ways, and sometimes it’s enough to release several million barrels into the market to convince traders there’s plenty more where these came from. Fuel prices in the U.S. fell, especially as the release coincided with persistent inflation that shrank consumption.Second, however, comes the issue of price. The Department of Energy had said at the end of last year it would only start buying oil for the SPR once the price of WTI falls to around $67-70 per barrel. Right now, WTI is trading at around $75. Yet this price appears to be insufficiently low for the DoE. And this is a problem because the total release from the SPR was not the original 180 million barrels, but more than 220 million barrels of crude. This is problematic for more than one reason. First, because the SPR is at the lowest level since the early 1980s and, as some analysts have pointed out, it is astrategic reserve, meant to be there for times of emergency. So, if an emergency does occur, strategic oil reserves would be lower than they should be. The second reason this is problematic is that what the administration hoped to achieve with its offers to buy crude for the SPR was not just replenishing the reserve but motivating higher oil production from local companies. And local companies appear to remain unmotivated to do that. Production is already getting costlier for most oil companies in the U.S., according to industry executives. Even though there is optimism in the oil patch, according to the latest Dallas Fed energy survey, it is moderate and guarded, and nobody is in a rush to boost production at current oil prices. It can’t have come as a surprise: U.S. oil producers were not boosting production when prices were significantly higher, either. A bigger problem, however, is whether the Department of Energy can afford to refill the SPR, as Wall Street Journal’s Jinjoo Lee suggested in a recent article. And the answer to this question may well be “No.” Lee reports that the sale of 180 million barrels of crude from the SPR last year probably generated some $17.3 billion in proceeds at an average price of $96 per barrel. But of this $17.3 billion, $12.5 billion was set aside for use by Congress in the latest spending bill to fill the gap left by the cancellation of previously scheduled SPR sales for the period 2024 to 2027, according to ClearView Energy Partners. This leaves the DoE with $4.8 billion to spend on replenishing the SPR, and, according to Lee, this could only buy 70 million barrels at WTI prices of $70 per barrel. This is less than half of what was released last year.
Could 2023 be a turning point for U.S. offshore oil? - The Interior Department’s plan for selling new leases to drill off U.S. coasts is due any day, a legacy-defining policy for President Joe Biden that could help hasten the decline of the nation’s offshore oil business. What’s in the five-year offshore oil plan, a program required under federal law, likely comes down to a fossil fuel lifeline tucked into last year’s sweeping climate and clean energy law as a concession to pro-oil Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Overall, the road map could have long-lasting impacts on the Gulf of Mexico, the country’s largest offshore supplier of crude oil. The plan — which has been years in the making — highlights what’s been a difficult balancing act for the Biden administration, the first to fully tangle with the challenges of managing the nation’s vast resources of offshore oil and gas while also trying to address a worsening climate crisis. It is significant in that debate, as the plan determines how often the government sells new rights to drill in federal waters to oil and gas companies. Once a routine matter to encourage the nation’s energy security, the program is under fierce scrutiny from climate activists calling on Biden to shift the nation away from its heavy reliance on fossil fuels. It’s also on the radar of congressional Republicans, who noted as gas prices spiked last summer that the previous plan expired during the Biden administration without another in place. Biden officials have blamed the Trump administration for suspending work on the offshore program, which takes year to write. Biden, who campaigned on a promise to end leasing on federal lands and water, has throttled new sales both offshore and on land, but the administration’s freedom to further constrain offshore oil and gas auctions was undercut by Manchin’s provision in the Inflation Reduction Act. Designed to ensure the federal government keeps some offshore leasing in play, the law makes selling leases for offshore wind projects, a major priority for the Biden administration, contingent on recent offshore oil auctions. The calculus likely being made now in the White House is how much oil does the government have to lease to safely hit climate and clean energy goals, said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners LLC. Book forecast that the administration would chart a cautious path that offers at least a few oil sales in the program. Others predicted Biden will try to keep his campaign promise to end federal oil leasing by zeroing out sales.
EPA Moves Away From Permian Air Pollution Crackdown - Federal authorities have stepped back from a proposal to address high levels of air pollution from the oil fields of West Texas and New Mexico. Last summer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it was considering designating the Permian Basin—the nation’s top-producing oil patch and one of the largest single sources of carbon emissions on Earth—in violation of ozone standards, which would have required substantial reforms in local oil and gas operations. But the proposal was moved to a backburner in the agency’s annual agenda issued last week, reclassified from “active” to “pending,” first reported by Bloomberg News. In a statement, the EPA said it had moved the item in order “to focus on non-discretionary actions.” It marks a win for the oil sector, which pushed hard against the EPA proposal, saying it would decrease production and cost jobs. “While it is encouraging news that the Biden Administration has backed down on this disastrous plan, Texas remains ready to fight any job-killing attacks on our critical oil and gas industry,” said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in a statement following the EPA move. Permian ozone standards are the latest setback for the Biden administration’s ambitious climate agenda. Despite promising steep, rapid cuts in carbon emissions, Biden has overseen a buildout of oil and gas export capacity, a surge in U.S. shale production and increased drilling on federal lands.. While the administration has proposed much-needed regulations, major concessions to the fossil fuel sector “contradict their commitment to stave off climate change,” said Robin Schneider, director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment. Ozone, also known as smog, forms in the atmosphere when hydrocarbon gases mix with vehicle engine emissions under sunlight. It usually accumulates in big cities with crowded highways. In recent years, ozone levels have risen in the mostly rural Permian Basin. Exposure to elevated ozone levels is the most dangerous for sensitive groups including the elderly, children and people who work outdoors. Ozone aggravates lung diseases such as asthma and emphysema. Hydrocarbon emissions, including from oil and gas wells, are one part of the ozone equation. The other part, nitrogen oxides, or NOx, come primarily from diesel engine exhaust.
Intensified Earthquakes in West Texas May Be Linked to Fracking-Related Activity, Experts Say - South Africa Today- Frequent and intensified earthquake activity in West Texas over the last several months may be linked to fracking-related activity, experts told Sputnik.West Texas, the top region in the state for oil and gas production, experienced a 5.4 magnitude earthquake that hit on November 16 and a 5.4 magnitude earthquake that occurred in the same region on December 16, marking the most intense seismic activity to strike the area in about three decades, according to the US Geological Survey."Most of the earthquakes in West Texas are considered induced earthquakes, which are mainly caused by wastewater injection-a process for oil and gas production," University of Houston Geophysics Professor Aibing Li told Sputnik."Long-term wastewater injection results in a pore pressure increase in crustal rocks, the chief reason to weaken faults and cause earthquakes. Some studies link some earthquakes to fracking activity in West Texas because the process also involves liquid injection and pore pressure increase."Li said she is not surprised by the latest seismic activity since increasing earthquake activity has been going on in West Texas for a decade, however, the increase in large-size earthquakes above magnitude 5.0 is certainly a concern for earthquake hazards.Although earthquake activity is hard to predict, Li predicts seismic activity in West Texas will continue for some time until built-up stress and pore pressure induced by long-term wastewater injection is released enough by earthquakes. However, according to Li, earthquakes have cycles and they will come back if pore pressure is built up again by wastewater injection and fracking.Alexandros Savvaidis, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas' Bureau of Economic Geology and the principal investigator of Texas’ state seismic monitoring network and seismicity research (TexNet), told Sputnik it is too early to conclude what contributed to the November earthquake in West Texas, but he expects it may be somehow linked to oil and gas production in the area."Too early to say what contributed, cannot make new assessment," Savvaidis said. "It is most likely somehow related to oil and gas production in the area."
EPA, pipeline operator reach deal to clean up Kansas oil spill (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Monday that it has reached an agreement with a pipeline operator to clean up a spill that dumped 14,000 bathtubs’ worth of crude oil into a rural Kansas creek.. The agency said in a news release that the Dec. 7 rupture of the Keystone pipeline affected 3 1/2 miles of the creek as it flows through rural pastureland in Washington County, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City. The order requires TC Oil Pipeline Operations Inc., whose parent company is Canadian-based TC Energy, to recover oil and oil-contaminated soil and vegetation and contain the further spread of oil in the creek. Meg McCollister, an EPA regional administrator, said in a statement that the federal government and the state are “committed to a thorough cleanup and restoration.” KDHE issues stream advisory for Slate Creek and confluence of Sand Creek near Newton The 2,700-mile (4,345-kilometer) Keystone system carries heavy crude oil extracted from tar sands in western Canada to the Gulf Coast and to central Illinois. The cause of the 14,000-barrel spill hasn’t yet been announced. Each barrel is 42 gallons, the size of a household bathtub. But U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who chairs the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, raised concerns in a letter Monday about the decision to grant TC Energy a permit that allowed the pressure inside parts of the Keystone system — including the stretch through Kansas — to exceed the typical maximum permitted levels. “This latest spill is no surprise,” Cantwell told the deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in demanding a review of the permit. The spill was the largest onshore in nine years and larger than 22 previous spills on the Keystone system combined, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data.
Gas prices rise as major Colorado fuel refinery remains closed (KRDO) -- Gas prices are on the rise once again in Colorado. On average, Colorado Springs gas prices are currently 22 cents higher than this time last week according to GasBuddy.com. The rising gas prices coincide with the shutdown of Suncor, a major Colorado petroleum refinery. Due to this, gas experts tell KRDO NewsChannel 13 prices will likely get worse before they get better Throughout the state of Colorado, average gas prices are up around 17 cents over the past week according to AAA, but the recent rise is on pace with the rest of the country. The Suncor shutdown is expected to change things. Suncor provides 35% to 40% of gas in Colorado, however, the fuel terminal shut down in December of because of equipment damage. Fuel trucks are now being redirected to Colorado's next-largest refinery in Aurora. Chief Petroleum, a fuel transporting company in Colorado Springs, tells KRDO NewsChannel 13 that the lines to fill up their tanks in Aurora are 6 or 7 hours long. John Schutz with Chief Petroleum says this has forced them to get creating by sending fuel trucks to neighboring states like Kansas or New Mexico to fill up. “Prices are going to rise as a function of the Suncor shutdown through March," Skyler McKinley with AAA told KRDO NewsChannel 13. "It just takes a lot more work, a lot more infrastructure to get refined products from Wyoming, from Utah, from parts of Kansas, from parts of Oklahoma, from parts of Texas that have to be trucked in, trained in, or pipelined in and can't be refined on site.” McKinley says the front range hasn't begun feeling the impact on gas prices from the Suncor shutdown yet. AAA anticipates that impact will be felt in the coming days and weeks. However, they do believe the market will eventually stabilize and come back down, especially after Suncor becomes operational again.
Corrected ozone data estimate fracking and drilling produce more emissions than every Front Range vehicle | Colorado Public Radio - To explain Colorado's consistent smog problem, regulators and scientists often point to two main sources of local air pollution: traffic and oil and gas. Driving and fossil-fuel production both release large amounts of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, two categories of chemicals that react to form ozone when exposed to heat and sunlight. Estimates suggested each activity played a more-or-less equal role in exposing Front Range residents to ground-level ozone pollution. A 2017 study based on aerial surveys suggested they cause about the same increase in ozone concentrations. More recent estimates from the Regional Air Quality Council, the lead air quality planning agency for the Front Range, showed oil and gas playing a slightly larger role. That all changed in November when Colorado air regulators announced a major correction to air quality modeling data it planned to submit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. New calculations predicted nitrogen oxide emissions from drilling and hydraulic fracturing expected in 2023 were likely nearly double the state's original estimates. As a result, those two activities alone appeared likely to account for more ozone-causing emissions than all cars and trucks along the Front Range. The revised estimates also showed that all oil and gas activities, not just drilling and fracking, likely represented by far the largest source of expected releases of ozone ingredients in 2023, representing 45 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions and 41 percent of volatile organic compound emissions. Following a request from state regulators, the data error led governor-appointed commissioners to hold back parts of its new ozone plan. Michael Ogletree, the director of the Air Quality Control Division, said the decision would allow regulators to consider adding "significant pollution controls" in a follow-up rulemaking next year. "The bottom line is we're acknowledging the mistake and we're going to make lemons out of lemonade. In the end, we'll get an even stronger state implementation plan," Ogletree told CPR News.
Study finds Wyo gas fields abuzz with invertebrates – WyoFile - A pair of peer-reviewed papers examining how insects are faring in reclaimed portions of the Pinedale Anticline and Jonah gas fields found major population and diversity upticks, as well as evidence that breaking up the sagebrush benefits pollinators. To make those determinations, former University of Wyoming PhD student Mike Curran, of the Wyoming Reclamation and Restoration Center, examined 28 reclaimed well pads in the two Green River basin gas fields from 2015 to 2017. The first study, focused on the Anticline, found a surge of bug numbers and families where native grasses were planted on reclaimed well pad ground — and even greater gains where Rocky Mountain bee plant was seeded. A subsequent study, examining infill drilling sites on the more southerly Jonah Field, suggests that native, flowering vegetation planted on rehabilitated ground provided nodes of seasonal habitat for pollinator insects that were well occupied relative to undeveloped sagebrush. “It definitely shows that there are some positive benefits from the reclamation that’s being done up there,” said Curran, who now owns a consulting business, Abnova Ecological Solutions. “My hope is that by getting these native vegetation communities established with more diversity than what was there, the long-term benefit is that, as the noise [from development] moves out, some of these other wildlife species will move back in.” The Jonah and Anticline, large Sublette County gas fields developed around the turn of the century, have been testbeds for researchers studying how industrializing sagebrush-steppe habitat influences native wildlife like sage grouse, pronghorn and mule deer. Decades of monitoring and research have found that all three of those iconic sagebrush-dwelling species have suffered. Despite mitigation efforts, mule deer abundance during drilling on the Anticline declined by 36%. Over the long run, pronghorn avoided the area, too, following the unraveling of an effort to develop a pronghorn-friendly gas field. Sage grouse, likewise, collapsed in the gas fields: males gathering on leks in densely drilled areas fell by half during an era when grouse numbers were otherwise flat in the region. With that history, Curran’s findings about gas drilling reclamation areas being a potential boon for bugs presents a silver lining for gas companies that have invested funds in mitigating wildlife impacts. Josh Sorenson, Jonah Energy’s lead reclamation specialist and a co-author on Curran’s papers, said the results suggest that one long-run benefit of drilling is that the reclamation that follows could be cast as a landscape-level habitat restoration project.
U.S. sets up office to oversee abandoned oil well cleanup (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on Tuesday issued an order to establish an office to ensure efficient use of the Biden administration's $4.7 billion investment in the cleanup of abandoned oil and gas wells. The Orphaned Wells Program Office will be led by Kimbra Davis, who has worked at the Interior Department since 2009. Orphaned oil and gas wells are those that generally have been abandoned and are no longer producing. "The Department is standing up a new office to support states, tribes and federal land managers as they close and remediate orphaned oil and gas wells that pose environmental hazards to communities across the country," Haaland said in a statement. Well-plugging efforts are part of President Joe Biden's goal to reduce climate-warming methane emissions, create jobs and address pollution in communities impacted by infrastructure left behind after more than a century of oil and gas drilling. A 2022 analysis by the Interior Department found more than 130,000 documented orphaned U.S. wells - far more than the 56,600 tallied in a report by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission in 2019.A bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in 2021 allocated $4.7 billion to well cleanup efforts, with $4.3 billion to plug orphaned wells on state and private lands, $250 million to cap them on public lands and in national parks, national forests and wildlife refuges and $150 million to do so on tribal lands.
Cleanup of oil spill in South Coast creek complete - Authorities say they’ve finished the cleanup of an oil spill in a South Coast creek. The oil was first discovered in Toro Creek, in the Carpentaria area on January 1. More than 50 people were involved in a week-long cleanup effort. The oil never made it as far as the ocean, or to beaches. There’s no word on the amount of oil involved in the spill. The cause is under investigation, but there is an old capped well dating back to the 1880’s in the area. It was involved in some leakage nearly two years ago. The state’s Oiled Wildlife Care Network was active, but there is no word of any injured wildlife.
More oil flowed through Trans Alaska Pipeline last year than in 2021 or 2020, operator reports - Alaska Beacon The amount of oil flowing through the Trans Alaska Pipeline System was higher in 2022 than in each of the two years prior, the system’s operator said on Tuesday. The system shipped over 176.4 million barrels of oil in the calendar year, averaging 483,415 barrels per day, said Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., the consortium that operates the 800-mile line and its Valdez marine terminal. It was the first time since 2017 that oil flowing through the pipeline – known as throughput – increased from the previous calendar year, Alyeska said in a statement. The 2022 totals were also higher than those from 2020, the company said. In 2021, nearly 174.4 million barrels were shipped through the system, averaging 477,798 barrels per day, Alyeska said. In 2020, about 175.8 million barrels were shipped through the system, averaging 480,199 barrels per day, Alyeska said. The Trans Alaska Pipeline System began shipping oil in 1977. Average daily throughput peaked in 1988 at over 2 million barrels per day. It has been declining since then, though with some variability, as North Slope fields age and become less productive. North Slope oil production has been influenced since early 2020 by several factors, some working in opposite directions. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc., the top oil producer, drastically curtailed operations in Alaska and elsewhere. That included the suspension of production at about 300 North Slope wells and demobilization of nearly 2,000 North Slope workers. The reduced production was not permanently lost but deferred until later, the company said. But also during the period since 2020, under Hilcorp Energy Co.’s new management, the long-term decline of production at the Greater Prudhoe Bay Unit was halted and, eventually, reversed. Hilcorp, a privately owned company known for revitalizing mature fields, became Prudhoe’s operator in mid-2020 after acquiring BP’s Alaska assets. Production at Prudhoe, the largest oil-field unit on the North Slope, is now higher than it was just prior to the Hilcorp takeover, according to the Alaska Department of Revenue. Average daily Prudhoe unit production was 295,427 barrels through December of 2019 but in December of 2022 it averaged 322,261 barrels, according to the department.
Chevron's first cargo of Venezuelan oil after license leaves for U.S. - Chevron's (NYSE:CVX) first cargo of Venezuelan crude under a U.S. license received in November has departed from a ship-to-ship transfer hub near Aruba to its Pascagoula, Mississippi refinery, Reuters reported Tuesday.Chevron's (CVX) Caribbean Voyager tanker transferred the 500K-barrel cargo of Hamaca heavy crude it had loaded in Venezuela to Malta-flagged vessel Sealeoat a ship-to-ship hub near Aruba, which is scheduled to arrive at the Pascagoula refinery on January 15, according to the report.The company confirmed shipping activities in Venezuela began this month and said it is focused on "operating safely and reliably" after restarting operations at its affiliated joint ventures in December.After a decade of record high capital expenditure, Chevron (CVX) is "now among the best-positioned global energy companies to grow production and invest in new technologies," Vladimir Dimitrov writes in an analysis newly published on Seeking Alpha.
Venezuela crude cargoes to arrive in US next week -- About 800,000 bl of crude from Venezuela has shipped under eased US sanctions and is set to arrive at Chevron's 369,000 b/d refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, next week. The Aframax Caribbean Voyager loaded with about 380,000 bl of a Merey-type upgraded crude left Venezuela's Jose terminal on 7 January and is set to arrive in Pascagoula near or on 18 January, according to ship tracking data from Vortexa. The Sealeo, also loaded with 380,000 bl of Merey-type crude, is bound for the same destination, arriving in the same time frame, after receiving a ship-to-ship transfer of crude offshore of the Jose terminal. The port handles crude from Chevron's PetroPiar joint venture with state-owned PdV. Other sources have confirmed the cargoes are bound for Chevron's refinery, which is equipped to handle the heavy crude. Chevron is ramping up production again in its joint ventures with state-owned PdV in the wake of the US easing some sanctions against Venezuela last year. But infrastructure issues from years of neglect are slowing some exports. These include a lack of dredging at Lake Maracaibo, near Venezuela' oldest oil producing areas to the west of the Jose terminal, which is forcing ships to use transfers and other maneuvers. A Chevron source said the conditions are not delaying exports but do "limit us to a maximum cargo of 250,000 bl per ship" in Lake Maracaibo. Ship-to-ship transfers are taking place near state-owned PdV's nameplate 635,000 b/d Amuay refinery in Falcon state, near the Punta Cardon port. But other sources said the conditions are a time constraint.
Venezuela December oil output reaches 712,000 b/d --Venezuelan oil output averaged 712,000 b/d in December, down slightly from November as US oil producer Chevron begins to revitalize operations following eased US sanctions.The Orinoco oil belt produced 447,000 b/d of extra heavy crude, according to analysts with Gas Energy, while the nearby Oriente division produced 170,000 b/d of medium to heavy crude. Occidente, including the Zulia fields, produced 95,000 b/d on average. Occidente production reached as high as 110,000 b/d on some day as Chevron's Petroboscan project came back on line on 21 December after a six month hiatus triggered by insufficient storage.Hopes that an increase in crude export cargoes will help lift production with the recent resumption of some Chevron operations may be tempered by ongoing infrastructure issues, including a lack of power in many fields.Another concern is the ability of tankers to navigate in the Lake Maracaibo channel, which has not been dredged since 2015. So far only smaller vessels have been able to arrive to load oil at the Bajo Grande port on the lake, according to sources, which is creating problems for crude storage and even production.The Venezuelan Oil Chamber, a collection of companies involved in the country's oil and gas business, will meet Tuesday to address dredging the channel and adding beacons to help with navigation.
Brazil on alert over protests at oil refineries - Supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro are organizing protests and blockades at refineries owned by the state-controlled oil company Petrobras, seeking to disrupt fuel supplies. Oil workers union FUP reported protests of around 30 to 150 people each at the Reman, Refap, Revap and Regap refineries early this morning. The protesters are demanding the removal of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from office, claiming the October election that Lula won was allegedly stolen. The protests and planned attacks follow yesterday's storming of the country's congress, presidential palace and supreme court and were organized through social media, as posts and messages summoning protests at refineries started circulating over the weekend. Last night, the head of Lula's Workers Party, Gleisi Hoffmann, posted videos of a blockade at the Repar refinery entrance. But the protests have not caused disruptions to operations so far, according to FUP. The contents of the protesters' messaging indicate that Bolsonaro's followers are targeting Petrobras refineries, including the Duque de Caxias refinery (Reduc), in Rio de Janeiro state, the Gabriel Passos refinery (Regap), in Minas Gerais state, the Presidente Getulio Vargas refinery (Repar), in Parana, the Alberto Pasqualini refinery (Refap), in Rio Grande do Sul, the Henrique Lage refinery (Revap), in Sao Paulo state, and the Paulinia refinery (Replan), also in Sao Paulo and the country's biggest. Protesters also plan to disrupt deliveries from the Isaac Sabba refinery (Reman), in Amazonas state, owned since December by Ream, a subsidiary of the fuel distributor Atem. Brazil has a total of 19 refineries, of which at least seven are reportedly targeted by Bolsonaro's supporters. Last night, FUP urged governmental authorities to act against the protesters. "It is essential for the company to be prepared and to take action through all necessary means to ensure the safety of its workers and units, along with market supply", the union said. Further security measures were arranged for Reduc by Rio de Janeiro's governor, Claudio Castro. Brazil's newly-appointed mines and energy minister Alexandre Silveira promised to "ensure national fuel supply and normal operations at refineries, terminals and distribution centers."
Europe Imports Of U.S. Diesel, Gasoline To Hit 2-Year High - Europe’s imports of diesel and gasoil from the United States is on track to reach a two-year high this month, data from Vortexa shows.In December, Europe’s U.S. loadings for diesel and gasoil reached 660,000t, according to Vortexa data cited by Argus. It was the highest amount headed to Europe in any month since September 2020—and a strikingly high 70% increase over cargos loaded in November. The rush for Europe to stock up on diesel and gasoil comes just a couple of months ahead of the European Union’s full ban on crude oil products set to begin on February 5.For the United States, which is already battling falling diesel supplies that are 14% below their five-year average, the increasing European imports have collided with refinery outages over the Christmas holidays due to cold weather, further depressing U.S. distillate and gasoline inventories. Phillips 66 predicted earlier this week that the gasoline and diesel markets will be tight this summer, with refiners running at or near full capacity for months.Europe has also looked to the UAE for additional diesel imports.Russia is gearing up to increase its diesel shipments this month before the EU’s ban kicks in, with fuel shipments from Russian ports set to reach 2.68 million tonnes in January—an 8% increase over last month and the highest rate since January 2020, Bloomberg reported last month. Those export figures only include pipeline and rail shipments.In the first ten days of December, about half of Europe’s diesel imports came from Russian shipping facilities, highlighting the still-strong reliance that Europe has on Russian diesel as recently as a month ago. Europe was also importing a healthy amount of diesel from the Middle East and Asia.
Traders Are Betting On A Diesel Shortage - Talk of a global diesel shortage subsided in the past few weeks as oil prices once again took center stage, but the tight supply situation in middle distillates appears to have remained unchanged, and traders are betting it will continue to be tight. Tighter than the situation in oil, in fact. In his regular column, Reuters’ John Kemp said this week that more traders were bullish on middle distillates than on crude oil. Even though sales of diesel in the last week of 2022 hit 2 million barrels, they were nowhere near sales of crude oil at 30 million barrels for WTI. It’s all about the outlook. Diesel and other distillate fuels swung close to a shortage over the past two years as demand for freight transport surged amid the pandemic and the lockdowns, but production didn’t. As the pandemic began to subside and the lockdowns ended, demand for transportation remained strong and, it seems, so did demand for freight transport specifically. Air travel began to recover, too, with pent-up demand adding to the shortage worry in middle distillates, which, besides diesel, are used to make jet fuel. In the United States, the East Coast got a scare last October with diesel and heating oil inventories lower than usual and demand about to take off as heating season began. Luckily, a shortage was avoided, but prices soared along with many people’s heating bills.Farmers in some parts of the country are also suffering the effects of tight diesel supply and the resulting higher prices even as they still try to recover from the blow the industry suffered from the pandemic.In Europe, buyers rushed to stock up on Russian diesel before the February 5 embargo on fuels kicks in. This week Bloomberg reported that Kuwait is preparing to ramp up its diesel sales to Europe considerably this year to replace embargoed Russian fuels.However, the Kuwaiti fuel will not be able to replace all of the lost Russian diesel supply, so China and India will also probably be exporting more diesel to Europe. It is no coincidence that Beijing issued higher fuel export quotas for Chinese refiners this year.Meanwhile, the silver lining of all the bad economic news reports that marked the last quarter of 2022 appears to be lower diesel use, alleviating the tight supply situation somewhat. Reuters’ Kemp again noted it first in a column from the start of December and then another written a month later.A decline in manufacturing activity and freight transport in response to rising fuel prices has led to a decline in the demand for those fuels. As a result, U.S. distillate fuel inventories inched up between October and November, which was a very welcome development. However, they still remained lower than the five-year average for that time of the year.
US propane shipments to offset lower European output --The European propane market is unlikely to struggle with supply in 2023, with weaker regional import demand and a long global market expected to offset reduced local availability. The market heads into 2023 with limited support from its traditional demand sources — heating and petrochemicals. Ethylene cracker operating rates have dipped below levels seen at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, as demand for all downstream products has fallen. There are hopes for a petrochemical market bounce, but the mood for early 2023 is pessimistic given macroeconomic worries. The heating market could become the key driver of delivered large cargo prices to the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp hub, given muted petrochemical sector demand, by taking a larger share of total consumption. But average regional temperatures have been elevated since the start of winter, despite a cold snap in northern Europe in early December. And they have risen to historical highs in parts of mainland Europe in early 2023, including nearly 20°C in Poland, to the alarm of meteorologists. The longer-term weather outlook is uncertain, but the current signs suggest Europe's 2022-23 winter will be well above average. Large cargo propane prices have subsequently fallen since March 2022, to as low as $510/t on 20 December, ending the year at $544/t, having been above $700/t during the summer. Propane prices have also slumped relative to crude, falling by 30 percentage points to 89pc by the end of 2022 from a year earlier. Northwest Europe should still attract US propane imports this year despite weak regional prices owing to increasing US production, slowing demand growth in Asia-Pacific and higher freight costs for long-haul shipments. Asia-Pacific's pull on US exports weakened considerably in 2022, as the Chinese petrochemical sector struggled in the face of domestic Covid-19 restrictions and a faltering global economy. Beijing recently eased its zero-Covid policy but this has had limited upside for LPG demand and the continuing pandemic-related challenges in the country should cap any immediate resurgence in import demand. Worsening delays at the Panama Canal have compounded this issue for US exporters by increasing the cost for exports from the Gulf coast to Asia-Pacific and the journey length. VLGC freight rates hit a seven-year high of $208/t in early December on the Houston-Chiba route from the Gulf coast to Japan, cutting margins for US exporters. Panama Canal delays and freight rates fell at the turn of the year, but congestion and higher shipping costs are likely to continue causing problems in 2023 despite an influx of new VLGCs into the global vessel pool.
Shell LNG trading to lift quarterly profits despite output drop -Earnings from Shell’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading operations are likely to have been significantly higher in the fourth quarter of last year despite an output drop caused by plant outages, it said on Friday. Europe’s largest oil and gas company’s update ahead of its full-year results on Feb. 2 also flagged a $2 billion accounting hit in 2022 as a result of European Union and British windfall taxes on the energy sector. Fourth-quarter LNG liquefaction volumes are expected to be the lowest since the company acquired BG Group in 2016 for $53 billion, dropping to between 6.6 million and 7 million tonnes after prolonged outages at two major plants in Australia. But Shell, the world’s top LNG trader, said its LNG trading results are set to be “significantly higher” than in the previous quarter. Shell shares rose nearly 1.5% at 1330 GMT. Shell’s third-quarter results were dented by weaker refining performance and a slump in LNG trading. The LNG trading division recorded a loss of nearly $1 billion in the third quarter after traders were caught out by a rally in European gas prices when Russia halted supplies following its invasion of Ukraine. Yet Shell remained on track for record annual profit in 2022, having posted earnings of $30 billion in the first three quarters, just shy of the 2008 record profit of $31 billion. Shell said it expects fourth-quarter oil product trading results to be “significantly lower” than the third quarter. Several governments across Europe and Britain have imposed windfall taxes on energy companies to limit excess profits from the surge in energy prices that is a burden, not a benefit, for most of the population. Shell expects to incur $2 billion in accounting costs related to the windfall levies on top of $360 million it announced earlier in 2022, but the charge will not impact the company’s adjusted earnings.
Shell finds gas in North Sea prospect and embarks on commerciality evaluation - UK-headquartered energy giant Shell has made a gas discovery in an exploration well in the North Sea, which was spudded using a Noble-owned rig.Shell hired Maersk Drilling, now part of Noble Corp., to provide the Maersk Resilient – currently called Noble Resilient – harsh-environment jack-up rig to carry out the drilling of the Pensacola well and seabed operations for the placing of this rig were slated to start towards the end of July. At the end of October, plans were revealed to spud this well in mid-November 2022.The 2009-built Noble Resilient Gusto-engineered MSC CJ 50 high-efficiency jack-up rig was constructed at Keppel Fels Shipyard in Singapore. It can accommodate 120 people.The drilling operations at this gas prospect started in November 2022. The well 41/05a-2 is located in license P2252, which Shell operates with a 65 per cent interest while Deltic Energy (30 per cent) and ONE-Dyas (5 per cent) act as its partners. , Shell reported that gas has been encountered in the reservoir and recommended to the Joint Venture (JV) that a full well testing programme be undertaken. Due to this, the JV has endorsed Shell’s recommendation to undertake a full well test to evaluate the commerciality of the Pensacola prospect and update the geological model. The well testing is expected to take approximately 30 days.
Norway Replaces Russia As Germany’s Top Gas Supplier -Norway became Germany’s single-largest natural gas supplier in 2022, overtaking Russia, as total German gas imports dropped by 12.3% compared to 2021, the German Federal Network Agency, Bundesnetzagentur, said on Friday.Norway provided 33% of the gas Germany imported last year, followed by Russia, whose share fell to 22% for last year, compared to a 52% share in 2021, said the German regulator.Last year, Russia started gradually cutting gas supply via the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany in June until shutting down the pipeline in early September, claiming an inability to repair gas turbines for the pumping stations due to Western sanctions. The lack of gas deliveries from Russia was partly compensated for by additional imports, including from the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway, the German network agency said today. Europe’s biggest economy also saved a lot of gas in 2022, partly due to household saving and to industrial production curtailments due to soaring gas prices.According to Bundesnetzagentur, Germany’s natural gas consumption dropped by 14% in 2022 compared to the average consumption for the past four years. Industrial demand fell by 15% compared to the average for the past four years. Between October and December, industrial gas consumption fell by 23%, and consumption by private consumers and businesses was 21% below the previous years. As supply from Russia fell and then stopped in early September, Germany started looking at importing LNG and began construction of regasification terminals to be able to welcome cargoes. The first such terminal, a floating LNG import terminal, officially opened at the end of 2022 at Wilhelmshaven on Germany’s North Sea coast. Earlier this week, Germany welcomed the first tanker carrying LNG at the newly opened LNG import terminal at Wilhelmshaven, with the cargo arriving from the Calcasieu Pass export facility in the United States.
Europe’s Warm Winter May Not Be Such Good News For Energy - The last month has been a month of celebration in the European Union. Gas demand is down because of the unusually warm weather. As a result, prices are down, and the crisis, according to analysts, appears to be averted. The problem is that some of those analysts are adding the qualifier “For now.” The European Commission boasted an over 20-percent decline in demand in gas consumption on the continent over the period between August and November last year. This was not just a result of warm weather but also concerted action by European governments to discourage more demand.Then December turned out to be as warm as October, and demand fell naturally, as did prices. Some began talking about an end to the crisis and an end to the winter, even though in December, the astronomical winter was just beginning. January is turning out to be warm so far, adding substance to predictions that Europe lucked out in a major way this winter and will finish it with enough of a gas cushion should another cold spell pay Europeans a visit.In fact, winter has been so mild there has actually been an unseasonable increase in gas storage, Reuters’ John Kemp noted in a recent column. Only he also noted something else in that column. That the second factor leading to this unseasonable increase was the decline in industrial gas consumption. And the only way industrial consumers can reduce consumption is by shrinking their operations.This is the dark side of the success a lot of media are celebrating alongside Brussels. These celebrations appear to ignore the fact that the 20.1-percent decline in gas consumption across the bloc was also in no small part made possible by exorbitant gas prices that weighed on consumption the way excessive prices always weigh on the consumption of a commodity.Then there is the fact that although gas prices are down from last summer’s peaks, they are nowhere near where they were in 2019. As Politico noted in a recent story about European gas demand and prices, at close to 70 euro per megawatt-hour, European benchmark gas prices were about five times what they were in 2019.The problem that European politicians do not want to talk about is that as long as the EU relies on LNG, these prices are not going to go much lower for the very simple reason that LNG could never be as cheap as pipeline gas.The other reason is that Russian pipeline deliveries are not returning any time soon, not along Nord Stream 1, anyway, and this means that the EU will continue to rely on LNG both by choice and by necessity for the observable future. As wholesale prices on the TTF market fall, so will retail prices when they catch up with the wholesale prices—retail energy suppliers buy their gas on the wholesale market months in advance—and the winter may well continue mild. But that would likely mean a dry, hot summer, too. And that would increase the demand for energy for cooling purposes.
Explosion in gas pipeline in Lithuania, no injuries reported - (AP) — An explosion occurred Friday in a pipeline in central Lithuania carrying gas to the north of the country and neighboring Latvia but no injuries or significant supply disruptions were reported. Baltic media said the blast sent flames 50 meters (164 feet) into the sky and forced the protective evacuation of a nearby village. The operator of Lithuania’s natural gas transmission system, AB Amber Grid, said the explosion took place away from residential buildings and “according to initial data” no people were injured. “The fire is being extinguished by (firefighters who) immediately arrived on the scene,” the company said in a statement. Raimonds Cudars, the energy minister in neighboring Latvia, said the explosion in Lithuania so far has not caused problems with natural gas supplies in Latvia. The Baltic News Service said Cudars had been informed that the reason for the explosion was a technical accident. Amber Grid said the explosion appears to have occurred in one of two parallel pipelines, and the other was not damaged. It said the suspended gas supply to Latvia will be restored within hours. Repair work on the damaged pipeline is expected to start on Saturday. The gas flow through the damaged pipeline in the Pasvalys area was immediately interrupted. “We immediately started to investigate the circumstances of the incident and ensure gas supply to consumers,” Amber Grid CEO Nemunas Biknius said in a statement. He said the government had been informed. Firefighters rushed to the scene and flames lit up the dark sky and were visible several kilometers (miles) away as the gas remaining in the pipe continued to burn Friday evening. “It seemed as if planes were flying somewhere low -– a high-pressure gas pipeline exploded,” the Pasvalys district’s Mayor Gintautas Gegužinskas told LRT RADIO. “The flames are shooting up to a high altitude.” Lithuanian broadcaster LRT said the village of Valakeliai, with about 250 inhabitants, was being evacuated as a precaution. The village is located less that a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the pipeline. “There is no panic, there are (firefighters) standing by, making sure the buildings don’t catch fire. I think the situation will be under control,” Sigitas Šležas, a member of the Valakeliai village community, told BNS. The pipeline carries gas from Lithuania's Baltic port of Klaipeda to Latvia. Klaipeda is the only major seaport in Lithuania. In September, undersea explosions in the Baltic ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which until Russia cut off supplies at the end of August was its main supply route to Germany. They also damaged the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which never entered service as Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Lithuania was the first European Union nation which completely cut off Russian gas imports in April 2022, weeks after the invasion. The Baltic state imports gas from multiple countries through the Klaipeda Liquid Natural Gas terminal built a decade ago. The terminal satisfies all Lithuania’s natural gas needs and allows deliveries to neighboring countries.
Yellen says oil price cap limiting Russia's energy revenues so far (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that the price cap on Russian oil imposed by Western countries in December so far appeared to be achieving its goals of keeping Russian oil on the market while limiting Russia's revenues. "While the crude oil price cap has only been in effect for around a month, we have already seen early progress towards both of those goals, with senior Russian officials having admitted that the price cap was cutting into Russia's energy revenues," Yellen said at the start of a meeting with Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. The crude oil price cap was imposed on Dec. 5 by G7 countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, prohibiting the use of Western-supplied maritime insurance, finance and other services for cargoes priced above the cap level of $60 per barrel. Russian Urals grade crude for delivery to Europe was quoted at $52.48 on Tuesday, maintaining a steep discount to benchmark Brent crude , which was trading at $80.82. Yellen said energy markets remained well-supplied following the European Union's ban on imports of Russian crude oil, also imposed on Dec. 5. "Public reports indicate countries are using the price cap to drive steep bargains on the price of Russian oil imports," Yellen added. But Moscow has vowed to ban oil supplies to countries that abide by the price cap starting on Feb. 1, and Russia's energy ministry said earlier on Tuesday it is working on additional measures to enforce the ban on direct or indirect use of the price cap.
Kremlin "Keeping Very Close Watch" On Russian Oil Prices, Will Limit Oil Discount - Russia’s government is watching Russian crude oil price trends closely after reports that its flagship crude currently trades at around half the price of the international benchmark, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. “The government, first of all Deputy Prime Minister [Alexander] Novak, is watching the situation very closely, as [well as] the Energy Ministry,” Peskov said, as carried by Russian news agency TASS. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman was asked if the Kremlin was concerned about the very low prices at which Russia’s Urals is trading and the consequences for Russia’s budget income. Urals, Russia’s flagship crude grade, was going for $37.80 a barrel at the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk on Friday, half the Brent Crude price on the same day, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing data provided by Argus Media. Russia is also “keeping a very close watch” on the situation after the presidential decree in retaliation to the price cap on Russian oil, Peskov said today.At the end of December, Russian President Vladimir Putin banned the sale of Russian oil to countries that have joined the so-called Price Cap Coalition and comply with the cap imposed by the Western countries. The Russian move was weeks in the making and follows the start of the price cap mechanism that the G7, the EU, and Australia implemented on December 5.The EU and G7 banned maritime transportation services from shipping Russia’s crude oil to third countries if the oil is bought above the price cap of $60 per barrel, and the EU imposed an embargo on seaborne imports of Russian oil into the bloc.Putin’s decree bans the sale of Russian oil to countries that comply with the price cap and will be in effect from February 1 to July 1, 2023.Russia has the right to respond to “illegal measures” as it sees fit, Putin’s spokesman Peskov has said.
The West’s oil war against Russia is starting to take its toll — sparking calls for tougher measures - Russia's revenue from fossil fuel exports collapsed in December, according to a new report, significantly hampering PresidentVladimir Putin's ability to finance the war in Ukraine.The findings, Ukrainian officials and campaigners say, illustrate the effectiveness of targeting Russia's oil revenue and underscore the urgent need for Western policymakers to ratchet up the financial pressure on Moscow in order to help Kyiv prevail.Published Wednesday by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent Finnish think tank, the report found the first month of the European Union's ban on seaborne imports of Russian crude and the G-7's price cap had cost Moscow an estimated 160 million euros ($171.8 million) per day. Ukraine war: Moscow's invasion likely to inflict economic decline on RussiaCREA's report said the Western measures were largely responsible for a 17% fall in Russia's earnings from fossil fuel exports in the final month of 2022. It means that Russia — one of the world's top oil producers and exporters — saw revenue from fossil fuel exports slump to its lowest level since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February."The EU's oil ban and the oil price cap have finally kicked in and the impact is as significant as expected," Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at CREA, said in a statement."This shows that we have the tools to help Ukraine prevail against Russia's aggression. It's essential to lower the price cap to a level that denies taxable oil profits to the Kremlin, and to restrict the remaining oil and gas imports from Russia," Myllyvirta said.The Group of Seven, Australia and the EU implemented a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian oil on Dec. 5. It came alongside a move by the EU and U.K. to impose a ban on the seaborne import of Russian crude oil. Together, the measures reflected by far the most significant step to curtail the fossil fuel export revenue that is funding the Kremlin's onslaught in Ukraine.Energy analysts had been skeptical about the impact of a price cap on Russian oil, particularly as Moscow had been able to reroute much of its European seaborne shipments to the likes of China, India and Turkey.Russia retaliated against the Western measures late last month by banning oil sales to countries that abide by the price cap.Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has previously said a Western price cap on Russian oil would not impact its ability to sustain what it describes as its "special military operation" in Ukraine. Peskov also warned the measure would destabilize global energy markets,Reuters reported.A spokesperson for Russia's Finance Ministry was not immediately available to comment on the report's findings.
Rosneft wants to supply gas to Power-of-Siberia 2 pipeline – Kommersant - Russian oil major Rosneft wants to supply natural gas from its fields in the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions to the Power-of-Siberia 2 pipeline that will supply China via Mongolia, the daily Kommersant reported on Monday. Russia's Gazprom is aiming to start delivering gas via the 2,600-km Power-of-Siberia 2 pipeline by 2030. The pipeline could carry 50 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas per year. Rosneft has reserves of 1.5 trillion cubic meters of gas in the fields along the route of the future gas pipeline, Kommersant reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak to work out with Gazprom Rosneft's request to take its gas reserves into account when building the pipeline, the daily reported.
OVL retakes 20% stake in Sakhalin-1 oil, gas fields - ONGC Videsh Limited, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has re-taken a 20% stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas fields in the far east region of Russia, an official said on Monday. Russian President Vladimir Putin in October last year disbanded Exxon Neftegaz - a regional subsidiary of U.S. super major ExxonMobil - as operator of the Sakhalin-1 and transferred the project and all of its assets and equipment to a new operator. The other former foreign shareholders in the project - Japan's Sodeco consortium and ONGC Videsh - were asked to apply to the Russian government to regain their shareholdings in the project. OVL applied and has been given the same shareholding as it had previously, the official said. Production from Sakhalin-1 stopped in April 2022 after Exxon Neftegaz declared force majeure at the project in response to international sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow assigned the Sakhalin-1 project and operatorship to a regional subsidiary of Russian oil producer Rosneft. Russia then asked foreign shareholders in the project - ExxonMobil, Sodeco and ONGC Videsh - to apply to reinstate their shareholdings in the project before mid-November. The Sodeco consortium too has retained its stake but there is no clarity on what will happen to ExxonMobil's stake. ExxonMobil had previously stated that it had fully exited Sakhalin-1 after the confiscation of assets and has no plans to operate the project. Sakhalin-1 was producing 2,20,000 barrels per day of oil before the Ukraine war. Of this, OVL's share was 44,000 bpd or 2.2 million tonne per annum. However, western sanctions following the Russia-Ukraine war led to constraints in evacuating oil. Production resumed in November and has reached 1,40,000-1,50,000 bpd, the official said adding the output is likely to restore to original levels by March end.
Russia’s Sakhalin-1 near full oil output after Exxon exit –source - Russia has restored oil output at its Sakhalin-1 project after struggling with production following the exit of previous operator Exxon Mobil Corp due to sanctions, an industry source said. Oil output from Russia’s Sakhalin-1 project has recovered to 140,000-150,000 barrels per day (bpd), about 65% of the capacity and will soon hit full level of about 220,000 bpd, an industry source familiar with the matter said on Monday. Sakhalin-1 output collapsed after Exxon issued force majeure and abandoned the offshore project due to Western sanctions. Western countries and their allies imposed various sanctions on Russia after Moscow sent its troops to Ukraine for a “special military operation” in February last year. Moscow retaliated by blocking foreign investors’ assets, seizing them in some cases. Oil output of Sakhalin-1 is expected to reach near the peak level of about 200,000-220,000 bpd in “three to four weeks”, said the source, who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to media. Russia has established a new entity, managed by a Rosneft subsidiary, that owns investor’s rights in Sakhalin-1 after the exit of ExxonMobil. Russia last year approved requests of India’s ONGC Videsh, the overseas investment arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp, and Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co (SODECO), a consortium of Japanese firms, to retain their 20% and 30% stake respectively in the project. This source said the new entity, in which Indian and Japanese investors have a stake, had sought views from the partners on new ways to operate the project.
China Ramps Up Imports Of Russia’s Arctic Crude - China has stepped up imports of Arctic Russian crude grades in the latest sign of a re-routing of Russian oil deliveries internationally.The shift was reported by Bloomberg, which cited data from Vortexa and Kpler, with the Vortexa data showing that China only bought its first cargo of Arco—a sour, heavy crude—in November last year. According to traders that Bloomberg spoke to, the grade could displace some Iraqi oil imports.“The re-routing of Arctic grades is absolutely taking place,” Viktor Katona, lead crude oil analyst at Kpler, told Bloomberg. “Russia’s Arctic grades were among the Europe-oriented streams that since Dec. 5 have to find new homes elsewhere, and in all of those cases it’s pretty much an India and China split.”Meanwhile, India is also ramping up imports of Arctic Russian crude. Last month the first-ever cargo of the Varandey crude blend from the Timan-Pechora oilfields, operated by Russian firm Lukoil, reached India, according to data from Vortexa.Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, India—the world’s third-largest crude oil importer—has also bought cargoes of other Russian crude grades from the Arctic, such as Arco and Novy Port Light—the same grades that China is now importing, according to the latest data.Previously, Arctic crude was shipped to Europe but flows have been shifting as the EU targeted Russia’s energy industry with a series of sanction moves that culminated with an embargo on most Russian crude oil imports that came into effect on December 5. An identical embargo on Russian fuels is scheduled to come into effect on February 5. As a result, China and India have replaced Europe as the largest buyers of Russian oil, with India raising its intake of Russian crude especially markedly. From a marginal exporter before the war in Ukraine, Russia has now turned into India’s biggest supplier of the commodity.
Pakistan to sell two gas power plants to Qatar: Press - Pakistan is expected to sell two gas-fired power plants to Qatar in an estimated $1.5bn deal to avoid a looming sovereign default, The Express Tribune reported on January 7. The development came two days after the government constituted a new cabinet committee to sell state assets on a fast-track basis. The newspaper reported that the 2460 MW capacity LNG-fired power plants will now be handed over to this committee to find a suitable foreign buyer. These plants had been set up with government funding during the last PML-N government and are owned by the National Power Park Management Company. A new law enacted last year authorises the direct sale of assets to foreign nations, instead of following the long and cumbersome process set under the Privatisation Ordinance of 2000. There is one view that only 30% equity will be sold to Qatar and the price discovery will be based on known factors, reducing the element of discretion, the newspaper reported. Pakistan faces an imminent threat of sovereign default due to a delay in the revival of the International Monetary Fund programme. Finance minister Ishaq Dar has listed the sale of the gas-fired power plants among the “low-hanging fruits” that will be sold to arrange foreign currency. Dar has vehemently denied that Pakistan will default on its debt obligations. Pakistan had engaged Credit Suisse in April 2019 to sell the plants, but the contract expired in October 2020 and was extended for a period of one and a half years. The agreement, however, expired again on April 29, 2022, The Express Tribune reported.
Deal reached for sale of Russian-owned refinery plant in Italy's Sicily - Russian oil company Lukoil said Monday that it has reached an agreement for the sale of a refinery plant in Sicily, where thousands of workers have been fearing job losses due to the European embargo on Russian oil. A company statement said that the sale of the ISAB Srl refinery to G.O.I Energy is planned to be completed by the end of March pending various approvals by authorities, particularly the Italian government. The refinery employs 3,500 people and indirectly supports the jobs of 6,500 others. The workers at the refinery protested in late 2022, fearing for their future as a consequence of the embargo imposed because of Russia's war against Ukraine. About 20% of Italy's oil is refined at the plant. Lukoil said that under the agreement the new owner will retain jobs and ensure health and safety conditions. It noted that G.O.I. Energy investors own a majority stake in Bazan Group, which operates Israel's largest integrated refining and petrochemical facility. No financial details of the agreement were immediately released. Lukoil said that "for the efficient operation of the complex after its acquisition, G.O.I. Energy formed a partnership with Trafigura, an international trader of oil and petroleum products.
Flow of gas from Libya to Italy restored after two-day stop, report –The flow of gas from Libya to Italy has been restored to levels of 7-8 million cubic meters per day, after the interruption on 5 and 6 January and the reduction in the following two days, Italian news agency Nova reports. Citing operational data from Snam map, Nova highlighted that the Libyan gas arrives at Gela, in Sicily, from the Libyan plant of Mellitah via the Greenstream, the gas pipeline of over 500 kilometers which crosses the Mediterranean Sea, with an hourly frequency of approximately 330,000 cubic meters per hour.
Libya to raise oil production by 2 million b/d within 3 years, says oil minister - Libya intends to raise its oil production to 1.5 million b/d in 2023 with plans to scale up to 2 million b/d within 3 years, revealed Oil Minister Mohamed Aoun. Speaking during an interview with Al-Jazeera Mubasher which aired on Saturday, Aoun said that oil production would gradually increase according to the plans of the National Oil Corporation (NOC). “This increase would depend on the mechanism of the activity carried out by the Corporation and the completion of the development activities of oil wells,” he added. The minister also stated that he expects “large oil discoveries in the Mediterranean” and that is why he hopes for “an amicable solution” to the issue of maritime borders between Libya and Turkey on one side and Egypt and Greece on the other.
Libyan Court Suspends Controversial Oil And Gas Deal With Turkey --A Libyan court has suspended a deal for offshore oil and gas exploration that Libya and Turkey inked last year, a deal that sparked outrage from neighbors Egypt and Greece.The deal concerned waters that Libya and Turkey have declared to be theirs but that are disputed by Egypt and Greece, Reuters noted in a report on the news that cited an unnamed source. The Libyan government can appeal the ruling, the source also told Reuters.Greece’s Permanent Representative at the UN, Maria Theofili described the deal as one “violating the sovereign rights of Greece, is a violation of international law and a deliberate escalation that undermines stability in the region.”The deal, signed in October last year, followed an earlier, security agreement, inked in 2019, that demarcated the maritime border between Libya and Turkey—the same demarcation that angered Egypt and Greece."We've signed a memorandum of understanding on exploration for hydrocarbons in Libya's territorial waters and on Libyan soil, by mixed Turkish-Libyan companies," the foreign minister of Turkey, Mevlut Cavusoglu said at the time, asquoted by the AFP.The official noted, then, that the deal is only between Libya and Turkey, "two sovereign countries -- it's win-win for both, and other countries have no right to interfere".The eastern Mediterranean was put in the spotlight by a series of large gas discoveries off the coast of Israel in the past decade or so, as well as discoveries in Turkish and Cypriot waters. The potential of the region has become particularly relevant now when Europe is looking for new sources of gas.At the same time, the events around the deal with Turkey had contributed to the deterioration of the internal political situation in Libya, as Ankara signed its deals with the Government of National Unity—the entity recognized by the UN but not by rival political factions in Libya itself.
Iraq's December oil output stable, in line with OPEC+ quota -SOMO data - (Reuters) - Iraq produced 4.43 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude in December, unchanged from the previous month, data from state-owned marketer SOMO seen by Reuters showed on Tuesday. According to the production figures, Iraq's output was again in line with its quota under the OPEC+ agreement for December. Higher exports from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region were offset by lower refinery runs, the data showed.
Iraq complied with Opec+ quota in December: Somo - Iraq's crude production remained in line with the previous month in December and in compliance with its output quota under the Opec+ agreement, according to state-owned oil marketer Somo. Iraq produced 4.431mn b/d in December, which qualifies as its production ceiling for the month, and up by just 1,000 b/d from November output of 4.43mn b/d, according to Somo's figures.Iraq's production is likely to fall in February, a source with knowledge of the matter told Argus, because of a planned 10-day maintenance shutdown of its 400,000 b/d West Qurna 2 field. The shutdown will result in an estimated 114,000 b/d decrease in the country's overall monthly production. The Opec+ producer group opted at its most recent ministerial meeting in December to roll over the nominal 2mn b/d cut to production targets that ministers agreed at the previous meeting in October, which is due to last until the end of 2023. As the third largest producer in the group, Iraq was responsible for delivering 11pc of that cut. Iraq's Opec representative Mohammad Saadoun Mohsen told Argus in October that Iraq planned to deliver its cut by limiting refinery runs rather than lowering exports. Crude supplied to domestic refineries continued to drop, reaching 677,000 b/d in December, down from 720,000 b/d in November and 802,000 b/d in October, according to Somo. The drop in Iraq's refining runs in December is also attributed to the shutdown of the 70,000 b/d Salahuddin 1 plant, part of the 300,000 b/d Baiji complex facility, as a result of scheduled maintenance, a source with knowledge of the matter told Argus. Somo said there was also a small increase in Iraq's crude exports in December — to 3.749mn b/d from 3.678mn b/d in November, mostly attributed to an increase in exports from the northern Kurdistan region. These export figures include Kirkuk blend supplies sold by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
OPEC’s Oil Production Rises By 120,000 Bpd In December -A rebound in Nigerian production raised OPEC’s oil output in December by 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) compared to November, according to a monthly Reuters survey published on Wednesday. Despite the increase in oil production last month, OPEC was still pumping well below the collective target of the ten members bound by the OPEC+ pact. The larger OPEC+ group moved to cut its collective production target by 2 million bpd in November—about 1.27 million bpd set to come from OPEC members.The 10 producers in OPEC with production quotas saw their combined oil output at 780,000 bpd below the target for OPEC for December. The shortfall slightly decreased from 800,000 bpd below the OPEC quota for November.In December, OPEC pumped 29 million bpd, up by 120,000 bpd month over month, mostly thanks to a recovery in Nigeria’s production from outages, per the Reuters survey. Nevertheless, Nigeria is the biggest laggard in the OPEC+ production quota, alongside other African OPEC members such as Angola. Earlier this week, the Bloomberg survey of OPEC production also showed a rise in output for December, by 150,000 bpd over November, thanks to the rebound in Nigerian oil production.In October, Nigerian authorities discovered an illegal underwater 2.5-mile connection from Nigeria’s Forcados export terminal. It had been operating undetected for around nine years, state-run oil company NNPC said at the time. While Nigeria has known of the land-based pipeline taps for decades, an underwater one was the first of its kind.Nigeria estimates it is losing about 600,000 bpd of crude oil due to theft. But for December, Bloomberg’s survey showed that Nigeria’s oil production hit an eight-month high of 1.35 million bpd.OPEC’s crude oil production continues to lag behind its designated quotas, and fell in November by 744,000 bpd, its most recent Monthly Oil Market Report showed. For November, Saudi Arabia’s production fell by 404,000 bpd, to 10.474 million bpd. The UAE, Kuwait, and Iraq also saw production decreases for November, bringing the group’s production to 28.826 million bpd—the lowest since June.
Opec pres urges wait-and-see approach to output policy --Opec+ would be "wise" to wait until there is more clarity on the outlook for the oil market before amending production targets, according to new Opec president Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima. Speaking at a briefing organised by the African Energy Chamber, Obiang Lima said the group must be "careful" in its policy planning given the considerable uncertainties the market is facing. He characterised 2022 as a "very special" year, with a host of competing factors making it "very difficult" for Opec and its non-Opec partners to navigate. "We had so many events," Obiang Lima said. "We had a major conflict between Russia and Ukraine, we had a complete change in the flows of resources going from Russia all the way to Asia. We had the Europeans [diversifying] their sources [of energy], you had an African bloc, and even some other developing countries saying they reject the idea of abandoning fossil fuels." At its last ministerial meeting in December, Opec+ opted to roll over the nominal 2mn b/d cut to crude output targets agreed at the previous meeting in October, citing similar concerns over an uncertain market outlook. The group has since said that both the October and December decisions helped balance the oil market. Although ministers are not due to meet again until 4 June, the group's Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is scheduled to convene on 1 February to discuss the market and evaluate whether any change to production policy is needed. Obiang Lima said the group will be watching developments going into that meeting, but he urged a cautious approach, particularly in light of fresh uncertainty around the pace of China's oil demand recovery following Beijing's decision to abruptly end its zero-Covid policy last month. Chinese demand and the fallout from the war in Ukraine are "clearly the two key issues that everyone is monitoring most closely", but the prospect of a widespread recession is also on Opec's radar, Obiang Lima said. "We are going into 2023 with a lot of countries going into recession," he said. "Countries will need to re-evaluate their budgets and re-evaluate their economies."
China Signals Surge In Oil Demand With 20% Increase In Refiner Oil Import Quotas --China issued a substantial increase in its crude imports quotas for this year, the clearest sign yet that Chinese refiners are set for a material increase in output - and a surge in demand for oil - as the nation finally moves away from its ridiculous Covid Zero policy.On Monday, China issued a second batch of 2023 crude oil import quotas, raising the total for this year by 20% compared to the same time last year, according to Reuters and Bloomberg. According to the document from the Ministry of Commerce, 44 companies, mostly independent refiners, were given 111.82 million tonnes in import quotas in this round.On Monday, China issued a second batch of 2023 crude oil import quotas, raising the total for this year by 20% compared to the same time last year, according to Reuters and Bloomberg. According to the document from the Ministry of Commerce, 44 companies, mostly independent refiners, were given 111.82 million tonnes in import quotas in this round.Combined with the 20 million tonnes in 2023 quotas granted to 21 refineries in October, that takes the total for this year to 131.82 million tonnes, up from the 109.03 million tonnes issued in the first batch for 2022. The second batch of quotas for 2022 was released in June last year.
- Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp, which operates China's biggest privately-owned refinery site, was granted the largest quota of this batch at 20 million tonnes, on par with last year's issuance, according to the documents.
- Hengli Petrochemical received a quota of 14 million tonnes and Shenghong Petrochemical's newly started 320,000 barrels-per-day refinery received 8 million tonnes. Hengli won a quota of 4.83 million tonnes in the first batch in October.
Additionally, as Reuters notes, China, the world's biggest oil importer, allocated some 2023 quotas earlier than usual to shore up the sluggish economy by encouraging refiners to boost operations. "The issuance is largely in line with market anticipation, and it suggests that Beijing is trying to boost economy by allowing refineries to ratchet up operation," a Singapore-based oil trader told Reuters.
China Issues Massive Oil Import Quotas As It Reopens Borders -- China’s oil demand could soon rebound as the country reopens from Covid after nearly three years. Authorities have issued a massive batch of allowances for independent refiners to import crude oil. China’s latest batch of crude import quotas for refiners allows 44 private refiners to import 111.82 million metric tons of crude, traders familiar with the Chinese policy told Bloomberg on Monday. Independent refiners are allowed to import certain volumes of crude oil in several batches each year, with quantities set by the Chinese government. The quotas for this year are already 132 million tons, compared to 109 million tons of crude oil import allowances issued as of this time last year, according to Bloomberg. China’s reopening is expected to drive fuel demand growth after the initial exit Covid wave wanes at some point later this quarter.China’s borders reopening this weekend—after almost three years—sent oil prices surging by 3% early on Monday, as the market expects travel to pick up in the coming weeks and around the Lunar New Year on January 22. Early on Monday, Brent Crude prices jumped above $80 per barrel again as increased optimism about China’s demand trumped—for the time being—fears of recessions looming this year.In another sign that China’s refiners could import and process additional crude in the coming months, Chinese authorities have approved exports of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel of 18.99 million tons—an increase of 46% over the 13 million tons of fuel export quotas China allocated in the first batch for 2022, consultancies based in China told Reuters last week.The latest batch of fuel export quotas signals China’s willingness to continue supporting refinery throughput and capturing good refining margins in Asia while domestic demand is still weak.
Seven large oil spills reported in 2022 - Data from ITOPF shows that seven oil spills of more than seven tonnes were recorded from tanker incidents in 2022. This brings the decade average to almost six, which is on a par with the 2010s and a dramatic reduction from the numbers reported in earlier decades.Three of the seven incidents in 2022 resulted in spills greater than 700 tonnes (classified as ‘large’ spills). Two of these incidents occurred in Asia and one in Africa. They resulted in the release of crude, bitumen and fuel oil into the marine environment.The four other incidents, classified as ‘medium’ spills, involved spills of fuel oil and diesel.The total volume of oil lost to the environment from tanker spills in 2022 was approximately 15,000 tonnes; more than 14,000 tonnes of which was lost in the three large incidents.This figure is higher than the previous three years but remains a fraction of the 2.95 billion tonnes of crude oil and petroleum products that are transported by sea each year.ITOPF has recorded tanker spill statistics over the last 50 years and in this time, despite some annual fluctuations, the number and volume of oil spills from tankers has dropped dramatically. These numbers are stabilising at a low level, with the reduction being driven by positive change from the shipping industry, and supported by governments. The ongoing commitment to exploring and investing in ways to improve standards is reflected in the trends we see in the spill statistics said ITOPF. Accidents involving non-tank vessels which carry oil as bunker fuel may also be a source of pollution. Other non-shipping sources, such as pipeline spills and oil industry activities, as well as natural seepage, also contribute towards the global input of oil into the marine environment.
Oil prices may rebound to $105 on solid demand growth, Goldman Sachs says --US investment bank Goldman Sachs expects Brent crude to trade at $105 a barrel by the fourth quarter of 2023, driven by a “solid” growth in global oil demand. It expects oil demand to grow by 2.7 million barrels per day this year and said the market would be back in a deficit in the second half of 2023. This should allow the Opec+ alliance to unwind its October production cut in the second half of the year, said Goldman Sachs. However, if the market turns out to be softer, then alliance “could stick to its October cuts or cut production even further, given its significant pricing power”. “Overall, this ‘Opec put’ limits the downside risks to our bullish oil price forecast,” the lender said. In October, the Opec+ group of oil-producing countries slashed its collective output by 2 million bpd until the end of 2023 on concerns of a global economic slowdown. The group stuck to its production targets in December amid fears that sanctions on Russian oil exports would significantly reduce global crude supplies. The impact on oil prices of news surrounding Opec+’s supply has grown “larger” in recent years, suggesting that the group’s pricing power is now much “greater than usual”, the investment bank said. This has been aided by US shale producers’ inability to increase output and the lack of immediate substitutes to crude oil, Goldman Sachs said. Meanwhile, crude futures have registered sharp declines since the start of 2023 amid concerns about China and the growing possibility of a recession. Brent, the benchmark for two thirds of the world’s oil, and West Texas Intermediate, the gauge that tracks US crude, fell by more than 8 per cent last week, their biggest weekly loss in the first seven days of a new year since 2016.
Oil prices rise as China's reopening of borders eases demand concerns -- Oil prices climbed on Monday as China’s reopening of its borders eased concerns about fuel demand. Brent, the benchmark for two thirds of the world’s oil, was 2.32 per cent higher at $80.39 a barrel at 12.15pm UAE time while West Texas Intermediate, the gauge that tracks US crude, was up 2.44 per cent at $75.57 a barrel. China’s near-total reversal of border controls — introduced to stem the spread of Covid-19 — came into effect on Sunday. The reopening ended about three years of strict entry requirements that had slowed growth in the world’s second-largest economy and biggest crude oil importer. Futures have registered sharp declines since the start of 2023 amid concerns about China and the growing possibility of a recession. Both Brent and WTI benchmarks declined by more than 8 per cent last week, their biggest weekly loss in the first seven days of a new year since 2016. Expectations of less aggressive US interest rate rises are supporting financial markets while weakening the US dollar. A weaker dollar makes oil cheaper for holders of other currencies. The US Dollar Index, a measure of the value of the greenback against a weighted basket of major currencies, was down 0.25 per cent at 103.62 on Monday morning. The index is lower by 1 per cent since January 1. US non-farm payrolls exceeded expectations slightly, with the addition of 223,000 jobs in December, the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday. The unemployment rate dipped to a 53-year low of 3.5 per cent, from 3.6 per cent, while wage growth was up 0.3 per cent but still below forecasts of 0.4 per cent. The slowing wage growth has raised hopes that the US Federal Reserve “might yet achieve a soft landing despite its aggressive rate hiking”, Last month, the Fed raised its interest rates by 50 basis points, its seventh increase in 2022, to curb inflation, which hit a four-decade high last June. The US central bank indicated in December that more increases were planned this year.
Oil ends up 1% as bulls bank on China reopen - After the worst week in a month to launch the new year, crude prices settled up just 1% Monday as bulls in the market bet China’s reopening of its economy from tough COVID policies will boost oil consumption. In the first session of January's second week, New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude settled up 86 cents, or 1.2%, at $74.63 per barrel, after hitting an intraday high of $76.72. The U.S. crude benchmark fell more than 8% last week for its biggest weekly decline since Dec. 2. The dismal showing came after WTI’s drop of 10% between Tuesday and Wednesday — the worst for any first two days of oil trading in a year since 1991. London-traded Brent crude settled up $1.08, or 1.4%, at $79.65 per barrel, after a session high at $78.42. Like WTI, Brent lost more than 8% last week. Monday’s rebound in crude came after China fully reopened its borders to international trade to eliminate the last vestiges of the draconian COVID rules that shaped much of its social policies over the past three years. Demand for oil in China typically rises each year after the Lunar New Year, which, this year, is due at the end of January. But with Beijing pivoting from a COVID-zero to a “COVID-anything” policy, there’s no telling yet how its oil demand will fare. Data last week showed Chinese manufacturing activity shrank for a fifth straight month in December, as the country grappled with an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases. Despite this, Beijing is pressing forth with enthusiasm on its reopening, with officials saying they expected about 2 billion trips domestically during the Lunar New Year season, nearly double last year's and 70% of 2019 levels. In oil-specific developments, China also issued a second batch of 2023 crude import quotas, according to sources and documents reviewed by Reuters, raising the total for this year by 20% from the same time last year. “Oil’s downward trend was approaching critical support, so energy traders were eagerly looking for any reason to jump back into the oil trade,” said Ed Moya, analyst at online trading platform OANDA. “Chinese hopes for an improving reopening from COVID could help propel oil prices much higher.”
Oil Pares Gains Ahead of Stock Data on EIA Output Outlook -- New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures trimmed gains in market-on-close trade Tuesday, although all petroleum contracts settled the session higher. This occurred despite the U.S. Energy Information Administration lifting its oil production outlook through 2024 due to accelerated output gains in counties outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. In its Short-term Energy Outlook released Tuesday afternoon, the Washington-based energy watchdog said global oil production this year would average 101.1 million barrels per day (bpd), up 1.1 million bpd from 2022, before rising to 102.83 million bpd next year. The increase reflects large growth in several non-OPEC countries that more than offset a 1.5-million-bpd decline in Russian oil production forecast over the period. The United States and other non-OPEC producers outside of Russia will add 2.4 million bpd of oil production in 2023 and an additional 1.1 million bpd in 2024, according to the EIA outlook. The U.S. is forecast to be the largest source of non-OPEC production growth, contributing 40% of the gains in 2023 and 60% in 2024. Norway alone could add up to 500,000 bpd to the global oil market this year with the startup of the offshore Johan Sverdrup Phase 2 expansion project. Tuesday afternoon, traders also positioned ahead of the weekly release of U.S. inventory data, starting with the survey from the American Petroleum Institute scheduled for 4:30 p.m. EST, followed by the EIA report Wednesday morning. U.S. oil inventories are expected to have declined by 600,000 barrels (bbl) for the week ended Jan. 6, with forecasts ranging from a decrease of 4.5 million bbl to an increase of 4.3 million bbl. Traders will also closely monitor demand figures in this week's EIA report after cold weather severely disrupted gasoline and distillate fuel consumption, with combined fuel demand collapsing by 2.881 million bpd in the final week of 2022. Earlier in the session, the oil complex got a leg up from upbeat forecasts on China and EU economic growth this year that some traders bet could lift global oil demand. Goldman Sachs on Tuesday morning said Eurozone's economy would grow by 0.6% in 2023 from a negative 0.1% forecast just three months ago. The upgrade is driven by expectations for a better-than-expected year for Europe's major industrial exporters as Chinese demand recovers from a 2022 slump.. Should China's reopening prove successful, it is expected to invigorate not only domestic growth but also the global economy. At settlement, West Texas Intermediate for February delivery advanced to above $75 per bbl at $75.12, up $0.49, and Brent March futures on ICE gained $0.45 to $80.10 per bbl. NYMEX RBOB February contract added $0.0348 to $2.3277 per gallon, and front-month ULSD futures rallied to $3.1357 per gallon, up $0.0997 on the session.
Oil ends up just slightly, awaiting U.S. inventory and inflation data -- Crude prices edged higher for a second straight day on Tuesday as traders awaited U.S. oil inventory data and a much-anticipated government report on inflation scheduled later in the week. New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude settled up 49 cents, or 0.7%, at $75.12 per barrel, after a session high at $75.92. London-traded Brent crude settled up 45 cents, or 0.6%, at $80.10, after an intraday high at $81.37. Both the U.S. and U.K. crude benchmarks fell more than 8% last week for their biggest weekly decline since Dec. 2, weighed by China’s coronavirus crisis and fears of a global recession. Beijing fully reopened its borders to international trade since the weekend to eliminate the last vestiges of the draconian COVID rules that shaped much of its social policies over the past three years. “As China battles an unprecedented surge in Covid cases, everyone wants to see if travel continues to rebound.” Demand for oil in China typically rises each year after the Lunar New Year, which, this year, is due at the end of January. But with Beijing pivoting from a COVID-zero to a “COVID-anything” policy, there’s no telling yet how its oil demand will fare. Data last week showed Chinese manufacturing activity shrank for a fifth straight month in December, as the country grappled with an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases. Despite this, Beijing is pressing forth with enthusiasm on its reopening, with officials saying they expected about 2 billion trips domestically during the Lunar New Year season, nearly double last year's and 70% of 2019 levels. Market participants are awaiting the release of the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, report, due on Thursday. The CPI grew at a rate of 7.1% during the year to November, slowing from a four-decade high of 9.1% during the 12 months to June. It is expected to have slowed even further to 6.5% during the year to December, according to the consensus of Wall Street and economists polled by the media. In line with those expectations, the Federal Reserve is eyeing a 25-basis point rate hike for its policy meeting concluding on Feb. 1, a climb down from the 50-bp hike in December and four back-to-back 75-bp increases between June and November. The chances for the Fed to slow rates further are relatively high, with Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor tool assigning an 84.4% probability for a 25-bp hike in February. The last time the central bank had such a low rate hike was in March 2022, when it kicked off its series of rate hikes to curb runaway inflation in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic that broke out in 2020.. .
WTI Slides After Huge Crude Build - Oil prices eked out gains today (4th straight day higher) with WTI back above $75 as fears of a hawkish Powell speech passed painlessly (despite some hawkish FedSpeak from his underlings) and a flat dollar didn't impact direction.“Technically, the energy complex remains stuck in neutral, with a wide range for prices to swing inside of without creating a new trend,” “Fundamentally, the case for prices bottoming is getting stronger as lingering supply issues coincide with demand picking up both domestically and abroad.”Will the inventory/supply/demand data offer any more clues for the start of the new year... API:
- Crude +14.865mm (-2.375mm exp) - biggest build since Feb 2021
- Cushing +2.3mm
- Gasoline +1.8mm (+1.3mm exp)
- Distillates +1.1mm (+500k exp)
We suspect the massive 14.865mm barrel crude inventory build (the largest since Feb 2021) is likely driven by the deep freeze shutting in a number of refiners...WTI was fading back below $75 ahead of the API data and accelerated lower on the huge build print...
Oil Drops On Huge Unexpected Crude Inventory Build --Crude oil inventories rose by 14.865 million barrels, American Petroleum Institute (API) data showed on Tuesday, as refining activity begins to return to normal following previous weather-related shutdowns.U.S. crude inventories increased 13 million barrels over the course of 2022, according to API data, while crude stored in the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves sunk by 221 million barrels.The large build in commercial crude oil inventories comes as the Department of Energy released 0.8 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves in the week ending January 6, leaving the SPR with just 371.6 million barrels. The SPR now contains the least amount of crude oil since early December 1983. It also comes are refiners were still working to restart refineries after cold-induced shutdowns.Oil prices were relatively flat on Tuesday as traders take a wait-and-see attitude with upcoming rate hikes. At 2:48 p.m. EST, WTI was trading up $0.54 (0.72%) on the day to $75.17 per barrel. This is a weekly increase of roughly $2 per barrel. Brent crude was trading up $0.48(0.60%) on the day at $80.13—a weekly increase of just over $2 per barrel.U.S. crude oil production rose to 12.1 million bpd in the final week of the year, bringing the total production increase for 2022 to 400,000 bpd , and 1 million bpd lower than peak production seen in March 2020.WTI was trading at $74.86 shortly after the data release.
WTI Extends Gains Despite Massive Crude Build, Production Increase - Oil prices rallied overnight despite a huge crude inventory build reported by API, with traders shrugging it off as likely driven by the impact of the nationwide 'deep freeze' and refinery shut-ins distorting the data. Additional optimism over China’s demand outlook (after the government issued a bumper batch of import quotas, spurring hopes of improved crude consumption) offset the optics of the crude build. Will the official data confirm the huge builds? DOE
- Crude +18.96mm (-2.375mm exp, BBG +6.2mm exp) - biggest build since Feb 2021
- Cushing +2.511mm
- Gasoline +4.11mm (+1.3mm exp)
- Distillates -1.069mm (+500k exp)
Confirming and surpassing the API-reported data, official data showed a massive 18.96mm barrel crude build last week - the biggest build since Feb 2021 and stocks at Cushing soared by 2.511mm barrels (the most since Dec 2021)...We note that there was a more than 15 million-barrel increase in the Gulf Coast. Much of the rise in inventories due to the disruptions in refinery operations from a deep freeze had not materialized in data yet, so we are seeing that come through now.The SPR saw a drain of only 800k barrels last week - the smallest since Jan 2022.Bear in mind that the EIA’s January outlook expects combined gasoline, diesel and jet inventories to rise 9% in 2023, led by a 2.8% jump in refining throughput US crude production rose last week to 12.2mm b/d - equal to its post-COVID highs...
The Oil Market Rallied Higher - The oil market rallied higher as concerns over the impact of sanctions on Russian crude output outweighed a large unexpected build in crude stocks. The market was supported by reports indicating that G7 countries could soon target Russian refined products with sanctions in addition to crude sanctions, which could raise the risk of a more meaningful decline in Russian supply to global markets. The oil market posted a low of $74.31 in overnight trading and never looked back. The market rallied to a high of $77.84 by mid-day as it shrugged off a bearish weekly EIA report, which showed a 19 million barrel build in crude stocks. Market players wrote off the massive build as mostly weather-related rather than driven by fundamentals, as the refineries continue their slow return from late December’s winter storm that swept across the country. The market later erased some of its sharp gains during the remainder of the session. The February WTI contract settled up $2.29 at $77.41, the highest level since December 30th while the March Brent contract settled up $2.57 at $82.67. The EIA reported that U.S. crude oil stocks built by 19 million barrels to 439.6 million barrels in the week ending January 6th as refiners were slow to restore production after a cold freeze that shut operations. It was the largest gain since February 2021. Crude stocks in the Gulf Coast increased by 15.6 million barrels, the most since February 2021, to 249.5 million barrels. U.S. crude oil stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma increased by 2.51 million barrels, the most since December 2021, to 27.8 million barrels. Meanwhile, U.S. distillate stocks fell by 1.1 million barrels to 117.7 million barrels in the week ending January 6th. U.S. East Coast distillate stocks increased by 500,000 barrels to 34.3 million barrels, the most since January 2022. European seaborne diesel imports are expected to reach 5.99 million tons so far in January compared with the record revised 8.2 million tons in December. Russian exports to Europe in January are estimated at 2.24 million tons so far after reaching 3.49 million tons in December. The Kremlin said it had not yet seen any cases of price caps on Russian oil imposed by the West last month. Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said "As far as the losses are concerned, no one has especially seen the caps yet." The Kremlin’s spokesman also said that Russia would do everything to protect itself from plans by the Group of Seven leading economies to impose two sets of price caps on Russian oil products. IIR Energy reported that U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 407,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending January 13th, increasing available refining capacity by 132,000 bpd. Offline capacity is expected to rise to 796,000 bpd in the week ending January 20th.
Oil rises for a sixth day on optimism over demand, U.S. inflation - Oil rose for a sixth day amid a spate of Chinese crude purchases as traders digested US inflation figures that matched expectations. West Texas Intermediate rose above US$78 a barrel and was heading for the longest run of daily gains since February. The dollar slipped after US consumer prices fell 0.1 per cent in December, a report that broadly matched analyst expectations. Federal Reserve official Patrick Harker said he supports 25-basis point rate hikes going forward, a slowdown from recent levels. China’s crude buying after Beijing issued a bumper batch of import quota this week is adding bullish sentiment about demand. The country has stepped up purchases of U.S. and West African crudes in recent days. “The month-on-month inflation data will be encouraging for oil bulls, as we see cause for further dollar weakening that would create more favorable buying conditions in physical markets,” said Harry Altham, an analyst at brokerage StoneX Group. Oil’s recent push higher gathered steam after a rocky start to the year amid fears over a global economic slowdown. Still, many analysts remain bullish on the longer term outlook. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said on Wednesday that it expects crude to hit US$110 by the third quarter as China’s economy reopens, while Morgan Stanley sees a tighter second half to the year. Prices: WTI for February delivery rose 1.9 per cent to US$78.87 a barrel at 8:50 a.m. in New York. Brent for March was 1.9 per cent higher at US$84.22. There are also tentative signs that trading activity has picked up in the new year. Open interest across the main oil futures contracts this week climbed to the highest level since October. Low levels of futures holdings has been one driver of oil market volatility in recent months.
The Oil Market Continued on its Upward Trend on Thursday -- The oil market continued on its upward trend on Thursday in follow through strength seen on Wednesday amid concerns over the impact of sanctions on Russian crude output. The market was further supported by expectation of increasing demand in China that could give a boost to the overall global economic outlook. Overnight, the oil market traded mostly sideways, posting a low of $77.10 before it continued to trend higher ahead of the release of the U.S. consumer inflation report. The market rallied to a high of $79.16 following the CPI report, which showed consumer prices falling by 0.1% in December, the first decline since May 2020. The February WTI contract erased some of its gains and traded sideways once again, ending the session up 98 cents at $78.39, the highest settlement so far this year. The market settled in positive territory for the sixth consecutive session, the longest streak of gains since February 4th. The March Brent contract settled up $1.36 at $84.03. Meanwhile, the heating oil market settled up 11 points at $3.2190 and the RBOB market settled up 4.08 cents at $2.4753. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to ban releases of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve from being exported to China. The bill passed 331-97 in the House, which Republicans took narrow control of this month. Through October last year U.S. oil companies exported nearly 67 million barrels of oil to China. In 2020, the United States exported 176 million barrels to China. Morgan Stanley expects the oil market to tighten during the third and fourth quarter of 2023, supported by a recovery in demand prompted by China reopening its borders, a recovery in aviation, risks to Russian supply, a slowdown in U.S. shale and the end to SPR releases. Morgan Stanley forecast a disruption to Russian oil supply "approaching 1 million bpd from current levels" due to the price caps. While, Morgan Stanley predicted Brent prices in the first quarter to remain range bound around $80-85/barrel, it saw prices reaching $110/barrel by the end of the year and noted "the supply ceiling is still not far away and inventories are outright low." Morgan Stanley forecast Brent averaging $85/barrel in the first quarter of the year and increasing to $90/barrel in the second quarter. The bank sees WTI averaging $82.50/barrel in the first quarter and $87.50/barrel in the second quarter. PDVSA has assigned a third crude cargo to Chevron Corp under a U.S. authorization that restarted exports to the U.S. after a nearly four-year pause. Chevron received a U.S. license in November allowing it to revive its oil output and expand operations in Venezuela. The first Chevron-chartered tanker carrying Venezuelan crude oil departed on Tuesday and is set to deliver the crude next week to its Pascagoula, Mississippi refinery. The second and third tankers also are expected to deliver their cargoes this month.
Oil Rallies as Inflation Eases, Fed Signals Smaller Hikes -- New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange advanced for the sixth consecutive session on Thursday, sending West Texas Intermediate futures above $78 per barrel (bbl) after the U.S. consumer price index for December showed inflation fell to a negative print for the first time since May 2020, relieving some pressure from the Federal Reserve that signaled it would shift to smaller rate increases of 25 basis points beginning next month. "The days of us raising federal funds rates by 75 basis points at a time have surely passed ... hikes of 25 bps will be appropriate going forward," said President of Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank Patrick Harker in reaction to the latest inflation data. U.S. consumer prices for the final month of 2022 declined to a negative 0.1%, bringing the 12-month inflation to 6.5%, showed data published this morning by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The fall marked the sixth consecutive monthly deceleration in consumer prices since their mid-2022 peak and the lowest level since October 2021. Easing inflation, meanwhile, is reflected in the sharp pullback by the U.S. dollar index that has been moving in a downtrend since early October with investors anticipating a less aggressive policy tightening by the Federal Open Market Committee in light of soft inflation readings. U.S. dollar index lost 0.9% in value on Thursday against a basket of foreign currencies to settle at a seven-month low 101.995, lending upside price support to front-month WTI futures. Investors priced in a nearly 100% likelihood for the Federal Reserve to slow increases in the federal funds rate to 0.25% during the February meeting from 0.5% in December and 0.75% seen during FOMC meetings from July through November last year. A 0.25% hike by FOMC on Feb. 1 would lift the target range in the federal funds rate to 4.5% to 4.75%. Central bank officials have pledged to raise the rate above 5% this year and leave it there at least through 2023. However, there is a gap between what the Fed says it will do and what investors expect, with some betting on a shallower peak rate, and that the first rate hike would come as early as this summer. At settlement, WTI for February delivery advanced $0.98 to $78.39 bbl, and Brent March futures on ICE rallied $1.36 to $84.03 bbl. NYMEX RBOB February contract gained $0.0408 to $2.4753 gallon, and front-month ULSD futures settled the session little changed at $3.2190 gallon.
WTI, Brent Gain 8% Week Over Week on Easing Inflation, China Outlook -- In the longest winning streak since October 2022, oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange settled higher for a seventh consecutive session on Friday after U.S. economic data showed easing inflation and a strong labor market supported consumer spending. Americans feel more optimistic about their personal finances than at any point over the past eight months, with year-ahead inflation expectations falling for the fourth straight month, according to the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey. The consumer sentiment index recovered 8.2% in the past two weeks to 64.6 -- the highest reading since April 2022. The gain in consumer sentiment is directly linked to retreating inflation, which fell to a negative monthly reading for the first time in 3 1/2 years, down 0.1% in December. Also this week, the U.S. Labor Department reported new claims for jobless benefits fell again in the week through Jan. 7 to 205,000, suggesting that layoffs across some industries have yet to spread to the broader economy. Following the latest economic readings this week, several Federal Reserve officials voiced their support in favor of smaller increases in the federal funds rate this year to let the economy absorb the lags in their monetary tightening actions in 2022. Investors priced in a nearly 100% likelihood for the Federal Open Market Committee to slow increases in the federal funds rate to 0.25% during the February meeting from 0.5% in December and 0.75% seen during FOMC meetings from July through November last year. A 0.25% hike by FOMC on Feb. 1 would lift the target range in the federal funds rate to 4.5% to 4.75%. Central bank officials have pledged to raise the rate above 5% this year and leave it there at least through 2023. Earlier in the session, oil futures got a leg up from data showing China increased its import quotas for independent refiners this year to a total of 132 million tons, which compares with 109 million tons seen over 2022. For most independent refiners, as much as 70% of their annual allowances have now been issued, according to traders. A survey from China-focused consultants published Friday morning by Bloomberg shows daily oil demand in China could increase by 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year after contracting sharply in 2022, taking daily consumption to an all-time high of about 16 million bpd. In 2022, China's consumption averaged only slightly above 15 million bpd, according to estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Demand recovery is mostly expected to take shape in the second quarter, with traffic and the number of flights gradually rebounding from their 2022 lows. Wood Mackenzie expects that surge in international flights in and out of China could boost daily consumption to above 900,000 bpd. At settlement, West Texas Intermediate for February delivery rallied $1.46 to $79.86 per barrel (bbl), and Brent March futures on ICE advanced $1.25 to $85.28 per bbl. NYMEX RBOB February contract gained $0.0575 to $2.5328 per gallon, and front-month ULSD futures advanced $0.0369 to $3.2559 per gallon.
Oil Posts Largest Weekly Gain in Three Months | Rigzone - Oil posted its largest gain in three months this week, mostly recouping the prior week’s steep decline, as confidence in China’s recovery solidified among traders. West Texas Intermediate rallied above $79 a barrel on Friday, capping a more than 8% weekly advance that marked its strongest week since October. China is ramping up purchases of crude after Beijing issued a fresh round of import allowances, and consumption is poised to surge to a record this year following the nation’s dismantling of its Covid Zero policy. The factors that drove the selloff in the second half of 2022 — Chinese lockdowns and global recession fears — are now in reverse, said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB AB. “When China reconnects with Asia and the world, there will be a significant increase in demand,” Schieldrop said. Bolstering sentiment across markets, US consumer prices in December posted the first monthly decline since 2020, fueling expectations that the Federal Reserve will slow the pace of interest-rate hikes. Oil has pushed higher after a rocky start to the year, with forecasters from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand predicting prices will rally above $100 a barrel in 2023. There are also tentative signs that trading activity has picked up in the new year, with open interest across the main oil futures standing at its highest since late October. WTI for February delivery was up $1.47 to settle at $79.86 a barrel in New York. Brent for March settlement rose $1.25 to $85.28 a barrel.
OPEC’s Second-Largest Oil Producer Issues Arrest Warrant For Donald Trump - The Iraqi supreme court has issued an arrest warrant for former U.S. President Donald Trump for the assassination on Iraqi soil of Iran’s Quds Force commander, Qasem Soleimani, IraqiNews reports, citing a Baghdad news agency. The warrant was issued on Thursday in connection both with the killing of Soleimani and of another Iraqi militia leader, chief of staff of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq–both of whom were killed in a drone strike in January 2020 near the Baghdad airport. That assassination operation led to Iranian strikes on the Aia Al-Assad U.S. base in Iraq. The arrest warrant charges Trump with premeditated murder. While the warrant is clearly symbolic, a conviction of this nature carries the death penalty. The court said the investigation into the killings was still ongoing, AP reported. Citing Baghdad Today news agency, IraqiNews quoted Supreme Judicial Council head Faiq Zaidban as calling on Baghdad to hold Trump “accountable for this heinous crime”. At the same time, in November, Iraq’s parliamentary speaker confirmed that hundreds–and possibly thousands–of people had been kidnapped and killed by Iran-backed militias from 2014 to 2016. Iraq, the second-largest oil producer in OPEC, is caught between rivals Iran and the United States, while Iran’s influence has grown exponentially since the toppling of Saddam Hussein following the 2003 U.S. invasion. In October, ending a long-running stalemate, Iraq’s parliament named a new pro-Iranian prime minister and pro-Iranian parties now dominate, having sidelined Shi’ite rival Moqtada al Sadr, who had been paralyzing the government with anti-Iranian protests. The PMF figure assassinated in a Trump-ordered military operation represented the head of an umbrella group that brought together pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, which enjoyed government support as a loosely defined element of the Iraqi armed forces.
Saudi Arabia set to overtake India as fastest-growing major economy this year - Saudi Arabia is set to overtake India as the fastest-growing major economy in 2023, driven by gains from energy prices. According to official data released by India’s Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Saudi Arabia is expected to outpace India with 7.6 percent gross domestic product growth as the rising revenues from higher energy prices continue to bolster the Kingdom’s economy. This puts India in the second position with an expected GDP growth rate of 7 percent in the fiscal year ending March, as weakening demand has hampered the growth prospects of Asia’s third-largest economy. “The growth in real GDP during 2022-23 is estimated at 7 percent, compared to 8.7 percent in 2021-22,” said the Indian ministry in a statement. The Indian government is using this estimate to decide its spending priorities in the upcoming union budget that will be presented on Feb.1, 2023, which will also be the last full-year expenditure plan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government before elections in 2024. Even though India started the ongoing fiscal year on a good note, monetary policies adopted by the Reserve Bank of India to combat inflation have apparently tampered with the growth curve of the nation. India's central bank, which has raised its benchmark rate by 225 basis points so far this fiscal year, is expected to announce further hike after its policy review meeting scheduled between Feb. 6 to 8. In December last year, Saudi Arabia reported a larger-than-expected budget surplus for 2022 of SR102 billion ($27.13 billion) — SR12 billion higher than the previous estimate. After the approval of the 2023 budget, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that the success of the Kingdom’s reforms in the operating model of the public sector and the economy contributed to the achievement of a budget surplus. He further noted that the budget surplus will be used to boost government reserves, support national funds, and strengthen the Kingdom’s financial position amid global economic headwinds. He also added that the government intends to prioritize capital spending in the 2023 budget based on regional and sectoral strategies in line with the goals outlined in the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. In October, the International Monetary Fund, in its World Economic Outlook Report, noted that Saudi Arabia is expected to grow by 7.6 percent in 2022 and 3.7 percent in 2023. The World Bank projection was slightly higher than the IMF estimates, as the international financial institution predicted 8.3 percent growth in 2022, before moderating to 3.7 percent and 2.3 percent in 2023 and 2024 respectively. In November, the World Bank also revealed that Saudi Arabia is the fastest-growing economy among the Group of 20 nations, adding that the Kingdom has a moderate inflation rate at 2.9 percent, the lowest among G20 countries.
India Just Became The World's 3rd Largest Automobile Market - India has officially booted Japan out of the number three spot in the global automotive market. Latest industry data, reported on by Nikkei, shows that for the first time ever, India is now the third largest global auto market. For 2022, the country's new sales came in at 4.25 million units, based on preliminary results from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. This figure tops Japan's 4.2 million units for the year. Japan's sales in 2022 were down 5.6% from 2021. Between January and November, India had delivered 4.13 million new vehicles. The total hits 4.25 million after adding December's sales volume reported Sunday by Maruti Suzuki, India's largest carmaker, the report says. And sales volume in the country is expected to rise: there are still year-end results and sales figures for commercial vehicles that have yet to be included into the 2022 totals. China led the global market in 2021 with 26.27 million vehicles sold and the U.S. came in second with 15.4 million vehicles sold. India's market has been volatile over the last few years, the report notes. 4.4 million vehicles were sold in 2018, but volume plunged back below 4 million vehicles in 2019 as a result of a credit crunch.
Pakistan repays over $1bn external debt - The country has successfully repaid over one-billion-dollar external debt to international financial institutions on Friday. Although the country is facing a serious crisis of foreign exchange reserves, it is meeting international financial obligations to avoid default. Sources said that cumulatively, on Friday, the country repaid some $1.2 billion to the two foreign banks. “Pakistan has paid back $600 million to the Emirates NBD Bank, the leading Banking Group in the MENAT region, and $420 million to the DIB on Friday,” sources in the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) confirmed. The country’s foreign exchange reserves are already sliding due to continued external debt servicing and slow foreign inflows. With the repayment of this loan, the country’s total liquid foreign exchange reserves further dipped by $1 billion. Although the actual statistics of foreign exchange reserves will be released by the State Bank in its weekly report to be issued on Thursday, however, as per estimates, with the current repayment, the reserves held by the SBP would decline to $4.4 billion. However, overall foreign exchange reserves are likely to be around $10.3 billion. In addition, Pakistan is also making efforts to get loans from the other international lenders to build the depleting foreign exchange reserves and avoid default. Pakistan is also trying to finish the 9th IMF review so the other financial institutions like World Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and other lenders may release their loans. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, on Saturday, has also requested the IMF chief for immediate completion of 9th review, so that the country can get the next tranche of Extended Fund Facility (EFF). “In a phone call with the Managing Director of the IMF yesterday, I told her about the government’s resolve to complete the terms of the IMF’s program. I also explained Pakistan’s economic difficulties especially after the devastating floods. The IMF delegation will come to Pakistan soon”, the Prime Minister said on twitter. Sources said that the country’s foreign exchange reserves may further decline as the country has to pay back some more foreign debt in coming months.
Pakistan likely to dodge default in next 6 months, but troubles not over: Bloomberg - Pakistan is likely to dodge default in the next six months, but its troubles are not over, stated Bloomberg Economics in a report on Monday.Ankur Shukla, who covers South Asia at Bloomberg, stated that help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will help the country through the end of June.“But investors are now worried about a big dollar debt repayment in April 2024, and are pricing those bonds at a distressed level,” the report added, as it made the case for Pakistan needing more external aid.The bond is trading at a 46% discount, reports suggest.“Pakistan now has $5.6 billion in foreign exchange reserves, enough to cover the next five months of funding needs. External aid should boost the number to $14.9 billion. This should cover dollar payments only through March 2024 — leaving the April bond repayment in question,” the report added.Pakistan is currently reeling from economic distress amid fast-depleting foreign exchange reserves, weakening rupee, and worsening macroeconomic indicators. It repaid some $1 billion over the weekend, which is likely to result in lower foreign exchange reserves when the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) releases its data this week.The Bloomberg report added that the IMF could still withhold remaining loan tranches totaling $2.6 billion.“But we think this is unlikely given the country’s desperate need in the wake of last summer’s floods.”Experts have said that resumption of the IMF progamme, which remains stalled, is crucial for the country. The IMF funding is also necessary to unlock $5 billion in financing expected from creditor nations and $1.7 billion in aid from the World Bank.“These funds will help cover $5.9 billion in debt payments and estimated account deficits through the end of the fiscal year ending in June and, again, we think these funds will materialise.“But the question now is how Pakistan will get through the 12 months after that, when its dollar financing needs will total at least $11 billion.”
Global ESG Bond Issuance Records First-Ever Annual Decline - Global sales of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) linked corporate bonds declined for the first time ever as interest rates soared, market turmoil persisted, and economic uncertainty turned borrowers away from debt markets. Bloomberg data shows companies and governments worldwide raised $863 billion in ESG bonds in 2022, a 19% drop compared to a year earlier of a record $1.1 trillion. This is the first decline in ESG bonds since green bonds first emerged on Wall Street in 2007. Total issuance is down, much of that has to do with soaring borrowing costs amid central banks racing to tame the highest inflation in a generation. Bloomberg sheds more color on souring ESG space:
- Social bond issuance dropped 34% to about $141 billion last year, the biggest decline across all the labels, as government agencies and corporations dialed back spending on eligible projects. Big borrowers including sovereigns have pivoted to long-term climate goals, following a rush to raise funds for pandemic relief that boosted social issuance.
- Sales of sustainability bonds, whose proceeds can be used for both social and green projects, fell by 22% to $154 billion, the second biggest drop. By country, the UK and the US fell most, with 52% and 39% declines, respectively. The most scrutinized segment of the market for environmental, social and governance-related debt — sustainability-linked bonds — plunged 21% to $86 billion.
- Green bonds, meanwhile saw the smallest year-on-year decline, dropping 11% to about $480 billion, propped up by a surge in sales from China. BNP Paribas SA, the biggest underwriter of green bonds in 2022, expects sales of green debt to recover to 2021 levels this year, driven largely by Europe and China. The biggest boost will come from China, thanks to supportive local policy and a recent alignment of its local taxonomy, according to a BNP outlook report published in November.
Vietnam posts record 2022 trade surplus with U.S. as China deficit rises - Vietnam's trade surplus with the United States widened to $94.9 billion last year, the highest level on record, led by shipments of items such as garments, shoes, smartphones, electronics and wooden furniture, customs data showed. The Southeast Asian country has benefited from around 15 free trade agreements helping boost its export-driven economy, which grew 8% last year. Total exports in 2022 rose 10.6% to $371.85 billion. However, economists warn Vietnam is facing headwinds, with weakening global demand already starting to impact its shipments in December, when exports fell 14% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, a trade deficit with China, which is the largest supplier of materials and equipment to Vietnam's labour-intensive manufacturing sector, widened to a record $60.2 billion in 2022 from $54.0 billion a year earlier, according to Vietnam's customs data released on Monday. Vietnam's imports from China last year rose 6.6% to $117.87 billion, led by products such as machinery, electronics, fabrics, smartphones and components, the data showed. Exports to the United States - Vietnam's largest export market - rose 13.6% to $109.39 billion last year, with the trade surplus climbing from $81.0 billion in 2021.
China set for historic demographic turn, accelerated by COVID traumas (Reuters) - Living under China's stringent COVID-19 restrictions for the past three years had caused Zhang Qi enough stress and uncertainty to consider not having babies in the country. When China abruptly dismantled its "zero COVID" regime last month to let the virus spread freely, the balance tilted to a definite "No", the Shanghai-based e-commerce executive said. Stories about mothers and babies not being able to see doctors as medical facilities were overwhelmed by COVID infections were the final straw for Zhang. Some demographers expect China's population in 2022 to post its first drop since the Great Famine in 1961, a profound shift with far-reaching implications for the global economy and world order. New births for 2022 are set to fall to record lows, dropping below 10 million from last year's 10.6 million babies - which were already 11.5% lower than in 2020. "With this historical turn, China has entered a long and irreversible process of population decline, the first time in China and the world's history,” said Wang Feng, professor of Sociology at University of California. "In less than 80 years China’s population size could be reduced by 45%. It will be a China unrecognizable by the world then."
China suspends issuing visas in Japan and South Korea (Reuters) - China suspended issuing short-term visas in South Korea and Japan on Tuesday, after announcing it would retaliate against countries that required negative COVID-19 tests from Chinese travellers. China has ditched mandatory quarantines for arrivals and allowed travel to resume across its border with Hong Kong since Sunday, removing the last major restrictions under the "zero-COVID" regime which it abruptly began dismantling in early December after historic protests against the curbs. But the virus is spreading unchecked among its 1.4 billion people and worries over the scale and impact of its outbreak have prompted Japan, South Korea, the United States and other countries to require negative COVID tests from travellers from China. Although China imposes similar testing requirements for all arrivals, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday entry curbs for Chinese travellers were "discriminatory" and China would take "reciprocal measures". In the first retaliatory move, the Chinese embassy in South Korea suspended issuing short-term visas for South Korean visitors. It would adjust the policy subject to the lifting of South Korea's "discriminatory entry restrictions" against China, the embassy said on its official WeChat account. The Chinese embassy in Japan later announced a similar move, saying that the mission and its consulates had suspended the issuing of visas from Tuesday. The embassy statement did not say when they would resume.
China halts short-term visas in South Korea, first response to COVID curbs (Reuters) - The Chinese embassy in South Korea has suspended issuing short-term visas for South Korean visitors, it said on Tuesday, the first retaliatory move against nations imposing COVID-19 curbs on travellers from the world's second biggest economy. The embassy will adjust the policy subject to the lifting of South Korea's "discriminatory entry restrictions" against China, it said on its official WeChat account. The curbs come "in disregard of scientific facts and the actual epidemic situation in their own countries," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing in Beijing, without mentioning South Korea. "China firmly rejects this and will take reciprocal measures," Wang added. "Countries should not ... engage in political manipulation or discriminatory practices." The news came a day after Foreign Minister Qin Gang had expressed concern in a telephone call with his South Korean counterpart Park Jin, China's foreign ministry has said.
PLA conducts exercise around Taiwan Island 'to counter provocations' - The Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducted joint combat-readiness security patrol and real-combat exercise in the waters and airspace around the Taiwan Island on Sunday. In a statement issued late on the day, Army Senior Colonel Shi Yi, spokesperson for the PLA Eastern Theater Command, said the move was to "resolutely counter the collusive and provocative acts of the external forces and the 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces." The exercise involved troops of multiple services and arms and focused on land strikes, sea assaults and other subjects, aiming to test the troops' joint combat capability, said Shi. The first such exercise in 2023 came after the U.S. guided-missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon sailed through the Taiwan Strait on January 5.
Russia’s Putin replaces commander of war in Ukraine - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday appointed a new top commander of his forces in Ukraine in another shake-up of military leadership. The Russian Defense Ministry announced Gen. Valery Gerasimov will be the next commander of the Joint Group of Forces in Ukraine, replacing Gen. Sergey Surovikin, who was appointed to the position in October. In a Telegram post, the Defense Ministry cited “the need to organize closer interaction” between branches of the armed forces and for “improving the quality of all types of support and the effectiveness” of commanding Russian troops. Surovikin was demoted to a deputy overseeing aerospace forces under Gerasimov. Gerasimov has served as the chief of general staff of Russia’s armed forces since 2012. He is a veteran commander of the second Chechen war and is considered a key figure in Russian military planning. Since launching its invasion of Ukraine last February, Russia has faced heavy losses and numerous setbacks in the war. Surovikin oversaw campaigns in Syria and was known for his ruthlessness. He was appointed over the fall to help Russia make more headway in the war in Ukraine. Russian forces are currently engaged in deadly fighting with Ukraine in the eastern region of the country.
Putin running out of options in global pressure campaign -- As the Russia-Ukraine war nears the end of its first year, Moscow is struggling to find leverage to wear down Western resolve to aid Kyiv. With its battlefield wins now few and far between, an economy crippled by harsh sanctions, and increasing international isolation, Russian President Vladimir Putin is running out of options to expand its provocations beyond Ukraine to chip away at international support for Ukraine’s resistance, experts say. The Kremlin has “basically lost on all fronts in terms of trying to exhaust and create fractures in the coalition between Ukraine and its Western allies,” according to Joseph Dresen, a Russia expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute. “I think Russia is in a bad situation. It’s been bad for a while. It’s only getting worse.” When Moscow rolled its forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russia expected the country to quickly surrender, failing to anticipate a mountain of resistance. Among the roadblocks for Moscow was the resolve of the Ukrainian people, the leadership of the then-untested Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the ill-prepared Kremlin troops. What’s more, the former Soviet nation quickly galvanized Western support, with the U.S. and Europe funneling tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and humanitarian aid to the embattled country. “You’ve heard us say over and over again that we’re going to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. And from everything that I can see from our allies and partners, they feel the same way,” Defense Secretary Llyod Austin told reporters Wednesday. “We remain united in our efforts.” Moscow has tried to weaken global resolve to aid Kyiv, using cyberattacks, shipping blockades to prevent crucial grain exports, freezing gas supplies for Europe and threatening to halt all energy imports, a move Putin said would cause the continent to “freeze.” But a warm winter combined with an international community that has collectively responded to each Russian threat with its own pushback — either through bolstered cyber defenses, energy replacements or economic sanctions — has kept Putin on his back foot. Now, after more than 320 days of a conflict the Russian leader initially claimed would last less than a week, Moscow is all but out of ways to wreak havoc outside of Ukraine. “I just don’t think they have the bandwidth to project power anyplace else right now,” Brian Whitmore, a Russian expert with the Atlantic Council, told The Hill. “I think their play was effectively freezing out Europe and making them suffer through the winter. That’s clearly not going to work right now,” Whitmore said. “They’re counting on the West’s resolve being diminished, and that’s not happened yet. … I don’t think we’re gonna get there, quite frankly.” Further limiting Putin’s options was Russia’s swift loss of economic relations with the West, a forfeiture of decades of painstakingly cultivated ties and an ousting from an information network Moscow can no longer use to its advantage. “Their ability to project nonkinetic power was based on the fact that they were integrated into our financial system,” Whitmore said. “They were deep inside of our information space. Sanctions has really changed that, and their capacity to make trouble has been diminished as a result.”
Russian Military Says Retaliation Strike Killed Over 600 Ukrainian Soldiers - The Russian military says it has conducted a major strike on Ukrainian forces in retaliation for the New Year attack on a Russian barracks in Makiivka, Donetsk which marked one of the single deadliest days for Russian forces, and which set off a firestorm of criticism against the top chain of command. Russia’s Defense Ministry (MoD) said Sunday that it eliminated over 600 Ukrainian troops in a "retaliation operation" in direct response to the "criminal attack" of a week ago. The MoD identified that the operation was conducted against the Ukrainian-held city of Kramatorsk in the Donbass. Photos are emerging from the site, but Ukrainian media is denying Moscow's claims of hundreds killed. Russia says it targeted temporary barracks where Ukrainian troops were congregated, just as Ukraine's army had done the week before in the deadly Makiivka attack. "As a result of a massive missile attack on these temporary housing areas of the Ukrainian military’s units, more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen were killed," the defense ministry said. Further, state media describes as follows: Over the past 24 hours, the Russian military has managed to uncover and confirm the location of Ukrainian troops in Kramatorsk in the DPR, the statement read. This data revealed that dormitory No.28 in the city was hosting more than 700 Kiev soldiers, with 600 more staying in dormitory No.47. While there's been no confirmation of these high casualty numbers, photographs of a large building which suffered significant damage have been circulating, and the Russian MoD claim is spreading widely in international headlines.
NATO recklessly escalates war against Russia - The rapid escalation of the conflict in Ukraine has shattered the claim that NATO is not a party to the war against Russia. Not a week goes by without a major new expansion of NATO involvement:
- On December 10, a US official told the Times of London that the US had officially endorsed Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia, declaring, “We’re not saying to Kyiv, ‘Don’t strike the Russians [in Russia or Crimea].’”
- On December 21, the Biden administration announced that it would send a battery of Patriot missiles to Ukraine, the most advanced weapons system sent to date.
- On December 29, Biden signed into law the appropriation of another $50 billion for the war, doubling with the stroke of a pen the level of US involvement in the conflict.
- On January 4 and 5, France, Germany and the United States announced they would send tanks and armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine.
Germany has announced it is sending dozens of Marder infantry fighting vehicles (shown) to Ukraine. [AP Photo]These are the very actions that Biden and other NATO leaders previously asserted would lead to a direct war between the US and Russia. In March, Biden said, “The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews... that’s called World War III.”To buttress his claim that “we do not seek a war between NATO and Russia,” Biden wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in May that stated, “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders”—a position that is now openly contradicted in press statements by US officials.In June, French President Emmanuel Macron declared, “We are not entering the war… Thus, it has been agreed not to supply certain weapons—including attack aircraft or tanks—and President Zelensky is aware of this agreement.”
Macron’s sending tanks to Ukraine marks escalation of France’s role in war on Russia --On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans for France to deliver AMX-10 RC light tanks to the Ukrainian military. This is the first time that Western-designed tanks will be sent to the Ukrainian armed forces. It marks a significant escalation of French involvement in the war. In a tweet announcing the deal, Macron stated, “Until victory, until peace returns to Europe, our support for Ukraine will not weaken. I confirmed it to President Zelensky: France will provide light combat tanks.” The exact number of AMX-10 RCs to be delivered is unknown, but they will be transferred from the French military, which currently has 248. The vehicles sent to Ukraine will be replaced by EBRC Jaguar vehicles at a cost of €5 million apiece. In discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Macron also pledged to deepen France’s air defence support to Ukraine. France has already supplied Crotale air defense batteries and pledged more Caesar artillery pieces, on top of the 18 delivered in 2022. According to Le Monde, Macron is also currently in talks with Italy to send SAMP/T Mamba missile batteries to Ukraine, a more modern surface-to-air missile system with similar capabilities to the American-built Patriot missiles already used by the Ukrainian military. The delivery of light tanks confirms that French imperialism has joined the NATO war on Russia, even though it risks a nuclear conflagration. In 2019, Macron declared NATO “brain-dead” in an interview with the Economist. He said US policy towards Russia was unhinged, adding, “When the United States is very harsh with Russia it is a form of governmental, political, and historical hysteria.” When the NATO-Russia war began last year, Macron was somewhat reluctant to openly endorse NATO’s policy of provocation against Russia and unlimited expansion of the war in Ukraine. He claimed he aimed to negotiate a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. On March 28, the New York Times wrote: “Nobody can accuse President Emmanuel Macron of stinting on efforts to avert, defuse or stop Russia’s war in Ukraine.” In February and March, he spoke to Zelensky and Putin and claimed his aim was “securing a cease-fire and then the total withdrawal of troops.”
UK to supply tanks to Ukraine as Russian missiles hit Kyiv — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday promised to provide tanks and artillery systems to Ukraine, amid renewed missile attacks by Moscow targeting Ukrainian cities for the first time in nearly two weeks. Ten people were wounded, including two children, in the southeastern city of Dnipro, where a Russian missile strike destroyed a section of a residential building, officials said. Infrastructure facilities were hit in the western Lviv region and northeastern Kharkiv. Kyiv, the capital, was also targeted. Sunak’s Downing Street office said in a statement that he made the pledge to provide Challenger 2 tanks and other artillery systems after speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday. It did not say when the tanks were to be delivered or how many. British media has reported that four British Army Challenger 2 main battle tanks will be sent to eastern Europe immediately, with eight more to follow shortly after, without citing sources. Zelenskyy in a tweet Saturday thanked Sunak “for the decisions that will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners.” Ukraine has for months sought to be supplied with heavier tanks, including the U.S. Abrams and the German Leopard 2 tanks, but Western leaders have been treading carefully. The Czech Republic and Poland have provided Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukrainian forces. Poland has also expressed readiness to provide a company of Leopard tanks, but President Andrzej Duda stressed during his recent visit to the Ukrainian city of Lviv that the move would be possible only as an element in a larger international coalition of tank aid to Kyiv. Earlier this month, France pledged to supply its AMX-10 RC armored combat vehicles — designated as “light tanks” in French — to Ukraine. Sunak's announcement came as Russian forces fired missiles at Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine on Saturday in the first major barrage in days.
Massive German arms exports in 2022 - Between January 1 and December 22, 2022, the German ruling coalition approved arms exports totaling upwards of 8.35 billion euros. While final figures are pending, this is already the second-highest figure in the history of the Federal Republic.Only the arms exports for 2021, at some 9.35 billion euros, were higher. The biggest contribution to this total came from arms deliveries to the brutal Egyptian regime of al-Sisi, which alone amounted to 4.34 billion. The Grand Coalition under Angela Merkel approved this before handing over power to the current government.The near-record exports of 2022 under the coalition government consisting of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP), carried out with the backing of the opposition, exemplifies the continuation of the systematic and frenetic drive to war. It underscores Germany’s aggressive role in the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. Ukraine received a greater portion of heavy weapons and military equipment than any other country, totaling about 2.24 billion euros.Since the Ukraine conflict began nearly a year ago, Germany has flooded the country with weapons. The German government’s ever-expandingofficial list of delivered “military support” already includes thousands of RPGs, 100,000 hand grenades, 30 Gepard anti-aircraft tanks, 14 Panzerhaubitzen 2000 systems, five multiple rocket launchers and the Iris-T anti-aircraft system. There were further arms deliveries over the holidays—including the Bergepanzer 2 armored recovery vehicles, border control vehicles and ambulances.In the new year, the German government intends to further expand arms deliveries. The list of military support currently “in preparation/in execution” already includes 36 items. In addition to more tanks, items listed include 26 loading-handling trucks, 18 RCH 155 wheeled self-propelled howitzers, 16 Zuzana self-propelled howitzers and 156,000 rounds of ammunition for 40mm grenade launchers. At the end of last week the German government also announced it will send “Marder” infantry tanks to Ukraine.
No tank deliveries to Ukraine! Stop the threat of a third world war! - - The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) strongly condemns the delivery of German Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Patriot missile systems to Ukraine. Eighty-two years after the beginning of the German war of extermination against the Soviet Union, German tanks are again rolling against Russia. The German government is thereby risking a nuclear world war. The deployment was prepared behind the scenes with the US and France, which are also sending tanks. It represents a massive escalation of the proxy war NATO is waging against Russia in Ukraine. Leading representatives of the German government and NATO openly state that their goal is the complete military defeat of Russia. “Until victory, until peace returns to Europe, our support for Ukraine will not diminish,” French President Macron declared on Wednesday. German Chancellor Scholz and US President Biden issued a press statement Thursday declaring “their joint determination to provide Ukraine with the necessary financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support for as long as necessary.” The imperialist powers—above all Germany—want not peace, but war. They deliberately provoked the reactionary invasion by the Putin regime. They are blocking any peaceful solution and ruthlessly escalating the war.The delivery of the Marder fighting vehicles only foreshadows the delivery of heavy battle tanks. “The Marder is coming—and the call for the Leopard [tank] is getting louder,” writes Der Spiegel. The news magazine makes no secret of the fact that the tanks are in preparation for a full-scale war offensive by the Ukrainian army against Russian forces.
Number Of Germans Rejecting Military Service Quintupled In 2022 Following Outbreak Of War In Ukraine - Almost five times as many serving members of the Bundeswehr applied to conscientiously object to taking up arms in 2022 than in the previous year Close to 1,000 actively serving members of the Bundeswehr refused military service last year following the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. In total, Germany’s Federal Office for Family Affairs and Civil Society Functions received 951 applications for conscientious objection among serving members of the Bundeswehr in 2022. “In 2021, we received 201 applications for conscientious objection,” a spokesperson for the federal office told German news outlet RDN on Friday. According to a report by the office, many applicants justified their objection to military service on the basis that they simply were not expecting military confrontation in Europe during their given service time. The German army is not actively mobilized or involved in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but the conflict on Europe’s doorstep has seen numerous allied nations provide armaments and military support to Kyiv.
Sweden's NATO Bid Derailed- 'Turkey Wants What We Can't Give Them' - There's been growing domestic pressure in Sweden for the country's leadership to stand up to Turkey and not implement the kind of drastic changes in laws that Ankara is pushing in order for Sweden to become a NATO member. For example, a recent survey found almost 80% of Swedes believe the country shouldn't compromise its legal principles, Bloomberg reported last week. Amid the pressure, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson days ago for the first time acknowledged that Turkey is asking too much. Kristersson said starting a week ago of Turkey's security demands for it to joint NATO, "they also say that they want things that we cannot and do not want to give them." AP/picture alliance Since Sweden and Finland announced their bids to join the military alliance in May, citing the dangers of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has been the key holdout 'veto', complaining that the two countries and Sweden especially have played host to Kurdish "terrorists". Ankara has since demanded sweeping changes, including the request that Sweden extradite individuals who are wanted in Turkey. Some of the Turkish requirements would require Sweden to even crackdown on the ability to protest among Kurdish groups, thus violating their own democratic and free speech laws. Prime Minister Kristersson has admitted that at this point, "We cannot meet all of Turkey’s demands." He repeated the talking point in a Sunday press conferencewhile standing alongside NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg: Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Turkey was asking too much in return for ending its obstruction of NATO membership for Sweden and neighboring Finland, speaking Sunday at a security conference attended by NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg. "Turkey has confirmed that we have done what we said we would do. But it also says that it wants things that we can't, that we don't want to give," said PM Kristersson, adding, "We are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don't know when."
US Takeover of Greece Pushes Türkiye Closer to Russia and Increases Odds of Athens-Ankara Conflict - Greece’s recent embrace of the US is being driven by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis who has been in power since July 2019 (and might get thrown out soon), but the effects will be felt for much longer and in the wider region – especially in Türkiye.Greece’s abandonment of its ties with Russia came to a head with the recent bombshell that it was considering sending Russian-made S-300 air defense missile systems to Ukraine. When Athens received the weaponry from Russia back in 1998 it agreed to never give it to another country (let alone one that is at war with Russia). But Athens’ demonstration of its non-agreement capability is just another sign that it is now wholly in the US/NATO camp.While the S-300 would make little difference on the Ukrainian battlefield, the escalating tensions between Greece and Türkiye are much more consequential. Many of the US moves in Greece seem designed to apply pressure on fellow NATO member Turkiye, which occupies the most important geostrategic position in the alliance and has its second-largest standing army.But Ankara has steadfastly refused to apply sanctions on Russia and mutually beneficial ties between the two countries have grown much closer. Putin helps Erdogan boost the Turkish economy and in return gets a sanction-free link for exports and imports. But Washington refuses to accept this arrangement and has grown increasingly frustrated to the point that US war criminal John Bolton now wants to boot Turkiye out of NATO.Such an outcome no longer seems unlikely. And a conflict between Greece and Türkiye is also becoming an increasing possibility – especially if Russia decides Greece is a lost cause and no longer works to restrain Türkiye. It’s unclear what Greece thinks it stands to gain in wholly throwing in its lot with the Americans who once supported the brutal military dictatorship in Greece in the 1960s and 70s. It appears to be more of an ideological mission by PM Mitsotakis who was educated in the US at Harvard, Stanford, and then Harvard Business School for an MBA. He went on to work for Chase Bank in London, McKinsey & Company, and in 2003 was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a global leader of tomorrow. That day has apparently come.
French Workers Vow "Mother Of All Battles" As Macron Govt To Raise Retirement Age To 64 - Get ready for the riots to break out... France's government has just proposed raising the legal retirement age as it embarks on significant reforms to the pension system, and not for the first time. The Macron government going years back was already met with fierce pushback and anger upon earlier similar proposals and major overhaul attempts. The plan was unveiled Tuesday by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, and proposes raising legal retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030.The plan stopped short of Macron's previously proposed 65, and an outline of the proposal seeks to require that workers pay into the system for two more years, raising this from the current 41 to 43 years paying in.The Macron government has argued a major overhaul is urgently necessary to stave off a coming huge deficit in the system. Macron has been pushing for such reforms since his first election in 2017. According to the details of the plan as summarized in BBC:
- A full pension from 2027 will require working for 43 years (instead of 42 years currently)
- Guaranteed minimum pension income of not less than 85% of the net minimum wage, roughly €1,200 (£1,060) per month at current levels, for new retirees
- Police officers, prison guards, air traffic controllers and other public workers in jobs deemed physically or mentally arduous will keep the right to retire early
- Their retirement age will be increased by the same number of years as the wider labor force
- End to so-called "special regimes" with different retirement ages and benefits for rail workers, electricity and gas workers, among others.
Some of the above listed 'sweeteners' such as the increase in minimum pension to around €1,200 over and above the current €900 is an attempt to win the public's support ahead of it being presented to parliament in the next weeks.Widely cited recent polls point to around 70-80% of the population opposing Macron's desired retirement age of 64. Already labor unions are planning large protests to begin next week, including some strikes set to begin Jan.19, with the FT citing the following union leaders touting they are ready for the "mother of all battles":
Fascists storm Brazilian government buildings two years after attempted coup at US Capitol -Thousands of supporters of Brazil’s fascistic former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded and occupied for more than three hours the headquarters of the three branches of government in Brasilia, the country’s capital, on Sunday. The protesters demanded a military coup to depose and imprison recently inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT).This event marks a new stage in the explosive political crisis in Brazil and throughout Latin America. Happening only one week after Lula took office, it is a vivid verification of the opening phrases of the World Socialist Web Site’s New Year statement: “The celebration of the beginning of the New Year will be brief. The old year has passed into history, but its crises persist and will intensify.”The January 8 invasion in Brasilia is the latest product in the conspiracy of Bolsonaro and his fascist allies against democracy in Brazil. Along with his Liberal Party (PL), the former president refused to recognize Lula’s victory and fomented a violent movement to contest the elections.Yesterday’s action was directly inspired by, and in many ways an attempt to reenact, the invasion of the US Capitol in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021 by Donald Trump’s supporters. Bolsonaro has openly used the attempted fascist coup in the United States as a political guide.While his son, Eduardo, was invited to watch the events directly in Washington, then-President Bolsonaro announced in January 2021 his intention to carry out his own version of Trump’s electoral coup. He said Brazil would have “worse problems than in the United States” in its elections.Just as in Washington two years ago, the storming of the seats of governmental power by Bolsonaro’s fascist supporters had the decisive acquiescence of the police, the military and other sections of the state.The day before, the daily O Estado de São Paulo had already reported that government intelligence reports indicated 100 buses with 3,900 people were heading to Brasilia for a demonstration on Sunday against Lula’s elected government. According to the same newspaper, the action had been announced on pro-Bolsonaro social media channels since January 3.Schedules for buses taking demonstrators from different parts of the country to the capital were being publicly announced, with slogans like: “take over Brasília”; “occupy the Executive, Congress and STF”; “Plan B: all to Congress!”. One of the publicity videos called for a “generalized civil disobedience movement” on January 7 and 8 to “surround the [Presidential] Palace, not let any senator, minister, judge to enter,” and declare a “provisional government” that would later gain support from the military.These people, brought by bus from other parts of the country, joined a smaller group of fascist foot soldiers encamped in front of Army headquarters in Brasilia since November. This encampment, cultivated by leaders of the Bolsonaro administration, served as an organizational center for systematic actions to overthrow the election results. Among them was a terrorist plot that included a failed bomb attack at the Brasilia Airport on December 24. Despite having prior knowledge of the preparations for January 8 and having observed over months the actions of the fascists organizing it, the police forces in Brasilia deliberately allowed the plan to be executed
Brazil's highways cleared of Bolsonaro protestors - Blockades of at least five highways by supporters of Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday have been cleared, according to the country's Federal Highway Police.The roadblocks followed the storming of Brazil's congress, presidential palace and supreme court in Brasilia on Sunday by protesters seeking the ouster of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.At least five states saw road blockades Sunday, including Para, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana. This morning there were three sections still blocked in Para state and Mato Grosso state, according to the police, but they have since been removed and vehicle flow has been normalized.Truckers blocked roads throughout the country in October and November after Bolsonaro was defeated by Lula and the former president refused to concede defeat. The blockades were not aimed at any specific trucker issues, but rather done as a sign of support for Bolsonaro. Groups representing truck drivers, such as the Brazilian association of motor vehicle drivers (Abrava) and the national confederation of transport and logistics workers (CNTTL) called for an end to the blockades and called the actions "anti-democratic."Sources tell Argus they do not believe there will be new blockades as the severity of Sunday's actions will likely drive away more moderate truckers and the government response to such actions has become stronger and more severe.Brazil has also seen heavy rainfall since November, which has caused damage to many roads and limited work for many drivers. For example, the main access road to the Paranagua port wasclosed because of landslides and normal traffic did not resume until the past week, forcing truckers to take alternative routes.Another factor limiting roadblocks will be the start of the 2022-23 soybean harvest in January, which increases demand for transport services and brings freight rates to their highest levels of the year.
Brazil probes possible sabotage to electric grid -- Power transmission infrastructure in Brazil's Parana and Rondonia states may have been vandalized on 8 and 9 January, according to Brazilian authorities. Three power line towers were knocked down, three others were damaged and holding cables were cut, according to a joint statement from the grid operator ONS, electricity regulator Aneel and mines and energy ministry MME. No power outages took place but authorities reported "signs of vandalism". There were no climate events that could have caused the damage, according to the three agencies. The agencies are investigating whether the damages could have been caused by sabotage or vandalism. The incidents follow the storming of key government buildings by former president Jair Bolsonaro supporters in Brasilia on 8 January. In response to the damaged towers and lines, ONS, MME and Aneel established a committee to oversee Brazil's power system, with the goal of "maintaining the interconnected power system's security." The agencies will adopt actions that are traditionally implemented during special events, such as election days or big sporting events, they said.
Ghost banks limp along in Argentina, staying open as costly ATMs - On a weekday afternoon in Buenos Aires, a guard stands watch outside an empty bank. It's not just devoid of customers: Though the lights are on and Banco Santander's signature red-and-white decor remains, there isn't a single employee inside. Ghost branches like this one — no longer serving clients who require anything beyond an ATM, but not technically closed — have become a common sight in Argentina. As customers increasingly do their banking via smartphone apps and online, Santander and Argentine rivals including BBVA Argentina, Grupo Financiero Galicia and Grupo Supervielle, like their global peers, are pushing to close physical locations. But regulators won't let them. The problem, as told by Argentina's central bank president Miguel Pesce to industry representatives, is the country's powerful unions. Pesce has said that authorizing permanent branch shutdowns is difficult because he's under pressure from labor leaders worried about job losses, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions. A spokesman for the central bank said unions don't sway its decisions to close branches or leave them open. It's an expensive dilemma for Argentina's banks, already hammered by soaring inflation and caps on lending rates. The banks argue that their aim isn't to cut costs by eliminating jobs, saying many employees who worked at the now-empty branches are being reassigned to other locations. But between leases and other expenses, one industry official estimates that each ghost branch costs about $500,000 annually to maintain, depending on size. If it weren't for the regulatory obstacles, executives say, more than a quarter of locations would shut — representing some $375 million a year in savings. The phenomenon is putting the country's banks at a disadvantage to Latin American peers. Just three branches closed in Argentina last year through August, central bank data show — less than 0.1% of those operating a year earlier. Chile shut 8.3% of its branches over the same period, while Brazil closed 2.2%.
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