Fed officials divided in July over need for more rate hikes, minutes show (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials were divided over the need for more interest rate hikes at the U.S. central bank's July 25-26 meeting, with "some participants" citing the risks to the economy of pushing rates too far even as "most" policymakers continued to prioritize the battle against inflation, according to minutes of the session that were released on Wednesday. "Participants remained resolute in their commitment to bring inflation down to the ... 2% objective," the minutes said of a meeting in which policymakers on the Federal Open Market Committee unanimously agreed to raise the benchmark overnight interest rate to the 5.25%-5.50% range. "Most participants continued to see significant upside risks to inflation, which could require further tightening of monetary policy." Yet cautionary voices about the effects of continued monetary tightening appeared to play a more prominent role in the debate at last month's meeting, an indication that the spread of opinion at the Fed has widened as policymakers weigh evidence that inflation is falling and judge the potential damage to jobs and economic growth if rates are raised higher than necessary. A "couple" of participants, for example, advocated leaving rates unchanged in July. The group also "discussed several risk-management considerations that could bear on future policy decisions," the minutes said. Though a majority kept inflation as the paramount risk, "some participants commented that even though economic activity had been resilient and the labor market had remained strong, there continued to be downside risks to economic activity and upside risks to the unemployment rate." "These included the possibility that the macroeconomic effects of the tightening in financial conditions since the beginning of last year could prove more substantial than anticipated." In general, the minutes said, Fed policymakers agreed that the level of uncertainty remained high, and that future interest rate decisions would depend on the "totality" of data arriving in "coming months" to "help clarify the extent to which the disinflation process was continuing" - a possible indication of a more patient approach to any further rises in borrowing costs. U.S. Treasury yields hit session highs after the release of the minutes while U.S. stocks extended losses. The dollar (.DXY) was trading higher against a basket of currencies.
FOMC Minutes: Staff No Longer Predicts Recession; "Upside Risks to Inflation" From the Fed: Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, July 25-26, 2023. Excerpt: The economic forecast prepared by the staff for the July FOMC meeting was stronger than the June projection. Since the emergence of stress in the banking sector in mid-March, indicators of spending and real activity had come in stronger than anticipated; as a result, the staff no longer judged that the economy would enter a mild recession toward the end of the year. However, the staff continued to expect that real GDP growth in 2024 and 2025 would run below their estimate of potential output growth, leading to a small increase in the unemployment rate relative to its current level.The staff continued to project that total and core PCE price inflation would move lower in coming years. Much of the step-down in core inflation was expected to occur over the second half of 2023, with forward-looking indicators pointing to a slowing in the rate of increase of housing services prices and with core nonhousing services prices and core goods prices expected to decelerate over the remainder of 2023. Inflation was anticipated to ease further over 2024 as demand–supply imbalances continued to resolve; by 2025, total PCE price inflation was expected to be 2.2 percent, and core inflation was expected to be 2.3 percent. The staff continued to judge that the risks to the baseline projection for real activity were tilted to the downside. Risks to the staff's baseline inflation forecast were seen as skewed to the upside, given the possibility that inflation dynamics would prove to be more persistent than expected or that further adverse shocks to supply conditions might occur. Moreover, the additional monetary policy tightening that would be necessitated by higher or more persistent inflation represented a downside risk to the projection for real activity. ... Participants generally noted a high degree of uncertainty regarding the cumulative effects on the economy of past monetary policy tightening. Participants cited upside risks to inflation, including those associated with scenarios in which recent supply chain improvements and favorable commodity price trends did not continue or in which aggregate demand failed to slow by an amount sufficient to restore price stability over time, possibly leading to more persistent elevated inflation or an unanchoring of inflation expectations. In discussing downside risks to economic activity and inflation, participants considered the possibility that the cumulative tightening of monetary policy could lead to a sharper slowdown in the economy than expected, as well as the possibility that the effects of the tightening of bank credit conditions could prove more substantial than anticipated.
FOMC Minutes Signal Hawkish Fed Fears "Significant Upside Risks To Inflation" -- Bloomberg's Jersey and Hoffman said the minutes were more hawkish than the June-meeting minutes, according to their Fed minutes sentiment score (based on an NLP model).The number of dovish sentences remained about unchanged, but there were the most hawkish sentences since January. * * * Since the last FOMC meeting (on July 26, when The Fed delivered the expected 25bps hike and almost unchanged statement), the dollar has rallied aggressively while bonds, bullion, and big-tech have been battered. Bitcoin is basically unch... Most notably, in equity-land, after an initial rise, we have seen cyclicals underperform defensives since the last FOMC meeting... The market's expectations for The Fed are basically unchanged since the last FOMC meeting, having initially dropped dovishly, they have recently revived hawkishly... But bond yields have been hammered higher, led by the long-end... ...as the curve has steepened (de-inverted) dramatically
The first cut is the hardest - FT Alphaville - The narrative has recently shifted from only questioning how brutal the US recession was going to be — and whether it had already started — to “no landing”, as employment, spending etc have stayed remarkably strong. But with inflation softening some people think the Federal Reserve will still have to trim interest rates soon so that they aren’t unduly restrictive, whether a recession materialises or not. Lo and behold, Goldman Sachs — a noted bull — has now pencilled in the first Fed cut for the second quarter of 2024. Its economics team reckons that the core personal consumption expenditures inflation rate (the Fed’s own fave measure) will by then have fallen below 3 per cent on a year-on-year basis and under 2.5 per cent on a monthly annualised basis, which will be enough to give the Fed cover. “The motivation for cutting outside of a recession would be to normalise the funds rate from a restrictive level back towards neutral once inflation is closer to the target,” they write. However, the details of the report indicate that their confidence in this call is pretty modest. Here are the main points, with Alphaville’s emphasis below: — Normalization is not a particularly urgent motivation for cutting, and for that reason we also see a significant risk that the FOMC will instead hold steady. The FOMC might not cut because inflation might not fall enough or, even if it does, because solid growth, a tight labor market, and a further easing of financial conditions might make cutting seem like an unnecessary risk. — Some Fed officials and investors argue that the FOMC must cut as inflation falls to prevent real interest rates from rising and hurting the economy. We disagree with this logic. Real interest rates should be calculated by subtracting off forward-looking inflation expectations, not realized inflation, and inflation expectations have already fallen to or nearly to target-consistent levels. Moreover, adjusting our broader financial conditions index (FCI) for inflation rather than the funds rate has very little impact on the implied impulse to GDP growth, which is now modest. — We are penciling in 25bp of cuts per quarter but are uncertain about the pace. The FOMC might move slowly if its desire to normalise is only lukewarm and it fears further boosting asset prices and strengthening an economy with an already-tight labor market, or it could cut more quickly from a high starting point if it is more confident that the inflation problem is unlikely to return. — We expect the funds rate to eventually stabilize at 3-3.25%, above the FOMC’s 2.5% median longer run dot. We have long been skeptical that neutral was as low as widely thought last cycle, and larger fiscal deficits have arguably pushed it higher since. Fed officials could raise their longer run dots if the economy remains resilient with the funds rate at a much higher level or they could conclude — as a recent New York Fed blog post did — that the short-run neutral rate is elevated. — Our views have been more hawkish than market pricing this year because we have seen both a lower probability of recession than consensus and a relatively high threshold for rate cuts. This remains true, though the gap has narrowed as recessions fears have faded. We think it is appropriate for the yield curve to be inverted, but not quite as much as it is. Here is that NY Fed paper that Hatzius mentions above btw, and you can read the full Goldman Sachs report here. FWIW an extended wait-and-see period followed by a gentle interest rate trim kinda makes sense given the current trajectory of inflation. But trajectories change. Who knows what could happen in the world between now and then. And the Fed’s perennial worries about its credibility — and the perceived damage done by the “transitory” snafu — makes us think that absent a big economic downturn it’s going to want to see inflation much closer to or even below 2 per cent before it dares to actually cut rates.
How to Fix Monetary Policy in Advanced Countries --The objective pursued by most central banks in recent decades has been a low level of inflation. Since inflation was believed to respond to changes in unemployment, this implied a primary focus on labor market and output gaps in the “real” economy when setting monetary policy. In contrast, “financial” sector developments were thought to be of no great importance in setting the instruments of monetary policy. My new INET Working Paper argues that the setting of monetary policy should be guided much more by financial sector developments and much less by near-term targets for inflation. The pursuit of stable prices remains important, but policy should focus on success over a much longer time period than the two-year horizon that has become fashionable in recent decades. Perhaps the most effective way of showing the need for fundamental monetary reform is to point out the negative implications of the monetary policies followed by the major central banks in the advanced economies over the last few decades. First, the general adoption of a positive (+2%) inflation target has prevented the downward adjustment of prices that would be the natural product of increases in productivity and positive supply shocks. As a result, prices have been drifting upwards (and significantly) for decades. Second, the recurrent use of monetary easing to spur demand and raise inflation becomes increasingly ineffective, inviting an ever-stronger policy response that could eventually work but might well prove hard to control. Third, simulative monetary policy has had a variety of unintended and unwelcome consequences. Fourth, as the threat posed by these unintended problems has cumulated over time, “exit” and the “renormalization” of policy has become ever harder to achieve. To sum up, the current monetary framework has trapped us on a path we do not wish to follow because it leads inevitably to ever bigger problems. This is why fundamental reform is needed. These developments occurred because central bankers in the advanced economies generally shared a set of “false beliefs.” They overestimated the need for easy money. They overestimated its effectiveness in stimulating aggregate demand. They underestimated the unintended consequences. And, finally, they underestimated how difficult it would be to exit from such policies. The need for monetary stimulus, the dominant stance of policy over the last two decades and more, has been the need to respond to levels of inflation that have persistently failed to achieve target levels. An associated concern was that low inflation might inadvertently slip into outright deflation and depression. In fact, the last few decades have been characterized by large, positive supply shocks in the global economy that led to the persistent downward pressure on prices. There is a large, now largely forgotten, literature that suggests these initial price declines should have been allowed to happen. Admittedly, if monetary stimulus induces an increase in both public and private debt that weighs on future spending, the need for stimulus becomes ever greater. However, this is a need that was ultimately created by monetary policy itself.
Ten-Year Treasury Yield Hits 15-Year High, Market Wades out of Denial, Sees “Higher-for-Longer,” Tsunami of Issuance, QT by Wolf Richter -- The 10-year yield closed at 4.28% today, according to Treasury Department data, the highest since, well, let’s look here, November 14, 2007, so about 15 years ago, having edged past November 2022 and June 2008 by a hair. 2007 is notable in that it was the last year before the arrival of QE. What is hilarious in a twisted way is that the 10-year yield had dropped to 0.5% in August 2020, and everyone and their dog were preaching to the world that longer-term yields would drop into the negative in the US, as they’d already done in Europe, because of course the 40-year Great Bond Bull Market – Great Bong Bull Market? – would have to continue for evermore, with yields falling deeper and deeper into the negative. I have a term for this: Consensual Hallucination. The entire sucker-rally from November last year through May this year has now been mopped up. So it has been quite a trip, from the all-time low in August 2020 via raging inflation to the 15-year high. And every step along the way, the longer end of the Treasury market has been in denial. But gradually the market is grappling with the notion of coming out of denial. The thing is, in normal times a 10-year Treasury yield of 4.28% would be low, when short-term yields are 5.5%, with inflation and the uncertainty of inflation bouncing all over the place. Eventually investors would want to be compensated for inflation, no? Mortgage rates today rose to 7.34% for the average fixed-rate 30-year mortgage, according to the daily Measure by Mortgage News Daily. This morning, the Mortgage Banker’s Association reported that the average rate during the reporting week was 7.16%. And the housing market is not exactly jubilating. Higher rates mean lower asset prices. This goes in lockstep with yield producing assets, such as bonds and real estate investments. It doesn’t go in lockstep with other assets, such as stocks, but it goes. Just like lower rates meant higher asset prices all around for the past 15 years of interest rate repression.
House GOP eyes short-term spending stopgap to avoid shutdown - House Republicans are eyeing a short-term funding stopgap to keep the government open past the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 as lawmakers struggle through an appropriations process characterized by conservatives’ push to slash spending. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on a GOP conference call Monday evening that the House will likely have to pass a short-term solution known as a continuing resolution (CR), according to two sources on the call. McCarthy said he does not want the CR to be jammed at the end of the year or stretch into the December holidays, the sources added. But a CR likely won’t come easily. Some members of the party’s right flank have stressed they will only vote for bills that set funding at fiscal 2022 levels, and a CR would keep spending the same as in fiscal 2023. Border issues and Ukraine funding could also add wrinkles to passing the stopgap solution. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and 14 other Texas Republicans signed a letter last week pledging to vote against any bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security unless there are major changes to the U.S. border and migration policy. That would be more than enough opposition in a slim GOP majority to require Democratic votes to pass a continuing resolution. And the White House last week unveiled a $40 billion supplemental funding request that includes $24 billion in military, financial and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, which is already sparking opposition from Republicans who have become critical of funding for Kyiv. “While the border remains wide open, crime in major cities is out of control, and Americans cannot afford daily necessities — Biden wants $24 billion MORE for Ukraine. Put America first,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. One GOP member is pessimistic about government funding when lawmakers return to Washington in September. “I just got off a member call – it’s clear President Biden and Speaker McCarthy want a government shutdown, so that’s what Congress will do after we return in September. Everyone should plan accordingly,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) said on X. House lawmakers have just 12 days in session before the Sept. 30 funding deadline. The House has passed just one of 12 appropriations bills thus far: It cleared legislation to fund military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs and related agencies just before breaking for the long August recess. But that same week, House GOP leadership scrapped its plan to vote on a bill to fund agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration as intraparty differences put the measure in jeopardy. House Democrats have opposed the GOP funding bills because the party marked the appropriations bills up at levels lower than spending caps agreed to by McCarthy and President Biden in a debt limit deal earlier this year. The Senate — which has not passed any of its 12 appropriations bills — marked up its legislation at levels in line with the debt limit deal struck by McCarthy and Biden, putting the two chambers on a collision course that could bring the government to the brink of a shutdown.
AP report: McCarthy floats stopgap funding to prevent a government shutdown at the end of next month | PBS NewsHour(AP) — Congressional leaders are pitching a stopgap government funding package to avoid a federal shutdown after next month, acknowledging the House and Senate are nowhere near agreement on spending levels to keep federal operations running.House Speaker Kevin McCarthy raised the idea of a months-long funding package, known as a continuing resolution, to House Republicans on a members-only call Monday evening, according to those familiar with the private session and granted anonymity to discuss it.On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the two leaders had spoken about such a temporary measure. It would extend federal funding operations into December to allow more time to work on the annual spending bills.“I thought it was a good thing that he recognized that we need a CR,” Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters on a call.“We hope that our House Republicans will realize that any funding resolution has to be bipartisan or they will risk shutting down the government,” he said.A stopgap measure that would keep government offices running past the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year is a typical strategy while the Republican-held House and Democrat-held Senate try to iron out a long-term budget agreement. The government’s new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, when funding approval is needed to avert closures of federal offices.But this year, the task may prove more politically difficult. McCarthy will need to win over a large portion of his Republican colleagues to pass the stopgap bill or risk political blowback from staunch conservatives if he leaves them behind and cuts a bipartisan deal with Democrats.Conservatives, including many from the House Freedom Caucus, are usually loathe to get behind short-term funding measures as they push for steeper spending cuts, using the threat of a shutdown as leverage.Foretelling the political dynamics ahead, many in Congress are bracing for a shutdown.“It’s clear President Biden and Speaker McCarthy want a government shutdown, so that’s what Congress will do after we return in September. Everyone should plan accordingly,” Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, shortly after the Monday Republican call.Democrats alongside President Joe Biden don’t necessarily want a shutdown, but they would be quick to blame Republicans for instigating it — arguing that Republicans are the ones driving for spending reductions.All sides had agreed to budget levels during the recent debt ceiling negotiations when Biden and McCarthy struck a deal that established topline spending levels. But McCarthy’s GOP majority rejects those amounts.White House Deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton was asked Tuesday on Air Force One if Biden is worried about a government shutdown.“We worked in good faith to negotiate a bipartisan budget agreement a couple of months ago,” Dalton said.“We’ve upheld our end of the bargain. They’ve upheld theirs, so far. We can expect that to continue.”The White House had no immediate comment on whether Biden would sign a short-term resolution.“We don’t believe that there’s any reason we should have to have a government shutdown, that congressional Republicans should bring us to that point,” Dalton said. “We think that we can work together to meet the needs of our country and the urgent needs that we’ve put forward.”Along with deeper spending reductions, House Freedom Caucus members have also pushed to tie the government’s budget to conservative policy priorities on immigration and security at the U.S. border with Mexico, as well as at the Department of Justice.
Schumer tosses support behind stopgap spending bill, Hawaii disaster aid --Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday threw his support behind passing a short-term bill to fund the government until December as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle concede that more time is needed to pass spending bills for fiscal 2024. Schumer told reporters on a conference call that he discussed the possibility with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) shortly before the August break. McCarthy acknowledged thelikelihood of a continuing resolution (CR) during a separate conference call with House Republicans Monday night.Lawmakers must fund the government by the end of September to avoid a government shutdown.“I thought it was a good thing that he recognized that we need a CR in September. I’m supportive of that,” Schumer said, lauding the Senate’s appropriations process that has thus far gone off in a bipartisan fashion. “A CR until early December provides time for consideration of these bipartisan bills,” Schumer continued. “We urge our House colleagues to emulate the Senate. The only way we’re going to avoid a government shutdown is by bipartisan support in both houses. You cannot keep the government open if you just want to do it with one party. … We hope that House Republicans will realize that any funding resolution has to be bipartisan or they will risk shutting down the government.” The Democratic leader added that a stopgap bill lasting until December “makes a good deal of sense.”“That will give us some time, hopefully, to get something done,” Schumer added.McCarthy told members on his Monday call that he does not want the short-term spending bill to run up against the holidays, meaning that lawmakers would likely be working on passing appropriations bills upon returning from Thanksgiving. However, there are landmines that negotiators must avoid. Chief among them is House conservatives who are balking at voting for a continuing resolution at fiscal 2023 levels.Ukraine and the U.S. southern border are also set to become issues for some Republicans. The administration’s request for $40 billion in supplemental funding included $24 billion for Ukraine. A group of 15 House Republicans from Texas are also vowing to vote against any bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security unless changes to U.S. border and migration policy are included.Republicans can only lose four votes in order to advance legislation on their own.
Congress moves toward a short-term funding bill to quell fears of a shutdown — Speaker Kevin McCarthy told House Republicans on a conference call this week that he believes Congress will have to pass a short-term government funding bill toavoid a shutdown this fall, two sources with knowledge told NBC News.The remarks reflect a growing recognition that Congress doesn't have enough time to reach a full-year funding deal before money runs out on Sept. 30. Lawmakers are on a monthlong August recess and return in September, just a few weeks before the deadline.While McCarthy now privately agrees Congress needs to buy time to reach a funding deal, it's not clear how much they'll push for. One Republican lawmaker said McCarthy, R-Calif., indicated he didn't want to set a deadline that pushes Congress up against the Christmas holiday. A second GOP source didn't recall McCarthy specifying a length of time for the stopgap bill.On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he met recently with McCarthy and agreed to pursue a stopgap bill, often called a continuing resolution or CR.“Speaker McCarthy and I met a few weeks back and we agreed we should do what’s called a CR — in other words, a congressional resolution where you just extend the existing funding for a few months so we could work this out,” Schumer said on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe." “And I thought that was a good sign. But I would say this: Our Republican colleagues in the House need to follow the lead of their Republican colleagues in the Senate and work in a bipartisan way.”Apart from the length, congressional leaders would also need to agree on the policy terms of a short-term bill — and it's not clear even that will happen in time to prevent a shutdown.McCarthy's comments on the Monday call were first reported by Punchbowl News. One lawmaker Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, came away from it believing there will be a shutdown. The Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate are moving in different directions on an appropriations package.The House, driven by pressure from right-wing Republicans, is seeking to slash federal spending below levels agreed to in a recent two-year budget deal and attach conservative policy provisions to restrict abortion and LGBTQ rights while rolling back portions of President Joe Biden's agenda.The Senate, which requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and pass funding bills, is operating on a bipartisan basis by pursuing spending levels both parties support and avoiding controversial policy provisions that either side sees as a poison pill.
US announces new $200M Ukraine aid package --The U.S. on Monday announced a $200 million security assistance package for Ukraine, providing Kyiv with another round of munitions and tactical vehicles for use in the fight against Russia.The latest package places total U.S. security assistance to Ukraine at roughly $43 billion since Russia invaded in February 2022, meaning the remaining funds for Ukrainian forces is fast approaching their limit.The Biden administration unveiled the critical assistance for Ukraine in the midst of a major counteroffensive operation. The package includes more munitions for advanced weapons systems coveted by Ukraine, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and Patriot missile defense systems.“Air defense, anti-armor, and munitions will keep the Ukrainian armed forces in the fight to defend their country’s sovereignty, territory, and people,” Secretary of State Antony Blinkenwrote Monday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.More than 12 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades will also be provided, along with mine-clearing equipment and 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds.The security assistance also includes 37 tactical vehicles for towing and hauling equipment.The package comes as Ukrainian troops pushing ahead in a slow-moving counteroffensive in the southeast are coming up against fierce resistance from dug-in Russian forces.Ukraine is often outgunned by Russia with an inferior amount of artillery and is struggling against trenches and mine fields. Kyiv will undoubtedly need more Western support to keep the operation going and reclaim territory in Russian-occupied Ukraine.Congress has passed about $47 billion in direct security assistance for Ukraine since the start of the war, with the latest aid package approved in December.
New US Arms Package for Ukraine Uses Money Made Available by Pentagon 'Accounting Error' - The Biden administration on Monday announced a $200 million arms package for Ukraine using funds made available by a Pentagon “accounting error” that includes munitions for Patriot air defense systems, HIMARS rocket systems, and other equipment.In June, the Pentagon claimed it overvalued weapons sent to Ukraine through the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which allows the administration to send arms directly from US military stockpiles. The Pentagon said this “error” freed up an additional $6.2 billion for spending on military aid to Ukraine.The arms package announced Monday marked the first time the administration dipped into these funds. “This security assistance package will utilize assistance previously authorized under [PDA] for Ukraine that remained after the PDA revaluation process concluded in June,” the Pentagon said.The $200 million arms package includes the following:
- Additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems
- Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
- Mine clearing equipment and systems
- 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds
- 120mm tank ammunition
- Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles
- Javelin and other anti-armor systems and rockets
- 37 tactical vehicles to tow and haul equipment
- 58 water trailers
- Over 12 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades
- Demolitions munitions for obstacle clearing
- Spare parts, maintenance, and other field equipment
The Pentagon also released a fact sheet on Monday that said the US has pledged over $43 billion in military equipment for Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24, 2022. Congress has authorized a total of $113 billion in spending on the war, which also includes economic aid, money for the Pentagon to replenish stockpiles of weapons that have been sent to Ukraine, and funding for US troops deployments in Eastern Europe.Last week, the White House asked Congress to authorize an additional $24 billion in spending on the war. The request includes $13 billion in military aid and $7.3 billion in economic and humanitarian assistance. It also includes $3.3 billion for infrastructure projects for regional countries impacted by the war.
Blinken Urges Congress to Approve New Ukraine Spending 'Right Away' - Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday called on Congress to approve President BIden’s request for an additional $24 billion in spending on the Ukraine war “right away.”The White House formally made the request to Congress last week. If approved, it will bring total US spending on the war to about $137 billion. “I urge Congress to pass this legislation funding — the supplemental funding, excuse me — right away,” Blinken told reporters.Supplemental funding is not limited by the debt ceiling deal that was reached between the White House and House Republicans. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has previously expressed that he might not support a supplemental funding bill that would blow past the spending limits, but he has been a staunch supporter of the proxy war against Russia.Over in the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is eager to approve the new Ukraine aid, saying he wants to address it “as quickly as possible.” The White House asked for the $24 billion in Ukraine spending as part of a $40 billion supplemental bill that also includes domestic disaster relief and funds for border security.The $24 billion for the Ukraine war includes $13 billion in military aid, $7.3 billion in economic and humanitarian assistance, and $3.3 billion for infrastructure projects for regional countries impacted by the conflict. The infrastructure funds were included in the name of countering China. “It is essential that we offer a credible alternative to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) coercive and unstable lending and infrastructure projects for developing countries around the world,” Shalanda Young, director of the US Office of Management and Budget, said in a letter to McCarthy on the request.The request came after a CNN poll found 55% of Americans are opposed to Congress authorizing more spending on the war in Ukraine. Biden administration officials are not phased by the lessening support and have made clear they expect to be fueling the proxy war for the long term.“We don’t know how much longer this war is going to go on, or how much more assistance we might need to support Ukraine,” a senior administration official told reporters last week. “We won’t be bashful about going back to Congress beyond the first quarter of next year if we feel like we need to do that.”
Congressional Ukraine Caucus Co-Chair Says War May Not Be 'Winnable' - Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), a co-chair of the congressional Ukraine Caucus,said this week that he’s not sure if the Ukraine war is “winnable” and called for the US to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue peace talks.Harris is also a member of the Freedom Caucus, which has many members who have opposed US support for Ukraine. But Harris has been a staunch supporter of the proxy war against Russia throughout the conflict.“Is this more a stalemate? Should we be realistic about it? I think we probably should,” Harris said at a town hall on Tuesday night, according toPOLITICO. Discussing the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Harris said, “I’ll be blunt, it’s failed.”“I’m not sure it’s winnable anymore,” Harris added. His comments are a sign that the new $24 billion in spending on the Ukraine war that the White House has asked Congress to approve won’t receive as much support as previous packages.When asked if he would support another tranche of spending on the war, Harris said, “If there is humanitarian monies, nonmilitary monies, or military monies without an inspector general, I’m not supporting it.” President Biden’s request includes economic and humanitarian assistance and no additional oversight for military aid.
US Intelligence Deems Ukraine's Counteroffensive a Failure - According to the Washington Post, the US intelligence community has assessed that Ukraine’s Spring counteroffensive will fail to meet its core objectives. Western officials said their war games had predicted massive Ukrainian losses, but that Kyiv would remain committed to the operations and gain the upper hand on the battlefield.The Post reports it spoke with Western and Ukrainian officials familiar with the intelligence assessment. Washington declined to offer an official statement on the bleak outlook for Ukrainian forces.Washington hoped Kyiv’s forces would recapture Melitopol, a Ukrainian city near the Sea of Azov in the country’s south. However, Moscow has several layers of defenses and minefields defending the town.Western countries helped Kyiv conduct simulations of the counteroffensive, which began in early June, for several months prior to the operations. The US and UK concluded that Ukrainian forces would suffer massive losses but believed Kyiv would ignore the losses and maintain the offensive at full scale.“In the first week of fighting, Ukraine incurred major casualties against Russia’s well-prepared defenses despite having a range of newly acquired Western equipment, including US Bradley Fighting Vehicles, German-made Leopard 2 tanks and specialized mine-clearing vehicles,” the outlet explains. Adding, “Joint war games conducted by the US, British and Ukrainian militaries anticipated such losses but envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line, said US and Western officials.”Retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis wrote earlier this week that Kyiv lacked the military equipment needed to conduct a successful counter-offensive. “Ukraine also suffers from a chronic lack of air defense capacity, inadequate numbers of howitzers and artillery shells, insufficient electronic warfare systems, a dearth of missiles, and perhaps most crucial of all, barely 25 percent of the de-mining capacity needed,” he explained in 19FortyFive on Tuesday. “When Ukraine launched its offensive across a broad front on June 5th, it should have surprised no one in Kyiv, Washington, or Brussels that they ran into a Russian buzzsaw.” Last month, the Wall Street Journal spoke with Western officials who drew a similar conclusion as Davis. “When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring, Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons – from shells to warplanes – that it needed to dislodge Russian forces.” The report continues, “But they hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day. They haven’t.”
John Bolton Blasts Biden for Ukraine's Failing Counteroffensive - Former National Security Advisor John Bolton has blasted President Biden over Ukraine’s stalling counteroffensive in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that was published on Sunday.While Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons from the US, a scale of aid not seen since the post-World War II Marshal Plan, the notoriously hawkish Bolton said Biden wasn’t doing enough and blamed the president’s “hesitancy” for Ukraine’s inability to break through Russia’s defenses.“Ukraine’s offensive failures and Russia’s defensive successes share a common cause: the slow, faltering, nonstrategic supply of military assistance by the West,” Bolton wrote.Bolton said the administration was too concerned about the risk of escalation. “The serial debates over whether to supply this or that weapons system, the perpetual fear that Russia will escalate to war against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and occasional Kremlin nuclear saber-rattling have instilled a paralyzing caution in Western capitals,” he wrote.Bolton described Biden’s fueling of the proxy war in Ukraine as “timid” and “haphazard” and blamed the president for the growing public opposition to the policy. A recent CNN poll found that 55% of Americans are opposed to additional spending on the war. Bolton also criticized the administration’s sanctions policy, arguing that they weren’t being properly enforced. He also called for the US to start sanctioning China over its relationship with Russia.
Report: US Considering 'Military Solutions' to Protect Shipments from Ukraine's Danube River Ports - The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the US is considering “military solutions” to protect shipments of grain leaving Ukraine’s Danube River ports as an alternative to the Black Sea grain deal that Russia recently exited.The Journal cited an unnamed senior US official based in Washington. The report reads: “The US is considering all potential options, including military solutions, to protect ships headed to and from Ukraine’s Danube ports, the Washington official said, but declined to give specifics on those options or say what countries would be involved in them.” Since Russia decided not to renew the grain deal, the war has significantly expanded in the Black Sea. Russia has been bombarding Ukraine’s ports,including those on the Danube River, which are just across the waterway from NATO member Romania. Ukraine has also declared war on Russian commercial shipping and targeted a Russian tanker with a sea drone attack. Over the weekend, Russia fired warning shots and boarded a cargo ship that was headed to Ukraine.The Journal report said that the US is in talks with Turkey, Ukraine, and other regional countries on an alternative grain deal that would involve increasing Ukraine’s capacity to ship grain out of the Danube River. Ships carrying Ukrainian grain would go to nearby ports in Romania, and then from there, the cargo would be shipped to its destination.If the US or any other NATO nation is involved in securing safe corridors for ships leaving Ukrainian ports, it would risk a direct clash between the Western alliance and Russia.
US Approves Sending F-16s from Denmark and Netherlands to Ukraine -- The US has approved the shipment of Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighter jets from the Netherlands and Denmark to Ukraine as soon as the first batch of Ukrainian pilots complete training, which won’t happen until next year.A US official told Reuters on Thursday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken provided the approval in a letter to Danish and Dutch officials.“I am writing to express the United States’ full support for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and for the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors,” the letter reads.Blinken added that the approval would allow Ukraine to take “full advantage of its new capabilities as soon as the first set of pilots complete their training.”The Washington Post recently reported that the first round of training will only involve six Ukrainian pilots. They are taking four months of English classes in the UK, followed by six months of combat training that is scheduled to start in January.A Ukrainian Air Force spokesman has said Kyiv has given up hope that it will be able to use F-16s against Russian forces this year. While Ukrainian officials have been demanding the fighter jets, US officials have downplayed their effectiveness, saying they won’t make much of a difference due to Russia’s extensive air defenses.
Yellen details her dinner in China with ‘magic mushrooms’ -Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she accidentally ate “magic” mushrooms on a recent trip to China.In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday, Yellen said the person who arranged the dinner she attended at a chain restaurant ordered the dish containing the mushrooms for her. She said she did not know the dish had mushrooms with “hallucinogenic properties” at the time, but she found out later. “I … read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were, at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact,” Yellen said. “But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms, the restaurant and none of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them.”Yellen visited China last month to try and smooth over recent tensions between the U.S. and the Chinese government. Her trip was part of larger attempts by the U.S. to do so, as the two countries have increasingly turned their defense organizations‘ attentions towards each other.“We had substantive conversations about the global economy, developments in our own economies, financial markets, and a list of concerns that each of us brought to the table that we agreed to follow up on over time,” Yellen told “Face the Nation” about her tripErin Burnett.
China Warns It Will Take 'Strong Measures' as Taiwan VP Arrives in US - China on Sunday vowed it would take “strong measures” as Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te stopped in the US on his way to Paraguay, one of the few nations that has diplomatic relations with Taipei.“The US and the Taiwan authorities arranged for Lai to engage in political activities in the US in the name of having a ‘stopover.’ This seriously violates the one-China principle, gravely undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.Lai stopped in New York on his way to Paraguay and will stop in San Francisco when he travels back to Taiwan. The US and Taiwan have defended the travel plans, saying there’s precedent for Taiwanese officials to stop in the US. But Lai’s trip comes as US-China relations are at their lowest point in decades, in large part due to the US increasing its support for Taiwan.The trip is likely also more sensitive for Beijing since Lai is the presidential candidate for Taiwan’s ruling independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party and is leading the polls for the 2024 election. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Lai “clings stubbornly to the separatist position for ‘Taiwan independence'” and called him a “troublemaker.”Earlier this year, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in California on her way back to Taiwan,provoking major Chinese military drills. The talks marked the highest-level meeting between US and Taiwanese officials inside the US since Washington severed relations with Taipei in 1979.House Republicans have called on Vice President Kamala Harris to meet with Lai while he’s in the US, but there’s no sign that she will or that Lai will meet with any high-level US officials.Lai delivered a speech in New York on Monday and took a defiant tone in the face of pressure from Beijing. “No matter how great the threat of authoritarianism is to Taiwan, we absolutely will not be scared nor cower, we will uphold the values of democracy and freedom,” he said.
Biden to Strengthen Alliance With South Korea and Japan at Camp David Summit - President Biden will spend his first-ever Camp David summit working to form a new trilateral alliance between the US, Japan, and South Korea as part of his strategy against China in the Asia Pacific.Biden has invited Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to meet him at Camp David this Friday, which will mark the first trilateral summit between the three nations outside of other international events.The US has been encouraging Japan and South Korea to reconcile their relationship, which has been strained for many decades mainly due to Imperial Japan’s treatment of Koreans during the Japanese occupation. The US views both countries as key players in the buildup aimed at China in the region.At Camp David, the three nations are expected to announce joint military exercises, a crisis hotline, and plans to hold an annual trilateral summit. According to Nikkei Asia, they are also expected to discuss progress made on a plan to share intelligence on North Korean missile launches as tensions have been soaring on the Korean Peninsula.“The leaders will celebrate a new chapter in their trilateral relationship as they reaffirm their strong bonds of friendship and the ironclad alliances between the United States and Japan, and the United States and the Republic of Korea,” a White House spokesperson told Nikkei.The summit comes after the US docked a nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea for the first time in 1981, a major provocation aimed at North Korea but also likely meant as a message to China. The US and South Korea have been engaged in tit-for-tat escalations with North Korea, and there’s no sign tensions will ease anytime soon.
US Cements 'Game-Changing' Military Ties Between Japan and Australia - A new US-backed military pact between Japan and Australia came into effect on Sunday that makes it easier for the two nations to deploy troops to each other’s territory, a type of cooperation the Pentagon has called “game-changing.”The Recipricol Forces Agreement (RFA) with Australia is the first deal of its kind Japan has struck with another nation besides the US in the post-World War II era. The US has been encouraging allies in the Asia Pacific to boost military ties as part of its preparations for a future war with China in the region.According to Nikkei Asia, the RFA will make it less difficult to conduct joint military exercises in each country by relaxing immigration control for troops and simplifying procedures for transporting weapons and ammunition.“We’re seeing Australia play an increasingly important role in the regional security architecture. What we are aiming to do together in the years ahead, particularly with Japan, will be game-changing for strengthening regional stability,” a senior Pentagon official told Nikkei.According to the Australian Defense Ministry, initial cooperation under the agreement will include the following:
- Japanese F-35s will deploy to Australia, to Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal for the first time at the end of August
- Exercise Bushido Guardian, where Australian F-35s will be deployed to Japan for the first time in early September
- Australia will participate in Exercise Yama Sakura as a full participant for the first time with more than 150 personnel traveling to Japan in December.
The RFA is just one of many examples of the US looking to forge alliances in the Asia Pacific as part of its buildup against China. Japan is integral to the US effort since it hosts the largest US military presence outside of the United States.The US is eyeing another trilateral alliance that involves Japan and South Korea. President Biden is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at Camp David this Friday, where the leaders are expected to announce new forms of military cooperation, including joint exercises.
US Air Force Holds China War Drill Rehearsing Casualty Evacuations in the Pacific - The US Air Force last month conducted a drill rehearsing the evacuation of thousands of casualties in the Pacific as part of its preparations for a future war with China in the region, The South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.The drills were part of Mobility Guardian, exercises led by the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command that involved six US allies; Australia, Japan, Canada, France, Britain, and New Zealand.The four-star general in charge of Air Mobility Command, Gen. Mike Minihan, made headlines earlier this year for predicting that the US would be at war with China by 2025 in a memo to his officers.Air Force Times reported last week that the Air Force “is rethinking how it would medically evacuate thousands of wounded American troops from the Pacific in a matter of weeks if the military sustained high casualties in a war with China.”War games conducted by Washington-based think tanks have predicted massive casualties in the first weeks of a conflict between the US and China over Taiwan. “In three weeks, the United States will suffer about half as many casualties as it did in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank funded by the US, Taiwan, several other governments, and many leading US arms makers. According to the Air Force, during the Mobility Guardian drills, the US and allied forces “conducted the successful deployment of two specialized Aeromedical Evacuation teams operating on a C-130 Hercules. During this event, the crews effectively moved 48 patients on six unregulated missions.”
Senators Urge Biden to Unload Tanker Carrying Stolen Iranian Oil - A bipartisan group of senators is urging President Biden to facilitate the transfer of stolen Iranian oil that has been stuck on a tanker off the coast of Texas.The Greek tanker Suez Rajan was seized by the US government in April under the pretext of sanctions relief and was forced to sail to Texas instead of China. The tanker is carrying 800,000 barrels of Iranian oil, but US companies are hesitant to discharge the cargo over fears of Iranian reprisals in the Persian Gulf. It has been stuck near Galveston since May 30.According to Reuters, Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and several other members of the Senate and House told President Biden in a letter that sanctions would become ineffective if American companies were worried about Iranian retaliation.“It is imperative that the Administration make clear that Iran and designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations cannot prevent our government from carrying out legitimate law enforcement operations,” the lawmakers said. They asked for a briefing from the administration on the progress of discharging the oil.The US seizure of the Suez Rajan provoked the Iranian seizure of two tankers in the Persian Gulf. The US responded by beefing up its military presence in the waters and is now considering placing armed troops on commercial vessels, a move that risks a direct clash with Iran.
US Considers Ways to Keep Its Military Presence in Niger -The Biden administration is considering ways to maintain its military presence in Niger following the July 26 coup that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.Niger serves as a platform for US operations in the Sahel region as it hosts about 1,100 troops and a major drone base that cost over $100 million to build, known as Air Base 201.The US has not formally declared the situation in Niger a coup since that would require cutting off aid and other types of support to the Nigerien military. CNN reported Thursday that one option being considered to maintain the US military presence in the country is issuing a waiver to allow US operations to continue in Niger if a coup determination is made.The New York Times reported Wednesday that another option for the administration would be to stop short of declaring a coup and working out an arrangement with the junta to continue counterterrorism support.Many of the Niger junta leaders have received training from the US and have a long history of cooperating with the US military, including Brig. Gen. Moussa Barmou, who has proclaimed himself Niger’s new defense chief. Barmou worked closely with US special operations forces over the years, and according to CNN’s sources, has kept in touch with several current and former US military officials. So far, the junta has yet to ask the US to leave the country, and it’s expected that the US could cooperate with the coup leaders if it chooses to. But at the same time, the US has been demanding the reinstatement of Bazoum and has backed threats from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to use force if the junta doesn’t relinquish power. Barmou met with Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland when she visited Niger last week. Sources told The Associated Press that the junta warned Nuland that they would kill Bazoum if neighboring countries intervened.The Niger coup follows a pattern of US-trained forces in Africa overthrowing civilian governments. Journalist Nick Turse of The Intercepthas reported on this phenomenon extensively and the overall failure of the US counterterrorism mission in the region.Turse explained in a recent article that in 2002 and 2003, the first years of US counterterrorism assistance to Niger, the State Department counted just nine terrorist attacks in all of Africa.“Last year, the number of violent events in Burkina Faso, Mali, and western Niger alone reached 2,737, according to a report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research institution. This represents a jump of more than 30,000 percent since the US began its counterterrorism efforts,” Turse wrote.
Sinema takes on Schumer, Jeffries and the White House over the border - When the Biden administration doled out millions in border relief money recently, it gave more to New York — the home of Congress’ two top Democratic leaders — than to Arizona. And now the Copper State’s most famous former Democrat is calling out her old party’s leaders. Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is on the warpath over what she and border-state Democrats decry as Arizona’s disproportionately small share of an $800 million pot aimed at alleviating overcrowded migrant holding facilities. She’s not alone in crying foul about Arizona getting short shrift when compared to the Empire State — her potential 2024 opponent Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is also speaking out on the imbroglio. But only Sinema is aiming specific complaints at Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Biden administration. Earlier this month in Yuma, Ariz., Sinema said she’s “livid” about her state’s treatment, singling out Schumer and Jeffries for steering border money to their state. She expanded on her ire in a lengthy interview with POLITICO, explaining that it’s “important for people to know” why New York leapfrogged Arizona. “It’s fairly obvious. I don’t know if you noticed, but the announcement about that $104 million came out first, in a joint press release from Schumer and Jeffries — not from the White House or from FEMA. The first news of it broke by their press release,” Sinema said, referring to the amount of the pot granted to New York. With a hint of sarcasm, she added: “Now, how did that happen?” The funding dispute is complex and multi-faceted, pitting Sinema and her Democratic border-state colleagues against the clout that New York’s two congressional Democratic leaders wield within the Biden administration. It also further bolsters the image Sinema has sought to build, that of an unorthodox legislator willing to oppose either party’s leaders as she mulls whether to seek another term. Sinema votes more frequently with Democrats than Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), but she left the party last year and does not attend its caucus meetings. That’s created awkward questions about whether she will run again next fall in a three-way race against Gallego and whichever Republican wins the primary, potentially the polarizing pro-Trump Kari Lake.
Rep. Ronny Jackson curses at officers, is tackled to ground in video of detainment -New body camera footage shows Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) being forcibly pinned to the ground and cursing at state troopers last month after allegedly resisting their requests to back away from an emergency medical situation.The new videos released Monday, paired with a sheriff’s report of the incident released late last week, provide a more complete understanding of the events that took place July 29 at a rodeo outside Amarillo, Texas. The footage includes 31 minutes from a trooper’s body camera and about 14 minutes from a dashboard camera. They were released in response to a records request from The Texas Tribune, which published the videos. Law enforcement officials, according to the report and to their accounts of the incidents in the videos, asked Jackson repeatedly to back away from a teenage girl who was experiencing a seizure, to make room for the EMS who were just arriving. But Jackson, who served as the White House physician under Presidents Obama and Trump — refused and grew increasingly combative with officials before being tackled to the ground by two law enforcement officials. While footage depicting this incident is muted, a trooper can be seen gesturing to Jackson to move back, as Jackson grows increasingly irate and confrontational with the officials. The camera pans away from Jackson for a few moments before returning, showing Jackson resisting officials who pin him to the ground and handcuff him. He is standing again about 50 seconds later.Jackson refuted that he was given sufficient warning, both in subsequent statements of the event and in arguments captured on video. The Texas Tribune also cites two witnesses who claim that Jackson was not given sufficient warning, but other witnesses heard in the footage supported claims that he was warned by multiple people.
Pentagon bolsters efforts to battle wildfires in Hawaii -The U.S. military is strengthening response efforts in Hawaii as the state battles wildfires and their aftermath on Maui, with the Pentagon planning to move supplies and emergency responders more quickly around the island.Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said Tuesday that U.S. Army Pacific is overseeing six new mission assignments designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist Hawaiians.Those missions include moving cargo, personnel and equipment around the island with aircraft and other vehicles, creating a defense coordinating office and setting up new staging areas on Maui for more coordinated responses. Singh said more than 250 Hawaiian National Guard members have now been mobilized to fight the wildfires, along with 140 U.S. Coast Guard responders and dozens of personnel from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.“The [U.S. military] will continue to work closely with state officials, FEMA and other supporting agencies to support the people of Hawaii in response to this incredibly terrible disaster,” Singh told reporters at a briefing.Wildfires in Upcountry Maui were 65 percent contained as of Monday night, according to the Maui County government. The Lahaina fire, named for the town it has decimated, was about 85 percent contained, while two other fires have now been extinguished.President Biden first authorized the U.S. military to respond to the Hawaii blazes last week, deploying the Coast Guard and Navy to assist state responders.
Identifying Maui fire victims will be ‘very, very difficult mission,’ HHS says --The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Tuesday it will send mortuary response teams to Maui to help identify the victims of the wildfires as the death toll approaches 100.Jonathan Greene, the deputy assistant secretary and director of the Office of Response within HHS’s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, told reporters during a Tuesday press call that the department deployed mortuary operational response and victim identification center teams from its National Disaster Medical System to Hawaii.He said the experts will “augment state and local mortuary resources” as the island recoils from the devastating wildfires that swept Maui last week. He did not offer an estimate on how many victims those teams will expect in the coming days.“In terms of the scope of the mission, it’s going to be a very, very difficult mission,” Greene said. “And patience will be incredibly important because of the number of victims. At this time, it’s premature to be able to say what the total number of victims will be.”In total, Greene said HHS sent 75 emergency response experts to Hawaii. He said the mortuary response team —which includes coroners, pathologists and X-ray technicians — will assist local authorities with processing deceased remains.The teams just landed in Hawaii with about 22 1/2 tons of supplies and equipment needed for victim identification and processing remains, he added.The wildfires last week left at least 99 people dead, with Gov. Josh Green (D) saying Tuesday the total includes children. The Hawaii governor said Monday that crews could find “10 to 20 people a day” until the searches end.In an update posted Tuesday afternoon, Maui County officials said only four victims have been identified so far. Thirteen DNA profiles have been collected from fatalities and 41 DNA samples have been obtained from family members of those who are unaccounted for. About 32 percent of the area had been searched as of Tuesday afternoon, county officials said.
Biden takes hit for Maui wildfire response - President Biden is facing mounting criticism over his response to the catastrophic wildfires in Maui, with former President Trump and other critics keeping the airwaves full of attacks over how he has handled the situation.The president ran as the empathetic politician who shines in times of crisis, but his reaction to Maui has left political watchers wondering where that Biden has gone. Biden’s “no comment” response Sunday about the rising death toll in Maui has distracted from federal relief efforts he has directed, including the dispatch of federal responders on the ground and the approval of a disaster declaration over the deadly fires. After briefly speaking about the topic Thursday, Biden waited four days to address the fires until Tuesday when he called them “devastating.” The president said he and first lady Jill Biden would visit the area “as soon as we can,” before he pivoted to prepared remarks about the Inflation Reduction Act on a preplanned trip to Wisconsin to tout his economic accomplishments.Principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said earlier Tuesday that the White House is “currently having active conversations about when a visit to Hawaii might be possible” but gave no further details.The White House has largely blown off criticism over the president being on vacation in Rehoboth, Del., this past weekend during the crisis; many Hawaiians have also criticized the government response on the ground.
Biden offers contemptible $700 per household for survivors of Maui wildfires - As more facts about the death and destruction and what caused the Maui wildfires emerged, amid growing public outrage over the US government’s criminally inadequate response, President Joe Biden boasted on Tuesday of pathetic “one-time payments of $700 per household” for those who have lost everything in the disaster. Authorities reported on Tuesday that one-third of the burn area in the town of Lahaina had been searched for victims, and the number of confirmed dead had risen to 101. Hawaii Governor Josh Green told CNN on Monday evening that the number of confirmed deaths could double over the next 10 days. Maui County reported that just four of the sets of remains found have been identified so far. The identities of these individuals will be released after families have been notified. Among those who died were four members of the same family, who were engulfed while trying to escape the flames, according to a statement released to CNN affiliate Hawaii News Now. “On behalf of our family, we bid aloha to our beloved parents, Faaso and Malui Fonua Tone, as well as our dear sister Salote Takafua and her son, Tony Takafua,” the statement read. Another victim, Franklin “Frankie” Trejos, 68, who had lived in Lahaina for 30 years, had tried to save his property, along with his friend and roommate, Perez Grant. Grant escaped the blaze while suffering burns, only to discover the remains of his friend several blocks away. The painstaking process of identifying the dead was highlighted when county investigators reported that they had obtained the DNA profiles of 13 more people, and a total of 41 DNA samples had been obtained from the family members of those who are unaccounted for. Meanwhile, there are still more than 1,000 people missing, and thousands more have been left homeless.
President Joe Biden hasn’t launched a Maui fire investigation. Here’s why. - The Biden administration has promised billions of dollars to help Hawaii recover from its deadly wildfires this month — but not a federal investigation into what went wrong. Even if the administration wanted an independent inquiry, there is no national disaster investigator to dig into unanswered questions about the response to the Lahaina blaze. Among those questions: Why the island’s siren system wasn’t used to cue evacuations, how water lines ran dry in fighting the fire and whether the White House was quick enough in deploying federal help. A handful of lawmakers from both parties has already proposed creating a federal team to scrutinize the causes and handling of natural disasters, however. They see an opening for potential movement on their idea as Congress reviews Biden’s request for $12 billion in extra cash to help FEMA respond to the Maui fire and other disasters. “Hawaii — maybe this is the trigger that we need,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said in a phone interview from her district this week. “Maybe this is the impetus to get it moving through this Congress. We don’t want things to happen in vain,” Mace added, noting the rising death toll and that more than 1,000 people are still considered missing on Maui. “It’s such a huge tragedy.” The House passed a version of the disaster investigation plan that Mace backs during the last Congress, but it stalled in the Senate last summer. The bill would give its new board subpoena power to dig into deficiencies in response, including some that were alleged during the Maui fires that killed more than 100 people.
DOJ blasts industry attempt to delay Medicare drug price negotiations -The Department of Justice (DOJ) lambasted the Chamber of Commerce’s request for an injunction to block the Medicare drug price negotiation program, arguing in court filings that the organization had no standing to file the lawsuit and that pausing the program would harm the public. The rebuttal comes weeks before the federal government is expected to name the first 10 drugs chosen for price negotiation. The Chamber filed a motion in July for a preliminary injunction against the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, claiming it would inflict “irreparable harm” on U.S. businesses and patients. The DOJ pushed back, pointing out that companies won’t feel the impact of the negotiated prices until at least 2026 and saying this case could be “fully litigated” by that point. The department also argued pausing Medicare drug price negotiation would harm the public’s interests. “The public’s interests would be gravely disserved by acceding to Plaintiffs’ premature efforts to take down the entirety of the Negotiation Program — which achieves a longstanding goal of controlling skyrocketing Medicare spending and making drugs more affordable for seniors — before that program even begins,” the motion read. When reached for comment, Andrew Varcoe, deputy chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, said, “We look forward to responding to the Justice Department’s filings.” The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is set to announce the first 10 drugs eligible for negotiation by Sept. 1. After that, the manufacturers of these drugs will have one month to sign agreements to participate in the negotiations. Plaintiffs suing the federal government have argued the penalties for not negotiating are too steep, with excise taxes being among the potential consequences. The DOJ argued in its motion that the timeline for negotiations provides companies with “plenty of flexibility.”
Biden's fall Covid vaccine rollout for the uninsured won't include pharmacies at first - The Biden administration’s effort to provide free Covid-19 vaccines to the uninsured will not start at retail pharmacies until mid-October, weeks after the government plans to make an updated version of the shot available to the broader public. The gap in timing, which comes as Covid hospitalizations have ticked up in recent weeks, means that millions of Americans without health coverage will not be able to immediately get a no-cost vaccine at popular places like CVS and Walgreens, even as it will be widely available for those who have insurance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the delay in pharmacy availability, with spokesperson Kathleen Conley saying the government is still finalizing contracts with companies like CVS and Walgreens that will allow them to distribute the vaccines for free. The CDC expects the updated vaccine rollout to begin the third or fourth week of September, she said. But the contracts with pharmacies will likely not be finished until mid-October. The uninsured will instead need to go to federal health centers or individual providers for free vaccines during the first stage of the fall vaccination campaign. That adds a layer of complexity, public health officials warn, that could discourage people from getting the shot. “That’s going to put a gap in the program,” “These kinds of things, they make a big difference when you’re trying to manage a program and you want to ensure [the] vaccine’s accessible in every county.” As many as 30 million uninsured or underinsured people face paying out-of-pocket for Covid vaccines for the first time this fall, after the government’s Covid public health emergency declaration expired in May. That figure could include millions of people who recently lost Medicaid coverage for the first time since the start of the pandemic. In April, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a $1.1 billion “bridge” program that it promised would offer people without health insurance continued access to free Covid vaccines and treatments at least through the end of 2024. That effort has taken on heightened importance in recent weeks, with Covid cases and hospitalizations rising for the first time since 2022. But with roughly a month to go before the vaccine rollout, CDC has yet to finalize the contracts. The agency maintains that it had always planned to begin free vaccine distribution in pharmacies in mid-October, even as the shot will be made available elsewhere earlier, due to the time it would take to reach formal agreements with the pharmacy chains. State health officials and public health experts planning for the on-the-ground campaign say they’ve gotten few specifics about how it will work or when they should expect more clarity.
Federal judge tosses suit against Biden student loan forgiveness plan for long-term borrowers -- A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by two conservative groups intended to halt the Biden administration’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.In an order issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington of the Eastern District of Michigan dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, arguing that the groups did not have the standing for their complaint. Ludington said that the groups’ alleged injuries were not sufficient. “But—even assuming that Plaintiffs’ alleged injury was sufficient—they have not adequately demonstrated a causal link between Defendants’ action and an identifiable injury,” the judge wrote in the 18-page order.The complaint — which was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute earlier this month — argued that the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July.The lawsuit came just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a broader cancellation plan for student loans pushed by President Biden.“The district court did not rule on the merits of the case and instead said Cato and Mackinac were not the right parties to bring it,” Sheng Li, litigation counsel for New Civil Liberties Alliance, said in a statement to The Hill. “We disagree with the court’s conclusion regarding legal standing and are reviewing legal options with our clients.”The dismissal comes a month after the Education Department announced it will provide $39 billion in total student debt relief for 804,000 borrowers. The Supreme Court had struck down Biden’s prior plan to give $10,000 of student debt relief to low- and middle-income borrowers and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients in a 6-3 decision in June.
Biden’s reelection threatened by poor marks on the economy from voters of color - In a focus group last week, eight men of color who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 were asked to describe their feelings about the economy. The answers were bleak. “Discouraged,” one said. “Pathetic,” complained another. “Pessimistic,” said a third. The signs of dissatisfaction with Democrats didn’t end there. Respondents were also asked about the rise in crime and border issues. Democrats got zeros across the board. Perhaps most troubling of all, some respondents indicated that they preferred the economy under former President Donald Trump. “Our economy is the lowest it’s been in god knows how long,” said a Hispanic respondent who lives in New Jersey. “We keep [sending] money to Ukraine and other countries rather than helping ourselves.” The responses underscored a harsh reality for the Biden campaign as it braces for what is expected to be a bruising reelection bid. The president has to sell his record on the economy — in which he has a credible case to make — and it simply isn’t resonating with voters of color who supported him in the first place. In fact, they don’t see much progress as having been made at all. “Not a lot of good words on this list,” said Terrance Woodbury, the Chief Executive Officer and Founding Partner of the liberal-leaning polling firm HIT Strategies, which convened the focus group. Woodbury’s firm specializes in reaching marginalized voting blocs that are crucial to the Democratic coalition. The HIT Tracking Focus Group, which POLITICO was given exclusive access to, pinpointed weak spots for Democrats going into 2024. All respondents were granted anonymity to speak freely. They discussed a range of topics, but chief among this group’s concerns was the economy. The president and other high-ranking members of the administration have been traversing the country in recent weeks, pitching the American electorate on what they have done to ignite a booming economy coming out of the pandemic. In addition to a record of legislative achievements like the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act, Biden has pointed to the fact that unemployment has reached a historic low of 3.5 percent. That’s the lowest it’s been in more than a half century, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. He’s gone so far as to brand the policies driving the recovery “Bidenomics.” There’s mounting evidence the rosy outlook Biden is promoting is not resonating with the American public. A survey from Quinnipiac University on Wednesday found nearly six in ten Americans — 58 percent — disapprove of his handling of the economy. Biden is above water with Black voters on the economy, but 35 percent of Black voters still say they disapprove — a far cry from how he performed with this group in 2020. His marks with Hispanic voters are even worse, with 50 percent disapproving of his handling of the economy. As this focus group laid bare, the messages not being heard by this crucial bloc of minority voters, may signal trouble for a president who needs them energized heading into 2024.
Florida Republican files articles of impeachment against Biden Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) announced he filed articles of impeachment against President Biden on Friday. In a statement, Steube’s office said he filed the articles against the president for “for high crimes and misdemeanors.” The articles feature accusations of fraud, obstruction of justice and bribery stemming from allegations of illegal business dealings and tax crimes. “It’s long past time to impeach Joe Biden,” Stebue said in the statement. “He has undermined the integrity of his office, brought disrepute on the Presidency, betrayed his trust as President, and acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice at the expense of America’s citizens.” Steube, who has endorsed former President Trump in his 2024 bid for the presidency, is among a group of Florida U.S. House representatives joining him at the Iowa State Fair this weekend. In his endorsement of Trump, he said the former president is the only person that can fix the “disastrous policies of the Biden administration.” “He’s widely supported in my district, widely supported in Florida and I’m honored to add my endorsement to the long list of endorsements for President Trump,” Steube said in his endorsement announcement in April.
Hunter Biden’s attorney jabs at DOJ over sunken plea deal - An attorney for Hunter Biden has come out swinging against Justice Department (DOJ) prosecutors, who he blames for the collapse of a plea deal that resulted in his client’s case taking yet another bizarre turn. Biden was set to plead guilty to tax charges and settle a gun charge during a July 26 hearing in Delaware, but the judge in the case questioned the parameters of the deal and whether Biden fully understood what he was agreeing to. Abbe Lowell, Biden’s attorney in the case, said Sunday that federal prosecutors “changed their decision on the fly” during the hearing — when such plea agreements are typically ironed out by both sides before appearing before a judge. Instead, the hearing took numerous twists and turns for nearly two hours until Biden ultimately pleaded not guilty in order to give both sides time to have another chance at coming up with a deal. Lowell gave a trifecta of reasons for why the plea agreement ultimately wasn’t approved. “And so the possibilities are only, one, they wrote something and weren’t clear what they meant. Two, they knew what they meant, and misstated it to counsel. Or third, they changed their view as they were standing in court in Delaware,” Lowell said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” In a court brief dated Sunday, he doubled down on those comments, maintaining that federal prosecutors opted to “renege on the previously agreed-upon Plea Agreement” and argued the diversion program to avoid jail time agreed to previously should remain in place. The Justice Department declined to comment on the case or Lowell’s accusations. On Sunday, Lowell said he did not expect his client to face any additional charges, including possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which he said “had to” be part of federal prosecutors’ five-year investigation. He noted that only tax charges and a diverted gun charge had resulted. The tax charges stem from Biden’s foreign and domestic business dealings in which he failed to pay taxes on his earnings. The collapse of such a high-profile plea deal involving the president’s son — being prosecuted by a Justice Department under his father’s own administration — has legal watchers scratching their heads over how attorneys on both sides could have entered a court room without coming to clear terms on the agreement that required a final seal of approval from the judge.
GOP releases transcript from FBI agent involved in Hunter Biden investigation -The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability released a transcript Monday from a former FBI agent that Republicans say validates a key claim from an IRS whistleblower about management of the tax crimes investigation into Hunter Biden, the president’s son.But Democrats argue that the interview actually discredits GOP claims of improper political influence in the investigation.The closed-door interview with the now-retired FBI special supervisory agent, who oversaw the investigation into Hunter Biden conducted in conjunction with the IRS, was conducted in July and has prompted sparring between the two parties in the weeks since. The agent’s name is redacted in the transcript. Republican interest in the FBI agent’s testimony centers on how they say it substantiates a piece of testimony from one of the IRS whistleblowers who raised alarm about how the tax crimes investigation into Hunter Biden was conducted, specifically about how a planned attempt to interview Hunter Biden at his home in California Dec. 8, 2020, unfolded.That whistleblower, IRS Supervisory Agent Gary Shapley, and the FBI agent said their plan was to show up at Hunter Biden’s home for a possible interview and “hail mary” consent search. They planned to notify the local Secret Service office in Los Angeles at 8 a.m. the day of their planned attempt, since Hunter Biden was a Secret Service protectee.“The initial plan was to have the local field office of the Secret Service be notified the morning of to diminish opportunities for anybody else to be notified,” the FBI agent said in the interview.But the FBI agent said he was notified the evening before, Dec. 7, 2020, that FBI headquarters had contacted the Secret Service headquarters — which upset both the FBI agent and Shapley from the IRS.“I felt it was people that did not need to know about our intent,” the FBI agent said. “I believe that the Secret Service had to be notified for our safety, for lack of confusion, for deconfliction, which we would do in so many other cases, but I didn’t understand why the initial notification.”Shapley had told the House Ways and Means Committee in May that the “transition team” was also notified about the plan. The FBI agent said he did not recall that until he had heard it from Shapley, but he remembered “that’s why I was upset that evening, that somebody beyond Secret Service was notified.” The agent could not provide any other information about who in the transition team was notified.
In talks with prosecutors, Hunter Biden’s lawyers vowed to put the president on the stand - It was Halloween of 2022, and Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Chris Clark, didn’t sound happy. Just three weeks earlier, news had leaked that federal agents believed they had enough evidence to charge his client with illegally buying a gun as a drug user.The leak was “illegal,” the lawyer wrote to the U.S. attorney overseeing the probe. The prosecution, he argued, would be seen as purely political, and it might even violate the Second Amendment.Then he issued a warning: If the Justice Department charged the president’s son, his lawyers would put the president on the witness stand.“President Biden now unquestionably would be a fact witness for the defensein any criminal trial,” Clark wrote in a 32-page letter reviewed by POLITICO. That letter, along with more than 300 pages of previously unreported emails and documents exchanged between Hunter Biden’s legal team and prosecutors, sheds new light on the fraught negotiations that nearly produced a broad plea deal. That deal would have resolved Biden’s most pressing legal issues — the gun purchase and his failure to pay taxes for several years — and it also could have helped insulate Biden from future prosecution by a Republican-led Justice Department.The documents show how the deal collapsed — a sudden turnabout that occurred after Republicans bashed it and a judge raised questions about it. The collapse renewed the prospect that Biden will head to trial as his father ramps up his 2024 reelection bid. The case has long been defined by politics, including for Biden’s own lawyers. During the private negotiations with prosecutors, the documents show, Biden’s lawyers often invoked the case’s extraordinary political undercurrents. They made clear to prosecutors that they thought pressure from congressional Republicans was improperly shaping the investigation. They name-dropped Donald Trump, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R.-Iowa) and the failed prosecution of a lawyer for Hillary Clinton. They argued that bringing the case would destroy the Justice Department’s reputation.And they said a trial of the president’s son would create political and constitutional chaos by pitting the president himself against his own Justice Department.“This of all cases justifies neither the spectacle of a sitting President testifying at a criminal trial nor the potential for a resulting Constitutional crisis,” Clark wrote.Clark’s letter and the other documents were shared with POLITICO by a person with knowledge of the communications between the Justice Department and Biden’s legal team.The documents provide a detailed, behind-the-scenes look at how the two sides came to the brink of a plea deal. But after a judge asked a few simple questions at a hearing last month about the details, it started to fray. And in the weeks after, the whole thing unraveled. Now the prosecutor overseeing the probe has been made a special counsel and says the case is headed to trial. And Clark has stopped representing the president’s son, saying he instead expects to be a witness.
GOP legal experts file amicus brief backing January trial for Trump -A group of conservative legal experts on Monday filed an amicus brief in support of the Jan. 2 proposed trial date in the federal criminal case against former President Trump over his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election. The group, which comprises former attorneys and judges who served or were appointed during Republican administrations, argued the repercussions of this trial on American democracy “could not be any more profound” and endorsed the trial date proposed by special counsel Jack Smith’s team, as opposed to the significantly later time frame suggested by Trump.“There is no more important issue facing America and the American People — and to the very functioning of democracy — than whether the former president is guilty of criminally undermining America’s elections and American democracy in order to remain in power notwithstanding that the American people had voted to confer their power upon the former president’s successor, President Joseph Biden,” they wrote. The friend-of-the-court brief argued it was in the best public interest to have a speedy trial, and the American people have a right to see the legal matters resolved. Trump is running for another term in the White House in 2024 and is, by far, the front-runner in hypothetical GOP primary polls. “There is a surpassing public interest in the expeditious resolution of these questions, in order that these questions raised by the former president’s conduct for which he now stands charged do not continue much longer to cast a dark shadow over America and her democratic system of government and governance,” they argued. The experts acknowledged efforts by the Trump team to delay the trial and argued that while “the questions presented are profound, the impending trial of the former president on these serious offenses should be straightforward, presenting little just cause for delay beyond the government’s proposed schedule and trial date.”In making the argument the case should be straight-forward, they pointed to the expansive breadth of evidence already available to the public and to other key details, including the work of the Jan. 6 House committee; the fact that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, transpired in public view; the lack of classified evidence needed; and the fact that charges were not novel and that many Jan. 6 rioters have now been charged in similar cases. CNN first reported the amicus brief.
Trump criticizes judge after he’s warned against ‘inflammatory statements’ --Former President Trump criticized the judge presiding over his 2020 election case, just days after she warned him against making any “inflammatory statements” that could intimidate witnesses or prejudice the jury pool. In a statement posted overnight on Truth Social, Trump called U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan “highly partisan” and “very biased & unfair.”“She obviously wants me behind bars,” he added. In a separate post, he pointed to a statement Chutkan reportedly made in sentencing a Jan. 6, 2021, rioter that, according to Trump, showed Chutkan’s bias against him.“I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats that they were wearing, and the garb. And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man, not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this county, and not to the principles of democracy. It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day,” Trump wrote in all capital letters, quoting Chutkan. On Friday, Chutkan warned both sides of the case to take “special care” to avoid making any statements that could intimidate witnesses or prejudice the jury pool, including, she said, making any ambiguous statements that could be interpreted that way. Chutkan said such remarks would compel her to speed up the trial.“The more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case,” Chutkan said at a hearing, “the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly.”
Trump ‘like a toddler’ who needs consequences for speaking about cases: former White House press secretary Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in an interview that Trump should be treated like a “toddler” who needs to face consequences for speaking about his legal cases. During an appearance on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” host Erin Burnett mentioned Trump’s recent name-calling toward those who publicly testify against him in court. Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, independent journalist George Chidi, former state Rep. Bee Nguyen (D) and former state Sen. Jen Jordan (D) all testified in proceedings Monday. “Yeah, he’s he’s certainly doing what he always does and you know, it’s unfortunate because I think until there are actual consequences, he’s going to continue doing this,” Grisham told Burnett. “It’s like a toddler, you’ve gotta give them consequences to show you know, that people mean it.” “We’re gonna give you 24 hours in jail or whatever the…whatever the punishment would be, but he’s got to have consequences before you know..again as I’ve said so many times somebody gets hurt or heaven forbid a witness does feel intimidated and, you know, that takes some of these cases off the rails,” Grisham added. Grisham’s remarks come as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis presented her case against Trump and his allies’ attempts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results to a grand jury this week.
Judge overseeing Trump's hush money case won't recuse himself - — The judge overseeing the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal case against Donald Trump denied the former president’s effort to have the judge recuse himself, writing in an opinion that “this Court has examined its conscience and is certain in its ability to be fair and impartial.” The judge, Juan Merchan, is presiding over the case in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records linked to a hush money payment to silence a porn star who claimed she had an affair with Trump. A trial is scheduled for March 2024. Merchan’s rejection of Trump’s effort to throw him off the case comes as Trump has stepped up his criticism of a different judge overseeing one of his other criminal cases: U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the federal case in which Trump is accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump claimed over the weekend that Chutkan is “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair.” Trump had argued that Merchan is biased and has a conflict of interest. In court papers, Trump’s lawyers said Merchan should step aside due to “actual or perceived conflict of interest” because his daughter works for a digital agency, Authentic, whose clients include a number of Democratic officials. They said Merchan showed a “preconceived bias” by urging Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, to cooperate against Trump in an earlier case. And they requested that Merchan publicly explain small-dollar political contributions he made to Democratic candidates or causes in 2020. In his opinion, dated Friday and made public Monday, Merchan rejected both accusations and the request regarding his political donations. He also disclosed that in mid-April, before Trump made his request for recusal, Merchan sought guidance from the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics about several issues Trump subsequently raised.
Twitter Gave Special Counsel Trump's Deleted Messages, Location Data: Documents -- Twitter has handed over a voluminous set of data from former President Donald Trump's account to special counsel Jack Smith, newly unsealed documents show. Twitter, now known as X, gave Mr. Smith's team data including deleted direct messages, other direct messages, draft posts, and information on the locations of users who posted to the account, lawyers for the company said in a Feb. 9 closed-door court hearing, a transcript of which was just made public.The data included what Twitter described as "confidential communications," or messages between President Trump and his senior advisers.Twitter challenged a warrant issued by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell for the data but the judge shot the challenge down, ruling that Mr. Smith had provided sufficient evidence for the warrant and a linked non-disclosure order. Twitter said the latter infringed on its constitutional rights and sought clearance to alert President Trump to the warrant's existence so he could file opposition based on claims of executive privilege, but Judge Howell, appointed under President Barack Obama, upheld both orders and sanctioned X for failure to provide the data in a timely manner.Twitter appealed the ruling to an appeals court but the court backed Judge Howell, finding that prosecutors had an “unquestionably compelling” interest in pursuing their investigation of Mr. Trump and keeping it secret from him and also because the order was “narrowly tailored,” such as by limiting its duration to 180 days.The newly released transcript was part of a tranche of unsealed documents that also includes the warrant.Mr. Smith's team was authorized by the warrant to obtain an extensive amount of data from Twitter, including all records from October 2020 to January 2021 of composed posts, whether they remained in draft form or not; all direct messages that were sent, received, or drafted; all devices used to access the account; and any credit card or bank account information linked to the account.
Trump lashes out against investigations ahead of potential Georgia indictment - Former President Trump unleashed a torrent of social media posts Monday targeting investigators and witnesses in Georgia as a grand jury meets in Fulton County to hear evidence about efforts by him and his allies to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. Trump posted multiple times on Truth Social early Monday, with each message lashing out in some way about Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her investigation. The barrage of posts, most written in all capital letters, comes as charges could be filed as early as this week. Trump bashed Willis as “phoney” in one post and wrote that she “wants desperately to indict me on the ridiculous grounds of tampering with the 2020 presidential election.” “No, I didn’t tamper with the election!” he wrote in all capital letters. “Would someone please tell the Fulton County grand jury that I did not tamper with the election,” the former president wrote in a subsequent all-caps post. “The people that tampered with it were the ones that rigged it, and sadly, phoney Fani Willis, who has shockingly allowed Atlanta to become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world, has no interest in seeing the massive amount of evidence available, or finding out who these people that committed this crime are,” he added.
Trump lawyers blast Georgia DA office over court document mystery - Attorneys for Donald Trump on Monday criticized the Georgia Fulton County District Attorney’s Office over a report that a document listing criminal charges against the former president was briefly posted earlier in the day, then abruptly taken down, arguing that it reflects flaws in the investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. “The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process,” attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little said in a statement issued by the Trump campaign. “This was not a simple administrative mistake,” the attorneys added. “A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the District Attorney’s Office, yet it somehow made its way to the clerk’s office and was assigned a case number and a judge before the grand jury even deliberated. This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception.” The statement is the latest instance of Trump and his allies questioning the credibility of the case against the former president. Reuters reported earlier Monday on a legal filing against Trump posted to the court docket. But the news outlet later clarified that the court’s website had briefly posted a document Monday listing several criminal charges against Trump “before taking the document down without explanation.” A spokesperson for the Fulton County clerk issued a statement late Monday afternoon referencing a “fictitious document” circulating on social media, but they offered no further explanation about the document that was posted. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) is investigating Trump and his allies over their efforts to overturn the state’s election results in 2020 by pressuring state officials and putting together a group of alternate electors to go against the state’s certified results.
Georgia court clerk dubs mystery document in Trump case ‘fictitious’ --The Fulton County, Ga., court clerk’s office addressed Monday what it called a “fictitious” document that Reuters reported had been briefly posted on the court’s website indicating charges against former President Trump for his attempts at overturning his 2020 election loss in the state. But the clerk’s office failed to provide any information on how the document in the high-profile case ended up on its court website, which Reuters reported had been taken down “without explanation.” The document appears to outline multiple criminal charges against Trump in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s (D) probe of the former president’s efforts to subvert the state’s 2020 election results to stay in power. In a statement, the court said it is aware of a “fictitious document that has been circulated online and reported by various media outlets related the The Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury.” The statement never addresses Trump specifically, but a special purpose grand jury was put in place to investigate the case expected to be brought by Willis. “As the custodian of various county records, the Clerk of the Courts understands the sensitivity of all court filings, especially those that are at the forefront of the national spotlight and remains committed to operating with an extreme level of efficiency, accuracy and transparency,” according to the court statement.
Trump and 18 allies charged in Georgia election meddling (AP) — Donald Trump and 18 allies were indicted in Georgia on Monday over their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, with prosecutors using a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power.The nearly 100-page indictment details dozens of acts by Trump or his allies to undo his defeat, including beseeching Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to find enough votes for him to win the battleground state; harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud; and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump.In one particularly brazen episode, it also outlines a plot involving one of his lawyers to access voting machines in a rural Georgia county and steal data from a voting machine company.“The indictment alleges that rather than abide by Georgia’s legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office brought the case, said at a late-night news conference.Other defendants include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; and a Trump administration Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, who aided the then-president’s efforts to undo his election loss in Georgia. Other lawyers who advanced legally dubious ideas to overturn the results, including John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, were also charged.Willis said the defendants would be permitted to voluntarily surrender by noon Aug. 25. She also said she plans to seek a trial date within six months and that she intends to try the defendants collectively.The indictment bookends a remarkable crush of criminal cases — four in five months, each in a different city — that would be daunting for anyone, never mind someone like Trump who is simultaneously balancing the roles of criminal defendant and presidential candidate.
READ: Trump indicted by Fulton County grand jury -Former President Trump faces new charges in his fourth indictment this year, this time in Georgia, where prosecutors say he participated in a plot to overturn the state’s 2020 election results to stay in power.The co-conspirators include Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Ken Chesebro and Jeffrey Clark. Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows is also charged.The charges range from making false statements and impersonating a public officer to racketeering, a charge usually reserved for organized crime.The 98-page document dropped shortly before 11 p.m. on Monday. Read Trump’s indictment in Georgia here: (document embedded below)
Georgia charges against 5 Trump enablers, explained - The indictment unveiled in Georgia late Monday night charged former President Trump with 13 crimes.But unlike the other three indictments Trump faces, Georgia’s case sees a plethora of aides, lawyers and supporters charged, as well. In addition to Trump, 18 people have been indicted as a result of the probe spearheaded by Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis (D). In aggregate, prosecutors paint a picture of a concerted effort to thwart the will of Georgia voters. The alleged quest encompassed several component parts and a number of big names, all seeking to aid Trump and his desire to stay in power. Here are five of the best-known people enabling Trump and a summary of the charges against them. No arraignments have taken place yet, but it is widely assumed — based in part on previous public statements — the defendants will plead not guilty to all charges.
- Rudy Giuliani: 13 counts. The former New York City mayor and Trump lawyer is charged with racketeering under Georgia’s anti-racketeering and corruption statutes, as are all the other defendants.But Giuliani faces numerous other charges. Among them are soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, several offenses relating to false statements and two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree. His 13 counts are the same number as Trump’s and more than any other co-defendant.The indictment outlines a number of acts that prosecutors allege constitute crimes.For example, it posits that Giuliani’s presentation to members of the Georgia Senate, while Trump and his allies were seeking to overturn the 2020 election result in the state, amounted to soliciting those members to violate their oaths of office. It further contends Giuliani “knowingly” and “willfully” made false statements and representations at that meeting — such as that a voting machine in Michigan recorded 6,000 votes for President Biden that had actually been cast for Trump. A separate count alludes to a meeting later the same month — December 2020 — with members of the Georgia House. The indictment lists even more false statements allegedly made by Giuliani then, including untrue allegations of fraud by named election workers at the vote count in an Atlanta arena.
- John Eastman: 9 counts. Eastman, an attorney, only came to widespread public attention because of his pro-Trump efforts.He is charged with many of the same offenses as Giuliani, including racketeering and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.Eastman was also party to the December 2020 meeting with Georgia state senators. One intriguing detail in the indictment is the mention of a phone call in December 2020 by Trump and Eastman to Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. According to the indictment, the call was made “to request her assistance” in finding people willing to serve as pro-Trump electors in contravention of the official election results. The indictment considers this call “an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.” .The indictment also refers to a New Year’s Eve 2020 court filing from Eastman and Trump, suing for “injunctive relief” regarding the Georgia results. Prosecutors allege the duo had “reason to know” the filing contained “materially false statements.”
- Sidney Powell: 7 counts. Powell was a controversial lawyer even inside Trump World, where some loyalists considered her claims outlandish. The charges against Powell, beyond racketeering, are different from many of the other co-defendants.Powell is charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud; three counts related to computer theft, computer trespass, and computer invasion of privacy; and an additional charge of conspiracy to defraud the state.The computer-related charges pertain to Powell’s apparent efforts to prove claims of fraud by delving into how the election was conducted in a strongly pro-Trump county, Coffee County.The indictment includes the allegation that Powell and other allies “unlawfully conspired to use a computer with knowledge that such use was without authority and with the intention of removing voter data and Dominion Voting Systems Corporation data from said computer.”It contends the same group — Powell and three others — also conspired by roughly the same means “with the intention of examining personal voter data with knowledge that such examination was without authority.”
- Mark Meadows: 2 counts. Meadows was Trump’s chief of staff in the last year of his White House tenure, having served in Congress representing a North Carolina district and leading the House Freedom Caucus.In addition to the racketeering charge, Meadows is charged — jointly with Trump — with soliciting a violation of oath from a public officer.The charge seemingly refers to the infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) on Jan. 2, 2021. On the call, which was recorded, Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” exactly enough votes to overtake President Biden’s narrow margin of victory in the state.Meadows was also on that hourlong call and spoke up on occasion.
- Jeffrey Clark: 2 counts. Clark has been a deeply contentious figure since dramatic developments at the Department of Justice were revealed by The New York Times in late January 2021. According to the Times, Clark, a department official at the time, secretly met with Trump, who was still president, without the knowledge of his superiors. As characterized by the Times, Clark and Trump devised a “plot” that would have seen the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, ousted and Clark replace him. Clark would also have sent a letter to Georgia officials contending the Department of Justice found “significant concerns” with voting in 2020 that “may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states.”This was untrue. Rosen’s predecessor William Barr told Trump — and had said publicly in an Associated Press interview — there was no evidence of voting irregularities on a scale that could have changed the election’s outcome. The Trump-Clark plan faded after senior leaders at the Justice Department threatened to resign in protest.Clark is now charged with racketeering and with a criminal attempt to commit false statements and writings.
Meet the 18 people charged with Trump in Georgia indictment -Former President Trump was indicted in Georgia late Monday night on 13 charges ranging from making false statements and impersonating a public officer to conspiracy and racketeering — a charge generally reserved for organized crime. But the former president is far from the only person tied to the 2020 plot to keep him in power to face serious charges. Eighteen Trump lawyers, advisers and affiliates are charged alongside the leading GOP 2024 hopeful in the most wide-ranging indictment he’s yet to face. Each of them face the racketeering charge, linking the multitude of alleged crimes together. The shared charge alleges the defendants participated in a “criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia — and elsewhere — to accomplish the illegal goal” of keeping Trump in office, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) said Monday. Here’s what to know about the other 18 people charged with Trump in the Georgia probe.
- Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the other 18 indicted individuals face racketeering charges under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a charge usually reserved for organized crime.Last year, Meadows was ordered by a judge to to speak before the Georgia special grand jury. Ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, he joked about false claims of voter fraud via votes cast by dead people, according to the Washington Post.But after Jan. 6, the former chief of staff went largely off the grid, particularly amid damning testimony of his actions that day, causing some to speculate he has played a role in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation into Trump’s actions after losing the 2020 election. Meadows also faces a charge of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
- Trump lawyer John Eastman engineered the legal strategy Trump and his allies allegedly used to try to overturn the 2020 election results. The strategy relied on slates of fake electors in battleground states — including Georgia — to swing the election’s outcome in Trump’s favor, and on then-Vice President Mike Pence to toss out the real electors.Eastman faces nine charges stemming from that plot. They range from conspiring to commit false statements and writings, and forgery, to state RICO charges.
- Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, a key coordinator of the fake electors plan, faces seven charges in connection with efforts to keep Trump in power.He became involved with the Trump campaign first through its legal efforts in Wisconsin, another state where fake electors met. He drafted several memos devising a strategy for the plot, including ideas for how the fake electors could mimic the real ones. He has also been identified as a possible co-conspirator in Trump’s federal Jan. 6 case.
- Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney and longtime ally, played a key role in Trump’s post-election efforts and, like Trump, faces 13 charges.The former New York City mayor faces six charges in connection with a scheme to submit the false slate of pro-Trump electors and the racketeering charge.The indictment takes aim at three Georgia state Legislature committee hearings at which Giuliani and other Trump allies appeared and promoted false claims of mass electoral fraud. For each hearing, Giuliani is charged with a count of soliciting lawmakers to violate their oaths of office by encouraging them to help send a slate of Trump electors, and a count of making false statements.Giuliani has also been identified as a possible target of Smith’s federal Jan. 6 probe.
Meadows asks for Georgia charges to shift to federal court -Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows is seeking to move his charges in the Georgia 2020 case to federal court, where he plans to ask a judge to dismiss the case.“Mr. Meadows is entitled to remove this action to federal court because the charges against him plausibly give rise to a federal defense based on his role at all relevant times as the White House Chief of Staff to the President of the United States,” attorneys for Meadows wrote in the Tuesday filing in the Northern District of Georgia.Meadows was charged with two counts Monday in a sprawling indictment following an investigation from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D).Meadows faces charges under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, along with former President Trump and 17 other co-defendants.He also faces charges for soliciting an official to violate their oath of office — a nod to his presence on the call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) in which the former president asked the secretary to “find” additional votes for him.In the Tuesday filing, Meadows also denied any wrongdoing in aiding Trump as he sought to reverse his 2020 election loss in the state.“Nothing Mr. Meadows is alleged in the indictment to have done is criminal per se: arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President. One would expect a Chief of Staff to the President of the United States to do these sorts of things,” the filing states.“This is precisely the kind of state interference in a federal official’s duties that the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits.”The Supremacy Clause establishes that federal law takes precedence over state ones and prohibits states from interfering with constitutional powers bestowed upon the federal government. In the filing, Meadows claimed immunity from legal actions under the clause.The indictment alleged he pressured state legislators in key swing states, as well as Georgia election officials. It also notes his visit to Georgia in December 2020, when he attempted to to watch a signature match audit being performed.
Special prosecutor to examine Georgia lieutenant governor’s role in Trump bid to stay in office --A special prosecutor will be appointed to examine Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’s (R) actions following the 2020 election in the wake of former President Trump’s new indictment, according to a state official.Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) on Monday charged Trump and 18 other individuals in connection with her election investigation, but she was barred from bringing charges against Jones because of a conflict of interest.Jones, a former state senator who signed documents purporting to be one of Georgia’s valid presidential electors, appears to be the eighth of 30 unindicted co-conspirators who were not named but were described in Monday’s charging documents.Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, confirmed he would appoint a special prosecutor to review the matter because of Willis’s removal.“I have no timetable on this matter but will move as quickly as possible,” Skandalakis said in a statement. “I will also add, this case is unprecedented in its scope and nature. Finding a special prosecutor with the resources to handle such a case will not be easy.”Willis last year hosted a fundraiser for a Democratic candidate who went on to face Jones in the lieutenant governor race. A state judge disqualified the district attorney from bringing charges against Jones, whom Willis had identified as a target of the grand jury’s investigation.Skandalakis said his agency assumed the responsibility of appointing the prosecutor in accordance with state law following Willis’s removal. Skandalakis added that he has asked Willis for a copy of the report produced by the special grand jury that previously investigated the case.The development was first reported by The Associated Press.Although the indictment unsealed late Monday does not name Jones, it does appear to mention him on multiple occasions.It lists a Dec. 7, 2020, tweet by Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani that prosecutors say was a retweet of the unnamed individual. That matches Giuliani’s retweet of Jones that day.The charging documents also note that the unnamed individual was a state lawmaker at multiple state legislative committee hearings about the 2020 election, again matching Jones’s known involvement.
Georgia prosecutors seek March 4 trial in Trump racketeering case - Georgia prosecutors are seeking a March 4, 2024, trial for Donald Trump and 18 allies on racketeering charges connected to the former president’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.The timeline, combined with Trump’s other proposed and scheduled criminal cases, could put Trump in the courtroom for most of the first six months of 2024, a span that covers almost the entirety of the GOP primary in which he’s the frontrunner for the nomination.Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis framed the proposed date as a bid to work around Trump’s other scheduled matters, including a March 25 trial date in New York on charges that he falsified business records to cover up an extramarital affair and a May 20 trial date on federal charges that he hoarded classified documents at his Florida estate.“The State of Georgia proposes certain deadlines that do not conflict with these other courts’ already-scheduled hearings and trial dates,” Willis wrote in court documents filed Wednesday.The proposal also includes a Sept. 5, 2023 arraignment, evidence-sharing deadlines in September and other interim motions throughout the fall. It’s unclear how Trump’s pileup of criminal cases will resolve. Special Counsel Jack Smith is seeking a Jan. 2 trial on charges that Trump illegally obstructed the transfer of presidential power. (Trump is expected to object to Smith’s proposed trial date in a court filing due Thursday.) Smith’s team has estimated it will take four to six weeks just for the prosecution to present its case, meaning a verdict in the case — if U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan agrees with Smith’s timeline — would likely arrive by mid-to-late February.That would leave little time for the start of Willis’ trial, which itself would almost surely stretch to the beginning of the March 25 trial date in New York. And if Trump’s trial in New York lasted two weeks, it would leave a small gap before Trump’s Florida trial before U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon.Trump has called for all four of his criminal matters to be postponed until after the 2024 election, though the two judges who have set trial dates have so far dismissed those attempts. Chutkan has warned Trump that if he continues a rash of inflammatory comments about witnesses or others involved in his case, she would consider speeding up his trial date in Washington. Trump is also facing several civil lawsuits that are scheduled to go to trial over the next six months, but he’s unlikely to attend those in person. So far, judges have largely rejected Trump’s concerns about the political calendar and the likelihood that he could be forced off the campaign trail for long stretches. If Trump’s dominant position in the GOP primary holds, however, those contests may be less climactic than if the race were to tighten.
Dershowitz predicts ‘there will be some convictions’ after fourth Trump indictment -Former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday he predicts “there will be some convictions,” in former President Trump’s four criminal cases, which he expects will all take place before the 2024 presidential election. “I predict there’ll be some convictions,” Dershowitz said during an appearance on “Bannon’s War Room,” a podcast hosted by former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon. “I think the strategy is to get bad convictions, but to get them fast in New York and Florida, in Washington, and in Fulton County.”Dershowitz argued these convictions will be reversed, but not until after the election. “The whole ‘get Trump’ approach is to get him before the election, convict him before the election, and then he wins on appeal,” Dershowitz said. A grand jury in Georgia indicted Trump and 18 co-defendants Monday night, marking the former president’s fourth indictment this year. These latest charges stem from Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
Mar-a-Lago manager De Oliveira pleads not guilty in alleged effort to delete surveillance footage - Carlos De Oliveira, the Mar-a-Lago property manager accused of helping in former President Trump’s attempt to delete footage from his home, pleaded not guilty in a Florida courtroom Tuesday. The arraignment marked De Oliveira’s third appearance in the case after he twice failed to come to court with a Florida-based attorney. De Oliveira is facing obstruction of justice charges as well as charges over making false statements to investigators during the Mar-a-Lago probe. The indictment noted efforts from De Oliveira, 56, to determine how long security footage was stored on the Mar-a-Lago system. It says he later told another employee there that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted.” The filing also points to a 24-minute call between De Oliveira and Trump shortly after the Justice Department warned it would soon be subpoenaing the video camera footage from Mar-a-Lago. The indictment details De Oliveira’s attempts to apparently conceal the plans, describing him and fellow co-defendant Walt Nauta walking among the bushes around the IT office where the security footage was managed. At another point, De Oliveira and Nauta “walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the storage room was located, and observed and pointed out security cameras.” The charges against De Oliveira were brought in a superseding indictment by prosecutors, one that resulted in additional obstruction of justice charges for Trump relating to the footage, as well as an additional charge over violating the Espionage Act.
Canadian woman sentenced to nearly 22 years for ricin letter sent to Trump at White House - — A Canadian woman was sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison in Washington on Thursday in the mailing of a threatening letter containing the poison ricin to then-President Donald Trump at the White House.Pascale Ferrier, 56, had pleaded guilty to violating biological weapons prohibitions in letters sent to Trump and to police officials in Texas, where she had been jailed for several weeks in 2019.Her defense attorney, Eugene Ohm, said Ferrier has no criminal record prior to that and is an “inordinately intelligent” French immigrant who had earned a master’s degree in engineering and raised two children as a single parent.But in September 2020, prosecutors said Ferrier made the ricin at home in Quebec and mailed the potentially deadly poison derived from processing castor beans to Trump with a letter that referred to him as “The Ugly Tyrant Clown” and read in part: “If it doesn’t work, I’ll find better recipe for another poison, or I might use my gun when I’ll be able to come. Enjoy! FREE REBEL SPIRIT.”The letter from Ferrier, which also told Trump “give up and remove your application for this election,” was intercepted at a mail sorting facility in September 2020, before it could reach the White House.She was arrested trying to enter a border crossing in Buffalo, N.Y., carrying a gun, a knife and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, authorities said. Investigators also found eight similar letters to law enforcement officials in charge of a Texas jail where she was held after she refused to leave a park area as it closed.
Prosecutors seek 30-year sentences for Proud Boys leaders in Jan. 6 case - Prosecutors are seeking 33-year prison sentences for former Proud Boys chair Enrique Tarrio and his ally Joe Biggs, who they say aimed to foment a revolution on Jan. 6 to keep former President Donald Trump in power.The proposed jail sentences would nearly double the lengthiest Jan. 6 sentence handed down to date — 18 years for Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes — a decision prosecutors say reflects the pivotal role that Proud Boys leaders played in stoking and exacerbating the violence at the Capitol that day.“The defendants understood the stakes, and they embraced their role in bringing about a ‘revolution,’” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo released Thursday night. “They unleashed a force on the Capitol that was calculated to exert their political will on elected officials by force and to undo the results of a democratic election. The foot soldiers of the right aimed to keep their leader in power. They failed. They are not heroes; they are criminals.”Both Tarrio and Biggs were convicted of seditious conspiracy in May by a jury who also found allies Philadelphia Proud Boy leader Zachary Rehl and Seattle Proud Boy leader Ethan Nordean guilty of the grave offense. Prosecutors are seeking 30 years for Rehl and 27 years for Nordean. A fifth Proud Boy tried alongside the others, Dominic Pezzola, was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted on other serious offenses. Pezzola may be the best known of the group, however. He shattered a Senate-wing window with a stolen police riot shield, triggering the breach of the Capitol itself. Prosecutors are seeking a 20-year jail term for him. Nordean, Biggs, Pezzola and Rehl have been in prison since early 2021, and Tarrio has been in jail since his arrest in February 2022. Prosecutors spent much of the memo describing the trauma the attack caused for members of Congress and outnumbered police officers, many of whom were injured defending the building. The attack, which the Justice Department says was sparked in significant ways by the Proud Boys, left a stain on American democracy. It was, in part, why prosecutors are urging the judge to deem their conduct “terrorism” — a designation that would result in sharply increased sentences. The proposed sentences set up a test for U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who presided over the contentious four-month trial of the Proud Boys leaders earlier this year. Defense lawyers repeatedly argued that despite the group’s presence at the Capitol, prosecutors had pieced together a case based largely on their private messages, which they said were simply First Amendment-protected expressions of dissent. Nordean, Biggs and Rehl are seeking sentences that would range between one and three years — and largely be fulfilled by the time that the three men have already spent in prison while awaiting trial. But prosecutors cast the group’s actions as significantly more calculated and sinister. They described the group as launching an “assault” on the Capitol that started at 10 a.m., when a group of 200 carefully selected members of the Proud Boys amassed at the Washington Monument. They marched down the mall, away from the site of Trump’s rally, and to the lightly defended Capitol grounds, where they whipped up the crowd into a frenzy before rioters stormed the barricades. Videos show Nordean, Biggs and Rehl at the front of the crowd at pivotal moments, with pockets of other Proud Boys joining skirmishes, removing metal bike racks that police were using to keep the crowd at bay and facilitating the larger mob’s access to Capitol grounds.
Citibank gets House Republican subpoena related to Jan. 6 privacy concerns — The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Citibank for documents related to House Republicans' belief that major banks illegally shared private financial data with the Federal Bureau of Investigation related to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The subpoena is part of a pervasive view on Capitol Hill among Republicans that the Biden administration and the Democratic party are weaponizing large government agencies and other powerful institutions — including banks — against conservatives. That narrative presents a tricky conflict for banks, which are grappling with how to manage their regulatory obligations to uphold data privacy and anti-money-laundering programs, but also share a general desire to stay out of political conflicts to whatever degree possible. House Republicans said they are concerned that at least one institution — Bank of America — appears to have shared some data about individuals who made certain purchases and transactions, specifically Airbnb, hotel or airline travel reservations, in the Washington, D.C., area in the days close to Jan. 6. Individuals who purchased firearms with a Bank of America product like a credit card, the subpoena cover letter said, went to the top of a list provided to the FBI. Some Republicans are concerned that Bank of America provided the FBI with that information "without any legal process," but in their subpoena, did not clarify what legal processes Bank of America would have had to follow to provide that information to federal law enforcement. "Federal law enforcement's use of back-channel discussions with financial institutions as a method to investigate and obtain private financial data of Americans is alarming," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, wrote in the subpoena cover letter to Citibank. "The documents received to date only bolsters our need for all materials responsive to our request." Jordan is basing the claim that Bank of America provided information illegally on interviews with people he called "whistleblowers." Democratic lawmakers have questioned the credibility of those interviewees.
Kansas police and a small newspaper are at the center of a 1st Amendment fight after a newsroom raid (AP) — A small newspaper and a police department in Kansas are at the center of a dispute over freedom of speech as the newspaper struggled Monday to publish its next edition after police raided its office and the home of its owner and publisher over the weekend. Officials with the Marion Police Department confiscated computers and cellphones from the publisher and staff of the Marion County Record in the Friday raid, prompting press freedom watchdogs to condemn the actions of local authorities as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution’s protection for a free press. The police searches were apparently prompted by a complaint from a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell, who accused the newspaper of invading her privacy after it obtained copies of her driving record, which included a 2008 conviction for drunk driving. Newspaper publisher and co-owner Eric Meyer maintains that the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and Police Chief Gideon Cody’s record are the main reason for the raids. Newell says the newspaper targeted her after she ordered Meyer and a reporter out of her restaurant earlier this month during a political event. “This is the type of stuff that, you know, that Vladimir Putin does, that Third World dictators do,” Meyer said during an interview with The Associated Press in his office. Cody said Sunday that the raid was legal and tied to a criminal investigation.
White House asks Supreme Court to strike down Texas social media law - The White House asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s decision to uphold a controversial Texas social media law. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote a brief Monday saying conflicting decisions from circuit courts over similar laws in Texas and Florida warrant a Supreme Court review. The two laws passed by the GOP-led states aim to prohibit social media companies from banning users based on political views. Those laws would limit companies from being able to moderate content and users, even if they violate the website’s terms and conditions.Prelogar said the court should reverse the 5th Circuit court’s decision to uphold the Texas law, arguing that the companies have First Amendment protections to carry out content moderation as they choose. “The platforms’ content-moderation activities are protected by the First Amendment, and the content-moderation and individualized-explanation requirements impermissibly burden those protected activities,” she wrote. Unlike the 5th Circuit, the 11th Circuit ruled to block Florida’s similar law from taking effect. The conflicting opinions set the cases up to be heard by the Supreme Court. Two tech industry groups, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and NetChoice, are leading cases against the laws and have asked the Supreme Court to hear them.
Zuckerberg calls off Musk cage fight: ‘Elon isn’t serious’ – Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has called off his cage fight with fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk, accusing the Tesla CEO of wasting his time. “I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on,” Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads Sunday night. “Elon won’t confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead.” But Zuckerberg left the door open to a fight in the future, continuing: “If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me.” It comes after Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a “cage match” in June, with the two tech billionaires then seemingly making plans to make it happen, reportedly working with Dana White, president of Mixed Martial Arts organization UFC, to set up a charity bout. But after weeks of trading barbs on their competing social networks — Musk’s X (formerly known as Twitter) and Zuckerberg’s Threads — it seems the fight isn’t happening after all. That’s not particularly surprising, given Zuckerberg is a skilled jiu-jitsu practitioner who has been hitting the mat hardover the past two months, while Musk has admitted he isn’t exactly fighting fit. The news the match is off will come as a blow to Rome, after Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said he had a “long and friendly conversation” with Musk about his country hosting the event. Alas, there won’t be a Melee in Milan or a Fracas in Florence, after all.
Feinstein accuses trustees of husband’s estate of financial abuse --Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) accused the trustees of her late husband’s estate of committing financial abuse against her and called for them to be suspended as administrators of the account in a recent legal filing.Feinstein, 90, accused the three trustees — Michael Klein, Marc Scholvinck and Verett Mims — of the Richard C. Blum Revocable Trust of denying her funds to which she is entitled from her late husband’s estate. Her late husband, Richard Blum, was reportedly a billionaire when he passed away early last year.The filing marks the latest salvo in the battle by the longtime California lawmaker to gain access to the funds.According to her filing, the three trustees are “wrongfully withholding distributions to which [Blum’s] Trust entitles her in bad faith and diverting assets that they should have used to fund” Feinstein’s marital trust.Feinstein said that upon Blum’s death, $5 million was to be placed into her trust, with that total set to be dispersed to her in quarterly installments. That $5 million payment has not taken place, she says, and she has not received any disbursements, she said.“The Court should suspend and remove the Trustees for breaching their fiduciary duties, including their duties of loyalty and impartiality, to report and account, and to administer the [Blum] Trust according to its terms,” Feinstein’s filing reads.The remainder of the trust is set to go to Blum’s three daughters. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Blum’s children are slated to receive $22 million each from the trust at present if Feinstein dies and she does not receive the $5 million she says is supposed to transfer to her trust. “The Trustees’ inaction shows that they intend to benefit Richard Blum’s daughters, who stand to inherit millions of dollars that should go to Senator Feinstein if the Trustees never make the required distributions to her. The Court must hold the Trustees accountable for their breaches of trust,” the filing reads.
Fired AG Leading Epstein Inquiry Reveals V.I. Governor Pressured Her On Pedophile's Behalf: Fang --Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George vigorously prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein-related cases until she was unexpectedly fired by V.I. Governor Albert Bryan Jr. last December.The sudden dismissal sent shockwaves throughout the islands and made international headlines, with many speculating that Bryan’s decision was shaped by her legal pursuit of Epstein’s allies. Just a month before her surprise ouster, George had won a $105 million settlement against Epstein’s estate and filed an additional case against Epstein’s alleged allies on Wall Street.But it wasn’t the first time Bryan may have leaned on George on behalf of the convicted pedophile.In July, George testified under oath that Bryan had personally lobbied her in 2019 to issue a special waiver to the territory’s sex offender law so that Epstein could travel freely, without special notifications or restrictions.The demand shocked her, as Epstein was well-known at the time as a convicted sex offender who had reportedly abused dozens of young women and girls, with many victims exploited in the Virgin Islands.“Just the fact that he as a sex offender got the governor to come to me for that request,” said George, that was “unusual.”The former attorney general added that Epstein appeared to be “flexing his political influence over or with the governor in an effort to get a favorable result in what I considered to be definitely a law enforcement issue.”George said that Bryan repeatedly pressured her to issue the sex offender travel waiver to Epstein. Asked if she found the outreach to be “improper,” she responded, “I do.”George also noted that she later heard from Epstein’s attorney and tax specialist, Erika Kellerhals, who also lobbied for the special waiver. As I reported last month, Kellerhals previously employed Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-V.I., a firebrand House Democrat who misled reporters about her extensive ties to the convicted pedophile. Unlike her predecessors, George denied the waiver.
Judge Jed Rakoff Has Regularly Dined in the Past with the Chairman of the Law Firm that Just Got a Big Win in His Court in the JPMorgan Sex Trafficking Case -- By Pam and Russ Martens - In 2017, Simon & Schuster released the book, The Chickenshit Club, by the Pulitzer-prize winning public interest writer, Jesse Eisinger. The book reveals a stunning fact about Manhattan federal district court Judge Jed Rakoff – a man who has gone out of his way to portray himself with the media as the protector of the public interest. Eisinger writes this:“Karp, sixteen years younger, and Rakoff began having dinner every several months, often with their wives and other lawyers, at restaurants around Manhattan: Il Gattopardo, the Leopard, Telepan.” Federal law requires federal judges to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. How could a former federal prosecutor and long-tenured federal judge like Rakoff think it would be appropriate to be dining with the top dog of the law firm whose partners are regularly in his courtroom asking him to dismiss cases against their Wall Street clients?Rakoff’s wife, Ann, may also have had financial conflicts in the past. According toJudge Rakoff’s financial disclosure forms and his wife’s LinkedIn profile, from September 2006 through August of 2015, a span of almost nine years, Ann Rakoff was the Executive Director of the Corporate Law Center at the Fordham University School of Law – notwithstanding the fact that she never went to law school or had a law license. The following law firms that practice before Rakoff are listed on the Fordham Law website as having made donations of $100,000 to $249,000 to the law school over a number of years: Wachtell Lipton, Kirkland & Ellis, Skadden Arps, Davis Polk, along with several anonymous donors. Ann Rakoff’s salary is not disclosed, and is not required to be disclosed, on Judge Rakoff’s financial disclosure forms. Judge Rakoff’s chummy dinners with Brad Karp of Paul Weiss came to mind last week when Rakoff dismissed a major case against Board Members of JPMorgan Chase that Paul Weiss lawyers urged Rakoff to dismiss. Rakoff issued a 1-1/2 page order dismissing the case, using the very argument that Paul Weiss suggested he should use, while failing to issue a reasoned decision – which Rakoff says will be forthcoming at a future date. (What was the big hurry to give Paul Weiss this good news, other than so it could immediately brag about it?) The case before Rakoff is one of three separate lawsuits – all assigned to the same Judge – where the largest federally-insured bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, is charged with looking the other way for years and failing to file the legally-mandated Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) with law enforcement as the craven sex trafficker of underage girls, Jeffrey Epstein, laundered his illegal bounty through his accounts at the bank while sending lucrative clients to the bank in return. The other two cases were brought by victims of Epstein and by the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands where Epstein owned a private island compound.In the case just dismissed last week by Rakoff, Paul Weiss is defending Board Members of JPMorgan Chase in a shareholders’ lawsuit brought by two pension funds. The lawsuit charges that specific Board Members, together with Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, and a former executive (Jes Staley), failed to carry out their fiduciary duties by ignoring the activities of Epstein during the more than 15 years that he carried out money laundering in his accounts at the bank.The lawsuit dropped a new bombshell, documenting that some Board Members were actually involved in business dealings with Epstein.
Sam Bankman-Fried wins approval to receive Adderall for ADHD while in jail --Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal team is asking a U.S. district court judge to grant the former FTX CEO “uninterrupted access” to his daily prescribed medication while he is in jail. That includes Adderall for treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.“For over five years Mr. Bankman-Fried has been prescribed Emsam 9mg/24 hrs transdermal patch for the treatment of depression,” Bankman-Fried’s attorney, Mark Cohen, wrote in a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday. “And for the past three years, Mr. Bankman-Fried has been prescribed Adderall 10mg tablets, 3-4x/day for the treatment of ADHD.”Kaplan approved the motion later in the day.On Friday, Kaplan sided with a request by federal prosecutors to revoke Bankman-Fried’s bail over alleged witness tampering. Bankman-Fried was remanded to custody directly from a court hearing in New York and sent to Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, or MDC, according to Bureau of Prisons records.Unless an appeal filed by the defendant’s legal team is successful, Bankman-Fried is expected to remain in custody until his criminal trial, which is due to begin Oct. 2. He faces charges for allegedly conspiring to defraud investors and customers out of billions of dollars in a scheme that led to the collapse of FTX and sent shockwaves throughout the crypto industry. He pleaded not guilty.The latest request from Bankman-Fried’s lawyers includes a letter from his psychiatrist, George Lerner, who has been treating the former FTX CEO since February 2019.“Mr. Bankman-Fried has a history of Major Depressive Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” Lerner wrote. ADHD is among the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in children. Bankman-Fried told a Bahamas judge in December that he took medication to treat depression and ADHD.Lerner added in his letter that Bankman-Fried had tried other antidepressants but said they were ineffective for his symptoms.“Additionally, there have been times when Mr. Bankman-Fried did not have access to the Emsam patch (typically when travelling/abroad) and exhibited symptoms of depression, including lethargy, anhedonia, low motivation, and increased ruminations,” Lerner wrote.Without his medication, Lerner warned the judge, “Bankman-Fried will experience a return of his depression and ADHD symptoms and will be severely negatively impacted in his ability to assist in his own defense.”Cohen said Bankman-Fried was only able to bring a “small supply” of his daily medication when he was remanded to custody on Friday — a supply apparently only sufficient to last him a few days.“We respectfully ask that the Court promptly enter an order directing MDC to ensure that our client has continuous access to the specific medications and dosages that are described in Dr. Lerner’s letter,” wrote Cohen.For nearly a year, there’s been a nationwide shortage of Adderall, the popular stimulant used to treat ADHD. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has called on drug manufacturers to up production.Bankman-Fried was sent to jail over his decision to leak private diary entries by his ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, to The New York Times. In many of her personal writings, Ellison expressed self-doubt and feelings of stress in her role as the former head of Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research. “I have been feeling pretty unhappy and overwhelmed with my job,” she wrote in an entry dated February 2022. “At the end of the day I can’t wait to go home and turn off my phone and have a drink and get away from it all.” Ellison, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in December 2022, has been cooperating with the government and is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution. During his 33-minute ruling Friday, Kaplan said probable cause for witness tampering had been met by the prosecution, adding that Bankman-Fried’s contribution to the Ellison story was designed to “hurt” and “discredit” a witness.
SBF pleads to be let out 5 days a week for legal defense work Lawyers for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) requested Judge Lewis Kaplan release SBF 5 days a week, according to a letter reviewed by Bloomberg. The lawyers argued that SBF needs the time to work on his defense with his lawyers, which is difficult with his current imprisonment.While he remains at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, SBF cannot properly review the documents related to his case, his lawyers argued in the Aug. 18 letter. As per Bloomberg, SBF’s lawyer Christian Everdell wrote:“Just last week the government produced three-quarters of a million pages of Slack communications, which were supposed to be produced months ago, that Mr. Bankman-Fried will have no hope of reviewing under this schedule.”Everdell emphasized that permitting Bankman-Fried to confer with his legal counsel and utilize an internet-enabled laptop at the courthouse would expedite proceedings.SBF has pled not guilty to all charges of fraud. He faces a sentence of over 100 years for allegedly perpetrating a fraud scheme to misuse billions of dollars of FTX customer funds. His criminal trial is set to begin in October.According to the Bloomberg report, prosecutors have proposed transferring case documents onto hard drives, which SBF can access via computers at his detention center. However, the government has cited impracticality in loading all the documents onto a laptop.Initially, prosecutors had suggested transferring Bankman-Fried to a smaller facility upstate so he could access an internet-enabled laptop. Prison authorities, however, pushed back against the idea.In a letter filed yesterday, prosecutors complained that Bankman-Fried had not turned over all pertinent information about his planned defense. SBF plans to use the defense that lawyers’ advice guided his actions; hence, he has no culpability.However, the prosecutors argued that unless he turns over all necessary information on what advice he received and from whom, Bankman-Fried should not be allowed to use the defense at trial.SBF’s request for relief comes a week after Judge Kaplan revoked his $250 million bail for allegedly attempting to tamper with witnesses on two occasions. SBF has denied the allegations. The decision to revoke bail came soon after Bankman-Fried leaked former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison’s diary entries to The New York Times. The prosecutors pushed for bail revocation arguing that SBF leaked the diary to intimidate and harass a witness and dissuade them from testifying against him.SBF was first accused of witness tampering in January 2023 for contacting the General Counsel for FTX US Ryne Miller over the messaging app Signal.SBF violated his bail conditions several times, once by using a virtual private network. His bail conditions were modified five times before the bail was revoked.
Caroline Ellison was recorded blaming Sam Bankman-Fried for FTX collapse - Caroline Ellison, the former girlfriend of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was secretly recorded as she blamed her ex for a fateful decision to use customer funds to plug financial holes in the crypto giant’s failed hedge fund, according to court documents.The recording of Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, the hedge fund through which Bankman-Fried allegedly used FTX customer funds to make risky bets, was made by an Alameda employee during an all-hands meeting on Nov. 9.Just days before FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that was once worth as much as $32 billion, went bankrupt, 28-year-old Ellison convened employees to provide a “general overview of the situation,” telling them: “I guess, mostly I wanna say, like, I’m sorry. This really sucks.”“I think my current default plan is that Alameda will likely wind down once we can, like, repay all of our creditors and sort of wind down a bunch of our, like, whatever remaining obligations we have,” Ellison is said to have told her employees.According to the court filing, an Alameda employee pressed Ellison: “Who made the decision on using [FTX] user deposits?”“Um…Sam, I guess,” Ellison responded, according to court documents filed in US District Court in southern New York.
Bankman-Fried used $100 mln in stolen FTX funds for political donations, US says(Reuters) - Sam Bankman-Fried used money he stole from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange to make more than $100 million in political campaign contributions before the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, federal prosecutors said on Monday. An amended indictment accused the 31-year-old former billionaire of directing two FTX executives to evade contribution limits by donating to Democrats and Republicans, and to conceal where the money came from. "He leveraged this influence, in turn, to lobby Congress and regulatory agencies to support legislation and regulation he believed would make it easier for FTX to continue to accept customer deposits and grow," the indictment said. Bankman-Fried faces seven counts of conspiracy and fraud over FTX's collapse, though the indictment no longer includes conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws as a separate count. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said last month they would drop that charge after the Bahamas, where FTX was based and where Bankman-Fried was arrested in December 2022, said it never intended to extradite him on that count. Instead, prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan last week that a new indictment would "make clear that Mr. Bankman-Fried remains charged with conducting an illegal campaign finance scheme as part of the fraud and money laundering schemes originally charged." Bankman-Fried has previously pleaded not guilty to stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda Research, his crypto-focused hedge fund. Kaplan jailed him last Friday ahead of his Oct. 2 trial, after finding probable cause that Bankman-Fried tampered with witnesses.
Sam-Bankman Fried's mom helped craft 'illegal' 2020 election tactics: report -- Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother helped craft a strategic memo that guided the Democratic Party’s 2020 election strategy – with shrewd tactics that proved to be wildly successful but which were also illegal, according to a bombshell report from a right-leaning political research firm. Barbara Fried, who ran Democratic Super PAC Mind the Gap, authored a memo in late 2019 that encouraged Democrats to give to a 501(c)(3) known as The Voter Registration Project or Everybody Votes.The Stanford professor argued that getting more Democrats registered to vote would be far more effective than simply donating to candidates, and encouraged donors to give 90% of their election contributions to Everybody Votes.“Non- partisan voter registration” charities are “4 to 10 times more cost-effective” at “netting additional Democratic votes,” Fried wrote in the memo.The charity ended up raising a whopping $190 million, according to recent filings cited by the Capital Research Center. Unlike PACs which typically report donations quarterly, many charities don’t reveal donations until years after – in part because of the IRS’s backlog in releasing 990 forms.Charities and foundations also are strictly forbidden by law to operate with the effect, much less the intent, of benefiting a political party, according to Parker Thayer, author of the bombshell report.Indeed, Fried wrote that it was important to keep the strategy quiet.
FTX and Genesis avoid ‘costly and uncertain litigation’ by reaching $175 million settlement -- On Thursday, FTX and Genesis struck a deal to settle claims related to both companies’ ongoing bankruptcies, with Genesis agreeing to pay FTX’s trading arm, Alameda Research, $175 million. Genesis also agreed to waive all claims against the FTX estate. After its spectacular collapse at the hands of founder Sam Bankman-Fried in November, the crypto exchange FTX has been seeking to claw back billions of dollars from politicians, hedge funds, and other crypto firms, with the companyoriginally seeking nearly $4 billion from Genesis related to loans from Genesis to Alameda.Genesis, the lending arm of crypto giant Digital Currency Group, has been embroiled in its own bankruptcy, which began in early 2023. The clawback from FTX has threatened DCG’s ability to pay back other creditors, including Gemini, the crypto firm created by the Winklevoss twins.The settlement between FTX and Genesis underscores the complex network in the crypto industry, where firms became intertwined through loans, trades, and investments. The collapse of high-profile projects like FTX sent shock waves through the sector, with its own attempts to repay creditors causing other firms to buckle.FTX and Genesis were particularly enmeshed, with FTX bankruptcy lawyers stating that Genesis was “one of the main feeder of funds for FTX and instrumental to its fraudulent business model,” with Genesis at one point having over $8 billion in outstanding loans to Alameda.FTX’s trading arm and its disastrous positions proved one of the linchpins in the exchange’s collapse, with Bankman-Fried allegedly instructing the firm to use customer deposits to fill holes in its balance sheet. After declaring bankruptcy, the estate—led by former Enron steward John Ray III—began to seek back capital, including loans repaid to Genesis. Meanwhile, Genesis is one of the largest unsecured creditors of FTX, with $226.3 million owed, according to a January filing.While the $175 million settlement doesn’t represent the full amount FTX attempted to claw back, it still helps simplify the process between the two crypto giants. In the filing to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, FTX’s lawyers wrote that the agreement “fully and finally resolves [the] multifaceted, multi-jurisdictional litigation” and will replace “costly and uncertain litigation,” as well as prevent a potential battle over where the case should be heard.In a separate filing on Thursday, Ray endorsed the agreement, describing it as the result of “good faith and arm’s-length negotiations” and arguing it provides “substantial economic benefits” to all parties.Despite the progress, FTX’s bankruptcy remains one of the most sprawling in U.S. corporate history, with the estate engaged in active lawsuits to claw back funds, including from executives of its own subsidiaries.A hearing is set for a judge to endorse the agreement on Sept. 13.
Crypto Exchange Binance to Shut Down Payments Service Amid Refocus On Core Products --Crypto exchange Binance to shut down its buy-and-sell service Binance Connect, formerly known as Bifinity, just one year after its launch, the company said in a statement.The service will be disabled on Aug. 16 as the crypto exchange wants to refocus on its main products and long-term goals, according to Binance.“We periodically review our products and services to ensure that our resources continue to be focused on core efforts that align with our long-term strategy. In the last six years, Binance has grown from being an exchange to a global blockchain ecosystem with multiple business lines. We consistently adapt and modify our business approach in response to changing market and user needs,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. Binance Connect, which allowed merchants to accept payments in crypto, launched in March 2022 in an effort to help companies become “crypto-ready,” the exchange said back then. The service supported 50 cryptocurrencies and all major payment methods, including Visa and Mastercard.
The future of crypto hinges on a fight between Binance and the SEC : NPR -- CZ and Binance are being sued by the SEC, in a legal battle that could help determine whether cryptocurrencies should adhere to market regulations.Binance may not be a household name, but in the world of cryptocurrencies it has a massive presence.And now, the company founded by a former burger flipper turned billionaire is engaged in a massive legal battle against Wall Street's top cop — a fight whose outcome may well define the entire future of the crypto industry.This summer, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed more than a dozen charges against Binance, which operates the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its founder and chief executive, Changpeng Zhao.They are accused of misleading investors and operating an unregistered — and therefore illegal — exchange. Better known by his initials, CZ, Binance's CEO is accused of orchestrating "an elaborate scheme to evade U.S. federal securities laws," according to the SEC.The sweeping charges, which are being fiercely contested by Binance, are part of an aggressive crackdown of the crypto industry that kicked into high gear after FTX collapsed last year.In recent months, the SEC has filed a barrage of lawsuits against several other companies, including Coinbase, which operates another popular cryptocurrency exchange.With each of these actions, the agency is trying to bring crypto to heel. It's something Gary Gensler has called for since he became the chair of the SEC."Right now, we just don't have enough investor protection in crypto," he told the Aspen Security Forum in 2021. "Frankly, at this time, it's more like the Wild West."Over the past few years, the SEC has grown alarmed at how quickly the crypto industry has developed. Today, there are thousands of digital currencies, and crypto companies are offering all kinds of services, including banking, while operating in a regulatory gray area.The SEC under Gensler intends to change that. With enforcement actions against companies like Binance and Coinbase, it is arguing most cryptocurrencies are securities — like stocks, not commodities, and therefore, fall under the regulator's purview.That assertion goes against the very essence of crypto. By design, it is supposed to operate outside the rules of traditional finance.The outcome of the SEC's string of lawsuits against crypto companies could have enormous consequences for the industry. It would mean that virtual currencies and other digital assets could be regulated just like stocks.
Grayscale v. SEC decision expected this week There is good reason to think today the day, and that a federal appeals court will publish its long-awaited ruling in Grayscale v. SEC, a case that will determine whether the Securities and Exchange Commission was unreasonable in refusing to grant aBitcoin ETF. There is a lot at stake for the crypto industry: If Grayscale prevails, the doors swing open to trillions of dollars of newly eligible capital, and if it doesn’t, prices will fall in response to yet another setback.While crypto watchers have been waiting for the decision for months, there is strong reason to think the ruling will finally come today or at the end of the week—Tuesday and Friday being the days the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which heard the case, publishes its decisions. While it’s not a certainty, this is most likely the week for two reasons. First, as lawyer Scott Johnson points out, we are at the 160-day mark for the case—and the court has issued rulings within 160 days of hearing the case 94% of the time. Second, this is precisely the time of year when the judge’s law clerks, who help craft rulings over the course of a one-year term, move on to make way for new clerks.As for the case itself, it looms large because analysts believe the approval of a Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. will provide a legal and symbolic green light for pension funds and other deep-pocketed investors to come off the sidelines and add at least a modest amount of Bitcoin to their portfolios. If that happens, look for the price of Bitcoin to zoom well past the $30,000 mark and to spark a broader rally across the sector.For that to occur, of course, Grayscale will first have to win the case, and if it doesn’t win, you can expect a selloff across crypto markets. The odds are in the company’s favor, however, following a March hearing in which the court’s three judges boxed the SEC lawyer into a corner on the question of how the agency could approve a Bitcoin futures ETF—a risky and more exotic product—and not a spot market ETF. The hearing led Bloomberg Intelligence to raise its predicted outcome that Grayscale would win the case from 40% to 70%.While the court’s decision is likely to produce an immediate swing in crypto prices, the timeline for a Bitcoin ETF would remain uncertain. If Grayscale prevails, the SEC—whose chairman has been waging an intense political campaign against crypto—will find a way to slow roll the paperwork for would-be ETF issuers. Meanwhile, if the agency wins, a Grayscale appeal would take months and months to get a decision at the same time as the crypto industry is facing headwinds pushing its agenda in Washington, D.C. The upshot is, as of Tuesday morning, we still don’t know what will happen—other than that this week is likely to be one of the most consequential for crypto in months.
Coinbase wins approval to offer crypto futures trading in US (Reuters) - Coinbase Global said on Wednesday it had secured approval to offer cryptocurrency futures to U.S. retail customers, scoring a major regulatory win even as it battles a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The move will allow Coinbase to offer bitcoin and ether futures directly to eligible U.S. customers. Until now, only its institutional clients could trade in such products. Coinbase shares climbed 3% to $81.55 after the approval, which was granted by the National Futures Association (NFA), a self-regulatory organization designated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). "This is a critical milestone that reaffirms our commitment to operate a regulated and compliant business," Coinbase said. The company has openly criticized the SEC, which in a June lawsuit accused Coinbase of operating illegally because it had failed to register as an exchange. CEO Brian Armstrong has also said more U.S. crypto companies could move offshore due to a hostile regulatory environment and that SEC Chair Gary Gensler's enforcement-first approach could stifle innovation in the industry. The NFA approval, which came nearly two years after Coinbase filed its application, could allow the company to expand into a largely untapped market. The global derivatives market represents almost 80% of the entire crypto market, with leveraged bets on futures and other derivatives often at the root of volatility in the wider market. In July, crypto derivatives trading volumes globally totaled about $1.85 trillion, according to research firm CCData.
‘Greatest Rug Pull Ever’—‘Shocking’ Fed Warning Heralds Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP And Crypto Price Chaos - Bitcoin, ethereum, XRP and other major cryptocurrencies have been stuck in a rut recently, despite a "monster crypto killer-app" potentially priming the market.The bitcoin price has almost doubled so far this year, rocketing as China stages a surprise crypto flip, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk pulls in the pin on a crypto grenade andthe world's largest asset manager readies a bitcoin, ethereum and XRP bombshell.Now, after payments giant PayPal surprisingly doubled down on crypto, one closely-watch bitcoin and crypto analyst has warned the Federal Reserve is about to trigger that "greatest rug pull ever" and could cause bitcoin price chaos later this year."What we’re doing now is the greatest rug pull in liquidity ever after the biggest pump in liquidity ever," Bloomberg Intelligence senior macro strategist Mike McGlone toldpodcaster Scott Melker. "And the fact that I can say that and show the data is still shocking to me."McGlone warned that as liquidity continues to decline through the rest of 2023, the bitcoin price could collapse, dragging on ethereum, XRP and the wider crypto market.The Fed began sucking liquidity out of the system in late 2021, when the bitcoin price peaked at almost $70,000 per bitcoin, and hiking interest rates to drive down soaring inflation in the aftermath of economic shocks caused by the Covid pandemic and global lockdowns."Let’s picture ourselves in December. Recession’s kicking in. People are hoping the Fed will ease and they’ll probably going to say, 'No we’re not, because we still see high inflation,'" McGlone said, adding he's looking to bitcoin as an early indicator. “What should be early indications of [recessionary times]? What was the biggest liquidity pump indicator, new technology ever for the last 10 years? Cryptos. The best indication should be bitcoin and that’s where I’m looking for the bleeding occasion from bitcoin and it’s still kind of showing what I expected. It got up to near $30,000 and it’s just not been able to get much above there."
Crypto Traders Suffer $1B Liquidations as Bitcoin, Ether Prices Crater -Cryptocurrency traders suffered $1 billion of losses in liquidations over the past 24 hours, according toCoinglass data, as digital-asset markets suffered one of their worst sell-offs of the year and bitcoin's price fell to a two-month low. Bitcoin, the largest and original cryptocurrency, tumbled 7% to about $26,900, after earlier in the day dropping close to $25,000, the lowest since June. Some $821 million of long positions – traders who bet on prices to rise – were wiped out during the rush to the exits, CoinGlass shows. Bitcoin (BTC) traders took the brunt of the losses, enduring $472 million of long liquidations, followed by ether (ETH) with $302 million. This was the largest level of BTC liquidations for a single day since June 2022, Coinalyze data shows, around the time when the leading crypto's price plummeted to $17,000. The liquidations occurred as crypto prices fell through the floor during Thursday afternoon U.S. hours turning this month's slow downtrend into a bloodbath amid financial markets jitters with crumbling foreign currencies, Chinese economic worries and bond yields ripping to multi-year highs. Crypto majors such as BTC and ETH saw near double-digit losses, falling to lowest since early summer. Liquidations happen when an exchange closes a leveraged trading position due to a partial or total loss of the trader’s initial money down or "margin" – if the trader fails to meet the margin requirements or doesn't have enough funds to keep the trade open. When asset prices nosedive, the dynamic can kickstart a cascade of liquidations, exacerbating losses and price declines.
Bitcoin price on the skids as investors pull money from crypto — The price of bitcoin has dropped nearly 9% since early Thursday as part of a broader sell-off of risky assets. A report that Elon Musk’s Space X had dumped the cryptocurrency stoked investors’ fears.According to CoinGlass, a cryptocurrency trading platform, $1 billion has been drained from cryptocurrencies over the past 24 hours — with bitcoin accounting for nearly half of that loss.The world’s most valuable cryptocurrency was trading at $26,327 early Friday, 16% below its peak this year in early July, according to data from CoinMarketCap.Thursday’s sell-off, which hit stock markets as well as traditionally safer bets like government bonds, came after officials at the US Federal Reserve expressed concern that inflation “remained unacceptably high,” signaling that another rate hike could be in the cards.The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that SpaceX had written down the value of bitcoin it owns by a total of $373 million last year and in 2021, and had sold the cryptocurrency.The report sparked “a panicked reaction in the crypto market,” Hani Abuagla, senior market analyst at online broker XTB, said in a Friday note.Space X did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. Musk has been a vocal proponent of bitcoin, announcing in early 2021 that his Tesla would accept payment in the cryptocurrency, though he later ditched those plans. Tesla also dumped a big chunk of its own bitcoin holdings last year.The crypto market has faced pressure from US regulators in recent months. In June, the Securities and Exchange Commissionsued Coinbase the world’s largest crypto exchange, alleging that it is acting as an unregistered broker. Coinbase has denied the allegations.The company caught a break this week when it won a crucial regulatory approval that will allow the platform to offer US-based investors access to crypto derivatives, which account for about 75% of global crypto trades.
SEC seeks appeal over Ripple, crypto prices plunge, EU Bitcoin ETF --Judge Analisa Torres has granted a request from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to file a motion for leave to file an interlocutory appeal in its case against Ripple Labs. The decision allowed the SEC to file a motion, on Aug. 18, requesting permission to bring a case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Ripple will also be able to file an opposition to the motion. Torres ruled, on July 13, that Ripple’s XRP token is not a security when distributed in public sales, but the ruling considered XRP a security in institutional sales. The case against Ripple has been ongoing since December 2020, when the SEC sued Ripple and its executives over allegations of offering an unregistered security. The Bitcoin and Ether price slide on Aug. 18 saw the top two cryptocurrencies fall to a two-month low and triggered a series of liquidations for thousands of derivative traders. The crypto bloodbath led to billions of dollars worth of hedged positions being liquidated, and several traders lost millions of dollars in a single trade. According to CoinGlass data, a total of 176,752 traders got liquidated within hours, indicating a rapid rise in price volatility just days after BTC and ETH recorded their lowest daily volatility in several years. The price function in the crypto market was attributed to several factors, including the SpaceX Bitcoin write-down and macroeconomic factors. El Salvador, which adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender in 2021, has seen its dollar bond outperform the majority of the emerging markets with a 70% return in 2023. The massive rally of the bond has now drawn interest from several institutional giants, including JP Morgan, Eaton Vance and PGIM Fixed Income, prompting President Nayib Bukele to say, “I told you so.” Apart from the institutional giants, the likes of Lord Abbett & Co LLC, Neuberger Berman Group LLC and UBS Group AG have also added debt security since April. El Salvadorpaid $800 million in debt in full within the due maturing time at the start of this year, raising confidence in the country’s bonds again.
Fed hits FTX-backed Farmington State Bank with cease and desist -Regulators have issued a cease and desist order against a small bank in rural Washington State for its engagement with the crypto industry.. In an enforcement action announced Thursday morning, the Federal Reserve said it has entered into an agreement with Farmington State Bank, a $22 million bank that had received an $11 million investment from Alameda Research, the hedge fund arm of failed crypto exchange FTX. The enforcement action, which does not cite FTX or Alameda by name, notes that Farmington — a more than 130-year-old institution that briefly changed its name to Moonstone Bank — and its Baltimore-based holding company FBH Corporation, violated commitments to state and federal regulators by engaging in digital asset activity and helping third parties issue stablecoins. The letter states that Farmington "changed the bank's business plan and general character without receiving prior written approval" from the Fed Board of Governors, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions. In doing so, the bank holding company — formerly known as GUVJEC Investment Corporation — violated agreements put in place in 2020 when regulators signed off on its acquisition of Farmington. The bank holding company is owned by Jean Jacques Pierre Chalopin, a Bahamas-based executive and chair of Deltec Bank, which counts stablecoin issuer Tether as one of its most significant clients.
Wall street giants expect $8.9 billion hit from bank failures — The biggest US lenders expect to pay almost $8.9 billion to help replenish the US government's bedrock Deposit Insurance Fund after it was tapped to backstop uninsured depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Citigroup Inc. expects to contribute as much as $1.5 billion to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s pot that was depleted to protect deposits at the two failed lenders, making it the last of the country's biggest banks to disclose the set-asides. In total, the six largest lenders forecast covering 56% of the $15.8 billion it cost the FDIC to protect uninsured depositors. JPMorgan Chase & Co. expects to pay the largest fee, at approximately $3 billion, while Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. will each pay almost $2 billion. The Deposit Insurance Fund typically covers only $250,000 in an individual bank account, but after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature fell into receivership in March, the FDIC, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department, perceiving a potential threat to the financial system, announced systemic risk exceptions for the two banks. That meant all depositors at the institutions would be made whole to prevent further destabilization.The fund had more than $128 billion in it at the beginning of the year — a pot that shrank with each bank failure. It's usually filled and refilled by all insured banks kicking in quarterly fees knows as assessments, but when the government decided to cover uninsured deposits as well, it said that any losses to the fund would be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.In May, the FDIC released a proposed rule outlining how the special assessments might be collected. The plan, which bases each institution's fee on its estimated uninsured deposits as of December, excluding the first $5 billion, may be tweaked based on public comments, but, as it stands, big banks are on the hook.The agency said institutions with more than $50 billion in assets would pay 95% of the fees, and those with less than $5 billion wouldn't have to pay at all. A week and a half before the proposal was released, First Republic Bank also failed, making an additional $13 billion dent in the Deposit Insurance Fund, the FDIC estimated at the time. But there won't be a separate special assessment levied for First Republic, because the bank was quickly purchased by JPMorgan and a systemic risk exception wasn't deemed necessary.
Fitch warns of possible bank downgrades -- A Fitch Ratings analyst warned of possible downgrades on dozens of U.S. banks including JPMorgan Chase, if the agency continues to cut its assessment of the industry’s health. In an exclusive interview with CNBC’s Hugh Son, Fitch Rating analyst Chris Wolfe said when the rating agency lowered its “operating environment score” for U.S. banks from a “AA” to “AA-“ in June, it went largely unnoticed because it did not prompt downgrades on banks. In Fitch’s commentary on the lowered score in June — which Wolfe was the lead author for — the rating agency cited a downward pressure on the U.S. credit rating, regulatory framework gaps and uncertainty about interest rates.Wolfe told CNBC on Tuesday that if Fitch downgrades one more notch of the industry’s score, from “AA-“ to “A+”, the agency would be forced to reevaluate ratings on each of the more than 70 U.S. banks it covers. “If we were to move it to ‘A+,’ then that would recalibrate all our financial measures and would probably translate into negative rating actions,” Wolfe told CNBC. If downgraded to a score of “A+,” CNBC reported the industry’s score would be lower than some of its top-rated lenders, such as JPMorgan and Bank of America. Wolfe said if institutions like JPMorgan are cut, Fitch would have to at least consider downgrades on their peers’ ratings, which could push weaker lenders towards non-investment grade status.
FDIC: Office loans, nonbank financing, cybersecurity are top bank risks --The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. flagged lending to nonbank financial institutions, commercial real estate exposures and rising interest rates as areas of concern in its latest risk review.The annual report, which was released Monday, also highlighted cybersecurity as a key issue for banks and, for the first time, delved into threats related to crypto assets.Despite a slower economy, smaller profit margins and three large bank failures this spring, the FDIC determined the banking sector to be sound and resilient. The review included analysis of overall economic conditions, financial markets and the state of the banking industry specifically. The report largely focuses on data compiled from 2022 through the first quarter of this year, so the aftereffects of the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March were not fully reflected. The failure of First Republic Bank, which took place in May, is noted in the report, but not part of the statistical findings. Throughout all portions of the report, the FDIC noted the impact of rising interest rates, which initially served as a boon to banks as they were able to expand their net interest margins in 2022, but has since become an overarching concern, as higher funding costs outpace the fixed returns of long-dated loans and securities. "The sharp rise in interest rates in 2022 caused widespread depreciation in securities portfolios, and banks with a higher share of long-term assets reported higher depreciation in investment portfolios and lower growth in NIMs than other institutions," the report noted.Yet, the report noted that unrealized losses on securities — a driving issue in the failure of Silicon Valley Bank — moderated through the first quarter of 2023 and overall asset quality throughout the banking system remains "favorable." Still, there are pockets of potential vulnerabilities on bank balance sheets. The report notes that the amount of commercial real estate, or CRE, loans held by banks surpassed $3 trillion in the first quarter of this year, with 98% holding some kind of exposure to the asset class and more than half of banks listing it as their largest loan category. Community banks are acutely exposed to the sector, accounting for 28% of CRE lending compared to 15% of overall bank lending.
PNC sells $750 million of bonds as banks rush to raise cash -PNC Financial Group Services has tapped the U.S. blue-chip bond market for the second time since a regional banking crisis rattled investors earlier this year. The Pittsburgh-based bank priced $750 million of fixed-to-floating rate notes due in 2034 on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the details are private. The securities yielded 1.73 percentage points over Treasuries, compared with early pricing discussions of 1.95 percentage points, the person added. PNC's deal is the latest in a string of recent bank bond sales. Bank of America on Monday sold $5 billion of senior unsecured notes in four parts, while Goldman Sachs Group issued $1.5 billion of notes. The regional lender Huntington Bancshares also tapped markets for $1.25 billion of bonds. The offerings come as companies rush to raise capital before the cyclical summer slowdown that typically kicks in toward the end of August. PNC last issued in early June, when it raised $3.5 billion of bonds. For regional banks, there's an incentive to tap investment-grade debt markets while funding costs are relatively low. The extra yield investors demand to hold financial bonds over average blue-chip debt has been declining since April, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Oklahoma's revised list of fossil fuel boycotters retains big investment banks -- Oklahoma revised its list of financial firms determined to be boycotting the fossil fuel industry, shrinking the number to six from 13 with three large municipal investment banks remaining on it. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo were on an initial list released by state Treasurer Todd Russ in May and will still be ineligible to do business, including municipal bond underwriting, with the state and local governments. "These financial companies are using [environmental, social and governance] policies to promote a political, social agenda instead of allowing the free enterprise system to work," Russ said in a statement Tuesday announcing the revised list. "When a state boycotts a major industry like oil and gas, the result is less diversification of funds, which can lead to more risks and potentially lower returns for investors."“These financial companies are using (environmental, social, and governance) policies to promote a political, social agenda instead of allowing the free enterprise system to work,” Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ said.Under 2022's Oklahoma Energy Discrimination Elimination Act, the treasurer was tasked with compiling a list of financial firm boycotters for divestment purposes by state retirement systems. The law also prohibits state and local government contracts valued at $100,000 or more with companies that boycott.Wells Fargo's placement on the list led to its resignation in May as lead underwriter in a $500 million Oklahoma Turnpike Authority revenue bond issue. RBC Capital Markets was tapped as senior underwriter for the bonds that have yet to be priced.A Wells Fargo spokeswoman declined to comment on the bank remaining on Oklahoma's list.JP Morgan called the treasurer's decision "baseless." "As the nation's largest bank, we are among the top financers across the energy sector, including traditional and clean energy sources," a statement from the bank said. "Our business practices are not in conflict with this anti-free market decision, and we look forward to continuing to serve customers and communities in Oklahoma." Also declining to comment was Bank of America, which was the state's top underwriter in the first half of 2023, according to Refinitiv data.
Gruenberg: Long-term debt, uninsured deposit reform coming for big banks -- Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Martin Gruenberg Monday previewed a number of new bank regulations the agencies plan to implement to prevent the industry turmoil seen in March of 2023. He said to improve the likelihood of orderly resolving banks with over $100 billion in assets — a category that would include now-failed Silicon Valley Bank — without regulators resorting to a systemic risk exception, the agencies plan to propose rules requiring that banks' capital holdings reflect unrealized losses on available-for-sale securities. He also said the agencies plan to subject firms this size to long-term debt requirements — known as Total Loss Absorbing Capacity, which the largest banks are required to hold — and compel them to provide more detailed resolution plans. In addition, the FDIC will enhance its scrutiny over firms which have high concentrations of uninsured deposits, and may consider implementing a premium that prices-in the additional risks that firms pose when they have high levels of uninsured deposits. "If we had had a buffer of unsecured debt for Silicon Valley Bank, if we had had a robust resolution plan and if Silicon Valley Bank had been required to hold capital ahead of those unrealized losses — you know, it's hypothetical, but we could have had a different scenario," the FDIC official said in his remarks at the Brookings Institution. Gruenberg said the bank runs that depleted SVB's liquidity were triggered when depositors caught wind that the bank was selling available-for-sale securities at a loss, indicating the bank was strapped for capital. He reiterated today the bank regulatory agencies are intent on making banks above the $100 billion threshold hold additional capital buffers which account for such unrealized losses, which could improve depositor confidence at banks this size. "Had Silicon Valley Bank been required to hold capital against the unrealized losses on its available-for-sale securities, as the proposed Basel III framework would require, the bank might have averted the loss of market confidence and the liquidity run," said Gruenberg. Gruenberg also said the agencies will soon jointly propose a new long-term debt requirement for large regionals with over $100 billion in assets.
Banks, consumer groups square off on next wave of bank regulatory reforms — A series of reforms touted by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Martin Gruenberg underscored regulators' ongoing concerns about the systemic risks large regional banks can pose after a string of such firms precipitously failed in March 2023, but they are also facing stiff pushback from industry groups over costs. Speaking at the Brookings Institution Monday, Gruenberg said the proposals "are perhaps lessons we should have learned from the 2008 financial crisis," but added that "this time, if I may say, I don't think we're going to miss."Gruenberg said the reforms will help ensure banking sector stability by bolstering depositor confidence and streamlining what have proved to be fraught resolution processes this year. While Banks and consumer advocates have already begun debating the effectiveness of the regulations likely to come, analysts say Gruenberg's call remains only a blueprint, subject to change as the regulators hash out the details.Consumer advocacy groups lauded regulators for turning the screws on large regional banks, which they argue sowed the seeds for the reforms by supporting deregulation spurred by bipartisan legislation in 2018. Dennis Kelleher, president & CEO of Better Markets, said despite the banks' protestation, March's events unquestionably indicate that banks above $100 billion can threaten systemic contagion."The banking Industry's baseless claims deregulated Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank during the Trump administration and their collapse, contagion and crisis have now cost Americans more than $30 billion in bailouts plus a credit contraction and much more," he wrote in an email. "That objectively proves that banks with more than $100 billion in assets — just 33 banks out of nearly 4,700 in the country — are a systemic threat and need to be regulated with more capital and liquidity as well as workable resolution plans."One of the major new requirements Gruenberg floated was a new long-term debt requirement that would make banks above $100 billion in assets hold more subordinated debt to increase their pad against bank runs — known as Total Loss Absorbing Capacity. Banking groups said the floated reforms undermine the congressional intent of the 2018 law, which raised the threshold for enhanced reporting requirements from banks with over $50 billion to those with over $250 billion in assets."Indiscriminately requiring midsize and regional banks to meet the same 'capital refill' long-term debt standard as GSIBs also undermines Congress's determination in S. 2155 that prudential requirements should be tailored to the risk an institution presents," wrote Tabitha Edgens, senior vice president and senior associate general counsel of the Bank Policy Institute.
BankThink: Regulators' capital crackdown is coming at an inopportune time | American Banker - When I hear the words "soft landing" in the economic context these days, a crash-landing on the runway is the image that immediately comes to mind. On the one hand, the Federal Reserve's quest to quell inflation seems to be going reasonably well — headline and core inflation metrics are down year over year, and though the "last mile" problem could prove vexing, consumers' own expectations for inflation have moderated considerably, and that is in many ways the hardest battle to win.That's the good news. The bad news is that conditions for banks — particularly larger banks — in the short- to medium-term are becoming increasingly perilous. We've by now become quite aware that banks in general have an interest rate risk problem — holding a large quantity of securities that bear interest rates below their current cost of funds, putting the squeeze on their bread-and-butter interest rate spread income. Many of these same banks are also heavily invested in commercial real estate ventures — a sector that regulators increasingly view with concern because so few people are going back to the office post-pandemic. Making new, profitable loans to buoy up the unprofitable ones is also increasingly hard because credit conditions are tighter and loan demand is down — a trend largely attributable to persistently high interest rates. And on top of that you have credit ratings agencies circling the banking industry for collective andindividual credit downgrades — moves that will make it still more expensive for banks to raise capital through the bond market should the need arise. These headwinds are considerable, but not insurmountable — this isn't like a 2008 or 2020 scenario. But it is a backdrop of heightened tension, where banks have less room for maneuverability or mistakes, and things just aren't allowed to go wrong. And it is against this backdrop that Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Martin Gruenberg expounded on where he and his fellow regulators go from here to shore up the safety and soundness of the banking industry after a historic slew of bank failures and a systemic risk exception that cost the Deposit Insurance Fund billions of dollars earlier this year. Those features include applying long-term unsecured debt — known as Total Loss Absorbing Capacity — to banks with more than $100 billion of assets, a bail-in capital provision outlined by the Basel III accords that the largest banks are already required to hold. Gruenberg also discussed a fundamental reconsideration of the living wills requirements, including the ability for banks in distress to rapidly create a virtual due diligence data room with "enough information for interested parties to bid on the bank or certain of its assets or operations." And the FDIC is also considering ways to make banks with a greater presence of uninsured deposits pay more for their deposit insurance. Individually, all of this makes sense. Signature Bank didn't have a living will before it failed, so it would stand to reason that resolution of the bank would be easier if banks were required to have one, and if banks could bid on Silicon Valley Bank's assets individually that might have led to a speedier resolution. TLAC may have stabilized funding for Silicon Valley Bank and prevented the kinds of runs that ultimately led to its demise. I don't think anyone would object to banks with high rates of uninsured deposits paying some kind of premium for having riskier funding sources. It's worth noting that while all of these things are being discussed today, whether and when these developments ultimately come home to roost will play a very big part in how soft a landing the banking system — and by extension the economy — ultimately experiences. The Basel III: Endgame proposal is still just a proposal, and even if it is left unchanged — a prospect I rather doubt — it won't be fully implemented until 2025. The bond ratings agencies may or may not downgrade banks, and if they do it may or may not matter. The Fed may pause, raise or lower interest rates over the course of the next couple of years, though I doubt rates will fall precipitously. And all those other rules Gruenberg discussed aren't even proposed yet, much less finalized, much less implemented. So nothing is set in stone — banks can still weather this phase, however tenuous. But the margin for error seems to be increasingly slim — and that could mean the difference between a soft landing and a crash landing.
Wells Fargo, Bank of Montreal among latest fined for WhatsApp misuse -- Two Wall Street regulators recently fined eight investment banks and three other financial firms a total of $549 million over "widespread and long-standing failures" to archive electronic communications sent via services including WhatsApp, Signal and iMessage. The regulators also said they will continue to pursue such cases. The fines are the latest in a series that the Securities and Exchange Commission and theCommodities Futures Trading Commission have issued to broker-dealers over the past two years, starting with JPMorgan Securities in December 2021. The fines issued last week hit brands including Wells Fargo, Bank of Montreal, BNP Paribas and Wedbush.The CFTC and SEC have now collectively imposed $2.5 billion in fines over these recordkeeping violations, which Ian McGinley, director of enforcement for the CFTC, said are designed to send a clear message."Recordkeeping and supervision requirements are fundamental, and registrants that fail to comply with these core regulatory obligations do so at their own peril," McGinley said.Some broker-dealers and investment advisors have self-reported violations to the SEC or improved their policies and procedures, but "many still have not," according to the director of the SEC's enforcement division, Gurbir S. Grewal."Here are three takeaways for those firms who haven't yet done so: self-report, cooperate and remediate," Grewal said. "If you adopt that playbook, you'll have a better outcome than if you wait for us to come calling."The SEC's deputy director of enforcement, Sanjay Wadhwa, said that the commission knows others have committed recordkeeping violations, "and so our work to enforce industrywide compliance continues," he said.
JPMorgan's Javice suit put on hold for criminal case -- JPMorgan Chase's fraud lawsuit against Frank founder Charlie Javice over the $175 million sale of her financial-aid website to the bank will be put on hold until she's been tried on criminal charges, a federal judge has ruled. US District Judge Joshua Wolson in Wilmington, Delaware, said federal prosecutors properly sought to put the bank's suit on ice so Javice couldn't use pre-trial exchanges in that case to bolster her criminal defense. The move doesn't prejudice the rights of Javice or her co-defendant, the judge added. "Their criminal case is likely to move faster than this civil suit, and vindication there may also neutralize some of the negative publicity about which they complain," Wolson wrote Thursday in a five-page ruling. Javice and Olivier Amar — another former top executive of the now-defunct Frank website — face conspiracy, wire fraud, bank fraud and securities fraud charges over what the government has called a "brazen plan" to create fake customer accounts to dupe JPMorgan officials about the site's financial vitality. Alex Spiro, Javice's lawyer, and Jacob Kirkham, Amar's attorney, didn't respond to emails Friday seeking comment on Wolson's decision. Pablo Rodriguez, a JPMorgan spokesman, declined to comment on the ruling. The bank hadn't opposed the government's request. New York-based JPMorgan sued Javice and Amar in federal court in Delaware in December, accusing them of hiring a data science professor to create fake customer accounts showing Frank had some 4.25 million users, even though they knew it had fewer than 300,000. The pair has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and deny engaging in fraud. In their filings, Javice's and Amar's lawyers said prosecutors were unfairly trying to put pressure on the defendants by letting the criminal case proceed and making it more difficult for them to clear their names of what they said were bogus charges.
Why are more women convicted of embezzlement than men? -- Few bankers are familiar with the name Catherine Kissick, a former executive at Colonial Bank who was sentenced to eight years in prison for her role in a $2.9 billion fraud scheme that brought down the mortgage lender Taylor, Bean & Whitaker in 2009. Even fewer have heard of Janice Weston, a senior vice president and compliance officer at the failed Washington Federal Bank for Savings in Chicago, who pleaded guilty this month to conspiring with 15 other high-ranking employees to an embezzlement scheme that led to the bank's downfall, according to federal prosecutors. . Yet these female bankers are part of a larger trend in which women are more likely to be convicted of one specific category of financial crime — embezzlement — than men, according to new research. The study is groundbreaking because it is based on U.S. Sentencing Commission conviction records from all 94 U.S. federal District Courts. Women were the target of 55.4% of embezzlement convictions from 2007 to 2017, compared with 44.6% for men, according to the research by David Weber, professor of the practice of forensic accounting at the Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University. In 2012 alone, women made up 60.5% of convictions. His research is the first large-scale study of embezzlement to examine the gender, education and age of perpetrators. "The key element in all these crimes is opportunity," said Weber, a former enforcement official at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. "What makes embezzlement unique is that by virtue of its definition, it takes place in the workplace and is committed by insiders." The study provides insights into theft in the workplace and which employees are more likely to be prosecuted for stealing from a company or its customers. The prevailing research on embezzlement was based, in part, on Yale University studies from the 1970s and 1980s that did not identify women as significant white-collar criminals. "It was a shocking finding considering that prior research put women convictions at only 15%," Weber said. "One reason the numbers are higher today is because women have pierced the glass ceiling and plainly have more opportunity in the workplace today than they did in the past." The research both simultaneously supports and upends notions about the so-called "fraud triangle," a theory from the 1950s that has held sway in the field of criminology and forensic accounting for decades. The study also raises questions about the fairness of which kinds of white-collar cases get prioritized and who gets charged.
Threat of a regulatory smackdown looms at Discover -Top leaders at Discover Financial Services face a big test on Thursday: reassuring investors they can wrap their arms around sprawling compliance issues, which could prove quite costly to fix, while also finding a permanent new CEO. The Riverwoods, Illinois, company, which announced the abrupt resignation of CEO Roger Hochschild on Monday, has scheduled a Thursday morning conference call with analysts. Hochschild, a 25-year company veteran whom many observers expected to spend decades as Discover's chief executive, stepped down less than a month after the firm revealed that its regulatory woes are more extensive than previously known. In July, Discover said that it had received a proposed consent order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in connection with consumer compliance matters, and that additional supervisory actions could occur. The company, which has spent years working through compliance concerns related to its student loan business, also revealed last month that it overcharged merchants for 16 years. "Really the big concern is: What business restrictions might be coming about for the company?" said Ryan Nash, an analyst at Goldman Sachs. He noted that the range of possible outcomes seems wide — from minimal regulatory restrictions on Discover's business activities to much larger limitations. Looming over the situation at Discover is the asset cap that regulators imposed on Wells Fargo in 2019, as well as comments that Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra made last year about the need to take tougher action against recidivist banks. "In a post-Wells Fargo world, the markets are obviously laser-focused on could there be any restrictions put on the company in terms of the amount of growth that it's allowed to have, the amount of account growth it's allowed to have? And what will that mean for the business model going forward?" Nash said in an interview Wednesday. .
Discover says it's 'paying the price' of long neglecting compliance -- Top executives at Discover Financial Services are vowing to bolster its regulatory compliance framework, saying Thursday that the consumer lender — which is on the cusp of federal penalties — is suffering the consequences of years of underinvestment in risk management and compliance. The firm's update to investors was highly anticipated after the surprise announcement Monday that CEO Roger Hochschild was resigning. Investors appeared to give interim CEO John Owen a small vote of confidence, boosting Discover's stock price some 2.3% on Thursday amid hopes that the credit card company can avoid a worst-case regulatory scenario. But analysts are still warning it may take quite a while for the Illinois-based company to remedy its growing headaches. Discover has yet to hire a permanent replacement for Hochschild, a 25-year company veteran who had been CEO since 2018. A consent order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. over consumer compliance issues is still pending, and executives who spoke on a call with analysts Thursday didn't rule out further regulatory actions. Plus, overhauling a company's compliance framework is never quick — or cheap. "Obviously, the board did not have confidence in the CEO," said Kevin Barker, an analyst at Piper Sandler. "So it's hard for shareholders and investors to get confidence in what is happening right now." The $138 billion-asset company is about to undergo a "reinvestment cycle," Barker said, potentially leading to permanent structural expenses that will weigh on its profitability going forward.
Goldman plans hiring spree to fix lapses after increased Fed scrutiny -A fresh bout of U.S. regulatory scrutiny is setting off a hiring spree at Goldman Sachs Group as the company's leaders seek to remediate issues raised by banking supervisors. The Wall Street firm is enlisting several hundred new staffers to help address concerns from authorities including the Federal Reserve, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named discussing confidential plans. The back-office hiring binge comes even as the firm cuts executives from moneymaking ranks amid a slump in business.Though regulators routinely question large financial firms, Goldman executives privately describe growing pressure from the Fed over the past year. If left unsatisfied, supervisors can impose increasingly formal and potentially onerous measures behind the scenes to force banks to overhaul operations and procedures. Goldman has been dealing with a confidential measure imposed by the Fed that predates the current increase in scrutiny, one person said. That may add to the pressure on managers to resolve concerns. It's not uncommon for big financial firms to contend with such actions out of view, but in more severe cases they can spiral into public orders and other fallout.Discover Financial Services, bracing for a consent order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., announced a leadership shake-up this week and said it's been hiring more personnel to deal with authorities' concerns. "We are not permitted to comment on any supervisory matters related to our regulators," a spokesperson for Goldman said in a statement. "Therefore we are not able to comment on these reports."
CFPB to propose rule reining in consumer data sales - Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, on Tuesday plans to announce from the White House a new rule that would strictly limit the types of consumer data that can be sold by businesses as part of a federal crackdown on third-party data brokers. The CFPB plans to propose rules that would require data brokers — or any other company in the surveillance industry — be covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The 1970 law strictly limits the use of credit report data from being sold for any reason other than what Congress has specified as having a "permissible purpose," such as credit underwriting. The law prohibits the sale of data for advertising, training and artificial intelligence. Many third-party data brokers that collect, aggregate, sell and resell personal information are not currently covered by the FCRA, which mandates that credit reporting agencies and data collectors only collect and report accurate credit information. Individuals would have the right to obtain their data from third-party brokers and dispute inaccuracies. "The CFPB will be taking steps to ensure that modern-day data brokers in the surveillance industry know that they cannot engage in illegal collection and sharing of our data," Chopra said in prepared remarks. "Reports about monetization of sensitive information — everything from the financial details of members of the U.S. military to lists of specific people experiencing dementia — are particularly worrisome when data is powering 'artificial intelligence' and other automated decision-making about our lives." In March, the CFPB issued a request for information to better understand data brokers' business practices and to ensure that they are complying with federal law. The bureau plans to issue a proposed rule by first convening a panel of small businesses that will take feedback on proposals.
What banks can learn from Experian's email-ad settlement with the Federal Trade Commission --Experian Consumer Services sent unsolicited emails to customers with free credit-monitoring accounts — a violation of a 20-year-old U.S. anti-spam law, according to a settlement announced by the Federal Trade Commission this week. The credit-reporting agency must pay a fine of $650,000 and from now on provide customers a way of unsubscribing from marketing emails. The FTC did not specify how many consumers it believes received the unwanted emails. While the FTC doesn't have jurisdiction over banks, financial institutions still must comply with the same law that sets guidelines for businesses' use of email. Banks and other companies with extensive email-marketing operations should make sure all commercial email communications come with a way for recipients to opt out, experts said. "The general guidance is if you're in doubt, comply, because the costs of noncompliance are substantial, and the costs of compliance are really minimal," said Billee Elliott McAuliffe, an attorney at Lewis Rice who specializes in data privacy. Companies should also confirm they can comply with requests to cease marketing emails within the 10-day period granted by federal law, McAuliffe said. The FTC recommends that companies clearly identify messages as advertisements and make sure that third-party email marketing companies are following the rules on their behalf.According to the FTC complaint, Experian sent marketing emails for at least three distinct products or services — an offer to use a credit-boosting product, an ad for auto benefits and a scan that the company said would reveal whether a consumer's personal information had been compromised. None of these emails included a way for customers to opt out of future emails."You have to jump through hoops like a trained seal to stop getting junk mail from Experian,"
Subscription services profit from consumer inattention - The global subscription billing service market is on track to hit $12.5 billion in 2026, doubling its size from 2020 as more businesses adopt a recurring-payments model that relies heavily on consumers registering credit and debit account details with merchants. With many consumers juggling up to a dozen subscriptions for everything from streaming services to gym memberships and car washes, a significant percentage forget to cancel when they're no longer using the services. This gives merchants an undeserved advantage, according to new research submitted to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Merchants may rake in 14% to 200% more than they would have earned if consumers were attentive enough to cancel unwanted subscriptions, said researchers at Stanford University and Texas A&M University who conducted a deep study of credit and debit card users' habits around renewing online subscriptions. The 39-page study drew on anonymized consumer account data from a large payment card network between 2018 and 2021 to analyze a subset of transactions charting the cancellation rates of 10 popular online subscription services. The research underscores growing consumer problems around online subscriptions. The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint about Amazon in June, alleging the online retail giant often leads consumers to renew their $139 annual Prime subscription against their wishes. "Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money," said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan, in a press release announcing the complaint. The case will be decided in court. Friction and costly chargebacks can also occur when consumers are mistakenly billed for an unwanted subscription while they thought they were agreeing only to a free trial, said David Shipper, a strategic advisor at Datos Insights. "Financial institutions also have operational impacts when consumers close their debit or credit card accounts to stop those charges or attempt to dispute those transactions," he said.
Defaulted Crossgates Mall CMBS Loans Sold at 69% Below 2012 Appraised Value of the Mall -- by Wolf Richter -- “You can’t lose money in real estate” is funny in face of the mega-losses generated by commercial real estate (CRE), both debt and equity. Thankfully, so far, it’s mostly investors and not banks that have been getting mauled. So here is this: Back in 2012, when three 10-year interest-only mortgages backed by the 1.3-million-sf super-regional Crossgates Mall in Albany, NY, were sold to investors, the collateral was valued at $470 million. This was a lot of value, as per this appraisal, and so the investors felt good about lending the mall owner, an LLC owned by Pyramid Management Group, $244 million against this property. In 2020, when the mall was re-appraised, the value was lowered to $281 million, still above the three loans totaling $244 million. In 2022, the 10-year mortgages matured, and Pyramid Management worked out a one-year extension until May 2023. In May 2023, as the extension expired, Pyramid Management failed to refinance the mortgages and defaulted on the mortgages and failed to repay them. The lenders – the CMBS holders via the special servicer, can now foreclose on the property to take possession of the collateral. But they didn’t do that. In June, the special servicer put the loans up for auction to sell them to the highest bidder and let someone else take possession of the mall. Today, Trepp, which tracks and analyzes CMBS, reported in a note that the loans have now been sold for $173.9 million. After liquidation expenses of $29.6 million, net proceeds were $144 million, on collateral that had been appraised at $470 million when the loans were securitized. So we note with raised eyebrows:
- The net proceeds ($144 million) were 69% less than the property’s appraised value ($470 million) that was used in 2012 to sell the loans.
- For the CMBS holders, the net proceeds of $144 million amount to a loss of $100 million, on $244 million in loans that they felt very good about in 2012, for a loss ratio of 41%.
- If the buyer takes possession of the collateral, Pyramid Management will lose whatever money it put into it over the years.
The buyer of the defaulted loans effectively owns the collateral for $173.9 million. Whatever the ultimate fate of this mall is, the buyer will have a much lower cost base in it. Retail CMBS delinquency rates. The delinquency rate of retail properties has been horrendous ever since the Financial Crisis which was followed by the Brick-and-Mortal Retail Meltdown when brick-and-mortar retail got crushed by ecommerce one parcel at a time. In July, the delinquency rate of mortgages on retail properties that have been securitized rose to 6.9%. The dropping delinquency rate between 2017 and 2020 wasn’t because the delinquencies were cured, but because they were “resolved” in some way, such as a foreclosure sale, or a loan sale. The loans backed by Crossgates Mall that have now sold will “resolve” the delinquency and will pull those loans out of the delinquency rate:
In debate over appraisal bias, rival researchers clash over key data --During the past two years, regulators and lawmakers have introduced and adopted new rules and guidelines aimed at curbing the impacts of racial bias on home valuations. But some appraisers and researchers insist these efforts have been based on faulty data.Conflicting findings from a pair of non-profit research groups call into question whether or notrecent actions will improve financial outcomes for minority homeowners without leading to banks and other mortgage lenders taking on undue risks.The debate centers on a 2018 report from the Brookings Institution, which found that homes in majority-Black neighborhoods are routinely discounted relative to equivalent properties in areas with little or no Black population, a trend that has exacerbated the country's racial wealth gap. The study, which adjusts for various home and neighborhood characteristics, found that homes in Black neighborhoods were valued 23% less than homes in other areas."We believe anti-Black bias is the reason this undervaluation happens," the report concludes, "and we hope to better understand the precise beliefs and behaviors that drive this process in future research."The study, titled "Devaluation of assets in Black neighborhoods," has been cited by subsequent reports published by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, academics and White House's Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity, or PAVE, task force, which used the data to inform its March 2022 action plan to address racial bias in home appraisal.Meanwhile, as the Brookings' findings proliferated, another set of research — based on the same models and data — has largely gone untouched by policymakers. In 2021, the American Enterprise Institute replicated the Brookings study but applied additional proxies for the socioeconomic status of borrowers. By simply adding a control for the Equifax credit risk score for borrowers, the AEI research asserts, the average property devaluation for properties in Black neighborhoods falls to 0.3%. The researchers also examined valuation differences between low socioeconomic borrowers and high socioeconomic borrowers in areas that were effectively all white and found that the level of devaluation was equal to and, in some cases, greater than that observed between Black-majority and Black-minority neighborhoods."That, to us, really suggests that it cannot be race but it has to be due to other factors — socioeconomic status, in particular — that is driving these differences in home valuation," said Tobias Peter, one of the two researchers at the AEI Housing Center who critiqued the Brookings study.
Why Is There Such A Frenzy To Buy Up The Properties That Were Just Burned Down During The Fires In Hawaii? -- Can you imagine calling up a family that has just seen their home burn to the ground and offering to buy their land for below market value? This is apparently happening in Hawaii right now on a massive scale. Grieving property owners are being bombarded with calls from very greedy people, and I think that says a lot about the current state of our society. We literally worship material possessions and financial gain, and the sheer greed that we are witnessing at this moment is absolutely staggering.Lahaina was hit harder than anywhere else by the fires, and it turns out that property owners in the area have been getting pressured to sell for a long time. So now that disaster has struck, those that wish to get their hands on these prime properties are in a feeding frenzy. One local resident made headlines all over the world after she posted a video about this…Filming herself in the recent video, the Hawaii resident said: ‘I am so frustrated with investors and realtors calling the families who lost their home, offering to buy their land.‘How dare you do that to our community right now. If you are a victim and they are calling you, please get their business name so we can put them on blast,’ she added.She claims in the clip that she ‘personally’ knows ‘multiple families’ that were ‘offered money from investors and realtors’.When 2020 began, the average home in Lahaina was worth about $600,000.Today, the average home in Lahaina is worth about a million dollars.Now there is a race to take advantage of those that have just had their homes burned down, and it has gotten so bad that even Hawaiian Governor Josh Green is speaking out against it…
Only 12% Of Teachers Can Afford Homes Close To Their Schools - The number of teachers who can afford a reasonably priced home in their school district nationwide has collapsed to just 12%, down from 17% last summer and 30% in 2019, amid the worst housing affordability crisis in a generation, according to data from Redfin. Redfin's analysis of median teacher salaries for 2022 across 50 major cities for over 70,000 PreK-12 public and private schools revealed no teacher in San Jose and San Diego could afford homes within "commuting distances" to their respective school, which means home and work are 20 minutes during typical rush hour conditions. The struggle stems from teacher wages not keeping pace with high inflation. Data from National Education Association (NEA) shows teachers only received a 2% bump in pay in 2021-22 from the prior year to $66,745 when adjusted for inflation. Compared with a decade ago, teachers make $3,644 less when adjusted for inflation. "As teacher salaries stagnate, housing prices continue to climb—a confluence of events that has forced many educators to drop out of the field, fueling a dire teacher shortage in some areas," the report said. A recent Redfin report shows the typical homebuyer's monthly mortgage payment was $2,605 during the four weeks ending July 30, up 19% from a year earlier. Rent prices are also near record highs. "The shortage of affordable homes is exacerbating the shortage of teachers," said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari. Bokhari continued, "Many teachers who can't afford to buy a house near work are either renting and missing out on the opportunity to build wealth through home equity, or leaving education in search of more lucrative careers." The worst of the housing affordability crisis is for teachers in Democratically controlled metro areas. The most affordable place for teachers is the Midwest... In Detroit, the average teacher can afford two-thirds (67%) of homes for sale within commuting distance of their school—the highest share among the 50 most populous metros. Next comes Cleveland, where 59% of commutable homes, on average, are affordable on the median teacher salary. Rounding out the top five are Pittsburgh (53%), Philadelphia (49%) and St. Louis (40%).The list is similar for rentals. Ranking first is Cleveland, where the typical teacher can afford 82% of available rentals within commuting distance of their school. It's followed by Pittsburgh (76%), Detroit (73%), Milwaukee (73%) and Philadelphia (62%). These metros have a couple of things in common: They rank among the most affordable when it comes to home prices, and they don't rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to teacher salaries. That's why these areas have relatively high shares of homes affordable for teachers. In Detroit, for example, the median home sale price is $187,000—lower than any other major metro in the country. Still, Detroit ranks 26th for teacher pay among the 50 biggest metros, with a median salary of $64,221. That's higher than the typical salary in, say, Miami, where the median home sale price is $515,000 but the typical teacher only makes $60,463.In a separate report, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank Benjamin Picton explained how no matter how millennials and Gen Z save, their ability to afford a home has collapsed. Just wait until student debt repayments restart in the next few weeks. The NEA said about half of all teachers have an average total student of around $56,000.
New standard on cutting risk of infectious aerosol spread sets high bar for building ventilation but is work in progress --The first-ever ASHRAE standard on reducing the risk of indoor infectious aerosol transmission sets new targets for building operators in terms of air system design, installation, operation, and maintenance.But both ASHRAE and other experts acknowledge that buildings have not been designed to reduce disease transmission—only to heat, dehumidify, and cool both outdoor air and recirculated indoor air and address off-gassing of volatile organic compounds from people and building materials by diluting them—so compliance may require some heavy lifting. "The requirements for filter and air cleaner testing incorporated in this standard go well beyond what is found in current standards," the authors wrote in the foreword. "They are a major step in the direction of creating uniform and effective technology-agnostic criteria for characterizing filter and air-cleaner performance and safety."Tony Havics, a certified industrial hygienist and professional engineer in Indiana, said the standard offers some good guidance but doesn't include the assumptions, criteria, and processes used in its development. It also doesn't tailor its recommendations to specific pathogens or scenarios (ASHRAE didn't specify which virus or other variables they used for their estimation).Earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House COVID-19 Response Team encouraged ASHRAE to develop Standard 241, the foreword said. The resulting document advises operators of new and existing buildings and those undergoing major renovations to take steps to reduce the average (not individual) risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and other airborne pathogens.Rather than indoor-outdoor air exchanges per hour, the document describes an "equivalent clean air flow" target per occupant of pathogen-free air, which ASHRAE calls "a more useful and scalable way to represent requirements." The standard includes a calculator to estimate equivalent clean air flow and a table listing minimum equivalents in settings such as correctional and educational facilities, healthcare, industry, sports and entertainment spaces, and residential dwellings.
July Housing Starts: Record Number of Multi-Family Housing Units Under Construction From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions Privately‐owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,452,000. This is 3.9 percent above the revised June estimate of 1,398,000 and is 5.9 percent above the July 2022 rate of 1,371,000. Single‐family housing starts in July were at a rate of 983,000; this is 6.7 percent above the revised June figure of 921,000. The July rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 460,000.Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,442,000. This is 0.1 percent above the revised June rate of 1,441,000, but is 13.0 percent below the July 2022 rate of 1,658,000. Single‐family authorizations in July were at a rate of 930,000; this is 0.6 percent above the revised June figure of 924,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 464,000 in July.The first graph shows single and multi-family housing starts since 2000 (including housing bubble).The second graph shows single and multi-family starts since 1968. This shows the huge collapse following the housing bubble, and then the eventual recovery - and the recent collapse in single-family starts.The third graph shows the month-to-month comparison for total starts between 2022 (blue) and 2023 (red).The fourth graph shows housing starts under construction, Seasonally Adjusted (SA).Red is single family units. Currently there are 678 thousand single family units (red) under construction (SA). This was down in July compared to June, and 153 thousand below the recent peak in May 2022. Single family units under construction peaked over a year ago since single family starts declined sharply.Blue is for 2+ units. Currently there are 1,003 thousand multi-family units under construction. This breaks the record set in July 1973 of multi-family units being built for the baby-boom generation. For multi-family, construction delays are a significant factor. The completion of these units should help with rent pressure. Combined, there are 1.681 million units under construction, just 29 thousand below the all-time record of 1.710 million set in October 2022.Below is a graph comparing multi-family starts and completions. Since it usually takes over a year on average to complete a multi-family project, there is a lag between multi-family starts and completions. Completions are important because that is new supply added to the market and starts are important because that is future new supply (units under construction is also important for employment). These graphs use a 12-month rolling total for NSA starts and completions. and the red line is for multifamily completions. Multifamily starts will likely decline, and completions increase over the next year.The last graph shows single family starts and completions. It usually only takes about 6 months between starting a single-family home and completion - so the lines are much closer than for multi-family. The blue line is for single family starts and the red line is for single family completions.
NAHB: Builder Confidence Decreased in August "on Rising Mortgage Rates" - The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported the housing market index (HMI) was at 50, down from 56 last month. Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.From the NAHB: Builder Confidence Falls on Rising Mortgage Rates --After steadily rising for seven consecutive months, builder confidence retreated in August as rising mortgage rates nearing 7% (per Freddie Mac) and stubbornly high shelter inflation have further eroded housing affordability and put a damper on consumer demand.Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes in August fell six points to 50, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today.“Rising mortgage rates and high construction costs stemming from a dearth of construction workers, a lack of buildable lots and ongoing shortages of distribution transformers put a chill on builder sentiment in August,” “But while this latest confidence reading is a reminder that housing affordability is an ongoing challenge, demand for new construction continues to be supported by a lack of resale inventory, as many home owners elect to stay put because they are locked in at a low mortgage rate.”...The August HMI survey also revealed that rising mortgage rates are causing more builders to use sales incentives to attract home buyers. After dropping steadily for four months (from 31% in March to 22% in July), the share of builders cutting prices to bolster sales rose again to 25% in August. The average decline for builders reducing prices remained at 6%. And the share of builders using incentives to bolster sales was 55% in August, higher than in July (52%) but still lower than in December 2022 (62%).Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 35 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.All three major HMI indices posted declines in August. The HMI index gauging current sales conditions fell five points to 57, the component charting sales expectations in the next six months declined four points to 55 and the gauge measuring traffic of prospective buyers dropped six points to 34.Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast increased four points to 56, the Midwest and South were both unchanged at 45 and 58, respectively, and the West edged down a single point to 50. This graph shows the NAHB index since Jan 1985. This was below the consensus forecast.
US retail sales rise 0.7% to $696B in July, beating estimates - US retail sales increased 0.7% to reach $696.4 billion in July, according to advance figures released Tuesday by the Commerce Department. Retail sales came more than market estimates of a 0.4% increase, while the June figure was revised to $691.3 billion for a gain of 0.3% from 0.2%. On an annual basis, retail sales were up 3.2% in July, compared to the same month of last year. The figure also came higher than the market expectation of a 1.5% gain. Retail sales in June showed an annual increase of 1.6%. The strong monthly and annual figures indicate that consumer demand remains strong in the world's largest economy.
Retail Sales Increased 0.7% in July --On a monthly basis, retail sales were up 0.7% from June to July (seasonally adjusted), and sales were up 3.2 percent from June 2022. From the Census Bureau report: Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for July 2023, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $696.4 billion, up 0.7 percent from the previous month, and up 3.2 percent above July 2022. ... The May 2023 to June 2023 percent change was revised from up 0.2 percent to up 0.3 percent. This graph shows retail sales since 1992. This is monthly retail sales and food service, seasonally adjusted (total and ex-gasoline). Retail sales ex-gasoline were up 0.8% in July.The second graph shows the year-over-year change in retail sales and food service (ex-gasoline) since 1993. Retail and Food service sales, ex-gasoline, increased by 5.6% on a YoY basis. The increase in sales in July was well above expectations, and sales in May and June were revised up.
Drunken Sailors Partying Hard: Retail Sales Jump despite Cooling Inflation in Goods that Retailers Sell -- by Wolf Richter --Retail sales, including at food services and drinking places, jumped 0.7% in July from June, after the upwardly revised 0.3% increase in June, and the 0.7% increase in May. Compared to a year ago, retail sales rose 3.2%, seasonally adjusted. Not adjusted, retail sales were $703 billion in July.The growth in retail sales came despite a sharp decline of inflation in the goods that retailers sell, such as motor vehicles, gasoline, electronics, etc., with some actual price declines. And it came despite the shift of spending from goods – which is what the retailers here sell – to services.This growth in July from June was driven by the huge growth rates among the #2 and #3 largest categories of retailers:
- Nonstore retailers (mostly ecommerce): + 1.9%
- Food services & drinking places: +1.4%.
Retail sales are not a measure of consumer spending. They’re a measure of how well retailers are doing. We track consumer spending separately, which also includes services, which retailers don’t sell, and it’s adjusted for inflation. The charts below show the three-month moving average to squash the artificial drama of the monthly ups and downs that can obscure the trends. The three-month moving average of retail sales rose 0.6% from the prior month and was up 2.3% year-over-year: Retail sales by category, 3-month moving average, seasonally adjusted:
US Business Inventories Unchanged in June (Reuters) - U.S. business inventories were unchanged for a second straight month in June as companies continued to carefully manage stocks in anticipation of weak demand because of higher interest rates. Economists polled by Reuters had expected the Commerce Department would report a 0.1% gain in business inventories on Tuesday. Inventories, a key component of gross domestic product, increased 2.0% on a year-on-year basis in June. Private inventory investment was estimated to have made a small contribution to GDP in the second quarter after being a major drag in the first three months of the year. The economy grew at a 2.4% annualized rate in the April-June period. Retail inventories increased 0.7% in June, as estimated in an advance report published last month. They rose 0.6% in May. Motor vehicle inventories advanced 1.5%, as estimated last month. They increased 2.7% in May. Retail inventories excluding autos, which go into the calculation of GDP, climbed 0.3% instead of the previously reported 0.4% rise. Wholesale inventories fell 0.5% while stocks at manufacturers were unchanged. Business sales dipped 0.1% after edging up 0.1% in May. At June's sales pace, it would take 1.40 months for businesses to clear shelves, unchanged from May.
Freight Recessions Crush Teetering Trucking Companies. This Time, Yellow. And the Freight Recession Continues --by Wolf Richter - Every Freight recession takes out already teetering trucking companies, and this time, it was long-teetering and bailed-out less-than-truckload carrier Yellow, the largest trucker ever to file for bankruptcy liquidation. During the last freight recession in 2019, a slew of trucking companies were liquidated, including truckload carrier Celadon, which was brought down by accounting fraud, the largest truckload carrier ever to get liquidated in bankruptcy court.This freight recession, which started a little over a year ago, came as consumers switched some spending from goods to services, such as travels, and services aren’t transported by truck. And it was then made worse as companies, from manufacturers to retailers, began destocking to bring their inventories back in line, after they’d over-ordered during the chaotic era of shortages, confounding levels of congestion, chaos, and huge spikes in freight rates. And when all this stuff finally arrived, the world had moved on.Private fleets – such as Walmart’s gigantic fleet of trucks, or the Amazon trucks – have grown to over half of Class 8 tractor capacity, according to the analysis by Cass, and they’re eating into demand that would have been handled by for-hire trucking companies. This expansion of the private fleets, according to Cass, is prolonging the downturn of the for-hire market.“We think it’s unlikely that [for-hire] industry capacity will broadly tighten until pressure from private fleet growth eases, which looks unlikely this year,” Cass said. In terms of shipment volume in the for-hire market, the Cass Freight Index – which is concentrated on trucking but includes rail and other modes of transportation – fell again in July, to the worst July since July 2020, and July 2016, which had been in the middle of another freight recession (fat red line in the chart below).Year-over-year, the index was down 8.9%, and compared to the peak in this cycle, in May 2021, it was down 12%.We’ve heard similar messages from UPS and FedEx. UPS reported a 9.9% drop in daily package volume for Q2, with June volume down 12.2%. FedEx reported an 18% drop in average daily shipments in its quarter ended May 31.The Cass Freight Index for shipments tracks the for-hire market. Truckload shipments represent over half of the dollar amounts in the index, with less-than-truckload shipments in second place, followed by rail shipments, parcel services (such as UPS and FedEx), and others. It does not include private fleets, commodities, and new vehicles.Truckload spot and contract rates, not including fuel and other charges, fell for the 14th month in a row in July, on a seasonally adjusted basis, and were down by 12.7% year-over-year, and by 15.8% from the peak in May 2022, which pushed them back to where they’d been in February 2021, according to the Cass Truckload Linehaul Index.The Cass Inferred Freight Rates Index, which does include fuel charges, dropped again in July and has plunged by 21% from the peak of the spike in June 2022. But it’s not like freight suddenly got cheap: The index is still up by 21% from February 2020, before the spike began, and has thereby unwound about 60% of the up-spike.The red line represents the three-month moving average that irons out the month-to-month ups and downs.
Industrial Production Increased 1.0% in July - From the Fed: Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization In July, total industrial production increased 1.0 percent following declines in the previous two months. Manufacturing output rose 0.5 percent in July; the production of motor vehicles and parts jumped 5.2 percent, while factory output elsewhere edged up 0.1 percent. The index for mining moved up 0.5 percent, and the index for utilities climbed 5.4 percent as very high temperatures in July raised demand for cooling. At 102.9 percent of its 2017 average, total industrial production in July was 0.2 percent below its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization moved up to 79.3 percent in July, a rate that is 0.4 percentage point below its long-run (1972–2022) average. This graph shows Capacity Utilization. This series is up from the record low set in April 2020, and above the level in February 2020 (pre-pandemic). Capacity utilization at 79.3% is 0.4 percentage points below the average from 1972 to 2022. This was slightly above consensus expectations.The second graph shows industrial production since 1967. Industrial production increased in July to 102.9. This is above the pre-pandemic level. Industrial production was above consensus expectations, however the previous months were revised down, combined.
Tyson Foods closes four more plants, resulting in 3,000 job cuts -- Tyson Foods closes four more plants, resulting in 3,000 job cuts Cordell Gascoigne 11 August 2023 Are you a Tyson worker? Tell us what you think about the layoffs by filling out the form below. All submissions will be kept anonymous. Tyson Foods will close four chicken plants across the country between late 2023 and early 2024, cutting 3,000 jobs, the company announced August 7. Despite generating tens of billions in revenue annually, Tyson has been laying off workers around the country. It announced in April it would lay off 15 percent of its senior leadership and 10 percent of its corporate employees. Late last year, it closed its corporate offices in Chicago and South Dakota. Three months ago, Tyson closed its plants in Van Buren, Arkansas and in Glen Allen, Virginia, affecting nearly 1,700 employees. The four additional plants now slated for closure are located in North Little Rock, Arkansas; Corydon, Indiana; Dexter, Missouri and Noel, Missouri. Production is being moved to new facilities closer to Tyson’s customer base. The four facilities account for approximately 10 percent of Tyson’s chicken slaughtering, according to Chief Financial Officer John R. Tyson. These closures will devastate the economies of the mostly rural communities in which they are located. In Corydon, Indiana, more than 500 jobs will be cut. Responding to the public backlash, a Tyson spokesperson said, “We are closely coordinating with state and local officials, including the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, to connect all team members to resources and assistance available.”
Texas lawsuit could bankrupt Planned Parenthood in the state A lawsuit argued in a federal court in Texas on Tuesday could force Planned Parenthood to give the state — and an anonymous whistleblower — more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments and fines.The organization has said a decision in favor of the state would bankrupt every Texas affiliate, forcing the state’s remaining Planned Parenthood clinics to close.“This lawsuit was brought with the sole goal of shutting down Planned Parenthood,” the group said in a statement.The lawsuit stems from a longtime effort by the state to remove Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program. It was filed in Amarillo, a city that does not have a Planned Parenthood clinic, but doing so ensured it would be heard by District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. Kacsmaryk, appointed by former President Trump, invalidated the approval of the abortion pill mifepristone earlier this year. Last year, he blocked a federal family planning program that allowed minors to receive birth control without their parents’ consent.The current lawsuit was brought by an anonymous whistleblower who is part of the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress, which in 2015 released an edited and subsequently debunked video alleging Planned Parenthood providers illegally sold aborted fetal tissue for medical research. The suit is backed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and alleges Planned Parenthood engaged in Medicaid fraud by continuing to bill the state for health services administered during a period when the organization was fighting an attempt by Texas to cut it off from the state’s Medicaid funds.Texas is suing under the federal False Claims Act to claw back about $17 million in Medicaid payments, plus more than $1 billion in additional penalties and punitive damages. The False Claims Act allows for fines for every fraudulent payment and also allows a private citizen, known as a “relator,” to sue on behalf of the United States in exchange for receiving a portion of any money recovered from the defendant.
Police illegally search small-town Kansas newspaper, triggering death of 98-year-old owner - In flagrant violation of the press freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, the entire five-member Marion, Kansas, police department, assisted by two deputy sheriffs, raided both the office of the local newspaper, the Marion County Record, and the home of its owners on Friday morning, seizing computers, cell phones and other electronics essential to publication. 98-year-old Joan Meyer, whose husband began writing for the paper in 1948, began working for the paper a decade later. Her family purchased the paper 25 years ago to keep ownership local. Meyer told the Wichita Eagle after the police left, “These are Hitler tactics, and something has to be done.” Sadly, Joan Meyer suddenly passed away the next afternoon in the home in which she had lived for more than 70 years. That evening, the Marion County Record website reported on the searches and explained that Joan Meyer died because she was “stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief.” In a video published by the Associated Press, Eric Meyer, Joan Meyer’s son and the paper’s co-owner, denounced the officers’ “Gestapo tactics from World War II,” while pledging to maintain weekly Wednesday publication and to pursue a civil-rights action. The city of Marion is located in the Great Plains, about 60 miles north of Wichita, with a population less than 2,000. Marion County as a whole has less than 12,000 residents. The Marion County Record has seven employees and a circulation of 4,000. It declares itself to be independent and aggressive in reporting on local issues. The search was initially linked to a dispute involving a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell, whose liquor license by the City Council was put in jeopardy by a revelation, not reported in the newspaper, that she had been convicted of drunk driving and subsequently failed to have her driver’s license restored. On August 2, Newell asked Police Chief Gideon Cody to remove Eric Meyer and another Marion County Record reporter from an event she was hosting at her restaurant for US Representative Jake LaTurner, a rising Republican right-winger. LaTurner was one of the 139 House members who voted in favor of bogus objections to Biden electors that took place on January 6 and 7, 2021, after the fascists were cleared out of the Capitol, and the Congressional Joint Session reconvened. One week later, LaTurner was among the 197 House members to vote against Trump’s impeachment for instigating the January 6 insurrection.
School Attendance Tanks Across the US -- Across the country, students have been absent at record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic. More than a quarter of students missed at least 10% of the 2021-22 school year, making them chronically absent, according to the most recent data available. Before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school. All told, an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent, according to the data, which was compiled by Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee in partnership with the AP. Absences were more prevalent among Latino, Black, and low-income students.The absences come on top of time students missed during school closures and pandemic disruptions. They cost crucial classroom time as schools work to recover from massive learning setbacks. Absent students miss out not only on instruction but also on all the other things schools provide—meals, counseling, socialization. In the end, students who are chronically absent—missing 18 or more days a year, in most places—are at higher risk of not learning to read and eventually dropping out. "The long-term consequences of disengaging from school are devastating," said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit addressing chronic absenteeism.Absences worsened in every state with available data—notably, the analysis found growth in chronic absenteeism did not correlate strongly with state COVID rates. Kids are staying home for myriad reasons—finances, housing instability, illness, transportation issues, school staffing shortages, anxiety, depression, bullying, and generally feeling unwelcome at school. Another lasting effect from the pandemic: Educators and experts say some parents and students have been conditioned to stay home at the slightest sign of sickness. Alaska led in absenteeism, with 48.6% of students missing significant amounts of school. Alaska Native students' rate was higher, 56.5%. Most states have yet to release attendance data from 2022-23, the most recent school year. But based on the few that have shared figures, it seems the chronic-absence trend may have long legs. In Connecticut and Massachusetts, chronic absenteeism remained double its pre-pandemic rate.
Los Angeles school district officials encourage sick students to attend school and spread infection -Smita Malhotra, chief medical director of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), published a tweet Sunday encouraging parents of the district’s 565,000 students to send their children to school even if they were experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 or other illnesses. “It is not practical,” Malhotra wrote, “for working parents to keep children home from school for every runny nose, nor is it in the best interest of children to miss school after pandemic school closures.” In a statement that brazenly and criminally ignored the history of the COVID-19 pandemic and the principles of public health more generally, the chief medical director wrote, “My message to parents is this: schools are some of the safest places for children to be.” These sentiments were echoed by the entire leadership of the district as well. “We’re back at a point—based on high levels of vaccination, therapeutics available and children’s higher resiliency than most—where a child is mildly sick—no fever, just maybe the sniffles—it is OK for them to go to school,” according to LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho. In fact, such statements not only downplay the danger of COVID-19, but are actively encouraging students and their families to contract the disease. As students at LAUSD and across the country begin the new academic year, COVID-19 numbers continue to rise in what is now a new, dangerous wave of the pandemic. US hospital admissions have risen 43 percent since late June, while wastewater testing indicates approximately 4.4 million new COVID cases in the US each week. With Long COVID, according to the most conservative estimates, affecting 10 percent of those infected, more than 400,000 will contract the condition each week as well. According to a June study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers working out of Boston Children’s Hospital found that 70.4 percent of infections in nearly 850,000 households sampled originated in childhood transmission. The study took samples from a period starting in September 2020 until October 2022. Rates of pediatric transmission fluctuated during the course of the study, with the lowest transmission during the summer months, in accordance with the reality that schools are a primary source of COVID-19 transmission. According to the study’s authors, “Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to inferred within household transmission when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks.” Not only does in-person learning increase the risk of COVID-19 infections in households and surrounding communities, it also increases risk among the schoolchildren themselves. Leaving aside the heightened risk of infected children passing along the disease to family members and their communities, children themselves are at a high risk of hospitalization and debilitation from the highly communicable virus, despite claims of LAUSD officials to the contrary. In New York City alone, pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 are the highest they have been since August 2020.
NYU professor says state jumped the gun reopening lead-contaminated playground in Wappingers Falls - An environmental clinical science professor at New York University who helped the Wall Street Journal take lead readings at a playground in Wappingers Falls for an investigative report is now speaking to News 12 about the so-called “toxic park” – and why he says it’s still not safe for kids. (news video)
States, districts across US expand police presence in schools --Amid crisis conditions in the American public school system brought on by decades of bipartisan austerity and the criminally negligent response to the COVID-19 pandemic, students and staff are faced with renewed efforts by state and local officials to beef up the presence of armed security forces inside schools. In areas across the US, this push is taking precedence over addressing dire teacher and staff shortages, providing mental health services for students, reducing class sizes or fixing crumbling school infrastructure. Multiple states have recently passed laws to require armed security personnel on school grounds. These include Texas, which passed a bill in June to require armed officers at all schools, effective September. Under the law, the term “officer” is loosely defined such that armed teachers and school staff could be used to fulfill the requirement. The footing of the bill to meet this requirement will fall largely on cash-strapped school districts, as the state is only covering $15,000 per campus out of an estimated cost of $80,000 per armed officer. As Joy Baskin with the Texas Association of School Boards stated, “Given that a school district budget usually commits about 85 percent of the budget to pay salaries of instructional staff, this does eat up another very important slice of the pie.' Meanwhile, districts across Texas, like others across the US, are already facing huge budget shortfalls. In Wisconsin, state lawmakers passed a bill this summer which forces the Milwaukee Public Schools to have at least 25 school resource officers (SROs) in place by January 1, 2024. The district had removed all officers from school grounds in 2020 following student-led protests. As in Texas, the Milwaukee school district, the only one in the state required to have SROs, will be responsible for the cost of the officers. Other school boards that have voted to expand the presence of police this year include Perkiomen Valley, Massachusetts and Oakland, New Jersey. Meanwhile, other districts are beginning to roll back prior efforts to reduce the presence of police in schools, including reneging on promises made following the nationwide protests after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020. The Denver school board voted unanimously in June 2020 to discontinue its relationship with the Denver Police. But earlier this year, following a school shooting, Denver Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero demanded an armed officer at each high school. The board immediately agreed. In Portland, Oregon, the district has recommended a new partnership with the Portland Police Bureau, with the possibility of bringing officers back onto campuses after having eliminated school resource officers in 2020 due to threats felt by the student body. The board is worried, however, about widespread opposition among students. 'Our students, for the most part, don't really want to see armed uniformed officers in their school,' said one board member.
Only 12% Of Teachers Can Afford Homes Close To Their Schools - The number of teachers who can afford a reasonably priced home in their school district nationwide has collapsed to just 12%, down from 17% last summer and 30% in 2019, amid the worst housing affordability crisis in a generation, according to data from Redfin. Redfin's analysis of median teacher salaries for 2022 across 50 major cities for over 70,000 PreK-12 public and private schools revealed no teacher in San Jose and San Diego could afford homes within "commuting distances" to their respective school, which means home and work are 20 minutes during typical rush hour conditions. The struggle stems from teacher wages not keeping pace with high inflation. Data from National Education Association (NEA) shows teachers only received a 2% bump in pay in 2021-22 from the prior year to $66,745 when adjusted for inflation. Compared with a decade ago, teachers make $3,644 less when adjusted for inflation. "As teacher salaries stagnate, housing prices continue to climb—a confluence of events that has forced many educators to drop out of the field, fueling a dire teacher shortage in some areas," the report said. A recent Redfin report shows the typical homebuyer's monthly mortgage payment was $2,605 during the four weeks ending July 30, up 19% from a year earlier. Rent prices are also near record highs. "The shortage of affordable homes is exacerbating the shortage of teachers," said Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari. Bokhari continued, "Many teachers who can't afford to buy a house near work are either renting and missing out on the opportunity to build wealth through home equity, or leaving education in search of more lucrative careers." The worst of the housing affordability crisis is for teachers in Democratically controlled metro areas. The most affordable place for teachers is the Midwest... In Detroit, the average teacher can afford two-thirds (67%) of homes for sale within commuting distance of their school—the highest share among the 50 most populous metros. Next comes Cleveland, where 59% of commutable homes, on average, are affordable on the median teacher salary. Rounding out the top five are Pittsburgh (53%), Philadelphia (49%) and St. Louis (40%).The list is similar for rentals. Ranking first is Cleveland, where the typical teacher can afford 82% of available rentals within commuting distance of their school. It's followed by Pittsburgh (76%), Detroit (73%), Milwaukee (73%) and Philadelphia (62%). These metros have a couple of things in common: They rank among the most affordable when it comes to home prices, and they don't rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to teacher salaries. That's why these areas have relatively high shares of homes affordable for teachers. In Detroit, for example, the median home sale price is $187,000—lower than any other major metro in the country. Still, Detroit ranks 26th for teacher pay among the 50 biggest metros, with a median salary of $64,221. That's higher than the typical salary in, say, Miami, where the median home sale price is $515,000 but the typical teacher only makes $60,463.In a separate report, Senior Macro Strategist at Rabobank Benjamin Picton explained how no matter how millennials and Gen Z save, their ability to afford a home has collapsed. Just wait until student debt repayments restart in the next few weeks. The NEA said about half of all teachers have an average total student of around $56,000.
Far-right Temecula school board in California sued over critical race theory ban -The school board of the Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD) in California has been sued by the Temecula Valley Educators Association, individual teachers and groups including the American Civil Liberties Union in a suit that is receiving support from California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. The lawsuit demands a court order declaring that a ban on “Critical Race Theory or other similar frameworks” is unconstitutional under California Law. The Temecula Valley Unified School District serves the city of Temecula, which is located between San Diego and Los Angeles. In December 2022, the school board voted to pass Resolution 21, which prohibits the teaching of “Critical Race theory or other similar frameworks.” This is a part of a broader attack on public education and democratic rights by the fascistic Republican Party. Notwithstanding the Trotskyist movement’s fundamental opposition to the anti-rationalist philosophy and racialist politics of critical race theory, which interprets history and all social interactions from the standpoint of race, we condemn the attempts of the far right to censor school curricula. Such censorship is part of a frontal attack on democratic rights, as, for example, Florida’s “Don’t say Gay” bill and the attack on the works of Shakespeare. The school board’s move sparked student walkouts early this year in protest against the ban. The board has remained intransigent in the face of a broad backlash. Following a closed-door board meeting in June, in which the superintendent was fired, the school board brought in police to threaten an outraged crowd of teachers, parents and students. The right-wing majority on the TVUSD school board face a recall effort initiated in June. In July, the board voted to ban the Social Studies Alive! textbook following an openly homophobic tirade by board President Joseph Komrosky, who stated, “My question is, why even mention a pedophile?” He was referring to Harvey Milk, the San Francisco Democratic Party politician and gay rights advocate who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and was assassinated in November 1978.
College slammed over new course teaching that black people should be considered disabled --Anew course being taught at Princeton University has come under fire for reportedly teaching its students that all black people are disabled. Satyel Larson, known for her work on pro-Palestinian efforts, claims that the systemic racism that black men and women face in the United States has left them fundamentally disabled."Black Lives Matter and the struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine are not only movements 'allied' with disability rights, nor are they only distinct disability justice issues," reads a book from the class."Rather, I am motivated to think of these fierce organizing practices collectively as a disability justice movement itself, as a movement that is demanding an end to so many conditions of prioritization that debilitate many populations."System racism - also known as structural racism - has been proven to have a deleterious effect on black men and women in the United States. A study by Brookings does suggest that the United States is a racist country.But critics of the class argue that Larson's teachings remove agency from Black men and women, and suggest that their lack of agency makes them more - not less - vulnerable to exploitation.That's not all Larson has come under fire for.In the same class, Larson teaches that the Israeli army, which has long been at war with Palestine, deliberately maims Palestinians for profit.This claim has outraged Jewish officals, who allege that Larson's teachings are "antisemitic" in nature. Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, has called upon Princeton University to fire Larson, and to issue an apology to its students.As of this writing, neither has happened.Daily Express US has reached out to Princeton for comment.
Cornell pressured to upend DEI policies on eve of 'free speech' year — A coalition of Cornell alumni, faculty, and students unveiled a slew of policy proposals Monday they say will help the Ivy League school live up to its stated commitment to academic freedom and free speech.The coalition, known as the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, released the list of 20 policy recommendations days before the 2023-2024 school year, which Cornell University President Martha Pollack previously announced will be the "Year of Free Speech."The policy recommendations run the gambit. They include calling on the school to adopt the "Chicago Principles" of free speech, implementing free speech training during freshman orientation, and banning the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion statements in the faculty hiring process.The group also called on the Ithaca, New York school to seek more "diversity of thought" among faculty and staff by "casting a wide net for potential applicants and encouraging application for admission or hiring from a wide array of economic, geographical, and cultural backgrounds.""These recommendations are our attempt to assist university leaders in restoring open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and academic freedom that our beloved institution needs to advance its mission," Ken Wolf, the president of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, said in a statement.Cornell's April announcement of a "Year of Free Speech" came after the university faced several high-profile controversies over academic freedom and freedom of speech that included an incident where conservative commentator Ann Coulter was forced to cut short a planned lecture after a group of protesters disrupted the event. Carl Neuss, the chairman of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance board, told the Washington Examiner in an interview that the planned theme, which he said amounted to little more than a lecture series, was simply "window dressing" due to increased media scrutiny and outside pressure."They described it as a speaker program, as opposed to policy adjustments," Neuss said. The new recommendations, he said, provide the university with an opportunity to make concrete changes.
Federal judge tosses suit against Biden student loan forgiveness plan for long-term borrowers -- A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by two conservative groups intended to halt the Biden administration’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.In an order issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington of the Eastern District of Michigan dismissed the lawsuit without prejudice, arguing that the groups did not have the standing for their complaint. Ludington said that the groups’ alleged injuries were not sufficient. “But—even assuming that Plaintiffs’ alleged injury was sufficient—they have not adequately demonstrated a causal link between Defendants’ action and an identifiable injury,” the judge wrote in the 18-page order.The complaint — which was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute earlier this month — argued that the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July.The lawsuit came just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a broader cancellation plan for student loans pushed by President Biden.“The district court did not rule on the merits of the case and instead said Cato and Mackinac were not the right parties to bring it,” Sheng Li, litigation counsel for New Civil Liberties Alliance, said in a statement to The Hill. “We disagree with the court’s conclusion regarding legal standing and are reviewing legal options with our clients.”The dismissal comes a month after the Education Department announced it will provide $39 billion in total student debt relief for 804,000 borrowers. The Supreme Court had struck down Biden’s prior plan to give $10,000 of student debt relief to low- and middle-income borrowers and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients in a 6-3 decision in June.
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is reportedly investigating the handing over of transgender patients’ records by Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) to the Tennessee attorney general’s office.VUMC confirmed in late June to The Hill that it handed over the records because it received requests about “transgender care” from the state attorney general’s office. However, about a month later, two of the patients who received care from VUMC sued the facility in Nashville chancery court, saying it violated their privacy. In a statement obtained by CNN, John Howser, the chief communications officer for VUMC, said HHS’s Office for Civil Rights had contacted the hospital.“We have been contacted by and are working with the Office of Civil Rights,” John Howser told CNN. “We have no further comment since this is an ongoing investigation.” Last fall, Vanderbilt announced they were pausing gender-affirming surgeries amid pressure from state officials and lawmakers. Gov. Bill Lee (R) also signed a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth in March.
Nursing home costs increase by largest amount in more than 25 years -- The price of nursing homes and adult day services jumped dramatically last month, new data shows. Recently released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the price of nursing homes and adult day services shot up by 2.4 percent in July compared to the previous month, the largest single-month increase since 1997. But the spike could be just an outlier and not signal a trend. “We will need to wait and see if this was a one-time aberration or part of a longer-term trend,” Beth Mace, an economist and senior adviser at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, told Yahoo Finance.“Keep in mind that the unusually large July increase followed three months of declines in April, May, and June. It’s certainly something to watch, but not to be alarmed by at this time,” she told the outlet. Caring for older Americans either in adult day care, nursing homes or assisted living facilities has become more expensive over the years.The cost of nursing home care alone increased by an average of 2.4 percent every yearbetween 2012 and 2019, according to the health research group Altarum Institute. Nursing home and assisted living facility costs are rising in part due to increasing demand and personnel costs. About 800,000 people live in an assisted living facility in the U.S., according to the American Health Care Association. Nursing facilities provided care to almost 1.2 million people across 15,076 different Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities last year, according to data from KFF. But many of these facilities suffer from chronic staffing issues. In fact, one industry survey conducted in December found that 8 out of every 10 nursing homes in the country experienced a staffing shortage and 9 out of 10 struggled to retain new employees.Thousands of nursing homes fail to adhere to federal staffing guidelines and go a full day and night without a registered nurse, a USA Today Investigation reported.
New COVID-19 Hospitalizations Increase as EG.5 Spreads | Health News - New weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations increased more than 14% during the first week of August, topping 10,000, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The number is now the highest it has been since the spring, when the coronavirus was on the decline after a small winter wave.Coronavirus hospitalizations have been on the rise for weeks. The CDC no longer tracks COVID-19 infections, but experts say the spread is likely significant given the increase in hospitalizations. Deaths, which tend to lag behind hospitalizations, have not yet shown a similar increase.The vast majority of U.S. counties are documenting a “low” level of new COVID-19 hospital admissions. Less than 2% of counties are seeing either a “medium” or “high” level, according to CDC data.Experts say that a slight summer increase isn’t a shock but that it should serve as a wake-up call to treat the virus seriously before winter rolls around. The increase comes as EG.5, which has unofficially been nicknamed “eris,” is the top variant spreading in the U.S. The World Health Organization last week deemed EG.5 a “variant of interest” after it displayed a steady increase globally. In the U.S., it was responsible for 17% of new infections in recent weeks.The organization assessed EG.5’s public health risk as “low at the global level,” which is the same designation as the so-called “arcturus” strain. However, WHO warned that because EG.5 appears more transmissible and better able to evade immunity provided by vaccines and previous infection, it “may cause a rise in case incidence and become dominant in some countries or even globally.”
Weekly COVID hospitalizations rose 14%, as numbers still lower than at other points in pandemic - COVID-19 hospitalizations are continuing to increase in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.For the week ending Aug. 5, COVID hospitalizations increased 14.3% from 9,026 to 10,320 weekly hospitalizations, data from the federal health agency updated Monday shows. While the percentage jump is in the double digits, the absolute numbers are still quite low. Weekly hospitalizations during the omicron wave peaked at 150,674 in January 2022. "We have to remember that we're still dealing with numbers that are far less than what we've seen for the pandemic," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital. "We have to zoom out to look at our experience for the entire pandemic, to understand that what we're dealing with now is far from any crisis that we've experienced with previous waves.""While a percentage [increase] may seem scary, we're still dealing with absolute small numbers," Brownstein, an ABC News contributor, added. COVID-19 hospitalizations have been rising over the last several weeks, increasing 12.5% last week and 12% the week before. Brownstein noted that the rate of increase week-over-week is also not as steep as seen during previous waves. Data also showed that COVID-19 deaths have slightly increased in July, rising to 473 the week of July 15 -- the latest date for which complete data is available. However, experts say this is expected after a rise in hospitalization and reporting delays may result in death numbers shifting in the coming weeks. "Proportionately, it makes sense that when you have increased transmission, you will see proportionately some increase in hospitalizations, and you will see some increase in deaths," Brownstein said. "But there's a decoupling that is happening between cases and hospitalizations, where a jump in cases doesn't necessarily mean as big a jump in hospitalizations and deaths." Brownstein said there could be several factors behind the increase including waning immunity, a reduction in mitigation measures and more people gathering indoors. "It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vigilant about COVID," he said. "It also doesn't mean that we shouldn't look for opportunities to reduce our personal risk, and to make sure that we're, up to date on immunizations. But this is more likely going to be you know, what we'll experience going forward with COVID."
People with positive COVID results from home tests were 29% less likely to isolate --A US study shows that people who had positive home-based COVID-19 test results from January 2021 to March 2022 had a 29% lower likelihood of following isolation recommendations than those with results from a healthcare provider.Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) led the panel survey study of COVID-positive people, published yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases. In 2021, the CDC recommended that infected people isolate for at least 10 days, shifting to 5 days in 2022.The CDC estimated that 48,518,190 adults had one or more positive COVID-19 test results; 24% had results from home tests only, and 76% had results from provider tests.People with positive home test results had significantly lower odds of isolating for any length of time than those with provider results (78% vs 84%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.72).Of patients who isolated, the chances that their isolation met current guidelines were significantly lower among those with home rather than provider tests (64% vs 73%; aOR, 0.71). The adjusted average length of isolation was 2 days shorter among those who used home rather than provider tests.The authors said that home tests broadened access to COVID-19 diagnosis, particularly for those with no primary healthcare provider or health insurance. But although such tests are convenient and may speed diagnosis, they eliminate the opportunity for providers to offer health education and reinforce the importance of isolation to mitigate COVID spread."Clear public health messaging about when and how to test, and the efficacy of each type of test, may help to ensure that persons are testing at the appropriate time," they wrote.
More young Americans are dying – and it’s not COVID. Why aren’t we searching for answers? -- Life insurance actuaries are reporting that many more people are dying – still – than in the years before the pandemic. And while deaths during COVID-19 had largely occurred among the old and infirm, this new wave is hitting prime-of-life people hard.No one knows precisely what is driving the phenomenon, but there is an inexplicable lack of urgency to find out. A concerted investigation is in order. Deaths among young Americans documented in employee life insurance claims should alone set off alarms. Among working people 35 to 44 years old, a stunning 34% more died than expected in the last quarter of 2022, with above-average rates in other working-age groups, too.“COVID-19 claims do not fully explain the increase,” a Society of Actuaries report says. From 2020 through 2022, there were more excess deaths proportionally among white-collar than blue-collar workers: 19% versus 14% above normal. The disparity nearly doubled among top-echelon workers in the fourth quarter of 2022, U.S. actuaries reported. And there was an extreme and sudden increase in worker mortality in the fall of 2021 even as the nation saw a precipitous drop in COVID-19 deaths from a previous wave. In the third quarter of 2021, deaths among workers ages 35-44 reached a pandemic peak of 101% above – or double – the three-year pre-COVID baseline. In two other prime working-age groups, mortality was 79% above expected. This isn’t only happening in the United States. The United Kingdom also saw “more excess deaths in the second half of 2022 than in the second half of any year since 2010,” according to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. In the first quarter of 2023, deaths among people 20 to 44 years old were akin to “the same period in 2021, the worst pandemic year for that age group,” U.K. actuaries reported. Younger-age death rates were “particularly high” when compared with the average mortality for 2013 to 2020. In Australia, 12% more people died than expected in 2022, according to that nation’s Actuaries Institute. A third of the excess was non-COVID deaths, a figure the institute called “extraordinarily high.”Death rates are lower, of course, than in 2020 and 2021. But they are far from normal. In the year ending April 30, 2023 – 14 months after the last of several pandemic waves in the United States – at least 104,000 more Americans died than expected, according to Our World in Data. In the U.K., 52,427 excess deaths were reported in that period; in Germany, 81,028; France, 17,731; Netherlands, 10,418; and Ireland, 2,640.Week in, week out, this unnatural loss of life is on the scale of a war or terrorist event.The actuarial reports can only speculate on the factors causing these deaths, including oft-cited delayed health care, drug overdoses and even weather patterns. But the question remains: What explains this ongoing wave of excess deaths?Life insurance data suggests something happened in the fall of 2021 in workplaces, especially among white-collar workers. These are people whose education, income level and access to health care would predict better outcomes.The executive of a large Indiana life insurance company was clearly troubled by what he said was a 40% increase in the third quarter of 2021 in those ages 18-64.“We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business – not just at OneAmerica,” CEO Scott Davison said during an online news conference in January 2022. “The data is consistent across every player in that business.”
Report spotlights 52 US doctors who posted potentially harmful COVID misinformation online --Two new studies describe a couple sources of the COVID-19 "infodemic" on social media: US physicians and proponents and practitioners of "doing your own research."A mixed-methods study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open finds that 52 physicians practicing in 28 different specialties across the United States propagated COVID-19 misinformation on vaccines, masks, and conspiracy theories on social media and other online platforms from January 2021 to December 2022.Researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst used Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines on COVID-19 prevention and treatment to define misinformation. They also performed structured searches of high-use social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Parler, and YouTube) and news outlets (the New York Times and National Public Radio) to identify physician-communicated misinformation.All 52 physicians who spread misleading COVID-19 information were or had been licensed to practice medicine in the United States except for two, who were researchers, and nearly a third were affiliated with groups with a history of spreading medical misinformation, such as America's Frontline Doctors. The most common specialty was primary care, at 36%.Of the 52 physicians, 80.8% posted false vaccine information, 76.9% passed on more than one type of misinformation in more than one category, 38.5% posted falsities on at least five platforms, and 76.9% appeared on five or more third-party online platforms such as news outlets. Twitter was the most common platform, where 71.2% of the doctors spread misinformation and had a median of 67,400 followers.Major themes were disputing COVID-19 vaccine safety and effectiveness, promoting non–evidence-based medical treatments or those lacking Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for this indication (eg, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine), disputing mask effectiveness, and other unproven claims on topics such as the origin of SARS-CoV-2, government coverups, drug company profit motivations, and other conspiracy theories. Many posts were based on patient anecdotes and data from low-quality medical journals.Promoting fear and distrust of the vaccine and reliance on "natural" immunity were frequent subthemes. Examples of the unfounded claims were that the vaccine causes infertility, permanently damages the immune system, and increases the risk of chronic disease for children and overstated the risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle)."A common approach included circulating counts of positive case rates by vaccination status, claiming that most positive cases were among vaccinated individuals," the researchers wrote. "This claim is technically true but misleading, as many more people are vaccinated, and the proportion of unvaccinated people who are infected is much higher."
YouTube announces new policies to target medical misinformation - YouTube on Tuesday announced it is creating a new framework to crack down on medical misinformation on the platform.“In the years since we began our efforts to make YouTube a destination for high-quality health content, we’ve learned critical lessons about developing Community Guidelines in line with local and global health authority guidance on topics that pose serious real-world risks, such as misinformation on COVID-19, vaccines, reproductive health, harmful substances, and more,” a blog post from the video-sharing site read. “We’re taking what we’ve learned so far about the most effective ways to tackle medical misinformation to simplify our approach for creators, viewers, and partners.”The platform has faced controversy in recent years for its algorithm and the way it can direct viewers to misleading and extremist content. In 2021, YouTube said it removed more than 1 million videos related to “dangerous coronavirus information” since the beginning of the outbreak in the U.S.YouTube said it will use three categories, “Prevention, Treatment and Denial” to sort the kinds of medical misinformation on the platform.It will remove content that contradicts guidance from health authorities on the prevention and transmission of certain conditions, including vaccines. It will also take down content that contradicts guidance on treatments, including videos that tout unproven remedies in place of seeking care, and content that denies the existence of specific conditions, including COVID-19, according to YouTube.The platform said its new policies “will apply to specific health conditions, treatments, and substances where content contradicts local health authorities or the World Health Organization (WHO).” “To determine if a condition, treatment or substance is in scope of our medical misinformation policies, we’ll evaluate whether it’s associated with a high public health risk, publicly available guidance from health authorities around the world, and whether it’s generally prone to misinformation,” the post read.
FDA Tries to Pretend It Didn’t Oppose Ivermectin Use for Covid --by Yves Smith --One thing that deeply offends me is when members of the officialdom lie, even when it is the artful sort of lying that is narrowly true. The case study today is the FDA (and joined at the CDC) position on Ivermectin as a Covid treatment and possibly prophylactic.1 As readers may recall, official opposition was ferocious, to the degree that we had to curtail discussion in comments due to concerns about becoming the target of an effort to discredit the site generally. See this page on the FDA site: IM Doc blasted this claim in an e-mail we are hoisting as a post below. Not only were doctors risking their licenses if they recommended Ivermectin, but one reader reported he asked about Ivermectin at his local pharmacy, to see if he could get it quickly if he could get a doctor to prescribe it. He was told the pharmacy would refuse to fill an Rx of Ivermectin for Covid.I am first posting an e-mail from KLG with key facts about Ivermectin (including pointing out, contra skeptics’ claims, that there is a mechanism by which Ivermectin could blunt Covid cases): My comment on Ivermectin:
- The drug was discovered/developed by William Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura as an antiparasitic drug.
- They won the Nobel Prize in 2015 for the discovery.
- The data that show IVM interferes with viral RNA replication are solid even if they have been ignored; the argument that IVM is not bioavailable at high enough concentrations to work in humans is reasonable but not necessarily correct. What happens in the animal is not always what happens in animal cells in a tissue culture dish. If IVM does have this activity, that will explain why it works best when used very early in the course of a COVID infection.
- IVM is exceedingly safe at high doses in humans. This has been known for a long time.
- Yes, “horse paste” (Thanks, Rachel!) for de-worming horses and other livestock is just that, sold at Tractor Supply and other similar businesses; you can also buy animal-grade antibiotics without a prescription at these supply houses AFAIK.
- Pharmaceutical grade IVM is not “horse paste,” but it is cheap at a few cents per dose. Therefore, the profits to be made on IVM are small.
- IVM will not harm those who take it at high doses and may work, so why not?
- The repurposing of drugs has a long tradition in medicine. Thalidomide is now a treatment of choice for lymphoma IIRC.
- That the exact mechanism for any drug is unknown is a nonsensical argument argument against its use. The mechanism of aspirin as a cyclooxygenase suicide inhibitor was identified fairly recently (1970s) compared how long aspirin has been used as a pain reliever. Bayer patented aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid, acetylsalicylate with dissolved in water) at the end of the 19th century. The legend that willow bark tea (which is loaded with salicylates) was used by the ancients as an analgesic might be only that, however.
Biden's fall Covid vaccine rollout for the uninsured won't include pharmacies at first - The Biden administration’s effort to provide free Covid-19 vaccines to the uninsured will not start at retail pharmacies until mid-October, weeks after the government plans to make an updated version of the shot available to the broader public. The gap in timing, which comes as Covid hospitalizations have ticked up in recent weeks, means that millions of Americans without health coverage will not be able to immediately get a no-cost vaccine at popular places like CVS and Walgreens, even as it will be widely available for those who have insurance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the delay in pharmacy availability, with spokesperson Kathleen Conley saying the government is still finalizing contracts with companies like CVS and Walgreens that will allow them to distribute the vaccines for free. The CDC expects the updated vaccine rollout to begin the third or fourth week of September, she said. But the contracts with pharmacies will likely not be finished until mid-October. The uninsured will instead need to go to federal health centers or individual providers for free vaccines during the first stage of the fall vaccination campaign. That adds a layer of complexity, public health officials warn, that could discourage people from getting the shot. “That’s going to put a gap in the program,” “These kinds of things, they make a big difference when you’re trying to manage a program and you want to ensure [the] vaccine’s accessible in every county.” As many as 30 million uninsured or underinsured people face paying out-of-pocket for Covid vaccines for the first time this fall, after the government’s Covid public health emergency declaration expired in May. That figure could include millions of people who recently lost Medicaid coverage for the first time since the start of the pandemic. In April, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a $1.1 billion “bridge” program that it promised would offer people without health insurance continued access to free Covid vaccines and treatments at least through the end of 2024. That effort has taken on heightened importance in recent weeks, with Covid cases and hospitalizations rising for the first time since 2022. But with roughly a month to go before the vaccine rollout, CDC has yet to finalize the contracts. The agency maintains that it had always planned to begin free vaccine distribution in pharmacies in mid-October, even as the shot will be made available elsewhere earlier, due to the time it would take to reach formal agreements with the pharmacy chains. State health officials and public health experts planning for the on-the-ground campaign say they’ve gotten few specifics about how it will work or when they should expect more clarity.
COVID shots in same arm may elicit better immune response -Sequential vaccines, like those used for COVID-19, may elicit a greater immune response if the recipient has the same arm injected, called ipsilateral vaccination, as opposed to contralateral vaccination, in which the primary vaccination is delivered in one arm and booster dose is delivered to the opposite. The research is published in EBioMedicine. German scientists tested immune response and ipsilateral versus contralateral vaccination by looking at data from 303 people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID mRNA vaccine. None participants had not contracted COVID-19 prior to vaccination. Antibody levels were measured 2 weeks after the second dose in 147 participants who received the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the same arm as the first, and 156 who got the second shot in the opposite arm. A subgroup of 143 individuals (64 ipsilateral, 79 contralateral) was analyzed for spike-specific CD4 and CD8 T-cells using flow cytometry, the authors said. Median spike-specific immunoglobulin levels did not differ between the two groups, but neutralizing activity was significantly lower after contralateral vaccination. The number of cytotoxic CD8+ T cells, known as killer T cells, were detected in 67% of same-arm participants, compared to just 43% of the contralaterally vaccinated subjects. "Our study indicates that ipsilateral vaccinations generate a stronger immune response than contralateral vaccinations," said researcher Laura Ziegler in a Saarland University press release.
COVID-19 tied to dangerous blood clots in cancer patients The risk of developing venous thromboembolisms—potentially serious blood clots in the veins—is elevated among cancer patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and taking anticancer drugs, according to a study yesterdayin JAMA Oncology.A team of researchers from across the United States analyzed data on 4,988 cancer patients worldwide who had lab-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection from March 2020 to December 2021. They compared the 1,869 patients who had received systemic anticancer therapies such as endocrine therapy, immunomodulators, and chemotherapy in the 3 months before COVID-19 with those who hadn't.The researchers found that the relative risk of venous thromboembolism was 33% higher in those taking systemic anticancer treatment compared with those who weren't (adjusted risk ratio [aRR], 1.33; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04 to 1.69). The drugs, however, were not tied to a higher risk of arterial thromboembolism (aRR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.56 to 1.16). They also discovered that Black patients had a higher risk of thromboembolic events (TEEs) (aRR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.03 to 1.50) than White patients.Patients with TEEs had high intensive care unit admission (46%) and mechanical ventilation (31%) rates. The risk of death in patients with TEEs was associated with poor physical abilities (aRR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.30 to 2.40) and active or progressing cancer (aRR, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.13 to 2.13). “These findings highlight the need for close monitoring and perhaps personalized thromboprophylaxis to prevent morbidity and mortality associated with COVID-19–related thromboembolism in patients with cancer," the authors concluded, referring to patient-tailored drugs that prevent blood clots.
COVID, non-COVID patients report similar symptom prevalence at 1 year --In a multicenter study of adults with symptoms of an infection of some type, 18.3% of COVID-19 survivors and 16.1% of COVID-negative participants reported persistent symptoms for at least 1 year, with some noting the emergence of new symptoms at 3 to 12 months.The researchers from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who led the survey study said the findings show that long-COVID symptoms may overlap with those from other infections. The research was published late last week in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.From December 2020 to March 2023, the team analyzed data from the Innovative Support for Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry (INSPIRE) from adults with symptoms of infection tested for COVID-19 who reported the presence or absence of symptoms every 3 months for 1 year at eight healthcare systems.On each survey, participants recorded symptoms in eight categories: head, eyes, ears, nose, and throat (HEENT); constitutional; pulmonary; musculoskeletal; gastrointestinal; cardiovascular; cognitive; and extreme fatigue. A total of 1,296 participants completed all surveys through 1 year, including 1,017 with positive COVID-19 tests and 279 who tested negative. About two thirds (67.4%) of participants were women, and 72.0% were White. A much greater proportion of COVID-19 patients had been hospitalized than those who tested negative (5.6% vs 0.4%). Symptoms of an acute infection included fatigue, runny nose, headache, sore throat, shortness of breath, chest pain, diarrhea, forgetfulness, and difficulty thinking or concentrating. From enrollment to 3 months, the prevalence of any symptom fell from 98.4% to 48.2% for test–positive participants and from 88.2% to 36.6% for those who tested negative. Symptom prevalence continued to decline through 1 year, affecting 18.3% and 16.1% of test-positive and test-negative participants at 1 year, a nonsignificant difference.
Researchers discover covid-19 induces mitochondrial dysfunction --Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, scientists have been striving to comprehend the underlying reasons for the virus’s distinctive and detrimental long-term impacts, distinct from most other coronaviruses. Now, a collaborative group of researchers spanning multiple institutions, led by a team at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in conjunction with the COVID-19 International Research Team (COV-IRT), has revealed a novel insight: the virus has the potential to detrimentally influence the genes within the mitochondria, the cellular powerhouses, thereby triggering dysfunction across various organs beyond the respiratory system. Published today in thejournal Science Translational Medicine, these findings open up new avenues for the treatment of COVID-19.Mitochondria, present within every cell of our bodies, harbour genes that contribute to their formation. These genes are dispersed between the nuclear DNA situated in the cell nucleus and the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) within each mitochondrion. Previous studies have indicated that SARS-CoV-2 proteins can interact with mitochondrial proteins within host cells, potentially causing disruption to mitochondrial function.In order to decipher the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on mitochondria, researchers from the Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine (CMEM) at CHOP, along with their colleagues from COV-IRT, aimed to analyse the expression of mitochondrial genes to pinpoint variations attributed to the virus. To achieve this, they scrutinized a combination of nasopharyngeal samples and autopsy tissues obtained from affected patients, as well as animal models. The study divulged that while mitochondrial gene expression had recuperated in autopsy lung tissue, mitochondrial function remained suppressed in organs like the heart, kidneys, and liver. When analysing animal models and pinpointing the peak viral load in the lungs, mitochondrial gene expression suppression was observed in the cerebellum, even though SARS-CoV-2 was not detected in the brain. Further examination using animal models unveiled that during the mid-phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection, mitochondrial function in the lungs showed signs of recovery. Collectively, these findings indicate that initial infection primarily impacts the lungs, but over time, mitochondrial function within the lung’s rebounds, whereas in other organs, especially the heart, mitochondrial function remains impaired.
Long COVID: Mitochondria, the Big Miss, and Hope -This week there was news on Long COVID in two very different directions: emergence of strong data to support mitochondrial dysfunction as the basis for the condition in some people, and learning how the $1.15 billion allocation to the NIH RECOVER initiative has largely been wasted. In this edition of Ground Truths, I'll review this news and offer a plan to get clinical trials testing treatments into high gear.When we published our review of Long COVID earlier this year, we highlighted the key established underpinnings as shown in the figure below. As you'll note, mitochondria was not one of them. There was a body of data emerging to support the role of mitochondria, as we asserted: "Long COVID research has found mitochondrial dysfunction including loss of mitochondrial membrane potential and possible dysfunctional mitochondrial metabolism, altered fatty acid metabolism…" and that this had also been seen in myalgic encephalomyelitis(ME/CFS). Download PDF of Graphic 1A new paper in Science Translational Medicine by leaders in mitochondria biology has advanced the case for direct interactions between SARS-CoV-2 and critical mitochondrial proteins for the potential basis of Long COVID — at least in some people. Download PDF of Graphic 2This was a systematic study in two different experimental models (hamsters and mice) and in people, both via 700 nasopharyngeal samples in patients, and in-depth assessment from 35 autopsy specimens. The figure above summarizes the findings, and, at the same time, portrays how ultra-complex this story is to convey. My first thoughts about trying to explain the multiple pathways that are occurring in the mitochondria (as shown below) was "Oh no," not the Krebs cycle again and all these other processes. Let's not forget the main function of mitochondria is energy production via OXPHOS — oxidative phosphorylation — generating ATP, which accounts for why mitochondria are the powerhouse of cells.Download PDF of Graphic 3Here's a more easily understandable, simplified summary of major mitochondrial functions. Download PDF of Graphic 4So let's review the new paper's finding with respect to this principal mitochondrial function of energy production. It turns out the virus binds directly to essential mitochondrial proteins, suppressing mitochondrial gene expression (both nuclear-encoded and mitochondria-encoded), inducing mitochondrial energy production dysfunction and activation of the immune response (innate immunity, top right, in their Figure below).Download PDF of Graphic 5 A more precise graphic to show how the virus induces inflammatory cytokines and activates the innate immunity [Type 1 interferon (IFN)] is shown here.Download PDF of Graphic 6Notably, the virus' suppression of mitochondrial genes inhibited or inactivated the entire OXPHOS complex; this forces an alternative pathway to energy production — essentially hijacking the cells to make more virus.Download PDF of Graphic 7The autopsy samples provided evidence that this disruption of mitochondrial genes and function was occurring in many organs throughout the body, especially the heart, but also the liver, kidneys, and lymph nodes. Even after clearance of the virus, there was evidence of chronic OXPHOS inhibition. The authors point out: "The irreversible inhibition of visceral mitochondrial transcription could also contribute to the multisystem symptoms of Long COVID." Which brings us to potential therapies that would restore intact mitochondrial function, especially those that can be repurposed. There's a long list of candidates, but the authors specifically mention the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, which hasbeen studied for improving mitochondrial function as seen below. Another drug that has already been shown to help prevent Long COVID, metformin, working in this same pathway, without the immune suppression of rapamycin, and very low cost, would also deserve attention for clinical trials. Download PDF of Graphic 8. More than 3 years in, with tens of millions of people suffering Long COVID, this is the comprehensive list of validated treatments, as established via rigorous randomized trials.Download PDF of Graphic 9 That's right. Zero. Nada. Which is incredible. STAT news exposed what has happened with the $1.15 billion allocated to the NIH RECOVER Long COVID initiative, announced in December 2020. The funds are now almost totally accounted for and it's very likely there won't be any new support via Congress to NIH. Download PDF of Graphic 10
Case report details 'blue legs' in long-COVID patient -Acrocyanosis, venous pooling of blood in the legs that causes them to turn blue, may be yet another symptom of long COVID, according to a case report published in The Lancet.The case report features a 33-year-old man who for 6 months experienced blue legs after 10 minutes of standing, accompanied by a heavy, itching sensation. The legs returned to a normal color after 2 minutes of lying down.The man had never experienced blue legs until his long-COVID diagnosis and subsequent diagnosis of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition that causes an abnormal increase in heart rate on standing. When lying down, the man's pulse was 68 beats per minute, but upon standing for 8 minutes, his pulse increased to a maximum of 127 beats per minute.The authors of the report said there have been documented cases of acrocyanosis among children experiencing post-viral illness, but few cases have yet to be connected to long COVID."Patients experiencing this may not be aware that it can be a symptom of Long Covid and dysautonomia and may feel concerned about what they are seeing. Similarly, clinicians may not be aware of the link between acrocyanosis and Long Covid," senior author Manoj Sivan, MD, said in a University of Leeds press release.
New standard on cutting risk of infectious aerosol spread sets high bar for building ventilation but is work in progress --The first-ever ASHRAE standard on reducing the risk of indoor infectious aerosol transmission sets new targets for building operators in terms of air system design, installation, operation, and maintenance.But both ASHRAE and other experts acknowledge that buildings have not been designed to reduce disease transmission—only to heat, dehumidify, and cool both outdoor air and recirculated indoor air and address off-gassing of volatile organic compounds from people and building materials by diluting them—so compliance may require some heavy lifting. "The requirements for filter and air cleaner testing incorporated in this standard go well beyond what is found in current standards," the authors wrote in the foreword. "They are a major step in the direction of creating uniform and effective technology-agnostic criteria for characterizing filter and air-cleaner performance and safety."Tony Havics, a certified industrial hygienist and professional engineer in Indiana, said the standard offers some good guidance but doesn't include the assumptions, criteria, and processes used in its development. It also doesn't tailor its recommendations to specific pathogens or scenarios (ASHRAE didn't specify which virus or other variables they used for their estimation).Earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House COVID-19 Response Team encouraged ASHRAE to develop Standard 241, the foreword said. The resulting document advises operators of new and existing buildings and those undergoing major renovations to take steps to reduce the average (not individual) risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and other airborne pathogens.Rather than indoor-outdoor air exchanges per hour, the document describes an "equivalent clean air flow" target per occupant of pathogen-free air, which ASHRAE calls "a more useful and scalable way to represent requirements." The standard includes a calculator to estimate equivalent clean air flow and a table listing minimum equivalents in settings such as correctional and educational facilities, healthcare, industry, sports and entertainment spaces, and residential dwellings.
US COVID markers continue slow rise as UK reports first BA.2.86 case - COVID hospitalizations and death rose last week, along with other indicators and the proportion of newer Omicron variants such as EG.5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its latest data updates. Also, scientists in the United Kingdom have identified the country's first case involving BA.2.86, an Omicron variant under close watch due to its many mutations and the possibility that it may already be circulating in multiple world regions.The CDC's two main indicators, hospitalizations and deaths, both rose again from very low levels. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 inched upward for the sixth straight week, increasing by 14.3% from the week before. More US counties are in the medium level for new admissions, especially in the South and Southeast. Only one county—Oregon's Grant County—is listed as high. Deaths rose for the second week in a row, reflecting an increase of 8.3% from the week before. However, COVID-19 made up only 1.3% of deaths over the past week. The CDC's early indicators also continue to rise. Emergency department (ED) visits were up 19% from the week before, with substantial increases reported across the South and Southeast. Elsewhere, ED visits showed a substantial increase in Oregon and moderate increases in California and Washington. Test positivity rose 1.5% last week and is at 12.2% nationally. The region that includes Texas and surrounding states has the highest positivity level. Biobot wastewater tracking shows a steady rise for most regions, except for the Midwest. The CDC also updated its variant proportions today, which show another steady increase in the EG.5 viruses and further declines in XBB.1.5. The proportion of EG.5 rose from 16.1% to 20.6% over the past 2 weeks. EG.5 is the most prevalent Omicron variant that carries the F456L mutation in the spike protein, and countries reporting rising cases are also reporting rising EG.5 proportions, partly due to its higher growth rate and partly due to other factors, including summer gatherings and waning population immunity. Proportions for other subvariants also rose over the past 2 weeks, including FL.1.5.1 and XBB.1.16.6, both of which also carry the F456L mutation. Yesterday the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Controladded EG.5 and other viruses that carry F456L as variants of interest (VOI) due to rising transmission in Europe and other world regions. In other virus developments, a UK scientist today reported the first BA.2.86 detection from the country. Luke Blagdon Snell, MD, a research fellow at King's College London, said on Twitter that the patient, whose symptoms began on August 13 and who contracted the virus locally, is from London and is hospitalized. The United Kingdom is the fourth country to report BA.2.86, alongside Israel, Denmark, and the United States. In a related development, Denmark's Statens Serum Institute (SSI) reported one more BA.2.86 detection, raising its total to three. In a statement, SSI said the three cases are from different parts of the country and don't appear to be linked to each other. Morten Rasmussen, PhD, senior researcher at SSI, said, "It is unusual for corona to change so significantly and develop 30 new mutations. The last time we saw such a big change was when Omicron appeared."
Covid is on the rise again—so what next? | The BMJ --There are very few ways now to track the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England since the end of wastewater monitoring in March 2022, the end of the Office for National Statistics Covid-19 Infection Survey in March 2023, and the gradual reduction of SARS-CoV-2 testing in hospitals since August 2022.123 However, all indications are that prevalence reached its lowest level this June/July since the summer of 2020. Weekly deaths with covid on the death certificate from that period are at the lowest recorded level since the start of the pandemic.4 But since the start of July 2023, daily hospital admissions with covid have been increasing (more than doubled as at 4 August compared to four weeks earlier), and the number of patients in hospital primarily because of covid has also doubled in that time.56Secondary indicators such as the Zoe Symptom Tracker app and Google Trends of searches for covid-19 symptoms have also been increasing since early July.78 So it is reasonably certain that we have entered another covid-19 wave. But what are the implications? While 2022 saw three enormous covid-19 waves by August, driven by different Omicron variants (BA.1 in January, BA.2 in March, and BA.5 in July, peaks 6-8% prevalence9), followed by two more waves in October and December, 2023 has been quieter so far. January saw high prevalence from the winter 2022/2023 wave (peak 4% prevalence) and a smaller wave in March 2023 (likely about 3% peak prevalence), but little else until now.1011 In the absence of any mitigations, this is likely because the variants since BA.5 (mostly BQ and XBB strains) have not been sufficiently different to drive very large waves in the presence of a highly vaccinated and highly previously infected population. The variants currently increasing in the UK are still XBB Omicron substrains, and on their own there is no reason to think they will cause a large wave.12 However almost all under 50s have not had a vaccine dose for 18 months, and most under 75s not for a year.13Protection from previous infection will also be waning in the absence of a large wave for several months. It is thus likely that this wave is hitting a more susceptible population than the last few, and this might be enough to drive a large wave this September when coupled with return to school and work and more time spent inside, where the virus spreads most easily. Given protection from vaccines and past infection, it is unlikely that this wave will cause a large surge in hospital admissions or deaths. However, any increase in hospital burden is bad news, given record waiting lists for diagnosis and treatment and persistently high waits in hospitals for admission.14 Infection is also not harmless simply because it’s causing fewer hospital admissions—long covid remains an ongoing significant problem, damaging people’s lives (e.g. through persistent fatigue or brain fog), as well as taking them out of the workforce.1516There are two major concerns. The first seems, unfortunately, quite plausible—a repeat of last winter’s unprecedented NHS crisis of covid, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus hit all around the same time, especially with 50-65 year olds now not being offered either the flu or covid vaccine this autumn.17The second is less likely but would have a bigger impact—another Omicron like event where a new variant emerges, very different from previous strains so that our hard won protection is much less protective. Given few, if any, mitigations worldwide and much lower surveillance, such a variant could spread a long way before we realised it was a problem. The resulting covid wave in the UK winter from such an event could cause major difficulties for the NHS and cause widespread workplace disruption if significant numbers of people are off work ill. Earlier this year, experts put the chance of this happening at about 20% within two years.18 The current growing variant in the UK (EG.5.1 or “Eris”) is not that variant.19 However, the last couple of days have seen a new, as yet unnamed, variant show up in Israel and Denmark which has caught the attention of many experts because it has so many new mutations, some long associated with increased fitness and immune escape, and others entirely new.2021 So far, we have only three sequences although geographic spread means community transmission has occurred. It is still quite possible that this fizzles out—either because its hosts don’t happen to infect anyone or because, despite its novelty, it does not outcompete the current dominant XBB strains. However, this should act as a reminder that without ramping up surveillance, and in the face of waning immunity, we are travelling into winter more vulnerable and with blinkers on.
New York, Connecticut report fatal Vibrio cases -The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) yesterday urged residents to take precautions following the Vibrio death of a patient from Suffolk County, as well as similar fatal cases reported recently from Connecticut. In a statement, New York officials said the case is still under investigation to determine if the patient was exposed to water in New York or elsewhere. The NYSDOH urged health providers to consider Vibrio vulnificus when evaluating patients with severe wound infections or sepsis without or without wound infection. It also urged people with wounds to avoid swimming in warm sea water and people with weakened immune systems to avoid handling or eating raw seafood that could carry the bacteria. In late July, the Connecticut State Department of Healthwarned residents about the risk of eating raw shellfish and exposure to salt or brackish water along Long Island Sound after reports of severe Vibrio cases. Since July 1, the state has received reports of three cases, one of them fatal. Patients were between 60 and 80 years old, and all were hospitalized.One patient had eaten raw oysters at a location in another state. The other two were exposed to salt or brackish water in Long Island Sound. Both had pre-existing open cuts or wounds or had sustained new wounds during their activities.
Legionnaires’ disease reported among two Stellantis Warren Truck workers -- Last week officials from Stellantis’ Warren Truck Assembly (WTAP), located just north of Detroit, released a statement that two workers at the plant had contracted Legionnaires’ disease, a potentially deadly form of bacterial pneumonia. The fact that two workers at WTAP have contracted Legionnaires’ disease indicates that the more than 3,500 workers at the plant may have been exposed to the bacterium which causes the disease, either within the factory or somewhere else within the community. Legionnaires’ disease is caused by the Legionella bacterium infecting the lungs. Infections typically spread through breathing contaminated water mist, most often from air conditioning or other water systems, or by accidentally breathing contaminated water while drinking. Symptoms include muscle pains, fever, headache, coughing or shortness of breath. The last decade has witnessed a substantial increase in reported cases of Legionnaires’ throughout the state of Michigan, and more recently the unhindered spread of COVID-19 throughout factories and the broader community as the companies, politicians and United Auto Workers officials abandoned any semblance of workplace safety or public health policies. In its statement, the company—which manufactures Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and numerous other brands—asserted that they did not yet know the source of the infections. It continued, “However, out of an abundance of caution for the safety and welfare of our employees, we have mobilized a team to begin testing water sources, and are following appropriate and established protocols at the plant. As part of our thorough investigation, we will contact and cooperate with all proper agencies as necessary.” The health status of the infected workers was not immediately clear. Following the incident Stellantis officials told news station FOX 2 that the company shut down three water test operations and carried out a deep clean.
Study: 81% of infants in ICU for RSV were previously healthy, born full-term --Over 81% of infants admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during the 2022 seasonal peak had no underlying medical conditions and were born full-term, finds a study published today in JAMA Network Open.The Vanderbilt University–led surveillance study was conducted among 600 infants admitted to an ICU or other high-acuity unit for RSV at 39 hospitals in 27 states from October 17 to December 16, 2022.The researchers enrolled 15 to 20 consecutively admitted infants at each site. The median patient age was 2.6 months, 60.2% were boys, 28.9% were born prematurely, and 81.2% had no underlying conditions.They noted that RSV is the leading cause of respiratory disease–related hospital admissions in young children around the world."Although most children hospitalized with RSV are previously healthy and born at term, children with a history of prematurity or certain underlying medical conditions such as congenital heart disease, neurologic or neurodevelopmental disorders, chronic lung disease, and immunocompromising conditions are at higher risk for life-threatening RSV disease," they wrote.The primary indications for ICU admission were lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI; 99.0%) and apnea (temporary cessation of breathing) and slow heartbeat (12.8%). About a fourth (23.8%) of those receiving ICU treatment required invasive mechanical ventilation for a median of 6.0 days.The highest level of respiratory support for nonintubated infants was high-flow nasal cannula (40.5%), followed by bilevel positive airway pressure (25.0%) and continuous positive airway pressure (8.7%). Infants younger than 3 months, those born before 37 weeks' gestation, and those with public health insurance were at elevated risk for intubation.Intubated infants had a higher frequency of apnea, seizures, and increased sleepiness and a lower incidence of fever. Older infants had a higher frequency of fever, wheezing, rapid or shallow breathing, conjunctivitis, vomiting, and diarrhea, and younger infants had a higher incidence of apnea.
Meta-analysis estimates 1 in 3 men worldwide have genital HPV infection -A new meta-analysis published in The Lancet Global Healthfinds that nearly one in three men around the world have one or more types of genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, and about one in five have at least one kind of high-risk HPV (HR-HPV).Researchers from the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain, and the World Health Organization led the analysis of 65 studies involving 44,769 boys and men aged 15 years and older from 35 countries published from January 1, 1995, to June 1, 2022.The study authors note that HPV is the most common sexually transmitted viral infection in the world, and research has shown that most sexually active men and women contract one or more genital HPV infections during their lives—most of them causing no symptoms.Of the more than 200 types of sexually transmitted HPV, at least 12 can cause cancer, including cervical cancer. In men, HPV infection tends to cause anogenital warts and is linked to penile, anal, and throat cancers.Worldwide, the pooled prevalence of genital HPV in men was 31% for any HPV type and 21% for HR-HPV. The most common genotype was HPV-16 (5%), followed by HPV-6 (4%). HPV prevalence peaked between ages 25 and 29, then leveled off or declined slightly.Pooled HPV prevalence estimates were comparable in the UN Sustainable Development Goal regions in Europe and Northern America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Australia and New Zealand. Estimates for East and Southeast Asia were half that of other regions.The researchers said the results show that HPV prevalence in boys and men in young men is high and support that sexually active men of all ages are an important reservoir of the virus. "These estimates emphasise the importance of incorporating men in comprehensive HPV prevention strategies to reduce HPV-related morbidity and mortality in men and ultimately achieve elimination of cervical cancer and other HPV-related diseases."
Four African nations report more vaccine-derived polio cases - Four African countries reported more polio cases this week, all involving vaccine-derived strains, including the first of the year in Burundi and Guinea, according to the latest weekly updatefrom the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).Burundi's case involves circulating vaccine-derive poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2). The patient is from Kayanza. The country reported one such case in 2022. Guinea reported a cVDPV2 case in Kankan, its first since 2021. The GPEI said the investigation suggests the case is linked to circulation that began in Nigeria's Zamfara state.Chad reported 3 more cVDPV2 cases in two locations, bringing its total for the year to 23. And the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) reported 2 cVDPV2 cases, 1 each in Kasai Oriental and Tanganyika provinces, lifting the year's total to 62. The DRC also reported 1 more case involving circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 (cVDPV1), in a patient from Haut Katanga province, putting the 2023 total at 47 such cases.
Florida reports Broward County dengue cases, bringing state's total to 11 -- The Florida Department of Health (Florida Health) Broward County office has issued a mosquito-borne illness alert following the recent detection of two local dengue cases. The dengue cases from Broward County were noted in the state's weekly arbovirus surveillance report for the week ending August 5. That report also noted two other cases from Miami-Dade County. The surveillance report for the week ending August 12 includes one more case from Miami-Dade County, bringing the state's total for the year to 11. Broward County neighbors Miami-Dade County and includes Fort Lauderdale. Florida Health said Broward County had two local dengue cases in 2022. In late June, Florida Health issued a statewide mosquito-borne illness advisory following the detection of four local malaria cases in Sarasota County. No other malaria infections have been reported since then. Florida Health said dengue virus doesn't normally circulate in Florida, but infected travelers can pass the virus to Florida mosquitoes.
Plague cases reported in China's Inner Mongolia province -- China has reported three plague cases, involving members of the same family from Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said in a statement today.A woman, from Xilin Gol Meng, was diagnosed as having plague on August 7, and the infections of her husband and daughter were confirmed on August 12.Plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The disease is transmitted from infected animals, such as rodents, to humans through flea bites. Other transmission modes include breaks in skin that come in contact with body fluids or tissue of infected animals, consuming infected animal tissue, or inhaling respiratory droplets.The CHP didn't say how the people contracted their infections of what type of plague they had, but aReuters report that cited a local government statement said the cases are the more common bubonic type.
- Over the past 2 days, virologists in Israel and Denmark have reported what appears to be a second-generation BA.2 lineage Omicron virus that has numerous mutations in the spike protein, while noting that it's too soon to say what impact it will have and exactly what variant it originated from. T. Ryan Gregory, PhD, an evolutionary biologist who specialized in genomic evolution at the University of Guelph in Canada, said on Twitter that it's notable that the virus isn't restricted to one region. Meanwhile, J. Weiland, an infectious disease modeler, said the yet-unnamed new virus' many spike mutations may come with a wider range of outcomes.
- Finland has announced a plan to test all fur farms for avian flu, which would involve inspections at more than 400 facilities, according to Finnish Broadcasting Corp (YLE). So far, the number of fur farms reporting outbreaks in the country stands at 24. Culling has been ordered at 12 farms, 9 are under surveillance, and 3 are being assessed. Elsewhere, the UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) yesterday published guidance on how to keep pets safe from avian flu, which follows recent detections in cats in Poland and South Korea. The guidance urges people to keep their pets away from dead or sick wild birds, keep them under control in areas where wild birds are located, and avoid feeding pets noncommercial raw poultry meat, game bird, waterfowl, or other wild bird meat.
- The Rhode Island Department of Health today reported a fatal tickborne Powassan virus case, which involved a woman older than 80 years from Washington County, located in the southern region of the state. She experienced neurologic symptoms and died in the middle of July. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the findings earlier this month. Powassan virus cases are rare but have increased in recent years. They are most common in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions. Of 239 cases reported over the past decade, 5 were in Rhode Island.
- Argentina's National Food Safety and Quality Service (Senasa) recently reported the country's first H5 avian flu detections in mammals, which involves sea lions found dead in Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago on the southern tip of South America, according to a government statement translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary, an infectious disease news blog. Chile, Argentina's western neighbor, has reported more than 16,000 sea lion deaths. Peru has also reported the virus in sea lions. Argentina is the sixth country in the Americas to report avian flu in mammals, according to a recent update from the Pan American Health Organization. Besides Chile and Peru, the others are the United States, Canada, and Uruguay.
- Russia has reported an H5N1 avian flu outbreak at a poultry farm housing more than 3 million birds, World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) said in a notification today. The farm is located inBashkirskaya, a rural village in Bashkortostan in southwestern Russia, about 860 miles east of Moscow. The outbreak began on August 9, killing 15 of 3,193,373 birds.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) recently fleshed out more details about a recent variant H1N2 (H1N2v) flu case in Michigan, one of two recent variant flu cases in people exposed to pigs at agricultural fairs. The patient is younger than 18 years, with respiratory symptoms that began on July 29. The child was evaluated the following day at an emergency department, and a respiratory-tract specimen was collected. After influenza A was detected, the patient was treated with oseltamivir. State health officials found that the sample didn't react to tests for the 2009 H1N1 or H3N2 strain. Tests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed H1N2v, and further sequencing us under way. The patient wasn't hospitalized and is recovering. No other cases were reported in the child's contacts or in people with links to the fair.
Cattle anthrax spreading in southwestern North Dakota; more than 100 animals lost -- Anthrax is spreading among ranches in southwestern North Dakota, with confirmed cases reaching levels not seen in almost 20 years. The first case was confirmed in late July. The state Agriculture Department on Friday said there are now 16 affected premises: 15 confirmed by the North Dakota State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, and one probable case based on clinical signs. Those operations have lost an estimated 120 cattle, according to Deputy State Veterinarian Beth Carlson. One confirmed infection is in eastern Hettinger County, with the remaining in neighboring Grant County. The 16 cases match the total in the state from 2006-20, according to Agriculture Department data. There were two cases in 2021 and none last year. "We have not had more than four confirmed cases since 2005, when we had 109 premises affected," Carlson said The 2005 outbreak resulted in more than 500 confirmed animal deaths and estimated losses of 1,000. North Dakota Stockmen's Association Executive Vice President Julie Ellingson said the growing number of cases this year is a concern to the industry. "Anthrax seems to rear its ugly head when there are weather extremes, and parts of southwestern North Dakota certainly saw those recently, with up to 5 inches of rain in a shot and near 100-degree temps in some places that made those (anthrax) spores so volatile," she said.Anthrax bacteria spores lie dormant in the soil and become active under extreme weather conditions such as drought or flooding. Cattle get sick when they ingest the spores. "We are hopeful that the milder, more seasonal weather and an aggressive vaccination effort in the highest risk areas will help curtail losses and the count will not increase," Ellingson said.
Study links ‘forever chemicals’ exposure to testicular cancer among military personnel Gary Flook served in the Air Force for 37 years, as a firefighter at the now-closed Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois and the former Grissom Air Force Base in Indiana, where he regularly trained with aqueous film forming foam, or AFFF — a frothy white fire retardant that is highly effective but now known to be toxic. Flook volunteered at his local fire department, where he also used the foam, unaware of the health risks it posed. In 2000, at age 45, he received devastating news: He had testicular cancer, which would require an orchiectomy followed by chemotherapy. Hundreds of lawsuits, including one by Flook, have been filed against companies that make firefighting products and the chemicals used in them. And multiple studies show that firefighters, both military and civilian, have been diagnosed with testicular cancer at higher rates than people in most other occupations, often pointing to the presence of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in the foam. But the link between PFAS and testicular cancer among service members was never directly proven — until now. A new federal study for the first time shows a direct association between PFOS, a PFAS chemical, found in the blood of thousands of military personnel and testicular cancer. Using banked blood drawn from Air Force servicemen, researchers at the National Cancer Institute and Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences found strong evidence that airmen who were firefighters had elevated levels of PFAS in their bloodstreams and weaker evidence for those who lived on installations with high levels of PFAS in the drinking water. And the airmen with testicular cancer had higher serum levels of PFOS than those who had not been diagnosed with cancer, said study co-author Mark Purdue, a senior investigator at NCI. “To my knowledge,” Purdue said, “this is the first study to measure PFAS levels in the U.S. military population and to investigate associations with a cancer endpoint in this population, so that brings new evidence to the table.”
Uncle Sam, Nuclear Polluter -- Why would anyone who is concerned with protecting the environment want to put the U.S. government in charge of that task? After all, look at how much damage the U.S. government has done to people and the planet over the decades with its nuclear testing.I haven’t seen the movie Oppenheimer but based on some of the commentaries, it is clear that the U.S. government, especially the military establishment, has been totally indifferent to both people and the environment with its decades of nuclear testing.For example, take a look at a recent article in the New York Times entitled “What ‘Oppenheimer’ Doesn’t Tell You About the Trinity Test” by Tina Cordova. The article shows that when U.S. officials conducted their “Trinity” explosion in New Mexico, they didn’t care one whit about the damage to the health of thousands of people who were living nearby. They gave them no significant and meaningful pre-test warnings and post-test advisories. Four or five generations of people have been experiencing radiation-related cancers ever since. And then consider all of the above-ground nuclear testing that took place after World War II was over. How much radiation did all those tests release into the atmosphere that later fell on unsuspecting Americans through rainfall? How many people got cancer as a result of those tests?Moreover, think about all the people who were peacefully living on their islands in the Pacific when the U.S. government decided to export its above-ground nuclear testing to their part of the world. They were forcibly removed from their homes so that the U.S. government could destroy their islands with nuclear bombs. Some of those places are still contaminated with radiation. And people living nearby experienced the same type of radiation-related cancers that the people of New Mexico experienced. See here.It was only when President Kennedy, over the fierce objection of the national-security establishment, negotiated a nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union that above-ground nuclear testing came to an end.But even then, the U.S. national-security establishment continued testing its nuclear bombs underground. According to Wikipedia, underground nuclear testing began in 1951 and continued through 1996. You’ll never convince me that nuclear bombs exploded underground have not caused severe long-lasting damage to the earth.
In East Palestine, fear remains six months after train crash --Residents of East Palestine, Ohio, are still facing fear and uncertainty from the fallout of a train crash six months ago that spilled hazardous chemicals into the surrounding community. Misti Allison, an East Palestine resident who works with the organization Moms Clean Air Force, said this week that cleanup efforts on the ground are still ongoing near the derailment site and in creeks that run through town. While cleanup personnel have conducted activities like aeration, she said the sediment of the creeks is “still heavily contaminated.” “That’s a big issue and a big fear because the creeks run through town, and they run under businesses and houses, and so obviously that’s really scary. There’s a lot of pathways to exposure,” she told The Hill. “So from an environmental perspective, there is still a lot of risk going on in East Palestine that probably a lot of people, if you don’t live in this area, aren’t aware of that.” On Feb. 3, the train operated by the Norfolk Southern railroad derailed in the town on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, including 11 cars carrying hazardous chemicals such as vinyl chloride, used in the manufacture of plastics. Emergency crews conducted a controlled burn days later, sending a plume of flame that hazmat officials said was visible for 10 miles. The immediate lack of fatalities may have made it easier for national attention to move on, but that doesn’t mean there is no lingering threat to the health of the locals, said Melody Reis, Moms Clean Air Force’s senior legislative and regulatory policy manager. “When we’re talking about exposures to petrochemicals and other toxic substances, the primary concern isn’t always instant death. Rather, the concern here is that these chemicals cause cancer, cardiovascular illnesses, reproductive damage, and other negative health outcomes,” Reis told The Hill in an email. “There may not be immediately apparent effects, but exposure to these chemicals can trigger reactions that we may not find out about for months or even years. Infants and children are particularly vulnerable, which makes the situation in East Palestine, Ohio, especially concerning for parents and other caregivers,” she added.
GE, Bayer, Blamed for Child’s Cancer in a Community Awash in PCB Pollution - A Massachusetts mother filed a lawsuit on Tuesday blaming widespread PCB pollution by General Electric (GE), Monsanto and its German owner Bayer AG, and several other companies for causing her 9-year-old son to develop leukemia and suffer repeated debilitating medical treatment.Crystal Czerno alleges, among other things, that GE knowingly contaminated her son Carter’s elementary school and playground with PCB waste while downplaying the harm it could cause. The school is located in the town of Pittsfield, just north of a GE facility that made electrical transformers containing PCBS for more than 40 years. PCB-laden soil from the GE site was spread over the school grounds.The lawsuit accuses the companies of using the community as a “dumping ground” for “toxic and cancerous” chemicals. “As a mom I am supposed to protect my babies and I must now live with the fact that I moved them into a home and a school that put them in direct danger,” Czerno said. “My son Carter has paid the price.” The young boy has undergone multiple rounds of chemotherapy, as well as full-body radiation, and multiple stem cell transplants and bone marrow biopsies, according to the lawsuit. Another bone marrow biopsy is scheduled next week, his mother said. Czerno’s lawyer, Thomas Bosworth, said he has several more claims that will be filed in the coming days from area residents struggling with health problems they believe are linked to PCB pollution.“This is not just about getting justice for these victims,” said Bosworth. “It is also about the future of the community.”The Massachusetts case is the latest in a string of lawsuits filed around the country that aim to hold the makers and users of PCBs accountable for decades of persistent environmental contamination. The chemicals, formally called polychlorinated biphenyls, have long been linked to an array of human health concerns, including leukemia and other cancers. In one study of nearly 400 children, researchers found that detection of PCBs in the home was associated with a 2-fold increase in risk for acute lymphocytic leukemia.PCBs are also known to be harmful to fish and wildlife. They do not easily break down, making eradication difficult.
NYU professor says state jumped the gun reopening lead-contaminated playground in Wappingers Falls - An environmental clinical science professor at New York University who helped the Wall Street Journal take lead readings at a playground in Wappingers Falls for an investigative report is now speaking to News 12 about the so-called “toxic park” – and why he says it’s still not safe for kids
Heatwave and agricultural crisis hit Ukraine = Skyrocketing temperatures hit Ukraine this past week as the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to push forward an obviously botched counteroffensive that has already claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.Last Saturday temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degree Fahrenheit) in the southern Zaporizhzhia province where Ukraine has concentrated much of its forces. The high temperatures resulted in emergency warnings for residents to stay indoors amid the sweltering heat. Temperatures cooled in subsequent days but are expected to remain elevated throughout the coming weeks.That the Zelensky government is more interested in continuing its bloody counteroffensive during an obvious heat emergency is indicative of the immense social crisis caused by rising temperatures and the inability of capitalism to offer any meaningful solutions.In addition to the skyrocketing temperatures, Ukrainian farmers and working class Ukrainians continue to face the dramatic after-effects of the explosion of the Kakhovka dam in the first days of the ongoing counter-offensive. The dam’s destruction resulted in the emptying of the long reservoir which lay behind it and served as a vital irrigation source for Ukraine’s most important agricultural region.More than 700,000 in the area also lost their main supply of drinking water. In response, the right-wing Zelensky government allocated just $4 million to provide alternate sources of water, a paltry sum compared to the billions currently being spent on sending Ukrainian soldiers to their deaths in the failed counteroffensive. Vadym Dudka, an agronomist and CEO of Agroanaliz Ltd, an international agro-consulting company, told the Kyiv Independent that prior to the dam breach, the region contained 330,000 hectares of irrigated land and 80 percent of all vegetables in Ukraine with a large percentage of fruits and grapes. According to Dudka, 85 to 90 percent of the region’s fields were dedicated to corn and soybeans, both of which Ukraine ranked as one of the world’s largest exporters. As expected, the irrigation systems that formerly fed the region’s agricultural industry are now turning to sand. As Newsweek reported this week, recent satellite imagery from Planet Labs, an earth imaging company, demonstrated dramatic differences in waterways once fed by the Khakovka dam. One image showed the Kakhovka reservoir turned to dry land. While another also revealed that the North Crimean Canal is dry.Rain in June briefly paused the emptying of the reservoir and its associated irrigation canals, but as temperatures throughout the summer increased, the canals have become all but empty. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Agriculture, provided the dam is rebuilt it would still take up to seven years to restore irrigation from the Kakhovka reservoir to the region.
Grueling heat takes toll on outside workers' physical and mental health -Workers' advocates are urging local, state and federal governments to implement safety standards to protect the physical and mental well-being of Latinos who work underunrelenting heat conditions. Farmworkers — the majority of whom in the U.S. are Latino — and others who work outside are especially vulnerable to the heat waves gripping parts of the country. Farmworkers in particular are more likely to die from heat stress than other outdoor workers, studies have found.Since 2011, there have been 436 work-related deaths caused by environmental heat exposure, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Last month, Efraín López García, who was 29 and picked fruit in Florida, died after what his family described as severe heat illness symptoms. There are no federal rules that require employers to give outdoor workers breaks or time in the shade and to hydrate. Of the few states that offer protections for outdoor workers, California, Oregon and Washington have the most, including required heat breaks.Without protections, people doing outdoor work say they fear being penalized — and sometimes are — when they try to get water or take a short break in the shade. Advocates say that protections should go beyond water and shade breaks."We need to draw the connection between not just heat and physical wellbeing, but other consequences … because if someone is working in sweltering weather and they are in need of water and need a break that has a toll on the psyche," says Monica Ramirez, founder and president of Justice for Migrant Women. Ramirez's nonprofit ran a pilot mental health program for farmworkers in California and Florida over the last two years. Migrant workers received group therapy and regular check-ins about workplace stressors, includingthose posed by the environment A survey of priorities gleaned from the sessions is set to be published in the coming months by the group, which hopes to scale up the program. Ramirez says the farmworkers who benefited said the program was life-changing. That feedback has made it especially clear to Ramirez that the much-needed public policies for heat safety should have a mental health component.
Heat deaths surge in the US’s hottest city as governor declares statewide ‘heat emergency’ --The heat expert leading efforts to make America’s hottest city more bearable insists that Phoenix could eventually eradicate heat deaths – despite July’s record-breaking death toll.As many as 300 people may have died during the hottest ever month on record as the temperature in Phoenix topped 110F (43C) for 31 consecutive days. Heat deaths in the city have more than quadrupled in the past decade, and 2023 is on track to be another record-breaking year as Phoenix braces itself for the next spell of 110F plus temperatures forecast to hit by Monday. Despite this, David Hondula, director of the city’s heat response and mitigation team, insists that every heat death can be prevented. “We can get to zero deaths with the right resources … obviously no city anywhere in the world has yet demonstrated what the right mix of resources looks like for zero heat-related deaths, but [we’re] at the forefront of pursuing them,” Hondula said. Phoenix, the capital of Arizona and America’s fifth-largest city with 1.6 million people, is accustomed to a hot desert climate, but temperatures are rising due to global heating – made worse by decades of unchecked urban development that created a sprawling heat island.Hondula was appointed as the Phoenix heat tsar in the fall of 2021 to coordinate the city’s efforts to mitigate and adapt to the extreme heat that is killing and injuring more and more people every year.July was the hottest ever month globally; Phoenix, meanwhile, had the hottest month ever recorded in a US city. Temperatures hit 115F on 17 days, breaking the previous record of six days set in 2020, according to the National Weather Service in Phoenix. On Friday, Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, declared a statewide heat emergency and signed an executive order to better coordinate government efforts and open two new cooling centres on the grounds of the state capital amid growing criticism of the rising death toll.So far this year, 345 suspected heat deaths are under investigation by the Maricopa county medical examiner – a 20% increase compared with the same period last year – which itself was the worst year on record. Overall, 911 calls for heat-related emergencies are up 30% so far this year, but last month paramedic call-outs doubled and hospitals reporting a surge in contact burns requiring specialist treatment.
Death tolls mount in the 'summer of heat' - Ramona and Monway Ison’s air conditioner had broken earlier in the week, but the retired couple living on a fixed income couldn’t afford the $1,600 repair. It took three days for Ramona Ison, 71, to secure a loan from the credit union by putting her car up as collateral. The money came too late. The pair were found dead, along with their terrier, Belle, in mid-June, just days into what has since become a two-month-long heat wave in the Southwest with few signs of relief.The high-pressure system that parked over the central and southern United States starting in June, blanketing Arizona and Texas in sweltering heat and humidity, sent people to emergency rooms across the region. Extreme daytime temperatures have led to hot nights — a lack of relief that health experts say puts the elderly, outdoor workers and people without air conditioning at greatest risk of severe heat-related illnesses.By summer’s end, experts expect the heat will lead to thousands of deaths in the United States, higher numbers than in previous years.Human-caused climate change combined with the Pacific weather pattern El Niño are fueling dangerous heat waves in North America and across the globe this summer. The Pacific Northwest is the latest region to feel the heat. Temperatures soared in the southwestern United States, in Europe and across Asia in June and July, baking Houston and Mediterranean seaports alike. Packed cities in eastern China and remote areas of western China also had spates of record-breaking heat.The global average temperature in July was the highest of any month on record, according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.In the United States, unrelenting heat is straining hospitals and health clinics. Public health officials are worried that U.S. metropolitan areas aren’t prepared to handle a higher frequency of heat waves. Doctors in Arizona report seeing burn victims who touched the hot pavement. In Phoenix, doctors are treating heatstroke by dunking patients in body bags full of ice.
Record shattering: Earth had its hottest July in 174 years | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration --Earth just roasted under its hottest July on record, according to scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).For the fourth-consecutive month, the global ocean surface temperature also hit a record high.Here’s a closer look into NOAA’s latest monthly global climate report: The average global surface temperature in July was 2.02 degrees F (1.12 degrees C) above average, ranking it as the warmest July in NOAA’s 174-year record. Because July is the globe’s warmest month of the year from a climatological perspective, July 2023 was also likely Earth’s warmest month on record.July 2023 was the first time an average July temperature exceeded 1.8 degrees F (1.0 degree C) above the long-term average. Also of note, last month was 0.36 of a degree F (0.20 of a degree C) warmer than the previous July record from 2021. July 2023 marked the 47th-consecutive July and the 533rd-consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average.For the fourth-consecutive month, the global ocean surface temperature hit a record high as El Niño conditions that emerged in June continued into July. Globally, July 2023 set a record for the highest monthly sea surface temperature anomaly — which indicates how much warmer or cooler temperatures are from the long-term average — of any month in NOAA’s climate record, with an anomaly of 1.78 degrees F or 0.99 of a degree C. On July 13, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center issued a statement announcing a greater than 95% chance that El Nino will continue through winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The first seven months of 2023 ranked as the third-warmest such YTD on record, with a global temperature of 1.85 degrees F (1.03 degrees C) above the 20th-century average of 56.9 degrees F (13.8 degrees C). According to NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Outlook and data through July, it is virtually certain (> 99.0%) that 2023 will rank among the five-warmest years on record, with a nearly 50% probability that 2023 will rank as the warmest on record. Sea ice coverage hit a record low: July 2023 set a record for the lowest global July sea ice extent (coverage) on record. Globally, sea ice extent in July 2023 was about 470,000 square miles less than the previous record low from July 2019. Antarctic sea ice coverage ranked lowest on record for a third-consecutive month, running about 1 million square miles — roughly the size of Argentina — below the 1991–2020 average. This was 580,000 square miles below the previous record low from July 2022. The Arctic sea ice extent for July 2023 ranked as the 12th smallest in the satellite record, about 220,000 square miles below the 1991–2020 average.
July was Earth's hottest month since U.S. temperature records began, according to NASA and NOAA - After extreme temperatures scorched vast sections of the planet in July, a worrying climate milestone anticipated by scientists has been corroborated by yet another prominent study. This time, it came from agencies in the U.S., where more than half of the population was subject to heat warnings at one point during the last month. On Monday, officials at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration unveiled new data indicating that July was the hottest month on record, with both global sea-surface and land temperatures soaring well above longstanding averages. According to NOAA and NASA, Earth in 2023 saw its warmest July since temperature record-keeping began 174 years ago. Since July is climatologically the hottest month of the year, this year's numbers likely mean it was the hottest month on record overall, NOAA said in a news release. In a separate release issued Tuesday, NASA said scientists at its Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York determined that "July 2023 was hotter than any other month in the global temperature record." The data came on the heels of a similar report released earlier in August by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a branch of the European Union's space program. That report also identified July 2023 as Earth's hottest month on record, noting that the global monthly temperature was unusually higher than average. July was so hot that officials at the United Nations announced it would likely break the planet's monthly record before July was even over. Later reports by the European climate agency and now by agencies in the U.S. have reinforced those suspicions.
DFW sets new heat record for longest duration above 80 degrees – On Monday morning, DFW broke the record for the longest duration of temperatures at or above 80 degrees F.The National Weather Service in Fort Worth said the current stretch of temperatures over 80 degrees started at 8 a.m. on July 30. At 7 a.m. on Aug. 14, we reached a new record of 359 hours of temperatures above 80 degrees. The old record of 358 hours was set 25 years ago -- from 8 a.m. July 18, 1998, until 6 a.m. Aug. 2, 1998.We are still adding to our count of hours above 80 degrees. Highs today will be in the upper 90s near 100.DFW will likely end the streak of 80-degree weather thanks to a weak cold front moving through North Texas.This front will drop highs into the 90s for a few days and put overnight lows down into the 70s. Wednesday morning will be the most comfortable with morning lows in the low 70s and upper 60s.Our extremely hot weather returns quickly though. By Thursday the high will climb to 106 degrees and stay above 100 into next week.
Record-Breaking Summer: Seattle, Portland Break Daily High Temperature Records After Hottest July Ever - A deadly summer heat wave continued to break records this week throughout the South and Pacific Northwest, prolonging a relentlessly hot summer after the Earth recorded its hottest July on record, as “dangerously” hot conditions remain from Texas to Florida and along the Pacific, threatening to topple more heat records this week.
- August 16 - Phoenix tied a record high at a blistering 115 degrees, whileRaleigh, North Carolina, narrowly broke its daily record at 100 degrees, and Helena, Montana set a new record at 102.
- August 15 - Portland, Oregon, saw a daily record high at 108, marking the city’s all-time hottest day in the month of August, whileOlympia, Washington, saw a new daily record at 100 degrees,Columbia, South Carolina, observed a new record high at 101, and Houston, New Orleans, and Tallahassee, Florida, all set daily record highs at 104, 100 and 100, respectively.
- August 14 - Seattle broke a daily record high at 91 degrees, as did Olympia, Washington at 96 degrees, and Tallahassee, Florida, which set its second consecutive daily record high, at 100 degrees.
- August 13 - Tallahassee broke a daily high at 100 degrees, above its previous record set in 1999, while a group of cities in the South also set new record highs, including Tampa, Florida (97 degrees),Jackson, Mississippi (105), New Orleans (100), Austin, Texas (106), Fort Worth, Texas (108), Dallas (106), and Shreveport, Louisiana (106), according to National Weather Service data.
The Gulf of Mexico is the hottest it’s been on record -- There has been a lot of talk about the record-warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic this year. Overall the Atlantic is the warmest it has been since the year records began in 1979. And it is not just hot in the Atlantic - the Gulf of Mexico is breaking records. This week was the hottest the Gulf of Mexico has been on record. The weekly average Gulf sea surface temperatures broke 88 degrees for the first time since 1981. That average takes into account all sectors of the Gulf. The reading is a staggering 2.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1991 to 2020 average. Sea surface temperature readings in the Gulf of Mexico are in the upper 80s and even some 90s offshore. These abnormally warm temperatures mean more for us than just the hurricane fuel we typically associate them with. They have led to warm overnight lows with little relief from the daytime heat - particularly impactful during the heatwave over the past few weeks. Weaker systems like the one that caused historic flooding in August of 2016 also have more fuel to work with which can help produce flooding rainfall. Warm waters are just one ingredient for tropical cyclone formation. Other factors like wind shear and Saharan dust can impact the tropical environment. This season we have only seen five named storms so far, including the early season unnamed storm in January. It has been 21 days since the last named storm in the Atlantic as of August 14.
Scientists Warn of Toxic Particle Pollution in Maui Wildfire Smoke -Scientists and health officials in Maui County, Hawaii on Monday urged residents to stay away from the island's western coast if possible to avoid exposure to potential toxins that may have been released following the wildfire that killed at least 96 people and destroyed the historic town of Lahaina.Officials have not determined exactly what toxins were released as last Tuesday's fire tore through the island and exposed an estimated 86% of Maui's 2,719 structures to the flames, but officials have taken note that a wide array of buildings and objects were burned by the fast-moving wildfire."When you burn people's belongings, vehicles, and boats, we don't necessarily have a good understanding of what those chemicals are," Andrew Whelton, director of Purdue University's Center for Plumbing Safety, told the Associated Press on Monday. "When much of that infrastructure burns, it's transformed into other materials that are never meant for human contact."Hawaii state toxicologist Diana Felton is helping to assess the damage and toldHawaii Public Radio (HPR) on Saturday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal officials will work to remove propane tanks and other clear hazards from Lahaina and the surrounding area."It's going to be a long time" before the devastated town is safe for people without protective gear, she said.On social media, Whelton said that based on previous fires and the toxins that have been released, authorities will need "at least three months, possibly longer," to remove wildfire debris and that soil testing will be needed afterward.
Maui fire becomes deadliest in over a century, at least 99 killed --Destructive wildfires on Hawaii's Maui Island have killed at least 99 people, marking the deadliest American wildfire in over 100 years.The big picture: The wildfires are now the deadliest since California's Camp Fire in 2018, which killed at least 85 people. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green told CNN Monday "the numbers will go up significantly in the coming days." Green has ordered a review into the Lahaina fire on Maui, the deadliest since 1918's Cloquet fire in northern Minnesota killed 453 people. Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii), whose district includes the historic town of Lahaina that the wildfires destroyed much of, walked through the area with FEMA officials Saturday."It was shocking — surreal," Tokuda said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" Sunday. "We've heard all these words, but to actually walk those streets and to still see fires smoldering in the distance, to see cars literally melted into puddles that have hardened over on the road, Xs on buildings and cars to say that it has been searched for signs of casualties or even life," she added. The Lahaina fire was 85% contained Sunday. Maui officials said Saturday they were working to extinguish flare-ups across Lahaina and parts of Upcountry Maui. Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said Monday only 20% of the search area had been cleared. Green said the fire destroyed more than 2,700 structures in Lahaina and caused damages estimated at $5.6 billion.
- The Pacific Disaster Center and FEMA estimated that 2,170 acres of Maui has burned, per a statement from Maui officials Saturday.
- An estimated 4,500 residents had sought shelter, the center and FEMA also noted.
- Water advisories are in effect on Maui's Lahaina and Upper Kula areas, after the fires damaged parts of the water system. A Saturday statement from the County of Maui said just two of the victims had been identified so far.
- Identifying discovered remains is especially difficult, Pelletier said, in part because of the condition they are found in.
- "When we find our family and our friends, the remains that we're finding is through a fire that melted metal," he said, adding that authorities were using rapid DNA tests to help expedite the process.
- Pelletier also encouraged family member missing loved ones to take a DNA test to help generate matches with victims.
- Teams were using cadaver dogs during the search. "One of the challenging things is, many of the areas that they're in searching, there's structures that are partially standing and so the engineers are embedded with them to evaluate the stability of that structure," FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. Parts of Maui are experiencing severe drought and more flammable invasive plants in Hawaii haveexacerbated wildfire risk, per the U.S. Drought Monitor.
- Climate change is increasing the likelihood of droughts and leading to more instances of critical fire weather across the U.S. and other parts of the world.
- Green said at a news conference Saturday that Hawaii had been experiencing wildfires for decades, "but this is the first time we've ever experienced wildfires in the context of ... global warming" and with winds fromHurricane Dora passing south of the state likely driving the blazes.
Hundreds likely dead in Maui wildfire due to criminal negligence of the capitalist ruling class --The number of confirmed dead from the horrific wildfire on the Hawaiian island of Maui last Tuesday and Wednesday rose to 93 on Sunday. It is now the deadliest such fire in the US in more than 100 years. On Saturday, authorities said that the work of searching for and identifying the dead was still in the early stages and many more victims were expected to be found, especially in the five-square-mile zone around the town of Lahaina. Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said that cadaver dogs had covered just 3 percent of the area and the death toll would grow, adding that “none of us really know the size of it yet.” Pelletier said identifying the dead is particularly difficult because “we pick up the remains and they fall apart.” So far, just two of those who perished in the blaze have been identified. Pelletier told family members that DNA testing would be required to identify their loved ones. In an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday morning, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell was asked by reporter Jonathan Vigliotti about the accuracy of reports he had received from “several sources close to the search” that the death toll could reach into the hundreds. Criswell replied, “If that’s what they’re telling you, I wouldn’t second-guess them. They’re the ones that know best on what they’re seeing and how many people have not—not been accounted for.” Hawaii Governor Josh Green said on Saturday that 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed, 86 percent of them being residential structures. The cause of the fire is still not determined, although some reports say that winds from Hurricane Dora knocked down power lines, which then ignited dry grasses to set off the blaze. Three other fires have been reported on the island. Two are still burning, one in south Maui’s Kihei area and the other in the mountainous and inland communities known as Upcountry, where more than 500 homes have been hit with fire. Another fire started on Friday evening in Kaanapali, a coastal community north of Lahaina, but authorities say it was extinguished. The scenes posted on social media of structures leveled to the ground and burned out hulks of automobiles on Front Street in Lahaina recall the destructive force of war. Comparing the devastation to the Allied firebombing of German cities in February 1945, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub told news media, “Some of the aerial footage that we’ve seen from the area reminds me of the pictures from Dresden from World War II.” Wildfire wreckage is shown Friday, August 11, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens sounded before people ran for their lives from wildfires on Maui that wiped out a historic town. Like the Camp Fire, the next most deadly wildfire in the US, which incinerated homes and killed 85 people in Paradise, California in 2018, the Maui fire reached at least 1200˚F and melted aluminum engine blocks and car wheels, turning them into pools of liquid. While the full scale and impact of the wildfire will not be known for days or weeks, it can be stated that the death and destruction from the disaster on Maui are an indictment of the capitalist ruling class and its government and ruling political parties. Climate scientists and environmentalists had warned about a fire with such devastating consequences for two decades, but critical safety measures were not taken because they cut across capitalist interests. What are these other priorities? While the US government, backed by the corporate media, continuously claims there is no money to build infrastructure and take measures that will prevent such disasters from happening in the first place, there is an endless supply of funds for war and financial bailouts of the banks and corporations. The US government, through both Democratic and Republican administrations over the past three decades, has spent trillions of dollars on imperialist wars that have killed and displaced millions of people, and, at the same time, funneled similar amounts into the financial system to ensure that money-making for billionaires on Wall Street continued without disruption.
Identifying Maui fire victims will be ‘very, very difficult mission,’ HHS says --The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Tuesday it will send mortuary response teams to Maui to help identify the victims of the wildfires as the death toll approaches 100.Jonathan Greene, the deputy assistant secretary and director of the Office of Response within HHS’s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, told reporters during a Tuesday press call that the department deployed mortuary operational response and victim identification center teams from its National Disaster Medical System to Hawaii.He said the experts will “augment state and local mortuary resources” as the island recoils from the devastating wildfires that swept Maui last week. He did not offer an estimate on how many victims those teams will expect in the coming days.“In terms of the scope of the mission, it’s going to be a very, very difficult mission,” Greene said. “And patience will be incredibly important because of the number of victims. At this time, it’s premature to be able to say what the total number of victims will be.”In total, Greene said HHS sent 75 emergency response experts to Hawaii. He said the mortuary response team —which includes coroners, pathologists and X-ray technicians — will assist local authorities with processing deceased remains.The teams just landed in Hawaii with about 22 1/2 tons of supplies and equipment needed for victim identification and processing remains, he added.The wildfires last week left at least 99 people dead, with Gov. Josh Green (D) saying Tuesday the total includes children. The Hawaii governor said Monday that crews could find “10 to 20 people a day” until the searches end.In an update posted Tuesday afternoon, Maui County officials said only four victims have been identified so far. Thirteen DNA profiles have been collected from fatalities and 41 DNA samples have been obtained from family members of those who are unaccounted for. About 32 percent of the area had been searched as of Tuesday afternoon, county officials said.
Maui's first reported fire likely caused by power lines, data shows - The Washington Post --At 10:47 p.m. last Monday, a security camera at the Maui Bird Conservation Center captured a bright flash in the woods, illuminating the trees swaying in the wind. “I think that is when a tree is falling on a power line,” says Jennifer Pribble, a senior research coordinator at the center, in a video posted on Instagram.“The power goes out, our generator kicks in, the camera comes back online, and then the forest is on fire.”At that exact moment, 10 sensors in Makawao, a small, rural town in the East Maui region of Upcountry — where the Conservation Center is located — recorded a significant incident in Hawaiian Electric’s grid, according to data from Whisker Labs, a company that uses an advanced sensor network to monitor grids across the United States. The bright light in the video was probably an “arc flash,” something that happens when a power line “faults” — meaning it has come in contact with vegetation or another line, or gets knocked down, releasing power, usually through sparks, according to a Whisker Labs official and other experts.The fire in Makawao was the first of several reported on Maui last week, and this is the first time an electrical malfunction caught on video has been directly correlated with data confirming that Hawaiian Electric’s power system experienced a major problem at the same time.It adds to evidence that the state’s main utility equipment sparked multiple fires last week, when powerful winds — predicted for days — whipped through drought-stricken grasslands. While the still-burning Makawao fire had nothing to do with the blaze that roared into Lahaina, it was one of several fires sparked on Aug. 7 and 8. At least one of those exploded into the blaze that roared into Lahaina, overwhelming residents, tourists and firefighters. As of Tuesday, 99 people had been confirmed dead in the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over a century, and crews have only searched 25 percent of burned neighborhoods.
Pentagon bolsters efforts to battle wildfires in Hawaii -The U.S. military is strengthening response efforts in Hawaii as the state battles wildfires and their aftermath on Maui, with the Pentagon planning to move supplies and emergency responders more quickly around the island.Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said Tuesday that U.S. Army Pacific is overseeing six new mission assignments designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist Hawaiians.Those missions include moving cargo, personnel and equipment around the island with aircraft and other vehicles, creating a defense coordinating office and setting up new staging areas on Maui for more coordinated responses. Singh said more than 250 Hawaiian National Guard members have now been mobilized to fight the wildfires, along with 140 U.S. Coast Guard responders and dozens of personnel from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.“The [U.S. military] will continue to work closely with state officials, FEMA and other supporting agencies to support the people of Hawaii in response to this incredibly terrible disaster,” Singh told reporters at a briefing.Wildfires in Upcountry Maui were 65 percent contained as of Monday night, according to the Maui County government. The Lahaina fire, named for the town it has decimated, was about 85 percent contained, while two other fires have now been extinguished.President Biden first authorized the U.S. military to respond to the Hawaii blazes last week, deploying the Coast Guard and Navy to assist state responders.
Biden takes hit for Maui wildfire response President Biden is facing mounting criticism over his response to the catastrophic wildfires in Maui, with former President Trump and other critics keeping the airwaves full of attacks over how he has handled the situation.The president ran as the empathetic politician who shines in times of crisis, but his reaction to Maui has left political watchers wondering where that Biden has gone. Biden’s “no comment” response Sunday about the rising death toll in Maui has distracted from federal relief efforts he has directed, including the dispatch of federal responders on the ground and the approval of a disaster declaration over the deadly fires. After briefly speaking about the topic Thursday, Biden waited four days to address the fires until Tuesday when he called them “devastating.” The president said he and first lady Jill Biden would visit the area “as soon as we can,” before he pivoted to prepared remarks about the Inflation Reduction Act on a preplanned trip to Wisconsin to tout his economic accomplishments.Principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said earlier Tuesday that the White House is “currently having active conversations about when a visit to Hawaii might be possible” but gave no further details.The White House has largely blown off criticism over the president being on vacation in Rehoboth, Del., this past weekend during the crisis; many Hawaiians have also criticized the government response on the ground.
Biden offers contemptible $700 per household for survivors of Maui wildfires - As more facts about the death and destruction and what caused the Maui wildfires emerged, amid growing public outrage over the US government’s criminally inadequate response, President Joe Biden boasted on Tuesday of pathetic “one-time payments of $700 per household” for those who have lost everything in the disaster. Authorities reported on Tuesday that one-third of the burn area in the town of Lahaina had been searched for victims, and the number of confirmed dead had risen to 101. Hawaii Governor Josh Green told CNN on Monday evening that the number of confirmed deaths could double over the next 10 days. Maui County reported that just four of the sets of remains found have been identified so far. The identities of these individuals will be released after families have been notified. Among those who died were four members of the same family, who were engulfed while trying to escape the flames, according to a statement released to CNN affiliate Hawaii News Now. “On behalf of our family, we bid aloha to our beloved parents, Faaso and Malui Fonua Tone, as well as our dear sister Salote Takafua and her son, Tony Takafua,” the statement read. Another victim, Franklin “Frankie” Trejos, 68, who had lived in Lahaina for 30 years, had tried to save his property, along with his friend and roommate, Perez Grant. Grant escaped the blaze while suffering burns, only to discover the remains of his friend several blocks away. The painstaking process of identifying the dead was highlighted when county investigators reported that they had obtained the DNA profiles of 13 more people, and a total of 41 DNA samples had been obtained from the family members of those who are unaccounted for. Meanwhile, there are still more than 1,000 people missing, and thousands more have been left homeless.
Utilities are getting sued over wildfires. Who's bearing the cost? -- Early in the morning of November 8, 2018, a strong gust of windblew down a power line owned by Pacific Gas & Electric, the power utility that serves most of California. As the line hit the ground, it ignited a bed of dry pine needles, starting a fire that soon spiraled out of control. The blaze, which became known as the Camp Fire, would go on to destroy more than 18,000 structures and kill dozens of people — ranking it as the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California’s history.In the years after the fire, PG&E faced a barrage of civil and criminal lawsuits from fire victims, municipal governments, and insurance companies, seeking to hold the utility accountable for starting the blaze. As the company’s stock tanked, it filed for bankruptcy protection, and later pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter over fire deaths. In order to exit bankruptcy, the company paid out $23 billion to various plaintiffs and creditors.PG&E has since drafted a plan to spend $50 billion by 2026 on grid protection and repairs, but it still has a ways to go. The utility can only borrow limited amounts of money thanks to its recent bankruptcy restructuring, and last year it laid off thousands of workers who trim trees around power lines to prevent fires. Starved for cash, the compan has raised rates: the average PG&E customer’s bill will rise 18 percent this year, and 32 percent by 2026. Power lines and other electrical infrastructure have ignited hundreds of fires in the American West over the past 10 years, and these wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes and burned millions of acres. In just the latest example, the deadly wildfires in Maui this month appear to have been ignited by power infrastructure. In the aftermath of these events, victims and insurers have increasingly sued large investor-owned utilities for billions of dollars in damages, laying blame for the fires at the feet of the corporations who control the electrical infrastructure that kickstarted the blazes. “It seems like there’s this historic trend of utilities just paying for fires, paying for fires, and then there’s a catastrophic one and they get walloped,” said Todd Logan, an attorney at the law firm Edelson PC who has won lawsuits against PG&E and Pacificorp. “And then they actually start changing their practices.” The trend began in California, where state law makes it easy to hold utilities accountable for starting fires, but it is now spreading to other states like Oregon, where fire victims won a trial last month against the Berkshire Hathaway-owned utility Pacificorp over a devastating 2020 wildfire, and Colorado, where victims sued the utility Xcel last month over the 2021 Marshall Fire. The payouts that stem from these lawsuits could cost these companies billions of dollars.While these lawsuit victories are helping victims to rebuild their homes, some experts also believe this wave of legal action and the massive payouts that have come with it have made it harder for utilities to fund grid upgrades that can prevent future fires. In many cases, as these investor-owned utilities work to fireproof their infrastructure, they’re passing the cost of system improvements and delayed maintenance down to their customers in a region where electricity rates are already high.“Ratepayers definitely have to pay for the cost of the utility doing things” like burying power lines and trimming trees, said Michael Wara, a senior research scholar at Stanford Law School and an expert on how climate change affects utilities. “With the lawsuits, too, there are significant penalties, and somebody’s going to have to pay for them — and the reality is it’s going to be the customers of the company and the shareholders.”
Why Is There Such A Frenzy To Buy Up The Properties That Were Just Burned Down During The Fires In Hawaii? -- Can you imagine calling up a family that has just seen their home burn to the ground and offering to buy their land for below market value? This is apparently happening in Hawaii right now on a massive scale. Grieving property owners are being bombarded with calls from very greedy people, and I think that says a lot about the current state of our society. We literally worship material possessions and financial gain, and the sheer greed that we are witnessing at this moment is absolutely staggering.Lahaina was hit harder than anywhere else by the fires, and it turns out that property owners in the area have been getting pressured to sell for a long time. So now that disaster has struck, those that wish to get their hands on these prime properties are in a feeding frenzy. One local resident made headlines all over the world after she posted a video about this…Filming herself in the recent video, the Hawaii resident said: ‘I am so frustrated with investors and realtors calling the families who lost their home, offering to buy their land.‘How dare you do that to our community right now. If you are a victim and they are calling you, please get their business name so we can put them on blast,’ she added.She claims in the clip that she ‘personally’ knows ‘multiple families’ that were ‘offered money from investors and realtors’.When 2020 began, the average home in Lahaina was worth about $600,000.Today, the average home in Lahaina is worth about a million dollars.Now there is a race to take advantage of those that have just had their homes burned down, and it has gotten so bad that even Hawaiian Governor Josh Green is speaking out against it…
Five villages in Tenerife evacuated amidst escalating wildfire threat - (videos) A rapidly spreading wildfire, which ignited on Tuesday night, August 15, 2023, in a Tenerife national park, has since spread across 300 ha (741 acres), leading to the evacuation of five villages and sealing off the forest near Mount Teide volcano. Given the urgency and rapid spread of the wildfire, local authorities ordered the immediate evacuation of the villages of Arrate, Chivisaya, Media Montaña, Ajafoña, and Las Lagunetas. Tenerife’s two airports are still operating normally. Situated in the northeastern sector of Tenerife, the fire began its destructive path in forested terrains settled within steep ravines. Such topography has intensified the challenges faced by firefighters, further complicating their valiant containment efforts. Canary Islands regional President, Fernando Clavijo, during a press conference in Tenerife, succinctly encapsulated the direness of the situation, noting that the fire’s intensity and its tricky location were major concerns. He further highlighted the critical mission of curbing the fire’s spread, especially towards the coastal residential zones. About 10 helicopters are dousing the affected regions with water, while on the ground, the containment operations see a combined force of approximately 150 firefighters and 50 military personnel working meticulously. However, with the fire’s increasing ferocity, Pedro Martinez, head of Tenerife’s emergency services, has voiced concerns about the blaze’s expansion in mere hours and the emergence of secondary fires. Given the wildfire’s magnitude, officials predict that it might demand more than a single day to be effectively controlled. The president of the Tenerife council, Rosa Davila, highlighted further preventive measures by announcing the closure of all mountain access on the island. She emphasized the gravity of the situation by urging both residents and visitors to abstain from venturing into forested regions, citing the escalating fire threat. This wildfire’s occurrence coincides with a recent heatwave experienced across the Canary Islands. The severe temperatures have rendered many terrains exceedingly dry, subsequently heightening wildfire risks. Firefighters have already tackled forest fires on the islands of Gran Canaria and La Palma this summer. Both islands are integral constituents of the Canary Islands archipelago.
Wildfire smoke blankets Manitoba Tuesday - Winnipeg - Smoke from wildfires in neighbouring provinces settled over Manitoba Tuesday, prompting a special air quality statement for Winnipeg and the surrounding region.
Deschutes County back under DEQ air quality advisory due to wildfire smoke; much of C.O. at 'Hazardous' level - (KTVZ) -- The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and Lane Regional Air Protection Agency issued an air quality advisory Tuesday for Deschutes, Lane and Klamath counties due to wildfire smoke. The advisory remains in effect through Thursday night -- and thick smoke settled in Tuesday, bringing "hazardous" levels to much of the region.DEQ and partner agencies said they will continue to monitor smoke conditions statewide.Intermittent smoke from the Lookout and Bedrock fires could also bring poor air quality at times to parts of Jackson, Josephine, eastern Douglas and southeastern Linn counties.Smoke levels can change rapidly depending on weather. Check current conditions on the Oregon Smoke Information Blog, DEQ’s Air Quality Index, or by downloading the free OregonAIR app on your smartphone. The E::Space air quality map on KTVZ.COM's Weather page showed "Hazardous" smoke levels in the 300 and 400, even close to 500 category across much of the region Tuesday evening.Smoke can irritate the eyes and lungs and worsen some medical conditions. People most at risk include infants and young children, people with heart or lung disease, older adults and pregnant people.Protect yourself and your family when smoke levels are high:
- Stay inside if possible. Keep windows and doors closed. If it’s too hot, run air conditioning on recirculate or consider moving to a cooler location.
- Avoid strenuous outdoor activity.
- Use high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters in indoor ventilation systems or portable air purifiers. Or create your own air purifying filter by following these instructions.
- Be aware of smoke in your area and avoid places with the highest levels.
- When air quality improves to moderate or healthy (yellow or green on the Air Quality Index), open windows and doors to air out homes and businesses, if temperatures allow.
- If you have a breathing plan for a medical condition, be sure to follow it and keep any needed medications refilled
Americans Have Breathed More Wildfire Smoke in Eight Months Than in Entire Years - Scientific American - The average American may have already inhaled more wildfire smoke in the first eight months of this year than during any recent full year.What’s responsible for the record? Canada’s unprecedented blazes, which began in late April, have sent plumes of smoke south to the U.S., impacting communities in the Midwest and along the East Coast that are unaccustomed to wildfires. This event is undermining a decades-long trend toward generally cleaner air in the U.S., driven by decades of reduced anthropogenic pollution. Now experts hope the shock of 2023’s smoke will inspire collective and individual actions to reduce future wildfire smoke exposure.This year “fire activity has been near historic lows in most of the western U.S.,” says Marshall Burke, an economist at Stanford University. “Yet this will likely be the worst wildfire smoke year on record in the U.S. and [is] entirely due to Canadian fires. So that’s really new.”Burke and his colleagues calculated that by early July, the average American had been exposed to nearly 450 micrograms of smoke per cubic meter (µg/m3). When they ran the same analysis back to 2006, they found the largest exposure of those years came in 2021. Over the course of that year, the average American was exposed to just more than 400 µg/m3, in part because of a particularly active fire season in the Rocky Mountains. The years 2020 and 2022 also brought significantly above-average smoke exposure, which was driven by fires in the western U.S. as well.“That increase in wildfire exposure is really reflective of not just more fires but more fires lasting for longer and impacting large population areas—so just more people being exposed to more smoke for longer periods of time,” says Delphine Farmer, an atmospheric chemist at Colorado State University, who was not involved in the exposure analysis. “That trend has been increasing over the last decade, and I am unsurprised that we are hitting a maximum this year.” Burke and his colleagues relied on satellite data first gathered in 2006 to figure out where smoky skies predominated. By combining those data with general air pollution measurements from sensors on the ground, they could calculate how much of the smoke was low in the atmosphere, where people can breathe it in. Finally, the researchers incorporated local population density to determine about how much smoke Americans were breathing.The approach isn’t perfect, Burke and others note—surface sensors don’t distinguish between wildfire smoke and other types of small particle pollution, such as that from local factories. And some experts question whether, for example, a median analysis that would be less influenced by outliers would be a more meaningful approach than the national average.But the calculation is one way to illustrate the extraordinary nature of this year’s fire season, Burke says.
Has the smoke made you forgetful? - Particulate matter (PM) is a chemical composition of smoke, including sulfates, carbon, nitrates, or mineral dusts. It stems from vehicle and industrial emissions and other fossil fuel burning, and researchers are now increasingly examining wildfires and the effects of longterm exposure to wildfire smoke that affect respiratory illnesses and other impacts to human health. A subset of PM — fine particulate matter (PM2.5) — is especially dangerous to human health because it’s 30 times thinner than a human hair and can not only lodge in lung tissue but also cross into the brain after it’s inhaled Scientists from the University of Michigan have identified a link between agriculture and wildfire PM2.5 emissions and the onset of dementia among 27,857 adult Americans, with data drawn from the national Health and Retirement Study. Pollution estimates were based on the locations of the participants, who were older than 50 and did not have dementia at the outset. About 15 percent of the study participants developed dementia, but the rate of cognitive decline was significantly greater in the areas of high PM2.5 concentration between 1998 and 2016. This joins a growing body of evidence forming a significant link between the microscopic toxins and dementia. The research was published in the journalJAMA Internal Medicine.
How wildfire smoke can permanently damage your brain and body --A growing body of evidence suggests that wildfire smoke raises the risk of neurological diseases, as well as harming the lungs, kidney, and other organs. Respiratory illness is already a leading cause of pediatric hospitalizations and emergency room visits, but the smoke from wildfires can also lead to permanent damage, for children and adults alike. Scientists know that wildfire smoke can exacerbate conditions like asthma and COPD, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, hinder concentration, reduce the body’s ability to fight infections, and causeinflammation targeting the lungs, kidneys, liver, and likely other organs. But what about more lasting, even permanent, effects? Though it’s a relatively young area of scientific investigation, the answer appears to be yes; though the potential damage depends on age, distance from the fire, the quantity of smoke exposure, and even the fire’s characteristics. “The issue with wildfires is that it’s all over the map in terms of what’s being burned,” “It’s a chemical mess.” “While the impact of air pollution in general on human health has been known for some time, we have only recently started to understand how impactful wildfire smoke is on human health,” “This issue is magnified by the fact that it can be difficult to distinguish between effects of ambient air pollution, and health impact specifically from wildfire smoke, especially when that smoke pollution occurs sporadically and without warning.” What scientists are learning about persistent effects of wildfire smoke is largely from animal studies, short-term research on wildfire smoke, and research on air pollution and wood-burning kitchen fires. Most of that research measures exposure to PM2.5, particles measuring 2.5 micrometers—about 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. “While we don’t have a lot of evidence from long-term exposures to wildfire smoke yet, it’s safe to extrapolate a lot of what we know from urban air pollution [effects] on health,” Ana Rappold, an environmental statistician at the Environmental Protection Agency says. But air pollution research only tells part of the story because wildfire smoke differs not only from air pollution but from one wildfire to the next. Its composition changes depending on what’s being burned, both the biomass—trees, shrubs, grass, animals—and any other fuel, such as homes and businesses, In addition to PM2.5, wildfire smoke contains other toxic chemicals andvolatile organic compounds that vary depending on the fuel, the temperature of the burn and even how old the smoke is. “It’s likely that it might lead to different types of health effects or a different severity; and you’re exposed to multiple things at the same time, which isn’t always the case with typical ambient air pollution,” The brain typically has greater protection than other organs because of the blood brain barrier, a tight network of blood vessels that strictly regulates what can pass through, much like a bouncer who decides who can enter a nightclub. But the blood brain barrier is not completely impermeable. Adam Schuller, an environmental toxicologist at the Colorado State University, has described three ways pollutants might reach the brain: particles travel in oxygenated blood from the lungs directly to the brain; particles directly enter the brain along the olfactory tract; or inflammatory factors triggered by an inflammatory response in the lungs invade the brain. Once there, particulate matter can damage neurons both directly, through the buildup of harmful, unstable molecules called free radicals, or indirectly, White says, by triggering immune cells to release molecules that impair or kill neurons and disrupt the connections that allow brain cells to communicate and store memories, even if the neurons don’t die.
Nearly 100 Wildfires Blazing Across Russia’s Republic of Sakha - The Moscow Times - Nearly 100 wildfires are currently burning in Russia’s Far East republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the local branch of the Russian emergencies ministry said Monday. The 98 wildfires have engulfed a combined area of 125,600 hectares (310,364 acres) of land — roughly half the size of the country of Luxembourg, authorities said. Emergency officials added that they are “continuously monitoring the smoke” from the fires, as several settlements across the region were reported to be blanketed in smoke. Summer wildfires are an annual occurrence in the republic of Sakha, Russia’s largest and coldest region. But these events have become more severe in recent years as Russia’s Arctic regions warm more than twice as fast as the global average. Grigory Kuksin, an independent wildfire prevention expert, told The Moscow Times that the situation in Sakha this year has been “pretty bad,” and authorities are effectively not required to take action against their further spread. This is because most of the fires are burning in so-called “control zones,” or areas where regional authorities are not required by law to extinguish them because there is no direct threat to residential areas or economically important infrastructure. “So far [authorities] have been unable to bring fires in these remote areas under control. [They’re] successful only when it starts to rain,” Kuksin added. Since the beginning of this year’s wildfire season, more than 700 wildfires have been registered in Sakha, impacting a total area of 1.2 million hectares, according to Avialesookhrana, a branch of Russia’s Federal Forest Agency. Kuksin said that the wildfire situation this year has been challenging not just in Yakutia, but in all regions with large “control zones." “Many regions [have been impacted], especially the Far East and northern Siberia — territories where the population is small and where authorities are only required to protect settlements. The decision to reduce the number of ‘control zones’ is already in place, but regions still lack funding for this.”4
Area of wildfires in Russia surpasses 4 mln hectares in 2023 - TASS/ The area affected by wildfires in Russia surpassed 4 mln hectares in 2023, Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov told Russian President Vladimir Putin."Since the beginning of the year, over 11,000 wildfire hotspots on the total area of more than 4 mln hectares have been recorded in the Russian Federation. With an insignificant increase in the number of hotspots, the area affected by the fires this year surpasses last year’s figures almost 1.5 times," he said. According to the latest data, 169 wildfires on the area of over 330,000 hectares are active in the country. Firefighters managed to localize 30 hotspots (17% from the total amount). Over the past 24 hours, 31 new hotspots on 900 hectares have emerged with 125 wildfires extinguished on the area of 250 hectares." Five wildfire hotspots on the area of 308 hectares are active within a five-kilometer zone from population centers," Kurenkov added.
Siberian Carbon 'Sink' May Soon Become Net Source of Emissions – Study - The Moscow Times - Siberia’s boreal forests, long considered to be a carbon “sink,” may soon become a net source of carbon emissions, as wildfires causing forest loss and degradation have grown increasingly more intense in recent decades, researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences said Thursday. Citing a recent study, the researchers said carbon emissions from high-intensity fires — those that occur when weather conditions are hot, dry, and windy — have more than doubled since 2000.Likewise, the study estimates that Siberian wildfires alone are now responsible for around 5–20% of Russia’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Evgeny Ponomarev, one of the authors of the study and a senior research fellow at the Sukachev Institute of Forest in Krasnoyarsk, noted that Siberia has witnessed an uptick in both the number of wildfires and in the total land burned annually. “We can expect that the upward trend of high-intensity burning will continue, leading to... an increase of direct carbon emissions from fires into the atmosphere,” Ponomarev said. The growing intensity of wildfires has the potential to shift parts of Siberia's taiga forests “from being a carbon ‘sink’ to a carbon source,” he added, referring to the forests’ ability to absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere. Grigory Kuksin, an independent wildfire prevention expert, told The Moscow Times that the recent study’s findings match what he has observed in his own work. “There's not much to argue about here. Fires in general, including high-intensity ones, have indeed been on the rise. And yes, if things continue as they are, forests are likely to become a source of emissions,” he said. But Kuksin also emphasized the growing number of wildfires in Russia’s Arctic, as well as the effects of black carbon emissions. Black carbon, commonly known as soot, is formed by the incomplete burning of wood and fossil fuels. Though not a greenhouse gas, black carbon contributes to global heating by absorbing energy from the Sun, while also reducing the Earth's surface reflectivity when it covers snow and ice. Kuksin said fires in forest-steppe and steppe zones are becoming more intense and widespread, creating large amounts of black carbon in the process.
Wildfire smoke is warming the planet more than previously thought, scientists say - Among the complex mix of particles that make up wildfire smoke, an abundant but thus far unknown kind has been shown to trap a surprising amount of heat, according to new research. These results indicate that wildfires, which are expected to become harsher and more frequent in the coming years due to human-induced climate change, are heating Earth to a greater extent than previously thought. Using NASA's Douglas DC-8 aircraft, which is a 54-year-old quadjet (a jet powered by four engines) that was turned into a flying science lab, scientists performed smoke analysis of three specific lightning-caused fires. All three had burnt large swaths of land in the western United States in 2019 — the Shady Creek in Idaho, Castle and Ikes in Arizona and the 204 Cow of Oregon. Their findings showed that a new kind of particle associated with these fires, dubbed organic "dark brown carbon," strongly absorbs heat — so much so that they account for more than half of the total heat absorbed by the collected wildfire smoke."It's likely that they form similarly to soot in the high-temperature flames along the leading edges of wildfires," Rohan Mishra, a co-author of the new study, said in a statement. The new particles are fewer in number when compared to another wildfire smoke particle known as black carbon or soot, which absorbs sunlight, then turns that sunlight into heat. Black carbon is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide — however, these newly studied dark brown carbon particles appear to be four times more abundant in smoke than black carbon. That ultimately spikes the potential for wildfires to warm our planet far beyond what has been accounted for. The newly found particles seem to absorb light across the visible spectrum, from ultraviolet wavelengths to near-infrared. They are also capable of resisting light-induced bleaching, which is a naturally occurring process that's expected to strip brown carbon particles of their capacity to absorb heat, usually within a day after they're released into the atmosphere. However, lab experiments showed that the dark brown carbon particles indicated no change in heat absorption for at least three days. Previous research has shown that such bleaching is "heavily dependent" on the height of the smoke and local atmospheric conditions. Closer to the ground, where there are higher chances of warm and humid climates, brown carbon loses its color or bleaches in as quickly as a day.
How Canada’s wildfires are warming the stratosphere - BBC Future - Extreme wildfires are increasing due to rising emissions, but they also disrupt the climate in return. Weighing up the overall impact, however, is tricker than it seems.Apocalyptic images of wildfire devastation – from charred homes to cities shrouded in deadly smoke – are fast coming to embody the world's unfolding climate disaster.In Hawaii this August, the death toll is still rising after the deadliest US wildfire in over a century ripped through Maui. In Canada, extreme fires blazing across the country are more widespread than at any other time on record. But there is still so much we don't yet understand about these powerful phenomena. Not least, wildfires' own ability to alter and disrupt climate systems long after their flames die out. One of the most far-reaching ways fires impact the climate is their ability to release vast quantities of carbon stored in trees and soils into the atmosphere. In a vicious feed-back loop, the additional CO2 then contributes to the same long-term warming of the planet that makes the fires themselves more likely. In 2020 alone, California's wildfires were estimated to have negated 16 years of the state's cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. Forest regrowth may occur, the researchers suggest, but not fast enough to help keep global warming under the 1.5C limit. Not all of wildfires' impacts on climate are so long-lasting, however. Nor do all produce warming. By blocking sunlight and attracting additional water droplets that brighten clouds, smoke aerosols can reflect sunlight back into space, leading to localised cooling in the lower atmosphere. This cooling effect typically only lasts until rain washes the aerosols back to earth. Yet as wildfires increase in scale, even these more temporary impacts are expanding their reach and duration. Australia's 2019-2020 fire season, for instance, produced a widespread smoke-induced cooling that may have influenced the recent "triple dip" in the La Niña weather pattern, research suggests. Calculating the net warming or cooling effect of wildfires means considering their impact across various time-scales and levels of the atmosphere, from surface up. One avenue of research has thus focused on the stratospheric reactions that take place 4-31 miles (6-50km) up in the air.Beneath this level, the lower troposphere is warming due to rising levels of CO2. Yet the same trend is also cooling the stratosphere, where thinner air allows the carbon dioxide to release its energy into space.Until recently, it was thought only volcanoes or nuclear explosions were powerful enough to interrupt this cooling process by propelling smoke up into the stratosphere. But when large wildfires meet with the right meteorological conditions, they can produce vast dirty thunderstorms which darken the sky, create erratic winds and tornadoes, and inject large plumes of wildfire smoke five to nine miles (8-14km) above the surface. Known as pyrocumulonimbus clouds, or pyroCbs, these thunder-clouds release aerosols that can travel thousands of miles across the globe.Once airborne, the black carbon in these wildfire aerosols absorb heat, causing them to rise and warm the surrounding stratosphere, says Matthias Stocker from the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change at the University of Graz, Austria.His research on large wildfires' stratospheric impact has shown that smoke from the pyroCb super outbreak in Australia in 2019-20 caused the stratosphere to warm very strongly (by up to 10C/18F) during the plumes' early development. Over the next few months, it remained an average of 3.5C (6.3F) warmer, before the aerosols sank back to earth.Canada has this year seen by far its most active pyroCb year over the last decade, says David A Peterson, a meteorologist with the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, which is attempting to create a prediction system for the movement of pyroCb smoke, and has been building a global dataset since 2013."At least 133 pyroCbs have been observed in Canada since early May, with 153 observed worldwide," he adds – more than doubling the country's previous seasonal maximum.
A giant Oregon fire shows the limits of carbon offsets in fighting climate change - In this patch of Southern Oregon forest, young stands of Ponderosa and lodgepole pine once pulled carbon dioxide out of the air, storing this greenhouse gas in their trunks, branches and roots.Today, these trees are charred black snags that bake in the summer sun. Most stand erect, a few so bowed that their tops curl down to touch the ground.They were killed by the fierce heat of the Bootleg Fire, which raged through here in July 2021, sending up huge pyrocumulus clouds of smoke and ash some 30,000 feet into the earth’s atmosphere, generating their own thunderstorms.For Justin Kostick, forest manager for the Green Diamond timber company, this bleak landscape has become a familiar, depressing sight. He spent days and nights on fire lines in a largely unsuccessful effort to slow Bootleg’s advance through the company’s Klamath Basin lands. Since then, he has returned to the burn zone again and again to supervise the planting of some 4.2 million new seedlings.This was supposed to be a showcase for Seattle-based Green Diamond’s forestry strategy for a warming world. The company had committed to century-long plans to slow the pace of logging on some 570,000 acres. In exchange, the company received millions of dollars in payments from Microsoft and other companies seeking to offset their carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels by paying to grow more wood on this land. The Bootleg Fire upended the Green Diamond carbon storage plans in Southern Oregon. In burning through nearly 20% of the company’s Klamath project lands, it also has helped to stoke a broader debate about the ability of the multibillion-dollar forestry offset markets to deliver the carbon savings that are supposed to happen from these deals. Earlier this year, Green Diamond filed documents with a California state regulatory board that call for an offset project covering most of the company’s Southern Oregon acreage to be terminated.The project depended on live trees. Year after year, they would act like worker bees, collecting carbon dioxide and — with the aid of the sunlight and water — using photosynthesis to store more of it in their wood. During the fire, Green Diamond lost live trees that stored some 3.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That is equivalent to the greenhouse gases produced through the course of a year by more than 785,000 cars driving 11,500 miles. A small portion of Green Diamond’s lost carbon went directly into the atmosphere through combustion as the fire swept through the forest. The vast majority now resides in dead trees. They will eventually release this carbon as they topple to the ground and begin the decadeslong process of decay, or perhaps more quickly should another fire sweep through this land.
Heat warnings issued for US Pacific Northwest and Canada as extreme heat stokes fire concerns - The Northwest US has mostly been able to dodge major heat this summer, but it has arrived with a vengeance and could help to stoke and start wildfires, including in parts of western Canada where hundreds of wildfires are raging out of control.People across parts of Washington and Oregon will face a rare “extreme” level of heat risk through Wednesday with temperatures expected to run as much as 20 degrees above normal. The “extreme HeatRisk” is the highest possible risk level for heat, akin to a “high risk” for tornadoes. It is meant to warn of significant heat impacts, including heat-related illness, and urge preparation.The temperatures are forecast to break records: Portland could hit 107 degrees Monday, which would break its old daily record and tie its hottest recorded temperature for August.Eugene, Oregon, is also forecast to hit 107 degrees Monday, which would shatter its previous daily record of 101 degrees.All told, more 230 heat records could be broken on Monday and Tuesday across the country.In addition to the high heat, red flag warnings signaling the increased fire danger cover much of western Oregon and Washington. Low humidity levels and gusty winds will make for prime fire conditions. Roughly 2,600 firefighters are out battling the seven large fires burning across Oregon and Washington.Even small fires, like the Lookout Fire in Lane County, Oregon, can cause issues fast. The 200-acre fire forced evacuations Sunday night, one of two fires forcing evacuations in the county. Weather conditions will cause the fires to easily spread and allow new ones to ignite.The hot conditions are reaching as far north as Canada which is in the middle of its worst fire season on record. Heat warnings are currently in effect for southern sections of the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. The hot, dry conditions also fed more fires across British Columbia, where more than 375 active fires are currently burning. More than half of those have ignited in just the last 24 hours.
Medical Lake wildfire at 9,000 acres, zero percent contained - — The wildfire that burned through Medical Lake Friday afternoon has torched 9,000 acres of communities, scrubland and trees. It is 0% contained according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Fire officials do not have an estimate yet on the number of homes burned and said at dawn Saturday that they are worried about wind. Interstate 90 in the area remains closed. Spokane County Fire District 8 posted overnight video of fires continuing to burn as thousands of people were forced from their homes and into shelters or the homes of friends and family. Overnight temperatures in the region fell into the low 50s, a respite from the sweltering temperatures that primed the region for Friday’s disaster. Thousands of people fled the Medical Lake area as a wildfire burned thousands of acres, dozens of homes and left one person dead following days of 100-degree temperatures and critical winds that erupted Friday into one of the Spokane region’s worst natural disasters.
Thousands flee as ‘unprecedented’ fires hit Canada’s Northwest Territories - Al Jazeera - Canadians have crammed into a local airport and lined up along a major highway out of the Northwest Territories to escape wildfires, a day after authorities warned the blazes were moving closer to the territory’s capital and largest city, Yellowknife.The Canadian government said Prime Justin Trudeau Minister will convene an emergency committee, known as the Incident Response Group, on Thursday to discuss the wildfires – the latest in a series of widespread blazes to hit the country so far this year.Authorities had called on Yellowknife’s nearly 20,000 residents to leave the city by Friday, and an evacuation order was also issued for surrounding communities. The airport had warned residents on Wednesday to arrive at least two hours ahead of their flights because of “increased passenger traffic”.Canada is going through its worst wildfire season on record with more than 1,000 active fires burning across the country, including more than 200 in the Northwest Territories alone. Caroline Cochrane, the premier of the sprawling and sparsely populated territory, described the crisis as “unprecedented” and urged residents to remain calm and follow warning signs without making “rash” decisions. Yellowknife Mayor Rebecca Alty told CBC that people have been leaving the area via the highway to the south and on commercial planes, and that authorities are also planning evacuation flights. “The important thing to stress is the fire isn’t here, yet,” she said. “We’re doing this ahead of time, so that we’re able to complete the evacuation before the risk continues to move.”Alty added that she and other officials will continue to update residents on the situation. “To leave your community and not know how your house is doing, I know will be a big stress on a lot of people,” the mayor said.She also said special teams were cutting trees near the city to prevent flames from spreading and planned to use fire retardant on certain historic and logistically important buildings to protect them from the fires.
Canada wildfire: all 20,000 Yellowknife residents evacuating (Reuters) - Canadian fire crews on Thursday battled to prevent wildfires from reaching the northern city of Yellowknife, where all 20,000 residents are leaving by car and plane after an evacuation order was declared.Water bombers flew low over Yellowknife as thick smoke blanketed the capital of the vast and sparsely populated Northwest Territories. Officials say the fire, which is moving slowly, is now 15 km (10 miles) northwest of the city and could reach the outskirts by Saturday if there is no rain. "Very tough days ahead – with two days of northwest to west-northwest winds on Friday and Saturday, which would push fire towards Yellowknife," the territorial fire service said in a statement on Facebook.In the Pacific province of British Columbia, which has suffered unusually intense blazes this year, officials warned residents to prepare for extreme fire conditions."This weather event has the potential to be the most challenging 24 to 48 hours of the summer from a fire perspective," wildfire service director Cliff Chapman told reporters. "We are expecting significant growth and we are expecting our resources to be challenged from north to south."In Yellowknife, hundreds of people lined up outside a local high school waiting to be taken to the airport for one of the five evacuation flights planned on Thursday to the neighboring province of Alberta.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau convened a meeting of the Incident Response Group to discuss the fires on Thursday. The group is comprised of senior officials and ministers, and meets in cases of crisis. Defence Minister Bill Blair, speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) after the meeting, said the federal government was closely monitoring the evacuations and was prepared to quickly airlift residents if land routes get cut off. This is Canada's worst-ever wildfire season with more than 1,000 active fires burning across the country, including 265 in the Northwest Territories. Experts sayclimate change has exacerbated the wildfire problem.Drought has been a contributing factor to the number and intensity of this year's fires, officials say, with high temperatures exacerbating the situation. Much of Canada has seen abnormally dry conditions.
Yellowknife evacuation ordered as Canada wildfires near city - The Washington Post -Authorities in Canada are racing to evacuate nearly 20,000 residents from the territorial capital, Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories by Friday as a raging wildfire nears the city. With the blaze threatening to reach the city in the coming days, firefighters have tried to ward off flames that have come close to Yellowknife, officials said. “The wildfire situation has taken another turn for the worse, with the fire burning west of Yellowknife now representing a real threat to the city,” said Shane Thompson, the territory’s environment and climate change minister. “I want to be clear that the city is not in immediate danger, and there’s a safe window for residents to leave the city by road and by air,” he told a news conference Wednesday evening. But he urged residents to leave by noon local time Friday in a phased evacuation. “Without rain, it is possible [the fire] will reach the city outskirts by the weekend,” he said. “You put yourself and others at risk if you choose to stay later.” Sitting on the north side of the expansive Great Slave Lake, Yellowknife is about 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle and 600 miles north of Edmonton, or 900 miles north of the international border with the United States. The fire threatening Yellowknife was up to 402,000 acres (162,936 hectares) Thursday midday. It remained about 10 miles from the western boundary of the city and was not expected to move much closer in the short term. Winds out of the north Thursday were pushing the fire southward toward Great Slave Lake. Strong gusts are likely to contribute to extreme fire behavior at times. While some showers were forecast over the next day, officials do not anticipate any rain will diminish the fire intensity. Dry air behind a cold front will instead foster quick flare-ups.
The entire capital city of Canada’s Northwest Territories has been ordered to evacuate as hundreds of wildfires scorch the region, officials say - Hundreds of wildfires burning in Canada’s Northwest Territories have prompted emergency declarations and the evacuation of the capital city of Yellowknife by road and air.About 20,000 residents in Yellowknife are being urged to get out of the way of fast-moving flames as more than 230 fires char the territory and smoke creeps south, impacting air quality in the United States. Yellowknife accounts for about half of the total population of the remote territory, which sits north of Alberta and east of Yukon.One of the wildfires burning west of Yellowknife is approximately 165,000 hectares, more than 600 square miles, and inching closer to the community and main highway, according to Mike Gibbins, who manages communications for Municipal Affairs Minister Shane Thompson’s office.“We’re all tired of the word unprecedented, yet there is no other way to describe this situation in the Northwest Territories,” Premier Caroline Cochrane said in a statement Wednesday night.“Residents living along the Ingraham Trail, in Dettah, Kam Lake, Grace Lake and Engle Business District are currently at highest risk and should evacuate as soon as possible. Other residents have until noon on Friday, August 18, 2023 to evacuate,” Northwest Territories officials said in a news release Wednesday. The community of N’dilo is also under an evacuation order, officials said in the release. Those unable to leave by vehicle can register for an air evacuation, officials said. “If you are able to evacuate by road, obey all warning signs, emergency management officials, traffic control devices and posted speed limits,” Cochrane added. “Do not make any rash decisions that can put other people in danger.” Those driving out of the Yellowknife area face a potentially perilous journey through heavy smoke and fire. “There were patches of flames on each side as we drove through,” Nadia Byrne told CNN, calling her evacuation the most terrifying experience she’s had.Byrne, along with four friends and their dogs, left Yellowknife Tuesday evening and struggled to see – and breathe – while driving.“We hit a patch where we couldn’t see any of the lines on the road. That lasted 45 minutes,” she said. “We had our N95s on and could barely breathe and our chest and lungs hurt.”The group made it to their destination safely the next morning, she said. The mayor of Yellowknife also issued a local state of emergency as the fires approached. The flames were less than 10 miles from the town Wednesday evening, officials said.
Wildfires Could Damage $11 Billion Worth Of Properties In Coming Decades, Study Finds Wildfires are predicted to damage upwards of $22 billion worth of property by 2049 –especially in the western United States—should climate action and policy not be implemented, a study published in Environmental Research Letters found.The study focused on climate-fueled “forest disturbances” that include wildfires and tree deaths by climate-related causes, including heat, drought and insects, and analyzed how much of an economic impact those disturbances could have on property values, according to researchers at the University of Utah’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy. The scientists found that $11 billion worth of properties are predicted to be exposed to wildfires between 2020-2049, up from $4 billion worth of properties which were exposed to wildfires in 2000-2018, which they concluded by analyzing fire data from 1984-2018 from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) tool from the United States Geological Survey. Projections from the scientists show properties’ wildfire exposure could double from $11 billion to $22 billion by 2070 in what they called low-to-moderate emissions scenarios and to $45 billion by 2099 in high emission scenarios. Meanwhile, tree mortality from climate, drought, heat and insects—such as the mountain pine beetle outbreak in Colorado—could impact up to 29 million households in the next 30 years compared to just 1 million households previously, scientists suggested based on US Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data from 2000-2018.
Tropical Storm “Hilary” forecast to rapidly strengthen on its way toward Baja California and the United States - Tropical Storm “Hilary” formed at 15:00 UTC on August 16, 2023, as the 8th named storm of the 2023 Pacific hurricane season. The system is strengthening and is expected to become a hurricane on August 17, on its way toward the Baja California Peninsula and the United States. The storm is expected to impact the Baja Peninsula and Southern California, with Tropical Storm force winds likely to reach the Baja sometime late Friday, August 18 to early Saturday (LT) and reach Southern California mid to late Sunday per the most recent NHC forecast. There is potential for heavy precipitation accompanying the high winds across much of Southern California as a result of the elevated moisture levels. At 03:00 UTC on August 17, the center of Tropical Storm “Hilary” was located about 630 km (390 miles) S of Manzanillo, Mexico, and about 1 170 km (725 miles) SSE of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Hilary had maximum sustained winds of 85 km/h (50 mph) and a minimum central pressure of 996 hPa. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 334 km (205 miles) from the center. The system was moving toward the WNW near 19 km/h (12 mph) and this general motion is expected to continue for the next day or so, followed by a turn NW on Friday, August 18, and NNW on August 19. Rapid intensification is forecast over the next 24 – 36 hours, and Hilary is forecast to become a major hurricane by the end of the week.
Hilary track and updates: 1st ever tropical storm watch issued in Southern California - Hilary, now a powerful Category 4 hurricane, is expected to make landfall in Mexico's Baja California on Sunday and then weaken to a tropical storm before crossing into California Sunday night. The first tropical storm watch in California's history has now been issued. The watch is in effect for portions of Southern California including San Diego, Palm Springs, Riverside and the mountains of Los Angeles County. Southern California is bracing for heavy rain, potentially historic flash flooding, mudslides and gusty winds on Sunday through Monday morning. The worst of the rain will hit Southern California on Sunday from Palm Springs to the Mexican border. Some desert areas could see more than one year's worth of rain in just one or two days. Hurricane Hilary remains a category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph. The center of Hilary is located roughly 360 miles SSW of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and it is moving to the NW at 10 mph. The greater Southwest area, including Las Vegas, could also see flash flooding from this very rare event. Most areas will see 2 to 6 inches of rain, but some areas could see up to 10 inches of rain. Southern California beachgoers should also be mindful of high surf. President Joe Biden said Friday that his "team is closely monitoring" the storm. "FEMA has prepositioned personnel and supplies in the region and they're ready," Biden said. In Mexico, a hurricane watch was issued in Baja California where rough seas, scattered showers and thunderstorms are in the forecast for Saturday. A hurricane prevention zone has been established from north of Punta Abreojos to Punta Eugenia in Baja California Sur, the Mexican secretary of the environment said Friday. Ships are urged to take "extreme precaution" due to the strong winds and high waves forecast for the area. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Cabo San Lucas. Hilary's outer bands could graze the popular resort town but it is not forecast to directly hit Cabo.
Hurricane Hilary could dump a year's worth of rain on parts of the Southwest | CNN — Concern is growing Hurricane Hilary will unleash a prolific amount of flooding rainfall on the southwestern US and parts of California as it makes a rare move over the region Sunday and into early next week, triggering the first ever tropical storm watch for California. Hilary could dump more than a year’s worth of rain in parts of three states: California, Nevada and Arizona. Because of the threat, parts of California face a rare high risk for excessive rainfall. This Level 4 of 4 threat is the first to ever be issued for this part of Southern California. Hilary was a powerful Category 4 hurricane churning about 360 miles south of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Friday afternoon with sustained winds of 145 mph with stronger gusts, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm underwent incredible rapid intensification Thursday into Friday, strengthening from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in just 24 hours. Hilary is forecast to remain a Category 4 as it approaches Mexico’s Baja California peninsula through Saturday. Officials have issued hurricane and tropical storm watches and warnings for Baja California and northwest Mexico as Hilary’s center approaches the country through the weekend. There remains a wide range of outcomes for the strongest winds in the US as the storm moves north over the next couple of days. Small deviations in the hurricane’s track could change the forecast for the most intense rain and wind. Hilary is more likely to make landfall in Mexico and cross into California, but if it makes landfall in California as a tropical storm, it would be the first such storm to make landfall in California in nearly 84 years, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The first ever tropical storm watch was issued for parts of Southern California Friday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. It extends from the California/Mexico border to the Orange County/Los Angeles County line. “The threat of significant wind impacts continues to increase for northern portions of the Baja California Peninsula and the Southwestern United States, especially in areas of mountainous terrain,” the hurricane center said Thursday night. Hilary is expected to substantially weaken before reaching Southern California and parts of the Southwest but, regardless of its strength, the storm will enhance heavy rainfall and increase flooding danger. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin impacting the Southwest Saturday and through early next week, with the most intense downpours likely on Sunday and Monday. It’s hard to overstate how big of a deal the high risks for excessive rainfall is. High risks are issued on fewer than 4% of days per year on average, but are responsible for 83% of all flood-related damage and 39% of all flood-related deaths, research from the Weather Prediction Center shows.
Record rainfall leads to massive flooding in northern China -- Sixteen cities and provinces in northeastern China have experienced record rainfall and flooding since July 29 as a result of Typhoon Doksuri. The huge downpour has already caused 62 deaths with another 34 reported missing. It has wreaked havoc on the lives of hundreds of millions, many of whom had no power or water for days, were stranded on roof tops or had their homes and properties ruined. As the flooding continues, the still unfolding catastrophe is yet another warning about the initial but already disastrous consequences of climate change. From July 29 to August 2, unprecedented levels of rainfall deluged Beijing, the adjacent municipal city of Tianjin and Hebei Province that surrounds both cities. Beijing experienced the heaviest rainfall in 140 years. The precipitation over 83 hours exceeded 60 percent of that for a year under normal conditions; the maximum hourly precipitation in Tianjin reached 54.8 mm (2.16 inches); and Hebei experienced 1,003mm (39.5 inches) of rain in just three days. Typhoon Doksuri then moved further north to the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin. Shulan, one of the hardest hit cities in Jilin Province, recorded 489 mm (19.3 inches) of precipitation. The rising water levels of more than 25 rivers in Heilongjiang Province have triggered alarming overflows. Social media videos showed cars pushed around and bumping into each other in the torrential water. In many places, the muddy water almost reached the top of trucks and trees. When waters receded, there were scenes of devastation: the debris of crushed cars, fallen branches, bricks and mud everywhere on the streets. Many paved roads were unusable as portions had been washed away. The scope of damage is enormous. According to a Beijing government press conference on August 9, 1.29 million people were affected by the flooding, 59,000 houses collapsed, 147,000 more houses were severely damaged, and 225,000 mu (37,000 acres) of agricultural products were destroyed. The worst affected areas of Beijing are the more rural Mentougou, Fangshan and Changping districts in the western and mountainous side of the city. Due to landslides, three trains inbound for Beijing with 2,831 passengers and staff were stranded in the mountains for more than four days. In the city, Beijing’s government hotline received more than 33,000 calls during the storm from July 29 to August 1. In most affected cities, tens of thousands, in some cases hundreds of thousands, of people had to be evacuated. Contact was lost with dozens of villages for days, as landslides either destroyed or blocked the few paved access roads. In Changping, a team of 15 firefighters were only able to reach 583 stranded villagers after trekking through mountains on foot and crossing rivers by rope. In other cases, helicopters had to drop critical supplies to trapped residents.
Floods and mudslides claim 21 lives, leave 6 missing in Xi’an, China - video - Mudslides and floods triggered by excessive summer rains took a devastating toll in the northwestern Chinese city of Xian, Shaanxi Province, on Friday, August 11, 2023, causing 21 deaths and leaving 6 individuals unaccounted for. China’s emergency management in Xi’an reported that the death toll from the recent mudslides and floods reached 21, with 6 more still missing. This updated figure contrasts with an earlier report from state-run China Central Television (CCTV), which cited 18 people as dead or missing and only two confirmed deaths. A video distributed by officials, painted a grim picture of the aftermath, capturing scenes of broken trees, destroyed infrastructure, and heaps of rubble strewn across muddy village roads. The cascading mudslide severely damaged two homes and resulted in power outages for approximately 900 households, as revealed in an official statement from the city’s emergency management authority. The excessive rainfall battering China can be traced back to Typhoon Khanun, which also affected Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and Russia. By the time it reached the shores of China’s northeastern Liaoning province on Friday night, Khanun had downgraded to a tropical depression. Adding to China’s weather woes was the previous hit from Typhoon Doksuri. This storm lashed Beijing and Hebei with intense rainfall, resulting in over 100 fatalities.Tropical Cyclone “Lan” makes landfall in Japan, bringing record-breaking rainfall - Tropical Cyclone “Lan” made landfall near Cape Shionomisaki in Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture just before 05:00 LT on Tuesday, August 15, 2023 (20:00 UTC, August 14), with winds near 160 km/h (100 mph) — equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane in the Atlantic. Soon after making landfall, the storm exited into the Sea of Japan and continued bringing extremely heavy rains and strong winds to wide areas of the country. Authorities issued evacuation orders for more than 237 000 people. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Tottori city recorded 483 mm (19 inches) of rainfall in just 3 hours while Kagamino town in Okayama recorded 461.5 mm (18 inches) — exceeding the average rainfall for the entire month of August in both areas. Record-breaking rainfall of 304.5 mm (12 inches) was recorded in Omoto, Iwaizumi in just three hours while 100 mm (3.9 inches) fell in Tanohata village and the eastern part of Miyako city in just 1 hour. In 24 hours, Odai in Mie Prefecture recorded 600 mm (23.6 inches) of rainfall, and Nachikatsuura in Wakayama Prefecture 500 mm (19.7 inches). At least 26 people were injured, of which one critically. Central Japan Railway Co. and West Japan Railway Co. canceled all bullet train services between Nagoya and Shin-Osaka stations and those between Shin-Osaka and Okayama stations throughout Tuesday. Nearly 800 flights were canceled and almost 90 000 households lost power. Lan is expected to travel northward over the Sea of Japan through Thursday, August 17, and approach Hokkaido in northern Japan. JMA is warning of heavy rainfall over a wide area from western to northern Japan and possible flooding and landslides.
Widespread floods hit Primorsky Krai, Russia - Remnants of Tropical Cyclone “Khanun” dropped heavy rains over Primorsky Krai, Russia over the past couple of days causing widespread floods. Khanun made landfall in South Korea late August 9 (UTC) and continued moving north toward Russia. At least 65 settlements in Primorsky Krai were affected by floods while 28 remained cut off as of Sunday, August 13, according to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations. Most of the affected homes were in the cities of Ussuriysk and Spassk-Dalny, and in the Oktyabrsky municipal district. The ministry said the total number of flooded homes is 4 368 as well as 654 adjoining plots. 7 apartment buildings and 43 sections of roads were also flooded. In just 12 hours on August 11, 94 mm (3.7 inches) of rain was registered in the city of Ussurysk. Since the start of the month, the city received 196% of its average monthly rainfall for the month of August. An estimated 35 to 40% of the city’s territory was affected after a dam collapse, making the it worst flood to hit the city in 10 years. Authorities have confirmed three fatalities on August 11. As of early August 14, more than 2 500 people remain evacuated, and around 500 people are staying in the 12 emergency shelters. Around 910 apartment buildings and 1 730 houses in Nadezhdinsky, Oktyabrsky, and Ussuriysk districts remain without power.
Vehicles, bridges, and buildings washed away as catastrophic floods hit Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, India - Intense rainfall in India’s northern Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand has led to catastrophic floods and landslides, killing at least 58 people, including nine in a temple collapse in Shimla, as of Monday. In just 24 hours since Sunday night (LT), August 13, Kangra received 275 mm (10.8 inches) of rain, Dharamshala 264 mm (10.4 inches), Sundernagar 168 mm (6.6 inches), Mandi 167 mm (6.57 inches), Berthin 149 mm (5.8 inches), Shimla 135 mm (5.3 inches), Dhaulakaun 111 mm (4.3 inches) and Nahan 107 mm (4.2 inches). In the aftermath of the downpours, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand witnessed immense devastation, with vehicles swept away, buildings demolished, and vital bridges destroyed. Himachal Pradesh reported 50 deaths in a 24-hour timeframe. Among these casualties, a Hindu temple in the state capital, Shimla, collapsed, leading to nine fatalities. The fatalities have pushed the state’s rain-related death toll since the start of monsoon rains to 63. There are more than 20 people still missing.Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, communicated the gravity of the situation, emphasizing the lack of previous records for such intense rainfall and fatalities in a single day. He expressed concerns about the potential increase in the death toll, as approximately 20 individuals were still trapped under rubble. The local administrative bodies were striving to rescue those affected and clear debris. Gruesome images emerging from Himachal Pradesh displayed rescue efforts to retrieve bodies from mounds of earth that flattened structures. The states’ infrastructures faced significant disruptions, rendering thousands stranded. Notably, railway lines were observed suspended, with their supporting terrains eroded. Emphasizing the severity of the situation, Sukhu shared distressing visuals on social media, urging residents to stay indoors and maintain distance from swelling rivers. In light of the calamity, schools across Himachal Pradesh were temporarily closed. Neighboring Uttarakhand also bore the monsoon’s wrath, with officials reporting 8 deaths since Friday, August 11. Rescue operations in the state accelerated amidst fears of individuals being buried due to landslides. Specifically, a landslide near Rishikesh, a renowned yoga retreat located on the Ganges riverbanks, engulfed a resort, leaving five people buried. Shweta Choubey, the District Police Superintendent, confirmed the rescue of a girl, while her family remained trapped. Rishikesh recorded 419 mm (16.5 inches) of rainfall in 24 hours to 08:30 LT on August 14. This is its second 400+ mm (15.7 inches) rainfall event in just 2 weeks. Since June 1, the city has received more than 3 000 mm (118.1 inches) of rain.
Euphrates River’s water level hits historic low at Tabqa Dam, Syria - The water level of the Euphrates River has plummeted drastically over the past three weeks, reaching a concerning historical low at Tabqa Dam, Syria. This alarming decline has left the Alouk water station non-functional since June 23, impacting close to one million residents of the Hassakeh governorate in various vital sectors. Located 40 km (25 miles) upstream from the city of Raqqa, the Tabqa Dam, constructed in the 1970s, stands as one of the most significant hydroelectric dams in Syria. It’s not only an essential provider of electricity but also plays a pivotal role in water regulation for a significant portion of the region. However, over the past three weeks, the dam’s reservoir has witnessed unprecedentedly low water levels. A consequence of this depletion is the continuous inactivity of the Alouk water station since June 23, delivering a hard blow to almost a million residents in the Hassakeh governorate. Impacts span across the domains of health, agriculture, electricity production, and more. The region’s water crisis has not just hampered daily life but is evolving into a significant health hazard. Access to fresh water is dwindling, resulting in an increase in waterborne diseases. A notable surge in cases of scabies have been reported, particularly within Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. Yearly summer declines in the river’s water levels have reached alarming proportions over the past couple of years, raising concerns about humanitarian consequences. Since the start of the Syrian conflict, Turkey has been accused of weaponizing the Euphrates River’s water levels. They have reportedly sidestepped a 1987 agreement with Syria that mandates releasing 500 cubic meters of water per second, a supply which Syria subsequently divides with Iraq. However, the current instability in Syria has granted Turkey an unchecked hand over the river, and accusations are rife about Turkey not meeting its water release obligations. Summer challenges have further strained the water situation. After spring, the river’s natural water flow dwindles, and with Turkey reportedly taking more than its fair share, the water reaching Syria and subsequently Iraq is declining rapidly. The situation worsened in the summer of 2021 when water levels in the Tişrîn Dam Lake plunged to 4 m (13 feet) and the Euphrates Dam recorded a level of just 6 m (19 feet).
Biden administration eases up on Colorado River cuts for 2024, following a wetter-than-usual winter - Federal officials announced Tuesday they would ease up on Colorado River usage cutbacks in 2024, thanks to an unusually wet winter combined with systemwide conservation measures.Water releases from Lake Mead — the Colorado River Basin’s largest reservoir — in 2023 are expected to be the lowest in three decades, according to the Bureau of Reclamation’s newly released 24-Month Study.“The above-average precipitation this year was a welcome relief,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton said in a statement.“Coupled with our hard work for system conservation, we have the time to focus on the long-term sustainability solutions needed in the Colorado River Basin,” Touton added.The 24-Month study, published each year in mid-August, determines the so-called “tiers” for coordinated operation of both the Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs for the following year. Each tier defines how much water Lower Basin states — Arizona, Nevada and California — as well as Mexico must relinquish to keep the reservoirs stable.The Lower Basin contribution amounts came from both the 2007 Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and state-level Drought Contingency Plans, approved in 2019. Mexico agreed to its cutback amounts in 2017, in an international agreement called Minute 323.The U.S. and Mexico have been jointly managing the Colorado River Basin since 1944, when the Mexican Water Treaty guaranteed the latter 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year. A previous 1922 compact allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water annually to each of the U.S. basins. For reference, a typical suburban U.S. household uses about an acre-foot of water each year.
Port authorities patch hole in sunken container ship's engine room - A hole in the engine room of the container ship Angel, which sank in Kaohsiung Harbor on July 21, has been patched, with clean-up of a related oil spill expected to be completed soon, officials said Wednesday. In a statement, Taiwan International Ports Co. said it expected to finish cleaning the spill and clearing obstructive containers that fell from the Angel on Thursday if weather conditions are stable. The state-owned port operator added that drones operated by the Directorate General of Highways and a marine engineering company found only a small oil spill in the area where the Angel sank. The Palau-flagged Angel was anchored about 5 kilometers from shore on July 4, when its captain gave the order to abandon ship after it began listing and taking on water on July 20. While the captain and all 19 crew made it off the Angel safely, 1,349 empty containers on the ship fell into waters around Kaohsiung Harbor during the sinking. Taiwan International Ports Co. said that as of Wednesday, it had searched 16 areas and found containers in 10. The bulk of the containers have already been removed from waters around the harbor, while those remaining do not pose a threat to ships operating in the area, the port operator said.
Dominican officials say it may take months to identify all 28 people killed in this week's explosion (AP) — Authorities in the Dominican Republic said on Thursday that it could take months to identify all of the 28 victims who died in a powerful explosion near the country’s capital this week.The announcement came as friends and family keep trying to confirm whether their loved ones died in Monday’s explosion at a bakery in the city of San Cristobal, just west of Santo Domingo.Authorities in the Dominican Republic said a patient in an intensive care unit has died, raising the death toll to 28. Fifty-nine people were injured, with the majority of them still hospitalized.The explosion took place mid-afternoon in a bustling commercial area in the city center, filled with businesses, including a bank and a hardware store.An investigation is still underway as to what caused the explosion, and authorities have said they will hold accountable any business that was not operating properly. It took firefighters three days to extinguish the blaze, which officials said spread from the bakery to the hardware store next door, and then to a nearby furniture store.Only seven of the bodies found have been identified and turned over to their families, Santo Jiménez, a forensics institute director, said at a news conference. It may take up to three months to identify some of the victims, he said. Authorities are working with family and friends who could provide helpful details such as any presence of tattoos or scars, he added.Jiménez said only one body of the 20 that remain at the morgue is intact.
Dominican officials say plastics company to blame for explosion that killed 31 people — Dominican authorities announced late Friday that they are pursuing a criminal case against a plastics company based on evidence found during an investigation into a powerful explosion this week that killed at least 31 people. Police and the Public Ministry issued a joint statement saying the blast occurred at a business called Vidal Plast, rather than at a bakery as authorities had said initially. The explosion occurred Monday afternoon in a bustling commercial center in San Cristobal, a city just west of the capital of Santo Domingo.“The Public Ministry has evidence that compromises the criminal responsibility of those responsible who, with their actions, caused the death of dozens of people and caused millions in losses,” the statement said, citing prosecutor Fadulia Rosa Rubio. The ministry said it was investigating several people, but did not identify them. The owners of Vidal Plast could not be immediately reached for comment. The company recycles, buys and sells plastic materials, officials said.Authorities also said they have evidence that there was a fire at the business in March caused by a spark and a chemical substance and that the company did not take any measures “despite knowing the high risk of its operations.” Víctor Bisonó, the minister of industry and commerce, told reporters that the municipality had closed the factory in the past, but he did not provide more details.N Digital, a respected online newspaper in the Dominican Republic, reported that the company was founded in 2003. It quoted one of the company’s founders as saying that the factory was not operating and that two of its employees were simply removing material from the site when the explosion occurred, with one of then being killed.
Montana judge sides with youth in historic climate trial - A Montana judge on Monday found that the Treasure State is violating its residents’ right to a clean environment — delivering a major victory to the 16 kids, teens and young adults behind the first U.S. youth-led climate trial.Judge Kathy Seeley of the 1st District Court in Montana ruled that state lawmakers flouted Montana’s constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment” when they passed a law barring agencies from considering the climate effects of fossil fuel projects.The case is being watched nationwide as a bellwether for litigants who want to hold governments and fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change. The verdict — which the state vowed to appeal to the Montana Supreme Court — could serve as a model for similar youth-led lawsuits in other states.“Today’s ruling in Montana is a game-changer that marks a turning point in this generation’s efforts to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate chaos,” said Julia Olson, chief legal counsel and executive director of Our Children’s Trust, which represented the youth in the case. “This is a huge win for Montana, for youth, for democracy, and for our climate. More rulings like this will certainly come.Seeley in June heard seven days of testimony, including from young people who said Montana’s reliance on fossil fuels is lengthening the state’s wildfire season, drying up its rivers and worsening health conditions.Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s office called the ruling “absurd, but not surprising.”Spokesperson Emily Flower added that Seeley had allowed attorneys for the youth to “put on a weeklong taxpayer-funded publicity stunt that was supposed to be a trial. “The state constitution guarantees a right to a “clean and healthful environment,” and Seeley found the Legislature violated that protection when it twice revised the Montana Environmental Policy Act to exclude consideration of climate emissions.Lawyers for the Oregon-based Our Children’s Trust, which represents the 16 youth in the case, Held v. Montana, had urged Seeley to consider instances in which courts have stepped in to correct governments that had failed to protect human rights.They argued that young people are suffering “injustices wrought by climate change caused by a fossil fuel-based energy system imposed and perpetuated through the law.”Attorneys for the state said during the trial that Montana could do little to affect global warming. And they argued that the court could not play a role because the state constitution gives the Montana Legislature the authority to pass laws.
Montana youth victory could spur momentum on other climate cases - A landmark court decision that Montana is violating its youngest residents’ rights to a clean and healthful climate could have legal repercussions well beyond the Treasure State.Judge Kathy Seeley of the 1st Judicial District Court in Montana found Monday that youth in the state have a “fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment, which includes climate” as she struck down two laws that bar state agencies from considering the climate effects of fossil fuel projects.“This is what climate justice in the courts, and protecting the constitutional rights of our childrens’ right to a safe climate, looks like,” said Nate Bellinger, senior staff attorney with Our Children’s Trust, the Oregon-based law firm that represented the 16 young Montanans.The ruling is a major victory for the 16 young people behind the first U.S. youth-led climate trial. And it could help provide momentum for a burgeoning raft of climate litigation, including what is likely to be the second-ever kids’ climate case next year in Hawaii.“Because of their unique vulnerabilities, their stages of development as youth, and their average longevity on the planet in the future, plaintiffs face lifelong hardships resulting from climate change,” Seeley wrote, siding with youth witnesses who testified that children are more susceptible to climate-induced physical and psychological harms than adults.Those findings are likely to be raised in the youth-led Hawaii lawsuit, set to open in June 2024, nearly a year to the day since Seeley began hearing the Montana case. Youth plaintiffs in the Hawaii case argue that the state’s transportation system allows for high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, in violation of the young people’s constitutional rights.Though Seeley declared two recent Montana laws unconstitutional, the immediate effect of Held v. Montana in the Republican-controlled state is unclear.Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s office said it will appeal what it called an “absurd” ruling.“Montanans can’t be blamed for changing the climate — even the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses agreed that our state has no impact on the global climate,” said Knudsen spokesperson Emily Flower.Flower noted that other judges have rejected climate lawsuits, adding “it should have been here as well, but they found an ideological judge who bent over backward to allow the case to move forward and earn herself a spot in their next documentary.”
40 percent of US climate emissions attributed to richest households: study -- The wealthiest tenth of U.S. households are the source of 40 percent of national greenhouse gas emissions, according to research published in the journal PLOS Climate. Researchers, led by Jared Starr of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, analyzed three decades of household income data from 1990 to 2019.They found that during this period, the bottom 90 percent of households’ share of emissions has fallen, while the top 10 percent’s share has increased. The wealthiest 1 percent of households were responsible for between 15 percent and 17 percent of emissions. Starr and colleagues analyzed emissions associated with businesses owned by the households they analyzed, but also factored in revenues relating to their investments. For the top 10 percent, investment income makes up a large share of those households’ emissions — between 38 percent and 42 percent in the case of the wealthiest 10 percent. “The investment piece makes up an increasing share of the emissions responsibility as we look further up the income ladder,” Starr told The Hill in an interview. Just over 43,000 of the wealthiest 0.1 percent of households — 34 percent — were what the researchers dubbed “super emitters,” or those responsible for more than 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per year. They also found wide racial disparities in responsibility for emissions, with non-Hispanic white households comprising the highest income-linked emissions and Black households comprising the lowest.Emissions also varied by age cohort, peaking between the ages of 45 and 64 and then declining. The results indicate that policymakers may have been looking at potential carbon taxes and their structure from the wrong angle. “While consumer-facing carbon taxes have struggled to move from proposal to law in the U.S., an investment-based carbon tax may be more equitable, politically palatable, and equally justifiable,” they wrote, while acknowledging that this would likely face pushback from the disproportionate amount of the wealthiest Americans in politics.“By thinking of carbon as an outcome of income generation rather than just an outcome of consumption, such alternative policy solutions become possible,” they wrote. Simply measuring according to consumption gives a misleading picture of who is responsible for the bulk of emissions, Starr said, and any tax on carbon that is consumption based would reflect that.“Consumer-facing carbon taxes would hit poor Americans hardest because the emissions intensity of their purchases tends to be higher than higher-income groups because they’re buying things related to necessities,” whereas upper-income groups tend to be based around services, he said. “These low-income groups basically spend all that comes in, whereas as you move up the income ladder, the higher-income groups have really high savings rates, [and] money that they save or re-invest are not reflected in consumer-facing carbon taxes,” he added.
Progressive calls for climate emergency swell after Biden says he ‘practically’ declared one President Biden’s comment that he had “practically” declared a climate emergency is reigniting calls on the left for him to actually take such action. The White House has not announced any explicit climate emergency declarations. Bidenappeared poised to do so last year when talks on his signature climate legislation stalled, but he did not ultimately take the step. After the president was asked during a recent Weather Channel interview if he was prepared to declare a climate emergency, however, he at first said he already had. When pressed, he said he had done so “in practice” and practically speaking.Progressive lawmakers and advocates alike have seized on that comment in a renewed push for a declaration.“Well then just do it already,” tweeted Justice Democrats, a group that tries to elect progressives.“Declaring a climate emergency would help save lives & our environment” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) tweeted. He specifically touted the potential for bans on crude oil exports, expanded renewable energy manufacturing and disaster relief under such an emergency.In a tweet about the devastating Maui wildfires, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) also called for a declaration. “We must declare a climate emergency and advance the urgent policies necessary to confront the climate crisis and save lives,” she tweeted.On the other hand, some Republicans used the comment to criticize Biden’s agenda.GOP presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), for instance, told Fox News that instead of making a climate emergency declaration, Biden should have been “declaring the actual emergency, which is the emergency at our border.”
The Left Begins to Walk Back Talk of Global Warming Armageddon -- Marcellus Drilling News - No wonder our children are spaced out on anti-anxiety meds like Zoloft, Prozac, Paxil, and Ativan. They are force-fed (brainwashed) with global warming hysteria in schools all day long. The media convinces their unthinking parents to believe the lie too. The narrative in schools and on the airways says if we don’t stop producing so much carbon dioxide (and fugitive methane) right now, TODAY, we’re all history. Mankind will kill itself in about 20 years by making the Earth unlivable. If you drive a gasoline car or use natural gas for heat and cooking, you’re killing Mom Earth. Many people who believe the lie have given up hope that there is a future. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” That’s the very old-but-made-new-again philosophy. Predictably, many are becoming unhinged, and some are even violent. Leftists are now concerned that maybe they’ve gone a bit too far with all of this “end of the world” stuff, and they’re beginning to walk it back.
Big Oil targets state judges in climate cases - After stumbling at the Supreme Court, major oil companies and pro-industry groups are questioning the objectivity of state judges who will decide the fate of climate liability lawsuits that could cost the fossil fuel industry billions of dollars. In Rhode Island, companies being sued by the state to pay up for the ravages of climate change say a judge hearing the case — one of about two dozen such challenges playing out nationwide — created the “appearance of bias” by citing two news stories that had not previously been entered into the record. And in another climate liability case in Hawaii, a conservative group has questioned the objectivity of a judge because of his involvement with an organization that provides legal education on a range of topics, including climate science. The moves come as an array of climate lawsuits by cities, counties and states are moving toward trial in state courts from Hoboken, N.J., to Honolulu, following the Supreme Court’s April rejection of an industry bid to quash the cases on procedural grounds. “They’ve lost round one, so they’re working the refs, trying to intimidate the judges,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, which backs the lawsuits against the industry. “If you don’t have much of an argument, you attack the judges.” The climate liability lawsuits claim that oil and gas companies should be held financially accountable for misleading the public about the dangers of burning fossil fuels, violating state consumer laws and hastening global warming. Oil industry attorneys have argued that the lawsuits are a distraction and will do little to address climate change. They have attempted to move the cases to federal court, where companies believe they are more likely to prevail. Those claims have largely failed. After securing a preliminary win on the jurisdictional question in the Supreme Court in 2021, oil companies turned back to the justices last year to ask that the cases be thrown out. The high court in April declined to get involved, clearing the way for the cases to move ahead before state judges.
Wealthy oil nation lays groundwork for ‘eye-popping’ climate fund - The United Arab Emirates is considering creating a multibillion-dollar fund to spur clean energy investments across the world that it plans to unveil at this year’s U.N. climate talks in Dubai, according to people familiar with the plan. The fund could amount to tens of billions of dollars, with a sizable slice of the money coming from the UAE’s sovereign wealth reserves, according to seven people with knowledge of the discussions. A G-7 government official said envoys from the oil-rich Mideast nation had privately mentioned the idea of a fund of at least $25 billion. “It’s an eye-popping figure,” one of the people familiar with the concept said. Creation of the fund would be one of the largest ever state-sponsored financial efforts to help countries fight climate change. And it comes as the UAE and Sultan al-Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. who is leading the climate talks, have drawn criticism from environmental advocates and some U.S. and European lawmakers for hosting the international gathering despite being one of the world’s largest contributors of greenhouse gases. The summit, known as COP28, starts on Nov. 30. The fund would help fill a financial chasm to shift nations’ energy economies off fossil fuels, with the aim of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century. Experts have said the effort will require trillions of dollars in spending to avoid catastrophic, irreversible effects of climate change. In Washington, Republicans in Congress have vowed to block any U.S. effort to fulfill President Joe Biden’s promise to contribute $11 billion annually to international climate finance efforts. But the UAE’s initiative would fail to plug other gaps in the system, most notably the need to aggressively deliver funding to clean up the economies of less wealthy nations that are crucial to stabilizing the world’s rapidly warming climate.
Carbon-capture gold rush an ‘insult’ to locals in emissions-hit Louisiana --Millions of dollars of investments in new carbon capture projects in Louisiana – with more announced this week, are unwelcome developments to some environmental activists in the state.“We’ve been trying to fix the oil and gas damage, while at the same time trying to push the transition away from it,” said Monique Harden, director of law for the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.“And now we have carbon-capture and sequestration to contend with,” added Harden, whose group is a member of Louisiana Against False Solutions, a coalition of environmental and watchdog non-profits fighting the carbon capture projects. Carbon capture technology, supported by the US federal government, the fossil fuel industry and some environmental groups, does not yet exist on a meaningful scale. Some climate experts worry the focus on the technology will distract from and undermine efforts to phase out fossil fuels. About 30 carbon-capture projects have been proposed in Louisiana – all of them spurred by federal subsidies and most supercharged by increased incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act intended to address global heating.A total of 170 projects have been announced nationwide, with only Texas having as many projects as Louisiana. On Friday, the Department of Energy announced $1.2bn investment in carbon capture projects in Louisiana and Texas. Environmental justice advocates and other opponents of carbon capture and sequestration say the technology is environmentally and economically risky and encourages the status quo for fossil fuel companies. One oil company CEO said earlier this year that carbon capture will help “preserve our industry over time”. The IRA increased tax credits, called 45Q, to permanently store carbon from $50 per ton to $85 per ton. Directly capturing the carbon from ambient air earns developers $180 per ton. The law also allows the credit to be paid in cash to developers, which include companies or subsidiaries of Shell, ExxonMobil and Koch.The technology’s backers include Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, who talked up its potential in a press conference call about the new investment. “If we deploy this at scale, this technology can help us make serious headway toward our net zero emissions goals while we are still focused on deploying more clean energy at the same time,” she said. However, in Louisiana, one issue for opponents is that carbon capture is being proposed as a component of mostly brand new facilities for ammonia, hydrogen and biomass, among others, with the products produced at those sites labeled by developers as “green” or “clean”. “What we aren’t seeing is announcements to retrofit refineries or existing ammonia facilities, or other petrochemical facilities. That automatically means we are only seeing net new emissions,” Louisiana, with about 1% of the nation’s population, already emits more than 4% of the United State’s greenhouse gases because of its heavy industrial base. A Louisiana greenhouse gas inventory shows new announced projects, if built, are projected to increase global warming emissions from 142m metric tons (MMT) of carbon dioxide or equivalent, to 243 MMT by 2026. More than half of those new emissions will come from the state’s new liquefied natural gas plants, and a third from new chemical plants. Only some of those projects are planned to have carbon capture, but even if the equipment captures the industry’s promised 95% of carbon emissions, the rest will bereleased into the atmosphere.
Experts fear US carbon capture plan is ‘fig leaf’ to protect fossil fuel industry --The US energy department has announced it is awarding up to $1.2bn to two projects to directly remove carbon dioxide from the air, a fledgling technology that some climate experts worry will distract and undermine efforts to phase out fossil fuels. The process, known as direct air capture, does not yet exist on a meaningful scale, and the move was being seen as the US government taking a big bet coming after July was confirmed as the hottest month ever recorded on Earth.Countries are not cutting planet-heating emissions enough to avoid disastrous global warming of 2C, or more, above pre-industrial times. This shortfall means that planting forests and developing machines that can suck carbon directly from the air will be required to remove billions of tons of greenhouse gases,according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Reacting to the news of the US investments by the Biden administration on Friday, some experts were worried the technology was being used as a “fig leaf” by the fossil fuel industry.The projects selected for energy department backing are Project Cypress, which will be built in Calcasieu parish, Louisiana, and the South Texas DAC Hub, which is planned for Kleberg county, Texas.Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, talked up the potential of the technology in a press conference call. “If we deploy this at scale, this technology can help us make serious headway toward our net-zero emissions goals while we are still focused on deploying more clean energy at the same time,” she said.Shannon Boettcher, professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon, said direct air capture technologies are not yet cost effective, but are worth some investment in research and development.Claire Nelson, a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory said moving away from fossil fuels and producing the things we need without emissions are the most important ways to address the climate crisis.But the scale of change needed makes direct air capture necessary as another tool. “In order to have direct air capture ready at the scale we need it by 2050, we need to invest in it today,” she said.However other experts said the investments were a mistake.“This money could be so much better spent on actual climate solutions that would be cutting emissions from the get go,” said Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a group that publicizes climate solutions. He cited energy efficiency and lowering emissions from agriculture, transportation, electricity generation as better approaches.“What worries me and a lot of other climate scientists is that it potentially creates a fig leaf for the fossil fuel industry … the idea that we can keep burning stuff and remove it later,” Foley added. The Biden administration delivered a historic climate bill last August though the president’s record on the climate has been undercut by his aggressive giveaway of oil and gas drilling leases on public land, including thecontroversial Willow oil project in Alaska.
US climate law introduces billion-dollar ‘game-changer’ for nonprofits - Tax credits have been the primary engine of federal clean energy policy for the past two decades, and the Inflation Reduction Act continues that legacy. But up until now, these powerful incentives have been available only to for-profit companies seeking to offset their tax burdens.“From a policy perspective, tax credits reward wealth with ownership, and everyone else gets left behind,” Moore said. But nestled within the Inflation Reduction Act is a provision that has unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars of clean-energy tax credits to city and county governments, schools and universities, nonprofits, tribal communities and other entities that don’t pay federal taxes. The provision is known as direct pay, and it’s “a game-changer,” according to Moore.In the past, nonprofits had to try to partner with for-profit groups to access clean-energy tax credits — a process that’s time-consuming and labor-intensive, and which erodes the value of incentives as different middlemen take their cut. Now, they can access benefits directly.This under-the-radar provision could fuel untapped decarbonization opportunities in key areas like cities, public utilities and rural electric cooperatives. But perhaps more importantly, it will help advance equity and energy self-determination for underserved groups.More municipalities may decide to build their own clean power projects, more tribes can draw investment into sovereign solar and wind projects, and more nonprofits can work with community centers and houses of worship on solar- and battery-backed microgrids. In June, Moore joined senior Biden administration officials in unveiling official guidance from the Treasury Department that allows tax-exempt entities to apply for and receive the value of the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits, which range from 30 percent to as much as 60 percent of the value of clean energy, low-carbon fuel and other eligible projects, in the form of checks from the IRS.
On Lake Michigan, a giant water battery aids clean energy transition - Michigan has a giant water battery perched high above the Lake Michigan shoreline south of Ludington, which in satellite images looks much like any other inland lake.But it’s not an average lake.The pumped hydroelectric storage facility operated by Consumers Energy isn’t new technology. It was built more than 50 years ago to help absorb nuclear energy during overnight hours when customer demand for electricity was low.Now both utility and independent experts say this major piece of power infrastructure is expected to be critically important as Michigan shifts away from fossil fuels and toward more renewable sources.“In its purest form, this really is just a battery,” said Jason Durand, senior operations manager. “It’s water at height, which in the purest form of physics is stored energy.” When constructed, the facility absorbed power generated overnight from multiple nuclear facilities along Michigan’s west side. But with the recent closure of the Palisades nuclear plant near South Haven and the past decommissioning of the Big Rock nuclear plant near Charlevoix, experts believe the Ludington infrastructure can now fulfill a new purpose.“It really is an enabler for our clean energy plan and more and more penetration into renewables. Because as we put more and more renewables on, we’re going to have to manage the peaks throughout the day. And this is just one huge storage solution,” .During low customer demand periods, electricity from the power grid is used to pump water from Lake Michigan uphill into the manmade reservoir built atop the already tall shoreline bluff. Then during peak demand periods, the motor turbines are reversed and turned into energy generators as the water releases from the reservoir and drains downhill, back into the lake.The size and scale of the facility is immense with its ability to store 16,000 megawatt hours. It can ramp up power output to 2,340 megawatts in five minutes and run wide open for more than nine hours. With its six reversible pump-driven generator motor units, it is the second largest such hydroelectric facility in the United States and the sixth largest worldwide.The Ludington facility works like any other hydroelectric plant – flowing water spins turbines to generate electricity. But these are massive turbines, each at 27 feet across.“One unit at rated flow will fill an Olympic swimming pool in 6.2 seconds,” Durand said. “So, if you have all six machines running, we’re filling an Olympic swimming pool every second. And we can sustain that for over nine and a half hours of full power.”
California’s planning a renewable energy project at a scale never before attempted in the world The Newsom administration’s path to net-zero carbon emissions runs through one of the state’s poorer, most remote areas. — A 300-foot tall smokestack from a defunct paper mill looms over the port in Humboldt Bay, a relic of the timber industry that once defined the northwestern corner of California along with the struggling salmon fishing industry and sputtering marijuana trade. But a gust of optimism has arrived in Humboldt County over plans to develop offshore wind at a depth and scale never before attempted in the world – sparking hope and anxiety in a region that has lived through repeated boom-and-bust cycles and ended up with one of the lower per-capita incomes in the state. “This is a generational project,” said Jeff Hunerlach, secretary-treasurer of a council of construction unions for Humboldt and neighboring Del Norte County. “I could work 20 years on this project and my kid could work 20 years on this project.” The offshore wind proposal, driven by the Biden and Newsom administration efforts to dramatically increase renewable energy, would erect dozens of turbines three times the size of that smokestack with blades as long as a football field in an area of the Pacific Ocean nearly 10 times the size of Manhattan. The turbines, which would be about 20 miles from shore in water up to 2,500 feet deep, are a key part of the state’s plan to generate enough offshore wind energy to power more than 20 million homes. Getting the turbines to remote Humboldt County and then assembling them would be a significant undertaking – one that would create the need for heavy investment in an area that has seen little for many years. “It’s a lot of good-paying jobs if we do it right,” said U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), whose district includes the bay. “This can be part of lifting up the regional economy in a way that is better than anything to come along in decades.” “We’re talking about completely transitioning our entire energy system,” Holmlund said. “It’s an ambitious goal for the betterment of humanity.” But the project faces a host of major challenges. They include not just the obvious economic and bureaucratic hurdles but also a widespread distrust of outsiders in a region where indiscriminate logging engendered deep resentment and where an illegal marijuana industry created a counterculture haven in the fog-shrouded mountains.
First Solar Finds That Forced Labor Was Used in Its Malaysian Ops - First Solar, a leading U.S. solar panel manufacturer, said on Tuesday that an audit had found that migrant workers in its operations in Malaysia were victims of forced labor. The independent audit, which was included in a corporate sustainability report, found that four subcontractors in Malaysia had charged the workers recruitment fees in their home countries and withheld their pay and passports. U.S. officials and human rights activists have become increasingly concerned about the use of forced labor in the manufacture of solar panels, most of which takes place in Asia. Global supply chains for solar panels have for years relied on China, in particular for polysilicon, a crucial component in most solar panels made around the world. But a recent ban on products from Xinjiang, a region where the U.S. government and United Nations accuse the Chinese government of committing human rights violations, including forced labor, has led to a shift away from China. Some producers like First Solar, which is based in Tempe, Ariz., and has factories in the United States and overseas, also have factories in Southeast Asia to make solar panels. First Solar produces a solar panel that does not use polysilicon and, as a result, appeared immune from the supply chain concerns related to Xinjiang. The company said it was making the audit public in part to raise awareness of the kinds of practices it discovered. “We highlight this information openly, not only because of our commitment to transparency and Responsible Solar, but also to raise awareness of modern slavery risks that hide in plain sight,” Mark R. Widmar, chief executive of First Solar, said in a statement. “Our industry’s work to power the energy transition and enable the fight against climate change does not serve as credits to offset its social and human rights obligations.” The company said it is requiring the four subcontractors to change how they treat workers and agree to periodic reviews by First Solar to ensure that they are no longer using forced labor.
Texas and others create 'punitive' barriers to EV transition - Electric vehicle drivers in Texas have started to get some bad news in the mail.Starting in September, they’ll have to pay the state an extra $200 each year to register their climate-friendly cars and trucks. And if they want to buy a new EV, that will cost $400 upfront.State lawmakers imposed the new fee on EVs this spring to replace gasoline taxes lost to the switch to battery-powered vehicles. Supporters say it ensures every driver pays their fair share. But the fee is nearly double what an average driver would pay in taxes at the pump, according to consumer advocates.Those moves have some EV advocates fuming — and will create new barriers to one of President Joe Biden’s signature climate policies.Unchanged since 1991, Texas’ gas tax is one of the cheapest in the country. Now, its new EV fees are among the most expensive. That’s no accident, experts and advocates say. A growing number of mostly Republican-led states are adding speed bumps to electric vehicles — from new taxes on drivers using charging stations, to limits on how automakers sell EVs, to registration fees that critics call punitive.Texas joins about 30 states that impose registration fees on EVs. About half the fees are punishingly high, according to research by Consumer Reports — including in some states where Democrats wield power.“There are already real and perceived barriers for consumers,” said Dylan Jaff, a policy analyst on sustainability for Consumer Reports. “So making that burden more difficult — putting on these added layers of cost … for some consumers, it just makes them shy away from making that transition.”Those subtle obstacles are building into a trend of red-state resistance to the Biden administration’s plans to lessen carbon pollution from transportation — the largest U.S. source of emissions — by boosting EV ownership. Biden has created generous subsidies for some electric vehicles under the Inflation Reduction Act, coupled with aggressive new tailpipe pollution standards from the Environmental Protection Agency. The U.S. market for electric vehicles is forecast this year to reach double the size it was in 2021.A recent lull in EV sales, though, has underscored the volatility of the market. Although the economics of EVs continue to improve, experts say, drivers remain sensitive to a range of concerns, from finding a charging station to affording the higher upfront costs.Now, some conservative states are enacting policies that exacerbate those worries.For example, the new fees and taxes imposed by states like Texas could fall hardest on low-income people who can least afford it.“It’s a barrier to adoption,”
WV leaders fight tighter carbon pollution standards amid public health risks from coal-fired plants -Asthma and low life expectancy are highly prevalent in communities around West Virginia’s coal-fired power plants, federal data show. Most of West Virginia’s coal-fired plants regulated by the Public Service Commission are in or next to areas in the 80th percentile or higher nationally in asthma prevalence, according to a Gazette-Mail analysis of data in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool. Better known as EJSCREEN, the tool provides socioeconomic and environmental information for geographic areas. Most of the area directly across the Kanawha River from American Electric Power-controlled John E. Amos Power Plant in Putnam County is in the 90 to 95th percentile for asthma and heart disease, and in the 80th to 90th percentile in low life expectancy, per EJSCREEN. Most of the area around the American Electric Power-controlled Mitchell Power Plant in Marshall County ranks in the 80th to 90th percentile in heart disease prevalence The FirstEnergy-controlled Harrison Power Station in Harrison County is surrounded by area that ranks in the 80th percentile or higher in asthma and heart disease prevalence, with the nearby city of Shinnston ranking in the 95th to 100th percentile in low life expectancy. Health advocates have urged the EPA to either adopt or strengthen carbon pollution standards for fossil fuel plants the agency proposed in May. The American Lung Association welcomed the EPA’s proposal in May, citing an agency estimate the proposal would prevent 1,300 premature deaths in 2030 alone. Adverse health impacts from five coal-fired plants controlled by American Electric Power and FirstEnergy included an estimated 266 deaths and 106 heart attacks in 2019, according to an analysis of data from a federal health risk assessment tool derived by the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group. A study published July 31 found a 90% decrease in nearby levels of sulfur dioxide, which can harm the respiratory system, and significant reductions in constituents of coal-related fine particulate matter, which can penetrate deep into lungs, after the 2016 closure of a coke plant near Pittsburgh. “Our study provides clear evidence that this intervention lowering fossil fuel-associated air pollution benefited public health in both the short and longer term,” New York University Grossman School of Medicine researchers noted in the peer-reviewed study. But another kind of literature has grown in the week and a half since that study was published: comments vehemently opposing the EPA’s proposed carbon pollution standards. The West Virginia Public Service Commission, which regulates West Virginia’s coal-fired plants controlled by AEP and FirstEnergy, released formal comments on the proposal calling it an “unconscionable” attempt to bypass last year’s United States Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. EPA. The Republican appointee-majority court decided that Congress didn’t authorize the Environmental Protection Agency to cap carbon dioxide emissions harmful to human health based on a generation-shifting approach the agency took under an Obama administration rule. “The EPA doubles down on that earlier rule’s goals by setting unrealistic standards that will force coal and natural-gas generating plants to close,” the PSC contended in its comments. PSC Chairman Charlotte Lane was previously a FirstEnergy lobbyist. PSC member Bill Raney, another appointee of Gov. Jim Justice, a coal magnate, was a former longtime president of the West Virginia Coal Association. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led a coalition of petitioner states against the EPA in the case decided by the Supreme Court last year, also led a coalition of 21 state attorneys general submitting comments to the agency blasting its proposed rule Tuesday — the deadline for comments on the proposed rule. “If finalized, EPA’s impossible proposal will leave coal- and natural-gas plants with no other option but to close,” said a letter to the agency signed by Morrisey, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, and 20 other state attorneys general. “Yet EPA has no more authority to mandate this result indirectly than it did when it tried to do so directly.” The AEP and FirstEnergy coal-fired plants under the PSC’s jurisdiction all have lifespans projected to end between 2035 and 2040. Key requirements for coal-fired plants under the EPA’s proposed rule wouldn’t kick in until the 2030s, when those plants are nearing the planned ends of their useful lives. Under the proposed rule, existing coal-fired plants retiring before 2032 would keep current emissions limits, as would coal-fired plants to retire before 2035 that have an annual capacity factor, or use rate, of 20% or lower. Coal-fired plants operating past 2031 but closing before 2040 would have to co-fire 40% with natural gas. Coal-fired plants operating in 2040 and beyond would have to use carbon capture and storage technology with 90% capture of carbon. Limits would go into place in 2030.
Multiple signs that federal corruption investigation might be heating up — again - After two former Republican officials in June were sentenced for their roles in a massive racketeering conspiracy, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Parker said the investigation was continuing. At least two signs emerged last week that the proceedings might be intensifying. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on June 29 and former state GOP Chairman Matt Borges was sentenced to five years a day later. Both played roles in a scandal in which Akron-based FirstEnergy and other utilities paid more than $61 million to pass a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout that was mostly intended for a subsidiary that FirstEnergy was spinning off that owned two Northern Ohio nuclear plants.In addition to Householder and Borges, two others who were arrested in July 2020 have pleaded guilty and a third died by suicide. But on March 10, just after a jury convicted Householder and Borges, a reporter asked Parker an obvious question: What about the people who paid the bribes? Would they be charged? Parker would only say that the investigation was continuing.Attorneys for the men who were FirstEnergy’s top executives at the time of the conspiracy — former CEO Chuck Jones and former Vice President Michael Dowling — have already said in court filings that they believefederal investigators are looking at their clients.This month brought two more pieces of evidence that federal investigators are considering further prosecutions in the bribery and money laundering scandal. On Aug. 4, Hilary M. Williams, who is representing FirstEnergy, submitted a filing in a massive class-action case against the company over the bailout scandal. She informed the scores of lawyers for the pension and investment funds suing the company that they’re not the only ones who want to see the emails and text messages the FirstEnergy executives sent as the bribery scheme was taking place. “Counsel… we confirmed this morning that we may disclose to the parties that certain governmental authorities have requested the production of the entire contents of iPad and iPhone devices used by Mr. Jones or Mr. Dowling from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2020,” Williams wrote. “In keeping with the protocol in this matter, those documents will be produced to all parties, and we expect to do so at approximately the same time that production is made to the requesting governmental authorities.” She added. “Mr. Dowling and Mr. Jones used more than a dozen devices during the relevant time period, and processing and reviewing the contents of those devices requires substantial processing time and then time to review for confidentiality and privilege. We are working to complete the review as quickly as possible, and expect to make these productions on or about September 15, 2023.” However, Parker last week sent a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Ohio asking the regulator to further postpone its investigation into the racketeering scandal. “The PUCO proceedings involve issues related to the U.S. Department of Justice of the United States’ investigation, and the United States believes that continued discovery in the PUCO proceedings may directly interfere with or impede the United States’ ongoing investigation,” the letter said. “For that reason, the United States respectfully requests that PUCO stay the PUCO proceedings for a period of six months from the date of this letter. The United States reserves the right to request that the stay be extended beyond this time.” Among those the feds may be investigating are Jones, Dowling and Sam Randazzo, whom Gov. Mike DeWine nominated to chair the PUCO in early 2019.
Ohio gas company wants to 'offset' its emissions. Environmentalists say it's 'greenwashing' – One of the largest distributors of fossil fuel-based natural gas to Ohio homes wants to give customers the option to “offset” the carbon emitted by the gas they buy. Under the proposal to state regulators, Dominion Energy, which serves 1.2 million customers throughout eastern and northeastern Ohio via its subsidiary East Ohio Gas Company, would task its gas suppliers with planting trees or investing in renewables to balance out the carbon emissions of gas used by customers. Instead of reducing carbon emissions by shifting to nuclear, wind or solar energy generation, the company says it can obtain “net zero” by compensating elsewhere for the planetary heat-trapping effect of the gas it delivers. Dominion, not the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, would verify that “Decarbon Ohio” gas suppliers acquired enough offsets through “carbon registries” that certify them, according to a company spokeswoman. “By providing customers a supply option that offsets the carbon emissions related to their consumption of natural gas, the implementation of the program would allow [Dominion], its customers, and suppliers to make meaningful contributions to both the reduction of emissions and the support of sustainable investments,” the company said in a legal filing. Dominion pitched the idea as a voluntary means for customers to reduce their carbon footprints. Customers would be able to choose from a range of suppliers, including a set that would take steps to offset their carbon emissions and those that would not. So far, Dominion has said it won’t charge customers extra for choosing suppliers that offset carbon emissions, but a final decision will rest with PUCO. But economists and environmentalists say there’s widespread evidence that the purported offsets don’t reduce emissions in any meaningful way, and they don’t trust a major fossil fuel company to help mitigate climate change. Joe Romm, of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, published a 50-page whitepaper arguing that carbon credits are “unscalable, unjust and unfixable.” In an interview, he said even the “Decarbon Ohio” marketing points to “magical thinking” – investing in renewable energy somewhere else doesn’t remove any carbon from the atmosphere in Ohio. He said the proposal is just a form of “greenwashing” – feigning environmental interest for public-relations purposes without accomplishing much of substance. “The program that has been proposed by Dominion is basically one to deceive the public. I don’t know how else to put it,” he said. “The serious people about climate change are pretty rapidly moving away from using carbon offsets for making claims about carbon neutrality.” The PUCO will rule on Dominion’s request in the coming months. But other Ohio players are in the ballpark. NiSource, via its subsidiary Columbia Gas, also recently asked the PUCO to launch an offset program, but it later dropped the idea. Duke Energy allows customers to purchase a “GoGreen rider,” charging them $1 per month for the purchase of “renewable energy certificates”— buying renewable generation elsewhere to “match” the fossil fuel-derived energy used at home.
Aubrey McClendon's Dream of Oil in Ohio Utica Turns into Reality | Marcellus Drilling News - Folks new to the Marcellus/Utica may not know this, but Chesapeake Energy’s then-CEO Aubrey McClendon first “discovered” the Ohio Utica about 15 years ago. Under McClendon, Chesapeake spent over $2 billion acquiring rights to drill 1.3 million acres in Ohio–or roughly 5% of the state’s land area. McClendon pegged the value of the Utica for Ohio at half a trillion dollars. He famously said the Ohio Utica is “the biggest thing economically to hit Ohio, since maybe the plow.” McClendon was tossed out of the company he founded by corporate raider Carl Icahn, so he started a new company (to target the Ohio Utica) that eventually became Ascent Resources. Tragically, McClendon died in March 2016, so he never got to see his dream turn into reality (see Stunned: Former Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon Dies in Car Crash). McClendon’s dream has now become reality. His original assets are now owned by several companies, including Ascent, Encino Energy, and EOG Resources. These companies are having major success with producing oil from the Ohio Utica in the northern part of the play.
Fitch Affirms Encino Acquisition Partners, LLC's IDR at 'B'; Outlook Stable - Fitch Ratings
A Pennsylvania study suggests links between natural gas drilling and asthma, lymphoma in children (AP) — Children who lived closer to natural gas wells in heavily drilled western Pennsylvania were more likely to develop a relatively rare form of cancer, and nearby residents of all ages had an increased chance of severe asthma reactions, researchers said in reports released Tuesday evening.The taxpayer-funded research by the University of Pittsburgh adds to a body of evidence suggesting links between the gas industry and certain health problems.In the reports, the researchers found what they called significant associations between gas industry activity and two ailments: asthma, and lymphoma in children, who are relatively rarely diagnosed with this type of cancer. The researchers were unable to say whether the drilling caused the health problems, because the studies weren’t designed to do that. Instead, the researchers combed health records to try to determine possible associations based on how close people lived to natural gas wells, while industry groups pointed to what they say are weaknesses of the studies’ assumptions and the limitations of its data. The reports were released at the start of a Tuesday evening public meeting to discuss the findings, hosted by University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and the state Department of Health, on the campus of state-owned Pennsylvania Western University.At the meeting, community activists and distressed parents urged department officials and Pitt researchers to do more to protect public health as gas drilling continues to expand.Raina Rippel, former director of the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, called the findings the “tip of the toxic iceberg and we are only just beginning to understand what is out there.” There is, she warned, “a lot more cancer waiting in the wings.” In the cancer study, researchers found that children who lived within 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) of a well had five to seven times the chance of developing lymphoma compared with children who lived 5 miles (8 kilometers) or farther from a well. That equates to 60 to 84 lymphoma cases per million children living near wells, versus 12 per million among kids living farther away.For asthma, the researchers concluded that people with the breathing condition who lived near wells were more likely to have severe reactions while gas was being extracted compared with people who don’t live near wells. However, researchers said they found no consistent association for severe reactions during periods when crews were building, drilling and fracking the well. The four-year, $2.5 million project is wrapping up after the state’s former governor, Democrat Tom Wolf, in 2019 agreed to commission it under pressure from the families of pediatric cancer patients who live amid the nation’s most prolific natural gas reservoir in western Pennsylvania. An extremely rare form of bone cancer, Ewing sarcoma, had been diagnosed in dozens of children and young adults in a heavily drilled area outside Pittsburgh, and those families were instrumental in pushing Wolf to commission the study. Edward Ketyer, a retired pediatrician who sat on an advisory board for the study, called the asthma findings a “bombshell.” He said he expected that the studies would be consistent with previous research showing the “closer you live to fracking activity, the increased risk you have of being sick with a variety of illnesses.” “The biggest question is, why is anybody surprised about that?” said Ketyer, who is president of Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania.
10 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 7 – 13 | Marcellus Drilling News --New shale permits issued for Aug 7 – 13 in the Marcellus/Utica crashed for a second week in a row. There were 10 new permits issued last week, down 14 issued the previous week (half of the 29 issued three weeks ago). Last week’s permit tally included 10 new permits in Pennsylvania, no new permits in Ohio, and no new permits in West Virginia (third week in a row for WV). The top permittee for the week was Chesapeake Energy, receiving 6 permits–4 in Bradford County and 2 in Susquehanna County. BRADFORD COUNTY | CHESAPEAKE ENERGY | ELK COUNTY | EQT CORP | GREENE COUNTY (PA) | SENECA RESOURCES |SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY | WASHINGTON COUNTY
Fidelis Launching Natural Gas-Fueled Hydrogen Project in West Virginia -Houston-based Fidelis New Energy LLC plans to build a carbon-neutral hydrogen facility in West Virginia using a combination of natural gas and renewable energy, in addition to carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). The Mountaineer GigaSystem in Mason County would be completed in four phases, with the first phase expected to begin operations in 2028. Each phase could produce more than 500 metric tons/day of clean hydrogen. “I am beyond excited that West Virginia will be the home of the Mountaineer GigaSystem and Monarch Cloud Campus,” Gov. Jim Justice said. “West Virginia has a long history as an energy powerhouse for our nation…And now, we’re in a great position” to advance hydrogen. “There’s simply no doubt that Fidelis is going to help shape the... ©
US appeals court dismisses motion challenging permits for natural gas pipeline (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday granted a motion to dismiss a challenge to construction permits for a controversial natural gas pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia after Congress mandated that the project move forward.The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, sided with lawyers from Mountain Valley Pipeline in dismissing challenges to the project by environmental groups over concerns about the pipeline’s impact on endangered species, erosion and stream sedimentation.The U.S. Supreme Court last month allowed construction to resume. Work had been blocked by the 4th Circuit, even after Congress ordered the project’s approval as part of the bipartisan bill to increase the debt ceiling. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law in June. Lawyers for the company building the 300-mile (500-kilometer) pipeline argued before the appeals court two weeks ago that Congress was within its rights to strip the 4th Circuit from jurisdiction over the case. They also said that any debate over the law’s constitutionality should be heard not by the 4th Circuit but by an appellate court in Washington, because the law passed by Congress spells out that precise scenario.“Armed with this new legislation enacted specifically in their favor, Respondents — the federal agencies and the Mountain Valley Pipeline — moved in this Court for the dismissal of the petitions,” appeals judge James Wynn wrote. “Upon consideration of the matters before us, we must grant Respondents’ motions to dismiss.”Environmental groups have opposed the the $6.6 billion project, designed to meet growing energy demands in the South and Mid-Atlantic by transporting gas from the Marcellus and Utica fields in Pennsylvania and Ohio.“Mountain Valley Pipeline is a dangerous, destructive project that repeatedly failed in attempts to obtain federal authorizations that could withstand legal scrutiny until it convinced its friends in Congress to intervene," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices, an environmental organization. "We will not give up our efforts to protect the communities suffering the consequences of this unnecessary project.”
4th Circuit dismisses environmental cases against Mountain Valley Pipeline - A three-judge panel of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday unanimously dismissed environmental groups’ legal challenges against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, saying Congress has eliminated the court’s jurisdiction over the cases.But two of the judges used their concurring opinions to raise questions about the precedent that is being set, with one wondering if the recent congressional action is “a harbinger of erosion not just to the environment, but to our republic,” and another saying that the 4th Circuit has “no clear guidance from the Supreme Court on where the line between legislative and judicial power lies.”Mountain Valley Pipeline had argued for the cases to be dismissed, citing the recently passed Fiscal Responsibility Act, which primarily suspended the nation’s debt ceiling so the federal government wouldn’t default on its obligations. The act also included language in its Section 324 that said timely completion of the $6.6 billion, 42-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline from West Virginia into southern Virginia is in the national interest.The act ordered the approval of all the pipeline’s remaining necessary permits, removed judicial review of those permits and said that only the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals can hear any challenges to the pipeline provision’s constitutionality.Environmental groups including Appalachian Voices, the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society were challenging the 303-mile pipeline’s right to cross through the federally protected Jefferson National Forest as well as a federal opinion that said the pipeline wouldn’t harm endangered species along its route.Pipeline opponents claimed that by removing the courts’ ability to review the pending cases against the pipeline, Congress effectively picked a winner — Mountain Valley — in those cases and therefore infringed upon the courts’ judicial power.In writing the opinion for the court, published Friday, Judge James Wynn Jr. said that Congress has the power to ratify federal agency approval, and while “Congress may not impermissibly tell this Court how to apply existing law,” it is constitutional for Congress to provide a new legal standard — in this case, Section 324 — and instruct the court to follow that standard. “Accordingly, because Congress has ratified the challenged agency actions, there is no longer a live controversy and the underlying petitions are moot. We therefore lack jurisdiction over them,” Wynn wrote. Wynn also noted that the Constitution grants Congress the power to create federal courts in the first place. “Provided it does not violate other constitutional provisions, Congress is widely seen to enjoy broad control over the jurisdiction of the federal courts,” Wynn wrote.Wynn noted that “the exact confines of Congress’s power over jurisdiction are still being debated, especially when it comes to jurisdiction-stripping efforts that appear to dictate the outcome of pending litigation.”But, he wrote, regardless of the merits of the environmental groups’ arguments, the 4th Circuit is not the court to consider them because Section 324 vests the D.C. Circuit, not the 4th Circuit, with jurisdiction over any claims of the act’s unconstitutionality.
Final Lawsuit Against MVP Holds on by a Thread in DC Circuit --- Marcellus Drilling News - In April, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who argue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia (see US Supreme Court Keeps MVP Eminent Domain Case Alive in Lower Court). The aim of the lawsuit is to prevent any private company from using eminent domain ever again to build public infrastructure. That lawsuit still hangs on by a thread in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit). It is the last remaining lawsuit that could spell trouble for MVP and all pipelines.EIA Aug DPR: Shale Gas Production to Drop Second Month in Row - Marcellus Drilling News - The latest monthly U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) for August issued yesterday (below) shows the EIA believes shale gas production across the seven major plays tracked in the monthly DPR for September will *decrease* production from the prior month of August. This is the second month in a row EIA predicts shale gas production will decrease for the combined seven plays. EIA says combined natgas production will slide by 147 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day). The Marcellus/Utica, called “Appalachia” in the report, is predicted to slump by 22 MMcf/d in September compared with August.
Mountain Valley Pipeline needs more inspections, agency says - A Federal safety agency is calling for additional inspections of pipes that may have been compromised by exposure to the elements along the route of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration may also require an independent, third-party review of a process to inspect the steel pipes and, where needed, reapply a protective coating designed to protect them from corrosion once they are buried. As legal challenges have delayed construction of the natural gas pipeline, prolonged exposure to sunlight — which can break down the fusion bonded epoxy coating applied to sections of the pipe — has taken its toll. PHMSA says a weakened pipe could be vulnerable to landslides or earth movement in the rugged mountain terrain and karst topography though which the 303-mile pipeline passes. Conditions may exist that “pose a pipeline integrity risk to public safety, property or the environment,” the agency said late Friday in its proposed safety order, which mentions explosions of other pipelines in similar landscapes. Mountain Valley, which says it has been doing “rigorous inspections” of the pipe since work resumed earlier this summer, welcomed additional oversight by state and federal agencies. “Safety has always been MVP’s top priority, and we are committed to meeting or exceeding all applicable regulations to ensure the safety of our employees, contractors, assets, and communities,” company spokeswoman Natalie Cox wrote in an email. Actions like the one taken by PHMSA are rare, said Richard Kuprewicz, an independent pipeline safety expert who is president of Accufacts Inc., a consulting firm in Redmond, Washington. “It’s a good thing what PHMSA has done,” Kuprewicz said Monday. ““In this case, they probably had a lot of good reasons.” In some places, including Bent Mountain in Roanoke County, pipes with coating that was applied in 2017 remain laid out along the project’s 125-foot-wide right of way. Industry standards call for such pipes to be above-ground for no longer than six months, unless additional coating is applied. Mountain Valley says more than 270 miles of pipe along the project’s 303-mile path through West Virginia and Southwest Virginia have already been buried, and that the coating met specifications at the time. The remaining pipe is inspected and, where necessary, scrubbed and sandblasted before an additional layer of coating is added. The company has declined to say how many times that has happened. Under PHMSA’s proposed order, Mountain Valley would be required to submit quarterly reports to the regulatory agency that include data and results of its testing and a description of the repairs. Already, inspections by PHMSA have identified questions about the project’s cathodic protection system — which entails sending low-voltage electricity to the buried pipe to limit corrosion — and several locations in West Virginia where the pipe was placed in rock-laden trenches without adequate support needed to prevent damage.
US Says Mountain Valley Pipe May Pose ‘Risk,’ Orders Testing (Bloomberg) -- A federal agency has ordered the owner of the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline to undertake a series of safety inspections on the 300-mile project, arguing that segments of pipe left exposed or buried underground for years amid project delays could pose a safety risk. The review, issued by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, has the potential to result in cumbersome and expensive fixes for Equitrans Midstream Corp., which has already seen its project held up by legal challenges by environmental groups for years. “The commissioning and operation of the MVP pipeline without appropriate inspection and corresponding corrective measures first being undertaken would pose a pipeline integrity risk to public safety, property, and the environment,” the agency said in a Notice of Proposed Safety Order. The $6.6 billion pipeline project, which aims to provide drillers in the gas-rich Appalachian Basin with much-needed transport capacity, is backed by Senator Joe Manchin. The West Virginia Democrat succeeded in having language approving the beleaguered project woven into the legislation that was needed to lift the national debt limit. The must-pass debt ceiling legislation signed into law June 3 by President Joe Biden included a measure expediting the 300-mile line, which will cut through the Appalachian Mountains, a national forest and hundreds of stream crossings as it carries natural gas from Manchin’s home state of West Virginia to southern Virginia. A Manchin spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on PHMSA’s order.
PHMSA Orders Safety Inspections of Buried & Unburied MVP Pipe - Marcellus Drilling News = Yesterday we told you the liars of the left are doing their best to sew disinformation and fear about Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and the installation of the remaining 6% of the pipeline that’s not already in the ground (see MVP Antis Spread Lies About Pipes Sitting in the Sun Too Long). The fearmongering has had the desired effect. The Biden Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued orders to Equitrans Midstream, the builder of MVP, to undertake a series of safety inspections along the entire 303-mile project. The inspections include some segments already in the ground and pipeline segments stored aboveground.
Kentucky Utilities Looking to Retire, Replace Natural Gas Facilities, Add Renewables - Louisville Gas & Electric Co. (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities Co. (KU) have filed a joint application requesting approval by the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) to retire and replace three natural gas simple-cycle combustion turbines and four coal-fired electric generating units. Under the proposal, the utilities would replace the retired facilities with two natural gas combined-cycle facilities, as well as add two solar facilities, one battery storage facility and four solar power purchase agreements. If approved, the replacements could be online between 2026 and 2028, at a cost of almost $2.1 million, according to PSC’s William Coston, director of financial analysis. In testimony before the PSC regarding the application, the utilities’ President John Crockett..
Evacuation ordered after gas plant explosion; no injuries reported (AP) — An explosion Friday at a natural gas plant in Tennessee led to an evacuation order for people within a mile of the facility, but no injuries were reported, authorities said. The explosion happened at the Tennessee Gas Pipeline/Kinder Morgan facility located in Nunnelly, about 60 miles southwest of Nashville. A mandatory evacuation was ordered for residents within a 1-mile radius of the plant, the Hickman County Sheriff’s Office said. The Fairfield Church of Christ and the Nunnally Community Center were open for anyone needing shelter, officials said. An explosion and fire happened at a compressor station due to an equipment failure, Kinder Morgan said. The company said it plans to investigate what caused the equipment to fail. Local law enforcement and fire departments responded to the scene as well as hazmat crews with the Nashville Fire Department and Franklin Fire Department. Crews were still working to extinguish a small fire around noon, but there were no air quality concerns, said Amanda Siegel, Hickman County Emergency Management Agency director. It wasn’t clear when residents would be able to return to their homes, she said.
Hickman County gas plant explosion: Equipment failure named as cause, one person hospitalized - An equipment failure at the Tennessee Gas Pipeline/Kinder Morgan Facility in Hickman County caused an explosion forcing authorities to evacuate anyone in a one-mile radius. The explosion was first reported at the plant on Highway 48 in Nunnelly about 8:20 a.m., a spokesperson with Kinder Morgan said. "Kinder Morgan experienced an explosion and fire at one of the compressor buildings at a natural gas compressor station as a result of an equipment failure," the company said. Amanda Siegel, Hickman County Emergency Management Agency director, said shortly before noon Friday that one person was transported from the scene for a medical emergency that began after the explosion. Siegel said employees were evacuated after the explosion. Amy Baek, a spokesperson for Kinder Morgan, said six employees were on site during the explosion and were accounted for. The person transported to the hospital was released and is in good condition, Baek said. After seven hours, officials lifted the evacuation of the area shortly after 3 p.m. Friday, according to Hickman County Dispatch Center. Siegel said environmental agencies are on the scene and the plant has been shut down. Other buildings away from the explosion site will remain open and operational. All personnel were evacuated and accounted, the company said. Kinder Morgan plans to investigate what caused the equipment to fail, they said. Local law enforcement and fire departments as well as HAZMAT crews with the Nashville Fire Department and Franklin Fire Department responded to the scene and shut down Highway 48 to handle the situation. Siegel said there is a small fire that crews are still working to extinguish but there's no air quality concerns at this time. Two shelters are in place at the Fairfield Baptist Church and the Nunnelly Community Center for residents. Kinder Morgan is one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in the United States and operates 83,000 miles of pipeline transporting refined petroleum products, crude oil, ethanol and biodiesels. They also operate 72,000 miles of natural gas pipelines, the most in the country. The Tennessee Gas Pipeline runs natural gas from Texas and Louisiana through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania in 11,900 miles of piping.
Tennessee natgas pipeline declares force majeure after fire (Reuters) - Kinder Morgan unit Tennessee Gas Pipeline on Friday declared force majeure following an explosion and fire caused by equipment failure at a compressor station near Centerville in Hickman County. "At this time, the fire remains extinguished," the company said in an email, adding that the evacuation order that was in place has been lifted, and Highway 48 has reopened. One employee was transported to the hospital with symptoms that were not directly related to the incident and has been discharged, the company said. "The six employees who were on site during the incident have been accounted for, and there are no additional injuries to report." Kinder Morgan said that a safety assessment is underway and it will conduct cleanup activities and develop a repair plan once it is safe to access the site. Tennessee Pipeline is an interstate natural gas pipeline system that gathers gas from basins between Texas and Alabama and delivers it to the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast.
Cheniere Outlines Plans for 5.2-Mile Natural Gas Pipeline for Sabine Pass LNG Expansion - A Cheniere Energy Inc. unit is seeking to add a 5.2 mile interstate pipeline to its pre-filing application with federal regulators for a massive expansion at Sabine Pass LNG in Louisiana.In February, Cheniere pre-filed plans with FERC to add up to 20 million metric tons/year (mmty) to its southwest Louisiana liquefaction facility.The Sabine Crossing pipeline outlined in Cheniere’s most recent filing would link the Sabine Pass export terminal with Jefferson County, TX, via a 48-inch diameter connection that would run under the Sabine-Neches Waterway. The new system would connect to “interstate and/or intrastate pipelines to be developed by others in the future,” according to the filing.
US natgas futures fall 5% on forecasts for lower demand (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures fell 5% on Tuesday on forecasts for lower demand into next week along with relatively high output. Front-month gas futures for September delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled 13.6 cents, or 4.9% lower, at $2.659 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). The retreat in prices came despite expectations that a hotter-than-normal weather forecast until end-August, especially in Texas, would keep air conditioners humming, driving up power demand. "Gas is getting tugged lower by broad-based cut in risk appetite but extended hot weather forecasts are a downside limiter," . Data provider Refinitiv forecast U.S. gas demand, including exports, would rise from 103.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) this week to 104.4 bcfd next week. But these numbers were lower from Monday's forecast. Refinitiv said average gas output in the Lower 48 states was 101.8 bcfd so far in August, nearly the same as the 101.8 bcfd in July, and not far from a monthly record of 102.2 bcfd in May. Gas flows to the seven big U.S. LNG export plants have fallen from an average of 12.7 bcfd in July to 12.4 bcfd so far in August, mainly due to reductions at Venture Global LNG's Calcasieu facility in Louisiana and Cheniere Energy's Corpus Christi, Texas facility. That compares with a monthly record of 14.0 bcfd in April. European gas prices rose, meanwhile, as concerns continued over possible strikes at Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. The Woodside and Chevron facilities manage nearly 11% of global LNG exports and a reduction in shipments could compel "Asian buyers to outbid their EU counterparts, likely turning to the US to secure adequate LNG cargoes", The U.S. is on track to become the world's biggest LNG supplier in 2023 - ahead of recent leaders Australia and Qatar - as higher global prices feed demand for U.S. exports due to supply disruptions and sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine. In 2022, roughly 69%, or 7.2 bcfd, of U.S. LNG exports went to Europe as shippers diverted cargoes from Asia to get higher prices. In 2021, when prices in Asia were higher, just 35%, or about 3.3 bcfd, of U.S. LNG exports went to Europe. With the return of higher gas prices in Asia this year, analysts said they expect U.S. LNG exports to Asia will increase.
US natural gas futures pare gains after expected storage build (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures pared gains after a federal report was largely in line with expectations of a smaller-than-usual storage build last week as hot weather kept cooling demand high. Front-month gas futures for September delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled 2.9 cents, or 1.1% lower, at $2.621 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said utilities added 35 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended Aug 11. That was largely in line with the expected 34-bcf build analysts had forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with an increase of 21 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2018-2022) average increase of 41 bcf. Despite some expected cooling across much of the northeast region and heat moderation across Texas and surrounding regions, "the temperature factor still appears conducive toward storage surplus contraction," Data provider Refinitiv forecast U.S. gas demand, including exports, would be little changed from 103.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) this week to 103.8 bcfd next week. These numbers were significantly lower than Wednesday's forecast. Refinitiv said average gas output in the Lower 48 states was 101.7 bcfd so far in August, nearly the same as the 101.8 bcfd in July, and not far from a monthly record of 102.2 bcfd in May. Gas flows to the seven big U.S. LNG export plants have fallen from an average of 12.7 bcfd in July to 12.3 bcfd so far in August, mainly due to reductions at Venture Global LNG's Calcasieu facility in Louisiana. That compares with a monthly record of 14.0 bcfd in April. The U.S. is on track to become the world's biggest LNG supplier in 2023 - ahead of recent leaders Australia and Qatar - as higher global prices feed demand for U.S. exports due to supply disruptions and sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine.
Column: Hedge funds increasingly bullish about diesel – John Kemp - (Reuters) Chartbook: Oil and gas positions - Portfolio investors are on the brink of becoming very bullish about the price of diesel and other middle distillates, encouraged by low inventories and increasing expectations for a soft landing for the U.S. economy. Hedge funds and other money managers purchased the equivalent of 10 million barrels of futures and options on U.S. diesel and European gas oil over the seven days ending Aug. 8. Fund managers have bought middle distillates in 12 of the most recent 14 weeks, increasing their position by a total of 126 million barrels since May 2. Funds held a net long position of 99 million barrels (77th percentile for all weeks since 2013) on Aug. 8 up, from a net short of 27 million barrels (6th percentile) on May 2. Consumption of diesel and other distillate fuel oils is the most sensitive to the industrial cycle, given their widespread use in manufacturing, freight transport and construction. But inventories have failed to rebound significantly from their cyclical lows in the middle of 2022, and there is not enough spare refining capacity to boost them readily. As a result, traders increasingly expect that a soft landing for the U.S. economy and resurgence of manufacturing and freight activity will quickly lead to diesel shortages re-emerging. Elsewhere in the petroleum complex, the short-covering rally that had propelled Brent and especially WTI prices higher since the end of June ran out of momentum. Fund managers sold NYMEX and ICE WTI contracts (-2 million barrels) for the first time in six weeks since the end of June. The sales were small, but came after the fund community had purchased a total of 135 million barrels over the previous five weeks. In the premier NYMEX WTI contract, short positions had been reduced by 91 million barrels or two-thirds since June 27. With only 45 million barrels of short positions remaining, the potential for further short-covering to lift prices had been significantly reduced. Investors are still trying to become bullish about the outlook for U.S. natural gas prices despite a persisting legacy of above-average inventories inherited from the winter of 2022/23. Hedge funds and other money managers purchased the equivalent of 292 billion cubic feet in the two main gas contracts over the seven days ending Aug. 8. The purchases essentially reversed sales of 307 billion cubic feet the previous week and returned the net position close to where it had been in the last week of July. The total position has risen to a net long of 707 billion cubic feet (47th percentile for all weeks since 2010) up from a net short of 1,061 billion cubic feet (7th percentile) at the end of January. There have been signs of a small deficit between production and consumption since the end of June, which has fuelled expectations that the market balance will tighten over the course of winter 2023/24. Working gas inventories in underground storage were still 202 billion cubic feet (+7% or +0.63 standard deviations) above the prior ten-year seasonal average on Aug. 4. But the surplus had narrowed slowly but progressively from 299 billion cubic feet (+12% or +0.81 standard deviations) on June 30. The prospect of a sustained production-consumption deficit this coming winter has drawn fund managers into gas positions. So far, however, the deficit signal has not been strong enough to encourage an outright bullish stance.
Senators Ask DOI to Extend Public Comment Period for Proposed Offshore Rule - U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy is leading a group of U.S. senators in calling for the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) to extend the public comment period for the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) financial assurance proposed rule to allow for a more detailed and robust public record on its impact on small businesses. Senators Bill Cassidy, Joe Manchin, Ted Cruz, and John Kennedy wrote a letter to DOI Secretary Debra Haaland to extend the comment period deadline for the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, titled Risk Management and Financial Assurance for OCS Lease and Grant Obligations, to 120 days from 60 days, according to a news release from Sen. Cassidy’s office Thursday. The comment period for the rule ends on August 28. The letter stated that the proposed rule would make changes to the financial assurance regime to secure decommissioning obligations for the offshore oil and gas industry and would impose additional bonding requirements on small businesses, which produce 35 percent of the oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico. The senators wrote that the DOI acknowledged that the proposed rule would “significantly impact smaller companies” and would create “a disincentive to additional exploration, development, and production”. For these reasons, the senators said more than 60 days would be required to evaluate the effects of the proposed rule. “Additionally, the proposed rule requires the offshore energy industry to determine whether the international surety market can support the significant amount of new bonding that would be required to be issued to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) under the proposed rule”, the senators continued. “This effort requires analysis and discussion with the surety market that currently issues bonds to secure decommissioning obligations offshore. Simply put, a 60-day extension of the comment period for the proposed rule is reasonable. Doing so can help ensure proper due diligence is taken to supply BOEM with meaningful comments.” “There is no imminent need for BOEM to finalize the proposed rule. Recent bankruptcies in the offshore industry have not resulted in U.S. taxpayers paying for decommissioning of offshore wells and infrastructure”, the senators concluded, adding that the rule acknowledges taxpayer liability for decommissioning offshore infrastructure is “rare”. On June 29, the BOEM published the proposed changes to the financial assurance rule in the Federal Register, “in order to better protect American taxpayers from incurring the costs associated with the oil and gas industry’s responsibility to decommission offshore wells and infrastructure, once they are no longer in use”, according to an earlier news release from the agency. The proposed rule would establish two metrics by which BOEM would assess the risk any company poses for the American taxpayer, according to the release. “First, to accurately and consistently predict financial distress, BOEM would use credit ratings from a nationally recognized statistical rating organization, or a proxy credit rating generated through a statistical model. BOEM would require companies without an investment-grade credit rating to provide additional financial assurance. BOEM is seeking public feedback on whether it should rely on credit ratings to make these determinations and what credit rating threshold would best protect taxpayer interests without imposing undue burdens on industry”, the release stated. “Second, BOEM would consider the current value of the proved oil and gas resources on the lease itself when determining the overall financial risk of decommissioning, given that any lease with significant reserves still available would likely be acquired by another operator that would then assume the liabilities in the event of bankruptcy”, the release continued. “The proposed regulatory changes would provide additional clarity and reinforce that current grant holders and lessees bear the cost of ensuring compliance with lease obligations, rather than relying on prior owners to cover those costs”, the BOEM added. The BOEM said it would use decommissioning estimates based on industry-reported data collected by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement “at a level that would adequately cover estimated decommissioning costs without being overly burdensome”. Further, the proposed rule would allow current lessees and grant holders to request phased-in payments over three years for new financial assurance amounts, the agency said.
USA Crude Oil Stocks Down 6MM Barrels Week on Week - U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 6.0 million barrels from the week ending on August 4 to the week ending on August 11, the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest weekly petroleum status report revealed. Crude oil stocks, excluding the SPR, totaled 439.7 million barrels on August 11, 445.6 million barrels on August 4, and 425.0 million barrels on August 12, 2022, the EIA report showed. Crude oil in the SPR stood at 348.4 million barrels on August 11, 347.8 million barrels on August 4, and 461.2 million barrels on August 12, 2022, according to the report. “At 439.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about one percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA noted in the report, adding that total commercial petroleum inventories decreased by 7.4 million barrels last week. “Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 0.3 million barrels from last week and are about six percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA report stated. “Finished gasoline inventories decreased, while blending components inventories increased last week. Distillate fuel inventories increased by 0.3 million barrels last week and are about 16 percent below the five year average for this time of year,” it added. “Propane/propylene inventories increased 0.7 million barrels from last week and are 21 percent above the five year average for this time of year,” the report continued. U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.7 million barrels per day during the week ending August 11, which was 166,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average, the report outlined. Refineries operated at 94.7 percent of their operable capacity last week, the report noted, adding that gasoline production decreased last week, averaging 9.6 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production was down last week, averaging 4.7 million barrels per day, the report highlighted. According to the report, U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.2 million barrels per day last week and increased by 476,000 barrels per day from the previous week. “Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.7 million barrels per day, 4.1 percent more than the same four-week period last year,” the report stated. “Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 586,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 129,000 barrels per day,” it added. Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.9 million barrels a day, up by 3.8 percent from the same period last year, the report noted. “Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.0 million barrels a day, down by 0.9 percent from the same period last year,” it stated. “Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 2.1 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was up 4.6 percent compared with the same four-week period last year,” it added.
Brainwashed Kids Win Montana Case to Shut Down New O&G Drilling - Marcellus Drilling News - And so the end-game, the true insanity, begins. A group of brainwashed children (who are being mentally abused and used by adults, in our humble opinion) won a court case in Montana this week that says Montana state agencies are violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment by allowing fossil fuel development. Yup. No more fossil fuel development in Big Sky Country unless you first obsequiously bow down and worship the GOD of Climate Change first, and pinky-swear promise you won’t emit any carbon dioxide or methane if you drill an oil or gas well. The decision came from an idiot judge who made his ruling while exhaling CO2 (violating his own edict). The judge finds that CO2 is evil. It’s burning up the earth. The new religion of Climate Change was just instituted by judicial fiat for all of Montana. (This would all be hilarious if not so tragic.)
SoCalGas Agrees to Settle Misleading ‘Renewable’ Natural Gas Claims with California AG - Sempra’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) has reached a tentative settlement with California authorities in connection with claims made in 2019 that the utility’s natural gas was “renewable.” California Attorney General (AG) Rob Bonta announced the agreement Monday, in which he called the claims by SoCalGas misleading. “The vast majority of natural gas — including a vast majority of the gas distributed by SoCalGas — is not renewable, but rather is derived from fossil fuels,” Bonta noted. An investigation found that the utility “made the misleading statements in a wide range of mediums, such as print, electronic media, informative displays, backdrops and promotional swag,” the AG noted. The case, filed in Superior Court of California, Alameda..
Canadians "Avenge" Keystone XL Loss With Takeover Of Top US Crude Export Terminals. - Just a couple of years ago, TC Energy finally threw in the towel on its long-planned, long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline project, which would have substantially increased the flow of Western Canadian heavy crude to Gulf Coast refineries and export docks. It was a bitter loss. Since then, however, two other companies headquartered north of the 49th parallel have assumed leading roles in the U.S. crude oil market or, more specifically, crude exports. First, Enbridge acquired the U.S.’s #1 oil export terminal — now called the Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center (EIEC) — and related assets for US$3 billion and then, on August 1, Gibson Energy announced that it had closed on the US$1.1 billion purchase of the nearby South Texas Gateway (STG), which is #2 in crude export volumes. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the increasing role of Canada-based midstream companies along the South Texas coast. The recent tug-of-war around Enbridge Line 5 in the Upper Midwest is ongoing, with a judge recently ordering the pipeline to be shut down within three years. But perhaps the most frustrating Canadian-American spat in recent memory was the Keystone XL battle between TC Energy (formerly known as TransCanada) and the U.S. government, which for many years made it essentially impossible for the 1,210-mile, 830-Mb/d pipeline project to advance to construction and operation. The fight to build the Alberta-to-Nebraska crude oil conduit was finally lost in January 2021, when newly inaugurated President Biden revoked the project’s Presidential Permit. TC Energy formally canceled it a few months later. Over the past couple of years, it has focused primarily on expanding the natural gas side of its pipeline business, including the construction of the 2.1-Bcf/d Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia (in which TC Energy holds a 25% ownership interest) and development of the 1.3-Bcf/d Southeast Gateway pipeline in Mexico. And finally the last straw: The company in July announced plans to get out of the liquids pipeline business altogether and spin off those assets (with the existing Keystone and Marketlink pipelines) into a separate entity. Those assets may start to look attractive to companies looking to feed crude to Gulf Coast export markets.We’ll look at the long list of initiatives that TC Energy has been up to on the gas side of things in a future blog. Today, our focus is on how two other Canadian midstream companies have “avenged” compatriot TC Energy’s Keystone XL loss by taking over two Corpus Christi-area crude export terminals — EIEC and STG — that together accounted for an astonishing 40% of total U.S. crude exports in the first seven months of 2023, according to RBN’s weekly Crude Voyager report (green and yellow bar segments, respectively, in Figure 1).We took a deep-dive look at Enbridge’s October 2021 acquisition of what until then was known as the Moda Ingleside Energy Center in You Send Me. In that blog, we noted that the terminal (now called EIEC; circular blue icon in Figure 2) had 15.6 MMbbl of crude oil storage capacity (it’s currently building another ~2 MMbbl) as well as extraordinary pipeline interconnectivity, including direct links to Cactus II (yellow line), EPIC Crude (red line) and Gray Oak (green line), which charge some of the lowest rates of any Permian-to-Gulf Coast pipelines and allow for neat batches of crude to be sent straight from West Texas to dedicated tanks at the terminal, thereby maintaining crude quality. (Calgary, AB-based Enbridge holds a 68.5% ownership interest in Gray Oak and a 30% stake in Cactus II; it also operates Gray Oak.) EIEC also is connected via its own Viola Pipeline (acquired as part of the Moda deal; purple line) to Plains All American and Enterprise’s Eagle Ford JV Pipeline (orange line), which transports crude from the original Cactus I pipeline’s Gardendale terminus to Corpus Christi’s Inner Harbor area. Further, Harvest Midstream’s 600-Mb/d Harvest Ingleside pipeline (brown line) links Harvest’s Midway terminal (near Enbridge’s Taft terminal; white star) to EIEC. EIEC’s ability to send out an average of about 900 Mb/d in the first seven months of this year (and as much as ~1 MMb/d — the terminal’s send-out pace in April 2023) doesn’t just depend on those pipeline connections. Its success is also tied to the terminal’s ability to load up to 1.6 MMbbl onto a 2-MMbbl VLCC and to fully load a 1-MMbbl Suezmax — feats enabled by EIEC’s tankage, pumps and direct access to the newly deepened Corpus Christi Ship Channel. (VLCCs, Very Large Crude Carriers, are the transporters of choice for many shippers moving crude oil to Asia and Europe because of the lower per-barrel cost, and filling four-fifths of a VLCC at the dock provides additional savings by slashing the cost of reverse lightering.) STG (circular green icon in Figure 2 and photo below), which is located a stone’s throw from EIEC, is the only other onshore terminal along the Gulf Coast that can partially load VLCCs. It can also fully load Suezmaxes. (The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, or LOOP, located in waters more than 100 feet deep, can fully load a VLCC, but it does not have direct access to Midland WTI crude and can only load a limited number of vessels per month due to logistical issues with its pipeline connections.) As we said, Gibson Energy — based in Calgary, like Enbridge — announced August 1 that it had closed on the US$1.1 billion purchase of STG from terminal co-owners Buckeye Partners (50%), Phillips 66 (25%) and Marathon Petroleum (25%). The acquisition gave Gibson a strong foothold in the U.S.; its other primary assets are a 13.5-MMbbl crude oil terminal in Hardisty, AB, which includes a diluent recovery unit (DRU) that Gibson co-developed with USD Group; a 1.7-MMbbl terminal in Edmonton, AB, where the company is building three new tanks with a combined capacity of 1.3 MMbbl; and the Moose Jaw refinery in Saskatchewan.
Mexico Nearshoring Limited by Insufficient Natural Gas Grid, Says IMCO - Nearshoring, which allows companies to move some manufacturing operations to other countries while keeping supply chains closer to home, is being billed as the next great economic opportunity for Mexico. The forecasts for the amount of investment that Mexico could generate as a result of nearshoring by North American companies vary, though the consensus is unanimous. Mexico’s gross domestic product and job market are poised to grow substantially. On Wednesday, for example, the president of the textile and manufacturing export chamber known as Index, Luis Manuel Hernández, forecast that nearshoring could bring as much as $100 billion in investments to Mexico from 2023 to 2028. Natural gas availability will be crucial for Mexico to seize and capitalize on the nearshoring...
Argentina Fixes Oil Price at $56 a Barrel to Put Inflation in Check Argentina has fixed the price of oil received by drillers at $56, far below international levels, as it scrambles to stop inflation getting further out of control after this week’s currency devaluation, according to two people familiar with the matter. Crude drillers in burgeoning shale patch Vaca Muerta will get $56 a barrel until Oct. 31. Argentine oil prices were already decoupled from global markets, but Thursday night’s decision means shale companies will receive 11% less than the $63 at which local light crude was trading in the second quarter. The new price is also a big deviation from Brent, which is hovering at $84. Producers of heavier Escalante crude from other regions will get a $5 discount on current prices, according to one of the people. State-run YPF SA, which has the single biggest share of Vaca Muerta output, slumped more than 3% in New York trading, before paring some of the losses. A spokesman for Economy Minister Sergio Massa declined to comment on the new barrel price, pointing only to the minister’s public remarks on Thursday freezing gasoline and diesel prices through October. Argentina has frozen fuel prices at the pump after refiners, including market leader YPF, hiked by 12.5% this week in the wake of a slump in the peso. Massa, the ruling party’s candidate in October’s presidential election, is trying to stop the full weight of the devaluation from immediately passing through to consumer prices across the board. Inflation in July was already running at 113%. Oil producers are being made, in part, to bear the cost of capping fuel prices. That could be bad news for activity in Vaca Muerta, which Argentina wants to develop as quickly as possible to spur exports and bring in much-needed export dollars. But interventions like this one have held back the region, whose crude production of roughly 300,000 barrels a day pales in comparison to rival shale formations in the US. Massa promised drillers some benefits in return — the deferral of export taxes, quicker access to hard currency and, potentially, relief from some import taxes, one person said. The decision recalls a controversial policy during the last presidential campaign in 2019, when the peso weakened and then-leader Mauricio Macri moved to control fuel prices. Javier Milei, the libertarian front-runner in this election race, promises to free up Argentine oil markets completely.
European Gas Price Spike Highlights Painful Exposure To Global Markets -- Earlier this month, the price of natural gas in Europe spiked by as much as 40% on the news that gas platform workers in Australia may launch industrial action. The strike could affect a tenth of global LNG, media reported last week, which would send prices higher. Indeed, the very threat of a strike sent prices higher, and once again highlighted Europe’s difficult energy security position.Last year, the EU celebrated the success of its efforts to reduce its dependence on pipeline Russian gas. Indeed, that dependence was greatly reduced, not without the help of Gazprom itself, which significantly reduced the flow of gas to Europe, prompting buyers there to look for alternatives.The celebrations did not take very long to turn into complaints. Accustomed to cheap pipeline gas, European buyers were finding out that the LNG spot market had very different rules, which ultimately resulted in higher—much higher—prices when a new buyer as big as the EU appeared on the stage.By the end of the year, politicians in Europe were complaining about having to pay through the nose for natural gas on that spot market, and some were already closing long-term deals with Qatar and the United States. Even Germany, a staunch opponent of continued reliance on gas, gave up and signed long-term deals and decided to build a permanent LNG import terminal.What this did was cement the continent’s now almost complete dependence on LNG. Bar some pipeline imports from Norway and Azerbaijan, most of the European Union’s gas in the years to come will be sourced from the international LNG market. And this means higher prices for longer. And even higher prices and the constant threat of a price shock in case of supply disruption, as evidenced by the Australian strikes news. “The potential for strike action at LNG export plants in Australia once again highlights the fact that we are now clearly in a globalised gas market,” ICIS analyst Tom Marzec-Manser told the Financial Times.“Europe has understandably backfilled Russian pipeline supply with versatile LNG. But that versatility leads to increased price volatility.”Currently, European gas stocks are at a record high for this time of the year. In fact, a week ago – days before the news broke that Australian LNG workers are considering a strike – Reuters’ John Kemp reported that this record-high level of gas stocks was keeping a lid on prices. All it took for the \\cover to blow off was the news of a potential strike in one of the world’s biggest LNG producers.There are already warnings that the energy crisis in Europe is not over. Indeed, these warnings began as early as last year amid the celebrations of switching from pipeline to liquefied gas and how independent that made Europe. At the time, few were in the mood to listen to warnings that the show was only beginning, not ending. Now, things are changing. Winter is once again on the way, asmj far as it may seem in August. This means there’s a spike in demand for LNG on the horizon. And a spike in demand means a spike in prices, inevitably.
Chevron LNG Workers To Vote On Strike Action -- Workers at the two LNG projects that Chevron operates offshore Australia today vote on whether they will go on strike after negotiations failed to produce an agreement that would have avoided the industrial action. "It's game on in pushing back against Chevron's sub-standard employment standards," the Offshore Alliance, the trade union that represents the workers, said, as quoted by Reuters.Woodside’s talks with its LNG workers have also failed toproduce an outcome that would avert a strike at the country’s largest LNG facility, the North West Shelf.There, 99% of workers voted in favor of industrial action. Now, the trade union needs to announce it, unless the continuing negotiations with the operator of the project do not produce results.Australia’s labor regulator gave the go-ahead to industrial action last week, in case the workers' votes are in favor of it. Then the union would have 30 days to either begin a strike or any variation of it, such as temporary work stoppages and bans on some activities.Gas prices spiked last week when the news of the potential strikes broke. They have since retreated but if actual strikes begin, they would affect a tenth of the world’s supply of liquefied natural gas and another spike would be a certainty.Woodside’s North West Shelf is the largest LNG production project in Australia, with a capacity of 16.9 million tons annually, followed by Chevron’s Gorgon, which has a capacity of 15.6 million tons. Wheatstone, also operated by Chevron, can produce 8.9 million tons of LNG annually. Together, the three produce about 40 million tons of LNG annually.Because of that substantial capacity, disruption at the three facilities would send ripples across the global gas market, sending prices higher and once again pricing poorer buyers out of the market.
Australia Labor Talks to Prevent LNG Terminal Strikes Seen Continuing for Days - Talks to avert strikes at three LNG export facilities in Western Australia are expected to stretch into next week after negotiations between the labor unions, Chevron Corp. and Woodside Energy Group Ltd. have made little headway. Discussions were scheduled to continue next Wednesday (Aug. 23) in order to give both sides time to consider what was discussed this week. If work stoppages go ahead, they could impact operations at the Gorgon, Wheatstone and North West Shelf (NWS) export facilities, which collectively represent about 10% of global liquefaction capacity. “We continue to engage actively and constructively in the bargaining process,” a Woodside spokesperson told NGI on Wednesday. “Positive progress is being made, and the parties have reached an in-principle agree..
India on Track to Boost LNG Imports If Prices Remain Steady - India’s natural gas consumption is expected to increase this year, driven partly by a projected jump in LNG arrivals that are seen as crucial to the government’s goal to more than double the share of natural gas in the country’s power generation mix by 2030. “We are expecting Indian liquified natural gas imports to climb in the second half of the year,” said Energy Aspects’ James Waddell, head of European gas and global LNG. “Although imports held broadly flat year-over-year in mid-summer/monsoon season, we anticipate LNG imports to again start rising.” India is the world’s fifth largest LNG buyer, according to the International Group of LNG Importers. But Waddell pointed out that it is also a price sensitive market. “If there are strikes at Australian LNG...
Another Blow To The Petrodollar: India & The UAE Complete First Oil Sale In Rupees --In another blow to dollar dominance, India and the United Arab Emirates settled an oil trade without converting local currencies to dollars for the first time on Monday, as India’s top refiner made a payment for oil in rupees. Indian Oil Corp. bought a million barrels of oil from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company in a dollar-free transaction.The oil sale was the first after the two countries entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in July. The deal established the Local Currency Settlement (LCS) system, facilitated by the Reserve Bank of India and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates. The system allows the two countries to engage in bilateral trade using the rupee and dirham. According to a statement by the Reserve Bank of India, the agreement will facilitate “seamless cross-border transactions and payments, and foster greater economic cooperation.” The first test of the LCS involved the sale of 25 kg of gold from a UAE gold exporter to a buyer in India at about 128.4 million rupees ($1.54 million). According to WIONews in India, the LCS system will reduce costs and speed up transactions between the two countries. Additionally, reliance on national currencies is anticipated to bolster economic resilience and strengthen bilateral relations. Moreover, any surplus balances in the local currencies can be invested in various local assets, including corporate bonds, government securities, and equity markets.”India has also purchased oil from Russia using non-dollar currencies. India ranks as the third-largest oil importer in the world. If the trend of dollarless transactions expands to other countries, the minimization of the dollar in the global oil trade would be bad news for the United States.As it stands, the majority of global oil sales are priced in dollars. This ensures a constant demand for the greenback since every country needs dollars to buy oil. This helps support the US government’s “borrow and spend” policies, along with its massive deficits. As long as the world needs dollars for oil, it guarantees demand for greenbacks. That means the Federal Reserve can keep printing dollars to monetize the debt.
China's July oil refinery runs rise to meet domestic, export demand (Reuters) - China's oil refinery throughput in July rose 17.4% from a year earlier, data showed on Tuesday, as refiners kept output elevated to meet demand for domestic summer travel and to cash in on high regional profit margins by exporting fuel. Total refinery throughput in the world's second-largest oil consumer was 63.13 million metric tons last month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. July's production was the equivalent of 14.87 million barrels per day (bpd), up from a low base of 12.5 million bpd a year earlier when refiners cut back runs as the country faced extensive COVID-19 lockdowns. The throughput rate was the third-highest ever, according to Reuters' records of the NBS data, only marginally below the record of 14.90 million bpd in March. Production was up slightly from the 14.83 million bpd of oil processed in June. State-owned refineries raised their processing rates in July to an average of 78%-82%, up 2-3 percentage points from June, according to data from consultancy Zhuochuang. Domestic fuel demand has picked up with the arrival of the summer travel season, notably in gasoline and jet fuel. Domestic gasoline inventories fell around 3% between mid-June and mid-July, according to data from China-based consultancy Longzhong. Chinese refiners have also capitalised on strong fuel profit margins in the region, with refined fuel product exports in July rising 55.8% from a year earlier, according to customs data released last week. China's crude oil imports in July pared back from close-to-record levels during the previous month, totalling 43.7 million metric tons, or 10.3 million bpd, according to the customs data. The NBS data on Tuesday also showed China's domestic crude oil production in July was 17.31 million metric tons, or 4.1 million bpd, versus 17.13 million metric tons in 2022. Natural gas production was up 7.6% from a year earlier to 18.4 billion cubic metres (bcm) from last year's 17.1 bcm.
1M barrels of oil removed from aging tanker - — The transfer of more than a million barrels of oil from an aging tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen has been completed, avoiding an environmental disaster, the United Nations said Friday. In a statement, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the operation had prevented “monumental environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.” An international team began siphoning the oil from the dilapidated vessel known as SOF Safer on July 25. All of the oil is now aboard a replacement tanker called MOST Yemen. Before the transfer, the Safer carried four times as much oil as was spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska, one of the world’s worst ecological catastrophes, according to the U.N. International organizations and rights groups warned for years of the potential for a spill or an explosion involved the tanker, which has not been maintained and has seawater in its engine compartment and damaged pipes.
UN completes delicate operation to remove oil from stricken FSO off Yemen - On Friday evening, the United Nations successfully completed the transfer of oil from the FSO Safer off Yemen’s Red Sea coast, preventing the immediate threat of a massive spill. The Safer has been at risk of breaking up or exploding for years. A major spill from the vessel would have resulted in an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe. The cargo of oil aboard the FSO Safer has been pumped onto the replacement vessel MOST Yemen (formerly Nautica) in a ship-to-ship transfer that began on July 25, following preparations on site for the operation that began in May by salvage company SMIT. The UN Development Programme (UNDP), which contracted SMIT, is implementing the operation. As much of the 1.14m barrels has been extracted as possible. However, less than 2% of the original oil cargo remains mixed in with sediment that will be removed during the final cleaning of the Safer. UN secretary-general António Guterres said: “I welcome the news that the transfer of oil from the FSO Safer has been safely concluded today. The United Nations-led operation has prevented what could have been an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe on a colossal scale.” The UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, David Gressly, who has led UN system-wide efforts on the Safer since September 2021, said: “Today is a great milestone. A remarkable global coalition came together under the UN umbrella to prevent the worst-case scenario of a catastrophic oil spill in the Red Sea. We need to finish the work the UN started. The installation of a CALM buoy to which the replacement vessel will be safely tethered is the next crucial step.”
Oil prices slip on firm US dollar, sluggish China recovery | Al Bawaba – The United States (US) Dollar ticked higher on Monday against other currencies in Asia and Europe as oil prices slip on a stronger US dollar and concerns over China’s faltering economic recovery, after weeks of gains on tightening supply. Brent crude futures fell $0.73, or 0.84%, to $86.08 a barrel by 0330 GMT while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude slipped $0.71 to $82.48 a barrel, according to Reuters. Oil prices slipped as the US dollar index extended gains after a slightly bigger increase in US producer prices in July lifted Treasury yields, the Canada-based news agency reported. According to Bloomberg, oil prices slipped on declining demand expectations in light of the recent slump in China’s property sector. A stronger dollar weighs on demand, making the commodity more expensive for buyers holding other currencies, which is why oil prices slip when the US dollar rises. The US dollar has been rising for three days, Bloomberg underscored. Oil cuts have contributed to a market deficit of more than 2 million barrels a day this quarter, as reported by OPEC+. Rising risks to Russian crude oil flows through the Black Sea, given the war in Ukraine, also aided gains, until demand concerns over the economic situation in China overweighed optimistic outlooks. "Crude has been in overbought territory for some time now, defying expectations of a correction. It has been singularly focused on US economic optimism, to the exclusion of the increasingly stronger headwinds blowing in the Eurozone and China," Vandana Hari, founder of oil market analysis provider Vanda Insights, told Reuters. "A rebalancing is overdue but it may need a reality check in the markets stateside," Hari said. A snapshot of the economic situation in China will come in on Tuesday with industrial-production figures, including data on the refining industry. The country, the world’s largest crude buyer, has been opening new plants, buoying import demand, according to Bloomberg. Ongoing supply cuts are expected to erode oil inventories over the rest of this year, potentially driving prices even higher, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly report on Friday.
Oil Falls Amid Lower Summer Trading and China Concerns --Oil’s rally sputtered amid a slump in summertime liquidity, leaving the commodity at the mercy of volatile, broader markets. While signs of tightening physical supplies had in recent weeks pushed crude futures to the longest streak of gains in a year, West Texas Intermediate on Monday see-sawed in tandem with Wall Street on fresh concerns about China’s economy. Open interest in US crude is hovering near the lowest levels this year as investors travel during the summer. “Crude prices are softer as the dollar rallies and concerns percolate with China’s property sector, which will be a drag on global growth conditions,” “The market is a little illiquid here, which means if the bond market sell-off intensifies, we could see significant dollar strength that weighs on crude prices,” he added. Also dampening sentiment was the expectation that progress in Iran-US relations would lead to higher oil exports from the Middle Eastern country. Physical markets have been strong thanks to OPEC+ supply curbs and demand holding up better than expected, helping oil to rise by about 25% since its lows in June. The prompt spread in US crude, a reflection of supply and demand at the delivery point for benchmark futures at Cushing, Oklahoma, is near the strongest levels since November. A snapshot of conditions in China will come on Tuesday with industrial-production figures, including for the refining industry. The country, the world’s largest crude buyer, has been opening new plants, buoying import demand. Prices: WTI for September delivery settled 0.82% lower at $ 82.51 a barrel at 1:30 pm in New York. Brent for October settlement eased 0.6% to settle at $86.21 a barrel.
Oil dips further as China worries counter supply cuts (Reuters) - Oil prices finished down on Monday on worries about China's faltering economic recovery and a stronger dollar were taking the momentum out of seven weeks of gains on tight supply. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled down 68 cents, or 0.82%, at $82.51 a barrel. Brent crude futures finished at $86.21 a barrel, down 60 cents, or 0.69%. With fading hope China's economy will return to pre-pandemic levels of demand, oil markets have little to pin their hopes to for future growth, "The problem is as China increasingly proves unable of getting out of its own way to the upside, much less leading the world economy, there's not much else to lead things higher." Market participants are torn, weighing a tight supply-demand balance against signs of weakening demand from China, "Crude has been in overbought territory for some time now, defying expectations of a correction," She added that the focus had been on U.S. economic optimism, to the exclusion of economic headwinds in the euro zone and China. Weighing on oil prices, the U.S. dollar index extended gains after a slightly bigger increase in U.S. producer prices in July. That lifted Treasury yields despite expectations the Federal Reserve is at the end of a campaign of hiking interest rates. A stronger dollar pressures oil demand by making the commodity more expensive for buyers holding other currencies. Separately on Monday, a Shell spokesperson said exports of Nigeria's Forcados crude oil resumed on Sunday, roughly a month after loadings of the medium sweet grade were suspended because of a potential leak at the export terminal. The suspension contributed to Nigeria becoming the second-biggest contributor to the drop in OPEC crude oil output in July, a Reuters survey showed. Supply cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia, part of the OPEC+ group comprising the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, are expected to erode oil inventories over the rest of the year, potentially driving prices higher, the International Energy Agency said in a monthly report on Friday. Around the Black Sea, merchant ships remained backed up in lanes on Monday as ports struggled to clear backlogs amid growing unease among insurers and shipping companies a day after a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo vessel.
Oil prices rise on surprise rate cuts in China – Oil prices rose on Tuesday on news of surprise rate cuts in China as the Chinese central bank attempts to stimulate sluggish China recovery by easing borrowing costs for financial institutions, news agencies reported. Brent crude futures rose $0.32, or 0.4 percent, to $86.53 per barrel by 0644 GMT and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up $0.26, or 0.3 percent, trading at $82.77 a barrel, according to Reuters. Oil prices rose after the People's Bank of China (PBOC) lowered the interest rate on $55.3 billion worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions to 2.5 percent. This rate cut is intended to shore up banking system liquidity and lower borrowing costs to encourage spending domestically, according to a statement by the People’s Bank of China. "The market was expecting the PBOC to wait until September before easing again, “Today's cuts suggest that the authorities' concern about the state of the macroeconomy is mounting," he added, according to Reuters. Differentials for spot cargoes from the Middle East have surged in the past several days as buyers in China snap up supplies, Bloomberg reported. In the North Sea, a vital trading window has seen a spate of bidding, as Asian buyers buy millions of barrels of United States (US) WTI crude. Those are all signs that this latest cycle is off to a strong start, even as crude prices hit six-month highs last week, Bloomberg predicts. Despite the disappointing economic data from China, the country’s refinery throughput in July rose 17.4 percent from a year earlier. Refiners in China have had to keep output elevated to meet demand for domestic summer travel and to cash in on high regional profit margins by exporting fuel, according to Reuters. “The driver of the tightness is the Saudi production cut, with refineries looking for alternative barrels,” Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS Group AG, told Bloomberg. Saudi Arabia cut output by nearly 1.5 million barrels per day - Shutterstock “Demand is solid in large parts of Asia as well as the US, mostly mixed in Europe,” he noted. Chinese mega-refiner Rongsheng Petrochemical Co. secured millions of barrels from the spot market last week, according to the New York-based news agency. That’s in addition to the nation’s refiners having been given about 40 percent more crude from the Saudis on a month-on-month basis for September. Oil prices also rose in the Middle East, with the premium of Abu Dhabi’s Murban crude soaring against the Middle Eastern Dubai benchmark. Despite Asian buyers picking up comparable-quality West Texas Intermediate crude from the US earlier in the month, Bloomberg reported. The Abu Dhabi premium was near $3 a barrel on the ICE Futures Abu Dhabi exchange on Monday, about $0.30 higher than at the beginning of the month, according to PVM Oil Associates data compiled by Bloomberg. The more sulfurous and dense Upper Zakum also surged in early-cycle trading. Supply concerns are mounting as oil and natural gas output from top US shale-producing regions is set to fall in September for the second straight month to the lowest levels since May, Energy Information Administration data showed on Monday.
Oil Slide as China's Rate Cut Seen Short to Spur Growth - -- New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange softened again early Tuesday after China's central bank unexpectedly cut one of its key interest rates to the lowest level since 2020 in an effort to kick-start growth after a slew of macroeconomic data for July badly missed expectations, pressuring sensitive commodities like iron ore and crude oil. The People's Bank of China overnight slashed its one-year medium-term loans by 0.15% -- a larger-than-expected margin -- to 2.5%, while signaling that more stimulus measures likely to follow as authorities attempt to bolster the struggling economy. The rate cut follows another batch of bearish macroeconomic for July, showing its industrial production expanded by 3.7% from a year earlier, compared to 4.3% expected and retail sales gained 2.5%, also missing the consensus for a 4.2% increase. It increasingly looks like Chinese authorities are losing control of a narrative that domestic consumption, hammered by the lack of government stimulus and high youth unemployment, could be revived in the later part of the year. . Interestingly, the National Bureau of Statistics said it would suspend publishing data on the jobless rate for 16- 25-year-olds that skyrocketed to a record-high 21.3% in June. Economists widely forecast the jobless rate for that group to climb even higher through the end of the summer, as another batch of graduates enters the labor market. On Monday, China's largest real-estate developer Country Garden suspended payments on its bond obligations in an apparent cash crunch that has sent its shares to record lows. Just last week, the company missed an August 7 deadline for making $22.5 million in coupon payments on two U.S. dollar-denominated bonds. If the company fails to pay investors by the end of a 30-day grace period, it will be in official default on the securities, each with a face value of $500 million. Oil traders closely track the developments in China's property sector and the economy at large since Beijing is still one of the largest buyers of growth-sensitive commodities on the global market, including iron ore, coal and crude oil. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries estimated in its July Oil Market Report that China's oil consumption will average nearly 15.7 million bpd this year, an improvement from 14.85 million bpd seen over 2022 and second only to the United States with a 20.48 million bpd of demand growth. That being said, consistently poor macroeconomic data out of China is becoming an increasingly bearish headwind for the oil market that has been so far focused on supply-side constraints from the OPEC+ coalition. Near 7:30 a.m. ET, the U.S. dollar index retreated 0.15% from a two-month 103.058 against the basket of foreign currencies but failed to lend price support for the front-month West Texas Intermediate contract that declined $0.84 bbl in overnight trading. International crude benchmark Brent for October delivery slid $0.62 bbl to trade near $85.59 bbl. NYMEX RBOB September futures slipped $0.0006 to $2.9061 gallon, and front-month ULSD futures dropped back $0.0055 to $3.0826 gallon.
China's Industrial Output and Retail Sales Data Showed the Economy Slowed Further in July - The oil market remained on the defensive and sold off for the fourth consecutive session on Tuesday amid disappointing economic data out of China and fears that China’s unexpected cut in key policy rates was not substantial enough to support the country’s post-pandemic recovery. China’s industrial output and retail sales data showed the economy slowed further in July. The market was also pressured by a warning from Fitch Ratings that U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase could be downgraded if the agency further cuts its assessment of the operating environment for the industry. The oil market traded mostly sideways and posted a high of $82.91 in overnight trading before it began its sharp selloff. The September WTI contract extended its losses to $2.11 as it posted a low of $80.40. The market remained pressured as it settled in a sideways trading range during the remainder of the session. The September WTI contract settled down $1.52 at $80.99 and the October Brent contract settled down $1.32 at $84.89. The product markets also settled in negative territory, with the heating oil market settling down 6.03 cents at $3.0280 and the RB market settling down 5.86 cents at $2.8476. Bank of America Global Research said “Energy demand has to improve materially for a sustained rally above $100/barrel in Brent or above $20/MMBtu in TTF/JKM.” It said it kept its $90/barrel 2024 Brent forecast as higher prices would need larger supply cuts or disruptions or stronger demand. It sees 1.9 million bpd global oil demand growth in 2023 and 1.06 million bpd in 2024, led mostly by China.China's National Bureau of Statistics reported that China's domestic crude oil production in July was 17.31 million metric tons, or 4.1 million bpd, up from 17.13 million metric tons in 2022. It also reported that the country’s oil refinery throughput in July increased 17.4% on the year, as refiners kept output elevated to meet demand for domestic summer travel and to cash in on high regional profit margins by exporting fuel. Total refinery throughput in China was 63.13 million metric tons last month. July's production was the equivalent of 14.87 million bpd, up from a low base of 12.5 million bpd a year earlier when refiners cut back runs as the country faced extensive COVID-19 lockdowns. Production was up slightly from the 14.83 million bpd of oil processed in June. China's crude oil imports in July pared back from close-to-record levels during the previous month, totaling 43.7 million metric tons, or 10.3 million bpd.Iran’s oil minister said over the weekend that Iranian crude production currently is at 3.19 million b/d, up from 2.76 million b/d produced in July. He noted that production is expected to reach 3.3 million b/d later this month and further increase to 3.5 million b/d in September.Colonial Pipeline Co is allocating space for Cycle 48 on Line 1, its main gasoline line from Houston, Texas to Greensboro, North Carolina. The current allocation is for the pipeline segment north of Collins, Mississippi.
Oil Steadies as Chinese Woes Counter Tight OPEC+ Supplies -- New York Mercantile Exchange oil futures and Brent crude traded on the Intercontinental Exchange were little changed early morning Wednesday, with both benchmarks halting losses from the prior two sessions as investors balanced concerns over the health of China's economy against tight supplies from the OPEC+ coalition after Saudi Arabia and Russia extended steep production and exports curbs into September. The oil complex has recently been caught between the two narratives as signs of tightness in the physical market run against demand fundamentals in the world's second largest economy -- China. Overnight headlines out of Beijing once again point to building pressures in the country's financial and property sectors. Zhongshan International Trust -- a large-scale non-bank lender -- reportedly missed payments on its investment products to three separate companies in what could be a sign of contagion from the deepening property crisis. Missed payments reportedly sparked rare protests from at least dozens of investors who clashed with the police at the Zhongshan headquarters, according to the videos circulated on social media. Earlier this week, China's central bank slashed its key interest rate to the lowest since the early days of the pandemic in 2020 but investors remain skeptical that these measures would be enough to spur business confidence. Oil traders closely monitor the developments around China's property crisis and potential signs of a spillover into the broader economy with Beijing being one of the largest buyers of crude oil in the physical market. OPEC in its Monthly Oil Market Report estimated China's crude imports fell to a six-month low 10.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in July from a near record-high 12.7 million bpd seen in the prior month. China's oil consumption is still forecasted to average 15.7 million bpd this year, an improvement from 14.85 million bpd seen over 2022, and second only to the United States with a 20.48 million bpd of demand growth rate. Consistently poor macroeconomic data out of China is becoming an increasingly bearish headwind for the oil market that has so far been focused on supply-side constraints from the OPEC+ coalition. Domestically, the American Petroleum Institute reported Tuesday commercial crude inventories plunged by 6.195 million barrels (bbl) during the week ended Aug. 11, far exceeding expectations for a 1.7-million-bbl drawdown. U.S. crude oil inventories currently stand roughly in line with the seasonal five-year average. Stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, tank farm -- the inventory hub for the New York Mercantile Exchange delivery point for West Texas Intermediate futures -- declined 1 million bbl. Further details of the report revealed domestic gasoline stocks fell 760,000 bbl versus a prior set of data showing stocks rose 700,000 bbl. Consensus of analysts and traders surveyed by the Wall Street Journal suggested stocks would drop 1.2 million bbl last week. Distillate inventory added 660,000 bbl compared with prior data indicating a drop of 800,000 bbl and expectations for a 100,000-bbl decrease. Combined gasoline and distillate stockpiles fell by more than 4.4 million bbl in the previous week, pressing inventories well below the seasonal five-year average. Gasoline inventories currently sit 7% below the five-year average at 216.4 million bbl, and distillate stockpiles fell to 115.4 million bbl, some 17% below the five-year average. The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its latest update on the stock levels with its weekly inventory report at 10:30 a.m. EDT. Near 7:30 a.m. EDT, West Texas Intermediate September futures on NYMEX were little changed near $81.02 bbl, and ICE Brent for October delivery traded near $84.94 bbl. NYMEX RBOB September futures slipped $0.0027 to $2.8449 gallon, and front-month ULSD futures edged higher to $3.0406 a gallon, up by $0.0126 gallon in overnight trading.
WTI Extends Losses As Crude Production Nears Pre-COVID Highs, SPR Build -- Oil prices are modestly lower this morning, having given up overnight gains amid weakish US data which followed dismal China data. "We continue to believe oil demand headwinds will outweigh supply cuts in the near term," warned Bloomberg's Joseph Richter API:
- Crude -6.195mm (-1.7mm exp)
- Cushing -1.00mm
- Gasoline +700k (-1.2mm exp)
- Distillates -800k (-100k exp)
DOE
- Crude -5.96mm (-1.7mm exp)
- Cushing -837k
- Gasoline -262k (-1.2mm exp)
- Distillates +296k (-100k exp)
The official DOE data confirmed API's reporting of a major Crude inventory draw last week (down around 6mm barrels - notably more than expected). Stocks at the Cushing hub fell for the 6th of the last 7 weeks... Graphs Source: Bloomberg US Crude inventories are at their lowest since January... For the second week in a row, the Biden administration 'refilled' the SPR (adding a mere 600k barrels)... US Crude production surged again last week - despite the decline in the rig count - up to near pre-COVID levels...WTI was hovering around $80.80 ahead of the official data and extended losses after the print... Finally, we note that retail gas (pump-prices) are at 10-month highs, and set to go further given where wholesale gasoline and crude prices are...
U.S. Crude Oil Production Increased to a Three-Year High - The crude oil market on Wednesday continued to trend lower despite a bullish draw in crude stocks of nearly 6 million barrels in the week ending August 11th. However, on the bearish side, U.S. crude oil production increased to a three-year high of 12.7 million bpd, just 300,000 bpd off a record high of 13 million bpd. The oil market traded mostly sideways in overnight trading and ahead of the release of the EIA report as it posted a high of $81.30 early in the session. However, the market retraced its gains and breached its previous low of $80.40 and sold off to $79.61 ahead of the release of the Fed minutes. The crude market extended its losses further to a low of $79.28 following the release of the minutes in which fed officials said inflation risks could require further tightening. The September WTI contract settled down $1.61 at $79.38 while the October Brent contract settled down $1.44 at $83.45. The product markets ended the session mixed, with the heating oil market settling down 71 points at $3.0209 and the RB market settling up 1.95 cents at $2.8671.The EIA reported that U.S. crude inventories fell by 5.96 million barrels in the week ending August 11th to 439.7 million barrels as oil refiners increased runs and exports increased. Meanwhile, production increased to its highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic cut fuel demand. Refinery runs increased by 167,000 bpd to 16.75 million bpd, the highest level since January 2020. U.S. crude exports increased by 2.2 million bpd, the largest weekly increase since August 2022, leading to a fall of 1.76 million bpd in net imports.According to data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative, Saudi Arabia’s crude output in June was little changed from the previous month at 9.96 million bpd. Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports fell for a third consecutive month in June to their lowest since September 2021. Saudi Arabia’s crude exports totaled 6.8 million bpd in June, down about 1.8% from May's 6.93 million bpd.IIR Energy reported that U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 180,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending August 18th, increasing available refining capacity by 32,000 bpd. Offline capacity is expected to increase to 184,000 bpd in the week ending August 25th.According to minutes of the Federal Reserve’s July 25th-26th meeting, Federal Reserve officials were divided over the need for more interest rate hikes, with “some participants” citing the risks to the economy of pushing rates too far even as “most” policymakers continued to prioritize the battle against inflation. It said “Most participants continued to see significant upside risks to inflation, which could require further tightening of monetary policy.” In general, the minutes said, Fed policymakers agreed that the level of uncertainty remained high, and that future rate decisions would depend on the “totality” of data arriving in “coming months” to “help clarify the extent to which the disinflation process was continuing.”
Oil Falls to Three Week Low in Thin Trading | Rigzone -- Oil hit a three-week low as light summer trading left the commodity at the mercy of broader markets. West Texas Intermediate Futures are down 4.6% this week, on pace to snap a seven-week streak of gains. Equities, rattled by China’s stock market woes, dragged oil lower, while signs that further interest rate hikes are likely didn’t boost confidence in demand. Even a steep decline in US crude stockpiles and signs of tightening supplies in the Middle East and North Sea failed to lift prices. “Crude prices are heavy as Wall Street grows nervous with the outlooks for the world’s two largest economies — the US and China,” said Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda. “More traders are realizing that US soft-landing prospects might not be a good thing for conquering inflation.” Before this week’s retreat, oil had surged for more than a month on supply cuts from OPEC+ linchpins Saudi Arabia and Russia, as well as estimates that worldwide crude consumption is running at a record pace. While timespreads have narrowed in tandem with crude benchmarks, they remain backwardated, implying near-term supply tightness. Reflecting that underlying positivity, UBS Group AG raised its forecast for Brent prices at the end of the year by $5 to $95 a barrel. Prices: WTI for September delivery fell $1.61 to settle at $79.38 a barrel in New York. Brent for October settlement slid $1.44 to $83.45 a barrel.
The Oil Market on Thursday Remained in its Downward Trend Channel but Rebounded After Falling Nearly 5% -The oil market on Thursday remained in its downward trend channel but rebounded after falling nearly 5% over the previous three trading sessions this week in a sell-off that was mostly driven by weak Chinese economic data. In overnight trading, the crude market breached its previous low of $79.05 and posted a low of $78.95. However, the market bounced off that level and never looked back as the market retraced most of the losses seen during Wednesday’s session as China’s central bank attempted to ease concerns over the country’s property market and wider economy. China’s central bank said it would keep its policy “precise and forceful” to support the country’s economic recovery. The oil market was also well support by news that China made a rare draw on crude inventories in July, the first time in 33 months. The market extended its gains to $1.70 as it rallied to a high of $81.08 by mid-morning. However, the market later retraced some of its gains and traded back towards $80.15 ahead of the close. The September WTI contract settled up $1.01 at $80.39 and the October Brent contract settled up 67 cents at $84.12. The product markets settled in mixed territory, with the heating oil market settling up 7.29 cents at $3.0938 and the RB market settling down 4.54 cents at $2.8217. UBS sees Brent at $95/barrel and WTI crude at $91/barrel by the end of December, up from the current $90/barrel and $85/barrel, respectively. It sees global oil demand in August reaching 103 million bpd, a record high. It expects the global oil markets to be undersupplied by about 2 million bpd in August and by more than 1.5 million bpd in September. It does not expect recent price declines to persist, in light of the oil market’s firming fundamentals. Refinitiv Eikon data showed that northwestern European gasoline exports to the United States in August so far stood at around 752,000 metric tons, compared with about 1 million tons in July. Meanwhile, northwestern European gasoline exports to West Africa in August so far stood at around 1.13 million metric tons, compared with around 800,000 tons in July. Refinitiv Eikon data also showed that global diesel shipments for arrival in Europe in August are set to reach 4.2 million metric tons, well below the 7.23 million tons delivered in July. PJK/Insights Global reported that gasoline stocks held in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp terminal in the week ending August 17th increased by 9.92% on the week and by 5.3% on the year to 1.451 million tons, while its gasoil stocks fell by 0.19% on the week but increased by 36.02% on the year to 2.058 million tons and fuel oil stocks increased by 3.31% on the week and by 4.83% on the year to 1.28 million tons. Naphtha stocks increased by 9.92% on the week and by 5.3% on the year to 1.451 million tons and its jet kero stocks increased by 0.28% on the week but fell by 15.7% on the year to 714,000 tons. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week. The U.S. Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 239,000 in the week ended August 12th. It reported that the number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid increased by 32,000 to 1.716 million during the week ending August 5th. A gauge of future U.S. economic activity fell for the 16th consecutive month in July, though the pace of decline slowed from earlier in the year. The Conference Board said its Leading Economic Index fell 0.4% in July after declining 0.7% in June.
Oil adds $1 on China central bank talk; Weekly loss stays --- Has the great China recovery resumed? One might think so, looking at oil bulls’ optimism Thursday after the vow by Beijing’s central bank to get its economy moving. Crude prices rose for the first time in four days, tacking on more than $1 per barrel in the latest session, while remaining down on the week after the pledge by the PBOC, or People’s Bank of China, which now has to be matched by action. New York-traded West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, crude settled Thursday’s trade up $1.01, or 1.3%, at $80.39 a barrel. WTI lost 4.6% in three prior sessions, leaving it down more than 3% on the week. That was a breakaway from a previous seven-week rally triggered by a bull fervor over Saudi production cuts that lifted the U.S. crude benchmark by 20% in that period, resulting in a 9-month high of $84.89 for a barrel. London-based Brent crude finished the New York session up 67 cents, or 0.8%, at $84.12. Week-to-date, Brent was down around 3% after a seven-week rally that gave oil bulls an 18% return and a seven-month high of $88.10. The oil rally ran into trouble this week after one bad patch of economic data after another released by China, the world’s top crude importer. July was a particularly woeful month for what is also the world’s number two economy, with bank loans sliding to a 14-year low; consumer and producer prices declining and exports sliding their most since February 2020. The yuan also tumbled against the dollar, adding to the weight on commodities, particularly oil. The PBOC vows to change all that now, saying it would keep liquidity reasonably ample and keep its policy "precise and forceful" to support the country's economic recovery, amid rising headwinds. China’s central bank unexpectedly cut key benchmark interest rates for the second time in three months on Tuesday, in a bid to support a sputtering economic recovery. Markets widely expect the bank to loosen monetary policy further. On Thursday, the PBOC said it will "better leverage the dual functions of aggregate and structural monetary policy tools and firmly support the recovery and development of the real economy".
Oil Posts Weekly Loss as Economic Concerns Grow | Rigzone Oil posted its first weekly loss since June as low trading volumes left the market vulnerable to macroeconomic concerns, overshadowing signs of a tight physical environment. West Texas Intermediate settled just above $81 a barrel, down nearly $2 for the week, as poor economic data and a widening housing slump in China weighed on risk assets. The gloom has eclipsed signs of a tighter crude market, including US stockpiles that declined to the lowest level since January. Aggregate open interest for West Texas Intermediate fell to the lowest level since January on Thursday. In the US, Federal Reserve policymakers have signaled they may not be done hiking rates to tame inflation, helping to lift Treasury yields and boosting the dollar. Officials will gather next week in Jackson Hole in Wyoming, potentially providing more clues on Fed sentiment. The US currency notched a fifth weekly gain, the longest run in more than a year, which dulls the allure of commodities for overseas buyers. Crude remains markedly higher from its lows in June, driven largely by supply cuts by OPEC+ linchpins Saudi Arabia and Russia. That has led many observers, including the International Energy Agency, to forecast tighter balances and higher prices before the year is out. However, Citigroup Inc. and others have countered that oil will weaken as consumption disappoints and supply swells. “We expect that Brent will not break out of the yearly range,” Rabobank analyst Joe DeLaura said in a report, noting that Brent struggled to break through its 2023 highs in recent days. “We see the current macro overhang and worsening Chinese economic data to keep this ceiling intact.” Prices: WTI for September delivery rose 1.1% to settle at $81.25 a barrel in New York. For the week, futures are 2.3% lower. The September contract expires on Tuesday. Brent for October settlement was 0.8% higher at $84.80 a barrel.
Oil Posts First Weekly Losses in 2 Months on China, Fed Outlook -- Crude oil futures nearest delivery erased early morning losses to settle Friday's session modestly higher. The contracts booked their first weekly losses in nearly two months amid pressure from concerns over a derailed economic recovery in China and the potential for tighter monetary policy in the United States after several Federal Reserve officials signaled they are biased toward one more rate hike this year. At settlement, West Texas Intermediate September futures on NYMEX advanced $0.86 to $81.25 per barrel (bbl) after plunging to a $79.59-per-bbl intra-session low, and international crude benchmark Brent for October delivery finished at $84.80 per bbl, up $0.68 per bbl on the session. Both crude benchmarks posted their first weekly losses since late June. In the refined fuels, NYMEX ULSD September futures rallied $0.0659 to settle at $3.1597 per gallon, while nearby-month RBOB contract finished the session little changed at $2.8232 per gallon. The oil complex has been caught this week between two narratives as signs of tightness in the physical market run against demand fundamentals in the world's second-largest economy -- China. Macroeconomic data released this week showed another month of derailed growth for the Chinese economy, with consumer spending, factory production and fixed investment all having slowed further in July, according to data released from the National Bureau of Statistics. Financial markets have been further roiled by the news that China's troubled Evergrande Group filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy days after another real-estate giant, Country Garden, missed payments on its corporate bonds, prompting rare protests from the investors. China's central bank attempted to calm the markets by slashing its key interest rate to the lowest since the early days of the pandemic in 2020, but investors remained skeptical that these measures would be enough to spur consumer and business confidence. Oil traders closely monitor the developments around China's property crisis and potential signs of a spillover into the broader economy with Beijing being one of the largest buyers of crude oil in the physical market. OPEC in its Monthly Oil Market Report estimated China's crude imports fell to a six-month low 10.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in July from a near-record-high 12.7 million bpd seen in the prior month. Consistently poor macroeconomic data out of China is becoming an increasingly bearish headwind for the oil market that has so far been focused on supply-side constraints from the OPEC+ coalition. Domestically, investors will shift focus to the next week's Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that will feature the headline speech from the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The theme of this year's event is "Structural Shifts in the Global Economy." While it's unlikely Chair Powell will offer any concrete guidance about near-term monetary policy, investors will be watching closely for hints of whether the July Fed rate hike was the last one of the current cycle. Minutes released from the July 25-26 meeting by the Federal Open Market Committee revealed most participants still saw a significant upside risk to the current inflationary cycle amid a tight labor market and resilient consumer spending. At that meeting, FOMC raised the benchmark borrowing rate for the 11th time in 17 months to a 5.25% by 5.5% range. Several Federal Reserve officials voiced their support for additional rate hikes since that decision, with Neel Kashkari, president of Minneapolis Federal Reserve, saying this week he is not ready to end the rate-hiking cycle at this point. "Participants stressed that inflation remained unacceptably high, and that further evidence would be required for them to be confident that inflation was clearly on a path toward the committee's 2% objective," cite minutes from the meeting, further noting that "consumer spending had exhibited considerable resilience, underpinned by, in aggregate, strong household balance sheets, robust job and income gains, a low unemployment rate, and rising consumer confidence."
Ships Warned Of Increased Iranian Threat Near Strait Of Hormuz --Vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East are being warned by the U.S. and the UK to steer clear of Iranian waters to avoid possible seizures, the U.S. Navy said this weekend. “The International Maritime Security Construct is notifying regional mariners of appropriate precautions to minimize the risk of seizure based on current regional tensions, which we seek to de-escalate,” Commander Timothy Hawkins, spokesman for the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet, said this weekend, as carried by Reuters. The UK also issued an advisory about ships in proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint between Oman and Iran which connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman.UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), part of the navy, said this weekend that it had been made aware of an increased threat within the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz.“All vessels transiting are advised to exercise caution and report suspicious activity to UKMTO,” the UK said in its latest advisory.So far this year, Iran has seized oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, where daily oil flows are equivalent to about 21% of the daily petroleum liquids consumption worldwide.At the beginning of last month, Iran attempted to seizetwo oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy said.The previous two such incidents took place at the end of April and early May. A commercial oil tanker was seized by Iran on May 3 transiting the Strait of Hormuz.A previous incident occurred six days earlier when the Iranian Navy seized Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Advantage Sweet while it transited international waters in the Gulf of Oman. The oil tanker had departed the Mina Saud Port in Kuwait and was destined for Houston, Texas, after being commissioned by U.S. oil giant Chevron.
Senators Urge Biden to Unload Tanker Carrying Stolen Iranian Oil - A bipartisan group of senators is urging President Biden to facilitate the transfer of stolen Iranian oil that has been stuck on a tanker off the coast of Texas.The Greek tanker Suez Rajan was seized by the US government in April under the pretext of sanctions relief and was forced to sail to Texas instead of China. The tanker is carrying 800,000 barrels of Iranian oil, but US companies are hesitant to discharge the cargo over fears of Iranian reprisals in the Persian Gulf. It has been stuck near Galveston since May 30.According to Reuters, Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and several other members of the Senate and House told President Biden in a letter that sanctions would become ineffective if American companies were worried about Iranian retaliation.“It is imperative that the Administration make clear that Iran and designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations cannot prevent our government from carrying out legitimate law enforcement operations,” the lawmakers said. They asked for a briefing from the administration on the progress of discharging the oil.The US seizure of the Suez Rajan provoked the Iranian seizure of two tankers in the Persian Gulf. The US responded by beefing up its military presence in the waters and is now considering placing armed troops on commercial vessels, a move that risks a direct clash with Iran.
China says transition in Afghanistan is 'historic achievement' - As the Taliban celebrate two years since their return to power in Afghanistan, China says the transition demonstrates “stability” and is a “historic achievement.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, also referred to the US's counter-terrorism and diplomacy efforts in the region as a complete failure. Wenbin drew attention to the interim administration in Afghanistan during the daily news conference in Beijing, hailing the Taliban's efforts to rebuild the economy, ensure security, and improve livelihood. “The world needs to view these efforts objectively and fairly,” he stressed. While hinting at the US, Wenbin said over the past two years, a certain country has cut off aid, frozen Afghanistan’s assets, and imposed sanctions, worsening the suffering of the Afghan people. According to UN data, the number of Afghans in dire need of humanitarian aid has more than doubled from 14.4 million to 29.2 million, he said, urging the "relevant country" to learn from what happened in Afghanistan, deliver on the promise of aid to the country, and ensure that all frozen assets of Afghanistan are used as soon as possible to address the urgent livelihood needs of its people. To achieve lasting security, Afghanistan must first address the worrying humanitarian situation, he said. “The world must boost cooperation against terrorism, aid Afghanistan in a multi-pronged approach to address challenges, and achieve lasting peace, stability, and development soon,” he stressed. After years of peace negotiations between the US and Taliban, the Doha agreement was signed in Feb. 2020, requiring all foreign forces to leave the war-torn country within 14 months. Tuesday marks two years since the return of the Taliban in August 2021, which they call the “conquest of Kabul.”
Nuclear weapons deployment in Belarus is in response to Eastern Europe’s militarization: Lukashenko -Tactical nuclear weapons have been deployed in Belarus in response to the militarization of Eastern Europe, President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday. "By deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, we are appropriately responding to the rapid militarization of Eastern Europe and the increased military activities of the United States and NATO,” Lukashenko told participants of the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security, according to a statement by the Belarusian presidency. The statement quoted him as saying that information wars and cybercrimes have become new types of weapons that have undermined international trade and economic relations. “Against this background, remaining a consistent supporter of ensuring peace and security, fulfilling previously assumed international obligations, the Republic of Belarus – together with its partners and within the framework of the Union State of Belarus and Russia – is making every effort to strengthen interaction in the fight against transnational challenges and threats of various kinds,” he said. Lukashenko noted, however, that the deployment of nuclear weapons does not cancel the peace initiatives that Minsk is putting forward "in order to relaunch a dialogue on issues pertaining to European and global security on an equal footing." He also said the current international situation remained “unprecedentedly tense,” adding that “almost all known challenges and threats have escalated.” "International laws on arms control have been discredited. The risks are growing that weapons of mass destruction will be used, particularly for provocations involving nuclear and biological weapons,” he said. He went on to express confidence that the meetings during the conference in Moscow would serve to “closely strengthen cooperation between states and peoples and become a significant step towards building a new system of international security.” In late May, Russia and Belarus's defense ministers signed an agreement on the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the move was in response to growing security risks, stressing that Moscow had followed the US, which had deployed its tactical nuclear arms in European countries.
Russia says it carried out ‘concentrated attack’ on key Ukrainian military enterprises --Russia said on Tuesday that its forces carried out a "concentrated attack" on key enterprises of Ukraine’s military industry. “Last night, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a concentrated strike with long-range air and sea-based high-precision weapons on key enterprises of the military industry of the Kyiv regime,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram. The attack's goal was accomplished, and all targets were successfully hit, it claimed, adding that "Ukraine's military-industrial complex suffered significant damage." Ukraine's General Staff stated in a Facebook post that Russia launched 42 missile attacks, 44 airstrikes, and 40 Multiple Launch Rocket System attacks "at the positions of Ukrainian troops and various settlements" over the past day. Independent verification of Russia and Ukraine's claims is difficult due to the ongoing war.
Russian missiles damage civilian infrastructure in Ukraine -Russian missile strikes hit several cities in central and western Ukraine in the early morning hours Tuesday, damaging civilian infrastructure, wounding dozens of Ukrainians and killing several others.The city of Lviv in western Ukraine was bombarded by missiles and one rocket fell into a kindergarten, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.Sadovyi said on Telegram there were no casualties but four people were injured and there was “a lot of damage” to infrastructure.“More than a hundred apartments were damaged, more than 500 windows were broken, and a kindergarten was destroyed,” the mayor said.Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said other strikes in the wider Lviv region damaged homes and vehicles, wounding 10 people. It’s unclear how severe the injuries are.“Attempts by the Russians every day and every night to sow panic and terror by shelling our peaceful communities are only confirmation of the inhuman nature of the occupiers,” Kuleba wrote on Telegram.
Russia fines Google for failing to delete ‘false content’ about Ukraine war – Russia has fined Google 3 million rubles — around €30,000 — for not deleting what it says is fake news about the war in Ukraine. A Moscow court found Google guilty on Thursday for failing to remove from YouTube what it considers “prohibited information” — allegedly detailing how to enter certain protected facilities — and "false information" about the "special military operation in Ukraine," despite having been ordered to do so by Russian authorities, according to Russian state-run news agency TASS.Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has ramped up its efforts to control online content that does not agree with its narrative. On Tuesday, social media site Reddit was fined for the first time for not removing “false content.” Earlier this month, a Russian court fined Apple and Wikipedia for similar reasons. Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, has been fined numerous times, but has refused to comply with any of the demands to take down information, according to a spokesperson.Google is also not new to these rulings. Last year, it was slapped with a hefty penalty of 21.1 billion rubles — over €360 million at the time — for once again failing to remove allegedly false content on the war in Ukraine.Like many other Western technology companies, Google scaled down its activities in Russia, in part due to Western sanctions and Russian countermeasures, and in part due to pressure from the Ukrainian government to throw up a "digital blockade" to stop Russia from accessing services. Google's local subsidiary in Russia filed for bankruptcy in 2022 because Moscow's measures against the U.S. company made it impossible to do business there, according to the firm.
Lukashenko Warns Belarus Will Use Nukes if Attacked - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko threatened to use nuclear weapons, deployed to his country by Moscow, if “aggression is launched against us.” This comes as neighboring NATO states have deployed thousands of troops near the Belarusian border amid heightened tensions between Minsk and Warsaw.During an interview with the state-run media outlet BelTA, Lukashenko appeared to admonish the Washington-led alliance of the massive risks escalation would entail. “If aggression against our country is launched from the side of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, we will immediately respond with everything we have… And the strike will be unacceptable,” he warned.“ NATO stands behind Poland, Lithuania, Latvia. We certainly understand that the forces are incomparable. But we will deliver an unacceptable strike against them and they will receive unacceptable harm, damage. It is what our security concept is based on.”Lukashenko continues, “We didn’t bring nuclear weapons here in order to scare someone,” he explained. “Yes, nuclear weapons represent a strong deterring factor. But these are tactical nuclear weapons, not strategic ones. This is why we will use them immediately once aggression is launched against us.”Belarus is a small country, Lukashenko said, that can be “captured within a month.” That is why “[Minsk] will not tary, wait, and rest. We will use the entire arsenal of our weapons for deterrence.”
No comments:
Post a Comment