week ending Feb 4

Fed's words in focus as markets bet rate hikes will soon end (Reuters) - U.S. central bankers have unambiguously telegraphed this week's policy decision: a quarter-of-a-percentage-point increase in their benchmark interest rate, the smallest since they kicked off their tightening cycle 10 months ago with one the same size.Less clear is whether they will continue to signal "ongoing increases" ahead for the policy rate as evidence mounts that inflation and the economy are both losing momentum.The Federal Reserve has included that phrase in every policy statement since March 2022, when officials had just started raising borrowing costs from near zero and wanted to signal there was a lot more tightening ahead.The rate increase expected at the Federal Open Market Committee's Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting would bring the policy rate to the 4.5%-4.75% range. That's two quarter-point rate hikes short of the level most Fed policymakers in December thought would be "sufficiently restrictive" to bring inflation under control."Does the word 'ongoing' really capture just two more hikes? It's a close call," At the same time, "there's going to be some caution" about doing anything that could feed market expectations that a pause in rate hikes is imminent. That's exactly what financial markets are already pricing in: An end to rate hikes in March, with the policy target in the 4.75%-5% range, followed by rate cuts starting in September in the face of what many economists forecast will be easing inflation and a recession. Fed policymakers, as of December at least, all see no rate cuts until 2024.

Opinion | Federal Reserve should signal more rate hikes to fight inflation -Washington Post Editorial -When Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell addresses the public Wednesday, he might be tempted to take a bow. Mr. Powell has been a steadying force through President Donald Trump’s trade wars and repeated threats to fire him, a once-in-a-century pandemic and, now, the worst inflation crisis in 40 yearsMany expected the economy to be in a recession by now, triggered by the interest rate hikes in the Fed’s aggressive inflation-fighting campaign. Instead, it has been remarkably resilient. Growth is solid, inflation hascooled markedly since June, more Americans are starting businesses, and unemployment is at historic lows.With inflation easing, calls are growing louder for the Fed to stop raising interest rates. While that is tempting, Mr. Powell cannot declare victory over inflation yet. Another rate increase is all but certain on Wednesday and Fed officials need to keep signaling they are still in a “hawkish” mode in which taming inflation is their sole objective.History is full of painful examples in which central banks gave up the inflation fight too soon. The United States’ experience in the 1970s is one such warning. Inflation appeared to be moderating twice during that decade, only to spike again because of energy crises. It’s nearly impossible to predict when large-scale shocks will rock the economy, but the memory of $5 gas remains fresh (even though it’s around $3.50now). It is far worse to let up too soon and see inflation roar back than it is to stay tight until it is clear inflation is stamped out. The fact that lower-income workers are not yet facing layoffs underscores how robust the labor market remains and should also embolden the Fed to stay focused on inflation.Some prominent voices, including former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, are urging the Fed not to signal any further rate increasesafter Wednesday. They argue flexibility going forward is key. But to truly preserve its freedom to act, the Fed will have to continue talking tough. Investors are eager for any signs that the Fed is pausing rate hikes. Markets have already been rallying this year, largely on the belief that the Fed will end its tightening sooner than expected — and even start cutting rates by the end of the year. If markets continue rising on optimistic expectations about the Fed’s intentions, it would get only harder for the Fed to dash them, risking a painful market reaction. Unfortunately, Mr. Powell needs to push back.For now, the Fed needs to keep talking tough on inflation and signaling more hikes. If the Fed determines that it can ease up later this year, it will be easy to lighten up then, exceeding expectations rather than confounding them.

Why the Fed faces new risks in its inflation fight amid recession fears – The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter-percentage point at its meeting on Wednesday, entering a high-stakes chapter in its battle against high inflation. The central bank is on track to issue its smallest rate hike since March 2021, when the Fed began aggressively boosting borrowing costs and slowing the economy into lower price growth. But the Fed faces serious risks on both sides of a potential pause to rate hikes. If the Fed stops too soon, bank officials fear that high inflation could become entrenched. If it stops too late, the central bank could trigger a serious, job-killing recession. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that the Fed’s rate hikes affect the economy at a lag. “This is like trying to steer a large cruise ship through a storm. They have very blunt controls and they operate at a lag, and they don’t have great visibility right now,” said Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist with the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, in an interview with The Hill. With inflation fading and the economy slowing, the central bank is under pressure to stop raising rates altogether. While Fed officials are reluctant to declare victory against inflation, they have acknowledged the economy no longer needs supersized rate hikes to cool it off. While markets currently expect modest rate hikes at the Fed’s meeting this week and at its next meeting in March, the central bank may indicate Wednesday that hikes will continue into May. “The job of the Fed is to — as carefully and consciously as we can — navigate through this so that there’s the least pain in the economy as possible while we restore price stability,” said Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, in an interview with NPR earlier this month. “We’re going to be conscious that we need to slow the pace of increases, look around, watch the data, see how things are coming out, and then make decisions meeting by meeting by meeting.” Fed officials expect to hike interest rates again by a total of 0.75 percentage points before the end of 2023, according to projections released in December. That would require two more hikes of at least 25 basis points before the end of the year after its likely Wednesday increase. Some investors think the Fed needs to keep going with higher rate hikes in order to hit its earlier projection and stay in line with business expectations. “The Fed are battling market, household, and business expectations and if they were to come up short of their stated terminal rate, it may negatively impact their credibility,” Joe Davis, an economist with investment company Vanguard Group, wrote in an analysis. Other economists believe recent data should push the Fed toward a sooner pause. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, fell to an annual increase of 5 percent in December from a June high of 6.8 percent. The better-known consumer price index (CPI) dropped to 6.5 percent annually in December from a high of 9.1 percent in June.The U.S. economy is also showing more signs of slowing from its record-breaking rebound, with gross domestic product (GDP) rising 2.1 percent on the year in 2022 and job gains slowing for five consecutive months. And the Labor Department’s Employment Cost Index (ECI), the Fed’s primary gauge of wage growth, rose 1 percent during the fourth quarter, the slowest increase since the start of 2022.

Fed raises rates a quarter point, expects 'ongoing' increases - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point and gave little indication it is nearing the end of this hiking cycle. Aligning with market expectations, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee boosted the federal funds rate by 0.25 percentage point. That takes it to a target range of 4.5%-4.75%, the highest since October 2007. The move marked the eighth increase in a process that began in March 2022. By itself, the funds rate sets what banks charge each other for overnight borrowing, but it also spills through to many consumer debt products. The Fed is targeting the hikes to bring down inflation that, despite recent signs of slowing, is still running near its highest level since the early 1980s. The post-meeting statement noted that inflation "has eased somewhat but remains elevated," a tweak on previous language. "Inflation data received over the past three months show a welcome reduction in the monthly pace of increases," Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in his post-meeting news conference. "And while recent developments are encouraging, we will need substantially more evidence to be confident that inflation is on a sustained downward path." Markets, however, were looking to this week's meeting for signs that the Fed would be ending the rate increases soon. But the statement provided no such signals. At first, stocks fell in the wake of the announcement, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling more than 300 points. However, the market rebounded during Powell's press conference, after he acknowledged that "the disinflationary process" had started. Major averages ultimately turned positive as market commentary focused on Powell's somewhat optimistic comments on progress against inflation. "We can now say I think for the first time that the disinflationary process has started," Powell said, while also noting that it would be "very premature to declare victory or to think we really got this." The Fed's statement included language noting that the FOMC still sees the need for "ongoing increases in the target range." Market participants had been hoping for some softening of the phrase, but the statement, approved unanimously, kept it intact. The statement altered one part when describing what will determine the future policy path. Officials said they would determine the "extent" of future rate increases based on factors such as the effects so far of the rate hikes, the lags in which policy has an impact, and developments in financial conditions and the economy. Previously, the statement said it would use those factors to determine the "pace" of future hikes, a possible nod that the committee sees an end to the increases somewhere, or at least a continuation of smaller moves ahead. In 2022, the Fed approved four consecutive 0.75 percentage point moves before going to a smaller 0.5 percentage point increase in December. In recent public statements, multiple officials said they think the central bank at least can scale back on the size of the hikes, without signaling when they could end. While it was raising its benchmark rate, the committee characterized economic growth as "modest" though it noted only that unemployment "has remained low." The latest job market assessment omitted previous language that employment gains have been "robust." Otherwise, the statement remained intact from previous messages as the Fed continues its efforts to arrest inflation.

Fed's Powell warns of more pain ahead: Key takeaways - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday welcomed signs that inflation has been steadily cooling, but he had a stark warning for Americans: It’s still way too hot. In a press conference after the Fed raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, Powell said the central bank’s nearly year-long rate hike campaign isn’t over yet, despite six straight months of easing consumer prices. The U.S., he said, is merely in the early stages of disinflation, and more belt-tightening is likely in store even after eight consecutive rate hikes by the central bank. And he said Fed officials plan to hold rates at punishingly high levels until price spikes have faded much more extensively. “We have more work to do,” he said. “We’re going to be cautious about declaring victory and sending signals that we think the game is won.” Still, Wednesday’s move, the smallest rate increase since last March, brings policymakers another step closer to an expected pause in their inflation fight sometime this year — and stock markets rose on the day. The Fed’s main borrowing rate now sits between 4.5 percent and 4.75 percent, up from near zero early last year. Unemployment is still at modern lows, even after all the aggressive rate hikes, feeding hopes that the U.S. may be able to avoid a recession — a crucial goal for President Joe Biden before the 2024 election. But that will hinge on how much more the central bank increases rates and then how long it waits to lower them again. Powell gave some hints on what the Fed might do. Here are some key quotes from the Fed chief and what he meant: “We are not yet at a sufficiently restrictive policy stance, which is why we say that we expect ongoing hikes will be appropriate.” The central bank has raised interest rates high enough to bite into economic growth, but Powell says it needs to go further to bring inflation to heel. The key word here is “ongoing,” which suggests it will be more than one additional increase. He later signaled that could mean “a couple more” — which would be consistent with what officials had forecast in December. According to those forecasts, the Fed expects to raise rates to about 5 percent before stopping, but that will depend on whether inflation continues its downward trend. Powell also held open the possibility that rates could rise even more if incoming data starts to look worse. “Finding out in six or 12 months that we actually were close but didn’t get the job done, inflation springs back and we have to go back in ... This is a very difficult risk to manage.” The message here is that it’s better to err on the side of whipping inflation a little too soundly — even if it means throwing the economy into a painful recession — than risk that the price surges come roaring back. But his best guess right now is that no downturn is in store — a view that clashes with that of many economists and Wall Street CEOs. The economy grew at a healthy 2.9 percent annualized pace in the last three quarters of the year, suggesting the U.S. is still far from dipping into a recession. But there’s always a lag in the impact of monetary policy, and growth could slow further as the Fed’s rate moves feed through to economic activity. Generally, it is a forecast of slower growth, some softening in labor market conditions and inflation moving down steadily, but not quickly. And in that case, if the economy performs broadly in line with those expectations, it will not be appropriate to cut rates this year.” Powell and his fellow officials have been struggling to convince markets that rate cuts are unlikely later this year. This matters because the Fed wants market-set rates to remain high and stock prices to stay muted, as part of its efforts to restrain spending and investment. Investors haven’t bought into that message though and are overwhelmingly betting on rate cuts in 2023.

What Powell Actually Said - Wolf Richter - “The historical record cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy. We will stay the course until the job is done,” but it’s not done, Powell said: Core services inflation ex-housing has not come down.At today’s meeting, the FOMC raised its five policy rates by 25 basis points, bringing the upper end of the range to 4.75%, as widely expected. The Fed has now hiked by 450 basis points in 10 months, far more than anyone imagined a year ago. It has also run $500 billion off its balance sheet in six months of QT. “Ongoing rate increases” will be needed to get rates to be “sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2% over time, the statement said, and Powell reiterated the need for “increases” multiple times at the post-meeting press conference. Always plural: “increases,” meaning at least two more rate hikes, which would bring the top end to 5.25%, as projected at the December meeting. Updated projections will be released at the March meeting.“Shifting to a slower pace [of rate hikes] will better allow the Committee to assess the economy’s progress toward our goals, as we determine the extent of future increases that we require to obtain a sufficiently restrictive stance,” the statement said. “If the economy performs broadly in line with [the Fed’s] expectations, it will not be appropriate to cut rates this year, to loosen policy this year,” Powell said.“If we come to the need to move rates up beyond what we said in December, we would certainly do that,” Powell said. “At the same time, if the data comes in the other direction, we will make data-dependent decisions.”“The historical record cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy. We will stay the course until the job is done,” Powell said.“We covered a lot of ground, and the full effects of our rapid tightening so far are yet to be felt. Even so, we have more work to do,” Powell said, a phrase Powell reiterated over and over again – meaning more rate hikes.“Inflation is running hot,” Powell said, so more work to do. But “we are taking into account long and variable lags” for monetary policy to impact inflation. Hence the slower pace of rate hikes.“Without price stability, we will not achieve a sustained period of labor market conditions that benefit all,” he said.“It would be very premature to declare victory or think we really got this.”“Our job is to deliver inflation back to target, and we will do that, but I think we will be cautious about declaring victory and sending signals that we think that the game is won.”“We have a long way to go. It is the early stages of disinflation. It is most welcome to be able to say that, that we are now in disinflation, that is great, but we see that it has to spread through the economy and it will take time.”“Restoring price stability will likely require maintaining a restrictive stance for some time.”“Our forecast is that it will take some time and patience, and we will need to keep rates higher for longer.”“I continue to think that it is very difficult to manage the risk of doing too little, and finding out in six or 12 months that we actually were close but didn’t get the job done, and inflation springs back, and we have to go back in, and now you really do worry about expectations getting unanchored and that kind of thing. This is a very difficult risk to manage.“Whereas, we have no incentive or desire to over-tighten, but if we feel we have gone too far, and inflation is coming down faster than we expect, we have tools that would work on that. “So, I do think in this situation where we still have the highest inflation in 40 years, the job is not fully done.”

Biggest Winners And Losers From The Fed's Interest Rate Hike | Bankrate - The Federal Reserve announced that its raising interest rates by 0.25 percentage point, following its Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting, bumping the federal funds rate to a target range of 4.5 to 4.75 percent. With the move, the Federal Reserve marked the eighth straight meeting that it raised rates in an effort to rapidly reduce liquidity to the financial markets and tamp down high inflation.The Fed’s decision comes as inflation hit 6.5 percent in December 2022, still among the highest levels in decades. With the Fed hitting the brakes on an overheated economy, the main question for many market watchers is how much further will the Fed raise rates and how deep an ensuing recession may become.“While inflation pressures have started easing, the Fed’s work isn’t done,” says Greg McBride, CFA, Bankrate chief financial analyst. “Interest rates are moving higher and may stay there longer than is generally believed.”Besides raising interest rates, the Fed has also been selling off huge chunks of its bond portfolio. As the Fed runs off its balance sheet, the move helps drain liquidity from the financial system in an effort to slow inflation.At about 3.5 percent, the 10-year Treasury note is now well below its 52-week high of 4.33 percent, which was hit just in October. The move lower in that yield even as the Fed continues to raise short-term rates suggests that investors are preparing for a recession in the near term.Rising interest rates mean that banks will offer rising returns on their savings and money market accounts, but the speed with which they do this will vary from bank to bank. “The combination of rising interest rates and easing inflation is the best of both worlds for savers,” says McBride. “The top-yielding savings accounts, money market accounts and CDs are well over 4 percent and most are still rising. But earning 4-4.5 percent looks all the better once inflation comes down below that level and keeps falling.” When it comes to CDs, account holders who recently locked in rates will retain those yields for the term of the CD, unless they’re willing to pay a penalty to break it.While the federal funds rate doesn’t really impact mortgage rates, which depend largely on the 10-year Treasury yield, they’re often moving the same way for similar reasons. With the 10-year Treasury yield falling from its highest levels in recent months, as the market prices in the potential for a recession, mortgage rates have sharply fallen alongside them.“With inflation having peaked and now easing back, we’re seeing the same with mortgage rates,” says McBride. “After moving above 7 percent in October, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has fallen to 6.4 percent. With the Fed hiking rates, this could – counterintuitively – lead mortgage rates lower as it puts a further clamp on inflation and slows the economy even more. Lower inflation and slower economic growth are both suggestive of lower mortgage rates.” The stock market soared as long as the Fed kept rates at near zero for an extended period of time. Low rates were beneficial for stocks, making them look like a more attractive investment in comparison to rates on bonds and fixed-income investments such as CDs. Since late 2021, investors have been pricing in rate increases, and the S&P 500 spent most of 2022 in a deep slump. Now with the 10-year Treasury moderating, investors have sent stocks higher in the last few months because they think they can see the end of rate hikes. Still, higher rates should slow growth and therefore corporate earnings, if not create an outright recession. If you’re an existing borrower and don’t need to tap the market for money – say, you locked in a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in 2021 or 2022 – you’re in good shape. But everyone else who’s looking to access new credit is getting squeezed, whether that’s credit cards (more later), student loans, personal loans, auto loans or whatever else you might need to borrow for. Many variable-rate credit cards change the rate they charge customers based on the prime rate, which is closely related to the federal funds rate. The Fed’s decision means that interest on variable-rate cards will move higher now. Rates on cards are already at multi-decade highs and are still rising. With the national debt above $31 trillion, rising rates will raise the costs of the federal government as it rolls over debt and borrows new money. Of course, the government has benefited for decades from a secular decline in interest rates. While rates might rise cyclically during an economic boom, they’ve been moving steadily lower long term. As long as inflation remains higher than interest rates, the government is slowly taking advantage of inflation, paying down prior debts with today’s less valuable dollars. That’s an attractive prospect for the government, of course, but not for those who buy its debt. Inflation has been running hot over the last couple of years, and the Fed is aggressively raising interest rates to combat it. So plan carefully for how to take advantage, for example, by being more discriminating when it comes to shopping for rates on your savings accounts or CDs. One option for those looking for some protection against inflation is the Series I bond, which offers a solid annual interest rate of 6.89 percent through April 2023.

Is the Fed ignoring long Covid in its inflation fight? — Federal Reserve officials have for months blamed a dwindling supply of US workers for elevated inflation levels. During his December press conference, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that Covid-related deaths accounted for a large chunk of the structural labor shortage in the economy. That’s why some economists and health care advocates were surprised on Wednesday when central bankers decided to no longer list public health readings among the data points they’ll consider in assessing economic conditions and prescribing monetary policy changes going forward. During his February press conference, Powell, who tested positive for Covid just last month, clarified the Fed’s reasoning. “I personally understand well that Covid is still out there but that it’s no longer playing an important role in our economy,” he said. “It doesn’t really need to be in the Fed’s post meeting statement as an ongoing economic risk, as opposed to a health issue.” It’s true that the United States has largely moved on from the deep economic downturn triggered by early-Covid business closures and stay-at-home advisories which led the Fed to cut interest rates and purchase massive amounts of debt securities to help incentivize financial markets and spending.But it’s premature to say that Covid is no longer an economic issue when long Covid has such a significant effect on America’s workforce, economists and health care officials say.Long Covid, which stems from a Covid-19 infection, is considered a chronic illness that is sometimes debilitating. As many as 30% of Americans, about 23 million people, develop long Covid after a Covid infection, said the US Department of Health and Human Services in November. “The bottom line is that long Covid is why the labor force participation rate has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, even in a situation with solid wage growth,” wrote Torsten Slok, chief economist and partner at Apollo Global Management, in a recent note.A new analysis of workers’ compensation claims in New York State found that around 18% of long Covid patients still hadn’t returned to work more than a year after contracting the virus. More than three quarters of them were under 60.“Long Covid has harmed the workforce,” said the report, compiled by the New York State Insurance Fund. These findings, “highlight long Covid as an underappreciated yet important reason for the many unfilled jobs and declining labor participation rate in the economy, and they presage a possible reduction in productivity as employers feel the strains of an increasingly sick workforce.”Another academic study found that about 7% of US adults, or 19 million people, still suffer from long Covid.Caregiving for those suffering from Covid or long Covid is also affecting the labor imbalance,If families don’t have the ability to hire home health care workers, then people will be forced to leave their jobs and become caregivers, he said. The effect of taking time off of work for caregiving, he said, “is something we should expect to see putting stress on the labor market going into the future.” “Ultimately long covid is a key reason why the Fed will have to keep the Fed funds rate elevated for an extended period,” said Slok.

Fed’s Balance Sheet Drops by $532 Billion from Peak, Cumulative Loss Reaches $27 billion: February Update on QT by Wolf Richter - The Federal Reserve has shed $532 billion in assets since the peak in April, with total assets falling to $8.43 trillion, the lowest since September 2021, according to the weekly balance sheet released today. Compared to the balance sheet a month ago (released January 5), total assets dropped by $74 billion. Quantitative Tightening is starting to make a visible dent: Since the peak in early June, the Fed’s Treasury holdings fell by $374 billion to $5.34 trillion, the lowest since September, 2021. Over the past month, the Fed’s holdings of Treasury securities fell by $60.4 billion, a hair above the cap of $60 billion.Treasury notes and bonds come off the balance sheet when they mature mid-month and at the end of the month, which is when the Fed gets paid face value for them. The monthly roll-off is capped at $60 billion.The Fed has shed $115 billion of MBS since the peak, including $17 billion over the past month, with the total balance dropping to $2.62 trillion.Each month since QT started, the total amount in MBS that came off the balance sheet was well below the cap of $35 billion.MBS come off the balance sheet primarily as a function of the pass-through principal payments that all holders receive when mortgages are paid off, such as when mortgages are refinanced or when mortgaged homes are sold, and as regular mortgage payments are made.As mortgage rates have spiked from 3% to over 6%, people are still making their mortgage payments, but mortgage refi volume has collapsed and home sales have plunged, and the torrent of pass-through principal payments has fizzled.Pass-through principal payments reduce the MBS balances, which show up as the downward zigs in the chart below.The upward zags in the chart occurred back when the Fed was still buying MBS, but it stopped this sordid practice entirely in mid-September, and the upward zags in the chart petered out.We’re still waiting for the Fed to give any indication that it is seriously considering selling MBS outright to bring the roll-off up to the cap of $35 billion a month. At the current rate, it would have to sell $15 billion to $20 billion a month to get to the cap. Several Fed governors have mentioned that the Fed might eventually move in this direction.Note in the chart above that in 2019 and 2020, MBS rolled off the balance sheet at the pace of the cap as dropping mortgage rates caused refis and home sales to surge. QT-1 ended in July 2019, but MBS continued to roll off through February 2020, and the Fed replaced them with Treasury securities, whose balance began to rise again in August 2019, as you saw in the prior chart.The Fed has said many times that it doesn’t like to have MBS on its balance sheet, in part because the cashflows are so unpredictable and uneven, which complicates monetary policy, and in part because holding MBS gives preference to one type of private-sector debt (housing debt) over other types of private-sector debt. This is why we may see some serious discussions soon about selling MBS outright. Unamortized premiums dropped by $3 billion for the month and were down by $45 billion from the peak in November 2021, to $311 billion.What is this? The securities that the Fed bought in the secondary market, at a time when market yields were lower than the coupon interest of the securities, the Fed, like everyone else, had to pay a “premium” over face value. But when the bond matures, the Fed, like everyone else, gets paid face value. In other words, in return for the above-market coupon interest payments, there will be a capital loss in the amount of the premium when the bond matures.Instead of booking the capital loss when the bond matures, the Fed amortizes the premium in small increments every week over the life of the bonds. The Fed accounts for the remaining premiums in a separate account.The Fed has long had swap lines with major other central banks, where that central bank can swap local currency for US dollars with the Fed, via swaps that mature over a certain time period, such as seven days, at which point the Fed gets its dollars back and the other central bank gets its currency back. There are currently only $427 million (with an M) in swaps outstanding:

Prospects for the global economy are improving, as worst fears fade - The outlook for the global economy in recent weeks has unexpectedly brightened, with the United States, Europe and China all outperforming expectations and avoiding — at least for now — some predicted stumbles. American employers continue to hire at a steady clip while the latest European manufacturing gauges signal expansion and Chinese consumers are spending again. Much of the improvement in the world’s three main economic engines, however, is more the result of disasters averted rather than any new boom. In the United States, the Federal Reserve’s fastest interest rate increases in 40 years have yet to push the economy into recession, as employers such as Boeing and Chipotle plan to hire thousands of new workers. Energy shortages that some feared would strangle European factories have not materialized because of relatively mild winter weather. And Chinese leaders abruptly freed their economy from harsh covid restrictions in December, months earlier than investors anticipated. Advertisement “The outlook is less gloomy than in our October forecast,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, told reporters. “We are not seeing a global recession right now.” In an updated forecast released Monday, the fund now expects global growth of 2.9 percent this year, slower than last year’s pace but up 0.2 percentage points from its October assessment. Inflation worldwide should drop to 6.6 percent this year from a global average of 8.8 percent last year. In the United States, where most forecasters still anticipate a recession as soon as this spring, policymakers may be able to steer the overheated economy to a “soft landing” — bringing inflation under control without plunging into a downturn, the IMF said. By 2024, the fund expects the U.S. economy to be barely expanding, with prices cooling and the jobless rate peaking at 5.2 percent, up from today’s 3.5 percent.“We’re still seeing a narrow path where a recession can be avoided,” Gourinchas said. The IMF also has dropped its October prediction that one-third of all countries would sink into recession by the end of this year, though some notable economies will disappoint.As it absorbs the costs of its exit from the European Union, the economy of the United Kingdom will be smaller at the end of 2023 than it was one year ago, according to the IMF. The U.K. is struggling with high inflation and a labor market that has not yet regained its pre-pandemic level.

Fed Tightens Rules to Limit Its Employees’ Political Advocacy - -- Federal Reserve officials quietly tightened internal restrictions on employees’ political activities after several reserve banks ran afoul of Congress over real or perceived engagement on issues within the domain of elected officials. The code of conduct, as updated in late 2022, now explicitly prohibits the kind of activity engaged in by Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who teamed up in 2020 with retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page to propose an amendment to the state constitution that said quality public school education was a “fundamental right.” The amendment failed to advance through the state legislature. “An employee may not use or create the appearance of using their position or bank resources to influence a partisan or non-partisan election or ballot initiative, such as a referendum or constitutional amendment,” according to the new language in the Federal Reserve Administrative Manual. Regional banks, including Minneapolis, are adopting the language in their own codes. The proposed Minnesota amendment followed research by the Minneapolis Fed that documented educational disparities. While the topic wouldn’t be unusual for a reserve bank that is studying human capital and workforce conditions in its district, it’s rare for a top official like Kashkari to personally lobby for a change to a state constitution. Fed policymakers typically take pains to avoid expressing opinions on plans before lawmakers and other elected officials. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues regularly speak of the need to maintain the central bank’s independence from politics and stress that their decisions and deliberations are nonpartisan. “Independence is not a given; it could easily be rolled back, and it wasn’t that long ago that the Fed wasn’t independent,” said Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “The conduct of Fed officials should be evaluated, and certainly restrictions on their conduct should be put in place.” Yet seven of the 12 reserve banks have run into trouble with Congress or internally at the Fed over the past few years over issues such as personal trading, climate research and who accesses the Fed’s payments system. Kashkari’s advocacy drew sharp criticism from former US Senator Patrick Toomey. The Pennsylvania Republican, who retired rather than run for reelection in 2022, called the initiative “political lobbying” that was “well beyond” the Fed’s mandate, according to an April 2022 letter to Kashkari. Despite the new Fed language, Kashkari’s proposal remains on the Minneapolis Fed’s website. Alyssa Augustine, a spokesperson for the bank, said its presence reflects a “commitment to transparency” about the president’s activities.

The Employment Release and Business Cycle Indicators - by Menzie Chinn - With the release of the January 2023 Employment Situation release incorporating benchmark revisions we have the following picture of business cycle indicators followed by the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, along with IHS Markit/SP Global monthly GDP (released on Wednesday): Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment, NFP (dark blue), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), consumption in Ch.2012$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Q3 Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA, via FRED, IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) (2/1/2023 release), and author’s calculations.While one has to be careful (as always, but particularly when new population controls are incorporated) with the household survey employment series (see this post), I think it’s hard to say that the economy has taken a decided downturn in December/January.

Treasury Keeps Quarterly Debt Sales Unchanged Amid Debt-Limit Fiasco, Is Still Considering Buyback Program --Amid the escalating debt ceiling standoff which is sure to culminate with fireworks some time in September, the Treasury announced on Wednesday morning that it would offer $96 billion of Treasury securities to refund approximately $67.1 billion of privately-held Treasury notes and bonds maturing on February 15, 2023. The amount was inline with expectations and was unchanged from last month. This issuance will raise new cash from private investors of approximately $28.9 billion. Issuance plans for Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS, were also kept unchanged compared with sizes over the prior quarter. The securities to be issued are:

• 3-year note in the amount of $40 billion, to be sold on Feb 7 and maturing February 15, 2026;
• 10-year note in the amount of $35 billion, to be sold on Feb 8 and maturing February 15, 2033
• 30-year bond in the amount of $21 billion, to be sold on Feb 9 and maturing February 15, 2053.

Explaining the unchanged auction size, the Treasury said it "believes that current issuance sizes leave it well-positioned to address a range of potential borrowing needs, and as such, does not anticipate making any changes to nominal coupon and FRN new issue or reopening auction sizes over the upcoming February 2023 – April 2023 quarter." The balance of Treasury financing requirements over the quarter will be met with regular weekly bill auctions, cash management bills (CMBs), and monthly note, bond, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), and 2-year Floating Rate Note (FRN) auctions. While there were no surprises in the refunding amounts, the elephant in the room, of course, is that the department is now operating under the constraints of the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, having hit the level last month and begun using special accounting maneuvers to help preserve borrowing room. Last month, Janet Yellen outlined in letters to Congress, that the period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty due to a variety of factors, including the challenges of forecasting the payments and receipts of the U.S. government months into the future. While Treasury is not currently able to provide an estimate of how long extraordinary measures will enable us to continue to pay the government’s obligations, it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June. Also on Wednesday, the Treasury highlighted that it’s continuing to examine the idea of launching a buyback program, something that, in October, it asked dealers their views on when illiquidity in the Treasury market prompted some to evaluate Treasury or Fed intervention to unfreeze the bond market (since then a surge in foreign demand has helped alleviate much of the lack of liquidity). Buying back less-traded securities and selling more of the current benchmarks could be one way to address continuing concerns about illiquidity in the Treasuries market. TBAC in a statement Wednesday said the Treasury “should consider buybacks to provide liquidity support to the overall Treasury market and to achieve cash management goals.” “Treasury expects to share its findings on buybacks as part of future quarterly refundings,” the department said.

McCarthy to discuss debt limit, spending with Biden (Reuters) - President Joe Biden and House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet at the White House on Wednesday for talks in the standoff over the federal debt ceiling and prospect for a U.S. default. Hardline Republican lawmakers are withholding support for a measure that would let the country pay its debts until Democrats agree to spending cuts going forward. The White House has said raising the debt limit is non-negotiable, citing the risk to the U.S. economy from a default.Analysts are skeptical that the face-to-face talks between the Democratic president and Republican leader, confirmed by both sides on Sunday, will soon end a high-stakes crisis where members of both parties see opportunities to score political points before the U.S. Treasury runs out of money to pay its bills this summer. "The President will ask Speaker McCarthy if he intends to meet his Constitutional obligation to prevent a national default, as every other House and Senate leader in U.S. history has done," a White House spokesperson who declined to be named said on Sunday. "He will underscore that the economic security of all Americans cannot be held hostage to force unpopular cuts on working families." On Sunday, McCarthy said that Republicans will not allow a U.S. default and that cuts to Social Security and Medicare would be "off the table" in any debt ceiling negotiations. But he added that Republicans want to "strengthen" the costly retirement and health benefit programs for seniors - a statement that the White House called a euphemism for cuts.

‘Intellectually bankrupt’: Biden allies blast GOP debt-limit backup plan - The Biden administration warns of catastrophe if Congress fails to raise the government’s borrowing limit in the coming months. But some Wall Street executives and analysts are starting to break from that script. A number of prominent financial experts at Bank of America, Barclays and other major firms are confident that the U.S. will avert a global market meltdown by continuing to pay its bondholders if the Treasury Department crosses the threshold where it can’t cover all its other bills. They think the U.S. can do so by withholding funds for things like benefits owed to individual Americans or payments to firms doing business with the government. It’s a view that aligns with those of conservative lawmakers, who argue that payment prioritization on Treasury securities — the bedrock of the international financial system — is a viable contingency plan as they push for budget cuts opposed by President Joe Biden. The White House and Treasury are already putting up resistance to the idea, which Treasury says would amount to a default. But disclosures over the past several years — driven in part by investigations by House Republicans — have revealed that officials believe the government has the technical capacity to implement payment prioritization, though it would be experimental and risky. “Most investors who follow this closely are very aware the United States will not default on its bonds,” Ajay Rajadhyaksha, global chair of research at Barclays, said in an interview. The debate around the potential backup plan underscores the economic uncertainty that’s already being triggered by the political stalemate around raising the debt limit, the total amount of money that Congress authorizes the government to borrow. Many on Wall Street doubt payment prioritization would work.

Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy meet on U.S. debt ceiling — As President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy prepare to meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss the looming U.S. debt ceiling deadline, both sides are waging an increasingly bitter messaging battle, one that offers a glimpse of how the next few months of political knife fighting could unfold. On Wednesday morning, McCarthy held a closed meeting with his Republican caucus in the Capitol to preview his sit-down with the president. Leaving that meeting, the speaker said its purpose was "just education" for his members, according to Bloomberg News. "If [Biden] doesn't want to play politics, and if he wants to start negotiating, let's sit down and start negotiating where we could come together for the American public," said McCarthy. But while the House speaker says he is preparing for a negotiation, the White House is battening down the hatches for a fight. A White House memo circulated Tuesday sought to portray the 3:15 p.m. ET meeting as a showdown, one between a Democratic president who will protect Social Security, Medicare, health insurance and food stamps, and a House Republican majority that will demand cuts to these programs in exchange for helping Democrats avoid a catastrophic default on the nation's debt. The Treasury Department has started to take extraordinary steps to keep paying the government's bills, and expects to be able to avoid a first-ever default at least until early June. Failure by Congress to raise or suspend the debt limit by then could wreak economic havoc around the world. McCarthy has consistently said cuts to the popular Social Security and Medicare programs are "off the table" in any debt ceiling talks. But Democrats point to past GOP plans and proposals to argue that the party ultimately aims to slash those benefits. The three-page memo from National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young said Biden plans to ask McCarthy for two things: first, to publicly guarantee the U.S. will never default on its debt. It's a promise that, if made, would effectively strip McCarthy of any leverage he has in the debt ceiling process. Second, Biden plans to ask McCarthy when House Republicans will release a "detailed, comprehensive budget." It's little secret that House Republicans are divided over which federal programs to cut in their broader effort to trim public spending. By pressuring McCarthy to release a detailed budget, Democrats hope to spotlight these divisions. McCarthy scoffed at the memo. "Mr. President: I received your staff's memo. I'm not interested in political games," the House speaker wrote on Twitter shortly after the memo was released. "I'm coming to negotiate for the American people." But while McCarthy may say he is coming to talk, Biden has repeatedly said he will not negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit under any circumstances. This is despite the fact that Biden needs Republican votes, and McCarthy's support, in order to move debt ceiling legislation through the House.

Joe Biden Kevin McCarthy meeting yields no debt ceiling deal— House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he had a "very good discussion" with President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday about the looming debt ceiling deadline and federal spending. "We have different perspectives. But we both laid out some of our vision of where we'd want to get to. And I believe, after laying them both out, I can see where we can find common ground," McCarthy told reporters at the White House after the meeting. The Democratic president and the California Republican talked for more than an hour, and while there were "no agreements" and "no promises," McCarthy said they would continue their conversation. The White House readout of the meeting reflected McCarthy's sentiments, stating the two had a "frank and straightforward dialogue" as part of an ongoing conversation. The Biden administration repeated a familiar phrase that the president is "eager to continue working across the aisle in good faith," but stressed that he does not intend to negotiate on lifting the debt ceiling. "It is their shared duty not to allow an unprecedented and economically catastrophic default," the White House statement read. "The United States Constitution is explicit about this obligation, and the American people expect Congress to meet it in the same way all of his predecessors have. It is not negotiable or conditional." The House speaker later said the meeting had exceeded his expectations. McCarthy added he believes investors should feel encouraged about the prospect of an agreement to avoid a first-ever default on U.S. debt. "I would feel better, if I was the markets, based upon the meeting I had today," he said, according to Punchbowl News.

Debt ceiling deal no closer as McCarthy, Biden vow to continue talks - House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Thursday that he and President Joe Biden plan to meet again soon to continue talks about how and when to raise the nation's debt ceiling, one day after they held their first in-person meeting at the White House since Republicans assumed the House majority. "We left it that he'll give me a call in a couple of days to set up the next meeting," the California Republican told reporters in the Capitol. McCarthy said he and Biden did not discuss any details of their next meeting, such as whether White House aides or members of McCarthy's leadership team would participate. If Congress does not pass a bill to raise or suspend the nation's statutory debt limit by early June, it could wreak economic havoc around the world. Both Biden and McCarthy say passing a debt limit bill is absolutely essential. But they are deeply at odds on how to do it. "I believe you have to lift the debt ceiling, but you do not lift the debt ceiling without changing your behavior. So it's got to be both," McCarthy said. Biden and the White House have so far refused to "negotiate" on a debt limit hike, however. Instead, Biden has called on Congress to pass a so-called "clean" bill, meaning one with no legislative strings attached. That will never happen, the Republican House speaker said Thursday. "We will not pass a clean debt ceiling here without some form of spending reform. So there will never be a clean one," McCarthy said. "At the end of the day, we're going to get spending reforms." Despite their differences, McCarthy said that he respected Biden and emphasized that both men see a path forward and the potential for common ground. "Yesterday was a very nice conversation for more than an hour," he said. "It didn't mean we agreed, but we staked out different positions." "At the end of the conversation, between both of us, we thought, 'You know what? This is worthwhile to continue.' So we're going to continue it." Biden said much the same thing about McCarthy in his remarks at the annual, bipartisan National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday. "Let's start treating each other with respect," Biden said. "That's what Kevin [McCarthy] and I are going to do." "We had a good meeting yesterday," Biden continued. "It doesn't mean we're going to agree, and [not] fight like hell. But let's treat each other with respect."

Powell to Congress: Fed can't protect economy from U.S. debt default — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered a clear message to Congress on Wednesday afternoon: raise the debt ceiling — or else. During a press conference after this week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Powell said lawmakers should not count on the central bank being able to save the government from widespread defaults and their potential ripple effects. "There's only one way forward here, and that is for Congress to raise the debt ceiling so that the United States government can pay all of its obligations when due," he said. "Any deviations from that path would be highly risky and no one should assume that the Fed can protect the economy from the consequences of failing to act in a timely manner." The discussion of the Fed's role in averting a debt crisis comes as congressional negotiations for raising the debt limit — an act that would allow the U.S. government to borrow more to pay down existing debts — stands at an impasse. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has projected that the country has already reached its debt limit and is poised to begin defaulting on obligations by June. Several unorthodox proposals about how the government might deal with an immovable debt ceiling that were first discussed more than a decade ago have resurfaced in recent weeks. They include the issuance of a trillion-dollar coin and the Treasury directing the Fed to buy up troubled government debt. Powell declined to say whether the Fed would take part in any of these extraordinary actions should the Treasury Department direct it to. "In terms of our relationship with the Treasury, we are their fiscal agent," he said, "and I'm just going to leave it at that." Powell acknowledged that the Fed's efforts to combat inflation, which include reducing its holdings of U.S. sovereign debt by $60 billion per month, could be at odds with efforts to prolong the government's solvency. But, he said, he expects the debt issue to be resolved before it intersects with the Fed's monetary tightening.

Why, Despite RAND’s Recommendation, the Ukraine War Is Unlikely to End in a Negotiated Settlement by Yves Smith -- At the risk of treating timing as proof of connection, one has to wonder why the State Department saw fit to plant a story in the most obvious manner possible, by granting an interview with Anthony Blinken to one of the spooks’ favorite whispers, David Ignatius of the Washington Post (full text can be found here) . Not only was there no news trigger for the chat, but the interview’s premise was peculiar: talking about the endgame of the war and the US post war policy for Ukraine seems might peculiar since no resolution for the conflict is in sight.And the interview itself was odd. Blinken did make a major concession to reality in acknowledging that Ukraine would not be able to retake Crimea any time soon. He expects the US to continue to arm Ukraine without having a treaty. Yet no where does the article suggest how the war might end, let alone mention the “n” word, negotiate. The Blinken/State vision seems to be: [US and NATO support Ukraine > *Magic* > War ends > US and NATO support Ukraine] One theory is that this article is intended to start managing down expectations in the US and Ukraine by conceding that Crimea is a lost cause. Even though that is a step in the right direction, there’s a long road between that admission and acknowledging the Russian battlefield advantage even before its recently mobilized troops have been put to work. The Ignatius piece is larded with “Russia is losing” assertions like ” Vladimir Putin has failed” and “U.S. weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force.”So what is the point of this message, since this a piece presented in this manner is meant to send a message?One guess is that Blinken cleared his throat to undercut the more or less contemporaneously-released RAND paper, Avoiding a Long War, embedded at the end of this post. I strongly urge you to read it in full. It contains a remarkable number of reality-challenged statements about Russian performance and politics. And what is particularly disconcerting is that the piece reads as if those are RAND’s conclusions, as opposed to the authors having to navigate a difficult terrain of misperceptions.Irrespective of what one makes of RAND’s take on Russia, the paper presents ending the war as in America’s interest, and further a political settlement would be more beneficial to the US that a mere armistice, as in halt to fighting with no settlement of the drivers of the conflict. However, Blinken scotches the idea that there is anything that needs to be discussed. Per Ignatius:Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined his strategy for the Ukrainian endgame and postwar deterrence during an interview on Monday at the State Department…Russia’s colossal failure to achieve its military goals, Blinken believes, should now spur the United States and its allies to begin thinking about the shape of postwar Ukraine — and how to create a just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity and allows it to deter and, if necessary, defend against any future aggression. In other words, Russia should not be able to rest, regroup and reattack.In other words, Blinken is in “Nothing to see here” mode with respect to how and where the war is going, and instead wants to focus on the bright shiny object of what to do after the war is, erm, resolved.Blinken calls for permanent war with Russia, despite the blather about peace. Anything less than ongoing conflict would allow Russia to refit.

White House Refuses To Say If Ukraine Will Get Toxic Depleted Uranium Ammo -- The White House refused to say if it will provide Ukraine with Bradley Fighting Vehicles equipped with radioactive depleted uranium rounds, ammunition that is linked to cancer and birth defects.Depleted uranium is typically created as a byproduct of producing enriched uranium and is extremely dense, making it an effective material to pierce the armor of tanks. Bradleys can be equipped with depleted uranium ammunition, which is why they are known as "tank killers." When asked on Wednesday if the Bradleys the US is sending to Ukraine will be equipped with depleted uranium, a senior Biden administration official said, "I’m not going to get into the technical specifics."The official also declined to answer if the M1 Abrams tanks the US is providing Kyiv will be equipped with a depleted uranium cage.Konstantin Gavrilov, the head of Russia’s delegation in Vienna on arms control, has warned Moscow would view the use of depleted uranium weapons in Ukraine as the use of a "dirty bomb." Gavrilov claimed that Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks could also be equipped with depleted uranium rounds.

US Accuses Russia of Breaching the New START Nuclear Arms Treaty -- Russia is breaching the terms of the New START nuclear-arms reduction treaty by refusing to allow inspectors on its territory and stonewalling US efforts to discuss the issue, the State Department said Tuesday. The department said in a statement that the Russian refusal “prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control.” The US and Russia extended the New START treaty for five years in 2021, giving the former Cold War rivals time for new talks on strategic security. But inspections were shut down because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the US says Russia rebuffed efforts to restart those visits last August, in part because of tensions surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A US bid to restart consultations in Cairo in recent months also failed. The treaty between U.S. and Russia seeks to limit the deployment of intercontinental-range nuclear weapons on both sides by allowing frequent checks of each country’s programs. Under the agreement, both countries are allowed as many as 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and 1,550 nuclear warheads on those missiles. If New START is terminated or allowed to expire, the nuclear arsenals of the world’s two largest nuclear powers would have no treaty-based limitation for the first time since the 1970s. Neither side would have any means to inspect the other’s stockpiles. The warning from Washington comes as the US and its allies have increasingly sent more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine in its effort to push Russian forces out of its territory, even as they’ve been cautious not to be drawn into a war with a nuclear power.

If WW3 Breaks Out, Tanks Or Fighter Jets Won't Matter- Kremlin - Fresh off getting the West to sign off on the main battle tanks he's long sought from the US and Germany, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is already pressing for more, and specific, advanced systems from his external backers. In his Saturday night address, he pleaded for deliveries of the US Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, to protect cities which are far from front line fighting. "There can be no taboo in the supply of weapons to protect against Russian terror," he said. On the same day, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev issued a scathing condemnation in reaction to the Biden administration and other Western officials claiming that ramped-up arms deliveries are actually helping to prevent a world war."Firstly, defending Ukraine, which nobody needs in Europe, will not save the senile Old World from retribution if anything occurs. Secondly, once the Third World War breaks out, unfortunately it will not be on tanks or even on fighter jets. Then everything will definitely be turned to dust," Medvedev wrote on Telegram Saturday. Kremlin officials have of late made the point that the US M1 Abrams as well as German Leopard tanks will make little difference on the battlefield, other than to ensure rapid escalation between NATO and Russia.Medvedev was also specifically responding to remarks out of Italy's defense chief, as Russian state media writes: In this post, Medvedev commented, in particular, on Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto’s remarks that the Third World War would erupt if Russian tanks reached Kiev and "the borders of Europe", and that the weapons sent to Ukraine were meant to stop the escalation. Medvedev equated his remarks to the calls from the United Kingdom to provide Kiev with all the weapons NATO has.Medvedev's reference to everything being "turned to dust" was without doubt reference to potential nuclear exchange as a result of runaway escalation. The former president and close Putin confidant has repeatedly warned of things going nuclear in Ukraine if the West keeps pumping heavier arms to the Ukrainians, and if Moscow loses the war.

The 'Doomsday Clock' Is Speeding Up - by Pepe Escobar - The Doomsday Clock, set by the US-based magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, has been moved to 90 seconds to midnight...That’s the closest ever to total nuclear doom, the global catastrophe.The Clock had been set at 100 seconds since 2020. The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board and a group of sponsors – which includes 10 Nobel laureates – have focused on “Russia’s war on Ukraine” (their terminology) as the main reason.Yet they did not bother to explain non-stop American rhetoric (the US is the only nation that adopts “first strike” in a nuclear confrontation) and the fact that this is a US proxy war against Russia with Ukraine used as cannon fodder.The Bulletin also attributes malignant designs to China, Iran and North Korea, while mentioning, only in passing, that “the last remaining nuclear weapons treaty between Russia and the United States, New START, stands in jeopardy”.“Unless the two parties resume negotiations and find a basis for further reductions, the treaty will expire in February 2026.”As it stands, the prospects of a US-Russia negotiation on New START are less than zero.Now cue to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov making it very clear that war against Russia is not hybrid anymore, it’s “almost” real.“Almost” in fact means “90 seconds.”So why is this all happening?Former British diplomat Alastair Crooke has concisely explained how Russian resilience – much in the spirit of Iranian resilience past four decades – completely smashed the assumptions of Anglo-American intelligence.Talk about the Mother of All Intel Failures – in fact even more astonishing than the non-existent Iraqi WMDs (in the run-up to Shock and Awe in 2003, anyone with a brain knew Baghdad had discontinued its weapons program already in the 1990s.)Now the collective West “committed the entire weight of its financial resources to crushing Russia (…) in every conceivable way – via financial, cultural and psychological war, and with real military war as the follow-through.”And yet Russia held its ground. And now reality-based developments prevail over fiction. The Global South “is peeling away into a separate economic model, no longer dependent on the dollar for its trading needs.” And the accelerated collapse of the US dollar increasingly plunges the Empire into a real existential crisis.

That Didn’t Take Long: Latin American Governments Refuse to Send Weapons, Russian or Otherwise, to Ukraine - Washington, Kiev and the EU have been furiously lobbying Latin American governments to provide weaponry to Ukraine, but LatAm governments still want no part in this war. Four Latin American countries — Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico — have categorically rejected US and EU requests to send weapons to Ukraine. As readers may recall, the Commander of US Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), General Laura Richardson, recently said that Washington is encouraging six countries in the region that have Russian military equipment, including the four mentioned above, to “either donate it or switch it out for United States equipment.”The EU and Ukraine have also been furiously lobbying Latin American countries to provide weaponry, Russian made or otherwise. As I noted this time last week, such frantic calls for assistance could be construed as further evidence of the serious resource constraints afflicting the NATO alliance. But there will be no relief from Latin America’s largest economies, which are determined to maintain neutrality in the conflict.Washington’s goal in pressuring countries to give away or “switch out” its Russian weaponry appears to be three fold: first, to reduce Russian arms sales and growing influence in its direct neighborhood; second, to supplant those sales and influence; and third, as a stopgap measure for rearming Ukraine. Until Ukraine’s armed forces have enough Western-produced weapons to replenish their stocks and are well versed in how to use them, which takes a long time, its soldiers desperately need ammunition for the Russian-manufactured arms they are more familiar with.Which is why Washington, Kiev and certain European governments are urging LatAm countries to give up their Russian arms. But it’s not working.LatAm countries with Russian-made weapons include Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, all three of which have extremely close military ties with Russia; have had to endure years (or in the case of Cuba, decades) of debilitating US sanctions; and largely blame NATO expansion and US meddling for the war in Ukraine. It’s safe to assume they will not be giving up any of their Russian-made weapons any time soon.The six countries Washington has been trying to extract weapons from are reportedly Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador and Peru.It’s not just Russian weapons that NATO members are asking for. Earlier this month, Germanyoffered to pay Brazil’s government 25 million real (around $5 million) for a store of ammunition for its Leopard 1 tanks. The request suggests that Berlin is also willing to offer the older model of its Leopard tank to Ukraine. In fact, the manufacturer has already started reconditioning the vehicles but there is a shortage of ammunition. Besides Germany, only Brazil (with 261 units), Chile (30), Greece (500) and Turkey (397) continue to operate the tanks.But Brazil is not willing to play along. According to a report this weekend in Folha de Sao Paulo, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (aka Lula) rejected the request during a meeting with the heads of the Armed Forces and the Defense Minister José Múcio on January 20. The recently reelected president said it “wasn’t worth provoking Russia.”

US Preps Ukraine Package With Rockets That Can Reach Nearly 100 Miles - The US is preparing another major escalation of military aid to Ukraine as Reuters reports the next arms package will include rockets that have a range of 94 miles (150 km), almost double the range of the munitions Ukraine was provided for the HIMARS rocket systems. Citing two unnamed US officials, Reuters said that the US will provide Ukraine with the longer-range Boeing-made Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) for the first time as part of an over $2 billion arms package that could be announced as soon as this week.The officials said that the GLSDB will be provided under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the Pentagon to purchase arms for Ukraine. Weapons provided under the USAI could take months or years to deliver as they involve contracts and might need to be manufactured.But Boeing has been preparing for months to make the GLSDBs for Ukraine. Reuters first reported in November that the US was considering sending the munitions to Kyiv and said they could be available by the spring. The system has been in development since 2019 and combines small-diameter bombs with the M26 rocket motor, which is widely available in US military inventories.Sending the longer-range weapons risks provoking Moscow and comes after a series of new aid pledges for Ukraine that included the Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks for the first time. Each escalation of aid brings the US and Russia closer to a direct conflict, which could quickly spiral into nuclear war.The new weapons package is expected to include $1.725 billion in USAI funds that will go toward the GLSDB as well as HAWK air defense systems, counter-drone systems, counter artillery radars, communications equipment, PUMA surveillance drones, and spare parts for Patriot air defense systems and Bradleys.

'We Found No Misuse Of US Funds In Ukraine', US Treasury Says (With Straight Face) - And now for some Tuesday humor, brought to you by the US Treasury Department, which sees no indication whatsoever that US funds have been misused in Ukraine, following last week's massive political shake-up wherein some dozen top Ukrainian officials were booted from their posts amid persistent corruption, embezzlement and fraud allegations so glaring it even shocked the Ukrainians."We have no indication that U.S. funds have been misused in Ukraine," Treasury spokesperson Megan Apper said in Treasury's first comments since the 'shock' resignations. In the official statement given to Reuters, the US government also hailed the supposed "safeguards" which the Ukrainians have put in place, though without actually specifying any: "We welcome the ongoing efforts by the Ukrainian authorities to work with us to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place so that U.S assistance reaches those for whom it is intended," Apper said.The statement fails to detail precisely how US authorities are tracking disbursement of the some tens of billions in funds that go from American Joe taxpayer, and into the pockets of the Zelensky government to dole out (other than referencing a digital system which supposedly monitors funds)...Apper said the Treasury would continue to work closely with the World Bank on tracking U.S. disbursements "to confirm that they are used as intended, as well as with Ukraine and other partners to tackle corruption." Apparently totally unaware of the extreme irony, Reuters chooses to add the following facts for some further context and color to its report... and it's perhaps all you need to know: "Ukraine ranks 116 out of 180 countries on the annual Corruption Perceptions Index released Tuesday by Transparency International, up one ranking from last year."Its score on the index was 33 on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean."

Biden says he will talk with Zelenskyy after rejecting Kyiv request for jets - President Biden answered a question Tuesday about Ukrainian requests for additional U.S. weapons by saying he is “going to talk” to his counterpart in Kyiv, a pledge that came one day after his flat “no” when he was asked about America sending fighter jets to Ukraine.En route to New York for an event highlighting domestic infrastructure legislation he signed in late 2021, Biden was asked by reporters if he had spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently and what he would tell him about requests for further military aide in Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. Biden said only that he would talk to Zelenskyy and did not elaborate further.Tuesday’s comments followed Biden’s initial rejection a day earlier of talk that the U.S. might supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets. POLITICO reported Monday that there have not yet been any serious, high-level discussion about F-16s for Kyiv.Biden’s comments come as Ukraine continues to push NATO to send fighter jets, a proposition that has yet to gain broad support from Ukraine’s western allies — though France and Poland have expressed an openness to sharing jets.

Drone maker offers to sell 2 Reapers to Ukraine for $1 - California-based drone maker General Atomics has offered to send two Reaper drones to Ukraine for $1 and is waiting for the U.S. government’s approval, the company’s CEO confirmed Wednesday.The announcement from the firm’s CEO late on Wednesday comes after months of talks between Kyiv, the Biden administration and the company over providing Ukraine with the long-duration drones operated by the U.S. Air Force. But the issue has remained in limbo due to concerns over transferring sensitive technologies to Ukraine.The Wall Street Journal first reported the latest offer, noting that Kyiv would still need to spend $10 million to physically transfer the drones and another $8 million annually for maintenance and sustainment.The Ukrainian government had recently renewed its push for the drones, which can fly farther than 1,100 miles while carrying laser-guided munitions and advanced optics for long-range surveillance.Despite General Atomics’ offer to transfer the two drones, “there are limits to what an American defense company can do to support a situation such as this,” CEO Linden Blue said in a statement. “From our perspective, it is long past time to enable Ukrainian forces with the information dominance required to win this war.”Blue indicated some frustration with the refusal of the U.S. to greenlight sending the drones, which POLITICO had previously reported had already won approval from the Air Force.

More Americans believe US provides too much support to Ukraine - A growing portion of Americans think that the U.S. is giving too much support to Ukraine, as the Biden administration and other western allies have taken steps in recent weeks to escalate their backing of the country in its war against Russia.About a quarter of Americans, 26 percent, think the U.S. support of Ukraine is too strong, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. It is a percentage of people that has steadily grown since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year and has jumped 6 points since September. Flourish logoA Flourish chart The U.S. has sent billions of dollars to Ukraine to support its military in the war against Russia. In a $1.7 trillion spending package passed by Congress late last year, lawmakers included around $45 billion in funding for Ukraine and NATO allies. But the spending levels have come under attack by some Republican lawmakers, who argue the country is opening its pockets at unsustainable levels for Ukraine. Then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in October that House Republicans would not provide a “blank-check” for support of Ukraine if his party took control of the House — which it did. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said on Twitter that President Biden needed to understand the U.S. wasn’t an ATM. And as some prominent Republicans have started to sour on the support levels, the poll of 5,152 people, with a margin of error of 1.7 percent, found that Republican voters are following along. A total of 40 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents think the U.S. is providing too much support, according to the poll. That is up from 32 percent in September and from nine percent directly after the invasion.

Ukraine can’t retake Crimea soon, Pentagon tells lawmakers in classified briefing - Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be able to recapture Crimea from Russian troops in the near future, four senior Defense Department officials told House Armed Services Committee lawmakers in a classified briefing. The assessment is sure to frustrate leaders in Kyiv who consider taking the peninsula back one of their signature goals. It’s unclear what led the briefers to that assessment. But the clear indication, as relayed by three people with direct knowledge of Thursday’s briefing’s contents, was that the Pentagon doesn’t believe Ukraine has — or soon will have — the ability to force Russian troops out of the peninsula Moscow seized nearly a decade ago. A fourth person said the briefing was more ambiguous, but the point remained that Ukraine’s victory in an offensive to retake the illegally annexed territory wasn’t assured. All four asked for anonymity in order to disclose details from a classified briefing. “We’re not going to comment on closed-door classified briefings nor will we talk about hypotheticals or speculate on potential future operations,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said. “In terms of Ukraine’s ability to fight and take back sovereign territory, their remarkable performance in repulsing Russian aggression and continued adaptability on the battlefield speaks for itself.” A House Armed Services spokesperson declined to comment. The assessment from the briefers echoes what Gen. Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chair, has alluded to in recent weeks. “I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all –– every inch of Ukraine and occupied –– or Russian-occupied Ukraine,” he said during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany on Jan. 20. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult.” Russian forces have occupied Crimea since 2014, and the peninsula is bristling with air defenses and tens of thousands of troops. Many of those infantry forces are dug into fortified positions stretching hundreds of miles facing off against Ukrainian troops along the Dnipro River. The issue of retaking Crimea has been a contentious one for months, as American and European officials insist the peninsula is legally part of Ukraine, while often stopping short of fully equipping Kyiv to push into the area. One person familiar with the thinking in Kyiv said the Zelenskyy administration was “furious” with Milley’s remarks, as Ukraine prepares for major offensives this spring. Ukrainians also note that U.S. intelligence about their military abilities have consistently missed the mark throughout the nearly year-long war. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Zelenskyy adviser Andriy Yermak rejected the idea of a Ukrainian victory without taking Crimea. “This is absolutely unacceptable,” Yermak said, adding that victory means restoring Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders “including Donbas and Crimea.”

The Mass Media Used To Publish Perspectives On Ukraine That They Would Never Publish Today – Caitlin Johnstone -- The other day I stumbled across a 2014 opinion piece in The Guardian titled “It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war” by Seumas Milne, who the following year would go on to become the Labour Party’s Executive Director of Strategy and Communications under Jeremy Corbyn.I bring this up because the perspectives you’ll find in that article are jarring in how severely they deviate from anything you’ll see published in the mainstream press about Ukraine in 2023. It places the brunt of the blame for the violence and tensions in that nation at that time squarely at Washington’s feet, opening with a warning that the “threat of war in Ukraine is growing” and saying there’s an “unelected government in Kiev,” and it only gets naughtier from there.I strongly recommend reading the article in full if you want some perspective in just how dramatically the mass media has clamped down on dissenting ideas about Ukraine and Russia, beginning with thefrenzied stoking of Russia hysteria in 2016 and exploding exponentially with the Russian invasion last year. I doubt there’s a single paragraph which could get published in any mainstream outlet in the media environment of today.Milne writes about how “the Ukrainian president was replaced by a US-selected administration, in an entirely unconstitutional takeover,” and about “the role of the fascistic right on the streets and in the new Ukrainian regime.” He says that “Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia,” and that “you don’t hear much about the Ukrainian government’s veneration of wartime Nazi collaborators and pogromists, or the arson attacks on the homes and offices of elected communist leaders, or the integration of the extreme Right Sector into the national guard, while the anti-semitism and white supremacism of the government’s ultra-nationalists is assiduously played down.” He says that “after two decades of eastward Nato expansion, this crisis was triggered by the west’s attempt to pull Ukraine decisively into its orbit and defence structure.”Milne says “Putin’s absorption of Crimea and support for the rebellion in eastern Ukraine is clearly defensive,” and says the US and its allies have been “encouraging the military crackdown on protesters after visits from Joe Biden and the CIA director, John Brennan.” He correctly predicts that “one outcome of the crisis is likely to be a closer alliance between China and Russia, as the US continues its anti-Chinese ‘pivot’ to Asia,” and presciently warns of “the threat of a return of big-power conflict” as Ukraine moves toward war.

Ukraine: The War That Went Wrong - Chris Hedges: Empires in terminal decline leap from one military fiasco to the next. The war in Ukraine, another bungled attempt to reassert U.S. global hegemony, fits this pattern. The danger is that the more dire things look, the more the U.S. will escalate the conflict, potentially provoking open confrontation with Russia. If Russia carries out retaliatory attacks on supply and training bases in neighboring NATO countries, or uses tactical nuclear weapons, NATO will almost certainly respond by attacking Russian forces. We will have ignited World War III, which could result in a nuclear holocaust.U.S. military support for Ukraine began with the basics — ammunition and assault weapons. The Biden administration, however, soon crossed several self-imposed red lines to provide a tidal wave of lethal war machinery: Stinger anti-aircraft systems; Javelin anti-armor systems; M777 towed Howitzers; 122mm GRAD rockets; M142 multiple rocket launchers, or HIMARS; Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles; Patriot air defense batteries; National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS); M113 Armored Personnel Carriers; and now 31 M1 Abrams, as part of a new $400 million package. These tanks will be supplemented by 14 German Leopard 2A6 tanks, 14 British Challenger 2 tanks, as well as tanks from other NATO members, including Poland. Next on the list are armor-piercing depleted uranium (DU) ammunition and F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.Since Russia invaded on February 24, 2022, Congress has approved more than $113 billion in aid to Ukraine and allied nations supporting the war in Ukraine. Three-fifths of this aid, $67 billion, has been allocated for military expenditures. There are 28 countries transferring weapons to Ukraine. All of them, with the exception of Australia, Canada and the U.S., are in Europe. The rapid upgrade of sophisticated military hardware and aid provided to Ukraine is not a good sign for the NATO alliance. It takes many months, if not years, of training to operate and coordinate these weapons systems. Tank battles — I was in the last major tank battle outside Kuwait City during the first Gulf war as a reporter — are highly choreographed and complex operations. Armor must work in close concert with air power, warships, infantry and artillery batteries. It will be many, many months, if not years, before Ukrainian forces receive adequate training to operate this equipment and coordinate the diverse components of a modern battlefield. Indeed, the U.S. never succeeded in training the Iraqi and Afghan armies in combined arms maneuver warfare, despite two decades of occupation.I was with Marine Corps units in February 1991 that pushed Iraqi forces out of the Saudi Arabian town of Khafji. Supplied with superior military equipment, the Saudi soldiers that held Khafji offered ineffectual resistance. As we entered the city, we saw Saudi troops in commandeered fire trucks, hightailing it south to escape the fighting. All the fancy military hardware, which the Saudis had purchased from the U.S., proved worthless because they did not know how to use it. NATO military commanders understand that the infusion of these weapons systems into the war will not alter what is, at best, a stalemate, defined largely by artillery duels over hundreds of miles of front lines. The purchase of these weapons systems — one M1 Abrams tank costs $10 million when training and sustainment are included — increases the profits of the arms manufacturers. The use of these weapons in Ukraine allows them to be tested in battlefield conditions, making the war a laboratory for weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin. All this is useful to NATO and to the arms industry. But it is not very useful to Ukraine.

Air Force General Tells His Officers 'War With China' Only 2 Years Away - In recent years there have been at least a handful of high-ranking US military commanders which in some form or fashion have sounded the alarm over a "coming war with China"... with the latest warning being the most unusual, issued in the form of a memo by an active four-star general and circulated with an official order. This case is particularly significant given he took the rare step of passing it down through military command and to the chief officers he oversees, giving a greater urgency to the warning: A four-star Air Force general sent a memo on Friday to the officers he commands that predicts the U.S. will be at war with China in two years and tells them to get ready to prep by firing "a clip" at a target, and "aim for the head."In the memo sent Friday and obtained by NBC News, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, said, "I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me will fight in 2025Various reports have counted some 50,000 service members and nearly 500 planes total under Gen. Minihan's command.The message is particularly alarming given it instructed commanders under him to "consider their personal affairs and whether a visit should be scheduled with their servicing base legal office to ensure they are legally ready and prepared."He explained that he sees Beijing as desirous of moving against the self-ruled island of Taiwan within that time period, and that it would trigger a large US military response. The Air Force general further urged "a fortified, ready, integrated, and agile Joint Force Maneuver Team ready to fight and win inside the first island chain." And in the memo Gen. Minihan issued an order, requiring that all major efforts in preparation for a coming China fight to be reported to him directly by Feb. 28.

Chinese spy balloon flying over U.S. ‘right now,’ Pentagon says - A Chinese surveillance balloon is collecting intelligence over the continental United States “right now,” U.S. officials disclosed Thursday, acknowledging that the Pentagon has been monitoring the craft for several days and briefly considered shooting it down before concluding that doing so posed a safety risk.The balloon is traveling at an altitude “well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters in a hastily arranged news conference where he addressed the ongoingsituation. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) continues to track the balloon’s course, but officials would not specify its present whereabouts.The striking development comes at a time of peak tension between the world powers, and just hours ahead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s expected departure for Beijing, where he is to hold a series of long-scheduled meetings with senior Chinese officials. The high-stakes visit, Blinken’s first to the country as the United States’ top diplomat, is aimed at stabilizing the U.S.-China relationship — a goal that could become more difficult following the espionage aircraft’s appearance in U.S. airspace.The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the Chinese Embassy in Washington.Thursday’s disclosure elicited a furious response from lawmakers in both political parties. Reps. Mike Gallagher (R.-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D.-Ill.), the leaders of a House select committee on China, issued a joint statement saying “the Chinese Communist Party should not have on-demand access to American airspace.”“Not only is this a violation of American sovereignty, coming only days before Secretary Blinken’s trip to the [People’s Republic of China], but it also makes clear that the [Chinese Communist Party’s] recent diplomatic overtures do not represent a substantive change in policy,” they said, adding the incident demonstrates that the threat posed by China “is not confined to distant shores — it is here at home and we must act to counter this threat.”Some Republicans, though, portrayed the matter as a failure of the Biden administration to secure American airspace. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) characterized it as “destabilizing,” writing on Twitter that President Biden “cannot be silent.”McCarthy called on the administration to meet with the Gang of Eight, a panel of lawmakers comprising the top Republican and Democratic leadership in the House and Senate plus the heads of each chamber’s intelligence committee. One official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive and evolving situation, said Thursday night that staffers in each of those offices were briefed earlier in the day and that additional meetings had been offered.

China's suspected spy balloon prompts Blinken to postpone Beijing trip as Congress seeks answers –U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will postpone his trip to China next week following a suspected Beijing-operated spy balloon looming over parts of Montana. "After consultations with our interagency partners, as well as with Congress, we have concluded that the conditions are not right at this moment for Secretary Blinken to travel to China," a senior State Department official said Friday on a background briefing with reporters. Blinken, who was slated to depart for Beijing on Friday evening, was scheduled to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang, and potentially Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well. The official declined to say when Blinken would reschedule his travel to China, saying only that the department would "determine when the conditions are right." Chinese authorities said Friday that the balloon operating over U.S. airspace was a civilian weather balloon intended for scientific research. But the State Department said that was immaterial. "We have noted the PRC statement of regret, but the presence of this balloon in our airspace is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law and is unacceptable that this has occurred," the official said. While Blinken has postponed his travel, the U.S. and China have not suspended communication over the incident. "From the moment this incident occurred, we have been in regular and frequent contact with our Chinese counterparts and I do anticipate that will continue," said the State Department official, who asked not to be identified to discuss a sensitive intelligence matter. China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that westerly winds had caused the airship to stray into U.S. territory, describing the incident as a result of "force majeure" — or greater force — for which it was not responsible. "The airship comes from China and is of a civilian nature, used for scientific research such as meteorology," according to a Google translation of a statement on the foreign ministry's website. On Thursday, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters that the U.S. was aware of the balloon and was confident that it was China's. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as ground rules established by the Pentagon, added that President Joe Biden was briefed on the matter. Following consultations with senior leaders, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Biden decided the U.S. would not shoot down the balloon, the official said. "We had been looking at whether there was an option yesterday over some sparsely populated areas in Montana," said the official, who noted it was decided the possible debris field from the balloon could cause damage on the ground and that its intelligence collection potential has "limited additive value" compared with Chinese spy satellites. "We wanted to take care that somebody didn't get hurt or property wasn't destroyed," said the official, who noted that the balloon does not pose a threat to civil aviation because of its high altitude. On Capitol Hill, members of Congress sounded alarms and sought more information from the Biden administration. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Ca., said he had requested a briefing for the so-called "Gang of Eight," the Republican and Democratic leaders of both the House and Senate, and the leaders from both parties of the Senate and House intelligence committees. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who represents the state where the balloon was first identified, said he is in contact with Defense Department and intelligence officials over the matter, but expressed frustration at the lack of detail. "We are still waiting for real answers on how this happened and what steps the Administration took to protect our country, and I will hold everyone accountable until I get them," Tester said in a statement Friday.

Blinken postpones China trip over 'unacceptable' Chinese spy balloon (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a visit to China that had been expected to start on Friday after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was tracked flying across the United States in what Washington called a "clear violation" of U.S. sovereignty. The Pentagon said on Thursday it was tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States. Officials said military leaders considered shooting it down over Montana on Wednesday but eventually recommended against this to President Joe Biden because of the safety risk from debris. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was briefed on the balloon flight on Tuesday and there was an administration "consensus that it was not appropriate to travel to the People's Republic of China at this time." China on Friday expressed regret that an "airship" used for civilian meteorological and other scientific purposes had strayed into U.S. airspace. Jean-Pierre said the U.S. administration was aware of China's statement "but the presence of this balloon in our airspace, it is a clear violation of our sovereignty as well as international law. It is unacceptable this occurred." On Friday, Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder said the balloon had changed course and was floating eastward at about 60,000 feet (18,300 meters) above the central United States and demonstrating a capability to maneuver. He said it would likely be over the country for a few more days. Commercial forecaster AccuWeather said the balloon would potentially leave United States into the Atlantic on Saturday evening. Mike Rounds, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News it would be good to recover the balloon "one way or another" to see "if it was designed to actually collect data or if it was designed to test our response capabilities."

US halts Blinken China visit after spy balloon row - BBC News - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has postponed his trip to China after a Chinese spy balloon flew across the US. A senior State Department official said conditions were not right at this time for what would have been the first high level US-China meeting there in years. A Chinese apology was noted, the official said, but described the balloon as a clear violation of sovereignty and international law. The visit was to come amid fraying tensions between the US and China America's top US diplomat was set to visit Beijing to hold talks on a wide range of issues, including security, Taiwan and Covid-19. But there was consternation on Thursday when US defence officials announced they were tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the United States. A senior state department official said that the balloon would have "narrowed the agenda" of any meetings with Chinese officials "in a way that would have been unhelpful and unconstructive". While the balloon was, the Pentagon said, "traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic" and did "not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground", its presence sparked outrage. Former US President Donald Trump was among those calling for the US military to shoot it down. On Friday, China finally acknowledged the balloon was its property, saying that it was a civilian airship used for meteorological research, which deviated from its route because of bad weather. Why use a spy balloon instead of satellites? How could surveillance balloon have travelled from China? A statement from China's Foreign Ministry said that it regretted the incident and would work with the US to resolve the issue. However, the state department official said that while the US acknowledged China's claim about the balloon's purpose, it stood by the assessment that it was being used for surveillance.

Beijing confirms balloon is Chinese, says entry into US airspace was unintended - Beijing confirmed on Friday that a high-altitude balloon traveling over the northern U.S. is Chinese and said its entry into American airspace was unintentional.A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the balloon is a civilian airship used primarily for meteorological research.“Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course,” the spokesperson said. “The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure.”U.S. defense officials confirmed the presence of the balloon on Thursday, identifying it as a “high-altitude surveillance balloon” and noting that they were fairly confident it belonged to China. The balloon, which was first spotted over Montana on Wednesday, is still hovering over the U.S., as officials have held off on shooting it down over safety concerns.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning initially said on Friday that they were looking into the reports and noted that Beijing “has no intention of violating the territory and airspace of any sovereign country.”

China rushes to limit fallout from suspected spy balloon - Beijing on Saturday offered a subdued rebuttal to Washington’s decision to delay a high-level visit after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was discovered hovering over the United States, derailing China’s recent efforts to repair its most important bilateral relationship. Hours before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to take off, Washington postponed the trip, saying it “would not be appropriate” after the discovery of the airship floating around 60,000 feet above the central United States. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday that the presence of a Chinese airship in U.S. airspace was “completely an accident,” and caused by westerly winds knocking the balloon off course. It reiterated claims that the balloon was for scientific research such as collecting weather data, and accused “some U.S. politicians and media” of taking advantage of the situation to discredit China, which “firmly opposes this.”The ministry also said Beijing and Washington had never officially announced plans for Blinken’s visit. “The information that the U.S. releases [related to this visit] is their business, and we respect that,” it said. Blinken had been expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the trip, and while few expected concrete results, officials on both sides hoped it would start the process of capping tensions over issues such Taiwan, U.S. sanctions targeting Chinese tech companies, human rights, and China’s friendship with Russia. The trip would help pave the way for a potential visit to the United States by Xi when San Francisco hosts an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting in November.The incident on the eve of such a critical meeting raises questions over whether it was an accident or a deliberate effort by Beijing to send a message to Washington. (The Pentagon said Thursday that the air vehicle is not currently considered a threat to people on the ground.) In either case, it is a setback for China’s leadership. The delayed trip comes after weeks of efforts by Chinese officials to slow the downward spiral of U.S.-China ties as Beijing tries to rehabilitate its global image and revive its economy after almost three years of paralyzing anti-covid policies and strident “wolf warrior” diplomacy.

GOP lashes out at Biden, Pentagon as Chinese balloon hovers over US | The Republicans have seized on the news that a Chinese surveillance balloon is flying over the northern U.S. to cast President Biden and the Defense Department as failing to protect national security. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) quickly called for a briefing for the Gang of Eight, the top members of Congress who receive classified intelligence from the executive branch, expressing concern about the breach of U.S. airspace. “China’s brazen disregard for U.S. sovereignty is a destabilizing action that must be addressed, and President Biden cannot be silent,” McCarthy tweeted. Former President Trump called to “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON” on his social media platform Truth Social on Friday morning, echoing calls from multiple Republican lawmakers on Twitter. “Biden should shoot down the Chinese spy balloon immediately,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) agreed on Thursday. “President Trump would have never tolerated this. President Trump would have never tolerated many things happening to America.” The Pentagon on Thursday identified the aircraft as a “high altitude surveillance balloon” and said it would not shoot it down because falling debris would pose a risk to people on the ground. China urged calm on Friday morning before denying those claims. In a statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was a civilian research ship studying weather that blew off course. Beijing expressed regret that the aircraft had entered U.S. airspace, saying the government “has no intention of violating the territory and airspace of any sovereign country.”

Hawley calls for investigation of Biden’s ‘baffling response’ to Chinese surveillance balloon | The HillSen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is calling for the Senate Homeland Security Committee to investigate what he says is the Biden administration’s “baffling response” to a Chinese surveillance balloon that floated over U.S. missile installations in Montana, triggering alarms at the Pentagon. “We have an obligation to obtain a full understanding of the surveillance that the Chinese government is currently conducting” and the Biden administration’s “baffling response thus far,” Hawley said. Hawley said the Biden administration needs to explain why it merely monitored the suspected spy balloon instead of shooting it down, calling its intrusion into American airspace “a gross violation of American sovereignty.” “China’s foray into America’s sovereign airspace is deeply disturbing and calls for an immediate investigation,” Hawley wrote in a Feb. 3 letter to Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.). “This is a matter of homeland security, and we should hear from senior members of the Biden administration to understand their response, or lack thereof, so far,” he said. The Pentagon said it would not shoot down the balloon because of the danger falling debris could pose to people on the ground. Hawley also rejected the claim by the Chinese foreign ministry that the balloon is a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological purposes” and that it was blown off course by weather. “We know that is a lie,” he wrote to Peters. “The Pentagon has confirmed that the balloon is ‘maneuverable’ and is currently somewhere over the center of the continental United States — in violation of U.S. airspace and international law.”

Chinese spy balloon changes course, floating over central United States-Pentagon (Reuters) - A Chinese spy balloon has changed course and is now floating eastward at about 60,000 feet (18,300 meters) over the central United States, demonstrating a capability to maneuver, the U.S. military said on Friday, in the latest twist to a spying saga that led U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a visit to China.The disclosure about the spy balloon's maneuverability directly challenges China's assertion that the balloon was merely a civilian airship that had strayed into U.S. territory after being blown off course."We know this is a Chinese (surveillance) balloon and that it has the ability to maneuver," Air Force Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told a news briefing at the Pentagon, declining to say precisely how it was powered or who in China was controlling its flight path. U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday decided against shooting down the balloon as it floated over Montana due to U.S. military concerns about the likely dispersal of debris, American officials say.

Chinese balloon high over US stirs unease down below (AP) — The Chinese balloon drifting high above the U.S. and first revealed over Montana has created a buzz down below among residents who initially wondered what it was — and now wonder what its arrival means amid a chorus of alarm raised by elected officials. The balloon roiled diplomatic tensions as it continued to move over the central U.S. on Friday at 60,000 feet (18,288 meters). Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly canceled an upcoming trip to China. Curiosity about the bobbling sky orb that’s the size of three school buses swept the nation and the internet, with search terms like “where is the spy balloon now?” and “spy balloon tracker” surging on Google. There is no such tracker just yet, but a couple St. Louis TV stations offered grainy live feeds of the balloon. Internet users posted wobbly videos and photos of white splotches in comments sections and speculative feeds. And online storm chasers, more accustomed to tracking raging systems and funnel clouds, offered updates on the balloon’s path through cloudless skies. It crossed into U.S. airspace over Alaska early this week, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic. In Montana — home to Malmstrom Air Force base and dozens of nuclear missile silos — people doubted Beijing’s claim that it was a weather balloon gone off course. And the governor and members of Congress pressed the Biden administration over why the military did not immediately bring it down from the sky.

Another suspected Chinese spy balloon spotted over Latin America, U.S. says - The Pentagon has assessed that an airborne vehicle spotted flying over Latin America, similar to the one seen over the continental United States, is another Chinese spy balloon.“We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America,” Department of Defense spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said in a statement to The Washington Post. “We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon.”The assessment comes amid a diplomatic row sparked by the first balloon, which was seen over Montana on Wednesday and has since has prompted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a trip to Beijing just hours before his departure. The Chinese government claimed the device was a “civilian airship” that is used to collect information about the weather. China has a track record of spying in Latin America. In 2021, the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center took control of websites by Chinese hacking group NICKEL across 29 countries, and noted the organization had “a large amount of activity” targeting Central and South American governments.

Military jets circle Chinese spy balloon as FAA closes airspace and three airports | Daily Mail Online --Military jets are circling a Chinese spy balloon and three airports have been shutdown in the Carolinas after Joe Biden vowed to 'deal with it.'At least two jets were seen flying close to the balloon around 1.30pm close to Myrtle Beach as a source revealed defense officials are planning a shoot down and capture mission over the Atlantic. The Federal Aviation Authority announced a 'ground stop' at Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Wilmington's international airports shortly after 1pm due to 'national security initiatives.' The skies have emptied of commercial aircraft.The President this morning told reporters, 'We're gonna take care of it,' as he left Air Force One with his son Hunter at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, upstate NY. Spy balloons operate at altitudes of up to 120,000ft, but the Chinese aircraft has descended to around 46,000ft, meaning it is well within striking distance for an F-22 Raptor which can soar to 65,000ft. However, the mission is fraught with complexity. In 1998, the Canadian air force sent up F-18 fighter jets to try and shoot down a rogue weather balloon. They fired a thousand 20-millimeter cannon rounds into it before it finally sank six days later.The balloon, filled with helium is not like the Hindenburg, it will not simply explode, and it is not clear whether surface-to-air missiles will work because their guidance systems are designed to smash fast-moving missiles and aircraft. It comes amid mounting pressure on Biden as it emerged that a second Chinese spy balloon had been spotted over Latin America, passing over the Panama Canal and moving southeast over Venezuela.

US Surrounds China With War Machinery While Freaking Out About Balloons – Caitlin Johnstone - In what Austin journalist Christopher Hooks has called “one of the stupidest news cycles in living memory,” the entire American political/media class is having an existential meltdown over what the Pentagon claims is a Chinese spy balloon detected in US airspace on Thursday.Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his scheduled diplomatic visit to China after the detection of the balloon. The mass media have been covering the story with breathless excitement. China hawk pundits have been pounding the war drums all day on any platform they can get to and accusing the Biden administration of not responding aggressively enough to the incident. “The important thing that the American people need to understand, and what we are going to try to expose in a bipartisan fashion on this committee, is that the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party is not just a distant threat in East Asia, or a threat to Taiwan,” House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher told Fox News on Friday. “It is a threat right here at home. It is a threat to American sovereignty, and it is a threat to the Midwest — in places like those that I live in.”“A big Chinese balloon in the sky and millions of Chinese TikTok balloons on our phones,” tweeted Senator Mitt Romney. “Let’s shut them all down.” China’s foreign ministry says the balloon is indeed from China but is “civilian in nature, used for meteorological and other scientific research,” and was simply blown far off course. This could of course be untrue — all major governments spy on each other constantly and China is no exception — but the Pentagon’s own assessment is that the balloon “does not create significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in Low Earth Orbit.” So everyone’s losing their minds over a balloon that in all probability would be mostly worthless for spying, even while everyone knows the US spies on China at every possible opportunity. The US considers it its sovereign right to spy on any nation it chooses, and the average American tends more or less to see it the same way. It’s just taken as a given that spying on foreigners is fine, so it’s a bit silly to react melodramatically when foreigners return the favor. Now let’s contrast all this with another news story that’s getting a lot less attention.In an article titled “US secures deal on Philippines bases to complete arc around China,” the BBC reports that the empire will be adding even more installations to the already impressive military noose it has been constructing around the PRC.“The US has secured access to four additional military bases in the Philippines – a key bit of real estate which would offer a front seat to monitor the Chinese in the South China Sea and around Taiwan,” writes the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. “With the deal, Washington has stitched the gap in the arc of US alliances stretching from South Korea and Japan in the north to Australia in the south. The missing link had been the Philippines, which borders two of the biggest potential flashpoints – Taiwan and the South China Sea.”“The US hasn’t said where the new bases are but three of them could be on Luzon, an island on the northern edge of the Philippines, the only large piece of land close to Taiwan – if you don’t count China,” writes Wingfield-Hayes. The BBC provides a helpful illustration to show how the US is completing its military encirclement, courtesy of the Armed Forces of the Philippines: The US empire has been surrounding China with military bases and war machinery for many years, in ways Washington would never tolerate China doing in the nations and waters surrounding the United States. There is no question that the US is the aggressor in this increasingly hostile standoff between major powers. Yet we’re all meant to be freaking out about a balloon.

US fighter jets shoot down Chinese spy balloon off East Coast - US military fighter jets shot down the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon over the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed Saturday.The operation ended a remarkable public drama that prompted a diplomatic fallout between Washington and Beijing, as the American public tracked the balloon from Montana all the way to the Carolinas.President Joe Biden approved the downing of the balloon, Austin said in a statement, which a US official previously told CNN was a plan that was presented and supported by US military leaders.Recovery efforts began shortly after the balloon was downed, the same official added.Speaking to reporters in Hagerstown, Maryland, shortly after the balloon was shot down, Biden reiterated that he first approved the plan to do so earlier this week but waited to carry out the operation until the balloon was safely over water.“On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible. They decided without doing damage to anyone on the ground,” the president said Saturday. In his statement, Austin said American fighter aircraft “successfully brought down the high-altitude surveillance balloon launched by and belonging to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the water off the coast of South Carolina in US airspace.”Austin said Biden gave his authorization “as soon as the mission could be accomplished without undue risk to American lives under the balloon’s path.”The spy balloon was first spotted in the sky over Montana earlier this week and traveled across the middle of the country following weather patterns before it exited the continental United States on Saturday.The discovery of the balloon prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his highly anticipated diplomatic visit to China this week, saying the incident had “created the conditions that undermine the purpose of the trip.”

Chinese public mocks US reaction to spy balloon, making 'fuss about nothing' - Reactions on Chinese social media have mocked the U.S. coverage of the surveillance balloon that entered American airspace on Wednesday, even downplaying the implications of a canceled visit by State Secretary Antony Blinken to Beijing. "It's just an air balloon, does America really have to make a fuss about nothing?" read just one comment of many on the Chinese chat platform Weibo, where users mocked the U.S. for its responses. The Pentagon announced Thursday that the U.S. government had detected a high-altitude surveillance balloon, first spotted over Montana, where it hovered above Malmstrom Air Force Base. The U.S. uses the base to store nuclear weapons. Senior State and Defense Department officials have labeled the balloon’s presence in U.S. airspace an "unacceptable" violation of U.S. sovereignty, but they cautioned against shooting it down, since the balloon was roughly the size of three Greyhound buses and was carrying heavy surveillance equipment. The military shot the balloon down on Saturday afternoon as it reached the Atlantic Ocean. Republicans blasted the Biden administration for its slow response, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeting on Saturday, "First Biden refused to defend our borders. Now he won’t defend our skies."Blinken announced Friday that he would postpone his scheduled trip to China, even though the trip was never formally announced. Users on Weibo, as well as readers of China’s party-backed newspaper The People’s Daily, downplayed the impact of Blinken’s change in travel plans, saying, "Whether you come or not, the result will be the same. Why do we keep paying so much attention to the unreasonable nation," in reference to the U.S.

U.S. says joint drills do not serve to provoke North Korea - The White House on Wednesday rejected North Korean accusations that joint military exercises in the region are a provocation and said the United States has no hostile intent toward Pyongyang. "We have made clear we have no hostile intent toward the DPRK (North Korea) and seek serious and sustained diplomacy to address the full range of issues of concern to both countries and the region," said a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council. The White House comment came after North Korea's Foreign Ministry said that drills by the United States and its allies have pushed the situation to an "extreme red-line" and threaten to turn the peninsula into a "huge war arsenal and a more critical war zone." The statement, carried by state news agency KCNA, said Pyongyang was not interested in dialog as long as Washington pursues hostile policies. The White House statement reiterated a U.S. willingness "to meet with DPRK representatives at a time and place convenient for them." "We reject the notion that our joint exercises with partners in the region serve as any sort of provocation. These are routine exercises fully consistent with past practice," the official said. "The United States is continuing to work closely with allies and partners to ensure peace and stability in the region. At the same time, we will continue to work with allies and partners to fully enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions that reflect the will of the international community and to limit the DPRK's ability to advance its unlawful weapons programs and threaten regional stability," the official said.

New law aims to keep cutting-edge technology made in America : NPR - A new federal law, passed after the Department of Energy allowed the export of taxpayer-funded battery technology to China, aims to tighten restrictions on sending such government discoveries abroad. Initially, the "Invent Here, Make Here Act" will apply only to programs in the Department of Homeland Security. But the law's sponsors in Congress say they plan to expand it to the DOE and other agencies next. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, said she and then-Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, sponsored the measure after an NPR investigation into how breakthrough battery technology from a U.S. government lab wound up at a company in China. The bill passed with wide support in December as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. "The Invent Here, Make Here Act is focused on making sure that when we invest American taxpayer dollars, that the breakthroughs actually end up getting manufactured here," Baldwin said. NPR, in partnership with public radio's Northwest News Network, found the Department of Energy allowed cutting-edge technology to transfer overseas from its Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with little oversight. The lab spent six years and more than $15 million developing a new battery recipe using vanadium. Scientists thought the batteries would change the way Americans powered their homes. Instead, China just brought online the world's largest battery farm using the American technology. NPR and N3 found the Department of Energy and the lab granted the license to a company that moved manufacturing overseas on two separate occasions, even though the contract required the company to "substantially manufacture" the batteries in the U.S. See: The U.S. made a breakthrough battery discovery — then gave the technology to China. In a letter to Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio requested information and criticized the department's actions."For far too long, [China] has captured vital U.S. technology through illicit means and the carelessness of government agencies..." he wrote.Baldwin said she and her colleagues focused the new law on the Department of Homeland Security first to see what kind of response it would get. Now that there is bipartisan support, she said they intend to introduce legislation targeting the DOE and additional federal agencies.

Senate questions Chinese influence over Texas battery firm Microvast - Senators from both sides of the aisle on Thursday questioned the Biden administration's decision to award a $200 million grant to a Texas-based battery manufacturer over its ties to China.Stafford-based Microvast is planning to build a battery plant in Tennessee in partnership with U.S. carmaker General Motors but currently produces batteries at a plant in China. At a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., questioned whether the grant would benefit the Chinese battery industry, pointing to a 2021 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in which Microvast said, "we may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights in the People's Republic of China."In order to operate in China, foreign companies are often required by the government there to partner with Chinese businesses. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chairman of the committee, asked Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk what steps the administration was taking to protect U.S. energy interests. "You know our concern with China, and the economic war they're waging on us," Manchin said. The contoversy around Microvast comes at a time of rising tensions between the United States and China, with the Biden administration looking to reduce reliance on Chinese manufacturing chains in areas like clean energy and computer chips.

Manchin and Cruz team up on bill to protect gas stoves -- Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a new bill Thursday that would prevent the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from banning gas stoves. The Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act comes on the heels of national debate over gas stoves after a CPSC commissioner raising the prospect of a ban on the appliances, citing studies that show gas stoves reduce air quality in homes and can lead to an increased risk of asthma in children in some cases. The CPSC has not considered any official recommendations to ban or limit the sale of gas stoves. “I’ll tell you one thing, they’re not taking my gas stove out,” Manchin said at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday. “My wife and I would both be upset.” That commissioner’s statements sparked online outrage from conservatives, with viral tweets of people leaving on their gas stoves and segments featured on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. Manchin announced the new bill in the committee meeting Thursday, and found support from committee ranking member John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).“What has reached a boiling point is anger against the Biden administration’s insanity of proposing to ban gas stoves. It’s astonishing,” Barrasso said.David Turk, the deputy Energy secretary, reiterated to the committee that neither the department nor the Biden administration has any intention of banning gas stoves. The White House made similar statements last month.The debate reignited last week when the Energy Department introduced new efficiency standards for household appliances, but Turk said every major manufacturer already has appliances that meet those standards and that it would not result in a ban or limit on gas stoves.

4 takeaways from Manchin energy hearing - A hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday offered a preview of coming battles between the Department of Energy and Congress. The sole witness was Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk, who defended the administration’s tentative decision to subsidize a U.S. lithium-ion battery producer with controversial ties to China (E&E Daily, Feb. 3).Turk also addressed lawmaker concerns about DOE’s publication of a rule this week on efficiency of gas stoves and said the department is implementing $62 billion in clean energy grants from the bipartisan infrastructure law with a “sense of urgency.”“We are together rebuilding American manufacturing and increasing American competitiveness,” said Turk, a longtime federal government veteran and energy expert. “We are also working with a sense of deliberateness and professionalism, understanding that we are entrusted with investments being made by our fellow taxpayers.”In several cases, Energy and Natural Resources Chair Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and committee ranking member Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) were in agreement in their criticism, signaling there could be bipartisan pushback against the administration this year on key energy issues, including policies on carbon capture and storage technology.The hearing also provided new details on the billions of dollars now awaiting disbursement at DOE from the infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act, which could be pivotal for Biden’s plans to overhaul the U.S. energy sector and decarbonize the grid by 2035.“We are making a record level of investment in the United States to unleash an unprecedented level of private sector investment, so we can win the innovation and opportunity war, I guess, of the future,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said at the hearing.But energy experts, along with the DOE inspector general, have spelled out serious concerns in recent weeks about DOE’s capacity to implement the money without glaring missteps like Solyndra, a solar company that went bankrupt during the Obama administration after federal support (Energywire, Jan. 27).Here are four takeaways from the hearing:

Blinken in Israel: Planning for war with an ally in crisis - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials Monday, for talks on the mounting political crisis in Israel, and on joint US-Israeli military operations against Iran. Netanyahu clearly wanted the main focus to be on the second of these topics, but in his public remarks as they met, Blinken made it clear that there is mounting anxiety in Washington over the explosive political conditions building up both in the occupied territories and within the Jewish state itself. The Biden administration is clearly concerned that the events of the past month are destabilizing the Israeli regime and calling into question its ability to serve as the principal bastion of American imperialism in the Middle East. Its level of concern is reflected in the extraordinary relay of top US officials through Jerusalem in the month of January: first National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, then CIA Director William Burns, and now Secretary of State Blinken. Netanyahu has assembled a radical right-wing government, headed by his Likud Party, the traditional party of the Israeli right, but with the participation of fascistic parties based in settlers on the West Bank and ultra-religious parties which seek to suppress not only the Palestinians but the more secular sections of the Jewish population. Partly in order to block his own continued prosecution on corruption charges—as well as similar charges against several key political allies—Netanyahu is pursuing a series of changes in the Israeli political structure that would remove the attorney general and abolish the independence of the judiciary. Israel has no written constitution or guarantees of basic democratic rights, and the previous Netanyahu government formally declared Israel the “nation-state of the Jewish people,” reducing Palestinians to a second-class, apartheid-like status. The latest proposal to effectively neuter the judiciary, popularly considered the last independent line of defense for democratic rights, aroused mass opposition, with several huge demonstrations in Tel Aviv, with as many as 100,000 people, in a country of only 7 million. Blinken made an explicit reference to these protests in his public remarks, an unusual breach of the traditional diplomatic posture that a country’s internal affairs are its own business. This was clearly not out of concern for democratic rights in general. The US envoy had just spent a day in Egypt schmoozing with the bloodstained military dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. A further destabilizing factor, to which Blinken devoted most of his public comments, is the wave of violence on the West Bank and in Jerusalem, provoked by an Israeli raid Thursday in the West Bank city of Jenin, which left ten Palestinians dead. This was followed by a suicide attack by a lone Palestinian on a Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, in which seven were killed. On Saturday, a 13-year-old Palestinian opened fire on an Israeli father and son, wounding both. On Sunday there were numerous settler attacks on Palestinians across the West Bank—some reports said as many as 150 violent incidents were recorded over the weekend.

A game of Snakes & Ladders: Blinken takes US back to square one in Israel - Responsible Statecraft - Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Israel on a formal visit Sunday amidst spiking bloodshed between Palestinians and Israelis. Yet the main topic driving the visit was not local Israeli politics but the Iran threat. Although Blinken was the highest profile U.S. official in Jerusalem, his arrival came hard on the heels of two other significant American visits last week: national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the first senior administration official to visit since Prime Minister Netanyahu took office, and CIA Director Bill Burns, who arrived 24-hours after Sullivan. Why so many heavy-hitters in Jerusalem at the same time?Meanwhile, Blinken touched down just hours after an explosion at an Iraniandefense complex in Isfahan which U.S. officials said Israel had engineered. Simultaneously, a fire erupted in an oil production unit in Iran’s eastern province of Azerbaijan, though the Iranian government denied it was due to foreign attack. Not to be left out of the game, Mykhailo Polodyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenski, tweeted Sunday morning: “Explosive night in Iran — [Ukraine] did warn you,” prompting the Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry to summon the Ukrainian charge d’affaires to clarify that Ukraine was not behind the attack. Several complex strategies are in play connecting different foreign policy goals on a single game board. There are many players in each strategy, with the United States, Israel, and Russia the biggest pieces, and the rest are pawns. Blinken’s state visit to see Netanyahu was a key photo op to show the Biden administration’s support for Israel, and comes days after both had engaged in one of the largest military exercises ever, Operation Juniper Oak, in preparation for a possible future attack on Iran. Washington and Jerusalem are in full agreement that Iran is a threat. But they don’t agree on steps to contain it. Washington is hoping that building up the Abraham Accords, a deal that has warmed relations between Israel and several Gulf States over the past four years, can be expanded to put more pressure on Iran. That means bringing Saudi Arabia into the Accords. But as long as Israel isn’t offering a peace agreement to the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia won’t budge. The rising violence between Palestinians and Israelis therefore couldn’t have come at a worse moment for Blinken’s visit. Smiling next to Netanyahu at their press conference, Blinken spoke of peace and a two-state solution; Netanyahu, also smiling, spoke of a “workable solution,” a difference in language those in Riyadh surely have noted, scuppering any chance Saudi Arabia will join the Accords and formalize its alliance with Israel. This means the U.S. plan for a grand Middle East pact against Iran has slipped down a snake and must wait — perhaps until Netanyahu visits Washington. Blinken just issued the invitation as part of his visit, hoping this will lead to a ladder.

Israel and the Palestinians: Blinken's Jerusalem visit offers few solutions - BBC News - When Antony Blinken landed at Ben Gurion airport on Monday he said he had arrived at a "pivotal moment". By the end of his two-day visit, it is clear he had more than one moment in mind. Israel and the occupied West Bank are currently gripped by a level of violence unmatched in years, which shows signs of slipping much further out of control. But there are several "pivotal moments" converging and the Americans are worried. Their top diplomat might have been referring to any or all of them as he spoke on the tarmac with aviation fumes still blurring the air behind him. It is a long list. First is the accelerating rate of bloodshed. Next comes the most radically nationalist governing coalition in Israel's history, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who is on trial on corruption charges, which he denies). The coalition is asserting "exclusive" Jewish rights to all the land (ie ending any idea of a future independent Palestinian state). It also proposes to change fundamentally the nature of Israel's legal system (a full attack on Israeli democracy say those pouring on to the streets in protest). Then there is a near complete collapse in control by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in parts of the occupied West Bank (seeing waves of Israeli military raids and helping create a new generation of armed militants), an ageing and unpopular PA leader (who this year marks Year 18 of his four-year elected term in office), and his announcement last week to ditch so-called security co-ordination with the Israelis (a move that could lead to a complete security collapse in the West Bank). Much of this has been years in the making. And after the US made a series of unprecedented announcements for the region under former President Donald Trump, the Biden administration has been winding many of them back. It is left able to prioritise only what it thinks is possible in the immediate term. Forget any sudden talk of pursuing a two-state solution - the long held international formula for peace. This is crisis management. Mr Blinken kept using two phrases, "calling for calm" and "upholding our shared values". On the first point, the death toll is among the worst in years. In the last 10 months there have been waves of lethal Israeli military search and arrest raids in the occupied West Bank, a deadly round of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, and a spate of deadly attacks by Palestinians against Israelis. More than 200 Palestinians and 30 Israelis were killed in 2022. In January alone this year, more than 30 Palestinians and seven Israelis have been killed.

Blinken Meets With Palestinian Leader After Surge in Violence - The New York Times --Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited the occupied West Bank on Tuesday to meet with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and called for a defusing of the violence that has gripped the region, while conceding that Palestinians face dwindling prospects in their larger struggle for independence.Mr. Blinken visited Mr. Abbas at the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in Ramallah, part of a whirlwind regional tour coinciding with one of the deadliest months in the West Bank in several years. More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in the territory in January, mostly during Israeli military raids aimed at quelling a growing insurgency and arresting Palestinian gunmen.The violence has also seeped into Jerusalem. A Palestinian attacker shot dead seven civilians outside a synagogue in an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem on Friday night — the worst attack in the city since 2008 — and there are fears of a further escalation in coming weeks. That has further complicated the Biden administration’s diplomacy with a new right-wing coalition government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.“Palestinians and Israelis alike are experiencing growing insecurity and fear in their homes and communities, in their places of worship,” Mr. Blinken said. “We believe it’s important to take steps to de-escalate, to stop the violence, to reduce tensions — and to try as well to create the foundation for more positive actions going forward.”Mr. Blinken said the United States continues to hope for a negotiated peace settlement that can lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. But talks to that end have been stalled for years, and Israel’s new government has shown more interest in the potential annexation of Palestinian land than in the possibility of statehood.“What we’re seeing now for Palestinians is a shrinking horizon of hope, not an expanding one. And that, too, we believe needs to change,” he said. In a modest effort to assist that aim, he announced $50 million in new American funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides aid to the Palestinians.His meeting with the 87-year-old Mr. Abbas came a day after Mr. Blinken met in Jerusalem with Mr. Netanyahu and issued similar calls for both Israelis and Palestinians to reduce tensions.

Blinken visit deepens Israeli and Palestinian skepticism about U.S. role— On one topic, Israelis and Palestinians appear to agree: Both are deeply skeptical, even scornful, of renewed calls made by the Biden administration this week for a two-state solution here. Many called the gesture — at this moment of violence and radicalism — feeble, even farcical. On his first trip to the region after the return of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power, and amid days of escalating bloodshed, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken promoted the long-held dream of two states side by side — one Israeli, one Palestinian — as the best guarantor of peace.But recent polling suggests that only a third of Palestinians and Israelis believe in two states today, and they both blame the United States for not doing more. Outside the post office in the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem, Ahmad Abdulaziz, a young accountant, said “the two-state solution is like a song the Americans sing when they want to pacify us. It’s like a lullaby you sing to children to put them to sleep.”In a news conference Tuesday in Jerusalem before his departure, Blinken set the bar low. “Restoring calm is our immediate task,” he said. “But over the longer term, we have to do more than just lower tensions.” Blinken reiterated that it was President Biden’s “firm conviction that the only way to achieve that goal is through preserving and then realizing the vision of two states for two peoples.” And he cautioned the Netanyahu government: “The United States will continue to oppose anything that puts that goal further out of reach,” mentioning Israeli settlement expansion and moves “towards annexation in the West Bank.”During Blinken’s joint presser with the Israeli prime minister on Monday, Netanyahu was polite but didn’t engage on the concept of “two states,” alluding only briefly to finding “a workable solution with our Palestinian neighbors,” before he pivoted to Iran. On Tuesday, Blinken met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, now in his late 80s and struggling for relevance. The two appeared together in Ramallah, shaking hands, then sat across from each other as Abbas read a statement in Arabic.Abbas blamed Israel for the current spasm of violence, charging that “its practices undermine the two-state solution,” including the continued building of Jewish settlements, the demolition of Palestinian homes, and “murder.” He also singled out “the lack of international efforts to dismantle the occupation” of Palestinian territory. In his diplomatic rounds, Blinken did not call for a new round of peace talks. He called for calm. The last attempt to promote the two-state solution was under President Barack Obama in 2014, led by former secretary of state John F. Kerry, and ended in failure. On the topic of lasting peace, many Palestinians and Israelis view this visit by a top U.S. diplomat as just another episode in a long-running show, with well-worn themes and a cast of reappearing characters.

The U.S. on Israel’s far-right government: It is what it is. – President Joe Biden and his aides are making nice with Israel’s new far-right government — and they’re doing it in a highly public fashion.The choice to engage the coalition government led by Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu was clear Monday, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived on a two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank. Blinken’s trip follows separate visits to Israel by U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns. It also comes amid a spike in violence between Palestinians and Israelis.The visits show how, given U.S. worries about Iran, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Palestinians, distancing the United States from Israel is not a serious option, former officials and analysts said. That’s despite the fact that the new Israeli leadership includes backers of what many critics allege are racist, homophobic and misogynistic policies.Israel remains an important ally due to its intelligence capabilities and its historical and political resonance in the United States. And Biden’s long-term goal of shifting America’s focus toward Asia will rest in part on remaining on good terms with Israeli leaders, while encouraging their efforts to improve ties with Arab states and bring more stability to the long volatile Middle East.“The administration will go to great lengths to avoid a confrontation with Netanyahu,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who took part in many Middle East peace talks. “It’s good policy to engage, and clearly, given the fact that the president is going to announce in the next several weeks or months his intention to seek a second term, it’s also good politics.”The Biden administration is treading carefully in the new reality presented by Netanyahu’s far-right coalition. Make the visits, but downplay their importance. Meet with Netanyahu, but avoid his more extreme coalition partners. And hold onto the hope that diplomacy can reduce tensions.The new Israeli government is dotted with religious zealots with antipathy toward Arabs, LGBTQ+ people and others. And as Blinken arrived, there were questions about whether some of these coalition leaders would further stoke recent violence.On Thursday, Israeli security forces killed nine Palestinians in the West Bank in what Israel called a raid against a terrorist unit. The next day, a Palestinian gunman killed seven Israelis near a synagogue in east Jerusalem.Blinken urged de-escalation. “It’s the responsibility of everyone to take steps to calm tensions rather than inflame them,” he said upon reaching Israel after a stop in Egypt.

We’re Ruled By Assholes Because We Have Asshole Systems: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix – Caitlin Johnstone -It’s funny to think about how all our abusive, oppressive systems are only there because the people who benefit from them are able to keep everyone else too divided and distracted to notice that we vastly outnumber them and could literally just force change to happen anytime we want. People have a fairly easy time accepting that things are fucked because we are ruled by corrupt assholes. They have a much harder time accepting that we are ruled by corrupt assholes because our corrupt asshole systems will always necessarily elevate corrupt assholes to the top. It’s easier to blame our problems on oligarchs or the Deep State or a cabal of satanic pedophiles than it is to blame them on systems that we ourselves participate in and have lived our entire lives intertwined with and which have been continuously normalized within our culture. If the problem is just a few corrupt assholes then it’s not a very daunting problem, because all you have to do is remove those corrupt assholes and everything’s golden. If the problem is the systems around which our entire civilization is structured, it’s far more daunting. It’s easy to imagine a future without corrupt assholes. It’s almost impossible to imagine a future where human behavior is not driven by profit for its own sake, where we have moved from competition-based systems to collaboration-based ones where we all work together for the common good. In competition-based systems the most powerful governments will always be those who are willing to do whatever it takes to stay on top, the most powerful people will be those who are willing to do whatever it takes to get power, and everyone else gets crushed in the mad scramble. The fact is we’ll always be ruled by corrupt assholes as long as we have competition-based systems, because the best competitors will always be the most ruthless individuals who will do anything to get to the top. Get rid the current assholes and our asshole systems will necessarily elevate new assholes to take their place. It’s easy to say “Those assholes at the top need to go.” It’s much harder to say “Everything I’m familiar with needs to go.” It’s a giant leap into the dark of the unknown. But that’s the only way we’ll ever move toward health, and it’s the only way our species will avoid being driven to its doom.

House GOP plans vote to remove Omar from Foreign Affairs as soon as Wednesday - House Republican leaders are prepared to hold a vote as soon as Wednesday to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the Foreign Affairs Committee. Plans to move ahead on the vote come after compromise language was included in a resolution to strip her from the panel, causing Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) to drop her opposition to removing Omar from the panel. In addition to Spartz, two more House Republicans — Reps. Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Ken Buck (Colo.) — had said that they would not support kicking Omar off the committee, creating a math problem for the slim House GOP majority that needs a majority of the whole house to remove Omar from the panel. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Tuesday night that Democrats still need to formally submit a resolution outlining their picks to populate the Foreign Affairs Committee. But assuming they do that on Tuesday evening or Wednesday, they are ready to bring up the resolution Wednesday, a spokesperson said. The resolution released on Tuesday outlines a number of controversial statements from Omar, including some that Republicans say are antisemitic. Omar in 2019 apologized for some of her statements, including one suggesting that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was buying political support, saying that she was unaware of tropes about Jewish people and money. It also describes a process for a member to “bring a case before the Committee on Ethics as grounds for an appeal to the Speaker of the House for reconsideration of any committee removal decision.” But Democrats said that the language did not formally create such a process because it was under the “whereas” section rather than the “resolved” section. “Frankly, the notion this resolution has any due process is simply bullshit,” House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said of the resolution during an emergency committee meeting to consider the resolution. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said that the resolution, though, did more for Omar than Democrats did when they stripped Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) from committee assignments in 2011. “It has a vanishingly small amount — almost an infinitesimally amount — of latent due process. But that’s more than the resolutions you all had,” Massie told the Democrats on the committee. Spartz announced opposition to removing Omar from the panel last week, arguing that the decision to remove Omar, like the moves to remove Greene and Gosar, had no due process. But she dropped her objection on Tuesday due to the new language.

House GOP moves to oust Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee - House Republicans are readying to oust Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee as early as Thursday, fulfilling a pledge years in the making.After GOP leaders were able to secure enough support for the resolution that also condemns Omar for past antisemitic remarks late Tuesday, the House Rules Committee quickly approved a rule that sets the parameters for debate on the House floor ahead of a final vote. The rule passed Wednesday along party lines and Democrats formally approved which lawmakers will serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee, teeing up final approval for Thursday.Republican leaders have worked for weeks to ensure that there were enough votes to pass a resolution removing Omar from the committee through their razor-thin majority margin, which stands at three as Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) remains away from Washington recuperating from a traumatic fall. Opposition to the effort emerged last month as four lawmakers signaled that they wouldn’t support the measure, citing concerns that it would continue a precedent set by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) when she was House speaker.But the inclusion within the four-page resolution of a provision that Republicans argue provides due process to Omar seems to have appeased at least one crucial voter, as Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) announced Tuesday that she would now support the measure. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said Wednesday he will now support the measure after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) signaled a willingness to working on instituting a new rule that would make “it clearer and more difficult to remove people” from committees in the future.“I am going to vote for removing Omar under the Pelosi standard, and hopefully we change the rules to be much more stringent,” he said.Senior Republican aides said the agreement with Buck could sway Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) to also vote for the resolution. The aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to outline private whip counts, said they have the votes to pass the measure.

Omar, now a Dem unifier, faces down her GOP critics – Ilhan Omar, at times a lightning rod for House Democrats, is now a unifying force in her party’s quest to frustrate the GOP at every turn.The member of the so-called progressive “squad” knew even before starting her third term in Congress that she’d face Republicans’ long-promised threat to remove her from the Foreign Affairs Committee. And the Minnesota lawmaker is seemingly daring them to try.On Tuesday, in a subtle stiff-arm of a GOP eviction attempt that her party has blamed on politically motivated revenge, her office announced the formation of a “U.S.-Africa Policy Working Group” aimed at fostering dialogue on Africa-related policy. The move carried a fatalistic air, given that the Somali immigrant would become the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs subpanel overseeing Africa — if the GOP let her stay.With what she sees as some of her most important work on the Hill under threat, Omar’s fellow Democrats are rallying around her and looking past the previous controversies, including members who once criticized her for remarks on Israel and U.S. foreign policy. No longer a fresh-faced new member, she’s formed alliances with powerful players and groups who are ready to jump to her defense. Asked about her Democratic support in a Tuesday interview with POLITICO, Omar responded with the advice she said her father used to give: “It’s hard to hate up close.”It’s clear that Omar sees the Foreign Affairs panel as more than just a committee position. The assignment is personal, given her background as a Black Muslim woman whose family had fled the Somali Civil War. After bearing firsthand witness to the impact of the Cold War on U.S. policy in Africa, she said, she even campaigned on wanting to be on the panel — making her one of the few lawmakers to do so besides a former chair, Eliot Engel.After coming to the U.S. admiring the country’s ideals, Omar said, her goal was to “make sure those values and ideals are actually being lived out in the policies that we put forth and the ways in which we carry out those policies, and that they don’t just remain a myth.”And the fight to keep her spot has become personal, too. Controversy over her past comments has aimed a deluge of invectives, abuse and even death threats at the high-profile progressive. Just before the interview Tuesday, her office received a phone call unpleasant enough that a staffer politely ended the call within seconds of picking up.

Rep. Ilhan Omar kicked off Foreign Affairs Committee after House vote - Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was kicked off the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a party-line vote that followed a contentious debate on the House floor Thursday morning that included yelling and Omar defending herself, on the verge of tears.House Republicans had set their sights on removing Omar after she had made what Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently described as “repeated antisemitic and anti-American remarks” throughout her time as a member of the House. The resolution passed 218-211 on party lines, with only Republican Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), voting present. He cast a similar vote when Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) was removed from his committee under Democratic leadership, saying then that his service on the House Ethics Committee could pose a conflict of interest.Democrats have aggressively pushed back against Republicans trying to compare the rebuke of Omar to those of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Gosar, saying that the offenses are not the same.“I had a member of the Republican caucus threaten my life and … the Republican caucus rewarded him with one of the most prestigious committee assignments in this Congress. Don’t tell me this is about consistency,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said on the floor, her voice rising as fellow Democrats clapped. “This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America.”Gosar had posted a video on social media that depicted him killing Ocasio-Cortez, and Greene was removed from her committees after social media postings approving of violence toward Democratic leaders.The resolution Thursday explicitly condemned Omar for using an antisemitic trope in 2019 to suggest Israel’s allies in U.S. politics were motivated by money rather than principle when she tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”The resolution also disapproved of Omar’s critiques of Israel and her comparison of actions by the United States to those of terrorist groups. She later clarified those comments, saying, “I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems.”During the vote, liberal Democrats taunted Republicans by repeatedly chanting “order” and “close it” when time expired to consider the resolution and there were not enough votes for it to pass. Republicans have argued for regular order since taking over the majority, including closing votes when time expired, but kept Thursday’s vote open for several minutes to allow for their colleagues to put the vote over the edge.

Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses AOC of acting like a 'teenage girl' and demands a public debate after Squad member accused her of 'trafficking in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories' - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of acting like a 'teenage girl' after the New York Democrat accused the Georgia Republican of 'trafficking in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.' 'I have repeatedly asked you to debate me, but you have been a coward and can't even respond. But you go on CNN and lie about me,' Greene tweeted Thursday night. 'When are you going to be an adult and actually debate me on policy instead of run your mouth like a teenage girl?'Ocasio-Cortez appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Thursday night and railed against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's choice to allow Greene and Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and George Santos sit on committees, just hours after the House GOP voted to remove Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over anti-Semitic comments she made early in her Congressional tenure. 'George Santos claimed that his grandparents were in the Holocaust. That was a lie. A disgusting lie. Marjorie Taylor Greene regularly trafficking in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,' Ocasio Cortez said, adding that Gosar and Greene were 'inciting violence against specific members in the body.' The Democratic majority in the last Congress voted to remove Gosar and Greene from their committee assignments after Gosar retweeted a video that showed a cartoon version of him killing AOC and after Greene liked a comment that suggested then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be shot in the head.A 2018 Facebook post of Greene's that was discovered by the left-leaning Media Matters also made waves - as she said she believed California's deadliest wildfire was potentially caused by space lasers that were connected to the Rothschilds and former Gov. Jerry Brown to clear the way for a high-speed rail system.'He has appointed all three of them to House committees - not just one but multiple,' Ocasio-Cortez continued. 'Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was engaging in 9/11 conspiracy theories, Kevin McCarthy appointed her to the Homeland Security Committee.'A 2018 video showed Greene referring to American Airlines Flight 77 as 'the so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon,' adding, 'It's odd there's never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon.' 'So there is really no consistency here,' AOC added. 'And it needs to be very well known that this targeting of Ilhan Omar is because the Republican base finds it easy. The Republican base finds it self-rewarding.'

House Dem laments ‘friendly fire’ after losing a plum panel seat - Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell got evicted from the House Intelligence Committee by the GOP. Their fellow Democrat Mike Quigley lost his perch there thanks to his own party. The Illinois lawmaker, who has served on the panel’s Democratic roster since 2015, said he found out Wednesday that he did not make the cut. While he indicated in an interview that he was “honored to have served on the committee,” Quigley admitted he was “disappointed to be hit by friendly fire.” Quigley’s loss of his intelligence panel seat comes as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries named Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes as its new top Democrat to replace Schiff (D-Calif.), whose appointment had been blocked by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, along with Swalwell’s (D-Calif.). A Jeffries spokesperson noted that Quigley had already served for four full terms on the Intelligence Committee, but otherwise declined to comment. The Intelligence Committee limits members to four terms on the panel, though members can receive waivers. Chairs and ranking members are exempt from the term limit. Quigley’s exit also follows that of several other senior Intelligence Committee Democrats due to retirement or election to higher office, such as Reps. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). That turnover is leading some Democrats to worry about a loss of expertise — among them former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), spotted speaking to Jeffries on the House floor Wednesday evening about the need to maintain institutional knowledge on the panel through its longer-serving members like Quigley. Asked Wednesday about Quigley, Pelosi said she “thought there was still an opportunity” for him to serve on the panel.Another wrinkle to Quigley’s intelligence panel departure stems from Jeffries’ ascension atop the caucus. Quigley had privately backed Schiff when he was sounding out a potential leadership bid that would have pitted him against Jeffries, prompting some Democrats to theorize that Quigley’s removal from the committee was linked to leadership maneuvering. Schiff ultimately decided against running for leadership in favor of pursuing a Senate bid, and Jeffries ran unopposed for minority leader.

Dems press GOP on whether anti-socialist bill could hit Medicare, Social Security - House Democrats pushed Republicans to clarify the implications of a new bill that would denounce the “horrors of socialism” and socialist policies, expressing concern that it may include Medicare and Social Security benefits. The House Rules Committee met Tuesday to discuss the resolution, proposed on Jan. 25 by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.). Democrats, including the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), urged GOP lawmakers to specify the meaning of opposing “socialist policies.” “This resolution is instead as divisive as it is insulting to the American public. It is trying to suggest that Social Security, Medicare and even fire departments are anti-American,” Waters said. “None of this is surprising to me. Nor is this blatant attempt by Republicans to try and scare Americans.” The hearing comes as Republicans demand spending cuts in exchange for their vote to raise the debt ceiling. However, what those cuts might look like remains unclear, and President Biden has called on the House GOP to propose a budget in the coming weeks. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has insisted that Medicare and Social Security are safe from the GOP’s knife, but that hasn’t stopped Democrats from warning that Republicans want to slash spending on the entitlement programs — claims that Waters echoed on Tuesday. Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) did not directly respond to the concerns about cutting benefits but said members should send a “strong message” that socialism “has no place” in government policy. “In an attempt to address social issues, those on the far left have taken an approach that more closely mirrors the Communist Chinese party’s actions of recent date than the proven free market solutions that make America the envy of the world,” McHenry said.

House GOP leaps headlong into divisive Mayorkas impeachment debate - - The new House GOP majority is taking its first step Wednesday toward a goal that’s openly dividing its members: booting DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from office. Republicans started laying the groundwork on two tracks this week to potentially impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the border — a historically rare step that hasn’t been used against a Cabinet member since 1876. Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who would lead any impeachment inquiry, held what he promises will be the first in a series of hearings on the border on Wednesday, while Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) plans to launch his own opening salvo next week. And while one group of Republicans begins to make their case, another is ready to start impeachment immediately. The House GOP’s right flank has already filed an impeachment resolution and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) rolled out his own proposal Wednesday. Meanwhile, centrists are warning they aren’t on board and recent polls have suggested the public is wary of an excessive focus on investigations. It marks another test for House GOP leaders, as they try to balance the demands of more moderate members and a base that’s eager to go scorched-earth against President Joe Biden and other administration officials. Not to mention that Republicans will have to navigate a barrage of criticism from Democrats and their allies, who accuse the GOP of using the border as a wedge issue to enact political revenge over policy differences. Republicans who want to impeach Mayorkas acknowledge they haven’t reached a critical mass within their own conference, though Republican Study Committee Chair Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) predicted that there would be “a lot of sentiment” among GOP lawmakers to remove the DHS secretary. If a resolution came to the floor, Republicans could only afford to lose four votes within their own party. “I think when you lay the case out as any impeachment happens, I think [support] grows. Obviously, it’s not going to happen instantaneously,” Hern said when asked if the conference should move toward impeachment without the votes locked down. Yet other leadership allies are warning against officially moving forward with impeachment without a baked-in result. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), part of a shrinking pool of House GOP pragmatists, warned against forcing members to stake out a stance on a controversial topic if it’s not guaranteed of success.The eager-to-impeach right flank has so far largely lobbed two broad arguments against Mayorkas: That he’s lost operational control of the border, and that he lied under oath when he told Congress the border was secure. And while their early hearings are focused on the border broadly, GOP lawmakers have signaled they will try to use the bully pulpit of their majority to demonstrate that the administration hasn’t complied with the law.

US: Hundreds of migrant children still apart from family – DW – 02/02/2023 - Almost 1,000 migrant children who were separated from their families at the US-Mexico border under a Trump-era policy still haven't been reunited with their parents. The data was released Thursday by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). US President Joe Biden pledged to reunify all children separated from their families under the previous administration and formed a task force soon after taking office in January 2021 to make that happen. The DHS said 600 children had been reunited in the two years since the task force was set up, butsome 998 children are still living apart from their families. Of those kids, 148 are in the process of reunification, it added. "We understand that our critical work is not finished," Secretary of Homeland SecurityAlejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. "We reaffirm our commitment to work relentlessly to reunite the other families who suffered because of the prior cruel and inhumane policy." Thousands of migrant families, most of them from Central America, were split up under former President Donald Trump's blanket "zero-tolerance" policy.Imposed in spring 2018, it sought to prosecute all individuals who crossed the border illegally. Children cannot be jailed with their family members so they were separated from their relatives and taken into custody by the Health and Human Services.The separation policy was widely criticized as inhumane by political and religious leaders. The outcry prompted Trump to stop the practice in June 2018, just days before the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) successfully sued to halt the separations. A court process that resulted from the ACLU suit meant many separated children were identified and reunited with their families before Biden took office.A number of families are in the process of suing the US government seeking compensation for the separations.

Nearly 1,000 migrant families still separated by Trump-era policy - Years after a widely criticised United States policy known as “family separation” forcibly took refugee and migrant children away from their families at the US southern border, nearly 1,000 have yet to be returned.Officials said on Thursday that a task force created under President Joe Biden has reunited about 689 children with their families. Another 2,176 children were reconnected with their relatives before the task force’s creation, due in part to legal action by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).However, out of an estimated 3,881 children taken from their families between 2017 and 2021, a total of 998 remain separated as of February 1, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a fact sheet on Thursday.But officials expressed optimism the number would continue to decline as the task force uses governmental records and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to locate fractured families.“The number of new families identified continues to increase, as families come forward and identify themselves,” the DHS said in its statement.Of the 998 children who have yet to return to their families, 148 are “in the process of reunification”, the fact sheet said. Another 183 families “have been informed of the opportunity to reunify” through an NGO.In a meeting with reporters on Thursday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recounted meeting a mother who was separated from her 13-year-old daughter under the policy, then reunited years later when she was 16.Mayorkas said the daughter “still could not understand how her mother would let her be separated. She didn’t understand the force behind the separation”.Some families split apart by the separation policy have been connected with mental health resources, DHS officials said. But under the Biden administration, the US Justice Department has argued that victims of the policy are not entitled to restitution.The family separation policy was initiated under former Republican President Donald Trump as part of a crackdown on unauthorised crossings along the US-Mexico border.It was one of several controversial immigration policies enacted under the Trump administration, including an executive order to ban people from various Muslims-majority countries from travelling to the US. Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election and began his term in January 2021.Shortly after entering office, Biden reversed several key Trump policies, including the executive order critics had dubbed the “Muslim ban”. In February 2021, Biden also created the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families to address the separation policy. Thursday’s statistics mark the task force’s second anniversary.However, Biden has come under fire from migrant and refugee rights groups as well as members of his own party for keeping some of his predecessor’s immigration policies in place.One of the most high-profile is Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allowed the government to turn back asylum-seekers in the name of combatting COVID-19.Immigrant rights groups have denounced the policy for infringing on asylum seekers’ right to due process, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared the policy “no longer necessary”.The Biden administration initially tried to end the programme but Republican politicians pressed for Title 42 to remain in place, pursuing the matter in court. In December, the Supreme Court upheld the policy and is set to hear arguments over it this month.Under pressure from Republicans, as the number of border crossings surged, the Biden administration announced a plan in January to immediately turn away asylum-seekers from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua who arrived at the border – similar to a policy already in place for Venezuelans.Instead, the administration said it would accept up to 30,000 people per month from those four countries through an application system that requires background checks and US-based sponsorship for each asylum seeker. While the Biden administration maintains it “continues to prepare for the end of the Title 42”, critics of the new policy say it amounts to an expansion of Trump’s programme, with its automatic expulsions and rigid requirements. In a press release, the ACLU said Biden’s decision “further ties his administration to the poisonous anti-immigrant policies of the Trump era instead of restoring fair access to asylum protections”.

House passes resolution denouncing socialism, vote splits Democrats - The House on Thursday approved a resolution denouncing socialism in a bipartisan vote that fractured the Democratic caucus. The resolution overwhelmingly cleared the chamber in a 328-86-14 vote. The majority of Democrats — 109 of them — voted with all Republicans for the resolution, while 86 voted against it and 14 voted “present.” The measure, which runs three pages, says “socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into Communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships.” It argues that “many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues” — mentioning Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro — and it lists atrocities committed under socialist regimes. “Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America,” the resolution reads. When introducing the measure, the office of Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) — a sponsor of the resolution — said passing it “would make a bold statement that the People’s House unequivocally denounces this cruel and unjust ideology.” “It would also ensure the United States commits to never begin or normalize the implementation of socialist policies that inevitably lead to economic ruin and political authoritarianism,” Salazar’s office added in a statement. Several Democrats who voted against the resolution expressed concerns regarding the future of Social Security and Medicare. They noted that Republicans on the Rules Committee rejected an amendment proposed by Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) which sought to clarify that opposition to the implementation of socialist policies in the U.S. does not include federal programs like Medicare and Social Security.

Democrats balk at new spending rules, elimination of diversity panel - The House Financial Services Committee's new chairman, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., fended off criticism from Democratic lawmakers on the committee's new cut-as-you-go provision and the elimination of a diversity and inclusion subcommittee. Amid invigorated zeal to slash government spending among the Republicans' more conservative wing, the House has swapped the pay-as-you-go rules with cut-as-you-go rules that require any new spending be offset with cuts elsewhere. In the House Financial Services Committee, a provision approved in Wednesday's panel organization meeting will mean that any new legislation coming out of the committee would have to find those cuts within the panel's jurisdiction. "If you wish to increase spending, you need to find offsets within our jurisdiction," McHenry said. "It's a very straightforward set of rules." With Democrats maintaining control over the Senate, little is expected to pass through Congress in the next two years, but the cut-go measure could still be consequential. Some bipartisan bills are still in play, such as stablecoin and crypto legislation, which both McHenry and the panel's ranking member, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., say they want to pass. But such a bill will likely require enforcement and technology-based infrastructure whose costs will have to be offset within the agencies under the committee's jurisdiction. While many of those agencies are self-funded, Waters suggested during the markup that affordable housing funding could be on the chopping block. "These new provisions will ultimately make any new spending that much harder to pass, including new spending for badly needed affordable housing," she said. "Not to mention that they will pave the way for even more tax cuts that are inevitably tilted towards the wealthy and profitable corporations."

President Biden to End COVID-19 Emergencies on May 11 -- President Joe Biden informed Congress on Monday that he will end the twin national emergencies for addressing COVID-19 on May 11, as most of the world has returned closer to normalcy nearly three years after they were first declared. The move to end the national emergency and public health emergency declarations would formally restructure the federal coronavirus response to treat the virus as an endemic threat to public health that can be managed through agencies' normal authorities. It comes as lawmakers have already ended elements of the emergencies that kept millions of Americans insured during the pandemic. Combined with the drawdown of most federal COVID-19 relief money, it would also shift the development of vaccines and treatments away from the direct management of the federal government. Biden’s announcement comes in a statement opposing resolutions being brought to the floor this week by House Republicans to bring the emergency to an immediate end. House Republicans are also gearing up to launch investigations on the federal government’s response to COVID-19. Then-President Donald Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar first declared a public health emergency on Jan. 31, 2020, and Trump later declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergenc y that March. The emergencies have been repeatedly extended by Biden since he took office in January 2021, and are set to expire in the coming months. The White House said Biden plans to extend them both briefly to end on May 11.

House Republicans pass bill to end COVID-19 public health emergency -- House Republicans passed a bill on Tuesday to end the COVID-19 public health emergency, moving ahead with the legislation despite the Biden administration announcing one day earlier that the declaration would end in May.The legislation — titled the Pandemic is Over Act — passed in a 220-210 party-line vote.The measure, which stretches two pages, would terminate the COVID-19 public health emergency on the day it is enacted. The Trump administration implemented the declaration in January 2020 and it has remained in place since.The bill, however, is unlikely to move in the Democratic-controlled Senate.House Republicans revealed last week that the legislation would hit the floor on Tuesday. On Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours before the vote, the Biden administration announced that the COVID-19 public health emergency would end on May 11, setting an expiration date for the declaration that has been extended 12 times since it was first implemented.The administration also said it would end the COVID-19 national emergency on May 11.The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) argued in a statement that the immediate repeal of the public health emergency — as mandated in the GOP bill — would have “highly significant impacts on our nation’s health system and government operations.”One area of concern for the administration is Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allows border officials to turn away asylum seekers because of concerns regarding public health. If the public health emergency were to end, Title 42 would expire, according to the administration.“The Administration supports an orderly, predictable wind-down of Title 42, with sufficient time to put alternative policies in place. But if H.R. 382 becomes law and the Title 42 restrictions end precipitously, Congress will effectively be requiring the Administration to allow thousands of migrants per day into the country immediately without the necessary policies in place,” the OMB wrote on Tuesday.Republicans, however, have argued otherwise, and decided to go ahead with their bill on Tuesday, contending the public health emergency should come to a close immediately, citing President Biden’s comments from September that said “the pandemic is over.” The president later walked back those remarks, saying “it basically is not where it was.”

Despite Biden’s lies, the COVID emergency continues - On Monday, the Biden administration announced its intention to formally end the COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency declarations on May 11. This is a deeply reactionary and unscientific policy change, which will have vast consequences for the American and international working class. The statement announcing the end date of the states of emergency is framed as a response to two bills introduced in January in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, one of which is titled the “Pandemic is Over Act.” Under conditions in which an average of over 500 Americans are presently dying from COVID-19 every day, both big business parties are colluding to codify into law Biden’s false declaration last September that “the pandemic is over.” The immediate implication of this policy change is that all government funding related to the pandemic will be ended, in what amounts to the final privatization of the US pandemic response. The most severely impacted section of the population will be the roughly 30 million uninsured Americans, who will lose access to free COVID-19 testing, treatments and vaccines. Pfizer intends to sell its vaccine at the extremely marked-up price of up to $130 per dose, while at-home tests sell for $10 each in the US--unaffordable costs for the vast majority of uninsured Americans. Another 60 million Medicare recipients will have to pay at least partially for at-home tests, testing-related services, and all COVID-19 treatments, while privately insured individuals could incur out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 testing. Broader changes to Medicare and Medicaid will also take place with the ending of the emergency declarations. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 5-14 million Americans will lose Medicaid coverage altogether, after enrollment in the program grew by 28 percent between February 2020 and September 2022. Telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries will be cut off after 2024, despite the increased popularity of these services during the pandemic. The planned de jure ending of the pandemic emergency in the US is a political and social measure totally divorced from the science of epidemiology and virology, which make clear the multiple reasons why the pandemic is ongoing and could worsen dramatically at any moment. First, the pandemic is a global phenomenon that cannot be declared “over” by any single country. Indeed, on the same day that the White House released its statement, the World Health Organization (WHO) reaffirmed that the public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) first declared in January 2020 should continue. One of the primary factors motivating the WHO decision is the unprecedented wave of infections and deaths sweeping across China, where a majority of the country’s 1.4 billion people are estimated to have been infected and nearly 1 million are believed to have died from COVID-19 in the past two months alone. This horror is the direct result of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) lifting of the Zero-COVID public health policy, demanded by US imperialism for over two years. Second, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is continuing to evolve at a rapid clip, with the mass infection in China only accelerating this process. Over the past year, the US experienced five distinct waves of infections and deaths from different Omicron subvariants that evolved in different parts of the world and spread globally.

House passes bill to block HHS from enforcing vaccine mandate at some health facilities -The House passed a bill on Tuesday that seeks to end the vaccine mandate for employees at some health facilities, marking the first pandemic-related bill the Republican majority has approved since taking control of the chamber. The legislation, titled the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act, passed in a 227-203 vote, with seven Democrats joining Republicans in passing the bill. The measure, introduced by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), calls for stopping the Health and Human Services secretary from enforcing workplace regulations and standards enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic — including the vaccine mandate — at Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities. Under the rules, health workers at Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities are required to have at least their first dose in a primary series of coronavirus vaccinations in order to provide care, treatment or services. More than 10 million health industry workers across roughly 76,000 facilities are subject to the vaccine requirements. With Democrats maintaining control of the Senate and President Biden likely to veto the bill if it were to reach his desk, the vote on Tuesday was largely a symbolic gesture to record GOP opposition to the administration’s COVID-19 policies. The emergency standards were first issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 2021 to minimize the risk of spreading the coronavirus among health care workers and patients and went into effect at the start of last year. The regulations were hotly contested in courts, with the Supreme Court ultimately ruling last year to uphold the requirements set for health workers while also overturning a similar requirement that was proposed for large employers. Employees including doctors, technicians and nurses potentially face termination if they do not comply with the mandate, though some exceptions for religious and medical reasons are included in the requirements. If noncompliance occurs across an entire facility, then termination from Medicare and Medicaid programs could occur. The implementation of the vaccine requirements set by the Biden administration received support from medical groups including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association.

U.S. House plans vote to end foreign air traveler COVID vaccine mandate (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote next week on a bill that would end a requirement that most foreign air travelers be vaccinated against COVID-19, Majority Leader Steve Scalise said on Friday.The Biden administration in June dropped its requirement that people arriving in the country by air must test negative for COVID-19 but has not lifted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccination requirements. Currently, adult visitors to the United States who are not citizens or permanent residents must show proof of vaccination before boarding their flight, with some limited exceptions.Republican Representative Thomas Massie introduced the measure to rescind the vaccine requirement. "The CDC's unscientific mandate is separating too many people from their families and has been doing so for far too long. It needs to end," he said on Twitter.The CDC says vaccines continue to be the most important public health tool for fighting COVID-19 and recommends all travelers be vaccinated. The CDC did not immediately comment Friday. The U.S. Travel Association said Thursday it has "long supported the removal of this requirement and see no reason to wait until the May expiration of the public health emergency - particularly as potential visitors are planning spring and summer travel."

Public health emergency for mpox officially ends - The public health emergency for the mpox outbreak that began last year is officially ending as of Tuesday, with the number of reported cases continuing to dwindle and advocacy groups declaring the emergency’s conclusion a victory for the LGBTQ community. The Biden administration announced in December that it was not expecting to renew the public health emergency (PHE) for mpox, previously referred to as monkeypox, that was first declared in August 2022. The PHE was renewed once in November. “From the outset of the mpox outbreak, the Biden-Harris Administration – working through HHS and many of its agencies – pulled every lever to stop the spread of this virus,” a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said in a statement. “Given the low number of cases today, HHS did not renew the emergency declaration. But we won’t take our foot off the gas – we will continue to monitor the case trends closely and encourage all at-risk individuals to get a free vaccine,” the spokesperson said. The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows the seven-day moving average for mpox cases to be three, a steep drop from when cases peaked in August with more than 400 being reported daily on average. Over the course of the outbreak, more than 30,000 cases and 26 deaths were reported in the U.S. The vast majority of cases were among men. Unlike the COVID-19 pandemic, treatments believed to be effective against mpox were already available at the beginning of the outbreak and were readily deployed to high-risk populations, namely men who have sex with men. The first cases detected outside of nonendemic countries were in Europe, and it is believed that the virus, belonging to the same family of viruses as smallpox, spread through the social networks of gay and bisexual men.

Health care spending in the US is nearly double that of other wealthy nations: report – In 2021, the U.S. spent 17.8 percent of GDP on health care, nearly double the average of 9.6 percent for high-income countries, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund. Health care spending per capita in the U.S. was three or four times greater than for countries like South Korea, New Zealand and Japan.Researchers compared data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Health Statistics 2022 database and the Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey 2022.Their analysis suggests that overall health in the U.S. is worse than in other high-income countries. Life expectancy at birth for the U.S. is three years below the OECD average. And the obesity rate in the U.S. is nearly double the OECD average at about 43 percent compared to the OECD average at 25 percent. The next highest countries include New Zealand (34 percent), Australia (30 percent) and the U.K. (28 percent).In addition, the rate of avoidable deaths in the U.S. was 336 deaths per 100,000 people in 2020, while the OECD average was 225.This may be partially also due to differences in the level of violence in the U.S. There was a significant gap in the number of deaths by assault in the U.S. compared to other OECD countries, with about 7.4 deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S. while many other countries were far below at 0.2 to 1.3 deaths per 100,000.“Americans are living shorter, less healthy lives because our health system is not working as well as it could be,” said report lead author Munira Gunja, a senior researcher for the Commonwealth Fund’s International Program in Health Policy and Practice Innovations, in a press release. “To catch up with other high-income countries, the administration and Congress would have to expand access to health care, act aggressively to control costs, and invest in health equity and social services we know can lead to a healthier population.”People in the U.S. may be more likely to live with multiple health complications than people in other high-income countries.About 30 percent of adults surveyed in the U.S. had two or more chronic conditions, like asthma, cancer, depression, diabetes, heart disease or hypertension, according to the Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey 2022. Ten other countries were included in this survey, with results that ranged from 17 percent in France to 20 percent in Germany and to about 26 percent in Australia.The report authors highlight that the U.S. is the only high-income country that does not guarantee universal health care. People in the U.S. also tend to visit doctors at a lower rate compared to countries like Germany and Japan.

Did Your Health Plan Rip Off Medicare? -Today, KHN has released details of 90 previously secret government audits that reveal millions of dollars in overpayments to Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors.The audits, which cover billings from 2011 through 2013, are the most recent financial reviews available, even though enrollment in the health plans has exploded over the past decade to over 30 million and is expected to grow further.KHN has published the audit spreadsheets as the industry girds for a final regulation that could order health plans to return hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars or more in overcharges to the Treasury Department — payments dating back a decade or more. The decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is expected by Feb 1.KHN obtained the long-hidden audit summaries through a three-year Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against CMS, which was settled in late September.In November, KHN reported that the audits uncovered about $12 million in net overpayments for the care of 18,090 patients sampled. In all, 71 of the 90 audits uncovered net overpayments, which topped $1,000 per patient on average in 23 audits. CMS paid the remaining plans too little on average, anywhere from $8 to $773 per patient.The audit spreadsheets released today identify each health plan and summarize the findings. Medicare Advantage, a fast-growing alternative to original Medicare, is run primarily by major insurance companies. Contract numbers for the plans indicate where the insurers were based at the time.Since 2018, CMS officials have said they would recoup an estimated $650 million in overpayments from the 90 audits, but the final amount is far from certain.

Russian-backed hackers actively targeting US health care sector, HHS warns - The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) warned on Monday that pro-Russian hacktivist group Killnet is actively targeting the U.S. healthcare industry with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. HHS said in a notice that the group has been going after countries supporting Ukraine, including NATO members. “Although KillNet’s ties to official Russian government organizations such as the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) or the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) are unconfirmed, the group should be considered a threat to government and critical infrastructure organizations including healthcare,” HHS said. The department added that although the DDoS attacks do not cause major damage, “they can cause service outages lasting several hours or days.” DDoS attacks, which are considered low-level types of cyberattacks, are typically used to disrupt and overwhelm a server with internet traffic, causing it to shut down. HHS cited several instances where Killnet targeted organizations in the health care sector, including one last year where the department said the group hacked a U.S.-based healthcare organization that supports U.S. military members and stole a large set of user data from the company. The health care sector has been particularly vulnerable to an increase in ransomware attacks in recent years, as it stores sensitive information, including patient data and medical research and technology. In response to the rising cyber threats targeting the healthcare sector, lawmakers have introduced legislation and recommendations to protect the industry and mitigate the impact. Killnet also reportedly targeted the aviation industry last year. The group claimed responsibility for launching a series of cyberattacks aimed at more than a dozen websites of major U.S. airports, including the Atlanta and Los Angeles international airports. Killnet additionally claimed responsibility for knocking several U.S. state government websites offline, including in Colorado, Mississippi and Kentucky, a month before the 2022 midterm election.

‘Deeply disturbing’: U.S. watchdog uncovers $5.4 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 loans — obtained using over 69,000 sketchy Social Security numbers --A U.S. government watchdog has issued a “deeply disturbing” fraud alert over the widespread use of “questionable” Social Security numbers (SSNs) to get pandemic loans. The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) found that 69,323 potentially fraudulent SSNs were used to obtain $5.4 billion from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. The shocking revelation dropped just days before a hearing by the Republican-led House of Representatives Oversight Committee on fraudulent pandemic spending was set to begin. “What PRAC has discovered is deeply disturbing,” said Sens. Rand Paul and Joni Ernst, who are demanding an investigation into COVID-19 loan fraud. “The extent of the fraud could be far greater.”

Millions To See Food Stamp Payment Decrease After February, Federal Agency Says - Millions of Americans who are in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will see decreases in payments after February, a federal agency said. The decreases in payments are driven by two main factors, Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) said in an update in early January. FNS is an agency under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).Firstly, the temporary increase to SNAP benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic - also known as emergency allotments - will end after the February 2023 payment.The emergency allotments gave most SNAP households approximately $95 in extra payment, the agency said.“All SNAP households have or will see a decrease to the SNAP benefits they receive when emergency allotments end. Some SNAP households already experienced that change; others will in February or March 2023,” FNS said in the announcement.The extra payments have ended in 17 states including Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming.SNAP households in South Carolina will see emergency allotments end after the January payment.For the remaining 32 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the SNAP benefits amount will return to the pre-pandemic level.Another factor that could cause SNAP benefits to go down is increases in Social Security benefits.The social security payments have increased since Jan. 1 because of substantial increases in costs of living adjustment (COLA).“Households that receive SNAP and Social Security benefits will see a decrease in their SNAP benefits as early as January 2023 because of a significant increase to their Social Security benefits to reflect the cost of living,” FNS said.However, the SNAP households will still see a net gain because the decrease in SNAP payments is smaller than the increase in Social Security benefits.

“A Modest Iowa Proposal” to ban access to fresh meat and other grocery staples for SNAP recipients --Iowa Republicans in the state legislature are proposing to ban food stamp recipients from purchasing fresh meat with their benefits, pointing them instead to canned fish. Earlier this month, Iowa House Republicans drafted a bill that would impose strict limitations on what the beneficiaries of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) can purchase through the program previously known as Food Stamps. The bill, House File 3, would base what can be purchased through SNAP on the approved food list for Iowa’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. The WIC program list of approved foods is extremely limited—and nutritionally outdated—and was created to provide supplemental nutrition to pregnant and postpartum women and children up to five years old. Approved WIC grocery items include select cereals (no added fruit, yogurt or nuts), whole grain breads, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, canned and dried beans, peanut butter, canned tuna and salmon, 100 percent fruit juice, some dairy products and baby food. A partial list of foods not allowed, according to the bill, includes fresh meats (beef, chicken, pork, lamb), fresh seafood, chili or refried beans, cooking oil, butter, spices, salt and pepper, soups or soup mix, canned vegetables and fruit, milk, eggs or tofu that make special health claims, frozen prepared food, and sliced, cubed, crumbled or deli cheese. Coffee, the second most popular beverage in America after water, and tea are also not allowed. The all-American lunch of grilled cheese, made with white bread and sliced American cheese, and tomato soup would be off the menu for the low-income, older and disabled Iowans who rely on SNAP benefits. Frozen pizza would also be off limits. Those who want to bake their own bread, cakes or other baked goods would need to obtain their flour, even whole grain flour, by other means. Thirty-nine Iowa Republicans have co-sponsored the reactionary legislation, led by Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, grandson of Republican Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving Republican member of the US Senate. The proposed Iowa bill dictates not only what SNAP recipients can buy but who qualifies for food assistance. It targets several other public assistance programs, such as Medicaid, and lowers the income level for Iowans to qualify for SNAP benefits. The bill would set a household asset limit to qualify for food stamps in Iowa at $2,750, meaning that people with a net worth exceeding that threshold would not get the benefit. The asset limit would rise to $4,250 if one person in the household is disabled or over the age of 60. This means that a household owning two vehicles, for instance, would most likely not qualify. These asset limits correspond to the abysmal federal guidelines for SNAP, discouraging people from saving or owning virtually anything of value. A House subcommittee is currently considering the bill.

Congress' 'biggest fight' over climate? It's the farm bill. - Forget electric vehicles, wind turbines or pipelines. Congress’ most consequential climate battles this year are more likely to revolve around dirt and cows.The five-year farm bill is scheduled to expire by Oct. 1, making it one of the few must-pass legislative items under this divided Congress. The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee on Wednesday is holding its first hearing on the legislation, with many more to follow in both chambers.The sprawling bill — likely to encompass roughly a half-trillion dollars in spending — shapes broad swaths of American life, from the crops farmers choose to grow to the kinds of food low-income families can afford. Both advocates and critics increasingly see the farm bill as a potential climate bill, too.That’s thanks in part to the Inflation Reduction Act allocating about $20 billion of climate money to preexisting farm bill programs. Historic drought in the West and other climate-fueled problems also have made the issue more difficult to ignore. Finally, the farm bill presents a rare opportunity for federal officials to get a handle on climate pollution from agriculture, which has been rising for decades and, unlike other sectors, shows few signs of peaking.“The farm bill is probably going to be the piece of legislation in the next two years with the biggest impact on the climate and the environment,” said Peter Lehner, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Sustainable Food and Farming Program.Some Republicans are eyeing the farm bill as a chance to redirect climate money to other agriculture programs, such as crop subsidies, while other conservative lawmakers want across-the-board spending cuts. Those GOP divisions have some observers worried that the latest farm bill could get delayed or derailed in the House, like it was in 2012.Democrats and climate advocates are more united; they’re trying to defend the climate funding they’ve already passed while building the case for more. That’s a different dynamic from even the recent past. The 2018 farm bill passed while Republicans held full control of government, and though it drew bipartisan support, its climate programs were kept deliberately low-key.Now, Democratic control of the Senate will empower progressives to fight for climate programs. But it’s not purely partisan. Climate advocates say even some Republicans have grown more willing to consider climate in the farm bill, as long as those programs are voluntary.

Tesla, Cadillac get boost from EV SUV tax credit change – The U.S. Treasury said Friday it is changing its definition of an "SUV" to make more electric vehicles from Tesla, General Motors and other automakers eligible for up to $7,500 in federal tax credits at higher prices. The decision follows Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly criticizing the former standards on Twitter as well as automakers such as GM and Ford Motorlobbying to change the guidelines ahead of final rules being announced next month.The change raises the retail price cap to $80,000 from $55,000 for vehicles such as the Tesla Model Y, Cadillac Lyriq, Ford Mustang Mach-E and Volkswagen's ID.4. Previously some or all models of these vehicles did not qualify because they didn't weigh enough to be considered an SUV by the Treasury's standards. The credits are part of the Biden administration's $437 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which was approved in August. Under the bill, SUVs can be priced at up to $80,000 to qualify for EV tax credits, while cars, sedans and wagons have to be priced at or under $55,000.

'SCOTUS bait': Legal battle over Calif. waiver begins - California’s decades-old right to impose its own automobile emissions standards could be on a collision course with a Supreme Court that has recently widened the target for challenges against EPA climate action. Historically home to some of the nation’s worst air quality, California has for 50 years set pollution requirements stricter than those imposed by the federal government. But 17 Republican-led states have challenged that authority, arguing EPA violated the Constitution and states’ sovereign rights by granting California a Clean Air Act waiver allowing the Golden State to tackle planet-warming emissions on its own (E&E News PM, May 13, 2022). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on California’s waiver in September. Environmental attorneys say the case could eventually land at the Supreme Court amid a conservative push to challenge the limits of the executive branch. “A colleague often refers to these types of issues as SCOTUS bait,” said Jonathan Brightbill, a partner at Winston & Strawn LLP, during a recent Federalist Society webinar. The state sovereignty discussion could serve as the vehicle that grabs the interest of the high court, which rejects most cases that come its way, said Brightbill, who served as principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s environment division during the Trump administration. California’s waiver was revoked — for the first time ever — under former President Donald Trump, with EPA citing a need for national uniformity. The Biden administration restored the waiver in March, calling it an important part of the broader effort to tackle climate change. A Supreme Court showdown over California’s Clean Air Act waiver could build on the justices’ blockbuster climate ruling in West Virginia v. EPA. In the June 2022 decision, the justices applied a legal theory championed by conservatives to find that EPA under former President Barack Obama had overstepped by crafting a rule that required power plants to shift from coal to renewable energy sources. The “major questions” doctrine states that Congress must speak clearly in order to authorize agencies to regulate matters of “vast economic and political significance.” “In the wake of their success in the Supreme Court in West Virginia and the recognition of the long-simmering, but now recognized, major questions doctrine, the collection of states has returned to see if they can make more law to further restrain the administrative state,” Brightbill said. He noted Ohio and other states opposing the Clean Air Act waiver had introduced a “parade of horribles” that could result from upholding California’s authority. For example, the red states have said, Congress could allow some states, but not others, to boycott Israel. Or it could pass legislation that allowed one state to enact and enforce immigration laws. “It does seem to me that they have standing to complain about whether the Congress has in effect disenfranchised them,” Brightbill said. Robert Percival, director of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland, said challenges to EPA regulations are routine, but “after West Virginia v. EPA, [litigants] are inventing new constitutional doctrines to feed off the major questions doctrine now that the Supreme Court was willing to bite.”

Who will buy Kerry's carbon credits? - Climate envoy John Kerry made a bet last year that companies would pony up billions of dollars for carbon credits that carry the State Department’s watermark. His gamble might not pay off. Kerry described his idea as a game-changing carbon offsets market that would help corporations meet their climate goals while funding the replacement of dirty electricity in developing nations with clean power — perhaps the world’s most intractable climate challenge. But his claims about the program, called the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA), depend on companies being willing to buy carbon credits that could cost far more than what’s currently available on the market for $2 or $3 a ton. Businesses can use carbon credits to claim they’re meeting reduction targets despite continuing to emit — whether they come from Kerry’s program or not. “If a company can make the same [climate] claim with bad credits as they can with good credits, there’s not a huge incentive for them to go out and buy higher-quality credits,” said Luke Pritchard, nature-based solutions manager at the We Mean Business Coalition. It’s unclear how much credits will cost under Kerry’s program, but Michael Wara, director of Stanford University’s climate and energy program, suggested that an ideal price for carbon, under any program, would hover around $50 a ton. That’s more than 10 times what the global weighted average price was in 2021. “I think offsets can be done well at relatively high prices,” he said. “And the challenge is always that the entities buying the offsets don’t want to pay the prices that are required to do offsets well.” The ETA is still being designed, but Kerry has said it will only support additional renewable energy and the retirement of coal-fired power in developing countries. It also takes a jurisdictional approach, meaning it will support national or regional plans to green power grids overall, not individual projects whose climate benefits could be undercut by fossil fuel development in the same area. The point of carbon credits is to incentivize activities that result in lower emissions — which wouldn’t have happened without funding provided by the credits. That is “fiendishly, fiendishly, fiendishly hard” to identify for renewable energy and coal retirements, “Solar is dirt cheap,” he said. “There’s a lot of incentives to build solar, and a lot of the reasons people are not building solar and are using coal is not economic, it’s political.” That’s why the certifiers of carbon credits are bailing out of the renewable sector.

War, politics, business make 1.5 C target far-fetched — experts -- Keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius is “currently not plausible,” warns a new report from the University of Hamburg. The types of swift, transformative social change needed to reach that target just aren’t happening fast enough.A less ambitious target of 2 C still could be in the cards, the report adds. But it would require world leaders to set more ambitious climate goals for their nations and put them in motion immediately.The report, known as the “Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook,” examines the factors affecting the world’s ability to meet its global climate goals. Nations participating in the Paris climate agreement have pledged to keep global warming well under 2 C while striving for a more ambitious 1.5 C target.The most recent reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change make it clear that meeting these targets requires immediate and rapid global efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions. The 1.5 C threshold requires global emissions to hit net zero by 2050, the IPCC warns, and they should fall by roughly half within the next decade.But studies consistently find that global climate action isn’t happening fast enough to keep up with those requirements. The U.N.’s latest annual emissions gap report, which assesses global progress on the Paris targets, found that the climate policies currently in place around the world aren’t even enough to meet the 2 C target, let alone 1.5 C.As it is, studies suggest that humanity could blow past the 1.5 C threshold in about a decade. Though it’s still technically possible to achieve it — if world leaders took the necessary steps right away — climate scientists and policy experts increasingly acknowledge that it’s probably not going to happen (Climatewire, Nov. 11, 2022).The new Hamburg report affirms those fears.The report examines 10 different social drivers that can affect the world’s ability to achieve “deep decarbonization” in time to meet the Paris targets. These include governance from the U.N., transnational initiatives, climate-related regulation, climate protests and social movements, climate litigation, corporate responses, fossil-fuel divestment, consumption patterns, journalism, and the production of knowledge on climate change.On a global scale, not one of them supports deep decarbonization by 2050, the report finds.Most of them are, in general, moving in the right direction. They just aren’t aggressive enough yet to be consistent with the kind of transformative social change required to chieve the 1.5 C target.

Biden to announce $292M in funding for Hudson Tunnel Project between NY, NJ - President Biden will travel to New York on Tuesday to announce that $292 million from the bipartisan infrastructure law will go to the Hudson Tunnel Project to improve travel between New York and New Jersey. The project will rehabilitate the old North River Tunnel, which opened in 1910, and build a new tunnel beneath the Palisades, Hudson River and the waterfront area in Manhattan, according to a White House official. It is set to create 72,000 jobs and improve the New Jersey Transit and Amtrak trip for 200,000 weekday passengers. The Hudson Tunnel Project is a total $16 billion investment to improve New Jersey Transit and Amtrak service between the two neighboring states. The project is funded by the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, which Biden signed in 2021. The president will also announce that his administration has awarded almost $1.2 billion from the law’s National Infrastructure Project Assistance discretionary grant program, also known as Mega, for nine projects, including the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio and I-44 and US-75 improvements in Oklahoma.

Santos steps down from committee assignments --Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is stepping down from his committee assignments, he informed House GOP colleagues on Tuesday in a conference meeting. The representative had faced a whirlwind of criticism over numerous fabrications and misrepresentations of his resume and personal history, as well as questions about his personal and campaign finances. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said that Santos informed the conference he would recuse himself from committees “temporarily” until “things get settled.” One source told The Hill that Santos called himself a “distraction.” “And then he asked that we all support him when everything settles down for him to serve on committees,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told reporters after the meeting. The House GOP Steering Committee, the panel of Republican leaders who assign committees, had assigned Santos to the Small Business Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee earlier this month. Santos declined to comment Tuesday morning, telling reporters that “what happens in conference stays in conference.” Santos’s move comes after he met with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday. “I met with George Santos yesterday and I think it was an appropriate decision that until he could clear everything up he’s off of committees right now,” McCarthy told reporters following the closed-door conference hearing. “We had a discussion, he asked me if he could do that. So I think it was the appropriate decision,” McCarthy said.

We Tried to Call the Top Donors to George Santos’ 2020 Campaign. Many Don’t Seem to Exist. -- In September 2020, George Santos’ congressional campaign reported that Victoria and Jonathan Regor had each contributed $2,800—the maximum amount—to his first bid for a House seat. Their listed address was 45 New Mexico Street in Jackson Township, New Jersey.A search of various databases reveals no one in the United States named Victoria or Jonathan Regor. Moreover, there is nobody by any name living at 45 New Mexico Street in Jackson. That address doesn’t exist. There is a New Mexico Street in Jackson, but the numbers end in the 20s, according to Google Maps and a resident of the street.Santos’ 2020 campaign finance reports also list a donor named Stephen Berger as a $2,500 donor and said he was a retiree who lived on Brandt Road in Brawley, California. But a spokesperson for William Brandt, a prominent rancher and Republican donor, tells Mother Jones that Brandt has lived at that address for at least 20 years and “neither he or his wife (the only other occupant [at the Brandt Road home]) have made any donations to George Santos. He does not know Stephen Berger nor has Stephen Berger ever lived at…Brandt Road.”The Regor and Berger contributions are among more than a dozen major donations to the 2020 Santos campaign for which the name or the address of the donor cannot be confirmed, a Mother Jones investigation found. A separate $2,800 donation was attributed in Santos’ reports filed with the Federal Election Commission to a friend of Santos who says he did not give the money.Under federal campaign finance law, it is illegal to donate money using a false name or the name of someone else. “It’s called a contribution in the name of another,” says Saurav Ghosh, the director for federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “It’s something that is explicitly prohibited under federal law.”

Feds probing Santos’ role in service dog charity scheme - — FBI agents are investigating Rep. George Santos’ role in an alleged GoFundMe scheme involving a disabled U.S. Navy veteran’s dying service dog. Two agents contacted former service member Richard Osthoff Wednesday on behalf of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, he told POLITICO. Osthoff gave the agents text messages from 2016 with Santos, who he says used his plight to raise $3,000 for life-saving surgery for the pit bull mix, Sapphire — then ghosted with the funds, as first reported by Patch. “I’m glad to get the ball rolling with the big-wigs,” Osthoff said in an interview Wednesday. “I was worried that what happened to me was too long ago to be prosecuted.” The alleged fundraising scheme is one of many scandals plaguing the freshman Republican, who has refused to leave office despite a series of allegations of lying and fraud that first came to light in December shortly after he won a swing seat on Long Island. New York Democratic Reps. Ritchie Torres and Daniel Goldman, who called for a Federal Election Commission investigation into Santos’ campaign finances last month, welcomed the news that the Eastern District investigation is proceeding at a serious clip. “Only the U.S. attorneys are capable of moving at the speed that’s necessary,” Torres said in an interview. “There’s no one that poses a greater threat in Congress than Santos. It’s undeniable that he’s broken the law. We have to protect Congress from George Santos, who threatens it from within,” Torres said. Goldman, an ex-federal prosecutor who has a seat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, echoed Torres’ comments in a separate interview. “Given that a serial liar like Santos is still walking the halls of the Capitol, it is imperative that the Justice Department move quickly to determine whether an indictment is appropriate.”

The things that cost George Santos precisely $199.99 - The Washington Post - According to Federal Election Commission regulations, “for each single disbursement that exceeds $200, the committee must keep a receipt, invoice or canceled check.” At $200.01, in other words, the FEC could ask the Santos campaign to hand over information about those payments. At $199.99, it can’t. (There was one payment filed that came in at precisely $200, incidentally; it was for a small business that made signs.) Santos’s $199 disbursements (a shorthand for the 40 payments identified above) fell into three broad categories.The first was tippable expenses. This included meals, such as the eight meals at the Little Neck, Queens, restaurant Il Bacco. Slate’s Alexander Sammon went there to try to spend exactly $199.99, as all but one of the meals at the restaurant cost. (The visit on Aug. 21, 2021, cost $199.17, oddly.) Sammon’s gambit was foiled, though, by the tip, which pushed him over.But, of course, the tip is up to the customer, so it’s possible that Santos (or the person on his campaign incurring the cost) was simply in the habit of throwing a nice tip on top of a $160 meal to hit the magic number. (Maybe a math error at that Aug. 21 meal?) There are 31 visits to the restaurant in Santos’s filing, 10 of which actually exceeded $200, so this was apparently not always the practice.There are other places where the $199 cost might have been deliberately manipulated by the spender. There are five Uber rides, for example, each coming in at $199.99 precisely. Again, you can very carefully choose your tip so it will land at this amount, but that’s a bit tricky, as users of the app will recognize. It’s also a very expensive Uber ride, even in the New York City area.In total, 16 of the 40 $199 expenditures were ones that might have been a function of tipping. The second category is hotels. As you are also probably aware, hotel costs can vary depending on how and when you buy them. That Santos’s campaign recorded a $199.99 cost at the Hyatt Orlando in July 2021 isn’t outside the realm of possibility; that particular hotel has rooms at that price range in late July at the moment. That the campaign paid $199.99 at the W Hotel in South Beach, though, is a bit less likely. Prices in October (when the campaign paid its bill) run north of $600.Can you get a third of a room? Asking for a member of Congress.The third, and biggest, category of $199 expenses is everything else. This includes disbursements of $199.99 to retailers such as BJ’s Wholesale (twice), Target (once), Walgreens (once), Staples (twice) and Best Buy (three times). It’s possible that there was some recurring cost at Best Buy, for example, for tech support or printer supplies, that sort of thing. But the dates don’t make sense: there was a $199.99 cost on Nov. 10, 2021, and another four days later, for example.There are also a number of $199.99 payments to airlines, including four to Delta, and two to Amtrak. I perhaps do not need to emphasize this point, but I will anyway: it is not my experience that airline prices in particular are consistent and precise.One disbursement in October 2021 had the Santos campaign paying $199.99 for parking at John F. Kennedy Airport. A neat trick, given that parking near the Delta terminal at JFK costs $6 for half an hour and $6 for each additional half-hour up to three hours, at which point the cost jumps to $12. There’s also a maximum rate for 24 hours of $70. So, I guess that maybe Santos or someone on his campaign left a car there for two days ($140), three hours ($36), 59 minutes and 58 seconds ($12 for the first half-hour, then $11.99 for the remainder)? This assumes that the garage prorates each half-hour to the second which, again, is not my experience with garages. Nor is it the policy at JFK, which charges for each half-hour “or fraction thereof.” So much for that theory. Given how unlikely it is that so many costs could come out to $199.99 precisely, we might entertain other theories. For example: Perhaps the campaign was covering $199.99 of various bills and then Santos was paying for the rest out of pocket. But, then, those payments would need to be listed as campaign contributions from Santos and the disbursements reported anyway. Asked about the expenses by the New York Post in December, the Santos campaign indicated that the figures were “the result of a database error and amendments were filed with the FEC.” But it has been more than a month since that comment, during which time amended reports were filed — ones that still include the $199.99. What’s more, if the costs were actually more than $199.99, there should, by law, be receipts documenting the actual cost. It’s hard to get around the conclusion that the campaign was trying to obfuscate something, a fair assumption given the personal history of the candidate after which it was named. Last month, the suitably skeptical Campaign Legal Center filed a lengthy complaint with the FECarticulating a number of the odd costs above, among other dubious activity. It would probably be advisable for the Santos campaign to quickly put a lawyer on retainer.

Jordan subpoenas Garland, Wray over school board memo - The House Judiciary Committee fired off its first subpoenas under the leadership of Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), targeting a trio of Biden administration officials including Attorney General Merrick Garland over a short-lived memo dealing with threats against school board members. The subpoenas, sent also to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, follow a series of more than 100 letters on the 2021 memo from Judiciary Republicans. Garland signed the memo in October of last year, noting a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff” amid broader discussion over COVID-19 policies and how issues like race and gender are addressed at school. Though little resulted from the memo, Republicans have remained laser-focused on it. The subpoena, reviewed by The Hill, asks for all communications between the entities and the National School Boards Association, which first wrote to DOJ asking for help in dealing with rising threats. Jordan has repeatedly claimed the memo is a way for the Biden administration to label parents as domestic terrorists, though the FBI never charged a single parent in connection with the directive — something the chair pointed out in a recent appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “The chilling impact on the First Amendment free speech is what we care about,” he said during the interview.

Congressman Sends Inert Grenades to Colleagues at House Offices - A new Republican congressman from Florida handed out an unusual welcome gift to colleagues in the House of Representatives: inert grenades with a letter inviting them to “come together.”The congressman, Cory Mills, 42, who is a U.S. Army veteran, said in the letter that the inert items, stamped with a Republican elephant, were 40-millimeter grenades manufactured in Florida and developed during the Vietnam War. The smooth cylindrical gray and yellow shells are made for a Mk 19 grenade launcher.“Let’s come together and get to work on behalf of our constituents,” he said.A reporter for The Daily Mail posted a picture of a grenade and Mr. Mills’s letter on Twitter, where the gift drew mixed reviews from fellow House freshmen. Representative Mike Collins, a Republican from Georgia, said that he “loved” his and just needed a launcher, while Representative Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut who did not receive one, made a comparison to Representative George Santos, the Republican congressman from New York whose lies about his biography are under scrutiny.“Not even George Santos could make this stuff up,” Mr. Himessaid.A spokesman for Mr. Mills said it was customary for new Republican members of the House to bring gifts from their home states and that Mr. Mills had paid for the inert grenades personally.All security measures were followed in delivering the grenades to the offices of Mr. Mills’s House colleagues on Capitol Hill, the spokesman added.

Biden Family Corruption, COVID Origins, Weaponized Government, And Border Crisis: House GOP Kicks Off Investigations - Newly empowered House Republicans are kicking off their long-planned investigations into a wide variety of issues, beginning with hearings on the US-Mexico border crisis, the origins of Covid-19, and pandemic relief programs.The House Judiciary Committee's first meeting of the new Congress, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), will be "The Biden Border Crisis: Part I." Then, the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee will hold a hearing titled: "Challenges and Opportunities to Investigating the Origins of Pandemics and Other Biological Events," as part of its probe into the origins of Covid-19.Meanwhile, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, led by James Comer (R-KY) will kick off a hearing on waste, fraud and abuse related to federal pandemic spending, The Hill reports."I don’t think history will be kind to the PPP loan program," said Comer during a Monday appearance at a National Press Club event, referring to the program that provided businesses with forgivable loans. "I think it’ll be eventually viewed in the same manner that the big bank bailouts were when people find out where a lot of that money was going."Republicans had been plotting extensive investigations into the Biden administration for more than a year before the midterm elections. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), in preparation for taking the House majority, organized GOP members into “task forces” to come up with oversight and legislative priorities. Republican members of committees started investigations last year when they were in the minority.Republicans now have control over committee hearing topics, a better chance of getting answers from administration officials, and are armed with subpoena power to compel testimony and documents — though no committee has used it yet.Next week, the Oversight panel is set to hold a hearing on the U.S.-Mexico border and a hearing with former Twitter employees about the platform’s suppression of the New York Post’s story on the Hunter Biden hard drive in 2020. -The HillSpeaking of the Bidens, the Oversight panel is also conducting an 'extensive probe' into the business dealings of President Biden's family which will focus on Hunter Biden.Republicans on the House Oversight, Judiciary and Intelligence committees have also sought information related to President Biden's mishandling of classified information, while the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees are going to be investigating the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.And in what will hopefully take the spotlight - House Republicans have formed the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government under the House Judiciary Committee, in response to those who wanted a "Church-style" committee to investigate how the DOJ and intelligence agencies were used in a character-assassination plot against former President Trump and others.

Meet the Republican at the center of the House GOP’s investigations into Biden - Rep. James Comer, one of the most powerful House Republicans in the new majority, faces a delicate challenge as he takes the reins of the Oversight and Accountability Committee: showing substance with the spectacle. Comer (R-Ky.) leads a panel at the heart of House Republicans’ investigatory responsibilities. It’s also a panel stacked with firebrand GOP personalities consumed with digging into hot-button issues surrounding President Biden’s administration and family. “We will be the committee with all the newsmakers,” Comer said. The panel’s Republicans include Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.), who won their assignments back after being punted from the panel by Democrats in the last Congress. Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Scott Perry (Pa.), three more fiery conservatives who withheld support from Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during his drawn-out battle to win his post, also sit on Oversight. At the center of it all is Comer, who is not as well-known on the national stage as some of the Republicans he’s leading but is likely to become much more famous through the course of the year. Comer shows no shyness when it comes to going after Biden and Democrats or defending the personalities on his panel. “I believe that we’ve had the conversations that it is important that we’re a credible, factual committee,” Comer said. “The fact that we have a lot of people with a lot of passion is a good thing.”

FBI Searches President Biden's Luxury Beach House For Classified Documents - The FBI on Wednesday expanded its search for classified documents at President Biden's luxury beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware. The search comes after classified documents were recently discovered at Biden's Wilmington home and private office in Washington, D.C. Multiple sources familiar with the search told NBC News that no warrant was involved and it was consensual. Bob Bauer, an attorney for Biden, wrote in a statement that the Department of Justice (DOJ) conducted the search with "the President's full support and cooperation." "Under DOJ's standard procedures, in the interests of operational security and integrity, it sought to do this work without advance public notice, and we agreed to cooperate," Bauer continued, adding "The search today is a further step in a thorough and timely DOJ process we will continue to fully support and facilitate. We will have further information at the conclusion of today's search." Wednesday's search marks the first time federal agents have combed through Biden's beach house - which Biden's team had supposedly already combed for classified documents. "Following the search at the Wilmington residence, the attorneys proceeded to the Rehoboth residence and conducted a search there. No potential records were identified at the Rehoboth Beach residence, and the attorneys returned to Washington, D.C., late in the evening," reads an earlier statement from Bauer. The FBI previously searched Biden's Wilmington home that turned up what his lawyer said were multiple classified documents. The search occurred on Jan. 20. Another search was conducted at the Washington office of the Penn Biden Center in mid-November after the president's attorneys first discovered classified material at the think tank late last year.

No classified documents found in search of Biden’s beach home - The Justice Department conducted a search Wednesday of President Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., as part of its ongoing investigation of his retention of classified documents, but did not find any documents with classified markings, the president’s personal attorney said.The 3½-hour search took place Wednesday morning “in coordination and cooperation with the President’s attorneys,” Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal attorney, said in a statement. In an earlier statement Wednesday, Bauer had announced that the search was taking place and “is a further step in a thorough and timely [Justice Department] process we will continue to fully support and facilitate.”Biden’s lawyers said last month that they had discovered no classified documents at Biden’s Rehoboth Beach home after conducting their own search, and Bauer confirmed that authorities did not find any classified documents Wednesday. But Bauer said officials did take some documents from the home.“Consistent with the process in Wilmington, the DOJ took for further review some materials and handwritten notes that appear to relate to his time as Vice President,” Bauer said.Wednesday’s search was part of a fast-moving investigation that the Justice Department launched in November after Biden’s personal attorneys found documents with classified markings in a Washington think tank office that he used after serving as vice president. More classified material was found in subsequent searches of Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home.After a recommendation from John R. Lausch, a U.S. attorney in Chicago and a Trump administration holdover, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur as a special counsel to oversee the investigation. The Justice Department confirmed that Wednesday was Hur’s first day as special counsel. A department spokesman declined to comment further.

Timeline details when, where Biden classified documents were found - The Washington Post - Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to examine the discovery of classified documents in unauthorized locations in President Biden’s former private office and his Wilmington, Del., home. The situation carries some parallels to former president Donald Trump’s retention of such documents, for which Garland has also appointed a special counsel. But the information released publicly so far also includesplenty of differences — both in the volume of the documents and in the apparent effort by Biden’s legal team to quickly return the documents to government custody. Trump’s resistance to returning the documents led to the court-approved FBI search of his residence at Mar-a-Lago in August and is central to the legal jeopardy he currently faces.Below is a timeline of events related to the Biden documents case, based on both reporting about the documents and Garland’s remarks Thursday. It will be updated as we learn more.

• Nov. 2: The first batch of classified documents — about 10 of them, including some marked top secret, according to Washington Post reporting — is found after one of Biden’s private attorneys opens a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington. The Penn Biden Center is a think tank affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania that Biden founded and whose offices he used after his time as vice president ended in early 2017. Garland describes it as a location “not authorized for storage of classified documents.”The documents are immediately turned over to the National Archives, according to Richard Sauber, special counsel to Biden. Sauber said the documents “were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by” the National Archives and Records Administration — unlike the classified materials eventually found at Mar-a-Lago.
• Nov. 4: The inspector general of the Archives, which maintains presidential records, contacts a prosecutor at the Justice Department to say the White House has disclosed finding classified documents at the Penn Biden Center, according to Garland.
• Nov. 9: The FBI begins an assessment to determine whether any laws were broken, Garland said.
• Nov. 14: Garland assigns U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch Jr. of Illinois, who had been nominated to the job by Trump in 2017, to conduct an initial investigation to help Garland determine whether a special prosecutor is warranted.
• Dec. 20: Sauber informs Lausch that more documents marked as classified were found in Biden’s garage at his residence in Wilmington, Del., according to Garland, and the FBI secures the documents. According to the president’s personal attorney, the president’s lawyers stopped their search upon identifying the documents.
• Jan. 5: Lausch briefs Garland on the investigation and recommends the appointment of a special counsel. Garland agrees.
• Days after Jan. 5: The Justice Department identifies Robert K. Hur as a potential special counsel, according to Garland. Hur is a former U.S. attorney in Maryland who was nominated to that job by Trump in 2018.
• Jan. 9: CBS News reports on the November discovery of the documents, bringing the matter to light for the first time. The White House laterconfirms that the Justice Department has launched an inquiry and says it is cooperating with both the department and the National Archives. While confirming the inquiry, the White House does not disclose the set of documents found Dec. 20.
• Jan. 11: According to a statement later released by the president’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, Biden’s lawyers searched his residence in Wilmington and found “a potential document marked classified” in a room next to the garage. They then stopped searching that space, because they did not have the appropriate security clearance. They also searched Biden’s residence in Rehoboth Beach, Del., but did not find any such records there.
• Jan. 12 (morning): Sauber releases a statement confirming the discovery of classified material in Wilmington. According to Bauer’s statement, Biden’s lawyers inform Lausch about the additional document.
• Jan. 12 (afternoon): At a news briefing, Garland announces the appointment of Hur as special counsel. During his remarks, he says that Biden’s attorneys had disclosed to the Justice Department just that morning the discovery of one additional document marked classified found at the house in Wilmington.
• Jan. 12 (evening): Sauber finds five additional pages of documentsmarked classified, according to a statement released Saturday. Sauber said he was called in after the discovery of the document that morning because he has a security clearance.
• Jan. 14: Biden’s team discloses the additional pages found on Jan. 12. Sauber says in his statement, “While I was transferring [the initial document] 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. The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them.” Biden’s personal lawyer Bob Bauer alsoreleases a timeline in an effort to emphasize the team’s cooperation in the matter, and says the team is unsure if all relevant documents have been found.
• Jan. 19: Biden says he has “no regrets” on how the White House has handled the disclosure that the documents had been found.
• Jan. 20: Justice Department personnel search Biden’s home in Wilmington. According to Bauer, the search takes 13 hours and covered “all working, living and storage spaces” in the home. The Justice Department takes possession of six items, consisting of “documents with classification markings and surrounding materials”; it also takes some handwritten notes from Biden’s time as vice president for further review.
• Jan. 21: Biden’s lawyers release a statement disclosing the Jan. 20 search.
• Feb. 1: The Department of Justice searches Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach. Bauer describes the search as “planned” and conducted with Biden’s “full support and cooperation.” No documents with classified markings are found, Bauer says in a statement, but the department took some materials and handwritten notes from Biden’s time as vice president, “consistent with the process in Wilmington.”

McConnell mocks Biden judicial nominee for flubbing basic legal questions - Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Tuesday ridiculed President Biden’s nominee to serve as district judge for the Eastern District of Washington for flubbing basic questions about the Constitution last week, arguing Democrats have used a double standard for Biden’s and former President Trump’s nominees. The nominee, Spokane County Superior Court Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, couldn’t describe the purpose of Article V of the Constitution, which establishes the procedures for amending the nation’s founding document, or Article II, which establishes the powers of the president and executive branch. “Goodness gracious,” McConnell exclaimed, noting that the presidential powers laid out in Article II, including the power to appoint judges to the Supreme Court, is something “high schoolers across America learn each year.” McConnell recounted in detail Bjelkengren’s awkward and halting answers in response to the pop quiz she got from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) at her confirmation hearing last week. “Article V is not coming to mind at the moment was the response. Sen. Kennedy came back with another even more basic request, ‘How about Article II?’ …. But this sitting judge drew another blank. Article II wasn’t coming to mind either,” the leader said. “Then she flunked yet another question about legal philosophy and then again she flunked still another question about the most controversial Supreme Court case this term,” he said. “Apparently, when this particular nominee had been asked to list the top 10 most impactful cases she’d ever litigated in court, she could only come up with six.” “At no stage of her professional career has this judge focused on federal law. At no point has she ever even appeared in federal court,” he fumed. McConnell then asked whether Biden has drastically lowered the standards for serving as a federal judge in his rush to stock the federal judiciary with nominees who are viewed as sympathetic to his political agenda. And he excoriated Democrats for complaining about the qualifications of Trump’s judicial nominees, only to then turn around and give some of Biden’s nominees a free pass. “Is this the caliber of legal expert with which President Biden is filling the federal bench?” he asked, referring to Bjelkengren. “For lifetime appointments? Is the bar for merit and excellence really set this low?”

Ethics concerns raised over business ties of Supreme Court chief justice’s wife -A former colleague of Chief Justice John Roberts’s wife raised ethics concerns last month about how the Supreme Court’s business intersects with her recruiting work, according to documents obtained by The Hill.Kendal Price — who previously worked with Jane Roberts at Major, Lindsey & Africa — alleged the chief justice may have violated recusal and financial disclosure rules for judges in a letter to the Justice Department and House and Senate Judiciary Committee leaders on Dec. 5, The New York Times and Politico reported.The letter adds to the growing scrutiny surrounding the justices’ spouses, which comes as increasing numbers of Americans believe the court is acting politically. Jane Roberts for years has worked in the legal recruiting business, placing a number of high-ranking public officials in the private sector. She reportedly guided the moves of Robert Bennett, who represented former President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, to Hogan Lovells and former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to WilmerHale. Price’s letter delves into Jane Roberts’s compensation and whether John Roberts properly recused himself in some cases, according to the Times and Politico. The letter in part lists Supreme Court cases related to the WilmerHale firm since 2012. A WilmerHale spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. In 2019, Jane Roberts said she handles potential conflicts on a case-by-case basis and avoids matters with any connection to her husband’s role. She said she did not work with those with ongoing business before the Supreme Court. A Supreme Court spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. Jane Roberts and Macrae, a boutique legal recruiting firm where she now works, also did not return requests for comment.

Sarah Sanders to deliver Republican response to Biden's State of the Union address - The Washington Post - Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the newly elected governor of Arkansas who served as press secretary for President Donald Trump, will deliver the Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union address next week, GOP leaders announced Thursday.“Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the youngest Governor in the nation and a powerful advocate for the popular, common sense conservative principles that will put our country back on a better course,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Sanders “is bringing new ideas for a changing future, while also applying the wisdom of the past, including from the leadership of her father, Mike.”Sanders, 40, an Arkansas native and daughter of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R), managed her father’s unsuccessful presidential run in 2016 before joining Trump’s campaign as senior communications adviser. She also served as a spokeswoman during Trump’s first presidential campaign.At the White House, Sanders first worked as the top deputy to Sean Spicer, Trump’s first press secretary, until he resigned in July 2017, when she assumed his role. She left the administration in June 2019. At the time, Trump urged her to run for governor.“I am grateful for this opportunity to address the nation and contrast the GOP’s optimistic vision for the future against the failures of President Biden and the Democrats,” Sanders said in a statement. “We are ready to begin a new chapter in the story of America — to be written by a new generation of leaders ready to defend our freedom against the radical left and expand access to quality education, jobs, and opportunity for all.”On Tuesday night, Sanders will deliver her response moments after the 80-year-old Biden, who is weighing another run for president, speaks to the nation.

Trump-DeSantis rivalry approaches boiling point -The long-simmering tensions between former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are nearing a boiling point amid signs that DeSantis and his team are actively moving toward a 2024 presidential run. DeSantis’s national ambitions have long irked Trump, who sees himself as the Florida governor’s political benefactor and the GOP’s presumptive 2024 nominee. But Trump’s frustration became more apparent over the weekend, when he called out DeSantis during his first major campaign swing. “If he runs, that’s fine. I’m way up in the polls. He’s going to have to do what he wants to do, but he may run,” Trump told The Associated Press in an interview after a campaign appearance in South Carolina on Saturday. “I do think it would be a great act of disloyalty because, you know, I got him in. He had no chance. His political life was over.” Former President Donald Trump said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis running for President would be a “great act of disloyalty” because Trump believes he is the only reason DeSantis got elected. (AP) It wasn’t the first time that Trump took direct aim at DeSantis, but his latest comments come amid signs that the Florida governor’s presidential ambitions may be taking on a more tangible form. Advisers to DeSantis have begun reaching out to potential hires, including several veteran Republican staffers and operatives, according to a person familiar with the moves. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that two top DeSantis campaign veterans — Phil Cox and Generra Peck — were involved in discussions about a 2024 run. DeSantis, who has largely avoided talking about any potential 2024 plans, hasn’t yet made a final decision on a run, though Republicans almost unanimously believe that a presidential campaign is a near-certainty, with a potential announcement expected later this year after the Florida state legislative session wraps up.

Prestigious Liberal Watchdog Condemns New York Times' Russiagate Coverage - The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) has issued a scathing indictment of the New York Times for yellow journalism during the Trump-Russia saga. In short, the hyper-partisan 'paper of record' was operating in bad faith. It's wasn't just the Times either. CJR's findings accurately reflect what most objective thinkers have known this whole time - they were all operating in bad faith.That said, CJR aimed the majority of criticism towards the NYT."No narrative did more to shape Trump’s relations with the press than Russiagate. The story, which included the Steele dossier and the Mueller report among other totemic moments, resulted in Pulitzer Prizes as well as embarrassing retractions and damaged careers," wrote CJR executive editor Kype Pope in an editor's note.The findings were published in a lengthy, four-part series. The first section begins with a story about then-New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet’s reaction when he found out Special Counsel Robert Mueller didn’t plan to pursue Trump’s ousting, telling his staff "Holy s---, Bob Mueller is not going to do it." -Fox News "Baquet, speaking to his colleagues in a town hall meeting soon after the testimony concluded, acknowledged the Times had been caught ‘a little tiny bit flat-footed’ by the outcome of Mueller’s investigation," according to Jeff Gerth - the author of CJR's lengthy retrospective."That would prove to be more than an understatement," he continued. "But neither Baquet nor his successor, nor any of the paper’s reporters, would offer anything like a postmortem of the paper’s Trump-Russia saga, unlike the examination the Times did of its coverage before the Iraq War."According to Gerth, the Times destroyed its credibility outside of its "own bubble."

Secret hold restricts DOJ's bid to access phone of Trump ally Rep. Scott Perry - A federal appeals court panel has put a secret hold on the Justice Department’s effort to access the phone of Rep. Scott Perry as part of a broader probe of efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to subvert the 2020 election. In a sealed order issued earlier this month, the three-judge panel temporarily blocked a lower-court ruling that granted prosecutors access to Perry’s communications. The Dec. 28 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell was the product of a secret, monthslong legal battle by prosecutors who have been fighting the Pennsylvania Republican’s attorneys on the matter since August. The existence of the legal fight — a setback for DOJ reported here for the first time — is itself intended to be shielded from public scrutiny, part of the strict secrecy that governs ongoing grand jury matters. The long-running clash was described to POLITICO by two people familiar with the proceedings, who spoke candidly on the condition of anonymity. The fight has intensified in recent weeks and drawn the House, newly led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, into the fray. On Friday, the chamber moved to intervene in the back-and-forth over letting DOJ access the phone of Perry, the House Freedom Caucus chair, reflecting the case’s potential to result in precedent-setting rulings about the extent to which lawmakers can be shielded from scrutiny in criminal investigations. The House’s decision to intervene in legal cases is governed by the “Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group,” a five-member panel that includes McCarthy, his Democratic counterpart Hakeem Jeffries, and other members of House leadership. The panel voted unanimously to support the House’s intervention in the matter, seeking to protect the chamber’s prerogatives, according to one of the two people familiar with the proceedings. After this story was first published Monday, McCarthy spokesperson Mark Bednar acknowledged the House has stepped into the legal fight about Perry’s communications. “The Speaker has long said that the House should protect the prerogatives of Article I. This action indicates new leadership is making it a priority to protect House equities,” Bednar said. FBI agents seized Perry’s phone with a court-approved warrant in August but still lack a necessary second level of judicial permission to begin combing through the records. Perry has claimed his communications are barred from outside review because of constitutional protections afforded to members of Congress that were designed to let lawmakers better fulfill their official responsibilities.

Jan. 6 defendant who sprayed line of police sentenced after tearful apology - A Jan. 6 defendant who sprayed a chemical irritant at about 15 police officers — and later bragged about it in a video interview — was sentenced Wednesday to 68 months in prison. This is one of the stiffest Jan. 6 sentences handed down to date. Daniel Caldwell, a 51-year-old Marine Corps veteran, delivered a tearful apology in court to the officers he sprayed, expressing remorse for his actions that day and pleading with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for mercy. But Kollar-Kotelly repeatedly described Caldwell as an “insurrectionist” and noted that his deployment of chemical spray at officers created such an intense cloud that it nearly broke the depleted police line by itself. Though no officers directly attributed their injuries that day to Caldwell’s actions, Kollar-Kotelly said his actions undoubtedly contributed to their physical and psychological trauma. “You’re entitled to your political views but not to an insurrection,” the judge said. “You were an insurrectionist.” Caldwell has remained in pretrial custody since Feb. 10, 2021 — 721 days, he noted — and was one of the earliest charged with a direct assault on police that day. But Caldwell’s hearing was most notable for the extensive expression of remorse, delivered almost entirely through tears, to a nearly empty courtroom. “I must face my actions head on,” he said, before delivering a voluminous apology to the officers he attacked. “I hope that you and our country never have to face another day like January 6th.” Caldwell said he spent the days immediately after the attack rationalizing what he did and looking for validation from family, friends and his attorney. He said he now looks back at his actions and “it literally floors me.” He described himself as “ashamed” and “embarrassed” about his conduct and described efforts to better himself while in custody, reading self-help books and reflecting on how he became a catalyst of violence that day.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers, in new aggressive strategy, target his critics - Hunter Biden’s lawyers, in a newly aggressive strategy, sent a series of blistering letters Wednesday to state and federal prosecutors urging criminal investigations into those who accessed and disseminated his personal data — and sent a separate letter threatening Fox News host Tucker Carlson with a defamation lawsuit. The string of letters, which included criminal referrals and cease-and-desist missives aimed at critics and detractors, marked the start of a new and far more hard-hitting phase for the president’s son just as House Republicans prepare their own investigations into him. Abbe Lowell, a recently hired lawyer whom Biden enlisted about a month ago, sent lengthy letters to the Justice Department and Delaware’s attorney general requesting investigations into several key players who were involved in disseminating data from a laptop that Biden is said to have dropped off at a repair shop in Wilmington, Del. Bryan M. Sullivan, another lawyer now representing Biden, sent a separate communication to Carlson and Fox News demanding that they correct falsehoods from his recent show or risk a possible defamation lawsuit. And in another letter, Lowell wrote to the Internal Revenue Service challenging the nonprofit status of Marco Polo, a group that is run by conservative activist Garrett M. Ziegler. Lowell provided 36 pages as evidence that the group is engaging in political activity in violation of its nonprofit status. Taken together, the actions represent the boldest and most aggressive moves to date from Biden, who has often heeded the advice of those who urged him not to make public waves. Those close to President Biden and the White House have preferred a more conservative approach, but some individuals around Hunter Biden have wanted to be more assertive in telling his side of the story and going more directly after his opponents.

Body camera footage shows moment Paul Pelosi was attacked with hammer -— The police body-camera footage is brief, chaotic and dramatic: The door to former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home opens onto two men struggling for control of a hammer. The intruder wrests the weapon away from the Democratic lawmaker’s husband, Paul Pelosi, and attacks, striking him in the head before officers tackle him to the ground. The video clip, which runs just over 1 ½ minutes, was part of a batch of evidence released Friday in the case against the suspect, David DePape, giving an up-close view of what happened during the stunning attack at the house of one of the nation’s highest-ranking politicians. The tranche also includes audio from Paul Pelosi’s call to 911, part of a police interview with DePape and security camera video of the break-in. It was made public after The Washington Post and other news organizations pressed for copies and San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stephen M. Murphy ruled in favor of releasing them. The tapes from the Oct. 28 assault illuminate a harrowing sequence: Pelosi alerting a 911 dispatcher of an armed man who was feet away, listening to the call and interjecting comments; DePape beating Pelosi in plain view of the officers; and DePape, after his arrest, describing his plans to kidnap and snap the bones of the then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Clips of the predawn break-in and assault at the Pelosi home were shown in court last month but, until now, had been otherwise shielded from view. Wild rumors, amplified by conservative activists and bloggers, had surged after the 2 a.m. attack 11 days before the 2022 midterm elections, and the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office argued that unsealing video and audio could fuel more misinformation while risking DePape’s right to a fair trial. Someone, for instance, could edit the clips to manipulate audiences on social media. But Murphy ruled that footage playing in a public courtroom should be handed to the media. “These are open facts. They are known facts,” said Thomas Burke, a lawyer representing the coalition of news organizations that pushed for access to the evidence, including The Post. “The public’s right of access should not be dependent on conspiracy theories.”

New York attorney general will seek sanctions against Trump in civil fraud lawsuit -- New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) plans to seek court sanctions against former President Trump in her civil fraud lawsuit, her office told a state judge on Tuesday. James’s office said formal answers to her $250 million lawsuit filed by Trump, his three oldest children and the family’s businesses last week were “deficient in a host of ways” and merit sanctions for them and their attorneys. “Defendants falsely deny facts they have admitted in other proceedings, they deny knowledge sufficient to respond to factual allegations that are plainly within their knowledge, and they propound affirmative defenses that have been repeatedly rejected by this Court as frivolous and without merit,” Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel in James’s office, wrote. Wallace asked New York Judge Arthur Engoron for a meeting as soon as possible to set a briefing schedule for the sanctions motion. James filed the lawsuit in September alleging the former president and his businesses for years manipulated property values for investment and loan benefits, the culmination of her multiyear investigation. She named the former president, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and a number of the family’s business entities as defendants and asked for $250 million in financial penalties. Engoron earlier this month denied the Trumps’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit, requiring them to formally answer the complaint so the proceedings can move forward. The Trumps filed their answers on Thursday, largely rejecting James’s allegations.

N.Y. AG's office: Trump and kids 'falsely deny facts they have admitted' - The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James says former President Donald Trump and three of his adult children lied in the answers they submitted to the court in response to James’ $250 million lawsuit accusing them and the Trump Organization of large-scale financial fraud.Both the former president his children “falsely deny facts they have admitted in other proceedings,” deny knowing things “ that are plainly within their knowledge,” and use defenses “repeatedly rejected by this Court as frivolous and without merit,” Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel in the Attorney General’s office, said in a letter to New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.James’ office is seeking a pre-trial conference to work out fact from fiction and to “sanction Defendants and their counsel,” for the false claims, according to the letter.Some of those claims include Trump’s denial that he served as the inactive president of the Trump Organization while in the White House, despite Trump’s own sworn testimony that he did so; an argument from from Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump that “they are being improperly targeted for investigation,” despite the court previously rejecting the “witch-hunt” argument; and Ivanka Trump’s inability to confirm the contents of her own emails, according the letter from James’ office.The new accusations against Trump and his children are the latest in what has been a series of legal tiffs between the prominent New York attorney and the former president. Earlier this month, Trump’s attorneys withdrew a lawsuit filed against James in Florida that sought to block her access to a trust that holds a number of his business assets.

Trump Offers $1 Million Bond to Appeal Clinton Suit Sanctions -Former President Donald Trump is getting ready to write a check to a Florida court for more than $1 million — but he’s hoping to get the money back. Trump and one of his lawyers, Alina Habba, offered to post a $1.03 million bond to appeal a judge’s order sanctioning them $937,989 for filing a “frivolous” conspiracy suit against Hillary Clinton and others.

Texas AG Paxton Is in Settlement Talks With Aides Who Reported Him to FBI - -- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has entered into settlement discussions with three former aides who claim he fired them for reporting bribery and other misconduct to the FBI. In a joint filing, three of the four former aides who sued Paxton under the state’s whistleblower law asked the Texas Supreme Court to pause consideration of the case while they negotiate a possible settlement, with a mediation tentatively scheduled for Feb. 1. The court has yet to respond to their request. James “Blake” Brickman — the state’s former deputy attorney general and the fourth whistleblower — opposed the request, writing in a separate motion to the court that he is not participating in settlement talks and does not support any delays in the case. The four alleged in their suit that Paxton retaliated against them after they accused him of corruptly aiding a prominent real estate investor and campaign donor. The issue before the state’s high court is whether Paxton has immunity under the state’s whistleblower law as an elected official. In October, a state appeals court sided with the whistleblowers. The allegations have added to the controversy surrounding Paxton, a Republican who has cultivate a reputation as a conservative firebrand. A close ally of former President Donald Trump, Paxton brought an unsuccessful US Supreme Court case seeking to overturn the 2020 election. He has since filed several lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden’s policies. In their suit, the whistleblowers claim they were fired after alerting the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Texas Rangers and other law enforcement agencies to bribery and abuse of office committed by Paxton on behalf of Nate Paul, an embattled Austin real estate developer who contributed money to Paxton’s political campaign. Among other allegations, they say that Paxton tried to use the powers of his office during the pandemic to help Paul by preventing real estate foreclosure sales and retained a lawyer to investigate the developer’s adversaries.

Deutsche Bank settlement on Epstein oversight to be approved A judge said he would approve Deutsche Bank's $26.3 million settlement of a lawsuit that accused the bank of misleading investors about how thoroughly it vetted clients, including Jeffrey Epstein and Russian tycoons. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff on Tuesday said he would allow the settlement to go forward, finding it "fair, adequate and reasonable." The judge said he would issue an order finalizing his approval in the next day or two as he considers whether to grant a fee request of one-third of the settlement to lawyers for the shareholders. Rakoff's approval resolves a class action filed in 2020 over the bank's anti-money-laundering and "know your customer" systems. In the suit, the plaintiffs cited Deutsche Bank's business relationship with Epstein, Russians including the billionaire Roman Abramovich and what they called "other unsavory high-net-worth individuals and their affiliated companies." They used Epstein's name more than 100 times and called him "a particularly egregious example." In the settlement, the bank denied wrongdoing. Epstein was charged by U.S. prosecutors in July 2019 with sex trafficking and was found dead in his jail cell a month later while awaiting trial, in what authorities ruled a suicide. The shareholders claimed the bank's executives and management board "routinely overruled compliance staff so that the bank's wealth management business could commence or continue relationships with high-risk, ultra-rich clients" such as Epstein, "founders of terrorist organizations, people associated with Mexican drug cartels, and people suspected of financing terrorist organizations," Rakoff wrote in June, in rejecting the bank's request to dismiss the suit. Investors who acquired Deutsche Bank shares between March 14, 2017, and Sept. 18, 2020, alleged they lost money after the bank's false statements about its vetting processes artificially inflated its stock price. The shares then plunged when information about the bank's client list went public. In 2020, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay New York's banking regulator $150 million for a string of compliance lapses including a half-decade of lax oversight of Epstein's financial dealings.

White House Targets Cryptocurrencies, Calls For Stronger Enforcement By Regulators -- North Korea, fraud, and financial losses are some of the dangers emanating from the cryptocurrency industry, according to a White House blog published on Jan. 27. It argued for enhanced oversight of cryptocurrencies more broadly, requesting help from financial regulatory bodies and Congressional lawmakers. The blog—co-written by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar, and Council of Economic Advisors Chair Cecilia Rouse—outlined the administration’s strategy for mitigating the risks associated with cryptocurrencies. The White House officials described digital assets as a nascent industry with promise but one that must be reined in for the sake of consumers. Sullivan has long been sounding the alarm with respect to cryptocurrencies, which he placed on the administration’s radar back in June of 2021, following the highly publicized ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline. The White House pointed to North Korea to justify the need for further legislation, highlighting that a lack of security protocols allowed North Korea to “steal over a billion dollars to fund its aggressive missile program.” This refers to allegations by South Korea’s main spy agency that their northern neighbor employed state-sponsored hackers to extract $1.2 billion from various digital asset projects.

Sullivan & Cromwell’s Crypto Clients Are in Growing Distress By Pam and Russ Martens: January 31, 2023 ~ The 144-year old law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, which previously prided itself on being the go-to law firm for Wall Street, decided a few years back to get deep in the swamp with all things crypto. That dicey decision is now playing out in negative headlines that are dragging down the reputation of the 900-attorney law firm.Adding to questions swirling around its past legal representation of now indicted crypto kingpin, Sam Bankman-Fried, as well as his bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX, and his hedge fund, Alameda Research, is the fact that a growing number of Sullivan & Cromwell’s other crypto clients are also in various stages of distress. Notwithstanding that reality, the presiding judge in the FTX bankruptcy proceedings, John Dorsey, signed an order on January 20 naming Sullivan & Cromwell the lead counsel in the FTX bankruptcy case.But long before Judge Dorsey’s order was signed, Sullivan & Cromwell was billing large bucks to FTX, acknowledging in a bankruptcy court filing that over the prior 16 months it had collected legal fees and expenses of $8,564,487.50 from FTX and its affiliates, plus a $12 million retainer for FTX bankruptcy work.According to Bloomberg Law, Sullivan & Cromwell “has more than 150 people working on the FTX case, including 30 partners…” A court filing from Sullivan & Cromwell shows that its partners can charge as much as $2,165 per hour. The final tab in the bankruptcy case is expected to land in the “hundreds of millions of dollars” according to the Bloomberg Law article.Sullivan & Cromwell snagged this very lucrative bankruptcy work, according to a screen shot (see above) shared by Sam Bankman-Fried in the testimony he was prepared to present to the House Financial Services Committee on December 13, because it had a friendly former partner at FTX. (Bankman-Fried was arrested by federal prosecutors from the Justice Department and thus prevented from delivering his testimony in person, but Forbes obtained a copy of the document.)The inside man was Ryne Miller, who left Sullivan & Cromwell and went directly to FTX.US as General Counsel in August of 2021. Despite Miller’s eight years at Sullivan & Cromwell and more than three years working as legal counsel at a federal regulator, Miller somehow managed not to notice the following at FTX: there was no functioning Board of Directors; there was no accounting department; there was no functioning compliance department making sure that customer funds were not co-mingled with Sam Bankman-Fried’s personal piggy bank, his hedge fund, Alameda Research. This lack of corporate controls was described by the new FTX CEO, John Ray, at the December 13 hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.Despite these failures by Ryne Miller, John Ray reported in a declaration filed on January 17 with the FTX bankruptcy court that Miller is “still employed” by FTX.US, which is also part of the bankruptcy proceedings.As a direct result of this lack of corporate controls, Ray told the House panel that over $8 billion of customers funds are missing at FTX.At a bankruptcy court hearing on January 20, a former FTX in-house attorney, Daniel Friedberg, was prepared to testify as follows to the court, according to a sworn declaration he filed:“Mr. Miller informed me that it was very important for him personally to channel a lot of business to S&C as he wanted to return there as a partner after his stint at the Debtors. This bothered me very much and I told him that his job was to only hire the best outside counsel for the job, and that his allegiance was now to the Debtors and not S&C…”And this:“I told Mr. Miller that S&C was not the proper law firm to select [for the bankruptcy proceedings] because of the claims and conflicts, as well as the exorbitant costs of the firm. Mr. Miller told me that there was over $200 million cash in LedgerX and that he was going to send these funds to S&C, and that bankruptcy legal costs were therefore not a problem…”

Silvergate faces U.S. fraud probe over FTX and Alameda dealings U.S. prosecutors in the Justice Department's fraud unit are looking into Silvergate Capital Corp.'s dealings with the fallen crypto giants FTX and Alameda Research, according to people familiar with the matter. The criminal investigation is examining Silvergate's hosting of accounts tied to Sam Bankman-Fried's businesses, said the people who asked not to be identified to discuss the confidential probe. The review adds to mounting scrutiny of the La Jolla, California-based bank, which has also drawn the attention of lawmakers. The crypto-friendly bank hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing and the inquiry, which is in its early phases, could end without charges being brought. Representatives for Silvergate and the Justice Department in Washington, where the investigation is being conducted, declined to comment. Silvergate shares tumbled more than 20% in extended trading on Thursday, erasing a 29% advance during regular market hours in New York. Silvergate was among the lenders hit hardest by FTX's sudden implosion last November. The bank reported a $1 billion loss last quarter and fired 40% of its staff. It also disclosed taking out billions of dollars in loans to stave off a run on deposits after Bankman-Fried's exchange collapsed. The probe, which started in the past several weeks, touches one of the biggest outstanding questions surrounding the FTX debacle: What did banks and intermediaries working with Bankman-Fried's firms know about what U.S. officials have called a years-long scheme to defraud investors and customers? The former FTX CEO and co-founder and key members of what was his inner circle have been accused of improperly diverting billions of dollars of assets belonging to the exchange's customers to Alameda, which Bankman-Fried also started. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to a range of charges by U.S. prosecutors and is living with his parents in California ahead of a trial scheduled for later this year. Alameda opened an account with the bank in 2018 prior to the founding of FTX, according to Silvergate. The bank has said it is reviewing transactions involving accounts associated with FTX and Alameda and that it conducted due diligence on the firms during the onboarding process and through ongoing monitoring. The firm is subject to annual exams by its banking regulator — the Federal Reserve — as well as independent audits.

Silvergate Pressed by US Senators After ‘Evasive’ Responses on FTX - -- A bipartisan group of US senators is pressing Silvergate Capital Corp. over whether it knew about FTX’s alleged misuse of customer funds after the lawmakers found responses to an earlier inquiry to be “evasive and incomplete.” The senators, including Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Republicans Roger Marshall and John Kennedy, sent a letter to Silvergate on Monday asking a series of questions about its ties to collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In a copy of the letter obtained by Bloomberg News, they said the firm in December had declined to fully answer related questions, citing restrictions on disclosing “confidential supervisory information.” “This is simply not an acceptable rationale,” the senators wrote in their latest letter to Silvergate Chief Executive Officer Alan Lane. “Both Congress and the public need and deserve the information necessary to understand Silvergate’s role in FTX’s fraudulent collapse, particularly given the fact that Silvergate turned to the Federal Home Loan Bank as its lender of last resort in 2022.” A representative for Silvergate said Tuesday that the firm has a comprehensive compliance and risk management program and did significant due diligence on FTX and Alameda Research. Banks generally can’t disclose confidential supervisory information and in some cases could be held criminally liable if they do — even to Congress, according to Sultan Meghji, former chief innovation officer for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. “It is not surprising that Silvergate (or any other bank) would use those rules to avoid responding to a questionnaire from Congress,” he said. “Congress should work with the banking regulators to get that information.” Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and other high-level executives from his inner circle have been accused of carrying out a fraudulent scheme that involved diverting billions of dollars of FTX’s customer assets to sister trading arm Alameda Research. Some of those funds were reportedly routed through accounts Alameda had at Silvergate. Silvergate disclosed in early January that it held $4.3 billion in short-term Federal Home Loan Bank advances and had about $4.6 billion cash and cash equivalents at the end of 2022. That funding helped the company stave off a run on deposits after FTX’s collapse. It was one of several crypto-friendly banks that relied on the program originally set up under President Herbert Hoover to bolster mortgage lending. In responses to the senators’ original letter in December, Silvergate said Alameda opened an account with the bank in 2018 prior to the founding of FTX. It also said it’s reviewing transactions involving accounts associated with FTX and Alameda.

Silvergate at center of DOJ fraud investigation for hosting FTX and Alameda accounts -The criminal investigation that has enveloped the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX continues to spread its scope. Prosecutors in the Justice Department are reportedly investigating Silvergate, a crypto-focused bank, for hosting accounts connected to FTX’s disgraced founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, according to Bloomberg.The probe is in its initial stages and hasn’t led to any criminal accusations, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. The prosecutor’s inquiry also encompasses other businesses linked to Bankman-Fried beyond FTX, including Alameda Research.Representatives for Silvergate and the Justice Department declined to comment when reached byFortune. After reports of the Justice Department’s investigation were published Thursday afternoon,Silvergate’s stock price crashed 28% in after-hours trading.The investigation, which started weeks ago, broaches the culpability of the banks that helped sustain Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, which the federal government alleges was built via a yearslong effort to cheat customers and investors.It also furthers the sudden decline of Silvergate, which tied its fortunes to the meteoric rise of the cryptocurrency industry. Now, during the prolonged Crypto Winter, the bank is flailing. It reported a net loss of $1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 and recently laid off 40% of its staff. And the Wall Street Journal reported that both it and Signature, another crypto-focused bank, have borrowed billions of dollars from home-loan banks to cover shortfalls as crypto giants like FTX were felled. Founded in 1988 in California, Silvergate positioned itself as a key player in crypto. As of mid-January, it said it served over 1,300 digital currency and fintech companies, per an archived version of its investors page. Coinbase, Binance, and other exchanges used the bank, for example, to exchange U.S. dollars between each other in what’s called theSilvergate Exchange Network. And at the end of September, over 90% of the bank’s deposit base was from digital asset customers, amounting to almost $12 billion, according to the Washington Post.

Silvergate under criminal investigation for FTX and Alameda money laundering - The United States Justice Department (DoJ) is investigating Silvergate Capital’s relationship with bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and sister hedge fund Alameda Research, according to a Bloomberg report published late Thursday. Silvergate, the California-based bank which specializes in serving cryptocurrency companies, is being probed by the DoJ’s fraud unit, which is looking into their “hosting of accounts tied to Sam Bankman-Fried’s businesses,” according to the report. Alameda first opened an account with Silvergate in 2018, years before Sam Bankman-Fried founded FTX. The bank said it is “reviewing transactions involving accounts associated with FTX and Alameda” and claimed that it conducted “due diligence” on both companies when they were onboarded and ongoing monitoring while the accounts were maintained. The Justice investigation has been ongoing for several weeks now, and is focused on possible money laundering activities, but remains in its early phases, and the bank has yet to be charged with any wrongdoing. Silvergate was recently forced to liquidate debt that it was holding on its balance sheet to keep up with $8.1 billion in customer withdrawals during Q4 2022 and lost $718 million in the process – a sum that surpassed all of the firm's profits since 2013. They saw their crypto-related deposits drop by 68% in the fourth quarter of last year. The company also dismissed around 200 employees – roughly 40% of its total personnel – and had to scrap the launch of its own digital currency project, resulting in a write-off of approximately $196 million. Following the bank’s struggles, rating firm Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Silvergate's rating from Baa2, which was “lower-medium grade,” to Ba1, which is considered “junk,” and noted that the outlook moving forward for both Silvergate Capital and its bank is negative. And a class-action lawsuit was filed on Jan. 10 claiming that Silvergate’s platform failed to detect instances of money laundering “in amounts exceeding $425 million,” for which the company was likely to face regulatory repercussions. The FTX bankruptcy is one of the main sources of Silvergate’s woes as FTX, Alameda and other companies controlled by Bankman-Fried accounted for about $1 billion of the bank’s deposits.

Policy advocates question brokered deposit role in Silvergate run -As lawmakers probe one bank's crypto dealings and use of housing-focused funding amid a deposit run last year, others in Washington are putting the spotlight on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.Policy advocates say a 2020 change to the FDIC's rules around brokered deposits opened the door for San Diego-based Silvergate and others to load up on deposits from crypto firms without taking precautions to protect themselves against volatility.Silvergate, a leading financial service provider for the crypto industry, saw $8.1 billion of deposit drawdowns during the fourth quarter of last year as the crypto exchange FTX collapsed and triggered widespread volatility in the digital currency market. To stave off a liquidity crisis, the bank tapped the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco for a $4.3 billion advance, a move that has drawn questionsfrom both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee.The bank also doubled its holdings of brokered deposits from $1.2 billion in the third quarter of last year to $2.4 billion in the fourth quarter, according to quarterly earnings reports. Former acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks pointed to this as evidence that brokered deposits were not the root of the bank's issues. The withdrawal of billions in deposits from Silvergate Bank late last year has sparked concerns among regulatory experts about whether the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s 2020 rule on brokered deposits created the conditions that made the bank run possible."I have no special knowledge of Silvergate's capital structure, but it is clear that Silvergate's deposit outflows were the result of core customer withdrawals, not brokered deposits — Silvergate's brokered deposit balances increased in Q4 even as its overall deposits fell by 70 percent," Brooks wrote in an email this week. "Any suggestion that brokered deposits caused the Silvergate liquidity situation thus appears to have things backward."Yet, skeptics say the question is not about which of the $6.9 billion of lost deposits are considered brokered, but rather those which would have been under the FDIC's prior regime. "What seems to have happened with Silvergate is that a very large portion of its deposits were these formerly brokered, now not brokered, deposits from crypto," Todd Phillips, an independent consultant and former FDIC lawyer, said. "If those crypto firms' deposits were still considered brokered, Silvergate couldn't have as much as it did."

Bankman-Fried Entity That Owns Robinhood Stake Goes Bankrupt — Sam Bankman-Fried’s Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd., an offshore entity that owns 55 million shares of Robinhood Markets Inc., filed for bankruptcy Friday amid a fight over who should get the stock following the collapse of FTX Group. The Robinhood stake, worth more than $590 million at current market prices, has been seized by the US government, but its ultimate fate is unclear. A hodgepodge of parties including the Justice Department, bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi Inc., and Bankman-Fried himself, are trying to take the shares for good. The Chapter 11 filing gives Emergent Fidelity and its liquidators — appointed by a court in Antigua — some breathing room. The liquidators’ “duties are to the debtor’s creditors, whoever those creditors may be,” Angela Barkhouse, one of the liquidators, said in a sworn court statement. “Given the many parties claiming to be creditors or outright owners of the debtor’s assets in proceedings in the US, the JPLs believe that Chapter 11 protection is the only practical way to empower the debtor to defend itself, the assets, and its creditors’ interests in the US.” Emergent Fidelity also holds $20.7 million of cash, but has no other assets, according to court papers. Bankman-Fried owns 90% of the entity but no longer controls it, according to court papers. FTX co-founder Gary Wang owns 10% of the unit. The case is Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd., 23-10149, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

FTX Inquiry Expands as Prosecutors Reach Out to Former Executives - The New York Times Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are speaking with lawyers for former officials at the collapsed crypto exchange FTX and scrutinizing the immediate family of its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. Federal prosecutors are scrutinizing a growing array of people tied to Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed cryptocurrency empire, including his father, his brother and former colleagues, as part of a rapidly expanding investigation into one of the biggest American financial crime cases in more than a decade, according to 13 people with knowledge of the inquiry. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan has created a special task force to pursue its investigation into the collapse of FTX, the crypto exchange founded by Mr. Bankman-Fried. More than half a dozen prosecutors, led by Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, are building the criminal case and tracking down the billions of dollars in customer money that Mr. Bankman-Fried has been charged with misappropriating. In recent weeks, prosecutors have had talks with lawyers representing a dozen former executives and employees at FTX and Alameda Research, the hedge fund Mr. Bankman-Fried also founded, 11 people with knowledge of the inquiry said. Prosecutors have also examined the role of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s family members in his business empire, six people with knowledge of the matter said. The collapse of FTX has forced virtually everyone in Mr. Bankman-Fried’s immediate orbit to seek legal counsel as the investigation intensifies and prosecutors weigh bringing more charges. Defense lawyers at the law firms Mayer Brown, Steptoe & Johnson, and Covington & Burling each represent multiple former FTX executives who may have information to contribute. “As people begin flipping or cooperating with the government, it can lead to new lines of inquiry and new people of interest,” said Daniel Hawke, a lawyer for the firm Arnold & Porter who was a former director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s market abuse unit. The FTX investigation could also ensnare companies that either received money from the exchange or lent it funds. The collapse of FTX last year set off a crisis at the crypto lending firm Genesis, which was recently charged with securities law violations by the S.E.C. And in late January, a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to Silvergate, a bank that did business with FTX, asking company officials whether they were aware of the exchange’s misuse of customer money. In addition to tracking down customer funds, prosecutors are trying to recover hundreds of millions of dollars that were stolen from the exchange by a hacker around the time FTX filed for bankruptcy in November. And they are scrutinizing the more than $90 million in campaign contributions that FTX employees and others close to the company gave to congressional candidates and political action committees. Much of the criminal case against Mr. Bankman-Fried could hinge on testimony from his former colleagues. Two of his closest advisers, Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, pleaded guilty to fraud in December and have been cooperating with prosecutors for months. Now, the investigators are focusing their attention on other former FTX executives.

Sam Bankman Fried’s co-founder gave GOP govs group $500,000 right before bankruptcy - POLITICO The donation was part of a $28.6 million haul for the group. It was still outpaced by its Democratic equivalent. Just days before the cryptocurrency exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy, the company’s co-CEO Ryan Salame wrote a $500,000 check to the Republican Governors Association, the main campaign arm tasked with electing GOP executives across the country. The donation was not a radical move on Salame’s part. He was, at the time, an emerging prolific GOP donor who gave more than $23 million to federal candidates and PACs in 2021 and 2022, according to FEC records. But with the fall of FTX and the arrest of Salame’s co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, a new layer of scrutiny has been placed upon the campaign contributions that emanated from the leaders of the failed crypto empire. A number of Democratic candidates have announced their intentions to return donations from Bankman-Fried. The RGA, however, appears to have kept Salame’s funds. A spokesperson for the group declined to comment on that specific donation. Unlike Bankman-Fried, Salame was not indicted. The $500,000 donation from Salame was part of a $28.6 million haul that the association brought in over the last three months of 2022, according to filings with the IRS. That money — coupled with seven-figure donations from GOP mega-donors — fueled its aggressive push to claim the executive branch in a number of states on Nov. 8. Ultimately, however, Democrats flipped three governorships in their favor. And they did so with an atypical cash advantage. “Democrats were on total defense in 2022 and their incumbents were mired in tough races due to their out-of-touch records,” an RGA spokesperson said, pointing to the defeat of the incumbent Democratic governor in Nevada. During the fourth quarter of 2022, the Democratic Governors Association raised about $40.2 million, according to filings with the IRS. Veterans of gubernatorial campaigns said it was the rare instance of the party’s donors shifting their focus to the DGA. “Major donors are very often focused on national issues and presidential politics rather than state issues,” former DGA executive director Colm O’Comartun said of the party’s donor class, adding that gubernatorial races in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania created a persuasive argument for the Democrats’ major donors. “Starry eyed donors have been used to being with Nancy [Pelosi] on Nantucket but are now warming to Democratic governors.”

Cathie Wood sees bitcoin rising above $500,000 and lauds its resiliency after FTX collapse - CNBC video

Warren Buffett’s right-hand man Charlie Munger, who once called crypto ‘rat poison,’ says we should follow China’s lead and ban cryptocurrencies altogether - Charlie Munger is no fan of crypto. As vice chairman of the nearly $700 billion megaconglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, Munger has helped Warren Buffett make billions for investors since 1978 using a strict fundamentals-based approach to acquiring “high-quality businesses.”And he believes cryptocurrencies represent the opposite strategy, arguing that the entire industry is “partly fraud and partly delusion.” In 2021, Munger famously called the world’s leading digital asset, Bitcoin, “rat poison,” and likened other cryptocurrencies to a type of “venereal disease.” Now he says the federal government should step in and ban the entire industry.“A cryptocurrency is not a currency, not a commodity, and not a security,” Munger argued in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Instead, it’s a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house… Obviously the U.S. should now enact a new federal law that prevents this from happening.” Munger said that cryptocurrency investors are being taken advantage of by promoters and founders, noting that the creators of new cryptocurrencies often receive coins for “almost nothing.”“After which the public buys in at much higher prices without fully understanding the pre-dilution in favor of the promoter,” he claimed, calling it an example of “wild and woolly capitalism.”Munger said the U.S. should follow the example of China—which famously banned cryptocurrencies in 2021—and pass laws that prevent both crypto trading and the formation of new cryptocurrencies.“What should the U.S. do after a ban of cryptocurrencies is in place?” Munger went on to say. “Well, one more action might make sense: Thank the Chinese communist leader for his splendid example of uncommon sense.” Munger said that China’s action—which he argues was undertaken because Chinese authorities concluded that cryptocurrencies “provide more harm than benefit”—is one of two key precedents that provide evidence of the potential benefits of banning crypto. But the second precedent Munger offered was an odd one for a man who has amassed a net worth of $2.3 billion largely through Berkshire Hathaway, which invests in public markets.

Crypto investors lost nearly $4 billion to hackers in 2022 - Last year marked the worst year on record for cryptocurrency hacks, according to Chainalysis' latest analysis.Cryptocurrency hackers stole $3.8 billion in 2022, according to the blockchain analytics firm's report — up from $3.3 billion in 2021. October had the most crypto hacks in a single month with $775.7 million stolen in 32 separate attacks, according to the study. Decentralized finance protocols, known as DeFi protocols, accounted for about 82%, or $3.1 billion, of all crypto stolen by hackers in 2022, according to the reportDeFi protocols contain a series of codes that determine how virtual currency can be used on a blockchain network. Take smart contracts, for example. These digital contracts are the key underlying technologies that allow crypto transactions to be made. Smart contracts operate according to "if/then" commands; if X, then execute Y. Within DeFi, smart contracts are publicly viewable sets of instructions that allow users to borrow, lend or make transactions without an intermediary. Once a user meets the smart contract's terms and conditions, the transaction happens automatically,similar to a vending machine.The majority of the digital funds were stolen from cross-chain bridge applications, according to the report. This software allows users to transfer their cryptocurrency between different blockchains.Cross-chain bridges can be an attractive target for hackers because as users deposit their digital coins into smart contracts to be transferred to another blockchain, the smart contracts become somewhat of a centralized storehouse. "A more desirable honeypot could scarcely be imagined," Chainalysis said in its report. "If a bridge gets big enough, any error in its underlying smart contract code or other potential weak spot is almost sure to eventually be found and exploited by bad actors."When it comes to mitigating crypto hacking, many issues are due to a lack of security, David Schwed, chief operating officer of blockchain cybersecurity firm Halborn, says in the report."The DeFi community generally isn't demanding better security — they want to go to protocols with high yields," he says. "But those incentives lead to trouble down the road."Instead, DeFi developers would be smart to borrow security strategies used by traditional financial institutions to better protect their platforms. These include testing protocols with simulated attacks, closely monitoring the blockchain for suspicious activity and building processes that will halt transactions if suspicious activity is detected, Schwed says."DeFi protocols will greatly benefit from adopting better security in order for the ecosystem to grow, thrive, and eventually penetrate the mainstream," Chainalysis' report says.

U.S. CFTC traders report delayed by ransomware attack on data firm ION (Reuters) - The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Thursday that as a result of the ransomware attack on ION Trading UK the CFTC's weekly Commitments of Traders report will be delayed until all trades can be reported. ION Group, the financial data firm's parent company, said in a statement on its website the attack began on Tuesday. Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the disruption could take days to fix, leaving scores of brokers unable to process derivatives trades. "The ongoing issue is impacting some clearing members’ ability to provide the CFTC with timely and accurate data," the CFTC said in a statement. It said the Commitments of Traders report that is produced by CFTC staff will be delayed until all trades can be reported. "A report will be published upon receipt and validation of data from those firms," the CFTC said. CFTC reports provide a snapshot of investor positioning on various assets. The commission also said certain reporting firms affected by the ION attack do not have enough information at this time to fully prepare the daily large trader reports. "Each affected reporting firm should use best estimates in preparing those reports, working with Commission staff, to ensure timely compliance," the CFTC said, adding firms should file revised reports once systems are operational.

CFTC chief plots new cyber rules in wake of ION trading hack - The top U.S. derivatives watchdog wants new cybersecurity rules as a recent attack on the software company ION Trading U.K. continues to roil the industry.Rostin Behnam, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that recent events have underscored the need for increased regulation. He added that the threats related to information security were "an important and increasingly urgent problem."Over the past week some in the derivatives industry have had to manually clear trades and calculate margin requirements following the attack, which has been attributed to the Russian ransomware gang Lockbit.The CFTC has said it's in close contact with impacted companies and announced is delaying a closely watched weekly staff report on aggregate holdings in different futures markets."As recent events have brought home, the industry's necessary and increasing reliance on third-party service providers creates a major source of risk for participants in our markets, a risk that is only promised to rise with growth of virtual access and cloud-computing," Behnam said in remarks prepared for a conference on Friday. He added that the CFTC will begin work on regulations that could require futures and swaps dealers to exercise more due diligence and oversight of the third-party service providers they work with. The rule would be designed "to preserve the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of critical systems and information," Behnam said. ION's system is used for clearing derivative trades around the world, particularly in the U.S., U.K. and Europe. The technology allows banks and broker-dealer clients to trade in a semiautomated manner. Like ION, Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, also provides financial institutions with execution management solutions, connectivity to electronic markets and trading tools.The Financial Conduct Authority, the chief markets regulator in the U.K., has indicated it wants more direct reach into the cybersecurity of some third-party software and service providers.Legislation introduced last year in parliament would give the FCA new powers to oversee third-party service providers relied on by financial firms and financial market infrastructure providers.Currently, the regulator can't directly oversee service providers like ION, but does regulate many of its customers, who have to submit detailed contingency plans to ensure resilience in the case of cyberattacks.

Credit Suisse's $100 billion data leak faces investigation in setback for whistleblowers -Swiss prosecutors are investigating a data leak involving thousands of former Credit Suisse Group clients who'd reportedly held $100 billion with the bank, in a case set to further discourage whistleblowing in the secretive country.The Attorney General's Office confirmed it's investigating suspected acts of corporate espionage, breach of trade secrets and violations of banking secrecy laws after the information on 18,000 accounts was leaked to an international consortium of media, the OCCRP. The journalists went on to publish a series of exposes last February under the tagline "Suisse Secrets" which reported that the client roster included drug barons and kleptocrats.The probe needed sign off from the federal government because the espionage allegations are considered a "political infraction," the AG's office said. The bank declined to comment.Bern's blessing for the investigation highlights the lengths Switzerland goes to in order to protect banking secrecy, a principle enshrined in Swiss criminal law. The probe is also likely to intensify international criticism of Switzerland's tendency to prosecute the whistleblower rather than the criminal activity exposed in the leak."This decision is disappointing but not surprising," said Drew Sullivan, the OCCRP publisher. "Switzerland has aggressively defended its bank secrecy to the benefit of organized crime and corruption. Clearly whistleblowers have benefited the public more."An anonymous whistleblower gave the information to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which shared the data with a nonprofit journalism group and dozens of other news organizations worldwide. But Tamedia, publisher of the respected Swiss-German daily Tages-Anzeiger which has worked on such collaborative projects in the past, said it couldn't work on Suisse Secrets because of a risk of falling afoul of the bank secrecy law.Oliver Zihlmann, the head of Tamedia's Research Desk and a member of the International Committe of Investigative Journalists, says this risks being a PR disaster for Switzerland especially if media figures themselves are singled out for prosecution."Imagine journalists from international media get summonses in the course of the proceedings because they dared to report that CS catered to oligarchs," Zihlmann wrote in the paper on Friday. "That would be a disaster for Switzerland's image."Corporate espionage and banking secrecy are frequently invoked in white-collar prosecutions in the Alpine nation, where whistleblowers have few protections and are typically obliged to first go to their employees with their complain tor risk legal problems.Swiss prosecutors have repeatedly gone after local bank employees such as informants Herve Falciani and Rudolf Elmer for breaking secrecy laws despite their revelations leading to major tax investigations in France and Germany.

Add 4,281 Hedge Fund Clients to What Makes JPMorgan Chase the Riskiest Mega Bank in the U.S.- By Pam and Russ Martens: According to a Yale School of Management study, in 2013 JPMorgan Chase had 1,339 hedge fund clients. As of July of last year, that number had soared to 4,281 according to the annual Convergence Inc. study.While Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley topped the total number of hedge fund clients (with 5,150 and 4,964, respectively) JPMorgan Chase ranked number one in terms of hedge fund Assets Under Advisement (AUA). (See Convergence Inc. study linked above.)There’s a big problem here that federal bank regulators are choosing to ignore at the peril of the U.S. financial system.JPMorgan Chase, unlike Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, is the largest federally insured, taxpayer backstopped, depository bank in the United States with more than $2.47 trillion in deposits as of June 30, 2022. Unfortunately, as a result of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, this mom and pop depository bank with more than 5,000 Chase bank branches spread across the United States, is also allowed to make wild trading gambles. Those trading gambles have resulted in felony charges by the U.S. Department of Justice for rigging the foreign exchange markets, the U.S. Treasury market and the precious metals markets.Even without the dramatic growth of its risky hedge fund business, JPMorgan Chase already ranked as the riskiest bank in the U.S. The data comes from the National Information Center, a repository of bank data collected by the Federal Reserve. The National Information Center is part of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), which was created under federal legislation and imposes uniformity in how U.S. financial institutions are examined by federal banking regulators.The National Information Center creates an annual profile of banks, measured by 12 systemic risk indicators. The data used to create these graphics come from the “Systemic Risk Report” or form FR Y-15 that banks are required to file with the Federal Reserve. To measure the systemic risk that a particular bank poses to the stability of the U.S. financial system, the data is broken down into five categories of system risk: size, interconnectedness, substitutability, complexity, and cross-jurisdictional activity. Those measurements consist of 12 pieces of financial information that banks are required to provide on their Y-15 forms. The data for the period ending December 31, 2020 showed that in 8 out of 12 measurements – or two-thirds of all systemic risk measurements – JPMorgan Chase ranked at the top for having the riskiest footprint among its peer banks.JPMorgan Chase’s footprint for Intra-Financial System Liabilities is very large. The 2020 data show that JPMorgan Chase has $577 billion exposure in that category. That’s an increase of $182 billion over what it showed in that category in 2019 – an increase of 46 percent in one year. The Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, likes to perpetually brag about the bank’s “fortress balance sheet.” Unfortunately, that bragging isn’t supported by the bank’s felony history or the fact that the bank lost $6.2 billion gambling in exotic derivatives in London during the leadership tenure of Dimon: the so-called “London Whale” scandal.Then there is also the fact that the Federal Reserve has yet to explain why a unit of JPMorgan Chase (J.P. Morgan Securities) needed to secretly borrow a cumulative $2.59 trillion in emergency repo loans from the Fed in the last quarter of 2019 – long before the first case of COVID-19 appeared in the U.S. (See chart below.)Perhaps it’s time for the Senate Banking Committee to take a long, hard look at what’s really under the hood of this banking behemoth.

Culture war priorities stoke Republican hostility towards banks - Cratered support among the Republican base, new priorities in the banking industry and simple pragmatism have significantly weakened the relationship between banks and the GOP, and opened up room for modest but increasing partnerships with Congressional Democrats, in a role reversal that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.According to a study late last year by Pew Research, while likely Democratic voters' views on banks and big corporations have remained relatively stable, Republican attitudes toward banks have rapidly soured over the past four years."About four-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (38%) and Democrats and Democratic leaners (41%) now say banks and other financial institutions have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country" Pew Research wrote in a piece on the study. This represents a steep decline, since as recently as 2019, 63% of Republican voters thought banks had a positive effect on the country, as opposed to 37% of Democrats. Experts say that while banks have long faced bipartisan criticism, the GOP's culture war has worsened banks' already-dwindling favor among the GOP base, and fractured the party's historically finance-friendly reputation. In the midst of this decoupling, and with the GOP engaged in an unpredictable culture war, Democrats and banks appear to be increasingly siding with the devil they know, at least in certain areas where their policy priorities align.Ian Katz, managing director at Capital Alpha Partners, agrees that populist sentiment in the Republican Party has been growing for some time now. In the era of increasing politicization of social and cultural issues, Republicans see anti-wokeness as a political strategy that resonates with their base."Republicans in Congress have become less like the pro-business, free-trade Republicans of a decade or more ago," Katz said. "They are more populist now. They were moving in that direction, but Trump accelerated it. So now Republicans in Congress aren't the reliable defenders of banks that they used to be. I think in the past year or two the trend has accelerated even more because of Republican suspicions that banks are adopting the Democrats' views on issues such as ESG and inclusion." Democrats and big banks have been some of the loudest critics of cryptocurrency, borne of a mutual distrust of unregulated market actors and fears of consumer exploitation. Democrats and banks have also found themselves aligned in their skepticism of fintechs and alternative banking charters — such as Industrial Loan Companies.

Banks say CFPB's data access rule ratchets up liability risks -Banks and credit unions are raising concerns about data security risks and oversight of third-party partners as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau crafts rules around how much control consumers have over their own financial data.The CFPB is in the midst of writing a rule that will determine how financial institutions make data available to consumers on request. Banks say the rule could create an uneven playing field because financial firms are supervised and examined by regulators for compliance with consumer protection laws while hundreds of large technology and nonbank fintechs are not. The explosive growth of data aggregation services has created risks for consumers that could result in uneven enforcement, banks say."Nonbanks are increasingly providing financial products and services, yet their activities are largely unsupervised by the Bureau," said Brian Fritzsche, vice president and regulatory counsel at the Consumer Bankers Association. Fritzsche and Shelley Thompson, CBA's vice president and associate general counsel, wrote acomment letter last week stating that the CFPB "does not adequately oversee these nonbank participants even though they compose a significant, continuously growing segment of the market for consumer financial products and services." The 1033 rule — so named for the section of the Dodd-Frank Act that authorizes it — is viewed as one of the most important rulemakings that will be completed under CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. The bureau released an outline of its plan in October, and is expected to issue a proposal later this year with a rule finalized in 2024.

Musk, Tesla not liable in securities class-action lawsuit -- Elon Musk and Tesla were found not liable by a jury in a San Francisco federal court on Friday in a class-action securities fraud trial stemming from tweets Musk made in 2018.The Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter CEO was sued by Tesla shareholders over a series of tweets he wrote in August 2018 saying he had "funding secured" to take the automaker private for $420 per share, and that "investor support" for such a deal was "confirmed." Trading in Tesla was halted after his tweets, and its share price remained volatile for weeks.Jurors deliberated for less than two hours before reading their verdict. "We are disappointed with the verdict and considering next steps," said Nicholas Porritt, partner at Levi & Korsinsky, the firm representing the shareholders in the class action, in an email to CNBC."I am deeply appreciative of the jury's unanimous finding," Musk wrote on Twitter.Musk's lead counsel, Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, arguing before the jury earlier Friday, said the matter had to be assessed in context, noting the Tesla CEO was only considering taking the company private. He said fraud cannot be built on the back of a consideration.Spiro did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The shareholders in the certified class-action lawsuit included a mix of stock and options buyers who alleged that Musk's tweets were reckless and false, and that relying on his statements to make decisions about when to buy or sell cost them significant amounts of money. Musk later claimed that he had a verbal commitment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, and that he thought funding would come through at his proposed price based on a handshake. However, the deal never materialized.

Biden administration wants credit card late fees slashed to $8 - The Biden administration is set to propose a rule that would reduce credit card late fees from roughly to $30 to $8, saving consumers up to $9 billion annually, the White House announced on Wednesday. The rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), along with other actions — like the White House urging Congress to pass a bill to crack down on entertainment, utility and travel fees that hit many consumers — will be announced in the fourth meeting of the President’s Competition Council. These actions build on President Biden’s efforts to eliminate or limit junk fees, which are hidden or unexpected fees customers face. “We worry that credit card companies are actually hoping that consumers are a day or two late, so they can cash on fees,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “While it may be fair to charge customers for extra costs that credit card companies are incurring, that’s not what we see here.” To come to the $8 figure, Chopra said the CFPB analyzed current costs and found that the number now is five times higher than it needs to be. Biden urged a focus on reducing junk fees through an executive order issued in October. He will also call on Congress to pass a Junk Fee Prevention Act, which is also set to crack down on four types of junk fees. Those fees include excessive online concert, sporting event and entertainment fees, and early termination fees for television, phone and internet services. The White House said on Tuesday the administration wants congressional action in these areas because it can be faster than administrative action, which includes the rulemaking process. The two other types of junk fees include surprise resort and destination fees and airline fees for families to sit with young children. “Having parents and children separated isn’t good for anyone involved and should not be something that families have to pay extra to achieve,” said Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council.

Banks decry CFPB $8 late fee, say small-business review needed - Hundreds of small community banks and credit unions are claiming they will suffer economic harm if a plan by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to cut credit card late fees to $8 goes into effect next year. The CFPB wants to eliminate $9 billion a year in the annual revenue of credit card issuers by slashing credit card late fees to $8, from $30 for a first late fee and $41 for subsequent late payments. But banks and credit unions are crying foul, saying they will be forced to sue the CFPB for failing to convene a small-business review panel before issuing its plan this week. For any major regulatory change that causes an economic impact of $100 million or more on small businesses, the CFPB is required to convene a panel of small entities. "The Dodd-Frank Act requires them to do a SBREFA panel for all their major rulemakings," said Greg Mesack, a lobbyist with the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions. He used the abbreviation for the Small Business Regulatory Fairness Act that requires extra work be performed with input from small entities. In response, Chopra — to the surprise of many experts — instead certified in the CFPB's plan that the cut in late fees would not impact a substantial number of small businesses. The CFPB also said it did not have enough data to determine the impact of the plan. But financial institutions have no way to verify how the CFPB came up with the $8 late fee. The bureau uses a data field from the Federal Reserve Board that cannot be accessed by the public because it includes confidential supervisory information for large banks. Many expect the issue will ultimately be decided in court. "The CFPB may have made a big mistake by not doing a small-business review panel," said Ed Groshans, senior policy and research analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading. "It's clear this rule will impact these small businesses and it's very clear that the CFPB is going to be sued. This may be a big setback." Input from small businesses is supposed to happen during the pre-proposal stage, before an agency has decided on a specific regulatory approach, bank and credit union trade groups said. The American Bankers Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Independent Community Bankers of America and NAFCU sent a letter to Chopra in August reminding him of the small-business requirement. Financial institutions have 60 days to comment on the CFPB's proposal, which is expected to be finalized next year. The timeline is relevant because a final rule would first have to be published in the Federal Register before a company or trade group could file suit.

Bipartisan bill on credit union governance clears first hurdle - The Credit Union Board Modernization Act has hit its first crucial legislative benchmark after receiving an affirmative vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.The bipartisan bill, introduced by Reps. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., and Juan Vargas, D-Calif., was brought before the House last week and officially passed by a voice vote on Monday. It wasfirst introduced in March 2022 and similarly approved in the House later that year, but failed to garner momentum before the conclusion of the 117th Congress in December.The legislation would reduce the minimum number of board meetings required under Federal Credit Union Act from 12 to six a year if enacted into law, providing credit union directors with greater flexibility in the cadence of the gatherings and lessening the burden placed on the institution's time, staff and other resources. De novo credit unions and those with low CAMELS — which is an international rating system used by regulatory banking authorities to rate financial institutions — scores must still hold meetings on a monthly basis. For those well-capitalized institutions with smaller economies of scale, the bill and its potential benefits are a "common sense, straightforward approach, and I think anything that allows credit unions to get back to the business of serving the members is an important step," said Robert Lewis, executive vice president and chief advocacy officer for the Credit Union National Association. Similar campaigns for adapting credit union procedures also launched throughout last year, including a proposed rule by the National Credit Union Administration on mandating succession planning for executives at federally-chartered institutions as well as the Credit Union Governance Modernization Act that passed in March as part of President Biden's $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package. The act grants institutions the ability to expel members who commit fraud, verbally or physically abuse branch staff or other members, lead the institution to suffer a material loss or engage in other improper conduct.

House passes bill easing meeting requirements for credit unions - — The House of Representatives passed a bill that would reduce credit union boards' minimum meeting requirements, an uncontroversial measure in Congress that was passed without a recorded vote. The House approved the legislation, introduced by Reps. Juan Vargas, D-Calif., and Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., via a voice vote. The law, which is supported by the Credit Union National Association, would allow some federal credit union boards to meet at least six times per year instead of the current once per month. The bill would still require monthly meetings for boards of new credit unions during their first five years, and for credit unions with a low rating given by their regulatory examiners. "Credit unions need to spend their time working with their members, not wasting valuable resources and staff-time checking the box on monthly meetings that may not be necessary," said House Financial Services Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., on the House floor. Along with the credit union bill, the House passed two other bills under suspension of the rules — a mechanism that allows two-thirds of members voting to move quickly on legislation that is typically reserved for uncontroversial measures. One of the bills, the Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act," aims to help rural small businesses by directing the Small Business Advocate at the Securities and Exchange Commission to identify problems faced by rural businesses when trying to access capital to grow. Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.V., introduced the bill, which passed in a voice vote.

Senators press Silvergate on FHLB loan in the wake of FTX collapse — A bipartisan group of senators asked Silvergate, the bank connected to the failed crypto exchange FTX, if the bank knew about the exchange's alleged misuse of customer funds, and how it plans to use the $4.3 billion it received from the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco late last year. The letter, sent by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and John Kennedy, R-La., references American Banker's reporting which describes how Silvergate used the Federal Home Loan Bank System as a lender of last resort, shoring up its liquidity after the collapse of FTX. Bloomberg first reported the letter. The senators asked Silvergate if the bank intends to use the $4.3 billion it received from the San Francisco Home Loan bank to support the financing of housing, or how the bank otherwise intends to use the funds. In the letter, the group of lawmakers said they were "disappointed" by the bank's "evasive and incomplete response" to a previous inquiry about Silvergate's alleged lack of robust risk management practices. In Silvergate's response to the lawmakers' initial letter, the bank cited supervisory confidential information for not being able to disclose more details. The senators' letter in reply did not accept that excuse."This is simply not an acceptable rationale," the letter said. "As members of Congress with enshrined oversight responsibilities, we are happy to work with you to address the confidential nature of any material in your possession. But both Congress and the public need and deserve the information necessary to understand Silvergate's role in FTX's fraudulent collapse, particularly given the fact that Silvergate turned to the Federal Home Loan Bank as its lender of last resort in 2022."

Senate Democrats ask FHFA to review nonperforming loan programs — A group of Senate Banking Democratic lawmakers asked the Federal Housing Finance Agency to review Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's nonperforming loan and reperforming loan sales programs. Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Tina Smith of Minnesota, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said that nonperforming loans are typically sold off to large investors, which means that homeowners could be forced out of their homes. In the letter to FHFA Director Sandra Thompson, the lawmakers said that around 60% of the nearly 115,000 nonperforming loans sold off to large investors resulted in the displacement of the homeowner. ."In the case of nonperforming loans, FHFA and the Enterprises hoped that sales to new owners would offer borrowers on the verge of losing their homes assistance beyond what the Enterprises could provide," the lawmakers said in their letter. "Unfortunately, nonperforming and reperforming loan sales can also put borrowers' loans in the hands of investors who do not share the same housing mission obligations as the Enterprises." Those purchasers have included single-family rental housing businesses, such as Pretium, and private equity firms like Lone Star Funds, the senators said. "With a severe shortage of available and affordable housing for aspiring homeowners, it is critical that the Enterprises remain committed to keeping families in the homes they have and to keeping our housing stock in the hands of individual homeowners, not institutional investors," the letter said. "Based on data reported from the Enterprises and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), it is not clear that the nonperforming and reperforming loan sales programs meet that standard."

Fannie Mae: Mortgage Serious Delinquency Rate Increased Slightly in December --Fannie Mae reported that the Single-Family Serious Delinquency increased to 0.65% in December from 0.64% in November. The serious delinquency rate is down from 1.25% in December 2021. This is at the pre-pandemic lows.These are mortgage loans that are "three monthly payments or more past due or in foreclosure". The Fannie Mae serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 5.59% following the housing bubble and peaked at 3.32% in August 2020 during the pandemic.By vintage, for loans made in 2004 or earlier (1% of portfolio), 2.16% are seriously delinquent (down from 2.15% in November). For loans made in 2005 through 2008 (1% of portfolio), 3.49% are seriously delinquent (unchanged from 3.49%), For recent loans, originated in 2009 through 2021 (98% of portfolio), 0.53% are seriously delinquent (up from 0.52%). So, Fannie is still working through a handful of poor performing loans from the bubble years.Mortgages in forbearance were counted as delinquent in this monthly report, but they were not reported to the credit bureaus.

Mortgage delinquency rates drop for the 20th consecutive month -Despite some economic uncertainty, the overall delinquency rate remained "near a historic low" in November, falling for the 20th consecutive month, per a report by CoreLogic published Thursday.A mere 2.9% of all mortgages in the nation were in some stage of delinquency in November, a 0.7% decrease year-over-year, according to the data vendors' loan performance insights report.The foreclosure rate was also at a record low of 0.3% two months ago.By category, early-stage delinquencies (30 to 59 days past due) slightly grew to 1.4% in November, up from 1.2% in the same month in 2021. The adverse delinquency rate (60 to 89 days past due) slightly ticked up to 0.4% up from 0.3% in 2021, while the share of serious delinquencies (90 days or more past due) dipped to 1.2% in November 2022, down from 2% year-over-year.The report also found that all 50 states posted annual declines in overall delinquency rates in November, with Louisiana (down 1.9%) , Alaska (down 1.6%) and Hawaii (down 1.3%) reporting the largest declines.And though the overall delinquency rate has declined, late borrower payments slightly grew in November, with 18 metro areas reporting an increase, up from six metro areas in October.The top three areas for mortgage delinquency gains year- over- year were Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida (up 3.1%), Punta Gorda, Florida (up 2.9%) and Bloomsburg-Berwick, Pennsylvania (up 0.6%), the data vendors report said. However, the slight increase in late borrower payments shouldn't be a cause for alarm. Home equity growth has created a cushion for most homebuyers "[positioning them] to weather a shallow recession," the report argues. Equity increased by 15.8% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2022, for an average gain of $34,300 per borrower, per the data vendor.

Consumer credit resilient even as debt, delinquencies rise -Credit scores, particularly among borrowers in the mortgage market, have held up relatively well as inflation has risen, though some other indicators point to potential strain.VantageScore's measure, which isn't commonly used for mortgages right now but could be in the future, showed on average consumers' credit standing was stable on a consecutive-month basis at 696 in December.At the same time, consumer debt levels have been rising, and signs of strain on payments are emerging, according to VantageScore's monthly CreditGauge report.For mortgages, the average balance in December was $251,800, compared to $236,900 a year earlier and $250,500 in November.The average balance for other categories of consumer credit other than personal loans rose as well, with the number for auto loans increasing to $22,900 from $222,800 a month earlier and $21,300 in December 2021. For credit cards, the average balance owed rose to $5,900 from $5,600 the previous month and $5,200 a year earlier.The average amount owed on personal loans remained stable on a consecutive month basis at $16,700. However, it was still up from $15,300 in December 2021.A rise in non-mortgage debt levels has implications for home loans. Consumer debt-to-income levels have arguably been used as an indicator of payment risk for single-family financing, and two key secondary market investors recently adjusted some of their fees linked to DTIs.Delinquency rates tracked by VantageScore rose but remained below pre-pandemic levels.Mortgages late by 30-59 days jumped 10 basis points to 0.7% from 0.6% in November, and were up from 0.49% a year earlier. In January 2020, the equivalent delinquency rate was 1.22%.Home loans 60-89 days late inched up to 0.2% of the total from 0.18% a month earlier, and were elevated compared to 0.12% a year ago. At the beginning of 2020, the 60-89 day delinquency rate was 0.43%.Finally, mortgages late by 90-119 days rose a basis point on a consecutive month basis to 0.08% of the total, up from 0.05% a year earlier. The 90-119 day mortgage delinquency rate was 0.17% in January 2020.

US Housing Market Cools With Prices Down 2.5% From Peak in June - - The US housing slump stretched into a fifth month, sending a measure of prices down 2.5% from a peak in June. Prices also fell roughly 0.3% in November from a month before, according to a seasonally adjusted data of national prices from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller. Last year’s run-up in mortgage rates cast a chill on the housing market, leading to the worst annual slide in sales of previously owned homes in more than a decade. That’s pressured prices, particularly in parts of the country such as San Francisco where affordability was already stretched. Prices in that California city were down 1.6% from a year earlier, its biggest year-over-year price decline in more than a decade. “As the Federal Reserve moves interest rates higher, mortgage financing continues to be a headwind for home prices,” Craig Lazzara, managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “Economic weakness, including the possibility of a recession, would also constrain potential buyers. Given these prospects for a challenging macroeconomic environment, home prices may well continue to weaken.” Prices are still higher than a year ago as homeowners benefit from the ripple effects of an extended pandemic boom that broke records in many parts of the US. Growth, however, has been slowing. Prices were up 7.7% annually in November, down from the 9.2% gain in October. In recent weeks, borrowing costs have eased, with the average on a 30-year fixed mortgage dropping to 6.13% in late January, according to Freddie Mac. Brokerage and data company Redfin Corp. recently pointed to signs that buyer interest might be picking up again, with pending deals on the rise in December and other measures of demand climbing.

Case-Shiller: National House Price Index "Continued to Decline" to 7.7% year-over-year increase in November - S&P/Case-Shiller released the monthly Home Price Indices for November ("November" is a 3-month average of September, October and November closing prices). This release includes prices for 20 individual cities, two composite indices (for 10 cities and 20 cities) and the monthly National index. From S&P: S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller Index Continued to Decline in November - The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 9.2% annual gain in November, down from 10.7% in the previous month. The 10- City Composite annual increase came in at 8.0%, down from 9.6% in the previous month. The 20-City Composite posted a 8.6% year-over-year gain, down from 10.4% in the previous month Miami, Tampa, and Atlanta reported the highest year-over-year gains among the 20 cities in November. Miami led the way with a 18.4% year-over-year price increase, followed by Tampa in second with a 16.9% increase, and Atlanta in third with a 12.7% increase. All 20 cities reported lower price increases in the year ending November 2022 versus the year ending October 2022. ... Before seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National Index posted a -0.6% month-over-month decrease in November, while the 10-City and 20-City Composites posted decreases of -0.7% and -0.8%, respectively. After seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National Index posted a month-over-month decrease of -0.3%, and the 10-City and 20-City Composites both posted decreases of -0.5%. In November, all 20 cities reported declines before seasonal adjustments. After seasonal adjustments, 19 cities reported declines, with only Detroit increasing 0.1%. “November 2022 marked the fifth consecutive month of declining home prices in the U.S.,” “All 20 cities in our November report showed price declines on a month-over-month basis, with a median decline of -0.8%. Moreover, for all 20 cities, year-over-year gains in November were lower than those of October, with a median year-over-year increase of 6.4%. Interestingly, home prices in San Francisco were down by -1.6% year-over-year, the first negative result for any city since San Francisco’s -0.4% decline in October 2019. This is the worst year-over-year result for San Francisco in more than 10 years (since a -3.0% result in March 2012). West coast weakness was not limited to California, as San Francisco was followed by Seattle (+1.5%) and Portland (+3.9%) at the bottom of the league table. The first graph shows the nominal seasonally adjusted Composite 10, Composite 20 and National indices (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000). The Composite 10 index is down 0.5% in November (SA) and down 4.1% from the recent peak in June 2022.

HVS: Q4 2022 Homeownership and Vacancy Rates -The Census Bureau released the Residential Vacancies and Homeownership report for Q4 2022.The results of this survey were significantly distorted by the pandemic in 2020. National vacancy rates in the fourth quarter 2022 were 5.8 percent for rental housing and 0.8 percent for homeowner housing. The rental vacancy rate was not statistically different from the rate in the fourth quarter 2021 (5.6 percent) and not statistically different from the rate in the third quarter 2022 (6.0 percent).The homeowner vacancy rate of 0.8 percent was not statistically different from the rate in the fourth quarter 2021 (0.9 percent) and not statistically different from the rate in the third quarter 2022 (0.9 percent). The homeownership rate of 65.9 percent was not statistically different from the rate in the fourth quarter 2021 (65.5 percent) and not statistically different from the rate in the third quarter 2022 (66.0 percent).The HVS homeownership rate decreased to 65.9% in Q4, from 66.0% in Q3.The results in Q2 and Q3 2020 were distorted by the pandemic and should be ignored. The HVS homeowner vacancy decreased to 0.8% in Q4 from 0.9% in Q3.Once again - this probably shows the general trend, but I wouldn't rely on the absolute numbers.The rental vacancy rate decreased to 5.8% in Q4 from 6.0% in Q3. The HVS also has a series on asking rents. This surged following the early stages of the pandemic - like other measures - and is up 9.5% year-over-year in Q4 2022. This was down 0.9% in Q4 compared to Q3.The quarterly HVS is the timeliest survey on households, but there are many questions about the accuracy of this survey.

Las Vegas December 2022: Visitor Traffic Down 4.6% Compared to 2019; Convention Traffic Down 38.2% -Note: I like using Las Vegas as a measure of recovery for both leisure (visitors) and business (conventions).From the Las Vegas Visitor Authority: December 2022 Las Vegas Visitor StatisticsFrom the initial shadow of the omicron variant to record‐shattering room rates later in the year, Las Vegas enjoyed a robust recovery trajectory across core tourism indicators in 2022. With December 2022 visitation just 4.6% shy of December 2019, the year closed out with 38.8M annual visitors, 20.5% ahead of 2021 and ‐8.7% under 2019's tally.Convention attendance for the year approached 5.0M attendees, dramatically ahead of pandemic‐suppressed volumes of 2021 and recovering to about three‐quarters of 2019's tally of 6.6M convention attendees.Overall hotel occupancy reached 79.2% for the year , +12.4 pts YoY and down ‐9.7 pts vs. 2019. For the year, Weekend occupancy reached 89.3%, +8.0 pts over 2021 and ‐5.6 pts vs. 2019, while Midweek occupancy reached 74.7%, up 14.2 pts vs. 2021 but down ‐11.6 pts vs. 2019.Strong room rates continued throughout 2022 as annual ADR reached $171, +24.5% higher than 2021 and +28.9% ahead of 2019 while RevPAR reached approx. $135 for the year, +47.6% YoY and +14.9% over 2019.The first graph shows visitor traffic for 2019 (dark blue), 2020 (light blue), 2021 (yellow) and 2022 (red)Visitor traffic was down 4.6% compared to the same month in 2019. Visitor traffic was up 10.1% compared to last December.The second graph shows convention traffic.Convention traffic was down 38.2% compared to December 2019.Note: There was almost no convention traffic from April 2020 through May 2021.

How the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on American theaters - The latest edition of Theatre Facts, the annual survey of the state of the not-for-profit theater world in the US, came out in late 2022. The report is prepared each year by the Theatre Communications Group (TCG), an organization that promotes professional non-profit theater. The most recent survey covers the state of the field in 2020-2021. That is to say, it provides a glimpse of the conditions produced by the COVID-19 pandemic, both short- and long-term. Not surprisingly, theaters in the US (and elsewhere) were devastated. They remain threatened. Theatre Facts explains that starting in March 2020, “theatres across the country closed their doors as the virus spread. The total loss to the performing arts industry attributable to the pandemic is over $3.2 billion, and changing COVID-related behavioral patterns have decreased audience ticket demand by 20-25 percent.” The report focuses on 136 theaters that completed a TCG survey each year from 2017 to 2021—out of a nationwide total of 1,852 non-profit theaters, whose productions played before some 2.9 million audience members in 2021. The total income of these 136 “trend theaters” peaked in 2019, then fell by 49 percent between 2020 and 2021. That amounts to a $900,000 loss in earned income per theater. Over the five-year period, earned income contracted by 61 percent. Average subscription income to the 136 theaters fell by 82 percent over the same period. Average single ticket income also plummeted by 82 percent from 2020 to 2021, and fell 93 percent between 2017 and 2021. Startlingly, the “net effect,” the report indicates, was a “a 90% reduction in total ticket income over the trend period, punctuated by a drop of 88% from 2020 to 2021. Total ticket income covered a high of 42% of expenses in 2019, in contrast to the low of 7.3% in 2021.” “It was a crash,” as one media account commented bluntly. Meanwhile, corporate funding fell by 28 percent from 2017 to 2021, and by 21 percent in 2021 over 2020 alone. Various other forms of private giving also fell. “Considering both earned and contributed income combined, total income fell over the 5-year period by 25%,” according to Theatre Facts. If those operating not-for-profit theaters in the US did not lock up their venues and walk away it was principally because government funding increased sharply, reflecting political concerns about the consequences of the arts sector simply collapsing. For the same group of 136 theaters, average federal government funding, for example, “ended the period more than 14 times greater than the 2017 level.” State support was more than 200 percent higher in 2021 than in 2017, while average local government funding ended 43 percent higher at the end of the same period.These not-for-profit US theaters survived because of government subsidies. Of course, serious theater by its very nature requires state support. It is not a profit-making venture. The current artistically degenerated state of for-profit Broadway (where the average paid admission to a musical was $132 during the 2021-2022 season) and even Off-Broadway is convincing evidence of that.

Cardboard Box Comeback Points to Early Signs of Consumer Revival --- The humble cardboard box, a marker for consumer spending, is showing signs of a “modest” comeback, according to one of the world’s biggest suppliers. International Paper Co. is seeing customers start to replenish box inventories, Chief Executive Officer Mark Sutton said Tuesday during the company’s earnings call. Demand has been weaker as consumers spend less on goods amid rising inflation and interest rates. “We’ve had orders pick up to replenish inventories,” Sutton said. “Now the question mark on everybody’s minds is what does the consumer do as we move through the first half of the year with respect to disposable income.” Still, pickup in demand is expected to be “modest”, according to Chief Financial Officer Tim Nicholls. The Memphis, Tennessee-based company also expects to see lower input costs and fewer supply chain snags ahead.

Cardboard Box Demand Plunging At Rates Unseen Since The Great Recession -Demand and output for cardboard boxes and other packaging material fell sharply in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to data released by the American Forest & Paper Association and Fibre Box Association on Friday. It’s the latest indicator that consumer demand is eroding following the pandemic. Dwindling savings, inflation, rising interest rates and fears of a recession may all be swaying consumers to spend less. Such pressures would show up in the humble box industry, which serves as an excellent barometer for the larger economy. Practically everything we consume and use spends some time in a box, ranging from online orders to food sent to grocery stores. U.S. box shipments fell by 8.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the Fibre Box Association. KeyBanc’s Adam Josephson, who leads the bank’s analysis of the packaging industry, wrote in a Sunday note that this was “the most severe quarterly decline since the Great Financial Crisis (2Q09).”

Vehicles Sales Increased to 15.74 million SAAR in January -Wards Auto released their estimate of light vehicle sales for January: U.S. Light-Vehicle Sales Record Fifth Consecutive Increase in January (pay site). Wards Auto estimates sales of 15.74 million SAAR in January 2023 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), up 17.6% from the December sales rate, and up 4.2% from January 2022. This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and Wards Auto's estimate for January (red). The impact of COVID-19 was significant, and April 2020 was the worst month. After April 2020, sales increased, and were close to sales in 2019 (the year before the pandemic). However, sales decreased late last year due to supply issues. It appears the "supply chain bottom" was in September 2021. The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. Sales in January were well above the consensus forecast.

Ford to cut prices of Mustang Mach-E, following Tesla's lead (Reuters) -Ford Motor Co on Monday cut prices of its electric crossover SUV Mustang Mach-E by as much as $5,900 per vehicle, weeks after rival Tesla Inc slashed prices globally on its electric vehicles by as much as 20%. Shares of Ford closed down 2.9% in above average trading to $12.89. Tesla fell 6.3%. The move comes as electric vehicle manufacturers are feeling pressure from Tesla's price cut to respond. "Ford just cut Mustang EV prices in response to Tesla’s price cut. Mini price war about to begin with EVs in the US with Tesla’s shot across the bow on price cuts," said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, on Twitter. The move will make at least one additional version of the Mach-E again eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit, which requires the Ford EV to have a suggested retail price of no more than $55,000 to be eligible. Ford had already planned to increase Mach-E production this year at its plant in Mexico to 130,000 vehicles from 78,000 in 2022, and said in November it was accelerating Mustang Mach-E production and targeting global annual production rate of 270,000 by the end of 2023 including its China production.

AAR: January Rail Carloads Increased and Intermodal Decreased Year-over-year - From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Rail Time Indicators. U.S. rail traffic started January 2023 with both discouraging and encouraging aspects.On the encouraging side, total U.S. carloads rose 2.2% in January 2023. January 2022 was the worst January for total carloads in our records that begin in 1988. Still, growth is better than a decline. On the discouraging side, January 2023 was the worst January for intermodal since 2013, with originations down 8.1% from last year. In recent months, major retailers have cut inventories; consumer spending — especially on goods — has contracted; and truck rates have fallen. This graph from the Rail Time Indicators report shows the six-week average of U.S. Carloads in 2021, 2022 and 2022:The good news is total U.S. carloads were up 2.2%, or 19,827 carloads, in January 2023 over January 2022. The bad news is January 2022 was the worst January for total carloads in our records that go back to 1988, so a 2.2% increase — while certainly better than some alternatives — is less impressive than it could be.The second graph shows the six-week average (not monthly) of U.S. intermodal in 2021, 2022 and 2023: (using intermodal or shipping containers):U.S. railroads also originated 919,928 intermodal containers and trailers in January 2023, down 8.1%, or 81,443 units, from January 2022. Intermodal volume averaged 229,982 units per week in January 2023, the fewest for January since 2013. January 2023 was the first time since March 2017 that the number of originated carloads exceeded the number of originated intermodal units on U.S. railroads.

"This Is Not A Normal Situation": A Semiconductor Rout Is On As Supply Balloons And Demand Dissipates --The memory chip sector, typically a volatile and cyclical sector, is in the midst of yet another rout.But as Bloomberg noted this week, this rout wasn't supposed to happen. For years we had heard that the sector would eventually calm down and even out - and that volatility wouldn't be as pronounced due to steadier demand for things like 5G and cloud services. Just months after a historic semiconductor shortage, there's a "glut of the chips sitting in warehouses" at the same time that customers are paring back on orders. We first identified the whipsaw in semiconductors all the way back in October 2022, which you can read about here. Avril Wu, senior research vice president at TrendForce told Bloomberg this week: “The chip industry thought that suppliers were going to have better control. This downturn has proved everybody was wrong.” The report notes that the very same consumers who were keen to spend their stimulus money on things like cars and electronics during the pandemic, items which necessitate semiconductors, are now "holding off on big purchases as they cope with inflation and rising interest rates". And the pullback in demand comes just as semi companies sought to increase supply to try and deal with the shortages. Companies like Samsung are now "losing money on every chip they produce", the report says. Collective operating losses are projected to hit a stunning $5 billion this year, it continues.

"Recession Is On Its Way" - Dallas Fed Shows Factory Activity Slumps For 9th Straight Month -- While the headline Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity Index printed better than expected (-8.4 vs -15.0), it remains in contraction (less than zero) for the 9th straight month (the longest streak since 2016)... Source: BloombergAnd in fact, the better than expected print was driven solely by 'hope' as current production tumbled in January but 'expectations' for future production rose... Source: BloombergSurprisingly, while the outlook for six-months ahead improved (but remains negative)... ...you wouldn't know it judging by the responses that The Dallas Fed decided to release for publication... notice a pattern?

• We had a customer in the pet food segment significantly decrease its orders due to an inventory backlog.
• Uncertainty from the overall economic downturn is affecting our long-term strategy.
• Business is sluggish. We’re seeing increased illiquidity in our customer base.

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decrease to 183,000 The DOL reported: In the week ending January 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 183,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 186,000. The 4-week moving average was 191,750, a decrease of 5,750 from the previous week's unrevised average of 197,500. The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.

ADP: Private Employment Increased 106,000 in January -From ADP: ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 106,000 Jobs in January; Annual Pay was Up 7.3% Private sector employment increased by 106,000 jobs in January and annual pay was up 7.3 percent year-over-year, according to the January ADP® National Employment ReportTM produced by the ADP Research Institute® in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab (“Stanford Lab”)."In January, we saw the impact of weather-related disruptions on employment during our reference week,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Hiring was stronger during other weeks of the month, in line with the strength we saw late last year.”This was well below the consensus forecast of 170,000, however, ADP blamed it on the weather. The BLS report will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 185 thousand non-farm payroll jobs added in January.

ADP Says Jobs Growth In January Slowest In 2 Years, Blames Weather - Source: Bloomberg - After rebounding in December, ADP's employment report was expected to show slowing in January but the actual print was a major disappoint with only 106k jobs added (compared to 180k expected and an upwardly revised 253k in December). That is the weakest job growth since January 2021, and biggest miss since August... Under the hood the data is not pretty... However, Nela Richardson, ADP Chief Economist blames it on the weather, noting that employment was soft during our Jan. 12 reference week as the U.S. was hit with extreme weather. California was coping with record floods and back-to-back storms delivered ice and snow to the central and eastern U.S.

January Employment Report: 517 thousand Jobs, 3.4% Unemployment Rate - From the BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 517,000 in January, and the unemployment rate changed little at 3.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job growth was widespread, led by gains in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, and health care. Employment also increased in government, partially reflecting the return of workers from a strike. ... The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised up by 34,000, from +256,000 to +290,000, and the change for December was revised up by 37,000, from +223,000 to +260,000. With these revisions, employment gains in November and December combined were 71,000 higher than previously reported. The first graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms. The current employment recession was by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms. Total jobs are now 2.70 million above pre-pandemic levels. This is the last update for this graph this employment cycle. The second graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968. In January, the year-over-year change was 4.97 million jobs. Employment was up significantly year-over-year. Total payrolls increased by 517 thousand in January. Private payrolls increased by 443 thousand, and public payrolls increased 74 thousand. Payrolls for November and December were revised up 71 thousand, combined. The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate. The Labor Force Participation Rate increased to 62.4% in January, from 62.3% in December. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force. The Employment-Population ratio increased to 60.2% from 60.1% (blue line). The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate decreased in January to 3.4% from 3.5% in December. This was well above consensus expectations; and November and December payrolls were revised up by 71,000 combined. On the annual benchmark revision: The total nonfarm employment level for March 2022 was revised upward by 568,000(+506,000 on a not seasonally adjusted basis, or +0.3 percent). The average not seasonally adjusted benchmark revision (in absolute terms) over the past 10 years is 0.1 percent....

January jobs report: like a sports car at maximum acceleration - My focus on this report was on whether manufacturing and construction jobs turned negative or not, and whether the deceleration apparent in job growth would continue. Both of those were answered emphatically in the negative. Here’s my in depth synopsis.

• 517,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 443,000. Government jobs increased by 74,000. The three month moving average of growth increased sharply to 356,000, over a 100,000 jump.
• The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report had 2nd very positive month in a row, increasing by 894,000 jobs. The above household number factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below.
• U3 unemployment rate declined -0.1% to 3.4%.
• U6 underemployment rate rose 0.1% to 6.6%.
• the average manufacturing workweek, one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators, reversed December’s decline and increased +0.3 hours to 40.9, although it remains down -0.7 hours from its February peak last year of 41.6 hours.
• Manufacturing jobs increased 17,000.
• Construction jobs increased 25,000.
• Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, increased by only 100.
• Temporary jobs, which for the last several months were declining, reversed course and rose by 25,900.
• the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less declined -287,000 to 1,946,000, the lowest for the entire last 50 years except for 3 months in 2019.
• Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel increased $.06, or +0.2%, to $28.26, a YoY gain of 5.1%, the lowest gain since June 2021.
• the index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers increased by a sharp1.0%, which is near a record for the past 60 years, and has only been exceeded by 3 months since 1995, all of which were earlier in the pandemic rebound.
• the index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers also increased sharply by 1.3%, and rebounded to up 9.2% YoY. This metric had been decelerating nominally almost consistently for the prior 16 months.
• Leisure and hospitality jobs, which were the most hard-hit during the pandemic, rose 128,000, and have improved to -3.1% below their pre-pandemic peak.
• Within the leisure and hospitality sector, food and drink establishments added 98,600 jobs, and are now only -1.3% below their pre-pandemic peak.
• Professional and business employment rose 82,000.
• Full time jobs increased 278,000 in the household report.
• Part time jobs increased 606,000 in the household report.
• The number of job holders who were part time for economic reasons rose 172,000.
• The Labor Force Participation Rate increased 0.1% to 62.4%, vs. 63.4% in February 2020.
• Those not in the labor force at all, but who want a job now, increased 138,000 to 5.314 million, compared with 4.996 million in February 2020.
• November was revised upward by 34,000, and December was also revised upward by 37,000, for a net increase of 71,000 jobs compared with previous reports.

Finally, both the Establishment and Household report data for 2022 was revised this month. In the Household report, total population was adjusted upward by 954,000, and employment by 810,000. Other metrics had little or no change.In the Establishment report, almost all months in 2022 were revised higher, with the exception of January, April and May. The net effect was an increase of 813,000 jobs in 2022, with relatively weaker growth in Q2, but stronger growth in the other 3 Quarters.This report could be likened to a sports car accelerating at maximum thrust. Almost everything was extremely positive. The only negative was the increase in involuntary part-time employment, which translated into a slight increase in the underemployment rate.Everything else was positive, including all the leading indicators which I had been looking to weaken. In fact, some metrics were so positive that they make me think that some Holiday seasonality worked its way into the numbers. In particular, the 74,000 increase in government jobs was one of the strongest ever outside of census hiring every 10 years. Leisure and hospitality hiring was also among the strongest in the past 50 years outside of 2021, and food and drink hiring was the strongest ever aside from the immediate post-pandemic reopening through 2021.Needless to say, in almost all sectors the pandemic losses have been completely recovered. As I indicated above, the universal sharp increases make me think that there was some unresolved seasonality in play. In particular, the return to bigger hiring in manufacturing contradicts every other measure of manufacturing in the past few months.So I’ll celebrate this month’s report, but with a lingering suspicion that it is going to prove an outlier.

In “Information” Sector, Unemployment Rate Spikes, Jobs Fall for 2nd Month. Rest of Labor Market is Rocking & Rolling. - by Wolf Richter - Employment in the relatively small tech and social media sector is getting hammered by hiring freezes and layoffs, and this is in the headlines every day, though these are global layoffs and only a portion take place in the US, when they become reality sometimes months after the announcements.And we can see it starting to crop up in the employment data that was released today, as the unemployment rate in the “Information” sector, where some of the tech and social media companies are included, spiked in January, and the number of employees in that sector dropped for the second month in a row.But in the overall vast US economy, the rest of the labor market remains hot, though not quite as hot as it was, according to the employment report today, after having been confirmed month after month by other data on the labor market from other sources, from job openings and actual layoffs and discharges to applications for unemployment insurance: rising number of jobs, longer work-weeks, and rising wages.As every time when a strong employment report is released, the nitpicking starts, in order to show why this is in fact a terrible report, month after month the same thing, and they’re poking through all kinds of stuff to prove their point, such as today for January’s jobs report, blaming the “biggest seasonal adjustments ever” for the strength of the data.Well yeah, employment is very seasonal, with huge hiring of seasonal workers before the holidays and before summer, followed by a big reduction in this seasonal workforce. This occurs predictably every year, and big seasonal adjustments are used to iron out the seasonal fluctuations.And for this January, sure the seasonal adjustments were “the biggest ever” – because the economy is the biggest ever and the number of people with jobs is the biggest ever, and seasonal adjustments move in tandem. “Information” is a small sector, with a little over 3 million employees, or roughly 2% of US workers. Not all tech and social media companies are in the Information sector. Some are in Professional and Business Services, others are in manufacturing, etc. But “Information” does capture some of the companies that are generally considered in tech and social media.Information includes: software publishing, traditional publishing, publishing exclusively on the Internet; motion picture and sound recording industries; broadcasting industries, including over the Internet; telecommunications industries; Web search portals, data processing industries, and the information services industries.We saw a couple of days ago that job openings in Information collapsed by half, the worst drop since the Dotcom Bust. That was for December, and it was a function of the hiring freezes.The actual layoffs are cropping up in today’s data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics – amid an otherwise rocking and rolling job market.The number of employees in the Information sector fell by 5,000 for the second month in a row, for a total of 10,000 jobs that vanished in two months, the first declines since October 2020, the biggest declines since June 2020, the first back-to-back declines since April and May 2020.So this is just the beginning, and compared to the huge hiring binge over the past two years it’s just a dip, but that’s how it starts:

Labor market off to a strong start in 2023. 517,000 jobs added in January as unemployment rate hits historic low - Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 517,000 jobs added in January, the unemployment rate hitting a historic low of 3.4%, and wage growth slowing. From EPI senior economist, Elise Gould (@eliselgould):Read the full Twitter thread here.

• The labor market is off to a strong start this year with 517,000 jobs added in January, an unemployment rate at a historic low of 3.4%, and wage growth that continues to decelerate, slowing down to 3.7% at an annualized rate (down to 4.4% growth over the last year).
• Message to the Fed: Wage growth continues to decelerate no matter how it’s measured. These trends are not driving inflation. pic.twitter.com/94jmSRCWvRNot only was job growth in January stronger than anticipated, the revisions were larger as well.
• After benchmarking against UI records, total payroll employment for March 2022 was revised up by 568k jobs. Total establishment survey revisions increased December 2022 jobs by 813k! pic.twitter.com/hqk3KyytlH
• — Elise Gould (@eliselgould) February 3, 2023

From EPI president, Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz): (Read the full Twitter thread here.)

• Important note! I wouldn’t normally be happy that wage growth is slowing, but the thing here is that *inflation is slowing much faster than wage growth is slowing.* That means real wages are rising, which is great news (this wasn’t happening in ’21 or the first half of ’22). 2/
• — Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) February 3, 2023
• Folks, over the period of slowing nominal wage growth of the last 10 months, the labor market has added 365,000 jobs per month on avg, and the unemployment rate is down to 50-year lows. It looks like the economy can have a soft landing, if the Fed doesn’t stand in the way. 4/
• — Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) February 3, 2023
• State and local governments have gained back less than 2/3rds of what they lost in the spring of 2022.
  The gap in state & local jobs is a crisis, BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE. State & local governments can and must use their ARPA funds to raise pay and refill those jobs. 8/
• — Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) February 3, 2023

Comments on January Employment Report - McBride - This was a strong report, and the revisions show job growth was stronger over the last year than originally reported. With revisions: The 4.81 million jobs added, 2022 was the 2nd best year for job growth in US history behind only 2021 with 7.27 million. The headline jobs number in the January employment report was well above expectations, and employment for the previous two months was revised up by 71,000, combined. The participation rate increased, and the unemployment rate decreased to 3.4% - the lowest rate since May 1969 (over 50 years ago!) Leisure and hospitality gained 128 thousand jobs in January. At the beginning of the pandemic, in March and April of 2020, leisure and hospitality lost 8.2 million jobs, and are now down 495 thousand jobs since February 2020. So, leisure and hospitality has now added back about 94% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020. Construction employment increased 25 thousand and is now 276 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing added 19 thousand jobs and is now 214 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Earlier: January Employment Report: 517 thousand Jobs, 3.4% Unemployment Rate In January, the year-over-year employment change was 4.97 million jobs. Since the overall participation rate is impacted by both cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old. The 25 to 54 participation rate increased in January to 82.7% from 82.4% in December, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio increased to 80.2% from 80.1% the previous month. Both are close to the pre-pandemic levels and indicate almost all of the prime age workers have returned to the labor force. The graph shows the nominal year-over-year change in "Average Hourly Earnings" for all private employees from the Current Employment Statistics (CES). There was a huge increase at the beginning of the pandemic as lower paid employees were let go, and then the pandemic related spike reversed a year later. Wage growth has trended down after peaking at 5.9% YoY in March 2022 and was at 4.4% YoY in January, down from 4.6% in December. The number of persons working part time for economic reasons increased in January to 4.050 million from 3.878 million in December. This is at pre-recession levels. These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that increased to 6.6% from 6.5% in the previous month. This is down from the record high in April 22.9% and last month was the lowest level on record (seasonally adjusted) (series started in 1994). This measure is below the level in February 2020 (pre-pandemic). This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more. According to the BLS, there are 1.111 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job, up from 1.069 million the previous month. This is at pre-pandemic levels. Summary: The headline monthly jobs number was well above expectations and employment for the previous two months was revised up by 71,000, combined. The annual benchmark revision indicated job growth was significantly stronger than originally reported. The headline unemployment rate decreased to 3.4%, the lowest rate since 1969. Overall, this was a strong employment report.

Job Openings Collapse in “Information” Sector Most since Dotcom Bust, But Jump in Vast Other Sectors, amid Overall Low Layoffs & Discharges, Strong Hiring, Still Massive Churn -by Wolf Richter - The announcements of global layoffs by tech and social media companies and by startups make all the news. But these are announcements, not actual layoffs, and they’re global, with only part of them in the US. Tech and social media are a relatively small part of the US economy, while companies in much larger other sectors are trying to hire. Boeing, which added 14,000 employees in 2022, said it wants to hire an additional 10,000 people in 2023, most of them in its business units, engineering, and manufacturing. Chipotle said it will hire 15,000 people in 2023. Other companies are trying to hire as well, in a labor market that remains tight. But job openings in the “Information” sector collapsed by half in December, the biggest drop since the Dotcom Bust. The sector includes web search portals, data processing, data transmission, Information services, software publishing, motion picture and sound recording, broadcasting including over the Internet, and telecommunications. Many tech and social media companies are categorized in it (others are in the “Professional and Business Services” sector, that we’ll get to in a moment).In Information, job openings collapsed to 109,000 in December from 204,000 in November and 229,000 in October, according to today’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That brought job openings back down to the middle of the pre-pandemic range.But “Information” a small sector with only 3 million employees, in the vast US economy, and it didn’t move the overall needle of job openings, as we’ll see in a moment, as companies in other sectors are going on a hiring binge.It’s in the relatively small tech and social media space — some of which is in the “Information category” — where companies, drunk with Easy Money, were hogging workers and office space for a future that did not come, and now they’re unwinding some of this, which I discussed: What’s Behind the Tech & Social Media Layoffs? Job openings overall jumped by 572,000 in December, to just over 11 million openings, seasonally adjusted, a number not seen since July last year. Not seasonally adjusted, job openings jumped by 230,000.Job openings were up by 64% from December 2019, and remain solidly in the astronomical zone, indicating an overall labor market that remains very tight – amid massive hiring binges in some sectors that we’ll get to in a moment.This data is not based on online job postings, but on surveys of 21,000 businesses and what they said about the job openings they actually have, the number of people they actually hired, the number of people they laid off, the number of people who quit, etc.

PayPal laying off 2,000 employees - PayPal announced on Tuesday that the company will lay off 2,000 employees, which is about 7 percent of its workforce. CEO and President Dan Schulman wrote in a message to employees shared on the company website that while PayPal made “substantial progress” in restructuring its cost structure and prioritizing its allocation of resources, more work needs to be done. He said the downsizing will occur within the next few weeks, and that some organizations in the company will be “impacted more than others.” “Change can be difficult – particularly when it includes valued colleagues and friends departing. We will face this head-on together, drawing on the unparalleled scale of our global platform, the strategic investments we have made to strengthen our core capabilities, and the trust and loyalty of our customers,” Schulman said in the message. Schulman said the leaders of PayPal’s business units and teams will be in contact with their employees over the next few days and weeks to discuss how the changes will impact their parts of the company. “This will be a challenging period for our community, but I am confident we will come through it together with compassion for each other, our values at the fore, and a shared commitment to the future of PayPal,” Schulman concluded.

'They fire, we hire' - Germany seizes on Silicon Valley's woes (Reuters) - Faced with a tight labour market and a shortage of workers with key software engineering skills, some German companies are looking at thousands of layoffs in Silicon Valley as an opportunity to recruit top talent. The U.S. West Coast has always been the main destination for ambitious software engineers looking to work in the best-paid, most elite corner of their profession, but the mass redundancies have created a pool of jobseekers that Germany is eager to tap. "They fire, we hire," said Rainer Zugehoer, Chief People Officer at Cariad, the software subsidiary of automaker Volkswagen. "We have several hundred open positions in the U.S., in Europe and in China." Spooked by inflation and the prospect of recession, Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook owner Meta have announced a combined almost 40,000 job cuts. While Germany is also teetering on the edge of recession, its companies have grown more slowly in recent years and, in a country notorious for still handling business by fax, there are huge technology leaps to be made. Germany, with one of the world's oldest populations, has gaping holes in its labour force: according to IT industry group Bitkom, 137,000 IT jobs are unfilled. The government is simplifying immigration rules and dangling the prospect of easily-acquired citizenship to tempt skilled would-be immigrants, and regional authorities are pressing ahead.

Massive Fire Destroys Commercial Egg Farm Belonging To Top US Supplier - Dozens of food processing plants were destroyed and/or damaged last year by "accidental fires." After several months of a lull in mysterious fires rippling through the food industry, the first major one of the new year was reported by NBC Connecticut on Saturday. More than 100 firefighters battled a massive fire at a commercial egg farm in Bozrah, Connecticut, on Saturday afternoon. According to Epoch Times, firefighters spent hours extinguishing a 150-foot-by-400-foot chicken coop at Hillandale Farms, which contained about 100,000 chickens. A Salvation Army canteen truck was on the scene, providing food. According to the Salvation Army, about 100,000 chickens may have died in the fire. It also said that no injuries had been reported.Here's the video of the fire: Hillandale Farms is one of the largest suppliers of chicken eggs in the US.Their eggs are found in major supermarkets. It's unclear what the fire-damaged Bozrah location will mean for Hallandale Farms' national egg supply chain. The fire comes at a time when the US suffers from a severe shortage of eggs due to bird flu wiping out tens of millions of egg-laying hens. Egg shortages have been reported at supermarkets nationwide.

Cops -searching for 3 missing rappers find 'multiple bodies' (AP) — Authorities searching for three aspiring rappers who have been missing for nearly two weeks found “multiple bodies” Thursday at a vacant Detroit-area apartment building. State police cautioned that the identities of the bodies had not been confirmed. “Please remember all victims have families, and we don’t have the luxury of guessing on their identity and then retracting if we didn’t get it right,” state police said on Twitter. “Once information is confirmed we will update.” Taylor Perrin, the fiancee of Armani Kelly, told the Detroit Free Press that police informed Kelly’s family about the discovery. “Thank you for all the love and prayers during this extremely difficult time,” Kelly’s mother, Lorrie Kemp, said on Facebook. Kelly, 27, of Oscoda, Montoya Givens, 31, of Detroit, and Dante Wicker, 31, of Melvindale were supposed to perform at a party at Lounge 31 in Detroit on Jan. 21, but the appearance was canceled. They have not been seen since then. State police said “multiple victims” were found in an abandoned apartment building in Highland Park, near Detroit. The building was described as being “in very poor condition and rat infested,” which was slowing progress for investigators. “Detectives are continuing to investigate this incident and more than likely will be there throughout the night,” state police said. The three men met while in prison. Kelly and Givens were on parole at the time of their disappearance, according to the state corrections department.

The Police Folklore That Helped Kill Tyre Nichols - A 1992 study claims that officers who show weakness are more likely to be killed. Law-enforcement culture has never recovered. - Thirty-four years ago, near the crest of the crack-cocaine-fuelled crime surge of the early nineteen-nineties, two F.B.I agents began a novel investigation of threats to police. One agent was a former police lieutenant in Washington, D.C. The other was also a Catholic priest with a doctorate in psychology. Together, they plunged into the prison system, interviewing fifty convicted cop killers. Most criminologists today call such research pseudoscience. A sample size of fifty was almost anecdotal, and why should anyone trust a cop killer, anyway? The agents also had no benchmark—no comparable interviews with criminals who had complied. Yet the sweeping conclusions of their study, “Killed in the Line of Duty,” made the front page of the Times, and, through decades of promotion by the Department of Justice, became ingrained in the culture of American law enforcement. At the top of an inventory of “behavioral descriptors” linked to officers who ended up dead, the study listed traits that some citizens might prize: “friendly,” “well-liked by community and department,” “tends to use less force than other officers felt they would use in similar circumstances,” and “used force only as last resort.” The cop killers, the agents concluded from their prison conversations, had attacked officers with a “good-natured demeanor.” An officer’s failure to dominate—to immediately enforce full control over the suspect—proved fatal. “A miscue in assessing the need for control in particular situations can have grave consequences,” the authors warned. Although few patrolmen today explicitly cite the study, some of its findings survive as police folklore, like the commonplace that unshined shoes can make an officer a target. Most significant, the study’s core lesson about the imperative to dominate dovetailed with a nineties-era turn in law-enforcement culture toward what was known as a “warrior mind-set,” teaching officers to see almost any civilian as a potentially lethal assassin—an approach that many police trainers still advertise, even as the cops-vs.-citizens mentality has fallen out of favor among many police chiefs.

California won't require COVID vaccine to attend schools - -- Children in California won't have to get the coronavirus vaccine to attend schools, state public health officials confirmed Friday, ending one of the last major restrictions of the pandemic in the nation's most populous state. Gov. Gavin Newsom first announced the policy in 2021, saying it would eventually apply to all of California's 6.7 million public and private schoolchildren. But since then, the crisis first caused by a mysterious virus in late 2019 has mostly receded from public consciousness. COVID-19 is still widespread, but the availability of multiple vaccines has lessened the viruses' effects for many — offering relief to what had been an overwhelmed public health system. Nearly all of the pandemic restrictions put in place by Newsom have been lifted, and he won't be able to issue any new ones after Feb. 28 when the state's coronavirus emergency declaration officially ends. One of the last remaining questions was what would happen to the state's vaccine mandate for schoolchildren, a policy that came from the California Department of Public Health and was not impacted by the lifting of the emergency declaration. Friday, the Department of Public Health confirmed it was backing off its original plan. “CDPH is not currently exploring emergency rulemaking to add COVID-19 to the list of required school vaccinations, but we continue to strongly recommend COVID-19 immunization for students and staff to keep everyone safer in the classroom,” the department said in a statement. “Any changes to required K-12 immunizations are properly addressed through the legislative process.” The announcement was welcome news for Jonathan Zachreson, a father of three who lives in Roseville. Zachreson founded the group Reopen California Schools to oppose many of the state's coronavirus policies. His activism led to him being elected to the Roseville City School District board in November. “This is long overdue. ... A lot of families have been stressed from this decision and worried about it for quite some time," he said. “I wish CDPH would make a bigger statement publicly or Newsom would make a public statement ... to let families know and school districts know that this is no longer going to be an issue for them.”

New rules would limit sugar in school meals for first time - U.S. agriculture officials on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries. The plan announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly decrease sodium in the meals served to the nation’s schoolkids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible. The goal is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that serves breakfast to more than 15 million children and lunch to nearly 30 million children every day, Vilsack said. “School meals happen to be the meals with the highest nutritional value of any meal that children can get outside the home,” Vilsack said in an interview. The first limits on added sugars would be required in the 2025-2026 school year, starting with high-sugar foods such as sweetened cereals, yogurts and flavored milks. Under the plan, for instance, an 8-ounce container of chocolate milk could contain no more than 10 grams of sugar. Some popular flavored milks now contain twice that amount. The plan also limits sugary grain desserts, such as muffins or doughnuts, to no more than twice a week at breakfast. By the fall of 2027, added sugars in school meals would be limited to less than 10% of the total calories per week for breakfasts and lunches. The proposal also would reduce sodium in school meals by 30% by the fall of 2029. They would gradually be reduced to align with federal guidelines, which recommend Americans aged 14 and older limit sodium to about 2,300 milligrams a day, with less for younger children.

Woburn, Massachusetts teachers vote overwhelmingly for strike action as state threatens retaliation with anti-strike law - Teachers in Woburn, Massachusetts voted overwhelmingly for strike action on Friday, setting the stage for a strike Monday morning. The approximately 550 teachers, paraprofessionals and nurses, members of the Woburn Teachers Association (WTA), have been working without a contract since August. Hundreds of educators, students, parents and other supporters rallied Saturday afternoon in the city’s downtown ahead of the planned strike. The Woburn School Committee had filed a petition with the state Department of Labor Relations on January 24 to “investigate an illegal strike,” after learning that the WTA was planning to hold a strike vote. Shortly before the Saturday rally began, the School Committee announced that the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board had issued a ruling Friday evening mandating the union to cease strike-related activities and resume negotiations. Under a reactionary, antidemocratic state law, strikes by public sector workers in Massachusetts are illegal. The Haverhill Education Association (HEA) was fined and paid out $360,000 for a four-day strike in October of last year by educators in that city. Negotiators for the WTA and the Woburn School Committee resumed talks at 10 a.m. Sunday morning and said they would be negotiating throughout the day. The most recent agreement between the WTA and the Woburn School Committee was reached in January 2021 and included a paltry 1 percent pay increase for one year. In a statement, the WTA said it was asking for pay increases for education support professionals, smaller class sizes and twice-a-week physical education classes for elementary school students. The union and the School Committee said an agreement was reached between Woburn Public Schools and the WTA in October, but union members did not ratify that contract.

Jordan subpoenas Garland, Wray over school board memo - The House Judiciary Committee fired off its first subpoenas under the leadership of Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), targeting a trio of Biden administration officials including Attorney General Merrick Garland over a short-lived memo dealing with threats against school board members. The subpoenas, sent also to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, follow a series of more than 100 letters on the 2021 memo from Judiciary Republicans. Garland signed the memo in October of last year, noting a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff” amid broader discussion over COVID-19 policies and how issues like race and gender are addressed at school. Though little resulted from the memo, Republicans have remained laser-focused on it. The subpoena, reviewed by The Hill, asks for all communications between the entities and the National School Boards Association, which first wrote to DOJ asking for help in dealing with rising threats. Jordan has repeatedly claimed the memo is a way for the Biden administration to label parents as domestic terrorists, though the FBI never charged a single parent in connection with the directive — something the chair pointed out in a recent appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “The chilling impact on the First Amendment free speech is what we care about,” he said during the interview.

Newly released African American studies course side-steps DeSantis’ criticism - The College Board’s newly-released official framework for its Advanced Placement course on African American Studies appears to forgo several topics that caused Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to support rejecting it from Florida. The nonprofit that oversees the Advanced Placement program unveiled its new course framework Wednesday to coincide with the first day of Black History Month. The release caps about a decade of developing a college-level course that spans the early kingdoms of Africa to today’s climate for Black Americans. It also comes as the course has drawn political backlash in Florida, where top education officials rejected a pilot version of the course after raising objections to lessons on queer studies, reparations and abolishing prisons, all of which seem to be gone from the requirements in the new curriculum. The nonprofit on Wednesday reiterated that no state nor district had seen the new framework before its unveiling and denied that any feedback from state officials was taken into consideration. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday said “I call bullshit — you are merely a puppet of Ron DeSantis” in a tweet directed at College Board CEO David Coleman that included a photo of a New York Times story about the final framework. At least two governors, DeSantis and Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, sent letters to the College Board about the course before the final framework was released, with Pritzker warning that Illinois schools wouldn’t accept the “watering down of history.” A 234-page overview for the African American Studies course shows that the program covers a range of topics from the origins of the African diaspora to the slave trade and Civil Rights movement. Students who take the course would learn about the Black Panther Party and the growth of the Black middle class, abolitionists and the role Black women play in society. The new requirements will take effect when the course launches for the 2024-2025 school year. The updated syllabus also excludes mandatory lessons on intersectionality, which is a part of critical race theory, as well as other topics Florida’s Department of Education had called “concerning.”

Here are the key changes the College Board is making to its AP African American studies course - -The College Board on Wednesday announced major changes to its Advanced Placement (AP)) African American studies course after objections from the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), drawing sharp criticism from advocates and civil rights groups who said the alterations removed key material.The College Board has said the changes were already in progress, and the coursework DeSantis rejected was part of a pilot program run in only a couple of dozen schools. Regardless, the announced changes have caused backlash, with critics saying the College Board bowed to the demands from a Republican governor looking to start culture war fights. The College Board has defended the revisions, with CEO David Coleman saying the “course is an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African American history and culture.”Here are some of the key concepts that are in and out of the revised course: Topics that were originally required material, but got taken off of the coursework completely include:

• Black queer studies
• Intersectionality and activism
• The reparations movement
• Black scholars associated with critical race theory, or CRT

DeSantis had gone after these topics, saying they were not useful and claiming they were pushing an agenda on children. “This course, when I heard it, didn’t meet the standards. I figured, ‘Yeah, they may be doing CRT,’” he said last month. “It’s way more than that. This course on Black history, what [is] one of the lessons about? Queer theory. Now, who would say that’s an important part of Black history, queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda on our kids.”Those in favor of the course as it originally was say the removal of these topics take away from students’ education and erases a critical part of Black history. “The lives, contributions, and stories of Black trans, queer, and non-binary/non-conforming people matter and should not be diminished or erased,” David J. Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, said in a statement. “Black history has always been queer. You cannot teach Black history while erasing members of our community and the contributions made to our community and this country.”Required material shifted to optional:

• Black Lives Matter: Origins, impacts, critics
• Reparations debates in the U.S./the Americas

Last month, Florida released a graphic highlighting some of the key issues it had with the AP African American course. Among them was “the reparations movement” section, where the state says the curriculum did not give a “critical perspective” or opposing opinion on the topic. Although not a required part of the material anymore, the reparations debate and Black Lives Matter movement are now part of optional project subjects students can choose from in the course.Among others additions, an optional project called “Black conservatism: development and ideology” was added to the curriculum, drawing attention after the previous GOP criticism of the course.

Florida demands revisions of other woke AP classes - From the desk of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: As we in Florida celebrate Month (what other states call Black History Month), it has come to our attention that woke ideologies have penetrated not just the African American Studies AP course framework but also every other Advanced Placement class.We were heartened that the College Board updated its curriculum for the African American Studies course for what it claimed were unrelated reasons after we raised objections to the inclusion of Black queer topics and works from thinkers such as bell hooks and Angela Davis. It was so nice that their unrelated edits coincided with our specific complaints; we feel like we’ve won, even if they insist that is not what happened. But we cannot stop here. These same woke ideologies have penetrated every single AP offering. We would like to see the following changes made to these additional courses as soon as possible.

• AP European History: Lots of talk about “allies” and “allyship.” Seems unnecessary in a history course. Mentions allies (including communists) working together to defeat Nazis — this, again, feels needlessly political. Describes book burnings as definitively negative. References to France, the French.
• AP Human Geography: Existence of Ukraine as a sovereign nation presented as fact. Teach the controversy, please!
• AP Chemistry: Students are urged to call some things “basic” as a judgment — this must stop. Instead, say that a chemical compound “enjoys Starbucks” or “favors the music of Taylor Swift.” Stop students from titrating; this is not something they should be doing at school. Singling out some gases as “noble” because they are “less volatile” has the potential to hurt feelings and should be stopped. Okay to study DNA but not mRNA.
• AP Calculus: Omit positive references to integration and change.
• AP Art History: Filth! Put fig leaves on all those statues, and then we can reevaluate.
• AP Comparative Government and Politics: Description of voting as an unalloyed good is misleading.
• AP Physics: “Resistance” and “resistors” have no place in a science course.
• AP U.S. History: Mentions events from the American past.
• AP Statistics: This whole course seems engineered to make anti-vaxxers feel “wrong” and “lesser.” Need to stress that there is more than one correct way to interpret statistics.
• AP Latin: Every word of this seems obscene. “Cum gladiis et fustibus”? “Homo bulla™? “Dix”? These are the same people who gave us all those nude statues, and it shows.
• AP English Literature: Includes books. We can’t stand books.
• AP Biology: No objections, but see attached 15-page complaint from Texas.

Harvard is shutting down project that studied social media misinformation - Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government said Thursday that it will shut down a prominent research center that studied online misinformation next year, marking the latest turning point for the study of social media’s impact on American society and politics.Since 2019, the Technology and Social Change Project has published research into the spread of coronavirus hoaxes and the online incitement techniques that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. It will wind down due to a school policy that requires a faculty member lead such an undertaking, Nancy Gibbs, the director of the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, said in an internal email shared with The Washington Post. The project’s director, Joan Donovan, one of the country’s most widely cited experts on digital “media manipulation,” is not a faculty member and therefore could not continue to lead the project, Gibbs said. Donovan, whose title is research director, is regarded as a member of the Shorenstein Center’s staff; it’s unknown whether she had been given the option to assume a faculty role during her time at Harvard.Kennedy School officials declined to comment on personnel matters. Donovan declined to comment.The move was first reported by the Harvard Crimson, the school’s student-led publication.The project’s sunsetting in the months before the 2024 election marks a surprise development in what has been one of the American research world’s hottest topics: how the interplay of technology, political opportunism and unwitting internet users has shaped public conversation and democratic debate.But it also comes as the field of study into what’s known as “misinformation,” supercharged by the Trump presidency, enters a new era. Twitter, now led by the meme-sharing billionaire Elon Musk, has worked to end the platform’s long-standing openness to free, real-time research,announcing late Wednesday that on Feb. 9 it will begin charging for automated access to its data through its Application Programming Interfaces, a move that will hurt both developers and researchers.Some researchers also have faced harassment online or been criticized by Republican lawmakers over claims their work is skewed by a liberal agenda. The platforms they study have changed, too, away from Facebook and Twitter to places like TikTok, Discord and Twitch, which present new challenges for data gathering, analysis and debate.At the same time, more governments and commercial enterprises are waging information campaigns, and getting better at it, said Lisa Kaplan, chief executive of misinformation tracker Alethea Group.“The enhanced operational security tactics employed by sophisticated actors and the proliferation of platforms with varying community standards and enforcement, combined with various access to data has ultimately changed the nature of the threat,” Kaplan said. “Reducing free access to limited and research APIs also inhibits the academic community to study these types of threats.”Harvard’s move came as a shock to Donovan’s supporters, including Craig Newmark, the philanthropist founder of Craigslist, who said he was trying to learn why her project was being shut down after he had donated $5 million to it.“Joan Donovan’s work must continue, for our national security,” he said. “She is defending the country against people who want to do us harm.”

N.Y. State Teachers pension fund keeps investments in oil sands companies - The governing board of the $129.6 billion New York State Teachers' Retirement System, Albany, will retain investments in several oil sands companies after conducting a review under an environmental investment policy adopted by the board in December 2021.The board, which took action at its quarterly meeting Thursday, didn't identify how many companies, the names of the companies or the amount invested.These companies will remain on the pension system's restricted list, which affects internally managed and passive separate accounts. The board "directed staff to continue to conduct ongoing engagement, monitoring and assessment of these oil sands companies," according to the resolution approved by board members. The restricted list covers:

• Companies that derive more than 10% of their revenue from activities related to oil sands.
• The 10 largest positions in companies that have more than 0.3 gigaton of potential carbon dioxide emissions from thermal coal reserves.
• The 10 largest positions in companies that derive more than 20% of their revenue from oil and gas, or have more than 0.1 gigaton of potential carbon dioxide emissions from oil and gas reserves.

The pension system "will maintain but not add to our current holdings (in oil sands companies) and will continue to monitor, assess, and engage," Heidi Brennan, a spokeswoman wrote in an email, adding that the system has investments in fewer than five oil sands companies on the restricted list."We are unable to disclose the specific names at this time due to the confidential nature of our portfolio composition decisions protected under" New York State law, she wrote.A report by the pension system staff, presented at the Thursday meeting, recommended "continued ownership and engagement of all oil sands companies." Based on its review, the staff concluded that the oil sands companies "are addressing climate risk and are responsive to initial engagement," the report said.

How a Drug Company Made $114 Billion by Gaming the U.S. Patent System - In 2016, a blockbuster drug called Humira was poised to become a lot less valuable. The key patent on the best-selling anti-inflammatory medication, used to treat conditions like arthritis, was expiring at the end of the year. Regulators had blessed a rival version of the drug, and more copycats were close behind. The onset of competition seemed likely to push down the medication’s $50,000-a-year list price. Instead, the opposite happened. Through its savvy but legal exploitation of the U.S. patent system, Humira’s manufacturer, AbbVie, blocked competitors from entering the market. For the next six years, the drug’s price kept rising. Today, Humira is the most lucrative franchise in pharmaceutical history. Next week, the curtain is expected to come down on a monopoly that has generated $114 billion in revenue for AbbVie just since the end of 2016. The knockoff drug that regulators authorized more than six years ago, Amgen’s Amjevita, will come to market in the United States, and as many as nine more Humira competitors will follow this year from pharmaceutical giants including Pfizer. Prices are likely to tumble. The reason that it has taken so long to get to this point is a case study in how drug companies artificially prop up prices on their best-selling drugs. AbbVie orchestrated the delay by building a formidable wall of intellectual property protection and suing would-be competitors before settling with them to delay their product launches until this year. The strategy has been a gold mine for AbbVie, at the expense of patients and taxpayers.

Studies estimate COVID and all-cause deaths in youth, pregnancy | CIDRAP -Two new studies published in JAMA Network Open assess causes of death in US youth and pregnant and recently pregnant women during the pandemic, with the former finding that COVID-19 was the eighth-leading cause of death among children, and the latter showing that non-White pregnant women were significantly more likely to die of any cause than their White peers. University of Oxford researchers led the first study, using data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to identify the leading causes of death in youth aged 0 to 19 years from August 2021 to July 2022. The team compared COVID-19 deaths from April 2020 to August 2022 with non-COVID deaths in 2019 to 2021.A total of 821 US youth died from August 2021 to July 2022, for a crude death rate of 1.0 per 100,000 people. By age-group, death rates were highest among infants younger than 1 year (4.3 per 100,000), falling to 0.6 for those 1 to 4 years, 0.4 for those 5 to 9, 0.5 for those 10 to 14; and 1.8 for those 15 to 19.COVID-19 made up 2% of all deaths in this age-group (death rate, 1.0 per 100,000 people), and COVID-19 deaths were highest during the Delta and Omicron variant waves. The leading cause of death, perinatal conditions, had a death rate of 12.7 per 100,000; COVID-19 ranked ahead of influenza and pneumonia, which together had a death toll of 0.6 per 100,000. COVID-19 was the eighth-leading cause of death among all causes, fifth among disease-related deaths, and first in infectious or respiratory diseases compared with 2019. By age-group, COVID-19 was the seventh leading cause of death for both infants and 1- to 4-year-olds, sixth for those aged 5 to 9 and 10 to 14, and fifth for those 15 to 19. Compared with other age-groups, the risk of death from COVID-19 was much lower in youth. For example, from August 2021 to July 2022, the death rate among all ages of the US population was 109 per 100,000. In a University of Oxford news release, lead author Seth Flaxman, PhD, said that more than 1,300 US children have died of COVID-19, most of them during the past 2 years. University of Texas at San Antonio researchers led a study using National Center for Health Statistics data on causes of death among pregnant women and those who were recently pregnant (within 1 year) in 2019 and 2020.Of 4,535 total deaths, 64% were women aged 34 years or younger. By race, 2.4% of the women were American Indian or Alaska Native, 2.8% were Asian or Pacific Islander, 14.8% were Hispanic, 28.1% were Black, 50.5% were White, and 1.4% were multiracial.In 2020, the all-cause death rate for recently pregnant women rose 29%, from 53.9 to 69.6 per 100,000 live births (mortality rate ratio [MRR], 1.29). Rates of death from pregnancy-related causes climbed 22%, from 27.5 to 33.6 per 100,000 live births (MRR, 1.22), and deaths from non-pregnancy causes increased 36%, from 26.4 to 36.0 per 100,000 live births.

Why Are So Many Americans Dying Right Now? - About 1.1 million Americans have officially died from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, a number that may be familiar by now. But here’s a less familiar one: According to one tabulation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 300,000 additional Americans have died over the past three years whom we would not have expected to in more normal times. Over the last three years, the country’s large excess mortality has been mostly attributed to Covid-19. But perhaps a quarter of the total, and at times a larger share than that, has been chalked up to other causes. You can estimate this “excess excess” in different ways: The Economist calculates that, in the United States, total excess mortality through the pandemic is 20 percent higher than the country’s official Covid death toll. A different C.D.C. data set suggests only about 10 percent higher. Other estimates range from lows of about 15 percent higher to nearly 50 percent higher. Nearly all suggest an “excess excess” of hundreds of thousands of deaths over the course of the pandemic. And though the pattern has continued for three years, there isn’t medical or scientific consensus about what is driving it. Instead, perhaps several hundred thousand “unexpected” deaths have been explained only by loose conjecture. What are the hypotheses? The first is delayed care — that the pandemic made people postpone treatment for various problems, as doctors and hospitals triaged resources, sending them toward those ill with Covid-19 and away from other issues, and canceled visits and screenings prevented new diagnoses (and therefore treatment).A second hypothesis is about the indirect effects of pandemic restrictions: not just missed medical care but social isolation, anxiety and unemployment, which can worsen a wide range of conditions, as well as, potentially, suicide and homicide and even car accidents and overdoses, to the extent they each deviated from historical patterns.A third hypothesis is that Covid-19 infection does harm to the body that can linger after recovery for some people — not just in what is conventionally called long Covid, but also in other ways, by disturbing the function of various organ systems. (Damage to the cardiovascular system has been one particular area of research focus.) “We still don’t really grasp the entire spectrum and breadth of disease yet,” the Yale immunobiologist Akiko Iwasaki told me. “We are still learning.”Over the last year, papers exploring another theory — involving the risks of these “post-acute sequelae” with reinfection, not just initial infection — have also raised a considerable amount of alarm. Nearly every one of the many experts I spoke to about these papers emphasized their shortcomings, most notably that its authors were looking only at health outcomes among those people who had gone to see a doctor, feeling ill. The effect size was, if real, almost surely much lower than the write-ups suggest, they told me. But nearly every expert also was careful to say that, all things being equal, a reinfection was indeed bad for you, that especially if you were not in great health you’d want to avoid them and that in particular cases a reinfection could certainly contribute to the death of a patient from causes other than classic Covid pneumonia.Another hypothesis is that Covid infection damages immune function in some patients in a long-lasting way. Here, too, there have been papers published tracing immunological effects, though there has also been a lot of contestation and pushback against — and contextualizing for — narratives of significant and widespread immunological dysfunction.

Heart, Vein Disease Deaths High In 25-To-44-Year-Olds - Diseases of the heart and veins claimed more lives over the past several years among American aged 25 to 44 than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Even with the pandemic waning, such deaths remain elevated.In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, deaths caused by circulatory diseases increased by about 15 percent in the 25 to 44 age group compared to the year before, according to death certificate data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).In 2021, such deaths increased by more than 20 percent compared to 2019.That means nearly 6,500 more deaths.It appears that the increase may have been caused by multiple factors.COVID-19 sometimes causes complications in the circulatory system. It’s likely that some deaths, especially early on in the pandemic, were caused by COVID-19 but were misclassified on the death certificate.Also, many people were likely diagnosed too late or not at all because they were afraid to go to a doctor during the pandemic.However, diseases of the circulatory system continued to claim lives at a higher rate in this age group even in 2022, when the pandemic receded. In the first half of the year, such deaths were still more than 13 percent above the death toll for the first half of 2019, according to the CDC’s preliminary data.In the 45 to 54 age group, such deaths increased in 2020–21 but seem to have since receded back to pre-pandemic levels.In the 15 to 24 age group, such deaths have barely budged over the past five years.

COVID vaccine-boosted nursing home residents at 30% to 50% lower risk of infection - A study today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report finds that US nursing home residents who weren't up to date on recommended COVID-19 vaccines were at a 30% to 50% higher risk for infection than those who were current. From Oct 10, 2022, to Jan 8, 2023, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers analyzed data from the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) on weekly COVID-19 infections among nursing home residents.The team compared infection rates among residents who had received the recommended primary monovalent (single-strain) vaccine series and either a monovalent booster dose within the past 2 months or the newer bivalent (two-strain) booster.Federal mandates require nursing homes certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to report weekly infection and vaccination data to NHSN, the researchers said. Each of the 15,049 facilities reported such data for at least 1 week during the study period, and the vast majority submitted data for all 13 weeks.Up-to-date vaccination status was low throughout the study period, rising from 37.5% the week of Oct 23 to 48.9% by study end. Weekly COVID-19 infection rates among unboosted residents were higher than those among booster recipients (range, 9.5 to 18.8 per 1,000 residents vs 7.2 to 15.6), with incidence rate ratios (IRRs) indicating that unboosted residents were at higher risk than their boosted peers (range, 1.3 to 1.5). "The proportion of nursing home residents in this study who were up to date (48.9%) was lower than the percentage of nursing home residents who completed a primary series (86.1%) and who received monovalent booster doses (87.0%)," the researchers wrote.The authors noted that nursing home residents are at high risk for COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes, including death because they typically are older, have more chronic conditions, and live in a congregate-care setting. "This study supports other recent findings that the bivalent booster dose offers additional protection in persons who previously received monovalent vaccines," they wrote.

CDC tracking new, potentially dangerous COVID variant — Just when many may start to think the pandemic is over, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking another new potentially dangerous coronavirus variant called Orthrus CH.1.1.CDC tracks a potentially dangerous coronavirus variant (WKRC)It got its name from a variant tracker in Australia. Orthrus in Greek mythology was a two-headed cattle dog. As of this week, it's at just under two percent of cases in the United States. While it comes from the omicron variant, the concern is that it has a mutation seen in delta and that was a potentially deadly and dangerous strain."Delta seemed to be a little bit more severe, so it caused more people to be admitted to be admitted to the hospital, more people in intensive care," said infectious disease specialist Dr. Stephen Blatt. Technically, the country isn't really at the end of the emergency phase of the pandemic.Blatt says we need to consider the timing of CH 1.1."The problem is it's really hard to compare a virus that comes out now when we have a lot of immunity in the population, versus a virus that was here you know back at the end of 2020 or 2021 before we have vaccines."The good news is that the new bivalent booster should have at least some protection against this new variant because it's a descendant of omicron.Variant trackers do point out however, this has been rising globally since November and any new variant has the potential to evade vaccine or natural immunity and be highly transmissible.

First Kraken, now Orthrus: What’s this highly transmissible COVID variant that US, China are tracking? Monsters from Greek mythology are taking a new form – of COVID-19 variants. Now experts warn of Orthrus. Officially called CH.1.1, this Omicron spawn could leave the fast-spreading Kraken behindEven as the war in Ukraine, the possibility of a US-China conflict, and global economic gloom catch our attention, the fight against COVID-19 is far from over. The coronavirus continues to mutate. There is the “Kraken” and now the “Orthrus”, both these Omicron subvariants get their names from monsters from Greek mythology. The United States and China are now desperately tracking the latter. Officially, it is called CH.1.1. CH.1.1 is an Omicron spawn, which is now on the radar of the United States Centres of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Until last week, it comprised 1.5 per cent of cases in the country. The most dominant virus in the US is the XBB.1.5, known as the Kraken. It accounts for more than 60 per cent of the cases, according to federal health data released on 24 January. But there is a growing fear that the Orthrus could leave the highly transmissible Kraken behind.Orthrus is named after a mythical two-headed cattle dog killed by Hercules by Australian variant tracker Mike Honey, according to a report in Fortune. CH.1.1 emerged in Southeast Asia and has been spreading globally since November. It has been detected in 66 countries and is responsible for about 10 per cent of COVID samples sequenced around the world every day, according to outbreak.info, which aggregates data across scientific sources.The strain has been identified in more than a quarter of infections in parts of the United Kingdom and New Zealand, according to researchers at Ohio State University, the Fortunereports. It is also found in Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Ireland. In Hong Kong, Orthrus is responsible for a quarter of cases.China is also on the watch out. Around 24 cases of the transmissible subvariant have been reported from the mainland in three months, according to Chinese health authorities. However, they say it is unlikely to cause another wave. “Despite an increased ability to resist immune responses and a higher transmissibility, which might increase breakthrough infection and reinfection risks, the population in China has a high level of neutralising antibodies,” the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement on Tuesday night, according to South China Morning Post (SCMP).Like XBB.1.5, the Kraken, Orthrus is highly transmissible with levels doubling every two weeks. Variant tracker Cornelius Romer, a computational biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, said that CH.1.1 is worth keeping an eye on.According to experts, Orthrus carries a mutation – L452R – which increases its immunity to current vaccines. This mutation is seen in Delta and not in Omircon, which raises the concern that it can outperform other competitive strains of the latter.CH.1.1 binds well to ACE2 receptors, the site where COVID infects human cells, according to Ohio State researchers. That means it has the potential to override, at least partially, antibody immunity from prior infection and vaccination, as well as to cause more severe disease, reports Fortune.Researchers said they found it “astonishing” that CH.1.1 and another new variant could evade immunity more easily than XBB and BQ subvariants.However, China’s CDC says that the mutation found in CH.1.1 is present in subvariants like BA. 5.3 and BA. 5.1.3. It is unclear if it could cause more severe symptoms of the disease.

New potentially concerning COVID-19 variant, Orthrus Ch.1.1, found in SC --The CDC is tracking another new potentially dangerous coronavirus variant called Orthrus CH.1.1.According to experts -- it got its name from a variant tracker in Australia. Orthrus in Greek mythology was a two-headed cattle dog. It looks very unique, and so does this new CH 1.1 variant. While it comes from Omicron, the concern is that it has a mutation seen in Delta and that was a potentially deadly and dangerous strain. Dr. Brannon Traxler with the Dept. of Health and Environmental Control said the variant has made its way not only to the United States but to South Carolina in the past couple of weeks. "As of about three weeks ago, in the United States, it was about 1.5% of the cases with a sequence of this Orthrus variant. In South Carolina at the same we were about 3.6%," said Dr. Traxler. As of now, Dr. Traxler said our trends in the state, as far as hospitalizations and deaths, continue to trend downwards even with this new variant.

Here's why the newest subvariant could mean the pandemic isn't really over (WKRC) - We are learning more about one of the newest subvariants of omicron now circulating the globe. Here's why the newest subvariant could mean the pandemic isn't really over. It appears to bypass some of what currently keeps us from getting really sick from the coronavirus. This new variant has the potential to interrupt progress that has us moving toward the end of the pandemic, according to those tracking it. Not only does CH.1.1, or Orthrus, appear to have a mutation similar to the delta variant -- which caused a deadly case surge early on in the pandemic -- but a new pre-print study from researchers at Ohio State University found it is on the list of variants and subvariants that evade neutralizing antibodies. Those antibodies come from previous infection or vaccines, and defend cells against the virus to keep it from entering the body. Without that ability, this newer CH.1.1 subvariant could spread like wildfire. "It's hard to believe that it will be more infectious out there than the current variants out there, the XBB variant, which is very highly contagious," said TriHealth infectious disease specialist Dr. Stephen Blatt. "We'll just have to wait and see." The latest CDC numbers show CH.1.1 is now responsible for just under two percent of US cases. While that's low for now, as it evolves -- as with any new variant or subvariant -- it has the potential to take on new properties and wreak havoc on the body in ways we've not seen before. "It's always a game of catch-up with COVID, trying to figure out what the new variants are doing," Dr. Blatt said. CH.1.1 has now been reported in 60 countries.

COVID bivalent booster appears to offer added benefits against Omicron - A trio of new studies concludes that the COVID-19 bivalent (two-strain) vaccine booster offers added protection against infection with the Omicron and its major subvariants and against severe illness. In the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), University of North Carolina (UNC) researchers parsed data from the state's COVID-19 surveillance and vaccine-management systems from Sep 1 to Dec 8, 2022, a period in which the bivalent Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccine boosters were administered. The team also pulled data from May 25 to Aug 31, 2022, when only monovalent (single-strain) boosters were administered to compare rates of severe infection from the Omicron BA.4.6, BA.5, BQ.1, and BQ.1.1 subvariants. Authorized on Aug 31, 2022, for Americans aged 12 and older, the bivalent booster contains the spike protein from the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus, BA.4, and BA.5.Of the 6,242,259 people eligible for a booster, 5% received a monovalent dose from May 25 to Aug 31. Three percent of 1,896 boosted participants reported COVID-19 hospitalizations, and 3% of 690 died. From Sep 1 to Nov 3, 17% of 6,283,483 eligible participants received a bivalent booster, 5% of 1,093 of them reported COVID-19 hospitalizations, and 3% of 514 died.Booster effectiveness peaked at 1 month and then waned. Vaccine effectiveness (VE) against severe infection resulting in hospitalization 15 to 99 days after receipt of one monovalent booster dose was 25.2% (95% confidence interval [CI], -0.2% to 44.2%), and the corresponding VE for a bivalent booster dose was 58.7% (95% CI, 43.7% to 69.8%).A study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers evaluated the bivalent vaccine's effectiveness against symptomatic Omicron XBB and XBB.1.5 subvariants from December 2022 to January 2023. Compared with no booster, bivalent dose VE against symptomatic BA.5 infection among 29,175 adults who had received two to four monovalent vaccine doses was 52%, and VE against symptomatic XBB/XBB.1.5 infection was 48%, in adults aged 18 to 49 years 2 or 3 months after receipt. VE against symptomatic BA.5 infection was 43% among participants aged 50 to 64 years and 37% among those 65 and older.VE against symptomatic XBB/XBB.1.5 infection was 49% among participants aged 18 to 49 years, 40% among those aged 50 to 64, and 43% among those aged 65 years and older. Evidence of waning VE 2 to 3 months after receiving a bivalent dose was minimal, although the researchers said the estimates were imprecise. Another NEJM study, this one by researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch, Pfizer, and BioNTech, evaluated VE against the wild-type virus, BA.4.6, BA.2.75.2, BQ.1.1, and XBB.1 subvariants in adults older than 55 years. The participants had received three doses of the monovalent Pfizer vaccine and either a fourth monovalent dose of the Pfizer vaccine roughly 6.6 months after the third dose or the bivalent vaccine about 11 months after the third dose. The fourth monovalent vaccine dose triggered an increase in concentrations of neutralizing antibodies of 3.0 against the wild-type virus, 2.9 against BA.4/BA.5, 2.3 against BA.4, 2.1 against BA.2.75.2, 1.8 against BQ.1.1, and 1.5 against XBB.1, which has now become the dominant variant in the United States. The bivalent booster increased neutralizing antibody concentrations by 5.8, 13.0, 11.1, 6.7, 8.7, and 4.8, respectively. Among COVID-naïve participants, the monovalent vaccine produced neutralizing antibody concentration increases of 4.4 against the wild-type virus, 3.0 against BA.4/BA.5, 2.5 against BA.4.6, 2.0 against BA.2.75.2, 1.5 against BQ.1.1, and 1.3 against XBB.1. The bivalent booster increased neutralizing antibody levels by 9.9, 26.4, 22.2, 8.4, 12.6, and 4.7, respectively. Among previously infected participants, the monovalent vaccine increased neutralizing antibody concentrations by 2.0 against the wild-type virus, 2.8 against BA.4/BA.5, 2.1 against BA.4.6, 2.1 against BA.2.75.2, 2.2 against BQ.1.1, and 1.8 against XBB.1. The bivalent booster increased neutralizing antibody concentrations by 3.5, 6.7, 5.6, 5.3, 6.0, and 4.9, respectively.Despite different intervals from doses 3 to 4, the antibody levels before the fourth dose were similar in the monovalent and the bivalent groups, regardless of previous infection status.

Why no Pi? Variants are still stuck on Omicron even as coronavirus continues to mutate -- You may have heard that there’s a new Omicron spinoff that’s quickly gaining ground in the United States. Maybe you wanted to ask your doctor about it or search for more information online – but what was it called again? Scientists know it as XBB.1.5, a name assigned because it is the second generation of the recombinant Omicron subvariant XBB.X is the way scientists designate a recombinant, the result of two viruses that have swapped sections of their genetic material. The BB part is just alphabetical order. The first known recombinant was called XA, the second XB and so on. Now, they’ve run through the alphabet and are doubling up: XAA, XAB, all the way to XBB.It hasn’t always been this hard.In May 2021, the World Health Organization announced that in order to enable better public communication and to avoid the stigma of naming new variants after the countries where they were found, it would assign Greek letters to viruses that had acquired mutations that made them more transmissible, helped them evade current therapies, or made them more severe.WHO said it would give these new names to viruses that its experts had designated as variants of interest or the even more consequential variants of concern. That gave us the familiar Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants as well as a slew of others that only rose to regional importance, like Epsilon, Theta and Mu.It’s been more than a year since WHO gave a new variant a Greek letter name, however, creating a communications gap that some experts believe may be hindering efforts to protect public health. When Omicron – also known as BA.1 – blazed around the world starting in November 2021, it was so genetically distinct from the viruses that came before it that its branch of the SARS-CoV-2 family tree struck out in totally different direction. Our immune systems barely recognized any of it. BA.1 generated new waves of infections, hospitalizations and deaths, as well as a slew of new descendants.At the time, scientists argued that the second Omicron strain – BA.2, with dozens of new gene mutations –was as genetically distinct from BA.1 as Alpha, Gamma and Delta had been from each other. Some said they thought BA.2 deserved its own Greek letter. But that never happened. Instead, WHO quietly stopped designating Variants of Concern or Variants of Interest categories that call for new Greek names.Instead, it created a new category, Omicron Subvariants under Monitoring, to signal to public health officials which of these spinoffs should be watched – which might sound a lot like the reason to designate variants of interest and variants of concern in the first place.The organization left the door open to designate new names if it deems a variant to be sufficiently different, but it hasn’t seen the need to do that for more than a year.“The fact that the many individual (sub)variants are not given their own label does not diminish the importance of these variants,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said in an emailed statement. “A new label, (i.e. a new assignment of a variant of concern,) would be given if there is a variant sufficiently different in its public health impact, and which would require a change in the public health response,” Lindmeier wrote.

Immune imprinting makes Covid-19 booster shots less effective, Chinese scientists find -- - Three doses of inactivated Covid-19 vaccine produce a lower level of neutralising antibodies against two Omicron variants of the virus that causes the disease than two doses, according to Chinese scientists. The finding highlighted the importance of considering a phenomenon called immune imprinting in vaccine design, the researchers said. Separately, immune imprinting has also been at the centre of a debate in the United States as it considers simplifying its vaccination programme.Immune imprinting refers to the way people’s immune systems respond to a newly circulating strain by producing antibodies tailored to the first strain they encountered. In some cases, that could lead to a poorer ability to protect a person against a new strain of the virus.

How quickly does COVID immunity fade? What scientists know -Three years into the pandemic, the immune systems of the vast majority of humans have learnt to recognize SARS-CoV-2 through vaccination, infection or, in many cases, both. But just how quickly do these types of immunity fade?New evidence suggests that ‘hybrid’ immunity, the result of both vaccination and a bout of COVID-19, can provide partial protection against reinfection for at least eight months¹. It also offers greater than 95% protection against severe disease or hospitalization for between six months and a year after an infection or vaccination, according to estimates from a meta-analysis². Immunity acquired by booster vaccination alone seems to fade somewhat faster.But the durability of immunity is much more complex than the numbers suggest. How long the immune system can fend off SARS-CoV-2 infection depends not only on how much immunity wanes over time but also on how well immune cells recognize their target. “And that has more to do with the virus and how much it mutates,” says Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. If a new variant finds ways to escape the existing immune response, then even a recent infection might not guarantee protection.Omicron has presented just such a scenario. In late 2021 and early 2022, the main Omicron subvariants that were causing infections were BA.1 and BA.2. By mid-2022, the BA.5 wave was gathering strength in some countries, raising the prospect that those who’d already had one round of Omicron could soon be exposed to another. Data are now providing a sense of the risk of reinfection over time.In one study¹, researchers looking at Portugal’s national database of infections studied vaccinated people who became infected during the BA.1/BA.2 wave. Analysis showed that 90 days after an infection, this population had high immune protection — their risk of becoming infected with BA.5 was just one-sixteenth that of people who had been vaccinated but never infected. After that, hybrid immunity against infection declined steeply for a few months and then stabilized, ultimately providing protection for eight months after infection, the duration of the study.Another study³ looked at 338 vaccinated health-care workers in Sweden, some of whom had had a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. The authors found that workers with hybrid immunity had some level of protection against infection with BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5 for at least eight months. Swabbing of these workers’ noses revealed high levels of ‘mucosal’ antibodies, which are thought to be a better shield against infection than antibodies that circulate in the blood.A study⁴ in Qatar compared the infection risks of people who had never caught SARS-CoV-2 with those of people who’d had a previous infection with Omicron or an earlier variant. Both groups included vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. The results show that more recent infections provide greater protection than older ones in all cases. But because the virus kept evolving, the authors couldn’t untangle whether those differences were because of waning immunity, the virus’s growing ability to evade the immune response or, more likely, a combination of the two.Taken together, the studies suggest that hybrid immunity provides some protection against infection for at least seven or eight months, and probably longer. “That’s pretty good,” says Charlotte Thålin, an immunologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and an author of the Swedish study.Other data suggest that in people whose immunity arises only from vaccination, a booster dose provides relatively short-lived protection against infection. Researchers in Israel studied more than 10,000 health-care workers who had not previously been infected; all received either three or four doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech⁵. The authors found that the fourth dose’s efficacy against infection fell rapidly. In fact, after four months, the fourth dose was no better than three doses at preventing infection.

Merck’s Covid Drug Linked to Viable, Spreading Mutants, Study Says – Bloomberg - So far, new versions aren’t more lethal, immune-evasive - Merck & Co.’s Covid-19 pill is giving rise to new mutations of the virus in some patients, according to a study that underscores the risk of trying to intentionally alter the pathogen’s genetic code. Some researchers worry the drug may create more contagious or health-threatening variations of Covid, which has killed more than 6.8 million people globally over the past three years.

Could a popular COVID-19 antiviral supercharge the pandemic? - Merck & Co.’s molnupiravir appears to be speeding evolution of SARS-CoV-2 - A widely used COVID-19 drug may be driving the appearance of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, sparking concerns it could prolong and even reinvigorate the pandemic. The drug, molnupiravir, produced by Merck & Co., is designed to kill the virus by inducing mutations in the viral genome. A survey of viral genomes reported in a new preprint, however, suggests some people treated with the drug generate novel viruses that not only remain viable, but spread. “It’s very clear that viable mutant viruses can survive [molnupiravir treatment] and compete [with existing variants],” says virologist William Haseltine, chair of ACCESS Health International, who has repeatedly raised concerns about the drug. “I think we are courting disaster.” But a Merck spokesperson disputes that the drug has led to the emergence of widely circulating variants, and some researchers downplayed the significance of molnupiravir-caused mutations. “Right now, it’s much ado about nothing,” says Raymond Schinazi, a medicinal chemist at the Emory University School of Medicine, noting that with SARS-CoV-2 infecting millions of people worldwide, the virus is naturally mutating at a fast clip. Authorized in the United Kingdom and the United States in late 2021, molnupiravir was the first oral antiviral approved anywhere to fight COVID-19. It has since been authorized in dozens of other countries. In 2022, Merck estimated global sales of the compound at more than $5 billion. Though that is well below the $18.9 billion in 2022 sales for Paxlovid, another oral SARS-CoV-2 antiviral, molnupiravir remains widely popular in certain countries. From the start, however, Haseltine and others worried about the drug’s mechanism, which involves introducing so many mutations into the viral genome that it can no longer reproduce. One concern was that the drug might mutate not just the coronavirus, but the DNA of people receiving it—a side effect that has not been seen so far. Another was that mutated virus would survive and propagate—and perhaps turn out to be more transmissible or virulent than before. Before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the drug, a Merck spokesperson called the worry “an interesting hypothetical concern.” Nevertheless, researchers and citizen scientists from around the globe began to scan SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences deposited in the international GISAID database, looking for the kinds of mutations expected to be caused by molnupiravir.One virus hunter, Ryan Hisner, teamed up with Thomas Peacock, a virologist from Imperial College London, and systematically reviewed more than 13 million SARS-CoV-2 sequences in GISAID and analyzed those with clusters of more than 20 mutations. In a preprint posted on 27 January, they report that a large subset showed the hallmark substitutions; all dated from 2022, after molnupiravir began to be widely used.These signature clusters, the researchers found, were up to 100 times more common in countries where molnupiravir was widely used, including the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, than in countries such as France and Canada where it was not. Tracking the dates and locations of the sequences showed some of the mutated strains were spreading in the community. “Clearly something is happening here,” Peacock says.

Why misleading COVID-19 hospitalization data shouldn’t influence local policy decisions - In the last weeks of 2022, many counties crossed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) threshold from low and medium risk to high risk, triggering a return to mask mandates, particularly in educational settings. The goal of any standardized risk framework, such as the CDC “community risk levels” is to compare “apples-to-apples.” However, as has so often been the case throughout the pandemic, different state and local policies mean that the current COVID-19 county risk framework is comparing apples to oranges — and these faulty comparisons are impacting local policy responses and recommendations. In February 2022, the CDC released its updated — and controversial — risk classification scheme for evaluating community COVID-19 burden. Updated weekly, the CDC’s “community risk level” map categorizes each county in the U.S. as “low risk” (green), “medium risk” (yellow) or “high risk” (red). These categories are associated with different public health recommendations; most notably about when to wear masks. Unlike its prior risk-level map, the now one-year-old approach takes into account not only the number of new COVID-19 cases per capita but also new admissions to the hospital and the percent of inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19. Today, it is well known that among those patients classified as “COVID hospitalizations,” some are admitted “for COVID” (as a result of COVID-19) and some “with COVID” (for other reasons but with a positive COVID-19 test). Only in Massachusetts has there been an attempt to quantify this. Since January 2022, every hospital in the state has been reporting the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who have and have not received the drug dexamethasone, which is the standard of care for COVID-19 with lung involvement. Importantly, that proportion has been changing over time. A year ago, about half of patients had not been treated for COVID-19. In the last several months, that number is consistently around 70 percent. This means that not only are the “COVID hospitalizations” included in the CDC numbers not truly representative of the risk they are meant to measure, but the county risk levels have lost their meaning as preventative and therapeutic options have improved. The U.S. has had a fragmented approach to COVID-19. One manifestation of this is that some states and some hospitals, have elected to test every patient upon admission for COVID-19 regardless of symptoms, while others never did. Still others took this approach earlier in the pandemic but phased the policy out at some point. This variability in practice affects the county level risk classification, as hospitals which do asymptomatic testing find more cases than those that do not. Yet even though we know the metrics are measuring different things, depending upon where you are and the state in which you live, they are being used to dictate local public health policy, particularly with respect to masking in schools. There is almost certainly high correlation between counties or states that have more in-hospital testing (and therefore artificially inflated estimates of community “COVID risk level”) and those that tend to strongly recommend or mandate masks in response to CDC data. But is it fair for children in Massachusetts, Michigan or California to be subjected to a mask mandate simply because their local hospitals do more asymptomatic testing?

U.S. winter COVID surge is mild and fading fast --This winter's COVID-19 surge in the U.S. appears to be fading without hitting nearly as hard as many had feared."I think the worst of the winter resurgence is over," says Dr. David Rubin, who's been tracking the pandemic at the PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.No one expected this winter's surge to be as bad as the last two. But both the flu and RSV came roaring back really early this fall. At the same time, the most contagious omicron subvariant yet took off just as the holidays arrived in late 2022. And most people were acting like the pandemic was over, which allowed all three viruses to spread quickly.So there were big fears of hospitals getting completely overwhelmed again, with many people getting seriously ill and dying.But that's not what happened."This virus continues to throw 210-mile-per-hour curve balls at us. And it seems to defy gravity or logic sometimes," says Michael Osterholm, who heads the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota."People all assumed we would see major transmission. Well, every time we think we have some reason to believe we know what it's going to do, it doesn't do that," Osterholm says.Infections, hospitalizations and deaths did increase in the U.S. after New Year's. But the number of people catching the virus and getting hospitalized and dying from COVID soon started to fall again and have all been dropping now for weeks, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rate of Americans reporting long-COVID symptoms declining - The share of Americans reporting symptoms of long COVID appears to be declining, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), and a second study reports that vaccination may contribute to lower levels of long COVID. The KFF analysis of the Household Pulse Survey, on online survey administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that the percentage of respondents who have had COVID-19 and currently report long COVID symptoms declined from 19% in June 2022 to 11% in January, and the share of people who have ever reported long COVID fell from 35% to 28% over the same period.The change could stem from changes in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, or from increasing population immunity through vaccination and prior infection.As of Jan 16, 15% of all US adults reported having had long COVID symptoms at some point, and 6% reported current symptoms. Among people with long COVID, 79% report having limitations to their day-to-day activities, while only 27% say those limitations are significant."Longer-term, it is unclear what is driving the reduced percentage of people with COVID who report having long COVID and whether current trends will continue," the report states. "The change could stem from changes in SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, or from increasing population immunity through vaccination and prior infection." The KFF analysis notes that it is unclear how well the Pulse survey respondents represent all US adults.Meanwhile, in a study published today in Clinical Infectious Diseases, US researchers, including CDC experts, report that differences in severe fatigue and other prolonged symptoms following SARS-CoV-2 infection during the pre-Delta period compared with the Delta and Omicron periods may have less to do with the characteristics of the variants than other factors, especially COVID vaccination.The multicenter prospective study by researchers with the Innovative Support for Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry (INSPIRE) compared fatigue severity, fatigue symptoms, individual and organ system-based symptoms, and the presence of three or more prolonged symptoms across variants among COVID-positive and COVID-negative participants 3 months after their initial diagnosis. The variant-dominant periods were defined by dates for which the variant accounted for more than 50% of cases.Of the 3,223 participants in the study, 2,402 (66.6% female, 71.1% White) were COVID-positive and 821 were COVID-negative. Of the COVID-positive cohort, 463 (19.3%) were infected pre-Delta, 1,198 (49.9%) during Delta, and 741 (30.8%) during Omicron. Prolonged severe fatigue at 3 months was highest in the pre-Delta COVID-positive cohort compared with the Delta and Omicron cohorts (16.7% vs 11.5% vs 12.3%, respectively), as was the presence of three or more prolonged symptoms (28.4% vs 21.7% vs 16.0%). After adjusting for socio-demographics, clinical characteristics, and vaccination status, however, the differences in prolonged severe fatigue and other symptoms between variants were not significant, "suggesting that differences in prolonged symptoms between variants might be a function of these factors in addition to or perhaps instead of characteristics of each variant," the study authors wrote.

‘Bionic nose’ may help people experiencing smell loss, researchers say - A bionic device being developed by two researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine could help millions of people struggling with a loss of smell, they say.One to 2 percent of Americans have a problem with smell that tends to increase with age. Partial or complete loss of smell, or anosmia, can result from many conditions, including brain injuries and diseases such as covid-19. Nearly 15 million adults worldwide may have long-term smell problems because of covid, according to research published in July.Craig Jerome, a nurse practitioner in North Carolina, contracted covid two years ago. He lost his sense of smell and continues to experience anosmia. “Emotionally, it has created grief,” said Jerome, who misses cherished scents such as the Christmas tree smell that brings back fond memories of his childhood.Richard Costanzo and Daniel Coelho hope their neuroprosthetic, which they call a “bionic nose,” can help Jerome and others like him.It will, however, take five to 10 years for a fully developed prototype to be ready for implantation and testing in patients, said Costanzo, director of research for the VCU Smell and Taste Disorders Center in Richmond

WA COVID-19 services to continue after federal emergencies end -Washington and local health leaders plan to continue to provide COVID-19 testing supplies and services after the twin national COVID emergencies end in May.11The Washington State Department of Health will continue working with federal and local agencies, tribes and community partners to support equitable access to testing supplies and services, said Raechel Sims, a spokesperson at the Department of Health, in an email.At a Feb. 3 vaccine clinic, volunteers stressed how important community vaccine events have been since shots became available.Public Health – Seattle & King County hosted the vaccine community clinic in partnership with Villa Comunitaria, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting the Latino community.Othello Station Pharmacy, an independent and Black-owned pharmacy in King County, has hosted vaccine clinics since COVID vaccines became available to the public, said Dr. Ahmed Ali, a pharmacist and owner of the pharmacy.Despite the federal emergencies ending, “we need to make sure folks in King County understand that, in some places, you can still walk in to get a vaccine,” said Ali, who volunteered at Friday’s clinic. He emphasized this applies to all vaccines, whether it’s COVID or flu vaccines, routine vaccines or travel vaccines.

COVID-19 Mutations in NY Deer Raise Questions About Human Impact: Study – New research collected from a team at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine --published last month -- found the virus spreading rapidly through the state's white-tailed deer. Most striking, the researchers pointed out, was that the SARS-CoV-2 variants found in the animals were old and had not been circulating among humans for some months.The prevalence of past variants sweeping through the deer in dozens of counties across the Empire State raises new worries about the mammals serving as host to the viruses that collectively killed millions and left many more sick over the past couple of years.More than 5,000 samples were collected from white-tailed deer during the hunting seasons (Sept. to Dec.) in 2020 and 2021 in an effort to take a snapshot of transmission trends. The 17 positive samples ballooned 35-fold in a single year, climbing to 538 (21.1%) of all samples in 2021."The low positivity rate in Season 1 could be due to the fact that most samples in our study were collected prior to the peak SARS-CoV-2 cases in humans in NY, which occurred between December 2020 and February 2021," the researchers hypothesize.By late 2021, deer were collectively testing positive for multiple variants long out of human circulation in at least 48 of the state's 62 counties."Notably, while the Alpha and Gamma variants were circulating in [white-tailed deer] in NY in November and December 2021, detection of these [variants of concern] in humans peaked between April and June 2021, with only sporadic detections after August," the group explained."Although the pathways for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to WTD remain largely unknown, human activities such as feeding wildlife or targeted baiting of hunting prey (e.g., WTD) could provide the opportunity for human-to-WTD transmission of the virus."Researchers said the collected deer samples "were highly divergent" from the virus sequences detected in humans since the explosion of the virus in early 2020. Such a sequence shift suggests "rapid adaption" of the COVID-19 virus, they said.Mutation of the virus and its spread among deer became a significant worry among the Cornell group, including its potential implications on humans in the future, which remains unseen.Those behind the study say additional research is needed to examine the possibility of deer-to-human transmission and its risk likelihood. To their knowledge, there has only been one reported case (in Canada) of a person testing positive for a white-tail deer-like variant.

White-tailed deer harbouring COVID-19 variants thought to be nearly extinct in humans: study - White-tailed deer may be a reservoir for COVID-19 variants of concern that no longer circulate among people, including Alpha, Delta and Gamma, according to new research out of Cornell University.The authors say the research raises questions about whether deer could re-introduce nearly extinct variants back into the human population.In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) on Jan. 31, scientists from Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine detailed how evidence of widespread infection with variants of concern (VOC) was found in deer across New York State in 2020 and 2021.They wrote that the virus likely spread to deer from humans at some point before going "nearly extinct" in the human population.While the pathways for transmission of the virus from humans to white-tailed deer are still somewhat of a mystery, the researchers said human activities such as feeding deer or baiting them for hunting could provide the opportunity for transmission."Findings indicate that white-tailed deer – the most abundant large mammal in North America – may serve as a reservoir for variant SARS-CoV-2 strains that no longer circulate in the human population," the authors wrote, adding that the findings "raised concerns about the role of white-tailed deer in the epidemiology and ecology of the virus."During the September-to-December hunting seasons in 2020 and 2021, researchers collected 5,462 lymph node samples from free-ranging hunter-harvested white-tailed deer. Of those, 2,700 were from 2020 and 2,762 were from 2021.Using PCR tests, they found SARS-CoV-2 RNA in 17 samples from 2020 and in 583 samples from 2021. They identified multiple COVID-19 "hotspots" throughout New York, and found the virus had spread significantly between the two hunting seasons, infecting deer in 10 counties in 2020 and 48 counties in 2021. The tests revealed white-tailed deer had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in nine of the ten geographic regions of the state.They also revealed that the viral RNA sequences in the deer were dramatically different from those in humans, suggesting the virus had adapted, or mutated, in its new hosts."Our analysis suggests the occurrence of multiple spillover events (human to deer) of the Alpha and Delta lineages with subsequent deer-to-deer transmission and adaptation of the virus," the authors wrote.

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the 14th meeting of the Emergency Committee for COVID-19 - 27 January 2023 - - As we enter the fourth year of the pandemic, we are certainly in a much better position now than we were a year ago, when the Omicron wave was at its peak, and more than 70 thousand deaths were being reported to WHO each week. When you last met in October, the number of weekly reported deaths was near the lowest since the pandemic began – less than 10 thousand a week. However, since the beginning of December, the number of weekly reported deaths globally has been rising. In addition, the lifting of restrictions in China has led to a spike in deaths in the world’s most populous nation. Last week, almost 40 thousand deaths were reported to WHO, more than half of them from China. Today we will update our COVID-19 dashboard to incorporate cases and deaths reported by China in recent weeks. In total, over the past eight weeks, more than 170 thousand deaths have been reported. The actual number is certainly much higher. Vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics have been critical in preventing severe disease, saving lives and taking the pressure off health systems and health workers. But the global response remains hobbled because in too many countries, these powerful, life-saving tools are still not getting to the populations that need them most – especially older people and health workers. Many health systems around the world are struggling to cope with COVID-19, on top of caring for patients with other diseases including influenza and RSV, and with work shortages and fatigued health workers. At the same time, surveillance and genetic sequencing have declined dramatically around the world, making it more difficult to track known variants and detect new ones. And public trust in the safe and effective tools for controlling COVID-19 is being undermined by a continuous torrent of mis- and disinformation.

Chinese health authorities declare COVID infection peak has passed - With holiday travels during the Lunar New Year celebration in China having reached 90 percent of their pre-pandemic levels and tourist locations packed with vacationing revelers, the corporate press is claiming that COVID is finally over. Such distortions only promote a completely anti-public-health sentiment that places supposed personal liberties above the well-being of community, threatening the physical survival of those now “free” to move about and mix socially. This will have significant repercussions for populations of every country and entrench the oft-stated policy that the “cure can’t be worse than the disease.” The international default policy openly values the economy, i.e. profits, over the lives of people, in this and any future pandemic. China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism has reported there have been more than 300 million trips thus far during the holidays. The chief China economist at Nomura Holdings inc., Ting Lu, told Bloomberg News, “Pent-up demand is being released as many people rush to scenic spots, watch firework shows and crowd into restaurants and hotels. He added that government-released data “suggest the ‘exit wave’ is quickly coming to an end.” The former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, Hu Xijin, wrote on social media, “The epidemic seemed to disappear from the vast majority of people suddenly. The Chinese Lunar New Year is very lively. The consumption has resumed rapidly.” According to the World Health Organization (WHO) official figures for the week ending December 19, 2022, the world saw a single-week pandemic high of 45 million COVID cases, nearly twice that of the BA.1 Omicron wave that ran roughshod across the globe a year ago. This is the result of the demise of the Zero-COVID policy that had kept deaths to an enviably low figure in China of just over 5,000 in a country of 1.4 billion people. Since the surge in December throughout China, global COVID deaths jumped fourfold to over 40,000 for the week ending January 2, 2023, with “more than half of them from China,” as noted by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Official figures from Chinese health authorities have reported the following numbers of COVID-related deaths: · December 8 to January 12: 59,938 deaths. · January 13 to January 19: 12,658 deaths. · January 20 to January 26: 6,364 deaths. China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has claimed that COVID-related deaths and severe cases at hospitals have declined by more than 70 percent since the peaks in early January. However, the WHO has indicated these figures grossly underrepresent the actual toll and has persistently called for China to be more transparent with their reporting.

Concern and anger in China over ending of zero-COVID policy - The Chinese government’s abrupt ending of the zero-COVID policy that was successful in containing the pandemic has been met with a mixture of shock, concern, anger and opposition as the virus has rapidly spread through the population of 1.3 billion people. While the official death toll since the beginning of December stands at 60,000, modelling by Airfinity conservatively estimates the figure at 700,000. Under relentless pressure from the major imperialist powers to “open up,” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime seized on small middle-class protests last month demanding “freedom” and an end to zero-COVID to dramatically accelerate the lifting of all restrictions. In adopting the murderous herd immunity policy of governments around the world, the CCP has promoted the same lies that the latest variants are “mild,” no worse than the flu and “living with the virus” is necessary to revive the economy. With the traditional media heavily controlled by the state, the only avenue for the expression of opposition to this sudden about-face is social media, which is itself heavily monitored and censored. Most social media platforms such as Weibo and Zhihu are predominantly used by sections of the middle class, including students, as well as young and middle-aged people. Nevertheless, social media does provide a glimpse into the sentiments of working people that find no expression in the official press or for that matter the Western media which, with staggering hypocrisy, now accuse China of the practices prevalent elsewhere in the world such as falsifying or minimising health statistics. Soon after the complete lifting of zero-COVID measures in mid-December and the rapid surge in infections across in the country, social media platforms were completely dominated by discussion of the pandemic. Many were sharing their symptoms after testing positive, talking about how most people they knew were infected and complaining about the difficulty of seeing a doctor or even getting an antigen test. Those who had not been infected were preoccupied with discussing preventative measures. A week or two later, as the death toll rose, obituaries of celebrities, intellectuals and veterans started to emerge, as well as posts from ordinary working people about the deaths of loved ones. While the social media discussion of COVID has ebbed, it has become more critical. The themes have included: the stark contrast between everyday experiences and the state propaganda; why was the lifting of zero-COVID so rushed; the efficacy of vaccines and the potential for re-infection; and reports of long-COVID symptoms already experienced by many. The three posts below and a selection of the responses give an indication of the discussions underway. All three are still posted. The first post on January 16 on Weibo from Zhejiang Province stated “Wanna know how my grandfather passed away?” It described in detail how he was initially all right after being infected but his symptoms worsened very rapidly after leaving hospital. He died very quickly, just 15 days after being infected. The post received 9,000 likes, 1,000 comments and was reposted 1,700 times. Among the responses were:

• One could really say that your grandfather was murdered by those health care experts who promoted that [Omicron] is a mere cold, that [infections] are all asymptomatic and that zero-COVID should be lifted.
• I’m sorry for your loss. Are you in Wenzhou [a city in Zhejiang]? A lot of elderly people passed away. I don’t understand how it came to become this terrible.
• I was at the hospital a couple days ago but could not get access to a bed. I had to stay in the Emergency Room. It was filled with elderly people, and basically every day we had someone passed away…. My whole perspective about life was challenged during that couple of days.
• A small group of evil people and whiners instigated [opposition] among gullible young people, which in turn accelerated in the making of this catastrophic tragedy….
• My grandfather had a fever and passed out on Dec 27, was hospitalized on Dec 28, was able to get out of hospital twice, was conscious the whole time, but passed away on Jan 10. I cannot find a reason to celebrate this New Year?
• My grandfather passed away very abruptly as well. The day before [his death], he told me not to worry and was not willing to go to the hospital. He left the next morning, but the hospital would not even write down COVID [as the cause] on his death certificate. What a world! At the same time, daily COVID infections were reported [officially] to be a dozen cases across the country.
• Most people in my office [at work] are young and strong and are under 40. However, 90 percent of them still have lingering symptoms even after a whole month. Older people should be even more cautious.”

China is tracking ‘Orthrus’ – an emerging, more transmissible Covid variant | South China Morning Post - The Omicron subvariant CH. 1.1, also known as “Orthrus”, which is becoming increasingly prevalent in Britain and the United States, is unlikely to cause another wave of outbreaks in the mainland in the near future, Chinese health authorities said.The most prevalent variants in China continue to be BA. 5.2 and BF. 7, but 24 cases of CH. 1.1, a more transmissible subvariant, have been reported in China in the past three months, authorities said.“Despite an increased ability to resist immune responses and a higher transmissibility, which might increase breakthrough infection and reinfection risks, the population in China has a high level of neutralising antibodies,” the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement on Tuesday night.

A new Omicron variant CH.1.1 detected in over 60 countries only of limited threat to China - The new Omicron variant CH.1.1 has been detected in over 60 countries, presents a certain degree of immune evasion ability. However, it shows no significant increase in its ability to cause disease, posing only a minimal threat to China, an expert was quoted as saying by Jiankang Shibao (Health Times) on Tuesday. Statistics from outbreak.info, a community repository of COVID information which traces the COVID-19 epidemic showed that CH.1.1, also known as "Orthrus" a descendent of BA.2.75, has been detected in over 60 countries including New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Ireland. In the US, 51 states have detected the new variant. It emerged in Southeast Asia last fall and is now responsible for more than a quarter of infections in parts of the UK and New Zealand, according to a preprint paper released by researchers at Ohio State University. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been tracing the variant and estimated that it comprises 1.5 percent of US cases. Based on current statistics, the CH.1.1 variant has a certain degree of immune evasion ability and may cause new infections, but there seems no significant increase in its ability to cause disease among the population, Zhao Wei, director of the biosafety research center of the School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, told the Health Times. According to a report from Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) on the COVID-19 epidemic nationwide, the current prevailing strains in China are still BA.5.2 and BF.7 with no new mutant strains have been found, Zhao said. According to Zhao, on the one hand, it shows that the border quarantine works so effectively that can prevent large-scale new mutant strains entering China from overseas. On the other hand, the large-scale epidemic in China has just been brought under control, and the immune barrier of the population remains at a relatively high level. It can be judged that recent Omicron variants are less threatening to China. In the recent study posted to bioRxiv preprint server, the researchers at Ohio State University found the CH.1.1 carries the L452R substitution previously discovered in the Delta variant. According to the researchers from Ohio State University, CH.1.1 also binds well to ACE2 receptors, the site where COVID infects human cells, which means it has the potential to override—at least partially—antibody immunity from prior infection and vaccination, as well as to cause more severe disease. It may be able to outperform other competitive Omicron strains in these arenas due to a concerning L452R mutation seen in Delta, but generally not in Omicron, the researchers said.

Russia Ends All Public Anti-COVID Restrictions --Russian officials have announced the end of all anti-COVID restrictions on the public, including mask requirements. The country's consumer authority, Rospotrebnadzor, said 93 percent of infected patients were mild or asymptomatic. It said it was "suspending previously introduced restrictions, including the mask regime, a ban on public catering at night, and a number of other measures." But the decree issued on July 1 makes no mention of two-year-old restrictions on leaving the country via land routes. Official infection numbers last spiked in Russia in February, although like many places testing has eased there. More than 800,000 people in Russia have died from confirmed COVID-19 cases from a total of 18 million infections in the country. Some Russian physicians and other medical professionals faced punishment for blowing the whistle on seemingly underreported COVID-19 figures early in the 2 1/2-year pandemic. Researchers quickly developed and launched a vaccine, Sputnik-V, and exported it, but take-up was hampered by distrust among Russians. Some 52 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated against the virus. Recent surges in case numbers in Europe and the Americas, in particular, have been offset by numbers suggesting current variants are less lethal than some previous ones.

Dangerous fungal illness rapidly spreading across country, doctors warn - Valley fever is an infection of the lungs and causes respiratory symptoms like a cough, difficulty breathing, fever, and tiredness or fatigue. In rare cases, the Valley fever fungus can spread to other body parts and cause severe disease. – Doctors are warning of a dangerous fungal illness rapidly spreading across the country, especially affecting those living or visiting the California and Arizona areas. If you think it sounds like something from the cutting room floor of "The Last of Us" series, where a parasitic fungal infection devastates mankind, there are some very base-level similarities. Valley fever (also called coccidioidomycosis or "cocci") is a significant cause of pneumonia, said Dr. Brad Perkins, chief medical officer at Karius, a company that provides advanced diagnostics for infectious diseases."This is a fungus," said Perkins, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who led the anthrax bioterrorism investigation. "Most causes of pneumonia are caused by bacteria. This is a fungus that lives in the soil and is breathed in dusty situations, whether it's a dust storm or around construction or excavation."Valley fever and COVID-19 share many of the same symptoms as a cough, difficulty breathing, fever, tiredness or fatigue. In rare cases, it can spread to other body parts and cause severe disease.Animals, including pets, can also get Valley fever by breathing in fungus spores from dirt and outdoor dust. However, it cannot spread from one person or animal to another. There are about 200 deaths a year due to the disease."Those are mostly people with severe immunocompromising illnesses underlying this infection," Perkins said. "It can be a devastating infection in those people. That's pretty rare, fortunately."Prevention is challenging, according to Perkins. Risk is mostly associated with travel to high-risk areas."People concerned about their risk of developing Valley fever should try to avoid dusty situations, mostly in the summer and in peak heat," Perkins said.You should also see your doctor if you develop signs or symptoms of pneumonia.

Valley fever could spread from Southwest, researchers warn - For most people who are suffering from fever, cough and fatigue, the likely culprits are cold, flu or COVID-19. But for those living in the southwestern U.S., the symptoms could point to Valley fever — and some scientists predict that this illness eventually could spread to other regions. Named after the San Joaquin Valley in California, Valley fever is an infection caused by breathing in the spores of a fungus called Coccidioides, which originates in the soil. Southern Arizona and Southern California have the highest volume of cases, per the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — but the disease is also prevalent in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Texas and parts of Washington State.As of 2019, Valley fever cases topped 20,000 nationwide, the CDC reported.Reported cases tripled in that state between 2014 and 2018, according to the California Department for Public Health.Dr. George Thompson, a professor at UC Davis Health and co-director of the Center for Valley fever in Sacramento, told Fox News Digital about the ramp-up in cases. “We have seen a gradual increase in cases over the last five years, and a greater number of patients are coming into our clinic for diagnosis and treatment,” he said.While geographic location heightens the overall risk of contracting Valley fever, the CDC notes that certain groups are more vulnerable.These include people 60 years of age and older; those who have weakened immune systems as a result of certain diseases or medical conditions; pregnant women; people with diabetes; and people who are Black or Filipino.Symptoms of Valley fever tend to mimic those seen in patients with COVID-19, experts say.“Some [people] may have a fever, chills or fatigue, or just feel generally unwell,” Thompson of UC Davis Health said. Although it’s rare, people outside the high-risk groups can experience severe effects from Valley fever. On New Year’s Day in 2012, Rob Purdie of California, then 38, woke up with a terrible headache and nausea. “It felt like the worst hangover of my life — but I hadn’t had a single drink the night before,” When Purdie started experiencing double vision, he ended up in the Kern Valley ER. There, a spinal tap led to a diagnosis of meningitis caused by Valley fever. The spores of the fungus had spread from his lungs to his brain and nervous system, a potentially fatal condition.That was just the beginning of years of medications and treatments, many with life-altering side effects, he said.More than a decade later, Purdie lives with the lingering effects of disseminated coccidioidal meningitis caused by Valley fever. Every few weeks, he receives an antifungal treatment that is injected directly into his brain through a port in his head.

Survivors of deadly fungal infection Valley fever share their horror stories with DM.com -- Business owner Nick Duggan, 45, is one of around 20,000 people who catch the illness - caused by fungi species Coccidioidomycosis - every year, which scientists warn is becoming more common as the climate warms. The Australian native most likely caught the illness while quad biking in the San Diego desert in 2010, where he was visiting his wife's family. He thinks he inhaled the fungus spores kicked up in the dust. He returned to Australia from his summer holiday and he began to feel incredibly tired over the next six months. Then one night in February 2011, he collapsed at home. 'I was in so much pain. I was in the fetal position on the floor and my wife was just like, "What is going on? What do we do?",' he told DailyMail.com. 'By the time doctors had figured out what it was, the infection had spread to his spine and brain and caused meningitis, which left him bedridden for four months and in and out of the hospital for five years. Because of the meningitis in my brain, everything was heightened and there was all this pressure in my head. It was like a headache you’ve never experienced.' Meningitis is an infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. If not treated swiftly, it can become serious and cause life-threatening sepsis.Mr Duggan was taken to hospital in an ambulance after medical workers extracted him from his house. There, doctors performed a lumbar puncture - when a needle is inserted into the space between two lumbar bones (vertebrae) to remove a sample of cerebrospinal fluid. When they injected the needle into his spine, the pressure caused the build-up of CSF to spurt out of his back. He said: 'I remember everyone panicking. They rushed me into a room and everybody was top to tail in [hazmat] suits.' Mr Duggan was isolated from everyone as doctors feared he was contagious.'It was like a scene from one of those movies, where no one would want to touch or get near you,' he said.He remained in the hospital for the next four months, where he was misdiagnosed three times. Firstly, doctors thought he had pneumonia. Then they thought it was bacterial meningitis and put him on antibacterial medication, which actually made Mr Duggan's condition worse. Dr Mahmoud Ghannoum, director of the center for medical mycology at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, told DailyMail.com this was down to antibiotics killing off good bacteria in the gut which naturally protects us. 'When you kill both the infecting agent and the good bacteria... the fungi overgrows and causes infections.” 'Then an X-ray of Mr Duggan's chest revealed a mass on his lungs - which they thought was lung cancer.Doctors removed a piece of his lungs to do a biopsy and sent it to the labs for testing. Realizing it was a fungus, not a tumor, they finally diagnosed Mr Duggan with Valley fever - which earned its name because 97 percent of cases are found in Arizona and California.Knowledge about the infection in Australia was limited at that time, with only 10 cases of the infection ever recorded in the country - all of whom had died. If caught early, Valley fever can be treated, but sadly Mr Duggan's was not. 'Because what actually happens is you can't kill this, one spore can spawn a million spores. So your immune system is always fighting to suppress it; it never can kill it.' READ MORE: A 33-year-old travel manager who suffered debilitating chest pain and weight loss was eventually diagnosed with life-threatening fungal infection Valley Fever that is spreading across America.

Lab-leak fears are putting virologists under scrutiny - — The experiment probed a coronavirus mystery: Why is the omicron variant apparently less deadly than the original Wuhan strain?The researchers at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratories (the NEIDL, pronounced like “the needle”) created a new version of the virus, combining the spike protein that studs the surface of omicron with the backbone of the ancestral strain.The result: The “chimeric” virus was only a little less deadly than the Wuhan strain, killing 80 percent rather than 100 percent of laboratory mice that are particularly sensitive to the virus. But it was still much deadlier in these mice than omicron. This suggested that the spike protein wasn’t the only element of omicron making it less lethal. Another mutation had to be playing a role.On Oct. 14, the researchers posted an early draft of their results online.Such studies usually fly under the radar. Not this one.“Experts slam Boston lab where scientists have created a new deadly Omicron strain with an 80% kill rate in mice,” blared a headline in the Daily Mail.Critics view pathogen research as the Wild West of science. Virologists have faced online abuse and even death threats amid fears that what they do is dangerous. Above all, conjectures that the coronavirus pandemic might have originated from secret laboratory research have cast a shadow over the field.Independent of that rancorous debate about covid’s origin, the National Institutes of Health is preparing an overhaul of the policies on government-funded research, and scientists on the agency’s biosecurity advisory board released draft recommendations from its working groups on Friday urging intensified government oversight of experiments on dangerous pathogens.Those recommendations, which could determine how virology experiments are conducted, will land in a politically charged environment. Republican leaders in the House of Representatives, leveraging their newly acquired subpoena power, have launched an investigation of the pandemic that will include the origin of covid and what they believe could be the involvement of American scientists and government officials.

NIH biosecurity report urges tighter oversight of pathogen research - Scientists advising the National Institutes of Health on Friday released adraft report urging intensified government oversight of experiments on dangerous pathogens, including broadening the definition of the kinds of pathogens that could trigger a pandemic.The new report from two biosecurity working groups echoes theirpreliminary recommendations released last fall, which said the definition of “enhanced potential pandemic pathogens” should cover not just the most lethal viruses and bacteria, but also less deadly pathogens that are extremely transmissible — a description that fits the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.NIH said the review was not in response to fears that SARS-CoV-2 might have emerged from laboratory research. The debate over lab safety and security intensified during the pandemic but goes back more than a decade, when experiments in the United States and the Netherlands created versions of the influenza virus that were more easily transmitted among ferrets.The new report does not address the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and instead is part of decade-long effort to figure out what types of processes and oversights will help ensure laboratory research is safe. It notes that biotechnology is advancing rapidly, converging with breakthroughs in engineering and computational sciences to create potential solutions to “some of the most complex challenges we face” as a society.But that also requires vigilance, the report states, because risks are changing as cheap and easily accessible tools and techniques make it possible to “modify or generate beneficial and harmful agents.” The draft report from members of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity comes after a nearly year-long review of existing guidelines. The review had been postponed in January 2020 so experts could focus on the pandemic, but NIH officials early last year ordered the biosecurity advisers to resume.

Tainted-drug deaths, weak regulation corrode confidence in Indian drugs - India, which supplies many drugs and active ingredients to the US market, has come under increasing scrutiny after tainted cough syrup made in that country killed at least 89 children in Gambia andUzbekistan in 2022. And recently, US regulators have stepped up their foreign inspections after a pandemic pause, unleashing a slew of warning letters on serious manufacturing missteps."Unsafe drugs are just the tip of the iceberg," Dinesh Thakur, MS, former pharmaceutical executive and coauthor of the recently published book The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India, told Stat. "Substandard or ineffective drugs may be an even bigger problem."Indian pharma, which supplies over 20% (by value) of the world's generic drugs and is the leading manufacturer of vaccines, has a projected 2023 total value of about $60.9 billion.The Resilient Drug Supply Project (RSDP) at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), publisher of CIDRAP News, has shown that India and China together manufacturer the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used to make 60% to 70% of the generic drugs on the US market. “Without generic drugs made in India and China, the majority of drugs prescribed by physicians in the US would not be available at America’s pharmacies," "The quality and availability of America’s drug supply is seriously threatened by inadequate and ineffective regulation of drug production, especially in India and China." While poor-quality and contaminated drugs endanger consumers in many countries, including the United States, they can be catastrophic in those not equipped to conduct inspections. For example, "India exports lower quality drugs to Africa because they know regulatory standards there are lower," Truth Pill coauthor Prashant Reddy T, a lawyer, told The Hindu. In the United States, the FDA periodically samples and analyzes imported drugs but does not inspect every shipment.Unsafe drugs are just the tip of the iceberg. Substandard or ineffective drugs may be an even bigger problem.In contrast to the monolithic US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), many drug regulators in India are charged with drug approval and oversight, and there is no single database listing all approved drugs, T said.The country is also home to unregulated, cash-only drug companies that ship medications, including some of dubious quality, within India and abroad, according to The Print. "The regulatory process is weak and many people in the authorities are corrupt," said the managing director of one such firm.

Abbott Labs under federal criminal investigation at Sturgis, Michigan baby formula factory - Attorneys from the Consumer Protection branch of the Department of Justice (DoJ) are investigating Abbott Laboratories, according to a CNN report on January 20. An unnamed Abbott spokesperson is quoted as saying, “DOJ has informed us of its investigation and we’re cooperating fully.” The Wall Street Journal reported the same day that the focus of the investigation was the company’s infant formula factory in Sturgis, Michigan that was at the center of a devastating baby formula shortage in 2022 that continues to this day. NBC News said a law enforcement official familiar with the matter confirmed the Michigan factory where 420 workers are employed is where the investigation is being conducted. No one from the US government or Abbott Laboratories has officially acknowledged the DoJ probe or explained the reasons for the investigation. Such cooperation between federal government agencies and the multinational medical devices and health care corporation is unsurprising considering that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed Abbott to continuously deny there is any link between the conditions in the Sturgis facility and a series of illnesses and deaths of infants after they consumed formula produced there. Abbott manufactures about 40 percent of the baby formula in the United States, one of four companies that produce 90 percent of all such products sold domestically. The formula shortages in 2022 were largely caused by the FDA shutdown of the Sturgis facility and voluntary recall of products made there beginning in February 2022. The shutdown occurred when reports emerged that four infants became ill with bacterial infections after being fed Abbott’s Similac PM 60/40 powdered formula in late 2021. Two of those children died. Since then, the FDA has received 129 complaints about tainted products related to the presence of Cronobacter sakazakii, including 8 additional deaths of infants, bringing the total to 10. On May 16, 2022, Abbott and the FDA signed a consent decree outlining the process by which manufacturing could restart at the Sturgis facility. The agreement included the guarantee that Abbott Labs would not be held criminally liable for the bacterial contamination of its products.

Study on depression finds that how you feel may be related to what you eat - Research has long suggested a link between our diet and our mental health. The gut microbiome — the collective genome of trillions of bacteria that live in the intestinal tract that are created largely by what we eat and drink — appears to influence our mood and mind-set.But human studies large enough to pinpoint what bacteria matter, if they matter at all, have been missing.That’s slowly changing. The largest analysis of depression and the gut microbiome to date, published in December, found several types of bacteria notably increased or decreased in people with symptoms of depression. Interest in the gut-brain axis has had a resurgence in the past 20 years. A host of studies has pointed to a connection between the microbiota living in our intestinal tract, and our minds, including our memory,mood and cognitive skills. Such research has spawned an industry of probiotics, prebiotics and fermented everything. Scientific names like bacteroidetes andlactobacillus, two of the most common bacteria found in healthy humans, have become household terms.The health trend has gotten a bit ahead of the evidence. Most of the studies linking depression and the gut, for example, have been in animals and studies involving human participants have been small. Still, the evidence thus far shows a link between the two. In one noteworthy study, entitled “Transferring the Blues,” bacteria-free rats given fecal samples from humans diagnosed with major depression became anxious and disinterested in pleasurable activities. Their metabolism of tryptophan, a chemical connected to depression, changed. But the mechanics behind the microbe-mood pathway — and which bacteria matter — has been harder to uncover.This new study moves that needle, largely because of its size. The investigators, led by Najaf Amin, who researches population health at Oxford University, analyzed data from the Rotterdam Study, a decades-long effort to understand the health of the local population. Amin and her colleagues focused specifically on a phase of this study that included fecal sample collection from more than 1,000 individuals. These participants also provided a self-report on depression using a 20-item assessment.The researchers parsed the data for associations between the bacteria populations in the fecal samples with scores from the depression assessment. They then conducted the same tests using data from another 1,539 Dutch citizens encompassing a range of ethnicities. (Validating the findings from one large group in a second large group makes them particularly reliable.)The analysis revealed 16 types of bacteria that the authors called “important predictors” of depressive symptoms to varying degrees. For example, the study, published in Nature Communications, found a depletion of Eubacterium ventriosum among people who were depressed. Interestingly, this same decrease has been spotted in microbiome studies of traumatic brain injury and obesity, both of which are tied to depression, supporting the notion that this species of bacteria has something to do with this mood disorder.

Air pollution linked to depression and anxiety, U.K. study finds - Long-term exposure to even low levels of air pollution is linked to increased incidence of depression and anxiety, a U.K. study suggests, adding to a wave of evidence that fossil fuels may be negatively impacting mental health. Researchers in the United Kingdom and China followed nearly 390,000 adults in the U.K. for roughly 11 years and found long-term exposure to multiple air pollutants was associated with a greater risk of depression and anxiety. These pollutants — which include fine particulate matter, nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide — are commonly emitted into the air when fossil fuels are burned for vehicles, power plants, construction equipment and industrial work.Scientists have long raised alarm about pollution’s impact on physical health, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory infections, lung cancer and more. A University of Chicago report last year said air pollution now takes more than two years off the global average life expectancy — more than cigarettes, alcohol, or conflict and terrorism. Another recent study said that eliminating air pollution from fossil fuels would prevent more than 50,000 premature deaths and provide more than $600 billion in health benefits in the United States every year. Air pollution has also been shown to harm older adults’ brains, contributing to cognitive decline and dementia. The study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry, which took into account socioeconomic status and preexisting mental illness, supports a growing understanding among scientists that fossil fuels affect more than one’s physical health.Potential links between pollution and mental health are “clearly a serious issue,” said Cybele Dey, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who serves as co-chair of Doctors for the Environment Australia.“In terms of links to depression and anxiety, those findings have varied depending on the study,” she said. “There seems to be a link of some kind, but the pathway for how that link is happening is still something we haven’t figured out.” Dey, who studies such links in children and teens, pointed to air pollution, increased heat, natural disasters and distress over climate change as potential factors that could have negative effects on mental health.

Avian flu strikes more US turkey farms | CIDRAP - More highly pathogenic avian flu outbreaks have been reported in poultry in five states, including commercial turkey farms in Iowa and Virginia, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said in updates over the past few days.Iowa's outbreak occurred at a turkey facility in Buena Vista County that houses 27,700 birds, marking the state's first outbreak of 2023, following seven outbreaks at the state's turkey farms in December. In Virginia, the virus struck a turkey farm that has 10,600 birds, the second affected farm in Rockingham County in less than a week.Meanwhile, more outbreaks in backyard flocks were reported in New York, Oregon, and New Hampshire.Since the Eurasian H5N1 strain was first detected in US poultry in February 2022, outbreaks have led to the loss of 58.2 million birds across 47 states.Globally, the virus continues to strike poultry and wild birds on multiple continents, and the H5N1 clade circulating in poultry has sickened several mammal species and was recently found to transmit among minks at a commercial mink farm in Spain, heightening concerns about further adaptation to mammal airways, including humans.Seven human infections have been reported, all in people who had close contact with sick poultry. Some were mild, but some were severe or fatal.

Outbreak of avian flu has killed more than 100 million birds and poses a serious threat of becoming a human pandemic -- The COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 21 million people, has elevated an existential question into concrete immediacy. Following COVID-19, when will the next pandemic of a highly lethal nature strike again? The first ever extensive global monkeypox outbreak affected multiple countries across nearly every continent. It felt like the world had dodged a bullet when cases began to subside. As well, the outbreak of the extremely deadly Ebola Sudan virus in Uganda threatened the region and beyond as it spread into the densely populated capital of Kampala. Such potential crises are appearing far more frequently in recent years, making new pandemics a risk to the world’s population which cannot be ignored. The first new pandemic after COVID-19, which is still continuing to infect billions of people, may well be already in plain sight, but overlooked or dismissed for the most part by most news outlets and given no political attention. The largest recorded outbreak of a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been killing millions of birds since October 2021. From disease and related culling, in all more than 140 million poultry, including 60 million in North America and 48 million in Europe, have been killed, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH). A genetic analysis of the H5N1 influenza virus in the current avian pandemic has located it in a clade (virus family) circulating among poultry and wild birds across multiple continents, but most closely related to strains among European seabirds. The first cases in North America were detected in December 2021 in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, on a bird farm. In February 2022, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported that the death of black vultures at the state’s Hontoon Island State Park was caused by the same virus. Over the next several months, the virus had spread into numerous wild bird species, commercial poultry, as well as mammals, including grizzly bears, red foxes, coyotes, seals and dolphins, as well as a human case confirmed on April 27 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an incarcerated individual in Colorado who had been involved in culling infected poultry. As disastrous as the outbreak has been to the bird population, the fear remains that the virus will learn to efficiently use a human host to transmit itself. Until now, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 2003 and March 2022, there have been only 864 cases of H5N1 in humans across 18 countries worldwide. The infection in the US was the first time for this country. The fatality rate, however, is dangerously high with 456 deaths among the 864 cases, giving a 53 percent chance of dying if infected. Thus far, cases have remained sporadic, in small clusters, involving exposure to infected poultry or contaminated environments. But there is growing concern among scientists that a more virulently infective form of the virus could suddenly evolve and spread rapidly into the human population as a lethal airborne pathogen. “There is concern about it having pandemic potential. Before COVID was on anybody’s radar, this was the one that we were all watching closely.”

Wisconsin officials confirm CWD in wild deer in Waupaca County for first time | CIDRAP - The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has confirmed chronic wasting disease (CWD) in a wild deer for the first time in Waupaca County, which is in central Wisconsin, west of Green Bay.The deer was a 2-year-old doe harvested by a hunter in the northwestern part of the county, within 10 miles of the borders with Shawano, Marathon, and Portage counties. The DNR did not specify when the deer was killed nor when tests came back positive for CWD.CWD is an always-fatal prion disease that affects members of the deer family. It has not been reported in people, but scientists fear it one day may make the jump to humans, as happened with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow" disease), which is also caused by a prion.State law requires a 3-year ban on baiting and feeding in the affected county and all counties that lie within 10 miles of the CWD detection. Baiting and feeding, however, were already banned in Waupaca County since 2014 because of nearby detections, and that ban will now be extended. Likewise, Shawano, Marathon, and Portage counties were already under such bans."Baiting and feeding encourages deer to congregate unnaturally around a shared food source where infected deer can spread CWD through direct contact with healthy deer or indirectly by leaving behind infectious prions in their saliva, blood, feces, and urine," the DNR said.

US may lift protections for Yellowstone, Glacier grizzlies (AP) — The Biden administration took a first step Friday toward ending federal protections for grizzly bears in the northern Rocky Mountains, which would open the door to future hunting in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said state officials provided “substantial” information that grizzlies have recovered from the threat of extinction in the regions surrounding Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. But federal officials rejected claims by Idaho that protections should be lifted beyond those areas, and they raised concerns about new laws from the Republican-led states that could potentially harm grizzly populations. “We will fully evaluate these and other potential threats,” said Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The states want protections lifted so they can regain management of grizzlies and offer hunts to the public. As grizzly populations have expanded, more of the animals have moved into areas occupied by people, creating public safety issues and problems for farmers. State officials have insisted future hunts would be limited and not endanger the overall population. After grizzlies temporarily lost their protections in the Yellowstone region several years ago, Wyoming and Idaho scheduled hunts that would have allowed fewer than two dozen bears to be killed in the initial hunting season. In Wyoming, almost 1,500 people applied for 12 grizzly bear licenses in 2018 before the hunt was blocked in federal court. About a third of the applicants came from out of state. Idaho issued just one grizzly license before the hunt was blocked. Republican lawmakers in the region in recent years also adopted more aggressive policies against gray wolves, including loosened trapping rules that could lead to grizzlies being inadvertently killed. As many as 50,000 grizzlies once roamed the western half of the U.S. They were exterminated in most of the country early last century by overhunting and trapping, and the last hunts in the northern Rockies occurred decades ago. There are now more than 2,000 bears in the Lower 48 states and much larger populations in Alaska, where hunting is allowed.

Authorities don't know who is shooting free-roaming horses in the Utah desert : NPR - Dozens of free-roaming horses have been found shot dead on remote Utah rangeland. No one knows who is shooting the horses or why. Transcript: In a remote patch of rangeland bordering the Navajo Nation in Utah, hundreds of horses roam wild. But lately, some of them have been found dead, apparently from gunshot wounds. Justin Higginbottom reports. You can see far in this corner of southeastern Utah, across shrubby red desert and dark rocky mesas all the way to the forested slopes of Bears Ears National Monument. The Yanito brothers, Wayne and David, are Navajo ranchers and farmers. Their families have been here for generations. They love coming across the free-roaming horses when they're out on the land.The Yanito brothers have worked maintaining dirt roads for the county for years. So they're out on this landscape a lot. About a year ago, they started finding dead horses near those roads. They started looking for more. On a recent day, David launches a drone with a camera that he got to monitor the cattle they raise.

• YANITO: And I flew across this way. This one - I've seen this one in the morning sun. You can see it's all white. In the morning when the sun hits it, you can really see it.
• HIGGINBOTTOM: They walk out to investigate, and Wayne quickly sees it's not just one dead horse.
• YANITO: Two more down here, three right here, four up there, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
• YANITO: That's a brand-new one. Oh, my goodness. That's a lot of horses. Somebody went to town.

By the end of the day, the number of carcasses they've found since last January adds up to 23. David holds up a skull we've come across with two small, unnaturally round holes under the eye socket.No one knows who's shooting the horses or why, but they've long been a source of conflict here and in other parts of the West. The horses eat the scarce vegetation in this desert. That means less grass is available for the cattle that ranchers run here, ranchers like Tyrel Cressler.Cressler leases the public land where the Yanitos found many of the dead horses from the Federal Bureau of Land Management, the BLM.

• CRESSLER: But when I talked to the BLM about using that, they told me the same thing, that there was too many horses down there and there wasn't any feed and they weren't going to let me use it at all.
• HIGGINBOTTOM: Cressler's clear. His frustration at not being able to graze his cattle would never lead to him killing horses.
• CRESSLER: I'm like anybody else. I don't want to see them shot by any means. I mean, if the BLM paid for the materials, I would be willing to build a fence along the river, and I would put forth the labor, and I would build a fence to stop that stuff from happening in the future.

The river is the San Juan River. It's the northern boundary of the Navajo Nation here. There are tens of thousands of free-roaming horses there. But Cressler says the decades-long drought here means more animals from the nation are now migrating off of it in search of food and water.Cressler says he thinks it's unlikely a rancher with grazing rights shot the horses. They'd be afraid of the BLM revoking their grazing permit or maybe revenge from their neighbors. The shootings are being investigated by the local county sheriff, who hasn't said much about progress. Wayne and David Yanito are keeping their eyes open for clues.

Health impact of chemicals in plastics is handed down two generations - Fathers exposed to chemicals in plastics can affect the metabolic health of their offspring for two generations, a University of California, Riverside, mouse study reports.Plastics, which are now ubiquitous, contain endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, that have been linked to increased risk of many chronic diseases; parental exposure to EDCs, for example, has been shown to cause metabolic disorders, including obesity and diabetes, in the offspring.Most studies have focused on the impact of maternal EDC exposure on the offspring’s health. The current study, published in the journal Environment International, focused on the effects of paternal EDC exposure. Led by Changcheng Zhou, a professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine, the researchers investigated the impact of paternal exposure to a phthalate called dicyclohexyl phthalate, or DCHP, on the metabolic health of first generation (F1) and second generation (F2) offspring in mice. Phthalates are chemicals used to make plastics more durable.The researchers found that paternal DCHP exposure for four weeks led to high insulin resistance and impaired insulin signaling in F1 offspring. The same effect, but weaker, was seen in F2 offspring.“We found paternal exposure to endocrine disrupting phthalates may have intergenerational and transgenerational adverse effects on the metabolic health of their offspring,” Zhou said. “To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to demonstrate this.”

Looking beyond microplastics, Oregon State researchers find that cotton and synthetic microfibers impact behavior and growth of aquatic organisms – While microplastics have received significant attention in recent years for their negative environmental impacts, a new study from Oregon State University scientists found microfibers from synthetic materials as well as cotton impacted the behavior and growth of water organisms. “We’re trying to shift the narrative a little bit because so much of the focus has been just on the plastics, but really we need to focus more generally on microfibers of all types,” said Susanne Brander, an associate professor and ecotoxicologist at Oregon State. “What we are seeing is that even the cotton, while it has less of an impact than the synthetic materials, still has an impact on the growth and behavior of the organisms we studied.” The study, published this week in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, is being released at a time of increased attention on regulating microfibers. Like microplastics, microfibers are of concern because scientists are increasingly identifying them in water samples and finding they are causing adverse impacts in organisms and ecosystems. A bill was recently introduced in Oregon that would require new clothes washers sold in the state be equipped with a microfiber filtration system. France recently approved a similar measure and several other countries, states and provinces are considering bills. Related, a study from Canada in 2021 found that washing machine filters reduce microfiber emissions. Brander, who studies the responses of aquatic organisms to environmental stressors, believes other measures could be taken to reduce the release of microfibers, including increasing the sustainability of clothing so that it sheds less and passing laws that would require filters on both clothes washers and dryers. Previous studies have found dryers are an underestimated source of microfibers being released into the environment. “The answer isn’t to stop using cotton but to have a better awareness and better control over the release of fibers,” Brander said.

Biden administration blocks controversial mine to protect major salmon fishery - The Biden administration has blocked a controversial proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska in order to protect the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) blocked construction for the Pebble Mine, citing its potential impact on Bristol Bay — a southwestern Alaska watershed that’s home to numerous animal species including the salmon. The decision, announced on Tuesday, is not a surprise, as the administration had proposed to block the mine last year. But, Tuesday’s action officially prevents its construction. EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters that the agency had determined that discharges that would come from the proposed mining would have “unacceptable adverse effects” on salmon fishery areas. “As a source of food and jobs and a means of preserving sacred indigenous customs and practices, Bristol Bay supports the livelihoods of so many,” he added. “This final action demonstrates the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to safeguarding our nation’s indispensable natural resources.” Specifically, the EPA’s action prohibits the certain waters from being used as disposal sites for mine waste and prohibits future proposals to mine the Pebble deposit that would have similar environmental impacts. The company behind the mine, the Pebble Limited Partnership, threatened a lawsuit over the EPA’s action. “Unfortunately, the Biden EPA continues to ignore fair and due process in favor of politics. This preemptive action against Pebble is not supported legally, technically, or environmentally. As such, the next step will likely be to take legal action to fight this injustice,” said CEO John Shively in a written statement .

AP Exclusive: Emails reveal tensions in Colorado River talks (AP) — Competing priorities, outsized demands and the federal government’s retreat from a threatened deadline stymied a deal last summer on how to drastically reduce water use from the parched Colorado River, emails obtained by The Associated Press show. The documents span the June-to-August window the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation gave states to reach consensus on water cuts for a system that supplies 40 million people annually — or have the federal government force them. They largely include communication among water officials in Arizona and California, the major users in the river’s Lower Basin. Reclamation wanted the seven U.S. states that rely on the river to decide how to cut 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water — or up to roughly one-third — on top of already anticipated reductions. The emails, obtained through a public records request, depict a desire to reach a consensus but persistent disagreement over how much each state could or should give. As the deadline approached without meaningful progress, one water manager warned: “We’re all headed to a very dark place.” “The challenges we had this summer were significant challenges, they truly were,” Chris Harris, executive director of the Colorado River Board of California, said in an interview about the early negotiations. “I don’t know that anybody was to blame, I genuinely don’t. There were an awful lot of different interpretations of what was being asked and what we were trying to do.” Scientists say the megadrought gripping the southwestern U.S. is the worst in 1,200 years, putting a deep strain on the Colorado River as key reservoirs dip to historically low levels. If states don’t begin taking less out of the river, the major reservoirs threaten to fall so low they can’t produce hydropower or supply any water at all to farms that grow crops for the rest of the nation and cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix. The future of the river seemed so precarious last summer that some water managers felt attempting to reach a voluntary deal was futile — only mandated cuts would stave off crisis. “We are out of time and out of any cushion to allow for a voluntary plan,” As 2023 begins, fresh incentives make the states more likely to give up water. The federal government has put up $4 billion for drought relief, and Colorado River users have submitted proposals to get some of that money through actions like leaving fields unplanted. Some cities are ripping up thirsty decorative grass, and tribes and major water agencies have left some water in key reservoirs — either voluntarily or by mandate. The states are again trying to reach a grand bargain — with a deadline of Tuesday — so that Reclamation can factor it into a larger plan to modify operations at Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam, behemoth power producers on the Colorado River. Failure to do so would set up the possibility of the federal government imposing cuts — a move that could invite litigation.

In the West, pressure to count water lost to evaporation (AP) — Exposed to the beating sun and hot dry air, more than 10% of the water carried by the Colorado River evaporates, leaks or spills as the 1,450-mile (2,334-kilometer) powerhouse of the West flows through the region’s dams, reservoirs and open-air canals. For decades, key stewards of the river have ignored the massive water loss, instead allocating Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico their share of the river without subtracting what’s evaporated. But the 10% can no longer be ignored, hydrologists, state officials and other western water experts say. The West’s multi-decade drought has sent water levels in key reservoirs along the river to unprecedented lows. Officials from Nevada and Arizona say that they, together with California, now need to account for how much water is actually in the river. The challenge is in finding a method that California also agrees to. “It’s very hard to get consensus,” said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. She thinks it’s unlikely that states will reach an agreement on their own, without federal intervention. Unlike Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico, the upriver or Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — already take into account evaporation losses.

California releases its own plan for Colorado River cuts (AP) — California released a plan Tuesday detailing how Western states reliant on the Colorado River should save more water. It came a day after the six other states in the river basin made a competing proposal. In a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, California described how states could conserve between 1 million and nearly 2 million acre feet of water through new cuts based on the elevation of Lake Mead, a key reservoir. Its plan did not account for water lost to evaporation and during transportation — a move sought by the other states that would mean big cuts for California. The 1,450-mile river (2,334-kilometer) serves 40 million people across the West and Mexico, generating hydroelectric power for regional markets and irrigating nearly 6 million acres (2,428 hectares) of farmland. A multi-decade drought in the West worsened by climate change, rising demand and overuse has sent water levels at key reservoirs along the river to unprecedented lows. That has forced federal and state officials to take additional steps to protect the system. California’s plan and the separate methods outlined by states Monday came in response to Reclamation asking them last year to detail how they would use between 15% and 30% less water. The federal agency operates the major dams in the river system. All seven states missed that deadline last August. Six of them regrouped and came to an agreement by the end of January. California was the the lone holdout to that agreement, and responded Tuesday with its own plan.Unlike the other states’ plan, California’s does not factor the roughly 1.5 million acre feet of Colorado River water lost to evaporation and transportation.Instead, it proposes reducing water taken out of Lake Mead by 1 million acre feet, with 400,000 acre feet coming from its own users. The state previously outlined that level of cuts in October. Arizona would bear the brunt of bigger cuts — 560,000 acre feet — while Nevada would make up the rest. Those numbers are based on discussions from prior negotiations, California’s letter said.An acre foot is enough water to supply two to three U.S. households for a year.The Arizona Department of Water Resources said it was still reviewing California’s proposal and didn’t have an immediate comment.

As the Colorado River dries up, states can’t agree on saving water - For the second time in six months, states that depend on the Colorado River to sustain their farms and cities have failed to reach an agreement on restricting water usage, setting up the prospect of the federal government making unilateral cuts this year.Six of the seven Colorado River basin states sketched out a joint proposal for how they could meet the federal government’s demand to make unprecedented cuts to water usage as more than two decades of droughtin the West have pushed crucial reservoirs to dangerously low levels.But the largest water user, California, did not join them — an impasse that suggests the wrangling over how to conserve the dwindling water supply that serves 40 million people will continue in coming months. The Interior Department had asked states to contribute plans by Tuesday for how to voluntarily reduce water usage by 2 to 4 million acre-feet — or up to one-third of the river’s annual average flow.“Obviously, it’s not going swimmingly,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, the former general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a water provider that is a major player in the talks. “It’s pretty tough right now.”The proposal by the six states — Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — aims to protect the major reservoirs in Lake Powell and Lake Mead from falling below critical levels, such as when the dams would no longer be able to generate electricity or at “dead pool,” when water would effectively be blocked from flowing out of these lakes. Before above-average snows in recent weeks, the Bureau of Reclamation was projecting that Lake Powell could start to reach such thresholds by this summer.During the past two decades of drought, and particularly in recent years, the river’s flow has declined, but states continue to consume more than the river provides, based on a framework established a century ago.The proposal lays out potential new cuts for the states of the Southwest that lie downstream from the major reservoirs — Arizona, Nevada and California — as well as Mexico, which has treaty rights to a portion of the river’s water. The proposal would result in about 2 million acre-feet of cuts — the low end of what the federal government has asked for — and would be largest for the biggest consumers of water: California and Arizona. As reservoir levels drop, the document suggests California, which has rights to 4.4 million acre-feet of water, would need to cut more than 1 million acre-feet.The six states made their case in a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation on Monday.In October 2022, Lake Powell was a quarter full due to a historic drought, which threatened power supplied to millions by the Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz. (Video: John Farrell/The Washington Post)“We recognize that over the past twenty-plus years there is simply far less water flowing into the Colorado River system than the amount that leaves it, and that we have effectively run out of storage to deplete,” the states wrote. The state representatives said they would continue to work together and with the federal government and others “to reach consensus on how best to share the burden of protecting the system from which we all derive so many benefits.”“This modeling proposal is a key step in the ongoing dialogue among the Seven Basin States as we continue to seek a collaborative solution to stabilize the Colorado River system,” Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said in a statement.California on Tuesday submitted its own proposal for how reductions should play out in coming years, depending on the elevation in Lake Mead. The proposal begins with a 400,000 acre-foot cut, as previously offered, and continues with additional reductions as the reservoir declines toward levels where power generation would be threatened.The California proposal “makes a constructive effort to uphold the Law of the River while making substantial efforts to protect the Colorado River system with voluntary reductions far beyond California’s legal obligations,” JB Hamby, chairman of the Colorado River Board of California, wrote in the introduction to the plan.

Confronting California’s Water Crisis - Californians are still grappling with the aftermath of powerful storms that triggered dangerous flooding and mudslides across the state, even as the West’s unprecedented megadrought persists.These rapid shifts between extreme drought and flood offer a preview of the “climate whiplash” researchers predict will only get worse. These head-spinning shifts will severely strain California’s antiquated water and flood control infrastructure, experts say, and expose the inadequacy of outdated laws governing access to the state’s water supplies.California could go a long way toward easing its perennial water crisis by hastening the transition to renewable energy, stopping “the most egregious water abuses” and managing the state’s water supply as a public resource, the advocacy group Food and Water Watch argued in a report released Wednesday. The report builds on a white paper released last year.Moving away from burning fossil fuels offers major water-saving benefits, said Chirag Bhakta, Food and Water Watch’s California director. The transition will not only help combat climate change, which is fueling the drought and extreme weather patterns, he said, but make a significant dent in the water crisis.Bhakta and his colleagues called on Gov. Gavin Newsom and state water regulators to exercise their constitutional authority to prevent “waste or unreasonable use” by the agricultural and fossil fuel industries, which consume freshwater needed by ecosystems and communities while emitting the greenhouse gases that fuel extreme droughts and floods. And they questioned the fairness of allowing exports of water-intensive alfalfa and almond crops, even as many communities lack safe drinking water.Regulating water supplies as a public resource would allow state officials to uphold their duty to enforce the state’s “human right to water” law, the report argued. More than a decade after the law passed nearly 1 million people in mostly low-income communities and communities of color still lack access to safe, affordable drinking water—in the world’s fifth largest economy.Targeting “water abuses,” Bhakta said, would help drive a fundamental shift in California’s water stability.The report raises questions that officials and water experts are going to need to grapple with, said Felicia Marcus, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West Program and former chair of the State Water Resources Control Board. But there’s no framework for picking winners and losers in the water rights world based on, for example, where crops are sold or grown, she said. And invoking the state’s provision against waste or unreasonable use is a complicated, time-intensive process to implement. “You don’t get to just wave a magic wand to invoke the public trust or waste and unreasonable use provision,” she said. “The whole thing can take years.”

Biden administration is caught between California and its neighbors in Colorado River fight - — After months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, California has an answer to six other western states sharing the Colorado River: Get lost.The proposal California offered Tuesday makes no significant concessions to demands from its neighbors — asserting higher priority senior water rights to the largest share of the river that have been enshrined in an agreement dating back decades.That leaves it to the federal government to try to find a resolution.“The states are not going to reach an agreement. We are just too far apart,” said Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), who represents the Phoenix area. “Now is the time that we need this administration to come up with a solution to this dilemma, and we need it now.”California is insisting on its legal claims under a compact dating back to 1922 as the river faces unprecedented strain because of climate change and population growth in the Southwest. The standoff thrusts the Biden administration into the position of deciding how to resolve competing claims on water shared among 40 million people from Wyoming to Mexico.The Interior Department, which asked the states to come up with a joint plan to reduce use by roughly 30 percent, is expected to impose cuts as early as this summer.On one side are six states, including Arizona and Nevada, where growing cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix are in an existential battle to avoid exhausting their supplies from the Colorado River. On the other is California, where farmers could go to the courts to protect their water rights.Decisions taken by California in this most sensitive of battles could one day hurt Gov. Gavin Newsom if he runs for president and needs political support in Nevada and Arizona, two battleground states.A bipartisan group of Western representatives, excluding officials from California, urged President Joe Biden to support the proposal offered by the six states in a letter Wednesday morning.California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, a Newsom appointee, as well as the state’s two senators have criticized the six-state plan, saying it would disproportionately burden California cities and farmers.Western senators are planning to meet to discuss the issue Thursday.The Interior Department is keeping up talks with states and tribes and wants “as much support and consensus as possible,” said a spokesperson on Wednesday.The proposal from the six states would impose additional cuts to every user, including California and Mexico.Their plan relies on a new tool to preserve some water for Arizona and Nevada users by accounting for evaporation and leaks along the river as it flows downstream to California.That infuriated California’s farmers, who see the concept as a way to cut into their legal claims to the water.Instead, California’s proposal would alter operations at the river’s two main dams, forcing states to take modest cuts to which they’ve already agreed. If that’s not enough it would then force cuts using the priority system, effectively drying out central Arizona cities and tribes before the Golden State takes additional mandatory cuts.

Interior: $580M headed to 15 tribes to fulfill water rights — Fifteen Native American tribes will get a total of $580 million in federal money this year for water rights settlements, the Biden administration announced Thursday.The money will help carry out the agreements that define the tribes’ rights to water from rivers and other sources and pay for pipelines, pumping stations, and canals that deliver it to reservations.“Water rights are crucial to ensuring the health, safety and empowerment of Tribal communities,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement Thursday that acknowledged the decades many tribes have waited for the funding.Access to reliable, clean water and basic sanitation facilities on tribal lands remains a challenge across many Native American reservations.The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1908 that tribes have rights to as much water as they need to establish a permanent homeland, and those rights stretch back at least as long as any given reservation has existed. As a result, tribal water rights often are senior to others’ in the West, where competition over the dwindling resource is often fierce.

Europe experienced record number of hailstorms in 2022 for the second year in row - 2022 saw a record-breaking number of hailstorms in Europe with 8 224 large hail reports. That is 2 791 large hail reports more than in 2021, which was already a record-breaking year. France had the most reports with 2 461 and was also the country with the largest economic impact of 4.8 billion €. The three days with the most hail reports were June 4 with 411 reports, June 20 with 385 reports, and May 25 with 334 reports. The two most societally impactful events were the Casamassima, Italy hailstorm on August 19 with 100 injuries and the La Bisbal d’Empordà, Catalonia hailstorm on August 30 with 67 injuries and one fatality. By far the largest number of hailstorm reports was submitted for France — 2 461, followed by Italy with 993 and Germany with 583. Hailstorms had a very large economic impact, especially in France, where the insured losses reached 4.8 billion € according to Swiss-Re. While some of the hailstorms produced large hail only for 15 minutes, some lasted for more than 3 hours. The longest-lasting hailstorm occurred on May 22 in France, producing large hail for 5 hours in a hail swath over 300 km (186 miles) long.

Europe had 782 tornados in 2022, causing 6 fatalities and 84 injuries - In 2022, there were 782 tornadoes reported in Europe, causing 6 fatalities and 84 injuries.According to the European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL), 251 or 32% were land tornadoes, 523 or 66% were waterspouts, and 8 or 1% were not classified because the initial location was unknown.Of the 251 land tornadoes, 128 were F0 to F1 on the Fujita scale (or 51% of all tornadoes), 26 or 10% were strong, reaching F2 or F3, and 97 or 39% were not classified.Tornadoes were associated with 6 fatalities and 84 injuries in 2022.

Catastrophic flooding devastates Zambia, displaces thousands - Southern and Central Provinces of Zambia are grappling with a “catastrophic situation” after prolonged rainfall caused widespread flooding. The floods caused damage to homes and farmlands as well as disrupted access to healthcare and education in communities in Bwengwa, Namwala, Monze in Southern Province, and Mumbwa district in Central Province since mid-January 2023. The government has assured a multi-sectorial response to ensure recovery and rehabilitation. Southern and Central Provinces of Zambia have been left underwater after prolonged rainfall caused rivers to overflow. The Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) of the country conducted an aerial survey of affected areas on January 27, 2023, and reported widespread damage to homes, farms, and livestock. The communities affected by the disaster are now isolated, leaving them without access to healthcare and education, and sanitation facilities have been completely submerged, increasing the risk of waterborne diseases. The DMMU has declared the situation “catastrophic” and is calling for emergency intervention, especially in the delivery of food and non-food relief items. Flash floods and heavy rain have been causing damage to homes and livelihoods since mid-January, with Eastern Province’s Lusangazi District being one of the hardest hit. On January 16, 2027, several homes in the area were damaged or destroyed, and 27 households lost almost everything. Residents were advised to relocate and rebuild more resilient housing. Rising levels of the Luangwa River in Lusaka Province on January 17, severely damaged an important bridge and other river crossing points, disrupting transportation and access to educational facilities. Further damage was reported in Chongwe District in Lusaka Province, where 29 houses collapsed and 37 were severely damaged. Over 20 000 people were affected in Luano District in Central Province after being cut off by the flooding of the Mkushi River. According to the country’s flood monitoring system, some rivers are expected to be high or experience a second peak well into February, including the Luapala River in Milenge District, the Kafue River in Kitwe District, and the Zambezi River in Lukulu and Senanga Districts.

Severe floods hit Sumatra, damaging thousands of homes and leaving 3 people dead, Indonesia - Floods caused by heavy rainfall affecting parts of Sumatra island, Indonesia since January 21, 2023, have damaged more than 15 000 homes and left at least 3 people dead. The worst affected were areas in Aceh Province, located in far north Sumatra, with flooding reported in the regencies of Pidie Jaya, Aceh Tamiang, East Aceh, Bireuen, Pidie, and North Aceh. Local authorities reported one fatality in Aceh Tamiang Regency, and two in Padang Pariaman Regency in West Sumatra Province. The floods have damaged more than 15 000 homes. In addition, the ASEAN Disaster Information Network (ADINet) reported that more than 40 people were evacuated people, 18 homes and 2 bridges were damaged in the Sangihe Islands Regency, North Sulawesi Province. Parts of the province experienced flood waters as high as 3 m (10 feet). More than 6 100 people have been affected across the Cirebon Regency, West Java Province.

Extreme and unprecedented: Severe flooding hits Auckland after entire summer’s worth of rain in a single day, New Zealand -(4 videos) The presence of a low level jet (LLJ), or strong wind in the lower atmosphere, combined with tropical moisture to create persistent heavy rain in the Auckland area on Friday, January 27, 2023, resulting in widespread severe flooding, destruction and casualties. Many locations in Auckland recorded their wettest day on record — receiving approximately an entire summer’s worth of rain in one day. Auckland officials described it as a devastating rain event, culminating in the declaration of a state of emergency At least three people have lost their lives and one remains missing. Rain in Auckland began before sunrise and there were steady falls through the day. An Orange Heavy Rain Warning was active all day, with a risk of thunderstorms and downpours which began to come to fruition during the afternoon. MetService issued several Red Thunderstorm Warnings as the torrential downpours continued to spread over Auckland, leading MetService and Auckland Council to jointly elevate the warning for the entire region to a Red Heavy Rain Warning. MetService meteorologist, Angus Hines, says, “The rain that fell around the Auckland region was extreme and unprecedented.” The weather station located at Auckland Airport has an unbroken record of weather observation since 1962 and prior to Friday, the wettest ever day there amounted to 161.8 mm (6.37 inches) of rain. On Friday, that same site reported 245 mm (9.65 inches) of rain, surpassing the previous record by over 50%. Other weather stations around the region also reported remarkable rainfall, with many spots noting between 250 – 300 mm (9.84 – 11.81 inches) of rain within the day. Some stations even reported over 80 mm (3.15 inches) of rain in an hour. To put this into context, the highest classification for intense rain at MetService is ‘torrential’, which is defined as 40 mm (1.57 inches) of rain or more in an hour. The heavy rain has led to widespread, severe flooding in the region. Three people have lost their lives while one person is still missing. Two were found dead in Wairau Valley on Auckland’s North Shore – one in a culvert and a second in a flooded car park – and a third body was found later after a landslide hit a house in the city centre. Another man is missing after being swept in a community south of Auckland. Many areas in the North Island have also been drenched in the last few days. Some locations, such as the Coromandel Peninsula, Northland, and Gisborne are in the midst of their third heavy rain event of 2023.

Extensive and very dangerous ice storm hits U.S. - (8 videos) A glancing blow of Arctic air mixed with a surge in moisture set the stage for an extensive and very dangerous ice event in parts of the United States. The most likely corridor of icing with a mixture of sleet will occur from west-central Texas to the Tennessee and Lower Ohio Valleys, NWS warns. The ice accretion from Texas into Mid-South may approach 13 mm (0.5 inches) or more through Wednesday, February 1, 2023, and cause power outages and travel issues. Abundant freezing rain and sleet across the southern Plains have already resulted in a travel nightmare for many on Monday, January 30, including a fatal wreck in Avoca, Arkansas when a flatbed truck lost control and flipped on a road, and chaos in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro region, resulting in over 100 crashes and 25 injured people. Close to 13 mm (0.5 inches) of sleet was reported on roads south of Denton, Texas, on Monday afternoon and up to 25 mm (1 inch) in towns in Oklahoma and Arkansas, as well as 20 mm (0.8 inches) in Branson, Missouri. Air travel was also heavily impacted, with both major Dallas-Fort Worth airports canceling or delaying more than 1 000 flights. Additional flight delays and cancellations are expected to continue at major hubs such as Austin, Dallas, and Memphis today. AccuWeather forecasters warned that yesterday’s severe weather was just the first wave of ice with more expected from another storm that is forecast for Tuesday, January 31. Major hubs such as Dallas, Austin, Oklahoma City and Memphis are just some of the cities where a substantial amount of ice could be received.1 The headlining weather story in the United States over the next few days will be the ongoing ice storm affecting portions of the southern Plains and Mid-South that is forecast to continue into at least early Thursday, February 2.2 In the wake of an arctic cold frontal passage, warm and moist air overrunning cold air at the surface draped over the region will produce freezing rain and sleet that could lead to significant impacts. Furthermore, multiple rounds of wintry precipitation are forecast, with brief lulls followed by bursts of sleet and freezing rain that could drastically deteriorate road conditions. Widespread total ice accretion of greater than 6 mm (0.25 inches) is likely from West Texas to western Tennessee, with localized areas receiving as much as 19 mm (0.75 inches). In addition to potentially hazardous travel conditions, this amount of ice will likely lead to tree damage and scattered power outages across the hardest-hit regions. Sleet accumulations around 13 mm (0.5 inches) or locally higher are also possible from West Texas to Arkansas, which can also lead to treacherous travel or add to the already slippery conditions. The cold airmass responsible for the icy forecast in the Mid-South will also lead to one more morning of well-below-average temperatures and frigid wind chills throughout the central and western United States. Widespread temperature departures of 5 – 15 °C (10 – 30 °F) below average are forecast throughout much of the Plains and Intermountain West this morning, January 31, with temperatures below zero in many spots. Bitterly cold air, coupled with gusty winds, has led to the issuance of Wind Chill Warnings and Advisories across the central and northern Plains, as well as parts of the Intermountain West. Wind chill values are forecast to drop as low as -40 °C/F to start the day before temperatures begin to rebound for the next few days.

Flights canceled, at least 2 dead as ice storm freezes US -(AP) — Winter weather brought ice to a wide swath of the United States on Tuesday, canceling more than 1,700 flights nationwide and snarling highways. At least two people died on slick roads in Texas and two law officers in the state were seriously injured, including a deputy who was pinned under a truck, authorities said. As the ice storm advanced eastward on Tuesday, watches and warnings stretched from the western heel of Texas all the way to West Virginia. Several rounds of mixed precipitation — including freezing rain and sleet — were in store for many areas through Wednesday, meaning some regions could be hit multiple times, the federal Weather Prediction Center warned. Emergency responders rushed to hundreds of auto collisions across Texas and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott urged people to stay off the roads. Authorities said one person in Austin was killed in a predawn pileup Tuesday. A 45-year-old man also died Monday night after his SUV slid into a highway guardrail near Dallas in slick conditions and rolled down an embankment, according to the Arlington Police Department. More than 900 flights to or from major U.S. airport hub Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and more than 250 to or from Dallas Love Field were canceled or delayed Tuesday, according to the tracking service FlightAware. At Dallas-Fort Worth, more than 50% of Tuesday’s scheduled flights had been canceled by Tuesday afternoon. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines canceled more than 560 flights Tuesday and delayed more than 350 more, FlightAware reported. About 7,000 power outages in Texas were reported as of late Tuesday morning, Fleets of emergency vehicles were fanned out among 1,600 roads impacted by the freeze. In Texas, a sheriff’s deputy who stopped to help the driver of an 18-wheeler that went off an icy highway on Tuesday was hit by a second truck that pinned him beneath one of its tires, according to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. About 45 minutes after the crash on State Highway 130, the deputy was freed from the wreckage and taken to a hospital, In another wreck, a Texas state trooper was hospitalized with serious injuries after being struck by a driver who lost control of their vehicle, said Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety. As the ice and sleet enveloped Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis-Shelby County Schools announced that it will cancel classes Wednesday due to freezing rain and hazardous road conditions. The school system has about 100,000 students. In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency Tuesday because of the ice storm. In her declaration, Sanders cited the “likelihood of numerous downed power lines” and said road conditions have created a backlog of deliveries by commercial drivers. One of the main thoroughfares through Arkansas — Interstate 40 — was ice-coated and “extremely hazardous” in the Forrest City area on Tuesday, according to the city’s fire department. “When I-40 shuts down like that, that can be hours of waiting,” “I-40 is usually one of the first things that freezes over due to its slight elevation.”

Over 330,000 Texans without power as ice storm continues to move across Texas - Over 330,000 Texans across the Lone Star State are currently without power as the deadly ice storm that's causing problems continues to move across the state. According to PowerOutage.Us, 337,605 people are without power in Texas as of 4:40 p.m. CT. If you are currently without power in your home, be sure to contact your power company to report the outage, be patient, and stay as warm as you can. The winter storm plaguing the state left behind snow in some areas across the state, but much of Central and North Texas are dealing with ice accumulations. A winter storm warning is covering much of the central U.S. including parts of Texas. The weather is causing interstate closures and some power outages. If you are planning on traveling across the state, you're urged to stay home if you are in the affected areas. You can also check DriveTexas.org for the latest on road conditions throughout the state. Conditions are expected to improve across much of the state starting on Thursday as the winter storm continues to move across the state.

Ice storm leaves at least 6 dead in Texas in slick travel conditions | Fox News - Hazardous winter weather impacted a large part of the country this week, causing widespread power outages and poor road conditions that led to deadly crashes. At least six people died on slick Texas roads since Monday, including a triple fatality crash Tuesday near Brownfield, about 40 miles southwest of Lubbock. Two law officers were seriously injured, including a deputy who was pinned under a truck. He had stopped to help the driver of an 18-wheeler that went off an icy highway on Tuesday before being hit by a second truck, according to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. He is expected to survive. First responders rushed to hundreds of car collisions, with Gov. Greg Abbott warning travelers to stay off the roads. "The roadways are very hazardous right now. We cannot overemphasize that," he told residents. Arkansas's Interstate 40 was also ice-coated and the Forrest City Fire Department responded to two bad wrecks and 15 other crashes on Tuesday morning. By the late morning, the Arkansas Department of Transportation announced the interstate had cleared. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency due to the storm. In Tennessee, Memphis-Shelby County Schools announced classes would be canceled on Wednesday due to freezing rain and hazardous road conditions. The weather began Monday as part of several rounds of precipitation expected to hit Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee. The National Weather Service in the Dallas-Fort Worth area said it had set a new daily snowfall record of 1.3 inches, beating one set in 1985. "Travel conditions will continue to be hazardous into Wednesday night and Thursday with more sleet and freezing rain expected," the office tweeted. "Temperatures will slowly climb above freezing in central Texas Wednesday night and Thursday morning across most of north Texas." Watches and warnings had extended up to West Virginia, with impacts expected through Wednesday.

Deadly ice storm snarls travel across southern US -Thousands of flights were canceled and many were without power on Wednesday after a multi-day winter storm encased towns in ice this week. Forecasters warn the storm isn’t over yet, either. Extremely dangerous road conditions were blamed for at least six deaths across the southern Plains as a multiday winter storm brought rounds of sleet and freezing rain from Oklahoma to Texas and Arkansas. Thousands of flights were canceled, and hundreds of thousands were left without power across several Southern states.The first round of winter weather made travel difficult across parts of Texas on Monday, but road conditions seriously deteriorated on Tuesday and Wednesday following more rounds of freezing rain and sleet. Emergency responders in Texas were busy this week, responding to the hundreds of accidents that occurred on the icy roadways. At least six people have died on the slick roads in the Lone Star State since Monday, The Associated Press reported.One of the deadly accidents was a triple fatality crash on Tuesday near Brownfield, which sits about 40 miles southwest of Lubbock. The vehicle had lost traction while traveling eastbound on U.S. Highway 380 and started to skid. It crossed over the median into the westbound lane and rolled into a ditch, according to Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. A fourth passenger in the car was injured in the crash.Authorities said another person was killed in Austin in a pileup on Tuesday before sunrise, and a 45-year-old man died Monday night after his SUV slid into a highway guardrail near Dallas and rolled into an embankment, according to the AP.In the neighboring state of Arkansas, authorities cited thewinter weather as a factor in a fatal crash in Benton County. A spokesperson for the Benton County Sheriff's Office stated a flatbed truck that was hauling equipment lost control and flipped on a road east of Avoca, Arkansas, killing the driver.Two Texas law enforcement officers were seriously injured while responding to storm-related crashes. A Travis County sheriff’s deputy who stopped to help the driver of a tractor-trailer that slid off an icy highway Tuesday was hit by a second truck that pinned him beneath one of its tires. The deputy is expected to survive, authorities said.A Texas State Police trooper was seriously injured on Monday when he was struck while responding to one of the numerous crashes reported in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, authorities said.

3,000 Flight Disruptions Hit US As Ice Storm Sweeps Southern States - Winter storm warnings and weather advisories stretched from the US Southwest to the Southeast on Tuesday as snow, sleet, and freezing rain canceled and or delayed at least 3,000 flights. According to FlightAware's flight tracking website, 1,300 flights had been canceled, and an additional 2,000 were delayed as of Tuesday morning. Dallas-Fort Worth International, Austin-Bergstrom International, and Dallas Love Field were three Texas airports experiencing the most flight disruptions as an ice storm slammed the state. Cancellations and delays were also seen across the country. The National Weather Service in Fort Worth said a winter storm warning was in effect in north and western central Texas until Wednesday afternoon. On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed the state's Division of Emergency Management to prepare for adverse weather conditions. "The State of Texas is working tirelessly to ensure Texans and their communities have the resources, assistance, and support needed to respond to winter weather impacts across the state," Gov. Abbott said in a press release.The ice storm will also impact Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee through Wednesday. NWS Memphis said areas could expect ice accumulations of a quarter to one-half inch or more.

Winter weather updates: Ice storm slams Texas, power outages pile up – Texans in more than 340,000 homes and businesses braced for near-freezing temperatures without power Wednesday and more than 2,300 flights were canceled amid an unrelenting blast of treacherous, icy conditions and brutal cold that has left at least six dead. The winter weather system, now in its third day, has swept from Minnesota deep into Texas. Wrecks on slippery roads have been reported in Texas, Arkansas and other states across the region all week. "We really cannot emphasize this enough: DO NOT BE ON THE ROADS," the National Weather Service office in Fort Worth tweeted Wednesday. "They are going to virtually be impassable through today and tonight." School systems across Arkansas, along with those in Dallas, Austin, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee, canceled classes for Thursday. Power outages were expected to last 12 to 24 hours in the Texas state capital as ice brought down power lines and tree limbs, Austin Energy warned. The city’s community-owned electric utility said its crews were facing icy roads and frozen equipment, which made it "difficult to provide estimated restoration times." Parts of Texas were colder than Alaska early in the day. AccuWeather reported a "real feel" temperature of 28 degrees in Dallas on Wednesday morning – 3 degrees warmer than in Anchorage, Alaska. The weather service said Wednesday that "the epic ice storm should come to a close on Thursday," and states across the Southern Plains to the Mid-South remain under various storm warnings and advisories. Over 12 million are still under ice storm warnings and 7 million are under winter storm warnings, the weather service said Wednesday. Weather developments:

• ►The NBA postponed Wednesday night's game between the Detroit Pistons and the visiting Washington Wizards because the Pistons couldn't fly back home after their loss Monday night in Dallas against the Mavericks.
• ►In Memphis, Tennessee, services for Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by police officers during a traffic stop last month, were delayed more than two hours "due to weather and travel delays."
• ►A warm front moving north from the Gulf Coast will bring heavy showers and possibly scattered flash flooding to portions of the Deep South and Southeast on Thursday, the weather service said.
• ►A winter storm warning was in effect until Thursday in east central, southeast and southern Oklahoma.
• ►LaGuardia Airport in New York experienced a ground stop for the second morning in a row because of wintry conditions and later reported average delays of more than 40 minutes.

On Minnesota's annual Winter Walk and Winter Walk to School Day, residents of some areas of northern Minnesota woke up to temperatures as low as minus 25 degrees, the National Weather Service office in Duluth said. Light winds meant 35 below in some areas where a wind chill advisory was in effect. The Winter Walk events encourage everyone to travel by foot for at least 15 minutes, and "don’t let the cold scare you off," the state Transportation Department says on its website. It adds that celebrations can start small or include an entire school. More than 1,300 flights into and out of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport – three-quarters of the number scheduled – were canceled by early Wednesday afternoon, FlightAware reported. Nearly 400 flights were canceled into and out of Dallas Love Field. Officials warned travelers to allow extra time for shuttle services that were experiencing delays.

'Epic' ice storm leaves 8 dead, more than 370,000 without power -The severe ice storm sweeping the South is expected to finally dissipate Thursday, but not before leaving chaos in its wake, with at least 8 people suspected to have died due to it and more than 370,000 utility customers still without power."The epic ice storm across a portion of the Southern U.S. will come to an end on Thursday," the National Weather Service said. "A system tracking near the Gulf Coast will clear-out the frozen mess, while also producing heavy rain and perhaps a severe thunderstorm for the Gulf Coast states," it said.The weather service warned that hazardous travel conditions were still expected, with an additional glaze of ice accretion possible, as well as a chance for light sleet accumulations. Tree damage and further power outages were also possible before the ice begins to melt, it said.As of Wednesday, at least eight deaths had been connected to the storm, which hammered parts of the South from Texas to Tennessee. Seven of those fatalities were in Texas, while a person driving a truck died in Benton County, Arkansas, after it slid on an icy spot and hit a pole.Meanwhile, more than 370,000 utility customers across Texas were without power as of early Thursday, according to the outage tracking website PowerOutage.us.“Ice and tree limbs are still breaking as our lineworkers are working on restoration,” utility provider Austin Energy tweeted Wednesday. As of early Thursday, the company had more than 154,700 customers without power, according to PowerOutage.us.The utility company said some areas could be without power until Friday and noted that restoration efforts were also being hampered by accumulating ice and freezing temperatures. U.S. flight cancellations also appeared to dwindle after hundreds of flights were canceled this week due to the severe weather.As of early Thursday, just under 670 flights within, to and from the U.S. were canceled, according to the online flight tracker FlightAware. At least 257 of those cancellations were related to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, while 48 were listed at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Dallas Love Field had just under 30 cancellations, according to FlightAware.As the severe storm system exits over the Southeast, steady rain was likely Thursday from the lower Mississippi Valley to the Southeast, creating the possibility of isolated flooding, the weather service said."The next impulse of arctic air to sweep into the nation from Canada is forecast to impact the northern Plains and Upper Midwest" on Thursday, it said. Wind chills could become "dangerously cold," it warned, and areas with fresh snow cover could also face brief whiteout conditions due to gusty winds accompanying the arctic front.

Texas ice storm paralyzes cities as the coldest wind chills in decades will thrash New England — Dangerous wind chills as cold as 50 degrees below zero will blast the Northeast while parts of the South struggle to thaw from a deadly ice storm.The mind-numbing wind chills set to wallop New England “could be the coldest felt in decades,” the Weather Prediction Center said.More than 15 million people are under wind chill warnings or advisories in the Northeast. The alerts begin to go into effect very early Friday morning and last through Saturday afternoon.“This is an epic, generational Arctic outbreak,” said the National Weather Service in Caribou, Maine. “The air mass descending on the area Friday into Friday night is the coldest air currently in the Northern Hemisphere.”Such extreme conditions can cause frostbite in as little as 10 minutes.Fortunately, the brutal blast will only last about 36 hours. Temperatures across most of the Northeast are expected to rise by Sunday afternoon.But farther south, cities paralyzed by a deadly ice storm this week will get an encore of nasty weather before finally thawing out this weekend.The ice storm linked to at least three deaths in Texas will dump more freezing rain Thursday morning.Another quarter inch of ice could glaze central and northern Texas, as well as southern Oklahoma and Arkansas. Adding to the misery: More than 400,000 homes, businesses and other power customers had no electricity Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. Most of the outages are in the Austin area. Another 60,000 customers in Arkansas, 20,000 in Mississippi and 20,000 in Tennessee also had no power in the brutal cold Thursday morning

Widespread ice storm leaves at least 10 people dead, more than 550 000 without power, U.S. - A significant widespread ice storm is still affecting parts of the U.S. South and Mid-South on Thursday, February 2, 2023, but it’s now slowly transitioning to rain. Despite this, the risk remains high as melting ice may still trigger the breakage of trees and tree limbs. Meanwhile, a life-threatening Arctic blast is moving towards the northeastern regions of the country, with wind chills expected to be the coldest in recent memory.The storm has left at least 10 people dead in Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and two seriously injured police officers, as of Thursday, February 2. The number of casualties has risen from 8 reported on Wednesday night.The deaths include a triple fatality Tuesday, January 31 near Brownfield, about 64 km (40 miles) southwest of Lubbock, TX. In Austin, a person was killed in a pileup on Tuesday, and in Oklahoma, two people died in separate crashes on Thursday morning and a semi-truck driver was killed with a second person seriously injured in Custer County. In Arkansas, a 60-year-old driver was killed when their flatbed truck hauling equipment lost control and flipped over.¹As of 19:00 UTC on February 2, more than 550 000 customers are Texas to Tennessee are without power, primarily due to downed power lines and trees. Of those, 440 000 in Texas, 82 000 in Arkansas, 24 000 in Tennessee, and 23 000 in Mississippi.Officials are urging customers who are experiencing power outages to contact their local providers, with Austin Energy warning that some areas may be without power until Friday.The restoration efforts are being hampered by the accumulated ice and freezing temperatures.The storm has also caused flight cancellations, with just under 670 flights within, to, and from the U.S. canceled as of Thursday, with the majority of cancellations being related to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.The prolonged and damaging ice storm that has impacted a large region from Texas to Tennessee over the past couple of days is forecast to finally come to an end today, February 2, as a final surge of moisture slides eastward.²Continued hazardous travel conditions can be expected, especially over untreated roadways. Added tree damage and subsequent power outages are also possible before melting begins to commence this afternoon. Above-zero temperatures will return on Friday, February 3, likely eliminating any icy concerns. Elsewhere, as the system exits over the Southeast, steady rain is likely today from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Southeast. Isolated flooding concerns are possible given the wet antecedent conditions.

Coldest wind chills in decades expected in parts of the U.S. - A strong Arctic front will race across the Great Lakes on Thursday, February 2, 2023, and then push through the Northeastern parts of the United States tonight, bringing the coldest wind chills in recent memory.Gusty northwesterly winds will result in dangerously cold wind chills in the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, with temperatures between -31 °C to -37 °C (-25 °F to -35 °F). Wind chills in New England will be even colder, leading to temperatures between -40 °C to -45 °C (-40 °F to -50 °F). Northern Maine could see wind chills as low as -54 °C (-65 °F), matching some of the coldest weather in decades. A cold front sweeping southward across the country will continue to bring bitter Arctic temperatures to the Northern Plains, Midwest, and Northeast.On Friday, February 3, the high temperatures in the Midwest to the Interior Northeast/New England will range from about -17 °C to -12 °C (1 °F to 10 °F), with some areas closer to the Canadian border in New England experiencing temperatures as low as -20 °C (-4 °F).The I-95 urban corridor along the coast will have higher temperatures, ranging from -12 °C to -6 °C (10 °F to 21 °F).The cold weather will persist in the Northeast on Saturday, February 4, with potential record-tying/breaking lows of -12 °C to -18 °C (10 °F to -0.4 °F) for New York City and up to -23 °C (-9 °F) for Boston and Providence.Gusty northwesterly winds of up to 50 km/h (31 mph) will result in dangerously cold wind chills between -31 °C and -37 °C (-25 °F and -35 °F) for portions of the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest.The wind chills will be even colder in New England, with gusts of up to 70 km/h (44 mph) leading to wind chills between -40 °C and -45 °C (-40 °F and -50 °F). The wind chill in Northern Maine could reach as low as -54 °C (-65 °F), matching some of the coldest weather in decades.¹Officials are urging residents to limit time outside during this extreme weather event and dress in layers as frostbite and hypothermia in these conditions can occur in a matter of minutes.In addition to the cold, snow squalls will be possible as the front moves through late Thursday night, bringing quick bursts of heavy, blinding snow and suddenly treacherous travel conditions.The post-frontal flow over the Great Lakes will also result in moderate to heavy lake-effect snow, especially for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan along Lake Superior and east of Lakes Erie and Ontario in New York.Southern regions will not experience the same level of cold as further north, but temperatures will still be much below average for this time of year. The high temperatures on Friday and Saturday from the Tennessee Valley to the Carolinas will range from -1 °C to 4 °C (30 °F to 39 °F), with temperatures of 10 °C to 15 °C (50 °F to 59 °F) for the rest of the inland Southeast, and 15 °C to 20 °C (59°F to 68°F) on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Fortunately, the blast of cold air will be short-lived. A subtle ridge aloft moving west to east over the Plains/Midwest from Friday to Saturday will bring more moderate temperatures to the region.

Arctic blast barrels into U.S. Northeast, threatening record lows (Reuters) - A powerful arctic blast swept into the U.S. Northeast on Friday, threatening to push temperatures to record lows in many spots, including New Hampshire's Mount Washington, where the wind chill could drop to -110 degrees Fahrenheit (-79 Celsius), forecasters said. A National Weather Service (NWS) advisory said the mass of frigid air would keep temperatures at life-endangering levels through Saturday, warning of "extremely dangerous" conditions from the "short-lived blast."Boston and Worcester, the two largest cities in New England, were among the school districts closed on Friday over concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite as children waited for buses or walked to school.Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency through Sunday and opened warming centers to help the city's more than 650,000 residents cope with what the NWS has warned could shape up to be a "once-in-a-generation" cold front.The bitter cold forecast forced a rare closing of a floating museum that presents a daily re-enactment of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, when a band of colonists disguised as Native Americans tossed crates of tea taxed by the king into the harbor."It's too cold for that, we're closed," a receptionist at the museum said on Friday.Early on Friday, the core of the cold air mass, driven from Arctic Canada into the United States by high-altitude air currents, was centered over the U.S. Plains, said weather service forecaster Bob Oravec. International Falls, Minnesota, was the coldest spot as of 7 a.m., with temperatures hovering around -36 F (-38 C). Dry air meant snowfall would be limited, he said.

Wholesale power prices spike in U.S. Northeast as arctic blast arrives (Reuters) - Wholesale power prices jumped in the U.S. Northeast, with spot prices for Friday more than tripling in some areas as an incoming arctic blast that threatened record low temperatures kicked up electricity demand. Prices in ISO New England surged by 140% to about $237 per megawatt hour (MWh), while prices in PJM Interconnection , the country's largest grid operator, soared by nearly 260% to roughly $145 per MWh.Looking ahead to Monday, however, when the weather is expected to turn milder, power prices in PJM were on track to drop around 78% to just $32 per MWh, according to data from the Intercontinental Exchange.The prices for Friday neared those reached during a late-December polar vortex, which left the grid operators racing to match demand with electric generation to narrowly avoid rotating blackouts. read more read more

Brutal wind chill sends temperatures into freefall across Maine - Portland Press Herald - Temps are in a free-fall over northern New England right now and that will continue through Saturday . We won’t warm-up until Sunday afternoon when a warm front pushes north through the region. Until then you can expect it to feel as cold as it has in most of our lifetimes.Wind chill warnings are up for all of Maine, with the season’s first blizzard warning in northern Maine.The warnings don’t expire until Saturday evening. Before then, you can expect frostbite in about 10 minutes or less for nearly all of Maine. The blizzard warning is for rare, “ground blizzard” conditions, where snow on the ground will get blown around by the wind and reduce visibility significantly. This will make travel impossible or difficult in parts of northern Maine.The wind will be gusting to more than 50 mph at times and the trend is for higher gusts up north. Of note is that the Portland Jetport has only recorded one day of –40 for a wind chill. It was –41 in 1971 and that record could fall Friday night or Saturday morning. The reason this is so dangerous is that our bodies normally have a shield around them where we give off heat. That shield or force field is removed when the wind blows. Hot air always goes to cold so the heat around our bodies on our exposed skin goes away, leaving us unprotected to the extreme cold.

Unfathomable cold from polar vortex: Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, could hit 110-degree-below-zero wind chill – Hurricane-force wind gusts will peak as high as 140 mph. Temperatures will plunge to life-threatening values, with the wind chill dropping to nearly 110 degrees below zero.Those are some of the warnings and impacts for Mount Washington in New Hampshire, the highest peak in the northeastern U.S. at 6,288 feet in elevation. The National Weather Service in Portland/Gray, Maine, said an unusual phenomenon for its area of responsibility is possible Friday night as the tropopause – the boundary between the troposphere, where our weather occurs, and the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere – could dip below the peak of Mount Washington. While extremely rare, the impact of this is that wind speeds are likely to increase Friday night as the winds become more compressed through the lowest levels of the atmosphere, the NWS said.At the Mount Washington Observatory, forecasts say the coldest air from the center of the polar vortex will move through the region Friday night, which will also coincide with the period of highest winds. As a result, wind chills will drop to 100 to 110 degrees below zero Friday night."Combined with the bitterly cold temperatures, wind chill values likely fall to as low as -60 across northern areas, and -40 to -45 along the coastline," the NWS said in arecent forecast discussion for the lower elevations of northern New England. "So we are nearing wind chills values that most have not seen in their lifetime."The Mount Washington Observatory said the highest winds will occur sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning as sustained winds ramp up to 100 to 115 mph, with gusts up to 135 mph. "Higher gusts are not completely out of the question, with the possibility for winds to peak as high as 140 mph very early Saturday morning," the observatory said in its latest summit forecast.

Mount Washington records wind chills of -104F - the lowest temperature EVER recorded in the US A powerful arctic blast swept into the Northeastern U.S. on Friday, pushing temperatures to a record low- with New Hampshire's Mount Washington recording a wind chill of -104 degrees Fahrenheit (-75 Celsius).A National Weather Service (NWS) advisory said the mass of frigid air would keep temperatures at life-endangering levels through Saturday, warning of 'extremely dangerous' conditions from the 'short-lived blast.'Situated in the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire at 6,288 feet, the Mount Washington Observatory was dealing with a combination of extreme cold and strong winds from an intense blast of arctic air. Boston and Worcester, the two largest cities in New England, were among the school districts closed on Friday over concerns about the risk of hypothermia and frostbite as children waited for buses or walked to school.Boston Mayor Michelle Wu declared a state of emergency through Sunday and opened warming centers to help the city's more than 650,000 residents cope with what the NWS has warned could shape up to be a 'once-in-a-generation' cold front.Early on Friday, the core of the cold air mass, driven from Arctic Canada into the United States by high-altitude air currents, was centered over the U.S. Plains, said weather service forecaster Bob Oravec. International Falls, Minnesota, was the coldest spot as of 7 a.m., with temperatures hovering around -36 F (-38 C). Dry air meant snowfall would be limited, he said.'It's moving into the Northeast' and temperatures will drop throughout the day on Friday, he said. 'That's the biggest story of the day.'In Mount Washington State Park, atop the Northeast's highest peak, temperatures were expected to fall to a record low of -50 F (-46 C) later Friday, officials for the New Hampshire park service said. By comparison, air temperatures in Eureka, Canada's northernmost Arctic weather station, were hovering at -41 F (-41 C) on Friday morning.

Concordia station records Antarctica’s lowest January temperature on record - The Watchers -The temperature at Concordia weather station in Antarctica dropped to -51.2 °C (-60.1 °F) at 18:18 UTC on January 31, 2023, marking the lowest January temperature in Antarctica since meteorological observations there started in 1956.This broke the previous record-low January temperature set on January 31, 2014, at Dome Fiji when -50.4 °C (-58.7 °F) was recorded.The third lowest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica during the month of January is now -49.5 °C (-57.1 °F) recorded on January 31, 2008, at Dome A, the fourth is -48.9 °C (-56 °F) recorded on January 29, 1966, at Plateau Station, and the fifth -48.7 °C (-55.6 °F) recorded on January 29, 2023, at the Vostok station.The lowest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica and also the world record is -89.2 °C (-128.6 °F), registered at the Vostok station on July 21, 1984. This station is located 3 500 m (11 500 feet) above sea level. The highest temperature ever measured at this station is -14 °C (7 °F).

East Epi submarine volcano erupts for the first time since 2004, 10 km danger zone established, Vanuatu - A submarine volcano located near the island of Epi in Vanuatu started erupting at 18:30 UTC on January 31, 2023, prompting authorities to raise the Volcano Alert Level to 1 and establish a 10 km (6.2 miles) danger zone. This marks the first eruption of the volcano since 2004 (VEI 2).

• Submarine volcanoes like East Epi are known for their violent eruptions that occur when lava meets seawater. These eruptions can be extremely dangerous and have the potential to sink ships, poison fish, and trigger tsunamis
• The latest observations confirm that the volcanic cone is building up with the continuous ash emissions
• Authorities have established a 10 km (6.2 miles) danger zone around the volcano and advised locals to stay clear of the coast as phreatic explosions may continue and generate tsunami waves
• People on Epi and surrounding islands are also advised to stay on alert for any large earthquake associated with the ongoing volcanic eruptions that could trigger a possible tsunami

Reports and observations from locals at Epi island indicated an increase in the activity of the East Api submarine volcano at around 20:48 UTC on January 31 (07:48 LT on February 1) with steam over the volcano area and sulfur dioxide emissions followed by phreatic explosions propelling ash some 100 m (330 feet) above the sea surface.After receiving the reports, the Vanuatu Meteorology and Geohazards Department (VMGD) advised people on Epi, Tongoa, and the surrounding islands to stay clear of the coast as phreatic explosions may continue and could generate small waves.¹

Large fireball explodes over Krasnoyarsk, Russia - (videos) A large fireball exploded over Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia at 13:03 UTC (20:03 LT) on January 31, 2023.The meteor allegedly measured from 1 to 5 m (3.3 – 16 feet), Sergey Veselkov, chief of the Reshetnev University observatory, told TASS.“Undoubtedly, it was a bolide. Judging by its brightness, and it was brighter than the moon, the bolide measured several meters, between one to five meters. Such rocks, while flying in the atmosphere, burn up practically completely. However, a certain amount of matter may reach the Earth’s surface,” Veselkov said.¹Local residents told Pravda that they could hear a loud noise and some added that they could even feel their houses shaking.²The meteor reportedly crashed in the area of the regional capital, the city of Krasnoyarsk.According to Nikolay Palkin of the Siberian Federal University, the meteor most likely burned up in the dense atmosphere.Another expert, Sergey Karpov of the Kirensky Institute of Physics shared the opinion that it might have been a bolide. But, in his words, it was much smaller. “To my mind, its size was from several centimeters to one meter. Otherwise, it would have caused a shock wave with sound,” he said.

Earth is on track to exceed 1.5C warming in the next decade, study using AI finds - The world is on the brink of breaching a critical climate threshold, according to a new study published on Monday, signifying time is running exceedingly short to spare the world the most catastrophic effects of global heating. Using artificial intelligence to predict warming timelines, researchers at Stanford University and Colorado State University found that 1.5C of warming over industrial levels will probably be crossed in the next decade. The study also shows the Earth is on track to exceed 2C warming,which international scientists identified as a tipping point, with a 50% chance the grave benchmark would be met by mid-century. “We have very clear evidence of the impact on different ecosystems from the 1C of global warming that’s already happened,” . “This new study, using a new method, adds to the evidence that we certainly will face continuing changes in climate that intensify the impacts we are already feeling.” The model found a nearly 70% chance that the two-degree threshold would be crossed between 2044 and 2065, even if emissions rapidly decline. The two temperature benchmarks, outlined as crisis points by the United Nations Paris agreement, produce vastly different outcomes across the world. The landmark pact, signed by nearly 200 countries, pledged to keep heating well below two degrees and recognized that aiming for 1.5C “would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”. Half a degree of heating may not seem like a lot, but the increased impacts are exponential, intensifying a broad scale of consequences for ecosystems around the world, and the people, plants and animals that depend on them. Just a fraction of a degree of warming would increase the number of summers the Arctic would be ice-free tenfold, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a global consortium of scientists founded to assess climate change science for the UN. The difference between 1.5C and 2C also results in twice the amount of lost habitat for plants and three times the amount for insects. The change will also fuel a dangerous rise in disasters. A warmer world will deliver droughts and deluges and produce more firestorms and floods. Scorching heatwaves will become more severe and more common, occurring 5.6 times more often at the 2C benchmark, according to the IPCC, with roughly 1bn people facing a greater potential of fatal fusions of humidity and heat. Communities around the world will have to come to grips with more weather whiplash that flips furiously between extremes.

What the ebb and flow of atmospheric dust has to do with global warming - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - Dust that billows up from desert storms and arid landscapes has helped cool the planet for the past several decades, and its presence in the atmosphere may have obscured the true extent of global heating caused by fossil fuel emissions. Atmospheric dust has increased by about 55% since the mid-1800s, an analysis suggests. And that increasing dust may have hidden up to 8% of warming from carbon emissions. The analysis by atmospheric scientists and climate researchers in the US and Europe attempts to tally the varied, complex ways in which dust has affected global climate patterns, concluding that overall, it has worked to somewhat counteract the warming effects of greenhouse gasses. The study, published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, warns that current climate models fail to take into account the effect of atmospheric dust. “We’ve been predicting for a long time that we’re headed toward a bad place when it comes to greenhouse warming,” said Jasper Kok, an atmospheric physicist at UCLA who led the research. “What this research shows is that so far, we’ve had the emergency brake on.” About 26m tons of dust are suspended in our atmosphere, scientists estimate. Its effects are complicated. Dust, along with synthetic particulate pollution, can cool the planet in several ways. These mineral particles can reflect sunlight away from the Earth and dissipate cirrus clouds high in the atmosphere that warm the planet. Dust that falls into the ocean encourages the growth of phytoplankton – microscopic plants in the ocean – that absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Dust can also have a warming effect in some cases – darkening snow and ice, and prompting them to absorb more heat. But after they tallied everything up, it seemed clear to researchers that the dust had an overall cooling effect. “There are all these different factors that play into the role of mineral dusts in our atmosphere,” said Gisela Winckler, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. “This is the first review of its kind to really bring all these different aspects together.” Although climate models have so far been able to predict global heating with quite a bit of accuracy, Winckler said the review made clear that these predictions haven’t been able to pin down the role of dust especially well. Limited records from ice cores, marine sediment records, and other sources suggest that dust overall had also been increasing since pre-industrial times – in part due to development, agriculture, and other human impacts on landscapes. But the amount of dust also seems to have been decreasing since the 1980s. More data and research is needed to better understand these dust patterns, Winckler said, and better predict how they will change in coming years.

Rich nations pledged to pay for climate damages. Where’s the money? - There were high hopes in November when a global climate summit in Egypt adjourned with the creation of a fund to help poor countries cope with the ravages of global warming.But less than three months later, there are few signs that the United States and other wealthy nations will step up to bankroll the much-hyped fund. That’s why U.S. climate negotiator John F. Kerry said he had a succinct answer last month — at the Davos international economic conference — when he was asked about what he needed. “Money, money, money, money,” Kerry recalls saying.“It’s what we need,” the White House climate envoy added in a recent meeting at The Washington Post. “We need it for the developing world. We need it for the right choices to be made [and] to leapfrog the mistakes.” Two months after the U.N. Climate Change Conference ended in Egypt, the hopes and promises of that COP27 summit are fading. Countries are struggling to raise large and steady streams of capital needed to shut down fossil fuel plants, switch to renewables, retrain workers, and establish a fund for losses and damages suffered by poor nations after climate-induced disasters and a century of wealthy countries’ carbon emissions. During his visit to The Post, Kerry said that while large amounts of money have been committed to plans to close coal plants in South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam, there were still “trillions sitting on the sidelines.” Harnessing such investment is a consuming focus of those who still dream of a united global response to climate change. Kerry said he and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who recently returned from South Africa, have held three or four meetings with the heads of multinational development banks — including the World Bank — urging them to undertake “major reform.” Kerry said these institutions were urged to focus more on climate change than on how they were rated for financial strength, and to use financing tools that would make private investors more comfortable with developing world risks.“We have repeatedly pointed out to them the urgency of moving rapidly in order to be able to address the crisis of climate,” Kerry said. “They’re concerned more about their ratings than about development.”

US Emissions of the World’s Most Potent Greenhouse Gas Are 56 Percent Higher Than EPA Estimates, a New Study Shows - While emissions of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), the world’s most potent greenhouse gas, have fallen sharply in the U.S. in recent decades, actual emissions are significantly higher than the official government estimates, a new study concludes.Across the United States, 390 metric tons of SF6 were emitted into the atmosphere in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, according to a new study resulting from a joint initiative between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. The study, designed to better quantify SF6 emissions in the U.S., was published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. SF6, a man-made gas used by electric utilities to quickly interrupt the flow of electricity in high voltage circuit breakers, is also the most potent greenhouse gas ever studied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The gas is 25,200 times more effective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide, making even small releases of SF6 cause for concern. While emissions of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), the world’s most potent greenhouse gas, have fallen sharply in the U.S. in recent decades, actual emissions are significantly higher than the official government estimates, a new study concludes.Across the United States, 390 metric tons of SF6 were emitted into the atmosphere in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, according to a new study resulting from a joint initiative between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. The study, designed to better quantify SF6 emissions in the U.S., was published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. SF6, a man-made gas used by electric utilities to quickly interrupt the flow of electricity in high voltage circuit breakers, is also the most potent greenhouse gas ever studied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The gas is 25,200 times more effective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide, making even small releases of SF6 cause for concern.

Congress' 'biggest fight' over climate? It's the farm bill. - Forget electric vehicles, wind turbines or pipelines. Congress’ most consequential climate battles this year are more likely to revolve around dirt and cows.The five-year farm bill is scheduled to expire by Oct. 1, making it one of the few must-pass legislative items under this divided Congress. The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee on Wednesday is holding its first hearing on the legislation, with many more to follow in both chambers.The sprawling bill — likely to encompass roughly a half-trillion dollars in spending — shapes broad swaths of American life, from the crops farmers choose to grow to the kinds of food low-income families can afford. Both advocates and critics increasingly see the farm bill as a potentialclimate bill, too.That’s thanks in part to the Inflation Reduction Act allocating about $20 billion of climate money to preexisting farm bill programs. Historic drought in the West and other climate-fueled problems also have made the issue more difficult to ignore. Finally, the farm bill presents a rare opportunity for federal officials to get a handle on climate pollution from agriculture, which has been rising for decades and, unlike other sectors, shows few signs of peaking.“The farm bill is probably going to be the piece of legislation in the next two years with the biggest impact on the climate and the environment,” said Peter Lehner, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Sustainable Food and Farming Program.Some Republicans are eyeing the farm bill as a chance to redirect climate money to other agriculture programs, such as crop subsidies, while other conservative lawmakers want across-the-board spending cuts. Those GOP divisions have some observers worried that the latest farm bill could get delayed or derailed in the House, like it was in 2012.Democrats and climate advocates are more united; they’re trying to defend the climate funding they’ve already passed while building the case for more. That’s a different dynamic from even the recent past. The 2018 farm bill passed while Republicans held full control of government, and though it drew bipartisan support, its climate programs were kept deliberately low-key.Now, Democratic control of the Senate will empower progressives to fight for climate programs. But it’s not purely partisan. Climate advocates say even some Republicans have grown more willing to consider climate in the farm bill, as long as those programs are voluntary.

US lawmakers press to remove oil boss from leading COP28 climate talks – A group of U.S. lawmakers wants the Biden administration to ask the United Arab Emirates to remove the oil company chief the country chose to lead the next U.N. climate talks — or at a minimum "seek assurances" that the UAE will promote an ambitious COP28 summit.In a letter to Special Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry, 27 members of the House and Senate called for him to "urge" the UAE to withdraw the appointment of UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, who is also the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to lead the COP28 discussions, which start November 30 in Dubai. The company is one of the world's largest oil producers."The appointment of an oil company executive to head COP 28 poses a risk to the negotiation process as well as the whole conference itself," said the note, which was shared exclusively with POLITICO."To help ensure that COP 28 is a serious and productive climate summit, we believe the United States should urge the United Arab Emirates to name a different lead for COP 28 or, at a minimum, seek assurances that it will promote an ambitious COP 28 aligned with the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit," the lawmakers added.Kerry — along with other climate diplomats, including the EU's Frans Timmermans — has repeatedly defended Al Jaber’s appointment in recent weeks, calling him a “terrific choice” in an interview with the Associated Press. Kerry also said ADNOC understood the need to shift its business away from fossil fuels. Kerry's office was not immediately available to comment on the letter.A COP28 spokesperson, who had not seen the letter, defended Al Jaber's record "as a diplomat, minister, and business leader across the energy and renewables industry." They highlighted his role as founder of renewables company Masdar, calling it "one of the world’s largest renewable energy company with clean energy investments in over 40 countries.""His experience uniquely positions him to be able to convene both the public and private sector to bring about pragmatic solutions to achieve the goals and aspirations of the Paris Climate Agreement," the spokesperson said.But the U.S. lawmakers noted the long history of fossil fuel industry interference in climate talks."Having a fossil fuel champion in charge of the world’s most important climate negotiations would be like having the CEO of a cigarette conglomerate in charge of global tobacco policy. It risks undermining the very essence of what is trying to be accomplished," they wrote.

Who will buy Kerry's carbon credits? - Climate envoy John Kerry made a bet last year that companies would pony up billions of dollars for carbon credits that carry the State Department’s watermark. His gamble might not pay off. Kerry described his idea as a game-changing carbon offsets market that would help corporations meet their climate goals while funding the replacement of dirty electricity in developing nations with clean power — perhaps the world’s most intractable climate challenge. But his claims about the program, called the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA), depend on companies being willing to buy carbon credits that could cost far more than what’s currently available on the market for $2 or $3 a ton. Businesses can use carbon credits to claim they’re meeting reduction targets despite continuing to emit — whether they come from Kerry’s program or not. “If a company can make the same [climate] claim with bad credits as they can with good credits, there’s not a huge incentive for them to go out and buy higher-quality credits,” said Luke Pritchard, nature-based solutions manager at the We Mean Business Coalition. It’s unclear how much credits will cost under Kerry’s program, but Michael Wara, director of Stanford University’s climate and energy program, suggested that an ideal price for carbon, under any program, would hover around $50 a ton. That’s more than 10 times what the global weighted average price was in 2021. “I think offsets can be done well at relatively high prices,” he said. “And the challenge is always that the entities buying the offsets don’t want to pay the prices that are required to do offsets well.” The ETA is still being designed, but Kerry has said it will only support additional renewable energy and the retirement of coal-fired power in developing countries. It also takes a jurisdictional approach, meaning it will support national or regional plans to green power grids overall, not individual projects whose climate benefits could be undercut by fossil fuel development in the same area. The point of carbon credits is to incentivize activities that result in lower emissions — which wouldn’t have happened without funding provided by the credits. That is “fiendishly, fiendishly, fiendishly hard” to identify for renewable energy and coal retirements, “Solar is dirt cheap,” he said. “There’s a lot of incentives to build solar, and a lot of the reasons people are not building solar and are using coal is not economic, it’s political.” That’s why the certifiers of carbon credits are bailing out of the renewable sector.

War, politics, business make 1.5 C target far-fetched — experts -- Keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius is “currently not plausible,” warns a new report from the University of Hamburg. The types of swift, transformative social change needed to reach that target just aren’t happening fast enough.A less ambitious target of 2 C still could be in the cards, the report adds. But it would require world leaders to set more ambitious climate goals for their nations and put them in motion immediately.The report, known as the “Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook,” examines the factors affecting the world’s ability to meet its global climate goals. Nations participating in the Paris climate agreement have pledged to keep global warming well under 2 C while striving for a more ambitious 1.5 C target.The most recent reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change make it clear that meeting these targets requires immediate and rapid global efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions. The 1.5 C threshold requires global emissions to hit net zero by 2050, the IPCC warns, and they should fall by roughly half within the next decade.But studies consistently find that global climate action isn’t happening fast enough to keep up with those requirements. The U.N.’s latest annual emissions gap report, which assesses global progress on the Paris targets, found that the climate policies currently in place around the world aren’t even enough to meet the 2 C target, let alone 1.5 C.As it is, studies suggest that humanity could blow past the 1.5 C threshold in about a decade. Though it’s still technically possible to achieve it — if world leaders took the necessary steps right away — climate scientists and policy experts increasingly acknowledge that it’s probably not going to happen (Climatewire, Nov. 11, 2022).The new Hamburg report affirms those fears.The report examines 10 different social drivers that can affect the world’s ability to achieve “deep decarbonization” in time to meet the Paris targets. These include governance from the U.N., transnational initiatives, climate-related regulation, climate protests and social movements, climate litigation, corporate responses, fossil-fuel divestment, consumption patterns, journalism, and the production of knowledge on climate change.On a global scale, not one of them supports deep decarbonization by 2050, the report finds.Most of them are, in general, moving in the right direction. They just aren’t aggressive enough yet to be consistent with the kind of transformative social change required to chieve the 1.5 C target.

How the Supreme Court could finally force Big Oil to face trial -It’s been eight years since the world learned that “Exxon Knew.” The oil giant had grasped the dangers of burning fossil fuels since 1977, investigations showed, despite its long-standing public stance that the science was “uncertain” and persistent efforts to block legislation that would control carbon pollution. The revelations launched a wave of lawsuits that aimed to put fossil fuel companies on trial for deceiving the public about climate change.In 2017, cities and counties in California started the trend by suing dozens of oil, gas, and coal companies using state “tort” laws meant to protect people from deceptive advertising. Attorneys general in other states filed similar suits of their own, beginning with Rhode Island in 2018. It spurred speculation that Big Oil might face a reckoning for misleading the public about the dangers of climate change, much as Big Tobacco did in the 1990s after decades spent denying that smoking could cause cancer. In the ensuing years, not a single one of these consumer-protection cases — now numbering nearly two dozen — made it to trial. They have bounced around between federal and state courts, with oil companies maneuvering to delay any action. “It says something about what the industry thinks is the power of these cases, that it has kept these up in procedural battles for over five years now,” said Karen Sokol, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans The procedural battles might soon end when the Supreme Court reviews Suncor v. Boulder County later this year, a case that promises to be a turning point for climate litigation. The court will either hear the case (the oil industry’s choice) or send it back to state courts where state and local governments say it belongs. The decision could remove the dam that’s been standing in the way of the lawsuits that states, cities, and counties have brought against fossil fuel giants. Cases that have been languishing for half a decade could finally be heard, with the chance that oil companies would be called to face trials for violating state laws that guard the public against false advertising. “The fossil fuel companies are afraid of state courts,” said Denise Antolini, a law professor at the University of Hawaii. “They are petrified of state courts who are closer to the problem, closer to the issues, and absolutely terrified of going in front of juries of real people.”

States Brace for Flood of Environmental Permits as Funding Flows - A growing number of states are trying to take the pain out of environmental permitting, steeling themselves for the billions of dollars of new construction made possible by the infrastructure and climate bills.The new efforts don’t get as much attention as Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) unsuccessful bid last year to change the federal rules. But builders say permitting bottlenecks at the state level are just as vexing as federal rules, and just as capable of delaying infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, and renewable energy facilities.State agencies issue far more environmental permits than their federal counterparts, and their workload will skyrocket as more federal funds are released. But neither the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill (Public Law 117-58) nor the $500 billion climate law (Public Law 117-169) provides extra funding for states to do permitting work—an oversight that “could lead to permit backlogs and broken promises,” said Ben Grumbles, former head of Maryland’s Department of the Environment.In the absence of more money, some states are trying to avoid backlogs by simply getting better at making quick permitting decisions.Connecticut, Virginia, and Michigan have all recently borrowed an idea from the federal government, launching online portals that let the public keep track of permitting deadlines and important decisions.Aaron Proctor, a spokesman at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, said the idea is to help state officials “promptly respond to bottlenecks by sharing workload or assigning specialists to help when a stumbling block is encountered,” and to alert agencies and project sponsors when deadlines are coming near or have already passed, “to avoid dropping the ball.”The new dashboards mirror the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council’s portal at the federal level. FPISC also brings agencies together at the start of the permitting process for very large projects, an idea that was included in Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s recent permitting executive order. Other states are trying to bulk up their staff to deal with the expected uptick in work. Last summer, for example, the Vermont legislature approved a request from the state’s Agency of Natural Resources for 31 short-term positions to help with infrastructure-related projects.“The federal funding, cheerleading, and support are all encouraging, but here’s the missing ingredient: state capacity building. It’s what will turn many of the great hopes and detailed dreams into permitted and built projects,” said Grumbles, now executive director of the Environmental Council of the States, a nonprofit group that works to improve the capacity of state environmental agencies.

New Jersey eyes new clean energy goal, but some enviros may balk - The New Jersey Senate is preparing to take up nation-leading clean energy legislation in coming weeks, but some environmental groups are threatening to oppose it. The bill, NJ S2978 (22R), would put the state on the path to get 100 percent of its electricity from zero carbon sources by 2035 — the most aggressive clean energy goal of any large state. Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), chair of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee, said his bill is going to be big and controversial, but necessary to help tackle climate change. While it may face many hurdles, the measure is also going to face surprising opposition from at least one of New Jersey’s major environmental groups. That’s because the definition of clean energy in the bill counts all power sources that currently qualify for renewable energy credits and ratepayer dollars, including incinerators that burn trash to generate energy. That’s a no-go for environmental justice groups and their allies, including the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, who argue the incinerators create tons of air pollution in the low-income communities in which they are located. The league, one of the state’s leading environmental groups, said it’s going to oppose the bill unless incinerators support is moved. “This bill calls itself a 100-percent clean energy bill, but we do not believe incineration is clean energy,” the group’s executive director, Ed Potosnak, said in an interview. “Our position is going to be that we oppose the bill without amendments that remove trash incineration.” Smith, who has worked on the bill for months with his staff, said he understands the concerns, But, he said, the bill doesn’t have a chance of passing if it ends support for the incinerators because a handful of senators with incinerators in their districts would not back such a measure.

Insulation a challenge for Minneapolis climate goals -About two-thirds of homes being listed for sale in Minneapolis have inadequate insulation, according to a review of energy disclosure reports. Since January 2020, Minneapolis has required homeowners to disclose the results of a recent energy audit before selling a property. Since then, the city has collectedpublicly accessible data on more than 16,000 residential properties.Gas utility CenterPoint Energy and the Center for Energy and Environment, a nonprofit that manages the city’s residential benchmarking program, recently studied the data and identified a lack of insulation as a recommendation to address in 65% of the reports. About 40% flagged inefficient heating appliances.The results didn’t come as a surprise to the researchers, but the figure highlights a hidden barrier to the city’s climate goals and the financial burden on residents who are paying for heat that’s leaking through walls and attics.“Insulation is invisible,” said Arbor Otalora-Fadner, program coordinator with the Center for Energy and Environment. “It’s not something people see, making it hard to get people’s attention and take steps forward to getting that improvement done.”

Report: N.C. coal plants more expensive to run than building new solar -Duke Energy spends twice as much money fueling and upkeeping its six North Carolina coal plants — costs passed on to ratepayers — than if it replaced them with brand new solar farms, a report issued today shows. The analysis by the clean energy policy firm Energy Innovation, the third of its kind, reflects the worsening economics of coal and the ever-tumbling prices of wind and solar. And it shows how incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act — the major federal climate law that passed last year — are making locally sourced renewables even more attractive.The Allen coal plant just west of Charlotte is the most expensive in the state by far, according to the study, running at over $165 per megawatt-hour. The other facilities average about $44. Building solar arrays near the power plant sites, by contrast, would cost about $20.The authors of the report, which covers 210 coal plants around the country, stress that they used publicly available data rather than proprietary business information that might produce slightly different cost figures. But the gist is undeniable.“If you look at the fleet as a whole, you see a pretty stark trend of all of the plants are uneconomic, by a wide margin, compared to renewables,” said Mike O’Boyle, the director of Energy Innovation’s electricity program and a co-author of the report. “In North Carolina, the savings potential is significant.”In addition to the cost of replacing coal plants, today’s study shows how the Inflation Reduction Act could help address concerns about transmission and reliability. The money Duke saves by switching to renewables could be reinvested in up to 8.6 gigawatts of 4-hour battery storage in North Carolina, according to the analysis, nearly as big as the state’s entire coal fleet.

US renewable energy farms outstrip 99% of coal plants economically – study - Coal in the US is now being economically outmatched by renewables to such an extent that it’s more expensive for 99% of the country’s coal-fired power plants to keep running than it is to build an entirely new solar or wind energy operation nearby, a new analysis has found.The plummeting cost of renewable energy, which has been supercharged by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, means that it is cheaper to build an array of solar panels or a cluster of new wind turbines and connect them to the grid than it is to keep operating all of the 210 coal plants in the contiguous US, bar one, according to the study.“Coal is unequivocally more expensive than wind and solar resources, it’s just no longer cost competitive with renewables,” said Michelle Solomon, a policy analyst at Energy Innovation, which undertook the analysis. “This report certainly challenges the narrative that coal is here to stay.”The new analysis, conducted in the wake of the $370bn in tax credits and other support for clean energy passed by Democrats in last summer’s Inflation Reduction Act, compared the fuel, running and maintenance cost of America’s coal fleet with the building of new solar or wind from scratch in the same utility region.On average, the marginal cost for the coal plants is $36 each megawatt hour, while new solar is about $24 each megawatt hour, or about a third cheaper. Only one coal plant – Dry Fork in Wyoming – is cost competitive with the new renewables. “It was a bit surprising to find this,” said Solomon. “It shows that not only have renewables dropped in cost, the Inflation Reduction Act is accelerating this trend.”

GM conditionally OKs $650M Nevada lithium mine investment | AP News— General Motors Co. has conditionally agreed to invest $650 million in Lithium Americas Corp. in a deal that will give GM exclusive access to the first phase of a mine planned near the Nevada-Oregon line with the largest known source of lithium in the U.S. The equity investment the companies announced jointly on Tuesday is contingent on the Thacker Pass project clearing the final environmental and legal challenges it faces in federal court in Reno, where conservationists and tribal leaders are suing to block it. Lawyers for the mining company and the U.S. government told a judge during a Jan. 5 hearing the project is critical to meeting the growing demand for lithium to make electric vehicle batteries — a key part of President Joe Biden’s push to expedite a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. GM said Tuesday’s announcement marks the largest-ever investment by an automaker to produce battery raw materials.

Study: Enough rare earth minerals to fuel green energy shift | AP News --The world has enough rare earth minerals and other critical raw materials to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy to produce electricity and limit global warming, according to a new study that counters concerns about the supply of such minerals. With a push to get more electricity from solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants, some people have worried that there won’t be enough key minerals to make the decarbonization switch. Rare earth minerals, also called rare earth elements, actually aren’t that rare. The U.S. Geological Survey describes them as a “relatively abundant.” They’re essential for the strong magnets necessary for wind turbines; they also show up in smartphones, computer displays and LED light bulbs. This new study looks at not only those elements but 17 different raw materials required to make electricity that include some downright common resources such as steel, cement and glass. A team of scientists looked at the materials — many not often mined heavily in the past — and 20 different power sources. They calculated supplies and pollution from mining if green power surged to meet global goals to cut heat-trapping carbon emissions from fossil fuel.Much more mining is needed, but there are enough minerals to go around and drilling for them will not significantly worsen warming, the study in Friday’s scientific journal Joule concluded.Much of the global concern about raw materials for decarbonization has to do with batteries and transportation, especially electric cars that rely on lithium for batteries. This study doesn’t look at that. Looking at mineral demands for batteries is much more complicated than for electric power and that’s what the team will do next, Hausfather said. The power sector is still about one-third to half of the resource issue, he said.

Will China’s Rare Earth Dominance Ever Be Challenged? -The Rare Earths MMI (Monthly Metals Index) rose considerably over the past month, climbing by a total of 7.05%. The primary factor influencing the rare earth price forecast over the past several months was zero-COVID. Now, the focus is on those restrictions being lifted. Currently, China reports that the country’s COVID cases are dropping. China’s manufacturing sector hasn’t sustained too much damage over the past month. As a result, China seems ready to retake its position as the dominating global rare earth power. However, with China being “closed” for so long, new rare earth trade initiatives have started forming. And while China still presents itself as a huge player in global rare earth trade, other countries continue to emerge as challengers. This is largely due to the global green energy push. The rare earth price forecast can expect support from the green energy push. The problem lies in the difficulty in mining rare earths. Despite rare earth deposits being abundant, those deposits are widely scattered and mixed in with other naturally occurring metals like iron. As any rare earth expert will concur, this posts a serious challenge. Fortunately, new mining initiatives and rare earth logistics continue to appear as various countries kick up their rare earth game. Sweden, for instance, recently announced discovering massive rare earth deposits in the nation’s arctic region. The find gives Sweden significant traction against Chinese rare earth dependency.Outside of Sweden, mining companies all over the globe continue to step up their own rare earth initiatives. In fact, American Rare Earths Limited, a large mining corporation based in Sydney, could soon challenge China in the global rare earth game. The corporation currently has magnet-metal-based projects operating in both Wyoming and Arizona, two areas projected to contain the largest rare earth deposits in the U.S. The presence of initiatives like this indicates that the United States’ rare earth market continues to expand at a rapid pace. . Looking outside of China for rare earths could mean higher prices. However, it means less dependence on Chinese rare earths in the long run.Still, it remains possible that Chinese production will increase after the chaos of the recent COVID case spikes. Combine this with new rare earth sources popping up all over the globe, and the marketplace could see an abundance of different rare earths supply options. Pulling away from Chinese rare earth dependency and the push toward clean energy have worked together to alter the face of the global rare earth trade. The bottom line is this: the world needs rare earths for countless different things. Therefore, demand will remain high.

China invests $546B in clean energy, far surpassing U.S. - E&E News --The country accounted for nearly half of the world’s low-carbon spending in 2022.

Cutting the red tape for cleaner energy: The pros and cons of permitting reform - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - Last year permitting reform emerged as one of the most divisive climate policy debates in the United States. During my own reporting on geothermal energy, an underutilized source of renewable power, industry representatives insisted that the onerous permitting process is the single biggest challenge to expanding geothermal development. A joint industry and Energy Department report on geothermal energy estimated that streamlining the permitting process could more than double the amount of installed geothermal electricity generation by 2050, compared to “business as usual” scenarios.Permitting-reform advocates say that kind of positive effect holds true for renewable power in general, and that cutting through the bureaucratic red tape around energy and transmission projects is essential to reaching the Biden administration’s goal of permitting 25 gigawatts or more of wind, solar, and other renewable energy projects on federal land by 2025. But many fear that permitting reform will undermine environmental laws that were enacted to protect the country’s natural and cultural resources and reduce needed regulation of fossil fuel projects. Is permitting reform worth the risk to meet the country’s ambitious climate goals, or can other solutions hasten renewable energy development but leave the country’s bedrock environmental laws intact?To explore nuances in the permit-reform debate, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists solicited commentaries from six experts: Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies at Texas A&M University; Sanjay Patnaik, director of the Center on Regulation and Markets at the Brookings Institution and Rayan Sud, a research assistant with the Center on Regulation and Markets at Brookings; Jessica Lovering, co-founder and executive director of the Good Energy Collective, a nuclear policy research organization; Jamie Pleune, a research fellow with the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment at the University of Utah; and Dustin Mulvaney, an environmental studies professor at San José State University. (articles follow)

Biden Promotes EV Hummer That Pollutes More Than Gas-Powered Sedan - President Biden's 70-person social media team tweeted a photo of the president in the new Hummer EV. They celebrated the president's push to 'electrify and greenify' America.The president has signed an Executive Order that sets a new target to make about half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 zero-emissions vehicles. The main idea behind the EV push is to "cut emissions," according to the Executive Order. Though there's a dirty side to clean energy, one of these inconvenient truths is the very EV the president is sitting in pollutes more than a typical gasoline-powered sedan, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). ACEEE revealed the inconvenient truth about the Hummer EV in a report last year: Emissions per mile driven are lower for EVs than for similarly sized gasoline-powered cars, but they are not zero. The Chevy Bolt EV is responsible for about 92 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per mile when accounting for emissions from the electric grid. (The CO2 calculations are based on the national average, but electric grid emissions vary considerably across the country.) The gasoline-powered Chevy Malibu causes over 320 grams per mile. Comparing larger vehicles, the original Hummer H1 emits 889 grams of CO2 per mile and the new Hummer EV causes 341 grams, demonstrating that behemoth EVs can still be worse for the environment than smaller, conventional vehicles.ACEEE continued:The environmental impact of EVs isn't just about the electricity generated to power each mile. The manufacturing process also causes the release of greenhouse gases at several stages, known as the embodied emissions of the vehicle. EVs in particular—with heavy battery packs—use minerals that need to be mined, processed, and turned into batteries.The pursuit of greater driving range and larger vehicles require increasing battery size, also increasing embodied emissions. Mining the minerals used for batteries has a significant impact on the environment and can have negative social impacts, including the well-documented human rights abuses surrounding the mining of cobalt, an important mineral for many EV batteries. More-efficient EVs need less battery to have the same range, which means fewer emissions and fewer of the problems associated with mining the minerals.

Biden is touting giant EVs. Are they actually good for the planet? - The Washington Post President Joe Biden has made driving very large electric vehicles a signature move of his presidency. When the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning came out, the president zipped around a racetrack wearing aviator sunglasses. On Monday, the president’s Twitter posted a picture of him behind the wheel of a Hummer EV, with the caption: “On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified.”The focus on electric cars makes sense. Almost 30 percent of the United States’ carbon emissions come from transportation, and the nation’s roughly 250 million gas-powered cars, trucks and vans create a huge portion of that carbon pollution.But the president’s focus on some of the biggest vehicles around — the Hummer EV, the Ford F-150 Lightning — has raised some eyebrows.And for good reason. For right now, these huge electric vehicles pollute the planet more than small gas-powered cars.The new Hummer EV weighs 9,000 pounds; its battery alone weighs about 3,000 pounds, or almost as much as an entire Honda Civic. The Ford F-150 Lightning clocks in at about 6,000 pounds. That weight means not only that gigantic EVs pose a threat to pedestrians (in general, the heavier the vehicle, the more fatalities it creates on the road), but also that it takes a lot of energy to drag around the car on city or country streets.And more energy means more carbon emissions. EVs emit different amounts of carbon dioxide depending on the electricity mix where they are charged; an EV charged in a state where the grid is packed with renewables will emit less carbon dioxide than one in a state filled with coal. (In almost all geographies, though, EVs emit less carbon dioxidethan equally sized gas-powered cars.)According to an analysis by Quartz, a Hummer EV driven on the average power grid in the United States emits about 276 grams of carbon dioxide per mile; a Toyota Corolla running on gasoline, meanwhile, emits 269 grams. Small EVs on the other hand — like the Tesla Model 3 or Chevy Bolt — release around 97 to 108 grams of carbon dioxide per mile.So, despite Biden’s enthusiasm, the Hummer EV can hardly be considered a “green” vehicle.

If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose - On Sunday, President Joe Biden directed his megawatt grin toward a worthwhile cause: getting Americans to ditch their gas-powered cars. “On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified,” he tweeted, pushing the up-to-$7,500 federal tax credit Americans can now receive by buying a new electric vehicle. A picture showed him smiling from inside of one of GMC’s new all-electric Hummers.On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified.And now, through a tax credit, you can get up to $7,500 on a new electric vehicle. pic.twitter.com/n3iZ9etL4A— President Biden (@POTUS) January 30, 2023 There were a few problems here. For one thing, with an MSRP of around $110,000, that EV is too expensive to qualify for the tax credit. For another, at 4.5 tons, it is hardly an environmental standard-bearer; one recent study found that it is actually worse for climate change than gas-powered sedans. And finally: Imagine getting hit by that thing.The president, like the country he leads, has something backward about overhauling America’s automotive fleet in the face of a changing climate. It isn’t just about how our cars work. It’s about how big they are.How do we fix that? By being a little more like Norway. Norway is the global leader of electric vehicles, with fully 87 percent of new cars purchased last year at least partially powered by electricity. The country’s embrace of EVs is no accident: Buyers benefit from enticing government incentives, such as an exemption from a standard 25 percent car tax, that have delighted EV carmakers. (“I’d like to thank the people of Norway again for their incredible support for electric vehicles,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted last month. “Norway rocks!!”)But now the Nordic nation is changing course. This month Norway implemented new taxes on car purchases that scale with vehicle weight. Although the fees are much higher for gas guzzlers, EV buyers must now pay them too—at a rate of NOK 12.50 ($1.26) per kilogram. (The first 500 kilograms are untaxed.) For larger EVs, the added expense can be significant: An Audi e-tron, one of Norway’s most popular models, now costs around $2,600 more than it did before.Slapping new taxes on EVs might seem like a head-scratcher, especially since around 4 in 5 cars on Norwegian roads are still gas-powered. But the country’s new weight-based car fees are a sensible move to address two critical drawbacks of oversize EVs: These models exacerbate climate change, and they endanger everyone else on the street. Other countries—and U.S. states—should follow Norway’s lead.

Tesla, Cadillac get boost from EV SUV tax credit change – The U.S. Treasury said Friday it is changing its definition of an "SUV" to make more electric vehicles from Tesla, General Motors and other automakers eligible for up to $7,500 in federal tax credits at higher prices. The decision follows Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly criticizing the former standards on Twitter as well as automakers such as GM and Ford Motorlobbying to change the guidelines ahead of final rules being announced next month.The change raises the retail price cap to $80,000 from $55,000 for vehicles such as the Tesla Model Y, Cadillac Lyriq, Ford Mustang Mach-E and Volkswagen's ID.4. Previously some or all models of these vehicles did not qualify because they didn't weigh enough to be considered an SUV by the Treasury's standards. The credits are part of the Biden administration's $437 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which was approved in August. Under the bill, SUVs can be priced at up to $80,000 to qualify for EV tax credits, while cars, sedans and wagons have to be priced at or under $55,000.

Why Wyoming won't build Biden's EV chargers - — Here, at a critical node in President Joe Biden’s plan for a national electric vehicle charging network, there is nothing. No parking lot, no service station, no sign that anyone wants to set up shop here. Just some tire tracks in the snow by a barbed wire fence and the whoosh of vehicles speeding by on Interstate 80. This overwhelming vacancy is why Wyoming kicked up a dispute that could sap Americans’ confidence in a future EV charging network. Offered millions of federal dollars to build chargers at locations like this one, the state said no. “Wyoming has no desire to establish infrastructure that will likely fail,” the state said in its plan for how to spend EV-charging dollars from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. At the heart of the conflict are the federal government’s strict rules over how frequent high-power stations should be along the nation’s interstate highways. The Biden administration says that to assuage Americans’ doubts, the plugs should be installed every 50 highway miles, no matter how remote the site is. Wyoming doubts whether EVs will come in sufficient numbers to justify the huge expense of building and maintaining a powerful charging station in the middle of forest or prairie — and it has lots of company among red-leaning Western states. In comments to the federal government last year, Wyoming was joined by Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota in saying the program would be “hard to implement in rural states” if the Biden administration did “not implement the provisions with flexibility.” “There are concerns in those big rural states,” said Jim McDonnell, who tracks state plans as director of engineering for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. “How much it’s going to cost, and to get electricity out to these far-flung locations.” It’s hard to make the case for electric vehicles in any rural area, because people drive long distances and often pull trailers — two habits that drain an EV’s battery especially fast. Wyoming stands out because it is just about as unsuited to EVs and EV drivers as it is possible to be. The state endures bitterly cold winters — another battery killer — and has a proud tradition of saying no to federal priorities it doesn’t care for, like Medicaid expansion. It harbors suspicion of green technologies as the nation’s leading producer of coal. And with only about 500 people owning EVs in Wyoming, according to federal data, there aren’t many drivers pleading for charging stations. And Wyoming’s elected officials are some of the most stalwart EV opponents in Washington, D.C. The state’s senior senator, John Barrasso (R), and its former sole member in the House of Representatives, Liz Cheney (R), were co-sponsors in 2021 of the “Eliminate Lavish Incentives to Electric (ELITE) Vehicles Act,” a failed effort to end the federal government’s consumer EV tax credits. That said, Wyoming’s response was more interesting than a simple no.

'SCOTUS bait': Legal battle over Calif. waiver begins - California’s decades-old right to impose its own automobile emissions standards could be on a collision course with a Supreme Court that has recently widened the target for challenges against EPA climate action. Historically home to some of the nation’s worst air quality, California has for 50 years set pollution requirements stricter than those imposed by the federal government. But 17 Republican-led states have challenged that authority, arguing EPA violated the Constitution and states’ sovereign rights by granting California a Clean Air Act waiver allowing the Golden State to tackle planet-warming emissions on its own (E&E News PM, May 13, 2022). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on California’s waiver in September. Environmental attorneys say the case could eventually land at the Supreme Court amid a conservative push to challenge the limits of the executive branch. “A colleague often refers to these types of issues as SCOTUS bait,” said Jonathan Brightbill, a partner at Winston & Strawn LLP, during a recent Federalist Society webinar. The state sovereignty discussion could serve as the vehicle that grabs the interest of the high court, which rejects most cases that come its way, said Brightbill, who served as principal deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s environment division during the Trump administration. California’s waiver was revoked — for the first time ever — under former President Donald Trump, with EPA citing a need for national uniformity. The Biden administration restored the waiver in March, calling it an important part of the broader effort to tackle climate change. A Supreme Court showdown over California’s Clean Air Act waiver could build on the justices’ blockbuster climate ruling in West Virginia v. EPA. In the June 2022 decision, the justices applied a legal theory championed by conservatives to find that EPA under former President Barack Obama had overstepped by crafting a rule that required power plants to shift from coal to renewable energy sources. The “major questions” doctrine states that Congress must speak clearly in order to authorize agencies to regulate matters of “vast economic and political significance.” “In the wake of their success in the Supreme Court in West Virginia and the recognition of the long-simmering, but now recognized, major questions doctrine, the collection of states has returned to see if they can make more law to further restrain the administrative state,” Brightbill said. He noted Ohio and other states opposing the Clean Air Act waiver had introduced a “parade of horribles” that could result from upholding California’s authority. For example, the red states have said, Congress could allow some states, but not others, to boycott Israel. Or it could pass legislation that allowed one state to enact and enforce immigration laws. “It does seem to me that they have standing to complain about whether the Congress has in effect disenfranchised them,” Brightbill said. Robert Percival, director of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland, said challenges to EPA regulations are routine, but “after West Virginia v. EPA, [litigants] are inventing new constitutional doctrines to feed off the major questions doctrine now that the Supreme Court was willing to bite.”

Bakken Energy's plans for Beulah hydrogen hub fizzle - Plans to convert a synthetic gas facility in Beulah into one of the nation’s largest hydrogen-production facilities and to make it a significant piece in a regional hub of hydrogen production have fallen through. Bakken Energy, a Bismarck-based hydrogen company, announced in August 2021 that it had reached an agreement with Basin Electric Power Cooperative “on key terms and conditions to purchase the assets of the Dakota Gasification Company,” a Basin subsidiary that owns the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, where lignite coal is mined and converted into natural gas, ammonia for fertilizer and carbon dioxide for oil recovery, as well as other chemical products. Bakken Energy said at the time that the deal was “expected to be completed by April 1, 2023.” And Gov. Doug Burgum has since touted those plans, while the state Industrial Commission, which Burgum chairs, has directed $80 million in loans as well as a $10 million grant to help make the project a reality. But Basin and Bakken Energy “ceased negotiations” over the sale earlier this month, according to Chris Baumgartner, Basin’s senior vice president of member and external relations. While most of the awards from the state will not go forward now that the deal is off, Reice Haase, deputy executive director of the Industrial Commission, said Bakken Energy has already spent $4.76 million of that money and is unlikely to return it. Asked about the deal’s collapse on Tuesday, Burgum told the Tribune that the world has really changed since that initial agreement” was made between Basin and Bakken Energy. Among the factors that have fluctuated, Burgum noted, are the rising price of fertilizer and passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which offered significant tax credits for capturing and storing climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions. As Basin seeks to take advantage of those credits to increase revenue, the Industrial Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved a 32-square-mile expansion of the subterranean storage area for carbon from the synfuels plant, Burgum said. “Right now, they take 2 million tons (of carbon dioxide) a year and ship it to the Weyburn field Canada for enhanced oil recovery,” he said. “There’s another 1.5 million potential of CO2 that’s produced at that plant today that’s not being captured, so they have the opportunity to capture that extra 1.5 million right there and get paid. So the economics have improved favorably for Basin in terms of the value of that plant versus what it was. I’m sure when you have that kind of rapid change in valuation, then sometimes the transactions don’t come together.”

Concerns about golden eagles are partly prompting the redesign of a Scottish wind farm - Plans for an onshore wind farm in Scotland have been revised after a number of concerns, including those related to how the project might affect golden eagles. If built, the Scoop Hill Community Wind Farm will have 60 turbines instead of the 75 that were originally proposed. The tip height of four turbines in the development, in Dumfries and Galloway, will also be lowered. In a project update last week, the firm behind the Scoop Hill Community Wind Farm said revisions to the development had been made after "extensive and iterative discussions" with both the local community and consultees. "During the consultation period, comments were raised by consultees and local residents, primarily relating to landscape and visual impacts, residential amenity, cultural heritage, dark skies and golden eagles," Community Windpower said. The company said it would now submit additional documentation to the Scottish government's Energy Consents Unit in the spring. "We have taken on board comments raised by consultees and the local community and have made significant, positive changes to the proposed layout," said Rebecca Elliott, senior project manager for the Scoop Hill facility. Elliott added that she looked forward to "discussing the updated proposal with the community in the coming months."

US utilities shut off power to millions amid record corporate profits – report -Some of America’s largest utilities cut power to millions of struggling customers in recent years even as they spent billions of dollars on stock buybacks, dividend payments to shareholders and executive salaries, a new analysis of industry data has found.The report also reveals that companies could use just a tiny fraction of their investor and executive spending to forgive debt at all households where power was cut.The shutoffs disproportionately affect low-income customers and those from communities of color, and the “harrowing” situation is driven by corporate profiteering, said Selah Goodson Bell, a study co-author and energy justice campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity.Losing power has an often devastating impact on a household, including in terms of health and safety. “Shutoffs allow corporate utilities to punish customers’ economic precarity while guaranteeing record profits and massive payouts for themselves and their investors,” the authors wrote in the report. It was compiled with the utility industry analyst Energy and Policy Institute and BailoutWatch.In the 30 states where shutoff data was available, utilities cut service 1.5m times during the first 10 months of 2022, and an estimated 4.2m times nationwide. The report also reveals the issue is worsening: the number of electric shutoffs jumped by nearly one-third and gas shutoffs spiked by 76% between 2021 and the first 10 months of 2022.Illinois posted the highest number of shutoffs during that time period at over 500,000, and it was followed by Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Ohio. Exelon Corp, the parent company to utility giants like ComEd in Illinois and Peco in Pennsylvania, reported 648,000 shutoffs. It was followed by The Southern Co, DTE Energy, Ameren and FirstEnergy.Some of the companies that probably have the highest totals aren’t included. Between 2020-2021, Florida utilities shut off power 1.4m times, a “staggering” figure largely driven by NextEra’s Florida Light and Power division. But Florida no longer requires utilities to keep track of disconnections.

Frustrated Texans still without power days after deadly ice storm (AP) — Thousands of frustrated Texans shivered in homes without power for a second day Thursday, most of them around booming Austin, and fading hopes of a quick fix stirred grim memories of a deadly 2021 blackout after an icy winter storm across the southern U.S. The freeze has been blamed for at least 10 traffic deaths on slick roads this week in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. And even as Texas finally began thawing Thursday, a new Artic front from Canada was headed toward the northern U.S. and threatening New England with potentially the coldest weather in decades. Wind chills could dive below minus 50 (minus 45 Celsius). In Austin, city officials compared the damage from fallen trees and iced-over power lines to tornadoes as they came under mounting criticism for slow repairs and shifting timelines to restore power. “We had hoped to make more progress today,“ said Jackie Sargent, general manager of Austin Energy. ”And that simply has not happened.” Across Texas more than 280,000 customers were without power Thursday night, down from 430,000 earlier in the day, according to PowerOutage.us. The failures were most widespread in Austin, where impatience was rising among 150,000 customers nearly two days after the electricity first went out, which for many also means no heat. Power failures have affected about 30% of customers in the city of nearly a million at any given time since Wednesday. By Thursday night, Austin officials backtracked on early estimates that power would be fully restored by Friday evening, saying the extent of the damage was worse than originally calculated and that they could no longer predict when all the lights may come back on.

Austin mayor apologizes as city struggles to restore power — Widespread power outages in the Texas capital stretched into a third day Friday for thousands of residents following a winter storm that was spiraling into a management crisis as city leaders remained unable to say when all the lights would come back on. Impatience among frazzled, freezing and fed-up families in Austin escalated even as milder weather returned. On Friday, the newly elected mayor stood before cameras and apologized after a week of slow repairs, failed technology and lacking communication with the public. “The city let its citizens down. The situation is unacceptable to the community, and it’s unacceptable to me,” said Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat who took office in January. “And I’m sorry.” While New England began shivering and closed schools under an Arctic blast expected to bring the coldest weather in a generation, temperatures finally started to moderate Friday and bring some relief to Austin, where at any given time about 30% of customers in the nation’s 11th-largest city have been without electricity since the ice storm swept into Texas late Monday. City officials said Friday that significant progress was finally being made as frozen equipment and roads thawed. About 117,000 customers still lacked power, according to Austin Energy, the city’s utility. That’s down from a peak of around 170,000 people, nearly a third of all customers. But frustration was not melting away for residents who still had no assurances or sense of when their power would return.

Power Grid Failures Reveal the Myth of Fossil Fuel Reliability - As families across the country traveled to holiday gatherings in late December, a harsh winter storm pushed power grids to the brink of a nationwide crisis. As they have in the past, grid operators planned to rely heavily on gas and coal power plants to keep the lights and heat on. But these fossil fuel plants failed.This wave of fossil fuel power plant failures disproves the stubborn myth that natural gas and coal are our most reliable sources of power. In case after case, gas and coal plants struggle when the electricity is needed most, while renewable energy resources such as wind and solar outperform expectations. The myth of fossil fuel’s reliability is putting people’s safety in jeopardy as extreme weather worsens. It’s long past time for grid operators and federal officials to move past the rhetoric from plant owners and take actions based on a plant’s real-world performance.The negative health and environmental impacts of gas and coal are well known and irrefutable. As power grids face the challenge of standing up to extreme weather events, the country must come to terms with the fact that gas continues to fail at its core value proposition: delivering power when it is needed most.Ignoring this fact at the expense of renewables will continue to hamper planning for the reliable, clean, affordable grid the country needs.The pattern is overwhelmingly clear and unsettlingly familiar. In the past decade, crippling weather events include the 2011 cold weather outages in the Southwest, the 2014 polar vortex, and Winter Storm Uri, that struck Texas in 2021. In case after case, fossil fuel plants fail much more often than grid planners expect.During Winter Storm Elliott in December, coal and natural gas plant outages caused blackouts in North Carolina and Tennessee, and wider, more devastating outages were just barely avoided. Ultimately, 65 million people in the mid-Atlantic and Midwest came far too close for comfort to rolling blackouts during the bone-chilling Arctic blast.For months PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization, asked power plant owners to prepare for cold weather, and on Dec. 23 the grid operator for 13 states from North Carolina to Illinois said it was ready. PJM even planned on assisting neighboring regions.As the bone-chilling cold moved in, outages at fossil fuel plants began stacking up. Some couldn’t get fuel. Some just stopped working. And others failed to start.By Dec. 24, an astonishing 46 gigawatts of power plants (enough to power California) were out of service. PJM reported failures across the gas system, including low pressure, frozen compressors, and a lack of commercially available fuel. Plant shutdowns, it said, were “unacceptably high.”

Allete, Grid United plan $2.5B transmission line linking Western, Eastern interconnections - Allete and Grid United plan to build a $2.5 billion, 385-mile high-voltage direct-current transmission line from central North Dakota to Colstrip, Montana, providing a link that would more than double the transfer capacity between the Western and Eastern interconnections, the companies said Monday. The companies this year intend to start federal and state permitting on the up to 600-kV North Plains Connector project, which would provide 3,000 MW of bi-directional capacity in 2029 when it is tentatively set to begin operating. “This innovative project is an important step toward a resilient and reliable energy grid across a wide area of the country and ties into important transmission projects being developed in the Upper Midwest and the Western Interconnection,” Bethany Owen, Allete chair, president and CEO, said in a statement. The proposed North Plains Connector is one of four transmission projects Houston-based Grid United is developing between U.S. interconnections. The Western and Eastern interconnections, along with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, make up the U.S. grid, but have little capacity to share electricity. Adding transmission capacity between the interconnections would reduce electricity costs by allowing wind, solar and natural gas-fired generation to flow more freely across broad regions, according to a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Seven high-voltage links allow only 1,320 MW to move between the Eastern and Western interconnections, NREL noted in the study. ERCOT also has little import-export capacity. The North Plains Connector project aims to link the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the Western Interconnection and the Southwest Power Pool, easing congestion on the transmission system, and enabling fast sharing of electricity across a vast area with diverse weather patterns, the companies said.

Australia deploys more experts, equipment to search for lost radioactive capsule (Reuters) - Australian authorities on Tuesday sent out more personnel and specialised detection equipment to search for a tiny radioactive capsule missing somewhere in the outback, including a team from the country's nuclear safety agency.The capsule is believed to have fallen from a road train - a truck with multiple trailers - that made a 1,400 km (870 mile) journey in Western Australia and its loss has triggered a radiation alert for large parts of the vast state.The Department of Fire and Emergency Services said on Monday that it would take five days to retrace the road train's route. On Tuesday, it said that 660 km had been searched so far.The hunt involves a slew of government agencies including the Department of Defence, the police and now the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency and the Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organisation.

Decommissioning Fukushima / Discharge of Treated Water into Ocean Drawing Attention - The Japan News -The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant will soon mark the 12th anniversary of the unprecedented meltdown that resulted from the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. The most pressing issue at present is the discharge of treated water into the ocean, as the on-site storage capacity is approaching its limit.The government, during a ministerial meeting held on Jan. 13, projected that the discharge would begin in the spring or summer this year. However, local fishermen concerned about reputational damage and Pacific island nations are opposed to the ocean discharge. Treated water, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings, is that which has been purified “until the concentration of radioactive materials, with the exception of tritium, falls well below regulatory standards for safety.” To find out more, I visited TEPCO’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, where decommissioning work is expected to take 30 to 40 years. Subcontracted workers were busy here and there, and in the parking lot, vehicles that had been used to move within the premises after the accident were still parked there. The vehicles are no longer in use more than a decade after the accident, but because they are radioactive and cannot be disposed of normally, they remain on the site, having served their purpose.Under a clear sky, I could see the four tips of a tower that jutted out of the sea. The tower is located 1 km offshore. The treated water will be discharged into the ocean through a water discharge outlet located on the seafloor approximately 12 meters undersea where the four tips are seen.The installation of the water discharge outlet caisson has already been completed. Currently, work is underway to backfill the excavated seafloor around the outlet with concrete and mortar, and it is expected to be completed by the end of June.The shielded tunnel boring machine stopped excavating about 830 meters along the 1-km-long undersea tunnel to the water discharge outlet and is waiting for the connection from it.Work is also progressing on the shore near the quay wall. Water tanks connecting to the tunnel were under construction. There are two tanks: the upstream tank, which is wide, and the adjacent downstream tank, which is about 16 meters deep. The upstream tank, divided by concrete walls that create channels, appeared to be almost complete, revealing its full extent. The system has been created so that treated water, diluted with seawater, enters the upstream tank, flows through the channels, then overflows into the downstream tank.Once the discharge begins, TEPCO will directly confirm that the tritium concentration in the treated water has been diluted to below the target level through the mixing with seawater at this location, which can be considered the final point before the water is discharged.

Japan says Fukushima wastewater discharge plan is ‘safe’ - - Japan said Monday it would take appropriate precautions when releasing wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean later this year, despite worries from neighboring island nations about potential threats. “The government has been sharing the information with transparency… (and) has no intention whatsoever to discharge water into the sea that is not safe,” a Japanese government official told the foreign media in Tokyo. Japan approved in early January a revised plan to dump contaminated and treated water from the troubled power plant into the Pacific in the coming months between the spring and summer seasons. The plan sparked concerns from Pacific island nations which urged Japan to delay the release of wastewater, fearing it would cause risks to the fishing industry, people’s health, and the environment. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), which brings together 17 nations in the region, sought more information about the revised Japanese plan. A Japanese trade ministry official said the government had conducted more than 100 sessions of briefings and talks with neighboring countries to inform them about the plan. “We hope to continue to conduct these briefings and to offer such detailed information.” Japan plans to discharge the water stored in tanks into the sea after its treatment by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) filtration system. The official said the filtration system reduces the concentration of dangerous radioactive materials. He said there had been occasions where water contained radioactive materials beyond the regulatory concentration due to trouble with some facilities or equipment after the launch of ALPS. The filtration system eliminates 62 dangerous radioactive materials, except tritium, an isotope that is present in nature in a low concentration. The ministry said tritium is in tap water, rain, and the human body. The levels of the element in the water to be discharged into the sea will be 40 times below the limit set by the government for drinking water.

Japan’s Plan To Discharge Water From Fukushima Nuclear Plant Faces Pacific Opposition – Eurasia Review - Officials from Pacific island nations will meet Japan’s prime minister in March in an effort to halt the planned release of water from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, a regional leader said. Plans to dispose of Fukushima water over four decades are a source of tension between Japan and Pacific island nations and a possible complication for the efforts of the United States and its allies to show a renewed commitment to the Pacific region as China’s influence grows. The planned discharges “are a very serious issue that our leaders have accepted must be stopped at all costs,” Henry Puna, secretary-general of the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum, said Thursday at a press conference in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara. The Japanese government’s timetable for disposal of Fukushima water indicates that releases could begin as soon as April this year – part of an effort to decommission the stricken power station over several decades. Water contaminated by the nuclear reactors damaged in a 2011 tsunami is stored in dozens of large tanks at the coastal Fukushima plant. Japan’s method involves putting the contaminated water through a purification process known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System, which it says will reduce all radioactive elements except tritium to below regulatory levels. The treated water would then be diluted by more than 100 times to reduce the level of tritium – radioactive hydrogen used to create glow-in-the-dark lighting and signs. Japanese authorities and the Fukushima plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, have said radiation released into the ocean would be a minute fraction of naturally occurring radiation in the environment. The International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. agency which describes itself as promoting safe use of nuclear energy, has said the Fukushima process is technically feasible and in line with international practice. Pacific island leaders are unconvinced the discharges will be safe and some scientists have called for the Fukushima plant to continue storing treated water on site rather than releasing it. Japan has said storage space is running out as an Olympic swimming pool’s worth of radioactive water is generated about every two weeks from water used to cool reactor fuel debris and groundwater contamination. Five scientists working with the Pacific Islands Forum last week criticized the quality of data they had received from Tokyo Electric on the treated water in the tanks and expressed doubts about how well the purification process works. Over more than four years, only a quarter of tanks had been tested for radiation, and testing rarely covered more than nine types of radiation out of 64 types that should be tested for, said the five scientists, who include Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s senior scientist Ken Buesseler. “The accident is not over; this is not normal operations for a reactor. Therefore, extraordinary efforts should be made to prove operations are safe and will not cause harm to the environment,” the scientists’ presentation said. The Pacific Islands Forum has described the scientists as independent nuclear experts. The forum’s secretariat didn’t respond to a question about whether the scientists are compensated for their work with the forum.

Amid fears of contamination, Japan will soon dump treated water from Fukushima Nuclear Plant into the Pacific · Global Voices -Pacific island nations, neighboring countries in Asia, scientists, and others criticized an international organization's endorsement of plans to dump tens of thousands of tons of contaminated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean. The plan to schedule the discharge of approximately 1.3 million tons of water on an ongoing basis for the next three decades has alarmed the Pacific community because of possible adverse impacts on nearby marine ecosystems and their way of life.Following a January 2023 visit to the Fukushima nuclear facility to receive updates on plans to dispose of the contaminated water, Gustavo Caruso, a Director within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Department of Nuclear Safety and Security and Chair of the Task Force, voiced support for the plans. As an international association, the IAEA says it promotes the “safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear energy,” which includes the disposal of nuclear waste.“[Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority] prepared thorough evidence of how they are aligning the regulatory plans related to […] treated water discharge with the IAEA safety standards,” said Caruso in a statement following the visit. According to the IAEA statement, “Before any water discharge begins – scheduled for this year – the IAEA will issue a comprehensive report containing the collected findings and conclusions of the Task Force across all aspects of the review conducted as of that time.”In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami resulted in a nuclear disaster in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. After power was disrupted and emergency generators failed, three nuclear reactors onsite lost cooling capabilities and experienced a core meltdown.Water used to cool the reactors, along with groundwater below the complex, became contaminated with radioactive materials. This water has been collected, treated, and stored onsite since 2011 in dozens of massive storage tanks that now crowd the nuclear complex.Since 2021, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been preparing the infrastructure for the “safe” release of Fukushima’s treated water through a processcalled the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS). In August 2022, TEPCOannounced the installation of facilities that will allow for water discharge after consulting with Japanese authorities and local residents. It vowed to cooperate with various stakeholders in explaining the systematic release of water and its scientific basis:But Henry Puna, the secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), reiterated the regional opposition to Japan’s plan of releasing Fukushima’s treated water into the Pacific Ocean: Based on our experience with nuclear contamination, continuing with ocean discharge plans at this time is simply inconceivable and we do not have the luxury of time to sit around for four decades in order to ‘figure it out.’The decision for any ocean release is not and should not only be a domestic matter for Japan, but a global and transnational issue that should give rise to the need to examine the issue in the context of obligations under international law.I am asking today, what our Pacific people did not have the opportunity to ask decades ago when our region and our ocean was identified as a nuclear test field.PIF enumerated alternative options such as “safe storage and radioactive decay, bioremediation, and use of treated water to make concrete for special applications.”

US, West play dumb on Japan's wastewater dumping - Global Times - According to Yonhap News Agency, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said on Friday that Seoul had asked Tokyo to provide transparent security information on the dumping of nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea and take responsible measures to handle the issue. Japan's decision to dump nuclear-contaminated water into the sea is an irresponsible act that puts its self-interest above human health and violates the human rights of all peoples, including their rights to life and health. There are at least five options for dealing with nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, including evaporating or storing it underground. But the Japanese government chose the "cheapest and fastest way" of dumping the water into the sea. This shows that in dealing with the problem, Tokyo's prioritized concern is not to avoid and reduce the damage to human health and well-being and the global marine ecosystem. Instead, it is about minimizing its burden at a lower cost. It is an irresponsible and wrong action for the Japanese government to put its economic interests above the right to life and health. Since the Japanese government decided to dump nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean, public opinion inside and outside Japan has repeatedly expressed opposition and hope that Tokyo will find a proper, responsible way to deal with nuclear-contaminated water. For example, Reuters reported earlier this month that an expert panel of the Pacific Islands Forum has urged Japan to reconsider the plan of dumping water because it was not supported by data, and more information was needed. "The opposition to the discharge of treated water into the ocean has not changed in the slightest," said recently Masanobu Sakamoto, president of the National Fisheries Cooperative Federation of Japan, on January 13. Public opinion in Japan and abroad is so opposed to the dumping of nuclear-contaminated water, not only out of strong dissatisfaction with the extremely irresponsible decision made by the Japanese government unilaterally, but also because of collective anxiety over the impact of nuclear-contaminated water on human health and the marine ecological environment. After all, the Pacific is not Japan's sewer, but the ocean shared by all mankind. The reason why the Japanese government ignores domestic and international opposition and advances the process of dumping Fukushima's nuclear-contaminated water into the sea is not only because it puts economic interests above human rights, but also because the US and the West are playing deaf and dumb on the issue, thus giving the Japanese government the courage to go against the grain. This will undoubtedly pose a serious threat to the rights to life and health of people in neighboring countries and regions.

Householder trial: Millions in dark money used to call dark money "dirty" - — In politics, logical and moral consistency often aren’t the highest priorities. That was starkly true in the 2018 campaign to make then-Rep. Larry Householder speaker in the legislative session that would begin the following January, according to evidence presented in federal court on Wednesday.Householder is accused of racketeering in a scheme to use $61 million in utility company contributions to elect a legislature that would elect him speaker and pass a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout of failing nuclear and coal plants. At the time of his arrest in 2020, federal prosecutors said it was likely thebiggest bribery and money-laundering scandal in the long history of public corruption in Ohio.In 2016, a financially struggling Householder was running for his old Perry County House seat with an eye toward regaining the speaker’s gavel two years later. At the same time, Akron-based FirstEnergy was losing so much on its nuclear-and-coal-plant subsidiary that it was starting a process that would ultimately send it into bankruptcy. Prosecutors have suggested that the ratepayer subsidies made them easier to spin off.Householder and the company’s executives quickly formed a relationship that appears to have been formalized on a joint trip to Washington, D.C., for Donald Trump’s January, 2017 inaugural during which they flew on private jets and enjoyed a series of fancy meals.Just a few weeks later, two Householder-controlled 501(c)(4) “dark money” groups were founded — including one by a FirstEnergy lobbyist who would later become Gov. Mike DeWine’s governmental affairs director. Shortly thereafter, what would become tens of millions of FirstEnergy dollars started to flow into and between them, and becoming dark money in the process. In U.S. District Court on Wednesday, federal prosecutors laid out in stupefying detail how the dollars traveled through the dark money groups, Generation Now and Partners for Progress, and into political action committees and limited liability companies with names like Hardworking Americans and Hardworking Ohioans. FBI Special Agent Blane Wetzel testified that in early 2018, Householder was working to get a slate of House candidates through the May Republican Primary. The hope was also to get them through the November General Election, so they could vote to make him speaker the following January.Glatfelter walked Wetzel through how dark money originating with FirstEnergy eventually ended up being spent on campaign ads. One, against Householder’s primary opponent, went after him for taking dark money.In other words, dark money was being used to slam the use of dark money.It slammed Kevin Black for “dirty money, dirty politics” over the funding — and because he had been supported by former Republican Speaker Cliff Rosenburger, who had been the object of an FBI investigation.The latter criticism could seem ironic, given that Householder himself became the object of an FBI investigation in 2004 during his first stint as speaker.

Ohioans continue paying for House Bill 6 scandal as Householder’s corruption trial presses on - Ohioans continue to foot the bill of not just former Speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder’s public corruption trial, but also the bill that landed him in federal court. Every day, Ohioans fund two of Ohio Valley Electric Corporation’s (OVEC) coal plants. These subsidies are about $150 million per year, according to a study commissioned by the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association. Since Jan. 1, 2020, Ohioans have paid $80,000 dollars a day just for this portion of House Bill 6, according to the Ohio Consumer Counsel. After WEWS aired this report, the OCC realized that it is more likely $130,376 per day. H.B. 6 was an energy bill that would provide a bailout to FirstEnergy and other failing or struggling utility companies. Householder is accused of accepting more than $60 million as a bribe in exchange for a $1.3 billion bailout for FirstEnergy. “It’s crazy money that Ohioans are paying to prop up two Eisenhower-era coal plants, one of which is in Indiana, both of which pollute our air, and aggravate health problems for our citizens,” Melissa English, deputy director of Ohio Citizen Action, said.Ohio Citizen Action is classified as a nonpartisan 501(c)(4) but has become a progressive-leaning coalition dedicated to environmental safety.Since Householder’s arrest in 2020, the state has continued to push laws that keep Ohio going in the wrong direction, English said.H.B. 507, signed into law in January would classify natural gas as “green energy,” despite it being a fossil fuel that has played a major role in climate change. This bill would also make it easier to drill for oil and gas in state parks.“You look at its contributions to greenhouse gases, you look to its pollution of our water table, you look at the travesty of injection wells in Ohio, accepting waste from fracking from other states, and you call that green?” English asked. “I don’t know what planet that’s green.” The bill was motivated by environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing concerns, WEWS partner Ohio Capital Journal reported. ESG is a set of standards for companies to follow that focus on accountability and minimizing harm to the world, according to the CFA Institute.But just like with H.B. 6, dark money groups allegedly influenced this bill. The Washington Post reported that a natural gas firm had been trying to get lawmakers to pass this bill for months. Until consumers start seeing accountability with where the money comes from, English said these groups will go unchecked.“We need to do a better job of electing people that are true public servants,” she said.

Train Derailment in Eastern Ohio Causes Massive Fire, Prompts Evacuations – A train derailment in eastern Ohio caused a massive fire that lit up the skies for miles and forced several residents to be evacuated, officials said Friday night.According to NBC affiliate WFMJ-TV, the train derailed and caught fire shortly after 9 p.m. in East Palestine, a town in Ohio not far from the Pennsylvania border.Following the massive fire, residents within a mile of the accident were told to evacuate immediately. People in other areas were also told to stay indoors, according to a Facebook message posted by the city.“Everybody is working together to try and solve this situation as best we can,” Mayor Trent Conaway said in press conference streamed through Facebook.Video obtained by WFMJ showed a large fire and massive cloud of smoke that could allegedly be seen for miles.Fire departments from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia have been called to assist. East Palestine is a community of around 4,700 around 20 miles southeast of Youngstown.

East Palestine, Ohio: Train derailment in northeastern Ohio sparks massive fire | CNN — A massive fire broke out after a train derailed Friday night in northeastern Ohio near the Pennsylvania state border, leading officials to issue evacuation and shelter-in-place orders for nearby residents. No injuries were reported after the derailment in East Palestine, about 15 miles south of Youngstown, Mayor Trent Conaway said during a Friday night news conference. On Saturday, he issued an emergency proclamation, saying the town had been “threatened” by unspecified hazardous materials potentially released in the accident. The proclamation said the village “has been or is immediately threatened by a natural/man-made/technological hazard and or nuclear or conventional attack, and; at approximately 9:00 pm on Friday February 3, 2023 Norfolk Southern had a train derailment with hazardous materials.” Conaway earlier told CNN’s Amara Walker that the train might have been carrying hazardous materials. “As of right now air quality, even one street back is OK,” he said. The smell in the air is because of the fire, he said, but there are no concerns about air quality. About 50 train cars derailed. Officials have not said what materials were being transported or what might have caused the fire after the derailment. Officials issued a shelter-in-place order for the entire town of roughly 5,000 people, while an evacuation order was in effect within a mile of the train crossing at James Street as of early Saturday. Conaway said he did not know when those orders would be lifted. Two evacuation stations have opened to provide shelter to residents, and the Red Cross has been notified, Conaway said.

East Palestine families seek shelter following massive fire — A train derailment and resulting large fire prompted an evacuation order and a declaration of a state of emergency in an Ohio village near the Pennsylvania state line on Friday night, covering the area in billows of smoke lit orange by the flames below. About 50 cars derailed in East Palestine as a train was carrying a variety of freight from Madison, Illinois, to Conway, Pennsylvania, rail operator Norfolk Southern said in a statement Saturday. There was no immediate information about what caused the derailment. No injuries were reported. The derailment happened a little before 9 p.m. Friday in the small town in Ohio which is not far from the Pennsylvania border in Beaver County. No injuries or fatalities were reported. "We are aware of the derailment in East Palestine, and are coordinating closely with local first responders while mobilizing our own teams. We will share more details as they become available," Norfolk Southern said in a statement. Mayor Trent Conaway of the village of East Palestine declared a state of emergency, citing a “train derailment with hazardous materials.” Norfolk Southern said the train was carrying more than 100 cars, 20 of which were classified as carrying hazardous materials, defined as cargo that could pose any kind of danger "including flammables, combustibles, or environmental risks.” Vinyl chloride, a product in one of the rail cars, is still burning, officials said. The rain car has a safety feature that is functioning. Norfolk Southern will give local officials the OK for crews to come down and completely put out the fire. Conaway told reporters 68 entities from three states in multiple counties providing mutual aid and automatic aid. The derailment happened about 51 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The National Transportation Safety Board has sent a team to Ohio in response. A hazmat team and more than half a dozen fire companies from Beaver County are assisting. Hazmat crews responded to the scene to determine whether hazardous materials were involved, and air quality in the area is being monitored, officials said. Firefighters had been pulled from the immediate area and unmanned stream devices are being used protectively while crews try to determine which cars were still actively burning, village officials said in a separate statement Saturday that warned residents that they might hear more explosions as the fire burns. Freezing temperatures in the single digits complicated the response as trucks pumping water froze, Conaway said.

Ohio Valley Connector Expansion Project Clears FERC Hurdle - Gas Compression Magazine - The purpose of this project is to provide additional pipeline delivery capabilities to existing interconnects with Rockies Express Pipeline and Rover ... The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued a favorable environmental impact statement (EIS) for Equitrans LP’s (Equitrans) Ohio Valley Connector Expansion Project, allowing it to move forward. Equitrans is seeking FERC approval for its Ohio Valley Connector Expansion project, which will provide up to 350,000 Dth/d of incremental firm deliverability on its Mainline System and new transportation paths. The purpose of this project is to provide additional pipeline delivery capabilities to existing interconnects with Rockies Express Pipeline and Rover Pipeline LLC. Specifically, Equitrans proposes to acquire the existing non-jurisdictional Cygrymus Compressor Station in Greene County, Pennsylvania, and operate two Solar Taurus 70 turbines for a combined 22,032 hp (16,436 kW) at the compressor station. The existing Corona Compressor Station in Wetzel County, West Virginia, currently houses one 16,399-hp (12,234-kW) Solar Mars 100 turbine. Equitrans plans to add one additional 16,399-hp Solar Mars 100 compressor unit at the compressor station, doubling the station capacity from 250 to 500 MMscf/d (7 × 106 to 14 × 106 m3/d). The existing Plasma Compressor Station in Monroe County, Ohio, consists of two Solar Taurus 70 gas turbine-driven centrifugal compressors with 22,500 hp (16,785 kW) total. Equitrans proposes to increase capacity and install one 23,497-hp (17,529-kW) Solar Titan 130 gas turbine-driven centrifugal compressor to the station. Equitrans proposes to acquire and operate the existing non-jurisdictional Cygrymus Compressor Station and install two new turbines in Greene County, Pennsylvania. In addition, Equitrans will install one additional compressor unit Equitrans will also construct approximately 5.5 miles (8.8 km) of pipeline in various segments and ancillary facilities in Greene County and Wetzel County.

Johnson sponsors natural gas bill - The first bill of the new congressional session introduced by U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson is a familiar one as he’s sponsored it three previous times without success.Johnson’s bill, called the Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act, would allow domestic suppliers of natural gas, including liquified natural gas, to export it to allies in Europe and Asia after completing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s review process rather than additional approval by the U.S. Department of Energy, which takes much longer.The bill, with Johnson as the lone sponsor, would help spur the construction or expansion of natural gas facilities.“We have abundant energy resources right here in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays here in Ohio and across the country,” said Johnson, R-Marietta. “We have the opportunity to lead on the world stage as a global provider of clean and abundant U.S. natural gas. If other countries can rely on America for their energy, they can rely less on cruel, energy-rich dictators like Vladimir Putin” of Russia.Johnson’s 11-county district includes Mahoning and Columbiana.He is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing and Critical Materials.Johnson had introduced this bill in 2017, 2020 and 2021 without a vote taken any time on the proposals.Johnson said his bill would help preserve the future of American energy, protect American energy jobs and strengthen national security.The President Joe “Biden administration continues to send mixed messaging on whether it supports reliable, sustainable and affordable energy resources like natural gas,” Johnson said. “At a time of great global uncertainty, for America to not be sitting at the head of the global energy table is dangerous. My legislation would change that.”Johnson said his proposal is “good climate policy. Expanding American liquified natural gas exports results in massive global carbon emissions reductions. It is past time that we cut the red tape surrounding the natural gas export permitting process and unleash homegrown American energy.”

Ohio Rep. Johnson's Bill Would Drop DOE from LNG Export Approvals - Marcellus Drilling News -U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, Republican Congressman from Ohio’s 6th congressional district (in the Utica Shale part of the state), has introduced his first bill of the new session of Congress. The bill is called the Unlocking Our Domestic LNG Potential Act. It will allow domestic suppliers of natural gas, including LNG, to export our gas to allies in Europe and Asia after completing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) review process only–cutting out a requirement to have the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) also approve it. The DOE approval takes much longer (years) and has been a choke point. It’s time to end the delays. It’s time to get rid of the weakest link.

Capito working on bipartisan federal permit reform bill - Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., is going full steam ahead on pursuing federal perming reform, which would help speed up the process of completing the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Capito said last week during a virtual press briefing two different committees are being urged to work on a compromise bill that would shorten the time it takes for permitting, especially in the energy sector. The MVP, a 300-mile, 42-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline from north-central West Virginia running to Chatham, Va., is more than 90 percent complete but continues to be delayed by lawsuits over federal permits. Both Capito and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have been trying to provide a way to fast track the process of obtaining a federal permit as well as speed up court cases to get the MVP open and to help other energy-related projects move ahead faster. The process now often takes seven to 10 years. “Canada can do it in 18 months,” Capito said. “We should be able to do that.” But there is “too much litigation, too many loopholes and not enough serious reform,” she said. “I think we can get there, but I don’t think it will be easy.” Manchin has made several attempts to attach the permitting reform to other legislation but has been unsuccessful. In September 2022, Capito introduced her own bill, the Simplify Timelines and Assure Regulatory Transparency (START) Act, a comprehensive federal regulatory permitting and project review reform legislation similar to what Manchin wants. Both are committed to seeing the MVP finished as soon as possible. The MVP project started out with a $3.5 billion price tag and was projected to be transporting natural gas by late 2018. But with protests and court cases based on the federal permitting, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently extended the current permits until 2026 and the cost of the MVP is now estimated to be well over $6 billion. Capito is ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Manchin is chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Manchin, Westerman plot new push for permitting reform - Capitol Hill’s permitting reform effort got new life Wednesday as two top Senate and House lawmakers held an initial summit on reviving the overhaul bid. This time, the House could take the lead. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) are discussing the path forward for the stalled permitting reform effort. “They’re going to work on something,” Manchin said of the House. “I think it’s a high priority, which both sides know that we need it. Everyone has come to agreement that you got to have permitting. Let’s take the politics out of it, and do what’s doable.” Advertisement The talks are part of a broader Capitol Hill trend. Lawmakers from both parties are seeking to relaunch the permitting overhaul push after it ran into a blockade last year from conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats. Lawmakers hope to build off permitting efforts from Manchin last year, which combined Republicans’ long-sought desire to streamline permitting approval with Democratic interest in unleashing more transmission and renewable energy infrastructure to combat climate change. In exchange for supporting the reconciliation deal that enabled Democrats to pass $369 billion in climate spending last summer, Manchin secured a promise from Democratic leaders to attach his permitting proposal to a piece of must-pass legislation. The deal included completion of a major priority for Manchin, the Mountain Valley pipeline. The effort failed multiple times last fall. Republicans were hesitant to back a Democratic deal on permitting that enabled the broader reconciliation package to pass. They also complained that Manchin’s proposal did not go far enough to help streamline project approval timelines. At the same time, progressive Democrats attacked the proposal from the left, saying it would exacerbate climate change by approving more fossil fuel infrastructure. This go-around, Manchin told reporters that he would defer at first to House negotiations. “We’ve been down that road twice; we’ll see what they do,” Manchin said about the House talks. “They are going to do their thing.” House Republicans, for their part, maintained that they have interest in finding a permitting compromise that can advance as they take control of the chamber this year.

By The Numbers: Mountain Valley Pipeline Statistics Don’t Lie | Sierra Club - We all have seen it – Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) has touted their “accomplishments,” spread misinformation that the project is nearly complete, and pushed the messaging that in order to achieve “energy security” the pipeline must be completed. But if you pull back the curtain you’ll find the project for what it truly is – a polluting boondoggle. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is a 303 mile-long proposed fracked-gas pipeline routed to go over steep slopes and through pristine water resources in Virginia and West Virginia . Construction on the project began in 2018, but the project has had multiple authorizations vacated, resulting in significant delays. To this day major portions of the route have not been completed to full restoration, federal land in the Jefferson National Forest has seen minimal activity fromthe project, the scope of its Southgate extension project continues to be evaluated, leaving its completion highly uncertain and Mountain Valley Pipeline still has more than 400 water crossings left to complete and miles of pipe to lay. MVP claims the pipeline will be ready in 2023, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) just gave them four more years to complete it, but here’s a quick snapshot of the reality that faces the pipeline.

• 8+ years of conflict
• 4+ years since construction began
• 36 months where construction was actually permitted
• 26 months of delay due to their own mess and hasty permitting
• 3 federal authorizations missing
• 2 state permits in litigation
• 429 stream and wetland crossings left to construct
• 450+ water quality-related violations
• 56 percent complete to full restoration

Clearly, MVP should not be confident of the pipeline’s completion. Let’s break this down: The project was announced more than eight years ago in Summer 2014, and construction began almost five years ago – and they still aren’t even close to finishing. MVP may claim that the project is 90% complete, but this percentage does not consider the most difficult or complex construction work, nor does it incorporate the final stage of construction — “complete to full restoration.” Indeed, there are still approximately 427 interruptions in the mainline. MVP is now reporting in their latest compliance reports that the pipeline is 55.8% complete to full restoration. This may sound like a high percentage, but it leaves out how they have hundreds of difficult water crossings and some of the most challenging construction work ahead, which includes steep terrain. Additionally, FERC has granted the project four more years to move forward with completion but MVP was originally predicted to be in service by 2018. The expected completion date has been pushed back more than half a dozen times, with Equitrans now claiming the pipeline will be in full service in late 2023. Recently, RBN Energy LLC predicted the pipeline will still be unable to operate by the end of 2024.Since construction began in February of 2018, there have only been 36 months where construction was actually allowed and 26 months of delay due to rushed and incomplete efforts to obtain the necessary permits. During this time, MVP only had the full suite of required permits from February 2018 through July 2018 – meaning that they have been without at least one permit since then. Not only have the rushed and shoddy permitting processes put the entire project in question, but the blueprint to construct over steep Appalachian slopes further signals that this project has never been compatible with a healthy planet and livable communities.

WVU Researcher Looks for Way to Convert Shale Ethane to Olefins - Marcellus Drilling News - Natural gas is a booming industry in West Virginia and the United States, accounting for more than 38% of the nation’s total energy consumption. One West Virginia University researcher is hoping to capitalize on valuable untapped chemicals that come from shale gas, commonly found throughout the Marcellus/Utica region. Madelyn Ball, an assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at WVU’s Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, received $110,000 in funding from the American Chemical Society to conduct research that will convert ethane and propane from shale gas into olefins, a class of chemicals made up of hydrogen and carbon such as ethylene and propylene, that can be used in the production of plastics and other complex chemicals.

In Pennsylvania, a New Administration Fuels Hopes for Tougher Rules on Energy, Environment - On Christmas Day 2022, part of a natural gas processing plant in Washington County, Pennsylvania caught fire, igniting a vapor cloud and prompting a response by the local fire department, a shutdown by the owner and notification of the incident to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The fire burned itself out by about 5 p.m. The DEP said its officials went to the Revolution Cryo plant in Smith Township on Dec. 25, and returned on Jan. 3 as part of an ongoing investigation into what caused the incident at the plant owned by Energy Transfer, a leading natural gas pipeline operator. The agency denied claims by some environmental groups that anyone calling its emergency line to report the incident got only a voicemail, and said that no residents evacuated. As to the causes of the fire, the agency said it “does not comment on ongoing investigations or speculate on possible enforcement actions.” To the DEP’s critics, its response to the fire, and the fire itself, are the latest signs that the agency is ineffective in dealing with industry and communicating with the public. “They could have provided a much more detailed and transparent account about what happened, what the risks were, how people should be protecting themselves,” said Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, a nonprofit that advocates for improved air quality in southwest Pennsylvania. “The DEP did not broadcast that very widely, and there was a much more minimized sharing of information that largely is perceived as keeping those people in the dark during that period of time.” Since the state’s hydraulic fracturing boom for natural gas began in the mid-2000s, critics say the DEP has been hobbled by staff cuts and a cultural reluctance to crack down on the industry in a state with a long history of fossil fuel extraction. The result has been explosions, spills, leaks and contaminated private water wells as well as growing evidence that fracking for natural gas harms public health. But with the inauguration of Josh Shapiro as the new Democratic governor, and new leadership at the DEP, advocates for tougher regulation of the oil and gas industry, and for an activist approach to countering climate change, hope that the state is poised to begin a new chapter.

Difficulty measuring methane slows plan to slash emissions (AP) — The doors of a metal box slide open, and a drone rises over a gas well in Pennsylvania. Its mission: To find leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, so that energy companies can plug the leaks and reduce the emissions that pollute the air. The drone is among an array of instruments whose purpose is to detect leaks of methane, which scientists say causes roughly 30% of manmade global warming. Along with satellites, ground sensors and planes armed with infrared cameras, drones are part of the backbone of a new federal policy to compel energy companies to record and slash their methane emissions. The problem is, no one knows when — or even whether — that will be possible. Technology that might allow for precise methane measurements is still being developed. Under the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, enacted into law last year, companies must start producing precise measurements of their methane emissions next year and face fines if they exceed permissible levels. Yet if no one knows how much methane an energy company has emitted, it’s unclear that any fines could be justified. “They don’t measure the methane because the capability hasn’t been there,” Drew Shindell, a professor of earth science at Duke University, said of regulators. “It’s challenging to really go measure all these methane sources.” Even energy companies that have begun developing systems to reduce their methane emissions are likely years away from being able to make comprehensive calculations Most of them are measuring leaks for only a fraction of their operations. Satellites, which help connect emissions to a single source, aren’t widely enough available. Ground-based sensors and drones require vast amounts of money and time to widely distribute. On top of all that, any agreement on what equipment would be acceptable to measure methane and how it should be used requires a rigorous process involving industry, government and environmental scientists. “We need to develop these standards, and this can take years, so the process is slow,” Despite the obstacles, climate scientists and environmentalists say they still welcome the administration’s effort, under the Inflation Reduction Act, to slash methane emissions. Even if the timeline outlined in the law’s methane reduction program is unrealistic, they say, it’s likely to prod companies to accelerate their efforts to reduce leaks.

Gas industry hires Democrats to win support of liberal voters - At a time when many other Democrats fault natural gas for fueling climate change, former senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) frames it as a solution. “Yes, this country needs to move forward on wind and solar,” Landrieu said in a recent Bloomberg News interview, speaking on behalf of a nonprofit group that advocates for natural gas. “But we need to back it up with a fuel that we can count on, a power source, and that’s natural gas. It’s abundant, it’s cheap, and it can be cleaner.”What she didn’t mention, however, is that the nonprofit group was created by a half-dozen gas companies, with the explicit goal of convincing Democratic voters that gas is a “clean” energy source.The group, dubbed Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, comes as Democratic leaders across the country restrict gas use to fight climate change. The bans threaten customer losses for gas utilities, which dominate the liberal strongholds in cities and on coasts. To resist these efforts, the nonprofit group has enlisted prominent Democratic politicians and pollsters to help enhance gas’s reputation among liberal voters.“The gas utilities are acutely aware that their constituency is blue voters,” said Charlie Spatz, a research manager at the Energy and Policy Institute, which advocates for renewable energy. “The gas industry is not, at the end of the day, worried about right-wing voters. They have them.”More than 90 counties and cities — almost all of them led by Democrats — have prohibited or discouraged gas use in new buildings. In 2021, New York City became the largest city in the United States to ban gas connections for newly constructed buildings under seven stories. Natural Allies is backed by TC Energy, the Canadian pipeline giant behind the controversial Keystone XL project, and Southern Company, one of the biggest U.S. utilities. Launched shortly before the 2020 election, the group is led by Susan Waller, a former executive at the pipeline firm Enbridge.Last spring, Waller enlisted Impact Research — a leading Democratic polling firm used by Joe Biden’s presidential campaign — to survey Americans’ sentiments about natural gas. According to emails obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute, Waller told the organizers of a conference for state utility commissioners that the pollsters would share the results with the White House.More recently, Natural Allies has run ads featuring Landrieu and former senator Heidi Heitkamp, a moderate Democrat from North Dakota. Gas is “essential to accelerating our clean energy future,” Heitkamp said in an ad that was seen more than a million times on Facebook and Instagram. The group got another influential messenger this month, when former congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said he would join its leadership council after losing a tough Senate race to Republican J.D. Vance. Ryan will replace Heitkamp, who is leaving to lead the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.

Proved reserves of natural gas increased 32% in the United States during 2021 - EIA - Proved reserves of natural gas in the United States grew to a new record of 625.4 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in 2021, a 32% increase from 2020, according to our recently released Proved Reserves of Crude Oil and Natural Gas in the United States, Year-End 2021 report. U.S. proved reserves had previously decreased 4% in 2020 as a response to prices that fell with decreased consumption during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. At year-end 2021, however, five of the eight states with the most proved reserves of natural gas each reported new record volumes, driving the growth nationally.Proved reserves are operator estimates of the volumes of oil and natural gas that geological and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions. Prices heavily affect estimates of proved reserves. The wholesale spot price for natural gas at the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub in Louisiana averaged $3.89 per million British thermal units in 2021, almost doubling from 2020, according to data from Refinitiv.Proved reserves in Alaska increased the most in 2021, up 63 Tcf, or nearly triple the state’s total in 2020. The proved reserves located in Alaska had already quadrupled in 2020 from 9.4 Tcf to 36.5 Tcf due to development of the Alaska LNG Project and its Mainline Pipeline connecting the North Slope to LNG facilities in the southern Alaska Cook Inlet Region. Large volumes of previously stranded Alaskan natural gas resources are now considered proved reserves.

U.S. LNG Exports Drop As Domestic Demand Climbs -Exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) out of the United States dropped by 5% in January compared to December amid higher U.S. demand in colder weather, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon cited by Reuters. U.S. exporters sent out 95 cargoes with 6.84 million tons of LNG on board in January, with Europe getting 68% of those and Asia receiving 23% of all U.S. LNG exports, Refinitiv Eikon data showed. To compare, LNG exports from the United States were 7.22 million tons in December, and Europe was the destination of 79% of those. Europe continues to attract most of the U.S. exports of LNG as demand in Asia is still weak. Both the European benchmark prices and spot Asian LNG prices have dropped in recent weeks amid a comfortable level of inventories and tepid demand in Asia at the start of the Chinese reopening and around the Lunar New Year holiday. In the U.S., lower LNG exports mean higher volumes of gas available domestically. During the current cold snap, gas demand in the United States is projected to be high to very high by the end of the week at least, according to NatGasWeather.com. “While this week will bring strong to very strong national demand as frigid air sweeps across the northern and central US , the weather data keeps trending warmer for Feb 5-13 and where light to very light national demand is expected as the southern and eastern US warm well above normal,” NatGasWeather.com said on Wednesday. Lower LNG exports and thus higher availability of gas for domestic use, coupled with strong domestic production, have sent the U.S. benchmark natural gas prices to a 20-month low in recent days.

Inside the high-dollar race to sell natural gas as low-carbon - By night, the industrial operation sprawling across the marshland of Louisiana’s southwest tip seems otherworldly. The 1.6-square-mile complex of tubes, tanks and machinery emits a dull hiss, and its thousands of yellowish lights and three flame-topped flare towers cast an eerie glow. By day, when the facility is easier to discern, so is its earthly purpose. Natural gas piped from fields across the United States whooshes into the plant, where six 1,200-foot-long lines of engines, fans and compressors cool the gas into ​“liquefied natural gas,” or LNG. The frigid fossil fuel then shoots out of the complex and into gargantuan oceangoing tankers, each roughly as long as three football fields, waiting at the facility’s dock on a channel that feeds the Gulf of Mexico. Once loaded, the ships lumber into the Gulf and set a course based on the location of their cargo’s buyers. Some turn east and cross the Atlantic to Europe; others head south, then sail west through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific to Asia. When they reach their destinations — maybe France, or Spain, or China, or South Korea — their LNG is warmed back into a gas. Then it’s burned, producing everything from plastics to power.Dominating a coastal flank of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, and squatting along Sabine Pass, a waterway that defines the Texas state line, this is the biggest LNG-export terminal in the U.S., the nation that this year is likely to become the world’s largest LNG exporter. In 2021, this complex chilled about 35% of all the LNG the U.S. exported, and about 3% of all the natural gas the U.S. drilled up. In the process, it sent skyward the equivalent of 5.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, roughly the annual output of Vermont. Yet even that, according to various estimates, likely represented less than one-tenth of the climate impact of the LNG this facility sold. The gas liquefied here is burned the world over, notably in fast-growing Asian economies and in a Europe newly thirsty for U.S. LNG to replace gas it previously had piped in from Vladimir Putin’s Russia but has been unable to get in the wake of that country’s invasion of Ukraine. Overseas combustion is where natural gas produced and liquefied in the U.S. does its greatest damage to the climate. The Sabine Pass LNGcolossus is both a pivotal point in a wildly gyrating international energy business and a hot spot in the fight over how to fix the damage LNG is wreaking on a warming world.Natural gas is humanity’s looming energy and climate dilemma. Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, provides a declining share of total energy. The share of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources is soaring, but from a comparatively small global base. In between coal and renewables on the spectrum of carbon intensity sits natural gas, a fossil fuel that, studies project, will be burned in massive quantities for decades to come.

U.S. natgas drops 6% to 21-month low on milder weather forecasts (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures dropped about 6% to a 21-month low on Monday on milder weather forecasts that should cut expected heating demand through the middle of February. Gas prices have also been pressured by the growing belief that more than enough gas was in storage for the rest of the winter and that Freeport LNG's liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas would not start pulling in big amounts of gas until at least March. On its first day as the front-month, gas futures for March delivery fell 17.2 cents, or 6.0%, from where the March NGH23 contract closed on Friday to settle at $2.677 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), their lowest close since April 2021. The front-month NGc1was down about 14% from where the February contract closed when it was the front-month on Friday. That would be its biggest daily percentage loss since dropping about 17% in June 2022, pushing the contract back into oversold territory with a relative strength index (RSI) below 30 for the 14th time this year. Meteorologists forecast temperatures across much of the lower 48 U.S. states would remain mostly colder than normal through Feb. 5, then turn warmer than normal through at least Feb. 14. With milder weather coming, Refinitiv forecast U.S. gas demand, including exports, would drop from 133.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) this week to 129.9 bcfd next week, sharply down from Refinitiv's outlook on Friday. That should allow utilities to continue pulling less gas from storage for a fourth or fifth week in a row. The biggest wild card in the gas market remains when Freeport's export plant will exit a seven-month outage caused by a fire in June 2022. Freeport is the second-biggest U.S. LNG export plant, and traders expect prices to rise once it starts pulling in big amounts of gas, boosting demand for the fuel. The plant can pull in about 2.1 bcfd of gas daily, about 2% of what U.S. gas producers pull from the ground. Several analysts have said they do not expect much LNG production at Freeport until March or later. JERA, one of Freeport's five customers, said it was not counting on getting LNG from the plant by the end of March. Even though vessels have turned away from Freeport in recent weeks, several tankers were still waiting in the Gulf of Mexico to pick up LNG from the plant, including Prism Courage (since around Nov. 4), Prism Agility (Jan. 2), Corcovado LNG (Jan. 22), Prism Brilliance (Jan. 26) and Kmarin Diamond (Jan. 26). There are also a couple of vessels on their way to Freeport, including LNG Rosenrot (expected to arrive around Feb. 14) and Seapeak Bahrain (Feb. 20).

Natural-gas futures mark their biggest monthly decline in 22 years –Natural-gas futures saw a hefty decline in January, posting their worst monthly performance in more than two decades, as warmer-than-expected winter weather kept demand at bay, easing concerns about tight supplies.“Weather forecasts on both sides of the Atlantic were so warm that the supply-demand gas balances both flipped to oversupplied in the short term, pushing down prices heavily,” Joe DeLaura, energy strategist at Rabobank, told MarketWatch. On Tuesday, front-month March natural-gas futures settled at $2.684 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 0.3%, for the session. Based on the front month, however, prices fell 40% in January — the largest monthly percentage drop since January 2001, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Jay Hatfield, chief executive officer at Infrastructure Capital Advisors, said the U.S. is “having one of the warmest winters in the last 100 years with temperatures 4.5 degrees higher than average.” In addition, a fire at Freeport’s LNG facility in June of last year knocked out 20% of the U.S. export capacity of liquefied natural gas, which significantly lowers the demand for U.S. natural gas, he said. Freeport has been taking steps to restart the facility. Hatfield also pointed out that natural gas is “almost always produced as a by-product of drilling for oil, and oil prices have held up well during the warm winter — causing production of natural gas to remain high as oil prices drive the economics of incremental drilling.” In the U.S., natural-gas inventories in storage stood at 2.729 trillion cubic feet as of the week ended Jan. 20, according to the Energy Information Administration. That’s 107 billion cubic feet higher than a year ago, and 128 billion cubic feet above the five-year average. The market is looking ahead to the end of winter, said Peter McNally, global sector lead for industrials materials and energy at Third Bridge. The U.S. winter heating season runs to the end of March. Natural-gas inventories have moved to a “very comfortable position, so we ended up with a big price drop after surging prices in 2022,” he said.

U.S. natgas drops 8% to 21-month low as mild weather depresses demand -(Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures dropped about 8% on Wednesday to a 21-month low on forecasts for less cold weather and lower heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. That price decline came even though output over the past week was on track to drop about 4.0 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) to a preliminary one-month low of 93.7 bcfd as winter storms freeze oil and gas wells - known as freeze-offs in the energy industry - in several states, including Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Pennsylvania. Gas prices have been depressed for weeks due in part to expectations Freeport LNG's liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas was still at least a month away from pulling in big amounts of gas to produce LNG. On Tuesday, Freeport asked federal regulators for permission to restart one of the plant's three liquefaction trains, which turn gas into LNG. Gas prices were also depressed due to warm weather seen so far this year. Despite extreme cold this week, temperatures in the U.S. Lower 48 states averaged about 41.8 degrees Fahrenheit (5.7 Celsius) in January, the warmest for the month since January 2006 when the mercury averaged a record 42.8 F, according to data from Refinitiv and the federal government. Front-month gas futures for March delivery fell 21.6 cents, or 8.0%, to settle at $2.468 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), their lowest close since April 2021. That kept the contract in oversold territory with a relative strength index (RSI) below 30 for a third day in a row and the 16th time so far this year. It also continues the record volatility seen last year, with the contract now closing up or down over 5% on 12 of the 21 trading days so far in 2023. In the spot market, gas prices for Wednesday at the Henry Hub NG-W-HH-SNL benchmark in Louisiana fell about 6% to $2.65 per mmBtu, their lowest since April 2021. Meteorologists forecast temperatures across much of the U.S. Lower 48 states would remain mostly lower than normal through Feb. 4 before turning higher than normal from Feb. 5 through at least Feb. 16. With milder weather coming, Refinitiv forecast U.S. gas demand, including exports, would drop from 136.4 bcfd this week to 126.5 bcfd next week. The forecast for this week was higher than Refinitiv's outlook on Tuesday, while its forecast for next week was lower. That should allow utilities to continue pulling less gas from storage for a fourth or fifth week in a row. Gas stockpiles were currently about 5% above the five-year (2018-2022) average and are on track to rise to 7% above normal in the federal storage report for the week ended Jan. 27.

New England Natural Gas Surges as Wind Chill Could Plunge 100 Degrees Below Zero; Futures Lose a Penny - Natural gas futures slipped further into the red on Thursday despite the potential for cold weather to return to the Lower 48 within the next couple of weeks. With mixed messages in the latest storage data, and Freeport LNG not yet back online, the March Nymex gas futures contract settled at $2.456/MMBtu, down 1.2 cents on the day. The real price action of the day was in the cash markets. After a harsh winter in which the West Coast has dominated headlines and seen gas prices reach record levels, the king of volatility – New England – essentially told the Golden State to hold its Samuel Adams. Bracing for a polar vortex that could result in “otherworldly” real-feel temperatures, according to forecasters, parts of the region traded as high as $225 for Friday’s gas day. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. rose $5.190 to $10.920.The heart of the cold weather is forecast to unfold across New England from Friday afternoon through Saturday morning as subzero temperatures envelop a widespread area, according to AccuWeather. Boston is forecast to experience one of its top-five lowest temperatures in recorded history on Saturday morning with the mercury predicted to reach 10 degrees below zero. But AccuWeather said the extreme nature of the upcoming Arctic blast would be unparalleled at the summit of Mount Washington, the tallest mountain in the northeastern United States. There, the AccuWeather RealFeel temperature is forecast to drop to 100 degrees below zero at the mountain’s summit in northern New Hampshire on Friday night into Saturday morning. The actual temperature may bottom at 45 degrees below zero.The extreme weather is not expected to be long lasting across the Northeast, AccuWeather said. A milder, tranquil weather pattern is forecast for the first full week of February. However, that didn’t stop a buying spree in the cash market across pipeline-constrained New England.Bulls looking to the latest government inventory data for signs of support were ultimately disappointed on that front as well.The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said 151 Bcf was withdrawn from natural gas inventories for the week ending Jan. 27, coming in on the high side of estimates ahead of the weekly report. Taken alone, this bullish withdrawal may have given bulls the ammunition needed to sustain momentum. However, the EIA data included a revision from the previous week’s report, which reflected slightly higher levels of storage. As for this week’s report, the EIA’s 151 Bcf was on the higher end of a Reuters survey of 14 analysts, which ranged from 133 Bcf to 155 Bcf. That survey produced a median decline in stocks of 142 Bcf. Bloomberg’s survey of eight analysts had a tighter range that produced a median draw of 145 Bcf. A Wall Street Journal poll averaged a 144 Bcf pull. NGI modeled a 141 Bcf draw.For comparison, the EIA recorded a 261 Bcf withdrawal for the similar week last year, and the five-year average draw stands at 181 Bcf.Enelyst managing director Het Shah viewed the latest storage report as being 2.6 Bcf/d loose when adjusted for weather. Looking ahead, he expects additional tightness in the next EIA report given the production losses this week.

Bloodshed in Natural Gas Futures, Cash Markets as Temperatures Quickly Thaw -- Natural gas futures continued to sell off on Friday as an expected warmup and likely rebound in production over the weekend pressured prices. The March Nymex gas futures contract closed out the week at $2.410/MMBtu, off 4.6 cents on the day. April futures slid 4.2 cents to $2.480.In a blink-and-you-missed-it moment, spot gas prices in the Northeast, which topped $200 on Thursday, came crashing back down to earth on Friday. With the highest price in the region reaching only $15.000, the steep price discounts sent NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. down $7.855 to $3.065.Some of the most frigid weather in history is expected to continue through the weekend on the East Coast, but a swift rise in temperatures should quickly follow across most of the Lower 48. It’s this projected warmup that has prevented bulls from capitalizing not only on the widespread bitter conditions that hit the country in recent days, but also the steep decline in production that occurred as a result of freeze-offs.On Friday, U.S. dry gas production was reported by Bloomberg at around 97.6 Bcf/d. Already, this is an increase from the 96 Bcf/d lows seen in recent days. Furthermore, if the ongoing rebound in production is anything like the recovery in December, it should be quick given the expected rise in temperatures.NatGasWeather said the overnight and midday Global Forecast System (GFS) model lowered the amount of projected heating demand from the 15-day outlook. This closed the gap a bit on the much-warmer European model, which showed the period from Sunday (Feb. 5) to Feb. 17 tracking 80 heating degree days (HDD) warmer than normal.Of course, the risk is that the European model has trended too warm and is susceptible to gaining back several HDDs, according to NatGasWeather. “But what will likely matter more is if the weather data is able to show a colder pattern at Feb. 18-22.”

Texas Breaks Natural Gas Production Record - In a new record for the Lone Star State, Texas produced 11.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2022, with growth expected to trend even higher going forward, according to the latest report from the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO). TIPRO also noted that Texas supplied the country with 1.83 billion barrels of oil last year. In its State of Energy Report, TIPRO chairman Jud Walker noted that “Despite facing a number of unique challenges, including supply chain bottlenecks, inflationary pressures, workforce shortages and an adversarial federal policy environment, the U.S. oil and gas industry continued to offer significant economic support in 2022.” “Oil and natural gas development, led by Texas operators, will play an important role in meeting growing global energy demand for decades to come under any realistic scenario,” Walker added. According to the report, the Texas oil and gas industry led the nation in industry employment in 2022, accounting for 37% of nationwide oil and gas jobs and indirectly employing 2.6 million people. Texas’ direct oil and gas payroll hit $48 billion in 2022, compared to $11 billion for California and $7.6 billion for Louisiana, the second and third biggest payroll contributors. In terms of oil production, Texas’ 1.83 billion barrels in 2022 compared to New Mexico, with the second highest at 534 million barrels, and North Dakota, with 393 million barrels. In the field of natural gas, where Texas broke a new record, the second biggest producer for 2022 was Pennsylvania, which produced 7.6 Tcf. The Lone Star State also boasted the highest rig count in the U.S. last year, with an average of 380 active rigs. From January 2022 to December 2022, Texas saw active rigs increase from 332 to 410. Gross Regional Product (GRP) for the Texas oil and gas industry came in at $322 billion for 2022, a figure that represents 16% of the state’s economy. TIPRO, however, notes that the actual contribution to the state's economy is much higher, stating, “Once the typical multiplier for Gross Regional Product is incorporated, the Texas oil and natural gas industry supported 40% of the Texas economy.” That all earned the state of Texas $24.7 billion in taxes and royalty payments from the oil and gas industry last year.

Fracking Fleets Powered By Associated Gas – Results And Significant Savings In The Permian Basin. - The world can address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in different ways. The direct way is by reducing fossil fuel production, which generates 73% of global GHG. This is the approach in Europe, perhaps because its energy companies do not have the success of a shale revolution to maintain. Europe has several examples of integrating renewables into its future. In the US, companies have adopted less-direct approaches, including greening of operations, cleaning up of gas flaring and methane leaks, and carbon capture and storage. One indirect way for reducing GHG is by companies greening their own operations by using wind or solar electricity to pump frac jobs. A frac pump has to inject frac fluid, mostly water and sand, under huge pressure, up to 10,000 pounds per square inch (psi), to crack up the rock deep underground to allow oil or gas easier inflow to the well. Typically, 250,000 – 350,000 gallons of diesel are used for each frac pumping treatment. But diesel is more expensive than natural gas and burns dirtier (twice as much GHG emissions). High-pressure, high-volume conventional diesel-fueled combustion engines are being replaced in some cases by e-frac systems where electric pumps are driven by gas turbine generators that use CNG or LNG. E-fracs are only 10% of the market now, but this stands to increase because of worldwide demand to lower GHG emissions. GHG reductions are typically 50% by using e-fracs. Cost savings exist in fuel and pump engine repairs, but upfront costs are higher than a new diesel system. A diesel fleet typically needs 20 pump-trailers at the wellsite while an e-frac system requires eight. A 95% reduction in frac pumping noise is an advantage too.An alternative to e-frac pumps that use CNG or LNG is to capture and use associated gas, which is the name for gas that is produced along with crude oil. Normally, if this gas has its own pipeline it can be taken to processing facilities and sold on the market. Since the state’s hydraulic fracturing boom for natural gas began in the mid-2000s, critics say the DEP has been hobbled by staff cuts and a cultural reluctance to crack down on the industry in a state with a long history of fossil fuel extraction. The result has been explosions, spills, leaks and contaminated private water wells as well as growing evidence that fracking for natural gas harms public health. But with the inauguration of Josh Shapiro as the new Democratic governor, and new leadership at the DEP, advocates for tougher regulation of the oil and gas industry, and for an activist approach to countering climate change, hope that the state is poised to begin a new chapter. If not, such gas can be flared which is a wasted profit and contributes directly to GHG emissions. Now a company called GTUIT, LLc, founded in 2011, has a mobile unit that transports gas processing equipment to a wellsite and converts associated gas into Tier-4 dual-fuel frac fleets, or into e-frac fleets powered by a gas turbine generator. The process, called direct fuel conversion (DFC) has been used on over 125 frac jobs with frac fleets that use Tier-2 and Tier-4 dual-fuel pumping engines or all-gas engines.Natural gas with liquids (NGLs) cannot be used with these frac fleets because it’s too rich in heavier hydrocarbons (C3+) which causes engine knocking, degradation, and too frequent maintenance — and too much downtime. Compressed natural gas (CNG) can be used in dual-fuel engines but entails multiple steps and each step adds to overall costs and GHG emissions. Typical frac fleets in the Permian basin have 15-20 frac pumps that require 3 MMcfd (million cubic feet per day) of fuel gas. The raw gas can be sourced efficiently from up to a mile away. NGLs that are separated in the processing truck can be sold on the market. Water removed from the raw gas is disposed at the well site. Results were compared from three well pads in the Midland basin, part of the Permian. Each pad had 3 or 5 wells. The frac fleet consisted of 15 dual-fuel powered pumps. The diesel volume that the associated gas replaced varied between 244,000 and 392,000 gallons. Hence big reductions in GHG emissions. For the three pads, the fuel costs varied $3.37 - $3.73 / gallon for diesel versus $1.43 - $1.51 / gallon-equivalent for the DFC frac ops. The DFC process costs only about 42% of the diesel, because natural gas produced close to the wellsite is much cheaper than trucking in diesel.

Texas Oil And Gas Industry Braces For Severe Winter Weather -Oil and gas operators in Texas should be prepared for severe winter weather this week, the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) said on Sunday, as snow and ice conditions are expected in parts of the biggest U.S. oil-producing state, including in parts of the Permian basin.The RRC advised all operators under its jurisdiction in areas of potential impact to heed all watches, warnings, and orders issued by local emergency officials, and secure all personnel, equipment, and facilities to prevent injury or damage. Operators were also advised to monitor and prepare operations for potential impacts, as safety permits. Severe winter weather with low temperatures could lead to freeze-offs of oil- and gas-producing equipment and frozen pipeline valves and other infrastructure.Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Storm Watches are in effect across parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas for winter weather and hazardous travel starting Monday, the National Weather Service said on Sunday.The Midland chapter of the NWS said that a Winter Weather Advisory is in effect on Monday morning for the eastern Permian Basin, where a light glaze of ice is expected. On Tuesday and Wednesday, A Winter Storm Watch is in effect for the eastern Permian Basin for potential ice accumulations up to 0.25".Early on Monday, freezing drizzle continued to spread across the Permian Basin, with visibility lowered in Hobbs and Midland/Odessa. The previous severe winter event occurred just before Christmas when Winter Storm Elliott exposed the vulnerability of the energy system as natural gas and power supplies were strained, wells froze off, and utilities vastly underestimated the power demand during the huge storm.

Earthquakes an unfamiliar threat in Texas oil country -– The West Texas earth shook one day in November, shuddering through the two-story City Hall in downtown Pecos, swaying the ceiling fans at an old railroad station, rattling the walls at a popular taqueria.The tremor registered as a 5.4 magnitude earthquake, among the largest recorded in the state. Then, a month later, another of similar magnitude struck not far away, near Odessa and Midland, twin oil country cities with relatively tall office buildings, some of them visible for miles around.The earthquakes, arriving in close succession, were the latest in what has been several years of surging seismic activity in Texas, a state known for many types of natural disasters but not typically, until now, for major earth movements. In 2022, the state recorded more than 220 earthquakes of 3.0 magnitude or higher, up from 26 recorded in 2017, when the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas began close monitoring.The vast majority of the temblors have been concentrated in the highly productive oil fields of the Permian Basin, particularly those in Reeves County, north and west of the city of Pecos. The county’s population of 14,000 does not account for thousands of male transient workers staying in austere “man camps” and RV parks, brought there by the promise of good pay in exchange for long hours, stark terrain and dangerous work.Now earthquakes have become part of the same calculation.“In West Texas, you love the smell of the oil and gas patch because it’s the smell of money,” said Rod Ponton, a former Pecos city attorney who once unintentionally attained international fame by appearing as a worried cat during a court hearing on Zoom. “If you have to have the ground shaking every two or three months to make sure you have a good paycheck coming in every month, you’re not going to think twice about it.”

Texas Oilfield Waste Company Contributed $53,750 to Regulators Overseeing a Controversial Permit Application - A company seeking to build an oilfield waste dump near wells and waterways in East Texas has showered regulators with upwards of $50,000 in political contributions since 2019.Texas Ethics Commission filings reviewed by Inside Climate News show that McBride Operating LLC contributed $10,000 to Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) Chairman Christi Craddick on Nov. 28, 2022. Fifteen days later, Craddick joined fellow commissioners Jim Wright and Wayne Christian in giving the company another opportunity to address concerns about its controversial application to build an oilfield waste site in Paxton, Texas. While commissioners must recuse themselves from cases where they have a “personal or private interest,” these rules do not apply to cases related to political donors. The protracted debate over the Paxton waste dump permit raises questions about whether campaign finance and ethics rules in Texas allow oil and gas companies to sway regulators, environmental and corporate accountability advocates say. Those advocates have long called for reforms to reign in the influence of oil and gas companies over the Railroad Commission.“The Railroad commissioners are personally responsible for cheapening and tarnishing their office by continuing to take significant amounts of money from parties who have cases on their docket,” said Andrew Wheat, research director of Texans for Public Justice and co-author of the Captive Industry report with Virginia Palacios of the non-profit Commission Shift. McBride’s lawyer, John Hicks, defended his client’s engagement in the “constitutionally protected democratic process.”“Mr. McBride believes it is important that experienced and reasonable people be elected, and then reelected, to lead the Railroad Commission of Texas and he will proudly continue to support candidates who he believes will do what is best for Texas,” Hicks said.

ONEOK Proposes New US/Mexico Natural Gas Border Crossing Facility - ONEOK Inc. subsidiary Saguaro Connector Pipeline LLC (Saguaro) has filed a Presidential Permit application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to construct and operate facilities to export natural gas at a new international border crossing at the US/Mexico in Hudspeth County, Texas. The proposed border facilities would connect upstream with a potential intrastate natural gas pipeline, the Saguaro Connector Pipeline, which would be designed to transport natural gas from ONEOK’s existing WesTex intrastate natural gas pipeline system in the Permian Basin in West Texas to Mexico. Additionally, the proposed border facilities would connect at the International Boundary with a new pipeline under development in Mexico for delivery to an export facility on the West Coast of Mexico. The potential Saguaro Connector Pipeline would consist of approximately 155 miles (249 km) of natural gas pipeline originating at the Waha Hub in Pecos County, Texas. The Border Facilities will have an ultimate design capacity of approximately 2.834 b/cfd (80.2 x 106 m3/d) and up to a maximum allowable operating pressure of approximately 1480 psi (102 bar). If approved by FERC, Saguaro will construct and operate two new compressor stations. The first compressor station will be located at the beginning of the pipeline near Coyanosa, Texas. The second compressor station will be located on private land that will be acquired by Saguaro at an intermediate point on the pipeline (currently planned for approximately MP 113). The horsepower for each compressor station will be between 55,000 and 100,000 hp (41 and 74.6 MW).

New Mexico Investigates Permian Basin Methane Cloud Spotted by Satellite - -- New Mexico is investigating a methane cloud observed by high-resolution satellite that appears to show the powerful greenhouse gas spewing from an APA Corp. oil and gas facility late last month. The probe is at least the fourth state or federal investigation launched in the US in the last several years by regulators alerted to methane releases by Bloomberg News, which tracks emissions of the gas through satellites. The New Mexico cloud is the latest incident to suggest releases of the greenhouse gas from fossil-fuels operations may be more common and intense than is often reported by operators. New Mexico authorities said they weren’t aware of the methane plume before being contacted by Bloomberg. APA, formerly known as Apache, wasn’t aware of the methane emissions prior to being informed of them by Bloomberg either. The company sent an initial statement Jan. 13 that an operational upset at a third-party facility triggered emergency flaring at a group of connected storage tanks, without acknowledging a methane release. APA said in an excess emissions report filed in late January that it discovered the Dec. 24 release on Jan. 23, during a “later investigation'' and “determined the flare pilot failed to light when gas was sent to the flare resulting in venting of the gas to atmosphere.” The operator said it has created a working group to address the malfunction and that corrective actions will be taken once an investigation is complete. Flares are safety devices designed to combust gas when it’s released to avoid a build-up of pressure that can lead to explosions or fire. Methane, which is the primary component of natural gas, has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first 20 years if released directly into the atmosphere. Halting intentional and accidental releases of methane could do more to slow climate change than almost any other single measure. Oil and gas companies that can’t halt accidental leaks or intentional releases of methane risk playing a diminished role in the energy transition because natural gas buyers will opt for producers with the cleanest gas as determined through independently verified emissions data driven by observations from satellites and other sensors. The plume was observed by the Sentinel-2 satellite on Dec. 24 and had an emissions rate of 5 metric tons of methane an hour, according to an analysis of the data by geoanalytics firm Kayrros SAS. Because the satellite orbits the Earth there was no estimated duration. However, if the release lasted an hour at that rate, it would have the same short-term climate impact as the annual emissions from 91 gasoline powered cars in the US. Non-emergency flaring and venting of methane should be significantly mitigated or eliminated to avoid the worst of climate change and maintain a pathway toward a net-zero energy system by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

Report: Burning gas in oil fields cost tribes $22 million --In 2019, oil and gas companies operating on tribal and federal lands lost $63 million in revenue from venting, flaring, and leaking infrastructure. That loss, according to a report from theEnvironmental Defense Fund and Taxpayers for Common Sense, shows that Indigenous nations lost the most potential royalty revenue: approximately $21.8 million. Researchers say that total loss across all lands represents enough natural gas to power 2.2 million households for a year — almost every home in New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming combined. However, those numbers are likely much higher: researchers did not include emissions from Alaska, Michigan, Nebraska, Illinois, or Indiana. Gas is wasted when it is released directly into the atmosphere through venting, or burned at the site of extraction by flaring, or when it leaks from aging or ill-fitting infrastructure. As a potent greenhouse gas with warming power 80-times that of carbon dioxide, methane is often released with additional air pollutants. Those emissions contribute heavily to climate change and poor healthcare outcomes for local communities. Synapse Energy Economics, the consulting firm that conducted the analysis, found that 54 percent of the gas lost in 2019 was due to flaring, 46 percent to leaks, and less than 1 percent to venting. Researchers found that on federal lands, a majority of natural gas is lost to leaks while on tribal land, most loss is attributed to flaring. Overall, roughly $275 million worth of gas is lost through flaring. Wasted methane shortchanges the royalties that tribal, state and federal governments collect for oil and gas production that often fund priorities like education, infrastructure and public services. According to the report, while tribal governments lost the most potential revenue, states lost $20.5 million and the federal government lost $21.3 million. Additional research showed that flaring rates on Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation lands atop the oil-rich Bakken formation were extremely high compared to public and tribal lands outside of North Dakota. Lost royalties from the MHA Nation totaled an estimated $19 million. “We can’t continue to allow half a billion dollars’ worth of taxpayer-owned resources to go to waste every year,” Jon Goldstein, a senior director at the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a press release. “The Biden administration has a clear opportunity to step up with strong rules that stop waste and pollution from practices like routine flaring to protect the public interest. These resources should benefit priorities like education and infrastructure, not be released into the atmosphere to undermine our climate and health.” The report comes in the wake of two proposed rulings from the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management aimed at reducingmethane waste. Both proposals were issued last November and the EPA is accepting public comment on their proposal until February 13.

Interior Department Releases Draft Guidance for $500 Million in Formula Grants for States to Address Orphaned Oil and Gas Wells | U.S. Department of the Interior— The Department of the Interior today released draft guidance to states on how to apply for $500 million in formula grant funding available under President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to create jobs cleaning up polluted and unsafe orphaned oil and gas wells across the country. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $2 billion for state formula grants, part of a total $4.7 billion to address orphaned wells across the country. An initial $560 million in grant funding was allocated to states in August 2022.“The Department of the Interior is moving quickly to implement this historic investment in tackling legacy pollution, provided through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These investments are good for our climate, for the health of our communities, and for American workers,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “As we prepare to issue another round of grants to help states accomplish this vital work, we are eager to hear from diverse voices on this draft guidance.”Orphaned oil and gas wells pollute backyards, recreation areas, and community spaces across the country. Methane leaking from many of these unplugged wells is a serious safety hazard and is a significant cause of climate change, being more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. The historic investments to clean up these hazardous sites will create good-paying union jobs, catalyze economic growth and revitalization, and reduce harmful methane leaks.Plugging orphaned wells will help advance the goals of the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan, as well as the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization, which focuses on spurring economic revitalization in hard-hit energy communities.The draft released today invites public comment on instructions to states on how to apply for formula orphaned well grants, as well as guidance on how applicants can ensure that activities funded under the program are putting people to work, protecting the environment, investing in disadvantaged communities consistent with the President’s Justice 40 Initiative, and safeguarding taxpayer money in a transparent and responsible manner.Grant funding may be used to measure and track methane emissions; to plug, remediate and reclaim orphaned oil and gas wells; and to remediate soil and restore native species habitat that has been degraded due to the presence of orphaned wells. States may apply for grants up to their eligible amount. In addition to providing historic funding to states, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $250 million to clean up well sites in national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges and other public lands, $33 million of which was allocated last year. Guidance, informed by Tribal consultations and listening sessions, has also been shared with Tribes on how to apply for the first $50 million in funding to address orphaned wells on Tribal lands.

Exxon Beats Estimates, Posts Record $56 Billion 2022 Profit - -- Exxon Mobil Corp. reaped a record $59 billion profit but disappointed some investors by holding the line on share buybacks. Full-year profit, excluding one-time items, jumped 157% from 2021, far exceeding the driller’s prior record of $45.2 billion in 2008, which at the time marked the biggest in US corporate history. Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods said Exxon is harvesting the rewards from fossil-fuel investments in recent years that were panned as ill-timed. “Our work began years ago, well before the pandemic, when we chose to invest counter-cyclically,” he said during a conference call with analysts on Tuesday. “We leaned in when others leaned out, bucking conventional wisdom.” The stock was up more than 1.8% at 3:14 p.m. New York time after dropping earlier in the session. Exxon’s results followed those of US rival Chevron Corp., which posted a surprise earnings miss last week just days after announcing a mammoth $75 billion share-buyback program. The five so-called supermajors are swimming in cash after a record 2022 but pressure is mounting on executive teams to satisfy competing demands: investor appetite for bigger payouts and buybacks versus political outrage over windfall profits during a time of war and economic dislocation. Chevron was excoriated by the White House and Democratic members of Congress when it disclosed plans last week to funnel $75 billion to investors in the form of stock repurchases. Exxon expanded buybacks multiple times last year and pledged to repurchase $35 billion of stock through 2024, unchanged from previous guidance The company is pursuing a “balanced” approach to buybacks and dividends while reducing debt and investing in new projects, Chief Financial Officer Kathy Mikells told analysts during the call.

Oil companies post record-smashing profits as gas prices creep up - The country’s largest oil companies made more money in 2022 than ever before, eclipsing windfalls of earlier years and making themselves a potential target for driver frustration as prices at the pump rise. ExxonMobil on Tuesday reported a record-smashing annual profit of $55.7 billion for 2022, soaring past its earlier record of $45 billion in 2008. The news comes just days after another American oil behemoth, Chevron, drew the ire of the White House when the company announced its biggest windfall ever, with $36.5 billion in profits for the year. The eye-popping numbers, industry analysts say, are fueled by a variety of factors that drove up demand last year, largely connected to the war in Ukraine. The sanctions levied on Russian fuel because of the invasion threw the global market out of balance, leaving the supply of energy so tight that prices for crude oil, refined products such as gasoline and diesel, and natural gas all shot up at once. “All three dials on the slot machine lined up in a way they rarely do,” The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline exceeded $5 at its height in 2022, as available shipments of fuel dropped and refiners struggled to replace Russian products, while the U.S. government tried to blunt the cost surge by releasing millions of barrels of oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The profits being posted now are not linked to the current upward swing in gasoline prices, with the average cost of a gallon of regular back up to $3.51, according to AAA, and likely to continue rising in the coming months. But they are giving drivers and politicians plenty to vent about. “These profits are coming right out of your pockets,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) wrote on Twitter. “It’s time for a gas price gouging penalty to keep greedy oil companies in check.”

Murphy Oil Posts $965 Million Income for 2022 -After increasing net income, reducing debt and completing a significant development project in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), Murphy Oil said it’s entering a new phase — “Murphy 2.0” — that will return more free cash flow (FCF) to shareholders. The company reported fourth-quarter net income of $199 million ($173 million adjusted), and $965 million ($881 million adjusted) for the year, according to results Murphy announced on Jan. 26. Murphy, which operates in the GoM, Canada and South Texas, also reported its preliminary year-end results and touted its execution on multiple fronts. In 2022, the company completed its Khaleesi, Mormont and Samurai field development project in the GoM, bringing seven wells online. In Canada and the Eagle Ford Shale, the company brought 50 operated wells online. Murphy’s 2023 capital guidance calls for spending $455 million onshore and $365 million offshore.

Liberty Energy expects profits, healthy fracking market are here to stay - Denver Business Journal - Fracking company Liberty Energy doesn’t expect a possible recession this year to derail demand for the oil drilling that pushed the Denver-based business to record revenue and more than doubled its profits last year. The company, which oil and natural gas companies hire to hydraulically fracture and complete newly drilled wells, sees fossil fuel demand sustaining domestic fracking activity for the foreseeable future. “The fundamental outlook for North American hydrocarbons is the healthiest Liberty has seen in our 12-year history,” said CEO Chris Wright after the company’s earnings release. Liberty Energy revenue rose 68% for the full year of 2022, the company reported, and the demand by oil companies for fracking and well completions look likely to keep activity high at current prices, he said. Global demand for oil is unlikely to decline, and Russian oil production could begin to wane due to a new embargo kicking in over that nation’s invasion of Ukraine, Wright said. Both those factors, coupled with disciplined production by oil and gas companies, are expected to keep crude oil prices high enough to maintain the current amount of fracking activity in North America as the pace of new drilling offsets the natural decline of well production and leads to only modest production growth, he said. The 5,000-employee company reported earning $400 million in full-year profits on a record $4.1 billion in revenue in 2022. That compares to the $178 million in profits on $2.5 billion in 2021 revenue Liberty Energy reported the year earlier. Liberty Energy in 2021 acquired the OneStim well-completion business from oilfield services giant Schlumberger, expanding Liberty Energy to have just over 40 fracking crews operating in oil and natural gas basins across the U.S. and Canada. The large scale has allowed Liberty Energy to negotiate good contracts with oil producers and thrive despite tight labor conditions and supply chain challenges that make it harder for smaller fracking companies to stay in business. Wright sees little worry of oil production growth crashing crude prices below what’s profitable for oil companies. The business model of U.S. oil and gas producers has changed since the last uptick in production five years ago. Companies today are aiming to drill enough wells to maintain their current levels of production, not grow wildly. In 2018 and 2019, oversupply from U.S. oil producers helped push crude prices down and started making the domestic industry vulnerable prior to the price crash early in the Covid-19 pandemic. The sudden evaporation of global demand for fuel during the pandemic triggered a wave of oil company bankruptcies and prompted the surviving businesses in the industry to focus on generating free cash flow, returning profits to shareholders and planning for modest growth. The last five years have also seen the retirement of large numbers of fracking engines and pumps that had been operating in the U.S. For the first time, the number of physical fracking fleets in North America roughly matches the volume of fracking jobs in the industry, Wright said.

Driller Helmerich & Payne sees moderate growth in customer spending for 2023 (Reuters) - Oil and gas producer budgets are slated to be "moderately higher" in 2023, drilling contractor Helmerich & Payne (HP.N) said on Tuesday during an earnings call, with activity also anticipated to grow modestly in the coming months. The company warned that natural gas prices, which have plunged below $3 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), could prompt a shift in drilling work, with some equipment moving to shale regions more heavily focused on oil production. On Tuesday, U.S. benchmark natural gas prices were trading around $2.7 per mmBtu, their lowest since early 2021. Hydraulic fracturing firm Liberty Energy last week said it would reallocate equipment to more oily areas if there is a pullback on natural gas drilling due to low prices. Roughly 28 of Helmerich and Payne's 185 active drilling rigs, or 15%, are focused on gas plays and most of those are on term contracts, the company said on Tuesday. In North America, the company anticipates activating some 16 rigs this year, bringing its total to around 191. It said it lost one rig due to a fire. The company said it experienced higher costs associated with labor and supplies last year, but anticipates those to stabilize in 2023. Shares were down about 1% in midmorning trading to $48.12 each. Helmerich & Payne reported net income of $97.1 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2022, up from a loss of $51.4 million in the same period last year.

Letters: Let’s protect Loveland from fracking – Loveland Reporter-Herald - Please urge our city councilors and Mayor Marsh to deny any future fracking permits being set forth by Troy McWhinney, et al. As residents of this city, we need to hold City Councilmembers Foley, Overcash, Fogle, McFall, Mallo and Olson accountable for their votes in support of fracking in our protected natural areas. The councilors listed voted in support of fracking on Jan. 18, 2022; I applaud Councilor Samson for voting in favor of protecting Loveland residents and the natural beauty that called us to live here. Thank you also to Mayor Marsh, who advocated for a moratorium so that more information may be made available to City Council and residents.Big oil does not care about the negative effects fracking will bring to our climate and citizens. Clearly six sitting council members do not care about the health of its citizens. They might be worried about being sued by McWhinney and creating a bottleneck to his project. We as citizens must continue to urge our City Council and mayor to stop any future permitting for oil and gas fracking projects in our state.We know money speaks, but we the people must speak louder. Call and email the City Council, Mayor Marsh, Sen. Marchman, Gov. Polis. Make noise; get loud. Write letters to every editor to every newspaper in this state, because we all will suffer if fracking continues to be allowed to occur in Colorado. Get involved with organizations like Colorado Rising (https://corising.org/community-misled/), contact KUNC, be the squeaky wheel that ensures our community and future generations can remain healthy and protected from big oil and people like McWhinney.

U.S. crude oil, fuel stocks rise on weak demand -U.S. crude oil and fuel inventories rose last week to their highest levels since June 2021, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, as demand remained weak. Crude inventories climbed 4.1 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 27 to 452.7 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a rise of 0.4 million barrels. That marked the sixth consecutive week of increases as refining utilization declined and net imports climbed. Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose by 2.3 million barrels in the last week, EIA said. Refinery crude runs fell by 20,000 barrels per day in the last week, EIA said, while utilization rates fell by 0.4 percentage points to 85.7% in the week. Refineries activity remained subdued due to lingering outages from a late December winter storm and the onset of seasonal maintenance, Kpler analyst Matt Smith said. U.S. crude oil prices extended losses after the data and were last trading down 51 cents at $78.37 per barrel. Gasoline and heating oil futures also extended losses after EIA data showed builds. U.S. gasoline stocks rose by 2.6 million barrels in the week to 234.6 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a rise of 1.4 million barrels.​ Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 2.3 million barrels in the week to 117.6 million barrels, versus expectations for a drop of 1.3 million barrels, the EIA data showed. Net U.S. crude imports rose by 2.59 million barrels per day, EIA said. Imports were helped by a rebound of Canadian oil volumes on the Keystone pipeline, which was temporarily shut after a leak in December, and on strong West Coast imports.

Author Dave Hanrahan's New Book, "Fracking – Oil and Murder Don't Mix," Delves Readers Into The Dangerous World Of Climate Activists And The Hydraulic Fracturing Industry - Dave Hanrahan, prominent Boston trial attorney and author, has released his fourth novel in his mystery/legal thriller series, "Fracking – Oil and Murder Don’t Mix," featuring the return of Bill Coine, Boston’s premier P.I. Set in Boston and San Antonio, the book takes a deep dive into the world of climate activists and their relentless war on gas and oil and the hydraulic fracturing industry.The story begins with the discovery of a man's body, head crushed and partly submerged in a sunken garden pond at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Antonio, Texas. The man has no identification; the only evidence at the scene is the imprint of a pair of heels from a cowboy boot. In his final report, Lt. Charles Hannify, S.A.P.D., concludes that this case will be difficult. And that’s how it stays until Bill Coine arrives in the middle of a red-hot fracking war to work for the country’s largest fracking operator, Bedrock Ventures, Inc.Murder, mayhem, and environmental sabotage are front and center as climate activists plot to destroy Bedrock Ventures’ environmentally damaging fracking operations. As the story unfolds, Coine and his wife, Jeanie, become the targets of a vicious assassin known only as Crazy Cowboy.The novel also gives readers a rare look into the innermost secrets of one of the largest law firms in the country as it struggles to control the devastating fallout when one of its powerful and corrupt senior partners goes rogue. “Fracking – Oil and Murder Don’t Mix” delivers two things mystery readers demand: interesting plot twists that keep the pages turning and the obligatory surprise ending. The book creates a complex world of danger and intrigue. Although it is fiction, the characters appear to be real, satisfying a reader’s need to be absorbed in events beyond their own lives. It also satisfies readers' curiosity about the fracking industry, including how it improves the extraction of oil and gas, whether it is harmful to the environment, and how far climate zealots will go to end it.

What Laws Empower Biden and AOC to Ban Fracking? - The American Spectator - As you kind people know, I have been writing about the moronic ban on fracking that Mr. Biden promised to impose on our nation almost the moment he was inaugurated. This measure would have cut domestic oil and gas production by more than 35 percent since early 2021. It has caused oil and gas prices to skyrocket as oil and gas became in short supply. We would have to beg countries that hate us for oil. We are already draining our strategic petroleum reserve — a life/or/death military asset — at an alarming rate. As it happened, Mr. Biden “walked back” this deadly promise. He did ban fracking and even drilling on large swaths of federally owned land. But it was not even remotely on the scale that Mr. Biden promised. It did lessen hydrocarbon production from those areas and as we all know, prices at the pump and in the furnace have risen dramatically. They would have risen far more had Mr. Biden not eaten into our vital strategic petroleum reserve. I hate to think what will happen if we and our allies need that oil in wartime. Again, Mr. Biden did not go anywhere near as far as he promised, thank God. But I keep asking myself, “Where did Mr. Biden think he got the authority to stop fracking? What law authorizes the President to control hydrocarbon production in the U.S.?” So, I looked and researched and found some answers. First, there is no clear answer. There is no law — or none that I could find — that authorizes the White House to ban fracking. Second, that being so, as I believe it is, is there a law in the works that will authorize the President thus? It happens that online, there is something akin to a “legislative tracker.” It tells us who introduced such a law, what his or her stated motivation for the law is, and what concrete data backs up that motivation. Third, the results were startling. In the House of Representatives, the law was introduced by the famous Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or “AOC” as we have come to call her. Ms. Cortez gives a long list of motivations for her felt need for the ban. It’s a long list, but boiled down to the essentials, it goes something like this: When a corporation drills for oil and/or gas, it releases some amount of methane gas. That gas is deadly. Fracking, like any other form of exploration or production, releases that deadly methane gas. Thus, there is believed by certain “experts” to be a need to stop fracking. This need (so says Ms. AOC) is especially acute because over one million children of African-American heritage live near sites where oil and gas is extracted by fracking and/or processed. This, states Ms. AOC, harms their health. Thus, it can be banned. With this particular reason, Rep. AOC hits the Trifecta of Progressive “Thought.” She represents that fracking is harmful to the environment, is poisonous, and is racist in that it is anti-black.

Report details toll of agriculture, oil and gas sectors on California water crisis – .A new report from the nongovernmental organization Food and Water Watch details the extent to which both the agriculture and oil and gas industries impact water stability in California. Combined, the sectors use hundreds of millions of gallons of freshwater each year.Despite the deluge of rain and snow that fell on California earlier this winter, the vast majority of the state still suffers from at least a moderate drought. The past two decades marked the region’s driest period in more than 1,200 years. Although climate change is in part to blame for the water crisis in the West, growing demand also plays a role in water shortages.“Many of our headlines speak to the drought as the sole reason for our water crisis, but this report clearly shows how big oil and big agriculture are abusing and using billions of gallons of our water for their benefit — enough to meet the water needs of every Californian,” Although agriculture accounts for less than 2 percent of the state’s economy, the sector is the largest in the nation and generates more than $50 billion in revenue each year. Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry accounts for around 2.1 percent of the California’s overall gross state product.In California, agriculture accounts for 80 percent of the water diverted from the Colorado River, with tree nut, alfalfa and dairy farming making up a large portion of this total. In 2021, almond- and pistachio-bearing acres throughout the state required an estimated 520 billion more gallons of water for irrigation compared with 2017, according to data compiled by Food and Water Watch. This increase in water usage from the nut crop expansion could have supplied around 87 percent of the state’s population with enough water for indoor daily use for an entire year, researchers said.Because almond and nut orchards are permanent, they need to be watered year-round. In addition, around 58 percent of the state’s almonds were exported overseas in 2020, which amounts to shipping 880 billion gallons of the state’s water supply abroad, researchers said.

Biden Faces Climate Litmus Test on ConocoPhillips’s Willow Oil Drilling Project - -- US President Joe Biden is nearing a critical decision on a massive proposed oil project in northwest Alaska that could unlock 600 million barrels of crude and has drawn the ire of environmentalists who have dubbed it a “carbon bomb.” Biden’s verdict on ConocoPhillips’ $8 billion Willow venture in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is being seen as a litmus test of his commitment to combat climate change. “The decision on this project is a bellwether of whether we’re actually going to do something serious about climate in time or whether we are just pretending,” said Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen. “Standing alone, this would be the biggest oil and gas project in a country which has become the largest oil and gas producer in the world.” The project poses political risk for the president, who has implored oil companies to boost production even as he tries to speed the US transition to emission-free energy. It also presents a new test of Biden’s ability to balance the desires of two oft-competing constituencies: environmentalists and organized labor. The Interior Department is expected in coming days to release a final environmental impact statement on Willow, ordered up after a federal court tossed out the previous analysis and project approval from the Trump administration. That may telegraph support for a plan allowing the company to drill three wells at the site, helping deliver up to 180,000 barrels per day in estimated peak production. But it’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s final decision, expected no sooner than 30 days later, that will dictate whether the project goes forward. The head of ConocoPhillips’s Alaska operations has warned further restrictions that scale down drilling to just two locations would not be economically viable. The Willow analysis is expected to be released as the Biden administration takes other moves to protect Alaska from some development. On Wednesday, the US Forest Service banned logging and new road construction across the Tongass National Forest. And next week, the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to issue a final determination barring the disposal of mining waste in Bristol Bay, thwarting the long-planned Pebble gold and copper mine. Willow’s supporters, including members of Alaska’s congressional delegation, labor unions and some residents of the North Slope, argue the project would bring much-needed crude to a market eager for alternatives to Russian oil while enhancing US energy security, sustaining jobs and generating revenue for the government. It also would extend an economic lifeline across the region, said Nagruk Harcharek, president of Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, a not-for-profit group representing eight communities of Alaska’s North Slope Borough. Oil development on the North Slope provides critical revenue to the borough, supporting local schools, emergency responders and search-and-rescue operations. The project would be located in the northeast portion of the 23-million-acre NPR-A, with some activities occurring near Teshekpuk Lake, which provides critical habitat for waterfowl, caribou and other wildlife. Environmentalists and some Alaska Natives have implored the government to block the project, through rallies outside the White House and via direct appeals to Biden administration officials. Climate activists argue it would provide a hub for future oil development and, even on its own, would unleash more crude and carbon dioxide emissions than an ever-warming planet can afford. Others have warned it could imperil caribou populations and harm the subsistence lifestyle of nearby villages.

Biden Clears the Way for Alaska Oil Project - — The Biden administration on Wednesday took a crucial step toward approving a $8 billion ConocoPhillips oil drilling project on the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, drawing the anger of environmentalists who say the vast new fossil fuel development poses a dire threat to the climate.The Bureau of Land Management issued an environmental analysis that says the government prefers a scaled-back version of the project, which is known as Willow. The assessment calls for curtailing the project to three drill sites from five, as well as reducing the proposed length of both gravel and ice roads, pipelines and the length of airstrips to support the drilling.The analysis is the last regulatory hurdle before the federal government makes a final ruling on whether to approve the Willow project. If approved, it project would produce about 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years, with a peak of 180,000 barrels of crude oil a day.Separately, Bureau of Land Management and White House officials are considering additional measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and environmental harm, such as delaying decisions on permits for one of the drill sites and planting trees, according to two people familiar with the discussions.The final decision could come within the next month. But, in concluding that limited drilling could occur on the land in Alaska’s North Slope, the Biden administration has already sent a strong signal that it is likely to give the project a green light, both supporters and opponents said.The Department of the Interior issued a statement saying the agency still had “substantial concerns” about the Willow project, “including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.” The analysis notes that the agency might make final changes “that would be more environmentally protective” like delaying a ruling about permits to more than one drill site.The report was greeted with relief by Alaskan lawmakers and ConocoPhillips executives, who wanted a more expansive area for drilling but were worried that President Biden, who has made tackling climate change a centerpiece of his agenda, would work to block the project entirely.ConocoPhillips said in a statement that it welcomed the environmental analysis and said the alternative selected by the Bureau of Land Management provided “a viable path forward” for the Willow project.“We believe Willow will benefit local communities and enhance American energy security while producing oil in an environmentally and socially responsible manner,” Erec S. Isaacson, president of ConocoPhillips Alaska, said in a statement. He said the project had undergone five years of regulatory review and called on the administration to approve the plan “without delay.”

Biden Administration Allows Controversial Arctic Oil Project to Proceed - The Biden administration cleared the way on Wednesday for a controversial Arctic oil project, recommending that drilling proceed in an undeveloped section of the Alaskan tundra. While the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, suggested that the project move forward with a more limited footprint, the changes would still allow ConocoPhillips, the company behind the development, to extract the full volume of oil it is targeting. The recommendation came in a final environmental impact statement and does not represent the final approval of the project, a decision that environmental advocates say ultimately rests with President Joe Biden. “We are calling on President Biden to reverse course on this massive climate disaster,” said Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, in a statement. “Our window to act is rapidly closing to avert catastrophic climate change, and this plan only takes us one giant step closer to the edge.” The Willow Project would represent a major expansion of Alaska’s Arctic oil development and has sparked years of fierce debate as it has churned through the regulatory process and court battles. The project would lie within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a 23-million acre area managed by the BLM that was set aside in 1923 as an emergency oil supply for the Navy. Environmental advocates and some Indigenous groups have said that new development in the fragile and rapidly-warming Arctic blatantly contradicts the Biden administration’s broader climate goals. Alaska’s Congressional delegation, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Republican whom Biden has tried to maintain as an ally in the Senate, has pressed for the administration to approve the project. Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat and a critical swing vote on Biden’s climate agenda in Congress, has also pushed for Willow’s approval. The final environmental impact statement, published Wednesday by the BLM, recommended limiting the scope of the project to three well pads initially containing more than 200 wells, with the possibility for adding a fourth pad later. ConocoPhillips had proposed drilling from five well pads. The bureau said the changes would reduce surface impacts within the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area, critical habitat for thousands of migratory birds and a calving area of the Teshekpuk caribou herd, on which local Indigenous people depend for food. It would also limit the length of roads and pipelines needed, the BLM said. But the changes would not meaningfully alter how much oil ConocoPhillips would ultimately pump, a peak of more than 180,000 million barrels per day, or more than 600 million barrels over the project’s 30 years of operation. Over that period, the Willow Project would release about 280 million metric tons of climate pollution, equal to running 2.5 average-sized coal power plants for that entire three decades.

3 things to know about Biden's Alaska oil decision - A massive oil and gas project in the Arctic sits on a knife’s edge — and along with it perhaps President Joe Biden’s climate legacy — as administration officials weigh whether to approve an $8 billion drilling project on federal lands that’s fiercely opposed by environmentalists.The Biden administration advanced ConocoPhillips’ Willow project Wednesday, releasing a final environmental review that embraced a constricted version of the project that would still allow drilling of more than 200 wells in the approximately 24-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Still, officials were quick to stress that Willow could be further restricted or even denied in a final record of decision that’s required within the next 30 days.“Let me just be clear: No decision has been made on this,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a press conference Wednesday while defending the president’s commitment to climate action.“He continues to deliver on historic climate change action while carrying out the law and meeting our energy needs. Again, no decision has been made yet.”Observers say the Biden administration insistence that the project is still in limbo in this final stretch shows that the White House is considering multiple factors, including the politics of energy prices and the unique vulnerability of the Arctic region to climate change before it makes a consequential decision.“I am optimistic that the door is still open,” said Karlin Itchoak, the Alaska senior regional director for the Wilderness Society, which opposes the project. “The administration appears to still be considering further reductions to the size of the project, and still has the opportunity to do the right thing.”Should the administration block Willow, it would be the first time in history a president has barred drilling for oil and gas on public lands due to climate change. But despite the Biden administration’s focus on climate, the president is still aware of the country’s need for oil and gas and hesitant to be seen as restricting supply, a conundrum that the White House has needed to maneuver around during the last two years, said Paul Bledsoe, a former climate official for then-President Bill Clinton.“They’re in a difficult position politically,” said Bledsoe, who was director of communications for Clinton’s Climate Change Task Force. “It can be seen by some on the left-hand side that it should be a no-brainer, very easy, but that’s not true. Global oil prices are still high.”While Willow alone isn’t going to shift global energy prices or significantly impact demand for crude oil, the project is the latest example of how thorny oil and gas politics have proved for Biden.

Venezuela Demands Prepayment For Its Oil –Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm PDVSA has tightened the prepayment rules for its oil after a review of contracts, demanding now cargoes be paid in cash or in goods and services that should be received before loadings can take place, Reutersreported on Monday, quoting PDVSA documents it had seen.Earlier this month, Venezuela’s PDVSA suspended most of its crude oil exports and some fuel exports for a review of the contractual terms, a review that was to be conducted under the new head of the company, Pedro Rafael Tellechea.The review of the contracts under Tellechea – appointed by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in early January – was aimed at making sure there would be no payment defaults. Since the imposition of U.S. sanctions on trade in Venezuela, PDVSA has had to resort to middlemen to market its oil, which has created complications with payments, Reuters noted earlier this month. Now, under the tougher rules, even long-term buyers of Venezuela’s oil should follow the new rules of prepayment, which say that PDVSA will have to receive the payment in full by cash before releasing oil for loading on tankers.The new prepayment rules come shortly after the Biden Administration eased part of the sanctions imposed on Venezuela – initially slapped by former President Donald Trump – including granting U.S. supermajor Chevron, the only American company still operating in Venezuela, a six-month license that allows Chevron to import some Venezuelan crude oil to the United States for sale to U.S. refiners.Earlier this month, reports had it that Chevron had recently sold 500,000 barrels of heavy Hamaca grade to U.S. refiner Phillips 66 to be used in its Sweeny, Texas, refinery, anonymous sources told Bloomberg. Venezuela’s heavy crude oil is prized by U.S. refiners, who, until recently, looked to Russia’s heavy crude to replace it. In December, it was reported that several refiners were hitting up Chevron to get their hands on the rare Venezuelan crude oil.

Greenpeace Activists Board Ship Headed to Shell Oil Field in UK - -- Climate activists from Greenpeace boarded a ship in the Atlantic Ocean that was heading to a Shell Plc oil and gas field near the UK’s Shetland Islands. Four of the Greenpeace activists used small motorized boats, launched from the organization’s Arctic Sunrise ship, to approach the 51,000 metric ton vessel called the White Marlin near the Canary Islands, according to a statement from the group. They then used used ropes to climb aboard and display a banner with the message, “Stop Drilling. Start Paying.” “Shell and the wider fossil fuel industry are bringing the climate crisis into our homes, our families, our landscapes and oceans,” said Yeb Sano, executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, who tried to board the ship, but was unable to. The White Marlin is transporting a floating production, storage and offloading facility that will be used to develop the Penguins field. “These actions are causing real safety concerns, with a number of people boarding a moving vessel in rough conditions,” a Shell spokesperson said by email. “We respect the right of everyone to express their point of view. It’s essential they do that with their safety and that of others in mind.”

Reliable European demand fuels US natural gas boom -- Rising demand from Europe has added to a US natural gas investment boom even as the industry struggles to overcome opposition to pipeline construction. Production of the fuel reached 3.1 trillion cubic feet for the month of October, according to the most recently available US data, an all-time high and up almost 50 percent from the level a decade ago. The industry has been in growth mode since the summer of 2021 when Russia began trimming shipments to Europe, according to Steven Miles, a fellow at Rice University's Banker Institute in Houston. That comes on the heels of the US shale revolution in the first decade of the 21st century that ultimately led to the United States becoming a net exporter of the fuel in 2017. The progression has not been continuous, with plummeting natural gas prices crimping investment and leading to the bankruptcy of one of industry's biggest players, Chesapeake Energy, in June 2020. But energy companies have become more confident in the long-term demand outlook for the fuel in light of shifting geopolitical dynamics. Five years ago, the long-term demand "was not nearly as clear as it is today," said Eli Rubin of EBW AnalyticsGroup, a consultancy. "Especially after Russia invaded Ukraine, we have a healthy new respect for natural gas' role in providing energy security, for its role in helping to tame consumer pricing." Even before the invasion, there was heavy investment in facilities to transform gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG). In recent years, some 14 new liquefaction terminals have been approved, with the first set to begin operating in 2024. "Over the next five years, we could potentially double US LNG exports," Rubin said.

German industry to pay 40% more for energy than pre-crisis - study says (Reuters) - German industry is set to pay about 40% more for energy in 2023 than in 2021, before the energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a study by Allianz Trade said on Monday, citing contract expiries and delayed wholesale pricing effects. "The large energy-price shock still lies ahead for European corporates," said Allianz Trade, the credit insurer that changed its name from Euler Hermes last year. In 2022, higher corporate utility bills were contained as long pass-through times from wholesale markets and government interventions mitigated the immediate hit from surging prices as Russia curbed fuel exports to the West. The price increases will hit corporate profits across Europe by 1-1.5% and lead to lower investment, which in Germany's case would amount to 25 billion euros ($27 billion), Allianz Trade estimated. German companies' finances are robust, however, and a state-imposed gas price cap would help, it added. Fears the crisis could lead to de-industrialisation and a loss of competitiveness against the United States were overdone, because labour costs and exchange rates have a bigger impact on manufacturing than energy prices, the study said. Also, while exporters were losing market shares in areas such as agrifood, machinery, electrical equipment, metals and transport, the relative beneficiaries tended to be Asian, Middle Eastern and African, not American, it added. The German government's one-off payment to help private households and small businesses with gas prices - the first stage of a package that will be complemented with retroactive price caps kicking in in March - has cost 4.3 billion euros so far, the economy ministry said on Saturday. Berlin has earmarked 12 billion euros for the payment, but the ministry said 4.3 billion euros was not the final cost as many eligible firms had not yet applied for the aid. They have until the end of February..

Russia's Pipeline Gas Exports To Europe Slump To Record Low - Russia’s pipeline gas exports to Europe slumped to a new monthly record-low in January, falling by nearly 30% from December due to lower prices on the spot market, according to Reuters calculations.Russia’s gas giant Gazprom has seen exports to Europe decline since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year as Russia cut off gas supplies to a number of countries in Europe. Russia cut off supply to Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland in April and May, slashed gas deliveries via Nord Stream to Germany in June, then off Nord Stream supply in early September. Russia still sends some gas via pipelines to Europe via one transit route through Ukraine, and via TurkStream.This month, Gazprom has reduced pipeline gas transit flows to Europe via Ukraine on some days. Analysts have said that the lower pipeline flows were the result of lower demand for gas under long-term contracts, considering the milder weather in parts of Europe earlier in January and the fact that spot supply is currently cheaper. Per Reuters calculations, which are based on daily data of flows from Russia via the transit route through Ukraine and via TurkStream, pipeline gas exports from Russia to Europe dropped to around some 1.8 billion cubic meters (bcm) in January, down from 2.5 bcm in December.Gazprom hasn’t released January export data yet, but its exports to Europe via pipelines plunged to a post-Soviet low in 2022, according to data from the Russian firm calculated by Reuters. Last year’s Russian gas exports slumped by 45% year on year to reach 100.9 bcm in 2022. Germany, Russia’s biggest customer of gas before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, doesn’t import any Russian gas via pipeline now. 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.

European Natural Gas Prices Surge Ahead Of Cold Spell --Europe’s benchmark gas prices have rebounded this week as traders closed short positions at the expiry of the front-month contract and some weather forecasts suggested colder weather in northern and central Europe next week than previously expected. The Dutch TTF benchmark price jumped by 11% at over $65 (60 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh) at the opening of trade in Amsterdam on Tuesday, extending small gains from Monday and recovering some of the losses from last week, when prices slumped by 17%. On Monday, the prices were supported by short covering and an unplanned outage at a Norwegian gas processing plant. However, wind power generation is still expected to be strong, which could curb some demand for gas-fired power generation.But next week, temperatures could be lower than initially expected, which would boost demand for household heating. Colder spells are set to return to northern and central Europe next week, according to weather models by Maxar Technologies Inc, cited by Bloomberg.Still, the record gas prices in Europe could be behind us, according to ING’s revised outlook on natural gas for this year.“Mild weather and weak industrial demand have ensured that gas storage has remained strong. The region should get through this winter comfortably and prospects also look better for the 23/24 winter,” Warren Patterson, Head of Commodities Strategy at ING, said on Monday.The bank expects the TTF price to average around $65-70 (60-65 euros) per MWh over the first half of 2023—around current levels, before increasing to $81-87 (75-80 euros) per MWh over the second half of the year.

Eni signs major gas project deal in Libya -Italy's Eni and Libya's state-owned NOC have signed a long-delayed deal on the development of a major offshore gas project which will supply the domestic market and boost exports to Italy.The $8bn Structures A&E project is the largest single investment in Libya's upstream sector since the 2011 civil war and, according to Eni, the first major project in the north African country since 2000. The deal, previewed last week in a local TV interview with NOC chairman Farhat ben Gudara, was officially signed on 28 January during a visit to Tripoli by Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni.The project involves developing two offshore gas fields, with the platforms tied back to existing treatment facilities at the onshore Mellitah Complex, which is operated by Eni and NOC's Mellitah Oil and Gas joint venture. Eni said previously that the project will have the capacity to produce 760mn ft³/d of gas and 47,000 b/d of liquids, primarily condensate. It said in October that production could be online in 2024, but its latest statement says output from the fields will start in 2026 and reach a plateau of 750mn ft³/d. The project also includes the construction of a carbon capture and storage facility at Mellitah, in line with Eni's decarbonisation strategy and Libya's nascent decarbonisation ambitions.NOC's Ben Gudara said the deal is a "clear indication that the oil sector in Libya is free of risks" and that his country is on its way back to being considered a reliable oil and gas producer. Libya's decade-long political quagmire has not only hampered new oil and gas projects from getting off the ground but has also frequently led to existing output being shut down for political purposes. The relatively safe location of Structures A&E offshore Tripoli makes the project less vulnerable to disruption than Libya's onshore fields.

Turkey signs multi-year LNG import deal with leading Middle East gas producer -Turkey has signed a key liquefied natural gas purchase agreement with Oman for 1.4 billion cubic metres of annual gas imports for 10 years. The long-term deal is between state-owned Oman LNG and Turkey’s Botas Petroleum Pipeline Corporation, with gas supplies expected to start in 2025, local media reports in Oman have claimed. Oman LNG chief executive Hamed Al Naamany noted that its term-sheet agreement with Botas supports the company’s efforts to further develop its position in the global energy and LNG industry and explore new markets with key industry partners. Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez said the agreement also includes an opportunity to be extended. Oman LNG has signed multiple gas supply agreements with international players in recent months. Earlier in January, Oman signed binding term-sheet agreements with Thailand’s PTT Global LNG and with French giant TotalEnergies to supply a total of 1.6 million tonnes per annum of LNG starting in 2025. In December, a group of three Japanese companies signed long-term LNG import deals with Oman LNG for 2.35 million tpa of gas supplies. Oman LNG is a joint venture company with the government of Oman holding a majority stake of 51% and UK supermajor Shell holding a 30% interest. Other key stakeholders include TotalEnergies, Korea LNG, Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co, PTTEP and Itochu. The Sultanate of Oman has significantly boosted its gas production over the years, led by BP’s Khazzan and Ghazeer tight gas projects, with output averaging more than 120,000 million cubic metres per day last year.

Türkiye to receive 1.4B cubic meters of gas from Oman per year - The new gas purchase agreement with Oman also includes an opportunity to be extended further if needed, Fatih Donmez said in his opening speech at the Summit of Century of Türkiye in Energy organized for the first time in Istanbul. 'At a time when the world, especially Europe, is suffering from gas supply problems, Türkiye is taking all steps to become a gas trade center,' he said. Donmez also declared that Türkiye's third floating liquefied natural gas storage and regasification unit (FSRU) is projected to arrive in Türkiye within a week and that the ship has taken its first cargo and started sailing. The ship will serve at the Saros FSRU terminal, which will also give the country the flexibility to carry out LNG transport, especially during the summer season when the demand to pump gas into the system is low. 'With the Saros FSRU, we will be adding a new entry point to the Thrace region, where consumption is high. More importantly, we will become a more active player in the regional gas trade, especially in the Balkans, in line with our gas hub target,' he suggested. The first step, he said, was taken with Bulgaria in this context, as the agreement includes an annual gas supply of approximately 1.5 billion cubic meters to Bulgaria until 2035, corresponding to 30% of the country's annual gas consumption. 'In addition to Bulgaria, we are carrying out similar processes with North Macedonia, Romania, and Moldova,' Donmez said.

Qatar to record 'fastest' annual growth in gas production in Middle East until 2050: GECF - Gulf Times --Qatar will record the fastest annual growth in gas production in the Middle East until 2050, delivering 2.6% annual growth, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) said in a report. Qatar and Iran and Saudi Arabia, will remain “production hotspots” through 2050 and supply slightly less than 78% of the total output in the region, Doha-headquartered GECF said in its ‘Annual Global Gas Outlook 2050’ released on Sunday. Gas production in Iran and Saudi Arabia will grow by 2.1% and 1.5%, respectively, on an annual basis over the long term. Their share of regional production will reach almost 82%, while accounting for 18% of the world’s gas output. The GECF outlook expects regional production to grow by 140 bcm by 2030. This, it said, will represent around 24% of global growth, driven by Qatar’s North Field expansion projects, along with Iran, UAE and Saudi Arabia increases as well. But longer-term growth will be even more substantial. Output will jump by 520 bcm to 1,190 bcm by 2050. The share of global output will reach 22%, while the region will account for more than 33% of global growth. The Middle East is the world’s third-largest gas-producing region, accounting for almost 17% of global output. Annual production has been growing at a rapid 6% umping from 190 bcm in 2000 to 670 bcm in 2021. By comparison, Asia Pacific and African production grew by only 4.1% and 3.7%, respectively over that period.

AG&P speeding Philippines, India LNG terminals development --Global LNG logistics company Atlantic Gulf & Pacific International Holdings hopes to start operations at its first Philippines LNG import terminal between March and May while aiming to expand its presence globally, President AG&P LNG Terminals and Logistics, Karthik Sathyamoorthy, said. “We are going through a very interesting time within the LNG space … we are a demand creator [developing and building LNG terminals] to unlock demand in emerging economies,” Sathyamoorthy told S&P Global Commodity Insights in an interview, adding that within Asia, the company was advancing projects in India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Singapore-headquartered AG&P’s LNG import terminal in Philippines — PHLNG — is being commissioned in two phases and comes at a time when production at Malampaya, the country’s primary gas field, has been declining, making the development of the country’s LNG infrastructure more critical. PHLNG, located at Batangas Bay, comes with a capacity of up to 5 million mt/year and is based on a floating storage unit — Ish — to be leased on a long-term basis with onshore storage and regasification facilities, Sathyamoorthy said. In February 2022, AG&P said it had inked a long-term charter agreement with ADNOC Logistics and Services for the supply, operations, and maintenance of Ish — a 137,512 cu m FSU — to be chartered for 11 years with an option to extend by another four years. The second phase of the PHLNG project comprises two onshore tanks of 60,000 cu m which are already under construction. Their integration with the main terminal was planned by mid-2025, Sathyamoorthy said. The primary customer for PHLNG is the power sector and because the terminal sits adjacent to the Illijan power plant it will secure base load supplies for Illijan and likely beyond, Sathyamoorthy said.

Russia bans oil exporters from adhering to Western price caps --The Russian government on Monday banned domestic oil exporters and customs bodies from adhering to Western-imposed price caps on Russian crude. The measure was issued to help enforce President Vladimir Putin's decree of Dec. 27 that prohibited the supply of crude oil and oil products from Feb. 1, for five months, to nations that abide by the caps. The G7 economies, the European Union and Australia agreed on Dec. 5 to ban the use of Western-supplied maritime insurance, finance and brokering for seaborne Russian oil priced above $60 per barrel as part of Western sanctions on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine. The new Russian act bans corporates and individuals from including oil price cap mechanisms in their contracts. They also have to report to customs officials and the energy ministry any attempts to impose oil price caps. In addition, customs bodies have to prevent goods from leaving Russia if they find such mechanisms have been applied. The Western allies plan from Feb. 5 to set two caps on Russian oil products, one on products that trade at a premium to crude, such as diesel or gas oil, and one for products that trade at a discount to crude, such as fuel oil. The Russian government's act also calls on the energy ministry, with the approval of finance ministry, to work out an approach for monitoring prices of Russian oil exports by March 1.

Russia says pipeline leak in Siberia caused 200 sq m oil spill -- Russia's emergencies ministry said on Monday that a pipeline leak near the Siberian city of Omsk caused an oil spill spanning 200 square metres last week. It said the leak was discovered on Friday and has since been contained. The pipeline is owned by operator Transneft , the RIA news agency reported, citing a source.

East Siberia oil spill clean-up complete --An oil spill from a trunkline near the city of Omsk in East Siberia has been contained and cleaned-up successfully, three days after the leak was discovered on 27 January, according to Russian state run oil pipeline operator Transneft’s regional subsidiary. The subsidiary, Transneft West Siberia, said an estimated 380 barrels of oil was lost in the spill, but had “accumulated in a pothole next to the pipeline” and had not passed into nearby rivers. Around 200 square metres of soil had been polluted with the oil, according to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry’s Omsk regional unit. The leak occurred near the village of Lugovaya, about 17 kilometres from a large refinery operated by state controlled oil producer Gazprom Neft. The Omsk refinery is a monopoly supplier of motor fuels to the Omsk region and surrounding areas, with the closest alternative refinery located about 350 kilometres across the Kazakh-Russian border in Kazakhstan. Lugovaya is also located less than three kilometres from the shore of the Irtysh river, a key regional water artery and a chief tributary of the Ob river, flowing through West Siberia, country’s largest oil and gas province. According to Transneft West Siberia, the incident happened following the completion of planned maintenance work on the Ust-Balyk–Omsk pipeline, which was built at the end of the 1960s to carry West Siberian crude for processing at the Omsk refinery. Transneft and its regional subsidiaries had earlier issued several statements claiming that the pipeline had been upgraded at most of critical locations and regulary inspected. Transneft West Siberia said its spill response units have completed the clean-up of the incident site, collecting and removing oil-contaminated soil. “The possibility of oil getting into water arteries is excluded”, the operator said. “Oil transportation is carried out in the normal mode.

BP Believes Oil Demand Will Peak Near 2030 As Shift To Renewables Accelerates - Global oil demand is expected to peak between the late 2020s and early 2030s as the Russian invasion of Ukraine is accelerating investment in clean energy and governments are looking to bolster energy security with higher shares of renewables in the energy mix, BP said on Monday.In one of the most closely-watched industry reports, the BP Energy Outlook 2023with projections through 2050 says that oil demand falls over the outlook in all three scenarios as use in road transportation declines.“Global oil demand plateaus over the next 10 years or so before declining over the rest of the outlook, driven in part by the falling use of oil in road transport as vehicles become more efficient and are increasingly fuelled by alternative energy sources,” BP said.In the “New Momentum” scenario, BP’s one of three scenarios in the outlook reflecting “the current broad trajectory” of energy systems, global oil demand remains close to the current 100 million bpd by the end of this decade and drops to around 93 million bpd in 2035. The “Accelerated” scenario projects oil demand at 91 million bpd in 2030 and 80 million bpd in 2035, while the “Net Zero” scenario sees demand dropping to 85 million bpd in 2030, and further down to 70 million bpd by 2035.The prospects for natural gas depend on the speed of the energy transition, according to BP’s outlook, which sees LNG trade growing in the near term, but the outlook becoming more uncertain after 2030.The scenarios in Outlook 2023 have been updated to take account of the war, as well as of the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States, BP’s chief economist Spencer Dale said.“Most importantly, the desire of countries to bolster their energy security by reducing their dependency on imported energy – dominated by fossil fuels – and instead have access to more domestically produced energy – much of which is likely to come from renewables and other non-fossil energy sources – suggests that the war is likely to accelerate the pace of the energy transition,” Dale said.

Here's Why Qatar Is About To Make A Big Move On Iraqi Oil & Gas - Prior to the unwitting boost that Russia’s ongoing failure in Ukraine has given the U.S., NATO, and Europe, Washington’s intentions regarding Iraq were mixed. On the one hand, the reasons why the U.S. invaded Iraq – to secure oil supplies that would lessen its reliance on Saudi Arabia, to control the centre ground in the Middle East, and to counteract Iran’s growing influence in Iraq and in the region – still stood. On the other, though, it had long been clear in Iraq, Afghanistan and indeed Saudi Arabia, among many others, that Islamic countries did not want an ongoing Western Christian presence in their countries. It may be that Qatar’s move to buy a 30 percent stake in four US$27 billion projects in Iraq that were set to be managed entirely by France’s TotalEnergies are in line with the U.S.’s new strategy for Baghdad.The four projects are essential to Iraq’s future as a truly independent country. The first of them is the completion of the Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP), which remains crucial in enabling Iraq to reach crude oil production targets of 7 million barrels per day (bpd), then 9 million bpd and perhaps even 12 million bpd, as analysed in depth in my last book on the global oil markets. The CSSP in its most basic iteration involves taking and treating seawater from the Persian Gulf and then transporting it via pipelines to oil production facilities to maintain pressure in oil reservoirs to optimise the longevity and output of fields. The long-delayed plan for the CSSP is that it will be used initially to supply around 6 million bpd of water to at least five southern Basra fields and one in Maysan Province, and then built out for use in other fields.The second of the projects is to collect and refine at a major processing plant the associated (with oil drilling) gas that is currently burned off at the five southern Iraq oilfields of West Qurna 2, Majnoon, Tuba, Luhais, and Artawi. Initial comments from Iraq’s Ministry of Oil highlighted that the plant is expected to produce 300 million cubic feet of gas per day (mcf/d) and double that after a second phase of development. Then-Iraqi Oil Minister, Ihsan Abdul Jabbar, also stated at the time the TotalEnergies deal was announced that the gas produced from this second project would also help Iraq to cut its gas imports from Iran, with the domestically produced gas being cheaper than the Iranian gas. Successfully capturing associated gas rather than flaring it would also allow Iraq to revive the also long-stalled US$11-billion Nebras petrochemicals project with Royal Dutch Shell. If Nebras went ahead it could be completed within five years and would generate estimated profits of up to US$100 billion for Iraq within its 35-year initial contract period.The third part of TotalEnergies’ four-pronged US$27 billion deal is aimed at boosting crude oil output from Iraq’s Artawi oil field to 210,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, up from the current circa-85,000 bpd. This project could lead TotalEnergies (and eventually) others to engage in similar crude oil production boosting projects across the country. The French oil and gas giant already has a 22.5 percent stake in the Halfaya oil field in Missan province in the south and an 18 percent stake in the Sarsang exploration block in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in the north. The last of the four projects to be undertaken by the French company will be the construction and operation of a 1,000-megawatt solar energy plant.The most obvious fit for Qatar into this array of projects would be in the gas project, given its expertise in the field and its role as the world’s top liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter. This is also the role that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has put it in the spotlight of the major Western powers as a substitute for lost Russian gas supplies. Qatar does not just have abundant volumes of gas, but it also has the ability in its LNG capabilities to move that gas more quickly and to more places than is possible for gas that is transported via pipelines. Currently Qatar has liquefaction capacity of around 77 million tonnes per year (mtpy), although it can and has produced more if required, and has plans to increase that to 126 mtpy by 2027. When the de facto leader of the European Union (EU) bloc, Germany, was wavering over whether to back the intended sanctions on Russian gas – gas constitutes around 27 percent of Germany’s energy mix and 55 percent of this came from Russia before the invasion of Ukraine – Qatar LNG supplies were used to plug a significant part of the short-term gap in supplies.

Oil activity boosted Oman’s economy by 30.4% in September 2022 | Arab News - Oman’s economy grew by 30.4 percent in September 2022 year-on-year, thanks to increased oil production, local media reported, citing figures issued by National Centre for Statistics and Information. The growth indicator — gross domestic product at current prices — increased to hit 32 billion Omani rial by the end of September 2022, compared to the same period a year before. The NCSI data reported that the increase was largely due to the high growth rate in Oman's oil activities which surged 72.5 percent year-on-year up until the end of September 2022. The data was derived from the first edition of the Quarterly National Accounts Indicators report issued by NCSI on Sunday. Manufacturing activities also added to GDP growth, having increased 65.6 percent by the end of the third quarter of last year compared to a year prior. Additionally, the NCSI report evaluated key indicators at current and constant prices, economic activities’ rates of growth, and other significant indicators lifting GDP within the period ending in September 2022. The west Asia sultanate, however, witnessed a contraction in construction activity which slowed by 2.2 percent at current prices during that period. Oman’s GDP at constant prices, on the other hand, recorded a rise of 4.5 percent to reach 26 billion Omani riyal in September, which was largely attributed to the 12 percent growth in oil activities. Service activities also contributed, increasing by 5 percent during that period. Oman's GDP had the second highest growth rate among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, according to the World Bank report Global Economic Prospects.

China Data: Fuel Oil Exports Fall 6% On Year To 18 Mil Mt In 2022 - China’s exports of both low and high sulfur fuel oil fell 6% year on year to total 18.04 million mt in 2022, according to data from the General Administration of Customs Jan. 28, as bunker demand in the downstream market declined. Exports rose 5% month on month but fell 5.6% on the year to 1.23 million mt in December 2022, the GAC data showed. All of the barrels exported in 2022 were classified under the customs warehouse trade route, suggesting that the volumes were sold as bonded bunker fuels at Chinese ports. The rise in fuel oil exports in December coincided with relatively firm bunker demand as some shipping companies still saw the northern Chinese ports as viable refueling alternatives when adverse weather conditions around the southern ports intermittently disrupted bunkering operations, traders said. A bearish economic outlook had also subdued freight activity, resulting in fewer container liners plying the US-China routes, according to local bunker suppliers. Total fuel oil imports fell 10.3% year on year to 12.23 million mt in 2022 while volumes used for bonded bunkering fell 15.5% on the year to total only 7.9 million mt, according to GAC data. Of the total imports recorded across 2022, volumes classified under the general trade route, which sources said were likely straight-run fuel oil feedstocks for China’s domestic refineries, rose 1.34% on the year to 4.33 million mt. Supplies from the UAE and Russia accounted for 25.6% and 25.4% of China’s total fuel oil import in 2022, up from 11.7% and 10.4%, respectively, in 2021. Total fuel oil imports in December rose to a 16-month high of 1.76 million mt, up 19.8% from November, the GAC data showed.

Why Middle East Producers Cut Prices In The Face Of Soaring Chinese Oil Demand - China is back, and even the most ardent skeptics of Beijing’s policy easing will be compelled to admit that there is great upside in global oil demand in 2023. China has been allocating huge export and import quotas, nudging its oil refiners as hard as possible. Against the background of US economic readings rising quicker than expected and increasing the likelihood of a soft landing, as well as of Europe soon implementing its import ban on Russian products, there are several bullish factors that should push oil prices higher, in fact much higher than they are right now. Add to this the biggest position-taking spree into oil since November 2020, with investors swinging enthusiastically into net long positions (in Brent the long-short ratio is already up at almost 6:1), one would ask themselves why are we not seeing a much more pronounced market reaction. The Middle East, arguably the largest benefactor of oil volatility in 2022, has been wondering exactly that. With there being no real upside to global supply and plentiful upside to global demand, why do we keep on cutting prices for several consecutive months already? Chart 1. Saudi Aramco’s Official Selling Prices for Asian Cargoes (vs Oman/Dubai average). Saudi Aramco found itself between a rock and a hard place when setting the February 2023 official selling prices. On the one hand, ever since the Russian oil price cap kicked in, Saudi Arabia was believed to be the main go-to nation to alleviate Europe’s need to find new sources of supply. Combined with the prospect of a returning China, this should have normally translated into more demand for Saudi crude. On the other hand, the market dynamics were once again shifting to the disadvantage of Riyadh as the Middle East’s key oil marker, the Dubai futures contract, saw a steep decrease in December with the cash-to-futures spread falling by $1.60 per barrel month-on-month. As a consequence, Saudi Aramco cut its formula prices for the third consecutive month, with Arab Light down by $1.45 per barrel compared to January, falling to the lowest level since November 2021, a mere $1.80 per barrel to the Oman/Dubai benchmark. Chart 2. Saudi Aramco’s Official Selling Prices for Northwest Europe-bound cargoes (vs ICE Brent). When pricing its grades into Asia, Aramco cut the lighter ones much more than the heavies, a trend that it also followed with its European prices where Arab Light was lowered by $1.40 per barrel, coming in at a -$1.50 per barrel discount to ICE Brent. In just six months since September 2022, the average formula price in Asia plummeted by $8 per barrel, whilst in Europe the decline was milder, only $5-6 per barrel. Just as Saudi Aramco finalized the merger of Aramco Trading and Motiva Trading, moving all of its trading activity under one umbrella, prices of US-bound cargoes continue to boggle the mind as the Saudi NOC rolled over the same prices for the fourth straight month. Hardly a surprise than exports to the United States are a mere quarter of what they were in early autumn, competing with late 2020 readings for the title of weakest flows on record with only three tankers departing towards the US this month.

OPEC oil production decline in January led by Iraq – PiPa News - OPEC oil production fell in January, a reuters The survey found on Tuesday, as Iraqi exports declined and Nigerian output did not improve further, while Gulf members maintained strong adherence to the OPEC+ production cut deal to support the market. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 28.87 million barrels per day (bpd), the survey found, down 50,000 bpd from December. OPEC output in September was the highest since 2020. OPEC+ producers raised output for most of 2022 due to improving demand. For November, the group cut production targets in 2020 by the biggest since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, with oil prices plunging. Its decision from November calls for a 2 million bpd cut in the OPEC+ output target, of which about 1.27 million bpd was to come from the 10 participating OPEC countries. The same goal currently applies. reuters The objective of the survey is to track the supply in the market. It is based on shipping data provided by external sources, Refinitiv Eikon flow data, information from flow tracking companies such as Petro-Logistics and Kpler, and information provided by sources such as oil companies, OPEC and consultants.

Despite sanctions, Iran’s oil output rises 140,000 bpd in 2022: EIA - Tehran Times --The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a recent report has put Iran’s average oil production in 2022 at 2.54 million barrels per day (bpd), 140,000 bpd more than the previous year. Iran's oil production in 2021 was about 2.4 million bpd. Based on the EIA report, dubbed “Short-term Energy Outlook”, the Islamic republic managed to produce 2.56 million bpd of crude oil on average in the last quarter of 2022. Iran's oil output stood at 2.58 million bpd in the last month of 2022, according to EIA data. Accordingly, Iran's oil production in December 2022 increased by 20,000 barrels compared to the previous month and by 130,000 barrels compared to the same period in 2021. In November 2022, Iran produced more than 2.56 million bpd of oil, and in December 2021 more than 2.45 million bpd. According to this report, OPEC oil production in December 2022 was about 28.93 million bpd, which has increased by 190,000 barrels per day compared to the previous month. In a previous report, EIA had put Iran’s oil revenues at about $34 billion in seven months to July 2022. The EIA figures showed that Iran's oil revenue in January-July was just $5 billion lower than the country's total crude sales in 2021. Based on the EIA report, Iran's average monthly income from oil sales in January-July has been $4.85 billion, 49 percent more than the average monthly income in the previous year which was $3.25 billion. Iran's oil revenue in the said seven months is twice the whole income in 2020, indicating that the impacts of the U.S. sanctions against Iran are weakening. Iran earned $17 billion in oil revenue in 2020 and $39 billion in 2021, and according to EIA, the Islamic Republic’s oil revenue will reach $58 billion in 2022. EIA put the total oil income of 13 OPEC members in the mentioned months at $500 billion.

Iranian Explosions- Implications And Impact On Oil - Overnight, the sky over Iran was lit up by at least two explosions targeting military production facilities: one in Isfahan and one in Tabriz. Whether the two explosions are connected remains unclear as the Isfahan target appears to have been an “ammunitions” factory and the explosion in Tabriz occurred at a motor oil factory. Some sources (here) suggest the list of targets hit might be larger and include the Headquarters of the IRGC and some other military targets. While no party has claimed direct responsibility for the explosions, Senior Ukrainian spokesperson Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted "War logic is inexorable & murderous. It bills the authors & accomplices strictly. Explosive night in Iran - drone & missile production, oil refineries. Did warn you."While drones can be launched from any platform without much infrastructure, it is worth noting that the most common Iranian suicide drones have a range of roughly 2500km and the distance between Kherson, Ukraine, and Isfahan, Iran, is approximately 2600km — so barely in tentative range.The regime in Teheran is, somewhat predictably, down-playing the impact of the explosions, noting of the Isfahan attack that one drone was shot down "and the other two were caught in defense traps and blew up. [The attack] caused only minor damage to the roof of a workshop building. There were no casualties."At the start of the Asian open, oil markets might be primed to price higher risks to oil supplies out of concern that: (i) Ukraine war might be spilling over into Middle East, (ii) Iran might seek retaliation in the region, or (iii) general unrest in oil producing countries is bad news for supply. As Iran seems to be downplaying the attacks and no clear culprit has been identified (despite Ukraine’s early response), any spike in oil prices could be driven initially by algorithmic trades immediately at the open and thus likely to fade as more information becomes available. Previous episodes of violence and explosions involving oil producing countries has led markets to price supply concerns. In somewhat comparable situations, such as Yemen’s missile strikes against Saudi Arabia for instance in March 2022, the oil price reaction function seemed driven in large part out of concern for escalation. In the current circumstances, three risk avenues could drive market concern:

• (i) Ukraine War Spill Over to Middle East - Spill-over risks from the war in Ukraine are real, with the risk-vector Iran stepping up its overt support for Russia, adding its military and industrial capabilities (such as they are) to that of Russia in the production of drones and missiles.
• (ii) Iranian Retaliation in the Region - Of concern to markets could be the increased risk of Iranian attempts to sabotage or derail the energy supply to Europe. Considering Saudi Arabia’s non-confrontational attitude toward Russia lately, an Iranian threat in retaliation against the Kingdom is not likely at this time. Energy transits however could be targeted if the regime feels particularly vulnerable due to this morning’s explosions.
• (iii) Elevated General Unrest in Oil Producing Countries - Markets generally respond poorly to upheaval in oil producing countries, especially when global demand is expected to respond to China’s reopening post Zero-Covid. These nebulous concerns are often short-lived though and price reactions fade.

OPEC+ committee recommends no change in oil output policy at virtual meeting --A technical committee of the influential OPEC+ oil producers' coalition has made no recommendation to change the group's existing production policy in its latest meeting, according to three delegates. The OPEC+ Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, which tracks the alliance's compliance with its output quota, convened digitally on Wednesday. The second OPEC+ technical group, the Joint Technical Committee that studies market fundamentals, canceled a virtual meeting originally scheduled for Jan. 31, according to a delegate. Neither committee can outright decide OPEC+ production policy, but the JMMC can recommend plans for the review of coalition ministers. The JMMC will next meet on April 3, one delegate said. The three delegates preferred to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. "The JMMC reaffirmed their commitment to the DoC which extends to the end of 2023 as agreed in the 33rd OPEC and Non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting (ONOMM) on 5th of October 2022, and urged all participating countries to achieve full conformity," an OPEC+ communique said. The DoC refers to the Declaration of Cooperation, or the OPEC+ accord. Three OPEC delegates had signaled to CNBC that the group would likely echo a ministerial December decision to roll over the production policy agreed in October. Under that provision, the group would nominally lower their production output quotas by 2 million barrels per day. Delivered cuts would sit below this figure, as actual production has long lagged output targets because of dwindling capacity, underinvestment and Western sanctions. Questions had risen whether prospective increases in Chinese demand — the world's largest crude oil importer, which is now softening the strict Covid-19 restrictions that lidded its purchases throughout most of last year — could push the producers' alliance to raise their output. "Global oil demand is set to rise by 1.9 mb/d in 2023, to a record 101.7 mb/d, with nearly half the gain from China following the lifting of its Covid restrictions," Paris-based energy watchdog the International Energy Agency said in its latest monthly Oil Market Report, released on Jan. 18. OPEC+ countries must closely watch the development of Beijing's demand, two delegates confirmed. OPEC+ producers are also following the demand impact of firm inflation rates — with the European Central Bank, Bank of England and the U.S. Federal Reserve set to decide their monetary policy this week — as well as access to sanctions-constricted Russian oil supplies. The IEA estimates that Russia's crude oil production eased from 9.8 million barrels per day in November to 9.77 million barrels per day in December, after EU sanctions implemented on Dec. 5 interdicted seaborne imports of Moscow's crude oil supplies. A second set of measures will replicate the ban on oil products imports and take effect on Feb. 5. Non-G7 countries may continue to benefit from Western financial and shipping services to take delivery of Russian crude oil, provided they make their purchases under a specified price level, now set at $60 per barrel. The plan was designed by the G-7 to retain supply into the global markets, while simultaneously diminishing Russian President Vladimir Putin's war coffers to sponsor Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia has so far not signaled any intention to request an exemption from its production quota and continues as OPEC+ co-chair alongside Saudi Arabia, two delegates said. OPEC+ has long taken a cautious approach in its decision-making, as it contends with market supply-demand fundamentals, pressure from international consumers to help ease the burden on households, and the need to incentivize further investment into spare capacity.

Investors have become super-bullish about oil: Kemp - Portfolio investors have piled into petroleum futures and options at the fastest rate since the first successful coronavirus vaccines were announced in late 2020. China’s exit from a zero-COVID strategy, along with hopes the global economy can avoid a recession and low oil inventories, have contributed to an extraordinary wave of buying across the petroleum complex. Hedge funds and other money managers purchased the equivalent of 232 million barrels in the six most important futures and options contracts over the six weeks ended Jan. 24. Purchases were the fastest for any six-week period since December 2020, according to an analysis of position records published by ICE Futures Europe and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In the most recent week, fund managers purchased the equivalent of 70 million barrels, mostly in Brent (+40 million) and to a much lesser extent NYMEX and ICE WTI (+4 million). But the wave of buying spread beyond crude to encompass U.S. gasoline (+11 million barrels), U.S. diesel (+8 million) and European gas oil (+7 million). Refinery shutdowns linked to seasonal maintenance as well as sanctions on Russia’s diesel exports are expected to deplete fuel inventories further. The net position across all six contracts climbed to 575 million barrels (47th percentile for all weeks since 2013), up from 343 million barrels (11th percentile) on Dec. 13. The net position is at highest since Nov. 8 and before that June 14. There was a strongly bullish orientation, with long positions outnumbering short ones by a ratio of 5.93:1 (80th percentile) up from 2.58:1 (23rd percentile) five weeks earlier. The most bullish ratios are concentrated in Brent (86th percentile), U.S. gasoline (85th percentile) and U.S. diesel (86th percentile), with less optimism about European gas oil (65th percentile) and WTI (41st percentile). Refinery maintenance in the United States is expected to deplete fuel inventories there but leave WTI prices trailing Brent, which probably explains the differential performance. Hedge funds became more bullish about Brent than at any time since May 2019, before the pandemic erupted and upended the oil industry. In the bond market, investors are increasingly confident inflation will moderate, allowing central banks to bring an early end to interest rate rises. In the oil market, investors are increasingly sure continued growth will cause supplies to tighten and send prices higher. But that would be inflationary – and contradicts to the benign outlook assumed by the bond market. Oil traders and bond traders cannot both be right.

Oil Flat Ahead of OPEC+ Meeting, Fed Rate Decision -- New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange swung between modest gains and losses early Monday as investors awaited key rate decisions from global central banks later this week, as well as the meeting among OPEC+ producers ahead of the EU embargo on Russian fuel exports. Russia plans to increase its diesel exports next month despite the EU ban on its fuel shipments and G-7 price cap that goes into full force on Feb. 5. Shipments of diesel fuel from Russia's key Baltic and Black Sea ports surged above 2.5 million tons in January, according to industry data, some 8% above December's flows as buyers scooped up volumes on fears over potential shortages later this year. Europe, in particular, is vulnerable to such disruptions as its energy market is structurally short on middle distillates and relies heavily on imports. As of early 2023, Europe still sourced 1/4 of its middle distillate supplies from Russia. Faced with this dilemma, the EU ministers, together with G-7 partners, are reportedly set to approve a higher price cap to import Russian diesel for third countries in an attempt to keep Russian diesel flowing to the market. The discussed price ceiling is somewhere in the range of $100 - $110 barrel (bbl). For context, diesel futures in northwest Europe are currently trading at about $130/bbl, according to ICE Futures Europe data. With Russian supplies already trading at a large discount from elsewhere, the impact of a $100/bbl price cap would not be as disruptive as previously feared. The blueprint for the price cap appears to follow similar measures already applied to Russian crude exports that have so far resulted in little interruption of Russian crude shipments. Some analysts, however, believe the price cap could still result in dislocations within the Russian refining sector that will lead to a large drop in its oil output later this year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration in its latest forecast estimated Russian oil production could fall as much as 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) because of the cumulative impact of the sanctions. Against this backdrop, OPEC+ ministers are set to meet on Wednesday for the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee to evaluate supply-demand balances on the global market. The group, which consists of 23 oil-producing countries, stuck to a production cut of 2 million bpd in December and has given little indication that the accord could be changed anytime soon. Near 7.30 a.m. EST, West Texas Intermediate futures for March delivery traded little changed near $79.70/bbl, and Brent March futures on ICE were near $86.70/bbl. NYMEX RBOB February contract dropped back $0.0149 to $2.5737 gallon, and front-month ULSD futures were unchanged near $3.2658 gallon.

Oil tumbles 2% as Putin lets Russian energy companies decide pricing, exports -- The official stance of the Kremlin is that it will not adhere to the West’s price caps on Russian oil. In reality though, President Vladimir Putin’s administration is allowing Russian oil companies to sell however many barrels at whatever price they can get. This effectively means the companies can apply any discounts necessary to transact oil in their hold, with the G7’s price cap already setting a barrel of Russian Urals at between $25 or $35 below the global crude benchmark Brent. Media headlines on Monday suggested disparities between Russian government policy and actual activity in the physical oil market. That drove crude prices lower again, after a dip on Friday that came on the back of a rally over two previous weeks. New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude for March settled down $1.78, or 2.2%, at $77.90 per barrel after a session low at $77.75. London-traded Brent crude for March delivery settled down $1.76, or 2%, at $84.90 per barrel. The session bottom was $84.33. The slide came after the Russian government maintained that it “forbids oil exports that adhere to Western price caps,” according to a headline from Reuters. That was, however, followed by two other news bulletins that said that “the Russian government has charged oil companies with overseeing contract wording” and that “the Russian government has not set a floor price for oil exports.” “Decoded, the three messages mean the Russian government’s grandstanding against the West’s price caps remains, while it has opened the backdoor for its oil companies to do whatever is necessary to get their oil moving on the market,” Since the G-7 price cap of $60 on a barrel of Russian oil came into force on Dec. 5, it has added to the woes of OPEC+ in trying to rally a market already depressed by mixed signals over demand from top importer China and fears of an impending recession in the United States and Europe. While the Putin administration has publicly balked at the G7 price cap, it hasn’t really been able to fight it. And because they’re getting less money for their oil now, the Russians are also shipping out more barrels these days than the Saudis wish them to. And those barrels are primarily going to two destinations — India and China, which are the only two nations the United States allows to buy sanctioned Russian oil without questions. The increased exports from Russia are not only messing up OPEC+’s aim of keeping production tight but also hurting the Saudis as India and China were also the largest markets in Asia for Riyadh’s state oil company Saudi Aramco. India bought an average of 1.2 million barrels of Russian Urals a day in December, which was 33 times more than a year earlier and 29% more than in November. Discounts for Urals at Russia's western ports for sale to India under some deals widened to $32-$35 per barrel when freight wasn’t included, according to a Reuters report from Dec. 14. Another Reuters report said China paid the deepest discounts in months for Russian ESPO crude oil in December, amid weak demand and poor refining margins. ESPO is a grade exported from the Russian Far East port of Kozmino and Chinese refiners are dominant clients for this. If that wasn’t enough, a Reuters report from last Friday said Russia’s oil loadings from its Baltic ports were set to rise by 50% in January from December levels. Russia loaded 4.7M tonnes of Urals and KEBCO from Baltic ports in December. The January surge comes as sellers try to meet strong demand in Asia and benefit from rising global energy prices, the report said. The Saudis, on their part, have slashed pricing on their own Arab Light crude to Asia to try and stay competitive amid the ruthless undercutting by the Russians — who are supposed to be their closest ally within OPEC+. Separately, the Kremlin said in a statement on Monday that Putin held a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman earlier in the day "to discuss cooperation within the OPEC+ group of oil producing countries in order to maintain oil price stability", Reuters reported. No details were given. The G7 will have two more price caps coming into force on Feb. 5 on refined oil products out of Russia. No one knows what effect those will have on the Kremlin.

Oil, Equities Slide as Markets Eye Hawkish Central Banks -- New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange continued lower early Tuesday as the U.S. Dollar Index advanced for the third straight session with investors positioning ahead of policy meetings by the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee and European Central Bank where officials are expected to signal more rate hikes for 2023 amid signs of reacceleration in fuel costs and a tight labor market in the United States. The Federal Reserve is widely expected to dial back the size of rate increases to 0.25% on Wednesday, bringing the federal funds rates to a target range between 4.5% and 4.75%. Despite the downshift, the Fed is unlikely to depart from its hawkish message of "higher interest rates for longer," defying expectations for an imminent pivot. Officials at the central bank have repeatedly pounded the message that they see interest rates rising above 5% this year and staying there until 2024, stressing the need to do more work to tame prices. Recent economic data supports this view. The U.S. labor market barely budged last year under pressure from rising interest rates, with the national unemployment rate remaining near its historic low of 3.5% and high-frequency jobless claims continuing to fall. Even as headline inflation eased from its midsummer peak of 9.1% to the current 6.5%, it is still way above the Fed's 2% target. The reopening of the Chinese economy, a potential spike in oil prices and the ongoing war in the Ukraine all could lead to a re-acceleration of inflationary pressures. The double-edged risk of a tight labor market and potential for higher oil prices is the reason why the Fed will continue delivering a hawkish message until there is clear evidence inflation is indeed on track toward the 2% target. A growing number of investment banks are now reassessing their outlook on how aggressive the Federal Reserve would be this year. "We expect that a hike this week will be followed by two additional 25 basis points hikes in March and May, which would raise the target range for the funds rate to a peak of 5-5.25%," said David Mericle, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs. A stronger U.S. dollar this morning follows the slow shift in these expectations, with the greenback gaining 0.14% to 102.230 in index trading against foreign currencies, while weighing on the front-month West Texas Intermediate contract. WTI for March delivery declined $0.81 to $77.10 barrel (bbl) -- the lowest since Jan. 11, and the international crude benchmark Brent dropped $0.61 to $84.29/bbl. NYMEX RBOB February contract declined $0.0246 to $2.4743 gallon, and front-month ULSD futures plummeted $0.0329 to $3.0779 gallon.

Oil prices settle steady on higher U.S. demand, weaker dollar -Oil prices closed steady on Tuesday after recovering from a near three-week low, drawing support from a weakening dollar and on data showing that demand for U.S. crude and petroleum products rose in November. The more active second-month Brent contract settled at $85.46 a barrel, up 96 cents or 1%, while the U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled at $78.87 a barrel, up 97 cents or 1.3%. More volatility on the day of expiration kept the front-month contract under pressure as traders closed positions. The front-month contract settled at $84.49 a barrel, down 41 cents. During the session, front-month Brent and WTI futures touched their lowest in almost three weeks as traders worried about prospects for further interest rate increases and abundant flows of Russian crude. The Brent April futures and U.S. front-month WTI gained after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that demand for U.S. crude and petroleum products rose 178,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November to 20.59 million bpd, the highest since August. Crude benchmarks were also supported by a weaker U.S. dollar, This makes dollar-denominated crude cheaper for foreign buyers. The dollar index turned negative after U.S. data showed labour costs increased at their slowest pace in a year in the fourth quarter as wage growth slowed, bolstering expectations of the Fed slowing its interest rate increases. Investors expect the Fed to raise rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday, with increases of half a percentage point by the Bank of England and European Central Bank the following day. An OPEC panel is likely to recommend keeping the group's output policy unchanged when it meets on Wednesday, delegates told Reuters on Monday. However, Tuesday's weakness in front-month Brent prices may cause concern in the group. This widened the contango in the market, which occurs when futures prices show a commodity's price is expected to be much higher in the future. A Reuters survey shows 49 economists and analysts expect Brent crude to average more than $90 a barrel this year, the first upward revision since a poll in October, with gains likely driven by demand from top consumer China. Separately, U.S. crude oil stockpiles are likely to have risen last week, a Reuters poll showed ahead of an American Petroleum Institute report due at 4:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

Oil Prices Set To Climb On Rumors That The Fed Will Stop Hiking Interest Rates - Traders expect the Federal Reserve to end its rate hikes in two months, which could push oil prices higher due to the generally inverse relationship between rates and oil prices.According to a Reuters report, the Fed might end its rate-hike policy as soon as March, as economic indicators suggest inflation is slowing down and getting under control. What’s more, the Fed is set to announce another hike in benchmark rates this week but it may be lower than previous ones, at 25 basis points.Oil prices climbed last week on the positive economic data coming out of the United States, although Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that a soft landing was far from certain and there was still a danger of recession.Coupled with expectations for a rebound in oil demand in China, a lower rate hike and any other indication that the Fed may be preparing for a wind-down of its aggressive inflation control measures could lend additional upward potential to oil prices.There has also been added support for prices from the reported drone attacks on targets in Iran, suggesting a possible escalation in Middle Eastern tensions. The reports pushed oil prices higher in morning trade in Asia today, although prices have since fallen back.Some stability could come from the OPEC+ meeting this week as there are no expectations of any tweaks to the current policy of the extended cartel, with many members still unable to fulfill their production quotas even with their reduction last year.China remains the biggest bullish factor for oil prices, however, especially after the government in Beijing said over the weekend it would aim to stimulate consumption as a means of boosting economic growth after the lockdowns.Uncertainty remains, however. “We have Russia on the supply side and China on the demand side. Both can swing by more than 1 million barrels per day above or below expectation,” one investment manager told CNBC.“China seems to have surprised the market in terms of how fast they are coming out of zero Covid while Russia has surprised in terms of resilience of export volume despite the sanctions,” Stefano Grasso said.

WTI Holds Gains After API Reports Across-The-Board Inventory Builds - Oil prices rallied on the day, with WTI rebounding back above $79 as factors ranging from the end of the Fed’s (dovish) rate increases to swelling demand in China give bulls more ammunition."The main driver for oil lately has been the potential for a resurgence of oil demand out of China, which may continue into February considering how Chinese economic momentum picked up in the overnight PMI reports," said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at SIA Wealth Management. The nationwide 'deep freeze' has clearly been impacting the inventory data over the last few weeks. We suspect today could be the first 'clean' indication... API

• Crude +6.33mm (-1mm exp)
• Cushing +2.72mm
• Gasoline +2.73mm
• Distillates +1.53mm

Crude inventories built for a 5th straight week (despite expectations for a small draw) with Cushing stocks soaring once again. On the product side, we also saw notable builds (with Distillates biggest rise since the first week of December)...

WTI Extends Losses After Across-The-Board Inventory Builds - Graphs: Bloomberg - Oil prices were weaker this morning following weak Manufacturing data and a poor ADP jobs report, and following last night's across-the-board builds reported by API. Additionally, OPEC+ committee recommended keeping crude production steady as the oil market awaits clarity on demand in China and supplies from Russia. “Everyone agrees that the situation is quite stable on the market,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who represents the country at OPEC+ meetings, told the Rossiya 24 TV channel.“Of course, we see a large number of uncertainties” ranging from inflation and interest rates to Chinese demand. The nationwide 'deep freeze' has clearly been impacting the inventory data over the last few weeks. We suspect today could be the first 'clean' indication, but last night's API data suggests it may not be over (or we have a serious demand dry up)... DOE

• Crude +4.14mm (-1mm exp)
• Cushing +2.315mm
• Gasoline +2.576mm
• Distillates +2.32mm

The official EIA data confirmed API's report of a major crude inventory build last week (the sixth straight weekly build). Cushing stocks rose for the 5th straight week and Distillates saw the largest build since early December... With no crude withdrawn from, or put into, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a second week, the overall nationwide crude build was all in commercial inventories...

Oil Dives $3 After U.S. EIA Reports Big Builds in U.S. Crude, Fuel Stocks (Reuters) -Oil prices settled lower on Wednesday after sliding more than $3 a barrel in the session after U.S. government data showed big builds in crude oil, gasoline and distillate inventories and OPEC and its allies stuck to their output policy. Brent crude futures settled down $2.62, or 3.1%, at $82.84 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) U.S. crude futures fell $2.46, or 3.1% to settle at $76.41. U.S. crude oil and fuel inventories rose last week to their highest levels since June 2021, the Energy Information Administration said, as demand remained weak. Crude inventories climbed 4.1 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 27 to 452.7 million barrels, much steeper than the 0.4 million barrel rise that analysts had forecast in a Reuters poll. It was the sixth straight weekly build, as refining utilization declined and net imports climbed. "The market is reacting to the report that indicates there isn't demand for crude oil or fuels," The Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, yet continued to promise "ongoing increases" in borrowing costs as part of its still unresolved battle against inflation. "Inflation has eased somewhat but remains elevated," the U.S. central bank said in a statement that marked an explicit acknowledgement of the progress made in lowering the pace of price increases from the 40-year highs hit last year. The U.S. dollar last fell 0.9% on the day against a basket of currencies at 101.19. Ministers from the OPEC+ producer group comprising the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia kept their output policy unchanged on Wednesday. OPEC's oil output fell in January, as Iraqi exports dropped and Nigerian output did not recover, with the 10 OPEC members pumping 920,000 barrels per day (bpd) below OPEC+ targeted volumes, a Reuters survey found. The shortfall was bigger than the 780,000 bpd deficit in December. Elsewhere, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister said he expected oil demand to rise on the back of Chinese economic activity.

OPEC+'s Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee Recommended Making No Changes to its Output Policy - The oil market posted an outside trading day on Wednesday, trading to its high in overnight trading ahead of the OPEC+ meeting and EIA inventory report before it gave up all of its gains in afternoon trading. The market breached its previous high and rallied to a high of $79.73 and traded back within Tuesday’s trading range following the news that OPEC+’s Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee recommended making no changes to its output policy during its meeting. The market however later continued to trend lower after the EIA reported across the board builds in U.S. inventories of crude oil and oil products and an unexpected decline in refinery capacity utilization. U.S. crude oil stocks increased for a sixth consecutive week, increasing over 450 million barrels for the first time since June 2021, amid subdued refining capacity and increased imports. The crude market, breached its support at its previous low and 62% retracement level of $76.53 as it sold off to a low of $76.05 in afternoon trading ahead of the Fed’s interest rate decision. The market later settled in a sideways trading range, remaining in negative territory after the Federal Reserve announced a quarter percentage point interest rate increase as expected. The March WTI settled at a three-week low, down $2.46 or 3.12% at $76.41. Meanwhile, the April Brent contract settled down $2.62 or 3.1% at $82.84. The product markets ended sharply lower, with the heating oil market settling down 19.37 at $2.9511 and the RB market settling down 11.3 cents at $2.4538. An OPEC+ panel endorsed the oil producer group's current output policy at a meeting on Wednesday, leaving production cuts agreed last year in place amid hopes of higher Chinese demand and uncertain prospects for Russian supply. Ministers from OPEC+ countries on the panel, called the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, reviewed production figures and "reaffirmed their commitment" to the OPEC+ accord that runs to the end of 2023. A source said the message was OPEC+ is staying the course until the end of the agreement and the group was on "mute mode". Other OPEC+ sources said the ministers did not discuss the prospects for Chinese demand and supply from Russia. OPEC+ agreed to cut its production target by 2 million bpd or about 2% of world demand, from November last year until the end of 2023 to support the market. The committee will meet again in April. U.S. exports of light sweet crude to China increased to a five-month high, as the world's largest crude importer increased refining and as Europe's demand eased. Matt Smith, lead oil analyst for the Americas at data and analytics firm Kpler, said cargoes of U.S. light sweet crude bound for China increased last month to about 187,000 bpd, the highest since August. Those exports are expected to tighten global supply of light sweet crude, while prices for WTI Midland have strengthened. IIR Energy said U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 1,787,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending February 3rd, decreasing available refining capacity by 63,000 bpd. Offline capacity is expected to fall to 1,570,000 bpd in the week ending February 10th.

Oil prices increase with weaker US dollar - Oil prices rose on Thursday as the US dollar fell and OPEC+ decided to maintain its current production policy. International benchmark Brent crude traded at $83.38 per barrel at 9.08 a.m. local time (0608 GMT), a 0.65% increase from the closing price of $82.84 a barrel in the previous trading session. The American benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at $76.97 per barrel at the same time, a 0.73% gain after the previous session closed at $76.41 a barrel. In an effort to combat inflation, the US Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points on Wednesday. Oil prices, which had been falling ahead of the Fed's interest rate decision, began to rise following the decision and the speech of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Powell stated that cutting interest rates this year would be inappropriate if the economy generally performed in line with expectations, and he expects economic growth to continue, albeit at a slower pace. On expectations of softer rate hikes in the US, the US dollar index fell to nine-month lows. The decline in the value of the US dollar aided higher oil prices by encouraging traders to use other currencies. A weaker dollar further fuels strong demand in the global oil market. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies, known as OPEC+, agreed to adhere to cutting oil output by 2 million barrels per day until the end of 2023. The decision came at the group's 47th Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) videoconference meeting. The group’s next ministerial meeting is scheduled for April 3. Meanwhile, US commercial crude oil inventories increased by 4.1 million barrels during the week ending Jan. 27, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) late Wednesday. Inventories rose to 452.7 million barrels, against the market expectation of a decrease of around 1 million barrels.

Oil Eases as USD regains Momentum as ECB, BOE Signal Pause -- New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange declined for the second session on Thursday, dragged lower by building crude inventories domestically amid signs of recession in manufacturing, and a firmer U.S. dollar index that bounced off a seven-month low in afternoon trading. Greenback's move higher came on the back of expectations for global central banks to soften the path of interest rate increases this year as they assess incoming data on inflation and the labor market. Aside from the Federal Reserve raising interest rates for the eighth consecutive meeting this week, European Central Bank, Bank of England, and Bank of Canada lifted their lending rates to the highest level in almost two decades. However, it was their forward guidance that caught the attention of markets. The Bank of Canada became the first G10 central bank to signal a pause in monetary tightening amid signs of a sharp slowdown in economic activity. "There is growing evidence that restrictive monetary policy is slowing activity, especially household spending," the BoC, led by Governor Tiff Macklem, said in a statement on Wednesday. The BOE, led by Governor Andrew Bailey, announced on Thursday a larger 50-point increase in its lending rate but said further rises would only be needed if there were new signs that inflation is reaccelerating. Finally, the ECB confirmed expectations for a 50-basis point increase on Thursday, adding that "there are signs that inflation is abating." Eurozone inflation fell for the third straight month in January, flash figures published Wednesday showed, but headline inflation remained high at 8.5%. Core inflation, which excludes energy and food, was flat at 5.2%. In the United States, inflation eased from an early summer peak of 9.1% annual rise to 6.5% currently, but much of that decrease came from the energy and goods sectors, leaving a large chunk of the service-oriented economy still mired in high prices. "Disinflationary process is really in its early stage. You have a credible story in goods and housing. The issue is that we have a large core service sector where we don't have a disinflation yet," noted Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in a news conference Wednesday afternoon. U.S. manufacturing is already in recession based on the latest monthly report from the Institute for Supply Management released Wednesday, with the headline index slipping to its lowest level since the first wave of the pandemic in March and April 2020 and before that the recession in June 2009. In contrast, services PMIs fell into contraction for the first time in 2-1/2 years last month, meaning recession that is well under way in manufacturing has only begun to affect services. . At settlement, West Texas Intermediate futures for March delivery declined $0.53 bbl to $75.88 bbl. International crude benchmark Brent contract fell $0.67 to $82.17 bbl. NYMEX RBOB March contract slipped to $2.4523 gallon and March ULSD futures dropped back $0.0544 to $2.8967 gallon

Oil falls as strong U.S. jobs data prompt interest rate concerns - Oil prices fell on Friday in a volatile session, after strong U.S. jobs data raised concerns about higher interest rates and as investors sought more clarity on the imminent EU embargo on Russian refined products. Brent crude futures fell $2.43, or 3%, to $79.74 a barrel, after rising to a session high of $84.20. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down $2.66, or 3.4%, at $73.22, having earlier risen to $78.00 per barrel. U.S. job growth accelerated sharply in January amid a persistently resilient labor market, but a further moderation in wage gains should give the Federal Reserve some comfort in its fight against inflation. "The market can't decide whether it should be nervous about a recession or more worried about the Federal Reserve being aggressive with interest rates," The U.S. central bank on Wednesday scaled back to a milder rate increase than those over the past year, but policymakers also projected that "ongoing increases" in borrowing costs would be needed. Increases in interest rates in 2023 are likely to weigh on the U.S. and European economies, boosting fears of an economic slowdown that is highly likely to dent global crude oil demand. Investors are eyeing developments on the Feb. 5 European Union ban on Russian refined products, with member countries seeking a deal on Friday to set price caps for Russian oil products. The Kremlin said on Friday that the EU embargo on Russia's refined oil products would lead to further imbalance in global energy markets. "The exact details around what the cap will be and how they will implement it are still unclear," "There hasn't been any data out of China to indicate the extent of the recovery in China's crude demand." ANZ analysts noted a sharp jump in traffic in China's 15 largest cities after the Lunar New Year holiday but said that Chinese traders had been "relatively absent".

Oil down 7% on week as dollar rockets on U.S. jobs report - Crude prices tumbled 7% on the week, taking global benchmark Brent to below $80 per barrel while bringing WTI, or the U.S. West Texas Intermediate, to the low $70s after a sterling U.S. jobs report for January bumped up the dollar, weighing on commodities. Some 517,000 jobs were added last month, the Labor Department’s NFP, or nonfarm payrolls, report said. That was almost three times above the forecast growth of 188,000 and against December’s revised NFP number of 260,000. The outperformance threw a fresh challenge to the Federal Reserve, which had been hoping its aggressive rate hikes over the past year would have sufficiently cooled the labor market and wages to get inflation back to its target. New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude for March settled down $2.49, or 3.2%, at $73.39 a barrel as the dollar’s resurgence on the same jobs report put paid to crude’s initial advance on the data. By midmorning, oil capsized in a sea of red with gold and other raw materials as the dollar’s rebound from 10-month lows made commodities priced in the U.S. currency costlier for non-dollar holders. For the week, the U.S. crude benchmark was down by just over 7.5%, opening a fresh gash on oil market sentiment for February, after the drop of nearly 3% in the final week of January. Month-to-date, WTI was down about 7%, extending its near 9% slide over three previous months. London-traded Brent crude for March delivery settled down $2.23, or 2.7%, at $79.94 a barrel, after a three-week low at $79.89. For the week, the global crude benchmark was down about 7.5%, after last week’s near 3% loss. For February thus far, Brent has lost 5.4%, extending its compounded 6.5% slide for January and December. The Dollar Index and yields on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note, which act as contra trades against risk assets that include stocks and commodities, surged and could continue rising if the Fed rethinks its plan about further consolidating rate hikes this year. The central bank went from a 50-basis point rate hike in December to 25-basis points in February. As though sensing a tougher challenge for this year, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a news conference on Wednesday that while the pace of job gains had slowed late last year, “the labor market continues to be out of balance”. The Fed has increased rates by 450 basis points in a monetary tightening cycle that began in March 2022, two years after the coronavirus outbreak, which led to trillions of dollars in relief spending that pumped up the economy and triggered runaway inflation. Oil prices have been on the back foot since a sixth straight weekly build in U.S. crude, along with surpluses in fuel, reported by the EIA, or Energy Information Administration, this week. U.S. crude inventories, meanwhile, rose by 4.14 million barrels during the week ended Jan. 27, the EIA said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report. The build was above the 0.376M forecast by industry analysts and compared with the rise of 0.533M reported by the EIA during the previous week to Jan 20. For context, the EIA has reported a total crude build of 34.5M barrels over the past six weeks. At current standing, crude stockpiles are at the highest since June 2021, said the EIA, the statistical arm of the U.S. Energy Department. On the gasoline inventory front, the EIA cited a build of 2.576M barrels, versus the forecast of 1.442M and the previous week’s rise of 1.763M. Gasoline inventories have gone up by almost 13M barrels since 2023 began. Distillates stockpiles also rose, for the first time in five weeks. Here, there was a build of 2.32M barrels versus the expected deficit of 1.3M. In the previous week, distillate draws stood at 507,000 barrels. Until last week, distillates, which are refined into heating oil, diesel for trucks, buses, trains, and ships, and fuel for jets, were the strongest component of the U.S. petroleum complex in terms of demand. Prior to the build in the latest week, distillate stockpiles had fallen by around 5M barrels over four weeks. Also weighing on the market were uncertainties over how well demand from China would fare in February, more than a month after the top crude importer abandoned all COVID restrictions. On China’s side, crude imports were assessed at 10.98M bpd, or barrels per day, in January, down from December's 11.37M bpd and November's 11.42M bpd, a Reuters report said Thursday.

Attack on Kherson port causes oil products leakage into Dnipro river -A recent Russian attack on Kherson seaport has resulted in leakage of oil products into the Dnipro river. Quote: “Recently, the Russian army attacked the port of Kherson. Two ships belonging to foreign companies were damaged due to enemy shelling. A Russian projectile pierced the hull and fuel storage area of one of the ships. Because of this, oil products leaked into the Dnipro.” Details: At the moment, the ship’s crew managed to localise the spill of oil products, the Kherson Oblast Military Administration added.

Iran, Russia Integrate Banking Systems To Bypass Sanctions - A top Iranian official announced this week that Iran and Russia had integrated their interbank communication and transfer systems to help enhance trade and financial operations in an effort to bypass strict economic sanctions on their financial infrastructure.With the signing of the agreement, 52 Iranian and 106 Russian banks are connected through the Russian Financial Message Transfer System, which will facilitate economic relations between the two countries, said Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Mohsen Karimi. "This system is immune to sanctions as it is based on the infrastructures of both countries," Karimi said, according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.The global consortium SWIFT, the world leader in secure financial messaging services, excluded Iranian banks from its system following the reimposition of economic sanctions by the United States on Iran in 2018.As a result of that suspension of services, the Iranian banking system is disconnected from the international one, making banking transactions with other countries difficult. Russia was partially excluded from SWIFT last year due to its invasion of UkraineWhile economic relations between the two countries have grown to 4 billion in recent years, Tehran has sold drones to Russia, which it has used in its invasion of Ukraine.Official trips between the two countries have also multiplied in recent months, with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visiting Russia in January 2022 and Iranian Foreign Minister Hosein Amir Abdolahian making two trips to the Russian capital in less than a year.

Video evidence shows of escalating crackdown on Iranian protests - Four months into Iran’s uprising, protesters are still in the streets. Authorities are still answering with violence and intimidation.Nowhere is this bloody stalemate more evident than in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which endured the single deadliest government crackdown on protesters in late September and is now the site of weekly demonstrations after Friday prayers.Video posted to social media on Jan. 20 shows a large group of protesters in Zahedan, Iran, who continue to protest every Friday after prayers. (Video: Haalvsh/Telegram)The Washington Post analyzed more than 100 videos and photographs, interviewed eyewitnesses and human rights observers, and reviewed data collected by conflict monitoring groups over 17 weeks of protests — to better understand the intensity and sophistication of the government crackdown, and the persistence of the protesters.Visual evidence shows with new clarity how security forces are operating in the region, as Iran’s feared Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) works in tandem with riot police and plainclothes agents to violently suppress demonstrations — carrying out arbitrary arrests, indiscriminate beatings and, in some cases, opening fire on civilians.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has called protesters “traitors,” accused them of “rioting,” and blamed the United States and Israel for instigating the unrest. A spokesman for Iran’s United Nations mission in New York did not respond to a request for comment on this story.The majority of the population in the province is ethnic Baluch, a predominantly Sunni minority that has faced neglect and discrimination for decades at the hands of Tehran’s theocratic Shiite government. But the resilience and desperation here speak to the enduring power of the nationwide protest movement, which began in mid-September after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s “morality police.”“We have no future, no hope,” one protester told The Post. “Life has become so difficult, we think to ourselves even if we get killed here maybe there will be a better future for our children tomorrow.”

Iran-Azerbaijan Relations Under Stress Following Embassy Attack -A gunman stormed the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran on January 27, killing one guard and wounding two others. Iran said the attack was motivated by personal reasons, but Baku described it as a “terrorist attack.”The incident led Azerbaijan to temporarily suspend its operations at its embassy in Tehran and evacuate its staff from the country. Iranian media said the attacker, who was arrested, was an Iranian man married to an Azerbaijani woman. The attacker was quoted as saying that his wife disappeared after entering the Azerbaijani Embassy. The incident has further strained relations between the neighbors, who have a history of tensions. Azerbaijan has long been suspicious of Iran’s ties with Armenia, Baku’s archenemy. Meanwhile, Tehran has increasingly expressed concern about Azerbaijan’s deepening relations with Israel, Tehran’s regional foe. Earlier this month, Baku appointed its first-ever ambassador to Israel, which is a major arms supplier to Azerbaijan.Azerbaijan has also long complained of Iran’s alleged mistreatment of its sizable ethnic Azeri minority. Tehran has accused Baku of fomenting separatist sentiment in the Islamic republic.Analyst Habib Hosseinifard told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that the embassy attack has led to an “overflow” of tensions. “Iran claims some of Israel’s actions against the country are organized from inside Azerbaijan. In addition, Iran also accuses Azerbaijan of inciting the country’s Azeri minority, while Baku accuses Tehran of strengthening extremist Shi’ite groups inside Azerbaijan. All of these have increased tensions, particularly in the past two years,” he said. Since the embassy attack, Iran has attempted to ease tensions with Azerbaijan. But Baku appears to have upped the ante by announcing on January 31 the arrests of what it said were seven members of an Iranian spy network in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov said in a January 31 statement that “suspension of a diplomatic mission’s operations in any country is a serious matter" and that Baku has let Tehran know that "we do not trust Iran with respect to ensuring the security of our embassy’s employees.”The statement came days after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in a phone call that “the governments of Iran and Azerbaijan will not allow bilateral relations to be affected by the suggestions of those who wish ill on the two nations,” according to the Iranian government’s website.

China Plans To Sell Lethal Blowfish Drones To Taliban: Report -Following two major recent terrorist attacks which targeted Chinese nationals in Kabul, the Chinese government is desperately appealing to the Taliban to provide better security protection for its citizens in Afghanistan. The past week has seen multiple reports emerge saying that Beijing is even offering the Taliban advanced weaponry in order to bolster counter-terror efforts in the capital. The US national security website 19fortyfive writes that "Rather than subsidize education or develop the country, it now appears that the Taliban will use its limited cash to purchase or otherwise acquire Blowfish drones from China."The source describes the China-produced drones as follows: The Blowfish is a potentially devastating platform. The mini-helicopter can fire machine guns, launch mortars, and throw grenades. Artificial Intelligence imbues them with the ability to determine who lives and who dies on the battlefield with minimal human input. The Pentagon has already expressed fears that Blowfish exported to the Middle East could end up in the wrong hands.

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians across West Bank as escalation looms — A Palestinian man was killed near a settlement in the West Bank overnight Saturday, and Israeli settlers carried out dozens of attacks targeting Palestinians across the occupied territory, according to Palestinian media and officials, as violence showed no sign of abating on the eve of a trip to the region by America’s top diplomat.The Israeli army said that the Palestinian man killed late Saturday was seen outside Kdumim, a settlement in the northern West Bank, “armed with a handgun … and was neutralized by the community’s civilian security team.” Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, identified the man as Karam Ali Salman, 18, a resident of Qusin village, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The report said he was fatally shot by an armed Israeli settler in circumstances that remained “unclear.” Wafa said at least 144 Israeli settler attacks — some minor rock-throwing incidents, others much more violent — were reported on Saturday across the West Bank, the occupied territory that Palestinians envision as part of their future state. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities on Sunday began demolishing Palestinian homes in retaliation for Friday’s synagogue shooting and pledged an expansion of West Bank settlements, which could further inflame an already volatile situation. In Masafer Yatta, in the south, settlers assaulted a Palestinian man; in two villages near Ramallah, masked attackers torched a house and a car and threw stones; in Nablus, settlers uprooted nearly 200 trees.Outside the northern village of Akraba, dozens of settlers established a new, unauthorized outpost. They attacked the Palestinian landowners who arrived at the scene, then injured a medic who came to assist, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. The Israeli military did not intervene, the report added.There has been an “unprecedented increase in the frequency of terror attacks against Palestinian citizens and their property,” said Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official.Early Sunday, Israeli security forces blocked access to the family home of the Palestinian gunman who killed seven people outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem on Friday night, sealing doors and windows. Authorities promised that the house would soon be demolished.The shooter, who was killed at the scene, has been identified as 21-year-old Khairi Alqam. Alqam was named after his grandfather, who was fatally stabbed in 1998, allegedly by a Jewish attacker who was arrested but never charged with the crime, the Israeli news site Ynet reported.

Ukraine latest: Moscow continues Donetsk offensive - Bakhmut came under renewed fire as did Klishchiivka and Kurdyumivka, villages on the southern approaches to Bakhmut, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement on Tuesday night. Weeks of relentless pounding of Bakhmut have been similar to the drive by Russian forces to capture two cities further north - Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk - in June and July. * Russian forces made no headway in attempts to advance on Avdiivka, the second focal point of Russian attacks in Donetsk region, Kyiv's military general staff said. Russian forces also tried to advance near Lyman, a town further north that was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in October, the military said. * Russia was reaching further west in Donetsk by firing on the town of Vuhledar and a half dozen other towns and villages, the Ukraine military said. Vuhledar is about 148 km (90 miles) away from the main fighting in and around Bakhmut. * In an unusually detailed intelligence update, the British defence ministry said Russian forces had advanced hundreds of metres across a river toward Vuhledar and could make more localised gains there. It said the assault was unlikely to lead to a significant breakthrough, but could be intended to draw Ukrainian efforts away from defending Bakhmut.

NATO sends over 120 battle tanks to Ukraine in “first wave” - Twelve NATO countries have pledged to send between 120 and 140 modern main battle tanks to Ukraine, in what Ukrainian Defense Minister Dmytro Kuleba said was the “first wave” of tank deliveries, with more to come. “The tank coalition now has 12 members,” Kuleba said Tuesday in an online briefing. “I can note that in the first wave of contributions, the Ukrainian armed forces will receive between 120 and 140 Western-model tanks.” The announcements make Ukraine, at least on paper, one of the most powerful militaries in the world, on par with the tank capability of some of the major NATO powers. The UK maintains 158 Challenger 2 main battle tanks on active duty, while France operates 222 Leclerc main battle tanks. Last year, Ukrainian officials called on NATO members to provide it with 300 main battle tanks. At the time, this was seen as an enormous number even among defenders of the war. But with weapons surging into the country, it is likely to be the lower bound. The figure of 140 tanks does not take into account the hundreds of tracked armored personnel carriers already in or heading to the country. Last week, the Pentagon announced that 60 Bradley fighting vehicles had shipped from South Carolina, and that the vehicles are arriving in Europe this week. But even the massive quantities of weapons streaming into Ukraine are only a down payment. Reuters reported that the White House will announce a further $2 billion worth of weapons shipments to Ukraine, including a long-range missile capable of striking over 100 miles. The weapons system, known as the ground-launched Small Diameter Bomb, is a rocket-launched maneuverable glide bomb with double the range of the HIMARS missiles Washington has already provided. The deployment would mark a repudiation of Biden’s pledge in May that “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders,” and his declaration that “We’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia.” In an interview with NPR on Tuesday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov called for the US to send fighter jets to Ukraine. “I’m sure that’s absolutely realistic,” he said. Reznikov discounted reported concerns among the NATO members over the escalatory character of such an action, declaring, “What is impossible today is absolutely possible tomorrow.” Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have already publicly stated their agreement with this demand. “Ukraine needs fighter jets ... missiles, tanks. We need to act,” Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said Tuesday at a joint press conference in Riga with Latvian and Polish officials. “Because fighter jets and long-range missiles are essential military aid, and at this crucial stage in the war, where the turning point is about to happen, it is vital that we act without delay,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said in an interview with Lithuanian National Television. He concluded, “Those red lines must be crossed.”

Ukraine Says Russia Is Using Inflatable Tanks, but They Deflated - Ukrainian military forces accused the Russian army of deploying inflatable tanks in the south of Ukraine in an effort to deceive the opposing side, saying the country's "rubber" decoys had deflated in an anticlimactic display. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a Thursday Facebook post said Russia's army had run out of steam in the Zaporizhzhia region, where Russian troops have been incessantly firing on Ukrainian defenses in recent days, according to the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration. "At the time when our partners are coordinating the supply of tanks to Ukraine, the invading army is also increasing the presence of 'tank units' in the Zaporizhzhia area," the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine wrote. But Russia's multiplying tanks are, according to Ukrainian officials, not what they seem. "Apparently, the free air of the Cossack region is not suitable for the 'rubber' products of the occupiers, so they deflate without fulfilling their main mission. Just like the inflated bravado of the Russian army," the agency said.

Ukraine tells Hungary 'anti-Ukrainian rhetoric' must stop (Reuters) - Ukraine protested to Hungary's ambassador on Tuesday over "disparaging" comments made by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and urged Budapest to stop what it called anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. The envoy was summoned by the foreign ministry after its spokesperson said last week that Orban had told reporters Ukraine was a no man's land and compared it to Afghanistan. Ambassador Istvan Ijdjarto was delivered "a strong protest in connection with the recent disparaging statements of the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban," the ministry said. "It was emphasised to the Hungarian diplomat that the anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, which has been heard from the Hungarian leadership for a long time, is absolutely unacceptable and causes serious damage to Ukrainian-Hungarian relations." The ministry added: "The Hungarian side was urged to stop this negative trend in order to avoid irreparable consequences for the relations between the two countries." Hungary has criticised European Union sanctions on Russia over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, saying they failed to weaken Moscow meaningfully and risked destroying the European economy, and opted last year not to send weapons to Ukraine. Kyiv complained to Hungary last year after Orban went to a football match wearing a scarf that it said depicted some Ukrainian territory as part of Hungary. The two countries have also clashed in recent years over what Hungary said were curbs on the right of ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine to use their native tongue, especially in education, after Ukraine passed a law in 2017 restricting the use of minority languages in schools.

Russian court fines Amazon’s Twitch $57,000 over Ukraine content - A Russian court on Tuesday fined streaming service Twitch 4 million roubles ($57,000) for failing to remove what it said were “fakes” about Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported. Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Moscow has long objected to foreign tech platforms’ distribution of content that falls foul of its restrictions, with Russian courts regularly imposing penalties.

Anecdata on the Restructuring of the Russian Economy - by Yves Smith -Assessments of the state of the Russian economy have tended to one of two polar positions: Russia is paying terrible costs, losing “talent” and access to former Western partners and markets, or Russia has shown remarkable resilience, took a surprisingly small GDP hit for 2022, and consumers are carrying on more or less as usual, save for a few expected trouble areas like car parts where conditions are improving.On my travels, I had a brief chat with a Russian in his 30s, who works for a major supplier to hospitals of consumables like gloves and catheters.¹ He’s in the buying/sourcing area and is fluent in an impressive number of languages. Half of his family is in Ukraine, half is in Russia, and he blames the war on Putin.He contends that the war mobilization is having an impact on the structure of the economy. He claims funding for health care has been cut, as shown by hospitals greatly extending payables to his company and other vendors. He also said spending on education had been cut, but we didn’t speak for long enough for me to get him to provide supporting factoids.I have no reason to doubt his statement that his company is suffering from a slowdown in payments from hospitals. It’s an admission against interest. And back in my consulting days when I was doing competitor research, when insiders made remarks like that, they were reporting what was common knowledge in their field but hadn’t yet leaked out to the wider world.This Russian businessman added that this diversion of resources to military would set Russia back in the longer term. He felt the country was still playing catchup (I didn’t have the opportunity to get him to unpack that; I assume he was referring to the long recovery from the disastrous 1990s).It makes sense that the shift to a war footing would wind up diverting resources away from some sectors, particularly since Putin had drunken a bit of neoliberal Kool Aid is fiscally orthodox. So comparing this account to that of Gilbert Doctorow, iEarlGrey and the Alexes of The Duran, who have contacts in Russia, one can also infer that the Russian government has made some effort to preserve normalcy in the consumer sector and has engineered cuts in some “wholesale” sectors.

Russia's "Sanction-Proof" Trade Corridor To India Frustrates The Neocons - Russia, Iran, and India are speeding up efforts to complete a new transport corridor that would largely cut Europe, its sanctions, and any other threats out of the picture. The International North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) is a land-and sea-based 7,200-km long network comprising rail, road and water routes that are aimed at reducing costs and travel time for freight transport in a bid to boost trade between Russia, Iran, Central Asia, India. For Russia, the “sanction-proof” corridor provides a major export channel to South Asia without needing to go through Europe. But Brussels and Washington, frustrated by their losing in Ukraine and inability to put much of a dent in the Russian economy, could lead them to take more desperate measures. Lately, Estonia, which has a population smaller than Russia’s armed forces, has been making noise about causing problems in the Gulf of Finland, Estonian Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur is talking about how Helsinki and Tallinn will integrate their coastal missile defense, which he says would allow the countries to close the Gulf of Finland to Russian warships if necessary. Estonia is also floating the possibility of trying to inspect Russian ships. From Asia Times:It is unlikely Estonia can carry out any inspections given that it only has two patrol vessels (EML-Roland and EML-Risto) and no other warships except some mine layers. But if Estonia even tried, it would create another friction point that Russia could exploit if it chose. It’s hard to take Estonia’s bluster seriously but equally difficult to put anything past the neocons in Washington and their adherents in the Baltics. Regardless, Russia would prefer a trade route with India that saves time and money and avoids Europe.While NATO’s war against Russia has sped up the cooperation between Moscow, Tehran, and New Delhi, India and Iran are coming under various types of pressure that could delay full implementation of the corridor. And Azerbaijan, a key nexus in the INSTC, is a wildcard as it grows increasingly confrontational with both Iran and Armenia.First the recent developments on the INSTC:

• India is helping to develop the Shahid Beheshti Terminal at Iran’s Chabahar Port in cooperation with the Iranian government.
• Iran and Russia recently signed a contract for Russia to build a cargo vessel for Iran to be used at the Caspian port of Solyanka, which is being developed jointly by the two nations as part of efforts to strengthen the Caspian Sea transportation network.
• RZD Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian railway monopoly RZD, has begun regular container train services from Moscow to Iran to serve growing trade with India by transloading.
• Rezaul Hasan Laskar, the foreign affairs editor at Hindustan Times, says the strategic Chabahar Port in southeastern Iran has “become more important following its growing use” but that “it needs to be connected to Iran’s railway network.” Iran has accelerated that project, and with an investment boost from Russia, is speeding up the completion of the Astara-Rasht-Qazvin railway, another transport corridor that will connect existing railways of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran to the INSTC.

Push in India to allow foreign universities could be a game-changer -Can India create a higher education system worthy of its aspirations as a full-fledged knowledge economy?That’s still to be determined. But India is on the verge of taking a major, long-awaited first step in the right direction: With the recent release of draft rules by the country’s higher education regulator — the University Grants Commission — India is moving closer to allowing high-quality foreign universities to set up campuses to help meet the country’s growing appetite for advanced education.Crucially, under the rules, which will have to be approved by Parliament, foreign universities would get the freedom to decide their own curriculums, fix fees and hire faculty at terms of their choosing. They would even be allowed to repatriate earnings. That all might seem underwhelming to readers accustomed to the U.S. system. But it would be a radical — and, eventually, perhaps game-changing — shift for India.And India’s higher education system badly needs shaking up. Setting aside issues of quality (as if those can be set aside), India does not come close to providing sufficient seats to those aspiring to higher education — a glaring shortcoming as India’s burgeoning middle class strives to prepare their children for the opportunities of the future.India’s system has its successes, of course, but they are narrow. Just nine Indian higher education institutions made the top 500 of the most recent QS World University Rankings. The top one — the Indian Institute of Science (at 155) — is a highly specialized institution focused on postgraduate studies and research in the sciences. The other eight are part of the well-known Indian Institutes of Technology, which specialize in engineering. The highest-ranked comprehensive university was the University of Delhi, falling in the 520s.That is simply not good enough. All told, India has just over 1,000 institutions of higher learning. China, with a similar population, hasthree times that. The United States, with a much smaller population,has four times as many.India’s gross enrollment ratio for higher education — the percentage of college-age adults who are enrolled — is around 27 percent, much lower than in advanced economies and even other emerging economies such as Brazil and China. Expect that figure to increase. If the supply of higher education cannot keep pace, more students will look overseas, as so many already do. Canada, the United States, Australia and Britain are primary destinations. The “import” of higher education from other English-speaking countries makes no sense for a country that prides itself on a service-based economy and its English language advantage. Education should be a sector that provides export earnings.So what’s the problem? Over-regulation, as with so much of the Indian economy. Other parts of the economy have been liberalized over the years, but not higher ed.

Qatar says insects not ‘halal’ after EU approves it as food | Al Arabiya English - Qatar has reaffirmed a religious ban on consuming insects in a move that comes after the European Union added new products to its list of approved foods.Insect products do not meet “the requirements of halal food technical regulations,” Qatar’s health ministry said in a statement late Thursday. Gulf Cooperation Council regulations “and the religious opinion of the competent authorities” bans “the consumption of insects, or protein and supplements extracted from them,” it added.The announcement follows “some countries’ decision to approve the use of insects in food production,” Qatar said.It did not identify the countries, but the EU commission last month approved the larvae of the lesser mealworm – a species of beetle – and a product containing the house cricket for use in food.Insects have long been a source of protein in communities around the world, but consumption has spread as pressure grows to find alternatives to meat and other foods associated with high levels of greenhouse gases.The EU has now approved four insects as “novel food.”All products containing insects must be clearly labelled.Academics say there is no clear ruling in Islamic law on whether insects can be eaten.Most say locusts are halal, or allowed, as they are mentioned in the Quran.But many Islamic law scholars reject other insects as they are considered unclean.Qatar said that food’s compliance with halal rules was checked by “Islamic bodies accredited by the ministry and through its international-accredited laboratories” that determine the source of protein contained in food products.

Huge crowds march across France, raising pressure against Macron's pension reform (Reuters) - Huge crowds marched across France on Tuesday to say "non" to President Emmanuel Macron's plan to make people work longer before retirement, with pressure in the streets intensifying against a government that says it will stand its ground.Opinion polls show a substantial majority of the French oppose increasing the retirement age to 64 from 62, a move Macron says is "vital" to ensuring the viability of the pension system. The French Interior ministry said that a total of 1.272 million people took part in the protests nationwide, up slightly from the first nationwide demonstration on Jan 19. In Paris, a total of 87,000 people marched, compared to 80,000 on Jan. 19, it added."It's better than on the 19th. ... It's a real message sent to the government, saying we don't want the 64 years," Laurent Berger, who leads CFDT, France's largest union, said ahead of the Paris march.Union leaders at a joint news conference at the end of the march said they would organise more strikes and demonstrations against the reform on Feb. 7 and 11.Marching behind banners reading "No to the reform" or "We won't give up," many said they would take to the streets as often as needed for the government to back down."For the president, it's easy. He sits in a chair ... he can work until he's 70, even," bus driver Isabelle Texier said at a protest in Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic coast. "We can't ask roof layers to work until 64, it's not possible."

Trans Criminals Who Raped Women Are Women, Says Scottish Leader - Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon says transgender criminals convicted for raping women are women, despite a car crash interview in which she appeared to flip flop all over the place.The controversy began after 31-year-old Adam Graham, who was was found guilty of raping the two women during frenzied sex attacks, was sent to Scotland’s only all female prison.Only when on trial for the attacks did Graham announce that he was “transitioning” into a woman, a process which seemingly culminated in him wearing a bad wig and cheap make-up.The rapist was clearly trying to exploit Scotland’s ludicrously woke legal system in which biological males who identify as women can be sent to female prisons.After a massive public backlash, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reiterated her belief that “trans women are women,” no matter how many actual women they have violently raped.During an excruciatingly awkward interview, Sturgeon flip-flopped back and forth on the question of whether violent male rapists are actually women on the basis of them claiming to be so in order to get more lenient treatment in prison. Sturgeon’s assertion that men with penises should be accepted as women was backed up by Keith Brown, her justice secretary, who said: “If somebody presents as a trans person, then we accept that at face value.”Brown said the decision on where to send male sex offenders who identified as women rested with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), and its risk assessment, which Brown claimed had a “tremendous track record”.Another biological male, who now calls himself, Tiffany Scott, was also set to be transferred to the same all woman prison after being convicted of stalking a 13-year-old girl.